Rampage Killings ...

Just say words like Columbine, Ft. Hood, and even here in Orlando this week and the mind can quickly conjure up some image of a crazy gun nut shooting anyone he can find. The news media calls it Rampage Killings as if in a moment of sheer rage a person begins to kill anyone around them. But that is not really the whole story is it? The next invariable question is – why. The viewer needs to know why the gun-toting nut bag went off the deep end (so to speak). Could it be road-rage, recently unemployed, recently divorced badly, etc. etc. ?

The problem with this thinking is that it buys into the premise that this horrific act was singular in nature. Someone snaps, and let the chaos commence. But that is seldom true isn’t it? Time elapses; quite a bit of it usually between the source stressing factor, and the time of the carefully planned “revenge”. You can hardly call something a rampage which implies spur-of-the-moment, that takes days or weeks to prepare for. Think of it, entire days go by, with the same nut bag meticulously plotting the how’s, where’s, and when’s for his little attention grabbing hissy-fit. People, most of which the killer may not even really know, will die all in the effort of what? – soothing your pain? Easing your suffering? Where does the bloodshed in these events accomplish anything of real value?

And why does the news media fan the flames of these tragedies so insuring there will be future such events? If these killings got a 2 minute summary coverage once on the primetime news spots they would all end. I don’t say this because people will become less nutty. I say it because people would realize that even their most extreme horrific antics do not warrant the attention they seek. If you handled news stories in this way, and combine your approach with giving extensive coverage to people who serve others – I dare say the model of society might just turn over on its head. Positive reinforcement without creating super-villains that hog ALL the news coverage for days on end might just put a stopper in the process. To say nothing of allowing the victim’s families, friends, and communities to grieve without a barrage of reminders of just how horrible the event was – replaying footage over and over again.

But make no mistake the motives behind every single killing of this nature is ultimately the same – self interest. Killers may not seek financial rewards, obviously they realize social inclusion after this event is impossible, but in the blood thirsty act they believe they can satisfy their selfish need for revenge (they call it “justice”). You see in the minds of the killers, they believe it is they who have been wronged. The actions they take are nothing more than what is required in their minds to right the wrongs they have incurred. They think of it as “getting even”; though we outsiders look at it as shear madness.

And truth be told, the killers have often been wronged. The Columbine killers were social outcasts. No one was seeking them out for friendship, and in fact were likely making their day-to-day lives less easy than more easy. Everyone thought it to be OK to simply ignore the plight of others unless it directly impacts you. Leave the nut bags alone and maybe they won’t bother you. But isolation is hardly the solution for social awkwardness. And had these 2 students been surrounded by an atmosphere of true Christian love and acceptance they might have had alternative ideas to hate that ends up taking lives. We are quick to blame them for the deeds they did commit, but seldom look beyond them to see if we might have been instrumental in guiding them away from their heinous crimes.

What killers do, represents the epitome of self-indulgence. They focus on thoughts of pure self-gratification through means most of us call insane, and most importantly to the exclusion of how ANYONE else will feel about what they have done. They are out for themselves, no one else. In Ft. Hood this week the accused killer appears to have been an extreme Muslim who yelled God is Great in Arabic prior to shooting. Indeed God is great, what has that to do with the level of selfishness you are about to employ? Anger with an idea, vented in bullets to those who have done you no harm, what could this be other than pure self-indulgence. And to call God’s name into it? Blasphemy.

The Muslims believe they serve the God of Abraham. If this is so, then they must realize how God felt about Cain killing his brother Abel. Even the life of Abraham itself is one of patience faith and long suffering. Abraham did not achieve God’s promise of the Promised-Land it two minutes. It took time. It took effort. And God was faithful, not by Abraham simply killing anyone and everyone who did not like what he was doing. By a Muslim’s own belief system the shedding of innocent blood is strictly forbidden. And to do it in God’s name defines Blasphemy even in their own belief system.

No, religion is not to blame for these heinous acts, it is pure self-indulgence. And ironically religious people somehow believe that a certain amount of self-indulgence is OK in our lives. It is as if we could accept a certain amount of plutonium in our food and ignore the effects of its poisonous nature. We accept self-indulgence if we can balance it with temperance (another failed idea). But like eating plutonium will surely give us cancer, accepting self indulgence will certainly lead us to evil. We may not climb high-rises and begin opening up fire on former co-workers, but we may flirt with the idea of having an illicit affair, or stealing from an employer, or simply compromising our values for expediency.

Christians should know they are not to have the role of “judge” in the courtroom of the Lord. That role only God Himself can handle. Defending attorney belongs to Jesus, the jury or mere courtroom attendees may be the unfallen angels, Satan is our accuser, and of course we are the defendants. And we are ALL guilty as charged. None of us are clean or stand perfect against the truth of Satan’s list of evil we have embraced in our lives. However our attorney steps forward and accepts the sentence for our crimes. We must allow Him to do so, or suffer the fate we deserve. Nowhere in the entire scenario do humans ever play the role of sanctioned “executioner”. Christians who commit heinous acts of killing are merely committing evil, not involved in anything remotely related to righteousness. It is not our role to kill by intent.

Arguments can be made about killing in different circumstances like in self-defense, to save others, in times of war, etc.. You can debate the merits of lack of them under these conditions, but nut bag killers are deserving of no such debate. They simply act in a mode of pure self-interest, which they have generally nourished for a while before committing their crimes. In order for the moment to be truly unplanned, it would require being already armed for a different legitimate purpose, encountering a situation that is beyond the mental capacity of the killer to accept, then taking action without thinking about anyone’s safety or wellbeing including their own. If they have to go home to get the weapon, it is premeditated. If they have time to cool down and do not do so, it is premeditated. If they can act and still be cognizant enough to preserve their own safety. It is premeditated. Just like all the sin in our lives today – it is premeditated.

Our God looks on in horror and GREAT sadness when these events occur. His heart breaks when people use His name or question if it was His will that these things happened at all. But our God sees beyond the existence of this world, and takes account of our lives beyond the scope that we can see. Even when our time in this existence is over, perhaps ended by the free-will choice of another nut bag, our entire existence is not over with these acts of evil. Having accepted the gift He offers, we are sure to resume our existence in a world made new, and devoid of all evil, of every pain, and most of all – absent self completely. Service will be our mantra, and love our method of existence. Praise God our hope is not confined or controlled by the nut bags we are surrounded by …

Robes Of Failure ...

Scripture asks us to put on “the whole armor of God” but I do not believe it is our job to war with the world, with each other, or with evil. I believe our enemy stares us in the face when looking in the mirror. To fight the good fight of faith is to learn to yield, learn to submit our will to the greater will of our loving Father, Savior, and Lord. But defeating me takes more than I thought it might. Turns out, I am fairly crafty, fairly stubborn, and fairly deceitful. Too often, when faced with a choice to put on my armor and submit, I look away and choose to wear the old familiar robes of failure.

Early indications, in the war with evil, are absolute predictors of outcome, unless divine intervention saves the day. Long before the act of evil is committed - are the thoughts, motives, and selfish interest that spark, take hold, and begin their practice of building the chains that hold us in bondage. We craft each link one after the other, stepping deeper into darkness, and farther away from light; going just a step or two further than the last time down this road, just to see what it looks like. And soon, we are so far down the darkened highway, we have no idea where we are, how we got here, and are hopeless to find our way back home. But it all starts with the little things. It begins with decisions and choices so small they seem meaningless, but are in fact significant. It does not look like much of a chain of bondage when only seeing the first few links.

You may ask, “what does it matter what I wear?” On the surface, it doesn’t. But underneath what we wear is an indicator of how we feel, and more to the point, an indicator of what we are planning to do. You don’t go in a bikini to church (usually ), and you don’t wear a tuxedo when working on your car for example. We send ourselves clues and reinforce our own plans and perceptions by the things we wear. Our Maker knew this, He knew that with the entrance of evil into our world would come the perversions that darken our natures. No longer could we be both naked and innocent, so covering ourselves became required. How we cover ourselves these days with as many choices. fabrics, styles, and societal norms speaks more about us and our choices than ever before.

The term “dress for success” is often used to help motivate people to wear the clothing of those they aspire to become. It is designed to give us a mental cue that we look the part, now we need to become the part. But the converse of this is also true. We “dress” for infidelity both to our spouse and to our God. We leave off looking for God’s armor and instead cling to robes that we are too comfortable in. Robes of convenience and easy access. Robes of familiarity. And ultimately, robes of failure, that are sure to deliver us to the evil we plan to commit.

Submitting is just not so easy a task. It seems easy enough. It sounds easy enough. I mean how hard is it to simply “give in”? The hard part comes with the realization that giving in to God will mean a change in our behavior. There is not a question of “IF” God is going to change us. He does. Every time, without fail. That surety however sparks a different thought process in the tempting cycle – do we really want a change today? This is the question the evil one designs to get us to begin reassembling the chains of bondage he wishes us to wear. Just ignore the victories that God has brought, and take “a day off”. Its no big deal right? Just one day off? You can go back to being a prude tomorrow if it means that much to you.

