Right now I’m sitting up against a huge oak tree in my back yard. I’m taking a break from shoveling up wood chips from the stump of what was once an even larger ash tree. The view is spectacular. Oak leaves overhead, grass at my feet, unmown pasture in front of me, and woods beyond that. There is a sassafras grove in the distance and a walnut grove at my back……..it really is heaven on earth.

My first thought is that I am richly blessed, that this beautiful place is my home…..that this place is mine.

But that just isn’t true……..it’s not mine. I’m 70 years old and in 10 or 20 years……30 at the outside, I will be dead. Everything that I have ever bought……everything that I ever will buy…..everything that I own…….or think I own……..will soon belong to somebody else. At best, I am simply a custodian of all of this stuff. You may very well be younger than me. You may still be in that “immortal” phase of your life……..where death is so distant that you just don’t give it much thought. You may still believe that you own all of the stuff in your life. But……. the same logic applies to you too. The time frame is just a little different. The end point is just less clear.

It goes one step further. Not only is all of this stuff not mine……..this is not my home. My entire life here is just a brief stopover en route to someplace else. In a way, I am a sojourner………a refugee.

You may live in a place that is not as nice…….a small musty basement apartment with a shared bathroom (I’ve been there). Or, you may have a vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. The point is that your current circumstances are not important…….no more important than the circumstances of the guy with the little sign on the exit ramp. They don’t matter because they are temporary.

And this is the heart of the Christian attitude to stuff.

Your stuff is nice. You should enjoy it. You should be grateful for it. But, you should never allow it to define you…….because you are much more than your stuff. And so is the guy on the exit ramp. You are the son or daughter of a king.

And that is your true home.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Mathew, 6:19, ESV

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Mathew, 16:26, ESV

And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Jesus, God and a rich man, Luke, 12:19

You can pretty much divide the people of the world into two groups: those who believe in a creator….God…..and those who don’t. I am a Christian and I believe in the God of the Bible, the trinity, eternal life, heaven and hell. Those who don’t believe in a creator generally use science and technology to explain things. So far so good.

The trouble is that there are things that cannot be conclusively explained……by either group:

How did the universe begin?
How did life begin?
What happens after we die?
How does the death and resurrection of a man 2000 years ago buy my salvation?

The creator group relies on faith to fill these gaps. The no-creator group relies on unproven……possibly unprovable theories to fill the gaps. So far so good…….if we are being honest about it.

This is a black and white decision…….there is no middle ground. Either there is a creator……..or there is not. One group is right……one group is wrong.

So far this is a nice clean intellectual debate.

But, as is often the case, it’s not that simple.

There are things that are attached to each belief system.

If you buy into Christianity, you get the promise of eternal life……either in heaven or in hell. You also have to deal with a creator who has expectations……and rules….like the ten commandments. These can be summed up: “Love God….Love man”.

If you buy into science and technology, you get a series of explanations most of which are rock solid. But, as I mentioned earlier, many are best guess theories based on other best guess theories. In a way, just like the Christian, you will have to accept these theories on faith.

So far the two belief systems are on similar footing.

So…….just what is the difference? What is the wedge that forces us to pick one or the other.

The sticking point is this: the creator…….and his expectations.

The creator group accepts the creator and recognizes his expectations as valid. The no-creator group rejects the creator and does not accept any of his expectations……any of his restrictions. For the creator group…..the creator is in charge. For the non-creator group……we are in charge.

And there it is. We choose to join the creator side based on our willingness to submit to the lordship of a creator who has expectations……demands…..that cover every corner of our lives. Or…..we chose to join the non-creator side based on our desire to be the one who makes the decisions…….the one who makes the rules.

And then, we accept……on faith…….the unprovables that our belief system requires.

But…….there is one more facet……one more unprovable.

Death

What happens when we die…….and we will all die.

The creator side offers eternity in paradise based on a condition……that you believe in the creator. The non-creator side offers the absolute certainty……..of dead black nothing.

