Filed under: Essay, Food for Thought | Tags: Augustine, Christ, Dawkins, God, Hannibal, Martin Luther. Nietzsche, Napoleon, Paul, Purpose, Solomon, truth
I have seen men old and young, men of old and men of now–slaves to doubt, chained by reason. Is life a sick experiment–has nature formed us to deceive and break us? Or are we breaking ourselves with our own thoughts and passions? Is our hope of life, a fulfilled life, simply a vanishing hope and a shattered dream?
I have seen animals, beasts great and small. The raging horse with a quivering mane, a cobra swaying, coiled for revenge; yet even a mouse frozen in fear at the silent crashing of the mighty eagle. All of these man sees, but there is no hope for us here. There is no doubt there–the best does not ask why, the beast does not seek for purpose.
No.
Man is alone in all of this–under this burning, dying sun man must turn to man. To reason and to quarrel, to battle and to hate. Who shall make one man right and the other a liar? For every man is right in his own eyes, each man is king of his own world. Man truly is alone, on an island, alone with only a prayer–if God is, then purpose lies in him. All else is futile, utterly hopeless and wasted.
Man himself has stood before God and asked “What is truth?” No answer. For he who stood before him was truth. Yes, truth waited before him, in silence, with chains on his wrists and blood spewing from his mouth. (more…)
Filed under: Essay, Food for Thought | Tags: Christ, Descartes, Liddell, Luther, Nihilism, Polycarp, Postmodernism, Utopia
I was shocked at what I heard from the back row. I was sitting in an English and Psychology class at a Community College and when my classmate began to speak I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. You learn about Postmodernism from books, you have an idea of what people could in fact think, but to hear it actually applied is a strange experience indeed. People throw around the ideas: “Whatever works for you”, “Don’t be intolerant”, “I’m glad you have found fulfillment in life,” or “I have really found that some things in Zen Buddhism have helped me.” These ideas are born out of the current thinking, Postmodernism. But you only hear bits and pieces on the streets, and in classes. It is a huge mass of disjointed ideas and theories, unproven and underdeveloped ideas, and based mostly on experience.
But this was different. My classmate went into a ten-minute discourse on his worldview and it shattered my heart to see where his hope was set.
I like it when people stay realistic and honest.
“Utopia will come, all the things that are happening in the world are leading up to it,” he preached, “Evolution will soon solve our problems, man will evolve and become better and better, and we will overcome the current problems in our world. War will be no more, sickness will be overcome, man’s mind will improve, and there will be peace!” He said this triumphantly. Ironically this was a very Christian ideology, and there is truth in these sayings, but only if you replace “Utopia” with “The Millennium” and “Evolution” with” Christ.”
How shallow is his hope, and how unfounded! I wish he had a castle to stand on, a rock to place his trust on; not dried grass in the summer heat. (more…)
Postmodernism has been the subject on my mind this past week. I have been analyzing my thoughts and have found that I have been affected much more that I would care to say. Today’s culture is definitely postmodern, holding to the idea that truth is relative and it is impossible to know anything for certain. Therefore we resort to experiences and feeling above fact and seek what is subjective (however you interpret something) above what is objective (something that is certain, aside from your opinion).
America, especially the West Coast, is very postmodern in thinking. History is of little value and facts are wasted on us. But the problem is that this view misses the obvious–we are a product of our history. Past experience leads future decisions (unless we ignorantly wish to forget the past). And that facts control our thinking and our trust depends on such things–we sit in chairs because they have proven themselves trustworthy. But more importantly, our education system depends on empirical (absolute) facts, and science is finding out time and again just how exact these facts are. Math is dependent on a right answer (making another wrong) and physics is not just a big mystery (even if it appears so!).
Why do these standards not translate into the world of emotion and feeling? Why do we not treat decisions about God (his likelihood and the consequences) in the same way we do math questions?
The question I pose to you is this: Can we as human, finite beings, know anything for certain?
