Establishing Dominion Over Our Own Piddoh Foh-Otts

One of the greatest joys of childhood is being allowed every so often to rearrange the furniture so as to construct an impregnable fortress of pillows and couch cushions. Our son Elijah is only three-and-a-half, yet he already understands that when Daddy gets home from work and participates in the fort-building, there are zero limitations on what can be scavenged to build the perfect line of defense against hostile toy soldiers, enemy stuffed animals and a phalanx of older sisters.

Thus far, however, Eli's ability to fully articulate his plans for total world domination, beginning from our living room in Columbia, are somewhat limited. As of this writing, the word "pillow" comes out as "piddoh" and - bet you didn't know this - it turns out that the English word "fort" is actually two syllables, the R is silent, and thus it is properly rendered as "foh-ott."

What my son may currently lack in his grasp of spoken language is made up for by his energetic enthusiasm for tipping over toy tables, dragging chairs and couch cushions into a corner and daring the world to try to dislodge him from his carefully-constructed stronghold. Nehemiah may have rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in an astonishing 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15), but I have to wonder if his crew might have cut it down to 40 days or less had Buddy Eli been on hand to help. (Something to consider...)

Kids are a huge blessing from God in so many different ways (Psalm 127:3-5). Sure, building a fortress of pillows and couch cushions may temporarily mess up the living room, but I can tell you that it does wonders for the heart of a middle-aged man. Another (perhaps less obvious) blessing that small kids provide us with is that they tend to hold up a mirror and cast our own behaviors into sharper relief.

Simply stated, kids get wildly excited over things we think are mundane, they take things we say far more literally than we intend, and (best of all) they make no attempt to cover up the true desires of their hearts. "I want ice cream now" is not something you or I might typically say during dinner at a friend's house, but the average three-year-old has no problem letting everyone know when it is time for the frozen dairy treats to be served.

Likewise, most small children have no qualms with establishing and maintaining ownership over toys, cookies or (in my son's case) the latest version of a couch-cushion fort in our living room. After work one day recently, I was talking to my wife and absent-mindedly throwing together a really cool fortress in our living room. Once I put the final touches on it and declared it finished, Buddy Eli immediately threw in all the toys he thought required the protection afforded by a wall of couch cushions and throw pillows and then ran in himself, loudly declaring to everyone who happened to be home at the time: "This is my foh-ott! Hey! You guys! This is my foh-ott, Okay? Okay?"

The parallels in my own life are perhaps more obvious than I would care to admit.

Just like Eli, my own heart wants to rush into "forts" that I did not build nor can I reasonably hope to maintain...and yet somehow I want to claim them as my own anyway. Like him, I too would like to stand in the midst of something wonderful (perfect family, rewarding career, financial blessing) that I did not create and loudly proclaim it to be my own. "Hey, you...yeah you, innocently passing by on your way down the hallway...this is my fort, okay? Are you clear on that? Do I need to set you straight on this issue?"

As we get older, we (hopefully) get a bit more subtle about our tendency to claim things that do not ultimately belong to us, but the heart-level dynamic is almost certainly identical: "Steer clear of my pillow fort, mister."

I had an opportunity recently to hear Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan talking about his new book, Counterfeit Gods, and the relentless tendency of the human heart to grab onto something, anything, as a substitute for an authentic relationship with Jesus. The absence of Christ creates a huge hole in our hearts, and this divinely-appointed empty space is impossible to fill apart from God - yet another of His infinite mercies, that He denies us the rest our hearts crave until we seek our rest in Him (The Confessions of St. Augustine). The Keller interview segments I found so helpful were recorded while he was on the campus of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis; you can subscribe to the feed and grab the Keller segments by visiting the Living Christ Today Web page, if interested. (Scroll down to Jan 18-22 and Jan. 25 for the Keller segments.)

Of course, it's cute and laughable when a three-year-old loudly proclaims his dominion over ten square feet of tipped chairs, throw pillows and lap blankets. We even see these knuckleheaded episodes as charming and endearing, something we smile at now because we are confident that selfishness will get weeded out as the child develops and matures.

Or will it? I'm not so sure anymore.

We smile knowingly at the petty couch-cushion tyrant, but somehow it's far less funny when thousands of investors are bilked out of billions of dollars in the latest Ponzi scheme...or corruption and graft interfere with sincere relief efforts in third-world nations...or yet one more politician or late-night talk show host abuses his position and authority to indulge his selfish desires for illicit sex. It is at that point where we realize with shame that we have become a nation of private kingdom builders; unlike Abraham, the kingdoms we seek to build are most definitely not designed by the Lord (Hebrews 11:8-10).

So I am grateful to my Buddy Eli for providing me with a vivid mental image of what I too can quickly become whenever someone tries to grab onto one of my "couch cushions." He offers me a true glimpse into my own heart as well as the hearts of others, all of us understandably confused by the various cultural messages we receive, staggering about and blindly seeking to latch onto something, anything, that our dark hearts can tie down and brand with the word MINE.

Now whenever someone messes with "my" schedule, cuts me off in traffic or does not serve me in the way to which I am inclined, I can grab a mental picture of myself standing in the middle of my own pillow fort, absurdly proclaiming my ownership of whatever has just been denied me. It helps me to recall that, truthfully, I have nothing that was not first given to me by a gracious, loving God, right down to my own heartbeat (Psalm 139), and that God provided me with my own "piddoh foh-ott" to be a blessing to others, not a self-seeking potentate with an iron fist wrapped around my own priorities.

The iPad and Idolatry

Full disclosure: I own an iPhone, I love it, and I want the new 3GS. I would also like a Kindle, and while not sold on the iPad just yet, I'm sure when the inevitable price drop occurs (over/under 6 months...there's probably a betting line on that in Vegas somewhere) I'll probably want it too.

But this video was posted on a pastor's blog, and it got me thinking. It's 3 minutes and pretty interesting. Someone took the big iPad release announcement that Apple and Steve Jobs put on last week, and boiled it down to 180 seconds.



Here's the thing about the iPad - you can take all the innovation and marketing, and boil it all down to 3 minutes of hyperbole. It's fantastic, amazing, terrific, better, smarter, etc., etc.

But bloggers and techies are already criticizing it on many fronts. And even though many will purchase it and many will enjoy it thoroughly, in a year there will be a new more fantastic, amazing, terrific, better, smarter product. Something else which will streamline your life, make it more efficient, more enjoyable.

So all those promises encompassed in superlatives are really just empty hyperbole.

And as I watched it and was struck by the empty hyperbole I was reminded that the newest gadget is no different from all the lies and idols that Satan tries to feed us. The new car, the new house, the new career, the new marriage. They all hold the promises of endless adjectives and superlatives. They'll change your life, they'll make it better, they'll finally fulfill and satisfy you.

But they're all just empty hyperbole. No matter how the idols you and I are tempted with are wrapped and presented, they are as empty as a 3 minute string of adjectives.

Because everything minus Jesus equals nothing.
And nothing plus Jesus equals everything.

Hanging on to Fear, Denying God's Power

I love the book of Acts and how it describes first-century Christians, and so I've really been enjoying this latest sermon series as the pastors of The Crossing are working their way through the book of the Bible that describes how the church was begun in the wake of Christ's resurrection and ascension. As Keith was preaching this past Sunday about all the ways in which Christians were persecuted, I wondered how many of those early Christians lived their lives in constant fear. I wasn't wondering that because I also fear persecution. Not in the "Land of the Free," and certainly not in mid-Missouri, near enough to throw a rock and hit the Bible Belt. I don't fear persecution yet, at any rate.

I was wondering, though, because I battle with fear in general. Anxiety, worry, fear...call it what you want. I battle it.

I have an impressive list of small fears, many of which you might relate to - I worry about my kids, I fear for their safety when they are out at night. I am anxious whenever unexpected expenses crop up and it looks as though my husband and I may be forced to raid our savings account to pay for repairs to our van. I worry about things I've said and how they might have been received. I fret that we'll grow old and have no savings, and we'll have to eat cat food (no wait...that's my husband's fear). I could go on and on, but these are not the fears I "really" struggle with. I find I can set aside my gut reactions in many of these instances fairly quickly.

The fear I'm talking about has to do with ultimate control over my own life.

This is not a new area of insight for me; in the last few years, it's become very clear to me that whenever I seek to control some situation in my life, I'm not trusting God. Whenever I fear "What might happen if FILL-IN-THE-BLANK comes to pass?" I now understand that I'm not believing in God's good plan for my life. The Lord has taught me through several situations how to let go of my fear or desire to control, and to trust Him. (Praying through the Psalms, in particular, has really helped me.)

But the problem is that "desire to control" is a sin I keep giving up to Him, and it keeps crawling off the altar and right back into my arms.

Recently, I was expressing my fears to my husband over a particular situation in our lives where fear has been a dominating issue with me. As we talked, I began to get frustrated with him, because I wanted Warren to sympathize, to tell me he understood how I felt and that it was okay for me to feel the way I did. The conversation ended well enough, but I was plagued with this feeling that I was searching for something elusive in his words. Something I didn't find.

