Questions about "Stumbling Blocks"

A question for Christians: 

Since you've been a fully cognizant Christ-follower, has someone ever "tripped you up" with their words? Has someone ever said a thing that caused you to "stumble" in your walk? What thing was that? What did that look like?

Let's say your life was progressing happily, your faith had an upward trajectory, your hope was being strengthened, you were trusting God more and more each day with your life, worrying less and giving more of yourself to those around you… then, somebody says something and it throws you off. Maybe it sends you on a downward path, sets you back a few paces.

Has that happened? I want to know about it. I want to know who it was in relation to you, what they said and how you responded. It would be helpful to me.

Please leave your story (keeping people anonymous would be reasonable) in the comments section.

A question for non-Christians:

Since you've been a fully cognizant person, has something a Christian said ever caused you to doubt their faith? Has some comment or explanation turned you off to Christianity? 

Let's say at one point in your life you were open to believing in some sort of God, but somebody came along and said something and you became more closed-off than open. 

Who left that bad taste in your mouth? What did they say, and how did you respond? Have those words shaped your life and what you believe? If so, in what ways?

Please leave your story in the comment section. I think your story would be really helpful to me and a lot of people.

Thanks,

Matt

Four H's To Help Christians

I'm at a crossroads.

What I do next will define a good portion of my life for the next year or so. I have a choice to make, and deciding what to do is never easy.

As Christians, we're told that God has a plan for our lives. Sometimes the idea of this is comforting, and sometimes it's stressful. What's the plan? We know some basic instructions, like, "Love your neighbor as yourself," but who is my neighbor, and how do I do that? Unless you're an ancient Bible hero, you usually aren't told what the plan is, at least not specifically in plain speech.

When it comes to big decisions, deciding what direction to go from faith perspective can be difficult. Do I seek out that new job? Do I move to that new house? Do I go on that trip or reconnect with that person or go off birth control? What's the best plan, here?

I tend to live my life one project at a time, and when a project is done I often find myself in a state of limbo between what I've done and what I'm going to do next. Personality tests tell me I love change, so it's easy for me to keep my options open. I find myself open to new career paths and willing to see where any new rabbit trails lead. This can make the decision even harder.

Over the years I've made some good decisions and some bad ones, and I've always felt like there were certain characteristics that were common across all the good decisions I've made. Last night my owl brain was awake, and I thought of a clever name for these characteristics, as it all suddenly became crystal clear to me in the wee hours of the morning.

There are four principles that are true of every good path I've chosen to go down. I think these principles are also true of every good decision those ancient Bible heroes made thousands of years ago. 

When making decisions I've started to ask myself four questions, which I'll call for clever-catch-phrase sake, the Four H's:

Hard, Humble, Hungry and Human.

When faced with deciding what direction to go in, I ask myself if the direction is Hard, whether or not it requires me to be Humble, whether or not it requires me to be spiritually Hungry (to rely on God more than I usually do), and whether or not it's Human-oriented, as in humanitarian, i.e. will people benefit from it?

Let's break down the "Hard" principle, the one that says that God's calling is always challenging. 

God has never called me to do something easy, something that came naturally. Why? Because I already do those things. I don't need to be called to do them, because I already do them without thinking. I'm a natural at those things, therefore, no calling needed.

God likes to challenge and stretch me because He knows it's imperative to my growth. So I ask myself, Is it hard? Does it force me out of my comfort zone? Is it a difficult task? 

Generally speaking, the things that I've felt called to do contain a level of inconvenient difficulty that has stressed me out. This is true of every Bible character who encounters God;

God says to Moses, "Even though you have a speech impediment and are wanted for murder, go back to Egypt, speak to Pharoah, and free my people."

God says to Esther through Mordecai, "Even though you're came from rags to become the Queen living in a palace, risk your 'good' life to save my people."

God says to Abraham, "Leave everything you have and go to this foreign land and I will make your offspring my people and they will be blessed."

God always says, "Do something hard, take a risk, trust me, it'll be worth it."

This might be hard to hear, but chances are if it's easy and comes naturally, God is not calling you to do it.

