'A FORTIORI' GRACE (Part 1) ~ 1/31/11

Hitler. Stalin. Pol-Pot. Bin-Laden. The names ring out like a ‘who’s who’ list from the pit of Hell. We read them off and, in our minds, we see evil, almost unanimously. It’s so easy. Maybe it’s too easy. I’m repeatedly surprised by the passion for judgment I hear in connection with these names, from people who normally consider themselves highly tolerant. Apparently, there’s a point-of-no-return to the sacredness of modern tolerance, a point that’s ‘so bad,’ the evil of it trumps mercy and forgiveness without a second glance. These are the people we’re forgiven for hating.

One of the most common questions I’m asked about, when I talk with someone who’s troubled about aspects of Christianity, is this thing we call ‘grace.’ Not about how wonderful it is… usually the question is about how hard it is to swallow. About how cruel or unreasonable or unfair it is. Let me explain this reaction, in case it confuses you.

On May 10, 1994, a man convicted of killing, abusing, dismembering and in some cases even consuming 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, made a confession of faith and was baptized while in prison serving 15 life terms. His name was Jeffrey Dahmer and, inevitably, his name comes up in the challenges I hear to the fairness of grace. The real issue isn’t whether or not Dahmer’s conversion was sincere (I believe it was)—the real issue is whether Dahmer’s conversion was possible. This is the idea that really upsets people; that God could forgive such evil. That it could be possible for such an evil man to escape eternal judgment and get a second chance.

Grace can just seem so unfair.

I recently read a less gruesome but similarly troubled reaction to grace in Leif Enger’s National Bestselling novel, Peace Like A River. At one point the narrator tells the story of watching his godly father get unjustly humiliated and fired by a horrible boss (‘Mr. Holgren’), who happens also to have something like chronic facial boils. Without a word, the narrator sees his father suddenly but gently touch his boss’ face before leaving the confrontation. Looking first after his father, then back to the stunned antagonist in disbelief, the boy is shocked to discover that the man’s complexion has been instantly and completely healed. “Listen,” he says—

There are easier things than witnessing a miracle of God. For his part, Mr. Holgren didn’t know what to make of it; he looked horrified; the new peace in his hide didn’t sink deep; he covered his face from view and slunk from the cafeteria. I knew what had happened, though. I knew exactly what to make of it, and it made me mad enough to spit. What business had Dad in healing that man? What right had Holgren to cross paths with the Great God Almighty? The injustice took my breath away, truly it did.

Grace can just seem so unfair.

If there’s one take-away from the book of Jonah, it’s that God is more merciful than human beings are. That fact alone is a judgment on the state of our moral blindness. If you’ve read these two stories and found yourself agreeing with the verdict of ‘unfair grace,’ I have a challenging proposition for you: I propose that your problem with grace isn’t that it’s unfair— your problem with grace is that it’s perfectly fair; that it treats everybody exactly the same. I think you love grace when you get it. I think you hate grace when those you judge to be ‘undeserving’ get it.

Have you ever tried to see a freckle on your eye-lid? Kind of hard, isn’t it? We can see the freckles on someone else, we can even see the freckles on our own arms and legs, maybe even the freckles on our own nose if we get cross-eyed enough for a moment. But a freckle that close to our own eye? Not likely; the freckles closest to our eyes are, ironically, the hardest to see. There’s a reason Jesus talks about ‘specks in eyes’ in his famous Matthew 7 treatise on judgment. It’s a cautionary tale about ourselves that we ignore, again and again, when it comes to the hometown of evil. I was startled the other day while watching a National Geographic special called “The Science of Evil.” Startled, because I watched the documentary certain I would witness scientists, reasoning evil away into some relativistic point of view. Although they did not make serious reference to the spiritual realm, the researches did come to the unnerving conclusion that, according to their findings, anyone is capable of the worst kinds of evil, given the right circumstances—anyone. Wow.

The apostle Paul understood exactly what Jesus was getting at with the whole ‘speck in the eye’ parable: Be careful of judging others without first taking an honest look at yourself! So Paul advises in Romans 12:3—

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Instead of looking at others and seeing evil, Paul followed his own advice and looked at himself first. Here’s how he judged what he saw there—“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). “Chief of sinners?” we think—really? Hitler, probably. Stalin, very likely. Dahmer—? He’s right up there. But Paul? This giant of an apostle, the archetypal missionary who penned between 13-15 books of our Bible? He hardly seems to fit into the same galaxy, much less the same category as these other men. So how can he claim this? Why? I think there are two reasons... 

