Darkness

There is darkness all around me
The ground at my feet I cannot see
All in arms reach must flee
While I walk stumbling through trees

There is darkness all around
But surely love must abound
Surely trumpets must sound
The sun must come up from the ground

The darkness is encompassing
I am searching for light that is passing
I step on toes, crushing, severing
But darkness is in all, ruling, enticing

I looked above but the stars had all gone
I looked in my heart, but it was all wrong
I felt the warmth of a fire and heard a song
I felt the fire and realized it was my eyes all along

Oppression

So many times when I see something that is different from what I am used to I think of it as superior or inferior. For whatever reason different cannot seem to simply be different. But as I am encountering more and more life and I am learning more and more about the world I am realizing how wrong I am in thinking that way. For example, different people worship God in different ways, none being better or worse... simply different. Or another thought: different people represent different aspects of God (if we still believe that we are all image bearers).

However, there are certain things that are in fact worse or better then others. This distinction, I am finding is very difficult to make. The only example that comes to mind is this: people who live a life attempting to become like Christ are better off then people who do not. The difficulty in making these distinctions can be observed by looking at the mysterious human heart.

The human heart cannot be defined, nor predicted. One cannot tell what is happening in someone else's heart (at least not all the time), nor can one tell what is happening in their own heart. We cannot explain why we fall in love. We cannot explain why a person would give up their entire life for something that does not even directly benefit them. Again, the only way I can make sense of the human heart is by eluding it all to God. We fall in love because God loves us and we desire to love others in the same way. We give up our own well being because God has given up His to bring peace and joy to us. I believe that human beings ultimately long for Joy, and I believe that Joy comes only from God.

With these thoughts in mind, let us proceed to the main topic of this entry: oppression. My first question is this: can a person or people truly be oppressed?

When the rich look upon the poor, what do they see? The rich likely see the poor as unfortunate or worse off then them. However, quite to the contrary, it may be the rich who are less fortunate. But with these ideas of Joy and difference in mind, one could say that neither is more or less fortunate. For the difference between rich and poor is difference. Neither is better or worse. So in order to see which is better or worse off, one must look at the situation through the eyes of Christ and not the eyes that they have developed over their years.

What then, of a man who lives under a democracy where the freedom of the individual is held high versus a man who lives under a monarchy where only the king matters? Is one better off then the other? Is one oppressed? What of a man who is ruled as a slave? Is he oppressed? Is joy in equal reach of all three of these men?

I believe it is Hinduism, where it is customary for a man to live the life he is born into. If a man is born poor, it is best for him to remain poor. If a man is born rich, it is best for him to remain rich. If a man is born a slave, it is best for him to remain a slave. The idea is that each man would live the best life he could in the life he was born into.

Is this Hindu belief a word to the wise or a word to the fool? Is it oppressive for a man to not have the option to move on to different things (I would say "bigger and better" things, but we have established that different is not better or worse)? Or is it wise for a man to live in the life that he is born into and live the best possible life he can? Should kings be kings and peasants be peasants?

I believe that one should not reach out of his immediate surroundings for joy.

God is everywhere, so a man does not need to embark on a journey to find joy. In fact, I think it would be wiser for a man to find joy where he is rather then journey for it. I say this because if you find joy where you are, you can bring it with you. But if you go out looking for joy, it is possible that your life will be the search. Life is indeed a journey, and one should not expect that happiness and joy should be the same thing.

In your life right now, what are you viewing as worse? What are you viewing as better?

"If I only had ____" or "if only I were _____"

What can you be open minded about? What can you allow to be different rather then better or worse?

Grace and Peace,

Ben

Questions?

I often question things. Sometimes I voice these questions, but more often then not I keep them to myself. The thought will arise and I will tell myself how absurd the question is and I will decide that it's not worth my time. But I have a bit of time on my hands and I am not yet tired of the night, so while I have consciousness I shall entertain these thoughts.

How can I be sure that a time or place that I have not perceived exists?

You see, I have never been to Africa. So how do I know this place exists? Everyone who has been to Africa, or anyone who does not have these thoughts arise, will think that I am strange, absurd or perhaps offensive for even asking this question. But the point remains that the only reason I believe in this place called Africa is because people have told me that this place exists. I have seen many souvenirs brought back from Africa, but those could all be fake. I have seen pictures of Africa, but I have also seen pictures of distant planets through the venue of movies and science fiction. So why should I be compelled to believe that Africa exists?

And you could also look at this from a chronological perspective rather then physical setting. Why is it that I believe that two people met before my very existence and conceived me? Really? It seems bread from a novel that I could be brought into existence or created. It seems ridiculous the very notion of a world that existed before I was present to perceive it, for what is there other then what I can perceive? What about the idea of my consciousness leaving my body? People standing around a sac of meat crying or rejoicing that there is no longer a soul or spirit, or whatever you may call it, inside the body. What an inconceivable idea! For what exists outside of my senses? What could possibly be that I cannot perceive? And if I cannot perceive after leaving my body, then what could possibly exist?

So then, if I believe all of this, I could say that nothing exists outside of my perception. And if nothing exists outside of my perception, then the only thing that truly exists at all times is me. I currently believe that there are people on the floor above me and people on the floor below me, but I have no current perception of them so they must not exist.

This thesis, or theory or question or whatever one feels like calling it, has been defeated by philosophers for years now. Most philosophers believe that the senses are what misleads us. But that still leaves the original question of wondering how I know that something exists. I would propose that to believe in anything in this world, to even believe in your own existence, you must be open to the idea that things exist that we do not, have not, or may never perceive.

Things exist that we do not, have not, or may never perceive.

Sometimes I honestly struggle with the idea that Africa exists. I have never been on the other side of any ocean, how can I believe that there is another side to the ocean? Sometimes the world seems to have been born at the same time as me. The idea of the world existing before me seems absurd. Nobody could ever actually prove to me that the world existed before I did.

Imagine this: there are some six billion people living some six billion individual lives somewhere on this planet. Six billion! Each one may have these thoughts. I know some thousand people, so some six billion people do not know me. To six billion people I do not exist. I know that I exist, they all know that they exist. I know that the place I am currently exists, they all know that the place they are currently exists. Many more people lived before me, many likely asking this same question. Where does the question end? How is the question answered?

Only one entity contains an answer. Referred to as Truth, Beauty, Love, Peace and many more names. This entity assures me that I exist, this entity can assure us all that we exist, that we matter. This entity turns me from the idea that the existence of things revolves around me to believe that the existence of things revolves around God. Without a God that brought everything into existence I cannot believe that anything exists.

I still do not know whether or not Africa exists, but I can be sure that a time before me exists and that a time after my time on earth will exist. I know that my perception of things does not define their existence but rather God's truth is what defines them as existent.

There is a center to existence, and it is God.

When Did Life Become So Complicated?

Food, water and shelter. That's it. That is all that is necessary to sustain the human race. Food, water and shelter.

Food comes to us by a plants growing or an animals slaughter. Plants continue to grow and there are plenty of animals to be had, so there is no problem there.

Water comes from the sky and from under the ground. There is plenty of it. We use an estimated average of 39,090 gallons (177,859.5 liters) of water to make car. It takes 1.85 gallons (8.4175 liters) of water to manufacture the plastic for one individual water bottle, many of which are used to bring less than a liter of water to a single person then are thrown away. American's consume an estimated 29.8 billion water bottles each year. Yes, 29,800,000,000 water bottles which to manufacture all of those uses 55.13 billion gallons of water, 55,130,000,000 gallons, that's 250,841,500,00 liters of water each year just to make the plastic for these bottles.

If we can use that much water on cars and plastic, that tells me there is more then enough water in the world.

Shelter is something that we find or create. We are capable of living in caves or under tents. Perhaps some peoples need better shelter because of the region they inhabit, but shelter certainly should not be a problem. Everyone can adapt to their region and build shelters that are suitable.

Now with this thinking brought to an extreme it is likely that issues such as disease and natural disaster would take more lives and shorten the average life span. But my point is that we have complicated everything so far and brought so much unnecessary cleanliness and status to our world that there are some who are forced to go without. We live in a world where suffering is ignored as long as it pays for our comfort. We live in a world where we shower every day so that rather then smelling like ourselves we smell like a product we created.

We originated as hunters and gatherers, in a time when the world was simple and God was trusted to provide. Now we have seized the illusion of power and think we no longer rely on any "god" but that we are our own god. We live in such comfort that controls us. The men and women in our culture have become obsessed with themselves and their self image.

God created us so that all we needed to survive was food, water and shelter, and we created the lie that we need whatever the media tells us.

