A Healthy New Year's Resolution in 8 Words, 1 Simple Phrase

The new year is here.  It seems, as I look around social media these last few days, that 2017 was a year that a good number of people were glad to see end.

So what about 2018?  How will it be different?
One reality is certain: there are plenty of situations that will come to pass in the year 2018 that you and I will have little to no control over.  I am starting 2018 with one of those right now.  And I am sure there will be many more for me, and for you the reader as well.

But while we can't control everything in the next 365 days, there are some things we can control, and so to help you make a healthy and helpful New Year's Resolution, I'd like to offer these 8 words:

It did not have to be this way.

Those 8 words have worked there way into my vocabulary over the last year.  I honestly don't know where they came from, but again and again, I am finding myself saying them, and because of them a heart of gratitude has grown in me.  Thank you for that gift, God.

What do I mean by these words?  I mean to say that the grace of God is shown to us in a myriad of ways in each and every day, and yet we sometime take these gifts for granted.

Consider these examples:

I took this photo a little over a week ago as I headed into work one Sunday morning.  We have probably all seen beautiful sunrises and sunsets over the years.  But now apply those eight words I mentioned above and consider that God was under no obligation to make the sunrise ever look like this.  There was nothing forcing Him to make it awe-inspiring, and yet He did.  And so we can be thankful that even though it did not have to be this way, it is this way.

Each year, literally tens of thousands of people travel to New Hampshire (my home state) to see the leaves change.  But it did not have to be this way.  As you look at the photo above, let us all realize that the leaves could transform from green to brown in an instant and then fall from the trees, dead.  But many do not - many of them transform from green to orange or gold or red or a mix of all these colors.  What a gift.  It did not have to be this way, but it is this way.

Have you ever considered laughter?  Why do we laugh?  Not so much how does it physically occur, but why does it even happen at all?  What a gift that when we find something humorous we can laugh, and laugh with others, and sometimes laugh so hard we even cry.
It did not have to be this way,  but it is this way.

And the list goes on and on.
Beauty in nature, beauty in the storms, family - all of these blessings are too easily taken for granted, and so we should recall again and again that there was nothing that obligated God to make the world wonderful.  But He did.  It did not have to be this way, but it is this way.

Realizing these daily gifts, these gifts of common grace - this will stir our hearts to affection and thankfulness (a concept found all over the Bible - see here).

If we can ask God to open our eyes to see His grace and goodness all around, our heart and lives will be changed.  "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." - 1 Thessolonians 5:18

May God cultivate in us a sense of wonder for all the good gifts He has given to us.

It did not have to be this way, but it is this way.  

And for this we are thankful.

- tC

What IF...There Is More To Life Than Just THIS?

As we dive into our What IF series, I want to start us off with a question that you can't answer...but you can.

What I mean is this.

There are some questions in life that you can answer with precision.  

When you measure the size of a marble with a micrometer caliper, you gain precision.  

You can tell me, "This marble is _______ millimeters."  

When you look at your watch you can tell me what time is, often to the very second.

But in many areas of life - often the most profound areas - we lack the ability to give answers that are verifiable in this fashion.  The big questions of life and death and morality - the answers to these questions are arrived at in a different way.  

Let me note here that this does not mean there is no science or mathematical analysis when it comes to big life questions.  There most certainly is.  When we ask about the creation of the universe, the scientist is not left at the door of the discussion.  There ARE elements of science and research that can help us answer these questions.  But science and research ALONE cannot give us answers to the most profound questions that we all ask at some point in life.

Here is my question: What if there is more to life than just this?

More than what we perceive with our 5 senses.

More than just the physical and natural world.

More than just blood and flesh and soil.

Aren't there situations where you say to yourself, "Because of this experience, I just know that there's got to be more to life than just living as an animal and then dying."

Here's one of the reasons I'd argue I know there is more...

This is my son Hudson. 

He is not an apologetic for the existence of God in the same way that reading the Cosmological Argument is, but he is none the less an apologetic for something grand.  How is it that from his birth on - though he can do nothing for me as far as making my life physically easier by mowing the lawn or bringing money into the family bank account - despite all of his limitations as a three year-old, I would give my life for him in an instant.  His life makes me look and say, "The way I feel toward him - this tells me that there is something profound and literally awesome to life."

Perhaps you don't have children.

What about experiencing images like these?

  

Doesn't nature speak to you in some way?  

Perhaps you aren't an 'outdoors person' like I am.  Fair enough.  But haven't you had some moment in life when you were struck with wonder at the grandness of life and/or nature?  

Perhaps it was art.  

Perhaps it was a poem you read. 

Haven't you had an experience in life that screamed into your soul, "You are alive!"  

