Are we all a cosmic accident? Science suggests not...

I have no idea if anyone reads my blog anymore as I update it so infrequently. However, I'm going to go ahead and share this here. I cannot expound upon this as it sums up current scientific evidence for a Creator far better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spdgQPJWLfE

False Prophets and Christian Youth

It has been a long time since I've written in this blog. Far too long.

Originally, I started it as a conduit for whatever I felt the need to share about how Science and Christianity are intertwined, contrary to common belief. This blog was also started while I taught Science in a Christian school. My subject matter drifted a bit, I no longer teach in Christian education, and it has lain fallow...until now.

While this post is not about Creationism, and it's not about teaching, it is about spiritual warfare and raising kids up the way they should go.

To put it bluntly, I am grieved for this generation. I am saddened and grieved and appalled at what the youth of today are learning and what they are NOT learning.

I am grieved that today's youth have a clear tendency to view Scripture through worldly lenses rather than viewing the world through God's Word.

I am grieved that kids can be so adept at "playing Christian," and when they are out in the world among others, they conform just as adeptly to the world's expectations.

I am grieved that kids are not taught that sin is sin...it's a "choice," a "lifestyle," or "oppression."

I am grieved that there are profession Christians who will teach today's youth that the Bible is irrelevant today, that the Old Testament no longer matters, and that the epistles are historical documents instead of timeless Scripture.

I am grieved that the kids who DO know and follow the Truth cannot even speak the Truth openly for fear of bullying, persecution, censure, punishment...and that's here in the US, not ISIS-controlled Kurdistan.

I am simply grieved. Deeply and honestly grieved.

I recently heard a great lesson on false prophets, and the Scripture for that lesson comes to mind:

Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:23-27)

Satan has his hooks far too deeply into today's youth, and far too many adults are letting it happen.

Beware of false prophets and weigh EVERYTHING in the light of Scripture.

Stewardship and Children

As most Christians already know, God created everything and therefore owns everything in the universe (Gen 1:1). As fewer Christians know, we have been put in charge of this creation and everything in it (Gen 1:28).  With this Dominion Mandate, as it is known, comes responsibility to care for the creation properly. This is the Biblical concept of stewardship.

The Apostle Paul walked with God and clearly understood stewardship well:

- "For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building (1 Cor 3:9)."
- "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Cor 6:19-20)"

We are also charged with the proper education of children: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. (Prov 22:6)"

I am increasingly concerned about what I see as a lack of stewardship in the Christian community, especially as it applies to 1 Cor 6:19-20 and Prov 22:6. Our bodies are temples for the Spirit, and as such should treat them well. We must also train children in the way they should go. However, I continue to see people mistreat and abuse their bodies, and I continue to see people training children to do the same.

I am especially concerned with how we are training up the next generation of Christians. Here's just a few examples of what I have seen: 

• Youth leaders encouraging all-night praise events...
• Popular Christian artists blasting people's ears at concerts...
• Christian school teachers and administrators encouraging kids to pull all-nighters to succeed, sometimes even encouraging the use of coffee and energy drinks to make it happen...
• Youth being told, either in words or in actions, that LOUD PAINFUL music is a required part of genuine, authentic worship...
• Youth on Christian school events being required to stay up late for a "message," often one of dubious worth...
• Youth being told by Christian school personnel that sleep is a "crutch." This one isn't even funny as a joke...
• Youth being shown poor examples of adult behavior, such as speeding, excessive drinking, excessive use of caffeine, skipping sleep then driving, etc. 

Now, I'm not pointing fingers here, and I'm not naming any names nor am I asking you to draw any conclusions beyond face value. I will freely admit that I've been guilty of demonstrating poor stewardship myself. I was once notorious for my coffee consumption, I have given athletes a starkly poor example of physical fitness and I have been known to get far less sleep than I should.

However, I am admitting my poor example and taking steps to fix it. There are far too many Christians out there who demonstrate poor stewardship to the youth in their lives and do not recognize it. Even worse, there are those who see their poor stewardship as their own "personal freedoms" and defend their destructive behaviors. Even worse still are those who see poor stewardship practices as part of worship or as part of being a Christian.

Doesn't the enemy take a lie and inject JUST enough truth to make those lies sound true? Does a partial truth make something good? Think on this: how much rat feces would you accept in your brownie batter and still be willing to eat those brownies?

Think about it. Pray about it. If you're part of the problem, fix it.

An open door....?

A door that I thought was shut appears to be creaking open.

There is a new job opening that seems PERFECT for a man of my unique qualifications, but my last two attempts at the SAME position were met with rejection.

Perhaps God is reminding me to be persistent?

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)

OK, God. I'm knocking. Let not my will, but thine be done.

Doors closing...

It has been quite a while since I have posted to this blog, but it's time.

Once again, I see a door closing that probably was never really open in the first place.

