All those who Wander are not Lost: A Study in Nothingness

"When Monday comes 
I want nothing 
Come Tuesday morning I want the same 
The days and nights fly by 
Looking to embrace the nothing of the everyday...."
-Yo La Tengo, "Everyday" from the album:  And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out.

Much of my early life was lived by such reverberations.  I don't want to bash it.  It had it's appeals.  No burdens, no responsibilities.  Just drift about.  Ironically enough I live in a similar way today at times.  I'm in the arms of God.  I have no idea what will happen today.  I want nothing.  I want the same tomorrow.  And all is well.  God has me.  My destiny is secured.  All is well.

There have been many wants in my life.  I want this, I want that.  There have been many pleasures.  Where did the road lead?  Where did the trail move to?  A ghetto, a clearing in the woods, filled with the lost.  Where do we go from here, I would ask.  

How many games of COD are enough?  How many run throughs on easy, hard and hardest?  Is it fulfilling?  How many hours on World of Warcraft until it's enough?  When is it fulfilling?  What is the purpose of it?  What is the meaning?  How many hours stoned on pot watching movies of other people doing exciting things?  How many nights clinking beers with the local kids until it's finally perfect?  How many nights with women, with men, until we've found an ultimate relationship?  When oh when will that relationship transcend the shackles of everyday life and give birth to real meaning?  Where is true love?  When can I have it?  Will it be enough?  

How many hours of sleep?  How many days at the job?  How many promotions until godhood?  Which horoscopes?  How about a tarot reading?  How many walks in the middle of the night thinking about the meaning of life?  How many days on oxycontin?  How many hours awake on methamphetamine?  How many cheeky speeches?  When will it be enough?  What will fill that empty place of meaninglessness?  What will finally give an answer?  When will the pleasure transcend itself?  

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”

³ What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?
⁴ Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises.
⁶ The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
⁷ All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again.
⁸ All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.
⁹ What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

 -Ecclesiastes 1:2-9 (NIV)

My soul, my being, everything I am is only engilded by one thing, by one force, by one person: Jesus Christ.  I am a turnsoul to him alone.  But it wasn't always that way.  For many a year I traveled in darkness, figuratively, literally during my endless night-walks.  Back in college at the University of Wisconsin I lived in the campus dorms for a spell.  At that time I had gone into abstinence from all drugs and alcohol, though I still smoked cigarettes at that time.  I remember I really felt alienated from the youngsters in the dorms around me.  I was 22, most of them were 19-20.  Instead of spending time partying with them, I would go out, literally every night.  Seven days a week.  I would leave the dorms between 10 and 11 PM and walk the streets.  Always at night, winter or summer, I would walk for at least 2 hours a night.  Usually around 3 hours a night.  I would bring an MP3 player and listen to Indie rock music.  And I would let my mind wander.  

Why am I here?  What is the meaning of life?  Where do I go from here?  

But do you know what was even more puzzling?  Why am I the only one who cares?  Why does everyone else not seem to think about such things?  I know some do.  But I am convinced the vast majority simply do not care.  They like the popsicles and pleasures of daily life, listen to Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, go get married, have kids, work a job, and never think about why.  Nothing could be odder to an INFP like myself.  

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost. J. R. R. Tolkien

Meaninglessness and nothingness have often clawed at me.  I'm just not a person who can do something normal every day and feel satisfied.  I've always been curious.  I've always wanted to pull up the curtain behind the play put before us and find out what's really going on back there.  

It's so hard to tell what is true and what is false.  It's very muddy.  The truth is easily concealed.  False information is easily put out there by media and government.  Thankfully we have the Bible.  The Bible is one book that I've studied for authenticity a great deal.  And it's one book, one word that I fully trust.  I don't often trust institutions or ideas.  But the Bible is perfect.  It's the real, preserved word of God.  

There is a certain freedom in nothingness, in abandon.  But at the end of the day we still want substance.  We want reality.  At least I do.

Why does a man walk into empty places?  Why does a man walk into darkness?  He's looking for something.  Maybe he's looking for himself.  There is a lot of noise in the world.  In the night, all alone, it's just you, God, and the stars.  

Post-modernity is a move toward nothingness.  It's the mood of emptiness, the response to the final bankruptcy of modernity, materialism.  The philosophical heart of man must wander off into the dark to find himself once again.  Or maybe to find God.  

John Gray wrote in his landmark book "Straw Dogs" that there is no truth, no morality, no personhood, and no hope.  He said that humanists think there is something good about people.  He asks, "Why don't you pick up a newspaper?"  Imagine, any of the 365 days of the year over all the years since there has been a human written newspaper would one grabbing the paper for today ever struggle to find such evidence on the front page?  Never.  Not even once.  It is a fact.  Why can't it be seen?  Because we don't want to see it.  

Everything is getting better despite the evidence?  Apparently not.  Think of the terrible twentieth century.  How might our current century unfold?  World peace or World War III?  Who could say?  