What is that about?  

What IF that is something that is hard-wired into you - an understanding of the profound nature of existence itself.  

Does this make you a devout religious person?  Not necessarily.  Even Neil deGrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist and agnostic, is amazed by the wonder of the stars at night.  

At this point, we aren't asking anything about agnosticism.

We are just asking What IF there is more to life that just the ho-hom, day-to-day existence that leads us from birth to death with nothing wondrous and profound.  

If you have experienced wonder - in any form - a grasping that yes, you exist - well then you and I are kindred spirits.

- tC  

Asking The Most Important Questions: A New Series - "What IF.."

Over the next several weeks, I want to walk on a journey of thought together.  Let me share how this idea came to mind.

I spend a good deal of time in the woods, often alone.  In these moments of silence and solitude, I get to thinking about various topics but one that comes to mind a great deal is those who don't believe in or who have rejected the idea of God and - ultimately - those who have rejected the reality of Jesus Christ.  

As I've been thinking about this eternally-important topic, I began to look back at my own journey of faith and I had came to some conclusions.  I saw that while I might love apologetics (the rational defense of Christianity), I do think that the mix of reason and faith is what led me to my conclusions and putting my trust in Christ.  I think the Christian faith is reason-filled and rational, but it is not just that.  It is an act of faith to trust in the unseen God and to have a relationship that is different than any other relationship I will ever have.  To be a human or to be a Christian, we are always making the best choices we can based on what information we have in the moment of decision.

A phrase came to mind as I have been pondering this concept of faith-and-reason.  The phrase was (as you'd probably guess from the title of this post), "What if...".  I imagined sitting in a coffee shop (probably at the Starbucks inside Target on Rte. 33 in Greenland) across the table from a skeptic friend and instead of making the case for some biblical doctrine, I saw myself asking, "What if..." - and then fill in the blank.  What if there is more than just this life?  What if the physical world is not the end of all things?  What if the Bible is actually God's Word communicated to humanity?  And the list goes on.  

The beauty of questions is they place the emphasis on discussion and ask the person with doubts to engage.  It isn't a 'take it or leave it' kind of approach.  Instead it says (in my mind at least), "I get the doubts, I get the uncertainty - but let's just ask together 'What if...' and in turn, what might the implications be.   

This approach also allows us to consider the skeptic's perspective.  For example, if I ask, "What if there is more to life than just the physical or natural world", then we might also reasonably ask, "What if there is ONLY the natural and physical world?  What are the implications to your worldview and life?"

And so over the next few weeks I want to ask us a variety of 'what if' questions and we will ponder the implications together.  Thanks for walking with me on this road.

- tC 

Achan's Sin, All Are Killed: Why Did God Do This?

On a recent Sunday morning, Bethany Church heard a passage preached that was - to be candid - shocking.  In Joshua 7, we read about the sin of Achan.  The background is that the nation of Israel was freed from 400 years of slavery in Egypt.  After their miraculous delivery, disobedience leads them to wander for a generation (~40 years) in the wilderness.  Finally, they are ready to enter The Promised Land and after crossing the Jordan River, they conquer Jericho in a very strange way (see Joshua 6).  After this victory over the most fortified city they have ever seen, they are told to do 1 of 2 things with the spoils: they are either to destroy them or they are to take certain items (as directed by God) and to save them for Him.  These saved spoils would fund the future construction of the Temple, built under the reign of King Solomon, the son of King David).

In this process, a man named Achan - an Israelite and a member of the tribe of Judah - decided to take a robe, some gold, and some silver - and to hide it under his tent.  The result: God was angered and the nation of Israel was routed at the battle of Ai.  After being directed from God as to the cause of their loss, Achan was discovered, and he and his family were brought to the Valley of Achor. Achan, the robe, the silver, the gold, his sons, his daughters, his cattle, his sheep were then stoned and burned.

I suppose it might be the response of some to say, "Well, God is holy, and He demands holiness", and this is very true.  But my sense is that if we leave it here, we also leave many people with many questions.  Here are some additional thoughts as to the 'why would God..." of this situation.

1. How do you feel about any divine judgment?  I ask this question as a starting ground for us.  It is challenging to think about Achan and all his family and animals being killed, but let's step back and ask ourselves "What if just Achan was killed?"  How does that strike you?  I read one writer who immediately jumped to the notion that Achan was not a literal person, but that this passage was all symbolic.  This is serious mishandling of the text and the genre of the book.  This modern-day writer was clearly uncomfortable with any image of God as one who would demand punishment.  So how about you and how about me?  Is our issue with the stoning of the family, or with any punishment of sin and disobedience at all?  If we are not comfortable with sin being treated seriously and punishment for sin, we will have a hard time reconciling our thinking with the core of the Christian faith - that Christ was crucified as an atonement for sin.

