Father/Son Group: Our Broken World

How Can God Exist When Our World Is So Broken?

How can God exist when our world is so broken?

Our world is far from perfect. In fact, it is quite broken. The world is full of suffering and injustice, and God seemingly has done nothing to stop it. Isn’t the reality of our cruel and unjust world incompatible with the idea of a good and powerful God? After all, if God knows everything, surely he would have known beforehand how broken the world would be that he would create. God either is not great or he is not good. For if he were good and if he could, he would have made a much better world – one far less broken. As Sam Harris has said: “If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil.”

Not only is the world broken, but the religious concept of “Heaven” is broken – especially as presented in the Bible. We are all the products of our own environment, and all have various degrees of exposure to different philosophies and religions, and if God would rig the system so that there could be only one way to heaven – through Jesus – he would be a very “unjust” God indeed. If that’s who “God” is, I’ll pass.”

This argument carries great emotional weight, but at the same time provokes a series of questions surrounding what we mean by “broken” and the alternatives of the reality in which we find ourselves. The simple truth is this: the fact that we recognize the world is “broken” is evidence for God, rather than an argument against his existence.

1. What do we mean by a “broken” world?

Where did we get the idea the world is broken? What do we mean by “broken”? We all seem to have this internal sense that there is something wrong with the world. But when we admit the world is “broken”, we are appealing to a standard of “unbrokenness” – an image of an ideal world. But where does such a standard come from in a world without God? Likewise, when we say the world is “unjust”, we are appealing to a standard of “justice”. But where do we get the idea that things should be “just”?

C.S. Lewis, as you know, was an atheist before becoming a Christian. He concludes in Mere Christianity that atheism turns out to be too simple. He writes:

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.”

In addition, where did we get the idea God was supposed to be just? Throughout most of human history, civilizations believed the “gods” were the cause of the injustice in the world. What was behind every great calamity? The capricious actions of the gods. Yet today, especially in the West, we doubt God because of injustice in the world. Andy Stanley points out that when we reject God because of injustice in the world, we don’t solve injustice; we lose the definition altogether. In fact, the best way to get rid of injustice in the world is to get rid of God. But when we do, what we’re left with when we have no standard of justice is:

Your Justice | My Justice | Nazi Justice | Klan Justice | Street Justice | Majority Justice | Nature’s Justice | Rich Justice | Power Justice

2. If there is no God, does evil exist?

Is there actually such a thing as “evil”? If the answer is “no”, and all we are is biology or molecules in motion, then there really is no “brokenness” in the world – as everything simply is the way it is. After all, what is the basis for calling anything evil in a world which sprung into existence from nothing through a process of evolution by natural selection? In such a world, there are no moral absolutes. We, therefore, have no inherent right to condemn others, and ultimately, have no actual “free will” of our own – as we are simply the products of our biological makeup and surroundings. In a world without God, we might find certain things tasteful or distasteful, but we cannot say that anything is inherently morally right or wrong, good or evil.

Atheist Steven Pinker states:

“The scientific outlook has taught us that some parts of our subjective experience are products of our biological makeup and have no objective counterpart in the world. The qualitative difference between red and green, the tastiness of fruit and foulness of carrion, the scariness of heights and prettiness of flowers are design features of our common nervous system, and if our species had evolved in a different ecosystem or if we were missing a few genes, our reactions could go the other way. Now, if the distinction between right and wrong is also a product of brain wiring, why should we believe it is any more real than the distinction between red and green? And if it is just a collective hallucination, how could we argue that evils like genocide and slavery are wrong for everyone, rather than just distasteful to us?”

Most of us, however, would say “yes”, evil does exist – some things are always wrong. Torturing and killing innocent people for fun, for example, is always wrong in every culture at all times. But if there are things that are always wrong, who decides?

3. Who decides what is right or wrong?

Some might say “Society” determines what is right or wrong. But what is a society? Society is a collection of humans. So, which collection of humans are going to determine for us right from wrong? Who are these angels, as Milton Friedman says, who we find to properly govern society for us? And which society are we talking about – Mother Theresa’s or Hitlers? Do we have a right to condemn the Nazi’s for following the laws of their own society? Were we wrong during the Nuremberg Trials for imposing our laws on members of their society? We seem to be left with a choice that either there is a moral standard that transcends society or there is no moral standard. And if there is no moral standard, the Nazis were not wrong, and we are back to saying there is no actual evil since we are simply evolved biology and, thus, there is no “brokenness”.

Others might say “Evolution” determines what is right or wrong. For example, we might say humans learned to cooperate in order to survive and thrive; therefore, cooperation is right because we evolved that way. But obviously not everyone cooperates with others. In fact, there are many in every society who have thrived precisely because they did not cooperate with others – gaining at someone else’s expense.

Are some of us, then, just “less evolved”? If yes, who decides who is “more evolved”? Society? Which one? And if some of us are “more evolved”, in our sense of morality for example, are we saying we should hold others to our same “standard”? (Who could blame someone for simply being less evolved?) And if we have evolved, are we saying that evolutionary “genetic mutations” over millions of years have the moral authority to tell you how you “ought” to behave? Without a moral standard, words like “should” and “ought” are without meaning.

