This is my fifth New Year's Eve post that I've written since I started this blog in 2008, and this post has always been one to which I've looked forward. At the end of every year, I've always liked to look back at the previous 12 months, pick out a few key moments, post a few of the rare pictures in which I'm not drooling or something, and put a cap on the year.
I could write do something similar this year, but the truth is that I don't have all that much to say about 2012. To be honest, I feel it wasn't an especially eventful year for me. I suppose there were a few significant times. Some were good: I was ordained on New Year's Day; I started preaching at a church in Germantown, Kentucky; I took a trip to Maryland for a friend's wedding; I gained a couple nephews; I forged some new friendships; I watched The Wonder Years; I found my watch under my couch after I thought I had lost it; and they opened a Qdoba in my part of town . Some parts were not so good: I made mistakes; I lost some friendships; I stressed out a lot and had a lot of late nights writing papers; and I generally became even more cynical than I was a year ago.
I tend to become especially reflective at the end of December. I think back over the year and ask, "Am I a different person now than I was in January?" The answer ought to be "Yes", I think. We are designed to continually develop and change as we get older. But when I think about 2012, I think my answer would have to be "No." I haven't changed very much, and not many thing about my life, my daily activities, or my setting have changed either.
Oh wait. Let me amend that. I did get a peacoat and a scarf. So that's new.
Maybe my struggle comes in part because I've been approaching New Year's wrong all these years. I've always used it as a reason to look back at what has happened and to remember the year with fondness. And looking back may be alright, but it's only really useful when it's paired with a glance forward. Since moving to Cincinnati a year and a half ago, I've become increasingly nostalgic. I'm always thinking about how great things used to be and who I used to be, and I try to figure out how I can recapture the elements that made my past great. But when you go through life with that sort of approach, you cease moving forward. You can't run ahead of you if you're gaze is always fixed behind you.
When you begin each year looking back but not forward, you can't expect to progress over the next twelve months. You'll stay the same. Over the past few years, I've seen my friends and peers maturing, getting married, starting families, beginning exciting new ventures. And I've eaten a lot of frozen pizzas and worn the same sweatpants almost every day.
The past has value, and it's important from time to time to look back at it. But it's only useful when it propels you forward. You are born out of your past, but you're aren't defined by it. The future holds possibility, and we are reminded of that each January 1st. I'm not forced to stay as I am. In fact, I'm built to do the opposite. I'm built to grow and change and develop.
I don't know what 2012 has meant for you. I really do hope that it was a banner year for you and that it's one full of good memories and cheerful moments. But maybe, like me, you're ready for something new. The good news is that new things are possible. That's true each day of the year, I guess, but we feel it most fully as that ball in Times Square drops.
In any case, I really ought to wash these sweatpants sometime. Maybe I'll make that Resolution #1.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Stuff I Like Pt. 2
A couple years ago, I wrote a blog post that was just a list of things I like. There are a couple reasons why doing something like this is beneficial from time to time. For one thing, it is Christmas season, and during this time it's good to think about happy things like trees with lights, snowman-shaped sugar cookies, and catching a honey under the mistletoe. For another, I can tend to be a rather negative person, and I have a habit on focusing on things I don't like rather than on things that I do. And so, in order not to become a complete Debbie Downer, I have to occasionally remind myself of the things in life I really like.
And so, for your edification, here's the 2012 version of "Stuff I Like":
-I like "O Come O Come Emmanuel." It's my favorite Christmas song.
-I like handwritten letters. I feel that if something is really worth saying, it's worth getting a hand-cramp about.
-I like that a vendor at the mall tried to get me to buy some hand lotion by asking if I had a "special lady in my life."
-I like to watch "It's a Wonderful Life," get a little teary-eyed at the end, and then scold myself for being such a sap.
-I like that I drive right past Great American Ballpark on my way to church each weekend.
-I like eating pizza. Seriously, it's maybe the one thing I could eat every meal for the rest of my life and not get tired of.
-I like this shirt. (This is a not-so-subtle hint in case you're not sure what to get me for my birthday.)
-I like the left side of my face, because my beard isn't as patchy there as on the right side.
-I like when I can watch a movie and identify what else an actor is in without having to check IMDB. By the way, did you know that the doctor in "The Dark Knight Rises" was in an episode of "How I Met Your Mother"?
-I like to keep my apartment cold, because I like the warmth of being under my covers in the morning.
-I like to watch really dramatic, coming-of-age TV shows, because I feel it makes up for the lack of drama in my own life.
-I like when someone quotes my blog. Seriously, it makes me feel more accomplished than in anything else I do.
-I like fiction written by British authors. Somehow, they really are the best storytellers.
-I like going to Kansas and seeing the massive Kansas sky that stretches from horizon to horizon.
-I like when people recognize my Oregon State Beavers jacket for what it is instead of assuming it's a Cincinnati Bengals jacket.
-I like how every frozen yogurt shop feels the need to have furniture that looks like it's from a 1950's science fiction movie.
-I like the sense of hopeful that expectation that exists when I go to a baseball game or ride an airplane, and I know that there is a chance that Katie the Bank Teller could have the ticket to the empty seat next to mean. However, I don't like the crushing disappointment that comes when it turns out to be a 45-year-old dude who won't even share his nachos with me.
-I like to have pictures of my friends on my fridge so that I can think of them every time I get some pizza rolls or a can of Coke.
-I like going to the Esquire Theater in Cincinnati because of its sense of nostalgia.
-I like to talk with people about what they have been reading lately. I think you can a lot about a person through such discussions.
-I like when I go to Chick-fil-A and order a 8-piece chicken nugget, but they make a mistake and give me nine nuggets instead.
-I like wearing a bookbag. It makes me feel like I'm living the day with purpose.
-I like going places where everyone is good-looking, professional, and sharply dressed, and then I like to daydream about what it would be like not to be such a slob.
-I like that time Donald Miller retweeted me.
-I like thinking of all the women who will fall in love with me next month when I'm able to post pictures of me with my newborn nephews.
-I like to drink a mug of hot chocolate on chilly winter nights while I watch TV.
-I like how a recent commercial for the iPad Mini showed the cover of Love Does by Bob Goff, which was perhaps the best book I read this year.
-I like being able to look up from my typing and see my Alfred Hitchcock poster, which reminds me of just how classy I really am.
-I like to sometimes take the last couple steps going down stairs as one big jump because it reminds me of doing that when I was a kid.
-I like when city streets are arranged as a grid, so that it's always pretty simple to get from one place to another.
-I like when people come over to my apartment because it forces me to clean up the place.
-I like winking. I feel it's an underused form of nonverbal communication.
And finally, I like you. I like that's it's Christmas season. And more than anything else, I like that Jesus somehow loved us so much that he entered the mess of our world to make it right.
What about you? What's on your like-list for 2012?
And so, for your edification, here's the 2012 version of "Stuff I Like":
-I like "O Come O Come Emmanuel." It's my favorite Christmas song.
-I like handwritten letters. I feel that if something is really worth saying, it's worth getting a hand-cramp about.
-I like that a vendor at the mall tried to get me to buy some hand lotion by asking if I had a "special lady in my life."
-I like to watch "It's a Wonderful Life," get a little teary-eyed at the end, and then scold myself for being such a sap.
-I like that I drive right past Great American Ballpark on my way to church each weekend.
-I like eating pizza. Seriously, it's maybe the one thing I could eat every meal for the rest of my life and not get tired of.
-I like this shirt. (This is a not-so-subtle hint in case you're not sure what to get me for my birthday.)
-I like the left side of my face, because my beard isn't as patchy there as on the right side.
-I like when I can watch a movie and identify what else an actor is in without having to check IMDB. By the way, did you know that the doctor in "The Dark Knight Rises" was in an episode of "How I Met Your Mother"?
-I like to keep my apartment cold, because I like the warmth of being under my covers in the morning.
-I like to watch really dramatic, coming-of-age TV shows, because I feel it makes up for the lack of drama in my own life.
-I like when someone quotes my blog. Seriously, it makes me feel more accomplished than in anything else I do.
-I like fiction written by British authors. Somehow, they really are the best storytellers.
-I like going to Kansas and seeing the massive Kansas sky that stretches from horizon to horizon.
-I like when people recognize my Oregon State Beavers jacket for what it is instead of assuming it's a Cincinnati Bengals jacket.
-I like how every frozen yogurt shop feels the need to have furniture that looks like it's from a 1950's science fiction movie.
-I like the sense of hopeful that expectation that exists when I go to a baseball game or ride an airplane, and I know that there is a chance that Katie the Bank Teller could have the ticket to the empty seat next to mean. However, I don't like the crushing disappointment that comes when it turns out to be a 45-year-old dude who won't even share his nachos with me.
-I like to have pictures of my friends on my fridge so that I can think of them every time I get some pizza rolls or a can of Coke.
-I like going to the Esquire Theater in Cincinnati because of its sense of nostalgia.
-I like to talk with people about what they have been reading lately. I think you can a lot about a person through such discussions.
-I like when I go to Chick-fil-A and order a 8-piece chicken nugget, but they make a mistake and give me nine nuggets instead.
-I like wearing a bookbag. It makes me feel like I'm living the day with purpose.
-I like going places where everyone is good-looking, professional, and sharply dressed, and then I like to daydream about what it would be like not to be such a slob.
-I like that time Donald Miller retweeted me.
-I like thinking of all the women who will fall in love with me next month when I'm able to post pictures of me with my newborn nephews.
-I like to drink a mug of hot chocolate on chilly winter nights while I watch TV.
-I like how a recent commercial for the iPad Mini showed the cover of Love Does by Bob Goff, which was perhaps the best book I read this year.
-I like being able to look up from my typing and see my Alfred Hitchcock poster, which reminds me of just how classy I really am.
-I like to sometimes take the last couple steps going down stairs as one big jump because it reminds me of doing that when I was a kid.
-I like when city streets are arranged as a grid, so that it's always pretty simple to get from one place to another.
-I like when people come over to my apartment because it forces me to clean up the place.
-I like winking. I feel it's an underused form of nonverbal communication.
And finally, I like you. I like that's it's Christmas season. And more than anything else, I like that Jesus somehow loved us so much that he entered the mess of our world to make it right.
What about you? What's on your like-list for 2012?
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Axios: Come Alive
I don't often share the spotlight with anyone else on this blog. I like to keep things "All David, All the Time." So when I do offer a plug for someone else's project, you should take that to mean that there is a good reason.
On Tuesday, November 27th, my friends and former classmates in the worship band Axios will be releasing their first album, Come Alive. Here are three reasons that you should buy it and listen to it (besides the fact that they are all so good-looking, which I feel is so obvious that it can go unmentioned).
1. I'm not expert in music, but I really like music, and I like to think that I can recognize good music when I hear. And this album is good music. The bits of the album that I've heard absolutely rock. It's the kind of stuff that you can have playing while you're doing your dishes, and maybe you'll do a little jig in your kitchen when you're sure no one is standing outside your apartment's back door looking at you. (Not that I've done that, of course....) But in any case, if you like listening to worship music, or just to music in general, this album is for you.
2. One of my favorite things about Axios' songs is that the lyrics are heavily based in Scripture itself. I think that the Bible should be, not just our guide for doctrine and ethics, but our guide for worship as well. That's one of the great things about some of the classic hymns, and one of the reason that these hymns have remained in church tradition for so long is that they are grounded in the unchanging Word of God. It's a good thing when a worship song can use biblical phrasing and themes, and Axios' songs do that well. When you're singing or listening to these songs, your engaging with texts like Psalm 24, Romans 8, Ephesians 4, and Revelation 4 & 7. It's important for Christians to read, listen to, and study God's Word, and it's a big bonus when we can sing it too!
3. I've been to a lot of churches, conferences, and camps, and one thing I've noticed with some worship bands is that they treat what happens on the stage as the extent of their ministry. That's not how Axios rolls. One of the things I really respect about them is that they understand that ministry is about more than playing songs. They lead worship at a lot of youth camps and retreats, and they spend time getting to know kids and showing love to them, and that's what separates musicianship from ministry, I think. Also, they've partnered with an organization called Blackbox International, which aides boys who are rescued from sex trafficking throughout the world. Twenty percent of the proceeds from Come Alive will go to Blackbox International, so by purchasing a super-good album, you can also partner in that ministry, and everyone wins.
So on Tuesday, get yourself a copy of Come Alive on iTunes, or from Axios' website here. Also be sure to check out the band's Facebook here, their Twitter here, and their Youtube here.
1. I'm not expert in music, but I really like music, and I like to think that I can recognize good music when I hear. And this album is good music. The bits of the album that I've heard absolutely rock. It's the kind of stuff that you can have playing while you're doing your dishes, and maybe you'll do a little jig in your kitchen when you're sure no one is standing outside your apartment's back door looking at you. (Not that I've done that, of course....) But in any case, if you like listening to worship music, or just to music in general, this album is for you.
2. One of my favorite things about Axios' songs is that the lyrics are heavily based in Scripture itself. I think that the Bible should be, not just our guide for doctrine and ethics, but our guide for worship as well. That's one of the great things about some of the classic hymns, and one of the reason that these hymns have remained in church tradition for so long is that they are grounded in the unchanging Word of God. It's a good thing when a worship song can use biblical phrasing and themes, and Axios' songs do that well. When you're singing or listening to these songs, your engaging with texts like Psalm 24, Romans 8, Ephesians 4, and Revelation 4 & 7. It's important for Christians to read, listen to, and study God's Word, and it's a big bonus when we can sing it too!
So on Tuesday, get yourself a copy of Come Alive on iTunes, or from Axios' website here. Also be sure to check out the band's Facebook here, their Twitter here, and their Youtube here.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Here's To You
This post is a bicentennial of sorts (a bicentpostal?), because this is the 200TH POST on A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferret. If the United States gets a special coin for turning 200, I think it's only fair that there be something to celebrate my accomplishment as well. Maybe not a coin, but something. I already tried to get Macy's to fly a balloon of my face in the Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning, but they said it was too short of notice. Maybe we could make a commemorative quilt? One of you should get started on that.
In the last 199 posts, I've done a lot of writing about myself. However, I haven't done much writing about YOU. And so, on this 200th post, and since it is Thanksgiving, I thought it was time to give you your due. And so, this is my tribute to you, Reader. Enjoy it. Because it probably won't happen again.
I tried to think about what qualities my average reader probably possesses. The first on that I thought was "Extremely bored." It seriously shocks me that you've chosen to make your way here. Have you ever been on the Internet before? Do you know how much other stuff there is to do out there? I mean you could be looking at this or this or this, or even this, and all of that would probably be a more productive and entertaining use of your time.
I do realize, however, that "bored" probably isn't the most complementary quality to ascribe to a person, and it doesn't make for a very good tribute. So let's start over. You, O Reader, are...
1. Patient. I write a lot of ridiculous things on here, and I take a long time to say them. For instance, this is the real beginning of what I've wanted to say in this post, and it's taken me five paragraphs of introduction to get here. Most of my posts include a number of jokes that I doubt anyone will laugh at besides me, and just about every post includes an unabashed plea for a date, or for brownies (this post will be no exception, by the way). And yet, in spite of all my absurdity, you hang in there. If more Black Friday shoppers had your patience, I wouldn't be thinking about eating my Thanksgiving turkey raw so that I would get sick and not have to go to work right now.
