Category Archives: Faith Reflections

The World … Worthy Cause or Waste of Time?

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I have always loved getting lost in the creative process. I like to imagine this hobby of mine as a common interest I hold with my Abba Father. In the last few months though, I have focused on a specific creative outlet … I have become obsessed with upcycling. I take something someone thought of as garbage, or something that was recycled, and I transform it into something useful or possibly beautiful.

Each time I dive into a new creation. I’m reminded it is God who is the ultimate “upcycler.” We are ourselves an upcycled product, after all. At some point while wandering His newly designed planet, He took notice of the dust. He pondered how it could be better used … used again. He thought up something beautiful and then breathed life into it. What joy I get out of taking a lame attempt to mimic His wonderful process.

As much joy as it gives, it also saddens me at times. My soul increasingly becomes aware of the waste I contribute to the earth, by mishandling or ignorance. My mind has been tuned into the amount of recyclable items I throw away, either out of laziness or simple lack of education. The following is a reflection I wrote in regards to the culmination of these very things. It is something I wrote in an effort to speak into my own heart and my own shortcomings–not from a place of judgement.  

Grace and Peace

The World: A Worthy Cause or a Waste of Time?

 I was sitting in Caribou studying for my Environmental Science test.  I was reading about nuclear waste, refuse treatment plants, and landfills. My hand was resting gently around my perfectly chilled coffee cooler. This wasn’t a moment, like others I’ve experienced, when I was expecting the presence of God. The topic of common garbage dump contents seemed a little dark for the source of all light. My expectations, however, were wrong.

I stopped a moment to give my eyes a rest and sip from my cup. As I did, I noticed the skyline just outside my window and became utterly awestruck by the sight.  I began to give thanks to God for all His wondrous creation, and as I prayed, I began to feel Him stirring my heart.  Here I was, in the middle of thoughts on pollution and destruction, and I knew Christ had something to say. Jesus was grieved.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1)

Creator is the first word we are given in the Bible to describe God’s character. We read that His creations are good, very good.  We then learn He takes pleasure in this very good work of His. He creates. He calls it good. He enjoys it.  Then He turns it over to us to be cared for.

God’s good creation is crumbling, and as His children shouldn’t it be Christians leading the fight to protect God’s gift for us? We fight for other good things He has designed and gifted to us.  Marriage between a man and woman, for example, is a fight we see as worthy of our time, money, and effort. In fact, we have fought with such passion for God’s design of marriage that the term ‘anti-homosexual’ is now the first word used to describe Christians by 91% of all non-believers under the age of 29. (Kinnaman 2007) Personally, I would prefer to be called a tree-hugger.  Truthfully speaking, it’s easy for me to fight for marriage as God designed it, since that already fits my life. It’s fighting for the things that would require change in my own life that really seem hard.

This change could be letting our lawns go without watering them and not caring what the neighbors might think.  It could be committing to purchasing only second hand items or spending more to ensure proper manufacturing care was taken in its production. It means learning to recycle better, reuse more often, and upcycle things we thought were garbage. It means buying organic, even if the grocery bill goes up. It means speaking out, and standing behind, those who already fighting the fight.

As I left Caribou, I kept my plastic cup in hand while I walked through the doors.  It was the first time I had ever noticed, that despite the thousands of plastic cups that are distributed and discarded there each day, recycling wasn’t even an option.

References:
Kinnaman, David. UnChristian. Ventura CA: The Barna Group, 2007. pg. 27

The Great Divorce … of the church?

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I just finished The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  I highly recommend reading the book if you never have.  It’s clever and filled with an interesting view of things that won’t be allowed to enter the Kingdom.

It also has a vision of Hell that I can jump on board with, lol.  It is this deary little town, which has been awaiting the coming night for an long, undetermined amount of time.  I interpreted the people as not fully understanding their surroundings. Here was what captured my thoughts though … this place extended infinitely in all directions, for the most part, with people going about their next life alone.  Often these people were obsessed about an earthly sin, personal shortcoming, place of self shame, or failure.  And this is why each was alone here … Every time a person would disagree with another, they would move further out, build a new house, and wait for the next person to come along that they disagreed with.

And I hear a voice say …. Two are better than one.

What would it be like to live in a place where love was not the center? Or in a place, the apostle John might say, that God is not the center?  Where the primary goal was to surround ourselves with people who are perfectly aligned with our own vision of how things “should” be?  A place where every time there is a disagreement people see it best to go their own way. A place where people choose to separate in order to attain an unreachable perfection … they move down the street, build a new building, and start over.

