If you haven’t heard the beauty of this song, please see the lyrics below and let them inspire you to download or listen to the stirring vocals.  I think it’s one of the more spiritually and lyrically profound pieces of music out there today.  As one who’s found blessings and joy in the midst of trial and suffering, I can attest to the depth of God’s mercies in disguise.

Blessings by Laura Story

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It’s not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching(s) of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

 

In today’s world someone has to stand up for truth.

In today’s churches, someone has to stand up for truth.

Even among dear brothers and sisters unified in Christ, truth must be at the forefront, else unity is in vain.

One such quandary posed by my brothers and sisters is referenced in this blog post and essentially argues that the gospel should not be eternity-focused but here-and-now focused since God is not (as traditionally depicted) a God of wrath but of love, and that Jesus did not die as a sacrifice for human sin and guilt (what is called in seminary terms “penal substitutionary atonement” – the idea that Jesus was the substitute for our sin, taking the wrath and punishment from God that we were due, dying on the cross in our place to reconcile our broken relationship with a holy God).  According to the blog’s author, the Kingdom message of the gospel should not read “Life is short. Eternity isn’t” but “Life is short, live it.”

The point of the author’s message is that Christianity can become so eternity-focused that we forget about loving our neighbors in the here and now.  He says that being eternity-focused is not the primary message of Jesus:

“’Life is short, Eternity isn’t,’ isn’t the point!   Implied in this message, which sums up the evangelical gospel of the last century, is that the most important thing to consider when making decisions in this fleeting appendage of a thing we call “life” is how will this or that impact my destination after death?

This is so contrary to the way of Jesus, who turns that question on it’s head and asks instead, ‘How will this decision affect the neighbor around me?’”

While I resonate with the author’s heart in this matter, that Christians often ignore the needs right in front of their eyes and many have pushed the widows, children, and other marginalized that Christ told us to care for to the side (or worse yet, overlooked them completely), he obliterates his own argument by saying Christ really calls us to be “here-focused.”  He ignores the first commandment which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  He ignores the great commission to share the gospel in the name of Jesus.  In short, he misses the forest for the trees.

Absolutely the Kingdom of God is about loving your neighbor and caring for the least of these (read Matthew 25).  But it is also about adoring and worshiping a Sovereign God, even if you struggle to accept God’s character as wrathful and loving at the same time (you have to read the whole of scripture to get this one).  Both deserve heavy attention and intentional focus.  I write this blog to draw due attention to the latter since I hear so much of the former batted around in seminary circles, among friends in ministry, and many other social-justice-focused individuals.  The former has been emphasized heavily among those who have experienced poor, overdone, or misused evangelism.  The latter is often neglected because it can be seen as offensive or difficult or even inconsistent.  But leave out the latter, and all you have is a nicety, a service project, even a self-bolstering altruism.

The author of the blog refers to theologians he read while in seminary, who stated the gospel, as the author understands it, as the following:

“Our sins are committed, they say, against a holy and infinite God and therefore require an infinite response if God’s sense of justice and honor are to be met.    We, being human, could not and would never be able to satisfy that need of God (God is “needy”?) and so God sent God’s Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty we could and would not be able to pay.   Because Christ was duly punished, tortured, and executd, God is “satisfied.”   His anger towards us is softened, and now, we sinful humans can just hide  behind Jesus’ blood and all will be well for us when we die.   Those who do not hide behind Jesus, however, are subject to God’s wrath (which is eternal) and by default, subject to our (Christians) wrath, as well.”

The author goes on to say that presenting such a gospel is Christianity’s biggest mistake because it pushes people to make an eternal decision in such a very short lifetime.  The implication is this is not fair and does nothing to prompt us to love our neighbor in the meantime.

I appreciate the author’s struggle and willingness to type his thoughts out on a blog for all to see.  He takes his inner turmoil and places it on the table for discussion, so I hope he will allow me to intersect his writing with my own.

I find it interesting that the author of the blog, as well as colleagues and friends of mine, point toward the Protestant lens or (name your favorite theologian) thinking for shaping the way evangelicals communicate the gospel in present society.  True, each church stands on the shoulders of its theological predecessors, and no doubt modern Christians cannot separate ourselves from the Western ideology and mindset we were born into, but I appeal simply to the following:  the reading of scripture as divinely-inspired, Spirit-led, human-recorded truth (I realize I may lose some of you here) and the use of logic and reason (since God is reasonable; not irrational) in conjunction with a humble heart open to the Holy Spirit’s leading (wherever that may go, even if it makes one uncomfortable).  In trying to peel back from the lens of theologies and centuries of Christian thought, it seems the Bible stands univocal on the character of God as both wrathful and loving.  It stands on the idea of sacrifice as necessary for redemption.  Travel with me through some pages of scripture and you will see what I am talking about.  Whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox…the thread of God’s nature that is woven throughout the whole of scripture will speak for itself:

1)  Humans are guilty of sin.  See Genesis 2-3 and the Fall of Humankind.  Note the implicit details of the story:  God slaughters an innocent animal to provide skins for Adam and Eve to clothe their nakedness, which was exposed when they sinned against God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Note also that they incurred punishment for their disobedience.

