Battle of the Narratives

"The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion." Proverbs 28:1 

I have this "book club" thing with my man children where they designate a novel for us to read and then we discuss it together once we're finished, usually at the next family gathering since we all live miles apart. 

Last year it was Steinbeck's East of Eden which was thoroughly engaging because of all of the spiritual questions tracing back to creation, original sin, and the human will. I love digging into that stuff. We've read Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood," Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes," and on deck is Chesterton's "Orthodoxy." 

Dear Parents, read to your kids daily and take them to the library often; in an economy full of inflation, it is an activity that is still free, but yields precious dividends. However, don't be surprised if they grow up to be smarter than you. Just go with it. 

Both man children along with my nephew Joey who is a well-read English major and always thick in the literary discussions on my front porch, say Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" is the greatest novel of all time. And believe me it's a hill they're all willing to die on. 

I have to admit that in the last five years, I've heard many teachers, professors, and podcasters say the same thing; however, after a couple of false starts with the massive Russian novel and the consideration of my learning curve, I was granted permission to work my way into The Brothers K. by beginning first with Crime and Punishment. 

I'm half way into the book and already I'm seeing an apologetic argument for the biblical narrative. It's intriguing to me how much of life reflects God's story and speaks into ours when we have eyes to see and ears to hear although I'm sure Dostoevsky planned it this way. But again, why? 

I'm not sure how the novel ends so there's no spoiler alert here. If you've read it you know that the reader is plunged into the mind of a convoluted killer, the protagonist Raskolnikov, an impoverished law school student who thinks himself something of a superman above the law. Even before he goes through with the murder of a cantankerous pawnbroker, he's overcome by a fever and all kinds of fits and creepy dreams just in the devising stage; the madness, which continues in intensity after the crime, is more of a spiritual variety than medical. 

I'm seeing that the "punishment" in "Crime and Punishment" is not the kind carried out so much by a criminal justice system, but the sentence handed down by one's own conscience and self-deceptions. So I have to stop and ask: Where does all of this guilt, shame, and remorse come from?  Can naturalism produce such things? 

I've established in past blogs that no one can make an airtight argument for whether God exists or not; neither set of beliefs can be proven empirically. So it begs the question: "Can I believe in something that I can't prove?" 

"Yes."

"How so?" 

We can look at the biblical narrative,  namely "Christianity" and naturalism or what is usually referred to as "secularism" and compare them. ( You may do this with any religion or set of beliefs. Since I'm arguing for Christianity, I'll stick with it. Historically, especially since Darwinism came on the scene, these two faiths are the most debated and pitted against each other. ) 

Yes, secularism is a "faith." Because you can't prove that matter just spontaneously occurred without contingency, and that God doesn't exist, this belief must be taken on faith. You have faith that God doesn't exist and the material world is all there is. 

You are not subtracting God out of the equation and so left with no belief, but instead, you're just swapping one belief for another. ( Charles Taylor is a secular philosopher and takes an honest approach to this issue in his book "A Secular Age" if you are curious and want to learn more. ) 

So even though we don't have an airtight argument on either side, we can compare faiths by asking ourselves a series of questions: First, I can ask if my human experience fits my faith. In other words, is my faith livable? Can I live out my faith? 

Humans are born with certain needs. We need a strong identity, one that can support the weight of our selfhood, not dependent on our merits, achievements, and goodness. We need meaning and a way to deal with suffering. We need satisfaction, purpose, and hope. 

Inside of our hearts we know that we have a sense of morality and justice, and when we go against it, as if secularism is true, saying that there's no right or wrong, so I can make up my own truths, like the murderer Raskoinkov in Crime and Punishment, the results are disastrous because ideas do have consequences. 

We know the world is not as it should be, and that for all our social programs, education, and government systems, utopia has never come and never will. Not here. Inside we know this. 

We see glimpses of goodness, of what the world could be, of what we could be, and we know it must be transcendent. We long for all of creation to be set right. We experience it whenever we watch a movie or read a novel in a "happy ending itch" that longs to be scratched.  

Why would evolution, a process where the strong eats the weak, that randomly moves along without rhyme or reason or intelligent motive, cause us to eventually love each other and experience guilt, shame, and remorse when we didn't? If there's no transcendent being that has set a moral order into creation and I can simply decide what is right or wrong for myself, why do I feel this guilt when I don't obey the moral code?  I'm not baking my conclusion into the premise; this is simply what evolution states. 

And if you listen carefully to the secular argument, you'll find often times that atheists borrow from the Christian faith to explain things in their faith, especially our sense of morality and justice. That's not playing by the rules, is it? If you have to borrow from another set of beliefs to explain your own set of beliefs, well, your faith isn't very consistent or sustainable. It's not livable. It's not going to hold you up. 

The biblical narrative offers answers that fit these needs and can be lived out. 

While it's a huge stretch to believe that evolutionary processes could cause love to develop after cannibalism and then guilt and shame when we don't love or worse, the Christian narrative explains not only where this guilt and shame originates in the doctrine of original sin, but gives us a way to be rid of it in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. 

These are clues. Don't ignore them. 

They are also fair questions, I believe, and ones that help us to sort through and make sense of the existential fear that thrusts us into the depths of despair when we allow ourselves to think that we have no purpose and that nothing we do here matters, or there is no right or wrong, or the love I feel for my family and friends and my precious grandchildren is just an illusion my brain creates to help me survive.

I'm sorry, but everything inside of me screams against this nonsense, and I believe it does in you as well. Why? Why do you think our heart pushes back against this argumentation? Our rebellion against naturalism is another clue we mustn't ignore. 

I have read accounts where atheists, including Thomas Nagel, a well-known philosopher and professor at New York University, instruct their readers struggling with this despair to "just not think about it." This doesn't match the story inside of me that clawed in the darkness to break out into the light. In fact C.S. Lewis said that if we are experiencing this kind of despair, we're not thinking enough. 

I fear if we keep ignoring the yearnings and clues inside of us, either quelling the pain or refusing to investigate the philosophical evidence for Christianity as well as the physical, we will suppress the truth for so long and so hard, in the final analysis, we will convince ourselves the false narrative is the truthful one. What happens if we never have the intellectual integrity to look at the data and listen? 

Self-deception. 

One reality is that some of us simply don't want it to be true. 

If there's a God, that implies that I'm not the one in the driver's seat, the one who gets to call the shots. At least have the integrity to admit this. That makes more sense than believing evolution which now more than a century after Darwin hasn't unfolded the evidence that Darwin himself said should be uncovered in time to prove the theory. It hasn't. 

However many universities unlike back in the day are no longer requiring science majors to take ethics or philosophy classes, so the students are never forced to examine the big questions of life like meaning, purpose or morality. Naturalism is taught from the get-go, and that is a conclusion baked into the premise like a casserole. 

If you're a Christian, I encourage you to embrace the apologetic aspects of our faith as well. It can strengthen our faith, equip us to better defend it, and reveal delightful surprises along the journey. 

All of us have to investigate the clues and decide for ourselves. 

Listen to the story inside of you - does secularism or the biblical narrative better fit what your heart knows is true? That you were created for something more; you were created for something this world can not supply. You were created by and for God, to live with him forever. 

Listen. 

💜

 

The Right Heart

"I was constantly challenged by Christian women and men who thought deeply about the faith and about life. It was at church and among my Christian friends that I first discovered faith, not as a set of ideas to believe but as a true story of the whole universe, a tale of love, loss, promise, and costly rescue, in which we all play a role."  ( Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory )

"...who thought deeply about the faith and about life." 

Centuries before the socials and the immortal news feed, French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal said that all men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. 

Throughout the ages of church history and into our own day, many false narratives have infiltrated and even flourished within the Church. If we are to follow Jesus and serve in the Great Commission, it's crucial we get the Christian narrative right. As Dr. Alister McGrath reminded us in his work that Christianity has a deep narrative structure, articulating a grand story that connects together God, Jesus Christ, and believers. 

And we have a clue we are getting it right when we see the story change our own lives. How can we expect others to listen or care about the story when it isn't beautiful to us? 

"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are are healed." ( Isaiah 53:5 ) 

This verse is the beating heart of the biblical narrative, God's redeeming response to the human dilemma and agonizing despair of being born destined to sin, covered in guilt and shame. 

