Skeptical of Skepticism

Skeptical of Skepticism

A few months ago I sat across the table from a friend of mine who told me that she was losing her faith. It has been a slow decline for her as she has listened now for a few years to the doubts of her husband who has now officially declared himself a skeptic of the faith. It began for him by being the most staunch defender of the faith. He read all the books on apologetics. He had his own apologetic website. But then slowly he began to have doubts. Doubts because he couldn't prove that Adam and Eve were the first people on earth. Doubts that science didn't present facts that couldn't be disproved. And putting the full weight of knowing upon his mind, his faith collapsed under the weight.

And now my friend, his wife, finds herself barraged everyday with questions from him. Evidence that he says evolution presents that is irrefutable. And sitting across the table from me, she asked me, Rachel, how can you know? How are you sure that the Bible is true? How can you trust in a God who allows such evil in the world? How can you look at the evidence the scientific community is presenting and hold onto your faith?

These are weighty questions. But I have come to see something very clearly: Doubt is the flip side of the coin of faith. Doubt means that opportunity remains, because the proof has not revealed itself so fully that decision is irrelevant. And so I pose a few questions back to her. For I feel that really for the human condition it is not always so important that we have the right answers, but that we pose the proper questions. Who is qualified to judge? One can only judge perfectly who has ALL truth gathered from infinite wisdom, not limited by perspective.

Suppose if you will that a man who has lived his entire life deep in heart of an African village is suddenly taken to an operation and asked to watch from the observation room. If he knew nothing of medicine, of the nature of cancer and metastasis; if he knew nothing of the danger of leaving a man in such a condition, would he not think it pure unbridled brutality to watch a surgeon,(not knowing his qualifications or skill to do so) render another helpless on a table, raise a knife, open the victims body and cause a bloody wound, only to remove a part of the helpless victim? Would it not look to him like senseless pain? You see he lacks the context. The sense of greater danger to the patient at leaving him alone. And we suppose in our soft human condition that the greatest danger to us lies in being killed or raped or brutalized in this body. It is not. It is a trifle compared to reckoning before a holy God.

And there is another point of concern. If truth binds itself only to theory, to idea, to perception of the mind, what of the incarnation? Why make Truth flesh himself out? Why walk amongst us? My friend's husband has made a critical error in his judgment. He has decided along with the scientific community that the weight of all truth can be gleaned entirely through the sieve of the mind. It can be reduced to theory, and data and observation, not a being with whom we can be intimate and walk. It has turned its back on all means of discovering truth that fall outside the reach of the scientific method. But therein lies the same problem we have in judging. The observer must rely on that which perceives the data to interpret his data for him.

If one sees a circle filled with tiny dots, what is the meaning of that circle? To the modern Westerner it might be the top of a watering can, or a shower head, or the night sky, seen through a telecope. But to the tribal villager in Nepal, it might be no more than a mound of ants in the dirt. The significance of what is seen, is limited to the experience of the observer.

And so I posed this question to my friend. What if you and your husband walk away from the faith because the scientific community’s current conclusions of the lack of evidence to support the claims of the Bible? What if 50 years after your death, they discover one critical piece of evidence that reinterprets all their conclusions on carbon dating? What then? What if the scientific community for all it can see, lacks the breadth, the entirety of knowledge to interpret the data they have? I asked her to do one thing for me and herself on her journey. Remain skeptical of her skepticism. It that not in fact truest form of it?

I asked her to consider another body of evidence as well. Another voice in the stream of history. The voice of believers, who throughout all the ages have spoken similarly of this God of the Scriptures. What of the witness of their blood? Their dying confessions to knowing a God who is so worthy of their trust that death is a small token of such a Savior?

I discovered a poem this year written by a Christian who lived in the Middle Ages. And in spite of entirely different lives, walks, bodies of knowledge and eras, I knew when I read this expression of his walk with the Lord, exactly what he meant.

O Merry Love, strong, ravishing, burning, willful, stalwart,

Unslakened, that brings all my soul to Thy service,

And suffers it to think of nothing but Thee.

