Heavenly Accents
(by R. Samuel Braden, 12-October-2016)
What accent do you have? Do you speak with the long slow drawl of the deep South, or perhaps the nasally inflections of New England? Maybe you don’t recognize that you have an accent at all and are thinking, “what are you talking about? I just speak normal English! I don’t have an accent.” Except that the truth is: you do. Every one of us who can talk has an accent, even if we can’t recognize it because we’re surrounded by people who speak the same way we do. But all you have to do to realize the truth about your accent is travel somewhere different. Suddenly you will notice just how much you stand out in a crowd.
Imagine that you take a trip to London, England and when you get off the plane you find that everyone around you starts sounding like James Bond or Doctor Who! At first you think they’re the ones that sound weird, but then you try to ask for directions and everyone looks at you funny. Even though you and they are speaking the same language, you notice very quickly how different you yourself sound compared to them!
Scripture tells us in John 17:14-16 that we as believers are “in the world, but not of the world.” And again in Romans 12:2 Paul warns us about being conformed to the world. You see, we are called to stand out, to speak differently. We cannot share an accent with the world, for our home is not of this world, but of heaven, and our speech should reflect that.
Notice, however, that Scripture does not tell us to speak a different language from the world entirely! For how then could we communicate with them the gospel? We are not called to remove ourselves completely from the world and hide in our churches and speak archaic Latin or some other insider-speak that nobody else can understand. Even the use of our Christian vocabulary can often be a stumbling block to unbelievers who wander in, confused as to what we are talking about and wondering, like Nicodemus, what it means to be “born again.” No, we must speak the same language as the world, but do so with a heavenly accent. Just as you might find yourself speaking the same language as people in England, but also standing out with a strong American accent, in the same way we are to speak the language of the world, but with a heavenly accent. Be in the world, but not of the world.
But beware: the longer you stay in a different place, the more your own accent will diminish as you pick up the accent of the locals. My mother, who was born and raised in Rhode Island and once had a strong New England accent, no longer does. She has lived her whole life since then in the western states and has lost that original accent that her relatives back home still possess. If you, dear believer, spend too much time in the world and not enough conversing with your Father back home, you will begin to lose your heavenly accent too. In time you will cease to stand out from the crowd and begin sounding more and more like those around you. Do not let this happen. You are called to be a testimony, to be a light in a world of darkness.
“But what if I’ve already lost my accent?” You may wonder. “How can I get it back?” Well, the trick to getting back a lost accent is the same as keeping it in the first place: you must call home on a regular basis. Stay in touch with the source of your accent, and in doing so you will keep it (or regain it). I remember one time my mother called her parents back home and spent more than an hour talking to them and her sister. When she hung up the phone she said something about “driving the cah” and my father and I both looked at her funny. You see, the accent that lives deep within us is always ready to come back if given the right stimulus. But it requires perseverance. You must be diligent to maintain that connection with your home, for only then will your accent remain true.
The Power of Darkness
(by R. Samuel Braden, 10-August-2016)
How to Reconcile Difficult Times with Lasting Joy
(Read: Ecclesiastes 11 & 12, Romans 15:13, 1 John 1:4)
I like sunlight. It’s warm and bright and full of happiness, and it makes me feel like everything is right in life. In the sunlight I can relax. In the sunlight I feel like trouble is far away, and the days can roll by with ease. I do not feel the need to evaluate my life or how I spend my time, for the sunlight makes me feel like time is without end and the days of my life will never cease. In the sunlight I feel eternity.
And well I should, for Scripture tells us that when we reach eternity there will never again be night. Heaven is filled with eternal day radiating from the face of God Himself! Revelation 22 describes the joy of the everlasting light that will fill every believer with warmth and satisfaction, and there will be no more tears or weeping, for the former things have passed away.
But… we’re not there yet. And this world has a cycle of light and darkness for a reason, because if it didn’t, I do not think that we would get anything done! Because of the darkness we recognize the value of light. In fact, we value it so much that we’ve spent millennia of our existence trying to develop new and better ways to create our own light so that we can hold on to the day even after night has fallen! First with fire leading to candles and eventually lamps, then with incandescent light bulbs, and now with LEDs, plasma, halogen, and other such things. We have been on a mission as a species to take control of light for ourselves ever since the first time Eve saw the sun set and complained to Adam, “Hey, I wasn’t done yet! Make it come back.”