(Continued in Part 2 ABOVE, coming soon) 

GLADIATOR, I SALUTE YOU ~ 1/28/11

The light outside was fading to blue when we took our last walk as a family of four. We trundled slowly around the block and pretended not to covet this house or that one, the three of us holding hands while the oldest boy wandered behind or ahead, searching the skies for mysteries and the ground for clues.

The contractions had begun in earnest about an hour earlier, when I got a call at the office. “Are you coming home soon?” my wife asked. I glanced at my watch, oblivious to her tone. “Soon. I’ve only got a half-hour to go.” A heavy silence on the other end was the first hint of things to come. “Josh… I need you to come home. I’m not feeling great.” Jolted from idiocy, I grabbed my keys and ran. I was met at the front door by a woman of poise and patience who handed me several bags for the car. “Well?” I asked, eyebrows raised as I took the bags from her. “I’m not feeling great,” she repeated, “but… let’s go for a walk after you put those in the car. Just in case.”

You might find it odd, this stall tactic in the face of impending labor, even depraved, in light of our ‘hour-from-the-nearest-hospital’ mountain-town status. But that’s only because you haven’t experienced ‘FLG.’ A frantic sprint down the mountain the week before and 24-hours of false labor later, my wife and I had experienced, identified and labeled a new psychological phenomenon we now refer to as ‘False Labor Guilt.’ Chief symptoms? Cagey replies to pain-level questions, second-guessing phone calls to family members and stalled departure plans to emergency room check-in stations, all in the name of avoiding compounded false-alarm embarrassment. By the time we took our walk on that gloamy evening in January, we were well down the road of symptom #3. Almost too far.

It was dark by the time we got on the road. Like firefly watching on a summer night, I monitored the progress of labor by the light of her cell phone, which she activated intermittently to time her contractions. My stress levels increased steadily, in tandem with the frequency of illumination, until we arrived an hour later at the home of family friends. Dropping off the kids and feigning confidence, we hugged the boys and waved, heading off to our appointment with Mercy.

We stopped twice on the way to the front desk, just to let her breathe. Strangers offered kind smiles and knowing glances. These did nothing to ease the pain, but still, she returned their stares with laughter and a winking smile. How did she do it? Shuffle, breathe. Shuffle, breathe—laugh, wink. Shuffle, breathe, shuffle breathe. Finally, endless corridors and an elevator ride from hell later, we found the right green linoleum countertop and were admitted. It was 7:30PM.

An hour later and I was practicing Facebook intercession for the anesthesiologist to arrive. Stat. I alternated between status updates on my Blackberry, holding my wife’s hand and staring at the mountain ranges that continued to erupt spontaneously on the computer monitor next to the bed, but when I turned back to look at her, I froze.

I’ve seen things in people’s faces before, things I’m sure I wasn’t intended to see. I’ve seen a look of pure and utter horror on the face of a childhood friend as the vine he was on suddenly and abruptly snapped off at the pinnacle of his swing. I’ve seen a look of sheer panic on the face of a fellow seminary student as his name was called, for the first time, to stand up and preach before God and the entire preaching class. But there’s another thing I’ve seen in people’s faces, seen on the face of a 5year-old missionary kid as his parents drove away and left him at boarding school, seen on the face of an addict about to begin a long and tortuous journey of recovery. It’s the same thing I’ve seen in the faces of heroes from dramatic, heart-wrenching movies, the kind of movies which— incidentally— I love and my wife loathes.

My wife only watches movies with happy endings, or else the ones that are so obviously absurd that the endings are completely irrelevant anyway. But never dramas. Schindler’s List? Forget it. The Mission? Yeah right. I remember the last trip we made together before getting married. We flew to New York city to visit the seminary I’d be attending and, in the process, watched perhaps the last action/drama flick we’ve seen together since: Gladiator. It might just be my favorite movie of all time, but, of course— my wife hated it. And yet… when I looked at her in the harsh glare of the Mercy Hospital delivery room, eyes closed as she battled her way through yet another contraction, what I saw there was the same thing I saw in the face of the gladiator about to face his nightmare. It was the same thing I saw in the face of the addict and in the face of the trembling 5year-old missionary kid. The look I saw was courage.

