Kethuvim

I was flipping through channels again last night (I really need to stop doing that) and came across my favorite aforementioned religious channel. Every Sunday night, the chapel service from Pensacola Christian College (Our motto: "Jesus never smiled so neither do we") airs on Lesea broadcasting. I happened to catch the service just as the preacher got up to speak. He gets up and he gives the usual guilt trip deal to the students. You know what I mean, "This may be your last day on earth, you may never have another chance to accept Jesus blah, blah, blah." I've heard this kind of crap so much that it doesn't even make me mad anymore. However, what he said next did make me mad. "If you have accepted Jesus before, but have hardened your heart to him, the same warning goes to you. If your heart is hardened (is that a clinical problem by the way?) you may make it through the next week without incident, but you may miss God's final call to you."

I let that last statement sink in and listened to his follow up on it. Let me tell you what he meant by that. He was suggesting that God has a limited number of times that he "calls" you (hopefully not collect, because I'm not accepting the charges). If you don't accept any of these "calls" to you, then God basically gives up and moves on to the next person. I was sitting there, jaw on the floor with expletives running through my head at an alarming rate, thinking "Has this guy ever heard of Jesus?"

I'm not sure how you can read a story like the parable of the lost son and say something like he said. In that story, I see a God who pursues those who abandon him. I don't see a Father that says, "You disowned me too many times, I give up." I don't find this idea anywhere in scripture. I have so much I could say pertaining to all of this, but I want to know what everyone thinks.

So I was perusing my 15 channels the other night and I came across, what I believe to be the most humerous channel on television, Lesea broadcasting. If you know nothing of Lesea broadcasting, it could be best described as the lesbian step-sister of TBN (Editor's note: I have no idea what that means, but it sounded funny). Anyway, the other night a man by the name of Mike Murdoch, or as he's known by the Mafia, "Mikey Hair-dye", was on and he was, of course, speaking of prosperity. I say "of course" because that's all he ever talks about. He said something interesting during his diatribe that piqued my interest a bit. He said, "Don't let anyone tell you that you can't have nice things. Anyone that says that you have to do without is an idiot."

I've mentioned before that I have a pretty finely-tuned crap detector. After that statement, it was going off so loudly that my neighbor came over in sponge rollers asking me to shut my "pretty little mouth." Upon hearing Mikey say those things, my first thought was, "You know, he's right, the Bible never said anything about having to do without...oh wait...no...I seem to remember Jesus saying something to the effect of, 'deny yourself.'" To be honest with you, I think it's ok to have nice things at times, as long as those things don't become your god. However, he was advocating that whatever our heart desires is ours as long as we send in our "seed money" so that God will bless us.

When Jesus said, "deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me," he was saying that if we follow him, we no longer live our lives by our wants and desires. Our life is not our own. Our life is to be lived by what God wants for us, not what we want for us. I'm tired of hearing these prosperity guys talking about the spiritual life like it has everything to do with us. With their "theology" God is nothing more than a high-yield mutual fund where you put a certain amount of money in, and he multiplies it so that you can have a vacation home in Colorado.

What does this say about our brothers and sisters around the world who are striving to live for God, and as such, are being imprisoned, killed, or live in extreme poverty? By Mikey's line of thought, they are doing something wrong. They're not "planting their seeds" in the right area, so God isn't blessing them. America is the only place where you will hear this message preached. Let's face it, these teachings are nothing more than using the Bible to justify extravagant living. It's a copout so that these guys won't have to deny themselves.

I believe I wrote briefly about the point that you can't manufacture community in a church, it just happens as a special grace from God. I believe I also spoke about how churches continue to try and manufacture community and it usually turns into nothing more than a 6-month trainwreck.

