For Those Of Us Who Scarf

Several months ago, after scarfing down a plate of scrambled eggs, ground turkey, and avocado, I realized that the seconds hand on the clock had only finished one short lap during the time it took me to eat breakfast.

This is what happens when you teach third grade for three years and are used to eating lunch while copying homework packets, talking on the phone to disgruntled parents, making last minute changes to afternoon lesson plans (or writing them for, say, the first time), comforting the kid who just got hit in the head with the tether ball, yelling (in the kindest, most affectionate way possible) at the fifth graders who just sprinted past the door, and rounding up paint for the last minute art project you're going to do that afternoon—all at the same time. In about three minutes, give or take.

When you are a third grade teacher (and grad student) your work becomes your life, which means you don't leave your work at work, which means you don't leave your Road Runner-style eating habits at work either. Enter: meal-breathing; the act of inhaling your meal in just a few short breaths while solving the world's problems. You've gotta breath anyway; breathing in your food is just a clever way of multi-tasking.

After years of eating so fast I couldn't actually taste my food, I decided to make some changes in my dining experiences. So I did what any balanced, well-adjusted 26-year old would do: I got out a stop watch and timed myself eating breakfast. And let me tell you, slowing down took F-O-R-E-V-E-R. It was torturous. It was with great delight that finished my meal, pushed my trusty timer's stop button, and looked down at the final time for my slow-motion meal: five minutes.

Folks, this is not healthy. Not healthy at all. A healthy person doesn't find a five-minute meal a grueling marathon. Healthy people recognize that meals are not just a few steps in a daily routine; they are a snapshot of a lifestyle that spills out of the heart. They are the outer evidence of an inner state; a mirror reflecting the noise and upheaval swirling around in the heart. Healthy people carve time out of their day to rest, to open themselves up to the work of the Holy Spirit in their noisy heart, and they may even use meals to do it.

I really want the healthiness of my meals to go beyond the fact that I've got a plate full of whole foods with the proper proportion of carbs to protein to good fats. I want to be the kind of person who is okay with silence, with being alone, and with slowing down to absorb and be thankful for life's little details, even when I have a mile-long to-do list. I want to be the kind of person who lives in the moment rather than trying to blaze through it; who has a well-ordered inside that results in a well-ordered outside.

Slowing down at breakfast and dinner is one of the steps I'm taking toward giving God a still and silent opportunity to order my inner landscape, since he's the only one who can truly do that kind of thing—our job is to put ourselves in a position that invites him to, thus partnering with him in this inner-ordering. So for all you fellow speed eaters and just plain speed live-ers, here are a few changes I've made that are transforming my breakfast and dinner dining experiences:

1. Set the table for yourself. Use your nice dishes (no paper or plastic allowed), stemware, and a lovely placemat, if you have one.

2. Light candles if it's dark.

3. Make sure there is always a vase (even a small one) of flowers at the table. Putting a vase of flowers on the table is like putting lipstick on after getting all dolled up for a night out. It is the final touch; the cherry on the sundae, the sprinkles on the donut, the generous dollop of sour cream on the taco salad. Furthermore, I once heard that having flowers around the house makes you live longer. To compensate for the hundreds of hours I spend in traffic here in Los Angeles, hours that no doubt raise my blood pressure and are accelerating my death, I have flowers in virtually every corner of my studio. I have also taken up gardening, just to cover my bases.

4. Do not turn on the T.V. I repeat, do not turn on the T.V.

5. Put your fork down after each bite (this is Nancy Jackson wisdom). Look around, lean back in your chair, and take a deep breath. If you're having trouble loosening up from an intense day, try this breathing technique: Let your stomach totally relax so it's sticking out (you may not need to think about this, depending on where you're at in the meal), inhale through your nose (your stomach should expand, rather than your chest—work on that), and breath out through your mouth. I got this breathing technique from the Pioneer Woman, and let me tell you, she never steers me wrong. Except the time I tried to make her best ever frosting recipe and almost gagged from the copious amounts of butter. Other than that, she's very reliable.

6. Eat outside if you can. Between bites feast your eyes on the different shades of color around you, and if you live in Los Angeles, notice the different textures instead (cement, chain link, aluminum...). Smell the breeze and listen for birds.

7. Ask Jesus to join you. He will. He's great company. And company always makes meals seem like celebrations, especially if your company turns water into wine and parties with angels anytime somebody transfers their trust to him. Life should be celebrated.

