Month: June 2007

Some of you might be surprised that I’m a camera hog in many ways. I just like the camera. I enjoy seeing my name in places. When I went to this wedding and I saw the list of bridesmaids and groomsmen and saw my name among the list of groomsmen, I smiled. I was pleased to be recognized as a part of this event. I also liked being announced at the reception.

I think that part of it is making the mark. Some of us like to leave some reminder that we were somewhere. We want people to remember us when we’re away. No one wants to be a “remember him?” Everyone would really like to have left the world a better place. The saying has been attributed to Ronald Reagan of “When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so that when you die, the world cries, and you rejoice.”

I think many of us grow up with that dream. I know I definitely did. I wanted to do something great for the world. There is no place in my heart for the common life which we all seem to live. We all seem to go through life as if our only purpose is to make money so we can pay the bills and continue the human race down to the next generation.

Isn’t there something in us that yearns for more though? For those of us who are Christians, don’t we look at the world at times and think that there’s something dreadfully wrong? We know God is in control, but we also know that the world is not the way that he intended and that he has called on us to make it better.

Part of us at that point seems to think that we can’t do much. Why do we let that happen? Why do we let the world cower us? Especially since we are followers of the one who overcame the world? Do we not believe him when he says that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world?

Yes. We can. There is that drive in us. We need men and women to stand up today and do great things. You think you’re small? You’re not. Go look at many of the video games and movies and TV shows today and the literature in fiction. Who is it that is often chosen? It is the ones the rest of the world most often looks over? Isn’t this the same in 1 Cor. 1? The foolish shame the wise? The weak shame the strong? It’s not saying that foolishness and weakness are good things but that those the world gives those titles to are the ones that end up shaming them.

Also, remember that you’re not alone. You do have Christ of course, but you will also have friends on the journey. If friends would team up more and work together for the cause of Christ, they could do more to change the world. We don’t really see our potential in our friends’ lives enough though.

This is where preaching the gospel to ourselves comes in handy. Once we do it to ourselves, we can better convey it to the world. The world needs to hear it. The world is counting on you also. God didn’t give this ministry to angels. He gave it to people and that includes you and I.

Tonight, I suggest you rekindle that fire. Go out there. Change the world. Make a difference. Let it be that you get to Heaven with an awesome crown. Who wants to walk across the gates in shame? No. Walk across knowing that you made an eternal difference and then get set to hear “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

I was at the Bible Study group I’m at tonight and we’d had a good time of fun fellowship and discussion after which we had our closing gathering of prayer requests and prayer. I thought of the change that we had just gone through though from the fellowship to the time of prayer and had a question come to my mind.

“Why don’t we laugh during prayer?’

Now some of you might think I’m disrespecting prayer. I’m not. I’m thinking of what I wrote in my blog article called “Go Play.” If we are to live a life of enjoyment in the presence of God, then being in the presence of God would include prayer. Since that is so, why don’t we laugh during prayer?

There is a story of a Puritan who heard one Puritan praying and saying in the prayer, “Hey Lord. Let me tell you a joke.” I believe this must have been a serious man of prayer for he truly believed God was hearing him and wanted to know about every part of his life. If you enjoy something, will you not thank God for it? If you can share a song of praise to God, why not a joke? He knows the punchline? Pshaw! We can enjoy jokes we know the punchlines too as well.

God is the God who gave us the gift of laughter and surely he laughs more than any of us. Who takes more delight in the creation around us? Is it us or is it God? We could even ask who takes more delight in a Christian couple getting married in purity? Them or God? Who takes more delight in the birth of a child? The parents or God? The answer is obvious, but at the same time, unbelievable in some ways.

If this is the way that it is though, then surely we should laugh more. It seems when we approach the disciplines in our walk of faith, we seem to enter a high and serious mode. Yes. We should have reverence, but I don’t believe reverence equals boredom. I believe we should boldly approach the throne, but I also think we should have no problem playing at the foot of the throne. Parents often delight in watching their children enjoy themselves in appropriate ways. Why not God?

This could be something that makes prayer so hard also. We can treat it as a drudgery that we are not to enjoy. I disagree. We should enjoy it immensely. We should laugh freely as we can with our closest friends. We can take great joy in that we are coming to the one who loves us the most and is listening to every single word we say.

