Facing the winds of culture …

I’m not a handy guy. So when I bought a home in the young community of Green Valley, California, I bought new.

Actually, the house wasn’t even built yet.

I liked the model, and the corner lot, and a couple months later the house was finished.

A new home in a new housing development in a young community meant this non-handy guy would have few repair concerns for several years at least.

Even the community landscaping was new, including the trees.

Or should I say, especially the trees.

Not being a “tree person,” I still don’t know what kind of trees were planted, but they were more like tall branches stuck in the ground than they were trees. They would grow up with the community.

And indeed they did!

The problem was how they grew up.

What I didn’t know before buying the home was that Green Valley can sometimes be like a wind tunnel. Strong winds often blow right through that area. If it wasn’t for the fact that the young trees were supported with twine so thick it was like small rope, they wouldn’t have stood a chance in the gusts of Green Valley.

The last time I was in California, I drove through the housing development I had lived in to see how it had matured. The first thing I noticed was the trees had grown up. I mean, they really looked like trees!

Except they all grew up with a bend that would make the leaning Tower of Pisa look perfectly straight! As it turns out, years of being pushed almost to the point of breaking by the harsh winds blowing through the valley resulted in the trees growing with a bent in the direction the wind had blown them.

The winds of Green Valley had visibly, permanently shaped the development of the trees.

In looking at how the winds had shaped the trees, it made me think of how culture tries to shape us. We’re constantly being pushed and blown about by the shifting winds of the culture around us. It’s influence is strong, it bends and shapes people who don’t have enough support to hold them up against the gusts pushing against them.

Just as there were a few options as to how the trees of Green Valley could have faced the strong winds, there are a few ways we can face culture.

First, you can try to ignore culture, just as some in the community tried to ignore the winds. Those people didn’t tie down the trees in their yards. The result was usually a young tree snapped in two like a toothpick!

Americans are bombarded with as many as 5,000 advertisements per day telling them what to buy, how to dress, what to eat, where to shop, and what new prescription medication they should tell their doctors they should be taking. That’s just the influence of ads.

Then there’s your spouse’s opinion, your children’s opinion, your parents’ opinion, your bosses opinion, what your co-workers think, and all the other influences of all the other people in your life.

You can try to ignore culture, but it’s still there, and its influence is real. Whether we say so or not, what others think — at least some of them — does matter to us. Culture will have its influence, even if we try to ignore it.

Second, there’s the opposite extreme of embracing culture, which is like letting the winds blow however they want.

We already know the outcome of that: an ugly bend. The trees of Green Valley don’t stand straight as a beautiful tree should; instead, they are bent as a reminder of the force of the wind.

The same happens when we embrace culture. We lose ourselves, and become a product of whatever our cultural influences make of us.

So what other option is there?

We can engage culture.

Kind of like those homeowners who tied their trees down with enough support so that no matter how strong the winds blew, their trees stood tall. During the strongest winds, there was some jostling and some leans, but the ropes anchoring them in the other direction allowed the trees to endure the stoutest of gusts.

It’s easy to spot these trees throughout the community because they are the only ones standing straight.

When we anchor ourselves with the cord of God’s Word, the strength of the Holy Spirit, and the bonds of Christian fellowship, we can engage culture. In fact, we can even influence culture! By standing tall in the midst of a strong wind, we provide the example that we don’t have to bend in the direction culture pushes.

There’s a better way to stand.

Jesus talked about how to overcome the winds (or storms) that blow against us in Matthew 7:24-27:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

How are you responding to the gusts of culture: ignoring it, embracing it, or engaging it? What have you anchored your life to?

Scotty