If evolution determines what is right and wrong, are we saying physical “survival” is the highest moral virtue? What about sacrificing yourself for others, for example, as many in our military have done? Where would that fall on the evolutionary scale of right and wrong? Some may argue that we sometimes find examples of sacrifice in nature – kamikaze bees, for example, protecting the hive. But there is an important difference between descriptive and prescriptive behaviors. Natasha Crane points out the distinctiveness of a moral obligation:

“Dolphins are known for random acts of kindness. They’ve saved swimmers from sharks and have even guided stranded whales back to sea. But morality, as humans intuitively understand it, is not merely a description of what is good or bad. It is also a prescription for what we should or shouldn’t do. We don’t just say that murder is bad, for example; we say we shouldn’t do it. There’s a moral obligation attached. If we apply this same understanding to the animal world, we would have to say that dolphins should be kind to others. But no one applies moral obligations to animals. We see their actions as facts of their existence, not something appropriate for moral judgment (is there ever moral outrage when animals kill each other – or, for that matter, when animals do anything?) Even if evolutionary theory accurately explained how certain behaviors evolved to aid survival, it wouldn’t explain the jump to our human sense of moral obligation.”

If we are saying our evolved sense of right and wrong is based on humans being able to survive and thrive, wouldn’t improving the gene pool for the benefit of all humanity be one way for humans to better survive and thrive? For example, is there anything inherently wrong with killing the weak and “undesirables” among us, like Hitler did, to ultimately produce healthier and happier humans? Based on this rationale, atheist Peter Singer has argued the case for selective infanticide.

“When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of a happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second.”

If there is no God, and we evolved from nothing, it is hard to argue against the rationale that some humans are simply better than others. After all, in a world where organisms fight for survival and the fittest win, wouldn’t it be more consistent to say that humans are very unequal? Stronger or weaker physically, intellectually, emotionally, and in many other ways? Yet, at the same time, we all fight vociferously for things like “equal rights”.

4. What do we mean by “equal rights”?

Without God, what do phrases like “equal rights” mean, and why do we fight so hard for them? The Declaration of Independence stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” But human equality is not self-evident at all. Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes:

“The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God. However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are “equal”?

The first chapter of the Bible claims that God made human beings in his image. If this is not true, then there is no basis for equality and rights. Writing from an atheistic standpoint, Harari goes on to explain that: “Homo Sapiens have no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas, and chimpanzees have no natural rights.”

In her book, The Secular Creed, Rebecca McLaughlin writes:

“We must not be naïve about the past. The painful reality is that the founding fathers excluded enslaved Africans from their vision of human equality. But this problem isn’t fixed by erasing the basis for equality. In fact, the dehumanizing ways in which black people were treated by white slaveholders were only truly wrong if human beings are truly more than animals, if love across racial difference is right, and if right and wrong are universal. The rational atheist can cling to none of these things.”

McLaughlin goes on to point out that while our basic moral beliefs about human equality came to us from Christianity, they have been deliberately rebranded as secular, to a large degree beginning shortly after World War II, in order to have greater appeal to more countries around the world. She states:

“This rebranding has worked so well that even atheists now hold some Christian beliefs to be self-evident truths. The belief that every human life is valuable, that the oppressed and marginalized deserve justice, that we should love those whose race or culture or country is different from ours, that we should even love our enemies – these beliefs all come to us from a first-century Jewish rabbi who died on a cross and whose resurrection spawned the greatest movement for diversity in history. Without Christianity, belief in human rights, in racial equality, and in the responsibility of the powerful toward the victimized becomes blind faith.”

Like the man who borrows your stick so he can then beat you with it, atheists tend to unconsciously borrow from a Christian ethic to build their case against God. We forget that terms such as human equality and equal rights are not at all self-evident. Yet, we today in the West live each day under the warm blanket of freedom and equality. But this is a blanket we all take for granted. Our belief in equal rights have become so foundational, so intrinsic, that we are mostly unaware of how deeply it has been shaped by a Christian ethic unknown to most of human history. Andy Stanley points out that “we are least aware of things that are most constant”. We neglect to recognize just how much we view our “broken” world through the lens of presupposed moral principles such as justice and equality.

In his book 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson writes:

“Christianity achieved the well-nigh impossible. The Christian doctrine elevated the individual soul, placing slave and master and commoner and nobleman alike on the same metaphysical footing, rendering them equal before God and the law… the implicit transcendent worth of each and every soul established itself against impossible odds… Christianity made explicit the surprising claim that even the lowliest person had rights, genuine rights – and that sovereign and state were morally charged, at a fundamental level, to recognize those rights.

We forget that the opposite was self-evident throughout most of human history. We think that it is the desire to enslave and dominate that requires explanation. We have it backwards, yet again… The society produced by Christianity was far less barbaric than the pagan – even the Roman – ones it replaced… It objected to infanticide, to prostitution, and to the principal that might means right. It insisted that women were as valuable as men… It demanded that even a society’s enemies be regarded as human… All of this was asking the impossible: but it happened.”

You might say, but what about the terrible morals described in the Bible? Well first, which part of the “Bible” are we talking about? The Bible was written by 40 authors over roughly 1,500 years. In the first century, the rapid growth of the early Christian church occurred before there was “the Bible”. The foundation of Christianity is not the Bible. It is an event – the Resurrection. When all the letters and writings (books) were compiled several hundred years later, it included the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) largely because it pointed to Christ (e.g., the prophecies throughout, such as Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9). The Jewish Scriptures tell the story of God’s covenant with ancient Israel during a specific season of Jewish history. Ultimately, Christ was the fulfillment of that covenant. Through Christ, there is a new covenant. The old and new “covenants” are how we get the terms old and new “testaments”.

So, are we talking about the morals of the Jewish Scriptures? Our pastor, Willy Rice, points out, the Jewish Scriptures are mostly “descriptive” as opposed to “prescriptive”, telling the story of very imperfect people, even highlighting their flaws. Obviously much of it may appear “distasteful” to us in the 21st century, looking back on a very primitive period in history. But as we’ve discussed, we’re looking through a very different lens today – one built on a Christian ethic that did not exist in the ancient world.

