What's your source?

It's amazing how most people come to form an opinion or belief about something.  Often, it's based upon what their parents believe(d).  Sometimes, it's based upon that of another relative or a friend, or even upon peer pressure.  But in all cases, it can be argued that most people form it based upon the opinions or beliefs of someone they look up to, respect, or simply hang out with.

When that opinion or belief is formed - or rather adopted - in this fashion, perhaps the greatest danger is doing so without questioning it, without subjecting it to scrutiny.  Only years after the fact did I realize that all those assignments I did in school and university where I had to "compare and contrast" articles and viewpoints, or to provide references to varying sources in research papers, were not meant to torture me.  They were meant to force me to consider alternate opinions, to support but also subject my theses to scrutiny.

Sadly, most people see taking the time to investigate something before accepting it as requiring too much effort.  Or perhaps they haven't been taught how to compare and contrast, or how to research alternate opinions on something.  Our educational system has certainly become worse in this regard as I compare my substitute teaching experiences with my experiences as a former student.  In any case, most people trust that others have done this for them, and that the ideas they present must therefore be valid.

So what's the source of your beliefs?  Is it the "latest and greatest" author or speaker who just appeared on the Oprah show?  Is it a book like "The God Delusion" or one like "The Case For Christ"?  Maybe it's a book that a relative, friend, or colleague just recommended.

In any case, you need to scrutinize what they're telling you instead of simply accepting it.  For example, is there any scientific, historical, and/or legal basis to what they're promoting, even from multiple perspectives?  How have people fared over a long period who've adopted these ideas and beliefs - the good and the bad stories - not just at the "good times" when they happen to write the book or make the TV appearance?  And what of the people who claim to have fared badly: what is their motive in attempting to discredit a particular person or perspective, and does their reasoning stand up to scrutiny and cross-examination?

Most people think that doing things like this is a threat to one's current set of opinions or beliefs.  However, if one is very grounded, considering alternate opinions can also be a way of solidifying those beliefs even more.

In any case, simply accepting what you're fed can be dangerous, so make the effort and the time to check things out.  Should you do the same with the Bible?  Absolutely, whether you're a believer or not!  Rather than close their minds off to the message of Christ (the Gospel), the citizens of the Greek city of Berea (or Beroea) who heard this message from the apostle Paul are commended in the book of Acts chapter 17 because

"[they] were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, since they welcomed the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so."

As an aside, why did they search the Scriptures and not some other non-scriptural body of writings?  Isn't this being narrow-minded?  Because the things concerning Jesus were foretold in the Jewish scriptures - what we now call the Old Testament - so it was only fitting that the Bereans searched them for explanations about how this Jewish Messiah could also be the savior of non-Jews like them.

God even encourages his people in Isaiah chapter 1 to "Come, let us discuss this" or "Come now, let us reason together."  God Himself is in favor of directly being asked the tough questions!

I encourage you to do the same.  Whether you're digging through the Bible to interpret the Bible or through extra-biblical accounts to do so, don't just take the Bible on its own merit.  Find out for yourself whether it's for real through considering other sources (ones that attempt to be objective) before you assume that it isn't for real just because you're too lazy or don't care.  For that matter, you need to do this to any book or belief system that claims to have a new or different truth, whether the Koran, The Book of Mormon, or The Secret.

To not do so can cost you for an eternity.

Almost asleep ...

I can't write what I'm planning to without getting a little personal with you all - well, a lot personal.  The past few weeks I've been caught up with the whole debt crisis thing in Europe while watching the value of my not-so-bountiful Retirement Savings Plan dwindle more and more.  Even as a Christian I've found it hard not to get caught up in the whole idea of worrying about the financial future.  I seriously wonder what I will be able to draw upon to pay the bills once I'm into my early sixties.

My struggle as a Christian goes beyond the financial aspect, however.  My bigger struggle is the spiritual aspect, namely that Jesus basically commanded his followers not to worry about anything, ANYTHING - that if God takes care of birds and flowers he will surely take care of us.  Sometimes it's very difficult to believe this in your heart as well as your mind.  But I'm convinced that people living in even the most dire of straits - famine, genocide, etc. - experience the hand of God when they cry out for his help and provision.  I've read about too many stories to this effect to begin to doubt it.

But this is about my life 20 or so years down the road, not the present.  Sure, I'm convinced about his current provision, but what about when I'm not as strong and healthy to show up at a job every day?  That's where the worry has crept in.

So with these "heavies" upon my heart, I did what any sincere believer should:  I brought these things before God.  But most of the answers I've received this week are absolutely what I did not expect.  First of all, I've received many ideas about how I could structure my RSP in terms of how much to keep as cash, how much to put into mutual funds vs. stocks, etc.  I've even asked him to reveal other investment "vehicles" that might be far less risky than the stock market.  Now I just need the faith - and the discipline - to put these ideas into action and get over the temptation to be greedy, to be content with gains of a few percent a year instead of the much riskier yet higher potential gains (or losses) that I could experience by keeping things the way they are.  Right now, the losses have unfortunately been the norm.

