Baptism: It should be more than just water

The church I visited today had a baptismal ceremony.

And as I've thought for a very long time now about the sacrament and is often the case, it was WAY too brief.

It was three people being baptised (I prefer that word with a lovely "s" rather than a jagged "z") and the entire ceremony lasted less than a minute and a half.

Were I a stranger to seeing such things... and there are MANY for whom the act of baptism WOULD be an alien spectacle... I would be absolutely bewildered at the brevity of so mystifying a ritual.  Clearly, some context is in order.  WHY would one subject himself or herself to being immersed in a vessel of water, before a cloud of witnesses?

I think we are depriving ourselves as the body of Christ when we reduce baptism to so few fleeting moments.

A baptism should be much more than a quick dunking in the baptistery (or the "cow trough" as it resembled at this particular congregation).  It should be a time of sharing with the spiritual family one is joining about what Christ has done in one's life to bring him or her to that moment.  It should be preceded by a minute or so of testimony by the candidate himself or herself, in their own words, expressing faith and gratitude and hope and... well, whatever it is that God might place on their heart to say.  

I am not alone in believing this.  Many churches in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia give each of their candidates for baptism several moments to address the congregation and speak of what God has done to bring them to have faith in Him, before being baptised.  It is a beautiful prelude to the act of baptism itself.

But in America the vast majority of the time, we don't do that.  Everything that God means to us comes down to a baptismal candidate merely muttering the word "yes" when asked if he or she is saved.  Maybe that suffices for some people and it's okay if it is.  But there are others who might have more they are led to say, and they are not afforded the opportunity to do that at the time when it would be most meaningful and appreciated.

Baptism in American churches has become like seemingly everything else in this land: fast and now.  And the body of Christ deprives itself of some nourishment when we treat this sacred act of obedience to God so.  It should be one of the common cords that bind us to one another and together, to the Lord we are pledging to serve as His bride.

That loses something precious when we reduce baptism to a quick plunge in the tank, without at least a few moments of testimony and gratitude for the body of believers to appreciate what God has done in the person's life... and to also be reminded to be thankful for their own salvation.

When I was in college at Elon, I attended a weekly worship service on campus.  It was a ministry of a nearby congregation.  There was a time of sharing and testimony around the beginning of each service.  A few moments of praise reports and prayer requests.  That was a very special time of worship, of drawing closer to Gods and each other.  I know that's not feasible for a larger congregation to manage during a single service (praise reports are often perhaps better suited for small groups), but testimony such as that edifies and encourages us as Christians.  It makes the act of worship something that more thoroughly fertilizes our faith, instead of simply showing up for an hour each week in the church sanctuary.

I can think of no better time of such sharing than those first few moments when one is about to scripturally become a vibrant and active member of the body of Christ on this earth.

It's NOT simply about joining a local body of believers.  Baptism is the ceremony that formally connects us to two millennia of believers, as well as to all of those who will come after us.

That merits more than a momentary getting oneself wet and nothing more than that.

Just something I'm feeling led to share this afternoon, for consideration by my brothers and sisters in Christ.

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A meditation upon Matthew 7:7

Every so often Matthew 7:7 comes to mind.  The verse reads (from the New International Version):

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

 

 It comes to the fore of my thoughts when I think about my own salvation journey.  How it progressed from being a person very angry and bitter toward God, to realizing that He could not have been responsible for what happened to me, to appreciating His beautiful design of the universe, to believing that I could not possibly be reconciled with Him... on until I finally allowed him into my life as my Lord and Savior.

 

(Some people still don't think of my life in terms like that. I suppose they will always think of me as an "atheist" even though I never truly did not believe in God.  They want me to be what THEY expect me to be spiritually.  I guess that's on them.  I know where I stand with God, and it depends on no other person.)

 

I very much appreciate Matthew 7:7.  It could almost be my life verse, if I needed one.  But for the past several years I've pondered it a bit more.  And I've come to also appreciate the promise it holds.  One that I believe is of great import to us as believers.

 

"Seek and you will find."  To me those five words are a PROMISE.  That whoever is looking for God is going to find Him.  That's irrespective of "our" expectations.  We are told in scripture that there are some who will not believe that they served Christ when they did good for others... but God knows their hearts.  He knows when they were and even now are right in spirit and aligned with His will.

 

We can know when we ourselves have found His grace.  We should trust others that they also have His mercy.  But all too often we have no idea whatsoever how far along a person is in his or her own journey, or even if it's begun at all.

 

This verse tells me that we should trust God and His perfect will, that all who seek Him WILL find Him.  At the same time, we should orient ourselves toward His will that much more, so that His light and love shines in our own lives.  That might be the only witness for Christ that some, maybe many, will ever see.  Some will see the relationship with God that they have been looking for.  Others who don't know what exactly what they are looking for WILL recognize it and want the truth of Him.  They WILL find that. God has promised it.

 

We should live so that we have something pure and holy that cannot be evaded and ignored.  So that others might see that, and want it in their own lives.

 

God made us as believers to be a big reason why people seek Him in the first place.  We should embrace that role He has appointed for us.

(Image from Bible.com)

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God and mental illness: Why won't He heal my mind?

Obviously the notion entered my mind that maybe this could be an installment of the Being Bipolar series (which there may be much more material for coming soon).  But Being Bipolar is more about the disease itself, and is intended to be a resource for those looking for insight and information from someone who lives with that condition.

What I'm sharing now, on the other hand, has less to do with that aspect of my life than it does with others.  Although mental illness is certainly the precipitant.

It was twenty-four years ago this month that the symptoms of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, first began to manifest themselves in me.  At first it was wildly intoxicating, all the boundless energy and creativity that came seemingly out of nowhere.  I was still looking for a job post-college and failing in that but other opportunities were coming to the fore (like my time at Star Wars website TheForce.net, which gets a bit of interesting light shined upon it in the book I'm currently writing).  Long story short, I was bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm and optimism and sheer drive.  That those seemed to be peppered with moments of despair - like the horrible night that winter when I stripped off all my clothes and tried to freeze myself to death during a snowstorm with temperatures in the single digits - were inconsequential to how inflamed my uttermost being had become.

By early spring however, it was increasingly obvious that something was very, very wrong with me.

That was almost a quarter century ago.  But it seems like only yesterday.  In one way or another bipolar disorder has been in the background of everything that I have attempted or somehow accomplished despite the condition.  It has factored into my relationships (one of which ended in divorce), in my career history, in my choice to leave my old hometown... there has not been a single aspect not impacted by manic depression.

And all along, there has been one question that has been most on my mind: Why did God let this happen to me?

Two and a half decades later, I'm no closer to understanding the reason than I ever was.  But there has been a modicum of comfort to be drawn from scripture.  Second Corinthians 12:9 has the apostle Paul sharing with us that God told him "'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"  Or as my Uncle Nub once told me: "Maybe God let you have it because He knew you could take it."