Filed under: Essay, Food for Thought | Tags: Jonathan Edwards, New Year, New Year's Resolution
“New Year’s resolutions never work,” you always hear people say. Many times the resolutions–to eat less, work out more, be a better friend, etc. don’t work out because we don’t work on them tirelessly. 
My science teacher in high school had an interesting saying that I still “carry” with me. He said: “Practice makes permanent.” Why “permanent” instead of the classic “perfect”? He explained that you can practice something wrong for so long that it becomes permanent, yet it is in no way perfect. The application was: find out what you want to change in your behavior, character, lifestyle, etc. and work at it persistently, doing it the right way, until it becomes permanent in your life.
Tomorrow a year ago I wrote this in my reading journal: “New Years Eve was yesterday and today is a whole new year. Yet, nothing has changed, yesterday’s burdens are today’s as well. One day at a time, one day at a time.” (more…)
I’m on Facebook at the moment, talking to a couple great friends of mine from my home town in Camiri, Bolivia. I am trying to get one to comprehend what it’s like around here–the idea of the temperature being below freezing is a scary thought for him. And the fact that it is sunny at the same time is mind-blowing. He is telling me to stay inside so I don’t get a cold. I haven’t yet told him that it was -40 in Dubuque, IA a couple weeks ago, or that a foot of snow fell there overnight. Sometimes less is more I guess.
Merry Christmas
Earlier this morning, my brother from Turkey called us and my family gathered around the computer and talked through Skype to him. His family gathered around the other side–his wife was there and the three squirmy little kids were showing us all their Christmas presents. We got to see their cheerful faces on the computer screen and they got so see us. Another missionary family was also celebrating with them. Behind them the Christmas lights shone brightly on one of the few Christmas trees in this Muslim country. It was almost like we were in that living room with them.
My dad got a metal remake of a 1950’s car as a gift and he held it up for my little nephew to see. He reached out his little hand and tried to grab it, and my dad pulled it away and then put it back up, so the boy went for it again. Poor kid still couldn’t figure out that we weren’t actually there with him. Just on camera, several thousand miles away. Here it was breakfast, there it was bed-time. (more…)
Filed under: Essay, Food for Thought | Tags: Dance, God's Love, marriage, Old Testament, The Reason for God, Timothy Keller
A word-image got embedded in my brain earlier this week as I was in school chapel. It was an image of God’s love and the fact that we cannot love God unless he 1. searches after us, 2. redeems us and 3. loves us. Only when we are loved can we reciprocate such a love. I John 4:19 is the verse that came to mind:
We love because he first loved us.
It is an incredibly simple verse, but as John often does with his short, witty phrases, it packs quite the punch.
Now, the three points I made to begin likely seem odd, and that is where the word picture comes in. The New Testament cannot be understood without the backbone of the Old Testament. It is the framework on which God built his Church and gave us Salvation. It was the Old Testament Law that he fulfilled through his Son on the Cross and it was the prophecies that he completed through this work. But all of the Old Testament is also inspired and useful in so many ways to us. Likely the reason why I love the Old Testament so much is because of the images and stories (which are historical) that bring to life many of the difficult passages of the New Testament (how in the world could we understand Hebrews without the Old Testament?).
Filed under: Food for Thought | Tags: Ayatollah Khamenei, Bolivia, Christians, Iran, Islam, Mahdi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Missions, Persecution
*Note: Because this is an illegal subject in Iran, so all names, places, and such will be kept out of this post.
It was exciting to be informed by a good source that there has been a great growth of Christianity inside the iron walls of Iran. At a meeting last night we heard that Iran is falling apart from the inside out, much like Rome in the early centuries.The people of Iran are becoming very disillusioned with their government (Ahmadinejad by most accounts did not win in the ballots but by authority, specifically because the “spiritual leader” Ayatollah Khameni wanted him to be “President”) and now especially with Islam. Many, many Iranians are “on the fence” about their faith–they can’t understand how such blatant crime and sin can be done by those in power and in the name of Allah. So they either become Radical Muslims, or they hear of the Gospel and find God.
The Recent Election
