I Give Because I Can, Not Because I Must

It’s a Tuesday afternoon as I look over the budget for our youth department.  I’m trying to find a way to take our graduating seniors out to dinner to celebrate with them.  As I get to the bottom of the page from our finance officer the numbers are all in red.  We’re always in the red it seems.  For a ministry that serves nearly 100 students, we have one of the smallest budgets in the church.  The youth pastor is texting me asking what our options are.  It breaks my heart to think that we wouldn’t be able to do something special for a senior class that has impacted our church in so many ways.  “We’ll be okay” I text back.  “Just plan it”.  We both know what that means.  I’ll make a donation to cover the cost.  I’m happy to.  I want to.

I recently took a survey about giving for my church.  Actually it was for our entire denomination.  As part of the Seventh-Day Adventist church, there is a large global infrastructure for which tithe and offering go to supporting; pastors, teachers, missionaries, administrators, etc.  Over the past few years the global church has seen a decrease in giving, prompting the recent survey to members about giving and their thoughts on stewardship.  As I went through the survey I was disappointed in the options provided for an individual’s reason for giving.  The choices came down to a.) I give because God tells me to, b.) I give because God has blessed me and I need to return it, c.) I give so that God will bless me.

I was a little lost and frustrated by these responses.  None of them fit my reasons.  I CAN give because I’m blessed, but that’s now WHY I give.  I don’t feel this mandated obligation by God to give time and money to my church as repayment for my life and salvation.  It angers me to think of it this way.  There’s no love in that.  It paints a very bleak picture of God which I feel is contrary to what I believe.  It reverts to an Old Testament theology of a vindictive and judgmental God rewarding only those who He chooses.  “If you don’t pay tithe God will smite you” might as well be the message from the pulpit.

These three options don’t leave a whole lot of altruism in them.  Here is where Atheists and non-believers win the morality argument.  An Atheist will say no one commands them to give, and yet they do in order to feed orphans or find a cure for disease.  Every time a Christian says “I give because God commands me to” or “so God can bless me” reveals their own greed. Is that what God really wants, for you to give because he makes you?  In Luke 21 Jesus tells the story of the widow with two mites who gave more than the richest person.  Not because of the amount or because she was commanded to.  After all, both people gave because they were commanded to.  It was the heart.  She gave because she wanted to.  She gave because she wanted to.  Somehow in her meager existence she found a way to give and it brought her joy to know that she was contributing something, no matter how small the gift was.  Hosea 6:6 says ”For I desire mercy and not sacrifice”.  Mercy is the heart, the sentiment that God looks for.  Sacrifice is the command.

I feel like the church far too often focuses on giving as requirement because they’re worried about how the electric bill will be paid.  But talk to the most generous people and they don’t give because they feel obligated or because they’re seeking some return on investment.  They give because they want to.  Their heart is there seeking to make a difference.  I give time and money because I want to.  I see how lives are changed by the ministry of the gospel and I want it to continue to impact more people; to make a difference in this world that sees so much pain and suffering.  Like giving Christmas presents to my kids, there’s nothing I would rather do.  And so many times I wish I could do more.  Let’s not cheapen that by making it a requirement.

Father’s Day Nightmare

My Father’s Day started the night before, as my oldest son and I headed to a Major League Soccer game.  I love soccer and taking him to experience the sights and sounds unique to professional soccer was as exciting for me as it was for him.  I kept a close eye on him, making sure to point out soccer hooligans and explaining what a corner kick was.  The time was well spent as The next morning I was permitted to sleep, but as soon as I wandered into the living room I was wrapped in hugs and anxious “me first” to give me their home made cards.  All promptly followed by breakfast at the Golden Corral.  As I sat down to share my wonderful time with friends on Facebook I came across this “I see all the posts for people who had fathers to care.  I’m jealous.”

There are thousands of children and adults for whom Father’s Day is not a reminder of childhood dreams, but a recurring nightmare.  It’s a constant reminder of the man who abandoned them, who didn’t love them, and wanted nothing to do with them.  Or of the monster whose constant verbal and/or physical abuse left scars that will never heal.

The sad reality is that there countless fathers who do not deserve the title.  Their children bear witness to their own self loathing and irresponsibility for an action most wish they could take back.  They don’t appreciate the beautiful life that they took part in creating, and in so doing share the responsibility of shaping.  It is the responsibility of men who take part in bringing a life into this world to be the man that boy or girl longs for.  Despite what your own experience was or is, it is not yours to perpetuate a cycle that is a scar on the body of society.

