The making of beloved companion

I love dogs. The words dog-person apply to me. I used to have a dog named Mister and he was a really great companion. When I came home he was SO HAPPY to see me! He didn't want to go out or eat until we had time to greet each other. No matter what happened between us he still loved me absolutely. There is no doubt if the need ever arose he would have protected me without prejudice. He had to sleep right beside me. He was a great listener.

No matter how awesome and unconditional a dog's love is for his owner it can't compare to the love of a human. Humans can empathize, love, give support, pray over you. They have a whole world of other people to choose to love so when they love you its a precious thing. You know it was a CHOICE. Sometimes we don't understand why we love someone we just know that feeling is there.

What makes a human's love so much better than a pets? Its the risk. Its knowing that a person looked at you and CHOSE to love you. This Christmas I was sitting by my niece at dinner when she hugged my arm and said "I love you!" It melted my heart. It was the coolest feeling ever. No one made her say it. It was a spontaneous thing, like she was just overcome and had to get it our. I knew it was genuine. She knows other people and yet she chooses to love me.

Think about the movie Stepford Wives. The husbands have their wives' brains removed and turned into perfectly compliant wives. The new wives look perfect, always have dinner hot and ready, are ready and willing to hop into bed whenever the husbands want. But is that love? The wives can't chose to love their husbands anymore. The husbands never have to risk losing their wives. I would never want a husband that is forced to do my will without the option to choose to love me. I don't want a shotgun husband. If love isn't chosen then what worth does it have?

What does this have to do with God?
This is why we were made! God made us to have a community of people to love. Its the reason He put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. He didn't put it there to try to trick us. The really great thing that God gave us, the thing that separates us from the animals, is the ability to make decisions, to choose. What good is the  ability to choose to love someone if you don't give them an opportunity to say no?

If I have a teenager and I tell them that I trust them but I never let them out of my sight I'm not really giving them an opportunity to be trustworthy. I need to let them leave so they can choose to come home safely.
God could have made us like a dog. He could have given us the capacity to show love but only given us the option to hang out with him getting food and a place to sleep. He could have programed us to love just Him and never given us a different choice. But is that really love?

Love means giving worth to another, possibly at your own expense. God, giving us the opportunity to walk away from Him, made a huge sacrifice. If you knew your child would grow up and betray you would you still have children? He knew we would betray Him. He knew He would have to send Jesus down to get the crap beaten out of him and yet he still made us! He knew we would break His heart and yet He still made us. He knew we would choose to side with the enemy and yet He still gave us choice.

That's how much he loves us and wants to be with us! He was willing to endure all that heartache so He can be with us now and forever in Super Heaven. If he had just wanted a sounding board, someone to sit with at dinner he could have made us just another talking animal or a robot. We could have demonstrated loving behaviors but it wouldn't be LOVE. Real love is chosen.

A great and terrible divorce.

A friend of mine was telling me about his divorce recently. Its a common and sad story. His ex wife has some mental health issues which make her aggressive, unable to cope with conflict and unable to be truthful or reasonable. As often  happens the judge gave custody to her. She does not honor the custody agreement. She refuses to allow him to see his children. What's worse she fills the children with lies about their Dad. She tells them that he doesn't love them, that he makes life harder for them. Now I know the Dad and unless he is a real Jekyl and Hyde I can't believe the lies about this guy. I don't understand how the kids can believe these lies. How does someone live with someone their whole life and not know their true character?

How is this like God?
Its the Fall all over again! We were in this great parent- kid like relationship. Our Abba came every day to hang out with us, to play with us. Then the enemy - who I'm going to call the evil step-mother- came along and told us that our Abba didn't love us as much as we thought, that He had lied to us and we believed it. Then there was a great and terrible divorce. The evil step-mother got the house (earth) and the kids (us). We can call Abba and talk to Him. But our evil step-mother keeps telling us lies about our Abba. She tells us that He doesn't care about us, that He is the cause of the bad things that happen to us.

Phrases like "God only gives us what we can handle" imply that our Abba is the one that brought the bad event on, like He is testing us. Here's one I battle with constantly "He'll only love you if you're good. He'll be disappointed with you if you don't perform well." She is implying that His love is conditional on me behaving to a certain standard. That's a lie! He loves us unconditionally like any good parent. Then when something bad happens I assume its a punishment He sent down to me because I wasn't "good enough." (Yeah, I grew up Catholic, can you tell?) But the truth is I live in a broken world, that my evil step-mother has allowed to become a wreck. If something bad happens to me its because of the chaos she has created or my own actions.

