During the Time You Read This...

During the time you will read this, your heart will beat approximately 60-70 times per minute, pumping nearly five quarts of blood through your body with amazing efficiency. At 70 beats per minute, that equals over 100000 beats per day and the equivalent of 2000 gallons of blood! It is estimated your heart will beat about 3 BILLION times during a 70 year lifetime.

During this same time, you will take anywhere from 12 to 20 breaths per minute. In taking those breaths, you will pump almost 10000 quarts of air through you lungs in a day! The air contains oxygen which is added to your bloodstream and carried throughout your body—at the same time, carbon dioxide is extracted from the blood and expelled from your body.

You will have gazed at a computer screen with eyes that send signals to your brain as you scan thousands of dots, representing words, sentences and images, which are instantaneously processed and converted into comprehendible ideas and thoughts. Some of those same thoughts/images will be stored and retrieved with amazing recall and accuracy until the day you draw your last breath.

You can pick up a flower or cradle a child's face with hands that respond to your impulse to do so---in NANOSECONDS! You put one foot in front of the other and effortlessly walk or run to wherever you desire. With your mouth and tongue working in concert, you speak and communicate you love for your wife/husband/child/friend. You express yourself with words, facial expressions, and body movements all controlled by mere thought or emotion.

And the most amazing thing…all of these things you do, your body does without your having to remind it, to program it or to teach it! Where did this incredible thing we call the human body come from and how does it have the abilities it does? GOD. God planned it, created it and HE sustains it. Life is no accident. Look around. Look beyond the wonder of the human body and see the amazing world we live in. This planet sits at exactly the right spot in the universe that it's not too cold or too hot. It sits at the EXACT angle and spins and travels about the sun within a precise timeframe and path. Consider the "laws" of gravity, force, etc. All constant. All designed and implement by God. Evolution?! Hardly.

God is REAL. He is not "mother nature." He is THE God of this universe. THE CREATOR.

God Has to Follow the Rules?

I am a Christian, a Christ-Follower, Believer, "religious", "Bible-Toting-American"...whatever label you wish to put on me. I believe in ONE God, the only God of the universe. I believe He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present. I believe every word of the Bible is true. I also believe that God hears our prayers and actually does something about them, i.e. answers them. Sometimes the answer is "no;" sometimes the answer is "wait;" and sometimes the answer is "yes." God is God; I am not. HE is the one that determines how things will be.

Prayer is not about ME getting what I want--it's more about me submitting my life to God's authority/direction. Putting my trust in Him to know what is best for my life. But I still pray. I still ask. And I still believe that, even when things don't go the way I think they should, God knows what is best, He knows how His answer fits into His perfect plan much better than I ever could.

So, to my point, I got a phone call the other day from a friend who also identifies himself in much the same way as myself. The reason for his call was to ask me to pray for a friend of his that was having some serious medical problems and would be going through surgery that week. "Sure," I said, "I'll pray. Let me know how things go." I hung up the phone and prayed. (I find that if I tell someone I'll pray for them, and I don't do it right then, I tend to forget. That may be an entirely different post.)

A few days later, my friend called to let me know the surgery had been a success. His friend was recovering nicely and should be able to return to a lifestyle they enjoyed prior to the surgery. We both commented on how good God was/is to answer our prayers and how grateful we were that we believed in and served a loving, healing God.

As we continued to talk, the conversation turned to the Bible, specifically Creation. I am a 24-Hour Creationist, i.e. I believe God created everything in six, 24-hour periods ("...there was evening and there was morning, the first day...", etc.) by simply speaking it into existence. That's how I read the account in Genesis and it seems pretty straightforward to me. My friend doesn't believe that way. He believes--in a nutshell--that God did indeed create "the heavens and the earth" as it states in the Bible, but he believes God put things in motion over a period of millions and millions of years, having put into creation all of the DNA/molecular structures and allowing men, animals, sea creatures, and plant-life to evolve into what we see today. He reads the "days" in Genesis as being figurative, long periods of time.

I asked him why he believes that way and he explained:

I believe God created everything, but there are things in Genesis that just don't add up or make sense to me; things that appear to be figurative in nature. I also have a hard time believing that on the first day (or period) of creation, God created light, but it wasn't until the FOURTH day He created the sun, moon, and stars. Now how is that possible? The Bible says God created light and darkness on the first day and called them morning and evening. That's just not possible without the sun!

I knew a rebuttal would be fruitless, so I just commented something like, "Well, we will just have to agree to disagree on that one, " and we finished the conversation with some small talk and a promise to get together some time soon.

Later in the day, I was thinking about what he had said. His explanation sounded good, if you contend that God HAS to do things in a particular order. But that puts limits, i.e. human limits if you will--on God. If God is God and capable of CREATING an entire universe, who says HOW He has to do things? And what really got me to thinking was the prayers we had prayed. We both believe that God is all-powerful. We both believe that God is capable (not because we prayed, but because He is God) of healing someone, whether it be through the skillful hands of a surgeon OR by reaching into our human realm and completely removing a cancer as if it had never existed!!

If God can make cancers disappear, not to mention intervene in the courses of human history, direct the actions of men, cause events to come about, that from a human standpoint, seem totally insurmountable...who says He can't create LIGHT without a sun?! If you believe Jesus could take five little barley cakes and some sardines and feed over five thousand people, I don't believe it's that much of a stretch to believe God can create an entire universe, instantaneously having all the laws of physics, etc in place, capable of sustaining life and do it simply by saying "it is so"...and do it in any order He sees fit.

If There is a God...

Dave Matthews* is quoted as saying: ""I'm glad some people have that faith. I don't have that faith. If there is a God, a caring God, then we have to figure he's done an extraordinary job of making a very cruel world." (Source)

Isn't it interesing that when things go bad...it's always God's fault. It's like your insurance policy--a catasrophe is an "act of God." But when was the last time you heard someone refer to a sunset, a beautiful melody, or the birth of a child in the same way..."an act of God?"

It never occurs to people like Dave Matthews that depraved people just might be the problem.

* Wikipedia describes Dave Matthews as "a South African-American Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band..." To be honest, I am unfamiliar with any of his work.

Who Does God Save?

We studied the conversion of the Apostle Paul (Saul) last week. Of all people, he is possibly the most unlikely candidate for salvation. Yet, God in His infinite wisdom/sovereignty, took the very man that gave approval to--possibly even orchestrated--Stephen's execution (Acts 7) and converted him into one of the most influential individuals Christianity has ever known. The man who was set on wiping out the movement referred to as "The Way," ended up authoring 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament.

So what does that say about the kinds of people God saves? He saves:

• people who hate Him and changes them into people that love Him by taking their "heart of stone" and giving them a "heart of flesh."
• blasphemers and turns them into people who boldly speak the "name that is above all names."
• violent aggressors and molds them into peacemakers.
• ignorant people and gives them wisdom/discernment.
• people that are merciless and shows them mercy.
• unbelievers and transforms them into believers.
• enemies of God and makes them His friends.
• those who are condemned and redeems them.
• the unworthy and justifies them in Christ.
• fornicators, idolators, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, extortioners...(1 Cor 6:11)
• people like me and you!

Suicide

"Do you think people who commit suicide go to heaven?," my co-worker asked. The question wasn't just out of the blue; his niece had killed herself a couple of days before.

I don't go around beating people over the head with it, but people in our office/shop know that I am a Christian. This co-worker and I have had several discussions about religion/Christianity over the past 20 years we've known each other. In fact, he is a fairly new Christian, having come to faith in Christ just a couple of years ago. I didn't "lead" him to Christ, but I'd like to think that my prayers and witness played a role in his and his family's conversion.

"That's a tough one, " I replied. "Was your niece a Christian?" I asked. Believing that is the prerequisite to one's going to heaven--being a Christian--I figured I might as well start there. He understood why I had asked and wasn't offended by the question. The co-worker stated that the family didn't attend church, but they talked about Jesus alot. None of the children, including the girl that had committed suicide, had gone to church growing up--at least not regularly. The occasional VBS, funeral or wedding. Maybe on Easter or Christmas, but nothing regular. "But I have reason to believe that she surely made some sort of decision or confession of faith at some time in her life," he said. He wasn't real explicit where he got that notion.

For some people, "being a Christian" simply means going to church (every Sunday or at least somewhat of a regular interval). For others, it's having been sprinkled (that ain't baptism, which is an entirely different topic) as a baby, or maybe they went through a class or something. If they signed a card or can claim membership in a church, that's always a good one. Simply believing there is a God will do it for some, while others might take it a step further and say "I know I don't live like I should, but I believe Jesus died for my sins." Whatever they believe, it becomes something to hang their hat on when faced with the reality of death--their own or a loved one's.

It's interesting (and sad) that people don't think about God, or have much to do with Him...until the end.

Thank You for This Day

"Thank you for this day." That's how I begin my morning prayer--every day. Some days, I'm in my truck; some days I'm at my desk or at the kitchen table, but I always begin the same way. I need to remind myself each and every day that I am totally depending on God for everything...EVERYTHING in my life.

God graciously allowed me to get a night's rest and then wake up to begin another day. A new day...unspoiled by work's frustrations, cutting words, angry thoughts, and failed expectations. A new day to revel in the crispness of morning air; a new day to wake up EARLY and enjoy the quiet; a new day to stop and ponder: "What does THIS day hold?"

Another day to live my life, trusting in God to keep me safe, to help me speak kindly to my family and co-workers, to be the very best husband, dad, and employee I can be. Another day filled with opportunities to tell others about His goodness. Another day to be encouraged by words like:

...but he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones; And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. (Psalm 32:10-11)

Another day to know that even when I fall, He is there to pick me up, to strengthen and encourage me. Another day to bask in His forgiveness, to know that He knows my heart...and still loves me. And at the end of the day, to be able to go home to my family, seeing them all safe.

Thank You for my wife, our sons, our jobs, our friends, our church, the food on our table, our warm beds...and rest.

Thank You for this day.

Is God Really That Dumb?

I've never fully understood the whole "Mardi Gras" thing. What I've been able to put together:

• Mardi Gras is kinda the "last hurray" before Lent.
• "Fat Tuesday" is the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.
• Lent runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter (40 days) and is a time of refraining or fasting from a bad habit or vice. Some people I know give up drinking or smoking or cursing during Lent.
• Lent is pretty much a Catholic thing, but lots of people that aren't Catholics like to participate...well, they like to participate in the Mardi Gras part, but not so much the Lent part.
• Mardi Gras apparently is Latin for "pull up your shirt." This obviously applies only to women.
• Mardi Gras is really big in New Orleans. Probably because there seems to be a lot of women that enjoy pulling up their shirts. Mardi Gras is all about beads, drinking, pulling up your shirt, drinking, and more beads. Did I mention pulling up your shirt? (You have to get all of this out of your system because the next day is the start of Lent.)
• After Lent is over, you can go back to drinking, smoking, and/or cursing.
• The only time God pays attention is during Lent, so He thinks everyone acts nice all the time...like they do for Lent. How you act/live the other 325 days of the year is irrelevant. God's not watching...and He apparently falls for that Lent thing every year.