When did life become so complicated?

-Ben

unattractive

Unattractive is not a very attractive word. It looks and sounds absolutely not appealing.

Just a thought: I am going to list some unattractive traits.

1. Sarcasm

2. Bitterness

3. Unforgiveness

4. Contempt

5. Cowardice

All of these end up working together to ruin us... like this: He was being sarcastic towards her for he bitterly held her in contempt because of his cowardly unforgiveness.

Now that is not always the case, and there are many other traits I could list, but the point is that the story never ends with, "he was being sarcastic towards her." Nor could the story be fully told by saying "he held her in contempt." You see, unattractive traits seem to magnetize to each other and build on each other over and over until the one possessing the traits actually acquires the trait that is unattractiveness.

So when you notice that you have not forgiven someone for something, don't just shrug it off or just stare at it and hope for it to change. You have to do something about it. You have to analyze it and see how it has poisoned you.

Maybe you think to yourself, I struggle with lust. But with that statement, you could likely dig deeper and tell a much longer story revealing much more. Maybe like this: I struggle with lust, which is just my poor self image manifesting itself, and my self image is poor because I have been quite glutinous lately.

But then there is another step to most stories.

Blame.

The story then becomes: He was being sarcastic towards her for he bitterly held her in contempt because of his cowardly unforgiveness, because she hurt him.

Blame is unattractive.

Or maybe: I struggle with lust, which is just my poor self image manifesting itself, and my self image is poor because I have been quite glutinous lately, because my parents abandoned me.

The story moves from what seems simple sarcasm to a plethora of unattractive traits along with the blame that you use to justify it. But let me tell you something that I have realized, your unattractive traits cannot be blamed on anyone. You do not struggle with unforgiveness because people wrong you. People do wrong you, and they affect you negatively with their own unattractive traits, but that is not the reason for your unattractive traits.

I struggled for some time with unforgiveness. And the sad thing is that I thought that my unforgiveness was caused by the wrong done to me. MY unforgiveness was caused by MY HEART.

MY lust was caused by MY HEART.

MY sarcasm was caused by MY HEART.

MY unattractive traits are caused by MY HEART.

Every single time.

God does not love based on good deeds, if he did then he would not be able to love any of us. God does not bless based on good deeds, if he did then he would not be able to bless any of us.

God loves and God blesses because it is part of his nature to love and to bless, it is part of his heart to love and to bless.

So when we hate we must be reminded why we hate. When we lust we must remember why we lust. Blaming someone for your unforgiveness will only make your unforgiveness worse. The only way to turn your unattractive traits into attractive traits is to turn your heart. God calls us to be like Christ, we must align our hearts with His so that we may love like He does and bless like He does.

Jesus is the way the truth and the light.

There is no other way.

Grace and Peace,

Ben

I Choose the Steps.

Life is a journey. A life can be mapped out in steps, perhaps a step is a day, an hour, an event... But there are two ways we can live this journey: we can take each step, or we can leap to the end point.

Now the "end result" seems to be a debatable topic in the world of modern thinking... what happens when we die? That is a question for another day, but everyone would agree, I think, that we die. The form in which we currently exist is altered or erased.

And like just about any other journey, the journey has some sort of end or destination. Life's end point seems to be death. But even if you shrink down the time line and only look at age 15-25, you have journeys and end points. Perhaps you graduate high school, college, maybe you get a job. Whatever you do, there is a journey to get you there. You take multitudes of classes to end up with a degree, you interview for numerous jobs before you get one. In life you take multitudes of steps.

You can look at the journey as a starting point and end point, or you can look at every step in between.

I choose the steps.

In this way of viewing life you get to have multitudes of end points: every step is another end point. And you begin to see this bigger picture, you begin to see that life is not about "getting there" or finding the end point. You begin to see that life is about every step. You wake up in the morning and think, I get to take this next step. You suddenly have optimism of the step you are on rather then only having a longing for the end point.

So as I take this step I will look around. As I take this step I will observe Beauty. As I take this step I will Love. I will not worry about the step tomorrow.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day (each step) has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6: 34

Grace and Peace,

Ben

For Every Burden

For every burden we carry, one more person will not have to carry that burden. So should the strong not carry the burden? I am given a burden, and somebody else is relieved. perhaps somebody who was being crushed.

Has not God removed a burden from you? Through what vessel?

You can be that vessel.

I can be that vessel.

God calls for that purpose.

We are given opportunities to carry the weight that was presumably crushing someone else.

So do not mourn for the burdens you carry, but rejoice for the opportunity to remove those burdens from others.

Lament

Maybe it is Ok for "it" to not be Ok.

Maybe it's fine for life to suck.

Maybe it's Ok to be honest about it.

Just read the first chapter of Lamentations. Here are a few exerpts

"The Lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst; he has summoned an army against me to crush my young men. In his winepress the Lord has trampled Virgin Daughter Judah."

"See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed."

"People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my distress they rejoice at what you have done."

Lamentations is a book of lament. Mourning. Pain. Groaning. Distress. But most of all that first chapter breathes honesty into my heart.

How often do we have our cities crushed? How often do our dreams crumble? How often do our loved ones die?

How often do we tell people how we really feel?

How we are suffering?

It IS ok to be suffering. It IS ok to be in distress. What your heart feels should not be hidden or suppressed. We trap our emotions and feelings, and we are tormented by them from within. We long so desperately for somebody to care, somebody to come to our aide. Then somebody asks us, as they so often do, "how are you?" We smile and lie. Even in a situation when we know that that person truly cares, would really listen to all of your pain and sit with you like Job's friends sat with him. We smile and lie, because we believe that it is not Ok for it to not be Ok.

I am suffering. I am processing pain. I am being tormented. There are numerous things in my life that are not ok.

But that's ok.

Now I offer this thought, and do not be so naive to disagree with me. Nobody reading this is truly 100% OK. I believe that we are all suffering. I believe that we all are crying on the inside. I believe that if that mask were to be removed we would find pain. We would find unresolved conflict. We would find anger towards God.

So please, retreat to that safe environment and take off that mask. Remove that person that the world thinks you should be and cry show them who you really are. Take off your mask for God. Do not sugar coat your prayers. If you have doubt then tell God and those dear to you about your doubt.

It is Ok to not be Ok. It is fine for life to suck. And it's Ok to be honest.

In Christ,

Ben

When Was the Last Time You Worshiped?

When was the last time you worshiped?

And don't think that just because you sang the song or went through the motions meant you worshiped.

When was the last time your heart was in a place of real worship?

What keeps us from worshiping? Why is it that for months worship will be great, but then one day, it just...

falls

apart?

Because worship is not about a song! Worship is not about a day. Worship is not about a service, or a praise band. It is not about your voice or your dance skills (yes, we can worship through dance).

Worship is a way one lives their life.

We often express this when we come together and sing songs. Many people see that specifically as worship time, but even that time is about so much more. Worship comes from the heart. I've heard it put that worship is the reflection of ones week.

I have no conclusive "how to" on worship. If you read this, just take some time to think about it.

Answer this question, then look deeper into the why...

When was the last time you worshiped?

In Christ,

Ben

Today is Now

Lately I have been all about living today. Well, I have written about it... it is hard sometimes to actually live today. And now that it is 3:30 AM and I cannot sleep for the life of me, I will write something about it.

I do not think I would be naive to say that all that happens is now.

All that happens is now.

Let us focus on now. Yesterday never happens. I guarantee that you will never experience yesterday. That is just an absurd idea. The Beatles claimed that yesterday was so simple, and now they long for yesterday. Well that is a silly aspiration if you think about it. For one, yesterday will never happen, and for another, today is just as simple as yesterday. No matter your situation, the human state is always such that something greater or more important always seems to be going on.

C.S. Lewis speaks of this when talking about war. Just because we label something a "war" does not mean that it is any more drastic or any greater then before it was labeled war. And once the war is won or once the war is lost, the situation will be just as drastic and just as important.

But most of all, do not long for a simpler time because now, here, is the simplest time you will ever experience. No matter what is happening around you, now is happening, here is happening, and there is nothing complex about that.

Then there are the dreamers who look to tomorrow. But tomorrow, I would say, is an un instantiated idea. Show me tomorrow. Tomorrow is an idea, but it never happens and never will happen. Do not dream for tomorrow, or say tomorrow I will do this, because tomorrow will always be one day, one hour, one second out of your grasp.

Today is all we have, today is all that there is. Chasing your past will tie you up in the thoughts that today is somehow more difficult or somehow more complicated then the past. Relying on tomorrow will leave you with a massive to do list that will never get done because tomorrow will never instantiate itself.

