Renovating the Heart & Our Surroundings - Heaven on Earth

Search For Alternatives to Authentic Contentment
From the time of Constantine, 300 years into church history, up to the 30 Year's War, the church had control and constantly abused Christianity through cruelty and non-compassion equating Church positions to God's will out of neurotic need to control everyone and everything. Instead of listening to Jeremiah's cry that the human heart is desparately wicked and deceitful, whether ordained or lay person, we decided to look under other rocks for answers, considering Christianity itself, rather than the unrenovated human heart, as unacceptable and the source of discontent. The frantic search for an adequate alternative on a cultural level began. The Scottish philosopher David Hume and German Immanuel Kant provided the revolution that changed thinking so that everything else would follow....and it did. But instead of improving our lot, Europe produced Napolean, the Terror and endless revolutions that reflected more blood and chaos than the religious wars just 200 years earlier.

In the United States, the highest bastions of our culture rejected a Christian consensus around the late 1800's. The roots of our rejection of Christianity as a culture goes farther back...into the 18th century. Princeston, for example, once a bastion of Christian education, at one time led by Jonathon Edwards, had turned away from biblical Christianity in favor of Kantian-Hegelian revolution in Europe and embraced the dichotomy between sacred and secular, then emphasized the latter, holding to a strict empericism, at the expense of the former. Before long, universities all over the United States, which started as religious organizations, became secular. Theology moved from being the Queen of Sciences, to a discipline of study under the Department of Humanities. Like good city planners designing sewage systems clearly know, things tend to flow downstream and our culture is no exception. By the early 20th century, philosophy had embraced logical positivism and reduced reality to language and science, with science being a specialized language of study. A young Ludwig Wittgenstein, brilliant thinker, had published his Tractictus and started a movement that would eventually be rejected in philosophical circles, even though still embraced by modern science in terms of cosmology, biology and chemistry.

The Armory Art Exhibit of 1913 began to prepare the hoi poloi in the United States for the impact of Kantian-Hegelian revolution in artistic expression. Da Da, Duchamp and others had introduced modern art to America. I am not being critical of the art and actually am intrigued by much of it. Regardless, Duchamp's ready-mades almost feel like visual representations Wittgenstien's Tractictus displayed before me. Jackson Pollock's random art is interesting but is based on his rejection of any rhyme or reason, preferring pure randomness over design. Music began to embrace it too. The music of John Cage in the early 20th century reminds me of alot of Brian Eno's music in the 1980's. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were key in bridging philosophy with arts, through literature. Their existentialism is the authority and basis for almost all of Hollywood's movies. If you want to know where Robert Zemekis was going when he ended Castaway with Tom Hanks standing in the middle of an intersection somewhere in rural Texas, or the conversation between mother and son at the end of Pleasantville, read Sartre's Being and Nothingness or Camus' The Stranger. Rock and Roll was born out of existentialism, and now uses the the absolute teaching of an untethered free will of choice to tether us to more than chains. Art appeals to our pain and our sentimentality. Its lyrics and music finds resonance with our own personal experience and without any authority in our lives outside of our own will, we end up worshipping that feeling and fuelling the entire process. Our children learn from us that our decisions are based on our feelings and the reasons for our decisions. Art, in many respects, reinforces this message. Not always, but the undercurrent of much art, regardless of its manifestation, comes from this energy.

But most folks are too busy surviving and raising families during this time and still have a Christian understanding of reality in the 1930's and 1940's to even know much about Da Da, analytical philosophy or reductionism. However, the next step down is politics. When the same thinking moves into politics, everyone registered to vote is fair game. FDR provided the face and voice of comfort for a desparate nation. Even though all of his efforts failed to provide recovery for us, the timing of a second world war and the end of a downward economic cycle started by speculation of the 1920's, had all of us looking for a new Savior and new Church to pick us back up and get us going again. That new savior was the President and the that new Church was the federal government. By the 1970's, political movements for just about any area of life sprang up, all vying to contribute as ministries to the new church. The idea of government replacing more traditional institutions began to grow. The government was now our school master. The government was now our social engineer. The greed for money was the fuel that helped this idea take off. I still believe the reason liberalism triumphed last November is because a large portion of American voters are too young to remember the malaise and hopelessness of the 1970's. But even on the conservative side, the answer is still government, just less government. The only advantage conservatives have politically is that it's more economically atuned than the old liberal model that we have embraced of recent. But despite that advantage, it is still looking for another Reagan and reflecting the deeper problem in our culture.