8. Think back over your day; pray. Ask God what he's doing in your life and heart. Listen. He often talks into the silence, with a still small voice.

I know a lot of you have families of your own and dinner is a rich time of gathering with your home community, rather than a silent time of reflection. But I'm guessing that having a family of your own means you must pace yourself just to make it through the week, so I'm wondering, what do you do to step out of the chaos and into the stillness for a bit?

That goes for all of you: I'd love your suggestions for slowing down as I learn to revamp, not just my meals, but this life I've turned into a rat race. What works for you?

© by scj

Redemption Rising

The sea wind whips around my body, laced with salt and sun. I turn my face toward the gust of ocean perfume, letting it rush into my wet eyes and tangled hair.

A young mother walks by, quieting her crying baby, handing him the leash that pulls her waddling dachshund in her wake.

She looks at me for a moment, and I wonder if she wishes she looked so calm, so easily caught up in this sea-song of grace.

Her son whimpers, and she walks on, tied to the rhythm of baby’s cries, doggie’s waddle, and a checklist that keeps on drumming to the steady tick tock of a time that never slows.

I watch her disappear beyond the climbing jasmine and sailboats, and I’m aware that the song pounding in my heart doesn’t match the calm etched on my face. It swirls, like the eddies beyond the weatherworn docks, and surges like the waves that smooth the wind-tossed sand. 


Its melody is sorrow; its harmony is loss.

My salty eyes sting and I gulp hard, tapping my feet to the drum of the wake, trying to will my spirit to dance in time with the sea. But this inner song swells; rising like the tide, swallowing the stillness the wind carried to me.

There was a time, not very far off, when my spirit sang a different melody. I tried to transpose its symphonic score into words so I could always remember God’s faithfulness, his song-inspiring goodness. Like the Israelites, who sang Miriam’s Song after crossing a split sea, declaring the good things God had done, looking forward to the good things he was yet to do.

But this song of praise, its jubilant melody grew faint, and now this new song pulses through my veins. And this new strain, it sings of hopes that mounted with wings but never summitted, of a sturdy future that turned out to be flickering shadows, of dreams punctured by the sharp thorns of disappointment.

This new song, it sings dissonance into my soul, reverberating tension that makes my insides quiver. And this dissonance, it makes me wonder. Have I lived with a dwarfed vision of God’s goodness, a pint-sized understanding of his faithfulness?

A still small voice answers, “I do not give as the world gives…”

“Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)

And I realize, this song, it speaks of the sorrow God is using to renovate old things, of the loss he is using to make room for gain.

“I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Exekiel 36:26)

This song, it sings of the suffering that softens my heart like clay, in the hands of the Master Artist who would make us hearts like His.

“And [I] will continually guide you, 
And satisfy your desire in scorched places.” (Isaiah 58:11).

This song, it tells of a soul that was striving, full of desire, looking to satisfy, led to rest by the only One who can.

"...do not let your heart be troubled."

This new song, it’s rising, rushing into the cracks in my heart, and I listen hard. I listen because I think I hear a whisper, assuring me that this, this is the sound of redemption.

“Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him….life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning.” (Job 11:13-17)

A Promise Spelled H-O-P-E

A couple of months ago I was roused from a deep sleep by a clear voice declaring, “They’ve bought the lie that their lives are about them.” I’m not sure if a bizarre dream precipitated this declaration, and I don’t know who “they” were, but I know I was one of them. That voice was talking to me.

As the words reverberated in my heart, memories from the past year came crashing into the quiet of my peaceful room. I saw myself packing up and moving from my community of seven years, and then trying to keep my head above water in a new job while bogged down by something that looked suspiciously like mono; I saw a young man slip a radiant diamond on my left hand, and the flurry of activities that gained momentum as a wedding drew nearer; I saw myself in bed in a dark, cluttered apartment while I battled virus after virus in the midst of wedding planning and learning the ropes at work; I saw piles of boxes stashed in every corner of my dark apartment as my mom and fiancé helped me move, once again, to an uncluttered place of my own; I saw my clinical nutritionist telling me my adrenal glands were fried and so was my immune system; I saw rain hit my windshield as I drove home late one night, my left hand feeling naked without the diamond that once graced it; and I saw myself listening to my doctor announce two days later that I had mono and wouldn’t be feeling better anytime soon, and should give myself permission to just rest.

