You Are Beautiful

Just a quick post to share a song with you that really helped me get through this week. It is called "You're Beautiful", and below are its lyrics along with a link to youtube where you can listen to the song yourself if you like. As you read or listen to the lyrics, let the words sink in and ask yourself what it would mean if they were really true.

Christianity teaches that these words ARE true! Has this been your understanding about how God thinks of us? I have to confess that until a few years ago, I didn't comprehend it. But it is a BEAUTIFUL thing to realize now!  Enjoy...

Listen to song on youtube by clicking on the link below (or here: https://youtu.be/7C2o0jHNRuU).

You're Beautiful (by MercyMe)
Days will come when you don't have the strength
When all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart, they'd see too much

You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're Beautiful

I'm praying that you have the heart to fight
"Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
They are nothing in the shadow of the cross

You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're Beautiful.

Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You're the one He madly loves ENOUGH TO DIE!!

You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful in His eyes

YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL
You are meant for so much more than all of this
YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're Beautiful

You're Beautiful
You are meant for so much more than all of this
You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His

Restoration, not Religion

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Blaise Pascal

Does religion hold the answers to life's questions? Religion is a term that undoubtedly has different meanings for different people. While many would emphasize its strengths and others its weaknesses, few could argue that religion does not have some negative connotations associated with it. To many, religion is a list of things you should do (like attend church regularly) and shouldn't do (like cuss, drink, or smoke). To be accepted and respected within a religion it seems you must live under their laws, which can be oppressive. Wars are fought over and injustices committed in the name of religion. Perhaps its no wonder the institution of the university in America has gone secular and restricted the voice of religion on its campuses. But in doing so have they thrown the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak?

Speaking from a perspective of Christianity, some may be surprised that Jesus Christ's sharpest criticisms were towards the leaders of the religious establishment. He criticized them because they were smug, self righteous, and badly misrepresented God in the name of God. Consequently, the religious leaders hated Jesus! Interestingly, the people who were most attracted to Jesus were the "irreligious", who, yes, probably cussed, drank, etc. Why? What did they see in him? He didn't endorse but in fact, often challenged their lifestyles.

They loved Jesus because his words resonated with them. They could sense his message was truth, but he spoke with a grace and love that they had never heard from any other "religious teacher" (not that any other religious teachers would have been caught dead in the presence of such "sinners"). Jesus taught that he came to seek and to save that which was lost. And all of them, as with all of us, had lost something precious. Jesus' message was one of RESTORATION, and not more oppressive rules.  And he backed it up by restoring sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, mobility to the paralyzed, mental health to the mentally ill, and even raising people from the dead. His message was very personal to everyone he touched, and his message continues to be personal today to each person he touches.

Personally, I am interested in something life-giving rather than something that sucks life out of me. Is there something or someone that can take away the anguish of regret, guilt, shame, etc. and replace it with a genuine, deep down in our souls kind of hope, peace, and joy? This is a glimpse of the RESTORATION of life as it was meant to be. If your experience with or impression about the "religion" of Christianity has been negative, I challenge you not to cast your final judgement on Jesus until you take a little time to learn more about this amazing person (for example, by clicking on the links in this post). I think you will be not only pleasantly surprised, but may even find the revelation of the real Jesus to be life-changing. He has that effect on people,..yes, even those in the secular university!

Longings and Desires

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  C.S. Lewis

Photo by Louchiere Matthews (used with permission).

The dictionary defines longing as: "a strong desire especially for something unattainable or distant: for example, to be filled with longing for home." Most of us have certain longings in common...longings such as a desire to love and be loved; a desire for companionship; a desire to live...REALLY live and experience life and not simply exist, a desire to be happy and filled with joy, a desire that our life and the lives of those we love not be snuffed out by death. Where do these longings come from? But there is another part of the definition that doesn't sound so good, that is "something unattainable or distant". Why do our longings for good things so often seem  unattainable? Why is there a general sense of predicament, of something having gone wrong?

