Saved- did I forget?

Did you ever hear a really good song so many times that it was completely ruined? Its kind of a sad thing. Have you ever been in a group of people or circle of friends that had certain slang, and eventually the meaning of the words completely changed? I feel like that has happened to the word “saved.”

As a believer in Jesus Christ, I believe that he died that I may be saved. So often Christian America uses this word and wave it like a flag that seldom when I think it or hear it do I reflect on what it really means. When I think “saved by faith” I think far more about what faith is than what it means to be saved, perhaps because faith is a little trickier to define. What I don’t think about is the profundity of being saved. Most days it is lost on me. I forget what I was saved from, I don’t bother to think what I’m saved to, it’s merely a word that reflects a belief, rather than a truth that something really did change in my life.

In terms of life, I can think of few things that would be a weightier event than receiving salvation. It makes an eternal difference; it allows us to know God without fear of punishment, it guarantees us eternity in heaven, and even more, changes our lives now, or at least it ought to. Perhaps the problem that the word “saved” has lost much of its meaning (at least to me), is that our lives don’t reflect it that much. The great change that could have taken place we have limited to things we’re comfort with or sin issues we think we need help with. In effect, we want “saved” but we don’t take the whole dose. It could be a much more profound idea, an idea in which in turn would redefine our idea of God, and our idea of worship.

In the end and in summary, I want the idea of being saved to grow larger in my mind and life, just like I want God to grow larger. I don’t want to simply think it and let the meaning pass over me. There is too much there that I too often miss. As David prayed “return unto me the joy of my salvation,” I in turn pray, “help me to realize how big salvation is, that I may rejoice.”

A Resolution of Worship

            I’ve been thinking the last few days about a new year’s resolution. In my pondering, I found one thing that I would like to do better this next year, one thing I would like to change, to improve in my life. It’s quite simple in theory. I want to worship God better.

            I need to explain this. Often the word “worship” conjures images of hymns, sacrifice, church, music and things of the like. This isn’t exactly what I mean, what I mean is much broader. Let me define it first, then try to explain it.

            By worship, I mean that knowledge of God, who he is in truth that so animates your emotions that it cannot help but find its way into every moment of your life. The knowledge that God is not only good, but the highest good, that he not only loves us, but loves us more than we can ever imagine, that he not only made the world, but made everything in the world, that he doesn’t only work in the world, but he is in control in every circumstance in the world. I want to be constantly in awe of God, to a point where it will overflow into every compartment of my life, I want to feel like God is all, and I am swept away in him.

            Now for the practical part: what does this look like daily? There are a few things I think of:

Rejoicing in his goodness: God is good. He is very good.  So good, that there are not enough pages or books to fully explain it. He gives us good things, not a few good things, but many good things, so many that I even become numb to many of them. One of my goals this year is to continually look at my life and see even the simple good things God gives me and give him thanks for it. Things like food, a warm place, friends, family, material things in abundance, all of which show his goodness. He gives them freely. Most of all, he has given us forgiveness, a free gift of grace to all who believe. I have so many things to rejoice in, and ultimately, they are all from God.

Seeking to know him more: God is relational. He wants us to know him, try to know him more. We can do this by studying his word, doing what it says, by trying to make our character more like his. I want to know him more by prayer, to be able to hear his voice when he speaks softly to me, then have the confidence to do what he says.

Sharing his blessings: If God is good to me, I want in turn to share those blessings with others. If God teaches me something amazing, I want others to benefit too, if I have extra material things, I want to share them as well, if I have a reason to celebrate, I want those I know to celebrate too, knowing that my reason is from God, a reflection of his goodness toward us.

One may ask, why this resolution? The biggest reason is this: Knowing God has been the highest pleasure in my life, it has been the cause of all the good things in my life, and without it, I would have nothing worth living for in my life. God is the best thing in my life and I want more of the best thing. If you want goodness you should go to the source, which is God. Ultimately, any lasting happiness will be found in him. He gives freely to those who seek him. May this year be a year of worship for you as well.

           

Unorthodox Thinking

            While I was out of town this last weekend, I took an opportunity to go visit an Orthodox cathedral. I did this because there is something interesting to me about the Orthodox Church. What interests me is that around here it is viewed as a dead church, a building with traditions, without the life one would expect (perhaps this is somewhat analogous to how people view Catholic churches in America). At any rate, there is not the lenthusiasm one would expect in a building where you could know God and learn the way to heaven.

