Nice Weekend

I really enjoyed this past weekend.  It was jam packed full of things that I really enjoyed.  So much so, in fact, that it's almost hard to know where to start.  I suppose that chronologically is best, so here goes...

The weekend before last, while camping in Texas, I managed to bust a hole in the passenger tail light of Jodi's car.  I bumped it with the cooler's plastic wheel while trying to load the cooler back in the truck of the car.  The plastic of the tail light was the weaker of the two plastics, evidently.  It wasn't a hard bump but was more than sufficient to require a new tail light.  I say all this to say that the blinker also quit working and made me nervous because the bulb looked fine.  However, I bought some replacement bulbs after work on Friday and that was the problem after all.  So, that was a relief.  A good start to the weekend.

Goodbye, 84 body.  We hardly knew each other.

Saturday morning was a nice homemade breakfast with my family followed by the sale of the body to my 1984 Ford F150 at full asking price.  Woo hoo!  As mentioned in the last blog, I had it listed for sale on Craigslist and while I had talked to lots of people who claimed they wanted to buy it, I started to wonder if I would get it sold since no one had made any effort to actually see it in person yet.  I'm glad to make the space and liquidate the unnecessary asset.

I had time to mow and weed eat which is a huge chore, but one that I kind of enjoy doing.  While doing the weed eating, I listened to Leeland's new album, Invisible.  It was available to stream for free for the weekend only.  It's a great album!  We went ahead and pre-ordered it.  It is set to be available on July 22.  Afterwards, some family showed up to come with us to a church fireworks display to which our neighbors had invited us.  It was good to get to hang out with them and get to know them better.  They're a really nice family.  The children got to play on inflatables, the fireworks were fun to see, we had some good food, and got to spend some time with family and new friends.

Lyric successfully frog hopping his way across the balls.

Sunday afternoon was a small watch party at Qdoba to see the Euro 2016 final match between underdog Portugal and host country France battling it out on the pitch.  Portugal's star player, Cristiano Ronaldo, was injured shortly after the game began and despite making a valiant effort to continue on through the pain, he reluctantly and emotionally called to be taken off.  Without their captain, Portugal held off France well into extra time when a Portuguese substitute managed to blast in a goal from almost 25 yards out.  It was an unlikely goal from an unlikely source, but it was the only one of the match and it gave Portugal their first ever major tournament trophy while breaking a 41-year run of France defeating them.  It was certainly an amazing game to see as well as a satisfactory finish to a summer of international soccer watching.  With Copa America complete and now with Euro 2016 over, I go back to being a non sports-watcher.  Not that I'm complaining!  While I enjoy the tournaments, I'm equally looking forward to all the things I will have time to do now.

After the watch party and a stop at Lowe's for some trim, we headed down to Busiek State Park to hang out and let the kids play.  It was a nice finish to a nice weekend. :)

Read More

Family, Fun, Food, and Futbal!

Last Saturday was my 37th birthday and we celebrated it how I wanted to celebrate it and then some.  For months, I've been looking forward to Copa America Centenario which, if you didn't know, is an international one-time tournament with countries from all of the Americas to celebrate CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) turning 100 years old.  The kick-off game was last Friday night between USA and Columbia.

USA may have lost that match 2-0, but I still really enjoyed the game particularly since for the first time ever I got to watch from home.  We signed up with Sling TV which is a really awesome app.  We get to try if for free for 7 days and then it's only $20 per month for the basic package (a trimmed-down version of a standard cable package).  For an additional $5 per month, I got the sports add-on package which included Univision Deportes Network.  All of the Copa America games will be aired on this channel.  The only caveat is that it's in Spanish, but that doesn't really matter since I don't care to listen to commentators anyway.

Fox has the broadcasting rights to Copa America and the only way that I could find to get the channel was to get cable or satellite.  Fox does have an app called Fox Soccer2Go for $20 per month which supposedly allows you to watch sports games broadcast by Fox on your phone or tablet.  However, I read a bunch of reviews and nobody likes it.  Complaints are everywhere that the app freezes or kicks you out almost all the time.  And, I didn't want to watch it on a small screen anyway, let alone if it is going to be so buggy that I'll miss parts of the games.

