Finishing

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be My disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple.” – Luke 14:25-33

Note that Jesus is much more concerned with quality than quantity. Most of us would think if we had a large following we should be more careful about what we say so as to avoid offending any of them. The Lord, instead, seems to go out of His way to turn people off and thin out the crowds. He says things that are difficult to grasp, esoteric, and controversial – not for the sake of controversy at all but simply because they are true. Some might find it easy enough to get offended by this “preaching hate”, as Jesus is here. Imagine someone today telling our society – its only virtue seems to be tolerance – to hate anything.

Of course, what the Lord is telling us to hate is not our family itself but those flatland aspects of family relations that entrap us and hinder us from entering the kingdom. Detachment – not in an objectified, disinterested sense – but in terms of not deriving our worth and direction from the world system is what He tells us we need. I cannot allow my family to define me. I cannot allow even who I see myself as to define me.

If we are going to build a tower – that is, if we are going to do something vertical, we do need a foundation in the horizontal. But if we are able to lay only the foundation our efforts will appear to be a senseless joke. Foundations – for example, righteous living, corporate worship, and prayer – only make sense if we are building on them in another plane.

Then Jesus asks another question about finishing things. What is the point of fighting a battle you are bound to lose? If the end is death, why cling to your little flatland fiefdom? The lives of far too many people are filled with pretentiousness. They are masks, empty shells that will crumble away, cocoons without a caterpillar. Why would a person struggle to hang onto this imitation life when the real is available for nothing? All one has to do, Jesus says, is surrender. Give up the pretensions and enter the kingdom of God. We may end up not looking like much in this life, but someday we will burst forth in freedom and beauty, a glorious thing with wings, no longer bound to the surface, soaring.

Jesus is not asking us to abandon our families and our responsibilities to go live under a bridge. He is asking us to “give them up”, not get rid of them. We are wont to ignore what is possibly the most obvious thing imaginable. No one really owns any material property, and all that is visible passes away. We may have the privilege of using a possession for a number of years but the day will come when it passes into the hand of another, and there will be nothing we can do about it. In light of this, the Lord says, there’s no point in clinging to the things of this world. Accept them with gratitude, use and enjoy them as one is able, and leave them in God’s possession.

My daughter called last night because she was upset and found herself thinking about taking a drink. She talked about how she had wanted to be successful and not disappoint us. I told her that success is not about what we do or have, but about who we are to become. What looks like a failure is merely a reset, if we can receive it. It is a chance to get back on track, to stop living only on the surface of accomplishments, accolades and acclaim. We are on this long strange trip to unite (or perhaps reunite) with our true being, to become what we really are or what we are really meant to be, and whatever moves us in that direction is good. I’m glad she told me she loves me but if her love for me kept her trapped in notching achievements while living a shattered, inauthentic life, I’d rather she hated me.

Happy New Year!

I Know Who Holds My Hand

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. --Philippians 4:6

You will keep in perfect peace the mind that is dependent on You, for it is trusting in You. --Isaiah 26:3

Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything.

Consider this my Christmas blog entry. It may be my New Year’s entry as well.

There are plenty of things to worry us these days. Given the temperatures here on the Plateau, global warming is officially off my list of those things. In Psalm 37, the Psalmist says that we should not fret or “be agitated” for such a state of mind leads only to harm. Worry certainly comes naturally to most of us, and it isn’t limited to one segment of the population. The rich worry as much as the poor; believers seem to worry about as much as unbelievers.

Why do we worry? Obviously we must get some reward for fretting or we wouldn’t engage in it. We seem to think that worry somehow prepares us or gives us control over a situation. We often actually equate it with being prepared. As humans we are blessed with the ability to enter into a state of altered consciousness, narrow our focus and work through solutions to problems. We can pick up complicated objects and turn them over in our minds without ever putting our hands on them. We can make three-dimensional realities out of two-dimensional pictures. Worry is a kind of trance state where we enter into a situation that is bothering us. We are there looking for a solution, which is not bad in itself. The problem is that we do not know all the factors or what is actually going to happen. We wind up working off expectations, past experiences, or related experiences. We may create multiple scenarios and try to think how we’d deal with each one, or try to imagine how we’d get the best possible scenario to play out.

When we are dealing with concrete situations over which we have control, e.g., building a dog house, such forward thinking is useful and necessary. On the other hand if I am worrying about possible disasters, abstractions, or the uncertain future, it is worse than useless. Not only are most things beyond my individual powers, they probably won’t be even close to what I am projecting. Worry is a waste of time.

