First….Identify the Problem

FYI……. This was written before the coronavirus outbreak.

I always told my kids. The first step in solving a problem is to accurately identify the problem. If you come up with a dozen brilliant solutions to a problem, but it’s not the real problem, you get nowhere.

Spoiler alert……. What follows is not going to make you happy. You may disagree, because you don’t like it. But it is the truth.

The planet is getting warmer………deal with it. The right says it’s a temporary anomaly……… I’ll believe that and I’ll buy you a beer…….a nice cold one……. when it cools back down.

All Gore tells us that it’s Global Warming caused by CO2. As much as I dislike the guy, I have to give him half credit here. His book “An Inconvenient Truth” is halfway right. The planet is getting warming……but the problem is not CO2.

If you look at an historical graph of global temperature, you can see that the curve is fairly flat until about 1950, give or take. From there on we have inexorably warmed up. Something changed in 1950……but what? Either there was a sudden change in some critical determinant of global temperature or we crossed a threshold.

I believe that we crossed a threshold. Al Gore says it was the CO2 level. I say that CO2 is just another symptom of the real problem.

The real problem is overpopulation. In 1950 the world population was 2.5 billion…….. today it is almost 8 billion. Let that sink in. In my lifetime the population of the planet has TRIPLED. Just look at the traffic on the interstate and you can see this for yourself. Yes, we eat more meat. Yes, we drive more cars. Yes, we produce more CO2 and methane. But, the root problem is not greenhouse gasses. The root problem is overpopulation. I used to worry that we would someday reach a population level that the planet could not feed. I now realize that we have already passed a population level at which the waste that we produce has overwhelmed the Earth’s ability to absorb it. We have poisoned the Earth……..with CO2, methane, fluorocarbons, plastics, antibiotics, pesticides, etc….and we crossed that threshold around 1950. Being environmentally sensitive is a good thing. But, do you really believe that putting a solar panel on your roof is going to solve the problem of a world population that triples every 50 years?

We need to stop wasting our time worrying about graphs that superimpose global temperature and CO2 levels and start worrying about graphs that superimpose global temperature and population.

The solution is fairly straightforward. We need to get back to a global population of about 2 billion. Unfortunately, we are not going to do it. We will spend enormous resources on projects that will grow the population rather than decrease it.

Oddly enough, the ecosystem of our planet is an amazing equilibrium and it will adjust……..it will ultimately fix global warming…….without our help. The Earth will fix global warming by itself……..not because of; but rather, in spite of, our best efforts……..in spite of the best efforts of science and technology.

Enter, overcrowding, antibiotic resitant “super bugs”, deadly viruses, and the dearth of new antibiotics…….the so called “post antibiotic era”. We are headed for a devastating worldwide pandemic. Every 5 or 10 years we have a near miss. And…… unfortunately…..this is not just inevitable………it is necessary ……..for the survival of the Earth…….and, ironically, for the survival of our species.

To put it another way, without a catastrophic pandemic, or something very much like one, the planet Earth and mankind are doomed.

This is nothing new, the black plague, and the Spanish Flue killed significant percentages of the population, in some areas up to 50%. The coming pandemic will need to be worse than that to solve the problem.

Read “The Stand” by Stephen King or “Rainbow 6” by Tom Clancy for a preview.

So for the secular humanist, you have one of two futures to look forward to on this planet:

Global Warming with all of its consequences including mass extinction, food and water shortages, mass migration, wars over resources, coastal flooding, drought in the northern plains, etc.

Or

Global pandemic…….. sort of a catastrophic biologic “reset”.

And that is the best that science and secular humanism have to offer. We will try hard to delay these bad outcomes……but with the global population exploding…….16 billion humans by 2050…… realistically, the consequences of global warming will likely accelerate rather that slow down.

But

The Bible offers a third possibility……a divine “reset”. The Bible teaches that this Earth will come to a catastrophic end and that each of us will move on to one of two “new worlds”……one pleasant…….the other…….not so much.

Of all of the available options………the pleasant world after the “divine reset” of the Bible………… paradise………. is by far the most appealing to me.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” 

John, NIV

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Why Doesn’t God Just Start All Over?

I’m a woodworker. I build custom furniture that ranges from high end craft to art. Often a piece requires hundreds of operations. And sometimes………near the very end……..something goes wrong. Maybe I miscalculated. Maybe there was a defect in the wood that was buried until I cut my way down to it. Maybe a component just broke as I worked on it. Suddenly, I find myself looking at piece that I have put an enormous amount of effort into……and there is a flaw. Maybe it’s tiny………maybe it is catastrophic.

What do I do?