For the creator believer, we get the promise of eternity in paradise in exchange for submitting to a God who demands that we love him……and love each other.

For the non-creator believer, you get to make the rules and run the show for 70 or 80 years…….and then……there is nothing.

It all comes down to the question:

What do to want?

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!

Paul, Romans 1:24, ESV

I didn’t have much to say today. The post I had planned was……..weak. So I went outside and started weeding one of Cindy’s plant beds. If you’ve seen our house, you know this is a big deal. I know…..it’s Sunday?!?

The bed in question is a large sea of vinca minor with lots of bushes…..many of which I cannot name. The vinca makes a nice ground cover……never needs mulching……pretty green color…….it spreads to fill the bed……..and you just cannot kill it. The trouble is that other vines get into the vinca…….and the only way to get them out is to get on your knees and weed the bed by hand. Not my favorite chore.

After a couple of hours I was spent, but the job was done. I did a walk through……admiring my work…….and I saw one five bladed leaflet in the vinca…..one leaflet of a weed. My first thought was “close enough for government work…….I’m done!” But, I tracked the weed down to its roots and started pulling. It had a “runner” and was connected to a dozen or so other weeds that I had missed. Then I saw another leaflet………and another. By the time I was finished I had pulled 100 or so more weeds……all of them missed on the first go-around.

One of my beliefs is that when something is repeated over and over…….it’s important. This is true in life……and is especially true in the Bible. So I made a new “rule for weeding”. Never ignore a single leaf of a weed…….even in a field of a million vinca leaves.

Then it occurred to me. Sin is just like the weeds. You look through your day and see a million tiny events…..interactions……that are good. But sitting in the middle of it all is one tiny error…….one bad moment…….one sin. You say to yourself, “no biggie……on balance…..I’m a good person”. And, no doubt, you are.

The trouble is that the one tiny sin……..just like the weed…….is connected to another sin…..and another……sins that you hadn’t noticed.

No tiny single leaf of a weed is unimportant.

No tiny single sin is unimportant.

They are important because they all are connected…….to a living growing organism that…….if left unchecked…….will take over your garden……..your life.

So……my charge for today is this:

Take the little “wrongs” in your life seriously because they are alive……and they never travel alone. Any time you find yourself saying, “but, I’m a good person”……..look hard at the situation because there is probably something that needs fixing……..there is probably a weed that needs pulling.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Paul, Romans 3:23, ESV

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

John, 1 John 1:8, ESV

Intelligence……..the ability to figure things out……to connect the dots……….to work your way from point A to point B……by a logical series of steps.

Faith……..accepting the realities of point A and point B without logical proof.

Truth……..ideas that are real……whether we can prove them or not…….whether we like them or not.

My Bible reading today is from Corinthians:

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not —to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

Paul, 1 Corinthians 18, ESV

The message here is that intelligence often leads you to one place…….while faith leads you to another. The burning question is not which is better……intelligence or faith. The burning issue……..the life or death issue…….is which is true.

The lesson of 1 Corinthians 18 is that if you use intelligence as your only tool to sort out your position in the cosmos, you will exclude faith……..even if the lessons of faith are true. Intelligence is a valuable tool. But so is faith.

If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer……..pretty soon all of your problems start looking like nails.

Me…….redneck wisdom

We live in a culture that is increasingly intelligence driven. The more we learn……the smarter we get……the less we rely on and trust in faith. But, if you dispassionately look at the results of our intelligence driven culture, you must conclude that it is failing:

Crime
Anarchy
Homelessness
Refugees
Governmental corruption
Environmental degradation
Drugs
Recreational sex and its stepchild….abortion

The promise of intelligence is that technology will solve the problems.

The promise of faith is that only love will solve the problems.

I am an intelligent guy……..but my intelligence will not save me……..neither will yours.

Love is truer than knowledge…….love is truer than intelligence. Love grows out of faith…….not out of intelligence.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Paul, 1 Corinthians 8, ESV