Joy is the serious business of Heaven and laughter does a heart good like medicine. If we believe prayer is to change us, we should approach it as we want to be changed. We should come to God and laugh with delight at who he is. God is most definitely not boring. We could even say God is funny in a holy way. It would not be because we mock him, but because we delight in him so much.

Tonight, or the next time you pray, try something. Laugh. Tell God a joke. Sing a funny song. If you want to, just look at yourself and think of how much he loves you and laugh. That’s gotta bring a smile to you.

Maybe even to him as well.

Before I write this, let me say that my Trekkie friends did make it clear to me that Spock ws not a doctor ever in Star Trek and that yes, he could sometimes show emotion. I have edited the Spock reference to Mr. Spock in the last blog. What can I say? I did admit uphand that I am not a trekkie, but thanks to my trekkie friends for pointing that out.

On to today’s blog though.

I have returned from my vacation and in order to get to and from my destination, I flew. I had only flown twice before on a plane but this time, I was not nervous about it. My fear of flying in a plane is pretty much gone.  Flying is something that really casts a spell on me though and I figured I’d write about that.

One thing I noticed is that because I’m a guy, I could react differently. On my flight there, I was seated next to a lady and her husband and I had the window seat. As the plane took off, I was looking out the window in amazement and I turned and I saw that for this moment at least, the husband was looking as well.

That’s something about us guys. For us, this plane is simply a big toy and we delight in seeing this toy go up. No matter how old we are, many of us turn back into children again at this point in the flight. How many of us played with toy planes when we were younger and relive that some when we fly in real ones?

The flight though is the main thing. You look out of your window and you see the world down beneath you and it is so incredible. You look out and you see the clouds and you can’t help but marvel. They seem to be structures in the sky. I thought of how the Bible speaks about the Father from whom all fatherhood came. I wanted to speak then of the builder from whom all building came.

I looked at those cloud structures and thought that our greatest sculptors and architects could not begin to compare to the work of God. You know you can’t do so, but at times, you could just get out and walk on those clouds. They seem that real to you. At times, you can look down on them or across at them depending on where you are and think you’re seeing a landscape of snow.

The Psalmist said that the Heavens declare the glory of God and Paul spoke about creation speaking of God’s existence. I thought of the Psalmist mainly being on a plane sometime and looking at the Earth and saying “And yes, the Earth itself also declares the glory of God.” Let us not lose wonder at the heavens, but let us remember the wonder of the ground beneath our feet.

Yes. There is something enchanting about a plane flight. There’s a wonder in thinking of what has been created over time. With the invention of a plane, not only do we get good transportation, but we also get to experience the glory of God in ways the ancients didn’t get to.

Perchance, we should respond by glorifying him even more.

I’ll go on and disappoint several of you. I am not a Trekkie. I have only seen two episodes of Star Trek in my life. However, I think that the idea of Mr. Spock is well known. For those who know even less about it than I do, Mr. Spock is a character that is purely rational and does not possess emotions. I am sure this is true generally. Maybe some Star Trek buffs might want to point to times Spock does show emotion I don’t know about. If so, fair enough. I write today about the personality type that is represented by such.

I will also not disappoint in telling you that I am an intellectual. However, I tend to be more emotional than most people realize and my emotions can carry me away and take my rationality hostage. That happens more times than you would realize. I realized it was happening some yesterday at my friend’s wedding and has been happening in knowing that day was coming closer.

It really gets a guy like me thinking. I am sure that if we all used our minds and our rationality, we would all be Christians. Why is that? Because rationality is that which conforms to the truth and Christianity is the truth. Thus, the more rational we become, the closer we get to the truth of God. When we become irrational, it is at that point that we deny the truth of God.

Some of you might be wondering what I was wondering last night when I thought about this, and I am still thinking my thoughts out on it. Why did God give us emotions then? If we all were created and God has a desire for us to become a part of the family, why not create us all like Mr. Spock?

The honest truth must be that God wants us to reflect not just his mind but his heart as well. He wants us to have deep and abiding love which is also somewhat emotional. No. Love is not an emotion, but I believe that true love will in some way involve an emotional response just as true hate will.

