Category — Spirituality

This is beautiful…

After it was all over and Noah lowered the ramp of the ark for all the animals to leave, he told the animals to “go forth and multiply.”
 
All the animals left except two snakes who lay quietly in the corner of the ark.
 
“Why won’t you go forth and multiply?” demanded Noah.
 
“We can’t,” answered the snakes. “We’re adders.”

to those who believe differently than I do about this topic.  I’m going to rant a bit…

I was just surfing a forum for some tech information and read a post by someone whose signature said:

__________________
The meaning of life? There is no meaning. You’re just a more complex carbon chain reaction than a dog, a tree, or an amoeba.

Now, I believe that God gave us free will and that this guy is entitled to his opinion.  No problem there.  I just think that it really must suck to live that way!  I mean, thinking that you are just an accident of chemistry, that there is nothing more to life than a complex happenstance of quirky molecular attraction.  How the hell can someone live like that?  How can you live thinking that there is NO meaning??  What keeps you from acting out every tiny whim?  Why don’t people like that stab their co-workers with a pencil when they whine during staff meetings?  How come they actually pay their taxes?  Why would you bother to do anythingother than exactly what you damn well pleased to at that exact moment?  See a hot chick?  Bend her over a barrel!  Like that guy’s car?  Hit him with a brick and take it!  It doesn’t matter! There is NO MEANING TO ANYTHING!

I can hear someone saying now – “Well, stupid, you don’t do that because of the consequences!  You’d get arrested, because in a civilized society people don’t do that to each other.  And those that do, suffer the consequences…”

Ok, good point, sounds good.  But think about it a bit more.  That means that society is the ultimate authority, the ultimate judge and the ultimate standard by which everything is measured.  We live our lives by society’s standards.  Isn’t that a “meaning” to life then?  Isn’t that what a “meaning” is?  If I say, “The meaning of life is to be happy” or “The meaning of life is to serve God” or “The meaning of life is to get rich” – aren’t those all things that one then judges himself by?  Am I happy?  Am I serving God?  Am I getting rich?  Meaning is a delineation – a mark in the sand whereby other things are judged.  So, if we say life has no meaning, but yet live in society, we are making society the ultimate authority and therefore the ultimate meaning.

Don’t you see how horrible that is?!  Society is the ultimate meaning!?  Are you kidding me?  All we live for is civil obedience?  Fitting in?  Keeping up with the Jonses?  Peer pressure is REALLY the best that it gets?

Society is the ultimate meaning???

How on Earth can that be?  Are you kidding me?  People really believe that crap?  Come on! Society produced these people:

And, even

I know, I know…  Not nice of me to throw that freaky drag-queen in with the picture of Hillary…  Oh, um, well um… Never mind.  *SNICKER*  (sorry, couldn’t help that! )

Anyway, my point is that society simply cannot be the paragon of existence and the ultimate achievement of life.  And, there MUST be meaning to life, because we all judge ourselves by something.  Even if you don’t believe in God – something is the lord of your life, and therefore it has meaning.  In fact, I really feel sorry for anyone who pretends that it doesn’t.  I think they are scared of reality with meaning, because they simply haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.  And, if they are wrong, there could be serious consequences.

In fact, I almost feel more sorry for them than I do for the goat pictured above.  No, not Hillary, the other one!  Ahem.  Really, I’m sorry. I’ll stop – honest, I will.  :D

From a buddy of mine:

Three Things to Think About

1. COWS
2. THE CONSTITUTION, and
3. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years and we’re not using it anymore.

TEN COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse……..You cannot post “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” and “Thou Shall Not Lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians –it creates a hostile work environment

On Sharlet’s blog, she relayed a question that was asked of her by a friend:

“If we all have to leave this world someday, then life is meaningless right?”

That’s the crux of everything, isn’t it?

As you can probably guess, I fall into the “life is short, therefore it is meaningful” camp.

Every day that I get to wake up and kiss my wife, hug my daughter and smile at a friend is one more day that is worth living. To say otherwise is like saying that because a movie ends, that it isn’t worth watching, or that a book isn’t worth reading because it has a last chapter, or that because you eventually finish the ice cream cone, it just isn’t worth eating.

No, I must disagree. Ice cream is always worth eating.

And life is always worth living. It must also then be meaningful, as only things of consequence, things of value, things of worth are meaningful.

When something desirable is scarce, it becomes MORE valuable, not less.

