Category: Faith

Musings on Shakespeare and One Less God

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(c) Can Stock Photo

(c) Can Stock Photo

Stephen F. Roberts famously said that we are all atheists, he just believes in one less God (or less gods) than others. It is a rather clever statement that many self-described atheists or agnostics have repeated, but it’s more kitsch than substance.

Atheism could be defined as belief in no God, but atheists often object to that because they don’t perceive themselves, or don’t want to perceive themselves, as believing or having faith in anything. That’s absurd, of course. We all believe in something – even if we only believe in the material world and our ability as humans to comprehend it. Continue reading “Musings on Shakespeare and One Less God” →

Atoms, Empty Space and Opinion

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N. Dakota Sunset - Alex Fleming 2

I am a follower of Christ, and a believer in truth. Not that I have a monopoly on truth. Truth is truth, I like to say. Facets of it are available to everyone at all times.

Truth might be overrated. I say that only partially tongue in cheek.  Jesus says He is the way, the truth and the life, so truth is only part of the equation – even for Jesus.

This is also a truth: there is nothing new under the sun. To “prove” that statement, I offer Democritus, who lived centuries before Christ and millennia before “modern” scientific discoveries.

He might have been a typical modernist, eschewing any reality but matter and energy, but for the fact that he was born in another era, and he believed in gods.

Iron age ignorance is what moderns call it now. That fits into the opinion part, between atoms and empty space.

I think we take comfort, or try to, in the vastness of time and space. It leaves a lot of room to stretch out. We don’t like being hemmed in. Me included.

But, there is this nagging small voice. Continue reading “Atoms, Empty Space and Opinion” →

Olympic Lessons – Running the Spiritual Race

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Joy and Sorrow on the Gold Medal Mat by Larry Slater
Joy and Sorrow on the Gold Medal Mat by Larry Slater

The Summer Olympics is a singularly unique time every four years when the world fixes its eyes on athletes who have trained a lifetime, many of them, for one Olympic moment. Other competitions pale in comparison to the Olympics. The world tunes in to watch sports that can’t fill the seats at any other time.

As a child, the kids in my neighborhood created our own “Olympic games”. We played out the drama of agonizing defeats and thrilling victories. The Olympic games capture the attention and imaginations of all people. Many, many people dream of Olympic glory as children, but some only a few exceptional individuals among us live those dreams in real life.

The sacrifices of an Olympic athlete are tremendous. To achieve the pinnacle of human athletic accomplishment, the Olympic athlete must train harder, longer and more effectively than all the other athletes in the world who have similar Olympic dreams. The dedication of the athlete and follower of Christ are similar journeys.

Continue reading “Olympic Lessons – Running the Spiritual Race” →

Looking Back and Looking Forward, From the Beginning to the End

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(c) Can Stock Photo

(c) Can Stock Photo

“To Him who loves us”

God loves us. Love is the beginning and the ending of the story. And love is everything in between. God created us in the beginning for love.

He gave us choice, because love does not coerce. All the misery in the world, all the pain and suffering, is because God gave us freedom of will and allowed us to go our own way. He released us to our own choices in hope that we would choose Him because we want to, because we love Him.

God sustains the world on a delicate edge, finely-tuned from the moment of creation to sustain life, and He holds it in balance to give humanity the opportunity to enter into relationship with God our creator. His handiwork is obvious if we want to see it, not so obvious if we don’t, because love does not coerce. Continue reading “Looking Back and Looking Forward, From the Beginning to the End” →

Aiming for Eternity

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God is from everlasting to everlasting. He sets eternity in the hearts of men (Ecc. 3.11), but our glimpse of eternity and our sense of God is often obscured by the every day realities of our lives.

That God set eternity into the hearts of men should tell us something. It should urge us to look beyond ourselves, to look to God for His purpose in our lives. Yet we are often given to walking with our heads down, driven with blinders on chasing after self-fulfillment or prone to obsessive self-reflection with eyes turned inward. We have a hard time seeing past our own noses, much less focusing on an eternal God  We have a hard time, wherever our gazes are set, letting go of self-direction.

The Bible calls that sin.

Take the morality out of sin, and sin is simply missing the mark. The mark is God, His character and His purpose. When our focus is on other things, when we are pursuing other things to the exclusion of God, we are missing the mark. We are missing the purpose of God in our lives.

God, of course, is the very reason for our existence. Continue reading “Aiming for Eternity” →