2)  Are you sure everyone is guilty of sin?  Funny how sometimes we get prideful and don’t think of ourselves as particularly bad or even sinful.  God spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, saying “Yet in spite of all this (the sinful acts committed), you say ‘I am innocent; [God] is not angry with me.’  But I will pass judgment on you because you say ‘I have not sinned.’”  In Romans 3:23, the apostle Paul explains “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” and in 1 John 1:8, 10 John writes “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us…if we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word has no place in our lives.”  There is no one who is righteous, no not one.  “We all, like sheep, have gone astray…” (Isaiah 53:6a).

3)  Guilt means wrath.  The book of Jeremiah depicts this so exquisitely.  God commands the idolatrous, sinful people, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your hearts…or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it” (Jer. 4:4).  “And when the people ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ you will tell them, ‘As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners in a land not your own’” (Jer. 5:19).  Guilt. Consequences for disobedience.  Paul explains in Romans, “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed…for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger” (Romans 2:5, 8).  God calls His people to be holy (Leviticus 19:2), but every single person has disobeyed God (sinned) and is guilty before Him.  Those who are guilty are recipients of God’s wrath because they deserve it.  Yep, that’s all of us.  And yes, we deserve it.

4)  But I thought God couldn’t be angry?  Isn’t anger a sin?  Anger is not a sin.  The Bible actually says “in your anger do not sin,” (Psalm 4:4, Ephesians 4:26) and the gospels depict what some prefer to call “righteous anger” when Jesus turned the tables of the moneychangers over in the temple and accused the people of turning God’s house of worship into a den of robbers.   It is appropriate at times to be angry.  It is especially appropriate for God to be angry when He is jealous for your worship (which He deserves) and you devote yourself to something else.  “They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge me…they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law.  Instead they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the [idols]” (Jeremiah 9:3b, 13-14).  And so God brings destruction.

5)  Punishment.  The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a).  Disobedience leads to consequence.  “The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.  Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation’” (Numbers 14:18).  In the book of Hosea, we see God explaining through the prophet to the people, “Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool,” going onto ensure that “God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sin” (Hos. 9:7b, 9b).  Indeed, all the guilty deserve punishment.  Every mouth is silenced, and the whole world is accountable to God for their sin, whether they are a Jew under the Mosaic Law or a Gentile under the basic law of humanity (Romans 3:19).

6)  A righteousness from God has been made known.  There is a way that God’s wrath can be dealt with.  A way that His anger can be satiated.  The author of the blog describes this way as God being “needy,” implying it being a twisted logic that God would “need” something.  In reality, it is we who need something.  God did not need to make a way for us to be right before Him.  But God does work within a framework He Himself has set up—that of Law Given, Choice Given, Wrong Choice Made, Restitution Required, Sacrifice Given, Reconciliation Given Upon Receipt of (and therefore belief in) the Gift of the Sacrifice.  It is this framework that “needs” to be kept intact, or else God’s system is flawed.

7)  Sacrifice.  The answer is sacrifice.  “The righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.  He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:22-26).  “He became sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).   “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all…He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:6b, 12c).  “He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered Himself” (Hebrews 7:27b).

8)  Isn’t sacrifice violent?  Can a loving God be violent?  Yes.  Sacrifice is absolutely violent.  It is grotesque.  It is bloody.  And that is the sheer incomprehensible beauty of it.  God’s love met sin violently in the death of Christ.  “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows…he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by His wounds we are healed…he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.  He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:5, 7).  Jesus died a brutal death on the cross and also bore the weight of the sins of the world and the wrath of God’s righteous anger.  Did He have to die?  Yes.  So that sin could die with him (“the death he died, he died to sin once for all,” Romans 6).  Fully God and fully human, Jesus was able to bridge the gap between humanity and the divine, dying a real human death to sin, and divinely raising to life everlasting.

9)  What about the blood?  His blood was shed so that there could be remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22).  Just like the Hebrew people had to make sacrifices at the temple to atone for their sin, just like a Passover Lamb was slaughtered and its blood spread on the doorposts to protect the Israelites from the angel of Death, Jesus Christ had to shed blood in order to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, to protect us from Death (spiritual and physical).  Blood is not only part of it, but key to it.  The shedding of Christ’s blood was an outpouring of love.  Violent, grotesque, life-giving blood.