For years I went to several churches that used this passage to make a case for physical healing, even building a false doctrine upon it. It was used as a platform to pronounce that it is always God's will to heal physically, and if you're not healed you don't have enough faith or are swimming in some egregious, besetting sin. 

This is a gross misinterpretation at the least. To ascribe physical and mental healing to these verses and use them to teach in this manner is to reduce the most precious doctrine of the Christian narrative - the atonement of Jesus Christ - to a superficial level. 

Of course Jesus healed all types of diseases in the Bible and still heals physically and mentally today; that's not the argument here. It's a very good and proper thing to pray for and desire our loved ones to be physically healed. Storm heaven for them, but this chapter in Isaiah is speaking about the deeper healing of our spirits that gives us peace with God. 

This peace has been erroneously taught as a security in our physical environment, but is in fact, the life-giving truth that because of the punishment Jesus took for us on the cross, we are now no longer regarded as God's enemies. We are no longer at war with God, but we now have peace with him through the finished work of Jesus Christ.  ( Romans 1-9 ) 

When we contextualize this verse, we see no where does Isaiah mention physical healing in this passage. The verses beforehand describe in stark detail the rejection Jesus faced for us, how he was despised by the people he created. And the verse that follows "and with his wounds we are healed" says:

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we turned - every one - to his own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." ( verse 6 )  These verses deal with our sin, our transgressions and our iniquity; the things that keep us separated from a holy God and enjoying a relationship with our Creator. 

In Mark 2:5 when Jesus told the paralyzed man lying on the mat, "Son your sins are forgiven," before he healed his physical body, he was adjudicating to the lame man, his friends and all those gathered around that this is the deeper healing we need. Forgiveness of our sins. Without this healing, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. 

It's not just the prosperity gospel or word of faith churches that replace the beauty of the atonement with physical healing; we are all bent toward this tendency because of our fallen nature. We must be intentional in driving the Gospel truth deeper into our hearts. 

When we come to the altar to worship together whether as a church, or in family devotions, or alone on our knees by our bed or in the great outdoors, are we coming for God himself or for what he can give us or do for us? 

Are we entering his gates with thanksgiving in our hearts and his courts with praise for all of the spiritual blessings he has bestowed upon us by his love, grace, and mercy in Jesus? Or are we first seeking signs, wonders, financial help, or physical healing instead of his righteousness and his kingdom?  

Are we coming and seeking for God to expose our hidden sins to us and the displeasing motives of our heart so we can receive forgiveness and help with our inner struggles in our sanctification process? Or are we so busy in the noise of our lives and our needs, we don't come quietly to first seek for him and self-reflect in the light of his glory? 

It's interesting that in his epistles we don't see the apostle Paul praying for physical healing or security, although we know he must have. He prayed for his thorn to be removed, and he raised a man from the dead that he fell out of a window. But for his church plants he prays for them things like to be filled with the knowledge of God's will, to have strength to comprehend together the love of Christ, for church unity, for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God, to set their minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth....... 

We can never go wrong by opening our Bibles and praying straight out of the story, then meditating on the truths and preaching them to ourselves. 

We can never stop gazing at the Gospel like a multi-faceted diamond enamored by its beauty and studying each glorious part with blazing intentionality. When the mercy God has had on sinners like us becomes clearer, him redeeming us through the life and death and resurrection of his Son to be adopted as his dearly beloved children to live in a fully healed, resurrected body for all eternity, it changes us. 

The Gospel has transformed my prayers for physical and mental healing and really all needs. I've found that I pray better and clearer now for these things because I understand the narrative better. We will never reach the bottom of this over-flowing well, but may we never stop diving and searching. 

When we understand what Christ has done for us, it radically changes how we live our lives. It changes our worship. The beauty at the heart of the biblical narrative has the power to transform the lives around us, but we have to have the story straight in our own hearts first. 

💜

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." ( Colossians 1:13 - 14 ) 

                                                                                     

The Reason for Reason

"Come now, let us reason together says the Lord:..." Isaiah 1:18 

Don't you wonder why every story you read or movie you watch has this good verses evil tension play out within the storyline? Why is the greatest theme in much of literature and of so many songs the notion that love never dies? Where did numbers come from and why are they so useful? Where did your sense of fairness come from? Why do we long for the story to end happily ever after? Why do we sense that love will last forever? 

In my curious pursuit of Narrative Apologetics, I've become more and more acquainted with and enchanted by the Ontological argument for the existence of God. I don't understand why it is that many believers and even biblical scholars don't find the argument compelling and convincing and down right beautiful.  

Neither side in the God debate is going to give an airtight argument for the existence or nonexistence of God. Like a mystery novel detective, we have to be observant, ask good questions, and follow the clues, and some of those clues exist on the outside of us and some are hidden within. Once the evidence is gathered, analyzed, and presented, we all have to reach our own verdicts. 

Well-known Design Arguments discerning the universe and nature such as the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments, are based on observation and experience. These arguments are based on everything in the universe having a cause, being in motion, or being contingent, in other words, needing a "causer."  

On the flip side of the same coin, the Ontological Argument rests purely in reason and logic to make its case for God, which is why some dismiss it. However, one quote on a Christian website that I also found to be true in my own study of the Ontological Argument said of its wax and wane among theologians and intelligentsia: 

"the Ontological Argument has not completely faded and disappeared. In part, that’s because, the more closely one tries to define its terms, the more the biblical God emerges." ( Maybe that has something to do with why it is dismissed at times. ) 

Both of these arguments are important in our hunt for God.

Works of scholarship abound on the Ontological Argument to challenge I suspect even those with the philosophical chops to think them through to their happily ever abstract ending. Embarrassingly, I found myself rereading Kierkegaard's paragraphs several times before I could understand what exactly he was getting at; however, I believe turning the evidence we find over and over like rich garden soil is where the real struggle lies.  

At some point, we all have to be alone with our evidence. 

We all have to wrangle with the findings along with our observations and experiences, scribbling dilemmas in our journals and working them out like an algebra equation. For me personally the problem of evil with all of its implications, assumptions, questions, and private heartache caused the most pain and gut-wrenching honesty, and tears. But nothing has moved me closer to the presence of God and a deeper knowledge of him and his love. 

So finding out if God exists may require every brain cell we can muster and bend into deep contemplation: for it's the most important decision we will make in our lifetime. You might be saying, "I already believe in God, so I don't need to think about apologetics or worry about Kierkegaard's bright ideas. In fact, Rebecca, I think you're making the question entirely too difficult." Perhaps. But I would respectfully disagree. It's not just about believing he exists. If God exists, what kind of a God is he? There are clues everywhere. You don't need to even read any scholarly literature. 

Many of us have a superficial grasp of our God and historic Christianity. I believe through apologetics we can gain, develop, and appreciate more appropriately and stunningly the richness and strengths of our faith.   

And if you've been trying to find your true self, like Isaiah the Old Testament prophet, our only hope lies in finding God first. ( Isaiah 6 ) And I also know that once we establish a belief in God, many deep and dark inquiries extend the horizon. One blog at a time though. I know I shouldn't be quoting Scripture yet and giving my final analysis, but I can't seem to help myself. 

What we believe about God effects every chapter of our story. If God created me, then I should have more than just a passing knowledge of him. I love how Gavin Ortlund details the search for God in his book "Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn't:" (1) 

"It is, first, the most important and thrilling adventure of our lives. Nothing could be more urgent than whether he exists - and if so, what to do about it. For God is held to be the Supreme Good, who alone can fulfill the longings of the human soul. Therefore the stakes of finding him are literally infinite. The question of God is, secondly, the most fascinating puzzle you will ever think about. Whether or not he is real, certainly a more interesting idea has never been conceived. The concept God - the infinite Person, the ground of being, the precondition of reality - is the most staggering, enthralling idea ever to confront the human mind. The mere idea of God outweighs the physical universe in grandeur and importance. Finally the question of God is the most difficult and humbling question we will face." 

And that's another ontological question isn't it? Why do we even imagine a concept of God in the first place? Think about that. Where does it come from? Evolutionary processes? Some make a case for this. 

Interestingly in my research, I also found that when asked what they thought was the most compelling evidence for the existence of God and the hardest to counter in their debates, atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, alike, most all of them say that it is the Moral Argument, not the Design Argument that is hardest for them to combat. 

