Presidential photo shared by VP Harris omits Donald Trump

When current and former US presidents gather (most often at a funeral for one of their own), the world takes notice. So it was last week at Jimmy Carter’s funeral services. Every living president was there, and most of the pictures from the event reflected that fact.

Most, but not all.

Most photos of the service featured President Joe Biden on the first row and the four former presidents on the row behind him: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, seated left to right in the images along with their wives (except for Mrs. Obama, who was not present). But the photo that made national headlines, shared on social media by Vice President Kamala Harris’s office, was taken from a different angle. It ends with Mr. Obama on the far right. Mr. Trump and his wife are nowhere to be seen.

A representative for Ms. Harris’s office declined to comment.

Now to a very different story. Prior to last Saturday’s playoff game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Houston Texans, former NFL head coach and current ESPN analyst Rex Ryan said the contest was essentially a “bye week” for the Chargers, predicting that they would win the game easily. After Houston won decisively, Texans running back Joe Mixon clapped back at Ryan, who apologized Sunday morning.

“I the Lᴏʀᴅ love justice”

When we feel slighted or injured, it is human nature to respond in kind. We feel justified in paying back what we receive. Hurting people hurt people, as the saying goes.

I fully agree that justice is biblical: we are to “seek justice, correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17), to “let justice roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24), knowing that “I the Lᴏʀᴅ love justice” (Isaiah 61:8).

But when it comes to personal slights, to sins that are more insults than crimes, what if we saw ourselves less as innocent victims than as fellow perpetrators? What if we took a moment to remember the ways we have done to others what has now been done to us?

Would this help us to “forgive, if you have anything against anyone” (Mark 11:25)?

To this end, let’s discuss one of the few places where I would be so bold as to disagree with C. S. Lewis.

“The greatest curse in spiritual life is conceit”

In The Problem of Pain, the great apologist discusses God’s unconditional love for us and writes: “It passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes.” It does, indeed.

Unless, however, our Father’s love for us is explained not by our “value” but by his nature. He loves us because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). In fact, he loves us as much as he loves his own Son (John 17:23, 26).

No merit could possibly explain such love. We could not begin to pretend equivalence with the sinless Lord Jesus. But if God loves us unconditionally because his character compels him to do so, such love makes sense. 

In fact, the more we experience our holy God personally and intimately, the less worthy we know ourselves to be. Oswald Chambers observed: 

The greatest curse in spiritual life is conceit. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we shall never say—“Oh I am so unworthy,” because we shall know we are, beyond the possibility of stating it.

The closer we are to God, the further away we realize we are.

“Nothing gives such pleasure to God”

This is why true worship is the gateway to true humility. Billy Graham observed,

“Worship in the truest sense takes place only when our full attention is on God—on his glory, his power, his majesty, his love, his compassion.”

And of course, when our “full attention” is on God or anyone or anything else, it cannot be on ourselves as well. Admitting we need what only grace can give is vital to experiencing this grace personally.

Jesus healed a man with a withered hand only after he stretched it out in faith to receive what Jesus could give (Matthew 12:13). The Pharisees responded to our Lord’s grace in the opposite way: they “went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (v. 14). Now their group is an anachronism of history, while Jesus can claim more than two billion followers today.

When we focus our lives on Jesus, we experience his best in return. And as we are changed, God uses us to change the world. St. Gregory Nazianzen (AD 329–90) advised:

Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received—though not in its fullness—a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

“Still be my vision, O Ruler of all”

To focus on God and not ourselves, experiencing the grace we can then pay forward to our broken world, let’s close with one of the world’s oldest hymns. With origins in sixth-century Ireland, it prays:

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Be all else naught to me, save that thou art;

Be thou my best thought in the day and the night,

Both waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,

Be thou ever with me, and I with thee, Lord;

Be thou my great Father, and I thy true son;

Be thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;

Be thou my whole armor, be thou my true might;

Be thou my soul’s shelter, be thou my strong tower:

O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I need not, nor man’s empty praise:

Be thou mine inheritance now and always;

Be thou and thou only first in my heart;

O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, thou heaven’s bright sun,

O grant me its joys after victory is won!

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Great heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Amen.