How many times have we heard, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater?” And how many times have you scratched your head and thought, “what baby?”
I do nearly every time I hear this phrase. Usually because of the context of the conversation and the fact that this phrase makes little sense to me. The actual meaning states: to get rid of the good parts as well as the bad parts of something when you are trying to make improvements.
So how does this phrase get used in Christian circles today?
I know you were waiting to see how I was going to parlay that one into a spiritual discussion.
A perfect example is ridding the church of today’s pop psychology. I’m not talking about medical conditions, I am talking about convenient labels, excuses for behaviors and an overall worship of what a man in a lab coat says over what the God of the universe has already stated.
When psychology/psychiatry is combined with the bible or you actually use the belief system (meaning Christianity) of a state licensed psychologist/psychiatrist as a descriptive label, i.e. “Christian” Psychologist/Psychiatrist then you get what is commonly referred to as an Integrationist – someone who attempts to take what they learned for their state license (complete with Freud, Jung, Wundt and a host of others) and fuse it with the “principles” of scripture. Confusing? Absolutely.
I’m addressing the baby of sound doctrine and the bathwater of psycho-babbled nonsense that inhibits the Gospel and weakens the body of Christ. The bathwater that encourages us to look to labels and personality tests rather than God’s word and the instruction found there. The bathwater that does not include spiritual affirmation within the body.
But the baby states very clearly:
2 Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
The bathwater further frustrates the Gospel in our lives by allowing us the sinful excuse to blame our past for the way we live our lives today. We can justify and rationalize our behavior because of some past abuse or the way our parents raised us or because we didn’t get enough ice cream as a child. Who knows…everybody’s got some traumatic experience relevant only to them. (And I am not making light of any real tragedy in someone’s life – I am addressing the dwelling on the past via whatever excuse we might have in the present.)
However, once we have learned the truth of our sinful hearts, the godly way to handle our past and even the biblical way to move through life . . . then, we become responsible for it. We no longer have the convenience of “blame” and therefore, as Christians we must look to God’s word for the answers. We find and know the Truth and the Truth should lead to obedience. The Truth never encourages us to wallow in our past. I capitalize Truth because in scripture it is referring directly to Jesus as the Truth.
So, while we are encouraged by many of our Integrated friends to not be so hard on ourselves because of something in our past, we must first look to God’s word as our foundation and learn what is at the heart of our current state. I know for me, it’s usually a pride issue or at the very least an area in my life that I am clinging to because I don’t want to do the work it takes to rid myself of it. Laziness. Sloth.
Many of us are like that. Yes, we can be free from depression, but it’ll take some work. I will have to admit my own sin in the midst of my suffering in order to gain clarity about it. I will have to confess any unforgiveness and move through obedience and trust God for that outcome. It’s work and there’s always the personal luggage that we’ve dragged behind us for so long, we can’t even begin to think who we’d be without it.
Can’t I just take the blue pill?
God has reassured us of our freedom. Part of that freedom is having the faith to trust God!
So, throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
The reality is that I love the baby too much to NOT throw out the bathwater.
peacemakingirl