The second "H" is Humble. A truth of every action God calls me to is that it takes a level of humility to complete. This means not puffing myself up, bragging about my own abilities and my own talents. It means humbling myself to the task before me. My natural proclivity is to do the thing that boosts my ego, that makes me proud of myself in relation to others. My default-mode is to viciously defend my self-worth and importance. So I ask, Will this humble me?

God has never called me to elevate myself over others because it's something I already naturally do, and I already know He calls me to do Hard things. The Hard thing is putting similar value on others as I do myself. Oh man, it's a really Hard thing to be Humble.

The best results have always occurred when I've lowered myself. It's in these times I realize that by putting others ahead of me, by excusing myself from the competition of life, God is pleased. Good things happen when God is pleased.

You need only to look at the life and death of Jesus to see how much God values humility. Everything He calls us to do contains some level of Humble.

The third "H" is Hungry. 

Will this decision make me more Hungry for spiritual connectedness to God and the people around me? Will it cause me to rely on my faith more? To be more prayerful? 

Hungry is connected to both Hard and Humble, because Hungry recognizes that hard things can't get done without God's blessing. Hungry causes us to want more of God in our lives. Every good thing I've ever done has caused me to pray a whole lot more than I usually do. The situation made me rely on God more. The Hardness of it made me more Humble, and both of those aspects made me more Hungry.

The fourth "H" is an important one, one that stands alone as a key principle to any choice God is calling you to make:

Does it help other Humans? 

Flash back to those paraphrases from the Hard category, where God is calling those ancient Bible heroes to do hard things. At the end of each statement, you'll see that it's always for the sake of people. God always says, "Do this hard thing to help people." God never calls you to do a hard thing that helps only yourself. Other lives are affected by our decisions.

Our spiritual lives are intended to be lived from the inside out, we are supposed to work on ourselves for the sole sake of, sorry for the cliche, "shining a light" to others. We are made to bless others. All throughout the Bible, God calls people to do Hard things so that other Humans can benefit.

So I ask myself, Does this allow God to use me to influence others for good? Could doing this help people? Or am I focusing inwardly because of fear? 

Basically, I need to know that my motivations for making a decision aren't selfish. I know that God cares for others, and anything He has ever called me to do has been to impact others through my work, presence and abilities. Humans are the most important thing to God, as displayed by the life and death of Jesus, and God will always call you to helping people.

I'm not saying that if you employ the tactic of the Four H's your decisions will be instantly easier to make. I'm not trying to cheapen something as nuanced and intricate as those big Pro-vs-Con life decisions, and I definitely don't want to simplify what is supposed to be difficult. Good decisions are hard to make. Life is complex and hard and it matters very much how you choose to live it. 

I simply wanted to share with you a tool that helps me sift through my options, and I wanted to encourage you that although the choice that requires more prayer, more humility, and more service to others is ridiculously Hard, I believe that you will live a better life by choosing it.

The Four H's have been on my mind a lot lately as I try to find my way through the murky limbo I'm in. I think it's good practice in these times to do an inventory on what I believe in, why I believe it, and why it matters.

This is not by any means a complete thought as I've only just fleshed it out in the last few hours. I don't mean to present it as an all-encompassing doctrine for choice-making, because I'm sure there are variables based on different situations, but I wanted to share my opinion in the hopes that it could help you guys make some decisions you are being faced with. 

The practice of writing it down really helps me to figure it out, and the knowledge that you might be reading along really helps me clarify what I believe, so thank you for that.


 

God and Laws

I hate American politics, but I think about them a lot. I just noticed that I have two blog posts related to politics that are unpublished. I think this is because politics are so petty and polarizing and do little to stimulate the type of thought and discussion that bares good fruit, so I'll write something I might feel is important, read it, realize it will only breed friction, and then file it away. 

However, this topic really intrigues me, and since it's more of a spiritual approach I'm hoping when I finish I'll have the inclination to hit "Publish Post."

Where is God in politics? How do you reconcile what you believe with any form of political activism? What would Jesus do?

I was sitting around with a group of friends last week and we asked ourselves these questions. 

