| To live is to suffer. But to survive, well, that's to find the meaning in the suffering. |
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Monday - November 3, 2003 |
Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?, Philip Yancey writes:
In my childhood, thinking about sin terrified me. In adolescence it repulsed me. But as I learn to envision God more accurately, as a physician or a loving parent, my defenses crumble. I once had a caricature of God as a cranky old codger who concocted an arbitrary list of rules for the express purpose of making sure no one had a good time. I now see those rules as given not for God's sake but for ours.
Every parent knows the difference between rules designed primarily for the benefit of the parent("Don't talk while I'm on the telephone! Clean up your room-your grandmother's coming!") and those designed for the benefit of the child("Wear mittens and a hat-it's below freezing outside. But don't skate on the pond yet!"). God's rules primarily fall into the latter category. As creator of the human race, God knew how human society would work best.
I began to look at the Ten Commandments in this light, as rules designed primarily for the benefit of the people themselves. Jesus underscored this principle when he said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." The Bible is a most realistic book, and it assumes human beings will at times be tempted to lust after a neighbor or covet someone else's property, to work too hard, to strike out in anger at those who wrong them. In short, it assumes humanity will bring disorder to whatever we touch.
Each of the Ten Commandments offers a shield of protection against that disorder, stated negatively. Unlike the animals, we have the freedom to say no to our base instincts. By doing so, we avoid certain harm.
If I give my loyalty to a lesser god, I am the one who suffers, as any alcoholic or sex addict can attest. If I work seven days a week, my own body pays the price. Murder harms another person, of course, but it also exacts a cost on the murderer, searing his conscience and embittering his soul. Adultery and lying destroy trust and relationship. Coveting harms no one but the coveter; the neighbor who inspires such feelings may remain blissfully unaware.
Taken together, the Ten Commandments weave life on this planet into some kind of meaningful whole, the purpose of which is to allow us to live as a peaceful, healthy community under God. Three hundred years ago the commentator Matthew Henry observed, "God has been pleased therein to twist interests with us, so that in seeking his glory we really and effectually seek our own true interests."
In many ways, sin is the punishment for sin. The more I choose against God's design and give in to my baser impulses, the more I suffer - even if I never get caught, even if no one else knows. And as I study the accounts of how Jesus, the Great Physician, dealt with cheats, prostitutes, about other notorious sinners, I see that he came not merely to save us from the punishment for sin but to save us from the sin itself. He came, in short, to liberate us, promising "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
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| Persecution... |
Monday - October 27, 2003 |
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
- Matthew 5:10-12 ----------
When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate!
- Matthew 10:22-23 ----------
"Persecution is one of the surest and most tangible evidences of salvation...Suffering persecution is part of the normal Christian life and if we never experience ridicule, criticism, or rejection because of our faith, we have a reason to examine the genuineness of it."
- John MacArthur
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"The world dreams of progress, of power and of the future, but the disciples meditate on the end, the last judgment and the coming of the Kingdom. To such heights the world cannot rise. And so the disciples are strangers in the world, unwelcome guests and disturbers of the peace. No wonder the world rejects them. Such a reversal of human values is basic to biblical religion. The ways of the God of Scripture appear topsy-turvy to men. For God exalts the humble and abases the proud, calls the first last and the last first, ascribes greatness to the servant, sends the rich away empty-handed and declares the meek to be his heirs. The culture of the world and the counter-culture of Christ are at the loggerheads with each other. In brief, Jesus congratulates those whom the world most pities, and calls the world's rejects 'blessed'".
- John MacArthur
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Friday - October 24, 2003 |
Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?, Philip Yancey writes:
According to Jesus, what other people think of me matters very little. What God thinks, matters far more. Pray in a closed room, Jesus said, where no one but your Father can see you, rather than public place where you might get credit for being spiritual. In other words, live for God and not other people. I keep clamoring for attention and achievement. Jesus invites me to let go of that competitive struggle, to trust that God's opinion of me is the only one that counts, ultimately.
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"I don't care what motherfuckers think because I don't have to be real with anybody else but Him."
-DMX
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Friday - October 24, 2003 |
Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?, Philip Yancey writes:
I came back to Christianity because it made the most sense of the world around me, in part by achieving the necessary balance. It exalts every person as a creature made in the image of God and yet warns that the image has been marred -something I found true of everyone I met. It honors sex, money, and power as good things, God's own gifts, while also recognizing them as powerful forces that must be handled with care, like radioactive material. In short, it applies a dose of realism to the chaos of human longings.
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Thursday - October 23, 2003 |
Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?, Philip Yancey writes:
Maybe an epiphany of beauty or a sense of longing gives a nudge toward something that must exist beyond the everyday routine of life-but what? Big issues-career change, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one-raise questions with no easy answers. Is there a God? A life after death? Is religious faith only a crutch, or a path to something authentic?
I also meet Christians who would find it difficult to articulate why they believe as they do. Perhaps they absorbed faith as apart of their upbringing, or perhaps they simply find church an uplifting place to visit on weekends. But if asked to explain their faith to a Muslim or an atheist, they would not know what to say.
What would I say? That question prompted this book. I wrote it not so much to convince anyone else as to think out loud in hopes of coming to terms with my own faith. Does religious faith make sense in a world of the Hubble telescope and the Internet? Have we figured out the basics of life, or is some important ingredient missing?
