Category: Theology and Reflections

A Crack of Light in the Darkness

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It’s not much of a secret, though I think we try to cover it up, life is often full of darkness, seemingly meaningless moments that amount to nothing. Life can often feel like banging your head against a wall never feeling anything, never going anywhere with purpose. I’m sorry about that. I am really am. I wish I could wrap you up, hold you and tell you everything is right, that life is only ever good and happy. The truth is, life is far from it. However, there is a glimpse of light in the darkness.

Our God wouldn’t be very good now would He unless he brought a bit of light into our world, a bit of hope into despair, a bit of electricity into our otherwise numb, meaningless existence. What am I talking about? Good News. You see, the Good News that is the entire storyline of the Bible is as deep and it is wide. Let me tell you something, once you take hold of it, once it seeps down into the depths on your very own soul it is like a single beam on light craking the dark sky on a rainy day. At first, it blinds us. Then, it excites us. Finally, it wakes us up and brings us new life.

There are some out there that would have us believe that the darkened sky is all there is, the head banging, the despair. Jesus, however, would have us believe something different. Like a desperate father that weeps and wails for the return of his children, so too does Jesus long for humanity to turn to Him, to set them free from the brokenness, sin, and despair that so easily ensnares them. If love is what we lack, then He has it. If it is peace, then He provides it. If it is brokeness then He wants to pick up the pieces.

Nothing though is without cost. First, Jesus gave up His life for yours so that there would be a way out of the dark broken despair (John 8:36). This is called the atonement. Second, this way out, in a nutshell, is called grace and while grace comes freely to anyone who wants it (Ephesians 2:8), it will cost you your life and your heart. Why? Because Jesus isn’t simply interested in making your life a little bit more tolerable, He wants to completely transform your from your innermost being all the way out. You’ll be a new person, with new desires, a new heart, spirit, mind (Ezekiel 36:26), and you’ll be connected to God in such a way you never could have been otherwise (Romans 6 and 8). This is hard but worth it because He will wipe every tear from your eye, heal every wound (Revelation 21:4), give life and give it abundantly (John 10:10).

Through the Dry Blue Desert

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This poem was inspired by a recent blog I posted that shares about my journey and where I’m at now in the journey of faith. Read that then read this, sometimes there are only things that only poetry can explain.

The blue desert is unyielding and never fair. Wind – the deserts breath whisps around us, drawing us nearer to death.

Our mouths are dry from speaking destruction, our throats are rough from vomiting and gaging chaos into the world.

Yet we thirst for our Oasis in the world’s strange blue desert. Somewhere safe, abundant, flourishing and satisfying.

Our Oasis is there waiting for us to drink from Him. Pleading for us to rest in Him and to invite others to find Him.

Walk wanderer walk and you will find life everlasting.

A Scary Search for God Through A Million Miles of Blue Desert

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Weird title hey? I was looking over the books of one of my favourite author’s Donald Miller and sort of meshed all the books I’ve read together. So enjoy that. Anyway, here are some random musings for the week. This is about really what I’m going through now in my walk with God. I hope this resonates with some of you. I’d love to hear from some of you 🙂

For me, my journey in the Faith started just before I turned twenty. God and Jesus were unfamiliar people, Christianity immediately seemed to be far too institutional, and the people in it weren’t any better then I was outside of the Faith. I hit the ground running, eager to be light years ahead theologically of anyone I knew and to change the world, the church, and the Faith for Jesus. Needless to say, I was vomiting zeal while injecting uninformed idealism into my veins. Furthermore, I was desperate to belong, On any given day I was inches away from being Reformed, charismatic, or some other tribe within the Christian-Protestant tradition (I think I was almost Catholic or Orthodox at one point). I read copious amounts of books on prayer, the Bible, revival, church, theology, and the classics from Spurgeon, Murray, Torrey, Finney. I went to a bible college where, like a sponge, I soaked up a theological education that placed me, so I thought, on top of the “Christian ladder.” I would even hit the streets where I would share the Gospel with anyone who’d walk by, desperate to pluck a soul from the fiery furnace of Hell that I believed any and all were destined to go without the forgiveness of sins. I was, as they say, a machine. It wasn’t until I started walking with a mentor and close friend of mine that I started to realise I was doing a lot but something really lacked in my relationship with God. The intimacy was missing that I think every Christian from time to time mulls over and wonders if God is even there. All of a sudden I started searching for God instead of doing a bunch of things, and it scared me. Suddenly my grounding wasn’t in my actions, my reading list or my theological education but I desperately was trying to find grounding in God Himself and in doing so, I hoped to find out who I truly was. This journey has been as strange, bewildering, lonely and hopeless as wandering through a million miles of dry blue desert (and it’s still going).

What am I even talking about? I’m not sure I know. What I do know is this. God is more than books and theology. God is more than the sermons and lectures, works and good things that I do. I’m reminded of a quote by Donald Miller where he says:

“There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her.”

I read that and let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding on to for maybe the last seven years. I need the knowledge of God to seep out of my brain and into my heart. I want to feel God as much as I read about God. I want to actually talk to Him, hear Him and feel His Spirit working in and through me. If the Christian life is only listening, reading, doing and never experiencing, I’m not sure that I want it.

