Yesterday I was sent to a local distribution center for one of my wife’s favorite retailers to survey some furniture that was damaged during shipment. I actually had to put my jacket on for the first time this season.

It’s funny how the weather seems to go here in Savannah. The temperature has dropped almost 30 degrees since late last week. Last week I was on vacation and my sister came to visit. She and I drove down to Jacksonville to check out their zoo and it was nearly 90 degrees. We were dying walking around for the day. And then the other night (right after she left) we had to bring the plants in to keep them from getting frosted at night.

Life is like that. The one consistent thing that we can depend on in life is change.

When you think about it, change is almost one of the defining characteristics of life. Infants grow up. Aging is a part of life. In our society we move from place to place, change jobs frequently.

I was thinking about change and I ran across this passage in Ecclesiastes

I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him.

It’s got me thinking.

What are the things that truly matter in this life?

People matter. There is no doubt about that.

And of course God matters. But he’s a person too so really God is already in that category even though he certainly deserves special mention.

As far as I can see it, all the rest is, “oh, by the way..”

What do you suppose the implications of that are?

Maybe all the stuff we chase as important in our lives really shouldn’t be such a priority. Hmmm….

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Update: Marcus has posted a very well thought and reasoned response over at his place, titled simply Truth, that deserves your attention. Head on over. Check it out. Maybe even drop him a comment giving your two cents.

Note: This post came out of a comment thread from the other day. Marcus took issue with what I had to say about the Source of Wisdom. Marcus has been a regular commenter here at CREEations and really challenges me to refine and better understand my own views. Yesterday he brought up some good points and, since my reply started to get rather long winded I decided to bring it out in a whole post. (I hope that’s OK, Marcus.)

Marcus,

If I sound pissed, I again apologize. It is definitely not the case, and I know it does nothing to detract from the stereotype of the “angry Christian”. I have a tendency to express my opinions strongly and can come across as angry when it is just the New York in me and the strength of my convictions coming out. My wife will attest that this phenomenon is much more pronounced in person! (”Its not so much what you say, Chris. It’s the tone.”) Really I’m not angry. I’m working on that. Sorry if I come across that way.

And I certainly agree as you mentioned that the followers of various religions all believe they have found the truth. And I really do respect differing beliefs, even though I disagree with them. It is one thing for various individuals or groups to believe they have found the truth. But there is no way we can stand on the outside, look at these different beliefs and say, “They are all true.”

Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard (to name only a few) all said different things from each other that they each claimed to be true and have adherents that also claim that what they said is true. They each have given vastly different “instructions” on what it takes to have a fulfilled life and to be prepared for the afterlife.

But, Marcus, you and I appear to have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is. Either that or maybe we place an entirely different value on truth.

I look at a diverse declaration of truth like that and say, “Because they make differing claims, they can’t all be right. Let me do my best to find the one who actually has the truth.” For me, my path to religion was a rocky search for truth. I wanted to know God no matter how much it challenged my understanding. And I looked at a lot of options before I landed on Jesus.

I’m not sure whether you are coming from a place where you see that they could all be right or if you are trying to say that it doesn’t matter what folks believe, because if it works for them it must be true.

When you boil it down to their essence, most all belief systems out there at their core are some flavor of “do the best you can (or follow this code) and hope it works out OK in the end.”

Then there’s Jesus. What he said was radically different in part because he said there is no way your best can possibly be good enough. He said that the standard for pleasing God is simple: absolute perfection. In order to please God we have to be just as perfect as God himself. Because there is no way any of us could possibly measure up to that perfect standard we are all doomed.

But, just as in any great epic story, after he hits us hard with the idea that it is impossible for us to ever measure up, Jesus says there is another way.

And this is where it gets really nutty because Jesus says some totally outrageous stuff. Basically he says that we’re in luck because it just so happens that he himself is God incarnate and if we follow him we’ll be OK because his God perfection can substitute for our impossibly flawed imperfection.

I mean, Marcus, here’s a guy that looks just like you and me (only more Jewish) who flat out says that he is God and we should follow him. It is totally preposterous, goofy, insane, and not much different than the leaders of most cults. Downright evil, really.

Unless it is true.

So after years of dismissing Jesus’ claims (mostly because people I knew who were Christians were so messed up and treated me poorly) and looking at many other options, I eventually decided to take a closer look at him. The evidence I found was really surprising.

Jesus validated his claims by performing a variety of different miracles including changing the nature of matter (turning water into wine), controlling the weather (calming a storm at sea), healing people of numerous infirmities and even raising people from the dead.

