Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos. Great Britain: Penguin Random House, 2018. Rule 6: Set Your House in Perfect Order before You Criticize the World, pp. 145-159

Opening Thought: This rule, to set your house in order before you criticize the world, is an amplified expansion of the old biblical verse, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” [John 8:7] This chapter speaks to how people become the ones casting stones in their own sin. Peterson takes it to the extreme of serial killers and mass shooters – people who have become so convinced that the world is evil that they take it upon themselves to eradicate humanity. These are the extremes of nihilism people can fall into, where they believe that life is either evil thus “nothingness” would be better, or become convinced that there is no inherent value to 'existence, so destroying life becomes the ultimate protest. It is not uncommon that people take in the evil that occurs to them, and then forward that evil on to others; you have a bad day at the office, you come home and yell at your kids when they bother you. Evil begets evil. However, these extremes are not common, but more in number than we often like to think about. When people encounter extreme evils (especially in their early years of development: childhood and infancy), they can find a great vengeance burning inside, and without help or support, those people can become the evils we dread to see in the news headlines. The positive news is that people have a way of overcoming such evil. Not everyone who has experienced great evil as children grow up to go on a shooting spree. There is a capacity within us for following our consciences and the law which God has placed into our hearts. We have the ability to choose to do good, to do right, and to dedicate ourselves to responsibility.

We all have a tendency toward nihilism, we just haven’t been radicalized by extreme pain. When we get bad news, or have difficulties, we can feel like God, the universe, the world, ourselves, or the “other” has turned against us, and thus no justice or value exists anymore. We get hung up on the suffering in our lives, and our negative reactions pull us into destructive protests: anger, bitterness, laziness, retreat, depression, and more. Often the feelings of nihilism can be fleeting, but the more we entertain these nihilistic views the more the eat us away. Often our unhealthy habits continue because we, at some level, believe this nihilistic statement.

Peterson wisely points to literature which equates the devil to a being that which is nihilistic in his nature. This is an old biblical depiction; the Adversary is the title and name of what people understand today as the devil. The Adversary is literally against everything because existence is a character of God. We must always be mindful of this tendency towards nihilism, it is what will erode our communities and culture but also make it difficult to care for ourselves and our households. But we know that people can resist nihilism, we know that people who have suffered extreme abuse (who on all accounts could reasonably become the next mass shooters) rise up to take the moral road, the righteous road rather than the road of vengeance and nihilism. So, we know it is possible; that means you have the ability to get your house in order, you too can resist the nihilistic rhetoric circulating in your mind and choose to get healthy, get moral, and live for a better and more meaningful future.   

Opening Prayer: Lord, you are the source of all being, you are Being itself. We thus need to find a dedicated appreciation for productive being a resist the evils of nihilism. Protect us from the gaze of the adversary which longs to erode us and remind our hearts that if we trust in Christ, the Word which spoke creation into being, we can never be lost or fall into the trap of nihilism. Amen

Scripture Brought to Mind: John 8:44 - You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Reflection: There has been a shift in philosophy in our current era. Up until recently, in Western culture there was an idea that all people had an inherent value, and their ideas and beliefs we are debatable. The inherent value of people predominantly derived from Biblical references. Christ’s command to spread the gospel to all people of every nation meant all people could join in faith, there were no ethnic, socio-economic, gender, or age barriers to joining the faith. Also, the Biblical notion of humanity being created in the image of God and containing the law of God on their hearts gave value to the human creature. As the West became more secular, there was a shift to a neutering concept of “all ideas and beliefs are equal”. This rhetoric was likely developed to keep the peace between different parties. But this was the wrong tactic, rather the secular state should have been taught respect for others despite disagreement. This maintains human worth while allowing for debate of principles. However, the post-modernists loved their relativism, and thus ideas and beliefs become equal because they are merely subjective truths and none of them tap into any objective truth. As a result, you have devalued all ideas of everyone and the quest for meaning becomes meaningless. You could make the case that relativism is the love child of secularism and nihilism.

As people of faith, we too see a pointlessness of life; we know that life is fleeting, and all that we can build and acquire materially is essentially meaningless for the very simple fact that we die. We can’t take it with us. But even if we could, like Solomon figured out after a life of all privilege, it is all just dust. This is not nihilism because the person of faith realizes that there is transcendent value, a divine nature that manifests in humanity as righteousness, morality, ethics, and love. We hold to truth, not the fleeting material objects and youth of the world.

Peterson tells people to get their house in order, but in this I do not see a pursuit of the material, rather you want to live a life that pays respect to meaning. Take care of your body, mind, and spirit. Thus, you need a functioning home to live in in order to pursue higher things in meaning: knowledge, philosophy, love, and God.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: There are several things I need to get in order. If you have ever seen my garage, you know I have a whirlwind of junk I need to get rid of. The garage is my void for projects I do not feel I have time for. Anything I feel I need to neglect goes in there. I do have a pretty intense job, which consumes many of my waking hours, but I often use that to justify not cleaning the garage. I have more to do, but in all reality, if the garage was clean, I would have more easement day to day, making more waking time for work. It is really my laziness that gets the better of me. So, I’ll be working on that this week, and likely for weeks to come.

Prayer for your week: God, help us to get our homes in order. Help us to see the value of the creation you have made for us, that creation is the temple that holds your Spirit of truth and meaning. Therefore, help us to show care and love to the temple so we can all dwell together in communion. Amen.

Artistic Close: Spring cleaning is a great way to put this rule into practice, the cleaning can be very therapeutic. Don’t forget to donate anything you don’t need.