Greedy for Goodness

It's not wrong to want to be a good person. For some reason though, we tell ourselves it is. It's not wrong to desire life. For some reason though, we tell ourselves it's selfish. All we have really done is denied something crucial to our very existence.

It is wrong to pat yourself on the back and become conceited from a small deed, but does that mean it's right to deny yourself the pleasure that comes with doing good? We should of course help people because we feel their pain and cry their tears, not for keeping up a good appearance. However when we do things to help people, there comes this feeling – as if there is a voice inside us saying 'this is good' and 'this is what I was made to do.' It a feeling of deep fulfillment. It is perfectly natural, and we do ourselves an injustice when we suppress it.

Why shouldn't we feel happy about doing what is right? Yet sometimes we neglect to do what is right because we don't want to risk feeling too prideful in that feeling, and the good we could have done never happens – all because of a far bigger pride. I have no doubt when I say Satan has conducted this clever scheme to keep the good we might bring to the world locked away.

Suppress that lie. Be the hero you've always wanted to be.

There is also another lie, and it is one Christians sometimes fall for. In the past I frequently have asked myself the question, “Do I really love God, or do I just love the things he gives me?” I knew Jesus died for us, and bought us eternal life, but I wasn't sure whether I really loved him, or only what his sacrifice granted us.

But why do we give gifts? Why is there so much joy in both the giving and the getting at Christmas time, for example?

Because a gift, given with a sincere heart, is a special thing.

It's a way of saying “I love you.”

Imagine what it would be like if someone received a present, observed it – and threw it out the window, saying, “I shouldn't accept your gift because I don't want to be greedy.”

Imagine the hurt in the giver's heart. Their act of love was deliberately rejected, and not in a heart of actual humility. It was, in fact, the rejection of a heart swelled with pride that eclipses that of the more honest kind of arrogance.

While it is possible for someone to love the gift and not the giver, the danger of false humility should not be overlooked. We should not respond to God's gifts this way. Jesus suffered and shed his blood, gave us the gift of eternal life, an “I love you” message that reverberates throughout history – and we ought not to say we're not good enough to accept it. How can that be right?

As the apostle wrote, we love him because he first loved us, and Jesus' sacrifice showed us just how much he did. He was willing to take our punishment. He was willing to suffer what we should have suffered.

It is not wrong for the receiver of a gift to be endeared toward the giver. The giving and getting of gifts is a love language. Don't say, “I am not worthy of salvation because I want it too much.” God created us to desire life. He wants us to find joy in the life he gives us – because, like a loving father with his child, our joy is his joy. Our happy smiles make him smile.

I realized I do love God. He reached out to me when I was lonely. He gave me a gift greater than any I could have wished for. He became a constant father, brother, friend. My life is in his hands, his love for me will never die, and in that knowledge I can have peace that no matter where I am headed he is with me, guiding my steps and forgiving my mistakes.

Is it wrong to love him for what he has done for me? No.

It would be wrong not to.

This Phenomenon We Live In

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The World.

It spins energetically, it thrives, it thinks, it hurts.

But we don't notice.

It laughs, it cries, it jests, it questions.

But we don't notice.

Why is it here? Why does it ponder, play, and feel?

We don't care. We are too busy.

What keeps our attention?

What are we after that keeps us from pondering our existence?

We don't know. All we know is we want it and are going to get it no matter what.

It is a struggle – a race against time, a war against space.

It is only I, my enemies, and my goals. I know of nothing else.

Are we not blinding ourselves?

Is it so ridiculous to think we are each part of a greater story,

A story much broader than our private realities dared allow?

Perhaps it's time to stop lying to ourselves,

Perhaps it's time to embrace the existence we keep running from,

And be what we were created to be,

More than hungry beasts,

More than indifferent apes,

But children of the God whose image we bear,

Creations of the Creator who brought about this phenomenon,

This mysterious, wondrous phenomenon we call Planet Earth.

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Dust and the Divine

Many prefer to shelve their past like an old volume – fondly to be remembered on occasion, but for the most part leaving it a dust-catcher. Perhaps there are things about it that are painful. Perhaps we dislike what it shows us about ourselves. Perhaps it feels like a weight holding us down and burdening us. But for whatever reason, in pursuit of our new selves we tend to cut off ourselves from anything predating the present, feeling it is for the best.

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The reason we are in search of ourselves, however, is that we think we have no self – at least not much of one to speak of. We feel empty, and so we hope to find ourselves elsewhere.

