When God Takes a Dare

"God Himself couldn't sink this ship!" declared Captain Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic. Just days later, he and his invincible ship were at the bottom of the icy North Atlantic. God had taken the dare: He showed His effortless power over man's finest engineering pride and glory, and proved to the world that no cocky captain could tell Him what He was able to do.

Thousands of years before the Titanic sailed on her fateful voyage, a cocky king gave God another dare. At the dedication of his infamous monument, Nebuchadnezzar challenged three Hebrews who refused to bow to his pride, even on pain of a frightful death, "What god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?" Moments later, the condemned men walked unsinged out of the king's execution inferno, and Nebuchadnezzar had to admit before all the rulers of his empire that there was a God with the power to save, even from the might of the mightiest king on earth.

God often holds back when His awesome authority is questioned. But sometimes, He will answer a dare from prideful men with a spectacular, perhaps terrifying display of His greatness. To challenge the Almighty is a rather foolish thing to do, because He will always come out on top. Ultimately, no one can mock Him and get away with it. Consider His greatness and stand in awe!

For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it;

For how should My name be profaned?

And I will not give My glory to another.

Isaiah 48:11

No Excuses

". . . what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God . . ."

Romans 1:18-21

It's the age-old question: How can God be just to condemn people who never had a chance to hear the Gospel? The first chapter of Romans clearly tells us that there will be no valid excuses on Judgment Day. Why? First of all, because God is manifest in Man -- that is, the human heart is designed with an instinctive knowledge that there is a great Being, a rational, emotional, intelligent Being like himself, to whom he owes his existence. Also, the world around Man speaks to him of an eternal, powerful Deity with supreme authority over Creation.

But someone will say, "Nature says nothing at all about the Gospel of redemption in Jesus. It's not the fault of the poor jungle natives that they never got an opportunity to hear. They worship God in the best way they know -- surely God will give them credit for that." True, they never heard the Gospel. And that is not the criteria by which they will be judged. They will be judged because, contrary to all the clear evidence in and around them, they chose to invent gods that did not measure up to the invisible attributes of the One True God. If Man's conscience and Creation merely hinted at some ambiguous creative force, a god somewhere out there, then Man would be justified in worshiping a god in whatever detail he imagines. But nature doesn't just tell us that there is a God, it says quite a lot about what He is like. And when Man in his pride conjures up a nice, manageable deity who is not the eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-present, unchanging, sovereign, transcendent Being that nature declares Him to be, he is guilty of idolatry.

In reality, no one in his natural state really wants to worship God as He is. But since Man can't escape his innate need to worship something, he invariably creates an object of worship that he can manipulate and control. Even the Israelites, who saw the glory of God every day, made themselves a golden calf -- that was certainly not ignorance! God could hardly have been more clear about the basics of His nature than He has been in the Creation, and in the end, no one will stand before Him and say, "I had no idea that the Creator would be anything like this." There can be no excuses.

Colorblind World

I met a friend beside the sea --
We walked together, I and he,
Gazing on the sights so fair
As salty wind blew through our hair.

I pointed out a deep green swell
That left behind a purple shell
All lined inside with pearly sheen,
A palace for a mollusk queen.

I spoke of colors in the spray,
A dancing rainbow in a ray
Of golden sunlight on the strand
Of glistening mirrors in silver sand,

Reflecting sky of azure bright
And drifting clouds of dazzling white
Which cast soft shade on inland trees,
Their verdant tips brushed by the breeze.

A blue-gray gull alighted nigh
With crimson feet and amber eye,
And in the log on which he stood
Were patterns all through auburn wood.

I turned to see my friend's delight
To share with me this glorious sight,
Yet in his face was scarce a sign
That his joy was the match of mine.

Unmoved was he while I admired --
"Can you not see it?" I inquired.
Then crept o'er me the startling truth:
He'd known no color from his youth.

Purple, crimson, golden, green:
Only words he'd never seen.
Even that his eyes were blue
He knew not, nor beheld the hue

Of his own skin -- I pitied him!
To live a life so dull and dim
As not to know the captured eye
By an arc of light-art in the sky.

In silence we turned back again --
My heart was filled with sadness when
I thought how, though we both perceived
The same world, only one received

The fullness of the beauty there.
O! privilege beyond compare
To see the world for all it is --
What tragedy a world like his.

And yet what tragedy, thought I,
Too often, heedless, I pass by
The splendor of simplicity
Which should invoke felicity.

Can we with opened eyes and mind
Look down upon the colorblind
When we ourselves were once as they,
Walking in worlds of only gray?

Look once more on golden light
And see your colored world aright,
Nor cease to wonder, nor expect
The world to know what you forget.

