Right on Time

Have you ever sat back and imagined what the world would be like without the structure of years, months, days, hours, and minutes? What if we didn't have names for the days of the week or for the months of the year? What if all we understood was that there is day, there is night, and that we are ever growing older until we reach the point of death? What if time didn't have such a huge role in our lives or dictate our action?
I think there is something to be said about the stressfulness of being a time oriented culture, but to live without a structured time measurement...we are lost.

That is all that I think time is though. A measurement  I do not think that tine itself has substance to it nor that it is ever possible to time travel. I have heard it said that it has been done by simply orbiting the earth fast enough. That would imply that time and the rotation of the earth are some how connected. This, to me, doesn't make much sense. But I am not a scientist or a time philosopher so my opinion in this particular matter is of no value.

Here's where my words do have some value. I have had the privilege of traveling to various other countries and seen life through the eyes of others who are not so time oriented as Americans and some Western cultures. What I found was that life was much more relaxing, I had more energy, I was less stressed, and so on and so forth. To live free of any concept of time would be unhealthy for humanity in that there would be a great deal of inefficiency and life would be chaotic.

It is impossible for us to live without this structure. If our current one was erased from the minds of every human...then another one would be formed soon enough.

We cannot, however, live in such a way that we are counting every minute or in a way that our time is spent is legalistic in nature.

There is a lot to take in consideration in this matter. Things like priorities, professionalism, and mental health. I think that there is too much to understand. In fact, this topic is hardly worth the time it took you to read it. The point is this. Time is too short to be worrying about time. Use it to enhance your life, but don't let it rule your life. I hope this gives you something to think about...but don't spend too much time on :)

May the Author of Time give you peace,

Stephen

"He loves you too much..."

Yesterday I was on my way to Knoxville for a job interview and I drove through good ole Dayton, TN and visited Bryan College. I wanted to see a couple of my professors and ask for their prayers, pick up a friend of mine who wanted to tag along for support, and to hear a certain chapel speaker named Marva Dawn whom I love listening to dearly. Her words, however, were not the ones that moved me yesterday. Instead they were the words of a professor/friend at Bryan (whom we all call Mr. E).

 He asked me how life was and I told him that it had been stressful and so on, but then he looked at me and told me that it was just another way that God was showing His love to me...and then he said "Let me put it this way. He loves you too much NOT to put you through difficulties and trials that are going to hurt you and ultimately leave you more Christlike than before." BOOM!

Ok, so when I'm going through crap and I'm needing consolidation it is best that you don't give me any of the following answers: "You should pray more", "You need to read your Bible more", "God Loves you and has a great plan for your life", "It's just the enemy trying to get to you" or "You are almost out of this and God is going to pour out blessing 'pressed down shaken together and running over'!"

I will smile and nod...but beyond that I wont benefit from your words and I will mark you off as having not listened (Unless of course your name is Matt Benson...in which case, all but the last answer is going to have an impact on my life). Why? I pray often...I read much less often (haha), but it's not about how many prayers you've prayed or how many verses you have memorized. Numbers and achievements don't promise a life without difficulty and pain. B) You probably didn't even ask about my spiritual life anyway, so you are assuming a suffering spirituality and are prescribing to me a remedy based off of ill thinking, and you not giving me the respect of actually listening to what I'm saying. C) The devil is not after me. Trust me. He has a great deal of other people far more important to focus on than me. I'm not the leader of a country, church group, or even a family. I guarantee  you that Satan doesn't give me the time of day. D) Eisegesis doesn't help me any more than your not listening.

These words, however, that were given to me by Mr. E were encouraging and thought provoking. Pastor talk about the love of God in a way that says that His love will bring an end to our trials and that He will also give us material gains, but what my friend told me made a different statement. The implications are that God's love is actually the reason for the the hardship in the first place! Preach that from the pulpit and see how many come back next week! People don't want God unless He is going to sympathize with all their petty whims and desires and/or wants to erase all of their pain and suffering immediately. No one wants to think about the difficult truth of God leading us into times of shadow on purpose.

          "He causes me to dwell in darkness as those who are long dead..."                             (Lamentations 3:8a)

Even Paul of Tarsus talked about God causing him to have a "thorn in his side" and that God would not take it away from Him.

Also, God's goal in these hardships is not to bring us wealth, glory or even happiness! It's to make us more Christlike...

God's wants us to be cleansed of our sin so that we can live in greater unity with Him and his Holy Spirit, to be lights and witnesses in the darkness of the World, and He purges us through trials and sufferings. We live to glorify and serve Him, not to be served by Him. This self centered Christianity in America needs to come to an end, and a true Christ centered Christianity needs to rise from it's ashes.

Grace and Peace to you all,

Stephen  

Hopeful and Numb

Recently, I was listening to top 40 radio and I noticed an interesting trend. Apart from Adele, the majority of music that you will here will consist of partying, sex, lyrics about how "fly" someone is and how amazing they are, avoiding problems in life and just enjoying the moment, or just complete nonsense (*cough cough* Nikki Minaj cough*).

It seems that having depth or meaning to a song is no longer necessary for it to be good. So long as it has a good beat and one can escape their own reality for a moment, then it's all good. I'm amazed at the crudeness of some songs like "Whistle" by Flo Rida, which totally shows disrespect for women and degrades the value of sex...but who  surprised? America devalued sex roughly four decades ago. Whet really boggles my mind is that there are people that actually listen to this junk. Don't get me wrong, there are songs that I hear on top 40 radio that I quite enjoy listening to, and actually brings benefit to my life. Like Adele who expresses depth and true emotion, or the song "Titanium" that is full of emotion and strength. 