It’s amazing to me that we can watch movies like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and not question the violence and bloodshed in the process of a larger, unfolding event of supreme good.  The enemy has to die.  For Jesus and for our story, Death was the enemy.  Death had to die, then life be resurrected, and Jesus was the only one who could carry out such a task.  No wonder the narrative humans so often fashion in stories and myths is the triumph of good over evil; it’s engrained in us.  It is part of our being that we know God is mightiest and will win in the end.

It is not Christianity’s biggest mistake to discuss the wrath of God when presenting the gospel.  It may be one of Christianity’s biggest mistakes to reject it and supplant it with “God loves you no matter what, so do what you want; there are no consequences.”  Few things anger me more than to hear Christians boast only about God’s love, as if He were incapable of wrath or judgment, as if He were not holy to the point of abhorrence to sin.  Rejecting the character of God as both loving and vengeful broaches heresy as it not only rejects millenia of theological interpretation, church history, and God’s Word itself.  It is as dangerous as denying the human and divine nature of Christ or the triune nature of God.

I understand that many have been beaten over the head with the vengeful, wrathful God, but the two—love and justice—must be held in tension and in balance with one another.  It may be uncomfortable to realize God is Sovereign and doesn’t fit the mold we want Him to.  We don’t want to think that He could’ve ordered His people to slaughter every living Amalekite or that He could’ve held us in contempt when we were nothing but “innocent human beings who didn’t know better.”  We don’t want to think we couldn’t have gotten to Him on our own, without a substitutionary sacrifice in Jesus.  We don’t like thinking of God being that inaccessible.  (Maybe because it means there’s only one way back to Him).  But in submitting to God’s Sovereignty, you realize He is so much bigger than you thought.  And you can trust Him to be good and to have your good in mind.

Final thoughts…There are consequences for disobedience.  And punishment is a consequence.  Now, do you want to take on the punishment?  Or do you want to accept the free gift of the One who took it for you?  Life is short.  Consider the decision with the utmost care and urgency.

So, for those of you who don’t know, I am planning on walking/running (read: mainly walking) the Peachtree Road Race next week – my first ever 10K.  My first ever race event.  Really, it’s my first ever activity alongside other people of a competitive nature that has to do anything with walking and/or running.  The fact that it’s a 10K is just a little ridiculous to me, the most extreme of running novices.  But hey, I was extended the challenge and took it.

Since mid-April, I’ve been trying to prepare for the race by using a treadmill (pretty much for the first time consistently in my life) and balancing it out with the elliptical and stationery bike on the days I need less impact.  I’ve kept up my yoga to stretch out those aching muscles, and I’ve kept up with rock climbing because, well, I love it (mainly because it has nothing to do with running.)

If you know me, you know that I pretty much never run for anything.  I think I ran a mile during high school or college when it was required for P.E.  I ran down a long gravel driveway to someone’s house once when a car was stuck out front on their train tracks and it was a dire emergency to move it before another train passed.  Other than that, I don’t really have many recollections of running.  It’s just something I’ve never pursued or been interested in.

But running taught me something today.

First a little background.  For most of my training, I have been indoors at the gym and have only recently begun running and walking outdoors in the humidity.  The gym is great because I can time my workout around the 4-5pm hour of Friends and watch while I run, all with a cool breeze at my back from the oscillating fan.  If I get bored with the TV, I can watch the rock climbers and learn from them or poke fun in my mind (you know you would too).  Most of all, running at the gym is great because I don’t have to think about it – the treadmill is moving, so my feet are going, and I can zone out.  I can watch how many calories I burn and how many miles I’ve run, adjust the pace, and even measure my heart rate.  Granted, I now have an iPhone app that can do most of those things too, but running outdoors has proven to be an entirely different experience.

I ran outdoors for the first time a week and a half ago at my parents’ house in Tennessee, where the route was full of hills and the humidity was enough to make you choke.  I did 2 miles the first day and 3 the second.  This last week, I ran and walked almost 7 miles (my goal before next week’s 10K) close to my home.  I found myself running, jogging, walking, and in general just befuddled about how long it took me to complete the journey (2 hours).  I missed my treadmill and oscillating fan.

But today, I went back to that same trail, and I learned something about myself.  Instead of watching the numbers on the treadmill go up by the hundredth of a mile and knowing what I was capable of, I learned to pace myself in terms of distance.  It was hard.  I would start at one point and look forward to the point I wanted to reach, and something inside me screamed “get there!”  I found myself giving it my all and burning out quickly.  Then there was a clap in my brain that reminded me how long it would take me to get there if I was on the treadmill.  Pace.  So THAT is the key to long distance running!  I questioned this lightbulb moment, thinking, am I really running if I’m just bobbing up and down at 5 miles per hour??  Then, as if whispered from the trees, the phrase came to mind:  slow and steady wins the race.

