What is God Like?

What is the higher pursuit, but to know God?  But how can a finite being like myself, yourself, understand an infinite being like the God of the universe?  We cannot fully understand him, just as we cannot fully understand a stranger, a friend, a lover, or ourselves.  But we don't need to have a perfect understanding of our friend the divine creator of heaven and earth.  We can know things about him, know what he is like, and by that gain a better understanding of our heavenly Father, and indeed have a better, richer, fuller experience of the God of heaven and earth on a daily basis.

Let's begin.  I'm already said a few things about God, haven't I?  He's infinite, and we are finite.  What does that mean?  Since the human soul is indeed eternal, to say we are finite beings I would be saying that we are beings that exist within time that have a definite starting point. 

God is infinite.  Let's look at Exodus chapter 3:

¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.^[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,^[d] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
    the name you shall call me
    from generation to generation."

God's name "I am who I am" is a statement of self existence.  No one created God.  He is.  Sometimes people don't like the idea of an uncreated first cause.  But you have to have one.  Otherwise there would be no end to anything, we'd just have to keep jumping back to who created what and it would never end.  It doesn't make sense.  There has to be, logically, a first cause that is uncaused.  That's God.  If you can't understand it, can't comprehend it, that's fine neither can I really!

Revelation 22:13 says "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."


Alpha is the first letter of the greek alphabet, and omega is the last letter of that alphabet.  Such wonderful language, beautiful written  It's very mysterious.  How can God be infinite, uncaused, eternal, all powerful, yet be the beginning, the end, the first and the last?  


God is outside time is what the author is getting at.  Time is a dimension of our existence as human beings.  As I write these words, time is passing.  And more time will pass while you're reading the words.  God is not only here with me in this moment in time, he is in every future moment and every past moment, eternally present at every moment in all history, and beyond time itself.  


It is true to say that God has chosen to step into the experience of time, when he came in the form of Jesus Christ.  During that time he experienced time as a human would, moment by moment.  


Sometimes we can dig in so deep, study so much scripture and learn so many apologetics but really who is God?  What is he like?  What does he do?  

1 John 4:⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

 

 Love is so important to the character of God that he is said to be love.  One could write ten volumes on the relation of love, what is love, why is God love, what are the areas of love, what is tangible love, what isn't love, and how far does love go, but I won't step into that arena at this moment.  I would be writing for days.  

 
John 4:24 (ESV) God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

 

 God is love, God is also spirit.  Most theologians believe this is a reference to the immaterial nature of God.  God is not a biological life form like I am, or you or your dog is.  He is spirit essence.  So is he plasma?  Matter?  Anti-matter?  Energy? Dark matter? Is his elemental makeup similar to the Higgs Boson particle?  I haven't any idea.  


Here's a mind-bender: Do you think they speak english in heaven?  Of course they don't.  You could possibly argue that they might speak hebrew or ancient greek, but highly doubtful.  There is most likely a heavenly language.  Isn't that intriguingly mind boggling?

It's important to explore these issues.  Sometimes I feel so tied to a bolder of "acceptable conservative theology" that I'm trapped in a boring little bubble, and if I don't prang off the same dull lines that have been repeated since the dawn of the reformation I'm going to be publicly expelled.  And then I'll be on Youtube with fifty different videos "Steckbauer EXPOSED."  Type in Rick Warren or Mark Driscoll or John MacArthur or any big name evangelist/pastor and you'll see a laundry list of accusations.  I digress.

Deuteronomy 32:4 (ESV) “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he." 

God is perfect.  Once again, beyond my comprehension.  But his perfection is one of the greatest reasons why we ought to worship God.  He is entirely perfect in all manners.  He's never made a mistake, ever.  Wow.  That's pretty foreign to me.  I think I was born making mistakes and then took it on as a lifetime pursuit.  God is perfect, he is perfection embodied.  The angels who are actually living in his unshrouded presence are so in awe and affection and adoration for the Heavenly Father they can't shut up about it, they just keep saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!"  His radiant perfection is that overwhelming. 

 

Yet he came.  He's not some far off distant perfection that snubs his nose at us in prideful snubbery.  He loves people.  So he comes.  And he makes dead people live.  The greatest issue in the history of man, death.  Everyone has 70 - 100 years at the outside and then they're dead.  Body decays, and it's done.  That is the greatest problem.  Of course today people can't even see the problem, sin, it's been carefully removed.  And we're taught to think as if we'll live forever, but we don't.  So we die in credit card debt, addicted to pharmaceuticals, miserable, half asleep and totally confused.  Maybe if church leaders stopped cowering on these difficult issues, they would be respected, instead of ridiculed as money loving hypocrites who support the status quo and their agenda.  Of course that would take genuine humility. 

 

I see the problem.  So does God.  It's death.  The curse.  And as sin reins to this very moment in history, the world is a very scary place.  In America we kind of have our little bubble of modern convenience, and liberals act as if the world is somehow always getting better, despite the evidence.  It's easy to forget about the two world wars that occured only 70 years ago, and the other various conflicts, and the starvation and the diseases, epidemics, and so on.  But the problem is there, sin.  And it's very very scary sometimes.  Ugly and hard to watch.  And we wonder, what do we do, what can we hold on to?

