Where is He?

If God were to answer our demands that He reveal Himself, how would His manifestation look? How would it sound? Feel? Taste? Smell? Could our finite senses even begin to analyze the Infinite?

The atheist or agnostic who says he won’t believe until he sees God doesn’t know what he’s asking for. God is everywhere. If God were to reveal Himself, He’d blot out the universe. And even then, would it do Him justice? If He were to appear, then to be visible, He’d have to, for our sakes, condescend to a narrow spectrum of colors. Then the atheist, upon sizing Him up, would probably say, “Well that doesn’t impress me much. I don’t see any new colors.”

There is a form that did God justice. Jesus grew up and walked the earth, disturbed physical laws, healed, and came back to life from death. Yet Judas traded Him for 30 pieces of silver. Pilate traded Him for a murderer. Those who had seen Him do magic spat on His face and pierced the very hands that wrought compassionate miracles. True, He didn’t impress anyone with fireworks—that’s for later—but He did something much more God-like, much more beautiful, much more convincing: He died for you. He loved sinners. He was the God-Man. John MacArthur puts it succinctly: “If God came to earth, He would have been Jesus. And He was.”

In what form would God have to appear to appease the atheist? I doubt a satisfying one exists. It can always at least be explained away as a hallucination. The Pharisees took it a step further, saying Christ performed His miracles by the power of demons. Clearly, He wasn’t the God they wanted, so they conquered their consciences and “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:25).

A caterpillar must become a butterfly before it can understand the way of wind under wings. What must we become to perceive God for all that He is? Certainly it would have to be a creature with innumerable, unimaginable senses. And even then the mystery would remain, for He is unfathomable.

Ultimately, God’s fireworks won’t save you. More likely, they’ll scare you. His character is the convincing, drawing factor. For now, we can be content that Christ is enough. Where will we find Him today? He has risen. He is alive. We find Him in His living Word, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the hearts of believers worldwide.

This Smacked my Face Today! But it's good

"The insignificances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments that we really show and discern what we are."

-Andrew Murray

Suicide Sobriety

From last year:

Today I got home from work and found in the mailbox Tiger News 2006, my high school alumni newsletter. I skimmed the bright orange booklet until coming to the list of “Tigers who have been reported as no longer with us,” titled “In Memoriam.” I looked for the years nearest my own. It stopped at 1997, a year before I graduated. There, only one name laid claim to the freshest death. Michael _____. Suddenly, I remembered. He had ended his own life. Whether or not I was still in high school at the time I don’t remember. But it had seemed so dark. I knew who he was.

That same day, a few hours and a thousand unrelated thoughts later, an old friend from high school called me. Alice had found me on myspace weeks prior, and we had been emailing with promises to reconnect. Strange that it would happen this way—that the first time I hear her voice in 7 years is so that she can tell me news of Kris _______.

“He took his own life last night,” she said.

I was shocked but didn’t have much time to express it. Her call was urgent. She needed the phone number of a mutual friend whom she thought ought to know. I gave it to her and we commented on the strange circumstances under which we were reconnecting, and then promised to catch up soon.

Life has convinced me that coincidence is not random, but rather, some kind of display of God’s involvement in our lives. So I naturally wondered why the news of Kris’ suicide came up on the same day as the reminder of other schoolmate suicides. I also thought about the newsletter. If it had been printed only a few days later, then Michael would no longer sit last on that list. No doubt, November’s edition will list Kris.

Sobered, and curious, I took some of my yearbooks from the shelf in the corner of the garage. Here is Michael’s senior quote: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” And Kris’, from a fortune cookie: “Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned.”

Were these hints at what was already going on in their minds? Or were they just innocent quotes? I don’t know, but I wonder if God is telling us to pay closer attention.

Some of the most beautiful lines ever written

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
Or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth a constellation in its season,
And guide the Bear with her satellites?

-Job 38:31-32

Excerpt from a thank you letter sent out to supporters of my November mission trip to Fortaleza, Brazil

What were 11 gringos doing several thousand miles and one hemisphere away from home that they couldn't do in their own town? Here are a few thoughts:

-Giving a needed boost to the hard work of the long-term missionaries.

-Showing love to kids and adults who can't get over the fact that we "clean, wealthy Americans" would not only spend time with them, but touch them and hug them and play with them and get dirty working with them. They couldn't help but wonder why we weren't spending our two weeks on one of their beautiful beaches instead.

-Expanding our view of reality by seeing God at work in another culture. I like what Brian, our team leader, said: "God is a Brazilian." Obviously, He's far more than that, but that statement did a good job getting the point across.

-Learning what true Christianity is by seeing what it is not.

-Fulfilling the Great Commission.

All of the above began on November 5. We escaped an encroaching autumn and entered a land of year-round summer—at least by North American standards. The rainy season had ended a few weeks prior, and we found it hard to believe that Fortaleza had been even greener than it already was when we arrived.