The cure for worry is prayer, with thanksgiving. If I am troubled or burdened with cares about the future, I need to pray until the burden lifts. If I am willing to pray and honestly turn my problems over to the Lord – as He desires I should do – I can have and maintain perfect peace. It may take a while to free myself from agitation, but it will be worth the time I invest.

As Paul tells us, giving thanks is a big part of this process. If I relentlessly petition God and try to harangue Him into giving me my way, then I am merely worrying in a different format. Expressing my dependence on the Lord is what will bring peace and rest to my soul. Thanksgiving means that I acknowledge God’s sovereignty, power, wisdom, mercy and grace. Giving thanks is a function of relying on the Lord to deal with the situation as it is rather than whatever I might imagine it to be.

If you are feeling some trepidation when you see 2009 dead ahead, don’t fret over it. Take your burdens to the Lord, and leave them there.

Wherein I Set Sail for a Three Hour Tour

Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. After He said good-bye to them, He went away to the mountain to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. He saw them battered as they rowed, because the wind was against them. Around three in the morning He came toward them walking on the sea and wanted to pass by them. When they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. Immediately He spoke to them and said, “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. They were completely astounded because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened.
-- Mark 6:45-52

The hearts of the Disciples were hardened. They had, during the previous day, seen five thousand souls fed with two fish and five loaves. The significance of that miraculous provision had been lost on them. Despite the fact that they were following the Lord, seeing Him heal and deliver, hearing His teachings, and experiencing His presence, they were still missing the point that He was not merely godly, but God, that all things existed and functioned upon His Being. That He had laid aside His glory and submitted to the limitations of human flesh did not change who He was.

Jesus orders the Twelve into their boat and sends them out to cross the lake while He stays behind. This mirrors our situation as souls coming into the world. We are sent here by God, separated and distanced. As with those in that boat, the situation we find ourselves in is often dark and stormy. There is nothing solid upon which to rest. We are, apart from the Lord, groundless. Or so it seems to us.

“He saw them battered as they rowed, because the wind was against them.” Though we think we are alone, God is watching. He knows where we are and what we are facing. He sees our trials, and He allows us to struggle with the futility of existence. Yet He never loses sight of us in the deepest darkness or the most intense storm.

“Around three in the morning…” – I don’t know what it is about 3:00AM, but we all understand that as being a significant time. It is the deepest dark. The light has long gone from the west. Midnight seems an age behind. The third watch has ended. That membrane which separates the mundane from raw reality is at its thinnest point, and the powers of hell have found their opening. The storm is at its height.

And the Lord comes walking on the sea.

How, then, are we to understand this phrase: “…and wanted to pass by them”? Another translation reads: “…and He intended to pass by them”. I went to Wuest, who gives it this way: “And He was desiring to go to their side”. Jesus intended to walk close enough to the boat so that He could be seen, even in the darkness of the storm. He, of course, had no need of getting in the boat Himself, or for Himself. The crossing, storm or no storm, was not a problem for Him. He comes close to reassure us, to let us know that He is present, watching and in control.

Life is not the maelstrom it appears to the human trying to make headway on an unknown journey. The sea is not the deadly, volatile element into which we fear to sink, never to rise again. Waves are as solid as stepping stones to the Lord. Nevertheless, as with the Disciples, when God does show up in such an uncanny way, walking serenely on storm-driven breakers, He may be the ultimate terror. Storms, we judge, are natural. We are familiar with the dangers of the sea. But One walking where no man should be able to walk, this is beyond our understanding.

As we cry out in fear, we hear, above the roar of the threatening storm, a familiar Voice full of strength and peace and encouragement. We hear, “It is I. I AM here. Your struggles are over.” Unwilling to allow fear and uncertainty to torment us further, the Lord enters into our vessel. The storms cease. The eastern sky shows the first hint of dawn. We know our destination is near at hand, and we will reach it in peace.

I Want to See the Manager

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? -- Romans 8:31

Who, indeed? I have thought it was the devil, but the devil is merely a tool. He does nothing without God’s leave. He may be a mighty impressive creature, but he is a creature. He may be a roaring lion, but if the Lord says, “Scat”, the devil flees. James says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Such a thing could not be true of an omnipotent evil being.

