Don't feed the Aklak

Do you ever wonder why God doesn't just miraculously take away sin nature? Why does it have to be a process?

As Paul said, "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." - Romans 7:14-20

Why is this? Wouldn't it be better to pray and have the problem just taken away? I realise sometimes God does deliver us this way. He finds us sitting in some inescapable prison, the heavy chains fall to our feet, the gates creak open seemingly of their own accord and his Angel leads us to the street. We have only to follow him out the door and leave the place. But it's not always that way and I think I can guess why.

This past fall there has been a lot of contact between people and bears in BC. At one of my farm sites we had an interesting experience...

The farm sits in a spectacular fjord. With the coastal mountains of mainland BC rising sharply on either shore. Beautiful and dangerous, the shore near this farm is home to many different species of wildlife including the largest land predator Ursus Arctus Horribilis. Or more commonly known as the Grizzly Bear.

Grizzlies have a pretty varied diet which includes; berries, fish, deer, moose, other bears and when chance allows... humans. Fish are a favourite meal. Whenever fish die on the farm they are stored in containers on a a floating platform near the farm called a "mort float" they are kept there until a boat comes by to pick them up and take them to be turned into fish compost. Until that time their odour is not unlike the wild fish rotting in the creeks which bears are attracted to. Anyways this particular grizzly, a young male, showed up, swam out to the mort float and started trying to eat the dead fish.

I realised the staff that live on site would need some protection in case the grizzly decided to put people on his menu. When I was buying bear spray the salesman at the store advised me that one should wait until the bear was within 3m before unleashing the spray at him. "Any sooner and it wouldn't be effective, probably just make him mad". A happy thought. "Wait until he's 3m away" how hard could that be? Armed thus with pepper spray and bear bangers my staff would drive out in a boat and scare him off each time he came out to the mort float.

I called conservation hoping they would swoop in like a Grizzly SWAT team, dart the bear, wrap him up and ship him into some comfy valley deep in the wilds of BC far from me and my crew.

"No way am I sending any of my officers in there", I was told, "it's too dangerous" and apparently if they were to move the bear he'll either get eaten by a bigger Grizzly or die without finding a place to hole up for the winter.

We were on our own.

Remove the morts, lock up the feed shed and sleep with bear spray on your night stand was pretty much our action plan. Okay, that's the sarcastic version. Truth is, we were told to remove every possible attractant and steer clear of the bear at all costs. If there was an immediate danger to anyone we were to call the hotline and they would come and relocate the bear but it would likely mean the end for the bear.

At one point I had the privilege of seeing this bear up close and personal. Before you think I'm some gallant "grizzly man" I was in a boat with roughly 7m of water between myself and the bear. I will admit that even from that relatively safe vantage point I was extremely intimidated by the beast. He was trying to open a mort container and the way he moved was aggressive, almost angry. I yelled at him and he looked coolly up at me. I imagined that I probably looked like a glazed turkey sitting at the controls of my boat. A chill went through me as I imagined what would happen if my engine died and the afternoon breeze gently pushed my boat up to the float he was on. I decided to move my boat around behind him. This put me downwind of him and out of his sight. He didn't like not being able see what I was doing and jumped into the water and swam to shore with me following him.

(Here's a picture I drew, notice the long teeth and angry eyes)

We removed everything that could possibly interest the bear including the mort containers and locked down everything else. He returned one more day and tried to get into one of the feed containers and then went away, probably to sleep for the winter.

Would it have been better if the CO's had come out and hustled him away? Then we wouldn't have to do anything. Or is it better that we had to roll up our sleeves and make some improvements and get rid of the things that were attracting him?

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. - Matthew 5:29-30

Mea maxima culpa

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered
Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD" and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah - Psalm 32:1-5













Here's a little insight into a typical Sunday morning in the life of me..

0700 - Alarm rings. Knock over empty glass, glasses and wristwatch before finally finding the snooze. The goal here is to silence the alarm BEFORE it finally gives up trying to wake me.

0715 - Second alarm. Hit the snooze again. Easy to find it now that the bedside table is cleared off.

0900 - Get out of bed and make coffee.

0915 - Skip breakfast, drink coffee and post self-righteous blog.

1010 - Get ready for church, polish the outside of my coffee cup, yell at kids for destroying the house and not caring.

1030 - Leave late, grip the steering wheel tightly while listening to loud music. Part way to church turn off the music, yell at kids some more to be quiet and calm down. Did someone bring a tiger or is that my stomach growling?

1045 - Teach Sunday school, take great care to pretend to be a good Dad.

11ish - Awkward confession of hypocrisy to 7 bored looking 5 - 12 year old children. Bust into a mini sermon on forgiveness and righteousness. "Go ahead and colour a picture on the back of your handout while I talk kids." Feel better, hot chocolate and peanut free cookies for everyone. Collect the drawings, notice that my kids have drawn pictures of what looks curiously like me being killed in various painful and creative ways. Is that my spleen hanging out there? Wow, I can really appreciate your use of light and shadow (ok I made that bit up, but I wouldn't blame them if they did).