 

God is our rock in all this.  He is our anchor.  His work is perfect.  

 

 Every decision God makes is just.  It's interesting how often the idea of justice comes up.  Justice is so important to people.  Until we're the ones under the lash.  "Put that pedophile away for life!"  But then it's us, in trouble.  Made a mistake..  Suddenly we want mercy then.  I need a lot of mercy.  And I need a lot of grace.  Because I screw up and make mistakes everyday.  

 

God is perfect, just in his decisions and upright in all his ways.  We can trust that.  Look over the scriptures, the Gospel accounts.  Does Jesus, who is God, commit even a single sin in those extensive accounts?  He does not.  

 

God is present, everywhere.  He's here with me, around me.  Amongst the room, watching, listening, encouraging me.  But he's also within me, the Holy Spirit, filling me as I write and placing the right thoughts in my mind.  Yet there is another force at war with that spirit, the flesh.  

 

Exodus 33:14 (ESV) And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 

 

See, as humans being our whole existence is dependent on God.  We were made to live in close connection to him.  Without God it's like unplugging a laptop.  The battery comes on for a few hours but eventually it shuts off the display goes gray and it doesn't function.  

 That's why the idea of hell is not some spooky lava pit.  Not at all.  Hell is just a word in the greek language closely related to a terrible place.  This "place" is eternal disconnection from God.  Someone lives their whole life, getting offers from God, from their Christian neighbors, "Come this way, this path."  "See look at this evidence for God's existence"  "No."  "I see how much pain your in addicted and lost, come to faith in Christ, he can help you!"  "No."  And the answer is always "No"  or "Well, maybe later" and eventually God says, very well, your will be done.  578 times in your life I had people offer you the gift, all those times you refused it.  So be it.  And that person gets to spend eternity exactly how they desired, disconnected from God.  

 

"Those who don't want God in this life will not want Him in eternity" -Ravi Zacharias.

 

Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high

 

Jeremiah 32:17 Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. 

 

God understands our struggles.  He understands us more than we understand ourselves.  Through his son Jesus Christ, he brings us from death to life, and by his Spirit he changes us painstakingly from bad people to good people.  It is God's will that we be sanctified (1 Thessalonians 4:3).  The offer, the hope, the glory, the encouragement, the objective truths of the faith never change.  God is forever unchanging.

 

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 

 

There are so many aspects to God, so many scriptures to reference. 

 

God is power.  He can do anything, the one who brought the universe into existence will also resurrect our bodies for eternal life.

 

God is glory.  Oh the mystery of glory.

 

God is shrouded at this time in history.  But we Christians will see his face.

 

God is love.  His affection for us is overwhelming and bounding, binding, warm, complete, and we may take refuge within his shelter.  

 

God is spirit.  He is present within us and about us, and elsewhere, in other places and other times.

 

God is justice.  His decisions are right.

 

God is mercy.  His justice is perfect, but in perfect justice levied with endless love, there comes mercy.  Yet even further mercy gives way to grace, a state of justified completeness declared over your soul and mine before God, by the incredible, unstoppable, boundless, shocking, admirable gift of Jesus Christ the perfect sinless one who died for you and I, while being mocked and ridiculed, hung from a cross to die slowly he called out, "Father, forgive them they don't know what they're doing."

 

Wow, that's love.  

One could get very deep into searching out God's aspects, his ways and means.  But often it seems like we try to pin down his methods and put him in a box.  He has more methods than we can comprehend, and when we think we've noticed a way in which he acts in the world, he surprises us a moment later with a different approach to work on and with his children.  It's humbling.  He is so much more complex than me or you, yet so infinitely simple in his perfection and grace given.  He is just the kind of God I can worship.  I couldn't worship a different kind of god who might stand far off, or act in unjust ways.  

 

So it's a beautiful scenario.  I found just the perfect God to worship in the God of the Bible, the mysterious one who calls himself "I am who I am."  He is God.  And amazingly, God is also real.  The truthful inspection of science, history, art, entertainment, philosophy, archaeology, theology, and other areas of discipline all lead back to one idea: God.  Science in the first cause, history in the Biblical documents, art and entertainment at the level of awe and magnificence, philosophy in the ideals projected from the gospels of Jesus Christ which empirically show to be the ultimate way of peace, archaeology in the remains of civilizations, the historical manuscripts, and the evidences that suggest the Biblical writers were writing the truth, and the theology that explains the various aspects of what we today call Christianity.. but which is boiled down simply to a relationship between me and the Creator of the Universe, made possible by Jesus Christ who intersected into human history to show a beautiful way, and to make dead people like myself lost in sin, live again.

 

 God bless you all. Amen.

 

The New Christian Activist

This is the writer's uncut version of an article I wrote for The Underground called "The New Christian Activist."  

