The illusion of Security and Control ...

Ever wonder why your life is not where you want it to be?  Ever wish that you could ‘make’ something happen the way you want?  We tend to search out routines that give us a feeling of comfort in our lives.  We steer away from any radical changes, and develop a sense of security from the repetition of what we do.  This feeling of security if held long enough gives way to a feeling of control, perhaps limited, but a ‘reasonable’ amount of it seems to be within our hands.  Then the alarm clock rings, and we are asked to take the blue pill and wake up or the red pill and keep on dreaming [apologies to the Matrix].

The film the Matrix presents us with a challenge to our reality.  It offers a completely different version of what might be true with no real ability to argue with it.  This analogy is very apropos when discussing feelings of security and control.  After all these two words are more about feeling than about our perceived reality.  What kind of control can you possibly have in your life if you remain subject to random events?  Disease, weather, geo-political influences, corporate malfeasance, the actions of others are all out there in the ether of your life like winds.  They blow upon you sometimes with incredible force that you cannot stand against.  They move you, whether you are willing or not, to places outside of your comfort zone.  Man has always struggled against this kind of movement.  Like the ant that immediately starts rebuilding its home when destroyed by water, man starts immediately trying to rebuild his rut once it has been disturbed.  We work hard to get back to the feelings we once embraced of reasonable control and security in our existence.

Of course evolution offers no comfort when it comes to the ‘winds of fate.’  We are blown about by forces beyond our control and this is simply part of the natural selection process – only the strong survive.  But if that were really true, why do some of our best and brightest seem to suffer the same fates as those with no particular intelligence or strength.  Lance Armstrong gets cancer, just like my neighbor next door.  They both fight the terrible disease.  They both engage in a program to treat the illness.  Seems to me that if our species were evolving towards the strong and brightest, Lance would be a million times less likely to ever come down with the illness in the first place.  The guy is as strong as a horse by the looks of it.  With his excellent regimen of exercise, water hydration, deep oxygenation and generally healthy diet he would the last person on earth to expect to see any form of cancer affect.  But he gets it just like my neighbor.  Unlike my neighbor whose fight only lasted about 2 years before he died, Lance seems to have beaten his first contact.  I hope he lives a 100 years more, but now that he has had this disease – doesn’t that mean that his offspring would be MORE likely to contract it than not.  Despite his health prior to getting it, it now ‘runs in his family’.  This does not argue that we are evolving towards stronger and better and brighter.

Take also the example of Jim Fixx the famous runner who authored a book on the subject.  A 31 year old specimen of seemingly perfect health drops dead of a heart attack in otherwise the prime of his life.  A strong fit person who obeys all the known precepts of healthy living dies in spite of it.  Now too, his offspring (if he had any) would have a ‘history of heart disease’ in their immediate family.  A factor making them far more likely to come down with the disease despite the overall superior healthful living of their father.  This argues that our world more closely resembles entropy than evolution.  Therein is where evil begins to play on our fears, and our ambition, and develops a keen marketing plan to offer us the ability to ‘control our own destinies’.

One of the primary arguments I hear from those who refuse to accept the concept of God, is that they do not believe anyone or anything controls what happens to them.  They believe themselves to be fully in control of their own lives.  This occurs (not surprisingly) more in the youth than in the elderly, but also more among those with means than those in poverty.  But as we just outlined above absolute control is an illusion.  If it were not, Jim Fixx would still be with us, and Lance would never have had to fight his battle with cancer.  The plain truth is we are not in control of our destiny.  The closest thing we exert that resembles control is the decision of who to serve.  We can choose to follow God, or not.  The alternative to serving God is presented as choosing ourselves to run our own lives.  Again the illusions of self-control / self-destination.  Evil completely masks the idea that the only real other choice to serving God is serving evil.  No-one would intentionally serve the devil if they knew it was him they were following (except your average witch, warlock, demon, or other mentally impaired individual).  So evil markets the idea to us that this choice itself is bogus.  There is no real Satan.  There is only good, and not a lot else.  You don’t have to worry that some supernatural power (i.e. yet something else stronger than you, which you cannot exert control over) is out to get you.  That is crazy talk.  That is for deluded religious folks who merely believe in superstition and mumbo-jumbo.  But is it?