So, I'm really liking Sling TV.  Unlike, Fox Socer2Go, I can watch a game live or I can stream it later.  Plus, Jodi likes it too since it also has HGTV.  And, when we're done with it, we can cancel it.  This is how easy it's supposed to be, but never is, with cable or satellite.

Sorry for the infomercial, but clearly I have enjoyed this new concept of having affordable, no-nonsense "cable".

My birthday celebration was awesome from even the night before.  Friday night, we had brats and dogs on the grill and ate outside enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having.  Jodi worked her butt off making 20 lbs of fajitas that we had on Saturday and were amazingly good.  I will forever judge all other fajitas by this new standard.  Then, she surprised me with a mulberry cobbler that her and the children picked from our mulberry trees.  If you've never had it, you're missing out. We watched four more games between Saturday and Sunday and still had some time to piddle around with a few things that I wanted to do.

Overall, it was a very relaxing and delicious weekend enjoying some great international soccer from the comforts of my own home.  Even Cute (our cat) got in on the action.  Here she is getting extremely upset about a bad call the referee made.

Cute and I share a birthday.  I forgot to mention that she turned 2 on Saturday.

Read More

Mini Vaca

Hunting for Morel mushrooms.

Friends of ours are in Jamaica right now and they were gracious enough to allow us to stay at their home for the weekend.  They live on the river and have a beautiful newly renovated home.

But before our short retreat, we spent Saturday morning at the soccer fields in Ozark for Lyric's double-header.  He was pretty amazing in goal and made me proud.  He even scored a fantastic shot when playing offense from around the corner of the penalty area.  The ball got knocked loose from a group and he sort of volleyed it up and over the goalkeeper, a pretty fair distance for a successful shot in his age group.

We had about an hour between games so we took advantage of Ben's on the Square, a coffee shop on the square in Ozark, which is only a couple minutes away from the park.  Coffees, scones, and a muffin later, we hustled back to the field for the second game.

Foraging some sheep sour.

Once home, we worked all afternoon mowing, weed eating, organizing the shop, and deep cleaning our newly acquired pop-up camper (more on that in Jodi's soon-to-be-created blog).

The restful weekend begun Saturday evening when we arrived at our friend's river home and Jodi made a yummy salsa of fresh tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and onions.  The children soaked in the hot tub for a bit before bed, but once tucked into their beds and fast asleep, Jodi and I enjoyed a relaxing hot tub night under a clear night's sky.

Sunday morning offered a hearty breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and coffee.  We hunted for mushrooms in the woods but came up empty-handed (that's ok), floated a canoe up river with the children to hunt for interesting rocks and came up full-handed (that's ok), played some football, played some soccer, cleaned up after ourselves, had a wonderful-tasting and wonderfully healthy dinner of local beef, mashed turnips with forest-foraged chives, and baked butternut squash.

Ezra's butternut squash babies.

Ezra got pretty emotionally distraught about mom cooking her squash friends, but it turned out that she just needed a nap before dinner and got a pretty good one.

It was a very short retreat of about 26 hours, but enjoyable nonetheless.  And, due to all the work we got done on Saturday at home before we left, there was no self-inflicted guilt for taking the break.

Big brother watching out for little sis at the river's edge.

Loving the short float trip, a first for Ezra.

Searching for interesting rocks

Baked butternut squash

Peeled turnips.  Who knew you could mash them like potatoes?  I didn't.

Find the camouflaged frog

Picking up speed

Found an old headlight in the woods that naturally turned into a little planter

Read More

Friends: The Least of Your Priorities

I wrote about friendships over four years ago in the blog titled, Friends for a Season.  Then, I wrote about what friendships looked like both on and off Facebook in the blog, Goodbye, Facebook, that I penned just before I deleted my Facebook account in September of last year.

I just read a very long article about friendships and how they change over the years of a person's lifetime.  But, don't let me discourage you from reading it.  I found it to be pretty interesting.  So, if you feel like a long read about friendships, stop reading this right now and click the link to the actual article above.  However, If you'd rather see some snippets from the article about what I thought was interesting enough to elaborate on then please continue.  I promise that mine is shorter.

