Is There Joy In Holiness?

Of all the issues where the enemy has invested his efforts in attacking believers and The Church, the issue of personal holiness is one that has received his utmost attention and, unfortunately, one where his attacks have been very successful. That success is evidenced by the disconnect many believers feel when it comes to looking at holiness as a source of joy and life. Intellectually, it seems right. We know that God is good and therefore holiness must be a good thing. But living out the pursuit of holiness is a whole other story. So often it seems it's not life we find there, but guilt and shame and striving.

Attempting to experience holiness from a place of guilt and shame tends to force us towards one of two extremes. Some of us descend into legalism, becoming Pharisees determined to beat our sinful selves into submission. We soon discover that beating ourselves silly with God's laws isn't accomplishing what we want and so we add on new laws of our own. In Jesus' day, the Pharisees twisted and added to the laws of the Sabbath so much that the end result was to actually prevent good! Legalism can control our behavior enough to masquerade as holiness but look at the result. Is it anywhere near the life Jesus had? Is the place it leads us to even remotely desirable?

The other extreme is moral relativism. Frustrated and discouraged, we decide that a loving God couldn't possibly really expect this level of morality from us and so we twist His laws in the other direction in an attempt to make them easier. We water everything down until eventually what we're left believing is so vague it becomes meaningless. Somewhere down the road we're left with a faith that is so empty we might as well give in and become agnostics.

Most of us land somewhere in between these two extremes. Or maybe we settle on a mixture of the two. We beat the crap out of ourselves on some issues and choose to quietly ignore others. We do this because we see the extremes and imagine that true holiness lies in a happy medium. We think we should be a little legalistic and a little relativistic but not too much in either direction. If we aim for the center we're sure to get it right. Right? Unfortunately this doesn't do it either. We're left trying to balance two sinful extremes in search of hitting a mark that doesn't really exist.

But here's the good news. Real holiness is not legalism. It is not moral relativism. It is not a happy medium nor anywhere else on that infernal spectrum. It's something else entirely.

When I first began to realize this, it was difficult to believe. But when I actually read the Bible and saw what it said about holiness I found that the evidence was there. If there's nothing else but the spectrum, what are we to do with David in Psalm 119 declaring his delight and love for the law? There's no delight or love to be found in holiness while we live on the spectrum. What about connecting Jeremiah 31:33 where God promises to write His law on our hearts with Provererbs 4:23 where the heart is declared the wellspring of life? If the law is directly tied to life how do we explain that both relativism and legalism are entirely devoid of life?

Speaking of Jeremiah, that was a book I used to really struggle with. God seemed so angry throughout it. Surely this book at least must be evidence in favor of the beat yourself into submission approach to holiness. But when I read the whole book and saw God's plan for how to deal with the sin of His people I found Him declaring His unending love and promising complete and total deliverance from sin not through legalism or by denying their sin but by transforming them and restoring them. I found a God not furious with unending anger but one passionate about destroying sin completely and redeeming His people.

But even with that evidence something inside of me still hesitated. David may be able to find delight in the law but David was a remarkable guy, a man after God's own heart. Then I began to see that same view of holiness reflected outside the Bible stories. I began reading the work of men like George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton. They delighted in their personal holiness and the process of transformation. One of my favorite songs has become Purified by Michael W. Smith. It's all about the journey towards holiness but in it there is no element of either legalism or moral relativism. There's only delight and joy at the thought of being searched and cleansed by God.

So what's the alternative? How do we move away from the spectrum and to the place where David found he could delight in the law? One of the resources that has been really helpful to me is a lecture series from John Eldredge called The Utter Relief of Holiness. Of the major themes he focuses on is moving from a behavior only approach to holiness to an inside out approach.

Now behavior certainly matters and matters a great deal. But if you listen to the way Jesus teaches, He focuses a great deal on the motives behind our behavior. The Pharisees kept the sabbath but their motivation in doing so was utterly wicked. Eldredge encourages us to begin examining motivations. Doing so is a humbling experience to be sure, but it's also an experience that's 100% covered in grace through the blood of Christ. The next step is to start realizing what wounds and sins cause us to choose those motives and then to let Christ begin to heal them.

The result is true transformation from the inside out. If we're only concerned about behavior, then beating ourselves into submission can look like the best possible option. But if we're concerned about being redeemed and made holy at the level of the heart, the only way to get there is through real transformation through Christ. The result is freedom. Suddenly what before brought shame, guilt and striving now brings delight, life and joy.

I speak as someone still very much in the middle of the journey from the spectrum to real holiness and freedom. I'm not at the level of Chesterton or MacDonald and certainly no where near where David was. But I have experienced enough of this process to testify to the power of this type of transformation. It is available. God is desperate to lead us away from the bondage of legalism and relativism and to a place of freedom and life.

Does God Really Care About Our Hearts?

Does God really care about our hearts? I find myself needing to return to that question over and over again. I know what my head says. I can rattle off the verses and even give personal examples of ways in which I've seen God care for me. But to actually put it into practice is something else entirely.

In my previous post, I mentioned this quote from Ruthless Trust: "You will trust [God] to the degree that you know you are loved by Him."

As I've been playing that thought over in my head and praying through it, I've come to realize that it cuts to the heart of this issue. There are areas where I can trust God easily, where I truly believe that He does care about my heart and then there are areas that I struggle even to pray about. I want to seize control and leave God out. The difference is my view of God's love. When I look at the areas where trust comes easy, I can clearly see His love. I don't doubt it for a second. And when I look at the areas where I struggle for control I find that something inside of me isn't at all certain of God's love. Thus the way this question plays out in my life is, "Does God care about all of my heart or just the parts I feel measure up?"

It's important to remember the role of the heart in Christianity and to do that we need to revisit the history of our race. Adam and Eve were not created as fallen creatures. They were whole and perfect until they chose sin over God. Now we are all fallen but that was not what we were meant to be. There is a core to who we are that God is desperate to restore to it's unfallen state. The core is our hearts. It is God's craftsmanship and He loves it passionately.

With all that in mind, I still find I struggle with knowing God's love. He may love that core of me but I'm a long way from being restored to what I should have been. And so the question becomes, does God love our hearts even in their fallen state? I believe He does. It is here we see the power of the cross. The moment we accept the free gift of salvation we are committed to our restoration through the blood of Christ. He has now begun the good work and He will be faithful to complete it. Sin was not the beginning of the story and, thank God, it does not have to be the end.

None of this is to say that God approves of or turns a blind eye to our sin. How could He? If He did then either it would not be sin or He would not be God. But it is to say that He sees through our sin and to the core of who we are. The goal is not to ignore or deny sin, it is to be pulled out of it and into a place where our sin is a distant and forgotten nightmare, cast as far as the east is from the west.

