Personage.

Have you ever thought about the phenomenon that is humanity? What are people? What are these almost 7 billion humans on this tiny planet? What are YOU?
That might seem like a strange question, especially written with the word “what.” But I ask “what” because it is a more basic question than “who.” “Who” automatically implies personage. The question I ask: what is the phenomenon of personage? Why do we not refer to animals as “who”s? Why not trees or things as “who”s?
No, the word “who” is used for people exclusively. Why is this? How is it that even language acknowledges the uniqueness of humanity? Certainly this uniqueness is not limited only to an idiom...

Still Broken.

Have you ever had a song trapped inside of you because you didn’t have the musical ability to translate it into the physical world? Well, that is my current situation. It actually happens to me a lot. You might not think so because I can play the guitar and all, but this is a piano song. A haunting, melancholy piano song. It really is the most frustrating thing to have a song trapped inside of you. What’s worse is this was a song that I really wanted to sing. You see, music is how I process things, vent my emotions and all that. Well tonight I had some emotions I wanted to hash out.

I’m sorry if this is sounding confusing. Let me explain...

I recently found out that one of my favorite Christian recording artists recently got divorced. I felt very sorry for him but being a good journalist I was terribly curious about what happened and googled it. Turns out that his ex-wife got married 6 months after the divorce. Now I really wanted to know what happened! After finding out that little bit of information I discovered his ex-wife’s blog and started snooping around. Maybe that sounds terrible and maybe it is. Honestly though, I just wanted to know what happened. What I found was that she is an extremely devoted and sincere Christian. Almost every one of her lengthy and thought out posts had something to do with God. That was certainly not what I was expecting. I guess I just presumed that she must be some Wicked Witch of the West to get a divorce and then marry someone else 6 months later. This piece of information not only confused me but it greatly disturbed me. How can two extremely devoted and sincere Christians get a divorce? How can that happen? How can two people who claim to know forgiveness and redemption just give up? I don’t understand?

This whole thing seems like the most real kind of tragedy. The type that lives and breathes and doesn’t go away after you leave the movie theater. The type that finds real people crying themselves to sleep and wishing they had done things differently. The type that can’t be fixed.

I know that this is an extremely random topic for me to write about. I am not connected to this story at all. I don’t personally know these people or the details of their situation. But I can’t help but be broken about this. It hurts me to see a brother and a sister in Christ give up; it hurts (and scares) me to know that they didn’t find Christ’s love sufficient for them. I am not passing judgement at all, I am just observing (I don't know the details or how I would react in their place). This whole thing reminds me of something my theology teacher use to say: that is that we live in the “already and the not yet,” referring to our state as believers. We have been saved but not yet completely redeemed. Sometimes I just forget how broken we still are.

Would it be nice?

So it's been a while since I have had time to write anything on here. Sorry about that! Hopefully I'll be able to keep this a bit more current...

I have had much on my mind lately-- though I suppose that is nothing too peculiar. Regardless, the question then becomes where to start? Should I ramble about yesterday's thought train for fear it will be lost tomorrow, or should I instead divulge today's queries? I think right now, I would prefer the latter.

Today. Today (which almost surely, by the time you are reading this, has long become yesterday, last week, or some other semblance of time run out)I was sitting in a movie theater. As I was watching the film the thought occurred to me of how comfortable I was and of how nice it would be to forget about God, Jesus, eternity, heaven, and hell. Of how nice it would be to not care about anyone's soul. Of how nice it would be to just live my life and enjoy it without looking ahead to eternity and having to feel like I needed to care about other people's eternities. After all it is draining to look around and know that most likely the majority of the people that you see are headed for forever pain, suffering, and torment. I guess I was musing on the freedom of just not caring because heck, if I don't care then I can be as selfish as I want. I can live for me as much as I want-- I wouldn't care. Of course I don't really agree with these thoughts. I need to care about God. I need to care about eternity. I need to care about others. I want to. I just found the whole episode interesting to ponder.
First of all it is a classic example of my selfishness and sin. Only extreme depravity would prefer to sit back and sip lemonaid instead of helping prevent the needless eternal damnation of others.
Secondly, it shows me that I need to constanly grow my relationship with Christ because our natural self is so prone to take over. If my personal comfort means more to me than my relationship with the Lord then I have a serious problem... the crazy thing is it is SO EASY to slip into that place and way of thinking.
Thirdly, it brought to my attention once again how little the modern American church actually cares about people. When was the last time you heard about a church actually evangelizing straight up? Instead we pretend that inviting people to church (a church which probably is so concerned with being "hip" that it is afraid to just preach the Bible)is somehow equivalent to personally sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. What does more good, entertaining lost souls in a "relevant worship service" or telling someone the truth of their soul's standing before God (in love)? I think this all comes back to our desire to be comfortable. It's like we pretend to care about other's souls, but in reality we don't care enough to actually do anything because that is uncomfortable.

Oh Lord help us! We are so human and frail. May Your truth overtake and consume us. May the REALITY of eternity become a burning passion in us. Give us faith to believe and courage to do something about it. Without You we fail, plain and simple. Please help us when we don't care or don't want to care. Please make it all so real to us. Thank You, Jesus! Amen.

Why Bother?

Ok. So it's no secret that living for Christ in our culture is pretty much super hard. Not only are there distractions galore but sin practically screams at and tempts us from every corner. And I don't just mean music and movies, television and magazines. I mean friends who mean well but only end up condoning and/or encouraging our degenerate nature, family members who subconsciously put God on the back burner to the "American dream," and churches that find it a little too radical to actually preach God's word so instead replace biblical teaching for cheesy, "uplifting," motivational speeches (with a bible verse on the side, of course). I could go on. Everyone knows the list is practically endless. There are teachers who ridicule students for their faith, governments that daily carry out mass infanticide, materialism that tears at our sense of belonging, a culture of comparison that breeds our insecurities, unhealthy peer pressure that pushes us to immoral behavior, and a country that says we are hateful and rude if we have the audacity to claim there is even such a thing as basic as right and wrong.

