THE RETURN OF SANITY

Daniel 4:1-7; 2 Peter 1:1-21; Psalm 119:97-112; Proverbs 28:17-18

“When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as head of my kingdom, with even greater honor than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and glorify and honor the King of heaven. All his acts are just and true, and he is able to humble the proud.”

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.”

“Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are my constant guide. Yes, I have more insight than my teachers, for I am always thinking of your laws. I am even wiser than my elders, for I have kept your commandments. I have refused to walk on any evil path, so that I may remain obedient to your word. I haven’t turned away from your regulations, for you have taught me well.”

“The blameless will be rescued from harm, but the crooked will be suddenly destroyed.”

Sometimes, sanity abandons us. This is no more obvious than in our current economic crisis. The pundits argue incessantly about the whys and wherefores of our situation, but their pontification means little. They are focused on symptoms, not the disease. The disease is one as old as mankind itself: simple greed. At no prior time in our history was prosperity any more of a given than during the years 1995-2006. As a society, we went well beyond fat and lazy right into complacent and self-obsessed. We gave no real consideration to the effects our actions would have on others. We literally lost our minds over our get rich quick schemes. Now, as painful and harsh as it may seem, sanity has returned and imposed its inexorable hold on the consequences of our actions and our thoughtlessness. “The Emperor’s New Clothes” have been revealed for what they are: empty promises and vain ambition. We have an entire generation to teach how to handle adversity. They must learn about suffering. Above all, they need to be led to the Lord.

We must start at the beginning, by acknowledging the truth to ourselves. Then, we must be strong enough to admit the truth to our children. We are a modern day Old Testament Israel, no getting around it. One cannot miss the parallels. We have chosen our own path; worshipped idols of our own making; and forsaken the One God who got us here. We have steadfastly failed and refused to learn from the lessons of history, so we have repeated them to excess. Personally, I fear we tend to think we are better than our history and better people than our ancestors. We think we can get away with sin. We think we can avoid its consequences. We are dead wrong, literally. In so thinking, we disregard the objective facts and our own prior experiences. Just look around, honestly. ‘Nuff said about that….

Just admitting we’ve screwed up gets us nowhere, of course. There’s much more to any spiritual recovery. We have to tear down our idols. We need to roll up our sleeves and get back to a life defined by right and wrong, and not just by what we think of as good and bad. We tend to see as “bad” anything that makes us uncomfortable, and “good” as its opposite, and we leave the ethical debate to the professionals. How contrary to the Word of God – and the Truth - this perspective is! Morality has absolutely nothing to do with how we may feel about it. Some of the best – more accurately, right – things in life are in fact the most painful. Self-sacrifice, love, even war can be right, but they most certainly do not always feel very good. “Right” typically has very little to do with the way things feel, and any contrary view necessarily purports to put us on a level with God, whether we think of it that way or not.

Anytime we dare define the mores of society based on how we personally feel or believe, we necessarily usurp the role of God. There is another, more objective, standard of right and wrong, which also helps us understand the real difference between good and bad. It’s called the Bible, or more specifically, The Owner’s Manual. The world will not run properly if we do not follow its directions, no matter how loudly we protest to the contrary. History actually teaches this. We have pretty much exhausted our other options. It is time to return to the One who started it all and begin playing the game, and reconstructing our society, according to His Rules.

Finally, our return to sanity will require a healthy dose of forgiveness, even (probably, especially) of those who remain unrepentant. I recently had a conversation with a man who felt another had done grievous wrongs to a number of his friends, as well as to the man himself. The issues had been thoroughly investigated by third parties, and the supposed “sinner” was found to have no guilt in the matter. My friend, however, could not let it go. When I suggested what was needed in the aftermath was forgiveness all around, serious resistance came forward in the form of Christian mind games and simple semantics. “I have forgiven him. But I cannot be reconciled to one who is not repentant.” Please, call a spade a spade. Let’s not make things worse by lying to ourselves. If we cannot be reconciled, we cannot forgive. Make no mistake: forgiveness is not reconciliation, or vice versa. The offending party can decide to reject both our forgiveness and our attempts at reconciliation. But that in no way prevents us from being able to be reconciled, if the opportunity presents itself. The proper Christian response (to be uttered only in cases where it is in fact true) is, “I have forgiven him. I am reconciled to him and accept that he is what he is, as am I. How and if God will bring us together is now in their hands.”

There have been mistakes enough to go around several times over. That’s just life. If we get stuck in the blame game, we have no real hope of bringing the Kingdom to earth, or of ever seeing the New Jerusalem. Let’s be clear: forgiveness and reconciliation are ours to give. The fact that they may not be accepted does not in any way mitigate our refusal to offer both to those we think have wronged us.

Recapturing sanity is a painful process. Just ask Nebuchadnezzar. He would tell you it hurts. But he would also tell you that, in the power of God, it can be done. Instead of obsessing over what’s wrong or bad, it’s time to forsake all that in favor of what’s right. The next generation is counting on us to help them get it right. We led the world into this; it is our responsibility to help lead them out of it. Through Christ, all things are possible.