If so, then it is not only our minds that need to be conformed to the truth of God, but it must be our emotions. Our minds are that which are the tool for finding the truth of God, but it is our emotions that help us measure our response. Do we respond in love or do we respond in hate? Many of us who are honest I think would say that it’s a little of both. If it was totally love all the time, we’d all live much better lives.

I wrote some time ago on feelings and how we overplay. A good friend wanted to be sure of one thing though. We’re not underplaying them as well. They have to be good things. Why? Because we’re not meant to be like Mr. Spock. We’re meant to respond to God in an emotional way rather than simple mental assent. It is a matter of the giving of our whole selves to God. Yeah. Some of us may be more intellectual and some may be more emotional, but each of us is to give our whole selves to God.

However, even if we are more emotional, I firmly believe that emotion is to be subject to reason. Unfortunately, we tend to place emotion above reason and I believe this is a result of overtones of naturalism where we have been forced to become little gods to ourselves and it is we who determine truth and one way we do that is feelings. We need to realize that we have a God outside of us who is determining the truth. (I personally hesitate to say that as I don’t see how truth can be created seeing as all truth exists in the mind of God eternally. There just isn’t much of a better way to say it.)

What do we do then? Do we ditch our emotions? Not at all. We give thanks for them. We just realize they have a proper way to function the same way that our minds do. God does not want us to be Mr. Spock. He also doesn’t want us to be fully emotional as well. He wants both.

He wants creatures that are like himself. He wants creatures that love, and love rejoices in the truth.

This is a very hard blog for me to write. I know you’re not seeing this now and you won’t for awhile, but you also know why this would be hard for me. Today, we saw one of those two days we thought would never happen happen. Now, we await the other one. If the situations were reversed, maybe you’d be wondering also. Yet today, I had a unique happiness for you. I truly am happy for you my friend and you’ve motivated me to search further and the fun at the reception gave for a little while some release from the funk I’ve been in lately as well as a new philosophical insight. I thank you for that.

I’m sure you remember how we met, but I want to say it again, especially so we can have a record here in my blog. I had just started coming to your church and I liked it and I wanted to join. When I came down, you stood next to me. I didn’t even know who you were then but over time, I did come to know you.

Don’t you remember it? Of course you do. The Mormons came to our church that night and you saw me with a couple of other church officials battle it out. You saw me and realized that you could do more. You’d heard me talk about apologetics before, but you didn’t understand my love of it. You did then. You’ve come to learn a lot since then.

We’d be on the PALtalk program also and there, we’d debate Jehovah’s Witnesses. Didn’t we have some fun times together? We got caught up in a lot of messes, but hey, we had fun. Remember ordering our copies of the NWT and the joy we had in going through them.

Remember our watching the Matrix also? We love that series so much. You and I still do the greeting between Seraph and Neo every time we meet. I wouldn’t dream of missing it. We can finish each other’s thoughts so easily. You’ve always been there with me, and I treasure that.

I’m glad you’ve found someone, but we’ve seen each other make bad mistakes in romance too. Heck. We could blackmail each other and I said as much Friday night when I toasted you. We would never dare dream of doing so. Have someone pay me all they want. It is not worth it to blackmail a friend of mine. It’s not that we did anything immoral, but we made some embarrassing choices.

We used to go everywhere to meet women. You know we spent every Sunday afternoon together after church. We’d go to the Sonic and we’d say it was so I could get ice cream and you could get what you got, but we both knew that we were going there to check out women.

Remember when that church didn’t want me to teach on cults because I hadn’t taken a course? You got so angry. I wasn’t there to see it as I’d left rather upset, but I hear the pastor was upset with you because you were so angry. It takes guts to stand up to a pastor, but you did it for me. I appreciate that.

You were there when I preached several of my sermons. In fact, many times when I preached at my college, you supplied the music. We never got tired of you singing the cartoon song. That’s why tonight during the reception, I asked the DJ to play it for you. I know you cheered when that happened. I know you too well.

You took me on a motorcycle ride one time and I loved it. We had great rides in my car of course where we would sing along to the radio and we had more worship than at a church service. I never sang at church really, but I had no hesitancy around you. Your real love though was to travel by motorcycle.

And those motorcycles sent you to motorcycle school where you learned how to build them. I called you most every Sunday night. Some nights I got busy, but it was always great to get in touch with you. I remember you telling me about meeting this girl and lo and behold, today you married her.

