An Answer to My Very Personal Struggle

 "Lord, I'm not running from you." "I'm not running from anything." "I don't understand what is going on."

These very words have frequently escaped my lips during times of intense, confused, and struggling crying out to God as I tried to understand why things weren't lining up or happening for me the way they were for everyone else. I've known I was called to ordained, pastoral or missional ministry since I was a teenager. That calling had been confirmed over and over again throughout my life by many different people and in many different ways and experiences. Why were my attempts at pastoral ministry being so frustrated and fought against? As far as I knew, I was trying to do things the right way, and getting stuck and shoved to the side.

In my meditation this morning, "I'm not running from anything" was revealed to be a lie. Not a deliberate one to be sure, but a falsehood nonetheless. The truth is that I've been trying to hide and seek safety almost my entire life.

To use an analogy, where secular employment is concerned, I prefer working for large corporations with established structures, rules, and pay schedules, etc. To be honest, it just feels safe to me to be one of the numbers following orders. This mentality was also translated into my somewhat desperate search to be a part of and recognized by large, established church organizations and denominations where there are also structures, rules, protections, and the feeling of safety as I'm surrounded by like-minded people. This was true with New Tribes Mission, and probably explains why I clung to it so desperately even after being rejected by them in no uncertain terms. It is also, to a large extent, how I was taught. That is, I was taught that it is the right thing to do to submit the authority of the larger church and its leadership, to follow the rules and structures. To my autistic mind, structures and rules are comfortable. Having someone above you to tell you what to do is reassuring. The truth is, and this might come as a surprise to some, I really don't like confrontation. It raises my stress levels and can send me into a panic attack.

This is all well and good, but the problem I've been running up against for most of my adult life, from God's perspective, is that He didn't build me for that. He built me to be stubborn. He built me to be able to independently work on my own, and challenge church authority when it's disobedient to Jesus Christ. He built me to be compassionate and empathize with the outcasts and hold those "on the inside" to account. He didn't build me, or call me to ordination to maintain the status quo. He built me to challenge and change it, and if necessary, tear it down so it can be rebuilt as He wants it.

Furthermore, I've known for a long time, decades even, that I wasn't called or built to evangelize non-Christians with Jesus Christ. I was called and built to evangelize and disciple Christians with Jesus Christ. Another concept that flies in the face of the status quo because it presumes that something is wrong with the way things are. More specifically, He called me to go after the outcasts from the church, those who have been hurt, rejected, turned away, or abused by other Christians and the church in general. I've jokingly referred to myself as a "search and rescue" pastor in the past because of the circumstances and situations where I have been most effective in a pastoral role. But the truth is that this calling isn't a joke, and the need to go after the sheep who have run from the churches is overwhelming.

Several years ago, I received a kind of vision from the Lord about this, and was allowed to feel what He felt about the situation. It was overwhelming rage towards irresponsible and hurtful shepherds, and absolute empathy and compassion for the lost sheep. The vision was of sheep who belonged to different pens and pastures all owned by the same person, but tended to by different hired shepherds. But many of the shepherds were abusing the sheep. Some of them were pouring bad feed into the troughs. Some of them were shearing them of their coats during the winter to sell and leaving them cold and unprotected. Some of them were verbally, physically, or even sexually abusive towards their flocks. Some of them just didn't really take care of them, and neglected them so that the sheep were ill, unmanicured, unfed, sick, and even dying. As a result, some of the sheep bolted out of self defense the first chance they got. Some were able to fend of themselves on their own, some were caught and scratched up in thorns, some began to eat poisonous plants, some ate themselves off of cliffs. The owner of the sheep was enraged at the shepherds who had caused this, but his immediate focus was on caring for those who had run and gotten themselves lost, or hurt, or both. The shepherds would be held to account later. So he sends out shepherds into the wilds to care for them. Some of them respond, most if not all are wary at first, and some never learn to trust another shepherd again. Some can be brought back into pens and pastures overseen by responsible, caring shepherds, some are so hurt and damaged that they will never return willingly.

This is the reason why I have gone through the things I have. In order to tend to the sheep who had run or been outcast, I have to be one of them, and know what they are going through. I had to understand what it means or feels like to be poor, scared, pushed away, misunderstood, betrayed, abandoned, and held at arm's length. In all the work situations I've been placed in, almost all of them at or below poverty line regardless of my actual education or abilities, I've encountered people and their stories whom most pastors never see, or if they do, only briefly, and I needed to do this. I needed to go where the runaway sheep were, not expect them to come to me.

What is more heart breaking about this, is that these runaway sheep, many if not most of whom are millennials by the way, are a population which the established churches write off. It doesn't take much searching to find articles on why so many people are leaving the churches. Almost to a one, they are written by pastors or pundits who are either completely mystified about it, or who blame the runaway sheep themselves. They blame their favorite politically liberal scapegoats like the rise of LGBTQ equality, or multi-culturalism, or science and evolution, or anything else possible, except themselves. To a one, they seem to be incapable of looking hard at how they have tended the sheep for the owner. For many of them, it's not entirely their fault. It's how they themselves were taught to do it. For some of them, it's just a devastating failure on their part to remain in Jesus Christ and express His love, life, and person through themselves towards everyone, especially those outcast, abandoned, or different in some way.

I wasn't built, called, or trained by God to follow in their footsteps or become one of them. He had steadfastly kept that from happening, sabotaging my every attempt to "fall in line" and "get with the program" no matter how hard I tried. He built and called me to bring Jesus Christ, and every aspect of Him necessary, to the table. To heal and comfort those who are poor in spirit, hurt, and driven away, and to rebuke and repudiate those who, like the Pharisees, in God's name don't enter the Kingdom of Heaven and keep others from doing so as well. He didn't build me to just plant a church, pastor a church, or preach the Gospel. He built me to bring Jesus Christ to the church which has left Him behind, and no longer understands what it actually means to be His disciple.