            What also was clear to me was at one point all these tradition had life in them. All of the saints who are celebrated are celebrated because of the life they lived. More than that, they all lived their lives honoring Jesus, whom they were convinced had come to save the world, to change the world. Seated high atop the alter at the front was a picture (icon) of Jesus, he was the head, the top. Below him were the twelve apostles, people who walked with him. In the next tier, there were saints such as the great Cappadocians, who wrote and defended so much of modern Christian doctrine, there were Cyril and Methodius, two brothers who labored to bring the gospel to the Russian people, just to name a few. Rightly understood, the whole edifice at the front of the cathedral pointed toward Jesus Christ, who was at the top. It was literally a picture of the church, of which he is the head (Eph 5:23). All the other pictures were of people who were affected by him and his life, his message. If you know the gospel as is found in the Bible, all of this is so clear, and an amazing testimony to the power that is found in Jesus, how it can change lives, even through centuries.

What I struggle with is that people don’t seem to realize what is right before their eyes. Perhaps much like Catholics, who also are steeped in tradition and don’t see what is in front of them, or even like protestants, who sing hymns with terrific depth and meaning, go to church, sit all the time with a Bible in front of them and yet miss the main point of it. How is it that people can go to a place where the truths of God can be so easily found and completely miss the truth? Perhaps people are not looking for it. God said to Isaiah, whom prophesied to Israel, another country steeped in Godly tradition, “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”

      Silently, to the few who go in, there is a witness to the truth of God. People are blind to it. It has been in front of them for centuries, yet people are blind. Perhaps because the witness was accompanied by tyrants who took control of this land instead of people who came to preach peace, perhaps because they were never looking for it.

I hope that my life will serve as a living witness to the truths of God. I hope that people will not merely see my beliefs and think they are some foreign idea that has no place here. I hope this for their sake. For how will people respond to God when he tells them on the day of judgment that his truth was among them all their lives, yet they never really looked for it.

The Joy is in the Journey

            I had a little time to sit and think about life over here today. Life as one God has called to a far away place. I sometimes sit and wonder why exactly I came here, what is keeping me here when life could be so much easier and more comfortable at home. What is it that has made this life so appealing to me? As I thought about it, I failed to find words to express it. What makes this worth it? I haven’t had completely good health for near three months, I have yet to have a conversation here that hasn’t been slow or difficult, the university I work at is requiring more paperwork that I honestly don’t know if I can produce, I’m surrounded by people who don’t understand me, many of whom try to take advantage of me. Why do I do this? And why is it that today, I am perfectly content to live here?

            I often wonder why God chose me to be here at this time. In the end, I confess I don’t understand completely what he is doing. I know he is teaching me a lot about a lot of things here, but I honestly do not know that he has any goal in having me here other than that I learn to walk with him and be content with life where things are not as comfortable as they could be. That means that I must learn to trust more in him, look to him more than to other things I’m accustomed to.

            I know as a Christian, I ought to have grand visions about what my faith is, I’m encouraged to, to think more about how God can use me, to try to do great things for God, for he will surely bless those attempts. Sometimes he does. But in the end, I must confess that those goals seem short. I would rather spend my life looking to God who is great than laboring to do great things on his behalf, possibly confusing the results for something I have done. I do not mind him using me to accomplish his will, but I would rather sit with him than try to make the world go round. That is his job.  

A thought on freedom of the press

            There are a few things perplexing my mind this morning, one present one past. The past one comes from I book I picked up yesterday, concerning the life and death of Michael Servetus. It still troubles me when I get down to it that such atrocities have been committed in the name of Christianity. It would seem ever since church and state mixed the pride of man has led to devastating error. That makes me fear those who hold power in the name on religion. Such gratuitous acts of cruelty done out of a misunderstanding that pain in the present does something to expiate a portion of the eternal suffering of the lost. The extent to which ideas can lead men down the wrong path is frightening. At the same time, it was for ideas, these things which I fear run lose and turn men into tyrants, that Servetus was executed. He published ideas the leaders of Geneva judged would lead people away from the truth, to the loss of their souls.

            So is it fair to punish someone for writing a book? Are the merely punished for having an idea? The act of writing a book and having it published is not merely having an idea, it is wishing its propagation. On some level a man ought to be responsible for the effect of what he puts into print. In an age where writing was not as common as in our day, books truly did hold power. It was books after all, penned by renaissance men who have formed our modern world, not merely in details but in every detail.

Even in our day where the press is free as it has never been, people are held responsible for defamation and misrepresentation. Why would this be unless there was some regard for truth? Yet is it so hard to imagine that this regard for truth should not be extended to other matters? This is only a small logical step. Is there a great difference between publishing something fallacious about a person and about a government or an institution? Both can prove damaging to society and/or individuals. This was particularly true in a day when few books were published and all were taken seriously.

In then end, I think I understand why there was and is this fear of ideas in print. They are powerful. They change the way people think and act. The idea of communism was mute until put into print and read by people who were men of action. Then the world changed. I understand why governments desiring stability would ban many books; it is a simple way to protect your people (and your position). Though I understand the policy of persecuting authors and destroying books, I simply cannot condone it. I think it would be far better if false ideas were firmly refuted, and leave the old books to stand as a memorial to error, teaching future generations how not to think. Banning books merely bans thinking and leaves a mass of people unable to wrestle with the complexities of the ideas that shape their lives.