Who are we kidding?! Living for God the way we are meant to is incredibly hard! Maybe we should just stop trying? Yeah! Just stop trying to live for God! Obviously there's no point? Why is it even worth it?! Welllllllll, actually it is worth it (you didn't think my real advice was to stop living for God did you??). Obviously I don't think we should stop living for God, so why, then, is it worth it? Why is it even worth being the odd one out? The weirdo? The one who cares? Before I answer that I'd like to ask my own question: why is it worth living for all those other things? What so great about being selfish? What's so great about being rich on this earth? What's so great about having sex before marriage or cursing when you're angry? What is so great about listening to music or watching TV that degrades people's worth into mere bodies to be used? What is so great about being just like everyone else?!? To sum it up even better, what is so great about living a life of pleasure for (if you're lucky) 85 years only to be in darkness, and suffering, and pain, separated from God completely for ever and ever and ever after that? That makes no sense and we all know it.

But do you wanna know something even cooler? There is even a better reason to live for God than just the fear of hell and the hope of heaven. John 17:3 reads, "and this is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Eternal life is about KNOWING God. That starts now. So many people always say, "it's not a religion, it's a relationship *insert cheesy smile*," that it actually drives me crazy but there is truth to that. We have the opportunity to know THE God of the Universe. Stop and think about that. Really. Stop reading for a sec and think on what that means. I mean it, stop. THE God of the universe call us to KNOW Him. We can't even imagine what joy this entails. Everything else fades in comparison to Him. It's so easy to get stuck on all of the reasons why it's hard to follow Christ and focus on all of the areas that we are failing to the point that we miss the joy of HIM! God calls us not just to do certain things and not do other things! He calls us to know Him. When that becomes our focus we don't have to try so hard because it just comes. We start to go about our days looking for Him and finding Him and desiring Him more.

Let us not get discouraged in our walk with Christ. His Spirit will help us. We can't make it without Him. Let us be reminded that we are human and frail and we mess up. But let us never stay there. Let us never think that He is not worth it. He is so worth it we can't even begin to comprehend. Sure it's hard but, "I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ... (Phillipians 3:8)" Christ vs. fading pleasure? Christ is worth it every time. :)

What's the Difference?

Remember those picture puzzle things? You probably attempted some when you were little. There were two or three pictures that at first glance looked exactly the same but if you looked a little closer weren't? And that of course was the game: try and find all the differences. Some of the differences where super easy- a guy would have a large mustache in one picture and none in the other. The majority though, were surprisingly hard to find.

I can't help but think that those fun (or lame, depending...) little puzzles are a good example of Christians in our culture. There are so many people who claim to be Christians. They are all around us. Chances are if you are reading my blog you probably say you're one. But have you ever noticed differences among "Christians?" Some people seem so passionate about God while others are more passionate about the newest music and movies. Others take what the Bible says seriously, while others seem to treat what it says as merely suggestions. Still others practically exude a life, and a joy, and a peace, while some seem like selfish killjoys. What is the difference? Like two picture puzzles these "Christians" are comparable yet somehow unmistakably different. Recently it has been so completely obvious to me how some Christians just radiate life. It practically shines out of their pores. Something supernatural. They certainly are not perfect but there's such a peace and a joy. Such a love. There is something intrinsically different about them. And then there are the other "Christians?" They are so similar yet somehow so different? Why? Where is that living water that Jesus said would flow from them?

Sometimes I wonder if the church is filled with more posers than we would ever feel remotely comfortable admitting? Actually I take that back. I think that a lot of people don't realize that they are posing in which case the church would be filled with people who have fooled themselves into thinking they are the real thing when in fact they are only cheap knockoffs... like costume jewelry made in China. We of course can't judge hearts and I'm not saying that if you have a bad day and don't feel very peaceful that you aren't a true Christian. But remember something Jesus said, "...narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it...[Matt 7:14]" Narrow? Difficult? Few? Are we all really on that narrow path or are some of us simply imitating it without even realizing it- marking off our own "narrow" boundaries while we walk on the broad road of destruction? I really believe we all need to take a fresh look at our lives and compare our "picture" to the real thing: Christ.
Help us, Lord Jesus.

"Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you are disqualified.
2 Corinthians 13:5

Evening Blue

Blue. I like that color. It's my favorite color in fact. There are so many wonderfully beautiful shades of it. There's the turquoise clear of the Caribbean and the deep navy of the open ocean. There's the bright glow of your friend's eyes and the shimmer of Sapphire. But one of my all time favorite manifestations of blue is that rich, deep, but bright, saturation that occurs mid evening. The sun is down, though one corner of the sky still shows pink and orange after thoughts, and the stars are just starting to twinkle. The moon has just begun to take center stage as the source of light. This is when evening blue is found. Not that dark, night black, but that vibrant, alive, blue. Look up. It can be easy to miss. Clouds can mask it. Distractions will interrupt it. It's still there. Take a look next time. I am convinced that there is so much beauty around us we have become so oblivious to almost all of it. What a tragic, pitiful thing. Creation is truly crying out in a symphony dedicated to the goodness of God. Sense it in quiet moments. Feel it in the loving touch of a friend. Hear it in a beautiful melody. Smell it after the rain. Taste it in good food. See it on the face of a stranger made in the image of God. And heck, find it in the color blue.
~Tiff

"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow."