From Good Things to Evil Things

It’s said that the enemy of the best is the good, or even the better. It’s easy to decide that something is good enough, even when it isn’t the best, when the price tag of “the best” is prohibitive. In a lot of circumstances, that’s absolutely true. If you’re looking to buy a computer, for example, You could spend a lot of money and get the very best, fastest, and newest computer out there, knowing that in six months it won’t be any of those things any more, or you could spend a lot less for the computer that was the very best six months ago. You may even find that the very best computer for your needs isn’t the fastest or newest anyway. If your main concern is doing word processing and a little web surfing, you don’t need the graphics capability and processor speed that someone would want for playing on-line video games 23/7.

Having said that, let me point out that God wants you to have the very best. Not necessarily the best and fastest computer, or the biggest and nicest house, or the prettiest and fastest car, because all of those things are temporal. Those things really don’t mean anything in the long run. God wants us to have the best and closest relationship with Him, He wants us to have inner peace in times of trouble, He wants us to know that we will spend eternity in a good place instead of a bad one. That’s the sort of “best” that God wants for us.

The other side of that, though, is that God wants our best. He doesn’t want us to just do good things, or even better things; He wants us to do our best. Don’t misunderstand me, our best is never good enough; that’s where grace comes in, but He does want our best. In 1 Samuel 13, King Saul is waging war against the Philistines, and the prophet Samuel was supposed to meet him, but Samuel didn’t show up within the time frame that Saul was expecting him. Saul was worried that the Philistines would attack before Samuel got there, so he offered up a sacrifice to God, to try to curry favor with the Almighty before the battle began. Obviously, Saul had some good thoughts: He didn’t want to go into battle without the Lord being on his side; He was willing to make a sacrifice to God (which puts him at least one step above a lot of people). Of course, the first concern is a little backwards; it isn’t a question of whether God is on our side, it’s a question of whether we are on God’s side. Realistically, though, Israel was God’s chosen people, God wanted the best for Israel, just as He wants the best for us, and that would only include being subjugated to the Philistines if Israel needed to be taught a lesson. As far as Saul wanting to make a sacrifice unto God, in this particular instance, that wasn’t his place. To the human mind, offering a sacrifice to God would seem to be a good thing to do, but, if it isn’t what God wanted, then it isn’t such a good thing. If Saul had simply trusted God to take care of His people, there would not have been a problem. Samuel arrived well before the battle actually started, and, even after Saul’s mistake, God delivered Israel from the Philistines, but God told Saul (through Samuel) that he would be removed from being king. If Saul had truly repented, and put forth a renewed effort to try to be the sort of man that God wanted him to be, who knows whether he might have been able to turn God, as the Ninevites did? Instead, if you continue reading, you find that Saul slowly fades from being a good king (although perhaps not the best king), to being a man that tries, not only to maintain his power, but to pass it on to his sons, as God works to take power from Saul, and give that power to someone who will give his best to God, and do his best for Israel.

We can get caught up in the same thing. We can try to do good things for God, and find that what we consider good things are not the things that God wants from us. When we find that we have misjudged what God expects of us, we can develop a bad attitude, as Saul did, or we can work to improve that relationship. Seek God, pray that He would help us to become what He called us to be, or backslide. There’s a reason that it is called “backsliding;” it is when one slides back to one’s old life, and that’s a slow process. It doesn’t happen overnight, and God will generally give one lots of chances to get right, but, the sooner one starts turning things around, the easier it is. If you are climbing a hill, and start sliding back down, the sooner you catch yourself and start back up the hill again, the easier it is, but, if one lets it get too far, eventually there is no stopping; spiritual backsliding is no different.

