My Brain Needs Some "Happy Little Trees"

Have you ever felt the need for a Bob Ross marathon? Do they still do those on PBS? I really could use some "happy little trees" in my life right now.

 

My wife has pointed out to me lately that I am a bit of a grouch. I haven't really been able to see it. I've always been pretty upbeat and chipper. You know the annoying guy at work that you want to slap for being so happy? Yeah, that's me. I guess when you get used to thinking of yourself a certain way, its hard to change that image.

 

But when I think about it, I have been rather sullen at times. Sadly, my wife and daughter have probably taken the brunt of this shift. In the comfort of home is where we let go a little bit, so yeah, I'm probably not making the concerted effort I should while at home.

 

I'm exhausted. Physically, mentally, and emotionally wore out. Long days. Short nights. Full time job. Full time school. "Part time" ministry. Toddler and pregnant wife at home. Some days I feel like I'm not just saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone ... I'm kept on my feet by grace alone. Thank God for that. But my brain's bandwidth is used up. I'm teaching a controvertial series at church, moral relativism, and studying a controversial topic at school, science vs evolution (yes, I worded it that way on purpose).

 

Then, today while sitting at the front desk at work so that the receptionist can go to lunch, the news report on the TV is nothing but wall to wall commentary on the latest political controversy to send my blood pressure up.

 

As I sat there thinking about changing the channel and considering what I might turn it to, into my mind popped the memories of the ever-memorable fro, beard, and soothing voice of Bob Ross painting some "happy little trees" ... of all things.

 

That's when it hit me. We fill our lives with so much  tension and angst. Our conversations center around drama and controvery. Our thoughts focus on aggravations. Our entertainment tends towards conflict (sports, action shows, movies, drama, etc). How often do we just sit and enjoy simple, peaceful things? Do we make calming and peaceful things a regular part of our brain's "diet"?

 

We fill ourselves with all sorts of negative (or positive but exhausting) ideas, thoughts, and activities. Why do we forget that these things will/do affect us?

 

Philippians 4:8 clearly states, "whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever thingsare pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, ifthere is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."

 

God knows we need to feed our mind goodness and virtue and praiseworthy things. He tells us as much.

 

I'm thinking my mind has been malnourished. I need to make sure I give my brain the nourishing thoughts and inputs (food) it needs.

 

What are you feeding your brain?

 

 

There Be Dragons Here

I am what's called a young earth creationist. I take God at His word when He says in His Word that the earth was created in 6 days about 6,000 years ago. I believe that He judged the world and sent a flood which only Noah survived along with his family and all the animals on the Ark. That also means I believe that dinosaurs onced lived side by side with humans ... well maybe not right next door, but the two would certainly have crossed paths.

 

So where did the dinosaurs go? After the flood they migrated and eventually died off. You may think that is crazy talk, but do you realize that if mankind and dinosaurs had lived at the same time that mankind would have documented it? They would drawn things like cave paintings and heiroglyphics, and we would have passed odwn tales and legends of fierce giant reptiles that once roamed the earth.

 

Um ... yeah, we have all that.

 

A curious thing happened to me the other day. My three year old daughter was playing with a toy dragon she has, and sitting nearby I saw a book about dinosaurs. I pointed at the toy and asked what it was. She naturally said it was a dragon (and roared at me). I then held up the dinosaur book with a picture of a T-rex. I asked again, and what do you think she said? ... "Dragon." (Again I got 'rawred' at and attacked by the toy). A little bit later, after she had moved on to new entertainment, I picked up the dinosaur book and asked her what that was a picture of on the cover (T-rex). She said, "Dinosaur." So, I picked up her dragon toy and asked again. She said, "Dinosaur."

 

So easy a three year old can get it. Sometimes I think that as adults we get too smart for our own good.

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/what-happened-to-the-dinosaurs

Practical Theology

You don't talk about politics and religion in polite company. That's the conventional wisdom. The idea being that these are such devisive topics that it will quicly turn impolite. However, I would say that to never consider or discuss important issues with at least close friends and family may be downright rude.

 

I once had a systematic theology book given to me titled "Practical Theology". It was sitting on my coffee table, and a friend commented something like "'Practical Theology', isn't that a contradiction?" I was floored. This was by no means a dimwitted, shallow-minded person. She was the sort to think things through and not shy from tough issues. So hearing her claim that a person's thoughts on God had no practical purpose was astonishing. Once I unleashed a rant on her stating otherwise, she backed up a little and conceded some, but still, this has rolled around in my brain for years now.

 

However, I am understanding more and more where this idea comes from. We live in a bizaar cultural skitzophrenia where we buy into both naturalism and relativism at the same time. Naturalism, usually taught through public education, claims that only what can be observed in the physical world is real and (in most cases) denies any non-natural or metaphysical explanations to things. Relativism on the other hand, usually gained through media/entertainment, is all about experience and feelings, claiming that we can't really know anything for sure so everything is true/good/etc. as long as we believe it is.

 

So we are trained in school growing up that supernatural things don't matter (if they even exist), and trained by pop-culture to go with what we feel. So God, if He even exists, is not something I feel like thinking about (you know with the judgment and morality thing), so therefore it doesn't matter because I choose what is important for me and besides I can't see Him anyway ... if He's even real.

 

Is it any wonder that even thinking sorts would consider the study of God as an impractical pursuit?

 

One of my favorite quotes is from AW Tozer in "Knowledge of the Holy" where he explains, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us," and "because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological."

 

There is no more practical question to human beings than what we believe about God and who He is. That understanding will shape every other belief, choice and aspect of our lives. However, since He is both outside of nature and absolutely objective, this runs against the grain of both the naturalism and the relativism in which we culturally walk daily.

 

Our culture screams at us to not wory or not waste our time with seeking God, meanwhile our heart whispers to us that we were made for something more than this world has to offer. As CS Lewis said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."

 

With that in mind, knowledge of God and related things (theology) becomes the most practical thing in our lives. That being the case, how could we NOT discuss this with others?

More Than We Can Handle?

"No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it."-1 Corinthians 10:13

 In one of my classes we are looking at commonly misused Bible verses. According to the text,one of them is 1 Corinthians 10:13 which people supposedly twist to state a general idea that God will never give you more trouble in life than you can handle. I honestly cannot think of any time that I have ever heard this verse misused in the way indicated by the author. In fact, I was very surprised to see this verse even in this book. While I have heard people say that God will not allow us to endure more than we can handle, it is usually from another verse or (most often) some vague philosophical idea that since God loves us He would never let us suffer more than we can handle. I have actually only ever heard this verse used in relation to temptation. However, it usually does not go beyond a superficial, fortune cookie type reasurance that leaves the hearer thinking, "Ok, so why is sin controlling me and where is my way out?"

The author, Bangerhuff pretty much nails it when he says that "God knows a person's limits with regards to temptation, and He will not allow any temptation to supercede a person's ability to resist it." However, in the midst of temptation we are often blinded by the lies and promises of the tempter and do not see or understand the way out. That's why the author points out Hebrews 2:18 which reminds us that Jesus was tempted and helps us in our temptations. Also, a major issue for many people is simply their lack of understanding about life, sin, and temptations. Too often we pass over serious Bible study in exchange for feel good devotionals that do not always equip us for the harder things in life. Bangerhuff says that we need to be "fortified by the Word of God." Temptation can be resisted, and escape can be found, if we know what we are looking for.

The author ends with a great statement that we lose sight of often, "looking to and leaning on God is the answer. He is faithful." Despite the drive-by "encouraging" I usually see this versed used in, it really does offer some good help for those struggling with temptation, when properly understood. Hearing God will not allow you more temptation than you can resist does not seem very helpful when you feel enslaved by sin, and being told there is an escape can feel disheartening when you cannot see a way out. However, that comes from us dwelling on the temptation and not on God. Like Peter on the waves in Matthew 14, our success depends on our focus. Take our eyes off the Lord and we sink. Instead we need to lift our focus from the waves of temptation and look to the Lord. The Bible records 6,000 years of God proving His faithfulness to mankind. He was faithful then, and He is faithful now. It's not enough to know there is a way out, but we need to seek the Lord, who is faithful, so that He can lead us out.

Ota Benga and the Value of Life

Have you ever heard of Ota Benga, the African pygmy who was on "display" in the Bronx Zoo in 1906. I put "display" in quotes, because from the best I could tell, while he was certainly exploited because of racist bias, it seemed he was employed (or at least given room and board) by the Zoo and not treated as an animal. He had free roam over the zoo grounds and even helped out with some work. However, despite any compensation he may have been receiving the attitudes of the people were clearly that he was less than human, or at least less human than they were.

This story was a great example of worldview affecting the value of human life because we have explicit quotes from both evolutionist thinking and Biblically thinking people. A movement of black clergy tried to get Ota removed from exhibit with the leader of the group, a Rev. Gordon, was quoted stating "Our race ... is depressed enough ... without exhibiting one of us with the apes. We think we are worthy of being considered human beings with souls." The New York Times ran an editorial that claimed, "The pygmies are very low in the human scale. ... The idea that men are all much alike except as they have had or lacked opportunities for getting an education out of books is now far out of date."

While you could go round and round debating whether Ota was actually being mistreated directly by zoo officials, they responses to the situation speaks volumes about their views on the value of life.Those with a Biblical framework were bothered by a human on exhibit in a zoo and evolutionists either were more likely to be apathetic or thought it was appropriate, basing their conclusions on their idea of Ota Benga being less evolved than they were.

