The most important thing about me

We must be careful in all our interactions with other people to remember who we are, and what is most important about us.
The most important thing about me is NOT that I am conservative, or straight, or married, or 47; it is certainly not that I am white, or American, or a father (although that is close).
The most important thing about me is that God's grace has found me. That the good news of Jesus Christ having died on a cross for my sins, and then He came back to life, has taken up residence as the central point of my thinking and life. Nothing else comes close, really, to this. This defines who I am.
If I forget this in my dealing with other people, I risk alienating them over matters that are secondary or tertiary or even less important. When a pastor makes a distinction between himself and some of his listeners on the basis of their political views, he has declared THAT to be more important than the good news. Why do I say this? Because that distinction has suddenly told them that they aren't in the in group he values, and they will probably no longer listen to him. And he then just lost the opportunity to bring them the message he probably REALLY values most. The reality is that anyone can receive the grace of God as long as they are still breathing, and that is the only thing that matters, not any of those other things. So I don't want to declare that what is most important is my Americanism; because it isn't. I am glad to be an American, but I would rather be from the farthest place from here and have the gospel than to be an American and not know Jesus. You can say that about anything else you value, and I hope you will see that all that really matters, the thing most important, is that God has had mercy on me, and I am glad.
So the next time you are tempted to categorize yourself in any way to others that will push them away, other than by the reality that you know Jesus, don't do it. Those things don't matter, but if they miss the grace of God because you felt it was more important to emphasize the fact that you aren't gay like "some" people, or that your aren't liberal, or you aren't an old earther, or your aren't... you get the point. If they miss the grace of God because we did this, we should be ashamed and weep til our hearts are broken.
The most important thing about me is that Jesus found me; thank you Jesus for your mercy and grace.

i hate it when Christians are judgmental

I hate it so bad when Christians are judgmental. "Oh, look, that teen is bored in church. What's wrong with them?" What's wrong with them??? What's wrong with you? For picking on someone for not liking something they may find irrelevant, out of date, or just not done well you are just a stuck up, self righteous, insensitive bore. The sin of boring someone lies with the speaker, not the listener anyway. But beyond that, the reality is that older people who judge younger Christians are one of the reasons that young people are leaving the "Church" in droves. I don;t believe they are leaving the church. They are leaving our religious meetings because they cannot stand to be judged by people who say they love God, but actually do not. Who are actually more in love with their own ability to keep their list of rights so that they think God is happy with them, when actually His heart breaks because they don;t care about the people they are hurting. That's what judgmental Christians do all the time. And they should be ashamed of themselves and apologize to every person with a tattoo they have looked down on, to every long haired male they have sniffed their noses at, to every other person they have felt it their right to judge, when there is only one judge and He looks at the heart. That is what we must try to see into. So if you are a judgmental Christian, knock it off, and start loving people and not your own image in the mirror.

life chooses us

In our Western, and particularly American way of thinking, I think we think we choose the life that we lead. We choose the things we do. We choose whom to marry. We choose the jobs we have. But is this real? Do we?
Jesus said that we did not choose him but He chose us to go and bear fruit that would last.
He chose us.
And I am starting to think that this is true for all of life. So many forces and factors are in place that we really do not choose the life we live, but it chooses us. Or more likely, God chooses the life we live. He has put all these factors together that things are inevitable. Or mostly so. But I am not a fatalist; and I do think free will and sovereignty are both true. But God is more free than we are and our choices do have bounds; obviously.
But I could trace back the factors that lead to my becoming a teacher; and it seems rather inevitable to me that I did so. And yet I in some ways could wish I was a movie director, or a writer of books, or a pro athelete (although I did give my best try in one sport down that line and just didn't have enough God given attributes). But that is not where I am.
So, maybe the life we live chooses us, God chooses us and what we become, even though we are making choices all the way through.
Food for thought.