So I submit my evidence that the Ontological Argument is here to stay. 

Take music for instance. Charles Taylor, in his acclaimed (and thick!) work "A Secular Age," characterizes music in secular contexts as fundamentally mysterious because it conveys transcendence and yet is divorced from any transcendent referent. (1) Other secular people have written similar experiences of being profoundly moved by a piece of music and then feeling a loss because at the end there was no one to thank.  

Why did the skeptic think someone transcendent should be thanked for the music he heard, someone above nature and outside of human being? Surprisingly, many atheists take the argument on music for the existence of God more serious than other arguments. Why is that? I believe because everyone knows that music is powerful with the ability to lift us up, containing a transcendence of its own beauty stretching beyond this world, something supernatural. 

Sometime this weekend find a quiet place, pull up on your phone The Mozart G Minor Quintet or Hans Zimmer's "Chevaliers de Sangreal" or John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," or your own personal favorite, insert your earbuds, close your eyes, and just listen. Really listen. 

Birds are a part of nature; we can observe birds. And they are so lovely and enjoyable to watch in their synchronized flight patterns, their busy, little work ethic, their diligence, and their fussiness displayed in constructing nursery nests for their eggs in the nooks of my barn. It's an activity I never grow tired of here at the farm. 

But what about their music?  

Researchers, including those who are both musicians and ornithologists, have discovered that the songs of birds are structured like that of human music in their change of tempo, pitch, and timbre, resembling human melodies. 

Birds, however; seem to understand who to thank for their music simply by delighting in and displaying the songs they were created to perform. Everyday in these delicately detailed, fine-feathered friends I see and hear the ontological bridging its way to the observable in musical notes and even symphonies, transcending the skeptical. 

At every turn our universe gives the impression of intelligence and beauty. Can't you see it? 

And don't forget that we live in the universe too, creatures longing for meaning and hope and purpose. Creatures who write music and stories of love and hope, longing for a happy ending, where good, at last, defeats evil forever. Humans are observable. We are also meaningful beings with meaningful thoughts; it doesn't seem plausible to me that we would be created by accident or by an indifferent, untouchable, or boring deity. It doesn't fit our storyline. It doesn't fit with what I can observe nor with what I know is going on inside of me. 

Could a random collection of molecules, emerging from nothing, heading nowhere, eating each other to survive, have turned from erratic blobs of monsters into affectionate, "civilized" beings now displaying love and creating art, because the blobs somehow realized developing a sense of morality and justice would be better survival techniques than the strong eating the weak? 

To me, you'd have to stretch the daylights out of that secular narrative to make it work let alone fit our world and be consistently livable. 

And anyway, how can you trust such a development of morality rooted in nothing but randomness? Or more importantly, why would you trust it? How could I trust my own thoughts for that matter, knowing they derived along a pathway that arbitrarily forked off from an already accidental main road and just kept going devoid of map and motive? 

What if the morality path we ventured down per chance instructed us it would be useful to eat our spouses like a black widow spider? Moral nature in the case of evolutionary biology is an illusion tricking our brains rather than a clue pointing us to the good verses evil drama we encounter in all of our stories and "the infinite Person and the ground of being." 

We all have to decide where we land in the argument for God. Even for those who get stuck and unsettled in the valley of indecision, the thought continually provokes the mind: Could a meaningless, indifferent deity or an accidental nothing produce such creatures as us? Creatures full of talent, purpose, justice, hope, and love? 

Be reasonable. 

Follow the clues. 

I visited this delightful book store recently in the quaint, little town of Monroe, GA 

 

The Stories That Surround Us

"There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." Ursula K. Le Guin 

Last Sunday as usual I was hurrying to check on everyone and make sure all of the hungry mouths had a morning meal so I could get ready for church. At the sheep field before I could start the head count, I noticed a set of twin lambs born two days prior running around frantic without their mother. And she had proved a good, attentive mother. 

All sheep were accounted for except the mother ewe. That was strange. Even if a coyote managed to get through the fencing, the sly predator would have never made it past the watchful eyes of two Great Pyrenees, and still a coyote wouldn't have attacked a big sheep with such easy prey as vulnerable babies in the field. It didn't make sense. 

I scooped up the lambs as I proceeded to walk around basically in circles, wondering where in the world the mom could be. Then all of a sudden I heard a faint, muffled baa. "Oh Jesus, help us!" The voice came from under a heavy round bale of hay that had fallen over on its side. I couldn't even see any part of the mom at all; she was completely hidden. I shifted the lambs to one arm and grabbed my phone to call the Farmer. 

"Come now with the tractor a bale fell on a sheep; hurry!" 

When the Farmer arrived and lifted the bale with the hay spear, I handed him the lambs inside of the cab so I could help their mom. She was lying on her side, and I expected her to be as flat as a pancake. 

Amazingly she seemed okay. Sheep aren't known for being the brightest beast in the animal kingdom, but if a hay bale is tipping over, they usually have enough sense to get out of the way. I immediately saw her problem. 

She must have been eating deep inside of the hay because a piece of hemp bailing twine was wrapped around her ear tag so when she went to move, she couldn't. Poor thing. I untangled her and slid her out into the field. Her front leg was hurt, but the Farmer assured me it wasn't broken that she just needed to get the circulation going in it again. He was right. 

Sheep get unbelievably stressed at the least little thing, so I knew this scary ordeal had to have traumatized her to the core. I gave her a bucket of water, a pan of grain, her lambs, and some space. The Farmer and I stood there for a bit in the chilly air watching her from a distance, mesmerized, thanking God. It was one of those moments you cherish because you know it doesn't always go that way. 

Then we went to church. 

In "Narrative Apologetics; Sharing the Relevance, Joy, and Wonder of the Christian Faith," Oxford University professor Alister McGrath writes: 

"Humans are storytellers and story-dwellers. Some stories are received, some are discovered, and some are simply invented. C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia are fundamentally about discovering a story that makes sense of all other stories - and then embracing it, because of its power to give meaning and value to life. But which is the true story? Which are merely its shadows and echoes? And which are fabrications, tales spun to entrap and deceive?" 

This is a crucial question Dr. McGrath asks because all of us live by the story we believe.  

Christian Smith points out in his book "Moral, Believing Animals," that there are eleven contemporary meta-narratives that he believes shape the thinking of Western people. ( I won't list them all just some of the most common.)  

The Progressive Socialism narrative. The Scientific Enlightenment narrative. The Capitalist Prosperity narrative. The Expressive Romantic narrative. The Chance and Purposelessness narrative. The Christian Meta-narrative.   

Dr. McGrath offers helpful guidance to his readers in deciding which stories about our world and ourselves we should choose and how to know whether it is truthful and reliable: 

"Which 'grand story' allows the best rendering of our complex universe? Which meta-narrative offers the most illumination of our shadowy world?"

Likewise in Lewis's Narnia we see the same perplexing dilemma faced by the Pevensie siblings as they listen to stories about the true origin of Narnia. They realize that they must make decisions about which persons and which stories are to be trusted. Will they believe the narrative of the White Witch or the one of the mysterious Aslan whose return is expected at any time? 

This is the work of Christian apologetics: To concentrate on the question of the trustworthiness of the Bible narrative, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its power to illuminate and then change our lives. 

Later that day I leaned against a fence post in the sheep field and watched the mama ewe and her twins. They were stretched out together on a soft layer of flattened hay sleeping in the afternoon sunshine. Thankfully they rested content, none the worse for wear. 

I thought about how God seems to create stories to swirl and echo around us in our everyday lives. Stories that don't just encircle our ordinary routines, but actually draw us into his grand narrative. 

Stories, some happy, some sad, but both challenge the latest cultural narratives of our day or of ages gone by, stories that excite the imagination and give us a glimpse of some glorious, eternal future we long to embrace. 

Stories that whisper of One who will rescue and redeem us from sin and a wicked, deceiving enemy who relentlessly pursues us. A Shepherd, who is firmly, but also gently, sliding us out into his marvelous light, into the story that resonates with the cry of every human heart while dispelling existential despair. A story that ends, but really begins, when we are finally guided safely home to rest content in the arms of Jesus, having been removed from the entanglements and entrapments of this "shadowy world."   

