ShBlog

God the Tyrant?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:59:00 +0000

Christopher Hitchens

I was fascinated to read all the interesting stuff written about Christopher Hitchens on his recent passing. Hitchens was a renowned atheist, orator, hardy partier and all-around stick in the mud who died of esophageal cancer at the age of 62.

A number of evangelical leaders spoke highly of Hitchens, which gives me some degree of hope for him. But it was another prominent atheist, Richard Dawkins, who did Hitchens' final interview. After Hitchens died, Dawkins tweeted that Hitchens was the “finest orator of our time, fellow horseman, valiant fighter against all tyrants including God.”

This statement, the concept of "God as tyrant," caught my interest. I think the reason was the fact that I've gotten to know at least one other (not-so-famous) atheist fairly well, a friend who attended the youth group at my church when I was in high school. He later disavowed his faith.

One of the things that has so fascinated me about my discussions with my friend has been his perception of "God as tyrant." We read the same exact Bible, but my friend walks away with conclusions about God that just don't make any sense to me. He jumps on specific verses or passages and interprets them as God (if He existed) delighting in doing great evil to innocent and helpless people. I look at those same passages and see them as indications of how much God hates sin (knowing better than all of us, apparently, how destructive it is), how concerned He is about justice being done, how utterly holy He is, and how longsuffering (patient) and kind He is.

And I also look at the vast preponderance of Scripture that demonstrates how much God truly loves us, how compassionate He is, how patient, and how badly we wound Him ... or at least try to. And when I try to point these out to my friend, he dismisses them without a thought. He wants to focus on those few he thinks support his case that God is some sort of big meany in the sky.

Since my friend is an atheist, I'm assuming he does this to try and prove that if God did indeed exist, he wouldn't therefore be a very good God; and therefore, He must not exist. But I really am amazed at how much energy he spends, trying to prove not simply that God does not exist, but that if He did exist (as the Bible claims He does), He would be a tyrant.

My definition of a tyrant is a person who has the means to make others suffer, and who wields power over them for His own sake, disregarding them and their needs.

But the Christian worldview holds that God causes suffering to no one, that we have brought an immense load of suffering down upon our own heads because we have rejected the best alternative which God offers to us: obedient partnership with Him in living life the way our Creator designed and intended, choosing instead to follow our own sinful hearts.

While God does not cause suffering, does He allow it? (The distinction between the two, many think, is a moot point when it comes to an omnipotent being ... but I disagree. God may be omnipotent, but He chooses, in many, many cases and for all the right reasons, NOT to wield His power.)

Yes, He allows suffering. Why? So that justice might be done, for one thing. So that people would be disciplined and learn the consequences of rebellion and sin. So that they might be pointed a better direction. And so that, ultimately, His purposes would be shown to be right and desirable.

Jesus gave a very clear and compelling depiction of His Father in the parable which we call "The Prodigal Son." The father figure of the parable (which should really be called "The Prodigal Father," since the word "prodigal" indicates one who gives grace extravagantly) is anything but a tyrant. He lovingly allows his wayward son to choose evil, to squander his inheritance, to spit in the face of his father. After he is gone, the father prays and waits for his return. When he finally does see his broken son returning in shame, he picks up his garments and does something a dignified Jewish father-figure would NEVER do: he runs to meet him with arms open wide! He forgives. He rejoices. He kills the fatted calf.

What a tyrant! (NOT!)

So, I just don't get it. I don't understand how different people can read the same Bible and walk away with two totally opposite perspectives on who God is and what He is like. The only possible explanation is that we are reading the same material from two totally different mindsets, two very different interpretive filters.

Which makes sense to the Christian, to the one who believes. Scripture itself has a number of very interesting things to say about this phenomenon. For instance, 1 Cor. 1:18-19 says: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

The question is, why? Why are these interpretive filters so at odds? And why does God appear to claim responsibility for frustrating the "intelligence" of "the intelligent?"

I think that's a subject I'll wait until next time to tackle ... suffice it to say, for now, that I believe the answer can be found in Christ's parable of the sower and the seed. It goes to the reason Christ even spoke in parables in the first place ... because some types of soil are more receptive to seed than others.

The man who acknowledges his own sinful need looks at a holy and compassionate God and cries, "Abba, Father!" (Literally, "Daddy!") The man who persists in a desire to be his own God, looks at the same Creator of the Universe and cries, "Tyrant!"

Of course, now that I think about it, my own kids have said the same thing about me ... hmmm.

Favorite Christmas Songs of All Time: Joseph's Lullaby

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:37:00 +0000

As Christmas approaches, I love to reflect on what it all means for us, while listening to both new and classic Christmas carols and songs. So between now and Christmas, I think I'll post a few of my favorites.

This video sets scenes from "The Nativity Story" and "Passion of the Christ" to Mercy Me's beautiful and thought-provoking "Joseph's Lullaby."

What are some of your favorites? Post your links in the comments section and I'll happily play them.

Snapshot of a Day on the Internet (VIDEO)

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

God is using the internet to reach people for Christ! Yesterday, through the Global Media Outreach (GMO):

1,281,714 people visited a GMO evangelistic web site

134,187 indicated a spiritual decision (first-time or recommitment)

13,853 filled out a form to request follow-up

28,411 people visited a GMO Discipleship site

Think about this, in light of the largest evangelistic "crusades" of the past few decades. I think you will be encouraged. It's my privilege to serve as a volunteer GMO online missionary, and last week I shared encouragement and truth with my 1,000th GMO contact (seekers and new believers). What a blessing!

The Crisis from mike weimer on Vimeo.

If you are interested in getting involved, talk with me or visit http://www.globalmediaoutreach.com/.

Using the Internet to reach the world for Jesus: Global Media Outreach

www.globalmediaoutreach.com

Using the Internet to reach the world for Jesus Christ

The Northwest in November: Mushroom Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:14:00 +0000

We lived in the Northwest and dreamed about hunting mushrooms for 15 years before we finally got started.


Pretty mushrooms, growing by a walkway near the office ... but these ones I wouldn't eat, if I were you.

I am now sorry I waited that long!

This year and last, I've discovered the joy of fall mushroom hunting in the woods of the great Pacific Northwest. Every time we go out now, we discover dozens of species waiting to be enjoyed. Most of these are spectacular to look at, but I wouldn't try eating them. But there are others, which are as tasty as they are beautiful.

Supreme among these, in the fall, are the chanterelles. A typical two hours spent in the woods, hunting chanterelles, yields at least 10 pounds' worth (several grocery bags full). Chanterelles, which are typically golden in color (though we have also found several rare white ones, and others more of a brownish tint), go for $12-$20 per pound in the supers, so $200 worth of mushrooms in two hours is definitely nice work. (If one could call tromping around in the forest "work.")

Chanterelles are very easily identified, and grow in abundance. They range in size from as small as your thumbnail, all the way up to a giant pound-plus monster (easily twice the size of my clenched fist) which my nephew Kyle discovered during our last trip.

My nephew Kyle found
this monster chanterelle!

Sweet and peach-like, they are wonderful eating. The hardest part is the time required to brush them clean, which takes almost as much time as finding and picking them. (They have many crevasses in which pine needles and other forest flora and fauna love to hide.) Be sure to cook them well to kill any stray bacteria. (Did you know more people are sickened by the bacteria living on improperly cooked mushrooms, than by poisonous mushrooms?)

There are also two other mushroom varieties which I have enjoyed harvesting during the Fall: oyster mushrooms, and sulfur shelf, also known as "chicken of the woods." Both are varieties of "shelf mushrooms," which typically grow out of dead and down logs. I have found oyster mushrooms several times, usually growing on dead and decaying cottonwood. And I have found one lovely sulfur shelf, growing out of an old chunk of cedar.

It was a monstrous 3-pound specimen (see photo at bottom), but tender as cooked chicken breast. Sulfur shelfs are bright yellow sulfur-colored on the bottom, and golden (like a chanterelle) on the top. Caution is advised, because it's been documented that approximately 5% of those who eat sulfur shelf found on pine or cedar have an allergic reaction, usually intestinally unpleasant. For this reason we started with just a small taste, and increased the dosage after experiencing no negative reactions. We ended up eating three full meals out of that one mushroom, and all were quite wonderful. (We basically substituted the sulfur shelf for the chicken in chicken cacchiatori. It had a cedar-ish aroma but otherwise tasted just like tender white chicken breast.)

I've had oyster mushrooms from the supers, but those I have found in the wild are much more delicate. They have a nutty flavor which I really like. I typically saute them in butter or olive oil, reduced with a little sherry or port near the end.

2010's harvest of chanterelles.
My son Nathan (center) holds the
largest, and friend Ben Griffin (right)
a rare white chanterelle.

Chanterelles, likewise, are also wonderful cooked in olive oil. Add fresh pressed garlic, and kosher salt and ground pepper to taste. Boil off the liquid over low temperature, then sizzle them hot in the oil, adding a splash of port or fine, sweet red wine to finish.

Chanterelles have their own unique fragrance. It's very subtly peach-like, but they make an excellent accompaniment to almost any kind of steak.

If you need any sort of inducement to be my friend, this year I gave away many bags of chanterelles to friends and coworkers. Several bags I traded for wild-caught hake, true cod, and trout. This year we went hunting three times (three times as much as last year), and next year I am planning on going three times as much as this year! While the typical journey to our mushroom heaven (in the foothills of Mt. Rainier) is over an hour's drive, each way, I also know of a secret chanterelle spot just a mile or two from my home, and I have seeded the forests around our house with spores, so hopefully more will grow in the years to come.

This 3-pound "chicken of the woods"
(sulfur shelf) mushroom lasted
us for three full meals.

I've gone spring mushroom hunting twice now. My ultimate goal is the coveted morel, said to be the finest (and rarest) of all wild mushrooms; though I've had little success yet in finding other than false morels (verpa) and oyster mushrooms in the springtime. So, if you have any tips to offer on finding true morels in western (or I would also consider eastern) Washington in the spring (or possibly even Oregon), please post and point me in the right direction! (I might even consider trading mushrooms or homemade dandelion wine for good advice!)

Thanksgiving Top 10

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:04:00 +0000

In light of this week's theme of "Thanksgiving," here is my David Letterman-style Top 10 Things I Am Thankful for:

Number 10:

Great food. Mushrooms, cheeses, salmon and fine meats, wine and beer ... I will blog about it all, eventually, I am sure. Did you ever stop to think that God didn't have to give us taste buds?

Number 9:

Cycling and racquet sports. This is how I burn off all those calories after eating all that great food. Hopefully. I'm not the world's best cyclist, but I'm not bad for a 54-year-old guy who took up the sport only about 10 years ago. Mountain biking, road biking, cyclocross ... it's hard to decide which is the most fun.

Number 8:

Music. God also didn't have to give us ears. It's amazing how acoustic worship, in particular, lifts our hearts to soar before God's throne. I'm so glad I took up acoustic guitar when I was young, and added mandolin several years ago. I really enjoy playing on our church worship band and at World Vision and for special events, even simple things like Salvation Army bellringing! And I love to fall asleep to soft acoustic worship by amazing artists like Chris Tomlin, Shane Bernard, David Crowder, and so many others.

Number 7:

Literature and writing ... and the internet. All my life I've felt driven to write. I was blessed to get published, early in my life, and for the opportunity to write for great magazines and book publishers. I'm not Christendom's best writer, for sure (that was a bubble that got burst long ago), but I still really enjoy using and am thankful for the gift God gave me (even through simple means such as this blog) to communicate my heart and ideas to others.

And did you ever stop to think about what a huge blessing it is to be able to read? Without it, how would we access the dramatic, life-changing, hope-bringing impact of the Bible? Or put ourselves in wild and amazing places like Narnia? Benefit from the wisdom of saints and sages? Or even keep up with what's going on in the world around us? It's simply heart-breaking to think about all the people in the world who don't have this fundamentally life-changing ability.