Sometimes our Abba talks to us, but because he is far away His voice isn't very loud. So what does our evil step-mother do? She cranks up the volume on the tv so we can't hear. She keeps us so busy that we can't call Him at night. When we do hear from Him she twists the words to make it seem like He doesn't care. She really is quite a bitch.

So how do we combat our evil step-mother?
This is why its SO IMPORTANT for me to learn, remind myself, remember who my Abba REALLY is! Lets look at the facts. He created a beautiful and perfect world for me to live in. He sent my big brother, Jesus, down to die so that I can go back home. When I take the time to be in relationship with Him I can start to see the truth, to see past her lies. I have to use my head though. Its a constant battle.

Here's another analogy.
I teach middle and high school kids. I am amazed at how quickly they are willing to throw their friends under the bus. They hear a rumor and they immediately believe it instead of tracking down the source or thinking about the true character of who that person is. They hear that their best friend told a lie about them and they are ready to throw down instead of going to their trusted friend and saying "hey, I heard this and I wanted to know if its true." We do the same thing with God. We hear a rumor or a twisted truth and we just believe it without testing to see if its valid. We don't look at what we know about God, we just react emotionally.

The good news is that someday I'll get to go live with my Abba and I won't have to live with the evil step-mother anymore. I don't know when that day is. Her objective is to make me hate and distrust Him so much that when that time comes I don't want to go. But I'm tired of living in her tyrannical world. She keeps me in a house that is full of anxiety, distrust, anger, frustration and stress. Living with Abba is peaceful, quiet, joyful. In His house I know that I am enough, that I am loved no matter what. There are rules that create a serene environment. So I will just batten down the hatches and keep on keeping on here until that day. But I need to remember who my Dad is so that when the judge finally says I can choose where I want to live I make the right choice.

Duck For President and The Fall

On Saturdays I get lunch at Chik-Fil-A where I get a kids meal. I like to give the books that come in the kids meal to my nieces. This week they are giving out the Doreen Cronin's books and I got Duck For President. In the book all the farm animals have chores. Duck, a bit of a trouble maker, doesn't like his chores and thinks he can run the farm better than Farmer Brown. So duck hosts an election and wins which means he gets to run the farm. He realizes that running a farm isn't fun so he decides to run for governor. He wins that race but realizes that running a state isn't fun either so he runs for President. He wins that election too and realizes that running the country is too stressful so he gives the job back to the former President and goes back to the farm.

This got me to thinking about our society. We also seem to have this idea that the "dirty jobs" are undesirable and that if we can get into management it will be easier and more fun. This is a lie though. Mike Rowe gives a great Ted Talk on how people who do "dirty jobs" are happier and find more fulfillment in their lives. Here is the link. (Warning, he talks about castration which is gross but he's a really great speaker so its worth it)

I'm a school teacher and people have said to me "Why don't you become a Principal." My answer is "Heck NO!" Being in management isn't all its cracked up to be. There may be less manual labor but the stress level is so much more. There is more responsibility and more to answer for. As a teacher I show up, teach and go home. I don't have to go to Board Meetings or worry about all the new legislation. I don't have to worry that if our test scores go down I might have my name in the paper or that the Superintendent or Board will be yelling at me that I didn't manage my school well. Don't get me wrong, I have a share in the responsibility of our school's accountability but it doesn't rest so heavily on my shoulders. Principles and Superintendents ultimately are responsibility for EVERYTHING that happens in their school.

Its the same in the business world. If I work in a widget factory I show up, work my eight hours and go home. I don't have to worry about the price of my raw materials; I don't have to worry about our stocks. I don't have to worry about paying the mortgage or the unions or how to offset the cost of raising insurance premiums.

