Love the Person or Love the Relationship? Part 3

While in South Dakota last week, I came to a startling conclusion. Perhaps the most impactful decision concerning my life, both temporal and eternal, was made by my great-grandmother. She was a Cherokee Indian and she was born in 1869. Her decision to marry a man, who was not an Indian, to leave her tribe and their settlement, and travel several hundred miles away and settle in East Texas, and to adopt a culture totally different from her own, more than likely paved the way for me becoming a Christian, learning the value of hard work, receiving a college education, and living a life free of poverty.

I was provoked to arrive at this conclusion, by the culture of the Native American reservations in South Dakota. With many good intentions, perhaps motivated by guilt, the U. S. government has spent billions of dollars to provide health care and a safety net to help the poor among the Native Americans. All too often, what government policy has helped create is the perpetuation of a culture of indolence, alcoholism and despair. Were different decisions made long ago in my family tree, I could be experiencing a life like that today.

Let me reiterate, I am not a Libertarian. I am not against government assistance, whether it be for rescue, merit, or simply to give someone an opportunity to reach his or her potential.

Government service is too often skewed toward the mechanical—giving people money or aid without regard to the relationship. We, as Christians, must beware that we do not fall into the same trap. We follow a God who has blessed us by treating us in a way consistent with his love. He has offered us grace and he has offered us accountability.

We, as Christians, must have a heart for the poor. However, this cannot become a mechanical act in synch with the culture of the Industrial Revolution.

Here is the primary issue as I see it. Poverty is a spiritual problem. It is not a financial problem. To make any inroads towards solutions, we must address the problem holistically. Sin brought poverty into this world. I am not saying that anyone and everyone who is in poverty or is poor is there because of his or her sin. Indeed, their circumstances may show how truly evil poverty is. Perhaps, some find themselves in poverty because of the sin of someone else. But someone sinned. After all, poverty did not exist in the Garden of Eden.

How do you address sin? You address sin through grace and accountability. How do you address the problem of the poor? To truly make a difference with the poor, you offer grace and accountability.

You give out the grace that God has given you. You give out of love. But you do not give and give and give, in order to sustain a lifestyle that is counter to the way God has created us. You do not sustain and subsidize a lifestyle that is counter to the way a person was created. As painful as it is, if the situation demands it, love calls for you to say “no.” This is what lies behind Paul's statement to the Thessalonians in second Thessalonians 3:10, "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."

This may sound harsh and cruel, but that is our culture talking. If we are spiritually healthy, we recognize this is actually practicing the Golden Rule. Those of us who enjoy spiritual health do so because throughout our spiritual journey, people who have loved us have served us by denying us that which we wanted, but that which ultimately would have hurt us.

For example, I identify with the guy who said, “Growing up, I had a drug problem. My parents drug me to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.” Few children want to be “drug” to church. Fortunately, I and others had parents who did not offer me what I wanted, they offered me what I needed. I am so glad my parents did not enable me. They offered me love and accountability.

Others have, likewise, offered me accountability: teachers, coaches, elders…. They could have enabled me. They could have avoided the risk of making me angry or having me dissolve our relationship. I am thankful they did not.

Sometimes, God allows people to face financial difficulty and spiral downward in order to address spiritual problems. Consequently, sometimes the loving thing to do for that person is to say, “No, we are no longer going to subsidize your behavior.”

Unfortunately, sometimes innocent people are hurt when we serve as God’s instruments to find redemption and accountability. It is that way with most sins, it’s just that when it comes to finances, it is so easy to inappropriately offer money and/or help because it makes US feel better. That, however, is selfishness on our part.

When we enable, we are not practicing the agape love of God as viewed in I Cor. 13. What we are saying is, “I love our relationship more than I love you. I love our relationship more than I love you because I want what the relationship can give me, because I love MYSELF more than I love you.”

Next week, I want to conclude by offering you a true story to illustrate these principles. You may already be familiar with it.

Tiger

Some people remember where they were when then they heard the news FDR died or JFK was shot. I may always remember it was the day after Thanksgiving and I was sitting in the back seat of our Suburban when my daughter, Haleigh, said, “Oh, dad, I just got a news alert on my iPhone from MSN—Tiger woods had an automobile accident.”

Never has a one-car accident, where no one got hurt, unleashed such a chain reaction. This week ABC News is reporting that Tiger’s wife, Elin, is filing for divorce. She has had enough.

Tiger Woods is worth over $1 billion. He has all the money he can ever stand. He is the greatest golfer, probably, in history. He is the Associated Press’ Athlete of the Decade.

He had a beautiful wife who, by all accounts loved and supported him. He was blessed with two, healthy lovely children. Yet, it was not enough.

Somewhere along the way, Tiger made the decision to give in to his compulsions and recklessly commit serial adultery with various women. His life is now officially a mess. Sponsors are dropping him. People are withdrawing from him. Reporter Rick Reilly said this week, “Even a porno actress, not exactly the elite of culture has begun distancing herself from Tiger. It has come to this!” You know you have hit bottom when a porno actress finds you beneath her.

People typically do what they do for one of three reasons:

1. To survive. We need certain things such as food, clothing, and shelter to live.

2. To feel good. These are things we perceive will make us feel good—
physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. These are not things we need; they are what we seek after our basic needs are met. This is what Tiger Woods has been doing.

3. To offer God a sacrifice. These acts can include the will to survive, but they especially apply to what we do after we have met our basic needs. Contrary to reason number two, we have found peace with God. We know the joy of Christ and the contentment found in Him. Rather than taking a vow of poverty, we act, we buy, we love, but with our eyes focused on serving as God’s instruments, rather than seeking meaning in how we feel.

Tiger Woods is the latest to be looking for what we, as Christians, have. He can't find it. We possess it. It is peace with God. It is contentment in this life. They are trying to buy it. We have it as a free gift from God. You don't think we have a message for the people around us?

Jesus saves us for eternity, yes. But He also offers life abundant now. So watch for your friend who is in category # 2. Seek ways to let him know that life doesn’t have to be that way for him.

Five things I think I think (a tip of the hat to Peter King for this idea)

1. I’ve downloaded on my Kindle reader, TEAM OF RIVALS, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s account of President Lincoln’s relationship with his Cabinet. I’m reading it slowly, but savoring every page.

2. Incidentally, I have the free Kindle Reader app on my iPhone. I’ve got several books along with about 20 versions of the Bible, a Greek New Testament, and the Hebrew Bible, which I will be taking with me to Washington state—none of them of paper and ink.

3. Thanks Downtown Athletic Club. Giving the Heisman to Mark Ingram offers one more motivational tool to the Longhorns.

4. I can’t wait to show my kids A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS this weekend. My little ones will see it for the first time. We watched ELF last weekend. I always laugh out loud during that movie. Remember the basic four food groups: candy, sugar, candy corn, and syrup?

5. Next week we take what may be our last trip to Seattle to see my sister and her family. We bought our tickets in June-with what we had saved by setting aside money we would have spent on cell phones. Now, I am going have to find a credit card that offers a lot of airline miles for purchases. Of course, using credit cards is kind of like drinking. It’s not a sin in and of itself, but a lot of people get addicted.

Have a Great Weekend!