2. Good-looking. When you were in Jr. High, did you ever notice that all the really good-looking people tended to hang out together. I was always wondered how this worked out. Did they take applications and hold interviews or something? At what point would they say, "No, you're just too average-looking to run with us"? If this trend continues into early adulthood, I have to assume that you, Reader, are very good-looking, because, well, I'm good-looking (patchy beard notwithstanding). So if you need to, take a break from reading this for a moment, go look in your bathroom mirror, wink at yourself, and rest secure in the fact of your natural attractiveness.
3. Generous. This is a quality of yourself that you still need to prove. But I have faith in you. Christmas season is beginning, and it is the season for giving. You'll be busy getting gifts for your family, friends, and significant others. But you know who tends to fall through the cracks in all of this? The bloggers in your life. And those bloggers are hungry. For brownies. And cookies. And cash.
But on a serious note, I do want to wish you the happiest of Thanksgivings, and I hope that you have a wonderful day with family and friends and pies and mashed potatoes. I am sincerely thankful for you and for the fact that you've chosen to spend a few minutes of your day here, and I'm really thankful for those of you who do this every week.
And if you do decide to go out shopping for Black Friday, please, for my sake, be kind and gracious to the employees who are working. Whenever you see one, picture him as a sweet little puppy that needs a kind word. And if he hits on you and asks for your number, just go with it. He deserves it.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Because I Can
Normally, I would be sitting in my Old Testament Criticism class right now. However, it is Thanksgiving Break, which means that today I have a (gasp!) free day! I have been sorely in need for a day like this for some time, because since Labor Day, I think, I have had to either work or go to class every day. The various obligations in my life have used up all my time and have dictated the way that I spend each day. But today is different. Today I could wake up and think "This day is mine; from this moment until I go to bed today, I can do whatever I want."
About a year and a half ago, I moved to Cincinnati. This is the first time that I have lived in a major city, and I was very excited to come because I really like cities. I especially like the "downtown feel" of major cities, and whenever I visit one, I like walking the sidewalks and looking up at the buildings and seeing the people. Since I moved to Cincinnati, though, I never actually went downtown (except to go to Reds games). I guess I always felt weird about taking a trip downtown. I wouldn't know what to do there, and I hate to pay for parking.
But on this day of unlimited possibilities, I decided it was time to mix things up and head to downtown Cincinnati for the afternoon. And it's been a really good day, to be honest. I walked around for a bit, visiting the giant bronze fountain the stands at the center of the city. I went to a burger place I had heard about to get lunch, only to discover it was closed down, so I instead ate at a burrito place nearby. I watched all of the white-collar business professionals scurrying about--the men in their slacks and ties, and the women in their skirts and heels--and I thought about how to them, I probably look like a Caulfieldesque vagabond. I walked around the outside of Great American Ballpark, where my beloved Reds play during the summertime, and I hoped to play a game of catch with Joey Votto if I bumped into him, bu the wasn't around. I sat on a bench in a park that sits on the Ohio River and read for an hour or two. I did the same thing at a riverfront park when I lived in Oregon for a summer, and it was nice to be in an environment with a similar feel, though there were a lot less hippies wandering around.
As I sat on that bench reading, I looked across the river into Kentucky and saw a Barnes & Noble on the other side. So after a while, I thought, "I should walk over to that Barnes and Noble and look around." But then my more rational side questoined that proposal. "Why would I do that? Do I really need to?" And the answer was, "No...I don't have to. But I can."
So now I'm sitting in that Barnes & Noble, sipping a Starbucks Chai Latte and looking out the window at downtown Cincinnati, reflecting on an afternoon that has been perhaps a little aimless, but that has been needed. I had no real reason to venture downtown among the office buildings busy people making the world run on their smartphones. But I came...because I can.
I think that from time to time, we all need to do something, just because we can. It's a shame that those opportunities don't come up more frequently for most of us. When you're a little kid, you have an imagination and you dream of endless possibilities of adventures you can go on, but you can't, because you're parents won't let you be out too late. When you exit that phase of life and become an adult, you finally gain that independence from parents' restrictions but then you have work-obligations in their place. And when you get old and retire, you have freedom from the responsibilities of work, but you're aging body doesn't allow you to do what you once could.
You spend so much of your life bound to other things that determine what you can and can't do. There are so few occasions in which you can say, "I'm doing this, just because I can." And when those rare occasions do come, I think we need to take advantage of them. What I find happening in my own life far too often is that, when I do have some real free time at my disposal, I tend to waste it. I sit on the couch and watch reruns. I get stuck in routines instead of doing something new.
I think God makes us to be dreamers and to be adventurers. But so many times, we settle for being much less than that. We get caught up in the routines and in what we're used to instead of exploring something new. We lose that childlike wonder at what undiscovered amusements the world might hold. It is too rare that we set out and say, "I'm going to do this, just because I can."
I've really enjoyed today. I need more days like this. And maybe you do as well. And so, before my laptop battery dies, and before I begin the lengthy hike back to the parking garage that is housing my car, I want to leave you with a simple encouragement: When you get those brief windows of time that you are free from the obligations on your time, do something different. Go to a new place. Meet new people. Try a new restaurant. Date a new blogger.
Why? Simply because you can.
About a year and a half ago, I moved to Cincinnati. This is the first time that I have lived in a major city, and I was very excited to come because I really like cities. I especially like the "downtown feel" of major cities, and whenever I visit one, I like walking the sidewalks and looking up at the buildings and seeing the people. Since I moved to Cincinnati, though, I never actually went downtown (except to go to Reds games). I guess I always felt weird about taking a trip downtown. I wouldn't know what to do there, and I hate to pay for parking.
But on this day of unlimited possibilities, I decided it was time to mix things up and head to downtown Cincinnati for the afternoon. And it's been a really good day, to be honest. I walked around for a bit, visiting the giant bronze fountain the stands at the center of the city. I went to a burger place I had heard about to get lunch, only to discover it was closed down, so I instead ate at a burrito place nearby. I watched all of the white-collar business professionals scurrying about--the men in their slacks and ties, and the women in their skirts and heels--and I thought about how to them, I probably look like a Caulfieldesque vagabond. I walked around the outside of Great American Ballpark, where my beloved Reds play during the summertime, and I hoped to play a game of catch with Joey Votto if I bumped into him, bu the wasn't around. I sat on a bench in a park that sits on the Ohio River and read for an hour or two. I did the same thing at a riverfront park when I lived in Oregon for a summer, and it was nice to be in an environment with a similar feel, though there were a lot less hippies wandering around.
As I sat on that bench reading, I looked across the river into Kentucky and saw a Barnes & Noble on the other side. So after a while, I thought, "I should walk over to that Barnes and Noble and look around." But then my more rational side questoined that proposal. "Why would I do that? Do I really need to?" And the answer was, "No...I don't have to. But I can."
So now I'm sitting in that Barnes & Noble, sipping a Starbucks Chai Latte and looking out the window at downtown Cincinnati, reflecting on an afternoon that has been perhaps a little aimless, but that has been needed. I had no real reason to venture downtown among the office buildings busy people making the world run on their smartphones. But I came...because I can.
I think that from time to time, we all need to do something, just because we can. It's a shame that those opportunities don't come up more frequently for most of us. When you're a little kid, you have an imagination and you dream of endless possibilities of adventures you can go on, but you can't, because you're parents won't let you be out too late. When you exit that phase of life and become an adult, you finally gain that independence from parents' restrictions but then you have work-obligations in their place. And when you get old and retire, you have freedom from the responsibilities of work, but you're aging body doesn't allow you to do what you once could.
You spend so much of your life bound to other things that determine what you can and can't do. There are so few occasions in which you can say, "I'm doing this, just because I can." And when those rare occasions do come, I think we need to take advantage of them. What I find happening in my own life far too often is that, when I do have some real free time at my disposal, I tend to waste it. I sit on the couch and watch reruns. I get stuck in routines instead of doing something new.
I think God makes us to be dreamers and to be adventurers. But so many times, we settle for being much less than that. We get caught up in the routines and in what we're used to instead of exploring something new. We lose that childlike wonder at what undiscovered amusements the world might hold. It is too rare that we set out and say, "I'm going to do this, just because I can."
I've really enjoyed today. I need more days like this. And maybe you do as well. And so, before my laptop battery dies, and before I begin the lengthy hike back to the parking garage that is housing my car, I want to leave you with a simple encouragement: When you get those brief windows of time that you are free from the obligations on your time, do something different. Go to a new place. Meet new people. Try a new restaurant. Date a new blogger.
Why? Simply because you can.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
In Arabia
There are not many things more frustrating than when your computer freezes up. You've been there before. You'll be watching a movie, writing a paper, or facebook-stalking a cutie, and suddenly your computer decides it's a good time to take a break. So you wait for a few moments, you hit "Control-Alt-Delete," you mutter all the words that your parents never let you say growing up, you cry a little, and eventually you just shut the machine off and try again, dreaming about what it would be like to be one of those cool kids who sits in Starbucks with a Macbook listening to some musician you've never heard of before.
Sometimes I feel like my life is like that frozen computer. It feels like my life gets stuck. Like it's been put on pause somehow. It's gotten stuck in the mud, and I rev the engine, but the wheels just keep spinning while I sink a little deeper into the muck.
Early adulthood is an interesting time of life. It's a period during which many people begin what you might think of as "real life," and over the past couple years, it feels like many of my friends are setting out on this journey. Being a Bible college graduate, most of my friends are involved in ministry in some way, just as I am, but I hear of my peers beginning full-time ministries at healthy, growing churches where there is an atmosphere of vitality and excitement. I hear of friends getting married and starting families. I hear of friends looking for real places to live and cooking meals that you can't just pull out of the freezer and stick in the microwave. I look around at my social circle, and it feels like everyone else is moving forward.
But then I look at my own life, and it doesn't feel like that. It feels stuck. On occasion, someone will ask me about what's new in my life, and my answer is typically something like, "Oh, not much...still going to school, preaching, and working." And that about sums up my life, to be honest. I'm in my seventh year of post-high school education, so I still spend some time reading and researching and writing papers. I work at a part-time retail job that I really don't care for at all. And I preach on Sundays at a small rural church, and while I'm thankful for that opportunity and love the people there, it's a difficult ministry, and it can be really tough to always feel jazzed about it.
Other tell me about their exciting ministry opportunities, new relationships, and general life-progression, and all the while, I wonder why my life doesn't feel like that. Am I stuck? Is this all there is for me? Is there any purpose for my life to be what it is right now?
One of my favorite sermons that I heard in a chapel service while I was in college was preached by my former professor Shane Wood. (If you care to, you can hear the sermon here.) In the sermon, Shane teaches on Paul's experience on the way to Damascus, and his main thought is that all of us want that Damascus Road experience, but few of us want to go where that road leads. We want the Damascus Road; that is, we want the clouds to part and for God to speak to us in a powerful way. Also, we want what we see in Paul's ministry--we want to be like Paul in Corinth or Athens or Ephesus or Rome. What we don't want, however, is to go where the Damascus Road leads, which according to Shane, is to obscurity.
After Saul became a Christian, he didn't immediately start traveling the world as a missionary. In fact, Galatians 1 says that he instead went to Arabia for three years, and what is perhaps most interesting about this fact is that it isn't all that interesting. The book of Acts doesn't even talk about it. We don't really know what exactly Saul was doing during those three years, but we have to assume he was being prepared for the life of ministry God had for him. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul became Paul. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul was prepared for what would happen to him as he preached throughout the world. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul's ministry was fruitful and effective.
As I was getting ready to graduate college, I decided to continue my education at seminary because I felt that it would better prepare me for my ministry. I want to be the best that I can be. And I hope that's what will happen. To be honest, sometimes I feel like I'm going in the wrong direction and that I was more ready for ministry two years ago than I am now. But I still try to hang on to the hope that when I'm done with school down the road, I'll be a more able tool for God to use.
Maybe you're in a spot in life where you feel much like I do. If so, I guess my encouragement to you would be to use your time of preparation well. I don't say this because I'm a good example of someone who is doing that, because I don't think I am. I struggle with this so much, and it becomes so easy for me to grow cynical and pessimistic, to constantly ask "What if I had made different decisions? Would my life be in a better place now?" In in those moments, I need to remind myself that God uses his servants' sojourn in obscurity to prepare them for lives of ministry and leadership, and I need to try not to compare my current state of affairs with those of others.
I often wish I could somehow fast-forward over the next 18 months to the point that I graduate, when I anticipate "real life" beginning. But maybe a better approach is to be fully invested in this time of preparation as a time of preparation. My classwork in seminary can prepare me for the rest of my life. My ministry in the boonies can prepare me. Living by myself in the box of my urban apartment can prepare me. Even trying to maintain my life and my sanity while working retail on Black Friday next week can prepare me. And through all of this, I hope to emerge a better disciple, a better minister, a better thinker, a better friend.
Sometimes I feel like my life is like that frozen computer. It feels like my life gets stuck. Like it's been put on pause somehow. It's gotten stuck in the mud, and I rev the engine, but the wheels just keep spinning while I sink a little deeper into the muck.
Early adulthood is an interesting time of life. It's a period during which many people begin what you might think of as "real life," and over the past couple years, it feels like many of my friends are setting out on this journey. Being a Bible college graduate, most of my friends are involved in ministry in some way, just as I am, but I hear of my peers beginning full-time ministries at healthy, growing churches where there is an atmosphere of vitality and excitement. I hear of friends getting married and starting families. I hear of friends looking for real places to live and cooking meals that you can't just pull out of the freezer and stick in the microwave. I look around at my social circle, and it feels like everyone else is moving forward.
But then I look at my own life, and it doesn't feel like that. It feels stuck. On occasion, someone will ask me about what's new in my life, and my answer is typically something like, "Oh, not much...still going to school, preaching, and working." And that about sums up my life, to be honest. I'm in my seventh year of post-high school education, so I still spend some time reading and researching and writing papers. I work at a part-time retail job that I really don't care for at all. And I preach on Sundays at a small rural church, and while I'm thankful for that opportunity and love the people there, it's a difficult ministry, and it can be really tough to always feel jazzed about it.
Other tell me about their exciting ministry opportunities, new relationships, and general life-progression, and all the while, I wonder why my life doesn't feel like that. Am I stuck? Is this all there is for me? Is there any purpose for my life to be what it is right now?
One of my favorite sermons that I heard in a chapel service while I was in college was preached by my former professor Shane Wood. (If you care to, you can hear the sermon here.) In the sermon, Shane teaches on Paul's experience on the way to Damascus, and his main thought is that all of us want that Damascus Road experience, but few of us want to go where that road leads. We want the Damascus Road; that is, we want the clouds to part and for God to speak to us in a powerful way. Also, we want what we see in Paul's ministry--we want to be like Paul in Corinth or Athens or Ephesus or Rome. What we don't want, however, is to go where the Damascus Road leads, which according to Shane, is to obscurity.
After Saul became a Christian, he didn't immediately start traveling the world as a missionary. In fact, Galatians 1 says that he instead went to Arabia for three years, and what is perhaps most interesting about this fact is that it isn't all that interesting. The book of Acts doesn't even talk about it. We don't really know what exactly Saul was doing during those three years, but we have to assume he was being prepared for the life of ministry God had for him. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul became Paul. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul was prepared for what would happen to him as he preached throughout the world. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul's ministry was fruitful and effective.