“If God is for us” – but what if God is not for me? This is a question I have to settle. John’s first epistle tells us that God is love. The Gospel of John contains perhaps the best-known verse in the Bible which states that God loves the world so much that He gave His only and unique Son so that anyone who believes in Jesus might not perish but have everlasting life. David, in the other contender for best known passage, says, “The Lord is my Shepherd”. There should be no doubt that the Lord is for us in total and individually. This is the reason there is a Bible. A revelation is required for humanity to understand the Divine. Apart from revelation, we may get bits and pieces as mythologies show us, but we will also get a lot of things wrong. God reveals Himself to us so that we may know the truth of His love and care: Yahweh is for me.

The Lord is the Source, the Fountainhead of life. All things that come to me come by the hand of God. Normally we see intermediaries, agents, “second causes” for things that happen. If a cop pulls me over for speeding, I may blame the cop and the radar gun for my ticket. The officer is not acting as an independent agent. He has a system and laws behind him. We’ll ignore, for the moment, the fact that the cause of my ticket is my own heavy foot. A traffic cop is merely the agent of enforcement.

It’s the same when we have troubles and trials in life. If we focus on the immediate agent, we are only seeing the secondary cause. It is hard to accept some humiliating defeat from the hand of man. Fires, floods, and storms all seem unfair when they strike us or someone we love. Mechanical failures and glitches are frustrating. Diseases, physical handicaps and weaknesses may be hard for us to accept. As long as I am considering the second cause as the source, I am going to be unhappy and probably angry. I have trouble trusting God in my trial because I am not seeing it as ultimately from His hand. I may say, “Why did You let this happen?” What I may be thinking is that if God were really good and all-powerful, this wouldn’t have happened to me, or it wouldn’t have happened unless I “deserved it”. I wind up dealing with guilt – though I can’t see what I did wrong – or anger and frustration.

No, I need to forget the second cause. The virus, the cancer cell, the hurricane, the drunk driver, the Democrats, the economy, my wife, my neighbor, my kids – none of these are the Cause. I can surrender and fully accept what comes to me when I see that the Lord Himself has ordained and arranged it. My defeat is His will, and it will lead to my ultimate victory. I do not need to worry about revenge because vengeance belongs to the Lord; He will repay. All I need to do is accept the situation as being completely under God’s control. In weakness and loss, I can trust the Lord because these are according to His will. Whatever happens, whether I live or die, the Lord is for me and with me. I can trust Him.

Surrender is not passivity. I need to face my trials and troubles, fight through them and deal with them to the fullest extent possible. Nevertheless, I do all with the full assurance that the outcome is up to the Lord. I may witness a miracle or things may get much worse. Regardless, I still trust God because it is all from His hand. As the song says, God is good – all the time. God on the mountain is still God in the valley. Actually a miracle is guaranteed, even if it is only that I can still smile through tears. Surrender does not mean I won’t feel pain, or that I don’t need to grieve. Stoicism is not required. I will be much better able to deal with my emotions when I understand God’s place in my situation.

In a couple of weeks we will begin a new year, and it will be like no other for some of us. Some of us will see answers to prayers. Some will see troubles carry over from the past. Some will face unimagined challenges. Whatever comes, the Lord is in it. Look past the agents and focus on His hand. You will find that the all-powerful, the gentle hand of God holds your trial, and you are sheltered in His arms.

Christmas Shopping Report and Catalogs

I went Christmas shopping Saturday, so I am now officially in the spirit.

It was clear from our excursion to the Holy City that America is held hostage to the worst economy since the Great Depression. One exit from the freeway was completely blocked with traffic – no accident, just lots and lots of cars – probably lined up for baloney sandwiches at the Salvation Army several miles away. People were actually eating at Wendy’s and Taco Bell. There were also quite a few cars at the Starbuck’s next to Wendy’s. I’m sure they were probably homeless families who had their houses repossessed by Dick Cheney and are reduced to living in their vehicles in the parking lots of overpriced coffee shops.

We had trouble getting into the Target parking lot. It took about ten minutes to get across the lot to the store entrance where I let my wife out and immediately lost sight of her in the crowd. Ten minutes later I found a parking spot in the overflow area – as far from the door as you can get and still be on the same block. I couldn’t see any Social Services employees handing out day-old bread, so I’m not sure why the crowd was so large. Once in the store I tried to get to the digital cameras but the crowd in the electronics section was so massive that I gave up. People must be buying cameras to take their passport photos so they can immigrate to Venezuela.