Maybe you saw me some during the service and reception. My getting teary-eyed wasn’t faked. It was one of the most emotional times of my life, but I am thrilled for you. In some ways, it’s hard for me to say that, but I really am. I’m sure you understand. You’re my best friend after all.

Yes. You really are. I have a lot of friends everywhere. I can get on my computer and talk to friends. I can go to work and talk to friends. I can meet old friends from high school and college. You’re the different one though for some reason. I don’t know why, but it’s like our spirits have knitted in that strange way that make me see a lot of you in myself and see someone I can trust.

My other friends are great of course. I wouldn’t trade them for the world. You’re unique though. Someday, I’m going to walk down that aisle also and I want you to be there as well. I want you to be able to celebrate my joy as I have celebrated yours. I’m incredibly thankful that I’ve got to be a part of your life. It took a lot of me to come here to this place to do that, but there was no question of whether I would or not. You’re my friend. You wanted me to be a groomsman in your wedding, and that takes precedence over anything else. Had even Seminary called wanting to meet with me, I would have told them they’d have to wait. My friend needed me.

Tonight, you’re celebrating. I ask that you remember me always though. I’ll be willing to do anything I can to help you out in anyway. You really are my best bud. I can’t seem to say that enough. Bad news for you of course. You even get stuck with me for all eternity. We can spend it looking back.

As I write, those times come back I remember your Dad being in the hospital and you didn’t want to see him alone. Who got up at 4 in the morning to go with you? That’s right. You and I left and we listened on the way to the radio and heard the Christian talk show talking about pet peeves at 6 A.M.

Our pet peeve was people that are cheerful at 6 A.M. We talked about Greg Koukl saying that until his first cup of coffee in the morning, he’s an atheist. We mentioned we were working our way up to orthodoxy. By around 8 A.M., we were probably Jehovah’s Witnesses as we worked our way up. I was there with you though, and there was no question of if I would. My mother found you and I later that day back at my place sleeping at 4 in the afternoon or so. I only know because she told me. We were tired, but it was worth it.

Remember going to the Gondolier restaurant that time and putting our hands on the glass that drove the lady cleaning the windows crazy? Fun times indeed. It’s those little times that are sticking out.  They’re the ones I will always remember. We had a lot of adventures together. We watched both Monk and Smallville as well. I remember we’d cheer when the ladies showed up during the credits.

You’ve seen me at my darkest hours also. You know the secrets I have in my life, but for some reason you like me anyway. I know you’re on your honeymoon now, but I have no doubt if you got a message for instance that something had happened here, and may God forbid that it does, and I was in the hospital, you’d be back immediately. You’re that kind of a friend.

Today is June 16th, 2007 as I write this. I’m thinking about you. I’m happy for you and sad for myself both, but I want you to know that you rock. I want you to know that I will always treasure our friendship that we share and I pray that marriage doesn’t change that. You and I should be friends for a long time.

You spoke about how you don’t deserve so many things you have last night. I looked at you as you said that and thought that I don’t deserve a friend like you. I don’t know why God blessed me so much, but he did. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend to stay with me through it all.

I think you’re awesome. I want you to have a permanent reminder in this blog as well as for the world to know that you, my friend, mean the world to me. May God bless you greatly.

A friend of mine had a saying once he got from somewhere on “Go Play.” Some people might think that isn’t a serious way of looking at life. The truth is that I think this is the best way of looking at life. I think too often we have made so many things work that we can no longer enjoy them.

Let us go back to the original creation account. Before God created, there was him in a relationshp of love within the Trinity itself. What was going on? Pleasure. Endless pleasure. It is the pleasure that we are invited to join into one day. There was not a necessity on God to create. God does not have to create. He chooses to create. He does not cease to be God by not creating.

Instead, play was going on first. Play is far more serious than work. Work is often done as an obligation in order to meet another goal. Play is done as its own goal. Play is done simply because it is play. Work is often done in our world in order to later enjoy a pleasure. We work so we can pay the bills so that we can have the time for pleasure later on.

The difference comes when our work becomes our pleasure. When we enjoy what we do. It is not done as obligation any more. I believe this also happens when it becomes an adventure. If we take it as something that we have to do rather than something we want to do, we cease to enjoy it.