Thou challengest for Thyself all that we live;

All that we savour, All that we are.

Thus therefore let Christ be the Beginning of our Love,

Whom we love for Himself. And so we love whatever

Is to be loved ordinately for Him that is the Well of Love,

And in Whose hands we put all that we love and are loved by”

O Love un-departed! O Love Singular! ”We praise Thee,

We preach Thee, by the which we overcome the world;

By Whom we joy and ascend the Heavenly ladder.

In Thy sweetness glide into me; and I commend me and mine

Unto Thee withouten end. ”Richard Rolle (1290-1349)

The Fire of Love and Meaning of Life

And so considering myself a fool according to the wisdom of the world, I bow my knee before an infinite God, a holy Judge, the only Wise God of unsearchable paths and wisdom, and commend myself unto the day when evidence shall overwhelm mankind as a flood. When the clouds will be rolled back as a scroll, and we shall know fully, just as we are fully known. When our eyes shall behold Him on whose thigh is written the name King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Oh what a horrible day when the truth shall be revealed to those who denied the Truth. Oh let us proclaim if necessary with the voice of our blood, this King of Glory before the world has the evidence it so brashly demands.

Rachel Deffinbaugh, July 30, 2005

Intimacy with yourself

You know, its only been in the past few years that I have discovered what it means to have a relationship with yourself. It sounds on the surface like a bunch of goobledegook or psycho-jargon but its really not.  Its the foundation from which others relate to you. It sounds strange but you set the rules for how others treat you by the way you treat yourself. If you are on time, others know that they must value your time. If you are respectful, they show you respect. If you say no to certain behaviors or things, they understand what you value in yourself. If you allow other's treatment of you to make you angry, they begin to understand the ways that you are controlled.

It is that value you put in yourself that allows others to see what they should also value in you.

Perhaps one of the most important ways I am learning to relate to myself in is showing myself grace. Not excuses. Not I'm never wrong. Not denial. But a true grace that looks honestly in the face of all my short comings, all my flaws and all my fears and nutures and accepts me anyway. As a work in progress. That embraces my mistakes as places-- landmarks from which I can measure my growth.  

Being wrong the right way...

Do you ever have those days where you have an argument with your spouse and you launch into it sure that you are 100% right and you just need them to grow up? It never gets easier to have that moment when I think, hmmm maybe his issue is making my issue(s) show up? I think its a turning point in every marriage when one realizes though that even if we do come out of it finding out we were the one in the wrong, its better to have those conversations anyway. What I mean is that I can spend so much time living in our heads, and analyzing things just to be sure that we are right before we say how we feel, that we are paralyzed by it. Isn't it better just to be authentic and say how we feel (keeping in mind that what is helpful restrains me), knowing that the conversation may mean my humbling and my enlightenment and not theirs? It would probably help how the conversation goes though if I was really cognizant of the fact that I might end up being the one enlightened in the conversation. Why is that so hard? Why does my position seem so right on the front end? I guess that's why Proverbs 18: 17 says, "The first to plead his case seems right until another comes and examines him."

My husband shared with me a few months back that its much easier for him to take my viewpoint when I come at it from the perspective of, "I'm not playing God or the Holy Spirit here, its just how I see it." Its easier for him to listen and its much easier to just be me than try to always carry the burden of rightness. I'm not saying I'm even close to getting this "not being right" thing right either, I'm not. But I think its good to try. To voice things as just me as I see it. Intimacy doesn't mean I always get it right. It means there are two voices in the conversation and they both matter. The twist in marriage is that our spouse's issues reveal our issues more than it ever is some black and white situation where someone is totally in the wrong.

Its hard though to really truly have the integrity to surrender my spouse's issues to the ONLY judge and let Him deal with my issues. Isn't that the irony of dealing with other people's sin? Other's hypocrisy reveals ours in judging them, other's arrogance provokes ours, and being misunderstood provokes my idol of being heard and understood. The issue usually ends up in my lap to deal with vertically. I guess dealing with relationship issues right means that what starts out as our issue with someone else ends up as my issue before God. As it should be.