Impressive for sure, but the written record of miracles performed two thousand years ago by some guy was not enough for me.

But then, after he says all those crazy things about being God, he dies in a way that is pretty much beyond his control and that is accurately predicted in Bible passages from the Old Testament hundreds of years before. Interesting. But maybe it was luck? Perhaps. But looking at his life I found there are several things about him that were accurately predicted which he could not possibly have controlled, even things like where and when he was born, who his parents were, and the circumstances of his birth.

That’s even more impressive, but it’s still not enough for me.

Then Jesus takes the whole “I’m God” thing to a whole other level by refusing to stay dead after he is horribly executed. Even his enemies acknowledged that he was no longer dead in their bumbling attempts to cover it up. If he really was still dead, all they had to do was produce his body and the whole thing ends right there.

But he wasn’t dead any more. Hundreds of folks saw him alive after thousands saw him executed. It was no clever parlor trick or deception on the part of his followers. He really was alive.

This one fact of history is what sets Jesus completely apart from all the others. There is no cult leader yet who has raised himself back to life after he’s died.

I used to think that, well his followers made the whole thing up and then wrote about it a hundred years or more later and put down the stories in such a way as to make it seem true. The trouble is that modern archeology has put some of the New Testament writings to within 30 years of Jesus’ death. That means there were still people alive at the time who lived through the events and would have refuted them if they were not true.

Then there’s the lives of his followers. Would they have all gone to gruesome deaths, almost to a man, and hold to something if they knew it not to be true? I mean we are talking about horrific things like crucifixion (even upside down), beheading, being boiled or burned alive - no “humane” lethal injections for that group. No way they’d all face that horrible an end for something they knew not to be true.

Anyway I bring all this up, simply to point out why Jesus’ claims are different than the claims of others, before and after him. I don’t expect to convince you that Jesus is right. I just felt I should explain where I am coming from and why I believe his outrageous claims about himself.

But that brings up another interesting question. Should a person share with someone else information that he understands will vastly improve that other persons life, even if it conflicts with what the other person is currently believing?

Let’s say I see that you have some problem. It doesn’t matter what that problem is, a cocaine addiction, you eat too much and are obese, you spend money like a drunken sailor and are drowning in debt, or maybe you just drive without a seatbelt and are at a higher risk for getting smeared on the highway. It doesn’t matter.

If I see that there is a simple solution to your problem (and yes even something as overpowering as addiction has a simple solution. Abstinence may not be easy, but it is simple.) am I a better friend if I point out the problem you are having and offer up a solution? Or am I a better friend if I just let you wallow in your issue and eventually cause serious harm to your own life?

I would say the better friend is the one who speaks up and offers to help his fellow man.

Now that offer of help may be rejected outright. And it might even make the fellow angry. “How dare you say that I have an addiction! I can quit any time I want.”

But the rejection of that help doesn’t make the helper any less caring. And it certainly doesn’t make him hurtful or judgmental of his friend heading for trouble.

That’s the same way followers of Jesus perceive the issue of truth. Only it is even more urgent than a life and death issue. We are talking not only about a better life here (along the lines of a life free from addiction) but we are talking about the hereafter, which goes on for all of eternity. And forever is a long time. Too long to be wrong.

So when I get a little passionate about sharing what I understand to be true, Marcus, please understand how urgent I see the issue to be. As a former military guy I understand the importance of life and death issues. Eternity is the one issue that make life and death stuff look like choosing what clothes to wear to a party by comparison. Compared to forever, to me, life and death is small potatoes.

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Do you ever wonder why the world is such a mess?

There is a reason for it.

Do you ever scratch your head at some of the inane things that are often said by highly educated folks in places like New York or Las Angeles? Or how is it that so many folks living on either coast so completely don’t understand the vast majority of the rest of our country living in the “fly over” states?

How is it that so many of the folks who head up so many of our educational, cultural, governmental, and corporate entities seem able to come up with such bizarre stuff? And then, if someone might happen to disagree, either look at them as though they are ignorant children or portray them as nasty folks for daring to dissent with what everyone knows to be true?

Did you know there is a reason that so many people think followers of Jesus are a bit loopy. (I mean besides the fact that so many of us have turned Christianity into nothing more than a list of do’s and don’ts and rail on anyone who isn’t keeping our list. That’s a topic for a rant of its own.)

Paul talks about this very topic in the Bible. It is a long passage. But take a moment and read the whole thing.

