Two stories

Gary didn't come to this country to be treated for brain cancer. He came to teach his people here about the love of Jesus but now he's battling cancer. He's walked with Jesus his entire life, leaving grandchildren in his home country to work in the Lord's kingdom here. He and his wife put up with the oddities of our culture for the sake of the lost.

Mike was born in this country but just lost his job and jobs are scarce right now. He's sat at home for two months now, waiting for something to open up. He's depressed and now has refused to join his wife at church. "I'll go back when God gets me a job," he told his wife.

In crisis, we choose our rock.

Gary's had a life of inconveniences but he's clinging to God in this ultimate challenge. Gary's facing death by cancer and he's praying for the nurses who care for him.

Mike blames God for the loss of a job and clings to his own solutions. Somebody will bail him out. If not God, then a boss or a co-worker or maybe a government official.

I want to be angry with Mike and demand that he step up. But Gary has made an impression in my life.

Gary would share the love of Jesus with Mike, would listen to his complaints, would check on him frequently.

I'm going to try to do the same. Because in crisis, we choose our Rock.

Choices made today

This week, I've discussed some choices I made in innocence as a young person. I see God's grace to me, because I had not been well-prepared to dissect the logic and arguments of more worldly choices.

Yesterday I shared a chapter from Ken Ham's new book, Already Gone. It affected me profoundly as I am raising teenagers today in a world quite different from my teenage years.

Ham's argument is that we are losing our church-going children from conservative, Bible-believing churches. Although they are sitting in the seats right now, they are already gone in their mind.

Church has become irrelevant to them.

We see the results of that in our culture. We see a large number of church-going youths leave church and God when they leave home.

How can we help these young people?

They are faced with choices. Do they believe the Bible is true? Do they believe God is more wise than college professors? Where do they find truth?

The world welcomes them. Can we offer them a cool drink of living water and the hope of abundant life instead?

I highly recommend this book. I've been anxious to review it for weeks now. If you have any influence in your own family or if you care about young people in your church, you should read this book.

Weighing the options

I was 14 at time, newly immersed in a new school that was 20 times larger than the small country school of my elementary years.

The hallways were packed with students toting textbooks while connecting with friends.

I walked alone that day, moving from my Biology class to typing class. I re-played the lecture from Biology as I maneuvered the crowded hallway.

Our topic had been evolution. We had spent several days on the intricacies of the evolutionary process and had viewed the drawings of fetuses which proved how human fetuses early in their development are identical to other animal fetuses. This proved that all humans and animals came from the same source.

We hadn't studied anything so sophisticated in my country school. This was new ground for me.

My pastor never discussed evolution. Not in his sermons, not in the confirmation classes I was required to attend. Not in our youth group.

But I had read the first chapter of Genesis and I mulled over its content on my trek through the hallway's obstacle course. I bumped into other students in the crowded walkway and sidestepped a knot of friends exchanging lunch plans before skittering off to class.

The issue was very simple to me, probably because I was a simple 14-year-old country kid. Was Genesis true or not?

Either the first chapter of Genesis outlined that God created the world or it didn't. And, if it didn't, then why should I pay any attention to any further writings in the Bible?

The hallway cleared out as I neared the typing classroom and I shifted my books before entering.

I knew in an instant that I could not live my life if the Bible was not true. And in that same instant, I knew, therefore, that Genesis had to be true.

I knew that the evolutionary theory held no sway in my life. I had choose where to put my faith and I chose, with a simple clarity that amazes me today, that my faith was in the Bible.

And God has not let me down.

A simple choice

When my first question to my first history professor was answered with a, "How the bleep do I know?" I realized I wasn't in friendly territory.

I was a freshman history major, excited about the university experience and nervous entering my first class.

My instructor was a fiery-tongued professor who considered freshmen only slightly more valuable than viruses. He strutted across the classroom discussing Minoan culture and Greek accomplishments, although all, I suspected, were not to be compared with his own great achievements.

World religions were all interwoven to Dr. Grumpy. If there was a superior religion, it may have been the Babylonian because that system seemed to include all the stories of all the religions.

But special ire was reserved for Christians. He dissected them at every opportunity, explaining to us why their particular system of myths was most reviling. He hated Christianity and if we freshmen wanted any standing with him, we'd better learn to grow up and do the same.

The class was a turning point for me because I had to choose. Was I going to follow the faith of my childhood or embrace the world of the progressive academic?

My professor's poisonous lectures repulsed me. His lectures were angry, his comparisons ugly.

I didn't know my Bible like I should have, but there was a sweet tug from my heavenly Father. It was easy to choose his gentle call compared with this daily venom.

The professor dangled advancement, acceptance, and academic honor before the class. If we listened to him, he'd lead us to his place of mature historical understanding.

I understand better today why Jesus gently told his disciples, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Luke 18:17)

I had a choice at 18 years of age: to grow up into the protocol of the academic community or to remain a child with Jesus.

I picked the sweet fresh living water of my Lord and I've grown up like the tree planted by the stream. My desire is that my fruit would honor Jesus, not an academic tyrant.

Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers...
Psalms 1:1

Choosing

For the people of God, the times wore like a heavy rail across their shoulders. Although they had food and family, they had no freedom. The worship of other gods was offered like lush fruit on a silver plate, a banquet of choices to simulate freedom while holding the people in a vice of oppression.

But what time am I describing?

