Happy Graduation! You are Loved!!

 Brandon Heath Your Love (one of the most popular Christian songs of 2011).

To all of you who are or who know someone who is graduating, congratulations!! As a person who was in school for a long time (I was still in graduate school at my 20th high school class reunion...although not for the entire 20 years), I know how good if feels to complete a degree.

I once heard a (horrible) graduation keynote address, the gist of which was...you are on your own now, out in the cold, sink or swim...   I want to offer you more encouragement than that.

You are not on your own!! And if you feel like you are, you don't need to keep feeling that way!!

The only way to have a life of meaning and purpose is to walk through it with God.

Questions? Listen to the song on youtube above (for those who receive this via email, click here: http://youtu.be/yfc9y7X3zog), read some of my other blog posts, email me, or ask God to show you that you are not alone.

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Psalm 36:5

Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8

Your Original Glory

"I daresay we've heard a bit about 'original sin', but not nearly enough about 'original glory', which comes before sin and is deeper to our nature"      John Eldredge

The truest part of us isn't our sin or
our struggle, it is our redemption.

Stairway to Paradise, by Thomas Kinkade. When I saw this
painting I was deeply moved. To me it is a vision of what is to
come. Walking up the stairs and into the beautiful light beyond...

I was born an original sinner, I was born in original sin... So went the lyrics of the pop song "Missionary Man" by the Eurythmics in the 80's. For most of my adult life even as a Christian I identified myself as a "sinner". Granted, I believed I was saved by grace, but I didn't really understand grace. To me, grace was an old lady at church whose name was "Grace", and she was kinda scary to me as a kid!

The Heart is Desperately Wicked

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, wrote the prophet Jeremiah (1). Look around at all of the heinous happenings in our world brought on by mankind and it is easy to believe. Even Jesus said: ...how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (2). I grew up in the church but somehow I remained pinned down by my belief that even though I was saved by grace, I was at my core still a sinner ("snow-covered dung", if you will). Perhaps this conviction was subconscious, but nevertheless it kept me from experiencing the freedom, joy, LIFE in Christ that seemed to be promised in the Scriptures.

A few years ago I read Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, and he took this crippling belief head on (This book rocked my world!). To say that our hearts are wicked even after coming to Christ is untrue and unbiblical, Eldredge said, [this belief] is a religious fog of poison gas from the pit of hell.

I Will Give You a New Heart

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (3). Jesus came to give us "heart surgery", so to speak. To remove our "wicked heart" and replace it with a noble and good heart. Does that sound almost like heresy or blasphemy? Many of my friends in the church seem uncomfortable with it (unfortunately). But I believe that this is part of what makes the Gospel such very good news. And without understanding that as Christians we have good hearts, we will never live the victorious, powerful lives that Christ intends for us. The truest part of you isn't your sin!

Consider this: Your story didn't start with sin and it does not end with sin.

When God created man and woman, we are told that he looked on them and called them good (4). Have you ever considered that when God created you, he endowed you with a glory unique to you that is good? (5,6) I had never thought of that. That is your "original glory".

Our story didn't begin with sin!

Obviously we live in a fallen world and thus, have been marred with sin (hence, 'original sin'). And without accepting Christ and repenting of our sins, we remain marred. But Jesus told us that he came "to seek and to save what was lost" (7). He came to restore our hearts. "God made him who had no sin [Jesus] to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (8). In Christ we have been transformed, even as we are being transformed (9). We've been given a new, good heart; he is restoring our original glory (10)!

Our story doesn't end with sin!

Let all of this sink in for a moment. Does it change anything or cause a hope or thrill to rise from deep within you? If you are a Christian, you have much more to rejoice about than you ever imagined. If you aren't a Christian, why miss out on such an offer? He extends it to everyone! (11)

Footnotes:

Leap of Faith

"It is often implied that belief in Christ requires a leap of faith."

The stereotypical televangelists haven't done much to encourage us that there is more to Christianity than simply having faith in faith itself.