If the alternative to choosing to serve God is not evil, but just another form of good (absent an all powerful God), a form of morality with no objective standard – then why do we continue to witness so much pain and misery and evil in our world today?  If there really is no Satan, and no God, what is the explanation of the existence of evil in our daily lives?  Man does horrific things to each other.  Arguably we continue to develop more effective ways of doing horrific things to each other on a grander-and-grander scale.  If we were evolving towards a better world, or a better way of thinking, why does it seem our perversions are growing more and more violent, gruesome, and apathetic?  The truth is, the lack of a choice to follow God, is a default decision to follow evil.  Without submission to God, there is slavery to evil.  Without the freedom which God offers, are the bonds that would keep us from ever considering we might own another fate.  This is the active mission and intent of evil.  Keep our focus off of God and on ourselves.

But does God offer us control and security?  No.  Many Christians are very dismayed at that answer.  Seems to them that we should be rewarded in some way for our wisdom of choosing this fundamental premise the right way.  The choice and the journey are the reward.  But we are not offered control, and what’s more we should not ever want it.  Humans as sited above, make quite a mess out of everything they touch.  The carnal nature of man corrupts the good we come in contact with (it is our native thinking to destroy first, before we consider creating).  For example consider how fast you can come up with an insult for a person you encounter or know, than a true meaningful compliment.  Consider how fast we have cut down forests, before ever thinking about replanting any of them.  Old-growth is now almost unheard of.  When control is granted to us, we misuse it.  What is the old saying ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely.’  Or ‘nothing destroys like success.’  The truth is we cannot handle having control.  So we MUST learn to give up on trying to achieve it and trust that putting it in God’s hands is where is should be, and really, where it is (even when we don’t like it there).

What about security, does God grant that?  Not physically, only mentally.  You can be assured of God’s promises.  You can know He loves you.  You can know that if you should pass away from the earth right now, that because of Christ’s gift of salvation to us, you will live again in a perfect world, without the presence of evil ever again.  These truths can bring you a great degree of mental security.  They can comfort you.  But they do not eliminate the threats we all must face while living in this world of evil.  Sometimes God interferes with the plans and intents of evil on our behalf.  We experience miracles of healing, or protection, or resources delivered just in time to save us from ourselves and our mistakes.  But not always.  And we were not ever promised a cushy, pain-free existence, just because we follow God.  In fact we were told just the opposite by Christ Himself.  He told us there would always be poor in the world.  He told us that because we serve Him, the world would HATE us, it would persecute us, it would try hard to kill us for nothing more than a belief in Him.  Following God does not decrease our level of danger in the world we face, arguably it increases it.  But following God is a reward unto itself.  And following God leads us to learn how to live without self-inflicted pain.  We learn to avoid so many mistakes.  We shed ourselves of the things that would destroy us, and learn to embrace the things that would make us happy and fulfilled.  Our existence is transformed from meaningless to one of unique purpose and design.

I greatly admire those Biblical characters who understood the value of serving God so well, they were willing to forfeit their earthly lives to maintain their stand for God.  Not all were saved from the horrific intents of the evil one, but all WILL experience the rewards of their faith in the world to come.  Security then is not something we will need in this world.  Faith is.  Security is something else we can look to God to provide, trusting in His ability to protect us, and in His wisdom if harm comes our way in spite of our prayers.

Broken Tools ...

Have you ever brought something home from a store that required assembly at home; only to find the instructions are in a foreign language, and the tools you need to assemble the drawing are not functioning?  It makes the task nearly impossible to perform and the results … “may vary”.  The frustration of unclear communications, combined with nearly unusable tools, makes for a combination designed to add gray hairs to your head, and cause you to question why you really needed this item in the first place.  It would be so MUCH easier to simply buy the item pre-assembled, but sometimes that is just not an option.

So it is with us.  Our creator God has a perfect plan for the redemption, and salvation of man from the cancerous evil that surrounds and ensnares him.  But though His designs are perfect, His tools (being us) are far from it.  We are the most dysfunctional and broken tools to ever be employed in any plan ever devised, let alone the MOST important plan ever devised.

Let’s face it, we do NOT represent the character of our God, or His ideals very well in our own characters and actions.  When non-believers look at men, they see nothing but faults, inconsistencies, weaknesses, addiction, and hypocrisy.   The work of our God in fixing these deficiencies is enormous, and His progress is slow due to our lack of willingness to surrender to His better designs.  So when men look at men they do not see God very well.  Yet we are supposed to be His children, His representatives, His spokespeople here on this earth.  Perhaps this is why above all other reasons we should point each other to look to Christ as the standard to which we should strive, not to another person.  Only Christ lived out a perfect life, only His life is worth imitation and emulation.  We remain broken.