To me, the great divide separating belief and unbelief reduces down to one simple question: Is the visible world around us all there is? Those unsure of the answer to that question - whether they approach it from the regions of belief or unbelief - live in the borderlands. They wonder whether faith in an unseen world is wishful thinking. Does faith delude us into seeing a world that doesn't exist, or does it reveal the existence of a world we cannot see without it?
I "think out loud" by putting words on paper, and out of that process this book emerged. I begin with the visible world around us, the world all of us inhabit. What rumors of another world might it convey? From there, I look at the apparent contradictions. If this is God's world, why doesn't it look more like it? Why is this planet so messed up? Finally, I consider how two worlds - visible and invisible, natural and supernatural - might interact and affect our daily lives. Does the Christian way represent the best life on this earth or a kind of holding pattern for eternity?
I am times a reluctant Christian, buffeted by doubts and "in recovery" from bad church encounters. I am fully aware of all the reasons not to believe. So then, why do I believe?
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Tuesday - October 14, 2003 |
The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren wrote:
Self-help books often suggest that you try to discover the meaning and purpose of your life by looking within yourself, but that is the wrong place to start. You must begin with God, your Creator, and his reasons for creating you. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense.
Focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose.
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Sunday - October 05, 2003 |
The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis wrote:
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.
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Saturday - October 4, 2003 |
The good and bad in all of us. The constant battle between good and evil. The real war is to follow the Law of the Lord.
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The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.
- George MacDonald
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Friday - September 26, 2003 |
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come
Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home
The Lord has promised good to me
His Word my hope secures
He will my Shield and Portion be
As long as life endures
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail
And mortal life shall cease
I shall possess, within the veil
A life of joy and peace
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Shall be forever mine
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun
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Wednesday - September 10, 2003 |
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
- Romans 5:1-5
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Tuesday - September 9, 2003 |
Don't waste your life, John Piper wrote:
No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life, or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. That is the way God designed it. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience him in our loses.
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We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
- 2 Corinthians 1:8-9
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Friday - September 5, 2003 |
Don't waste your life, John Piper wrote:
America today is a "save yourself" society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves.
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For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
- Mark 8:35
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Wednesday - August 20, 2003 |
Don't waste your life, John Piper wrote:
When you are about to die, money suddenly looks like what it really is, useless for lasting happiness, while relationships become precious.
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| DMX... |
Wednesday- August 13, 2003 |
Sometimes I wonder what life's about
Sometimes I wonder why the lights are out
Sometimes I wonder why I like to shout
Sometimes I wonder what the lies are about
Sometimes I see things I shouldn't have seen
Sometimes I wonder why, I'm a hood and a fiend
Sometimes I look at what I've become and cry
Sometimes I get on that BULLSHIT and be ready to die
Sometimes a nigga that's yo man might get it
Sometimes even though it's sweet, if you ain't wit it
Sometimes the pain is too much to BEAR
Sometimes it RAINS too much to care
Sometimes if you don't watch yo back it'll cost you
Sometimes you wonder, who would give a FUCK if they lost you
Yet sometimes the sun shines around the clock
But sometimes it's dark, and hell is hot
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| DMX Convo... |
Tuesday - July 29, 2003 |
I want you to know Lord, that for what you've given me I'm thankful
Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I'm grateful
You gave us power in our words, so I think before I speak
And that way when I speak, they know I'm here to teach
Can't tell them nothin wrong, cause I love them too much
You let me touch so many people and it's all for the good
I influenced so many children, I never thought that I would
And I couldn't take credit for the love they get
Because it all comes from you Lord, I'm just the one that's givin it
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For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.
- 2 Timothy 1:6-9
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| DMX Convo... |
Thursday - July 24, 2003 |
The devil got a hold on me and he won't let go
I can feel the Lord pullin but he movin dead slow
Let them know that amidst all this confusion
Some of us may do the winnin
But we all do the losin, its just who does the choosin
Easy goin up or down, what have you been provin?
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Wednesday- July 23, 2003 |
I see no point in tallying up a balance sheet to weigh the church's failures against its successes. The final word will come from God's own judgement.
- Philip Yancey
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Sunday - July 13, 2003 |
I cannot be any more specific about the methodology of love than to quote these words of an old priest who spent many years in the battle: "There are dozens of ways to deal with evil and several ways to conquer it. All of them are facets of the truth that the only way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living human being. When it is absorbed there like blood in a sponge or a spear into one's heart, it loses its power and goes no further."
The healing of evil-scientifically or otherwise-can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required...I do not know how this occurs. But I know that it does...Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.
- M. Scott Peck
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The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey wrote:
What changed history was the disciples' dawning awareness (it took the Resurrection to convince them) that God himself had chosen the way of weakness. The cross redefines God as One who was willing to relinquish power for the sake of love. Jesus became, in Dorothy Solle's phrase, "God's unilateral disarmament."
Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.
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I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross
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| DMX Convo... |
Tuesday - July 8, 2003 |
It's easier to sin, but it hurts my heart
I'm really tryin to win, so where do we start?
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Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.
- C.S. Lewis
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| DMX Convo... |
Monday - June 30, 2003 |
Either let me fly, or give me death
Let my soul rest, take my breath
If I don't fly I'ma die anyway, I'ma live on
but I'll be gone any day
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I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he has died, will live. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
- John 11:25-26
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Rough Draft
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