…what counts is a new creation…

Yesterday I received an award in the mail from Tom Vander Well over at QAQnA. Tom invited me to join his Mug Club and I gratefully accepted. Looking through the club I see that Tom has put me in very prestigious company!

Tom even sent me a very beautiful gold plated travel mug which, as of this morning, will officially replace my old Starbucks travel mug as the ubiquitous appendage on my wanderings.

I actually nearly met Tom when I was up in Chicago this summer. We were both in town at the same time, me for business. If I remember correctly, Tom was visiting family. Unfortunately our schedules did not work out. Ah, well.

But I do find it interesting how the blogging world seems to revolve around Chicago, at least in my case. Hmmm…

Thanks Tom, for the honor. Yours is an incredibly classy major award (unlike the major award the dad received in A Christmas Story). I’m sure to use it until I wear it out.

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If you arrange the Gospels chronologically, this is one of the first things that Jesus was recorded saying to his disciples. It’s a very big question that encompasses a whole slew of other questions.

What do you want?

• What is it you are looking for?
• What do you want to see happen?
• What do you want to achieve?
• What do you want to be a part of?
• Whom do you want to get to know?
• Where do you want to go?
• What do you want to possess?
• What do you want to give?

The is an unbelievable depth to those four little words in that question. I’m just scratching the surface.

Just like the disciples Jesus first asked the question just scratched the surface. Their answer? “Where are you staying?” Very superficial. It was sort of like asking, “Can we hang out with you for a little while?” I’m not sure the disciples really knew what it was they truly wanted.

I’m not sure I know what I want either.

As usual, Jesus answered their question and a whole lot more at the same time. “Come and see,” was all he said. Basically Jesus was telling them to spend some time with him. Then they’d find what they really wanted, that thing they were looking for.

Most folks don’t see Christianity as very relevant to real, day-to-day life these days. Yet the first thing Jesus asks his would-be disciples goes right to the core of who they are. By extension he is asking us the same exact thing.

What do you want?

You may have your life’s plan all figured out. If you do, I’m genuinely happy for you.

But I’m not there with you, though. Even though I’m rapidly approaching 40, I still don’t really know what it is I want to be when I grow up. One thing I learned flying in the Navy: You’ll never hit your target if you don’t decide which target to aim at.

Therefore I am going to take some down time by lowering my priority for the blogging scene while I wrestle with the question. When I come out the back side of the process I fully expect some things will change. What, exactly, I have no idea at this point. Nor do I know how long it will take.

But I’m sure it will be an interesting process.

Do you know the answer to the question?

What do you want?

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Gorgeous went out of town to a conference this weekend.

That is always a bit of a bummer. But I try to make the best of it. I took the opportunity to watch the movie Flight 93.

I knew Gorgeous didn’t want to watch it, “It’s too depressing.”

And I understand where she’s coming from. But at the same time I think it is important that we remember what went on that day. So I watched it while she was out of town.

The moving was incredibly powerful. I’m not a weepy kind of guy, but even I found my self welling up at the way the movie depicted the resolve of those heroic passengers on that plane. Apparently they pretty much knew there was little hope of surviving the day. Yet they chose to take action to make the best of their horrible situation.

I thought the movie did a good job not going overboard into hype or patriotism. Because there were no survivors the movie creators obviously had to fill in some gaps. They may or may not have gotten things exactly the way they happened.

What they did do is focus on the phone conversations that the passengers had with others on the ground. The resulting effect of this approach is incredibly powerful. And it limits the amount of speculation that they had to delve into.

I highly recommend the movie if you ever get a chance to see it.

On another note, I found a must read article called One Arab’s Apology. Check out what the author has to say. I originally found it here at the New York Post.

I hope we see more of that sentiment well up from Muslims about what is going on.

In a related note, what about the hubbub surrounding the Pope?

Here is what he originally said.

Here is how Muslim’s are responding.

So, the Pope quotes some guy from back in 1391 who points out that the founder of the Muslim religion had some issues like the fact that he commanded that his religion be spread by killing and violence. And apparently today’s Muslims are so offended by the Pope quoting a guy from over 600 years ago that their response is killing and violence.

Um, doesn’t that pretty thoroughly illustrate the point of the comment in the first place?

