Do you feel better now? I do.

I think we do a disservice to Christian and non-Christian alike when we pretend to be like we always understand, or are happy about, all that God asks us to do and believe. If that were really the case, we'd all be perfect. But we're not. Why pretend?

In Jonah chapter 3, Jonah finally complies with God's instruction to go to Nineveh, but he wasn't happy about it. Some commentaries on the passage want to focus on Jonah's obedience, but I think it's misguided. Jonah was obedient, but just barely. He's not falling over himself because of the grace of God, eager to demonstrate gratitude. Jonah's still the same grumpy old prophet that we see in chapters 1, 2, and 4. The main difference is that he's come to the conclusion that God's path is better than his path; that pursuing God, even when it's difficult, is better than "forsaking our hope of steadfast love".

So he goes. But he doesn't like it.

The Christian life begins in that moment when we recognize God's grace towards us and realize that following his plans for our life are better than following our own. That God's paths lead towards life; our paths lead towards destruction. That's what Jonah realized.

The challenge comes when we realize that some of those things that come along with believing in God or following him are going to challenge our preconceived notions about how life should be. For example, in my heart, I want to pursue as much money as possible to use for my own purposes and pleasure; God tells me that if I really want to experience life, any financial gain I pursue is for the good of others, and particularly, for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. So I try to give of my resources generally, but I don't always like it (particularly when the car is breaking down, or I want a new cell phone.)

That's why when God fully revealed himself in the New Testament, he didn't just write another letter or give another list of commands. He came as a person. If all I had was the commands of Christ, it would be difficult to wrap my head around the things he asks me to do. But because I know the person of Christ, I know that I can trust him, even when some of the things he asks seems difficult.

The question we need to ask ourselves is not, am I happy about all that God asks me to do, the question is, can I trust Jesus? Can I follow Jesus? Is he trustworthy? And if he is, then I can follow him, even if I don't always like it.

It's worth noting what happens to Ninevah, even after Jonah half-heartedly obey's. "The people believed God." They didn't believe Jonah. They weren't impressed with Jonah. They believed God.

Admitting that we don't always like or understand what God is doing doesn't make people less likely to trust God, it actually makes them more likely to trust him. Instead of pointing to our own ability to follow, we point to Jesus' worth as a trustworthy source of life. That way, even when we're only half-heartedly obeying, we can say, don't look to us, look to Him.

And people may just believe God.

The cycle went something like this: we are disobedient, so God punishes us. We repent as a result, and we live in obedience. That's the cycle: disobedience, punishment, repentance, obedience. Repeat cycle.

In other words, I knew that I was only one step away from either being punished or being disobedient at all times. And although God's love for me wasn't totally dependent on how well I was doing according to the cycle–it mostly was. I was well aware that God was definitely going to be happier if I obeyed, and would be disappointed in me if I didn't.

A lot of people see the religious cycle in Jonah's story. He was disobedient to God, God punished him with a storm and then a fish, he repented, and then he obeyed. Boom. Cycle completed. Jonah is okay with God again.

The problem with that assessment is that it misses the main point and therefore obscures the way that God deals with his people.

There are a few themes in the book of Jonah that are present from beginning to end. God's sovereignty is a big one. Jonah's consistent rebellion is another. But in between those two stands the main one that holds the other two together: God's unrelenting love towards his people.

David expressed that love in Psalm 139 when he said that even if he made his bed in Sheol, God would be there; if he dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea, David knew he could not get away from God's love (Psalm 139:8-9). Jonah didn't just write it, he lived it. He went to the literal depths of Sheol, on the verge of death. In a metaphorical sense, he "made his own bed" and God could have let him lie in it; but that's not what God did.

Everything about Jonah's story reveals God's unrelenting love towards wicked and rebellious people. HIs love towards Ninevah. His love towards Jonah. His love towards the Sailors. His love towards his creation. Even his love for cattle, which we'll see in the very last verse of the text.

God us unrelenting in his pursuit of his people.

What we see in Jonah as "punishment", therefore, isn't punishment at all–it's God's gracious voice calling out to Jonah by all means necessary so that Jonah would come back to Him. It's God's love calling out, not his wrath. That's what Jonah learns when he's in the belly of the fish in chapter 2, and it's what he knows when he's laying on the beach in chapter 3.

Perhaps you've heard the old saying that we serve a God of second chances? It's a lie.

A God of second chances is a God who wants to deal with you on the religious cycle. Disobedience, punishment, repentance, obedience...second chance. The God who gives you second chances is the kind of God who is treating you according to your own effort. It sounds like good news on the surface, but it's really not.

The good news of the Bible is that God doesn't deal with us according to our own efforts, but deals with us according to the efforts of Christ. When God looks at his children, they are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus; their chief status as his sons and daughters has never changed.

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son that Jesus tells? The son takes his inheritance, leaves his father, and goes and blows it all. He's lying in a pile of pig's feces when he comes to his senses and thinks to himself that he should go back and ask his father for a second chance. When he rounds the last bend headed home, he is shocked that his Father runs out to meet him and calls him "son". Before he can get home; before he can ask for a second chance. Why?

Because his status as a "son" never changed. The father was waiting, day after day, for his son to come home. And when he finally did, it wasn't a second chance. It was the first chance that never ended.

None of this means that we're not going to blow it, like Jonah. We'll have those moments where we run from God, rebel, and act contrary to the way his kids are supposed to act. But when we do, we don't run back to God, begging for a second chance. We run back to God because we're his sons and daughters, and he has never stopped loving us.

The story of Jonah is the story of a loving God who chases down his people, even to the depths of the sea. But it's also a story about a guy who makes a mess of things.

Imagine if you were one of those sailors on the ship headed to Tarshish, and a great storm was hammering down on your vessel, so that you thought you were going to die. You discover that the guy sleeping below the ship is the cause of this great storm, and you demand to know what he did to deserve this divinely-inspired death sentence. He tells them, they toss him over the side, storm subsides.

Except, it doesn't really subside for the Sailors. The actual storm subsides, and the waters become still, and they take a moment to catch their breath and thank the Lord of the Universe for sparing their lives. And then they remember that they have just thrown everything of value on the ship over the side of the boat and it was now lost in the sea, along with the guy responsible. Their lives were spared, but their livelihoods may not have been. Someone was going to have to tell the ship owner the story, and explain why all of the goods that he had purchased to sell in Tarshish were now at the bottom of the Mediterranean. I'm guessing they cast lots again to figure out who that assignment was going to fall to.

Jonah even makes a mess of things for the fish. Miraculous nature of the story aside, at some point, the fish vomits. Jonah sees that God's hand was in this, that God whispered to the fish, that the fish listened, that the fish was obedient, and he's right, in the sense that God had ordained that this fish swallow Jonah and that this fish was going to vomit Jonah out on to dry land. Maybe the fish understood all that. Or, maybe the fish just felt like he had indigestion for three days and finally found relief when he vomited this foreign object out onto the shore. (Interesting side note, scientists have speculated on why whales beach themselves, and many of the reasons are due to either sickness or inhospitable waters. Indigestion would fall well within many of the categories!)

Now Jonah has washed up on the shore and God re-engages him with the same assignment he had given him before: I want you to go to Ninevah. And Jonah, apparently freshly regurgitated, decides to obey.

What's interesting about the story of Jonah is that his mess may actually be the very thing that gives him credibility in the city of Ninevah. The city of Nineveh was known for worshiping a fish God named Dagon. Dagon is often represented as some combination of man and fish. If anyone had seen Jonah's ejection from the belly of the fish, washing up on the shore, his message of God's anger towards them would have been received–and quickly! 