And to add insult to injury, our communication with God is sporadic and prejudicial at best.  Not because God has not made every effort to talk with us, and teach us who He is.  He provided the natural world around us to show us His love for us – from the beauty of it all, to the functionality of it all, to the pure enjoyment we have with it.  Stop for a second to consider what would be a really good vacation you could go on.  Imagine for a minute a beach-based holiday beginning in Maui, then on to Fiji, then to Capri on the Mediterranean, and finally to the Bahamas; I dare say the water is fine.  Or perhaps you would enjoy a skiing vacation starting in Vale, then to the Swiss Alps.  Or do you enjoy Safari to watch wildlife in their natural settings?  The wonders of this earth even after all the pollution we created are still breathtaking.  The less we damage them, the more breathtaking they are.  But we seldom take from Nature the messages of love and care God is sending us.

We have the written word of God to us in the form of the Bible.  But we tend to read it to prove something.  Instead of being explorers on a journey of discovery (like in Nature), we read it like investigative journalists out to prove our own views are more scripturally based than our neighbor’s.  We read it for vindication.  We read it to inflict judgment on others.  We read it to condemn, not to redeem, and thus, we read it wrong.  Like trying to read Mandarin instructions on furniture that requires assembly, we do not get the messages God is trying to send us.  Our communication is clouded not because what the text says is unclear, but because our hearts lack love, lack empathy, and do not discern it’s real meaning very often.  Were we to read in humility, and ask for the Spirit’s guidance more often we would gain far more knowledge than we thought possible.  But for now, communication is less than stellar.

And in this environment, with evil working out its own designs with brutal efficiency, come us the broken tool set.  We are supposed to be used by God to work out His will.  This after all is the highest calling in the Universe.  All the unfallen beings who exist in perfection, exist in eager anticipation of serving the Most High.  They long to do His will.  We run from it.  It is like herding cats, to get us to do anything, particularly when our own self-interest is not at stake.  We spend our time in entertaining ourselves, or engaged in work to support ourselves, or doing some other obligation we feel obliged to do.  Time for service to God takes a backseat, and is nearly a last priority.  Like that promise husbands make to their wives to fix something around the house – they mean to do it.  They are planning on doing it.  They just never quite seem to get around to doing it.

This of course reduces the tool-set God actually has available to Him down to a very small number of tools.  It is not the worthiness of the tool that is picked for a job, but the willingness of the tool itself.  We sometimes get an idea that there are those of us who are somehow “special”.  We rationalize that people like Moses, Noah, or Abraham are “called of God” and therefore selected by God making them special; whereas we are mere mortals who feel no special calling.  What is incorrect in this thinking is our continued lack of willingness to be used, and their eventual agreement to it.  We keep saying no to God, and thus are not selected.  Those Biblical heroes of the faith, were WILLING to be used and so they were.

But being a great instrument in God’s plan did not make any of them less human.  They continued to struggle with sins before, during, and after the call or journey God sent them on.  Moses was a great leader but not a perfect one.  He could not control his temper, even after 100 years of trying.  Noah liked drinking in excess, even after the flood.  Abraham, even with all his faith, lies about his wife to protect himself from a powerful lustful king of Egypt.  The account of their weaknesses in the Bible record is yet another proof of its accuracy.  A human writer, with a human agenda would have omitted completely or radically downplayed the weaknesses of the heroes of the stories in their works to reinforce the point.  But God would have us see the imperfections of others, to realize that He does not demand perfection from us, but willingness from us.

God works with us despite our weaknesses, and even our failures.  The people of Israel were led into the promised land despite Moses losing his temper.  Noah lived 900 years despite his love of drink (somewhere around 400 of them after the flood).  Abraham’s wife was not defiled, and was restored to him untouched through a miracle God performed despite the lie Abraham had told.  And an heir came to him when he was 100 years old.  The plans of God worked through despite all the barriers we place in front of them.  Christ told the criticizing priests that if the people were made to be quiet on His triumphal ride into Jerusalem that even the stones would cry out in praise.  Prophecy will be fulfilled.  Plans will be completed.  Missions will be accomplished with or without you or I as participants.

We are not excluded from the plans of God due to His lack of invitation; but due to our constantly ignoring it, and turning away from it.  God cherishes His broken tools.  He longs to repair each of them, to restore them to their full potential, but the tools keep running away.  God has mercy on His erring tool sets.  If He did not we would not last a day, not one of us.  He patiently waits for us to learn of His love, and stop our foolish condemnation of each other.  He works hard with us to get us to see Him more clearly, while we spend time chasing others away from Him, in His own Name with our viewpoints and our opinions.  Despite our lack of usability, despite our unwillingness to change or conform to His will, despite our continued embracing of evil intent and action; God still longs to use us in His service.

The magnitude of this slaughters me.  The thought that I might make a difference in the life of another, that I might actually help another to see God, to learn something more of God’s love – with my pitiful existence, is more than I can fathom.  For I see in me, only the most broken of any tool in the case.  I know my own unworthiness.  I ache at how often I must come back to the throne of grace and ask forgiveness for the same old sin, again and again.  I loathe my own weakness and addictions to evil, and cannot imagine why God would still want to use me.  So I decide to look beyond everything I know about me, all the facts of evil related to me, and my complete substandard representation of Him; and put myself at the foot of the cross anyway, and ask to be used.  Despite it all, I will be willing, and so will be used.

The reality of this is not to be trifled with.  Asking God to use you in His plans is not a prayer that goes unanswered.  And it is not one where “no” is a possible response.  If you are willing, God will use you.  As sure as there is a creator God, He will employ you in His service.  Your calling may not be to rise as Moses, Noah, or Abraham;  but to serve is enough for those who see the brokenness of their own conditions.  To serve God can start today.  It requires nothing but willingness.  You do not have to wait until you see Heaven to begin serving God, you can start right now, when it counts even more.  For the battles are not over yet, the rewards are not come yet, and there are so many around you, who still need to know who God is, what love is all about, and why love reaches even you, even them …

My Mirror Misunderstands the Facts ...

“Mirror, mirror on the wall – who is the fairest of them all?”  That is easy, it’s me of course.  Why would I pose a question I was not already sure about?  So given this, is the mirror actually lying, or is it me, or is it something else?  I met the quintessential Christian this past week in my encounters on a social networking site.  I did not need to ask what a “quintessential Christian” was as she was quick to enumerate the characteristics they (herself included) carry.  I am sure her mirror and mine must secretly communicate.

I wonder why it is, that so many Christians can look straight into a mirror and see only good things?  This phenomenon amazes me.  I am not talking about being forgiven or washed pure in the blood of Christ, I am talking about staring straight into an unbiased thing like a mirror – and then selectively seeing only the things you want to see rather than the things that are truly there.  Evil’s marketing campaign seems to have so affected our vision, that we are conditioned to see only certain things about ourselves, and ignore so much of the obvious.

Myself for example – when I look into the mirror to check my appearance before leaving the house – I give myself the once over to see if I am presentable.  Is my hair clean and combed?  Teeth look good, no junk in them?  Face clean and reasonably shaved?  All I need now is a breath check and I am good to go.  Having approved of my appearance, or adjusted any unproved exceptions, I then consider myself a reasonably attractive man.  I tend to ignore the gray hair that has come with age; the blemishes all over my skin from old moles, or freckles; the additional weight gain that nobody likes; and as far as my teeth go, there is hardly more than 3 or 4 bottom teeth in a straight line my whole life long.  It appears my long impacted wisdom teeth are literally pushing the others out of the way over the years.  Sound great don’t I? J

All these obvious flaws are right there in my mirror, but I am conditioned to simply over look them.  In the spiritual context however this problem can become an order of magnitude worse.  Not only can I overlook my flaws, I can deny they exist, yet reveal their existence in the same breath.  My quintessential Christian friend told me literally in the same 2 sentences, that she was not judging anyone and loved everyone and that any TRUE follower of Christ MUST call abortion by its only name – murder.  It is not a question about whether you think abortion is right or wrong – her statement is, in point of fact, a judgment, not about the topic, but about the people who may not agree with her.  Her statement says they cannot be TRUE followers of Christ if they do not share her opinion as she states it.  And yet, she is blind to her own dogmatic condemnations.

This is the underlying problem shared by all Christianity; that we often seem to forget our need.  Our attention gets taken up on a few key items we focus on, and we subsequently condition ourselves to ignore and accept an entire series of defects, character flaws, condemnations of our neighbors, etc..  We defend ourselves from the slightest accusation that all may not be perfect in our own characters, and try to throw blame elsewhere, or do comparative righteousness with other less fortunate’s.  Anything to avoid wiping our eyes when we look into our mirror’s and see what may have been there all the time.

Of course at the root of all this difficulty is our oldest enemy – self.  We like to think of ourselves in a favorable light, with reasonable intellectual and social abilities.  We like this.  It pleases us.  We need it.  And so we create it.  We do what we have been trained to do, conditioned to do, to focus on the things that make us happy.  It is all about self.  Self has long been the king of our domains, and as king, we fight the hardest against accusations of selfishness.  We are quick to counter accusations of selfishness with a well prepared, well recited list of good deeds we have “sacrificed” over our whole lives long.  We counter accusations of selfishness by trying to claim martyrdom over our “good” deeds.

Wrong.  Any “good” deeds you may have ever done in your life were either truly good because they came from a true surrender to the will of God, and He performed them through you.  For which you seek no recognition, or reward.  Or your list of accomplishments was done specifically so that you could combat feelings or accusations of selfishness if ever hurled at you.  There is no good defense against this accusation – because in point of fact – it is always true.  The very nature of evil is a focus on self, and we are all guilty of it.

But, with our new found discovery of how to surrender to God daily and remove the sin from our lives – we now have a counterattack to our current condition.  But like the largely visible sins we surrender to God, we must first begin by seeing, by waking up to the level of evil we are plagued by.  Our prayer of surrender grows to ask the Lord to open our eyes so that we can begin to see the mirror more clearly, and recognize our need more acutely.  Our intent is not to just layer guilt on guilt, it is to expose our need, then address it – slowly replacing imperfection with perfection.

Mirrors have no interest in our pride, or in our condemnation.  They merely reflect the image that stands in front of them.  They are dispassionate, reliable resources for stating truth.  The emotional variables in the equation are us.  We are the ones who derive intentions, motivations, and innuendo from what we see in ourselves.  Not every accusation hurled at us is correct, but so many are.  What we need to do, is to stop acting on the defensive, and start becoming more factual in our self analysis.  Defensive responses are human nature when there is no hope of change, or getting better.  But we have hope.  We have hope because of Salvation.  For Christ died to save us from our sins here and now.

And when in doubt that the mirror you are using to examine your character is worthwhile, try using the only one as accurate as the one in your bathroom.  Try using Jesus Christ, and life He lived as your example of what to aspire to.  Like the mirror in your bathroom, Christ has no interest in stroking your pride, or condemning your spirit.  He wishes only to reveal what you must see, and then to cleanse the impurity.  Don’t be discouraged because like me there is much work to do.  Do not falter at the size of the task.  One after another, truth can be layered upon truth, and surrender can lead to His victory after His victory that makes you a better person.

A good beginning is humility.  We sometimes forget this when we look at what God has achieved for us, the extent that He has given us, and reformed our behaviors.  We get to feeling good about our lessening pain, and start to forget how we are accomplishing this only through surrender.  Old habits of comparative righteousness creep up, and the greatest of all evils attempts to raise its ugly head in our lives – pride.  Proud of our lessening sins, proud of the relationship we have with God, proud of our witnessing, proud of our results. 

Quick folks, look back at the mirror of Christ, and see how FAR you have yet to go.  You have no reason for pride, and great reason for humility.  For pride is the pathway of self, and embracing it destroys the progress you would otherwise make.  Instead, greet each other in humility, remember ALL are struggling on the pathway to perfection.  All of us need to encourage each other, not tear each other down, or try to compare the lack of sins with each other.  We are not struggling for relative position within Christ’s kingdom, we are struggling to be there in peace and harmony.

I believe the quintessential Christian is the most humble person you ever meet.  It is their great LACK of pride that defines them this way, not their own descriptions of themselves.  The words of others enumerate their sacrifices, as they can remember none.  The praise of others defines their characters as they can see only their need of a savior.  This is the Christian I aspire to be.  I hope to face my mirror, learn the truth, and surrender to the only one who can teach it to me forever …

Poor, Blind and Naked ...