Nothingness pervades the secular worldview.  The universe exploded from nothing.  Nothing became something.  Lifeless rocks became human beings given billions of billions of billions.  Nothing became solid matter.  Nothing became stars.  Nothing exploded.  The laws of nothingness became somethingness.  The laws of nothing created something.  How can laws create?  Has 50 + 50 ever put $100.00 in your pocket?  I wish it would.  

If in fact John Gray was right in Straw Dogs, there would be no way to know.  In fact John Gray says there is no such thing as truth.  Then  how could he say what he's writing is true or false?  If personhood is suspect, who wrote the book?  Why even have language?  Why write a book?  And if you do, isn't language just another construct that should be considered suspect?  

These are things I think about on my walks into the nothingness.  Of course it only seems like nothingness.  In fact my feet are hitting the black top.  My eyes are seeing the lack of sunlight, and the star light and the moonlight shining meekly through the woods about the area, giving a pleasant feeling of calm quietness.  

Generations come, and generations go, there is nothing new under the sun.  With more wisdom comes more grief.  

Often I'll collapse after a long day on my bed, and listen to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.  It is so comforting to be reminded how meaningless everything in this life is, save one thing: the message of the Gospel.

But I've hated life, because the work done under the sun seemed quite grievous to me.  It seemed quite empty and meaningless.  Before I encountered Christ I lived the life of a dead man.  In many ways that seemed true.  I pursued anything that was foolish and destructive.  I didn't see it that way at the time.  I thought was "exploring" and "experimenting."  Little did I know was embroidering my own straight jacket.  We humans tend to be so good at self destruction.  Our hearts fall for the wrong gal, the wrong guy, and the ones who treat us so well we can't stand being around.  There are so many ironies that embattle the human experience.  There are so many ways that we simply trip ourselves up.  I know I did.  I was caught in every snare.  I jumped in every time.  And I went back to it many times, like a dog returns to his vomit (as the scriptures say).  

I'm convinced that every pursuit we as humans take outside of knowing and being known by God will end up in that awful sense of empty nothingness.  It is prescient.  I've felt it so many times.  I've felt it so many times when working toward an ultimate and finding it wanting.  I've felt it a million times.  I've always been so excited for the thing that would finally make things OK, and it never worked.  Emptiness always.  It is such an evil feeling, realizing my goal has been passed and I'm not cured, and I don't feel any better.  I could just scream, loudly at that moment for the sheer, stark injustice of it all.  All of that work for NOTHING!

What has it been for you?  Money?  Business success?  Maybe the perfect husband or wife?  Or some sort of love relationship that would finally transcend the barriers of reality and bring a perfect feeling?  That one is common for we millennials.  We grew up listening to too much Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service.  Great music though, I love it.  But humanist lyrics telling us that the perfection of reality is found in a penultimate romantic love?  Really?  Reminds me of a song called "Clark Gable" by the Postal Service which included the verse "I want so badly to believe that there is truth, that love is real. And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd."  I respect the honesty of that expression.  The heart calls for meaning, for substance, for the total overcoming of the senses.  Or the 2011 Death Cab for Cutie album called "Codes and Keys."  Who can recall that song off Codes and Keys that went "only our love will remain."  "All else will fade away, only our love."  But does our love alone carry the weight of eternity, history, human existence?  It doesn't.  Or who can forget Travis Morrison and Dismemberment Plan's album Change?  In "Sentimental Man" Morrison sings "There is no fate that divides our day, no spirits hard at work, no unseen hand at play
people talk like it's a given thing,I don't what they mean -- nor, I suspect, do they."  Yet he groped for the ultimate in his expressions, as so many of us millennials have.  We've groped for it without even realizing it, in our own existential explorations of how we feel.  And how it feels to feel the way we feel, and why we might feel that way.  In the first track on Change Morrison declares his position of no need for the supernatural, yet on track 3 aptly titled "Superpowers" he sings, "I have cried so hard for hours and not known why, I never do, I've been knocked down flat by joy that makes my face pulse like a sugar high, I've been cornered by the screams of a body as it freed itself of its mind, I guess you could call it superpowers, but no one is going to save the world with what I've got; an indigo light from silvery towers surrounded by rocks and stones as far as the eye can see."  We grope for meaning.  We grope for truth.  Part of ourselves is eternal and quite nearly successfully fights to transcend reality itself.  And we search down within.  We dig down toward the sense of emptiness common to all of those born on Earth.  I've expressed it myself in thousands of pages of writing before I became a follower of the way.  I've read it, written it, and listened to it sung by beautiful minds honestly groping for the missing something; the sense that something is wrong within them, and what the solution might be, while still having to contend with a tendency to evade a spiritual moral transcendent being.

