God is still Creating

I think God is a fan of themes.  There are lots of themes you can pick up on when you are reading through the Bible in larger chunks over the course of time.  This is the opposite of what I believe is more common: reading the Bible in a few-verses-at-a-time sections and then bouncing around to the next thought that catches your attention. There is a place for both styles of reading the Bible, but the latter can, much more easily, lead to misunderstanding, and misapplication of Scripture.

When I think of those big picture themes, I am talking about concepts that exist from Genesis to Revelation.  Examples that come to mind are things like God's authority over everything, or God's unwillingness to give up on us despite our generally deplorable treatment of him. But the one theme that is sticking out in my head right now is God's desire to make great, or large, or abundant, that which was previously weak, small or bare. We see this theme expressed in so many ways within Scripture that it's almost impossible to list them all. So instead of presenting an exhaustive list, I'll look at a couple that really stand out.

I think the most obvious, and probably most important, way God does this in Scripture is with his disciples, both in the Old Testament and New Testament.  In fact, I would say that all the other ways in which God illustrates this theme in scripture is towards the penultimate end of making "great" his disciples. The ultimate end, of course, being to receive their glory and praise himself.

In the Old Testament we have such heroes of faith as Moses, Joseph and Samson.  Some of the leading characteristics of these men's lives prior to God's intervention was cowardice, arrogance, and lust respectively.  In the New Testament we have characters like Peter, Paul, even Zacchaeus!  Before Jesus these men were, in order, an uneducated fisherman, a murderer of Christians, and a tax-embezzler.  This is not to say they suddenly ceased to struggle upon the intervention of God. But rather, their potential was seen and developed by God where humans alone would have likely missed it entirely.  They were made great not because they were great in themselves, but because they made the decision to trust in God's faithfulness and his ability to make them great.

We also see this theme is the area of the physical world.  In the OT Elisha encounters a poor woman who's in a large amount of debt. He tells her to go home and take her small amount of lamp oil and begin filling jugs.  Jug after jug is filled and the oil never runs out.  She sells the jugs of oil and repays her debt.  Or in the NT, God tells his apostles to take the 5 loaves and 2 fish of a local boy and feed a crowd of many thousands. After prayer, they break the bread and fish and begin handing it out. It is more than enough. Basket-fulls are picked up afterwards.  God is often over-abundant, giving us far more than we need.

(1) God takes the small and makes it large. (2) This serves to build up faith in his children (taking the weak and making them strong), (3) who in turn choose to give increasing glory to Him. At least that's the pattern. Unfortunately, we are fallen, rebellious sinners.  So the pattern actually continues to (4) us becoming complacent and ultimately abandoning God's love. (5) We then find our self in one of life's many difficult moments and we decide to call out to God...again. And God is ever-faithful. (1) Once again he makes great something or someone who is weak. He strengthens us, refuses to abandon us and so the theme has repeated since creation.

We should find comfort in this.  God was and still is our great provider.  This is not simply to provide us with our physical needs like clothes, food and shelter (although, if we need it he will provide it).  God understands our needs fully and broadly.  God will make us great.  He will make YOU great.  I can also almost assure you that it won't come in the way or trajectory within your life that you expect. But God is always faithful.  God has authority over all things.  He makes what is nothing to be amazing, beautiful, clean and perfect.

God's grace is sufficient, his power is made perfect in our weakness. So don't fear or question your own shortcomings when you approach God.  For the glory of God, we must try to be content in our weaknesses and not assume our past or current struggles are too much for God to handle.  In Christ, when I am weak, I am made strong! In Christ, when I am empty, I am made full!  In Christ, when I am beaten or broken, I am made better than new! My cup overflows, all for the sake of the glory of God.

Christ: Fully God, But Still Fully Human

I am a fan of Jesus.  Let's call that an understatement.  There are so many amazing things Jesus has done for Humanity.  Most notably, he died sacrificially and rose from the dead, thereby conquering death and providing an attainable route for humanity to spend eternity with God.  But before he did that, he had to attract the people - so they could be taught the Gospel - so they could ultimately share the Gospel once he was gone.

Christ's methodology for spreading his message seemed to be a perfect balance between revealing himself through dramatic statements and miracles, and avoiding too much attention by telling people to keep the message to them self.  One of these miracles stands out to me as uniquely - unique (since I suppose all of Christ's miracles were unique).  It seems to not fall cleanly into either of the two aforementioned categories.