I was at a wedding rehearsal tonight for a friend where I saw an example of this. I heard someone saying that they didn’t want to get married because it was hard work. The exact opposite is true. Marriage is not so much hard work as it is hard play. It is play because it is done totally out of desire and not done out of obligation.

In fact, we watched the flower girl and the ringbearer playing then and I saw they were acting more like a married couple than any would think. One could easily look at them walking down the aisle 20 years later. They were playing, but that playing is the kind of playing that naturally leads to love.

Indeed, all such love is really play at heart. It is reckless. We often think we should take marriage in a “serious” way. Let us not do that at all! Let us treat something like marriage recklessly! Why? Because this is love and love is not to be safe. Love is risky and dangerous for love is play and is willing to do what it can for its pleasure.

Let us take small things seriously, but let us not take major things seriously for we will cease to enjoy them. One might wonder why we should do this? Will we cease to treat marriage and other such things with respect? The only people who would really say such things though are those who have never seen anyone at play.

Read about the wrestlers in Ancient Greece. They took the wrestling very seriously and the young men were all to be trained in that. If you want a modern example, they are abundant. Watch what risks people will take for pleasure. Watch people who skydive. Think of people who risk death just for pleasure. They take such actions very seriously.

Indeed, if we do not take play in that way, then what is going on with professional sports? Our culture pays a lot to see people play and we value that play greatly. The player does not care so much about safety as he does enjoying the play. In fact, if he cares about safety, one can be sure that he will be a terrible player. The man who will never succeed at love is the one who is never willing to be dangerous in love.

Yes. Play is taken very seriously for play is closer to the nature of God than work is for play is eternal while work had a beginning. Play is to be reckless for it is its own pleasure and it cannot be enjoyed if one is constantly looking over one’s shoulder. Play is reckless abandon.

Thus, maybe we should see our lives as play as well. We are all involved not only in God’s story but God’s game as well. Life is too short to be constantly looking over our shoulder. If we see our lives as play, we can enjoy them more. If we see them as work, we believe we must do X. It is not a privilege. It is then a task. Life is a privilege though. It is a gift, and a gift is not a burden.

My friend has it right. We all need to Go Play. Life is too short to work. Let’s play.

Fans of Casting Crowns know that the group has a CD out called LifeSong. I don’t own that CD though. It’s not because I’m against Casting Crowns. I’m not. I think they’re a great group. I just don’t happen to buy a lot of music and even when I do, I don’t usually find the time to listen to it.

I am not a singer either, but I am a writer and I love a good story. I pondered this some today as I was doing some shopping. (Blog readers know I’m writing early. I’m heading on a trip to Florida tomorrow for a friend’s wedding and I have to be up early to catch my flight. If you don’t see a blog for a few days, that’s why.)

I wonder how often we actually consider our lives a story. I had to go get an eye exam today for example and get some new lenses for my glasses. I sat in the waiting room pondering my life as a story and it made me see things in a new perspective. The girl who walked in was more noticeable then and I paid attention to her name. I felt like I was on an episode of Monk where I needed to learn every detail about the world around me.

I also pondered the way the story is usually told. There are times I can seem to be the narrator of my own life where I am telling the story from my perspective. Then, there are times where I can imagine bringing in a third party and having that third party describe all that is going on.

Is such a story exciting? It certainly is. Our lives are not meant to be humdrum. We’re involved in the greatest adventure of all and we have a story to share. Our stories are part of the greatest story of all and all of these stories are interacting together to bring harmony. The parts that don’t seem to fit now I believe will fit beautifully from the perspective of eternity.

C.S. Lewis said there are no ordinary people. Let’s take that a step further. There are no ordinary actions or ordinary days either. Each thing you do whether private or public effects the story as a whole for each one changes you somehow at least and that changes the you that you present to the world.

With this in mind, we need to watch ourselves. We need to get control of our thought life but also to enjoy it at times. We need to realize also that our fellow man is indeed interesting. Unfortunately, we can see them as people that tend to just get in the way. Nope. They’re creatures that bear the image of God also.

This should also lead us to trust. The greatest authors of all present their heroes with trials and difficulties. However, pick your favorite work of fiction. When the hero reached a dangerous point or a tragedy occurred, did you chuck the book out the window and say “The author doesn’t know what he’s doing!” Obviously not, or else it wouldn’t be your favorite. No. You keep going because you trust the author. If he’s allowed something bad to happen, it is for a reason. It is a shame we don’t do that with the greatest author of all.