There is some evidence from a Babylonian historian that something like this actually happened. A historical record dated several hundred years later than Jonah's story talks about a man named Oannas who washed up on the shore and gave divine knowledge to men. Oannas is an alternative spelling of Jonah.

For a more detailed analysis of this, check out this link.

The point is, God uses Jonah's mess for his purposes. That was true for Jonah, and it's true for us He often uses things in our life that we think are blemishes as the very thing that gives our message of his Grace credibility. By the time Jonah finally went to Ninevah, he had nothing of his own effort left to point to. All he had done is make a mess–but it was God who was using it for his purposes.

So I prayed, God, show me a sign. I opened my Bible, let it simply fall open, and plopped down my finger. It landed on Matthew 8:26: "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"

I freaked out. 

Now, I don't know whether or not that was God giving me a sign. It's entirely possible that it was just coincidence, and even though it did work out to be what I needed at that time of my life, it's not a method I would recommend others use to get a sign from God! I tell it only to point out one universal truth of the Christian life: we want God to give us a sign.

Maybe it's our lack of confidence in our ability to determine God's will, or our fear of messing up, of failure, or some other such thing. Maybe were not confident in God's ability to actually come through when we really need him to. Whatever the case, we're a lot like the religious leaders in Matthew 12 who demanded that Jesus give them a sign. 

Their issue was that they really didn't believe that he was who he said he was. Jesus was teaching the message of the coming kingdom of God, and performing miracles and healing wherever he went. His teaching and his behavior were proving that he considered himself to be one with God (even God himself!), and what's more, he was treating their religious texts like they were being fulfilled right before their very eyes. He was redefining what they had come to believe, claiming that what they thought  God intended and what he actually intended were two different things.

So they asked him for a sign. Prove it. Prove that you're God. 

It's really not that outrageous if you think about it. If I heard stories about a miracle worker near my town, my first response would be skepticism. I'd go out to see him, check him out, watch the first few hearings, and in my skepticism I'd assume that they were all "plants". People the healer had brought up who weren't really sick but were just pretending so that it looked like he actually healed them. If I had a chance to talk to him–and especially if he were redefining the rules of Christianity and pretending to be God–it might be the first thing I'd ask him: can you perform an on-demand miracle? 

If he's really God, an on-demand miracle should not really be that big of a deal. 

Jesus doesn't give it to them, though. What he says instead is that they won't receive a sign–except for one. They'll receive the sign of Jonah. According to Jesus, that sign will be so powerful that these religious leaders will look like fools if they reject it; indeed, if they reject the obvious proof of the sign of Jonah, then they are worse than the Ninevites who repented after hearing Jonah's message. "And now", Jesus says, "one greater than Jonah is here."

The "sign of Jonah" is the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish, presumably a dead man. Jesus was going to spend three days in the belly of the earth, definitely a dead man. On the third day, Jonah was vomited out onto dry land. On the third day, Jesus was going to be "vomited" out of the grave; death itself would be reversed and Jesus would be the "firstborn" among many children of God.

For those demanding a sign, Jesus points towards his death and resurrection and says, "that's enough". You don't need on demand miracles. You don't need more proof than you already have to know that I am God. Look at what I accomplished for you. 

Jonah's story is about God's constant pursuit of his rebellious people; Jesus' story is about God's constant pursuit of his rebellious people. Jonah ignored God and needed to be pursued himself; Jesus obeyed and became the pursuer ("The son of man came to seek and save the lost.") Jesus pursued his people, even to death itself, and then, in death, sets them free.

It would be nice if God gave us a sign to tell us what to do on a daily basis. Maybe he will, at times. But he doesn't have to. He's already given us a sign to demonstrate that he will not let us go, he will not stop pursuing us, he will not leave us alone, ever again. 

The sign of Jonah. 

And that's all we need. 

I was also brought up on songs like, "Oh be careful little eyes". If you haven't had the pleasure of learning this frightening children's song, the premise is basically that God is watching everything you do and if you screw up, bad things will happen. The message is couched in God's love–"be careful what you see, because the Father up above is looking down in love"–but most children know what it means. God loves you...but don't screw up.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked at how many people who claim to follow Jesus continue to live in fear of God's punishment. 

Stories like Jonah's just add to the confusion, or at least, the way that they are normally taught. Jonah is often presented as a disobedient prophet who was punished by God, and as a result, he repents and (reluctantly) obeys. The message to children is, if you disobey, your loving Father will have you eaten by a fish. It's along the same lines as the song: God loves you so much he's going to come down on you with the swift wrath of creation if you even think about rebelling.

That's not what Jonah sees, however, as he reflects upon what has just happened to him in the belly of the fish. To be sure, he sees God's hand in his situation. We've already noted Jonah's certainty in the type of God who can command the very fish to do his will. Now we see that despite the fact that Jonah knew it was his own desire to be thrown into the sea, and the sailors who actually carried out the task, Jonah has no problem expressing that it was God himself that cast him into the sea, and that it was the waves and billows of God that overtook him. (V. 3) Jonah is well aware that God is intervening, despite his rebellion–but he's not intervening with punishment, he's intervening with Grace.

Everything that Jonah has done he has brought on himself. Jonah has followed his own path, instead of God's. Jonah got on the ship. Jonah told the sailors to toss him overboard. Jonah was drowning. Jonah is nothing but a rebel.

God is nothing but a savior. 

Jonah deserved death; what he received is life. That's not punishment, that's grace. And it's a grace that Jonah notices when he talks about his impending death, and yet, the intervention of God that instead of death, he would again worship in the temple of God (vs 4, 6, 7). 

Jonah doesn't repent because God is punishing him. Jonah repents because he sees that, no matter how hard he ran, God continued to pursue him. God wouldn't let him go. No matter how far Jonah tried to flee from the presence of the Lord, he couldn't outrun the steadfast love of God. 

That changes everything!  And that's the message of the Gospel. Jesus chases down rebels like us because of his steadfast love for his people. It's the reason that most of his followers were rebels. It's the reason that tax collectors and "sinners" (a catch-all term that we probably wouldn't want to be associated with) and prostitutes ran to Jesus, and religious people who thought they had their stuff together ran from Him.

People who knew they needed grace saw the relentless pursuit of a loving God, and turned towards him in response. The religious leaders hated it. If it were up to them, sinners would be punished. Ironically, that's why they killed Jesus. And even more ironically, that's why sinners can go free.

The message of Jonah–and the message of the Gospel–is about a God who chases his people down no matter how hard they run. It's about a God who offers grace and acceptance. It's about the steadfast love of God. And for those who accept that message, they are assured that God will never be angry with them again. 

That's really good news. And that's the Gospel. 

I was 22 years old, and I had just gotten my first cell phone. "Way back then", people had cell phones when they had jobs, and I had a job, so I had a cell phone. It was a giant, black, Nextel brick-of-a-phone which was colloquially called, "the brick", because it was intended to be indesctructible. All of the low-level employees who were just important enough to get a phone but not important enough to get their phone replaced got the phone that they couldn't destroy. I was on that list.

But I didn't want to be on that list. I wanted to have a nice phone, with the color screen. 

In those days, a color screen literally meant just that–it had a color screen. Exact same features. Maybe a slightly nicer profile. Color screen. Much, much, more expensive. 

This particular Nextel phone had a color screen and the body type was a "flip" phone, which meant it folded in on itself on a clam shell design and–this was the killer feature–it would show you who was calling you even when the phone was closed via a little tiny LCD on the exterior.

I found a kid in our youth ministry who was selling one (long story short–it was probably lifted. But that's not the point) and I bought it. $200 dollars cash money right out of my pocket. I activated it, turned it on, and that was it. The excitement was over. I got exactly what I wanted, and all I got was disappointment. For $200.

Jonah got exactly what he wanted to, but it turned out much worse. His goal was to flee from the presence of the Lord, and by the time we get to verse 16 of the first chapter, it looks like he's about to get what he wants. "Hurl me over the side", Jonah tells the sailors. They'll be safe, and Jonah will be dead, which was better than following God's plans–or at least, he thought it was.

As he's sinking to the floor of the sea, however, he comes to the conclusion that he may have made a big mistake. He got exactly what he wanted, and it turns out, it's not what he wanted at all. It was a giant disaster.

The main point of Jonah's prayer in chapter 2 highlights this reality: " Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love."

At some point in Jonah's descent to death he realized that even though he got what he really wanted, it wasn't what he was actually looking for. By getting what he wanted, he actually gave up his hope of "steadfast love". 

Jonah's point is profound. He's letting us know that the heart of rebellion against God is really idolatry. It's pursuing other things and devoting attention to other things more than we pursue and devote our time to God. It's putting created things, created assignments, created laws, created value, in the place of the Creator. 

Jonah's idol may have been independence. Maybe he was tired of dealing with God and being God's servant. He wanted to do his own thing for a while. 

Maybe Jonah's idol was leisure. Jonah may have been headed to Tarshish before the Lord called, and God's assignment at the beginning of chapter 1 only accelerated the trip. He was ready to retire before God called, but now that he knew what God wanted him to do, he was going to pursue it at all costs!

"Idolatry" isn't about putting up a statue in our yard and bowing down to it. Idolatry is taking anything and putting it into the place in our lives that God is supposed to fill. When we do that, Jonah says that we are putting our regard in something that can never fulfill what it promises–the definition of "vanity". It is fleeting, here for a moment, and then gone. 

Our idols might be success or wealth or celebrity or comfort. We pursue them at all costs. But when we get them–have they actually fulfilled what they promised? 

The problem, as Jonah points out, is that as long as we insist on chasing down these vain idols, we'll be giving up the only thing that we really do want, and even need: Steadfast love. 

Ask anyone who desires success, wealth, celebrity, comfort, leisure, independence, and ask them–would you rather keep chasing that down at great personal cost, or would you rather know that you are okay, just the way you are? Would you rather know that you are accepted and loved with an unending love?

They'll say love.

And if they don't, it's probably because their plans haven't yet ended in disaster.  But give it time. Eventually they may get what they want, and they'll find that it wasn't what they were looking for after all.

Wait, what's that? Swallowed by a giant fish and vomited out three days later?

If that random little detail dropped in the book of Jonah doesn't make you pause and ask, "really?", you've probably been in church too long. You've lost your critical edge; a critical edge, I'd argue, that you actually need if you are going to read the Bible correctly and believe what it says. How can you defend the rest of the text in Jonah if you haven't thought critically about this particular detail that is otherwise incredibly difficult to believe?

It's not a sin to be critical of difficult-to-believe things in the Scripture. Even Martin Luther, the theologian and church reformer, said that this was the most difficult of Old Testament texts to believe, and if it weren't in the Bible, he wouldn't believe it. Bringing our critiques to the Scripture allows us to probe more deeply into the nature of what God is doing and therefore bring us to a deeper belief, if we are willing to consider what the text is teaching.

So did Jonah get swallowed by a giant fish or not?

If we're going to ask the question critically, and be true to the Scripture overall, we have to start with an overarching biblical premise, and one of the themes of Jonah: God can do whatever he wants.

That's not an excuse to come up with a non-answer. It's simply the recognition that the God of the Bible is consistently described as the God who created the world and sustains it; who is the God of "the Land and the Sea", as Jonah has said, and therefore, by virtue also the fish of the sea. This God of the Bible can do whatever he pleases within his creation.

If we come to the text critically because we want to disprove God or make him unnecessary, we will not be treating the text fairly. The text assumes the existence of an all-powerful God.  It is easy to doubt the story if we don't even want to acknowledge that type of God. If that's the position you are in, that's okay! But you really need to answer that question first–can you accept the premise that there is an all-powerful, sovereign God?–before asking a question of a text that assumes the answer to that question is "yes".

Therefore, the point of our inquiry into the text isn't so much to prove or disprove it, but to discover how God might have worked through his creation. Perhaps we desire to discover the extent of the miraculous; perhaps we simply want to make the story more reasonable to our rational mind.

So, we ask again–understanding that God can do whatever he wants–did Jonah really get swallowed by a giant fish? 

Option 1 - God appointed a particular fish for this particular occasion. 

If we have come to the text with the premise of the author, Jonah–namely, that God can do whatever he wants–then we must also accept the possibility of the purely miraculous. That is, God created a specific fish for this specific purpose. The answer to how God did this would therefore be unanswerable to us. The details given by Jonah are all the details we need, because they really are all he knew: he was swallowed by a giant fish.  The end.

Option 2 - It was an extinct creature that we have yet to discover 

The second option which moves a but further away from the purely miraculous is the idea that the fish that swallowed Jonah was an ancient sea creature that we have yet to discover. In the New Testament, Jesus references the story of Jonah and refers to the fish by the same word that is used in other places in antiquity for a type of sea monster that is depicted in drawings as a serpent-like animal that looks exactly like what you would ASSUME a sea monster looks like. The Old Testament books of Job and Psalms both reference a large creature called Leviathon, without going into further detail. Maybe there really was an ancient sea creature called Leviathon that we simply haven't discovered yet.

Archeologists and Paleontologists continue to uncover new species of dinosaurs that were previously unknown. As recently as 2011, a miner in Canada found the petrified carcass of a dinosaur buried far underground! The ocean is a large and vast place; the ocean floor even more so. It's entirely possible that there was an ancient creature that we simply have not discovered as of yet.

Option 3 - It was a Sperm Whale or Great White Shark

Both of thee "fish" would be capable of swallowing a man–particularly a slightly smaller man–whole. If it was a Sperm Whale, which ingests it's food without chewing, Jonah surely could have wiggled down into the belly. A Great White, on the other hand, could swallow a man, and the cold water and slow metabolism of the animal would have kept digestion to a minimum over a three day period.

Of course, none of these explanations do away with the miraculous. In case you are picturing Pinochio's dad, Gepetto, floating around on his boat in the internal caverns of a whale's stomach, or even the Veggie Tale's depiction of Jonah where there is a similar expanse for Jonah to comfortably relax in, you should know that not even a giant Sperm Whale has three days of oxygen in it's belly.

Jonah's point isn't to detail the logistics of his ordeal. He's content to leave it as is, with the understanding that God can do whatever he wants. Jonah's point in this text is to let us know that however it happened, and whatever creature did it, Jonah was rescued by the miraculous intervention of God.

 That's what Jonah wants us to know. The God Jonah believed in, and the God Jonah served, is the kind of God who could "appoint" a great fish to come and swallow Jonah, and then "speak to" that same fish to vomit Jonah out on to the store.

He was the kind of God who would pursue a rebellious prophet, even to the depths of the sea.

Further Reading: 

http://www.icr.org/article/what-really-swallowed-jonah/ 

http://www.jewishsightseeing.com/usa/california/san_diego/general_stories/sd9-13-02jonah.html 

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/jonah-and-the-great-fish/ 

They key to the game, particularly the more difficult levels, is patience. In order to take over a star that is currently owned by another player, you have to have enough aura to defeat any of the other player's aura that might be surrounding the star, then you have to de-power the star by "filling" it with aura, and then re-power the star by filling it again. That means that one of the most effective strategies is to simply wait. Wait until you have enough aura produced by all of your stars that you can take over the competitors star and have enough leftover to defend your position once you do. If you want to win the difficult levels, you have to take the long view. Start from your position of strength, and then move forward with your strategy.