All of these, my memories, from my life, stuffed in the deepest crevices of my heart, and yet somehow, this clear voice speaking into the silence, telling me they’re not really about me.

And then I thought of Joseph, the colorful-coat wearing dreamer from the biblical book of Genesis, who had more sorrowful memories by the age of thirty than most people have after a lifetime. Lonely, blood-stained memories that must have ripped through his soul when he laid down to sleep, woven in and out of his nighttime dreams, and punctuated his days with unbearable grief. Memories of scornful, mocking brothers; of a colorful, bloodied coat; of the long hot caravan ride that left traitorous loved ones looking like ants on the horizon; of the aging, beloved father left to grieve the loss of a favored son; of the silver coins jingling in his slave trader's pocket, given in exchange for his services; of false rape accusations hanging thick in the air; of the disappointment flickering in a boss's eyes after years of earning his trust; of the long days and dark nights in a jail cell surrounded by thieves and murderers; and of the two years waiting in the dark, forgotten by the man who promised he'd remember.

I recently read a book that lauded Joseph's ability to forgive his brothers when they stood before him for the first time in thirteen years, after they caused him unimaginable suffering. I once heard a teacher point to Joseph as our model for trusting God even in the valley of the shadow of death. Awhile back I listened to a professor describe the way God used Joseph to sustain the nation of Egypt, as well as his Jewish family during a brutal famine. But Joseph's story isn't just about Joseph, and it's not just about the individuals Joseph's life touched, or the people God used him to save.

When Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Pharaoh's palace, he begged them, "Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life...God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance."

His words echoed the words God spoke to his aging, childless great great grandpa Abraham generations earlier: 

"I will make you into a great nation.
I will bless you.
I will make your name great.
You will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you.
I will put a curse on anyone who calls down a curse on you.
All nations on earth
will be blessed because of you."

This ancient promise brought life to Abraham. God blessed him with a son named Isaac, who had a son named Jacob, who had twelve sons, one of whom was named Joseph. And somehow, God planned on using these sons to bless all the nations on the earth. But he had to sustain them and make them into a great nation first.

Joseph was the seed planted in the womb of one of the most powerful nations in the world, where his small clan grew in safety for hundreds of years. Even when enslaved by Egypt, Abraham's great great great great granddaughters birthed many hearty sons, and Pharaoh grew afraid of this great nation.

Joseph was the linchpin whose life enabled his growing family, when freed from slavery in Egypt, to dispense God's justice on the Canaanites and occupy the land of this barbaric, blood-spilling nation.

Joseph's family-turned-nation was great enough, because of their years in Egypt, to settle into Canaan and prosper. And even when the Israelites assumed the horrific practices of their pagan neighbors, and were then attacked by enemies and oppressed by the powerful, a small remnant of God's people clung to the promise he'd made to Father Abraham. A promise God clarified later when he assured his suffering people he'd send a Messiah from the tribe of Joseph's older brother, Judah; a Savior who would bless all the nations of the world.

Joseph's story is 11 of 880 pages in my Bible. Eleven pages in a story that's not finished yet: the story of the Messiah, the Savior born into Abraham's family, who still speaks words of hope to all the nations of the world, declaring: "I have stripped sin of its power, and sorrow no longer has the last word. I will dignify the prostitutes, homeless, and handicapped; I will remove the shame of the adulterer and the guilt of the pious. I will make your blind eyes see stars hanging so bright and low in the sky you'll think you can grab them, and make your deaf ears hear the thunderous roar of rain on the roof; I will heal your lame legs so you can run so hard your heart wants to burst from the thrill of it; I will give rest to the weary. I will make ugly things beautiful and old things new; I will turn tongue-tied hillbillies into international preachers and arrogant businessmen into humble missionaries; I will put bread in the pantries of the poor and use my children to do it; I will be a lover to the lonely widow and a father to the abandoned orphan; I will rid your heart of its hardness and rub ointment into its throbbing cracks when it's broken; I will never leave you or forsake you. I will breathe life into the coffin of your selfishness and free you from the prison of your anxiety; I will be faithful to the divorcee and speak tenderly to the never-been-married; I will restore the relationships you've broken, and I will fight for the weak and oppressed; I will give you victory over death. And if you trust me enough to give your life to me, I will use you to bless the nations. I will graft your vaporous story into my eternal story, and I will use your sorrow-turned-to-joy to show the world that my story is Hope. The hope of glory. The certainty of a happy ending."

