Yield

I came across this quote yesterday and wanted to do a follow up to Humilty.

History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, or different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals. One of the two had to yield and succumb. (Jose Rizal)

That's marriage. You have two different people, coming from divergent backgrounds, working towards different goals. How do people stay married for 50 years? One succumbs to the other. Paul and Peter use words like submit and obey. It's the same concept.

The book of Ruth tells the story of this young woman who follows her foreigner mother-in-law back home. Ruth, the main character, tells her mother-in-law...

...where you go, I will go, and where you love, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.

Ruth yielded or succumbed to the traditions, expectation, and customs of her mother-in-law's neighbors. Every lasting relationship requires submission. One person yields to the other. Submission requires humility.

That's it. Short and sweet.

Humility

I once read that anger was the only emotion without an opposite. Today, I'm thinking the opposite is humility, which is not an emotion. And I find that, in itself, an interesting mystery.

Proverbs warns to placate the king's wrath. Paul instructs wives to win over husbands through service and submission. And Jesus fulfilled God's wrath by humbly accepting responsibility. As weird as it seems, humility is the answer to anger.

What made me think of it? Lucy once told me that when I got angry, she was afraid I would hit her. It was a rational for defiance - a passive aggressive defiance. I made her afraid so she is justified in holding a grudge. And you know what? That makes me even angrier.

So I asked myself why. Why did it make me angrier? I'm funny that way - always wanting to find the root cause. As I think about my emotions, I started to see patterns. I respond to the people around me. I used to think that I was reactive. When people panic, I am at my calmest. When no one else panics, I can. When a friend is sad, I want to respond with empathy. These are all negating feelings. The opposite of what everyone around me feels. My emotions are so very much controlled by the people around me. Even knowing that it happens, I can't stop it.

But anger is different, sort of. If the anger starts with you (you angry at me), I look to calm it. If I'm angry and you respond with anger, then it's like combining two waves. They become one much bigger wave. Not a recipe for peace. Defiance is anger in disguise. So not only is there anger, now throw a layer of deceit on top. And a bad situation just went totally south.

What do I want when I'm angry? I want acknowledgement. Acknowledgement that you really did something wrong. Take responsibility, even when you mess up. And that takes humility. Humility to accept that you really do deserve the anger.

It's all about power. Anger gives the illusion of control. When anger responds to anger, you end up with two people fighting for control. We call that war. When one person accepts the anger as a legitimate feeling, there's no nothing to fight over, is there? Humility puts control in the other person's hands. It says you're right and justified in being angry. You can choose to continue or stop. Defiance is about making the other person stop. Humility can ask them to stop, but leaves the choice in their hands.

You see, I know that anger should never be in control. Humility puts the choice in my hands to act out of love or hate. And something in my brain, as messed up as it may be, trips. Now that I have to choose, some other part steps in. I have to think. Anger comes from system 1. Humility engages system 2.

Why am I writing this? Lucy will get married one day. And I guarantee, her very human husband will get angry with her. She can't stop that from happening. She can control her response. So I hope that she reads this and chooses to practice humility. And when she needs the muscle (character), it's already there. Here's lookin' at you, kid.

Escape

You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.
-- J. Donald Walters

I came across this quote over the weekend and it struck a chord. It's amazing how hard we try to escape our problems. Believe me, I'm not immune to it. That temptation to just make it go away.

Vines pop into my mind. Jesus talks about fruit. We bear fruit. The good ground brings a hundred fold increase from one seed. A good tree grows good fruit. Bad trees grow bad fruit. We know other people by their fruit. But what is fruit?

Is it the actions we take? The words that we say? I don't think so. I grew up thinking fruit meant behavior. But I don't think that's quite right. Actions are amoral - neutral. Good and evil comes from something deeper inside of us. For example, the 10 commandments said don't murder. And God still sent the Israelites into Canaan with orders to kill everyone. Same action. Different fruit.

I think fruit has more to do with the results of our actions. You know the stereotypical car salesman? Slick. All nice and friendly. Would cheat his own mother for a quick buck. Have you ever dealt with a salesman who just left you feeling icky? You couldn't point to anything specific. But something was off.

