Dirty!

When I was younger and grew up in a southern baptist church, unsaved people were a mission but not to be fraternized with.
They would pull out the over used scripture of “be not conformed to the likeness of this world” Romans 12:2
And would forbid us from going to movies, dance, and worst of all public school.

“I don’t want my kids turning out like that or being around bad influences”.

With no balance whatsoever….. Locked us in our quiet christian community of “believers”.

It took me a long time to give myself permission to be around stoners, drinkers, and people with tattoos. But in the late 90’s I started kicking against the church and hung out with degenerates.

Best decision to make back then.

My faith grew in the face of disbelief from my friends. I learned how to say “no” when they wanted me to sin, and they experienced an alternative lifestyle I was living that was different than their…. Alternative lifestyle.

The bible became more flavorful and I realized God never intended Christians to build an ark, pile in, and let the world be damned. That happened once before and God painted a rainbow to remind us it will never be that way again.

This time we are to be the antibody in the wound. To be a light….IN darkness. And that means we are the dish soap…..rather Jesus is.

9-13 I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.

So surround yourself with unbelievers…..then don’t be conformed. Be that change they need to see in the world through love……not segregation.

The Girl Scout in all of us….and why we should stop.

Why are you a Christian?

It’s a good question to ask.

I always felt nervous getting involved in talking to a stranger or an acquaintance about my faith. There is this tension there that you are trying to be this guy  

and end up looking like this guy .

We have all been pushed back and kept our heads down since people like this  

and people like them 

started making it dangerous to even mention Jesus in public.

How do you get to have a deep one on one conversation with someone and show them how God has genuinely made your life?

Talk to another Christian.

But that doesn’t count right? Wrong.

Today when I was sitting on a bench in town square enjoying the sun and people watching I noticed a guy playing his guitar just feet away. He was keeping to himself and practicing worship songs. It was refreshing that he was not yelling at the top of his lungs, but just being un-intrusive and present about his faith. Enjoying His guitar on a spring day. In fact you could really distinguish what music he was playing. I have been interested in getting out and talking to more strangers about God. So after a few minutes I realized the rejection rate of talking about Jesus with this guy was going to be pretty safe. I know that ultimately the goal is to reach out to non-believers and not spend my life preaching to a choir, but this isn’t sales. I’m not out here to get conversions and numbers. I was out and about interested in sharing my faith. Sharing….not Selling.

I remembered how awesome it is to sometimes hear the dramatic testimony of someone who really needed Christ, found him, and changed. So I decided to ask him “Why are you a Christian?”

My favorite part was that I hadn’t explained that I was a christian and so the guy was happy to share an honest answer with someone who may be seeking God. So I listened to him and Asked him more deeply why he was a Christian as opposed to Buddhist or Muslim. And this magic happens. A light comes on and the ice breaks. The real story comes out.

I was struck in that moment that I was essentially committing reverse evangelism.

Reverse Evangelism is what I will call it. Instead of going out into the world looking for non-believers and trying to influence them I decided to go find believers and give them a chance to share their story and embolden them to discuss their faith.

After I hurled a few tough questions at them that really shake their belief it’s amazing to see them come alive and not back down.

After the fact I begin to share my side and it’s almost like they were caught on camera. They realize I in fact am a believer too and they are surprised. The unexpected thing is that they are excited. 

When we get up a discussion about our faith it ends up spreading around to table around us and it can be just as effective giving people a chance to eavesdrop on the discussion…. which they do.

The truth is that Evangelism often feels like sales. I hate it. It’s a lot like selling coupon books to your friends and neighborhood so that you can earn points for that catalog of toys and gadgets that comes with it.

It’s much simpler than that. We are supposed to simply share our faith not sell it.

Share.

Instead of treating your faith like a box of fundraising girl scout cookies….. be they guy with the open box of girl scout cookies.

People tend to avoid girl scouts at the grocery store because you feel like a mark. You know that there is no value except your wallet. And that their sweet demeanor is just greasing the wheels. un-sincere. And if you don’t buy…. judgement. After all if you don’t buy the cookies you are pretty much signing a petition to reverse women’s suffrage and take away their right to vote.