Saying all this, here I am publishing something online. Though I doubt I shall encounter difficulty for thinking about thinking and writing about writing, particularly given the state of free speech today. You don’t get persecuted for going with the flow. I was challenged to think, and to understand both side of this question, and I suppose my goal is that more people would do so. Read something and understand both sides of it. Only then can you truly disagree.

 

costomer service does and don’ts

                        Our summer schedule is wrapping up here, which means it is running at a fast pace, much as a rocket about to break the gravitational pull of earth before finding itself in the tranquility of space. My last weekend was spent at a sanatorium, doing a little rest with a summer team and trying to figure out what the Lord has been doing the last few months.

            The place was aptly named преозерный, which means something like “by the lake,” yet another relic of the CCCP (USSR), where children used to gather to learn about space and how their proud country was dominating those silly capitalists in the now forgotten space race. It is located in the only area for about a thousand miles in any direction that is not steppe. About five thousand years ago, some lava started bubbling through the crust of the steppe, making contact with the glaciers of the ice age, and up rose a little area where now there are low hills and pine forests, strongly resembling southern Ontario, complete with mosquitoes (of which I personally killed at least one hundred). All that being said, it was a nice place to rest a little, get out of town and try to catch our breath.

            There is one incident I do want to mention, happened while my friend Jon and I were resting by the pool. It was early evening, we had pulled up two hammock chairs to the side of the pool and were soaking our feet in the frigid northern water. About five minutes after we sat down, there was a slight cracking sound. Thinking nothing of it, we continued our conversation. Then suddenly there was a snap, I turned only to see Jon laying flat on the ground with his feet up in the air. Apparently the wood supporting the top of the chair gave way under the mass of Jon’s muscular physique (combined with the second dinner he ate that night), snapped the decrepit old head piece, leaving only gravity to do what it does best.

            This is where the story gets good. I, being a good friend and feeling the need to carry that out, began laughing hysterically and making comments about his BMI. Then the children who were at the other end of the pool came by, laughing. Apparently they worked there. They promptly informed us that since the chair broke when Jon was sitting there, he would be fined 1000 tenge for breaking the chair. I was sure this had to be a joke, but sure enough, they were dead serious. I spent the next few days trying to explain that if a chair breaks during normal use, we shouldn’t be fined. It was to no avail. In the end, we ended up paying 500 tenge so that we could end the discussion. It’s a little more than four dollars, so it’s not a horrible deal,  but no one likes being fined for sitting in a defective chair. But, we didn’t invent the culture here, so sometimes you don’t get things your way (i.e. costumer service).

A Village Wedding

So I went to a local wedding in the village this last weekend expecting adventure. I was not disappointed. The following is a few statistics from the trip:

Time leaving to returning: 40 hours

            Time on train- 14 hours

            Sleep- 5 hours

Time in car- 3 hours

            Time horn was honking 2:45

            With intoxicated driver- 1:45

Time with food in mouth-5 hours

Time with tea in mouth- 5 hours

Calories consumed- around 15000

Sheep heads on the dinner table-5

Words understood- perhaps 10

Laps around the village- 3

Time for stomach to recover- 72 hours

Most common gifts: vacuum (3), microwave (2)

 Needless to say it was a crazy cultural experience, pretty crazy, almost more than I could handle. But it was a good chance to see a friend get married and get out of town for a little while. I was glad to get out, and even more so to return.

Peace and Agreement or Peace and Apathy

I recently visited the pyramid, not the one in Egypt, but the one in Siberia. Many of you are probably wondering what in the world I’m talking about, so I’ll fill you in. Nursultan Nazarbaev, the president of this republic, is playing a virtual game of simcity with his new capital, designing everything, building many new buildings, and causing a quaint little village on the steppe to become the thriving center of Eurasia.

            In the middle of this new city, there is a pyramid dedicated to peace and agreement, two words which summarize religious sentiments here. They claim that here in Kazakhstan, all religions live together in peace and agreement. I find many people that speak of peace, which Kazakhstan has enjoyed since its independence, and they are all in agreement that they have peace, but as far as any religious ideas, I cannot find anyone that agrees on anything. I cannot even find anyone that can articulate religious ideas. The one prerequisite I see for religious agreement that your idea is not better than any other idea.

            I find this a little troubling. Perhaps because I think my religious convictions are more right than most others, if you tell me something completely different from what I think is true, I simply won’t agree, not because I think you’re an idiot, but because thinking one thing is true necessarily means that other things are not. Now, before you accuse me of being arrogant or proud, let me pose this question: Why believe something you don’t think is right or true? Is it proud to think something is true? Must we be so humble that we cannot even say something is true? I certainly think people should live together in peace, I see no necessary connection between strong religious convictions and a lack of peace. While it is claimed that all religions live hear peacefully, I scarcely can find anyone I would call devout in any religion.

            It may be politically correct and couth to say that all people live in peace and agreement, but more realistically, like in many places, people live in apathy, at least toward religion. Lip service is about as much as anyone does to any religious idea, which of course makes it easy to agree in matters of religion.  All this to say that while I find this idea peaceful and agreeable, I also find it unrealistic and irrational. One does not have to be a religious scholar to find out that they cannot all be true or right. Furthermore, if one is right, that often means the others are not merely neutral, but wrong. Thus agreement is only made possible if one denies the existence of truth, which brings us back to where we were: why believe or trust something that is not true.

A Morning with the Orphans

I recently had the opportunity to volunteer a little at a local orphanage. I generally enjoy working with children, but this time it is difficult. The orphanage we worked at is for disabled children. Healthcare here has never been quite on par with western healthcare, and this is a fact that has tragically punctuated in this case. Most of these children, when they were discovered to be disabled (ranging from retardation to cerebral palsy), were given up by parents who were told that there was nothing they could do for them. They will spend the first eighteen years of their life in this orphanage, until when they will no longer be allowed and forced out into a world which is not friendly to the disabled.

While emotionally draining, playing with these children is an extremely rewarding experience. Most of their life consists of lying where they have been placed, being changed perhaps once a day, with very little interaction or stimulation, so merely making eye contact or touching their hand often evokes smiles and shrieks, they absorb attention like a dry sponge. Due to lack of movement and stimulation, many of their limbs have atrophied, so that they are balled up, unable to move very much. Often, I can wrap my finger around their thighs. One girl did not have the strength to raise her arm or hold up her hand. Many of the children appear malnourished, with bellies protruding bones clearly visible through their skin. Some of them I will be surprised if they survive until the next visit. Upon entering the hall, you are nearly over come with the smell of soiled clothes, such is common in a hospital where sanitation is not the highest priority.

Working there for a short time each week often feels like spitting into a forest fire. I cannot see how my time spent there will make any long term difference, for these children to have a hope of a similitude of a life, they need families who are willing to pour much time and energy into them, I merely have an hour a to pour into ten children in the midst of a busy week. Does this make any difference? It certainly doesn’t solve their plight, yet I cannot tell myself that it is wasted time. It seems more likely that the time spent with these orphans, where they may only get to smile for a few minutes is some of the best time spent. Results may not be permanent, but they are beautiful. Children ought to smile, they ought to be loved. When parents are not there, someone else must step in, if even for a short time in an incomplete role. This idea seems so far from the American pragmatism I am accustomed to, where efficiency and results are the measures of success, yet it is much nearer to an idea that many people have ceased to measure success by: Love. None of us can change the world in a day, very few can change it in a lifetime, yet we can all love those who are not loved. Nothing can make life better like being loved. While I often cannot find a way to make my day better, I rarely cannot think of a way to make someone else’s day better. Today it was some orphans, tomorrow, I pray I can be selfless enough to help someone else.

Victory Day

            Another holiday has rolled around, this one celebrating the victory in World War II over Nazi Germany, or as people say here, the day Russia defeated the Germans for the Allies. Most of the time, as an American, I find statements like this at least mildly frustrating, after all, I have met more than a few of my own fellow countrymen who fought in the European theater. I used to think something like this: Who do these people think they are? They act like they won the war single handedly and we simply watched from thousands of miles away. But now, I’ve come to realize a few simple things. While America paid a huge price to fight the Second World War, it really does pale in comparison to the price paid by the Russians. American soil was bombed once at Pearl Harbor, Russian soil had German troops take over and lay siege to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They fought against an enemy who had superior technology and tactics in a hope to save their country from a treacherous enemy. Estimates claim that perhaps upwards of 27 million Russians gave their lives in defense of their country. That is a staggering number compared to the number of Americans who died.

            Victory Day is one of those holidays that carried over from Soviet days. As the number of living veterans wanes, so does the holiday enthusiasm. Many of the young people, caught up in the new wave of materialism and nationalism, don’t regard the holiday as that important. Kazakhstan did not play near as large of role in World War II as Russia, but they still celebrated their involvement. As I hear this I wonder what the future will hold for the celebration of the end of the War. After the people who fought have passed on, will the memory of the war that gripped the world also begin to pass? Will the world that was fought for 60 years ago pass from the memories of the up and coming leaders as new dreams turn the heads of a quickly changing world? Will the new millennium bring new problems and new focuses for a new generation? I can’t answer the questions I pose, but they are interesting to think about, especially in a generation who has very little regard for the importance of the past and how it has influenced the present world that we do live in.