Grilled, that is.

Years ago we were on vacation. We were at a beachfront restaurant and I was feeling adventurous. I wanted to try a local dish. And they had grilled octopus. I thought, what the heck, it’s probably awful but I’ll give it a try. Live dangerously. Sure enough, after a bit, the waiter brought me a whole octopus about 10″ in diameter. It was charred to the point where it was about 80% black. It looked awful. I cut off a piece, held my nose and put it in my mouth.

It was delicious! OK, maybe a little rubbery in texture, but the flavor was amazing. I haven’t passed up grilled octopus since……. whenever I can find it on the menu……
which isn’t often. I even find it at Costco every now and then.

So what’s the point here?

I hear a lot of people complaining about Christianity. They say it’s narrow minded, restrictive, bigoted, hateful, you name it. They say Christians are superstitious at best and brain dead at worst. The trouble is that most of them have never tried it. Most of them have never spent a year living the Christian life…….. following the two central rules…….”Love God……Love your neighbor”.

Same story about the Bible. I hear people call it nieve………a myth, superstition, hallucination, lies, etc. Almost to a man, they have never read the book.

How can you criticize a faith and a book when you have never tried it.

How can you make a face and say that octopus is awful if you’ve never tasted it.

To those who would criticize my faith, I say try it out for a year………read the manual…….cover to cover. Spend time with some solid, mature Christians. Love God and love your neighbor.

Then you can tell me what you think of my faith.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

David, NIV

Living in America is great. The land of the free.

If you ask one hundred Americans what is so great about this country, most of them will say that it’s our freedom. We can say what we want and we can pretty much do what we want. We can live where we want, choose the work we will do, practice our faith…………we can buy a gun………we can abort our baby. Sure there are laws to protect others from us when we abuse our freedom. But all in all…….we are in charge of our lives.

Freedom, however, is a bit slippery. We love having it, but we often don’t handle it well. To be clear, this post is not about how misusing our freedom can harm others (though it certainly can)……….this post is more about how complete freedom can harm us.

I see freedom as a continuum. Consider the chicken that laid the egg that you ate for breakfast. She will spend her entire life in a one cubic foot cage. She is safe, well fed, and well cared for. But, she will never in her life make a single choice. She is the poster child for lack of freedom. Now imagine the king of a small nation. He rules absolutely. He makes the laws. He can do anything he wants. Nothing constrains him and his appetites. He is absolutely free. Think of Idi Amin. I bet that most of us would rather live in Idi Amin’s palace than in the chicken’s cage. And yet, both Idi Amin and the chicken have a problem with freedom. There is no doubt that too little freedom is bad……but so is too much freedom. And I’m not talking about too much freedom being bad for society as a whole……… I’m talking about it being bad for me.

I spend my day making decisions. Thousands of times each day I face choices. As I face a choice, many of my options are good……..but many are bad. Absolute freedom means that all of the bad options are available to me……..in addition to the good options. And I am a master at justifying the choice of the bad option.

So are you.

Here is the rub. In order to live a happy and successful life, I need to limit my freedom. This runs against my nature…….against my skill at justifying bad choices……. against my appetites.

I need outside help. I need a set of rules to govern my behavior.

I need a moral code………..and so do you.

I need it, not to protect society from me……….but to protect me from me.

Here it is:

Love God
Love your neighbor
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t murder
Honor your parents
Sex is for husbands and wives
Don’t covet
Rest on Sunday

The Bible is full of rules. It is in fact a detailed moral code. But these 9 points are the heart of it. We tend to look at it as a book that is designed to put us in a tiny cage……to take away our freedom……..to take away our choices. And we hate that………we rebel against it. But, unlike human laws which are there to keep us from hurting others………the moral code of the Bible is there to keep us from hurting ourselves. In a word, the Bible is designed to take away our freedom to make self destructive choices. It is a gift…….from a creator who wants us to be happy and fulfilled…….no more no less.

I believe that when I fail……….when I get angry with somebody or jealous (my sins of choice)…….God is not angry with me but rather sad……..sad that I have missed out on the joy that he has planned for me…….sad that I have fallen short of my destiny.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah, NIV

In the movie “Backdraft” there is a scene where an old firefighter is mentoring a young firefighter. He intentionally lights a fire and as it grows. He says something to the effect that the fire climbs up the wall and across the ceiling……..not because of the laws of physics………but rather, because it WANTS to. This is, of course, just good theater. But, it provides a practical applicable basis for defeating the fire. Similarly, the idea of evil driven by intention is very useful in understanding Satan……..and protecting ourselves from him.

