The Lion and the Lamb

Christ is referred to as "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah" in Rev. 5:4 and he is called "The Lamb of God" by John in his Gospel, chapter 1, verse 29. Now, these two animals are about as far apart on just about any "animal scale" you care to imagine. So I guess this is saying that Jesus can be the Lion or the Lamb as the situation requires...

This makes me think of other extremes, the ones that influence our lives.  When I wrote this, I was sitting in a hospital room with my 22 year-old daughter who was under going a several-days-long series of tests to see if they could better determine the cause of her seizures. Caryn has had night-related seizures since she was about 6. They've never been completely under control; not by drugs, not even by a Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) implanted in her chest. Because of this, the next thing to consider, unfortunately, could be brain surgery. Scary.  Very... rock-like in appearance.

These are the times we want The Lion to come roaring out of the jungle & scare away all the things that scare us. So... where is this lion? When WE think we need him most, sometimes He's just not there. It's the most puzzling thing about Him; why sometimes when we pray we don't get the answer we expect. This life is full of things bigger than we are, things we can't control, accidents, illness, seizures, death; scary things. Things that seem to need a Lion to take care of them. But... where is this lion when these "rocks" fall in our laps?

If we are lucky, at some point we come to the conclusion that it is a fact that He's not always what we expect him to be, is he?  Some of the disciples expected him to be the Lion of Judah and become King of Israel & drive out the Romans but instead he was the Lamb of God, sacrificed to restore us to right relationship with the Father.  Nobody saw that coming, it wasn't what anyone thought was needed at the time but He saw from a different perspective.  But how are we supposed to handle that? By Faith.  Faith bridges the gap between what we see and what we need. 

In Matt 7:9 the question is asked how many fathers would give their sons a stone if they ask for bread?  It's a silly question, isn't it.  Oh, we might slip a rock on to a child's plate and tell him it's bread just to see him try to chew it, but when push comes to shove and our kids need bread... they get bread.  Now, I've seen some pretty rustic bread in my time.  Dark brown, heavy, rough crusted, and hard to chew but wonderfully delicious bread.  So I know that what can look like a rock, maybe even feel a bit like a rock can actually be life-giving bread.

When you have need in your life, when what you see is looking nothing like bread, stop.  Take a deep breath and remember you don't see what the Father sees.  Have Faith that He will not give you a rock.

Divorce. Whose Side Are YOU On?

Ok, here's a touchy subject. Divorce. With half of all marriages ending in divorce, I'm pretty sure that just about everyone reading this has been touched one way or another by someone's... or their own divorce. I'm not here to debate the legitimacy of it, or discuss the circumstances under which it's "ok" to divorce. Let's not even get into the idea that one side is "wrong" and the other is "right" 'cause we're all Human, and that means that, in all fairness chances are that neither side is totally "right" and neither is totally "wrong" either.

My purpose here to day is to start a dialog on an important, but not well discussed aspect of it. Whose side do you take? Family, friends, and unfortunately, children are often asked to chose one "camp" or the other. So, how does one make the choice? Do you listen carefully to each side's position? "She did to me..." "He did to me..." Then carefully weigh the evidence and try to come up with your own judgment of which side was "more wrong"?

Or perhaps you just pick the side you're most closely related to? "He's my brother, so ..." "But she's been my friend for ages..." Is that a better rule of thumb? I mean, "Blood is thicker than water" right? Isn't it true that if your sibling gets divorced, doesn't that mean that your sibling-in-law is now a "sibling-out-law"? No longer related to you at all? Years of relationship, parenting of nieces & nephews, none of that matters any longer?

I'm sure there are people out there that have gone through a divorce, be it a nasty or civil, that are saying "Yep. That's right. If they're not related to me any longer, they shouldn't be related to you!" But maybe some of you had to watch loved ones go through the experience and are now faced with the ... expectation? of having to choose sides that are saying, "But I still love both people." And that's the key, isn't it? People. Not "sides" but people. Hurting people.

So, now it's your turn... We all want to hear from you. You've gone through a divorce, or seen loved one go through it. What do you think? Do we all have to go through a divorce too? Do we all have to choose sides?

I Wish I Could Buy God a Watch...

I'm sure this is only true for me. None of you out there struggle with this like I do. My life has ... challenges. Financial, spiritual, physical, etc. but I have to say that God has been faithful. A number of times, we have met our landlords on the courthouse steps and was able to hand them a check for the rent as they were going inside to begin eviction proceedings. One might think "Wow, how cool God came through for you... AGAIN!" However, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that what went through the back of my mind just before rent money came in was "God didn't come through for me this time."