It strikes me that what we saw this past week is Microsoft and Apple playing a complicated game similar to Auralux. Both competitors are taking the long view. Both are starting from their position of strength. Both are moving forward with their strategy.

The Long View

With the release of Apple's iPad Pro and MacBook Pro, and Microsoft's Surface, both companies showed us what they think is the long-term vision of personal computing. In a way, their competing visions were both realized, in the early term, with these products.

Apple has maintained it's position that a "tablet" and a "PC" are two different things, that they serve different purposes, and that what the consumer does with each of them do not necessarily work cross platform. Tablets are "cars"; PC's/Laptops are "trucks". It doesn't make sense to "touch" a vertical surface in front of you. No one wants a touchscreen iMac, or even a touchscreen MacBook. Yet, while they have maintained that there is a distinction between the two, they have also maintained that most people could replace their traditional "computer" with an iPad Pro. The tension between those two realities–that a tablet is a "car", and a computer is a "truck", and that most people can get away with a tablet–is Apple's vision for the future of personal computing.

I was having a conversation last night with a friend that pressed into the metaphor of cars and trucks and shows how apt it is in terms of Apple's approach. My friend needed to purchase a new truck for his landscaping company and was bemoaning how much it cost. A new heavy duty truck (think, Pro-version), which is what he needed, was going to run him almost 1,000/month in payments alone. That's a lot of money, but it's the cost of doing business. Professional landscapers need professional grade trucks that aren't going to break down, are going to withstand significant wear and tear in the course of a day–from hauling stuff in the bed to towing large trailers–and are almost always used to plow snow during the harsh Northeast winter. My friend would love it if he could get away with driving a compact car. It would be cheap. It would get him around. But it wouldn't get the job done.

Compare that with the average consumer who really just needs to get from point A to point B. They want to do it in the nicest vehicle they can afford. They want to feel comfortable. They also want their car to be reliable, like my friend, but a reliable, comfortable car is a lot easier to come by and a lot less expensive to purchase. (My Ford Focus, for example, is inexpensive, reliable, comfortable, and quite pleasurable to drive.)

Apply the car/truck metaphor to computing and you'll understand what Apple is doing. The MacBook Pro is beautiful, reliable, and going to do basically anything you throw at it. It's also expensive. But hey, that's the cost of doing business. Not everyone needs a MacBook Pro, but those who do will need to and be willing to pay up to get what they need.

For everyone else, we have the iPad Pro. It's nice, reliable, and quite frankly, feels luxurious. You'd have no idea you were driving the "compact" version. It would never occur to you that there was work you couldn't do with your iPad–just like it would never occur to you that you couldn't plow snow with your Ford Focus–because that's not what you needed your computer for. Everything you need to do, your iPad will allow you to do, in a beautiful, reliable, and luxurious way.

The current line-up of Apple products is the early glimpse into the vision of what Apple is doing with their products. They are selling cars (iPads) to consumers, and expensive trucks (MacBooks) to professionals. Both are great products. It just depends on what you need it for.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has maintained it's position that any device should be able to do whatever it is that we want it to do. We shouldn't have to decide between cars and trucks. Cars and trucks, in Microsofts view, are functionally the same thing. The only difference between them is that some of them are bigger. Let's call Microsoft's approach the "SUV" strategy.

What is the SUV, after all, but a car that wants to be a truck? Or is it a truck that wants to be a car? There are various grades of this, obviously, but all SUV's share this basic thing in common. They are all, more or less, beefed up cars, or family-friendly trucks. Ask someone why they purchased an SUV, and their answer will invariably be that they "needed more space" for their kids, or that they "wanted something safe in the winter" (at least in the Northeast.) Fair enough, but basically, they mean that they wanted a car with a little more room, more power, and four-wheel drive. And that same answer applies all the way up to the full-size SUV's, like my Suburban. My suburban represents everything that's good about cars and trucks all rolled into one. It's comfortable, fits my family, drives smooth on the highway–but I can also haul my house off it's foundation if I wanted, or plow my neighborhood, or, pull a trailer (which we do when we go camping) or drive over a sand dune (like we did in North Carolina). There is nothing that I can't do in my Suburban (except save money on gas or protect the environment). No compromises (except those last two).

That no-compromises strategy is what you get when you purchase a Surface, and the recently released Surface Studio and Surface Book. Both of them represent everything that's good about tablets and PC's all rolled into one. One is more "tablet-y" and the other is more "computer-y", just like the Chevy Equinox is more "car-y" and my Suburban is more "truck-y", but the point is, they are both in the same no-compromises category of SUV. Microsoft believes that the future will be exactly this: buy one device, do everything you want to do. Most people who buy a Surface 4 or Surface Book will never go to the computer-equivalent of off-roading, for example, but they'll be glad to know that they could if they wanted to.

Strength

These competing visions of the future make sense coming from these two companies, because both of them are operating from their position of strength. Apple's strength is iOS. Microsoft's strength, although not historically in hardware, is nevertheless in the "desktop" business–making software for laptops and desktop computers.

Microsoft is building on that strength to essentially incorporate "tablet-like features" into it's new hardware. When they came out with the first few iterations of this vision, they were clunky, and not easy to use. The two-sided version of windows that shipped on tablets, where there was the "tablet" side and the "desktop" side that looked like traditional windows, and you could switch between the two, didn't work very well. The "tablet" side couldn't do everything that the "desktop" side could do, and the "desktop" side wasn't made for a touch-screen device. As time has gone on, they've solved a lot of these problems and now Windows feels more and more like a operating system designed for computer that have a touchscreen interface.

Apple, for it's part, has always excelled at making great hardware–but more than just great hardware, their core strength was making hardware and software that was perfectly integrated. The software was designed specifically for the hardware; the hardware was designed with the software in mind. Thus, and iPad was not designed to run MacOS, and MacOS was not designed to run on an iPad with a touchscreen. Even as the two grow closer in terms of feature parody, using iOS does not feel like running MacOS. They correspond to one another in certain key ways, so that it's not completely foreign, but it's also not similar.

I noticed the differences immediately when I began this article–I moved my mouse to the dock, opened safari, entered the URL for my website, logged in, and began to add this post. In the process, I noticed the files cluttering my desktop on my MacBook Air. Contrast this with the same experience on iOS: there is no desktop. Instead, there are a series of Apps. I swipe my finger left or right, tap the Squarespace app, and start typing. When I'm done, the app publishes it to the web. (I am assuming I could also use Safari on the iPad to post this article, but why would I do that when there is a standalone app for just that purpose?)

Strategy

So both companies have devised a strategy that plays to their strengths and accomplishes their long-term vision for the future. Microsoft vision is that everyone will use a Surface. Apple's vision is that everyone will use an iPad, and some people, who really need them, will buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

It's worth noting what my teacher said in the early 90's. She said, with a measure of confidence, that eventually IBM and Apple were going to merge and we'd all use exactly the same computer running exactly the same software. It's not worth noting because she was right, but because she was exactly wrong.

In fact, 25 years later, we are still using different devices and different platforms. Competition is here to stay. And not only that, but the three major players (Microsoft, Apple, and Google) in todays hardware and software games are doing now what Apple was already doing then: creating integrated hardware and software solutions.

So who wins this time around? Who knows. Maybe both.

Or maybe it just depends on what kind of car you want to drive.

““Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!””

Several years ago I decided that I wanted to build a very small retaining wall (literally about four feet wide by three feet high) to prevent some water and dirt that was being washed down the slope of my yard from going into the door of my basement. The current solution was a bunch of rocks piled together, and I decided that I could make it look nicer by removing those rocks and making a nice little wall. Plus my wife was out of town, so I had some time to kill.