Well, I got a catalog in the mail today from Group Publishing, whose company slogan should be "The company that cheese built." Their stuff is, for the most part, complete and utter crap. I was thumbing through the endless pages of mindless curriculum and I came across an add for a curriculum and on the top of the page, I found the emblazoned 56-point font words, "Build Commuity in Your Church." My bullcrap detector about knocked me out of my chair as soon as I finished reading that phrase. But wait, there's more. Under that gigantic farcical statement was this three-point add on: Welcome New Members, Enhance Your Small Groups, Easy and Effective Outreach. As if that wasn't enough, in Ron Popeil style I tell you, "But wait, there's more." This curriculum is apparently "Stuffed with 13 weeks of tasty, life-changing experiences." I'll have to be honest with you when I say that I have no desire to know what it means to have a tasty, life-changing experience. Apparently along with Bible study, you spend a half-hour marinating a Jesus-shaped chicken and then expound on what the Holy Spirit smells like.

I'll have to tell you that my experience with most curriculum has done nothing for my life other than making me want to take my own. How can a curriculum foster community? It can't. As I said in a previous post, real community takes time and grace; it takes people who are willing to lay down their lives for one another. It can't be accomplished when people come together in the hopes of having a "tasty, life-changing experience."

What does it cost to have real community in your church? Not your life, just 70 bucks...and, oh yeah, your soul.

"Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head."

God instructs the leaders of Israel at the beginning of the book of Numbers to take a census of their people. When we think census, we think about strange people in ties showing up at our doorstep every few years to count how many people live in the United States. All we think about is the numbers they are looking for. However, what is a census? In a census, they ask many questions to try and gauge things like income, number of children, and that sort of thing. They don't just come to the house and count how many people live in the US.

By asking the Israelites to take a census of their people, is it possible that God was asking them for more than just numbers of people? By asking questions of their fellow Israelites, they were finding out more about their countrymen.

As a minister, I know quite a bit about some people in my congregation. I know the good, the bad, and the ugly about some of the people. This has only happened because I have invested my time in them to get to know them. I'm a part of a small group, and we have become very close. We've been meeting for three years now and, in that time, we have learned a lot about one another. We know each others' good points, as well as bad points. We know each others' struggles and triumphs.

It seems to me that true community can only happen if we are willing to take a census of those around us. We can only have real community when we invest in the lives of others. It takes time, it takes commitment to one another, and it takes honesty to make it happen. You can't force real community. Too often churches try to force community, and what comes out is a half-baked version of community where no one knows anything about anyone past the surface. Real community flows out of love and a desire to get to know your brothers and sisters. Real community is a grace from God, you can't force it, it just has to come from him.

Take a census of your brothers and sisters. Invest your life into them because you love them. You'll never have joy in the Church without it.

One of the things that has bothered me about The Church for a long time is that it seems to be anemic when it comes to community. When I read the account of the early Church in the book of Acts I always end up sighing and say something like, "I want to be a part of that." Apparently a lot of other people in that day wanted to be a part of it as well, because the text in Acts says that The Church added to its number daily. It says that the people of the early Church had everything in common and no one claimed that anything else was his own. They ate together, prayed together, worshipped together; they truly had community. However, it seems to me that today's "Church" looks more like this: we come together, sit together, shake hands for two minutes, exhange small talk, half-sing a few songs, listen to a sermon that we don't comprehend, and then go to our respective homes and repeat the process a week later. That couldn't be further from real community.

Acts says that the people enjoyed fellowship. The word "fellowship" has lost pretty much all of its meaning today. When we say fellowship, we immediately conjure up images of pot-lucks and ice cream socials, youth group trips and chili suppers. The sad truth is that these things have nothing to do with fellowship. These should just be by-products of fellowship, not fellowship itself. The Greek word for fellowship actually means "brotherhood." To have real fellowship within the church, we have to be a brotherhood. This means that we live "all for one and one for all." The New Testament writers knew what they were doing when referring to their fellow believers as "brother" and "sister." These weren't just words they decided to use, it was the truth. They lived in community even with all of their faults, bumps, bruises, scars, and crap. They didn't all get along, but they were admonished to love one another anyway as Christ loves the Church. That's so beautiful, there's nothing more beautiful than two enemies who make a conscious choice to love one another even in disagreement. They decide to be brothers even though they disagree. But what does all of this mean for us in the 21st century? In a couple of days, we'll explore what it might mean to have real brotherhood within the Church today.