It was so clear to me, so substantive and palpable and gut-wrenchingly real that I felt, had I taken a picture of her and shown it to complete strangers, they would have instantly identified the look on her face. My wife will, of course, challenge these observations and counter with claims of great fear rather than great courage. I will, of course, then remind her that it simply isn’t accomplishment if there aren’t risks. That it simply isn’t courage if you aren’t afraid.

The great irony is that my wife is the hero of her own drama, and still, she got her happy ending. Samuel Edward Thompson was born at 8:59PM, one and a half hours after my wife walked in through the hospital doors, smiling and winking. He weighed 7lbs, 14oz. and was 20 inches long. And so it was that my gladiator wife faced her nightmare, with a courage so admirable it made this particular man feel fearfully, humbly, thunderously PROUD. Gladiator… I salute you.

ANOTHER DAY IN THE OFFICE ~ 1/15/11

My office is a magical place, 'a crossroads,' as someone recently called it, where the fascinating and profound, to the utterly bizarre intersect to give me headaches or inspiration (depending on my coffee intake). One of my newer friends in Weaverville, Joshua Ottem, dropped by the other day and began playing this familiar song by the Ramones while I was talking on the phone. I decided it was too good to enjoy alone.

Ottem in Winter, Unplugged from Josh Thompson on Vimeo.

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW ~ 12/29/10

There is a window by the dining room table, and outside is the falling snow. It falls on a sprawling backyard, covered in leaves its owner never got around to raking this year, and it falls on the one pile the owner’s son raked for him. The grass under that one pile is now long dead, an unintentional by-product of big-hearted kindness.

Next to the pile is a puddle. It rained the day before the snow, rained long and hard. The puddle fills a depression to the left of a large oak tree, the largest in the sprawling yard, which seems to lean away from the puddle on account of the swaying tire swing that hangs on the opposite side. The tire is also full of water.

The snow drifts, then swirls, sometimes thick and heavy, then light, dust-like in its descent. It falls now on a buck, wearied from its work evading hunters earlier in the year, wearied from its work chasing does earlier in the month, wearied from its work fighting for what it wants—to live, and to live the next day too.  It seems unconcerned for the fences, the dogs, the loud slamming doors of homes and cars that fill the worn neighborhood on this slow winter morning. Spent, the buck wanders around the winterized garden uncovering, then happily lifting it’s head to chew its own trophies-- hordes of fallen acorns the owner neglected to rake up along with the leaves.

A sudden flurry brings with it a covey of mountain quail, flying low and fast until deciding the yard outside the window looks like the perfect spot for touchdown. Maybe they saw the buck and decided it was safe. Maybe they saw the trampoline and thought it looked fun. Whatever the reason, they land, and the ground is soon a swarm of bobbing black heads, weaving in and out of broken iris stems.

The sun peeks out from behind some distant cloud, illuminating the flurries until the yard outside seems cloaked in a swarm of fireflies. Their lights extinguish suddenly with a gust that brings more gloom, but only for a moment— and then their fires are again reborn. Just then a large gray squirrel erupts from high in a neighboring tree, indignant at the buck in the owner’s yard. Leaping, scrambling, it claws its way down the trunk of a small cedar and pounces onto the frozen ground, scattering the quail. They fly for two wing-beats then land, tiny feet working furiously to slow them back down to the humor of their jerking gait. The squirrel gets as close as it dares and lets the buck know what for. The buck pays the squirrel no mind, and keeps on feeding. Dejected, the small bundle of forlorn fury surrenders his hidden treasure for the moment and retreats to a large rock near the fence to watch. He sits there torturing himself for the next half-hour before finally leaving in disgust. 

The owner laughs as he takes it all in, a witness to a simple beauty, seen through a window by the dining room table, and outside is the falling snow. 

POTHOLES IN PAVEMENT ~ 12/27/10

When I was a kid growing up in Africa, the only thing worse than a dirt road full of potholes was a paved road full of potholes. The reason was simple: poor driving conditions on the first kind of road were easily and quickly remedied by a quick treatment with a run-of-the-mill road grader. To improve conditions on the second kind of road?—well, that was no minor surgery.  In many of Africa’s older paved roads, the ruts are well-established and deeply engrained. Not only that, but they are— for all intents and purposes— ‘fossilized’ ruts, surrounded by the armor of asphalt that’s hardened over time until it becomes virtually impervious to change.

