Are You a Christian … and Miserable?

I'm not sure how much of this came through in the interview, but I very much enjoyed last week's Q&A with Andrew Farley, author of The Naked Gospel. While I certainly didn't agree with everything Farley said, he offered up some honest and insightful thoughts about Christians today—stuff that many people might prefer to ignore or gloss over. (If you didn't get a chance to read the interview, you can check it out here.)

I was most interested in his account of the crisis of faith he had in college. At the time, he was obsessed with his performance as a Christian and spent hours every day reading the Bible and sharing his faith. He said he "would not have wished his faith on anyone" and that, if he had been honest, his sales pitch to nonbelievers would have been, "Would you like to be a Christian and be miserable like me?"

I've seen a lot of Christians in my life who, if they'd been honest, would have been able to say exactly the same thing. I've even had a few seasons in my life in which I might have said it.

The Christian life can be arduous and challenging. Paul (in 1 Thessalonians 1) and James (in James 1) talk about the many trials we will face in life and how they will build perseverance and character. They tell us we will be persecuted. Trials and tests can be really, really hard. No matter how strong your faith is, these things, by nature, will make life tough for you.

In many other parts of the New Testament, Paul talks about how we have to put off our old self and no longer be slaves to sin. The battle with sin becomes a burden and a hopelessly repeating cycle for some believers. Sin is a reality that Christians have to deal with for life, and for many it can make them feel downright miserable.

Another thing that I've seen cause Christians to be miserable is the "spiritual face" that many of us have to put up when we go to church or meet with other Christians. All of us feel the pressure of being viewed as strong believers, but sometimes putting up false pretenses about our lives that make everything seem great and dandy can kill us. I've seen many friends struggle greatly with this issue.

As men, one of our most powerful and challenging tools is honesty and accountability. If we can find those qualities within in a safe place among friends we can trust, we will learn there is almost nothing more valuable to our walks with the Lord.

The flip side to all of this, of course, is that a true understanding of God's grace and the joy found in Jesus can overcome every season of doubt or depression that we have. Whenever I'm feeling the burden of the Christian walk, or if my faith starts to feel miserable, I try to come back to the face of Jesus. Regardless of anything else, when I'm alone with Him, I know that He loves me, that He cares for me and that His grace is sufficient for me.

I hope everyone who is struggling or feeling miserable can find that grace and peace. One resource I might recommend, if you are feeling that way, is John Piper's book Desiring God. What a profound understanding of joy.

Here's a Challenge: Sharing Jesus With 'Christians'

A few months ago I moved from an area of the country where Christians were in the definite minority to a place where "Christians" are in the definite majority. The reason I write "Christians," with quotation marks, is that I'm back in the Bible Belt, a place where it's sometimes difficult to tell which people really have Christ in their hearts and which are simply going to church.

The spiritual difference in the place where we used to live and where we live now is pretty profound. In many ways it's really great. We can talk about going to church, and no one looks at us like we're weird. We can talk a little more openly about our beliefs, and people are fine with it. It just feels different here. This is an area where more people are praying and believing. It's less oppressive because there are more Christians around.

However, there are also more "Christians" around.

In a culture where people have been raised in the church, it's much harder to tell the true believers from those who are simply talking the talk. Many of these people know the right answers, they know the right phrases, and they're even trying to be good people; but if you really get to know them, you know that they don't have Jesus present in their lives (check out this Albert Mohler post to get a better idea of what I'm getting at theologically).

This creates several dilemmas. It can make evangelism much more difficult. How do you share the gospel with someone who seems to lack the evidence of Jesus in his or her life yet already identifies himself or herself as a Christian? It's a tricky process.

In addition, in my area of the country every person has grown up around "Christians." That means even those who don't identify themselves as believers have had a lot of experiences with people who go to church, and often the experiences have not been good ones. Trying to share the joy of Christ and the transformation that happens in your life with someone who was been burned or hurt by "Christians" (or real Christians; we're not perfect) is much more challenging than sharing that with someone who hasn't had any experiences with believers.

I was talking with a friend a week ago about my faith, and he brought up the fact that in his small community he knew so many bad things "church people" had done. It's definitely a tall barrier to get over, and I'm praying that God will do it.

How about you? Do you live in an area with lots of "Christians"? What has helped you deal with them? Do you live in an area where Christianity is a significant minority? How do you handle being singled out?

Never Look Twice

Today's world is tough on the Christian man's eyes. The trends in women's clothing continue to get, well, scarcer. Tops are getting lowered and shorts are getting shortened. The standards in media for what is appropriate in television, movies and advertising continue to get looser, even as the clothes get tighter.