In the span of 10 verses, Mark Chapter 5 vs. 24-34, we have an interesting encounter between Jesus and a woman who has an illness or injury that has caused some sort of continual bleeding for the last 12 years.  I am not planning to summarize the whole story.  I assume that if you are taking the time to read my blog, you can take two minutes to read the 10 verses to familiarize yourself with them.

What amazes me about this story is not only the fact that it was a miraculous healing, I could get that from any number of the miracles recorded by Mark.  What stands out to me is that, as far as I can tell, this is the only miracle of Christ in which Christ himself is completely passive.  Christ is merely a bystander in the phenomenon of his own miracle.

Now I know this might initially make some people uncomfortable, and I will admit that I am having to make some basic assumptions within the text, but I do not feel as though I am grasping at all.  Christ clearly asks the culprit who touched him to identify himself in vs. 30.  He then has a conversation with his disciples who are basically saying "there's a crowd,  a hundred different people just brushed by you!"  Christ then "kept looking around to see who had done it" in vs. 33.  Through Jesus a miracle has occurred. He gave no indication he was planning anything, and then had no idea for whom the miracle was done.  This is the definition of passive involvement.

So, why does this matter and what do I take from this?  Well, most notable, I see in action the sovereignty of God.  God had a plan for that moment. A teaching that needed to occur and for whatever reason Christ wasn't privy to it.  Christ is both fully man and fully God.  This paradox is, in and of itself, difficult for Christians to wrap their brain around. I believe this miracle is an instant of God's sovereignty acting directly through Jesus even as Jesus doesn't know it is happening.

This position of Jesus not being fully "in the know" at this moment shouldn't be offensive to us.  The scriptures are clear that Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses through being tempted in every way (Hebrews 4). He really does understand the rough days we go though here on Earth. This miracle is an example of the best of the best still being caught off guard by his heavenly father. Christ was human. Morally perfect, but still anthropomorphically imperfect.

This tells me two things: I should simultaneously feel very empowered and also very humbled. First the empowering part: God's sovereign will and authority reigns over all powers, things, and people of this world.  We should rest assured and be comforted by the fact that nothing in this world thwarts the power of God.  Even in a moment when all the focus and attention is seemingly already on God, in this case because of the miracles and teachings of Jesus, God has something different in mind for that particular moment and He makes it happen.

In this moment with his own son, God's sovereign will takes over and takes precedence over what Christ is doing.  Christ immediately fell into appropriate submission to his heavenly father's will. If we are seeking to live our lives in full submission to God, we should feel confidently empowered by the overwhelming authority God has over this world. If, according to God, something needs to happen; it will happen. Period.

This leads to the humbling part. No one on Earth should presume to have enough influence over God to be able to thwart His plans.  Even Christ, who is Himself God, who would have the exact will and mind of God; had his actions interrupted in order to fulfill part of God's will.  Maybe we would never be so obvious as to say we influence the will of God, but we sure talk and act like it.

When it comes to decision making, we might say things like "I don't want to make the wrong choice because I don't want to interfere with God's will for my life."  Now there's no question that foolish decisions can lead you down a road of less than ideal service to God (i.e. Pharaoh, or King Saul).   But wise decisions, sought through God's revealed wisdom, will likewise bring you into more fulfilling service to God.

Regardless of whether you act like a fool or you act with Solomon's wisdom, you will not impact whether God's will is accomplished in this world.  All you have the power to do is to choose whether or not you will live in submission to God.  The goal being that with a life lived in submission to God you are working to be worthy of God's call "for such a time as this".  Whatever the times are in your life, if it's important enough to God, it will happen.  Beyond that, study Scripture, listen to the wisdom of Christian mentors around you and trust that God's will is being accomplished.

Ever had a stressful week?

Well, it has been a rough week since I last posted.  I think my family and I have come through it ok...but it's been rough, and we're still recovering.  So first, I kinda want to purge.  There's great value in "getting it all out there" in order to help yourself see where you're going and for keeping proper perspective concerning where you've been.  Maybe in writing it all down, I can help myself a little more...and maybe help you as well.