What we miss, though, is that every person has their own story – and this is what makes every human unique. It is to some degree what's within us, but it's also our experiences. Our story is what is within us responding to what is beyond us, and vice versa in a kind of dance, over a period of time that started with our birth.

We are searching for ourselves, and we look everywhere but the mirror. Perhaps we should treat our pasts as foundations for the future, rather than live in denial of them.

Are you ashamed of it? Then let forgiveness and redemption be your focus. Was it painful? Then let the quest for healing drive you. Was it encumbering? Then your story is about seeking relief from your burden.

Of course you may have heard all this before, and possibly came to this conclusion a long time ago and still are in search. Don't mistake what I am saying, though. I'm not saying follow the winds wherever they take you. I'm saying let the past in. Let it out of the reservoir you confined it to, and allow it to mingle with the rest of the river. Let the past be as much a part of you as the present. Living in denial of it can't do you any good. Only by looking at your life as a whole can you truly be whole.

The past, of course, is passive. It happened already, but the present is happening now. It is what it is, and we are what we are – still aching for fulfillment, for an answer. Accepting the past is one step, but what is the next step?

Personally I have found my wholeness in Jesus. I know I am incomplete, weak, in need of forgiveness, in need of a guide, in need of healing, in need of boundless love. But he is the answer to all of that. He is the God who fills the eternal gap in my world. He is strength even when I am powerless. He made the great sacrifice so I could be forgiven everything. He is wisdom incarnate, directing my life when I can't see my path. He is the great healer. He gives love even when I'm a stubborn and thoughtless idiot.

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Without him my life – my past and my being – becomes meaningless, a hopeless drama ending in bitterness. In him, however, I see the missing piece to this great puzzle. With him it all begins to make sense. All of the rotten things in my past – they happened so God could show me how much he loves me in covering my weaknesses. All the amazing things in my past – he takes them and makes them infinitely more meaningful, renewing them and sometimes introducing a new spin.

My past won't gather dust on the shelf. It will remain part of me as a testament to God's goodness and greatness no matter where I go. I don't have to keeping searching for my self. I simply have to acknowledge it. I am who God made me and is making me. In this I find true fulfillment and joy.

A New Kind of Me

I have decided I'm going to do what everyone says you should do.

And I am going to be myself.

I am a Christian.

I'm going to stop pretending, and start being me.

Who am I?

A Bible-believing, Faith-holding, God-loving, Jesus-preaching Christian.

Don't like who I am? I'm sorry to hear that.

I will not judge you. But neither will I keep the Judge's warning to myself.

I won't impose my faith on anyone. But neither will I be afraid to share it.

I will not tell you what to do. But neither will I turn my back on injustice.

I will not tell you who to be. But neither will I deny who I am.

I will not act overbearing or pretend to be better. But neither will I cower in the dark.

I will apologize for my failures. I will not apologize for my convictions.

What are your charges?

Do you think all Christians are self-righteous, racist, misogynist, bigoted brutes?

Do you purposely promote stories about inquisitors

And turn a blind eye to the ministry of missionaries?

History is littered with acts of good and evil both done in Jesus' name.

But Jesus, who taught us to love even our enemies,

To do unto others as we would have them do to us –

Can you hold him responsible for those who did the opposite in his name?

Can the self-righteous judgments of man, who sees little,

Be blamed on the righteous judgment of God

Who perceives the core of every being?

You can mock me.

You can say I will never live up to God's standard, so I should give up.

You are half right.

I am not perfect.

I will continue to do damage to myself and to others with my actions and words

Because I'm such a rotten sinner.

But I believe in the power of forgiveness.

I know we are broken, fallen, beset with weaknesses.

But I believe we will one day be perfect.

Because I believe in the promises of God.

I believe in the redeeming power of Jesus, who took the punishment we justly deserved,

And bore our pain for us,

Because he loves us.

This is the new kind of Me,

A new kind of Me which follows an old faith,

An ancient faith,

A trust in the one who laid the foundations of the world,

Who gave us our beings,

Who gave us life, and will continue to give life to those who will accept it,

Who believe in the resurrection of Christ.

We are Christians.

This is who we are, and this is what we believe.

God is our Father.

Jesus is our Lord,

And we are his people.

What Could I Have Missed?

