Prime Factorization: Hope Cafe

I am currently in a place in my life right now where God is increasingly becoming the centerpeice of the lens through which I interpret what’s going on around me (that’s a really fancy way of saying, “God is really cool, and I’m noticing it.”). Since my last blog post my thought patterns have taken a dramatic shift away from trying to appease others to find my own worth and right onto the work of Christ in my life. God has chosen to use my new home church, Hope Cafe, to be a major instrument and facilitator of that change in my life. When I look back at my time in North Carolina thus far, a lot of things have happened… it’s been a bumpy ride, but without a lot of those things, I would have never ended up where I am.

I have a theory I’m working on as an argument for the existence of God based on probability and why things happen. It seems that there have been countless situations in my life alone where so many extremely unlikely and independant circumstances come together at just the perfect timing to produce an outcome with an almost impossibly low probability of coming to pass. I think the “How?” and the “Why?” overlap here in a very unique way of looking at how God works in the real world.

The philosophy behind statistics is actually only loosely associated with the math. The mathematics formulas we come up with to determine probability is only accepted because it fits the data. In statistics, you always assume the data is more correct than the math. You can recheck your data and statistics all you like; but if, over the course of history,  flipping coins came out 75% heads, we would assume that to be the correct statistic and that our formula needed improving to accurately describe the probability. The only way to fix the formula is to determine what the missing factor that is influencing the outcome would be.

My ending up with Hope Cafe is one of these extremely unlikely outcomes. To bring another math term into this; in algebra, one of the first things you learn in prime factorization, which is breaking a number down a number to the components (prime numbers) that cannot be divided further. When I break down the events of my life since I’ve gotten to NC, there have been a number of awkward turns that put me in the right place at the right time. Without the exact culmination of these unlikely, unalterable events, I would not be at Hope Cafe today experiencing the joy I am.

When I first got to North Carolina I had no real plans or direction, other than to just get on my feet and start moving. I was quickly found a job at the gym my sister-in-law worked at. I cleaned up a bit for them at her location and eventually got moved to a front desk job at another nearby location. It was a pretty cushy job and I could have stayed there for a while. But then extremely unlikely event 1 reared its ugly head…

One afternoon I needed to cut the grass before work, so I did, but dispite the excessively light lawn mower I somehow hurt my back which hasn’t happened before or since using that mower. It wasn’t really a big deal, so I went to work and because my back was hurting and it was kinda slow that evening, I decided to sit down at the front desk (a no-no for us front desk peons). Well, it just so happened that a secret shopper came through that evening and gave me a less-than-stellar review. Again, no big deal… I was pretty new and hadn’t had any other problems or complaints yet, right? Well… I get a call the next day telling me about the secret shopper and that instead of warning me, they were just going to let me go. I had never been fired before and really didn’t know how to react. I was extremely pissed, annoyed, and kinda scared cause I had bills to pay. I couldn’t believe that situation worked out the way it did, what was the point? So I started looking for jobs again.

Luckily Lifeway Christian Bookstore was hiring right then and having worked at my grandparents Christian bookstore for 5 years back home in MD I was basically a shoe-in for the job. I couldn’t have gotten that job if I did not apply when I did. Within a week of joining the team at Lifeway another employee was hired by the name of Eric Beavers, a minister who had just moved to NC with his wife for a church job. I got to know Eric decently well working with him and then extremely unlikely event 2 struck. Eric was forced to leave the church job that brought him to NC. It was an ugly mess that felt like a very random and unneccisary thing for him to go through (I don’t feel comfortable sharing all his business so you’ll just have to trust me its equally as dumb as my first point). It was definitely a really low time for my friend but he was able to get a new position as Music Minister for another church in the area with a pastor that had some rather unorthodox ideas. This is when planning for Hope Cafe began. I wasn’t involved with it at all but knew that Eric was working toward some cafe thing. I ended up getting another job (another really huge set of neat improbable things, just not related to this conversation), so I got some facebook friends out of it all (one of which being Eric) and moved on.

Since I had gotten to NC I had been attending church with my brother and his wife at Hope Community Church. I really liked the place and got hooked up with a great group of people in a smallgroup, but never really got around to deciding to be a member. After a completely uneccisary “multiplication” of the smallgroup into a guys group and a girls group the numbers for my group dwindled to about 4-5 guys. A few months back, shortly after starting my current job, extremely unlikely event 3 came about.

One week I missed smallgroup and a rather important event happened that night. One of my good friends announced to the group that it was to be his last week as he was changing churches and joining another smallgroup. Being down to just a couple guys in the group, the remaining members (minus myself) discussed some options and decided to merge with a smallgroup for a local church plant that my smallgroup leader was becoming a part of, so no longer would we officially be with Hope Community Church. I was completely blindsided by the sudden change in what was going on and reluctantly went to the new smallgroup where, after one week, needed to split because the numbers were too large. Because of locations, I ended up in a different group than the guys I knew from my old group. I tried it out but didn’t really click on a personal level with the people from the new smallgroup.

It just so happened, at this time, I recieved a facebook invitation from Eric, who I had not seen since I left Lifeway, to come out and see his wife play at the newly started Hope Cafe. I was looking for social events as my social life was dwindling with the demise of my old smallgroup, so I figured I’d check it out, not really expecting anything to come from it. I had a really good time seeing Eric and checking out the cafe so he invited me to check out the church service the next morning. Had I still been with my old smallgroup, I would have had too much loyalty to Hope Community Church to feel the need to venture out, and had I joined the new smallgroup any sooner I may have felt obligated to stay or have moved on an joined Vintage21 (another church I like to visit). But because the timing worked out exactly when it did, I was open to the idea of checking out the Hope Cafe church service. I was still a little on the fence and, literally, the kicker for getting me to show up at 10am the next morning was the fact that there was free breakfast and coffee every sunday. I tried it out and instantly felt at home.