Now, I’m not out to win the Peachtree.  (HA!)  But I am out to accomplish this goal of mine, that is, of a non-runner running and walking 6.2 miles in 80 degree heat and humidity with 60,000 other people who for some reason “love” the “sport” called “running.”  So, slow and steady goes it.  I found myself reaching greater distances, even slowing down on the declines to keep the same pace.  And I found that I could run much farther than I thought.

All this is probably obvious to most folks.  But for me, it was eye-opening.  I realized that I often want to “seize” things in life by running at them full force until I attain them.  Some call that passion, zest, or being feisty.  In long-distance running, I call it stupidity.  So, in my 5 miles today, I had time to reflect, and I learned that pacing myself might actually get me to where I most want to go in life.  I need only to take my time.

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way, not as without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”
1 Corinthians 9:24-27  (It may sound contradictory.. but it’s not )

i miss blockbuster.

i miss walking into the store at 10pm and being able to walk around and read the backs of the covers of movies i’d never heard of, rifling through the candy at the cash register, and marveling at the pop-in-the-bucket popcorn.

mostly i just miss having the flexibility to make a spontaneous movie rental.  :/

nowadays, you have to go through streaming netflix, or mailorder movie rentals, or find a redbox (limited selection, and too randomly scattered), or hope you find a deal at bestbuy.  you miss out on the whole movie rental experience!  blockbuster was like the library of videos, and as a lover of libraries, i am sad to see this institution go.

and now for a fun blockbuster anecdote:

several years ago, chris and i had rented each of the Lord of the Rings movies in successive order, watching the trilogy over a series of nights during the summer.  it had been awhile since either of us had seen the series, so we were really re-experiencing the storyline, getting into the depth of the characters and plot.

each LOTR movie is somewhere around 3 hours long, so watching the trilogy is no small undertaking, and after two nights of build up (read: six hours of movie watching), we were ready for the final installment:  The Return of the King.  if you aren’t familiar with the plot, there is an evil ring that must be destroyed and the entire focus is a hobbit’s journey of getting rid of the ring at the fires Mordor,  home of the evil antagonist.

it takes ages to get to Mordor.  lots of trials, bloody battles, strange lands, odd beings, and one challenge after another.  it takes about 8.5 hours to be exact.  so after investing that much time into these movies (albeit for the second time), it was precisely the scene (SPOILER ALERT) where Frodo goes to hold out the ring, about to let it fall to its destruction in the fiery river at Mordor that something TERRIBLE happened.

the DVD stalled.  and got stuck.  and there was no dropping of the ring.

8.5 hours and we can’t see the end??!!!

we made an emergency trip back to blockbuster.

“sir you don’t understand… we have watched the whole trilogy and at the grand climax, at the very end Frodo’s journey it..you know the part with the ring?  ..the DVD… it…”  words of exasperation weren’t enough.

lucky for us, the blockbuster employees smiled and gave us another copy.

we understood the gesture.

but the magical movie moment was lost.

sure, both of us knew what was to come.  but oh the frustration.

fortunately, both of us can look back on this memory and laugh, though now it’s followed by a bittersweet sigh.  farewell, blockbuster.

isolation.

it’s one of the enemy’s greatest schemes on the believer.  put one in a situation where he or she is alone physically, spiritually, or emotionally, and you have the vulnerable beginnings of temptation, doubt, and fear.

i’m not sure when i first realized this phenomenon, but i have seen it take place in my life and in the lives of others.  if satan can make us feel alone, he can corner us, get us captive to our own thoughts and fears, deceive us with lies, and manipulate us.

in reality, of course, the believer is never alone.  the very Spirit of God lives within.  but the enemy can use our own feelings to war against us – that is why we can never fully rely on “feeling” God but trusting in His Word and its Truth over fickle feelings and emotions.  but satan sure can make us feel alone, like no one understands, like no one has ever gone through this, like there is no hope.

how twisted.  how evil.

enter Job.  an average, but righteous man, Job was deprived of his beloved family, land, occupation, and health, as the enemy sought to make him turn from God.  how alone Job must have felt.  his friends who came to offer advice for his predicament wound up accusing him of having done something wrong (get your act together, Job!), and his wife told him to curse God and die.  he was robbed of everything.  and Job had not the Spirit of God within as we believers do today.  he was very much isolated.

i love the story of Job because I think God has given it to us because no one has sunk so low that Job could not identify.  we read his story and see that we are not alone in our suffering, and that even in the most extreme of isolation, Job was able to WORSHIP and say,