C.S. Lewis, a prominent academic scholar and Christian writer, was an avowed atheist until the age of 32. He was influenced by, among others, a fellow scholar and friend named J.R.R. Tolkien (author of Lord of the Rings trilogy) who explained his belief that the longings and desires of man (such as those mentioned above) are implanted by his Creator. Tolkien also explained that the story of the Gospel, which he believed was true, begins and ends in joy. Namely, the Birth and Resurrection of Christ. For those of you not familiar with the story of the Gospel, it tells the "good news" of the Incarnation (Christ as both fully God and fully human). Although there were plenty of hardships in the life of Christ, in the end He defeated one of our greatest enemies...death. IF this is true (which I and countless others believe it is), then it offers profound hope that there can be a happy ending to our story too, and that our deepest longings will one day be fulfilled!

We are now in the Easter season 2011. I challenge you to take 5 minutes and read and consider the first 10 verses in the 28th chapter of Matthew in the Bible, which is the stunning story of the Resurrection of Christ on the third day after his torture and death. See whether this brings a tingle of hope and joy simply at the prospect that it may be true. I cannot even begin to describe the incredible joy I feel when I read this story! Truly, the Gospel is the source of my finding meaning and purpose, not only at the university, but in my life!

Do I Really Matter?

Biology class took away the wonder I had about our world by implying it all came about by accident. If that is true, there is no purpose for our lives.

Early in my university experience I began to struggle with a sense that nothing really mattered. In biology and other classes I learned that by coincidence, conditions on Earth just happened to be right for life to begin, that lightning happened to hit the "primordial soup", and consequently, life happened to begin (or something like that). Apparently, even though the chances of life beginning here were infinitesimally small, it was likely to happen somewhere because of the vastness of the universe. Oh, by the way, the vastness of the universe also provided evidence that the Earth, and consequently humanity (which included me), was very small in the big scheme of things. In other words, there was a sense that in the end, neither I nor anybody else really mattered. How could we? We rose by accident out of the primordial soup, live for awhile and then we die. End of story.

This all was taught as fact in biology class. What I wasn't taught was that this is really just a secular "worldview", which really has serious issues of its own (more that in later posts, such as Science and Christianity, Leap of Faith, Decline of the Secular University). In a sense, I was betrayed by putting my trust in the secular university to teach me about our fascinating world.

When I was young I marveled at the beauty and complexity of this incredible universe and the life it contained. I was excited and wanted to learn more about it...to explore it! I believed in God but somehow that didn't overcome the underlying sense of futility that seemed present in science classes. I knew vaguely that some of the great scientists like Newton, Galileo, and Pascal were men of faith, but even that was explained away by reasoning that they lived in older times and therefore, were naive because they hadn't been exposed to more recent scientific discoveries (like Darwin's explanation about the origins of species). Archeologists also reported that the ancients invented gods in attempts to find meaning and purpose in their lives, which implied that ANY belief in God was a figment of our imaginations. In essence, it seemed science taught that for one to believe in God was akin to believing in a fairy tale.

It is not my purpose here to diss on the university. After all, I enjoy working there now! I am only telling my story about how I struggled at the university to find meaning and purpose because of what was being taught or implied in the science classes I took. Suffice it to say that I am glad that I didn't give in to despair. There was more to my story, but that is for another day. What about yours? Does any of this seem familiar or am I an anomaly (okay, I may be an anomaly in some ways but surely others have felt SOME of the things I have???)

This is my first post!

The story of our life comes to us not as a math problem, but as a drama. (1) We fall in love, we laugh, and there is tragedy too. At the University, science teaches that our origins and our end are probably accidental. (2) We hear that there is no absolute truth but rather many “culturally-relative views”. In the name of secularism, discussions about faith are silenced in the classroom. Is this the way to help students better equip themselves for life in a challenging world? Let’s explore this together!

I don't believe any of my family, friends - or you - are here by accident!

(1) I recommend the book Epic, by John Eldredge, which explores this topic.
(2) Neil Postman's quote captures this well:  'In the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?", science answers, "Probably by accident."  To the question "How will it all end?", science answers "Probably by accident." And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living.' (Science and the Story That We Need, as quoted in the book Epic, by John Eldredge).