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

A Response To #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken et al., and The Sexual Harassment Tidal Wave

(Photo Credit: cnn.com)

At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, we are in the middle of a cultural tsunami.  

Droves of women are coming forward to share stories of how powerful men (in the vast majority of cases) have sexually harassed or assaulted them.  It seems each morning people look to the news headlines to see if their favorite actor or politician has been the latest to fall.  For some the reaction is, "I'm not surprised".  For others, the response is, "I can't believe it."  And for most of us, it is a mix of both.

But what do we do in light of this cultural reality into which we have been plunged?

How do we as a culture respond?
How should the perpetrators respond?
How should the victims respond?

I want to offer 5 responses that I find in the life of Jesus and the teaching of the Bible.  

I realize that some who read this don't subscribe to the authority of Jesus or the Bible, and so my request of those people is that you consider the wisdom of Jesus, the Word made Incarnate (John 1:1) and of the written Word - the Bible - and see if there is not merit in what He says.

1. Mourn.  The Scripture clearly calls us to mourn with the hurting and broken-hearted.
Romans 12:5 tells us to "weep with those who weep."  The Lord Jesus Christ Himself wept at the death of His dear friend Lazarus (John 11:35).  When people are harmed or hurt, we are called to enter into their pain and to mourn with them.  I sincerely hope that God has given to each of the victims of sexual harassment or assault someone with whom that person can cry and mourn.  To be in a place of deep pain alone is a great burden, and so I pray that there might be those who can help carry the weight of this pain.  And for those of us who don't know any of the women who have come forward (or don't know any victims in our own circles of influence), it seems an appropriate response to ask that God would move us to mourn with and pray for those who have been hurt - even if it is at a distance.    

2. A Calling to Justice, Mercy, and Humility.  

In the Book of Micah in the Old Testament, God speaks to the prophet Micah and tells him that he and the people should live in a particular way.  This immediately flies in the face of our cultural climate, a climate that says live how you want to and define reality for yourself.  In contrast God tells Micah (and in turn the people to whom Micah will speak) what the 'good life' is.  Micah is told three things: to do justice, to love mercy, and to talk humbly with God.  

We see from this passage that God is not distant from our pain and that He calls us to seek after justice (we will look at mercy and humility later on).  And so people who have done wrong, though there is mercy offered in the person and work of Christ, are to be brought to justice.  And believe it or not, for those who are willing to admit wrong-doing (something often lacking in the response of those who have been accused), receiving justice can often be an act of mercy, a point of turning and transformation.  The point here is that while the Creator of Heaven and Earth offers mercy and grace, He also demands that we carry out justice and not overlook wrongdoing.      

(Photo Credit: mashable.com)

3. Repent.  The call to repent is all over the Bible.  Repentance is more than just saying, "I was wrong" because that statement merely acknowledges a fact.  Repentance is connected to remorse and change. If a person is repentant, he or she will acknowledge the wrong-doing, understand (in some sense) what the impact of the wrong was, and then turn from this evil.  Repentance implies a turning-around of one's life and actions.  While much of the information about these cases is still coming to light, I have to say that I have seen very little (from what I can read/tell) heart-felt repentance.  Many of the 'apologies' have been couched in a "I'm sorry my actions were perceived this way" kind of language.  This comes across as hedging your bets, trying to say sorry without having it cost too much.  This is not repentance.  I hope we will see more repentance and acceptance of responsibility from the perpetrators.  

4. Acquire Power In Order to Sacrificially Serve. The life and teaching of Jesus are often portrayed as nice, kind, caring, loving.  Yes, these describe a portion of the life of Christ, but the call of Christ is radical.  Jesus tells His followers to give their lives away in order to find true life (Mark 8:35).  He tells people that serving others is blessing (John 13:12-17).  And He tells us that power is given not to dominate and control others, but to serve them, and that the greatest is the one who serves (Matthew 20:25-28).  The ethic of Christ changes the power dynamic - the Christ-follower is called not to use power for self-aggrandizement but for love.          

(Photo Credit: valuewalk.com)

5. By the grace of God alone, forgive. This is the hardest point to share because the call is so counter-intuitive, but the case is clearly made in the Bible.  As I noted above, Jesus offered a radical perspective on life.  It was about love and not power, it was about caring for the least-of-these, it was about sacrifice and giving one's life away in order to truly find life.  And at the center of the life of Jesus Christ was forgiveness and love for those who - by any earthly standard - did not deserve it.  We do not have space to venture into the depths of theology on forgiveness from God, the sin of mankind, and so forth. But the narrative of the Bible is filled with this reality: Jesus came to die and offer forgiveness to sinners, and 'sinners' is a descriptor all of us can wear.  Even on the cross, Jesus prayed to God and said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."  About whom was He speaking?  About those putting Him to death, those taunting Him (Luke 23:34).