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”   Job 1:21

how those words could fall off the lips in the midst of such extreme strife, i do not know.  but i do know what it is to trust the presence of God in despair and darkness, in times of anxiety and fear, temptation, doubt, and hopelessness.   it is a supernatural blessing to know that you are not alone, that our God has himself endured the most extreme of suffering through His Son, Jesus, and that He is sovereign over all.

the next time you find yourself in an isolated situation or season, remember Job and his example to worship God in the midst of hardship.

remember that if you know Jesus, you are never alone, as His Spirit lives inside you.

finally, be preemptive where you can, and avoid isolation.  self-pity, withdrawing to a shell, escaping through vices, keeping your fears to yourself–all of these can be points of entry for the devil to drag you down with deception.  that is why we are to exist in community.

community.  the opposite of isolation.  even God himself lives in a triune community.  this is why it is important to allow others to bear your burdens, to share openly with a prayer partner, to go to spiritual combat with brothers and sisters in Christ, to seek the counsel of advisors, and to have someone there to pick you up when you fall down.  community is also the foremost reason why it is imperative to be involved in a church.

no man is an island.  diffuse the enemy by engaging in community with fellow believers.

It was a hot and humid morning in June.  The kind where the sun bears down on you at 9am and the moisture in the air would make even the straightest hair curl.  I was hard at work at my morning chores–laundry, dishes, and scooping the cat box. 

In the midst of my obligations, I opened the door to my second-floor porch to dispose of the necessary waste in the outside bin. 

Curious as ever, my gray kitty jumped at the chance to explore the porch, which I let the cats do on occasion under my supervision.  (Luke loves to investigate and watch the birds; Phoebe is pretty much in a constant state of “petrified” and doesn’t venture outside much.  Both have much respect for the porch since things can get noisy quickly, living next to a highway, and they usually dart in at the slighest disturbance).  So I obliged his feline interest and went about my duties.

Within a few minutes, the heat and humidity had begun filling up my cooled apartment.  I called Luke in and shut the door, feeling the overworked air conditioner breathe a sigh of relief.  I finished tidying up and soon my sweetheart came over to pick me up for a surprise date. 

The surprise wound up being a fun trip to the mountains to pan for gold and go sight-seeing.  It was a beautiful day, and the breeze had picked up, making the heat a little more bearable.  We were gone for several hours, exploring and driving the scenic mountain roads, returning just before dark.  After unloading the car with some groceries for dinner, we settled in to a lovely tv program, and were laughing about the day’s adventures.  When all of the sudden he notices something.  A distant hum.  Or howl?  My ears perk up.  Was the baby next door crying again?  “I’m going to find out where Phoebe is,” he says.

Phoebe!  My mind races.  I hadn’t seen her yellow fur and big golden eyes since the morning, but since she likes to hide in her favorite spots, I didn’t go to lengths to search for her when we got home.  She always emerges when she’s ready for affection or play time. 

My thoughts flash back through the day.  There was only one place she could be.

I open the porch door.

“Phoebe!”

Little yellow fur looks up to me with wide eyes and fearful expression and darts into the porch closet, where it turns out she’d spent most of her day (thankfully in the shade).  With some coaxing, she came out, and we brought her in to some water and much love and head scratches.  She was beyond ecstatic to be with her humans again.

Poor Pheebs.  So quiet and demure.  She didn’t even cry out for several minutes after we were home, probably so as not to disturb us.  It’s as if she were saying “Um, please, um, somehow I, um, outside, can you, um, the door, um, please?”

So glad we found her and that she was safe.

Now if only her purrs could translate into what exactly her adventurous day entailed.

other than rugby players (eek!)  and these two burly guys at my climbing gym (eek eek!)?

A:  many girls that shouldn’t.

I find myself asking this every summer, but seriously, why is it that at summer’s first warm ray of sunshine, girls flock to the nearest Abercrombie and buy the shortest shorts that they can still button around themselves?  This trend isn’t limited to teenagers or tweens but also twenty and forty-somethings.

I realize that wearing short shorts is a symbol of rebellion, youth, and allure, as it has been for decades (much like showing your neckline was back in the day), but really, what is the motivation here?  To look like the ad?  To show off your legs?  To have the tinest shorts of all your friends?  To get the guys’ attention?

Being a girl myself, I confess to having worn shorts for any and all of the above reasons.  But life has taught me that often the attempt to look cute can, more often than not, send the wrong message.  Revealing the female body in such a way could give any of the following impressions:  1)  It could indicate that you find your value in apperance, instead of within,  2)  It shows a lack of concern with modesty, and 3) It will get you noticed, but likely by the wrong kind of guy–hey, it’s what he noticed first, right?