Loving Tribes and Heretics

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Wazup!!! It’s been a while hey? Sorry guys. I know you’ve all been eagerly anticipating my next blog. Well, here it is 🙂

The other day I was meeting with a mate of mine for a cup of smooth joe and we were talking about a whole range of things. A previous blog of mine on a controversial theologian and topic came up in conversation and my friend commended me on how gracious I was without compromising truth. That was encouraging, I needed to hear it. Out of nowhere though I said to him “if you can’t love those you disagree with, even those you believe to be heretics, if you can’t sit down with them over a coffee and love them, I think you’ve missed the point of the Gospel.” He seemed to really like that line, so much so I thought I’d write about it.

As I sit back and think about all the different movements, denominations and theological tribes within my own tradition (Protestantism), I can’t help but sometimes feel overwhelmed by how often this seems to cause division. I’m not talking about going to war or schisms per se, rather, I’m talking about the smaller divisions that happen in our lives, our colleges, our local churches. We hold so dearly to a certain doctrine or thought and believe is so integral to the Christian life we alienate (either wittingly or unwittingly) other people, not just unbelievers (God forbid), but the people Jesus told us to love in order to let people know we’re His disciples (John 13:35), our brothers and sisters in Christ. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt different, separated and alienated from friends, groups or even local churches for believing in one thing or another. It seems that sometimes in the quest for purity (which is so vitally important by the way) we unnecessarily cause disunity where there doesn’t need to be. More so, the people out there that we consider heretics and false teachers (whoever they may be), the people who probably need to hear the Gospel, and need God’s love more then even we do (we’re the only ones who can give it) are so easily cut off from even healthy dialogue because we so easily dismiss them, not just their theology.

Let me be clear because I’m sure someone would love to take a dig at me for being a cop-out or something. Heresy is heresy. False teaching needs to be addressed and dealt with. The Scriptures are fairly clear about this (Matthew 7:15-20, 2 Peter 2). However, as we deal with heresy or false teachings (or just people we generally disagree with), unity needs to only be sacrificed on the altar of purity as a last resort (sometimes it’s needed). We should never have these sorts of conversations at the expense of the person we disagree with who bears the image of God, the same God who tells us to love and bless our enemies (Matthew 5:44), to love our neighbours (Mark 12:31), and to pray for all people everywhere (1 Timothy 2:1-3). Discipline, truth and love aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. If Jesus sat with people who tended to be way off on their theology, eat with them and in patience correct them until they repented or left Him then so can we. Occasionally, we might have to shake the dust from our feet, declare the grace of God to be upon them and be on our merry way, but we need to do better at filtering out the toxicity in our conversation and injecting compassion, empathy and a sprinkle of wisdom into our dealings.

Love well dear friends, especially those we disagree with. They really need it, and Jesus really wants them.

Glitches in the System

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Last night at work I was talking to a friend of mine from India and he asked me if I noticed that often in life, whatever you desire you usually don’t get (strange I thought it was usually the opposite). It reminded me a lot of Ecclesiaties where the Teacher says “meaningless! meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). The word meaningless in Hebrew is הֶבֶל (pronounced heh’vel) and this word actually is better understood as enigma, paradoxical, frustration, absurdity or in my definition a glitch. Why glitch? Because if you’ve ever played a video game or regularly use technology then you know how frustrating and even at times absurd glitches can be. You can save your work, press the right buttons, have the best setup but everything at some point fails, works slowly and glitches out.

One way you could read this verse then is “glitches! glitches! everything in life has a glitch!” This was the way I tried to explain the concept of heh’vel to my friend. Life it seems are full of these little glitches in the system of life. It doesn’t matter if you input the right commands, do the right things and think the right thoughts the glitch can always set you back and there’s nothing you can do about it. Life isn’t fair, people suffer that don’t deserve it, and those that do deserve suffering never seem to get their just desserts. You can pour your heart and soul into a job and get fired tomorrow. You can buy roses and lavish love upon your partner and be cheated on. On the flipside, you can lie cheat and steal and get everything you ever wanted. Life is indeed heh’vel and glitch-filled.

This brings to my mind a few questions that need answering:

  1. How do we live in a heh’vel glitch-filled world?
  2. How do we react to the heh’vel that comes my way?
  3. If this isn’t how life is supposed to be, how can I fix it?

These are hard questions to answer, they don’t come easily, but I do think the Bible offers some wisdom here. The Bible is a grand narrative that tells one important story:

Yahweh God in Heaven desires humanity to flourish in a good relationship with Himself, one another, and creation. Yet we have chosen to go our own way and in the process, we have broken our relationship with God, killed each other, and pillaged the earth. God then takes it upon Himself to fix our broken sinfulness by reconciling us to Him, me to you, and humanity to the earth. He does this through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and His ongoing work as king over the earth. 

The glitch is sin and brokenness. The glitch is something that was never programmed by the Master Programmer. The glitch advocates for injustice, destruction and death. For thousands of years, we’ve all tried to fix the glitch to no avail. What we need is the Programmer to reprogram life beginning with the heh’vel and sin in our own hearts. This is Jesus. Jesus wants to work on you, in you and for you. Just ask.