Our bus driver, Cesar, took us from the airport to the home of Bill and Erika Moore—six walled acres in the middle of a favela (slum). That was to be our headquarters for the next two weeks while we went out to many slums in Fortaleza and did our ministry.

Here's how a typical day of ministry looked: Wake up at 6:30. Take a cold shower (which we welcomed in the equatorial heat). Breakfast together at 7:00, which included fresh fruits and fruit juices that have now spoiled me for even the best farmer's markets in California. My favorite juices were passion fruit and cashew. After breakfast, we would board the bus and Cesar would skillfully avoid potholes, bumps, dogs, pedestrians, motorcycles, and families on bicycles as he took us to ministry areas such as Projeto Graca, or Grupo CEO, or Maracanau, or Creres. The eager children often arrived before we did. Most didn't attend school, and where their parents were, we could only guess. Some mothers, we learned, were on the streets, selling themselves.

We usually began our time with the children by singing and dancing with them. To my surprise, the song-accompanying hand motions I had feared learning actually came rather easily (once you know three or four, you just about know them all). In addition to that, here are some of the stations we set up every day:

-Hair Washing

-Lice Treatment (I suspect I may now need that myself!)

-Hair Cutting

-Tooth Brush Training, complete with chocolate candies to simulate dirty teeth

After all of those things came the Puppet Show, which the kids always loved more than anything else. In our best Portuguese, we would deliver the gospel message from behind a curtain with Sesame Street-esque puppets. The puppets would explain the significance of each colored bead on the "Pulseira de Boas Novas"—the Bracelet of Good News. Gold stood for Heaven. Black stood for the barrier between humanity and Heaven, which is Sin. Red stood for the Blood of Christ, which serves as the means by which Sin can be conquered. White stood for Purification, which comes as a result of trusting in Christ's sacrifice. Green stood for Growth and new life as a new creation in Christ. After the presentation, the kids would line up for bracelets and we would tie them on their "sweaty little wrists" (to quote Brian again).

I have never seen poorer children. Neither have I seen happier ones. Perhaps their joy was in part due to the novelty of being with foreigners, and perhaps it waned once we left, but I can't help but think there was something more to it.

I especially knew the trip was worth it during our second week in Brazil. We had spent two days at Lar Da Paz (Land of Peace), a rehabilitation center run by a married couple. The original intent was to use that space as an area to continue doing our ministry with local children. What we didn't expect was that the Lord would use us to impact the lives of older men. After two days with a group of 20 or 30 you-name-it addicts and former criminals, one of them, speaking for the group, said to me in broken English, "All of you tattooed our lives." He meant it with the kind of sincerity that makes you want to glance away lest you become too emotional.

We had had the privilege of doing construction with them, playing soccer with them, worshiping the Lord through dance together, and even washing their feet. Apparently, this made a significant impact. However, what everyone on our mission team realized was that these broken men had inked an equally significant tattoo on our own lives. Each member of our team rejoiced that God had taken these men and changed their lives in such a way that only a supernatural explanation would suffice. Yet with each testimony, we saw ever more deeply the significance of our own salvation. Most of us weren't former criminals, but we were all once slaves to sin, and God delivered each of us with an equally miraculous act.

During our time in Brazil, the Lord timed it so that we saw the seeds of salvation sprout in five different people with whom we had contact. We may hear of more fruit in weeks to come, but the bulk of it probably won't be known until Heaven. Though you weren't physically there, I know many of you were "there" in prayer. That means a lot to me. God is so powerful that He can connect us in our service by means of prayer. You produced fruit, and one day, if you are His, you will partake in that with indescribable joy.

Kindness and Cowardliness

One difference between a kind person and a doormat is that a kind person is meek. He has power that he could wield, and yet he often tactfully restrains it. He exercises self-denial, and when he does choose to wield his power, he proceeds gently. He humbly defers to the other person. The doormat is the one who doesn’t trust any power with which to be meek in the first place. He’s simply afraid. He’s a coward.

Faux Flatulence and How to Exonerate Yourself

(June 2004)

As Ben crosses one leg over another, the rubber sole of his shoe catches the vinyl chair in front of him, vibrating at a pitch that might make those sitting around him consider putting their shirts over their noses. But they won’t, of course. That would be too embarrassing—not necessarily for them, but for whoever was responsible for the public no no. And, if someone in the drop zone does put his shirt over his nose, or exclaims, “Eww, who did that,” then he runs the very real risk of being thought the dealer who dealt what he heard. So, what is Ben to do? First of all, he’s not sure if they even heard the noise, because if they did, no one would reveal it. Therefore, he can’t simply break the silence and blurt, “That wasn’t what it sounded like. It was just my shoe rubbing against the chair.” He might be thought insane. His only course of action is to do it again. Again?! Yes, again. Perhaps three or four more times. But they will all have to be subtle, like he didn’t intend them. And he’ll have to make each successive one less similar in sound than its predecessor. This will assuage the listeners’ ears by guiding them through the transition from the original sound to the new, less flatulence-like and more vinyl-meets-rubber-like sound. Then they’ll make the connection, and all will be okay.