Oh, sure...it looked like an ideal situation 3 years ago, but now in retrospect there were enough signs to the contrary. Over the last three years, they simply accumulated to the point where it finally got through even my densely-constructed skull.

OK, God. What do you have for me next?

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool creationist, so I would be automatically excluded by the public schools and post-secondary institutions. The list of private schools with whom I'd be comfortable working is short, and none of them are in need of my services at this time.

Perhaps my task is not to bring scientific apologetics to our community, but rather to be the provider for my family as my wife continues writing?

Who knows?

Well, we all know who knows, but it's not His timing yet.

There are times when I wish I could see a page or two of the playbook...not the whole thing, mind you...just a page or two. Then I realize that if I could actually handle it, I'd probably get to see it.

God, it's in your hands.

Entitlement

One of the things that bothers me about this world is the sense of entitlement so many people seem to have.

People who feel that the speed limits do not apply to them and they are entitled to drive as fast as they want.

People who are horribly immoral because they feel it's their right to love whomever, whenever and however they choose.

People who think the world owes them a living.

People who will do whatever they want whenever they want because they insist it's their right to have it.

The list goes on.

It all started this week when I decided to take my boy camping. We showed up and got a very good spot right on the lake. On the first day we splashed around in the water and had loads of fun. The second day was the same...until the entitled people started showing up.

The guy next to us apparently felt it was his right to correct his many dogs by grabbing them by the ears and jerking them around. The guy who showed up around noon with his jet skis apparently thought it was his right to park his stuff right in the beach spot where we had been for the last 24 hours. The kids who seem to feel it's their right to curse up a storm no matter who's listening.

Then there's the pièce de résistance, the couple.

They were obviously full of themselves, both of them bronzed to the shade of molasses, neither of them modestly dressed. To call their attire "bathing suits" would be generous. They walked right out into the spot where my son was playing, stood in the water and proceeded to paw each other. And kiss. And paw some more.

After several minutes of this, they apparently decided that their skin wasn't baked enough, because they went up on the beach and exposed even more of themselves for over an hour.

Was there anything that could be done? According to the park ranger, Nope. Neither of them was "naked" by a legal definition, but I think even Victoria has more secrets than these people that day.

And why do people do such selfish, self-centered things? They feel they're entitled to it.

In fact, the only thing we are entitled to is death and punishment. Our sin and the sin in the world before us has brought curse upon this earth and this people and if all were "fair" we'd all be separated from God for all eternity.

Thank the Lord there is Grace. God's Grace keeps us from what we deserve, and there but for the Grace of God we go.

While unsaved people selfishly assert their "rights" by doing what they please, those saved by Grace humbly and gratefully accept the gift.

Examine who you are and how you react when things are "unfair"or you feel your "rights" have been affronted. Remember that the Lord's people are not of this world, we are a light on a lampstand, a city on a hill. We should have no entitlement issues.

Closed doors.

When God closes a door, He means for it to be truly closed.

I keep reminding myself of this, and sometimes God reminds me Himself. You see, my school can't afford to keep three teachers, so I as the junior of the three gets cut. It's totally understandable, but the unfortunate fact is that I will no longer be teaching at this school.

(insert sound of door shutting here)

The school board was gracious to let me know with plenty of advance notice so that I could job-hunt. In my search, I found what seemed to be the PERFECT job for me. I applied, I had 4 interviews, from the HR director all the way up to the president. It seemed I was golden. In like Flynn. Counting chickens before they hatched....

Then, a few days after the last interview, the question came: would I have a problem teaching evolution? I told the the truth, of course.

(insert sound of door shutting loudly here)

I think it's clear that I would have been tempted to compromise on my principles had I worked there. Would I have actually compromised? I don't think so, but now it's a moot point: the temptation will not arise.

I'm reminded of the Lord's prayer:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
- Matthew 6:9b-13

He certainly led me away from a possible temptation. Perhaps He even led me away from a snare that the evil one has laid for me. Who knows? At this point, only God.

And that is why we should always trust Him.

Out of the Mouths of babes...

This last week we observed the 200th birthday of two very important historical figures. In fact, before last week, I never even envisioned these two as contemporaries. The first is the man known as the Great Emancipator, none other than Abraham Lincoln. The second…well, he has done little to emancipate anyone.

I’m talking about Charles Darwin, author of Origin of Species. Many scientists since Darwin’s time have embraced his theories in the hope that someday there will be hard evidence to support them. Despite their best intentions, the evidence has done little to support evolutionary theory, and has even swung many scientists to the opposing viewpoint.

Still, this doesn’t keep people from treating evolutionary theory as proven fact. After all, it’s taught that way in our public schools and kids’ textbooks, so how is the general public to know the difference?

I’ll tell you how: education. This brings me to the main point of this post.

See, today my young son found a nice little book in the library about horses. He loves learning and has many interests ranging from dogs to bugs to all things sports. So today he read something in his book about how horses evolved. Then, he asked me what evolution was.

Loaded question out of the mouths of babes, eh? Really, I'm glad he asked...

Here’s my best recollection of the conversation:

Boy: “What’s evolution?”

Dad: “Well, let me explain it like this: What do you need to make a toy car?”

Boy: “Well….metal, bolts, tires…rims…(long silence)…”

Dad: “What else does it need?”

Boy: “Um…plastic, paint…and instructions!”

Dad: “O.K…So imagine you had all those parts in the box, but you don’t have the instructions. Imagine you shake them up for a REALLY long time.”

Boy: “O.K.”

Dad: “So if you shake this box up for a long time, and you have no idea what the instructions are, will you someday get a toy car?”

Boy: “No.”

Dad: “Will you figure out the instruction book?”

Boy: “No.”

Dad: “Well, people who believe in evolution don’t think God made anything. They think that life came from pond scum and there was just a lot of “shaking” going on and then animals formed and turned into other things over millions of years AND they wrote their own instruction books.”

Boy: “That’s silly.”

Out of the mouths of babes indeed.

Back to School

That time is near, and I am (hopefully) ready. My kids are prepared, excited even. My students, at least those with whom I've spoken, are jazzed and ready to be officially one grade higher.

Sounds like any school around the world, right? Well, yeah...but it's SO much more than that. What is truly unique about this school year is the fact that we KNOW without any shadow of a doubt that it is all directly from the LORD and His Will for us.

I teach Middle School Science at a small Christian school (see my previous post about starting this position). At the end of last school year we were, quite frankly, not sure our school would even exist. However, we as a school family took time in June for prayer and discussion. We then cast aside those doubts and, as one body, took a leap of faith.

The LORD, who is always faithful to us and ALWAYS knows what is best for us, almost immediately rewarded our faith in Him and His Work.

Now we look back on the stress we placed upon ourselves and laugh. God's got it all under control.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life? Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith? So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own. - Matt 6:25-34

It's all about ME!

On Sunday, my wonderful wife indulged me yet again...we went down to the 16-plex to see the new Indiana Jones movie. The flick itself was not really anywhere near Indiana Jones standards, but that's another blog entry.

We got there almost two hours early, so we nosed around the shopping center in the Old Mill District. What I saw looked like a strip mall straight out of an affluent suburb: trendy clothing stores whose daily revenues could feed a Third-World country for a year, restaurants offering hamburgers for $18 (more than BOTH our movie tickets combined), and an expanding Victoria's Secret outlet with 2-story pictures of underwear-clad models on the front of the building. Honestly, it seems VERY out of place in the middle of rural Central Oregon.

The most ridiculous sight involved the historic old mill.

See, this town used to house one of the largest sawmill operations in the world. After operations shut down, the mill sat abandoned and was prey to vandals. When someone started renovating it, many locals rejoiced. As for me, I thought they were going to set up some kind of museum.

There's an REI store in there now...what a blow to the history of this town.

Now, for reference, Bend is not huge. It HAS grown significantly in the last few years (50,000 people in 2000 to 78,000 in 2007), but there's not really a lot of people there. What in the world keeps these places in business?

I can sum it up into one phrase: "It's all about ME."

Our world has drifted away from the greater good, morals, ethics and simply doing the right thing towards a self-centered society. To the guy who steps in front of cars without looking, blithely assuming that pedestrians always have right-of-way, to the teenybopper who sprays clouds of scent into the air in a store with no mind on whom she douses, to the person who blows off their bills because they can get away with it, we are a self-centered bunch of people.

Self centered people will do what they do best: spoil themselves. They will go up to their ears into debt just so that they have the latest clothes, the nicest house and the coolest car/motorcycle/boat/ATV. This is why such a small town can support such a decadent retail industry.

Honestly, I blame Darwin.

No, really. Follow me here: Darwin suggested that we were not created but evolved. People decide that if we evolved, then maybe God doesn't exist. If God doesn't exist, then nobody's watching if I do this...or this...or maybe even THIS...

See where I'm going from here? Granted, it's not all Darwin's fault, but before Darwin the atheist movement had no real foothold in the sciences; the majority of scientists were openly Christian. Now the number of American scientists openly professing Christ is but a small fraction of the whole. The majority of the rest are devoutly atheist and profess Darwinian theory. And hey, if a scientist says it, it's gotta be true, right?

My point, and I do have one, is that our society is "all about ME." The tweener who demands (and gets) the latest fashions and newest cell phones, MP3 players etc. and her parents who overspend in the hopes of peace and quiet at home. The woman who murders her unborn child because having a baby at this point in her life would be "inconvenient." The scientist who will reject all that is good and Holy for the sake of being right in the eyes of the world.

Maybe these changes to our society are the reason why it's tough for even Christians to see that it's all, and I mean ALL, about GOD.