There really are only a few options. Repair the flaw, minimize it, or toss the whole thing into the fireplace and start all over. Sometimes, I leave the flaw and consider it a part of the character of the piece. I have done all of these things.

I am not surprised that God visited us as a carpenter. Jesus would have been very familiar with the flaw that shows up toward the end of the process of creating something. After an enormous amount of work, this thing that he was building is flawed. He would have had a similar set of options when he assessed his flawed creation……fix it, minimize it, ignore it, or burn it down and start all over.

There is another angle to God’s dilemma. When you build something beautiful and special, you become attached to it. It is very hard to destroy something that you are attached to……… something that you have put a lot of effort into. I have thrown pieces into the fire. But, that is rare. I reserve that for flaws that are truly catastrophic. More often, I work hard to salvage the piece. Often this takes a lot of effort, but I keep at it until I have a piece that I can send out of the shop with pride.

Surely, God must face this same decision………every day. This world, his creation, is seriously……. perhaps catastrophically flawed. Ironically, the flaw flows from his original design concept. Create man, give him free will, and let him build a relationship with you. But, we have taken free will……..and abused it. The result is a world of beauty, love, kindness, hate, murder, deceit and more.

What does God do?

Fix it? Take away our free will. God could dictate our choices for us and only allow us to do the things that are good. The problem is that we would become a society of automatons……pre-programmed to love God. And, you and I both know that you cannot force somebody to love you……. because, even if you could, the love would be meaningless. Love must be freely given……..by choice. We must freely choose to love God……. otherwise it is meaningless.

Burn it down and start all over? This is a very attractive option. Except for the fact that, in addition to wanting us to love him, God loves us……with a passion that we cannot even imagine. I believe that God’s love for us is so all encompassing that destroying us is an option that is just not on the table. I hope that I am right about this.

Minimize and Ignore it? Of all of God’s options, this one is the most improbable. But, thankfully, it is the one he has chosen. God leaves the flaw in place and through the sacrifice that he, Jesus, willingly choose to make, he ignores it. He even goes one step further. Once we have recognized and accepted his gift……his personal sacrifice………God minimizes our flaw until even he can no longer see it. It’s a win-win deal. We spend eternity in relationship with our creator……..which was, after all, what we were designed for. God enjoys his creation free from any perceptible flaws. The price that God paid to achieve this is hard to imagine.

And I am grateful.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

David, NIV

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Mistakes I Have Made

Don’t worry………this post is not going to be a long detailed confessional. Just let me say that I have done things that I regret. Some were honest mistakes, some were disagreements, some were bursts of anger, and a few were just plain old fashioned evil. Like it or not, this is true for all of us.

We all do things that are wrong………..and sometimes we do things that are straight up evil.

Some of our misdeeds we justify. We decide that they were wrong…….but that they were worth it. Some of them we recategorize………we simply decide that they weren’t wrong after all. We are very good at this. We take something that is wrong, but that we really enjoy, want, or even need. We redefine it as OK ……and from them on we can enjoy it free from guilt. This, of course, is dishonest…….and the most destructive lie……is the one you tell yourself. There are those among us who have carried this to the point where just about anything that they want is OK. “If it feels good do it!” We call this hedonism.

But, for most of us, when we do something wrong, we know it’s wrong and we feel an unusual type of pain…….guilt. Guilt is not very popular in our culture. We are continually told that we should be tolerant……..and when you come down to it, guilt is just intolerance that we have turned inward. This attitude toward tolerance and guilt is something that our culture has gotten wrong. Tolerance can be a good thing…….but it can also be bad. It all depends on just exactly what it is that you are tolerating. Tolerating harmless annoyances from our neighbors is good. Tolerating Hitler in the 30’s was bad. It all depends on where the thing that you are tolerating is leading you.

Same story with guilt. Guilt can be good or bad……..depending on where it leads you. Guilt that leads you to abandon behavior that hurts others or yourself is good. Guilt that leads you to improve the way you treat others is good. Guilt that keeps you stuck in a bad place is bad. Guilt over something that you cannot undo and cannot learn and grow from is bad.

Good guilt is a gift from God. It causes you to examine the mistake that you have made, to learn from it and to grow. It can also lead you to make amends and help others heal.

So, if you are feeling guilty about something that you have done, you need to have a good hard look at the situation….perhaps share it with somebody wise. You must see if you can learn from it and grow, or help others to grow from it. If you can, then you are dealing with Godly guilt and you should pray about it and act on it. If you can’t learn from it, grow from it, or help others because if it, then you are dealing with destructive guilt…….confess it, then drop it and move on. Bad guilt has a way of dragging you down into more bad decisions.