The understood uniformity about friendships is that people consider them very important.  However, in reality, they get pushed to the bottom of the relationship hierarchy which looks more like:

1. Spouse
2. Children
3. Extended Family
4. Friends

 When you think about, it's true that a friend-relationship can survive with months in-between times of communication.  Though, the more you go up the hierarchy, the more communication is required.  Clearly, if months went by without communication from your spouse, there would more likely be court proceedings being scheduled than a movie night.  However, in most cases of 30-something friendships, the requirement for communication measurably lessens due to people's increased commitments.  As teenagers, if your friend went two days without talking to you, you'd think that something was up; a week and you'd know that your friendship was over.  Whereas, as 30-somethings, an April to September span between conversations might even go unmentioned let alone fretted over.

The article claims to present four main levels of maintaining a relationship.  (However, I only could find two that they spoke about, so it remains a mystery what the other two may be.)

The first is just keeping a relationship alive at all, just to keep it in existence. Saying “Happy Birthday” on Facebook, faving a friend’s tweet—these are the life support machines of friendship. They keep it breathing, but mechanically.

I touched on this in my Facebook departure blog.  It's these sorts of attempts at maintaining something that's probably worth pulling the plug on that just got on my nerves.  I mean... really...why put off the inevitable.  It was time to rip off the band-aid.

Next is to keep a relationship at a stable level of closeness. “I think you can do that online too,” Langan says. “Because the platforms are broad enough in terms of being able to write a message, being able to send some support comments if necessary.” It’s sometimes possible to repair a relationship online, too, (another maintenance level) depending on how badly it was broken—getting back in touch with someone, or sending a heartfelt apology email.

I can see this.  Not every relationship I had on Facebook was a shallow one that deserved to die.  But, just because the social platform is built doesn't mean everyone has to get on it.  This sort of social life didn't exist 20 years ago.  I pity the mindset that believes it's now a requirement for social connectivity.  There are other ways, people. (Sorry if I sounded like Mr. T there for a second.)

“But then when you get to the next level, which is: Can I make it a satisfying relationship? That’s where I think the line starts to break down,” Langan says. “Because what happens often is people think of satisfying relationships as being more than an online presence.”
Social media makes it possible to maintain more friendships, but more shallowly. And it can also keep relationships on life support that would (and maybe should) otherwise have died out.

Amen.

By middle-age, people have likely accumulated many friends from different jobs, different cities, and different activities, who don’t know each other at all. These friendships fall into three categories: active, dormant, and commemorative. Friendships are active if you are in touch regularly, you could call on them for emotional support and it wouldn’t be strange, if you pretty much know what’s going on with their lives at this moment. A dormant friendship has history, maybe you haven’t talked in a while, but you still think of that person as a friend. You’d be happy to hear from them and if you were in their city, you’d definitely meet up.
A commemorative friend is not someone you expect to hear from, or see, maybe ever again. But they were important to you at an earlier time in your life, and you think of them fondly for that reason, and still consider them a friend.
Facebook makes things awkward by keeping these friends continually in your peripheral vision. It violates what I’ll call the camp-friend rule of commemorative friendships: No matter how close you were with your best friend from summer camp, it is always awkward to try to stay in touch when school starts again. Because your camp self is not your school self, and it dilutes the magic of the memory a little to try to attempt a pale imitation at what you had.
The same goes for friends you only see online. If you never see your friends in person, you’re not really sharing experiences so much as just keeping each other updated on your separate lives. It becomes a relationship based on storytelling rather than shared living—not bad, just not the same.

Perhaps friends are more willing to forgive long lapses in communication because they’re feeling life’s velocity acutely too. It’s sad, sure, that we stop relying on our friends as much when we grow up, but it allows for a different kind of relationship, based on a mutual understanding of each other’s human limitations. It’s not ideal, but it’s real, as Rawlins might say. Friendship is a relationship with no strings attached except the ones you choose to tie, one that’s just about being there, as best as you can.

Not every one gets this.  But, I think that most do.  It's an unfortunate fact that adults will get hurt from time to time by their friend's lack of communication.  But, it's imperative that we understand our own limitations and those of our friends, as well.  I think that a healthy embrace of our limitations can help relax the expectations we place on others, which in turn can protect us from getting hurt.

The older I get, the more I have come to embrace my limitations.  If I don't have any time to dedicate to people because of my current commitments to fill, it would be wrong of me to let on that I might have time by saying things like, "We should get together some time" or replying with, "Yeah, we should" when they tell me this.  It would be better to reply with "That would be nice. Maybe when (fill-in-the-blank-with-current-time-consuming-activity) is over we could do that because that is sure limiting the amount of free time I have right now."

