The Way I See It

I wrote this essay a few months ago for a class in which I had to articulate my worldview in general and in several specific areas. I read it again today, and started elaborating on and editing it. I thought I would publish it here so I might get some feedback. I wish to give the warning that God deals differently with everyone, and it is unreasonable to read this story and expect God to reveal himself to you in the same ways he met me. If you seek God, he will meet you on his time in the method he wishes. From talking to other Christians, I have gathered that my experience with God is somewhat atypical, so please bear that in mind.

It is also worth saying that suicide is a foolish and cowardly thing to plan or do or consider doing, and generally gains you nothing whatsoever. Though I was suicidal for a significant portion of my life, I'm not proud of it, and I don't recommend that anyone venture into that particular darkness. Suicide or attempting suicide is not a good way to encounter God or get love or help. The fact that it worked out okay for me doesn't mean it was a good plan, and once again, I don't suggest it. There are much better ways to encounter God, and if you want to know about them, you can talk to me about it.

The Way I See It

Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth -look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.” I could not make the argument that my life has been made for enjoyment. Growing up in a very christianized city, I have had an intellectual understanding of the Gospel since I can remember. Though I wasn't raised in a church or a Christian home, a propositional gospel filters through when you are raised in such an environment. I'm sure I prayed the sinner's prayer several times, and had a fair understanding of the Bible I acquired from some extended family members.


As I grew up I lacked the baseline happiness that most of my peers seemed to have. I was chronically ill with a then mysterious medical condition, my parents considered divorce afresh every few months, and my peers didn't like me. Being a dramatic seventh grader, I decided there was no joy in life worth living for and my life could not foreseeably ever get better, so the best course of action was to kill myself. I had plans to synthesize a poison by mixing some household products, pretend to be sick, and drink the poison after my parents left for work and I was alone in the house.


The night before I was intending to kill myself, I had a dream. In the dream, I was standing in heaven, looking down at the earth. God was next to me, but I couldn't see him. He showed me my life from heaven's perspective, and then he showed me another person's life. The other person had what I would have called a 'normal, happy life.' After he had shown me this, he said to me, paraphrastically, 'I could have made you any way I wanted, but I made you and your life the way it is for a reason.'


This existential experience would be the cornerstone on which my life was built. I was and am very unsure about very many things. Nonetheless, I had now experienced something first hand that was irrefutable and irrevocable. I knew certain things must be true about the universe. I knew that there was one God, who created me and the universe and was in complete control of it all. I knew that I was made with a specific purpose and had a part in God's plan. It's hard for me to know whether I was saved at that point or not, but I didn't think in such terms. I wasn't sure exactly who the God I met was, but I knew that He was the God who inspired the Bible.


I would still not claim to know much about this God who wrote the Bible. He is transcendent and mysterious, and I certainly can't know the whole of him. All I can know of Him is what he has chosen to reveal about himself. He revealed some things to me in seventh grade. He revealed he had a plan. He revealed he was in control. I learned I could know more about this God I had met in the Bible. Studying the Bible on my own, I learned that God had not only supernaturally intervened in my life, but that he had intervened in history. For a long time I had doubts about the historicity of the Bible.


As I read about the disciples, something changed. I read about their fear of following Christ at the crucifixion, and then read later that they willingly died for speaking of this Jesus, as did many of those who had not ever met Jesus. I understood that this gospel must change lives. I knew that these people had had a real encounter with the Risen Lord, in some form, the way I had.


I also learned that God is Love. All other attributes of God can be ascribed as subsets of his perfect love. Since God was the greatest thing in the universe, it seemed best to me to understand him as well as I could. It made sense to value the things He valued, since He had the perspective to know what was and was not important. One of the first books I read in the Bible was 1 John. John is pretty clear that love is the priority of the Christian life, but the more I read the Bible, the more I find it all over Scripture. I find the imperative of love in the writings of Peter and Paul, in the teaching of Jesus, in the admonishments of the prophets, and the construction of the Law. Love is the value of the Christian life. Everything else follows logically. Faith comes when we see the power of love and trust Love. Hope comes when we have the faith to know that Love will win in the end. Justice comes when we love those damaged by injustice. Love is behind and under every other value in the Christian life.


In my life, this means I drive towards overcoming barriers between people so that love in the body of Christ can be stronger and purer. 1 John 4:11-12 says, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” It has always been God's plan to display Himself in the loving relationships between those who know Him. When God creates man in Genesis 2:18, He said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” On this topic, several Biblical “scholars, seeing the pattern of male and female, have concluded that humanity expresses God's image in relationship, particularly in well functioning human community, both in marriage and in wider society.” (Alexander, 51).


As such, I spend a tremendous amount of energy (proportionally) attempting to build relationships that are not merely pleasant, but edifying: manifesting the image of God. I take serious issue with gossip, slander, malice and the holding of grudges within the Church. I feel I am seriously intentional about developing spiritual intimacy with people around me, being open and genuine, and attempting to include and love people who seem isolated, especially incoming freshmen.