As I was getting ready to graduate college, I decided to continue my education at seminary because I felt that it would better prepare me for my ministry. I want to be the best that I can be. And I hope that's what will happen. To be honest, sometimes I feel like I'm going in the wrong direction and that I was more ready for ministry two years ago than I am now. But I still try to hang on to the hope that when I'm done with school down the road, I'll be a more able tool for God to use.
Maybe you're in a spot in life where you feel much like I do. If so, I guess my encouragement to you would be to use your time of preparation well. I don't say this because I'm a good example of someone who is doing that, because I don't think I am. I struggle with this so much, and it becomes so easy for me to grow cynical and pessimistic, to constantly ask "What if I had made different decisions? Would my life be in a better place now?" In in those moments, I need to remind myself that God uses his servants' sojourn in obscurity to prepare them for lives of ministry and leadership, and I need to try not to compare my current state of affairs with those of others.
I often wish I could somehow fast-forward over the next 18 months to the point that I graduate, when I anticipate "real life" beginning. But maybe a better approach is to be fully invested in this time of preparation as a time of preparation. My classwork in seminary can prepare me for the rest of my life. My ministry in the boonies can prepare me. Living by myself in the box of my urban apartment can prepare me. Even trying to maintain my life and my sanity while working retail on Black Friday next week can prepare me. And through all of this, I hope to emerge a better disciple, a better minister, a better thinker, a better friend.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Memory and Interpretation
I think that one of the most annoying experiences a person can have is to watch a movie with someone who has already seen it numerous times and who likes to recite lines from the movie before they even happen. This person knows the movie. He sees the film playing through his mind in advance. He has viewed the move so many times that he knows he is frontward, backward, inside-out. Nothing catches him off-guard.
After you see a movie so many times, you might become so familiar with the film that it no longer conveys new meaning. The same thing is sadly true for the way many Christians read the Bible, I think. This semester I am taking an advanced Greek class, and each week our assignment is to translate a chunk of Pauline material from the ancient Greek text into English. Several weeks ago, my professor pointed out that a danger in such translation is to do more remembering than actual translating. These passages that we translate are not especially new to any of us. We are seminary students who have read the New Testament multiple times, and it can become easy to allow my memory of the English versions of a given text to dictate the way in which I translate it. Sometimes I might come across an unfamiliar Greek word or grammatical structure, and I think, "Well, it looks like it says this, but that can't be right, because I know it must say something more like that." This isn't translating. It's remembering.
This same thing happens, not only in translation, but also in interpretation. I've been a Christian for a while now, and I've spent a lot of time reading and studying the Bible. Because of this, I think I know what the Bible says. So each morning, when I flip open my Bible and pick up wherever I left off the day before, I already have an expectation for what I should find. Even just by looking at the book and chapter number, or the headings on the page, I begin with a notion of what my reading that day will tell me. The conclusions I'm going to reach are often decided before I even start to read. Because I have already read the passage so many times before, I remember what I have already been taught the passage means rather than truly interpreting it afresh.
Christians like to be told what they already believe. Pretty early on, we tend to develop a set of beliefs, and we hold to those beliefs pretty stringently. And so when we read the Bible or hear a sermon, we expect those beliefs to simply be reaffirmed.
You can become so familiar with a text or an idea that you stop really listening.
Do you ever really expect to find something new when you approach God's Word? Do you ever anticipate that one of your long-held beliefs will be challenged? Are you ever open to gaining a new understanding of God and of what his design is for your life?
I don't think Bible-study is meant to just be an exercise in remembering. We should seek to interpret. We should seek every day to come to God's Word anew, with ears and hearts open to what he has to say to us. If we only remember what the passage says and use it to pat ourselves on our back, we never grow or mature. We just stay the same.
That's not to say that this is easy, or even entirely possible. We always read the Bible through the filter of theological frameworks, personal history, and cultural paradigms. But as much as we are able, we must still ask each new day, "God, what are you saying in this passage today?" And then be ready to be surprised. Be open to a new way of thinking. Because sometimes, God isn't saying what we've always thought he is.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear. That's where growth happens.
He who's sure he's already heard all there is to hear.....that's where maturation ends.
After you see a movie so many times, you might become so familiar with the film that it no longer conveys new meaning. The same thing is sadly true for the way many Christians read the Bible, I think. This semester I am taking an advanced Greek class, and each week our assignment is to translate a chunk of Pauline material from the ancient Greek text into English. Several weeks ago, my professor pointed out that a danger in such translation is to do more remembering than actual translating. These passages that we translate are not especially new to any of us. We are seminary students who have read the New Testament multiple times, and it can become easy to allow my memory of the English versions of a given text to dictate the way in which I translate it. Sometimes I might come across an unfamiliar Greek word or grammatical structure, and I think, "Well, it looks like it says this, but that can't be right, because I know it must say something more like that." This isn't translating. It's remembering.
This same thing happens, not only in translation, but also in interpretation. I've been a Christian for a while now, and I've spent a lot of time reading and studying the Bible. Because of this, I think I know what the Bible says. So each morning, when I flip open my Bible and pick up wherever I left off the day before, I already have an expectation for what I should find. Even just by looking at the book and chapter number, or the headings on the page, I begin with a notion of what my reading that day will tell me. The conclusions I'm going to reach are often decided before I even start to read. Because I have already read the passage so many times before, I remember what I have already been taught the passage means rather than truly interpreting it afresh.
Christians like to be told what they already believe. Pretty early on, we tend to develop a set of beliefs, and we hold to those beliefs pretty stringently. And so when we read the Bible or hear a sermon, we expect those beliefs to simply be reaffirmed.
You can become so familiar with a text or an idea that you stop really listening.
Do you ever really expect to find something new when you approach God's Word? Do you ever anticipate that one of your long-held beliefs will be challenged? Are you ever open to gaining a new understanding of God and of what his design is for your life?
I don't think Bible-study is meant to just be an exercise in remembering. We should seek to interpret. We should seek every day to come to God's Word anew, with ears and hearts open to what he has to say to us. If we only remember what the passage says and use it to pat ourselves on our back, we never grow or mature. We just stay the same.
That's not to say that this is easy, or even entirely possible. We always read the Bible through the filter of theological frameworks, personal history, and cultural paradigms. But as much as we are able, we must still ask each new day, "God, what are you saying in this passage today?" And then be ready to be surprised. Be open to a new way of thinking. Because sometimes, God isn't saying what we've always thought he is.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear. That's where growth happens.
He who's sure he's already heard all there is to hear.....that's where maturation ends.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
What Only I Can Write
A few nights ago, I was doing what we people with self-esteem issues do when they're hanging around the apartment: I read through some of my old blog posts. My goal is always to make this blog better, thus increasing readership, thus impressing more women with my writing prowess, and thus finding someone with whom use my "Buy One Get One Free" coupon at Qdoba. So as I read through the writings of my younger self, I thought about which posts were good and which ones were bad, which ones I enjoyed and which ones I thought fell flat, which ones received a lot of feedback and which ones didn't.
What I noticed through all of this is that many of my posts that I would consider to be "slightly less dumpy than the others" were the ones that included more of my personal voice than the others. I write several different kinds of posts. Some don't sound much different from an research paper I might turn in for class. I'll write about some thought drawn from my Bible reading or some insight into whatever topic, but I am removed from the picture. It could be written by me, or it could be written by someone else, and you possibly wouldn't be able to know the difference.
In other posts, however, I show through a little more. There are some that I wrote when I myself was going through a season of difficulty, and that struggle colors the words on the screen. These are the posts that could not really be written by anyone other than me, because my personal situations are unique to me, the way I handle those situations is unique to me, and my voice in expressing all of it is unique to me. These are the posts that mean the most to me, and these are typically the ones that have gotten the most feedback.
Through this, I think there is an important lesson in writing to be learned, or an important lesson in communication in general. Effective communication must do more than convey an idea. It must also be structured in the voice of the communicator.
Good writing does more than communicate an idea. It communicates a person.
When I think about some of my favorite writers and favorite books, I think this truth continues to be affirmed. For example, I love everything I've read by C.S. Lewis. Most of his books aren't directly about him or his life (with the exceptions of Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed, and maybe a few others). And yet, his books are very obviously written by him. He had a unique voice and a unique ability to understand human nature. And because of that, his works are unique, and his works are memorable. I could sit down and try to write a book about the reason evil and pain exists in the world, but I wouldn't be able to produce The Problem of Pain. Why? Because I'm not C.S. Lewis.
As a communicator, sometimes it can be tempting to try to leave yourself out of what you are communicating. And in some mediums, this may be appropriate. But much of the time, a work is enhanced when it is the outflow of one's own experience, viewpoints, and personal struggle. This is true in blog posts, and I think it's also true in sermons, lessons, songs, essays, articles, books, and conversation. You are uniquely you, so communicate as you.
And certainly don't communicate as me. Because then you'll end up having to eat two whole burritos yourself.
As if that were a bad thing.
What I noticed through all of this is that many of my posts that I would consider to be "slightly less dumpy than the others" were the ones that included more of my personal voice than the others. I write several different kinds of posts. Some don't sound much different from an research paper I might turn in for class. I'll write about some thought drawn from my Bible reading or some insight into whatever topic, but I am removed from the picture. It could be written by me, or it could be written by someone else, and you possibly wouldn't be able to know the difference.
In other posts, however, I show through a little more. There are some that I wrote when I myself was going through a season of difficulty, and that struggle colors the words on the screen. These are the posts that could not really be written by anyone other than me, because my personal situations are unique to me, the way I handle those situations is unique to me, and my voice in expressing all of it is unique to me. These are the posts that mean the most to me, and these are typically the ones that have gotten the most feedback.
Through this, I think there is an important lesson in writing to be learned, or an important lesson in communication in general. Effective communication must do more than convey an idea. It must also be structured in the voice of the communicator.
Good writing does more than communicate an idea. It communicates a person.
When I think about some of my favorite writers and favorite books, I think this truth continues to be affirmed. For example, I love everything I've read by C.S. Lewis. Most of his books aren't directly about him or his life (with the exceptions of Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed, and maybe a few others). And yet, his books are very obviously written by him. He had a unique voice and a unique ability to understand human nature. And because of that, his works are unique, and his works are memorable. I could sit down and try to write a book about the reason evil and pain exists in the world, but I wouldn't be able to produce The Problem of Pain. Why? Because I'm not C.S. Lewis.
As a communicator, sometimes it can be tempting to try to leave yourself out of what you are communicating. And in some mediums, this may be appropriate. But much of the time, a work is enhanced when it is the outflow of one's own experience, viewpoints, and personal struggle. This is true in blog posts, and I think it's also true in sermons, lessons, songs, essays, articles, books, and conversation. You are uniquely you, so communicate as you.
And certainly don't communicate as me. Because then you'll end up having to eat two whole burritos yourself.
As if that were a bad thing.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Creation and Human Dignity
Earlier this semester, I read an ancient Babylonian poem called the Enuma Elish. The poem is essentially a creation account according to Mesopotamian mythology. (If you are really into Mesopotamian epic poems and want to read it yourself, you can do so here.) The basic plot is that there is a great battle between the gods. On one side stands Tiamat and her husband Kingu, who are portrayed as the "bad guys" in the story. On the other side is Marduk, the patron god of Babylon and the hero of the tale. After a period in which Tiamat goes on a revengeful rampage, Marduk steps up and vows to defeat her. This he does, and he then uses her body to create the earth and the sky.
A lot of people pay close attention to the Enuma Elish because they see a number of similarities between the poem and the creation account of Genesis 1-2. There may be some. Much more significant, however, are the differences, and perhaps the key difference lies in the way the two stories explain the creation of man. In the Enuma Elish, when Marduk kills Tiamat, he takes her husband Kingu captive. After a while, the gods decide that they could use some underlings to do their chores, so Marduk proposes the creation of man:
When Marduk heard the words of the gods
His heart prompted him to fashion artful works.
Opening his mouth, he addressed Ea
To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:
"I will take blood and fashion bone.
I will establish a savage, 'man' shall be his name.
Truly, savage-man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
That they might be at ease!
The ways of the gods I will artfully alter.
This sounds like a great plan to the gods. But the problem is that they need the raw material needed for creating man. The solution? They yank Kingu out of his prison cell, kill him, and use his blood to make man.
It's such a far cry from the way the Bible describes it:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
In the Enuma Elish, mankind is created out of the villain of the story for the purpose of service. In the Bible, mankind is created in the image of the hero, God, for the purpose of ruling. The Babylonian epic provides an incredibly low view of humankind, while the Bible elevates humankind in a way that was perhaps unique in the ancient world. For the Bible-believer, a person had dignity and purpose because they are made in God's own image.
The same holds true today. Christianity offers a view of human nature that, I think, is much higher than most other systems of thought. And yet, many today would claim the opposite. It is a common remark that "Christianity demeans humankind by imposing a system of behavior on people. It's too controlling. It does not allow for the free expression of life that we ought to possess." From the naturalist perspective that dominates Western thinking, human dignity is expressed through unbridled behavior. A person who fully understands their esteem and worth ought to have freedom to live however they choose. A person should be able to do whatever feels right to them, and no other person or church should encourage a different mode of behavior.
Here's the problem with that: Creating an ideal in which humans ought to live however they choose does not actually raise human dignity. It lowers it. In such a thought-system, human cease to be moral beings who have the ability to choose right over wrong. I become no more of a moral agent than the leftover Chinese food in my fridge. If I adopt a naturalist understanding in which I am simply the most highly evolved of the animal kingdom, my life does not have real meaning or purpose.
I'm thankful for the way I am made (in spite of my near-sightedness and patchy beard). I'm thankful that I'm not just the product of random biological chance or the creation of a mythological villain who lost his fight. I'm made in the image of the Creator of the universe. That fact gives me worth and dignity. It gives my life purpose. And the way we understand our own natures guides what we do with it. Let's live like who we are.
A lot of people pay close attention to the Enuma Elish because they see a number of similarities between the poem and the creation account of Genesis 1-2. There may be some. Much more significant, however, are the differences, and perhaps the key difference lies in the way the two stories explain the creation of man. In the Enuma Elish, when Marduk kills Tiamat, he takes her husband Kingu captive. After a while, the gods decide that they could use some underlings to do their chores, so Marduk proposes the creation of man:
When Marduk heard the words of the gods
His heart prompted him to fashion artful works.
Opening his mouth, he addressed Ea
To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:
"I will take blood and fashion bone.
I will establish a savage, 'man' shall be his name.
Truly, savage-man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
That they might be at ease!
The ways of the gods I will artfully alter.
This sounds like a great plan to the gods. But the problem is that they need the raw material needed for creating man. The solution? They yank Kingu out of his prison cell, kill him, and use his blood to make man.
It's such a far cry from the way the Bible describes it:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
In the Enuma Elish, mankind is created out of the villain of the story for the purpose of service. In the Bible, mankind is created in the image of the hero, God, for the purpose of ruling. The Babylonian epic provides an incredibly low view of humankind, while the Bible elevates humankind in a way that was perhaps unique in the ancient world. For the Bible-believer, a person had dignity and purpose because they are made in God's own image.