Light is necessary for both life and happiness. In fact, studies published in Scientific American and various psychological journals have all corroborated the link between darkness and depression. Even worse, as an interview on NPR in April of this year pointed out, countries located at the highest latitudes (which have the longest nights in winter) also have the highest suicide rates per capita. The nation of Greenland and the American state of Alaska both have exceptionally high suicide rates, despite their beautiful, pristine landscapes and general lack of pollution and crime.
Why is this? What is it about the dark that causes people to feel like hope is lost and they might as well end it all? Well, let’s think about that for a moment. As I mentioned at the start, sunlight gives me a wonderful feeling of happiness and contentment. When it’s day I feel like life is easy, and even when bad things happen I can deal with them because life goes on. And when you’re lying on your back on a grassy hillside looking up at puffy white clouds drifting overhead on a summer day, stress just melts away and everything feels right in the world. Why? Because light gives you a feeling of happiness and security… but it is a feeling that is ultimately hollow.
This hollowness is realized in stark relief when the light is taken away. When you find yourself in darkness, the concerns of your life and the cares and the stress all come weighing down on you, and you no longer have that cushion of warmth and contentment to make it feel tolerable. Now you have to face all the troubles that have always been there, you just never noticed them before because of the happiness you felt at the apparent ease of life.
You see, light gives us a feeling of happiness, and well it should for God designed it that way. Solomon recognized this in the book of Ecclesiastes. In chapter 11 he says, “The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.” But that happy feeling can be misleading. If you have never addressed the underlying causes of stress and fear in your life, then when the happiness associated with the light disappears, you’ll find yourself unprepared to deal with the depression that will crash over you like a wave when you are alone in the dark. As Solomon continues in chapter 12, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no delight in them;’ before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain…”
Happiness can give us a false sense of security. When we are happy, we do not notice that there are things wrong in our lives. Happiness can act like a pain killer, dulling our senses to the problems we have, making us think that they’re not so bad and we can ignore them. It can make us complacent, even lazy, because we feel like everything will work itself out. But the danger is, as soon as the source of your happiness disappears you’ll face the full weight of everything bad in your life, and it can be overwhelming. This is why it is crucial to understand the difference between happiness and joy and identify which one you have. Happiness is a feeling, it can be caused by many things, but it is ultimately no more than a warm feeling in your heart. And it can leave you as quickly as it arrived. Joy, on the other hand, though often misinterpreted in English as “extreme happiness” is actually a different thing entirely. It comes from the Greek word chara and is closely related to the word charis, meaning “grace.” Chara is essentially “our response to grace.” Possessing joy is not an emotional state, but a choice of the will. We choose to value God’s presence, His promises, and His work in our lives. When we as believers yield to the Holy Spirit, He opens our hearts to God’s grace being worked in our lives, and fills us with joy as we respond to it! – Romans 15:13 (see gotquestions.org – what is joy?)
True joy is not something that can be found in this fallen world. It is only in fellowship with God that our joy can be complete – 1 John 1:4 Because this kind of joy is also accompanied by hope, we have a confidence that it will not evaporate when the going gets tough. In fact, it is often only when happiness deserts us that true joy can become apparent. When the sunlight fades, when happiness is gone, when everything seems dark and gloomy, if you can still stand up and say, “I have hope!” then you know that there is real joy in your life. When laughter dies and despair threatens to claw away at your heart, if you can still rejoice at the good things you’ve been given and hope for a better tomorrow, then you know that your foundation is joy.
And this is what I mean by the power of darkness. If we lived in eternal sunlight, we may never know our need for something more substantial in our lives. We may be content with the happiness of the day and never realize how hollow it is to depend upon feelings to get us through life. We may become complacent and think that nothing really matters in the long run because life is fun, and only what makes us happy matters. We may toss out morality and say, “if it feels good, do it!” Because in such a world, that would be the only thing worth doing.
But we do not live in such a world. We live in a world where darkness falls on a regular basis. Happiness is often stripped away, leaving us in a stark and destitute wasteland of grief and abandoned dreams. When such things happen you will quickly find out if you have anything of value in your life, or if it was all fluff. As James tells us in chapter 1 verse 2, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” And this is key. The darkness plays an important role in our lives: it strips away the fluff and shows us what really matters. When you go through trials and pain, do you still have anything worth holding onto? Do you have real joy? Think about that this week, and if you find yourself lacking joy and hope, come to Christ and ask. He is ready and willing to restore you and make you into someone with a life worth living! There is no one beyond hope.