But the question remains: Which story will you believe? 

The Stories Within Us

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen - not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else." C.S. Lewis  

The Farmer was up at daybreak last Monday morning to load a Hereford steer onto the livestock trailer so he could head to the beef processor before his work phone started ringing. The day before as I was filling up the water trough in the cow field, the steer moseyed over for a drink. While he lapped up the water with his huge tongue I thanked him for his sacrifice. In supplying our family with food his life possessed great worth, purpose, and meaning.  

"Thank you, Buddy. I'll see you on the other side." 

Animals give so much to mankind in the way of friendship, protection, nourishment, clothing, joy, and if we have ears to hear and eyes to see a reason for God. 

Sadly, they were subjected to their fallen state because of us. ( Romans 8:20-21 ) Some animals however, seem to hold a measure of compassion and forgiveness toward humans. Dogs, favorite cows and possibly a few cats. 

Last year I experienced two difficult losses. After a long, never long enough, productive life here at Healing Brook, leaving behind a legacy embodied in the shape of ten adorable litters of puppies and a stellar guarding record of the farm and his food bowl, my lovable Atlas died in July. 

When the end was near I was able to cradle that big old head in both hands and tell him no other dog will ever live up to him. Although his grandson Aslan is gaining much ground, Atlas was simply the best.

I was reminded of the Elizabeth Barrett Browning quote: "His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears." It wasn't the first time Atlas caught my tears, but it was the last. 

In November I found myself again cradling the big head of yet another favorite animal close to death. My cow Starlight. 

Starlight was the first baby moo born here, and she had given us many healthy calves since and much joy. But this time she was pregnant with twins, and the labor did not go well. We weren't able to save her or her young. Before the end, I had "my moment" with her. Before she slipped away into the grassy cow fields of heaven, her huge, furry head was soaked in my tears and snot. 

Since my spiritual awakening five years ago and the desire to pursue my faith with more of an academic passion, I've found that in chasing God with my mind and not only my heart has actually helped to make sense of the desires, both good and bad, residing in my heart. Sound biblical doctrine has slowly reordered the loves of my heart, helping to identify and banish the idols that lived there while at the same time driving the Gospel deeper into the empty crevices vacated by the inordinate loves.  

One new love is the study of Christian Apologetics. ( Defending the faith ) I never realized there were so many subsections in this field, nor did I realize until my sabbatical that my life long curiosity in stories and especially the same apparent story in all of us, is actually a thing: "Narrative Apologetics." 

No matter what apologetic course we choose, the longing for transcendence deep in the human soul points us to God even if many in our current culture need to be awakened first beneath the heavy blankets of doubt, unbelief, fear, and hopelessness. 

Someone prayed for me to wake up, so now, I pray for others. I want to encourage the uncovering of these existential questions and administer permission to breathe and feel them; denying they exist in our human experience doesn't make them disappear. The self-deception only adds to the angst and existential despair we feel whether we believe in the existence of God or not. Christians face doubts too. I see now that God allows this and even leads us this way at times. 

A healthy faith keeps studying and asking questions, plunging the depths to grasp more and more of God. 

Saying we arrived at our current destination by the strong eating the weak and now we must stop all of that cannibalism and start loving each other doesn't work for me. And I don't think it works for you either. I don't think it works for the 'new atheists' like Richard Dawkins even though they don't have the guts to admit it like the older atheists. Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, and even Nietzsche at least had the integrity to admit that in subtracting God out of the equation of life we also subtract out our very basis for morality. 

But no matter what areas we embrace to appeal to our Christian faith, I can't help but wonder if God is shouting to us through nature and paradoxically through the allowance of suffering, questions, and divine hiddenness: "Here I am! Here I am!" Before we can hear his voice we have to have the courage and integrity to awaken to the questions inside of us and wiggle out of our comfortable sleeping bags. 

Why is there something and not nothing? Have you really ever thought about nothing? It's not black or empty or dark because black and empty and dark are something. Why is there beauty? Why do we feel a connection to others and to animals? Why are the same stories inside of all of us? Why these longings? 

Could these yearnings and glimpses of mystery and beauty be bread crumbs guiding us to something wonderful and warm and deliciously hopeful beyond this world? 

In an effort to shorten my blogs, I'm stopping here, but I'll take this up in my next post. 

Recently, I encountered another sad loss - my friend Bernie. Bernie passed away January 22nd at the age of 87. He read each of my blogs, and then waited to discuss them with me at church. His interest in my abstract wonderings meant a lot. And why is that? He asked many questions concerning the things I wrote ( one bluntly being, why are your blogs so long? lol ) while leaving me with many things to think about. So in memory of Bernie, I'm working on conciseness. I will miss his friendship and encouragement greatly. 

"Thank you, Buddy, I'll see you on the other side." 

Atlas the Great 

Unspeakable Joy

"... and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy." ( Psalm 19:5b ) 

Often when people hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ presented to them, they make the mistake of thinking that they will consider it to see if it "fits" them and their family. They will take into account how Christianity will help them achieve their goals and dreams; they might ask it they can still live in a particular lifestyle or ask if they have to give up this or that thing before they commit. 

Sometimes people will have kids and think that they need to raise them in church because they need to learn moral values, to make sure they build good character. I thought this. 

When I'm sharing my faith with someone who is closed off to Christianity I tell them that they need to at least investigate the claims of Jesus Christ because he was the most influential person to ever walk the face of the planet. No one man left greater and deeper footprints in all of human history in every facet of human life, and they owe it to themselves to check out those claims. There is too much at stake not to do that. 

Even though this knowledge alone will not save a person, I still stick by my plea. 

Why? Because looking into the evidence for Jesus has been known to lead skeptics to further study into the Scriptures ( sometimes attempting to disprove him )  and thus right into the saving grace, knowledge, and arms of Jesus Christ, not only as their Savior, but as the Lord of their lives. He has to be both. In their pursuit of denying him, they became passionate followers of him. I think of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and others.

We can't think of the Gospel as something we look into to see if it "agrees" with us. That's missing the entire point of the Christian faith. For one thing, it will never "agree" with us entirely. How will it change us? The Gospel of Jesus Christ isn't something we "take up" - rather, it's something that takes us up. The late Dr. Tim Keller continually stressed that point in his preaching.  

When you sense you are being called and overwhelmed by a power greater than yourself, it's starting to happen. God is drawing you. 

Believe.

Ezekiel 11:19: "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh"

Ezekiel 36:26: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." 

God draws us and that drawing looks different for all of us. 

However, our struggles, questions, and suffering do not cease when we are drawn by God into this kingdom. No, in many ways, they are just beginning. When we become disciples of Christ, we quickly learn that as Paul said in Romans 8:17: "If we are children of God, then we are fellow heirs with Christ, providing we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."

Paul goes on to say that he considers that the suffering we face in our lives is not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." ( verse 18 ) 

In this life, we are to "look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. ( Hebrews 12:2 )  

The Christian life is joy and suffering. 

That's the cost of discipleship. 

We tend to lean in one direction or the other, but the Scriptures clearly point out that it's both. 

You can't have one without the other. 

It's the crucifixion and the resurrection. 

We must face the afflictions so they can prepare for us the promised eternal weight of glory. ( 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ) 

However, here's what I was thinking this week as the dogs and I walked through the sheep fields: One day our suffering, for all of its agony and unanswered interrogations, will be banished from our lives, and I'm sure our questions along with it.  ( Revelation 21 )  

Suffering will one day end, but joy will not. Isn't that the most beautiful truth? That's our hope, and we must determine that we will hold onto it like a life raft through every hurricane with our eyes fixed on Jesus seated above the flood, by the Father's right hand. And one day we will stand before them perfect without spot or blemish because Jesus endured the suffering for us. Praise God.  

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." ( Psalms 30:5 ) 

In fact, joy will not only not end, but our joy will increase. 

That's the hope I hold in my hand as I walk through this life in all of my shortcomings, failures, and sins, through a world of suffering. That's the hope I must hold onto this Christmas. You can too when you see the beauty of Jesus and he becomes both the Savior and Lord of your life. 💜

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." ( Psalm 16:11 ) 

"So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." ( John 16:22 ) 

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come

Let Earth receive her King

Let every heart prepare Him room

And Heaven and nature sing"

Merry Christmas 

The Prince of Peace

"And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them....For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord... 