The same holds true today. Christianity offers a view of human nature that, I think, is much higher than most other systems of thought. And yet, many today would claim the opposite. It is a common remark that "Christianity demeans humankind by imposing a system of behavior on people. It's too controlling. It does not allow for the free expression of life that we ought to possess." From the naturalist perspective that dominates Western thinking, human dignity is expressed through unbridled behavior. A person who fully understands their esteem and worth ought to have freedom to live however they choose. A person should be able to do whatever feels right to them, and no other person or church should encourage a different mode of behavior.
Here's the problem with that: Creating an ideal in which humans ought to live however they choose does not actually raise human dignity. It lowers it. In such a thought-system, human cease to be moral beings who have the ability to choose right over wrong. I become no more of a moral agent than the leftover Chinese food in my fridge. If I adopt a naturalist understanding in which I am simply the most highly evolved of the animal kingdom, my life does not have real meaning or purpose.
I'm thankful for the way I am made (in spite of my near-sightedness and patchy beard). I'm thankful that I'm not just the product of random biological chance or the creation of a mythological villain who lost his fight. I'm made in the image of the Creator of the universe. That fact gives me worth and dignity. It gives my life purpose. And the way we understand our own natures guides what we do with it. Let's live like who we are.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The Bottom Line
Chances are, it's been a while since you've studied the lives of any German Old Testament scholars. It's not an exercise I engage in very frequently. Recently, however, I read a book for class called A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism, by Mark S. Gignilliat. It doesn't sound like it would be the most enthralling, edge-of-your seat type of read. And it wasn't, I suppose, but it was very interesting and was much better than I had anticipated.
In each chapter of the book, Gignilliat discusses one specific scholar in the history of Old Testament criticism. Each of these chapters is divided into two sections. In the first, Gignilliat provides a brief biography of the scholar at hand, discussing his background, cultural and social context, education, and academic career. In the second section, he turns his attention to the innovations of that scholar in the field and the impact he has had on the study of the Old Testament.
One of the figures that Gignilliat discusses especially caught my attention. Gerhard von Rad lived in Germany from 1901 to 1971. Anyone who didn't his time in world history class writing notes to the pretty girl in the front corner knows that the first half of the 20th century was an awfully tumultuous one in Germany, and such turmoil can have an effect even upon a theology professor.
The thing about von Rad's life that piqued my interest is that, when the Nazi party began to gain power in Germany, he aligned himself with the Confessing Church rather than the German Christians. The Confessing Church was made of those German believers who refused to acquiesce to Hitler's barbaric program. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth were influential voices in this movement, and since I spent a lot of time last semester studying the life and thought of Bonhoeffer, the mention of von Rad's participation in the same church movement caught my eye.
The more I read von Rad's biography, the more impressed I was. He worked as a professor at the University of Jena, which was one of the primary institutions in which the Nazi party exerted influence over the academic life of Germany. It certainly would not have been a safe or comfortable place for a member of the Confessing Church to work--especially for one who claimed that the (Jewish!) Old Testament was valid Christian Scripture. But that's where von Rad was.
In 1944, von Rad was forced into military service, but in spite of this, he seems to have kept his hope in God. Gignilliat quotes a letter in which von Rad wrote, "I can only fall back on the very simple resignation of Paul Gerhardt's hymn, 'I have put my heart and mind int he heart and mind of God.' For, after all, that is unshakeable." The following year, von Rad was taken prisoner by the American forces, and he lived as a prisoner of war for the remainder of the conflict. During this time, he lectured to other prisoners on the book of Genesis, and he also "remained the minister as he encouraged young theologians in their faith, preached to the prisoners, and administered the sacraments." Gignilliat ends his treatment of von Rad's life by writing, "He never approached academic study of the Old Testament in isolation from his identity as a Christian and churchman."
It's a pretty inspiring story, isn't it? A committed Christian, confident that the Old Testament ought to remain Christian Scripture, standing up to Hitler and the Nazis, and preaching while a prisoner of war. I don't know that I would have the courage or the faith to act similarly in such circumstances. Von Rad's life is certainly something worth emulating.
But here's the thing: von Rad held a number of beliefs concerning theology and the nature of the biblical text to which I, as well as many American evangelicals, would object. Von Rad focused much of his study on the nature of the Hexateuch (Genesis through Joshua), and he employed a form-critical approach in order to try to understand the development of the canonical text. He believed that the Hexateuch is made up of independent traditions that were brought together over time as they were repeated and expounded upon. The final form of the Hexateuch was composed by the "Yahwist" during the time of Solomon (which is obviously different from the conservative position that Moses was the author of the first five books). Because of this approach, von Rad did not think that the text reports a historical account of events in Israel's history. Instead, it exhibits the development of Israel's faith--how they understood events rather than the facts of the events themselves.
I disagree with von Rad on a number of points, and many Christians would also take issue with his conclusions about the nature of the biblical text. Because of this, it could be easy to villainize him in the history of the church. One could point to his thought and yell, "Oh, that false teacher! He's responsible for the liberalization of Christian theology. It's because of him and his ilk that the church is in decline today." Many would possible be ready to condemn him to hell. And yet, I have to contend with von Rad's life--his faith and perseverance in the most trying of circumstances. Von Rad may have had theology and beliefs that I find questionable, but from what I can see, he also lived an incredibly faithful life dedicated to Christ.
A famous slogan in my church movement is "No creed but Christ." The idea is that a person's inclusion among the people of God is dependent on what he does with Christ. And that's it. That's the bottom line. And yet, it's so easy to use so many other criteria to build walls between each other. We whip out a list of required qualifications so that we can point to others and condemn them as heretics or "wolves in sheep's clothing."
Maybe that whole approach needs some serious rethinking. Is a person's position in Christ dependent on who they think wrote Deuteronomy? Is it based on whether he thinks the world was created in six days or a billion years? Is it about his beliefs on whether or not a person can fall from grace? Does it come down to millennial views?
There are a million debates regarding biblical and theological issues. And many of those debates are important issues to discuss. We want to hold fast to the truth of God's Word, and we want to understand God the best we can. But in the end, it comes down to Christ. Can a German professor who has surrendered to Jesus but has a somewhat 'liberal' view on the composition of the Old Testament still be my brother in Christ? I think so.
Can I have genuine Christian fellowship with someone rooting that the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series?
That one's still up in the air.
In each chapter of the book, Gignilliat discusses one specific scholar in the history of Old Testament criticism. Each of these chapters is divided into two sections. In the first, Gignilliat provides a brief biography of the scholar at hand, discussing his background, cultural and social context, education, and academic career. In the second section, he turns his attention to the innovations of that scholar in the field and the impact he has had on the study of the Old Testament.
One of the figures that Gignilliat discusses especially caught my attention. Gerhard von Rad lived in Germany from 1901 to 1971. Anyone who didn't his time in world history class writing notes to the pretty girl in the front corner knows that the first half of the 20th century was an awfully tumultuous one in Germany, and such turmoil can have an effect even upon a theology professor.
The thing about von Rad's life that piqued my interest is that, when the Nazi party began to gain power in Germany, he aligned himself with the Confessing Church rather than the German Christians. The Confessing Church was made of those German believers who refused to acquiesce to Hitler's barbaric program. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth were influential voices in this movement, and since I spent a lot of time last semester studying the life and thought of Bonhoeffer, the mention of von Rad's participation in the same church movement caught my eye.
The more I read von Rad's biography, the more impressed I was. He worked as a professor at the University of Jena, which was one of the primary institutions in which the Nazi party exerted influence over the academic life of Germany. It certainly would not have been a safe or comfortable place for a member of the Confessing Church to work--especially for one who claimed that the (Jewish!) Old Testament was valid Christian Scripture. But that's where von Rad was.
In 1944, von Rad was forced into military service, but in spite of this, he seems to have kept his hope in God. Gignilliat quotes a letter in which von Rad wrote, "I can only fall back on the very simple resignation of Paul Gerhardt's hymn, 'I have put my heart and mind int he heart and mind of God.' For, after all, that is unshakeable." The following year, von Rad was taken prisoner by the American forces, and he lived as a prisoner of war for the remainder of the conflict. During this time, he lectured to other prisoners on the book of Genesis, and he also "remained the minister as he encouraged young theologians in their faith, preached to the prisoners, and administered the sacraments." Gignilliat ends his treatment of von Rad's life by writing, "He never approached academic study of the Old Testament in isolation from his identity as a Christian and churchman."
It's a pretty inspiring story, isn't it? A committed Christian, confident that the Old Testament ought to remain Christian Scripture, standing up to Hitler and the Nazis, and preaching while a prisoner of war. I don't know that I would have the courage or the faith to act similarly in such circumstances. Von Rad's life is certainly something worth emulating.
But here's the thing: von Rad held a number of beliefs concerning theology and the nature of the biblical text to which I, as well as many American evangelicals, would object. Von Rad focused much of his study on the nature of the Hexateuch (Genesis through Joshua), and he employed a form-critical approach in order to try to understand the development of the canonical text. He believed that the Hexateuch is made up of independent traditions that were brought together over time as they were repeated and expounded upon. The final form of the Hexateuch was composed by the "Yahwist" during the time of Solomon (which is obviously different from the conservative position that Moses was the author of the first five books). Because of this approach, von Rad did not think that the text reports a historical account of events in Israel's history. Instead, it exhibits the development of Israel's faith--how they understood events rather than the facts of the events themselves.
I disagree with von Rad on a number of points, and many Christians would also take issue with his conclusions about the nature of the biblical text. Because of this, it could be easy to villainize him in the history of the church. One could point to his thought and yell, "Oh, that false teacher! He's responsible for the liberalization of Christian theology. It's because of him and his ilk that the church is in decline today." Many would possible be ready to condemn him to hell. And yet, I have to contend with von Rad's life--his faith and perseverance in the most trying of circumstances. Von Rad may have had theology and beliefs that I find questionable, but from what I can see, he also lived an incredibly faithful life dedicated to Christ.
A famous slogan in my church movement is "No creed but Christ." The idea is that a person's inclusion among the people of God is dependent on what he does with Christ. And that's it. That's the bottom line. And yet, it's so easy to use so many other criteria to build walls between each other. We whip out a list of required qualifications so that we can point to others and condemn them as heretics or "wolves in sheep's clothing."
Maybe that whole approach needs some serious rethinking. Is a person's position in Christ dependent on who they think wrote Deuteronomy? Is it based on whether he thinks the world was created in six days or a billion years? Is it about his beliefs on whether or not a person can fall from grace? Does it come down to millennial views?
There are a million debates regarding biblical and theological issues. And many of those debates are important issues to discuss. We want to hold fast to the truth of God's Word, and we want to understand God the best we can. But in the end, it comes down to Christ. Can a German professor who has surrendered to Jesus but has a somewhat 'liberal' view on the composition of the Old Testament still be my brother in Christ? I think so.
Can I have genuine Christian fellowship with someone rooting that the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series?
That one's still up in the air.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Where Scripture Meets Life
Do you have a set of favorite songs? I'm sure you do. I love music, and I love how music possesses incredible power. There are many songs that I love deeply. What I have noticed about a number of my favorite songs, however, is that they are not necessarily my favorites because of the musical quality or anything like that. They are my favorites because there are memories attached to them. Music has an ability to cause us to recall significant moments in our pasts--times of joy and heartache, contentment and disappointment, exuberance and anger. We come back to these songs again and again because of the way they have intersected our lives.
I think that Scripture often works in the same way.
This last Sunday I had the chance to preach on Lamentations 3. I always refer to Lamentations 3 as one of my "go-to passages." Maybe you have a set of go-to passages as well--those passages of Scripture that you keep in your back pocket and find yourself coming to again and again as you face certain situations.
Since preaching that sermon, I have been reflecting on which biblical passages I would put in that category of my go-to passages. There are several, and the reason they qualify for this category is the way they have spoken into my life at significant moments in my past.
For example, when I'm dealing with sorrow and grief, I tend to flip over to that passage in Lamentations 3. This habit grew out of the my mourning over my grandmother's terminal illness some years ago, and I noticed this passage as I sat on the couch at my uncle's house wondering what to do with the tumultuous storm within me.
When I get down about myself and question my identity or worth, I turn to Psalm 139. The first time I can think of that I came across this passage was when I was in middle school and was (as most middle schoolers do at some point) dealing with these very issues.
When I feel distracted, overwhelmed, and frazzled, I need to remind myself of Luke 10:38-42. Several years ago I had a spring during which I was constantly up-and-down emotionally, and I stopped shaving or looking people in the eye, but rather shuffled around my college campus grumbling to myself. That's when I needed Jesus to tell me, "David, David, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed."
When the entropy of the world discourages me, I go to Revelation 21:1-8. In May 2011, I spent an evening watching news reports that showed the destruction from a tornado in Joplin, Missouri--a town that I loved very much. Just to keep from losing my mind, I needed to remind myself of John's prediction of a day when there will be no more pain or crying or tears or death, because God will do what he does best and make things new.
A good deal of my time is spent reading and studying the Bible. Much of the time (and perhaps this is a negative commentary on my own attitude), my reading of Scripture can be held at arm's length from the issues of my own life. I don't mean that I'm not constantly challenged by God's Word or that I approach it from a merely academic point of view. But oftentimes, what I read on a certain day does not seem a piercingly relevant to my life as it does on other occasions. What I love about Scripture, however, is the way that it intersects our lives. It's not just a book that we study, memorize, and teach. It's one that speaks to us in our life-situations. It truly is "living and active" (Heb. 4:12). Through it, God speaks to his people who are ready to listen.
What about you? What are your go-to passages?
I think that Scripture often works in the same way.
This last Sunday I had the chance to preach on Lamentations 3. I always refer to Lamentations 3 as one of my "go-to passages." Maybe you have a set of go-to passages as well--those passages of Scripture that you keep in your back pocket and find yourself coming to again and again as you face certain situations.
Since preaching that sermon, I have been reflecting on which biblical passages I would put in that category of my go-to passages. There are several, and the reason they qualify for this category is the way they have spoken into my life at significant moments in my past.
For example, when I'm dealing with sorrow and grief, I tend to flip over to that passage in Lamentations 3. This habit grew out of the my mourning over my grandmother's terminal illness some years ago, and I noticed this passage as I sat on the couch at my uncle's house wondering what to do with the tumultuous storm within me.
When I get down about myself and question my identity or worth, I turn to Psalm 139. The first time I can think of that I came across this passage was when I was in middle school and was (as most middle schoolers do at some point) dealing with these very issues.
When I feel distracted, overwhelmed, and frazzled, I need to remind myself of Luke 10:38-42. Several years ago I had a spring during which I was constantly up-and-down emotionally, and I stopped shaving or looking people in the eye, but rather shuffled around my college campus grumbling to myself. That's when I needed Jesus to tell me, "David, David, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed."
When the entropy of the world discourages me, I go to Revelation 21:1-8. In May 2011, I spent an evening watching news reports that showed the destruction from a tornado in Joplin, Missouri--a town that I loved very much. Just to keep from losing my mind, I needed to remind myself of John's prediction of a day when there will be no more pain or crying or tears or death, because God will do what he does best and make things new.
A good deal of my time is spent reading and studying the Bible. Much of the time (and perhaps this is a negative commentary on my own attitude), my reading of Scripture can be held at arm's length from the issues of my own life. I don't mean that I'm not constantly challenged by God's Word or that I approach it from a merely academic point of view. But oftentimes, what I read on a certain day does not seem a piercingly relevant to my life as it does on other occasions. What I love about Scripture, however, is the way that it intersects our lives. It's not just a book that we study, memorize, and teach. It's one that speaks to us in our life-situations. It truly is "living and active" (Heb. 4:12). Through it, God speaks to his people who are ready to listen.