Holding strong to the belief that God truly cares about our hearts is essential to joy. If you do not believe God loves you then what do you have to be joyful about? The reason we can rejoice in the Lord always is because we know that He is faithful to pull us out of our sinful, fallen state and into Aslan's Country.

Even when it is difficult or even impossible to see it, God is passionately in love with us. He cares for every part of our hearts and because of that He is trustworthy. To know this is to glimpse as much of the love of God as we can in this life. To know this is an essential step to knowing life and joy to the fullest. Walking with God in a way that recognizes these truths is not easy to have or to hold onto but it is available. I'm beginning to find it in my life and I pray you do too.

Thoughts For This Week

These are a few of thoughts that God's brought to my mind for this week. I'm hoping to write about these at some point but for the moment I'm still in the process of thinking and praying through them.

1. I believe that in this world we are guilty of being discontented but at the same time are too easily satisfied. Contentment and satisfaction are not synonyms. Learning the difference is a key to finding life and to knowing true joy.

2. The more I pray about joy and examine it in my own life, the more I begin to realize that I treat joy as a guilty pleasure. How can we be, and what does it mean to be, joyful in a joyless and fallen world?

3. From Ruthless Trust, "You will trust [God] to the degree that you know you are loved by Him"

Busyness As a Substitute For Purpose

A couple of nights ago I was listening to the Ransomed Heart Podcast. One of the guys on the show, Craig McConnell, made the comment that he often times finds himself turning to busyness to make himself feel purposeful. Hearing that knocked me flat. It's so true and I don't think I've ever even considered it before.

I think this really ties in with a lot of the issues God's been speaking to me about, and I've been writing about, lately. If I don't trust God, if I don't having His joy, if I don't believe He has a purpose arranged for me, then I am invariably going to turn to other things to act as a cheap substitute for purpose.

This goes hand in hand with the post on purpose I made a couple weeks ago where I talked about how finding our purpose will require us to fight a multi-front battle with the enemy. If we do not trust God to lead us to our purpose, we will turn to busy distractions. If we feel overwhelmed by our purpose and decide it's our job to single-handedly right all wrongs, we'll collapse under the pressure and settle instead for busyness. Even if we know our purpose and are living in it, the lies of the enemy are constantly there telling us it's too hard, it's beyond us, that God isn't trustworthy. If we listen to them, even for a moment, it becomes so easy to abandon purpose and descend into distraction.

I don't want to live this way anymore. I don't want to waste a single second of my life hiding in distraction. God has so much more for me than that. Again I find myself asking, do I really trust God with my life and my purpose? Even when "no" seems to only possible answer to that question, God's grace is sufficent to pull us back out of busyness and into purpose if only we're willing to trust.

Joy Part 2

A couple of posts back I talked about how I feel God is beginning to lead my on a journey to discover what true joy really is and what that would look like in my life. It's a topic I'll probably be posting about a lot in the future. In my previous post I talked about how joy is different from both pleasure and happiness. What I want to do in this post is expand on that idea, specifically the differences between joy and happiness since I feel that is the more difficult of the two, and hopefully begin to get a better idea of what true joy is and how that can look in our lives.

Part of the difficulty in distinguishing happiness from joy is that we tend to use the words interchangeably. To an extent, I think that's fine. Human joy may actually look very similar to happiness in most cases. But at the same time, when the Bible talks about the joy of the Lord it clearly means something more than mere happiness. I used the example last time of Jesus being described both as a man of sorrows and as having joy. But it doesn't stop there. Philippians 4:4 tells us to "rejoice in the Lord always." Now the Bible has some tough commands but I don't believe it ever commands the impossible, and it certainly doesn't command us to do something that even Jesus was unable to do. Therefore, this verse must mean something more than be happy all the time.

As I've been working through these thoughts with God this week, I've found that one of the clearest ways for me to understand the difference between joy and happiness is to look at the difference between sadness and depression. I've struggled with depression throughout my life. God has brought me a lot of healing in this area but there was a time when I was depressed day in and day out. Now, I would not say that I never experienced happiness while I was depressed nor did I spend every moment feeling completely miserable. For me depression was a dark cloud that hung over every part of my life. It turned my sadness into despair and made my happiness muted and dull.

If we turn that view of depression on its head I believe we'll have a very good picture of what true joy, the joy of the Lord, looks like. When we live a life of joy, we do not spend every moment feeling happy or have lives devoid of sadness. But I believe it will make the happy moments better and allow us to feel sadness in a way that is far more authentic and sincere than the misery of depression. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises comfort to those who mourn. To me, that is a joyful view of sadness. To be joyful is to embrace mourning when it comes but to not be consumed by it. Joyful mourning recognizes that all sadness and pain leads directly to the arms of the Father. Therefore we can truly rejoice in suffering. It leads us to an intimacy with God we would not experience without it.

Joy also transforms the happy moments in a powerful way. If we are not joyful, not fully alive, then we will invariably look for joy and life elsewhere. I love how John Eldredge and Brent Curtis describe this in The Sacred Romance. They describe the process of looking for life in places other than God as chasing after "less wild lovers." We don't trust God to really bring us life and so we settle for second best. We all have a list of stuff we turn to when we decide not to trust God for life: TV, sex, money, adventure, books, food, and it goes on and on.

Most of the things on our lists are not bad in and of themselves. It's just that they can't bring us the joy and life we're really looking for. That's what's so neat about becoming truly alive and finding real joy. God doesn't want to deny us those things, He wants to redeem them. Once we start turning to Him, instead of the list, for life and joy He is then able to transform us so that we find true happiness in the things on the list. When we stop looking to TV for life we are then able to find more happiness in one half hour show than in an entire night spent zoning out flipping from channel to channel. One chapter in a good book brings more happiness than we would have before gotten from an entire library filled with stories. A little extra spending money to do something fun on the weekend brings more happiness than we would have had before as a multi-billionaire. We enter into one of the paradoxes of Christian happiness: less brings us more.

I believe joy is the assurance that we can trust God with our happiness and therefore do not need to worry about arranging for it ourselves. We can be sad because He is faithful to bring us back from the brink of despair and into His love. We can be happy because we know our happiness comes from God's provision and is therefore holy. Joy not only allows for all emotions in the range of sadness to happiness but redeems them and puts them in the place they were always meant to have in our lives.

I write all this at the beginning of my journey into joy knowing I have not even scratched the surface of what God has to show me here. As I mentioned in my first post, finding true joy will change every aspect of our lives. I'm excited to see where God will bring me in this and I'm looking forward to sharing at least some of that experience here.

Change We Can Believe In?