So I last posted last Monday.  Tuesday morning we get up and Caleb (my 3 year old) seems a little off.  It gets bad enough that I take him to the pediatrician. She tells me he has an ear infection, pink eye in both eyes, a cold and a rising fever.  So she gets him prescription eye drops, an antibiotic, and tells us to alternate between Children's Tylenol and Children's Ibuprofen. Over the next couple days he start's feeling much better, but his fever got up to 104.6 at one point. By Friday he's feeling much better, but Meghan is starting to feel sick.

Friday afternoon the weather starts getting bad: freezing rain, slushy snow, etc.  On my way home from work I hit a slick spot and skid into a guard rail.  Air bags deploy and everything.  I was fine...just dazed.  But the car is totaled.  You can see the slushy goodness I slid in in the picture. The police officer took me home.  That night, as a major storm is raging outside, we lost power around 10:00 PM.

The next morning the power's still out, which means the heat's out.  The house was about 50 degrees when we woke up.  Meghan feels miserable at this point. She's getting sicker, now she's stuck in a cold house and by the way, she's pregnant. We look outside and there's 30" of snow on the ground from the overnight blizzard.  It was one of the worst storms for one day snow totals in the Quincy's history. I spend the day shoveling while the family spends the day huddled on the couch under blankets.  I am so stinkin' sore from shoveling that snow.

It starts getting dark Saturday night and it's supposed to be much colder than the night before...like close to single digits.  Meghan is feeling worse.  She's now throwing up. Caleb has been trapped inside one room trying to keep warm all day and is going nuts....cause he's 3.  I'm extremely sore and irrationally angry at the snow for being so heavy, cold and plentiful.  We start arguing with each other over what to do for the cold night ahead.  It gets a bit heated.  We're not really mad at each other, we're mad at the situation...but yelling at the situation doesn't make you feel better.

So, we decide to get in the car and drive just to be somewhere warm.  This was trading one stress for another.  We were warm, but the roads we so covered in piles of snow and mush that we were tense the whole time trying to avoid snowplows and getting stuck. We have had no dinner and at this point we don't know what to do for the night.

We work hard to get into a gas station that hasn't been plowed out yet, just to find out they are out of gas. So we get out and go to another station and after almost getting stuck in their parking lot (the car beside us did get stuck), we finally get some gas. Suddenly we get a text:  an offer to stay with a friend in the next town over.  There's no where open to eat, so we give up looking and decide to take our friend up on her offer. She and her husband were really kind and accommodating to us. It was a real blessing to be somewhere warm.

We get Caleb settled and then headed back to the house to grab a couple things and get the animals ready for the cold night ahead.  We could already see our breath throughout our house, so I know it was going to get real cold later. When we got back the next morning, the house was at 35 degrees.  But the animals made it through night fine. The power finally came back on around 9 AM Sunday morning. It took 4 and a half hours to warm the house back up.

To top everything off, when Meghan was finally able to get to the doctor Monday morning, they weren't very helpful.  She has a virus of some sort and because she's pregnant the doctor basically said "suck it up and tough it out."  There's nothing she's allowed to take. So other than Meghan still being on the mend, and us still needing to figure out where we'll get money for a car, things are getting back to normal.

I'm confident there will be many things I can pull from this past week as I reflect on it over the next few days.    Right now the main thing that sticks out in my mind is trust. Trust in God. We have gone through a lot of stresses and frustrations in the last week.  If I could have written my week out, it would not have gone this way.  But, in the end, do we still have everything we need? God provided food, heat, doctors, police, snow blowers and shovels when it was all really needed.  If was a hard week, but in the end, what have I really lost? Only a little sleep and an old car that wasn't worth much.

Many people have suffered far worse for far longer. I think there is value in keeping your "suffering" in perspective. As long as God has plans for me and my family, he will be providing for us in this life.  He doesn't promise it will always be easy, or  that we will always have everything we want.  But he know's better than we do what we need. If our trust in Him is to grow, our trust must not waiver, for better or for worse.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Meghan and I were talking the other day about a frustration I have concerning the Catholic Church. Now, don't get me wrong, the Catholic Church isn't special, all branches of Christianity have problems and shortcomings. Most notably, they are run by Humans. If nothing else, this is a guarantee that regardless of all the good intentions you may have, your institution (the church) will have issues that it must constantly be working through.

The other day I was at work.  I was visited by a Nun soliciting for donations.  I decided that although I don't support many of her specific teachings, I certainly want to support the overall spreading of the Gospel. I gave her $10 bucks. She gave me a couple books on why I should convert to Catholicism and also a little plastic medallion. It's this medallion that caught my attention. On it were the words "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us...".