And the best part is the Pope’s speech really wasn’t about slamming Muslims at all. (Not that the leader of a religion should have to apologize for attempting to explain why he feels his beliefs are superior to others anyway. That’s the business he’s in, for Pete’s sake!) He was really pointing out the problem we have today because reason has attempted to divest itself from the spiritual and philosophical.

Even the apparently offending quote was used to illustrate the difficulty between religion and violence in general.

I don’t get the how the response that is being generated is at all reasonable or acceptable.

I have a confession to make. I struggle with destructive thought patterns.

There are times when I fool myself by rationalizing away behavior I know is wrong. My natural tendency is to be a “glass half empty” sort of guy. I instinctively see first the reasons why something won’t work before even looking for ways it might work. If something gets challenging or I run into obstacles it is not unusual for me to start questioning whether the idea is really “of God”. My track record is littered with things that I quit when things got a little difficult.

Don’t get me wrong. My reality is not all doom and gloom. But according to Paul, the author of the Book of Romans, it would appear that I often copy the behavior and patterns of this world with my thoughts. It is something he tells us we shouldn’t do. At least we shouldn’t if we want to know what it is that God wants for us.

There was a time when I really didn’t believe that it was really possible for me to have any sort of control over my thoughts. To me it seemed that my thoughts just happened. How was I going to control something that just happened all on its own?

I don’t buy into that anymore. I mean why would Paul tell us that we should change something if there was no possibility for us to have any control over it in the first place? Paul was a really smart guy. If it was impossible for us to have any control over our thoughts he wouldn’t have told us that we need to get a grip on them.

In another place, the same guy tells us some of the things that we should think about.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul tells us the kinds of things we should be thinking about that have the ability to change our behavior for the better and ultimately put us into the very presence of God.

A Question

So here’s my question for you: How do you personally go about the process of changing your thoughts, or what other translations call “the renewing of your mind”?

I said at the beginning that this is an area where I struggle. I haven’t rolled over and given up here. This is one battle I want to win. I figure learning to conquer my destructive thought patterns is one of the keys that will unlock success in much of the rest of my life.

So go ahead and share some of the practical things you do that help you in this area.

Here’s a potentially interesting topic for discussion. TIME Magazine has a photo essay on Prosperity Preachers.

What do you think of what these folks have to say?

There is no doubt these people are popular and they attract large followings. Do you think that God wants you to be rich?

Most of these folks say some form of “God wants you to be successful.” Are they on target or off base?

The new blog I’ve started up is SuccessCREEations. Do you suppose that means that I am aligning myself with these folks? Or would you say that I’m on some other track?

When you Google “prosperity preacher” Joel Osteen’s name shows up twice in the first ten results. Now I don’t know much about him other than I caught part of one of his messages once when I was getting ready in the morning at my hotel room in Dallas at a conference one time. But apparently folks say his church is growing because he tell them God wants them to be rich.

There are other folks who say that those who oppose the “prosperity gospel” crowd are just selling God short, or maybe they are lazy and don’t want to do their part to be successful.

What do you think?

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It was a Tuesday, happened to be my day off. Five years ago this morning, when everything changed for me, our country, and the whole world.

Yet today, as I reflect on the memory of the horror of that moment, very little is really any different than it was when I woke up that morning.

Because it was my day off I had slept late that morning. I remember that I was reading, as was my morning habit, when the phone rang. It was one of my wife’s girlfriends, which again was fairly normal. What was not normal was when Gorgeous put her hand over the receiver and said, “Chris turn on CNN. A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

Being a former Naval Flight Officer I remember thinking as I hunted for the remote, “Man. Some bug smasher pilot must have really screwed up!”

Even after I tuned in to the all news channel I tried to mentally calculate how a private plane could account for the damage and the smoke that I was seeing. I didn’t want to consider that it could be anything more than a horrible accident.

While I was watching I thought about my four years in New York City. How I enjoyed leaving campus in the Bronx early on weekend mornings to head into “The City”, which is how we referred to Manhattan. I would often make my way down to the financial district because I liked the solitude of walking amongst such huge buildings with so very few people around. The streets were often still wet from the night action of the street sweepers, or maybe a passing rain shower.

Somehow that part of the city at that time of the week would smell surprisingly clean to me. And that dichotomy of smell and place was one of the things I like most about making the trip that early when most of my classmates were still sleeping.

I liked to wander around the World Trade Center complex. The big buildings fascinated me. And the twin towers were the biggest. Sometimes I would get right up beside them and lean back. Looking up from that perspective the huge towering building seemed to curve back over my head. I remember feeling the building sway in the wind up as I looked down at the helicopters scurrying around the city from the observation deck 107 stories up.

Then I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

It was no bug smasher. At that moment I knew I was watching something to horrible to understand fully. And the images kept pouring in.

There were the shots of that second plane hitting the tower which were played over and over like the instant replay of some sporting event. There were the long shots of the smoke billowing out from the upper floors of those two towers like the were some big candles burning far away.

But eventually the cameras got in closer and we saw people looking down at us through the tears in the building as they desperately tried to find some clear air to breath and escape the heat and flames. And then the unimaginable started happening. We saw film of people falling 1,000 feet or more from the burning areas of the buildings. Not just one or two but dozens.

I watched in disbelief as the first tower collapsed in on itself in a cloud of concrete and smoke. How could this happen?!

By the time I watched the second tower meet the same fate as the first my disbelief was turning to anger. I was angry at the people who did this. But mostly I was angry because of what I knew.

Deep down I knew that no matter how much changed as a result of that day, there was one lesson that we would likely fail to learn. And now, five years later, it seems I was right.

The events of September 11, 2001 really are too horrible to fully comprehend. And doesn’t matter whether you believe the conspiracy theories that are gaining ground these days that claim the government somehow caused all the destruction that day as a pretense for going to war. Or if you believe that it was a deliberate attack by some extremist who are on the fringes of a religion subscribed to by over a billion people on this earth whose holy book teaches that each of us should be killed if we don’t convert to their religion.

The bottom line is the events of that day are also a warning to us. The reality is this: Our safety and security, our prosperity, our very success as a nation on the stage of history is not solely dependent on our Government.

The Bible teaches that God is at work in the events of man. It is God who raises nations up. And it is God who brushes them aside, sometimes in a moment.

If the USA is currently the world’s only superpower it is because God has made it so. And God can change that status in less than a day if he chooses. It is God that can cause the most powerful army in the world to be defeated by peasant fighters if he chooses. God can see that every single attempted terrorist act is discovered and stopped before it happens if he chooses. And God can allow a wave of terror to envelope a nation if he chooses.

Our failure is that we neglect to acknowledge this reality. 9/11 taught us a lot. But this is one lesson we have chosen not to learn. In stead of turning to God and asking for his divine protection we turn to our government to keep us safe. We expect our technology, our powerful military, and our security procedures to be able to protect us from all harm.

And we forget the one person who has the certain ability to keep us completely safe and secure.

Many people in our nation today will take off their shoes going through a security checkpoint more frequently than they will acknowledge God and seek his protection. They grumble about the bureaucratic approach to security that involves frisking grandmothers, yet trust that the bureaucracy will keep them safe.

Yet there is one who can make our security precautions completely effective. There is one who can divinely compensate for any shortcomings in our systems and procedures.

We turn our backs on that one at our own peril.

As you scroll down through the photos that remind us of the horrible suffering of so many that fateful day 5 years ago, think about the words written by a leader who understood how dependent his country was on God for their protection.

In times of trouble, may the LORD respond to your cry.
May the God of Israel keep you safe from all harm.May he send you help from his sanctuary
and strengthen you from Jerusalem.

May he remember all your gifts
and look favorably on your burnt offerings.

May he grant your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans.

May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory,
flying banners to honor our God.
May the LORD answer all your prayers.

Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed king.
He will answer him from his holy heaven
and rescue him by his great power.

Some nations boast of their armies and weapons,
but we boast in the LORD our God.

Those nations will fall down and collapse,
but we will rise up and stand firm.

Give victory to our king, O LORD!
Respond to our cry for help.

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Well, what do you think?

Do I actually look like any of these folks?

Thanks to Rick for sharing this site.

Our power went out last night. At about 9 o’clock. Flicker, flicker. Then dark. And quiet.

It was weird. Just a couple streets, maybe a total of 30 houses. The houses on the next block still had power. I couldn’t see any downed wires or anything. Of course in our subdivision all the utilities are underground.

Gorgeous immediately went into action lighting bunches of candles. We found our flashlights. Changed out some batteries.

And then decided we might as well just go to bed. What a concept.

So we blew out all the candles and tried to turn off all the light switches so we wouldn’t be blinded when the power came back on in the middle of the night.

