Light the Darkness

I love the new movement of up and coming independant artists who are giving their music away for free.  I recently stumbled across a fellow by the name of Scott Orr.  He has a website up that allows you to download his entire cd, Miles From Today, for free.  He has a sort of rootsy-acoustic, coffee house type sound.  If that’s your kind of thing check it out here.

Also, I am curious to know what you think of the new trend of free music.  Not only are small indie bands doing this lately, but big names like Radiohead have even begun to try this type of marketing also.  Do you think that it will help artists in the long run or hurt them? 

I came across this interesting link where people of all different faiths or simply no faith at all come to write letters to God.  Warning: some of the pictures posted are somewhat suggestive and the language can be coarse at times, but I feel it is helpful to read through the different posts in giving us insight pertaining to how different people view God.  Perhaps it is a good place to offer insight to someone who is hurting?  If you decide to check it out, tell me what you think!

s.t.

Faith. This is the pivotal link between humanity and God.

Yes, there is a plethora of evidence pointing to the existence of a Creator and a Law-Giver, but there is no absolute proof of His existence or who He is. Once all of the evidence is taken into consideration one must examine whether he will choose or reject the idea of God. If he chooses to accept the evidence, then it is said of him that he has faith. The writer of Hebrews wrote “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Peter challenged believers to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” The evidence gives us hope. Faith is being sure of that hope.

This is all well and good when making the initial decision of whether we believe in the the Creator and Law-Giver, but what happens when our faith is tested? Faith is put to the test during times of uncertainty. Noah built a giant boat without having ever seen rain. Abraham left Ur, but knew not where he was going. He took Isaac to make him a sacrifice to God without knowing if God would provide another way. Moses went before the Pharoah without knowing how he would respond. Uncertainty can pull and twist and mangle the link between us and God.

Times of uncertainty are enough of a trial by themselves, but a troubled spirit due to a silent God intensifies tests of faith. Uncertainty and unmet expectations ultimately leads to depression. Even through these times the existence, goodness, and sovereignty of God are all wholly settled in the mind of a believer. It is God’s presence that comes into question. Elijah went through an experience where he felt as if he were the only prophet of God left on the earth and came to a place where he asked God if he could die. Moses, David, John the Baptist and Paul all questioned God in one way or another throughout their ministries. I have recently found myself questioning.

Seven months ago, my mother died unexpectedly. Amidst the frustration of uncertainty regarding major life decisions, the link between my own relationship with God had already been twisted.

And then, death.

Death is the ultimate silence. Because God had been the giver of life, it was natural to assume that he was also ultimately the taker. My expectations had been left unmet. God was silent. Almost seven months later I am still dealing with the silence of God and the uncertainty is even greater. The link between myself and God is being tugged from every angle, twisted and mangled, but it will not break. I can look forward and know that I must continue to trust Him even in my darkest hour because of my ability to look back and see how He led me as a shepherd would lead his sheep. It is through the times when God is silent that our faith grows stronger. His presence is always there. He may back away for some time to allow for us to exercise our ability to be sure of our hope, but He is in the midst of our daily goings and comings. As I ask for His direction and strength, I am lead and given the ability to endure even though I never hear His voice. What He gives me is quiet strength.

s.t.

I recently reread a few excerpts from Mark Twain’s famous American novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Twain had a knack for making fun of Christianity and was able to point out many of her practitioners faults.  In chapter 31, Twain introduces a Spiritual dilemma for our hero, Huck Finn.  Huck had been on the Mississippi with Jim the slave and ended up losing Jim to a group of “scoundrels.”  His dilemma was that he had been taught in his limited experience in church that it was a sin to help slaves.  Evidently, this was a prominant teaching in the South during the time of the novel.  One can only imagine what reasoning may have gone behind that teaching!  The Torah, which was the law given by God for the Jews, had many laws pertaining to how one should treat his slaves and by default was approving of slavery.  The Torah makes up part of the Christian Old Testament.  Without putting those Scriptures into context, it is quite possible that an uneducated individual with a prejudice against a different people group could easily twist those passages to okay the type of injustice that went on in the South.  Careful study, however, would suggest that the type of slavery that went on in the Old Testament that had God’s stamp of approval was voluntary servitude in order to pay off debts.  On top of that, the individual had a time limit on how long he was to be indebted to his master and then was to be given the option of being set free or to continue working.  Christians in the South who approved of slavery through this reasoning were taking Scripture out of context.

Today, we no longer deal with slavery in America.  Praise God that such a terrible institution was abolished! Even though we have come a long way as a society, every generation deals with some group that is stigmatized and rejected.  Homelessness is one of the greatest problems facing our society today.  The face of homelessness has changed and is no longer simply the classic picture of the “town drunk.” Now the group has grown to include people of all walks of life, including women and children.  Mike Yankowski wrote a book that chronicled his journey as a homeless man living in America called Under the Overpass.  In the book, he demonstrated several examples of how churches shunned he and his friend.  How sad that in a time where the homeless are stigmatized the Body of Christ is not stepping in to say “this is wrong” but instead “we join in.”  Our Lord said: “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith.”  Even today, we continue to neglect the more important things; and, in doing so we are forcing the Hucks of the world who want to do good to choose hell over God.

s.t.

  For my first post, I have decided to write about the movie Atonement.  Ginnie had been wanting to see it for a while, so tonight we sat down and watched it.  The story is set in England during the time of WWII.  Briony Tallis is a girl about the age of 13 who has a crush on a man named Robbie Turner.  Robbie was in love with Briony’s older sister Cecilia and therefore pays no mind to Briony.  Everything became complicated when Briony began to get the idea that Robbie was a sex-addict, based upon a letter that he wrote which he intended to throw away.  When her cousin was raped and she was the only witness to the crime, Briony accused Robbie of being the perpetrator.  This set off a chain of events that changed everyone’s lives involved forever.

The universal appeal of this film is that we have all made someone to be a horrible monster in our mind at one time or another because we simply did not like him.  This type of thinking can easily lead a person to make up a lie about the “monster”, much like Briony did regarding Robbie.  The title of the film atonement literally means “at-one-ment.”  Briony is forced through the rest of the film to try to make peace-or atonement-with everyone she hurt by her actions.  From the Christian perspective, Christ made atonement for our sins so that we could have peace with God.  Even though we have peace with God through Christ, I wonder if there is ever an instance when no atonement can be made to restore a human relationship when a terrible mistake is made.  This leads me to believe that we must carefully consider every action we make in our relationships with others; for, it could be that our actions have more dier consequences than we could have ever imagined.

s.t.