On Hope

I remember the first night of sprints back in early October. It was raining and I was quickly familiarizing myself with how much I disliked sprinting. It was then that team captain, Gino Bruni, cast vision to the team that all our efforts in training would help us beat Cambridge in March. I remember thinking, “Ok, it will be worth it.” 

The veterans like talking about the Varsity Match; the intensity of the game, the craziness of the fans, the music pumping in warm-up, hearing the Canadian anthem played as you stand on the blue line as a team. All season long I have been thinking about what this game will be like. I have pictured using the little bit of extra speed I got from a run (and shedding 10 pounds) to blow by a defenceman and score an important goal. I’ve pictured extra strength helping me plaster a guy into the boards that frees up space for my teammates.

I’ve even thought about what my celebration would be like if I scored in overtime. 

These have all been very lovely thoughts. But they are only thoughts. Reality will not have me charioted off the ice and on the front page of The Guardian newspaper tomorrow morning. This I am sure of.

With the Varsity Match now only 7 hours away, I’m quite excited to get the game going.

For some reason, it got me writing rather than whatever else I could be doing right now (like more research or the essay that is due next week). 

I have the feeling that the desire and excitement for the game is almost better than the actual game itself. The game will come quickly and pass quickly. I recall how the thought of going to Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower was much cooler than actually standing there in front of it. I remember when the thought of visiting Jerusalem, the city that Jesus walked in, was more epic than actually doing it. 

It reminds me of what C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity in his chapter called Hope. He says that our everyday longings were never meant to be actualized on earth. They never satisfy because they are not meant to. Lewis explains,

The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us. Now there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right one.

Three Types Of Responses To Unfulfilled Longing.

1. The Fool. According to Lewis, the fool spends himself perpetually chasing the end of the rainbow. Constantly going from experience to experience, his longing and emptiness have him going from relationship to relationship, career to career and experience to experience all for want of assuaging every desire that burns inside. Of course, his momentarily satisfaction is fleeting and like a drug, he moves on to his next hit.

2. The Prig. The prig (or perhaps “broken-hearted dreamer”) has learned that longing is the occupation of youths and only the vain pursuit of some unattainable joy you are promised as a kid by well intentioned parents and teachers. The prig has learned that since the rainbow’s end will never be caught it is not worth worrying oneself and others trying to get there. “Why desire when desire is only heartbreaking?” the prig asks.

3. The Christian. The Christian knows and feels desire but knows that these desires were made to be fulfilled elsewhere. This is where Lewis is oft-quoted with his famous concession, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity) Fulfilled desires this side of heaven are only the previews of the Feature Presentation. Heaven is where our deepest desires are to point us to. Lewis writes, 

I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.

What will the hockey game be like? I’m not sure. In one sense, it doesn’t really matter because heaven is coming and that will be far greater than any victory held on frozen water chasing a rubber disk around. 

In the meantime, I still hope we win. We did a lot of running to get here.

On Perseverance.

Every once in awhile (spread out during the many hours in the library reading an old Evangelical newspaper) I find some great lines. Finding them is like gold. This one randomly popped out at me. It’s from August 1921 from an evangelical leader who is encouraging his readers that the fight against liberalism and a resurging Anglo-Catholic power play, regardless of how tiring it may be, was worth resisting. He wrote,

“It is only fools who scrap ideals when they discover that a large price must be paid for their realization.”

It reminded me of one of my favourite quotes from Lord of the Rings. Weary of the journey to Mordor, Frodo has a weak moment in carrying the burden of the ring and the hope of MIddle Earth around his neck.  Thankfully, he’s got a friend like Sam to give him a water bottle at a very thirsty moment. The hobbits’ dialogue goes like this:

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.

The Call To Persevere

What are you fighting for? Are you weary from the battle today? Remember that all heroes have conflicts and foes to overcome. It’s what makes these stories so powerful.

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer…Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown (Revelation 2:10).

How Denominations Die

This quote from a John Webster Grant book called, The Church in the Canadian Era shows how it only takes a few small steps in one direction before you have lost your way entirely. Here’s an example of a critical turning point in the history of the once flourishing United Church of Canada movement. 