What will you be today? Choose to be love today and you will be love always. Choose to be love tomorrow and you will never be love. Choose to be peace once the "current situation" is over and peace will never come. Choose to forgive once he comes and asks for it and you will never forgive (even if he asks for it... trust me).

Be ______ Today, it is your only chance.

YOU

It seems to me that everyone gets caught up in changing. Everyone wants to grow and become something else, or someone else. This, it seems to me, is destructive thinking.

I was at the zoo today when I realized something. Animals have a perfectly humble pride in what they are, and where they are. They rule over the ground that they are on. They all hold their heads high. None of the birds wish they were reptiles, or reptiles wish they were zebras. The Eagles could no longer fly, so they sat on their perch, chest puffed and head high. Always proud to be what they are.

Everyone is weak. Everyone is hurting. But Everyone is strong.

We all envy each other, until it become a massive circle of jealousy and nobody ever takes pride in their own existence. Imagine if you were to discover the function of your body, or the incredible flow of thoughts from your mind? You are powerful. You are strong.

So stop looking at your neighbor and wishing you were him. Accept who you are, and be YOU to the best of your ability. Then, once you are in fact being YOU, lift your head. Puff out your chest. Show everyone in the world that you are YOU and nobody else. Show everyone in the world that you are powerful and strong.

Be YOU.

Grace and Peace,

Ben

Drinking and Wrestling

So there are ideas in the bible that are constantly wrestled with. I do not always enjoy wrestling, sometimes I am tired and just want to sit in the sun and have the truth come down from heaven upon me like ice cold lemonade... I'm not going to say that is impossible, but let's just say that we have to wrestle.

That said, I don't think I will ever be done wrestling with anything. It is constantly changing and applying itself in new ways in my life, and the wrestling match will only be done when I die or Christ returns.

Here are a few of my wrestling matches:

1. Whether or not homosexuality is sinful, what then?
2. Jesus loves the porn star... Just as much as me?
3. I cannot trust my heart?

1. Personally, I think that homosexuality is sinful. But what does that mean? Does it even matter? Even if that is true, that does not effect how I treat the person. All that means is that for me, personally, I would consider myself sinning if I were to have a homosexual relationship. But can I possibly look upon a man and say "you are sinning?" Truth be told, I have a plank in my eye. Perhaps I let God judge, and I attempt to love all.

2. Jesus loves the porn star. Jesus loves everyone. Jesus came to die for everyone. But Jesus must love me more right?... haha. no. not at all. How many sins do I have that I do not repent, that I do not attempt to fix? I slap Jesus in the face on a daily basis. I put the nails through his hands time and time again. I see his pain, I know what causes is, and I pick up the hammer and pound the nail.

3. I absolutely cannot trust my heart. Another thing to add to this one, begin "nice" is not enough. I have good intentions with most everything I do, I think most people do. I try to be nice to everyone around me, and that stems from these good intentions. But these intentions and this attempt at "niceness" do nothing. I have no way of overcoming this on my own. The only possible thing that could happen is that God could have mercy upon me and guide me towards his heart. Let my heart be Yours Lord, so that there is no difference. I will not trust my own heart, but rather I will trust God's heart.

But how can I tell the difference?

As you can see, with each of these there is wrestling happening, and wrestling that has happened. I have been frustrated and angry, I have been exhausted and defeated. Every answer I think I stumble upon brings forth more questions.

But as I wrestle, I must remember this. I must come back to the water. I must drink deep of it, or I will be overtaken. If I do not drink the water, the simplest and only fulfilling water, I will be overtaken.

Drink deep of the well that is Jesus.

Grace and Peace to all,

Ben

כל הדברים

כל הדברים
Means all, or all things.

"Even through our broken sobs and cries of pain we can sing alleluia because we know that He is coming. He is enduring our pains with us, he is coming.

כל הדברים will be redeemed. All things will be redeemed.

All things.

I learned something today, not from the teaching, not from anything anyone said or did, I just learned by experiencing it. This is what I learned: The past is done. The present is happening. The future WILL happen.

You might say to yourself... duh. But each phrase is packed with meaning.

The past is done:

You cannot do anything about the past, it is done, it is finished but most of all it has no power. The past CANNOT control the future, the past CANNOT control the present. The present is the present and the future is the future, the past has no place in this. History describes something but does not decide anything. Oh, and did I mention that everything in the past is forgiven if we just humble ourselves and ask?

The present is happening:

And there is nothing we can do about it. The present is happening no matter what way you look at it. We cannot decide where we are in the present, we cannot decide who is around us in the present it simply is, we have no say over what the present is. But we do have a say about what we do in the present. The present for me (for now) is sitting in this corner at this table listening to music typing on this computer. I cannot change that, the present is the present at the moment I had that thought I could not have been in Berlin or Haiti, but I could only have been where I was. The present is happening, all I can choose is what I do in the present that is happening.

The future WILL happen:

And it will happen as God has made it to happen. This is a hard one. This is painful. There is only one future, and it is known already by God. There are no alternatives, only one future. So in Matthew when Jesus says do not worry about tomorrow, what you will eat or wear... do not worry about it because it is going to happen exactly as it WILL happen. There is a lot of darkness in this idea. To people who are oppressed, they were once in a point where they were going to be oppressed and it was going to happen and did happen no matter what. But there is the ultimate light in the future, כל הדברים . All things will be redeemed.

So I had a recent example of which I will not elaborate where I could not give something up to God. I wanted to be in the past so I could have this, in my present I longed for this thing, and I would not let God be God and have his future (which of course he is going to have anyway). I longed for this thing, I told God that I want it and that he should give it to me. In the present that I was in I dwelt on the past which was pointless because the past is gone, and I longed for a future, which is stupid because the future WILL happen as it WILL happen.

So what do I do with this now?

I live in the present doing what I can in the present that IS happening, letting God have my past that DID happen, and embracing the idea of the future that WILL happen. Only then is there peace.

God tells me not to worry about my past because it is gone and he loves me the same. He tells me not to worry about the future because it will happen as it will happen. He tells me in my present to seek first the kingdom.

This is peace:

כל הדברים will be redeemed.

In Christ,

Ben

The Most Excellent Way.

1 Corinthians 13,

"If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record or wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
"and now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."


I thought about just putting just an excerpt of this chapter, then I read through the chapter to look for which excerpt to use. I could not find an excerpt... the whole chapter was necessary. Anyway, allow me to dive in.

The bottom line in this chapter, and as it suggests the bottom line in life, is love.

LOVE WINS.

You can do the most incredible things, but if they are done without love they are valueless. I think we all know this deep down, everyone thirsts for love. Everyone looks for it in different places, calls it by different names, but ultimately what we all want is love. But with so many people searching for it and so few finding it, how can we expect to be so special as to find it.

Well let me tell you, I found it (or it found me... we will not get into that). I found love. The bible says that God is love. There you go, God.

Perhaps in this passage every usage of love could be replaced with God, for you cannot have love without God and you certainly cannot have God without love.

But on a personal level, how can you know if you are loving or not? Now let us dive into the text.

Starting in verse four, love is described:

If you are not being patient, you are not loving; if you are not being kind, you are not loving; if you are envious, you are not loving; if you find yourself boasting, you are not loving; if you have PRIDE, you are not loving...

Who are you too proud to forgive? or to ask for forgiveness? What is God calling you to do that you are too proud to do? Where are you too proud to go? What are you too proud to ask for help with?

Love is not proud.

All the great things we do will fade away. Every last one of them... except love. When you love, you involve yourself with something that is eternal. Something that always has been and always will be.

God, help me to love.

In Christ,

Ben

Where is your Heart?

"If there is anyone in the world you have issues with, or anyone you know has issues with you, then you can count on there never being World Peace. If there are two people in your family that hold grudges against each other or they for some reason do not speak to each other, then count on there never being peace for all the world to enjoy. This may be what the Prophecies mean when they say heal yourself and you will heal the world. This is a fine example of the Oneness we as a Human Kind make up. You are One of a Kind."

Jason Mraz said this on his blog: www.freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com

In order to come up with this he has simply lived his life following his heart. He is not a Christian, I assume that he does not live in accordance to scriptures, but he seems to have it figured out better then half of us Christians. We have a God who tells us this stuff daily, we have friends and families to hold us accountable, but we still do not do it.

Why do we find it so impossible to forgive? Why do we find it so impossible to humble ourselves? Why do we find it so impossible to forget about who is right or wrong and simply love?

Where do you find your heart as you read this? Are you loving or are you showing contempt? Are you resolving quarrels or are you starting more?