Number 6:

World Vision ... not only are they an amazing, godly ministry saving lives and changing lives of the poor throughout the world, they have been a phenomenal employer these past 18 years, providing me with livelihood, an outlet for my triple passions ... for communication, technology, and being the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world! My colleagues there are incredible and God has blessed me so much through you!

Number 5:

I have three great churches in my life. My home church, Elim Evangelical Free Church, is an amazing oasis of God's love and renewal in the midst of a very secular and godless culture here in the Pacific Northwest. They are a very old church (about 130 years) yet it feels very young and fresh. They have a heart for the poor and for those who need to hear about Jesus, and are always doing something to reach out. They have talented and dedicated worship musicians and pastors, very friendly people, sold-out-for-Jesus leadership, and absolutely amazing groups.

Our favorite group at Elim is "Pulse," the young adults ministry which Darlene and I began 10 years ago next February. The young adults who are a part of Pulse constantly blow my mind. We are stimulating each other to love and good deeds and growing together in Christ. The future for these people and this church is so bright!

Two other churches I love: My amazing "home" church in Southern California, CBC. Their ministry in my life has been huge. And the last church plant my wife and I were a part of before we emigrated to the Northwest: The Journey.

Number 4

Friends and family. Especially my four brothers and sisters, and my two wonderful parents (who are both with Jesus now!). I come from a large family, as the oldest of five. My two brothers and two sisters and I are very close and we have been through a lot together. I so appreciate their love, their commitment to us as a family, and their friendship. They each have great families, are good at what they do, and I really enjoy spending time with them.

Friends are indeed an incredible blessing from God, and I have been blessed with some of the best. From longtime (since college days) buds such as John Veale, Dr. Kenneth Daughters, Dwight Warden and Sue Carson-Kimber, to current pals here in the Northwest like Pastor Martin Schlomer, Doug Ide, Gordy McCoy, Lars Passic, Bob Walsh, and many more ... I shouldn't even start naming because there are too many to list! ... I am so blessed to have a cadre of folks who "have my back." I know I can count on them for godly advice and help whenever the chips are down.

Number 3

My two amazing kids (and one amazing grandchild). Nathan and Mandy are the best kids one could hope for. They are kind, smart, talented, hard-working, and honest. I consider them both great friends and really enjoy spending time with them. Nathan and I survived several 206-mile bike rides together, and Mandy and I survived five countries (in two months) in Africa together.

And of course Annabelle (11 months) is the cutest grandchild one could hope for. She is obviously very intelligent and has a great sense of humor already. I love her (and both my kids, and the great spouses they married) endlessly!

Number 2

I will always be thankful for the love, friendship and partnership of my beautiful wife, Darlene. She is my best friend, passionate lover, the mother of my children. We have been friends for 38 years, married for 32, and I feel like I would be lost without her. I am so glad I met her (when I was 15!), recognized instantly what a pearl of great price I had found, and that she was willing to stake her claim with me and has hung with me through thick and thin.

Number 1

Above all else, I am thankful for my Savior, Jesus ... who took my sin on his shoulders when He hung on the Cross. He died for me so that I could live! He has brought hope, meaning, purpose, and uncounted blessings to my life. And I have the distinct feeling "We've only just begun!"

How Does God Define "Good?"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:42:00 +0000

I recently wrote about my GMO correspondence with a contact in India whom I called "Raman" (not his real name). I'm pleased to share that Raman has continued his correspondence with me, and has continued to ask very good questions. I think this is a good sign that God is working in his heart.

Here is another "tough question" he recently posed: "If a person is [a self-proclaimed follower] of God, if he serves God day and night but then treats his fellow man like a dog, is he a good man? Don't you think that it's better to help needy people than going to church or temple? Because I think humanity is the best religion. Serving people is the same thing as serving God." My response:

Raman, I think you've asked a wonderful question. I believe Scripture teaches that we as human beings have a somewhat innate yet very limited ability to judge goodness. We look at a person like Mother Teresa and we conclude, "She is good because she spends her life helping the needy" (a good thing, as most everyone knows). We look at another person (and there are a lot of them out there) and we conclude, "He attends church all the time and pretends to be good, but in reality he doesn't care anything for his neighbor ... so in reality he is bad, he is a hypocrite." Everyone intuitively knows this is bad behavior. We make such broad-stroke judgments of goodness and badness, based on the image of good which God has placed in us.

But the problem is that we don't judge perfectly, and we especially can't judge ourselves. We don't know the heart of others, barely even know our own hearts; and moreover, we hope that God grades US on the curve. The Bible reveals very clearly, however, that God's standard of judging goodness is wholly different than ours — it's a lot tougher. It may not seem fair to us, but He measures us against the standard of His perfect goodness and holiness. He doesn't grade on the curve.

Jesus said: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." If we're being honest, we all have to say, "Are you kidding? No way. I may be a pretty good person in my own eyes, but no way am I perfect. Even Mother Teresa wasn't perfect." And this is truth.

I recently took a test online (http://www.fbbc.com/messages/kohl_live_ten_commandments.htm) to see how I measure up against God's standard of perfection, the "Ten Commandments." The test goes through each of the 10 Commandments one at a time. Some are hard ("Do not bear false witness." Have I ever lied? Even once? Well, unfortunately, yes ... actually, many times.) Some seem easy at first ("Do not murder. Do not commit adultery") ... but you see how badly you have failed when you realize that Jesus defined murder and adultery a lot more strictly than we do (in the Sermon on the Mount he taught: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment."). To Christ, if you've ever hated someone in your heart, you have committed murder. If you've ever lusted after a woman in your heart, even if you didn't literally touch her, you have committed adultery.

Have I ever hated? Have I ever lusted? Sadly, yes. To God, goodness and evil are internal as well as external. He alone judges the heart.

I discovered after taking this test that, according to Christ's standard of measure, I've broken each and every one of the 10 commandments!

The Bible declares flat out: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one." The only exception to this was Christ himself, who the Bible declares sinless. God alone is the standard of holiness. Jesus confirmed this when someone called him "Good Teacher": "Why do you call Me good?" He asked. "There is none good but God alone." (He wasn't denying that He is good ... He was confirming that He is God!)

God doesn't grade on the curve. He doesn't look at Mother Teresa and say, "Yes, she is so much better than Adolf Hitler. Therefore she gets in, and Adolf Hitler doesn't." He looks at each of us and says, "There is none righteous, no not one." None of us meets His standard. We all stand condemned in the judgment.

This is a terrifying thought, but it is the truth from the Bible. But that's why the Gospel is called "Good News," because its central message is that, while we all deserve condemnation, Jesus came to pay the price for our sin. He took our imperfection on Himself on the Cross and put His perfection upon us. The Apostle Paul wrote: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

So the question is no longer "How good are you?" or "How bad are you?" The question becomes: "Are you in Christ Jesus? Have you received His forgiveness for your sin and committed yourself to living for Him?"

Indeed, the person who has done this should not be a hypocrite. Scripture teaches that the person who is "in Christ Jesus" is in the process of being changed by the Holy Spirit to be more like Jesus. Their lives should be a reflection of God's glory. They should care for the poor and love their neighbor. They will still not be perfect, but with the help of the Holy Spirit they should be walking the road toward God's standard of holiness.

Raman, does this all make sense to you? This is the message of the Bible, even though in some respects it seems to us counter-intuitive. It requires a great deal of humility, because it requires of us a confession that each of us has sinned and can never meet God's standard of holiness. But it is also incredibly freeing. Once you realize that you don't have to "prove yourself" to God, that He absolutely loves you for who you are, it is incredibly freeing. Personally speaking, my life has been so blessed since I discovered this truth at a very young age.

But we're never too old or too far gone to receive God's forgiveness. To the thief on the cross, who humbled himself before God scant hours before his death, Jesus declared: "Today you will be with Me in paradise." God is merciful and full of compassion! He wants to accept YOU.

Have you ever taken that step to acknowledge before God your sin, to receive the forgiveness in Christ's blood? I challenge you to do that today. Put God to the test. Tell Him: "I will do what you ask and humble myself before you. I receive Christ's forgiveness for my sin. Now prove Yourself faithful to me."

Please let me know what you think of all this. (And, for what it's worth, I think you are right on target ... the best way to serve God is by serving people! That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with going to church or temple, but it doesn't make you "good." God is looking for a heart of compassion. People who serve the poor are indeed close to His heart.)

Many blessings to you in Christ,

Larry

Hell? Yes

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:50:00 +0000

Well, everyone is all a-twitter about Rob Bell's new book on heaven and hell, "Love Wins." I haven't read it (yet*) ... but of course neither has anyone else that I know personally who has complained about it. So I guess I won't let that stop me from commenting.

Supposedly Pastor Bell gives people the impression that he is a "Trinitarian universalist," which basically is the belief (operating within an evangelical framework) that no one will actually (ultimately) go to hell. Not having read it, I'm not sure whether that's an accurate assessment or not of his views. But I do have a hard time with universalism (Trinitarian or otherwise) itself — reasoning as follows:

1) As I get older, I've noticed a tendency to "calcify" in my beliefs. I think we all do. That's why it's so much easier to stake a claim of faith as a younger person. And it's why older folks rarely get saved. (They do sometimes, but less frequently.) It's not because we old farts are smarter, or anything like that; I think it's just because our lives have settled into patterns. (I write as a 54-year-old, mind you. I have a whole half-century of calcification under my belt.)

Observing this general tendency leads me to believe it is less and less likely, as time passes, for people who have not yet seen the need to repent, to do so. Repentance means turning, changing. In John Bunyan's classic, Pilgrim's Progress, he describes how hard it becomes, the further you travel down a wrong road (after having branched off the straight and narrow at some unfortunate point), to turn back and find where you went wrong, and start over again. Repentance is always easier (and more likely) the closer you are to the point from which you went astray. The older you get, the further you travel, the harder it becomes.

For those of us heading toward the Kingdom of God, rather than away from it, I think this fact brings encouragement. But I fear for those yet unrepentant.

2) I know that it's possible to repent and turn to Christ even on one's deathbed. It happened with my grandpa, and it happened with the thief on the cross. But is it possible to repent at some point after death? The Bible gives us only hints ... no direct teaching ... that while it might be possible, it's highly unlikely.

1 Peter 3:19-20 provides one very intriguing such hint. It says that after "being put to death in the body and made alive in the spirit," which I take to mean after He was crucified but probably before He was resurrected, Christ "went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits — to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built." I've read several and varied interpretations of this passage, but I think the best is what seems to be the plainest, that Christ had some sort of communication with deceased people who were in some after-death state referred to as "prison." Probably that same place referred to as "Hades" (not hell exactly, but a precursor of sorts) which Christ spoke about in the parable of the "rich man" and the beggar Lazarus in Luke 16.

As we know from the scriptural account of the flood, "those who were disobedient" during the days of Noah were "eating, drinking and marrying," carrying on as if God didn't exist, as if He didn't matter, and as if He would never bring judgment for sin. (Just as so many around us today are doing!) They mocked Noah and the Ark, and ended up being taken completely by surprise by the Great Deluge.

The real question, I think, is: What was the nature of Christ's communication to them? What was the proclamation? What was the point of Him preaching to these disobedient spirits?

The whole episode reminds me of C. S. Lewis' brilliant little novel, "The Great Divorce." In a dream Lewis takes the reader from a limbo-like hell, on a bus ride to heaven, along with a bus full of other passengers. Each is given the opportunity to stay, if they wish. I don't want to be a spoiler, but the bottom line is pretty much that none do, at least that we are aware of, with the possible exception of the dreamer. Heaven is far too uncomfortable a place for those who have grown accustomed to the self-centeredness of hell.

The name of the book I think illustrates the very thing we are talking about. Like the diverging roads in Pilgrim's Progress, the reality is that the story of history is the story of the "great divorce" between good and evil. Some would have us believe that "all roads lead to Rome," that there are many ways to God. But Scripture teaches in stark contradiction to this belief that there is a straight and narrow path, trust in Jesus Christ, which alone leads to salvation and an eternity with God. All other paths spiral away into darkness.