This is, of course, assuming that you would want to spend time with this person.  Because, if you don't then don't make any promises.  That doesn't do anyone any favors.

Some of you right now might be thinking I'm kind of a jerk.  And, maybe I am.  I don't know.  But, I am trying to put honesty into practice when it comes down to social activities.  Being polite and tactful is obviously important, but not to the extent that we're lying to people to spare their feelings now just to have them disappointed with your lack of availability later.

Read More

Christmas (A Celebration of the Creator)

It floors me that I grew up in church, here in the "Bible Belt" even, and somehow never put it together that Jesus was around for Creation Week.  Perhaps, I was just a bad listener back in the days of Bible School?  I'm not sure.  At any rate, I've come to realize the truth of Colossians 1:16.

For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him.

With Christmas only days away, I thought it only appropriate to have a Christ-centered blog to write.  I think that most of my confusion on the eternal Jesus started with my understanding of Christmas being the birth of Jesus.  Naturally, I treated His birth as being His beginning.  But, scripture shows that this was not so.  John 1:1 puts it this way.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

So, Jesus created the earth and everything in it.  The Holy Trinity is definitely a little difficult for us to understand at times.  This verse says three things:

1. Jesus was in the beginning already.
2. Jesus was with God.  (in other words: distinct from, yet connected to)
3. Jesus is God.

This blows our little finite minds.  But, this is a pillar of Christian (and Biblical) theology.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all the same God yet distinct from one another.  1+1+1=1 in this case.

Recently, I saw this article on Google News.  There's been a lot of speculation about life on Mars in the scientific community and all sorts of things are being tossed around as possibilities.  This article tried to summarize what the scientists all agree upon.  I don't know if you can make out the text in the photo but is says this:

For lifeless chemical compounds to organize themselves into something alive, scientists generally agree, three sets of things must be present.

■ Standing water and an energy source.

■ Five basic elements: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus and nitrogen.

■ And time, lots of time.

I would like to point out that which has been pointed out by many already and yet is still not very well known.  Invoking "lots of time" as a supposed catalyst for creating life is transferring Creation from God to a mindless randomness.  It is, in essence, creating a new god.  Because, to believe time and chance created all we know, is done so with faith, faith in time and chance.  It robs the true and only God of Creation of the glory that only He deserves.

What I find ridiculous is that anyone with any amount of education could so easily fall for the illusion that time is a solution to bettering one's chances. 

A simplified model can make the somewhat difficult model easier to understand, so I'll give you a simple one.  Suppose there are three overturned cups like in the photo to the right and I put a coin under one of them.  I ask you to choose one.  Obviously, you have a 1 in 3 chance in choosing the one with the coin.  Suppose you got it wrong.  Then, without changing anything, I ask you to choose again.  Now, your chances have become better because, as an intelligent being, you won't pick the same cup you did previously.  Thus, you will have increased your chances of choosing the cup hiding the coin to 1 in 2.

Notice that this model has a requirement of an intelligence being present in order to have an increase in the odds of success.  If the exact same scenario ensued, but I made you turn around while I rearranged the cups after you initially got it wrong, then your odds would remain 1 in 3 regardless of how many times we repeated the exercise.

Now, with 1 in 3 odds, it is likely that sooner or later you'll pick the correct one.  But, that doesn't transfer to impossible odds.  This is where people get confused.  If your chances are 1 in a million, and those chances never get any better, it's a very safe bet that you'll never get it right regardless of the amount of time you dedicate to trying.

Scientists that propose time does in fact help the chances of life creating itself, have to first propose that there is a chance that it could happen in the first place.  In 1953, the Miller-Urey experiment attempted to prove the possibility and they failed.  With all the advances we've made since then, it's still not ever been shown that life could be created by time and chance.  Yet, articles like this one show that somehow, despite all knowledge and logic, the scientific community still insists that it is a possibility.  Why?  Because, all of their models are based on the assumption that it is.  And, wouldn't that turn out to be a foolish waste of resources?

The author of the article makes it known that "scientists generally agree" that "time, lots of time" can replace intelligence in the equation.  Furthermore, all involved assume that water, an energy source, and a list of some basic elements all happened to exist in a suitable environment just to start this impossible scenario.  They don't even bother to try to explain where the elements originated, how they were organized or why they adhere to natural laws of molecular structure.  For that matter, where did the laws of nature originate?  Can laws of physics organize themselves?