But one day off, is not at all what evil intends. Once the initial barrier has been broken down, a second day is at least half has hard to accept. Day three requires only a passing thought and by day four the habit is back on track. Relapse as a part of the addiction cycle is an unfortunate reality in our world. Both in chemical addiction, and in the war to restrain self will. But the response to relapse must be the same in both to keep the damage to a minimum. One day off the wagon is one day too many. Get right back on that mythical wagon, or in spiritual terms, get right back on your knees and turn it over to God immediately. We already know God does the work. He has proven that over and over. There is no question about whether God will give us a victory, only if we will accept it.

Self deception can be a monster. After enough days of sobriety, an addict can begin to think they are “past it”. In spiritual terms, we can begin to believe that God has changed the desires of our hearts away from evil things since we have not committed them for some long length of time. The problem with this thinking, is that it leads us away from the idea of daily dependence and submission. The minute you think you do not have a problem, you come to believe you do not need any help with it. Can’t fix what is not broken right? This thinking leaves you all alone to face the evil one again. And here we go again with the old – take a day off of your sobriety wagon and have some fun argument. Before you know it, you have proof that you are indeed NOT “past it”. Alcoholics must identify themselves this way as long as they live. It is a recognition of their condition. Sinners are NO different.

And speaking of self deception; the alcoholics are the lucky ones. The lady who refers to herself as a crack whore is far better off than the Christian who does not see his own deficiencies. The chemically addicted can get help. For HELP is what they need. They cannot fix it themselves, but help can get them fixed. Christians are no different. Except the ones in denial. Christians who do not accept that the sin in their lives is every bit as strong as any chemical addiction are fooling themselves big time. And by denying their condition, they avoid treating it, they avoid changing it, and they wallow in the pain they cause themselves. This is the kind of self deception that can lead a Christian to a terminal condition – not wanting change, forgiveness, or a better life.

If you look at your character and see all the ugly, count yourself blessed. Not blessed because you ARE ugly in your soul, but because you CAN see it. The truth is we are ALL ugly in our souls. We hide it, cover it up from each other, pretend it does not exist. But it does. It is rampant and out of control in most folks. The difference between the average “man on the street” and “Saddam Hussein” is opportunity. Most people have not ever experienced control without consequences so they do not know how they would react in that situation. But take a closer look at all the little things they have experienced, and you can extrapolate how bad they would be with unbridled power and control. Those seemingly innocent acts that enrich you at the expense of another, are the basis of character that align you with every despot in history.

Ugly is not cool, not hip, and not to be desired – ugly is ugly – that is all. God can fix the ugly. He can surgically remove it. He can get it out of us and recreate beauty in its place. But only God can do it. And only once we admit we need Him to do it. People only consult a surgeon when they believe they have a problem. When you think your faults are just eccentricities, or that your malevolent nature is “not that bad”, or you simply think of yourself as “a good person” – you have no need of a Savior. No need leads you into darkness, as sure as those who are in darkness focus on the light to get away from it. There is no middle ground. There is no self destiny. There is only submission – either voluntary to God, or forced by the evil one.

I believe our decision process starts earlier than we are aware of: in the things that send us mental cues; in the environment we find ourselves subjected to. There are a variety of influences all working in concert to keep us distracted and too busy to go to God and submit our wills to Him. Once this has been done each day, the tempter must find other prey. For God answers our prayers and controls our will as we let Him. And in this work, He changes us at our very core. The evil one knows this, and it is why he works so hard to keep us from achieving it. Including trying to win us back on the heels of a relapse, but we must not allow him to win our attention. We must continue to give up to God, and allow him to win the fight we need won.

Unwrapping Ecstasy ...

Tis the season one more time! Oh I know the purists out there realize this is not the actual date of birth of Jesus Christ, in point of fact this date has clearly pagan origins. And I know the politically correct crowd would wish me a Happy Holidays rather than a Merry Christmas, after all I may celebrate Hanukah or Cuanza as well. And still the militant Christians are careful to remind me that the only reason for the season is still Jesus. But this year, none of that matters, I finally unwrapped ecstasy and my world may never be the same.

I often wonder where the custom of exchanging gifts came from as it is tied to the celebration of the Birth of Christ. Maybe in honor of the greatest gift ever given to the world, we make a pitiful attempt of our own to commemorate it? Or perhaps since Jesus is no longer available in the flesh to us, we give gifts to each other in His place? But if this is so, then perhaps we should not give to those we know, but to those in need – that would seem to be more Christian than the current practice. Nonetheless, it cannot take away from the present I was given this year. Ecstasy wrapped in a rather plain wrapper, a no frills packaging, I guess you could call it.

The present was not even kept under our tree this year. Strangely it was kept in the bathroom, my bathroom to be precise. Strange place for a gift I imagine; particularly since I do tend to be spending more and more time in there these days as I get older. The wrapping paper was red and black, with gold trim, but there was no bow to speak of. And no really clear tag of who it was from, it seems as though several folks who care about me got together on this gift and each made their own contribution.

Most guys I know would love a HUGE flat screen TV in full 1080p high definition, with a surround sound BluRay player to go with it. My gift was better than that. Other folks I know would love a new computer with dual quad processors and 20 terabytes of hard disk storage running a 64 bit OS. My gift contained more capability, more speed, and is more reliable than that. Some guys I know would settle for something ornate to wear on their wrists, a new Rolex or Omega perhaps with rose colored gold bracelet, and a meteorite face place. My gift is more accurate than that, and worth far more.

When you think about all the things you have collected and received in your life, you can conjure up some fond memories. But most of the things in your life tend to get old, fade, and ultimately lose their value. I’ll grant you it takes much longer for a watch to lose utility than a new computer, but the truism still holds. The relationships you have in your life can be much longer lasting, and more rewarding, but they too are impacted by the effects of evil and self interest. Some relationships expire due to these two inexorably bound concepts; so even memories of people and of your interactions are sometimes limited in scope and length.

There is however a gift that can last a lifetime and more. It comes like everything else of an infinite nature from the source of all infinite gifts. Beyond the gift of Salvation, which is our only road home; beyond the gift of our Savior’s birth, which was the miracle that began the enactment of our Salvation is a gift of truth in a world of half-lies, darkness, deception, and despair. The present I unwrapped was packaged in my Bible, it’s now faded red cover, gold trim, and black ink reached out and took hold of my heart. A common text, a common memory verse every child learns, a billboard held up at NFL football games by a clown in a brightly colored wig – John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, He gave His only Son …”

So many new truths jumped out at me from this old text of scripture. First, was WHO God loved. It says God loved the “world”; NOT God loved those who professed faith in Him. God does not love ONLY those who say they love Him, He loved every single life on planet earth, every single human who has ever lived regardless of their status in the faith. The world is God’s enemy and yet God follows His own advice and truly loves His enemy. The world takes from God without so much as a thank you. And God’s response was to give it more and more, and finally everything in the form of His Son.

I cannot even begin to imagine, WHY God loves the world. It is certainly NOT because the world deserves His love. We have done nothing to earn love, rather we have done much to earn punishment and contempt. We are known for our hatred of each other, more than our generosity. We do little to honor our example of love and much to destroy it completely. So the question of WHY God loves His enemy must be answered only in the definition of love itself. Perhaps as a parent loves a child because they are biologically connected. Even when the child has mis-behaved, or like in our case, has contracted a fatal debilitating disease that impairs judgment and inflicts pain on everyone around. Maybe only in this was can we begin to comprehend WHY.

Regardless of WHY remains the FACT that God does love us. Love that holds nothing back. Love that defines happiness. Love that is eternal. We have been looking through blinded eyes, at blurry images, with distorted sound for so so long. Our vision is worse that our old TV’s not even the black and whites were this badly deformed. But for so long the devil has made us think that God had nothing good to offer us; and sin and evil were the fun things, the cool things, the only things were having. He was putting poop on our plates and calling it caviar. And like idiots we were eating it by the handful. But when our vision is corrected, when we open our eyes for the first time without our disease impacting our sight, the truth becomes clear.

We have relied on the wisdom of men, and on our technological prowess, substituting the simple wisdom of God, for the complex situational ethics of evil. We hope for Google to have our answers, and our hard drives to have the capacity to store them. But the simplest of people, the lowest of IQ’s is able to grasp the simple concept in action of love. It is God’s love for us His enemy that can boggle the mind, and make meaningless our technical accomplishments. We need no answers beyond a love that would give us EVERYTHING. We need no search engine to define the meaning of sacrifice that would offer us EVERYTHING and demand in exchange nothing. God offers us complete release from our pain, and our evil, as nothing more than a gift.