Yes, we can! Make it to the Promised Land!
Yes, we can! I know we can!
Yes, we can

The above excerpt is taken from the chorus of a recently written song. Based on the overt religious imagery in the lyrics, you might think that I heard it in church or on Christian radio. And you would be wrong. The lyrics above are from a song released a couple of weeks ago by Boy George about Barak Obama. This is just one of the more recent examples in what is quickly becoming one of the most troubling aspects of the Obama campaign: the candidate's messianic status among many of his followers.

This isn't confined to a few goofy songs or fawning celebrities. In a recent column on Townhall.com, Michael Medved goes into detail on the cult like aspects of some parts of the Obama campaign. Obamaphiles are changing their middle names to Hussein to match their leader. Actor Eric Christian Olsen is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more fundamentally powerful than how I felt when I met [Obama].” Obama is described by a columnist for a major newspaper as a "lightworker." And that's not even going into the secular aspects of the media bias surrounding this candidate (remember Chris Matthews crying on air after Obama lost one of the primaries?)

The obvious objection to this is, "So what? Every campaign has a few nutjobs surrounding it. You can't blame Obama for other people's actions." And I would agree with that were it not for the fact that the Obama campaign is blatantly encouraging this type of behavior and this level of devotion.

Driving home last night, Annie and I passed a car with a bumper sticker that said "Got Hope?" At first, both of us thought it was a Christian sticker with the obvious message being that faith in Jesus is the way to get hope. Not so. As we got closer I saw the official Obama campaign logo and the Obama website in small type at the bottom of the sticker. After a little research at home I found out that these bumper stickers, and matching t-shirts, are being sold on the official Obama website.

There is only one way to interpret that slogan: without Obama we don't have hope. That message is frightening in its implications. My hope is not in Barak Obama or John McCain. My hope is not in politics at all. My hope is in Christ and Christ alone. Obama is a man and nothing more. Even if he is elected and turns out to be a great president, he still will not be the source of hope. I had hope long before he came along and I'll have hope long after he's passed into history.

One of Obama's most famous lines throughout this campaign has been, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." My response is, "I certainly hope not." Here again we are confronted by staggering implications. Anytime throughout history that a political figure has made this sort of statement disaster has followed. I hesitate to give examples because I do not want to give the false impression that I'm equating Obama to any of these men but Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler all came with a similar message. Again, I am not saying Obama, his policies or his campagin are any way representative of the evil of Communism or Nazism. Anyone who does equate Obama with Hitler or Stalin is a fool and has no business commenting on politics. But what I am saying is that history provides us with several examples of leaders who came with similar messages and the results are never good.

Obama's arrogance also lends itself to encouraging the Obama cult. Charles Krauthammer has a must read article on the subject. A brief excerpt:

[Talking about himself] is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

I am stunned by the arrogance in that statement. But it goes on from there. Obama tells us we need to teach our children to speak Spanish but neglects to mention that he himself does not speak the language. Obama expects us to believe that he is a deeply commited Christian but that he so rarely attended his church that until a few months ago he was completely clueless that his pastor was spewing anti American venom from the pulpit. Michelle Obama claims that the Obama campaign marks the first time she's ever been proud of America, as though it alone can redeem the sins of slavery and segregation.

Finally, I would blame the rise of the Obama cult on contemporary liberalism. I am not now discussing the virtues and vices of government social programs but after 75 years of liberals sending the message that we ought to depend on government, not as a last resort but as a first, for all our material needs, is it really surprising that a cult like following has sprung up around the most liberal man ever to run for the presidency?

Obama talks a lot about bringing people together but if this is what we are uniting around, count me out. Obama talks about change but if this is what we are changing to I cannot be a part of it. He talks about hope but when I see the effects of his campaign I feel fear. I do not wish to paint with too broad a brush. I am sure that most Obama supporters do not buy into the cult side of the campaign. But I'm not convinced Obama is among that majority. I believe he has bought into himself. He believes he is the answer, the source of hope and the one we've all been waiting for. I find that terrifying. That is change I cannot and will not believe in.

Joy

Over the past year of my life I have learned a lot about walking with God and what it means to have authentic intimacy with Him. It's been an amazing experience and one I hope and believe will continue for the rest of my life. Lately, however, I've felt God guiding me to slow down on learning new things and start finding life in what He has already shown me. A few weeks back I was praying and God spoke to me clearer than I am usually able to hear. His message to me was simple: "Remember that life is the goal." I wrote it in my journal and I've spent the last few weeks turning that over in my head. I am only at the beginning of exploring that message in my life but I want to begin sharing what I've learned. For this post, I want to talk about what I believe is one of the things at the heart of true life in Christ: joy.

As I've thought about joy recently I've realized just how badly I've misconceived it. I tend to think of joy as something small, a nice bonus at the end of day but not an essential part of the Christian life. But it has become clear to me that my view of joy could not be further from God's. When I open the Bible and read in Nehemiah 8 "The joy of the Lord is your strength" I can see plain as day the disconnect between my personal philosophy and God's truth. To God joy is not optional; it is essential.

Let's consider that verse again. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." I think that's the sort of verse we tend to gloss over and treat as an empty platitude. It seems like a nice thought but do we ever stop and think of all that it implies? If our strength is directly tied to and related to our joy, then if we are not joyful we are setting ourselves up as easy targets for the enemy and the battle for our hearts is lost. Joy is not a platitude; it is a strategy. Joy is not happy thoughts; it is a weapon. If we truly put this verse, with all it's implications, into practice it would start a revolution.

I think part of the struggle I have with joy comes from my confusing it with two things that sound similar but are actually quite different: happiness and pleasure. Let's start with pleasure. To say, "I shall spend my life being joyful" could be easily confused with saying "I will spend my life seeking pleasure." Now I do not believe pleasure is wrong. In fact, I believe God intends for us to have a great deal of it. But it does not take a deep psychoanalysis to realize that we do not experience pleasure every moment of the day. Pleasure exists at the circumference, joy is at the center. Pleasure demands external circumstances be put right. Joy is indifferent.

Let me illustrate this with a silly but, I hope, helpful example. When I went to see The Dark Knight I experienced pleasure. If Annie decided that tonight we are going to go see Mama Mia I doubt I would find very much pleasure in the experience. But I could find joy in it. I could find joy in spending time with my wife and in doing something that brings her pleasure. My joy need not be affected by external circumstances.

Happiness is even more difficult to separate because it is not entirely external. It does exist at a level deeper than pleasure but clearly not at the level of joy. I know this because Isaiah speaks of The Messiah as a man of sorrows. Yet if the joy of the Lord is our strength, Jesus must have been very joyful indeed since He was spiritually the strongest man to ever live. Therefore, joy must go beyond mere emotion. In this way it is like contentment. To be content does not mean to be satisfied. I doubt Paul was satisfied with the weather conditions during his shipwrecks but he was content in all circumstances (more on contentment another time).

