Category Archives: Chrisitian Philosophy

Blogs in this category deal with Christianity not from a religious perspective, but from a philosophical viewpoint.

Unreached expectations and some lessons learned

Posted on August 12, 2014 by | Comments Off on Unreached expectations and some lessons learned

180231HrfI love gardening and each spring look for seeds to plant and watch grow.  This past spring was no different.  On one of our family shopping trips, my daughter and I were looking at the seed display rack when one package stood out above all others. Being impressed with the pictures and descriptions on the package, I decided to buy a package of cosmos seeds for around a quarter. My daughter and I took an old egg carton, filled each cup with dirt, and planted two seeds into each cup, then placed the egg carton in the window sill.  Just as stated on the package, within ten days, the first sprouts of green appeared in the makeshift seed starting pots.  Within another three weeks, the seedlings were ready to transplant into window boxes.

I would love to tell you that the plants grew and gave an abundance of blossoms as the picture above or even on the seed envelope had shown.  What happened instead is that one set of plants were attacked by bugs, leaving only one plant unscathed.  It never bloomed.  In the other window box, we had four out of six plants survive whatever it was that ate the other ones, but only one plant bloomed – and the two flowers it had were asymmetric – a far cry from the pictures that had led us to buy that particular seed to try.  As my daughter and I dumped out the window boxes this morning, we began to have a discussion about why things don’t always do what we hope they will.  It started simple enough, “Daddy, these flowers didn’t get very pretty like the pictures. What happened?” At one time another, we have all asked that question – “Lord, why didn’t this work?” I am reminded of this passage of scripture: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil (James 4:13-16).

We’re all guilty of it; we make plans independently from the Lord and when they do not work out the way we want, we immediately begin our attempt to understand why by asking God, “Lord, why didn’t it work?” We even see that the disciples during the time when the Lord Jesus walked the earth also asked this same question: Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? (Matthew 17:19). We all know the story, the disciples went to cast out a devil out of a young man and could not do it.  They then brought the boy to the Lord, whom then was able to cast out the devil.  Instead of rejoicing about the deliverance of the young lad, the disciples kept the focus of the story on themselves; in effect they asked “Lord, why didn’t it work for us?” The gospel of Matthew doesn’t tell us if any time passed between the working of the Lord and the question posed by the disciples.  Knowing myself, it would have been a consuming question that probably would have driven me to ask it nearly immediately after the miracle was performed.  I imagine that the disciples were shocked when they discovered – at the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ – that their attitude was the very reason for their failure to deliver the boy.

So, some of you may be wondering what does planting seeds and the inability of the disciples to release the young boy from being possessed? Had both been successful, where would the glory have been placed?  In the case of the window boxes, I probably would never have thought to give the thanks and praise to the Lord.  Chances are, the disciples would probably have had a similar reaction and would have focused more on their abilities and not the Lord who had given them the abilities.  It would have been nothing to think “wow, those flowers sure are pretty; glad I planted them” or “wow, we just released this precious boy from the devil that possessed him” and not giving the glory, the thanks, and the praise to the Lord. This is the message that the apostle Paul was trying to convey to the early Christians at Thessaloniki when he wrote, Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).

As Christians and children of God, we must remember that our failures do affect God.  Just as I become concerned when my daughter is not able to carry out what she sets out to do, I am sure God has a similar reaction.  I know as a parent there have been several times I have thought to myself, “Sweetie, that’s not going to work…” then have to comfort her as what I knew what was going to happen did.  Since the Bible often compares the roles of parents and the Lord Jesus Christ, I bet there have been times in my life where the Lord has thought, “I wish he would wait, listen and wouldn’t do that…” or “it’s not going to work…” just to have to watch my best made and intended plans fail. With our finite and feeble minds it is hard for us to understand that God has the benefit of being all-knowing, and sees the beginning from the end.  If we just turn to him more in the things that we do and seek His guidance, we would probably experience less failures and more joy. Instead of turning to God when it doesn’t work, what if we make seeking the Lord’s will our first step in even the smallest plan we have?