One of my friends was hurt by how people have used politics to take Christian prayer out of schools, and also lobbied to ban the Ten Commandments from display on public property. She was sad that teachers could no longer teach Christian history, and she wondered what would come of all this. She was sincere. She only wished that kids would have the opportunity to learn about the love of Jesus. 

Some of my other friends spoke up about how Christianity is portrayed in politics. They didn't like the right-wing pundits who claimed Christianity. They seemed fake. We all agreed that we didn't like Christians being defined by being anti-gay and anti-abortion or pro-war. We agreed that Christians should stand for justice and peace, not persecution of any group, that we should never challenge or demean our enemies, we should love them. (Matthew 5:9, Psalm 82:3, Matthew 5:44, Luke 10:25-37).

So how do we do all that? How do we cultivate those ideals within our current political system, and in the face of such polarization?

This was a tough question. I think our natural reaction is to fight laws that seem to us as "Anti-Christian." We tend to (out of sincere concern) gravitate towards the idea that America will be damned if there isn't Bible reading in schools, prayer in Congress, and God in the Pledge of Allegiance. We're taught that our country is drifting farther and farther from the beliefs on which is was founded. The idea has been propagated that we used to be a Christian nation, but now we're drifting from the good graces of God. We're told by some that we're heading down the wrong path to destruction, and we must get politically active in order to turn our course back to God.

I have to tell you, I don't believe any of this. When was America a Christ-like nation? When we stole land from the Natives? Slaughtered men, women and children in cold blood? Used slavery and persecution to build our country? How about as early as the 1960's when racism was political POLICY (For more on this, read THIS book). Sure, our forefathers wrote God on things, but did that automatically make them Godly? And furthermore, does it even matter outside of perpetuating a political agenda that's impetus is millions in donations?

Let's go back to what started this whole America thing.

 

To sum it up, Puritans were facing persecution from the Catholic majority. Terrible things were happening. So they left to take religious refuge in the New World. To read more on Religious persecution that helped found America go here. 

When we read history, time and time again we learn this simple equation: Religion + Power = Persecution. Our forefathers knew this, that is why they believed very strongly in the separation of Church and State. You don't have to be persecuted to know this, you can just read about crusaders slaughtering "heathens" or conquistadors "converting" savages at sword-point. Power corrupts, it wants to control. Power wants to be God and to judge what is good and what isn't (Luke 6:37, Matthew 7:1-5).

There are people in this country who, in the face of such obvious truth to the contrary, would want history to repeat itself. Some people actually want a Christian majority so that they can legally ban homosexuality or whatever is maddening them this week. They literally want power in order to persecute people. That is scary. It's also anti-Jesus, which is even more scary considering the implications of who else might be behind this movement.

As far as Christians being more and more of a political minority, I'm in favor of it. True Christianity flourishes through extreme persecution.

Why are we so afraid of persecution? Do Christians forget how this whole thing started? After Jesus left Christians were being hunted from house to house, thrown in prison, beaten and stoned to death, hung, filleted alive by knives, burned to the stake, crucified, and their numbers dramatically INCREASED! You see the same thing happening in China over the last fifty years. If you ask me, I say go ahead and ban Christianity. At least then we'll know who the real ones are. I am not afraid of persecution, I welcome it. It'll separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. This whole thing about fighting for a "Christian Political Majority" flies totally in the face of what Jesus established with the early church.

Think about it. Jesus said He came as a "humble servant," to "Seek and to save that which was lost." He said things like "the last shall be first" and "blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth." How can you reconcile these words of Jesus with grasping for political power?: 

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." - Mark 9:35

The truth is, you can't.

Changing laws to coincide with morals doesn't change hearts, it only allows for persecution, violence, and hate. Unless of course they're changed for freedom or justice.

I think the place for Christianity in politics is not on the "moral-crusading" end, but on the justice end. Christian organizations like the International Justice Mission use global laws to free the persecuted and seek punishment for their captors. It's amazing the good that can come from people who take this verse literally:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. - James 1:27

How can anyone fight that?

Instead of Christianity being defined by the right-wing, anti-whatever vitriol, it'd be nice to have it be defined as loving, justice-seeking, poor-serving, and actually Jesus-following.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter.

For more on what Jesus thought about the Religious Political Majority in His day, read Matthew 23.