The loyal Christian, dedicated to the Heavenly Father must be an activist, in the pluralistic global environment post 9/11. We've put up with a lot in the United States.  Christianity is in trouble in the USA, and has crumbled to dust in Europe over a short period of time.  The American public seem poised to remap the moral framework from a Christian view to a sort of tolerance pluralistic view that quietly ejects Christianity and Judaism while embracing self deification.  The Judeo-Christian worldview has been called into question and found incompatible with the tolerant majority.  

We can see the problem.  I don't need to expand upon the problem.  What's the solution?  Do we end up asking ourselves if Christianity can even have a seat at the table?  Inevitably the question arises as to the role of the Christian in the political process. 

It must be stated that when Jesus Christ came he did not concern himself with political process or the government of Rome.  He was concerned with showing mercy to the poor and lost, and rebuking the self righteous religious types.  His stated purpose on Earth was to be offered up as a sacrifice for many.  But in fair contrast God has quite often involved himself in political processes.  He personally raised up the nation of Israel to be an example to the nations of the Earth.  He very personally claimed the seat of king in the temple, and later set up a line that went from Solomon, David, and later to Jesus Christ himself. 

Jesus Christ will be the literal political leader of the world one day in the future.  What should we do until then?  Jesus Christ said to his friends, go and make disciples of all nations.  I find it interesting that Jesus Christ said nations and not peoples.  Or individuals.  He said nations.  We go into nations and Christianity changes nations.  This is powerfully illustrated when comparing North Korea to South Korea.  One has a democratic government, the other is a militarized dictatorship.  And we hear about the autracities of the dictatorship don't we?

Unfortunately Christianity has been tried in a manner where the religious leaders wield power and that has utterly failed to the shame of many in the history of Europe and the Christian conflict with Islam.  The crimes of the papacy are well documented and those crimes continue at the Vatican to this very day.  We don't want a government imposing religion.  But we don't want a government devoid of religious reference either.

That lead to the great experiment, the United States of America.  The political process made mention of a God, but did not name the God.  This allowed various denominations and faiths to pour in meaning interchangeably.  It left the freedom to choose a faith open.  But now we in America want to tear that apart, and eject that philosophy from the government.  We want to play god.  Something special happened in 1776.  I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I do know that God was involved.  He's involved in all of human history.  Something special happened, something divine, that allowed for the United States of America to come together.

Can it really be our destiny to fall into moral decline?  Can it really be our destiny to slink back in defeat as militant atheist groups sue and lobby all mention of God from the government?  Will we really allow the metal beams in the shape of a cross to be removed from the 9/11 memorial?  How sad a thought.  How pathetic that we've let it get this far. 

The new Christian must be an activist.  This means we participate in the political process to a certain extent.  We form organizations to protect our moral values.  We express the sacredness that they try so hard to reject, the sacredness of the marriage, of the marriage bed, of what the eyes see, of what the ears hear, and what the mind conceptualizes.  We build websites and form petitions to lobby our elected representatives.  We speak out in our communities on key issues.  We refuse political correctness and talk about God the Father of the human race.  We get bold about the issues.  We stop retreating as the liberal majority condemns us and calls us intolerant.  We stand up for the truth, because we know the truth. 

Ephesians 5:⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰ and find out what pleases the Lord. ¹¹ Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹² It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. ¹³ But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. ¹⁴ This is why it is said:
“Wake up, sleeper,
    rise from the dead,
    and Christ will shine on you.”

24 Awesome Images to Share on Social Media

The internet is a wonderful thing.  It carries a lot of negative images and video, but it also offers itself as a unique public square to share the gospel, and encouragement.  Are you sharing the gospel on social media?  We've all got Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, Pinterest, LinkedIn, DeviantArt, and many others.  Let's utilize them to share the truth with a very troubled world, that desperately needs the truth.  Here are some of my favorites I've seen and grabbed over the past month or so, feel free to save and share on your social media accounts.  None of these belong to me, I'm simply sharing them.  Thanks!

Split into two categories, "sharing the light" images are positive inspirational images and "challenging the darkness" are truth, fact, and justice centered images.  Enjoy!

Sharing the Light:

Challenging the Darkness:

Spiritual Journey | Dreams, Darkness, False Light, a journey in Ideas

 My spiritual journey is one of incredible awe, and bizarre twists in time and space all perceived from my own strange vantage.  It ends up in many a place, many a thought, from the Donnie Darko soundtrack to street lights at 3 am on summer nights in the suburbs.  Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, Forest Gump, The Fountain, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, 1984 by George Orwell, politics, philosophy, post-modernism and the heroes journey a-plenty.  Clerks, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob.. Reading every book ever written by Hunter S. Thompson.  At times I dipped into astrology and metaphysics, at other times I studied politics and conspiracy theories.  The journey led everywhere, into blank spaces, in circles around and around again, through obsession, distortion, and addiction.