So, if Christ was preaching to these spirits in prison, was He giving them an opportunity to repent? I have to think that must have been it. Else, why bother? What would be the point, to simply wag a finger at them and say, "See? Noah was right and you were wrong." They already know that, apparently.

And if Christ indeed preached repentance to these spirits, did any repent? Did any find freedom? We don't know. I hope so. Peter doesn't say.

3) I think the final stake in the heart of the universalist monster is the reality that we see in Scripture: The Apocalypse (which means "The Unveiling") reveals that in the final days of our history there will be a separation, sheep from goats. Those on God's right hand will enter the kingdom. Those on his left will accompany the devil and his angels into the everlasting lake of fire. Which sounds pretty darned (excuse the expression) final to me.

This is such an unpleasant truth but so starkly stated by Scripture that it cannot be else but true. People, says the writer in Hebrews 9:27, are "destined to die once — and after that to face judgment." God gives us grace and mercy for a time, space to repent, but the very process of living (and then dying) is itself a process of calcification, of confirmation of whatever choice or series of choices we make — choices toward God, as we are living; or away from Him, as we are dying. Knowing Him, and entering in to His Kingdom; or being commanded: "Depart from Me — I never knew you."

In conclusion, I agree with Rob that, ultimately, "Love wins." God has created all this for a reason, and were it not for the Cross, none of us would be saved. Scripture says that, ultimately, "Every knee will bow" to Christ ... and I hope the universalist is right, that every knee will bow willingly, in repentance and humility. The power of God's love is indeed incomprehensible.

But, as anyone who studies the attributes of God knows, while God is indeed love, love is surely not God. In other words, love is not all He is. Yes, He is wholly loving; but he is also wholly just, wholly sovereign, and wholly holy! He created us in His own image, as free moral agents. We can choose to live with Him, or we can choose to live without Him. I hope with all my heart everyone ultimately chooses to live with Him. But I also know that God's justified wrath against all evil will win out in the end. "Love winning" ultimately means that justice will be done, that the demands of holiness will be fulfilled, and that no sin will be tolerated before His throne.

*Post Script: Since writing the above, I've actually sat down and read Pastor Bell's book ... or at least as much of it as can be reach through Amazon.com's free preview. (Which is quite a bit.) And, I really enjoyed what I read, and it made me want to read more, so I'm sure I'll buy the book soon.

What I read didn't really answer the question I raised above (is he propounding universalism?) and I think in truth he probably didn't intend to. Like a good author, he raises more questions than he answers. He is obviously trying to get us to think, not just about deep philosophical questions and unchallenged opinions, but about the nature of God, and how there really is just so much we don't (and can't yet) know.

Have you read it? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Treehouse Update

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:14:00 +0000

On October 4 I posted a blog about a treehouse I am building in an effort to help overcome a disquiet (I hesitate to call it "a fear") of heights. And for other reasons.

A number of readers have asked for an update on how it's going. I'm happy to report that, from the standpoint of overcoming my discomfort of heights, it seems to be working. I find myself not sweating so profusely as I used to, while clinging to the rafters, some 22 feet off the forest floor. (Of course, the weather has been getting cooler each day!)

From the standpoint of the building project, things are also going well. I thought I would post a few more photos, below. You will see that the frame for the ground floor itself is nearly finished. (I have a little more support work to do among the joists.) After that comes the flooring and handrails around the edge. Then I will think about adding a zipline or two, and possibly a roof.

But now that winter is descending upon us, limiting my ability to work on such things, it may not be finished until spring or summer. But I will keep you posted on progress!


The view from the ground.

Another angle

Looking down from atop the access ladder.

The frame is slightly larger than 100 square feet (10'x10'). Nine large maple trees, all growing in a cluster, provide support. The frame is about 22 feet off ground level, on average. The forest floor below is covered with ferns and wild mushrooms (and now, maple leaves). It's a beautiful spot, and like Thoreau's "Walden Pond" I believe the structure (officially dubbed "Maplefort") will provide a nice retreat from civilization once finished!

Arguments for the Existence of God

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Occasionally I present on this blog interactions with seekers who engage me in my role as a GMO volunteer "media missionary." Today's exchange comes from a thoughtful individual in India whom I will call "Raman" (not his real name). He said:

"I have not yet prayed to receive Christ. I would like to investigate more. Does God exist? If yes, can you prove it?"

Here is my response to Raman:

Raman, I'm here to help answer your questions about Jesus. Knowing Him is the most important decision you could ever make. Please visit gospel.godlife.com to find out more.

In response to your question: There are two fundamental bases for belief in the existence of God: reason (natural revelation) and faith (supernatural revelation).

As regards reason, there are a number of solid arguments for the existence of God, which is why some of the world's sharpest minds (Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Johannes Kepler, and Thomas Aquinas are four examples who come to mind) have expressed a belief in a creator God. To name a few:

Cosmological - All that we see must be the result of an original cause. This cause is sufficiently explained by none other than God.
Teleological - The observed order, direction and complexity of the universe is best explained by a creator God.
Ontological - God must exist because our conception of Him exists. He is a being greater than which cannot be conceived.
Epiphenomenonological - The existence of spiritual attributes such as morality, beauty, and self-sacrificial love argue for the existence of a God who established these standards.
The anthropic principle - Suggests that basic facts, such as the existence of humankind which values the existence of God, in itself argues for that existence.

For further information on each of these arguments, I would refer you to this page on Wikipedia.

As regards faith, the Bible is a series of books, written by numerous authors over a period of thousands of years, claiming to be the inspired Word of God, which contains consistent testimony by eyewitnesses considered historically reliable, in regard to the existence and acts of a supreme God. This testimony is internally harmonious (in fundamental internal agreement), which in itself argues for its claim of divine inspiration.

There are also additional faith arguments, such as "the majority argument" (the majority of humankind believes in the existence of God, which must therefore be taken seriously); argument from experience (many millions of individuals claim to have personally experienced evidence of God's existence, such as answered prayer); and Christological arguments (e.g., the resurrection of Jesus Christ as an historically attested-test fact begs the existence of God).

The answer to the second part of your question ("Can you prove it?") wholly depends on your definition of "proof." For instance, if you demanded that I "prove" the existence of Julius Caesar, I would have to confess that I cannot. I firmly believe he existed, based on the historic testimony of reliable eyewitnesses. But I cannot "prove" it. Likewise, I firmly believe God exists (based on the testimony of even more reliable witnesses), but likewise cannot "prove" this.

Of course, the truly important question is: "If God does indeed exist ... then what are the implications of His existence on my life? What does He expect of me?"

For the answer to that question, I think we need an entirely fresh e-mail.

Is that helpful? Does it raise any additional questions which you would like to discuss? Please let me know, I would love to talk more.

How can I pray for you? Please write back. - Larry

World Pneumonia Day

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:29:00 +0000

This Saturday (Nov. 12) is World Pneumonia Day. I thought I would share the story of my own brush with this global killer of children, and also share this great, short educational video made by the people who sponsor World Pneumonia Day:

I would encourage you to share it with your friends. And if you would like to get more involved in fighting this killer disease, you can do the following:

Read my factsheet on pneumonia
Lend your voice to advocate for an end to preventable childhood diseases
Donate to World Vision's "Child Health Now" campaign

I distinctly remember being in the 7th grade. We were living in Norco, California, a wonderful little "artificially rural" town where there are more horses than people. We had nearly an acre of property, and a number of animals including a horse, a pony, a cow, goats, and many chickens. It was my job to feed the animals in the morning.

I remember one cool morning, standing in the tack barn, and thinking, "I just don't feel right? What is wrong with me?" I felt weak, and feverish, and had a nagging cough.

I went in and went to bed. My mom took my temp and called the school to tell them I wouldn't make it.

Over the next few days the hacking cough turned much worse, and the fever wouldn't break. I could barely drag myself out of bed. Soon my lungs were so full of fluid I was struggling to catch a breath.

My mom bundled me into the Ford Fairlane 500 and we were off to see the family doctor. He took one listen and immediately sent me to get my lungs x-rayed. Afterward there was a hurried, hushed consultation with my mom. When she spoke with me, I recall how frightened she looked. "They are saying you have pneumonia," she told me, "and they want you in the hospital -- now." She didn't even take me home; indeed we went straight from there to Circle City Hospital in Corona.

The next two weeks in the hospital were a blur. I remember lots of antibiotics, needles, an oxygen tent (which spewed cold, medicated mist) and a very unpleasant roommate whose normal home was the juvenile detention center. (He would sneak out of his bed when the nurses weren't looking and come over and slug me. When I complained, the head nurse came in and lectured us both sternly on how we were making life hard for the nurses by arguing.)

But at least that provided a great motivation for getting better and getting out of there as quickly as I possibly could.

I survived my pneumonia (as did several other members of my family, including my mom, who came down with it after I did). My wife Darlene (whom I didn't know at the time, of course) has also survived a bout with pneumonia. So we are grateful for all the options we have, as middle-class Americans, for getting care when we are very sick.

But there are millions of children throughout the world who aren't so lucky. Millions are malnourished, which means they don't have the strength in themselves to fight off killers like pneumonia. And their families (if they have families) can't afford, or don't have access to, the medicines and the technologies they need when they are in a crisis like the one I was in, when I was in the 7th grade.

So I'm grateful for World Pneumonia Day, and hopeful that we can all pull together to give that many more kids a fighting chance against this deadly disease.

Bullies - Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:13:00 +0000

In a recent post I told about lying in the hospital with pneumonia, when I was in the seventh grade, and subjected to torment by a bullying roommate who was on leave from the local juvenile detention center.

I don't know how many kids my age struggled (or struggle) with bullies like I did, but they were a ubiquitous (and terrifying) part of my youth. From the time I was about 7, to the time I was about 14, I was plagued by them. (It probably didn't help that I was scrawny and bookish, with thick-lensed glasses.)

Even though I am not the type of person who enjoys (or would ever start) a fistfight, I actually have gotten pulled into two fistfights in my life. Both seemed completely necessary in order to deal with a serious bullying problem. In both cases, I considered the boys I fought to be friends at one time, but for one reason or another we ended up at odds.

One, a young man named Paul, was severely abused by his father. After we entered junior high together, a friend of his (and earlier friend of mine) turned him against me. At this other boy's urging he began challenging me to fight, a challenge which soon became a very public everyday occurrence at school. For months I steadfastly refused, but the challenges grew as others egged him on. Eventually he began to accompany his challenge by knocking my lunch from my hands and smashing it on the ground.

Finally the realization dawned, as things continued to grow worse, that things would only grow worse if I didn't take some sort of action. So one day I acquiesced. We took our quarrel behind the boys' locker room.

Surrounded by a loud and unruly crowd, we squared off. He threw the punches and I focused on blocking them, which actually seemed easier than I expected, until he surprised me by kicking me in the groin. Fortunately it missed the intended effect, but the metal buckle on his shoe did leave a nasty gash across my thigh.

I put myself on guard against further surprises and eventually started landing a few fisticuffs of my own. I was holding my own against Paul, when we were suddenly interrupted by one of the boys' PE teachers, a humorless fellow who dragged us both (by an ear) into the principal's office.

Back in those days, corporal punishment was legal, and the principle wielded a large oak paddle. After lecturing us he asked for a volunteer to go first. Paul was terrified, near tears, and silent. Knowing that his father frequently beat him I actually felt sorry for him. So I volunteered. I bent over, took the three whacks, and discovered that (like the fight itself) they really weren't so bad as I had thought. (I'm sure the principal was going a bit easy on my behind.) I knew better than to smile too broadly, but I felt a great deal of relief as I stood aside and waited for Paul to take his turn. He burst into tears before the first whack landed, and was reduced to sobs at the second, and wails by the third.