This last point is why He put that nagging instinct within me that something was wrong with the church not long after the call towards ministry. It is the reason why I was put on my own quest to learn it myself from the time I was eighteen onwards, looking at the problem from every conceivable angle and viewpoint until things began to fall into place. And all of these things are the reason why I was led through so many different churches and denominations, to observe them from the inside, become a part of them, and build a basis of comparison, as well as to understand that there is no church or denomination where He does not have His people, whether or not we all agree on every little point of theology or practice.

The final thing about all of this is, I have known it or sensed it all or in part for years. I've written about it either whole or in part for years, and still I kept trying to flee to the safety of established churches or denominations, myself fearing the rejection of being different, having a different or even confrontational calling. The truth is that it has terrified me, and as much as I have protested to God that I wasn't running, He knew that wasn't true, even if I didn't. And also, I had a lot to learn and absorb before I was ready which I couldn't from the safety of an established church or seminary's walls. I had to learn things which they couldn't or wouldn't teach me. I had to be able to see the reality of things without their tinted glasses.

So where do I go from here? I think I know what path I need to walk, and where it needs to start, but I can't go into details about it here, not until I have confirmation on other things which are in play.

On Being One with Christ and Christ with Me

      "Yet I'm not asking just about these, but also about those putting their trust, through their word, into me, so that all would be one [thing], just like You, Father, within Me and I within You, so that also they would be one [thing] within us, so that the world would trust that you sent Me. And I gave them the splendor which You gave Me, so that they would be one [thing] just like We [are] one [thing]; I within them and You within Me, so that they would be having been finished into one [thing], so that the world would know that You sent Me and loved them just like You loved Me." (John 17:20-23)

     "Jesus spoke to him, 'I am with you [all] for so long of a time and you haven't known Me, Philip? The person having seen Me has seen the Father; how do you speak, "Show us the Father?" Don't you trust that I [am] within the Father and the Father is within Me? The words which I speak to you [all] I don't talk from Myself, but the Father staying within Me does His works. Put your trust in Me that I [am] within the Father and the Father [is] within Me; yet if not, believe because of the self-same works." (John 14:9-11)

     "Or are you ignorant that, as many of us as have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into His death? We then were entombed together with Him by means of [our] baptism into [His] death, so that just like Christ was awakened from the dead by means of the splendor of the Father, in the same way we also should walk by means of a brand new life. Because on the one hand if we have become grown together with Christ by the likeness of His death, then on the other hand we we also be of His resurrection." (Romans 6:3-5)

     One. Those of us who have been baptized into the death of Christ Jesus have been made one with Him. We are like trees, Christ and each one of us, whose seeds have been planted side by side and, as they grew, grew together so that they become a single tree. We are like embryos in a womb, initially separate, which become joined to one another, perhaps like a chimera, and are born as a single child. This is what it truly means to be "reborn" as He said in John 3:-5. We who are baptized into Him are already one with Him in a way so intimate that it cannot be any closer than it already is. We are one with Him, in the same way that He is one with the Father. Not the same person, but the same thing, the same existence. and because we are one with Him as He is one with the Father, so through Him we too are one with the Father as He is. This is already an established fact, a reality, upon baptism.

     So then why is there a barrier to experiencing this? Who is maintaining the walls keeping us from experiencing this singular, intimate "oneness." We are. Or more specific to myself, I am.

     Yes, you read that right. He is not the one maintaining any separateness between He and I. I am. Through my clinging to all those things which I think makes me distinct and unique, through my clinging to what I identify as a distinct "self," and protecting that "self," I am putting up the walls keeping me from experiencing the reality, the established fact, of being one with Christ, and through Him, the Father. 

      In my meditation today, as I was reciting my "mantra" that, "I am one with Christ, and Christ is with me," this is the thing which struck me most. I am already one with Christ, and Christ with me. We are thoroughly integrated in this way already, but I am the one putting up the walls between us through stubbornly clinging to the delusion of my own identity separate from Him. Any time I exert this self identity, I erect a barrier between Christ and I, and because I erect a barrier between Christ and I, I erect a barrier between the Father and I as well. Either He increases and I decrease, or I increase and He decreases. Either my psychology is in control, or His is. Either the tree draws from one side's sap or the other's. Both cannot be sourced at once. It just doesn't work that way. There is no middle ground here.

     If I want Him to increase, then I must drop this delusion of separateness from Him which is creating the barrier. I must internally accept and understand that He and I are one, and everything which goes with it. This illusion of a separate self apart from Him must be cast aside as dead.

A Reflection on My Struggles with Worshiping in a Church

 I've been watching and listening to music videos by Joshua Aaron on YouTube over the past few days. I discovered this particular Jewish Christian artist when looking for variations on the song "The Blessing," and does an amazing one in Hebrew. In particular though, his music reminds me of the messianic synagogue I attended for a short time in my late teens before I attended Bible School in Wisconsin, Congregation Beth Yeshua.

For those who aren't familiar with Messianic Judaism, these are congregations of mostly Jewish people who have chosen to accept Jesus Christ (Yeshua haMashiach in Hebrew) as their messiah, largely adopting the basic tenets of Protestant Christianity, but also choosing to stay within the cultural and traditional worship framework of Judaism. Depending on the congregation, they will likely not use the cross as a symbol, nor use any of the traditional Christian terms preferring Hebrew or Jewish ones. There is even a dynamic translation of the New Testament done by a messianic Jewish translator called "The Jewish New Testament" which replaces traditional names and terms with Yiddish and Hebrew ones.

When I was eighteen years old, Congregation Beth Yeshua was unlike any church service I had ever attended before. They met on Saturdays, the traditional Jewish sabbath, as opposed to Sundays. When you walked in, they had kippahs (yarmulkes) and tallits (prayer shawls) laid out on a table waiting for the worshippers to make use of. Within their sanctuary, they had an ark within which was a real Torah scroll. And the service, as I understood it, was laid out like a traditional Jewish service rather than any Christian one I had attended. The first half an hour of the worship service was all liturgy in both Hebrew and English from prayer books, where the second half of the worship service was more contemporary praise songs in both Hebrew and English. The last half an hour or more of the service was when the Rabbi gave his talk.