In Exodus 27:20-21, God instructs the Israelites to put a light in the tent of meeting and that the light is to be lit with "clear oil of beaten olives." If you know anything about cooking, you know that extra virgin olive oil is the first pressing of the olives and yields a greenish- yellow oil. The more pressings the olives go through, the clearer the product becomes. God tells the Israelites that they are to use only clear oil for lighting the lamp in the tent of meeting? Why clear oil? Why not the first and finest pressing of the olives? Lawrence Kushner states this as the reason.

It's because you just can't get the real clear and pure stuff until they pound the hell out of it (or you). We have a classic rabbinic teaching drawn from Psalm 51:19: "The offering to God is a contrite spirit..." The rabbis teach that the ultimate sacrifice is our smug expectation that we can do it alone, that we are in control of our own destiny. Suffering reminds us that we are not and, in so doing, purifies us. Anguish is simply a necessary precondition for the purification of the fuel required for the Tabernacle.

Suffering and anguish are all that can lead us to life and purity. The olives must endure a pounding of immense proportions in order to render their purest oil. We must endure much through trial and suffering in order to grow and be pure. Here's to allowing God to "pound the hell out of" us; pound out all of the impurities and all of the junk to render us pure and holy.

Mandy and I went to the doctor yesterday and all seems to be well with our human larva. It apparently doesn't appreciate the microphone thingy the doctor uses to hear the heartbeat, because it moves everytime she hits the right spot. I'm assuming it is perfectly content in its sack-o-fluid and doesn't want to be disturbed while it's reading, pondering existential quandries, or wondering why it is growing a third arm or has two butts.

In about a month, we'll find out the identity of the aforementioned larva. We were reading somewhere that they now have ultrasounds in 2-D, 3-D, or 4-D. I understand 2-D and 3-D, but what in the world is 4-D? Do they show you, not only the baby, but a vast other universe inside my wife's womb? I can just hear the doctor now, "Ok, there's the baby...there's its twang, it's a boy...and here's the constellation 'Uterine 5'." It should be an interesting doctor visit to say the least. All I know is that if William Shatner is dwelling within my wife's uterus somewhere, I'm not going to be happy.

I was sitting at home watching a show on TV that doesn't suck, when a commercial for one that does suck came on. It was a commercial for the new Survivor show. I think it takes place in Panama (or at least a Hollywood set that looks like Panama) or something. The new "twist" (please notice the quotes) is something called "Exile Island." Apparently one "castaway" at a time will have to stay on this island alone (which is due punishment for them agreeing to be on such a mind-numbingly crappy show in the first place), and try to survive. The commercial was hilarious because as it was describing this new facet to the game, it said something like, "On this island, they can find the key to winning the game...IF THEY SURVIVE!" This obviously begs the question, "Survive what?" Can they survive not being eaten by the camera crew, production team, and the team of medical doctors on the other side of the island? I'm sure the show would just let someone die off on screen.

Here's the reason I hate this show. These people aren't surviving anything. All it means is that the winner is the one who can go the longest eating worm larvae and rat pelvis or something. Who cares? Millions of people around the world have to endure that everyday and no one gives a crap. This has to be the most anti-climactic and boring show on television. There's no drama whatsoever. No one is going to die in this show, everyone will survive. If they want to do this show right, they need to drop 10 frumpy ignorant white supremacists in the middle of Compton, California with nothing more than their beer guts, and the clothes on their back and see how long they last. The last one standing wins...until he gets shot in the face. This format would solve a couple of problems. One, the name "Survivor" would actually mean something, and two, it would get rid of 10 morons. Maybe I should write to the network and make the suggestion.

I came across this prayer in a book titled, "The Book of Jesus." It is a collection of writings by numerous authors concerning Jesus. I think this would be a good prayer to incorporate daily. What do you think?