But what has been much more heavy upon my heart - what I did not expect - is what the book of Ecclesiastes refers to as "vanity", or "absolute futility" in another translation of the Bible.  I have looked at how people everywhere around me - Christian and non - are passionately in pursuit of ... themselves.  It seems as though their main goal at the end of the work day, whether working in or out of the home, is to have a time of peace and comfort.  To get the kids out of their hair so they can relax.  To get the yard looking up to snuff for another season of barbeques and lazy summer evenings with friends and family.  To spend time on Facebook catching up with people, or simply to surf the net aimlessly looking at 'stuff'.

It's one thing to have been noticing these things in everyone else's lives at every single turn, but it's been much more humbling to have been noticing them in my own.  Some may think that someone like me writing a blog like this is somehow super-spiritual, "in" with God in a way that others aren't, with my life all sorted out and idyllic.  The only reason I have anything to write month after month, however, is simply because my life is NOT like this!  This week, I've seen with eyes more clear than ever about how much I want the same things as most other people.  But the "big heavy" I've felt is how in doing so, in spending so much time and energy trying to get financial and personal ducks in a row, I'm NOT spending time involved in the lives of others.

Now God is so gracious.  He hasn't revealed these things to me with some huge guilt burden that makes me feel rotten or like an idiot.  Instead, it's almost as though God has been wanting to show me what's more important in life so that I don't get any more caught  up in worrying and planning than I already am.  It's like he's been trying to tell me to pursue "his kingdom and his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33) and not to worry about my life and the true desires of my heart being taken care of, because he'll do that in good order on his terms and according to his timing.

So what have I realized or noticed specifically?  I've thought about how I sometimes worry about paying the bills when some people can't even pay a single one of theirs.  Or about my house when so many on this planet don't even have one, or one that offers little shelter or security.  Or some of my sore joints when I could instead be a cripple or have a debilitating disease.

Basically, I've noticed how needy so many people are but how so few of us with affluence and abundance and good health are willing to help them.  In response to this, I've been struggling with what I could do to help them.

Now this is an overwhelming thing to think about.  Hey, I was looking for investment ideas, not to be burdened with thoughts of all the human-induced suffering of this world, resulting from the greed, selfishness, and other sins imposed by people on other people!  I was looking for answers to help me, not to be made aware of the problems of others!

I must admit that I'm in a very selfish phase right now where it's been very hard to look away from my situation and to even take time for others.  I'm almost done working toward a particular certification for the industry I'm working in, there are upcoming birthdays in my family, we're excited about plans for a summer holiday, and so forth.  To see if my neighbor needs help cleaning his yard or to take the time to talk to a stranger just so they don't feel alone is more of a burden to me lately than staying in my comfort zone and dealing with me, me, me.

So maybe this is why this week I got the answers I did regarding my plea to rescue my retirement finances.  Maybe God is trying to tell me that I'm wasting my time worrying about whether I'll actually be alive twenty-some years down the road, and instead that I should be more focused on living, loving, and serving in the here-and-now since there is absolutely no guarantee of being alive even five minutes from now!

So why did I title this post "almost asleep"?  Because I realize that the church - the body of believers in Jesus Christ - in our prosperous Western world is made up of far too many believers just like me.  Oh yes, we go through phases like this where God opens our eyes to the plight of others all around us.  But then we - and I - get lulled back into ourselves once again.  We get lulled by all the eye-candy this world has to offer, thinking that we need more of it, so that we'll be distracted from being a positive impact in changing this world for the better.

And who does the Bible say is behind this world system?  None other than God's enemy, the devil.  One of his most effective tactics throughout history has been distraction, getting Christians away from serving the needs of others in order to serve the supposed "needs" of self.  The Western church is almost asleep and no signs of a wake-up call for it are on the horizon as far as I've been able to tell.  In fact, the past year or so I've been really discouraged about its state and its lessening impact with time.  It gets lulled evermore into being an ineffective social club of indifferent members.  But I can only point at it so much without also pointing at me.

But despite this, I realize that the transformation of a body is the eventual result of the transformation of some of its individual members.  I know that God routinely stirs the pot of my life and that of my wife so that we don't become stagnant.  God has always spoken to the hearts of individuals like he's been doing with me lately, but what will I do with these realizations?  And how about you, fellow believer?

I don't know what I'll do, exactly.  I've been hoping that God will stir me enough to get off the couch and at the very least perform random acts of kindness toward others.  (This is far easier for my wife, by the way, so she's often an inspiration in this regard.)  Maybe I'll actually work toward starting that men's group that's been on my mind for months now instead of assuming it won't be well received (another of Satan's favorite tactics:  doubt).