But Congregation Beth Yeshua's worship made an impression on me that still lasts to this day for another reason. It was the first worship service I had ever been in where I felt like I had actually done something when it was over. Seven years later, I would recount this very sentiment to a Roman Catholic friend, Andrew, who attended the same church through which I was going through confirmation classes (yes, I've been around the block many, many times with many different denominations). After relating this to him, Andrew replied with something that I've never forgotten. When I told him that it was the first time I felt like I had done something in the worship service, he replied, "Because you actually worshiped."

I've been thinking a lot about his words over the last few days. You see, a few days ago, as my wife and I were talking, one of the things she told me was, "In all the years I've known you, in every church we've been in, I have never seen you worship." Now, to be certain, I do worship, and have worshiped, but it has been on my own, in private, with no one else present but God and myself. The truth is though she hit upon something about me which I myself don't fully understand. Whenever someone else enters the "worship setting," I immediately shut down. The one exception to this is when I have been the one leading the service as either a priest or in a pastoral role. Then things flow more freely. But if I am in the congregation, I struggle tremendously. This tends to be especially true in worship services which are composed entirely of either hymns or contemporary praise music and immediately launch into them at the start of the service.

But I didn't really struggle at Congregation Beth Yeshua. This messianic synagogue was also the first time I had been introduced to liturgical worship, and tangible or visual worship "aides" like the aforementioned tallit. There was a structure and a framework about it that didn't just appeal to me, it actually helped me and gave me time to prepare my heart and mind for worship so that, by the time the contemporary praise songs rolled around, I was ready for them. To this day, I can still remember many of them, especially the Hebrew ones, and, to this day, I still own a tallit. As I write this, I am realizing that, in many ways, I fell in love with this way of worship, and the Hebrew, and the symbolism. It was meaningful to me in a way that a church service had never really been before. My friends at the church I attended on Sundays didn't, and I think couldn't, understand my affection for the messianic Jewish worship, and I got the impression they thought it was just another way I was weird and not like them.

And then I became involved with New Tribes Mission, going off to Papua New Guinea for two months. For those two months I was surrounded by people, missionaries all, who lived their faith in community with one another, and it was the closest thing to a New Testament church community to which I had been exposed in my life. I felt, at the time, like my eyes had been opened to what the church could be. Prior to that, I had no basis of comparison except the churches my family and I had attended when I was younger, all of which were basically the same in terms of attitudes and practices.

I came back from that experience in PNG to the church I attended on Sundays, and never really felt at home there again. I'm not even sure how to explain it. Compared to where I had been, it just felt "off," like something wasn't right. As I think about it now, twenty seven years later, it didn't feel like the authentic Christian faith an practice, but only going through the motions, and I couldn't just fall back into it.

Several months later, after again attending both services on Saturdays and Sundays, I went off to Bible School with New Tribes Mission, taking my love for Messianic Jewish worship and my need to really understand what authentic Christian practice was with me. Not long into my first semester, after the Dean of Men of the school caught wind of my "Jewishness," so to speak, he gave me an ultimatum (the first of many), either I cease all of those "Jewish" practices or I leave the school. As I reflect on it now, it was a metaphorical slap, and it hurt. It also scared me, because I didn't want to quit or be seen as a failure. So, I conformed and put it all away. I attended the churches they told me I could attend. I "worshiped" where and how they told me. But as I think about it now, I didn't really worship at all in a church during my entire time there. I attended churches, but I didn't worship in one.

As I continue to think this through, I'm realizing that the first time I actually worshiped after this, or felt like I worshiped, was several years later, maybe six or seven years later, when I first led a Eucharistic service as a Roman Catholic during my second stint of Bible school years in Canada. My ministry was taking the Eucharist to the elderly in a nursing home and going through the liturgy for that. I remember the first time I did this clearly to this day, some twenty years later. It was the first time things really "clicked" for me and fell into place, like I was finally doing what I was called to, that is, saying the Mass and giving the Sacrament (this of course being problematic at the time as I was married, but that is another reflection entirely as to my journey into ordination as a priest within the Old Catholic Church). I had found my act of worship once more.

Now, I struggle worshiping in community. In contemporary worship services, I put up walls (as my wife describes it), to protect myself from being overwhelmed, and also from being hurt, I think. Frequently, these services launch directly into emotionally overwhelming music, and I don't have the time I need to prepare myself for it. Instead of being able to build up to it, I feel expected to go from "0 to 60" instantaneously with no help or aides. In liturgical services, which do give me the time, I hurt in a different way come time for communion. I grieve internally not being able to stand at the altar and offer the bread and wine myself as was, and remains, the most meaningful act of worship for me. And there are never services which offer the balance between the two. As for returning to Congregation Beth Yeshua, that is theologically impossible now. I can't honestly return to a messianic Jewish synagogue which preaches the practice of the Torah when I know from Scripture that there is no remaining Mosaic covenant for any Christian to return to (this is the entire thrust of the message of the Letter to the Hebrews). Their adherence to Torah and Jewish tradition flies in the face of everything Paul and the New Testament actually teaches regarding this, especially as I have no actual Jewish heritage to speak of. As meaningful as the worship there is to me, I have moved on in ways that are irreconcilable with their very premise.

I suppose I have felt ridiculed and judged for that worship which was most meaningful to me, where I felt like I worshiped, in the one case, and am now denied it in the second due to not being in a current pastoral position. I am told that these things should not be able to stop me from worshiping in community, but I wonder if that is really fair. I do not begrudge others their ability to just freely worship and open themselves up in a church service, but as I write this, I am realizing that it is a source of pain for me rather than comfort because of my past experiences. There are reasons why those walls go up, whether I have been intentional or even conscious of them up to this point.

I am still seeking answers to how to heal with regards to this, and how to move past the walls and "shields" I put up when I enter a church to just be a part of the congregation. But now, at least, I think I know where these struggles really started, and knowing where I came from will perhaps help me find my way to where I am going.

A Ramble About "Manifesting" or "The Secret"

 I have a confession to make. I've only recently started daily meditation again. I used to do it every day, but when we moved back to California, it became very difficult to find a quiet spot where I wouldn't be distracted. My stress and depression weren't helping either, and of course they became worse the longer I went without it. But I've been making the effort to get back into it again in the mornings.