1130ish - Start video late. 15minutes later shut off the video before it's over, kids look unimpressed. "See you next week kids, maybe I'll share with you how I'm letting my career get in the way of spending quality time with my children... bring a friend".

Lawbreakers

I've heard some believers describe trying to obey God’s rules as “legalism”. This is funny and sad. True legalism is believing you can obtain salvation by following God’s laws. If this was possible Jesus Christ died for nothing. (Galatians 2:20-21) Clearly, we are saved by His righteousness not our own. But does that mean we ignore God’s laws? Acting as though we don’t have to follow laws is lawlessness and Jesus is pretty clear that lawless people will not enter his Kingdom (Matt 7:21-23).

Say a certain believer decides to kill someone. Maybe a neighbour that is really, super annoying. You might confront him and say, “Brother you can’t kill your annoying neighbour the Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill’” and then this individual turns to you smugly and says “that’s legalism, we’re under grace” in a sort of patronizing hiss. Before you turn around with your tail between your legs feeling like you just said something really stupid. You might want to remind said individual that Jesus did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it and wilfully sinning is to trample Him underfoot (Hebrews 10:26-29). I’m pretty sure being “under grace” doesn’t mean we can go around whacking our neighbours and sending them for a dirt nap in our backyard.

I certainly don't claim to understand it all. I don't know why we don't have to avoid unclean food or wear four tassels on our clothes anymore but I dislike hearing people using legalism as a crutch for sin. The bottom line is of course you can’t earn salvation by following laws, you receive it through faith (Romans 4:20-25) and if you have faith you will show it by your works and the fruit you bear.

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?" - Luke 6:46

Fearfully

We are a fearful people. People who fear animals, heights, closed spaces or open spaces. People who fear dates, numbers, even clowns (and not just evil clowns).

And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. "It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, And He shall be your dread. - Isaiah 8:12b-13

A few years ago if you asked me what my biggest fears were I probably would have said, (In no particular order);

Getting old, failing in my career and getting locked in a public washroom.

That last one might sound funny to the uninformed but imagine if you will...

You are travelling away from home and you wheel into some dirty rest stop looking for a washroom. You must temporarily suspend basic hygiene as you enter this particular "wash"room.

"Get in, be quick, touch nothing and get out", you tell yourself.

You turn to leave and try to turn the handle. It won't unlock. Worried now, you look down at the handle and try again... nothing. Panic races up from your heart and begins to pound in your ears. You throw caution to the wind and discard the piece of paper towel that you were using to cover the door knob. Restraint and your peripheral vision fades as you grab it with both hands and give it a mighty effort. The knob comes off in your hands. Your worst fear has happened. Your pride will soon join biosecurity lying on the stained tiles.

The locals will talk for many days afterwards about the proud tourist who rolled into their dusty town. Full of pride when he stepped out of his minivan. Reduced to pounding like a child on the door of the restroom.

Happily I'm not afraid of these things anymore. It's funny the things that we fear, things that cannot significantly alter our lives. Often we're afraid of everything but God. We like to say He's our best friend and I agree there is no God like Him who loves us and would give His Son for us. But I don't think when I come face to face with Him that my first thought will be "Hi God, you're my best buddy". The God who has power over my body, soul and spirit. Power to heal and save and power to utterly destroy.

It truly is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Claustrotunnel

Every once in a while I think it's healthy to be afraid for your life. Danger gets your heart rate up, provides a brief adrenaline rush and then afterwards a temporary appreciation of life and possibly a change in behaviour. But many times we're afraid of nothing of consequence.

For my part I can think of three times that I thought I might die and four times when I was deathly afraid. Twice I was on the water, once I was underwater and once I was under straw.

I imagine the last one begs an explanation.

We'll have to go back many years to my highschool aftergrad party. We had in the course of the evening ended up at... yup, you guessed it, a farm. And of course like grads all over the world before us we were forced to go through a hay maze.

It's entirely possible that no one wanted to go into this particular hay maze but everyone was doing it.

I should probably explain that this hay maze was not like hay mazes most people are used to at aftergrad parties. This was more like extreme haymazing. The entrance was only about a half meter wide and a half meter high and it was the lone feature in an otherwise featureless wall of the barn. On the other side hay bales were stacked in such a way as to only allow a skinny 17 year-old a few inches to wiggle his way through a long winding tunnel. Our lives were to be trusted to the care and attention of the farm hands who stacked these bales. Stacked in such a precise way that their weight would lock together and provide the strength to retain the integrity of the structure and not..., well, crush us to death.

Honestly, there was no part of me that wanted to climb into that little hole but I was less afraid of dying than being labelled chicken. So I got in line with everyone else. I was to follow "Steve" into the tunnel. Steve's shoes were to provide me with inestimable comfort during the terrifying experience crawling through the black warren.

Now 7 to 10 meters into the maze and in complete darkness Steve's shoes suddenly stopped in front of me.

"Back up", he said. Muffled by the tunnel, his voice sounded far away.

"Huh?"

"Dead end", came the reply

The farm hands had done a great job of making the maze interesting for us. I wonder if they smiled to themselves as they pictured a collection of teenagers stuffed head to toe in this long dead end tunnel. I wonder if they imagined how fun it would be to try and shout to the people crawling into the tunnel behind you pushing up against your feet.

