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.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Here's Lesson One
I have been stuck on this idea of 'It's not how you start, it's how you finish" for a while now. I know I posted about this last week already but this idea seems to be hitting me over and over again. This happens to me from time to time: where a thought or a life-lesson comes at me repeatedly over a short period of time.
Years ago, I was sitting around a campfire, camping somewhere along the Oregon Coast with about a dozen other people and we were just talking about life and faith and stuff. I don't remember much of that camping trip, let alone the campfire, but the one thing I remember is an off-the-cuff comment made by someone.
He said, that it seems often, that God teaches us a lesson, He says, "Here's lesson one. Okay, you got that? Then let's move on to lesson one. Have you learned it yet? Great, then here's lesson one. We good? Awesome...lesson one!" That is so often the way God works in my life. It seems like He teaches me the same things over and over again.
What I've come to realize is that this probably says more about me than it does about God. It probably has more to do with my stubbornness than it does with God's failure to move along. It is probably more to do with my unwillingness to grasp what God is teaching me than with God's penchant for repetition.
If I would boil it all down, I could probably look back on my life and all the life-issues I face would really be rooted in a couple of areas where God continues to show me 'lesson one.'
Maybe one day, I'll graduate to lesson two (mind you, lesson two entails a lot of review from lesson one!).
Years ago, I was sitting around a campfire, camping somewhere along the Oregon Coast with about a dozen other people and we were just talking about life and faith and stuff. I don't remember much of that camping trip, let alone the campfire, but the one thing I remember is an off-the-cuff comment made by someone.
He said, that it seems often, that God teaches us a lesson, He says, "Here's lesson one. Okay, you got that? Then let's move on to lesson one. Have you learned it yet? Great, then here's lesson one. We good? Awesome...lesson one!" That is so often the way God works in my life. It seems like He teaches me the same things over and over again.
What I've come to realize is that this probably says more about me than it does about God. It probably has more to do with my stubbornness than it does with God's failure to move along. It is probably more to do with my unwillingness to grasp what God is teaching me than with God's penchant for repetition.
If I would boil it all down, I could probably look back on my life and all the life-issues I face would really be rooted in a couple of areas where God continues to show me 'lesson one.'
Maybe one day, I'll graduate to lesson two (mind you, lesson two entails a lot of review from lesson one!).
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Winning
I have been struggling with this week's post. Not because I don't have anything to say but rather because I can't narrow down what I'd like to say. I have begun and deleted this post at least five times today. I began almost eight hours ago and then left it until now because nothing has captured the heart of what I'm feeling. That said, this probably won't either, but it's going to have to do.
In many ways, the Cowboys game on Monday night serves as an analogy for where I am. Okay, I admit, football-is-to-life analogies are way too cliche (Remember the Titans anyone?) but you'll have to deal with it. See, the Cowboys beat the Eagles not because they made fewer mistakes than the Eagles (they made more). Nor was their victory the result of the Cowboys' superior playing (even though the Cowboys are superior, they didn't necessarily play better than the Eagles!). Rather, the game was won on their refusal to let mistakes get the best of them.
And I think that's where I realize I need to be. Last week, I posted about the messed up marriages of people I know in ministry. Stuff like that can easily get to me. I'm no less angry this week over the pain that these people have caused themselves, their families and the people under their spiritual authority. However, these guys are on my (our) team. And, as in sports, if we're going to win, we can't let the of our teammates wear us down.
I feel like the reason I become so angry when the people who have earned my respect fall into sin is because I recognize that I can so easily be there, too. I recognize that, unless I am consistently checking my life and repenting of the areas where I am beginning to stray slightly off-course, I can become bogged down in the stuff that doesn't matter. See, it's not just the mistakes of our teammates, we can't let the mistakes (sin) that we commit wear us down either.
