We all, like sheep...

This topic came up at during our small group discussion last night and I've been ruminating on it so I thought I'd write out my thoughts.

During his ministry on Earth, Jesus continued the Old Testament's theme of referring to us as sheep.  He is the shepherd and we are his flock (Psalm 23 anyone?).  The thing about it is that sheep are, on a good day, very dumb.  The evidence is plentiful. 

Before talking about it last night , I always kinda thought this was a subtle jab at the human state.  We are pretty dumb.  Again, the evidence is plentiful.  It's plentiful just in my own life, now multiply that by 7 billion.  I never thought of it as an insult but rather a reminder that we're not smart enough to navigate life on our own.  We need someone that is smart enough to guide us.

I change my mind on that today.  I don't think it's a statement of our lack of intelligence.  I think it is a statement of our utter helplessness.  The sheep's problem isn't that it lacks intelligence, it is that it is completely helpless.  Nobody would call a newborn child stupid but just like sheep, if we are not constantly cared for as infants we would die.  It's not the sheep's fault that they're cognitively limited any more than it is an infant child's.

This was somewhat eye-opening because if the illustration isn't to show how stupid we are, we don't have the excuse of being too stupid to know we need a shepherd.  We can never claim ignorance or say that we sinned because we didn't know any better.  While it may be a stretch to call us smart, we aren't so ignorant that we don't know any better.  Sort of similar to 1 Corinthians 10:13.

I think it's pretty cool that God made sheep.  As he was doling out things such as natural defense mechanisms, survival instincts, and even the instinct for self-preservation, He skipped over the sheep.  He intentionally created an animal devoid of all those things and more.  He intentionally created an animal that, left to its own devices, would become extinct in very short order.  He knew that He would enter the world into a culture that was acutely aware of the helpless nature of sheep and thus have a perfect metaphor for how He is able to (and desires to) care for the equally helpless human race.  What a creative God we serve!

Dr. B and Sin

I’m on the brink of full blown addiction.  Even chemical dependence.  After spending the last couple years telling myself that it’s no big deal or flat out ignoring it I have decided that it’s time to make a change.  I have got to cut back on the amount of Dr Pepper that I drink.  It is beginning to get out of hand.  It’s just that it is so good.  When I am in heaven I plan on having a perpetually full glass in my hand at all times but here on Earth where excessive sugar and calories are detrimental I suppose I’ll have to practice moderation – which is proving to be a challenge.

I have only had one in the past 10 days (normally that would have been a dozen or more).  I don’t have the willpower to go cold turkey so I’m weaning myself with drinks such as Coke Zero or some other calorie free drink.  I know, artificial sweeteners aren’t necessarily better but it’s a process.  It got me thinking of things I have partaken in to make up for the lack of Dr Pepper.  One of them was a drink known as Dr. B.  It is a horrid drink produced by Texas grocer HEB.  It did nothing to satiate my craving for the real thing.  Thinking about Dr. B got my mind wandering.  Why was I so offended by it?  HEB has other imitation drinks that are tolerable.  Why do I detest Dr. B so much? 

To me Dr Pepper is unequaled in the realm of refreshments.  Calling it “delicious” is insulting because the word fails miserably to describe how good it is.  Even more insulting, trying to imitate it.  When there is an imitation of Coke (which is good but not great) that turns out to be mediocre, it’s no big deal because the original was just average to begin with.  An imitation of the pinnacle of soft drinks is downright blasphemous.

As my mind continued to wander (it always does), this reminded me of other things in life.  I think that this is a lot like sin.  God offers us fullness of life.  He desires for us to continually walk with Him, the source of endless joy.  But we get distracted by shiny things around us.  We discard that which is the eternally fulfilling for something that we will be bored with in a couple of weeks. 

It’s not as if God is offering us something that is good but not great.  We’re not exchanging run-of-the-mill for mediocre.  When we chase after or devote our lives to or make sacrifices for things that are not God, we are exchanging infinite joy for a cheap imitation that leaves us just as empty as when we started.  The cheap imitation never quenches our thirst.  We sometimes try to throw more and more poor imitations of joy into a void in our hearts that is infinite, hoping that if we just put enough in there it will eventually fill up.  It can’t.  We need infinite to fill the infinite.

The good news is that there is someone that can fill the infinite void.  And He is eager to do so.