There are several other little coincidences that probably would only make sense to me that I’m going to decline putting on here today that have since confirmed my belief that Hope Cafe is exactly where God wants me right now. But given how unlikely these prime factors are (without any one of these I would have never ended up at the Cafe), and how perfect the timing fit together, there’s more than enough here to remove all doubt in my mind. And this, I’m sure, is only the tip of the iceberg. There are probably tons of factors I know nothing about involving availability at jobs, what kinds of things that have happened in the lives of those around me that also had a part in the decision making of these important events, and random happenstances that, if I knew them all, would probably make my head spin. How great is the Lord in his soverignty that he’s got all of this worked out so perfectly, just for me, of all people?

I can imagine a lot of people thinking, “Sure, these events seem unlikely, but isn’t just about anything that happens just as unlikely? Didn’t something have to happen? How could you know you wouldn’t be where you are now?” While it’s true that God maybe could have brought me around to the joy I’m experiencing basking in his goodness some other way. However, I know how I think and my state of being now is not something that could have happened very many ways. On top of that, God knows how I think and brought me to a point where I could look back on some of the most difficult and annoying things I’ve had to deal with and see everything come into focus with such exact purpose as to refresh my faith anew yet again.

Are you dealing with a storm right now? Do things not make sense? Do things seem completely unfair? God has the ability to stop any storm you are going through with a single word (I’ve seen it happen). If he doesn’t, don’t think that there must be something wrong and that God is punishing you; rather, trust that there is design in your current sufferings and look forward to the immeasurable goodness and grace the Lord has prepared specifically for you. Remember, it’s the tools that spend the most time being forged that have the most specific purpose.

What’s the opposite of getting punched in the gut?

This has been one whirlwind of a weekend. I’ve had highs and lows throughout the whole thing and it all ended tonight with whatever it is you might call the opposite of being punched in the gut… confused? good.

Friday night I visited Hope Cafe (hopecaferaleigh.com) for “Open mic” night as well as a book-signing for “The Almost True Story of General Sherman (and how he finally looked up).” I won’t lie, some of the performances were kinda sub-par. I didn’t want to be critical, but I just wondered to myself why people do things they aren’t necessarily good at. Are they delusional? Or what about the people who play things we’ve all heard a thousand times (only not as good)? What’s the point of coming up with something less than extraordinary? Who really wants to listen to mediocrity? I shrugged off most of these questions with a spiritual version of, “It’s the thought that counts.”

At the end of the evening I met the band that was to play at the cafe Saturday night, Autumn Altar, and they were just absolutely wonderful people. Throughout the course of the weekend my emotions fluttered back and forth between being absolutely enthralled that I got to spend time with these people who I believe (as cheesy as it may sound) to be kindred spirits (so to speak), and extreme disappointment over the fact that they were returning to Pennsylvania Sunday after church, believing this whole episode to be one, giant, anti-climactic experience leaving me unfulfilled and wanting more while completely unable to obtain any form of consolation.

Saturday during one of their sets, my good friend Kyle from the band explained where the name “Autumn Altar” came from. Essentially, he and Danielle (the beautiful percussionist of the band) were talking about the use of altars in the old testament and wondered why we don’t still build things of similar meaning today? Sure, we commemorate structures all the time, maybe even build statues and whatnot, but how often do we build something with the sole purpose of reminding us just how faithful God is with us every day? Altar-building ought to be a normal practice of worship, and not something done only by a select few people for those “really special occasions.”

So this morning before dawn, while I was making my cleaning rounds for my car wash, I came across a bunch of stones just lying in the road. I felt pretty dorky doing it, but I decided I would pile them up over the storm drain where I found them simply to remind me how God had provided me with the perfect job for me right now, at just the right time, for just the right reasons, and hopefully keep me from taking my time there for granted. It was a pretty small pile of rocks, and I was almost embarrassed to leave it standing; but I thought to myself that I would never really have to tell anyone about it(yeah, that went well…) and that it was between me and God anyway, bringing back up my “It’s the thought that counts,” idea again.

So tonight I went to Vintage21 Church with my friend Judson and the service was pretty wonderful, as always, but the thing that hit me hard had very little to do with what was going on and was brought on by a song we were singing after the message. I honestly can’t even remember the song (they do a lot of songs I’m not familiar with) but it talked of giving all that we are to God and I found myself going back to “It’s the thought that counts,” yet again, believing all the things we have to give are equally unneeded by God and he chooses to use us as nothing to do something great… I said in my mind (while thinking myself pretty smart about the whole thing), “What I have to offer is but filthy rags.” Before I could even finish the thought, I heard in the most forceful (as if being chastised), and closest thing to audible voice I’ve ever heard God say to me; “I do not create junk.“

Something shattered that instant. A lump formed in my throat and I was unable to sing for the rest of the song. It felt like I had been punched in the gut, only it was the greatest feeling I had ever experienced. All of the sudden I started to feel as though all the “nothing” I had been flinging around, knowing it was unneeded but trying to give “nothing” back to God, was everything God made me for. I am so into the habit of devaluing myself and my efforts that I began to devalue God’s work in my life. I realized that it’s not that all we have is equally worthless to God, but rather that it is equally beautiful and full of His wonder. It was almost as though a huge burden to produce something useful had been lifted from my shoulders. God loves me because He made me wonderful, and the only proper response is to lay every wonderful thing he’s given me back at his feet. You see, it’s so easy, when we feel like what we have is meaningless, to feel discouraged and very much like we owe very little in return.