When Pests Become Friends

(April 2004)

As I was preparing to teach a class today, I saw an ant on a paper towel that I had taken out of my pocket and placed on the desk. I wondered if it had hitched a ride in my pocket. I wanted to play with it, this lone small creature, many ant-miles away from any kind of food, surrounded by desks and chairs and computers and carpet. I let it scurry onto my hand, and all over my arm, quickly navigating what must have been to him a heavily wooded forest. He was moving too fast for me to relax and have any fun with him, and I didn’t want to let him disappear up my sleeve and give me a surprising bite during class, or crawl into my ear beyond the point where my littlest finger can fit. So I had to make the decision: Do I kill him, or do I let him go? Normally, if I’m inside and I see a lone ant, I quickly roll it to death between my thumb and forefinger. I use my left hand for this deed. I consider it my duty to kill lone ants, because they could very well be scouts, and even if this particular ant wasn’t sent out as a scout, he probably had the potential to become one, even in new territory. I decided that he could easily be the harbinger of our office’s first ant infestation, and so I gently transferred him to my right hand and then rolled him real good with my left.

And it hurt to kill him. I felt like I murdered him. Sort of.

While he was still alive, and had been crawling on my arm, I was strongly reminded of an old feeling. In my past 17 years as a student, during a boring class, an unexpected ant could become a most welcome pet. It would be a relief from the boredom, a living being on which I could concentrate, something with a will of its own, subject to my will. Because of the circumstances, it would suddenly become my pet, instead of my enemy. Any classroom was like a foreign embassy, granting immunity to the wandering ant.

As I sat at the chair in the office, I suddenly had that feeling all over again, of how I could be intrigued by watching this little intricate creature zip around my hand and defy gravity. Something that normally held little value to me became valuable in an instant. And it’s not that ants just held little value before, it’s that in a usual setting, I would kill one on the spot. I have killed hundreds of thousands in my lifetime, so much so that I can easily recognize the smell of the formic acid from their ruptured abdomens.

Now, an ant is an ant. The fact that this one was alone and happened to provide a respite from boredom didn’t make him any more of a virtuous insect. He was just there. And when it came to my decision, I still killed him. But then why the small flash of remorse, when all other times, there is none? Perhaps it’s because having him alone, I was forced to contemplate the complexity of God’s small creatures, and to realize that God is mindful even of that ant, and He even loves it, in a way. However, that doesn’t make it wrong to kill an ant, unless perhaps the killing is done out of malice.

I think there may have been another reason for the remorse I felt. Perhaps it stemmed from the illogical sentimentality to which most of us can fall victim, the kind of thinking that would endow that ant with qualities it does not have, simply because it belongs to me, even if only for the moment. He was my little friend, even though that’s not the feeling that went through his mind (if he has a mind, and if he was even a he). He was my friend, simply by circumstance, and only because of what went on in my mind.

Godincidence in Hollyweird

(January 2004)

Tonight, as I drove home from a chiropractic analysis in Hollywood, I decided to amuse myself in traffic. I wanted to do something weird and unusual. Perhaps in the back of my mind I wanted to fit in—they don’t call it Hollyweird for nothing. So I took my guitar from the case on the passenger seat and put the case in the back seat to make room for my elbow when I played. I rolled down the window, stuck the neck partly out into the cold air, and started to play, hoping that the temperature difference wouldn’t detune the guitar. At every stoplight I positioned the guitar with the neck and left hand out the window, and played a melody. Most only lasted 15 seconds or so, because by then the light would turn green and the herd of cars would begin to move. Strangely, I didn’t feel out of character doing this. Normally, I’m not the kind of guy who willingly makes himself look like an oddball or eccentric. But I was just doing what I wanted.

To my surprise, I found myself hoping to have to stop at red lights! That goes against everything my driving personality believes. To me, driving is always a game. The object: maximum distance in minimal time, which means to be vigilantly looking (up to 300 yards ahead) for drivers who could throw a wrench in my plans or ruin my envisioned route. This game entails that I avoid red lights at all costs (within the reasonable bounds of common decency, of course). With the guitar in hand, however, driving was no longer a game. It had become a silly, fun, avant garde art form called drive-by music. And red lights no longer stressed me.

So I started to wonder, what does this look like to other people? Does anyone else do this? Not a second later, there came the answer to my question. I looked to my right and saw a man in a parked car two lanes over, playing his guitar with the neck sticking out the window. I noticed his license plate, which simply said, “JEWISH,” and then I saw the familiar long beard and yarmulke. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I like to look at these incidences, which seem to happen to me quite often, as God’s fun way of reminding me of His sovereignty. Perhaps the Holy Spirit moved me to take out the guitar, knowing that I would drive past and see the Jewish man doing the same a few minutes later.

February 2006

Winter’s insurgent winds,
subtle as breezy strength,
snuck past the sun rays
and slunk among the oaks
to disrupt this February summer,
and chide bare skin everywhere