Is believing in God just mysticism, deprived of content and contrary to rationality?  Must the intellect and knowledge be set aside in order to believe in God, making our faith irrational? Was our faith simply invented, as the atheist Sir Julian Huxley said, because man functions better if he acts as though God is there (even if he isn't)? I don't think so.

Optimistic Humanism - A True Leap of Faith

I recently read the book The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer. (1) He argued that since the Enlightenment, when leading thinkers argued that feelings (things only true for me but which we can't be certain of, such as love, beauty, religion, prayer, etc., things they assumed irrational) should be separated from the physical world, or facts (things true for everyone, assumed to be logical and rational). This is secularism, a modern religious belief that grew out of the pride of human achievement, marginalizes God, and masquerades as science or reality. The culture of our universities in the U.S. is infiltrated with this belief.

The problem with secular humanism is that there can be no true meaning or purpose found in the impersonal, physical world alone. How can there be if man has simply risen by chance out of the primordial soup and one day will disappear back into nothingness? There is only one way, and that is to create one's own meaning and purpose...by making an irrational leap of faith! Optimistic humanism is, then, unadulterated faith despite its claims to rationality and reality. In the end, however, humanism (aka, rationalism) can only lead to despair because those things that make us human - hope of purpose and significance, love, morality, beauty, spirituality, indeed, our personalities - are by the humanists own definition irrational. Those things also rose by chance from the impersonal and are ultimately unfulfillable; they are meaningless.

However, if God exists and we are made in his image, we can have real meaning and we can have real knowledge through what God has communicated to us.

Christianity: The Most Rational of All

Christianity is realistic because it says if there is no truth, there is also no hope. It is prepared to face the consequences of being proved false and say with Paul: If you find the body of Christ, the discussion is finished; let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (2). In Christianity the value of faith depends upon the object towards which the faith is directed: To the Christ who in history died upon the cross once for all, finished the work of atonement, and on the third day rose again in space and time.

This makes Christian faith open to discussion and verification. When Paul was asked whether Jesus was raised from the dead, he gave a completely non-mystical and nonreligious answer in the 21st century sense: "There are almost 500 living witnesses; go ask them!" (3) This is the faith that involves the whole man, including his reason; it does not ask for a belief into the void. (4)

Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best:  "Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair."

Footnotes:

Beauty For Ashes

...he will give a crown of beauty for ashes. Isaiah 61:3

Burning the tallgrass prairie in NE Kansas

in the spring, which leads to new growth

the rest of the season!

My engagement was over.  And like the YouTube clip of the "Destruction of the USS Enterprise" in my last post (Coming to the End of Myself), my life felt shattered. My "destruction" wasn't visibly spectacular like the Enterprise as it blazed through the atmosphere towards Earth, but emotionally it seemed like it. I felt alone and sad. Such was my life in August 2002, and I didn't bounce back quickly either (as some of my friends know).

But God was using this situation to break several of my dysfunctional habits. Or as John Eldredge describes it in Wild at Heart, God was shattering my false self. One thing God destroyed was my belief that I was inferior. Although I felt incredibly inferior right after the breakup (I felt rejected, after all), God taught me that I was valued by him, and in Christ I was inferior to no one. Learning this was not just through an intellectual analysis of the Scriptures, although they certainly speak of our incredible value to God. My learning this was also at the heart level, through personal revelation from God (through a sort of vision). He didn't speak audibly but his communication with me was so personal and real that I now have no doubt of my worth to him. Although I sometimes still struggle with feeling inferior, I know in my deepest heart that I am not inferior but rather a child of the King of kings!

This Sunday is Easter (Resurrection) Sunday. As Christians, we believe that Jesus was literally resurrected from the dead (1). Think of it, power over death! This fills me with incredible wonder!! Because of Christ's resurrection, we know and are promised that we too will one day be resurrected (2). And if Jesus has power over death, he can certainly bring clarity and healing to the mess that we make of our lives! He can make all things new! (3) The Scriptures tell us that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (4) And although the process won't be completed until we arrive in heaven, we don't have to wait till then for the healing and restoration to begin.

