Going Clockwise in a Counter-Clockwise World

Technology has touched our lives in many ways, some good and some bad. It’s even intensified the communications gap between generations. Take the evolution of the telephone, for example. If you can define the meaning of “party line” or explain why we still talk about “dialing” the phone, chances are very good you’re a Baby Boomer. A millennial has no clue what those terms mean.

And if you can remember the days of using a knob for changing channels on the TV; how it was necessary to maneuver the “rabbit ears” to get good TV reception, or even referred to the device as a “television set,” again you’re probably a member of the so-called Boomer generation.

As clocks change, in generations to come,
how will we know if we're going
clockwise or counter-clockwise?

In this digital age – when time on most of our watches, clocks and cell phones appears in numerals like 3:45 and 10:17, without hour, minute and sweeping second hands – how long will we still understand what it means to go “clockwise” or “counter-clockwise”?

I started wondering about this at our local mall early one morning during my power-walking regimen. Like most of the walkers, I was going counter-clockwise, just as stockcars and thoroughbred horses do when racing in the United States. Then I noticed one fellow who’d resolved to go against the flow, like a salmon choosing to swim downstream rather than upstream like the rest of its finny friends.

This gentleman was a stranger, but judging from his gray hair and the ponytail cascading down his back, he might have been a remnant of the hippie era, staging an ambulatory protest against conformity. Since most of the walkers weren’t moving very quickly, risks of a head-on collision were slight. But it did seem disconcerting to pass Mr. Clockwise going in a contrary direction.

Then it occurred to me that as followers of Jesus Christ, part of our calling could be described as choosing a clockwise path in an increasingly counter-clockwise world.

Romans 12:2 warns, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Another passage exhorts followers of Christ, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – come not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:15-16).

Tough words for sure, and perhaps a bit difficult to accept. After all, we live in the world, don’t we? If everyone else is going counter-clockwise, why should we be different?

And just what is “the pattern of this world”? What is “loving the world” all about?

We get the “pattern” in part from the media and popular culture. They’re constantly telling us what to think and believe, sometimes in ways that clearly contradict teachings of the Bible. This applies to individual behavior, moral convictions and ethical standards. If we disagree with shifting values, society tells us we’re out of step and need to get with the program.

We see it in society’s pervasive emphasis on materialism, the underlying message being that true happiness and fulfillment are found in money and things we possess. We even have churches and TV evangelists that affirm this perspective.

Then we have political correctness and the so-called “thought police,” trying to press us into their mold. They often bring to life the biblical description, “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity…they not only continue to do these things but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:29-32). Not only that, but if we don’t concur with their redefining of morality and acceptable behavior, we’re portrayed as bigots, haters, narrow-minded and judgmental.

Yes, it seems in many ways to be a follower of Jesus today means to go against the tide, or to go clockwise in a counter-clockwise world. But it was the same for Jesus Himself. His was the ultimate “road less traveled,” and we’re called to do much the same, as He directs.

Is it easy going against the flow? Maybe in a mall, but definitely not in the world around us. But as Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).

Blessing . . . Or Curse?

Often during important political elections, key issues are raised and debated. Perhaps the most common is described simply by a phrase we’ve often seen: “It’s the economy, stupid!” The world can be tumbling around us, but as long as we’re doing well financially, all’s well. Conversely, many things may be going right in society, but if we’re confronting inflation, high interest rates, or other fiscal maladies, panic typically ensues.

Sometimes too much of a good thing is...too much of a good thing.

For those who would propose the United States is a “Christian nation,” one of the evidences they submit is our history of economic prosperity. We still have the poor among us, but even many of our disenfranchised have earthly possessions that the “wealthiest” people in some Third World nations would envy. So we conclude, solely on the basis of material goods, that “the Lord has really blessed us.”

I sometimes wonder about that. I’m like everyone else – I’d like to have a little extra at the end of each paycheck, but prosperity can be as much a curse as it is a blessing.

In C.S. Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters, in which a demon offers advice to an apprentice, Lewis makes this observation: “Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth.”

That’s a lot to chew on, but I think the late Mr. Lewis was onto something.  I’ve often heard it said that some of the happiest people in the world are poor. That’s not an endorsement of poverty, nor a justification for anyone who believes they don’t have a responsibility to help the less fortunate in some way. But think about it – poor people aren’t worried about what the stock market does today. They don’t have to install costly security systems on their homes. Many don’t have to consider how buying a new car will affect their insurance premiums. They don’t need safes to protect their valuables.

They may have other worries, but they don’t have to worry about preserving their “stuff.”

And as C.S. Lewis suggests, if our prosperity gives us the “sense of being really at home in earth,” we can easily forget about the eternal home Jesus promised to all who have received him. The apostle John expressed it clearly when he wrote, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

Jesus stated it another way: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Luke 16:13).

I believe one primary purpose for the trials we experience in life, financial setbacks and hardships among them, is to serve as a reminder that no matter how we enjoy it, the world is not our home. The apostle Paul didn’t mince words when he wrote, “…many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:18-20).

If someone were to judge you according to your attitude toward your possessions, the level of prosperity you currently experience, would they conclude your citizenship is in heaven – or in this world? That’s a question we might not like, but it’s worth an honest answer.