Start a book of quotes that mean something to me

Yesterday, my 4 year old son was talking to me in the van. I couldn’t quite understand him, so I asked him what he said. Suddenly, he angrily yells at me from the back,”Dad, you’ve got to pay attention to me, you’re supposed to listen to me when I’m speaking!” He was obviously very frustrated with me for my “major infraction” of momentary ADD. It’s so funny, because those are the exact words I use with him when I’m instructing or asking him to do something for me, and he is lost in his imagination or the TV. It was just so odd to hear a child reprimand a parent. In fact, it was almost comical. Of course, I shared with him how parent/child roles work and authority structure, and that authorities are there to praise and punish, protect and provide for those under authority. But then I got to thinking about how demanding I can be with my Father in Heaven. When he doesn’t appear to be listening to my prayers, I get indignant and eventually complain to him about how He should be running the show. But He is operating on such a different level, and I cannot even possibly comprehend the extent to which He thinks or operates. He knows more about me and my situation than I do. He knows every detail of what has led me to this point in time, and how my actions will affect the rest of history throughout the world (you know, the whole ripple thing). It’s like, I see part of one pixel on a computer screen while he is looking at the whole picture on the entire screen, and then I have audacity to tell God what’s what. I’m sure he just laughs at the ensuing comedy. The sad part is to think about how much I haven’t learned because I wasn’t paying attention to what God had to say when I was so busy reprimanding Him for how he is doing things. Perhaps if I was more watchful and patient, I’d see how He was going to work in a situation and have greater understanding of who He really is, as opposed to who I think He is or how He should run the show.

I have this friend named Jim. Occasionally, he has visions from God, and that used to kinda, freak me out. I’m not a theologian by any means, but I have read the bible through several times and have studied it quite in depth. Normally, when people have visions, they usually don’t line up with what the bible has to say about things. For instance, a person will say that God spoke to them, and they saw a vision of a giant wave coming, and that God wants them to run into it. What does that mean? Maybe that will bare itself out someday, but the vision is so loose that could mean anything. At least in the bible, when someone had a vision, it was either pretty obvious what it meant or if it was difficult to understand, God would usually send a profit or someone to interpret. God wants us to know him, he doesn’t want us confused when he is trying to speak. He’s already beyond our comprehension, what good does it do him to make himself even less discernible? Back to Jim. So he told me about several visions he had over the course of his life. He has told me these stories over the last 10 or so years that I have known him. There are a few interesting things to note. First, the story never changes. For a story to never change, the person has to either be a very good lier, or it must be true. Second, as weird as some of the visions might seem when you hear it, none of them directly contradict what the bible has to say about God, demons, faith, and so on. For instance, one vision went like this. Jim was walking along a road on his way somewhere, and he was about to walk under a bridge of some sort. From a distance, he suddenly could see a demon down the road. Now, Hollywood has made demons out to be these slimy, see-through ghosts with fangs and glowing red eyes. Jim described this thing like it was 9 feet tall, huge in every way, this hulking, menacing, immense presence. When Jim saw the demon, it was at an intersection on the street picking up cars and tossing them like they were nothing. Well, the demon turns and sees Jim and starts bearing down on him. At this point, Jim starts quoting scripture at this thing. Nothing was fazing it. Jim’s like “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world”. Nothing. Jim start freaking out as this thing gets closer. Finally, this demon is right in front of him, leaning over him, and Jim starts to fall backward as the demon says, “who do you think you are?” and Jim starts to fall and says,”God! Help!” What else could he say? Then from out of his chest comes this hand with it’s finger pointing at the demon that says,”I am God.” and all of a sudden, the demon disappears. Jim thought he was about to die, and God came through and delivered him in the last second. Theologically, I can find no fault with that? God protects and delivers his righteous ones. Demons are scary, but God is stronger than they are. Demons try to intimidate us, tempt us, coerce us, bully us, to make us deny God, rely on ourselves, and so on. Even demons believe in God, and tremble.

All this to say, God speaks in whatever way you listen best. For Jim, he is not a good reader. He’s not illiterate by any stretch, but he simply lacks the ability to sit down and focus and glean info from reading a book. He has been in church, listened to sermons, been around other christians, and so on. It’s just that reading is not his thing. He’s tried, but to no avail. And the thing I guess I find cool about all this, is that God saw fit to bless him with visions that would give him enough info to keep on keeping on for all these years. It’s hysterical, he and God have arguments all the time, (God always wins in the end). For all his brief vision driven growth, I think sometimes that he is a far more mature christian than I am, a guy who has a minor in Bible from a christian college, who has spent hours and hours dissecting the Greek word by word. For all that knowledge, I see myself as a child in my faith compared to him. I see him as more of an adolescent. Not fully mature, but still further ahead in his faith. I just think it’s cool that God would choose to even speak to us at all, much more that he wants us to know him so he makes it clear. It’s kind of like in the book of Acts when the apostles started to speak in the various languages of the people on the day of penticost. God had an agenda, and he made it absolutely clear to everyone within in ear shot. There were no obsticals that could stop him getting his word out.

