Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

The Face of Love

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“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”[1]

This is an iconic, timeless description of what love is from the Bible. This passage has been quoted at countless weddings. Most people are familiar with the “love passage”, even if they have no familiarity with the Bible itself.

We know there are different kinds of love. There is the intimate love between couples, erotic love, the love between parent and child and brotherly love among friends. These kinds of love sometimes overlap. For instance, the love between married couples, at its best, incorporates something of all of these types of love.

Perhaps, the most popular notion of love today is the love between two people – the Disney type of love at first sight and love ever after. A mix of erotic thrill and passionate commitment.

Google “love”, and images of young, good-looking men and women goggling each other is what you will find. This love is almost mythical in its ubiquitous celebration in popular culture, and it’s, perhaps, just as mythical in reality. Few, if any of us, really experience the love that we collectively aspire to (as demonstrated by the money we spend on love-themed entertainment ).  And, those of us who have “felt” this kind of love all know how fleeting it is.

This kind of love involves commonality of interest and affection. It’s a two-way street. When the commonality ceases and the affection is lost, the one-way street can only operate so long – especially in a society that emphasizes the emotional value of love. We build in a qualifier to the age-old phase, “til death do us part”: when the affections die, I am outta here!

Other kinds of love include the love of parent and child and brotherly love – the love between friends who have common bonds of experience, interests and friendship. Though the entertainment value is much less than the former, we all instinctively know that this kid of love is good. It is very good.

Friendships, still, can be fragile. Rare is the friendship that survives indefinitely. Even familial love, including the love between parents and children, can die on the rocky shores of turmoil and circumstances that tear it apart and undo it. I see this constantly in my practice of law, representing people in the administration of their estates.

The biblical definition of love is something different altogether.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”[2]

None of these descriptors of love depend on affections. They are timeless in that respect. They describe a love that is not qualified. The very next statement in this passage is that “love never fails” (or never ends).[3] In other words, this kind of love never dies.

Do you know this kind of love?

Continue reading “The Face of Love” →

Lay Your Weapons Down

Our battle is not against flesh and blood. (Ephesians 6:12)

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Os Guinness says, “It’s no secret that the world doesn’t know how to handle our differences.” Just consider countries like China, Iran and others in which dissidents are treated as enemies of the state, rounded up and imprisoned or even killed.

In the West, we have handled our differences better than most in the last couple of hundred years, but we have had our issues as well. Guinness addressed religious matters, in particular, and notes that we have different views for how to address differences. There are those who advocate for the “sacred public square” where religion is king, while others urge a “naked public square” that is wiped clean of religious and faith expression.

He advocates for a third way of dealing with religious differences: “the civil public square”. In the civil public square, all people are given freedom of conscience to speak from their own faith tradition, or no faith tradition at all (which is also a kind of faith).

Guinness criticized the last 50 years in the United States during which culture wars have been battled out in the public square. The result is that differences have become more entrenched, and they are getting deeper and wider as time goes on.

As a Christian, Guinness is concerned about the state of the church in these times. He observes that millions of people are dropping out of religion altogether because of “the ugliness of Christian extremism in public life”.

He is quick to say that the secular extreme is just as bad, but I agree with him that we (Christians) should be concerned for our own influence in the world.

Continue reading “Lay Your Weapons Down” →

On Faith, Doubt and Truth

If faith is not robust enough to hold up to scrutiny, it isn’t worth holding on to.

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I traveled for 12 hours in a car recently and spent most of that time listening to podcasts. I listened to interviews of Tim Keller and Os Guinness, and a joint interview of Lisa Gungor and Alisa Childers. They talked about their own faith journeys, doubt and the quest for truth.

As I considered those interviews at the end of my trip, some thoughts congealed and took shape. I will try to capture them in this short piece.

Continue reading “On Faith, Doubt and Truth” →

The Plans God Has for Us – Part III

Even in the midst of the very Judgment of God, God desires to bless us! He is every appealing to us to listen to Him and respond to Him. 

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In the previous two blog posts on The Plans God Has for Us, we considered the fact that the often-quoted verse about the plans God us for us – plans to prosper us and to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11)[1] – should be viewed in historical context. (Part I) That historical context was the 900-year history of disbelief and disobedience of God’s people ending in 40 years of warning of impending judgment that culminated in the judgment coming to pass with the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and exile. (Part II) In this post, I will try to draw some conclusions in the application of this verse and relevance to our modern lives.