There are a whole slew of issues I have with this statement, but I'm picking one to look at today: the Immaculate Conception. In short, this is the belief the that when Mary (the mother of Jesus) was conceived by St. Anne (the mother of Mary), the Holy Spirit worked in such a way as to keep Mary from the sinful state that all humans are born into, and to give her on-going perpetual forgiveness of sins she committed (although some versions say she was also without sin).  The purpose of this act was to make Mary worthy and capable of carrying Christ. If you are not Catholic and you are wondering why you have never heard and of this, or even of the existence of St. Anne, no you aren't nuts.  Zero percent of what I just wrote (except for Mary carrying Christ) is in the Bible.

Now this wouldn't be so bad (well, maybe it would) if it was simply an embellishment, or "filling in the blanks" as humans are prone to do with a story we don't have every piece of.  Unfortunately, this is more than "filling in the blanks." This teaching goes against broad picture Christian theology.  Christ is the ultimate redeemer, mediator and ransom for all of humanity.  This means Mary too.  She's not special.  At least no more special than any other person in scripture called to fulfill God's purpose for their life.  Now there's no doubt in my mind that Mary was an amazing woman to be able to fulfill the role as mother to Christ.  But there is no indication AT ALL that her conception, birth, state of sinfulness, or need for forgiveness was in any way uniquely different than the rest of humanity. And in fact the opposite, as mentioned, is clear from scriptural teaching.

From my understanding, if you asked the Catholic Church leaders, you would be told that the evidence for such a dogma comes from much later documents and prevailing attitudes (i.e. a feeling that logically, it makes sense that she was sinless) from people at the time. Now, I'm approaching this from a very detached, non-vested standpoint.  I have no dog in this fight one way or the other. It just doesn't seem to follow scripture at all.  If someone showed me that it did somehow mesh with scripture I would have no problem adhering to it.

So the question remains: If not to simply "fill in the blanks" of a story, why would the Catholic Church create such a teaching?

I believe that ultimately this is an example of the Catholic church falling into the same struggles as the Pharisees in the New Testament.  See, the Pharisees were notorious for their traditions.  They were revered for their knowledge and leadership on all things "Godly" during the time of and before Christ.  Their problem was that they were victims of their own commitment.  They figured, if God's teachings are good, then putting up another, stricter, wall of teaching around the scriptural teachings to keep people "further away" from sin, is better. The Pharisees stopped just teaching the law. Instead, if God said "wash your hands", the Pharisees might have taught you to "wash up to your elbows."

This seems to be what's happened with the teaching St. Anne and the immaculate conception. The Catholic leaders tried to apply logic similar to that of the Pharisees.  In seeing that Christ was a virgin birth, and was himself perfect and holy, it only seemed appropriate and even necessary that the vessel to carry Him (Mary) should herself also be, in some way, perfect and holy.  Ultimately, this was simply the Catholic church putting up another, stricter wall, around the scriptural teachings in the Bible.

Now, I disagree with a lot of the teachings of the Catholic Church, but I'm not just trying to pick on them.  My ultimate point is that this has always been, and will always be, an easy struggle for Christians to fall victim to.  We gain a false assurance of feeling that we are more in line with God by following stricter teachings.  This is not the case.  There can be a case by case benefit to a stricter-than-expected adherence to certain teachings, or for being stricter than normal with yourself for a period of time. But to use this "Pharisaical" bench-mark as a part of an across the board "basic package" of expectations for someone (or yourself) is wrong and unhealthy.

One of the most common ways this attitude appears in the church today is with the traditions we follow. We easily become bogged down by misunderstood, inappropriate, or simply outdated traditions that we often follow blindly as if they were scriptural dictates.  Traditions are not inherently wrong.  But when they are followed without proper motivation or priority, they easily become no different than the extra "walls" put up by the Pharisees or the Catholic Church: a burden to those seeking to hear the Gospel, and a burden to the proper understanding and spiritual maturity of those inside that Church.

Always ask why. Why do I believe this? Why am I doing this? Is my belief based on a wise understanding of Scripture? We all need a compass.  A fixed point to which we can measure our progress and re-calibrate our self when necessary.  Our God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  His scripture is our compass. God expects us to always have a heart that's willing to question and re-calibrate our self and our beliefs when necessary. I encourage you to do this daily in your own life.