You might say, but multitudes through the ages have committed horrendous atrocities in the name of “God” – but as Frank Turek reminds us, we don’t judge a philosophy or religion by its abuses.

You can choose to reject God because you disagree with its morals, but that wouldn’t exempt you from the need to embrace an alternative systematic worldview – one that is both consistent and comprehensive. As we know, a fatal flaw in reasoning would be if we were to build our own moralistic edifice of “God” and then want to compare that self-made version to the God of the Bible as a means of disproving him. And in so doing, you are likely borrowing from the Christian ethic to make your case. If we reject God because he does not align with our beliefs, we are still left needing to clarify those beliefs and answer several foundational questions. Willy Rice poses four key questions we must consider when formulating our worldview:

  1. Why is there something rather than nothing?
  2. What has gone wrong?
  3. Is there any hope?
  4. How does it all end?

You might say, but even if Christianity has shaped our morals today, doesn’t science still offer a better explanation for how we got here?

5. What are the alternatives for how we got here?

Can science answer the question of the origin of the universe? In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, provides his scientific argument for why there is no God. In the middle of the book, Dawkins summarizes what he calls the “central argument” of his book at the end of his chapter titled Why There Almost Certainly Is No God. Dawkins summarizes his concluding point regarding the origin of the universe by stating: “we should not give up hope”. Dawkins writes:

“This chapter has contained the central argument of my book, and so, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall summarize it as a series of six numbered points.

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself…

3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer…

4. The most ingenious and powerful [explanation] so far discovered is Darwinian evolution by natural selection…

5. We don’t yet have an equivalent [explanation] for physics…

6. We should not give up hope of a better [explanation] arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology…

“If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion – The God Hypothesis – is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist.” 

From what would appear to be a very scientific book, Dawkins seems to be concluding the following: God almost certainly does not exist. Why? Because “we should not give up hope” of one day finding a better explanation for the design and existence of the universe. “Hope” does not sound like a very scientific answer, aside from the obvious non sequitur in his argument.

Many atheists state something very similar to Dawkins’ argument: “We have to give science more time. If we give science more time, one day we will find a natural cause for the universe.”

Obviously, this statement requires a lot of faith in science. But beyond that, it is a logical fallacy. Since we know from science that space, time, and matter had a beginning, we know that the cause cannot be made of space, time, or matter. The cause must be beyond those things. You might say why couldn’t the universe, or DNA, just “be” or “always was”? But we know from science the universe had a beginning (e.g., Edwin Hubble and the Hubble telescope in the 1920s, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, etc.)

Science cannot in principle find a natural cause for all of nature because if nature had a beginning, the cause cannot be something natural – because nature didn’t exist. Nature was the effect, so it cannot also be the cause. The cause must be something beyond nature, or supernatural. This is what Christians mean by “God” – something that is spaceless, timeless, and immaterial – beyond nature. You might say, “we are all atheists about most gods; some of us just go one god further. I don’t believe in the Christian God just like a don’t believe in the Sun god or leprechauns or unicorns.” But there is an obvious difference between something with physical or time-bound limitations and a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and powerful Creator – an uncaused cause.

Scientists take issue with “God of the Gaps” responses to scientific questions – meaning, for what cannot be explained, “God” fills in the gaps. Critics of faith argue that it is intellectually lazy to say the answer to the origins of the universe must be “God”. They argue that throughout history, gods have been disproven through scientific advancement – few people still believe in the gods of mythology or of ancient Greece or Rome, for example – and eventually all gods will be disproven by science. Civilizations throughout history believed in many gods – Zeus, Thor, Jupiter, Mars, and a myriad of different gods that control different events and aspects of our lives – and that we were at the whim of their control. The world was unstable and unpredictable because it was unexplainable.

In Genesis chapter 1, what happened after God created the universe? God Rested. Meaning he stopped creating. He had already put into motion the laws of science. If that is true, what would we expect to discover? A universe that is stable, predictable, and explainable – a universe that could be consistently observed through science. Which is why it was believers in God who launched the modern scientific revolution. John Lennox states:

“Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo: All believed in a God who created and sustained the universe. Instead of the founders of modern science being hindered by their belief in God, their belief in God was the motor that drove their science.”

Lennox also points out that the scientist’s confidence in reason ultimately depends on the existence of a rational and purposeful Creator. Otherwise, our thoughts are nothing more than electro-chemical events, the chattering of soul-less synapses. Lennox states:

“If you take the atheistic, naturalistic, materialistic view, you’re going to invalidate the reasoning process, because in the end you’re going to say that the brain is simply the end product of a blind, unguided process. If that’s the case, why should you trust it?”

6. What is “Choice” without the ability to Choose?

What were God’s options in creating the world? Create humanity with “free will”, or create a world of robots, where we had no choice but to choose God and love God. But if we had no choice, it really wouldn’t be love; words like “choice” and “love” would be without meeting. We would have no ability to truly love. Love necessitates choice.  

When we turn back to Dawkins’ world, however, we find a lack of choice, a lack of free will, naturalistic determinism. If all we are is biology, we are incapable of stepping outside of our natural selves to choose freely. If that is the case, what we may perceive as choices are actually the summation of our chemical makeup and conditioning – and we really have no choice in the matter. Many atheists do not hesitate to acknowledge the non-existence of free will:

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne: “To assert that we can freely choose among alternatives is to claim, then, that we can somehow step outside the physical structure of our brain and change its workings. That is impossible. Like the output of a programmed computer, only once choice is ever physically possible: the one you made.”

Plant biologist Anthony Cashmore: “The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar. The laws of nature are uniform throughout, and these laws do not accommodate the concept of free will.”