On the flip side of this, I have a lot of fear. I am afraid of opening up and being rejected. I am afraid of trying really hard to build a relationship and being ignored. I am afraid of being devalued or rejected. I am afraid that is these things happen, they may destroy me.


I know this is not a rational fear, but it remains. I know that people probably will do all of this things to me. It has happened before and it will surely happen again. I know that, when it happens, I will be okay. I know that I do not need their affirmation or respect or acceptance. I know that I have what I need in Christ, and the more I rely on it, the better my life runs. Yet I am still afraid of their power to destroy me by rejection, knowing they are powerless.


People seem to think hate is the opposite of love. I disagree. You can both love and hate something. You can hate because of love. I think fear is the opposite of love. John says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.”


Being an existentialist, I have little to say on the ontology of the universe. I know the God of the Bible exists. I know I exist. I am fairly sure other people exist. The physical world as I perceive it is probably here too, although if it were not I would not be very concerned. It is, at the very least, the least significant of the realities in existence. There is another reality that might be called the spiritual reality, although I dislike this phrase because it implies something ephemeral, and it is the physical world, not the spiritual, that is the less real. In C.S. Lewis' vision of heaven, the unnamed narrator gives a description of the reality of heaven compared with the reality of men, “The men were as they had always been; as all the men I had known had been perhaps. It was the light, the grass, the trees that were different; made of some different substance, so much solider than things in our country that men were ghosts by comparison.” It is the spiritual world that is underlying, fundamental, primary, and ultimately more real than the physical world. As Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”


I have already said much about my Epistemology. I believe knowledge can be obtained through direct revelation from God and the illumination of the Holy Spirit in tandem with the study of the the Bible. There are some things which God has revealed to all mankind, as Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” An absolute God demands there be absolute truth. The question is not whether truth is relative, in fact such a question is inherently paradoxical. The question is of access to the absolute truth that is out there. The question is also not one of certainty. Uncertainty is merely where I rent a room when I haven't decided what house to buy yet. Having made a decision, my certainty lies in that decision. The question is on the nature of our access to absolute truth, that is, whether our access is objective or subjective.


It is now necessary to clarify these terms. By objective access to truth, I mean knowing truth in a way that this knowledge can be empirically expressed and proved, either scientifically or logically, to be internally consistent. There are a number of objective truths in the Bible as well as in science, nature, math and elsewhere. These truths are useful in providing a concrete basis for a worldview.


By subjective access to truth, I mean access to truth in which the truth is the subject (origin) and I am the object. Essentially, subjective truth is truth that accesses me, rather than the reverse. When I encounter God in a dream, am convicted by the Holy Spirit, encounter the image of God in another person, fall in love, or experience the awe of God's majesty in creation, I am learning truth subjectively. Ultimately, truths that will matter most are those I understand subjectively, because ultimately God is the subject, and I am not. Everything of great significance in my life has happened to me subjectively. As Kierkegaard has said, “The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”


Salvation is not me going to God, understanding Him, and signing up with his program. Salvation is God knowing me, entering my world, and changing me as he sees fit. This is a subjective, existential experience, and it will always carry more weight than anything I could do on my own. Jesus said that He is, “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.” When Truth encounters us, happens to us, we are the object, and Jesus is the subject. This is subjective Truth. I echo the sentiments of Donal Miller, who said, “I want Jesus to happen to you the was He happened to Laura at Reed, the way He happened to Penny in France, the way He happened to me in Texas. I want you to know Jesus too. This book is about the songs my friends and I are singing. This is what God is doing in our lives.” (240).


I believe that God has an exciting plan for my life. It may not be enjoyable, and it may be very difficult, but because I know the God who created the universe and planned my life, I know that my life will be an adventure if I will live it. I know there is great joy and sorrow and challenge and all epic things in my future, because I follow after a God who is grand and wild. As John Eldridge would say, God has an adventure to extend to each one of us. We are, as people, called into God's creation in a epic adventure. There is wrong to be righted, joy to be had, beauty to be discovered and delighted in, challenge and hardship and and patience and action. These are the things that people, male and female, are made to do, occasionally solitarily, generally in community. I understand a man not by what he is or what he is made of, but by what he does. That is, I believe people are best understood functonalistically. In the Old Testament, 'good' does not refer to niceness or enjoyability, but well-functioningness. A good sword efficiently takes life, a good shovel digs holes of high quality, and a good man follows hard and well after God in the adventure set before him. A good community follows after God in the adventure together. This is what I understand it means to be human.