This truth is ecstasy. It cannot be taken away. It cannot be changed. It cannot dull over the years but in fact only gain in strength over the years. It’s meaning and its definition only continue to become clearer and more in focus as we experience the transformational love of our Savior. To realize that God only ever wishes to offer us ecstasy on a level we are hardly ready to experience; there is nothing more under my tree that can move me like this. There is nothing under heaven as important or meaningful to me as this. Truth is worth more than any lie ever told. It is worth more than the entirety of man’s ‘wisdom’. It is not just a matter of faith to me, but a matter of fact to me. For I can see no other transformational power in all the universe, that is at work in the lives of men to redeem them from the pain they are diseased with, than that of our Lord Jesus Christ. Happy birthday to our God [belated as it may be] and thank YOU for a gift of sheer ecstasy that continues to warm my very soul.

Cussing My Head Off ...

“I’m pissed off, and I am not going to take it anymore.” Was that one strong enough? How about – “I’m mad as hell, and I am not going to take it anymore.” Any better? Maybe better to be more simplistic, something on the order of just plain old – “damn it”. Have I communicated my frustration effectively yet? Do you get it that I am mad? And being a follower of our Creator God, does my choice of language seem contradictory to you? Most Christians I know think that cussing, or swear words, are evil and in fact a sin. I say they are wrong, here’s why …

Ironically, my thinking on this topic has been heavily influenced by two figures, George Carlin and Jesus Christ. Find that hard to believe? But they seem to agree on this topic. George points out that when you examine our language, our speaking, and our communication in a deeper thoughtful manner – you realize that all we have is words. Some words are spoken to generate an emotional response, some are considered slang or having multiple meanings, some are considered guttural in nature and are used mostly for shock value. It is the last category that tends to comprise what we now call swear words, cursing, or like they say it down south – cussing.

But any modern curse word you can think of is really only a word. No different than any other word, except in its commonly held definition and purpose. A highly derogatory word for a woman’s genitalia for example, is often used to describe a particularly objectionable woman herself. Also used, is a technical reference to the female of the canine species or perhaps references to general sexual promiscuity. You see, I have just called to mind three words in your head without actually spelling them out for you. But everyone knows what I am talking about. It is the application of these three words that conjures up the “shock value” of the speech itself. And thus, three words with only slightly relevant associations, become swear words in the English vernacular.

George Carlin nearly pioneered this thinking in his now infamous bit entitled “Seven words you cannot say on television”. I love that one. What’s more I used to play his CD of it, in my car on family vacations with my young teenagers in the car. Does that shock you? It shouldn’t. George merely makes the point that our language is a product of our thinking, and our association of words is largely dictated to us. We rarely think independently from the masses, and therefore we deserve what we get, be it in politics, language or society in general. My intention was not to teach my children “how” to swear effectively – they would learn that really well in school. My intention was to teach them something much deeper – how we speak is an indication of how we think, and what we value.

This is where Jesus continues the lesson. In His day, swearing had a bit different meaning than ours. Swearing or vowing in His day, was language used to commit oneself to a binding agreement or contract between two people. If you swore to provide 2 cows to your neighbor by the 25th of the month, on the head of your first born daughter – then you better fulfill the contract, or your daughter’s head would literally be cut off. It was no light matter. The words were strictly and literally enforced. Christ pointed out the fallacy of this thinking by advising we “simply let our yes be yes and our no mean no”. He further pointed out that we “control” nothing. “Leopards cannot change their spots.” “We cannot add one day to our lives by simply wanting it”. In effect we can’t control anything, so it is pointless to swear before God, or before each other as to the validity of our commitments.

But Christ had more to witness on the topic. James and John a couple of His first picks for disciples were known throughout their home geography as “sons of thunder”. The literal meaning of this meant – they swore like sailors – conjure up an image of a Marine with Terets. And these 2 were the first representatives of the meek, mild, savior. Peter went off half-cocked all the time, and had no formal education; you can only imagine the choice of words these “fishermen” were used to saying prior to really knowing Jesus. Yet there is no written reprimand of Christ to correct the language of any of His disciples in the entire New Testament. And in my reading, I have not found the use of curse words in what they said.

Christ too got angry more than once, when he saw how His temple was being treated by the folks who were supposed to be ministering to their fellow believers. The level of apostasy that turns true religion into a purely financial industry made Christ very angry. Enough for Him to take physical action and “cleanse” the temple by overturning the tables setup for money making, and scaring the money changers out of the place. But nowhere in scripture was there recorded a tirade of curse words during the process. Nor are the pictures of Christ using a horse whip accurate. For a brief moment, divinity simply flashed through His humanity, and when the money changers looked at Him their own sinfulness was revealed. This image was too intense for them, and they fled on their own from the revelation. The witness to this truth, is the fact that immediately after the “cleansing”, Christ ministered to the children and believers who had come to the temple. If you run screaming swear words, and cracking a horse whip, into a room of children they will be the first ones out the door (and you should prepare for a heavy lawsuit and criminal penalty).

More important to Christ than your ability to speak, or your choice of words, was the thoughts behind them. Using appropriate legal language to break the commitment to honor their parents, was deemed wrong by Christ in His time. Christ saw that commitment as binding for life. Every time local leaders tried to trick Christ with no-win questions, he would confound them by revealing their motives, and showing them what was really important. Using religion to justify murder was how our Savior was killed on this earth. Upright, believers, who professed a lifelong belief in the coming Messiah, refused to accept the truth when they heard it, and using proper language and horrific motives, crucified the very Messiah they should have worshipped.

And we have still REFUSED to learn this lesson in Christianity. Christian beliefs are SO often associated with hate speech. Christians carrying signs at protest to offer death to homosexuals. Christians who take it upon themselves to reason they should kill abortion doctors in order spare the “innocent”. Christians who devoutly support a death penalty in spite of evidence that many “innocents” have been wrongly executed, and even those who are guilty are offered hope through a plan of salvation by God. Christians, content to sit in judgment of others, while full of sin in their own lives. Complete hypocrites. Complete abomination – liars, whoremongers, adulterers and these are those who profess to serve our God. And you worry about cussing?

Shock jocks, use language to achieve the exact same result as those who swear. But they do it for money. Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern to name a few. Ironically, I hear less condemnation on Howard’s show than on Rush’s. But then I hear no hope on Howard or Rush. I am angry because I want the hate speech to stop where Christians are concerned. Angrier still because I know the hate speech comes from a heart diseased with the same condition. Words do reflect our motives, and our attitudes. When our minds are occupied by love, and by the transforming power of our Creator God, we do NOT condemn our brothers. Instead we see our own need of Christ, and simply love our brother unconditionally. His need of Christ and reform of his life, is exactly like our own. We are all THE SAME. We all desperately need Christ. We all radically need a change in our thinking and our motives, that will lead to a much better level of spoken words.

Christ focused on the motives of what we say, not on the particular words. He sought to correct problems where they originate, not just superficial symptoms of much larger problems that lay underneath. I can politely, in the sweetest of words, declare my absolute apathy for your life and your problems. More to the point, I can lie and fake a superficial interest in you as a person, and have no real underlying interest in you. In this, I reveal the absolute lack of God in me, and overabundance of evil. Better I tell you how fricking much I love you and mean it; than use extravagant words to convey no real emotion and leave you alone. I wish Christian’s would get pissed off, at hypocrisy in their own lives. I wish they would get a passion for love back in their hearts. I wish they would hate seeing their religion turned into a simple financial enterprise. If enough of us did, we would not have to worry about cussing, we would be too busy loving, and the whole world would change for the better …

Barefoot, Pregnant, & in the Kitchen

Who comes up with these sayings? More to the point, whoever believed this was an expected role for a woman? I have heard of cultural disparities but even against some of those, this tag-line seems extreme. In “traditional” Japan, for instance, women walked several paces behind their husbands as a sign of respect. But even more than 50 years ago when this might have been more normal in Japan, women always wore shoes, were frequently out of the home itself, and child rearing was still an important decision – note that not many Japanese families had 10 or 12 siblings. So where does this stuff come from?

The sad part about tag-lines like this; is that some folks believe this to be the ONLY expected role of a woman, and that somehow God set it up that way. Of course this is yet another lie spread by the master of lies who often blames God for the things he initiates. But while most Christians will dismiss this idea of a role as the poop-factory it is, they still cling to a few preconceived ideas about roles we take on in our marriages and the church; i.e. who should have them; and in general our attitude about them.

For instance, the text advising “wives to submit to your own husband’s” is now completely out of favor; mostly because it has been overused, and is rarely quoted completely. Most preachers stop at Ephesians 5:22 and do not continue the thought all the way to verse 25. If they did, they would get a better picture of the kind of “submission” the inspired author (Paul) intended. But in these texts is a key point that has been largely missed by greater Christianity, the role of submission to God. Even the council to wives to submit to their husbands is followed by saying “as unto the Lord”. We tend to ZOOM in on the submission part related to the husband, and forget totally the submission part related to God.