Molecular biologist Francis Crick: “‘You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”

Cornell historian of biology William Provine: “It starts by giving up an active deity, then it gives up the hope that there is any life after death. When you give those two up, the rest of it follows fairly easily. You give up the hope that there is an imminent morality. And finally, there’s no human free will. If you believe in evolution, you can’t hope for there being any free will. There’s no hope whatsoever in there being any deep meaning in life.”

In a purely material world, scientists tell us that free will is an illusion – and the “decisions” we make are the only ones we could have made, given our biological brain wiring.

For love to exist, choice must exist. For choice to exist, there must be contrasting alternatives – a spectrum of good and evil, holiness and wickedness, perfection and brokenness. Without choice, there is no brokenness. With choice, brokenness is necessary. And we clearly see in our world the repercussions of the choices we make. A world under the regimes of Hitler and Lenin and Stalin and Mao Zedong – all just in the 20th century – is a very broken world indeed. As is a world where humans use “God” or religion as a means to justify their own evil ambitions (but as we’ve said, we don’t judge a religion by its abuses). 

But it gets worse. Beyond the obvious evils in the world, we all fall short. If the golden rule is our guide to how we ought to live, we all ‘miss the mark’. I have to admit that I’m a contributor to the world’s brokenness. Have I ever stolen something or hurt someone? Have I ever been rude, short-tempered, or acted selfishly? Of course. I’m part of the problem. We all are.

Summary

Here is a quick recap of the prior 6 sections:

  1. When we say the world is “broken” we are appealing to a standard of perfection by which we compare what we call broken. But in a world without God, where do we find such a standard ? Where do we get the idea of justice? For when we reject God because of injustice in the world, we don’t solve injustice; we lose the definition altogether.
  2. Most of us would admit that evil exists – meaning that there are some things are always wrong. But who decides?
  3. If Society determines what’s right and wrong, we have to decide which society (which collection of humans) we are talking about. If Evolution determines what’s right and wrong, we find a lack of consistency – some of us cooperate, others do not – and if some humans are simply less evolved, can we blame them? And ultimately, are we saying that evolutionary “genetic mutations” have the moral authority to tell you how you “ought” to behave?
  4. The concept of equal rights was not self-evident throughout most of human history. The idea that all humans have worth and inherent rights came from the belief in a Creator.
  5. Science cannot provide a natural explanation for the origins of the universe. Conversely, it was the belief in a Creator (who created a stable, predictable, and explainable universe) that drove the modern scientific revolution.
  6. For us to actually have a choice, “free will” must exist; thus, brokenness is a natural consequence.

Suffering

You might say, our world may be broken because of human choices, but it is also broken because of the immense suffering caused by the natural world – such as sickness and natural disasters. Why would God allow so much suffering? But who are we to commandeer someone else’s suffering to make our case against God? For many, suffering is what leads them to God, not away from him. As Andy Stanley points out, doubting God because of suffering in the world is primarily a “first-world” issue. In many third-world countries, you would expect to find next to extraordinary poverty overwhelming doubt, but what you often find instead is extraordinary faith.

Jordan Peterson, as a psychologist, points to the reality of suffering as the cornerstone for how we can know anything is true:

“What can I not doubt? The reality of suffering. It brooks no argument. Nihilists cannot undermine it with skepticism. Totalitarians cannot banish it. Cynics cannot escape from its reality. Suffering is real, and the artful infliction of suffering on another, for its own sake, is wrong. That became the cornerstone of my belief.”

Heaven: The Great Equalizer

With every great tragedy and devastating disaster, people have concluded: “How can there be a God to allow this to happen?” Perhaps the appropriate conclusion in response is: “How can there not be a Heaven?” Nothing is fair in this broken world; Heaven is the great equalizer. For every aborted baby, deserted mother, abused child, and disease-stricken body – for every impoverished society and imprisoned saint – for every death, hurt and heartache – there is the offer of Heaven.  There is eternal redemption and reward. The only way this broken world can make sense is with the backdrop of the next.

Our Ability to Choose

You might say, but why wouldn’t a perfectly loving and good God make the fact of his existence undeniable? There are things we may never understand this side of eternity, but as we’ve said before, “choice” must exist for us to truly love God. As Natasha Crain points out:

“Some amount of free will is necessary for us to genuinely love God… If God revealed himself completely, he would effectively be removing our freedom to seek and love him.”

Similarly, in the 1600’s, Blaise Pascal wrote:

“Willing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from him with all their heart, God so regulates the knowledge of himself that he has given indications of himself, which are visible to those who seek him and not to those who do not seek him. There is enough light for those to see who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.”

You might ask, but what about those who have never heard the message of Christianity? C.S. Lewis points out that while the Bible says no one can get to heaven except through Christ, the Bible does not say that only those who know him can be saved through him. The fact is that God has not informed us of his plans for dealing with the uninformed – those in distant and isolated lands, those perhaps too young, or those with various capacities for understanding. However, what would not make sense is for us to remain outside the “deal” just because we don’t know what the deal might be for someone else. In fact, it would be quite arrogant of us to believe we could place ourselves in the lives and minds of others in order to build a case against God.

The main character in C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Great Divorce, summarizes the choice we have within the bounds of time as we know it:

“You cannot fully understand the relations of choice and Time till you are beyond both… Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” … No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

Our Limited Understanding

What we find in the middle of Dawkins’ book is a “hope” in a worldview which begins and ends with our natural world. What we find in the middle of the Bible is an invitation for all to an eternal world which begins now and has no end.

If you open to the middle of the Bible, you’re likely to land in the book of Isaiah, written around 700 B.C. (As you may know, the entire book of Isaiah was found in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls c. 1946.) Chapter 55 begins by stating:

Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters.