Being the guy with the open box of girl scout cookies doesn’t need to force anything on anyone… in fact people try and cozy up fast.

The idea is simply. Quit trying to convince people and instead be confident.

Confidence comes from knowledge and experience. A certainty that what Christ is… is true. That no one needs be convinced.

It’s the feeling that makes you certain that you aren’t better than anyone, but you are certainly better off.

Like a guy with an umbrella next to a guy who doesn’t. You aren’t better….no way. You are however better off, and that puts you in a position to serve….instead of putting you in a position to persuade. Not Cocky. But Certain. Put away the pride, rub on the humility.

It takes me back to the point. By sharing my faith with another christian, redefining evangelism, and reversing it I accomplished what I had on my heart. To minister. And I had answers the other guy needed answers to, He had answers I need answers to. We shared our experience and found a way to stop being girl scouts. Throw away the badges and just stuff our face with some amazing cookies.

 

Some use Worship to entice God, to invite Him in and draw upon a connection. Others use worship to try and summon God…. God cannot be summoned.

Seeking Wisdom and why we work.

You have your job to gain experience to gain wisdom and knowledge. God has broken up wisdom and knowledge and poured it out into all manner and fashion into the world to be found and uncovered. Everything you do while working will either make your life better or worse. The bible helps you sift and glean. It helps you know what to look for and how to appraise the bits you find in the work you are doing. Others are motivated by pride and toss piles of modesty and humility out the door as weak. These things the world considers weak are actually burning fuel to smelt and purify. They help crucible the metals others consider dull. The hard rocks and obstruction obstacles of perseverance, discipline, and long suffering patience are the only stones hard enough and course enough to shape and cut the gems you discover into sharp dazzling facets and brilliant gleaming displays of jewelry. The world will cover itself in the colorful preening feathers of pride and be the poorer for it.

The Medicine

Imagine if we lived in a country where health care was free and you could simply walk into a hospital and be diagnosed and treated with a medication for every disease.

Some sicknesses were easily curable and others would mean that you needed regular attention. If the illness was really bad you would have to take reacquiring medication or even have scheduled transfusions. Mental issues would be treated with free counseling and regular group therapy. 

Imagine if there were people who set up home visits and would deliver meds to your door.

Imagine if there were free workshops and booths in every city and town that would offer regular health services.

Imagine then in that world you had a friend who refused medications, hated hospitals, and cursed doctors as being “quacks”. They always had an argument for why any vaccination can kill you or make you autistic and pills will make you an addict, rot your brain and destroy your body.

They become sick and continue to believe that they are fine…and their illness is in fact caused by contagious idiots who go to hospitals and contract super viruses and spread them around.

Your friend is always quoting fringe media malpractice cases and is always ready to wave the newest “medical scandal” that “they don’t want you to know about” that they got from some internet forum.

They refuse all medical treatment and in the end blame the Government for pumping money in every direction except helping them when they need it.

They Die. Bitter. Sick. and Vengeful of Medicine.

This is what it’s like through my eyes everyday. People refusing God and dying sick, bitter, and vengeful of a God that abandoned them or didn’t exist.

 

The Laughing Matter

God allows atheists to laugh so hard because soon they won’t be able to,

and maybe God allows us to cry so much because one day we won’t remember how.

The Thinking Athiest …Do they really believe in God?

Okay so before going to further I want everyone to take a minute to read through the opener to a website I recently visited call “the thinking atheist”. I want you to absorb the information of statement for yourself before it’s altered by any opinions or examples. I want you to shoot on his raw opinion with your own mind before we move on with my thoughts.

Bible Atrocities (thethinkingathiest.com)

 Many in the religious culture insist that the God and the Holy Bible provide the foundation for all morality.

With that in mind, take a moment to browse some specific examples of God-endorsed atrocities. Then, ask yourself (honestly) how you would feel about these accounts of rape, incest, slavery, torture and infanticide if the acts had been perpetrated by a human being: Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.

