You are no different

       One of the great learnings a person can become aware of is the truth that you are no different than the person next to you.  A phrase once said was “There but by the grace of God go I”.  In this statement, we acknowledge that we would be in the same situation as that person if things happened differently for us.  It’s a humbling realization. 

      Today many people sneer at people of the past and call people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson evil because they owned slaves. Their beliefs emanate from a view that if they had lived back then they would do things differently.  

     How wrong they are.  

     We often don’t take into account how so much of who we are is handed down by the culture and environment around us.   We like to think we arrived at our trajectory on our own power and they only thing influencing us is our own DNA.  

    As an illustration, consider the modern day “alligator fish” (also known as “gar”). This fish is often referred to as a living fossil as its appearance hasn’t changed in 100s of millions of years.  Fossils we find today have the exact same bone structure and teeth.  There is one glaring difference however.  The modern day Gar is freshwater and the prehistoric is saltwater. Over the Millenia this fish as changed its ability to live in freshwater and become incapable of swimming in saltwater without dying.  Same fish but different habitat.   Humans are much like the Gar.  We may look the same as people in other centuries but we swim in much different waters 

     Many modern day “period pieces” (movies and TV) try to inject 21st century views and thinking into the 18th and 19th centuries to make you think these people living at that time were just like you and I living today.  One such PBS program called “Bridgerton”.  The series centers around the main character , Daphne Bidgerton, whose views (and even language) could be pulled from a modern day teen romance novel. Her character is purported to be living in England in the early 1800s and is fighting for “social justice” and upsetting the aristocratic system. This mixing of eras gives the wrong impression to the people viewing it that we find the people living at this time no different from us other than the need to wear long dresses , top hats and ride in horse drawn carriages. This could not be further from the truth.  

    The truth is, if time travel was made possible we would need a lot more than a change of cloths to fit in.  We would need a whole change of views , values and also language.  Once I was visiting the Pittock Mansion in Portland Oregon and saw some old newspapers mounted on the wall in glass (Pittock was the owner of the local newspaper).  I went up to the paper to read and see what issues they were concerned with in their time.  To my amazement I could barely read the article as the language and choice of words was far different from why I was used to reading.  I would need several hours and a Thesaurus to decode what many of that time could read without any trouble.  This is just one of many differences I would have to overcome in going back to this time.  

      Every culture from every time is like this.  They are who they are because of when they lived. Take for example those living in the bronze era.  City states attacked other city states on a regular basis to obtain their wealth.  There was no “Free Trade Agreement Acts” to protect them.  The only protection were bigger walls and better swords and spears.  When crops failed from no rain or from pestilence the people of their day did not have weather forecasts to give them hope or people to show them how to better rotate their crops.  Instead they had people who scared them into sacrificing their children or offering up their young girls as prostitutes for Baal worship.  To think that you would grow up in this culture, (illiterate and uneducated) and would act completely different is the height of hubris.  You would be no different than them and only by the grace of God are you saved from that type of life. 

     We need to show grace , not only to those living around us now , but also to those living in the past (maybe even more for those living in the past as they cannot speak for themselves).  We need to say to ourselves as we read about history that we would be very much like them.  

     This not too say you would not be any different.  After all,  you are still you.  The issue is the degree of difference.  Each generation has men and women who do think differently than their culture dictates but only by a few degrees of difference.  But like compounding interest from a bank these few differences over time multiplies over each generation.  

     For example, Thomas Jefferson put aside the idea of an aristocracy (blue bloods verse commoners) when he penned his infamous words “We believe all men are created equal”.  (even though he owned slaves). Lincoln would later use these words in his infamous Gettysburg address to include men of all races (even though he like many felt at one time blacks would not be able to live among whites).  Martin Luther King would build on these changes to end racial hatred still lingering from the civil war and to bring us together in love for one another  (even though he known to have been unfaithful in love to his wife). 

   So as you read about historical figures or people of different eras, remember that these people  , like you, are imperfect and a product of their time and world.  Thank them for how they were able to make the changes they did.  

Help is calling

     Recently I read a news story about a man who went hiking in the mountains and got lost.  People searching for him tried to call him on his cell phone as there was a chance he might have service in the area, but to no avail no one answered.  After several more days, the man was later found and recovered alive.  He told his rescuers that he had received their calls, but because he did not recognize the phone number he didn't answer the calls (we are so conditioned to ignore solicitors).   It seems so silly in retrospect that this man spent several more nights in the woods and could have potentially died all because he didn't recognize the phone number of the caller but we are really no different when it comes to God.

    God is desperately trying to reach us in our times of fear, darkness and loneliness.  He wants to rescue us from our despair over our past sins and current problems.   Too often, however, we don't "pick up" on his call all because we don't recognize Him working in our lives (or may be we do but we are too stubborn to let God be the rescuer).  He wants to restore us and save us.  