In Isaiah we find a God who provides an open invitation for all who are thirsty, for anyone who desires, to come. And at the same time, we find a God we cannot fully understand with our limited capacities and time-bound bodies. A few verses later, it states:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”, declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

We will never truly understand God side of eternity. But that’s what makes God God. If we could understand him, we could invent him. But we cannot. Isaiah tells us his understanding is infinitely beyond ours.

You might say, but if I can’t understand him, how can I believe in him? But we know we place our faith in things we don’t understand all the time. I’m writing these words on the Notes app on my smartphone as I go through the Chick-fil-A drive-through with Campbell. In a moment, I will tap a screen on my phone to pay for the meal. Campbell will then ask Siri to tell us a “bedtime story” as I drive her to her grandmother’s house. Siri’s story is about stars and planets and our warm earth. I will then use Google to search for of amazing little-known facts about our universe.

Do I understand my smartphone? No way! When the guy at the Verizon store brought me one, I immediately said, “oh no you don’t, I’m not taking that from you until you can first fully explain it to me. I’ll stick with my tin can phone instead, which I can understand”. Actually, that obviously didn’t happen. People use smartphones, even though they can’t understand them, because a smartphone works infinitely better than a tin can phone. We trust in things we do not understand all the time, because it presents the better of other alternatives. Why would it be any different when it comes to God?

You might say, but even if God were the creator of the universe and author of our moral framework, it’s unfair that some are more likely to find Jesus than others. But again, we have to assume we know God’s plans for everyone else. What is fair in this world? Is there anything that is completely fair? I have to remind my kids it’s not fair that they get to grow up in the modern American suburbs with easy access to education, healthcare, wealth, and a myriad of amazing opportunities. We all have a different body type, mental capacity, athletic ability, predispositions, family circumstances – the list goes on and on of things beyond our control. Nothing in life is fair. Yet, in an unfair world, full of humanity’s brokenness, God says “Come, all who are thirsty.” And his offering of eternal life says:

  1. Everyone is welcome
  2. Everyone gets in the same way
  3. Everyone can meet the requirement

What could be more fair in an unfair and broken world?

The central tenet of Christianity – a personal God who loves us and demonstrated his love by stepping onto the pages of history in human form to pay the ultimate sacrifice to set us free from our own brokenness – may be somewhat difficult to understand. But if the choice is between believing in something difficult and having a blind faith in something that is logically inconsistent or impossible, I must choose the former. As Andy Stanley points out, we cannot get hung up on the unexplainable and lose sight of the undeniable. What is Undeniable?

  1. There is a Creator – an uncaused cause to the universe – a “God” beyond nature.
  2. The son of a Jewish carpenter claimed to take away the sins of humankind and died on a cross.
  3. Eyewitnesses were willing to die for what they believed they saw – a resurrected Jesus.
  4. News spread rapidly, into every continent, and today one third of the world’s population believes a Jewish carpenter raised himself from the dead and celebrate that fact in history. McLaughlin reminds us: “Today, Christianity is the largest and the most diverse belief system in the world, with roughly equal numbers of Christians in Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, and with a rapidly growing church in China that is expected to outgrow the church in America by 2030, and could include half of China’s population by 2060.”
  5. There is an unquenchable thirst in every human heart that cannot be satisfied by the stuff of this world. C.S. Lewis explains: “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction of those desires exists… If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” 
  6. People everywhere claim that Jesus changed their life from the inside out.

What a Loving God Offers?

What do we find about God from the book of Isaiah?

From Isaiah 55 where God says “Come, all who are thirsty“, if we turn a few pages further, we come to Isaiah 61, which says:

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free.  

700 years later, at the outset of his ministry, Jesus goes to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and opens the scroll of Isaiah and finds this very passage, reads it, and states “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). What is central to the heart of God? Freedom and restoration of the brokenhearted.

If we flip a few pages back in Isaiah, we come to Isaiah 53, which describes God’s suffering servant who would come to serve as a sacrifice and bring healing and restoration:

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain… Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering… he was pierced for our transgressions… the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

700 years later, Philip, Jesus’ disciple, overhears a highly educated Ethiopian man, who is sitting in his chariot, reading from this passage of Isaiah. Beginning with the description of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, Philip tells him “the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35) – and how he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, written 700 years earlier.

Flipping a few pages forward, we come to Isaiah 65. Starting in verse 17, Isaiah describes a coming day of total restoration:

Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

In Isaiah we find a God who says “Come, all who are thirsty”, a God who wants to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free, a God who comes as a suffering servant, to sacrifice himself for our freedom, and a God who, in the end, will bring complete restoration to our broken world. We see a God whose driving force is love.

When you stood at the altar on your wedding day, did you say “I will be with you as long as we have a cooperative relationship”? Did you say “I will be with you as long as it is mutually beneficial to do so? No. At the altar each of us said “I love you and will always love you (no matter what) for as long as we both shall live” – a statement foreign to Darwinian evolution, but one that echoes the heart of a loving God, as we are all made in his image.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21: 1, 3-4

TALENT – THE HAMMER AND THE HANDSAW

Once upon a time… there lived a Hammer named Hero.  Hero lived in the land of Toolville and was a spectacular hammer.  All the townspeople in Toolville marveled at Hero’s abilities.  Hero would hammer away at everyone’s problems.  He could hammer nails of any size, handle any repair, and build enormous structures with ease.  He was the strongest, fastest, and most efficient hammer anyone had ever seen and was the most famous hammer in all of Toolville.  Hero the Hammer could do anything.