2. Sin is never individualized.  When preaching from this passage, Pastor Bruce Boria mentioned that in our western, individualized society people tend to think they as individual persons get the blessings and the punishment they deserve in life.  He then noted how untrue this is.  The sins of one person impact the people around them - just ask any family of an addict and they will confirm this reality.

I will take this even further by saying that there is no such thing as a victimless crime or the sin of the individual.  The reknowned sociologist Emile Durkeim's book Suicide addressed this powerfully from a sociological perspective. When studying suicide - an action considered to be supremely individualistic - he found that there were a myraid of social dynamics that lead to and influenced a person's decision to take his or her life.  Along those lines, let's consider a man, alone in his house, with his wife and children asleep, looking at pornography.  Is this just 'his sin'?  Of course not.  He is impacting his view of sex which will impact his physical, emotional, and spiritual relationship with his wife.  This shaping of his mind and heart by pornography will also impact how he acts toward his son and daughter, and even how he acts toward people in public as he is being influenced to see women as a commodity and not as a person made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26).  Additionally, he is harming the men and women of the pornography industry as it feels on the most base instincts of humanity.  There truly no sin that is committed on a proverbial island.

3. What we don't know from the passage.  There are a few things we don't know from the passage.  These would be considered Arguments from Silence which - logically speaking - is a weak form of argumentation.  None the less, we should note what we don't know and we should be careful and thoughtful when we make any assumptions about what isn't said.
- We don't know the age of the children.  They may have been old enough to actively support and/or be involved in the sin of Achan
- We don't know about his wife.  In the list of people put to death, his wife is left out.  I think it is likely to assume she was also executed with the others (the passage says "all he (Achan) had" was brought to Achor.  While his wife was not a possession, that phrase likely means all that was connected to his household and thus his wife would be there as well.
- We also don't know what happened between when Joshua told the people about being consecrated and the following morning when Achan admitted to the sin.  The passage shows that the people were told (v. 14) that in the morning they would present themselves.  We don't know what Achan said to his wife or family between when the community was told about presenting themselves (the next day) and when it actually occurred.  Did his wife conspire with him?  Again, we don't know.
- Lastly, we don't know how God would have responded if Achan came and admitted to his sin before the next morning.  Could he have been forgiven?  It's unclear, but with the story of Ahab's repentance (1 Kings 21), we see that sometimes a slight move toward God might be met with mercy.

But what do we know - about the passage, about people, and about God?

1. We know that God is just.  Many well-respected theologians believe that children who die before they reach the age where they can understand sin and God - these children are received into Heaven.  This is often concluded from some teachings on sin and responsibility from Romans 1, but for the sake of argument, let's say this idea is correct.  If it is, Achan's young children were - that day - received in to Heaven and into the presence of God.  Yes, the death was terrible, but the eternal life so quickly overshadowed the death that it was certainly seen as light and momentary (as Paul say sin 2 Corinthians 4:17).  We also know because of God's justice that He will never, ever eternally punish an innocent person, be it a wife, a child, or anyone.

2. We know that God was very serious about the sin of Achan, and that the people had fair warning because they had seen Jericho.  The people were warned about the devoted things and how they were to handle them.  They had seen the total devastation of Jericho, and so one has to wonder - did they think He was serious about Jericho but not serious about the fate of those who would reject His commands about the devoted things?

3. We know that we are Achan.  Can any of us - after an honest assessment - really ever say that we have always known the right thing to do...and then we always did it?  Of course not.  We have all actively rejected righteousness at some point and gone our own way.  As I thought of Achan and the sin he committed, and then the impact it had on his family and community, I was taken aback to think about how my sin can do the same thing.  Perhaps not to the same degree, but I know that my sin has impacted others that I love.  That is the nature of sin.

We are free to wrestle with God about the 'how could You' questions that this passage brings up.
But let's not miss the 'how could I' reality as well.
We are Achan.
We have rejected God's direction, truth, and love over and over and yet in His sovereign grace and patience, He has not destroyed us.
In fact, He has done the opposite in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

God, help us to praise You for our surpassing justice, and help us to rejoice that in Christ, there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1).

- tC

In the end, love

(Photo by David Castillo Dominici - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

A handful of years ago I watched a round-table discussion between 3 well-known Christian leaders - Mark Driscoll, Joshua Harris, and Francis Chan. In the process of the discussion, Driscoll asked Chan a question based around the topic of money.  He asked if he (Chan) thought that poverty was innately connected to holiness. Chan had given away all the proceeds from his NewYork Times best-seller Crazy Love.