On our way out, as he was wiping his face with his shirt and trying to recover, in a pitiful voice he asked me never to tell any of his friends what I had witnessed. I looked him square in the eye: "Never challenge me or touch my lunch again ... and I won't say a word."

Paul's friend, Casey, however, continued to grow in his antagonism toward me, and soon after this he demanded his own match-up. Like before, I didn't want to fight; I didn't believe it accomplished much of anything (other than getting us both in trouble), and I told him so. But he just called me various names reserved for cowards, and continued to push and antagonize.

So one day I decided to share my dilemma with my dad. (I was closer to my mom, and trusted her implicitly, but in this matter I thought I should seek male guidance.)

"What do you think I should do?" I asked my dad, after explaining the situation.

"He wants a fight," my dad said, "and like Paul won't leave you alone until you show him what you're made of. Sometimes you just have to defend yourself against aggression."

Okay then. (I don't think my mom was very happy with my dad for giving me encouragement to use my fists ... but she grudgingly let it be.)

So the next time Casey hassled me, I agreed to a fight. This time we scheduled the match for my front yard, after school. A crowd once again gathered to watch, cheering us on. I was slightly taller and heavier than Casey, but he was fast and wiry. We sparred for awhile, but it didn't seem to me like we were getting much of anywhere, so I decided to use my size to my advantage. Without warning I lunged at Casey and toppled him to the ground, wrestler-style, and had soon pinned his flailing arms beneath my knees. That left me with my hands free, and his face, which was now staring up at me, in horror, realizing his dilemma, was within easy and indefensible reach.

"Finish him! Punch him in the face!" the monsters in my front yard shouted with glee. I raised one fist high and he cringed, preparing for the blow.

And then I lowered it. I leaned near his face and said in a low hiss: "Like I told you, I have no reason to want to hurt you. Now why don't you just go home?" I then stood up and drew back, letting Casey go free without bloodying his face.

He pulled himself to his feet and I could see he was shaking. I half expecting he might start in again. But instead, this time he whirled about on one heel and ran off, alone, his friends now standing silent in my yard. I brushed the grass off my pants and turned and walked into the house. Only then did I discover my mom had been watching from behind the curtains. But she just smiled at me and said, "Why don't you throw those dirty clothes in the hamper?" then walked away humming.

These weren't my first or last experiences with bullies (I'll share more later), but these early encounters served to reinforce in me a few key principles. One is if you put your mind to winning a battle, even against a more aggressive opponent, it can be done. I realized that bullies are, most of the time, 90% bluster, and frequently themselves are tired of being the one who gets beaten up on. I suspect they feel the only way to overcome their fear is to prove to themselves and the world that they are indeed someone to be afraid of.

I believe we are called to be a people of peace, never aggressors, and ones who would turn the other cheek. But there are also times when we must pluck up our courage and defend -- our families, our neighbors, our country, ourselves -- against bullies.

I've had four other experiences with bullies, all very different than these two. In the next blog or two I'll share more.

How have you dealt with the bullies in your life?

The Key to George Is ...

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:39:00 +0000

This may be my final post (at least for now) in my series on miraculous answers to prayer in my life. Perhaps I'll remember something else later that might be instructive and uplifting. But this particular post deals with how God has miraculously answered my prayers ... through other people.

As lay pastors, young adults often ask my wife and I, "How can I know for sure what God's will is for my life?" Often they are struggling with an important life decision ... What should my major be? Where should I work? Who should I marry? Etc.

But when we sit down and talk together about knowing God's will, I try to emphasize that the most important things are not simply seeking God in the big decisions. Knowing God's will is a matter of understanding at any given moment what His best is for you (and those around you). I think it's as important (or more important) for us to hear His voice in the "plain and simple" ways, as it is in the big decisions.

Like simply sitting down and reading our Bible each day, or lifting our frustrations up in prayer and coming to understand through the resulting conviction how He wants us to be focused less on our own needs and more on the needs of others.

God's Word and prayer are two key ways He speaks to us. But I also believe God speaks to us through the people around us, assuming the Body of Christ is working more or less the way it is supposed to work, and those people consider themselves our brothers or sisters for the sake of stimulating us to love and good deeds (per Heb. 10:24).

Darlene and I have grown a great deal through participation in small groups at the three churches we have attended since we were married. One of the great things about small groups is that they are a laboratory for practicing the "one anothers" of Scripture, for speaking truth into each others' lives.

One of the young couples in a group we led at a church in Southern California had just come out of the Mormon church. We loved them dearly, but they presented a number of challenges, particularly the husband, who had received a seminary education from the LDS and had achieved a position of priest in that church's hierarchy. He was an extremely intelligent young man and had left the Mormon church upon receiving Christ as a result of a journey that began we he started questioning the various inconsistencies in Mormon theology he had learned during his education.

But despite turning to Christ, this couple experienced a number of struggles. The young man (whom I'll call George to protect his true identity) was having difficulty committing to his newfound faith. He had a tendency to keep one foot in the LDS world, and one in ours. In addition, he and his wife were struggling relationally.

We spent a lot of time and energy trying to understand how we could help them, as group leaders. One evening in particular, due to some things I had learned were going on in his life, I felt very burdened for George. I happened to be at a twice-monthly Monday evening gathering of small group leaders which our church called "Ministry Community." This meeting always started out with worship and prayer, and we were just getting settled down and ready to sing. I was sitting in the front row, with my head in my hands, and praying silently, "Lord, please help me understand what's going on with George. What does he need? What are the keys to George?"

Sitting behind me was an older brother in Christ named Bob. I admired Bob and often looked to him for wisdom and guidance. He had a casual way of speaking truth that always seemed to hit the mark.

At the beginning of the evening I had spoken with Bob briefly, exchanging pleasantries, but now both of us were preparing to worship. But no sooner had I asked the Lord, "What are the keys to George?" ... that Bob leaned over behind me and whispered in my ear: "The keys to George are ...."

At that very moment the music began and drowned out what he said next. He then leaned back and began to sing with gusto. I turned around and stared at him, dumbfounded. I knew that I had prayed silently and there was no way Bob could have heard what I asked God.

After the song ended I leaned back and whispered to Bob: "What did you say? You said something about George?"

"Yes," he said. "I was just thinking about George, the young man in your group. And I felt the Lord wanted me to share something with you.

"The keys to George are two-fold," he said. "He needs to take an irrevocable step of faith, to tell the world that he has staked his claim with Christ. He also needs to ask someone very close to him for forgiveness, and start anew."

I thanked Bob, convinced that he had truly spoken a word from God to me. But it wasn't the whole picture that I needed to see, before I could challenge George. I knew somehow I needed more.

That night I couldn't sleep at all. I stayed up, praying and studying Scripture and asking God to reveal more detail to me so I could deliver a clearer message to George.

It wasn't until early the next morning, nearly 4 a.m., that I suddenly felt I had the keys I needed. I was reading the book of Acts and realized the powerful an impact water baptism had on the early Christians. New believers were baptized to make a statement to the world that they were irrevocably identified with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. And I also came to realize that George needed to humble himself and ask forgiveness of his wife, to "start fresh" in his relationship with her.

I was so excited, once I felt I had the answer, that I simply couldn't wait to call George and meet with him. He had given me his number at the office, but I didn't have his home number. He had an ordinary 9 to 5 job and I knew there was little chance he would be there at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, but I thought perhaps I could at least reach voicemail and unload my burden. So I dialed his office. To my surprise, George answered immediately: "Hello?"

"George, it's Larry. What are you doing there so early?"

"Well, I've never actually done this before," he confessed. "But I couldn't sleep at all, and all I could think of was this problem at work. I thought I'd better come in and get an early start, so I did.

"But why on earth are you calling here so early?" he asked me.

"Can I come down and talk with you, face to face?" I asked. "I will tell you then."

"Sure," he said, and gave me directions.

After arriving, I got right to the point and shared my burden. I told George I was concerned about him and felt certain God wanted to use me as his brother in Christ to challenge him in a certain way. I shared how I had struggled all evening to figure out what that was, before I finally felt God had spoken, both through Bob and through my prayers and search of the Scriptures earlier that morning.

So I laid out my two challenges to him, but I could tell by his face that I was asking him to do something very difficult. "It's not a small thing for someone from the Mormon tradition to get baptized out of the religion," he told me. "My Mormon friends won't be happy about that at all. It might even put me in some danger." He didn't elaborate on that.

"So I'll really have to think about it," he concluded.

I agreed, having gotten what I felt I needed to get off my chest. "But please don't take too long to think about it," I warned him. "I really am convinced this is something God wants you to do, and soon. I'm afraid for what might happen if you put it off too long, or neglect to do it at all."

George agreed to pray about it and get back to me before too long. But I noticed, as we parted, that he hadn't said much about the second part of my challenge.

A week later, I had my answer. Or partially, anyway. George agreed to be baptized! (I baptized him soon after, in a joyous celebration in the back yard of one of our group members who had a swimming pool.) However, he said he wasn't quite ready yet to do the second part of my request -- to humble himself, to ask forgiveness of his wife for how he had misled the family and treated her, and to commit himself to being a godly leader in his family.

The church was very excited about George's baptism, and he continued to participate in our group, but some time later I could tell he was still struggling. One evening, as the two of us were meeting together, he confessed in tears that he had violated the sanctity of his marriage relationship with another woman. He was in pain and sorrowful, but it didn't take long to realize that despite his sorrow he was not truly repentant. He remained full of pride and excused his behavior by talking about the way his wife had treated him. It was really her fault, he insisted; she had driven him to do what he had done.

"George, it's not yet too late for you," I warned him once more, "but it will get harder and harder to do the right thing, the longer you wait. Remember that the kindness of God leads us to repentance, but the longer you wait the harder it will become to turn around, and the consequences for your sin will be severe. You can see already how much more difficult it will be to confess and make it right now, than it would have been a few months ago when we first discussed this."

George agreed with me -- but still couldn't bring himself to repent. He continued his downward slide, and eventually he and his wife were divorced, and the family torn apart. The effect on their beautiful children was devastating, as divorce always is. How I wish he had heeded the second part of God's message to him, and repented!

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg Door, an act of faith and truth-telling which gave rise to the Protestant Reformation. One of those key principles he taught is called "Sola Scriptura," or "Scripture alone." Unlike our Mormon friends, authentic Christians believe that Scripture alone is the basis for God speaking His truth into our lives. Had the message that Bob delivered to me, or that I in turn delivered to George, contradicted Scripture in any way, we would have been guilty of more than simply speaking out of turn. But as Christians we do believe that God uses other members of the Body to challenge and speak truth to us in ways that, if consistent with Scripture, can provide guidance and direction that helps us to fulfill His purposes and function more effectively together as the Body of Christ.

I appreciate being surrounded by brothers and sisters who seek to speak God's truth into my life, and are open as I seek to do the same for them. We have the grave responsibility of representing Christ to each other, and we need each other desperately as we seek together to become more like Jesus.

How have you heard God speak into your life through brothers and sisters in Christ?

"NO!"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:29:00 +0000

I have enjoyed this series on answered prayer. It's been fun for me to travel back down "memory lane" and recall all the amazing and miraculous ways God has answered prayer during my 54 years on this earth. (I will look forward to seeing what the next 54 years will bring! ;)

Most memories are enjoyable, but some still bring pain. This series will not comprise a comprehensive list of all the answers to prayer I have received. Some seem almost too mundane to write about (such as finding a lost contact lens, or being healed from an illness or injury). But there are several more such miraculous moments in my life which stand forth in my mind as a time when God really came through for me, in a way that He alone could do.

One such time didn't actually involve prayer, per se, but as you will see, it was miraculous nonetheless. Before we moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1996, I managed rental properties (on a part-time basis) for my father. He owned one home which we had rented to a large family, and it became even larger as extended relatives began to move in. At one point there were at least 10 people living in this three-bedroom house, so it was quite crowded. Most of the time they were what you would call "problem renters" ... paying late (or not at all), or trashing the property.