A common theme is the ultimate romance.  As they say, the true love.  Or the soul mate, or what new agers might call soul twins.  It is a sort of worship of an ultimate romance, or relationship.  It hits closer to the solution than one might think though.  But it isn't the answer.  A romantic relationship, a good marriage is certainly a wonderful thing, but it never solves the underlying problem: disconnection from God.  Even if one resists that conclusion of a disconnection problem, one must certainly admit that no relationship ever transcended and solved the problem of emptiness and nothingness. It can effectively distract us, but only for so long.

Money, possessions, power, title, privilege, relationship, sex, it all falls short.  It all leaves us feeling empty.  We need God.  We can learn this the easy way, or like I did, the hard way. 

A study in nothingness shows us that the fact that we can ask the question must insist that we are more than we seem, don't you think?  We are able to ask the question.  Does God exist?  If we were beasts, evolved from rocks over billions of year, rocks that appeared out of the nothingness, for no apparent reason, would we even wonder about a God?  But the sheer ridiculousness of a something from nothing universe is idiotic to say the least.  Why do we consider these things possible?  Scientists make bad philosophers.  Sorry, but it's true.  I think we all know deep down there must be a god.  We've explored that question from science, astronomy, historiography, archaeology, and so many other areas on this blog.  We don't believe blindly here.  We believe based on evidence.  Like wind blowing through a tree, we can't see the wind, but we can see the evidence in the movement of the tree.  I can't ignore the tree waving, there has to be wind.  

God is there.  Our emptiness is there, our sense of nothingness is increasingly prescient because we are unable to find meaning outside of God.  Why?  Because there is no such thing.  We were designed for communion with God.  We were designed for a penultimate relationship in fact, it's just not romantic between me and another human.  It's between me and God.  You and God.  Between God and his people.  All made possible by Jesus Christ, the hero of this brilliant saga.  The tree of knowledge did not free us, it enslaved us.  But knowledge is God's alone.  In his book the Bible he reveals to us knowledge of saving faith in Christ.  And so we return to the tree of life, free to eat of it's infinite expressions.

I was driving along on a sunny day in Escanaba and as I stared out the window I realized that I was a being designed by God, thought up in the heart of God.  I was in fact, a creature designed by a timeless eternal being, a master architect of time and weather and space and nature who felt deeply driven to create a race of humans around himself with a piece of himself placed within each of them.  And I thought wow, that is a crazy thought. Because I was really finally letting that sink in as a reality.  I was finally letting that timeless truth become a part of how I see the world and myself.

You are the dream of God, thought up in his mind, and you have been crafted to multiply upon the Earth, a place in the throws of a tangent fall, a displacement of truth.  You are the dream of God.  You are the architecture through which a divine spark was placed to create a sentient, living being, also eternal, with a mind reaching for the eternal, a mind reaching for perfection always, because that mind cannot exist in the finites of this Earth.  It cannot find satisfaction in the finites of this Earth.  It can only find satisfaction in the eternal truths of God, truths that I can hardly fathom.  You are the dream of God.  

Yet my heart and my mind reach out into emptiness, into darkness, into the infinite desperately yearning for an infinity I cannot conceive of.  I can't taste it, I can't touch it, I can't even describe it, but I know that nothing in this life fulfills, there is something missing, and I need God, I need his eternal presence, I need him to make me right.  I need a doctor to do some surgery, I need Jesus Christ, the greater healer.  I need him to restore me, to build me, to change me and then to bring me into his eternal presence where I may enjoy the fruits of infinity and turn from the fleeting pleasures of this broken Earth.  

God wants to do the same thing he did for me, if you would but receive him.  Stop resisting.  Stop doubting.  The evidence is solid.  The arguments are reasonable.  What are you afraid of?  Finding the ultimate meaning of existence?  Are you afraid you might have to change your life?  Change how you live?  But won't it be worth it, to know the meaning of life, to discover the cure for the broken soul?  No more waiting, no more doubting, believe.  Call out to him, call upon one name: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, who was nailed to the cross, died, and reclaimed his life through the miraculous power of God.  He is with God now, risen, resurrected and glorified.  Call on him, it is the equation we are offered.  Call upon Jesus Christ for safety, forgiveness, and new life.  Our hearts will wander in emptiness, meaningless, nothingness until we do so.  The fog is thick, the darkness deep, but deep calls out to deep, we can hear it, we can see it, we can perceive of it, and conceive of it, we are rendered aware through our own broken hearts of the power of infinity in the God of the universe, who made us, loves us, and can restore us to that state of perfection we were always meant to live as, through, and in.

Nothingness, emptiness, and meaninglessness are expressions of our own bankruptcy in the face of a broken world, a broken universe, and a brokenness that exists within all of us.  It is a hole, a gap, a void within all of us that screams silently for the eternal expressions of an infinite loving God, whom seeks to fill that unquenchable void in our hearts with the fullness of his presence, in the Spirit.  Believe him, trust in his word, trust his Son, even when the world spews all it's nonsense and skepticism at us, make the radical step to believe in the truth.  It is the only way we can find the infinity our hearts and minds call out for in the darkness of the nothingness of this fading world.  

 Related Posts:

1. Books and the Joy of Reading: George Washington, Helen Keller
2. Christian Activism: Can Christianity survive the new cultural attitudes?
3. Ten Great Minds, Ten Controversial Presentations
4. Helping Children Heal from Divorce
5. Noble: The Life of Christina Noble & her ministry to Vietnam
6. What is prayer?
7. Mothers and Children: Mother's Day in Light of Asia
8. Liberty University Graduation, Young People, and Game Changers
9. How does God communicate with us?
10. Screen Life: An Ancient Wall & a Call to Arms

Kim Davis is only the Beginning: Prepare your Ministry for Persecution

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you." John 15:18 (ESV) 

I'll be brief, persecution is coming.  That is nothing new.  Persecution has always been common for the real Christian.  For the cultural Christian, persecution has never been a problem and it will never be.  They will simply embrace the new cultural ideas about marriage, as well as other areas.  But we are unable to do so, because we follow God's word, not the changing ideas of man.

Prepare your ministry for persecution.  Whether you're a leader or a follower, understand your rights under the Constitution.  Be aware of the law, and how it impacts your Christian walk.  You have the right to share your faith with others.  You have the right to say that homosexuality is a sin.  You have the right to say that abortion is murder.  You have the right to pray at your work place.  You have the right to pray in public.  You have the right to carry your Christian values into every area of life.

As expected, following the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage there is a slowly growing persecution against Christians in the USA.  

For someone who understands history, this isn't surprising.  When Canada legalized gay marriage a great persecution followed for Christians in that country.  Secular forces successfully forced Christianity out of the Canadian mainstream.  The same thing happened in many countries across Europe, most notably France and the United Kingdom.  

It's all part of the jettisoning of God from modern life.  That's the goal of secularization.  It's powerful in many circles, such as science fields, psychology, social work, k-12 education, the university system, government agencies, most of the mainstream media, and of course the extreme left.  All of these forces seem utterly dedicated to forcing Christianity out of all sectors of public life.  These forces must be apposed.  Unfortunately the courts seem to take the stand that homosexuality must trump religious liberty.  

The bakery which refused to bake cakes for a homosexual wedding were fined a ridiculously massive amount of money for refusing to do so: $135,000.  An appeal on the ruling was refused by the Oregon government of labor.  But Christians rose up, raising money for the embattled bakers well over the amount of the fine.  Praise God.

A gay couple has sued a bed in breakfast in New York for refusing to host their wedding, which mirrors an incident that occurred in the United Kingdom recently.  No word yet on how that will turn out.  Be in prayer for that facility and their staff.

Now that gay marriage has been legalized, a persecution begins.  So many gay activists said that all they wanted was to marry.  But now they've got the right, and they're going to punish those backwards Christians and shut down their churches and mock them into obscurity.  It's pretty scary.  Gay activists recently began protests demanding that churches should lose their tax exempt status.  So much for all those assurances that it wasn't about coming down on the church. 

Finally we come to the developing story of Kim Davis the Kentucky clerk who has refused to distribute gay marriages due to her religious beliefs.  The government's response?  They declared her in contempt of law and tossed her in jail.  Now that is pretty scary.  

Key evangelical Christian leaders threatened civil disobedience if the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.  Is this the beginning of that civil disobedience?  Perhaps it is.  Even so, I wasn't quite sure what to think. I wondered, "Is she doing the right thing?"  But now that she is in jail, I realize that yes she did do the right thing.  She stood for her Christian beliefs.  And now other government clerks and judges are following her example, refusing to issue gay marriage licenses based on their religious beliefs.  It's a beautiful thing, seeing how one person taking a stand can change the hearts and minds of many.  I thought at first that Kim Davis was fighting a hopeless fight.  But God rewards those who take a daring stand for their faith.  Recently a second clerk in Kentucky joined her in refusing to issue gay marriage licenses.  Shame on me for questioning her stand.  Kim Davis is after all, the only one obeying the law in that situation.

Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee among others have issued statements that they stand firmly with Kim Davis.  But still she remains in jail.  How long will they keep her I wonder?  Until she signs a confession in support of gay marriage?  Will she be required to publicly recant? (Update 9/10/2015: Kim Davis was released from jail after six days, being told she must not interfere with gay marriage licenses being issued by deputy clerks. Click here to read more.)

Yet despite all of the videos of Planned Parenthood execs discussing the sale of aborted babies for profit, not one person is in jail.  Welcome to America, a land gone mad with moral confusion.  Homosexuality is the law of the land, Christians are tossed in jail for upholding their Christian values, and child sacrifice is considered a good thing.  It's madness.  