A few days after that conversation, I picked up the book I am reading this week, and within minutes a little sentence jumped off the page and slapped me in the face. Hard.

"Fear is sin." (1)

This bold, hard statement was followed by, "God is not sympathetic to my unbelief. Why? Because fear, worry and unbelief say to God that we don't really believe He is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." (Psalm 86:15) We are calling God a liar."

Can anyone relate to expressing fears to someone - your spouse, or perhaps a close friend - and wanting somewhere in that conversation to get "permission" to hang on to those fears? That's what I was looking for in that conversation I alluded to earlier. I didn't know at the time what exactly I was seeking, but as I read this paragraph, it struck me that I wanted my husband to tell me that my fears were understandable, that it was even wise to be wary and fearful in this particular situation. I wanted him to sympathize, and in so doing to give me the "go-ahead," if you will, to hang on to those fears.

Thank God he wouldn't do it! I came away from our conversation unsettled because I didn't get what I wanted...and that helped me to see the sin of "desire to control" creeping back up into my arms.

I thank God that He has seen fit to give me not only a husband but a few very good friends who feel free to point out to me when I am pursuing something sinful. This is one of the many amazing blessings He provides us through the Body of Christ, at least in my opinion, a blessing that likely existed from the very beginning, as the first-century church was slowly being built up. Acts 2:42 says that the early believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship. I have to think this must have included exhorting each other to throw off sinful behaviors and thought patterns. Surely they encouraged each other to boldly cling to Christ when they faced opposition and persecution, rather than to be overtaken by fear. We who profess Jesus as our Lord today are all fighting this same basic fight, aren't we?

Like many other Christians, I would love to see revival break out and for the 21st-century church to take on more and more qualities of its first-century predecessor. I would love to see more passion for Jesus playing out in deep friendships that offer accountability and support to each other as we seek to turn from sin and our selfish desires and obey Christ. I would love to see more deep-seated concern for the welfare of the Body of Christ. (Really? They sold their possessions and gave to all as needed it? Just like it says in Acts 2:45?) I would love to see more of us - starting with me - loving God's Word so much that we'd give our lives for it...rather than deny its power in our lives.

When you find yourself facing a situation that puts knots in the pit of your stomach...when your very breath feels restricted by the fear gripping your throat...when your mind races, searching for a way out of your circumstances...where do you turn? I pray that more and more, we would all encourage each other to turn to God's Word for comfort and peace.

Psalm 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

(1) Excerpt from "Girl Talk: Mother-Daughter Conversations on Biblical Womanhood" by Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Mahaney Whitacre.

When Helping Hurts: Part 2

Several years ago a woman called the church office needing a ride home from a job interview. Thinking that I wanted to be the kind of man and pastor that helped the needy, I grabbed one of our staff and went to pick her up and return her to her apartment. As we drove she explained that she was physically handicapped (I think that she had MS) but was trying to find a job. I gave her some money to help her with groceries and invited her to church.

For the next few months I (and others) continued to try to help this woman mainly by giving her rides and money. The problem is that I was naive and she was a bit of a con artist—a bad combination. Don’t misunderstand: she was poor and handicapped. But she had learned to work the system. She ended up taking advantage of several people in the church and using the money that I gave her to buy drugs. I found out later that The Crossing wasn’t the first church that she had worked over in a similar way.

But what do you do in those kinds of situations? How do you respond to the needs of those who are financially poor? Cynically? Naively? Is there another option?

Isn’t there always a risk involved in helping others? If before I give money to the poor I have to know that I’ll never be taken advantage of and that the money will always be put to good use, then I’ll never give money. But, on the other hand, did I really help the woman I mentioned by (unknowingly) giving her money to buy drugs? Obviously not. So does generosity demand that we don’t ask hard and even uncomfortable questions?

When it comes to helping the poor do we have to choose between our heart and our head? Do we have to choose between being compassionate and foolish?

When Helping Hurts is one of the more interesting books that I’ve read in a quite a while. It manages to be balanced, theological, and practical all at the same time. Plus it’s full of thought provoking examples that defy simplistic answers.

Last week I tried to show that our definition of poverty will determine our response. This morning I’d like to cover three approaches to poverty alleviation (Chapter 4).

Relief is the urgent, temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering. Rehabilitation begins once “the bleeding stops.” It seeks to restore people and communities to the positive elements of their pre-crisis conditions. Development is the process of ongoing change that moves all people involved (“helpers” and “helped”) closer to being in a right relationship with God, self, others, and creation.

“One of the biggest mistakes that North American churches make—by far—is in applying relief in situations in which rehabilitation or development is the appropriate intervention.”

The authors state that many people who approach you, a non-profit, or the church will claim to need emergency help to pay for rent, utilities, food, or transportation. Do they need relief?

The book gives 4 questions to help determine if relief is the appropriate response.

1. Is there really a crisis at hand? If you fail to supply immediate help will there be serious, negative consequences?
2. To what degree was the person responsible for the crisis?
3. Can the person help himself?
4. To what extent has this person received relief from others in the past?

The contention of the authors is that there are is only a small percentage of the poor in our country or around the world that need relief. These would include the severely disabled; some of the elderly; very young, orphaned children; the mentally ill homeless population; and victims of natural disasters.

Most people are not in immediate danger nor are they destitute. And acting as though they are destitute does more harm than good. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do anything to help them though. Rather it means that the appropriate response isn’t relief but rehabilitation or development. This may include “providing them with financial assistance, but such assistance would be conditional upon and supportive of them being productive.

More next week. Thanks for reading.

Interesting Take on Tebow Super Bowl Ad

If you have an interest in college football, there’s a good chance you know all about Tim Tebow. Having won two national championships and a Heisman trophy, the former Florida quarterback is on the short list of individuals who can be considered the greatest college football player of all time.

But Tebow, born to missionary parents in the Phillipines, has also become a polarizing figure in some quarters as a result of regularly and openly expressing his Christian faith. (For an in depth feature on Tebow, check out this Sports Illustrated article.) That polarization has only increased due to the Super Bowl ad he’s scheduled to appear in alongside his mother.

While pregnant with Tim, Pam Tebow contracted a disease that put both their lives at risk. Doctors reportedly advised her to abort in the interest of protecting her life, but Pam chose to bring Tim to term and both survived. The ad, sponsored by Focus on the Family, is expected to highlight this story along with the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

Though neither the ad or its text have been released, it has already drawn fire from abortion advocacy groups. Erin Matson, the Action Vice President of the National Organization for Women, offered this assessment: "This ad is frankly offensive. It is hate masquerading as love. It sends a message that abortion is always a mistake." Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, says CBS is "inserting an exceedingly controversial issue into a place where we all hope Americans will be united, not divided, in terms of watching America's most-watched sporting event."

It’s against this backdrop that I found Washington Post sportswriter Sally Jenkins’ latest column so interesting (kudos to our own Justin Garrett for pointing it out to me). Jenkins is avowedly pro-choice (a point she makes twice in the article), yet she has little patience for those protesting the ad. While I might differ with her at points, her entire article is worth reading. Some excerpts:

We're always harping on athletes to be more responsible and engaged in the issues of their day, and less concerned with just cashing checks. It therefore seems more than a little hypocritical to insist on it only if it means criticizing sneaker companies, and to stifle them when they take a stance that might make us uncomfortable.
………
Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikini selling beer is the right one.
………
Trouble is, you can't focus on the game without focusing on the individuals who play it -- and that is the genius of Tebow's ad. The Super Bowl is not some reality-free escape zone. Tebow himself is an inescapable fact: Abortion doesn't just involve serious issues of life, but of potential lives, Heisman trophy winners, scientists, doctors, artists, inventors, Little Leaguers -- who would never come to be if their birth mothers had not wrestled with the stakes and chosen to carry those lives to term. And their stories are every bit as real and valid as the stories preferred by NOW.
………
CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening -- or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.

Tebow's ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it's apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." This is what NOW has labeled "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." But if there is any demeaning here, it's coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren't real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.

God's Gracious Provision of a Receding Hairline

Under God's watchful eye and by sheer grace, I turned 49 yesterday. Yeah, just one more year of being able to honestly say that I am "in my 40's." After that, as my brother-in-law so lovingly pointed out to me, there is one label that you simply are no longer permitted to use to describe yourself. In his words (not mine) "Once your age begins with a five, it's long past time to stop kidding yourself about it...you are no longer allowed to refer to yourself as young."

At the risk of alienating many who struggle with the relentless march of time, I have to say that I whole-heartedly agree. I'll even go one step further and say that it's kind of ridiculous that the obvious need to toss out "young" as a descriptive term doesn't come at least a few years ahead of 50, but such is our collective American desire to deny the obvious.