Comments Off on Unreached expectations and some lessons learned

Posted in Chrisitian Philosophy, My Walk

Tagged , ,

A response to an errant view on stewardship

Posted on August 8, 2014 by | Comments Off on A response to an errant view on stewardship

CountryChurch_Large1There are a number of websites that I have subscribed to that send out “morning updates.” While most them are politically based, about a quarter of them are faith-based.  There are some faith-based subscriptions that focus on issues such as abortion, developing church leadership, and even the struggles of Christians facing persecution around the world.  One subscription I receive is for encouraging pastors and leaders of other ministries both inside and outside the local congregation. This morning, that particular subscription focusing on pastors and ministerial leadership had an article that focused on what the writer called the “unwise stewardship of the small congregation.” I have decided to keep the author’s name and the affiliated website to myself for various reasons including that normally I find most of the stuff posted on this particular site useful, encouraging, and enlightening.

Being a member of several small churches over the last thirty years, I have witnessed what I considered to be poor stewardship of church resources. Now to be fair, I will share with you that I see anything that does not increase the visibility of the church in the community, that does not further the reach of the church, or does not give support for the ministries of the church as being a waste of church resources.  I once went to a church that hired a professional decorator to come in every two weeks to come in and decorate the sanctuary so that it would be aesthetically appealing and fresh. Yes, while I do believe that having a nice looking church building is important, spending close to $300 a month to keep the place “fresh” is not wise stewardship.  Many churches have women and men who love to do the exact same thing and if asked, would probably be willing to do the same thing for just the cost of the materials or even for free.  I am sure that many of you could also share stories of things that churches have spent money on that have not always shown the best judgment when it came to stewardship of the church’s resources.

So, with all that said, I fully expected the article to discuss similar issues with some suggestions on how the church leadership could guide the church body into making more sound decisions.  I was surprised as I read past the first paragraph to discover that the author was not focused on poor spending habits of the church but on the wastefulness of small church congregations.  The author, an associate pastor of a large church in the Boston, Massachusetts area was lamenting that smaller congregations, by their very nature, are a waste of God’s resources.  His entire article was that by remaining open and unmerged with larger churches so that their financial resources can better serve the Lord, these churches were wasting those resources. Smaller congregations were identified as any local church having fewer than 300 regularly attending Sunday morning services.  The ideal church, according to the article, were those that regularly had a “participating” membership of 300 or more. Again, the author identified those as “participating” as simply showing up for Sunday morning worship. As a part of the benefits of smaller congregations merging to form larger congregations, the author counts the benefits of such actions as the ability to better support paid positions within the church, the ability to have better worship facilities, and the ability to adequately fund various activities within the local church. The very basis for the article was fundamentally flawed on several levels.

The first thing that came to my mind was the apostle Paul’s description of the local New Testament church: For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him (I Corinthians 12:13-18). I, as well as other preachers and teachers, have used this passage to discuss the importance of each believer in the local body of Christ but there is a larger application that can be made.  Each local New Testament church has a specific role within the larger body of Christ. Within any denomination, each congregation has its own unique and distinguishable character.  Just as each member of a congregation has a specific function within that congregation that only they can fill, so each local congregation has a specific role and function that it fills within the larger body of Christ.  

Where the author of the article focuses solely on the financial aspects of stewardship, there are other areas that must be considered beyond church finances. As someone who has served as both pastor and interim pastor, I do know the pressures of serving in a smaller congregation that could not financially support a full-time pastor.  My heart’s burden is for the smaller congregation and I admit I am somewhat biased.  In all the churches I served in within those two roles never did I ever consider the money offered by the congregation as a part of my reason to serve.  In every case, I was approached and I saw an opportunity to serve the Lord.  I prayed about the decision and allowed the Lord to lead me without any regard to the amount of money offered. When I did accept the position offered, I was ready to do what was necessary, both in the role I was serving in and as provider of the family.  If I had to have a part-time job to support the ministry I was in, I was ready to do it wholeheartedly and  without complaint.  With this particular author, he was lamenting that as a seminary graduate, it took him serving as an associate pastor nearly ten years before he could find a church that could financially support him. While I understand the hardships that can be caused by insufficient income, any man who approaches a church with an attitude of “if I cannot get paid $xx, then I will not serve as your pastor” is actually hindering the work of the Holy Spirit and is not living by the faith he exhorts others to live by.

Continued on next page.