I will never forget Francis Chan's response.

"The core issue has to be love."

He's right, biblically. This is confirmed all throughout the Bible but let me give just a few examines.

1. Deuteronomy 6:4-9. This is a call to the chosen people of Israel on how to live. The basis - hear what is being said, know God, and love Him.

2. John 3:16. This is it. God has no need for us but chose to interact with us, and His interactions with us are rooted in love.

3. 1 Corinthians 13. While this entire chapter is about love, consider how Paul ends this passage. He tells us that 3 things remain - faith, hope, and love - but then he ends by declaring that the greatest of these is love.

4. Galatians 5:6b. This one is not nearly as well-known as the others but once again Paul makes a very strong statement about love, not as merely the greatest thing, but as the only thing that matters in the end.

It's not a particularly hard case to make that love is the ultimate point of The Bible, the Christian faith, and life, but now we've addressed it directly from the Scriptures.

Over the next few posts we will discuss what love truly is and by contrast, what it is not. If love is the ultimate calling for humanity, it serves us well to know what it is and how to do it.

-tC

Not Emotion, Not Cognition, but Affections

(Photo by dream designs - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

(Photo by Luigi Diamanti - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Let's flip around the perspective from our last blog post.  In the last post we talked about how God loves us even though He has no need for us, and how this love is the deepest and truest form of love because it is not about manipulation or an exchange based on insecurity.

What about our love toward God?  How should we love God?  You will hear people talk about 'head' vs. 'heart' knowledge.  This language, however helpful, should be used cautiously because people often think of the head as the center of thinking and the heart as the center of emotion.  In the biblical language, the heart was not the emotional center as much as "the center for both physical and emotional-intellectual-moral activities" (see Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology).  The Hebrew word for heart speaks actually less to the 'heart' and more to 'the guts' - that part inside you that is the center of who you are and where you will find your deepest convictions.

So we are, ultimately, to love God out of this - our heart, our guts, our center.  The implications are many. While obedience for obedience sake does get us to do the right things, we should be clear that when we obey just to obey, we are missing out on the fact that God's goodness and grace toward us should be the motivating factor.  If my wife Jenny is being loved by me, from time-to-time, even when I don't feel loving, most people would say, "That's life and part of being married", and I would agree.  But if my love for her is based solely or mostly on obedience to our marriage vows, no one would say that yes, that is deep and meaningful love.

And so it is with God.  We should be moving toward a place where our deepest heart-soul desire is to love God and we should be finding that we are operating out of a felt and experienced love for Him.  When you ask me why I read the Bible, I should be able to say, "Because in it I find love and guidance and ultimately, I find God, and this brings me the deepest sense of joy."  Jonathan Edwards dealt with this concept many years ago when he spoke about religious affections.

So I close by asking - what are the affections of your heart toward God?  May we find our love for Him growing and thus find ourselves operating out of how His love impacts us deep within.

- tC   

God Has No Need For Me

(Photo by Stuart Miles - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Ponder this truth: God doesn't need me...or you...or anyone for that matter.  While this is probably disheartening at first and perhaps even scary, this truth is the ultimate sign of love.  How?  Let's look into it.

So much of the love we experience on earth is based on an exchange of affection - you love me, and I'll love you back.  If we're honest, we know this to be true even in some of our closest relationships.  Unfortunately, the kind of relationship where a person gives his or her all regardless of what is given back - those are very rare indeed.  Perhaps a parent to a child is the closest we get to this, or the sacrificial love we see of an elderly couple where one of the spouses gives full care to a debilitated spouse.

However, if God doesn't NEED us, there are a few invigorating and freeing realities.

1. Do we really want to serve a 'needy' God?
A powerful God?  A sovereign God?  An omnipresent God?  Yes.  But a God who is needy?  Honestly, not many of us crave to be around a needy person, let alone a God who is needy.

2. If God does not need us, it must mean something else, because the Bible clearly communicates that God desires to be in relationship with us.  God does not need us - He wants us.  He desires us because we were made by and for Him.  He desires to pour out His love on us and as we receive it and glorify Him, He is filled with joy that we are living as He intended, reveling in Him and glorifying Him as we know and reflect Him.

3. If God doesn't need me, but He still wants me, then the direction, the insight, the denial of certain things, the guidelines from Scripture - all of these are for us that we might live most fully, honor Him most fully, and in turn, find that these two things (living fully and honoring Him) are not different truths world's apart, but instead they function together in a symbiotic relationship.  Life is most full and most human when we are most fully honor and love God.

He doesn't need us.  He wants us.  And in this there is freedom and joy.
- tC