I'd like to tell you about it, because it's my testimony.  It is not wise to stray too far from the vital testimony I carry.  In the book of Acts, Paul frequently returned to retell his story of how he came to Christ and the thoughts and actions that were taken in that area.  Some of my greatest heroes of faith and truth, Ravi Zacharias specifically, often return to their testimony as they share their faith and give presentations on the truth of Christianity.

I'll tentatively rate this post PG-13.  So be warned.  Though cover to cover the Bible is at least R.  So theres that.

Walking, walking, walking.  I'd often walk the windswept streets, but always at night.  I didn't like people seeing me, judging me, and I'd often plague myself with thoughts wondering just what they might be thinking about me as they drove by.  So nightwalks, always nightwalks.  I needed a few street lamps, places to catch a breather you know.  I'm afraid of the dark after-all!  Must emerge from the monster and zombie infested dark spots to bastions of light for at least brief periods.  I was always between street lights in those days, music my constant companion.  God was choosing the playlist, though I didn't know that then, yet I often suspected things had been fine-tuned in advance.  Though those thoughts never reached convincing conclusions, only really fading off into amusing speculation.

I was in trouble often.  A child of the suburbs, of the forests, the humid summers and brutal winters of north central Wisconsin.  I never compared it to anything else, it was just what I knew.  Trees always beautiful, and winters as vacant as nuclear wastelands, my such lands to walk with a mind prancing about complex ideas.  It was yummy, and I prided myself on obsorbing the beauty of not only nature, but of moments themselves.  They were equisit, and if properly perceived, such strange emotions could be pulled from them that makes one shutter.. like soft flowing memories as one smells autumn leaves or the red reminder of vital aloneness found in a cold snowed in road seemingly leading nowhere, and no one to be found for miles in any direction who might know you existed or were about.  I loved being alone so much, I prized it so well.

My goodness, what a wonder to be internally warm, yet cold all around, sky a pale gray, orange street lights about and nothing, absolutely nothing but the sound of faint winds howling and knowing, just knowing you're totally alone.  My goodness, so wonderful.   Such a unique state of mind, such an appealing feeling.

I loved feeling, and at once hated feeling.  See I always needed to find altered states of mind.  I fancied myself a consiur of sorts.

Almost reminds me of the Screwtape letters by C.S. Lewis, a line Ravi Zacharias sometimes quotes "That's where you blew it!"  The book was mock letters from one demon to another about attempts to keep a human from "the enemy" being God.  The less experienced demon lost a human because he allowed that human to take a walk once a day for the pure pleasure of it, and allowed him to read a book for the pure pleasure of it.

I was raised Catholic, never connected to it.  It had been an incredible bore, the catechism.  Everyone in the class made an incredible mockery of it.  I recall one fellow classmate named Justin would wear his jacket during class, and he'd have his cd player in his pocket, and run the cord for the headphone up his sleeve and to his hand.  He would rest his hand against his ear, and in his hand was the headphone.  So he could listen to music during the catechism classes.

I was raised in public school, what a nightmare.  I blotted out much of those terrible days from my mind, long ago.  But I spoke with a young woman in my graduating class and she recalled with me, just how horrible the preps and jocks were to me.  She said they would make fun of me constantly.  And I recall much of that.  It was endless, and so very cruel.  It can't be overstated, how it affected me.  But it didn't affect as bad as the divorce had.  That one knocked me over.

I suppose I was always a bit different.  I was forced to play sports, but I didn't want to play sports.  I wanted to read and write.  But I had to play sports, which meant I was always around jocks and preps.  But I didn't want to spend time with them, I couldn't relate with them.  So I was kind of stuck by myself, no time to pursue friendships with like minded people and instead forced to spend time with jocks who found it extremely easy to single me out as the quiet nerdy kid and lambaste me with ridicule and hatred.  I can still remember their names.  Chris R, Jarred G, Zach Z, Eli J, Brandon T, Alexi S, Nick S, and on and on and on.  I didn't like them, they didn't like me.  Unfortunately I was forced by my dad to always be in their presence, thus I had no time to make my own friends, thus I was always in the line of fire and always an easy target for attack because I had no companions.  Basketball, football, soccer, and on and on and on.

Such was my suburban nightmare.  I had nowhere to run.  No one to turn to.  No support.  Of course I crumbled.

And yes.. Catholicism, oh my.  I could write a book on the shortcomings.  But I could write another book on the failings of Protestantism.  So we won't go there.  Enough to say, I could write several books on my own failings.

Drugs, and trouble.  Alcohol and trouble.  Pain, separation, loneliness.  And a lot of rejection.  To this day a pain remains in my mind with one word stamped on it: "rejection."  I'm reminded of it time and again.  Every time I'm rejected a fresh by a person or a group, it gets a little bigger.  It's proceeded from high school to this day, growing larger and larger, like a fat elephant drunk on wine.

And dreams.  Lots of dreams I've had over the years.  I recall many so clearly.  I'm left handed you know, perhaps that has something to do with why.  Those dreams I wrote down.  I studied dream interpretation, read books.  I had dream encyclopedias.  I wrote my dreams down, and I'd use them later as plots for short stories and novels I'd write.