It's become a cliché to say that we live in a youth-obsessed culture but - as shopworn as that observation might be - it's clearly true. Advertisers, by and large, couldn't care less what people over 45 are listening to, wearing or eating. Everyone in the industry knows that the real money is in the 14-40 demographic, and so it is that our magazines, TV ads and billboards tend to cater to this age range. As we baby boomers age, the trend has slid upwards some; how else to explain the ads that offer energy-supplement pills regularly spamming our e-mail accounts? Still, in Western culture the prevailing emphasis is clearly not on the process of acquiring wisdom, it's all about a spoon-fed ideal of youth and (for lack of a better term) "hotness."

So with the "young-hot, old-not" message blaring at us from just about everywhere, it's small wonder that most people I run into are not all that thrilled at the prospect of getting older. I'll admit that "The Big Five-0" seemed a long way off back in 1979 when it was my Dad's turn to hit the half-century mark, and yet here it is, coming at me in another 365 days (Lord willing). By God's mercy, however, I bring a slightly-different perspective to the issue of growing older.

I'm living on borrowed time anyway. For me, every single day is like playing a bonus round on a pinball machine. I'm really not trying to be dramatic or in any way embellish the facts; by all rights, I probably should have been dead a long time ago.

And I'm not even talking about my sin life when I say that. You know...acknowledging the fact that my sins against God have reached "sufficent mass" that He ought to have snuffed me out before I hit 30. While that is certainly true, I am instead talking about the cold, hard facts that make up the narrative events of my life.

Here's just a random sample and, believe me, there's more.

When I was three, according to my parents, I nearly died of pneumonia. In my junior year at college, my Mustang Mach II partially dropped its gas tank on Beecher Street in Adrian, Mich., spilling gasoline all over the road, the trail of fuel igniting when the metal of the tank scraped against concrete. The four of us riding in that car survived only because we crossed a set of railroad tracks before coming to a stop, the tracks halting the advance of the flames toward us. At the age of 25, on a dare, I jumped off a three-story building, aiming for a swimming pool. I misjudged the amount of thrust-off I needed to fully clear the building and missed hitting my head on the concrete rim of the pool by less than 12 inches. In May of 2000, I underwent a major brain operation that later became infected; I had to undergo general-anesthesia procedures three times to get that situation sussed. (Next time you see me in church, feel free to check out the way-cool scar on the back of my head.) Add in all kinds of successful experiments - and near-misses - with explosives, firearms-related stupidity, copious amounts of alcohol and driving under influence of the same, and you get the general picture: "Why is this guy still drawing breath?"

These are only some of the more "colorful" near-death incidents of which I am aware. I have every reason to believe that God, in His loving patience, infinite kindness and sovereign grace, has preserved me all these years with (for example) countless delays that only served to irritate me...but in fact caused me to miss colliding with the car that only 20 seconds earlier was running a traffic light. I have every reason to believe that God provides this level of protection for all of us still occupying the land of the living (Psalm 91:11-12; Psalm 139:16), yet how often do we stop to consider the miracle that any of us wake up at all, let alone day after day after day?

It was only after spending a few weeks in the hospital following the May 2000 surgery that something resembling gratitude finally sank in to the dark recesses of my soul. The basic privileges of life, the ones that most of us take for granted, were mercifully denied me for a short season. Taking a shower. Going to the bathroom unassisted. Eating food. Having no need for a morphine drip plugged into my arm. Wearing a pair of pants. There was previously a time in my life when I took these simple things for granted, but I assure you that I've got a solid ten years under my belt of thanking God for the ability to walk down the hallway and relieve myself without pushing an IV pole or carrying any sort of beeping electronic equipment in my other hand. Simply stated, God, in His rich mercy, gave me a taste of what it might be like to grow old, weak and unable to care for myself...and then in the fullness of time allowed me to heal back to full strength again.

Sure, like most people, I'm not at all thrilled to watch my hairline receding backwards. Nor am I wildly excited to see more gray hairs popping out on my temples. I take precious little delight in the purchase of reading glasses or the discovery of new lines on my face and hands. Like anyone else, I look in the mirror and wonder when it was, exactly, that I started to resemble my Dad. But at the same time, I am deeply grateful to a sovereign Lord who knows exactly how many of those gray hairs I have on my scalp (Matthew 10:30) and ordains when they will finally fall out. My life since 2000 has been exceedingly blessed, and I have come to settle into a deep, deep sense of awe at the rich mercy of God, allowing me to survive the extreme foolishness of my youth and several other calamities, any one of which could reasonably have killed me.

For me, "almost 50" is not an occasion for weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is instead a call to worship a God who preserves life. My life, your life...any life. The infinite possibilities for any of us to meet an untimely demise, coupled with the unimaginable record of sins we have all chalked up against a holy, righteous and just God, help me to see gray hair as the infinite mercy of a God who is to be worshipped for preserving any of us for as long as He has.

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (ESV)
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Confessions of a Fool

Submission isn't a popular topic or concept in our society. To be honest, I don't really like talking about submission either (unless, of course, the submission in question is someone submitting to me).

But the Bible talks about it frequently. Let me begin with a quote I read this week. Russell Moore is a pastor whose blog I read from time to time and he had this to say to a teenager asking about obeying his parents:

"Submission, after all, isn’t to things one readily sees as good ideas; that’s called 'agreement.' Submission is often in matters in which one thinks one knows better."

Which begs the question which we'll answer quickly - What specifically does the Bible say about submission?

Psalm 81:11 tells us that the fundamental error of God's people is to refuse to submit - "But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me."

Romans 8:7 says to submit to God's law like a man of the spirit, not rebel against it like the man of the flesh - "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot."

Ephesians 5:20-21 tells us that we are to submit to our fellow Christian brothers and sisters - "...giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Ephesians 6:1 and 1 Timothy 3:4 tell us that children are to obey and submit to their parents.

Hebrews 13:17 commands us to obey our church leaders - "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account."

Submitting is difficult because it requires us to admit we need help. That's not very American, in fact, the American ideal of independence and self-sufficiency only encourages the egomania that already exists within me in the first place. But God commands us to submit to certain people because it is best for us.

(As an aside - if as parents we speak more in this manner, that children are to submit because God loves them and knows what's best for them...and thus has intentionally placed people in charge of their care for their good, we'd probably get far better responses from them. It beats "you'll obey me because I'm your father and that's how it works.")

Which finally brings me back to the Russell Moore quote. I don't struggle with submission mostly because I have self-discipline issues. I struggle with submission because I'm hard-headed and hard-hearted. I think I know better.

When I was under my parents' roof I was often angry at their decisions and "meddling" in my life. After all, if I wanted to go to that party, or that movie, I should be able to. And why did I have to always let them know where I was, and who was there with me, and whether or not parents were present? Why did they need to ask so many questions about my friends?

At the time I despised all of this (as nearly all teens do at one point or another), because I knew better. I knew what was best for me and I knew what level and type of temptation I could handle.

But the fact is that I was a fool. I was immature and arrogant. I thought I was wise, but I was steeped in folly.

And yet now when the Bible commands me to submit to one another, and to his word, and to my leaders, I often make the same mistake I did when I was 16.

I am far more foolish and in need of help than I realize. Thus I need to submit. And not just to the things I agree with - that's called agreement.

Do I Really "Need" an iPad?

I really got a kick out of Dave’s message the Sunday before last where he attempted to pass off a device that weighed food as a new Apple iPad. I have to admit I initially thought he was telling the truth. I know Dave has some acquaintances with connections at Apple and as I already know him to be a “technophile”, it was not out of question that he might have actually acquired an early version of the long anticipated device.

As soon as I saw the photos of him holding the scale up to his ear, I knew I’d been “punked”. Funny stuff. However, I must admit I was checking my laptop over lunch on Wednesday to see what all the fuss has been about over the past six months as a media frenzy has developed around the release of the iPad. You can read about the release here.

You see, I am a tech junkie as well. I love to get the latest electronic toys. I have the option to listen to Pandora radio on my iMac, my iPod Touch, or my Plasma TV through my wireless internet connected ROKU device...yep, I’m certifiable. So, I had to ask myself if this was the next thing on my wish list.

I think it is amazing as a grown man I still filter a large purchase or a big decision through what my parents would do if faced with the same decision. I think we all do that to some degree (I am sure there is a psychiatrist reading this who knows exactly why we employ such a filter). I think my tendencies are related more to the respect I have for my parents than it is to my indecisiveness. When perusing information about the iPad, I could actually hear my dad’s voice saying; “Jeff, remember we always evaluate everything we acquire through the Needs, Wants, Desires Test”.

Did your parents use a similar test? It goes something like this; If you are faced with an opportunity to purchase some pursued entity you must ask yourself “do I need it, do I want it, or do I desire it?” My dad used to add to this advice the anecdotal footnote of suggesting we tend to stay out of trouble when we stay somewhere between the “needs” and the “wants”. As a young adult I assumed this was just another opportunity for my parents to play killjoy. I mean really, the things we actually “need” make for an extremely short list!