The last stage is sports and reality entertainment. With the advent of cable television, satellite, computer gaming and other technological advances, we have now added another absorption into another venue. The university chapel has been replaced by the grid iron. Self-improvement has been replaced with an XBOX high score. And news has become gossip with interests more in American Idol or Brittany Spears than with human slave trade around the world, abuse within orphanages in eastern Europe or mercy killings in the Middle East. The latter topics seem to big and dark for us to handle, so we ignore them for distractions.

And the biggest argument against Christianity has unwittingly turned out to be Christians. Take away the religious talk, religious activities, we look just no different than the rest of the world, much of the time...myself included. We consent to certain truths and then pretend that we live them out when in fact, we are only trying to manage them with others. Even the SBC, of which I belong, decided to fight for biblical inerrency in the denomination, which is a good thing, ended up with victors strutting and preening in pridefulness and self-righteousness....not knowing how to do ministry unless there was a controversy to get embroiled. But that is the good side of evangelicalism in America. Much of the other denominations went the way of the do do bird and became not much more than political organizations, accepting a godliness but denying it's power, as Paul stated long ago. Today, we either get a political stump speech from the pulpit or a ministry on the right that is solely defined by its differences with other ministries.

By the way, I represent much of these characterizations. So don't consider this one more self-righteous diatribe against the decay of Western Civilization. I find it much easier to bury myself into work than to work on my relationships with family and friends. I would rather lose myself in a Coldplay album or Cohen Brother's movie than deal with my inner-demons. I find it easier to condemn than to forgive. But I recognize all my failures and frailties in those around me too and because I am a nerd, I happen to know how we all got here. And art, sports and politics are not bad things. I am more artistically inclined, than mathematically inclined (even though not very talented in either area) and enjoy these things. I am not suggesting these things are bad, but our search for some sort of ease of a deep discontent ends up with us taking a thing or concept that is good in and of itself, and making it into a shiny golden calf.

Renovating the Heart Through Intentional Apprenticeship in Jesus

We live from our heart. Whether we admit it or not, that is our center. That is where our discontent, satisfaction, aspirations and fears come from. Because science now rejects any non-physical entities, we are 'educated' in believing we have no spirit or soul. We are merely DNA and as Richard Dawkins has written, DNA doesn't care, it just is. But teaching that doesn't make it so, and our souls began to search in vane for anything to help ease our discontent with life, in the wake of bankrupt alternatives. Even if we reject Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our souls require us to pour our existence into something until it becomes our identity. And because we are told to deny the soul's existence, we are left to reaching into non-rational, fringe outlets to find some sort of answers...whether it is infatuation with ghost trackers, human potential, or even politics, art and sports, whatever we decide to love, we pour everything we are into it and become it. Our spirits are formed one way or the other.

Romans 12:1 talks of transforming our minds through the renovation of our hearts....to no longer be conformed to the structure of our age. What does he mean by that? How do you do such a thing? I was not a very consistent non-believer and after coming to Christ in 1996, have seemed to find more emphasis on my inconsistencies and failures now, than the improvements. As a result, any talk of spiritual formation, disciplines, etc., made me wince as a Christian. If the Gospel was not about the A+ I have been given in Christ, despite my actual performance on the exam, then I am doomed. But through trying to wrestle with grace, biblical texts and teachings of others even when I balked or discounted it out of a fear of legalism, I think I am finally beginning to see endless possibilities with me by being His apprentice, and therefore endless possibilites for our culture as a whole, through clear biblical teachings.

I have a bench press and weights in my garage. I realized after my initial attempts at getting healthy back a few years ago, that I couldn't walk in to a gym after 15 years and bench 200 lbs. In fact, even though it was light, I had to begin with an empty bar, then add more, then add more, then add more. I had to work at it and I had to be intentional about it. Likewise, I am a consultant, but I wasn't born one. I didn't simply go out after graduation and became a resource for issues within the industry in which I work. I had to work at it...practice, read, step out...and sometimes fail at it. These examples reflect a larger reality regarding my spirit or heart. My circumstances and choices have determined my soul. And that has not ended up a good thing. But I represent the entire human race. We are all spiritually formed people. But just as sewage goes downhill, natural human abilities do not automatically migrate towards the good. Two ways of seeing human nature is to say that humans are basically good people, at heart, as Anne Frank wrote before her execution. But if we are naturally good, how come we have created thousands of institutions to protect us from one another? If we are good, why have laws, signed and notarized contracts or even mundane things like ticket stubs? We migrate naturally towards the bad and have to work to be good. The other way of seeing human nature is to take the scientific naturalism approach or postmodern approach and say there is no such thing as a human nature. But if that is true, then why live and act as if there is a nature to us and one that needs to be either fostered, guarded, encouraged or discouraged? It's an important question with regards to character.

Speaking of character...it is not walking through 12 feet of mud to fight off the bad guys and save the village. Character is what you do without thinking. It's what flows from your center without managing it at all, just as determining what a glass is filled with when you bump into it, our hearts reveal our character. And our character, without Jesus Christ, is either explicitly self-oriented or implicitely self-oriented....we either admit to our living for ourselves or we pretend to be selfless when we are not, and that usually is telling by the same person's flight towards self-righteousness and condemnation. This is the heart of Jesus' teaching...'from out of the heart, the mouth speaks..." When pressure is applied, what kind of person am I? What sort of character do I have when the heat gets turned up? Do I resemble Christ? And if I don't (and many times I do not), this brings up a scary proposition...are my choices becoming explicitly evil or faking goodness? If so, what hope do I have?

Without Jesus, none. That's why He is the way, truth and life. Only through accepting His atoning sacrifice can I have the grace for forgiveness of all my mess, past, present and future. But only through taking His yoke, intentionally learning from Him and becoming an apprentice of Jesus Christ, can I move forward with where I am with my mind, soul and body, and step forward in His power and grace, knowing that failure is a part of the process. I can intentionally follow Him, learn from Him and intentionally try to think, speak and act the way He would if He were me and not worry about falling down. That is the only way I can truly get better without faking it or simply abandoning the project. Grace is more than what provides unconditional acceptance no matter what you have done. Grace is also the resource He gives in His power to actually change you from the inside out. How?

What Spiritual Transformation Is Not And Is...

Well, I have learned the hard way that Jesus' yoke is not trying to pull myself up with my own bootstraps. One pastor was quoted as saying that sometimes you deny yourself food to teach your body that it is not in control. That's not going to work, regardless of all its bravado, because the reference of power is the pastor saying it. No. I can't do that. No one can, without falling into the self-deception of faking it all. The things I can do are simple...pray....constantly. Seeking His face in every moment of my life...reading His word and asking Him to change my mind on everything we disagree...and denying myself of things my body or mind desires...whether it is food or having the last word...these things I can do. What happens next is the part that isn't me. What happens next is that His Spirit, cooperating with mine, changes me...changes my character, bit by bit, so that I actually form a character that is more like Him. Sometimes that is done through intentional means like the ones I mentioned. Sometimes it is through soveriengly orchestrated events and circumstances used to bring up things way down deep that otherwise would not be dealt with. And sometimes the process is no fun. But I will tell you this...nothing beats the comfort of knowing He is at work in me, even when everything else around me is blowing apart at the seams.

When focusing on the invisible activities going on deep within my heart, I begin to see more of what He is doing around me. And instead of a gloom and doom, I begin to get excited about the possibilities. He replaces even my composure with joy, even in the midst of alot of what appears to be chaos. I can see His possibilities instead of only focusing on our impossibilities. This is His Kingdom. And the exciting part is that since the first century, the revolution has begun, mercifully involves me and you, and will end up where everything will be under His dominion. Every glimpse of joy, excitement and contentment I may have brushed up against 25 years ago or even last week, is nothing more than a clue to an eternal existence with a joy and contentment that goes beyond explanation.

And what happens next is that we become agents of change. Forget Obama. Christ's followers are the true agents of change and always have been. The church's abuses exist, but usually at the expense of hiding all the incredible transformations our world has experienced having Christ and His Bride within our midst. Our nation will find no hope in Obama. He has no idea what he is doing. Our nation will find no hope in a republican presidential candidate in 2012. Our only hope is a society of people, changed one person at a time, until our numbers are great enough to create a nation where, as the prophet Amos stated, 'justice roles down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.' Corrupted souls...those that have not placed confidence in the Son and intentionally took up apprenticeship, will stand in the way of that stream and those who have engaged in the project of spiritual transformation will stand in the way of the sewage that naturally flows downstream of the untransformed human heart...and will either fight it or die trying. And, contrary to the perception I have had of the church, and sometimes even promoted by the church, being a follower of Christ is not a lifeless, colorless, boring and stale existence. It is full of drama, excitement and anticipation of what happens next.