© by scj

20 Things I Learned Teaching Third Grade

A few weeks ago I filed the last of my students' report cards, piled boxes of picture books and math games into my trunk, cleaned out my work mailbox, and hugged my coworkers goodbye one last time.

Having wrapped up my career as a third grade teacher, I've recently done some reflecting and thanking God for all of the things He and my 75 little people taught me the last three years. Here are the 20 most significant:

1. The Holy Spirit is the best teacher.

2. Kids know when you really like them.

3. If a teacher believes her students can do something exceptional, they will. Kids live up (or down) to the image you project onto them.

4. Kids learn more from watching a teacher model something than they do from the teacher's direct instruction about the subject.

5. "Aha!" moments happen when teachers ask questions instead of give answers.

6. One of the most important parts of a teacher's job is encouraging and re-teaching kids to imagine.

7. The spontaneous, daily teachable moments stick with kids way longer than planned lessons. It's OK to set the curriculum aside to live life with your kids.

8. If you catch a kid picking his nose, pretend you didn't see it.

9. Students who read a lot typically have bigger vocabularies and are better writers than kids who don't read much.

10. It is impossible to raise healthy, stable kids without creating and consistently reinforcing boundaries.

11. Students feel the safest and are the most motivated when their environment is very structured, and their authorities are consistent and fair.

12. It's always a wise idea to have a stash of chocolate on hand for those 7-hour days that take 14 hours to pass. :)

13. A good sense of humor is incomparably more valuable in the classroom than any educational training. And kids like to laugh with their teacher. A lot.

14. If you compliment a student publicly on his helpfulness, the rest of the class will be over-the-top helpful for the rest of the month.

15. Reality is iconoclastic. When kids begin to understand that they are loved relentlessly by the Creator of our marvelous universe, their minds become enthralled with him.

16. Poor parenting--not our educational system--is the primary reason we have so many under-performing, morally confused students.

17. A powerful way to fight our culture that devalues human life is to cultivate a culture in the classroom that celebrates life.

18. Nothing shreds a kid's soul like divorce. Nothing.

19. Kids are the best philosophers, theologians, and apologists. They haven't yet been conditioned to not think critically (because our educational system is dulling their minds); they ask probing questions and have sound logic. Never underestimate the cognitive abilities of an eight year old!

20. The goal of education is human flourishing, and the Bible is the only inerrant, infallible, tested and true handbook for successfully accomplishing this goal.

Thanks, kiddos, for three very rich years of growth and memories. I will miss you.
~Miss Jackson

© by scj

Could I Just See the Top of the Box, Please?!

I just jumped through educational hoop #86 (of about 121) bringing me one step closer to clearing my teaching credential, which will enable me to teach in California for my whole life, no strings attached (except for my annual monetary "support" of our fine department of credentialing). Hoop #86 is really a series of little hoops arranged throughout a full day of professional development with other educators from the surrounding districts.

First thing this morning one of the "Facilitators of Professional Development" brought us to the first page of our educator's resource packet: "Effectively Implementing Teaching Strategies," which had a list of characteristics of good teaching. Smack dab in the middle of the page it read "No wrong answers."

Now I wish I could assure you that "No wrong answers" was a short-hand way of writing, "If the students aren't spouting a stream of wrong answers then you're probably doing a good job teaching," but I can't. Because the facilitator made it quite clear that a good teacher tells students that there are never any wrong answers. Unless of course you're teaching math, because some committee of big-wigs somewhere decided that the laws of logic apply in math, and math only.

The sole purpose of education is to promote human flourishing. I don't know many people who would disagree with this; everyone seems to understand there is more to life than survival of the fittest--we all crave something more than just existence. The problem is an educational committee somewhere decided that the only right thing to teach our students is that there is no right, and certainly no wrong, because morality (and ultimately, reality) is relative to the individual. So the state tells educators to teach students that there is no objective system of morality--there is no "right" or "good" way of living because human flourishing looks different for different people. And then the state mandates that we teach students that it is "good" to cooperate and share with others, manage and express emotions "appropriately", and that students can promote human flourishing by doing "good" things like showing consideration and concern for others, and being emotionally and mentally healthy. Students who do "wrong" things like cheat, fight, steal, and lie are punished and sometimes kicked out of the system, because their "bad" behavior might somehow disrupt the established system of standards within the school. In essence, we tell students there are no true, moral standards for living, and then force them to abide by our moral standards. And we wonder why 1 in 5 students drops out of high school, the students that stay in school are morally confused, and our nation is littered with communities that are far from flourishing.