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.'" ( Luke 2:8, 9, 11,13, 14 ) 

A year or so ago my oldest man child called me because he said that he had an epiphany while grocery shopping at Walmart. "This ought to be interesting," I said. He went on to say that almost every time he's in the store John Mayer's "I'm just waiting on the world to change" is playing over the sound system. 

He said that in exasperation he lifted his head up toward the ceiling and said out loud, "Hey John, you're going to be waiting forever because the world is never going to change." 

"It isn't, Mom, I finally see that. No social or educational program, no government agenda or system, no new generation, no self-help advice is going to save the planet. The world is never going to get better, and there is never going to be world peace." 

It was intriguing because he wasn't having a bipolar episode; he wasn't depressed. He just at long last saw the truth, and he was embracing it. 

But isn't that what Jesus came to bring us? World peace? Isn't that what Christmas is all about? Isn't that the message that was announced to the shepherds that First Noel while they kept watch over their flock? 

Jesus said it wasn't. 

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you." ( John 14:27 ) 

So Jesus does give us peace, but not in the way that the world gives or expects. 

We know this peace Jesus gives is not an end to war because in Matthew 24 when his disciples ask him what will be the sign of his coming back and the end of the age and Jesus replies that you will hear of wars and rumors of wars and nation will rise against nation. So Jesus wasn't promising world peace. 

He says in Matthew that he has come to set family members against one another. I found people who like to say that Jesus always talked of love and lovely things have never actually read what Jesus said. I was like that too, and became shocked at many of his statements. "Do you think that I have come to bring peace. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." ( Matthew 10:34 )

This isn't a literal sword. When Peter drew a sword and swiped off the high priest servant's ear in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus rebuked him, told him to put the sword away, and he healed the man's ear. ( John 18:10, Matthew 56:21, Mark 14:47, Luke 22:50 ) 

Although Jesus made it clear that violence wasn't the way into his kingdom, we do see that this peace isn't that everyone's going to get along either, happily singing campfire songs together. This text reveals that even within a family there will be tension and disagreement because of the gospel.  

To be clear, there is a peace that we experience in this life as Christians, but it is a temporary peace. Sometimes I feel it, and sometimes I don't. I certainly don't feel this peace when I listen to the news. It's a subjective peace. The Bible tells us that its like a river and a part of the fruit of the Spirit. I have a peace that floods my heart at times, but there are times when I'm anxious and afraid. One day this peace will be complete but for now it isn't as we continue to live in this "already but not now" kingdom.

As we wait for Jesus's return and the Kingdom of God to be fully established, we are commanded in Scripture to be peacemakers, to work for human flourishing and to carry out the great commission. That's how Jesus wants to find his Bride when he returns for her.  

So if that peace isn't the peace the angels rejoiced over above the shepherds that Christmas night, then what is it exactly? Look what Luke 1:76-79 says:

This is Zechariah, John the Baptist's dad speaking: 

"And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." 

This is the peace that is imparted to us at salvation because of the mercy of God for the forgiveness of our sins. 

But why do we need this peace? 

Because we are at war with God. 

When we read the account of the angels appearing to the shepherds that glorious night, it's actually the middle of the Christmas story. It's hard to understand what's going on in a movie if you come into it halfway through. It's like opening a novel and starting in the middle - it makes no sense. 

We have to go back to Genesis in the Garden of Eden where God created man and woman to live in a perfect, life-giving environment. When our first parents sinned by disobeying God and eating the fruit their sin was imputed into the entire human race. We aren't enemies of God because we sin, but because we are born sinners. It's the nature of our heart. We no longer live for God, but for ourselves, just like Adam and Eve. 

When I look around our world, this makes perfect sense to me. 

"None is righteous, no not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one....the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." ( Romans 3:11,12, 17, 18 ) 

When we believe in Jesus, this peace is given to us as a gift in salvation. 

"There since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." ( Romans 5:1 ) 

Paul goes on to say in next verses that this grace in which we now stand causes us to rejoice - just like the angels that night above the shepherds.  

We stand in it. 

The peace that Jesus came into the world to give to those who believe in him - "those in whom he is pleased" - is not a comfortable, tranquil, feeling that fluctuates. No, it is a new and permanent standing with God. No circumstance or person can take this peace from us. Jesus has reconciled sinners back to God through himself. We are no longer enemies of God, but in Christ, we are now dearly beloved children. 

How do we get this peace? By laying down our "weapons" - our pride, our lofty arguments against God, our own self-righteousness, our selfishness. By seeing our sins and our neediness and coming to him because we realize that we can't save ourselves. If we don't see ourselves as we truly are - helpless sinners in need of God's mercy and grace, we will never repent and come to him to be rescued. 

If we don't see that the Christian faith isn't me just trying to live a bit better, behave, or turn over a new leaf, but a desperately needed, radical heart change found only in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, we will never understand what Jesus came to give us that glorious night. 

He came to give us a changed heart. 

A heart that is reconciled back to God through his life and death. A heart that can love God. And all of these changed hearts, will work to change the world. Not by creating a government system or military force that will usher in world peace, but by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ until he comes again to establish his kingdom as he will wipe away every tear, set all things right, and make all things new. 

This promise of peace truly is the greatest announcement in the history of mankind. 

In fact, this peace changes more than the world. It changes everything. 

May we treasure this reconciliatory peace in our hearts more than ever this Christmas season and everyday of our lives. May we seek to continually worship and understand at a deeper level God's indescribable gift to us in his Son. 

May we never stop sharing the Good News with the world as the Lord and his angels did that night! 💜

"Hark! The herald angels sing,
'Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!'" 

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace." ( Isaiah 9:6 ) 

Aslan and Shasta watching over the flock

Glance back; but don't stare

"I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." ( Philippians 1:6 CSB ) 

This morning in my "God Time" I was reminded that in spite of what I may feel about my seemingly slow, bumbling growth in the sanctification process, God is in deed working and will complete the good work he began in me. God is not a quitter. He will complete the work he commands of us. 

I've learned not to stress too much over that paradox and my intellectual anxiety, but to rest my head and heart in the soft feather bed of God's greatness, grace and mystery. He began the work, so he'll finish it. But I believe all throughout the New Testament we are taught to live as if we could lose it at any moment. Is that how precious our salvation is to us? Are we guarding our hearts with that kind of tenacity? Do we take it that serious? 

I think this may offer us a test: 

Sometimes through the struggle in our good fight of faith, (1 Timothy 6:12 ) because it is a battle, we may fail to see how much we really are growing. Here's some encouraging words in my devotional from the great preacher Charles Spurgeon: 

"The Lord knows how to educate you up to such a point that you can endure in years to come what you could not endure today; just as today He may make you to stand firm under such a burden, which ten years ago, would have crushed you into the dust." 

I find this helpful, but also humbling. I cringe at words I wrote as short as five years ago, things I thought and said and did. Even a year ago. 

I've experienced this humility and come to understand that it is a part of the growth process; if we are consistently being humbled with these growing pains, we are actually on the right track - Scripture refers to it as "the path of life." ( Psalm 16:11, Matthew 7:13-14 ) 

The good news is that we can see the fruit of our growth not only in our deeper understanding of the Bible and devotion to Jesus, but in our ability to handle with more poise, strength, and wisdom the increasing intensity of the fiery trials that come our way. ( 1 Peter 4:12-19 ) 

So be encouraged today. Yes, we may look back and shudder, but we all start out as infants after we are born again. We drink milk and fall a lot before we are able to stand and eat meat. 

This knowledge should motivate us and reassure us at the same time, and also increase our grace for one another. 

Happy Thursday. 💜

Happy 57th birthday, Kathy - It's hard to believe almost twenty years have passed. I'm running the best I can. I still miss you terribly and look forward to the day we worship at the throne together. 💕

Aslan looks out over his kingdom 

Silent Purposes

"For God alone my soul waits in silence," Psalm 62:1 

A couple of weeks ago I shared thoughts from my journal on the divine hiddenness of God and argued how this silence is actually not God avoiding us or proof that God doesn't exist, but is in fact the very way that God chooses to pursue us. The same lovingly way a groom woos his future bride. 