Every little critisism I had Friday night was toward those whom God is absolutely delighted in. It’s not so much, “the thought that counts,” as the fact that when we are so overflowing with God’s grace we can’t help but cry out to him in whatever manner he has fashioned us to utter praise. For me, it’s putting this whole experience down… I simply can’t think of another way to let someone, anyone, know how wonderful it is to have meaning and to know that my offering isn’t sub par or less than extraordinary, because God only makes extraordinary people, and His workmanship is not to be mocked. My embarrassing little altar is beautiful because it is there for the explicit purpose of reminding me just how beautiful and faithful God is. Thought isn’t making any of this wonderful, it is wonderful.

Thank you Eric for inviting me to Hope Cafe. Thank you Dustin, Devon, Danielle, and Kyle for bringing your gifts to the altar. Thank you Judson for bringing me to Vintage21. And most of all, thank you Jesus Christ for making me who I am and loving me though I so often miss the point.

What Color was the Apple?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. In six days he created everything on Earth including man, who is in His image. For man He created woman, and the two lived in the Garden of Eden in fellowship with God. But the woman was tempted by the serpent and took of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; and she gave some to the man as well. Then the two realized that they were naked and hid themselves from god, who came looking for them. Having disobeyed God’s only command, the man and woman were cursed and forced to leave the garden, consoled only with the promise that one day the seed of the woman would undo the damage done and return mankind to fellowship with God.

Now for some of the most important questions regarding the fall and fate of man: What color was the apple? Was it even an apple at all? Did they each get their own fruit or did they share one? How long did they live in the garden before that day?

The appropriate response to all of these questions is, “Who cares?” It doesn’t matter in any significant way; yet sometimes as Christians, all we do is bicker and complain and cause division over equally unimportant issues. Why should things that have no practical baring on the way we live our lives be given so much stockin determining who we associate with?

Some of the most heated discussions I’ve ever listened to are regarding the freewill vs. election debate. Chruches divide and friends split over this doctrinal issue; but where is the practicality of the debate? If the great commission is to be our model for outreach, what if election is true? “Go and make disciples.” Well, what if freewill is true? “Go and make disciples…” I’ve never seen a more pointless argument go on for so long.

Another hot button for many denominations is the prevalence of the apostolic gifts; some extremes claiming that speaking in tongues is a necessary proof of salvation, while others claim any attempt at an supernatural gift is demon worship. I point both parties to Luke 5:23 where Jesus says to the Pharisees before curing the paralyzed man, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins have been forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?”(NASB) This particular miracle was performed because of the unbelief of the pharisees, requiring miracles is a weak position on faith, not a strong one. However, if Christ came to die for our sins and has mended the rift between man and God for those who will take it, how absurd is it to think that the master of the universe cannot bring about the supernatural in our lives? We get to experience the one, true, living God in person and we get hung up on what I can or can’t do?

What about the Holy Sacraments, baptism and communion? Bread, wine, crackers, juice, cookies, milk, sprinkle, immersion, submersion, infant, adult, church, home, lake, pool… ? Definitely the most ritualized part of the Christian faith, baptism and communion cause more strife procedurally than they do doctrinally. At what point since the coming of the Messiah has the procedure in anything been more important than the accompanying heart? If you are worried about messing it up, at least you are trying to honor the Lord properly, that’s good. But, “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man” (Matt 15:11 NASB). Baptism is intended to be an public declaration of the change within and an answer to Christ’s command to live a godly life; but I say if we spent as much time actually trying to make our lives right with God as we do making sure all of our t’s are crossed and our i’s are dotted, we would be so much more effective witnesses for Christ. The message is so much more simple than the minor details we nitpick about.

Eschatology has got to be one of the least practical things to argue about. Much of the arguing comes from the “Seventy ’sevens’” from Daniel 9. Are people really counting to four hundred ninety? Did you get nothing from Peter’s conversation with Christ? The only other appearance in the Bible of seventy times seven is in Matthew 18:21 when Jesus is quite literally saying, “forget about the number.” What I see is that God’s timing is his own, not ours. All we need to know is that Christ is coming back and we are to live today in light of eternity. Everything else is nonessential.

It may appear that I regard discussion on these matters completely irrelevant and that it should never be done. Quite the opposite; I think a lot of these issues are great for digging into and really trying to work out what we should learn from them. The problem comes when we take nonessentials and turn them into essentials capable of tearing apart relationships intended for God’s glory. Jesus says in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst” (NASB). If we had to find two people in complete agreement on every issue there is to fight over, Jesus would not be anywhere on Earth; therefore I must assume that total agreement on nonessential issues is not an important factor when determining with whom one associates.

Don’t people have a right to worship in the setting and manner they are most comfortable worshiping in? Well… no. We are blessed enough that we do have options in our worship setting here and now, but being comfortable is never promised in the Bible, actually we are given the exact opposite. All of the greatest and noblest pursuits of mankind are earned by trial: parenting, marriage, heroism… if something is important, it ought to be worked at and fought for. The answer is not finding a couple people who think the apple was green to run off with and do your own green apple things. The challenge today is to find someone with whom you don’t agree with on some issues and worships a different way than you do and invite God to show up. I guarantee it will be an experience that changes your life.

I close with a quote from St. Augustine: “In the essentials: unity; in the nonessentials: liberty; and in all things: charity.”

Ex Nihilo

While perusing Wikipedia, I cam across an article for “Ex Nihilo,” which is the idea that everything that is came from absolute nothingness at some point. It’s used in a range of religions and philosophies and is one of the primary links I use between Christianity and the Bing Bang Theory. Christians have been saying for a long time that God created the universe out of nothing, while the Big Bang was more recently decided upon based on scientific evidence that the universe once an infinitely small, and infinitely powerful spec. I like to point out that science, in an attempt to make God obsolete, quite simply confirmed what Christians had been saying all along, claiming that the universe started from an infinitely small (or immaterial) and infinitely powerful source, sounds a lot like God, doesn’t it? It’s a very short hop from there to see how there is much more reason to believe there is purpose behind the origin of the universe than that nothing spontaneously became something.