A father can fill the hopes and dreams of a child to achieve anything in their imagination, or they can shatter those dreams without so much as a word. I’ve been blessed to be witness to the balance that a father brings to molding the life of a child.  From the infinite impact of my own father’s nurturing, guidance, and love to my own contribution in shaping the lives of my own boys.  Children not only need a father’s love, they crave it. With every “Daddy look”, they seek his approval that they are accepted.

My heart breaks knowing today is full of people who just for one moment wish they could have the strong arms of a father wrap around them and make them believe that everything will be all right.  Who long for that voice to say “It’s okay, I’ve got you” without so much as the faintest sign of doubt.  To be told “I love it because you made it” while sporting the world’s ugliest tie for the world to see.

Children, love your fathers because most of the time they’re just as scared as you are.

Fathers, love your children because at the end of the day all they really want is for you to accept them.

And pray for those whose fathers are absent for whatever reason.  Especially those who may never have been blessed enough to know their father in the first place.

Christian School Fires Teacher Because of ex-Husband

Carie Charleston had had a rough weekend.  She and her two children called the Sheriff’s office three times for incidents involving her ex-husband.  On Monday morning, she told the principal of Holy Trinity School where she was working as a second grade teacher about the situation and to keep an eye out for her husband.  Sure enough he showed up and the school went on lockdown.  Ms. Charleston was subsequently put on administrative leave and her two children who attend the school were expelled.  Three months later she was fired.

If I were a parent of a student at the school I would be outraged.  To the point of removing my own children from the school.  I’m paying tuition for my children to attend a school where they can learn and grow in a Christ centered environment.  That’s more than just having prayer at lunch and learning creationist theory.  What kind of Christian example does this set?  If something bad is happening to someone, turn the other way?  It’s definitely not the Christian example I want taught to my children.

I wonder if they make sure that they don’t have pictures of famine in Africa so their students don’t feel bad. What about bullying?  Will the school expel the student being bullied because they’re creating an unsafe environment that provokes bullies?  At what point can you rationalize the message of Jesus into ignoring those suffering in your midst?

I understand that there is a safety issue here with serious concerns for the remaining students at the school.  But in the wake of the Newtown shootings this seems like an extreme reaction.  If you fear for the safety of your students, shouldn’t you look into your safety protocols first?  They have nothing to fear if doors are locked and guests must check in and out through one door in the office.  These school officials are the Priest who crossed over to the other side of the road so they didn’t have to touch the Good Samaritan.

James 1:27 says “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress”.  Ms. Charleston didn’t do anything wrong.  She married and divorced a horrible person and is trying to live her life well without him.  She had the courtesy to tell her employer of the situation and in so doing, issued a silent plea for help from those whom she believed would care most; the Christian community in whom she trusts.  I hope every divorced woman, single mom, or victim of domestic violence in that church community realizes the message this sends.  This church and school only care unless it doesn’t effect them personally.  I hope there’s another Christian school in the area who responds with the compassion of Jesus Christ and hires here, regardless of whatever baggage she comes with.

 

Source

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/teacher-fired-domestic-violence-ex-husband-161455153.html

American’s Need to do More than Complain

I remember life before TSA very clearly.  It was my senior year in high school and my class was headed to the Dominican Republic for a mission/senior trip.  For most of us we had never been outside the country before and we were excited.  Our parents stood around comforting each other and taking pictures as we increasingly got more and more excited.  As we boarded the plane and looked out our windows we could see our parents standing in the terminal waving at us.  On our way home no one stopped to confiscate the bag full of knives and machete’s we had bought in the market in Santo Domingo.  My kids will never know what that feeling is like.  The world they will inherit is paranoid and reactionary.  It’s filled with government tracking systems, drones, and body scanners.  And none of that will change because no matter how much they complain about it, American’s really don’t want to do anything to fix it.

With the eerie revelations of spying that Edward Snowden revealed to the public this past week, American’s are trying to decide whether to be outraged or not.  Some praise him as a hero while others condemn him as a traitor.  The problem is that as soon as Kim Kardashian has a baby people will quit caring about how their government spies on them.  And just like the anger that came from the introduction of body scanners at airports, it will soon fade into complacency because complaining takes so much less work than action.

Think about all of the things that have made us uncomfortable on our couches, but not nearly uncomfortable enough to actually take action for change.  We discovered the president wishes to fly drones over US cities.  Apple is tracking us and Google is recording us.  We take credit for inspiring the Arab Spring, yet what did our own Occupy Wall Street movement actually accomplish?  We have grandma’s getting pat downs and drones flying over US cities.  And the few who take a stand in the name of freedom and liberty are either arrested or go into hiding.  Even as I write this, I know I must be careful not to use certain words or phrases that would have me spending the night in an FBI holding cell.