A lot of things were brought up during this morning's meditation, but there is one thing in particular I wanted to write about, and that is the difference between what is called "manifesting" or "the Secret" and cooperating with God, trusting God, and asking God for your provision.

In the lore of World of Warcraft there are a special group of warriors called Paladins. These are a separate class of knights that are devoted to the Holy Light, the in-game metaphor for the "good divinity," and are able, like priests, to call on the Light for protection, the ability to heal, and to enhance their fighting abilities for a righteous cause. Paladins, in the lore, must always follow what they believe to be right and do the right thing. If they don't, they lose their connection to the Light and it won't respond to them.

In the storyline for the Burning Crusade expansion, there were introduced a group of elven Paladins called Blood Knights. To give a short recap of their history, the elven kingdom of Quel'thalas was brutally decimated by a force of bad guy undead called "the Scourge." Ninety percent of their population was slaughtered, their necessary source of magic was polluted causing them to go into withdrawals and worse, and in the aftermath, their human allies turned on them when they went looking for other sources of magic just to stay sane. They adopted the moniker of "Blood Elves" to commemorate all those who died as they pressed forward trying to figure out who they were and how they were going to survive. One of those sources of magic they experimented with was called "Fel," a source of demonic energies, which ultimately led to their human allies repudiating them.

Another source of magic they attempted to harness was the Light. But with millennia of dominating and mastering magical forces, forcing the arcane to do their bidding, they tried to do the same thing with the Light. The first Blood Knights essentially learned how to use and harness the Light for their own ends from a captured being of Light which they imprisoned and tormented. Rather than submitting to the Light as the other Paladins, and cooperating with it, in a twisted sense of what they thought was right, they sought to force the Light to do their bidding. This situation was corrected by the end of that expansion's storyline when the leadership of the Blood Knights were exposed to what the Light truly meant and was by one of its true High Priests and prophets, but it was an analogy which came to my mind.

Another analogy which came to my mind comes from Star Wars with the difference between the Jedi philosophy and the Sith philosophy. In Star Wars there is what is called "the Force." As it's original creator has said, the Force is a metaphor for the divine, and is described as an energy field created by all living things which surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together. It both controls the actions one may take and respond to commands (as per Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope). Depending on how far into the lore of Star Wars you go, the Force is described as having a Light side and a Dark side (which is a point of debate within the expanded universe and legends; the "Gray Jedi," for example, accept there to be only a unified Force), and also appears to have a will and a mind of its own. The Jedi utilize and cooperate with the Light side and the Sith utilize the Dark side. Some have not inaccurately associated the Force with the Tao described in the Tao Te Ching and its two sides of Yin and Yang.

The difference between the Jedi and Sith philosophies however is more than this. The Jedi are trained to be passive where the Force is concerned. To interact with it for knowledge and learning, and respond to its guidance and leanings. Where combat is concerned, the Force is only to be called upon for defense, and never for aggression or attack. The nature of the Light side is peace, calm, and wisdom. There is very much the sense that the Jedi is meant to cooperate with and depend upon the Force, submitting to its will as much as calling upon it for aid, trusting it and eventually becoming one with it upon the body's death. The Sith philosophy is the diametric opposite. The Sith philosophy is to control and dominate the Force through aggression, fear, and anger, and in so doing, inflict their will and desires on the cosmos regardless of who it hurts. For the Sith, it is all about control and achieving your own selfish desires. There is no becoming one with the Force for the Sith because it is all about dominating it.

These were the analogies, geeky though they might be, which were introduced into my mind this morning. I had been contemplating this very question after watching a talk on YouTube given by a meditation expert called Emily Fletcher (I believe that is her name), who developed the "Ziva" method of meditation involving the three "M"s of "Mindfulness, Meditation, and Manifestation."

The first two I had no problems with. Mindfulness and meditation have a deep and rich history in the Christian faith, especially with the Eastern Orthodox Church, and what she said regarding them made a lot of sense and was helpful. But the third "M," Manifestation, struck me very wrong. Essentially, this is the same kind of idea as "The Secret," a philosophy introduced about ten or fifteen years ago, where "the Universe" (a whole other conversation) is seen as a divinity just waiting to give you what you ask, and, once you are clear on what you actually want from it, you only need ask and it will eventually be granted. This is said to be "the secret" to happiness, success, prosperity, and health.

And this is what came to me during this morning's meditation, that "the Secret" is the practice of exerting one's energy and will on "the Universe" in order to force it to bend to your own will. Whereas trusting in and cooperating with God, and asking Him for your daily needs is very different. The former is aggressive, selfish, and dominating. The latter is passive, receptive, and accepting. The former is focused on "what I want." The latter is focused on "what God wants for me." The former is only really concerned about the "Self," where the latter is concerned about God and what's best for everyone. The former seeks to control and shape "the Universe." The latter seeks to be formed and shaped by God. The former focuses on this temporary life, "the game" as I have called it. The latter focuses on the eternal. The former is Blood Knight, Sith, and Dark. The latter is Paladin, Jedi, and wholly Light.

Manifesting, or "The Secret," is totally incompatible with what Jesus taught, and how He lived, because, as He said, everything He did and said was done and said by God the Father through Him. His life was lived in total submission to the Father with whom He was united, and to be his disciple is to live a life in total submission to Jesus Christ with whom we have been united: the Father within Him and He within us. His will and energy are to be exerted on us and through us, not our will and energy on anyone or anything else. We are to be passive receptors and channels of Him, not active enforcers of our own will. This is said again and again in every way possible in the New Testament, and especially in John's writings.

Ask yourself, what will you have once your heart stops beating, even if "the Universe" gives you everything you ask for? What will await you if you have spent your life trying to make "the Universe" bend to your will? Now ask yourself what will await you if you spend your time here cooperating with and submitting to Christ with whom you are joined with an eye to theosis, becoming fully one with the Being who is "I Am."

On Trusting in Christ

 Imagine if you were in a theater and someone shouted "fire!" In that moment, would you stay or would you run? It all depends on whether or not you believe the person who said it. If you believed the person, you would likely either run or find the nearest fire extinguisher. If you were skeptical and did not, you would likely remain in your seat wondering who the jerk was who was trying to interrupt your movie.