Jesus cried over Jerusalem as he approached the city saying, 

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem!  Killer of the prophets and those sent to you!  How often I wanted to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you would not!"

   He cries over you too in much the same way! 

    Unlike, the rescuers in the story, God doesn't hang up on us and stop trying.  Instead, as Jesus said, 

"He leaves the 99 in the pasture and pursues the one lost sheep and searches for it until he has found it.  When he finds it he puts it on his shoulders and tells his friends, "Come and celebrate with me for I have found my lost sheep!" 

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!

    Those are the infamous words repeated by Buzz Lightyear in the movie series "Toy Story".   The phrase is a bit of an oxymoron in that there is technically nothing beyond "infinity".   Infinity can never be defined or limited such that you can ever go beyond it.  Make up any large number with any number of zeros after it and all you have to do is add 1 more zero and you have a number 10 times larger than the one before it.

Let me illustrate:

      You say this is large number: 

                   1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

       But add a zero on the end and it becomes: 

                 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

        As soon as you think you have the largest number possible, I can make a larger one.  

     Infinity is a problem mathematicians have had to grapple with over the centuries.  As they study various mathematical functions and theorems the question always arises: 

                    "What happens when X goes to infinity?"   

     The solution to the problem may work for reasonably small values of X but may not work for problems were X is very large. Because of this many of their theorems have "clauses" written into them that limit the use of their purpose to "when X is small" or "X is between 0 and 1". 

      Infinity is difficult for humans to grasp.  We are finite humans.  We live in finite worlds, with finite bodies, with finite life-spans and have finite physical and mental capabilities. So how do you grasp something that has no beginning and also no ending?  Because we can't, we tend to limit the universe in some way to suit our finite limitations. 

     We also do this with God's love and grace. We think God's answer to sin (his grace) only works for small bounded problems like those math theorems.  We think to ourselves, "Well that may work for someone who hasn't committed any major sins or has lived a fairly descent life, but not for someone like me!"  

     But Paul writes:

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

     In Romans 5:20 he also writes:

The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

     Only through God's Holy Spirit can we even attempt to know the infinite love of God in Christ. Like the large number you thought was a big number , only to have a bigger number made by adding a zero at the end so also is God's grace towards you.

     Then why should I stop sinning if God's grace expands to infinity?

     The problem is not with God but with us.  Because we may say God's love is infinite our finite selves reject this notion as it applies to us.  Oh it may apply to "others" but we often view ourselves as having a unique place in God's Kingdom that is outside of God's grace.  Because we will ultimately limit the grace God can supply, we will run out of it by constantly sinning or committing a sin which we view as too great for God to forgive.  (this is why we ask God to "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil") 

     This was the case of Judas.  We will never know the reason why Judas betrayed Jesus.  It might have been out of anger or frustration with Jesus not being the "Mighty Messiah" to kick the Romans out.  Who knows!  Often we get too caught up in the "Why did he do it?" and not the "Why did he kill himself?".  Judas spent 3 years with Jesus. He heard all his sermons. He saw all of his miracles.  He even participated in those miracles when he was sent out 2 by 2 to the local towns.  He saw Jesus forgive the sins of countless people, but Judas believed he had done something so egregious that God could not forgive him.  Peter denied Jesus to a little girl within ear shot of Jesus.  His sin was just as bad as Judas.  The difference is in their perception of God's love to them.  I believe 100% that Judas would have been forgiven by Jesus just as Peter was forgiven.  After all, didn't Jesus forgive the men standing below the cross who had lied to put him there?  If he could do that to them, he would surely have done it for Judas as well.

      Maybe you have done something you thought you would never ever do.  Maybe you think you are outside of God's grace in Jesus Christ.   Let me tell you that you are not.  Whenever you feel this way just remember this:

GOD'S LOVE IS "TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!"

God runs beside us

Recently while exercising at the gym I was watching ESPN and their coverage of the Paralympic Games.  I was watching the Track-and-Field portion of the program and was fascinated by the Women's Visually Impaired (blind) 100 meter dash. The event put the runners in odd numbered lanes and a seeing-aid in the even number lanes.   In this case, each woman was paired with a man running beside them all the way to the finish line.  Their aid helped with keeping in their lane by giving them instructions, but also to encourage them and let them know what place they were in.  

I couldn't help but see the connection to our "race" as Christians.  Christ is not waiting at the finish line to see if we make it or not.  No!   Like the runner-aid, Christ runs right beside us.  He urges us on to keep going and finish our race.  He also helps guide us with his words to help keep us going in a straight path and staying in our lane that is marked out for us.