This is our human weakness showing. Men like the idea of a woman having to “give in” to their final authority under the auspices of marriage so this is the part of the text that gets the most attention. But I submit, the first part is null and void without considering the entirety of the advice. Submission to God MUST preempt even the thought of submission to men. Until we are willing to want what God wants, need what God needs, and love how God loves – we are in no position, i.e. we have no ability to submit to each other. Submission of our will to God is the beginning of Salvation. It is the mechanism of our freedom from sin, and our entrance into enlightenment.

Through submitting our will to God, we humble ourselves, and accept His gift – the gift of Salvation – of being saved from our sins and ourselves. This is what God has been longing to give us. It is NOT about going to heaven. It is about being made free from the bondage of sin. To be made free, someone has to do the work, and that someone is NOT you. You cannot. More to the point, you WILL not. Your entire life is proof positive of this. Humans do not have the will to become perfect, let alone the inclination. Most of us are content in the evil we hurt ourselves with. It is a rare thing that the evil produces enough pain in our lives to make us truly crave change. But were we to see evil as it truly is, were we to understand its horrific affects in our lives, in the lives of those we hurt, in the lives of those who care about us and our victims, we would crave to be freed from the evil we are slave to commit.

And this is the gift of Salvation, a freedom from the bondage of sin, that only Christ can create in the human heart and mind. We must allow Him to do so. In order for that to occur, we must submit or yield our evil, carnal, nature, our natural decisions up to God and let Him decide for us, sometimes in spite of us. If we try to keep control over our decisions, we end up making the wrong ones over and over and over again. In order for us to achieve Salvation from evil we must learn to submit. This is our weapon. It is not our strength of character that frees us from sin, but the recognition of our only hope in God. It is His strength, made perfect through our weakness, through our submission. It is His work to eliminate sin in us. We must let Him and stay out of the way.

But the entire process of Salvation depends on our willingness to submit. So of course, the devil targets submission and packages it as the worst of all crimes to commit. Rather than put God in the picture, the devil has only to use the truthful argument that women should NOT be submitting to men. That is actually true, and even Biblical. The text does not say for women to submit to men, it says “to their own husbands”. But it is easy to forget this distinction and maintain the original premise that women should not submit to any man. The devil fosters a spirit of independence in each of us. His intent is not to insure we do not submit to each other, but to make sure we forget to submit to God. Submission to God changes lives.

To further inflame the process, the devil invents tag-lines like the title of this BLOG entry, and then throws it out there as if it were from the Bible itself. He attacks weak minded men who are already prone to chauvinism and gets them to start misusing scripture to beat women over the head with. He tries to associate the first part of the text with the tag-line above and blend them together. But this is all lies, told by the father of lies, intended to keep us ALL from submitting to God. Submission to God brings about the enactment of Salvation in our lives right here and right now.

After yielding up our will to the Lord, we become changed. We begin to see things differently. Where once was arrogance, now we see the wisdom of humility. Where once was only self-interest, we see now the wisdom of truly loving another – to sacrifice at all costs for the happiness of another without any thought of our own gain in the process. This wisdom can only come to the changed heart, to the heart that has been literally re-created by our Creator God. This is what being Born Again truly means. It is not uttering silly sounds that masquerade as a ‘divine’ language while gyrating across the floor claiming to feel the Holy Spirit. That chaos is not a sign of redemption, it is a sign of anarchy. Being Born Again is the process of submitting our will to God, of trusting in Him to save us like a baby must trust its parent to keep it alive. All of our thoughts, all of our desires, all of our habits must be reborn with a new insight. That is being Born Again.

But nothing comes to those who strive to maintain control, which is only an illusion anyway. Women who will NOT submit to their husbands, usually will NOT submit to God either. But the danger is not just for women. Men are counseled in that same text to “love their wives as God loves the church”. Hello!!! Christ literally died a tortured death to redeem His church. He loves it more than His own life. He gave EVERYTHING to it, and for it. But again men are NOT capable of this kind of love, until they too learn to submit their own wills to God. Men cannot understand the beauty of this sacrifice, and the deep fulfillment of the gift of loving someone, until their own minds have been freed of the bondage of evil. Men too must submit, before they are truly capable of loving. But too many men have ignored this prerequisite and defined “loving their wives” to suit their own self interest. In this we miss the blessing the Lord intended, and again misuse His word.

Men want to win the arguments with their wives focusing on the idea that their wives should be submitting, without asking themselves first – why is there an argument in the first place? Is it over money, career, friends, food, or household items? Then no argument could exist, if like Christ did for His church, the husband simply demonstrated His own love for his wife. Where men were meant to lead, was in the spiritual matters of the home. In this area, they were “supposed” to be the authority. Men were to set the example of submission to God, before expecting their wives to see the wisdom of submission to them. It is easy to love a man who submits himself wholly to God, as it easy to love a woman who does the same. But again it is submission to God that BEGINS this process, and for that matter completes it. Without submitting to God first, failure is sure to result.

Once we accept the humility of submission to God, we are far more willing to accept His council in whatever format it comes. The roles we take on in the church can come without expectation if we look first through humbled eyes. When we accept our condition, and our healing, we are thankful for God’s guidance whether it comes from the mouth of a child, or a parent, or a friend, or a stranger, or even an atheist. God can send us guidance through anyone. He is not constricted by prejudices against sex, or age, or race, or even orientation or beliefs systems. He is willing to work for ALL men, and through ANY who are willing to be used. We should not judge the truth by the package it comes in. We should accept the truth and adhere to the council without glorifying the messenger, only the message. Were we to see this, our lives would be so much more full, so much better …

Giving Thanks ...

Ceremony and gratitude are not the same. Because a custom is repeated, even remembered, does not necessarily engender the feelings of those who started it. Often those who believe in our Creator God replace meaning in their words with mere repetition of their words. This becomes evident just prior to meal times, and sometimes just prior to going to sleep at night. Times like this recent holiday when we pause for a moment to give thanks.

Gratitude, as feelings go, seems like a foreign concept in this world of ours. No matter what the achievement, there is always something more to chase after, and rarely a moment is spent in thanks for the journey thus far. People are amazed that even life changing events do not always warrant thanks. Take the story of the 10 Lepers that Christ healed in His journeys between Samaria and Galilee. Ten men with a fatal disease call for mercy. All ten called out. All ten needed healing. All ten were doomed to die. All ten were healed. Only one came back to give thanks.

Were the other guys just too happy to think about giving thanks right away? Were they so overcome by the miracle they experienced that they needed to get home and tell their families and friends all the great deeds the Master had just done, for them personally? Was time of the essence? Perhaps they were so lonely from being kept away from former friends and family that every second counted in getting back to them. They needed to prove they were healed. They needed the fellowship of those who cared about them. They were excited. They were happy. They were on a clock. For everyone, and everything perhaps, except to make time to thank the one who had literally given them their lives back.

Christians ironically, are the most guilty of this. The immense life changing blessings that Christians are so often given, have become so common-place in our own eyes, we fail to thank the One who sends them all to us free of charge. Those who have been forgiven much … perhaps should take a minute and realize just HOW much, and how often, and how far, they have been brought. Those who have been forgiven much … should remember that they are not the judge of others, as they would not have wanted others to judge them. Those who have been forgiven much … as they begin to see Christ more clearly, will immediately see their own corruption more vividly and realize how much more they require forgiveness and reform.

Christians have come to prize ceremony more than meaning. The pre-meal blessing is a good example. Those who are faithful to ask God for His blessing on the food they are about to eat; do they know ‘why’ they pray what they do? Do they take the time to vary the words, or do they fall into a trap of saying the same 4 or 5 prayers over and over and over again? Ceremony, with hollow sentiment. Why do we ask God to bless food He has provided for us? Is it to remember He is the one who created all food in the first place? Is it to remember that without His providence we might actually be going hungry? Are we saying God loves us more, because we eat, and there are those that do not? Are we saying that without His blessing the food will not “nourish our bodies”? If in fact we are actually grateful for the food, why not offer thanks at the end of a fine meal, rather than before we know if we like it or not?

When Christ blessed the food, he fed 5,000 men, plus women and children with 2 small fish and a few loaves of bread. Enough food for everyone with much left over. That was a blessing on food. He took everything the young boy had to eat, and made it enough for everyone listening to his words to be completely full. Thousands fed from the meal of one. That was a blessing. What is our intent? Can we call it gratitude if we don’t really mean it?

This is what happens when manna falls from the sky every morning, enough for the day alone. Twice the ration on Friday so that no work will be required on Sabbath to prepare it. A daily miracle. Bread, falling from heaven in the middle of an otherwise horrific place known as the desert. Add to this daily miracle, another daily miracle of perfect weather. No scorching sun by day, as a cloud overshadowed the entire camp and provided both shade and moderate cool temperatures. At night, no biting cold, as the cloud became a pillar of fire, providing both light, and warmth, for the entire camp. Literally no one suffered. Not a single poisonous snake, spider, or scorpion came out to bite anyone. Every need was met. Every day for forty years. No lack of water (short one significant incident). No normal problems of living in the desert, their clothes were maintained like new. Nothing wore out. No sickness, no disease. Every need met, with every day miracles, and was gratitude the response – Nope. They complained about what they did not have.

