Recent events have triggered so many thoughts in my head that, as one who processes through the written word, the line of thoughts begging to be released has dissolved into an unruly mob threatening to roil out in a primal yawp. The alternative is to remain silent, and I’ve done that for long enough.

I’m going to try to rein in my thoughts and corral them into something manageable and hopefully, useful.  The best words are those that reach into the mayhem of thoughts and emotions and pull out solid truths that you can work with and build on. 

The year of 2020 has been a doozy, to say the least. Since it’s been a minute since I last posted on this blog, let me do a quick catch-up.  This year, I added a sixth child to our family, a little girl named Anthem Reverie, and our brood is rounded out nicely with a girl on either end of our 4 boys. Kyle jumped career tracks to start his own design firm, Stature, after 20 years with StoneWard.  He now works from home while I continue to homeschool the kids and work on a contract basis for DD&F Consulting Group.  We are also plugging along on our project list for our old house, in case you thought that project was complete. Not quite.

And that’s about all on the home front. The rest of the world, well, it really needs no re-hash. We’ve been living it, or attempting to, rather. As I write these words, it’s the Sunday after election week. The trees outside my window are ablaze with yellow leaves, the ever-present sounds of sirens filter through the solid plaster walls of my house, and inside, it’s remarkably quiet because Kyle has taken the kids to run around the park.

Which leaves me with you and my thoughts. My thoughts are heavy because the times are heavy. I honestly don’t know a single person who is feeling particularly carefree about the state of the world right now, so you might be feeling pretty heavy too.

In which case, let’s dive in.  If you don’t already know this about me, I am a follower of Christ. I’m not Catholic, Baptist, Jewish or any other “denomination.” A faith in God does not need to be attached to a denomination. As such, I have always attended a non-denominational Bible-based church, and at the core of everything in my life is an unwavering faith in God and a clear understanding that I am inherently a sinner.  Broken. Flawed.  I believe there is one, true God – who is a trinity, three in one: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit – and He created everything, including humans. Rather than making automatons who had no ability to choose their actions, He created us with free will. The ability to see, read, analyze and choose for ourselves.

That free will very quickly led to a situation in which the first humans were presented with the opportunity to choose between obeying clear instructions from God or blatantly disregarding those instructions. They chose to blatantly disregard the instructions, and instantly set into motion a chain of events, beginning with an immediate recognition that something had changed, and not for the better. Something was wrong.

If you have children, you know the state of willful disobedience shows up rather early, and even though a baby may not be able to articulate what was wrong about their actions, they know something was. It’s written all over their face. Or in the way they immediately hide from you.

A parent has an almost sixth sense when this is going down and is able to show up on the scene pretty quickly. Unlike parents, God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would sin, and He, too, arrived on the scene in short order.  After addressing the sin, he laid out the consequence which was gut-wrenching in its impact.

Essentially, it was separation and death. Separation from God (which equates to a spiritual death) and a removal from the Garden of Eden plus the reality of an eventual physical death.  The consequences of their sin, because sin is what disobedience against God is, may seem harsh to you. 

Why the separation from God? Well, God is holy and cannot tolerate sin. It’s like paper in the presence of fire. The fire will consume paper. God’s holiness is a consuming fire. His kicking them out of the garden was actually a kindness to them, because had they stayed inside it, they would have been able to grab fruit from the Tree of Life, eat it and live forever in a state of permanent separation from Him. 

Why death? Because the consequence of sin is death. Again, this may seem harsh, but when you’re dealing with absolute holiness, its opposite is also extreme.  And when you create the universe, you get to set the rules.

Although God dealt with the sin and doled out judgment, he also revealed a long-range plan to ultimately provide a complete restoration of the broken relationship between God and his created mankind through a Savior. A death that would cover the sins of all who chose to believe in Him. How could that be? Because the one who died would also be the only person to completely fulfill God’s requirements of perfect righteousness and sinlessness. God the Father sent his son, Jesus, to the earth to be born of a virgin, Mary.  He lived a righteous, sinless life, was the fulfilment of all prophecy of the Messiah, and then was so hated by the Jewish religious rulers of his day that they trumped up a host of false charges against him and crucified him. 

As gruesome of a death as crucifixion was, what happened to Jesus was even more gruesome.  He had, heaped upon him on the cross, the sins of those who would believe on Him. The full list of all sins ever committed and to be committed was attributed to him, although he had never committed a single sin. He took on all the guilt, died for it in a particularly horrifying manner and received the full unleashing of God’s wrath on sin…on Himself…so that the full burden of consequence could be absorbed in him with his death. He was the sacrificial Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.