So how does this compare to The Kingdom?
Example 1:
I realized that being in management is what God tried so hard to protect us from. Lets start with The Fall. Adam and Eve had a job, to name the animals and care for the world. At that time, everything was working pretty well so this was an easy gig. Then the serpent comes along and convinces Eve that God is holding out, that God doesn't want her to be able to judge good from evil because God wants to be superior. Eve is convinced that she should be promoted to management. So she eats the fruit. Now she can distinguish between good and evil.
It might be easy to agree with the serpent, that God was trying to keep himself superior so that we had to do the hard work or so that He could be "better" than us. (Lets be real, He is) What if God wasn't keeping us from judging (the knowledge of good and evil) to be better than us but instead to protect us from stress that comes with judging?
Becoming judges puts us in a position of management. We now have more responsibility. If we aren't good stewards of our responsibility then we are liable for our actions.
Judging that is what we do right away. We see someone and immediately start judging them. Is he a good person? Is she smart? Is she trashy? Is he attractive? Is he going to like me? Do I want to like him? I bet she thinks she's smarter than me. I bet he makes a lot of money. Why in the world is she wearing THAT? Why does he talk like that? He is weird. She has it all together.
We don't just judge others, we judge ourselves. Am I doing a good enough job? Am I fulfilling my purpose? Am I a good enough... (teacher, wife, friend, worker etc)? Am I as pretty as she is? Am I worthy of God's love? 
Its exhausting this judging! We're so often wrong too.

Example 2:
Another biblical example would be the Israelites. They didn't have a single ruler, a king. God wanted them to be able to be together and treat each other well without needing someone in management. But they saw other nations with a king so they asked God for one. He tried to talk them out of it. He tried to make them see that life is better without a human in a position of power over them but they didn't believe Him. He gave them Saul. That worked out for a while but eventually his human nature took over and he didn't do a very good job.
The problem with humans wanting to be in positions of management is that we are so selfish in nature. When we are selfish we stop looking at the Big Picture and look after our own best interests instead. This is why its so much better when we let "Jesus Take The Wheel." He has a view of everything and He loves us so much that He doesn't look after His interests, he looks after ours. He is good at judging between good and evil because He can see the whole picture and we can only see our side. He has the best interests of everyone because He loves everyone. I have the best interest of Stephanie because I want to make sure that I come out ok. I may be good enough to try to see other people's point of view. Even when I compromise or try to make a good choice for all, I'm putting a spin on it that makes me come out looking good and getting what I want.

What did Jesus tell us?
Jesus didn't charge us with being in management. He didn't want us going around elevating ourselves so that our feet get washed. He charged us with racing to the bottom, becoming servants. He wants us to lower ourselves to washing others' feet. We aren't to judge someone and only wash their feet if they are counted worthy. Everyone is worthy. I love how Greg Boyd says it "Your only opinion of someone should be to agree with God that they were worth Jesus dying for." This means I can't judge them. I don't know their whole story so I don't have enough information to do it well. This means I do my chores without trying to manage the farm. The farmer goes home at night exhausted from managing. My few chores aren't so taxing. I need to remember to just do my part and let God rule.

Ender's Game and God's Plan

I recently watched the movie Ender's Game. If you haven't seen it and want to be surprised don't read this blog.

For those of you who don't love sci-fi just hang in there. Here is a little synopsis for those who haven't read the book or seen the movie. I have only seen the movie so please pardon me if its different from the book.
In the movie a boy named Ender is being trained to battle an alien race called the Formics. At one point in history the Formics came to earth where a terrible battle occurs. Hundreds of thousands died so earth has started training for the event when the Formics return. Ender is a boy genius. He manages to quickly make his way through the ranks and toward the end of the movie they move him to a training station very near the Formics planet. Ender and his team train constantly. One day Ender is told that they have graduated to their final test.
In order to pass the test Ender is challenged to obliterate the Formics. His team has this monster weapon that is very lethal but takes time to recharge after it is fired. There are thousands of drones, little planes with some basic fire power, that Ender and his team also have but they can only kill one little plane at a time. Ender has all the drones surround the giant weapon to protect it so that he can accomplish his goal of destroying the planet. The drones take the hits as the monster weapon recharges. The generals are amazed and at first angry because by surrounding the big weapon the drones abandon their shuttle crafts which get destroyed. Thousands of "good guys" die because Ender doesn't protect them, instead he focuses on winning the overall battle. His genius at seeing the big picture is what it takes to be victorious. He destroys the entire Formic planet.
Now this is where this analogy is going to concentrate. For those who know the whole story there isn't anything godly about what happens next except for Ender's selflessness in trying to save the Formic species.