When I was in high school I noticed a sign outside one of the main school entrances that read, "No drugs, alcohol, or weapons allowed on the premises." Armed security guards stood by the school entrances during school hours, and parents who wanted to come on campus had to beg, plead, fall on bended knee, fill out stacks of paperwork, and hand over their retirement to get clearance to visit their kid during lunch. My school made it clear they were going to do everything in their power to protect us. But if you were to spend a few days in the classrooms you would see movies with explicitly vulgar material, read books with inappropriate sexual content, and listen to teachers share raunchy stories about their weekend escapades. You'd also hear teachers espousing the potential their students have for increasing economic capital by contributing positively to the work force: students must do well in school so they can get a good job, so they can earn a lot of money. End of story. You may also hear students talking about other high schools that pay their students to graduate, teaching students that the reward for learning is not developing character, work ethic, integrity, or even the learning itself, but is the money you may get from somebody on the outside.

It didn't take me long to catch on that my high school viewed me as merely a body to protect, that my shell was worth protecting because it housed and was mysteriously related to my mind, and that my mind didn't need to be protected from filth and vulgarity, but needed to at least learn its potential for generating me and my country a lot of money. My school (and all state schools) reduced my humanity to a body with a money-making mind. That's it. Money and health were their key to human flourishing.[1]

It's no wonder our educational system is so ineffective: we tell kids there's no such thing as truth, there's no "good" and "bad", and then we reward them for being good and discipline them for being bad. We teach kids that they have a pretty terrific potential net worth, make sure they understand how "bad" drugs and alcohol are, and then pat them on the back and shoo them into the real world, calling after them, "Live fully and flourish, young person!" This is the philosophy that informs their living. This is the foundation upon which they build their lives.

We're not teaching kids how to be appropriately human. We're creating artifacts. We are carving, chipping, and shoving students' souls into a cookie cutter that some committee somewhere decided would shape our kids into a "good" product that our society can view, evaluate, and shuffle into the cycle of earning, spending, and earning some more money. Our goal of human flourishing is completely dependent on the biases of a far-off committee (sound tyrannical?), rather than being grounded in true reality.[2]

The final activity for my professional development day was to work in a group to put together a jigsaw puzzle using solid blue and yellow paper puzzle pieces with crudely cut edges. Each piece had an educational goal or teaching standard printed on it, with a specific strategy for accomplishing that goal. The finished puzzle was supposed to be the big picture of successful education. None of the six groups of teachers could finish the puzzle. One girl jokingly asked the facilitator, "Can we look at the puzzle box top?" I think she's onto something.

Educators are trying to fit together puzzle pieces to create a picture of human flourishing that informs the way we teach. But it's a daunting task and most of us aren't looking at the top of the puzzle box--we have no idea what human flourishing should look like. I think that's where the truth of God's word comes in: it's the top of the puzzle box. It paints a picture of the reality that humans are inherently valuable because we are created in the image of God with the ability to think, reason, imagine, and love. It describes the reality of the human condition, of God's involvement in history, and of the Truth that sets people free. It describes the abundant life that we receive when we place our faith in Christ, the life that renews our minds in knowledge, makes our hearts increasingly others-centered, gives eternal value to our bodies, and makes our learning purposeful and significant. It shows us how to live fully and flourish, the way God wants. It's the simplest solution, really: a look at the top of the puzzle box is exactly what educators need.

[1] One of my third grade teaching standards is to make students aware of their potential net worth. There are no third grade teaching standards about developing character and maintaining values. There can't be, because the state doesn't believe in an objective (and therefore universally teachable) system of values to promote character.

[2] C.S. Lewis develops this idea in his book The Abolition of Man.

Morning Mercies

"I, the Lord, made you,

and I will not forget you.

I have swept away your sins like a cloud.

I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.

Oh, return to me,

for I have paid the price to set you free.”

