Journal

A friend of mine was just broken up with by his girlfriend of two years.
He wrote me pretty upset, and wanting to give up.
Here’s what I wrote him:

Bro.
Don’t give up.
I can definitely understand the hurt man.
I’ve been there.
And I do know this, remember that though hurt is used by God,
it is still in its essence, unnatural.
It is a result of the fall, of the fracture that happened
in our union with God when we wanted to take control.
Be encouraged friend,
this is not how it’s always going to be.
And I know that losing this girl feels like you’ve lost
all of yourself, but here’s the good news,
and maybe bad news depending on how you look at it,
but I’ve been married for almost 2 years now, and I’ve
been surprised to find that my wife can’t make me happy. 
I mean, she’s awesome, don’t get me wrong,
but the problem is that I’m just made for more than
even she can give me.
And so, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact, that
since God loves me, he won’t let me be completely happy
with anything other than Himself.
Yes, It’s painful, but it’s good.
I can promise you that.
If you think of it, I’d really suggest a book to you
called, “A Severe Mercy”
Basically, this dude loses his wife to cancer I think,
and he realizes that it was the severe mercy of God
that allowed it to happen, because basically,
she was his God. He didn’t know it at the time,
but the most merciful thing God could do was to take
her from him, because only God can last beyond this life.
Only God Himself can satisfy.
And yes, we have to walk through the midnight hour of
the soul to get there sometimes, but what you’ll find
on the other side is so much better. it’s so much more free. 
Could you imagine, if God Himself was all we needed to be content?
What could mortal man do to us?
What could anyone take away?
They couldn’t.
They can’t.
Hang it there bro,
we’re just strangers here while we walk this earth,
and there’s light on the other side of this.

Let’s pretend you’re an astronaut flying to the moon. Pretty awesome. You’re sitting there in the chair, with your spaceman suit on,  and you’re out of your mind excited to be launching into space. Naturally. The countdown begins, the thrusters roar,  and the G forces pin you to your seat as you wet your pants while obscene levels of adrenaline course through your veins. The cabin violently shudders and shakes as you rip through the atmosphere at ungodly speeds creating so much pressure you feel like your skin is going to peel off of your body.

And just when you think the whole shuttle is going to explode,  everything stops. Gravity is gone.  You’re weightless.  Floating. So you go through your checks and procedures and what not,  and you phone into Houston to let them know that you’re on course to the moon.
“Things are looking good up here Command.  We are on course, over?”
“Um…negative Apollo. We’ve changed your coordinates. Over?”
“Sorry, what? Over?”
“Yeah, this is Houston.  We’ve…uh…decided to send you to the sun. Copy?”
“Exqueeze me? Baking powder?”
“Yeah, Apollo.  We’ve got a new destination for you and we’re taking over controls. You’re going to the sun whether you like it or not. Over?”
“Uh…..... but….... you…..... AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

Now I want you to visualize what a space shuttle would look like flying into the sun. Disturbing huh?  In this last journal entry, I’d really like to try to tackle one of the most difficult questions I’ve ever had to answer. (Wow, that sounds intimidating doesn’t it?) I grew up in Christian school and church and what have you,  and over and over and over again I’ve heard the incredible news that Jesus can save you. He can save you from hell and condemnation, because you’re a sinner and you’re going to hell. But the problem was, I never really understood why.  Why do I have to go to hell? And for that matter, why does hell even exist? I mean, if God is so loving and merciful like everyone insists, then what’s the big deal with my sin? Trust me, I get that I’m a sinner, no one has to convince me of that, but why can’t He just look down on me and say, “you’re forgiven?” Wouldn’t that make this whole thing a lot less confusing? Wouldn’t that have saved a whole lot of unnecessary bleeding and dying for Christ? If God is love, then just love people right? Why all this talk about hell and wrath and judgement? Doesn’t it sound like God is contradicting himself?  And you know, a lot of churches and ministries or whatever you want to call them have done exactly that.  They don’t really know how to explain the situation,  they haven’t figured out a way to reconcile the love and wrath of God, so sadly, they just dismiss the whole hell topic altogether.  Believe me, I know from personal experience.