There is divine purpose in the hiddenness of God. 

This Psalm in my reading today is my responds back to God:

"For God alone my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation." 

In the silence, I will wait in silence. As I wait in the silence, I will remember the goodness of God in my life. 

How he saved me. How he sought me when I didn't or couldn't seek for him. How he rescued me by his grace just the way I was, uniting me to his Son, and then how he began to carefully clean me up and change me into the image of Jesus. 

How he's always been working toward that end goal. 

How he's never left me nor forsaken me. How he pours out his mercy every morning in the rising of the sun in my backyard until it sets behind the blue mountains in front of my home and afterward as the stars begin to take shape and twinkle over all the hairs of my head. Because he knows those too. 

How no matter what happens, he is only, always working for my good, to make me like Christ. 

I remember his creation that surrounds me every day and how soothing it is when I'm suffering to have dogs lick my face and stay close beside me during chores. How healing it is to feed chickens and ducks and geese and marvel at their brilliant design, to bury my nose in the warm, musky smell of a sheep's fleece and remember that I'm the one Jesus left the flock to go find. 

I remember how he has answered my prayers throughout the years, not in what I asked for in my limited knowledge, but in His, often perplexingly painful, perfect ways that have ended extravagantly in treasures I could have never known to seek. 

The dynamics of such an interwoven web beyond all knowledge baffle my mind and cause tears to spill forth. Tears God bottles for future use. 

As I remember all of his goodness, my tears of joy turn to tears of repentance because I have taken so much for granted. 

I go through my life and remember his faithfulness to me in every season. 

Something supernatural happens while we wait in silence. 

We strengthen.  

Maybe that's what God wants us to do. 

Maybe that's another divine purpose in the hiddenness. 

Maybe he's waiting on us too. 💜

"For God alone my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken." Psalm 62:1-2 

These masterpieces grace our fence line. 

Jesus Our Emmanuel

"By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God," ( 1 John 4:2 ) 

What makes Christianity different from every other religion in the world is the resurrection. Our leader does have a tomb like the other founders, only his is empty. 

Sadly in the past century many churches in America's mainline Christian denominations have rejected belief in the supernatural in order to become more culturally friendly to "enlightened" modern minds. In doing so they have cut the very heart out of the Christian faith. I'm not sure what is left, but it's not Christianity. And a faith emptied of its power will never satisfy the longings of the empty human soul nor can it wash away its sin, guilt, and shame without an empty tomb. It becomes little more than self-help. 

However, thankfully, ours is a supernatural faith from start to finish. There's no getting around it. 

"And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." ( 1 Corinthians 15:14 ) 

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." ( 1 Corinthians 15:17 ) 

"But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead." ( 1 Corinthians 15:20 ) 

 Our redeemer lives. The Good News of the gospel is that Jesus Christ has resurrected from the dead.  

But we first must have a baby. 

A God baby. One who is mysteriously to us fully man and at the same time fully God. 

Born of a virgin. 

He comes as one of us, sleeping in a manger. Little did man know this is how the greater comes into the filth and sin of the lesser, surrounded by manure and smelly, ruminant cattle breath. I love cows, but their breath is gross if you've ever smelled it. His initial visitors were keepers of sheep from the poorest ranks of society while the wealthiest and most powerful were left to travel miles and wonder much or plot his murder. 

Jesus couldn't just show up as a 33 year old God man if he was to be our propitiation, voluntarily sacrificing himself in our place. He must start as a humble, helpless infant, growing from a toddler into an adolescent and into a man, experiencing everything we experience, even our temptations, living the perfect, obedient life as he suffered and struggled in our messy world before he ever got to the horrific execution that we deserved  

Some religions and individuals say that they just can't believe in the doctrine of the incarnation - Jesus becoming flesh - because God is so great that he would never lower himself like that. But don't you see? This is what makes the incarnation so believable and so great.  

The Greater has come down to the lesser. 

The Greater has lowered himself for us, coming as a servant, stepping inside of vulnerable human flesh. We can not reach God. The lower does not remotely possess the ability to go up, but the Greater can come down. And he did. Jesus became a man whose flesh we can touch. ( Romans 3:10-18, Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3 ) 

Yes, Jesus Christ is arguably the most influential person to ever live, in fact, touching every single facet of human existence, from art to literature to music to human rights to healthcare to education to missions of mercy to family life to work ethics to science to the dignity of women and children even to holidays, and the list continues. It's astounding. The evidence surrounding the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ is overwhelming and everyone owes it to themselves to investigate his claims. Please. It would be foolish not to with all that is at stake. 

Not only did he touch every generation and culture in the history of mankind, but he touched our pain and sorrows with his flesh. He carried our guilt, shame, and sins in his flesh. Unless Jesus comes in the flesh there is no resurrection, no remission of sins.

Nothing for the angels to announce or rejoice about; no peace with God on earth, goodwill toward men.  No Christmas. 

"If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, " ( 1 Corinthians 15:20 ) The Apostle Paul goes on to tell us that one day the end will come, and so will Christ. Again. For us. For God's children. This time not as a baby, but as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And we too will be resurrected from the dead, given imperishable bodies because Jesus's body was resurrected, and he is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 

John, the disciple and apostle, writes possibly some of the most glorious words in the Scriptures in the Revelation of Jesus Christ: "for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." ( 5:10 ) 

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold I am making all things new.... these words are trustyworthy and true.'" ( 21:4-6 )

But first we must have a baby. 💜

"Christ, by highest Heaven adored; 

Christ the everlasting Lord:

Late in time, behold Him come,

Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail the incarnate Deity,

Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
'Glory to the newborn King!'” 

Charles Wesley 

Cranberry bread from my sister in law 

Divine Silence

"Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior." ( Isaiah 45:15 ) 

In the past few decades, after debating with Christians over the famous cosmological and teleological arguments, atheists and skeptics seem to have moved away a bit from the arena of natural theology now launching into a more philosophical argumentation against the existence of God: the divine hiddenness.  

The truth is that believers in God have been struggling themselves with this one since ancient times. 

"Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?" ( Job 13:24 ) 

And Psalm 88. 

The only Psalm that starts in silence and ends in silence. Many Bible commentators say that Psalm 88 proves the Bible because if you were trying to convince someone to join your religion why in the world would you include this hopeless lament in your holy book? 

I think we forget that in the beginning God created man to live in a perfect garden environment while enjoying a close personal relationship with him. We are the ones that didn't trust God's divine order, falling into sin because we thought we knew better than the God of the Universe. 

After the fall, we were the ones hiding, not God. 

Some will say, "Why doesn't God just write across the sky 'I am God - here I am!' Or why doesn't he come down and do a bunch of miracles and prove himself to us? Why doesn't he just make himself known plainly?" For one thing, the Bible is clear that seeing is not always believing. ( Luke 16:19-21, Matthew 28:16-20 ) 

Some atheists insist that if a perfectly all-loving God exists then he would make himself plainly known to his creatures, especially to "nonresistant nonbelievers." I'm skeptical about this term. I'm still thinking about it. The debate doesn't take into account any of the other attributes of God. They argue under the assumption that a sentimental love from an obvious God is the best way for him to pursue a loving relationship with his creatures.

Is it? 

What if his divine hiddenness IS how God is showing himself to us? 

Since the Bible so often portrays our relationship to God as a marriage, maybe this is how God knows to best pursue us. Maybe, just maybe, God chooses to reveal himself this way because through the angst and the struggle, a true, beautiful, trusting relationship is formed. Not just crashing into our lives with a lot of noisy fanfare and pollution, but slowly drawing us to himself like a loving groom woos his future bride.

Maybe we've become so fixated on finding him in such a big way that we've missed the whispers and the wooing. When we ask for him to please make himself known to us, maybe he is. Maybe we're the ones missing it. Our lives reflect an adventure or a romance; I'm back to the fairytale. It makes sense God would pursue us in ways that cause us to look inside of our own hearts and wrestle with them. 

Personally, I know full well God pursued me in my waywardness; although at first I couldn't see him. There was darkness and a silence that chased after me and tormented my soul day and night for months until I broke and surrendered to God for help. I realized later, to my astonishment, that God allowed the darkness and the silence to pursue me continually, for my good, to bring me to the end of myself and into his arms for all that I needed. He knew in the midst of those circumstances, I would cry out to him in utter humility. God was in the storm. The deafening thunder was his voice not the enemy's. 