Logic is important in this quest. Good intentions are insufficient for success, as we have often heard the road to hell is paved with them. Logic guides us to wisdom, to doing things rightly so the work out as we would like. Passion is the strength to run hard down the path God has set. Logic provides the light to see the right path. God is not a God of confusion nor one who hides our path from us, for 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”


I feel that God is calling me to minister to youth. I am not certain what that will look like yet. Perhaps I will be counselor, a writer, or a pastor. I am confident he will show me what to do when I need to know. My primary motivation for desiring to do youth ministry is that I see a lack of discipleship in the church, especially among the younger generation. For my understanding of the Bible, discipleship, and especially discipleship towards the younger generation, is an imperative command from God to his followers. God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:6-8, “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” When I am old enough, I would like to train parents to integrate their spiritual lives into their parenting so that parenting becomes discipleship, which is rarely seems to be. On a more general level, Christ commands us in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." I feel called to fulfill this command and teach other to do the same.


Often times, I feel like minority within the Church. I feel we are not doing things well, but it seems most everyone else thinks we are. When I try to deal with my concerns, it seems to upset people that I am rocking the boat or criticizing the way things have been done. I get much disrespect and hurtful indifference when I am passionate about issues I care about, and it would be much easier for me to blend into the crowd. When this happens, I feel a strong urge to leave the ministry or the church in general. I often become bored and disdainful of the way things are being done.


If I am going to speak the words of truth and address deep rooted problem in the church, it is not realistic for me to try to prevent criticism. I am going to say what I have to say and attempt to address the problems as I see them. I will not mince words, and I will not be other than I am. If someone can show me error, I will certainly modify my views and opinions, however, I will not sit down, shut up, back down, or temper my words because I make people uncomfortable or offended. There is much difference between causing someone to stumble and offending someone. In the American church, I think a lot of people need a rude wake-up in the same way Jesus was a rude awakening to the Pharisees.


However, it is not feasible for me to withstand such pressure on my own. I need to build a strong support structure to live this adventure and fight this battle with me. My main strategy to do this is to pray consistently for such a strong support group and make building intimate spiritual friendships with like-minded Christians a priority. I am also currently seeking a mentor.


In conclusion, my worldview stems primarily from my experiences, and especially those subjective experiences I have had with the Absolute Truth of Jesus Christ and his subsequent work in my life. I feel through this experience I have developed a strong heart and call towards discipleship, especially towards youth and eventually parents. While this may be a difficult road because of my strong and unorthodox views, I believe I have a lot to offer the Church, and that God has sent me to speak prophetically into a sleepy church. If I do things right I will undoubtedly encounter much opposition, however, if I am able to cultivate a strong support group of friends, mentors and a wife, I feel God will use these relationships to strengthen me for whatever he calls me towards.

Works Cited

Alexander, D. T. "Genesis." Holy Bible English Standard Version : the ESV Study Bible. Ed. J. I. Packer and Wayne Grudem. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2008.

Eldredge, John. Wild at heart discovering the passionate soul of a man. Nashville, Tenn: T. Nelson, 2001.

Holy Bible English Standard Version : the ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2008.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscripts to Philosophical Fragments : International Kierkegaard Commentary. Ed. Robert Perkins. New York: Mercer UP, 2004.

Lewis, C. S. The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. New York: HarperOne, 2007.

Miller, Donald. Blue Like Jazz : Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. New York: Struik, 2001.

Love Song

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

-T.S. Elliot

This is one of my favorite poems, and I return to it perennially to soak in it yet again. Recently, it has made me wonder about how much of my life I waste.

I do not mean how much time I waste, as in how much of the time I am doing something unproductive. I wonder how much life I waste by living life asleep. There is so much excellence all around me, all the time, and I am consistently bored of it all. There are astounding colors and tastes and new experiences and delightful people and invigorating challenges, and while I partake in many of them, I miss the glory in most of them.

And because of that I do also waste time. I make choices that are, honestly, boring. There is neither merit nor challenge or joy to them. A few minutes ago I refreshed my inbox, took apart a pen and put it back together, and they were worthless decisions. If I had taken joy in the wonder of mechanical pen, and taken it apart eagerly and wondered at the glory of God in making man to make something like this, then perhaps it would have been worthwhile.

But I didn't. I did it to have something to do. I didn't enjoy it particularly. I was killing time. And that's just it. I am destroying my time. It is worth so much, it has so much potential for excellence in so many ways, if I would only do any of the millions of spectacular things that God has made open to me... but I am content to do nothing in particular.

How long will I hide from challenge? How long will I delay the adventure? How long will I wonder if I dare taste the fruits of dealing with a problem or reconciling to a person? Why am I content with this paltry life when my God has poured upon me an abundant life? My window is open, it is warm outside, and raining, and that is glorious. Why don't I care?

And really, I'm afraid. But I don't really know what I'm afraid of. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm like a little kid about to go on his first roller coaster ride. It is big and scary. And the world is big and scary, so big it frightens me to look over the edge and see the vastness of it. Dare I live a big life in a big world?