Eventually I had to have them evicted. Which took (thanks to the legal system in California) about six months. By the time they were evicted they owed more than $15,000 in back rent and damage to the property. (I secured a court award for the sum, but naturally I never saw a cent of the money.)

To make matters worse, the head of the household was the pastor of a church in the Pomona area. He and his wife (whom he referred to as the "First Lady") were a quite jovial and likeable pair, despite all the headaches of dealing with them as renters.

My "miracle" occurred on an otherwise ordinary weekday afternoon. I had driven my small, red Toyota pickup truck to the home to try and collect some rent, and parked face-in to the driveway. While at the door talking with the "First Lady," I was vaguely conscious that there was a new toddler in the household, a child probably only two or maybe three years old who was clinging to her legs. I guessed this was probably a grandchild. But, wading knee-deep in her excuses for not having the rent check, I wasn't paying thorough attention to him.

When it came time to leave, I was annoyed and distracted. I walked to the car, climbed in, slammed the door, started the engine, and threw the manual shift into reverse. I was just getting ready to stomp on the pedal and peel out of the driveway, when something happened which I will never be able to fully explain.

It was as if a voice exploded inside my head, commanding me: "NO!"

As I sat there, stunned and processing what I had just heard, I realized I hadn't actually heard anything at all. I knew that there had been no sound whatsoever. Yet the command reverberated on my nerves. My brain was reeling from the impression that Someone had just ordered me to stop.

And not just anyone ... the sense of imperative, the absolutely authority behind that command, was what really had me stunned and startled, as I sat there with the engine running and my foot poised just above the gas pedal.

So, moving my trembling foot carefully upon the brake, I took the car out of reverse and into neutral, and pulled the parking brake. I opened the door and got out, engine still running, and walked to the back of the car.

That toddler I had last seen in the doorway was now sitting on my rear bumper, smiling up at me mischievously.

I felt as if I might swoon and it took me a moment to recover my composure. How close had I come to doing what I had done a thousand times before ... simply throwing the truck into reverse and roaring back down the driveway?

Tears began to stream down my face and I plucked up that now-giggling child off my rear bumper. I carried him back to the front door and knocked. The First Lady reappeared, looking very surprised and somewhat annoyed, but not sufficiently concerned ... until she saw my face.

I handed him over to her, a cascade of emotions (relief, anger, wonder, and gratitude) flowing down over me as I did so. "I know you believe in God," I said.

"Of course," she replied.

"You should be thanking Him right now. I know I am." With that, I turned on my heel and left ... this time inspecting the space behind my truck very carefully before I pulled out.

I've often wondered, with a chill, how different life might be had I not heard (or not heeded) that Voice. Different not only for me, but for an entire family that probably never had any idea how close we all actually came to tragedy that day.

Have you ever heard God speak to you in what was (or was almost) an audible voice?

Will Christ return? When and how?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 18:05:00 +0000

As a Global Media Outreach (GMO) missionary, I get asked some great questions by new believers or by those who are in crisis and seeking God, all over the world. (To date, in my four years of working as a volunteer with GMO, I've had the immense privilege of connecting with nearly a thousand seekers from most of the nations on our planet.)

I put a great deal of time, energy, and prayer into responding to these wonderful questions, so it occurred to me recently that I should share some of the better questions (and my responses) with you, here in my blog.

Therefore I am going to interrupt my current series on answers to prayer to profile a recent question which came from a brand-new believer in Nepal named Susan. (And please know that I am actually changing the names in order to protect confidentiality/identity.) She asked: "Will Jesus come again in this world? If so, when and how?"

I thought this was a particularly a propos question to address, seeing how yesterday was October 21, the day that nutcase fundamentalist radio preacher/false prophet, Harold Camping, falsely predicted (for what ... the third or fourth time?) the Rapture would occur. (Spawning, of course, thousands of scornful mockers who take advantage of the opportunity to make fun of the very idea that Christ is coming back at all.)

Here is my response to Susan:

Dear Susan,

I'm so thankful for the great news that you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior! Please visit http://m.godlife.com/look-to-Jesus for your next steps.

And I love the question that you asked: Will Jesus return? When and how?

The answer to the first question is a very definite YES! Read Matthew 24:30 (Jesus speaking) -- "Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory."

This verse (and many others -- see also Matt. 26:64, Mark 13:26, Mark 14:62, Acts 1:11, 1 Thess. 4:17, and Rev. 1:7) also reveals HOW He will return ... descending from Heaven, "on the clouds" and in great power and glory!

But, nowhere in the Bible does it specify precisely WHEN Christ will return. To the contrary, Matt. 24:36 (among other verses) teaches us: "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

The teaching of the Bible is therefore that the return of Christ is "imminent" -- it could happen at any time! Our job as Christ-followers then is to "always be ready" for His imminent return. Which is the entire point of Christ's teaching in Matt. 25:1-13, "The parable of the ten virgins." In this parable, Christ is the bridegroom and we, His Church, are those awaiting His coming. We are to keep our wicks trimmed and lamps ready, full of oil (speaking of the Holy Spirit, always empowering our witness).

As a new Christian, the Holy Spirit is available to empower you to help you live the abundant Christian life, in purity and boldness of witness. (See Luke 11:13.) But you need to "fill your lamp with oil" every day. So don't neglect to pray every day and ask to be filled anew with the Holy Spirit!

How can I pray for you? Do you have any questions? Please write back.

- Larry

Please check back Monday for the third installment in the "miraculous answers to prayer" series.

Saigon: April 1975

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:43:00 +0000

Does God still perform "signs and wonders" in the present day? I know that is a subject of huge debate between "cessationists" (who believe that signs and wonders were for the purpose of validating the Bible, and now that the Bible is complete, are no longer needed) and "continuationists" (who don't see a reason why God would stop acting now like He acted in biblical times).

And I don't want to waste time in a debate like that. But I do want to encourage you with my belief (and my personal experience) that God still answers prayer today, just like He has always done ... and sometimes that answer takes a very miraculous form.

In my last two blogs I've shared about how God rescued me, miraculously, from what could have been a very dire outcome of a bad mountainbiking accident; and about how God reached down and touched a Muslim taxi driver in Trinidad, miraculously, giving him a reason to pay close attention to the claims of the Gospel.

But sometimes the miracles that make an impact on my life are second-hand. When I was attending college at Biola University I met a young man named Ha Jimmy in 1976. Well, he looked young, but he was probably older than your average college student ... I would guess in his early- to mid-30s at the time.

Ha Jimmy had come to Biola through a very circuitous route. He was of the Hmong tribe which inhabited the inland mountains along the eastern edge of Vietnam. The Hmong presented fierce resistance to the encroaching communists in Vietnam, and Ha Jimmy had served as a high-level officer in their forces. It was while he was thus occupied that he encountered someone who shared with him the claims of Christ, and he decided to take the leap and place his trust in the Son of God.

Ha Jimmy told me some harrowing tales of the accounts of the Christians in Saigon, in the final days before its fall to the communists. When they knew the end was drawing near, churches began hosting spontaneous nightly prayer meetings. These meetings did not have scheduled end times, as our prayer meetings often do. People would just pray until they felt too tired to continue.

During one such prayer meeting, they were all praying and no one really had a sense of how much time had passed, until someone pointed to the east-facing windows and exclaimed "Look!" Dawn was beginning to break outside. They had prayed all night long and weren't even aware of it.

Ha Jimmy said that their prayer that night had been particularly sweet. They all felt strangely energized; no one wanted to go home and sleep. So instead, they began going door to door, visiting many of the people in the community around the church.

They encountered many sick and wounded. They offered to lay hands on them and pray. They were astonished to discover that, as they prayed, many of the wounded were healed.

At one home, he said the door was wide open and the people inside were wailing. They walked in, and saw the body of a young man lying on a bed. The sheets were bloody and the young man was strangely pale and still. They were told that he had just died.

Ha Jimmy said the group felt compelled to lay hands on the body, and so they did, to the astonishment of those standing nearby. He said they didn't pray specifically that God would raise the young man from the dead -- they just prayed.

Suddenly, they felt him move, and heard him cough. They opened their eyes and saw that the young man was looking at them.

His family members cried out and fell to their knees in astonishment. "What should we do?" they cried out.

Ha Jimmy said all he could think to tell them were the words of Paul and Silas in Acts 16:31 -- "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved ... you and your entire household." He said the entire family prayed to receive Christ that day.

Several days later, Ha Jimmy says, Saigon was overrun by the communists. Because he had friends among the American forces, Ha Jimmy was able to find escape, and came to America. Most of his friends and fellow churchgoers were not so fortunate. He believes that most of them were probably killed when the Communists overthrew Saigon.

Ha Jimmy was a quiet and assuming man, not given to exaggeration, so his story made a deep impression on me. I've always wondered whether, if placed in his circumstance, you and I might experience something similar. A life lived on the knife's edge of survival is a life where there are fewer obstacles to seeing God intervene in dramatic ways.

A Miraculous Answer to Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:01:00 +0000

I recently promised that I would start writing down here some of the stories that I share with Pulse, our church's young adults group, that revolve around my experiences with prayer and God's miraculous provision during the years.

Today I want to share what is one of my earliest and most dramatic answers to prayer that I have witnessed. I think in many ways it is a perfect example of how God loves to work in ways that "confound the wise."

A "maxi taxi" minibus in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

In the summer of 1978, I traveled with more than 90 other students of Biola University on a short-term missions trip to the island of Trinidad. Trinidad is the southernmost of the Caribbean Islands, lying a mere 10 miles off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. The project, the brainchild of my friend, missions pastor Dan Crane, was called "Operation Jabez" and has been written about in Bruce Wilkinson's popular book, "The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life."

Trinidad shares government with the isle just north of it, Tobago, which is (with the exception of Barbados) the easternmost of the Caribbean Islands. We spent one lovely week "debriefing" from our two-month visit to Trinidad, on Tobago.

In Trinidad, we broke into teams of about 4 students each in order to take on different assignments and minister in different parts of the island. We were there to help the church do evangelism and outreach. I had leadership of a team including three other students and we were stationed in Trinidad's capital and largest city, Port of Spain.

Halfway into our stay, we learned that some of the teams were assisting the churches to which they were assigned in organizing an evangelistic tent crusade, "somewhere up in the mountains." Due to insufficient means of communication (no cellphones in those days, and no landlines where we were staying) we had no more information than this exactly where the crusade was to be held. But we really wanted to attend, and upon spending some time praying about it on the Saturday morning when the meetings were to start, felt the Lord urging us to strike out in faith and to try to find the meeting place.

This was not as simple as it sounds. We were on foot, the island is large (with mountains covering a swatch of the northern portion about 10 miles deep and 40 miles wide), and our only possibility for finding the meeting was hailing one of the many privately-owned taxis that prowl the streets of Port of Spain. So we hailed the first taxi we saw (which didn't take long, since at least every other car is a taxi) and the 4 of us climbed in.

Trinidad is a mix of two predominant cultures: Muslims (primarily from northern Africa) and Hindus (primarily from India and thereabouts). Our taxi driver was Muslim and seemed glad for a fare that included four young Americans. "Where to this fine day?" he asked us happily. Everyone settled in, then they all looked at me expectantly.

"Well, that's a good question," I admitted. "Here's the thing. We're headed for a meeting being hosted by Christian churches, to worship God and to hear more about Jesus. But we have no idea exactly where it is, we were just told it was in a large tent somewhere up in the mountains. We were hoping you might have an idea."

He gave us the strange look we certainly deserved, and laughed. "I haven't heard of such a thing. And I have no idea where it might be. There are hundreds of square miles of mountains here, and many possible roads which cross them. We could drive several days and we still might not find it." He looked back at me and waited.