In our modern “open minded” society. We have redefined evil. In many cases we have defined it out of existence. One of the great unforgivable crimes in our world is to tell somebody that what they are doing is wrong. This is the source of much of the friction between the right and the left. The right sees something and says it is wrong. The left responds by calling the right one of the words in the “deplorable basket”.

When you hear the word “judgementalism”…….what is your immediate response? Is judgementalism good or bad? We are told every day that we have no right to lable the action of another as bad. We are told that judgementalism is bad. We are not allowed to call another person evil……. No matter what. We are not even allowed to say that he is bad. Think of the TV coverage of the last mass shooting. You probably heard about the shooter’s troubled childhood, about his emotional struggles, about his state of mind, how he lost his job……….but nobody ever called him evil. We have dumbed down evil to the point where it is almost a caricature. When was the last time that you saw somebody do something and said, “that is an evil act committed by an evil man”. As in the book “1984”, we have created our own version of “newspeak”……..a language where words describing unacceptable ideas have been outlawed. Even on the rare occasions where we acknowledge evil………the act must be extraordinarily heinous. 911 was evil. But lying on your CV, denigrating a co-worker, mistreating your spouse…..doesn’t rise to the level of evil……..perhaps exaggeration or frustration……….but not evil.

So what about Satan?……….. same story.
For the most part, our society has eradicated him. We rarely think about him. Many, perhaps most of us, deny his existence. Even if we consider him real……we reduce him to a caricature…….a red guy with horns, a tail, and a pitchfork.

I believe that God is an intelligent, emotional being who is active in our world……… who has a long range plan for our well being.

I believe that Satan, too, is an intelligent, emotional being who is active in our world…….. who also has a long range plan…….. for our destruction. In a word, Satan is evil with a plan…….for me and for you.

Satan is not an intellectual construct, an idea, a metaphor, or a symbol. In practice, he is a supernatural person with wants, needs, emotions………and a plan. The safest way to deal with Satan is to deal with him as you would a dangerous co-worker. In every interaction, remember that he is present and that his motive is to destroy you. The most dangerous way to deal with him is to deny his personhood……….to deny his existence……to deny his motive…….to deny the evil that he has planned for you………for all of us.

And that is where we are today. As you go through your day today you will interact with hundreds, maybe thousands of people……… some good, some evil, most in-between. The problem is that most of them…….good or evil…….from a practical application standpoint don’t recognize that Satan walks among with us……….. quietly and carefully executing his long range plan. It is very easy to be manipulated……….when you can’t see the person pulling the strings……… when you deny his existence.

Evil is real. It is not a random accident. It is not bad luck. It is not human nature. It is the work of a motivated, intelligent being who is carefully executing a long range plan………a plan with one goal…….your destruction.

And the LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it .”

Job, NIV

We live in a broken world full of broken people…… myself included. Because of this, things go wrong……. every day. When these things impact our lives or the lives of those we love, we worry. Worry can be painful our productive.

So……..how do we handle worry?

Years ago I made a list of things that I worry about. Since then I have added to and updated the list. I’ve even been able to take some things off of the list. My list is now 4 pages long…….. single spaced! I keep it on my cell phone so that I can worry efficiently anywhere I go.

Here is the top of page one of my list. Your list will be different. Please don’t send me corrections to my list……..it may not be perfect……. but it’s mine.

Salvation for my family
My children and grandchildren’s future
My family’s health
My company’s sales
Abortion
Hate in our society…. both on the left and on the right

The list has turned out to be extremely useful…… but not at all in the way that I expected. When I have some free time and feel the need to worry, I pull out my phone, call up the list and start worrying my way down page one. Without fail, before I reach the bottom of page one, I am exhausted or I lose interest. So…..I put away my phone and stop worrying. This is helpful.

The main benefit of the list, however, was completely unexpected. When somebody comes to me with some problem that they are worried about and that they are mad about and that they want me to worry about too, I think about the list…….. and where this new problem will go on the list. If it is a page one problem, I put it on page one and get right to work worrying about it. However, if it looks like it would fit on page four……… sometimes I put it on the list. You never know……pages one and two could get solved.

Realistically, though, I know that I’m not going to be giving much attention to page four. So……….. for most page four level problems, I just let them go and let somebody else worry about them.

My recommendations:

Don’t give up on page one. There are important things there that you can act on………important things that you can pray about. Page one contains the things that you can do something about……… in your life…….. and in your world. It contains the things that you can do to make your life……and the world……..a better place for all of us.