I'm sure we all have challenges we've gone through. Has God met them for you as he has for me? Then why do we not just thunder through life knowing God is going to come through for us, every time? If you are like me in this, you should know that we are in "good" company. The Children of Israel had just seen God change the mind of the most powerful man in the world with miraculous plagues & disasters and yet as they stood on the shore of the Red Sea and saw the Egyptian army approaching what did they do? They started yelling at Moses! They weren't singing God's praises because he was going to save them ... AGAIN! Even after the parting of the sea, did they have faith that God would feed them? No. After all God did for them, repeatedly saving them miraculously time after time they still wind up complaining, doubting, even replacing God with a golden cow.

I've thought a lot about this. I may have come to a conclusion that could explain some of this. It makes me feel better about it anyway... God doesn't own a watch.

He doesn't see time like we do. His perspective is beyond the minute to minute, hour by hour existence we must survive. To him, parting the red sea seconds before the first spear is thrown is no different than having everything printed out in an Itinerary weeks before the event. There are no surprises for God. To him it's as if everything has already happened. He can sit back and relax, 'cause it's all over for him. As we fuss & fret over some impending deadline, he can see that it's already been taken care of.

This is where the apologists & theologians will step in and talk about how the stress builds character & faith. I'm sure they're right. So what? That doesn't make things any easier for us, does it? Or does it?

Do YOU take comfort in knowing that God knows how things will turn out? I like to think I do, but I still go through the character-building, heart-pounding, stress routine just about every time. And just about every time I feel silly afterwards.

What about you? Do you sail through life, laughing at problems knowing God's got your back? Or do you fret & fuss every time life throws you a curve? Or, are you somewhere in the middle? I'd like to know...

Christians are becoming lazier every day.

Christians are lazy. There I said it. Most of us know it, few of us want to admit it out loud in church, and none of us really want to believe it's true of ourselves. But for the majority of Christians in America, I'm afraid it may very well be true and it's evidenced by a growing willingness to let others do our thinking for us. It seems more and more I hear things like "You have GOT to read So-n-so's book..." or "What's-his-name prophesied about..." or "Download Who-ya-call-um's sermon from the internet..." or "You should read Scott's blog about..." So, ok so that last one's not so bad but the rest begin to show a trend that is rather disturbing to me personally.

Of course as Christians we want to believe that all other Christians have the same sense of "Truth" that we do and no one has their own "axe to grind." We have this feeling like "But they're Christians too. Surely they won't try to tell us something that's not Biblically true." And "I trust him because I like the way he uses funny anecdotes, slick power point presentations, & never wears a tie." But the fact of the matter is that even in the best of circumstances it is possible that well-intentioned teachers could be teaching "logical Biblical extrapolation" instead of the simplicity of the Word.

Now before you jump to the bottom of this story & begin leaving me a message telling me how wrong I am, I ask you to read on; hear me out. I know that there are extraordinary Bible teachers out there, I've met many of them and my life has been impacted by them in many ways. I'm also sure you have a favorite teacher or two at your church (I know I do) and you may routinely listen to the head of a mega-church somewhere, or well-known radio or television expositor and there is nothing wrong with that. I know that they are not ultimately responsible for our "Christian Cholesterol Consumption" ... we are.

We have such full lives, don't we? We work our jobs, come home and play with our toys, watch our TV, spruce up our MySpaces, Facebooks, and MySpaceBooks (which may include planting our crops, managing our restaurants, and/or attempting to take over the world). It's not easy to make time to do mundane things such as read the Bible, is it? It takes time and effort and must be fit into our schedules around so many other "important" things. And why do it when so many others are obviously so much better at it than we are? Why not let them read the Bible, study what it says then feed it to us in watered down, sugary, milky little 20 minute sound bites? We have to go to church this Sunday anyway, don't we?

Sounds both reasonable and easy, doesn't it? The problem is that in order to sound relevant, or up-to-date it seems we can no longer stick to the "boring" simplicity of the Bible's message: love. We have to expound on the "old" ideas, illustrate with heart-touching stories, and extrapolate new ideas based on what logically makes sense. Like Paul warned Timothy in I Tim 1:4:

"Apparently some people have been introducing fantasy stories and fanciful family trees that digress into silliness instead of pulling the people back into the center, deepening faith and obedience."
-- The Message

Paul wanted Christians to know that "The whole point of what we're urging is simply love-love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God" (vs. 5). But how will we know that's what we're getting if we don't know enough of the Word for ourselves? If we must take someone else's word for it?

Since Paul's day we are meant to have teachers, preachers and the rest. They play an important role in our Christian lives and carry a great responsibility to share the Word of God with us and the World. But today is not like Paul's day when "The Word" referred to a scroll of the Torah locked away in a Synagogue to be read out loud once a week. Today, most Christians own at least 1 or more Bibles in a variety of versions and some even have a study reference or two from their Bible college days. I even have "The Message" on my cell phone. So, even though I listen to them, respect them, and even submit to some of them, I have less need of those teachers and preachers than the Christians of Paul's day did. I can, for the most part, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, determine what the Bible is telling me for myself.