I believe that our founding fathers would be sorely disappointed in how apathetic Americans have become.  It’s almost comical.  A country founded by rebels who wanted to be left alone to live freely is now so comfortable they barely blink an eye when Microsoft, Apple, and Google introduce products that can track every aspect of your life and report it to the government.  The world is advancing with technology taking us to places that only science fiction has dreamed of.  But with it must come a concentrated effort to be cautiously optimistic of the consequences.  If American’s don’t effectively express their opinions and find ways to engage in change, those in leadership will not know what the true heart and mind of the nation is.  Decision and action are then skewed toward the minority who actually do more than complain, rather than the vast majority who didn’t feel it was worth turning off Sports Center.

I want to believe that if it came down to a true issue of freedom American’s would react rather than allow personal freedom’s to disappear.  What frightens me though is that in the mean time, our complacency allows for those in authority to take action in the pursuit of safety that result in us all being locked in a matrix run by terminators without ever realizing it.

How to Get Rid of God

How would one go about proving there’s no God?  Technically you can’t prove there’s no God, there’s no scientific measure by which you can prove or disprove the existence of a god.  But there is something that can be done to eliminate the desire for God.  Do good.  It’s simple really.  If you want to show something doesn’t exist, show that you can do what it can’t.

The first argument from any atheist to question the existence of God is “since evil and suffering exist, then a loving god cannot”.  That can also be translated to “if there’s a loving God, why do bad things happen to good people”.  But does evil disprove God’s goodness and love or does it reinforce it’s existence?  If we didn’t have evil, how would we know what good is?  The more I’ve read and studied in my spiritual life the more I’m convinced that the existence of evil is stronger proof of God than the existence of good.  For the majority of people I’d say good is natural.  We have a conscience that tells us basic right from wrong.  Evil is the opposite of God and exists because of our conscious choice to live contrary to the love of God.  Therefore, if you show that life can be lived in love, peace, and harmony with your fellow man without a reliance upon God, you in essence eliminate the need for God.

Dr. John Kreeft in an interview with Lee Strobel for the book The Case for Faith explains ”The source of evil is not God’s power, but mankind’s freedom.  Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people have genuine freedom and yet there is no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within it’s own meaning… with the granting of that choice comes the possibility that people would choose instead to hate.”

Ask a Christian how their life would be different without their faith in God and they’ll likely tell you they’d be more selfish, less caring for others, and even have slightly less regard for the law.  Some would go so far as to paint a stark picture of the world thrown into chaos where morality and human decency doesn’t exist.  There’s this naïve belief that morals only exist with faith in God, a belief that many atheists take offense to and rightly so.  If I were an atheist, I wouldn’t worry about running around trying to pass legislation to remove the ten commandments from courthouses and Bible class from schools.  I would focus on using science, reason, and logic to start solving the problems of the world.  I’d spend my time doing all the good that I feel isn’t being done by Christians and their so called loving God.

Again, you aren’t proving there is no God.  You’re eliminating the need for God.  Atheists choose to believe there is no God which in essences takes just as much faith as believing there is a God, since neither can be proven scientifically.  If you believe God doesn’t exist, prove the world doesn’t need him. There’s enough food and medicine to care for the entire planet.  There are billions of dollars spent on senseless frivolity that if devoted providing something as simple as clean water to every person on the planet would change the world.

The existence of two options provides evidence of both.  Like day and night.  Take away one and soon people would cease to believe in both.  If there was no more night, daytime would still exist but people’s perception of it would change so that they no longer realize there’s a difference.  Life would simply exist with constant light.  Take away evil and people will soon become complacent enough with constant good they wouldn’t rely on God as the source of that good.  Even Christian’s will slowly leave God in good times.  I’ve seen it over and over where Christians who live well and comfortably slowly become complacent with their faith.  Who needs God when everything is going so well?  People realize their need for God when they realize the world without His goodness.  They see the evil and sin in the world around them and cling to the God who promises a life free from all of it.  Churches exploded after the September 11 attacks as people sought God for peace and understanding.

Evil is proof there is a loving God because it reveals a world without His love to us.  We see the results of good choices and blessings on those around us as the result of a loving creator God who doesn’t wish to see us suffer.  Who provided a world the was “good” from the beginning, but in which our own freedom introduced sin and suffering.  We took it upon ourselves to do our own will, taking the world from His omnipotent hands.  We pray for God’s blessings to guide us and to bring relief from sin in this world.  And even if I didn’t believe in God, I’d seek that same end all the more.  So that through the self-made will of man I would prove the reliance on God as obsolete.

But even in the end, after all the disease is cured, every child is fed and educated, and war is dead you would be haunted with one question.  Where did this desire to do good come from?  And once again you come to God.