The Importance of Good Fathers

I remember having a discussion in a Bible study group a few years ago about another reason that it is important to be a good father.  The discussion revolved around some remarks made by individuals outside the church regarding their view of God as a father.  These men were having trouble with the imagery of God as our Heavenly Father that is prevalent throughout Scripture.  The problem they were having was that they had abusive, uncaring, and unloving fathers and therefore couldn’t understand why God would call himself our father if he loves and cares for us.  The very word “father” conjured up for them a very dark image and so they struggled to separate the qualities that they saw in their own fathers from the qualities that God tells us that he has as our Father.

While I understood the implications of our discussion I never quite grasped the weight of it.  I have been blessed be a father that loves his children deeply and sacrificially.  It was not a great leap for me to liken the character traits that I have always seen in my own father to the traits that our Heavenly Father has, knowing that the latter are untainted by a sinful human heart.  However, a phone call that I received recently helped me to understand the difficulty that some people may have.

 The phone call came from my boss.  There was nothing remarkable about the content of the conversation but I noticed something that I hadn’t before – there was no nervousness or general anxiety stirred in me when the phone rang.  There shouldn’t have been.  I am extremely fortunate to be able to work for the epitome of a great boss.  He is helpful and supportive and genuinely cares about me as a professional and as a person.  The odd thing is that for the first several months I worked for him, I would be anxious every time I would get and email from him or see his name on the caller ID.

This anxiety had nothing to do with him but rather was due to a boss that I had worked for previously.  This previous boss managed predominantly by fear so the mere anticipation of interacting with him increased the anxiety that I was likely already feeling.  When I first started interacting with my current boss I couldn’t separate the description of someone as “boss” from the idea of “boss” I had in my mind and so all the uneasy feelings I used to get were replicated.  It took a long time for me to be able to redefine the concept in my mind to include a person that didn’t stir up apprehension.

After the phone conversation, I was immediately reminded of the conversation about fathers and the parallel was clear.  If a concept like “boss” could be so convoluted in my mind, how much more could a concept with the weight of fatherhood be confused?   This further reiterated to me the importance of being a good father.  I always want the concept of “father” one that invokes positive thoughts in my children and for them to be able to easily understand why God would use fatherhood imagery when he explains how he relates to us.  What better way to display to my children how much God loves them than to exhibit those qualities myself?  There is no way that I can ever come close to loving them like God loves them.  My actions will always be tainted by the stain of sin.  No amount of effort and will power on my part would result in me providing an accurate image for my children of how God loves them.  But God, in continuous acts of grace that I will never be able to fully understand, enables me to love my children in a way that reflects God’s love.  I am eternally grateful for these acts of grace and pray that they continue.

Lessons from a GPS

I have recently found myself in a position where I have some seemingly major decisions to make.  They have the potential to steer my future in one direction or another.  I have been reminded of a time when I was in a similar situation, although previously accompanied by other less than desirable circumstances. 

A couple years ago, I had been going through a period of stress that was negatively affecting my relationship with my family and was manifesting itself in physical ailments.  Along with daily stress, I was also consumed by where things were headed.  There were a number of different directions that I saw my life (and that of my family) headed and each had multiple sub-paths.  I was overwhelmed by the number of decisions I thought like I had to make.  I wanted to make wise choices in keeping with God’s commands and desires but felt paralyzed, unable to make even one decision.

During this time, I had begun working on a project out of town that I had to travel to on a regular basis.  The first couple times I traveled there I got a GPS in my rental car.  Now in most areas of my life I am pretty laid back and easy going, sometimes to a fault, and anything but “Type A.”  However, when I am driving to a new location, I like to know exactly where I am going.  I don’t just want to know landmarks and a list of turns.  If possible I like to be able to look at a map and see exactly where I will be going on the map.  This way, if I get off course, I have a better chance of backtracking and correcting my error.  This is not at all how the GPS units that I was given worked.  They merely displayed an illustration of your vehicle in space and told you what the next turn would be.

That morning, while in the airport, I had read a devotional essay on Psalm 119:105 which says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”  The author of the essay explained that the job of a lamp is not to light up the entire course to be walked but rather to shed just enough light to illuminate our feet and the next step.  God promises to make the next step visible and asks us to take that step before he lights up the next one.  He never intends to show us several steps down the road as he is in control and guides our path and will get us to our destination.  I had spent that morning and afternoon letting this idea marinate in my mind as I made my trip out of town.

