rolling hills hs

rat race

Steve Jobs. Started an iconic company, 313 patents to his name, and an impressive resume besides. Would I trade places with him? No. Why? Because he's dead.

I feel like a lot of us have created artificial benchmarks by which we validate ourselves. Whether we get a graduate degree from some prestigious school. How many papers we publish. How far we're advancing in our careers. But it's all meaningless. And it's so obviously meaningless. It's so obvious, that it's unbelievable how non-obvious it is. Why are you even doing what you do? Do you realize that when you die, none of this will matter?

sharing the gospel

I think we have a tendency to choose who we want to share the gospel with, and be super persistent about it. We try to show God's love to them in the hopes that they'll eventually see the truth. We might even drop bits of the gospel here and there. We pray for them, and earnestly hope that God will bring them around.

I'm not convinced this is the best way to go about it.

First, we are not called to make the gospel more palatable to those who might hear it. Jesus alienated a lot of his followers by telling them to hate their families to follow him (Luke 14:25-27). More left when he told them that they must eat his flesh (John 6:56-58). When questioned, he responds somewhat cavalierly, asking "Does this offend you?". He tells a man he cannot bury his father, and another that he can't bid his family farewell (Luke 9:59-62). He tells a rich man that he must sell all his positions (Matt 19:21-22), after which the rich man leaves.

Second, there doesn't seem to be any precedent in the bible for being persistent in going after specific people. After sending out his disciples, Jesus tells them that "if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet" (Matt 10:14). Preach the gospel, but upon rejection, don't stay to argue or do anything else, just leave. I feel like persistence in this case often leads to the stumbling block of self-glorification in the event that God does deign to save the person whom you were persistently pursuing.

If God is so concerned with separating the wheat from the chaff (Matt 3:12), then why are we so concerned with picking up every bit of chaff along with the wheat? "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" (Luke 10:2), so shouldn't we stop wasting our time with some people (let God do what He will with them), and look for those whose hearts are fertile? There doesn't seem to be a lack of those people, from what I've heard, and to a certain extent, seen.

We should stop asking God how to share the gospel with the few people we choose; and instead ask that He show us with whom we should share the gospel with.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."
- Matthew 7:6

prayer

I've learned how to pray by listening to others pray, and I've heard people pray in many different ways, but by and large there seems to be a similar vein among all the prayers, a similar structure. I can't help but wonder, though. Is this is how we should pray? Is this how David prayed when he cried out to the Lord? Or how Jesus prayed when he walked the earth?

I've also wondered how appropriate it would be to pray for an event that has already occurred. If God exists outside time, why couldn't He hear my prayers for something that happened last week? Suppose someone has a test at 8am tomorrow. I plan to wake up early to pray for him, but instead I oversleep. Is prayer so rigid a device that any prayer I now pray is no longer effective? Or am I simply punished for my lack of discipline?

A part of me knows these are silly questions. Prayer isn't a device, or a tool, to be used. It isn't something where you have to follow rules about its usage. Prayer is something else entirely. But too often I fall into the habit of praying a wish list in the hopes that God will grant at least a few things on that list.

We should pray for the eternal. When we intercede for someone, we shouldn't ask that they do well at school, or find a job by such and such a date. We should ask for peace that can come only from God, for a genuine change of heart, for humility, for complete surrender. 

We should pray for the present. That God's spirit would guide us in every moment. That it would guard our hearts, and nudge us in the right direction in our day to day activities. The Lord's prayer deals with today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow.

We should pray that His will be done. In His own time. Not on our own sense of schedule.

And in all these cases, the question of whether or not we can pray for something that has already happened ceases to be relevant.

Am I even praying correctly? Does He hear my prayers, and do they please Him?

"...we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."

- Romans 8:26

if i never knew

I've heard about a few people, recently, who've been having doubts about their faith. I'm only writing this because I've had the same doubts. I've often asked myself, "If I had never grown up in a Christian home, raised to believe in an all-loving and all-powerful God, would I still believe? Would I, left to my own devices without having been influenced from a young age, considering the Christian faith objectively, have arrived at the same set of beliefs to which I currently hold?"

How can anyone figure out what he would have believed given a different course of events? We are, in some sense, the product of our past experiences. And, is this even the best course to take when trying to deduce truth? I admit, past experiences can bias our ways of thinking, but they can illuminate them, too. The conclusions you might have drawn in a sterile environment absent past baggage may not always be the best.

Suppose, for example, that I did not go to school. I did not take math classes. Would I have, on my own, stumbled across the theory of calculus? Okay, maybe you would have. And maybe you're Isaac Newton (but even he was "standing on the shoulder of giants"). But I certainly wouldn't have. Does that make calculus any less true? It'd be foolish to ignore the wisdom of our parents, and of those who came before us.

We are taught. We accept some of the things we are taught, reject others, based on the merit of their ideas. But an idea shouldn't lend itself to doubt simply because it was taught.

I admit. If I weren't raised christian, I might very well not be. This could be a disconcerting thought, but I choose to instead to thank God that He chose to reveal himself through me through my parents. And that is why I think christian parenting is incredibly important.

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
- Proverbs 22:6

And in case you're wondering. No. I am not planning on having kids any time soon.

prayer

 "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
- Matthew 6:7-8

I fall into the trap, sometimes, of praying for the sake of prayer. The more I say, the better I feel about my prayer. But why pray, if God knows all our needs?

Maybe prayer should be more geared towards worshiping and praising God.

And when we do pray for our needs, and for those of others, maybe we aren't praying so much that God will be made aware of those needs and respond, but that we ourselves would be made aware of those needs and respond. Our prayers for ourselves serve to convict us of our sins, and motivate us towards true repentance and a change of heart. And our prayers for others serve to convict us of their need, to motivate us towards an outpouring of love, and potentially action.

salvation

I've always believed that if someone hasn't heard of Christ, he still might in his own way worship God and be saved by Christ. In much the same way Abraham was. Or even a Muslim in a culture dominated by Islam might be. C.S. Lewis seemed to think so when he wrote of the Arab man in The Last Battle who worshiped Aslan with the name Tash. And Billy Graham mentioned something similar late in his career, for which he received a lot of flak.

I still believe that. Very much so. In fact, I think we need to look in the other direction. It might very well be the case that the Christ we worship and call by name is very different from who Christ really is. I feel like our perception of Him has been tainted so much, by our culture, and by our wants. We want Him to be loving, but in a way that isn't loving. We want Him to save us all, without the discomfort that comes with true sanctification.

Whenever someone in the church dies, I always hear someone thanking God for taking him or her into heaven. And a lot of times, I can't help but wonder. Really? Who are we to know? To judge? To assume? God does as He pleases. When I die, someone will probably say something similar. But how will I be judged?

"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers."

- Matthew 7:22-23

And how will the church be judged?

"I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead."

- Revelation 3:1

Stop taking your salvation for granted. Work it out, with fear and trembling. I feel like today's Christians are way too confident. And that confidence rubs off on me.