This letter was the message of God through the prophet, Jeremiah, to God’s people that He gave them at the very beginning of their exile. In this letter, God tells them that they will remain in exile for 70 years![2] In fact, this shocking statement – you will be here 70 years – is the statement that immediately precedes the famous verse we all know:

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

In a sense, God is telling them, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that I have imposed my judgment on you, and it will last 70 years. But the good news is that I have plans for you, good plans to prosper you and to give you hope and a future.

Thank about it: 70 years….

In an age in which the average life expectancy was about 35 years, that’s two generations! For the vast majority of the exiled people, this meant their lives would end in captivity. What kind of hope and future is that?!

The United States has been a country for less than 250 years, and our oldest ancestors in this country (unless you are Native American) go back only 400 years. The people of Judah had roots in their land going back almost 1000 years!

These were dire times, and this people had just lost everything. But even in the midst of this horrific circumstance, we need to look carefully at what God is saying. Just before announcing that this judgment thing is going to last 70 years, God gives them instructions:

“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’”[3]

Imagine the 40 years of warning and the weight of that impending doom on those who actually took it seriously. As with most things we fear, the fear is worse than the reality.

During this time of judgment in exile in Babylon, God says to them, basically, “Don’t despair! Go about your lives. Embrace the circumstances into which I have brought you. Live life. Make plans. Bless those around you, seek to better the community in which you find yourself, and I will bless you.”

Even in the midst of the very Judgment of God, God desires to bless us! He is ever appealing to us to listen to Him and respond to Him.

Continue reading “The Plans God Has for Us – Part III” →

The Plans God Has for Us – Part II

The overarching theme of the Book of Jeremiah is judgment.

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Though Jeremiah 29:11 is often quoted as a stand-alone verse, the context of it dramatically enriches its meaning. The context also reveals meaning that we would miss if we didn’t understand the circumstances in which these words were spoken. This is the main message of the first installment of this three-part series – The Plans God Has for Us – Part I.

When we read the following words, we should be mindful of the context:

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Aside from the fact that we often ask God merely to bless our own plans, not considering (or taking seriously) that He has his own plans for us, this verse is often quoted with anticipation of some immediate or not-too-distant hope and future in our own lives. The context suggests, however, that we should understand the much “bigger picture” and context the import of this verse that extends far beyond the immediate and near future circumstances of our own lives.

Consider that the prophet, Jeremiah, lived and served God during the last four decades leading up to the exile of the people of Judah to Babylon, including the beginning of that exile period. Jeremiah’s life and prophetic ministry spanned from the 13th year of the reign of King Josiah (627/626 BC) through the siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC and beyond.

These were doom and gloom years in which an ominous, dark cloud of loomed over Judah, and it eventually swallowed them up in the form of the siege of Jerusalem and march into Babylonian exile. Most of Jeremiah’s ministry focused on warning God’s people of this impending fate.

Jeremiah wasn’t a popular prophet (not that prophets are known to be popular). He was imprisoned, and his life was threatened multiple times during the course of his ministry. People didn’t like or receive well the drumbeat of warning that he pounded.

The Book of Jeremiah reveals a prophet whose life was full of emotional angst. The people of Judah didn’t want to hear what he had to say, and they were openly hostile to his message. He was faithful to God in spite of the unpopularity it brought him. He often lamented the hard-heartedness of the people and their refusal to take heed.

“Jeremiah found himself addressing a nation hurtling headlong toward judgment from God. The Israelites may have feared the future as the outside powers drew near, but rather than respond with humility and repentance, the people of Judah primarily lived as islands unto themselves, disregarding both the Lord’s commandments and the increasing danger that resulted from their disobedience.”[i]

Because Jeremiah’s ministry stretched over the 40 years just before the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and exile, the main theme of the Book of Jeremiah is judgment. Jeremiah 29:11 is quoted from a letter Jeremiah wrote to the Babylonian exiles after the judgment he had been proclaiming for four decades finally came to pass.

The larger context is the chronicle of the history of God’s people from the covenant God made with them in the Sinai Desert to the time of Jeremiah was approximately 900 years, and it was marked by ongoing disbelief and disobedience, culminating in the Babylonian exile. The immediate context is 40 years of Jeremiah warning God’s people of God’s imminent judgment and their refusal to listen or change their ways. In that gloomy scenario in which that judgment finally came to pass, Jeremiah writes:

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)

As we look at the entire letter from Jeremiah to his exiled brethren and consider its application, then and now, the nuances of Scriptural meaning and application to our lives becomes more poignant. We will do this in The Plans God Has for Us – Part III.

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[i] See Insight for Living, Jeremiah, by Charles Swindoll.