Action betrays belief.

Now, let me ask you this, if you were taking a class in, say, metalworking or blacksmithing, which requires that you work around heavy and dangerously hot materials, would you or would you not believe what your instructor was telling you about how to handle those materials? You would have to trust that the instructor knew what he was talking about. You would have to put your faith in his experience in the field, and do what he taught you in order to not get hurt, and to fashion implements out of metal correctly. To trust in your instructor is to believe what he says and put what he says into practice.

The same is true of putting your faith in Jesus Christ. How many times are we told that salvation is by faith alone, and all that we need do is believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins? And how many times are His actual words and teachings disregarded or explained away because they're inconvenient? Because they require action? Because they don't follow whatever party line (theological, political, or philosophical) we adhere to?

Belief doesn't work that way, and when the Scripture talks about believing in Jesus Christ, none of the authors are describing this crippled and empty shell of what faith in Jesus Christ truly means. Without the evidence of action, faith isn't faith no matter how much you say you believe something. At worst, you're lying to yourself and everyone else.

To put your faith in Jesus Christ also means putting your faith in what He said and taught. It means listening to Him and following His instructions just like a blacksmith's apprentice must follow the instructions of his master if he wants to progress in his craft without getting hurt. As Jesus Christ Himself said, "He who hears my words and doesn't do them is like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand (at the bottom of a desert wadi where it is most vulnerable) and the winds and rains and floods came and the house fell because it had no foundation." And also, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do anything I say?"

How long would the blacksmith's apprentice last if he completely ignored the master blacksmith's instruction and admonitions? It's likely he would severely burn himself, if not kill himself. This is every person who professes faith in Christ and ignores what He taught. If you don't trust Him enough to know what He's talking about, how can you claim to have put your faith in Him?

If you, by your actions, disavow His teachings, how can you claim faith in Him? "Oh yes, I trust you but I'm not going to do anything you say." Is that even logical? If you do not remain in Him, if you do not deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Him, if you do not forgive, let go of everything to attain Him, if you judge, if you do not turn the other cheek neither love your enemies, if you don't practice what He taught and insisted on as conditions of discipleship, how can you claim faith in Him? Even the demons know for a fact that He died for our sins. Even they know for a fact He is God and man and will return. And yes, they shake with fear at that knowledge. Belief without action isn't belief at all. It's lip service and self deception at best.

Belief is a binary option. You either do or you don't. There is no such thing as a spectrum of belief. This is why Jesus used the illustration of faith as small as a mustard seed being able to move a mountain. You either believe something or you do not believe it. There is no in-between. There is no, "Well, I sort of believe it." or "I mostly believe it." You either believe it or you don't. If you say you believe in Christ but do nothing that He said, what exactly is it that you believe in? What are you putting your trust in?

You either believe in Jesus Christ or you don't, and your actions will betray this with every moment and every action taken. It is one thing to struggle against your own malfunctioning flesh. God knows I struggle every day with surrendering to Christ within me against my own physiological impulses and ideas. We all do this. It is a process of turning away from yourself and towards Him and the struggle is real. This is not what I am talking about. It is however quite another thing entirely from this to totally disregard His teachings altogether because you just don't want to do them, or because they don't align with your personal philosophical beliefs.

How many of us, having professed faith in Christ with our lips, will find ourselves in unending darkness because we ignored Him with our actions? How many of us will find a nasty surprise because we ignored His commands to remain in Him, to love God, our neighbors, our enemies, and one another? How many of us are going to be told, "I don't know you," because we held the traditions, doctrines, and forms of our religion, and through our actions completely denied any faith in Jesus Christ even to the point of not really knowing Him at all?

You can profess His teachings all you want, you can evangelize all you want, you can run all the ministries you want, but if His life is not manifested within you (not you trying to imitate Him but Him actually acting and speaking through you), if no one can see Jesus Christ in what you do and say, if you do not surrender yourself to His death as He taught, then you aren't one of His. As Paul wrote in Romans, "anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ is none of His."

Notice, I'm not talking about earning anything. I'm talking about actually believing Him and trusting in Him. What you do will show what you believe in any given moment or decision, one way or the other.

Salvation begins here. Now. In this life. It is brought to fulfillment with full theosis where we become like Him in His resurrected body (for most of us after our current fleshly bodies die). But it begins here and now with trusting in Him that He knows what He's talking about just as much as trusting in His death for our sins, burial, and resurrection. That theosis begins here and now with fully surrendering to Him and His life to which we were melded so that it is He who acts and speaks through us, and not our own experiential and physiological responses. That begins with simply trusting His words and following them.

A Very Personal Struggle

      I'm going to talk this time about a very personal struggle I have had for many years. It relates in part to my recent rambles comparing life to playing an online game where you know the account is going to be terminated. In many ways, I'm embarrassed to talk about this because of how petty it is, but if I don't talk about it, I also don't deal with it, and it continues to stew and hurt me and potentially my relationships with those around me. It is also my hope that my talking about it may help others who struggle silently or not so silently with the same thing. Please do not misunderstand my intentions with this post. I am not looking for sympathy. I am trying to name and exorcise this particular demon which continues to torment me.

     Put simply, I struggle with watching people with whom I went to school, or known elsewhere in life, succeed in their goals for ministry where I have not. I don't begrudge them their success, I celebrate it, and yet I feel left behind, and sometimes even abandoned and looked down upon as though I am somehow inferior to them. I know this latter part is due to my own personal insecurity about my own worth and about how others see me. While on the one hand I know I am at least their equal, on the other I do not feel like it, and I project this feeling onto other people so that if I am not careful, I begin to believe others believe me inferior as well.

     "Why is everything I attempt fought against?" "Why am I constantly turned down?" "Why is there this barrier against me?" "I'm sure people are laughing at me, my attempts, and my ideas." "Why are the only jobs I can find at or near minimum wage when I know I am capable of so much more?" "I don't understand why this is happening to me." These are all thoughts which play through my head, and they get darker at times such as, "Why is God holding me back?" "Why am I even still here if I'm not able to do anything?"

