Cowardice

Cowardice is one of the only sins the godly and ungodly will never admire. It is a part of us that we do not choose. No one wants to be a coward. Many want to be thieves and cutthroats, rapists and liars, but I've never met a man who thought cowardice was a finer personality trait.

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Revelation 21:8

I get terrified of wicked men. I try to figure out how I might prove to them with reason that God is real, He was spoken to us, and what's more He directly intervened in our tragic lives.

There is a lot to say. It is certainly not an empty subject.

Still, for every answer there seems to be a perfectly reasonable(at least possible) counter answer. Some of the more ridiculous anti-God theories are laughable, but I do not make the mistake of thinking my highly educated and reasonable opponents are idiots. Sometimes it is obvious they are rebellious, but I respect their intellect.

I am not good at handling scorn and hate and ridicule. I am quick to question myself when openly mocked. I do not boldly proclaim the truth like I feel I must. This rushing fountain of something turquoise and white wells up inside of me, like I am charging a truth laser.

How do I make the jump from timid, studying books for ammo I never use, to tumultuous, proclaiming the ever more obvious truth of the Father, who cannot be pinned down in books, who is in/through/above all and fiercely there.

I fear I have focused too much on the paint, and therefore it is difficult to speak about images and meaning. The world screams that this was an accident and that it only looks like meaning. Preposterous, loud, unceasing.

I must find the path, to climb out of the valley of fear, to stand atop moved mountains crying "He is, He is Love, Meet Him!"


For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

This must be the turquoise and white, huh? I don't actually believe the spirit is turquoise and white, it's just a mental image. Chill out.

The Meaning is Beyond the Paint.

When I think about God, I have no doubts. It is incredibly obvious to me that there is a God.

When listening to a man speak in intelligent design theories, I am a bit amazed. They struggle so hard to prove that we didn't evolve from lower animals. The world mocks them, and somehow sits in the comfortable and ridiculous thought that nothing is responsible for us, therefore all is nothing, there is nothing, do what feels good and avoid thinking about it.

I am not troubled by evolution. Darwin's genius did not scare my faith away. I see in the world a guiding force. It's like I can see God holding up the sparrows. I see a world that should be doomed at every turn and yet somehow endures. I see weakness. Tremendously complicated and fragile life, in complicated fragile ecosystems, on a complicated fragile planet, all teetering and tipping, which should have crashed into desolation and darkness and void at just about every turn. The strongest should survive, destroy the weak and devour the prey, and then suffer starvation, but they don't. There is balance. Even though this is explained well in natural ways, the picture is still amazing. Even the laws seem to have meaning, and purpose. There does not seem to be any random laws of nature or physics which are inconvenient or useless. The world is rich with it's own meaning. It is not difficult to take pleasure in it's beauty, in it's perfect flow of deep complicated systems by which everything is ran, and even in it's weakness, in it's fragility.

In any case, I see hands holding up the sparrows. I am not troubled to worry if there is a God. I know damn well there is. I am sure He made the systems, so I do not feel it is important for Him to carve a red swath of miraculous paint down the center of His painting in order to prove to us that He is the painter. The Bible itself says, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." in the book of Romans. I knew there was a God, and to this day this is something I never doubt, even at my worst.

The question was... does He care about us? I have all my life been lead to believe that, Yes, He does. There are terrible things that happen to us, and this life is no paradise by any definition. So then how could I believe He does care?

Honestly, it is difficult to ease the troubled mind on this subject. My only answers are not proof. Still, firstly, I know he cares because I care. If all is His design, then the indignation I feel towards injustice was his design. I could just as well feel a pleasant feeling when someone steals someone else's car. However, injustice is bad, and I hate it, because it is injustice. Even when it does not affect me. When I eat food it is pleasant. When I sleep it is pleasant, when I come home from work and sit in my chair, all is perfectly well, and I am satisfied with my rest. Still, when I eat too much, unpleasant, sleep too much, unpleasant, and when I do not work, I am restless. There is a system, a flow, and the Bible speaks directly to this.

