Is "I Don't Know" a Good Enough Answer?

I sat the with a couple as they held a newborn baby in their hands. They had waited for this child for months. They weren't physically able to have children. They had found the child's mother months before and had an agreement with her that they would adopt the child. Her life had not been pretty. Drugs, promiscuity and lack of direction had gotten her in this condition. She was very young and without much support to raise a child. Adoption seemed like a logical option.

Everything looked like an answer from God on the surface. . . but that's the surface. The child did not have a large portion of her brain. Her heart had only two valves.  There were other medical problems. She wasn't expected to live more than a couple of hours. This couple held the child with great care. I watched their hearts break for this little one who would be with us for only a few hours.

We prayed and I thought, "Why, why, why God?" Surely this child was not conceived under the best circumstances but I felt sure that this couple would raise her with love. I felt this child would fill a hole in this couple's life. Now, it seemed that the hole had just gotten bigger.

Why does this happen? I don't know. Is that answer good enough? I don't know. Its the only answer I have. 

I know that God loves us all. He doesn't love this child any less. I don't think the child's condition was punishment for the physical parent's lifestyle. The drug may have been the reason but it wasn't God's punishment.

Have you ever had those moments when you knew God was so close that you could speak to Him and almost hear Him audibly? Then, there are those times that you cry out and you only hear your own voice echo . . . after that, its just silence.

I have heard that God gives silence to those whom He can trust. I suppose that is where faith comes in.  I have to keep believing during the silence.

When asked why bad things happen to good people my answer is consistent: I don't know. Is that good enough? I don't know. Its still the only answer I have.

Is God as Sly as People Say He Is?

I hear people tell me about God all the time. (That shouldn't surprise you since I am a preacher.) They will tell me what He has done, is doing and will do in their lives. Unfortunately, what they are calling God isn't the same as I have understood Him.

Some people think that the reason they are having problems is because there is something that they haven't done. They don't know what it is but when they find out they are going to do that thing so they can get back on God's good side. 

They say things like, "God, tell me what I am doing wrong because I don't want bad things to keep happening to me." I wonder if they see life like a game show. You know, "If I can guess the right answers, I can get everything I have ever wanted." 

Do you really think that God wouldn't tell you what you were doing wrong if He was making bad things happen to you? He sounds more like Batman's the Riddler rather than God. "Come on, Batman, if you get the answer to my riddle right, you can save the girl!"

I really don't have to worry about the things I am not doing right. I know what they are. I sometimes choose to do them anyway and I do have consequences. God doesn't hide them from me. They are very plain no matter how hard I try to hide them. Sometimes I say, "God, don't look in the closet. You know there's nothing in the closet you wouldn't like." But God knows and He knows I know too.

Sometimes I try to surround myself with activity so I won't be caught all alone with God. If I am very busy and envelope myself with others who are doing the wrong things too I don't seem to notice what I am doing wrong. If I get alone with God, I always know.

It isn't like God hits me with lightning or anything. He doesn't even beat me up with words. He just lets me go as far as I would like from Him. When I get sick and tired of being sick and tired I come home.

The amazing thing is that the light is always on when I get there. He seems to say, "I knew you would come home eventually. I was waiting for you."

Some people are so afraid of coming home. I think they believe God will really get on their case if they did. That doesn't even make sense when you think about it. Coming home was the first right thing you have done for a long time. Why would God beat you for doing a right thing?

There really isn't much mystery here. If you want to leave God, He will let you. If you want to sin, He will let you. If you want to struggle, He will let you. If you want to come home, He will welcome you.

Does that mean all good things will start happening then? No. I think of the woman caught in the act of adultery. No one stoned her. Jesus did not condemn her. Yet, He told her to go and sin no more. I wonder what it was like when her husband came home and the whole town was talking about she had done. (They understood that only a married woman could commit adultery.) I don't know but I bet it wasn't real pretty.

I don't think God is sly at all. I know Him to be very plain. 

When The Church Takes Steroids

I have back problems. Recently I  was referred to a pain management doctor who gave me steroid shots in my back. O, what a wonderful thing!

The pain in my knees and hip also went away. I felt younger. I started jogging again even though my doctors told me that years ago to stop. I know why athletes take this stuff. It turns back the clock. It makes you stronger, faster and able to build muscle quickly.

But steroids have their downsides too. The problems associated with them do not justify their use. When stopped, the person taking steroids becomes the incredible shrinking man. Not only is all lost but things are much worse. So, what does this have to do with the church? I think that some churches are trying steroids like gimmicks to get people to come. 