In any case, I too have been lulled almost asleep more times than I'd like to admit.  But it's at times of realization like this that I and those of you who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ need to do something about it - something simple - and then be open and selfless enough to allow God to take us to the next step.  Jesus was all about living for everybody else's needs, and voila - his Father always took care of his.  Go figure!  We just don't want the life of simplicity that Jesus lived.  We still think we need the bigger house and the new car and the latest gadgets, that we'll somehow get "bored" if we live for others and no longer just our desires.  Or worse yet, we assume that by doing so we'll be taken advantage of.

Do you think perhaps that Jesus' life might be an example of how we ought to be living our lives?  I think so, and I pray that not only I but any believer reading this will be convinced and motivated to live the same.

A happy ending

It's hard to imagine anyone but the most hard-core of people not liking stories with a happy ending.  It seems as though everyone I've ever met or heard about seems to like them.  Whether it's a huge volume like Lord Of The Rings or the Narnia series - the books or the movies - or whether it's something very Hollywood like Pretty Woman or wonderfully inspiring like Rudy or the recent movie The Blind Side, there's just something that draws people of all cultures, belief systems, and socio-economic status to stories like this, real or fictional.

It's almost as though we all have this built-in desire for true justice and for things to work out right in the end.  But as soon as the book is shut or the final movie credits start to roll, we're forced to come down off the high and step back into reality.  'Too bad things couldn't be that way in my life', you might think, or 'If only things like that could really come true'.  Sadly, these are thoughts we're more apt to think in our youth.  By the time most of us reach our thirties, we don't even entertain thoughts of any such wonderful things happening in our lives.

But is this true?  Is there really no happy ending for our lives?  (Most of you know where I'm going with this, but bear with me.)  Is life really nothing more than "death and taxes"?  You know, even speaking as a Christian, there are days when I lose perspective and really get bogged down and even depressed about life.  Hey, I'm only human after all - even the most spiritually inclined people can get down about things.

Before I decided to put the full weight of my trust in the promise of the Bible - eternal life to all who believe in the name of Jesus Christ - I must admit that I had no hope of anything and I got regularly discouraged and depressed.  Thoughts of suicide entered the mix on occasion.  Sure, I was working toward a university degree and my future was full of promise, but because I thought I'd be extinct at the end of my life span, I didn't know what I was ultimately working toward.

What was the point if this life here on earth was all there was or would be?  What would be the point of trying to leave a legacy when I would have no recall of it once I died?

But now, seeing things through the lens of the Bible, I see this life entirely differently.  I've never really had a "bad day" since I asked Jesus to forgive me and to become the Lord of my life; it's more like a "few bad hours" at most.  And I realize that life is so much more than money and achievement, although at times it's easy to lose perspective of the important things in life.

The non-believer thinks that people like me are living a fantasy, trying to think "happy thoughts" to ease the pain and burden of this life through belief in a make-believe deity, a figment of my imagination.  I've never been a happy-go-lucky sort of person, but rather a deep and reasoned individual.  I devote a great deal of time and energy into things before making a decision about them, and my decision to accept God's gentle nudges in my life in order to believe in him - as much as I tried to resist at first - were no different.  God was gently pounding away at my thick, narrow-minded, assumptive skull for about two years before the reality of his existence became glaringly obvious to me.  And once that occurred, only then did the promise of eternal life - of the greatest happy ending imaginable - also become glaringly obvious to me.

I know that non-believers think people like me are deluded, brainwashed - whatever - to believe in what the Bible has to say about anything, let alone this promise of eternal life to those who put their faith in some historical figure named Jesus.  But even though I've mentioned this in a previous post, it bears paraphrased repeating now:

What if the Bible is for real?  What if its claims are actually true?  If this is the case, what do I have to gain by believing what it says about Heaven and Hell, for example, and what do I have to lose by not believing?

I realized that if I was wrong and the Bible was right, then I'd be paying the price for an eternity, one of separation from God in a place the Bible calls Hell.  Could I have rationalized Hell out of existence if I didn't want to believe it wasn't for real?  Likewise with Heaven?  Did I want to take the chance and not believe in God and the Bible because I was arrogant, prideful, or afraid of what others might think of me?

I eventually decided that I'd rather assume that God and the Bible are for real - the price would be too great and horrible not to! - and in so doing I accepted Jesus into my life.  Since then, the confirmation of the reality of God and his unfathomable love (not fear of him anymore!) and the absolute truth of the Bible (and no other documents claiming to be "scripture") has been very real and very immense:  God's Spirit living within me has been fast at work revealing these things ever since.  And therefore I have the most unshakable, most confident assurance that by one simple act of faith several years ago - a moment, really - my existence will indeed have a happy ending on the basis of the claims of the Bible, not on fantasy.

Although this conclusion seems foolish to many, I live day to day with this assurance that they will never have apart from Jesus Christ, and therefore I don't fear death - or life - like they do (even though they don't admit it).  If this hope is my "crutch", so be it.  But I'd rather have a crutch like God in my life than the meaningless and non-eternal crutches like status, possessions, career and/or climbing the corporate ladder, drugs, self-help books, atheism, evolutionism, New Age gurus and the like that non-believers put their faith and trust in.