Isaiah 44:21-22

A Tale of Two Trees

My apartment looks a little bare this morning. My roommates and I have finally disassembled our Christmas tree, swept the wispy snow off our "mantle" (which is really a tv that has been broken for over a year now), and haphazardly stuffed miscellaneous red, green and gold nick-knacks under my bed. We've switched out the Christmas music and replaced it with the David Crowder Band, finished the last of the peppermint coffee creamer, and have shifted our focus from celebration preparations to the daily grind. And once again, January stretches before me looking kind of drab and dreary.

When I was a kid my mom began a tradition that broke up the monotony of January and began to awaken in in me and my siblings excitement and anticipation for a day that topped even Christmas. She used this tradition to shape our little hearts, teaching us to hope and reminding us that although our stockings had been boxed up and our presents were losing their luster, the best was yet to come.

My mom taught us about trees.

We learned that at the dawn of time in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were surrounded by trees. Big trees, little trees, colorful trees, blossoming trees, fragrant trees, fruit trees, and a forbidden tree. We learned that God created humans with the capacity to choose to love him, and listened with dismay when Adam and Eve decided God wasn't good enough, powerful enough or trustworthy enough to obey, and ate fruit off the tree he forbade.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit off the forbidden tree they rebelled against the Giver of life and chose death. For thousands of years after Adam and Eve's rebellion humans have continued to run into a head-on collision with death and destruction. In the midst of our self-created chaos God pursued restored relationship with his headstrong people. He gave us the law to help us live peacefully in community and to show us how impossible it is to live rightly without his help, with the hope we would run back to him. He even sent prophets to proclaim a promise that would change everything: "A Savior is coming to save you from your sins and give you new life!"

My mom wanted us to fix our eyes on this promise, and so each January she got out the saw and dragged our dying tree outside where we solemnly sawed off its branches and then cut its trunk in half under a gloomy winter sky.

As we sawed, we talked about trees some more. Because God is the Master Redeemer, and although a tree played a significant role in ushering death into the world, God used a tree to conquer death and bring us new life. When Jesus was nailed to the coarse, splintery wood of a tree, sin was also nailed to that tree, so that sin doesn't have to be our slave-master anymore and we can have victory over death.

Once our tree was bare and sawed in two we stored it away in the garage, and we waited. We waited for Spring, when brooks would gurgle, birds would chirp from their blossom-bedecked perches, and we could tie the pieces of our Christmas tree into the shape of a cross, put it in our front yard and set a sign on it declaring, "He is Risen!"

My mom always gave me the privilege of arranging flowers around the base of the cross. That splash of color against the rough wood of our little cross reminded me that winter does not last forever, and death does not have the last word. I am free to live fully and flourish the way God intended back when he created humans in the Garden of Eden, because of the cross. And one day I will meet the Giver of Life face to face in a place where there is no sorrow or death, and nothing is drab and dreary. Because the best is yet to come!

He Gave us Hearts

A childhood friend's mom died of cancer last week. She was only 50. I didn't know her well but I still feel an incredible sense of loss. She won't get to watch her daughter and son walk down the aisle on their wedding days; she won't delight in her grandchildren as they grow; and she won't celebrate any more anniversaries with her faithful husband. As a follower of Jesus Christ she is experiencing the consummation of her earthly discipleship in heaven right now, but her family is left in the wake of her influence, trying to make sense of it all.

My friend's mom is one of about 250,00 people who died last Sunday. Her death is a jarring reminder of the pain, disease, hunger, and abuse that ravage the lives of all people. Her death makes me wonder about God's love. He did, after all, decide to create us. Did his master plan for humanity include an inevitable encounter with suffering, destruction, and ultimately death? What kind of God lets the world deteriorate to the point of death?

Perhaps when I stand before God in heaven I will ask him about the problem of pain. But until then, I'm asking myself this question: if you were the author of the story of humanity, how would you have written it differently? When I ask myself this question I realize things have to be the way they are. They have to be this way because God is Love.

The Bible makes it really clear that God didn't create love, nor does he just show love, but he IS Love; love flows from his character and he delights in loving his creation. The thing about Love is it loves to be loved in return, so God gave us hearts with the capacity to give and receive love.

I guess, theoretically, God could have made us without hearts. But he's not the kind of God who wants a bunch of tin men running around who periodically show robotic affection at the whim of their Programmer. To be sure, robots are the key to eliminating world hunger, avoiding devastating wars, and abolishing slavery. But they are also the key to wiping out all of life's vibrancy because love births passion and vitality.