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people, or birds and animals and snakes.

So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever.

The truth is that in spite of how poorly many of us Christians represent the person of Jesus, in the end folks won’t be able to use that as an excuse. The reality of God’s existence is evident in the world around us. People who insist on having “proof” that God exists before they will acknowledge him only need to open their eyes and look around.

Of course when you’re looking for an excuse, any excuse will do. For someone who doesn’t want to believe it doesn’t matter what “reason” for not believing they fix on. One excuse works just as well as another.

But after reading that bit from the Bible, is it any wonder that so many different religions have sprung up here in the last two thousand years? We humans have been hard wired with the desire to worship something, anything, even if it is ourselves. When folks reject God it is not uncommon for them to eventually begin to make up their own ideas of what God is like.

Many of the newer religious sects claim for their authority the fact that their founder was visited by an angel who delivered to them a divine message. Yet Paul has strong words about that too.

Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed.

You may think that the idea of someone bowing down in worship to a statue of a bird or a snake is silly, something that never happens anymore. Fair enough. Yet, if you think about it, how many folks do you suppose place inordinately high value on the world around us? There are definitely some who place a higher value on earth, and the other living things on it than they do on other people. They focus their energies on protecting these things at the expense of people’s welfare in the interest of caring for “Mother Earth.”

Some really do choose to worship the environment. How else do you explain inane statements like cigarette smoking is a significant contributer to greenhouse gases? I mean I’m no fan of smoking, but that is just silly. It seems to be a statement from someone who is claiming to be wise but has become an utter fool instead.

When we choose to reject God and instead focus on disproportionally emphasizing the things that God made, God in his mercy lets us go off in that direction. He could by rights strike us dead when we reject him, I suppose. But instead he chooses to continue to give us opportunities to change our mind and follow him.

The Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.”

James even lets us know how we can get more wisdom if we find we are lacking it.

If you need wisdom–if you want to know what God wants you to do–ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking.

Rejecting God is a very dangerous business. We may believe we are doing the smart thing by doing so. But the irony is, the smarter we feel we are getting, the dumber the things we do and say as we get further from the wisdom of God.

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Gorgeous got home the other day and found the air conditioner had quit. Not a good thing to happen down here in Georgia. Fortunately for us the nights are starting to get a little cooler.

The other good thing is that we called our home warranty folks to arrange for a technician to come out to look at our A/C. No problem, they said, and arranged to have a technician head over to take a look see the next day some time.

We had a house guest who fortunately was a good sport about the whole thing. So we just opened the windows, got some fans working and made the best of it.

But then when I got up the next morning I realized the problem might be a little bigger than just a faulty a/c unit.

I got up at my customarily early hour, shuffled out to the kitchen, clicked on the light over the microwave (no bright lights first thing in the morning for me) and got started on my morning coffee making ritual. When I turned the coffee pot on I immediately noticed a couple things.

First the nice, not so bright light over the stove dimmed down to about half as bright. And I heard the box fan we had going in our bedroom stop. I poked my head back in the bedroom and saw that our alarm clock was also off.

Back in the kitchen I turned the pot off again. The light went back to normal and I heard the fan again. Yep. The alarm clock was back on, blinking 12:00.

Hmmm…. Ver-r-r-y Inteh-rehs-tink.

I decided maybe I better not make any coffee if the process was going to stress out the rest of the house like that.

Our house guest had also had to get up early to catch an early flight back home. Fortunately her alarm clock was battery operated and went off in good order. She had a fun time getting ready until we worked out that every time we turned on a light somewhere in the house it seemed to make the lights in the guest bathroom dim a little more. When we turned them back off, the brightened a touch.

Nothing like getting ready for the dawn patrol in a disco bathroom!

I decided a call to the power company was in order.

After a frustrating couple of runs through the voice recognizing automated menu (technically our power wasn’t “out”. It just wasn’t all on.) I was put through to an incredibly helpful and nice lady who took down all my weird symptoms and assured me they’d send someone out right away.

And she wasn’t kidding.

Right about 30 minutes later a Georgia Power truck drove up. Actually the side of the truck still said Savannah Electric, but they were just bought out this summer. The repair man did his electrical voodoo and said, “Yep. You’ve got a problem.”

Fortunately for us the problem was on his side of the meter.

Unfortunately he didn’t have the equipment needed to fix the problem. He said another truck was heading our way and they would take care of it.

