A Beautiful Accent

"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." NIV Bible.

Yesterday, after our church service, I had the opportunity to spend some time in conversation with a man who was baptized in our service. He had moved to the United States from Scotland and he spoke with a beautiful Scottish brogue that reaked of masculinity and history. His accent made me feel as if I were talking to someone from another time and place and I secretly wished that I had an accent like his. He told me the story of how God had changed his life.....so much so, that he was now out of a job.....allow me to explain.

Before coming to know Christ, my new friend was a salesman. Apparently, he was a very good salesman and based on his own telling, had no problem decieving or shortchanging a customer in order to get the sale. After recieving Christ, he found that he could no longer ignore his conscience (apparently, the Holy Spirit speaks much louder than the unredeemed conscience) and started telling customers the truth about the product that he was selling. The company that he was working for did not like the fact that he was actually looking out for the customer and they eventually fired him.

I have to be honest, it was so refreshing to hear his story because in our American christian culture, I don't hear stories like his enough. It wasn't like he was trying to make some grandiose "stand" for Jesus. He just simply could not be deceptive any longer, even at the risk of losing his job, because he was truly a new creature acting out of a new nature.

I am so glad that my friend has come to Christ in America but I hope that he does not assimilate too deeply into the American christian culture because if he does, he may learn the fine art of compartmentalization and learn to say things like "well, that's just the business and that's how it's done" or "this is just a necessary part of sales and everyone knows that exaggerating and telling half truths is what a salesman is supposed to do".

I pray that my new friend's beautiful accent will never diminish and that it will be symbollic of a life that people envy because it reminds them of the reality that there truly is another time and another place to be lived for.

A New Currency

Matthew 25:34-36 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'" New International Version Bible



The value of the "almighty" dollar seems to be not so "almighty" these days. Because of the current state of the U.S. economy, the value of dollar fluctuates frequently and there is much conversation of moving to a new global currency. All of this serves as a sobering reminder that cash, in and of itself, is only a symbol of value. It was designed to be a representation of the assets that we actually have, not the asset itself.



Strangely enough, our current monetary system has greatly influenced the way I think about giving. Most of the time, when I think about giving, I am immediately frustrated because I can't give as much as I would like to give due to the amount of dollars that I have in the bank. Does the dollar amount in my bank account truly represent what I am able to give? I don't really have an oppinion about whether the global financial system should move away from the dollar but I may need to personally consider a new form of currency.



In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a picture of what exemplary giving looks like and it is definitely not limited to money. If you are going to feed someone or give them something to drink, it might cost you a little bit of money but it will also cost you something else. If you want to clothe someone or take them into your house, you may incur a small financial expense but it will cost you even more in another form of currency. To take care of someone who is sick and to visit someone in prison will probably not cost you a whole lot of money but will require a very costly investment of one of your most valuable resources...your time.



This thought has become very liberating for me. I don't have to limit my giving to the money that I have in my bank account (don't get me wrong, that does not get me off of the hook of constantly streamlining my finances so that I can give as much money as possible). This especially becomes applicable when I think about using the "handy man" skills that I have recently been learning. How much money could I save a family that is living below the poverty line if I am able to go in and make substantial improvements to the physical structure of their house? If I go over and take care of a bathroom plumbing problem for the widow in my neighborhood, how much money have I given her now that she will not have to pay the expense of having a plumber come to her house? When I think about giving in this light, the possibilities grow limitless. The financial equivalent of what I can potentially give becomes exponential regardless of the current state of the "sometimes mighty dollar".

Carousels and Comparisons

Recently, I was standing alongside my three year old son as he was riding the carousel in the food court of our local mall. As we were going round and round, Zach looked at the kids on the horses behind us and said with a sly little grin, "we're beating them". I love the way that boy thinks. Not only were we beating them, but there is no possibility of them ever threatening our position. He is already turning out to be an eternal optimist. He wasn't comparing his position to the kids ahead of him with whom he could never catch up, he was comparing his position to the kids behind him. That's a smart kid.

I think for a three year old, comparing his position on a carousel to others is innocent and cute. The problem is that many of us, in our spiritual journey, continue that habit and it becomes something altogether different. We either go before God with a heart of complaint because of who is ahead of us on the carousel or we allow ourselves to get really puffed up because we look behind us to see how many people we are beating. I wonder if, while we whip our plastic horses so that they'll speed up, God is up in Heaven shouting, "It's not a race! It's a ride....would you just learn to enjoy the ride!"

90 degree angles

Genesis 1:14-18 "and God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.' And it was so. God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to seperate light from darkness. And saw that it was good." The NIV Bible

I have recently been learning the construction trade from a friend of mine. I work for him on Fridays with jobs that he is being hired for and on Saturdays, he comes over and helps me with some re-modeling projects that I am doing at my house. Through this learning process, I have come to understand how crucially important the 90 degree angle is to quality construction. Every wall should be perfectly perpendicular to the floor and every board should be perdendicular to the one that it is nailed. Pretty much everything that is built hinges in some way on the use of this angle. Let me re-phrase that...everything that is built by man hinges on the 90 degree angle.

In my obsession with the ninety degree angle, I was struck by a profound realization. I could hardly find anything that God has created that uses ninety degree angles. I don't see them in trees, clouds, grass, humans, animals....I just don't see them. I guess somewhere in creation there may be a ninety degree angle but for the most part, you just don't see a lot of hard angles or even straight lines for that matter.

