Bleeding Soul

Spears pierce my mind, and my soul bleeds.

We are told we can do anything if we set our minds to it. Believe in yourself and you can accomplish the impossible.

But the walls of my prison are rock-solid. They cannot be broken no matter how much I pound and push - and they are closing in.

Some people are born with strength. They press on through life, fall, but get up again and keep going. I have no such power. My arms shrivel, my heart grows weak.

Confidence is dangerous for me. A little more, and I hurt myself.

My heart calls – my mind does not respond. My brain beckons – my body does not heed. I face the future with determination – but can barely take one step.

Daggers pierce my mind, my soul bleeds.

We are taught to stand up for what we believe. Our beliefs are a part of us. But I am knocked down before I can even rise, again and again. And every time a bloated ego marches triumphant from the site of my defeat.

Perhaps it was only defense. Perhaps they were aware of my own fangs, and that was why they sawed them off. I can't blame them. Perhaps this was for the best.

But knowing this doesn't ease the pain, and the scars throb until they numb.

I never wanted to see them writhe. I never wanted to drive them into the dirt. I just wanted them to see.

Perhaps I was confused. But my feelings were real. It's the tragedy of any argument that one must always walk away the loser – though both sides may be right about some things while wrong about others.

But the greatest tragedy of all is that some hearts may never be reconciled. They reach for one another, but a black void lies between – a rift in reality, a crack in the continuum, forever open, never to be sewed back together.

I want to believe it can be bridged. I want to believe that if I can let my talents sing, swelling in a great symphony at the top of the world for all the universe to hear, that one day you would feel the joy I felt, humming along with the tune that so moved me. And maybe I could understand you better.

But it may be my fate only to find myself one day languishing on my face, with the time and the strength only to etch the words “I wish” in the dirt before I succumb to my final sleep. Such is the way the cards could fall.

Thorns pierce my mind, my soul bleeds.

I cry out to God. He doesn't listen. “Why have you forsaken me?”

Was it because my sins were too bad? Perhaps I just can't be forgiven, perhaps I have crucified Christ one too many times.

Do I have to believe that just yet? Perhaps "it is no longer I who do it, but sin dwelling in me."

“Your God will not answer, because he does not exist,” you say. But I will not comply with your pessimism, your sick excuse for hedonism and self-worship. I know where my hope lies, and as long as I live I'll trust in that hope.

I don't know what's to be my end. Perhaps my dreams are too incompatible with the ways of Jesus. Perhaps my views are too idealistic to stand up to the scrutiny of true Biblical faith.

But I will keep waiting, praying, listening, looking – and maybe some day my dead soul will rediscover life, and the spears, daggers and thorns will stop.

And I will fly once again.

The Dark Truth and the Radiant Truth

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It's nothing new to say that the world we live in is messed up – but that's the problem.

We wish or perhaps even dare to believe that life could be a fairy tale for anyone if they just have the right perspective – but every day the truth grows less and less flexible, and with every perspective added it takes form piece by piece into exactly the hard, cold, unfeeling lump of rock we first took it to be.

The truth is not always pretty.

The arts and the media reflect the current feelings of the human race. They abound with sorrow, superficiality, anger, elusive portrayals of justice, and pride going hand-in-hand with hollow egos. Some have merely resigned to the darkness and embraced it, deciding to milk what fun they can out of life in spite of its horrors before resigning themselves to fate. Perhaps it's all they believe they can do.

What manner of world is it? A place where broken families are the norm, disease and pain are commonplace, relationships are fun but short, where the weak always fall prey to the stronger or smarter with or without morals, and violence and killing happen somewhere every day. The damage is mountainous and often irreparable. Under it all we sense something is very wrong. Deep within us we hear a voice that is often stifled but is ever constant, which finds its way into our wording, “This is not the way it's supposed to be.”

No, this is not the way it's supposed to be.

Even though we are told to shut up, accept it, and make the best of it, we are still left with that cold feeling. What we do to amuse ourselves, all that we indulge in to drown our sorrows, it minimizes the pain but it never heals. Beneath it all we want that peace. We want to find the light that shines in the darkness – but the only light we find is a will-o-the-wisp, gone even as we reach for it.