Following Jesus is about victory, but so many Christians are getting beaten badly. Either through sin that others have committed that they can't get over, or through their own sin (or a combination of both). And what happens is that they get frustrated with the way other Christians are living and it stunts the growth of their own faith; or they become frustrated with their own cycle of poor choices and feel like they can't get out from under it.
But, what is necessary is to turn their lives around. The word the Bible uses for this is repentance. We need to repent of our own poor choices and we need to repent of allowing the poor choices of others get the best of us. As we do that, we'll experience this 'victory' that we're supposed to see.
After the game on Monday night, wide receiver Terrell Owens said, "It's not how you start, it's how you finish." May we all finish well. May we all repent from our mistakes. May we, admit our failures and move forward from them so that we can see victory.
...and may the Cowboys win the Super Bowl.
In many ways, the Cowboys game on Monday night serves as an analogy for where I am. Okay, I admit, football-is-to-life analogies are way too cliche (Remember the Titans anyone?) but you'll have to deal with it. See, the Cowboys beat the Eagles not because they made fewer mistakes than the Eagles (they made more). Nor was their victory the result of the Cowboys' superior playing (even though the Cowboys are superior, they didn't necessarily play better than the Eagles!). Rather, the game was won on their refusal to let mistakes get the best of them.
And I think that's where I realize I need to be. Last week, I posted about the messed up marriages of people I know in ministry. Stuff like that can easily get to me. I'm no less angry this week over the pain that these people have caused themselves, their families and the people under their spiritual authority. However, these guys are on my (our) team. And, as in sports, if we're going to win, we can't let the of our teammates wear us down.
I feel like the reason I become so angry when the people who have earned my respect fall into sin is because I recognize that I can so easily be there, too. I recognize that, unless I am consistently checking my life and repenting of the areas where I am beginning to stray slightly off-course, I can become bogged down in the stuff that doesn't matter. See, it's not just the mistakes of our teammates, we can't let the mistakes (sin) that we commit wear us down either.
Following Jesus is about victory, but so many Christians are getting beaten badly. Either through sin that others have committed that they can't get over, or through their own sin (or a combination of both). And what happens is that they get frustrated with the way other Christians are living and it stunts the growth of their own faith; or they become frustrated with their own cycle of poor choices and feel like they can't get out from under it.
But, what is necessary is to turn their lives around. The word the Bible uses for this is repentance. We need to repent of our own poor choices and we need to repent of allowing the poor choices of others get the best of us. As we do that, we'll experience this 'victory' that we're supposed to see.
After the game on Monday night, wide receiver Terrell Owens said, "It's not how you start, it's how you finish." May we all finish well. May we all repent from our mistakes. May we, admit our failures and move forward from them so that we can see victory.
...and may the Cowboys win the Super Bowl.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Ministry, Marriage, and Messiness
I was all set to go into a nice, long post about the big news about the world's biggest science experiment that was fired up yesterday about 300 feet below the Swiss-French border. About how the science world is all abuzz because this will tell us everything we need to know about how the earth began. Aside from the fact that they could have saved $5+ billion and read Genesis 1, its pretty amazing what the physicists are saying about this machine.
I was all set to post about it and I had a conversation that completely changed my thought pattern.
Last month, Todd Bentley made headlines because he had an "unhealthy relationship on an emotional level with a female member of his staff." I hate it when stuff like this happens. That wasn't the conversation I had this morning, but it leads up to it. See, I've got to be honest, lately it seems as though I'm consistently hearing about pastors with broken marriages. This is the substance of said conversation. Now two more marriages of Christian leaders with whom I'm acquainted have been added to that horrible statistic.
Honestly, I don't get it. It angers me. I have no words. I have no nice, little life-lesson to tack onto the end of this post. Other than, "I love my wife." Mind you, that's probably a bigger lesson than most.
I was all set to post about it and I had a conversation that completely changed my thought pattern.