Just when His enemies thought they’d gotten rid of their biggest problem, he rose from the dead 3 days later, again, fulfilling prophecy.  Most importantly, he defeated the death that had been hanging over us all since that first sin.

His death and most importantly, his resurrection, became the cornerstone of our hope. Of the faith of all who believe that Jesus was the Son of God who came to take away the sins of the world.

The facts I just have just shared not only give hope to a world that desperately needs it, but they give context to what I feel needs to be said next. 

The hope is that although humanity is inherently flawed and will continue to sin, we are not stuck in that position. We have the hope that God will forgive our sins if we repent and put our faith in Christ alone. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  That, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves - it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no man can boast.

The Bible says we have this hope as an anchor for our souls, firm and secure. These are certainly times when I am happy to have an anchor for my soul because there are two types of people in the world: those who have that hope and those who do not. The Bible says in Romans 10:9-10 that “if you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”

If you have this hope, then this has several practical implications for you: 1) your hope should never rest upon a government or a political party or any person other than Jesus Christ; and 2) the word of Hope (the Bible) should be the standard by which all truth is measured.  

These are dark days, my friends. Days when our enemy, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. If you sense that something more has been brewing in our world through all the COVID-19 mess, the social justice movement, the political unrest, then you’re right. The Bible tells us quite plainly that we are in the midst of a spiritual battle. If you have no knowledge of God’s word, then you either won’t know or won’t care, but you’ll still feel the effect of it.

My desire is that rather than feel despair or fear, you will know that there is hope to be found in the good news that Jesus Christ has provided a way of salvation for you.  A true, lasting salvation – something far superior than any pending vaccine or mask or social distancing plan, any government program, loan or movement.  In fact, all the other things are just placebos which do absolutely nothing to alter the state of brokenness in the world.  The brokenness in you.

My desire is also that if you read this, and you’re a woman, that you pause for a moment and give some serious thought to another issue. Feminism. Interestingly, this is an issue that has its roots back in that original sin mentioned earlier. I didn’t identify who it was that first made a choice to disregard God’s commands, but it was Eve. She was deceived by Satan, and she chose against what God had told her to do. Adam happened to be right there with her, and he chose poorly too. The Bible says, Adam sinned.

When God created man and woman, they were perfect, without flaw.  But at the moment of sin and in connection with God’s punishment (curses, actually), new tendencies emerged. For women, it emerged as a tendency to jump in and handle things; For men, a tendency toward passivity, to letting the women handle it for them. It’s often just easier.  This is obviously a generalization, but I’m not too far off because God’s response was to tell Eve that her desire would be for her husband and he would rule over her.

I can see your hackles raising up, but just hold on a dadburn minute. That doesn’t mean, literally RULING over her. But it does mean that women were going to have to fight the desire to control everything, particularly men, because that was not God’s design. In fact, God’s design was going to propel men to assume more of an active role than a passive role, particularly in the family.

In the way that God has of confounding our expectations and of doing things in a completely different way than we would, God knew that, after the Fall, men would be faced with the temptation to be passive. Women would be faced with the temptation to boss and assume leadership over their husbands, yet God’s plan for them was to back off and give their husbands the opportunity to be the men God desired for them to be.

Before you assume this is some hegemony and patriarchal master/slave relationship, you should first understand that God defines a husband’s role as parallel to that of Christ – and Christ died for the church. He gives wives the role of the Church – the bride of Christ.  In no way was God asking husbands to do anything other than seek the best for their wives, at the cost of their lives, if necessary.  If you’re not sure about that, please look more into it.

Since those first days in the Garden, Satan has had it out for Eve. For women. It should be noted that Satan really has it out for God and desires to cause as much pain and destruction to men and women because he knows how much God loves us. Women are just the target I’m particularly addressing right now.

Satan targeted Eve’s desire for knowledge and equality with God from the beginning. He challenged her understanding of God’s instructions and asked if, in fact, what God really wanted to do was to hold her back. Keep her from her full potential, essentially.  The temptation to desire equality with God, and anyone else, continues to be put forward by Satan.  Devious though he may be, creative he is NOT. And why should he get terribly creative when we women take the hook time and again?

I include myself in this accusation.

Understand me clearly here, my fellow women.  There is never, at any point in Scripture, any hint or allegation that women are not intelligent, capable creatures.  There are direct references to physical differences between us and men that do exist. They are not constructs. They are biological in nature, like it or not. Very few of us can bench press as much as men, and why is that not ok? We were made in the image of God, is that not good enough? It ought to be.