Who am I - a sinner - to tell the victim of sexual assault to forgive the perpetrator?
I freely admit I have never experienced what so many of these (and other) women have experienced at the hands of others.
I am not the person to tell anyone to forgive.
But Jesus did.  He called us to forgive as we have been forgiven (Matthew 6:5-15).
That kind of forgiveness comes only through a heart that has been changed by the power and Spirit of God (Ezekiel 36:26).  This does not mean justice goes out the window, but it does mean that both justice and mercy can be mingled together.  A heart that can forgive great evil is a heart that has been transformed by God.  And He is a God who is able to change the heart.

(See below to watch Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott - a young girl killed in the Columbine School massacre).        

This is a messy time we are living in.
May God give us to grace to come through it with greater clarity and greater love.

- tC

Is Harvey Weinstein a Canary For Our Sexually-Shipwrecked Culture? Absolutely.

(Photo Credit - TheIndependent.co.uk)

Sometimes when you write a blog post about a cultural occurrence, it takes a long time to build an argument.  That should make sense - life can be complicated and we should want to stay from over- simplifying issues that are subtle or nuanced.  

In the case of Harvey Weinstein, the question I'd like to raise here is simple, and it is as follows.

1. The actions taken by Harvey Weinstein over many years in Hollywood are deplorable, heart-breaking, and sinful.

2. We are learning that this kind of behavior - while perhaps most notable with Weinstein - is, unfortunately, not as rare as we might like think.  While the details remain to be seen in many of the most recent cases, we are in the double-digits when it comes to cases of men in positions of power using their influence to sexually harass or assault women.

(Photo Credit: L.A. Times)

Here is my question:

While yes, we should be heart-broken for the pain that has been caused, should we be so shocked?

The reality seems to be that many, many Hollywood movie stars and people of influence in Los Angeles knew about Weinstein's actions and did nothing.  Thus it seems many of them were not shocked when it 'went pubic.'

And I'm not sure we - the average citizen in the United States - should be shocked either.

Without standing on a soapbox and preaching a 'we've lost our footing' and 'America was once a Christian nation' sermon (those kinds of sermons are often rooted in nostalgia rather than in reality), the question I am really asking us is WHY are we so shocked by this behavior?

We have given ourselves over to the gods of self-fulfillment, self-actualization, and self-aggrandizement, and yet we are surprised when people live out of these kinds of ideologies.  

We have rejected a myriad of sexual norms as we've elevated personal expression over fidelity and the psyche over the body.  These are not just norms held by Christians that we've rejected - they are norms the most civil societies have lived with for millennia.

We have - for all intents and purposes - said, "Do whatever you please when it comes to sex", and then when we see men abuse this kind of unrooted power, we are legitimately angered and saddened, but I am kind of shocked that we are shocked.

Yes, Weinstein is responsible. Yes, he should face the full legal ramifications of his actions.  

But are we brave enough as a culture to look into our own lives and ask how we have accepted and encouraged a sexual standard that harms others, a sexual standard that leverages power to prey on the less powerful.  Are we willing to see how we may have helped to feed the beast of sexual assault?

How do we respond?  

This will be addressed in a future post.

For now - be sad and angry, but for me - I'm unfortunately not shocked.

- 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  

3 Truths from the Las Vegas Mass Shooting: Evil and Ideology

(Photo Credit - ABC News)

I know I am not the only one who has this deep sense of how broken the world is.

Hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico.
Earthquakes in Mexico.
And now this mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Not to mention the daily tragedies around the planet - starvation, sex trafficking, lack of clean water, and the list goes on.

This post is not going to be about gun control vs. the 2nd Amendment (though a real discussion on from these two sides would be beneficial.  Notice I used the notion of a 'real discussion').

This post is to point out three truths we can learn from the Las Vegas  shooting - deeper, soul-level, theological truths.


1. Evil exists.  When you hear about this kind of carnage, there is - for almost everyone I know - a visceral reaction.  You don't have to be personally connected to someone who was involved to feel this reaction, and the reason is that we know at a deep and reality-connected level that this was evil.

Hear me now...
Not just wrong - though it is clearly that.
Not just sad - though it is clearly that as well.
Not just a case of mental illness - though this may be true as well.
Not a case that can be (possibly) simplified down to the notion of 'radicalization' - though it may be that in part.

This was evil.  It had echoes of when President George W. Bush called the 9/11 attacks by the same name - evil.

There was and is a darkness that emanates from incidents like this.
The arbitrary nature of the killing.
The planning that this took.
The willingness for the shooter to take his own life at the end of his killing spree.
The wickedness of the deadly intrusion on a peaceful music festival.
This was and is evil.

As I pondered this, I found a short video that explains some of my thinking on this topic of evil:

The second truth I'll share is that this is like and unlike other mass shootings.  Some have political and religious motivations.  This one may - we are not yet sure.

But when I hear that this mass shooting might not be 'ideologically driven', I have to disagree.

2. All of life is ideologically driven.  All of it.  For all of us.

Ideology doesn't have to be codified to count as ideology.  An ideology is your doctrine or belief that guides you.  If it is religious, it is a religious ideology, and if it is political then it is a political ideology.  But narcissism and selfishness and self-promotion and sexual fulfillment and hedonism are all ideologies just as much.