Once we realize that joy is neither pleasure nor happiness we begin to see just how powerful it really is. If joy is not affected by either physical, external circumstances or by emotions then it would seem to be untouchable. And if we found it, if our hearts were transformed so that they were truly joyful, we also would be untouchable. I do not mean untouchable in a way that is closed off and defensive but in a way that is able to be open and loving because we are no longer dependent on pleasure and happiness to take the place of joy in our lives. This is why the verse specifies the joy of the Lord. Clearly there is something supernatural about this. The only way to get there is through relationship with God and through being transformed by Him. This is also why I say that truly living that verse could start a revolution. To find this level of joy would leave no part of our lives untouched.

I believe a word of caution is needed here. The contemporary church is not very fond of talking about the cost of following Christ but it exists nonetheless. I believe there is also a cost to finding true joy. To become untouchable is to become hated. To become truly alive in Christ, even in just one area such as joy, is to become the world's enemy. I cannot be more specific because I am still so far away from real joy and life in my own walk but the stories of martyrs are easy to find. Even in a "tolerant" society such as ours, the cost may not be death but it will still exist. Jesus promised this. When He said He came with us a sword, this is at least part of what He meant.

But I believe it's worth it. This place of joy is where I want to go and I believe it is where God is leading me. It's time to move beyond platitudes and happy thoughts. Joy matters and it is worth pursuing.

The Dark Knight

Last night Annie and I caught the The Dark Knight at the Imax theater near our house (For the record we were not among those crazy people paying $150 for a ticket. We bought ours well in advance at the normal price.) I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a movie. I've been a Batman fan my whole life but was not all that impressed by the original four movies. The first two had their moments, Batman Returns is a good Tim Burton movie, but they completely missed the character. The third, Batman Forever, was alright but forgettable. Don't even start on the putrid, unwatchable Batman and Robin. (It features The Governator as Mr. Freeze who at one point conducts choir practice for his henchmen yelling, "SING LOUDER!" Yes, the movie was that bad.)

Batman and Robin effectively killed the franchise for nearly a decade. There was off and on talk of reviving it but quite frankly the fact that Warner Bros., the same studio that churned out B&R, still held the rights didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.

That is, until they hired Christopher Nolan. I've been a huge Christoper Nolan fan since Memento came out. It's still one of my favorite movies and is one of the most rewatchable movies ever made. I'm not sure what they saw in him that made them think he was the guy for Batman but were they ever right on the money with their choice.

Nolan's first entry in the series, Batman Begins, was incredible. If you haven't seen it, it's required viewing before you check out The Dark Knight. It goes back to the origins of Batman and treats the character and the story with complete seriousness. It asks the question, what would it be like if someone actually decided to put on a bat suit and fight criminals? The movie is incredible, brilliantly acted and directed. It was the Batman movie that geeks like me had been waiting for. It was way more than any of us had hoped for.

But it doesn't hold a candle to The Dark Knight.

This one takes off from where Begins left off and never looks back. The most talked about aspect of this performance is the much hyped performance of the late Heath Ledger as The Joker and for once the hype is justified. Apart from Daniel Day Lewis, I have never seen an actor so completely disappear into a character. When Ledger was first announced as The Joker, the Internet went abuzz with angry fans and Brokeback Batman jokes. He seemed so wrong for the role. But whatever Christopher Nolan saw that the rest of us missed, he was dead right. It's the best villain performance I've ever seen, including Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.

Speaking of Hannibal, The Joker has him beat hands down as far as villains go. Hannibal was terrifying but there was also a refined elegance about him. He was a perfect gentleman who also happened to eat people. He was certainly evil and sadistic but not in the way The Joker is in this movie. The Joker has no agenda. He's not after money or power. It's not even correct to say he just wants to kill people. What he wants is to destroy as much as he can. He is an anarchist in the purest sense of the word. He believes in nothing but pain and chaos. And it's terrifying.

A lot is going to be made about the violence in this movie. It's very rough and very shocking. But the amazing thing is that it accomplishes that without being gory or graphic. There's almost no blood in the entire movie but despite that, the violence is more intense than most gore filled movies. Christopher Nolan proves that less is more. In this case almost too much more.

The Joker is the highlight of the movie but it would be a shame for Batman to get lost in the hype. Christian Bale continues to be one of the best actors working today. His performance here is great. The character's transformation through this movie is incredible. There's a scene where he is interrogating The Joker that is just brutal to watch. He's been pushed to his emotional and physical limits by this guy and he completely loses control. But the harder he hits, the more The Joker just laughs and one of the films many philosophical questions is raised: how do you stop a man who thrives on pain and doesn't care if he dies? It's a fascinating question with big time implications for today's war on terror.

The philosophy in the movie is fantastic but never preachy. I don't want to give the impression of this being an Ayn Rand style movie. It's not. But at the same time, the actions and choices of the characters raise big time ethical, philosophical and moral questions. I won't spoil them here but it's a deep film that will leave you thinking.

When I left Batman Begins I couldn't wait to see the sequel. Leaving The Dark Knight I'm almost afraid to. I'd rather have no sequel than a bad sequel. I don't have any idea how you come anywhere close to equaling this, let alone topping it. This is The Empire Strikes Back to Batman Begins' Star Wars. This is The Godfather Part 2. Both of those trilogies (and the Spider-Man series) had disappointing finishes (though I still love Return of the Jedi) and I do not want to see Batman's third entry join that dubious club. Here's hoping Christopher Nolan proves me wrong yet again and makes the third the best one yet.


Side note: The Dark Knight had one of the coolest marketing campaigns of all time. One of the best aspects was the vandalized posters. They released the normal posters and then a few months later put up ones that had been defaced by The Joker. Check out some of the better ones below.

Satire Time!

I found this online this morning. If you love political satire or just need a break from following the real world exploits of this year's campaign you'll get a big kick out of this.

God's Plans For Us

It seems to me that a lot of Christians, including myself, often find themselves living under a cloud of guilt when it comes to the work Christ has for us. We seem to know that there's something we ought to do with our lives, after all the Bible makes it clear that God has plans for our lives, but what those plans might be remains elusive. Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life has remained a best seller for half a decade now precisely because of this issue. While I have no big issue with the book and feel there are many good things it, I do think it's safe to say that it hasn't been the final word on this issue. Many of us finished all forty days of the book and a week later felt just as confused, purposeless and guilty as we did before we began.