We marvel at the stiff necked Israelites and then turn around and mimic their every action. God puts food on our tables, enough for the day, and we worry and fret about whether we will eat again tomorrow. Or perhaps, we are so secure in knowing where our next meal is coming from, that Publix, Safeway, or Albertsons are conveniences that have completely replaced manna. We take our ability to bring home food and put it on our tables so much for granted that we dare not give it even a second thought. Are we really grateful, every time we eat, I doubt it. I think just like the Israelites, we focus our attentions on the things we do not have just yet. Better food, better things, better jobs, more money, more popularity, more, more more…

When you lack the motive to pray, your prayers become empty words. If you do not know why you are asking for God’s blessing on your food, what do you say? There is a simple way of reminding yourself why you are grateful for food you eat each day. Skip a meal. Go without. Not forever, don’t plan on starving yourself, just miss a meal you were looking forward to. That irresistible urge you have to find something to eat, that overwhelming focus your mind has on all things food; those are signs of just how grateful you should be. If those Israelites had not had food every day, they might not have taken it for granted how good it really was under God’ care. Just like you. If you missed meals you really wanted from time to time you might remember more often how good you have it under God’s care.

But herein is the beauty of our God, He knows all this and could easily inflict it on us, to teach us this lesson, yet He does not. Whether we thank Him or not, He provides, every day, every need. That whole Israelite camp was fed every day, not one person went hungry. Zero hunger for forty years. And yes, He even responded to their complaining about a lack of meat and provided quail. Enough of it for it to be coming out of their ears. They got the message. Just like with you. God does not stop providing for you whether you thank Him or not. He makes sure you are fed every day. He takes care of your physical needs consistently. He does not stop feeding you to teach you gratitude. He could, but just like with Israel of old, He doesn’t punish you by taking things away to make you grateful. He just keeps on giving, faithfully. God does not provide for you to find your gratitude, He cares for you because He loves you.

A screaming 2yr old, spoiled by a constant series of gifts, does not engender feelings of generosity. This is so often the image Christians portray to both God and the world around them. They complain incessantly about the things they lack, the more they want, and the time it takes to get them. Just like the 2yr old they do not take time to recall all the things they have been given, how their care is guaranteed, how much love and forgiveness they receive every day, how someone changes those dirty diapers despite what an ugly job it may be. But that is what our God does for us each day, He removes the filth of our sins from us, cleaning us up again, feeding us, clothing us, and getting us ready for the world each day. We would do well to remember why we pray, remember why we are thankful. When we do, our words will carry meaning. Our prayers will actually have something to say. Ceremony disappears, and meaning emerges…

Used Cars and Junk Food ...

Hey buddy, wanna buy some snake oil for what ails ya? In the late 1800’s a new miracle cure was “discovered” in the form of snake oil. Its actual ingredients were mostly a toxic blend of chemicals with the exception of the large amount of opiates in the mix. The liquid heroine did as promised in so much as it made you forget whatever symptoms you were suffering from for a while. Then it gave you something not printed in the fine print (lawyers had not invented fine print yet), it gave you worse problems than you had before. I sometimes wonder why our society will accept second rate goods that satisfy the short term needs, at the entire expense of the long term.

Its like the prayer you hear so often … “Lord, give me patience, NOW!!!!” We want everything we want, and we want it now. But like the hard lesson to learn - “there is no free lunch”; we realize there is a cost to everything we want. But we prefer to pay our costs on credit rather than in cash. Credit hurts less, at least until the bill comes in. Then when in panic from what we have spent, we remember our get-out-of-jail-free-card – the minimum monthly payment – a mere fraction of what we owe (by my calculations that fraction would be multiplied over 10 years to pay the debt). Give me now, pay you later; and then it mystifies us as a nation when our national debt gets out of hand.

What is it about instant gratification that so entangles us? This idea permeates our culture. You can find it everywhere from how we shop, to how we eat, to how we travel to our needed destinations. Some call it convenience, others call it how a society advances, I just call it – “the gimmee’s”. With the notion of “instant”, we sacrifice most of the things that lend actual value to something. Think about it. How good are instant friends? How long lasting are instant romances? How well constructed are homes made instantly? I’ll give you instant messaging, and instant coffee; but my point is the same – cutting down the time it takes to build something – has an almost proportionate adverse affect on the quality of that something.

Allow me to demonstrate my premise. If I could offer you a dining experience at the nations favorite McDonald’s for some “grade A, prime USDA, beef”; or offer you the same worded menu from a much lesser known, smaller chain of restaurants called “The Palm” located in most major cities, catering to a gourmet steak crowd. Where would you prefer to dine? Depends on the time you have perhaps? Depends on how you are dressed perhaps? Can’t say money, cause it is my treat. If you have a little more time, and are not still dressed in your pajamas, The Palm offers a substantially better meal.

And here is the kicker; it is not just that you can hardly compare the quality of the taste of the food between the two restaurants. It is that the quality of the nutritional value is extraordinarily better at The Palm, than at McDonalds. A film-maker made a documentary called “Supersize Me” where he ate nothing but McDonalds food, supersized whenever offered by the employee behind the counter for 30 days. He nearly died. You could not only eat at the Palm for 30 days, if you balanced your selections, and insured you ate vegetables as well as the meats there, you could probably improve your overall state of health after eating nothing but their menu for 30 days. Their selection includes the finest foods from many food groups, and is prepared very well.

But in fairness, you just can’t make food that good in less than 5 minutes. You can’t have it sitting in a warmer waiting to be eaten for an hour and achieve the same quality control. The only way to consistently deliver food fast and cheap is to streamline the menu, and the cooking process, until what is left, looks just like McDonalds. It takes time to properly age, cut, and barbeque over an open flame, a filet mignon steak. A frozen pre-prepared burger patty made of mysterious ingredients purported to be pure beef, cooked in a friar and microwave is done in seconds. Arguably they will both kill you over time if that is all you eat, but you can see how the effects of time and effort make a difference in the end product of what you consume.

But our learned behavior of instant gratification goes well beyond how we eat and where we dine, it infects how we shop and what we buy. The cardinal sin for a vendor is to be out of stock on an item. This is the primary driving condition to move your customer to another vendor. Even a higher price will not drive customers away as quickly as being out of stock. People will pay more, if they can still get it now. If they have to wait, they are likely to look elsewhere. So once the shelves are properly stocked, the attention moves to the consumer. Everything is ready to be taken home now, but the consumer may not have the funds to cover ALL the items they have been trained to want by a barrage of media advertising targeting their demographics. This is why credit was invented. People get to buy, stores make money, banks make a fortune, the rich get richer, they pay for more advertising, and the cycle repeats over and over and over again.

OK fine instant gratification is part of our society or culture; surely it is not a part of our religion is it? Yup. We look at God as “instant Santa”. We look to prayer for “instant healing”. We like our religious ceremonies to start on time and more importantly to finish on time so we can get to lunch as our hunger arises. Even in our religion we carry over our attitudes of give it to me now. Why can’t I be perfect now? Why can’t God come now? Why isn’t my marriage or my family perfect already? The idea of long-suffering is about as foreign to us as is the Quran to a Christian. Indeed we know nothing of “long-suffering”, our entire society and governmental structures are designed to keep us from knowing anything about the word.

But how long did the world suffer in the agony of extreme evil before the flood washed it away the first time? How long did Abraham wait for his promised son and promised land? How long did Israel toil in slavery waiting for a deliverer before Moses arrived in the court of Pharaoh? How long did we await the Messiah the first time? And since then, how long? Nothing of extraordinary value comes in an instant; it comes in time frames sometimes beyond our boundaries of mortality. And during all this time of waiting, it is our Lord who suffers the most. It is He who is most pure who misses the companionship of His children who refuse to come home. It is His heart that breaks waiting for us to discover what He longs to offer us – an real and immediate escape from the pain that infects our lives.

But even accepting His gift takes us time to get used to. It too is a process of change, not the work of an instant as yet. Our humanity is simply not equipped to deal with it all at once. It is like taking a starving African child from his desert home where he has not eaten in weeks and then feeding him a feast all at once – it would kill him. He must eat slowly, with small quantities at first, until his digestive system has time to repair and rebuild. It takes time to enter a condition of starvation; it takes time to exit it. Were we to see all the evil that infects our lives at one time, the revelation would kill us. It would literally break our diseased hearts. This is why Moses could not look on the face of God. In that glance Moses would see purity and by definition would reveal in himself the evil that still plagued his life and soul. Evil cannot stand in the presence of God and so Moses would have fallen. It was enough to see the back of God.