So I was reading on some of the history of the idea, and who says what about it, etc… when I came across a Christian thinker named Thomas Jay Oord who says we ought to abandon the idea of ex nihilo. He lists nine arguments that give us reason to give up the idea in favor of pre-existing matter semi-independent of God. Wikipedia states, “Oord speculates that God created our particular universe billions of years ago from primordial chaos. This chaos did not predate God, however, for God would have created the chaotic elements as well. Oord shows that God can create all things without creating from absolute nothingness.”

Before I go into his nine points, I want to point out the obvious contradiction is his premise that if he created the chaotic elements, he must have created THEM from nothing or some other material, which too would need explaining. So while the idea that God may have created the universe long before the account of Genesis is quite possible, it still requires ex nihilo at some point, and thus the doctrine of ex nihilo should be adhered to.

I’m going to list Oord’s objections one at a time and take a hand at arguing against them below each one. As an added task for me, I’m going to attempt to answer all of his problems in the same line of thinking he uses to make them.

1. Theoretical problem: One cannot conceive absolute nothingness.

Theoretical answer: reality is not dependent on one’s understanding of or ability to understand it. I really shouldn’t have to go any further than that. If someone REALLY wants to hear more I can give it.

2. Biblical problem: Scripture – in Genesis, 2 Peter, and elsewhere – suggests creation from something (water, deep, chaos, etc.), not creation from absolutely nothing.

Biblical answer: John 1:3 “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” [NASB].  As pointed out earlier, even if the translation may say that things were created through other objects, those objects were made at some point ex nihilo. God’s choice in creating through other things that he had previously created (like man from the dust) is His choice alone and does not suggest a limit to his power but rather an absolute mastery over all that He has created.

3. Historical problem: The Gnostics Basilides and Valentinus first proposed creatio ex nihilo on the basis of assuming the inherently evil nature of creation, and in the belief that God does not act in history. Early Christian theologians adopted the idea to affirm the kind of absolute divine power that many Christians now reject.

Unfortunately, I don’t have these resources to investigate, so I can’t go into this one historically, maybe I could get a little help on this one? (I’m looking at you, seminary students/graduates) However, I would like to say I don’t know many Christians who don’t believe that God is absolutely powerful. And similar to the theoretical answer above, our opinion on the matter does not change the reality of it. But no one should really turn their back on the view of the early church without serious investigation.

4. Empirical problem: We have no evidence that our universe originally came into being from absolutely nothing.

Empirical answer: In coming up with the Big Bang Theory, scientists discovered that the universe is expanding; not just the arrangement of the galaxies and celestial bodies, but 3-dimensional space itself. This suggests that all of space in the past was “smaller” than it is now, and before that even smaller. There is no evidence for nothingness because something can’t ever grasp nothing, because they are constantly putting their something in the way! But scientific evidence certainly suggests nothingness prior to everything. (As a side note I really love this because when you think about God’s power in creation, he didn’t just set things up and move on… God said, “Let there be…” and the universe is still feeling the effects of it today.)

5. Creation-at-an-instant problem: We have no evidence in the history of the universe after the big bang that entities can emerge instantaneously from absolute nothingness. As the earliest philosophers noted, out of nothing comes nothing (ex nihilo, nihil fit).

Creation-at-an-instant answer: if we have to come to terms with the fact that God created ex nihilo at SOME point (even by way of the Big Bang, perhaps), than what’s to stop Him from doing it again? He may not have to, but there’s no reason He couldn’t. Additionally this has a similar answer to the empirical problem, what would we expect ex nihilo creation to look like? What would we consider evidence of it? Certainly a lack of “missing links” would point to at least the fact that animals were created originally in, more or less, their current form. As for proof of other objects such as planets, there seem to be no previous states we could point to or have record of to prove anything like that. But its proof is no more vague than building it all from ambiguous chaotic matter, there can not be proof for either. So either there has to be proof that one is absolutely correct to make the other completely unnecessary, or we have to turn to other proofs for the concepts they are defending and follow the logical signs to make our best guess.

6. Solitary power problem: Creatio ex nihilo assumes that a powerful God once acted alone. But power, as a social concept, only becomes meaningful in relation to others.

Triune power answer: God is three persons in one, he is completely self-sufficient even in the matter of fellowship. In fact, in the same verse I quoted above it clearly states that Jesus was an instrument through which the universe was created. There was nothing solitary about the power at work. Additionally, this is merely wordplay and not a real problem. If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? All the effects are there. Perhaps he meant that there was nothing in which to exert power on in order to create? Hence the concept of ex nihilo; its the opposite of begging the question: he assumes it’s impossible to prove it’s impossible.

7. Errant revelation problem: The God with the capacity to create something from absolutely nothing would apparently have the power to guarantee an unambiguous and inerrant message of salvation (for example: inerrant Bible). An unambiguously clear and inerrant divine revelation does not exist.