A Christmas Story About Birds

I was reminded of an old story this past weekend, one that I have heard before: There was a man who was an agnostic, but his wife and daughter were Christian. One Christmas Eve, the wife and daughter were going to a candlelight service at the church, and the wife asked him, “Are you sure that you don’t want to come?” He smiled and said, “No, the idea that God would become a man to come down to save us from our sins just doesn’t make since to me, but you go ahead.” He kissed his wife and daughter goodbye, and they went on to church. Sometime after they left, he noticed some birds fluttering around in the snow in his yard. He became concerned, because these birds should have flown south for the winter, and were not prepared to survive the cold. He was a compassionate man, and realized that his barn was heated; if he could just the birds into the barn, then they would live. He bundled up and went outside, opened the barn doors, and started trying to shoo the birds into the barn. No matter what he did, though, every time he came close to the birds, they scattered. He tried coming from different angles, but it didn’t matter. His efforts were thwarted because the birds couldn’t understand that he was trying to help them, no matter how non-threatening he tried to be. Finally, in frustration, he cried out, “It’s no use! I would have to become a bird in order to save these birds!” Just then, he heard the church bells ring in the distance, and his earlier words rang in his ears: “The idea that God would become a man to come down and save us…” He fell to his knees in the snow, and cried out to God, “Now I understand!”
I think that a lot of times, things happen that we don’t understand. We ask the question, “Why would God do that?” or “Why did God allow that to happen?” We ask, because we don’t understand. Part of the problem is that our own understanding of the world around us is very limited. Meteorologists have an expression: “A butterfly flapping its wings in Kansas today can cause a tornado in Japan tomorrow,” which really just means that the planetary atmospheric system is too complex to be analyzed. There are many, many variables, from insects to sunspots, even if we knew exactly, every contributing factor to tomorrow’s weather, we still wouldn’t be able to calculate accurate predictions 100% of the time. And that’s just the weather. Can you imagine the complexities of a global socio-economic system? My decisions may very well impact what kind of day you have (and not just because you are reading what I am writing), just as other people’s choices impact my life. God understands all of that. Sometimes He will allow things to happen to us, just so that someone else will be able to see, “Oh, that’s how a Christian reacts to something like that.” Unfortunately, sometimes all they really see is just how human we really are (well, that’s not always unfortunate). We are human, none of us are perfect, but we know the One who is perfect. It’s important that we trust Him, allow Him to guide our steps, and let Him work out the good in things.

Is Technology Good or Bad?

I have a lot of discussion lately about the evils of the Internet, mostly from people considerably older than myself. Of course, there are some religious groups in this country that believe that is wrong to own technology. Don't misunderstand me, they have no problem going to a neighbor's house to call 911, but they won't allow phones in their own homes. They also don't wear any colors other than black or white, and they don't like having bright orange triangles on their horse-drawn buggies (but they accept that as a legal, safety requirement for slow-moving vehicles). It's not hard to imagine a future where most of society has accepted interstellar travel as a part of life, while some people refuse to travel in any vehicle that isn't horse-drawn.

I know a man that refers to the TV set as a "Hellavision." He doesn't own one. He has been known to sit and watch a football game on other people's sets, but, for the most part, he doesn't watch TV. Of course, there are a lot of things shown on TV that we, as Christians, really don't need to see. Very little on TV even acknowledges Christianity, and what does, generally only makes mention to poke fun of. Think about it: who is the best-known character on a television show who is known for being Christian? I'm thinking Ned Flanders. Anybody out there got a better answer? Granted, nobody on that show really gets treated with a lot of respect, but Ned is, well, for lack of a better term, a cartoon character. Even as a type that, it seems surreal; I'm complaining about a character on a cartoon show as being cartoony. I guess my point is, it would be nice to see a Christian character on a show that was known for being kind and compassionate, and for having a sincere relationship with God. 56% of Americans surveyed identified themselves as Christians; why is it that an American character on a TV show with a religious label is more likely to be Muslim than Christian?

Granted, there have been some exceptions: Suzanne Summers' character on "Step by Step" dragged her husband to church (and the writers gave the pastor of that church some real wisdom). On "The Drew Carey Show," Drew and his friends went to church in one episode. On "WKRP in Cincinnatti," Herb Tarleck once was asked to let a camera crew from a local TV station follow him around for a day for a TV special--They showed up on a Sunday morning, and he suddenly decided that it was important that the people of Cincinnati at least think that he went to church, so he got up, got himself and his wife and kids dressed for church, and led the camera crew on a tour of Cincinnati, until he found a Seventh Day Adventist's church that he swore they attended every Sunday. "Seventh Heaven" (ran for 10 seasons on WB and one on CW) was about the pastor of a small church somewhere in California, and his wife and kids (unfortunately, the show defies description: It is occasionally funny, but not funny enough to be a sitcom, it tends to be more dramatic, with a story line that keeps continuing--Is it a Christian soap opera? "Seventh Heaven" has also been called the most popular show that nobody watches). The late Michael Landon's drama, "Highway to Heaven" and "Touched by an Angel" both managed to present Christianity in a dignified and respectful manner, and still bring in viewers. "Promised Land" tried, but went belly up after only three seasons. "The Father Dowling Mysteries" suffered a similar fate. Anybody else know of other examples of Christianity on TV?

