Adventure

None of us likes being bored. The usual remedy in our culture is entertainment. When I'm feeling bored my first inclination is to seek out some diverting input. Whether it is television, a movie or a video game, I want to be entertained. I've become so accustomed to living in the entertainment-boredom matrix that I have forgotten that there is an alternative to both, adventure. For the purposes of this article I am going to define adventure as non-mediated, exciting activity. Non-mediated means that video games, exciting as they are, are not adventure. Adventure is something that happens in real life.
When faced with this renewed alternative, I have to be honest, I don't really want it much of the time. In fact, at times I will go to great lengths to avoid the adventures presented to me in my life and flee to entertainment, even when that entertainment is so banal it is boring. The irony is not lost on me. So, I question myself. Why don't I want adventure? Why do I prefer even boring entertainment?
The first reason that comes to mind is risk. Because Adventure is something that happens in real life there is a significantly risk level involved. I could get hurt, physically, emotionally, relationally. I could hurt others. I can't get hurt in a video game or watching television. The trade off, of course is quality of life. Adventure adds significantly greater quality to my life than mere entertainment ever could.
Avoid it as I will, adventure is thrust upon me anyway. I've said many times that following Jesus is an adventure and I was more correct than I knew. Even if, like me, you tend to avoid the risks of adventure, God will not let you stay in that fearful place but will regularly put you in circumstances that challenge you to step out in faith. God wants me to trust him and if I am constantly avoiding risk I have no need of Him. It is only when I have something to lose that my profession of faith really means anything.

Commitment

To make a decision and stand by it is a difficult task. It is avoided by some in our society as if it was the Bubonic plague. Many of us fear commitment. We don't want to get involved in anything that we can't get out of. Perhaps it seems like freedom to be so devoid of commitments. Often what many people think of when speaking of commitment is a romantic relationship. Marriage specifically is particularly frightening because it is supposed to be a lifelong commitment. We vow to live our lives committed to our spouse until one of us is dead. In this country, most of us break that vow. I have made that vow to my wife and I fully intend to keep it. There is another lifelong commitment I have made and I made it so long ago I barely remember it.

Twenty eight years ago, at the tender age of four, I made a decision. I decided that I wanted to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Obviously, at that point, I didn't fully grasp what that decision meant but it has shaped my life ever since. I committed my life to the one true creator God and as I grew to understand what that entailed I was faced, at various stages, with the decision to affirm that initial choice in light of what I learned. I sit here today and I make that same decision. I will entrust the one life I have to live to God. If my life is to have any meaning or significance it will be because of His work in and through me. None of this is new in my mind, here is what is new.

Something occurred to me, just today, as I was reflecting on this commitment I continue to make and the precarious position in which I now find myself because of it. I realized that if there is no God, no power above and beyond this finite existence who intends to empower and use me, I am in huge trouble. That conclusion might seem to be an obvious one considering the statements made in the previous paragraph. However, the reason I would be in huge trouble if God does not exist is not because I have entrusted my life to Him. Rather, the reason I would be in huge trouble is because no matter what I entrusted my life to it would ultimately be meaningless in a world without God.

I'm tempted to expound but I will refrain for the sake of time and clarity as I am writing this at 5am. Instead I will leave it at that unless someone has any questions.

Movie Review #8: Inception

It has been almost two hours now since I saw the closing moments of Inception and I still haven't fully recovered. In anticipation of watching Christopher Nolan's latest film I began composing the beginning of this review based on the assumption that Inception would be a good film. I cannot write what I had planned because Inception is not a good film. It is as close to being a perfect film as I have seen in many years. In every way I can imagine, this film excelled. It was written with such depth, heart and intelligence that, even in the middle of watching it I knew I would need to re-watch it many times to fully absorb everything that was going on and, what is more, I knew that I would want to re-watch it many times. I cannot recommend highly enough that those who are of sufficient age and temperament who think they might be interested in seeing Inception go to their local theater and do exactly that. However, I'm going to offer a free piece of advice before you go.

Don't worry if you feel like you're missing a lot of the detail that is being thrown at you about the world that Nolan and company have created for us. It is a rich and complicated world. Allow the mystery of how it all works to remain a mystery for now and to serve as a backdrop for the fantastic stories that are being told against it. Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to think about it and, someday, to dissect it on DVD.