I won't accept it. I will not resign myself to the notion that the darkness is all there really is. And you know something? I don't have to.

Nothing I believe can change the harsh realities – but with Jesus in the picture, I can make sense of them.

What was it that drove them?

What was it that made the early Christians sing and find joy in spite of imprisonment and torture? 

What caused them to hold to the name of Jesus even to the point of painful death?

It was hope.

Not a blind hope, not wishful thinking – but the conviction that Jesus rose from the dead, conquering death, showing that life was not as lost a cause as the world seemed to think, not with him. In him they found an eternal family. With him they saw justice, and also forgiveness. To him the wicked and the oppressor would ultimately answer for their crimes. In his light, the darkness of the world seemed like merely a shadow before dawn – it became the superficial thing, having lost all its power to control and convince them, for it was doomed to disappear, to be replaced by a new heaven and earth – a world no longer messed up, but where everything will be made right again.

Is broken the way our world is supposed to be? No. Does it have the final say? Not on your life. In the light of Jesus, its threats become empty. It can inflict pain and take away our comfort, but it can never command us again. It is dead.

The life in Christ is the only reality now that matters.

Many have claimed to find peace and happiness through one means or another – but only Jesus went through the ultimate sorrow and torture, crossed to the other side, then came back to show us that he is indeed life itself, giving us assurance beyond doubt that it could be found. Darkness, struggle, and death are ever present in this world – but for those who believe, it's lost its sting. We have been freed.

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A Foolish Faith?

Why do I so strongly want God to be real?

Because without God we would be alone. With only our limited power. At the mercy of greater human powers and the elements. With no hope beyond death.

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The atheist is free from God. Free to do anything he wants. But he is also vulnerable. Vulnerable to the merciless quirks of a universe governed by chance. His success lasts no longer than his luck – and when it runs out his paradise crumbles. Death is ultimately his final sentence.

But why the God of the Bible? Why Jehovah and Jesus? Why would I accept Jehovah's seemingly harsh nature in the Old Testament even if it makes me uncomfortable? Why would I accept what Jesus teaches about Hell?

Because of their mercy and long-suffering. Jehovah gave his people protection and prosperity. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and be good to those who hate us. Divine judgment is only for those who will never accept Jehovah as God and Jesus as his son even after they come to know them, because they prefer their fantasies. Mercy is for the humble heart that knows it is sinful, that it is creation and not Creator, and whose deepest desire is for redemption and transformation.

Why would I think the accounts in the Bible any less legendary in nature than Greek or Chinese or Norse mythology?

The sincerity of the authors? The authenticity of the Apostles' letters albeit the bizarre claims therein? The admission by their enemies and the unbelievers of Jesus' existence despite their skepticism of his claims? The testimony of writers who claimed to be eyewitnesses and companions of Jesus, well within an area they knew it could be verified? The closeness of the testimony to the time of the events they talk about? The witness of those who followed after them in the following centuries and millenniums even unto death?

If so, could miracles really happen? Could Jesus truly have worked wonders and rose from the dead, even if people who heard it were skeptical, and even if we do not see such things happen today? I would not rule out the possibility.

The world of skyscrapers and iPhones insists the answer is no. If we lived in a world where such tech did not exist, however, perhaps our perspective would change. Technological advancements change nothing concerning God's existence – we have only fooled ourselves into thinking so.

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Finally, as an independent testimony should not the Biblical documents be understood on their own terms rather than doctored up and re-interpreted to fit one consensus or another? Should not God be allowed his own voice no matter how radical or politically incorrect? Perhaps if we would let the radical nature and politically-incorrectness in, we would understand something about ourselves and the world we never could before.

Perhaps, as the Bible claims, we would understand how much better it is to be slaves of Christ than kings of this world. Because God's slaves are better off than royalty by the world's standards, and have a treasure far greater than any rich man could hope for. The treasure Jesus brought when he gave up his rights, when he emptied himself and made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant, making the ultimate sacrifice, which in the end caused him to be exalted above every other name.

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.