"Back up!", I yelled again, thankful that my voice didn't crack as I wondered if we still had enough oxygen in the tunnel.

Finally the desperate message was passed down the entire line of sweaty teenagers and we began to worm our way backwards. Once Steve reached the fork in the tunnel we started forward again down the other path. At least one other time we took a wrong turn . We thought we had found the exit but our brief happiness was extinguished when we were told that we hadn't, only an opening that had been created by some hungry cows.

Later, and after what seemed an eternity, we emerged from the maze and when we looked back... imagine my surprise when I saw that the roof of the maze was not stacked to the rafters with bales of hay but merely one bale high. And as I contemplated this a bale began to move as one of my peers who had obviously grown tired of his search for the end simply stood up and pushed the bale of hay easily to the side.

"You can just stand up?", I said to myself. "Ahem... I knew that"

Have you ever been afraid of anything that later seemed to be nothing? Did you or someone else just stand up?

Then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by - Job 11:15-16

G.U.T.

Scientists have noted a strange reducing pattern in physics. As each new discovery is unified with another it seems to be trending towards one thing.

Electricity and magnetism were unified in the theory of Electromagnetism. Einstein unified electromagnetism with gravity in his theory of Relativity. Electromagnetism has been unified with Quantum Mechanics in Quantum Electrodynamics and the Weak Force in Electroweak Interaction. Now many physicists believe this is all pointing to one theory...

A "Grand Unified Theory". The theory of everything.

Enter Superstring theory. Two dimensional "strings" operating in eleven dimensions.

Huh?

I don't really get that but it sounds cool.

A greater leap of faith might be that I even have the intelligence to understand it. Well, maybe not me but super-smart scientist type people. To reach out beyond what they can observe they turn to mathematics and as mathematics describes concepts beyond what the human mind can grasp a field of psychology weighs in.

Where science is limited to our 5 senses and our finite intelligence, faith transcends our observations, our minds and even time. Faith alone is a blind guide, empty and weak. Faith set like a compass on God is true and fulfilling.

"No doubt we are hardwired to believe that the universe of our experience cannot be all that there is. This would certainly explain the persistence of religious faith in an apparently unfair world of toil and struggle without obvious purpose." - Hiding in the mirror Lawrence M. Krauss



How can anyone say there is no obvious purpose to this life? Whether we sail through life to our death, war, or peacefully to some distant shore. Our purpose is clear. Who can look around at this world of death and suffering and say there is no obvious purpose?

Yes we are "hardwired" to believe there is more than this, and I know Who hardwired us. He's the sum of everything and He's also the creator of everything. But I don't believe any of us are smart enough to find this out on our own.

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider's web. He leans on his web, but it gives way; he clings to it, but it does not hold.

He is like a well-watered plant in the sunshine, spreading its shoots over the garden; it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks and looks for a place among the stones. But when it is torn from its spot, that place disowns it and says, 'I never saw you.' - Job 8:13-18

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." - 1 Corthinthians 8:6

Of wolf and woman

I recently read this story in a Canadian outdoors magazine.

A woman was looking out her window one frigid winter morning. Her house was in the wilderness and looked out over a partially frozen lake. As she took in the scene she saw six deer carefully crossing the lake to the woods on the far shore. The first five reached the woods safely but the sixth, a doe, was slow making the crossing. Suddenly, she stepped onto a weak part of the ice and fell through. She splashed in the icy water and after some time managed to haul herself out and onto the ice again. Breathless and bloodied she stood still and caught her breath.

A raven circled overhead, landed nearby and began pecking at the blood on the ice. The doe watched in silence when she should've left. That was when a pack of wolves crept out of the woods and headed straight towards her. All alone, her companions long since gone, she was trapped between the them and the water and thin ice behind her. She didn't move.

Three wolves continued to walk slowly towards her while the rest waited on the shore. One wolf broke into a run and chased her back into the water and ended up slipping in as well. Wolf and deer fought to pull themselves out. They both got out but the deer was doubly tired this time. Seeing how worn down the deer was the wolf chased her into the water a second time. When she pulled herself out again she was completely exhausted and barely able to stand. She looked at the wolves and back at the water as if to consider her options. Finally, slowly and purposely she returned into the water one final time.

The wolves waited and watched the water intently but she never surfaced again.

Someone close to me had a daughter who somehow ended up living on the street in Vancouver. After several years she came home and when she did she was unrecognizable as the same person. She was pretty once and she's younger than me but she looks about 25 years older now. It's heartbreaking to see someone get separated from their family straying too close to the thin ice of life. She lived with her dad for awhile and then one day she just up and went back to her old life in the city. The same life that chewed her up and spit her out when her youth and beauty was gone. I wonder what drove her to make the choice to return? Did she feel like the wolves of guilt, shame and addiction were surrounding her and giving her no other option? Did it hold a promise of a numbing death? Was she too tired to fight?

The world outside is cold but I feel much colder sitting at my breakfast table with my hot coffee and slippers watching her fate unfold in the lens of my binoculars.