"O God, who has proven your love for all humanity by sending us Jesus Christ our Lord, and has illuminated our human life by the radiance of his presence, I give you thanks for this your greatest gift.
For my Lord's days upon the earth:
For the record of his deeds of love:
For the words he spoke for my guidance and help:
For his obedience unto death:
For his triumph over death:
For the presence of his Spirit within me now:
I thank you, O God.
Grant that the remembrance of the blessed Life that once was lived out on this common earth under these ordinary skies may remain with me in all the tasks and duties of this day. Let me remember--
His eagerness, not to be ministered unto, but to minister:
His symphathy with suffering of every kind:
His bravery in the face of his own suffering:
His meekness of bearing, so that, when reviled, he reviled not again:
His steadiness of purpose in keeping to his appointed task:
His simplicity:
His self-discipline:
His serenity of spirit:
His complete reliance upon you, his Father in heaven.
And in each of these ways give me grace to follow in his footsteps.
Amen.

I swear that I'm not obsessed with suffering. I don't like it anymore that anyone else, but for some reason, I keep happening onto these different passages concerning suffering. I can't get away from them. I come across them in the Bible, I come across them in other readings, I can't help it. I guess these passages stand out to me so much, because they fly in the face of the American Prosperity Gospel that is so prevelant today. Actually, most American Christians are raised on this type of thought and theology. It isn't all as overt and satanic as Joel Osteen's message or anything, but it's there nonetheless. For example, none of my preachers growing up ever claimed that God wanted you to be rich and powerful, but they still taught that, overall, God wanted you to be happy. So I grew up thinking that God wanted all to be happiness, and when something didn't make me happy, it was Satan's fault.

I've been studying Isaiah for quite awhile, and he touches upon this idea many times. I came across one I couldn't ignore this morning. These words I'm about to show you come from the King Hezekiah. He had been struck with an illness and then healed by God, and his words here are commenting on his situation.

"But what can I say? He [God] has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul. Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live. Suely is was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back."

I wonder how these prosperity guys handle a passage like this. My guess is that they skip right over it because there's no way to refute Hezekiah's words and change them to mean something else. They sure as crap don't preach a passage like this. Hezekiah not only says that God was directly responsible for his suffering, but he say that "by such things men live." He is essentially saying that we cannot be whole and alive without suffering and anguish. He then has the audacity to blame God for his anguish then turn around and talk about God's love. This is just beyond fascinating to me, because it goes against our natural human reactions to adversity. Our first reaction is to blame God for his absence and then say things like, "God has a plan in all of this," although we know when we say it that we're full of crap. We never think of God sending suffering our way as his way of loving us. We feel punished. Yet Hezekiah (and it seems everyone else in the Bible) see it as a loving Father desiring growth from his people. I could go on forever with this stuff, but I want to hear what you all (3 of you) have to say.

I was studying in "Five Cities of Refuge" again this morning and came across something I had never thought about. To be honest, it made me feel a little bit better about something that has bugged me about God for a long time. The passage of study was the "Akedah" or "Binding of Isaac." This is the story where God inexplicably tests Abraham and tells him to go and sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah. Just as an aside, "Moriah" in Hebrew means "awe-ful."

This story has always bugged me. Why couldn't God choose a test for Abraham that didn't include the near-slaughtering of his child? Why not have him walk to the nearest watering hole and tell him to walk across it? Why not tell him to spit a loogie in the air and tell him to make it, by faith, levitate in the air? I've never understood it until I studied this morning.

Abraham is standing on a mountain with a knife raised in the air, ready to drive it through Isaac, when a messenger of the Lord stops him. In order to understand the full depth of what is going on here, you have to look at all of the other cultures around at that time. Every other culture had "gods" that required infant or child sacrifice to appease them. God had to do this to show Abraham that he was a different god. He was the true God because he was so merciful and wasn't going to require this horrific act of his people. Sacrifice animals, not people.

For me, this helps me to see more of God's true nature. He isn't sick, he's merciful. I understand that he sent his only Son to be a sacrifice for the universe, but Jesus had the choice to go to the cross. He was human and could have backed out, but he didn't, so the argument that God sending his only Son to die being proof of God's sickness is irrelevant here.

This study this morning just reinforced my love for God and his mercy. Hopefully it does the same for yours.