But before God can begin our restoration, our old life has to be dealt with. Watchman Nee put it this way: God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man, but by crucifying him; not by helping him do anything but by removing him from the scene (5).  Or as Paul, the former Christian slayer himself said My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (6).

In August 2002 my life seemed to be ashes, emotionally almost without hope. But God can work good through all things to those who love him (7), and he used that tragedy to bring new life to me. I now know my worth in Jesus. And in 2007 I married a beautiful woman, and we are very happy!

Happy Easter!!

Footnotes:

Coming to the End of Myself

But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name’s sake;
   out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
--King David, Psalm 109:21 

Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes...when it counts?  Most men live their lives haunted by that question, or crippled by the answer they've been given.
--John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

When I was a boy I didn't get to spend as much time with my dad as I would have liked. He was a farmer and worked hard to take care of our family, often from dawn till dusk. One effect this had on me was that I started to believe I was less important to dad than the farm work or his other responsibilities (he served on supervisory boards for several organizations). Now I always knew dad loved me, there was never a question of that. But the subtle lie crept into my psyche anyway. It wasn't until many years later when I read Wild at Heart and spent time in prayer and self reflection that I realized dad's "absence" represented a wound to my young heart that carried over into adulthood, manifested as a form of diminishment, aka inferiority complex or low self esteem.

It is amazing how the wounds of our youth shape our personality in very significant ways, and how unaware we can be of it...consciously at least. Feeling inferior really hindered me from trying many things for fear of failing (for example, I didn't like...no, I hated competitive sports). To me, the answer to the question "Am I really a man?" was something like: "Well, probably...but not nearly as good as most". One classic mistake I made was to take my question to the woman. Somehow I felt that if a woman noticed me or felt that I was special, well then I must be special! One problem with that was I was so shy that most women didn't notice me. But if they did and we became friends, my sense of worth seemed to be based on what they thought of me at any given time, kind of like they were my report card. And if they decided they weren't interested anymore, I was devastated.

Although some wounds are more evident or traumatic than others, everyone has taken them (for example, my father's 'absence'). And each wound comes with a message (for me it was "I am not that important"), and from that place we take a vow (my vow was "I accept that I am inferior...it is just the way it is") and choose a way of life that is dysfunctional in order to diminish the pain (I avoided competition, withdrew from many social engagements to avoid feeling inferior to others, especially those who were the "life of the party"). Eldredge calls this way of living (or rather, surviving) the "false self". We don't live out of a center, and we often aren't aware of the root cause.

Fortunately God loves us enough to not leave us in that place if we want freedom and healing. But the process may be painful. We have to come to the end of our own efforts of "making life work" and reach out to him. I came to the end of myself about 10 years ago (more on that in a future post!). Through some of the process I felt almost like I couldn't bear the emotional pain though, almost as though I was self destructing. Eldredge in Wild at Heart calls this process the failing, or shattering of the "false self". An entertaining taste of how I felt is on the YouTube clip below (click on picture below to view, or http://youtu.be/8M7mM_iHd9I). It is a scene from Star Trek III of the destruction of the beloved USS Enterprise. To make a long story short, Captain Kirk self destructs the ship in order to save his and the lives of his officers (in Dr. McCoy's words, Kirk used death to give them a fighting chance to live). A fitting analogy.

The USS Enterprise begins to self destruct as the Klingon ship makes its
getaway. Click on image to view the video on my YouTube channel!

A brief disclaimer.

I dearly love my dad and I know he loves me. This post isn't about my dad's failures because Lord knows I wasn't the perfect parent to my beautiful daughter either. Dad did more right than he ever did wrong. I share this with you because it is a part of my journey where I suffered and God clearly rescued me, and some of you may relate to it in some way.