Here is the truth of the matter: We have what you call a double standard in our government.  Consider this comparison: A lesbian judge in Texas named Tanya Parker refused to issue any marriage licenses in 2012, as a sort of protest to support gay marriage rights.  She was never declared in contempt of law and thrown in jail.  There was no media outrage.  She was simply allowed to do so, and she was supported for taking a stand for LGBT.  But when a Christian takes a stand for Christian values, then it's bigotry.  That's a despicable leftist double-standard and it's wrong.  

But I suppose that's what Frederick Nietzsche said isn't it?  The famous German atheist cried out: "God is dead!"  But he also feared what the removal of God from society would lead to.  He said a universal madness would break out, because the heart of man is wicked.  And when one doesn't have a belief system, they are liable to believe anything.

Christian leaders, Christians of all kinds, prepare your ministries for possible persecutions.  Click here to read an article by the Ethics & Religious Liberties Commission on how to legally protect your ministry.  Make sure your people are voting in elections and engaging in the arenas of government and politics.  If we refuse to participate it only increases the descent of the culture and society.  Make sure your children know that they have the right to carry their Bible in public school.  And they have the right to pray in school if they so choose.  Click here to download a free PDF on the rights of teachers and children in public schools.  But let me make a few further recommendations.

First, if your ministry is sued, threatened, or politically attacked the first thing you should do is make contact with a religious liberties organization like Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Institute, or the American Center for Law & Justice.  They can help advise you on what action to take and these organizations will defend you free of charge in certain situations.

Second, I would recommend bringing speakers on these issues to your local congregations if possible.  You can request speakers from these organizations to help get your churches educated on their rights as Christians.  If bringing speakers isn't possible then I recommend downloading this PDF from the Alliance Defending Freedom on how to protect your ministry from gay marriage related lawsuits and other political attacks.

Third, I recommend staying involved in the discussion.  I subscribe to email updates from several different organizations.  Alliance Defending Freedom is excellent for the latest news.  I also subscribe to email updates from Liberty Counsel and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. 

Fourth, engage the culture on these issues.  Don't be afraid to discuss these issues, and bring them up in church services.  Engage your local communities and sphere of influence.  Engage with culture on the internet as well.  Be sure to "like" and "share" articles on social media.  Be sure to "like" Alliance Defending Freedom on Facebook. Be active in discussing these issues with local leaders and amongst other Christian denominations.  

Fifth, and most importantly: don't be afraid.  Don't let them intimidate you.  Don't fear when people speak all kinds of evil against you, for you will be rewarded by your God in heaven when you take a stand for Christ!  Don't let them bully you into silence.  That's what they want to do.  They want to raise the noise whenever we speak up to share our values.  They are trying to supplant our values with their values, and they try to make us feel guilty and afraid to defend ourselves.  Don't be afraid.  Take a stand.  And stand firm.  You have the high ground, as much as they pretend to have it.  It may get ugly.  We may lose our businesses, or our churches.  But to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  

As it is written: "Even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.  For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" -1 Peter 3:14-18

Related Posts:

1. The Great American Culture War: Religious Liberty, Gay Rights, Naturalism & the Christian Faith
2. Christianity in the Public Square: The Apologetics & Philosophy Renaissance
3. Christian Activism: Can Christianity survive the new cultural attitudes?
4. Gay Marriage, LGBTQ Issues, and the Christian Worldview
5. A Rational Inquiry of the Bible: Is it reliable? Is it the word of God?
6. On the Fourth of July: Freedom of Speech & the New Intolerance
7. The Supreme Court, Same Sex Marriage, Religious Liberties
8. Ten Great Minds, Ten Controversial Presentations
9. What is the Truth about Abortion? Fact, Fiction, Christianity, & Humanism 
10. Faith in the 21st Century: The Seven Key aspects of Faith
    

Screen Life: An Ancient Wall & a Call to Arms

The lights shine brightly. I can hardly see in fact. The window is in front of me, pouring light. But I can't see. My mind is infatuated, obsessed. A kind of dementia overcomes me. I can't help but look. I try to look away, but it recaptures my attention. I know there is a real world out there. But I don't care. It's like a dream world. It just brings me in, and I can't let go. It's the glare of all glares. It's the glare of the television screen. It's the glare of the smart phone screen. It's the glare of the Ipad. It's the glare of the laptop.

Something like 50% of the day of the average young adult today is spent in front of one of these devices. I can relate. Though I read a lot, I spend a great deal more time on the laptop at home. While working at the shelter I would simply transfer from the screen at home to the screen at work. No big deal. And in between, the smart phone screen. 

It seems like too many screens.  Sometimes I feel like I'm hardly living, just watching movies or shows.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a cyber world.  What did people do before the internet?  They watched TV.  What did people do before TV?  I suppose they read books and newspapers.  

Human interaction can be tedious.  Maybe it's an anachronism.  But I don't think it is.   But it certainly seems like an agenda is smuggled through the middle of all this noise.  It does seem that way.  Maybe Herman and Chomsky (1988) were right when they wrote, "the mass media of the USA are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion."