And, I haven’t even touched on the more spiritual aspect of God’s eternal purpose for us…

A new friend recently left a comment on one of my prior posts. As I normally do, I headed over to her blog to get a sense of who she is, etc and I was stopped in my tracks by the first post that I read.

Sharlet was ruminating about an old friend that she had lost touch with, who has now come back in her life espousing a new-found Christian faith. The friend seemed to be practically begging her to come to an Easter service, or more likely a Passion Play outlining the life of Christ. Sharlet found it strange and dismaying, and I daresay even a bit insincere, given that this friend declined to meet with her a different day, saying that she was simply busy.

While I find the actions of her friend nearly criminal given what her probable intent was, I think that this is an all to common occurrence. I believe that, of late, the Christian Church is focusing too much on evangelism, and not enough on discipleship. We have too broad a focus on saving EVERYONE, without ever seeming to really CARE for anyone. I don’t blame Sharlet’s friend – most likely she is simply doing as she seen others do – but I do blame our modern church culture.

Sharlet’s friend cares about her, and doesn’t want to see her miss out on salvation – yet she doesn’t seem to care enough to reintegrate herself into Sharlet’s life, love her for who she currently is, or to be there for her on a regular basis by being a consistent example of the transforming power of God’s love. Indeed, so far Sharlet has only seen what appear to be NEGATIVE aspects of the transforming power of God’s love.

Is that the message that her friend meant to convey? I highly doubt it – but our church culture doesn’t focus on this, it focuses on numbers, which I think is sad and borderline idolatry.

Anyway, I did feel compelled to respond to her post, and to the comments made by several of her readers, in an attempt to explain why her friend seems to have gone crazy. Please, let me know how I did…

My response:

So, I’m going to be the odd person out here, as I’m a Christian, and I’d like to comment on not only your post Sharlet, but also some of the comments of your readers… I want to apologize up front to anyone that I may offend with my words, please know that it is certainly not my intent or even my desire.

Sharlet, I’m glad that you mentioned that your thought your friend did what she did because she cares – I think that is most likely true. However, I have also seen Christians do similar things, not out of love, but out of cultural pressure from their fellow Christians to evangelize. Unfortunately, it is a very common trait of people who have lost the “spirit” of the Biblical message to the over-religious tendencies that plague many modern Churches. Anyway, that’s a subject for a different time…

I’m not going to try to “convince” you to believe in Christ – while I would be thrilled if you did, I only want to take a shot at explaining why so many Christians seem to go nuts and turn into annoying gnats that buzz around your head and just won’t go way.

Imagine this – (and forgive me if you’ve heard this before) – you wake up one day to find out that there has been a terrorist attack on your town. Somehow, a biological weapon was exploded in the air over the town center, and EVERYONE has been infected with a deadly virus – your parents, your lover, your kids, the neighbors, everyone. But not you…

To add to this problem, a side effect of the virus is that no one knows that they’ve been infected. For some reason, you were spared. Now say that you happen to be an expert in biological warfare – you are able to quickly develop a remedy for the virus, and you are ready to go out and administer the antidote.

How would people react to you wanting to stick them with a needle, when they don’t think they are sick?

“What do you mean a terrorist attack? I haven’t heard anything about that… Its not on the news, and no one else seems to be sick either. Maybe its you! You are the one that needs help!”

In fact, along these lines, they will probably try to get away from you as quickly as they can… Even the people that know and love you may not trust you and may wonder if you need help.

The problem is that if you DON’T stick them with that needle, they are going to die. Can you, at least for a brief moment, suspend your disbelief enough to FEEL the calm panic that can start to rise in you? YOU aren’t infected – you’re OK, but everyone around you is going to die if you can’t somehow convince them to let you give them the antidote.

Well, as far fetched as that scenario may seem to you, this is very similar to what happens to a new Christian. We believe that God created humans and because of the introduction of sin, we were separated from him. God is perfection, and no imperfection can be with him. How then can we be reunited? God can either change his rules – which he doesn’t do, because he is constant – or the price for our sin can be paid. Because he loves us, he found a way to pay the price for all sin from now through eternity – he gave himself, in the form of Christ, as the payment. But, because he gave us with free will, he won’t pay our debt unless we ask. Asking presupposes a few things: 1) us acknowledging that their is a God, 2) that we are separated from him, 3) that we don’t WANT to be separated from him, 4) that there is a debt to be paid to end the separation and 5) that we can’t pay that debt ourselves.

