Jesus is my Co-pilot (V1, Rotate)

There was a trend a few years back, where everyone seemed to be putting “God is my co-pilot” stickers on their cars (I always felt that if God actually got into my car, I’d have Him drive, but…).  You don’t see those much anymore, maybe God’s been relegated to the back seat? :)

My family thinks I’m a bit weird in that I like to watch TV programs about airplane crashes.  Not from a morbid point of view, it’s just interesting to learn what went wrong along the way, whether it was a mechanical issue or human error, which person did what that started a chain reaction that ended with a plane on the ground in a million pieces.

You learn a lot about aviation watching those programs.  One aspect I’m fascinated by is the interaction between the pilot and co-pilot, especially on takeoff and landing.  It’s not always the captain that’s in control on takeoff or landing, they take it in turns. One flies the plane and the other is responsible for communications and making sure things happen when they should.

As a plane is going down the runway, the communications officer will call out (at some point) “V1”.  V1 is a warning that means you have reached a velocity that requires the plane to take off, that you’re going too fast at that point to stop safely on the runway.  Shortly after that, they will call out “Rotate”.  Rotate is a call to action, the pilot flying the plane needs to lift the nose of the plane and get off the ground. 

I’ve started to see a parallel with this and my walk with God.  At birth, (if you are lucky) you are given the faith of your parents.  To varying degrees, you learn the faith from them, from your church, maybe your school, and from friends like you in your community.  This is like leaving the gate and taxiing down toward the runway. 

Most forms of Christianity have signposts along your journey (like the markers on the side of taxiways and runways):  Baptism, Sacraments, etc.  But, you control your journey:  how fast you go, or even if you leave the gate at all.  If you do choose to progress, at some point, you find yourself approaching the runway. 

And, this is something deeper than just a commitment to your faith, to your brand of Christianity and its rules.  This is you, deciding for yourself, that all that you’ve learned and experienced is real.  That gets you on the runway.

Runways are not parking lots, they are used to get going on a journey.  You’re not meant to stay there, you need to start moving toward that real God.

 

Jesus is in that cockpit with you.  You have the controls.  At some point, He’ll call out “V1”.  This is your flight, but there are no worries, you have the most experienced pilot ever next to you and He won’t let you fail. 

“Rotate”.

Isn’t the view from up here incredible? :)

Hear the Bells

One of my favorite Christmas carols is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”.  This carol comes from a poem called “Christmas Bells”, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864. 

Three years before the poem was written, the Civil War started, and Longfellow’s eldest son enlisted in the Union army.  In that same year, his wife burned to death in a tragic accident.  Longfellow himself was severely burned trying to help his wife.  Two years later, Longfellow got word that his son had been shot in a battle in the war and was not expected to live.  So, by 1864, Longfellow had had a lot of sorrow, and not much to be joyful about at Christmastime.

In the poem, Longfellow uses the idea of Christmas Bells as the marker for the happiness associated with the celebration of Christmas day.  The first three verses of the poem use the bells to reflect Longfellow’s past joy at the Christmas season:

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

Till, ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

In the next two verses, things change.  He describes the horror inflicted on the nation by the Civil War, and how the joy of Christmas, like the bells, was drowned out by the misery of the war:

 

Then from each black accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

In the next verse, it gets very personal.  Longfellow describes his reaction to the horror of the war, and to the misery going on in his life at that same time:

 

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

 

But, in the last verse of the poem Longfellow reveals the reason for his hope, and renewed joy:

 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

 "God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

 

The bells cannot be silenced by the evil around him, for the bells are ringing out God’s love, the love that brought His Son to a cold manger on that day over 2000 years ago. And they ring out today, reminding us of that love, the love that brought Christ to sacrifice himself for us, 33 years later. 

 

The song ends with these words:

 

Do you hear the bells, they're ringing?

They’re like the angels singing

 Open up your heart and hear them

 

And, that is my wish for you this Christmas:  to hear the bells.  We live in a world today that is wracked by hate, where evil seems to flourish and war and terror abound. But, the bells are still ringing. God is still loving.

 

Hear the bells.

Know the love of God. 

Know that God will prevail, no matter what.

 
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord.”

 That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

 

The Aftermath of the Divorce

In my last blog, I discussed the union of the legal and Godly components of what we called marriage.  I ended that blog by saying that if those two components of marriage were ever separated, marriage would lose its meaning.

Since then, the Supreme Court of the United States has issued a ruling that makes same sex marriage legal throughout the country.  America joins 20 other countries with similar policy.  The divorce of marriage has happened in these countries.

It’s important understand that while the legal definition of marriage has changed, God’s definition hasn’t, and never will.  This means that same sex marriages will only be legal marriages.  They cannot be marriages before God, because they do not fulfill the definition of marriage as put forth by God in the Bible.