I'm currently picking my way through a fine book by the title "Five Cities of Refuge." It's written by two Jewish guys, Lawrence Kushner and David Mamet. It's basically comprised of their reflections on weekly Torah readings. I'm using them as a supplement to my daily study. I was reading this morning about the Creation account of God's rest. I always assumed that God created everything in six days, got tired (if the Almighty can in fact tire), and rested from his labors. However, the Jewish understanding of this passage is that the creation and the rest are inseparable parts of the creation. Kushner says this, "We bless God's work, and ours, by quitting. The work and the rest, together make the world. They are inseparable."

Another interesting thought has to do with the name of God. God's most intimate name is yod-hey-vav-hey in the Hebrew. We know it as Yahweh. The sixth day of creation ends with these words, "...and there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day." I won't try to explain this next point, I'll let the text of the book speak for itself.

"The Hebrew for "the sixth day" is yom haShishi. The first letter respectively of each word is yod and hey, which, when joined with the first letter respectively of 'And they (the heavens and the earth) were finished...' is vav and hey, together spelling yod, hey, vav, and hey, the ineffable Name, the Name of the One who brings into being all that is, the Name of God. At last the sweat and the sigh inseparable."

Our time has to be spent with the sweat and the sigh. Without both elements, God's work is incomplete, making us incomplete. People don't rest anymore. When we cease to rest, we do a dishonor to God's creative work by stating through our actions that the Sabbath rest isn't really a part of life. Take a break. You will not be whole without it.

I like darkness. I don't know why. Light is actually much better, but for some reason I am drawn to it. Darkness is scary, everything bad in life is associated with darkness, but for some reason I can't get away from it. Jesus says he's the light, and as such, his followers are to live in the light as well. He has a good point, but at this point in my life, I still choose darkness more than light. I wonder why?

Why is it that so many of us "light-bearing" followers of Jesus shun the light and dwell in the darkness. Why is it so freakin' hard to live constantly in the light? Could it be that we are born with a propensity for darkness? Think about it. Do you have to teach a child how to be bad? Heck no, they manage that just fine by themselves. You do, however, have to teach them how to be good. If we born into light, we wouldn't have to be taught how to be good. I think it's Adam and Eve's fault. God laid a choice in front of them. Choose light, or choose darkness. They, of course, chose darkness and the rest is history. I think something cosmic happened at that point. I think the very fabric of God's creation changed. From that point on, we would still have the same choice to make, but it would be much harder to choose light.

So I think that the reason it is so hard to be good and to choose light and follow Jesus is because it goes against the very fiber of our beings. There is something in us (call it the Devil or whatever) that bends us toward darkness. Paul called it the "sinful nature." There is no way outside of God to be good. There is no way, outside of God's grace, to continually choose light. It has to be from him, because he is the light. May we trust in that light and follow it forever.

I stumbled upon a really great bookstore yesterday in our mall that sells a ton of really old hardback books. I happened upon a great book by Kahlil Gibran entitled, "Jesus, the Son of Man." It was written in 1928 and it tells the story of Jesus from the viewpoint of a bunch of people surrounding Jesus. It shows how each of these people may have viewed Jesus. I started reading it today, and I was instantly intrigued. I read the Mary Magdalene chapter today and I was fairly moved by it.

As the Bible states , Mary Magdalene was a "woman of ill repute." In other words, a prositute and slut. Her chapter in this book speaks of her first encounter with Jesus. Before I recount the scene from the book, I want to give you some context. She has already seen Jesus from afar and spoken with him some, and she is now trying to lure Jesus into her house.

And I said, "I beg you to come into my house." And it was all that was sod in me, and all that was sky in me calling unto Him.
Then he looked at me, and the noontide of His eyes was upon me, and He said, "You have many lovers, and yet I alone love you. Other men love themselves in your nearness. I love you in your self. Other men see a beauty in you that shall fade away sooner than their own years. But I see in you a beauty that shall not fade away, and in the autumn of your days that beauty shall not be afraid to gaze at itself in the mirror, and it shall not be offended.
"I alone love the unseen in you."

I have a couple of observations about this passage. First, it gave me the chills to think about Jesus' words and the fact that he utters the same words to us. We're all prostitutes, we all have other lovers besides Jesus, and yet, he is the only one who loves us as we really are. He's the only one that loves the unseen in us. Second, does anyone else wish they could see everybody through the same lens as Jesus? I noticed myself people-watching at the mall yesterday and I became shamingly aware of how quick I am to pass judgment on those I see. I make judgment calls based on the outside "seen" things in a person. How ridiculous. We're called to be like Jesus, and part of that is to see people as he sees them. I suck at it, do you?