Attempting to create origin models without God the Creator only leaves one having to build models on assumptions that defy all known logic.  Make no mistake.  God the Father created all things through Jesus Christ.  So, this Christmas, celebrate Jesus who not only was born in a manger, not only died on a cross, not only substituted himself for all of our shortcomings so that we could be reconciled to the Father, but also created you, the earth, and everything in it.

Read More

Goodbye, Facebook

I have decided to delete my facebook account.  It was an easy decision to make, yet did not go without several instances of personal reluctance to do so.

Why?  This is the question I keep getting asked by those who have a facebook account.  I'm not getting asked this question by those who don't have one.  Because, they don't know I'm deleting my account.  And, they don't care.  I look forward to being one of those people.

There is a grand myriad of reasons why I am tossing off the yoke of facebook.  I couldn't list them all if I tried, but I can list some of the top reasons that immediately come to mind.  They are, in no particular order:

• Lack of security.
• Facebook is a business.  They sell your information.  They always have.  And, they don't hide or apologize for this.  It's genius, really.  They have created a motive to get people to willingly profile and track themselves.  Since this information is so specific, it's very valuable for marketing.  Marketing you, that is.
• It's not reality.
•  What people post on facebook doesn't usually say much about them at all.  I cannot compare the time I have spent with friends with the time I have spent reading those same friends' facebook posts.  Time spent with friends is meaningful and I get to know them well.  That time is real and so is the content.  I can't say the same for facebook.
• It's not a responsible use of my time.
• I am married.  I am a father of three children.  I am involved in my church.  I work 50 hours a week.  I have many real friends.  I am renovating a house.  I am restoring a car.  I am coaching a soccer team.  Etc.  Etc.
• With all that I have going on in my life, I don't have time to maintain a digital profile of myself for others' sake of "knowing" me.  Nor, do I have time to browse an endless sea of junk to spot the few tidbits of "knowing" others.
• Define "friends"
• Let's face it.  I'm not friends with most of my facebook's friends list.  I've even been pretty picky about whose friend requests I've accepted.  Still, if not for facebook, I wouldn't know two cents about a lot of people and those people wouldn't know two cents about me.  That's not a bad thing. 
• I know things that I'd rather not know.
• Some of my facebook "friends" and I have not seen eye to eye on things.  And, while it's no requirement of mine that those I associate myself with carry all my same values, I wish there were some others' soapbox speeches I hadn't been exposed to.  I wonder if I would be better friends with some people if I weren't subconsciously using my "facebook impression" of them as a screening tool.  Don't hate on me.  You do it, too.  The difference is that I'm admitting it.
• I read that "Facebook Erodes Real Community" and I agree.
• I know that people don't make as much of an effort to visit friends since the introduction of facebook.  Why would I see that friend I haven't seen in three years when I've seen every post of his/hers since our last visit.  What could I possibly catch up on with them since we're already "caught up".  At the very least, it stands as a seemingly valid justification to put off visiting someone.
• What am I teaching my children?
• Do I want my children to be on facebook?  Maybe you do and that's fine.  Use your own judgement for what's good for your children.  But, I don't know that I want mine on there being exposed to an online social world where people say and do things that they wouldn't say or do in person.  Or, maybe I would allow them to have a limited profile with some heavy monitoring.  I don't know.  But, seriously, when I think about it, I think of how heavy of a burden to parenting it will be if or when it comes up.  Maybe things like that are better left to adults.  Regardless of how I want my children to use or not use it, one thing is for sure: I can't legitimately limit or restrict it's use for my children while I have given myself no limits or restrictions.
• At the end of my life, what total number of hours spent on facebook would satisfy me?
• 1,000?  100?  2?  It seems that whatever the number winds up being, it isn't anything to be proud of.  I tend to think that the greater the number the greater the shame, actually.  I'm glad that I don't know how much time I've burned scrolling, commenting, and liking.  It's too late for me to have 0 in that category.  But, it's certainly not too late to stop the number dead in its tracks.

I could go on, I'm sure, but then I'd be wasting my time doing this.  Plus, my lunch hour is over.  Time to get back to work.