So if I were God and I could choose between a colony of robots and a community of people, I would choose to create people. The human heart's capacity for good is worth the risk that it will choose to do evil. But if I were God and my creation didn't choose to love me I wouldn't stand by and watch them self-destruct; I would do something about the mess human hearts have made.

I am a Christian because God did do something about the mess our human hearts created. He put on skin and spent 33 years living, dying and rising from the dead in the midst of our mess so that he could redeem it. Today he longs to pluck us out of the pit and breathe healing and purpose into our pain. He offers us a second chance, new life, and an eternity free from pain and sorrow. His hands are extended, their scars crying out for our love. How will our hearts respond?

Evil, Human Flourishing, Internal Fizzing, and the Existence of God

There are lots of ways to try to explain away God. The problem is, once you explain away God you also have to explain away any standard of right and wrong. Morality is meaningless in a godless world.

Evidence for a standard of morality is everywhere: we see it in every culture, age group, and time in history. Even some of the most staunch moral relativists cannot deny the presence of a standard of morality--they openly criticize the evil we see in the sex trade, holocaust, slavery, child abuse, domestic violence and genocide that wreak havoc on our world.

The presence of this evil points to the existence of good; without good "evil" is a meaningless concept, just like the term "dark" only makes sense because we have experienced something we call "light". Now, if "good" and "evil" are meaningful ideas in our world then we must ask the question, who determines what is good and what is evil?

Obviously we can't attribute this standard of morality to past presidents, kings, or dictators who somehow convinced the entire world to jump on their moral bandwagon. Some people argue that morality has evolved over time to promote human flourishing. But one has to wonder, if the origin of morality is a desire for human flourishing, from where does our concept of human flourishing originate? Not only that, how do we explain values like justice, love, diligence and responsibility that transcend time and culture?

Others appeal to science to rationalize our knowledge of good and evil. The strict materialist tries to explain away moral convictions as the movement of particles or chemical reactions in the brain. With this explanation our moral sentiments and convictions are no more meaningful than the convictions a fizzy cup of vinegar and baking soda might have. Hence, the materialist reduces humans to nothing more than bodies full of internal "fizzing".

The problem with the scientist's explanation is it ultimately explains away “true” and “false” statements. Thus, the scientist explains away his own explanation, for even his explanation of morality must be nothing more than the movement of particles or the "fizzing" of chemicals in his brain.

That leaves us with the presence of widely recognized evil which points to good, and nothing to explain our understanding of good and evil--except God.

"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." Psalm 34:8

Is the Bible Historically Reliable?

The Bible is an irrelevant collection of religious propaganda, full of so many errors and deviations from the original text it can't be trusted.

Sound familiar? If you haven't thought it, you've probably heard it. The Bible has been under the scrutiny of laymen, scholars, the religious and irreligious for hundreds of years, and for good reason. It is chuck-full of history, has always been central to Christianity, and makes such bold and penetrating claims that some people hate it, some people swear by it, and some people are radically changed by it. There's got to be something to this book.

As a Christian I believe that you don't have to be a scholar or theologian to be affected by the Bible's message. I've seen firsthand that the Word of God is "living and active...it penetrates even to diving soul and spirit" (Hebrews 4:12). Its message is powerful enough to invade any man's heart, and its truth can be known without the help of scholarship. But scholarship is still important, and the skeptic's objections to the Bible are valid, so let's briefly investigate the evidence for the historical reliability of scripture.

First let's take a look at the quantity and consistency of the biblical manuscript copies we have today:

We have over 5,600 Greek New Testament manuscripts, 10,000 Latin Vulgates (these are Latin translations of the Greek manuscripts) and at least 9,300 other manuscripts, totaling over 24,000 New Testament manuscripts! On top of that, Jews possess ancient Old Testament manuscripts called the Hebrew Massoretic texts that date back at least 1,000 years, and we have the Dead Sea Scrolls which contain portions of the Hebrew Old Testament and date back to the second century before Christ.

That's more source material than scholars have for any other work of antiquity! There are only 643 manuscripts for the work the Iliad, and only 49 manuscripts of Aristotle'sPoetics, and yet they are both considered authoritative and accurate texts among scholars. It only makes sense then, that scholars have evaluated the tens of thousands of biblical manuscripts and confirmed the historical authenticity (also called "historicity") of the Old and New Testaments we have today. In fact, we can use these manuscripts to reconstruct 97-99% of the New Testament we have today!

