My Little Devotional #133: “Bending the Rules”

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Applejack, Bible, Big Macintosh, Christian Life, Christianity, conscience, deception, devotional, fandom, God, Granny Smith, honesty, inspirational, integrity, Jesus, justification, lies, motivational, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, New Testament, Old Testament, rationalization, self-deception, tact, truth, Where the Apple Lies

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “Where the Apple Lies”

In my college days, when I was more prone to starting arguments over Christianity, one of the big complaints I heard from non-Christians about my faith was the claim that the Bible contradicts itself. And, admittedly, I can see how that would be an issue in certain places. Jesus Himself addressed it in the New Testament when referring to the case in which David and his followers ate the “showbread”, bread that could only be eaten by the priestly class according to the Mosaic Law, and yet that was never counted as a sin against him (Mark 2:25-26). Yet there are a lot of other heavier examples than that one.

The old Mosaic Law clearly stated that killing was prohibited. It was one of the Ten Commandments that all of the Israelite community heard and wasn’t just handed down to Moses, for that matter (Exodus 20:13). And yet, not long after that, the Israelites waged a God-ordered military campaign against the resident tribes in the land of Canaan. The Israelites were also ordered not to intermarry with any of the Moabites, who were not only often regarded as perpetual enemies but also were feared for turning the hearts of Israel away from worship of God toward pagan gods (1 Kings 11:1-2), and yet King David’s great-grandmother was Ruth the Moabite and actually has a book of the Bible devoted to her. The Mosaic Law had prescriptions against defrauding and cheating with an emphasis on being honest in dealing with others (Leviticus 19:11, 13, 35-36), and yet the nation of Israel’s founding started with Jacob cheating his brother out of his father’s blessing (Genesis 27). And there’s no question that the Sacrifice of Lord Jesus Christ seemed to nullify some parts of the old Mosaic Law (we no longer stone people for doing work on the Sabbath, after all) while some parts remained completely intact (you still aren’t allowed to steal; Sacrifice of Lord Jesus or not).

What all of this gives a sense of is, in spite of the claims of objectivity, that morality according to the Bible is nothing more than whatever is relative: whatever gets the “right” party what they want at the time. The rules only apply whenever its convenient. This is certainly the impression that many non-Christians receive, and what those who are against religion in general claim Christianity is guilty of the same as all other major world religions. If nothing else, one can make the claim that there are no “hard rules” when it comes to Christianity. That everything is ultimately based on a standard at the time. And if that’s the case, is what we call “sin” permissible every once in a while? Is sin even something concrete and objective to begin with? Is there really anything that can be considered definitively evil?

The fact of the matter is I don’t know what the answer is to all of this. I struggle with it every once in a while myself, and when other Christians have tried to “explain” the heavier portions I’ve been left either unsatisfied with the answers or even angry with them. I could argue that no system is absolute all the time, and that if people will criticize religion for it then human secular institutions are far more guilty. After all, most countries on Earth forbid murder for any reason yet they definitely have militaries and police forces that can do so whenever they need to. Neither does any country have a totally blameless past even if they laud themselves now. The United States, for example, prides itself in the modern day as being an example of freedom and liberty, and yet it spent decades instituting laws that denied its own citizens full citizenship and freedom, and enacted policies of murder of the native inhabitants of North America and theft of their land. That means that there are two principles that apply to human society and history regardless of which religion (or lack thereof) that you endorse: (1) there are some times people have to do certain things even if they never would normally do so or if they had no other choice; and (2) just because a society or people are where they are today as a result of doing something genuinely evil does not make that past act morally right.

This devotional, however, focuses on the former case in regards to individuals: are there times when it is “ok to sin”? Applying the case of killing to an individual, we can all agree that murder is morally wrong, but we would be excused if we were trying to defend ourselves from someone seeking our own life and had no other choice. Yet what about in smaller situations, like in this episode?

Applejack made a deal that she shouldn’t have as she had no authority to make it, but when it looked like it might hurt her family business she tried telling a “little white lie” to hopefully get out of it. Obviously, Applejack was trying to cover up her own mistake, which might not be too acceptable; but she was also trying to keep from inadvertently hurting her family’s business relationship, which is more of a gray area. When her own mistake could lead (unjustly) to her grandmother’s reputation being hurt by telling the truth, what should she do then?