A Real Stimulus Package For Our Times

Maybe then, we can search ourselves and truly find the reasons for our economic stress, rather than ignorantly transferring blame on Bush or Congress. We will finally admit that we acted foolishly over the past 20 years, lived beyond our means in order to fill a hole that wouldn't be filled, and we have ended up leverageing our great-great-great grandchildren in order to try to sustain a feeling we experienced in a song, or a trip to the beach with friends. Rather than expecting an instantaneous change or faking our success, we will actively engage on seeking His wisdom and grace to begin the project of changing our character. Just like we can't naturally walk out onto a clay court and beat Andre Aggassi, we can't naturally walk out and expect good character or believe our genes inherently contain our good character or that our characters will automatically become like that of all our religious friends (sometimes not a good idea in the first place)....in fact, it will reveal our intentional self-deception of trying to save our lives only to lose them, rather than laying them down to Him, in order to discover it in full.

I have not made it to the mountaintop. In fact, I am still in the muck. But I know now...the good news is that we can try, fail and try again and not get discouraged because our focus is not so much on the results as it is on Him and He is in the result business...not us. Our hurts, despair and restless desires to fill our lives with some alternative, when what we really need is Him, all will fade when we want Him, ask for His help and then hear the soft sound of sandled feet bring us to Him and as He embraces us, we might shed tears, but His love and grace will change us and life will never be the same. Politics, sports, philosophy and art cannot do this. Neither can our works and righteous deeds (Isaiah told us God considers our righteous deeds as used toilet paper, in the Hebrew). He offers life and life to the fullest....not just a home in heaven, but heaven here, in the midst of a broken world so that instead of managing all our relationships with others out of a realization of being damaged goods...we get excited about how He will use us as agents of change to watch this broken world conform more and more to His Kingdom. I can bank on this. You can bank on this. This is real confidence. Drop all the expectations, results and control issues at His feet and begin a new, full life in His rest and comfort. You'll not only see our lives change, but is probably the only economic policy that exists to get us out of the circumstances we brought on ourselves in our restless efforts to fill a bottomless pit. He is calling you right now. What are you waiting for?

What You Really Need This Christmas

Let's face it. According to the wisdom of men and women, Jesus Christ is a religious option, at best, or a delusional opiate for the weak-minded, at worst. But according to Jesus' own words, He is life, rather than a life-boost. Is He wrong? Or maybe a tad over-exagerated? What if, after all is considered, we are the ones over-exagerated? What if we are filling our lives with our diversions trying to feed the vast emptiness that only He could possibly fill? In our daily desperation to leave a mark, make a dent or difference, we have forgotten that these things were originally latched on to create diversions for something much deeper within us. It's a troubling place that usually hits us when things quiet down, lights go off and everyone goes home. Something that is at the core of our being that consistently creeps into our psyche queuing us to quell it...push it way back down...with diversions of our choosing, to keep from getting consumed with it. When it creeps in, it follows with questions like "What is the point to anything?", "What am I really here for?", "Where am I going?", "Is this all there really is?"

Granted, many diversions are commonly considered destructive and taboo, like drugs, reckless permiscuity or violent tendencies. But our diversions aren't always taboos. Sometimes our diversions are good, in and of themselves, but diversions used in the same way as drugs, reckless permescuity or violence. I know that whether or not you admit it, you know that dark void that seems to always threaten to invade in the quiet hours of the night or during desperate times. We all recognize it. We also, whether we admit it or not, divert ourselves away from it with whatever we can use within our grasp. I want to list some of those diversions....not the sorded ones, but the ones most of us identify with. Only after calling into the light, what we whisper to ourselves in the dark, can we deal with the void.