Doesn’t your moral code require you to denounce these acts as horrific and monstrous? Do you hold God to a different standard simply because “He is God, and he can do whatever he wants?”

Think about it. Even if Yahweh existed, would he be truly worthy of our praise and allegiance? Or is the truly moral person obligated to shun and denounce this petty, jealous, cruel and murderous tyrant?

Okay so that’s it, did you see it? Let’s move on.

So I was sitting in IHOP this last Sunday morning talking to some friends catching up about life and a girl at the table started to ask me about what she could do involving her friend who was atheist.

Her friend growing up in a house that was not religious and had recently lost a family member that she cared about deeply, her grandmother, to an un-expected fast acting terminal cancer that came out of nowhere and killed her grandmother.

Her friend had been battling back and forth with the curiosity about God for the past few months. She still clung to a stern disbelief in God for many of the same reasons that a lot of atheists do not believe in God. One of the reasons I have presented to you in the text example at the very beginning of this blog.

She like most Christians when they encounter a friend who they care deeply about who does not share their faith scrambles to know what opportunities they have two share their faith without completely alienating their friend and stepping over a line. They avoid trying to be a “Bible thumper” and simply care enough to want to share an intimate part about their journey.

There are a lot of evil church people who masquerade under the banner of Jesus, but in all reality are no different then a very unique type of people that knows no race, religion, or economic status. This group of people take shape in every culture and every gender and every age throughout history and the world. This group is called the pious egotist. These are hypocritical people who will cling to any belief that allows them to judge and persecute others for not being like-minded.

However a lot of Christians are innocent in their attempt to share their belief with others as they have a simple desire to share an experience and a solution that helped them overcome the difficulties that plague their life. To these Christians conversion is not a numbers game the are simply like someone who was an alcoholic that attended AA meetings and without judging others humbly wants to invite others who are alcoholics to join AA meetings so that their lives also will be changed for the better.

Normally this girl would not bother her atheist friend with evangelical cold call, but because her friend had been asking questions about her faith my new friend had a desire to know how to love her friend, not offend her, and yet be truthful about herself.

There are a lot of Christians who exist terrified and shamed of the actions that are committed by radicals. And so like her we attempt to walk on eggshells about who we are because of the atrocities committed by hypocritical pious egotists in the name of their misguided faith.

I told her that in my opinion.

In all of my years of religious study and traveling across the United States and Canada I always jumped at the chance to talk with anyone of the different perspective. It is something that I believe a lot of people miss out on. What people believe and why they live their life the way they do is always an amazing and brilliant story that will change your life definitively for the better. And in that time I told her that while I do not want to make assumptions and anyone or discount the personal identity that an individual defines themselves by, I told her that in my opinion I had never really come across an atheists ever would genuinely and truly did not believe in God.

Of course she looked at me very puzzled and did not understand at all what I was talking about. She needed me to clarify what I meant by that statement because atheists by definition are a people who deny the existence of God. I began to explain to her that whenever I meet somebody who defines himself as an atheist I am always super excited to ask them why. It is an unknown fact that atheists make up a total of 3% of the worlds population. And this is of course devout atheists. There are many people who are agnostic, un-religious, and many other definitions, but the total number of devout atheists in the world make up an estimated 3%. It is hard to believe that that number is accurate but you do have to keep in mind that in atheist is not somebody who is uncertain about the existence of God that is in the agnostic and the percentage of them in the world is much greater. However I am discussing a person who affiliates themselves specifically as atheist which is a person who denies the existence of God entire. That is to say someone who refutes the idea that there is a God or gods.

And so it is always an awesome conversation to have with the person whose beliefs are so rare and divergent from the other 97% of the world who wins somewhere another accepts the existence of a higher power/s.