Last month, Todd Bentley made headlines because he had an "unhealthy relationship on an emotional level with a female member of his staff." I hate it when stuff like this happens. That wasn't the conversation I had this morning, but it leads up to it. See, I've got to be honest, lately it seems as though I'm consistently hearing about pastors with broken marriages. This is the substance of said conversation. Now two more marriages of Christian leaders with whom I'm acquainted have been added to that horrible statistic.
Honestly, I don't get it. It angers me. I have no words. I have no nice, little life-lesson to tack onto the end of this post. Other than, "I love my wife." Mind you, that's probably a bigger lesson than most.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Eleven and a Half Hours
So my kids and I were standing by the finish line the other day, waiting for my beautiful bride to cross the finish line of her half-marathon (so proud of her!) and watching all the hard-core runners cross in ridiculously fast times. The race announcer knew all the top finishers and kept us in the loop of many of their previous feats as they came down the chute.
I was struck by the announcer's comment as one middle-aged man crossed. Apparently this particular man had recently completed the IronMan Canada in 11 1/2 hours which was great news because he then qualified for the IronMan World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Aside from the sheer marvel of completing an IronMan Triathalon (3.8km swim; 180km bike; 42.2km run) and being able to endure that intense of a fitness work out for 11+ hours, I couldn't help but wonder how many hours he had spent to train for that one event. And what did he get as a result? The chance to do it all over again.
Now, I don't want to downplay the incredible achievement it is to complete an IronMan (let alone qualify for the world championships), but I was thinking about how, so often in our lives, we become passionately engaged in things that, a year from now, no one else will remember. And how much energy we invest in activities that will have little long-term return. And what happens is that we end up surrounding ourselves with equal passion around the same stuff we've allowed to distract us (just talk to someone whose passionate about running!).
Truth is, I can easily become that. It is so easy for me to become distracted with stuff that no one will care about a year, or a decade or a century from now. Don't hear me getting down on hobbies or exercise or any of that; I truly believe that there is a place for all of that. I enjoy running and exercise and hockey and stuff. But I think it's easy for us to allow those hobbies or those activities to distract us from the stuff that really matters. I hope and I pray that the things I do matter not just for a week or year or century, but for eternity.
It is my hope that, the things I do have more significance than having people look at me and go "Wow, that's crazy!" and have some random pastor blog about it later that week. It is my hope that the life I live impacts the life that others live forever. I want to live with an eye to eternity, not just to the next thing (whatever that next thing might be).
I was struck by the announcer's comment as one middle-aged man crossed. Apparently this particular man had recently completed the IronMan Canada in 11 1/2 hours which was great news because he then qualified for the IronMan World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Aside from the sheer marvel of completing an IronMan Triathalon (3.8km swim; 180km bike; 42.2km run) and being able to endure that intense of a fitness work out for 11+ hours, I couldn't help but wonder how many hours he had spent to train for that one event. And what did he get as a result? The chance to do it all over again.
Now, I don't want to downplay the incredible achievement it is to complete an IronMan (let alone qualify for the world championships), but I was thinking about how, so often in our lives, we become passionately engaged in things that, a year from now, no one else will remember. And how much energy we invest in activities that will have little long-term return. And what happens is that we end up surrounding ourselves with equal passion around the same stuff we've allowed to distract us (just talk to someone whose passionate about running!).
Truth is, I can easily become that. It is so easy for me to become distracted with stuff that no one will care about a year, or a decade or a century from now. Don't hear me getting down on hobbies or exercise or any of that; I truly believe that there is a place for all of that. I enjoy running and exercise and hockey and stuff. But I think it's easy for us to allow those hobbies or those activities to distract us from the stuff that really matters. I hope and I pray that the things I do matter not just for a week or year or century, but for eternity.
It is my hope that, the things I do have more significance than having people look at me and go "Wow, that's crazy!" and have some random pastor blog about it later that week. It is my hope that the life I live impacts the life that others live forever. I want to live with an eye to eternity, not just to the next thing (whatever that next thing might be).
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