It is never going to be what we expect.

How can it be? God is a infinite, transcendent, holy Being. And we are finite and small with little understanding. And in addition to all this, for now, we see dimly Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians. Why do we think that God is on our level? If I'm being honest, I have no interest in serving a God who is my size and would take directions from me. That's scary. 

This Holy God of ours created the entire universe and set its order and established his purposes within it, and we think we know how things ought to go better than him? How pompous and prideful. 

That doesn't sound like a "nonresistant" attitude; it sounds more like animosity. The Scriptures are clear that those who are humble are the ones who God doesn't resist. "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." ( 1 Peter 5:5-6, James 4:6-7 ) We have to admit we need him if we ever expect to find him. God is under no obligation to show himself to prideful creatures. Or even humble creatures for that matter. But his mercy says he does. 

I've come to believe that divine hiddenness is an important aspect of our faith and of our worship. Some atheists ( and Christians ) think they know how God should best respond to his creatures. This thought displays a misunderstanding of the love of God and takes great liberties in thinking one can figure out God's purposes and procedures in dealing with his 'beloved' children. God alone knows best how to cultivate a relationship with his offspring; He's a perfect Father. 

God may seem hidden to us, but we are never hidden to him nor our pain or brokenness. 

"O LORD all my longing is before you: my sighing is not hidden from you." ( Psalm 38:9 ) 

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" ( Read Psalm 139 )  

God has not only seen all of our sighing, but our sins and our flaws, and he sent Jesus into fallen humanity, as perfect humanity, to live and die for us. 

God did not hide his most beloved treasure from us - His Son. Jesus willingly stepped inside of human baby flesh, hung on a cross and then raised from the dead because he said that he came to do the Father's will. But we must have eyes to see and ears to hear. We can't harden our hearts toward him. 

I've found that the strongest believers in the faith, not the weakest, are those who have wrestled with divine hiddenness. I've found them to be the most devoted disciples of Christ with the most beautiful and trusting relationships with him. I'm drawn to those saints. They have a relationship with Jesus that I long for, and one that I am determined to pursue. 

I've found as I continue to draw near to God in my quiet time with him each day, not allowing anything else to monopolize that space, that he is drawing near to me, revealing himself slowly. This philosophical truth won't convince any nonresistant nonbelievers, but I hope it will inspire them to keep searching and asking questions and to consider praying if they have not already. 

Jesus said: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." ( Matthew 7:7 ) If you are truly seeking God, I believe you will eventually find him. Don't give up. 

This week as the dogs and I made our way to the barn through the frozen cow field, the grass had drooped and was curled over facing the hard soil, their blades burdened underneath a heavy frost. It reminded me that the winter season is once again at hand, relentless in its icy pursuit to find us and crimp us beneath its callous wings.  

A few moments later as the sun began to rise over the beautiful blue ridges, her beams stretched out across the frozen field reflecting a million shimmering diamonds in the frozen ground. It was breath-taking. Silence was given a voice. Darkness had come to light. This is God. 

There is a divine purpose in the hard, hidden tundra of life, in the stillness and the suffering. It is difficult to imagine, but at just the right moment, when divine hiddenness has had its perfect way, God will reveal our glorious sparkles. 

💖

Living Deserts

"Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness." ( Isaiah 35:7-8 ) 

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living waters.'" ( John 7:38 )

..."whoever drinks of the water I give them, will never be thirsty again." ( John 4:14 ) 

After walking through an unusually dry season here at the farm, it was such a pleasant surprise to wake up yesterday morning to the sound of refreshing raindrops tap dancing on the tin roof of our little cabin. 

As we drove and worked and coughed through the clouds of thick dust surrounding our daily chore routines, I knew eventually, as the sun faithfully rises each day in the east, the rains too would return. They did. And we were better for it. 

When we first come to faith in Christ, we experience such an euphoria of spiritual awakenings and joy in our salvation that we can't possible imagine God ever allowing us to walk through a dry season. We feel now all of life will be these breath-taking, mountain summit views. No desert wildernesses, no dry bone valleys. 

And yet journeys through the parched, sun-baked terrains of life are ironically the exact thing God uses to grow us into lush orchard trees bearing healthy, ripe fruit. If we had never tasted from the streams of living water, how would we know we were dry? How would we know what we are missing?  

You see the simple fact that we have been united to Christ in the first place and tasted his goodness, walked by the Spirit, enjoyed sweet fellowship; the fact that we have experienced his love is proof that we are in him. And he will return us to those sweet waters. In this world we have troubles Jesus taught us, and sometimes it seems disciples of Jesus encounter more than most. 

God allows us to thirst. 

Why? 

One day my grandson Jonah asked for more juice in his cup at breakfast, and I told him that he could have water because Daddy said only one cup of juice is allowed. He is familiar with the family rules, but you know grandkids and grandparents. The two are forever bending parental stipulations into shimmering rainbows of fun. 

"I don't like water," he said. 

"I bet if you were very thirsty you would love water," I responded.  

I could tell he was thinking.

When we get thirsty we remember and long for those living waters, and we should be willing to dig through all sorts of mud and sediment to get back to them. These dry times of drilling through scorched soil can usher in some of our most meaningful conversations with our Father through tears and questions and waiting. 

They can also strengthen our orthodoxy as we press into the Scriptures with a new tenacity and determination to understand. They cause us to rely on our church family instead of carrying the burdens alone. Strong bonds begin to form out of our loneliness and within our local body. 

More than anything perhaps, dry seasons with God are meant to be growth seasons if we submit to him through the dust and the thorns and thistles instead of collapsing into despair or playing the blame game. 

Dry seasons prepare us for ministry. Like Elijah, we learn a deeper trust in God waiting on the ravens to bring our nourishment in the midst of the drought. 

If we lived out our entire lives in plenty, we would not learn to depend on God. The truth, the reality, that God is our sole provider, protector, and preparer, not just in the wilderness years, but in all our years, would never be found otherwise. 

So in the wilderness we find our humility. We realize that God is not just a bigger version of us. 

The dry earth we walk upon spiritually is Son-baked. This is the most crucial truth to remember in the dry seasons. Jesus has gone before us, so he understands every temptation and feeling of loneliness, rejection, and abandonment.  

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, choosing their way over God's, their sin was imputed to all mankind from that moment on, to every human. We are all born condemned. ( John 3:18 )  Jesus Christ, the perfect lamb of God, came from Heaven and imputed himself with our sin, the sin that resulted from the fall and kept us from the Holy God. 

He lived the perfect life we should have lived, and then dies the death we should have died, in our place, penal, substitutionary atonement. He takes our punishment, satisfying the wrath of God. He is raised from the dead, and all those who come to him, he imputes, by the power of the Holy Spirit, his perfect righteousness. 

Jesus takes our sin, and then in return gives us his perfect righteousness, known as the "glorious exchange." We will never truly thirst again. Why? 

On the cross, God allowed his son to thirst to death.  

"My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" ( Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, Psalm 22:1 ) 

In the dry seasons, it only feels like God has abandoned us; when in fact, the living water has never left us. His Word promises that in deed he has not and never will. 

Why? 

He abandoned Jesus, so he wouldn't have to abandon us. 

This Gospel truth received into our hearts is the strength that pushes us through the dry seasons and into the refreshing waters no matter what we are walking through. We grieve in the wilderness, but with a godly grief, a grief that always ends in hope. 

💜

"Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, would die for me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature's night;

Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth and followed Thee."

Charles Wesley 

I love hymns.  

 

For the Love of People

 "The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor." ( Proverbs 22:9 ) 

"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints." ( Jude 3 ) 

Jude's words ring as true today as they did to the first century church, as the young wheat became entangled with weeds and the sheep vulnerable to predatory wolves in wool wardrobes. Not outside the sanctuary, mind you, but sitting within the pews and even preaching to the flock. Jesus warned us before he left that this would happen. ( John 10 ) 

"Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God," and "deny our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Strong language from Saint Jude. 

