One
summer about ten years ago our family vacationed
at Chincoteague Island. As Nate and I were
driving down Main Street, he noticed the Ben
Franklin store in the center of the old business
district. The original sign still spanned the
storefront, with the name "Ben
Franklin" in the middle and the slogan
"5-10" in a circle on either side. Nate
glanced at the sign and then, puzzled, asked,
"Why is that store only open from 5:00 to
10:00?"
At first I thought my
eleven-year-old son was joking. But he was
serious, and I quickly realized why. To a boy
raised in the era of "7-11" and
"6-12" marts--stores which announce
their hours of operation on large signs as part
of their name--it was only natural to assume that
two hyphenated numbers on a store sign indicated
when it was open. Since five-and-ten-cent stores
were commonplace in my childhood, on the other
hand, it never dawned on me that the sign could
be read in any way other than intended. (Nate
told me he had never heard of a five-and-ten-cent
store. When I tried to explain the concept to
him, he found it bizarre. For a child living in a
time of fifty-cent candy bars and one-dollar
comic books, his response wasn't hard to
understand.) The Problem of Filters
The incident is but one small
example of a truth that we experience in much
more profound ways every day of our lives. It's
the fact that we interpret what we see and
experience through filters. By
"filters" I mean certain ingrained
perspectives through which we sift our
impressions, and that dramatically affect our
conclusions. Nate's deduction about the Ben
Franklin sign makes perfect sense once his filter
is understood.
This doesn't mean, of course,
that our filters always work against us. When our
assumptions are accurate, so are our conclusions.
Clear filters lead to clear perceptions. Yet too
often our filters are clouded by misleading
notions, that lead us to conclusions which hit
wide of the mark of reality.
This fact has critical
implications for our walk of faith. Apart from
the benefit of biblical revelation, we see God
through an unfortunate filter: we instinctively
think of him as our adversary, not our friend. We
assume that he dislikes us; he is displeased with
us; only through the most heroic effort to live
an exemplary life can we possibly hope to win his
favor. Even then we fear that he is probably too
busy with global concerns to take an interest in
the little details of our life.
The gospel message strongly
challenges our natural assumptions about God. It
declares that he loves us infinitely and takes
such providential control of our lives that
whatever happens is to our benefit (Rom 8:28). It
provides us with an exceedingly positive filter
for viewing God and his work in our lives.
Yet the "adversary
filter" is already powerfully in place. Add
to this the extreme limitations of our
understanding: when it comes to knowing what God
is doing behind the scenes in our lives, we see
only the tip of the iceberg. The result is that
we're prone to think his hand has turned against
us whenever we experience a setback or
disappointment.
Most of us find that our view of
God vacillates considerably. When things seem to
be going well, we assume that he is pleased with
us and affirming us--that he is our good friend
and companion. When circumstances appear
unfavorable, we assume that our worst fears are
being confirmed: God doesn't like us after all.
He's finally getting even with us and working to
thwart our plans.
Even when obvious blessings
occur, it's natural to fear that they are
aberrations from how God normally deals with us.
I'll never forget how a friend of mine once put
it. Rob was scheduled to fly his wife and son
from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland in
his small plane. But at the last minute a
squabble over who would ride in the tiny back
seat provoked Rob to drive his family to
Cumberland rather than fly.
As he was returning to
Washington, a fierce storm struck the region.
Many of the small aircraft at the suburban
airport where Rob keeps his plane were overturned
and damaged. Ironically, the squall arose at just
the time when Rob would have arrived back there
if he had been flying. Since the storm had not
been predicted, he probably would have flown into
the middle of it.
When Rob shared this incident
with me, he spoke exuberantly about how God had
protected him. "I'm finally beginning to
think that God must like me," he said. He
added, though, that he had a nagging fear that
maybe--just maybe--God had provided this blessing
to catch him off guard. Perhaps he was just
setting him up for a future disaster--fattening
him up for the kill, so to speak. "Frankly,
I fear the Big One is coming," he confessed.
Wrong Conclusions
The fear that Rob expressed
captures so well an attitude toward God which is
often displayed by individuals in Scripture. We
see examples of individuals misinterpreting God's
intentions throughout the Bible. This is
particularly true with those involved in the
Christmas story. Most who heard news related to
it reacted with fear or disappointment to the
information they received. Although God intended
to bless them exceedingly, they initially read
things quite differently and feared the worst.
When the angel appeared to
Zechariah to announce that his wife would bear a
son, Zechariah "was startled and was gripped
with fear" (Lk 1:12 NIV). And it made little
difference that the angel who visited Mary
strongly affirmed her, saying, "Greetings,
you who are highly favored! The Lord is with
you." Mary's response was still one of
dread. She "was greatly troubled at his
words and wondered what kind of greeting this
might be" (Lk 1:28-29). Likewise, when the
angel confronted the shepherds, they were filled
with terror rather than elation--even though
"the glory of the Lord shone around
them" (Lk 2:8-14).