If my soul were a nation, when I was 14 and my parents divorced, it was like all my major cities were nuked.  The survivors boarded space ships and blasted off into the dark unknown desperate and afraid.  That was the state of it.  During my junior year I was expelled from high school for drug related issues, apparently some students believed I was going to blow up the school, or shoot up the facility.  The students who had once mocked and ridiculed me suddenly were terribly afraid.  They went to their influential parents who called the principle, Johansen, coach of the football team, and I was quickly expelled.

Rage, fear, rejection, and hatred.  These were emotions, mindstates that filled me up to the brim.  What do you do in that situation?  I was in a mental hospital after eating too many ambien pills from my prescription.  I was expelled, parents divorced, and none of my friends would talk to me because they thought I was a killer.  It was terrible.  Dark depression set in.  During that time I met up with a group of potheads, seven guys.  In retrospect there was an interesting fact to note about the group: every member was from a divorced family.  I recall one night my sister and mom were screaming at each other as they often did, my sister took a lot after my dad in that respect, and I recall my friends were there and I saw the look in their eyes.  It was like their throats had been cut afresh.  I saw reflected in their eyes the pain they held in witnessing their family, their foundation explode into nothingness below their feet.  And we all tumbled together down a dark tunnel, endless, empty, full of pain and nowhere to go but down.

I was starting to learn about hell.  There were good times in there I suppose.  Smoking pot, lots of pot, all the time.  Playing Halo for the Xbox 2 vs 2.  Talking about stupid crap, whatever.  Listening to music like REM, Radiohead, Blink 182, Dismemberment Plan, Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so on.  Talking about deep stuff.  Playing more videogames.  Playing Madden.

Eventually I met a young man who would become a very dear friend, a fellow explorer of mindsets, realities, and drug effects, named Greg.  He was an intriguing young man, quite brilliant.  He was a pyromaniac, several times we'd make napalm with gasoline and styrofoam throwing it about like madmen.  But we talked, and we talked a lot.  We talked philosophy, politics, religion, spirituality, metaphysics, science.  Beautiful things, beautiful little conversations.  But specifically.. hm..  As Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse wrote in one of his songs titled "The Good Times are Killing Me" he sang, "Jaws clenched tight we talked all night but what the hell did we say?"

What indeed.  I suppose I was like most modern young men, with a certain sympathy and vague respect for the cult figure status of Jesus Christ, but of little interest or desire to investigate.  I certainly didn't think or believe anything of value existed there.  But more so, I did not care about anything, period.  It's a strange thing to say.  But after you watch your foundation collapse, you very much have no ability to care about anything but blotting out the pain.  There was no thought of the future, there was no desire to plan or find work or attend college.  It was just about getting messed up and evading all responsibility.

I worked though, at a terrible little job answering phones for a shoe company.  Truly terrible.  Greg and I had broken off from our old group of friends.  Several of them had started working at a Pizza Hut, and an employee there had slowly recruited them.  This man was a drug dealer.  He pretended to be their friends, and mine, but slowly worked on them, until they were drivers delivering drugs, and then dealers under him.  I watched it happen, as he brought them in one by one.  But Greg and I kept our distance.  We didn't want any of that.

We began traveling from city to city across Wisconsin.  We'd go places, and I'd write about what we did, where we went, what we talked about, the drugs and alcohol we were doing.  It was crazy.  We went to shoes, met with girls, all these things.

At this time my mother began attending a baptist church in Mosinee.  I wouldn't find out until much later, but at that time she attended Bible study, and the people at the Bible study would get together to pray for me and my sister.  I deeply believe those prayers 10+ years ago were instrumental in my future date of salvation, November 2012.

Darkness descended one night.  I was arrested and put in jail for possession of marijuana.  Two weeks later, driving while intoxicated and disorderly conduct.  So it began, the march downward.  Probation.  And then jail.  So much could be said about those things.  Over and over again.  The legal system can be a revolving door for cases like mine.  And so it went, again and again.  There is nothing worse than the constant state of fear and trauma found in that revolving door.  I wish to never live such again, in any reality, for any reason, or for any higher or lower cause.

Standing before judges, sitting before judging.  Reading the Bible in jail.  I don't recall praying in jail.  Just reading, a lot of reading.  Maybe I did pray.  Probably simple prayers; God help me.  Get me out of this mess.

Amusing antidotes aside, pain.  Lots of trauma, and pain.  I was a fool, blundering from one terrible mistake to another.

Yet what I recall are the night walks.  And the beautiful sounds.  The crickets, and the deer standing along the road I'd come along in the woods.  The bright stars in the sky.  Watching the moon.  And the thoughts.  The mission, the journey, and the endless writing I did in those days.. thousands of pages every year, asking questions like "Why am I here?  What is my purpose?  What does life mean?  What is my destiny?  What or who is the supernatural and sense around me?"

