What kind of Canada?

I am writing this on the eve of Canada Day.  Prince William and his bride Kate have just completed the first day of their highly-anticipated  visit to our land.  Here in the nation’s capital, the Canada Day crowds are expected to be much larger than usual.   Many people are eagerly looking forward to getting a glimpse of the newly married royal couple. In part, I believe, that’s because William and Kate represent the hope of a new beginning for the royal family which has seen such turmoil ever since Charles and Diana’s marriage began to come apart.

Tomorrow’s Canada Day festivities will be a chance for Canadians to show our affection not just for the royal couple, but also for our country.  Our Prime Minister has taken to sometimes ending speeches with the words “God bless Canada”.  Just as most Canadians seem to genuinely wish this young couple well and want their marriage to work out, so most also genuinely want our nation of Canada to be a happy, successful, blessed land.

Though many may think of God’s blessing as something akin to good luck — you either have it or you don’t, but you can’t do much about it — the Bible does not support this view.   The blessing or favour of God is sovereign — that is, we can’t control it, we can only receive it as a gift — but it is not random or arbitrary.  God’s word makes it very clear that the choices we make, as individuals and as a nation, have everything to do with the extent to which we experience the blessing of God.

Several weeks ago, a team of young runners set out on the One Nation Run, a cross-Canada campaign to raise awareness and funds towards the elimination of child poverty in Canada.  By all accounts, the run is going well.  The runners are encouraged, support is growing, and donations are coming in.

Like any physical exercise, running is exhilarating, but it’s also hard work, requiring a considerable amount of self-discipline.  Why do they make the effort? They are inspired by a vision of  a more just and compassionate society.  These young runners are devoting their time and energy to promoting a Biblical value – they are speaking up for the weakest and most vulnerable in our land.  They are depending on God for their strength, and I believe their righteous cause attracts his favour.

In total contrast to this purposeful and selfless activity stands the chaotic and senseless behaviour of the violent, alcohol-fuelled mob that torched vehicles and looted businesses in the streets of Vancouver a few weeks ago after the Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.  These events prompted much agonizing and soul-searching, everyone wondering aloud what makes people behave in such a destructive, senseless manner.  I mean, aren’t Canadians basically good, decent people?  Other nations might be perverse, greedy and selfish – but not us.  Canadians are good – right?

In the aftermath of the riots, I found myself disturbed by the many expressions of anger and even hatred towards the rioters.  The parents of  Nathan Kotylak, the young water polo player who was suspended from the national team for his part in the riots, found it necessary to leave their home and shut down their business temporarily as a result of the many threatening and abusive messages they received.  This was in spite of the fact that their son publicly confessed his part in the mob activity and openly acknowledged how wrong his actions had been.

Why were people so angry with the rioters?  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying the rioters’ behaviour was right — far from it.  I’m just saying that most Canadians are living under the illusion that we are basically good people and that Canada is basically a good country, populated by good, decent people like us.  The riots totally violate this illusion, so to reinforce our false image of ourselves as a good nation populated by good people, we portray the rioters as perverse exceptions to the essential goodness of the Canadian (or Vancouverite) character.

The Bible paints a very different picture of human nature.  It’s not a popular view these days, even among Christians – but the Bible clearly portrays human nature as thoroughly corrupted by sin, and says that until we are born again and our hearts are restored, we are not capable of being good.  We can only consistently produce the fruit of righteous behaviour by the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus, the instruction of the word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The Vancouver riots shouldn’t surprise us.  They are the inevitable outworking of a society that has – for the most part – turned its back on God.  Conscience has to be shaped, and in the absence of a relationship with Jesus, one’s conscience will inevitably reflect a mixture of truth and falsehood.   I have atheist friends who maintain that they can be good without God.  I maintain that whatever goodness and idealism they display comes mostly from being raised in a culture that is based on Biblical values, whether they realize it or not.  To take just one example, whereas those raised in a Biblical value system place a high priority on truthfulness,  there are belief systems (including Islam, although it’s not politically correct to say so) in which deception is seen as acceptable and even admirable.  My point is that the farther our culture gets from God, the more it seems natural to us to do and approve those things that the Bible calls evil.  But since we still have some sense of right and wrong, and we don’t want to think of ourselves as unrighteous, we are quick to condemn those – like the Vancouver rioters – who do things that even our weakened consciences can recognize as evil.

On the stones of the Peace Tower three verses of Scripture are inscribed.  One of the verses, Proverbs 29:18, declares: where there is no vision, the people perish.  Another translation puts it like this: where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.   The rioters on the streets of Vancouver found it relatively easy to cast off restraint because they are the products of a society that has chosen to ignore the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ.  By contrast, the runners in One Nation Run – as well as all others who have chosen to live as disciples of Jesus – have a vision and a revelation to live by.  Because Jesus has opened their eyes and brought them from death to life, they have the power to resist evil and let His light shine through their lives (Philippians 2:14-16, Matthew 5:13-16)

So, what kind of country do we want to live in?  Do we want to be part of a nation that has cast off all restraint, where everyone does as he sees fit?  Many would say this is freedom, but the Bible declares that in fact it is bondage.   Or, do we want to live as citizens of a different Kingdom – the heavenly Kingdom that is coming to earth – in which Jesus rules and his Spirit instructs our hearts in His ways?