Something has value because something greater than itself has placed value upon it. Money, gold or jewels only have value in that they are desired. A thirsty man in the desert would value water far above gold or diamonds. The value we have as human beings is because God loves us. He made us and wants to redeem us. Regardless of what friends, family, bosses, or coworkers think of us (or even what we think of ourselves) we have value, not because we are so intrinsically awesome, but because God  has assigned a value on us. A value to great that "He gave His only begotten son so that whosever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

A naturalistic evolutuonary worldview has nothing outside of mankind to assign value to mankind. Evolution views humanity as simply one more organism populating the earth. Molecules in motion. A meat bag controlled by chemical reactions with no greater value than chimps, dogs, slugs or bacteria. In order to claim some sort of value on people as a whole or a person as an individual, evolutionary thinking has to borrow that idea from a theistic worldview. In a naturalistic evolutionary view of the world, it is easy to see how if there is nothing outside of mankind (God) to assign value to mankind, then we can assign or deny whatever value we choose to any group we choose on any basis we choose and feel completely justified in doing it with no rational moral claim to the contrary.

"Judge Not"?

I have often ran up against the “thou shalt not judge” police among both believers and nonbelievers alike. Usually the nonbelievers and skeptics use it with the most vehemence and then look at you smugly as if they have won some great victory over you.

Unfortunately, believers are not immune to misuse of this idea as well. Typically, when this quote from Jesus, found in Matthew 7:1, has been used in the context of a sermon, lesson, or other Bible teaching environment, it is quoted and exegeted properly. However, I think that speaks volumes about where many Christian get their ideas, since in regular conversation with believers I have often heard this verse referred to specifically or (more often) only vaguely to try and either justify sin or negate the person pointing the sin out.

The ideas of relativism and what the world defines as “tolerance” have so infected the church, I often hear Christians using the same no-accountability argument that non-believers use. Indeed, I rarely hear any form of “judgment” language with the context of accountability except from official lessons, sermons, devotionals, etc.

I recently read an explanation that this verse is addressing hypocrisy, not “being judgmental” as so many people use it to mean. In fact, it seems that in our culture, the idea of judging anything has a negative implication to it. This is pretty inconsistent with the way we live everyday life, judging all sorts of things from restaurants, other drivers' intentions, and how to best interact with others as we go through our day. However, applying that same way of thinking to morality gets people on edge and sets off defenses.

By completely misrepresenting the word “judge” in this verse, people think they have some great ammunition to defend their own sin, when in fact the whole point is about how and when we point out sin, not that it shouldn't be done. Certainly just because someone is a hypocrite doesn't mean their judgment may be untrue. An alcoholic telling you to not drink may be a hypocrite, but that addresses an issue with his morality. It does not dismiss yours.

The book I referenced earlier, "The Most Misused Verses in the Bible" by Eric J. Bargerhuff, states that “Jesus does not forbid all moral judgment or accountability” and that the Bible assumes Christians will use moral accountability to “come alongside [a] brother or sister in an effort to bring him or her back from the error of their ways and save them from the destructive power of sin”. We can take great comfort and hope in knowing that we have not been abandoned to figure out and follow after God's will on our own. He has given us our brothers and sisters in Christ to walk this journey together and hold one another up when we stumble.

Our selfish, sinful nature isolates us from others. Our pride puts up barriers which rejects any attempt to critique or point out error in any way. However, as fallen creatures, we know we are not perfect, and we are in need of help to grow in Christ and live lives that glorify Him. Instead of a knee-jerk selfish reaction to correction, we should take refuge in the safety of a brother or sister warning us of dangers as we walk the path together.

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem

As we continue our trek through proper thinking, our next stop is an easy and obviousone: The Ad Hominem fallacy. In the Latin it means, "to the man." What happens here is when a person directs their argument at the credibility or character of the other person rather than the subject being argued.
This can be done Abuseively or Cirsumstantially.

Abusive is pretty obvious: "Obviously you are wrong because you are a complete idiot." This calls the person's character into question, trying to discredit them so that others will not consider them trustworthy and therefore doubt their argument. We see this a lot in politics. Sometimes the claims are true, "My opponent spent time in jail. Do you really want to trust a criminal?" Maybe he did spend time in jail, but is that relevant to the issue? It may not even apply.

The Circumstantial Ad Hominem is when you use a person's circumstances to disqualify their argument. A common one is something like this, "You're only a Christian because you were raised that way. Christianity isn't true." They mau have been raised in a Christian home, but that doesn't have any relevance to the claims of Christianity.

Mostly we need to be sure that our basis for belief in anything is the actual ideas and not the person.

Another common one I hear is people who don't want to be a Christian because all the ones they know are hypocrites. That may be that you see some shady stuff done by Christians, but you're not following them. You're following Christ. Judge Christianity based on its teachings not on the imperfection of its followers.