maybeiamthecrazy

This Blog Contains a Lot of Cursing

2012-01-10T00:25:00.000-05:00

(So I was watching a vlog at matthewlucio.com about whether or not God unfairly cursed Eve over Adam after they sinned, and about half way through a light bulb exploded in my head. Shrapnel everywhere. Any similarities between this blog and that vlog are entirely uncoincidental. I blame him... and the Holy Spirit.)

Thecurses that God speaks of after Adam and Eve fall are fascinating to me. I think Lucio explained them well. John Eldredge has also been very influentialin my understanding of that whole scene in Genesis 3. My sister, Beth-Anne, has also given me someinsight, especially regarding how the curse effects Eve. This scene is key to human history, whichmeans it is key to the God-human relationship. And something new (at least to me) hit me about that tonight.

Thereis a lot of cursing in the Bible. “Cursedis anyone who makes an idol. … Cursed is anyone who dishonors their father ormother. … Cursed is anyone who leads the blind astray on the road. …Cursed isanyone who withholds justice from a foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.” Cursed… cursed… cursed.

Back toGenesis and the first curse. Greatly simplified:everything that would have been painless and pleasurable has now, because ofsin, become full of pain. And so Godlays out the consequences of our disconnection from Him. We cut ourselves off from life and deathfollowed. The curse.

So thisis when it hit me. See, lately I’ve beentrying to read/hear/see everything through one filter: God is love. If God truly is love, then everything (and Imean everything!) He does is part ofthat love. So as I was listening toLucio, I was trying to figure out where the love was in the curses. To be sure, we brought it on ourselves andfully deserved our suffering. Andnormally that would be fair enough. Butlove, true love, is bigger than simple cause-and-effect justice. And at first glance, the pronouncement of thecurse(s) seems pretty dim. And so I wondered: where is the love in the curses?

This verseflashed into my mind: “Christredeemed us from the curse of the law by becominga curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Jesus became the curse. He took the curse fully upon Himself.

To me, this was an expansion beyond my typicalunderstanding of Jesus dying for my sins and the sins of the whole world. The idea that He became the curse for usimplies that He died, not just with all our sins on Him, but with all the painand anguish that came with them… and not only that, but all the suffering weexperience (that all humans everywhere have ever experienced) as a naturalresult of our disconnection from God. Thelabor pains and unfulfilled desires, the thorns and painful toil. All of it, every anguish that came as aresult of the first sin, it all rested upon Jesus from Gethsemane toGolgatha. The curse given in Eden, andevery curse since then, weighed upon His soul.

Furthermore,check this out. Back in Genesis, the curse is bracketed by two importantstatements:

Prefacingthe curse upon the humans is the curse upon the serpent, which concludes withthe promise of a redeemer: “He will crush your head, and you will strike hisheel.”
Andfollowing the curse is the first living (dying?) metaphor: “The LORD God made garmentsof skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” The first animal is sacrificedby God himself… Jesus gives us the first picture of Himself as redeemer.

Thecurse is sandwiched between promises that the curse will one day be undone! Infact, in a way, the curse itself is also a promise of a redeemer to undo thecurse!

Whenall of this converged (and exploded) in my mind, it entirely changed the way Isee the pronouncement of the curses to Adam and Eve (not to mention all therest of the curses and punishments pronounced by God throughout the rest of theScripture). Every curse that Jesusdescribes to them is a curse that Hewill one day take upon Himself. Everypain that He pronounces is a pain that Hewill suffer in order to rescue us from ourselves. More than passing a sentence upon them/us, He ispassing a sentence upon Himself. This isthe price He is promising to pay to redeem us.

Thepronouncement of the curses is not God saying “This is how much you’ve disappointed Me and this is how you’ll pay for your sin” but rather, “This is how much I love you. This is how I am going to pay for your sin. Thisis how far I am willing to go tobring you back to Me.”

On The Nature of Desire, Patience, and Waiting

2011-11-14T00:16:00.001-05:00

[Ironically, a much delayed and still unfinished blog]

---------------------------------------------------

The thunderclap of wood against wood still resounds in my ears.
The ark door slammed shut with finality… the moment of vindication!

But all around, smug laughter;
And all above, empty skies.

---------------------------------------------------

“In a moment what has been is lost in what will be.”
(Steven Curtis Chapman, When Love Takes You In)

“Christ if you're ready to come back
I think I'm ready for you to come back
but if you want to stay
wherever exactly it is you are,
that's okay, too,
it's really none of my business.”
(mewithoutYou, Carousels)

“When you're waitin' for love,
if you don't mind believing that it changes everything,
time will never matter.”
(Jars of Clay, Sunny Days)

---------------------------------------------------

I. Empty Skies

When you’re waiting for something to happen, the most important thing in the world is time. “How long?” is the most important question. Or so it seems.

And it is a valid question, asked dozens of times in the Scriptures (especially in the Psalms). But what is interesting to note is that there are only a couple times when God actually answers this question with anything specific. Usually, as far as we know, the question goes unanswered. It would seem that time is not on the top of God’s list of priorities.

Yet as humans, it seems like it’s all we can think about. Case in point: Harold Camping. He predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011, and when that failed to occur, he revised his prediction to October 21, 2011. Yet the skies remain empty. Camping is just one in a long list of people whose predictions about the timing of Christ’s return have failed. As a Seventh-day Adventist, a failed prediction is in my denominational history as well.

What amazes me the most about all the predictions about the Second Coming is the fact that Jesus Himself said that no one knows the day or the hour when He will return (Matthew 24:36). Our desire to know when is so powerful that we make predictions even in the face of such an obvious statement regarding our inability to make predictions!

Even when we aren’t making predictions, many of us seem obsessed with figuring out at least approximately how much time is left until the Second Coming or the Latter Rain or whatever it is. I don’t want to say that the when of these issues is entirely unimportant, but I’ve been wondering lately if we’re missing the point by putting our emphasis on when.

Going back to Matthew 24, the disciples ask the when question, and while Jesus doesn’t leave them completely in the dark, His primary emphasis is to “keep watch.” Stay alert. Be on the lookout. Be prepared. So how long do you wait until you start preparing? None at all. We start now. Which really means that whether Jesus comes in two weeks or two centuries, our “task” is the same: to continually get to know Jesus more. Everything else flows out of that.

II. Empty Gifts

So what about other types of waiting? Maybe you’re waiting for the perfect job, or to get married, or have children, or some other dream. Perhaps you’re even like me and believe that God has made you certain promises regarding some of your dreams. And so you’ve been waiting… and waiting… and waiting.

In my own experiences, I’ve even believed that God has made certain time prophecies regarding things He planned to accomplish in my life. Many of these predictions have come and gone, making me feel very much like William Miller or Harold Camping. I keep adjusting my expectations, trying to figure out what when wrong and when these things will really take place.

Maybe I’ve been missing the point. Oh, I’m sure that God has a timeline for me (though perhaps more flexible than I originally thought) and I even believe He has given me insight into timing (though I seem to be too dense to really get it), but I think I’ve been so focused on the when that I’ve been missing the point. Perhaps, by focusing on the when, I’ve even delayed the fulfillment of these promises.

God wants to give us good things. Great and amazing things. And an abundance of them. But He also knows that the greatest gift is Himself. Himself alone and Himself in His gifts… but never His gifts apart from Himself. This isn’t because He is selfish, but because He knows that His gifts apart from Himself are not only ultimately empty, but can also become curses which destroy our lives.

And when we focus only on the when of His promises and gifts, we prove that we care more about the gifts apart from the Giver. The Giver of all good things is here now.* Let us look forward with great anticipation to His gifts, but let us also bask in the glory of the Gift Himself through the entire journey.

III. Empty Stomachs

In Revelation 6, we find the final desperate voicing of the question “How long?” and while we once again don’t get a specific answer, we’re told to “wait a little longer.” Perhaps this is all we need. Perhaps it is enough to know that there is an answer, even if we can’t hear it, and that there will come a day when all is fulfilled, even if we can’t see it from here.

And when it does come, it will be so amazing that the years we’ve spent waiting will seem but a small price to pay for such joy.

Or so I’ve heard. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to really understand. Sometimes I doubt that all that’s been destroyed, lost, and wasted can be worth the wait… or that there will even be anything at all to look forward to after such devastation.

But then Jesus gives me something like this: “I will restore the years the swarming locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25) and I cling to hope that hope… The hope that somehow the fulfillment is so grand that it swallows up everything that came before it. The hope that love truly does change everything. The hope that the emptiness only exists so it can be filled, and that when it is, we won’t regret all the time we’ve spent longing for fulfillment, but rather recognize that the hunger itself has led us to this moment of immeasurable pleasure.

---------------------------------------------------

*Now let me contradict myself slightly for a moment here. Christ’s presence with us now is not the same as His presence will be when He returns… otherwise, what’s the point of Him returning? Apparently, His actual presence with us changes everything… “But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Mount Constellation

2011-06-10T22:58:00.001-04:00

On a mountaintop in Virginia,
I recline under the open sky, watching
the stars emerge, slowly,
one by one, each making its appearance
with significance, with meaning,
gradually filling the sky
with order and disarray –
patterns both familiar and foreign.

I love the way they unfold
with such patience and grace,
revealing plans as indiscernible
as they are clear.

And I wonder why
I am not as patient
with my own life.

As My Lungs Burn (11:11)

2011-02-21T09:57:00.004-05:00

Inhale

2010-08-01T09:20:00.001-04:00

This is where we live most of our lives. This is where I am now, holding my breath. Waiting. In between the dream and the dream come true. But the question is this: am I truly willing to wait without trying to control my life as I see fit?

Waiting is always the hardest start. This is a treacherous land. Thousands have laid their bones to rest in this valley. And I must admit, part of me feels comforted by the thought of sleeping with skeletons.

But a voice, a whisper – maybe just the wind, or maybe the Creator of the wind – bids me to steady my stance, to still my shaking legs and hold my ground. Because to move forward unbidden is the same as to lay down and die. This is not my home, but the time to leave has not yet come. Soon, but not yet.

And in the moments ahead, everything will change.

For the past few years, I’ve been maxing out at about seventy percent. But most of the time I’ve been living at about half of the potential I know is buried somewhere deep inside myself. Add to this a series of unavoidable casualties and irreversible setbacks – wounds given and received – and the weight of immobility begins to sink in. I wonder: could I leave even if I wanted to?

But I’ve sensed a shift in the wind. Subtle. Nearly imperceptible, yet inescapably real. Could it be true? Could He be coming to free me from this weight?

And then, at other times, I’m certain that nothing is different, that the days ahead hold only more of the same. That I truly am stuck.

Everything hangs on this moment. Everything depends on what happens next.

I’m holding my breath in anticipation. Without a doubt, despite my doubts, rescue is coming. I may not see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, or feel it, but it is coming. And when the coming months have taken their toll, I know I will not be the only one to stand in awe before the marvelous workings of the Redeemer – the Author and Finisher. This is as much an invitation as a declaration. Hope for it. Believe it. Expect it.

As for me, I am done arranging my life. I lift up my hands in surrender. Change is coming, not through my inaction, but in ways that my actions alone could never bring about. When these shadows and scars are behind me, all the glory will be Yours. Your mighty arm alone is able to save. You alone will have done this.

So this is me, waiting to exhale.

In Which I Can’t Decide Which Metaphor To Use, So I Use Both And Find That Neither Satisfies

2010-05-03T09:48:00.001-04:00

I.
Been face to face
with this brick wall for
daysmonthsyears, growing
weary, dizzy staring at the pattern
of defeat, dead ends.

But now the wall is tumbling,
each brick falling, forming paths
away from this place.

Endless options, but
now I’m not sure I want to leave.

II.
Immobilized by mobilization,
I find that more of my roots have taken hold
than I could have ever imagined.

Yet still I rise, despite the tearing
tendrils, despite the protest
of bark twisting, cracking, snapping –
shrapnel, or souvenirs
for those who are to follow.

I pull and the earth pulls back.

Entertainment Fast, Day 28

2010-01-06T22:00:00.005-05:00

The past week or two have been pretty good. I've had a lot of good distractions - family, holidays, basset hounds, GYC. I wonder what is going to happen though when I go back to my normal routine of nothingness. It is then, when all the hours of the day are stretched out before me, that I think it won't hurt to spend a little time on the Internet or playing a game... and if I was really able to limit myself, there wouldn't be any harm. But before I realize what has happened, half the day has slipped away and I feel lethargic.

I would like some purpose in my life. A reason to wake up in the morning. And I'm not talking about an overarching purpose like the Great Commission or anything like that... I'm talking about something specific and practical. Like a job. Yeah, that'd be nice... except that I'd most likely despise 99% of the jobs I'm currently qualified for. Though I think it'd be good for a while because then I'd have some good poetry material. But now I'm getting off topic.

So I guess I'm supposed to tell you something I've learned from my fasting. Hmm. 1. The power of boredom and amusement are great. 2. The freedom you feel when you say no once in a while is even greater.

---------------------------

In other news:

"I sold my passion for a dime unto a thousand hungry eyes." And it sounds like a reminder of all the words I've written about success and faithfulness. So evasive when you need it most. She moves like the wind. "The slow climb, slow steady burn." I strain against pillars, but my enemies aren't the only ones I keep at arm's length. Still, the claws run down my back. "I've got the coldest heart." Somebody sure knows he's on TV. Footprints on clouds, but the witnesses hold me up. I am convicted despite disapproval. You want to trade a red apple for a green one. I wonder about oranges. "It's the arching of a life, and it's hanging in the air." There is one thing we all need... one thing we don't deserve... one thing we are offered: mercy, mercy, mercy.

Entertianment Fast, Day 7

2009-12-16T20:23:00.005-05:00

So I cheated a few times this week with the Internet, and while I shouldn't have, at least I was very focused and didn't end up wasted a lot of time.

Fasting from TV, movies, and games wasn't so bad. There were a few times when I was bored and watched to watch something, but I ended up reading or writing instead. And that was cool because I've made a lot of progress on the two books I'm currently writing, plus I read a couple books I've been wanting to read for a while.

The interesting thing about this all, at least in relation to the Internet, is how "out of the loop" I felt. Like there was this mild panicky feeling that I was missing out on the comings and goings of the social world online.

Of course, I wasn't. All the Facebook updates and emails between Wed and Sun, and between Sun and now were still there for me to read when I got online. No big deal.

I'm not saying it isn't difficult at times, but I think it is good, and I think as the weeks go it will get better. I should have done this a long time ago, even felt impressed to do it over five months ago, but I kept putting it off. It just seemed too improbable: there were TV shows I wanted to watch, fantasy football stats I had to keep track of, books to promote, and...... I feel like there were a lot more reasons, but I can't think of anything substantial anymore, lol.

I felt like doing this would make me feel restricted, but in actuality I feel more freedom to do what I actually want. I don't wake up in the morning and instantly get sucked into the black hole that is my computer. I have time to just sit and think and read or write. And I don't get stuck watching TV or playing games endlessly. I feel like I have more focus.

So now I'm just trying to figure out what I'm going to do once this fast is over. I don't think I want to keep such tight restrictions, but like I mentioned, I do enjoy the freedom I feel. I need to work out some kind of balance. Maybe it will come naturally as I break away from bad habits.

Sorry this is kind of random and scattered. I'll write more later next week perhaps.

The Internet is Killing Me

2009-12-09T19:45:00.002-05:00

The Internet is killing me. Or, more accurately, I’m killing myself with the Internet. And movies, TV shows, video games… basically anything I can find to distract me.

This brings me to a very difficult place. Because as much trash as there is on any of the above, I have been uplifted and inspired by each of them at times. Not to mention the appropriateness of just zoning out sometimes.

But even good things can become bad if they get in the way of better things. Not bad in of themselves, but bad in certain contexts. For example, I am apparently unable to regulate my free time in a healthy way. Instead of using and enjoying these mediums, they end up controlling me and sucking up all my free time. I don’t mind giving them their rightful place, but they have encroached upon other territory and have prevented me from doing what I actually want to do.

Of course, I speak as if “they” were doing anything at all, but actually it’s just my inability to prioritize.

Thus, I declare a fast. Until January 18, 2010. Forty days of fasting… or at least rationing. I’m not exactly sure how this is going to go, but for starters:

My fasting applies only to my own free time, but not necessarily to social time. So if you want to go to a movie with me, that’s cool. But I’m not going to sit down and watch a movie by myself just to be distracted or pass the time or whatever.

Which brings me to actual guidelines for my free time:

No TV shows, movies, or video games.
Internet is limited to 1 hour a week (30 min on Wed. and 30 min on Sunday).

I think I will not restrict music or books. Though these do have the same potential as the others, I haven’t noticed a problem with these. But I’ll keep an eye on them to see if they creep in.

At the end of forty days, I can reevaluate myself and do whatever seems appropriate. Perhaps I will be able to overcome my lameness.

I feel strange tell you all this, because it seems like quite a personal matter. But I feel that I will be more accountable if I write about this experiment on here. I’ll try to post something every week or two for those of you who are curious.

Why do we use music to praise God?

2009-10-13T08:20:00.005-04:00

So I've been thinking lately about how music is such a central part of how we praise God. Then I started wondering... why? Why did God give us music to praise Him?

Is it for God’s sake that we have music?

I mean, is more meaningful to Him than just saying the words of praise? If what really matters to God is what is in our hearts, then it means the same whether we sing it or paint it or write it or simply say it.

But maybe God receives aesthetic enjoyment from our songs. I guess this could be true, especially since Jesus is human, but still I imagine that the aesthetic value must be relatively small compared to the glory of heavenly music. I don’t picture God saying, “Let’s give music to the humans because I’m getting tired of all this angelic singing.”

Of course, then you might counter that it isn’t what our music sounds like that makes it beautiful to God, but what we’re trying to say to Him and what is in our hearts, right? Which brings us back to the idea that simple words of praise are just as beautiful and meaningful to God as songs.

Now, maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems to me that if God didn’t give us music for His own enjoyment and benefit, then there is only one option left… and just think of the profound implications of that!

By All Accounts, I Should Be A Disaster

2009-10-12T22:13:00.003-04:00

From birth, I was destined to be destructive. Before I took my first breath, my cells were coming together, laying out my destiny ahead of me. As a baby boy, little did I know that four out of five crimes are committed by males. Little did I know that my parents would get divorced, doubling the likelihood that I’d someday commit a violent crime. All these statistics weighed heavily on me before I could even stand up and walk.

And as I grew, I made choices of my own, placing myself into more categories, into more statistical groups. I played the violent video games that are supposed to make people more aggressive. I rocked out to the angry music that is supposed to inspire me to take harmful, rebellious action against society. I watched the violent movies that are supposed to desensitize me to brutality.

In addition to that, I have the means. I own a number of weapons – guns, swords, daggers, axes, and so on. I am somewhat of a recluse. I like wearing black. I have vague anti-establishment leanings. Etc.

By all accounts, I fit the profile of killers like those at Columbine or Virginia Tech.

And yet, here I am sitting in my room – not locked in a prison or laying in a grave – typing up these musings. And, believe it or not, despite all the evidence, I have no desire to go shoot anyone, at a school or otherwise. In fact, I have no desire to harm anyone by any means.

Alas, my dear statistics, I have failed you.