As I am now a young father, I think I am beginning to understand my dad’s point. The “trouble” he was referring to may be exemplified clearly in an amazing statistic recently published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foudation's survey found the average American kid spends over 7 and 1/2 hours a day engaged in electronic media of some sort or another. That is literally close to half the hours awake! Now consider they are typically multitasking while engaged with the media, that brings them up to almost 11 hours of media content packed into that time span.

Our own Justin Garrett mentioned the Kaiser research earlier this week on this very blog and as I read it I was stunned. I wondered if my kids were living up to the same “averages” defined by the survey. As I came home from work this week I noticed what my kids were doing when I arrived. I quickly took notice of my 9 year old who was playing a game on the computer while my 6 and 3 year old were watching a TV show in our bedroom...well, it looks like it is “average” for the Gamble family after all! I immediately proceeded to plop myself on my couch and catch the last of the basketball game on my new TV! Those apples didn’t fall far from the tree, did they? Here is my point; desires distract.

I know I am treading on some thin legalistic ice here, but I think we sometimes too quickly dismiss good old-fashioned wisdom as legalism. How do you interpret the context of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:23 when he suggests that “All things are lawful”, but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful”, but not all things build up?

I think it to be clearly evident that Paul would say there is nothing wrong with the iPad. In fact, I expect he would have considered it extremely useful to have the ability to wirelessly display a youtube video of his conversion experience on the road to Damascus! However, if my pursuit and enjoyment of the newest techno-fad distracts me from my primary responsibility as a husband and father, then it is not helpful for me to obtain it.

My desire for that thing has distracted me from glorifying God with it. Therefore, I think it can be rightly said the object is not the sin, it is the inordinate desire for the object that leads to sin. Now, if you will excuse me, I have an online rematch to catch with my son on our Nintendo Wii.

What REALLY helps the poor?

Social justice is all the rage in many churches across America. And rightly so. The Bible is pretty clear on the subject. Last fall I read through the Old Testament and I was (again) surprised by the importance that the Bible puts on helping the poor. In fact one of the main reasons that the nation of Israel was sent into exile was because they turned their back on social justice issues including ignoring the poor.

But anyone who has tried to get involved in helping impoverished people and communities knows that it is incredibly difficult. Maybe the greatest challenge is knowing whether what you are doing is actually helping anyone. If someone approaches you on the street and asks for money, should you give them any? If you do, does that gift of money help them? We've all asked ourselves those kind of questions.

Now imagine what it is like to be in church leadership where we receive countless calls each week from people seeking financial assistance. We all know that we should help as many as we can but what's not clear is how to help them. Each year The Crossing gives out more than 100K in financial assistance to the poor in Columbia. Is it helping?

Or take the recent crisis in Haiti. The task there is enormous partly because of the devastation of the recent earthquake but also because of the decades of poverty that preceded the earthquake. How does the United States, the world community, or a faith based charity respond to that situation?

Well, I've been reading a book that addresses all these issues. When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor or Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert is well written, practical, provocative, and challenging. Now I warn you that this is another book that I'm writing about before I've finished it. But this time I promise that I will return to this topic next Thursday.

The basic premise of the book is that there are a lot of ways to help the poor that end up doing more harm than good. Let's start with the definition of poverty. If you are like me and most other Americans, you would define poverty along the lines of a person not having the basics of life. We might disagree on what the basics are but we'd probably all agree that poverty is defined by a lack of material resources.

But the problem comes when you ask poor people about their definition of poverty. It turns out that their definition is not concerned primarily with material resources at all. Instead they tend to define it in more psychological and social terms. Listen to poor people and you find that poverty has more to do with shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness.

According to the authors, "this mismatch between many outsiders' perceptions of poverty and the perceptions of poor people themselves can have devastating consequences for poverty-alleviation efforts." When we think of poverty only (or primarily) in terms of resources, our inclination is to give them only (or primarily) money. But that may have the unintended consequence of reinforcing their shame and humiliation. The principle then is to not do for others what they can do for themselves. This treats people with the dignity and respect that is needed to make long term progress.

The authors argue that giving money can also hurt the giver because it may breed arrogance and a "god-like" attitude in our own hearts. ("I'm so smart and capable that I have plenty of money to give to the uneducated and lazy"). Now at first pass it might seem that this book is promoting stinginess--don't give money because it doesn't help anyway. Rest assured that it doesn't. Instead it argues that we should be giving more but doing it in the right way.

There is so much more to comment on but it will have to wait for another day. Thanks for reading.

"The Book of Eli" with Denzel Washington

Without wanting to give away too much about the new film, “The Book of Eli,” Denzel Washington plays a kind of Jedi-Christian who is carrying out an assignment he believes he’s received from God, thirty-something years after a nuclear holocaust destroyed civilization. It’s sort of like Luke Skywalker meets Mad Max and the Thunderdome. That said, I actually really liked this film. (But I hated all the Mad Max films. Especially that Tina Turner song.)

What I particularly found so interesting is that I’ve never seen a Hollywood film that had the message that The Book of Eli has. Especially one played by such a notable actor as Denzel Washington. And I really enjoyed watching him in this film. I’ve heard that Denzel Washington is a Christian. Seeing him in this film makes me believe that’s true (update: Scott Johnson sent me a link to a Christianity Today interview with Denzel Washington where he clearly professes his Christian faith: here).

I don't know, but it may be significant that the name “Eli” is Hebrew for “my God.” So, perhaps one way to read the title of this film is “The Book of My God.”

Let me say that to me there are obviously some plot holes and inconsistencies in this story that cannot be filled by reasonable thought. And it has many of the so-called “post-apocalyptic” stereotypical scenes (i.e., motorcycle bandits coming upon a young, innocent, and weary couple who kill the man and ravage and rape the woman), but if you can get past some of these imperfections and just go with the story, there are some very interesting things about The Book of Eli.

There is no nudity or sex scenes, but there is some graphic violence. So I think it’s a great film to take a teenage son to, or perhaps a teenage daughter may even like it, and then grab a drink or meal afterward and talk about some of the images and truths that the film depicted.

Here are some questions to consider after seeing the film:

1. What did you like or admire about Eli? His character? His faith? His abilities?

2. Is there a spiritual metaphor in Eli’s power to fight evil?

3. Was there an honest, vulnerable reality or moment about Eli that sticks out to you? (Perhaps when he said, "We can get so caught up in protecting God's Word that we sometimes forget to live by it.”)

4. What was Solara's reaction to Eli's prayer? What touched her about it? Did it touch you? What can we learn from his prayer?

5. Was there anything else that struck you as interesting in this film? Any other metaphors or scenes that depicted or illustrated a biblical truth in some way?

Praying for Haiti, Crossing Volunteers

As Dave mentioned on Sunday, three members of The Crossing are among the many volunteers seeking to help with those devastated by the earthquake in Haiti. Both pediatrician Holly Bondurant and nurse anesthetist Mark Gortmaker are already in country and will be working at a hospital in northern Haiti for the next few days. (For more information on their team, see local news stories here and here.) Additionally, ENT surgeon Matt Page was scheduled to arrive Wednesday as a part of a separate group looking to treat facial traumas in a city called Cap-Haitien on the north coast.

Having some of our own community in Haiti gives us all the more reason to be praying in light of the incredibly difficult situation here. Consider praying for the following things:

1. For God to relieve the overall suffering of those living in Haiti. While accurate casualty estimates are understandably difficult at this point, figures range from approximately 50,000 to 200,000 dead and perhaps even more wounded. To offer some perspective, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. suffered approximately 58,000 dead and 153,000 wounded. Such massive loss of life and injury, in addition to causing terrible pain for family and loved ones, will undoubtedly leave deep scars on Haitian society and culture.

2. For God to use difficulty and tragedy to turn hearts toward trusting in him. In the Scriptures, God repeatedly uses pain, suffering, adversity, as a means to bring people to himself and accomplish his greater good purposes. Pray that many, many people trust in Christ, the only ultimate remedy for human sin and suffering.

3. For the team members themselves. Pray that God would provide safety for them during travel and their time in country. Pray also that he would give them great endurance, compassion, and skill as they seek to meet the needs of so many in a very challenging situation.

4. For the families of the team members. Pray that God would give them ample grace to deal with the absence of their loved ones.

In all of this, I’d encourage you to remember the power of prayer. What we often think of as little more than token involvement can be, biblically speaking, incredibly powerful—not because of our own merit or skill of course, but rather because it involves the God of the universe.

Seeking Christ's Rich Blessing of a Boring Backstory

It's no secret that redemption is one of the most frequently-employed dramatic themes of many successful films and books. Because God has hard-wired all of us to seek redemption, nothing seems to please audiences more than that fateful moment when (for example) the handsome-but-selfish jerk is finally confronted with the error of his ways and suffers a total breakdown, sobbing alone on a rainy street corner as the camera pulls back and the violin-drenched soundtrack swells.

It would seem that we just can't get enough of those moments when the thin facade of respectability is completely torn away from a character and he is left with no recourse and no place to hide. In a well-written story, multiple seemingly-random events will finally intersect to precipitate a lifelong change that is both genuine and far-reaching.