Guilt is just like any other form of pain. If the pain causes you to pull your hand out of the fire, it is good. If the pain doesn’t cause you to act to improve the situation, then it is counterproductive.

For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

Paul, NIV

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you a free from the law of sin and death.

Paul, NIV

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Welcome, to your Annual Checkup

“If you have your health, you have everything.”

I have heard this over and over again all through my life.
I have even accepted it as wisdom.

But, it’s really not true.

Don’t get me wrong……..health is extremely valuable. We all want to be healthy. You really can’t appreciate health until you lose it………or until you deal with someone who has lost it…….or with someone who has much more of it than you. You can’t really appreciate health until you get old. In the last few years I have dealt with all of these situations.

Health is a really big deal……… perhaps the most important thing………in this temporal world. But, in the face of eternity, health is inconsequential. In paradise, we will all be perfectly, eternally healthy. We will be at our physical peak……..maybe in our mid 20’s. Our weight will be just right, no pain, no weakness, no disability, no suffering. Not only will our cholesterol be just right………it will be irrelevant.

So, if you take the long view, we will spend eternity in perfect health…….. except for our extremely brief stint here on Earth. This, of course, assumes that you get to paradise. For those who don’t get to paradise, I can’t promise you eternal health. In fact, the best descriptions of “non-paradise” are discriptions of physical suffering…….. eternal unhealthiness at best……..or black nothing at worst.

What it comes down to is this. From an eternal perspective, we can be either healthy or unhealthy. And it will have nothing to do with our weight, our cholesterol, or our blood pressure. It will have nothing to do with whether we have heart disease, cancer, mental illness, arthritis, or physical disability today.

It will be the result of a simple binary choice that we each must make. Because, like it or not, paradise is a conscious choice that is completely in our hands. You either accept forgiveness from Christ………or you reject it. You either recognize Christ……or deny his divinity. One choice leads to paradise. The other leads to non-paradise. One choice leads to healthiness. The other leads to unhealthiness.

So……..the only really important question that you need to answer at your annual checkup is this one:

Are you saved?

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”

Jesus, NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord ,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Paul, NIV

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Isaiah, NIV

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America and the Old Testament

America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles…….there is no question about it. Our founders protect other faiths and set up an even playing field for all. But, at their core, the founders were Christians and set up a government based on Christian principles.

Separation of church and state is a phrase that we hear a lot…… but it is not found in the Constitution or in the Declaration of Independence. What the Constitution does say is that there can be no official state sponsored religion and that the government cannot interfere with the practice of any religion.

And yet, in the name of “separation of church and state”, Christianity has been slowly driven out of the public space.
Part of this is due to the failure of the Christian community to live the Christian life……. Love God & Love your Neighbor………but a lot of it is driven by a small vocal minority of atheists…….and their attorneys.

This month I am reading Jeremiah. It is a history of a time when the people of Israel voluntarily walked away from God. Then a lot of bad things happened. Jerusalem and the temple were wrecked. Their nation was destroyed and they were exiled to Babylon. Jeremiah describes this as God’s punishment for Israel’s abandonment of God. Ultimately, Israel returns to God. God then heals Israel and sends them back home.

If you look at the history of the United States of America, you can see a long period when we thrived. We grew from a bunch of rebels angry at the strongest nation on the planet to become the strongest and most prosperous nation on the Earth. But, I would argue that America is now past her peak. National debt, Abortion, Extramarital Sex, Sexual fluidity, our toxic politics, hate, constant war, drugs, the entitlement culture, the poisoning of the planet……..these are all symptoms of the downhill slope that we are entering.

We have also seen two eras of our public life……..the Christian era and the post-Christian (secular humanist) era……..the first era when we recognized God’s authority (even if we didn’t follow it) and the second era when the only authority is “whatever we want”. An unborn child is a human being……only if it suits our needs. A man is male and a woman is female…….only if they want to be.

You can call it coincidence if you wish, but it is hard to deny that America thrived as a Christian nation and is beginning to fail as a secular humanist nation……………Just as Israel failed when it walked away from God.

I believe that a national revival………a return to our Christian roots is the key to rescuing America. We need to return to plan A……..which was working. And phoney, superficial posturing won’t do it. It must be centered on love……..for God and for our fellow man. In Jeremiah, Israel turned around and recovered………so can we.

Or we can continue our experiment with secular humanism. The secular humanists keep telling us that they have the solutions to our problems. They say give us more time and resources……….step a little further away from God………..and we will fix it all………you can have whatever you want. But the problems keep getting worse. And we keep listening to them.

There are promises in the Bible too. I keep coming back to this one.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

God, NIV

As for me………..plan A sounds pretty good.

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