Diversions

Power & Influence
One diversion type is the pursuit of accumulation of power and influence, whether it is to bring thriving commerce to a sleepy suburb or export a worldview halfway across the globe. Immortality is the myth that fuels this diversion. Two of the most successful people in world history, in terms of power and influence, were Alexander of Macedonia and Gaius Octavian Caesar. The first exported his version of sophisticated Mediteranean culture worldwide and the latter, international civility, peace, law and order. Today, their names are hardly recognized by many. Their influence may still be felt today, but in a more anonymous fashion than either ever contemplated. They are peppered throughout history texts and Wikipedia servers, but have become more associated with salad dressing, a less-than-mediocre Oliver Stone movie or the nameless statue in Las Vegas, pointing oblivioulsy at the Boingo Wireless billboard above the boulevard. Their empires are now ruins, advertised in colorful cruise ship excersion brochures browsed by vacationing consultants, paralegals and dental hygenists, not to pay homage to the gods, but to find something completely different than the familiar and mundane of Atlanta, Cincinatti or Dallas. The pursuit of immortality ends in death and memories long forgotten, swallowed up by time and Outlook calendar reminders. With great power comes great responsibility and the position and infuence in and of itself isn't bad. It's our fuel behind gaining the position and influence to manipulate and control that takes a neutral thing and makes it clinical.

Societal Prestige
What is this? It's the membership to the Petroleum Club, New York Athletic Club, officer of the Neighborhood Association, Chamber of Commerce, membership in SBC voting delegation or simply being close friends with Bono. We pine for these things to give our life significance by comparison to other lives. We do that to disguise our bankruptcy and we know it. The fact we all do it is our excuse for not having a problem with any of this, as insane as it all really is. The myth this diversion provides a false sense of importance and being a member of a group also provides the comradery of others in the same boat to aid in the diversion. I wrote about this in a previous post entitled Inner Rings and it doesn't just include our desire to be in those rings, but also our desire to fight against them....or keep them in our psyche, regardless of whether we are in or out of them. One potential argument in favor of membership in these rings could be the good things the rings themselves provide to society. But, outside of church and possibly the Kiwanis or Masons, much of the 'good' is really window dressing for a much more selfish desire, that of being noticed. When the doors to the Petroleum Club are locked, lights go out, and we all head back home, the addictions, hang-ups, neglect, manipulative and abusive relationships are back within sight, assuring us they never really left us...have always been there...just dimmed a bit by the photo ops and mingling around the champaign fountain. Maybe you get up in the night, fix a numbing drink, turn on the television or step outside the garage and smoke a joint, trying to sort things out, waiting for day to come. Depending on how well we have diverted our attention away from reality of the grit and heart of life with the memberships and status, will determine just how desperate we become. There is nothing wrong with the Inner Rings or the memberships, in and of themselves. Our use of these things to hide, deny and divert ourselves from our true condition and from Him is wrong and will catch up with us sooner or later.

Profession
How many times have you said that you work 18 hour days for your family? Do you? How many family members have been sacrificed on the alter of the business or profession? In many homes, the blood may not run as red as the steps to Mayan pyramids in days of old, but the daily sacrifice is probably more efficient and magnified as home computing, PDA's and broadband allow us to ignore the most important people in our lives in the comfort of our living rooms. Of all the diversions I write about, this one strikes me the most. And for many of you reading this, it strikes you as well. Worry about making ends meet is almost always a cop out. We work to keep our minds and schedules busy so we can avoid the questions, the relationships that might force us to adjust our lives or have us deal with things that really need to be dealt with.

Work is an ethic. Even before human beings fell from grace, we were given work. When His Kingdom is consumated, we who have decided to follow Him, will have an entire universe and eternity to fill with creativity and work of our hands and minds to glorify Him. But our popular definition of work is nothing more or less than a form of diversion to keep us away from dealing with ourselves in a proper way. We can justify it, like we think we can justify deifying our families. But what is worse, is that at least family is a higher priority. It makes this diversion almost as clinical as the others.

Family
This is a touchy one. I love my wife and daughter more than anyone else, outside of Jesus Christ. But it's unavoidable to see two strong and sometimes subtle diversions regarding family: 1) Staging or masking happy lives with wide smiles, pretending to be alot more content than you really are, at the expense of your children and 2) Worshipping your children or spouse and the inevitable dissapointment that follows sooner or later. With regards to the first issue, it is almost normal and natural to portray our family as perfect or carefree. We have bought into the myth that disguising our pain and problems with fake smiles and manipulative busy schedules is no different a diversion as the others. It's actually worse because the fact it is family can make us never question it....because it is family and family comes first. Actually, family will not fill the void either. Our children don't need to push their questions, disappointment and pain deep down underneath saccarine smiles. It will become a boiling cauldron and eventually burst forth because life is filled with great things and awful things. Our marriages need to be seen by our children as authentic, rather than contrived, especially when stress is put on the mother and father. How your children deal with real life will be heavily influenced by how well you dealth with it in their youg presence.