     Here's the thing, all of these statements, and this struggle which I have is based on how I see myself, and how I think others see me here in this life, to use my previous metaphor, in this game which is about to have its account terminated. What happens when the account is terminated? No matter how high of a level you reach, no matter how much gold you accumulate, no matter how much reputation you achieve, or how high your score, you lose everything as though it didn't exist and never happened. If your personal worth is tied to the game, it instantly becomes worthless once it's gone.

     What does this mean for me and my struggle? That I am making myself miserable over something which makes no difference whatsoever.

     I'm going to share something else very personal to me as well. This is something I think I have only shared with one other person, but I think it is important to understand here as well. If you think I'm delusional, that's fine. Believe what you want.

     I have experienced God. I have sensed and felt Him. I wrote in a recent ramble about a Near Death Experience (NDE) I recently heard. What that man experienced resonated with me because I know I have experienced it in part as well, and not just once. I have never had an NDE, but there have been times, seemingly at random moments in my life and once when I was deeply and inconsolably upset, when God revealed Himself to me and broke through to me and my mind, where I felt His all consuming, overwhelming love for me personally, and at times for others. A few times I can even say I sort of saw Him, though in gray like through a veiled curtain where everything was indistinct and vague yet knowable enough to my mind and senses. I know it was the only thing which broke and transformed my inconsolability when I was deeply upset the one time which I mentioned.

     It is because of these experiences as well as what I know from Scripture that I know what and who is waiting for me once the game ends, and that nothing I achieve here, no status I attain here, no position or amount of possessions I acquire here matters in the slightest. What matters is loving and being loved by Him. What matters is how I have loved others, and how they have felt loved by me. What matters how I have stepped back so that through the person of Jesus Christ within me His love can flow through me regardless of these very temporary circumstances.

     So, as some would say, I am incongruent between what I know for certain as fact, and what I feel because of my insecurity. It is my belief that our adversary uses these insecurities against me, knowing that they are my weak points, and I feel guilty when I succumb to them because I do know better. As a result, it becomes a dark spiral downwards for me emotionally.

     As I write this, to be honest, it scares me that some might read this and decide I am completely unfit for service of any kind. Maybe I'm mentally ill. I definitely shouldn't be responsible for discipling or pastoring anyone. And these are all thoughts running through my mind even as I type, but I am typing them out for this very reason. I am typing them out to call them out and bring them into the light instead of the dark recesses of my mind where they like to hide and take root. And I am sharing them in the case that someone else who may read this is being told the same things somewhere within their mind as well.

     Because they are lies. Whether some uninformed person or bully does read them and react in this way is irrelevant. They are still lies. They are lies precisely because the game is going to end, and no level we've achieved here matters, and everyone will have the veil lifted whether they want it to or not. All that will be present is the presence of the indescribable Being whose love for each one of us is overwhelming and all consuming, and we will either accept and receive that love or we will not recognize it and reject it and plunge ourselves into darkness.

     To whomever reads this, I hope that, if you have experienced the same struggles that I have, you might take comfort in knowing that you are not alone, and all these things you are told within those dark recesses are in fact lies and falsehoods meant to drive you further into the darkness and away from His light. You are loved without hesitation, without reservation, without conditions, and without limit. You are loved by a Father who just wants you to be okay, and know that you are loved, and wants you to express His love through you to others as well. Regardless of the temporary circumstances and how these make you feel, you are loved by Him and eventually, that veil will be removed and all of these questions will disappear as you experience His full presence without distraction.

A Ramble About Valhalla

 I just finished watching a playthrough of the new game Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Fair warning, I'm going to talk about part of the game's ending, so if you plan to play it and don't want spoilers, this probably isn't a great time to read this. I've taken to watching these videos rather than playing the games myself first, because I'm more interested in the stories than the actual gameplay, and second, because I'm honestly at a point where I have trouble playing detailed combat games without having a bad stress reaction. The point and click combat system of games like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online are fine, but when a game requires to you enter an active combat mentality and mentally react as though you were actually fighting... Truth is, it can send me into a panic attack because of some of my previous work experiences. I even have trouble with Legend of Zelda games now, a series which I've really enjoyed since I was twelve, for that same reason. So, if I want to enjoy the stories, I get to watch instead of do.

For those who don't know, this game in particular is the latest installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise which is a series of games based on the idea of a hidden order of "good guy" Assassins who wage a secret war throughout history against an ancient order of "bad guys" trying to dominate humanity and take away people's free will. The games are known for their richly intricate historical details and weaving their narratives through real historical events and interacting with historical figures. It was even rumored that the depiction of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in one of the games was so accurate that it was used as a reference in the rebuilding of the real cathedral after the recent fire. In my opinion, the latest version of Assassin's Creed does not disappoint. It is at times a caricature of life and politics within Viking culture in ninth century Norway and England, and at times a brutally honest overview sparing nothing and no one even as it interweaves the more fantastical science fiction elements involving the "Isu," a race of ancient beings who would later be remembered as the gods of Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythologies

I've been contemplating the finale and ending of the game since I finished watching it last night. The main story follows the character of Eivor Wolf-kissed, a Norseman who travels with his adopted brother Sigurd from Norway to England to establish a new settlement with the intent of subjugating it and bringing it under their rule. Eivor begins as a dyed in the wool Viking who lives for personal glory, battle, pillaging, and is the very definition of the Norse "hero" ultimately seeking to please his god, the All-Father Odin well enough to be admitted to Valhalla in the afterlife; the great hall of heroes and warriors where they fight all day and drink all night. He also has a personal mission to redeem what he sees as his family's personal shame, his birth father's attempt at saving his family and clan by throwing down his war ax and allowing himself to be killed rather than dying in battle. Eivor, in accordance with his Norse beliefs, was convinced his father was a coward. Thus Eivor fights, drinks, and lives harder, more ferociously, and with more cunning in many ways than any of his peers so that his father's shame would not be his. He goes on to fulfill his ambition of subjugating most of England through removing his enemies, creating alliances with other Norsemen who are already there, and installing Saxon puppet rulers until only Aelfred's kingdom of Wessex remains independent. By the end of the game, Norse and Saxon bards alike are singing songs about his deeds from one end of England to another. Valhalla, in his belief system, is assured.