Usually at this point in a discussion about the historicity of the Bible someone brings up the hundreds of thousands of variants between biblical manuscripts. A variant is a difference in wording between texts, and anytime you have a lot of manuscripts there is an increase in variants. There are a lot of variants between biblical manuscripts, but they don't undermine the reliability of the Bible. Let me break down the different types of variants:

• 75% are spelling differences.
• The use of synonyms across manuscripts accounts for a large chunk of the variants (For example, using "Lord" and "He" interchangeably).
• Only about 1% of the variants actually affects the meaning of the text.

We can further examine the credibility of the Bible by looking at the proximity of its authors to the events they recorded. Most of the New Testament authors were eyewitnesses to the events they recorded, and all of the New Testament books were written within the first century after Jesus' death and resurrection. This means that other eyewitnesses of the New Testament accounts were around when the manuscripts began circulating, including hostile eyewitnesses who were enemies of Christianity. It would have been really risky for the New Testament authors to begin circulating lies and distortions with so many other eyewitnesses hanging around!

Not only were the Gospel writers held accountable by eyewitnesses, but they recorded events that cast themselves into a rather unfavorable light--sometimes these guys were a bunch of arrogant, immature, faithless fools! If the Gospel authors were just making up religious propaganda, you would expect them to depict themselves in a more complimentary way.

If you're interesting in finding out more about the historicity of scripture, you may want to investigate the ways in which outside sources like Josephus, Papias the bishop of Hierapolos, and Irenaeus, the student of John’s disciple Polycarp confirm the New Testament accounts.

I think further study will only increase your confidence in the reliability and autheticity of scripture. And as the Bible's reliability unfolds, you may want to consider if, perhaps, Jesus Christ is really who he claimed to be.

More on that later!

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I got my facts from Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter,both by Josh McDowell; and Facing the Muslim Challenge, by John Gilchrist.

Is Allah Enough?

The trinity is an impossible thing to explain. There is the egg analogy (shell, white, and yolk=three substances in one egg) and the water analogy (water, steam, ice= same substance) that take a stab at making the trinity easier to understand, but they miss the mark.

I have to admit, I've used these crude analogies in my Bible lessons to third graders before, but I usually qualify them, explaining that regardless of how hard we try, we can't wrap our minds around the trinity. Then I try to emphasize how marvelous it is that the depths of our God are so vast the human mind cannot search them, and although we cannot comprehend all of God's nature, we can know him and be assured of his great love for us. That's what makes Christianity different from any other religion.

Muslims believe in the one-dimensional god, Allah. They praise his self-sufficiency, and worship him for his love, compassion and mercy. They exalt Allah's oneness over the three-dimensional nature of the God of the Bible, claiming that Christians are guilty of shirk, the sin of worshipping more than one god.

Allah's one-dimensional nature is certainly easy to comprehend, but it's got one major problem: it makes it impossible for us to trust in his love.

Love, by its nature, must have an object. I love my sister, my mom loves my dad, my students love recess, my best friend loves to sing--love always has an object. Without something to love, there is no love. So, imagine Allah (or any one-dimensional god for that matter) before the creation of anything. He is alone in a great black void with no one and nothing to love. Can he have love?

Allah has two options at this point: he can love himself or he can create something to love. If he loves himself, his love is self-serving and counterfeit--imagine a world where everyone's love is self-serving like that! If he creates something to love, then his ability to love is contingent on his creation, diminishing his character and making his love no more enduring or trustworthy than a fickle human's love.

The trinity, on the other hand, perfectly explains God's love: love originates from and is fully expressed within the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--everlasting love flows from God's character.

This perfect love compelled God to put on skin and live among us in order to show us how to love: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" (1 John 3:16).

This perfect love drove God to give us a helper and life-guide through the Holy Spirit who indwells all Christians. "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:26).

The trinity is a daily reminder to me that God will continue to pursue humanity relentlessly because he loves us fiercely. His infinite grandeur didn't stop him from taking on bodily form so that he could live with us, and then die for us; his perfectly selfless love compels him to dwell within and equip all Christians with the riches of his glorious power through the Holy Spirit!