Human Knowledge

Scientists are funny. They're always throwing around numbers too big to fathom and spewing units of time too long to comprehend. They speak as if their meager calculations and estimates are fact; 450 million years this, 150 thousand light years that. How petty and insignificant is the dawn of man compared to the vast and timeless universe. Even the simplest cell is far beyond the limits of human ingenuity. A very basic yeast cell contains as many components as a Boeing 777. Even if we could fit a Boeing 777 into a microscopic cell, we could never convince it to replicate itself and multiply as all cells do. Yet people devote their lives in some fatalistic attempt to understand it all, and once they settle on their answers they quickly start to lobby for their beliefs. This peculiar condition is not found in any other living creature. It is inherently human.

The fact is we can scientifically prove very little of anything, yet we still search desperately for the absolutes. It's odd that in the face of such staggering confusion every human being longs to know ultimate truth. It is almost as if we have this ancient memory of a time when we understood the truth, but now there is just a void where it once was. It is as if we're all desperately trying to fill truths void with principles, morals, science, religion and meaning. We long for something we've never experienced, but for some reason our hearts still cry out to know these great mysteries. Unfortunately, human instinct counts for very little in human science.

To me, at least cerebrally, the human need for truth and justice could be used as evidence of some inkling of the existence of ultimate truth (and with ultimate anything, there is an ultimate source). Could the source of our desires be from an ultimate designer? Some bearer of truth seeding our lives with a longing to know "it"? Would that be too far off base for any mainstream scientists to imagine? I may have limited scientific knowledge, but to me the idea that our universe was created by an intelligent force seems as reasonable an occurrence as anything that happens on the molecular level. With all we do not know, why is it so hard for the science community to theorize about the possibility of intelligent design? Is it because the whole idea would put Darwinian science books out of date? Possibly. Personally, the belief that this majestic, infinite, intricate, artful and completely functioning universe is a fluke accident requires much more faith, and seems much less probable than the belief in the existence of a creator. Considering that 99% of the species that have lived on our own tiny planet remain undiscovered, who are we to rule out any theories of things unseen? Are we not to trust our instincts, our notions or our convictions? Are we only to rely on the sense of sight? Even so, if you look around you'll find confusing and fascinating things that can only truly be explained with intelligent design. Modern science refers to this idea as a costly cop-out and one that would hinder the industry. It flies in the face of conventional science. It might ruin the common requirement for hard evidence in any field (when in reality certain theories are taken quite simply as fact on a regular basis already). I refer to the idea of a creator as a peaceful submission to a much more probable explanation based on both things seen and felt. On top of the hard evidence within creation, shouldn't we also hypothesize using our instincts and our nature? I suppose the evidence within ones life will never count for much in a textbook, but to me "the proof is in the pudding," so to speak. Darwin's evolution just doesn't answer enough questions, not even for science.

Why else do we cling so desperately to our metaphysical principles? Why else do we care? We all want to know the truth, and when we think we find it through science or faith or both, we tend to parade it around. Deep down we know that every human longs for it. We all want validation. We want the majority to agree with us so we can have assurance that what we believe is true. In this sense, everyone develops a sort of religion. Even atheists will try to convert and indoctrinate followers, sometimes more diligently than any church. I think our need for validation is based out of the fear that perhaps we're wrong. As much as we like to give lip service to the idea of everyone being right in their own way, there is something in our nature that screams, "There is only one truth and many lies!" It seems burned into our genetics. Once we've claimed the "truth" we try to fix everyone else's "lies." Maybe there is truth. Maybe there is a piece missing that perfectly fits that void in your life. I say maybe, but for me it is fact.

Some of you know my back story. I had a real life-changing experience when I felt the love of Jesus. This had nothing to do with stacking up evidence or studying the possibilities of Jesus or God. I saw evidence in my life and my heart. I watched as I became someone completely unlike myself overnight (this is not to say I am no longer a pain in the ass, its just to say that now I know when and why I am being one). I changed very thoroughly from my encounter, and that cannot be explained by science in any way. So naturally, I'm quicker than your average person to believe in the unseen world. However, I've never been a natural at faith, so for my minds sake I've done plenty of scientific research on the matter. The truth is you don't have to be an idiot to believe in God. In fact many of the worlds most famous scientists believed in the possibility of God, including Newton, Galileo and Einstein. On the contrary, I would question the creativity, objectivity and thoroughness of anyone who completely rejects the idea of a higher power. Most of all, I would question their motives.