There's been a great deal of debate over the lat couple of weeks pertaining to many "mega-churches" cancelling their Sunday services on Christmas. I think I'll weigh in on the issue with the full knowledge that no one gives a crap what I think anyway. Here goes.

I've done a great deal of thinking about this, and I've tried to look at it from both points of argument and I've come to the conclusion that cancelling Christmas service makes about as much sense as me being employed at a modeling agency. I understand that "mega-churches" require a lot of people to run their average service, I totally understand. My question is then, why can't you scale down your service and just have a sripped-down approach to worship without giant bands, Sunday school, dramas, and all the other superflous bullcrap that goes along with your normal Sunday? Why can't people just show up and worship God together, even if the attendence is 1/3 of what it normally is? My feeling is that, as a church, you worship with whoever decides that Jesus is important enough in their lives to show up to church, and if people want to stay home instead, so be it.

I know that these churches are having multiple services leading up to Christmas day, which is fine. However, somewhere during the last 2000 years of the Church, someone thought that the birth of Jesus was importnat enough to set aside a special day each year to celebrate it. Why wouldn't people want to worship together on this day? Personally, I'm looking forward to being with my brothers and sisters on Christmas day to worship together. I'm looking forward to singing, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" together and all of the other songs pertaining to this special day.

The greatest argument that I've heard from these churches who are cancelling is that Christmas is a family day. I'll certinaly be doing family things on Christmas day as are most people. My question in return is, what better way for a family to spend Christmas together than acknowledging the birth of our Savior? What can be more family oriented than that? The truth of the matter is that this whole argument is just a sympton of a greatly diseased North American Church.

For most American "Christians," Jesus is just something else that you do. So when Jesus gets in the way of our family time, we just cast him aside as another inconvenience to our plans. "I just don't have time for church with our Christmas schedule." "I just can't fit church into today, because we have to go to Aunt Mabel's house, and then go to Grandma and Grandpa Jones' house." The fact is that most people want Jesus in their lives until following him becomes inconvenient. "Give me Jesus, just don't let him get in the way."

I think presents can wait until a little later in the day this Sunday. After all, God's gift of his Son might just trump your new Ipod.

I'm still studying Isaiah. In fact, I'm pretty sure that God keeps adding new chapters every day. I'm on chapter 134; I thought there only used to be like 6o some chapters. Anyway, in 26:3, I came across a great passage.

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you."

"Steadfast" is a poor translation, because no one even knows what the crap it means. The Hebrew word is samak and it means, "confident." So the passage basically says that God grants perfect peace to those whose minds are confident. Confident in what? Confident in our God. Confident that he is good, and that he provides. Confident that he is loving.

Think about the correlation between confidence in God and having peace. What in the world could bother you if you have complete trust and confidence in God? What a sense of peace that would be!

A couple of things come to mind with this passage. First are the words of Paul, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, bring your requests before God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." In other words, stop freaking out about stuff and give it to God. Easier said than done, I fully realize. However, if we had confidence and trust in God, this would be easy, then we would have peace that surpasses all understanding.

The other thing that comes to mind is this quote from Thomas Merton. It's so good, that it deserves a bigger font.

"For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling off the edge, we find ourselves walking on the air."

Will you all now join in one big rousing "freakin' a"? Thank you. Now moving on, how many of us in tough times find ourselves falling off the edge instead of floating on air? I know I do most times. All of these things are connected. Faith, trust, confidence, and hope. It's all intertwined and it all leads to peace.

May God grant you peace in any circumstance.

No...I didn't say that St. Augustine was on something, I said that he was on to something. Anyway, at the ministry conference I recently attended in Nashville, I had the privilege of taking in a great seminar with Tony Campolo. In it he used a quote from St. Augustine which said, "The Church is a whore, and she is my mother."