Most people alive in America today were raised with the theory of Darwinian Evolution from a young age, in various degrees of detail, year after year after year, until theory—a supposition (uncertain belief) or a system of ideas intended to explain something— was laid down enough times and with enough frequency and insistency and authority that it hardened into “fact,” or “law.” But what happens when cracks form in the hardness of pavement, followed by pressure and temperature and time, and there’s a choice made to ignore the problem? A pothole forms. “No educated person any longer questions the validity of the so-called theory of evolution, which we now know to be a simple fact,” says evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr. And that, my friends, is a pothole in the pavement.

This post is an initial, rudimentary look at a few of the cracks I see growing into serious road hazards in the aging infrastructure that is Darwinian Evolution. Some may find this introduction humorous for the simple reason that the ‘pothole’ analogy is exactly the same way many people feel about Christians and the Bible. While I’m very aware of the parallels, I’m not so sure the average evolutionist is. Which is why, off and on over the course of the next few months, I want to take a fresh look at several of the ‘benchmark’ issues I feel have been used to either blindly support or legitimately challenge the theory of Darwinian Evolution. These will likely include such topics as ‘Micro’ vs. ‘Macro’ evolution, The Miller Experiment, the significance of the Archaeopteryx discovery, implications behind the Laws of Thermodynamics and more. When it comes to the theory of Darwinian Evolution, in the words of double PhD and author Jonathan Wells, “The question I’m raising is whether all of this is really science—or is it actually a kind of mythology?” (Strobel  36, The Case For A Creator). I hope you’ll stick around long enough to take an honest look and decide for yourself.

Before I leap willingly (foolishly?) into the jaws of controversy— in order to do this fairly—I need to make something clear up front: I do not accuse science of, nor have I ever condemned science of being, “satanic,” or “the devil,” or as the opponent of God’s Truth. It has never been my intention to set up any sort of false dichotomy that forces the Christian to choose between science or the Bible. I agree to a great degree with a frequent visitor to this blog that “If God is the author of both the Bible and creation we shouldn't need to choose one or the other (Bible or science); we should be able to reconcile both.” In general, this is true. Under normal circumstances, when nothing but predictable scientific laws— which deal with the natural world and which God created to establish an orderly and functional universe—when predictable scientific laws are at work, the Bible should and will perfectly mesh with the naturalistic discoveries of our time. Science should be the greatest ally of Scripture in all areas where natural laws are at play. A good follow-up question, however, might be this— Are natural laws the only ones at play when we read the Bible? Asked another way, how does one reconcile the Bible and science in the case of events and accounts touched by external, supra-natural forces? How does one reconcile the Bible and science in the case of the miraculous?

In a blog post some time back, pastor Bill wrote this in regards to the miraculous—“Wrap your mind around this wonderful definition of “miracle” from Easton’s Bible Dictionary (Thos Nelson, 1897).

“An event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God, operating without the use of means capable of being discerned by the senses, and designed to authenticate the divine commission of a religious teacher and the truth of his message (John 2:18 Mt 12:38).

“It is an occurrence at once above nature and above man. It shows the intervention of a power that is not limited by the laws either of matter or of mind, a power interrupting the fixed laws which govern their movements, a supernatural power…

“‘The simple and grand truth [is] that the universe is not under the exclusive control of physical forces, but that everywhere and always there is above, separate from and superior to all else, an infinite personal will, not superseding, but directing and controlling all physical causes, acting with or without them.’

“God ordinarily effects his purpose through the agency of second causes; but he has the power also of effecting his purpose immediately and without the intervention of second causes, i.e., of invading the fixed order, and thus of working miracles.””

I think the caution of Brian Edwards is a valid one—“The evangelical who relies upon the argument [for example,] that Genesis 1 and 2 (or 3 and 4) are poetic and not historical has abandoned sound principles of interpretation in order to avoid what appears to be a scientific problem; why then does he not abandon Jonah as well—or, more particularly, the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ?”

How does one reconcile science and the Bible when God suspends the laws of science in order to accomplish His sovereign ends? Which one wins out then? Clearly, there are vital and important areas where science and the Bible are at odds, even when God is the Author of both. You can understand my hesitation to agree with those who wish to make science the absolute arbiter of Truth when it comes to reading and interpreting the Bible—it is clear that science is not the plumb-line for gauging that which is most “real.”