A couple hours later another, bigger truck pulled up towing a trailer with an excavator on it. I had visions of them digging up our entire lawn. But the guys told me they could probably get to the problem with shovels.

Sure enough they got our power fully restored. Total time from first dialing the phone to the power company: less than 4 hours.

When they were finished, the guys explained to me that sometimes other utility companies accidentally nick the main power line going into a house when they are burying their cabling. The damage causes the power line to fail slowly over time. It is not unusual to have a problem like ours rear its head years after the damage was originally done.

I’ve had some time to think about our little power struggle this week with all my time in the car (I think it can find Jacksonville without me at this point).

Our struggle this week is a strong analogy of the struggle that followers of Jesus face every day. Jesus himself promised that we’d be plugged into the power of God in one of his last recorded statements.

But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere–in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

All in all the New Testament contains well over 100 references to power. Most of them are talking about the power of God or of Jesus himself. But there are several that speak of the power of Jesus’ followers. For example check out these passages:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. *

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. *

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. *

Yet somehow most of us believers operate as though we are only partially connected to our power source.

Sometimes things are like the air conditioning unit and simply just don’t work in our lives. Maybe we have some addiction or bad habit that we want to be free of, but can’t seem to shake no matter how hard we try. Maybe we are drawn to alcohol, smoke too much, have angry outbursts, eat way more than we should, spend time looking at pornography, whatever. Because we’re only partially connected to our source of power, we aren’t getting enough juice to overcome the bad thing which has control over us even though maybe we desperately want to.

Or maybe we seem to be tapped into our power source, but like turning on the coffee pot, we get unexpected results because we are not fully connected. Maybe we are very successful at work, but somehow our home relationships self destruct at the same time and we end up divorced. Maybe we pray though a big decision, feel we hear from God, step out and then, Kaplewie! Things blow up in our face. Not the result we expected.

Was God trying to trick us into making a mistake? Or is it more likely that somehow we were not fully connected to our power source?

Perhaps the reason so many see Christianity to be irrelevant to our society today is that we are so weakly connected to our power source that we don’t seem to be any different than anyone else. The only difference in many of our lives from those who don’t believe is that we get up early on Sunday morning while everyone else sleeps in. That’s not a great a selling point! Why would anyone want to follow Jesus if that is the only difference?

We were meant for more. More power. And more results.

Let me close out today with words that Paul wrote to one of the New Testament churches

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

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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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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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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.

I pulled a book off my shelf this morning as a reference for an article I was writing. It is not at all a spiritual book. In fact it is a book about how to make money.

I only bought it because I heard the author speak at a conference one time years ago. I liked his story and what he had to say. In fact I caught up with him for a second afterwards to let him know that I appreciated what he had to say and he offered to sign my book.

Being a book guy I think it is pretty cool to have the author’s signature so I gladly handed my copy over for him to scratch his name in. Instead he wrote a short, personal little note. It took him maybe 30 seconds.

I’ve had that book 10 years now. No, I’m not a millionaire. But then I haven’t really applied many of the principles he wrote about, so I can’t pretend it is the fault of the book.

Regardless, today I picked it up from my shelf to look through it and I took a closer look at his note. At the end, after he signed his name, he put a scripture reference. Now I know I’ve looked it up before but I couldn’t remember what it said. So I looked it up again this morning.

And I was blown away. Here is the passage:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I’ve seen that passage before, especially the second paragraph. I talked about it a couple weeks ago in this post about Big Questions from Stepping in Something Squishy.

We say those words about God being able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine every week as we head out of church.

But until this morning for some reason I never associated them with the knowledge of how totally consuming and all encompassing the Love is that Jesus has for each of us.

The Bible says that perfect love drives out fear. And I am dealing with a little bit of a fear issue as I start something new.

Perhaps God is trying tell me that I should put a little effort into understanding how much Jesus really loves me so that I can get a grip on the whole fear thing. Frankly the whole concept of “love” is one of those squishy things that I mostly don’t want to think about.

I’d honestly rather think about guy concepts like victory, conquering, overcoming, power - pretty much anything other than love. (You gotta read it with a sarcastic emphasis on the word love to get the full effect here.)

But maybe that is the basis of my fear thing I’ve got going on. Until I get over my infantile aversion to the concept of love (I can’t help the sarcasm yet. Sorry.) maybe I’ll never move forward.

So. As I go through the day today I am going to be thinking about Christ’s love for me. And I’ll work at not giggling or getting weirded out while I think about it. Because this whole fear thing is for the birds.

I’ll let you know how I do.

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