In finding our purpose, the devil is going to hit us with lie filled guilt trips from both sides of the issue. One moment he whispers "You're lazy, pathetically so. You're not anywhere close to where God wants you and you'll never find what He has for you." The next it's "You have nothing to offer. If you really believe this whole business of God having a plan for you, then you're kidding yourself. As a Christian you're a worthless failure." I mention these two lies here at the outset because I want to make it clear that if we're going to move past these lies and into freedom we're going to have fight a two front war with the enemy. We're going to have to break the agreements we've made with these lies if we are to have any hope of seeing the truth God has for us about our purpose.

Here's the good news: God does have a plan for all of us but guilt is not a part of it. Nor is that plan meant to be yet another thing to check off on the to do list. It's not meant to be something that wears us down and runs us dry. It's meant to be something that makes us come alive. We see the word plan and we immediately think endless duty. But what God wants is to make that plan come alive in us through the passions and desires He has given us.

I believe that to find our purpose and life we need to start living through our passions and desires. The obvious objection to that is that it sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. But our desire is not wrong, it's just fallen and Christ can redeem it, transform it. Once we've received Him our heart is no longer dreadfully wicked. He's removed it and replaced it with a heart of flesh. He gave us our passions and desires and He wants to use them for His kingdom and to make us come alive. (for more on this I strongly recommend Desire by John Eldredge).

Even after we realize what we're passionate about and how those passions lead us to our purpose, the devil does not quit. One of my big struggles in life is with being easily overwhelmed and that plays in big time here. Whatever work God has for me, I am just one small part of His plan but the devil wants to convince me that it's all riding on my back. His goal is to make me forget I live in a bigger story, that I'm only one small part of a part in the Body of Christ.

One example of how this plays out is in helping the needy. The devil will convince you that it's your job to go solve the entire issue of modern poverty but maybe all God has for you here is to help your struggling neighbor. But even if He does have a bigger role for you, we need to remember that He is in control. As the Sunday School song says, "He's got the whole world in His hands." Our purpose, great or small, is to be a part of His larger purpose. To get past this lie we're going to need to let go of pride and step into trust.

The other major trap we fall into is failing to see that God doesn't always have some big job for us to do. Sometimes He just wants us to rest in Him. That time of resting may be for a week, a year or it could even be that your purpose has shifted altogether and you're meant to spent the rest of your life resting in Him and loving Him. We tend to freak out when this happens and think we're doing something wrong. Using the example of helping the needy again, maybe you struggling neighbor has stopped struggling and God hasn't yet show you who He now wants you to help. That's ok. It's part of the Christian walk.

I believe that not only are these times of rest inevitable, they are essential to centering us once again on Christ. The work God has for us is important but at the center of the Christian life is passionate relationship with God. Everything else flows out of that, including our purpose. If we're not centered on that relationship whatever we're doing, no matter how needed, will start to become about us and not about God. Will give our hearts to the work rather than to the one who gave us the work.

Finally I would say that we need to be careful about being too anxious in finding our purpose. God has promised that He knows the plans He has for us but we're not going to get too far in finding them out for ourselves so long as we're nervously sitting around wondering if we're doing a good job of finding our purpose. I believe that if you really want to find what you're supposed to be doing your best bet is to go to the one who already knows what it is. Let Him speak to you, heal you, and lead you in whatever He has for you to do.

Trust Revisited

A few weeks back I wrote about trust. It's a topic God has been speaking to me a lot about lately and I wanted to revisit the issue now. No doubt this won't be the last time I'll be coming back to it. I don't claim to have anymore of a complete view of trust now than the last time I wrote on it. But I do want to share a little of what God has shared with me in the last few weeks.

I just finished reading Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. I love the view of trust found in combining it with a word like ruthless. It suggests that to get through this life, to really trust God in the face of all the pain, sorrow and fear we experience, is going to take a fierceness. We're going to need to approach trusting God savagely, giving no ground. Yet at the same time, the ultimate goal is to be able to rest in the hands of the Father. In a sense, we must fight the lies of the enemy so that we can stop fighting the beautiful truths of God.

One thing the book really exposed to me is just how backward we have our priorities when it comes to trust. Manning writes, "Ruthless trust ultimately comes down to this: faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise. In spite of all disconcerting appearances, we stare down death without nervousness and anticipate resurrection solely because Jesus has said, 'You have my word on it.'"

Like most Christians, I've had my doubts in my faith. But by and large I am able to say, without reservation, that I believe I will go to Heaven when I die because of what Jesus did on the cross. I am willing to trust my immortal soul on the belief that Jesus really did what the Gospel's say He did and that it was enough. I've staked everything on this and if it's wrong all I have is the vague hope I'll get lucky. But despite the high stakes, I feel very calm trusting in this. I believe it's true.

So if I'm willing to so calmly trust what will happen to me when I die, why is it so tough for me to believe that God is going to provide work for me next month? Why do I wake up in the morning knowing I have a meeting later in the day and feel I'm doomed to failure? Why do I spend so much time worrying about my basic, earthly needs?

It's all backwards and as I begin to realize that the freedom I feel is unbelievable. Everything I need for eternity has been taking care of on the cross. God handled sin like it was nothing. He pinned it to the ground and took away its power. If He could do that then of course I can trust Him with all this other, smaller stuff.

The objection that rises in me at this point is, "that's nice but what about all that pain? What about the bad things that really do happen?" Manning doesn't side step that question at all in the book. Large sections are devoted to exactly that problem. And as he handles it, he shows that trusting God does not mean trusting that nothing bad will happen. It means trusting Him to carry us through the bad things, to work all things together for good. It's trusting that He is good in a world that is fallen. It's trusting that if God allows evil in our lives, He is faithful to walk beside us through all of it. (Note: For more on the problem of evil I would strongly recommend The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis)

If trust is something you have a tough time with, read this book. It's powerful and life changing. And it doesn't hurt that Brennan Manning is an amazing writer. If you haven't encountered any of his stuff, this is a great place to start.

The Infinite Patience of God

Another lesson God showed me through Sammy: Tonight he and I were out in the yard playing. I was laying next to him in the grass when He ran up by my head and decided to use my ear as a chew toy (there will be blood). In between trying to get back inside to stop the bleeding (who knew ears bled so much?) Sammy got a spanking and was made very aware that what he'd just done was not ok.

I shut him in the mudroom for a while (given how much he loves being with us, it's about as effective a punishment as there is). A while later I went down to see him. Now, maybe it's my imagination but I think he was genuinely sorry. He was all kisses and snuggles without a hint of his usual playful but painful biteyness. About fifteen minutes later we were outside again and, sure enough, he decided to bite at my fingers. Sammy is a very smart dog but apparently he also has a very short memory.

I don't know how long it's going to take Sammy to figure out that biting is not a good way to have fun and play. But I know that however long it takes I'm going to love the little guy regardless of whether or not my ear is covered in blood.

If I, flawed and imperfect as I am, can have that kind of love and patience for Sammy how much more is that true of God's relationship to us?