What about you? What are your go-to passages?
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Villain
A villain never sets out to be a villain.
Moviegoers and readers know this to be true. Many stories revolve around a conflict between good and evil. There's a character in a white hat and one in a black hat, and the roles are rather sharply defined. However, the villain didn't necessarily start off as being evil. No one just wakes up one morning and says, "Let's be bad guys."At first, the person who becomes a villain wanted to do good. He thought he was saving the world or helping society in some way, but as a result of a lightning strike, chemical burn, explosion, lost loved one, or some other catastrophe, the person who wanted to do good turns bad.
Examples of this are numerous. Otto Octavius hoped to use his brilliant scientific mind to create useful energy, but when his four mechanical arms start calling the shots in his brain, he becomes Dr. Octopus and resorts to a life of crime. Anakin Skywalker wanted to be the Chosen One--the one who would bring balance to the force--but he becomes the manifestation of darkness as Darth Vader.
My favorite example may be Lex Luthor. I'm sadly not very familiar with his story from the Superman comic books, so all I have to go off of is the Smallville version. Smallville was one of my favorite shows, but I do always mention that being a fan of Smallville is maybe the most girly thing about me. This is because Smallville was a CW show. Do you know how to recognize a CW show? (Besides the high levels of drama.) The casts of CW shows are always made up only of really good-looking people. That may be true in all shows to a point, but it's especially true on the CW. By the end of the series, the entire cast was made up of attractive 20-somethings. The show was set in Kansas. Now, I grew up in Kansas, and I can say that I don't know of many towns that are populated only by attractive 20-somethings.
Anyways, in Smallville, Lex Luthor genuinely wants to be a good guy. He is the son of an evil and corrupt man who uses wealth, deceit, and even murder to get what he wants. Lex vows never to become like his father. Instead, he thinks that he can be a force for good. He thinks it's his job to save the world. And yet, as the series rolls on, Lex becomes not only like his father, but even worse. He's the ultimate villain of it all.
Of course, these are all only stories. But I think something similar happens in real life. There seems to be a tragic tendency among human beings to become something that you never planned to be. A person often becomes the very thing he hates the most. He may loathe the fact that his parents had short tempers and tended to fly off the handle, but when he becomes a parent, he is the same way. Or, a person may have been emotionally wounded by someone in a relationship, and they end up doing the same thing to someone else down the line. An individual may lament the general laziness and apathy of the society around them, but they are no different.
Why does this happen? Is it the fate of Greek tragedies? Is it a conscious decision? Do we feel like, due to injuries done to us, we feel like we need to strike back at others? Do we become so focused on the qualities we don't like in others that those same qualities become ingrained in our own characters?
I don't want to be a villain. They're never the ones for whom the city throws a parade at the end of the movie. They never get the girl. And yet, I have this fear that I'm going to somehow become one, or maybe that I already am in some ways. Not to mean that I'm think I'll ever start flying around on a glider throwing pumpkin bombs at people. If I ever start doing that, I give you full permission to remove me as a Facebook friend. But if it's so common among humans to treat others how you don't want to be treated, or to treat others how you've been treated in the past and certainly didn't appreciate, I don't that I'm immune to the trend.
So let's all be on guard. After all, a superhero is only one genetic mutation or nasty break-up away from villainy.
Moviegoers and readers know this to be true. Many stories revolve around a conflict between good and evil. There's a character in a white hat and one in a black hat, and the roles are rather sharply defined. However, the villain didn't necessarily start off as being evil. No one just wakes up one morning and says, "Let's be bad guys."At first, the person who becomes a villain wanted to do good. He thought he was saving the world or helping society in some way, but as a result of a lightning strike, chemical burn, explosion, lost loved one, or some other catastrophe, the person who wanted to do good turns bad.
Examples of this are numerous. Otto Octavius hoped to use his brilliant scientific mind to create useful energy, but when his four mechanical arms start calling the shots in his brain, he becomes Dr. Octopus and resorts to a life of crime. Anakin Skywalker wanted to be the Chosen One--the one who would bring balance to the force--but he becomes the manifestation of darkness as Darth Vader.
My favorite example may be Lex Luthor. I'm sadly not very familiar with his story from the Superman comic books, so all I have to go off of is the Smallville version. Smallville was one of my favorite shows, but I do always mention that being a fan of Smallville is maybe the most girly thing about me. This is because Smallville was a CW show. Do you know how to recognize a CW show? (Besides the high levels of drama.) The casts of CW shows are always made up only of really good-looking people. That may be true in all shows to a point, but it's especially true on the CW. By the end of the series, the entire cast was made up of attractive 20-somethings. The show was set in Kansas. Now, I grew up in Kansas, and I can say that I don't know of many towns that are populated only by attractive 20-somethings.
Anyways, in Smallville, Lex Luthor genuinely wants to be a good guy. He is the son of an evil and corrupt man who uses wealth, deceit, and even murder to get what he wants. Lex vows never to become like his father. Instead, he thinks that he can be a force for good. He thinks it's his job to save the world. And yet, as the series rolls on, Lex becomes not only like his father, but even worse. He's the ultimate villain of it all.
Of course, these are all only stories. But I think something similar happens in real life. There seems to be a tragic tendency among human beings to become something that you never planned to be. A person often becomes the very thing he hates the most. He may loathe the fact that his parents had short tempers and tended to fly off the handle, but when he becomes a parent, he is the same way. Or, a person may have been emotionally wounded by someone in a relationship, and they end up doing the same thing to someone else down the line. An individual may lament the general laziness and apathy of the society around them, but they are no different.
Why does this happen? Is it the fate of Greek tragedies? Is it a conscious decision? Do we feel like, due to injuries done to us, we feel like we need to strike back at others? Do we become so focused on the qualities we don't like in others that those same qualities become ingrained in our own characters?
I don't want to be a villain. They're never the ones for whom the city throws a parade at the end of the movie. They never get the girl. And yet, I have this fear that I'm going to somehow become one, or maybe that I already am in some ways. Not to mean that I'm think I'll ever start flying around on a glider throwing pumpkin bombs at people. If I ever start doing that, I give you full permission to remove me as a Facebook friend. But if it's so common among humans to treat others how you don't want to be treated, or to treat others how you've been treated in the past and certainly didn't appreciate, I don't that I'm immune to the trend.
So let's all be on guard. After all, a superhero is only one genetic mutation or nasty break-up away from villainy.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Need Patience? Read a Book
I have mentioned (or, more likely, complained) that I work part-time at a major retailer as a salesperson in the electronics department here in Cincinnati. While at work, I see a lot of different things, and I encounter a lot of different people. One common trait of our customer base, however, is impatience. Multiple times every day, customers complain to me about how long they have had to wait to get what they want. It might be that they've had to wait for a worker to have a chance to get them the TV they would like to buy. It might be that they need a gallon of paint mixed in the nearby hardware department, but the hardware worker is busy taking care of another issue. It could be that they don't want to stand in line at the front registers, so they come to be checked out in electronics only to have to wait while previous customers are helped.
People don't like waiting. Now, I'm sure that this is common in our society as a whole, but I feel like it is especially compounded among the electronics customers where I work, and I've wondered about why this might be. It astonishes me how impatient people can be. They all want assistance the moment they step into the department, and any delay signals for them that the store is poorly run or that the workers are incompetent morons (as one customer so nicely referred to me just the other day). I imagine that anyone who has worked in retail can identify with what I'm writing about, but still, it seems even worse where I am. I've been in other stores, and I've worked in other stores, but the level of impatience in my current situation is remarkable.
While living in Cincinnati, I have made another observation, and for a long time I didn't connect it at all with the "impatience issue." But one thing I have noticed about where I live is that it does not seem to be a reading community. Now, that may be a very unfair generalization to make, and I certainly have no scientific data to support it. But I find it odd that in my entire section of the city (which I always think of as everything west of I-75 and south of I-75), there aren't any bookstores. Actually, I take that back. I did find one once, but when I went in all I found were a bunch of those cheap romance novels that authors church out in about five hours. But other than that, there isn't a true bookstore in this major section of the city--a section with around 140,000 residents. That indicates to me that, in general, the people who live here aren't avid readers.
Of course, reading print books in general is becoming obsolete, and a number of bookstores across the country are having trouble staying in business. This might be because of everything going digital and people buying e-readers like the Kindle or the Nook so that they can download books instead of buying hard copies. That may be. But, as someone who sells electronics every day, I can say that we honestly don't sell that many e-readers. People don't want e-readers. They want tablets--something that they can use to watch movies and surf the web. Books are out. Youtube clips are in.
I wonder if there could be a correlation here. Are people groups who don't read much actually more impatient than those who do? It makes sense. Last week I went up to a bookstore (in another part of town), and while I was there I was surprised by how pleasant of a place it was to be. There were other customers there, browsing the shelves, looking for a good find. I didn't hear anyone screaming. I didn't hear anyone cussing. Just readers going about their business. It seemed like a far cry from the battlezone I walk into each day.
We live in an impatient age, and we're impatient people. And it might just be because most of us don't read as much as people did in the past. We're used to instant accommodation. We can't handle sitting through something that takes up too much of our precious time. We even complain when movies go too long: "It was an okay movie, but it was like, THREE HOURS LONG!" But when you think about it, the ability to establish a setting, develop characters, introduce a conflict, and bring about resolution, all within three hours, is a pretty remarkable feat. But even that takes up too much time for us.
If you're anything like me, it would probably be good to develop some extra patience. And if that is you, my encouragement would be to read more. When you read a book, you have to wait for the reward. It might take a few hours, a few days, or even a week or two. But it slows our eyes down, it slows our minds down, and it slows our lives down. We might feel a little less anxious, a little more understanding, and a whole lot more patient.
Of course, if you've made it this far through this lengthy and meandering post, you might be a patient person already. So I thank you for that. Now you can go back to the Youtube tab on your browser and get back to whatever you were doing before.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Curse-Breaker
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15)
These words from God come at a pretty dark moment in the book of Genesis. The darkest of moments, in fact. Adam and Eve had just eaten from the tree they had been commanded not to eat from, they have shamefully hidden themselves in the trees from God and feebly tried to cover their own nakedness from each other. God, the master of hide-and-seek, eventually finds them. (Of course, it is much easier when the person hiding yells answers when the seeker asks "Where are you?", the way Adam does in Genesis 3:10. Real smooth, guy.) And then God starts dishing out the curses: the snake who had tempted Eve would be forced to crawl on his belly and eat dust; the woman would experience pain in childbirth; and the man would have to work the ground in a sweaty mess in order to get food to eat. And in this moment of tragedy, the human race is cast from paradise, and the blessing they had experienced in Eden is replaced by these curses.
And yet, in the middle of all of these curses, there is hope captured in verse 15. The serpent doesn't win in the end. God promises a seed from the woman that would crush his head. There is a reversal of the curse in store. The damage done in the garden would be undone.
For whatever reason, I always assumed that Adam and Eve knew that this descendant wouldn't come for a long time down the road. But the more I think about it, the more I think they may have very well expected it soon. After all, as the first man and woman, they had no real sense of lengthy historical process. In fact, it almost seems as though Genesis is written to bring out this sense of expectation. As you read the narrative, you run across certain figures that cause you to think, "Now could this finally be the one who is going to give the serpent a good, old-fashioned curb-stomping?
However, as you continue through Genesis, even though there are some incredible figures of righteousness, this expected curse-breaker is not found. The first "seed" of Eve is Cain, and maybe she thought he would be the one to set things straight. But instead, he kills his brother and becomes a wanderer. So what about Noah? He's described as "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" (Gen. 6:9). Perhaps he is the curse-breaker come at last. But, even though his obedience preserves the human race, he also gets wasted and goes all natural in his tent. He's not the one. But then Abraham appears on the scene, and he seems like a good guy. God seems to show some favor on him, in any case. But he tends to deceive people in scary situations, and he struggles with believing God's plan for him from time to time. He's not the curse-breaker either.
You can go on down the line through Genesis, and through Israel's entire history, in fact. Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Joshua. Samuel. Saul. David. Elijah. Daniel. Ezra. Good guys, for the most part. But they don't give the serpent the business. Mankind remains under the curse. From the very beginning of the Bible's story, there is an expectation for this promised curse-breaker, but no one who takes the stage ends up being the guy.
Our society continues to look for a curse-breaker today. People work hard to find someone or something that can bring an end to the world's problems. "Maybe this presidential candidate will fix everything." "Maybe this medical treatment is the answer." "Maybe this business model will set the worlds to rights." "Maybe this version of the iPhone will make my life complete."
We're still looking around for a curse-breaker. But the thing is, he's already come.
The Christian position is the the curse-breaking, serpent-stomping deliverer has already come in the person of Jesus. He's what the Old Testament expects, and he's what many in our world have missed. And while we continue to live in a fallen world that has a lot of problems, the curse is somehow set in reverse in Jesus. He brings a new kingdom. He talks about a new way of living. His Spirit lives in his people, bringing old dusty bones back to life. And he promises that someday, the creation will be made completely new and will be relieved of its "bondage to corruption" (Rom. 8:21).
As a person of God, then, the responsibility of the Christian is to proclaim the end of the curse and the identity of the true curse-breaker--Jesus. We can stop worrying about pursuing the curse-breakers that our world promotes, because we've found the real thing.
And that's a good thing, because I can't afford an iPhone 5 anyway.
In the way of announcements, one of my favorite power-couples, Chris and Monica Hengge, recently started up a new blog. It's titled "Hengge Heads and Hearts," and you can check it out by clicking here. Each of them possesses both a head and heart much more developed than my own, and I'm excited to glean as much as I can from their insights. So be sure to check them out, follow them, subscribe to them, leave them comments, and maybe even send them a nice present in the mail. And don't forget to do the same for me, too. Except a better present. After all, you just met these two.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Make the Most
I have one simple motto in life, and it is this: There is not better day to bring your blog back from oblivion and irrelevance than today.
It's been a while since I've written anything, and for that, I apologize. Or, if you really hate my writing, I guess I apologize for kicking it back up. Of course, if you hate it that bad, you probably stopped reading after the first line, so there's no need for me to apologize to you since you didn't get this far. In fact, I can insult you and harass you now, and you would never know it. You suck, man. I hope you walk out to your driveway tomorrow to discover you have a mysteriously flat tire. Next time you go to Chick-fil-A, I hope they're all out of polynesian sauce. So there.
Normally after taking a hiatus from the blog, I come back with some excuse about why I didn't write. But this time, I don't really have one. I was just lazy and apathetic, and rewatching episodes of The Office online for the upteenth time felt like a better use of my time. But I'm glad to be back here with you, even though this may be the most anonymous and impersonal way to communicate. In any case, we're tight, right? Good.
