In the meantime we Vikings fans can still dream
Friday, August 1, 2008
Favre in Purple
There's still a chance. Or at least Judd Zulgad thinks there is.
In the meantime we Vikings fans can still dream
In the meantime we Vikings fans can still dream
Thursday, July 31, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
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"
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.
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.
Friday, July 25, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Change We Can Believe In?
Yes, we can! Make it to the Promised Land!
Yes, we can! I know we can!
Yes, we can
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:
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.
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.
Monday, July 21, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
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.
Friday, July 18, 2008
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.
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