Wonder

For those of us who have grown up in the church, the stories of the Bible are all too familiar -- so familiar that it's easy to forget how real they are. The Easter story in particular seems to have lost much of its charm in the yearly retelling. We all know how it ends, so we're not too horrified when we hear of the crucifixion, not too sympathetic for the grieving disciples, and not too surprised when the news of resurrection comes. Yes, we know the vital doctrinal significance of the atonement and Christ's victory over death, but it's too easy to stop with a nice sermon and a clean, smooth wooden structure bedecked with flowers.

Should the horror of the cross be less shudder-inducing to us because such a heinous death is beyond our imagining? Should the devastating emptiness for the Lord's followers be less heart-rending to us because we have inside information about what's really going on? Should the ecstasy of the words "He is risen!" be less hope-overwhelming to us simply because we've heard them before? This is no mere account with theological significance, it is a living story as real and human as our own. The question for us may not be, Where is your faith? but perhaps we ought to ask ourselves, Where is your wonder?

Just Another Day

So teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

I find it ironic that I read this verse on leap day, a day that gets numbered only once every four years. Is there really anything special about February 29th? It doesn't add a day to your lifespan, or even to your week. It don't do much of anything . . . except make you wait a day longer for payday (and keep our calendars in balance, of course). Today went by just like any other day of the year. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow. Every day is essentially the same: just one little twirl of our little planet. What makes one day different from another? Only what we do in it.

Time is a treasure that can't be hoarded, only spent. If you were born with a meter counting down the days of your life, would it make a difference in how you spent them? We have no way of knowing the number of our days, but we can put a value on what we exchange them for. Every person, from the most active leader to the laziest couch potato, has the exact same twenty-four hours to spend, and what he does with them is what builds him high or drags him low. Have you traded your days for money? For knowledge? For skill? For relationships? For souls? Or for nothing at all that will last into the next day, much less eternity?

Great things cost time. But that is no reason to shy away from them -- you will spend the time anyway. To number our days is not perhaps so much about keeping tabs on the countdown, but counting up the worth of the days we have spent. Would you give a day of your life for what you gained today? Because like it or not, you did.

The Definition of Me

I am lazy.
I am impatient.
I am proud.
I am unforgiving.
I am selfish.

Every one of us could come up with a list like this, and ten times as long.  Our sins stare us in the face on a daily basis as we look in the mirror, recite our failures, and kick ourselves soundly before we go out and do them again.  It is tempting sometimes to let our trademark sins become a definition of who we are.  This is the world's way -- a classification system of various sins that people can adopt as a sort of disclaimer label: "I'm an alcoholic," "I'm gay," "I have anger issues."  But sin is not a book of stickers you can choose from to decorate your self-portrait, it's one big ugly sign, SIN, and it's either hanging over you or hanging on the cross.  In God's eyes, all people are either rebel sinners or redeemed saints.  There is no gradient line, no sub-categories to rank ourselves by.  Yes, those of us who know Christ still struggle with sinful actions as a result of being human in a fallen world, some perhaps more than others.  But instead of looking at our sin and calling ourselves names for it, let us rather look at Jesus, who has overcome our sin, and praise Him for what He now calls us.

I am a servant of my Lord.
I am chosen by my Creator.
I am a child of my God.
I am forgiven by my King.
I am a friend of my Savior.

This is what defines me, and knowing that makes all the difference in the world.

For sin shall no longer be your master,

because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Romans 6:14

Surrounded

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the Lord surrounds His people both now and forevermore.

Psalm 125:2

Oregon is a very blessed state when it comes to natural beauty.  You name it, Oregon probably has something like it somewhere.  My whole life, I might have taken for granted a little the verdant forests and hills of The Valley, my homeland.  Now, I make my home in The Basin, which boasts its own brand of beauty.  The hills are a little higher here, and not nearly so green, but their formidable openness is inviting in its own way.  Here, the crags are not distant boundaries, but close in all around you like the walls of some fortress.  From atop the rampart, you can see the world beyond, and in the distance, a stalwart peak, painted white.  But down in the enclosure, it's a strangely secure feeling to look around at the heights against the sky.  Surrounded -- it's a truly humbling feeling.  It may be enemy forces, unfathomable heaps of earth, a group of good friends, or an Almighty God, but you're keenly aware you're just one small person in the middle of it all.  Every direction you turn, the same picture faces you, and there's no escaping it.  And maybe you don't want to.

You are my hiding place;

You shall preserve me from trouble;

You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.

Psalm 32:7

2015: The Year of Friendship

Since I was very young, I was in awe of God. I saw His might in creation, I believed in His infinite greatness, I read stories of His power. He was King to me, King over everything, wonderful, good and sovereign. But He was King on a high throne, and I was just a nobody among a million subjects. He knew all about me and loved me, yes, but that I might just catch His eye for a moment as He rode through the crowd was a big enough hope. Then I got older and realized that I wasn't just a subject, I was His daughter. So, slowly, He became Father to me. I had free access to His throne, whenever I needed Him, for any reason. Not only did He know me and love me, He wanted to be involved in every part of my life; He delighted in me because I belonged to Him. But He was still King. Surely the throne room is no place for a blundering child, at least not all the time. That He might just smile at me and grant my childish wishes was a big enough hope.