It was decision like these that lessened the evangelical missionary fervour and sent the mainliners into the liberal abyss we find them in today.

If interested, check out another resource from a different perspective. Evangelical historian, Mark Noll, wrote an article, “What Happened To Christian Canada?”

On Fine Tuning

Today as I was cycling fervently heading into town, I became conscious of the fact that I had to exert a lot of energy pedalling in order to keep my bike going forward.

Big lads don’t like exerting energy while in transport. That’s the necessary context to this post.

Gravity and friction were seemingly working against my desire to pedal perhaps only once and then glide to my destination (or even fly). I was soon day dreaming about what this would look like. I had to catch myself early on in this obscure thought experiment before I hit a tree or a car (in the dream and in reality!).

How crazy would life be without gravity?

Or friction?

Though they make us work, I’m thankful these constants of physics are there. They are trustworthy. I am confident that they will be there again tomorrow. The naturalistic/materialistic worldview (there is no supernatural Creator of the world) gives us no promises or explanation for their existence or origin. If there is a God, I can be confident that he is indeed governing the world and has put these laws in place for good reasons.

Lately I’ve been fascinated with how precisely tuned our world is. It literally hangs on a razor’s edge of precision to keep everything working together. I wanted to share this quote with you from secular British astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle,

A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.

Hoyle, an atheist, had nothing in his worldview to suggest any monkeying had been done. He just observed that things were so highly improbable to come together so well, it appeared something had been done. The Hebrews have known who had done it for centuries. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He was the one monkeying.

Sure, gravity and friction may have slowed me down and made me work today. But I couldn’t imagine the chaos if they hadn’t. God made a fine world. A fine-tuned world that is. 

On Tenacity.

Enjoy this word from Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest for February 22.

“Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fall off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be worsted, that the things He stood for – love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men – will not win out in the end; the things He stands for look like will-o’-the-wisps. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.”

Bread Truck Monday

Last week my friend Dave Smith reminded us all of one aspect of ministry that I had to laugh about. Quoting Mark Driscoll, the two of them get a resounding “Amen” from pastors all over the world as Driscoll honestly speaks about his “Break Truck Monday Fantasy.”

Here it is: 

“‘Is there ever a time, even if you love God, that you’re in ministry and you think about quitting? Yes. I call that Monday. Every Monday, every Monday I have – I love you, I love the church – but every Monday I have a bread truck fantasy. I will share with you my bread truck fantasy. My bread truck fantasy is that I drive a bread truck. That’s what I do. I get up on Monday, I go to the bakery. They hand me the keys to the bread truck. I’m in charge of bread.

Bread doesn’t commit adultery. Bread doesn’t get its girlfriend pregnant. Bread does it have alcohol problems or DUIs. The bread truck doesn’t have, you know, unpredictable giving patterns. The bread – the bread’s just the bread. And I get in the truck and I turn on sports radio, and I don’t have a cell phone because I don’t need one. The bread can’t email me; has no urgent emergency. In addition, I don’t have an e-mail address or a website because it’s just bread. I drive around all day in the bread truck and what do I smell? Bread.

And when I get hungry, I pull over and I put meat and cheese on the bread, any time I like. I deliver my bread all day to the bakery and then they take the bread off the truck. When it’s all done, I go home and you know what I think about? Nothing. Because there’s nothing else to do, there’s nothing else to think about. My job is done. On Friday, nothing. It’s a glorious fantasy that I have. Every time I see a guy in a bread truck, I’m coveting another man’s life.

I’m thinking, “That guy is brilliant. That is a brilliant man. In the bread truck.” and the best thing with the bread truck is, if you get in a terrible wreck with the bread truck and you roll the bread truck in the bread goes everywhere – it doesn’t matter, it’s just bread. They’ll make more. There are days, in every minister’s life – it’s just Bread Truck Monday. That’s what it is. Every Monday, I have Bread Truck Monday, kay?’