The verse continues: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."  Which dovetails well, I think, with Romans 8:28, a verse that a colleague quoted to me yesterday:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

It has taken many years to come to this place, where I am no longer angry at God for allowing mental illness - something that at various times I have described as a "hell" - to strike me.  I better understand now that this is still a fallen world, and not all the medication and counseling remotely possible is going to change that.  I believe that God is the master Healer, and that there is no disease which is not without His power to alleviate.

But even so, disease happens.  It can occur within anyone, with all its nefarious varieties.  I suppose that I should consider myself blessed.  In two months I turn fifty and at my last medical examination the doctor told me that I've the health of someone in his early thirties.  Obviously God has let my physical well-being be good.  That is more than a lot of guys in my demographics get to have.  The only real physical malady I have is anemia, something that prevents me from being a blood donor anymore.  Perhaps sooner than later we'll get to the bottom of what's causing it, because I hate being out of the running with my friends who contribute blood.  But I digress...

With time has come understanding, and I hope a little wisdom.  And it has also brought with it an appreciation for my condition.  Had the economy not taken such a turn downward I might still be enjoying a career as a full-time peer support specialist with the state's department of mental health.  That is a job you literally must be crazy to have, I often tell those who don't know what peer support entails.  I was someone who made use of experiences and intensive training toward helping other people, who also have mental illness, and letting them have a chance at full and meaningful lives.  It was the most personally rewarding work that I have ever done and I would be doing it forever if that had been possible.  I got to be of assistance to a lot of good people.  Some of whom I still keep in touch with, just letting them know I still care about them.

Some people who God has placed in my path at times, have been close to giving it all up.  Have gotten too close to the line separating want-to-live from I-want-to-die.  I've been there too, more times than I can possibly count.  And ironically I got to be the one who convinced them that their lives are worth living.  I got to be someone who saw how precious their existences are, when they could not see it themselves.

It's possible that a lot of people wouldn't be with us still today, had it not been for God letting me have a mental illness that put me in their place first.  But I don't say that to boast.  God can be glorified in even our worst weaknesses.  If some are still alive today, that's His doing and not mine.  I'm just the instrument He chose to use.

And I can and will be thankful for that honor.

I guess the catalyst for this post is that, recently, I did something rather foolhardy and potentially very dangerous.  I attempted to move out of the way of God from healing me.  Or in other words: I tried to be made whole by faith only.

And so it is that I went a few days without my medication.

There wasn't any one agency that led me to attempt such a thing.  At various times across the decades I've earnestly wondered if my faith in God was not enough: that maybe He would heal me if only I had more trust in Him.

I went off the meds and instead I threw myself into prayer and fasting.  I turned toward immersing myself in scripture.  I asked for prayers from others: something which has become a regular occurrence for me and indeed I do not believe that I would be here today were it not for prayers from people dear to me.  I covet prayer now.  Which is another irony, since once upon a time I would have likely laughed at such a notion.

I tried relying entirely on having faith in God, that He would deliver my mind from the torment of mental illness.

And in the end, He did not do that.

After two days being without the meds my thoughts began racing out of control, again.  But I tried to endure.  Sought to increase my faith.  I want to think that my faith in Him is strong enough that it weathered the torture without ceasing to trust Him completely.

I went as far as could be tolerated before going back on the meds.  Blessed relief arrived a few hours later.

So, once again, God did not heal me from bipolar disorder.

Or, maybe He did.  Maybe He still is.

We are told that Luke, the writer of the eponymous gospel as well as the Book of Acts, was a physician.  Doubtless he of all people understood the wondrous qualities of human health and self-care.  I don't know what medications were available circa 60 A.D., apart from a form of aspirin known to the ancient Greeks.  But Luke was in all likelihood well versed in their array and uses.  God gave Luke a capable mind and adept hands to be a healer.  Perhaps God was not dealing out divine intervention toward the healing of those in Luke's care, but He certainly was the ultimate Author of betterment and recuperation.

I have to believe that God gave us a beautiful thing in medical science.  Something that can not so much replace God's place in healing as it does complement it.  In the employ of those dedicated and devoted to the healing arts, medicine is by its very existence a miracle of God.  In its purest form medicine is a thing wholly given over to the betterment of life.

I can't possibly contend that medical science is something God would not want us to make the most of, if it means having better and more purposeful life.

What about when medical science fails?  I have friends who in recent weeks have each lost a loved one to disease.  Is that a judgment against medicine when it could not prevent their respective passing?  No, it is not.  As I said before, it is a fallen world.  Injury and illness have been a part of that imperfection for a very long time and barring God's intervention that doesn't look to change anytime soon.  Nothing is guaranteed.  We can only trust in God and His will, that things are going to work out for the best in the end.  And that's the absolutely best answer that I can give.  But I've seen His will work out well before.  I have to believe that His will, will manifest itself as something that gives Him the glory and proves to be of benefit to us.  God operates on a vaster scale of time than we can comprehend.  And even the failures of the best of our schemes will serve to honor Him, in the end.

Personally, I believe that this lifetime isn't all that we get.  There is more past that.  What form that takes is up to the person living it.  God knows who are His.  For the one who loves God, this life and its afflictions are not the end.  There is something better waiting for us still.  I dream of having a mind that isn't plagued by mania or depression or sometimes both at once.  That is coming, in the fullness of His time.  And that is a great comfort.

I'm not going to willingly go off the medications again.  I've tried trusting God to take my condition away from me.  For whatever reason, He has not done that.  But He has provided knowledge and wisdom and tools that can make the condition much more better manageable than it would be without those things.  Here I am on the cusp of fifty, and with each passing day I feel more like what it is to not have a mind turned against itself.  I feel younger today than I ever have, and it's because of what God has provided many scientists, researchers, and engineers with over the course of the centuries and especially the past several decades.

But of course, it never hurts to pray too.

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God and me: How I found my faith again

I wish that I could tell you, faithful readers (all two of you) that my spiritual life is one that has been a beautiful one.  A life that has somehow escaped all trouble and heartbreak.  This month is the twenty-seventh anniversary of my first coming to having faith in Christ.  And you would think that all of that time would have resulted in... well, something beyond losing that faith and having to go through agony over and over again.

Yeah, you might think that.  And you would be horribly wrong.

I well remember the first ten days or so after my salvation.  The joy that I felt, at having confronted something that had been holding me back and beating that (or so I thought at the time).  And then it was like I plunged headlong into darkness that I still have a hard time believing is really there, waiting to swallow us whole.

Nobody told me that the Christian life is going to be like this.  If they had, I might have seriously reconsidered whether this was the life for me.  Thankfully, God put really amazing people into my sphere of things, who counseled me and encouraged me and discipled me.  I have not forgotten them, though it seems the years have taken their toll on some things.  But I digress.

To channel toward brevity, I will sum it up thusly: my spiritual life has been one disaster after another.