What lions' mouths....

I was listening to Chuck Swindoll preach this morning on the life of Daniel and something struck me that had never occurred to me before. I have always thought of Daniel as one of those people who is just in a category all his own. I can only think of one other man in the Bible who lived a high-profile. political life and never ever buckled, not once--Joseph. But these two have always seemed to be the exception to me of how people can truly live--not the rule. They never gave into moral decay, they never compromised who they were even when it got them thrown into prison or worse....

The thing that occurred to me today though, was that Daniel was who he was because he prayed-- three times a day without exception. Prayer punctuated his life. Daily. Consistently. So much so that when his fellow advisors were looking for a way to discredit him, they could find only this as his "weakness". The only point of attack into his life. Not that there is something magical about praying three times a day for us, or that its some kind of formula. I think what strikes me is the fact that THE non-negotiable, everyday, integral part of his very, very busy, very important, politically demanding life was prayer. 

He was never too busy to pray. There was no such thing as not having enough time, or having too many demands on his schedule. Nothing was ever more urgent.  It was never up for negotiation; even when his life and career depended on it.  He was defined by this unwavering commitment to pray. His life, his habits and his time reflected his mindset of looking to God. He didn't try to conceal it; he didn't try to flaunt it. It wasn't a political decision, it was who he was. A man who prayed. 

He accomplished rare and unusual things.  Things that happened because he never lost sight of whose he was and who his God was.  The consistency of his integrity and his obedience didn't happen in a vacuum. It was a result of the consistency of his prayer life. And why was he so dad-gum consistent?  I venture to say that it was of his view of God.  A view that gave him the staggering confidence to dare to put his life, his career and his reputation on the line and tell the king that God could reveal the dream. He put it all on the line because of one surety--his God would hear him, and his God would answer him. What in the crazy world would my life look like if I had such confidence in my God who hears and answers prayer? Woah.  I wonder what God would accomplish through me if my faith and my prayers were that bold.  Wouldn't that be something. I wonder what lions' mouths would be shut in this generation if we were up to such a challenge. 

The Champion of Sin

I think when most of us read the story of David and Goliath we are tempted to put ourself in the place of David. Here we are the underdog with a daunting foe.  I think though that's not really accurate. Not if we are talking about the battle with sin. Its not just that we have slim odds or weak chances of prevailing. We have none. No contest, game over. We have lost.  I think as most of you have I have heard way too much preaching on the topic of dealing with sin in a way that makes me feel at the end like I've just had a motivational talk. I just need to go out and apply myself harder, or in a different way, or try a new strategy to prevail. But what if there is just no way? The harsh reality is that in and of myself am totally helpless. David was a prototype of Jesus. Not of us. He was the Old Testament foreshadowing of the good shepherd who was not daunted by a daunting foe. 

Jesus is that champion for us. He shows up at the battle; a battle at which we have been taunted and defeated for months, maybe even years and says, "I come in the name of the God of Israel that you may know there is a God in Israel." There is NO amount of energy or strategizing, or will power that will allow me to have victory over my sin, whatever it might be. In light of that, my prayer life is one of desperate surrender.  How does my prayer life look different when I know that its not by any amount of my might, or my power that overcomes the enemy in my life? 

If it is only by His Spirit, than victory comes but one way: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." We aren't just the sick, we are dead. And its when we really know it, as Jesus said, that He can heal us. Oh, that I could really really get this in my areas of weakness. They are His to fill, His to perfect, His for this purpose: my surrender and my dependence on Him--- for His glory. It is knowing that I as a cracked pot become a vessel of God's glory that allows me as Paul did to glory in his weaknesses. 

