CF2: We begin to wonder...

"Hope that is deferred makes the heart sick..."  Prov 13
"The spirit of a man will endure his sickness,
     but as for a broken spirit who can bear it?"  Prov 18

Fatalism is giving up, it's a crushed spirit.  It's the logical outcome to crushed hopes.  It's learned helplessness: an experiment some sadist did with dogs years ago where they electrified the cage, not enough to kill, just enough to hurt, and watched to see what happened.  At first the dog tries to fight and flee but eventually it figures out there is nothing it can do, so it just lies down.  To my mind a Christian, a Bible believing follower of Christ is actually more susceptible to it, not less than a pagan.  Pagans can surely have it, the human heart is a hope factory.  We want, we desire but time and resources often mean we have to put off what we want, work for it, wait for it and despite what Disney tells us, dreams don't often come true nor when they do are they all we thought they'd be.  But a Christian has promises!  A Christian has the Bible and the Bible is chock full of wonderful things we hope for.  A Christian has REASONS to hope!  Proofs!  A God who can do all things!  Who has plans for us to prosper us and not harm, to give us a future and a hope!  We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us!  Let's go win the world for Christ!  Go Team!

But time and resources...  we live a little, we see disappointments, honeymoons become work-a-day, seasons pass, seasons come and nothing much seems to change under the sun.  We learn other verses, we learn that in this life we will have affliction, we learn that those whom God loves, he also chastens, we learn that the Potter has every right to do with the clay what He wants.  Despite all our prayers: she leaves; he never comes home; we lose the house; the child dies; the verdict does come back, 'cancer'; that friend rejects Jesus..and us; we hear of wars and rumors of wars and atrocities and sexual bondage; and oh by the way, we never seem to get a handle on that sin either do we and we begin to wonder...

But no, we're too good of Christians to wonder that!  We keep getting up and doing our duty.  We keep on keeping on.  The son becomes a soldier.  The soldier becomes a servant.  The servant becomes a slave.  We go to church.  We tithe.  We go to Bible study and fellowship and read the word and can even debate it.  We pay our taxes.  We take care of our families.  We endeavor to live quiet lives.  We sing the songs...

But why does that one make us cry?  Why when our coworker is really, truly suffering apart from Christ do we say, "I wish there was something I could do to help, something I could say."?  Why do some verses in the Bible make us angry?  Heck, we're angry all the time!  Why is that?  And we begin to wonder....

But no, there's stuff to do.  Work, work, work.  Come home tired enough to crash on the couch and lose ourselves in some binge-watching, ballgame, a good book, porn...or run, run, run, this kid has to go there, that kid has to go here, whose kid is that?  Crap!  We have more kids?  Why the heck did we have so many kids?  Work called, gotta go, go, go, the guys called, i need some time with them, play some golf, have a beer and b***h about our lives, our wives, our work, and talk about the old days, before, when we were young and life looked big and amazing and we had such...

hope.

(to be continued)

Christian Fatalism

"Whatever is--it was already determined,
   what will be--it has already been decided.
As for man, he cannot argue
   against what is more powerful than him.
Increasing words only multiplies futility,
   how does that profit anyone?

For who knows what is good for a man in his life during the few days of his fleeting life, which are fleeting as a shadow?  For who can tell anyone what will happen in the future under the sun?"  (Ecc 6)

Christian fatalism summed up in a few verses.  If God is God then nothing we do matters.  Predestination means we had no real choice in the matter (thank God!!).  God is all knowing, all seeing and all powerful, what does he need us to pray and ask for things?  He already knows.  He's going to do what he wants anyway, right? 

You know, before i go and tell you what i think about this, i'd be curious to hear what y'all think.  What's wrong with thinking this way?  Are there fallacies we are holding on to?  What scriptures refute this way of thinking?  What does thinking this way do to our heart?  Our faith?  Our testimony?

Good Friday

 

Good Friday. 

Right now you have been up all night, first praying but then dragged to and through a mock trial.  You have been beaten and spit on, derided.  In a few hours, they will drag you up to Pilate, a foreigner, a pagan for yet another farce of a trial.  You will then be dragged to Herod for more of an interrogation.  But there you will be beaten and mocked some more.  Then back to Pilate where he will condemn you upon a political expediency.  Better one man die than many in an uprising.  And he lose his job if not his life.  With great power comes great anxiety.  And so he washes his hands and signs your death bill.  But first, you are flogged, scourged, flagellated.  Your skin torn off.  A crown of thorns, carefully woven by some sadist, is mashed down onto your head.  The king of sin, the king of the fall then tries to carry his own cross but is unable.  A Libyan Jew is forced to carry it for you.  Or with you.  You walk the streets of Jerusalem, staggering from pain and the weight of the all the world’s sin.  You who has never sinned, now is forced to endure the punishment of it, the separation from the Father, communion is broken.  Love is broken.  Now there is only wrath.  The wrath of the Father pours out on you, the faithful and true and undeserving son.  The only flesh born ever that did not deserve the wrath of God from birth. 
 

By around nine o’clock they will have nailed you to the wood and hoisted you high into the sky.  They offer you a drugged wine and you refuse.  Though when you do cry out for drink, they offer you only sour wine.  Vinegar.  Even those in the same predicament as you mock you from their own crosses where they pay for their own sins.  Save one.  Who begs you to but remember him.  Who recognizes your innocence.  Three hours you hang there.  The sky goes dark.  You cry out to God the Father as but God.  You declare it all done.  All the work of all creation finally finished.  And you commit your spirit into your Father’s hands.  The earth quakes, the veil in the temple is torn in two.  There is now no separation between us and you, the profane and the holy, we have been made clean by your finished work. 

By tonight, before darkness falls and the Sabbath begins, they who adored you in secret will finally make public their declaration by coming and asking for your body and preparing it for burial and placing it in their own tomb.  Freshly cut.  Never used.  A stone is rolled over the entrance.  It is sealed with the governor’s seal.  Guards are set and the world wanders away, your followers to hide behind locked doors in confusion and despair, your detractors behind smug self satisfaction, your executioners behind their ignorance.  Darkness falls.