Can we slow down?  Can we put it down if we want to?  Can we slow down and think?  Can we stop clicking?  Is there any room for the gospel?  And what do all the screens do to the minds of young people?

Anathematized to life.   Apathy, the prevailing motif.  "I don't care today, I don't care tomorrow, and next week is looking doubtful." To be fair it isn't easy.  Most people have to work 40+ hours a week doing mind numbing tasks endlessly, facing mounting bills, increasing food prices, and decreasing wages and benefits.  It's a nightmare.  Let's just be real.  The 9 to 5 grind is quite often very awful.  I'm fortunate to have a job I enjoy.  People work for years spinning their wheels because the amount of income can never match the monthly bills and random break downs and surprise costs of life.  People today are working more hours to afford less.  

We end up with too little time after all those job hours.  Everything on the screen conspires to take what little extra money we have.  There isn't any time.  There isn't any money.  Credit card debts are climbing, and given enough pictures of decadent chocolate or juicy burgers, I'm bound to be hungry too much.  An assault on the senses by way the eyes and ears, into the mind, designed by teams of experts to trigger notions that bring in cash flow.  Consumer society, as they say.  Or as the big credit card companies think of us: "eaters."  Useless eaters, as a whistleblower revealed not so long ago.  

In western civilization it's all about money.  It's all about the money.  Even when they say it's not about the money, that's when it's really about the money.  I tend to approach any gimic very skeptically.  Eventually the other shoe is going to drop.  Eventually the catch will be revealed.  Eventually they want me to cough up the money. 

I think young people are just disgusted.  They are downright sick of it.  Or they are caught up in it, trying to squeeze some kind of satisfaction.  And there is none to be had.  

Walking up the steps of the apartment building where I dwell, I could smell the unmistakable scent of marijuana.  I had to shake my head.  And I had to smile.  I know how it feels to look for a good time in a substance.  It's such a cunning and deceptive little trap for the mind.  In the end, whether a terrible evil or a passive substance, it was true for me; there was nothing there.  

I picture the tattooed, pierced college playboy with the popped collar laying on a couch after an all nighter, next to a girl he doesn't like, feeling an intense sense of disappoint with everything he has tried to pull from life.  

Consider the situation: We have a man who is blessed with more material commodities and luxuries than 99% in the history of mankind.  The result?  His belly is full, but his soul is empty.  And perhaps that's why so many young people in our society take their own lives.

At the same time, halfway across the world, an African child is dying of starvation.  Halfway around the world an Indian teenager is gathering water from a polluted river that runs through his village with a carved up plastic jug which washed ashore from the trash island in the pacific ocean accumulating the excesses of western civilization.  

 Are people concerned?  Some are, yes.  But there seems to be a great mass that only moves when the screen tells them to.  They get excitable about gay marriage and gay rights.  They get excitable about Bruce Jenner becoming a woman.  Or police violence.  Or global warming.  But when it comes to sex trafficking, world poverty, disease, or war.  Well, there isn't a lot of concern in the great mass one might call the mob of western culture. 

It's a screen life out there.  I woke up in the screen life.  I suppose I've never known much else.  From my very youngest every piece of furniture was pointed toward the TV screen.  From my youngest years I was obsessed with video games.  Throughout my whole life I'm sure I've watched thousands of hours of movies.  Thousands of hours of computer and video games.  Endless hours spent on the internet and Facebook.   

I think I understand why, though maybe I don't.  Keeping people in front of the screen allows for the more powerful "classes" if you want to call it that, to gather their money, and power and such things.  That's speculative of course, but I just notice a lot of corruption in business and banking.  In the film adaptation of Animal Farm by George Orwell, the hogs begin taking undue power and the other farm animals begin mobilizing to protest and mount a counter-insurgence.  Then one of the hogs pushed a television in front of the other animals, and they were all mesmerized.  They stopped organizing, stopped fighting for their rights in exchange for creature comforts.

That's kind of how I see modernists.  They were taken in by the seductions of western convenience.  The screen was pushed in front of them while institutions like the Federal Reserve quietly took control.  Waking up as a Christian in America today, it kind of feels like the past forty years have been the demise of Christianity in the west.  At least that's how it looks on paper in the history books.  Of course these are unauthorized histories.  One must read between the lines in these sort of matters.   

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were atheists.  So was H.G. Wells.  In their views of the future they say hopelessness.  Orwell saw a totalitarian nightmare that would eventually convert the very heart of a man to total devotion.  1984 ended in hopelessness.  Huxley saw a world of nightmarish consumerism in Brave New World where entertainment and convenience became god.  He didn't see any hope.  Wells saw a terrifying evolutionary future in his classic The Time Machine.  He saw the same world of classes polarized to the extreme, with one evolutionary end of man brainless and living a privileged life, and another evolutionary end of man living in darkness snatching unsuspecting members of the privileged class when they strayed too close to their dwellings.  He saw no hope or future.  