Every time the message from the world is that we need to be better than men, or that we ARE better than men and it’s time to prove it….what we as believers ought to do is pause for half a second and run that line through our memory. It’s just a twist on Satan’s original lie: you are being told you’re not good enough…you’re being held back from your full potential by God…by Man…..so prove it that you’re really not just as good, but better.

Rather than taking the bait, back up and reassess.  If you think God gave us the raw end of the stick by making us women, then consider that women are given the incomparable gift of bringing new human life into the world. We are tasked with the unbelievably precious responsibility of raising our children, and that is a HUGE thing. (The proof is 1 Tim 2:15). Throughout the Bible, God further demonstrates the value He places on women – a woman served as a judge for the children of Israel (this was a responsibility of great importance, before Israel ever had kings); he chose a woman to give birth to his son, Jesus; many women were key in the early church…I could go on and on.  The point is, God is not diminishing the value of women.

Feminism, on the other hand, does diminish the value of women.  It does so by placing more of a burden on women than God ever intended for anyone to have.  It attempts to strip us of what makes us women. Feminism posits that not only are women equal to men in all areas, but we can do it all. And should do it all. And men should do nothing. Because we do it better. Talk to any woman who thinks she’s doing it all, and she’ll tell you she isn’t. Or she isn’t doing it all well. Or she’s pretending.

The pervasive lie women believe is that a strong woman is a woman who breaks barriers and bests men.  As a woman who could reasonably called “strong” and “strong of will” and ambitious and type-A, and all those other qualities which women are encouraged to exhibit and forge ahead with – I can honestly tell you that I have wrestled not with any messaging from the world, but from my own desires for success.  To do it all. And I can also tell you that it’s not possible.

Hear me quite clearly on this: the Bible does not say women are supposed to just sit at home, pop out babies and keep the meals coming. Although, for married women with children, there is no greater calling than raising your family.  But if you have never read Proverbs 31:10-31, do so.  The passage describes a woman who is quite unbelievable in her capacity. She is equal parts mother, business-woman, wife, friend… She is generous, kind, hospitable, capable, strong, faithful, wise, industrious, praised by her children and her husband, and most of all, she is GODLY.  THIS is a woman worth lauding and holding up as our standard. She fears the Lord. This is key.

Too many women right now in our society, even believing women, have been sucked into the mentality that women are being oppressed and must therefore, assert themselves as more than an oppressed party – at all costs, at any cost.  Too many women right now are seeking to hold up high some version of a standard that represents overcoming that oppression – breaking those barriers. And the Biden/Harris political ticket has given you a chance to do just that – by proclaiming victory for all women everywhere in the form of Kamala Harris.

As a believer, I call you out on that right now. Not because I have any issue with a woman aspiring to the position of Vice President or President, but because of the values she upholds.  There is nothing wrong with achievement, accomplishment, holding office or sitting on the Supreme Court. I would never disparage a woman because she was successful or accomplished.

As believing women, we should never place more value on women holding positions of power than we do on the values held by the women themselves. The values of your standard are far more important.

If you are seeking a standard – then look to Proverbs 31. Do not accept as your standard anything less than the standard God sets for you. Further, consider the wisdom of aligning with the feminist movement at all.  It is a movement built upon a lie, a deception, a ploy, the whisper that you’ve never been recognized as you should have been…that you’re being held back…. 

This movement will never elevate women in a satisfactory way because it’s rooted in a mistruth.  God is not suppressing you. He has created women with incredible value and capacity (see Prov 31; and consider the fact that they’re made in His image). He designed you for a role that will both satisfy, challenge and uplift you.  The feminist movement historically has done the opposite. It has raised the bar to an unsustainable level, stripped women of any of their natural gifts, mocked their innate desires as insufficient and set the task of being all but a god yourself. That was never God’s intent for women. Or men.

There has never been a more critical moment to view the present circumstances through the lens of a godly worldview. There is an agenda in the works that goes deeper than socialism or communism. It is an agenda designed to destroy the very foundations God set up for our good – and I’m referring to something deeper than politics. 

I realize these are challenging times for everyone, particularly those seeking to follow Christ.  But do not grow weary in doing good or proclaiming the truth.  Test all things by the Holy Spirit. Do not glibly raise a banner if it is not worthy of the throne, and do not place your faith and hope in a system that will never fix the brokenness of this world. Only God can do that.