As you go through your future days, picture your life as a story and trust the one who holds the pen.

I told a friend I’d write on this a few days ago and I haven’t really got to do anything in-depth in pondering the question, but I like to write like this at times. It means that you get to journey along with me on my thought process and not just see my ideas but how I got there.

What I’m wanting to speak about is feelings in the Christian life. These seem to have a high place to many people and I would say, I sadly put them on a level that they should not be put on. Have we abandoned the Christian approach of reason though and decided to let feelings be the guide?

Why would we abandon reason though? It could be because the church dropped the intellectual foreground in the late 1800’s due to such events as liberalism coming in from Germany and the rise of the evolutionary theory. The church decided to make Jesus be the Jesus of faith then and who cares about the evidence? Naturally, not all did this, but anti-intellectualism began creeping in.

If you can’t trust your reason, where can you go? Only one place is left. Feelings. Today, we have a church culture that bases much on feelings. I want to scream every time I’m in the church and hear a preacher talk about how he wants someone in the church to do as they feel led. Why do we have committees to handle things if we really believe that God will do it all?

That is where the danger lies. Too often, we believe we can determine truth by our feelings, especially such things as “God’s will.” There needs to be a stronger guide. For one thing, we are great deceivers and most especially, great deceivers of ourselves. How many times have we worried about something and felt something about it and it turns out later we were entirely wrong?

Feelings can tell you about your perspective on something. They cannot tell you about the true perspective. If I am feeling depressed, then I am depressed. That does not mean I have an objective reason to be depressed. I could even be happy, but I would have no true basis for that happiness.

Imagine doing this with forgiveness and the love of God though? Actually, you don’t have to. Many of us probably do. Does God’s love for us ever change? I see no reason to think so. Yet how many of us think that at times, God doesn’t love us because we don’t feel it? Do we not often feel guilt for the past even though God has forgiven us? I wonder what that says of our view of God’s forgiveness if we keep asking him to forgive us of what he’s already forgiven us of. I wonder how that alters our view of his forgiveness.

Now what about God’s will? God’s will is to conform you to the likeness of Christ. That’s not a matter of feelings but of truth. Your feelings can tell you what you desire though and how you’re going on that path. I am in apologetics, for instance, because I have felt a strong desire and joy to do so since starting and I don’t see any reason for me not to be in such a field.

Are my feelings an accurate measure of if I’m in God’s will or not? No. In fact, our feelings can often control our reason when they take the forefront. The tail usually wags the dog. To let you in in my world, it starts with some negative feeling that must be analyzed and then that analysis produces “reasons” and then those “findings” are shown to be truths to lead on to other truths. Nothing in the external world has changed though. Just me. That should be enough to show how flimsy the approach is.

By the way, I am not in condemnation of good feelings. You can have good feelings in the worship of God. However, good feelings are not a go ahead from God nor are bad feelings a stay back. In fact, our emotions should not control our theology. Because we feel really good about something does not mean that it is right or good.

This should also tell us to avoid trumping one another with spirituality. When we meet a brother or sister in Christ we disagree with, we should not answer their arguments by pointing to our spiritual life or use statements like “Ask the Holy Spirit to tell you.” We should answer their arguments with arguments. We could be wrong in our beliefs, but the Holy Spirit is not to be used as a trump card.

Also, we need to learn about joy and happiness. I believe you can have these and have sorrow at the same time. I am sure of it because this has happened to me before. It is an experience I will not forget. We don’t always have to feel happy though to have true joy in our lives.

However, if we return to reason in the forefront, that means something else. More time in study and learning the truth, especially the Scriptures.

Now there’s a good place to find God’s will anyway.

I’ve been dealing on a forum with someone who has been saying some wrong things about some friends of mine. Now I’m very protective of my friends and I take things said against them very seriously. This one friend told me that evening though that I didn’t need to do so. This person I was defending them against wasn’t worth it.

It’s odd that we say that so often. When we enter a battle like this, we are not just fighting against something. We are fighting for something else. To fight against something is to automatically fight for another thing. We do not fight evil merely to defeat evil. We fight it so that good can prevail.