But they were wrong.  They couldn't fathom a God who worked quietly in history.  But I can.  And I do.  His presence and guidance is unmistakable.  Watch his hands at work.  One can see it through the very pages of history.  Events turn from good to bad to worse, then out of seeming catastrophe the various threads of a better future pull together.  

Quite often God allows it all to reach the breaking point.  Time and again across human history it's all been at the breaking point.  Think of Noah in the ark as the waters rose.  Think of how the nation of Israel was blessed by God again and again, yet time and again they would fall away.  They would forget their God.  But inevitably a point comes when the old book of the law is discovered in the rubble.  And one Godly man or woman changes things by a taunt dedication to purity, truth, and their God.  Think of Daniel in the lion's den.  Think of David before Goliath. 

In modern times we've seen the world at the brink more than once haven't we?  Think of the cold war, when the world hung at the edge of nuclear holocaust.  Think of world war II as Hitler swept across Europe.  Think of the genocide of the Jewish people.  Consider the plight of Israel and the Jewish people after the return to their homeland post world war II.  How often they've come to the brink of destruction, but held out against endless hostile neighbors. 

In the United States Christians and non-Christians a like have been blessed by God.  There has been relative safety, prosperity, comfort, and convenience.  Americans are blessed of God unlike any other nation on Earth.  It's astounding.  Most of the world does not look like the USA.  But was it always that way?  Of course not!  The USA fought a brutal war for independence from Great Britain.  If you want to talk about a knife edge, look at the revolutionary war.  Many times it looked as if the colonists would fail.  It's been a battle for America ever since it's founding.  Think of the struggles to formulate a Constitution that allows for freedom and liberty.  And when liberty was threatened by the horrific evil of slavery, it took a long devastating war between brothers to settle the issue once and for all.  We can't take for granted what has happened in the United States.  Philosophers, historians, and theologians can argue all they want, the prosperity of the USA was built on the protestant ethic.  And without it it's crumbling into depravity.  

Many a wall and barrier has been uprooted and removed in regard to morality and truth.  In fact almost every road sign for such things has been removed for the sake of equality and tolerance.  In past times Christians fought very hard to make sure the USA remained a Christian nation.  People form organizations and institutions to protect what they'd gained in former times.  

It's like they build walls and barriers to protect the blessings God has given.  Yet time and again the old barriers crumble in disrepair.  They are forgotten.

Old fortifications are found, but no one is manning them.  It's like after Jesus found me, changed me, and I was reborn into Christianity I found a series of old castles guarding along an ancient stronghold of evil.  I walked along the walls inspecting the battlements.  But no one was manning them.  There was no soldiers there.  Wind howled through the old rock structures.  Cob-webs gathered in the halls and courts.  Fall descended and the smell of red leaves had become unmistakable on the air.  Somewhere along the line the defenses had been forgotten and simply abandoned.  Yet as soon as I stood on the walls and gazed out toward the horizon, I knew those defenses were absolutely critical.  But it appeared that most were at potlucks, social gatherings, or Christian rock concerts.  No one was on the frontlines.  

Then I noticed someone walking up to stand on one of the high towers.  Then another, trotting up on horseback to take up his post.  Young people were appearing.  Groups of four and five were approaching, marching up the brick staircases.  I noticed more and more young people moving out to the battlements.  They were picking up shields, lances, swords, and crossbows.  They were lining up one by one along the walls and towers.  A white rider named the Holy Spirit had sent them, and had sent me.  Because something big was coming.  

The screen life, well, that was fun.  Or was it?  I can hardly remember.  On another note: I've often wondered, if one gets so drunk as to black out the entire experience of a fun night of debauchery, did the emerging amnesiac really in fact have a good time?  In any case, Jesus Christ has not only freed me from selfishness, addictions, meaninglessness, and lovelessness, but he has also endeavored to free me from the screen life.  

Is the screen inherently evil?  I don't believe so.  Is money inherently evil?  Not at all.  The Bible says "the love for money is at the root of all kinds of evil."  The screen is like money, when used properly it is a good thing, when misused it becomes a vehicle for evil.   

The only way out of this madness is Jesus Christ.  It's the Christian faith.  I couldn't crawl out on my own, all those allurements were too engrossing.  The pain of the past was too acute.  I couldn't handle it.  I was falling apart.  The screen life had me real good.  I suppose in some ways it still does.  Jesus Christ is the way of escape.  Like Neo trapped in the matrix, we need an exit.  We need to find Morpheus, and receive the truth.  We need to join the resistance in a hovership, against the system that once dominated us.  Join us on the battlelines.  Many Christians forgot the struggle of their forefathers against the forces of darkness.  But young people are rising up to stand on the ancient fortifications, outnumbered, outgunned, overwhelmed, but sometimes like Leonidas at Thermopylae one must take a stand to inspire others.