In 2007 the journey changed, from one of drug and alcoholic collapse, to one of searching.  I collected charges, and I was in jail once again, and it was decided that these things needed to stop, so I went to a treatment facility for two weeks.  Transfixed with a dream, my writing began to change from gonzo new journalism trip outs to spiritual explorations and philosophical searching.  The dream I recall clearly.  I was walking through a dark field, and into a forest.  There was an owl watching me from the edge of the thicket.  There was no sound, only the great darkness of the forest.  I was searching.  And soon I was climbing a steep hill through the woods, light shining through, and the summer forest was turning to fall, leaves falling from the trees.  I found myself at a summit, a bright golden meadow, a clearing where the light shined down, and I sat down in the meadow and felt a feeling of peace overcome me that I had never before or since experienced.  It was true peace.

Ever since that day I had been searching for that place.    The place in my dreams.  It was like memories of dreams across my entire life were meshing together, to form this ethereal journey in my mind.  But I still had no idea where the road was heading.

There were several tracks of investigation, several primary tracks that all weaved together to push down this road.  The first was my writing, journaling, poetry, and the novels I scribbled in.  They were the output of my response to stimuli.  The second was conversation with good friends, bad friends, and teachers and family regarding spirituality.  The third was media, music, movies, books I read, the spiritual journey of Donnie Darko deeply affected me.  Movies like The Fountain impacted my conception of the spiritual.  Sociologically movies like Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, zombie movies formed my conception of the people around me, and how to deal with them.  The Matrix movie with it's absolutely brilliant similes and metaphors of a rebel resistance against the status quo, and "waking people up."  This stimuli was prepping me.  I loved classic literature, 1984 by Orwell, Brave New world by Huxley, A Wrinkle in Time, Sherlock Holmes, The Hobbit, A Scanner Darkly, Fight Club, Hell's Angels, The Art of War, Walden, Thoughts from Underground, Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, Alice in Wonderland, the Time Machine, the classics always amazed me.  Such beauty, such diversity of writing ability.  And of course the Bible, my goodness what a book.  But I didn't treat it as much more than a novel, or at best, a culturally bound spiritual book due respect in it's traditional heritage and antiquity. 

So much could be said about the media that impacted me.  It sounds stupid, but I'm born and raised American, suburbs, out in the woods, not much too do, most friends living too far away.  So media was a huge part of my life.  Plus everyone at school hated me, so I spent a lot of time in media.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  Star Trek Voyager played a huge part in my considerations on morality, and doing the right thing.  To this day I'm thankful for Voyager and the Next Generation, and their exploration of the human condition and struggling in difficult moral dillemas.  You don't get that in the average citcom.   

After rehabilitation was recovery groups, where I was deeply impacted by the spiritual solutions offered to me in the 12 step environment.  It was at this time in 2008 that the esoteric mysticisms became my interest.  I had always been quite interested in astrology, numerology, metaphysics, and dream interpretation.  They call the bubble encompassing all such interests as "the new age."  The straw man I knew as Christianity held no appeal to me.  So I went down this path, reading many books on the zodiac, astrology, reincarnation, spirit beings, and such strange things.  Unfortunately these things never really led anywhere.  Fascinating to study though, at the time.  In retrospect I was consulting with evil forces, things that the Bible had told me not to interact with.  And I knew that at the time, but I didn't care.  

I was legitimately unconvinced of the existence of God.  And then there was relapse into drug addiction and alcohol.  That began in late 2009 and opened up a new chapter of my life I've referred to often in retrospect as "the year of no-light" though the period lasted three years.  It was really just one long year of total darkness.  

New pains entered my life.  So much could be said.  So much has been left out.  So much cannot be remembered.  But what I can say about 2009 to 2012 is that drinking, tripping, dxm addiction, pills, it had lost it's appeal.  It was not a steady even keel of heavy use, it was blotting out use, meant for the removal of pain.  It was still fun at times, but not as fun as it used to be.  And becoming more and more a chore, and eventually a drudgery.  

I kept ending up in detoxes and mental hospitals.  Suicide attempts abounded.  The questions faded away, and the spiritual journey didn't matter much anymore.  What's the solution to this riddle?  The addiction, the growing death in my mind?  How do I escape this snare of addiction?  There was no more time for vague spiritualism, pontificating, making self righteous assumptions about morality and the spiritual energies that impact the universe.. I needed help.  Pain and suffering has a powerful way of refining the journey and stripping away the lies, half truths, and false realities made up by ones own desired state of reality.  Suddenly I had a very real need to know what truly is, was, and always will be.  

Who is on the other side of the door?  

Nightmares continued.  And one by one things fell away in my life.  I had gathered many friends at my time at the university of Wisconsin extension, while writing on the university newspaper, from acoustic cafes and dates and random parties.  But one by one they left me behind, because they could not bear to watch me destroy myself piece by piece.  I really only had one friend left, Kyle.  You see when you reach down that low, the only people that stick around are the ones just as despicable as you are.  