This man had an ideology that led to his actions.
He may have been aware of his ideology or not, but it was there none the less.
Something he thought and believed about himself and others drove his actions.

Our ideologies are rooted deep inside of us.  Jesus said that out of the heart words come.  Solomon told us that we should guard our hearts for they are the well-spring of life.  We all live out our ideologies.

My last thought I willingly admit is speculation, but I want to at least share it to offer us some food for thought.

3. Is Friedrich Nietzsche's Ubermensch at the heart of this shooting?  Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche rejected social norms as weak and promoted the idea of the super-man, the man who was willing to use power and strength and force to accomplish what he desired.  I have to wonder about this shooter (as I also wonder about the Columbine, Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, and the Newtown, Connecticut shooters): was this shooting about this man asserting power and domination because our social fabric, for these kinds of individuals, became so weak and pointless that all that was left was to showcase prowess by portraying the human version of 'survival of the fittest'?  Even the suicide at the end of the shooting spree - I have heard psychologists say that when murders carry out this final step it is because they often desire to continue to control their own destiny and that it is sometimes a final show of defiance, that even in death 'I am still my own man.'

(Photo Credit: PopSugar.com)

More to come on this topic.  In the meantime we pray and think deeply because life can be filled with great sadness.

- 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 

Reflections on the Passing of Nabeel Qureshi

(Credit: NabeelQuershi.com)

On Saturday, September 16th Nabeel Qureshi - author and Christian apologist - passed into the loving presence of Jesus Christ after a year-long battle with stomach cancer.  Qureshi was best known for his book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus which told his story of converting from Islam to Christianity.  

I have been following the YouTube updates (you can see them here) that Nabeel posted over the last year (43 video posts in total).  It was a long, tough, heart-rending journey that he shared with his viewers, and I am sure some will now go back to learn more about his life and this final journey.

My personal interest in Nabbel's ministry is rooted in the fact that he is part of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, a ministry that helped me grow immensely as a young Christian and throughout the years.  If you'd like to read Ravi Zacharias' final tribute to Nabeel in the Washington Post, click here. 

   

(Credit: Ravi Zacharias - Facebook)

I never knew Nabeel, and I am certainly no Ravi, but I'd like to offer a few personal reflections on the life and passing of Nabeel Quershi and why his passing has struck me deeply.

First, I am struck because I am 7 years older than Nabeel and yet he has already left this mortal life.  There is something about not just a young person dying, but someone who gives you that sense of 'that could have been me'.  Nabeel was a student of Ravi, an apologist, and someone who was passionate about bringing the Gospel to the world.  In some small way, I can resonate with all three of those characteristics, and so his passing seems to hit home for me in a different way than I had expected it to.

Secondly, Nabeel's passing reminds me of a message I gave years ago while I was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  The talk was entitled, "A Healthy Obsession With Death."  While no one likes to think about death, our Western world today has risen to an expert level of avoiding the topic.  Part of it is because of the 24-hour news cycle such that even when a famous movie star dies, we mourn for a few hours before we are often on to the next topic that is flashed across the screen.  Another part of it is that we have such excellent medicine compared to even just 100 years ago that we almost expect for every sickness to be cured with little fan fare.  These two realities (as well as other factors) shape us so that we avoid thinking much about the grave.  

Nabeel's passing reminds me that we should all be thinking about death a great deal - it is one of the few 'knowns' in our lives.  We will all die, and we do well to consider this fact on a regular basis.  The Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that it is good to go to a house of mourning.  Why?  Because it puts all of life into perspective.  I find myself thinking about Nabeel's wife and his daughter now and what their life will be like without this man.  It forces me to think about my own wife and children, and not on the level of 'will they be o.k. without me if I die', but instead the eternal question: when I die, will I see them again?  That - in the end - is TRULY the only question that matters when it comes to my family.  Success, careers, future marriages, providing via a life insurance policy - all these are fine to consider, but they are passing realities.  Eternity with those who I love in the presence of my Savior - that last forever.  

Thirdly, Nabeel's passing forces me to think about how I am using my time.  Not everyone will invest his or her life in apologetics and writing, in speaking and lecturing.  But what I do know is that I want my life to matter and Paul reminds us in Galatians 5 that in the end the ONLY thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love.  And so Nabeel's death forces me to ask myself: because of my faith in Christ, am I loving others well?   

Lastly, the death of Nabeel Quershi forces me to face the hard reality that God is God and I am not.  Only by faith in the character of God can I trust that the passing of this young man, this passionate apologist - only by faith can I trust that this makes sense.  On a human level, on a ministry level, on an 'advancing the Gospel in the nations' level, this does not compute.  But I am forced to trust God's providential wisdom in this situation.  The alternative is to raise my fist to the heavens which is foolhardy.  God knows what He is doing even when it doesn't seem to add up in my paradigm.  

In closing, I celebrate the fact that because of the Resurrection of Jesus and my future resurrection, I will one day be able to speak with and celebrate the life of Nabeel Quershi with Nabeel Quershi himself.  Until that day, may my life be faith-filled like this man's life.

- tC