An echo rings in my heart … A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

We are a broken, perhaps a disturbingly divorced, church body.  Up until this time in history, when a church body is brought to a place of disagreement we have decided the best option is to split.  We separate from our own brothers and sisters, take it upon ourselves to judge where they are wrong, and relocate with the next looming split inevitably around the corner.

How sad this must be for Christ.  Denominational divides are causing His own body to be mutilated and tortured once more.  We are ripping His bride limb from limb.  As His body, we are so disgustedly self centered on our ideas of what the church should be, we have completely abandoned what Christ told us to do – spread the gospel.  We have carelessly abandoned that which He said were the only two laws that mattered … love up and love out.

Another whisper in my ear … Pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

I do not want to split anymore.  I want to unite.  I want to love God, love others, and allow the Spirit to do His refining work in each of us, as only He can do!  Even if that means serving alongside someone who I disagree with. I am the bride of Christ, and I have a place in the body.  I will not stand by and see that body be torn further apart by ideals that we can not reach here.  When you disagree with your Christian brother or sister, do not allow Satan to cause further separation.  I would rather disagree and be strong together, then split and hurt Christ (hurt others) one second longer.

There was a man all alone;

    he had neither son nor brother.

There was no end to his toil,

    yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.

“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,

    “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”

You Can’t Handle the Fruit

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The creation story was opened up to me in a new way this week.  In particular, the very source of original sin; the fruit … the tree.  In my life, I’ve pondered how Adam and Eve were suddenly shamed by their naked bodies.  I’ve tried to imagine the fear they felt as they hid from God.  I’ve lived through the curse of painful childbirth … twice.  But up until this week I hadn’t given the name of the tree as much weight as I should have.  I don’t know how I could have missed this, or how in the 32 years of my life (on and off) in the church this has never been exposed in a more deliberate manner.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

This fruit gave them wisdom to [believe they could] know between light and dark.  The incite to [think they could] see what was right and wrong.  The [in]ability to lean on their own understanding of sinful nature.  Adam and Eve literally ate the obsession to bring justice.  They tasted shame, fear, and judgment.  It wasn’t just Adam and Eve though; we are still eating the fruit.  We are ignoring the origination of sin … taking it upon ourselves to play God, to determine, to decide another’s fate.  We have pridefully had the audacity to pretend to know another’s heart condition.

The first thing our gentle, loving creator asked of us was to leave this in His hands.  He knew – as He still knows – that when we feebly attempt to pass judgment, the result will always be the same …. our own further separation from Him.  And worse still, the separation of God from others.  Those people that we should be directing towards Him, not leading away.

Who have I steered away from God?  Who have I led astray because I felt complied to determine their shortcomings?  Upon understanding the depths of this truth, what must it feel like to be a priest in a confession booth … determining the weight of each and every sin, then handing out the answer for forgiveness?  How could a Christian resist repentance in the light of this? What actions have I taken part in that may have drove others away? All due to selfish fear, pride, and this fruit; this fruit which leads to the [mis]understanding that we know what only God can fully know?

Lord, help me to avoid ignoring your first request of us.  A request made out of Truth, out of love, and out of sympathy for our weak minds.  Open my eyes to see when I fall into the sin of desiring to judge another’s life.  Allow the Holy Spirit to refine the sin in my own life.  And give us all the faith to let the Spirit refine sin in the hearts of others as You see fit.

It’s not a theological debate

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I was recently told a favorite Bible teacher, from my past, had begun podcasting new sermons and I felt a surge of excitement.  As I dug into these new sermons I realized something; this particular pastor fed me spiritual at a time when I was broken, when I was in need of the type of healing only Jesus can bring, and at a place where I felt too unworthy to accept His love.  I am no longer in that place spiritual (Praise God).  I was also made acutely aware of how just two years has drastically changed the lens in which I choose to see – and live out – my faith in Christ.

This teacher is a conservative evangelical pastor, and something he said struck me while listening, a comment regarding the emerging church.  This is not an exact quote, but the comment was along the lines of this: that people today (those involved in the emerging church) are being led astray, being caught up in theological debates, and forgetting what we are here to do … which is love.  This irritated me so much because part of the reason I’m so drawn to ideals of the emerging church is precisely because of the way they love.  But as I thought on this some more I realized every conversation I become involved in, when positioning myself across from mainstream evangelical beliefs, I inevitably end up in a theological debate  …

Women in the church, homosexuality, the existence of hell, denominational divides, Biblical inerrancy, creation vs science, and on and on and on.

