It Starts with Me

Some time ago I pulled up to a three way stop for people coming in and out of a shopping area. I was not paying attention and pulled out in front of someone who had the right of way to pull out ahead of me. It was my fault. I stopped part way out and turned to gesture for the car to go and acknowledge it was my bad. What I saw was a middle-aged man pounding on the steering wheel with both hands and screaming out of control. I had delayed his departure by about 5 seconds, yet he had gone totally berserk in an irrational fit of rage. I drove away wondering what was going on in this man’s life that something so trivial had caused such an explosion of anger.

This is the world we live in today. You never really know what’s going to set people off. The landmines are everywhere. One wrong word, an unpopular opinion, support the wrong politician, and boom! People experience unsafe environments at home, at school, at the workplace or next door. Sadly, even the church can feel unsafe these days.

In the 60’s and 70’s people avoided dark alleys for fear of getting robbed or mugged. We all knew there were places that were safe and places to avoid. Today it’s hard to know where those safe places are. The internet and social media have become the dark alley where people meet to rumble and settle the score. It’s a place where muggers and liars and bullies thrive. A good day can become a lousy day by a few clicks and boom! Today, the access we allow for bad people to mug us through the internet is significant. No place feels safe anymore.

Add to that a steady drift towards a national religion of secularism. We now function as our own gods with the freedom to determine for ourselves what is right and wrong. The idea of a Creator has been replaced by a materialistic world view. We now think we own the story. The Creator’s intent has been replaced by the flavor of the day. Feelings take priority over design. Discipline and self-control are the enemy and indulgence is the fad. The great sin today is denial and being true to yourself is the great virtue.

The result of this has been devastation. People have believed the lies and suffered the consequences of drinking the poison. Dreams have been shattered. Marriages have been broken. Families blown apart. Emotions shattered. Everywhere you look in our culture the affects of our foolishness are evident. Our culture is coming unraveled, and the law of the jungle is becoming the operating system of our day.

I think it’s fair to say we live in turbulent times. There may not be much we can do to change all that right now but what I can do is consider how I’m going to live in the midst of it. What I can control are my choices and my choices matter. They matter to me, to my family, to my friends, my neighbors and community. I can give hurting people a glimpse of a better way to live.

I think most Christians want to be obedient. We want to be faithful to our call to represent Jesus to the world. We do care. But it’s easy to get caught up in the attitudes and behaviors of the culture. Maybe by our estimation we’re pretty good compared to others but that can be a dangerous standard as the culture drifts further and further from God. We are not called to be a little better than the culture, we’re called to be like Jesus. To be a called out, separated people for God’s purposes. To be holy.

What we need today are Christians who are skilled at living. We need to show people the way by our words and behaviors. We need to be a light in the darkness. We need to be other than the world. When Christians offer more of the same, we’ve lost our witness. We have no light when we act like the darkness. The anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1:20). More anger won’t help. Withdrawing from the world is disobedience to our calling. We need to be in the world but not of it to show others the way.

Thankfully God has given us a roadmap to skillful living in the book of Proverbs. It’s ancient wisdom to help us learn how to live well in turbulent times. Proverbs is practical, hard-hitting, no nonsense, counsel. It is exactly what the doctor ordered if we’re serious about living well and proclaiming Jesus to a hurting and confused world.

There are a few keys to understanding and applying Proverbs. The material may seem like a random collection of sayings with no real organization. To some extent that is true but it’s also true that we don’t just struggle with isolated issues. An anger problem causes a problem with our tongue which impacts choices we make which influences how we spend our money and so on. One area infects other areas which is how the book of Proverbs is written. You might say it’s more wholistic than topical.

Secondly, we need to understand that Proverbs is about how we live with others. It’s about how we live well together in community. The message of our culture is that everything is all about me. We may refer to ourselves as communities, but the reality is we are a collection of individuals that live together in cities and towns. Our mode of operation is we are seeking to benefit ourselves. The individual takes priority over the community. That’s the source of many of our problems. Proverbs is not like that. It’s not primarily about me, it’s about us together.

Thirdly, and this is related, the vision is about creating Shalom. It’s not about a competition with winners and losers. It’s about creating mutual flourishing in the community. The me must be replaced with we for this to work. For thousands of years people knew by necessity they must learn to live together, or they would die together. The Tribe mattered most. In our modern twenty first century American culture we have lost that vision and the cost of that is evident all around us. Our prosperity and security has made us selfish.

Skillful living is not primarily about my success but about seeking to create true flourishing for the people around me. Our individualism that is so prized today will never lead to flourishing. It can’t. There will be no winners. We all end up living in the culture we create, and selfishness and isolation will only destroy us in time. Working together to create glimpses of Shalom offers people a better way to live and a reason for hope.

So, here’s the starting point. Let’s not be too quick to focus on the speck in everyone else’s eyes until we’ve addressed the log in our own eye (Matt. 7:3). Let’s be willing to look in the mirror and at least entertain the possibility that I might be part of the problem. Skillful living starts with me owning the truth that my attitudes and behaviors may need some attention for things to change. If you aren’t willing to look in the mirror and face your own stuff you stand no real chance of living skillfully. So, let’s humble ourselves and ask God to help us see what may need to change in us to bring flourishing to the people around us.