As I fiddled with the GPS, I became very frustrated as it would not give me any indication of the big picture of where I was going.  In my minimal experience with GPS units beforehand, I knew that it would lead me to my destination eventually as long as I strictly followed its instructions.  Sometimes the routes were unorthodox but they would always lead to the desired destination.  I wanted to know the big picture and have the freedom to veer off course if needed for stops in between but I couldn’t plan for any stops since I didn’t know where I was really going.  The only information I could get was the approximate distance to the next turn.

It didn’t take long until I saw the parallel to what I had read that morning and what I was dealing with at home.  The only way I would reach my destination was to follow the instructions of the next turn.  It was irrelevant that I didn’t know where I was along the route or what the next four turns would be.  If I had faith that the GPS was leading me in the right direction, all that mattered was that I took the only step that had been illuminated – the next one.

I realized that I had unrelenting faith that God knows the big picture and that he knows where he is leading me.  Even if I knew what the next several steps would be, I wouldn’t be able to make sense of them without the proper context.  All that mattered was that I took the next step, the only one that God had illuminated.  It completely changed my outlook on my circumstances.  I didn’t have to make several decisions at once and decide how I would react to the subsequent dominoes that would fall.  I just had to take the next step.  One step in faith, knowing that God is good and loving God.

I am reminded of this analogy now.  God knows where my education, my career, and my life are heading.  He has plans that are far larger than I am.  All I have to do is take one step.

The Problem of Pain

My sister-in-law posted a short comment on her blog earlier this week that has had me thinking.  It’s not the first time I’ve thought of the topic, not even close.  I would wager that, outside of inquiries into the reason for our existence, she was asking the most frequently asked question since the beginning of time.  In essence, she was questioning the reason for pain in the world.  Among the people that I’ve discussed this with, the generic answer is that God is in control and that there is a reason for everything, whether we know what the reason is or not.  I don’t disagree with that assessment but it is a rather unsatisfying one.  I liked Hannah’s response to this line of thinking.  She asks, “Why do you use such dark hues if you are allegedly painting a masterpiece?”  Great imagery and an honest question – one that I used to ask on a regular basis.  I don’t ask that question any more though.  I can honestly say that I am no longer troubled by the fact that I believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God and that there is pain and suffering under his watch.  Don’t get me wrong, the existence of pain and suffering distresses me greatly and I long for the day when it all ends.  I just no longer see the existence of pain and the goodness of God as mutually exclusive things. 

Perhaps my favorite explanation of this apparent problem I’ve heard is that of Dr. Jim Denison.  In response to the pronouncement that God fails to protect his children (which is what we all believe a loving father would do), Dr. Denison explains that, as a father, he wants to protect his children.  He doesn’t want any serious injury or illness to befall them.  In fact, he doesn’t want any minor injury or illness to befall them.  Further, he doesn’t want any discomfort at all to come upon them.  Nor does he want them to have to deal with any sort of inconvenience in their lives.  His point is obvious.  Where do we stop?  Once you stop the most egregious evil, the second on the list now seems exceedingly evil.  No matter how many evils God prevents, we will always be unsatisfied that he did not prevent the next one on the list.  Who are we to say that God has not prevented a myriad of evils from ever occurring and we only see the tip of the iceberg?  Not only is our perspective flawed, but we are only looking at a small section of the artist’s canvas.  (Note: Dr. Denison’s son recently had surgery to remove a malignant tumor and has been given the opportunity to live out what he has been preaching for years in regards to dealing with pain and finding joy in the Lord.  Check out his website - denisonforum.org - for lots of great essays, commentaries, and a plethora of information.)

I’ve always known that I have a different perspective than God has.  This used to frustrate me because, again, it was an unsatisfying explanation to an epidemic problem.  Over the past six years, however, I have been given a perspective that I never had before.  No, I can’t see the world through God’s eyes but I have a lens that I didn’t used to have.  Six years ago, my first child was born.  We now have three children and with each one, my view of the concept of permitted suffering has been deepened.  I could go on forever about what it means to me to be a parent and how awesome I think it is that God created the institution of parenthood.  He could have had us procreate and develop into adulthood in any manner he wished; it was his idea after all.  Giving birth and then having a sustained period of intimate interaction with our children as they grow up is not “just the way it is.”  It is an institution designed by and ordained by the Creator of all things.  Therefore, it would be foolish to not closely examine the ramifications of this.