Jesus Comes in Muffin Pans

It’s a beautiful late spring day as I walk up the front walk of my house at 9 o’clock at night.  It’s been a long day and as I draw near I can smell my wife baking through the kitchen windows open next to the front door.  As I step in the smell is intoxicating.  I follow my nose through the kitchen to the dining room where she stands laying muffins out to cool.  There are dozens of them; pumpkin, blueberry, and lemon.  Each one made from scratch.  My mouth waters even now as I write.  I wrap an arm around her waste and kiss her on the cheek.  “You’re amazing, thank you” is all I have to say.  I had asked her if she could make muffins for my youth group the next morning.  She’s always willing, but this time was different.  It was baccalaureate weekend for the seniors graduating from our school.  She looks back at me with a tear in her eye.  “I’m going to miss them” she says.  I knew she had got closer to this class than years past, so I just smile and nod.  She stands in silence holding a blueberry muffin in her hand like it’s a baby bird.  She’s somewhere else now.  “You know I pray for them” she says.  Of course she prays for them I think.  I pray for our students too.  “I pray for every muffin.  Every time I bake for the youth group I pray for each one.”  Then it hits me as I realize there are 100 muffins sitting on the table.  I may be the face of our youth group, but she’s the heart.

Over the years my wife has baked thousands of cookies and muffins for the youth group.  It’s just a given.  No one turns down an invitation to our house for lunch because they know if they hang around long enough there will be a batch of fresh cookies.  We don’t put money in graduation cards, each card is redeemable for a dozen cookies whenever they like.  It’s what my wife does and she doesn’t think twice about it.  And until this weekend I didn’t realize the full extent to which those little medallions of goodness change my youth group.  Each student who consumes cookies by the handful has had multiple prayers for them.  Not a “God bless the youth group” prayer, a “God bless the person who finds this” prayer.  Looking back at the countless times I’ve served muffins and cookies, I now realize those prayer filled pastries are the reason my youth group is as good as it is.  More than all my crazy camping trips or youth rallies or sermons, it’s a little prayer whispered over a muffin.

I’m humbled.  My wife is the widow with two mites who gave more than the richest ruler.  She’s the tax collector quietly praying in the corner while I stand in the courtyard drawing attention to myself.  She’ll never be up front giving speeches or leading a small group.  She won’t spend the one on one time I do with students.  She doesn’t need to.  And she’s a better youth pastor than me because of it.

Do We Deserve Our Soldier’s Sacrifice?

Why do soldiers die?

I remember very clearly as we drove down the long road in Arlington National Cemetery the first time.  I had read about it and seen pictures, but as we got out of the car the scene was overpowering.  Standing there in person was like being in another world.  I was overwhelmed to see the countless rows of white headstones as far as you could see; each one marking the place where a husband, father, son, daughter, or cousin had died for their country.  There are no words to describe it.  It’s a sobering reality that the life we have does not come without a cost.  And through 250 years of American history, over 1.3 million lives of American soldiers have paid that price without regret.  And still hundreds of thousands more still stand prepared to do the same.

Growing up I was very privileged to have parents who took the time to take us to national parks and monuments.  I’ve been to Valley Forge where George Washington’s American Continental Army camped in 1777 while fighting to found this country.  I’ve stood in the fields of Gettysburg where some 50,000 American’s died defending their freedom.  I’ve been to Europe and stood where American soldiers broke down the gates to concentration camps.  When you first step foot onto those hallowed grounds you stand in awe and wonder.  You begin to smell the gunpowder in the air and hear the wishing of bullets around you.  You can sense the tension still in the air as you picture soldiers battling.  When you’re young and you’re introduced to these things it’s cool.  You read stories about the war and pretend with your friends that you are fighting for the cause.  You want to buy the toy musket from the gift shop and make believe you’re George Washington or General Lee.

But as I’ve grown older the realization and recognition of such events becomes more sobering.  You reach out and touch the tree where a musket shot still lays buried and you know this was no small choice.  While so many Americans are passionate about their lifestyle, beliefs, and freedoms all of those come with a price only a few truly understand.  I’ve been blessed over the past few years of my life to come to know great friends and family who have reminded me that freedom isn’t as free as we think from our couches.  I’ve seen their love and dedication to an ideal that is bigger than themselves.  To preserving a way of life for Christians and Atheists, Conservatives and Republicans, Gays and Straights, Billionaires and Welfare Recipients.

Memorial Day is a time to reflect on what we have the what it took to get here.  It’s a time to be thankful for those willing to do what many of us are not.  And as we fire up the grills, poor a cold drink, and stand in our yards remember that a soldier somewhere is protecting your right to listen to Justin Bieber.