Then ask yourself one more question: why do you suppose we are to love?

Is it just because God commanded it?

No!

You cannot truly love if you are just following a set of orders, that is impersonal and far from what love really is.

Observe God, observe love (I'm not sure how you could do one without the other) and reflect on your heart.

Grace and Peace,

Ben

The Resurrection

I wonder what hurt Jesus more? Our nails or our sins?

I have had intense physical pain, though nothing even close to death on a cross. But I can surely tell you that my emotional pains have been much more painful, though again not nearly the pain of Jesus taking all of our sins upon himself. So I conclude that our sins hurt Jesus more then our nails.

So rather then saying that our sins held Jesus to the cross, perhaps our sins bombarded Jesus on the cross. It is like adding hurt to injury every time we sin it is another sin that we put on Jesus. Incredible that he endured so much from just me, but imagine all of the sins of everybody everywhere for all time... wow.

But in the Bible there is this talk of his glorious comeback. So to fully understand this I analyze the comeback.

What make a great comeback is obvious: coming back from a long ways off. If MSU is down by 5 points and they "come back" and win the game by 10 points, it is not terribly exciting or impressive seeming. But if MSU is down by 75 points with 10 minutes to do go, and they win by 10 points... well there would be nothing to match the excitement of a MSU fan on that day.

Let us look specifically at Jesus comeback though. Jesus became the lowest of lows. He went from sitting on the throne to being born of a virgin in a dirty manger. And if that was not enough he got lower. He hangs out with the diseased, and the outcast. He goes and has dinner with the tax collectors. And finally he makes his exit from this physical world in an even lower place: as a convicted criminal being put to death on the cross (the crux).

Jesus intentionally put himself as the lowest imaginable human on the planet at the time, imagine the people who are on death row now and people's opinions of them.

But Jesus is totally making his comeback.

The first thing he did was coming back physically from the dead, are you impressed yet? Then he hung out for a bit and went back up into heaven, but he had just begun his come back. His next move is what we look forward to every month when we take communion. Jesus is going to come back, the same man who was the lowest of lows, is going to come back and he is going to rule over all of us.

Now we got this sweet invitation. Nobody wants to be cheering for or playing on the team that was up by 75 points against MSU only to lose by 10. Would it not be better to be down at first, to be lowly at the beginning of "the game" and be ahead later... at the end of "the game?"

We get to do that, we get to not only cheer for Jesus as he makes his comeback, but he invites us to join him in his comeback. How awesome is that? Jesus could do this without us, but he chooses to invite us onto his team. For the sake of the analogy, Jesus is incredible at basketball. Makes every shot he takes and blocks every shot he wants to, but we suck at basketball. We miss just about every shot we take, and we cannot block a shot worth spit, but he wants us on his team.

1 Peter 4:13 says: "But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."

When we suffer to be on Jesus team, we get to be overjoyed when he wins.

And he will win, I promise ;)

In anticipation,

Ben

Waist Deep

Most people have attempted some sort of flip or dive or jump into a pool from a diving board. If you haven't, I would suggest giving it a try... it is quite a treat. Anyway, years ago I had done front flips into pools, but never back flips. I tried back flips: I got on the board, walked to the edge, turned around, got my heels off the edge just a bit, then walked back onto solid ground. I was afraid to do a back flip for whatever reason. And because of this fear I was content with flipping forwards only.

Then, one day my friend Wes did a back flip and told me to do one. I did my same hesitant approach and same cowardly walking away: fear got the best of me again. But Wes did not give up quite yet. He did another back flip then told me, "just do it dude."

I still remember the pool: the shape, where the grade was, what rafts were in that pool, who was there. I took my approach with a new found confidence, and I got my heels off the board and again Wes said, "Just do it." I took a deep breath, and jumped backwards and flipped and landed with a splash into that cool water on the hot summer day. I did it.

And once I did it, I was free to do it time and time again, no fear, no hold backs. I did at least five back flips that day, and more that summer then I care to count. Then the pools all closed, and winter froze the earth. Once spring had brought enough warmth to allow it, the pools opened up again. And once again, I went to a friends pool to have some fun in the sun. I decided to do one of those awesome back flips that I learned how to do the previous year. Confident approach, heels off... cowardly I walked away.

For whatever reason, that fear had come back. I told myself time and time again that I had nothing to worry about, I pulled from my own personal experienced, but I could not do it. Later that summer I reached deep into my past experience and remembered my friends advice to "just do it" and I just did it. Once again, I had broken that barrier of fear and I had freed myself for another summer.

I am sure by now you can imagine the pattern that happened every summer, it baffles me to this day, but it seems to happen every summer.

This is me.

I do this with everything.

Girls, friends, classes, songs, every aspect of my life. I have this fear that I break time and time again, but it somehow comes back.

I have a fear of being submerged in God too.

I have lived all the way submerged in the ocean that is God, searching for some sort of bottom, knowing that I will not find it. When I am submerged I understand that I do not need the air on the outside, I can breath under this water. I know from my past experiences that there is nothing to be afraid of.

I am afraid.

Matthew 6:25-34 is a passage entitled "Do Not Worry" in my Bible. It ends in saying, "seek first the kingdom" and everything else will come. It goes against the general logical thinking that is used in this world. We think in a way that says, "care for yourself" but God says, "care for my kingdom and I will care for you... I do a much better job at it anyway."

I want to jump backwards and flip.

I am sick of walking away cowardly.

Someday You Are Going to Die

Tyler Durden: "First you must know, not fear, but know that someday you are going to die."
(Fight Club)

We all know that, we all know that we all must someday die. I, writing this, might never finish it. You may never finish reading this blog entry. If I finish writing this blog, then this time that I could spend writing this blog was a blessing. If you finish reading this blog, then I certainly hope that you count it as a blessing. Many people die when they are nineteen...

Now, knowing that we are going to die, what are we going to do before we die? How many more hours will I spend staring blankly at the television set that is playing a show that I don't even like? How many more times will I sin before I die? How many more people will I hurt?

Someday you are going to die, your time is limited. In that limited time that you have left, how will you spend it?

When a Grown Man Shook

He must have been mid to late fifties, standing in front of forty people: some his peers, some younger even then he. There were only two things between him and his temporary audience - if one were to negate the distance as an object: a microphone and a piece of paper. This normal activity for someone such as myself was very foreign to this man, perhaps something that his fifty plus years had passed up altogether.

The piano began.

Trembling, he sang the words "Joyful Joyful, we adore thee..."

Why is it that a man with over double my life experience would fret so much over singing for such a limited audience? Why is it that this man dreaded so much to share this part of him with these people?

When a grown man shook, something occurred to me. This man dreaded this because it exposed something in him. There was no way this man could hide what was coming out of him. He could distort his sound a little from the microphone, perhaps he could even hide his face from the audience with that paper, but what the audience heard was the actual sound, the actual truth of what he was producing.

There was no way to beat around the bush, there was no way for him to tell the audience anything but the truth.

Me, I know how to lie. Even with my voice I can lie. I have worked for the greater portion of my life at figuring out how to mask the imperfections that lie in my voice. We are both afraid of the same thing, the difference is how we approach it: one shaking, the other faking.

How will you approach your fears this week? This month? Will you shake all the way through, telling the truth, or will you look confidently into the eyes of your present audience, the people you love, and lie?

Déjà vu in the fourth dimension

First I would like to address the idea of knowledge in view of a philosopher. A philosopher would think of knowledge as a three point understanding of something:

1. That the idea is true

2. That the idea is justified

3. That the idea is believed

So knowledge could be said to be a true, justified belief.

That said, let us look for knowledge in deciphering déjà vu and precognition.

Déjà vu is a french phrase, déjà meaning already and vu meaning seen. So Déjà vu means already seen. When someone experiences this strange phenomenon, it is the feeling that they have already seen whatever is happening before. The strange feeling when you ask, "has that happened before?" Déjà vu is often attributed to a dream, though sometimes people are entirely convinced that the happening has actually already happened.

However, some people experience something during, or after, déjà vu when they can actually predict what is going to happen next. Someone knows that a cup will fall, then the cup falls. This, I would argue, is not a part of déjà vu, but rather an actual glimpse into the future, perhaps considered a precognition. "Precognition refers to perception that involves the acquisition of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information." (Wikipedia)

So I would say that Déjà vu, seen already, would be a feeling. More scientifically, it is when your long term memory and your brains perception of the present moment overlap, malfunction. This is where we play the guessing game following where ideas and facts point us to try to make a conclusion. But let me first make a rabbit trail:

The human race is a three dimensional race, we exist within time, where as a four dimensional race would exist outside of time (that is if we all still agree that time is the fourth dimension). Because our minds think of time as a progression that is in motion and cannot be altered, we will always see time as just that. We will always see time as the past having happened, the present happening, and the future going to happen. And, of course, that is how it has, does, and will happen - as we perceive it. But we are also trapped in existing only in the present, where as a four dimensional being would exist in the present, past and future presumably unchanged.

