Jesus and me: to live for the King (3)

Some people assume, out of ignorance or prejudice, that Christian commit themselves to Christ being somehow swept away by a highly, singularly emotional experience, or that they simply act on impulse or on the overpowering force of parental influence.


In other words, these people seem unable to ascribe a conversion to the ongoing, time-consuming process of actually seeking a higher truth, and that the mind - as much as the heart - is massively involved in it. So, instead of making a leap of blind faith when evidence is pointing to an opposite conclusion, a person may well come to Christ after carefully considering the astounding claims Jesus made about himself, at length arriving at the conviction that he is God.


FOR MORE REASONS THAN ONE


In  most cases, perhaps, the reasons people choose to follow Christ are varied, complex and even highly personal. But, as in my case, more often than not, we make the ultimate decision having spent months and years brooding things over, exploring and researching other possible ideas and philosophies before coming full circle to the faith of our ancestors.


From as far back as I can recall I was fascinated by the possibilities of extra terrestrial and ancient, extinct life forms. Dinosaurs, UFOs and galaxies were the staples of my mental diet. In my vivid imagination, which I would habitually feed an installment of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos", or "Star Trek", "Moon base Alpha" or whatever was on the TV set at the time, I would travel back to the plains where T-Rexes swarmed, and I would travel in tandem with my TV heroes to the remotest corners of the Universe. But even if Sagan as his naturalistic cronies would vigorously and with unflagging determination fight the concept of theistic evolution or creation for that matter, very early on in  my life signs showed up indicating that the damage seemed to have been done already.


THE 'ALIEN' GERM


The germ that would contaminate my entire being had been sown years previously, chiefly by my maternal grandmother and grandfather. They were the ones who at intervals would bring me to church, they were the ones who would be sitting in their sofa in the afternoons reading portions of Scripture, me being the silent bystander. Funnily enough, at no point did they intrude into the process of my own quest for truth, attempting to bring me to a confession of faith in Jesus. Behind the scenes, as it were, they would interminably interceed on my behalf, that I somehow arrive at the desired conclusion on my own accord.


All these formative years, I never doubted the tenets of evolution. I loved speculating what life must have been like in pre-Cambrian times, and I relished in the images concocted by skilled artists depicting  my then still developing human forebears chasing game, exchanging snorts and grunts for want of a fully developed language system. All that, and much more, I believed and clung to as a prized possession. Because, after all, how could scientists lie to me? I believed them as staunchingly and fervently as I believed in the assurances given to me by my mother that I would get a new pair of jeans once summer was through. Because I eventually got my pair of jeans, see?


FAITH - BECAUSE OF REASON


So, how could the germ of faith survive in such a hostile intellectual invironment? I never prayed for God to show up, although I was so hungry inside for something more than the cold, impersonal Cosmos where nothing dwelt except dust, and billions of infinitesmall creatures called humans, a rather attractive byproduct of an haphazard chain of events called steps of evolution. Well, perhaps, that's precisely what swayed me, finally, in the direction of embracing a will higher than my own. I wanted - more than anything else - to come across the satisfaction of knowing that which would add meaning to my life. Because being here by chance, a dismal existence with no direction or purpose, didn't quite appeal to me. Certainly, there must be more, mr. Sagan?


Rationally, the concept of a superior Intellect behind the Universe seemed reasonable enough. Consequently, once a girl of my age came along catching my attention, the scene was set for a transfer from one reality to a far greater one.


More on that soon.

Love come down

In 1990 a then still very young Jon Gibson released one of his most successful albums to date. Gibson, a one-time mainstream music star-to-be, now spent his time writing music with a markedly spiritual influence. This time around, as always, really, the San Francisco-born American had one thing on his mind: the absolute need for believers to start exhibiting some real, no-nonsense love in a world that is many time either loveless or filled with people who haven't known the love of Christ through one of his 'hands' and 'feet'. Our call is to love, Gibson contends, and love in such a way as to truly be seen in the act. It's got to come down on street level. Nothing else will do.

Prayer for the new year

Dear Lord,

2012 has dawned upon us, and the world is still very much in need of You.

Right now Europe and the rest of the world is in a deep crisis, Jesus, and as you know politicians and heads of state are rightly worried over what will happen e.g. to the member states of what is known as the EU. Human error and hubris has brought on them a dire financial situation - although problems seem to be unevenly distributed across the continents. Citizens of some of the countries have apparently been acting more in line with your moral precepts and thus avoided the trouble the Greeks have brought upon themselves, but since I am not an expert in the field of economics, I cannot know, Lord whether Germans e.g. will soon find themselves equally beset by unemployment and general discontent.

Whatever the causes of the present situation may be, I pray that those who are working towards solutions - policies and other measures that will resolve the crisis - may be granted success, so that pent-up anger and frustration will not spill over into the streets, and that we may avoid scenes like those we witnessed on the streets of France some years ago where scores of youth vented their volcanic ire by burning cars, looting shops and causing pain and fear to dominate.

Lord, may Your people in Europe and the world be granted grace to set examples that will attract the attention of outsiders. May they lead their lives, facing their crises trusting You, so that eventually the distraught and the alienated will experience a resurgence of hope. May your good news be shared in homes, on the streets and in the workplaces in ways that don't diminish its demands on its listeners, or compromise the provocative power of your cross. You didn't lay down your life, Lord, to merely gain a fanclub. You died in order for new creations, people made new on the inside, to follow your examples as apprentices of your heavenly trade.

Dear Lord. In the midst of all the present turmoil and upheavals that we observe across our globe, may we over and over again discover just who we are in You, and may our eyes be made to see the true magnitude of the resources available for us in You. It's so easy to lose courage, abandoning our youthful passions and vision that energized us. It's easy to grow old in our faith, Lord, so that our prayers become stale and cold, producing nothing but empty echoes around us. Help us regain what we lost whenever we felt to weak to fight, and simply gave in because we were tricked into believing that our enemy was too overpowering for there to be any point in resisting.

Jesus, dear Jesus. May I and those I love embrace your initiatives for us in 2012. May we, with eyes wide open, be made to realize what exactly your perfect will is, and ignite in us the passion to follow you to places, and in ways, we've never experienced before. We feel old mindsets and the urge for comfort closing in on us whenever the pull for the new is expanding inside. Help us, want to break free from past triumphs and defeats. Nostalgia won't stand us in good stead this, or at any other, time. We need the new, and thus we need You.


Lord, help us fall desperately in love with You. For it's love that will take us to wherever and whatever we're destined for. We welcome new learning and fresh insights, but above anything else we need Your love to replenish and bolster our own. Without You we can do nothing at all. And there's no knowing, yet, of what can be accomplished if You perform Your majestic works in and through us.

Lord, You're a caged Lion in us waiting to be released. Be released - and stay unfettered and free. May we thus be audacious and persistent in reclaiming and retrieving each nation that You bought with Your own sacrifice all those many years ago.


Amen.

Consider this

I haven't watched it through to the end yet, but this video poses some very interesting thoughts and reflections on some of the problems involved in attempting to explain the existence of our universe in terms of a
chance explosion - from nothing. Seems there are problems with the Big Bang.

When will it be enough?

This December saw me waiting indefinitely for the fluffy, playful snowflakes that usually decorate our surroundings this time of year. But instead we have seen strings of turbulent low pressure fronts producing nothing but storms; violent winds and staggering amounts of downpour.

For more than a week now our coastline and its immediate interior has been battered by at times hurricane force winds only interspersed by shortlived spates of lull. The various live  news reports have brought us harrowing images of houses blown to smithereens, or deep gashes in the sloping hillsides where landslides have cut broad paths across fields and orchards. Yesterday, a 66-year old woman was interviewed outside what remained of her home of more than six decades, tearfully explaining why she couldn't contemplate living there anymore. Nothing remained standing of her house. Everything had been shattered to pieces, and in the pile of debris that now remained, the former occupant was frantically looking for a treasured heirloom: earthenware that she had once served hot meals on. But the long hours she spent looking provided nothing in terms of retrieved, intact personal belongings.

2011: blow upon blow across our earth

We're not as a nation alone in having been hit by the apparent whims of nature. This year's earthquake in Japan and the subsequent tsunami washing away entire communities, the deathly drought in the eastern regions of Africa and the needless loss of lives in its wake, the torturing floods of Bangladesh and Pakistan inundating entire cities and ruining vital crops - are all shocking reminders that life is terribly fragile at times. But even worse is the fact that these disasters seem to strike randomly, particularly hitting those who are the least likely to recover financially or mentally from the traumas they have to endure agian and again.

I sometimes wonder why I am spared from having to undergo such full-scale upheavals of my status quo of comfort and predictability. Nothing much has ever happened that can in any way rightfully be compared to what this 66-year old woman now has to envisage: the raw pain that most likely will dog her every effort to rebuild her life in a new location, with many of the physical ties to her past severed by loss of belongings. Losing plates and saucers are perhaps a matter of mere trifles in the bigger scheme of things, but when thes losses - as in this case- are so final and so comprehensive, they may even prove to be too much to bear.

Will it ever happen to me?

I may find myself in this woman's shoes some day. I cannot know in advance whether similar blows will come my way. If they do, then I certainly hope that I'll remember - whilst crying through the prolonged protests of deprivation - that whatever I lose here on earth will be restored or replaced in the second phase of my eternal walk. I do hope that the victims now emotionally numbed by this weeks extreme weather will hold on to the same idea. Scant comfort, perhaps, but comfort all the same.

The star of Bethlehem

 Even the stars testified to the actual birth of Christ. Follow mr. Larson's explanations and musings on this documentary.

Remembering 1989

Almost a week ago today the enigmatic and isolated state of North Korea lost its so-called Dear Leader. Kim Jong-il, aged 69, apparently suffered a stroke on board his custom-built train, and less than 48 hours later the world knew that yet another despot had gone for good.

The scenes of mass hysteria and the inconceivable, syncronised outpourings of grief evinced on the streets of Pyonyang truly baffled me. But then again I remembered having read somewhere that the citizens of the nation's capital constitute the die-hard faithfuls, the privileged few who truly stand to lose everything if the present regime were to collapse. So perhaps the tears weren't shed because of heart-felt devotion to their demi-god of 17 years; as much as because of the realisation that their source of financial security and relative prosperity was gone. What now?

Experts and pundits seem to be in overwhelming agreement that the quiet revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989 will not be repeated inside North Korea in the foreseeable future. Due to cultural factors, such as intense deference for and devotion to their senior citizens and leaders - the wisdom of the grey-haired, the Northerners on the divided peninsula will most likely bow their necks to their tyrant overlords, and quietly accept their fates.

They know very little of the outside world, but, certainly, they must know that they aren't truly free?

REMEBERING RUMANIA

In 1989, I remember watching on our television set in utter disbelief the rag-tag revolutionary comittee of Rumania announcing the success of their attempt for seize power from one Kim Jong-ils soulmates, Nicolae Caecescu. No one saw it coming, no one expected such a dramatic development inside a country that, similar to North Korea, seemed to be forever incarcerated within the concrete walls of heavy-handed communism. We had learned of the cries of protest and the single acts of defiance on the part of a bold priest in the western part of the country, one Laszlo Tokes, but resistance had been quelched before with brutal finality. We knew that. We had learned it in school:

Hungary 1956; Czechoslovakia 1968 - both sombre reminders of the willingness on part of the Comrades in power to squash any attempt from ordinary citizens to break free from the overwhelming burdens of uniformity. They all more or less longed to break free in Poland, Hungary and East Germany, and breathe freely. Their proletariat paradises had gone bust, fully insolvent as to all forms of capital reserves, except for the spiritual and moral ones. But what we didn't know was to what lengths they - the ordinary citizens - were willing to go in order to achieve their freedom. The dictators of eastern Europe were rightly fearful of what their subjects might do.

WILL IT EVER HAPPEN IN NORTH KOREA?

But what about North Korea, this tottering giant in arms, this defiant loudmouth of nations threatening death and havoc on their neighbour across the 38th parallell?  I don't know. But I surely hope that 1989 can indeed be repeated as peacefully now as then. The question is whether the starving and dejected masses can find within themselves the glowing embers of hope for a better future. Because without hope there cannot possibly be change of any noticeable kind, apart from the type of change imposed from the ruling party - the change that in  reality is only intended to preserve things they way they are.

Buit, still, the walls of eastern Europe tuimbled when we least expected them to. Could it be that it will happen again? Let's pray. That's what believers within the former Communist states did.