It is the work of the evil one, to convince us to take less than we deserve. He packages it well. He is a master marketer. He makes the counterfeits sound better than their originals, but they are always lacking. Who would rather have a used Ford, when they could own a new Mercedes? Who would rather choose a Big Mac over a Filet Mignon? Who would rather have a dresser from Rooms to Go, or a hand carved Italian Armoire with designs from an artist of the Renaissance? It is not about finer things as much as it is about how we have been trained to want less than what God offers. We are trained to take the quick, the fast, and the cheap. How disappointing to a God who would create nothing less than perfection for us to occupy for eternity.

Next time you are confronted with the temptations to accept a cheap satanic counterfeit for something God would have you really enjoy, why not go for the gold standard. Marriage, unity, intimacy, and vulnerability beat any kind of cheap sexual thrill that destroys relationships and ruins a body before it has a chance to experience what divinity intended. Gourmet foods of a balanced nature are far better for mind and body, than the fast crap you can pick up from an open car window. Mild repetitive exercise is so much better than perpetual couch potato. Waiting for an item you cannot now afford, keeps your precious cash in the bank, and may teach you to prioritize your wants, your needs, and perhaps forego what is merely learned marketing behavior …

My Heart Is Shattered ...

The pain that evil has brought with it into this world feels sometimes simply unbearable. When feeling the sting of love that is NOT returned our hearts melt, our tears flow, and our understanding is often baffled. When the object of our love is no longer on this earth and therefore unable to return our love for now, we feel a loss akin to no other. But when we choose to love and are plainly rejected it is our thinking that takes the hit. We wrestle with questions that have no answers. Why would the person of our affections not want to bathe in the love we would offer? Why are our motives questioned? Why are our deeds ignored? What did we do to cause this?

When I think of the sadness that has directly impacted my own life from evil, I am astounded that often I have been the center of it all. I have been the reason for my own pain. Bad choices. Gratifying short term desires while truly killing long term fundamentals. Treating others as objects of conquest rather than precious treasure of association. My apathy and simple disinterest in the pain of others has led me to a very narrow self interested set of priorities, and my friendships with others suffer as a result. Cherishing privacy is tantamount to avoiding the world and its need. But see for a minute through His eyes, and the revelations about my own deficiencies spring forth off the map.

And that is when it hit me like never before … see the effects of evil for just a minute through His eyes. Imagine the pain our Lord must feel as He watches the events of our lives unfold. Forget for a minute that He longs to help us avoid causing ourselves such horror; He must deal with our constant rejection of His love as well. He must ask all the same questions we ponder, and be even more mystified by the lack of real answers for our rejection. I cannot imagine what it must be like for a parent to personally witness the murder of one of his children by another. I cannot imagine what it must be like to see the raping and torture that one brother does to another, or one brother does to his very own sister. Yet God can, because He sees it every day.

And who is He supposed to love? Just the victims of evil? The murdered, the raped, the abused? For are we ALL not equally victims of evil, as well as the perpetrators of these crimes? Is not our hate just as painful to Him. Is not our rejection of His constant offers to solve our problems supremely more painful to Him, as He truly is the ONLY one with real solutions for us? To grieve as He grieves is more than the human heart can bear. To see the effects of evil, the insidious disease that kills good as its primary goal, to witness it spread and take root, even in the hearts of those who call themselves His servants, His followers, that take on His very name – Christ-ians. It must be so much more sadness than we can even begin to measure.

We think we know something of rejection. Most of us have experienced it at least romantically. But He experiences it as way more than a mere jilted lover or spouse. He experiences it as our Father, our Family, our Brother, our Savior, and our Friend. We turn Him away though He gives us the life we have, the very air we breathe. He must watch us, as we direct our will into the evil it seeks, and then suffer with us as the effects of evil wreak their toll. To grieve as He grieves is more than humanity was meant to know. It is what broke the very heart of Christ while on the cross of our redemption.

But it is not empathy with God for the sadness He feels that truly shatters my heart. It is not the pain I have endured, or more often caused myself, that was capable of breaking this heart of stone. More recently I have discovered a new phenomenon in Christianity and in myself that broke me and my heart on the rock of the Lord. Not to grieve as He grieves, but to glimpse love as He loves. More than all the effects of evil combined with all the sadness it brings, it was a brief glance at love through pure eyes that shattered my cemented heart. To watch what love can do for another, is to bring my pride to tears.

I have lived my life for years following the edicts of society that men rarely if ever show great sadness. To see a man cry is debilitating at best, to see it in the mirror is dumbfounding. And even more astounding, is to see it in the eyes, and in the hearts, of other Christian men who appear to be discovering the same phenomenon the same way at the same time. Not only is my own heart shattered, and now I am moved to tears when I see His love enacted or reflected in the world around me; I see the same response from those “strong” souls I am acquainted with in the church.

Men who have no reason to break. Men who have no history of demonstrating deep emotion. Men, and yes some women as well, are responding the impact of the love of Christ is a completely vulnerable way. It is deeply humiliating to shed tears in front of another, let alone in front of those who you barely know. And it is even harder to explain when the cause for tears is not based in depression, circumstances, or the infliction of pain by another – against these conditions I and those around me seem to remain as stalwart and composed as Winston Churchill. But up against the demonstrated love of Christ at work in the life of another, there is no defense, there is no composure, there is only real naked emotional response. Against this there is only tears.

To be so deeply moved from love I must believe is a side-effect of submitting the will to Christ. It must be part of the process He is enacting in our lives as we allow Him – to mold our hearts, to realign our priorities, to see with His eyes rather than our own. I did not expect this work to have the effects it has. I did not expect to find it so difficult to maintain my own composure when sighting the examples of His great love for us. A year ago I would have labeled this behavior as some form of mass psychosis. I would have used logic to attribute it to real issues such as long term unemployment or under-employment; economic hardship; political turmoil. There are a myriad of real stressors in the world that one could blame for men breaking down.

But living inside this experience I can attest to none of these reasons. The timing does not work, for it is not when hardship presses in that the tears begin to flow. It is the gentleness, the beauty, the intimacy, the care, and the life altering effects of His love demonstrated in the life of another, or even in my own, that moves me beyond my composure. I am becoming a small child once again, perhaps too small. I thought the council Christ gave about becoming a little child to enter into Heaven meant the average mental age might be 7 or 8. For me it appears to be more like 2 or 3. Fully dependent, fully vulnerable, fully trusting – perhaps one must be younger in order to truly achieve these conditions.

For so many years we are taught to rely on ourselves. We are taught to look out for number one, as nobody else will. But these teachings run counter to the wisdom of scripture which offers us a completely different view of the world. Don’t worry about what you wear, eat, or need - seek Christ first. Do not carry your own burdens – give them to Christ so He can carry them FOR you. You need merely accept the GIFT of salvation, there is nothing for you to earn or do to be saved from evil accept allowing God to save you from it. Submission of the will, is the start of the real change in your life. But now I realize it is not just behavior that He intends to change. It is the vision we see life by. It is how we see things like grief and love. And in so doing, the unexpected becomes the norm.

We do not know, what we do not know, but our gentle Lord does. As He continues to mold our hearts, I pray for the humility to accept the changes He proposes and enacts. I pray for the humility to see myself as a mere toddler in His world, and extend my arms outstretched to Him in response. For I can think of no better place than to be carried in the arms of our Savior; and I can think of no better way to see purest love than through the eyes of its originator …

Building Community ...

One of the distinct advantages (or disadvantages if you prefer) to all of our modern technology and conveniences is our ability to accomplish a wide variety of tasks in fairly short order. We can get a new recipe from the internet, shop and have the contents delivered, microwave cook our new food adventure, and sit down to eat it in front of a large flat screen TV – all in record time, all by ourselves. We save countless hours relying on our technical abilities, but at what price to our humanity?

“Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together.” This council was given in the time of Christ, and has been used recently to reinforce the idea of attending a formal church service. But I suspect the meaning (and value) of these words is far greater than we have applied them to date. Our very nature is not one that aspires to loneliness and isolation. While there are times we crave “some alone time”, the key word there is “some”. In truth what we usually mean by those words is simply that we crave a “relief” from the stressors that surround us. In general, humans have always been social creatures.

Clear back to the Garden of Eden, man exercised a unique particularity of his consciousness, and despite God’s original design – man was unsatisfied. Man became aware of his own isolation, by witnessing the pairing of every other animal species he encountered as he named them all. He saw firsthand the reliance on one from the other, he witnessed intimacy even if only rudimentary in its definition, and he wanted what he saw. Adam might have been less lonely had he been in direct contact with God all of the time, but this was reserved more for evening walks than minute to minute socialization. Adam saw the work of creation as missing one important element.