That's fruit. It's the spiritual residue left over from your relationship with someone else. What do they leave you with? Peace, joy, kindness, patience, faithfulness. Not always good feelings. Feelings are fickle. But do you grow for having known them?

Those things I listed are fruits of the spirit. A good relationship bears good fruit. Bad relationships bear bad fruit. There's a great story, which I've probably quoted before. An elder Indian chief is sitting with his grandson. The elder says to the boy, "Inside every man are two wolves. One wolf represents all that is good - kindness, honesty, peace. The other wolf is all that is bad - rage, jealousy, greed. These two wolves are always fighting. Fighting to the death." The grandson pauses for a second, then asks, "Grandfather, which one wins?" The elder replies, "The one that you feed."

Inside of every person are two warring sides - the spirit and the flesh. A good wolf and a bad wolf. However you want to picture them. Each is trying to kill the other. And this is where torment comes from. That inner turmoil that afflicts us so easily. We run from this torment. We try and hide from the pain, from the fight.

It takes a lot of energy to fight. It's hard to understand your own motivations. To consciously choose the one wolf over the other. Try paying attention to everything, all day long. You'll find that your brain gets tired. It starts taking short cuts. And so we give in to our flesh. Because it's easier than fighting.

And that's where the quote at the top comes in. Escape takes many forms. Alcohol and drugs are probably the culturally ingrained things that pop into your head. But it can be food, TV, movies, music, sex, fishing, and even housework. Anything that you use just to not face God. You see, the real issue isn't running from our problems. It's that we're running from God. Facing our problems only makes us see our need for Him. And that is what the bad wolf doesn't want you to know.

Fruit comes from who we are, deep inside. And when we face God, we see all of the darkness. We see all of the hiding places we never thought about. And we do everything in our power just to avoid taking that glimpse. Because once you do, you know the choice. And we don't want to make that choice. It's a hard choice. It means killing one of the wolves. And the wolf's fighting for its life.

So exactly how do we face ourselves, and all that we do? That's why Paul refers to Jesus' resurrection as victory. I don't confess sins because God needs to hear them. I confess them because I need to face them. Face them, accept that I did them, and receive forgiveness because someone greater than me already paid for it.

Peace comes from surrendering myself to God. There's one last metaphor with the fruit. Jesus describes us as vines. Bad trees produce bad fruit. But graft that bad part into a good tree, and it becomes the good tree. It produces good fruit. He goes one to say, "I am the vine. You are the branches." We can be changed. It's not easy. That stupid wolf will fight to the bitter end. And peace won't always seem real. But it's coming. One day when that wolf dies.

The Measure of a Goal

I was out on my walk this morning, thinking about the weekend. The girls and I tried an experiment. They each took responsibility for everything for one day. Unsurprisingly, we had some hiccups. And I've been trying to think of a good way to do a post mortem.

That got me thinking - what was the goal? It's very easy to say that the goal was getting chores done. But that's not true. Yes, the chores needed doing. And yes, I'm thankful for their help getting them done. That just wasn't really my goal.

I wanted to accomplish something with them. I wanted to build a relationship. Establish a back and forth. Figure out how we can communicate instead of running off to our rooms. I wanted to build a relationship.

And that brought me to think about my relationship with God. God set the terms. Yet even inside of that, He left a lot of room for us. There were certain things when God said "do it this way, exactly". And there are a lot of things that He allows us to do on our own, our way.

God defined the size of the ark of the covenant, where it was kept, and how it was carried. He was very direct and precise. He laid out very specific meats they were not to eat. Bur He didn't say one word about how to spice the food or what it should taste like. God tells us that He wants obedience, then leaves things up to our own judgement. This is the balance between control and relationship.

Relationships are by invitation. In every relationship, we share both the responsibility and the benefits. What happens in a relationship with someone who won't share? I had roommate in my younger days (oh, so long ago :)  Would not share ice cream. I got one serving - the day it was purchased. Maybe a half serving the next night. But ice cream never lasted longer than that.

I once heard a missionary describe it as a barrel mentality. Relatives or sponsors from another country would send barrels of food for families. The day the barrels arrived, someone from the family would pick it up at the dock. On the way home, they would start eating. Because once you got home, everyone had to share.