So, having said all this you should know that I am in no way trying to encourage you to NOT read Christian books, listen to your favorite Bible teacher, or watch that tele-evangelist you love so much. What I AM encouraging you to do is read the passages of Scripture they quote to you and determine for yourself if it really supports the message they are bringing you.

We had some "Bible teachers" come through our church in years past teaching an all-day seminar on a somewhat... controversial subject. I decided to attend to see what they had to say. The first half of the all-day seminar was amazing! Life changing exposition of scriptures I'd hardly ever read and didn't fully understand. I followed, each verse closely, and eagerly listened to what they had to say and by the end of the morning some of what they said changed the way I pray to this day. Each point was clearly supported by scripture references.

At the mid-day break, they announced the upcoming topic, which was part of the controversial subject matter. I turned to my wife and said "Watch, the Bible references will dry up and they'll begin relying on anecdotal evidence." After about 20 minutes or so of the afternoon session, my wife turned to me with eyes wide and said, "You were right! I never realized..."

So the moral of this Blog is "Listen to teachers you trust but don't just take what they tell you as truth." We must all understand that just because someone says "As it says in Matthew 24..." that doesn't mean that's what it says. You are ultimately responsible for what you believe. Make sure you believe it because that's what it says in the Bible, not just because someone told you.

Rise of the Consumer?

Did anyone out there watch "The Happening" by M. Night Shyamalan? Anyone out there remember watching "The Happening" by M. Night Shyamalan? I'm pretty sure I did and I think the storyline went something like this.

By the way, I'd warn you that what I'm about to reveal could be considered a "spoiler" but if you haven't seen the film by now, you can pick one up used at Amazon.com for less than the price of a postage stamp. But the plot goes like this: the world's plants are pissed at us Humans and have had it with our constant mowing, harvesting, and just plain getting all emotional around them. As a means of self-defense they've finally learned how to emit a gas that makes people go crazy & indulge in self-destructive behaviors; which in this case means various methods of suicide.

Oddly enough, this seems to be eerily coming true today, but not with plants, with consumers. On a JetBlue flight, a passenger tries to retrieve her bag from at overhead compartment while the plane was still moving. An attendant asks the passenger to put the bag back in the compartment & return to her seat. The attendant gets verbally abused then clocked in the head by the overhead compartment door for his trouble. But when the attendant doesn't get an apology, he sort of goes crazy... overcome by this strange urge to self-destruct. He curses out the passenger, grabs a beer, pops open the emergency door and extends the inflatable slide & glides his way to the tarmac... and then into a jail cell with federal charges on his head.

The "oddly" does not stop there, however as public opinion seems to be siding with him. A large portion of the comments about this incident have been in support of the attendant's behavior. Which I find strange since most of them have presumably been passengers far more often than they've been attendants and should be more sympathetic to the plights of the passenger than those of the attendant. But they seem to be almost hypnotized by the attendant's self-destructive proclivities. They're even calling him a hero.

And the madness doesn't seem to be limited to the airline industry but has begun to spread to other businesses closer to home. I watched a video of a 25 year old woman punching a MacDonald's employee in the face because she was denied Chicken McNuggets. Apparently the woman was unaware that the juicy, tender chicken-like lumps of meat are not suitable for breakfast and therefore not available at the time she wanted them. Denied her fast-food choice, the customer goes berserk, jumps out of her car and assaults the drive-up window, breaking it with a beer bottle she pulled from her car (hmmm, think about that for a second). But the thing that surprises me the most is that the employee's response was to exhibit self-destructive behavior similar to that of the JetBlue flight attendant by approaching the crazed consumer essentially inviting more face punches.

Perhaps it is time for us all as consumers to reconsider our expectations despite the fact that beer was involved in BOTH incidents. When flying coach or business perhaps we shouldn't expect to be able to remove our bags from overhead compartments while the plane is still moving... or be allowed to smack the flight attendants around forcing them to grab a beer and incur federal felony charges. Perhaps we shouldn't expect MacDonald's to sell ALL the items on their menu at ALL hours of the day... or be allowed to smack the employees around with open containers of beer.

If there's any truth to Shaymalan's movie at all (and there really isn't), it would be this: we must stop this demanding & aggressive consumerist behavior before we drive ALL flight attendants, & fast-food employees mad and force them into self-destructive behaviors that will not only threaten their careers, but our ability to fly across the country, eating processed, breaded chicken chunks.

It's not too late. You can stop the madness. You can make a difference.