Don’t waste much time on page four. Check on it every now and then. Maybe something there needs to be moved up to page one………or maybe even deleted.

You can’t add a minute to your life by worrying about page four problems.

(Advice from God……..abridged).

I just read a post on Facebook.

It said:

I hate lard.
I hate buttermilk.
And I’m not wild about flour.
But……..I love biscuits.

My first son died of a GI bleed 16 years ago.
My youngest son died of cirrhosis 2 years ago.
My only remaining son despises me.
His wife is mad and will not let me see my granddaughter who is the one of the joys of my life.

And

I believe that God is in control of all of this.

I believe that God is in charge of this mess that is my life…… today………that he has things just the way he wants them.

I believe that God loves me and has a plan for me……..a plan for my good.

So……in light of what’s going on in my life today………. Do I trust God?

I have to……..what are my choices?

Plan A: (Job’s wife’s plan) “Curse God and die”.

This amounts to lashing out at my creator because I don’t like where I am today……….because I am unhappy with the mess. In effect, I am trying to punish God for the mess by withholding my affection……..my relationship. If I was God, this would work. But I’m not God ……..he is. Recall that he created all of this….and he can end it at his whim.

Plan B: (modern society’s plan). “Deny God”

Very similar to Plan A. This has the advantage of eliminating the foolishness of grabbing a tiger by the tail by eliminating the tiger altogether. And it works great…………. as long as science has all of the answers……..as long as Darwin is right. But it goes down the toilet (or worse) if Darwin and science have missed something……. and every day we learn something new that Darwin and science have missed. Plan B also goes down the toilet if science fails to explain key observations……..like what caused the big bang…….or all of that missing “dark matter”. It also goes down the toilet if this planet falls apart……….just take a look around.

Plan C: (God’s plan) “Trust me………I’m working on it.”

Just like the baker, God is up to his elbows in the lard and the buttermilk……..and right now it’s a little messy…….OK……maybe a LOT messy. As humans, we have a lot of trouble with this because we are constrained by time. We remember the past(at least some of it). We see the present(at least some of it). But, the future is hidden. All we see is the mess. But, God sees it all. God sees the billions of possible futures ahead of me………futures that will be determined by the thousands of decisions that I will make today. In my life every trial that I have faced has turned out well in the end………if I allow it enough time………if I allow God enough time. This calls for patience. And this calls for trust. I choose to give God my trust in return for his promise. What I get in return…….in the present………is hope.

I’m not after sympathy here……….. I’m exactly where God wants me to be………… and I’m headed for someplace really nice……..in a little bit.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God. NIV

It’s true.

I’m in charge……….to an extent……..and there’s the rub.

We spend a big part of our day trying to make a change. Today I’m talking about changing people……..influencing them. We like to believe that we have the power to influence others. As a matter of fact…….in my blog I hope to influence you to grow closer to Christ…..and in the process to be more effective in your life.

So……do we have the power to influence others?

Well…….it depends.

It depends on who and when.

You have a little influence on what others will do in the future.
You have slightly more influence on what others are doing now.
You have absolutely no influence on what others did in the past.

You have great influence on what you will do in the future.
You have great influence on what you are doing now.
You have absolutely no influence on what you have done in the past.

So……the order of the effectiveness of your influence is this:

What I am doing now.
What I will do in the future.
What others are doing now.
What others will do in the future.
What I did in the past.
What others did in the past.

In summary:

You are most effective in changing…..influencing ……..yourself.
Your efforts to influence others are severely limited.
Any attempts to influence the past are utterly futile.

We mess this up all of the time. We spend enormous amount of energy trying to change what others are doing and what they will do (just watch Fox and CNN)…….even though experience teaches us that we are not very effective at this. We suffer a lot of pain by ruminating over things that we have done in the past. We cause a lot of pain by punishing others for things that they have done in the past.

And………we ignore the changes that we can make to improve ourselves both today and in the future.

Why?…….it’s pretty simple……… it’s a lot more fun to beat the other guy up…….or to try to shove him into some pigeonhole…….than it is to do the hard work of changing ourselves……..the hard work of growing.

It’s a lot easier to pity yourself for the hole that your past has put you in……….than it is to climb out of it.

There are a few vital lessons that we can take from these facts.

Don’t beat yourself up for past mistakes….. there are no redos……..learn from them and move on.

Don’t try to punish others for things that they did in the past…….let them learn and move on.

It’s OK to try to influence others…….but be gentle. Be certain that you are motivated by love………and don’t get upset if they ignore you…….because that’s usually what they will do.