"Well," I told him with a shrug, "the four of us prayed about it this morning. We really felt like God wanted us to go, and we believe you are the one to take us there. We will leave it up to your best judgment where to drive, and we will pay whatever it is worth. And we won't keep you for several days. If we can't find it by this afternoon, we will have you return us here. But we do feel like God will help us to find it ... through you."

He laughed again, and shrugged. "If you're paying, I'm driving!" he intoned cheerfully. And with that, we pulled out into traffic, heading east.

Within 5 minutes, we came to our first opportunity to turn north, and into the mountains. "Turn here?" he asked. We merely shrugged. "It's completely up to you. We will agree to go whichever way you feel is right."

He shrugged, wrestled for a moment with the decision, then bypassed the turn and continued driving east. Another 10 minutes or so, and we came to another crossroads, with another road snaking north into the mountains. "Here?" he asked again. We shrugged. "Up to you!" He laughed and made a decision again, and continued east.

Despite the uncertainty, we were enjoying the journey, and enjoying getting to know our jovial driver. We sang together, and prayed, and remarked on the beauty of the countryside and its lovely people.

Another 15 or 20 minutes later, there came another opportunity to turn north. This time he took the initiative. "Okay," he said. "Into the mountains we go. I don't think this route will take us through to the other side, so if it's not here somewhere, we will need to turn back."

"Fine with us!" we told him. "We are trusting that God will work through you." He just laughed and shook his head. "Wait until I tell my wife about this one!" he said. We all agreed -- it would be interesting.

We continued north on the windy mountain road. There were a few opportunities for turns, and he randomly selected this direction or that, mostly just going straight ahead. The road wound and narrowed up the mountains.

Eventually the road neared to an end. "I think this is as far as it goes," he told us.

We turned a final corner ... and immediately ahead of us, in the center of the small town at the end of the road, was a large white tent. "This is it! We're here!" we all shouted excitedly, hugging one another. But our driver said nothing -- he just sat and stared at that large, white tent. His eyes went wide, and he had paled visibly.

The four of us laughed, and slapped him playfully on the back. "Wonderful!" we said. "We knew you could do it! Praise God, look how He worked through you to help us!

"We may be here for a few hours. Will you be able to take us back, or shall we call another taxi? We will pay for your time if you are willing to wait."

He shook his head no, and so I handed him a generous amount of cash and we began to climb out, thinking he was ready to leave. But suddenly he thrust the cash back at me, and spoke: "Excuse me! Excuse me!" he stammered. "What kind of meeting did you say this is?"

"Well," I told him, "it is a meeting about Jesus Christ, and how to become a child of God. There is a teacher here who will share from the Bible."

"I want to come find out about this Jesus," he told me, turning the key and shutting off the engine decisively. "May I come with you?"

We all surrounded him excitedly. "Of course! You are our guest." So he walked with us into the meeting, where they had already commenced worship. We enjoyed at least an hour of singing, and prayer, and an excellent message by a local evangelist. He sat silently and soaked it all in, but made no move when the evangelist invited people forward to receive Christ. After the meeting was dismissed, we all returned with him to his taxi.

After climbing in, our driver merely sat behind the wheel, keys in hand, thoughtful, making no move to start the engine again.

"So," I asked him, "what did you think about that?" For a few moments longer he sat in silence, as if wrestling with some inner struggle. Then a look of resolution came to his face, and he turned toward the four of us.

"I think I need this Jesus to forgive me of my sins," he told us. "How can I do that?"

So we prayed with him, right there in the taxi, and our newfound brother gladly accepted Christ into his heart. Then, all the way home, we shared together with him about the Christian life and about how God speaks to us through His word. We prayed and sang some more, and rejoiced with him. He invited us to come to his home in Port of Spain, every Saturday thence, for Bible study and prayer. And we continued, while we remained there, to seek to help him get to know Jesus better.

I know that he was sharing what he was learning with his local imam, who we frequently saw lurking about the bushes near his house while we were studying. After we left, each week, the imam would scurry in. I wish I had been privy to their conversation.

When we left the island, we committed our friend into the hands of the local Christian church we worked with there, a small group of believers who (literally) met in a chicken coop! (I preached there, our first Sunday, for an hour, amidst crowing roosters!) We continued to pray for him (and still do). I assume he has by now retired from his taxi business, and am hoping and praying that he and his family (and perhaps his grandchildren!) are all enjoying the abundant life in Christ.

This is just one of several firsthand experiences in my life of the miraculous power of prayer. I also have a great deal of secondhand testimony, from people I love and trust, of similar miracles wrought by the power of Christ. In my next blog post I will tell about meeting Ha Jimmy, who served as a commander among the Hmong mountain people in Vietnam's wild northern forests, fighting against the communists. Ha Jimmy told me of an incredible miracle that he had witnessed, firsthand, in the final days before Phnom Penh fell to the Viet Cong. So stay tuned!

How Foolish Is Prayer?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:50:00 +0000

I find paradoxes interesting. And here's one that is VERY interesting: There are certain things that have the feel of being cool, hip, "with it" -- but these are things that according to the writers of the Bible really are foolish.

For instance, atheists in our society are presented as cool, smart, and "hip" ...but the Bible says: "The fool says in his heart: 'There is no God.'"

There are other things that seem foolish to us. Last weekend I flew on planes from Seattle to Newark, Newark to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh to Denver, then Denver back to Seattle. When I fly I take one small paperback so I'll have something to read below 10,000 feet while we're not allowed to use personal electronics. I took a small book by John Piper called "Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die." Each of the 50 reasons are decorated with a large cross and emblazoned in large font, such as: "To Absorb the Wrath of God."

As usual I sat in the "B" seat between two other passengers. As I turned the pages of this small book I could feel their eyes upon me, no doubt evaluating what kind of grown man would be entertaining such "religious" silliness. I found myself fighting embarrassment despite knowing better. And thinking about 1 Corinthians 1:18: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." I forced myself to keep the booklet open and ignore the stares.

I think prayer falls into that exact same category. While most people believe in it and most people have done it, at one time or another, it still seems silly or foolish to see a grown person talking to an invisible deity. In large public events such as presidential inaugurations we embellish such moments with pomp and eloquence, in an apparent attempt to give the activity some dignity which it might otherwise seem to lack.

Christ prayed A LOT but his prayers were not full of pomp or eloquence. His were the prayers of a Child submitting himself to the wisdom and protection of an all-knowing and all-powerful Father. I love how He prays in John 11:41-42, just after He has had mourners roll the stone away from the tomb of Lazarus, a man who has been dead four days:

"Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." It is simple, trusting, talking to His Father about those who are standing nearby and listening. If ever there would be a time for pomp and eloquence, one would think it was when you needed to raise someone from the dead. But not here. Jesus ends His prayer with those words, then cries out simply: "Lazarus -- come forth!"

My most effective prayers have been like that. One or two desperate, very ineloquent sentences. In 2003 I spent the morning mountainbiking on the Angeles Crest trail high above the Los Angeles basin. I was utterly alone all morning, and loving it. I had a cellphone with me, but each time I had checked it, it had registered 0 bars. No reception whatsoever.

After three hours ascending slowly to a peak above what in wintertime is a popular ski resort, and taking in the fabulous views while I rested, I started zooming back down the trail toward home. But, perhaps half of the way down, I got careless. The singlewide trail had turned to asphalt, but it was rough. I came flying around a blind corner, doing maybe 25 mph, a severe drop on the left side and rock wall on the right, and suddenly saw in front of me a washout. I must have crossed it on my slow journey upward, but totally forgot about it. A more experienced mountain biker would have known enough to power through the washout, front wheel held high, but I panicked and attempted to brake. Without anywhere near enough room to stop, I plunged into the washout. At that point I tried to jump it, but my front wheel caught the far edge and I was flipped onto my face on the far side.

As I lay there, trying to pick myself up, I knew I was badly hurt. I had broken five upper teeth and torn an enormous gash across my face. I couldn't see out of my right eye. My left cheek hung flapping open, molars exposed on that side. In blazing pain, I could feel bone grating on bone somewhere on the right side of my face. (I thought my jaw was broken; later on it turned out to be only my cheekbone.) My helmet above my forehead was bashed in -- I'm sure it saved my life. Blood was streaming down my neck onto my shirt, and when I looked down I saw it was also pouring down my leg from a mangled kneecap.

My bike was completely unrideable, and I had no idea how far from help I might be, but I knew it was a long walk. But I really had nothing else to do, so eventually I found the strength to pick up my bike and started hobbling down the trail with it.

Something like 20 minutes later, the world started to spin and I knew I couldn't continue. I lay my bike down and sat down by the side of the trail. I looked at my phone for the hundredth time since the accident -- still no bars. Then I thought, foolishly, Why hadn't I prayed yet? If ever there was a time for it, this was it. By this time the realization that I could continue no further was heavy upon me. Without help I really might die there.

So, no eloquence in me, I lifted my bloody face painfully skyward and cried out, "Jesus, please help me! I don't want to die here!" That was it -- all I had. I lowered my face and looked at my phone again through my working left eye.

I saw the signal strength indicator was still at 0 bars. But then, as I watched, it suddenly but steadily climbed through all the options -- 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Full strength! It was as if Someone had simply thrown a switch.

I dialed 9-1-1 and counted the rings ... 20 of them. Then a man's voice answered: "9-1-1. What's your emergency?"

I explained my predicament as he listened. When I told him I was on the Angeles Crest Trail, he stopped me. "Angeles Crest? Where's that? Is that anywhere near Los Angeles?"

"Yes," I said, a chill running down my spine. "I'm northeast of Los Angeles. But I'm not sure how far. Maybe 50 miles."

"What county?" he asked, sounding incredulous.

"I'm not sure of that either," I confessed. "It's either San Bernardino or Los Angeles county. I think I'm somewhere near the border between the two."

"Wow," he exclaimed. "I'm in San Diego. I don't think I've ever received a 9-1-1 call from anyone outside this county. But don't worry, we'll get you help. I'll dispatch a helicopter from San Diego right now, then we'll start calling L.A. and San Bernardino County services and see who is closest to you."

We were soon joined by a dispatcher from L.A. County who transferred us to someone in the mountains near the Angeles Crest Trail. "Yes," he told me, "I think I know approximately where you are, or at least what trail you are on. Sit tight and we'll send a rescue unit your direction."

The dispatcher from San Diego came back on. "Okay, Larry," he said, "help is on the way. I'm going to stay right here with you -- so don't hang up the phone."

"I won't!" I assured him. But at that very moment, the line went dead. I looked down at the signal strength indicator. It was on its way back down to 0 -- where it stayed.

At first I felt another chill of fear run down my spine. Did they really know where I was? Could they find me in time? But then I realized, I wasn't asking the right question. Obviously, God knew where I was! Was I going to trust Him?

Twenty or 30 minutes later, I saw a cloud of dust rising, way down the mountain. Then the flashing lights of a rescue vehicle, bumping up the trail toward me. I was found!

It was a long and painful ride to the hospital, about an hour or so. They said I was in shock, but I improved after they found a vein, got some fluid in, then began giving me pure oxygen. They helped me ring up my mother-in-law, and I asked her, as calmly as I could (trying my best to talk normally through broken teeth) to have Darlene call me. "Where are you?" she asked, suspiciously. (That's a hard question to answer tactfully when you're in an ambulance!)

The rest of the day and into that evening I spent in an emergency room in Fontana, where I was x-rayed, cleaned up, and sewn up. The next day, miserably sore but happy to be alive, I was able to attend my daughter's orientation at Pt. Loma University in San Diego.

Healing up nicely, a week after the accident.

This is a dramatic example, but it's how prayer has been for me. (I'll share more examples in subsequent posts, so stay tuned!) God doesn't always answer the way I want, but He's always there, always meets me at my point of need. Prayer is therefore, as seemingly foolish as it might be, the most powerful and effective thing in my life.

So then, why don't I do it more?