To make it even more appealing, there used to be a retaining wall behind the playground at the church next door. Unfortunately, the retaining wall itself had collapsed into the ravine that was behind both the building and my house. My first thought was, "free bricks!" I asked around and was told I could use them, as long as I could get them out of the ravine. No problem there, I thought.

I started the project with gusto, digging out the area where the bricks would go, moving the dirt to other places in the yard or putting it in the ravine, as necessary. Finally, it was time to start carrying up bricks.

Down into the ravine I went.

I grabbed the first brick that looked easiest to carry out, and I realized that it was far heavier than I had anticipated. This was going to be a one-brick-at-a-time process. I had to grab the brick, walk precariously up the incline along the edge of the ravine, and then carry it across the parking lot that separated the ravine from my house. Eventually I wised up and used my children's wagon for the last part–but it was only marginally helpful relative to the whole task of picking the bricks and getting them to the wall.

I remember standing there, looking at the half-a-wall I had built, sweating in the sun, and thinking to myself, "this was a big mistake. I'm going to die in that ravine, and there will be no one here to hear me scream."

The problem with being halfway through a project is that you've already put too much work in to go backwards; but you know exactly how much work is required to finish the job. You feel like giving up. The end and the beginning are equally as close. You're like the Israelites in the wilderness, thinking, "why didn't we just stay in Egypt?" It's discouraging. 

Thinking about that story reminded me of this verse from Nehemiah. Nehemiah goes back to his hometown of Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls. He has the backing of the King, but it's a big job. The King's resources that have been given to him aren't going to be enough to build a completely new wall, so he'll need to rebuild using the crumbled pieces of the old wall that are laying on the ground. The wall starts out as a salvage project; how much of this rubble is still useful? To make matters worse, he is using mostly unskilled laborers to do the project. They work hard, they want to get the job done, but it's beyond most of their skill set.

As their half-way through the wall, most of it still lying crumbled on the ground, the laborers, resting on their tools, wondering what they got themselves into, the antagonist of the story shows up. He's sitting on his horse, riding around the wall, looking down on them as they are sweating and starts laughing. "This wall stinks!", he says. "Even a little tiny fox could break this wall down!"

In that moment, that's probably how they felt. That's how everyone feels mid-way through a project. "This was so dumb. I'm never going to finish. I can't do it. I should have been done by now. What was I thinking anyway?"

And inevitably, that's when someone pops up and starts telling you the same lies. "You know, you could just give up if you really wanted to."

But don't.

No one has ever gotten any medals for a half-finished race. No one has ever been proud to have done a job half-way. No one has looked back on their life and been glad that they quit when things were half done.

The middle of the project is the worst place to be. But it's also the moment when you start to see the biggest gains. It's the moment when your wall starts coming together. When your antagonists and people who want you to stop start thinking to themselves, "uh oh, they might just get this thing done after all".

And then, before you know it, you're done.

I have no idea why two men would engage in a serious conversation without wearing pants, even in the gym locker room. I had to walk between them to get to my locker, an awkward, "excuse me" as I stepped between the two men. They were talking politics. They seemed to know one another.

I noticed that one of the men was sharing his views quite openly and honestly, seemingly assuming that those around him would also agree. The other man certainly seemed to, but he wasn't saying much. He was semi-agreeing as the man went on.

When the second pantsless man walked away, the first–the one who was the loudest–continued his lecture/dialogue with me. I didn't completely disagree with the man, but I didn't completely agree either. Nevertheless, in the moment, and largely because he had no pants on, I pointed out my areas of agreement and made my way to the shower.

When I returned, there were two other men talking. One of them may have been there during the first man's rant, and possibly joined in to the discussion at that point, but it's not really relevant. What is relevant is that neither of these men were wearing pants either, and I wondered if perhaps I was missing something? Nevertheless, I did more listening than watching.

Which, ironically, is when I saw the problem: neither of them were listening to the other.

The first man was on a rant about what he believed would fix the problem in America. The second man patiently waited his turn. He appeared to be listening, because that's what "waiting" looks like in a conversation. But waiting to speak is far different than listening to what is being said. When the first man finished his passionate appeal, the other man calmly asked a question, which, as an observer, was a significant check to the first man's opinion. Instead of listening and admitting that the second man had a point, the first man dug his heels in, tried to walk around the point, tried to ignore the point, didn't answer the man's question, and on and on the two pantsless men went in their deaf dance.

Needless to say, neither man saw the validity of the others point (even though they both had one), neither sought to recalibrate their opinion based on the other persons input (even though they both needed recalibration), and both of them reframed the other persons comments to make them look silly and foolish, rather than pointing out the areas of positivity and agreement. In other words, they weren't listening.

We humans (or perhaps, we 21st century Americans) have an extremely hard time admitting that we might be wrong about our sincerely held beliefs.

But admitting that we might be wrong is the only way to listen, and listening is the only way we'll actually start to be able to solve any of our problems.

If we are going to listen to one another, it requires that we are willing to admit that we might not have all the information, all the solutions, we may not have thought of everything, we may not have a universal perspective that allows us to see how things are at all moments in all times and places. But for us to do that means that we are willing to allow a challenge to our ideas; we are willing to talk to people who will push back not just so we can convince them, but so that we can hear them.

Maybe you've noticed, but Social Media is about telling, it's not about listening. That's surely fueled our propensity to ignore those with a different perspective and unite only with those who agree. We see something we like, we repost, share, like, quote, copy, whatever. We see something that we don't like, well, most of us just tell the author/our personal friend on Facebook that they are an idiot, leave a vitriolic comment, and the discussion is over.

Maybe I'm wrong–but I'd be willing to bet that if we all hit the pause button and tried to listen more than speak, and ask more than tell, we might find that we have the same goals, the same dreams, and maybe just different paths to get there. We're also likely to find that the right path forward is somewhere in the middle of our views–but we'll never find that middle ground if we don't start by admitting that we need each other to come up with the right solutions.

I write this as a person who cares much more for the “why” behind the issues than the issues themselves. I’ve said in the past that I’m not a “cause” guy. Some people get jazzed up about causes. Every week they have some new soapbox they want to stand on. That’s not me. Maybe I’m too skeptical/cynical (although I’d prefer to call it analytical). I’m interested to know why a cause exists in the first place–what are the underlying issues that we have to understand if we actually want to fix the thing we are passionate about?

The thing about the “why” is that it’s not nearly as exciting as the “cause” for most people. The cynic (analytic) in me would say that this is why we never seem to be able to solve our problems, no matter how excited we get about them! It’s easy to get people to a rally to protest police violence; it’s another thing altogether to figure out why that violence exists in the first place and come up with a plan to solve it. What is the reason for the violence? Why is there an underlying current of racism? Why are people in under-priviliged, minority communities angry? What do they feel that a person from a more affluent, white community might not ever feel? Those are difficult and complex questions that require thought, dedication, listening, and comraderie between people coming from different perspectives, but who desire the same outcome of healing.

Getting people excited about a cause, however, really only requires a couple of things. First, it requires a problem. It requires that something is wrong. It does not require that we can fully define what is wrong; it simply requires that we know, in our souls, that something is not the way it should be. Second, it requires a passionate leader. It does not require that the passionate person knows the solution; it simply requires that there is someone who will stand and declare, “this isn’t right”. 

And that’s it. That’s all it requires.

Do those two things, and you can get people excited. You can motivate people to move. You can press them forward. And the good news is that people like that make things happen. Sometimes it’s not the right thing, but it’s something. That’s why “cause” people and “why” people need each other. “Cause" people get stuff done quickly; “why” people get things done the right way.