This is something important in the apologetics field also. We don’t just fight lies for the sake of fighting lies. We fight them for the sake of replacing them with truth. I have heard people say Christ is a crutch and be answered with, “Yeah. I need him to walk. If you kick him out, what will you give me to walk with?” We should keep that in mind. People do live by their worldviews. If we remove one worldview, we need to have the true one to replace it with.

And yet, as I was pulling in this evening, it occurred to me that I could take this idea up to a far more cosmic scale. All of these battles in apologetics that we participate in are mere skirmishes. The real battle has already been won. We are just the soldiers spreading the cause of the king.

However, why did Christ fight? Why did he choose to go to the cross? Did he go just to defeat evil? No. Fighting against implies fighting for something else. Christ when to the cross because he was fighting for the good. He went to win the ultimate battle of good and evil.

And let’s remember most importantly that Christ was fighting for us. What does that say about us then? It says that Christ considered us worth fighting for. For some reason, the God of the universe chose to come down and fight for pitiful little creatures like ourselves and suffer the worst agony that could be suffered just so he could show us he loved us.

Return the favor. Go out and fight for him.

Last night, I was up later than normal chatting with friends and surfing YouTube. I found some videos of Harry Potter while searching set to a Power Rangers theme with various figures in the books playing the parts of different rangers. I then found one of Harry Potter and Smallville together. To find Jonathan Kent talking about the Dark Lord returning was quite hilarious.

As I went about my day today, from time to time, these videos would pop into my mind and I would laugh. I find it easy to laugh at many things. I can hear the same joke over and over again and enjoy it. I can watch Veruca Salt go down the garbage chute endlessly in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and never get bored.

Have we ever thought about what the world would be like without laughter and humor? It’s really such a great gift when we take the time to consider it. Have we considered how amazing it is that we find some things funny and that we laugh at them? How would our lives be different if we could not?

Yet what is this laughter? What are we recognizing? Could it be the kind of place the world is? I look at those videos and think “Harry Potter and Power Rangers don’t really go together,” yet there they are. It doesn’t seem to fit, but in a way, it does, and it makes you laugh. It’s not natural, but at the same time, it seems completely natural.

There are some ways it’s just funny to play with reality. It’s funny because reality is funny and God gave us the gift of creativity. God gave us the gift to play with his creation and this includes other ideas from the creation. No doubt, people want to show off their video-making skills on YouTube with such videos, but they also want to make people laugh.

Why laugh though? To forget the world? I don’t think so. I think true laughter is that which lets you embrace the world. It might help you forget your own world that you’re blowing out of proportion at the time though. Laughing takes you out of yourself and I believe then, places you close to the divine.

There’s no doubt, the world is a funny place. Go look at the animal creation. God even tells Job to do that. Try to read his description of the ostrich and not laugh. Comedian Bill Cosby is highly regarded as a funny man with some people I talk to. Every time they agree he’s funny, I ask them to tell me a joke he’s told. Bill Cosby doesn’t tell jokes. He tells the truth, and it’s funny.

In fact, what we believe is pretty funny at times. G.K. Chesterton once said truth must be stranger than fiction for we have made fiction to suit ourselves. If the Christian account was not true, I do not think we could make it up. People who think such really don’t understand the story. We can picture the mystery religions speaking about dying and rising gods, but do we see any reason to think that they thought this happened at a point in the space-time history? They might look at that idea if we asked and say “What? A god permanently living here for a time and coming in the form of a baby? Are you crazy?”

Yet this is exactly what we say happened. In fact, I have been told that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, they tell jokes on Easter Sunday to celebrate. Why? Because the resurrection was God’s big joke on Satan. It was the ultimate punchline. The one enthroned in Heaven did indeed laugh at that point.

And isn’t that where all laughter begins? Doesn’t it find its root in the heart of God? God laughs more than we do for God is never bored. It is only we humans are bored. I agree with Kreeft that boredom is a far more serious problem than modern man realizes today. We get bored and God doesn’t. If we are to reflect him, then we should eliminate boredom from our lives.

How to do that? Enjoy his gift. Laugh. Go read a joke book or some comics. Go on YouTube and watch some videos. Then again, if you want to laugh really loud, go look in the mirror sometime and really think about what a strange and odd creature that you are. Yet that strange and odd creature is one God delights in, and he laughs, not to mock, but out of joy.