I told my friend within the occasions that I have had a chance to speak to somebody who is an atheist about their life story and how they came about believing the way that they did there is usually always a story of heartache and disappointment. It is by and large a person who was raised religious and came to encounter some sort of traumatic experience in their life that led them to disbelieve that God is as others describe him to be. Or is a person who was raised in an un-religious family who simply lives out the tenants of their families beliefs. This is not to say that there are not atheists out there with different backgrounds however I have not encountered them, but let me be clear I am very eager to.

And so I explained to my friend that of the personal stories that I heard I had never encountered a person who simply did not believe in God to me it was that they had a severe disagreement with the character and integrity of God and did not ignore what his authority.

That is to say if God was up for election they would not be voting for him.

For instance if everything that someone experiences that God is a jerk then it poses a problem. Because if God is a jerk but he is God then there is nothing that can be done about it. If God is a jerk and is an existing all-powerful God then you exist in a world where God is a jerk.

However if you do not it knowledge the authority of God and he is a jerk it doesn’t matter it plays no part in your life and you are not affected by. As an American the south Korean leader Kim Jong  Un can be one of the worst human beings in existence however because he is not my leader’s actions by and large do not affect me and so I am able to go on with my everyday life with no interest in his character. So I am able to accept that Kim Jong Un exists because it costs me nothing.

On the other hand in America if the president commits some sort of atrocity or passes a law that alienates me or hurts others I cannot as easily ignore it or go on with my life because he is in fact my leader, there is very little I can do in the moment to stop him, and so I become very disgruntled because it affects my life lately.

In that way I see the similarity with my friends are atheist because they seem as disconnected from God as an American is from the leader of North Korea. By not ignored you in his authority they can go about their everyday lives completely unaffected by all of the negatives associated with the existence of God. And it becomes very easy language to simply say he does not exist rather than saying if God does exist I don’t accept his authority. Because unlike a world leader if God does exist there is no escaping that authority is all-encompassing and permeates everything in existence.

I told my friends that a lot of Christians make the mistake in attempting to try and discuss with their atheist friends the existence of God and they make every attempt to prove God’s existence on a rational level. This will never work for two reasons.

1. The argument could be made that if God physically revealed himself on the earth as God and formed miracles that defied science an explanation that people would be forced to a knowledge that God exists and it would change everything.

This does not make sense for the fact that it could be argued that this has already happened. Jesus Christ showed up as a physical entity, performed miracles that the general public were able to witness and test with their own senses, they were able to record physical documentation and outside un-bias witness reports from people who were not inside of his inner circle. There are many documents in Roman history and surrounding cultures that were not Christian that acknowledge the existence of Jesus and the activities that were purported to occurred at the time. We know for a fact that this was not enough for people. That given enough time records can be argued as being recorded by a sling, falsely, or tampered with. In just the course of 2000 years and actual living example of the supernatural that walked the earth has been dusted over as no more than a myth.

2. The other argument is that atheists are not ignorant unintelligent people. To treat them like they are is disrespectful and ignorant and in of itself. Atheist that I have encountered are an amazing people there full of the same compassion thoughtfulness and intellect as any other human being. To discount someone of a different perspective as unintelligent is simply lazy. It is a bigoted way of forcing the world into a chewable tablet instead of it being the jagged horse pill that it is. The world and all of its facets is very tough to swallow and a person makes it any less than this is only lying to themselves.

Jesus expressed this very opinion many time in the gospel and never encouraged anyone to make anything easier than it is in fact guarded people away from those who would turn things into a three step program for success. And so I encouraged my friend not to spend her time trying to debate against her friends conclusion because a famous quote is that “someone argued against their will will be of the same opinion still”. And what that means is that people arrive at their understandings and make them emotional and personal and even if you are to come up with an argument that is sound if a person has arrived at a different opinion on their own they will not be argued out of it.

The real reason that people make any sort of change in their life is what one of my teachers said is that they either know enough that they want to change or be hurt and enough that they have to.