Everyone wanted to be like Hero, including a Handsaw named Hopeful.  Hopeful wanted to hammer nails just like Hero and worked long hours and stayed up late at night practicing.  He studied videos of Hero, read books about all that Hero had accomplished, and studied magazine articles on how to be just like Hero.

Hopeful was baffled by how effortlessly Hero performed his work.  Hopeful chopped at the nails with his blade, which really hurt, and no matter how hard he worked, he could never hammer nails with the same ease or efficiency as Hero.  The day finally came when Hopeful realized that he could never be as good of a hammer as Hero.  After all, he was just a handsaw.

In the moment of giving up, something very unusual happened.  Hopeful chopped at the nail in the board one final time when his blade slipped and his teeth sank deep into the piece of wood.  Cutting into the wood suddenly felt more natural to him.  As he began to sink his teeth deeper into the wood he felt more alive, as if he was meant to do it all along.  Faster and faster, he effortlessly cut through one board and then another and another.  Hopeful stopped and looked at his work… astonished.  At that moment he realized he could become the greatest wood cutter in all of Toolville…

I cannot afford to waste time trying to be someone I’m not.  I can only be best at being one person: me.  As Hopeful the handsaw discovered, we must free ourselves from who we are not, often before we can discover who we truly are.  Contrary to the slogan, we were not all created to “be like Mike” (Jordan), nor were we created to fit the mold of our favorite business expert, role model, or superstar; we were created to play the unique role that only each of us can play.

May we discover our true identity.  May we allow ourselves to be used in the manner in which we were intended, and may we place ourselves in the hands of the One who can use us to the fullest measure.

“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Paul of Tarsus (Ephesians 2:10)

TIME

If I want to be successful…

To be successful at work…

  • Ernst & Young taught me that I should work just half a day12 hours.
  • I should devote 1 hour a day to staying current on world events and financial markets.
  • I should maintain the speed limit on the road, stretching my average drive time to and from the office, meetings, and gym to 3 hours a day.

To be successful with my health…

  • Health magazines say I need 8 hours of sleep a night.
  • Thomas Jefferson said you should devote 2 hours a day to physically strenuous activities.
  • My back doctors tell me I should spend 1 hour a day stretching.
  • Health books tell me to each day drink a gallon of water, eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, eat 6 small well-balanced meals, including 8 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables, and avoid microwaves, processed foods, trans fats, and high fructose corn syrup. (2 hours)

To be successful personally…

  • I should devote 3 hours a day to personal hygiene, getting ready in the morning, running errands after work, doing house chores, and “unwinding” in the evening with a favorite TV show.
  • My high school English teacher told me I should read for 1 hour before bedtime.

To be successful relationally…

  • I should devote an average of 3 hours per day maintaining friend and family relationships and being involved in social groups to grow, serve and influence others
  • I should devote 1 hour in the morning focused on my relationship with God, reading the Bible, praying, and getting mentally and spiritually ready for the day.

How much time does it take in a day to do everything I should do to be successful?  Roughly 37 hours.

I cannot do it all… but I try.  In the fear of missing out on something good, I pack my schedule tight with all good things, but find I’m too busy to enjoy any of it.  In my attempt to squeeze all the “marrow” out of life, I squeeze all the “margin” out of life instead.

24 hours a day is all we get.  And only God knows the number of our days (Job 14:5).  Why not surrender our days to the Creator of time and the only one who knows how much time we have left?  May we remember that all that’s required is only what God has called us to do in the limited time we have.  May we pray for the wisdom to know what is truly most important and not allow the secondary to interfere.    Then will we be truly “successful”.

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

KINGDOM COME – THE ANCIENT EMPIRES

“Life is short” – Nike

Today in Iraq is the excavation of the ancient city of Babylon.  Recently at the excavation site, scientists discovered an ancient carving etched in stone that bares these words: “I am King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, king from sea to far sea.” What happened to this king and his powerful empire?

In 612 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, attacked Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire and most powerful city in the world.  The Babylonian army defeated the Assyrians and quickly became the most powerful empire in the history of the world.  The Babylonian Empire stretched from one side of the known world to the other.  The Babylonians would rule the world forever… it would seem.

Then in 539 B.C. Cyrus, king of Persia, came up from the area of modern day Iran and attacked the Babylonian empire.  The Persians eventually defeated Babylon and the Persian Empire quickly became the most powerful empire in the history of the world, stretching from one side of the known world to the other.  For almost 300 years the Persian Empire sustained itself.  The Persians would rule the world forever… it would seem.

Then in 350 B.C., in a disorganized corner of the world known as Greece, the city-states of Athens, Sparta, and Macedonia joined forces under Alexander the Great and attacked the Persian Empire and defeated the Persians, becoming the most powerful empire in the history of the world.  The Greek Empire quickly stretched from one side of the known world to the other.  The Greeks would rule the world forever… it would seem.

Then in 264 B.C. the Roman army crossed over the line of Italy and attacked and defeated the Greek empire.  The Roman Empire quickly stretched from one side of the known world to the other and became the most powerful empire in the history of the world.  The Romans would rule the world forever… it would seem.

Then in 1783 A.D. America defeated the British armies and eventually became the most powerful empire in the history of the world.  The Americans would dominate the world forever… it would seem…

We are part of the on-going pattern of history.  Babylon perished.  Persia, Greece, and Rome all followed suit.  One day so will we.  I often forget that we are not permanent; we will not last forever.  I am a “mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

As Nike says, “Life is short”… but it’s the next one that lasts forever.  May we remember that we are passing through this perishable world and will one day enter a kingdom that will, in fact, last forever.

Nebuchadnezzar was king only for a season.  His kingdom did not last.  Today, etched in stone at an Iraqi excavation site is a reminder that kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall, but there is a kingdom to come that will last forever.