Then, at the end of the game, he and his brother Sigurd travel to an ancient Isu temple-like facility in northern Norway where, in a manner of speaking, like Odin they are hung from the world tree and are thrust into Valhalla, the warrior's paradise of battle, song, and drink they had been striving for. At first, they believe it to be everything they desired, but soon enough things sour. Eivor realizes that the warrior's paradise he has found himself in is an illusion. Each victory he wins there is hollow and empty. In a way, it turns from his first ideal of paradise, to an unnatural hellish torment he has to fight to escape from as it repeats over and over again, the same thing, the same meaningless kills, the same meaningless revelry.

And who does he have to fight? The god in whose name he killed and went a viking, Odin himself. The All-Father turns from being his inspiration and kindred spirit to being his tormentor and jailer who attacks him and drags him back from the gates which would lead to his freedom. It's only when Eivor lets go of his ax that he is able to escape from Odin's physical hold. The god spits curses at him, swearing at him that Eivor was nothing without him, promising him power, battles, and glory and asking him what more could he possibly want? Eivor answers, "Everything else" as he is received into the loving and supporting arms of his family, friends, and clansmen. Odin's desperation at keeping Eivor bound to him is palpable, and as I watched that scene, I think it was clear that Odin needed Eivor's devotion far more than the Norseman needed his parasitic false deity, the incarnation of selfishness willing to trample anyone standing in his way, feeding on Eivor's personal pain, ambition, and insecurities.

I wrote in a previous ramble comparing life to an online game whose account has been lost. That, just like in that game once the plug is pulled, all that we conquered, all that we accomplished for ourselves, all the wealth we collected, all the reputation we've earned, all the work we put into it will vanish and we will be left with nothing. Like Eivor, we strive and trample others for glory, wealth, and power in this life, putting to the sword (metaphorically speaking, hopefully) anyone who stands in our way. But when the ending of the game is reached, what do we find? We have nothing to show for all the hours we spent grinding. It is all an illusion. Empty. Meaningless.

As I consider Eivor's story, a man who reached the Valhalla for which he was striving, I wonder at its quickly changing from his ideal of paradise to his potentially unending torment. The thought comes to me of all those in this life who, like Eivor, fight and struggle to reach wealth and power, and then when they do, find it lonely, empty, and hollow even after achieving what they had sought. And then the thought comes to me about what eternal torment truly is. Is it being burned for eternity in literal fires? Or is it being stuck in an illusory paradise reliving the same selfish, empty battles over and over again, being reminded constantly of all the people you've hurt to get there. The sweet wine sours. The conquests become wearying. And all you can see are the faces of those who suffered because of your selfishness, and they want nothing to do with you. You've won the Valhalla you sought, and it becomes your eternal hell. The false god you served your whole life becomes your jailer and tormentor. But this is no fictional game. There is no exit from it. You burn with that knowledge, consumed by its flames.

I recently watched a video as well about a man who had a near death experience thirty five years ago. Whatever you may believe about these accounts, the man who recalled was clearly sincere and so profoundly affected by it that his whole life changed and he became a Christian pastor. It was a "road to Damascus" moment if ever one was had in this day and age. In this experience, as an atheist and a selfishly ambitious man, he died in a hospital bed in France and found himself in darkness being attacked by creatures that sought to tear him apart (not his version of paradise, to be sure). Receiving the instruction to pray from an unseen voice, he cried out to the person of Jesus he had believed in as a young child. He did this until his tormentors fled swearing and screaming at him to stop, and Jesus Himself came and pulled him out. And it was then that he was both told and shown that what really mattered was how he had loved others in his life, and who he had touched with that love. As he experienced all this, he also experienced the absolute, overwhelming, all consuming, forgiving love of God for him for which words failed him to describe. And then God, quite against his own will, sent him back to do it over and to learn what loving others meant.

In our lives, we can either strive for our own empty Valhalla, or we can strive to love and be loved. We can trample others in a pursuit for meaningless glory on behalf of a false god who needs us far more than we need him, or we can spend our time grinding for what really matters to the genuine God who will be there once the game ends. Learning to love Him, and love all those around us.

A Ramble About My Deepest Desires

 I don’t remember if I’ve ever talked about this before. That isn’t so much a surprise. I’m having trouble remembering what was said to me five minute previous lately, so if I’ve said this before, please forgive my redundancy. It’s come up again recently, and I feel the need to share it now. 

In a way, it started with Disney’s Hercules animated movie. 

I still remember the first time I saw this movie. My wife and I were both still in college at Prairie Bible College, and we were over at a house rented by a group of friends and classmates. We were still dating at the time, and weren’t yet married. I hadn’t seen the movie in theaters, which, for me, was unusual in and of itself as I grew up going to the theaters regularly to see new releases, and Disney animated films  were frequently high on the list along with science fiction and action films. But, we were over there to watch a movie and the choice of the night was, I believe, a VHS of Hercules.

So, we’re over there watching this movie, and as it goes further into it, I become emotional and my eyes start tearing up to the point where I have to leave the room to recover myself in private. Mind you, it’s not the first Disney movie I’ve teared up at (yes, I’m one of those guys), but it is the first time I’ve had an emotional reaction so strong.

So, what were the scenes which provoked such a powerful response in me?

The first was when Hercules sings “Go the Distance.” The second, where I couldn’t control it any further and had to leave the room, was when Hercules is welcomed onto Olympus with cheering crowds. I was sobbing in the bathroom trying to rein it in and failing miserably.

That was over twenty two, almost twenty three years ago, and I’ve had that much time to try and understand my reaction to that and to other similar things, like why Annie Lennox’s “Into the West” affects me so much. I realized then, and have reflected on it since, that I reacted so emotionally to this because it was the deepest, most profound desire of my heart, more than anything else possible.

It was the desire to go home, to a people and a place where I belonged, where I would be welcomed and loved with open arms. Perhaps even a place where I would feel safe.