Speaking of deifying family, let's take our kids, which leads me to the second problem. They are precious and a huge responsibility for us to raise them as best we can. But even if they never fall into drugs and alcohol or something of the like, they will eventually grow up and leave us. They will start their own lives and families and we will be left and pushed back into a further priority. That is the way it should be. But because that is the way things are, we can't make our children the 'be all end all' for our lives. It has to be even bigger than our children, or else even our decision to pour our life's meaning into our own offspring will bring us to despair. I would imagine the first day of college for such parents would either bring stress on the marriage and lead to divorce, or else a nervous energy to find something big enough to keep things together in the midst of an empty nest. Deifying a spouse isn't any better. If you place your very existence, meaning and purpose into your spouse and they die or leave you, all of your existence, meaning and purpose die or leave with them and then where are you? If you remarry, how does that work out for your new wife or husband? You need something bigger than family and spouse to deal with your emptiness. Otherwise, things that are good in their proper perspective, get perverted and misused.

Politics/Justice
If this isn't a postmodern shibboleth, I don't know what is. It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative. Everything is about empowerment, justice, and equality but....without any foundation at all. In fact, any foundation for whatever cause smells so much of a metanarrative or absolute, universal truth, that we almost slap ourselves in the face to keep from falling back on them and then ignore the fact we never have abandoned those things in the first place. We live in an age where we walk around like intellectual schitzophrenics, tipping back and forth between reason and madness in order to keep walking an impossibly fine line between the good life and no objective truth that overarches all our lives. I've read about the progressive humanist movement that culminated in 1919 with it's own Manifesto, only to have it re-written years later, after another world war and holocaust reflecting progression that turned out to be inverted and very deceptive. I read about the third world revolutionaries that fought against oppresive imperialism only to install a madness and cruelty that hasn't been seen since Ghengis Khan. In the wake of Imperial French reign and an American occupation to follow, the likes of Pol Pot arise as an answer, which left millions of bodies rotting on roads, fields and farmland. Even Jean Paul Sartre, who was considered a much cherished father to many of these movements, recanted his own philosophy upon the tragedy that ensued.

But what really gets me, especially after this last election, is that without Jesus Christ, we have no other choice but to bet on the next huge disappointment. We kid ourselves into thinking we have finally chosen hope, vision and progress knowing. But, really, we prefer the risks that have shown us more incompetence, corruption and malice than to face objective truth, real justice from a power transcendent from ourselves and, most importantly, salvation that provides us the grace and power to actualize alot of the rightly placed judgment we have of the mess we are in. Our private definitions of justice and our campaign to empower our brand of justice over others, is the same thing the Nazi's pursued. We haven't re-heated any ovens yet, but we have already begun to tinker and legally redefine quality of life in terms of how much trouble we are on those who would have to take care of us, whether infant or aged. Our sense of justice was originally intrinsic part of our evidence for God. But, as Paul apply stated in Romans 1, instead of giving credit where credit is due, we decided to become stupid, seek our own self-interest and in the process, God has given us exactly what we desired. Our sense of political justice has not filled a void, but has revealed our foolishness.

On the other hand, conservatives wish to use the church to forward their political agenda. It doesn't matter which side I am on. The church is not a means to a political end. And I can promise that if you treat her that way, the worm will turn on you. Just ask Ralph Reed. There is nothing more sad and pathetic than someone who is staunchly conservative yet happens to be Christian. When you replace the eternal spring of life from a committed relationship with Jesus Christ with a political agenda as the main course, then life becomes vaccuous and stale. And when life gets that way, the urge to hide it behind saccarine smiles false contentment and puritanical tendencies kicks up a notch. Any criticism will be met with resistance that comes from a manipulative urge to control what was ultimately in His hands and never controlable by you in the first place. I am a huge fan of Francis Schaeffer, and his work in the late 70's and early 80's using his films and books to promote biblical Christian worldview and principles was awesome and probably added to the huge wave that knocked out a liberal president and congress in 1980. But within a few short years, those who won the battle had begun a slow decent in losing the war by placing the political cart before the horse and using the pulpit as a political means, rather than a source of Good News and reason for a hurting world.