Few things can deaden your pace more than a recurring problem. When you thought you had figured something out, imagining you put the nail in its coffin, and yet it still comes back to burden you. You ride on winds of an epiphany one day, and the very next find yourself in the spiritual doldrums as if nothing happened. How can you go on, fearing that you will never find your way out of this dark forest?

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On paper you may be able to pin a complex mathematical issue in minutes. But for some things, even if all the facts line up, even if you can see the result in numbers, you find you still just don't get it. Experience and logic can hammer the same message into you time and again. But still, in the face of new or returning issues, it can still fail to make complete sense to you. What, you ask, do I have to learn that I haven't already? Why am I still so confused?

Sometimes we can accept things in our minds, but our hearts simply do not follow. At this point, it may be we have to wait for the movement of something beyond ourselves. Perhaps this is what it means to need the help of the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 127:1

“Unless the Lord builds the house,

they who build it labor in vain.”

It is hard to wait. When we are confused, in pain or spiritual turmoil, we want answers and we want them right away. We want to know now why this is still happening. We groan, we clench our fists, we pull our hair and grind our teeth, hoping that some miracle will come along to restore the sunlight to what has become our cavern of doubt.

Your first impulse may be to look for distractions. Perhaps if you divert your attention from the problem long enough, it will solve itself by the time you come back to it. And sometimes if you have to wait, it is good to find something you enjoy doing to lighten your spirit. But the distractions are not the cure to the pain. You may spend a day of procrastinating/recreating, and come tomorrow the tension will still be strong as ever. You can continue striving to amuse yourself, but you may find you are only making things worse and sinking gradually deeper into despair.

But what if prayer was your first impulse?

The mention of prayer may make us bristle at first. How do you know that if you pray things will magically get better? Usually, in fact, it doesn't. We ask God to make things better, but nothing happens. Why waste your time?

Prayer, however, has a different purpose.

It's not about putting in orders and expecting them to be filled. It is a reviving of that link between us and the One who shapes the course of our life. It reminds us of who is in control. It takes our focus off the apparent chaos before us, and draws it to the reality that transcends the circumstances.

We may tell ourselves we can have no peace until a solid, incontestable answer to the problem is revealed and clicks within us. But the answer we are looking for may look almost negligible if we compare it to the answer we have already received in Christ, a truth that can be found in simple, stereotypically trotted out verses such as “All things work together for good to those who love God.” Under such knowledge, we can rest in the realization that we don't always have to have an answer for everything right when we want it, because we know something else is going on beyond what we see.

It may be something we have to learn over and over before our heart fully accepts it. But we don't have to torture ourselves for our ignorance until then. Instead we can relinquish our confusion entirely to God, who bears the burden we were trying to shoulder, because he is the only one who can. This, I believe, is the real way to peace in times of uncertainty, a relief from anxiety and spiritual release. This was, and is, the ultimate unchanging answer.

Psalm 55:22

“Cast your burden on the Lord,

and he will sustain you.”

I Believe in God *Because* There is Death and Suffering

“If there is a God, he would not allow [such and such] to happen.”

That is what many of us are saying, or feel strongly inclined to say. It seems commonplace to interpret the world's tragedies and pains as a sign that we are alone, and that there is no God – or that if there is, he can't be a nice one. Who, we ask again and again, can support the idea of a loving Creator when Creation must starve in such loveless circumstances?

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The truth is, though, that once you finish your angry tirade and are done taking out your frustration on the object of blame, the dying and the suffering in the world will still be going on. Murder and disease will persist. Atheists will continue to help others in opposition to the divine, and Christians will continue to minister in service to the divine. Nothing will have changed.

Only once you have accepted the fact that death and suffering exist are you in a position to make any judgments about them. And when you do, you may see how counterproductive to the human dilemma the denial of a good God is.

When an atheist says God and suffering cannot both exist, they believe they are doing it on behalf of the human race. In truth, they are attacking what is humanity's chief hope – the belief in something beyond the bleak picture we now see.

We want to believe our pain is not in vain, and that one day joy will replace it. We want to believe the loved ones we lost are not lost forever. We want to believe death is not the end. For the person struggling with these issues, God can be the one who is the answer, not the enemy.

Why do the world's sorrows fail to break my faith? Simply put, they bolster my faith.

I believe in God because there is death and suffering;

because without God, death and suffering wouldn't make sense.

Unbelief scolds us and says, “People suffer and die and that's just the way of it. So suck it up and focus on what life you have.” Even if they had tried to sugar-coat it, the despair such a belief would cast on me would take away all my joy and hope.