It's easy to get caught up in the magnitude of our sin and in part there's some truth there. When we diminish or deny our sins we're invariably headed for trouble. But once we've been adopted into God's family, He doesn't look at us and see nothing but sin. When I look at Sammy I see a great puppy who I love to death, not the bad puppy who ripped into my ear. When God looks at us He sees the good work He's began and is faithful to complete. He sees us turning to Him and being transformed from our sins. And, because God is outside of time, He sees the day when that transformation will finally complete and our sins will be nothing but a distant memory lost amidst the beauty of Aslan's Country.

That's what makes it possible for God to be patient with us day after day, year after year, decade after decade. We're so prone to forget. How many times have each of us found ourselves repenting one moment and almost the very next turning back to the very sin we just repented of? But God's patience and love are so much more powerful than our forgetfulness.

I know it grieves God when we do wrong, and I don't want to appear to deny that. But I think the joy he feels as we let ourselves be transformed by Him is so much greater than the grief. I believe He feels unimaginable delight when simply turn to Him and say, "I know how stuck I am, please deliver me, transform me."

Even when God reveals Himself in moments like this one tonight with Sammy, I can still only wonder at how immense His love is. It's so much greater than our sin and it's the only thing capable of bring real deliverance and transformation. He wants us to let Him love us into a new creation. He's patient and merciful and faithful to complete that good work.

Red is Back!

For geeks like me, this has already been a really good year for movies. We've had two pretty good superhero movies with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, plus the long awaited fourth Indiana Jones. But all that is nothing compared to what we have to look forward to in July.

In two weeks the new X-Files movie comes out and speaking as someone who has seen every single episode of the series, I'm pretty psyched. Next week The Dark Knight comes out. The early buzz is universally positive for it. One review even compared it to one of my all time favorite movies (and aside from the first two Godfathers the best crime movie of all time), Heat. Annie and I will be going opening night to the Imax so look for my review next weekend, sure to be filled with nerdy joy.

To help tide us geeks over while waiting for those two movies, Hellboy 2 was released this week. I missed the first one in theaters. Actually I thought it looked kind of stupid but after hearing enough good reviews I checked it out on DVD. It's an absolute blast, one of the funnest movies I've ever seen. So how does the sequel do at living up to that legacy?

HB2 outdoes its predecessor in just about every way. The monsters are cooler and scarier. The action is bigger, louder and better. Plus, this one is even funnier than the first (the scene where Red and Abe get drunk and sing along to Barry Manilow is an instant classic). Where the first movie centered around Nazis and Lovecraftian monsters, there are a lot more fantasy elements here (elves, trolls, etc). That's of special interest to geeks since Guillermo Del Toro recently signed on to direct The Hobbit. It's good to have him show just brilliant he is bringing fantasy to life on the screen.

Unfortunately, the movie has a couple of weak points. While I don't want or expect perfect logic in a movie like this (half the fun is suspending belief) there are a couple of plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. They don't ruin the movie by any means but they're obvious enough to be annoying. Also the main threat in the movie, the golden army, is pretty much wasted.

HB2 isn't perfect but it is a lot fun and, in my opinion, even better than the first. While I'm sure it won't hold a candle to The Dark Knight, it helps get July off to great start for nerds. If you at all enjoyed the first movie or are just in the mood for mindless, quality fun check this one out

The Office Webisodes

Rejoice Office fans! We may be in between seasons and looking at another potential strike but in the meantime we have new webisodes to look forward to every week. The Accountants, the first batch of webisodes from a couple years ago, was hysterical. The new series is called Kevin's Loan. Based on the first installment it looks even funnier than The Accountants. Enjoy!

Inside the Hanoi Hilton

US News and World Report published today a pair of pretty harrowing photos from John McCain's solitary confinement.



The article explains what you're looking at there. Apparently the second one is what he was chained to while in the cell.

I'm not posting this so much to make any sort of comment on McCain or the election but because looking at pictures like this reminds me of just how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to all our soldiers, past and present.

We tend to hear mainly just the bad things our soldiers do: civilian deaths, Abu Ghraib, etc. But those incidents are the exception, not the rule. The bravery it takes to spend years in a cell like this is the real story of our soldiers. It's successes like those reported this last week by the London Sunday Times that really matter and make a real difference. If you're at all concerned about the state of affairs in Iraq, please read the Times article. It probably won't change your mind about the war, and it really isn't meant to, but it will show you what a heck of a job our troops are doing over there.

Our troops need our prayers and support. They deserve our gratitude. I can't imagine spending a single day in a cell like that but I'm enormously thankful that there are men like John McCain who were willing to make those sacrifices for freedom. May God bless them for all they've sacrificed, and continue to sacrifice, for us.

Accepting Our Freedom

A couple of days ago Annie and I got a new puppy. Because Sammy is still a ways away from learning bladder control he spends the time we can't watch him in our mudroom. Since the mudroom has a pair of doors shutting it off from the rest of the house and tile floor, it works well for keeping him out of trouble and making his messes easy to clean up.

Tonight Sammy was not too happy about being shut up. He was barking and jumping against the doors. After a while he calmed down and I went to let him out. He was still sitting in front of one of the doors and as I opened it he got caught between it and the wall. Oblivious to the fact that all he had to do to be free was walk backwards two steps and go to the other side of the door, he began once again to yelp and jump against the door as though I hadn't opened it yet. It wasn't until I picked him up and rescued him that he really experienced the freedom I'd already given to him.

And that's exactly how we so often handle the freedom Christ has given us.

It's a trap that's been around since the cross. We want to earn our salvation, not receive it as a free gift. We spend the first part of our lives giving in to sin until we find ourselves trapped in a deep, dark prison. When we receive Christ, both for salvation and each time we ask for forgiveness, the doors to that prison are smashed open. But for some reason, we often feel compelled to stay. We hide in our shame and guilt, in the knowledge of just how big a mess we've made. We forget that our heart of stone has been replaced by a heart of flesh. Staying stuck in our sin through legalism and shame seems like the right way, the proper way, to atone for what we've done. As if Christ's death and resurrection aren't enough.

Looking at my own life and the times I've fallen into this trap, I find myself asking why this happens. The first answer that comes to mind is that the other way, simply accepting the freedom Christ has given us, seems too easy. But the more I think about the more I realize that's not it all. The gift of salvation is free but there is a cost to following Christ. He promised this. If we've chosen to follow Him we've entered into the relationship with our eyes open to all that could happen. At a minimum, almost every Christian has experienced mockery for his faith. Many are martyred. And that's only the physical side. When we accept Christ we take a side in a spiritual battle that has gone on longer than this Earth has existed. The gift may be free but following Christ cannot be said to be too easy.

