Company for the Innocents

For our six month anniversary, my wife gave me a copy of "Praise Habit", by David Crowder (which I highly recommend, even though I've only gotten through a few chapters). Several chapters into the book, he starts going into Psalms, and he uses the New Living Translation. Today, as I was reading Psalms 1 in that translation, a phrase jumped out at me (I've emphasized it below by bolding the text).

"Instead you thrill to God's word, you chew on Scripture day and night.
You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

You're not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust -
Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people."

That last little phrase just stuck out to me: "unfit company for innocent people." Here's the question: What would qualify someone as being unfit company for an innocent person? Obviously, the unfit individual would probably steal the persons innocence, or at least violate it. That definitely enters rapists, murderers, sadists, racists, etc. into the the "unfit" category. But what about you and me? Do we fit into the same category as those same rapists, murderers, sadists, racists, etc.? Probably not, but still the question remains, would the person - the man or woman that you and I are -violate the innocence of an innocent person?

What is an 'innocent'? Note that innocence is different than naiveté - that has to do more with knowledge and understanding. No, innocence has to do with purity. One could be naive about sex (not understanding or knowing about certain aspects of it), but to be 'innocent' when it comes to sex requires something completely different: not only a mind, but a spirit that approaches and thinks about sex in a pure way - God's way. "Is there actually anyone who is truly 'innocent'?" you may ask. I don't really know - I do know that children are largely innocent until this world scars and shapes them. But that's not the point of this exploration.

Bring it back to you and I - how would we affect an innocent person? After departing our presence, would their innocence still be intact, or would it have been attacked or threatened or scarred? And that begs the question - where is our innocence? Because in an exchange - a conversation, an encounter - both parties are affected by the character of the other. Can true innocence be maintained if one of the parties involved is not innocent? For us to be worthy of being in the presence of an innocent, then we ourselves must possess innocence.

The world assaults and mocks innocence, almost to the point of portraying it as weakness. With this daily attack on our innocence, where can we renew ourselves, renew our innocence? It's actually pretty easy. Look into the first few verses of Romans 12, where Paul instructs us to "renew our minds". How do we do that? The most simple of all things: Christ. He is the one that has a Holy Innocence, an innocence that cannot be changed. As we continually renew ourselves - wash ourselves - in his presence (through prayer, reading of the word, and praise and worship), our innocence is not only renewed, but it is maintained and even cultivated to new levels.

My challenge to you is this: could the psalmist have written this of you, that you were fit for the company of the innocent?

Suicidal dilemma

"...but it is better for you that I live. I am convinced of this, so I will continue with you so that you will grow and experience the joy of your faith." Philippians 1:24-25 (NLT)

What I've decided to call the "Suicidal dilemma" is the place where an individual weighs the benefits of death over life. Here, in Philippians, Paul is highlighting the fact that he actually longs for death, and the union that will bring him with Christ - but (and this is a big "but"!) the balancing thought for that is the benefit Paul's staying alive will have for those he influences and impacts.

Suicide, in and of itself, is very much selfish. I know there are chemical imbalances, and all kinds of different extenuating circumstances that make suicide seem a more appealing solution. But when you take a step back and analyze the mental statements you are making ("I'm too ashamed...", "I don't know how I can live with this...", and so on), they become very self-centric.

The Christian life, as evidenced by Paul's words here, is about others - you don't live for yourself, and thusly you don't die for yourself. In fact, when we accept Christ into our lives, He becomes the purpose of our existence. And one of the primary purposes of our Christian lives is to share our relationship with God with others.

Many people think they have nothing to contribute, that they do not bring anything special to those around them - but they're wrong. Paul recognized that he brought something to those around him that no one else could - and I also think he challenges us to find that which God has placed in us (and no one else!) to bring to those around us.

The 'Suicidal dilemma' is the weigh station at the end of the line, and most everyone stopping there is weighing only their problems with their lives - they never include the ones God has placed around them. Suicide is never a solution, and I wouldn't classify it as an escape either. Rather, let us call it theft, for it is stealing others of what God might bring to them through yourself.

Let us boast

"Let them boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord who is just and righteous, whose love is unfailing, and that I delight in these things. I, the Lord, have spoken!" - Jeremiah 29:24 (NLT)

God is just a little crazy - he wants us to be enamored with him, to be completely enthralled by who he is. How ludicrous is that?! It's almost like he thinks he's god or something...wait...but isn't he...?