I want adventure and challenge and depth and richness and intimacy and excitement in my life, but so often, second my second, I walk slowly away from these things rather than towards them. Some voice tells me to be safe and protected and reasonable. This voice seems wise, but it is actually a foolish voice.

I've had enough of that. I want all the excellence of God that he himself has built into my life for me. I want to seek it and not run away. And more and more, I'm okay with not being safe. I'm becoming not afraid.

I want to be enraptured with my Father, wooed by the life he has given me. When will I fall in love with Him enough to accept all the gift he has given me? When will I see His glory in His gift? Father, help me! Pull me into your abundant life!

Is Lying a Sin? (Food for Thought)

When I was a new Christian, I was taught that lying was a sin like murder or adultery, and that it was one of the Ten Commandments. I have been reading the Bible, and like so many other things, what I was taught by the church as a new Christian seems to be contrary to what the Bible teaches. The ninth commandment says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." I was told that this meant that it was a sin to lie. However, there are some issues with that.

"Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives." -Exodus 1

Here the midwives lie to Pharaoh, and it seems that God approves, because He, "dealt well with the midwives."

It seems to me that if it wasn't a sin for midwives to lie to Pharaoh, then lying is not a sin. I have been taught that things that are sins are always wrong, there are not 'extenuating circumstances.' When we claim there are extenuating circumstances for our sin, we call that justifying ourselves. Surely lying, like anything else, can be done in sin, with sinful intention or the like, but can we say that it is inherently a sin? If it is, why does God approve the midwives?

Perhaps you might say that the midwives were lying to Pharaoh, who was a foreigner, in favor of the Israelites, who were their neighbors, and this makes the bearing false testimony okay. Consider this:

"And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, "Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land." Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land." But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, "True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them." But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof." -Joshua 2

In the New Testament, both James and Hebrews say that this act was righteous, even though Rahab lied to her own people to defend foreigners. In addition, the false testimony Rahab bore was definitely against her neighbors: Because Rahab protected the spies, everyone in the city of Jericho (except her family) was killed! Yet, the Bible seems to honor Rahab for lying, even though this lie seems to clearly break the 9th commandment.

Perhaps you will say that Rahab was a Gentile, and therefore not required to obey the 10 commandments (and I would agree.) But if we say this, how then can we say that Gentile Christians are under the 10 commandments? We cannot make a distinction between and Rahab by saying that Christians are 'regenerated' or a 'part of God's people' and that Rahab was not, because both James and Hebrews consider Rahab to be saved, so she must also be 'regenerated' or 'a part of God's people.'

So my immediate question for you is: Is lying a sin? If so, how do we know this from the Bible? What do we do with Rahab and the Hebrew midwives?

But this raises another interesting question: Are Gentile Christians (or unbelieving Gentiles) required to obey the 10 commandments? If not, why not? If so, are they required to obey the other parts of the Mosaic covenant? Why or why not?

Bleeding Words

I could bleed words that mean nothing in my
Silent corner of a home
—(but not mine)
I could spurt them over a page
Like an arterial wound—
—Black blood on LCD paper.

It's not like I haven't done it before,
But the feeling after is like
The emptiness after vomiting or
The cold after a hug from
Someone I know does not love me.

It would be so much better to
Simply know what is inside me.
I know that some things, though true, take no form,
—(in letters.)
But without an outlet I grow stagnant,
And something in me wants to grow.

Dysfunctional Families, and Why I Can't Stand Abraham

Since I was old enough to know what the term 'dysfunctional' meant, I have described my family as such. Living at home has always felt like living in a war zone, and every conversation is like wandering through a minefield. Recently, as a result of the book Boundaries and a seminar called "Marriage Matters" my home is somewhat at peace. Even though all is quiet on the home front at present, when I go home I feel like a World War I era farmer going home after the war and finding only trenches and craters.

Sometimes it's good to see my parents having a whole conversation without yelling or to have my mom come home and not be afraid that she's going to blow up. At the same time, this armistice has in many ways been harder than the war. While I was lying in the trenches, I didn't really know how much damage was occurring to my family and my soul. Climbing out and walking through no man's land, the devastation crushes me. I had hoped so much more would survive the war, but everything is gone, at least on this battlefield. Trust, affection, safety, hope, strength... all casualties of a twenty something year war. Everything that I have is built outside of this home, outside of this family.

This is not as bad as it sounds. I have a good Family. I have the Church. I have brothers who love me, whom I love. I have father figures here at Moody, and I have a Father. This makes everything okay, really. I want to have a warm, peaceful, safe, loving home. But I'm 20 now and however many hopes I have for what my family will be in the future, I am done growing up in my parent's home. The home I grew up in now lives in the past, and I will always have grown up in that war-torn home.

I have been reading through Genesis, and it has been both shocking and comforting. I have read it before a couple times, but I think I must have been asleep, because I have never been so emotionally engaged. I give most of the human credit for this change in how I read the Bible to Dr. Penley, who has really helped me understand how to read and apply the Bible.