But maybe one of the best qualities we can radiate as women is confidence that we don’t have to dress a certain way to gain approval or appeal.  Maybe we can find flattering outfits that don’t revolve around showing off our bodies, and maybe it actually honors our bodies not to show them off.  Shorts can be fine to wear; same with sundresses and skirts.  But when it comes to making a purchase you find yourself questioning, I suggest you ask yourself, what’s the motivation?  Just some food for thought.

Last weekend, I experienced first hand the sticky mess left by a wantan, gum-spitting citizen of Charlotte, North Carolina:

That’s right.  The nasty mess on my shoe is the result of stepping in someone’s sticky peppermint gum, then walking around in the grass.  Criminal offense in my mind.  My disgust led me to question what civilized human being would still spit gum on the ground when there are trash cans all over the place, not to mention small pieces of paper in your pocket or purse that could serve as a gum depository until one could locate a so-called File 13.

My only conclusion is that the inane chewer who would do such a thing as to spit gum onto the ground in a parking lot (the scene of the crime) would only do so because he or she has not experienced the nasty endavor of trying to scrape sun-warmed gumminess off of one’s flip flop.

That’s right.  I was wearing flipflops when the disaster occurred.  I first realized something had gone awry when my toes were sticking together.  Someone’s saliva-hewn, breath-infested Wrigleys was stringing from my toes to the bottom of my shoe, where I found the wad of chew.

Bottom line:  Come on, people–respect the planet and each other.  Deposit your gum appropriately.

The whole encounter led me to wonder about the use of the word “gumshoe” as slang for detective, which makes sense since a detective is constantly stuck on their mission of solving a crime.  (Think: Carmen Sandiego and the “gumshoe” contestants destined to find her locale).

However.  As it turns out, according to online source The Word Detective, the word “gumshoe” is slang for “private inspector” because

“It turns out that the original ‘gumshoes’ of the late 1800′s were shoes or boots made of gum rubber, the soft-soled precursors of our modern sneakers… At the turn of the century ‘to gumshoe’ meant to sneak around quietly as if wearing gumshoes, either in order to rob or, conversely, to catch thieves. ‘Gumshoe man’ was originally slang for a thief, but by about 1908 ‘gumshoe’ usually meant a police detective, as it has ever since.”

Who knew?  Perhaps I have a new calling.

But probably not.

So it’s not officially summer, but it’s hot out, and bathing suits are in the stores.  I went shopping for a bathing suit today, and upon my purchase was questioned by a store clerk:

“Do you have all your sun products?” she asked.

I’m thinking – what is she trying to sell me?  I’ve worked as a cashier before; I know about the extra points you get for selling up a purchase with impulse buys at the register.  But there was nothing on the register.  Did she mean to sell me a cute swim cover up?  A shady hat?  Sunglasses?

“You mean suncreen?” I asked, hoping to avoid any further purchases.

“Yes!” she said.

Ok, I thought to myself.  She’s not trying to upsell me.  She’s just concerned for my skin health.  How nice.  I informed her that I did indeed have my sunscreen ready.

Then she dropped a bomb.  An unnecessary bomb.  Looking me up and down, she remarked:

“And it looks like you need some self tanner.”

Really?  Honestly?  I mean, I know I’m pale, but you don’t need to insult me by trying to sell me beauty products designed to make me something I’m not.  To be honest, I used to care about my skin and tried tanning (always ended up with me burning).  I was even told by a friend once that someone actually didn’t like me because I was pale.  There came a point in college where it was such a big deal to be tan, that I even tried spray tanning (which was pricey and short-lived).  Eventually, I got over it and became comfortable being me in my own light skin.  So I guess you could say that this comment struck a chord with me.  But rather than give a reaction, I just smiled and said:

“Oh, I know I’m pale.  I actually like it that way; I’m Scotch-Irish.”

She just looked at me, dumbfounded.

That’s right.  I’m proud of my freckles, fair skin, and light hair.  It’s a testament to my heritage.  Slan go foill!  And welcome to summer

So it has taken me forever to get around to reviewing this book that I finished over a month ago.  I think I have been avoiding writing about it because 1) I am still processing, 2) it’s so controversial among Christians that I wanted to give some it some room to breathe before responding, and 3) I am still processing.

If my review seems incomplete or rough around the edges, that is why.  But I feel compelled to offer what I do have, so here goes.  I am going to start by giving my initial impressions (based on the book’s first 100 pages), share what points I liked about the book overall, and end with what I found to be the book’s most frustrating claim.

Before getting into the meat of the book’s content, I think it’s necessary to examine the book’s intended readership.  To me, the book is written for two audiences.  The main audience are those who are potentially interested in Christianity but are turned off by its ideas about hell and judgment.  The peripheral audience are those Christians who are ravenous about hell and judgment and believe themselves to know much about the subject.