Sure, churches have always used gimmicks. I have heard it quoted so many times "be as innocent as doves but as shrewd as serpents" many times in the church. Now, I think we are using the shrewd part a little too much.

One church gave $10,000 to some lucky person who came to their church on Easter. They advertised and, yes, they had a huge crowd. Another church gave $300 gift cards to a local mall as door prizes to a youth gathering. 

So, what's wrong with this? Aren't these churches growing? Are they not growing faster than any of the other churches in their areas? Yes, they are growing rapidly. They are baptizing people at at a phenomenal rate. Others are saying they are the poster children for church growth . . . just like people have said of athletes who could out perform their peers because they were on steroids.

This practice brings up many questions for me. Is the gospel not good enough to bring people to its message? What about the encore problems this practice creates. If you give out $300 gift cards, won't it take more and more of this to get the same or greater crowds? Eventually you will have to give away cars! Doesn't this do damage to the churches who are not using this tactic? Doesn't this pervert the gospel? Where will we be twenty years from now?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Maybe I am concerned about nothing.

Does BCS Stand for Bad, Crazy and Stupid?

There are many sports that take a great deal of skill in which winners are chosen by judges. I do not know much about these sports. I know that it's bad when a skater landing from a jump falls but I do not know how these sports are judged. There is no basket, goal line, finish line or goal post that clearly indicate a score. Football is not like one of these sports.

Sure, there are ref calls which are clearly wrong (Yes, Oklahoma, I am thinking of you!) but the larger part of the game is getting the football over the goal line. Scores are accumulated and the team with the most points wins. Overtime was created so that we could clearly say which team was the winner.

Then comes the BCS. I am not sure that I understand it. It combines votes from coaches, team records against ranked teams and how the wind blows that day to determine the ranking of each team. There is a computer involved in this somewhere . . .and maybe a oiji board. In the end, you have a very dubious National Champion.

Is Division 1 college football the only team sport that doesn't have a legitimate playoff? It would seem simple enough to accomplish. It is done at other levels of College Football. Why not at this one?

I have heard that the college presidents don't want it because it will interfere with the student-athletes ability to be a student. Get real! If this is the argument, the school should drop the rest of the season. Yes, it interferes with their ability to be a student- just like the two jobs I maintained while I was in college interfered in my ability to completely focus. (Yes, I know it's not the same to be a bank teller and youth minister with the same intensity as playing Michigan this next week but other activities do have an affect.) If you want the degree, you have to pay for it someway. Playing college football is a legitimate way to do so.

I have also heard that there is too much money in the bowl games to have a playoff. I don't understand this argument since I see many seats in many of the games empty. Sponsors seem to be losing their shirts. Many of the games are not televised nationally.

I propose another system. Why not use the bowls for the playoffs? Thirty-two teams would be chosen to compete for the National Championship. Each conference winner and at-large bids would make us the selection. The number one seed would play the number thirty-two and so on just like in basketball. This would ensure that each game meant something. The bowls could bid to determine which level of play they would receive. This would would even give the Music City bowl some meaning! The highest bid gets the National Championship game. Lower bids get relatively lower ranks of the playoffs.

This means the season must start the last week of August. The regular season would end the third week in November and give an opportunity for each team to have a week off and for conferences who have a championship game to play theirs. Playoffs would begin the second week in December. This two week break between games allows the student-athlete to study and take final exams. The playoff will last five weeks. The championship game would be the second week in January. Yes, it will compete with the professional playoffs but do you really think that's going to make a difference? It isn't like we only have three networks to watch football any more!

I may be a little ahead of the curve as I prepare for the fall football season. I just want a clear winner. If not, I think we should need some judges who say, "Was that a double axle, camelback triple spin that he scored with, Chuck?"

"Yes," comes the excited reply, "And didn't he nail it with the landing?! We clearly have a national champion here!"

The Belief in a No Consequence World

Yes, I watched the news stories of the girl being beaten by her classmates. I understand she had done some bad things to them before they beat her. I guess these things have always happened. The difference is that they posted this on Youtube. It is one thing to commit a crime. It is a totally different thing to be so proud of it that you want the world to know. Or did they?

A phenomena we are experiencing today is the thought that something as public as Youtube or Facebook is only meant for your friends. Some have published pictures of themselves that they intended to be private but the world has peeked in. Then, these people are appalled that there are others seeing what was done.