Music and God

Writing music has always been a strange process for me. People always ask me what it looks like; how does one get from point A to point B with a song? When I think about how to answer that question, I'm hit with the only word that seems suitable... Magic.

I don't say that to puff myself up in some pompous way, as if I'm a magician and you'll never know my secret. I also don't assume that you think there is anything 'magical' about the songs that I write. To be honest, they wear very quickly on me, and I am probably the most tireless critic of them. The truth is I've been writing songs for over a decade and I still have no idea how it works. I'm completely baffled by the process altogether. It can happen anywhere and at anytime. I can be doing anything and something will hit me: a phrase, a rhythmic rhyme, a melody, a guitar part, a drum beat, a topic. When it hits me, if I'm wise, I write it down, sing it into my phone or try to play it. I've learned that if I put it off, even for five minutes, the inspiration will have passed and I'll have forgotten it. As I sit here I can recall countless occasions of losing songs altogether. Sometimes it happens like this: While lying awake in my bed I write an entire song in my head, but being too lazy to lean over and type it into my phone or hum it into the speaker, I drift off to sleep. Convinced the idea is sheer genius and that there is no doubt I will remember it, I resolve to work it out first thing in the morning. In the morning I always awake a blank slate, completely oblivious that any inspiration happened the night prior (I've also lost some great comedy routines this way). Sometimes I'll go about my day, then midway through remember that I had an idea and kick myself for not working it out then and there. At that point it's completely gone and I'll never get it back. So in this way I think that music for the most part, at least in the beginning stages, is not really from me in the well-thought-out-planned sort of way. And if it is from me, it's from a part of me I'm not too familiar with and don't connect with very often. The only thing I really know about song writing is that I love it.

Recently I've learned to respect the inspiration more. This, however, has caused me some social problems. The other day, while I was playing my guitar on the couch, I was hit with a clever lead part (or what I assumed was a clever lead part, in some circles it's probably cliche). I went to my room hoping to record it for some future endeavor. As I sat down at my computer to do so, the entire song flooded my brain. It's an odd thing when this happens. I can hear every instrument in my head working together, and the entire structure of the song is born. At that point I'm forced to either follow it and work it out, or to lose it forever. I quickly started to sort out the rush of ideas, identifying the lead part as the pre-chorus and writing the verse to precede it. I was working on the chorus when Kristie walked in to ask me a few questions about our plans for later on that night. Saturday night probably isn't the best time to write songs, but as I mentioned before I am not in total control of when they choose to happen. I looked up at her with a blank stare, headphones on, lyrics and melodies swirling around in my mind, none of them written down. I had the choice to try to explain myself and lose those thoughts, or be blunt and keep working. "I'm busy, I don't know," I said, and as soon as I said it I realized that I wasn't going to be able to keep working. It was clear she wasn't too happy with that answer, so I proceeded to explain myself. It took a few minutes. At that point, I'd lost most of the more short-term thoughts. Kristie eventually went off to the store to grab something, and I was forced to start over. The good news is I got back on track and finished the song, the bad news is I was a jerk, and in the process of being one I might have lost some good ideas.

It can be easy for me to take full credit for the songs that I write. If somebody loves a song, it makes me feel good, like I've done something fantastic for that person. I especially like it when other musicians appreciate songs that I write, because it makes me feel like an esteemed colleague, one who is respected in my field and among my peers. I know it sounds like I'm being a bit facetious, but I think we all desperately want to be noticed as something special. The thing that keeps me humble is the fear that the songs might stop coming. I truthfully don't know where they come from, and sometimes they can vacate my mind for months on end. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but I worry that someday if I keep taking credit for them, the true source might choose to cut me off entirely. I am a firm believer in God, and I do think that He has blessed me with certain talents in order to serve others... I think this has something to do with where these songs come from, and it plays directly into the relationship between music and God. I don't want this to sound arrogant, like God has ordained me with these glorious talents of song and I have from hence been sent-forth as a missionary to bless the world sonically. That's not really what I think. I think that I've been given a set of tools, and I'm supposed to use those tools for good. Not to elevate myself or to take all the credit I 'deserve,' but to share my gifts with others. Plus deep down I know I'm really not as talented a musician as I should be, and if these songs stop coming I'm screwed.