Of course, it's good and right for us to cheer whenever someone (real or fictitious) turns aside from wickedness and wrongdoing and steps into the light of day. In movies and in novels, one effective means of heightening the drama of a character's conversion is to dwell for a bit on how relentlessly evil and utterly without remorse they were prior to the climactic event that finally triggered their about-face. The nastier the villain, the more astonishing it is when they ultimately repent.

Because we are all storytellers at heart, and because we have all had this pattern of dramatic redemption seared into our subconscious by countless films, plays and novels, it's tempting at times to "heighten" the drama in our own stories. I first noticed this as I began attending recovery group meetings in the mid-1990s. Whether I was meeting in a Bible study setting with a small group of men or attending an AA meeting, I more than once found the redemptive language of popular films creeping into the real-life addiction testimonies of others. Worse, on more than one occasion the group started trying to "out-deprave" one another, seeking to assert that their backstory was far worse than that of the person who had just finished speaking.

Believe me, I very well understand the necessity of purging past sins and depravity, getting it all out into the open so we can get past it all and, by God's grace, shut the door on that sad chapter in our lives. As a matter of fact, the Bible commands us to confess our sins to one another and then pray for one another that we might be healed (James 5:16). So one thing I am most certainly not saying is that people should "hold back" when they are asked to share their story. Not at all.

What I am saying is that just as an author can heighten the dramatic nature of a character's repentance by throwing a spotlight on earlier, horrific behavior, we - as real people with actual backstories - can perhaps inadvertently damage others by dwelling on the depth of our depravity prior to conversion. Certainly, the very worst thing we can do is point, almost with a twinkle in our eye, to outrageous moments "back in the day" when we were engaged in all sorts of sinful, degrading, soul-killing behavior.

Confess? Yes, absolutely. Fall into any sort of twisted "nostalgia" for the days when our friends and family members had to pick us up off the front lawn or bail us out? Probably not helpful.

In fact, the tendency to in any way "romanticize" our former failings is (I believe) deadly. It can have the unintended side-effect of teaching others that they actually need something "a little more colorful" in their own backstory before Jesus can adequately rescue them from their sins. Romanticizing egregious sins in any way also tends to minimize the seriousness of "respectable sins," the less-noticeable affronts to God that we commit each and every day. There are plenty of people who survive addiction and yet remain unconverted at a heart level...thereby holding on to their sobriety with white knuckles as they plunge headlong into hell.

To my way of thinking, there is no greater, more dramatic conversion story than that of the Apostle Paul, who was smacked silly and struck blind by the risen Christ on the Damascus road (Acts 9:3-9); perhaps - not surprisingly - one of my favorite parts of the New Testament. Saul of Tarsus, as he was formerly known, was so zealous in his defense of what he mistakenly thought to be God's will that he jailed, persecuted and murdered other Christians. Pretty hard to beat that for a sinful backstory...and please don't try! Thus, it was not false modesty for Paul to refer to himself as chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Today, it chills my blood to think of Paul, one of the primary authors of the Bible, smiling while he holds the coats of other Jews so that they would be better able to brutally stone Stephen to death without wrinkling their garments (Acts 7:58). Small wonder it took the first-century church elders at least a day or two to welcome Paul into their fellowship.

And I have to believe that in his later years, perhaps as he was writing his letters to Timothy or the churches in Ephesus, Corinth, etc. that Paul himself desperately wished that his own life had been a bit more boring, haunted as he must have been by the bloody, violent deaths of Stephen and other early church martyrs. Even though Paul very clearly knew better than most that he had been completely forgiven in Christ, I have to think that he still saw clearly in his mind's eye the terrified faces of his victims.

Regrettably, my own life of faith does have a dramatic backstory. Christ was exceedingly merciful to me, and by His grace I also have a sudden, undeniable conversion event that I can point to. Volunteering in various ministries, I also now know plenty of other people with horrible, absolutely depraved backstories, some of whom have yet to open their hearts and receive that same grace and mercy that was shown to me...and are therefore much in need of our prayers.

Just in the last week, though, I had the privilege to sit across the table from not one, but two young men; different days, different cities, with zero connection to each other other than a mutual trust in Jesus. Both of them could not remember ever having not been a follower of Christ and, in the context of our conversations, it was right and good for me to tell them how richly and deeply blessed they both were. Interestingly, both of these young men mentioned that their lives to date had been "kinda plain, ordinary" with "not much to tell," and right at that moment God gave me a great opportunity to speak of His great mercy and kindness to them in providing them with "an uninteresting backstory."

Biologically speaking, I am the father of two. In my heart of hearts, though, there are seven kids walking around Columbia today that I claim as my own in one way or another, and who can (if they want to!) claim me as father. My urgent, everyday prayer for all seven is that Christ would be rich toward them in mercy, pouring out His Holy Spirit in their hearts and minds and giving them, if it be His will, an absolutely boring, sleep-inducing backstory. True, sparing seven souls the lifelong effects of sin, folly and rebellion might not make them promising candidates for a reality TV show or a six-figure book deal. Speaking, though, as one who has been forgiven much, I can confidently say that while scars almost always have an interesting backstory attached to them, acquiring them was never unaccompanied by a great deal of pain.

Rickets and Abortion

I read something this week that said every blog post should have a catchy title. So there you go, I've now fulfilled that requirement.

My alternate title was "What I found interesting this week," and I found two topics particularly intriguing, the first one deals with rickets (sort of) and the second abortion.

The Kaiser Family Foundation released a study this week detailing media usage among teens and "tweens." The New York Times discussed it in an article entitled "If Your Kids Are Awake, They're Probably Online." I'd encourage you to check it out.

Here are the basic results:

• Young people today spend on average 7.5 hours per day engaged in media (cell phones, iPods, TV, computers, video games, print, etc.).
• Including multi-tasking (listening to music while on internet, for instance), they're getting nearly 11 hours of media per day.
• The only thing they spend more time doing - sleeping.
• Of those hours, 38 minutes is spent reading (basically all other specific types of media are more consumed now than 5 years ago...except for reading, down from 43 minutes in 2004).

In a related article, England is reporting a resurgence of rickets in young people. Yes, rickets. The disease generally caused by a vitamin D deficiency found in impoverished countries. Why? Scientists are hypothesizing that it's due to inactivity and lack of sun exposure in teens and "tweens" who play video games, watch TV, and cruise the internet most of the day.

I don't have a huge soapbox to jump on, but here are a few observations.

1. It's quite common for younger generations to exaggerate or take to extremes practices of older generations. Things tend to snowball over time. Is this generation rampantly excessive in their media consumption? I think you have to say yes. But while we (older generations) are not as excessive, surely we got the ball rolling (and continue to keep it rolling) in many ways. How has our modeling in terms of habits, entertainment obsessions, and media consumption, affected the younger generations?

2. Why aren't we teaching discipline, self-control, and time management better to young people? Once again, my hunch is that it's because we tend to struggle (maybe to a lesser degree...but struggle nonetheless) with the same things.

3. This is a big problem. One that can't be fixed overnight, and one that none of us can fix on a large scale. But we can make changes in our little spheres. All of us should model healthy perspectives on entertainment and media consumption. If you have kids, set boundaries and limitations. Teach them good habits, self-control, discipline. An hour a day, 2 hours a day, whatever. Be thoughtful in your parenting. And finally, pray. Keith blogged recently about God working when we pray. This is a big problem in young people that could get worse. Only God is big enough to fix it entirely. So pray that he would.

Now that we've discussed rickets, on to my second thought.

Here's a powerful commentary regarding some working in the abortion industry. I tend to try not to harp too much on being pro-life, both in this blog and in life. I figure that as Christians there are myriad political and social issues we should pay attention to, not just abortion.

But as I read this a few days ago, I was saddened by the fact that abortion had largely faded from my consciousness the past few months. Guess that's what happens when you don't have a big election for a while. But that's not acceptable. No matter where you fall on the issue, as Christians we shouldn't simply forget about it temporarily because it isn't on the news quite as much. Shame on me.

Vitally Important...Yet Not Really a Big Deal.

As the mother of several children, I spend a lot of time in my kitchen cooking, which means that I also "get to" spend a lot of time cruising through the aisles of the local grocery stores. Just a few days ago, I was once again making a "small run" to the store (never less than $150 for our crew). As I stood in line to check out, my eyes were drawn - as they often are - to the magazine racks. I admit that I have a "yet-to-be-sanctified curiosity" about the lives of the famous, an interest that - while diminishing - still ends up drawing my eye to the covers of People, Star, Us...you get the picture.

On this recent grocery outing, "99 Sex Moves!" screamed at me from the top of the magazine rack as I waited my turn in line. Quickly moving my attention away from Cosmo, as if I'd done something wrong, my eyes then came to rest on two scantily-clad bikini bodies pasted across the cover of another questionable rag, its title encouraging potential readers to open it up and discover what these stars had done to achieve such beautiful "beach bodies."

