My lastest column for our church newsletter:


Redeemer meets in a part of town where there are a lot of well-to-do, well-off people. There’s nothing wrong with being well-off or meeting in such a part of town. But those of us who are well-off, middle to upper class, tend to have a high value on looking like we have everything together – like we’re gainfully employed in rewarding and challenging work, like we have a nice home and cars, like we have smart, talented, well-behaved children, like we have a loving marriage, like we have self-control in eating and exercise regularly so we can be glowingly healthy.

That’s the problem.

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. They’re highly desirable. But if we make the acquisition of any of those things our number one priority in life, that’s idolatry. And if we don’t have them and we start faking it, that’s a bad thing. And if we feel like we can never be happy without some or all of these things, that’s a lie.

A woman at Redeemer who was struggling with weight loss asked me one time, ‘How can all of the women at Redeemer stay so thin?’ It’s certain that some people at Redeemer, especially in these tumultuous times, have financial problems. It’s certain that some of us worry that our marriage might not hold up, or that our kids might not turn out right. And how will that reflect on us? Then people will know that we don’t have it all together. Having it all together can be a form of idolatry.

Redeemer does not exist to chaplain people who ‘have it all together’. We’re not trying to give folks like that just a little God and a few more life skills and a place to fellowship and find a little meaning. Again, these things are desirable (removing the ‘little’s and ‘few’s). But they have to come after we come to terms with where all of these things fit in our lives.

Paul said he considered things like these (Philippians 3.2-6) crap (and that’s still the polite translation – 3.7) in comparison with knowing Christ and becoming one with Him (3.8-21). [Philippians 3]

A good place to start is by devaluing these things in our lives. The most important thing is knowing Christ, not just meeting him, but getting to know him better day by day. We need to stop our striving for these lesser things. We need to stop our worrying. We need to stop our faking.

One good, proactive strategy is to be honest about our condition, to admit the areas where things aren’t going as we would wish. That doesn’t mean we go around and ‘throw up’ our tough situations on people. But there are times and places (especially with friends and in small groups) where we can be honest about these things. And we can stop acting like we have everything together. If we can get away from it, it’ll help our brothers and sisters who are also tempted to live up to our act of having everything together.

So, if you’re one of those people who seems to have it all together – it’s no big deal. The stuff the world cares about are peripheral in God’s eyes. And you’ve been afraid that you don’t fit in at Redeemer because you don’t have it all together, don’t be. Don’t worry and don’t pretend. None of us really do.