Music and God are a lot alike to me. For both I spend a lot of time waiting, listening, hoping to be moved in some way. Both are very mysterious. God, very much like music, tends to pop up whenever He wants to share something profound, and then He leaves the second He loses my attention. I know He doesn't really leave, but you know what I mean. Music can speak to your soul and can evoke any emotion, just like God. Music strikes a chord sometimes, and then other times for whatever reason it doesn't. Sometimes, in a very God-like fashion, Music can change your perspective, and even your life. But eventually the goosebumps wear off. When the inspiration leaves, I am left to fill in the blanks. Just like a song; I hear the verse, respond with the chorus, then write the bridge. When God's inspiration leaves, I think it's human nature to put in place boundaries and rules in an attempt to remember Him. Just like when Bono says, "Religion to me is almost like when God leaves - and people devise a set of rules to fill the space." It's really just a response to the inspiration, to the interaction with God. Unfortunately, it can end up so opposite of what God wanted that it sounds blasphemous to say He inspired it in the first place. Religion is the bridge, sometimes it can let the song down, and sometimes it can give it a lift. A good bridge is always the best part of any song, because it takes what you've heard in the verse and chorus, and adorns it with deeper meaning. It takes it to the next level.

Mother Theresa wrote a very good 'bridge.' Out of conviction and faith she chose to act. She chose to spend a lifetime tending to the needs of the poor, sick and dying in the streets of Kolkata. Because of that, onlookers valued her faith and her God. Because of her well written 'bridge,' her verse and chorus were emblazoned with incredible meaning and value. Her Inspiration, her God, received the credit. She often said, "I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." Her love letter, her 'bridge,' will never be forgotten.

One thing we learn from reading the Old Testament is that God likes songs. In Psalm 40:3, King David writes, "He (the Lord) put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God." David is saying that God gave him a song. In fact, the idea that God gives songs to people is widely stated throughout the Bible, and its usually referring to a song of praise. Much of the Psalms are songs of praise or lament. Some are angry, some are joyous. All of them are to God. For some reason, the early authors thought that a song was a good way to communicate with God. For thousands of years the Psalms have been a pleasure to read, rich with poetry and metaphors in great song-like fashion. In the 17th and 18th century, hymn-writers like Isaac Watts, John Newton, and Charles Wesley turned Psalms into hymns. John Newton, of course, is remembered for writing his famous original Psalm entitled "Amazing Grace." So the tradition is there, and for years and years songs have been written for God with the belief that they were God-inspired. In fact, there are hundreds of verses indicating vocal and instrumental music in the Bible. Many references are even non-religious and were for merriment or bereavement (weddings, feasts, funerals, etc.) Back in Bible times they loved their music, and they knew how to party, but thats for another post.

So the relationship between God and music is not a new thing. People thought about this long before my Scottish and English ancestors were alive. Apparently music, even to the ancients who lacked refined instruments or PA systems, was quite a spiritual thing. With songs, I used to think you just sat down with an idea and worked it out. If you were good, you'd end up with a good song, but the more songs I write, the more I realize that the process is intricate and tough to replicate. It's hard to explain. Like faith, it sometimes lacks any practical explanation. I can tell you the characteristics of a good song, I can point you in the direction of some good songs, but I have no idea how to make them come about. I suppose it's quite similar to my faith in God. I know what He looks like when lived out through people, I know what He feels like, but I can't recreate Him. Martin Luther once said, "We are all mere beggars telling other beggars where to find the bread.” I can point people to the bread, but I can't make the bread happen. I think sometimes it's the same with music, I feel like a beggar just waiting for my next meal.