As I sat down to watch the debate last night, I found that I was much more nervous than I had anticipated. I’m not entirely sure why. I find myself in a difficult position–like most American Christians–of having to determine where I stand on two highly flawed candidates. I’m fascinated at the rise of both candidates. 

Clinton, because I find it almost unconscionable that we would elect another Royal Family of Politics candidate–whether that’s the Bushes or the Clintons. How can it be that the United States of America, founded on the rejection of tyranny that stemmed from a dictatorial royal system, could end up being led by either a Bush or a Clinton for nearly my entire life. If Hillary Clinton gets elected, that means that from 1988, all the way until potentially 2024, we will have had a President with the last name of Clinton or Bush with the exception of our current president, Barack Obama. 28 out of 36 years, effectively led by the same two families. Clinton's politics aside, that blows my mind.

On the other hand, prior to last night’s debate, I found Trump’s rise to the candidacy to be almost as equally baffling, although less so than Clinton's. Trump caught the Republican establishment as they were setting the cruise control–probably to destination Jeb Bush, they themselves getting ready to coronate their own Royal Family–but even if they expected a different outcome, it was pretty much same old same old. Nothing exciting to see here. We’ll pick a guy, hire the focus groups, say the things we need to say, reach out to the proper voting blocs, and call it a day. It will be a “referendum”.

What they didn’t anticipate was a) that people felt like the problem was bigger than they did and b) a candidate that was passionate about what he was saying, even if some of what he said was ludicrous. And that candidate was Donald Trump.

A lot of the debate last night was difficult to watch. Clinton because she was so painfully aware of the “right things to say”, so political in her approach, smugly doing a “wink wink nudge nudge” to all of the real intellectuals who were laughing with her at the dolt on the stage. Trump because he played right into the stereotype, lock, stock, and barrel (Gun reference intended).

That’s not to say that Trump is actually dumb. That’s part of what is fascinating. There are a lot of people who think he’s dumb, which is why they mock him and are constantly shocked that he won’t go away. But much of what he says has a kernel of truth, even if it’s said in such a blundered way that it’s difficult to see what’s underneath. He clearly isn’t good at articulating his ideas in the moment. He clearly is not a practiced orator. He clearly has little to no concern about how his comments come across, even if he doesn’t mean them, and if he does mean them, that is an even bigger problem. But he has something that Clinton doesn’t have, and I saw it last night for the first time, and it’s the reason this race is in a dead heat when all the pundits and watchers and smart people of the world say that Clinton should be winning handidly. What is it?

Passion.

I recalled a story as I was watching the debate about when Benjamin Franklin (if I remember correctly) went to go listen to George Whitfield, the fiery Methodist preacher. Franklin was not a religious man, and he was once asked why he went to go listen to George Whitfield when he didn’t believe much or anything about what he was saying. Franklin replied, “I may not believe it, but he does."

How do you rally people to a cause?

There must be a problem, even if it can’t be fully defined.

There must be a passionate leader, even if he doesn’t have all the answers.

You say, that’s crazy.

I say, that’s Trump.

Of course, the pundits today will say that Clinton won, and Trump dug his own grave. Clinton’s grasp on the “facts” was better. Clinton had more poise. Clinton hasn’t said the same amount of bone-headed things. All of that may be true. I’m just not sure this election is about any of those things.

I think this election is about people looking at our country and saying, “something is wrong”, and a candidate who is saying, “I’m going to fix it.” Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But as he reminded the audience last night over and over again, “She (Clinton) has already had her chance.”

That might be enough of an argument to win.

(And while we’re talking about passion–there was a candidate who would have soundly defeated Trump, in my view, and that was Bernie Sanders. Had Bernie Sanders been on the top of the ticket, he would be the next president. Why? Because the only way to fight passion is with passion–and Bernie had it.)

@mulderj I insulted. But reading after watching speech I couldn't believe that you twisted his comment as a massive insult of Christianity

— pete (@birdwatcher3) August 12, 2016

And I have to admit, he was right. I fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous, is never get involved in a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this... Oh, wait. That's from this movie...

The blunder I fell into was assuming that I could understand his intention without hearing his tone or reading his body language. In pre-marital counseling I often emphasize that communication happens primarily through tone and body language; the actual words we use only communicate a small fraction of what we want to say. How we say things is just as important as what we say. (This is the reason that discussions/arguments/disagreements on social media almost always end up in offense...it's just words, and most of us don't communicate well with only words.)

So let me just state for the record that Donald Trump was making a joke, it was clearly a joke, and the audience knew it was a joke. And although I never doubted that He thought it was a joke, it was clear from the context, his tone, and his body language that it was a very light-hearted joke, almost certainly made without any meaning behind it, and the audience thought it was a joke as well. I jumped to a conclusion that wasn't necessitated by his comments, didn't do the research I should have, and ended up overstating my point.

Having owned up to my error and overreaction, however, let me also reiterate what I think is true about what I wrote yesterday–and then get on to the post I was going to write today regardless. (The title of yesterday's post was originally, "How Donald Trump Just Lost the Election and What to Do About It", and I decided to leave the "What to Do About It" until today.)

1) The general argument in favor of voting for Donald Trump is still true, and I would support the logic of it. That is, that the nomination of the Supreme Court justices is so important to the future of our country, that one must not lose sight of how big a deal that is, even if the candidate who would appoint more conservative judges has serious flaws.

2) The general argument against Donald Trump also remains true, that the question comes down to whether or not his rhetoric and other ideas eventually overshadow the positive benefit of the supreme court nominations, so that even that is not a good enough reason to continue to support him. The overstatement I made yesterday was that I thought he may have reached that point; having watched the clip, I now disagree with myself.

It's worth noting that my intention was not to suggest support for either candidate. It's not on me to tell anyone how to vote. I think there are common principles that should guide each of us, and those principles may, at times, lead us to support differing candidates. That's fine. We can trust each other to prayerfully consider how we should make our decision, and then allow one another to be guided by our own conscience.

All of what I wrote yesterday, however, including the clarifications from today, were really only laying the groundwork for my main point: regardless of who wins, what are we supposed to do about it? Because evangelicals tend to vote republican, and also tend to dislike Hillary Clinton, I wanted to frame it in the reality that, like it or not, she might be the next president. What then? That's the question I set out to address.

There are several concerns that I hear from Christians as we move into this election season.

First and foremost, the concern that seems to be shared by almost everyone in America for one reason or another: we have two candidates who both stink. A majority of people would probably agree that one stinks less than the other, but I've heard from social liberals who think Hillary is too conservative and conservatives who think she's way too liberal. Conservatives think that Donald Trump is not a true conservative, and many are turned off by his rhetoric; liberals and progressives literally equate Trump to Hitler. Most people aren't thrilled by their options, and they are wondering what to do.

This is where the argument above that evangelicals often use to justify support for Trump should really be used in support of any candidate. Barring something unforeseen, one of these two people is going to be president. Your responsibility, as a voting citizen, is to choose the one whose positives are more positive than the other–however you define that. As a Christian, you may dislike Clinton's stand on abortion or the economy, but may strongly support her views on foreign policy. You may dislike Trump's morality or his rhetoric, but strongly support his nominees for the court or his economic policy.

There's a real danger when we stick our head in the sand and don't deal with things as they are. And in this case, "how things are" is that one of these two flawed people is going to be president. We shouldn't pretend that this isn't the case, or pretend that somehow, if we do nothing, or we don't vote, then it's someone else's problem. Do your research. Decide what you think is positive. Make a pros and cons list if you have to. And then vote your conscience. Because one of these two people is going to be president, and we still need to make the best choice we can, even if it's hard.