Not long ago I was telling a group of people one of my favorite stories to tell. I won't recount the story here, because it's much better in person, and I may have very well included it in a blog post before. All I'll say here is that it involves Starbucks and a word-vomit that set my life on a path that led to me eating eating frozen pizza alone in my apartment two different nights this week. Anyways, telling the story caused me to think of how frustrating it can be to live with memories of missed opportunities, and that in turn made me think of the words of the apostle Paul in Colossians 4:2-6:
What I find especially interesting about this idea in Colossians is that, when Paul is writing this, he is sitting in a Roman prison. He reminds the Colossians of this fact by throwing in the comment that he is in chains for the gospel. Now I've never been in prison, but I would imagine that most would assume incarceration would limit one's opportunities to minister to the gospel. But Paul didn't see it that way. He understood that no matter what situation he was in, God could present him with opportunities to share the gospel, so he wanted to make the most of these opportunities by declaring the message boldly. In Philippians 1:12-14, he explains how his time in prison had served to advance the gospel. For Paul, prison walls couldn't contain the gospel and could not extinguish God-given opportunities for service and ministry.
I think that many Christians might feel as though they have no true opportunities to serve God, and this may be for a number of reasons. A person might feel that their situation, giftedness, relationships, location, job, schedule, or whatever else limits or even removes all such opportunities. But Paul understood that God can use his people regardless of what situation they might find themselves in, and the duty of the believer is to be on the lookout for these God-given opportunities and then to boldly make good use of them.
That may be why prayer is so strongly emphasized in this Colossians passage. In order to make the most of every opportunity, we need to see our days the way that God sees them. Such vision comes from prayer--from taking time to align yourself with the will and mindset of God. Prayer is more than present God with a list of requests; it is a chance to come before him and say, "God, help me to see things as you see them. Give me your vision. Allow me to perceive the opportunities that you set before me today, and grant me the boldness and the courage to act when I see what you would have me do."
My encouragement, then, would be to begin each day with a prayer like that. In Crazy Love, Francis Chan points out that many people talk about discovering God's purpose for their lives, but that perhaps a more helpful exercise would be to seek God's purpose for your day. The opportunities are there. The only question is what we'll do with them.
And by the way, they do have more than coffee at Starbucks.
It's been a while since I've written anything, and for that, I apologize. Or, if you really hate my writing, I guess I apologize for kicking it back up. Of course, if you hate it that bad, you probably stopped reading after the first line, so there's no need for me to apologize to you since you didn't get this far. In fact, I can insult you and harass you now, and you would never know it. You suck, man. I hope you walk out to your driveway tomorrow to discover you have a mysteriously flat tire. Next time you go to Chick-fil-A, I hope they're all out of polynesian sauce. So there.
Normally after taking a hiatus from the blog, I come back with some excuse about why I didn't write. But this time, I don't really have one. I was just lazy and apathetic, and rewatching episodes of The Office online for the upteenth time felt like a better use of my time. But I'm glad to be back here with you, even though this may be the most anonymous and impersonal way to communicate. In any case, we're tight, right? Good.
Not long ago I was telling a group of people one of my favorite stories to tell. I won't recount the story here, because it's much better in person, and I may have very well included it in a blog post before. All I'll say here is that it involves Starbucks and a word-vomit that set my life on a path that led to me eating eating frozen pizza alone in my apartment two different nights this week. Anyways, telling the story caused me to think of how frustrating it can be to live with memories of missed opportunities, and that in turn made me think of the words of the apostle Paul in Colossians 4:2-6:
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.The passage urges the reader to make the most of every opportunity. This is of course built on the assumption that there are opportunities in the believer's life to serve God in some way. The reason that many Christians do not bear the type of fruit that they probably should is not for lack of opportunity. It's because too many of us fail to recognize and take advantage of the opportunities when they come. The more I think about it, the more I believe that every person is presented with opportunities to magnify Christ and to love and serve others, probably every day.
What I find especially interesting about this idea in Colossians is that, when Paul is writing this, he is sitting in a Roman prison. He reminds the Colossians of this fact by throwing in the comment that he is in chains for the gospel. Now I've never been in prison, but I would imagine that most would assume incarceration would limit one's opportunities to minister to the gospel. But Paul didn't see it that way. He understood that no matter what situation he was in, God could present him with opportunities to share the gospel, so he wanted to make the most of these opportunities by declaring the message boldly. In Philippians 1:12-14, he explains how his time in prison had served to advance the gospel. For Paul, prison walls couldn't contain the gospel and could not extinguish God-given opportunities for service and ministry.
I think that many Christians might feel as though they have no true opportunities to serve God, and this may be for a number of reasons. A person might feel that their situation, giftedness, relationships, location, job, schedule, or whatever else limits or even removes all such opportunities. But Paul understood that God can use his people regardless of what situation they might find themselves in, and the duty of the believer is to be on the lookout for these God-given opportunities and then to boldly make good use of them.
That may be why prayer is so strongly emphasized in this Colossians passage. In order to make the most of every opportunity, we need to see our days the way that God sees them. Such vision comes from prayer--from taking time to align yourself with the will and mindset of God. Prayer is more than present God with a list of requests; it is a chance to come before him and say, "God, help me to see things as you see them. Give me your vision. Allow me to perceive the opportunities that you set before me today, and grant me the boldness and the courage to act when I see what you would have me do."
My encouragement, then, would be to begin each day with a prayer like that. In Crazy Love, Francis Chan points out that many people talk about discovering God's purpose for their lives, but that perhaps a more helpful exercise would be to seek God's purpose for your day. The opportunities are there. The only question is what we'll do with them.
And by the way, they do have more than coffee at Starbucks.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Mirage
Sometimes your expectations of something don't quite match up with reality.
When I was in third grade, I started playing in a baseball league, and as I began my athletic career, I had dreams of greatness. I could picture myself chasing down fly balls and making spectacular diving catches in the outfield. I envisioned myself standing in the batter's box with my baseball cap on backwards like Ken Griffey Jr., swinging the bat with power and watching the ball soar over the left field fence. I'm pretty sure I even practiced my home run trot in my basement, just so it would look natural when I had to do it in a game.
But then the season actually began, and it didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't really that good at baseball. In fact, I was pretty terrible. I could hit home runs. In fact, I couldn't even hit the ball. Most of my at-bats ended with the umpire signaling a strikeout. And while I was a decent fielder, I also discovered that not many third-graders had the power to hit it into the outfield, so most of my time was spent standing out there watching the game instead of really playing in it.
I had these lofty expectations of what my life as a baseball player might look like. But once I started playing, I found that those expectations probably wouldn't happen. The reality wasn't nearly as glamorous as I had imagined.
Lately I have been reading the book of Jeremiah, which is possibly my favorite of the prophetic books. A few days ago I ran across a short phrase that I found particularly interesting. Jeremiah 3:23 is written from the point of view of the repentant Israelites, and and here's what it says:
Surely the hills are a delusion.
In order to understand this statement, I guess it's important to know what Jeremiah is talking about when he speaks of the hills. In Israel at that time, the hilltops were locations of idolatrous shrines. That's where pagan worship took place. Most of the book of Jeremiah shows how, because of Israel's idolatry, they were taken off into captivity by the Babylonians. But here, in a vision of Israel's turning back to God, they admit that those hilltops were a delusion. The Israelites had hoped to find happiness or fulfillment there, but all they found was emptiness.
That's how idolatry of any sort works, I think. With our world's modern-day idols, we expect to gain something great from them. We hope for satisfaction and contentment, security and safety. But those idols never deliver. And so a person might seek security in their wealth, but it only takes a turn in the market for that safety net to fall apart. Or a person might lean on a relationship for all of his strength, but those relationships don't bring total fulfillment. Another may depend on prestige and status in order to gain his identity, but before long someone else is the next big thing. Our world today is dealing with the same problems as the Israelites in Jeremiah's day. We look for meaning in all the wrong places, and all we end up with are delusions and unmet expectations.
When I think of something being a "delusion," it reminds me of the cartoons where a character is traveling through the desert in the hot son, thirsty for water, when he sees an oasis on the horizon. He runs toward the palm trees and lagoon at full speed, and then he dives headfirst into the ice cold water, only to crash into just another sand dune. He discovers that the oasis had only been a mirage. A delusion. A promise that couldn't deliver.
It can be so easy to spend life chasing mirages. We run after the counterfeit instead of the real. But the actual source of fulfillment is waiting for us. The true God of the Bible isn't just another mirage. He's the real deal. He delivers. He's the God who "satisfies the longing soul" (Ps. 107:9). And for this reason, Jesus can declare, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink" (Jn. 7:37). The invitation of God is to stop running after the delusions, to stop chasing the mirages, to stop believing the lies, and instead to come find life and rest and satisfaction in him, because that's the only place it really can be found.
We weren't made to swallow sand.
We were designed to drink water.
And that tastes so much better.
When I was in third grade, I started playing in a baseball league, and as I began my athletic career, I had dreams of greatness. I could picture myself chasing down fly balls and making spectacular diving catches in the outfield. I envisioned myself standing in the batter's box with my baseball cap on backwards like Ken Griffey Jr., swinging the bat with power and watching the ball soar over the left field fence. I'm pretty sure I even practiced my home run trot in my basement, just so it would look natural when I had to do it in a game.
But then the season actually began, and it didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't really that good at baseball. In fact, I was pretty terrible. I could hit home runs. In fact, I couldn't even hit the ball. Most of my at-bats ended with the umpire signaling a strikeout. And while I was a decent fielder, I also discovered that not many third-graders had the power to hit it into the outfield, so most of my time was spent standing out there watching the game instead of really playing in it.
I had these lofty expectations of what my life as a baseball player might look like. But once I started playing, I found that those expectations probably wouldn't happen. The reality wasn't nearly as glamorous as I had imagined.
Lately I have been reading the book of Jeremiah, which is possibly my favorite of the prophetic books. A few days ago I ran across a short phrase that I found particularly interesting. Jeremiah 3:23 is written from the point of view of the repentant Israelites, and and here's what it says:
Surely the hills are a delusion.
In order to understand this statement, I guess it's important to know what Jeremiah is talking about when he speaks of the hills. In Israel at that time, the hilltops were locations of idolatrous shrines. That's where pagan worship took place. Most of the book of Jeremiah shows how, because of Israel's idolatry, they were taken off into captivity by the Babylonians. But here, in a vision of Israel's turning back to God, they admit that those hilltops were a delusion. The Israelites had hoped to find happiness or fulfillment there, but all they found was emptiness.
That's how idolatry of any sort works, I think. With our world's modern-day idols, we expect to gain something great from them. We hope for satisfaction and contentment, security and safety. But those idols never deliver. And so a person might seek security in their wealth, but it only takes a turn in the market for that safety net to fall apart. Or a person might lean on a relationship for all of his strength, but those relationships don't bring total fulfillment. Another may depend on prestige and status in order to gain his identity, but before long someone else is the next big thing. Our world today is dealing with the same problems as the Israelites in Jeremiah's day. We look for meaning in all the wrong places, and all we end up with are delusions and unmet expectations.
When I think of something being a "delusion," it reminds me of the cartoons where a character is traveling through the desert in the hot son, thirsty for water, when he sees an oasis on the horizon. He runs toward the palm trees and lagoon at full speed, and then he dives headfirst into the ice cold water, only to crash into just another sand dune. He discovers that the oasis had only been a mirage. A delusion. A promise that couldn't deliver.
It can be so easy to spend life chasing mirages. We run after the counterfeit instead of the real. But the actual source of fulfillment is waiting for us. The true God of the Bible isn't just another mirage. He's the real deal. He delivers. He's the God who "satisfies the longing soul" (Ps. 107:9). And for this reason, Jesus can declare, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink" (Jn. 7:37). The invitation of God is to stop running after the delusions, to stop chasing the mirages, to stop believing the lies, and instead to come find life and rest and satisfaction in him, because that's the only place it really can be found.
We weren't made to swallow sand.
We were designed to drink water.
And that tastes so much better.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Hurdles
As I write this, I am watching the gold medal game of women's beach volleyball from the Olympics in London. Unfortunately, I already know who wins. NBC's primetime program is on delay because of the time difference between Great Britain and the U.S., and after I logged off of my email earlier today, it took me straight to MSN, where the top headline announced the winner of the match. Really, MSN? You had to put it in big bold letters where I couldn't help but see it? You really just didn't want me to be as interested in watching the match?
Isn't it funny how a person can spend hours laying on the couch watching the Olympics? The games feature the greatest athletes in the world--people who have disciplined themselves and trained in order to be in pristine physical shape. And I celebrate that by....inactivity. I feel like the people who compete in the Olympics probably aren't people who would watch much of the Olympics themselves. They'd be too busy running and lifting weights and drinking Gatorade or something. In spite of my lethargy over the past couple weeks, watching the athletes has motivated me to start getting into better shape. I even bought a new pair of running shoes so that I can make it a habit of running. The only thing I hate worse than getting up early and jogging is to waste money, so the fact that I've put some cash down on these shoes should be adequate motivation.
Earlier tonight I watched a few heats of the men's 110-meter hurdles. I really enjoy watching hurdles because it reminds me of my days as an athlete. That's right, I was on my middle school's track team. Don't act so surprised. Especially since there were no cuts, and anyone who wanted to compete could. In any case, when I was in seventh grade, I was a hurdler. Not a good one, mind you. This was due to a couple reasons. For one thing, I was dreadfully slow. For another, I was scared of falling over a hurdle. The idea of tripping over a hurdle and tumbling face-first to the rubber track seemed unpleasant to say the least, so I took great care to ensure I cleared each one comfortably.
I can proudly affirm that during my entire athletic career, I never tripped over a hurdle. Cleared every one just fine. However, I also never won a race. I never received a ribbon at a meet. I never even won a heat. I always arrived at the finish line free of scraped knees, but I also always arrived after several other runners.
A good hurdle can't be afraid of the hurdles. He doesn't jump as high as he can in order to guarantee a safe passage. He stays as low as he can, barely scraping over the barriers during his race to the finish. Sometimes, he might even knock a hurdle, but he doesn't let that stop him. He keep making his charge. His focus is on the finish line, and if you watch the eyes of a hurdler during the race, they are always fixed at the finish, not on the hurdles.
In life, we all face a number of hurdles. We face difficulties and tragedies that threaten to trip us up. We are forced to deal with heartache and failed expectations and hardship--unfulfilled dreams, broken relationships. lost jobs, deaths of loved ones. The list could go on. However, just as an athlete doesn't live in fear of the hurdles, we shouldn't let the reality of living in a broken world cause us to stop moving forward. A hurdler keeps running hard when he brushes a hurdle, and so too a person who navigates life well doesn't give up when faced with an obstacle. He understands that the hurdles are part of the race, and when you get over one, there's another one waiting for you.
At the same time, a hurdler can't run the race like the hurdles aren't there at all. He doesn't run like someone competing in the 100-meter dash. Not fearing the hurdles doesn't mean ignoring the hurdles. Because if a hurdler was to run as if the hurdles weren't there, he would crash into the very first one and fall to the track in a heap of tears.
There are some who try to live life as if the hurdles will never come. They think that life is an open track before them, and that it will be easy and comfortable. Such a person is unprepared to run the race well and is surprised when that first hurdle comes. But we shouldn't be surprised by difficulties in life. Jesus himself guaranteed that we would have trouble in this life (Jn. 16:33), and the one who crumbles under such difficulty is like the seed on rocky soil that springs up quickly but withers when trouble comes.