Throughout scripture, God refers to himself as our father.  It follows that a parent’s relationship with his children is designed to be a reflection (albeit flawed due to the reality of sin and the fact that we’re, you know, not God) of how God relates to us.  There is an evident disparity in the amount of understanding that a parent and young child have.  When I see one of my children in a situation that could result in pain, there are times that I can see what the result of the pain will be.  If I see a necessity of the strife I do nothing to prevent it.  As my daughter learns to read, there are many times when I see her struggle to figure out what a string of letters means.  Sometimes it pains her a great deal to not get it right the first time which leads to a reticence to attempt the next new word.  As a loving father shouldn’t I intervene and stop her suffering?  It would be very easy for me to just tell her what the word is.  The problem is that it would very quickly digress from a session of her practicing her reading to a session of me simply reading to her.  I suppose that she could potentially learn to read like this but it would take an exceedingly long time and she would not likely ever be a particularly proficient reader.  In fact, the most loving thing I can do is allow her to struggle.

I have a different viewpoint on reality than my children do.  There is a significant gap in knowledge between us.  Likewise, I have a different viewpoint than God does and the chasm in knowledge between us in infinite.

Another, and perhaps more significant, problem is the idea that there are innocent people suffering.  The simple fact is that there is no such thing as an innocent person.  We are born into a world marred by sin.  None of us is innocent.  The fact that we don’t all suffer all the time is a demonstration of God’s grace and mercy.  After all, that would be the fair thing to do as it is what we all deserve.  Still it is unsettling.  There is one more thread to the discussion that helps me find peace with the problem of pain.

In Timothy Keller’s book Counterfeit Gods, he tells the story of a woman that struggles with relationships.  He describes her as a woman that “had the misfortune of being born beautiful” (p. 23).  Her beauty led to her being zealously sought after and ultimately mistreated by men.  This description stood out as I’m sure was Keller’s intent.  The misfortune of being born beautiful?  That seems like a counterintuitive statement.  Isn’t beauty what we all long for?  Or wealth?  Influence?  Safety?  Comfort?  These are things that are valued in this life.  If this world is stained by sin wouldn’t it make sense that our desires are similarly tainted?  I don’t think that all the material things that we long for and are so grateful to have will be the things we are thankful to have had in retrospect.  I don’t think that people in Heaven speak about how great it was to have lived in a first world country and to never have had to worry about where their next meal would come from or to have been blessed with exceeding physical beauty or with great natural intelligence.  Jesus tells us that the first will be last and the last will be first (Matthew 19:30) in the kingdom of heaven.  I firmly believe that if there were to be pity felt for fellow citizens of Heaven, it would be those who suffered greatly on Earth having pity on those that coasted through life while encountering few difficulties. 

Does this mean that we should embrace evil and suffering since it leads to blessing in the next life?  By no means!  Those that have been materially blessed have a duty to use their resources push back darkness in the world and combat evil.  We should grieve with those that grieve.  Suffering should distress us because it distresses our Father. 

The reason that I am no longer bothered by the simultaneous existence of an all-loving God and a world full of suffering is that I see the flaws in my perspective.  God is a good father.  The things that he allows to happen are for our good.  Not only that, my understanding of what is constitutes pain (from an eternal perspective) is flawed and, quite frankly, juvenile.  Sin exists and therefore sins exist.  Sins beget pain. Sin was never God’s plan.  Although because of his great love, unending mercy, and infinite grace, he allows it to exist, for a while at least.  But he redeems all that which he allows.  Sin and pain and suffering are great in this world.  The good news is that we have a Savior that is greater.

Why Community?

In class we’ve been looking at different types of communities, how they are structured, and what roles they can play in our lives.  Coming up with an all-encompassing definition for “community” was an interesting exercise since the idea of community is a very broad one and communities come in all shapes and sizes.  One of the most interesting part of the discussions we had as a class was what was left unsaid.  We never discussed the overriding purpose of communities in general.  Yes, we talked about roles and purposes of specific communities but it was in the context of which communities we belong to rather than whether or not we belong to a community.  This assumption didn’t surprise me and isn’t uncommon.  There is something in us that tells us that we need to be a part of a group.  We all have a deep longing to be accepted and to belong.  But why?

I think that the answer is written on our DNA.  In Genesis 1:26, God refers to himself in the plural.  Before man is created, He says, “Let us make man in our image…”  As a Trinity, God is, in His very essence, a part of a community.  Since man is created in the image of God, it is a part of our makeup to exist as part of a community. 

