Going to Help in Haiti

I am leaving on Sunday, January 24 to go to Haiti to help earthquake victims. If you would like to donate toward this cause, please click on my PayPal link in the right sidebar. Our team has already purchased a $2000 water purifier to leave with the Haitian citizens, and I will be taking a suitcase of clothes and whatever money I receive directly to Port-au-Prince. This is a great avenue to not just provide for immediate supplies, but to give emotional support and hands-on help to those in need.

I hope to be able to write a bit about what happens when we are there, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to contact the outside world until I return. If so, I’ll post something, but if not, I’ll do it when I return. Please keep Amy and the kids in your prayers as well during my time away. It won’t be easy, but it will be good.

Thank you ahead of time.

Words from the Wife

My amazing wife has a brand new blog. I have agreed not to edit as I read, which is just fine because I do too much of that as it is. She has something to offer young mothers; she has experienced hurt, she has been broken inside, she has overcome, and she is wise. I can’t tell you how many times a day she takes calls from those with twenty questions at a time. She takes it all in stride and speaks from a position of having read from the breadth of book knowledge available, and from having lived through so much already. Her gracious tone and willingness to help brings people back time and again to draw from the well of her experience.

The questions often return to the theme of raising children who are in love with God amidst the busyness of life. Too many Christians withdraw into the safety of the religious bubble: four safe walls, too little interaction with the outside world, a lack of true life-long relationships—meaning having Christian and non-Christian influences in your life and not having any fear about that, but rising to the intellectual and spiritual challenge—that encourage and challenge each thought you entertain, studying themes that have extrapolation but not interaction with anyone but other Christians, and finally justifying this lack in spiritual terms. Sorry, but you won’t be coddled by Amy (or myself) if this is your stance. We must be able to live life with all its joy and pain, its suffering and exhilaration, and still be in love with God or the Gospel is of no use. The Gospel is for all people in all cultures at all times, in history and in the future, and in every situation of life. If this is not the outcome of what you believe, what you study or how you act, then it is not the Gospel.

No amount of egocentric excuses can justify a hands-off approach to the world or to refusing to interact with those who disagree with you. This bubble is antithetical to Christianity itself. And thank God that Jesus did not take an egocentric, hands-off approach to us.

Thank God.

AfterEden Movie Trailer

Professional snowboarders discuss the pursuit of their significance, purpose and identity.

Check out the trailer.

http://www.afteredenthemovie.com/

Beyond One Commonality

The first major round of primaries is done.

John McCain has over half of the delegate votes needed to get the Republican nomination. Mitt Romney, the Mormon sugar daddy, has spent more than $35 million of his own money to get to where he is now. At best, he could only hope for a VP appointment. But, you never know, maybe he could help America pay off its deficit. Between Clinton and Obama, a decided leader hasn’t really emerged.

Looking at the polls, we see that most people are initially attracted to a certain candidate based on one feature or a commonality the voter feels they have with the candidate: Hillary attracts the women; Obama attracts blacks; Edwards attracted the “sick of government business-as-usual” crowd; McCain attracts the veterans and strong military types; no clue about Romney; and Huckabee attracts the evangelicals.

Mike Huckabee has shown to be a resilient campaigner and evangelical front-runner. My only concern is that most evangelicals see him through rose-colored glasses: he was a pastor, so he must be an incredible politician. Not so. If I go in to have heart surgery, I don’t want someone who is “just a Christian”, I want a great surgeon.  If I go to record an album, I don’t want someone who is “just a Christian”, I want great musicians and producers. When it comes to politics, I don’t just want someone with whom I have a starting point to relate to them (religion, philosophy, issue agreement, etc.), I want a great politician. Whether they are Christian or not only lends me to attribute more commonality between us and more solid of a starting point from which to investigate them further. A single commonality does not a good __________ make.

The question—politically, for me—is not whether we should have a Christian leading America, but how the candidates stack up on certain issues. Obviously an atheist is going to feel the same way about how the country should be led, but from an opposite perspective (“The less god-freaks in government, the better.”). For Huckabee, I just hope we can look past his halo to see:

• his foreign policy with Iraq, China, the Koreas, the Middle East, Israel, etc.
  
• how he grants favored nation status to countries guilty of inhumanities to man
• how he will deal with terrorism and our security
• how he will deal with radical Islam
• his economic plans (mortgages, jobs, various stimuli, avoiding recession/depression, etc.)
• his social security, welfare  and healthcare overhauls
• his tax system overhaul
• his illegal immigration response

As with all things, politics has more to it than, “Do I have an item of significance in common with this person?” Somewhere famous there is a good quote about being as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves. As a whole, contemporary Christianity seems to have the impotent thing to a science; it’s about time we get wisdom.

MLK Day

Hope is one of the greatest gifts ever given to the human race. I believe that mankind has been given one of clearest pictures of true hope in the African American heritage, but especially as it is seen within the Black churches across the world, and specifically by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Here’s to you. Here’s to hope.

Thought

Without love, man finds no great home.

A Thousand Pardons

My most desperate apologies go out to the few readers left who still sneak a peek at this blog. Obviously I haven’t kept up with it, even though I had good enough intentions.

I could go through the reasons, but that would be boring.

I could make up a fantastical story, but that would take a lot of time. And I’m short on that at the moment.

So how about a peace offering of sorts ... a thought I had the other day ... something to ponder.

I told one of my girls that I love them and they said, “Love you, Daddy.” After a minute of gushing, I had a strange thought: what would a two or three year old know about love? While it doesn’t diminish the way I feel as their father when they say it to me, they certainly do not know the depth of emotion or lengths I would go to when I say “love”. In a way, it almost seems silly to hear young children say “love”, but as their parents, it moves our hearts even though we recognize that they do not know the extent of what it means to love.

And so it is with God.

He says He loves us—with a depth of emotion incomprehensible, and the lengths of eternity He would go to is unimaginable—and we say we love Him back. Our intentions are true, but they are still short of His reality. He knows what He means (and what we mean), but we don’t know the depth of what He means ... sometimes we don’t even know what we mean. Really, now, how much could we possibly comprehend compared with the God whose name actually is Love?

Yet, even with knowing all of that, God’s heart is still moved to the point of gushing whenever we glance His direction ... whenever “love” crosses our lips.

He is moved by our love.