I watched the premier episode of a new show on A&E’s network called “The Cleaner” this week.  It is based on the true story of a reformed heroin addict who committed his life to God, and now works with a team of other former addicts he helped to continue helping others.  Benjamin Bratt is the main star of this show, and I must admit I enjoyed his portrayal of a man who talks to God like he is having a conversation.  I like the premise of the show.  I enjoyed the story.  But something affected me, much more than I expected.  I felt that still small voice prompt me telling me – this is you.

No it did not mean I am Benjamin Bratt, or the hero of the story.  Maybe I could be, but I guess I have chosen not to be so far.  No, I was the other character in the first episode.  The well meaning, normally dependable side kick, another ‘reformed’ addict who at the end of the first show – dies of an overdose after getting bad news from his estranged family.  That character had earned his estrangement.  He thought his reform would undo the damage he had done prior to it.  He thought he was past any lure of old habits.  He was working with the good guys, on the right team.  But he was dead, from a self-inflicted overdose when he realized the damage he had caused he could not undo.

I have never been a heroin addict.  Not sure I have ever even worked on the good guys team.  But I was completely slaughtered watching this story unfold.  It was me.  Not because the facts of our stories are alike, but the NEED is identical.  Not the need for drugs, escape, or even forgiveness – we do share those in principle – but the NEED of a savior.  The NEED to be free from the pain we surround ourselves in.  And just like the character in this story, it once again hit me square in the face – I am poor, I am blind, and I am naked.

There was a church of people who lived in the early Christian era, in fact seven different churches, all with unique attributes – both strengths and weaknesses.  The seventh one was Laodicea.  John wrote to them all, counseling them where they were weak.  The last one, looks remarkably like the condition we find within the Christian community today.  We think of ourselves as wealthy, and in need of nothing.  But our true condition, is poor, blind, and naked.

We are poor, not in material wealth, though many struggle with this.  Our poverty is in the power of our prayers, the meager amount of faith we show, and how little of God’s spirit we allow to live through us.  In this we are desperately poor.  How often does the Bible tell stories of people who did something first, believing that God would bless them.  Abraham was not given a road map and tourism flyer of a new country.  He left home first, wandering, through very rough terrain before he came to rest as God promised.  The prophet Elijah was fed by a woman who was sitting down to her last meal on earth, destined to face starvation.  Instead she gave up ALL she had literally insuring an even earlier painful death, and God acted afterwards filling her oil and meal for years.  Yet our position is to wait for God to act first, before we do anything.  We wait for healing before we pray for it.  We wait for money, before we spend it on missions and outreach and serving our communities.  We risk nothing, and have the meager faith and results to prove it.

We are blind, though not because our eyes do not see.  Our blindness is to the NEED we ALL have of a savior from the pain we try to ignore in our lives.  Our vain attempts to fill the void of loneliness, ambition, or greed are never fully satisfied.  We look in the wrong places, to find the wrong things, always ignoring the plain simple truths of love and service to others.  We fail to see our poverty.  We fail to see how mediocre we have become.  How sedate we are in the church.  How our entire spiritual experience is nothing more than lukewarm at best.  We buy in to what the media tells us we should think is important without question.  We accept corporate whitewashed news as fact.  We are influenced by popular culture and seemingly immune to the call of a still small voice.  We are immersed in the blackness of evil.  This shroud keeps us comfortable in our darkness, and tries to mask our desperate NEED.

We are naked, again not from lack of clothing.  Our nudity is the lack of spiritual focus, preparation, and repentence of sin.  We refuse to acknowledge the consequences of our actions.  Like the reformed junkie in the show I watched, we think our new found reformation will undo any damage we have done, but it does not.  Sometimes our errors carry permanent consequences.  And every time we fall, we must ask for forgiveness from the only one who can truly give it.  But even more important, we must learn to accept the forgiveness He offers.  The junkie lost sight of the value of his future, as he was shrouded in the darkness of his past.  Just like him, I am an addict to the sins I commit.  Just like any reformed addict I need daily outside help from the only one who can give it.  Just like him, I need to accept this help, lean on it, use it, and make it mine.  And just like him, if I cannot begin to let the forgiveness I am offered allow my mind to move forward to what is possible – I will be sucked into looking at the past, focusing on my failures, until I lose all hope and die.