One time, our band was silenced and asked to never come back to a camp just for bringing it up! Right during the middle of this song, “Hallelujah,” the screens started flashing, “Go immediately to your small groups!” So all the kids turned around and walked out, in the middle of the song! Shame too, because they missed the bridge, which is my favorite part. Later we asked the leadership why they told the kids to leave, and they said, “You were over your time.  And for the record, we hired the speakers to speak, and the band to play.  So please don’t speak any more in between the songs.” Well, we dug a little deeper and found the real issue wasn’t that I was talking,  it was what I was saying. I was talking about the wrath of God.  Now obviously, I know that this subject can be really touchy for people, it can make us feel a little squeamish just mentioning it. But we must be careful not to shy away from topics in the Bible that make us uncomfortable, or that are difficult to understand.  We must have child like faith, not childish faith, and the Bible is their to correct us, not for us to correct it. So we must come humbly to it, because, whether we know it or not, we all bring certain cultural prejudices to the table every time we open it.

For instance, talking about a God of wrath is extremely unpopular in the west, but is cherished in the east. In western thought, we like our “Shack” God just fine.  We like the idea of a buddy God who’s waiting to cuddle with us whenever we need some cheering up.  We like God to coddle us and cater to us and remind us how awesome we are.  We embrace mercy and forgiveness, at least, when it refers to what God should show us anyway,  but we start getting really bent out of shape when judgement is spoken of. However, in eastern cultures, a God of wrath is celebrated, while a God of mercy is offensive. A God who forgives is considered weak and downright despicable,  but we don’t like to think about that very often do we? We just think that other cultures are crazy and archaic and just need the enlightenment that our culture can bring. But if you think that way, it only proves how influenced you are by your own upbringing. And you know, if God is not man-made,  then wouldn’t you expect him to offend every man-made culture on some level? And so he does.  He offends the West with his wrath, and the East with his grace.  Is this freaking you out yet? Are you pumping your fist in anger or in agreement? Well, maybe it shouldn’t be either.

Let me explain.  Remember the astronauts? This is a feeble attempt to help us understand why we need saving. It’s not a question we ask often enough I think. Yeah, yeah, we’re all sinners, but that doesn’t help us understand why Christ had to die. If God wasn’t just, He didn’t have to go to all that trouble. He could have just looked down and said, “I love you.  Come on up to the party.” In other words, if there is no judgement and all grace with God, then Jesus died for nothing. You see, Isaiah 33:14 describes God like this, “the sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”  Not the common perception of God in most churches today is it? But it helps us see that the first thing we must understand is that our problem is not so much that we’re so bad, it’s that God is so glorious. In Revelation, when Jesus comes back, it says that He’s going to have eyes that blaze like fire, a voice like mighty oceans, and He’ll be holding stars in his hand!  Stars! The sun is one star.  He’s going to have seven in his hand! And it goes on to say that people are going to be freaking out running away from Him! What? Yeah, it says that there will be two groups of people in the end. One group will be running for their lives, terrified, and diving into caves while begging for the rocks to crush them so they won’t have to stand before Jesus, while another group is going to just stand before the throne of God singing praises! Crazy huh? One group is scared out of their mind by God, while the other group is wanting more of Him! And what are they singing you might ask? “Hallelujah for the blood of the lamb that was slain.”  If you can keep that spaceman analogy in your head a little longer, you’ll see that if we’re all astronauts flying to the sun, there is no hope of survival. It won’t matter if you’re the best, most talented astronaut on the ship, and it won’t matter if you huddle in the corner and cry,  “I don’t believe in the sun! So this won’t affect me!” If the whole world is on a trajectory toward an encounter with the sun someday, Then either the sun will have to stop being the sun or something or someone will have to get in between us and its brilliance.