Being attacked spiritually (there is no other way to put it).  Then the manic depression that arose a few months after graduating from college.  The destroyed marriage.  The failure to have any sense of life worth living, losing my parents and then losing another relationship that I had hopes for... all of these things and more took their toll.  To be honest I don't know why I've stuck with the label of being a "Christian".

Identity means something to me.  If I am something then I can say that I am.  If I'm not, I will readily deny that is part of me.  "Christian" is something that for whatever reason I was reluctant to let go of.  It did identify me, even if I failed in my part to identify with it.

So let me sum up, again: this past year has been a very difficult one for me.  I had to leave a job that I loved dearly because of how bad the economy has sucked away at my resources.  I went to work at another job, one that paid immensely more.  That however lasted a week and a half: medication I take made it extremely difficult to have fine finger movement at a fast pace (yeah, even though I type at about 60-70 words a minute).  From there I was employed for two months at a manufacturing plant and that job I lost because of reasons that, well, there was an out-of-court settlement that I'm legally bound to not go into.  Then came the substitute teaching job that lasted all of two days, after I was accused of teaching chemistry students how to make high explosives.  I then found work at a supermarket.  After THAT I found work again, this time for three days (let's just say that my nervousness about the environment got the better of me).

So that's, what... five jobs I've had in the span of twelve months?

Then there were situations that arose during this time.  The worst has been a few weeks ago when Tammy, my miniature dachshund, hurt her back.  She required veterinary care and medication.  She's also been firmly instructed to NOT jump up and down from furniture anymore (an instruction I am trying hard to enforce).  Thankfully she is soon going to have a set of ramps tailor-made to her specifications that will let her climb up and down from the sofa and bed.

Oh, there were resources to draw from.  There was an inheritance I got from my late aunt's estate.  And the settlement.  But otherwise I have been clinging by my fingernails, trying to hold on.  And had it not been for God sending some very precious friends to assist, Tammy and I would likely not have a roof over our heads and food to eat.

Factor in that my mental health has had its ups and down throughout this time.  I'm not having the worst of the depressive or manic episodes, thankfully.  But they still come unbidden when I need them the least.  This past weekend, I went through a minor depressive episode.  It manifested itself in a number of ways.  Here it is Monday morning and I'm feeling much better.

I guess all this is a roundabout way of saying something that I've heard before in my life, but in the past few weeks and months have discovered its veracity first-hand: you don't know how much you really have, until you have nothing.

I am probably the most destitute person in my particular sphere of friends.  Actually, I know that I am.  And yet right now I feel more blessed and THANKFUL than I ever have in my entire life.  I do have amazing friends.  I have Tammy.  There is shelter.  There is food and there is gas (though I am keeping my driving about to a bare minimum).  There is always the promise of new and maybe even better employment...

 And most of all, I have my faith again.

And I hope and pray and even truly believe that it will stick with me this time.

The past few weeks, I've found that I'm not questioning God anymore, or at least as much.  I've seen Him provide for our needs way too much than to doubt Him.  Have felt a peace that I have not known since those very earliest days of being a Christian.

I'm not just saying that.  A lot of my friends have noticed it, too.

What changed?  Did I somehow in spite of my weaknesses become some kind of "Super-Believer"?

No, I don't believe that I did.  I'm still just me, Chris Knight: failure in all the worst ways and general loser at life.

But I did change something up, and I believe it has made all the difference there can be.

What happened?

I changed how I pray.

In my prayer life I'm now talking, really talking, to God as if He were a person.  Because He is a person.  The most important person, even.

All my life I've seen God as if He were an unapproachable force of supernatural nature, that must be appeased absolutely or else.  And I guess He is that, still.

But it finally struck me that God, in every aspect of the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - has made Himself available to us.  We only need reach out and speak to Him.

I'm not ready to say what it was that finally impressed that upon me.  It's actually something pretty trivial.  But it made me stop and reconsider how I pray.

So I began talking to God, not in an all-holy and overly-ritual kind of way.  But just talking to Him.  Asking Him to please hear me.  Telling Him what was happening in my life.  Telling Him my concerns.

For maybe the very first time I found myself not praying for things I don't have, like a family of my own (something I'm still hopeful for though I turn fifty in a few months).  Instead I was laying before Him my very present needs.  Things that needed to be addressed though I had no idea how that was going to happen.

I believe that God listened to me.

And I believe that God answered those prayers.

Like I said, Tammy and I are doing okay for right now.  Things could be MUCH better: I'm still desperate for employment.  But I've seen God at work and for the first time, I'm not doubting that He is behind that.  I'm not doubting that He does love and care for me, lumps and all.

If I'm to be honest, I can't really tell you the width and breadth of how much I have grown spiritually in the course of these past several months.  But I have grown, enormously.  And I hope that it's real and not a figment of my imagination.  Because I've found myself more thankful to God than I've ever been in my entire life and... I seriously hope it lasts.

Why am I writing this?  Well, I guess I felt led to, for one thing.

But I would be writing this anyway.  Because maybe if it has worked for me, maybe it will work for anyone.  Maybe even you, too.

Try talking to God.  It doesn't have to be in "holy prayer mode", for lack of a better term.  Just speak calmly with Him.  Lay out your heart to Him.  Tell Him what is troubling you.  Share with Him your needs.  Those are not necessarily your "wants", but what you require in the present.  Ask Him to provide for you, even if you can't see how that is remotely possible.  Ask Him to increase your faith, even if that especially seems impossible.

Doing that has changed my life in Christ.  Dramatically and drastically.  Perhaps it will change yours, also

And if you ever need a listening ear or just want to tell me how it's going with you, feel free to write to me at theknightshift@gmail.com.  I'm always happy to hear from someone who isn't telling me that payment is due, *laughing out loud*

 

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Welcome to Matt Smith's weekly Sunday School!

Very good friend Matt Smith (no not the Doctor Who actor!) and I go back a few years, all the way to our time together at that very strange television station in Reidsville, North Carolina.  I learned a lot about video and broadcasting from Matt, and I continue to learn much from him since his becoming active with the online realm, sharing his talents and his calling as a minister.

For the past two or three years Matt has been maintaining a weekly series of "Sunday school" lessons.  Every Saturday he posts a new one on YouTube.  I for one have been benefiting from Matt's devotionals and I think that others might will also.  Click on over to Matt's YouTube channel and prepare to be edified, enlightened, and maybe even a little entertained.

Thank you for all that you do my brother!

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The church that's 450 feet from my house

Regrettably, there is one goal that has eluded me in the seven years since my dog Tammy and I left our old hometown to find our place somewhere in America.  It was something I was very serious about, and still am.  I speak of finding a place of worship.  Somewhere that I can be an active part of a community of believers.

This area doesn't lack for churches.  I've visited many of them.  Guess you could say that I'm hoping and praying that God will lead me to where He needs me to be.  It's almost like a microcosm of the journey across America we did.  I'm still in that "let's see what's out there" mode.