Some great observational comedy. Great reminder Dave.

March 3, 2012.

The nice thing is that when it’s your own blog, you can post whatever the heck you want.

6 months of running sprints and early morning practices comes down to one sold out game…

Who Is Colin?

A couple days ago I was at a pub with some friends when I recognized a girl from Vancouver that I had met a few days before. Vancouver people tend to have instant connections…unless they’re in, well, Vancouver.

I called out to her, “Hi Alex.” She said hi back and then introduced me to her friend she was with…

“This is Colin.”

Um…

This exchange between two new acquaintances in front of three other witnesses soon got awkward. I told her I was actually named “Jon” but not to be embarrassed because name’s are kind of tough to remember sometimes.

When the conversation soon wrapped up, I sat back down with my friends and they wanted to make sure to remind me of all that had just taken place.

“Hey Colin. I think I’ll call you Colin for the rest of the year.”

“You look like a Colin,” said one.

“No, not really,” added the other.

For the next five minutes we debated this: Whether or not I would make a good Colin or not. I didn’t mind being called Colin but the subjective foundation from which they were both trying to build upon was troubling to me.

Who is Colin to you? 

I suppose one of my friends thought of a Colin that I looked like.

Another had an idea of Colin that I did not match.

Was there a real Colin of whom we could all appeal to?  Would it be Colin Firth from Pride And Prejudice? Colin Farrell? Colin Powell? Maybe it is Colin Hall, my small group leader in grade eight.

People do this with babies too and I never quite get it. Maybe you’ve been a part of a conversation like this:

• He’s a beautiful baby. What’s his name?
• We named him “Michael.”
• Oh good, because he really does look like a “Michael.” 
• We thought so too. 
• He definitely isn’t a “David.”
• Oh no, definitely not.

Who is this archetype, Michael, and is anybody asking what this Michael looked like as a baby? This would help form an adequate frame of reference from which to draw from in the future. It just seems all too subjective as it is now. 

And Then When Theologizing…

I suppose people take this same relativistic approach when talking about God. I have a view of God, you have a view of God, we all have this idea of God. What then is God like?

Are all ideas of God equal just like all ideas of Colin? Thankfully, the idea of God is much different than the idea of Colin.

It is right to get to know who God actually is. There is only one God. He has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. He is not some unknowable force nor he is an arbitrary idea like Colin. 

If there is a real Colin out there, I’m sure he would like to be known as himself and not some prettier version of me.

Does Supralapsarianism Hinder Free Will?

I don’t die on the free will hill but I still acknowledge how much our choices matter. I’m sure some will appreciate this.

Supralapsarianism, the argument I’m working on from a previous post claims that this world we live in now is the best of all the possible worlds there could be. I say this because in this world not only God exists but he has come to us and died for us in person of Jesus Christ. In order to do that he had to allow us to sin. If we sinned, there would be suffering. So did God force us to sin?

If God had already made us knowing we would sin, does that mean he is to blame for our sin. Another level you can ask, does Supralapsarianism hinder humanity’s free will?

Some call God’s goodness into question by suggesting that humanity was forced into sinning in order for God to carry out his rescue plan of atonement.  

In God, Freedom, and Evil, Alvin Plantinga illustrates that in the best-of-all-possible-worlds that God could make, humans have free will to choose what is morally good. For morality to exist, the possibility of evil must exist and given x amount of worlds available, based on what Plantinga calls, transworld depravity, people will make poor choices.  He explains,

But if every person ‘suffers from transworld depravity, then no matter which person God instantiates, the resulting persons, is free with respect to morally significant actions, would always perform at least some wrong actions.

Plantinga argues that it is illogical for God to create a world where no free creature never sins. The key word is illogical. It cannot happen that free people would never choose to rebel at some point, some time. We are all great case studies for this.

Here’s the most important point: In these potential worlds that contains free creatures who sometimes sin, the best possible word is the one that God provides atonement for them.

That’s why God is great in that he makes us free, knows everything that we will do and still saves our butts so we could be with him. 

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). 

There’s Always A Market…