In the same vein, what about when we want to tell lies to avoid upsetting people, such as telling them the dinner they worked hard making for us tastes horrible or honestly telling them how they look when they’re sick in the hospital? And surely if someone was a government agent who had been captured by a hostile nation and was being interrogated, it would make sense to lie to protect one’s own nation and people. Or think to places like Nazi Germany where a citizen might be hiding a political refugee, perhaps even saving their lives, in their homes, and a corrupt government comes to their house demanding to know if they are hiding someone. Surely we would say it would be idiocy or even immorality to not lie in that situation. Is it acceptable to sometimes deceive via lying if the truth could lead to disastrous consequences?

I’m not going to pretend that I know what to say for all situations. This isn’t something that can be answered with an umbrella statement. Yet to me what everything ultimately boils down to, and what Jesus Himself seemed to indicate, was what’s on the inside. Motive, spirit, and intent. It was keeping with the spirit of the Mosaic Law that Jesus emphasized rather than reducing it to a rigorous set of checklists. At all times it ultimately came to what was the spirit of man in committing the deeds. If I tell a lie, is it because I don’t want to hurt someone or because I want to protect myself? If I cause another harm, whether mentally or physically, is it because it was pain that was needed to unsettle them from where they were or was it out of spite, anger, vengeance, or a desire to see them suffer? If I’m going to engage in an act of civil disobedience, is it because I want to draw attention to a greater crime that needs to be addressed or is it because I want to use it as an excuse for lawlessness to sate my own personal anger?

I want to emphasize the above paragraph with a grain of salt because I am not trying to push for relativism or lure anyone into the trap of reasoning their way into sin. It’s important to always note that sin isn’t sin simply because some stone tablets say so. Sin is what it is because it’s destructive and brings death and misery to those who practice it and end up on the receiving end of it. God’s commands and instructions aren’t just to give us special hoops to jump through but because things that are prohibited are almost always genuinely bad. We can probably always find an “exception” to most crimes (i.e. stealing might be wrong; but if you have to either starve to death or steal a piece of food to save yourself it might be possibly overlooked that one time, especially if restitution is made later), but the reason the rule is in place is because in the far majority of cases it’s a genuine crime, and in the small set of cases in which it might not be it’s dangerously easy for a potential transgressor to fool themselves into thinking it’s for a good cause rather than their own selfish desires. As said in earlier devotionals, the key is always to be honest with yourself and strive for a pure heart and a clean conscience. When your primary motivation is to love and to serve God and others wholeheartedly and selflessly, then that motive should help guide you toward making the right choices.

For that reason, devotional life can never be discounted. Reading what God’s Word says about a certain situation and praying over a course of action are both good ways to make sure that the Christian is always treading the right road and that he or she does indeed have the best motives. So can being accountable to someone else. As Proverbs says, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” (14:12). Most translations add “to a man”, and to me that illustrates that it’s very easy to talk ourselves into something that ends up appearing perfectly good, but once we talk about it to someone else the truth becomes clear. It’s yet another reason why the true essence of Christianity lies in the community and not the individual.

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you for the instruction found in your Word, which guides us in truth even when we are tempted to rationalize or reason away our actions. Help me to always strive to live in harmony with it and to place you and your Kingdom first in all of my actions and deeds, and thereby maintain a clean conscience and keep from sinning against you and others. Please help me to pursue accountability for my own actions as well so that I can keep from deceiving myself into committing transgressions and selfishness. Lastly, as far as I am able, please help me to live an honest and truthful life with you, with others, and with myself. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

My Little Devotional #132: “The Way I See It…”

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Bible, Christian Life, Christianity, denial, devotional, distortion, God, inspirational, Jesus, lies, motivational, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, New Testament, Old Testament, P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View), perception, personal honesty, self-deception, truth

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)”

I had a devotional about this topic before, but as it’s a timely one that doesn’t get touched on much, I feel it’s appropriate to revisit it.

In this episode, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie have a disastrous time on a boating trip, yet when they try to explain who was at fault to Twilight Sparkle she receives three different accounts…none of which agree with each other. After carefully considering all three stories and the common elements, it turns out none of the stories reflected reality at all, yet it wasn’t fair to call them “lies” either. Each individual believed they were giving the honest truth, but the problem was each one focused only on certain aspects, distorted and warped them to suit their notions, and ignored everything else. That didn’t stop them all from insisting that their stories were perfectly true, however, and actually getting angry when disbelief was indicated.