I know what kind of country I want to live in, and which Kingdom I want to belong to.  Do you?

Share

A lifetime assignment

Goalies have different styles.

Take Roberto Luongo and Tim Thomas, for example.  For those who aren’t hockey fans, Luongo and Thomas are the goalies of the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins respectively, who are currently tied at three wins apiece in the Stanley Cup finals.

Several of the goals in this series have been a direct result of shooters understanding the unique traits of the opposing goalie’s style of play.  In game two, Alex Burrows scored the winning goal by going behind the net because he knew Tim Thomas would come way out of his net to challenge the shooter.  In game six, Brad Marchand beat Luongo on the upper left side after studying his goaltending style and habits, and discovering one of his weak areas.  His goal may well have been the key to his team’s victory in that game.

Men and women also have different styles, different ways of doing things, different ways of thinking.  Anyone who has been married for any length of time has discovered this.

As in hockey, so in marriage it is possible to catalogue your partner’s unique ways of thinking and behaving, looking for weak areas so that you can score points on each other.  In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, that probably won’t lead to the most harmonious of marriage relationships.

But what if we studied our marriage partners with a different goal in mind – so that we can learn how to love them better?

I’m making a fundamental assumption here – that you and your marriage partner have both surrendered control of your lives to Jesus and invited Him to be the Lord of your individual lives and of your marriage.  If you have not done this, most of the rest of what I say here won’t make sense to you.  Our marriage changed radically when Marion and I both explicitly surrendered our wills to Jesus, and stopped trying to control each other.  We still had lots of other issues to work through, but at least we had a starting point – we were standing on the same ground and walking in the same direction.

That was about twenty-five years ago, and since then, I’ve learned a few things.  One of the things I’ve learned is that to love my wife really well, I need to understand how she thinks.  A number of years ago Marion and I watched a series of DVDs by Dr. Gary Smalley called “Hidden Keys to Loving Relationships”.  For me, probably the number one insight that came from this teaching series was the transformative power of one simple decision.  I’m referring to the decision to honour, rather than bemoan, the built-in qualities that make my partner different from me.  Smalley related how in his own marriage he had to learn to see the differences between his wife and himself (differences in emotional makeup and ways of thinking) as a gift rather than a problem.

I’m not talking about fundamental differences in vision, goals and purpose for living.  A couple needs to be committed to unity in those fundamental areas for a marriage to work.  If your basic visions for life are different, you need to listen to the Lord together until you come to agreement.  But even if we agree on our fundamental visions and goals, men and women are different in the way we think, in the way we communicate, in the way we look at life.  And beyond typical male-female differences, individual men and women have their own unique traits.

It’s easy to get frustrated by the fact that your husband or wife doesn’t think the way you do.  But what if you choose to assume that God has made your marriage partner different from you for a reason?  Then the differences, instead of being a cause of frustration, become an asset.  When Marion and I are talking about a given situation, we often see things differently.  We have learned that this doesn’t necessarily mean one of us is wrong.  It could just mean that neither of us sees the whole picture.  Marion possesses wisdom in certain areas of life that can benefit me greatly if I am willing to humble myself and learn from her.  I also have strengths in other areas that she has learned to recognize.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that all of your marriage partner’s most irritating habits are God-given, built-in traits.  Some of them are just bad habits, old patterns that need to be unlearned, maybe even sins that need to be repented of.  Even so, I have learned that I can trust the Holy Spirit to show my wife the areas where she needs to change.  My main job is to pray for her and encourage her.  It’s amazing how much more responsive she is to me when I treat her with encouragement and acceptance.  Funny thing, eh?

Newsflash : no marriage on earth is perfect, and at times every couple has to have an honest talk.  But even those honest talks go a lot better if both partners start with the assumption that God gave us to each other for a reason, and that our differences are part of the package.  Marion and I both have a lot of changing still to do as the Lord transforms us into His image, but no matter how much each of us grows in Christ, we will always be two distinct personalities, even though we are one in flesh and in spirit.  If you are like most married couples, it’s probably the differences that attracted you to each other in the first place, and if your partner were just like you, you probably wouldn’t like it.  So, you might as well learn to appreciate the differences – they aren’t going to go away no matter what you do.  I am still learning to understand my wife’s ways, still learning to appreciate her fully.  I think it must be a lifetime assignment – women are complex creatures – but it’s well worth the effort.  My wife is a gift to me.  She is a true woman of God, and the better I understand her, the more I realize this.

I remember an older couple who had a huge impact on Marion and me earlier in our marriage.  Ray and Jean were in their seventies by that time, and Marion and I were in our late thirties/early forties.  We were church leaders, but we still had so much to learn about life!  They shared their hearts and their lives freely, and invested in us with all that they had learned over the years.  I will always be grateful to them.  Now it’s our turn to pass on some of what we’ve learned.  Marion and I have been transitioning into a new season in our marriage over the last decade as our own children have grown up.   We are excited about what is to come! We both sense that God is opening up some new areas of growth for us, and it’s our heartfelt desire that the lessons we have learned – and the ones we are still learning – will bless others who are seeking to honour God in their marriages.

Share