Recognizing Divine pauses

I was talking with my friend Becki Parr a while back and she said something that stuck with me. She said that she had been praying for pauses in her day. Moments where she can breathe and reflect and connect with God or someone else and recognize that her time, her agenda don't belong to her. I had several of those moments today. But I didn't recognize them. I was too busy fuming about the accident on the freeway and the train schedule in front of the school. I didn't really recognize them for what they were until much later. Everyday we have moments where our "best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Those moments are our chance to breathe, to surrender, to pray and to say "Ok, Lord, my agenda isn't always in line with your agenda. Give me eyes to see and a willingness to stop and see the blind man begging along the road as you did. A willingness to stop and listen, no matter what other people demand of me. Let me never take my agenda so seriously." 

Honestly, I didn't do that today. I missed seeing them for what they were. So my prayer tonight is, "Lord, let me not take my agenda so seriously. Give me gratitude for those pauses, and eyes to see that even those annoying events are my chance to see that you need me to stop, and to surrender. Forgive my sense that my time is so important I can't get off schedule." Ministry often happens in those interruptions that are not in my schedule. When my baby or my friend need me at the most inconvenient times. I need grace to surrender my plans to His. Sometimes my hardness of heart in these moments makes me grieve that I miss God's purpose for me in the moment. I guess that's why I need to be told, to be reminded that "God causes ALL THINGS to work together for good for those that love Him. For those who are the called according to His purpose." Sigh. And so I offer up a prayer of repentance and surrender. 

frazzled prayers

So I've been feeling a shift lately in my prayer life. I don't know when it became perceptible to me but I've had glimpses of it over the past two years that would fade back into my old pattern. I think my whole life when I've had the feeling of my life being too complicated and too busy or too stressful, I've felt like the needed response is to go into high gear. I need to try harder, find my A game, come up with new and better solutions to dealing with my weaknesses in order to compensate and make everything work. I guess what I've felt is that the pressure to make my life work, especially when it comes to organizing the details of my life, the complexity of all the roles and tasks and obligations that pull on me. I remember reading a story of Corrie Ten Boom one time from her caretaker Pam Moore. She said that Corrie would be sitting at the table and a problem would arise and she would just say out loud "Lord, take care of it." It seemed to me a bit odd at the time. But I think I'm beginning to get a sense of what it was really beneath that simple prayer. Those who heard her pray said she would just start talking out loud to God even if people were around. It was to her as if He was at the table. They weren't fancy or lengthy or even eloquent prayers. 

Lately I think I get that. My life is too complicated and complex and overwhelming, and its really creating a sinking-into-my-everyday-consciousness-kind of way that apart from Him I can do nothing. I'm not designed to. I'm designed to be connected. To hang with the full weight of my branch from His limb and every source of life and strength and sustenance come from my being connected. Nothing else. So then praying that He works out the logistics of having to be here and then somewhere else and do more than my energy levels and time says I can somehow works--IN HIM. As Colossians says, "In Him all thing [ALL THINGS] hold together." Can that actually mean my house, my car, my budget, my time, my frazzled nerves, my energy? I think it really does. 

So those quick prayers of "God help" that are childlike and real and frazzled aren't my unspiritual dumb moments. They are my most spiritual, my most "I get it" moments. They really are. And asking Him to take care of those things, even the smallest things points to a belief that His greatness is marked as much by the fact that He can oversee and order the most minute details of parking spaces and appointments as well as galaxies and planets. Wow. I'm kind of liking the feeling rather than the rising panic-- of the internal peace that settles in when I lift up those in the moment prayers and feel the weight of the yolk coming off my shoulders as I climb into the harness; one He's already pulling for both of us. His shoulders are broad and strong enough for both of us. More and more I hope that I learn of the yolk that is easy and His burden which is light. Of prayers that cry out without dressing up my fears or desires in acceptable attire. I don't need to. He's my Daddy. He's got it covered.

Here I go

Well, I've been inspired to blog a little bit every day again. My cousin Mary has been blogging everyday and reading her blog Wide Margins has nudged me into action again. I like that she's ok with just putting down her thoughts, even if they're short and sweet. So here I go, short and sweet, and as Madeline L'Engle says 10 minutes of writing a day. I can do that. Here I go....