Not only that, but the amount of images hitting our eyes today continues to grow out of control as advertisers search for new ways to get our attention. Can I get an "Amen!" from anyone sick of seeing ads on our e-mail programs?

There's never been a tougher time to deal with the issue of lust. Beyond the fact that we see far more sexy images on a daily basis than men from previous generations did, there is also the trouble of "escalation." The real danger in a sexy advertisement or movie scene is not so much the image itself but what might happen if we allow that image to continue to play out in our imaginations.

If a man today starts lusting in his mind, he has the ability to continue that lust through unencumbered access to more free pornography than has ever existed, and that's when things really start to get nasty.

I developed a simple technique for my eyes a while back that has helped immensely with this problem. I never look twice.

When I was in a Bible study with several Christian guys in college, we remarked that there was only so much control we had over the types of images we could see in our daily lives. We realized that the problem doesn't come when you notice something that sparks your attention. The problem comes when you look again and start to think about why that sparked your attention. That's when your attention turns to lust, and that's when things get hairy.

So now, whether it's a woman on the street, an ad or a scene on TV, I just don't look the second time, and I make sure my mind is occupied with something else. I make sure my eyes are looking at the nice tree in front of me instead of the attractive woman across the street. I'll examine the balding man's head in the theater seat in front of me instead of the sketchy part of the movie I'm watching. I'll make sure that any magazines or catalogs with women on the front are at the bottom of the mail pile, covered by the bills. Nothing will get you out of the mood faster than bills.

I'm certainly not perfect when it comes to this, and I can always improve, but I've found that defeating lust is much easier if you take it out at the beginning, rather than letting it grow. Getting in the habit of not automatically looking away really makes things a lot easier on my eyes.

I'm sure a lot of other guys do this, but it's something that works for me and I wanted to share it. Of course, in our constant battle against lust we all have to play it differently. In addition to looking away, you might need to place greater restrictions on what you allow yourself to look at in the first place. Every man is different, and the key to living in this world lust-free is knowing what you can handle and what you can't.

Does anyone else have some tips on the way they handle their eyes?

Finding Real Life in Fantasy Football

So, there's a girl in my fantasy football league. Yeah, that's right. The one last bastion of pure, unadulterated machoness in my life has been invaded. The one place where men can truly be men has been corrupted. I feel like our treehouse with the "No Girls Allowed!" sign has been torn down to make way for a tea party with stuffed animals.

Will we post less immature smack? Will we link to less hilarious Web articles? Will we start finding the message board invaded by pictures of puppies or, even worse, photos of the couple—the girl and our whipped puppy-dog friend who invited her?

For those of you in fantasy leagues, you understand my predicament. For those of you who refrain from such nerdy activities, let me explain. Fantasy leagues, for me and a lot of other guys, are the best way to keep in touch with old friends. I've got a long-running league with my high school buddies and a league with friends from my old job. It's how I keep up with a lot of my best buds, how I stay in contact and how I retain that feeling of male camaraderie with them.

Why do we have to play such a silly thing as fantasy sports to keep up with one another? Why can't we just use Facebook, e-mail or—dare I say it—the telephone?

I think the answer lies in C.S. Lewis' book, The Four Loves. In his fascinating chapter on the love between friends, Lewis writes that "friendship" is a "side-by-side" love—as opposed to "romance," which is more of a "face-to-face" love. Your friends are almost always people who have things in common with you or interests similar to yours.

You might find that you both like a certain band, sports team or TV show. You might find that you're both at the same stage of life or have similar political opinions. You might find that you're both Christians who want to grow in maturity.

Either way, friendships between men usually develop because they're focused on something else. You are side-by-side with your friends looking at something or talking about something. The funny part is that after a while, these conversations about other things turn out to be the glue in what is becoming a profound affection between you and other guys.

Even if you're talking about something else, the relationship is growing and maturing. That's why men aren't as good with things like straight phone calls or e-mails; but when we're talking about football and gathering around it, we do it with passion and have ourselves a blast.

The key for Christian men, and this is certainly a challenge in my life, is to make sure that after we develop those relationships, we don't leave them at the surface level. We should take them deeper. Jesus calls us to cultivate meaningful relationships with guys who will make us accountable and honest toward each other. We need to be like iron sharpening iron, as the oft-quoted Proverbs 27:17 says. It's not our natural tendency, but it's something that can make all the difference in our lives.

This isn't a challenge for us just with our Christian friends; it holds true with our non-Christian ones too. If we don't get past that surface-level conversation with our non-Christian buddies, we'll never be able to share about more important things, such as our relationship with Jesus.

It's funny that talking about something as trivial as fantasy football is often the glue that leads to something more important down the line. Let's make sure we're not stopping at the shallow parts, though—but pushing more closely together. And, for us, this can happen without posting pictures of puppies.