That is why documentaries and comedy are so effective at changing people’s minds and opinions about the value they already hold is because they are not argumentative or intrusive for offenses. They may be sharp, or challenging but documentaries and comedy in fight people softly from one idea into another one giving their previous understanding the benefit of the doubt and encouraging them to it falls into a new perspective rather than forcing them to acknowledge that their previous idea was stupid, that they are stupid, and that they are wrong for ever thinking about anything ever. On the other side is that if a person hurts enough they change and that is to say if a person agrees with smoking cigarettes in the moment that they are told by a doctor that they are severely endanger of lung cancer or that they have contracted it that in and of itself motivates them to change smoking most of the time because the threat and pain forces them to accept that their viewpoint was inaccurate and that they must change it in order to have a positive outcome.

I encourage my friend instead that from my experience with atheists they had been force fed a perspective about the goodness of God and experience a trauma or a logic and reasonable experience that led them to disagree with that idea. And it isn’t always trauma for instance my friends who were atheist who were raised nonreligious usually are enamored almost religiously in neo-science which is the wholehearted immersion of evolution not as a theory but as solid fact that is completely un-penetrable and no longer should be investigated for improvement. As a fan of science I love poking holes in everything and coming in contact with neo-scientists they tend to accept science as complete rather than an ongoing exploration and reinvention of our understanding of truth every single day.

Scientists are a brilliant amazing group of intelligent people. Neo-scientists tend to be the, traditional, conservative zealots of the scientific community. Even most scientists look at them as being radical and uninformed. There are only a very few people who I’ve met who are both atheist and neo-scientists. Most of the atheists that I have met that are scientific are some of the best people you can carry a conversation on they are brilliant and amazing. However there are some people who strike a shocking resemblance to conservative church people that isolates their children in a bubble of things that only reflect their beliefs this is also true of some people who are neo-scientific. There was a wonderful I knew in high school whose mother was also atheists and a science teacher and she was brilliant however she went to the extent of not even allowing her daughter to go to any religious function or activity or religiously influenced anything because she felt like it was fake and contaminated her daughter. It always reminded me of the same conservative isolationists who will not allow their children to go to dances or read Harry Potter because they are afraid that it will contaminate them.

This all comes back around to say that really I told my friend that if her friend unsolicited has been asking questions and has been curious about her beliefs and faith that she shouldn’t be making an argument for the existence of God but rather sharing with her friends the character that she has experienced of God. I told her to put herself in the shoes of her atheist friend and to be compassionate and understanding and the fact that she should be able to relate to her friends issues with God because even as Christian we absolutely have issues with the character of God. The idea of never having upsets or anger towards God is ridiculous. We are supposed to have a relationship with God like we are supposed to have a relationship with the people. Real relationships have conflict, have upsets, and disappointments as much as they have amazing influence and make her life better. I told her that when talking to her friend she should spend more time relating to what her friend went through because this is how we love people. Not by men manipulating them through arguments and co-worship and debate but by doing what Jesus did with people which was just getting rid of all of the highest nonsense relating with them and sharing their experiences. This is what people love about Jesus and this is what people still do love about Jesus even if they aren’t a Christian. Being able to relate to your friends to be able to relate with people of a different belief will not contaminate you if anything it will open up your eyes and help you shed some of the Hyannis and selfish ego testicle nonsense that has been implanted in you by other people who read suffered from the same ignorant behavior.

When ever trying to share your beliefs with anybody be confident enough to live out your lifestyle and your identity with the same liberty that anybody else does not for sitting on them and not hurting them by a but at the same time not hiding it away with a fear of offending somebody just by being. Every one no matter what their identity is should be allowed to exist in that identity without prejudice.

If someone asks for your shirt you give them your coat. If they want you to walk a couple blocks with them be willing to go the extra mile. Essentially this means don’t be afraid but be encouraged to step into someone else issue and be yourself while loving them as they are. Because a person who has been force fed a terrible perspective of God when they see you and hear your real experiences with God that are completely contradictory to him being a jerk and that you truthfully have had your own doubts and struggles it will begin to wrestle with the nonsense that other people have shoved on them.

The key is to love people well rather than to sell them on the idea of God.

True

God is awesome.

God is Magic

For the most part people really don’t work.

