Christian Living

---

Have you ever noticed how everything in nature seems to have a predefined purpose? As if things are pre-programmed to perform certain tasks, all in concert with everything else. The miracle of our ecosystem continues to amaze me every time I take a moment to consider the elegant simplicity of how rain happens. Why doesn't rain just come crashing down all at once when the water vapor reaches a certain point, like a giant bucket of water being tossed from the sky? And once the rain has fallen, cleaning the atmosphere in the process I might add, it begins to evaporate, changing from a liquid to a vapor and rising back up into the sky where it will collect over time to once again fall upon the earth, providing life giving water to all things.

But what really amazes me is watching nature programs where you can see in minute detail how all of the living things on the earth serve a particular purpose, fulfilling their role, like little robots. Birds collect and ingest seeds, where they then fly about and deposit them, you know how, upon the earth, allowing trees to grow in new places far from the original seed bearing tree.

Each living thing it seems, lives it life functioning within it's particular and unique programming. I believe we call this instinct. However, that would not apply to plants, even though plants have a role to play as well.

I am sure that those who support evolution would be quick to say that this is all because everything adapts via the evolutionary process to serve the natural order. I propose that the natural order was created first and every thing, living or not, was engineered to work within that order.

I consider them to be God's little robots, programmed by Him to serve a purpose He defined during the creation of the universe. Which brings me to my next point: ONE BIG EXCEPTION.

God created man to be different from all other living things. We are given a minimum set of programming if you will; survival instinct, automatic life support functions (breathing for instance) and all of the necessary things to make us "operate".

However, that is where a huge disparity between us and the rest of God's creation beings to manifest itself. We are not pre-programmed to perform any particular task within the natural order. Actually, one big difference in nature between human beings and other animals is that we do not adapt to our surroundings to survive, we adapt our surroundings to suit our survival needs.

God gave us the ability to think and reason right from the beginning. He gave us the ability to make choices based on that reasoning. The perplexing thing is that the very ability God gave us to reason things out is a barrier in many cases to accepting and following him since reason seems to be in conflict with faith. Which is an interesting dilemma since we normally accept many things on faith in our day to day lives. For instance, how many of us have walked on the moon? I don't see any raised hands. But we accept on faith that some of us have, even though we have no first hand knowledge of this event. Sure we saw it on television, but how much do we see on television that is not factual? I happened to be watching the "live" broadcast of this event in July of 1969 in a little gas station in New Albany, Mississippi. It was interesting to hear the comments of the farmers who were there who in many cases did not believe this to be a true event. Instead, many commented that they believed it to be happening somewhere in the Arizona desert.

I personally have never measured the speed of light, so how do I know for a fact that it travels at 186,000 miles per second? I take it on faith that the people who have measured it have done so to a fair degree of accuracy.

I personally did not witness the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the demise of Napoleon at Waterloo or the apparent suicide of Adolf Hitler. I have to take these things on faith that the people who have chronicled the incidents did so with a reasonable amount of accuracy based hopefully on first hand knowledge, what we would call primary research rather than secondary research.

So when it comes to the Bible, why do many of us have such a difficult time taking the Word of God on faith?

The answer is simple, really. We don't want to. We would rather rest on reason than on faith, when the evidence of the Creator is all about us all of the time, we choose to ignore this demonstration of God's greatness in favor of taking a skeptical view. Of course, I believe that this skepticism is more a product of our wanting to stay in control of our lives rather than any real lack of evidence.

I don't think there is a book in all of history that has been analyzed, verified, interpreted, translated, read, purchased or shoplifted as often as the Bible. Considering that there are hundreds of copies of the Bible from ancient times, why would it be less "authentic" than say, books about historical times where there are only one or two original copies in existence?

In the best estimates of historical and biblical scholars, the bible was written less than one hundred years after the death and ressurection of Jesus Christ. In the timeline of ancient texts, that is considered to be an extremely short period of time. Contrast that to most of the writings about the life of Mohammad which most scholars agree were written several hundred years after the prophet's death.

The sticking point for most people that I talk to is not even so much a lack of evidence of the life of Christ, it is a stance of denial that Jesus would say things that if true, would actually remove all of our choices but the one: Follow Jesus and go to heaven, or not and go to hell. That He is the only way to heaven.

During a class taught by a well respected and learned pastor on the subject of creation, he began the class by stating that if you could believe the first four words of the bible, the rest was really easy; "In the beginning, God."

Because everything that comes after that is pretty minor compared to the belief that God was the beginning and everything after was created and formed from Him.

The miracle of a virgin birth compared to the creation of everything from nothing is really not much of a leap once you consider it in that context.

So why so few Christians and so many non? Why so many Christians who act so un-Christian? There are a lot of biblical scholars who can talk to you about election, pre-destination, calvinism and armenianism, but I won't. However, I can state my opinion on the matter:

We are born in sin and destined to fight it all of our days, until Jesus calls us home. Now granted, some seem to have it easier than others in this regard, at least on outward appearance, but I am not one of the lucky ones.

So how can you do it? Is it possible to be a follower of Jesus? Where can such strength come from? How can anyone resist the thousand temptations that are presented before us each day? How do we tap into the power of being a Christian?

Discipline. That is what I struggle with. Keeping myself in the Word on a regular and sustained basis so that I am prepared to face the next trial. The discipline of prayer so that I can stay connected to God. Interruptions, busy schedules, distractions, minor emergencies; all things that tempt me to not do what I should do. And so easy to allow them to be the thing I focus on rather than God.

The good news is that I am pretty certain I am not alone in this. The bads news is that I am very certain I am not alone in this.

I get my weekly bible verse during our praise team devotional and place it carefully in my wallet with the best of intentions to study and memorize it for the next week. Such a little thing, a few lines of verse to memorize. Yet such a monumental task when it is jumbled in with the hundred things I must accomplish during the week as a modern day hunter-gatherer attempting to feed my family, pay my bills, satisfy my customers and generally not go insane from the constant barrage of information and life-noise I muddle through during the week.

Every morning I get up, promising myself I will be a better Christian, husband, father and all around human being. Then the phone starts ringing and I am off to solve someone else's problems while mine wait for a more opportune time. I suppose I could get up earlier. But I don't. I could stop during the mid-day meal and take some time, but I rarely stop even to eat.

So, what now?

Here's my list:

Carve out time. If you are schedule driven, set a block of time each day that is inviolate. If you are like me, on a totally unpredictable schedule, make yourself take a block of time each day, no matter when it occurs and make it uninterruptable for that one period of time.

Focus, focus, focus. Focus on one or two things each day to do that will bring you into the presence of God; Read a chapter in the Bible, Pray.

If you are not in a small group of some sort, get in one right away. Be it Sunday school or a bible study. We need the support of our Christian brothers and sisters and they need ours.

Serve someone else on a regular basis, keeping yourself humble, and letting Jesus shine through your service to Him by serving those He loves.

Ok, that's four things. Enough for now, but if you think of any to add to your list, make sure you keep the list manageable. Better to do four things well and consistantly than ten things poorly so that no one benefits, especially you, in your walk with God.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE