There are 5 foundational ideas….pillars…… of Christianity:

Creation

You are not a biochemical accident. You were created intentionally. Don’t get hung up on 6000 years vs. 400 million years. Focus on intentional creation vs. accidental biochemistry.

Love

God loves you…..he wants you to love him & your neighbor. Pretty basic. If you remember nothing else……. know this.

Eternity

There is something waiting for you after your brief human life. It will last forever……..and you have the gift of choice. But, your choice is not between nothing and paradise. Your choice is between paradise and something very unpleasant. Even scientists believe in eternity…….some of them just don’t believe that you will be there.

Good and Evil

There are 2 forces at work in this world…….good and evil. You feel it in your heart. You know this to be true. You know good and evil exist. But, if you look closely at them, you can see that they act as though there is an intelligence and a motivation behind them. In a word, they behave as though they were alive. Christianity teaches that God is the active intentional force behind good……and that Satan is the active intentional force behind evil. Christianity looks past the secondary display of good and evil in our world to the primary motivating forces behind them…….God and Satan. In short, Christianity teaches that good and evil are not simple descriptors of things in our physical world. They are alive. They are active in our world. There is intelligence and motivation behind them. They have a plan for you. They have a plan for your future.

You are wanted

God, the active intelligence behind good and Satan, the active intelligence behind evil want you. It’s like 2 giant Madison Avenue advertising firms trying to get you to buy their brand of cereal.

Choice

You have free will. You get to decide. There is a lot going on that is beyond your control. There is a lot of stuff that you don’t get to choose. You are often pushed around by situations that you cannot manage. But, on the truly important issues, you have complete control. You have the absolute power to choose your destiny.

So……. you were created…….you are loved……..you are ,at least in part, eternal……..you are immersed in good and evil………you are wanted.

And you get to choose your destiny.

Stay tuned for plan B.

I’ve been struggling.

Someone I know has hurt somebody I care for. The crime is big enough that it will take years, maybe decades,  to repair the damage. I am angry.  And I know where he lives.

I began by being angry about the unfairness of it…….. the injustice of it. I was angry about the pain and sadness that it caused. I was angry that a criminal had profited and that a good person had been harmed. I was angry that the systems in place, the law, the courts, and the police were not bringing justice to bear. I wanted the criminal punished……..now.

So far…..so good.

I am, by nature, a fixer. I think that all of us are, too a degree……especially men. In my frustration at the unfairness of the situation, I began to consider how I could fix this injustice. I began to consider how to help the police. But, as my frustration grew, I began to dwell on ways that I could bring this mess to a just conclusion. Before long I was fantasizing on ways to hurt the criminal…….. ways that were far beyond the call of justice. Looking back I had quietly slipped down the slope from unfairness……. to injustice….. to frustration…….. to anger and finally to vengeance. I found myself in a very black place. How did I get there? There was no instant of transition. Each step was logical, appropriate and, worst of all, very comfortable. Nobody suggested this path to me. It came from somewhere deep inside of me. I can now see that the blackness was there inside me all along,  waiting quietly for a situation like this to wake it up.

I think that the black place is there in all of us. It always has been. It is part of our human nature. It is just as much a part of us as generosity, honor, and love. In a way, just as there is a little piece of God in each of us, there is a little piece of Satan as well. How we run our lives hinges largely on how we balance these two sides of our nature. Some people spend most of their time in the black place, others dwell mostly in the light. Most of us move back and forth……. without giving it much thought.

A wise old indian said to his grandson:

“I feel like there are two wolves fighting inside of me…..one is kindness, generosity and love…… the other is anger, hatred, and vengeance.”

The boy said: “Grandpa…… which one will win? ”

The old man replied: “The one that I feed.”

I will try to feed the better side of my nature. In our public conversation, I feel that we have, at the insistence of the angry talking heads in the media, fed the baser side of our natures. We need to, as a nation and as individuals, turn back from the slide down the slope to anger. This is a choice that we can make. We can WILL this to be so……….. even if the other guy doesn’t. Even if the criminal is unrepentant. Even if we are unable to heal the world, we can heal ourselves

“Lord help me to feed the better side of my nature.”

“Lord please heal the criminal who harmed my family.”

There is an old idea. This was around when I was a kid.

“If you give enough monkeys enough typewriters and enough time…… they will type the encyclopedia Brittanica.” This is the exact logic that is used to justify darwinian evolution. If you give a pile of simple dead atoms enough time, they will assemble themselves into Angelina Jolie. Enough time essentially means an infinite amount of time.

You can tell how old this statement is because typewriters and encyclopedias pretty much no longer exist. The idea, however, is that given an infinite time frame, the extremely unlikely ……even the impossible…….can happen.

This is a flawed idea; but, we use it every day to justify darwinian evolution. The idea is flawed because we apply the theoretical concept of infinity to the concrete, finite physical world.

It is true that, given an infinite number of attempts…… that is, an infinite amount of time, you could assemble the 400 billion chemical bonds of the human genome by random accident. It is also true that with an infinite amount of time we could build a just, fair, peaceful society.

The problem is that infinity is a theoretical concept. It does not exist in our physical world. Things that are theoretically possible in infinity are not possible in our finite world.

So…….darwinian evolution is possible given an infinite time frame. But, an infinite time frame is a theoretical concept that does not exist is our finite physical world.

This failure of logic would be an entertaining mental exercise if the stakes were not so high.

We use flawed logic to “prove” darwinism.

We use darwinism to eliminate the need for God.

We fire God because we no longer need him.

We get to do whatever we want.

All is well………..until we meet God.

Someday I will meet God………. and it will be fabulous……worth dying for.

My hope is to make that meeting with God a joyous event for as many people as possible.

My great fear is that I may have friends and acquaintances for whom it could be uncomfortable.

My great fear is that I will have failed them.

As I think about Christianity, I try to boil it down to its essentials. What is the very heart of my faith? In one word, I think it must be love. I think that this is written on our hearts. We are born with a need for love. And love is inseparable from joy. In short we are hard-wired to love and be loved. The greatest joy that we as human beings…… children of God…….. can know is to love and to be loved. To love without being loved in return is a close second. If you think about it, love is central to a mature relationship with God.

So we need to explore love and joy. I have often said that I have the most valuable skill that a man can know. I have learned how to be happy……to live with joy. Surprisingly, this skill is not universal. In fact, it is uncommon enough that when we see somebody who is filled with joy we take notice.

So how do we become filled with joy? Try getting up tomorrow…… and telling yourself “Today I will be joyous!” Good luck……… we both know that it doesn’t work that way.
Joy just seems to happen. It often just sneaks up on you……right out of the blue. But, is there a way to put yourself in joy’s path……. to set yourself up for joy? I think that there is. And it has to do with the relationship between joy and love.

Joy grows out of love.

One of the rules that I live by is this: “When you are faced with a problem…… focus on the part of the problem that you can control.” I believe that joy comes from love. There is no lasting path to joy other than through love. I will concede that you can go out and buy something and experience a brief burst of joy. I experience this when I buy an exceptional new hand plane……. or a fishing rod…….. or a shotgun. Your list will be different. But, the rush of joy that you get from buying stuff lasts for hours……. days at the most. Shopaholics spend their lives and their money trying to buy lasting joy. Alcoholics try to drink it. You get the point.

So if love is the key to joy…….. then how do we find it? We cannot create love in others. We cannot MAKE people love us. We cannot buy love……and it’s about the only thing that we can’t find on line. So if we are to find love……we must focus on the part of the problem that we can control. And when it comes to love…… the only thing that we can control is how we love others. This is the genius of God, Christ, and the Holy spirit. This is the genius of Christianity.

Two “rules”…………Love God……Love your neighbor.

This is something you can control. You can WILL this to be. And when you do this…… trust me…….the joy will come. And even better……… the joy will stay.

So how do we love?

The heart of love is to focus on the well being of others. This means sometimes putting their needs ahead of your own. This often means forgiving their failures……. maybe even their crimes. If you do this well you may create joy in your target. You will create joy in yourself. I will concede that there are people who will stay angry and mean even after you love them……… love them anyway. The power of love………over time……….will wear them down…… and you will both be better for it.

1 Corinthians 13 includes the best description of love on this planet.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

This universal truth is a huge part of the reason that I am a Christian.

So……. you want joy? You want happiness?

Then love God and those around you. Do this by serving them and caring for them. The joy will come……… and it will endure……and it will spread.