And I sighed.

It's quite literally everywhere in our culture today, this frenzied obsession with sexuality. I find this cultural message to be particularly invasive as it's shouted at me while I'm more or less trapped in the store check-out line with my cart of carefully-selected items. Often, at least one of my teenage daughters is trapped there with me. None of us can escape the bombardment of headlines, and the abundantly-clear message is that "sex is important." And more than that, "Sex is of ultimate importance." Who's having it (and how often)...how to tell if you're having "enough" and - if not - how to have more...how to be better at it...how to tell if you're good at it. In America, having a healthy sex life is very clearly an all-encompassing obsession, a personal value of the utmost priority.

Or is it?

Lauren Winner is the author of "Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity." I'll admit that I have yet to read the whole book, but I'm certainly planning to do so. In it, Winner convincingly asserts that we Americans are being told two very great, very conflicting lies...and we somehow swallow both of them. How can this be so, given that they clearly are contradictory? Winner explains:

Our popular culture sends us some pretty mixed messages about the importance of sex. On the one hand, we're told that sex is the most important thing there is. We find an interpretation of sexuality even in the seemingly innocuous and terribly commonplace phrase, sex life...the phrase is revealing. A sex life is something we have, something we can make and remake, something we can mold. When we attach another noun to the word life - love life, prayer life - we denote something of the utmost importance, something essential, something basic to life itself.

At the same time, the shapers of popular culture tell us that sex is meaningless. In an episode of the hit sitcom "Friends," Monica asks her new paramour, "So, can we still be friends, and have sex?" "Sure," he replies, "it'll be just something we do together, like racquetball." It could be a tagline for our age: "Sex: It's just like racquetball." It's no big deal. It's just a game.

There's no lack of evidence to support this assertion, of course, but based on nothing more than the checkout lanes at Hy-Vee, anyone can see that what Winner is saying is very true. On the one hand, it seems magazines today cannot be printed without at least a few articles focusing on the Great American Idol of sex, the one thing we all ought to be pursuing.

Simultaneously, though, our culture also treats sex like it's no big deal. These days, teenagers can have sex with multiple partners and their reputations aren't even necessarily at risk because, after all, what's the big deal? As Monica's boyfriend reminds us, it's not much different than a game of racquetball.

"The most important thing in life," but then again..."not really a big deal" after all? Completely opposite conclusions and yet, somehow, we as a culture are able to validate both and embrace these two ideas at the same time. I find it amazing that so many in our country are taken down by not one, but both of these great lies. I find it appalling that I, too, was one of them.

Yet another lie gets stacked up on these first two, and all of them are devastating to the institution of marriage. Our culture then goes on to define the goal ("great sex") as being something that isn't really found within the context of the marriage covenant. Winner continues (emphasis mine):

Amid the contradictory messages about the importance of sex - it is vitally important, but it is just a game - is another message about sex, a definition of what great sex is. Great sex is readily available. It is unyoked from outdated and restrictive moralities. Above all, it is romantic and otherworldly. It happens in an alternate universe, a world removed from the ins-and-outs of daily domestic life. Great sex, which once was assumed to occur by definition only in marriage, is now understood as something that's threatened by marriage. Magazines and advice columnists tell us that the best sex happens away from our ordinary lives.

As a volunteer in The Crossing's divorce ministry, I see this sad error playing itself out over and over again. Marriage typically begins with great hope and expectation, and then "real life" sets in. Jobs, babies, car payments and house repairs drain our energy and change our priorities. The excitement of the new relationship fades, and instead of being replaced with the deep comfort of intimate emotional connection, boredom often sets in. One of the marriage partners begins taking a critical look at their lives and judges it "not good enough," and a less-than-racy sex life seems like one strong indicator that indeed, the marriage is going south.

I don't mean to insinuate that marriages survive or fall largely on the quality of the intimacy between husband and wife; far from it. We all know that when two people marry, two sinners are thrown together under one roof, and eventually conflict will arise. How those two people deal with that conflict leads either to growing intimacy (in and out of the bedroom) or a growing pile of resentments accompanied by a growing distance between the two. But I do think that what we have been led to believe about sex and its role in our lives greatly impacts how we see the relationship as a whole.

I don't think that I can address this issue any better than Winner does, so if this topic concerns you at any level, I would encourage you to join me in reading her book for a much smarter person's perspective on how we, as Christians, ought to look at sex - and perhaps learn to appreciate it as part of the great blessing God has given us in marriage.

Also, as a parent of teens, I think it's worth our time to think critically about what they are being fed about their sexuality - constantly and continuously - in the check-out line, through television and movie screens, and just about everywhere else they look. Not only are you and I being bombarded by these messages, the teenage daughter standing next to you in the check-out line is being bombarded too. I, for one, hope my kids embrace a more biblical view of sex as they come of age than I did, and I want to be armed and ready for those discussions. If Dave can tell everyone to read Wayne Grudem, I guess it's probably OK for me to humbly suggest that everyone add another 192 pages of Lauren Winner to their reading stack, too.

Can Watching Avatar Make You Depressed?

By now you know that James Cameron's Avatar has made hundreds of millions of dollars both from U.S. box office sales and international audiences. But what you might not know is that many of the movie's biggest fans report that it has sent them into a very real depression. According to an article on CNN, there are numerous sites (Avatar Forums, Naviblue) that host discussions about the film. The topic that has generated the most discussion is how to handle the depression that comes when you realize that you will never live in Pandora.

One commenter named Mike wrote:

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all the tears and shivers I got from it." I even contemplated suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and everything is the same as in 'Avatar.'

I guess that this is a good time to say that I saw the movie with my 14 year old son and some of the staff of The Crossing and I enjoyed it. The technical advances were truly amazing and gave the whole film a life like quality that hasn't been possible up until now. In the past 3D has meant something akin to what you might see at Disney World--the headache inducing act of Kermit's tongue seemingly coming within inches of your face. Avatar was my first positive experience with 3D. Sure the politics were a little heavy handed but I've come to expect that from Hollywood.

Why does the movie lead some into depression? Listen to what one person wrote on one forum...

"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed...gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning. It just seems so...meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep...doing thigs at all. I live in a dying world."

Finally a quote by one of the forum's administrator...

"I wasn't depressed myself. In fact the movie made me happy. But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don't have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed."

While it would be easy to mock these people and tell them to "get a life," I think that we'd be better served by learning from what they are saying. The truth is that in one sense these people's comments are extremely perceptive.

You see their longing for a perfect world isn't unfounded. Whether we articulate it or not, all of us at one level wish that we lived in a world that is far different from the one we actually live in. The reason that we don't like this world is because we weren't made to live in it. The Bible says that we were created to live in the real Pandora. We were created to live in Paradise-in perfect relationship with God, other people, and creation. But when sin entered the world it distorted and corrupted all those relationships so that the world we live in is full of sadness and emptiness.

C. S. Lewis argued that the desire for a perfect world was evidence that one existed.

A man's physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating, and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a women and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called "falling in love" occurred in a sexless world.

So according to the Bible these reactions to Avatar are "normal" or even "right." The movie stirred in them a desire for something more beautiful, something more glorious than life in a sinful world can ever satisfy. For you it may be something else that stirs that longing. But regardless of what it is that stirs your desire for something greater, know that it will never be found here. Whether a person realizes it or not, our discontentment with life here will only be satisfied by living in the world God intended-a world in which we are in perfect harmony with God, other people, and creation. The Bible calls that place heaven and it can only be gained through Jesus.

“Business for the Glory of God,” by Wayne Grudem

I had to teach a lesson Monday night to a group of college students at The Crossing about what the Bible teaches about work. I decided that my Discovery Class lesson from week 5 would suit it well, but I also wanted to bring in a few fresh ideas. So Monday morning I read a little ninety-six page book by Wayne Grudem entitled, “Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business.” Not only did it provide exactly what I was looking for to supplement my preparation, but after reading it all I kept thinking was, “Man, I wish everyone at The Crossing would read this little book.” So I’m writing this blog to initiate that very thing: I want YOU to read this book.

It’s interesting that Wayne Grudem is also a source in some of the other lessons in our Discovery Class. That’s because he wrote a systematic theology book we consult frequently as pastors and also sell at our bookstore. He’s currently a Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary. He’s a good writer and a good teacher on the Bible and theology. Plus, he has his B.A. in Economics from Harvard. So he doesn’t approach this issue merely from the Bible.

Again, the themes in this book are very similar to the Discovery Class lesson I teach on being redemptive in culture as Christians. But Grudem hones in on the way Christians do that—be that—particularly through hard work and profitable business in which we find satisfaction and advance society and culture.

Grudem’s thesis is that the Bible teaches that profitable, productive, and competitive business is an important way Christians are to glorify God.