I believe the real reason for denying our freedom is that staying in that prison cell, stuck in our sin, seems easier. We want to blend in with the world. Christ calls us to be set apart from it. We want to be in control of our salvation. Christ calls us to give up our compulsion for control and surrender our will to Him. We want to be able to arrange our lives as we see fit. Christ promises us a life of abundance but requires our trust to get us there through the darkness. We don't want to give our time to prayer, relationship and fighting the enemy. Christ issues the call to arm ourselves and prepare for battle.

I think on one level we know that staying stuck in prison isn't better, couldn't possibly be better. But it is easier. The lie of the enemy is this: easier is enough. Life is too hard already. You do not need this extra challenge of fighting day and night for your heart and against the powers of darkness.

But here's the awesome part of all this. God's grace extends even here. So often I find myself painfully aware of my unwillingness to come out of the prison. It is then that I must call on God, ask Him to change my heart and bring me to the fullness of my freedom. And just as I was willing to step over to the other side of the door to rescue Sammy, so God is willing to come to us when we find ourselves stuck in this way.

God accepts this about us. As C.S. Lewis reminds us in Mere Christianity, "Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it."

God has accepted our humanity and we should too. He has recognized that we will, in this life, always be imperfect. But He is patient and He is faithful to transform us.

Freedom is a good thing but it's also a hard thing. Even after Christ has broken through to our prison it is hard to accept the invitation to go further up and further in with Him. But it's worth it and He is faithful to help us as we struggle every day to leave our prison, our sin, our guilt, and our shame behind and follow Him instead.

The Minnesota Political Circus Is Back

Brace yourself Minnesota, the most infamous politician in our state's history is back. That's right, Jesse Ventura went on NPR this morning and announced he is running for senate. And what is his great appeal this time around? Is it a dynamic vision for the country? A desire to make a real difference? Nope. Nothing so frivolous. As he explained this morning, "All you Minnesotans take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide: if you were in a dark alley which one of the three of us would you want with you?"

Now that logic is tough to disagree with. I'm sure not going in any dark alleys with Al Franken and though I like Norm Coleman, when it comes to dark alley protection I'll take a Navy Seal and wrestler any day of the week.

But then again, last time I checked we weren't voting for a body guard.

Now, I don't think Jesse was the worst governor in the world. He certainly had his moments and the entertainment value was great. But the man was a joke. He never took the office seriously. Add to that that he's a 9/11 "truther" and he's about the last person our state or country needs representing us in the senate.

So now in this race we've got a conspiracy theory obsessed wrestler and a perverted, unfunny comedian who makes Michael Moore seem unbiased. Norm Coleman ought to win this thing be default.


Update:

Now Jesse has come out and said he didn't really mean it when he said he was running. Apparently he wants to keep us all in suspense until next Tuesday's filing deadline. Translation: Jesse is loving the publicity but is afraid he might actually win and doesn't like the idea of committing to a six year senate term.

1984 and The Mercy of Jesus

I'm listening to George Orwell's 1984 right now. As the story was playing yesterday, there were a few lines of dialogue that struck me as really an amazing picture of the mercy and acceptance of Jesus when we finally turn to him.

At this point in the story the protagonist, Winston Smith, is just starting to take his first chances at going against the totalitarian designs of The Party and Big Brother. He lives alone, abandoned by his wife who chose The Party over him. He hasn't had a conversation in years that wasn't laced with Newspeak or supervised by The Thought Police. And then a woman he works with, Julia, passes him a note saying "I love you". They arrange to meet in private, out of the long arm of The Thought Police and it's then Winston's starts this amazing conversation:

"Now that you've seen what I'm really like, can you still bear to look at me?"
"Yes, easily."
"I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife I can't get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth."
"I couldn't care less," said the girl.

Isn't that exactly how Jesus treats us when we come to him, embarrassed and ashamed of just how desperate our situation is? It's not that He denies the flaws; it's that He chooses to see through them and into the person He always intended us to be. That is what amazing grace is all about.


Note: I would not carry this analogy throughout the rest of the book. But that's the beauty of walking with God and listening to Him. He can take a single line of dialogue, or a lyric from a song, and speak through it, regardless of context. It's only we who insist on everything making perfect sense. He just wants to love us and speak to us

Jesus and Beginners

Lately I've been trying to add a new dynamic to how I read scripture. While I always try to learn from the Bible and let it strengthen my faith, I also want to sometimes drop the more academic/intellectual stuff, let go of any preconceived ideas from past reading and studies, and just let God speak to me through His word. It's not that the other approach is unimportant (I believe it's extremely important), it's just that, on its own, it's inadequate.

With that approach in mind last night I read in John's Gospel the story of Jesus calling His disciples (found in John 1:35-50). What I wanted to look at was just what type of a person Jesus really is. How does he interact with people, handle their weakness, draw them onward. At this point in the story, the disciples are pretty much blank slates. They're totally clueless. And what amazes me reading this passage is just how brilliantly Jesus, who has everything figured out, handles them as beginners.

In verse 38, just after the first two disciples begin to follow Jesus, He turns to them and asks "What do you want?" He goes straight to their hearts, their desires. And it's too much for them. They dodge the question and instead ask Him where He's staying. Jesus doesn't get mad, or impatient. He answers them and lets them come with Him. To me, there's such tenderness in that. He could have judged them or insisted on an answer but He's willing to let it go and love them so that they will follow Him.

But at the same time, Jesus doesn't just let them stay stuck where they're at. I love how later on when tells Peter flat out that he will be Jesus's rock and then, a couple verses later, He blows Nathanael away by showing His power. Jesus doesn't draw the disciples on through shame or from telling them just how clueless they are. He tantalizes them. He hints to them. He draws them into His mystery and convinces them He's worth following.

I've been a Christian for most of my life and in that sense I could not be considered a "beginner". But yet I find this passage extremely relevant to me and to my walk. I believe that part of the Christian walk is being constantly called to become a beginner again. Not in the sense of going back and relearning everything we already know but in the sense of being called forward into something deeper. The beauty and mystery of an infinite God is that there are always new depths so that no matter how advanced you are, you are still constantly entering into being once again a beginner.

In my original post on this blog, I talked about how the title Further Up and Further In came from C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle. I won't repeat the whole story here but if you've read the book, or my description, you'll remember that as the characters travel through Aslan's Country each time they reach the end of the land their journey begins again, only this time the world is deeper, richer and more beautiful. Being a beginner doesn't mean starting over. It means going through the next door in Aslan's Country.

Or, to use another example, it's the same principle of going from 8th grade, where you are at the height of middle school suprememcy, to 9th grade, where you are now a lowly freshman. You're further on in life and academically, but you're also back at the bottom of the totem pole.