"Blessed are you, O land whose king is of noble birth and whose princes eat at a proper time— for strength and not for drunkenness." Ecclesiastes 10:17

"Do not love sleep or you will grow poor;
stay awake and you will have food to spare." Proverbs 20:13

"The sleep of a laborer is sweet,
whether he eats little or much,
but the abundance of a rich man
permits him no sleep." Ecclesiastes 5:12

I live like a Character in a video game, made for a purpose, subject to rules of physics, and able to be understood in a complicated code (written in atoms of different elements. Like binary but more complicated; 1 electron, 2 electrons, 34 electons, etc) Yet what I am made of is not what the game is about. Though the fourth wall can be broken, it is apparent that the game is about something in front of me. Though it be a painting made of many different types of paint, of different colors and different consistencies, it is a painting which is about something, it means something, it represents something beyond itself. As in a painting of a woman the beauty is not the paint, but the representation of a woman. It's as if this whole existence is a painting of something.

The deepest and truest thing our lives have to offer are the very things the Bible speaks of over and over again.

This painting is about love. That is the meaning of life. I kid you not. Sacrifice, trust, hope, love, compassion, mercy, pretty much everything that is regarded as an evolutionary misfire is actually the meaning of life.

You shall Love the Lord your God with all you are, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But something is wrong here. And the Painter God paints Himself into His own painting, because we have gone rotten. The story is wonderful and outrageous. Christ suffered and died and took all of the rottenness onto himself. This is the story that will stand through time as when the meaning of existence took form and showed us perfect love. It is a strange story, but this is a strange painting.
And there is much much more to be said, and I can never do the incarnation justice when talking about it.

Real, whether I like it or not:

Here Paul speaks and there is mystery to one who treads carefully in his study. This verse is found in a passage saying "you ought to pay a man who preaches, but I choose not to be paid just in case you would use it against me."

"For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me."
1 Corinthians 9:16-17

I have wondered if this verse has any relevance to whether or not a man is chosen, or chooses to be a chosen one. Perhaps both exist, and one is voluntary the other under compulsion.

Nevertheless, I find my feeling here, a deep feeling, profound and shocking, but to any who read this it must be a common and obvious thing. Often times the real true answers are what we have known since childhood, but I find in myself that what I have heard, I did not really hear.

The point here, tonight, is that the message of the Christ, and my faith; it is real whether I like it or not.

Many gather to the cross hoping for peace. They find it. Many gather hoping for meaning. They find it. Many gather hoping to escape judgment. They do escape. These are offered, so it is good to accept. Still though, what of the man who feels believing is burden? What of the man who sees toil all his days, what of the man who counts the cost; marching towards the death he fears bearing his cross. What about the man who cuts off limb and plucks out eye?

I have always found my joy in Christ. I have always found meaning, and I have always been pleased to be His. My life has been thirst and my faith has been drink. I suppose I am saying, that this doesn't really matter. Let me never feel joy again, still Christ has conquered death.

Could it all come to misery and terror? could it all come to desolation and sorrow? Will my faith earn me death in this world? I've lived my whole life guided by what I wanted, but it's ever clearer to me that this message of the Gospel is real... whether I want it to be or not.

Our Foolish Hero Here Begins:

"I have started to write my thoughts on the internet. I have no strong hope of any of them ever being read. My whole life I have been a self seeking artist, screaming 'look at me, look at me!' and being frustrated with the small attentions I got. Since then I've had a razor sharp Bible cut deeply into my neck and chest, and now in my bloodied weakness I understand that we are all caught up in ourselves, and I was the worst. I never spent even one minute looking into another persons creativity. I never asked one single question. I never showed interest in anyone else, because I wanted to be better then them. I wanted to be more likable, more famous, more admired.



The deeper question now is, who the hell was looking at my pathetic cries for attention? How did I get ANY response? Why would ANYBODY care? And so I remain now. I certainly deserve no renown after the long years of narcissistic, fake flattery filled hipster vanity.

My wife will probably read these things, and that is far more than I deserve. She is frustrating and amazing. She is feminine and strong. My love for her is like the feeling you get after falling down a flight of stairs and you just lay there, wondering what happened. It's like the feeling you get both when you see the twist at the end of the 6th sense, and when someone shouts 'Snape kills Dumbledore' while you are waiting in line to buy the book. We aspire to be Aquila and Priscilla, and hopefully someday we can get something like a hi-five from them, however that might work.

From here on in, all of this will probably be dedicated to the Master, and to the Book which stands on high at the top of humanity. The book that cannot be changed, and cannot be forgotten. The book which exists as thousands and thousands of copies, but untouchable unalterable originals. The Word of God which stands forever. Amen."