Finally, and most importantly, you should focus 90% of your energy on changing what you are doing and on what you will do…… because, when push comes to shove, that is all you can really control.

Work to build yourself into a better person…….today. You can find guidelines in the owners manual……the Bible. (Even if you don’t believe in God……..the guidelines are still very good.)

Plan for your future………and remember that your future doesn’t end in 30 years or so when you die. Like it or not……..your future is eternal………in spite of science, in your heart, you know this to be true.

And you get to choose what it will look like.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul, NIV

I believe in heaven, but not God.

I hear this a lot, not in so many words. But, if you compare what people say with what they do, that is the conclusion that you must reach.

If you ask people what happens to them after they die, most will say that there is something beyond death. They will describe it as a beautiful pleasant place where they will be reunited with family and friends…….a place where they will be happy. People who believe that death is the end….”You die you’re dirt” …..are rare. People who believe that they are going someplace bad are non-existent.

I’ll call this afterlife paradise. In one form or another, almost all of us believe in it. Yet, a great many people do not recognise a creator…….I’ll call the creator God. Today I won’t delve into specifics.

So……can there be paradise without God?

If paradise is real, and we almost all believe it is. How did it come to be? There is no spiritual version of Darwinism. There must be a power, a force, a creative energy behind paradise……..and that is a good working definition of God. There is no other explanation. You can quibble over the details of God’s nature….. but it is intellectually dishonest to look forward to paradise while denying its creator…….while denying God.

Most people who believe in paradise but deny God will give you a description of paradise. Most of the time it is a hazy, soft focus place that feels good and is trouble free. Some of the time it is remarkably detailed. It varies from a vague hope to a detailed construct. The person who describes it is either disengaged but hopeful, or has actively created the paradise that they want. Curiously, this “do it yourself” paradise always has one feature. It never requires the person who made it up to change anything about the way they live. They get to do whatever they be want…….both during this life……..and in paradise. Everybody else has to bend to accommodate them. Not only that……paradise must mold itself to the wants and needs of the person you are by talking to. If they are on the left……..paradise has gun control. If they are on the right………. it has a world class sporting clays range.

Realistically, as finite humans, limited by the restrictions of science and the physical world, we can neither dream up nor create paradise. If there is a paradise…….. then there must be a creator.

It will be awkward for you to enter, or try to enter, paradise while denying its creator.

It is dishonest to create your own version of paradise……unless you are, in fact, the creator, God. If you deny paradise and deny God, then you are at least honest and intellectually consistent………though you must live in a state of profound despair.

So…….

If you seek paradise…….. then you must seek the creator……..and the creator is either God…………or you.

Please know………..God is seeking you.

I have walked out of very few movies in my life. One of them was “8 Millimeter”, a movie about about “snuff films” starring Nicholas Cage. Needless to say, it was extremely offensive……..but, it contained one of the most valuable pieces of theology that I have ever run across. At one point Cage’s character says,

” When you dance with the Devil………. the Devil doesn’t change……you do”

This has to be one of the greatest truths……….one of the most valuable warnings …………of life. And yet we do it every day. We participate in something…….a small act of dishonesty, gossip, pornography. We say to ourselves that we aren’t harming anybody. We even have derogatory terms for those who avoid our “Petty Sin of the Day” (PSD). We can them prudes, Pollyannas, intolerant………and we enjoy a little dance with the devil.

The thing is that we ARE hurting somebody………we are hurting ourselves. Every little inconsequential violation makes the next PSD easier. Every PSD leaves a mark on our psyche. There are pornographic images that I looked at…….. willingly……..40 years ago that are still in my head. I will carry them to my grave. My little “dance with the Devil” as a young man has changed me forever. The same is true of the “little white lie”……….the pirated video……..the demeaning comment about a co-worker.

Each of these things changes us……..and they are cumulative. Furthermore, they accumulate in us, not just individually……….but also as a society. When I was in Junior high there was a TV series, “Mission Impossible”. In one episode the female star was shown from the back without a shirt or bra on. It was shocking, it had never been done on prime time TV……people talked about it…..and it changed us as a society. Today it is not at all hard to see full frontal nudity on your TV, in your family room at 7pm. There was a time when you turned the TV off, or sent the kids from the room when something objectional came on. When was the last time you did that?

You have changed.

