The Re-arrange

Things, it seems, have been re-prioritized in my life over the last couple months.

I would’ve told you I was perfectly content with life a few months ago, saying things like, “When God does... but I’m not going to go searching for…” Working hard and sleeping harder, time with family and with friends all of it seemed just dandy.

Then things changed.

Something out of left field came streaming across the seemingly beautiful horizon of my contentedness, which contrasted deeply against the normal and shook the stupor from my eyes and the apathetic content from my bones. That blazing ball of light, which stunned me and scared me, awake, it seems.

Here’s my point in writing the above, and it is a simple point: God is in control.

Yes, that is all. There’s no need to relay any overly flowery words with eloquence and syntax of old, just to point to a small and solid fact, God is in control and we are not.

In contentedness he reigns and in the re-arrange he’s ruling. Classes, family, friends, the future, the past, the now, the all-of-life it’s his.

Which ought to be freeing thing rather than a binding thing. Something to give us a bounce to our step and nearly care-free demeanor, because we know that God is in control and we are living in what he knows is best for us. 

(Wichita Eagle file photo)

I Needed to Write This

“It’s the will of God.”

We say this quite a bit, right? Whether it’s explaining why something is the way it is to others or ourselves; we try to push ourselves into this mindset: God willed it thus it happened.

Trying to make it be the balm our souls so desperately need, trying to make it the cure of ailments and pains, broken hearts and tears. But the comfort isn’t in it.

Reciting a fact to us doesn’t make the pain stop. No, it makes it more distinct. The void of the silence is compounded upon the pronounced void in our heart from where the pain pours.

We’re remembering the wrong fact.

Is God sovereign? Absolutely. Is it his will that causes all things to exist that are? Yes, undoubtedly. But we don’t need to be reminded of that fact. No, we need to remember one glaring reality, Jesus.

Yes, the Lord gives and takes away. Yes, he is in total control. Yes, nothing happens outside of his plan. Yes, we are his totally. But while that is something it is not what we need. We need to know beyond all else, to be set on fire for nothing else, to be drawn by our tender heartstrings to one simple truth, Jesus has saved our souls.

So the problem, the dilemma, is taken care of in one way, looking to the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame (our shame); who took the problem we most need saving from and saved us from it. He saved us by himself from ourselves for himself. 

Eyes Wide Open

Keep our eyes open.

Sometimes the way things were wanted is the way things weren’t meant to be.

Sometimes you’re talked to in a way, which never was before.

Sometimes you just begin to wonder what really might be the plan.

All in all the plan is still there and God is still King and you are just his creation used to shine forth his beauty. But if we walk with our eyes, spiritual and physical, closed then we miss the gorgeous reality of what’s all around us and supplant it with the faux reality of imagination.

But imagination will never be able to replace that which is real. The gaseous will never reform the solid.

No asymptote will intersect and no tornado is without trace.

But far too often we cling to the fake. We pine for the Hollywood effect rather than the wonder of what’s real. We want the asymptote to meet and the tornado to be clean. But it never will be.

So, to keeping our eyes open. Not to what we want, but to what is. That by grace we are saved and by mercy we are redeemed, while in the face of death there is salvation.

In work we are there for a purpose. In fun we are there for a purpose.

Not that every situation’s purpose must be sought out and journaled about, but rather we are to be where we are with the same boldness, which took Jesus to the cross.

Calmly we accept what is before us. Prayerfully we walk into where we are. Trustingly we look to the sovereign nature of our God. Boldly we know that Jesus is our only hope. Gently we lead those who follow. Courageously we see our own faults. Forcibly (and graciously) we keep our eyes wide open to soak in every smallest portion of the trip.

Scriptural Logic

Scriptural Logic i.e. logic which is defined by Scripture, taking the philosophy of Christianity and arguing for it based on the merits and cohesiveness of the Bible.

However for Scriptural Logic to be true or even plausible 1) God must be real, 2) God must be sovereign, 3) God must be Trinitarian, 4) God must be glorified.

First, if God is not seen as real then Scripture is nothing more than a compilation of odd stories to be used like Aesop’s Fables. For if God is not real, then Scripture is not holy, and it’s words are not useful apart from refutation against those misguided believers.

Second, God must be sovereign. He must be in absolute complete control of all things ever. Evil, good, bad, fun, sad all things must needs be under his authoritative control all lives all desires all wants. For if God is not sovereign then Scripture is not but a compilation of stories wherein God’s will is mutable and may be acted upon and changed by the will of man.

Third, God must be Trinitarian. God must be seen as acting and moving throughout the entirety of Scripture as the three-in-one God he is. For if God is not seen, as Trinitarian Scripture becomes the action of an ever-changing god who in one moment is capricious and in the next he is vindictive and teenager-ish.

Fourth, God must be glorified. The aim of all of creation, the end for which it was made must primarily be the glory of God. So it is understood that from creation to re-creation God has done everything, from the fall of Satan to the fall of man to the cross, from death to life, salvation to damnation, love to hate all things are done for himself, by himself to the glory of himself. Therefore in the gospel message God is aiming at glorifying himself by gather worshipers for his namesake.

If God is not about glorifying himself then Scripture can only be read as a God who is both merely responding to the wills of his subjects and is being vindictive and capricious for no reason.

Scriptural Logic is, or at least, should be apart of the Christian life, because in many ways God is believed only to be a stopgap for the times of life, which are difficult. Rather than life being pressed into the mold of God and the leftovers being thrown away, God is forced into the mold of life and is consequently a bastardized form of God, which is not God at all is leftover. But since it suits the shaper their belief is characterized by nothing else than mismatched verses and false pretenses.

Whereas in the process of Scriptural Logic one cannot at any one time say they have arrived at a point of understanding the Godhead and therefore they must, for they are forced to by sheer beauty, continually be in awe of the Creator of such a system.

Confession of a Restless Pastor

Some things I do well. Some things I do not do well at all. One of those things, which I cannot do to save my life, is rest. Taking naps is difficult, doing nothing is a strain for my mind and turning my phone off is maybe a yearly phenomenon.

But what is rest? Is it playing with friends or taking naps? Sure, physically speaking my body is rested in naps and friends encourage while we do things. But that’s the key; I’m still doing something.

Being rather than doing that is rest. Relying on a sovereign God to complete what he has begun. Trusting him to uphold me in the course of my focus on him. Having faith that God will do what he will do and being made humble by him to accept what he’s done as what I need.

I wrote a post called, “The Thinker’s Thoughts on Thinking,” and much of it has to do with rest, the necessity of turning off my brain. My proclivity is to burn both ends of the candle until I come to not simply a weary state of physical exhaustion but until I get to such a soul-tiredness that all I can do is weep…

It’s sin. Straight and simple, it is sin. To not trust the sustainer of the universe to sustain my being for a day is to tell the omnipotent God, “I got this, back off.” Essentially wanting to redeem my own soul by the sweat of my brow, the tears of my labor, and the blood of my heart. (Check out the personal pronouns in that sentence and try to tell me that’s not prideful.)

Pride is the root of unrest, prideful self-reliance. What must needs be learned is trust. Trust in God to do what he will do for his glory which is very much one with my good.