Now for the How Does This Relate To God part.
God sees the big picture. Our view is so infinitesimally myopic. We are like the drones, we only see just what is around us. If my commander tells me to surround the big weapon and sacrifice myself to save it my response might be "hey, what about me?" But God sees the whole problem. He has an end game in sight. His end game is quite opposite of Enders, instead of destroying as many as possible His goal is to save as many as possible. He may need me to sacrifice myself, my comfort, my goal in order to attain His. He may also be positioning me for something that he sees coming down the pike that I am currently unaware of.

I may pray for something and it may not happen. This might cause me to think God doesn't care about me or that He isn't powerful. But that's because I'm only seeing a small piece of the picture. Add to that people and angels with free will and He has quite a puzzle to put together. He would love to bless us with our prayers but maybe my prayer goes against the mission at large. Maybe my prayer will throw off someone else coming to know Christ. Or maybe the enemy is also battling against the thing that I want to happen. God can't always go around breaking the rules and depriving people and spiritual beings of their free will so that I get my blessing.

I am not the main character in this story. Lets go back to Ender's game. Imagine I'm a soldier named Bob. What would happen if Ender commanded Bob to surround the big weapon and Bob said "No way man! That's a suicide mission for me." Then other drones would see me and say "Yeah, I don't want to die, let me hang out here where its safe and let other people go to battle." Those of us watching the movie would be like "What a jerk!" The battle would be lost.

I am not to author of The Story of the world. I'm not even a main character. In the credits of history, I'm going to be the guy listed eight minutes into the credits in a paragraph full of names called "extras." No one will be looking me up on IMDB. Its not about what I want all the time. (If this sounds crazy you should definitely look in to the study called Story Formed Life- it will change your life.) When I go and do my own thing I am probably going against the Mission At Large. I'm that stupid guy in the movie that is gumming up the works.

So when you don't understand why God is or isn't doing something we just have to trust that he has a Big Picture Mission. He sees it all and is trying to adjust the outcomes of our decisions to fulfill His Mission. Fortunately, like a good movie, we know that the good guy will win in the end. He has foreshadowed the end and there is a victory coming. Unfortunately there is a battle raging and we are caught in the middle of it. As in all battles there are casualties. Sometimes we will catch a stray bullet or have to sacrifice our selves or our comfort toward the war effort.

Changing Neighborhoods and Recreation

A while ago a few of us were talking about the Recreation and (what I like to call) Super heaven. One of my friends said she doesn't want to see the world destroyed and a new world made because she loves dolphins and she doesn't know if there are dolphins in Super Heaven.
I was a bit flabbergasted. You want to stay in this broken, fallen world so that dolphins -that you never see because we live in Kentucky where there are no oceans- don't get wiped out? So I came up with this analogy.

Imagine you live in an old, decrepit, falling down, moldy, vermin infested house. This house has a loud freeway in its back yard. Beyond the freeway is a pig farm that smells atrocious. It isn't safe to go out and hang out on your front porch because there is so much violence that you might get gunned down by a drive by shooting. The neighbors are the kind of people that keep walking when you're getting mugged and who steal your newspaper. The only redeeming quality is a beautiful rose bush in your neighbor's front yard. You love seeing that rose bush when you walk outside.

Then one day you get a call. Your Great Aunt Mildred has decided to invite you to live with her in a beautiful mansion on a lake in California, right off of wine country. The view is spectacular. The neighborhood is so safe you don't have to lock your doors. In fact neighbors invite you to use their pool, their boat or drink their wine even if they aren't home. Aunt Mildred goes on and on about how much you're going to love living there because the air is so crisp and clean and the people are so friendly and helpful. No one ever gets sick or hurt. She is giving you this opportunity free so long as you hang out with her, you won't have to worry about paying taxes or working hard. She just wants someone to enjoy life with. There are no other strings attached.

You tell her maybe because you don't know if Aunt Mildred or her neighbors have rose bushes so you aren't sure you want to move. Seriously?

I don't know what Super Heaven is going to be like but I'm sure in Super Heaven if we love dolphins that much, He can recreate some dolphins to live there too. If not, I'm sure there will be some animal just as cool that we can admire. Heck maybe we'll get really lucky and God will make Super Heaven like Narnia and we can talk to the animals. That would be pretty sweet.

How Jesus switched records with us.

This one comes from my friend Jill- who is wicked smart.