They kind of keep busy. Buzzing around performing actions that keep things moving.

People change things like moving a dish rag to the other side of a sink, or delete their emails, organize their desk. If things change then it seems as if work has been done.

Production is a very small part of someone’s day. Making something of use and effecting the world in a way that will make someone’s day better.

If only we knew what it was we are all striving for. We hunger we eat. We tire we sleep. We live we…wonder.

What is it? What is this all for? We experiment everyday trying to fill that purpose driven vacancy.

We endure and strive repeating things over and over again hoping they accumulate to a resolve.

Is there a secret way of living life that will actually amount to something.

Aren’t we all trying to get to that place where we are sustained, happy and full?

A life with just enough challenge, just enough that comes effortlessly. Just enough change and just enough that stays the same? The right amount of hunger and the perfect meal.

But we are a purpose driven people. We have needs and wants and we fill those needs and wants.

When we can’t fill needs and wants we are miserable and when we do achieve them we are ecstatic.

But we are quick to need and want again. It’s the driving force of life.

Buddha says that desire is the bane of man, but I believe it defines them. After all even Buddha was trying to attain a want-less life…. And wasn’t satisfied until he could attain it.

We all do something that works for a while and then we long for it. A time in our life when we were close to fulfilled. But we always are ready to risk being completed in order to pursue something else we need. Is it the journey then that is the best part? Is it finally getting there?

It is the glory of God to hide a thing and the glory of kings to seek it out. Proverbs 25:2

What does any of this mean? The bible is a conundrum of hidden meanings and confusing texts. Written in a culture we are completely disconnected from. This isn’t the bibles fault… or anyone’s really.

We just don’t live in times with kings, measure things with our arms, or trade in sheep.

I don’t own any sheep and if I did I don’t know anyone who would trade me anything for it.

I also admittedly don’t know anything about kings. It seems archaic to me that one man would have complete power and control over a nation. It would seem to me that that person would live very selfishly and enjoy the life I want to live while I work some terrible laborious job that they get the paycheck for.

But the cool thing about the bible is that it has changeable parts. It is a living document that continues to adapt to life and changing times. The reason this is is because the bible is so advanced and so far ahead of it’s time that it is almost an alien technology. To an untrained eye it seems like an old book full of weird meaning and inapplicable truth. In fact it is a book that is so powerful people have been discovering new things every time they open it.

The bible is magic. It’s the only way to explain it.

Now I didn’t say the bible is witchcraft. I said it is magic. Something that is magic is something that has supernatural properties to it. Properties that defy scientific explanation. Something wondrous. Science hates magic because you can’t define it or control it. Magic is powerful and is something that can only be wielded by those who will bend to its will rather than demand that it be pliable and that your will can be forced upon it.

Now we can’t blame science. Science like many things is wonderful and horribly tainted by people.

Science is this ability to pursue and seek out truth, but there are some rather stiff shirts out there that wag their fingers, shake their heads and scoff at such things. It is entirely ok…. These people used to believe the world was flat, that man couldn’t fly, and that you could remove diseases by covering people in blood sucking leeches. They have come a long way but still seem to be very solid on the idea that magic doesn’t exist.

Everyone makes mistakes.

The Bible however is magical. It’s the only reason why it has lasted so long against such odds and has shaken the world with such amazing miracles.

Most people don’t like the word magic because it implies trickery and evil spirits. I assure you that those things are witchcraft and witchcraft is the enemy of magic. Witchcraft is always entirely practiced by people with a desire to make things bend to their desires and they cast spells and all sorts of counterfeit to do so. But that is a story for another time.

God knows that magic exists. God is supernatural…. Actually magic/supernatural is God and we see it in everything he does.

Love is magical, Hope is magical, Life is magical.

And it’s only so important to realize that God is magical because we have gotten into a war based on someone else’s rules. A lot of people , including my dad who fought during the war, attribute the difficulties and loss of the Vietnam  to fighting the war on their terms and by their rules on their field.

And Christianity is losing to science for the same reasons.