Errant revelation answer: I have a theory regarding the “unambiguously clear and inerrant divine revelation”: People will point to all sorts of things in the Bible and claim they are contradictions. Most, if not all, of the time, I can find a way to reconcile the ideas, even if not perfectly. But even if it does all fit together, somehow, some way, why would God intentionally make it so confusing for us? When Jesus’ disciples asked Him why he spoke in parables, He gave this answer in Matthew 13:11-13;

“To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” [NASB]

Jesus spoke to the people in parables so they wouldn’t understand. We seem to think that understanding is a right, or a virtue; it’s not, its a privaledge bestowed on whom God wishes to grant it. I don’t say this to puff myself up, but rather to point out something I find so absolutely wonderful about God. What if by making some of these things so hard to understand, he is actually bringing more glory to his name instead of less? If people see something that puts them a little off, they are inclined to dig in and search out the matter, are they not? All this talk over predestination vs. free will, and all the arguments about the apastolic gifts, and all the different views on eschatology are getting people into the word of God. Even non-Christians, who wish only to have something negative to say, look at these things and are forced to see the inerrant word of God in order to argue; “So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”[Isaiah 55:11, NASB]

The alternative would be a bad case of group think in which we might all end up very, very wrong or complacent. God loses some of His majesty when we think we’ve figured Him out. Truth be told, he is greater than us and he does have everything worked out, and He can’t wait to show us His glory someday when we will all see the absolute truth of the matter and wonder why we couldn’t get it before.

8. Evil problem: If God once had the power to create from absolutely nothing, God essentially retains that power. But a God of love with this capacity appears culpable for failing to prevent genuine evil.

Evil allowance answer: C.S. Lewis does a great job dealing with this subject in his book, “The Problem of Pain.” The main idea here is that if we are truly free creatures, and there is an environment in which we can operate and commune with other subjects, then there is the opportunity for evil. Either God makes us incapable of going against his will, or we can choose evil. If we have the ability to choose, then God is absolved from the moral implications of the evil. This is an extremely watered-down setup for what he talks about, but it’s definitely worth checking out his book for more answers. For more on God’s sovereignty vs. our free will check out my previous blog post.

9. Empire Problem: The kind of divine power implied in creatio ex nihilo supports a theology of empire, based upon unilateral force and control of others.

Empire answer: Oord seems to assume, over and over again, that the ability to do something inherently suggests that it happens. He also assumes free will at the detriment of God’s sovereignty. While I believe in God’s absolute sovereignty, I also hold to man’s responsibility for his actions. It seems no one can read this without reading my previous blog post: “A False Dichotomy?” …cause I’m not going to write it all again now.

That was kinda fun, and killed a couple hours. Somebody say something. New rule: Everybody who reads my blog has to post at least once, even if its, “Interesting…” or, “Your wrong, and stupid for trying.”

A False Dichotomy?

Too many times have I listened to the freewill vs. election debate. I recently got a chance to talk to a good friend of mine about it at length and our final conclusion was that I am somewhat of an oddity in that I see no real conflict between the two. All my explanations and examples don’t seem to help most people wrap their brains around the fact that man is absolutely responsible for his own actions and also that God is absolutely sovereign in all things. But what the heck… I’ve been meaning to post again; so why not give it another shot?

Too big an issue to handle in a single blog post? We’ll see.

“…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Phil 2:12-13 NASB)

The very best piece of evidence I can give for my stance is scripture. The apostle Paul, in a single breath, says very clearly that we are to work out our own salvation (responsibility), for God wills and works in us for his good pleasure (sovereignty). No matter how I attempt to stretch and skew those verses, I can’t come up with any conclusion other than that both man is responsible and God is sovereign. Unfortunately, simply stating it to be the case doesn’t help any one understand it. Fortunately, I can’t help but dive in further philosophically.

Why can’t this be settled simply? how come we can’t test either theory and come up with a conclusion on the freewill vs. sovereignty debate? The answer takes us a lot farther than it looks: we can’t move in time and attempt to change things. If God is absolutely sovereign, then all our attempts at any other action are for naught, and no amount of tampering with time could change what happens, even down to the smallest detail. No matter how many times we relived a circumstance, it would play out the same every time. On the other hand if we were able to somehow put ourselves in the same place we were in time/circumstance and make a different choice then obviously freewill wins out. Unfortunately, we are completely unable to test this with mankind bound to only 3-dimensional freedom.

We are faced with choices every single day, to say we don’t make choices is an absurdity. By the blank slate theory we don’t really choose things, it’s simply the inevitability of our culminated experiences. But even under tabula rasa what we do affects the outcome of events. Were we to choose to simply stop everything and be what may, we would all starve to death, a logical chain of events occurs leading to a predictable conclusion. But hey, we can’t be to blame right? our experience in discovering tabula rasa made us do it, right? Not quite. Regardless of our ability, or lack thereof, to make different choices, we still mentally debate and struggle with morality, and that is what choice is. The final outcome actually has very little to do with the process of making a choice. Only one choice will ever be made for any given instance and the fact that there will never be any other outcome to that choice brought into actuallity doesn’t remove the burden of the choice maker from the logical and moral responsibility of the choice made. The point I’m getting at is that we are designed to believe we are making choices, and the word choice cannot precede the human experience it was made to describe. Any talk of possibilities and “true” freedom to choose is beyond the scope of human comprehension because it cannot break free from a singular path through time.

God, on the other hand, is not bound in the same dimensional plane(s) we are. As the founder and creator of the universe, God is beyond any form of measure or dimension. He looks at all of what is and was and is not yet all in a single glance. So why then does it seem so outlandish that God played the peices right in order to work out his good pleasure in each and every person’s life? Even the difficult stuff to swallow? The topic of why God lets evil happen, while pertaining to this subject, is beyond what I’m getting at today and will perhaps be blogged another time. A great resource for it is C.S. Lewis’ “The Problem of Pain”.

God sees it all, and thinking that the infinitely creative and powerful God sits back and looks at all of history and thinks “This is not going well… where did I go wrong?” is absolutely nuts. God has displayed his sovereignty countless, countless times. All of the prophecy in the Bible is a perfect example of God’s ability to maintain sovereignty. One reasoning behind why Catholics worship Mary the mother of Jesus is because she carried Jesus to term and gave birth to him, like somehow she could have messed things up… Prophecy after prophecy was fufilled by Jesus and the immense improbability that only a handful of those could ever come to pass without God’s absolute sovereignty is incalculably minuscule.