Our God is a God of great inspirations.  He is a God of uncanny glory, and powerful motivating inspiration.  Be set on fire by his Spirit.  Someone has to stand now, today.  Join us, take up your shield, take up your sword, take up the armor of God, and stand against the enemy.   

Christ bids us to come and die.  Come and be changed forever.  When I was broken, troubled, lost, and sitting in front of the screen hoping for an end, I was obsessed with a year.  It was 2012.  I was sure I was going to die in 2012, at age 27, and join club 27.  I was completely sure of it.  And it turned out instead God the Father drew me to Jesus Christ in mind and in spirit.  That's when I called out to him in October 2012.  I was reborn into the body of Christ, washed in the Holy Spirit made new and clean.  Today it came into my mind... I was so sure for so many years.  I mean I would write about it, talk about it, and tell people.  I even told a college professor I greatly admired at the University of Wisconsin.  I was consumed with it.  Today I realized... I wasn't wrong.  I was right.  I did die in 2012.  


For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
-Colossians 3:3 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  -Galatians 2:20 ESV 

 Related Posts:

1. Books and the Joy of Reading.
2. Christian Activism: Can Christianity survive the new cultural attitudes?
3. Ten Great Minds, Ten Controversial Presentations
4. Helping Children Heal from Divorce
5. Noble: The Life of Christina Noble & her ministry
6. What is prayer?
7. Liberty University Graduation, Young People
8. How does God communicate with us?
9. Christianity in the Public Square: The Apologetics and Philosophy Renaissance
10. The Paradox of Victory through Surrender: Rise Above

 

Eternity & Christ: The Promise of Life

Brothers and sisters of the promise found in Jesus Christ, I greet you warmly.  May the grace and peace of Jesus Christ be found among you always.  These are trying times.  Times are changing.  But God does not change.  His truth remains foundational, nothing changes it.  

God is good.  He is perfect.  He loves us, those of us who have received his son.  God is righteous, he presides over all things perfectly.  God is the apex of perfection.  He can't be shaken, he is never confused or surprised.  He is in fact timeless.  He has no beginning.  He exists outside time, and nothing made him.  He is the self existent one.  God has worked in human affairs for thousands of years.  He continues to do so today.  When we take a stand, he stands beside us.  Let us never be afraid to stand for the truth.  And let us never forget to speak the truth in love.

We are asked to accept the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross.  We know that through Christ alone we are perfected before God.  God sees Christ when he looks upon us, which is why we may come before him boldly and speak our minds.  But we must also remember to forsake all the ways of the world.  Have we been transformed?  Or are we still living like the world in many ways?  It's important to live in holiness.  We live in response to Jesus Christ who has restored our connection to God.  We live in response to his gift, and his victory.  We live in expectation of joining him in glory and perfection when our sin natures are removed in the next life. 

Many are willing to trade away their eternal lives for the modern worlds fleeting pleasures.  Don't be one of them.  They follow only what makes them feel good.  They blunder into deeper and deeper addictions and foolish schemes that strip them of everything they are, and then they blame God for their misfortunes.  The problem of evil is more simple than we think.  Don't be like them.  And don't be like the supposed "Christians" who simply "accept Christ" and continue living in sexual sin, greed, selfishness, and idolatry (service to themselves and their own interests).  Don't be like those false followers, but instead search your heart.  Ask God to search your heart, and to reveal to your ways in which you must change.  It is wise to grow in holiness before God. 

Let us remember to pray regularly.  Let us speak to God the Father in the morning, asking his presence with us throughout the day.  Let us not forget also to thank him at the end of the day, on our knees before bed.  Often we might pause sometime around lunch, and pray to him the blessed "Our Father" being careful to think about what we're saying, and expressing the words in worship.  

Don't worry too much about the news and media frenzies of this life.  They are meant to confuse you, upset you, and dishearten you.  Turn off the television, and switch off the news.  Exit from the Facebook trending screen, and instead seek the presence of God.

Always remember that the world will not like you if you stand for what is written the book of God.  Believe the Bible.  Trust the Bible.  There will be pressure.  You may even seem backward or hypocritical for following the word of God, but continue to do so.  You will be rewarded in the life to come if you stand firm.  Stand bravely and courageously against persecution.  Pray for those around you, especially your enemies and those who hurt you.  

Never forget to pause, and find the love within to present to those around us.  Jesus Christ's ultimate order was simple: Love.  Love your God.  Love all people.  There is a balance there.  Love and truth.  We want to encourage people with love, yet we must also stand for what is true.  I pray God will provide you with the perfect balance of loving mercy and truth to give to the world.

Wait patiently and remember: This life is very short.  You are laboring and gathering wealth for eternity.  Eternity is forever, life on Earth is 90 years.  Live in light of eternity.  Always know that God loves you, since you have embraced his son Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself on the cross, and resurrected from death, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father.