Pages: 1 2

Comments Off on A response to an errant view on stewardship

Posted in Chrisitian Philosophy, Difficulties and Trials, My Walk

Tagged , ,

When the house of cards falls – and it will

Posted on August 6, 2014 by | Comments Off on When the house of cards falls – and it will

house-of-cardsWhen I was a child, one of the things I enjoyed was building towers made out of simple playing cards. Within a few short days of the discovery of this “new” entertainment, I was making towers of playing cards that almost reached three feet in height.  I quickly learned from the mistakes in design that caused the house of cards to become unstable and collapse. Remembering the lessons learned from those days of childhood, each time the cards would fall, I saw it as an opportunity to try something different and new. Sometimes I would be able to build even taller until I ran out of cards and other times I would simply not even know where to begin rebuilding. How little did I understand in those days that God was trying to teach me an important lesson that I had forgotten until now.

We have all hit stages in our life where we look around and realize that our life is not where we thought it should have been. Maybe you are not as far along in your career as you had planned to be. Maybe you’ve gone through relationship issues that you thought you would be beyond by now. Maybe you’ve experienced something that has opened old wounds that you are having a hard time overcoming. Maybe today you are standing in the middle of the ashes of great plans or dreams you had and you simply do not know where to start. It is very easy during these times to become distracted, to become angry, and if we allow it, to become bitter towards those around us and God.  It becomes easy to become disgruntled and to blame others instead of really seeking to find out what went wrong. God invites us to do just that: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isaiah 1:18).

In my own life, I have gone through a number of things that did not end the way I thought they should have.  I have experienced the pains of two failed marriages and the feelings of failure, shame, inadequacy, and uncertainty that it brings.  I have experienced the confusion and chaos that the loss of a job can bring when things happen beyond our control. In 2006 and since then, when things have not worked out the way I had hoped, I decided to do just that – to reason with the Lord about why things had not happened the way I had hoped.  It meant for the first time in my life, of being completely candid and honest with myself.  One of the worst things we can do to ourselves is to lie to ourselves; we do it quite often. With my own life, I had a tendency not to acknowledge that my sins were as bad as the sins of others.  In fact, the apostle John wrote, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8) as a warning about the condition of our own heart.  Even the prophet Jeremiah warns, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9). When we fail to see the condition of our own heart and when we fail to understand why we do what we do, we are setting ourselves up for future failures.

In 2006, as I watched everything I thought was certain in my life collapse around me, I decided to do something I had never done.  I share this with you not because I am claiming to be super-spiritual or that I have all of life’s answers, because I don’t. I am simply sharing what has since worked for me. I needed to find out who I was, what my relationship was with the Lord, and for the first time in my life, to truly seek God’s face and will for my life.  I decided to take a Saturday and instead of my normal routine, I left my cell phone at home and took my backpack, a few bottles of water, my knee brace, and my small Bible, and decided to hike every trail in Giant City State Park, spending the time in prayer and in solitude.  I needed to hear from the Lord.  As I locked my car in the parking lot, I said my first sincere prayer of the day; I asked God to open my eyes and to let me see my life as He sees my life.  Folks, that prayer is not for cowards or sissies.  Before I even took my first step out of the parking lot, I took a few minutes to read two chapters of Proverbs and decided that each time I took a break, I would read another two chapters.  I spent the day either in Scripture, in prayer, or thinking on the verses I had read and evaluating the things in my life that had brought me to that point. Sometimes the only way we can really hear from the Lord is to remove ourselves from our daily routines and to truly seek time with the Lord.

What I began to understand for the first time in my life is the importance of seeking the will of God in all that I do.  Whether it is dating, marriage, or even career choice, all too often we have a tendency to make hasty decisions based on emotions or appeal to our vanity.  Solomon wrote, Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding (Proverbs 3:5) and his father, David, wrote O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is (Psalms 63:1). Both verses offer profound guidance for the Christian seeking to really understand what the Lord Jesus Christ would have them to do. This was something that I had never done; I had acted on emotional appeal, perceived appearances, promised personal benefit, and a number of other factors, but never had I made a decision solely based on guidance of the Holy Spirit. Never had I made a decision after consulting only the Lord or seeking out His will for me.  I simply made the decision on my own and had the audacity to blame God when things didn’t work out the way I wanted.

Continued on next page.

Pages: 1 2

Comments Off on When the house of cards falls – and it will

Posted in Chrisitian Philosophy, Difficulties and Trials, My Walk

Tagged , , , , , , ,