Enter Christ. By the shedding of His blood, He has made a way for us to come to God, without changing who God is. He has come in between the fury of the sun, and the depth of our depravity.  The cross comes between the holiness of God and the unholiness of the astronauts on their way to meet Him. In “The Knowledge of the Holy,” A.W. Tozer says it this way, “We must hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock while the glory of the Lord passed by. (Exodus 33:21-23) We must take refuge from God in God.” In other words, the cross casts a shade of mercy for those who believe. It creates a super suit, if you will, made from his blood that enables us to not only withstand the holiness of God, but actually draw near and behold it. Could you imagine? What wonders would NASA report back to earth if they could stand before the sun without being consumed? And what wonders will we sing of when we gaze on God in all his beauty?  Now, I know that doesn’t help us understand everything about the wrath of God, but I do think it’s a good start. Tozer also said that whatever comes into your mind when you think of God, is the most important thing about you, and I agree. We must seek to understand who God has proclaimed Himself to be, and try not to make Him into what we would like Him to be. God is love, but love is not God.  Love is not all that God is. He’s terribly more complex then we’d like Him to be, and He’s considerably more terrifying than today’s culture would like to make Him.

Consider C.S. Lewis’ analogy of God in Aslan: “Safe?...Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.”  So read for yourself what God says about His own wrath, and I think it will encourage you. Check out Ezekiel 33:11 with me, “Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live, turn back, turn back, from your evil ways, for why will you die O house of Israel?”  Or how about Lamentations 3:32,33? “But though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.”  The good news about the wrath of God is that it breaks his heart. Which means, if we have a hard time believing it, if we have a hard time accepting it, then that means we have a God-like view of it. People who revel in and rejoice in the wrath of God without contemplating the ache of sorrow of Christ in it, do not agree with God. Jesus himself even raised his arms to Jerusalem and lamented at how He longed to bring sinners to himself like a mother hen with her chicks.  God’s judgement breaks his heart as does our sin, but this actually gives us great hope in his love. Because, quite frankly, if God didn’t hate sin, if He didn’t hate the cancer that’s eating away at all of us, We would have to question his goodness. A parent who never disciplines their child is not a loving parent, and a God who looks idly on as rape, murder, and all the atrocities of humanity rage on, is not a loving God either. To be love, He must hate evil. And you know, if God wasn’t going to repay all the evil in the world someday, then it would be nearly impossible for me to not try to distribute vengeance myself.

Do you see what I’m saying here? Tim Keller, in his book ‘Reason for God’ quotes Miroslav Volf in his chapter on the wrath of God.  He helped me understand this point, specifically, that if I believe in a God of non-violence, then that will actually make me more violent.  Because of the sense of justice that God has put in us,  we are angry at evil.  Necessarily so. And if there is no judgement coming, then how will we keep from avenging sin ourselves? But, because of Christ, I can trust that justice will be paid.  Either on the sinner, or on Jesus for the sinner.  I no longer have to take matters into my own hands. I can forgive, and rest in the justice of God.  You see, nothing demonstrates the love of God like the wrath of God. It breaks his heart, but He cannot stop being who He is. The holiness of God pushes astronaut sinners like us away, but the holiness of the blood of Christ covers us and brings us back in. Or to quote John Piper, “the wisdom of God, has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.” I hope this helps.  I know I’m still struggling with all of this too.

“Satisfy me in the morning with your unfailing love.” -Psalm 90:14
Satisfaction. We want it. We run after it.  And yet, somehow it always seems to elude us. What’s our problem? What went wrong? I mean, we buy what the commercials tell us to buy. We’re caught up on Lost and American Idol. We see all the movies our friends tell us will change our lives. We flip through the magazines, we buy all the right clothes, listen to all the right music, we’ve got over a thousand friends on facebook, twitter, and a girlfriend/boyfriend who must be perfect because we met them on match.com, and yet, somehow that old nagging feeling just won’t go away.  Why is that? Why did the Rolling Stones sing, “I can’t get no satisfaction?” Why did Brittany go crazy? Why did Tiger go running around with all those women? And why, if we’re honest, are we still tempted to do the very things we hate?  Well, by no means do I think I can cure that unquenchable longing in our hearts with a simple journal entry, but I do think I might be able to shed some light on the subject.

First and foremost, we have to come to terms with the fact that we’re not home yet.  I mean, do we know that?  Do we consider that when the tv tells us what we need? Do we think about that when we start going down that road for pleasure that we swore we’d never get on? C.S. Lewis said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”  Sometimes, I think we put way too much stock into this world. We have these amazing moments, we experience these unbelievable foretastes of glory, and so we think, “This is it!  This is what I’ve been waiting for!” This game, this music, this romance, etc. We make the mistake of deifying the good things God has given us to enjoy, and end up doing terrible things for pleasure that we never thought we’d do.  To quote Tim Keller, “We make the good things ultimate things,” and the irony is, that’s when we can’t really enjoy them at all.