Realistically, though, evil is something that requires thought. The Internet is not evil; your television set is not evil. Both of those can be, and have been, used for evil. There are certainly things on the Internet that no Christian should ever want to be exposed to, there have been things on television that weren't any better, but there have been good things on both, too. Personally, I think it's a sad commentary on television networks that the examples I cited in the preceding paragraph are the only examples I can come up with of "Christian programming," but that doesn't make the medium evil. A good number of the people involved in planning the schedule may be evil, but the medium itself is not capable of being good or evil. If the Internet seems evil to you, then I would have to ask, what are you using it for? If you are using it to access porn, then I can understand why you may feel that it is evil, but it isn't e Internet that is evil. I would hope that if you are reading this on the Internet, then you can at least see how the Internet can be used for good, even if you don't agree with me on some of the other things that I have stated in this blog.

Update: It occurred to me that on the sitcom, "Night Court," they did an episode where ADA Dan Fielding got called up for two weeks active duty in the National Guard (something that normally happens annually, but only happened once for Dan in, what, eight seasons?). He somehow wound up stranded with an Inuit family (in Alaska?), who took care of him, and he grew fond of their daughter. She became injured, and in dire need of medical assistance. Dan proceded to find some solitude and give one of the most sincere prayers ever shown in a sitcom. Dan didn't try to bargain with God, he told God frankly that, they both knew that whatever he promised, he would end up not doing it." I believe that God appreciates honesty...

What's Your Excuse?

I'm not sure what I am going to blog about today. Maybe nothing, really. I just don't really have anything on my mind right now, but I have a few minutes with an Internet connection, and an obligation to post something. Believe it or not, there are often times when I have nothing on my mind. People who really know me, know that. It seems funny, though, there are often times when I can't get to a computer when something will strike me and I'll say to myself, "I ought to write a blog about that," but then, when I get access, I can't remember what was so important. Sometimes it's just a question of fighting through the noise.

I spent Saturday sick in bed. I felt fine Friday night, and woke up Saturday just plain miserable. I made the trip from my bedroom to the bathroom several times. made the trip into the kitchen a few times, but I couldn't eat anything. I sipped some water, at first. After awhile, I felt well enough to risk sipping some apple juice. Sunday morning, I felt enough better to eat a small breakfast. After church, I tried to eat some lunch. There was a salad, some lemon chicken, with stir-fried vegetables and rice, and then some lemon pie. I didn't really feel like eating, anyway, so I ate a few forkfuls of salad, but then they brought the entree. Hmm. Do I finish the salad, that I don't really feel like eating anyway, and let the chicken get cold? No, I started picking at the chicken. It was good, but I didn't really feel like eating it, either. I ate a few forkfuls of that, with the rice and veggies, but then they brought me the pie. Isn't it funny how it's easier to eat sweets than nutritious food? I still wasn't able to finish the pie, but a whole more of that went into my gut than anything else. Sunday night a friend from church gave me some saltine crackers. Finally, something I actually felt like eating (even more so than the pie). The thing was, I knew I needed to eat. I didn't feel like eating, but I knew my immune system couldn't fight off whatever had attacked my system without fuel to work with. At the same time, a lot of my problem was gastro-intestinal in nature, so eating the wrong thing could make things much worse.

I think sometimes we are like that spiritually. We know what we need to do, but we just don't feel like doing it. Maybe we're feeling depressed about something, or we're mad at God for some reason, but we can almost always find a reason for not doing what, deep down inside, we know we should do. My mother used to tell me that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. There are a lot of people who never do what they need to do because they always let themselves get sidetracked. They aren't bad people, they just never get anything done.

But He's a Good Person...

I hear a lot of that, in many different ways. Sometimes it's used as an excuse why someone should be saved, sometimes as an excuse not to do something.

Apostle Paul wrote about the difference between being good and being righteous in Romans chapter 5. He talks about Jesus dying for the sins of the world, but then he says that 'scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.' Some of us were 'good' people before Jesus got into our lives, but we were not 'righteous.' Most of us didn't even know the difference (some of us may still not get it). If we could be righteous without Jesus, then He wouldn't have had to die on the cross for us. Isaiah wrote that our righteousness is as filthy rags. The very best that we can do is nowhere near good enough.