“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” – Daniel of Babylon (circa 620 B.C.)

THE TRUMAN SHOW

Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey) lives in a world that revolves around one person: Truman.  Unknown to Truman, he has spent his entire life inside a television studio where he is the central figure and only ‘real’ person in his world while all other people are actors in his show – The Truman Show.

I can relate to Truman.  I have the tendency to think I am the main character in a story revolving around one person: Me.  I’ve been in every scene from the very beginning.  I carry on my head two cameras, two boom microphones, and a megaphone and all the people I know and see are just actors in my show.

Other people exist.  It is a truth I so often forget.  Other people exist beyond my tiny pocket of the planet and beyond my self-absorbed American pop-culture mind.  I forget that English is not God’s primary language.

Today Israeli mothers cover their children in closets as rockets rip through their homes, Chinese men and women are martyred for their faith, African children are dying of AIDS and starvation, all while American televangelists tell the rich they deserve a better life.

One American pastor recently published a book titled “Your Best Life Now”. A buddy of mine said: “There are just two things wrong with that book: ‘Your’ and ‘Now’”.  My life is not the central story.  Other people exist.  Other people matter.

Imagine if we did not see ourselves as the primary characters in our lives.  What would happen if we truly saw others the way God sees them?  May we find the courage to be caught up in something bigger than ourselves, to live knowing that we are part of a team, a family, a community, and planet that is all part of God’s story, God’s script.  I’m not the central figure; I’m in the grand stands.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” – Paul of Tarsus (Philippians 2:3)

THE MARSHMALLOW CHALLENGE

“The best things come to those who wait.” – Heinz Ketchup Slogan

In the 1960’s, psychologist Walter Mischel conducted an experiment on a preschool classroom.  He handed each of the 4-year-olds a marshmallow and gave them a choice: “You can eat the marshmallow now, but if you wait 30 minutes I will give you a second marshmallow when I return.”  Part of the class couldn’t bear the wait and immediately ate their marshmallow.  The other part painfully waited the 30 minutes; they closed their eyes, tried to focus on something else, or tried to go to sleep to pass the time, and were rewarded with the second marshmallow when the experimenter returned.

Researchers tracked these children over a 20-year period and measured them for psychological differences between those who had eaten the single marshmallow immediately and those who had waited for the second.  They discovered that the children who waited as 4-year-olds grew up to be more assertive, dependable, adventurous, and socially competent than their peers.  They also had higher SAT scores.  The preschoolers who had eaten the marshmallow immediately were more likely to be lonely, indecisive, easily frustrated and stubborn.

This study was repeated many times with similar results.  It suggests that the ability to delay gratification carries long-term reward.

The waiters know the discipline of resisting convenience now for a greater reward later: they have learned to resist buying on credit, bending the rules, or giving up on unanswered prayers, knowing that one day their waiting will be rewarded.

I pray for the same patience to wait for the fullness of God’s blessings.  May we refuse to cut-short his blessings by short-cutting the wait.  May we have the patience to wait for the second marshmallow to come.

“The LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” – Isaiah

(Isaiah 30:18)

THE DA VINCI CODE

Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” has become an international phenomenon, having sold over 30 million copies in 44 languages.  In the novel, Brown’s characters discover that the Holy Grail is actually Mary Magdalene, the secret wife of Jesus and the mother of Jesus’ child.  They discover that Jesus was only a “great moral teacher”; not God.

What amazes me is that a fictional novel, not intended to be historically accurate, can be considered such a credible source.  The Barna Institute reports that 2 million people have changed their beliefs about Jesus from the novel/film.  It seems people are quick to accept anything supporting their own predispositions toward God and call it “Truth”.  We want a less powerful, more manageable Jesus that can fit neatly in a box – A Jesus who stays out of my way, but helps me when I pray.

Paul of Tarsus says, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”  (II Timothy 4:3-4)

What we know from ancient manuscripts, most of them dating back to the late 1st Century A.D. by even liberal scholars, is what Jesus claimed of himself:

Jesus claimed to be God.

Anyone who makes such claims can no longer be called a “great moral teacher.”  He would be either a liar (knew he wasn’t God), a lunatic (did not know he wasn’t God), or was who he claimed to be.

C.S. Lewis: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic… or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

To believe that Jesus is anything other than a “great moral teacher” is scary because it forces me to choose: Either I pass him off for a crazy liar or submit to him as God. It’s much more comfortable to say he was a good man, a really nice guy, a “Mr. Rogers with a beard”.  Unfortunately Jesus does not leave that option open to us.

God exists apart from our own belief systems and predispositions.  Jesus is not confined to the blonde haired, blue eyed, Aryan Jesus from the Sunday School flannel graphs.  He stands alone, welcoming Dan Brown and the rest of the world to examine the evidence. (Matthew 7:7)  I pray that as we discover the “real” Jesus, we will discover more fully who we truly are as well.

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – Jesus of Nazareth

(John 8:32)

ENRON & HUMAN NATURE

In 2006, a federal jury convicted Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling of lying to investors five years before about the financial health of Enron, the company they led as Chairman and CEO. It took Enron 16 years to grow to $65 billion in assets; it took only 24 days to go bankrupt in 2001.  America discovered that the nation’s 7th largest corporation, charting futures of energy and power, was nothing more than a ‘house of cards’ as it became the largest corporate bankruptcy case in U.S. history.  20,000 employees lost their jobs.  $2 billion of pension and retirement funds disappeared.