Specifically, the Bible shows us that God created the following nine business realities as good—

1. Ownership
2. Productivity
3. Employment
4. Commercial transactions (buying and selling)
5. Profit
6. Money
7. Inequality of possessions
8. Competition
9. Borrowing and lending

Grudem is routinely faithful to point out that these nine things are indeed corrupted and deformed by sin, and are therefore real temptations for people, including Christians, to misuse and abuse to their own destruction and the destruction of society. But he also repeatedly reminds us that the misuse and abuse of something God created as good does not mean it’s no longer good and to be used for good. Christians must learn to practice these nine business realities in the good way God intended for human beings created in his image. But when we see these nine God-created good things as evil, or somewhere in between, then the result of either disregarding them or disrespecting them is to truly unleash and entrench the evil of poverty in our society and the world, and to fail to fulfill a key function for which God created us in his image.

Each chapter following the introduction explains the biblical mandate for Christians to see the need to engage in these nine things in a redemptive way, followed by an important chapter on how doing these nine things of business biblically and redemptively is the best means to meet the problems of poverty in our culture and world.

Here are a few excerpts from the Introduction…

As for the relationship of business to serving God, when people ask how their lives can “glorify God,” they aren’t usually told, “Go into business.” When students ask, “How can I serve God with my life?” they don’t often hear the answer, “Go into business.” When someone explains to a new acquaintance, “I work in such-and-such a business,” he doesn’t usually hear the response, “What a great way to glorify God!”

This additional way to glorify God is the key to understanding why God made the world the way he did. It is also the key to understanding why God gave us the moral commands he did. And it is the key to understanding why human beings have an instinctive drive to work, to be productive, to invent, to earn and save and give, and to do the thousands of specific activities that fill our days. This additional way to glorify God is imitation—imitation of the attributes of God.

Are things like profit, competition, money, and ownership of possessions always tainted with evil? Or are they merely morally neutral things that can be used for good or for evil? In contrast to those two views, this book will argue that they are all fundamentally good things that God has given to the human race, but that they all carry many temptations to misuse and wrongdoing.

You can buy the book this Sunday at our bookstore at The Crossing. In my opinion, every adult Christian needs to read this book, not just those in business. It corrects a destructive, anti-business movement today in our culture in a helpful, practical, theological, biblical way that’s so needed. Otherwise, we will see more poverty in our world, not less. And Christians will miss out on real opportunity to be redemptive in our culture in a way that truly leverages their engagement in business for the good that God intended.

What Do Pat Robertson and President Obama Have in Common?

Seriously!? What could a charismatic conservative Christian commentator and former Republican presidential candidate have in common with a former participant in the progressive Chicago political scene and current Democratic President of the United States?

Well, perhaps not much on the whole. But they do share one thing: less than stellar comments on the Haiti earthquake disaster.

If you haven’t already heard, Pat Robertson recently offered this on the Christian Broadcasting Network:

And you know, Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it, they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the Prince, true story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, and ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. . .

To be clear, the idea that disasters (natural or otherwise) are from the hand of the Lord and at times in direct response to sin and rebellion is, in fact, a biblical one. But as John Mark Reynolds has ably pointed out, Robertson’s particular comments are not only suspect historically, but theologically dubious and pastorally inappropriate as well. I’ll include two substantial quotes here. The first deals with theological problems:

Robertson has proposed a bad theology, because he too easily equates any natural or man made disaster with Gods’ will. The Lord Jesus points out that God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust. As Saint Augustine points out when some Roman era pagan Pat Robertsons blamed Christians for the fall of Rome, God’s providence and will are not easy to see.

Even some seeming blessings can be curses.

He specifically addressed the issue of whether natural disaster [sic] are because the victims are somehow worse than others when he said (Luke 13):

1There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

All of us are broken and will die. Nobody is safe and nobody should take their righteousness for granted.

Even if we grant that sometimes a prophet in the Bible (Amos) could, by divine revelation, equate a natural disaster with God’s judgment this should be done carefully. This kind of insight is available to few of us and Robertson has not demonstrated a track record (prophetic accuracy) that meets the Biblical standard for accuracy (Deuteronomy 18).

The second quotation touches on Robertson’s lack of pastoral sensitivity:

Robertson has been inhuman in two ways.

First, even if he were right, he has picked a horrid time to pontificate. When my friend is suffering from cancer, even if it is his fault, it is the wrong time to remind him that I told him he should have stopped smoking. It is ugly and useless.

Heal the sick, bury the dead, feed the hungry and then deal with root spiritual causes. Safe to say every nation, and Haiti is surely one, has made philosophical and practical decisions that help cause tragedy. We can talk about that when the people of Haiti have been helped by the Church.

Second, even if his theology were sound, he has stated it in such a way and at such a time that it will be misunderstood and will be mocked. He has pronounced a “truth” that (he must concede) would be hard for our culture to hear in a way and at a time that brings that “truth” into derision.

If Robertson were right in his theology and philosophy, his timing has fed his pearls to swine on a silver platter.

President Obama’s reaction to the crisis has been far different, and in many ways laudatory. From what I’ve seen, he has attempted to act quickly to bring our nation’s resources to bear in caring for those who desperately need it. But near the end of an otherwise solid Newsweek piece outlining the importance of U.S. involvement in the current crisis, the president mentioned this:

In the aftermath of disaster, we are reminded that life can be unimaginably cruel. That pain and loss is so often meted out without any justice or mercy. That "time and chance" happen to us all. But it is also in these moments, when we are brought face to face with our own fragility, that we rediscover our common humanity.

Now, I don’t know how much of a biblical Christian worldview/theology President Obama ascribes to. For that reason, I certainly don’t want to fault him for being inconsistent with something he doesn’t necessarily believe. But the fact does remain that these comments are noteworthy in that they apparently presuppose an impersonal naturalistic universe. Such a picture, by definition, has no place for a sovereign God ordering the events of the universe in ways that, if often inscrutable from our current limited perspective, are ultimately consistent with his good, just, and even merciful purposes. In other words, it leaves no room for God as he really exists.

Practically, this makes a great deal of difference. If the universe really is blindly cruel, if we all are simply helpless before the merciless effects of time and chance, then there really is precious little hope to be had. Rediscovering our common humanity offers little consolation if, in the end, it amounts to understanding we’re nothing more than debris caught up in the impersonal, inexorable forces of nature.

Thankfully, that's not the biblical picture.

Staying Faithful to the Author's Intent

Back in the late 1980s, I developed a strong interest in the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes. This borderline obsession was initially sparked by the consistently-brilliant performances of Jeremy Brett in the title role, originally aired in 1984 on Granada Television in the UK. Ever the purist, Brett's filmed performances had the effect of driving me back to the source material. My older sister had given me the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I rewarded her excellence in gift-giving by very quickly devouring every single page. My affinity for Holmes stayed with me for several years.

This past Friday, my daughter Mary and I made a rare trek to Forum 8 to see the new Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I don't get out to see many new movies these days, soaring ticket prices and lack of spare time being my primary stumbling blocks. To be honest, I was not hoping for much when I learned that Jude Law ("What?!") was cast in the role of Dr. John Watson. Okay, look...everyone knows, without being told, that the role of Watson should quite rightly be played by an older gentleman...don't they? Admittedly, it took a few minutes for me to get past having a "pretty boy" cast in that role, but Law's performance was winsome enough, and thus I managed to set this objection aside fairly quickly.

Having read all of the original stories, I could easily punch hole after hole in the screenplay and carp unpleasantly about its lack of faithfulness to the source material, but I'll happily leave that task to the ever-vigilant army of 20-something bloggers wearing Star Wars jammies and living in their mom's basement.

Despite my purist tendencies, I found I very much enjoyed the film, and I walked away with a healthy appreciation for the incredibly-detailed set design, "sooty London" cinematography, snappy dialogue, special effects and slow-motion action sequences. I found all of these elements to be top-notch, but let's face it...any attempt to render a story featuring Sherlock Holmes will succeed - or fall flat on its face - with the portrayal of its central character and, to my mind, Robert Downey Jr. gave a stellar performance. Despite his legendary personal problems and substance abuse issues, it seems like a no-brainer to admit that Downey is obviously very talented. His ability to inject characters with odd mannerisms and personal ticks makes him the perfect actor to take up the daunting task of portraying Holmes.

But what caught my attention on the drive home was the realization that I had been very carefully judging the worthiness of the entire film by its "broad-stroke faithfulness" (or lack thereof) to the central character as originally penned by Conan Doyle. The character of Holmes as rendered in the original stories is absolutely riddled with bizarre behavior and less-than-desirable traits, extreme social awkwardness and a debilitating morphine addiction being just two of the more obvious. Had the more difficult aspects of Holmes' character been missing, I doubt I would have enjoyed the film, "top notch scene design" or no. The true fan of Sherlock Holmes embraces the totality of his character, astonishing brilliance and social awkwardness.