Sadly, this was not a one-time experience for God's people. I could have been describing the Israelites' 400-year oppression in Egypt. Or, maybe I told of the Exile, when many Israelites were torn from their homeland in the Exile by Babylon, spending 80 years under that powerful regime. Or maybe the time of the Romans, when the Jews remained in their homeland but under the Latin strong arm.

Had you thought of the parallels before? In each case, God's people were oppressed by a powerful empire that favored a pantheon of gods.

In those days, empires often embraced the gods of the newly-conquered. They figured that if they simply added in the new gods, the people would be less likely to rebel against the regime.

So the pressure was great to adapt. Those who clung to one God were outcasts, seen as unwilling to fit in, as narrow and suspect.

As we read biblical texts, we have to understand that context for the people. (For a review, check out these links: provenance I and provenance II.)

One benefit of understanding the backdrop for biblical writings is that, as we see application to the original reader, we can also see how they might apply to us as well.

As I described the oppression in my first paragraph, did your mind flit to modern-day China? Or maybe modern-day America? Clinging to one God today often brands us as outcasts, narrow-minded and social rebels.

In that context, the words of Isaiah, who wrote to exiles in Babylon, resonate in a new way:
"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." (Isaiah 40:1)

We need comfort as much as those exiles did - and to know that it comes from God and not from other gods or empires is, well, comforting.

Grab a light

We get some ferocious thunderstorms in Colorado in the summertime. When the black-purple clouds boil overhead in the evening, one of the first things we grab is a flashlight. It's not unusual for the power to go out in those storms, dropping a black curtain over our home.

I think I once broke a toe trying to navigate my own bedroom in the dark. I've stumbled over tables and chairs when there's no light.

In John's account of Jesus' life, he used that idea of light and darkness to brilliantly illustrate the contrast between those who seek spiritual light and those who hold onto their spiritual darkness.

John explained the phenomenon in John 1:15: " The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

But the kicker comes later, when Jesus addressed a skeptical crowd. They wanted proof of who he is. This exchange takes place in John 12, late in Jesus' ministry. He had already preached and healed and explained many times.

Not enough for this crowd, however. They wanted more proof.

Jesus' answer asked them to believe what his ministry had revealed. "While you have the light, believe in the light," he said to them.

He asked for belief while they could still see. Jesus himself was the light and he would be leaving soon. Before they were plunged into darkness again, he asked them to grab a flashlight. Believe, he said, that it's better to be in the light than in the dark.

Jesus said, “The light will be with you only a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that darkness doesn’t overtake you." (John 12:35)

And then, after his last appeal to believe, he went away and was concealed from them.

We don't get forever when the darkness is approaching. We can grab the light or grip the darkness. Jesus said it well: " But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." John 12:32

Galatians: the child of freedom

Hagar, the servant girl of Sarah, was young and healthy. When she bore a son to Abraham, it was in the ordinary way out of human effort and plans. Sarah knew child-bearing was not a problem for the young woman.

It was impossible for Sarah to bear Isaac, but she did because God had promised she would. Sarah represented the freedom of grace while Hagar represented the slavery of human effort.

Using a familiar story, that of Hagar and Sarah, Paul tried to convince the new Galatian Christians that they had choices. Yes, they were children of Abraham, but Abraham had two sons: one born of human exertion and one born of God’s promise.

The Galatians were children of Abraham, all right, but grafted in because of God’s pledge, not their own efforts. Paul was upset that the Galatians as new believers would allow themselves to trust human endeavor rather than God’s assurance. He didn’t want them to give up the freedom of God’s grace and the blessings of his inheritance. The law was about human effort and Paul wanted the new believers to know freedom.

We sometimes stumble as the Galatians had, thinking that a set of rules might be simpler than a walk in the open air. Paul longed for freedom for the Galatians, not a return to slavery.

Read Galatians 4:21-31. Write in your journal about any impressions you have.

What benefits are there to following the way of Sarah (God’s promise)?

Is your faith based on God’s promises or on your own efforts?

What steps can you take today to walk in the way of Sarah?

God's selection

Kings will see, get to their feet—the princes, too—and then fall on their faces in homageBecause of God, who has faithfully kept his word,The Holy of Israel, who has chosen you."

Isaiah 49:7

Choices

I had already waved at our son, Nathan, who was 11 at the time and standing out in the front yard, when Becky, 6, came rushing out of the house carrying a big stick and a bread basket, nearly knocking my tools out of my hands.

“What’s all that for?” I asked.

“Oh!” The excitement lit her face. “Nathan says that you can see for 3 seconds after you get your head chopped off so we’re going to go find out.”

Ah, the rush of choice.

This, by the way, was the same energetic daughter who climbed a tree at age 2 and hung by one hand some four feet from the ground, calling for me to rescue her.

I think God made many of us parents so that we’d understand his nature slightly better.

God is no protectionist. He laid the ripe fruit in Eden and warned against it. He calls our name but never sedates our heart.

When Nathan and Becky rushed out for their guillotine experiment, I went to the kitchen to make supper. I trusted their good sense, partly because I had not rescued a little girl a few years before.

They knew the limits of choice. Freedom may look boundless, but we must learn our own limitations. My daughter did get herself down from that tree. She didn’t stop climbing trees but she learned to test the branch and gauge the height before starting. And the kids didn’t come to supper headless that night.

We understand that choice allows us to worship freely. It also teaches us to trim our sails and navigate this life in the abundance that God promises us.