I rarely read political news anymore, because whenever I do I feel like I’m losing my mind. Part of that is due to the fact that I look in on both right-leaning networks as well as left-leaning networks, and some days the same reporting on the same incident is so wildly different between the two you’d think the same thing happened in two alternate universes. That clearly shows that objective reporting is dead, as I highly doubt that one of the networks is saying the completely honest truth while the other is telling bold-faced lies. Nor do I believe that either side (at least not completely) is out to totally distort everything to delude people. Rather, I think either network is made up of people of the same political ideology and they, like all of us, see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. Back when I was in college I heard the Christian Science Monitor had a reputation for being one of the genuinely unbiased news sources out there. I read an article from them and I was overwhelmed. Seeing a news report that genuinely just reported facts without any spin or bias was so shocking that it hardly even looked like what we call “news” nowadays. (I can only hope it’s continued that trend…)

Usually it’s impossible to get either side to look in on the other’s network. In fact, usually when you suggest it, you get mocked for being a “mindless sheep”…as if the person who did the mocking wasn’t already clinging to their own source as absolute “Gospel”.  The fact this exists at all in news is distressing, but it really does just simply illustrate the greater truth about people in general.

People claim that they want to hear all of the facts to know the truth about something and then make a decision, but this is usually a lie or, at minimum, a form of self-delusion. The reality is none of us see the world the way it is no matter how many facts we read. We always see the world the way we are.

This isn’t any clearer than in the political stories I just mentioned. I’ll take the recent incidents with the James Comey hearing. Once it was concluded, one side claimed that it completely vindicated the Trump administration of any wrongdoing whatsoever. The other side claimed it was such a scathing indictment that they could start impeachment proceedings immediately. That’s insane. The exact same factual event happened, and yet two different news sources said two completely different things occurred. But this sort of self-delusion and distortion of truth can happen anywhere, especially within us.

Just as a personal example, as I’ve said before, I suffer from perfectionism; the need to be externally pleasing and do things just right in order to be a good and conscientious person. Sometimes that can interfere with my work. Let’s say I put in a full day during a busy schedule and it’s time for me to head out. Sometimes, however, I’m afraid to. Knowing it’s a busy time, I’m afraid that this will reflect poorly on my work ethic because I’m not willing to put in extra time. Sure I’m not required to put in more, but if I don’t will that show I’m not willing to make any sort of sacrifice for the team? And sure, my supervisor may be fine with me putting in normal hours, or perhaps even has said to me before not to work later, but I second guess myself. What if he didn’t really feel that way? What if that was just something he said to be polite? What if he naturally expects that advice to be ignored by anyone else on the team? What if he expects me to put in at least a little extra time? What if I inadvertently slacked off today and I really am “in the red” when it comes down to it? It’s not long before I start imagining scenes of my supervisors being disappointed with me or angry about failure to turn things in. Sometimes I even obsess over it all weekend, ruining what down time I do get. And this is all in the face of compliments and praise I get both at work and on my performance reviews. None of those things matter anymore. My perfectionism now dictates reality to me rather than having the ability to see things the way they are.

Bad childhood experiences, past hurts, phobias, irrational fears…all of these things can do the same to people. People might stay isolated and alone because they think everyone is untrustworthy and “out to get them”. Or maybe people choose only to see acts of violence or crime by individuals of a certain race on TV and conclude an entire race is bad, while ignoring hundreds of thousands of members of the same race who are neither violent nor criminals. Perhaps they say all Christians or Muslims are psychopaths because of a terrorist attack, while they ignore millions that live normal, peaceful lives. Or maybe they demand that a particular race, creed, or religion “prove” their peacefulness by demanding they denounce and rally against an act of violence or terror…while at the same time if a member of their own race, creed, or religion does the same they get angry if someone tries to say it’s representative of them.