Now let me be clear; I do not see it as contradictory to use the products of science, or trust their ability to make certain tasks in life easier or more enjoyable. I have no problems living my life in harmony with the observable and applicable laws of science, which can only “work” because God a. created them (Col. 1:15, 16) and b. sustains them (Col. 1:17). But while I live my life in an autopilot sense of reliance on the natural (scientific) laws of God’s world, I also live in a more fundamental dependence upon the supernatural. So that, should God choose to suspend or supercede the natural laws of the universe in the literature of the Bible, or should He ask me to suspend my trust in those laws today, so that I might, for instance, ask Him for a miracle of healing in the life of a child with leukemia, I must revert to that greater Reality.

I have frequently been asked, wouldn’t a contradiction between science and the Bible necessitate in some way that God is being expressly deceptive?

To which I would reply—

Is it deceptive of God to set up natural laws such as gravity, so that water flows downhill, only to supercede those laws and part a sea when His people needed to escape the clutches of Pharoah’s army (Ex. 14:21,22)?

Is it deceptive of God to set up natural laws such as the laws of friction and the 2^nd law of thermodynamics, and then allow the sandals and clothes of His people to remain in perfect condition for 40 years as they wandered through the wilderness (Duet. 29:5)?

Is it deceptive of God to set up natural laws of procreation and then defy every known law of science as well as the understanding of heaven to enter our world Himself, through the womb of a virgin, fully man without ceasing to be fully God (Luke 1:30-35)?

Is it deceptive of God to say “all men are destined to die once” and then raise Lazarus from the dead? To raise Christ from the dead (Jn. 11:38-44)?

No. Not deceptive. Above our pay grade, perhaps, but not deceptive.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8,9). My sense, whenever God is accused of deception, is that there exists in the accuser an underlying and emotional trust issue rather than an objectively legitimate intellectual objection. Granted, this is a generality—but I have seen it proven to be true many times.

As I have said before, much unnecessary confusion could be avoided if people understood that many of the literary forms of Scripture, such as historical narratives, are written in what is called ‘The language of appearances,’ or, ‘Phenomenological Language.” R.C. Sproul defines this as “language that describes things the way they appear to the naked eye” (Sproul, Literary Forms, Part 1). What if, just as the Bible writers described things as they accurately appeared, science is simply doing the same, striving to describe and explain the world as it accurately appears? Is it ‘false,’ is it ‘deceptive’ that the world appears to function in a way an ordinary person can observe, when in reality, something far more complex is going on behind the scenes? No. Just as ordinary people in Bible times could walk outside and observe the sun ‘coming up’ and ‘passing overhead’ and ‘going down,’ so can and do we ordinary people today, in scientific times. It is not ‘deceptive,’ it is not contrary to fact that the sun appears to ‘rise’ and ‘set’ when viewed with the naked eye. So what if, just as the language of appearances cannot hope to capture the incredible complexity that lies behind the curtain of scientific laws even while describing appearances accurately, what if, in the same way, the language of science cannot hope to capture the incredible complexity that lies behind the curtain of supernatural laws that went into a supernatural process of creation and that continues to operate in a way that sustains the natural creation? Does that make “what’s really going on behind the scenes” deception? No more than it does in the case of phenomenological language.

All science is capable of doing then, is only ever discovering ‘half’ of the story because at best, its tools are natural and created, and thus unable to detect or understand either the supernatural creator or His supernatural means. Does that make science a waste of time? By no means! I believe God has given us these tools as a gift, to better our lives and to “be our brother’s keeper.” The finiteness of science does not mean it is a waste of time, only that science must admit to and honestly face its own limitations. This is where C.S. Lewis’ beautiful quote rings out so poignantly—“In Science we have been reading only the notes to a poem; in Christianity we find the poem itself.”

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

STRESS TESTING ~ 12/18/10

A good friend of mine recently posted this comment on facebook, and it got me thinking. "Christmastime offers opportunities for stress and opportunities for hope," he wrote—"Which are you choosing this season?" 