Our Bankrupt Alternatives
Blaise Pascal stated that we all have a God-shaped hole in our center that can only be filled by Him and until we do, we are restless. Augustine of Hippo stated that our hearts are restless until we find rest in Him. Jesus told us that in Him we have rest for our souls, in the midst of living our lives no matter how hard they may be. But we are far too clever for that. I tried to find out how much money Cornell, the US government and private industry and philanthropists have spent on SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) since it started. I still don't know, but I assume billions is not too big a word for it. The task of SETI was stated by one of it's prophets, Carl Sagan, when he was teaching at Cornell, when he said that all they needed was one single message from outside of our world....just one message. Then we will have the answer to the vexing question of intelligence outside of humanity in our universe. Yet, all the while, Watson and Crick's discovery nearly 25 years earlier had spawned research into DNA in which we have discovered that a single strand of this complex structure contains over 600,000 pages of coded information. Yet SETI waits for pulses from Andromeda....so we can find some evidence of extra-human intelligence. Like Paul called us years ago...fools, with our hearts darkened and dead to the things of God.

Science hasn't disproven the existence of God. It hasn't even made a dent in the argument for God, as can be witnessed in debate after debate. Within the past 40 years, major universities have seen, not the death of God, but a rise in numbers of extraordinary minds forging new fields in Christian thought, whether it be Dallas Willard at USC, Alvin Plantinga at Notre Dame or Richard Swinburne at Cambridge. These men will tell you they stand on the shoulders of giants....those cast aside at the advent of Kant and Darwin, but recently re-earthed and presented again as an alternative to the philosophically bankrupt pursuit of modern naturalism and scientism, resting on both Kant's agnosticism and Darwin's theory of natural selection. And their work has spawned new interest in Christian philosophy, Christian thought in all professional areas.

In the meantime, Discovery Channel, et al, still think the underlying philosophy of verificationism...the theory that even finds itself as the basic, fundamental assumption in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, is still viable even though it has been debunked and considered shelved for almost 60 years (Einstein's Theory is remarkable and useful in understanding time-space dynamics, but denies the existence of absolute space and time for no other reason than because Einstein was a fan of Ernst Mach and Mach was prophet for empericism/verificationism, which denies anything that isn't verified. It turns out that maybe Lorentz had a better handle on these things after all).

Even the theory of evolution has been retained as superior over intelligent design, even though it's own rationality is undermined by the very theory (no scientific explanation guaranteeing or even improving probabilities of correlation between accurate beliefs and behavior). But the general public (fans of Good Morning America, Oprah and People Magazine) believe this debate has been over for years and the only good Christians are those that don't seriously believe in God as a real knowledge claim.

And yet...violence in schools...political and corporate corruption on unimaginable scales...redefining quality of life at the margins of human development...farming of body parts for profit...divorce, abuse, neglect at all time highs. As technology improves each year, our depravation reaches new heights and technology has turned its attention to hiding our shame than improving our lives. Great minds in research and business come together and cure....baldness and a limp weinee. Homosexuality is being forced on a public that constantly votes against measures to make it equal to hetersexuality...but the broken and torn up lives of spouses, children, mothers and fathers, in the wake of a loved one 'coming out' is totally ignored. And as candidates drone on about nothing, their accumen is weighed in terms of delivery, rather than content. We are adrift on a sea towards nowhere but nowhere gets darker each year. And as it gets darker, our voyeristic interest in famous people's private lives gets more and more accelerated. Someone may know that Madonna and A-Rod say they are just friends, that Jennifer Aniston's year is 2009 or that little Suri Cruise is turning heads in Europe. But that same person may be unaware that their son has tried meth for the first time...that their spouse has been entrusting themselves to a co-worker instead of them or that their daughter's depression is causing her self-mutilation to spiral.

His Kingdom Hasn't Been Slowed

Jesus Christ isn't just the best answer for life. He's the only answer out there. Everything we have come up with has either slowly turned on us or fizzled into oblivion. It all looks clean, happy and together for public consumption. But we all hurt. We all have our secrets that, if they were revealed, we'd be suicidal. We are all hiding behind a mask to keep up appearances. But those broken with nothing left to lose and who have recklessly abandoned themselves to Jesus Christ seem crazy or weak or stupid to us. But they are the heirs of His Kingdom. They know His voice and they follow Him. They don't have it together. They are probably not going to attend the inaugural parties. Many are simply forgotten shadows in a world drunk with ambition and desire. But He knows them, calls them and will make them co-heirs with Jesus. The unwanted, undesirable and hopeless who realize it and have turned over everything they are to Him....whether they be homeless or the CEO...recognize that outside of Him, there is no meaning, no purpose and no value, even to things that should have them.