I watched the news this week from CNN.  Inflation jumping 5% in a month; 30,000 auto workers laid off from all 3 major car companies; Salmonella poisoning in our food supply with no ability to trace it, or isolate it; Gas prices at an all time high, with major recessions pending.  Maybe if we get hit enough in the face with bad news after bad news, it will begin to lift the self-imposed darkness we surround ourselves in and help us finally see our NEED.  But for those who are untouched by these events, for the folks who eat tomatoes without consequences, work at a good job and have enough to pay the bills, can easily fill their tanks with gas – your NEED is even greater.  Our NEED is not based on our affluence.  The first trait of any modern Laodicean is their pride in their wealth, and their belief they have need of nothing.

But our God and our Creator says differently.  He counsels us to buy of Him Gold tried in the fire, white raiment to cover our shame, and medicine to apply to our stunted eyes so that we may see again.  In short he asks us to have faith in Him, to trust Him, and to walk with Him through the hard times on our doorsteps – no matter what the outcome.  Like fire purifies Gold, so trouble and persecution refines our faith.  The white clothing He asks us to take is the forgiveness that covers what is behind, and frees us to look ahead.  The medicine for our eyes, is the awakening of the still small voice within us.  It is lighting a candle in our darkness that explodes into the light of the noon day sun.  It is the Spirit of God that provides the clarity we need to see our condition.  Not just to decry how bad a state we are in, but to reform and change and become the new creature God intends for us to be. 

Awakening the Spirit of God in our lives will strengthen our prayers and add power to our requests.  It will remove the doubts we relish, and replace it with boldness.  It will remind us we are nothing of ourselves and that God is everything.  It is to God we forward the glory, the credit, and the honor.  We were not meant to see, to merely point out our condition, but to see how to fix it.  Recognizing the NEED we share for a savior is the first step in actually being saved. 

As for me, I don’t look good naked.  My eyes are bad enough.  And I have no wealth of any meaning.  I wish my time in this Laodicean church culture to be at an end.  I want to be a truly reformed addict.  I want to see the sin in my life leave once and for all time.  I wish to be renewed in the Spirit and power and mercy of our God.  I repent Lord.  I want those things you offer.  Let it be with me as You have said in Your word …

Evil Continually ...

It occurs to me that one of the scariest portraits of the human condition I know of is to be doing evil continually.  None of us believe this to be true of ourselves.  We rationalize that even if we are aware that we are sometimes “bad”, it is not a non-stop-phenomenon.  Our bad deeds have to be interrupted by a series of good deeds in order to keep balance in our lives.  We may know of someone else who seems to have an uninterrupted flow of evil going on in their lives, but it could not possibly be us.  Could it?

The problem with wisdom and an increase in knowledge is that it does not prevent one from doing evil.  In some instances it just makes it harder to catch the evil, or perhaps even to detect the evil.  Ted Bundy was anything but stupid.  He used his intellect to manipulate, to plan, to calculate, and ultimately to kill.  Adolph Hitler was anything but stupid.  He used his natural charisma to intimidate, to inspire fascism, and to systemically with precision, attempt to exterminate an entire race of people.  Charlie Manson, Pol-Pot, Saddam Hussein, pick your dictator; they do not seem to suffer from immense stupidity, yet they kill without hesitation despite having an intellect.

This does not mean that all smart people are evil people, but it does mean that smart is no defense against evil.  Passion as well, seems to be a common motive for doing evil.  Temporary blinding rage, from jealousy, from envy, from a need for revenge, all can lead one to perform deeds they would otherwise not contemplate, or at least not execute.  So emotion as well, is no defense against doing evil.  Retardation is no defense either.  People not in total control of their faculties, whether drunk, or high on drugs, or simply with ultra-low-level IQ’s – have been known to participate in extraordinary evil behavior.  It seems then, we have few if any natural defenses against being evil.

Yet despite our inability to fight evil effectively, we continue to blindly reason that we do not engage in it continually.  This myopic view of our own motives keeps us feeling better about ourselves, but also keeps us blind to our true nature, and our true condition.  One of those thought provoking, scary prophetic texts in the Bible was uttered by Christ Himself when He said “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be …”.  In the days prior to the flood man engaged is SO much evil it made God sorry he created us.  Our species stooped to such a degenerate level we caused sorrow in the heart of God over our very existence.  Clearly we are capable of horror.