I am sure that my description of the dimensions in which we exist in is not entirely adequate for the argument that I intend to make, but if I do eventually elaborate my argument and research the topic further, I will also elaborate and research the dimension of time further.

So, if déjà vu is combining our minds perception of the past and the present, if they are overlapping or malfunctioning, perhaps we are launched for that small amount of time into being four dimensional creatures. Perhaps because of our perception of the present and the past being altered, our minds will activate a new part of the brain, a part unused, that allows us to glimpse into the future.

You may think that if this were possible then by now we would all know all about the future and past. But the fact remains that we are three dimensional creatures, that our minds function naturally in three dimensions. So in this time of our brains malfunctioning, I propose that our minds are ultimately looking at the present, and because we are living outside of time for the moment, our mind does not see this as a "new" occurrence. If we exist outside of time, then nothing is actually new; nothing actually happens that we don't already know about.

So perhaps I am correct so far, perhaps déjà vu feels so strange because we are actually being propelled into the fourth dimension. What then is happening when someone can predict the next occurrence to happen while in this moment of déjà vu? I propose this to be an insight to the future. We are launched into the fourth dimension, we are launched outside of time, there is no past or present, there simply is existence. When we are launched into this, we have the ability to look at the past or present or future as we so please, but we are three dimensional creatures so we do not actually direct our attention to anything but the present. We are so accustomed to looking at the present that we do not look towards the past or future, but when we are in the fourth dimension perhaps we occur a peripheral vision of time.

When you are staring intently at one thing, you cannot help but observe what is in your peripherals. When your mind, when existing outside of time, is looking at the present, perhaps our "peripheral vision of time" sees the slight events of the future.

So you are shot into a moment of your brain malfunctioning, so the current moment feels like it has happened before because it simply has happened, or is happened. A moment, observed from the exterior perspective of time, simply happens. It never has happened or is happening or will happen, but rather it simply happens or exists. So it would make sense that this moment happening would not appear to be new, because it isn't happening now, but rather it happens, that moment exists. And when you are shot into this strange phenomenon, you see - though limitedly because your mind naturally stares at the moment perceived to be the present - all the future moments that exist and all the past moments that exist. You see the cup falling, then when you are pulled back to the three dimensional world, the cup falls. You see the moment existing from four dimensions, and see it happen from three dimensions.


I apologize for the awful job that this post does in explaining what my thoughts are, but this was written in 30 minutes when it ought to take me 20 more pages and 2 more years to write. But this is the generic idea that we perceive as déjà vu.

Integrated Essay

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” This idea must be remembered whenever people approach pagans with the Gospel, but we must also be careful when approaching a brother with disputes and ideas in the Church. C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, offers this thought about the disputes within the Church, “the questions which divide Christians from one another often involve points of high Theology or even of ecclesiastical history.”(1) Since this paper addresses many doctrinal beliefs and theories that many are conflicted about, it is necessary to first address the dangers of a paper such as this one. Also, since pride may trip many while discussing topics such as these, this essay much be approached with humility and an open mind (and I sincerely hope that this essay was written entirely with just that).
C.S. Lewis wrote an article entitled “We Have No Right to Happiness;” the article dwells on just that matter, and the title sums up the main point of the article. One could go further to say, however, that we have no right to happiness because we do not know how to pursue happiness. Our finite minds will move toward finite things of this world, rather then moving toward the infinite joys of the infinite, and infinitely personal, God. Cornelius Plantinga Jr. addresses a similar concept in his book Engaging God’s World (3) and, in the first chapter of the book, on creation. Plantinga references Lewis in this chapter to make the point that the mortals of this earth desire not too much but too little. That God created man to experience Him, but we are content with pursuing money, sex, and fame (comparable by Lewis to mud in comparison to Heaven). Man has no right to happiness because man does not know what will make him happy.
Man does not know rightly what will make him happy, but a saved man does know what will bring him joy. Man does not necessarily have the right to joy, but man is called to joy: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) Joy could be defined, as Calvin College Professor Paulo F. Ribeiro would say, as Jesus and you with nothing in between, or perhaps more accurately defined as the promise of Jesus and you with nothing in between. The thought that we have no right to happiness may bring to thought the common idea in the Christian Reformed Church of total depravity. Plantinga addresses total depravity when talking about the fall, saying that man can do nothing without God. The concept of total depravity could be viewed in many different ways, but it does not stand alone. Without common grace, total depravity would not make the least bit of sense. The idea of common grace is that God gives his grace to everyone: the oxygen we breath, the food we eat, or even the things we enjoy are all gifts from God that he need not give us.
The issues that lie in the matters of common grace and total depravity are not by any means how we define them. In all seriousness, you do not need to have a concrete definition or belief around these two ideas to be saved; however, you do need the building blocks of them. That said, it would be arrogant to believe that one understands every intricate detail behind the ideas of common grace and total depravity. In 1 Corinthians 1:20, Paul goes on to say “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” In order to discuss topics such as these, we must hold strong to the foundation of our beliefs, but we also must discuss to search for truth, not to prove ourselves right. C.S. Lewis in his article entitled “Bulverism” says this, “Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.”(4) We must shape our idea of discussion around the facts that God makes foolish the wisdom of the wise, and that we must search for truth. We must approach these discussions with the humility to search for the truth, even if the truth might be contrary to what you believe.
All this said to approach, once again, the idea that we have no right to happiness, even if someone holds a contrasting view, bear with me as we search for the truth. Lewis, in this article, uses the example of a married man who divorces his wife for another woman. A colleague of Lewis told him, “after all, he has the right to be happy.” Lewis contradicts this by saying that if happiness is circumstantial (based on money, job, family...) then one would ultimately always long for happiness, or always long for “something more.” So a man may leave his wife in pursuit of happiness, but he will not be satisfied by that nor by the next thing. By the time he were to achieve all his goals in life, how many people would he have stepped on, how many people would he have denied the right to happiness? And even then, would he be happy?
My father divorced my mother when I was very young. He told her, “I’m just not happy.” So he left her, and my family, in pursuit of his happiness. He has been pursuing happiness now, with no regard to those around him, for over ten years, and I can attest to his misery. Lewis compares the “right to happiness” with being six feet tall. A man may think he has a right to be six feet tall, but he does not know how to attain it. A man may pursue every option possible to attempt to make himself six feet tall and not grow an inch. Happiness alludes people much like height alludes a short man.
The ideas expressed thus far regarding our right to happiness have been purely based on logic and offer a message to pagans and Christians alike, but Christians have a much higher calling of happiness that many call joy. Christians are called to be Christlike, to follow the example of the Messiah - indeed Christians have no rights. Christ, being entirely man and entirely God, chose to demean himself to the status of a man; he forfeited his godly rights and became flesh. Accordingly, Christians have no rights. Not only do Christians lack the right to happiness, but the right to daily bread, the right to the air we breath. Ultimately, in accordance with the idea of total depravity and common grace, not even the pagans have a right to anything, but Christians ought to know that they lack the right to anything.
With the thought that humans have no right to anything, one could think that God ultimately is not good, but that is far from true. Many pagans view God as a powerful dictator with his list of rules simply waiting for someone to mess up; this also is a folly view. Plantinga addresses this thought when addressing the ten commandments. The ten commandments are not a set of rules intended to limit man, but rather a set of instructions on how to achieve shalom. Imagine, as Plantinga suggests, what the world would be for a day if everyone followed the ten commandments. God has always provided for his people: during the plague in Europe there existed one community that was not affected. This community was a Jewish community, following Mosaic law: washing their hands before eating, and burying their waste. God gave his people these laws to protect them, not to limit them. God removed our “right” to happiness (and everything else) to protect us.
“God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.”(5) Lewis said this in his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” addressing the thought of whether God created goodness or if goodness was simply around already. The conclusion Lewis came to is that neither could be entirely true, but the truth must have a little of both. As Christians, we are not called to fully understand perfectly the idea of goodness and God, but we are called to acknowledge that God is good, that God is love; as Christians, we are not called to fully understand perfectly common grace, total depravity, or the fact that we have no right to happiness; we are not called to understand perfectly the reason why God created us; we are not called to understand perfectly God. But we are called to acknowledge that God exists; we are called to live for God. Because we are not intended to understand these concepts, we must not go out of our way to achieve understanding of them. Because we were not intended to know what makes us happy, we cannot pursue our own happiness.