It becomes easy, then, for many Christians who wish to squeeze the tremendous evidence for both seemingly polar opposites into one theology to claim that God simply intervenes when necessary to get us to his ultimate goal. Unfortunately, this falls short on every level. For if man has any control and God is not in charge of every detail, then man can miss everything God has. For instance, suppose I am to have a chance encounter with a girl who is to be my future wife by God’s plan. She has a flat tire and I’m supposed to stop and help her. Well what happens if I don’t? or she decides to carpool that day and doesn’t get the flat tire? or I crash my car into a tree and die? Without God’s absolute sovereignty in the situation, I can completely botch up the situation and guarantee it never comes to pass. This is not a middle ground of two but rather a world in which God is not sovereign at all.

I have made some really, really poor choices in my past. But because of the culminated effect of those poor, sinful choices God has brought me to exactly where I need to be, and there is no doubt in my mind this is where he wants me to be right now. I definitely made choices to get here. I had to choose to move to NC and I talked with a lot of people beforehand, struggled with pros and cons, prayed, etc… In every possible way to conceive choice, I chose to move here. Yet it was God’s plan all along that I make that choice and be where I am for His good pleasure. I will never be able to make that choice again, its over and done with, but I chose it, and God set the choice up long before I knew it for me to make. How he sets everything up to happen exactly as he plans, I don’t know… but ultimately, it’s not my responsibility to tell God how he does things, but its completely obvious to me that he does it. Sometimes we’ve just got to allow God to be wiser than ourselves.

A great resource I’ve heard on this topic comes from teachings of Ravi Zacharias and Alister Begg, put together and set to music by Relevantrevolution.com’s sermon jams. Listen to it at: http://relevantrevolution.com/mp3/Antinomy.mp3

Here again?

…2 Years later…

So a buddy of mine is on wordpress and it made me think of blogging again (*sigh*). Find him and his scholarly work at thesumofyourword.wordpress.com

So what am I doing now? I’m sitting in my chair typing something maybe 5 people will read. But between my last post and now I have moved to NC, worked a little, schooled a little, moved again to another part of NC, and now enjoy fine TV dinner cuisine 5 times a week. That’s the long and short of it. Actually, thats the short. But I really don’t care to fill in the long tonight.

Today I found myself completely engrossed in thoughts of a girl I haven’t seen in some time. I know its a complete waste of time and energy thinking about her, but I did it anyway. I really don’t get why I did it because I know it just makes me upset. But it almost feels like I’m denying a part of myself to NOT think about it sometimes. Its a girl I’ve spent a good deal thinking about for the last several years, but nothing really ever could happen and, in all likelyhood, never will.

Something about this particular girl just takes my breathe away. Every little aspect of what she is appeals to me in a deeper sense than physical attraction (though she is pretty hot). It hurts me to think that I might never find someone that makes me as excited as she does, and because of my own lack of confidence, I deny God’s ability to pick someone for me. I spent the majority of my life not getting what I want in this area, and so my mind has somehow decided that what I’ll get will inevitably be what I don’t want.

I know that, more than anything, I ought to chase after God and seek the purpose he has for me now, instead of thinking that I can only be whole when another person comes along. But how do I actually begin to desire God? How does one shift their thoughts from the externals of life to the heart of the one true living God? I recently recieved a partial answer.

I have been getting into apoligetics recently in a deeper level than just my random musings that I’ve been content with for the past 23 years. I found that I actually do know a lot on the subject and am fairly prepared to take my faith out, (why I haven’t yet is a discussion for another time). But it was during this time I began listening to “Sermon Jams” (way better than the name gives justice, believe me, check out relevantrevolution.com). And message after message pounded on the fact that God is the reason for everything, God is the ultimate goal of everything, and God deserves to be sought after more than anything. All this I have known for a long time, but the question still remained: how do I truly begin to desire and love God in the same way I would love someone else?

All the facts from all the pastors I’ve ever heard couldn’t make me really truly love God, and they won’t make you love Him either. But somehow, all at once, during my studies, something  jumped out at me that I had known for a long time but had never really put into proper perspective before. God is a personal God and he relates to each and every one of us in a unique and personal way. My love for God really came to life when I realized that everything I have ever known and everything I have ever studied and every argument in every religion and philosophy is answered and fufilled in Christianity; but not in Christianity the religion, but in the God that Christianity worships.

God makes sense.

Every turn I take reaffirms what I already know of God and how all the problems of the world would “easily” be fixed by readjusting our focus off of the falible creature of man and onto the infinitely beautiful and creative God. The reality of God meets my logic on every level and I become unable to push any other thought into my mind when everything I know points to God.

I love things that make sense. Mathematics and psychology make me excited because I love to see awkward peices fit together just right and work. So many arguments for so many things have to be squished and forced into position to answer questions, but the personality and qualities of God so perfectly fit into the human experience it seems foolish any other idea of reality to be accepted. It is this love of existential jig-saw puzzles that the Lord made himself known in that brought about a unity to my overly-analytical brain and non-compliant heart.

So thats me… but what good does that do for you? If God is so personal, what can he really do make you love him? Well, as a start, what do you truly love? What makes you tick? and if you are thinking of specific activity or item, what qualities of that activity of item make you excited? Try to break it down to the basic elements of what you enjoy at your deepest level. God made you very uniquely and what’s so wonderful is that he knows exactly how to be what he has created you to love so that you may identify with him in a way that unlike any other persons relationship with him.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” (Revelation 2:17 NASB)

God, who is truly infinite in every way, is also infinitely personal. It is impossible to have a Christianity that is a carbon copy of another. This is one way the Lord is different from any other god in any other religion; they give very simple guidelines and cookie-cutter experiences and claim to be for all. They require that you be what they tell you that you have to be in order to participate. But Christ meets you exactly where you are, and helps you discover who you really are; and you will find every time that when you know exactly who you are, you see how God the Father is everything you have ever hoped or desired for, and abundatly able to satisfy your deepest desires.