don;t go there

This is my short rant about not using t-shirts to promote Christianity. They just don't work. Why not? Because they are inappropriate for the message. The medium DOES NOT fit the message. Jesus and who He is and what He has done for humanity cannot be contained very easily in a slogan or picture that fits on a shirt. There might be a few that are OKAYish, but that would be it. And using the slogans that have been used for other merchandise is simply in terrible taste. "This Bloods for you." Are you kidding me? Budweiser to sell Jesus to the masses! I don't think so. "His pain, your gain." AHHHHHHHH. I think that might be from Gold's gym, or just the saying No pain no gain. But it is idiocy at its highest and makes it no wonder non Christians would role their eyes at Christians. Yes, those ideas are true, but that is not how you promote them when they are timeless, eternal, supremely valuable truths; they just should not be promoted on a 3 (or 5) tone colored piece of cotton that fades over time and picks up sweat and stains from humans. It's like, only worse, carrying the Hope Diamond for sale in a sweaty jock strap. It does not work.
All I can say is, Christian, find another way to tell that truth you are wanting to promote!!!!

To give a different but related idea, it's why sex and human nudity so often does not work on the silver screen, but becomes pornographic or at least obscene. It is just very hard to portray such things that should remain off screen or off stage (which is what ob scene means) in a way or for a reason that does not cheapen them or the people watching. They are just too deep and powerful and intimate. One way that God saw fit to "image" such things in scripture is in the poetry of the book called Song of Songs. So there is a way to do it.

Another one that is highly questionable is the use of bumper stickers. It is just very hard to condense something very important to so short/small a medium, and further again this is something we are seeing fit to put on sticky paper on the back of a moving piece of metal. It seems to me that since it is Christians themselves that will be his witnesses, maybe we should be very careful about giving that responsibility over to something like a t-shirt or bumper sticker.

funny the way things are

A recent Dave Matthews Band song talks about how funny it is that we have such things as starvation and eating out happening in our world at the same time. It's the presence of opposites that he finds funny. I don;t think he is saying laughable, but odd. I think he is right, it is odd, or strange, that things such as war and opera, or parties and abusive fathers, or broken hearts and songs about them exist at the same time. We live in a country that has seen so little war on our own shores in the recent 140 years (since the Civil war) and yet there are countries that have known almost nothing but war in the past 25 years. The juxtaposition of these things is startling. Why do we have so much peace? Why are we so affluent?? What will we do with such things??
I think at least part of this can be explained in human nature: the co-residence of evil and greatness in the same beings. How can a great artist be also a horrible husband? How can a great speaker be an incredibly evil man? How can a poet filled with great thoughts be filled with depression? On and on it goes. We are capable of wondrous things, and horrible things.

Here's the full lyrics to the song:
Lying in the park on a beautiful day, sunshine in the grass, and the children play.
Siren’s passing, fire engine red, someone’s house is burning down on a day like this?
The evening comes and we’re hanging out,
On the front step, and a car rolls by with the windows rolled down,
And that war song is playing, “why can’t we be friends?”
Someone is screaming and crying in the apartment upstairs

Funny the way it is, if you think about it
Somebody’s going hungry and someone else is eating out
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong
Somebody’s heart is broken and it becomes your favorite song
The way your mouth feels in your lovers kiss
Like a pretty bird on a breeze or water to a fish
A bomb blast brings a building crashing to the floor
You can hear the laughter, while the children play “war”

Funny the way it is, if you think about it one kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong
On a soldier’s last breath his baby’s being born
Standing on a bridge, watch the water passing under me
It must’ve been much harder when there was no bridge, just water
Now the world is small. Remember how it used to be, with mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars? Watch the sky, the jet planes, so far out of my reach Is there someone up there looking down on me?
Boy chase a bird, so close but every time
He’ll never catch her, but he can’t stop trying

Funny the way it is, if you think about it one kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong on a soldier’s last breath his baby’s being born
Funny the way it is, nor right or wrong
Somebody’s broken heart becomes your favorite song
Funny the way it is, if you think about it
A kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out.
Standing on a bridge, watch the water passing under me It must’ve been much harder when there was no bridge, just water
Now the world is small. Remember how it used to be, with mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars?