The thing is that people have turned to music to escape, to feel numb to the pain they are experiencing and to gain hope for the future. I fear that this is having a very profound affect on the minds of Americans, as well as others in the world who listen to them. Hope, true hope that brings about an end worth having is only found in Christ, but it isn't wrong to have a little boost from music either...so long as that "hope" isn't rooted in pride and false conception of one's self. 

Music is a gift, can we please stop abusing it by putting "artists" on the stage who can't do anything more than talk about themselves and all the people they have slept with? Perhaps we can even get singers who sound good without the aid of a computer! Ok ok...you're right...one miracle at a time...

Ignorance and Pride

Last night I was sitting with a friend of mine and we were discussing the Church, talking about how different Christians and/or denominations get fixated on a certain theological issue and that "denominations cause division". Our conclusion on the issue was that people are so divided in the Church because of ignorance and pride. Ignorance results in them performing actions that are unbiblical or results in a severe disdain and "protest" of another doctrine or even form of worship. For example, I think that the Protestant Church is primarily ignorant of the things within the Catholic Church. I've learned this from time spent in research and in deep discussion with my friend Tiller. Additionally, our pride locks us up in our ignorance and keeps us from admitting error in our theology or even exploring other traditions of thought! It's really quite sad.

When I got to Bryan College as a freshman, I dreaded telling people that I was a member of the Church of God. Immediately, their pride rose up and began to oppose me. I had people thinking that that I didn't believe in the Trinity and that I handled snakes on a weekly basis. I was told that I didn't know how to read the bible (which wasn't untrue, but not for the reasons they claimed) and accused of being extremely prideful (again, not untrue but not for the reasons they stated). Every Calvinist I came across wanted to attack what I believed, and everyone wanted to prove that tongues doesn't exist anymore.

I am more or less a Calvinist now, but I still believe in tongues. Quite frankly I probably would have come to my theological standpoint a lot sooner if it hadn't been for the pride and ignorance of those people who tried so hard to change the way I thought. I was sickened by them and I even told my friend Myles, "how can they be right when they are so prideful and malicious?" If such lines of thought led to that insensitivity to the Spirit and a lack of spiritual change, then I didn't want it. Thank God that He has led me away from my own pride and helped to set up within me the wonderful ability to love and to be sensitive to others paradigms and histories and so forth.

I pray that God will eliminate pride in the Church...so that maybe ignorance can begin to be obliterated.

Peace be upon you all,

Stephen

Tradition!!!

When I hear the word "tradition", there are several things that come to mind. I think of small little random things that families do for holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. I also think of the classic musical "Fiddler on the Roof" (if you haven't seen it then you are deprived of life and culture...go watch it... no no you can read this later...go...GO!). More recently tradition has turned my attention to ancient forms of worship within the Church.

Just to clarify to some of the protestants out there who might be asking "Well, which church are you talking about?" or "Are you talking about the heartless ritualism of that cult in Rome?" or even  may be saying "My church sings the hymns that my grandfather's grand father sang and if they were good enough for Paul and Silas then they are good enough for me!", when I say "Church" I mean the holy, universal Church that transcends time and space. The Church that does not sum up the four walls and a roof that's on the corner of your street. I mean the full Kingdom of believers that are and were and will be. By "ancient" I mean REALLY REALLY OLD! You probably don't have your family traced back this far! To my Pentecostal brothers and sister...no I don't mean meeting in houses/home churches to speak in tongues and dance (please note that I am not bashing these things, I simply am pointing out that this is not a form of worship recorded in the New Testament or early Church history). Lastly, I do not believe Catholicism to be a cult, but merely a segment of the Church with a skewed focus...like pretty much every denomination in some way, shape, or form.

I'm talking about the liturgy, the deeply ritualistic and symbolic worship that was done for many a century...and is still being done in several denominations. At this I want to point out that I am not "running to Rome" as it were...but I am still deeply moved by these services and this form of worship that I grew up without. Why? I could just say "the Holy Spirit", but lets face it...that's a cop out and a tactic used by way too many people who just want to have their way or get their two-cents in without people making a huge fuss. People will punch others of opinions, but "woe unto him who touches God's anointed who doth speak prophetically". I am no prophet, and even though I deeply believe that prophecy and words of knowledge still exist in the Church today, I fear that we have a tendency to speak too quickly out the flesh and label it as God. No, I'm going to break down a little bit of my reasoning and thought process here.

There is nothing "wrong" about ritualistic worship...though I've been taught for years that it is by people who ritualistically lift their hands, dance, and or play the acoustic guitar. The fact is that ritualism and tradition are not limited to robes and weekly communion. No, it can also be found in the Baptist church, the Presbyterian church, and even in Pentecostal churches. I think the problem is that we have so heavily defined those words in association with Catholicism and/or old Baptistic hymn singing that we forget the true meanings of the words. We have been classically conditioned to have a bitter taste for things we understand and know very little about!

I'm beginning to explore these things and see how they are relevant in the life of a Christian today. I am particularly being drawn to a more Anglican tradition, but I have not full let go of my Pentecostal roots. I have personally felt the Spirit's presence in the middle of a liturgical service and that leads me to the conclusion that neither form whether "traditional" or contemporary are essentially right or wrong. God is honored in both. I hope to share more of my thoughts concerning the matter in the future and why I'm being drawn to Anglicanism.

Peace be upon you all,

Stephen