Food for Thought

Here's an interesting little piece for we westerners to read regarding real need and trusting in God's daily provision.  We fret about jobs, relationships, financial status, a home, a car, retirement, health care, a special trip...but Jesus talks about worrying about clothes and food, an un-guaranteed necessity in His day and for many around the world today, an experience many of us are quite unfamiliar with.

No better but no worse and certainly not forsaken

The Bible has been called many things by many people, but I believe the truest thing that can be said about it is that it is a letter from the heart of God to the heart of Man, a mirror if you will.  Today I got to read about Peter denying Jesus and David having an affair with Bathsheba and murdering her husband to cover it up, ugh!  The most interesting, and depressing, part was realizing that I am quite capable of doing either or both myself, so are you, and that guy over there and the lady next door...  The other section I read was in Hebrews talking about Jesus giving up everything to ransom just those sorts of people, a haunting echo of Luke's rendition of the Last Supper (which came along with Peter's denial).  We're all losers, liars, cheaters, arrogant fools, selfish, cowards, and in the right circumstances, even murderers and adulterers, and it is just that sort of wretch, everybody who has ever lived or ever will, that Jesus came to save.

That's why nobody liked Him, except the lowest of the low, you know: tax collectors, sinners, lepers, the poor, the lame, the blind, outcasts, nobodies.  The social elite hated how He kept pointing out their flaws and shortcomings, the wretched of the earth knew they were flawed and so did everybody else, but the higher-ups liked to pretend they were no such thing and it galled when someone didn't go along with their pretending.  In the age of Social Media, we really don't like that sort of thing either, spending hours maintaining the illusion of a perfect life/family/career, but underneath our photoshopped life, we are all as empty, lonely, and wretched as any man who ever lived.  But if we embrace that brokenness, we can also sigh in relief to realize we are all this way, it isn't just me, and there goes the fear and shame that kept us chained in darkness.  Even better than realizing the common depravity of mankind, is to realize we don't need to stay this way.  We are called to a higher path, to hie ourselves out of the murky gloom of evil and pride and selfishness, and follow the only One who knows the Way.  But first we must admit there is something wrong in the first place and then admit that we can't fix it ourselves, no matter how brightly we paint our Facebook life.  It is about as effective as whitewashing a tomb, pretty on the outside but full of dust, death, and decay.

To be human

What does it mean to be created in the image of God?  Tolkien was a huge proponent of what he called 'subcreators,' and I think he was on to something, as does this article.  Creativity and imagination are unique to mankind, yes elephants can paint, birds can weave nests, and dolphins play, but they do not create works with lasting or any meaning, much like modern art and literature.  Are we becoming less than human by saying our own works likewise only have the meaning the observer would give them?  Is that why we so boldly embrace the concept that animals are people and people are animals, for there is hardly a difference between them?  C.S. Lewis wrote of this very concept in his essay, 'Men Without Chests,' and modern society might do well to listen.