Obviously, those occasional, serious, dramatic needs are great times to pray. It should be our first instinct. (I still am ashamed that it took me 20 minutes to even get the notion to pray.) And I know God wants us to pray over the simple things as well ... a lost contact lens, an interpersonal frustration, a fear that holds us back. A temptation that we struggle with. After all, what's small to God? (Everything!) What's big to Him? (Nothing!) We are all on a very level playing field before God.

As I've studied Scripture and watched how Christ prayed, I've realized the main power in prayer is not in having some 9-1-1 dispatcher in the sky. It's simply in having an omnipotent, all-knowing, and all-caring Father we can talk with, One who desires us to know one another better. It's building the relationship.

So, I am trying my best to do that every day, to spend some time praying and just expressing my heart, as ineloquently as it may be, to my heavenly Father. Will you join me?

The Shortest Blog Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:12:00 +0000

OK, this is going to be my shortest blog ever. And hopefully the most life-changing.

I will let it suffice to quote one of my favorite musicians, Mark Hall:

“This short documentary has totally rocked my world . . . I dare you to watch 180.”

On Getting High

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Okay, here I am, a 54-year-old boy, and I'm building a treehouse. Before I tell you why (and exactly what I am planning), I'm sure you are thinking, "That's silly. A treehouse? You are a grown man. You have no spare time. You are likely to fall out. And if you do, you will surely break something that can't be fixed. What are you thinking?"

Well, actually, that's what I have been thinking ... every time I work on it. And yet, still I feel compelled to continue. My tree house is out in the forest (from its perch, 20 feet off the forest floor, you can't see a single civilized thing). I am building it much more solidly than I ever built treehouses as a kid (buying real pressure-treated lumber instead of scavenging half-rotten boards from the dump; using real galvanized nails and joist hangers rather than tying things together with spare pieces of old rope and wire; etc.) I even invested in a climbing harness, so that in case I do take a tumble that would otherwise be 20 feet, I will merely injure myself by falling 6 feet and not (hopefully) kill myself.

So the tree house (level 1 ... level 2 comes later) will be 100 foot square and very solid. It will cost a few hundred bucks or so, but I can afford that now. And I have BIG plans ... ... including a quick escape hatch and a zip line for skimming through the forest at treetop level. A hammock for lazy summertime naps. 360-degree mosquito netting. Perhaps even a small firepit for evening warmth. (I know what you are thinking ... building a fire in a tree? Well, at least I'll have the escape hatch if things go desperately awry.)

So, why am I building it? My first excuses sounded like good ones: I have a granddaughter (almost a year old) ... she is going to want a treehouse to play in, eventually, right? Grandpa will need to have something good to offer to compete with Grandma's baking skills. I work with college-aged students. All the guys in the group are very excited about this project. (A place to get away, "no girls allowed," and talk about what really matters. Plus there's the zip line.) And then there is my nephew, Kyle, who has been helping me build. It's a great opportunity to get to hang out with him, he's a fun guy.

But even if you take away these "excuses" ... would I stop building it? No. So now the truth comes out: It's also for me. And the really crazy thing is, I'm terrified of heights. I just think about being that high, and my palms sweat. The climbing harness helps a bit ... I know I can trust it. But still, every time I get up there, hammer in hand, I can't stop my hands from shaking, and it takes an effort of will to concentrate on the task at hand.

So, I guess this is my way of confronting my fears. (Who knows? Next maybe I'll go bungy jumping.)

Okay, I'm not sure what the moral of the story is here. So I'll send this photo, taken high up in the tree. (Can you see the fear in my eyes? If so, consider these the "before" photos of what will later -- hopefully -- become a "before & after" post.)

We'll see if this therapy works!

It's Not About Me ... It's About How My Life Fits Into the Heartbeat of God

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:56:00 +0000

I am preparing to facilitate a series on spiritual gifts in our young adults weekly meeting time, which we call "Pulse." That really is an accurate name for what we are doing, as I am realizing that the focus of this series will in reality be the health of the whole Body of Christ (of which each one of us as individuals are an important part), and the life that flows through it. Our individual rhythms must bow to that supremely important, single Pulse.

Too often we think of spiritual gifts from a personal perspective. What gift(s) do I have, or wish I had? How come I can't speak in tongues? Why did I get stuck with an unglamorous gift like administration or the gift of helps, when someone else gets an up-front gift like teaching or prophecy? How do I fit in? Etc.

But as I am studying portions of Scripture relating to gifts, I am realizing how deeply the whole message of Scripture is reflected in these teachings. That is, it isn't about ME ... my wants, my needs ... it's about the Big Picture. The Body of Christ. The Church. The Kingdom of God.

How do spiritual gifts fit in? The teaching is very clear. Here are some important portions from Romans 12 (all passages quoted from The Message paraphrase):

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him .... Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him .... In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body.

Paul goes on to liken our role in the Body in terms of function (as related to giftedness) as the various body parts, working together. There are different parts; some are glamorous, some unmentionable. Working together, the Body is beautiful. But if it becomes all about the part, functioning on its own, apart from the Body, it's grotesque. 1 Corinthians 12 puts this very graphically:

A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together .... For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own.

Paul concludes:

By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which He has the final say in everything.

There is absolutely no way to take this scriptural teaching on spiritual gifts and make it all about me! It's about the health of the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God.

The big challenge and tension in my life is to remember this, to believe it, and to practice it. I realize that in everything I do (yes, even in this blog!), I am drawn or tempted to try and make it about ME -- my wants, my needs, my happiness, my wealth, my popularity. In reality, God calls me to be others-focused, to be Body-focused, Kingdom-focused ... God-focused. Die to self. Say no to Larry, yes to the Cross! God, help me, in my weakness, to do this!

Trust Vs. Proof: Survey Results

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:43:00 +0000

Last week I sponsored a simple, two-question survey on this blog. My purpose was to ascertain whether there was a correlation between people who say they trust in God, and those who say He has proven Himself to them.

Here are the results of that survey. Twenty-six respondents started the survey by answering the first question:

Of those 26, a majority (22) said they trusted in God (with trust defined as believing in his existence and believing what He says about Himself in Scripture is true). Not too surprising, probably, given the kind of people I hang out with, and those who are likely to read my blog.

The second question, "Do you believe God has proven Himself to you in some way?" was tackled by 20 of the 26 respondents. Once again, a significant majority (17) answered "Yes":

My hypothesis was that there was a significant correlation between trust in God, and God proving Himself to those who trust in Him. I believe the results of this survey (even though the pool of respondents is fairly small) bear out that hypothesis.

Finally, I asked those who answered "Yes" to the second question if they'd be willing to elaborate on their answer. Here, for your edification, are the complete and unedited text of all 14 comments submitted:

Through life experiences He has shown that He exists. This is secondary to the proof given in the work/life of Jesus, and the evidence demonstrated in The Bible.

Through the miracles of the human body and answered prayers

Not really any "defining moment".... I just know he is with me everyday and he has blessed me for my faithfulness.

He has proven Himself to me in the same way He has proven Himself in the scriptures, through physical healing, answering of prayer requests, giving me comfort and peace in situations where these attributes are not normally available, changing my heart to love others I could normally not love and I am continually being changed inside by His influence.

romans 1:18-20

The miracles all around me that I see every day! The beautiful sunrise over Puget Sound, the delicate pattern over the clouds in the sky, along with the human choclea and the platapus

Various lines of evidence, but the great questions in life are best answered, by a wide margin, on the theistic view of the universe.

I was born exactly two months prematurely. The doctors said I would be mentally and physically handicapped. This was confirmed when I was four months old and developed a severe lung infection and almost died. Yet by God's grace, about two decades later, I have a very healthy body and am excelling at university.

giveing peace in painful events

I've seen people healed of debilitating injuries. Most notably, I had a friend two years ago whose femur was broken playing football when our friend John (Who's roughly 6'6" and 300 pounds) fell on her. She was taken to the doctor in a lot of pain and, after X-rays, was informed that there was a large crack down her femur. The next day, a large group of us prayed for her healing. 3 days later, she went back to the doctor, had more x-rays taken as part of ongoing treatment, and it was discovered that the crack was gone and there was ZERO sign of any damage in her leg. She actually mentioned that one of her doctor's was *angry* because he couldn't explain how this happened. Personally, meeting Christ (That is, seeing his character and portrayed in the scriptures) has given me hope and peace that's overwhelmingly conquered fear, depression, and hopelessness like nothing else has.

When I pray, I get answers and blessings that are so cooncidential to what I prayed about, that I know it can only be from him.

Two examples, one mundane, and one more, um, extraordinary. First, intelligent design. When you look at the complexity of how all life is interwoven on earth, the sheer magnitude of diversity in animal and plant life, and how all of those interconnect, there's no way it could EVER have happened by accident. Maybe a few species might evolve to survive, but so many of the 'evolutions' are integrated and dependent on completely different species that it's just not possible for it to be accidental. The second was a car accident I was in when I was 16. Just as a car I was a passenger in (front seat) was going off the road and about to hit a manhole cover (raised about 2 feet above ground), I very suddenly went from sitting in my seat to being in a ball on the floorboard (a space not really big enough for me to fit), and I stayed there as the car hit the cover and flipped/rolled several times. After the car landed, right side up, I put my hand on my seat to push myelf up from the floorboard, and found the old school plus-shaped tire iron from the back (car was a Volvo station wagon) sitting on my seat. As I got out, I saw on the windshield where it had hit as it had come from the back - obviously with a great deal of force given the damage pattern - right where the back of my skull would have been if I'd still been in the seat. The car was demolished, but I got out without a scratch. Even the driver had only a few light scratches on his left arm and cheek from where he'd brushed the ground as the car rolled (his window had been down). We'd be going nealy 60mph when we went off the road. 1. There's no way I could have gotten on the floorboard from the time I realized we were going off the road until we hit the manhole cover - a space of less than a second. 2. My instinct would NOT have been to do that regardless, but to brace my hands against the dash, like people tend to do, or cover my head with my arms. But I recall thinking, "In an accident, you're safest on the floorboard" in that split second. I know that's not trues, ESPECIALLY when you're about to hit something. But I had that thought, and was there, in less than a heartbeat. 3. Even if I had the time and the room to fit on the floorbaord,and had overridden my instincts/reflexes, I should not have stayed there while the car rolled and flipped. 4. Not only was I spared injury or death, so as the driver. And both of us were spared the experience of seeing a friend greatly injured or killed. Instead, we both walked away from the experience in wonder, and in my case, not truly appreciating how amazing it was until later (after the shock wore off). Yep, God has proven himself to me. I don't know why He spared me that night, but He did.

As a thinking person, it is incumbent on me to consider the meaning and the origin of the experiences I have had that I would consider to be spiritual. I need to consider and answer the question of which model of the world my experiences best for into. Based on that, the framework of Christianity provides me with a model that explains the experiences that I have had in the most complete, cohesive, and clear way. In this regard, I believe that God has proven himself to me.

He has answered numerous prayers, in a way that I can only judge to be miraculous. For instance, I had a mountain biking accident in 2003. I was completely alone in the wilderness and had had no cellphone signal (0 bars) all morning. After the accident I tried hiking about but after a half hour was nearing collapse. I prayed, "Jesus, please help me!" I looked down at my cellphone and saw the reception indicator go from 0 straight up to 5 (the highest level). After giving a 911 operator my location, it went back to 0 and my cellphone died. But, a half hour later, I was rescued. He has also proven Himself by speaking to me, through prayer and through His Word, and through the miracle of an intelligently designed creation.

I appreciate everyone's great participation, and the encouraging responses!

Faith Vs. Proof

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:12:00 +0000

I'm having a friendly debate (on Facebook) with an atheist friend, whom I admire and respect a lot, but whom I am convinced doesn't really "get" faith. His basic challenge, in a nutshell, is that the burden of proof lies on "religion" to "prove" the existence of God (using the scientific method).