There seems to be a disconnect between actions and consequences. Sure, people always run to watch a fight. However, people haven't always been making the fights available for the world. It makes me think of first Home Alone movie where one of the thieves flooded each house that was robbed so that they would have a reputation of being the Wet Bandits. He wasn't thinking that this would also tie together all of the other robberies when they eventually got caught. He didn't connect his actions with the consequences.

Maybe the girls had never had consequences before. The media said they were cheerleaders. Sometimes positions within schools give you privileges. You can believe the rules don't apply to you. Maybe this is why many professional athletes are getting in such trouble. When they grew up people covered up for them because they were such great athletes. Consequences never touched them before; why now?

I know that every action I make has the possibility of consequences. Some of these can be good. I have to weigh each action before taking it. Will this result in something that I want for my life and others or will it cause me and others shame, financial hardship or future disqualifications? The knowledge of how my actions will turn out comes from knowing what is wrong or right. Wrong actions may have positive results but the actions are still wrong and carry dishonor with them as a consequence. Right actions may cause me and others hardships but these actions remain honorable.

Jesus had to know the consequences of His actions. He knew those in authority would hate Him for them. He knew they would kill Him for them. He often spoke of His death. His actions remained pure and He submitted Himself to the consequences.

The difference we live in today is that people don't believe there are consequences for their actions. They do not know that a single act can cause hardships for the rest of their lives.

The Elusive Final Game

I watched Kansas win the national championship last night. This was their goal. They reached it. The coach, the players and the Kansas fans all seemed elated. How long does it last?

I am not trying to be cynical. This is something that they will always remember. Will it also be something that they will have to live up to? Will each of the players always be introduced as a member of the 2008 National Championship Team? How will that sound fifty years from now if this is the last accomplishment of their lives?

The game made me think about how we want that release from having to keep on trying. We want to win the lottery so that we don' t have to worry about any bills or dreaming about anything we have ever wanted. We want the retirement day so that we will never have to worry about going to work again. Even marriage, children and reaching the "top" seem to be ends in themselves.

I don't want my accomplishments to define my life. I want my life to define my accomplishments. I just don't want something that says, "You don't have to do anything else for the rest of your life." If my life has meaning there will always be the fulfilling of that meaning.

I know the apostle Paul said that he had already run the race. I like that thought. He had run the race but he continues to write. If he were truly all finished, why write another word? Why even write that he had finished? He did so because his life defined his accomplishment. He could do nothing else. What he was doing was who he was.

I have no plans to retire as most men. Sure, I will quit taking a paycheck someday but I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ created to give Him glory. That does not end because I have reached a certain age. I will continue to share who He is all my life.

I know there will be a last day of my life on this earth. There will be a last act of who I am. Then, I will go to this place called heaven and more fully do what I was created for. I shall give Him glory.

Congratulations to the 2008 National Champion Kansas Basketball Team. This will be an honor that will go with them always. I hope they have something more than this though. I hope they know why they were created, who they are and will have a life full of joy doing that forever.

Do you know why you were created? I'd love to talk with you about it.

How Fast Can I Go?

I met with a bunch of people this past week who talked about the future. We noted the speed things are changing and tried to anticipate what will happen in the church of the future.

The problem is that tomorrow is the future. We do not have to predict things that we won't see for twenty years. Each year new technology is created that surpasses anything we have seen before. It is not incremental like the technology changes of twenty years ago. Totally new technology is created which we might never have thought of before we saw it.

These changes create a different type of person. The person under twenty has been using computers most of his/her life. He has been playing video games that require several brain functions simultaneously. She has developed relationships online with people she has never personally met. Today's youth can text message with their two thumbs faster than most people can type. They think globally rather than locally or even regionally.

I, on the other hand, understand about a tenth of what they know. They have learned it like their native tongue. I must pull my hair out to stay at a tenth.

It isn't that I am such a technological idiot. I have built several computers from parts, hacked my TiVo, written a couple of programs and regularly fix other people's ipods. In addition to an ipod I have a Zune, Gigabeat, Slingbox, laptop and desktop computer. I use several operating systems on these computers from XP to Linux. That gets me to about ten percent of what the people under twenty already know and use.

I have choices. I can ignore all of this and keep my preaching and church the same as it always has been or seek to engage these young people on the terrain they love. At the same time I must also continue to communicate with those who know as little as I do about technology.

The big question is: Can I go fast enough to realistically speak to this young generation? Church has always been a one thing at a time project for me. I am talking about communicating on a several methods of engagement level with these young people.

The fact that I don't know how doesn't change what I need to do. How fast can I go? I guess I will soon find out. After all, I started blogging, right?