Read More

Is Self-Defense Biblical?

Photo Credit to funnycuteanimal.blogspot.com

I recently got into an online discussion that prompted me to do some studying.  The discussion was about Luke 6:28-30, or at least it was initially.  As all conversations do, this one took many turns.  What started as a question (evidently not meant to be answered) became many statements of position from both the question's poser and a couple people, myself included, who read the question.

Let's start with the scripture (NIV):

²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

 What wound up being supposed in the discussion was the following in no particular order:

• that these three verses apply to martyrdom
• that, as Christians, we have no right to defend or protect ourselves since we are not our own but have surrendered ourselves to God

The above list would have been longer, but every other argument made was purposefully open-ended or written with a built-in, locked and loaded disclaimer.  So, I haven't included them here, nor do I need to.  The above is subject enough for one blog.

So, let's start with the first point.  Jesus doesn't mention death anywhere in these three verses.  Therefore, I can safely conclude that any application of these verses to martyrdom or any death for that matter must be backed by other verses that do talk about death and must be supported by the overarching theme of the Bible.  None of this entire chapter speaks of death, save for one place, Luke 6:9.

⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

The only place in this chapter that Jesus mentions death, He makes it clear that to save life is good and to destroy it is evil.  The application of this is that the preservation of one's own life and of the lives around oneself is good (And, what is good but God alone?) and that destroying life (even your own) is sin.

Now, I'm not against pulling more meaning out of scripture than what it literally says.  On the contrary, I'm ceaselessly amazed at the amount of new revelation that comes out of some of the same verses that I have been reading all my life.  How God fit all that applicable and meaningful teaching into simple passages cracks me up to say the least.  But, of course, it's always new.  It's His word.  It's alive.  However, we have a tendency to impose our own beliefs upon scripture.  We can, will, and do come to the Bible with a set of ideals that we already hold to be true.  It's like wearing a pair of colored glasses with spots on them.  The Bible will all be colored a certain way and the spots will conveniently cover up the parts of it that challenge your predetermined belief.  So, the challenge is to remove the glasses first, and then read the Bible.  This way, God can teach you what He wants you to believe.

That said, it's important to always use scripture to interpret scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  I like new teaching being mined from God's word, but it must follow the theme of other clear biblical teaching.  Concerning the first point, that Luke 6:28-30 also refers to martyrdom, I ask how.  It was suggested in the conversation that these commands from Jesus would also include the scenario if someone was trying to kill you.  Now, I don't read that in there nor do you, I'm sure, but it was suggested that this was "the heart" of the teaching, reading between the lines, if you will.  Note, that Jesus was doling out commands in this passage, directions on how to live according to His teaching.  So, then, since He doesn't specifically say to willfully allow someone to kill you or others around you if they so desire, does another passage in the Bible specifically say it?  Does another passage even support the idea?  Or, perhaps, do other areas support protecting your life and the lives of others around you?

In the conversation, the word 'radical' kept being used.  It was assumed that Jesus was teaching an even more radical truth here than what He was clearly saying.  In other words, it was believed that He was saying one radical thing but implying an even more radical thing.  Why would Jesus do that?  If Jesus was giving out radical teaching (which He was) why do you suppose that He was saving the "really radical" teaching for only those who read between the lines?  Was He afraid that His disciples would be offended by the "really radical" commands so He just gave them the "moderately radical" ones instead?  That doesn't sound like Jesus.  Afraid to offend?  No, not Jesus.

Sometimes I wonder if we adrenaline-junkie-Americans have a desire to make Jesus even more radical than He is, as if we have a stronger desire to be radical than we do to be Christ-like.  Isn't giving to someone while they are robbing you radical enough?  Isn't loving your enemies, loving that co-worker who seems to stop at nothing to try and get you fired, radical enough?  Isn't praying for blessings for that neighbor of yours who is conjuring up curses against you radical enough?  Make no mistake, Jesus's teachings are radical.

Ok.  Moving on to the second point.  This seems obvious enough not to have to compile an argument against, but maybe it's necessary after all.  First, I think that anyone who has read the Bible at all will concede that God is said throughout it to be our defense and our strength, so much in fact that we can all agree on that.  We can conclude from this that it is good to be defended.  Where disagreements arise in whether it should always be left completely to the Lord our God to be our defense.  Arguments are made that to defend ourselves shows a lack of trust in God.  Or, in the scenario of the conversation that prompted this blog, arguments are made that say as Christians we are not our own and that we have given up our right to defend ourselves.  But, what does the Bible (God, himself) say about our responsibilities in regards to our self-defense and the defense of others in our care?