From a personal standpoint, I believe that one can conclude God is real and that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and Savior of Mankind through exposure to genuine Christians, one’s own conscience, and the natural world along with the Bible. And people who are honestly seeking God or truth have indeed become Christian as a result of doing so. Yet there are others who demand more concrete proof before they will say they believe in God. For them, there’s all sort of books like “Jesus Freaks” and “The Case for Faith”, as well as personal witnessing, testimony, and miracles from thousands of Christians worldwide; but more often than not they’ll say: “that’s not ‘concrete’ enough…I need real proof”. For those people, I’m not even sure Jesus Christ manifesting Himself before them would be enough, because they’ve already concluded God isn’t real. At this point, in their mind it’s simply rationalizing away anything that says contrary.

If you’ve read the first few books of the Bible, you’re familiar with how the Israelites that left Egypt during the Exodus almost continuously complained against Moses and sought to return to Egypt after every difficulty that arose, and this was after they saw God bring the plagues of Egypt, part the Red Sea, feed them daily with manna, and guide them with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It’s easy for us to shake our heads and laugh at these people, but I take it more seriously. If even they continuously doubted God when he acted explicitly on their behalf, how much less would it take us to fall away from faith and start seeing the world through our own narrow vision?

I believe one of the most important instructions the Bible emphasizes is the need to be honest with ourselves and, above all, to strive to remove any inner lies and deception from inside ourselves. “I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before their eyes. In their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin.” (Psalms 36:1-2); “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” (James 1:22-24); “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23) “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:41-42)

So long as we aren’t honest with ourselves, we will distort the world and everything we see and hear to fit our own warped lenses. And when that happens, we will never accurately see any truth, including God’s Truth.

A good prayer for today (and perhaps regularly) might be to ask God to confront us with anything that we are being dishonest or in denial about, so that we can remove it and clearly see what we’re overlooking. This isn’t necessarily easy, because the first step of this is admitting that we’re currently wrong about something we may have a strong opinion about and even adamantly defend. Yet if we want to keep growing to become more mature and perfect in Christ, we have to be willing to face it. As Lord Jesus said: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you for your instruction to be on guard against self-deception and the warning for the consequences. Please help me to always be honest with myself so I can see the world clearly and truthfully, as you do, rather than to suit whatever distortion I want to see. In doing so, help me to live a life more eagerly pursuing genuine truth, including your truth. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

My Little Devotional #131: “Humble Bumble”

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being humble, Bible, Christian Life, Christianity, concealment, devotional, evasiveness, Every Little Thing She Does, fandom, God, honesty, humility, inspirational, Jesus, lies, meek, motivational, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, New Testament, Old Testament, pride, Starlight Glimmer

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “Every Little Thing She Does”

As I’ve noted in my reviews, Starlight Glimmer seems to “get off easy” for a lot of the stuff she does; whether accidental or intentional. What I thought was rather surprising for this episode was the first character who ended up holding a grudge was Pinkie Pie. (It was over cake, of all things, but ignoring that for now.) But what I keyed on for today’s devotional was something that occurred later. Starlight earlier admitted that she only wanted to do things that showed off her strengths and aptitudes. She hates doing anything that shows off her shortcomings, her anxiety, or her ineptitude, because she measures everything including her relationship status with others at how good she can do things and not by the emotional connections involved. Ironically, at least for her, it’s only when she takes Twilight Sparkle’s advice and lets herself make something of an embarrassment of herself trying to bake a cake with Pinkie Pie that she not only gets her forgiveness but ends up connecting with her.

While it’s sort of subordinate to the main lesson of the episode, it serves as a nice little reminder that a little humility can go a long way. Perhaps even better than showing off what we’re good at.

There are a number of issues in English translations of the Bible from the root words, as they don’t always have the exact same meaning that one was trying to convey in the modern sense. One of the more noteworthy culprits is the term “meek”. It’s used importantly in two passages, the more well-known being Matthew 5:5 (“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”), and the other in Numbers 12:3 (“Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.” ESV). In modern English, meek is usually synonymous with shy, timid, withdrawn, and easily cowed and compelled through threat and force. The impression that is given from someone who is “meek” is someone who is “wimpy”.