But I choose not to think that way. I choose to put my faith in the reality of the empty tomb. I choose life in the face of death. I choose to believe in a heaven beyond the hell around us. I choose God.

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Opposing the Ocean

The ocean is scary. It is colossal. It is deep. It is forbidding. Above all, it is powerful. Few things can compare to it in terms of brute strength. It is able to pull down and crush the strongest of ships. What are we in comparison to it? Insects who ride its waves, while treating it with the respect and fear due it, for if we do not we will be swallowed.

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Man pretends to be strong. He is not compared to the forces of nature. He pretends to be wise. For all his smarts however, he cannot reshape and control nature to his liking. He himself is a product of nature, and is subject to its laws. All he can do is play along, and no matter how cleverly he does he must play by the rules, hoping some greater force does not take him by surprise and claim his life.

This is a grim perspective. However, there is another you can take.

If you choose to continually wrestle the ocean, you will fight a losing battle. You will be dragged under and swallowed up, unless by its mercy you are granted your life again. Those who make this choice will meet only frustration, despair, even death.

But you can stop fighting. You can stop trying to turn back the waves of the ocean – and you can ride them instead.

What is a popular metaphor for freedom? A ship on the sea. I stand on the deck as the wind rushes over my face and blows my hair. I listen to the hissing and crashing of the waves below. I feel the swaying of the boat beneath my feet. I look across the rolling waters and to the seemingly endless horizon before me, and the even mightier sky spreading above, across which rolls enormous white islands of clouds, billowing and shaping as they crawl across the planet. I take a deep breath of the salty air, and I say, “These are the moments I live for.”

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I do not wish to fight the ocean. I do not need to. I have found what true freedom is, and I will not cast it aside in trying to prove something that is not true – that I am a god who controls the waves. We all think of ourselves at some point as Poseidon, commanding the currents, altering the course of the deeps as we please. But if we let go, if we accept the fact that we are the ones who ride rather than direct the waves, there are few things more freeing.

Many of us live our lives striving to be something that God did not intend us to be. We are positive we know what we want, convinced that freedom is to be found in the purposes we set for ourselves. But I speak from experience when I say the things in which we look for freedom are often the very things that will chain up and enslave us, stifling growth, mastering and imprisoning us. But once we accept our circumstances, once we accept who we were created to be, only then can we truly live, only then can we truly find freedom.

If you spend your time trying to force onto your foot a glass slipper that was not molded to it, you will only hurt yourself. If you try to fight the ocean, you will fight a losing battle. God is like the ocean. To fight and control him is to choose madness and death. But to ride on his waves is life and peace.

Psalm 18:26, 27

“With the purified you show yourself pure;

and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.

For you save a humble people,

but the haughty eyes you bring down.”

This does not mean there won't be storms. However, it is an irony that these storms bring us closer to God. During them is when we are most likely to talk to and spend time with him, when during a time of peace we take his love for granted and forget him. It is in our darkest hour, not our brightest, that we cry out to him, that we recognize our need for him. We thank God for times of peace. We also thank God for the times of turbulence, for without these the relationship would quickly die. It is not fun. But it is the very thing that brings us healing and life, curing the numbness we had before been under.

If we want to fight it we will only end up wringing our hands in vexation. Only if we ride it will we find purpose and meaning. So let us not live in denial of the truth, but let us live within it – for if you find the truth, it really will set you free.

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Jesus the Joke?

Do you laugh when you hear the name Jesus? Do you curse? Do you sigh with regret? Or do you sing?

Maybe you are trying to forget him. You hear the name and pull a face. You are disgusted, sick of hearing it, trying to get as far as possible from anything associated with it. You believe he is nothing but a superstition, a product conspiracy formed by some religious elite to subjugate “inferior” persons to their self-serving propaganda.

Perhaps the name has been used in such circles for this kind of purpose. But you're wrong if you think this is the real thing. If you take another look at the accounts of Jesus' life and testament, removing all preconceived ideas you have, and viewing them as they are, this is not the picture you get.

The picture you get is of a man who lived a life of hardship and danger, but who walked throughout it with godlike fearlessness – a man who went toe-to-toe with the religious elite of his day, and silenced them like their arguments were just air. A man who felt for others, even shed tears at the deaths of total strangers. But if he was iconoclastic to the surrounding culture, it was because of his loyalty to the past, more deeply because of his loyalty to the one he called his father, a love which directed all his actions. He ignored the pleasures and thrills of the world, because he himself was the way to a greater future than any of those shallow distractions could offer – he gave the hope of eternal life in a renewed world beyond this one. If anyone put their faith in him, they would never die completely, which was proven in his resurrection from the dead – something which nothing in this planet can offer, though it tries so hard.

