Comment to “A Boy and a Dog”

I’ve recently been reading John Eldredge’s book “The Way of the Wild Heart.”  (Check it out at amazon.com, then go buy it at abebooks.com, alibris.com, or christianbookbag.com for half the price.)  I definitely recommend this book for any guy and especially for fathers or father figures.  Eldredge takes a look at six areas of a man’s life (the beloved son, the cowboy, the warrior, the lover, the king, and the sage) and shows biblically how to live out that area to the fullest.  It’s a much more balanced book than “Wild At Heart” in my opinion.

Anyhow, in his chapter describing man as lover, Eldredge describes two common mistakes men have made concerning their hearts:  (1) give in to whatever passions come and (2) discipline the heart ruthlessly.  Speaking of the second, he writes, “But discipline without healing doesn’t work real well over time, and it can do great damage to our hearts, which begin to feel like the enemy so we’ll do what we can to kill them in order to avert disaster” (Eldredge 2006, p. 210).

That’s the impetus for “A Boy and a Dog.”  It’s the story of a boy being forced to kill his undisciplined dog but it’s also the story of mankind killing his heart and his love for fear of what may come.  It hurts, it numbs us, but it’s safe.

I for one want a whole heart, even if it’s not necessarily the safest thing in the world.  Men, after all, are made in the image of God, and God is far from safe.  As C. S. Lewis put it in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” (p. 75-76):

“If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than me or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” asked Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.  “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”

Comment on “What is Faith?”

I’ve often wondered about the heroes of faith found in Hebrews 11. When Abraham left his family, his country, his employment, what was he thinking? Was he “full of faith” and confidence or really, really scared? Or what about Gideon leading his few hundred men to battle against the thousands of Midianites? If he wasn’t afraid, he must have been an idiot.

Is faith the absence of doubt or action in spite of doubt?

I have been very much blessed by the writings of Erwin R. Mcmanus (author of many books and pastor of Mosaic). The first book of his that I ever read (An Unstoppable Force) held that to have faith did in no way mean to be without doubt, fear, anxiety, etc. Rather, to have faith meant to trust God in spite of your doubts, fears, anxieties. (If I had my book here, I’d tell you what page number that was from.)

That makes a lot of sense to me, more sense than to think that faith means somehow ignoring the facts.

So, why do we act by faith, then, if there is still doubt?

Maybe some of those great moments of “faith” were actually moments of vast desperation.

I think for the friends who lowered the paralyzed man through the roof (in Luke 5), faith was an act of desperation. I can’t imagine none of them had any doubts about whether Jesus would respond kindly or not. (They just tore about the man’s house, for cryin’ out loud! I’d be seriously doubtful of a kind reception.) But I can believe those men were desperate, clinging to a thread of hope that maybe, just maybe, Jesus would overlook their impertinence, their impatience, their lack of social grace. And maybe, just maybe, he would choose to heal their friend.

I think those men showed great faith, but it was faith in the presence of doubt, not in the absence of it.

Comment on “Who Is That Man?”

I have recently been leading a Sunday school class going through the book Jesus Mean and Wild by Mark Galli.  (By the way, I put the link for buying the book from Amazon there, but if you’re smart, you’ll check out Alibris for cheap and great quality books.  At the time of this writing, in fact, new copies of “Jesus Mean And Wild” were selling for under $5.  Sweet deal!)  Chapter 3 of the book is entitled “Holy War,” and it describes Jesus’ first ministry in the book of Mark, his encounter with the demoniac found in Mark 1:21-28.  I was struck, in the reading of this chapter, by how much we are all like the demoniac.

Like the demoniac, we seek Jesus out.  We run after him, follow him into the synagogue to find truth, love, acceptance, value…  We really, really want Jesus.

But, also like the demoniac, we find ourselves tormented by Jesus.  We near him, and we cry out “Have you come to destroy us?!”

We sense his love, but we sense his holiness.  We sense his acceptance, but we sense his desire to separate us.  We love that he loves us, but we hate that he loves us enough to change us.

There’s a war going on inside of us as we pursue Jesus.  Part of us says, “Jesus is loving, and I want to be near him.”  But the other part says, “Woah!  Jesus is trying to kill me!”

I imagine that John would’ve sensed some connection with the demoniac.  John, remember, had left his very own father in the middle of a job.  It’d be like working in the family grocery store, stocking shelves for dad.  Suddenly, you see a friend and mentor from church, and you just walk out of the store with the guy.  You never punch out, never say “Goodbye,” never check to make sure it’s okay to leave.  And you never come back.  I imagine John struggled with that.  John was the “apostle of love,” the one who leaned on Jesus’ chest and was very close to the heart of God.  Imagine how his own heart must have been in turmoil, knowing he had let down his own father to pursue a man deemed an irresponsible glutton of a Jew.

I find myself often in those places of turmoil, on the one hand knowing Jesus is the most loving being in all the universe; but on the other hand knowing that he wants to kill all that I have let myself become.

Mark 8:35 (Jesus’ words to all his potential followers) reads, “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake and the good news’ shall find it.”

Jesus’ arrival on earth was good news; good news like the doctor who came with a saw to cut off my grandpa’s gangrenous leg.

What am I doing on WordPress?

Through the years, I’ve tried blogging on everything from BlogSpot to MySpace. I’ve had blogs on topics ranging from camping trips and outdoor experiences to short reflections on faith to even a daily devotional. So what on earth brought me to WordPress, and what do I hope to accomplish here?

I’ve discovered over the years that one of my favorite ways to connect with God has been to take the Bible and meditate on it, soaking myself in a story until I can almost smell what the characters would smell, see what they would see, and taste what they would taste. Then I rewrite it in my own words. It’s been a great way for me to connect with the meaning behind many of the stories in the Bible and also to explain just what’s going on in my own heart.

So I’ve decided to devote a blog here on WordPress for just such postings.

I titled this blog “Echoings” because an echo starts with a sound, the original, most powerful, most clear, “true” sound. That sound goes out from the source, bouncing off of rocks, cliffs, trees, satellite dishes… The echo is just the resulting reflection of that original sound, a copy of it. But, like all copies, it’s slightly different, changed a bit in some way. These “echoings” will start with the truth of the Bible and bounce off of my experiences to bring you a copy, but a slightly different copy with slightly different nuances.

I hope you’ll enjoy these rewritings of biblical stories, but don’t expect them to be completely true. Don’t base your life or understanding of the world on them. (That’s what the Bible’s for!) But use them to open your mind to other ways of looking at things, to a broader understanding of the Bible. Use them to bring out certain truths. Use them to help you apply the 2- to 4-thousand year-old stories to your own life here in the twenty-first century.

So… I hope you enjoy these small “echoings” of mine.