Opportunity in freedom

We live in a country where we are very free to pursue and do anything we really want related to our faith. Many places in the world do not have this blessing. And we don't face real persecution. Not the kind that threatens our lives. Although standing up for your faith in some settings can cost a job. And being courageous in some settings (gang areas, prisons, etc) can cost a life. But there is not wholesale threats against Christians like there is in many countries. SO... what do we do with the freedom we have?
I think we must try to find ways to use the opportunity we have to do as much as we can to help the world find Jesus, and to help those who are suffering, and to use our riches to bless and further God's kingdom. At the end of 1 Timothy we are told that the rich should be rich in good deeds. That applies to the American church, with basically no exceptions. We have riches of time, income, opportunity, etc. We are rich. So we need to look for ways to be rich in good deeds. Certainly helping others to enter the eternal kingdom fits into that category. But to a large degree our country has turned its back on God, and while we should struggle for culturally relevant ways to proclaim what God has done through Jesus of Nazareth, we really need to focus our energies on those who have NEVER heard and won't unless someone goes to them with the message.

We are told that we should keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith; and that this will help us not to lose heart. We are also told that we have died with Christ, and that when he appears we will also appear with him, and that our life is now hidden with him. He is the key to meaning. Because all of life is in him. And only in Him. OUr life flows from Him; He is the vine and we are the branches; apart from Him we can do nothing. So we never step away from Him into some other meaning; as Francis Schaeffer said, God is the farthest screen back. As the author of ecclesiastes figured out: this is the whole duty of man, to fear God and keep His commandments. We don;t go beyond God to something else: he is the end of the journey. And so with steadfast hearts we know Him and now live in His world to accomplish the goals He has for us: loving Him and other people. And whilst we may think we will miss out on something better, how can there be any better than Him? He is the creator of all there is, he is the source of all joy, beauty, goodness, hope, love, and creativity. Lord, keep my eyes on you!

Midlife crisis; summer days with lots of time to think and ponder what life is; frustration at 29 years of being taught from God's word, yet little taught to make sense of the day to dayness of life and the meaning that should be infused into those days by a relationship with God; I know I am airing questions that others have, but might be too afraid to ask out loud. Christians act as though they have figured life out so clearly, but it seems to me the sense of understanding they have is like the guys in the movie who are on a mission. yeah, they clearly know what to do and what they are about. But they don't eat, sleep, work, have kids, get bored, get sick, or do anything that all the rest of us deal with every week, day, year and month of our lives. Think about it, movie heroes don't do those things, or at least they don't show them being done, although you know they are doing some of them. That makes them unreal and unfit for giving direction to us about life. There is a sense in which our life is NOT a mission like the movie heroes. We do have day to day demands that put life in a different realm. And so anyone who says that life should be lived like that is missing something: we cannot all live that way. Because we need meaning infused into those things that regular life is. So in the coming days I think I want to explore this issue in some depth.
I will quote one verse that gets us started: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3.
Meaning is empty without knowing our creator. He wants this for us. He is the infinite wise loving creator of all life and all time and space, so if meaning is to be found it must come from Him: finite things only have meaning in reference to an infinite reference point. But that seems to me only the place to start; we must step carefully here because so many will claim this that and the other thing as the meaning that God wants to infuse after we have come to know him. Sometimes that involves all the religious stuff we do: if you just do these things then life will be perfect (or meaningful, or right, or what it should be). Really??
Knowing God is eternal life. And this comes through Jesus. It doesn't say doing things for God, or being nice , or doing anything: knowing this person called God IS eternal life. Jesus also said one time that He is the light of the world, and whoever follows Him would never walk in darkness. He is the one who sheds light on all else so we can see and understand this life. So Jesus, show me more of the meaning in day to day living.

first thoughts

Did you ever feel like you had lots to say, but wondered how to do it? "I'll write a book." No, I won't. Too much time, depends too much on others liking it. So this is one avenue to put thoughts and ideas out there for others to see and for me to put down in print, or at least digitize. So what are my first thoughts.
I was having thoughts on my way back from, or to?, OMSI in Portland, Or this last weekend. It had to do with how much or if people who claim to know Jesus really believe what we say we believe. I was listening to music by Christians that say all this great stuff, but I just don't think we or they really believe all that or with the intensity they were singing with. It doesn;t seem like we do. It seems to me we believe like Ezekiel or Jeremiah was told by God: like we are listening to a beautiful song sung and played by a musician, and that's all. It just doesn;t sink in. Its empty. We say all the right things, but it doesn;t get home. So anyway, that's where I'll start. I was having some other longer thoughts recently that I would like to put down; now what were they...?