Often as I read, I felt shocked that the characters in the story were such bad examples. I taught Sunday School for a long time, and our children's pastor (and the curriculum we buy) holds up people like Jacob, Abraham, and Sarah as good Christian role models. I was not raised in the church, and so I didn't know a lot about the Bible, and assumed that presenting heroes from Bible stories was a good way to teach kids to be more like Jesus.

I felt angry because these people I was reading about were not the warm, fuzzy, sanitized rolemodels that are in my Sunday school curriculum. I felt angry because from what I read, we should not be asking young boys to be like Abraham or Jacob nor young girls to be like Sarah or Rebekah. I was intrigued. I felt like I was reading Genesis for the first time. I am realizing things that seem so obvious now, but that I had never noticed when I read before.

And I was comforted. I was comforted because all the people I read about were really messed up, and God used them greatly despite how totally screwed up they were. And honestly, I think that might be the point of the narrative. I think whoever wrote Genesis (Moses, perhaps) is trying to say, "Look at how hopeless all these people were, and look how much God used them in spite of it, and know that God can us you." And it was comforting, because if God can use Jacob and his messed up family, maybe there's hope for me and my family.

The story starts with a married couple, Adam and Eve. Adam is a passive, cowardly man who lets Satan come and spiritually assault his wife, and he just stands there watching it happen instead of manning up and taking a stand. Then, when she tries to get him to join in her sin, instead of standing up to his wife like he should have, he bends to her will and joins her in sin. When God comes and asks Adam to give an explanation, he ducks responsibility and blames his wife, and then he blames God for not giving him a better wife. Eve isn't much better. She is manipulative, controlling, unsupportive, and irresponsible.

I was talking to my friend Chelsea about this, and she pointed out that Joseph is the only good role model in all fifty chapters of Genesis. All of the other men follow Adam's example. They are cowards and fools who will not stand up for what is right. All of the women (except perhaps Hagar) follow Eve's example. They are manipulative, deceptive, and catty.

Together, they make up a tragedy depressing enough that it would be a comedy if we forgot that these were real people. The Children of Adam are the most dysfunctional family I've ever seen.

Abel cares more about God than his brother, Cain, does, so God is pleased with Abel. Cain decides to fix this by this by killing his brother. Noah gets drunk and winds up lying around naked, his son checks him out, Noah curses him and makes him a servant to his brothers. Which brings us to Abram in Chapter 12.

Abram, who becomes Abraham, seemed like a nice guy when I first started reading. He doesn't commit a lot of really noticeable sins like his sons do. At a second glance, he bugged me more than anyone else in the story.

Apparently, his wife was really attractive, because Abraham was worried that if the kings of the lands he visited saw her they would kill him and forcibly take her to be their 'wife.'

So he comes up with a really clever plan. He decided that whenever he meets new people, he's going to tell everyone that his wife, Sarah, is his sister, so that instead of killing him, kings will pay him if they are going to steal his wife and rape her. It's not a clever plan to protect her, it's a clever plan to sacrifice her for the sake of his safety and prosperity.

Abraham has every reason to stand up for his bride. He is wealthy man, having many servants and goods and apparently a private army. On one occasion Abraham's brother, Lot, is captured in battle by, "Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch king of Ellasar. [They] carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom. [...] One who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshcol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people."

If Abraham had wanted to take a stand for his wife he certainly could have. When he took a stand for his brother he took out the armies of four kings, but apparently he's too scared to take a stand. I suppose he also could have just kept his wife in the tent or had her cover up, if he was that worried about her. But apparently he would rather risk her for his benefit. That gets me pretty riled up, but I'll move on for your sake.

Abraham seems to have some issues within his marriage as well:

"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, 'The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.' Abram agreed to what Sarai said."

This really ticked me off. Firstly, what kind of wife asks her husband to sleep with another woman? I understand that this is culturally acceptable, but it's still a terrible idea. I think Abraham already knows it's a bad idea, because God has already told Abraham that he's going to have lots of kids, but Sarah is getting impatient, so she tries to make the process happen a little faster. She twists her husband's arm into distrusting God, which apparently wasn't very hard, because not only can Abraham not stand up for his wife, he can't stand up to her either.

So Abraham marries Hagar and has a kid with her, and Sarah freaks out. She gets all bitter and jealous about it. She abuses Hagar (who is still her slave) and Hagar's son. She berates her husband to get him to get rid of her. Eventually she does break up the relationship. Abraham can't seem to stand up for Hagar any better than he can stand up for Sarah, and he sends her away to pacify his jealous and manipulative wife, which is the first mention of divorce in the Bible.

Sarah is also too cynical to believe God when He tells Abraham to that she will have the child she longs for, and then she does some lying to Abraham about it. Together, Abraham and Sarah are quite a team. They disregard the promises of God, they mistreat their servants, they keep getting people cursed...