The things that God makes just seem to explode into place with free movement and life. Trees look as if bark, branch, and leaf just erupted out of the ground. Mountains have a rugged unsubmissiveness to any appearance of order and symetry....and humans, I can't really explain what we look like accept that we are a beautifully raw mix of order, chaos, and symmetry that is still entirely organic.

It's funny how man applies hard angles and lines to pretty much everything we put our hands to. When man makes something, it almost always devolves into industry with smoke and fire and regulatory specifications. (I say 'almost always' because there will always be the artists among us). When man puts his hand to religion, it becomes a system of rules and regulations with sub-rules and sub-regulations created by committees and sub-committees.

With God it's just different. Everything that God makes resembles......life. Each creation has its own pattern and it's own chaos that is submitted only to its Creator. Even the 'religion' (or the title that men with angles and lines would give to it) that God has given us to know Him is organic and relational and wild. Jesus clearly stated why He came when he said "I have come so that you may have life and have it more abundantly" and He lived a life for us to model that was undomesticated and beautiful and perfectly organic....and he was a carpenter by trade. I wonder what his take would be on the ninety degree angle?

Greatness

Recently, I have been wrestling with the issue of greatness. More specifically, wondering if God will use my life to accomplish some great thing and what that great thing is. Amazingly (I know I shouldn't be amazed...but I was) on the very day that I was journaling about that question...God answered it through a friend that I had just met. He was sharing his story and mentioned a very obscure passage of scripture that God had used in his life.

The passage is Genesis 5:24 "Enoch walked with God and he was no more, for God took him", New American Standard Version.

That's all it says but it spoke volumes to me as soon as I heard it. It doesn't speak of brave and heroic feats of faith or even benevolent acts of sacrifice....it just says that Enoch walked with God. What if for the rest of my life, all I do is walk with God? In Enoch's case, it was apparently enough to please God so much that he couldn't stand not having Enoch in His physical presence....so he just took Him. There are very few great men in the Bible who achieved that distinctive honor. In fact, the only other members of the "ascension club" are Elijah and ...Jesus. Everyone else got into God's presence the old fashioned way.

To be honest, it really takes the pressure off. But, I have also realized that I have just simply become aware of something that has been in front of me all along. When describing God's approval or dissaproval, Jesus uses phrases like "depart from me, I never knew you" or "well done, my good and FAITHFUL servant". These phrases are relational in nature. The "great things" that were done throughout the Bible were simply acts of obedience to the voice of God and that voice was recognized only because the hearer's had been walking with God.

The simplicity of this truth is so freeing for someone like me who is 35 years old and is on the verge of a mini-midlife crisis. Up to this point, I have walked with God as best as I know how, and as far as I know, I am where He has called me to be. I may or may not accomplish some "great thing" by the world's standards (and even by Sunday School standards) but I'm not responsible for that. I am simply called to walk with God and if that's all I do for the rest of my life, then that will be my "great thing" and I will get to hear words reserved for people who do great things...."well done, my good and faithful servant".

Super String Theory

Recently, a friend introduced me to an incredible website (http://www.ted.com/) where experts from every field in the world give 10-20 minute lectures in their area of expertise. So far, one of my most favorite lectures is on super string theory (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/brian_greene_on_string_theory.html)

I highly recommend that you check out this lecture but I will go ahead and give you the very short version. The speaker, Brian Greene, explains the premise of string theory which basically states that inside of quarks (which are now thought to be the very smallest identifiable units of matter) are little belts or circles of energy that are constantly resonating and are the source of all of matter's constant movement.
To sum it up, at the very core of all existing matter is a resonance.

As I listened to Greene, I could not get a way from the creation account found in Genesis where God literally speaks existence into being. "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light..." and as the chapter progresses God speaks everything in creation into being.

It also brought to mind the first chapter of the book of John that states, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made."

As I listened to Greene, all I could think about was that super string theory may just be a secular way of saying that at the very fabric of all that is made, you will find the resonance or the word of God..

Slow Leak

For about the last year, I've been driving around on a tire that has a slow leak in it. I'll go to the gas station, pay 75 cents to use the air compressor to re-inflate it (paying 75 cents for air...that should be reason enough to get it fixed) and be good for another 2-3 weeks depending on the weather. The only reason that I can think of for why I haven't gone to have the leak plugged is that I just don't want to take the time to do it. It won't cost me anything because typically, tire stores will do a flat repair for free (because they know that if your tire is beyond repair, you'll be buying a new tire from them...I know this because I used to work in a tire store). I know that the tire is still in good enough shape that with a proper plug, I would be able to drive on it for it's expected lifespan. The danger of not fixing it is that if I continue to drive on the tire while it is not inflated to its recommended psi (pounds per square inch) it will wear down in places that will make it dangerous to drive on and it will either blow out or I will have to pre-maturely replace the tire with a new one. All of this could be prevented with about thirty minutes of my time and the effort of taking the tire to get it fixed...

wait for it....here it comes....the spiritual application for the slow leak metaphor......actually, I won't do it. I'll let you fill in the blank as to what the "slow leak" in your life may be...because it may just be a slow leak in your tire.....but you still need to do something about it.