Works used:

1: C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
2: C.S. Lewis, “We Have No Right to Happiness”
3: Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Engaging God’s World.
4: C.S. Lewis, “Bulverism” From God in the Dock
5. C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

Man or Rabbit?

This essay caught me a little off guard, as Lewis has a tendency of doing. The question Lewis addresses is "Can't you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?" This is a question I have thought to myself a few times before. I think, how can anyone lead a good life without Christ? How can anyone even attempt to have joy? Lewis knocks this question out of the park.

Lewis first comments that the person asking this question is not searching for the truth of the universe. The person asking this question is simply wondering whether or not a "good" life can be lead without Christianity, they really do not care to know whether or not Christianity is true. Christianity, if true, to them would be a burden that they would have to either carry, or run away from. But, ironically enough, by simply asking this question they are not being "good."

Let me explain. There are many different dimensions in which a person could be "good." Many different ways. As believers, we know that God is good, and that everything good is from God. Lewis put it very well in his essay, The Poison of Subjectivism by saying, "God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God." What I want to hit on with this thought is that ignoring, or not pursuing, the truth is in and of itself not good. So by asking this question, someone is asking if they can be "good" while forfeiting the truth, which I would respond to that (and I believe Lewis would as well) by saying: no.

Lewis goes a little deeper in this thought by addressing the concept of honest ignorance and dishonest ignorance. Asking about Christianity ultimately would mean that you know about Christianity, or at least that it exists. And if you know about it, and do not attempt to seek the truth, you cannot plead honest ignorance. People who truly have honest ignorance towards Christianity would not be able to ask this question because they would not know about Christianity. And, perhaps, (as Lewis suggests) these men could lead a good life, and perhaps, on the final day of judgment they could know God.

In Christ,

Ben

Plantinga Ch. 5

This chapter caused to raise my brow from time to time. There were concepts, not necessarily ones that he was stressing, or even points he was making. But there were concepts that came across in this chapter that I did not quite agree with. So here is my list of disagreements:

1. When Plantinga talks of a prime citizen of the Kingdom, he says that "A prime citizen has been redeemed far down in her spirit." This strikes an odd chord in me, but perhaps I have an incorrect idea of redemption. In my mind, there are two phases of redemption that we can acquire as long as we are left on this fallen earth. We can either be redeemed or not. We can either ask forgiveness for our sins (and save our souls) or we can neglect to ask forgiveness (and condemn our souls). With that in mind, does someone really get "redeemed far down in her spirit" while someone else only gets redeemed to a small extent?

2. Plantinga first talks about the Kingdom as everything around us, all of creation is God's Kingdom. But when when he talks of involvement in the Kingdom, it seems to me that he refers to it as something that is to come. I have been lead to believe that the Kingdom is something that we participate in now. That we further the Kingdom here and now, that he Holy Spirit works through us while we are still on earth.

3. Plantinga suggests that to become a prime citizen of the Kingdom, the first step is to get involved in the local church. I would very much agree. The only thing that struck me in this section was that he seemed to reinforce the idea of the church as a building. Or maybe just the concept of the church local church being the church, when the church really is all believers everywhere, the body and bride of Christ. I think that we have associated "the church" with "a section of the church." I think that we no longer have a distinction between these two concepts. And perhaps that is why the church does not operate as one body.

It likely seems like I am simply grasping for straws for disagreements sake, but I do not think I am. These topics are so incredibly important, and they must become gut reactions, they must become our stock reactions. I think that every time that "the church" is mentioned, it should be in a sense of the church body, a larger sense then it usually is used. That could help us immeasurably to instill in our brains a sense of unity in the body. Like anything, repetition is the way to convince the brain of something.

In Christ,

Ben

The Inner Ring

This article, at first glance, seemed almost trivial to me. Of course there are inner rings, it is incredibly necessary for anything to run properly. And, yes, people need to be excluded from these inner rings. This is one of many set backs to living in a fallen world, you must be able to protect yourself, your church, your government, or your military. If the world were not fallen... You could say that about anything. But we must acknowledge that the world is fallen, and we must make the appropriate adjustments.

I noticed quickly, however, that this article was not talking about the trivial aspect of the inner ring (even though if you take living for the Kingdom seriously, nothing is trivial). This article was speaking to the problems of the inner ring, and the one that seemed to be the root of every problem was motives. Motives of exclusion, and motives for being part of an inner ring.

Lewis says that if you desire to be in an inner ring, you are desiring something folly. To desire something that would put you in an inner ring is fine, but only if being in the inner ring is a consequence, not a goal. He also said that if you exclude for the sake of exclusion, that is also wrong.

The terrible side to this is that we all are parts of bad inner rings (or perhaps the inner ring itself is good, but we have bad motives behind the inner ring and exclusion). Often times we do not even notice this, but that is because nobody voices this problem, and as a result, we do not examine our inner rings. We have doctors examine our bodies to ensure our physical health, but we never examine our inner rings to ensure our spiritual health, which is far more important.

Jesus even had an inner circle, he had a very good inner circle. It was humility that earned this inner circle, in order to live with Jesus you lived homeless, you were persecuted, it was almost an inner circle that nobody wanted to be in (at times at least). How many were persecuted in the name of Jesus?

Another thing you can observe about Jesus' circle is that it was very open to sharing. Not particularly inviting people to join, but Jesus never turned people away who wanted to hear him, not even the children. His disciples wanted to be exclusive by sending away the children, but Jesus let them come. You can also observe, on the same topic, how Jesus had the necessary exclusivity in his circle.

Only by observing Jesus' circle, and striving in every way to be Christlike would we be able to attain an inner circle even close to being good. Jesus set the example, and let us now follow.

In Christ,

Ben

The Mission

The Mission is the movie I went to see for class. It was actually quite a stunning film, not by any means in cinematography or acting, but none the less, stunning. It was about an Indian tribe that was originally a very violent tribe. Killing the settling colonies, but ultimately only for their own survival. Then some priests came to the tribe and interacted, they learned their language and traditions, and became part of the tribe. They built a church, and won many for Christ. The bonds formed there were incredible. But then the settling colonies decided that the Indians must move, they must leave their land. The Indians would not hear it, and they fought back (only to be slaughtered).

But the most extraordinary part of this whole ordeal was the involvement of the priests. Most of the priests fought with the Indians, but there was one who could not. He said that he must be peaceful. He stayed in the village as it was being attacked, and led somewhat of a church service. He began with the choir singing, and then marched them straight at the assailants. No mercy was shown, not love offered. Many were slaughtered who were doing nothing more then praying.

First I ask the question, what priest made the right judgment? The ones who fought, or the one who did not? Next I ask you, if you were in the position of the priests, what do you think you would do?

I intend to attempt to answer the questions I lay out, but not easily, and most likely not entirely. I believe that the priest who stayed did the right thing. The more that I look into the sticky topic of war from a Christian view point, the more I am conflicted. I am conflicted on the question of whether war is like Christ or not. Early Christians faced death on a Roman cross, yet they did not rebel and attack the Romans. They faced constant persecution, something I cannot imagine, yet they remained peaceful. Yes, in the Old Testament there are many stories of God inspired war, but what about the New Testament?

The only answer that I can come up with is this (and this is an answer in my heart): to protect ones self, you cannot murder. To protect ones self, you cannot steal. To protect ones self, war seems to me to be not like Christ.

So in that I believe I answer the second question for myself as well, I would like to think that I would choose peace. That I could praise God until the moment I died.

In Christ,

Ben

Eros

I want to begin by saying that this article was a bit difficult for me to understand. But I got out of it a lot, simply did not entirely understand all of it.

I very much enjoy Lewis' sides on this thought of Eros, of love like a woman and man experience for each other. Lewis says something that I want to talk about in this chapter: "We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that lie "wants a woman." Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus." He used an example when he did the recording for this chapter too. He said that a man does not want a cigarette for the cigarette, he wants the affects of the cigarette. How often, when someone finished a pack of cigarettes do they keep the box? They discard it, and this happens to women very often.

I do not think that this statement is referring only to sexual "pleasure" but rather anything, emotional, physical or spiritual (I think that covers about everything). Many men use women (I use these examples from the man's perspective simply because I am a man and can understand it, woman do it too, but for the purpose of this posting I will focus on the man's flaw) for many different reasons, and the worst part is that a lot of them do not even know. There are great, awesome Christian men who are very selfish in relationships, and they are blind to their selfishness. That is why, often times, when a girl brings up problems in the relationship, the man will be defensive and think that she is making things up, or over reacting.