This is a silly example but let’s say you eat a bowl of ice cream at dinner tonight, and it’s bar none, the most exquisite edible delight you’ve ever tasted. We’ll you’re now faced with two options,  you can either simply thank God for the wonderful gift of dessert and go on with your day, or you can start to believe that this ice cream is the very thing you’ve been waiting for all your life. You think, somehow, this tasty treat will fill my soul with joy and rescue me from my discontentment. This creamy deliciousness was meant to save me from my misery.  So you then go to fantastic lengths to secure yourself a lifetime supply of it.  You buy truck loads of it, eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,  only to die a month later from clogged arteries and horrendous brain freeze.  Like I said, it’s silly, but this is in effect what we do with all sorts of things. Yeah, probably not ice cream but maybe a band, a friend, a team, a city, a tv show, a lover… We set all kinds of things and people up as our Saviour, and when they disappoint us,  we don’t know where to turn.  But here’s the deal. If we first understand that our soul is longing for far more than this world can offer then we can learn to expect and manage a certain level of discontentment in our soul, as we walk this earth. And yeah, that might sound depressing, but it’s also incredibly freeing. To quote Jon Foreman,  “It was a beautiful letdown, the day I knew, that all the riches this world had to offer me, will never do.”  You see, when your spouse or sports team or favorite food or music no longer has to be the thing that satisfies the deepest longing in your heart, you can actually enjoy them more. Suddenly, the pressure’s off.

Have you ever read the story in Genesis about Jacob and his two wives? It’s quite depressing and wonderfully relevant to what we’re thinking about here. If you haven’t read it, basically, this kid named Jacob is in trouble with his brother and father, so he runs away to his Uncle Laban. And when he gets there he falls in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. So much so, that he makes this ridiculous offer of working seven years for her hand in marriage. Well, Laban recognizes right away that Jacob has a serious love infatuation and decides to cash in. Laban has another daughter named Leah, who’s “weak in the eyes,” which is a nice Biblical way of saying, “She was uuuugggglllllyyy!”  And so, when the time comes for Jacob to marry Rachel, Laban, knowing he’s gonna have a hard time getting a guy to buy Leah off his hands,  gives Jacob Leah instead.  And I guess there must have been a lot of veils and wine involved,  because the text says it wasn’t til the next morning that Jacob wakes up and “Behold! It was Leah!” Yeah, that’s disturbing huh? I mean, how did he not know that it was Leah? Well, we’re not exactly told, but we are shown something terribly intriguing. Later on in the story, Jacob ends up marrying Rachel too, and you see all sorts of pandemonium break loose. Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah, and so Leah starts naming her children things like, “Now my husband will see me” and crazy stuff like that. But you also see Rachel jealous of Leah because Leah can have kids and she can’t. So Rachel is giving her hand maid to Jacob to sleep with. You also see Laban running after Jacob because he wants to keep getting money from him, etc etc etc. Let’s just say, their family would make quite an entertaining Jerry Springer show.  But here’s the deal. That phrase, that one single phrase,  when Jacob wakes up after marrying the wrong sister, says so much. “And behold, it was Leah.”

You see, that isn’t just for Jacob, it’s for us. This is the disillusionment that we all live in. How could Jacob not know it was Leah? Because he was blind.  Blind by what? Desire.  Hmmmm.  Sound like anyone you know? It sounds impossible that Jacob could not have known who he was marrying, but isn’t the same for us? We think this one person, this one thing, this one job,  this one house or car or cell phone or whatever is going to finally do it.  This will satisfy. And so we spend all our money on buying, wooing, and getting that one thing we have our heart set on, and when we finally win them or buy them or whatever; what happens? “And behold it was Leah.”  I’ve always loved this David Wilcox song called, “Break in the Cup.” In the song he likens all of us to cups with cracks. Yeah yeah, ha ha, we all have cracks.  I can almost hear the middle schoolers snickering in the back. In any case, he says that we all have a crack in the cup that holds love inside us, and no matter how much we try to get other people to fill us, the crack in our cup lets the love run out. I suppose we could call the crack sin, and the cup is our heart. Well, in the bridge, after trying desperately to get his cup filled and coming up empty he sings, “we cannot trade empty for empty, we must go to the waterfall, for there’s a break in the cup that holds love, inside us all.”  Did you catch that? “We must go to the waterfall.” Sometimes, our relationships with other people are so miserable because we think they’re on this earth to make us happy.  They need to fill our cup and make us feel complete, and when they can’t, we get angry. We get upset.