The importance of this depends on what marriage means to you, and where you stand with God. To a lot of people, going to a justice of the peace and getting married is enough.  Some, however, want to involve their God, and their faith, in their marriage.  For example, a marriage in the Catholic church is one of 7 sacraments, intimate moments between God and man.  It’s even given another name, matrimony.

Since same sex people can now marry, they now become subject to not only the joys of being married, but the responsibilities of marriage and the consequences.  Most obviously, legalized same sex marriage means legalized same sex divorce.

While same sex marriage is legal in every state in the US, the requirements that need to be fulfilled for two people to marry are still subject to individual state law.  This means that it can be very easy to marry, such as the infamous “Las Vegas” wedding.  Marriage in haste, while caught up in the moment, has risk involved.  By contrast, in the Catholic church, couples must attend a series of meetings designed to insure that the couple each other well, and are entering into matrimony after careful consideration.  This is another benefit of a “church” wedding.

As with the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, society, and especially, the business world, will quickly embrace the decision.  Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers quickly became entrenched and an abortion industry arose which makes reversing that decision impractical, and eventually, unthinkable.  It’s no longer about what is legal, it’s about who is making money.  This decision will be no different. 

One encouraging aspect is justice Kennedy’s remarks in the decision re-affirming the American right of dissent.  But, that doesn’t stop the dissent limiting aspects of the society that led to this decision in the first place.  Already, you see the articles arising of people that are practicing “hate” by resigning their jobs because issuing same sex marriage licenses is against their life philosophy, guided by their faith.  Less obvious in the media are articles like about the Catholic priest who happened by a celebration for the decision by accident and was spat upon.  I guess “love wins” is just another hollow slogan.

The truth is there is no going back at this point with this divorce.  Divorce always victimizes innocent parties and this one will be no different.  Let’s hope that love truly does win in all of this.  

The Divorce of Marriage

Marriage (or, rather, the definition of marriage) has been a hot topic these days, which is somewhat amazing.  The institution of marriage is our oldest one as human beings on planet Earth, and, until very recently, it was one of our best understood ones.

Marriage has its origins in the story of Adam and Eve, and was easy to define when there is only one man and one woman around. Moses takes the opportunity on Genesis 2:24 to state: “Therefore, a man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”, in the middle of the Adam and Eve story. Men have wives (sometimes more than one) in the Biblical account from this point forward, and the men are always men, and the wives are always women.  This continued on, until the present day, when something seemed to change.

Looking at marriage from a more modern sense, there were two components of marriage that we strived to keep together: the “before God” (given to us by God, translated to the “church wedding”), and the “legal” (to define rights, such as support, children, property, many stemming from divorce). We knew that marriage was one institution, so we accommodated the “God” aspects and the “state” aspects under one general term and one process, administered in two ways: by mayors, justices of the peace, ship’s captains, etc… (legal), and by religious celebrants (both before God and legal).

In the current climate, on the legal side, many governments are redefining marriage to be between two human beings, gender not defined.  This has caused the harmony between “legal” and “before God” marriage to be discordant. God hasn’t changed His mind about marriage, but man has. You cannot use the same term to mean two fundamentally different types of union.  There are, and have been, many legal remedies that accommodate unions between two people that are outside the traditional, common, unified definition of marriage, but these don’t seem to suffice these days.

So, this a legal attempt to redefine a term, more than anything else. By comparison, the term “gay” had a very different meaning not 100 years ago, but through the way the term was used in culture, it became re-defined.  Marriage has a long, well defined and universally recognized meaning that stems from the origin of man, and that meaning defined marriage as between a man and a woman.  What was done culturally, over a period of time with the term gay, is now being attempted with the force of law, over a much shorter period of time, with the term marriage. The former coupling of the legal and the before God that was termed marriage is being uncoupled.

This is the divorce of marriage. But, divorce is the opposite of marriage. So, what does that leave us with?  A term, “marriage” that is really devoid of meaning, since it means two very different things depending on the context.  But, terms don’t work that way, no one uses the term gay to mean happy anymore. But, with marriage, neither meaning is going away any time soon, because same sex people will marry legally, but only one man and one woman will continue to marry before God.  And the relationship itself will be fundamentally different, most obviously, in the fact that one type of marriage can bring forth children without any outside intervention, and one cannot.

When marriage is divorced, it’s not marriage anymore.  It’s nothing.

Thoughts and Prayers

There was a terrorist act in Sydney just before Christmas that resulted in three deaths. There was a lot of coverage of this tragedy in the media. Because the event itself ran over almost a day, and the local television stations went into 24/7 coverage mode of the crisis, there was commentary and reactions recorded from the Prime Minister of Australia, the President of the United States, and many others. Almost all of these reaction interviews featured the statement "our thoughts and prayers are with the hostages and for a peaceful resolution to this situation".

