One Way Mirror

Lately, in a lot of what I'm reading and hearing from my pastor, a certain quote from Jesus has consistently been mentioned and explained. I have heard it explained that when Jesus said " the kingdom of God is at hand" it can be translated as the Kingdom of God being at arms length. Last Sunday, in my pastor's sermon, he mentioned the story of Stephen and, specifically, the part where Stephen said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God". I have always pictured that scene in my head where a little circle opens up in the sky and it's as if Stephen is able to view heaven in the same way you might look into a house far away on a hill through a bay window. But as I began to think of this scene in the context of the Kingdom of Heaven being at arms length, a totally different picture emerged in my head. I think of one of those mirrors that you see in the police station in movies all the time where the person in the interregation room can only see a mirror but on the other side of the mirror, other people are able to look in on the occupant of the room. But the mirror I'm picturing is way bigger, like a one way mirror that encompasses the entire sky...and when Stephen was allowed to look into heaven, it was as if someone had flipped on the light switch on the other side of the mirror and there right in front of Stephen was a sweeping, breathtaking view of the throne room of God Almighty that filled up the entire breadth of the sky...and at that moment where Stephen could have easily felt the loneliest, he was given the opportunity to see just how close Jesus really was in the midst of the horror of being stoned to death...and then to not only see the proximity of Jesus but then to see Jesus stand at the right hand of the Father as if to honor Stephen in the presence of the Father and the millions of others there in the courts of Heaven..it must have brought Stephen incredible comfort in his last few seconds to know just how close the Kingdom of God was...

aliens and strangers

Last Sunday, as my pastor was preaching, i began to chew on something in particular that he was preaching on. he talked about how so often, we as believers can mistakingly focus on someday leaving earth and going on to heaven. This line of thinking isn't exactly biblically correct. Based on scripture, it's not like God is going to blow up everything and start over. When scripture speaks of a "new heaven" and a "new earth" it is more referring to an earth and a heaven made new, or restored back to God's initial intent. So maybe we don't need to be so focused on getting off the earth. I resonated greatly with this message but my mind (as it is prone to do) began to wonder to the verses where we as believers are described as "aliens and strangers" in this world. So if this is our home, or at least it will be when we take our place on the "new earth", then how are we also aliens and strangers here.... then it came to me, its the same way that Nashville is no longer home to me. Although my wife and I were both raised in the Nashville area, we have not lived there for ten years now and a lot has happened since we called it our home. Buildings have been built, and buildings have been torn down. People that we knew there have moved away and many new people have moved in. I couldn't even find my way around my college campus because of all of the new growth there. When I am there, nobody is where they are supposed to be on a Friday night. The party crowd is not hanging out in the United Methodist parking lot, none of the people that I went to school with are at the High School football game, nobody knows that I was the Sr. class president (not that anybody cared then either), or that I used to sing "Mac The Knife" at just about every talent show I sang in (sad but true..) maybe that's what made it home...it's when people know you. When people know what you're about and what's important to you.. and then my mind goes to Jesus. What was it like to walk around Nazareth or Jerusalem and not be known...what was it like to have been there at creation and see the earth in it's pristine beauty and then to walk in it thousands of years later after sin had had generation after generation to devolve and deform all of creation...how sad was it to walk among the people that he had created and be a total stranger. I think when Jesus said, "this is not our home (anymore), we're just aliens and strangers here," it had to be with tears of deep sorrow and sadness that his disciples couldn't possibly understand...

Global Warming or Warning

I have a thought that has been rolling around in my head for some time. I live in Buffalo, NY where we experience some fairly extreme weather. The crazy thing is that it seems like the weather has been more extreme in every other part of the country than it has been where the weather is supposed to be extreme. So, here's my thought...up until the last decade, weather extremes have historically often caused the question..."is God trying to get our attention?" or maybe a variation of the question would be "are these weather anomalies a sign of the end times?"...now the problem that has come out of these questions in the past is that too many people have predicted that they were living in end times and when the rapture or any other major apocyliptical event did not happen, it was one more blow to those that raise that type of question..I am not so much interpreting our weather conditions as a sign of the times as I am that global warming has really caused the end times questions to almost vanish..to take this thought a little further, I think it is very realistic to speculate that as more and more people beging to accept the global warming argument, people will become less and less alarmed no matter how severe, extreme, or exceptional the weather conditions.....so as droughts, famines, earthquakes, tsunami's and the like speed up in frequency, people will stop even wondering if these are the "birth pains" that Jesus predicted in scripture....they'll just attribute it to global warming.. don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that we have truly jacked up the environment that God made us stewards over and most of the things that harm the environment have been things that we have created out of sinful motives driven by greed, convenience, and laziness. As believers we should be on the front lines of environmental stewardship......but, I am also concerned that there is something else at work here that could easily facilitate an environment where life is going on as usual even as God is litrally shouting through nature to get our attention.

Robots

Just recently, I came to a new and simple understanding of the fact that God knows everything we are going to do and say before we ever do it. there are certain aspects of God's omniscience that I'm not even going to pretend to understand but there are other parts that may not be all that mysterious after all. the part that I am talking about is that part of us that is sinful and broken by nature.
I think it really is easier for God to predict us than we think in the same way that it is very easy to predict what a robot will do if you know what it is programmed to do. A robot will not operate outside of it's programming. In the same way, we are born with a programming that is broken and bent towards doing evil. We're robots with a really bad program and a really predictable pattern.
God has been around for a long time.....I would imagine that He knows exactly how every choice we make is going to play out. Even as original as we may think our decision making process is, God has been around for a long time....He knows where it's going with out having to "see in the future" (although He certainly has that ability as well). Even in our most inventive expression of sin, we're predictable. There's not much freedom in being predictable and there's not much wisdom in ignoring the only One who knows how it's all gonna play out...

the evolution of the answering machine

the other day I was thinking about all of the technological changes that I have seen in my lifetime. when you really stop to think about it, you would think that so much change could be traumatic... I remember the first time we got an answering machine at our house...you remember...the ones with the full size cassette tape that you had to rewind to listen to all of your messages..and then that answering machine tape thing came out that had all of the cool songs that you could use as your answering machine message..."wait- for - the beep, you gotta leave your name, you gotta leave your number, wait - for - the beep..." then the next installment of the answering machine came out where you had a mini cassette and a smaller answering machine box to put by the phone on your nightstand...and of course as the answering machine evolved digitally..it has now become a part of your phone or a service that you can get through your phone company....all of that change in about 10-15 years...

Because our generation has grown up in a perpetual state of change, we really don't think much about the evolution of the answering machine but what we often forget is that in our lifetime, we have experienced what for other generations would have been hundreds of years worth of technological change. I wonder if part of cause of the rising levels of stress and heart issues is simply due to never knowing what kind of answering machine will be using next week..okay that may be a stretch but seriously...I know that we speak of change as a positive thing especially when it comes to spiritual things and we are constantly looking to change our churches whether that is the worship style or the dress code..but I also think that it is more crucial than ever to have something in our life that never changes...yes, I am about to give the "sunday school" answer...If we are not completely engulfed in our relationship with the Unchanging God then I am not sure if we will be able to keep our sanity in our everyday tornadoe of change that we live in.. Maybe I need to make a list of God's unchanging characteristics and write them in Sharpie on a list and set it right next to my phone as a reminder that I need something/someone in my life that never changes

"first blog entry"

everyone has to have the "this is my first official blog" entry...so here's mine. I won't waste much of yours or my time because I don't have anything worth saying bc I'm primarily thinking about getting this page set up.... until next time my friends...