So after writing a little bit and getting to the core of my love for God I’m feeling a little better about God’s plans for my future. The girl I spent so much energy focusing on this evening is a poor substitute for the way God identifies with my deepest longings. Does the idea or fear of physical lonliness completely go away? No. But its a bit easier to trust God because I believe he has a plan for me and the way the pieces fit together open up the passage between my head and my heart.

Faith is often thought of believing something in your heart that you don’t have a complete explaination for in your mind; I’d argue faith is just as much learning to trust in your heart what you know to be true in your mind.

A hope deferred

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12 NASB)

While there are a few events which recently have prove this proverb true, the reason I think of it today is from the fact that soccer was cancelled last night. It wasn’t so much that it was canceled that really bugged me. It was the fact that I spent my whole day… even most of my week looking forward to Thursday night, just to get a call at 7pm, right before I leave from work telling me that my only significant plans for the week weren’t going to happen.

How annoying.

I’ve been seeing a lot of hopes deferred recently, not just speaking of myself. It seems to be a very common happenstance. It’s kinda funny that we never really get used to it. No matter how often your dreams seem plucked away, one will never be less upset than the time before. I think hope must be something so integral to our being that it’s impossible to make the pain of hope lost any less difficult.

In last night’s case, I was at least able to come home to find my parents had bought “Rocky Balboa,” which is a movie I highly recommend for anybody to see. Not that I would say that seeing Rocky was a better thing than playing soccer, but at least my whole night didn’t go to shambles. I think the thing to remember is to try to make the best of whatever happens instead of wallowing in self-pity.

Unfortunately, I have no profound words of encouragement today, if indeed they could be considered profound… or encouragement… or… words… but hey, such is life. Good luck getting by without my guiding wisdom until next time our paths cross (maniacal laugh).

The real football… soccer

I have always loved soccer. I played for years as a youth and for some reason just completely stopped playing after high school. Almost 4 years later, I’ve started going to Thursday night soccer at my church. This is going to be my second week there and I’m really looking forward to it. The major problem is that I am immensely out of shape!

Last week I went up to play for my first time and ran out of gas unbelievably fast. The format was that they picked players for 3 teams, then one team would always be sitting while two played, giving everyone ample time to play and rest. Well that just didn’t cut it for me. I played for about 2 minutes before I ran out of steam and had to sit out.

Come our teams next time up at playing, I found my true calling (for the night anyway)… goalie. Hardly any running was required and I still got to yell at people and feel important. Goalie was always the job of the big or out of shape kids in elementary school, well I’m the new fat kid, only I’m too skinny to take up enough of the goal to be very good at it. I got to play out a few other times but always ended up back in goal, trying to catch my fat kid breath.

I hope to do a little better this week, run a little longer before having to head back to the goal… I intend to keep going every week until I’m back in shape.

ZOMG! I CAN TOTALLY MAKE THIS A GOD THING… WATCH!

…

Ya know… playing soccer again is sort of like our Christian walk (here it comes). When we start out, or God places us in something new, he never lets us do more than we can handle. He knows exactly what we can and cannot do.

Oftentimes we tell ourselves that we can’t do something, but the fact we are there testifies that God trusts us with something of that importance. And even when we don’t want to continue doing it, or want to take a break. God, in his mercy, will often put us just outside of the action so we can stay in the spirit of his purpose and still defend the goal… I mean, not sit idly complaining about how we’re useless…

The same is true concerning our sins. Sometimes we are led to believe that there is too much temptation and that we are unable to do anything about it. But the Lord has given us a “spirit of power” and not a “spirit of fear.”

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Cor. 10:13 NASB)

So anyway, I’ll probably be back to let you all know how soccer went… Hopefully I survive. But you know what they say…

“Whatever doesn’t kill you, hurts like heck.” … or something like that.

The Cat’s out of the box!

I have finally succumbed to blogging… years upon years of being an avid blog anti-enthusiast have led me straight here… to blogging. *sigh*

It’s always been the case in my life that the Lord never shows me the next step until my foot is already in motion. My life has taken another such turn.

For the last three years I have been dating a girl who I thought I was going to marry. Recently, that chapter in my life ended (to put it lightly). I find myself wondering what the Lord has for me. My head hasn’t stopped trying to process things for a few weeks on end, and everything from my recreational habits to the things I’ve always wanted to do but know I don’t have the means to do have come into question. I’ve questioned every decision that I’ve made since high school wondering if I ever did what was right. All my searching and all my scenario-building has led me to one conclusion, my life could not have gone any other way than it has. The Lord has taken me every step of the way, to each joy, and to each sorrow.

When I graduated high school I had plans to attend Grace College for the upcoming fall semester. I was scared of leaving home, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with my life, I simply had too many questions and even though I had decided long before that I wanted to go to Grace, it never quite sat peacefully in my heart. It took until halfway through the summer for me to finally call it off and attend Washington Bible College, where I stayed for exactly one semester.

My time at WBC was academically pointless, I just wanted to do core requirements since I had no clue where I wanted end up and I always leaned toward mathematics, which wasn’t a major there. There were two purposes for my being there (as far as I’ve seen).

First, and foremost, was to financially help out a single person who I met there. All he wanted was a few dollars to buy Christmas presents for his family, and he felt horrible for asking. I, having worked at my grandparents bookstore since I was 15, and had saved a large amount to buy a car, gave him a larger amount than I intend to disclose and told him not to pay me back. (As a side note, I never really wanted to share this with anyone because Jesus preached, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.“(Matt. 6:1-2, NASB) But I feel led to write it here.) I believe whole-heartedly that the Lord used me in a way there in a bigger way then I realize.