Because the first portion of a book either holds most peoples’ attention or doesn’t, I feel it necessary to say that I was not very impressed with the first 100 pages or so.  Let me explain why.

1.  In the first 100 pages or so, the tone of Bell’s writing seemed passive aggressive and annoyed, as if provoked by that peripheral audience of all-knowing hell specialists.  And while there is reason to unravel that particular system of thinking, his writing unfortunately comes across as more of a passive rant on the church’s historical and traditional views on hell.  I was disappointed in Bell for toeing the line of a rant; we see enough of that with anti-Christian writers like Richard Dawkins and don’t need any in our fold.

2.  Also within the first 100 pages or so, I didn’t find any new or innovative thinking.  Bell forecast this in his preface, so I knew not to expect it, but many of his “uncoverings” were theologically mundane things that, I personally feel most Christians ought to know if they have ever given much thought to the subject of heaven and the afterlife.  For instance, the idea of eternity starting now.  Not a new concept – I mean, don’t most Christians realize they have already gained entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven by faith in Jesus?  If they don’t, I’m saddened by our churches for not making this abundantly clear.  Heaven isn’t some far away place we get to when we die – heaven starts now for those of us who know Jesus and we will know its fullness in the hereafter.

3.  Although I was unimpressed with Bell’s tone and lack of substantive content, it made me downright angry to rifle through dozens of pages chaos and confusion.  The pages read like a wondering sermon, very free-form and flowing, with lots of questions that generate great inner conflict for the reader.  In doing this, he makes it seem that the Bible is unclear or conflicted in its depiction of salvation and eternity.  It would be terrible for readers to get so bogged down in his questions that they give up or put the book down at this point.  I could see how non-Christians would read through the first 100 pages and evaluate Christianity as inconsistent and confusing; whereas Bell’s dizzying questioning could easily shake the foundations of a believer’s faith.

I get that his point may be to break down the barriers of “that’s how I was raised” and “that’s what I’ve always been taught,” beginning of a process of objective study and reasoning.  However, it also evokes fear and uncertainty, leaving the audience wondering what Bell really thinks and what is the truth—because he implies various theologies but never declares them.

After the first 100 pages, the book begins to pick up a little in intellectual and spiritual depth, and upon trying to give the book my best objective reading, I discovered there were a handful of points about Bell’s book which I appreciated.

1.  For the sake of personal faith, I agree with what Bell is doing overall – questioning.  It is necessary to evaluate the belief system in which you were raised and examine the scripture for yourself, along with experience, reason, and tradition to come to terms with your theology (this is called systematic theology in seminary world).  Your theology is simply your understanding of God and His relation to humanity.  Bell does indeed tackle the traditional views of the belief system of Christianity in this book, which some may find to be an offensive tactic.  His method is a bit of a crash course of the experience most people go through in seminary when their faith encounters the historical critical thoughts of the Academy (or at least is met with questions that cause some significant cognitive dissonance).  Whether or not you agree with Bell’s style of endless interrogatives that leave you in a jumbled heap, you must admit that he is asking the questions that most people, if they are vulnerable in their faith and honest with themselves, will ask at one point or another.  It’s good to get those out in the open so we can all examine together what exactly we’re wrestling with.

2.  He brings out the unknown.  Throughout the book, Bell shows us just how much we don’t know about hell.  I loved the part where he evaluated doctrine on church websites and found varying descriptions of what hell is, ranging from the idea of “separation from God” to “separation from God in a place of conscious eternal punishment.”  I think that depiction could sum up much of the book’s sentiments on hell – we can’t lay a finger on all the details.  We do know is hell is separation from God, and some are sent there on Judgment Day, so let’s leave it at that and find the urgency in sharing the gospel so that others do not have to endure separation from God now or then.  Dang Western thinking makes us so uncomfortable with the mysterious!

3.  There is no one best method of how to lead someone to encounter Jesus Christ.  Though there are necessary steps of belief and surrender, there is not an exact style (3-step, ABC, repeat this prayer) that is necessary for salvation.  Bell points out people who have gone to church all their lives and have reached a point where they have grown numb to Jesus and don’t know him, contrasting them to people living in a rural tribe who have expressed to visiting missionaries their knowledge of Jesus – they just didn’t have his name until their visit.  God is so big that we are tempted to limit him to pre-packaged formulas, assuming that he can only interact with humans through that one inlet.  Yet Jesus has shown up in dreams of pagans across the world and revealed himself.  He confronted Paul on the road to Damascus – he can show up in the oddest of places in the most unexpected of ways.  Let us not think we’ve got him all boxed up in a formulaic “fill out this card and that’s your ticket” mentality.