It turned out to be a rather nice change for us. The TV was off. We couldn’t access the internet. We actually found ourselves talking to each other. What a concept! And by candlelight even.

There is probably some deep spiritual lesson here. But all I know is I had a good chat with my wife, got a good night’s sleep. The power came back on about 3:15 so everything was up and running this morning.

And it promises to be a good Friday.

Enjoy!

Did you ever have one of those days?

I don’t mean a day where everything goes wrong. Just one of those days where nothing seems to quite get moving along in the right direction. A day where you feel like you are simply drifting and don’t have the power to get yourself back on course.

Yesterday was a day like that for me.

It started when the phone rang at oh-dark-thirty. It was my boss. A ship that we expected to arrive later in the day had arrived at the dock and we needed to have someone out there right away. Could I get out there?

It wasn’t really a request.

So I got up, put on some coffee, splashed some water on my face, got dressed and headed out the door. Gorgeous helped me out by getting up and putting together something for my lunch. (Did I marry up, or what?!)

By the time I finished with the ship it was just about time for the normal work day to start so I just went over to the office.

The phone call wasn’t that much earlier than I usually get up.

Yet somehow busting up my normal morning routine seemed to throw me off for the entire day. I never really found my rhythm.

Work was busy. I got things done. But I never felt I was being as productive as I wanted to be.

It was not like I was overly stressed or in danger like the guy in the picture here. (I really hope it is a Photshop job!)

I just had a discombobulated day yesterday. I’m glad today is starting out better.

Do any of you ever struggle with days like that? If so, how do you get yourself back on track?

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I’ve been saying it for years. Unfortunately this weekend I was shown to be right.

I don’t feel good about it at all.

Years ago I said, “One day that Crocodile Hunter guy is going to get too close to some nasty creature that is going to kill him. And the cameras will be rolling as he dies.”

That is exactly what happened to Steve Irwin this weekend.

Apparently he was filming an encounter with a stingray when it flicked its tail into his chest. The stinger went right to his heart.

His death is all the more tragic, not only because it was senseless and entirely preventable, but because it was so very predictable. We can discuss how relatively safe stingrays are and how few people are actually killed by them until the cows come home. But that misses the larger point of the pattern of behavior that totally tempted the odds which were heavily stacked against him.

We are all wired with certain healthy fears which help us to live longer and have better lives. Steve either ignored his fears or didn’t have them in the first place. The results speak for themselves.

There are some who will try to lesson the tragedy by saying things like, “Well at least he died doing something he loved.” But I’d be willing to wager that if he knew when he got up that morning that he could have the choice between one last swim with the stingrays and watching his two small children grow up, he probably would have been willing to never go in the ocean again.

They say that the most common fear we all have is the fear of death. No one really knows for sure what is beyond life. Some speculate that it is just nothingness. Other people have an understanding of paradise and hell - places of everlasting pleasure and suffering respectively.

But the point is none of us really knows for absolute certainty. Even the most sure are exercising a degree of faith because they have not seen it with their own eyes.

Perhaps the clearest picture of what happens after we die was given to us by Jesus. Here is what he said about the subject.

Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed and who lived each day in luxury. At his door lay a diseased beggar named Lazarus. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally, the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.”The rich man shouted, `Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in these flames.’

“But Abraham said to him, `Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. Anyone who wanted to cross over to you from here is stopped at its edge, and no one there can cross over to us.’

“Then the rich man said, `Please, Father Abraham, send him to my father’s home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them about this place of torment so they won’t have to come here when they die.’

“But Abraham said, `Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read their writings anytime they want to.’

“The rich man replied, `No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.’

“But Abraham said, `If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even if someone rises from the dead.’ “

Jesus shows us there are two possibilities after death. Taken on its own this story might be interpreted to mean that rich people will never get to heaven and poor people are guaranteed a ticket in.

But that is not what Jesus is getting at here. The one who ended up in heaven read what the Bible had to say on the subject and took it to heart. The one who ended up suffering either chose not to read or read and didn’t believe.

The Bible is very clear on what is required for a person to “make it” into heaven. There is no reason for anyone to doubt. And we can face even death without fear.

The Bible explains it this way:

For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.

I can’t make it any clearer than that. I only hope that Steve Irwin chose to believe before he went swimming with the stingray this weekend.