Why is God so fixated on us being completely immersed in who he is? Think about it this way: if you're completely in love with someone, don't you want them to be completely in love with you? That's the thing about love - it has to be shared to be completely experienced.

So God wants us to boast about him? What's up with that? Didn't he give us great minds, incredible talents, and truly incredible abilities? Doesn't he want us to delight in them? Look in Isaiah 29:14b, "I will show that human wisdom is foolish and even the most brilliant people lack understanding." The world is full of "wisdom", you have scientific theories, mathmatical theories and principles, counselors and psychiatrists - and God enjoys showing that their "wisdom" and "knowledge" is really child's play to him. A shepherd becomes a king, a carpenter is our pure and spotless sacrificial lamb, and a murderous religious zealot can become his most vocal and influential teacher. The pharisees, saducess and priests thought they had God figured out, and then Jesus came along. Why doesn't God always play by the rules? But there's the problem, once we figure them out, we take them as ours, and they're not our rules at all - they're his. and he can do with them as he pleases.

God isn't concerned with our rules and our standards of who's the smartest and who understands and knows the most. No, what he cares about is loving us. He gives us our strength, our wisdom, and our riches so that he might delight in them. We boast in him - we find our identities and the reality of who we are in him - and he delights in us.

Selfishness

I was talking with someone today, and the topic of "selfishness" came up. The back of my mind starting analyzing the selfish nature of man. What really popped out in my mind was the fact that, though selfishness is rooted deeply into the nature of man, when God created us, selfishness was balanced out and did not rule the thoughts of the original man and woman - originally.

We all know the story of the fall of man, how Adam and Eve ate of the apple and were thrown out of the Garden. It was after this that selfishness really began to take root in man's psyche. Why? I wonder if it's related to man's drive for self preservation. That drive isn't like a switch that God just flipped on when he was kicking Adam and Eve out of Eden. No, it was already present. But (and here's the key) it did work differently. I don't want to get into the theology of Eden, and try to pick apart what it was like there (hey, I'll just do that in another blog!), but I do want to point out that God placed within us all the desire to avoid pain and discomfort.

Self preservation, in it's truest state, is the assertion of a form of selfishness (you protect yourself because you find yourself more important than that which you're protecting yourself from). It's what keeps one from running into a burning building - yet there are those who do run into burning buildings. Firefighters have found within themselves the strength to deny their basic instinct of self-preservation because they choose to hold others as more important than themselves - the most basic tenent of selflessness.

I wonder if that's why Jesus told us to 'hate' our lives (Luke 14:26 KJV), because he wants to get to the root of the problem, for us to let go of our tendency towards self preservation.

Once we have let go of the importance of ourselves, we can finally see the importance of others.

Narrowing Destiny

Interesting term I thought up when I was driving around in my truck the other day: "Narrowing Destiny". The purpose is to describe what happens as we live and grow and mature and experience life - the potential of what we can become is increasingly limited by what we have experienced and the choices we have made. There's a phrase in the Star Wars series of movies which goes "...it is your destiny!" It's very dramatic and lots of people nod their heads with serious looks on their faces. In the christian circles there are those which believe in 'pre-destination' - a supposed fact that God has already decided who's going to heaven and hell and that we really can't change it. The cruelest part of it is that we seem to have no choice.

The big question for every child, and especially as they get out of High School, is what they will do with their life. At the point of graduating from High School, they have already made certain choices which will limit what they can become - at the graduation of college they have made even more choices limiting them. The individual that they can become has been limited because of their experiences and education, and their destiny (those things that they can accomplish within their lifetime) has also been limited.

Take two High School graduates who are interested in Web Design. We'll call the first Dave, and the second John. Dave, being very interested in web design, decides to study computers and emphasize his studies on web design in college. John, on the other hand, decides he wants to teach about computers. So let's say that both of them are "destined" to design a website after they graduate from college. Though there is nothing stopping either of them from designing websites, the website that Dave designs will be dynamically different than the one that John designs. Why? Is it just the schooling? No, it's the friends they made as they were learning, the priorities they learned as they studied, what their social activities exposed them to. Our experiences effect us in how we think, reason, and react.

Thus, their individual destinies are limited by where they've been, what they've learned, and how they experienced life. "Narrowing Destiny" is not a good or bad thing - it's just a fact of life.