It is as if we have tried to rationalize God in order to make him appeal to rational minds.

We have taken the magic and the supernatural out of God so much that we really don’t even truly believe in miracles do we?

I do. I don’t believe in a God of witchcraft and cheap illusions. I do believe in a God who brings fire from the sky, heals people, raises the dead, and walks on water.

It doesn’t get much more magical than that. God is Magic and so is the bible.

And that is the very thing missing from life isn’t it? The thing missing from your purpose, the longing you desire is the desire for magic to happen again in your life. We have allowed ourselves a rational amount of magic to happen on movie screens and in good books and video games. But those things can be shut off, closed, and powered down can’t they?

We have taken something that scares us and we have controlled it and packaged it so that we can be in charge. We can’t possibly live in a world where things are out of our control… those things would run amuck and make decisions without consulting us first. They might not have our interests at heart.

So we are told they are make believe and to ignore them and not pretend. Children are stronger than us at matters of the heart aren’t they. Let me explain. There is a big difference between child-like and childish. It is good to raise a child to be responsible and selfless and so we want them to mature past childishness. We however lose the war entirely to childlikeness. Try as you will children believe in magic so whole heartedly that the only way we can break them is with punishment and humiliation over years. And even then it doesn’t work to well does it?

Children’s imaginations and concerns are of those of possibility and the fantastical. They believe in magic so much that we as a society in our war of rationality have given up on fighting against children all together. In fact we envy them their confidence that the magical and supernatural exists. It’s only when we let them down as adults and deceive them that they begin to doubt. And don’t kid yourselves. There is nothing rational about doubt. We glorify it for it’s “wisdom” but doubt takes just as much foolhardy fantasy to believe in as having faith and hope.

In order to doubt things we will accept rumors and stories without research and we will leverage our pessimism just as passionately as some would leverage optimism.

But I digress.

When the bible says that it is the glory of God to hide things and the glory of kings to seek them out.

What I think this means is that God created us to endeavor and discover. He breed in us a curiosity that would never be sated. We are going to exist for an eternity and God moves us forward with one of the most magical alluring properties of all…..Mystery.

There is literally a whole universe out there that we can explore. From what I hear we have only discovered 10% of the ocean. And we might think that there is nothing down there that would change our lives or flip the world on it’s head…. But at one point and time the microscope wasn’t invented and we had no idea the amount of life and intrigue that rested literally on our fingertips and the air we breathe. Our bodies are moving planets of bacteria..

What I’m saying is that God compels people to explore. There are things buried in the dirt beneath the ice in the middle of Antarctica waiting for you to get to it. There are fish swimming in the bottom of the ocean right now that might contain a renewable chemical that would allow you to stand out in the dessert sun and not get sunburned? It’s crazy! But think how much the coffee bean and the cocoa bean have changed the world? And they were always there. Growing and dying and re-growing just waiting for us to find them.

What is holding us back?

We have this thing inside of us that wants to be God. We want to be at the top, we want to be known, we want to make the world happen the way we want it to happen. We have all been asked what we would do if we had a million dollars or super powers. We have a laundry list of things that come to mind and it is always how we would change our world. We are born with this desire.

God has a desire for us to live an incredible story. And Mystery and magic pull us forward. It’s incredible to know that magic exists and that we have a magic book that will always give us answers. Not easy answers, not instant answers, and maybe not even agreeable answers. But it’s magic. It doesn’t need us…. And yet it lives to watch us move and breathe and be amazing. I played a lot of DnD growing up. Creating characters and rolling dice moving from room to room slaying evil and collecting treasure. I collected comic book trading cards and marveled… no pun intended… at the super heroes. I dreamed of what my life would be like if I could just get the opportunity to have them.

As I got older I realized all I really wanted was for the risk to be removed. I didn’t know how to impress the girl of my dreams but if I could fly and no one else could then surely she would be impressed. I wanted to bring justice to the world. I used to walk everywhere and sometimes some idiot in a car would honk or yell out the window while they sped by like a coward. I used to think about using my telekinesis to grab onto the car with my mind and pull it back to me… tires screeching and walk up to the guys in the car and hold them accountable for their behavior. Fear in their eyes and cowardess flooding their faces a flush white.

