The Weight

I think the reason I don't write more often is because I never know where / how to start.

I have so many thoughts and ideas rampaging around in my mind that I end up feeling like it is too big of a task to try to narrow any of these thoughts down to a simple blog...
But I genuinely feel like I am supposed to write so I'm just going to go for it.

I've been thinking about Jesus a lot lately. Not all the miracles and stuff that He has become famous for, but about what it must have been like as He was walking the cross through the city on the way to die.
What was He thinking about?
What emotions was He feeling?
Did He feel like He had actually missed God's voice and was now going to die in shame and misery for no purpose?

He had spent 30 years preparing for His roughly 3 years of ministry, and at the end of it all - He was going to die.
Did He know everyone would abandon Him as He trudged through the city streets, bleeding and broken, carrying the instrument of His own death?
Did He know He would defeat death and initiate the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth via His resurrection?

A quick Google search says that the total weight of the cross was about 300lbs (135kgs) - but what Jesus would have been carrying was only the crossbeam (He may have already had His hands nailed to it) and it would have weighed about 100lbs (45kgs).

All of this had me thinking about how much heavier this whole situation was than we tend to give it credit for. We so flippantly throw out verses like "...take up your cross daily and follow Me..." (Matthew 16:24; Luke 9:23) that I think they may have lost the full weight of what they imply.

The emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical strain on Jesus on this day is more than I can even begin to comprehend.
Here He is, facing:
1) Abandonment by His closest family, friends, and followers
2) Agonizing pain
3) Shame most will never come close to experiencing
4) Possible doubt as to whether God is actually involved in the whole thing

But you know what?

HE KEPT WALKING.

That's what has struck me the most from this story. In the movie, 'The Passion of the Christ' the one scene that has stuck with me for all these years is when Jesus sees His mother and she is crying as He, brutalized and barely recognizable, reaches out to comfort Him and He responds to her by saying, "I must be about my Father's business."

HE KEPT WALKING.

I believe that, as difficult as every bit of this was for Him, He had had a glimpse of the Kingdom and KNEW that what He was doing was part of a bigger plan and no matter what, He had to keep walking.
No matter the weight.
No matter the pain.
No matter the shame.

HE KEPT WALKING.

I get emotional just thinking about His resolve and determination, His commitment to God's Kingdom, His courage and strength in the darkest of days.

How often do we get sidetracked when things fall apart or don't go according to plan? Life sucks sometimes and doesn't always feel like its worth living. It would be easier to just sit down and bleed out - but we have to remember that we aren't at the end of the story yet. There is ALWAYS hope. You may not see it, you may not feel it, but you may actually represent it for others, and that alone should keep you putting one foot in front of the other - no matter how slow or shaky each step is. The important thing is to keep walking.

We have been entrusted with a great commission which carries vast implications and a great weight. Sometimes it's easy to have our eyes only on ourselves, but the weight we carry is not for us.
It's for the world around us and it desperately needs for us to just keep walking.

Are You Afraid Yet? You Should Be...

"Jesus is my best friend."
"I"m so in love with Jesus."
"I'm dating Jesus for a year."

Blah blah blah.

I know I'm not the only person who has ever heard one (or all) of these ridiculous Christian-isms.

I have always had a deep-seated hatred for clichés, especially those of the Christian persuasion (not because I'm anti-Christian, but because I think we should be better than that and our belief system deserves more than lame catchphrases).

I'm not totally sure where this aversion came from, or why it bothers me so much, but I'm sure it is closely related to having been actively involved in church and Christian circles for my entire life. I've been around long enough to have seen how useless so many of our weak and shallow doctrines are. Consequently, I have been on a quest for the last few years to find some real answers to the questions and issues that, I believe, really matter.

[Quick disclaimer: This is an ongoing journey that I never expect to complete and nothing that I write is meant to say I have found all the answers.]

As I mentioned before, I have been in church my entire life (more than 28 years at this point). I was in a Christian school from kindergarten until 8th grade, was homeschooled for all of high school with a Christian curriculum, have completed 2 Bible schools (first one was 2 years, and the second one was 3 years) and have been involved in serving local churches on nearly every level imaginable. (Side note: this is not a bragging point - I only say it to provide evidence that I'm not new to the church / Christian scene)

And the thing I'm realizing after all of these experiences is: We are way too comfortable with God.

The overwhelming influence of Western society / culture has imbedded a sense of individualism within each of us. Whether we wanted it to happen or not, this individualism has invaded our Christianity. Many of our sermons revolve around themes such as:
- 'Your personal relationship with Jesus Christ'
- 'If you were the only person who ever accepted Him, Jesus still would have died just for you'
- 'God's grace is there to save you from your sins'
- The list goes on, ad nauseam

The common thread with all of it is the word Y O U.  Now, I'm not saying each person is not valuable and loved unconditionally by God (because they are). What I am saying is, that's not the point.

The point, in my humble opinion, is that God has stooped down to rescue our fallen and desolate creation from the gigantic mess that we created and is allowing us to take part in seeing it restored to its originally intended glory.

But somehow, we constantly go back to our casual clichés and think we just need to love Jesus more and everything will be ok. Obviously, we are commanded to love God with all of our heart - so loving Jesus is a component to our beliefs. But it isn't all there is to it.

I fully believe that being utterly terrified of God is just as necessary to our belief system as loving Him is. I'm not saying to be afraid that He is going to give you AIDS if you forget to read your Bible more than 3 days in a row; rather we should be absolutely awestruck and amazed that GOD, the CREATOR of the universe, knows and loves us.

These thoughts have been floating around my mind for a few months, but it all came together when I was reading Job the other night. Job 4:6 says, "Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?"

"Is not your fear of God your confidence...?"

That's it. Our confidence needs to be founded in our fear of God. We should fear Him because we know Him. And because we know and fear Him, we are able to be fully confident in His ability to handle any and every situation we ever encounter.

This is such a weak example, but I keep thinking about grizzly bears. From a distance you can talk about how cute and cuddly they appear. They have a beautiful coat of fur, play in the stream with their cubs, roll around in the grass. But as you get closer, you start to see details and aspects of their nature that  couldn't be observed from a distance. Fierce claws, sharp teeth, viciously protective and territorial. It's the same animal, so why is what you see from a distance so different from you see up close? (Let's be honest, if you're foolish enough to get up close and personal with a grizzly, the only detail you'll be able to describe is what it feels like to have a grizzly breathe down your neck as you run for your life)

I believe it has a lot to do with how well you actually know what you are observing. I don't have to be right next to a grizzly to know how dangerous it is and what it is capable of because I have read about them and know what to be careful of.

In the same vein, the closer I get to God and the more I read about Him and study Him, the more I realize how incredibly insignificant I am and how privileged I am to be adopted into His family and included in what He is doing with the creation. It doesn't make we want to 'date Jesus'. It makes me want to fall on my face and sob. I am completely unworthy and God has no need for me to do anything. But He still wants me to. How can I, with a clear conscience, think it has anything at all to do with me?

I'll finish this off with a quote from a book I am reading by C. S. Lewis called 'Miracles'. In chapter 11, entitled 'Christianity and Religion' he says, "The ultimate spiritual reality is not vaguer, more inert, more transparent than the images, but more positive, more dynamic, more opaque... If we must have a mental picture to symbolise Spirit, we should represent it as something heavier than matter."

I pray that I always remember that it is only by God's unchangeable nature of love and grace that He has included me in His plan to restore creation. He is the source and ultimate reality, not me.

And if that ever stops creating fear and reverence inside of me, I deserve nothing less than to be chased down by a grizzly and made to run for my life.

We are Far too Easily Pleased

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C. S. Lewis

How could CS say that God finds our desires too weak? Seems to me that most peoples' desires are pretty strong. We see it everyday - people doping whatever it takes to fulfill their own agendas and goals. But I think that's the point he's making. Our desires actually are pretty strong... And I reckon that's the problem. They are just strong enough to have us satisfied with the wrong things, but not strong enough to make us push toward the right things. 

We love going to church, we speak fluent Christianese, we love our Christian community and fellowship. And we are content with those things. 

Do you remember being young and having your parents force you to eat food that looked gross, smelled funny, and you just knew would taste terrible? You didn't even have to try it, you just knew. Your parents would always insist that it was good for you and you needed to eat it or else you wouldn't be healthy, your teeth would rot out, you couldn't have dessert, or some other unimaginably cruel and unbearable punishment would be forced upon you. So, you'd try to eat it. And then you'd gag. If you were experienced, you could maybe work up some tears about how much you hated it and couldn't eat anymore. (I was sneaky enough to get a mouthful of the stuff I didn't want to eat and then ask to go to the bathroom and spit it in the toilet... Sorry, mom. I love your cooking now. I was just being picky back then.) You had it in your head before you even tried the food that it would taste bad, so when you finally did take that teensy-weensy bite, you almost threw up because your expectations were determining your experience..

If it would've been left up to us, we would've eaten cookies, ice cream, and candy all day every day... And one day we would've grown up and been enormously obese, unhealthy, and in danger of dying much earlier than we were meant to. 

I use this as an example because I think it does a solid job of describing the state of Christianity these days. We want what we want. Don't inconvenience us with what we need. 

Feed me on Sunday morning. Tell me how God wants me to be a bajillionaire if I just keep giving Him more money. Talk to me more about how I can do whatever I want and God will always forgive me. I want to hear more about all the bad people outside of the faith and how God will punish them one day.

We are being given exactly what we want and it is killing us.

Fast forward 15 or 20 years from your childhood. You and your taste buds have grown up and you're realizing how much amazing food you missed out on as a kid because you were too scared to try something new. And you're probably pretty thankful your parents didn't give you everything you wanted. They were older and wiser and knew what you needed was more important than what you wanted. For example, I always operated under the belief that broccoli had no legitimate reason to be purposefully ingested ... Alas, all these years later, I have seen (tasted?) the light and absolutely love it. 

Now imagine your favorite meal in your favorite setting with your favorite person. For me, I would have Hibachi style Japanese food (sushi; fried rice with scrambled eggs; grilled broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and zucchini; fillet Mignon cooked medium, and scallops seared in butter and soy sauce... Oh, man.), on the back porch of a log cabin in the middle of the mountains with a female companion yet to be named. I cannot imagine a better meal for the life of me. But that kind of meal takes time and effort to prepare. There are many, many ingredients and components and it can't be thrown together in 20 minutes. And that's part of what makes it so enjoyable. There is preparation and planning and precision involved to make it the best.

But, if you would have presented that option to me 20 years ago, I would have declined and politely requested Chuck E. Cheese's instead (young fool that I was).

Where I'm going with all of this is: just because something is easy doesn't mean it is the best thing for us. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with cookies for breakfast - but cookies will never satisfy you. You'll eat them and feel happy because they tasted so good going down, but within the hour, you'll be hungry again because your body can't survive on junk food.
On the other hand, I have had that exact same Japanese food meal (minus the cabin and female companion) and I can barely move after I finish. If I have it for lunch, I won't need to eat for the rest of the day because my body will be so nourished.

But our desire for cookies is just strong enough to keep us from realizing how much stronger our desire for real food would be if we just tried it (with no negative expectations).

It is high time we told our taste buds to grow up and start looking for more out of our Christianity than just cookies and ice cream. It's time we start searching for the things that will sustain us and challenge us. We need to be looking for those spiritual things that will sit inside of us for days on end because we can't quite wrap our head around them. We need to be challenged and confronted.

I don't want to be satiated anymore.

I want a taste of that heavenly Japanese food that will make me forget all about these earthly cookies.