The journey through the forest had reached a breaking point.  I would often have dreams that seemed to metaphor the journey.  Dreams of walking through dark forests, getting ever darker.  Dreams of swinging from branches in forests, climbing high up.  And now the dreams had changed.  I would repeatedly dream of walking across a dam, a metal dam on this path across the middle of it.  A very shoddy path, and a dam in great disrepair.  One of the last dreams I had, I had fallen into the water on the right side, and I was clutching to a rock at the edge of an abyss-like waterfall leading nowhere.

And so the moment came.  In a dark room, on the floor, in the depth of night.  And I called with a full voice, an inner scream, an outer scream, "Jesus Save Me!" 

I remember at that moment there was a great rumbling sound, and the ground began to shake in the living room where I lay.  I thought I was losing my mind.  Inwardly and outwardly I shook as I called out the long call for help, and then I collapsed on the floor.  

That was how I came to Christ.  And now I am so humbled, and honored, to call myself- a Christian.

Proverbs Chapter Twelve (Ancient Wisdom for Everyday)

Proverbs 12:1-7  (NIV)

A lot of these can take me by surprise.  In my human arrogance I can tend to just pass over certain lines thinking "well that's obvious" but in speaking to a friend recently I was reminded of an old truth.

 We were sitting on Rib mountain together at a rock quarry, looking over the waters wondering what tomorrow might bring.  And we prayed together.  I was telling her about the Bible, saying that as a writer the Bible blows my mind.  It's incredibly expertly written.  Every line in the Bible consists of truth that someone could write a book on.  Zeroing in on one single verse and searching through it, you can find so much to live by.  

Today I was thinking, I better live that.  So let's take a look at one single chapter of the book of Proverbs, Chapter twelve, and the first seven verses of that chapter. 

12 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
    but whoever hates correction is stupid.

Proverbs is all about wisdom, wise sayings.  Do you know anyone who loves being disciplined?  I can't say that I do.  But 12:1 says that if I respond positively to discipline, learn to receive it and learn from it, then at the same time I love knowledge.  Because when God disciplines me, he's making me into a better person.  

² Good people obtain favor from the Lord,
    but he condemns those who devise wicked schemes.

Good people, people who are in Christ, who do good works are favored by God.  Well duh right?  How often do I devise wicked schemes?  If I can just do this, buy this, or get that I'll then have this.  Nope, self seeking never helped anyone.  Those are wicked schemes.  I meet a lot of people like that, saying one thing but having other plans.  I've been that person.  We're all guilty of that.  But, if I seek to do good works in the sight of my heavenly Father, I will have the things I thought I would get by self seeking.

³ No one can be established through wickedness,
    but the righteous cannot be uprooted.

This is amazing truth.  None can be established through wickedness.  This can take us by surprise!  While studying online at Liberty University, at times I'm tempted.. maybe I could cheat on this test, just a little.  And it seems so harmless, right?  Well, just this once.  I know what Proverbs 12:3 says, but this is a unique situation.  Is it really so unique?  It's not that the one single act of cheating once will change much of anything.  But, but, but, it sets a terrible precedent.   It triggers a new line of behavior, and pretty soon I'm taking another test and that urge to cheat is just a bit stronger.  And just a bit harder to resist.  Eventually what God says comes true down the line, maybe I'm caught for cheating later on and I'm expelled from the entire education process.  Just because of one little slip, right?  God's word is always true.  Sometimes we just don't factor in the time element.  I tend to think in "now" terms.  But there is always later.

⁴ A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown,
    but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.

I've witnessed this one first hand.  A man I know is dating his former wife's best friend.  She is terrible.  And I can see the ache on his face, the quiet pain in his life, because it is a slow decay within him of remorse and pain, and the character of the friend insults his soul day and night.  Once again God's word is true.

⁵ The plans of the righteous are just,
    but the advice of the wicked is deceitful.

If I'm setting out some plans, a basic framework for my life then it ought to be a plan that is full of justice.  I've gotten some good advice from Christians, some bad advice from Christians, and some really bad advice from non-believing friends.  I have a friend who is a meth addict, and yes, I am still his friend because that's what Christians do, we befriend the lost.  But the stuff that comes out of his mouth.  It's very hard at times to simply stand the insane things he says.  So negative, so repulsive, such sexual thoughts, and demented philosophies of living.  That advice he gives is just plain deceitful.  "You gonna tap that"  "No I'm not."  "Meth isn't so bad, it's really a misunderstood drug."  "Meth is really that bad man, it really is."  Or another man I was working with recently "How many DUIs do you have?"  He replied, "five."  I prompted him, "Do you think, maybe, alcohol could be the problem?"  And he replied, "No, I don't have a problem with alcohol."  That's the same reason pro-choicers can't see that they actively participate in the murder of children.  Their thinking is too clouded to see the obvious in front of their eyes.  

⁶ The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,
    but the speech of the upright rescues them.

Verse six here seems like a continuation of verse five.  What's the solution to the problem of the deceitful advice of non-believers?  Well, the speech of the upright rescues them.  Point proven, we should not shun non-believers and sinners, we must continuously share the truth with them, because it can rescue them.