In the five years since I've been here I've visited some churches that were very big, others that were quite small.  A few of them had beliefs that I can not for good reasons subscribe to.  For the second time in my life I departed from a visit to a church because the number-one item in its statement of faith is that homosexuals are not welcome.  Now, I am not a homosexual and I absolutely believe it's a dire sin that God can not possibly "affirm".  But when that takes priority over everything else in a congregation's doctrine, ahead of even there being one God, something is terribly wrong.  One house of worship had a lot of people babbling incoherently with no idea as to who was saying what.  That's... just not for me, no offense meant.

I had begun to wonder if there was something wrong with my faith.  Am I being too "picky"?  Am I trying to find what many Christians have said does not exist and that I know that they are right: a perfect church?

If there is such a thing as a perfect church, I shall never be able to darken its threshold... because as soon as I enter the building it will no longer be perfect!

So a few weeks ago I was spending a Saturday afternoon browsing church websites.  Looking for a new place to visit soon.  Anyplace that would stir my interest.  It was a seemingly fruitless search.

And then I did something that I had failed to do when I first started looking.  I went to Google and for the search term I simply asked for "churches near me".

It returned with a nice-sized list of places of worship within a few miles' radius.  And the very first of the results was for a church... that was less than five hundred feet away.

"No way!" I literally shouted.

At first I thought it was an error.  Now, there had been a Baptist church with a mostly African-American membership just across the street and a few numbers down from my house.  I used to hear them playing their instruments every Sunday morning.  But they seem to have disappeared in the past year or two.

Apparently, another congregation was now using that building.

I found the church's website and its Facebook page.  And for the rest of the evening I was dumbfounded that a church that already seemed to have much of what I've come to appreciate in a congregation was less than five minutes' walk away.

So it was that a few days ago on Sunday, I walked from home all the way to church.

What was it like?  Well as I told friends later that day it was like Baptist preaching, Pentecostal praying, and a bit of Eastern Orthodoxy all rolled into one.  The most obvious trait of the church is that the vast majority of its people are from Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe.  This area has seen a lot of migrants arrive from that part of the world and there are many churches that serve those communities.  This particular congregation speaks both Russian and English, which a few members were translating between the two.  I couldn't help but notice that during the sermon the teenage girl next to me was taking notes in Cyrillic alphabet.  There were some praise songs in Russian, that all I could do was stand there without an iota of comprehension, followed by songs in English.

The message of the morning's service was based on the Book of Joshua.  About how Joshua is the first character in the Bible who is instructed by God to study scripture (in the form of the Books of Moses).  It also touched upon verses in Matthew and Philippians.  My fingers were darting all over my iPhone's Bible app, and I must have looked like an oddball because everyone else was using good ol' fashion printed books.

The service lasted two and a half hours.  And I definitely felt that I was a better person for being there.  The people of this church are very friendly and welcoming.  They take their prayer life seriously, and that's something that in recent years I have started to better appreciate in my own spiritual journey.  They thought it was very neat that I had asked Google to show me churches nearby, and the top result was a place that I can see from my living room window.

I can't say anything in Russian other than "da" and "nyet", but I really enjoyed spending a few hours with my fellow believers.  Language has never been an insurmountable obstacle for those who are in the Kingdom of God.  Faith and love will always prevail.  I may not have understood the words, but the smiles and the light in their eyes said it all well enough.

It's quite likely that I may go back soon.  There are a few other churches that I've the curiosity to also investigate in the next few weeks.  No matter where I end up though, there is great comfort and joy in knowing that true brothers and sisters in Christ are but a brisk walk away from my front door.

I've said it before, and I try to be mindful of it, but it's true: The Lord provides.

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We The People Bible: One of the most terrible products I've seen lately

This post is going to honk a lot of people off, probably.  Whether it cuts one way or another.  I know and accept that.

First of all, the older I've gotten the more I have come to understand something.  Mainly, that the republican form of government that the Founders gave us in the Constitution of the United States is ideal only for a people who believe in something higher than man.  Whether you call that something God, or Yahweh, or the Universe, or whatever, the Constitution is best suited for those who hold themselves accountable to that greater entity.  I believe that the past several decades have proven that in the hands of they who believe that man is the be-all/end-all of law and life, that weak attempt at imitating democratically-elected republican government has led to disaster on multiple fronts.

So yes: I do believe that the American government is intended for people who believe in greater authority than their own.  It is where all true law comes from.  It has been ever since Moses came down that mountain with those stone slabs.

I believe in the Constitution.  I also believe that the Declaration of Independence was the work of a magnificent assemblage of some of the greatest minds from throughout the colonies.  I think that the Bill of Rights is not taught about nearly enough in the majority of our schools.  The Pledge of Allegiance... ehhhh, I elaborated on that subject ten years ago, about why I cannot in good conscience say it (but I have absolutely no problem when others choose to recite it).

For saying these things, some are going to declare that I am a "Christian nationalist", a "Christian reconstructionist", that I have a colonial mind, that I'm a "right-wing fanatic" or... good HEAVENS... a "MAGA Republican" (whatever that is supposed to be).

Well, that's one audience that I will have worked up in a frothing frenzy.  Now it's time for the other...

A couple of weeks ago an advertisement began popping up on Facebook.  Usually this sort of thing just breezes past me.  But this particular item severely caught my attention.  Because it's the dire opposite of a lot of things that have shaped and molded my personal theology almost since the beginning of my Christian faith.

It's called the We The People Bible.  You can find it in a Google search easily enough, I'm not posting a link to it here.  As you can see it's got an embossed leather cover.  Said cover, in the words of the website, "was designed with the patriot in mind and features a vertical reversed American flag design that represents a country in distress."  Toward the back of the book there is to be found the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its amendments, and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh bruddah.  How many ways can we talk about how wrong this thing is?

The We The People Bible is the very worst elements of what I've seen from most of a lifetime of exposure to Christian Reconstructionism: a body of tenets orbiting the notion that God has ordained Christians to seize power, so as to remake the United States into a theocracy based solely on the Holy Bible.

The problem with that is, that this theocracy is going to be forced upon people, whether they like it or not.  And when that is the driving influence of such a movement, the entire thing becomes antithetical to the concept that God gave us this country to govern ourselves.  America is supposed to be the land of a people who choose to seek God's guidance, as best he or she might understand that.  It's not meant to be a land controlled by those who believe their interpretation is to be imposed under penalty of punishment.  America is not like places in the Mid-East where "blasphemers" are beheaded and homosexuals are throw from the top of tall buildings.  But, I could spend all day writing about what I've seen over the years regarding this.