It's not a bad idea to consider how you think of the track laid out in front of you in your life. Personally, there are times when I live in fear of the hurdles, and I do all I can to avoid them, which keeps me from living faithfully and steadfastly. At other times, I act like there shouldn't be any hurdles at all, and I get upset and complain when life doesn't go as I think it should. The goal, then, is to adopt the attitude of a true hurdler: prepared for the obstacles but unwilling to let them throw you off course. Keep moving toward the finish line.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Gold Medal Moment
I love the Olympics.
That fact might surprise a few people. I don't really look like the type of guy that would be too interested in sports. Just a few days ago, I overheard a couple of my coworkers talking, and I asked if they were talking about the USA basketball team, and one of them said, "Oh yeah, I always forget that David follows sports." I don't know why that always comes as such a shock to people. Must be the glasses.
Anyways, I absolutely love watching the Olympics. These two weeks are probably my favorite time of each four years. I love watching sports that I normally don't get a chance to see, I love rooting on the USA and Slovakia, I love thinking about what it'd be like to live in a Scandinavian country where all the women are so pretty. But what I love most of all is being a witness to some of the greatest performances in sporting history--to see those defining moments that will be remembered by the world for a long time to come.
Just last night, I was able to witness a couple powerful moments. I saw the USA's women's gymnastics team win the gold medal for the first time since 1998, which was a very good thing to see since two nights ago I had to endure seeing Jordyn Wieber bawl her eyes out in the background while NBC was interviewing the girl who beat her in securing a place in the all-around competition. Last night I also saw Michael Phelps win his 18th and 19th medals, making him the most decorated Olympian in history and setting a record that I may not see broken in my lifetime.
They Olympics are great for moments like these, and I remember witnessing other such moments from past Olympics. I remember watching Muhammed Ali light the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. I remember seeing Kerri Strug landing a vault on a sprained ankle, and I remember watching Michael Johnson run in gold shoes in those same games. I remember seeing Marion Jones win a few gold medals in 2000 (and I also remember when she had to give them back for doping). I remember watching the Canadian figure skating pair get jipped by the French judge in 2002. I remember seeing Phelps win the 200-butterfly by .01 seconds, and I remember witnessing Jason Lezak chase down the French team to win the 4x100 relay for the U.S. in 2008. And finally, I remember asking along with the rest of the world, "Are those Chinese gymnasts really old enough to compete?"
These Olympic moments are ones I may never forget. They've become a part of our world's story. (And, I might as well add, there are numerous other sporting moments that I'll always remember watching: Kansas' Mario Chalmers nailing a three to send the national championship to overtime in 2008; Santonio Holmes' sideline touchdown catch to win the Super Bowl for the Steelers in 2009; Lebron James scoring his team's last 25 points in a double-overtime playoff victory of the Pistons in 2007).
The thing about these moments is that they don't just happen. They developed out of all the smaller, unknown decisions made by those athletes. They came from choices to pass on dessert, to do one more rep in the weightroom, to take one more practice shot, to not hit the snooze button, to run one more lap. An athlete prepares himself every day to rise to the occasion and to perform in that gold-medal moment.
I wonder what the "defining moments" of my life would look like. Have I lived a life worthy of a video montage with a swelling theme playing in the background? Will my life be full of moments in which I elevate my game at crunch time? I want there to be moments when I choose wisely, live sacrificially, and take risks, but I worry that there will be more moments that I flake out on relationships, reside in safety and comfort, and take the easy road. I want there to be replays of me coming home strong and out-touching my opponent, not coasting in and taking silver. I want there to be more thrill of victory and less agony of defeat.
Gold medal athletes can teach us a lot about how to live life, I think. They understand sacrifice, hard work, perseverance, pressure, and excelling at the right moment. Those are all things that, quite frankly, I don't do well in my life, but that's not the way it needs to remain. At some point in life, each of those athletes set their sights on their goal and said, "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get there, to feel that medal around my neck, to hear my nation's anthem playing." And in life, it starts with that same sort of vision. It starts with saying, "This is the type of life I want to live, and I'm going to make choices today with how I spend my time, how I interact with other people, how I direct my thoughts, in order to make that life happen."
That fact might surprise a few people. I don't really look like the type of guy that would be too interested in sports. Just a few days ago, I overheard a couple of my coworkers talking, and I asked if they were talking about the USA basketball team, and one of them said, "Oh yeah, I always forget that David follows sports." I don't know why that always comes as such a shock to people. Must be the glasses.
Anyways, I absolutely love watching the Olympics. These two weeks are probably my favorite time of each four years. I love watching sports that I normally don't get a chance to see, I love rooting on the USA and Slovakia, I love thinking about what it'd be like to live in a Scandinavian country where all the women are so pretty. But what I love most of all is being a witness to some of the greatest performances in sporting history--to see those defining moments that will be remembered by the world for a long time to come.
Just last night, I was able to witness a couple powerful moments. I saw the USA's women's gymnastics team win the gold medal for the first time since 1998, which was a very good thing to see since two nights ago I had to endure seeing Jordyn Wieber bawl her eyes out in the background while NBC was interviewing the girl who beat her in securing a place in the all-around competition. Last night I also saw Michael Phelps win his 18th and 19th medals, making him the most decorated Olympian in history and setting a record that I may not see broken in my lifetime.
They Olympics are great for moments like these, and I remember witnessing other such moments from past Olympics. I remember watching Muhammed Ali light the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. I remember seeing Kerri Strug landing a vault on a sprained ankle, and I remember watching Michael Johnson run in gold shoes in those same games. I remember seeing Marion Jones win a few gold medals in 2000 (and I also remember when she had to give them back for doping). I remember watching the Canadian figure skating pair get jipped by the French judge in 2002. I remember seeing Phelps win the 200-butterfly by .01 seconds, and I remember witnessing Jason Lezak chase down the French team to win the 4x100 relay for the U.S. in 2008. And finally, I remember asking along with the rest of the world, "Are those Chinese gymnasts really old enough to compete?"
These Olympic moments are ones I may never forget. They've become a part of our world's story. (And, I might as well add, there are numerous other sporting moments that I'll always remember watching: Kansas' Mario Chalmers nailing a three to send the national championship to overtime in 2008; Santonio Holmes' sideline touchdown catch to win the Super Bowl for the Steelers in 2009; Lebron James scoring his team's last 25 points in a double-overtime playoff victory of the Pistons in 2007).
The thing about these moments is that they don't just happen. They developed out of all the smaller, unknown decisions made by those athletes. They came from choices to pass on dessert, to do one more rep in the weightroom, to take one more practice shot, to not hit the snooze button, to run one more lap. An athlete prepares himself every day to rise to the occasion and to perform in that gold-medal moment.
I wonder what the "defining moments" of my life would look like. Have I lived a life worthy of a video montage with a swelling theme playing in the background? Will my life be full of moments in which I elevate my game at crunch time? I want there to be moments when I choose wisely, live sacrificially, and take risks, but I worry that there will be more moments that I flake out on relationships, reside in safety and comfort, and take the easy road. I want there to be replays of me coming home strong and out-touching my opponent, not coasting in and taking silver. I want there to be more thrill of victory and less agony of defeat.
Gold medal athletes can teach us a lot about how to live life, I think. They understand sacrifice, hard work, perseverance, pressure, and excelling at the right moment. Those are all things that, quite frankly, I don't do well in my life, but that's not the way it needs to remain. At some point in life, each of those athletes set their sights on their goal and said, "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get there, to feel that medal around my neck, to hear my nation's anthem playing." And in life, it starts with that same sort of vision. It starts with saying, "This is the type of life I want to live, and I'm going to make choices today with how I spend my time, how I interact with other people, how I direct my thoughts, in order to make that life happen."
Monday, July 23, 2012
Past My Prime
I'm out of shape.
This morning I went to a nearby park and shot baskets for a while. I played basketball all the time when I was in high school and college, but since I moved to Cincinnati last year, it's an activity that I have sadly neglected, mainly because I haven't had anywhere to play. In fact, this morning was the first time I've even taken a shot in six months or so, and the results were...saddening. I quickly realized that athletic ability has a way of deteriorating if it goes unused, and I had very little such ability to begin with. I was very thankful that there weren't too many other people at the park to witness my airballs and tears.
As I continued to chase my basketball around the court off of long rebounds, I thought about how doing well in something like shooting a basketball requires consistent effort and dedication. My problem isn't just that I've lost my shooting touch, but that I haven't done much of anything physical for ages. Today was the first time I had moved faster than a brisk walk in a long time. After just five minutes, the muscles in the legs ached, my knees were stiff, and my back, neck, and shoulder all hurt. I haven't felt so physically weak since I had knee surgery several years ago.
In college, I tried to stay pretty active. I played all of the intramural sports, I played pick-up basketball when I got a chance. Even a good game of ping-pong could be physically exerting. (I know that sounds ridiculous, but you haven't seen some of my ping-pong games.) Since then, however, I don't do these things. Instead, I lay around on my couch with my computer and TV.
Being in good shape physically takes effort and training, and today I realized that I need to give more attention to this part of my life. After all, I'll never get a date as long as I have the physique of Gumby. I also thought about how this same principle is true in other areas of life as well. Physical well-being requires upkeep, but so do other things. For example, it takes effort to remain mentally sharp. If you never challenge your mind, it atrophies just like a muscle does. Relationships are the same way. A healthy relational life requires work just like anything else.
The same is even true of your spirituality. A healthy, vibrant relationship with God doesn't just happen. Just like any relationship, it requires your involvement. A robust spirituality comes from spiritual training. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 says, "Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." In several other places, the apostle Paul compares the Christian life to an athlete competing in the games or running a race. If athletic ability deteriorates by inactivity, so too does spiritual health.
I think that these four areas of life--physical, mental, relational, and spiritual health--are especially important for a person's health as a whole. What is interesting to me is that when one of these four is neglected and begins to atrophy, the others easily follow suit. I haven't lost my physical strength because I've been so busy nurturing my mind. My mental agility has also waned. So too have my relationships, and, if I'm to be honest, my spirituality. When you lose discipline in one of these areas, it's easy to abandon the others as well, and instead of growing, challenging yourself, and remaining disciplined, you find yourself sprawled out on your couch with White Cheddar Cheez-Its crumbs on your chest, rewatching the same old YouTube videos and commenting on every profile picture of the hot girl that sits in front of you in class.
By the time I got this far through this thought process while I was shooting baskets, I was really starting to "feel the burn," as they say. The day was growing hotter and my muscles had just about had enough. It was at that time that I started thinking about how to reverse the lazy, apathetic trend that has developed in my life in each of these four areas. I started thinking about how purposeful training is needed physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually.
A successful athlete has a training regimen. He gives attention every day to growing stronger, faster, and more skillful. We need this physically. But we need something similar in these other areas of life as well. My encouragement to you would that, every day, you make it a habit to do something that will enrich your life in each of those four areas--physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually. I want to do the same. And I'm still thinking about what that might look like, trying to put feet on this idea, so I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts. This is all an idea that is an embryonic stage, but I was excited about it today and wanted to share, as well as to hear some helpful response.
I shouldn't be having so much trouble shooting a basketball. I'm 24 years old. I feel like I should be in the prime of my life. The world is open and exciting before me. And I hate to think that I've already passed my prime. But the prime of life doesn't just happen. It's worked for.
I've become lazy, sluggish, procrastinating, weak, and safe. It's time for that to change. So I'm going to start working on getting back into my training. I think it will help me have better blog posts, better conversations, better sermons, deeper relationships, bigger faith, more honest prayers, and a sweeter jump shot.
Then maybe that 12 year-old-kid won't dunk over me next week.
This morning I went to a nearby park and shot baskets for a while. I played basketball all the time when I was in high school and college, but since I moved to Cincinnati last year, it's an activity that I have sadly neglected, mainly because I haven't had anywhere to play. In fact, this morning was the first time I've even taken a shot in six months or so, and the results were...saddening. I quickly realized that athletic ability has a way of deteriorating if it goes unused, and I had very little such ability to begin with. I was very thankful that there weren't too many other people at the park to witness my airballs and tears.
As I continued to chase my basketball around the court off of long rebounds, I thought about how doing well in something like shooting a basketball requires consistent effort and dedication. My problem isn't just that I've lost my shooting touch, but that I haven't done much of anything physical for ages. Today was the first time I had moved faster than a brisk walk in a long time. After just five minutes, the muscles in the legs ached, my knees were stiff, and my back, neck, and shoulder all hurt. I haven't felt so physically weak since I had knee surgery several years ago.
In college, I tried to stay pretty active. I played all of the intramural sports, I played pick-up basketball when I got a chance. Even a good game of ping-pong could be physically exerting. (I know that sounds ridiculous, but you haven't seen some of my ping-pong games.) Since then, however, I don't do these things. Instead, I lay around on my couch with my computer and TV.
Being in good shape physically takes effort and training, and today I realized that I need to give more attention to this part of my life. After all, I'll never get a date as long as I have the physique of Gumby. I also thought about how this same principle is true in other areas of life as well. Physical well-being requires upkeep, but so do other things. For example, it takes effort to remain mentally sharp. If you never challenge your mind, it atrophies just like a muscle does. Relationships are the same way. A healthy relational life requires work just like anything else.
The same is even true of your spirituality. A healthy, vibrant relationship with God doesn't just happen. Just like any relationship, it requires your involvement. A robust spirituality comes from spiritual training. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 says, "Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." In several other places, the apostle Paul compares the Christian life to an athlete competing in the games or running a race. If athletic ability deteriorates by inactivity, so too does spiritual health.
I think that these four areas of life--physical, mental, relational, and spiritual health--are especially important for a person's health as a whole. What is interesting to me is that when one of these four is neglected and begins to atrophy, the others easily follow suit. I haven't lost my physical strength because I've been so busy nurturing my mind. My mental agility has also waned. So too have my relationships, and, if I'm to be honest, my spirituality. When you lose discipline in one of these areas, it's easy to abandon the others as well, and instead of growing, challenging yourself, and remaining disciplined, you find yourself sprawled out on your couch with White Cheddar Cheez-Its crumbs on your chest, rewatching the same old YouTube videos and commenting on every profile picture of the hot girl that sits in front of you in class.
By the time I got this far through this thought process while I was shooting baskets, I was really starting to "feel the burn," as they say. The day was growing hotter and my muscles had just about had enough. It was at that time that I started thinking about how to reverse the lazy, apathetic trend that has developed in my life in each of these four areas. I started thinking about how purposeful training is needed physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually.
A successful athlete has a training regimen. He gives attention every day to growing stronger, faster, and more skillful. We need this physically. But we need something similar in these other areas of life as well. My encouragement to you would that, every day, you make it a habit to do something that will enrich your life in each of those four areas--physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually. I want to do the same. And I'm still thinking about what that might look like, trying to put feet on this idea, so I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts. This is all an idea that is an embryonic stage, but I was excited about it today and wanted to share, as well as to hear some helpful response.
I shouldn't be having so much trouble shooting a basketball. I'm 24 years old. I feel like I should be in the prime of my life. The world is open and exciting before me. And I hate to think that I've already passed my prime. But the prime of life doesn't just happen. It's worked for.
I've become lazy, sluggish, procrastinating, weak, and safe. It's time for that to change. So I'm going to start working on getting back into my training. I think it will help me have better blog posts, better conversations, better sermons, deeper relationships, bigger faith, more honest prayers, and a sweeter jump shot.