But how much more could we enjoy each other if instead of trying to get them to fill us we walked with each other toward the waterfall?  Cause you know, not only do we have a crack in our cup that lets the love out, but we actually have a cup that’s too big for anyone or anything to fill. I liken it to a little grand canyon in our hearts, which yes, is ironic, because it’s a grand canyon and it’s little, but you know what I’m saying. We have this canyon inside us and it’s so big, that try as we may to throw facebook and myspace and twitter and Twilight and romance pebbles in there, it just won’t get full. Consider Augustine’s words with me for a moment. “Our hearts are made for Thee O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”  Do you know that? Do you know that your heart is too big for this world? Have you rested in God as the source of your heart’s longing? Or are you still clinging to the lie that your soul is small enough to be satisfied by this world? Have you considered Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90, “Satisfy me in the morning with your unfailing love?”  I love that prayer, because it shows us that Moses knew his own heart. He knew how much joy He was made for, and He knew that if He didn’t get God to come and pour into the canyon of his heart first thing in the morning, that he would go running after pebble like substitutes.

Satisfy me in the morning!  In the morning! And then, and this is the hard part, if you don’t feel satisfied, don’t go running after substitutes. Just wait.  Sit right there, content in your discontentment, and say to God, “Alright look.  I don’t feel satisfied by you right now, but one thing I know, no matter what else I run to, it’s not gonna do it for me anyway, so I’m gonna wait for you. Teach me O Lord, to know deeply that I’m not home here,  Teach me that all this world offers, and all the good things you’ve given us to enjoy, they may be good, but they’re not the ultimate. They’re not you. Only you can satisfy.  “Taste and see the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” -Psalm 34:8

A Coalition of Non Profit Organizations are Working to Prevent Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Haitian Children

Global Centurion, The Home Foundation, Love146, Call and Response, Renewal Forum, Fondation Espoir, Salvation Army, Olive Branch International, Doctors at War on Trafficking, Equitas Group, Gracehaven, World Hope International, Beyond Borders, Restavek Foundation, and Fondation la Limye Lavi announce a first response campaign to develop and distribute simple, clear information campaigns designed to prevent human trafficking after the earthquake.

Take action and join in our efforts to raise awareness in Haiti against the dangers of Human Trafficking.

1. Text SAFE to 85944 and donate $10 to help
2. Post this on your Page
3. Twitter and SPREAD THE WORD!!!

Read more about what we are doing in HAITI on our website www.thehomefoundation.net/blog

According to livescience.com they polled a lot of people and a lot of scientists to find the “Top 10 Greatest Mysteries of Science.”  It’s not surprising that in the top 5 you’ll find:
-Where is the rest of the universe?  only 4% of the matter and energy in the universe has been found.  How could they even know that?
-What drives evolution?  what is evolution?  That sounds made up…
-Who are you?  -I’ve been asking myself that for a long time now…
-How did life arise on earth?  -sounds like the evalootion question or however you say it.

Granted, I’m being ridiculous with my commentary, but really- it sounds like everyone’s looking for a beginning, and an ending and “science” has yet to yield solid results.  Really, we don’t even know how gravity works.  Still!  If we’ve only come this far in decades and generations of modern science and research, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to have the time in our lives to get to the conclusion.  Don’t get me wrong, I love science and nerdy things, but my faith hat hangs on God.  Searching for answers is just too much fun, but honestly, I don’t “believe” in science. 
Here’s a nerdy article: here
Just reading this makes me believe a lot of scientists believe in God but just don’t know it.

I’m a dork.  These are my ramblings.