Jim’s a good man. I am proud to have him as my friend.

I was driving by a contractors van the other day, and through the back window I could see his tools and such. Close to the back, on a shelf was a tape measure that was put in an easily accessible place. The van was very clean and the tools all seem to have a place and be where they were supposed to be. Then I thought, I bet it takes some effort to keep that van as neat and tidy as it is. So I imagined the guy going through his stuff every night after he got home, cleaning the tools, clearing out the trash that develops on a job site, taking inventory of supplies and so on. It is quite a task to keep things up to snuff. So then I imagined this guy spending so much time on his tools and so on, that he had very little time for his family. So I started to think, wow, this guys life is really out of whack. He is as controlled by his desire for order as a person who is overwhelmed by disorder. So then I thought, according to the Bible, we are supposed to “have dominion” over the earth, i.e. creation. But if we let ourselves get out of hand with order, it can become a “god”, controlling us, having dominion over us. Just like a constantly messy house can overcome us and make us depressed, so can order overcome us, making us it’s servant, to the exclusion of other, perhaps, equally important responsibilities. Either way, creation takes charge as we hand over our dominion to it, whether to disorder or to order.

Like every normal person out there in the world, I have times where I doubt things about God, even the existence of God. I found that when these doubts hit the hardest, when life is rough and most of the stuff you believe about God doesn’t make sense, there was always one thing that kept me in the faith: People who I personally know who have died and gone on to be with God in Heaven. At this point, there are only about 3 people I know that I have bothered to imagine in Heaven: My dad, my grandfather, and Rich Mullins. I may doubt the existence of God in my life, but I can’t doubt His existence in theirs. They died in the faith, being faithful. My father was mentally ill, and the morning he died, God saw fit to bless me with the thought that he was in heaven and that we wasn’t mentally ill anymore. He was just fine, better, in fact, than when he was here on earth. My grandfather got saved in his 70’s, and died a few years later, still going to church and growing in his faith. Rich was on his way to do a concert and died in a car crash. They are my cloud of witnesses waiting for my arrival. To doubt that there is a God means that I must also doubt that these people are in Heaven, and I cannot do that. Often, doubt is something that comes over you. External things that overcome you can often be crippling and difficult to shake. In most cases, doubt is natural when it comes to things you cannot see (i.e. things of faith). However, in this rare case, it is more natural for me to believe than to doubt. It seems wrong to imagine them not there.

I have seen some great movies about freedom, such as King Arthur, Braveheart, and most recently, 300. Each film was about a small number of men who do some extraordinary things for the greater cause of freedom. Obviously, freedom is a great motivator. However, what got me thinking about love vs. freedom was the ending of 300. spoiler alert The whole movie is about these Spartan soldiers who fought for 3 days against the thousands of the Persian armies in the name of freedom. Before he leaves for this battle, King Leonidas has a brief chat with his wife. He does not say,”goodbye, my love” because there is no room in Sparta for softness. Only the hard, only the strong can call themselves Spartans. Near the end of the movie, King Leonidas encourages his men by saying,”no surrender, no retreat… (we will) give our last breath for freedom.” At the end, he utters with his last breath, “My Queen, my wife, my love.” then dies. It’s almost as if he realized that love is a stronger motivator than freedom, is a bigger thing than freedom. Heck, even the bible says that “love is as strong as death”, and “now we have faith, hope and love, these 3, but the greatest of these is love.” It seems to me that love is greater than freedom. I see love not as a namby-pamby soft, gushy feeling, but a strong, selfless, diligent, disciplined, wise, thoughtful, gentle, and understanding concept. Love can exist without freedom, but freedom cannot exist without love. I often wonder who the real terrorists are. Is it those from without by jihad who want to see “the giant Satan” the USA, crumble and fall to pieces? Or is the greater threat to our freedom from within – because we are weak, self-indulgent, short-sighted. lazy, fat, fools with no commonsense. Because we love ourselves more than those around us, are we not eroding the very freedoms we enjoy? In the last days, knowledge will increase, and the love of many will wax cold. True? you tell me.

Most people live their lives in light of what they want to do. Thus, they are always looking to the future for their satisfaction. The grass is always greener on the other side of the moment. However, I think one should live life in light of how you want to have lived your life. No regrets! Here’s what I mean… When I’m old and gray, I want to be able to look back over my life and have some good stories to tell. Those stories are the decisions I am making today. The cool thing about this perspective is that it forces me to evaluate the decisions I am making today to make sure they are meaningful to me now and still make a good story. It stretches me, forces me out of my comfort zone, and helps me to be a little more daring in my decision making. It helps me to have a sense of humor, to laugh at myself, to see my life in a bigger way, on a broader scope. This perspective helps to neutralize fear and make me bolder and more daring, confident, and strong.

Life is only worth living if you’re pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. If you’re not afraid or fearful, your not moving in the right direction. a life without fear is an unrealistic and an unlived life. be very afraid when you feel no fear. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the presence of right actions in the face of fear.

It’s not what you know, or who you know, but who knows you. It doesn’t matter who you know, unless they know you and care enough to do something for you.