Second is the concern that's also shared by many people, but I've heard it more from Christians: what do we do if X wins? What is the future of our country? Often this question is couched in an underlying fear that if so and so gets elected, the future of the country is in jeopardy, or the future of the church is in jeopardy, or the future of Christian morality or ethics or freedoms is in jeopardy, or whatever. That's the question I had set out to respond to, so let me offer some comments that should put the Christian's mind at ease.

All of those things–the country, the future of the church as we know it, the future of Christian morality and ethics, religious freedoms-all of them are probably in jeopardy regardless. Let's deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it was. And reality as it is means that many of the things that we have grown accustomed to in the United States will probably not exist for much longer. Culture no longer holds to the Christian ethic. It's obvious in matters of sexuality, but it's also obvious in matters of the economy, and in matters of civil dialogue. Nations go through ebbs and flows, and none last forever as a "super-power". And what is religious freedom, anyway? No one can really stop us from worshiping, but is there any expectation that they will be so accommodating? Is there any expectation that churches will always be exempt from taxes or that charitable contributions will always be tax-deductible?

Most of the things we've grown accustomed to as American Christians are not experienced by other people in the world, and while we should be thankful that we've had those freedoms, we probably shouldn't expect them to go on forever. There, don't you feel better?

It sounds like bad news, but it's actually good news, when you can deal with it as it is. Maybe we've found comfort in those things for too long, and God is calling us back to finding comfort in Him. Maybe we've relied on a particular type of nationalism to keep us safe, when God said that he would keep his church safe. Maybe we've relied on a friendly culture to strengthen our churches, when God wants us to rely on the Holy Spirit to strengthen our churches. Dealing with it as it is means that you don't hold too tightly on to things you probably can't keep anyway, particularly when you are relying on them to provide you comfort.

There is a true comfort that we have, and in's the overarching truth that keeps us from being overwhelmed when we deal with things as they are: we have no reason to fear. The true church has survived through every single ebb and flow of culture, and it will survive through whatever is coming down the road.

That knowledge protects us from the fear that somehow, the future is outside of God's control. It isn't. It also protects us from the unhelpful feeling that the past was somehow better, if only we could get back to it. It isn't. What matters is dealing with things as they are, as best we can.

That doesn't mean, however, that we have to go silently into the night. In fact, quite the opposite. The knowledge that we don't have to be afraid regardless of what happens means that we can fight for what we believe is best for the country without the fear that somehow we're going to screw things up in the process–especially if we lose.

Jeremiah told the exiles and sojourners who were being held captive in Babylon to seek the good of the city and seek it's welfare, because when they did that, it wouldn't just be the city that flourished; they would flourish as well (Jeremiah 29). David talks about the protection of the city of Jerusalem in many of the Psalms, but his point is never the city of Jerusalem. It's always the temple. He prays for the protection of Jerusalem because he knows that if Jerusalem is protected, and Jerusalem thrives, then he will be free to worship (Psalm 122:6-9).

So here's what you do. Inform yourself. Care for the future of the country. Consider what is best for the country. Engage in dialogue about it. And then, when the time comes, vote.

And then, the next day, when you wake up, and __________________ is the President Elect, you pray for him or her, and you go about your day. Just like you did the day before. Just like you'll do the day after.

Because God is still in control, and you have no reason to fear.

Well, it's official. Donald Trump just lost the election to Hillary Clinton in a landslide. 

Okay, so it hasn't happened yet, but that great fear of the conservative, evangelical, right-wing, whatever-else-you-want-to-call-them party looms on the horizon: a Hillary Clinton presidency. It turns out that the only way for Clinton to win an election was to run against a candidate who was so bad that even the most staunch republicans couldn't vote for him or her. So that's what they did.

Trump has done a yeoman's job of digging himself a hole by saying things that ought not be said in civil society, but there's a reason that I think today marks the day that Trump jumped the proverbial shark. Up until today there was only one reason that conservatives, and evangelicals in particular, could vote for Trump, and that was because they felt like the alternative–and what was at stake if she was elected–was worse. The argument goes like this:

Every candidate is flawed, and yet we must vote. Therefore, we should vote for the candidate who is most likely to lead the country in a direction that we think it should go. Trump is flawed, and offensive, but at least he'll put constitutional/conservative judges on the supreme court. Therefore, I should hold my nose and vote for him.

In other words, the main reason that evangelicals and conservatives generally could still support Trump, despite his glaring flaws, was that there was at least one issue that was more important to them than his immorality, his glib tongue, or his dangerous rhetoric: the Supreme Court appointments that are almost certainly going to happen during the next president's first term.

The question, really, was whether or not Trump would ever say or do something that would turn off the evangelicals (in particular) to the point where they would realize that even the Supreme Court nominations are not a good enough reason to continue supporting this candidate. I think today is that day.

Trump has been pretty forthcoming about his views of religion. To whatever degree that deserves credit, I'll give it to him. But no one who is a sincere Christian believes that he is one, too, no matter what he claims. (In fact, it's far more likely that Hillary Clinton has a sincere, Christ-centered faith than he does. That's a pretty bold claim for which I have seen evidence, but am not going to go through the trouble of linking it here.) At least his honesty and authenticity about what he believes (even if it doesn't qualify as "Christian") mean that we know what we are getting. Even non-Christian people can, and almost always do, respect the right of Christians to believe what they believe, and at least this far in American History, have given them the freedom to do so. Yes, we have some concerns about how long that will continue (hence the importance of the Supreme Court) but generally speaking, most Americans respect Christianity and those who adhere to it.

Donald Trump just proved that he is not one of those people.

In speaking to a group of Evangelical Pastors in Florida...

Translation: "I don't believe anything that you believe, and I'm going to make a massive joke out of it, because I don't give a crap."

Let's just ignore his obvious misunderstanding of the actual message of Christianity, and start with the Trumpian/Cultural view of Christianity that he expresses in the quote: Christians believe in heaven, it is somewhere we should desire to go, and the way that we get there is by becoming good people. That's the cultural view of Christianity. Heaven is good, and good people go there. Bad people go to hell. It's terrible theology, it's inaccurate, but let's just start from that foundation that he, along with many others, believes that this is the fundamental teaching of Christianity.

The problem is that even if he starts from that perspective, he immediately mocks the whole thing by making a joke about how he'll get there. "Haha, you people believe in Heaven. Well, vote me for president, because that's the only way I'm getting there!" Haha. Hilarious. Because Donald Trump doesn't give a crap about whether he gets to heaven.

Which begs the question: if Donald Trump doesn't give a crap about whether HE gets to heaven, why is he addressing a group of people who genuinely care about whether the people around them get to heaven? And why are they listening?

Isn't that like saying, "hey, you all are pursuing something that I think is completely worthless. But vote for me anyway, because I'll make sure you have the right to keep on with this worthless pursuit! And maybe I'll get into heaven!" <wink> <wink>

Maybe I'm misreading the comment. But if I'm not, and if others have the same reaction as me, then maybe we've finally reached the tipping point for the Trump movement: the moment when Christians realize that they have to make a choice between more liberal supreme court justices, or a President who openly mocks their religion and regularly denigrates everything they stand for.

The conversation on the radio was about “identity”, but they didn’t know it. The hosts were discussing a famous female fighter who was struggling with what they assumed was depression. I don’t know all of the details, and for the sake of this post they aren’t important. One of the hosts finally weighed in on the situation, and gave his opinion regarding her condition, which is paraphrased above.

If only he had found the word “identity”, he would have been able to sum it up more succinctly. The woman he is referring to had lost her identity, and when it was over–in her words–she “didn’t know who she was anymore”. Not that she didn’t enjoy certain aspects of her life. She still loved her husband. She loved other things that she had done. She loved the sport she played. But she realized that her identity was so wrapped up in that one thing–being a winner; at the top of her game–that when she wasn’t those things anymore, she felt like she didn’t have any self-worth.

