So the latest casualties in the economic disaster currently facing North America are the Canadian dollar and oil. Both have been utterly devalued in recent weeks after breaking records only a few short months ago.
It's amazing how quickly things can lose their value, isn't it? It's not unlike when you were a kid and you really, really wanted that new toy and it was the most prized possession you had for, like, a week. And then it sat there with the rest of your devalued toys.
But we often do this, don't we? We often place inordinate amounts of attention on stuff that really doesn't last. We invest all sorts of time, effort, even money into activities, accomplishments and things. Only to find, after a while, that we didn't get out of it what we were hoping for.
Maybe we've had expectations for someone that they didn't live up to. Maybe we had high hopes for our new job and then ended up being a victim of corporate cutbacks. Or maybe we invested money in the commodity markets and now have less than half of what we had six months ago.
This sort of stuff becomes devastating when it's all we've got. And, when the value drops out of these things we esteem, we're left to wonder what we have left.
As I was preaching on Sunday, the thought occurred to me that I have been placed on this earth for a reason. And the reason is not to blend in with the world around me (if my purpose in life was to blend in, God would have made me into a chameleon instead). Rather, the reason is to make a difference and do what is good. As I live with this as my focus, I will see great return on my investment and there's no devaluation.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
A Bipolar Afternoon
On Wednesday, of this week, my mother had tears welling in her eyes in excitement as she watched my nine-year old daughter win the silver medal in the district school board cross-country finals. Literally as her grand-daughter is running her race, my mother's father is being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and, less than an hour later, she again has tears welling in her eyes as she watched him pass away.
Grandpa was a good man and we will pay our respects to him during his funeral, so it is not my purpose here to eulogize him. Rather, I remark on the curiosity of timing.
I joked with my mother later in the day about the bipolarity of her afternoon. Rushing from the race course to the hospital. Barely an hour between watching her grand-daughter pass a hundred competitors and watching her father pass into eternity. Tears of joy immediately preceding tears of sorrow.
If we could plan the timing of events, we would never plan it that way. But we can't plan them. We don't know when we will experience great excitement nor do we know when we will experience great disappointment. And we may never understand the timing. I can't give a great theological explanation why my mother went through such an up-and-down roller-coaster on Wednesday. One might think it's just happenstance and that's enough of an explanation. But I believe in a sovereign God who is intimately involved in the details of my life and so 'happenstance' doesn't cut it for me.
I can't explain why things happened the way they did. And I find freedom in the fact that I don't need to figure out why things happen the way they do. Rather, believing in that sovereign God brings us to the place where we can trust that He has a plan for all these experiences. And His plan is a great one.
David, while hiding in a cave from a paranoid king who wanted to kill him, penned these words, "I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praise to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!" (Psalm 57:9-11) It's not so much a question of figuring out why these things happen; it's more a question of figuring out what impact these things will have on me. Can we, like David, in the midst of elation and exhaustion, still worship the One who gives and takes away?
Grandpa was a good man and we will pay our respects to him during his funeral, so it is not my purpose here to eulogize him. Rather, I remark on the curiosity of timing.
I joked with my mother later in the day about the bipolarity of her afternoon. Rushing from the race course to the hospital. Barely an hour between watching her grand-daughter pass a hundred competitors and watching her father pass into eternity. Tears of joy immediately preceding tears of sorrow.
If we could plan the timing of events, we would never plan it that way. But we can't plan them. We don't know when we will experience great excitement nor do we know when we will experience great disappointment. And we may never understand the timing. I can't give a great theological explanation why my mother went through such an up-and-down roller-coaster on Wednesday. One might think it's just happenstance and that's enough of an explanation. But I believe in a sovereign God who is intimately involved in the details of my life and so 'happenstance' doesn't cut it for me.
I can't explain why things happened the way they did. And I find freedom in the fact that I don't need to figure out why things happen the way they do. Rather, believing in that sovereign God brings us to the place where we can trust that He has a plan for all these experiences. And His plan is a great one.
David, while hiding in a cave from a paranoid king who wanted to kill him, penned these words, "I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praise to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!" (Psalm 57:9-11) It's not so much a question of figuring out why these things happen; it's more a question of figuring out what impact these things will have on me. Can we, like David, in the midst of elation and exhaustion, still worship the One who gives and takes away?