I think they mean well, but this got me to thinking what the "thoughts and prayers" really means. Thoughts are relatively easy to understand, but pretty much useless. Even if they are good thoughts, they don’t go anywhere you’re your head. The meaning of prayers, however, is as variable as the person making the statement, or, more specifically, as variable as their faith.

If I say I’ll pray, but I don’t really believe in God, then, that sort of prayer is just as useful as a thought.  If I pray to an undefined “higher power”, then how do I know if the higher power I’m so agnostic about will hear, much less do anything? If my idea of prayer is to speak to God when a crisis arises, that could be effective, but if you were God, what would you think of someone who talks to you and makes promises only when they need you?  God is more gracious than you or I, and may answer if it is His will, but that sort of prayer is an act of desperation and not a sign of real belief, much less relationship.

If I earnestly pray, but there is sin in my life, I need to settle that first.  That’s what Jesus was talking about when He told the parable of the one going to pray, but having a wrong outstanding with another.  Settle the wrong first, then your prayer will be effective.  Prayer comes out of a relationship with God, it can’t be a one-off.  And, Jesus also said seek (and keep on seeking), knock (and keep on knocking), ask (and keep on asking), in other words, be persistent.  It’s that God doesn’t know what you need or why you need it, He wants you to realise how important it is to you.

People can say that they are praying for a good outcome, but I wonder if they actually do.  But, on the other foot, I need to actually pray (and pray persistently and effectively) if I say I am going to. 

Accountability

I think I’ve finally found a topic that’s less popular than the blog I did on Submission a while ago: Accountability.

It seems to me that society today suffers from a fear of accountability. I believe that not wanting to be held accountable drives a lot of bad behaviour and erroneous belief. This is more than the natural human tendency to “get away” with things.

I believe it is this denial of accountability that is at the base of most atheistic beliefs and behaviour. It drives an ever-increasing scale of excuse-making and blaming and has escalated into an attitude of public mockery without any substance of reason (I’m reminded of Richard Dawkin’s invective call to his followers (with regard to Christians) to “mock them, ridicule them, in public … with contempt”).

As much as we don’t like accountability, we need it. Our justice system cannot function without it. Indeed, some believe that they need to personally hold others accountable when the justice system is perceived to have failed. This accounts for the “protests” after the Michael Brown grand jury decision that somehow end up with stealing and damaging the property of people that had nothing to do with the shooting.

Whether we like it or not, we are accountable. We are accountable to parents, teachers, siblings, governments, anyone who has authority…and ultimately, God. Psalm 10:13 says: Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, "You will not call to account"? Did you catch that? It is wickedness to actively deny or fight accountability, to believe that God will not hold us accountable.

We convince ourselves that God doesn’t exist, because once He doesn’t, there is no one ultimately to hold us accountable. We can bluff, plead, lie, evade, argue, “get a good lawyer to get us off” when the party keeping us accountable is a human or a human organisation. We can’t do that with God, He doesn’t play by our rules. We can’t do that with our heart, or conscience either, because that part is the bit of God we have in us and isn’t fooled either. And, we face death, and any thought/belief of an afterlife means an encounter with God and being held accountable.

That’s where Brittany Maynard’s quest for a dignified death under her own terms fails. She got through all of the accountability barriers, except for God. That’s where officer Darren Wilson and Bill Cosby will be held accountable, if not in this life.

How do you feel about accountability? Is there something right now that you’ve gotten away with that the higher court of conscience is not fooled by? It might be wise to go to the highest court first and get right with Him, and then set about allowing accountability to set us free from the secrets that bind us.

Deceived by the Heart

Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

I thought of this verse today when reading about the grand jury decision on the death of Michael Brown.  I read the testimony of officer Darren Wilson, and have seen the protests, both when Michael died, and now, after the decision not to prosecute officer Wilson.

The Michael Brown case is news because Michael was black and officer Wilson is white.  Reading officer Wilson’s testimony, there are elements that would tend to explain and even justify what he did (the grand jury saw this, as well), but, the one question that officer Wilson can’t answer with any certainty is: would the outcome have been the same if Michael Brown was white? 

Not to compare the two, but the accusations of rape against Bill Cosby are also in the news.  I couldn’t help but notice that most of the women that have come forward fit a certain pattern at the time of the alleged assault: late teens, and white.  Given what we have heard so far, what conclusion can we draw about Bill Cosby:  that he, a black man, sought out white teenaged girls to assault, that he was an “equal opportunity” predator, or that he is an innocent man that is a victim of false accusations?  Bill can provide an answer (at least to himself) that differentiates the first two from the last, but discerning between the first two (if he is guilty) would be much more difficult.

Racism is but one aspect of a wicked heart, and look what devastation it can cause.  And, if we examined our actions (especially our sinful ones), what other destructive motives would we find?  I believe this is what the Holy Spirit, through Jeremiah, was getting at. And, He gives us the answer in the very next verse:

Jeremiah 17:10 - I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.