I have a tendency to be a little skeptical of the Church and, yes, negative about the Church at times. I think that it is a natural part of being a minister. I don't know of many ministers that aren't cynical about the Church because we've all experienced the same stuff. We've heard guys who call themselves "leaders" suggest and say things in meetings that aren't even remotely biblical. We've seen the Church sell out to the very things that Jesus couldn't stand. We've been verbally attacked by people who don't think we have feelings. We've heard people call themselves by the name of Jesus and then turn around and spit on his memory by the things they do and say. We have every right to be cynical.

However, this quote has haunted me since I heard it. I can't get it out of my head. Every time I start griping about the Church, this quote pops into my head in an almost phantasmic way. It whispers to me things like, "The Church has been worse off than it is now." "You may be mad at the Church, but that's the body of Christ you're mad at." I can't shake it.

This quote, to me, basically means that the Church is always going to be a mess because it is made of fallible human beings. Even if I demanded its perfection, which I (subconsciously) do at times, I'm just as messy as everyone else. I certainly don't have it all together. This means that I injure Christ by what I do just as much as other people. I seem to remember Jesus saying something like, "Why worry about the speck in someone else's eye, when you have a plank in your own?"

The fact is that the Church is a whore. The Church continually runs after other lovers that can't give what our bridegroom can give to us. However, this whore is my mother, and it is my duty to love her as Jesus loves her.

Something sruck me today as I was studying. It wasn't a particularly revelatory moment or anything, just something I found interesting. In Isaiah 21:11-12, I read this,

"Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?" The watchman replies, "Morning is coming, but also the night."

Morning is coming, but also the night. That seems to be a fairly enigmatic statement, yet one that drips with truth if you really let it soak in. That's how life works isn't it? Everything is bright and sunny, and yet, evening and darkness is inevitable. Every bit of daylight must be balanced equally with the same amount of darkness. When God created everything, his recipe read, " one part light, one part darkness." If you look at the creation story, at the end of every "day" it reads this, "And there was evening, and there was morning..." It seems that from the beginning, God wanted to get the point across that there had to be equal parts light and darkness for the universe to function as it should.

In the verse from Isaiah the watchman lets everyone know that morning was here, but darkness loomed in the distance. This would seem a good warning for us to all heed. Maybe when we're going through crap and times of night and darkness, it would help for us to realize that this is how the world is. It isn't that God delights in our suffering, maybe our suffering is just part of the created order of the universe. For every light, there must be darkness as a counterbalance.

Perhaps what we really need isn't another Joel Osteen self-help book to show us how to always be happy, maybe we should embrace the darkness (doesn't mean we have to necessarily enjoy it) as God's natural creative work in us to bring us to the perfection he desires from his creation. May we embrace our times of darkness as necessary parts of life, and may God say of us, "and it was good."

I woke up this morning ina slight panic. Panicked about what, you ask? I had these thoughts of, "I have no freaking idea how to be a father." Don't get me wrong, I'm totally stoked about being a dad, but how in the world do you parent in such a way that you don't end up on the Maury Povich show listening to your kid blame all of the world's problems on you? Not everyone with a problem child is a bad parent (at least I don't think so). I don't know of many parents who really want to raise a drug addict or a porn star. I look at some of the kids at the junior high and high school and think, "Good Lord, if my child is like that, I will kill them." How do I keep my child from being completely sucked into the world without sheltering them to the point that they can't cope with anything? How do I keep a daughter (if I have one) from ending up on Maury with her three boyfriends waiting for a paternity test to find out who the father is? How do I keep a son (see parenthetical statement on daughter) from being a sex-crazed maniac with a tatoo of a woman's rack on his arm?

I know that the easy answer is, "Look at God, he's the ultimate father," but last time I checked, I didn't create the freakin' universe either. I understand unconditional love, I just suck at it. I think I need a heaping helping of God's grace to get me through this one.

I never thought a fuzzy blob on an ultrasound could be so cute. This is baby Polley. He/she is 8 weeks old and the size of a blueberry. The important thing is that he/she is healthy and doing well right now. Please pray for continued health for baby Polley and mommy. I personally think he/she looks like Mandy, but has my eye sockets.