4.  What if?  Rob Bell nowhere states that he believes everyone will ultimately come to salvation (his point is more that we just don’t know).  But he does leave room for the possibility, and urges Christians to create space within their churches to house those who are open to this possibility.  I think churches creating this space for open conversation is realistic and respectful.  We all ought to be in dialogue about the topic and not shun those who lie at either extreme.  We’re all wrestling this together.  Most importantly (and I think this is the purpose of the book) – Bell asserts that we all, as Christians, ought to hope for the salvation of all, whether it happens that way in the end or not.  We should never delight in the damnation of a soul.

Having stated what I was unimpressed by and what I found insightful in Bell’s book, let me now address the book’s greatest flaw.

My major issue with the book lies in chapter 4, entitled “Does God Get What God Wants?”  Bell explains that since God wants all to come to Him, if this weren’t to happen, then God doesn’t get what God wants, making Him flawed somehow in power.  Bell writes:

“How great is God?  Great enough to achieve what God sets out to do, or kind of great, medium great, great most of the time, but in this, the fate of billions of people, not totally great.  Sort of great.  A little great…Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants?” (Bell 98).

He goes on to quote parts of scripture, prooftexting his point.  “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save…nothing is too hard for you (Isa. 46, 59, Jer. 32),” he quotes, going on to say that “in the Bible, God is not helpless, God is not powerless, and God is not impotent…is God our friend, our provider, our protector, our father—or is God the kind of judge who may in the end declare that we deserve to spend forever separated from our Father?…Will God, in the end, settle, saying ‘well, I tried, I gave it my best shot, and sometimes you just have to be okay with failure’?  Will God shrug God-size shoulders and say, ‘you can’t always get what you want’?” (Bell 101-102).

This chapter infuriates me.  Bell’s “it just doesn’t feel right” mentality leads him to do exactly what he cautions his audience not to – box God in.  Just instead of one box, he’s putting Him in another, the box that reads “God can’t possibly hold vengeance and wrath toward his creation when they turn from him, chase after sin, and reject him.”  This is illogical on many levels, mainly in that God has set up a system in which God operates, and his holiness demands separation from sin and evil (which we revel in as humans); some restitution has to be made (enter Jesus) in order to make us holy and worthy of God’s acceptance.  In the promo video, Bell questions whether we ought to be “saved” by Jesus to this scary, wrathful God, but I think that is exactly the point of God’s great story.  God the Father ought to be feared in a reverent, healthy way.  He does have the power to damn us all to hell, but to our benefit, and for His glory, He provided a way for us to be reconciled.  Who are we to question it?

In the end, can God save all?  Certainly.  Will He?  I don’t think we can say with absolute certainty because we are not God.  My personal take on it is this:  scripture makes clear that in order to know the Father, you must know the Son and put your faith in Him.  Does everyone accept Jesus in their lifetime?  Obviously not.  And for God to force all those who want nothing to do with Jesus to go to heaven and spend eternity with Him would be…well…hell.  He loves us enough to give us the choice of loving Him back or not.  In what is one of the best quotes of the book, Bell explains that in the end, we do get what we want.  “If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours.  That’s how love works.  It can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced.  It always leaves room for the other to decide.  God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins” (Bell 119).

My question is, even if we don’t know how the end will turn out, is it responsible to live as though everyone will be saved?  My conclusion is that no, it is not.  Apart from scripture indicating that Jesus is the only means to salvation and Christ Himself leaving us with the urgent message to spread His gospel to the ends of the earth, it is a dangerous thing to cross the line of universal salvation.  It leads to laziness among Christians, and in the end, what if it does turn out that hell is a place of eternal separation and damnation for those who don’t have faith in Jesus as the Son of God?  I would rather err on the side of caution (and what I believe scripture declares to be true) and be surprised to somehow find everyone there than expect all to be saved and get there only to find that I was wrong.

So, is Rob Bell a heretic?   No, but only because he doesn’t stake a claim with certainty.  He toys with the idea of salvation for all, flirts with the possibility, but leaves the outcome ambiguous.  Is this responsible to do in public form such as a book?  I’m not sure.  I think that the book may leave many people confused and hurting about “heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived,” but surely it will also leave many people comforted to have connected with someone who is open to considering all the possibilities.

And so the dialogue continues.

you’ve got a vision of some far off day
beautiful and bright
a carrot hanging out of reach
but always in your sight
there’s an icon in your mind
that stands for happiness someday
a picture on the wall
of a kingdom far away

but oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s breathing in between
oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s right under your feet

you can spend your life inside a box
looking through stained glass
and dream about a better day
and hope it finds you fast

but oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s breathing in between
oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s right under your feet

“closer than you think” –jon foreman, sean watkins