I won't go into detail about the story line or attempt to describe the ideas put forth in Inception. If you have seen a preview and are intrigued, that will be enough. If you haven't seen a preview either look one up or simply accept my recommendation and go see it. If you have seen a preview and aren't interested, um, frankly I'm surprised that you're reading this.

Inception was masterfully written, beautifully scored and edited to near perfection. The acting performances were outstanding and the overall direction was so outstanding that after seeing it I wondered allowed to those who were with me if there is a better director working today. With six fantastic efforts in a row, going back to the equally mind-boggling Memento, I can't think of any.

Patience

I have never been good at this. I want what I want when I want it. I'm not particularly unusual in that respect from most Americans but I can only really speak for myself and I am not patient. Granted I'm more patient now than I used to be but I'm still far from being what I would consider being legitimately defined as patient. I don't like to wait. I don't handle waiting particularly well. The problem is only increased when what I'm waiting for is critically important.

I've been waiting for a while now for God to direct me to some sort of gainful employment which I might participate in to support my family. Its hard to say for certain if I've grown more patient as a result of waiting or if I've merely resigned myself and given up caring as much. Suffice it to say, I'm becoming less anxious about it and, in that sense at least, I'm doing better. My hope, of course, is that I'm growing in patience and learning to trust that God will come through.

It is interesting to reflect on one's own character in light of trying to raise a child. I want to teach my daughter to be patient of course but in doing so I will be a hypocrite if I don't strive to be patient myself. I actually have to give her a lot of credit though because for being only 17 months old she does a remarkable job of waiting patiently when we ask her to. Sometimes I think she may actually be able to teach me to be patient. So, between learning from her and from the circumstances into which God has placed me for this season I hope to become better at waiting because God is wiser than I am and He knows that giving me what I want when I want it is not good for me. Therefore, I wait... patiently.

Redemption

I had a very interesting conversation this week where I was challenged to argue for the uniqueness of Jesus among, as he was described, other "enlightened beings". The wonderful gentleman with whom I had this delightful conversation believed, as many do nowadays, that all roads can lead to God. Whether you follow Buddha or Muhammad or Jesus, they all teach the same thing, he claimed. I tried to explain that while much of the moral code you would get from following any of these teachers is similar, the message Jesus teaches is unique. It has been said that all religions teach some form of karma. They teach that in the end, good and evil will be weighed and we will be rewarded for good and punished for evil. Even Christianity teaches this as the ultimate reality when it becomes institutionalized as a religion. What Jesus offers, however, is vastly different. The Bible fully affirms the truth of justice and that it is an attribute of God. God is holy and His standard for His creation is perfect holiness. Falling short of that standard is what the Bible calls "sin" and it is infinitely bad, no matter how seemingly small, because it is a transgression against an infinitely perfect God. As such, any and all sin is punishable by death. That is the standard of justice affirmed in the Bible. It is, in a sense, a system of credits and debits like all other religions but with a significant difference. Any debt is beyond repayment apart from the penalty of death.

That's where Jesus comes in. That justice is the bad news. The good news is that God, while upholding his justice, did not demand the payment for sin immediately but was patient with us. In His time He made the payment for us and offers us that redemption. Some, like my friend, object to the idea that Jesus is the only way to God, especially when so many others offer a way to God. That is where an important distinction has to be made between us finding a way to God and, uniquely in Jesus' case, God coming to us. The issue is clouded by the two millennia of history between when He came and the present time. Much has gone on, in His name, that does not represent the gospel He offers. If the standard, however, is what is written in the Bible and not what the religion of Christianity has done, the gospel becomes clearer.

What I came to realize during my conversation and afterward is that Jesus' uniqueness is found in the message of grace. He did what we could not do so that we could have a relationship with Him that we were otherwise incapable of having. To many that offer is unappealing. God is not someone they are particularly interested in having a relationship with. I suspect that is because they don't know who He really is. To others, the exclusivity inherent in the uniqueness of Jesus is just something they cannot accept. For those people, the problem is that so many people are born into cultures that have their own way of getting to God and, for that reason, will not accept Jesus. I think they are in good company. Jesus seemed to have a problem with that too. That's why He told His followers to go tell everyone about Him. He didn't come to found a religion that would teach people one of many ways to God. He is God come to us, all of us. He came to redeem. He came to take what is evil, painful and wrong about this world and make something good out of it.

Movie Review #7: Iron Man 2

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what to say about Iron Man 2. The directing was good. The acting was good. The story was good. I guess it was just good. Compared to its predecessor, it is inferior. Compared to the average action movie, it is superior. I suppose I would have preferred, as usual, a little of the time spent on extended action sequences channeled instead into character development. Scarlett Johansson's character, in particular could have used a bit more developing and not just because she was, how shall we say, easy on the eyes. In addition I would say that there was a great deal about the film that was predictable yet, somehow, not unpleasant or disappointing.

In his second outing on film, Tony Stark is facing new challenges. He is juggling new health challenges, antagonistic senatorial committees and a rival arms manufacturer played a little too perfectly by Sam Rockwell. Everything seems to be going Tony's way until a rogue Russian physicist decides to enact vengeance on him on a racetrack of all places. The path to sorting all these problems out takes Tony through Nick Fury's S.H.E.I.L.D. agency as well as his own family history.

This is usually the part where I expound on some insight for life that I gleaned from what the filmmaker was trying to say. I'm not sure if there was much in Iron Man 2 to take away that fits the bill. I suppose I'll have to settle for the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and look forward to putting the DVD on my shelf next to the first one.

Oh, and wait in the theater until after the credits.

Surrender

It occurred to me today to ask myself this question. What is there in this life that God does not want us to surrender to Him? For those of us familiar with what the Bible says, this is a no-brainer. Or is it? I mean, yeah, according to Luke 14:26 even our closest family, even our own lives are supposed to be subordinated to God if we want to be disciples of Jesus but how many of us have even begun to grasp what that means, much less put it into effect? There are many of us, especially in America, where we love our rights, who have boundaries in our lives beyond which we do not want God to go. Yes, God instituted marriage and loves families but does that mean that I ought to cling to my family such that I do not trust God with them? I have heard far too many stories of Christians walking away from God because they lost a child or their spouse left them.

The word used in Luke to describe what our attitude toward our family ought to be is "hate". Taken at face value, this sounds like God wants us to hate the people closest to us and that certainly doesn't seem right. Of course, the idea is that compared to my love for Him it ought to be as if I hate my family. In reality I will love them better than I could otherwise because, as His disciple, I will be learning what true sacrificial love actually is and I'll be called to put it into practice with my family. I'll also have His limitless resources to draw from instead of just my very finite resources.

As difficult as it is to imagine the kind of scenario Jesus calls us to, where we love him so much its as if we hate the people we love most, I personally think the last clause in His statement is even more difficult to swallow. According to Jesus, I ought to love Him so much it is as if I hate even myself. Elsewhere He says that anyone who wants to save his life must lose it for His sake. The Bible even says that I am not my own but am bought with a price. If I am a follower of Jesus, the Bible says, I died with Christ and my life is now His. My life is not my own. Before God, I do not have rights, even to my own life and identity. I know how this idea can grate on us, especially in the Western world. We love being self-made, self-defined and self-sufficient. That is the goal we strive for and the beginning of our worldview. The Bible, on the other hand, paints a much different picture. According to the worldview presented there, I am God-made, God-defined and His grace is sufficient. This can be a bitter pill to swallow. So, most of us don't.

There is a posture that God has been teaching me over the last couple years. It is a picture of how He wants me to relate to Him and this life. Hold out your hands, face up. Imagine all the things, people, dreams, ambitions and circumstances in your life resting in your hands. Now close your hands around them. That is how we live our lives, grasping onto all the things God has blessed us with. Now, open your hands again. Those things are still there, you still hold them but in a posture of surrender. God is free to take what He wishes and, just as importantly, to add anything that is lacking. This posture requires trust. Trust in action is Faith. When we claim to have faith but grasp, we are fooling ourselves. God is trustworthy. Let's open our hands to Him. If what the Bible says is true, we will be overwhelmed by how good He is.