Now, Lot is Abraham's brother, and apparently just as much of a coward. Note that he is a good man, he's too passive to stand up for what he believes in. He offers his daughters to be raped by the men of Sodom so that they don't rape his dinner guests, which is only avoided because angels save his family and destroy Sodom.

Then, his daughters are really worried that they will never have kids, because it is apparently really hard to find a good husband in 2000BC. (Some things don't change.) Even though their father offered them to the Sodomite to be raped, they seem to think he's good enough, and they conspire together to get their father drunk and sleep with him. Lot, who is even more easily manipulated than Abraham, consents and gets drunk with his daughters and then gets them both pregnant (on two different occasions.)

Abraham's kid, Isaac, gets married to Rebekah. He also pretends that she is his sister, and she also gets taken by a king, who gives her back when he finds out the truth. They have two kids, but Rebekah doesn't like the older one because he has an interracial marriage. (Two of them, actually.) The younger son, Jacob, is a momma's boy, and she teaches him a lot about deception and trickery, apparently, because he tricks his older brother out of his birthright (inheritance) while his mom engineers a way to manipulate his elderly father into blessing Jacob instead of his older brother.

Together, Rebekah and Jacob manage to trick Isaac because he's old and can't see, and he blesses the wrong son. Then Rebekah gets Jacob to run away from home so his brother won't kill him for doing what she put him up to do.

Jacob falls head over heels in love with Rachel the first time he sees her. Apparently he's never read Joshua Harris, because he kisses her the first time they meet. Then, he works for her father seven years to earn the right to marry her. So far, he seems like a decent sort of man, loving, hard-working, etc., if not the best with words: "Jacob said to Laban, [Rachel's father] 'Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her.'"

However, Laban and tricks Jacob into marrying his older daughter, Leah, even though Jacob and Rachel were in love. Jacob is apparently so head over heels in love that he lacks sound judgment to stay sober on his wedding day, and he accidentally marries the wrong girl. "When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, 'What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?'"

So, Jacob stays with Leah for a week, and then he marries her little sister and sleeps with her. I can't imagine that went over very well with Leah, but then I can't imagine Rachel being very happy that Leah tried to steal the love of her life. So Jacob's lovely household is him, his two wives, who are sisters, and their two servants. Not content to live and let live, Jacob's wives start a child bearing feud. My favorite part is when Rachel trades a night with Jacob in exchange for some mandrakes from her sister... I mean, geez...

Leah, being pretty upset that she is sharing a husband with her little sister, and that her little sister is better liked, takes comfort in the fact that she is the more fertile of the two. She gives Jacob a whole bunch of kids, but Rachel doesn't seem to be able to have kids, so Rachel feels like a really bad wife. She decides to pull a Sarah, and get Jacob to sleep with her servant girl so she can have kids through her servant. Not to be outdone, Leah pulls the same trick.

Finally, Rachel has some kids, Joseph and Benjamin, and they are Jacob's favorites. Jacob favors Joseph so much that his brothers conspire to kill him but end up selling him into slavery to an Egyptian family instead. While working there, the mother of the family tries to seduce Joseph, but he refuses her, making him the first man in the Bible to successfully say no to a woman. (And really the first man to stand up to temptation in general). In return, she manipulates her husband into throwing him in prison.

In the mean time, Joseph's half-brother Judah has kids, one of who gets married to a woman named Tamar. Now, apparently Judah's kid was really bad, but we don't really know how, all it says is, "Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death." Then Onan, Er's brother marries Tamar, and refuses to father a child with her. "What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so He put him to death also." Tamar wants to marry Judah's third son, but Judah resists giving him to her and, at the end of a very convoluted story, ends up sleeping with her instead. It's worth noting that Jesus is descended from this Judah.

Now, the story ends well with Joseph becoming the chief administrator in Egypt and being reconciled to his brothers, but it's pretty messy along the way. It's been encouraging to see how God can use even themost screwed up people, but it's also made me rethink a lot of how we teach the Bible, especially to kids. I don't like that my church's children's ministry is sanitizing the Bible. Chelsea and I had a long conversation about it, but didn't come to much of a conclusion. Thoughts?

Integrity and My Thought Life

I wish my thoughts worked like sentences. I wish they were linear and complete with subjects and verbs. I wish they organized themselves with three points and an introduction and conclusion. They do not.

Books process in sequence. You read one thought and the next thought. If it is not well written, the next thought may not connect well, but it is always one thought after the other. One at a time. This is peaceful and comforting and usually boring.

I process in parallel, and I hate it. I am always thinking about multiple things at the same time. Not that I jump back and forth from one to another, but actually occurring at the same. Maybe this is how most people think, and you are thinking that this comment is obvious and stupid. Maybe you think this is really weird, and you're thinking I should get some professional help.