The heart-meat of the matter is this: I definitely have no problem with people reading the Constitution, the Bill of Right, the Declaration of Independence, or any other document pertaining to the founding and organizing of our government.  In fact, I want people to read those.  But to include even those hallowed parchments within a volume of scripture along with the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian theology, is tantamount to making them equivalent to those sacred writings.  They are not.  And I can't but think that the Founders and many others, including the scholars who compiled the King James Version (the translation that the We The People Bible uses), would be horrified that documents of this temporal realm are now on the same level as inspired writings.  This is the worst grief that I have with this product.

I said that's the worst grief.  Not necessarily the one that sticks out as being either the most tacky or visibly sacrilegious.  The upside-down flag on the cover of this abomination is ridiculous.  Those who study scripture will absolutely know that the Bible teaches us that those who give God their highest priority are not to be a people living in fear and anxiety.  Isaiah 41:10 tells us "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

So it is that the reversed flag - which is supposed to be reserved only for the most dire emergencies - comes across as a product of the politics of the era of this book's publication.

But consider: the publishers of the We The People Bible have literally wrapped scripture up in the American flag.  In doing so they claim custody of the Bible.  They want it to be known that the Bible is theirs to interpret and to decree from.  Instead of letting holy scripture work in their lives to affect and change their hearts, they seek to change scripture instead, according to the powers and politics of this frail and brittle mortal realm.

I might have just glossed right over the ads I've seen for the We The People Bible, had it not been for an intensive study I participated in college with others about modern religious thinkers.  The most influential person we studied the works of was Stanley Hauerwas.  And one of his books that we read was his 1993 tome Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America.  The cover of which depicts a Bible literally wrapped up in an American flag.  Unleashing the Scripture became one of the most influential books during those early days of my Christian life.  I still feel it resonating whenever I'm tackling the subject of Christianity and its relationship with culture, and especially with politics.  And I got to say, that the We The People Bible comes across as a dark parody of Unleashing the Scripture, or maybe a Bizarro-World incarnation of Hauerwas's work.

It comes down to this: the Bible, I have no doubt about this, was the principle guide for the Founders when they set about liberating America and then crafting her principles into codified law.  I believe that the Bible has influenced history as no other book has.  But the Bible is supposed to define men.  Men are not meant to define the Bible.  If we are to believe that the Bible is perfect and inerrant (regardless of which respectable version one chooses to draw from) then we should be prepared to accept how it will apply to our lives.  To mold us and conform us to its image.  The Bible is not to be shaped and drawn out according to the fashions of the time.

And that is what the We The People Bible is an attempt to do.  Whether its publishers intended or not, it is become a weapon against those who are in disagreement with them.  Yes, the Bible is as a mighty sword, that divides between truth and false.  It can absolutely be trusted.  But when its publication is intended to be a tangible symbol of political power, well... it has gone too far and become something that is anything but in adherence to scripture.

Let us look not to carnal weaponry for our deliverance and salvation.  There is a greater Kingdom for us to build up and preach a citizenship of.  It is those edifices we are meant for, not the pale shadows of this fallen land.  God will be the judge of our efforts: Were they for His glory, or for our own?

I pray that what we do, will be done and has been done for Him alone.

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Dr. Charles Stanley has gone Home

"Well done, My good and faithful servant."

 

Let us be thankful for the very long time that God let him be among us.  A lot of people came to Christ... and drew closer to Him... because of this man's seemingly tireless efforts.  Dr. Charles Stanley truly had a servant's heart.  I for one learned quite a lot from watching his In Touch weekly series on television.

I got to meet him once.  It was January 2001, some friends and I went to a service at First Baptist Church of Atlanta.  Stanley struck me as one of the kindest people I've ever encountered.  He asked where was I from and I told him Reidsville, North Carolina.

"Oh I know where Reidsville is!" he replied.  "That's right down the road from Danville!", where he grew up.

I asked him if he could sign my Bible and he did on the inside front page.  Below his name he wrote "Isaiah 64:4".  It reads as thus, from the New International Version:

 

Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

In hindsight, I should have taken that verse more to heart.  I am thankful now though, that I get to appreciate it anew.

See you later Dr. Stanley.

EDIT 04/19/2023: my best friend since forever, Chad Austin, is managing editor of Biblical Recorder.  He just published an excellent article about Dr. Stanley's early years, from his first devoting his life to Christ on through serving as pastor of several churches and becoming a teacher.  It's a very inspiring read and I felt truly moved by it.  Click here to read "Stanley's global ministry has deep, formative roots in NC".

 

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Anxious for nothing, prepared for anything

How I have not been diagnosed with some kind of anxiety disorder, I may never know.  But it is true: I have been anxious too awful much for anyone during these past several years (and by "several", I mean two decades at least).  Especially too anxious as a Christian, when I should have been waiting patiently for God in His time.

A few weeks ago a dear friend gave me a copy of Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World, by Max Lucado. I'm about halfway through it so far.  First of all, I am delighted to discover that Lucado is still writing.  I first became introduced to Lucado's work about twenty-five years ago, when I was just starting my life as a Christian.  It became some of the more influential literature during my early walk with Christ.

Second, it has been quite some time since a book other than those in scripture convicted me of something.

I've been anxious to the point of falling prey to fear.  In many aspects I have been paralyzed by fear.  Fear of too many things.  Especially of being alone.  And I have been so filled with fear of that, that it has prevented me from enjoying some potentially wonderful blessings in my life.

And this may come across as silly, but I'm ashamed of myself as an Eagle Scout.  To be an Eagle is to "Be prepared" for whatever comes up in life.  Including those things that bring about anxiety.  I should have been meeting those issues head-on, confronting them with a heart without fear, instead of letting them get the better of me.  I have paid a price for my lack of preparedness.  But maybe it's not too late to do something about that.

"Anxious for nothing" comes up in Philippians, chapter 4, verses 6 and 7...

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

I should have been bold in presenting my requests to God, but ready and humble enough to accept whatever His decree was, whether it was "yes" or "no" or "wait".  I like to think that what He has been telling me all along, though I wasn't very accepting, was to wait.  I couldn't wait, and it led to me making some mistakes.  I have finally come to realize that I wasn't prepared for the blessings He had in mind for me, until now.

What would my life have been like, had I been prepared with a heart of courage instead of one capitulating to anxiety?

I will never know.  But I don't have to know either.  Something interesting about God, that my best friend told me a long time ago: we can't mess up with Him.  No matter how much we make a mess of things, He is always several steps ahead of us.  He may not set things straight the way we want Him to, but he doesn't have to.  Whatever we do, if we acquiesce to His will, does give Him the glory and the honor.  And in the end that's what it's all about.  When He answers our prayers and gives us good things, well... that's simply the cherry on top.  And one that a glad heart will be prepared to enjoy to the utmost.

A week ago as part of my "blogging for Lent" I shared my testimony for the first time.  That was twenty-five years ago, when that happened.  I am astounded and thankful and too many other adjectives, that God has been working in my life throughout all this time.  Because I am coming to see, now, that He has not forsaken me.  That there never was any reason to be anxious.  And He has been graceful enough to carry me through all this entire time of trial and tribulation.  Growth came of it.  I have to believe that more than that came of it also.  And I look forward to seeing what comes of that.