My defense is twofold: 1) You can't use the scientific method to "prove" historical questions. You can really only "postulate" that an historic personage (like Julius Caesar) existed, based on the preponderance of documents produced by trustworthy people claiming to be eyewitnesses. And the preponderance of those eyewitnesses to the existence of God (i.e., the Bible) is significantly greater than it is for someone like Julius Caesar. (And yet, strangely enough, I've never heard anyone challenge the existence of Julius Caesar.)

2) God does "prove" Himself, daily, to millions, through a) the evidence of intelligent design in creation, requiring a creator; and b) the personal experience of people who trust in Him.

This led to a discussion of the value of researching the correlation between people who say they trust in God, and people who say God has proven Himself to them.

My hypothesis is that if you trust in God, then He will prove Himself to you. And that if you don't trust in God, He won't. (This is a very clear biblical claim which I believe makes a lot of sense if you understand the nature of free will and faith. At any rate, it's evidently how God has chosen to roll.)

I'm not sure I can ever "prove" this hypothesis to my friend's satisfaction, but nevertheless I would like to conduct a poll. Here it is:

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Please check back next week on this blog for the results!

L. Ron Hubbard: The Myth and the Man

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:41:00 +0000

L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer
and founder of the Scientology cult.

Okay, I just spent a very entertaining hour doing something I really didn't plan on doing. First, I followed a banner ad on a website (out of curiosity) which led to a campaign website for the Church of Scientology. I surfed around a bit, and wound up watching the biographical (or perhaps pseudo-biographical) videos on the cult's founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The church describes him in glowing, God-like terms. It seems almost impossible for a single human being to have accomplished so much, with such aplomb, in a single human lifetime.

Check it out for yourself, if you dare: http://www.scientology.org/l-ron-hubbard.html

Then I thought, "Wow, he seems way too amazing to be real. Perhaps I need to fact-check some of the statements they made. I wonder where I can do that?" And I instantly thought of Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia is not always perfect, but it frequently errs on the side of giving all the perspectives that are out there. So I went to Wikipedia and read their lengthy and very well-documented account of Hubbard's life.

I was astonished, as I think you will be, by all that the Church's website had omitted, or cast in a positive light, or twisted in a seeming desire to explain the same events away.

I'll let you form your own conclusion. But for me, based on what I read, Hubbard comes as close to the embodiment of a true pathological liar of anyone I have ever read about. This experience gives me a new respect, if you could call it that, for the demonic forces that are apparently so driven to deceive people and lead them astray from the truth of God's grace and mercy bestowed to us through Jesus Christ.

The fact that there are people out there who would create a false religion based on their own made-up ideas and fantasies, purely out of greed and lust, is sobering. Don't they know they are playing with people's souls? Talk about having to give an account.

What is God?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 06:57:00 +0000

I heard a really interesting piece of trivia the other day. Did you know that the total weight of all the ants in the world equals the total weight of all the human beings in the world? And of course they outnumber us ... by a factor of a million to one. (Source.)

I always figured there were a heck of a lot more ants in the world than people ... but pondering the fact that there are at least 6 quadrillion (1 million x 6 billion) of these creatures on the planet, gives one cause for pause. When I first read that, sitting in my chair in my office at work, I found it hard not to visualize (with a shudder) a human-being-shaped object comprised of a mass of a million ants, legs and jaws interlocked, sitting in my chair in the exact shape of me. Then I thought of the approximately 1,000 workers who share the office in Federal Way with me. All those chairs. All those ants. Eeewwww!

Thank God most of those ants are (hopefully) outside, somewhere out in the woods, and not here in this building. Or at least not in my kitchen at home.

Something else I learned (here): Ants have the largest brains in the insect kingdom. This mass of one million ants has 25 times the total number of brain cells that you do. Something to think about.

So, what does all this have to do with God?

The other night I rented a documentary (made in 2007 ... yes, I'm somewhat behind in my reviewing schedule) called "Oh My God." The documentary maker went all around the world, seeking people who had an opinion on the question "What is God?" and giving them an open mike. The result was fairly predictable. There were lots of arrogant, uninformed, and truly crazy statements about God ... interspersed with lots of politically correct "God is in and between everything" kind of nonsense statements. It was like a colony of ants trying to answer the question "What is a human being?" with each ant giving its own opinion based on its own particularly slanted thinking or observations about the world. Only in this case, the result was even worse ... basically, just a lot of noise.

One interviewee said cynically, "The moment someone tries to tell you who God is, you should be very suspicious of that person." The implication was (and no doubt this is true in many cases) that people who think they can tell you all about God are only after money and power. They are like corporations, inherently evil. And of course the filmmaker drove this point home by including clips of some big-haired evangelists at their worst.

So, after an hour or two of this, I shut it off and started thinking, okay, what didn't they say?

And one thing they clearly didn't say was anything whatsoever that would have led one to consider the possibility that God might be a Person ... a Person who desires to reveal Himself to those He created.

For, if there is a God, doesn't that make sense? If (by definition) God created all there is for some purpose of His own, including us as the lone sentient intelligence (that we are aware of, at least) ... wouldn't it make sense that He would attempt to reveal Himself to us?

And, assuming that He was wholly other than us (different than, outside of what He has created), how exactly would He do that?

I believe that if you think along these lines, the message of the Bible begins to make much more sense. Think about the ants, for instance. Let's say you in your omnipotence created all these tiny little creatures for some overarching purpose that only you understood. The groundrules: You are by nature good, your love is effusive and perfect, and you therefore want the very best for what you created. You want them to fulfill that purpose, but because you created them like yourself, with free will to choose to do that or not, there is a real risk that they would choose to reject you, hence squandering their existence and sealing their misery. How would you communicate to them what you needed them to understand?

The Bible is unique among all the religious works of the world in that it is a large collection of books (66 in total), written by dozens of authors, over a period spanning thousands of years. It alone purports to be "the word of God," a message from this creator God to those whom He has created. If you study it carefully, for years, as I have, you cannot do anything but conclude that the fundamental message of those 66 books is marvelously unified and cohesive.

That central message is that in order to most effectively and accurate communicate to us ants what/who He is, God Himself became an ant and came to live among us. Jesus, the Bible says, "is the image of the invisible God." Christ says to His disciples, "If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father."

If the makers of "Oh My God" had interviewed any Christians in the making of their documentary, they probably would have received this very politically-incorrect answer to their question "What is God?":

"Look at Jesus. That's what God is."

But no, I guess that sort of comment doesn't pass the filmmaker's filter, for whatever reason. It clearly doesn't fit into their very obvious agenda that anything that smacks of "established religion" should be so thoroughly repudiated as evil. (Unless, of course, it's a religious system as sexy as Buddhism.)

So, let's say here I am, the creator of all those ants who are scurrying around and saying, "What is God?" and giving their opinions about what I am, and those opinions are by and large uninformed and absurd and reflecting their own agendas. They have ignored the messages I have sent in their own language saying, "This is what and Who I am." So then I've turned my own Son into an ant and sent him down to crawl amongst them. He is obviously no ordinary ant, living as he does in such a way to help the other ants understand as best they can what I am like. (Even now, thousands of years later, he is the most talked-about ant in ant history!)

I send him, knowing full well that in their fear and their ignorance and their sinfulness, those ants will ultimately tear my son to pieces.

And also knowing that this tragedy is the only way ... the ONLY way ... the truth will ever be known and any of them will ever believe that the only One who can tell us about God truly is God Himself. Turning to my son is the ONLY way any of those ants will ever achieve the destiny that I created them for.

Folks, THAT's love. I can't fathom it, because, frankly, I don't love (or even like) ants. (So maybe I should choose a different analogy? Aack, too late.)

I don't really understand why God loves us as He does. I don't understand why God loves ME as He does. But the Bible says it's undeniably true. God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son. You either believe John 3:16 ... or you don't. And if you don't believe that, you have a whole smorgasbord of ridiculous and uninformed notions about God from which to choose.

Pick your poison, but before you do, please consider the possibility that wisdom cries out for you to listen to God's explanation of Himself, before you give ear to the blather of self-important documentaries such as "Oh My God."

Wallace & Gromit, move over!

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:23:00 +0000

My friend Lindsey at World Vision had an awesome idea to help people who are struggling with famine in the Horn of Africa. Today through Wednesday, we are doing this "Social Media Moment" thingy where we are trying to mobilize bloggers and other social media users to spread the word and raise support for 12.4 million people who are threatened with starvation in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia due to a terrible drought, civil war, and recent sharp increases in the cost of food. More than 30,000 children have already died.

Lindsey's idea was to ask people to think about what in their lives they could give up this week, in order to enable them to text $10 to help famine sufferers (by texting the word FAMINE to 20222 on your mobile phone). We are asking bloggers to devote some space on their blog this week to their answer to that question. We are also asking Facebook and Twitter users to talk this up, using the hashtag #FamineNoMore.

Blogger Joy Bennett wrote an amazing and creative blog about this on the World Vision blog this morning. Included are all the tools bloggers need to chat this up, including a badge which automatically links their blog posting to Joy's. It's cool to see the rows of little icons representing the different and very creative bloggers who are writing about their "One Thing" that they are giving up this week in order to help make #FamineNoMore. (Hopefully you can look and see my little icon there too!)

I spent the better part of the summer of 2006 in Africa and really fell in love with the people I met there, so this crisis has hit hard for me. Therefore I've been thinking very hard about what I would give up. And to be honest, I'm struggling. I don't spend that much money each week on Starbucks (I make my own coffee at home) and don't usually go out to movies. Darlene and I do eat out a lot but weren't planning on doing that this week, anyway. (Plus, I already have a folder full of Groupon coupons which have already been paid for, for local restaurants.)

So I started thinking. What do I really, really love? And what do I spend at least $10 on each week?

Then it hit me: CHEESE.

(No!!!! My mind and my stomach is rebelling already!)

I know what you're thinking: Seriously? Cheese?!? That's stupid. Who spends $10 on cheese?

Well, just ask my wife. It's a fetish for me. I love to peruse the fancy cheese aisle at Costco. I've tried nearly all of them. Stinky blue cheeses? I'd happily use a brick of really stinky blue cheese in place of a bar of soap. Holy cow, stinking hot, BBQ Hot Wing cheddar cheese? It lights my fire. Yancey's with wasabi horseradish? Moishi moishi, come to papa.

If the moon was made of cheese, I'd go there. (Wallace and Gromit, move over!) New York, Wisconsin, Tillamook, Oregon ... I rotate through their extra-sharps, white, yellow or orange. The sharper, the better. (Sampled with a small glass of chianti or a nice chardonnay ... no, don't get me started on wines!)

But my all-time favorite cheese, I think, is a smoked cheddar. I bought an amazing cheese a few weeks ago. It was smoked over applewood, thoroughly infused, with paprika adding a little color to one side. It was AMAZING. This morning I ate the last piece for breakfast.

So, I was all prepared to head back to Costco and drop $10 on another brick. (Was it $10? I think so. I really don't care what it costs. As long as I have some.)

But then, gosh darn it, I started asking piercing questions like, "What do I love that I'd be willing to give up this week so that someone might have a better chance of surviving the famine?"

So, I'm doing it. I'm skipping Costco and avoiding the cheese aisle in their deli, at all costs. Hopefully I won't starve this week.

So here we go, pulling out the cell phone and texting "FAMINE" to 20222 ...

... I got an immediate text back saying, "To confirm your $10 donation to World Vision reply with the word YES. Terms at hmgf.org/t reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel Msg&Data Rates May Apply"

So, here goes ...

... my index finger quivers over the send key. Thoughts of smoky sharp cheddar dancing before my eyes ... but no, I can do this. I AM BIGGER THAN THE CHEESE. (Okay, I realize there's a double meaning there ...)

"YES"!

Well, if I can do it, you can do it too! We can lick this thing together. Cheese, or no cheese. (Oh, doggone it, I just used the words "lick" and "cheese" in the same sentence. It's going to be a long week!)