The genesis of Eve into the world met the need Adam had identified. As a part of him, she would be his helper, his heart, and more to his need – a constant companion. Even as Eve entered the world, the new council from God was to stay together to avoid the pitfalls that must be placed in perfection. In order that humanity be given a true choice, Satan would be allowed a small representation in their garden home to offer his own – “alternatives”. God’s original council of defense against this danger was to stay together to meet it. It was the first casualty in a series of decisions that resulted in our condition we face today.

The simple truth is that groups of people are harder to defeat than single individuals. There can be greater strength in numbers when in humility all are willing to listen and learn from each other. We are told we represent the “body” of the church. Each member has a unique function relative to the body’s whole. Those who represent the “eyes” of the body can perhaps see truth others might miss, but they are ill-prepared to take the action that those who represent the “hands” might be able to do. One identifies, another responds, still another offers a different type of assistance based on their role in the body. None are greater than the other. None can exist well without the other. None was ever told they represented the entire picture themselves alone. It takes more than one to represent the church, it takes community.

The problem with modern technology that ever pushes us into further and further independence is that the subtle message we adopt becomes that we “need” no-one else to survive. Our communal body starts reacting like the patient who refuses an organ donation. We reject our brothers, because they do not fit well with our view of the body. If I were an “arm” for example, I might not like what the “leg” looked like. It is too long, too thick, not as nimble as I am, and therefore judge its value as minimal at best. So we look around us devoid of humility, and from our singular perspectives, we use our truth to drive others away from us – leaving our body crippled and near death. This is the reason why churches look the way they do today.

The message of self-help, self-awareness, self-discovery does not lend itself to socialization or dependence on the whole for results. No just the opposite, it focuses the eyes in the mirror to find all the answers, and ignores the council of groups. Our greatest enemy “self” is bolstered by modern thinking that praises individuals above community. It destroys within us even the desire to be around others, unless to further reinforce our ego by demonstrating our superiority in one form or another. This thinking is the hallmark of all evil, and runs completely counter to the clear word of God on this topic. Leaders who encourage their flocks to “try harder” to defeat evil only leave them frustrated and still wanting.

Whether we like it or not, we are not as independent as we think. We need others. We need God. As each of us is incapable of permanently vanquishing evil from our hearts, our minds, and our desires; we must DEPEND on God to do this work FOR us. In this matter God works alone. But as His work is invisible, God recognizes our continued need for socialization and reminds us not to forsake getting together. The work of Salvation, that is, the work of saving us from sin and evil itself, is done by God alone, for each of us, in a one on one setting. It is highly personal and private. But the results could no more be kept secret than trying to hide a brilliant light in the darkness.

As we become changed we begin to offer help and hope in a world with little of either. Though the victories are not really “ours” as we do not do the work – we certainly benefit from the gift we are given. Freedom! Freedom to think, to love, and to share unburdened by the former evil that held us back. Evil holds us down, poisons our minds, and paralyzes our will to act. But freedom from evil as brought and wrought by our Savior has an exact opposite effect. It is invigorating. It is inspiring. It causes us not to accept the status-quo any more. It makes us Brave. It drives us with energy to move forward. This is something the world lacks. And when they see it, they will be curious about it, after all those in darkness will respond when they see a great light. Too few of us have discovered the light of reliance on God to be able to share it thus far, but the kindling is catching on.

There is wisdom in the minds of others. God speaks to each of us in the ways we understand. And if we are willing in humility to hear it, we can learn His lessons in the mouths and lives of those who surround us daily. Not everyone who offers us council speaks for God, but everyone who loves has something of value to offer. Carry important questions and decisions back to God in prayer, but do not blind yourself to the answers you seek in the lives of others. Think drinking alcohol to be a good idea? Consider the life of the alcoholic closely and learn what is possible for those that drink. Think helping out a homeless shelter is a good idea? Consider the life of those who help, and find out what makes them do it. Try it out for yourself. Make a difference to someone else, and then come tell me if you can beat that feeling some other way.

Remember your role in humility. If I am to be the “eyes” of the body of Christ, then I am probably ill-suited to speak as His “mouth”. I am not the best at running as His “legs”, nor do I hear as well as His “ears”. Do not be overwhelmed by allowing others to ask you to do more than your role would provide. You are not supposed to be every vital organ in the body, just the one you’re suited to. If your body lacks a “mouth”, then seek one out, don’t try to simply “add” it to your list. We are supposed to be a community. Our community is supposed to look out for one another, even when it is not so convenient to do so. We are to gather together to draw strength from each other’s strength, and cloth the weaknesses in each other.

In practical terms, this may mean you help someone out changing a car tire when you see them in need. No-one enjoys changing a tire, but everyone appreciates help when they need it. It may mean you do the dishes and clean the kitchen up for your family. Again this is a thankless job, but it has meaning for someone, especially if you’re not the one who usually does it. It may mean you click on the advertisements on my WEB site or my BLOG that Google provides as this is how I make a living right now. No, you don’t need to actually buy anything, I get paid per click not per purchase :)  But more importantly, it means you recognize your need of the rest of His body to make you the stronger person you can be. It is our community that makes us His body …

Credit Where Credit Is Due ...

There is new competition in the fight against additions and addictive disorders. Instead of your traditional 12-step programs, now enters the age of self-help once again. A recent media personality on CNN requested for viewers to email her with stories of addictions they have overcome, presumably to use on-air while discussing this topic. It raises an interesting question: Can you truly and permanently overcome addiction by yourself?

If the answer to this question is yes, then those who continue to suffer with addiction do so from weak minds, or rather weak wills. It implies that the addict deserves his condition, is ultimately responsible for his condition, and could at will (perhaps guided by the new onslaught of self-help books in this area), just say no. Nancy Reagan was widely ridiculed for this proposal some time ago, but current thinking has once again broached the subject.

But to isolate your thinking around just the question of self-victory or not, is a bit too limited for those who accept the premise of a loving creator God. For if again the answer is yes, you can indeed overcome addiction by yourself, does it not raise some other interesting questions. For example, can you truly love someone without knowing our Creator God? Many around the world profess love for each other, who do not believe in any god, let alone our God. Do their professions of love ring true?

I guess the answer to that question goes back to how you define love in the first place. If you define love by the example our God has given us, then our very basic picture of love would include … self sacrifice, serving others with no thought of reward or gain of any kind, humility, forgiveness, unconditional acceptance, mercy to those without, giving more to enemies than they would take, offering kind words to everyone, finding the value in each individual. These are just a few of the very demonstrable traits of love our Creator God has personally shown us. Do those unconnected with our God use this definition of the feelings they call love? Or is love-apart-from-God really only an internal feeling of euphoria brought on by chemical reactions in the brain when attracted to another individual. These feelings are often intense, but seldom last life times, and in point of fact, are very self serving in nature. In fairness, they were only meant to establish connections, not prolong them.

But if you accept that you can conquer your own addictions by sheer force of will, and that anyone can love even if they are unacquainted with our God, then perhaps you might also accept that if you can perfectly keep the law of God, you would then be worthy of heaven itself? It is surprising how closely the answers to these 3 questions can be linked. Why can’t man save himself, if he has the power of will to overcome his evil addictions, and apparently the internal ability to perfectly create love for others within himself? Is not perfect love, and perfect adherence to the law, the two conditions we expect to see in heaven when we get there?

All this kind of thinking is designed for one thing: to focus attention on self and away from our Savior. It is easier sometimes to talk about our Creator God, than our Savior God (even though they are same being). Creator refers to an event long ago and merely establishes ownership or dominance; whereas “Savior” defines our weakness and need of salvation in present terms. This entire line of thinking that focus’ on self-reliance and independence is designed for nothing more than diverting the mind and eyes away from Jesus Christ. While we do not look to our true Savior, we replace Him with a more popular alternative – ourselves. We like the idea of earning heaven more than inheriting it as a gift. We like the idea that we could by force of will, learn to belong in heaven, rather than have to admit our complete inability to change, and our desperate need of a Savior. In short we like the illusion of control.

But control is no more than illusion. When gathered many years from now on streets of gold with no names, the redeemed throngs will have one thing in common in the personal stories of their salvation from evil – Jesus Christ. Jesus will be the hero of every single story. No man will stand and say he is there by might, by sheer force of will, or through his stringent ability to keep the law. Everyone will acknowledge they are there through the mercy, love, and forgiveness of a God who alone is worthy of praise. In humility we will recognize our former conditions as addicts of evil, hooked on the junk we call “fun” in our lives, powerless to overcome the self inflicted pain and evil that masquerades as requirements. Christ alone could save us. And when there, Christ alone will have saved us. For without a savior there can be no salvation.

Our society is bent around the notion of insuring we get the proper credit for our accomplishments. We consider it a form of severe betrayal for someone else to “grab” the credit for our own good works. When this occurs, we pursue the truth to vindicate our good names, and insure the credit-grabber is rightfully derided and cast down. But to what purpose? Ego perhaps. We feed the engine of self aggrandizement by assuming we could accomplish anything on our own in the first place.