After each stage of creation, God looked at what He had made and commented that it was good.  However, in Genesis 2:18 God makes a note of something that is not good.  It’s not a thing created that isn’t good but rather the condition of a created thing.  He says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  God immediately sets about rectifying the situation, the solution – Eve.  God led Adam through a search of the animal kingdom to find a helper but none could be found, highlighting the uniqueness and special qualities of Eve.  The solution to the first problem faced by humanity was for God to create a community.  We are designed to be in community. 

This design can be seen in all facets of human life.  Most of the burdens we face are too heavy for us to carry on our own.  In sharing burdens with our fellow man lightens the burden.  Many times when we experience joy the first thing we want to do is share it with someone else.  Sharing joy with those that we live in community with makes our joy more complete. 

Living in community makes us better people.  Proverbs 27:17 tells us that “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  A piece of iron does not sharpen itself nor do we improve as people on our own.  The more varied our community is, the more likely there is to be someone with similar interests.  Being around someone that excels at a thing that we excel at (or try to excel at) challenges us to strive for our best.  At the same time, a varied community also means that there will be others that are not like us.  Being around those that have different interests and talents from us exposes us to things that we may not otherwise be familiar with.  This leads us to expand our horizons and become more well-rounded people.

Perhaps the most telling thing about the idea of community in the Bible is found in comparing the condition of the people at the beginning and at the end.  The Bible starts with two people, the first human community, living in a garden.  The Bible ends with multitudes of people, the pinnacle of community, living in a city.  The goal was never for us to forge out on our own and interact with other people only when necessary for procreation and the occasional exchanging of goods.  The goal is for us to live intimately in community, together in a city, living life together daily, sharing burdens and joys.

Spending time thinking about why we live in community has helped me understand the concepts of types of communities, structures of communities, and maybe most importantly, the possibilities of communities.

My Cubans?

I have been using the online handle "mycubans" for several years now.  In some ways it's like getting a tattoo when you're 18 - when you're 60, you're still dealing with a decision you made as a teenager.  The analogy quickly breaks down though since I could change my handle much more easily than a tattoo could be removed but there is some sentimentality there so doing away with "mycubans" is not as easy as it may seem.

The origin is simple to explain: there is an episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer (my favorite character in my favorite all time television show) leaves a lit Cuban cigar in a friend's cabin that leads to a fire that burns down the cabin.  When Kramer returns to the cabin to find it ablaze, he begins to run toward the cabin in an attempt to rescue the remaining cigars and shouts, "My Cubans!"  A ridiculous scenario, to be sure, and funny because no sane person would react in such a way.

Add to that line by Kramer the fact that my dad was born in Havana, Cuba (making me half Cuban) and that I have been known to enjoy the occassional Cuban cigar and the handle "mycubans" made perfect sense.

When I first created the name there was little more to it than what's on the surface - a funny line in a funny show.  As I've gotten older (and, I'd like to think, more mature) it has come to mean more than just that.  One of my favorite verses in the Bible is in the book of Ecclesiastes.  Written by King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, the book is in its essence the summary of a grand experiment to find out if there is anything on earth (ie. under the sun) that can provide us with meaning, happiness, fulfillment, and joy.  Like the book of Proverbs that Solomon also wrote, Ecclesiastes has many one-line words of wisdom.  My favorite is found in Chapter 7, Verse 6 and reads:

Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools.  This too is meaningless. (New International Version)

The meaning is not immediately clear (at least not to me) but when broken down and read in its context the meaning is evident.  When thorns are on fire they make hissing and crackling sounds.  Likewise, a fool laughs when he is on fire.  The point being that nobody in their right mind laughs when on fire.  You frantically try to extinguish yourself and cry out for anyone within earshot to help you put out the flames.  The fire doesn't have to be a literal, physical fire for the advice to make sense. 

If you are being consumed by the flames of an addiction or of some secret sin, you would have to be a fool to laugh about it.  If you are trapped in despair or depression it would be unwise to try to get out of it on your own.  A wise man does not approach his dire situation lightheartedly but rather screams, "I am on fire!" and pleads for his fellow man to douse the flames that are suffocating him. 

The scene in Seinfeld reminds me of this.  Kramer doesn't give a moment's thought to the cabin that is being destroyed or whether there could be any people in harm's way.  He is only concerned with a few rolls of dried tobacco leaves and ignores the fire as tries to rescue his precious cigars.  Only a complete fool would react like that.  I pray that I am never so oblivious to the flames that life engulfs me with to laugh at or ignore them.