But how can we, the ignorant man, be sure that we do not fall into this? First: communicate openly about everything. This initiative must be taken by the man, and once taken it frees the man and the woman to bring things us that bother them. Second: discuss and set boundaries for the physical, spiritual, and emotional aspect of your relationship (this will also help with the first thought). By setting up boundaries, and constantly keeping them up for discussion, you can be sure that you are both on the same page of the relationship. A lot of times, one person will get further involved in the relationship then the other, this can cause problems.

Again, this posting is geared towards men, and the things I mention are initiatives that must be taken by the man of the relationship.

This topic is of extreme importance to me, because I believe that men are not living up to their role in relationships, or in families. So many times I comfort my friends when they just got out of a relationship only to be offering them advice for their next relationship that fails from the same problems. And the bottom line, as hard as it is to admit, is these things happen because we are not being men like God shows us to be men in our relationships.

Also, just a few thoughts I had on this topic: first, like Adriana said today during class, be friends before you date. This is so incredibly important. Second, I believe that far too many relationships move far too fast. People do not set boundaries (if they do, they are poorly set). How many relationships become all about physical aspects, rather then what matters?

Randy Alcorn has a list of different standards that he holds every boy to if that boy intends to date his daughters. He and his wife sit down his daughter and the boy, and go over this list. One of the points I think we all need to remember, "focus on talking, not touching." We have plenty of time to experience each others bodies after marriage. Another point he makes is that if either man or woman in a relationship get sexually stimulated by anything you do, you have gone too far. That is God's warning to us, he built our bodies like that. If you do things that get you sexually excited, what other purpose should it have then to have sex? Take a step back, protect your integrity, protect your relationship.

If we are truly to become Christlike, we are to give up everything that we have as our precepts of a relationship, and observe what the bible tells us about relationships. Only then will you be able to be the man of a relationship as God has called you to be.

In Christ,

Ben

Plantinga Ch. 4

One of the concepts that was talked about in this chapter is being one with Christ in death so that you can be resurrected. I would like to expand on the concept of being one with Christ (or being Christlike) and also the concept of taking up your cross and dying every day (ultimately part of being Christlike).

To be Christlike is to conform in every manner to the ways of the Lord, but this can be a very interesting topic in the depth of society. There are very clear cut scenarios where one option would be Christlike and the other would not, but there are many areas where the decision is harder to make. One scenario I have in mind is this: you are a vegetarian, and you have new neighbors. Your neighbors invite you over for dinner (they are not Christians), and it turns out that this neighbor works for a steak distributor of the highest caliber. You show up to dinner and he has slaved all day to prepare the nicest stake you would ever have seen in your entire life without spending hundreds of dollars on one dinner. What do you do? Do you eat the steak? Do you politely decline?

This would be a very difficult scenario indeed, but let me tell you why you should, in fact, attempt to eat this steak.

You should eat the steak because we are called to be all things for all people (as long as they are morally right). If you wish to witness to the poor, become poor. If you wish to witness to a runner, become a runner...

The main reason why your vegetarian diet does not matter in the least is the comparison to the salvation of another. We are not told to be vegetarians in order to secure our salvation, so going back on that is not nearly as important as someone else's salvation. Also, as our professor said in class, if we are truly taking up our cross daily and dying with Christ, we are already dead. How can we be concerned about what we are eating if we are dead?

As C.S. Lewis said, die before death, or else it's too late (paraphrasing).

In Christ,

Ben

Learning in Wartime

The question addressed in this essay is this: "What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? or even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we - indeed how can we - continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?"

Ultimately Lewis answers this question very easily in saying that even people in the war, even people in the trenches are thinking about something else. They are not entirely submerged in thoughts of battle and victory, but in thoughts of family, and religion. And he says that there will always be bad philosophy, so there needs to be good philosophy to counter it. If you are not going to be reading good books you will be reading bad books.

But above all else Lewis answers the questions with this one quote, "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it... Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself." Incredibly powerful, and no explanation or application is necessary to follow that quote. But what I do want to touch on is a quote that he says later in the essay, one that can be applied in everyone's life and should be the means and reason for everything we do.

"Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who take his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment 'as to the Lord'. It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received."

This quote is a concept that can touch on anything and everything we do. Point one, live "moment to moment." Do not worry about what you will wear or eat (see Matthew 7). If you cannot live in the present then you are not truly alive. Many people attempt to escape their past or live in the anticipation of the future, either way they are not in the present, therefore (for all practical purposes) dead.

On this same point I want to offer a bit of my own life experience. A week before move in day for Fall semester I was broken up with by my girlfriend. This blow was crushing to me, and I think I fell into a bit of depression. But, looking back, the reason it was so hard is because I lived the first half of the Fall semester in my past. I was hoping for my past to repeat itself, hoping to have it back, and I couldn't exist in the present. I hated who I was, impersonal, bad at communicating, lazy... It was a difficult time because I was not living in the present, I was living int he past.

Next point of Lewis' quote is "as to the Lord." Do everything as a blessing or worship to the Lord. A constant theme that has been brought up time and time again in this class is that everything you do either brings you closer to Heaven or Hell. In this case, everything you do either glorifies God or rebels against him. Give everything in your life to God: every class you attend, every job you work, every song you sing, every nap you take, every night you sleep, every time you smile, every sunset you see... Everything belongs to the Lord, but take the initiative to give it to him.

Ultimately, live every moment in the present, and give your present to God. This is how we are called to live, and this is the only way we can truly be living.

In Christ,

Ben

The Poison of Subjectivism

How did the moral law get written? Lewis looks at this question in his essay The Poison of Subjectivism. He addresses a common question in his essay, "Are these things right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right?" His point is that we neither are right, neither could be right on its own, but both together, somehow must be right. We cannot see this, we cannot understand this exactly. All that could be said about this is that God is good, or God is love (ultimately a similar concept). Lewis says this by saying, "God is not merely good, but goodness, goodness is not merely divine, but God."

You could then say that whenever good is done, God is brought to earth, whenever someone loves (truly loves) they bring a bit of God to earth.

Anyway, why can we not understand the concept of goodness, or the concept of how moral law came about? Lewis proposes a concept of a cube coming into a 2D plain. This cube would either appear as 6 separate squares, or as just one side of the cube, either way you would not be able to see all of the cube. I like this analogy, let me develop it.

Assume you are in existance only in a 2D plane. You either face the positive direction or the negative direction, you move either up or down, or the the right or to the left. There is no depth, there is nothing beyond the 2D plane. Now the fact that a 3D world exists would not be evident unless it was revealed. Suppose that the God living in this 3D world decides to show himself. He simply puts his finger into the plain and withdraws it.

When the finger enters, it would first appear as a dot, then grow into a circle, then as it retracts it would shrink back into a dot and disappear. People who saw this may be taken aback. This "point, then circle, then point" simply appears, then disappears. A science man may say that this was nothing, just a point circle then point. But a religious man may say that this is something greater putting its influence on the 2D world. Even if people believed this, they would never be able to explain it. They simply could not rap their mind around it, because it is a concept that doesn't seem to exist.

This concept could be much compared to goodness. We cannot fully understand it, but we cannot ignore the fact that it happened (or exists)

In Christ,

Ben

Fall

Our discussion during class took a somewhat unfavorable turn for me. See, I am under the impression that doctrine is not very important. Does it truly matter if God has predestined everyone to Heaven or Hell? Well, of course, the answer to that question is yes, it does matter. However, that should never in the least bit affect how you interact with a person. The same applies for nearly every doctrinal debate that stands.

So why do we discuss this? What is the point? To understand. But there is this: one cannot actually understand God, and I'm not sure we are really called to understand God. God gives us everything we need to know in the Bible about himself in one phrase "God is love." Or perhaps what would be a better example is "I am the I am." So let us focus on things such as this.

One student said that debates on doctrine such as this one could be viewed as iron sharpening iron, perhaps. The sad truth is that many are not sharpened in the right way through debates such as this one. For many in discussions such as this, we do not seek the truth, but we seek to prove ourselves correct. Perhaps debate would be a better word. And if we debate with no interest in actually pursuing the truth, then we cannot debate in a healthy way and ought not to.

So when Plantinga talks about the Fall in Engaging God's World, I'm not sure if I see the benefit in a lot of what Plantinga had to say. We must understand that we are fallen, we must understand that we cannot save ourselves, that no act we do is going to bring us salvation. We must understand that our only hope lies in Jesus Christ, but why all of this other stuff? Do we really have to figure God out? Do we really have to know of this total depravity? In fact, it is very possible that our finite minds cannot understand a lot of the doctrine of the Bible (because it was written by an infinite mind).