In truth you cannot name one single accomplishment in your life that was not aided or influenced by others. Your childhood teachers, both parents, family, and professionals, had much to do with any mental, or physical ability you tout today. Genetics play a role in your aptitudes and abilities. Efforts at work often rely on the tools and work of others. For instance a brilliant never-seen-before all-encompassing financial spreadsheet analysis, required the software tool Excel, a working PC computer, a working operating system (haha), and countless other inventions before your masterpiece could be constructed. You drive to work in a car you did not invent, you eat food you did not grow, and rely on currency you do not control. In short your life builds on the work and accomplishments of almost everyone around you. No man is an island, is more true than you realize. Therefore “your” accomplishments can hardly be called “solo” or independent efforts. Yet the craving for credit remains.

The concept of dependence however runs exactly opposite of growing or feeding our ego’s. We wish to find self-worth from within, but it cannot be measured there, for the measuring scale is simply too small. In truth, our worth is beyond measure, but is derived from the mystery of why our Savior God would yield up His perfect life, to spare only me. Our Savior defines love in a way we wish to know more about, and will require an infinite amount of time to really understand. Our dependence, our weakness, does not diminish our self-worth. It acknowledges the truth about where our worth originates from. All credit is due to our Creator who Redeemed us and recreated the new creatures we are to become.

It is in our weakness that His strength is made perfect. This sentiment of scripture was not merely to point out our physical frailty, but to reinforce our need of a Savior of our characters, our souls. We are not designed for fighting evil, we are sheep in need of a shepherd, not a wolf contending against another for food. We are to be as innocent as lambs, and harmless as doves, but wise as serpents. Discerning evil allows us to call out for the help that will save us, it does not prepare us for battle. We need not surrender to evil, but to call the only force capable of defeating it into our lives, our minds, our hearts, and our hands. We yield up our wills to the One who saves us from ourselves.

Instead of buying into the lie of self-control and self-reliance; why not accept the truth that His gift is enough to save even you. Why not place your burden of evil, your heaviness of soul, your guilt of conscience and your need for change on the shoulders of He who can bare this burden, and return to you rest. Trade your anxiety for peace. Trade your worry for absolute assurance. Trade your fear for trust. And live a life where credit just does not seem to matter anymore …

High All The Time ...

Bill Maher is an idiot. And I say that with the kindest affection. Bill espouses the joy of smoking pot while refusing another drug that is SO much more effective, longer lasting, and has absolutely no ill side effects. I understand you can make an argument for the legalization of marijuana. I get how a state like California might consider that the tax benefits from legalization might offset the budget deficit at least in the short run (or at least until the adverse health effects start weighing in on the budget). But I do not get the hypocrisy of standing behind one natural substance with known medical complications while ignoring another with none.

The essential problem with Marijuana, or for that matter alcohol, is the mechanism by which the feeling of Euphoria is produced – killing brain cells. In essence you have to dumb down, in order to get “happy”. I guess Solomon’s old adage that “with wisdom comes sorrow” proves to be true. Perhaps it is because Bill appears to be so smart, and thinks of himself in this way, that his brain requires stupification in order to achieve any measure of relief. Bill is smart enough to discern the problems, but unable to find the solutions perhaps. Whatever the motive, maybe just due to the chemically addictive nature of any drug, Bill continues to choose to espouse the virtues of this mind numbing process to the exclusion of a much better one.

I see this as a case of simple ignorance. If I could show you a method for getting high that worked in an entirely different manner would you be game? What’s the matter, think that is just not possible? Consider for a minute the euphoria that accompanies sexual orgasm. Granted there may a lessening of blood in the brain at that moment in time, which would reduce oxygen content a bit, but no brain cells die in the process. It can be an earth shattering event in terms of the magnitude of the feeling at the moment, but the longevity, at least for men, is highly reduced. Several seconds later, life as we know it resumes. Anticipation can be pleasurable, and can even help heighten the actual experience, but can do little to lengthen the state of intense euphoria. But my point here is that there does exist at least one method of “getting high” that is less damaging to the brain than marijuana.

And there is another way. Athletes can attest to the exhilaration the body experiences when massive amounts of endorphins are released. Again there is less blood in the brain during this process, which again means less oxygen, but again like sex, brain cells are not destroyed to achieve it. In fact muscles feel renewed, the energy level of the body goes up, senses are heightened. This would appear to be the opposite of dumbing-down, it is more sensory overload. Increasing the oxygen content in the blood can have similar effects but is also a fairly risky proposition, too much and permanent damage can result. The endorphin release process albeit lasts longer than sexual orgasm, and is far better for the body than any form of chemical drug like marijuana.

But there is yet another way. This one requires using you head for more than a hat rack. It is said that humans only use somewhere between 6 and 10% of their brains (depending on which study you adhere to). The point is that most of our brain power has been left largely untapped. Despite this limitation there are those among us who have perfect photographic memories with long term recall. How is this possible? It is because your brain records every stimuli that enters it on these brain cells we seem so bent on destroying to achieve euphoria. Those of us who can remember everything have only figured out HOW to recall the information on demand, we all record it using the same methods.

Then there are the autistics among us who are able to focus brain power in specific areas like “Rainman” who is able to count cards or perform complex math in seconds. There are the musically inclined able to hear a complex piano piece of music only once and then sit down and replay it perfectly without the benefit of written music. How are these folks able to perform these complex tasks but unable to carry on normal conversations? The truth is we don’t know right now. Scientists are studying the chemical compositions that facilitate and deter autism, as well as brain functions of many kinds. But the pursuit of this knowledge has already taken years, and may take years to come.

But back to being high all the time, think it is still a myth of future lore. I submit it need not be. Let’s face it the reasons we seek escape in the first place, is often to defer the pain in our lives. Truth be told, most of that pain is self inflicted. Ironically our self interest motivates us to act selfishly, ultimately leading us to even more isolation, and more sadness in a never ending cycle. Religion up till now, seems to have provided little if any relief to this process. Yes, there may be a mild benefit of forgiveness and the feelings that accompany it, but you would have to balance these feelings against the guilt that leads to forgiveness in the first place. And let’s face it again, there is nothing like Religion to point out our guilt right?

Therefore a purely logical comparison of the “religious” individual and the “non-religious” individual shows little emotional differences, little lifestyle differences, and therefore no compelling reason to be either one. But what if there was? Forget religion for a minute and just think purely in your own long-term true self interest. If Christ designed the entire plan of salvation to save you from evil, then what would your life be like without evil in it? The process is simple (but largely ignored by “religious” people, even supposed “Christians”). You accept the gift Christ offers. You allow Him to change who you are, change what you want, change how you think as He sees fit. You give up the “control” you never really had, and you gain a life with less and less self inflicted pain in it.

This is what REAL Christians are supposed to be doing, but they are not. I can say that because it is self evident. In general there still appears to be no differences in the lives of Christians and the lives of others, short forgiveness. This is NOT the essence or goals Christ intended for any of us. The goal was a NEW life. The goal was the removal of evil from us, i.e. saving us from evil. The only one who could ever accomplish this goal was Christ, we could not, and so He offered it to us as a gift. Christians who still refuse to allow Christ to run their lives are truly no different than those who still have not heard the name of Christ. The illusion of control blinds them both.

But for those who have experienced what being saved from evil really means, it is an entirely different story. It is getting high and staying that way, all the time. Forget being mesmerized by worship music, or flailing around speaking in gibberish nobody understands, I am talking about having your brain operate in a way you could not have dreamed of. It is a heightening of every sensory organ. It is like massive endorphin rush focused on your brain. You are able to see things you COULD NOT see before. No, I am not talking about seeing dead people, or details on Jupiter with the naked eye. I am talking about seeing truth. I am talking about discerning the error in the argument. I am talking about a complete reset of your perceptions on life as a whole.

You do not know, what you do not know. Only a mind activated and liberated by the process of salvation can begin to know what it is like to feel this feeling. And like sexual orgasm, the feeling is heightened when not dulled by chemicals dumbing-down our brain cells, killing enough to achieve artificial euphoria. It is heightened more like having higher levels of oxygen in the blood, endorphins in the system, and adrenaline in the heart. Unlike the effects of chemicals, sex, or even extreme exercise – these feelings can last for hours at a time. It feels like your brain has additional electricity powering areas you just have not used before. It is a sense of liberation and indescribable joy.

There is no financial cost for any of it. There is no risk of impaired judgment compounding the misery of your existence. There are no adverse medical effects. There is no danger you will put another at risk to feel this way. There is no danger your life will suffer in order to achieve this feeling. There is nothing but upside. There is nothing but the liberation of the soul as evil is finally vanquished by the only being capable of killing it. There is nothing but the death of self-interest and the rebirth of love, and selfless service to others. There are no limits to it. There are no restrictions on acquiring it, save those you put on yourself. How can marijuana or any other chemical ever compete with this? I say it is a simple case of ignorance, I can’t imagine Bill Maher is really that dedicated an idiot …