Loose any one of those points, and a person telling you that God will pay your debt appears very much as you did trying to administer an antidote to someone who doesn’t know they are infected.

Now, you may be thinking – well, yes, but that sounds really stupid. In fact, it sounds as stupid as the terrorist story that I made up above.

OK – you can certainly have that opinion. But, for the sake of argument, is it really any more far fetched than anything else? Basically we are saying that there IS a supreme being, and because it created us, it actually has an interest in us. Like any parent, it cares about our actions, and about our eternal welfare.

Is this more far fetched than paganism, where many spirits guide or interfere with our lives? Is it more far fetched than believing in reincarnation, where you die and come back again and again like a big bottle stuck in a recycling nightmare? Is it more far fetched than thinking that there is NO higher power, and that we are completely a fluke of science – a random happenstance created by the exact right interaction of possibly thousands of different environmental factors?

I don’t think so. In fact, I have yet to find a single world view that did not require a strong FAITH in SOMETHING. And, at that point, it is hard to point to a single faith and say it is more outlandish than another. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that because these world views are equally outlandish, that they are all true, or even all false. I’m just saying that they are equally “crazy” when you examine the real belief. As I think you know, I believe that only one is correct – that only one CAN be correct – why? Because they are mutually exclusive – if I’m right, then someone else is wrong, and vice-versa. The “this is MY truth” doesn’t hold up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny because 1+1 can’t be 2 AND 3 at the same time.

Again, I don’t say this to convince you that Christians are right, but rather to explain why things appear as they do. Our beliefs may seem weird to you, but honestly they are no more weird than your own.

What do you think? Is my explanation right? What do you think of her friend’s actions?

This topic dismays me, because I feel like most of the church is actually pushing away more people than it is attracting, and I know that was not God’s intent. AND, if that is true, it means that God isn’t even in the work that we are doing, which is more than just a sobering thought.

That is the question…

On a Christian forum recently, a member was having a deep crisis of faith.  At first, he reached out asking for help to restore his faith in God, but a few questions later it was revealed that what was really bothering him was the age old dilemma of premarital sex.  He and his girlfriend, both Christians, were trying to figure out if they were going to take “the next step” in their relationship, and it created the crisis at hand.

“How can God give me such strong desires and then deny me their satisfaction?” - was essentially the question.  They love each other, intend on getting married (though they are not officially engaged) and, of course, are deeply attracted to each other.  What should they do?

Now, something shocked me about this issue.  Not the issue itself, but rather people’s response to it.  I was shocked at the number of people (all Christians) who wrote in and basically said, “Hey, if you love each other, profess that to God and then you are married, so have fun and be safe…”.

I was equally shocked at the number of people who wrote in saying, “It’s a sin, don’t do it.  God said don’t, so don’t.”

What kind of advice is that?  “Hey kid, don’t worry about it!” and “Just don’t!”  One is flat out wrong, and the other is about as helpful as a rock to a drowning man.

Now, I want to start off by saying that you will find no personal judgment from me on how you have chosen to handle this topic in your life. I’m not even making a statement on how I chose to handle this.  My response to this panel was for the benefit of this confused young man and simply reflects truths that I’ve come to understand about God and about relationships.  Some of you may recognize a paragraph or two from a previous article I wrote on sin in general, but this one specifically tackles premarital sex.

Anyway, here is my advice.

—————————————–

Shotfire, let me tell you something that most people won’t tell you.  By having sex before marriage, you aren’t loosing your salvation, you aren’t going to go to hell – and, in fact, you’ll probably enjoy it.  At first.

See, God doesn’t tell us to NOT do this just to be a killjoy – He has our best interests at heart.  It saddens me that many people think of God as a stodgy bummer that simply has it in for our modern lives. “God just doesn’t want me to have any fun. I can’t have oodles of wild sex with anyone I meet because GOD doesn’t want me to. I can’t lie my way out of any situation because GOD doesn’t want me to. I can’t shove a fork into the eye of the guy that just cut me off on the freeway because GOD doesn’t want me to.” 

It wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I finally started to understand that God doesn’t need us to not do these things. He tells us to not do these things because it would be better for us if we didn’t. Its just like me not letting my daughter play with the sharp knives on the table – I know that she is going to hurt herself by doing it. Is it any different with God?