My final point is this: If no act or knowledge of our own can save ourselves, or others, and God is an infinite being that lives outside of time and space, what does knowing this doctrine do for us? Clearly, an understanding of total depravity will not help you win someone for God because an act or knowledge of our own cannot bring someone to salvation. Only Jesus Christ can bring someone to the Lord.

Just a disclaimer, I am not trying to trash doctrine or witnessing or anything, but this is just something that has been battling in my mind for a few years now.

In Christ,

Ben

The Listening

Today in class we listened to people who knew C.S. Lewis talking about him. It was really quite incredible to hear of this man's actual manliness. To hear of how genuine he was, and how much his writing wasn't just what he wrote.

What I mean by that is: someone said, when being interviewed, that some of the best works of Lewis were simply his conversations. That he conversed in such a way that is ought to have been remembered, but now has just turned into mist like everyone else's. This is quite a loss. However, you also see another side to this. Lewis constantly thought in his analyzing way, constantly challenging things. One of his acquaintances said that he dared not joke around Lewis because he would take it so seriously. He would say things like, "really? hmmm, is that how you feel about it? Of course that could not be true if you take this into account..."

In that way, you could say that Lewis was almost plagued by his mind, an odd thought indeed. Because of this, there are many things that Lewis simply would be inept at. We must bear this in mind when we read and speak of his, that he is only human. He was indeed a tool, and his incredible works are still being used by the masses, but he was human. There are many things that I am sure I could do better then Lewis (obviously writing or speaking not among them). There are many things I am sure that anyone reading this blog could do better then Lewis. So why did Lewis have such an impact?

C.S. Lewis gave his life to God when he was 31 (if my memory serves), but he gave it fully. Paul became a Christian only later in his life, after an awakening. The disciples simply followed this rabbi who called himself Jesus after living the beginnings of their lives completely Jewish. Oddly enough, it seems that many of the greatest Christians are people who came into the faith later, why is this? How can this be?

I propose an answer to the question, and that is this: often, people who convert to Christianity later in their life live a fiery hot life for Christ. As opposed to those who grew up in the faith, it is all they know, they never questioned it, or made their faith their own. Lewis had only one faith, and that faith was his own. When he became a Christian, there was no more doubt in his mind, he was not simply following what his parents had told him, or the church he grew up in. He came to his faith on his own. And in this he was able to be fiery hot, and God used him.

Lewis sacrificed much for the Lord, how much do we, who were brought up in the faith, sacrifice? Perhaps we ought to make our faith our own, perhaps then we will not be luke-warm. Perhaps then our gifts from the Lord with be utilized. Only when we are humble to the fullest will we be able to do great things, only when we surrender, and accept suffering.

In Christ,

Ben

Mere Christianity

One comment I would like to make before I begin. The logic that C.S. Lewis observes in Mere Christianity is incredibly sound. It seems that his logic cannot be reproached in the least. Absolutely astonishing.

Anyway, I would like to talk on an issue that he addresses in the preface of this incredible book. The idea of how the Christian faith is presented to the pagans of this world. Imagine, if you will, that you knew nothing of the saving power of Christ. You knew the doctrine that the radicals professed about Christianity, but you knew nothing of the power of it. You were told by some that you must confess your sins or you would go to this "Hell" and live eternally in suffering. What would you think?

Rather, present the gospel in one of two ways (depending on who you are presenting it to). Either through an incredible display of Love, or an incredible display of logic, but ultimately you ought to use both. We should follow Christ's example by presenting love and logic to all, but it should be different to pagans then it is to fellow christians. This is very important.

You should never approach a pagan like you would a fellow Christian. You should never attempt to present doctrine to someone who does not care. Nor should you propose that they need to repent from their sins. This simply looks like foolishness to them (refer to 1st Corinthians 1:18). But you must live in example, that they may be attracted to it, or you must offer them something that will make sense.

This is what C.S. Lewis does in Mere Christianity. He proposes sound, irrefutable logic that ultimately shows why people truly do believe that there is some higher being. Then he goes on to point towards the God of Christianity later in the book.

Point being, we must follow his example in offering sound logic.

In Christ,

Ben

I Do Not Like Board Games (another random post)

I do not like board games. I do not like board games for the same reason why I don’t like television. You can play games as a community, and perhaps it will build more community then watching television, but television can also be communal. I do not like television because it has absolutely no vitalization of our will and ability to create. But, come to think of it, neither does playing games. When you play a game, you take out the pieces, enjoy yourself for sometime and then put the pieces back. The only thing that has changed is that somebody has won. What have they won? A game. And, stupid as it seems, by winning that game they have given themselves a name in that game.

This name transpires into our lives, and “the family member who always wins Settlers” suddenly becomes the “intelligent one” or is simply boosted that much more in the appreciation of the family. We may not intend for this to happen, and we may not be even conscious of this happening, but it does. That person who wins becomes the person who wins. Then, that person suddenly has a reputation to maintain that he never bartered for in the first place. When he loses, there is boasting in the new winner, and the new winner will often put down the old winner in an attempt to make his or her victory that much greater.

Do you not see? Through the simple act of communal games, we put each other on pedestals only to later knock each other off. It is bad to be on a pedestal because it will make you feel important, or superior, but also because you will fall harder when you finally are knocked off.

So let us do something communally that truly is communal. Let us come together and create. We shall not waste our creative abilities by watching the television, nor by playing games. We shall use our creative abilities to sing songs together, for I know that my family is blessed in the realm of music. Perhaps we shall use our creative abilities to help the needy around us. Perhaps we shall use our creative abilities to make cards for those whom we love. Is this not what the youngest of us do? Create constantly? Why has that stopped in us as we have reached old age?

The Screwtape Letters

C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters is a very very powerful book (I have not read it, but I have read Randy Alcorns Lord Foulgrin's Letters which follows a very similar format). The simple concept of intercepting the plots of demons who are directly tempting us, deliberately leading us into Hell is very profound. If nothing else, this book can open your eyes incredibly to spiritual warfare, to how weak we are, but also how powerful God is (notice in this reading "if you suppress it entirely - which, by the way, The Enemy will probably not allow you to do." Even the demons fighting against God realize that they are entirely powerless to bypass his command.)

As was brought up in class today, people, in light of demons, either do not believe in them, or believe in them but are far too fascinated. These are both incredible advantages to demons, and disadvantages to us. I want to focus on both of these aspects in this entry.

Spiritual warfare is real! Do not let yourself believe that only what you can see, touch, smell, or feel is real. That would be simply foolish and contradictory for a christian to believe. To believe that God exists and not demons, that would be utterly silly. Not only silly, but it would be down right stupid. We are at war! We can approach this war in one of two ways: first, by suiting up with the full armor of God (reference Ephesians 6) or, second, by simply ignoring the attacks on our spirit, and living in ignorance. Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance can lead you slowly and gently into ruin, a blissful journey into destruction.

Just to clarify, I do not think that your spiritual integrity lies at risk here. Jesus has saved you, rejoice! But, do not be foolish and throw away the rest of the time you have left to influence the earth.

Do not let your fascination with demons lead you to demons. This would also be very foolish, yet we find ourselves at it time and time again. After reading Lord Foulgrin's Letters, I was very strongly convicted to not dabble around with demons. To leave the protection of God by your choice and to seek out demons is to put yourself deliberately at risk.

But how exactly do we pursue demons? Is this really an issue in our culture here and today? The answer to the latter is: yes. And by explaining I shall answer the first question as well. How often have you heard of people going to "Hell's Bridge" or the local graveyard, and doing stupid things, like driving in three circles then putting the car in reverse, in order to "see ghosts?" Do not fool yourself, there are many who indeed have seen ghosts by doing things like this, and luckily, returned unharmed. However, what do you think these "ghosts" are? The supernatural can be explained as either angels or demons.

Be aware, and protect yourself. A man at war will not leave his army behind and venture into the army of the enemy. We are at war, and we must take this very seriously. God offers us protection, a demon has absolutely no power over the blood of Christ, and through the Holy Spirit, all the power of Christ is available to us. But when we go looking for demons, we may very well forfeit the protection that God offers us.

I cannot speak with authority on the nature of the previous paragraph, but if a question even exists, then the danger also exists. May you be diligent, and protect your souls from the Devil's schemes, for he is like a lion lurking in the reeds just waiting for us to wander from the pack. He desires nothing more then to sink his teeth into you and tear your soul apart. Do not give him the pleasure.

In Christ,

Ben