That's because He created the show, allowed us to stray, then sacrificed more than we will ever know to give us a way back to Him, if we so choose. And once we do that, we can have life....real life, not the facade. And we can begin to truly make a dent in this ugly place. It is happening now. Did you know that last year in Pakistan, more Muslims accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior than ever before? Did you know that churches are exploding in places like Korea, China, Southeast Asia and Africa....and that most of them are preceded by miracles? The Kingdom of God is more active and vibrant in our world now, than it was when the events that took place in the book of Acts. We can't see it because it is too fantastic for our consideration. We have educated ourselves and entertained ourselves into a drunken stupor. The UK, Germany and France have seen Christianity marginalized. But in Bhutan, Pakistan and Thailand Jesus is afoot and taking this world by storm. I realize that this probably will never happen, but mathematically, if you take the rate of conversions to Jesus Christ from 1970 to now and then extend it another 30 years, every living person will be a believer in Jesus Christ as Lord? We live in astounding times, well hidden by our own diversions and foolish thinking.

My Own Conversion

The day I gave everything I was to Jesus Christ, was also the worst day of my entire life. The minute I gave my life to Him, my own son's life slipped through our fingers. For me, I had to be brought to my absolute bare minimum in order to give up my well thought out strategies for survival, desires to become famous or infamous...all my diversions...I gave up what I began working on since I was a little boy when I first experienced the coldness of this life for the first time....laid it down and cried out to Him. But unlike testimonies you hear from many, it was not a day that I mark down as one of gladness. I had new life in Christ and a son to bury. He was born premature and remained very sick for over 9 months. We were in and out of the hospital and the amount of poking, prodding, medicating and cutting they had to do on Jamie was too much for him and he died October 25, 1996. Prior to Jamie's death, I had been reading alot and delving more into Christianity and the Bible. But it was pretty much a veiled mystery to me...far out of reach. It wasn't until early morning of the 25th of October, that He invaded my life, turned on the light switch and became my friend, my teacher and my savior. It was the best day and the worst day. And, yes, as David said, if my son can't come to me, I will go to him. In the meantime, I experience a lifetime of growing and learning from the One who salvaged me 12 years ago and I have never looked back, through thick and flush.

Ever since that day, I have struggled to communicate what He has done for me since then, all the while realizing that unless He invades your life, He will remain a veiled mystery hidden behind all of your diversions, hangups and masks. You have no idea how clever you are. It takes an enormous amount of thinking, strategy and energy to plan out everything from how to keep yourself from getting hurt by others, how to protect what you have, get more and continue to appear content for a watching public. It doesn't matter if your story begins in kindergarten when the bully teased you for the first time, or if you were abandoned by Mom and Dad completely or if the neighborhood kids excluded you from fun and games. At some point, the ugly of this world hits a very young person and the project for protection and significance begins, built entirely on mistrust and self interest. And until we find Jesus Christ at the end of our rope, we continue into the grave.

He told us that He knocks at the door and is ready to enter, if we let Him in. I don't know what you are going through. How could I? But I know you are going through a mess, whether it is of your own making, of someone else's making in which you inheret it or something in between. I want you to know that I understand how hard it is to accept Jesus Christ's message. But after October 25, 1996, I know why it is so hard....and it isn't because it is impossible to believe. It's because it costs too much for us. But after October 25, 1996, I can also tell you that the real cost is in not running to Him now. What may seem to you as a reasonable way of life...is actually a cleverly disguised way to hide pain, disappointment and destructiveness. He offers you real rest....real peace....not the kind you are accustomed to, but peace that is beyond understanding. When you see some of us praising God in the middle of horrible circumstances...we aren't being pollyanish or naive. We recognize that whatever has been taken from us will grow us closer to the One who calls us every day and give us the strength to withstand whatever He has for us to deal with. There is nothing we want more than to be closer to Him and to adjust our lives where He wants us to adjust.

He knocks, just like He has every Christmas before. Open the door, give all you have to Him and realize that this holiday isn't just a religious observance. It is celebration of when God came in human flesh to dwell among men. In Luke 4 He introduces Himself by quoting Isaiah:

"He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

If He hadn't come, we would all be a hopeless bunch.

He loves you more than you will ever know or understand.

He patiently waits for you to open your heart and let Him in.

There is no safer place in this universe, regardless of what your circumstances are.

Merry Christmas!