Then maybe that 12 year-old-kid won't dunk over me next week.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Dependence Day
It's amazing how readily available food is in the United States. Whenever I'm hungry, I can just walk over to my cupboards and can usually pull something out. If I'm out of food in my cupboards, I then have a couple options. I can hop in my car and go through a nearby drive-thru to get my snack fix. If I don't want to do that, I can drive to a grocery store and buy what I need to restock my cupboards. The grocery store Kroger is headquartered here in Cincinnati, and there are at least four Kroger stores within five miles of my apartment. Or, if I'm feeling especially lazy, I can call up any one of the multitude of pizza places in the area, and they'll bring it right to my door. (I always hope that the delivery pizza will be an attractive woman who has time to share my pizza with me while watching episodes of Community, but it always ends up being some college-aged dude who smells like mushrooms. It's a similar situation when I think about who might be in the seat next to me when I go to baseball games or get on an airplane.)
This morning I read about how the Israelites got their food while they were traveling to the Promised Land in Exodus 16. There weren't any Kroger stores on the road through Sinai, and it was a little too far for Pizza Hut to deliver. So when the Israelites began to grumble about not having anything to eat, God himself stepped in and provided. Every morning when the people woke up in their tents and stepped outside to stretch their legs, they found the ground covered with bread. Each person would take what their family needed for that day, and then the next morning God would provide again.
The Israelites were completely dependent on God for their sustenance while in the wilderness. They didn't plant crops at the foot of Mt. Sinai, going out to water them and....mulch them, or whatever people do to make things grow. They only had to trust that God would take care of them. Rather than working for their food, they only needed to receive it as a gift from God.
In Matthew 19:13-15, people start to bring their little children to Jesus so that he can bless them. The disciples decide it's a good time to act like Jesus' bodyguards, so they start to shoo away these parents and their kids. But then Jesus reprimands the disciples and welcomes the children to himself, saying, "For to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus expects his followers to be like little children in some way. I suppose there are numerous understandings that a person could have about what exactly Jesus means in this passage, and perhaps his intention isn't meant to be narrowed down to one specific quality. Children can represent innocence. They can represent trust. They can represent wetting the bed and watching cartoons all Saturday morning. But I think that one of the most important qualities of children that Jesus may be pointing to in this passage is that of dependence. A child is unable to adequately care for himself; he is dependent on the provision of his parents.
As an adult, I have several ways to "help myself" when I get hungry, as I have already mentioned. But when I was a little kid, my options were limited. I had to ask my mom for something to eat, and it was because of her care and love for me that she would provide for me. My responsibility as a child wasn't to get in the kitchen and whip up something for myself. It was to receive what was given to me.
The Christian life is a life of dependence. The Israelites needed to depend on God to take care of them in the desert, and we need to depend on God to provide our needs. Being a Christian is about recognizing your need and your ineptitude and receiving what God gives you. It's about understanding that you don't have the power to save yourself but that you need to be saved by another.
In our country, independence is perhaps the most emphasized characteristic of what it means to be a fulfilled person. This doesn't just apply to how we understand ourselves as a nation, but also how we live as individuals. We want to control our own destinies. We want to earn we we get. We'll say, "Man, what do I look like a charity case? I don't need your handouts. I'm an adult!" Because in our minds, that's what adulthood looks like--a lack of reliance on others. Maturity means to be financially, socially, and spiritually independent.
But in Jesus' way of looking at things, true maturity is to recognize your dependence. It's to see that you need a Savior, you need a Provider, you need a Father. It's to recognize with Paul in Romans 7, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" And then it's to see that God has already taken care of it, and that all we need to do is receive it.
This morning I read about how the Israelites got their food while they were traveling to the Promised Land in Exodus 16. There weren't any Kroger stores on the road through Sinai, and it was a little too far for Pizza Hut to deliver. So when the Israelites began to grumble about not having anything to eat, God himself stepped in and provided. Every morning when the people woke up in their tents and stepped outside to stretch their legs, they found the ground covered with bread. Each person would take what their family needed for that day, and then the next morning God would provide again.
The Israelites were completely dependent on God for their sustenance while in the wilderness. They didn't plant crops at the foot of Mt. Sinai, going out to water them and....mulch them, or whatever people do to make things grow. They only had to trust that God would take care of them. Rather than working for their food, they only needed to receive it as a gift from God.
In Matthew 19:13-15, people start to bring their little children to Jesus so that he can bless them. The disciples decide it's a good time to act like Jesus' bodyguards, so they start to shoo away these parents and their kids. But then Jesus reprimands the disciples and welcomes the children to himself, saying, "For to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus expects his followers to be like little children in some way. I suppose there are numerous understandings that a person could have about what exactly Jesus means in this passage, and perhaps his intention isn't meant to be narrowed down to one specific quality. Children can represent innocence. They can represent trust. They can represent wetting the bed and watching cartoons all Saturday morning. But I think that one of the most important qualities of children that Jesus may be pointing to in this passage is that of dependence. A child is unable to adequately care for himself; he is dependent on the provision of his parents.
As an adult, I have several ways to "help myself" when I get hungry, as I have already mentioned. But when I was a little kid, my options were limited. I had to ask my mom for something to eat, and it was because of her care and love for me that she would provide for me. My responsibility as a child wasn't to get in the kitchen and whip up something for myself. It was to receive what was given to me.
The Christian life is a life of dependence. The Israelites needed to depend on God to take care of them in the desert, and we need to depend on God to provide our needs. Being a Christian is about recognizing your need and your ineptitude and receiving what God gives you. It's about understanding that you don't have the power to save yourself but that you need to be saved by another.
In our country, independence is perhaps the most emphasized characteristic of what it means to be a fulfilled person. This doesn't just apply to how we understand ourselves as a nation, but also how we live as individuals. We want to control our own destinies. We want to earn we we get. We'll say, "Man, what do I look like a charity case? I don't need your handouts. I'm an adult!" Because in our minds, that's what adulthood looks like--a lack of reliance on others. Maturity means to be financially, socially, and spiritually independent.
But in Jesus' way of looking at things, true maturity is to recognize your dependence. It's to see that you need a Savior, you need a Provider, you need a Father. It's to recognize with Paul in Romans 7, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" And then it's to see that God has already taken care of it, and that all we need to do is receive it.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
How Just is War?
When I was a student at Ozark Christian College, there was a debate that seemed to rise up among the student body every once in a while (and by that, I mean every few hours). This running debate centered on the ethical issue of how Christians understand violence and war. To be honest, I had never really considered this question before my time at Ozark, and I did my best to avoid the issue for my first few years there. Over the past couple years, however, I have tried to think through this topic and formulate my own beliefs regarding a Christian response to war, so maybe now is the time to share my thoughts with you, my faithful reader.
I've been very hesitant to write this post for some time for a number of reasons. For one thing, I'm aware that my views are probably out of line with what the majority of American Christians believe, and I'm also aware that this can be a very sensitive topic, especially for those who have fought in our military or who have military personnel in their family. My intent is not to offend anyone in any way, as I too have friends and family who have served in the military, and all of them could easily kick my tail. I also realize that for those who have been in the military, their time of service can be a core aspect of how they identify themselves, and so for me to question the legitimacy of Christian involvement in war can seem like a personal attack. Again, this is nothing that I intend. And finally, I hope to not over-simply the issue, because I know that it is a complex one. Whenever I'm faced with a difficult question, my response is usually to just side with more mature Christians who I feel have life more figured out than I do, but my problem is that in this case there are Christians I respect a great deal who fall on both sides of the issue, so that doesn't help me out at all. My purpose in pointing this out is simply to state that I hope to write from an attitude of humility. My thinking regarding this issue is still developing, and I may very well be wrong about some things, and I'm open to opposing viewpoints as long as they aren't hostile, and as long as they include a handshake, side-hug, or Wendy's gift certificate.
I'll also point out at the start that in this post I am considering a Christian response to war, not to the use of force in general. The question can be raised, "But what should a Christian do if he comes home and discovers an intruder attacking his family?" That's a different discussion for another day.
In conversations I have had with people, when it comes to the debate about Christian involvement in war, there are two main camps. On the one hand are those who advocate pacifism and completely reject any sort of Christian involvement. On the other hand are those who advocate a "just war" theory, claiming that war is acceptable when it is for a just cause--defending the lives and liberties of a nation.
After thinking through this for a while, I don't think I can agree with the pacifists. I would really like to be a pacifist. I think pacifists are cool. But there are times I think a war can be just. There are times when a maniac rules a nation and begins to use his power to throw the world into chaos, and such times may be instances when warfare is necessary as an absolute last resort. There are indeed "just wars."
However, I also believe that those instances are very, very, very rare. I think a problem may just war theorists have is that they begin to see any war that their nation is involved in as "just." Many American Christians would probably fall into that camp. We are brought up believing that the United States is always right. We are told that we are God's nation, so whatever military campaigns we undertake must be good and just. We are the "good guys," regardless of the situation or time in history.
If this is true, though, it means that the United States is the only nation in the history of the world to always go to war justly. That is simply unrealistic. Propaganda and an instilled sense of nationalism lead us to think that our nation is always in the right, but to believe this is perhaps naive. It would make us unique in the history, because I don't think we can find any other nation to which we can apply the same qualification, especially since we ourselves have been at war with many of them at one time or another.
When considering the justice of a particular war, there are a few scenarios that may be played out. First, it could be that both sides in the war are just in their actions. This, of course, is ridiculous. Second, it could be that one side is just while the other is not. This would be the "just war" mentioned earlier. Third, it could be that neither side is just, and sadly, I believe that this is historically the most common type of war.
I think it's a good exercise to sit down and think through each of the wars and conflicts in which the United States has been involved in its history. Think about the circumstances and reasons that drove the U.S. to go to war, and ask, "How many of these wars were just from a Christian perspective." In elementary school history class, we were taught that we were always in the right, but that may be true far less often that we had believed. Most wars aren't fought to protect human lives. They are fought to protect national interests, economies, and ideologies.
Ultimately, these sorts of questions come down to the question, "Is it okay for a Christian to serve in the military?" To be frank, if a fellow believer were to seek my advice about whether or not to join the military, I would strongly encourage him to stay out. Not because there aren't any just wars to be fought, because I believe there are. But as I understand military life, a solider doesn't get to choose which wars he does and does not fight in, and it may be that a nation will send the Christian off to fight in an unjust war, or even in a just war, that person may be ordered to engage in unjust actions. When a person joins the military, he is signing over some of his freedoms to people who typically make decisions on national, not Christian, principles.
Of course, there are many Christians who have fought and who are fighting in our nation's military. In expression my views, my purpose is not to say that such people are evil or anything of the sort. This group includes people within my church, my friends, and my family. People who I love and respect greatly. I simply think it's time that the American church pays closer attention to how ready we are to jump on board with our nation's program. Our lives ought to be geared first and foremost toward emulating the character of Jesus.
The church as a whole has had far too uncritical of an approach when thinking about how we deal with war. There have been times in war that Christians have killed fellow Christians in the name of their countries. And somehow, I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind when he told us to love each other.
I've been very hesitant to write this post for some time for a number of reasons. For one thing, I'm aware that my views are probably out of line with what the majority of American Christians believe, and I'm also aware that this can be a very sensitive topic, especially for those who have fought in our military or who have military personnel in their family. My intent is not to offend anyone in any way, as I too have friends and family who have served in the military, and all of them could easily kick my tail. I also realize that for those who have been in the military, their time of service can be a core aspect of how they identify themselves, and so for me to question the legitimacy of Christian involvement in war can seem like a personal attack. Again, this is nothing that I intend. And finally, I hope to not over-simply the issue, because I know that it is a complex one. Whenever I'm faced with a difficult question, my response is usually to just side with more mature Christians who I feel have life more figured out than I do, but my problem is that in this case there are Christians I respect a great deal who fall on both sides of the issue, so that doesn't help me out at all. My purpose in pointing this out is simply to state that I hope to write from an attitude of humility. My thinking regarding this issue is still developing, and I may very well be wrong about some things, and I'm open to opposing viewpoints as long as they aren't hostile, and as long as they include a handshake, side-hug, or Wendy's gift certificate.
I'll also point out at the start that in this post I am considering a Christian response to war, not to the use of force in general. The question can be raised, "But what should a Christian do if he comes home and discovers an intruder attacking his family?" That's a different discussion for another day.
In conversations I have had with people, when it comes to the debate about Christian involvement in war, there are two main camps. On the one hand are those who advocate pacifism and completely reject any sort of Christian involvement. On the other hand are those who advocate a "just war" theory, claiming that war is acceptable when it is for a just cause--defending the lives and liberties of a nation.
After thinking through this for a while, I don't think I can agree with the pacifists. I would really like to be a pacifist. I think pacifists are cool. But there are times I think a war can be just. There are times when a maniac rules a nation and begins to use his power to throw the world into chaos, and such times may be instances when warfare is necessary as an absolute last resort. There are indeed "just wars."
However, I also believe that those instances are very, very, very rare. I think a problem may just war theorists have is that they begin to see any war that their nation is involved in as "just." Many American Christians would probably fall into that camp. We are brought up believing that the United States is always right. We are told that we are God's nation, so whatever military campaigns we undertake must be good and just. We are the "good guys," regardless of the situation or time in history.
If this is true, though, it means that the United States is the only nation in the history of the world to always go to war justly. That is simply unrealistic. Propaganda and an instilled sense of nationalism lead us to think that our nation is always in the right, but to believe this is perhaps naive. It would make us unique in the history, because I don't think we can find any other nation to which we can apply the same qualification, especially since we ourselves have been at war with many of them at one time or another.
When considering the justice of a particular war, there are a few scenarios that may be played out. First, it could be that both sides in the war are just in their actions. This, of course, is ridiculous. Second, it could be that one side is just while the other is not. This would be the "just war" mentioned earlier. Third, it could be that neither side is just, and sadly, I believe that this is historically the most common type of war.
I think it's a good exercise to sit down and think through each of the wars and conflicts in which the United States has been involved in its history. Think about the circumstances and reasons that drove the U.S. to go to war, and ask, "How many of these wars were just from a Christian perspective." In elementary school history class, we were taught that we were always in the right, but that may be true far less often that we had believed. Most wars aren't fought to protect human lives. They are fought to protect national interests, economies, and ideologies.
Ultimately, these sorts of questions come down to the question, "Is it okay for a Christian to serve in the military?" To be frank, if a fellow believer were to seek my advice about whether or not to join the military, I would strongly encourage him to stay out. Not because there aren't any just wars to be fought, because I believe there are. But as I understand military life, a solider doesn't get to choose which wars he does and does not fight in, and it may be that a nation will send the Christian off to fight in an unjust war, or even in a just war, that person may be ordered to engage in unjust actions. When a person joins the military, he is signing over some of his freedoms to people who typically make decisions on national, not Christian, principles.
Of course, there are many Christians who have fought and who are fighting in our nation's military. In expression my views, my purpose is not to say that such people are evil or anything of the sort. This group includes people within my church, my friends, and my family. People who I love and respect greatly. I simply think it's time that the American church pays closer attention to how ready we are to jump on board with our nation's program. Our lives ought to be geared first and foremost toward emulating the character of Jesus.
The church as a whole has had far too uncritical of an approach when thinking about how we deal with war. There have been times in war that Christians have killed fellow Christians in the name of their countries. And somehow, I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind when he told us to love each other.
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