No, I don’t think you’ll go to Hell for cheating on your taxes, but you might go to jail.  The same is true with premarital sex – the world won’t blow up, and you won’t loose your salvation, but you may regret it forever.

Unless you actually DO go ahead and marry this girl, you will regret this decision for the rest of your life.  If you think you will end up married, go ahead and marry her now.  Why wait?  If there are reasons enough to wait for marriage, there are reasons enough to wait for sex.

God designed sex as both a spiritual and physical thing – when you have sex with someone, you give them a piece of yourself – no pun intended.  This is true in the physical as well as in the psychological and spiritual sense.  You will give a piece of your soul to this person, as she will to you.  For a time, you BECOME ONE.

Now, say you DON’T end up married for any number of reasons; you will never be whole again.  You’ve become one with another person, and separating tears you apart – part of you goes with her, and part of her comes with you.  Now, when you meet the RIGHT woman, you won’t be able to give yourself to her completely, and neither will your current girlfriend.  Pre-marital sex practically GUARANTEES that you will be holding something back from your eventual spouse.

And, then what is to stop you from doing this again, if you two break up?  Now, you’ve already HAD sex, so what’s the big deal?  You’ll then have sex with your next girlfriend, and so on, eventually leaving pieces of your heart scattered around as if it wasn’t the most precious thing you had to give…

Would you like a spouse that is hiding a past from you?  Do you really want her to NOT hide it from you?  Would you like a spouse comparing you to other lovers she’s had?  How would you like to be comparing your spouse to previous lovers?

God didn’t intend us to have this knowledge, not for HIS sake, but for ours.

I know that the desire for sex can be almost unbearable at times – trust me, I’ve been there.  But this is a pain that WILL go away, at its proper time.  If you make a poor choice now, you’ll have a pain that will never go away.  Which would you prefer?

Is it easy?  Hell no, but neither is risking your future.

—————————————–

What did this young man decide to do?  I think for now he may have decided to wait.  He responded with:

Wow. Thank you so much Milo. You really got me thinking. I now have a different outlook on this. Thank you so much. You may of just saved someonethere [sic] life.

I wish him the best of luck with his choice, as both options can be very tough.  A quick word - no, I didn’t forget about all the other “practical” reasons for waiting: unwanted pregnancy, disease, etc.  I figure those are a given, whereas the spiritual aspect may not be as clear.  From the response of many on that board, I have to make that assumption.  This is too serious for a “don’t worry about it” attitude, I don’t even want to touch on the “you are married in God’s eyes” deal, and “Just don’t” simply doesn’t help.  If it did, there wouldn’t be the dilemma in the first place.

Anyway, I do know that these people meant well, so I can’t be too upset with them.  Well, maybe I’ll touch on the “married in God’s eyes” issue in a later post… 

What if I didn’t Wait?

Now for the next hard question – what if one doesn’t wait until marriage, what then?

Some of you may be out there thinking, “Hey, I didn’t wait, and it isn’t so bad…” and others may be dealing with the issues that I raised in my advice to Shotfire.  They may seem to be mutually exclusive outcomes, but really they aren’t.

Some people won’t be affected by this as much as others – but that is a crap shoot at best.  You may not be, but what about your future spouse?  If you are married and haven’t found this to be an issue, praise God for his grace in both of your lives!  He can heal all wounds, and this is no exception.

BUT, He won’t necessarily shelter us from the consequences of our choices.  To those of you who are struggling with these pains, I would say this – have faith in God’s goodness.  He is in the business of taking the worst things that can happen and working them for the good – and this is far from “the worst” thing that can happen.  Trust in His love for you, accept His Peace that truly does transcend all understanding, and then ask for grace, healing and His will to be done in your life.

Why ask for His will, rather than just straight healing?  That’s a whole other topic for another time, but for now I’ll say that while submitting to His Will doesn’t guarantee a bump-free ride, I can promise you that the final destination will be much better than had you decided to drive yourself.  He may yet be using these struggles to prepare you for His divine purpose – maybe to strengthen you for other inevitable struggles, or simply to build in you character and wisdom that will one day play a pivotal role in someone else’s life.

At the end of the day, His choices are much better than ours – as is evidenced by the fact that He warned us to not do this in the first place – so, let’s acknowledge that in our prayers.  Even Jesus prayed this way – “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

Anyway, I hope that this helps someone.  I know a lot of it is counter-culture, even for many Christians.