What many refer to as science claims that his resurrection is too bizarre to be real, believing science to be omniscience – when there is still so much mystery in the universe it hasn't yet uncovered. Can you prove God doesn't exist, that he didn't create the universe, and that he didn't raise Jesus from the dead? But if he did raise him from the dead, then all the babbling of these scientists is lost to the wind. This world they have carefully built with their academics, their technology and their urban civilizations would be seen for what it is – a clever invention, but not proof of man's absoluteness or God's nonexistence.

Frankly my heart goes out to all who put their trust in earthly things, who believe all that remains to them is a limited time in a dark and sorrow-filled world to enjoy what pleasures they can get under a scarcity of joy and happiness. Only despair remains to them. But those who put their trust in God have hope for eternity – not just monotonous eternal persistence, but life, the thing which every human soul craves. Those who are powerful in this world will enjoy what they can get. The weak, the losers, the bullied, the diseased – the Scriptures say they will be royalty with Jesus in God's kingdom, having everything, if they follow in his footsteps, forgiving their enemies as he has forgiven them. As he said,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

What Do We Strive For?

Jesus wants you to be successful. Jesus wants you to be great. Jesus wants you to impact and leave your mark on the world. Jesus wants you to get to the top. Jesus wants you to have fun and enjoy life. Jesus wants to feel good about yourself. Jesus wants you to win. Jesus wants you to beat down the competition. Jesus wants...Jesus wants...

What did Jesus want?

“Feed my sheep.”

Some people invoke the name of Jesus as a means to an end. They say “I am a Christian” and “I believe in God,” then go on to talk about how by their own power and determination they will climb the ladder and win a place in the world's hall of fame on their own merits. They may even begin to feel smug toward those who are less successful, even those called failures, quite closed to the possibility that some people may have to deal with disadvantages that others do not.

Of course they may nod their heads to the impoverished, to the addict, to the physically or socially disadvantaged, even go to great measures to help them to achieve the success they are achieving. But some cannot help falling behind, even giving up for lack of spirit or strength, and when this occurs they are at a loss as to the cure, and may even label them as hopeless, avoiding them as a disease, as a burden that will hold them back from achieving their own happiness.

For the non-religious this is an understandable conclusion. They have no time to lose in pursuing the good things in life, so they can enjoy as much of it as they can before it's all over. They know some day they will die and their bodies will decay, and they themselves will live on in nothing more than a memory – if even that for very long. They see no point in wasting precious time finding a way to cure these broken spirits, writing them off as self-destructive or simply lacking in sufficient optimism.

But whose spirit wouldn't be broken, living in the despair that some day they were going to die, while experiencing defeats and frustrations at every attempt to experience in life the good things they expect from it, and having finally run out of spiritual and emotional fuel? Is there really any point in trying anymore?

Those who see it that way are probably wiser than the former party. They understand what Solomon meant when he described life as vanity of vanities, a striving after the wind, a tragedy where all a man works for in his lifetime is lost to him when he dies, left to someone else to enjoy in his place. They know they cannot buy everlasting happiness or immortality. They know they are doomed.

However, one who is truly a Christian sees it differently.

They know Jesus was raised from the dead, and that one day they will also be resurrected as he was. They know that life is shallow and meaningless if its not centered on that which is eternal and full of wonders. They know that their boasting should not lie in their own power or smarts, but in God who made them in the first place and gave them the capabilities they possess. They express their gratitude not only with their voice, but in actions, such as lifting up the downcast and the downtrodden, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned.

“For as surely as you did it to the least of these, you did it also to me.”

This is what Jesus really wanted, and continues to desire. No more self-righteousness and pride, no more pursuing of achievements that will not last, but instead humility and gratitude, and the storing up of treasures in heaven, where thieves do not break in and steal and where moth and rust do not destroy – an eternal treasure. For we have set our sights on something greater than the world has, the joy and glorification of Jesus who suffered and died for us, and was raised to victory over death and despair.

Let us not be Christian in name, secular in vocation. Let us live our whole lives for the reward of a joy and peace that will never die.




Romans 3:27- "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith."

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 - "For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."