In the parable of the wedding feast, in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus taught a parable about a king that hosted a wedding for his son, but many that were invited made excuses, and one of the people that did come, didn't come dressed properly. The king got very upset, and ordered that the man be bound and thrown into outer darkness... I think most people can see that the king is God, that the son is Jesus, that the wedding represents the final judgment. I think the problem that people sometimes have with this parable is, why was it such a big deal that this man, who was invited to the wedding at the last minute, came wearing the best he had available, but not really the right garment for a wedding. After all, he didn't know ahead of time that he needed to rent a tux, right? Here's the thing, though, the custom of the time was that the person hosting the wedding provided wedding garments to the guests. Why do you think all the other guests had on the right garment? So what does the garment represent? In Revelation chapter 6 it talks about white robes being given to the martyrs, and in Revelations 7 it tells us that these robes are white because they have been washed with the blood of the Lamb (Jesus). Clearly, then, the wedding garments represent robes of righteousness, but the one guest tried to get into Heaven based on his own righteousness ("Oh, I think I'm good enough to get into Heaven on my own"), without accepting the gift of salvation; without applying the blood of Jesus to His life. The point of the parable, really, is that we can't do anything of any real, lasting value unless we let God work through us, and even the best of us don't do that nearly often enough.

Don't Make Me Angry

Bill Bixby used to utter the line at the beginning of each episode of 'The Incredible Hulk': "Don't make me angry, Mr. McGee, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry." It's such a classic line that it is still, occasionally, paid homage to. The Bible says to be angry and sin not; anger in and of itself is not a sin, but most of us maintain our principles only with great difficulty (if at all) when angry.

What I really hate is when something that upset me greatly, some time ago, for whatever reason comes back to mind. I have had it happen that I will start thinking about an event that happened years ago, but that didn't work out the way it should have (at least in my own mind) and I can fell my blood pressure rise... Usually those things are situations that I know I could have handled better. Of course, they are also situations that if the other person had done what they were 'supposed to,' I wouldn't have had to handle the situation at all. Again, the Bible says that we should rather suffer ourselves to be defrauded, rather than to take action against a brother.

On the other hand, we shouldn't let a brother or sister continue in sin, either. Of course, if I have been sinned against, then it becomes personal; if I am angry about it, then I have a hard time approaching the person who wronged me in a spirit of meekness. I know that's what I have to do--but at that point, it's usually easier just to let it go (to suffer myself to be defrauded), to swallow the hurt and walk it off; even though, the brother or sister really needs to know that they may not be walking the straight and narrow. I also have to prayerfully consider whether I even have a right to be angry. Maybe sucking it up and moving on really is the right thing to do, but then I have to pray, not only for a forgiving spirit, but also to be forgiven for my presumptuousness.

And, in the line of being angry without a cause, I must admit that sometimes I get angry at God. Sometimes I want to hurt Him, but I know that whatever I do to hurt Him ultimately hurts me a whole lot worse. God may have already gotten tired of hearing me pray, "God, I'm mad at you. I probably don't have any right to be mad at you, but I am. I don't understand why this situation is turning out the way it is, but I know that you see the big picture, and I don't. I know that all things work together for good, but I don't see how this situation is going to help anybody." Of course, the word 'probably' in the above is really just an example of my own reluctance to accept responsibility, and, at the same time, an attempt to reconcile my knowledge that God has my best interests at heart, with my belief, at the time, that I was getting the short end of the stick. You know, it's funny, I remember praying that prayer several times, but, in retrospect, I don't remember what the reason was on even one occasion...