For me, trying to understand what I am thinking is like sitting on the edge of a highway. My thoughts move so fast they are blurry and I have hardly understood what I am thinking before it is gone, out of sight and a dozen other thoughts whizzing past. I try to focus on one and understand it but while I do several others move fly by unscrutinized. I try to zoom out and understand the who and I come up with a blurry picture of myself with all these different ideas and thoughts melted together, indistinct and unhelpful like trying to figure out which flavors were in melted rainbow sherbet.

There is always a part of me that is planning the next five minutes a part of me that is thinking about the next year and a part of me that is examining memories of the past and a part of me that analyzing my surroundings. A part of me is wondering how that dent got in the wall while another part of me is thinking about something I read this morning and another part of me is thinking about constructing this sentence correctly.

Another part of me is analyzing it to see if it actually expresses what I wanted and another part of me is wondering is I finished cleaning up in the kitchen. Another part of me is often replaying a song or a movie in the back of my head and sometimes pauses to analyze some lyrics or a scene. Another part of me is talking to myself and explaining to myself whatever I am focused on, while another part is thinking of a metaphor to understand what I am focused on, which, by the way, changes every 2-3 seconds.

I am always trying to bring one strand of thought to the forefront of my mind so I can focus on it and do something meaningful, but it is a constant struggle because lyrics from the song or an imagined video (yes, I see video in my head) from the extended metaphor I am creating pops into my head. This triggers more links and tangents and very quickly I have completely lost my train of thought, although is is really more like an 8 lane superhighway than a train. Trains have one care after the other, highways move in parallel.

I like writing because it forces me to be sane. It forces me to take things one step, one sentence at a time, and put my thoughts in a sequence. Then, I can read over it and understand in a more ordered way what the whole of me is thinking or feeling. Most of the things I write are not written in the order you read them in. I select and drag sentences to make paragraphs of sentences that work together.

It annoys me that I lack the discipline to isolate a train of thought and focus on it very well. It annoys me that I constantly have to refocus and bring myself back to what I was trying to do or just think about. This is, I think, a part of the way God made me. And as frustrating as it is and as much as I hate feeling weird, I think it is okay.

However, it seriously bother me that I often process different things from different parts of my character, with different viewpoints, different values, and different beliefs. For example, until last year, I believed that I was saved by grace through faith, and that salvation was not from myself, that is was the free gift of God, that was given to me because God is loving and kind and gracious, but I also believed that having been saved by faith I was supposed to become more like God by working hard at it myself out of duty because God more or less left it all up to me to sink or swim as I would. (I mostly sunk.) My perspective on personal holiness was compartmentalized from my perspective on God, which left me with more or less two completely different gods, and I ascribed to one in certain areas and another in other areas.

Originally, integrity meant "the quality or state of being complete or undivided." The idea of moral uprightness is a relatively recent understanding of the term. It comes from the Latin word 'integer,' which means 'whole.' This is something I have been struggling with a lot.

I have been doing much better at seeing the world with an integrated worldview, that is, having a consistent view of God and His world and he creatures and sons and daughters. I don't think that I presently have two gods in any areas, with one ruling one area and one ruling another. I think the God is God over my whole life, and this is an important part of integrity. I do this when I don't bring all of reality to myself. I would handle the religious part of reality when I felt pious and the harsh parts of reality when I felt like problem solving and the warm and fuzzy parts of reality when I felt sad, instead of engaging the comprehensive picture of reality at all times. I would pick and choose what pieces of reality I wanted to deal with.

Recently, I've been doing better about dealing with all of reality at a time, with not compartmentalizing my worldview. However, I'm starting to realize that I don't bring all of me to reality. I play to my strengths too much. There are parts of my character that are (relatively) highly developed and there are parts that are underdeveloped.

It may be that I am always stronger in some areas that in others, but that shouldn't be an excuse to abandon the other parts of me. I try to develop that parts of me that I am already strong in and I ignore the other parts almost entirely. It's like only lifting weights with your right arm just because you're right handed.

Recently, I've been reading Integrity by Henry Cloud. He says that most people only use parts of their character to interact with reality, and if we would develop and use all of character, that we would be much more effective in whatever it is we have chosen to do. I think this may be what I need. I am really curious about how Dr. Cloud advises we do this, because he's been pretty vague so far. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Awhile ago, I prayed about all this. The prayer was, like most of my thoughts, very nonlinear and nonverbal, but that I was okay with, because I knew God understood me better than I did. Later I tried to express to other people what had happened that night when I prayed, what I had said and what I felt God had said and done. It was very difficult for me to articulate, so I wrote it into a dialogue and something like a poem. I will leave you with this.

Me: God, the God of the whole universe, the biggest God there could be, where are you, and how should I address you?

God: I'm here.

Me: To the God in the seat in front of me...