At home, everyone had the same idea - get some before there's none left. An entire, huge barrel of food gone in just a couple of days. And the family would start waiting for the next barrel all over again. A never ending cycle. This is what was happening with the ice cream - a refusal to share.

The same refusal happens emotionally, or with power and authority. Every relationship is about sharing. The terms simply describe who shares what, how it's divided up.

I read a great quote once. Forgot to write down who said it, so I apologize...

The measure of a goal is not what you're willing to do for it, but what you're willing to sacrifice.

Sharing means giving up - releasing - things that you are entitled to. It takes dying to your flesh (self preservation). And it's hard. I still mess it up. Thankfully, God thought of that too.

Super symmetry

So I watched the next episode in this Stephen Hawking series. I apologize for focusing on just a few seconds out of such an enormous body of work. There's so much of it that goes right over my head. I'm picking the few pieces that relate to something else I know.

Hawking describes the beginning of the universe as a dot, a pinpoint, where all matter is compressed and held by this force that is perfectly even across the entire surface. The documentary called it super symmetry. The question that I'm posing is - is this force personal or impersonal?

At the same time, I was finishing up Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. In one chapter, he talks about success. If you look close enough at successful companies and/or people, you will find a confluence of events totally out of their control. He concludes that success if blind luck. No amount of skill or effort on our part can guarantee success. Hard work just isn't enough.

My brain pulls these two things together because they both go back to the same question - is God personal or impersonal? The documentary and the book both viewed the universe as impersonal. Success is dumb luck. The Big Bang was controlled by natural law. It's all just stuff.

If God is personal, then success is providence (aka blessing). God chooses. Either way, it is still entirely out of our control. This is why God asks us to believe. Believe that He is real. Believe that He is personal. Belief offers hope. 

The Hawking documentary also touched on idea that there are multiple dimensions. Physicists use the extra dimensions to explain the behavior of gravity. That's right, scientists espouse that there are things in the universe that we can't see. Isn't that what the term spiritual means? Circling back to the question - personal or impersonal?

I believe that God is personal. That He actively directs the universe and it obeys His commands. I believe that in my pride I too often think that I can do the same thing. It doesn't work out so well. But I also believe that He loves me enough that He made a way to restore what's damaged. And I'm looking forward to the day when I don't have to wonder if I'm listening to Him or me. 

God of Creation

So my co-worker found a recent fascination with black holes. I've been watching some videos of Stephen Hawking so I can hold my own in the discussions. It's fascinating to hear what's out there in our universe. And being me, my brain is busy reconciling these things with what little I know about God.

Did the universe pop into existence billions of years ago when a black hole exploded? Who cares? Whatever mechanism God used doesn't really change the facts that the universe exists, it's big, and we live in it. So let's have some fun talking about the amazing ways that it works. And see where we might go instead of where we've been.

What are black holes? Hawking describes them as, well, holes. There's no bottom. And they seem to draw everything inside. If we accept that matter/energy is neither created nor destroyed, then what goes in must still exist. Is it trapped in the black hole or expelled somewhere else?

What would be the purpose of expelling it? Motion might be one - like a jet engine. The black holes propel the universe. Transfer is another idea. Sending used up energy to another place to start growing new galaxies, stars, and planets. This raised the question - are new planets forming?

I have to admit, I grew up in very strict fundamentalist circles. In recent years, God has really opened my eyes about how much I limit Him with my rules. So think about it this way, are the trees you see today the same ones that were here when He created the Earth? Of course not. He created trees that seeded and grew new ones. Why wouldn't He seed new galaxies?

Science fiction is fascinated with the idea of faster than light travel. We can't get to another star without it. Or at least, not very many. Our life spans are just too short. But what if we lived forever? Imagine a billion years from now, would you care about having spent 100,000 years on a space ship? Forever means no end. In a finite universe of limited size, you would, eventually, see everything and go everywhere. Is that really the limit of God's reach?

I stated earlier that energy is neither created nor destroyed - the first law of thermodynamics. I take issue with it. Well, just the first half - energy is not created. The first law assumes that the universe is a closed system. I believe that it's not. I believe that God is still pouring Himself into it.

God did not create the universe, set it in motion, and step away. He has always been intimately involved with it. He hasn't changed. He found pleasure in creation, and still does. He didn't paint a picture just to hang it on the wall. He's still painting it!