Click "Read more" below for a brief excerpt from Wild at Heart (John Eldredge) about the concept of the "False Self":

A Wild and Untamed God

The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12. 

Man’s thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. But God’s thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. Watchman Nee, in The Normal Christian Life.

In my last blog post I mentioned that through a series of events I came to realize that my perception of God was distorted. I had viewed him as a rigid, repressive “Cosmic Cop”, ready to thwack me at every turn if I made a mistake or misbehaved. This perception was so real that I had begun to put distance between him and me. I didn’t turn my back on him but rather participated in a church with a more “liberal” theology where God could be, at least in my mind, more like what I wanted him to be.

Then about 10 years ago I became interested in a devout Christian woman who I knew wouldn’t be compatible with attending my church. Recognizing that I had distanced myself from God, I acknowledged that to him in a prayer. I told him I wanted to move toward him again but that I was afraid to move back into repression. I simply asked God to reveal himself to me in a new way and show me more of what he is truly like. That prayer began the dramatic “series of events” through which God began to dismantle, or destroy my incorrect perception of his nature and then rebuild it in ways that are still “wowing” me to this day.

There is a warrior in every man's heart.

Within a couple of years I read the book Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. That was the beginning of God’s answer to my prayer and it totally rocked my world! Through it I learned, among other things, that the model of being a Christian man was not to be “just a really nice guy” who doesn’t smoke, drink, or swear. In Wild at Heart, Eldredge described how most Christian men in the Western church are “bored”, whose highest aspiration is to be “dutiful” and perhaps, if they are really good, to reach the lofty goal of being an elder. I had occasionally heard in church that eternity in heaven will be a “never ending church service in the sky”. In truth, that didn’t sound fun to me. Eldredge boldly stated that that view of heaven sounds more like hell than heaven to him; and I agree.

The basis of Wild at Heart is that a man’s heart yearns for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. And that a man’s heart yearns for these things…passion, freedom, life…because God made it that way! Eldredge uses Scripture to illustrate that the God of Christianity is wild, untamed, and passionate about our rescue and restoration.

I will conclude with a couple of thoughts.

The first is that in this post I described how God answered a sincere prayer in a very personal and powerful way. I challenge you to ask God to reveal himself, his true nature to you. Then watch for his answer.

Second, God usually has to tear down some of the dysfunctional beliefs and habits we have built up around our lives before he can bring new life and restoration. Some of that may be painful, but I can attest that it is definitely worth it in the end. If any of you have seen the Narnia movie or read the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (by C.S. Lewis), it is like when Aslan the lion tore the scales and skin off Edmund, who had been turned into a dragon because of his waywardness, to restore his humanity. As Edmund described it: “It hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt…but it was fun to see it coming away…then [Aslan] threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone…and then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.” God can bring beauty from ashes. He does it all the time.

Pursuit of Happiness: Through Travel

Me looking out over the Gulf of
Mexico at age 17. My sister Diane
loves this picture...she knows her
brother is a deep thinker (1977).

I love to travel.

When I was a kid, we took summer family vacations to places like Yellowstone Park, the Colorado mountains, and the badlands and black hills of South Dakota. There was something thrilling about it. I was constantly amazed by the new sights, sounds, and the interesting people we met. My imagination would run wild pondering what life would be like to live in such places, to be able to explore all the beautiful places that must be hidden beyond each horizon!

When I was 19, I made my first "international" trip to Mexico. I was with my uncle and two cousins and we traveled in an old black, 1960 Cadillac. I could tell some interesting stories about that trip but the point is that it really opened up my world in new and exciting ways. It was the first time I was in a situation where I was in the minority...i.e., I couldn't speak the native language and other people looked at us like the strange ones. It motivated me to start learning Spanish, although it didn't last too long. In central Nebraska in the late 1970's there wasn't anybody to practice speaking Spanish with. There was an ache somewhere inside me, an emptiness that I thought could be filled if only I could travel more and experience this thrill more often.

Me in western Montana/Northern Idaho in 1983 after 3 months
of working on a cattle ranch (and not shaving or getting a haircut).