And it occurs to me that there is a strong parallel between my inner desire to somehow "protect" the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes against error...and a growing desire within my own heart to protect the person and work of Jesus Christ from the inaccurate caricature of Him that many of us have been exposed to, up to and including the present day. Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has written and said plenty about the American evangelical tendency to turn Jesus into "some sort of sissified flower child," so there's really no need to stoke that fire of controversy to make my point. I'll just simply affirm Driscoll's assertion that men, by and large, aren't really engaged at a gut level by the "soft" Jesus that tends to show up in older Bible films and on Sunday morning flannelgraphs.

So I find myself appalled by how, as I watched the movie, I was so internally vigilant to protect and defend the established, "truthful" image of a fictional British private detective against all error and heresy...when I have historically tended to be quite passive in what I was hearing and reading with regard to the person and work of my eternal Savior, Jesus Christ.

Pause for just a moment. Let the complete stupidity of my priorities sink in for just a minute.

Not that long ago, some poor soul might have said something outrageous to me like "Sherlock Holmes never once visited a Chinese opium den!" and I would be instantly on my feet, running to retrieve my Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle and frantically turning to read aloud from "The Man with the Twisted Lip."

But let someone spout utter nonsense like "Jesus was not God, He was just a good moral teacher..." and I might have been tempted to let the remark get by unchallenged perhaps because, at the time, I did not know where to look in the Bible to refute it, but also because I had no idea how to respond to a worldview that sought only to discredit Christ without providing the necessary, alternate explanations for the four major categories of Origin, Meaning, Morality, and Destiny (per the apologetic argumentation of C.S. Lewis).

If we will just simply ask God to grant us both the willingness and the enthusiasm to go back and study the source material, the Jesus of the Bible comes alive. Studying the attributes of Jesus as documented in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John provides us with all the apologetic we need, as Jesus Himself was constantly called upon to defend His character. Though He often did it indirectly, the four gospels give us example after example of how Jesus responded in situations where He was challenged, and clearly presents an overall sense of who He is.

Jesus says a lot of unpopular things. At the very beginning of His earthly ministry, after reading Isaiah 61 aloud in synogogue, His high school buddies back in Nazareth tried to push Him off a cliff (Luke 4:16-29). Disciples leave him in droves when He testifies that they can have no part in Him unless they drink His blood and eat His flesh (John 6:50-69). Whenever I read Matthew 23, I always find it difficult to visualize the Pharisees holding off on rock-collection duty long enough to hear Him vilify them so thoroughly, so the big question for me is not "Why was Jesus crucified?" but "How did Jesus manage to remain alive as long as He did?" The scribes and Pharisees instinctively start looking around for baseball-sized stones whenever He shows up (John 8:48-59, John 10:22-33)! Multiple times He is accused of having a demon in Him (Luke 11:14-15, John 10:19-21) and despite all this...He never once "waters down" His message to please the crowd.

Thanks to the Internet, you can quite easily find people fighting viciously over the most nuanced trivialities as they relate to the lives and careers of Batman, Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk or Wolverine. As a former Sherlock Holmes nutcase, I understand the appeal that well-written characters have, yet when considering the person and work of Jesus Christ I have to thank God that in His great mercy He ultimately "drove me back to the source material," where the nature and character of the greatest Man Who ever lived is so lovingly revealed.

There really is nothing wrong with getting wrapped up in the minutia of a favorite comic book character, TV series or rock star. Neither do I think anyone should feel guilty because they have memorized the earned-run average of a major league pitcher down to four decimal points. All I am saying is that, for myself, I very much look forward to the day when I will know more about Jesus than I do about my favorite fictional character, and I know exactly where to find the passage that talks about Jesus as the Author and Perfecter of our faith without having to look it up using Bible Gateway's keyword search (Hebrews 12:1-2). The best I can say right now is that the scales have begun to tip, and my prayers for God to sweep the clutter out of my soul and replace it with His Truth have clearly been heard. I now have a reasonable hope that I will be quoting the Apostle Paul from my deathbed...not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

ESPN Salary Crunch

I stumbled upon this link on ESPN.com's site earlier this week. The premise is this: they've taken a handful of the most lucrative recent contracts in sports, then averaged those annual salaries against the individual's notable statistics. The fun part is this - you enter a salary in the calculator and it tells you how long, per statistical category, it takes that particular player to make what you make in an entire year. Have fun with it here (by the way, Mark Teixeira has the biggest annual salary, so his number's are the most ridiculous).

Just for instance, let's take $50,000 as a salary.

Mark Teixeira makes that every (he's the 1st baseman for the NY Yankees):

• .39 hits
• 1.28 at bats (he gets 3-5 at bats per game
• .07 home runs
• .27 RBI

And if you make $50,000 a year, it will take you 450 years to earn what Teixeira pulls down in just 1.

I don't have one cohesive point regarding this, but I will share a few bulleted thoughts.

• From a fiscal perspective, these athletes are worth what they make. Before you argue, this is what I mean: in a free-market economy the market (i.e., the consumers) essentially sets prices and value. Baseball owners, athletic directors, etc., aren't idiots. They've been doing this for a while and each have general managers and economists who are extremely proficient at what they do. They know how much they make, and they know how much signing Mark Teixeira or Pete Carrol is worth in terms of dollars made. My point - they don't often pay someone an amount of money that they won't recoup in revenue brought in because of that player/coach. The same principle could be said for movie stars, TV stars, musicians, etc.

• Are you a little (or a lot) angry when you look at the numbers these people make? I am. But we must remember that we're part of the reason for this. Peyton Manning, Ray Lewis, Kurt Warner, and Drew Brees make millions of dollars per year in part because I have ordered my day to ensure I'll be watching them play this afternoon and evening. They're entertainers and I like to be entertained. So we can't entirely cast the blame elsewhere. And why am I really angry? My hunch is that I'm probably angry largely due to envy of what they have that I don't. I can act like it's because I stand for certain principles, but I'm far too sinful for it not to have something to do with simple jealousy.
  

• But it does point to the fact that we live in a culture obsessed with entertainment. Think of the amount of money and time spent in the entertainment industry. Movies, television, TV commercials, sporting events, etc. This entertainment-obsessed culture results in many of the things we despise such as bloated salaries, gossip TV shows and periodicals, paparazzi, etc. But our desire for entertainment and these hated cultural phenomena are inter-related. The reason that Tiger Woods is as popular as he is (or was) and makes the amount of money that he does is the exact same reason all the vultures were circling when he was caught in scandal.
  

• The next question is the most important one, yet it is much more difficult to answer than simply making cultural observations. Why are we so entertainment obsessed? Part of the answer is probably that we are prone to laziness and gluttony. We can often be undisciplined in our time spending hours being entertained by blankly staring at our flat-screen TVs. And we are notoriously gluttonous. We love to take good things (like entertainment) and over-indulge in them. Entertainment is clearly no different. Do we use it as an escape from mundane life? Do we like to look up to celebrities and athletes because something in us is designed to hero-worship (I think that we are designed in this way...but we often worship the wrong hero)?

There's my random thoughts for the weekend. Hopefully they're of some value.

A Parent's Love - 8000 Miles Away

I have always considered adoption as the most tangible sense of God’s grace exhibited by His people on earth. It is the best example of unconditional love and acceptance I believe we are capable of providing as humans. Sue and I have friends in Wichita, Kansas who are currently in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. The process has been unbelievably tedious for them. They are compiling their experience on a blog that is updated regularly with details of the adoption process. I have included a link to their blog here.

I have been amazed at all the phone calls, the paperwork, the interviews, and the background checks required of them over the past year and I read this week they will still wait up to an additional year after the paperwork is done as the Ethiopian authorities match them to a child. All the while they are left to anticipate the day they finally see the face of a child who will someday be their own.

I am sure you are aware of the devastation in Haiti after a 7.0 magnitude struck Port-au-Prince on Tuesday of this week. I was instantly reminded of the tsunami from 2004 and all the personal and public tragedies surrounding that event. Similarly, we are bombarded on the internet with stories of numbers of the dead, cost of damages and pictures of pain on the faces of the local people. I think we too often have a tendency as a distant people to disconnect from such a tragedy.

I saw an article on MSNBC describing a story of a couple waiting to adopt a brother and sister from Haiti. You can read the article here. For me, this story really brought home the reality of the people who are suffering in Haiti. Here is a couple who have worked for years to adopt in Haiti. They have endured 5 trips to the country, countless hours on the phone, miles of paperwork. They have met the children and have established a relationship. In their minds, and in their hearts, these children are theirs. You can read about the concern and angst these parents endured as they sought out information regarding the well-being of their children.



I cannot imagine how hard this week has been for this couple, but I think our friends from Wichita can relate. Imagine being thousands of miles away from your children and having no way to communicate with them. You are entrusting their care to strangers who may or may not have their best interests in mind; An amazing testimony of faith.

Those who God has called to adopt paint an incredible picture of God’s grace in our daily lives. I think the experience of this couple brings the image even clearer. Imagine God, our heavenly father, seeking us out in a foreign land, ravaged by death and destruction. In the midst of the pain and suffering, I can hear Him say; “I have come for my children, they are mine, and I am taking them home”.

In you the orphan finds mercy. Hosea 14:3

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:14-16