This is because [part of] what the emerging church would like to do is set aside ‘core beliefs’ and replace it with ‘love your neighbor’.  And, of course, the conservative/orthodox/ modern-era believer insists, ‘I do love my neighbor, but I would rather be honest then be the reason someone goes to hell’ (Or some other crap reason like that).  The opposing side would then remind that person what love tangibly looks like, and – in fact – their ‘core beliefs’ are exactly what is separating people from the Jesus we know and love.  But just at this moment a specific issue is thrown on the table, a challenge is made to take a stance/defend the issue, and a theological conversation has begun.

I believe God wants us to turn to Him when these conflicts arise, either within ourselves or with others.  And here is the reason I believe this to be true … The more I challenge what I’ve been taught to believe, the closer God draws me to Him.  The more I question who and what is ‘accepted’ by our earthly idea of ‘church’ the more God reveals truth to me.  The more I doubt, not God – but my assumptions about God (a thought taken from Pete Rollins), the more He brings me peace and teaches me what true grace is.

There is a saying they make you learn in rehab that goes like this, “If you always do, what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get, what you’ve always gotten.”  This reminds me of the Christians frozen in fear of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Maybe the wolf isn’t the post-modern idea that church should be whole, loving, and available to ALL, but actually is the box that Satan has you trapped inside … the box that takes you only so far in your relationship with God.  The box that keeps some from loving all in the same way Christ would if He were still walking this earth.

My heart condition, discernment, core beliefs, determination of what is [or isn’t] sin, and doctrine is between the Holy Spirit that dwells in me and no one else.  This doesn’t mean I don’t hold to a certain doctrine or take a side on a theological issue, it means it holds no weight in what my Christian calling is on this earth.  I have been called to love people.  People who feel too ashamed, too unworthy, too messed up.  In my life … I was ashamed.  I was unworthy.  I was [really] messed up.  But the God that I serve was a God of love, grace, and forgiveness.  He wanted me then – just as I was.  And He wants me now.  The same as He does each hurting person.

So today, I pray God will give me the heart to love others in the same way He has loved me and give me eyes to see when my love for others is not truly love at all.

I am the only son

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This video only has some 30,000 views on YouTube.  I’m certain a couple thousand are my own.  It’s just so good, so very good.  Mumford and Sons are at the center of my musical world.  I don’t know with any certainty they are Christians, but I assume they are and don’t care if they aren’t.  Every song has a underlying message of grace, suffering, forgiveness, and love that are undeniable.  And not a romantic love; it’s love of a Christ-like nature.  Love that is immeasurable and unconditional.  I often view their music through the lens of my Christian heart and it’s something that produces hope in me.

Most of their songs are easy to see with a Christian viewpoint, but this one poses a challenge.  The Dust Bowl Dance is the song, and it’s a favorite of mine.  The core of the lyrics are in reference to the Grapes of Wrath, but it goes further than that, and I’ve had fun thinking over the possibilities.  The song is full of passion, incite, and justifiable anger.  This part always stands out to me:

Well you are my accuser, now look in my face,
Your oppression reeks of your greed and disgrace,
So one man has and another has not,
How can you love what it is you have got,
When you took it all from the weak hands of the poor?
Liars and thieves you know not what is in store.

There will come a time I will look in your eye,
You will pray to the God that you always denied,
The I’ll go out back and I’ll get my gun,
I’ll say, “You haven’t met me, I am the only son”.

Now, just to be clear, I have no factual reason to believe the only son is a figure of Christ.  But I like the picture it paints when you place Jesus into the end of the song as the only son (and yes, some lady in the audience is holding a song with incorrect lyrics).  But picture it … it’s judgment day.  There are people lined up to face Christ, realizing what they thought to be untrue is actually true, knowing they fell short (the same way we all have), hoping for redemption, and what does Christ do?  He goes out back and gets his gun.

Through the lens of a conservative Christian idea of judgment, Jesus pegging off non-believers with a gun could be the compassionate choice.  And yet, when I imagine judgment I don’t picture Jesus with a gun shooting people down, I don’t imagine him physically picking people up and throwing them into a fiery hell to burn in conscious never ending torture for all eternity.

How can there be a promise of an eternal kingdom that is free from pain, suffering, and tears (Rev 21:4) when eternal torture will still be present in that place after d-day?  I’m not staking any claims on my beliefs here, but it’s the thoughts that I thought today … and I thought I would share.