The mall was even worse. We spent fifteen minutes getting to the light in the left turn lane to get to the mall parking lot. There were no parking spots. There were lines of cars waiting for departing shoppers to back out. I wonder if the food court was giving out free meals. Another odd thing I noticed while walking around the mall is that no one looked like those Ethiopian people – though some did have distended bellies – most actually looked – well, well-fed. I guess the “new starvation” has a different look than the old starvation.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. What I really wanted to say was that, since I am in the Christmas spirit, I thought I’d give my reviews of some stuff I’ve run across.

A couple of weeks ago Lindsay’s Technical Books popped up on Cool Tools. If you follow the link, you will be able to order the catalog of “Exceptional technical books for experimenters, inventors, tinkerers, mad scientists, and ‘Thomas Edison-types’”. I am ordering three books for Christmas: Blacksmith Shop & Iron Forge, Teach Yourself Electronics (going out as a gift to a family member), and Peak Oil Survival. Frankly these are not Lindsay’s most interesting titles.

Check out: Home Cheese Making, Secrets of Building a Plastic Injection Molding Machine, How to Build and Fly a Glider, I Just Love to Fart Cookbook, A Practical Treatise on the Raw Materials and the Distillation and Rectification of Alcohol, and Deep Hole Drilling to name but a few. By the way, in case you are wondering, the last title is next to a related book, Making Rifle Barrels.

You can get a free catalog and then order all kinds of cool books about building steam engines and making tools to make tools. By all means ask Lindsay’s for their catalog if you are interested in buying a book or two.

They have some books that are dangerous for kids. If you have kids or grandkids, buy some of those dangerous books and hand them out to the younger generation. With ten days to go, it’s mostly too late for getting them anything by Christmas but there are always birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings, MLK Day – which coincides with Robert E. Lee’s birthday in 2009, etc.

The other catalog that showed up in the Cool Tools shuffle was Cabela’s. They do have some things that you are unlikely to find just anywhere. I think they are a little pricey – not unlike their chief competitor, Bass Pro. Visiting a Cabela’s retail store – I’ve been to the one in Austin – is much like visiting my own local Bass Pro. They are big. I think I bought a little waterproof bag that has a zipper closure and a clip lanyard. It is good for sticking stuff in when canoeing. I also carry my wallet in it at amusement parks for the rides where you get wet.

I do buy stuff at Bass Pro, occasionally. I bought a canoe there. I have bought reloading supplies from them, but they don’t have much anymore. These days I only show up for sales or to buy bulk ammunition. Bass Pro is one of the few local retailer locations carrying Number 2’s – that is, Remington Nitro Express shotgun shells with the all-important #2 shot. It’s good stuff.

But the stores I like are the little gun shops where there are lots of used guns and guys in boots that look like they’ve been out in the “br’ers”. Something just bugs me about standing in line to buy shooting supplies behind a dude in Calvin Klein’s with tassels on his loafers. In the little stores you are more likely to get an honest answer than a sales pitch.

There is one mailorder company where that’s also true: Midway USA. Larry Potterfield is the company’s founder and president. They are located near Columbia, Missouri. Midway is strictly mailorder – their catalogs are great, or you can order off the website. If you’re an occasional customer like I am, it is nice to talk to knowledgeable people when you call in your order. They know where I live and how much shipping will be. They can answer questions, and they will ask if I want to “round up” and donate to the NRA, which I always do. I have never met Mr. Potterfield but I understand you can see him on one of the “critter-killing channels”. He and his family are hunters and shooters. If Midway has it in their catalog, it will probably work like it’s supposed to.

God Sticks

And after him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel. – Judge 3:31

Shamgar saves a nation and he gets a single sentence -- though it is a sentence in the Bible, a pretty rarified Who’s Who. He acts openly, boldly, and heroically. He kills six hundred of the enemy – whether at once or cumulatively is unclear – with a sharp stick. Even assuming it was an assault oxgoad with a tactical iron tip, it’s still impressive. His efforts rallied the Israelites to return to the Lord and resist oppression.

The unlikely hero is God’s man. That doesn’t mean he is a particularly good man or a wise man. He may be a glorious loser like Samson – and a large subgroup of U.S. presidents.

The thing about the oxgoad or the jawbone of an ass is that these things are, in themselves, humble and inglorious.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are – 1 Corinthians 1:27,28

A sharp stick indeed seems foolish as a weapon of revolution and liberation, as foolish and weak as the stick Moses carried to humiliate Pharaoh. It is as insignificant, well, as a child born in a stable.