Anyhoo, it's a great book by Lucado.  I'll give it a hearty recommendation.  Well worth reading!

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 46

Last night I was on the phone with a friend and, as has happened with a lot of our conversations lately, it turned to spiritual matters.  And that led to me sharing a little (I say "little" because the entire story runs WAY too long for a phone or blog post) about how I came to follow Christ, now a little over twenty-five years ago.

I haven't said very much about that, either here or elsewhere.  I guess as with so much else it got washed away in the flotsam and jetsam that comes in the wake of persistent mental illness.  So much that has been forgotten about while flailing my arms, trying my hardest to keep my head above the dark water.

But, I am a Christian.  Deeper than that, I am a follower of Christ.  It's not enough for me to simply go to church on Sunday.  For me, it has to be more "real" than that.  To follow Christ is a seven day, round the clock exercise.  And I suppose that whatever has happened to me in the past, warts and all, is part of my testimony.  I'm not particularly proud of it, but... there it is.

Maybe it's time that I shared a little of what happened to me, now a quarter century ago, that led to me giving up life for myself and starting to live for the One who gave all, so that we might have life abundant.  I will try, at least, to convey some of what happened.

It all started during my senior year of high school.  I had long wrestled with notions of God.  Wondering if He was really "out there" somewhere.  But in a startling flash of enlightenment - and I remember exactly where I was at Rockingham County High School when this happened - it hit me that the universe is too PERFECT than for it to have been a random fluke stemming from the Big Bang.  It came over me that no matter how He did it, there must have been a master Architect who designed the cosmos and everything within it.

And that is how I came to believe in God.

But it is yet a far thing between that, and having a relationship with God.

I had thought that God didn't want anything to do with me.  I had spent ten years being bitter at God, for things that I see now where not His fault at all.  This is a fallen world still, and for as long as it persists there will be evil people within it.

I spent the next several years in tenuous comfort with the idea of God.  Knowing He must be there, but feeling too damaged to approach any closer.  I became like one who is "outside looking in" at the communion that others had with Him.  Always at the window but never at the door to come inside.  And I was like that, up until I came to what is now Elon University.

It began to happen my first week at Elon.  It was a late Thursday afternoon, and I was on the way back to my room in what was the old Jordan Center dorms.  I went inside the commons building to get drink from the machine, and there were people inside.  Quite a few people.  One of them greeted me.  I said hi.  "What are you guys doing?"  She replied: "we're the Baptist Student Union.  Want to join us for dinner?"

It turned out to have been a meal provided by one of the churches in the area.  Real home cooked food... including mashed potatoes and green beans... offered to me for free.  After a week of eating cafeteria food.  Of course I was going to take them up on that!

I met some really good people that night.  Including the faculty advisor and a local pastor who was the mentor of the group.  Following dinner there was a time of fellowship and devotion, some time spent in the Bible.  I thought it was amazing, and they accepted me though I was still far from being a Christian as they were.  The following week after that first meeting I came with my own Bible: a student edition that had been a graduation gift (I had been at a community college prior to transferring to Elon) from the United Methodist congregation in my parents' neighborhood.  And I began studying with my new friends.  One of those friends, a few months after we met, ended up asking me if I'd like to be his roommate at his apartment, since his current roomie was about to leave.  I took him up on that offer, and in January of 1996 I moved into my first real place as a young adult.  But I digress...

I kept coming to Baptist Student Union, and Drew (my roommate) often told me that I should also check out Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, which met every Tuesday night at the student center.  I didn't go anytime during my first year at Elon.  But when my "sophomore" year began (keep in mind that when I finally graduated I was a seven year senior) I finally went to what was known as "IV".  And there I met even more people, who were followers of Christ just like my friends in Baptist Student Union were.

Between Baptist Student Union and Intervarsity, for the first time in my life I felt surrounded by people who accepted me.  Who I felt I could associate with, without feeling judged by others for my weaknesses.  It was an AMAZING thing, to find that sense of close community.  To this day I haven't found anything like that, and I miss it terribly.

But again, I digress...

I came to IV again the following week.  And that night the group's president announced that there was going to be a retreat on the first weekend of October, at Sunset Beach on the North Carolina coast.  Drew told me that he was going.  "You should come along too, its going to be a lot of fun," he told me.  I wasn't sure about it but he kept encouraging me to come along.  And finally I did.

Because the Elon Intervarsity beach retreat became one of the most pivotal events in my life.  It still is.

IV had rented four beach houses in close proximity to one another.  One of them was deemed the "main house" and that's where most of our activity was at.  That Friday night when we (Drew, our friend Calvin and I) arrived, the festivities were already underway.  We went into the main house and joined the fellowship.  And I sang the songs, and I enjoyed singing the songs with the others.  And that was as close to God as I thought I would ever be.  No one would ever know my secret: that I was not a Christian.  That I could never be a Christian.

It was the next day, on Saturday, that the time of real retreat began.  There was a group of guys - and I still have our picture somewhere - that went out to the sand dunes near the beach, to... I don't know what the right word is, "commune" with God?  There was Brent, and Geoff, and Heang, and Scott, and Thomas, and Kendall, and me.  And I listened to them as they talked about God and drawing closer to Him.

It was unlike anything I had ever taken part in.  It was certainly a far cry from the stentorian legalism of the church-run school that I had attended over ten years earlier.  That was a place where we worshiped God because we had to.  But this was different.  Here were people, not much different than me, who were worshiping God because they wanted to.  And that was a very startling thing to behold.

There were other things that happened that weekend.  And I began to notice something: there were others who were asking questions about God in general and about Christianity in particular.  Other students were answering their questions.  They were question that I had heard asked a hundred times and more over the years.  But again, this time it was different.  There was a real sense of love and joy behind the answers given.  One person in particular, I was watching him and listening to him asking the questions that I wanted to ask.  He became a proxy for me, and my curiosity about... well, about what all of this was really all about.

I remember walking the beach that afternoon with a new friend, also named Drew.  We spoke of things and it remains one of the deeper conversations that I have had in my life.  In his own way, Drew nudged me to consider God a little deeper than I had before.  And I'm going to forever be thankful that we had that time together.

Well, we all spent the rest of the afternoon and evening having fun.  Making hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner.  More fellowship and singing.  Playing on the beach.  And I noticed my "proxy" was still asking questions.

I will never forget it as long as I live.  I had gone back to the house I was staying in for something, and then came back to the main house.  It was about 9 on Saturday night.  I went into the front door and saw my "proxy" in the living room.  But there was something new about him.  He was radiating.  He was aglow with a light I had never seen before.

Clearly, something had overcome my friend.  I asked Scott "what just happened?"