I used to be very discouraged when God called me again to be a beginner. I'd feel like I'd blown it and like everything I thought I'd learned was to be thrown out. But that's not how I see it anymore. Reading this passage, I don't believe that's how Jesus sees it.

This is faith as a child. This is letting God take you by the hand and lead you into a richer and more satisfying life. I believe there is safety in becomming again the beginner because I believe that Jesus will be infintely patient with the weaknesses of where we're at and infinitely loving as He draws us on.

Like so much else it all goes back to trust. We can trust Him as He leads us on. We can trust that what He wants is to give us life to the full, to transform our hearts and our lives. I believe that so long as we're unwilling to trust Him to lead us, as beginners, through that next door in Aslan's Country we won't ever experience the kind of growth and life He desires for us.

I don't say any of this to try and claim any sort of expertise. I say this all as a beginner, sharing what God is showing me as He calls me further up and further in.

Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! I wanted to take a few moments this 4th of July to talk about why I'm unabashedly, unreservedly and apologetically in love with this country even though I'm not sure that's altogether a popular sentiment these days. Don't get me wrong, I think the vast majority of Americans are patriotic and love their country. But that love is often distant and removed, more passive than active. Well most of his will wave a flag on occasion and sing the national anthem at baseball games, I'm not sure that many of us are in love with our country in a way is passionate and involved.

It seems so passe, naive even, in our globalized age to talk like that. After all, America isn't a perfect country. Our past and our present have deep flaws. We mustn't forget that there are many other fine and wonderful countries in the world and we therefore ought to guard ourselves against international arrogance.

Those things are true but the conclusion we draw from them is not. America has real problems, but those problems aren't really her. America is Thomas Jefferson's immortal words that all men are created equal. The past evil of slavery and the modern evil of abortion aren't America, and when we fight against them we are not seeking to change America but to recover her.

As for other nations, I agree there are many that are fine and wonderful. I am not in love with America because she comes out first in some contest. I am in love with her because of what she is. When I see my wife in a crowded room she is the most beautiful to me not because of what the other women aren't but because of what she is.

Up until recently I've found that, even though I've always tried to wear my patriotism on my sleeve, I'd also fallen in this trap of loving without being in love. Theodore Roosevelt, a man who is a hero to me and one of the finest leaders America has ever had, changed my mind. Throughout his life he was passionately in love with his country. At first glance in his diaries it comes across as arrogant elitism. But the more you get to know the man, the more you realize that's not even close to the truth. His love didn't grow from something ugly and evil, it grew from a childlike wonder and a fiery passion that refused to die long after life had done its best to make old and callous. To use a biblical analogy, it was faith like a child.

And that's how I choose to be in love with my country.

So what is America? America is the belief that God has given us the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that those rights are worth dying for.

America is George Washington arriving at the First Continental Congress dressed in uniform and ready to go to war for freedom.

America is fifty-six men on July 4, 1776 signing their names to a document that was a death sentence should the war be lost.

America is the Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware River, one last desperate attempt at freedom in a cause that was starting to look doomed to fail.

America is thirteen wildly diverse colonies coming together as states to form a single nation.

America is Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and setting the slaves free.

America is the soldiers landing on Normandy Beach on D-Day to fight the evil of Nazism and keep tyranny at bay.

America is a forty year struggle against Communism and Ronald Reagan calling for the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

America is New York's firemen standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center and hoisting a flag in defiance of a new wave of tyranny.

America is our brave men and women fighting in Iraq to spread freedom and democracy and to defend our country.

America is waking up every morning and knowing you're free from tyranny.

America is passing on this history and these traditions to every child and thanking God they're there to carry the promise of freedom to a new generation.

America is the day (and I pray it is not too distant) when every unborn child will not live in the shadow of legalized abortion.

I am in love with America for all of this and more. God has blessed this country and her people beyond anything the Founders could have imagined. Men and women have spent nearly two and half centuries spilling their blood to fulfill and prolong the promise of the Revolution, of the fifty-six men who on this day committed treason to one nation and pledged allegiance to another. From 1776 to 2008 their sacrifices have always been worth it. And that's something that's not only worth loving but being in love with.

Ultrasound

We may only be halfway through the year, but I think I can confidently say that 2008 has been the most dynamic and change filled year of my life. Buying our first house and moving to an area of the Twin Cities neither of us was all that familiar with were big changes to be sure but nothing has come close to finding out at the end of January that we were expecting our first child.

Ever since then, I haven't gone more than a few weeks without my world being turned wonderfully on its head. First there was the pregnancy test, more than a little shocking since we hadn't planned on trying for a kid until later this year. About a month later came our first ultrasound. We saw her in the typical 2D ultrasound: black and white and grainy but to me it was the most beautiful picture in the world. We were able to see her heart beat that day. It's a moment I'll never forget.

More recently we found out that we were having a girl and my world changed again. I could put a name, Elise Ruth (Ellie), to the child inside Annie. A couple weeks later I was able to feel her kick for the first time and suddenly my daughter was very, very real.

Today was another one of those life changing moments. Separate from our normal doctor visits, we had a 4D ultrasound. I won't even try to explain the technology but using advanced equipment, this type of ultrasound moves way beyond your traditional dark and grainy picture and lets you see what your baby actually looks like. These are a couple of the pictures from the ultrasound



Even after having watched the ultrasound live (and been through the DVD twice with relatives), I'm still blown away looking at these pictures. When the Psalmist writes of being fearfully and wonderfully made, of being knit together in his mother's womb: this is what he's talking about. It's awesome. It's a miracle.

One final thought. Looking at these pictures I can't help but feel sad knowing there are hundreds of babies, just like Ellie, being killed in the womb every day. Both Ellie and all of the unborn are alive and their lives are worth defending. I watched my daughter smile today. It breaks my heart to know there are unborn children smiling one moment and being killed the next. No matter where you come down on the political spectrum, please pray for the end of abortion. Pray that God would soften hearts, that He would use images like this to help people to see. And for the mothers who have already made that choice, may they know His love and forgiveness and that their child will be waiting for them in the arms of the Father when they come home.

He's Baaaaaack (maybe)....

Brace yourselves Vikings fans. ESPN is reporting that everyone's least favorite, retired quarterback from that cheese infested team of the state on the other side of the St. Croix River has decided he wants to report to training camp next month and is in talks with the head cheeseheads about returning.

At this point it's still speculation, but based on how ESPN is handling this story, this could develop fast.

Personally, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I love the idea of Favre setting the Packers back one more season and completely destroying all the work they've done to move beyond him this offseason. But then, we do have to play them twice each year and I'd just as soon not have Favre under center for those games.

If this does turn out to be legitimate, lets all cross our fingers, say our prayers, and hope the Madden Curse does its worst.