The Holocaust

I was just reading that they have recovered a diary of a Jewish girl killed in the holocaust. They are calling her the Polish Anne Frank. NPR has an article about it here.
There are a lot of people that don't believe the Holocaust actually happened, or, if it did, it wasn't nearly as bad as it has been made out to be. There are various reasons for this:
First, let's face it, the Germans during the Third Reich weren't really very much different from Americans during the same time period. We survived the Great Depression without committing genocide, why couldn't they? For starters, we didn't have a madman in charge (Adolf Hitler was very charismatic, and he was able to bring about a number of changes in the German economy that made life better for a lot of people. Some have said that 'he was a good man--at first,' others have said that he was just building his power base. In any case, by the time he started publicly doing things that normal people would recognize as insane, a lot of Germans were already fiercely loyal to him--and the rest were very much afraid of the Nazis). For another thing, who would we have exterminated? The blacks? Granted, Americans of African ancestry weren't very popular, but most of them didn't have any money. To be fair, a lot of European Jews didn't have any money either, but there was a lot of Third Reich propoganda about how they were all rich, and they had gotten their money by cheating good Aryans. There was also a lot of propoganda pushing the idea that just the presence of the Jews weakened the power of Germany. That would have been a much harder idea to sell in a country that had long taught that our strength comes from our diversity--even though so many were willing to overlook the contributions of darker-complected Americans. Keep in mind also, that Germany suffered through the Great depression while making 'reparations' for World War I. Many of their largest industries were either shut down or severely limited as part of the peace treaty--we didn't want them building up their military again. You may have heard horror stories about how the Great Depression affected the US ecomony--Germany was much worse off.
Second, some people are bad at math--or, just haven't looked at the big picture. There were over 6 milion Jews in Poland before World War II, less than 200,000 after. There were about 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Obviously, not all 6 million of the Polish Jews were killed in the Holocaust--some of them escaped to England, or the United States, or even to Palestine. That's true. And, I have to admit, it does seem like an odd coincidence that the number of Polish Jews that escaped matches up almost exactly to the number of Jews from other countries that died in the Holocaust. Remember, the Holocaust started in Germany.
Third, some people don't believe in the Holocaust simply because they are anti-semitic. I know that sounds strange, but the philosophy works something like this: Because of the Holocaust, Great Britain and the United States decided that the Jews needed their own homeland--a nation that would fight for them if any nation ever tried to oppress Jews like that again. Obviously, then, the Jews faked the Holocaust in order to gain sympathy with the world powers and orchestrate the creation of the nation of Israel. Some of them hid, and then paid the German SS to lie at the Nuremberg trials... Interesting theory, but, what if Germany had won the war? Then what? For that matter, going into the Nuremberg trials, the Germans that testified really didn't know what was going to happen to them. Many of them were executed. How much money do you pay someone to confess to crime that was never committed and accept the death penalty? Not to mention, the Jew's assets were seized by the Third Reich to support the war effort. Are we to believe that they managed to hide enough money away to bribe men to die for their cause? Further, even though, we've established a motive for faking the Holocaust, did the Jews really have the means to fake something that huge? I think not. There were an awful lot of poeple that witnessed how badly the Jews were treated by the Germans under Adolf Hitler. Most of these witnesses were not aware of the death camps, but, in order to fake the Holocaust, there would have had to have been people high up in the German government working on the conspiracy. There were no Jews in such positions.

Fourth, the revisionists claim not so much that the Holocaust didn't happen, but that it has been exaggerated, and that too much emphasis has been placed upon it. Most of these don't believe that the Nazis had gas chambers (in spite of the fact that three of them were still standing when the Russian troops arrived). They claim that the number dead was much less than 6 million, and that most of the ones that died were simply victims of disease or malnutrition. They also point out that there were a lot more than 6 million killed in battle during the war, so why the emphasis on the Jews? (Most of them don't point out that Stalin actually killed more Jews than Hitler did.) Personally, I think most of these really fall under the first heading, they can believe that the Jews were badly mistreated, but a campaign to eradicate them? Surely not. You might convince me that the Holocaust history should be revised. Maybe the numbers are exaggerated. Maybe it was only 5.5 million (I don't really know how the numbers were arrived at, but I suspect that the 6 million number is non-negotiable because if we start saying, well, maybe it was only 5.5 million, then somebody will say, oh, but it was only 5 million, and before you know it, the Holocaust didn't happen at all, which would be absurd). Maybe, most of the dead really did die simply because the Nazis didn't feed the Jews or provide them medical care in the camps. It certainly would have been less expensive to let them die through neglect than to spend money on diesel fuel to create carbon monoxide to gas them.

I think that bottom line is, it was a terrible thing, and we don't like to believe that we, as human beings, are capable of such things, but we are, and we need to be reminded occasionally of just what we can do. The Holocaust should not be remembered as an example of what bad poeple the Germans were, or even of how terrible the Nazis were, but just how terrible we human beings are. We can be real monsters. We are also capable of great good, but sometimes that seems to be the exception.