Secondly, I had to take some time in a Christian environment, on my own, to make my faith more personal. It’s hard to really have anything that’s truly your own when you live under your parents’ roof and rules. My walk with God started to become personal as I visited BNYC (Brethren National Youth Conference) with my church youth in high school, but to really make it my own and not an imitation of those with the most influence around me, I had to be away.

Something still kept bugging me while at WBC. I never wanted to be couped up in a Christian school for college. I spent my whole life in a Christian high school and felt prepared, as far as biblical knowledge is concerned, to be more offensive with my faith, and not so defensive. I didn’t want to spend forever being a light amongst other lights. I am too comfortable around other Christians to be effective in the way I want to be effective for Christ. On top of that, I started wanting to go into mathematics even more, which I obviously couldn’t do there.

So after one semester, I was packed up and moved to a local community college for core requirements and to start my mathematics. After deciding on math, I discovered a career path which I still today would like to one day achieve: Actuarial Science.

For the actuarially impaired among you, actuaries are those nasty people who make you pay all that insurance money. More specifically, they use probability and calculus to determine financial risk as far as investment and insurance are concerned (to put it in a nutshell). Why do I want to do it? I have absolutely no idea, don’t ask. Actuary work is one of the highest paying jobs in the world right now, while money is something I spend loosely, I try to give just as freely. I’m really not trying to toot my own horn, but I feel if I had that kind of money, I would be wise with the usage and distribution of it. Money has less value to me than most; although recent events in my life have made me look at things a little more seriously, as a lack of money has been a major cause for a lot of recent life changes. Anyway, actuaries also take a LONG time to certify, upwards ten years… so what to do in the meantime?

I met and started dating a wonderful girl around this time. In the last three years I can think of several specific purposes we played in each others lives over that time. I had to settle down and get out of the mindset of trying to impress girls. I spent my whole life trying to get girls to like me with little success, all of the sudden, I had a girlfriend and my flirtatious habits caused some grief. She was a major part in taking my mindset out of being a child and becoming an emotionally secure man.

After working through community college for about 2 years I transferred to a “real” college: St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Things were WAY different, the classes were so unbelievably harder, and I was not responsible enough to get my work done. From my transfers and their class rotations, I became a year behind. I was there for two semesters, commuting one semester (which killed my gas guzzling car) and managed to poke by on my grades. The second semester I moved out to St. Mary’s and had an absolutely horrid semester, I failed several classes, I went too long without work, and after finally getting a job, I couldn’t work enough to pay accumulating bills and debt, everything just went down the drain. I needed a wake-up call… Life isn’t quite so easy as I had had it for the first 21 years of my life.

So I moved back home and quit school for the time being, about 30 credits away from having a mathematics degree. I got myself a job at Mercantile Southern Maryland Bank full time and have been working to get my life back in order.

Things were finally coming together when about a month ago, my girlfriend and I split up. The day we broke up was undoubtedly the single worst day of my entire life. The love I had for this girl had to be equivalent to that one has for their spouse. It was during this time I realized that I never really trusted God to lead my life. I was aware of the fact that he had taken me each step, but never realized that he had put up stumbling blocks (most of them with myself as the source) in my way on purpose just so I couldn’t “get my ducks in a row.” I wanted to make sure everything was perfect… I was so sure we would be together forever…

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21 NASB)

I thought that I must have had it worse than anybody else on the planet… nothing could console me. My emotions would listen to no one. I was so stupid.

After talking with a very wise man I call “Dadoo,” I felt almost ashamed to be so upset. Every time I’m brought to the presence of the Lord I know everything will be ok, both in my mind, and my spirit. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30 NASB)

Yet, even in the peace of the presence of the Lord, My heart still fights against me with everything inside of it; hoping, praying, justifying, rationalizing everything I want to happen.

Today is Easter, and at church the spirit was there in a very physical way. I felt like I wanted to cry (and that’s something you’ll find about me, I’m VERY emotional) even before things started to happen. After singing a few song’s with the praise team two of my friends got up to sing for the offering. Every word pounded my very soul. The song spoke of God whispering to us in the midst of a storm. One line spoke of how one can just barely make out the Lord telling him that he’s still right there next to him, even in all the pain.

I lost it. I cried the entire song… I can’t even express what I felt, but I knew it was ok to cry, so I did.

I’m sure it’s not the last time I’m going to cry during this storm, but what I do know is that the Lord has very specific plans for my life, and that he’s shaping me in a very painful way at the moment. If I am compliant, and when I finally do what I’m meant to do, it will be the most satisfying thing I have ever experienced. The worst day of my life will be completely overshadowed by the Lords purpose. Just because the difficult days are the only ones I see right now, it doesn’t mean that the Lord isn’t good.

I have been abundantly blessed throughout my life. One day I hope to share my blessings with another forever. I don’t suspect my life will ever settle down; in fact, I fully expect to never know exactly the next step to take. For this reason, I may never marry unless the Lord brings someone to me who has the same calling of a constantly changing life and being forced to endure faith. “Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, That I not be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or That I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:8-9 NASB)

I was once told that faith and hope are inseparably linked. Faith looks back at where one has been, and the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord, and because of that faith, we can have hope for the future. The two are really the exact same thing, the only variable in the equation is ourselves in time. Every unexpected turn becomes faith for another future hope, and every source of faith began as a hope. One benefit us young ones have is to use the experience of our elders as a source of faith. I am blessed with elders around me who have gone through so much that it’s practically impossible not to learn something from it.

So that’s it, the cat’s out of the box… shoebox that is. I have begun my life as a blogger (*ugh* it still hurts to say that.)

//WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU FOR 28,193 DAMAGE//