It was easy to know God as King, a perfect King whose Lordship cannot be disputed. It took time and courage to understand what He was like as a perfect Father, never too busy, never grudging my requests, always patient and kind. This year, I began to realize that He was inviting me to come even closer: He wanted to be my Friend. That too was hard to understand at first. How could He, the infinite God, treat me as if I were an equal, be so open as to share His heart with me? But somehow, He wants me to be with Him, so much that He left His throne to become like me, experience everything I've experienced. He knows, not just as a King overseeing His realm, not just as a Father picking up a stumbling little one, but as a Friend walking every path right beside me. Jesus knows what pain feels like. He knows about rejection, misunderstanding, loneliness and betrayal far better than I do. No matter what I may face, He feels it with me, and He understands completely. He laughs with me in the good times, cries with me in the bad times, and He is always faithful. He will always be with me, and I with Him. Even when I fail Him, He will never let me down. What a tremendous honor it is to be the friend of a King!

"No longer do I call you servants,

for a servant does not know what

his master is doing; but

I have called you friends,

for all things that I have heard from

My Father I have made known to you."

John 15:15

God Out of the Box

“Have you considered My servant Job,

that there is none like him on the earth,

a blameless and upright man,

one who fears God and shuns evil?”

Job 1:8

Very few people in Scripture received such praise from God as Job did, yet perhaps fewer still went through quite so much misery as this same man.  Job’s three well-meaning friends came to tell Job the answer to his dilemma and solve all of his problems for him – or so they thought.  In their view, the formula was simple: God blessed the righteous with prosperity and punished the wicked with hardship; Job was in hardship; therefore, Job was being punished for wickedness and needed to repent so God would bless him.  Meanwhile, Job insisted upon his innocence and complained that God was heedlessly using him for target practice.  After a while of this bantering, God spoke for Himself.  He gave no answer to the assumptions about Him, no explanation or defense of Job’s plight – He simply rhetorically compared Job to Himself until finally, Job could only respond in awed humility, “I have heard about You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You” (42:5).

Job and his friends alike put God into a small, comprehensible box in which He was supposed to behave according to their understanding and expectations of Him.  It didn’t seem to enter their minds that there might be another answer they couldn’t see.  I think we too often are guilty of putting God into a nice, manageable box, making assumptions about His actions and motives based on our own limited knowledge of Him.  We like to draw lines, make either/or rules, analyze God like a list of data and assure ourselves that we’ve got Him all figured out.  Like Job’s friends, we want to know how to work His system, what formula we need to apply in order to get God to work to our best advantage.  But God will not be contained, manipulated, or explained.  He may do something entirely outside the plans we’ve made for Him, obliterating our notions of His identity and thought process, in order to reveal to us that, after all, we know only the very faintest whisper of all He is.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

To My Fellow Writers

Writing is no morally neutral pastime or a mere livelihood -- it is a way of life. While those of us with a passion for recording and sharing words are known to the world as “writers,” at heart, every human is a writer. All people desire to express themselves with words, and we all live a story, seeking to make it the best story we can. The art of writing is in our very nature. It is a gift given to us by our Creator, and we are intended to use it well in shaping lives and influencing the world.

The writer’s mission is not merely to arrange words in an original and appealing way, but to have an alert mind at all times, constantly drawing truths from daily life to incorporate into his work. Writing has tremendous potential to change lives, both of the audience and the writer. The process of writing can improve our own character, compelling us to think deeply about important issues, to craft stories around morals. We all want to see good triumph over evil, and as we create that victory in our writing, it encourages us to seek victory in our own lives. As writers, we have a responsibility to fill our readers’ minds with thoughts that will not merely amuse them or distract them from life, but, after they put down the page, will continue to inspire them to make a better story of their own daily lives.

Writing expands our influence in space and time, allowing us to touch lives in ways that are otherwise impossible for one human to accomplish. Most of us will never have the opportunity to travel the world and speak our minds to millions, but through writing, our thoughts can extend to people we may never meet and places we may never see. Writing may also be preserved for centuries. As most of history would be lost to us without art and written records, so nothing will remain to tell the world in generations to come of who we were except what we have created, and no art can so accurately and vividly describe our hearts and lives as the art of writing.

So, my fellow writers, let us use our gift to the very best of our ability, not flippantly or frivolously, but purposefully, with respect to the One who entrusted it to us. Let us cultivate our own minds so that we can share words to influence others and change lives for the better, both in this generation and the generations yet to come!

~Written November 19, 2013