Investigators discovered that Lay and Skilling were booking current profits based on what they called the “hypothetical future value” of an idea, while hiding liabilities in off balance sheet accounts.  In the several months prior to bankruptcy, while the retirement accounts of the rank and file employees were frozen, Lay and Skilling were cashing in $100’s of millions of Enron stock.  Most agree these criminals deserve the fullest wrath our judicial system affords. But I wonder how far the rest of us are from the same fate.  How easy is it to rationalize our actions bit by bit?

The Milgram Experiment: In the early 1960’s psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a famous scientific experiment to test whether evil people possessed common characteristics making them do evil things or if normal people were capable of doing evil.  Participants were told it was an experiment to test whether electric shocks would help people memorize lists.

In the experiment, Milgram persuades the participant to give what the participant believes are painful electric shocks to another subject, who is actually an actor, every time the actor gives a wrong response.  The actor in the other room would scream and beat on the walls in pain; however, most participants continued to give shocks despite pleas for mercy from the actor.  If the participant wanted to halt the experiment, Milgram told them he would take full responsibility and that the experiment must continue.  Shockingly, 50% of Milgram’s participants were willing to “shock to the death” so long as the command came from a seemingly legitimate source.

We must admit that human nature has the potential to rationalize anything. It is God’s general grace that directs our steps and keeps us from our own self-destruction.  Very little separates us from Lay and Skilling.  Without God’s direction, we are capable of the same fate.  God be with us!

“The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” – King Solomon (Proverbs 16:9)

MOMENTUM

Momentum is hard to generate.

How do you create momentum?  Occasionally at work I can feel a positive momentum, like I’m riding a wave.  I can see actual progress.  Most days, though, it’s a struggle just to tread water.  Progress seems to die.  It feels like the ‘forces of nature’ are working against me.  Actually, that may not be entirely wrong.  Several laws come to mind that seem to be always working against us.

The Anti-Momentum Laws:

Law #1: (Science) Second Law of Thermodynamics (Law of Entropy)

  • The universe is winding down; the earth and everything in it is moving toward chaos.

Law #2: (Theology) Law of Human Nature

  • We live in a ‘fallen’, imperfect world.  People make mistakes; things happen outside of our control.

Law #3: (Social) Murphy’s Law

  • Anything that can go wrong, usually will.

Along with this is the 50/50/90 Rule: If there is a 50/50 chance to get it right, there is a 90% chance that you will get it wrong. 🙂

These laws seem to be constantly working against progress.  Everything takes longer than you think, twice as long as it should, and 3 times as long if the thing seems really easy.  The other line will always move faster.  The printer will always break when you’re rushing to meet a deadline.  And round and round in this broken world we go.

Life often feels like trying to run up an escalator the wrong way.  You must be running fast to make any progress.  To beat these laws of nature, there must be urgent steps taken over a compact period of time.  There must be consistent activity.

“Activity Breeds Activity” – Cole Forsyth

And more activity builds momentum.  This seems to be the thinking of every successful businessman I know.  It can be called the “Rule of Numbers”

Rule of Numbers: With enough of the right activity, the numbers will eventually work in your favor.  One of the keys is a dedication to urgency.  “If it can be done today, let’s do it.”  These businessmen say there is a huge difference between making 10 prospect calls and making 12 prospect calls in a day’s time, between finalizing 5 reports and 6 reports in a week’s time.  That marginal difference is what usually leads to a tipping point, a breakthrough point where momentum begins to build.

“Working with all my heart” (Colossians 3:23) means taking a specific number of steps over a specific period of time.   And as activity breeds more activity, eventually momentum moves in our favor.  We begin to feel we’re running with the escalator, we’re riding the wave.

“All hard work brings profit.” – King Solomon

(Proverbs 14:23)

GOLD DIGGER

I saw him on my last trip to the beach.  In an old pair of worn out loafers, mid-calf socks, a v-neck t-shirt, clip on shades, and a bucket hat, this modern-day gold digger shuffles through the sand searching for his buried treasure.  Armed with his metal detector, hoping to hear the high-pitched sound of the nearing metal treasure over his fading eardrums, he takes one step, another step, another step… and he listens.

I never see him standing still; moving is part of the game.  He has to take steps to know if he’s moving in the right direction toward his treasure.  I wonder how many steps he has made in the wrong direction.  How many times has he had to turn around and try a new path?  How much easier would it be if he had a map where X marks the spot?

I probably spend more time waiting for a map than actually taking steps.  I want to be sure of each step before I take it.  I hate wasting time.  Before I start a new project at work, before a new relationship, I want to know it will work out well.  But I am never given the map, only traces of clarity as I take each step.

I have rarely made decisions with 100% assurance.  I can pray for direction, but I have gained most clarity not as I wait, but as I walk– as I take steps forward, listening.  My tendency is to play it safe, but ‘safe’ is not how God called us to live.  He called us to live an adventure, paved with risk, marked by steps of faith.

“God has rigged the world so that it only works when we embrace risk as the theme of our lives, when we live by faith.  All attempts to find a safer life, to live by the expectations of others, just kill the soul in the end.” – John Eldredge

I’ve learned there’s really no such thing as a ‘safe life’.  There are no guarantees.  What seems to be a safe life is only a slow death.

One day when my hearing is faded and I’m wearing old loafers and bucket hats, I want to know I have reached the bounds of all I am meant to experience in this life.  I want to look back on this path and see how divinely lit it was.  It is a call to dream only God-sized dreams, to carry with us the faith that our risks will one day meet reward.  God is honored in our steps of faith.  He waits to show up in our steps.  So we pray for the day when our steps of faith will intersect with his faithfulness… and there the treasure will be.

“By faith the people of Israel passed through the Red Sea as on dry land.” – Author of Hebrews (Hebrews 11:29)