It’s a fair question, you know. Stress is a Christmas staple, right up there with eggnog and elves. I would have added fruitcake to that list, but it didn’t start with an “e” and, apparently, there’s a general and growing discontent surrounding that belovedly traditional brick of stick-to-your-ribs. So be it; more for me. But all rib-sticking aside, it really is easy to get caught up in the stress machine that is an American Christmas, easy to get drug out to the deep end of the tree lot by an undertow of deadly nostalgia that pressures you to accept responsibility for recreating the magic of Christmas past while simultaneously orchestrating the memories for Christmas future, all at the expense of Christmas present. And that’s just stupid. When it comes to choosing between opportunities to create “the perfect Christmas” and opportunities to share the hope of the incarnate Christ in a loving way to those around us, the choice should be a no-brainer. 

But what about that first Christmas? Was it immune from the barbs of stress and filled strictly with the sweet strains of hope? Was it free from complications and full only of “The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes?” No. Now granted, absent were the petty stresses of recreating nostalgia or the headaches involved in thinking up cute new traditions. But, in general, the more I think about it, the more I believe stress has always been and always will be a companion of Christmas.

Think of the virgin.

A man that she loved, a wedding on the horizon, her whole life ahead of her. She had plans, you know, she had dreams. And then she had an angel, standing in front of her, telling her that everything about her everything was about to change. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty stressful to me.

Think of the fiancé.

One day he’s the luckiest man alive. The next day he’s the subject of pity and speculation. He had honor, you know. Now he was being asked to risk it on a miracle. He had rights, you know. Now he was being instructed to forfeit them for the greater good of God’s master plan. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty stressful to me.

Think of the Wise Men.

Families, livelihoods, schedules to keep. Then, suddenly, a brightness in the heavens that claims their attention over jobs, wives, even children. They must drop everything to follow this inconvenient star, leave home behind and follow a belief that costs them comfort, not to mention gold, frankincense and myrrh. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty stressful to me.

Think of the Shepherds.

Minding their sheep and their own business on a cold night, a silent night. But suddenly— a holy night! A noisy night! Gleaming beings with a message that must have been nothing less than overwhelming to these simple men. Maybe their sheep scattered at the explosion of singing. Maybe they lost some much-needed sleep. For sure, we know they were afraid, at least initially. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty stressful to me.

Think of that stable.

No privacy. No drugs. No sterile, multi-positionable cushioned bed. No caring family, keeping anxious vigil in the waiting room under the influence of free yet horrid coffee. Just a bunch of sleepy cows or donkeys or, God help us, goats— filling the air with what I can only assume to be an irritable ‘lowing,’ accompanied by the distinct aroma cattle barns are known so famously to possess. And then, on top of it all, visitors—visitors!— unannounced and uninvited by the new and bewildered parents, who by this time were doubtless exhausted and at their worst. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty stressful to me.

“Christmastime offers opportunities for stress and opportunities for hope,” my friend wrote— “Which are you choosing this season?”

You know, I'm beginning to believe the two have always been connected. That maybe, just maybe, God allows stress as a test of our trust. Maybe these “stress-tests” are actually “trust-tests.” God says something, maybe through a promise in Scripture written a millennia before, and then he brings along stress, to see how firmly we’re holding onto Him. Maybe that stress looks like an angel, informing you your dreams are about to change. Maybe that stress is a whole boatload of angels, enough to make you ‘sore afraid.’ Or maybe the stress comes to you in the form of a governmental decree that inconveniences you at a time of incredible financial and emotional vulnerability. Maybe then, the question is not so much ‘will you choose stress or hope?’ but ‘what will you choose to do with stress?’  I doubt you can avoid it this Christmas, but you do have options, you know. You can complain about it. Get angry about it. You can fight it. Or you can give it back to God and trust Him, trust that God can use stress to lead you to Him, in much the same way that a star can sometimes lead to a King.

Christmas has always been stressful, and always will be. But perhaps, in the end, the test of stress comes down to how we choose to interpret the character of God in light of it. Herod looked at the stress-filled arrival of baby Jesus and saw a threat. The virgin, the fiancé, the shepherds and the wise men looked and saw 'peace, on earth... good will toward men.' I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty hopeful to me.


Surrounded By Grace,
Josh

AN OUTPOST CHRISTMAS! ~ 12/13/10

Here's a quick look at some of the pictures and footage from last Sunday's Christmas play and party at The Outpost!

An Outpost Christmas from Josh Thompson on Vimeo.