If God always intended us to live forever. And if He's bigger than our imaginations can fathom. Doesn't it stand to reason that He would expand the universe to reflect His size, not ours? By the time we explore everywhere, He will have somewhere new for us to go. Isn't that amazing?! We will never run out of new places to see, new things to learn. At every turn, He expands our knowledge just a little bit more. Refines what we thought we knew in ways we can't see yet. Over, and over, and over.

Do black holes feed into that? I have no idea. But won't it be fun to find out? To travel to one and figure out a way to measure, see, learn what happens. God didn't create a universe that puts things out of our reach. He created it to reveal His majesty and splendor. Then populated it with us to appreciate them. We can't appreciate what we don't know. It would be self-defeating to put things out of reach. They may be hard. It may take a very long time. The journey is half the fun.

And don't worry about learning all there is. He's way too big for that. There will always be a new mystery. Some twist or turn that we didn't expect. Now that's exciting!

Stress

So a couple of things have been running around in my head for a while. First is a sermon from Stephen Gambill about two mountains - Sinai and Zion. Mt. Sinai represents judgement, condemnation. When the Israelites came to that mountain, God surrounded it. There was thunder, lightning, darkness. The Bible describes the mountain as melting before Him. Sinai was where God gave the law to Moses. Imagine facing that alone. An angry God and He's looking right at you.

Zion, in contrast, is open arms. God saying welcome home. Thunder and lightning replaced with bright light and tranquility. It's a stark contradiction from Sinai.

And both of them are real. God is the same God, the same person, who expresses Himself in both ways at the same time. Sinai and Zion are in tension. Two opposites that are both true and exist at the same time. My brain can't reconcile that.

Thing 2

This made me think about the tensions in our world. My friend likes to describe these as grey areas. I hate grey areas. I cannot hold two emotions at the same time. And the idea that there is an acceptable balance between them is completely foreign.

Tension is everywhere. There was tension this morning when Vania snuck in a video game she wasn't allowed to play. There's tension every Monday morning when I have to get up for work, but I love what I do. The fact that I have to creates tension.

Sin creates tension. The apostle Paul talks about the law of sin and death versus the law of life (the spirit). These two always stand in opposition to each other - tension. Darwin summed up the law of sin and death very neatly: survival of the fittest. The strong prey on the weak. It's every man for himself.

Survival of the fittest is how the world works left to itself. It's a world of erosion, excess, self-destruction. Every advance exacts a price (think cars and smog, or industrialization and environmental concerns). On its own, the world breaks down. This the law of nature. Everything runs out, winds down, and eventually dies. Even the sun will one day burn out. It may be a very long time. But it is inevitable.

Contrast that with the picture painted in Revelations, the lion lays down with the lamb. Picture that for a second. A full grown male lion, with a full mane, sitting on the ground, his paws wrapped around a lamb. Both are at complete peace. The same passage says that a baby (think of your grandchild) will stick his hand in an adder's nest. And nothing happens. Well, maybe the snake licks his hand and the baby squeals because it tickles.

This is God's law of life. The law of sin and death breeds fear. Approach a snake now, and it will bite you because it's afraid. Sheep are afraid of lions. Lions are afraid of us. We're afraid of the ozone layer, pollution, and dying.

Fear leads to the dark side (to quote Yoda). We do self-destructive things because of fear. Fear creates tension.

Wrapping It Up

How do you resolve tension? How do you reconcile two opposites that are constantly fighting? Each trying to kill the other? I don't know either.

We should be enjoying our world. Admiring a beautiful sunset. Eating good food because it's fun to taste the flavors. Standing in awe of a panoramic view as the clouds touch the mountain tops and the sun glistens off the lake. Instead, we worry about starving, rush to drive home from work, and stand back from the edge of the cliff. Why? Because that world is out to kill us.

We know, deep in our hearts, this is wrong. We know that it shouldn't be survival of the fittest. In X-Men: Apocalypse, Charles Xavier tells the strong mutants to protect those who are weak. And the audience applauds that as noble, heroic. That's how the world should be. That's what we want it to be.

And when this world let's us down, we find ways of hiding from the pain. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. We live on Mt. Sinai. We want to live on Mt. Zion. Tension.