Her problem is not unique. Every single person has a primary identity, and secondary identities, and both are important. Our primary identity is the main thing that defines us and gives us a sense of self-worth. Our secondary identities are the things that may also define us and may contribute to our self-worth, but don’t carry the same sense of ultimate fulfillment in our lives.

All of us have a primary identity whether or not we know what it is. When it’s clear, we feel on top of the world; when it’s gone, we’re crushed. For this woman, it was being a winner and at the top of her sport. For others, it might be “daddy’s girl” or “workaholic” or “great athlete” or whatever. Those might suffice for awhile, but it’s nearly inevitable that at some point, those identities run their course and they can’t continue to provide us with the self-worth we had hoped. At some point, a parent might die. Or we might lose a job. And it’s a guarantee that eventually, our body will betray us and no matter how good of an athlete we used to be, we aren’t any longer. When those things happen we end up feeling like we don’t matter anymore; we no longer know who we are. In that moment we are faced with a choice: do I resort to depression? Or do I begin to define myself in some other way? What will be our primary identity going forward?

Having a chief identifier for our self-worth is human nature. We want to define ourselves. We want to stand out. We want to know what gives us worth. In biblical terms, the word we are looking for is “justification”. I know that I’m okay, because this thing–my primary identity–tells me I’m okay. I can point to that, and I like that about myself. The problem is that we try to justify ourselves with a bunch of flimsy objects that are all passing away–at best, they are fit to be secondary identities, but not primary. They can’t stand up under that weight.

When the Bible says that we are justified, this is what it is talking about. It is saying that we are okay, because we have been given a new primary identity. All of the other identities that we have are shifted to the secondary position; they aren’t gone, they aren’t unimportant, but they aren’t the chief thing that makes us who we are. They aren’t the things we point to to say, “we’re okay”. The new identity we’ve been given in Jesus is “son or daughter of God”. We are in Christ. We are new creations. We are adopted. We are redeemed. And a whole host of others descriptors for what we are offered when we begin to see the world through the lens of Jesus and put our confidence in Him.

The best part is that it’s an identity that can never be revoked. Nothing can change it. That’s what gave the early Christians the confidence to literally be plundered of all their possessions (Hebrews 10:32-34) because they understood that their chief identity was not in their “stuff” anymore, or in their reputation. You could take everything from them tomorrow, and they would be fundamentally no different than they were today, because you could never take away who they were in Christ. When Paul says that there is no “greek nor jew, male nor female, slave nor free”, he doesn’t mean that those secondary identities cease, he simply means that they aren’t the primary element that gives us our self-worth. You didn’t actually cease being Jewish or cease being a male. It was just a less important piece of who you were than your sonship in Christ, and not worth causing division over.

In fact, understanding ourselves through that lens of identity in Christ doesn’t diminish our secondary identities at all, it actually enhances them. It enhances them precisely because we are free to lose them. They don’t hold sway over us. We don’t need them to feel okay about ourselves. We can operate in the space of those identities without feeling like someone will crush our very soul if they are taken from us. The woman referenced above can still think of herself as a winner, or a badass, or at the top of her sport, but if/when that identity is challenged, her world isn’t crushed. That’s not really who she was, it was just something that was true about her for a time.

My secondary identities are my marriage, my kids, my occupation (pastor), my reputation (smart guy…hopefully), my gifting (good speaker and writer?), my personality (funny?), and other things. I might be tempted to stake my self-worth on my occupation, for example, but the truth is, I don’t need this occupation or this job to feel okay about myself. I’ll still know who I am when my kids have moved out of the house. And I also don’t need others to think well of me in any of those things to be okay. Because at the end of the day, God not only thinks I’m okay, but he really, really likes me. And that’s more than enough.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Romans 13:1-7

Paul writes to the people of Rome (the capital city of one of the most powerful governments in history) to remind them of their duty as Christians: submit to the authorities. He then goes on to put the Government’s authority in the proper context (given to them by the ultimate authority, God) and the proper parameters.

The first part of his argument is the reason that Christians have historically taken seriously their duty to be good citizens: God has put the government in charge, so the buck stops with Him. To dishonor or disrespect the government is to dishonor or disrespect God. Christians should *submit* to the authorities, with the exception being if we are asked to do something that violates God’s commands (something that, in this structure, they have no right to do anyway); Christians should *willingly* pay their taxes, because this is akin to financing ministry. (This doesn’t mean that we can’t vote for tax reductions or work to get them; it just means that whatever we end up owing, we pay with the conviction of knowing that they wouldn’t have authority if it weren’t for God and we understand that they are on an assignment from God that needs to be financed.)

The second part of the argument has to do with the parameters of the Government. Although there is undoubtedly more that could be said about the things the Government can or should oversee (that is, Paul is not necessarily giving an exhaustive description of the parameters), at very least it is absolutely clear that a chief role of the government is to carry the sword of God’s vengeance towards injustice and evil. The apostle Peter agrees that the role of the government is to “punish those who do evil and praise those who do good.” (1 Peter 2:14) Punishment of evil and praise of good also includes an element of protection as the the implicit rationale.

In other words, the mandate of the government is to *protect* our ability to do good by ensuring that evil is kept at bay. Christians should agree on at least that much. What we can humbly disagree on, however, is the extent to which the God-given mandate of the government extends beyond the national boundaries of the United States. 

First, through the use of the sword. Is the United States government obligated to punish the evildoers in the rest of the world, risking the lives of it’s citizens and spending it’s finances? Or does the mandate for punishing evil and wrong-doing end outside of the national boundaries of the United States and it’s citizens? Christian’s can humbly disagree about that question, although I would submit that they *should* agree that the answer is going to be needed on a case-by-case basis.

Second, through the call to protection. Is the United States government obligated to protect the people of another nation, by allowing them to enter into into it’s territory uninhibited, or by going to war with the enemies of a foreign nation who is under attack? What if doing so would conflict with it’s ability to protect the area and people it clearly has been mandated to oversee: that is, it’s national boundary and citizenship? Christians can humbly disagree about the proper response to those questions.

In both cases, we should remember that the vast majority of us are not called to make those decisions, so the best approach is to pray that the people who do have to make them are making the most God-honoring decisions they can as they carry out the mandate.

Yet here is something that Christians should be clear on: The Government’s role is *not* to carry out the mandate of the church. God gives a lot of commands to Christian people, and consequently to the church, that he expects to be carried out by Christians and the church. They are not mandates of justice; they are mandates of mercy and grace. Help the downtrodden. Work for the poor and oppressed. God calls weary people to himself; the church should be reaching out to those weary people to help. These are commands for Christian people in the church, who are consistently called to live as citizens of another kingdom altogether. To apply those commands to the earthly Governments around us is to misunderstand the role that God has given the government in the world. Protection from and punishment of evil are their chief mandate; figuring out how to have mercy in the midst of that as not as simple as throwing around easy Christian platitudes, no matter how passionate about them we are.

We ought to be careful that we don’t demand that the government conform to Christian ethics of mercy and grace and hold that up as their chief mandate. Although we are clearly not doing it with violence, when we do demand that the government conform to our ethics, we are unwittingly doing the same thing that many Muslim’s are doing by declaring that sharia law must be the rule of the land. Our intention is that *divine law* be enforced.

One day there *will* be a government that is tasked with carrying out *only* the mandate of the church, and Jesus sits on the throne of that government. But that day is not today, and America is not the church. The Government’s mandate is to protect their citizens from harm, protect their ability to do good, and carry out the swift hand of justice against those who would do evil. All Christians should pray that they fulfill that mandate well.