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. - 1 Timothy 5:8

" But, this is about working to provide for one's family, not the physical protection of them!"  Maybe, but notice that God is our provider, Jehovah Jireh, (Luke 12:24) and yet we all still work jobs.  God even commands us to work and provide for our family, even calling those that don't "worse than an unbeliever".  Ouch.

² “If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; ³ but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed. - Exodus 22:2-3

The reason that you were guilty in the daylight was that you would be able to see and discern that it was a thief not a murderer or a rapist and while you were expected to defend yourself and your family, you weren't allowed to kill over the potentially lost possessions.   But, in the pitch black of night, you were also expected to defend yourself and family and even acquitted of guilt if the thief died since there would have been no way to discern the intruder's intentions.

¹⁴ After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” - Nehemiah 4:14

Fight in defense of your family and your homes.  That's pretty clear.  And, what were they doing throughout this book?  Building a wall of defense around their city.  And, God was good with that.

¹¹ The king’s edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate the armed men of any nationality or province who might attack them and their women and children,^[b] and to plunder the property of their enemies.  - Esther 8:11

This came from the king's edict, yes, but from the direction and unfolding of events that God set in motion, of course.

³⁶ He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. - Luke 22:36

Yes, Jesus said this.  Jesus also rebuked Peter a few hours later when Peter used the sword to cut off the man's ear during Jesus' arrest.  But, note that Jesus told Peter to put the sword back where it belonged, sheathed on his side.  Jesus could have told Peter to throw away his sword, but He didn't.  He told him to put it back where it belonged, on his side, for its proper use.  Jesus had already told his disciples, Peter included, that He was to die for it was the plan for the Son of Man to do.  Jesus said that He could call on the Father and that a throng of angels would come at His defense, but that He must drink from the Father's cup.  Why, you ask?  To save all of humanity, of course.  To come to our defense.  Jesus, the King of Kings, didn't need Peter to come to His defense.  That wasn't a proper use for Peter's sword.  Jesus also explained that "living by the sword" or putting too much trust in it was also a bad thing and it would lead to death "by the sword".

 ⁴³ But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. - Matthew 24:43

Jesus was speaking about the second coming.  He used this scenario as an illustration to say that He would come at an unknown time therefore always be ready.  Note that, even to Jesus, it was an understood thing that you would defend your life, your family, and your home.  And, why wouldn't it be understood?  Scripture taught them that it was not only alright to do but that it was commanded of them, a responsibility of God's people to do for themselves and others around them.

²³ When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another... - Matthew 10:23

You mean, Jesus didn't want them to stick around until someone put them to death?  Of course not.  He wanted them to continue their ministry in proclaiming the good news to as many cities as possible before the inevitable happened.

I think I've aptly made the point.  It's good to defend life.  We are to die to ourselves in the sense that we are to give our lives to God for God to direct and guide our lives as He wills, not by our own will.  But, God, doesn't want us to give up our lives needlessly.  He wants us to do His work here on earth.  Jesus already died for us, so that we don't have to.  He expects us to live and continue His good work.

P.S. - To answer the question that the title of this blog answers: Yes, sometimes.  Our goal to be Christ-like is to always be thinking about other people and apply love and the sharing of the gospel in both words and practice whenever possible.  This can include, as Luke 6:28-30 tells us, even while being robbed.  For example: Suppose John were robbed today (it's cold outside).  If someone demanded his wallet, he could potentially make a lasting impression on them by offering them his coat, as well, and saying "you look like you might be cold."  This shows that John cares about them as an individual despite what they are doing to him at the moment.  John should report the theft afterwards since he doesn't want to create an environment that enables people to sin without any consequence.  But, John should restrain himself from feeling good if the robber gets caught or bad if the robber doesn't.  Also, this is assuming that John has assessed the situation and doesn't feel that he is any grave danger.  Otherwise, I would advise John to flee or fight.  And, based on the above biblical reasoning, I would say that it would be well within God's approval for doing so.

Read More