Especially up to that point when I was twenty two years old, I had never felt that from anyone. 

Now, whether or not they tried is another matter entirely as my brain could not process what other people were feeling towards me. Not in real time anyway. It would take weeks if not months or years for my brain to work through that kind of information, and, of course, by that point in time it would be too late. So, this is not to put blame on anyone, or shame anyone in my life, this is just to explain where I have been at emotionally.

This has come up again internally for me in the past few days, even as recently as this morning as I was watching another video of something entirely different on Youtube. It was an interview with a man who is now a pastor who had a Near Death Experience thirty five years ago where being an avowed atheist at the time he had a hellish experience of dark creatures trying to tear him apart. In the middle of this experience he heard a voice telling him to pray to Jesus, a figure in which he had not believed in any capacity since he was a child. Reaching down into this part of his disembodied psyche he crudely and awkwardly cried out to Jesus, and the response was immediate as the dark creature fled cursing and swearing at him, and Jesus showed up in full, luminous glory and rescued him from the torment. It was his description of what happened then that really opened this up again for me. He said that Jesus scooped him up in his arms like a child and held him, rubbing his back in a soothing manner. He said he felt not only that He loved him, but that He really liked him as well.

And I realized once again that, more than anything, that is my deepest desire. To feel unconditionally loved and liked. It’s one thing to know someone loves you, it’s an entirely different thing to feel it. Folks with my condition (ASD, Asperger’s) can’t mirror what someone else is feeling and so have to go on what they say and whether their actions appear positive or negative towards them. Eventually, enough people take advantage of this, and you learn the hard way not to trust anything anyone says even as you try to be as honest as you can be even when it costs you.

And then, as I’ve had time over the years between the movie and this video, I’ve had time to also realize that, the truth is, I’m afraid to trust someone like that. I’m afraid to trust that someone loves me and will never turn away from me, even if I know it as an absolute certainty. I’ve always got my “shields up” in some way to keep myself from being emotionally hurt any more than I have been.

This has never precluded me from loving and caring about other people. That was a choice I made a long time ago. I still remember actually making that choice. I was in High School and it was the lunch period. I decided, in whatever capacity I had, that I was going to care about people regardless of how they made me feel or regardless of whether they cared about me. At that point in time, from my perspective, I didn’t feel like anyone did, but I didn’t want to be that person and I wanted to follow Christ and what He taught. I can’t say I knew what that meant at that point in time, or that I did it perfectly or even mediocrely from then on, but it was a choice I made then and there.

But this fear to trust in someone else’s unconditional love for me has cost me, and continues to cost me.  The older I get, the more I contemplate the call homewards and what that means. It’s like spending hours building up your character on an MMORPG only to have your account disconnected and you have to rejoin reality. All the progress you’ve made in the game is suddenly and permanently gone.

The irony of it all is, I do know what that pastor with the NDE was talking about. I have, at certain seemingly random moments, experienced that unconditional, infinite love of God for myself as well as His love for others through me. It is indescribably overpowering and relentless. There have been several times in my life when He has broken through the defects in my brain to reveal that to me. I didn’t need to have an NDE to experience it. I know what awaits me. I know all of it, and yet there is still this fear within me. This irrational “what if” based on those years of being “indoctrinated” not to trust that someone who professes to care about me isn’t going to turn on me in some way.

And here’s the truth of all of it, God knows I struggle with this. He loves me, and even likes me anyway. He knows I reach out to Him in spite of my struggles, and He cheers me when I do. He knows the deepest desires of my heart, and they’re His desires for me too. Every time I fight past this is a victory, and every time I break down because of it, He’s right there just like He always is.

I know that welcome is waiting for me, and every day brings me closer to going home where I belong.

Thoughts on MMORPGS and Impermanence

I've been playing World of Warcraft today, and it got me to thinking as I was playing it. One spends their time, hundreds of hours possibly, playing one character. They advance them from level to level, gaining experience, knowledge, power, and wealth. They gain greater and greater gear until they are nearly unstoppable and are smashing everything in their path. they are very near, forgive the term, gods on the server on which they play.

What happens then when that server is shut down? What happens when they no longer have access to their account either because it no longer exists or because, perhaps, they've been banned for bad behavior? The answer is that they lose everything they've worked for. Their wealth, their abilities, their extraordinary reputation. It's all gone. It all exists only as a memory.

It struck me today that this is an analogy of life. We spend years striving to accumulate new experiences, reputation, power, wealth, possessions, and then "poof." It's all irretrievably gone. The truth is that in order to really enjoy a game like WoW, you have to play it with the truth of the impermanence of everything you do in it in mind, and the ability to accept that what you're working for is merely an illusion that feels good in the moment but is intangible and unable to be held onto.

This is a truth of real life as well. In order to really enjoy real life, you must live it on the understanding that nothing you accumulate, no power, no wealth, no ability, no possession is permanent or retainable. As soon as you are "disconnected," it's all gone. Everything you worked so hard to achieve, for you, is up in smoke like it never existed. And then you are surrounded by Existence Himself, naked and without anything you thought was so important.

Fundamentally, this is why the practice of detachment is so important in living this life. You have to be willing and able to let go of those things you've worked so hard for, because you will lose them. You have to be willing and able to let go of those relationships you've developed, because, generally speaking, once you're "disconnected," you're disconnected from them too just like losing all connection with your guild mates once a server shuts down. We can talk about meeting again when there's nothing to blind us to the presence of God, but it's clear those relationships will be changed and different from anything we experience in life.

In fact, if a person has their entire life wrapped up in an MMORPG, when real life hits, they will find themselves powerless, unable to cope, poor, friendless, and in torment. The only way to successfully separate from an MMORPG is to keep the real world in view; that is, to keep one's attentions and living centered and grounded in the real world so that when the inevitable shutdown happens, one can move on with relative ease because they recognized the game was merely a diversion and an illusion.

So it is with life.

For all of us, we must play the game because the "character" we play was born into it, but we must play it recognizing that it is neither permanent nor can we keep any achievement or any possession we have striven for. Like an MMORPG, life is not about "winning" the game, it's about enjoying your time there until you must return to the real world.