"He accepted Christ," Scott replied.

"He did?"  I had never seen someone become a Christian before.  Not really become a Christian anyway.  There had been "being saved" that I had seen at Community Baptist School a number of times, but even as a child I thought those were cold and superficial.

What happened to our friend was different though.  He was smiling, in a way that was practically alien to me.

It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

And I knew then that whatever he had, I wanted too.

But I still felt too damaged, too imperfect, too flawed than to be able to have something like that in my own life.

Later that evening, and again I will never forget this, I found two friends - who happened to have been in the very first class I attended at Elon - who were talking.  Their names were Brent and Cindy.  And I asked them if I could talk to them.  And they said sure.  And we went into an empty room in the main house.

I ended up telling them everything.

I told them about the abuse.  About the doubts I had in my heart and mind about God.  About so much, that just came pouring out of me.  I told them that I wanted what our friend had, but I didn't know how to do that.

They didn't judge me.  They didn't think any less of me.  Instead they prayed with me.  A prayer that was the first step on the long road that lay ahead of me for the rest of my life.

It wasn't a prayer of salvation that I spoke that night.  But it was a prayer, asking God to show me something.  To heal my heart.  To answer the questions I had.  To guide me toward however this was going to end up.

I went to sleep that night feeling more fulfilled than I ever had felt before.

Well, the retreat ended the next day around noon.  We all got in our cars and headed back to campus.  I left the retreat, but the retreat couldn't leave me.  I came back to Elon a different person.  Someone who had begun to question his heart as never before.

I spent the next few weeks going to every Intervarsity meeting, including a small group every Monday night.  I listened, I asked questions.  I shared the thoughts in my head about all of this.  I couldn't quench my spirit now thirsty for a sense of peace and serenity.  I wanted what my friends had.  I still felt unworthy.  Again, too damaged.

There was a nearby church that had worship times on campus, every Sunday afternoon.  It was called Elon Celebration.  I had been going every week.  A lot of the IV people went too.

It was the first Sunday of November, 1996.  After worship some of us went to nearby Harden cafeteria to have lunch.  And it was while I was eating spaghetti that one of my friends, also named Chris, unexpectedly, gave me his Bible.

It had originally been his grandmother's Bible, he said.  I couldn't accept this, I told him.

What happened after that, I am really not sure about.  Chris and Brent and another friend, Dalerie, were at my table.  They began to pray.  I felt something inside yanking at me, hard.  It was something terrible, that was trying to stay alive.  I felt like I was being torn apart.  At one point I think I lost consciousness.  Chris asked me if I was all right.

"I want it to stop. I want it to stop.  I want it to STOP!"

I couldn't tell you the words that I spoke, but in that moment of desperation and darkness, at long last I was able to overcome the hurt and destruction that had been in my life, and turned for the first time to God.

Dalerie was weeping.

I felt... different.  Relieved.  Like the heaviest weight that could possibly be upon a person, had been lifted. I felt new.  Regenerated.  I felt alive as I had never felt alive before.

And that is how, for the first time in my life, I turned to Christ.  And it remains the most significant thing that I have ever done.

Of course, there were some... difficulties... that came with becoming a Christian, at long last.  A number of things happened in the wake of that, which I am still trying to figure out.  And years later when the shadow of bipolar disorder fell upon me, my faith was jostled and shaken and too many times felt utterly shattered.

Yet, here I am still, twenty five years later.  I turned to Christ on that day, and there hasn't been a day since that has been like what came before.  Even in the darkest moments, I think there has been a sliver of my being that has held out in faith, that there was Someone bigger than me sustaining me through the tumult.

Twenty five years later, and I am still a new person.  Still growing.  Still becoming what God would have me to be, despite all my human frailties and failings.

I know of no other way to put it: "The thing WORKS."

And that is my testimony (absent some minor details).

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 45

Today is Good Friday: the commemoration of the day that Jesus Christ died at Calvary.  It's only fitting, then, that today's installment of "blogging for Lent" should be mindful of that.

Good friend of this blog and all around amazing guy "Lowbridge" found this a little while ago and shared it on another forum.  I decided it was well worth passing along to this blog's readers as well.  As good a thing as any for the occasion.

Longtime television viewers will recognize Agnes Morehead for her portrayal of Samantha's mother on the 1960s sitcom Bewitched.  What I didn't know until just now was that Morehead was a devout Christian.  She grew up in a Presbyterian house where her father was a minister.  It's been said that Morehead brought her Bible with her to work every day, and would read from it between scenes.  It also goes without saying that she was a phenomenal actress.

As part of Oral Roberts's Easter special in 1970, Morehead performed a dramatic reading of the Easter story.  Here it is, for your edification:

 

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A message to the Christians of Generation X

 

What I'm about to share, has been a long while percolating. It's not going to be taken well by too many people. Especially by those around my age and fellow Christians. But it's time that it be said. Maybe there can yet be some salvaging what has come of us.

A few weeks ago I came upon some music. It was a collection of MP3s. I was the one who made them, all the way back in 1999. They're MP3s of a night of singing from Elon's chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Real, home-grown and heart-felt praise and worship from a young people with their entire lives ahead of them.

 

I listened to them and wept tears of remembrance at how FRESH it sounded. I will never claim to have been fully immersed in the IV culture, it seems more like I was playing on the edges. That, despite my having become a Christian in no small part because of the ministries of friends there.

 

But I recognize the purity of the motivation for that singing well enough. I heard voices that to this day, I can recognize and put a name to. A friend from Florida. A quartet of ladies. My discipleship partner, who opened my eyes more than he knew and maybe someday I’ll get to tell him that.

 

I couldn’t help but listen to the singing, and wonder about what has become of us through the crucible of time. Many of us of course got married, had children of our own. Some didn’t. Some, like me, were married and then one day saw it come crashing down. Some of us crossed America to find a place where God might want us to be, and others held firm to their roots.

 

I envy those. It means that they found real love and affection without having to go searching for it. They had stability. Others, did not and may never know stability other than as some far-off dream. I think of all the wacky things that happened in my life. Some of them aroused a bit of notoriety. Those aren’t things that happen when you’re stable.

 

I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. They are instead what God calls for each of us as individuals. It is left to each of us to seek the path God would have for us to be on, and to adhere to that path, trusting in Him.

 

So, my old friends, I love them and always have and always will.

 

And I wonder where it was that we… that ALL of us… failed. And I mean as Christians.

 

To understand what I mean, we have to go back to another time. Roughly a quarter century. To the Christianity of America and the “civilized” west. I emphasize that because it’s been impressed upon me that the Christianity of our culture is far removed from that of other places. Such as North Korea. And communist China. And regions of Africa, where it seems not a week goes by that an atrocity against born-again Christians doesn’t transpire. Weirdly, we don’t seem to listen to news about that. We don’t stop to consider our brethren in distant lands where Christ is met with hostility and persecution.