Me: Hmm, perhaps that's not good. It makes the seat something like a Jesus Christ, or an idol don't you think? Why don't we try again?

Me: You're right. Okay. To the God who is somewhere between the lenses of my glasses and the seat in front of me And also lives in me: There is a problem.

God: Yes?

Me: See, I don't know really how to fix the problem or what it is at all and I would like to fix it but I don't think I could. Even supposing I knew what it was, and how it could be fixed.

God: Where is the problem?

Me: Well, I suppose the problem is in the way I interact with everyone I know, and I could be wrong, but, I think it's in how they interact with each other to. And I'm really not sure, but the problem might be
with almost everyone. And I don't know if it's only interaction with people. Maybe it's how I interact with almost everything.

Me: Everything? Really? What about the Bible? What about God?

Me: Okay, God, we don't think it's strictly everything. We think it's most things, but not the way I pray, and not really how we study the Bible.

God: Okay.

Me: So, I want you to fix it. I mean, I can't hardly fix it I don't even know what's wrong. But if you could just fix it in me, it would be really great. Could you show me how to pray?

God: Okay.

---------------------------------------------------

The following prayer was mostly so nonlinear and wordless that I have not tried to put it to words. Rather I have picked out phrases I remember from that prayer and structured a poem around them and attempted, in the poem, to express the same main idea as in my prayer.

To the God of the whole universe,
God over every moment,
God here in front of me,
God here inside me:

I want to worship you,
in spirit and in truth,
but how is that done?

I want to be thankful,
always and in everything,
but something is missing.

I want to pray at all times,
but I'm not sure that would help
with this issue.

I want all of life
to be a devotional.

I want to worship you
through everything I do.

Not in spite of it.

I want you to be God, and my God:

God of video games.
God of friendships.
God of lunch and dinner.
God of showers.
God of homework.
God of playing sports.
God of reading books.
God of making jokes.
God of laughing.
God of waking up in the morning.
God of working out.
God of sleeping.
God of dreaming.
God of cleaning my room.
God of walking to class.
God of wondering at nature.
God of wondering at people.
God of being angry.
God of being lonely.
God of being hurt and sad.
God of being happy.
God of being bored.
God of being numb.
God of laundry.
God of taking notes.
God of taking tests.
God of acing tests.
God of failing tests.
God of awkward thirty-second conversations.
God of waking up in the middle of the night.
God of all-nighters.

God, I want you to be big enough to me to dominate and cover every aspect of my life.

God, I want to think about you always.
Or perhaps, I want to think about everything through you.

God, I want to worship you always.
Not in spite of what else I'm doing.
But through it.

God, I want my friendships
to be spiritual disciplines.
I want to know you more,
and glorify you through them.

I want to date,
as an act of worship.
I want to feel you,
if I hug a girlfriend.

I want to write term papers,
like lovesongs to you.
I want to read books,
and take in your Spirit.

I want to eat,
and chew with you.
I want to feel you
moving my jaw.

I want to drink,
to taste your bubbles on my tongue.
I want to experience you,
in everything.

I want to exercise
and build your muscles.
I want to love to
build your temple.

I want to write,
words from you and words for you,
In a text message
and on facebook.

I want to dream
to fulfill your passions.
I want to plan,
to charge towards your calling.

When I talk to someone,
I want to be praying.
I'm tired of talking,
Like you're not in the room.

I want to rest,
within your softness.
I want to feel you
coming on with sleep.

I want to live this moment,
with this heart beat,
and this half breath,
worshiping you.

Over and over again,
worshiping you,
through the living
of every moment.

One moment, maybe this one,
I want to die, to and for
and toward you,
worshiping.

Back to Life: The Year in Review

So, I've decided to resuscitate this blog. I'll give you a brief update about what's been going on.

A lot has happened in my personal life in the past year, and eventually it hit critical mass. When that happened, a lot went down for maintenance, so to speak, and this blog was one of the first to go. I've been writing on facebook a little bit, but I'm not really satisfied with the publisher there, and I so I decided to pick up again here.

This year has been traumatic, but very good for me. I went through a break-up in a three year relationship, some serious health problems, a death in the family, and the worst year I've ever had academically. Through all of this, God has taught me a lot about who I am and who I am becoming, and I feel that in many ways I'm a much different person. I know you probably don't want to read about this kind of depressing thing, so that's all I'll say about my personal issues.

Now that my life beginning to come back together, I think I am whole enough to begin writing in earnest again. I want to be intentional about writing higher quality material. This means more fiction, and more nonfiction commentary on specific events, books, etc. and less me spouting off about whatever I feel like talking about. I don't really care how many people read this, but I am hoping to get some more comments and discussions going on in response to my posts.

As you can see, I've changed the color scheme, and I'm not very sure if I like it. Please let me know what you think. I'm worried that it might display too darkly on some people's screens.

It's good to be back. Let me know what you think.