What I Believe

People always ask me what I believe about God. I think this is because they either want someone to agree with them and affirm their beliefs, or that they are genuinely interested in where my inspiration comes from. A lot of what I believe comes out in my music, so I think this makes people interested to hear an explanation. It's hard to explain beliefs, especially when they are spiritual, because you can rarely give a reason tangible enough for a skeptical person to understand. I know this because I am a skeptical person. I have come to the realization, however, that I do not know everything, that things beyond my understanding are possible, and that I should continue to search for truth regardless of how hard it is to find. Basically, I've followed my heart. You might read that and extract that I am a fool, but the truth is that my mind lines up with my heart. On behalf of my mind I have searched out much of the available evidence for and against what my heart believes. In summation, the evidence for my belief outweighs any natural doubts against it.

I believe in the God of The Bible. He is the only thing that makes sense to me. I am not a theologian or an apologetics professor or an investigative reporter. Here are some people who are, and they happen to have written some really good books about it:

Dr. Gregory A. Boyd - Letters From A Skeptic

This is a written back-and-forth conversation via mail between an apologetics professor with many degrees and his extremely intelligent, agnostic father. If you are a logical person, and you like "if-then" statements, this book is for you. If you are not, this book is still for you.

C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity 

Known mostly for his children's book series Narnia, former atheist C.S. Lewis was in my opinion one of the deepest thinkers of the last century. He was a respected theologian and writer at Oxford University. If you like a classic British tone jam-packed with articulated meaning, this is the book for you.

Lee Strobel - A Case For Christ 

Lee Strobel was an investigative journalist and legal editor at The Chicago Tribune. When his wife became a christian he set out to prove her wrong. His findings proved her right, and in the end he became a christian himself based on the evidence he uncovered.

The Bible

While abused when in the wrong hands, it's message is simply Love. The Old Testament is a love story of a God who refuses to give up on His people, even when they turn their back on him with greed, selfishness and sin. The Gospels continue that love story with Jesus who comes to finally clear the tarnished name of people so that they could be in community with God. If you have problems with christians, it is probably because they weren't being anything like Jesus. If you want proof, read the four biographies of Jesus' life, written by some of the folks who followed him around. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They cover some of the same happenings from different perspectives, and some different happenings as well.

If you aren't a book person, and you want to hear an argument for theism that is intelligent and meaningful, you should listen to former atheist Ravi Zacharias' sermon entitled "Why I'm Not an Athiest." You can find it anywhere on the internet. I just saw a version on YouTube.

The above referenced sources are for the purpose of making what I am about to say below more understandable to the average agnostic. This is not to assume you are dense, but if you do not understand the basic principles of what I believe, it might be hard to see where I'm coming from.

If you are a christian, and you want to know what sort of doctrines I subscribe to, I should tell you that I have an indifference for religion and rules, and I do not subscribe to any denomination. The frequently controversial Bono once said, 

"I have this hunger in me...every where I look; I see evidence of the Creator. But I don't see it as a religion, which has cut my people in two. I don't see Jesus Christ as being any part of a religion. Religion to me is almost what like when God leaves—and people devise a set of rules to fill the space." 

For the most part I agree with that.

For Christians who would like to know where I stand as far as acting out my faith, or who wish to further investigate what a modern Christian might aspire to be, the books below are about what I believe that looks like in Western Society. On top of that, they're both very entertaining and thought-provoking reads.

Donald Miller - Blue Like Jazz

Shane Claiborne - The Irresistible Revolution

The Bible mentions it plenty, but the sad thing is people rarely hear this today: God is Love. When people see christians, they usually see God is judgement, God is anger, but they fail to see the most important thing that He is; Love. Christians believe that Jesus was the personification of God in the flesh. The essence of God lived out through a man. Jesus was characterized by Love. Every step he took was out of Love. When Jesus was asked in Matthew 22 by a religious expert what the most important commandment was, Jesus replied: 

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Here were a few very religious folks trying to trap Jesus with contradictory questions, and he just simplifies all the law of the prophets, the law that they strictly follow, into the sole commandment of Love. I can imagine it's because they didn't have much love for their neighbors. Jesus even goes on to say in Matthew 23:27 (Message):

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean." 