 

If that had registered at all with us it was only in a peripheral sense. We were too busy doing “the God thing” in our own way.

 

We wore the scripture-festooned t-shirts. We tied on the “WWJD” bracelets. We listened to DC Talk and Audio Adrenaline and the other Christian music acts at events like Winter Jam. We patterned our relationships on I Kissed Dating Goodbye. We engorged ourselves on apocalyptic pulp fiction like the Left Behind series, so very sure that ours would be the generation swept up in the Rapture.

 

Well, here it is, well over twenty years later. There has been no Rapture. The books and clothing are food for rats and roaches. Relationships were destroyed by I Kissed Dating Goodbye, not built up. The music stopped.

 

And then there was “the prize”. What we wanted most: to lead others to Christ. To win even one person over to God. To give the angels of Heaven reason to rejoice.

 

I wonder now: how much was that for God, and how much was for ourselves. “Converting to Christ” to some became like a notch on the belt. Something to boast of, when boasting was the LAST thing we should have done. Rejoice, yes… but never to have pride in.

 

And what came of it? How many of those we led, still clung to Christ?

 

The “mighty generation of prayer warriors” we were told we were, ended up a generation as mundane as any other.

 

It seems that all that is left is an archive of MP3s, listened to by someone who tried to hold fast to his faith only to see it buckle and break and now is left wondering:

 

“What happened to me? Come to think of it: What happened to *us*?”

Granted, some escaped total blame. Again I sense envy in myself. But as an entire generation of young Christians… we messed up.

 

The world is no better for the enthusiasm we had. Indeed some will argue that the world is much worse. I don’t care to tick off in how many ways, that’s not what this essay is about. Except that the number of people in America claiming to be Christian has ebbed significantly.

 

I believe it can readily be said: things are not better compared to what they were two and three decades ago. Or perhaps I’m wistfully reminiscing about the way things were before we stopped looking to God and began gluing our pupils to all of those screens we surround ourselves with.

 

Our generation of Christians – at least the Christianity of the “civilized” world – had its chance to leave behind it a legacy like none other. With great abandon we threw our lot in with the cause of Christ. Ours was love for one another utterly. We were the edge of the sword of the Word. That is what we thought of ourselves.

 

But we failed.

 

Maybe it’s not entirely our fault. What most threw shade on our righteous ambitions was 9/11. That act rattled us to our core. It taught us that we were NOT invulnerable. Also too, we have come to acknowledge that from the top of mortal authority on down, there was a lack of real leadership. We put too much of our faith in “leaders” who glorified themselves, instead of truly serving others.

 

Our eyes were shaken off of the eternal, and made to rest on the things of this temporal realm. And that was one of the tests we had to endure. Can it sincerely be said that we passed it?

 

Because, we didn’t.

 

My work in the field of mental health involves interacting with a lot of different people. About a month ago one of my clients lent me a book about the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Reading it has brought back memories of watching its aftermath unfold.

 

The first victim was a seventeen-year old girl who with a gun aimed at her head answered “You know I do” when asked if she believed in God. And then someone else – it was unclear at the time who exactly – in the library told the assailants “yes” when she was asked if she was a Christian.

 

One thing that was reported in the book that has been lingering on the edges of my mind these last few weeks. It’s about how despite the tragedy, the Christian community of Littleton, Colorado coalesced and grew. The blood of Rachel Scott, Cassie Bernall, and others killed at Columbine were like seeds let to fall to the ground, bringing forth new spiritual life to a generation most in need of it.

 

That was the effect, for a while. The churches were packed, especially with young people. Commitments were made. Wavering hearts became more steadfast.

 

God had brought some of our own to the point of martyrdom. And what should have been a clarion call for us to abandon our pretenses and throw in that much more behind the Throne… well…

 

What happened to that? According to Dave Cullen’s Columbine ten years after the tragedy, the swelling of the churches in the Littleton area had subsided. More than an extra decade since then has likely not made the situation any better. It’s almost enough to ask: “What did they die for?”

 

The Christians of Generation X had everything going for them. We had our own culture and were making an impact on the larger world. We *mattered*.

 

But we blew it. And in doing so we let *them* – the ones who have come before and have come since – down.

 

We were proud. We were arrogant. We were the furthest thing from humble. And if there is any one thing that God will not abide, it is pride in our own works.

We could have still mattered. We really could have been the generation that God used in a mighty way. 

 

But we didn’t have humility enough.

 

We were going to change the world for Christ. Instead the world changed us. Our temerity and zeal for Christ was beaten upon and worn down.

 

In short: we were defeated, in great part.

 

I don’t believe that it necessarily must be a failure we are damned to.

 

Look, I’m NOT saying that we have to go back to “the way things were”. Those days are behind us. We have grown up. That’s not who we are anymore singing those songs in a fellowship group of college kids.

 

We have lost much of our innocence. But that doesn’t mean that all has been taken from us. The parts that matter most.

 

Because right now, there are few who are as poised to change things more than Generation X. We are still plenty young enough to have a spirit of fire. Wedded to that is a maturity that comes with age and experience.

 

Maybe we *had* to blow it. Perhaps the flaming metal of youth needed a tempering quench.

 

I have to believe that even the worst things in life, if given over to God, can bear precious fruit.

We can still be used by God. IF we let Him.

 

But if we do not learn from our missteps, our generation really *will* have failed. Failed those who have come after us especially.

 

It wasn’t “our time” then. But it certainly is now.

 

And it’s time we made good on what we promised God.

 

 

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An idea: "Revital Sunday"

This morning one of the local churches had a broadcast of their service from last Sunday morning.  They have adapted well to the coronavirus-engendered shutdown.  Several dozen choir members sang hymns together via Zoom and a father baptized his daughter in the family's bathroom tub.  The sermon - delivered to an empty sanctuary - was no less potent and encouraging.

I imagine that much the same is happening across America and in other places also: churches holding virtual worship services across the Intertubes.  But really, it doesn't matter where a church meets.  As Jesus said, "where two or three are gathered in My name...", there is the body of Christ also.

Along those lines, there's an idea I had a few days ago and I'll pass it along to this blog's readers and anyone else...

Churches should have a "Revital Sunday" service (or "Revital Sabbath" for our friends among the Seventh-Day Adventist congregations).  Yes, I know: "revital" isn't an actual word.  But "revival" isn't the point.  It's about a group of believers coming together to revitalize themselves and their church after such a long absence from each other.  Revital Sunday could be a time of dedication and re-dedication as nothing quite has presented itself as an opportunity before.  It could be a time of thanksgiving, for being delivered through some very trying circumstances.  It could be a time for prayer, as so many are attempting to get their lives back on track, particularly after the enormous loss of jobs across the private and public sectors.

Revital Sunday could be a time of reflection and appreciation, and gratitude for what God has given already and what we must never take for granted, ever.

Like I said, just an idea...

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