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Absolutely Religulous
Well, it was kind of like a bug's attraction to the light. Or, maybe more like the "Don't look...don't look...ahh, you looked" reaction when we see a car wreck beside the freeway. You know you don't want to and yet you do it anyway. That's kind of what it was like.
I went to see Bill Maher's documentary Religulous on the weekend. It was one of those films where I know I didn't want to see it but I had to see it. To be fair, I laughed. Out loud. Fairly often. But often, when I laughed, I felt like I was cheering for the visiting team.
If you haven't seen the film, basically he makes fun of anything with even a hint of fundamentalism (and, let's be honest, there's much to make fun of here!) and then moves on to outline the conspiracy theorist's view of Jesus: he never really existed and his story was simply lifted from other ancient religions. There are books published on this topic that outline how his story has many parallels with gods worshiped in various religions and these are put forth as evidence that Jesus never really existed but was just a made up myth.
These theories made me think more than anything in the film because I'm not religious; I'm a follower of Jesus. So, while I can laugh at the trappings of religion, I have a much more difficult time laughing at the non-existence of Jesus. But there are a lot of holes that can quickly be shot through these theories. For example, it's pretty hard to retrofit a philosopher into a philosophic school of thinking. Either there was a Plato, or there was not. I can't just make up stories about Plato now and try to fit them into history. It doesn't work. Likewise, there was a school of thought and belief surrounding this person of Jesus years (decades) before the first book about him was written. If the books were of sketchy origin, who would have read them?
But here's what I have come to realize: books that are written and films that are produced that say Jesus never existed don't actually mean anything. See, somewhere down in history, someone could say Brent never existed because there was someone in some other culture or in some other era whose life had many parallels to mine. So, because of that, Brent must be a figment of someone's imagination. Even if that happened, I'm still here. And so is Jesus.
At the end of the film, Maher stands on a pile of rocks and begins preaching about the fact that his whole purpose in making the film is to create doubt in people's minds. ...and we're back on the same ground. Truth is, I can't have faith without doubt. Unless I have reason to doubt, faith simply isn't required.
And to that end, I have faith that Jesus lived. I have faith that Jesus lives. And I have faith that one day I will live with Jesus. Do I have absolute, 100% certainty? Nope. I doubt regularly.
I went to see Bill Maher's documentary Religulous on the weekend. It was one of those films where I know I didn't want to see it but I had to see it. To be fair, I laughed. Out loud. Fairly often. But often, when I laughed, I felt like I was cheering for the visiting team.
If you haven't seen the film, basically he makes fun of anything with even a hint of fundamentalism (and, let's be honest, there's much to make fun of here!) and then moves on to outline the conspiracy theorist's view of Jesus: he never really existed and his story was simply lifted from other ancient religions. There are books published on this topic that outline how his story has many parallels with gods worshiped in various religions and these are put forth as evidence that Jesus never really existed but was just a made up myth.
These theories made me think more than anything in the film because I'm not religious; I'm a follower of Jesus. So, while I can laugh at the trappings of religion, I have a much more difficult time laughing at the non-existence of Jesus. But there are a lot of holes that can quickly be shot through these theories. For example, it's pretty hard to retrofit a philosopher into a philosophic school of thinking. Either there was a Plato, or there was not. I can't just make up stories about Plato now and try to fit them into history. It doesn't work. Likewise, there was a school of thought and belief surrounding this person of Jesus years (decades) before the first book about him was written. If the books were of sketchy origin, who would have read them?
But here's what I have come to realize: books that are written and films that are produced that say Jesus never existed don't actually mean anything. See, somewhere down in history, someone could say Brent never existed because there was someone in some other culture or in some other era whose life had many parallels to mine. So, because of that, Brent must be a figment of someone's imagination. Even if that happened, I'm still here. And so is Jesus.
At the end of the film, Maher stands on a pile of rocks and begins preaching about the fact that his whole purpose in making the film is to create doubt in people's minds. ...and we're back on the same ground. Truth is, I can't have faith without doubt. Unless I have reason to doubt, faith simply isn't required.
And to that end, I have faith that Jesus lived. I have faith that Jesus lives. And I have faith that one day I will live with Jesus. Do I have absolute, 100% certainty? Nope. I doubt regularly.
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