It is a good lesson for Christmas. The Almighty came in the most helpless package imaginable, a tiny baby born in obscurity and poverty. God made Himself completely dependent on the faith and goodness of Mary and Joseph. He trusted them. When it came time to establish His kingdom, He gathered to Himself a few unlearned fishermen in a backwater country. He depended on them to carry His message. He trusted them.

God depends on you and me today to do His will. He does not have a backup plan. He doesn’t need one. He trusts us. Now that might be all right, but for the fact that I know I’m not trustworthy, and I am deeply suspicious of just about everybody else except the Pope, Billy Graham, and my dog. The Lord must know something I don’t.

Don’t let anyone lead you astray. The future does not depend on what happens with the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, in Congress or Hollywood. It depends on weak, foolish, mostly unknown people in Podunk.

We have sharp sticks, and we’re not afraid to use them.

Scattergunning

For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. – Romans 14:7,8

Not one of us lives for himself? Surely Paul would change his view if we could parachute him into just about any locale in America. From ordinary citizens to Wall Street to politicians, everyone seems to be out for himself or herself.

Speaking of Wall Street and politicians, remember a month or so ago when it seemed everyone was crying out against the greed of Wall Street? Government needed to crack down on Wall Street greed. Is it now OK for Wall Street to crack down on government greed? This is like setting two coyotes to watch your chicken flock thinking that one will keep the other honest. The coyotes won’t get into conflict until they get to the last chicken.

So what Paul means is not that Blagojevich, Spitzer, Frank, Clinton, Stevens, Obama, the UAW, and Trump are altruists who act without self interest. He means that in reality our lives are not our own. We may not understand that. I may think and act as if I am the center of the universe, but I am not. I was designed and built for something that transcends my individual life.

Now we come to a sticky point. There are many passages that could be pulled from the Bible which would seem to indicate I should live for others. I am to be concerned for my fellow man and willing to sacrifice for the good of those in need. While that is true, it can easily miss the point and do more harm than good. The foundation of all good works needs to be faith. I don’t live or die for another human. I live and die for the Lord because I belong to Him. My good works are a manifestation of that understanding.

As an example take Oprah Winfrey. Please. Here is a woman who wipes her butt with hundred dollar bills. I don’t recommend this -- apparently it makes your ass really big.

Eeow. I have to go to my happy place for a minute.

Ms. Winfrey has the girls’ school in Africa. She gives away cars. She donates to charities and does all kinds of good works for other people. I assume the recipients of her largesse (happy thought, hap-py thought!) sometimes benefit and experience a better life. But it doesn’t seem to help Oprah. Here is a woman who has wealth, fame, power, personal trainers, chefs, body slaves, whatever, and she cannot stop eating. She announced this week that she has now reached the two hundred pound plateau once again. And that’s probably two hundred in dog pounds. I’m not sure plateau is the right word either.

She has no husband, no children, and apparently no life – if we don’t count destroying America by promoting bad diets, pop psychology, spiritual frauds, crappy books, Obama, and emotion-based value systems.

People like Oprah are not necessarily bad people. Their intentions are good. They are trying to help others. They are concerned about what they perceive as righteous causes. The problem is their works have no foundation. They are building upon sand because they are not living first in obedience to God. They do not recognize that they and those they are trying to help belong first and foremost to the Lord. He is our Father. He is the Good Shepherd. Acting without that understanding of the nature and truth of God leads them into many errors.

God is not a genie in a bottle or the fairy freaking godmother. We live for Him. That’s what Paul is telling us. If you read in chapters fourteen and fifteen of Romans, you will see the quoted verse is in the middle of a treatise on tolerance for the purpose of maintaining unity in the Church. Paul warns us against judging our brothers by what they eat or don’t eat and varying opinions about non-essential practices. He asks: “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4).

Intolerance is one of the hallmarks of the left and those do-gooders like Oprah and Obama. They want to standardize us. They want us to fit the mold. They want us to be as miserable as they are, or at least for “the little people out there” to be equally miserable. The collectivist seems to think that virtue can be institutionalized and imposed on people from above by the supreme state – their god. And the first problem is who gets to define virtue?

It is not so with us. I was talking yesterday about God doing His work in us and respecting our individuality, and here it is again. We should respect the individuality of the brother who eats and the brother who abstains. The Lord, as far as we can know, is telling the one to eat meat and the other to be a vegetarian. All I can really know is what the Spirit says to me, which is usually something like “why don’t you worry about your own ass instead of Oprah’s”. And I understand that.

Or, as Micah 6:8 puts it: He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness [mercy], and to walk humbly with your God?