Looking at Matthew 5:5 it might be easy to draw the same conclusion, but looking at Numbers 12:3 it’s easier to point out the mistranslation. The phrase is used to refer to Moses, saying he was the meekest man alive on Earth. Well, going by the modern English connotation of “meek”, that’s obviously not true if you know anything about Moses. Moses was bold enough to appear before the Pharaoh of Egypt on multiple occasions and proclaim against him in most of them, all while the Pharaoh was in a position to have him executed on the spot. He also proclaimed the words of God to thousands of Israelites time and again when many times it was met with hostility or even threats of death, and led them through natural disasters, divine encounters, and hostile nations attacking to the edge of the Promised Land over the course of 40 years. While I’m sure he had some assistance from God, someone who was very timid, quiet, and impressionable couldn’t have done this.

In this sense, that word refers to being humble. Some translations even directly change it to say that Moses was the most humble man on Earth, and in that context that makes sense as in this passage Moses is being falsely accused of using his status as Prophet of God to set himself higher than everyone in the community. It was pointing out how Moses was never self-interested or thought of himself as higher than any other Israelite, and the Bible attests to this. Many times Moses diminished himself, pointing out his own inadequacies and fears to God whenever he was called to do something (“Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”” Exodus 4:10; “But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”” Exodus 4:13). And it was the accusation of one of his own countrymen that he wanted to become king of the Israelites that drove him to abandon his comfortable lifestyle among Egyptian royalty and take up the meager life of a herder for decades (Exodus 2:14). Yet in spite of being humble, Moses ended up being one of the most important historical figures of the ancient world and doing amazing things that changed human history forever.

A lot of people suffer, in one area or another, the same affliction that Starlight Glimmer went through. They feel the need to only ever show off their “good side”, or only talk about things they’re comfortable with, or always make themselves look like they’re at their best. There’s a number of reasons for that. In Starlight’s case, it was because she didn’t know how else to interact with people. For others, it’s from a mindset of perfectionism–the idea that our worth is measured only by our ability to please everyone. For still others, it’s an esteem issue–if they can’t be “externally great” then they’ll focus on their own deficiencies and obsess over them.

The problem is even if we acknowledge that being meek and being humble are two different things, the latter connotation isn’t too admired in society either. We have the idea that it’s the big, bold, loud, and daring who shape the world. The ones who proverbially “make waves”. Who speak out fiercely as overt forces for change on a national level. The people who seem perfect in every way and everything they do is a raging success. This, however, is an illusion. No one is perfect. No one has ever been perfect. No one can do everything perfectly either. Yet the sides that we see of other people, especially celebrities or public figures, including those who do altruistic work or try to improve the world, is often only one side. And because we only see the good side, that’s how we identify that person, and how we end up judging and measuring ourselves by that standard.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve done this but I’m sure everyone else has felt the same way at some point. Can you recall the last time you heard of some amazing missionary, or some incredible witness, or even someone who managed to organize a massive community event or charity…and you thought to yourself: “if only I was more like that person”? Or when in the company of others who seem to be swapping stories of their own goodness, generosity, or experiences, do you find yourself choosing your own words carefully to try and make your own successes look better and your own shortcomings look smaller?

There are good reasons why God desires that we be humble. For one, the opposite of humility is pride, and pride leads to a whole host of problems from alienating people; to causing us to resort to any means to maintain that pride; to blaming external factors or others for anything we do wrong; to swearing off our dependence on God and others in the first place. But for another, being humble means you are being honest: with yourself, with God and with others. It means you acknowledge where you are deficient or fall short in life; if unchangeable you accept it as a part of who you are, and if changeable you accept it as something that needs to be worked on. It means you are willing to show your true self rather than a fake face hiding behind perfectionism, pride, or the need to be someone else. And that means that you are fully open to God’s love, as he accepts you for everything you are, and you can fully acknowledge the love of others who accept you with everything you are. It also means “selling yourself”, as a normal, average, flawed human being and admitting the same. And admitting one’s own weaknesses is the first step toward overcoming them.

My message for this devotional is to take a page from Starlight Glimmer: perhaps be humble enough to show those around you the sides of your life you’re not so good at or the parts of you that aren’t quite as perfect as you would like them to be. You might find you’re in good company.

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you again that you accept me as I am, both in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Please help me to always be honest with you, with others, and myself. That includes not putting up a false front or hiding behind pride, but being open with my inadequacies as well as my aptitudes. And if I have been hiding behind a wall of pride myself, please help me to pursue the kind of “Godly humility” that Lord Jesus preached. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”