These religious folk did everything right, they tithed down to a tenth of their spices! They were incredible keepers of the laws and rules of their religion, but here Jesus says they were dead inside because they lacked love. It sounds to me like Jesus was pretty anti-religion, and pro-love. No wonder peace-loving hippies grow out their beards and wear sandals.

1 John 4:8 says, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." That is a pretty convicting statement for those who wear the name of Christ but refuse to love. 

A while ago I received a chain letter in my email inbox. It was list of different historical figures who had apparently mocked God in some way, and then, to all appearances they had subsequently met their untimely deaths. The point of the email was to strike fear and reverence in the hearts of the reader. Its reference was Galatians 6:7, which reads: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

This bothered me. For some reason, some christians tend to focus on the wrath of God. Maybe it's because we all want justice... we want people who do wrong to experience the wrath of God so justice will be served. I think also, sadistically, we might like to see others get knocked off their high-horse. But when christians (I know from my own experience) start saying, "God is like this and like that, and when you do this, God will do this," it can lead to a sense of insulated security. It all sounds very tempting and simple and understandable. But I think these stories of the wrath of God inflicted on sinners can lead to a sense of smugness, at least in myself, so I am quick to guard my heart against it. Also, to say that God is a formulaic God, that if you do this, He does that, is very against the nature of God. Granted, He does promise some things to us, but to say that He follows a formula that we can understand, actually makes Him seem more human and less fearful. The thing that makes me fear God is the idea that an infinite, all knowing, all powerful and dangerous being is out there and who knows what He has planned next. Just like C.S. Lewis says, "He's not safe, but he is good." To say that God follows this cause and effect formula really puts Him in a box in my head. It actually takes away the REAL fear, the fear that is deeper than just the fear of untimely death due to my ever failing actions and words.

So when did Jesus show wrath? To religious people! People who represented His Father terribly by passing judgement on the poor sinners Jesus came to save. That is what we know about God; how he feels about these hypocrites who are like  "white washed tombs," as Jesus said. Also, when I read Galatians 6:7 in the context that Paul was writing it, I find that he was addressing a christian church, not gays or hippies or fascist leaders or pagans, but actual christian people who might have the propensity to mock God or use Him for their own purposes.

The reap what you sow argument? I see how folks can take that out of context, but when you look at Jesus, he has reaped it all on himself! 

Isaiah 53:6 says, 

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."

In 1 Timothy 1:15, the Apostle Paul, a servant of God very humbly says, 

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst."

Isn't that amazing? One of the major fathers of the church not only admits his own faults, but says he is the worst! How many christians today would admit that? What's more amazing is that we have sowed and continue to sow sin in its various forms, and all Jesus sees is a paid debt. I believe there are physical and real consequences for our actions like distance from God, lack of hope and direction, suffering relationships, addiction and emptiness. But to say that if somebody says something blasphemous, especially somebody who is spiritually lost and has never met Jesus, to say that they will reap the wrath of God seems very careless. To say that God (the God of grace and love and forgiveness for sinners) has made an example of that person by killing them off... it just sounds a bit narrow, a bit presumptuous, and a bit ignorant (if I may say so in the humblest of tones).

When we look at Jesus, we don't see someone who killed off the people who mocked Him and even beat him, we see someone who saw the lostness in their faces and said these beautiful words: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

That is what we know about God. We know that no matter how much wrong a person does, God still wants to forgive. And that is why I think its important to focus on His Grace rather than His Wrath. His Wrath is always a last resort, and His Grace is always sufficient.

In fact, many of the passages of judgement in the New Testament are reserved for religious leadership. James 3:1 says "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." That's a scary thought for those church leaders who have abused their positions. Not only will they answer for their sin, but they will answer more harshly.

I fear that I may have flirted to much with a tangent here. The topic, is "What I Believe," and perhaps I have only given you a small portion of that. Thinking about it now, it seems absurd for me to assume that I could place all of what I believe in one post. The rest, I suppose, could be for another post on another day. 

The intent of this post was not to debate doctrine or Biblical truth, but to look back on the understanding that I've acquired, to filter that into comprehensible words, and to hopefully inspire a dialogue about the foundations of spiritual belief.