But what it was all about was wanting to not be rejected or retaliated against. What if I yell back at the guys in the car… they stop, get out, and beat me up? What if I tell my crush I like her… but because I can’t fly she realizes she has much better prospects and rejects me. Most all, of our fantasies are about escaping discomfort or harm. However some of the best and most rewarding experiences lay directly on the other side of them both.

Most of our life is spent trying to find out what our talent or gift is or trying to develop a skill. We hope to use that skill or talent to gain enough benefit, money, respect, and power to change the world in our favor. Most of the time we settle for getting as close as we can. Sometimes we have to accept the thing we want won’t ever be ours because it is for someone else. And that is the killer of magic and hope.

In the end all we and everyone cares about is success.

In your life you will either obtain success or change the definition of it to mean what you have already accomplished.

It gets hard to hope. As a child all you have to go on is hope. You haven’t yet been given the tools or the freedom to accomplish the big plans you have. You have to engage patience and set your sights on adulthood. For most of us adulthood is like a dog chasing a car…. When he catches it he doesn’t know what to do with it. And when we are released into the wide world to take advantage of all it has to offer we lose hope. We have so many rules instilled in us it’s hard to move…. Atleast not without guilt.

For the first few years we begin to learn to throw things away or replace them. We are fed tons of advice and rules growing up that are supposed to guide us to our destiny…. But most of the time it really just ends up taking down a road towards someone elses.

A wise actor named Tom Hiddleston once said “We all have two lives…. And the second one begins when we realize we only have one.”

It’s true that at some point you realize you only have one life and you realize you are not optimizing it the way you wish.

Hope deferred makes a heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life Proverbs 13:12

Don’t we get sick of waiting?

I spent a good part of my life waiting for something to happen. I don’t even really know what was supposed to happen but I was waiting on a push, a revelation, and epiphany.

I wanted to know who I was. I figured I would run into it one day while just living day to day. It’s almost like waiting to find your soul mate. You are looking for them, but you don’t know where or when you will find them… so you do what others do. You just keep living and keep waiting for it to happen.

Good things come to those who wait. It’s not in the Bible. The bible has a lot to say about patience, but it isn’t so foolish as to make a blanket statement that if you wait… it will be good. In fact what the bible does say is …

A little sleep a little slumber and folding of the hands and poverty will come at you like a thief and wants will attack you like an armed man. Proverbs 6:10-11

I started to put those two together. Hope deferred makes you sick and waiting around will make your wants and desires gang up on you. Maybe the key was to go out and do something with my life, explore and be patient.

Maybe if I distracted myself with my purpose in life I wouldn’t sit listlessly focusing on the clock waiting for my dreams to arrive like a blind date.

Waiting for things when they are hung up on someone else or something is tough. But when all that is standing between your destiny and you…. Is you it is mortifying.

The Bible truly is a magic item. When I used to play RPG’s or games like Skyrim I learned about magic items. A normal thing that had the ability to change the world around it.

It basically suspended the rules of nature and science. A regular pair of gloves kept your hands warm and did only that. A pair of magic gloves always kept your hands warm but also gave you the ability to shoot lightning or climb walls like a spider.

It is this way that the bible is magical. There is so much wisdom contained in it that it follows you your entire life. As you grow older and experience and discover the truth about life and people all around you, you discover that the bible had said it all along. Every sentence tends to be thousands of sentences, with thousands of applications, and yet only one meaning. The pages are lifeless and alive. It’s as if it is aware of your life and feeds you. It relieves mental anguish and protects you from misdirection.

It’s like a dream in which you have a cup of cold water after a day hike and you keep drinking it, gulping it, and pouring it on your sweaty face and the water still remains full and also leaves you stuffed.

It makes more sense over time and the more you research and dig into its context and references the more you change and find your purpose.

Clean

How can I get through the day without a complete bathe in God?