Joseph's reaction to the first
news of Mary's pregnancy, too, is interesting to
consider. When he heard that she was expecting,
he assumed she'd been promiscuous and decided to
break off their engagement (Mt 1:18-19). His
reaction is understandable, since it was based
only on the information that he had. Yet the
incident reminds us of how our initial
assumptions are often based on very inadequate
information. What at first appears to be a
setback may be the doorway to a great blessing.
Of course, the most tragic
example of someone concluding that God was
against him was Herod. He feared that Jesus would
usurp his authority. Herod wasn't the only one
disturbed about the political implications of
Christ's birth, to be sure, but "all
Jerusalem with him" was troubled (Mt 2:3).
It seems that most people of the time viewed the
news of Jesus' arrival as anything but
auspicious. Yet Herod is the one who, in his
sweeping murder of the male babies in Bethlehem,
most epitomizes the dreadful consequences that
can result from perceiving God's work through the
adversary filter.
The biblical account of Christ's
birth reveals the human reactions of the
participants--but even more importantly, it shows
the gracious response of God to these people. God
did not abandon Zechariah, Mary, Joseph or the
shepherds to their dubious reactions but
continued to instruct them, giving them the
insight they needed to understand his true
intentions. What an encouraging reminder this is
that God doesn't leave us to our negative moods
and skeptical assumptions but continues to give
us wisdom to see things from his viewpoint--the
renewal of our minds which Paul speaks of in
Romans 12:2.
Indeed, the fact that God became
human in Christ is the supreme reminder of how
fully committed he is to relating to us in our
human condition, to meeting our needs and to
work-ing out a plan for each of us that reflects
his best for our life. These thoughts are implied
by the prophetic name given Jesus at his birth--Immanuel,
meaning "God with us" (Mt 1:23).
Beyond First Impressions
All of this presents us with a
considerable challenge as Christians. Since our
tendency to view God in adversary terms is so
deep-rooted, we need to make a continual effort
to concentrate on the grace-centered perspective
of Scripture. We need to remind ourselves
constantly that God does have our best interests
in mind in every situation we encounter.
And we need to remember the
lessons we've learned from experience of God's
grace and protection. It's especially helpful to
recall those times when our negative impressions
of what God was doing proved mistaken, or when an
apparent calamity proved to carry hidden
blessings.
In the summer of 1991 my friends
Russ and Marguerite Hermanson had a dreadful
experience. During a fierce thunderstorm
lightning struck the chimney of their home. The
bolt not only demolished the standing portion of
the chimney but send a blast of current
throughout the house, destroying about thirty
appliances and scorching walls and furniture. A
hair dryer that wasn't even plugged in blew out,
since its plug was touching a baseboard heater
that became charged by the lightning's current.
Tall trees surround the
Hermansons' home. Since lightning usually hits
the highest target, the fact that it struck their
chimney rather than one of the oaks was puzzling.
Russ and Marguerite could naturally have
interpreted the event as a sign of God's
judgment, especially since lightning is a classic
metaphor for God's wrath.
Yet the Hermansons have learned
from long experience to recognize the subtle
indications of God's protection in their lives.
Almost immediately they saw serendipities in the
calamity: though four children were asleep in
their home that morning, none was injured, even
though one lay perilously close to a scorched
wall. In addition, no house fire resulted--odd,
considering the severity of the strike.
Yes, the long period of cleaning
and reconstruction that followed greatly
inconvenienced Russ and Marguerite. Yet the
process brought a far-reaching benefit that they
could never have anticipated. While rebuilding
the chimney, workers discovered that creosote had
long been escaping through cracks to the outside
portion of the flue liner, a problem resulting
from faulty construction. Since the Hermansons
heated their home with wood, the buildup of
creosote between the chimney and the inside wall
was considerable. Yet it had never been detected
during the biannual chimney sweep.
Because creosote ignites under
intense heat, the Hermansons were sitting ducks
for a major house fire. Russ and Marguerite now
view the lightning strike as a gracious act of
God protecting their home and family, for apart
from it the chimney defect wouldn't have been
discovered. A small disaster saved them from a
much greater one. It's enough to cause us all to
revise the lightning metaphor a bit!
Reality Check
May God grant us the grace to see
our lives from the standpoint of grace. May the
biblical message of Christ's protection,
provision, forgiveness, and perfect love for us
be the filter through which we interpret
everything that happens to us. And may we have
the divine capacity to think twice whenever we
suspect that God is acting against us or loves us
with less than the infinite love that Scripture
promises. May we have the ability to change
filters quickly whenever our view of God gets
clouded by legalistic or punitive notions.
Let us strive for a view of God
that never vacillates but sees him consistently
as our closest friend. Far from an aberration,
Christ's goodness to us is an ongoing reality
each split second of our lives. Take time during
this Christmas season to be refreshed by this
unspeakable truth.
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