Imagine a beautiful kingdom. The King is loving and considerate. He makes sure that everyone has more than enough to eat, a great place to live and he walks around the kingdom talking to and getting to know the inhabitants. One day one of his generals decided that the King should  exercise more power. The King disagrees so he casts the general out in to the general population. The general gets a bunch of the people in the kingdom to start a rebellion. The begin a war. They destroy the kingdom.

The King sends his only son down to defeat the rebellion and he does. The rebels are now exiled from the kingdom and living in the woods. Now that they live in the woods life is pretty rough. They don't have a good food source, they are sleeping on the ground, people are stressed out and fighting. The rebels, in their misery, realize how good they had it and wish they could go back to living in the kingdom but they can't because there is a price on their heads. If they go back they will have to go to prison and live in the dungeon for the rest of their lives.

The Prince, however feels bad for the rebels because he loves them and knows how miserable they are in the woods. So he rides out to the woods and gives his Princely robes to the rebels. He cleans them up and helps them to look like royalty. Now they can go back in to the kingdom without getting arrested. Not only will they NOT get arrested but now they will get to hang out with the King again and help rule the kingdom.

This is, in a basic sense, what Jesus did for us. We rebelled against God in the Garden and were cast out. Because we were separated from God our human nature (with the help of the enemy) took over and we wrecked the joint. Jesus came to earth, destroyed the enemy's hold over death. Now when God looks at us, he sees Jesus' clean record and not our sins. He sees the perfection that Jesus was on us; us in royal garb.

When I hear the story like that I think "What! That's not fair! The rebels deserve to live in the woods." Its really great that God is not fair. He is loving.

Wild dogs versus pets.

I'm a dog lover. I had a dog named Mister for 14 years. He was a big Irish Setter with a sweet temperament and a loud bark. When I first moved into my house I fenced in the back yard so that Mister could have free reign back there. I also put a gate on my front porch because Mister was a runner.

There used to be this cat that loved to sit about ten feet away from the fence and just look at Mister. Mister would bark and bark at that stupid cat and I'm sure in that moment he was cussing that fence. But what Mister may not have realized is that fence gave him freedom and protection. Because he was a runner I never could trust Mister to just go out and do his thing without being attached to a leash. Because of the fence he had the freedom to roam the back yard. The fence kept out other animals that might attack him. It kept him from getting lost, stolen, hit by a car.

I eventually realized he could be trusted while I wasn't home. This changed our lives (for Mister, more than me.) Now I could leave him outside while I was at work. I'm a teacher and a coach so sometimes I'm gone for 12 hours at at time. I would just leave Mister out in the morning with some food and water and not have to worry about him making a mess. He LOVED to be outside.

Sometimes in the heat of the summer or frozeness of the winter I would not let him out. He didn't like that at all! I had to box out to keep him from rushing out as I left. But I was protecting him because I realized it wasn't good from him to be out in that weather.

As a pet Mister had it pretty good. He was well fed. We walked almost daily. He had a safe, comfortable place to sleep - in bed with me. I took him to the vet regularly to keep him healthy. I loved on him.

Now a wild dog might have seen Mister and thought he had it pretty bad. The wild dog would scoff at a fence because it prevents her from going where she wants. As a wild dog she doesn't have to worry about being told what to do, chasing stupid balls, getting baths, getting shots, eating boring dog food. She can chase any cat she wants. She has no rules. Total freedom.

But is total freedom what is really best? See being a pet is a lot like being a child of God. When we are in His family we are watched after, guided, loved. God sets boundaries for us that we might not like: don't sleep around, don't talk badly about others, don't steal, don't kill, give your money away. In the moment we might not like these rules. We might wish for total freedom to do whatever we want.
What the stray dog doesn't like to think about are the perils she faces that Mister never had to worry about. She has to worry about being attacked by other dogs or people.  She might get hit by a car. When the weather is bad she suffers through it. She doesn't know where her next meal is coming from. When she gets sick she just suffers.

You see, rules are boundaries just like my fence was for Mister. They protect us from harm either from outside forces or from our own destruction. Maybe we can't do what we want but we know who we are. We are loved by the One who created the entire universe just by SPEAKING. We know that our future in (what I like to call) Super Heaven is secure.  He feeds us. He guides us. He protects us.

So which would I rather be? A pet for sure! I want to be loved and cared for. Freedom isn't all its cracked up to be.