I realize that Christ was making an analogy when discussing this point.  But just how far does this analogy hold up?  You see a few things jump out at me about the story of Noah and the people in his time.  Only Noah and his immediate family were saved in the ark.  Not because he was the only one given the opportunity, but because he was the only one who chose to be saved.  Everyone else passed.  They passed, because they found it hard to believe there was a God; that if a God did exist – Surely He was not capable of extinguishing the life He created; and what was rain anyway – they had never seen it before.  It did not make sense.  The message Noah preached for 120 years was fodder for comedians.  It did not make sense.  It was not logical.  It was in the realm of the fantastic.

People then, like us I’m afraid, did not recognize their own condition as being evil.  They did things.  They said things.  They lived, and did not see living life in the dichotomy of evil and good.  But God’s review of them was that even their minds were constantly engaged in evil.  What a condemnation of an entire generation of people.  Not them, us.  We live in a time right before the final destruction of evil itself, but refuse to see ourselves as partakers of evil.  We see evil everywhere but in the mirror.  We can’t imagine ourselves as being perpetually evil.  But in the days of Noah, there was NO-ONE who avoided the flood outside of Noah and his family.  That meant everyone else was guilty, while stubbornly holding on to their claims of innocence.  Sound familiar?  Those people had mirrors too, and they saw the same things in them that you do.

Christians something think that they are immune to this phenomenon.  They are not.  It is said the average male has a sexual thought every 13 seconds.  No stats on women in this area.  But for sake of argument, even if this stat were once in every 13 minutes, do you think every thought is a pure one.  Do you think each impulse is based on intimacy and the unity that comes from the marriage that unites God with his creations?  Or do you think perhaps short skirts, low blouse lines, muscular physiques, or a look in the eyes, … that perhaps the origin of the sexual thought may come from an entirely different source.  One designed to disregard monogamy as old fashioned, out dated, and unnecessary; a source bent on the removal of intimacy from sexual expression to be replaced by objectification of people as mere things.  This is far more likely the reason for the statistic and the battle it presents to the average male, be it every 13 seconds, every 13 minutes, or even every 13 years.

Another favorite tool of evil is power.  The entire religion of Satan worship is based on the acquisition of power.  Public service is the face we put on it, but the current political process looks more like a power grab than an opportunity to serve.  Power over others has an allure all its own.  Wanting to have power can drive some to do evil to acquire it, and few change their patterns once having secured that which they sacrificed their values to get.  The idea of power is it at polar opposite of the idea of service.  Those that choose to serve do not crave power, but anonymity.  It is the humble that are able to serve, not the powerful, not the arrogant.

The job of taking this lump of clay that is me, and molding it into something that is remotely capable of existing in perfection without ruining everything it touches, is an effort worthy of a Creator God.  Only a Creator God is capable to extracting all that is evil within me, and replacing it with all that is worthy.  I dare say not a molecule exists within me that is not constructed of evil materials.  Almost every thought, almost every deed, almost every action must be completely redone.  To be born again is an analogy designed to reflect this molecular level change we need in our lives to begin to understand a lack of evil. 

Perhaps I understand a little better the fear Christ had on the cross as he took on the enormity of the weight of evil in this world.  He feared His sacrifice might not be enough to overcome the influence and effects of evil.  He who was sinless feared that once having been in so close proximity with this evil that perhaps His Father could not look upon Him again afterwards. 

When I look at the enormity of the evil that exists within me, when I see the vastness, when I realize my continual state, I fear that perhaps I am just too evil to be saved.  I fear that the work of changing me from this to perfection may be more than even Christ had thought to do for me.  But then I put aside my fear, and cling to the only hope I will ever have.  For if I am to be saved, if I am to be changed, it will be because He saved me, because He changed me.  When evil dies within me, it will be because He killed it, perhaps even over my objections.  My nature will be to fight Him to hold on to my evil, but I ask Him to win the fight with me, and change me in spite of me.  This is a work ONLY He could do.

If for no other reason, this is why I am so convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the plan for our salvation He and His Father have accomplished.  When I look at the true state of who I am, logic dictates the need of a Creator God who alone is capable of creating in me what does not naturally exist.  It took His death to pay my penalty.  It will take His life to make my existence worth having.  It takes His creative power to bring into existence within me, what cannot exist without Him.