⁷ The wicked are overthrown and are no more,
    but the house of the righteous stands firm.

Again and again I see mega corporations and banks scamming good people out of so much money every year.  It's detestable.  Companies like Wal Mart, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, GM, General Electric, it's deplorable what these mega institutions do to the natural environment, to infrastructure, to entire economies, and to the people they step on daily to raise the profit margins.  But God's word says they will be overthrown and not remembered.  The righteous, those in Christ, their house will stand firm.

Philosophy, Science, Logic, and History: Presentations on the truth of Christianity from Multiple Disciplines

"If Christians could be trained to to provide solid evidence for what they believe and good answers to unbelievers’ questions and objections, then the perception of Christians would slowly change. Christians would be seen as thoughtful people to be taken seriously rather than as emotional fanatics or buffoons. The gospel would be a real alternative for people to embrace."
–William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, p. 18
I'm a Christian Apologist at heart.  Yet, I love the Bible.  I love the Bible so much, it's so incredibly beautiful and such incredible truth.  But I love examining Christianity from the contemporary views of history, science, logic, and philosophy.  Because I love evangelism.  And I want to engage people in these spheres of reason and inquiry. 

We need to be armed to the teeth with the facts on Christianity, because naysayers have a lot of generalizations about faith and religion they like to beat us over the head with.  Most of them are outright false, therefore we must know the facts and use the facts. 

Faith is reasonable, and I believe in intelligent faith.  Faith with reason that backs it up.  So enjoy these four video presentations from various angled approaches to the gospel and Christianity in light of disciplines like history, science, logic, and philosophy. 

1. Philosophy - Ravi Zacharias


2. Science - Hugh Ross Phd


3. Logic - Frank Turek


4. History - Os Guinness


Related Articles:

• Reasonable Evidence for Christianity & Intelligent Design Videos
• No Evidence for God?
• More Christian YouTube Material: Os Guinness and Frank Turek
• Using Youtube for Spiritual Health (Three Videos)
• Five Presentations by Ravi Zacharias on Christian Philosophy

The Topic of Liberty from a Libertarian attending Liberty University

This is a post in relation to the July 2014 Synchroblog prompt on the topic of Liberty.  The Synchroblog is a wonderful Christian fellowship of bloggers dedicated to Christ, get involved if you can!

Liberty is the topic, a word that has shown up again and again in my life as a Christian.  

Galatians 5:13 (ESV) says "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." 

Christianity at times must be explained in a precise way, even slight modifications in doctrine and the message is suddenly scrambled and lost.  Putting adherence to the laws of the Bible before Christ can cause just that problem.  Then the message of Christianity is slavery to law.  That is not the message! 

The message of Christianity is one of liberty! 

While the sexual revolution, a joint on weekends, a few beers here and there, they seemed like liberation.  They seem like reasonable rebellion.  But they were slavery dressed up as freedom.  

Christianity to me means liberation from slavery.  I was a slave to my own rebellious nature.  I had to chase after what my mind wanted, day in and day out.  I had to drive to the store to get more pills, I had to search day and night, scour the carpet for pennies to purchase a bit of alcohol.

Jesus Christ was a liberator to me, coming to a man being dragged by a Goliath.  I had a chain around my neck.  One I had tried to break on my own power, again and again.  Jesus did the impossible when he cut the chain and freed me.

And I was shocked, and shock has become gratitude in my life.

That's the personal level.  The community level is that I love being free, and living free.  I don't easily submit to a 9 to 5 routine, and Christ offers liberation from serving the man at the cash register.  Jesus put me in a ministry at the Salvation Army of Wausau that I'm very grateful for.  Because very simply, what I do there matters.  It matters in a way that so many things in this world never will.  It matters in eternity. 

And the political level is that I love liberty.  I'm a libertarian in political beliefs.  I worked on the Ron Paul 2012 primary campaign.  I believe in small government, strict adherence to the Constitution, and personal liberty to choose my own destiny.  

In the academic area I attend Liberty University.  It seemed like a nod to my libertarian political beliefs, after my salvation date, suddenly I was attending Liberty University, wearing the blue t-shirt with red letters marked "LIBERTY."  Because Jesus Christ is my liberator, and now he has sent me to an institution to be trained to liberate others, by guiding them to the liberator, Jesus Christ.

For that I am eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father.   

Romans 8:1-2 (ESV)
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 

Isaiah 61:1 (ESV) The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound

Link List:

• Jerry Wirtley – Liberty …
• Bobbi Ann Allen – My Allegiance Has Changed
• Justin Steckbauer – The Topic Of Liberty
• MinnowSpeaks – The Talk
• Jeremy Myers – Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death?
• Carol Kuniholm – Liberty and Constraint
• K.W. Leslie – Why I Don’t Go To Church: No Freedom
• Jesus Without Baggage – Where The Spirit of The Lord Is, There Is Liberty
• Glenn Hager – Rebel
• James Carter – The Law of Liberty
• Mallory Pickering – Don’t Give Up
• Leah Chang – Free To Be