During my college years I went on a student exchange program to the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. It is beautiful around Moscow and nearby Pullman, Washington. I enjoyed exploring the nooks and crannies of the countryside during my time there. But what I remember most about that time was being very lonely. I had a lot of friends there, but there was still an emptiness that I couldn't really define but knew was very real. Part of it was that I thought I would be happier if I had a girlfriend to enjoy the experiences with (I was pretty shy). But that is a different story for a different post.

My daily work on a cattle ranch near Harrison, Montana,
against a spectacular backdrop of the Tobbacco Root Mtns (1983)

At the end of the first semester of my exchange program to the Univ. of Idaho, I decided to take a semester off and headed for Montana to work on a cattle ranch. It was something I always wanted to do and somewhere inside I thought I could find fulfillment and happiness by going on this adventure. January isn't a good time to find work on a cattle ranch in Montana, but miraculously I did find one right away (that is also a cool story for another time). I lived about six miles from the base of the Tobacco Root mountains just west of Harrison, Montana (near Bozeman). I worked on the ranch against a backdrop of spectacular scenery. The loneliness, or ache in my heart only increased though. This was lonely country with few people around. I worked there for about three months and headed back to Nebraska to work on a wildlife refuge for the summer before continuing college.

Chicako (Japan), me (center), and Hans (Germany) on top of

Ayers Rock in the Outback of Australia (1986).

After I graduated from college I strapped on a backpack and headed for New Zealand and Australia for about six weeks. There are some beautiful and interesting places in the "Land Down Under". I saw the Australian Outback, the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney and Melbourne, and the Great Ocean Road to name a few places. I loved the Australian accent and the sense of humor that the Aussies and Kiwis had. I traveled with other travelers from Europe and other parts of the world. It was exciting. But at the same time, the ache inside of me didn't go away. There was still an emptiness there that I couldn't really define. I carried my Bible with me and believed in God, but somehow it wasn't filling me with the peace I thought it should have. On one occasion while staying at a Youth Hostel I became aware of a man from California who was psychologically a mess. Apparently he was struggling desperately to find any meaning in life and wasn't finding much hope. At the time I was traveling with a man from England, named Ian Butcher. We had bantered back and forth about faith and Christianity in the preceding days, and after we saw this man Ian told me that I now had an opportunity to share my faith. But I didn't do it. I was afraid to, perhaps because I didn't feel the peace myself. I have thought of that man over the years and have prayed for him.

Me in the Austrian Alps in 1989.

By now you can see there is a theme going here, namely searching for happiness and peace through travel but never finding it. And I was always a slow learner. I would go on to travel in Europe and many other places around the United States but the story was the same. I loved the stimulation of travel but it didn't fill the emptiness inside.

It is different now. Through a series of events in my life (described in the next few posts: A Wild and Untamed God; Coming to the End of Myself; & Beauty for Ashes), I became aware that my perception of God was distorted. I subconsciously was viewing him as a harsh, rigid God. A sort of "Cosmic Cop" who was judging my every action and condemning me for constantly falling short. How could I ever find any kind of peace and fulfillment with a God like that? I have described how I now view God in other posts (which I deeply believe and have experienced as more accurate; for examples see Restoration, Not Religion, and my reviews of the book Beautiful Outlaw after reading the first chapter and again after I had read the entire book!). Now when I travel (which I still love to do),  I experience the thrills and joys WITH God. As I see new sights and sounds and meet new people, I praise him for his marvelous creation and his creativity, and for letting me share in it! Now finally the ache, the emptiness inside me has been filled...with an intimacy with the God who created me and who created all the world! Travel didn't fill it, nor could it ever have filled it.

Me enjoying coffee at Renaca Beach, along the coast of Chile (2009).

I still love to travel. But instead of searching for happiness through travel, I can enjoy travel more because the ache and emptiness that had been inside me has been filled by God!

The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Psalms 24:1).