There are many ways the grace of God can be perverted and the beauty of Jesus's atonement denied, and although the cultural problems have changed down through church history, it is the same enemy with the same battle tactics, fighting on the same fronts. Christianity is a fighting faith, not in the physical, but spiritual realm. And Jude reminds us that we must contend for the faith - the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

So I would like to continue contending for the faith this morning against one of the western church's worst enemies, the prosperity gospel, and share another November devotional from the late Dr. Keller. 

He brings clarity to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ concerning our money. It is important that folks investigating the claims of Jesus and looking into the Christian faith have the correct facts. I feel like most can see through the false teaching of the word of faith/prosperity gospel preachers we see on TV, whose books litter the bookstands of retail stores, but we can not assume they can. If Jesus told his sheep to be on guard against the wolves, then I believe all of us are susceptible to fall prey to their deception. 

One thing I've learned is that not all wolves know they are wolves. Many actually believe the slop they are spreading. I used to believe that hog wash also; although I look back at myself more of a naive sheep than a wolf. Whatever the case may have been, I ask God to forgive me and keep my wandering feet on the path of life. Anyway, here's Dr. Keller with some very wise counsel from the Scriptures for those looking at the Christian faith from the outside and lest we on the inside fall back into the pit again. 

"The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor." ( Proverbs 22:9 )

The Blessing of Generosity. The generous will themselves be blessed when they share their food with the poor. Of what does this blessing consists? Generosity that breaks the power of money over you may make you wiser in your financial dealings. 

But the blessing here is surely the increase in the true wealth of love. 

Even at the level of common sense, we feel the most rich when we most love and are loved. Radical generosity is an act of love toward God and toward others that exponentially increases love.

It moves us from seeing money as a currency of status and power to instead seeing it as a currency for loving God and others. We love God with our money when we treat it as his, not ours, and send it out to the things he loves. We love people with our money when we heal and repair lives with it. 

And in the Bible we are blessed the more like God we become. God originally gave us our own lives, then he gave us his Son's life. The more we give away, the more like our God we become. And that is blessed." 

God's Wisdom for Navigating Life ( 307 ) 

"We love people with our money when we heal and repair lives with it." 

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." ( Ephesians 5:1-2 ) 

I think that is a beautiful word for us this Monday morning. 

Gospel clarity. 

Contending for the faith. 

"Keep yourselves in the love of God." ( Jude 21 ) 

Give radically. 

Happy Monday! 🌍

Of Providence and Prayer

"And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowl full of incense which are the prayers of the saints." ( Revelation 5:8 ) 

Recently I had a revelation that came to me when I was searching the Scriptures attempting to better understand how God's providence and our responsibility work together, how the tension of Philippians 2:12 "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" and "for it is God who works in you both to will and work for his good pleasure," becomes the glorious ebb and flow of our Christian lives. 

And the epiphany was quite simple really, but it just seemed to reach the bottom of my heart that day where I had not grasped it before.

It's like when I tell the Farmer something and he says to me, "You told me that three times already!" And I say, "That's because the first time it went in one ear and out the other. The second time it landed on the surface. By the third time it finally started to make some headway." 

This is just how the human brain works, especially in our current culture with so many things clamoring for our attention. We have to be deliberate about the lost art of meditation, allowing time to let the Word we've read in our study marinate in our brains. It's not a suggestion we see in the Scriptures; it's a commandment. "... meditate ( on the Word ) day and night..." ( Joshua 1:8 ) 

Anyway while I was contemplating all of this, I realized that God uses our prayers to accomplish his purposes. Now there is still much mystery to this, but something took hold in my heart and lit a fire that has fueled my prayers with an urgency I lacked before. 

"You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessings granted us through the prayers of many." ( 2 Corinthians 1:11 ) 

Somehow knowing I have this part to play in the grand scheme of God's divine will, through my imperfect, broken prayers, even when I can't unravel the mystery of it all, has been a prayer game changer for me. 

One would think this knowledge would stir up one's pride, but it's just the opposite. It's humbling. It births the reality that only God has the power to change a heart, heal a wound, order a step, or stop a disaster, but he has given to his children in the midst of this prayer laboring by his Holy Spirit a power he uses to accomplish these things and many others. ( Ephesians 6:17-18 ) ( Romans 8:27 ) 

And this doesn't mean that God answers our prayers the way we think he should. I believe we will do well to begin our prayers with the prayer Jesus taught us: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done." ( Matthew 6 ) 

His kingdom. His will. Not ours. His will is perfect, and the Bible reminds us that it can't be stopped. "Why bother praying then?" That's easy to answer: Because the Bible commands us to. 

We have a part, but God does it all. ( Philippians 2:12 ) 

Yes, it is that mysterious tension again, one of those paradoxes that blows our minds, but not his. One thing I do know is that in this beautiful, divine partnership of prayer, God is establishing a deeper relationship with us. ( Isaiah 14:7 ) ( Job 42:2 ) 

When the pain is so huge, and the lament so loud, where do we run? Who hears our prayers and catches our tears? Our Father in heaven. 

Hallowed be His Name. His Name is who he is - every inch of his perfect, infinite divinity is found in his Name.

Yes, it is humbling to think that God would stoop so low to not only hear our prayers but use them to accomplish his perfect will. 

But then again God has always been stooping to interact with his fallen creatures, not abandoning them in the Garden, but making a covenant with them. A covenant he knew full well we would never keep, knowing full well, that in the end, he would be the one to keep our part. 

That was his perfect will all along. Not plan B. Plan B is not God's providence. 

And it shouldn't surprise us that God would stoop that low since Jesus was already willing to stoop so low when he entered our world as a man baby to fulfill his Father's will, the Perfect interacting with the imperfect, to live the life we should have lived and to die in our place. 

So God could adopt us. So we could draw near to God and he to us. ( James 4:8 ) ( Hebrews 11:6 ) ( Romans 8:15 ) 

Jesus revealed that the mystery of God's kingdom is found when up becomes down. 

And the kingdom's purposes become fulfilled to the highest heaven, down on our knees. 💜 

August 2025: As I've been editing my past posts to correct any bad doctrine, because we are always learning God's Word in our sanctification process, I wanted to clarify that God's Sovereignty and man's responsibility are not paradoxes. They are an antinomy. An antinomy is when you have two statements that are both true although they seem to contradict each other. We can't understand how these two truths work together, but God does. And that's all that matters. 

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." ( Ephesians 3:20-21 ) 

Happy Weekend.

It's bone broth weather 

Scattering and Gathering

"One person gives freely, yet gains even more: another withholds unduly, and comes to poverty." ( Proverbs 11:24 ) 

In addressing the pitfalls and false teaching of the prosperity gospel that has plagued the western church in recent decades, I felt this morning it would be a good idea to share a short devotional from the late Dr. Tim Keller that I believe brings clarity to the biblical principle of "sowing and reaping" because this is a truth that God built into the structure of his universe at creation. 

It is crucial we understand his definition from his Word and not our own, so what does that principal look like in its biblical, godly form?

That's a great question. Dr. Keller brings much clarity to the concept of planting and reaping. As everything in life, it traces back to the motives of our heart. Are we giving to get back or are we giving because it springs from hearts that simply can't help themselves as we think of all God has given to us in the life and death of his Son? 

Scattering And Gathering: "The more you scatter your wealth, the more you gather it, and the more you try to keep it for yourself, the more it dissipates. How could that be? Think of farmers. The more they scatter seed, the more they will reap. And keep in mind that seed comes back in a better form, as harvest you can eat and sell. In the same way, spiritually wise people realize their money is seed, and the only way for them to turn it into real riches is by giving it away in remarkable proportions. ( cf. 2 Corinthians 9:6 ) 

This is not a promise that the more you give away, the more money you will make. Rather the more you give away wisely to ministries and programs that help people spiritually and physically, the more your money becomes the real wealth of changed lives in others and of spiritual health in yourself. And you will be walking in the footsteps of the one who was literally broken and scattered so he could gather us to himself. 

Where have you seen this principle of scattering and gathering illustrated? How?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, your infinite loss on the cross has led to resurrection and infinite gains for us. Give me the faith to follow your path, to disburse and scatter my goods and time for others, and thereby see your grace and life grow in the lives of people around me. Amen" 

We have been richly blessed in Christ Jesus, so we can now be a blessing to others! 

Happy Friday! 🌻