And it goes further. I used to watch “Law and Order”. Then I noticed that Christians were usually portrayed as hateful, bigoted angry people and the LGBT community was usually portrayed as kind gentle people. The Christians were usually the “Bad Guys”. I occasionally see the show now and it has improved. But, anti-Christian bias in our society is growing. You Tube now blocks “Christian” as a keyword in ad searches. Yes, you read that right…….check it out.

We, as a society have changed.

We used to try to teach our children judgement. “Good judgement” was a goal to strive for. Today “judgementalism” is one of the great evils in our society.

The Bible is chock full of rules…….six hundred some odd of them ……….and we don’t like rules…… we chafe against them. And yet if you look at the main ones: Love God……Love your neighbor……the ten commandments……..they are there for our own good. Like the wall around the sheep pen…….. they are there for our protection. They are there to prevent our “dance with the Devil”………to prevent us from changing into something less than we were created to be.

Advice from one demon to another from “The Screwtape Letters”

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards will do the trick.

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C.S. Lewis

One of the longest and most divisive arguments in our society is the argument over abortion. I believe that the reason for this is that both sides are being dishonest.

To begin with we must recognize that when a couple has an unwanted pregnancy…….there is no happy ending. Somebody is going to get hurt badly……the mother……or the child. The father escapes relatively unscathed. This is not fair…….but it is the reality………it is the truth.

There are only two outcomes to an unwanted pregnancy and both are bad. EITHER the mother has to endure 9 months of pregnancy, followed by labor and delivery, followed by the trauma of adoption or 18 years of raising a son or daughter……..OR…….the child is killed by being dismembered…… without the benefit of any form of pain relief.

By any rational analysis, both of these outcomes are horrible.

These are the facts……..so why is the argument dishonest?

The argument is dishonest because each side advocates a position that causes harm to somebody…….and each side ignores the harm that they advocate. Each side refuses to accept responsibility for the pain that they cause. In short, we cannot have an honest conversation about abortion until each side recognizes and takes ownership of the harm that they advocate.

The pro life side must take ownership of the harm that their position causes the mother……..and, to a lesser extent, the father.

The pro choice side must take ownership of the harm that they advocate doing to the baby.

This will be painful but it will finally lead to a conversation that is at least honest. It will not, however, lead to a happy ending for the couple with the unwanted pregnancy.

The only “happy ending” is to prevent the unwanted pregnancy in the first place. We have had effective birth control for decades. Science and chemistry have not solved the problem.

So what is the solution?

The best solution has also been around for a long time…… centuries as a matter of fact. We need to eliminate “recreational sex”. This is the solution that God gave us in Exodus. This is the solution recommended in the “owners manual” ………the Bible.

“You shall not commit adultery”

God, NIV

Like the rest of the Bible, this rule is not there to wreck our fun. It’s there for our protection……….from ourselves.

Obeying this one rule would solve the bulk of the abortion problem……..and end our dishonest debate.

Or……

We could just keep on yelling at each other for another 50 years or so.

We could force women to endure unwanted pregnancies.

We could continue dismembering 3000 children a day.

Facebook has become a big part of life. I check it daily and occasionally post things on it. My posts are usually aimed at getting something done…….in a word, many of them are ads. But, my posts are also the face that I show to the world. In a way, Facebook is how I tell the world who I am.

But, Facebook can also tell ME who I am………and even more important…….. Who I am becoming.

I know 2 people who post a lot on Facebook. One posts a lot about missing dogs and dogs that need homes. The face that she chooses to show to the world is one of love and care for animals at risk. FYIW……. her posts haven’t motivated me to rescue a mutt…….but, her heart is in a good place.The other posts a series of attacks on a well known politician with bad hair. They range from funny, to misleading, to vicious. The face that she chooses to show the world is one of hate. FWIW, I haven’t changed my politics because of her posts.

The first lesson is this. Neither of these sets of posts has changed me. Facebook isn’t nearly as effective in that regard as we like to think. It does, however, open a window into the heart of the person making the post. The fact is that, more than anything else, your Facebook page tells the world a lot about you. It tells the world a lot about me. In fact, this may be it’s greatest value.

Facebook can tell YOU a lot about YOU. It can tell ME a lot about ME.

So……… here is my challenge. Open Facebook, find the page that contains only YOUR posts, and read the last 20 or so things that you have posted……the last 20 or so things that you have chosen to tell the world about you.

What do those posts say about you? What can you learn about yourself from your Facebook posts? Are you a lover…….or a hater?

I want you to be happy……and I believe that the surest path to happiness in life is to love and care for others. Do your Facebook posts show love and care for others? Are you happy?

That is, after all is said and done, what God wants for you.

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

God, NIV