Godgrown

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  Mark 9:50 am on January 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  What Keeps You in Zion 

  There is a great scene in the Matrix movies (one of the sequels, can’t remember which…) where Neo is standing alone with one of the elders of Zion.  They go into some sort of boiler room and look up at the machines that are pumping hot air around the underground city.  The elder explains that while they are fighting the war with the deadly machines on the surface, the humans think they are protected and independent from technology down underground.

  “The truth is,” the elder explains, “We are dependent on each other.  We need machines, and they need us.”

  He couldn’t be more right.

  The things we trust in, the things we invest in…they need us to trust in them, need us to keep investing.  Think of the stock market.  While we might have a deep trust in the market, ultimately, it has to trust us that we will continue to trust in it – otherwise the whole thing just goes dark.

  As the Israelites were being hauled away from Jerusalem, as they were taken away from everything they had known and trusted, along for the ride to exile were all the idols that had filled the homes of the so many of “God’s people.”

  2 Both the idols and their owners are bowed down.

  The gods cannot protect the people,

  and the people cannot protect the gods.

  They go off into captivity together.

  Suddenly it was dawning on them.  As they trudged through the desert with hooks in their noses being led on like slaves, watching as their gods were tossed in carts and like mindless statues that they were, rolled across the landscape indifferent to the exile…

  The idols in your life only have the power you gave them, and they will not be able to protect you in the end.  Find what can.

  
   

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  Mark 3:35 pm on December 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Colin Firth, King George VI   

  The King’s Speech 

  Listening to God is a difficult and precarious venture that doesn’t always leave you filled with “sweetness and light.”  Just look at what happens when people in Scripture really begin honing in on what God is saying to them or their community:

  The Israelites at Mount Sinai were so frightened by the power of God and his words that they concluded they never wanted to hear from God ever again!  (Instead they outsourced their spiritual ears to Moses.)  Samuel as a young boy heard God’s voice in the middle of the night – and God made clear to him that his foster family was about to be murdered by invaders.  Jews in the days of Jesus were begging God to send his Messiah to teach them the ways of God, but when Jesus began to preach – it was not long before they hung him on a cross…

  No, we cannot well listen to God’s voice and live.  Don’t forget that it was his words that created this amazing world!  In his words hold the power of life itself - raw energy. And listening to God might just be the death of you.

  Which is why it is so strange that Hebrews in Isaiah’s time respond as they do to God’s voice.  They mock God and how he speaks to them – using a children’s rhyme about the alphabet – here it is translated into English:

  9 “Who does the Lord think we are?” they ask.

  “Why does he speak to us like this?

  Are we little children,

  just recently weaned?

  10 He tells us everything over and over—

  one line at a time,

  one line at a time,

  a little here, and a little there!”

  Sometimes I can relate – God: You don’t use your megaphone much anymore.  At least, not where I can hear it anyway.

  While I’m sure I wouldn’t survive the first syllable, I find myself craving an audible word from the living God.  Instead, the words come “one line at a time” and in quite nudges here and there, over and over again.  “I’m proud of you, son,” or “Try asking for forgiveness from her.” That sort of thing.  How refreshing it would be to truly hold an extended, verbal dialogue with my Creator.

  But then again, maybe these hints and short phrases are how one learns obedience. The Hebrew script in the verses quoted above is written in almost lyrical form.  And it reflects the simplicity and triteness in speech the Hebrews were complaining about.

  They wanted a highly intellectual, stimulating oratory – not something as simple as “Love your enemies.”

  Maybe my listening to God, if I am to truly learn anything – must remain simple and succinct so that I can really hear what he is saying.  I hear enough chatter from talking heads on TV and in my own mind – and God’s silence and simple words of wisdom are just what I need to hear to truly grasp who God is and how to live this highly complex life.

  It is the proud that mock the simple – but it is the simple that enjoy a life of abundance.  When God’s simple words of truth and life are enough to sustain you, when you don’t need a theophonic, rapturous experience to know he is wildly in love with you — you are on the right track.

  
   
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  Mark 8:24 am on November 30, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Dallas Theological Seminary, History Channel, Left Behind books   

  “Life After People,” or “The Hanging Gardens of NYC” 

  Look around you – literally look up from your computer and examine your surroundings.  You’re likely indoors (outside?  BRR!), possibly at work, home, or at a coffeehouse.  If you can see other people, watch how they are using the space.  Think about the intent of the builder – what was this space designed for?

  Now imagine your space with no people at all.  Imagine it goes a week without a soul walking in – what has happened?  Any plants that need watering?  Next, imagine what would happen if it was 1 month and no one had entered the space… 2 months… 6 months… a year… 10 years… 100 years… 1000 years!

  That is the premise of an intriguing (and slightly silly) History Channel documentary, Life After People. Without dealing with the question of how every human on earth disappears (has someone from Dallas Theological Seminary or the Left Behind books become a producer at the History Channel?!?) they look at the effects of planet earth reclaiming the spaces we’ve designed for human civilization.  First the tunnels and subways would fill with seawater, next, power stations would begin to shut down…over time, wild and domesticated animals would reclaim downtown spaces – turning each crumbling high rise into a vertical jungle.  If zoo animals escaped their pens – there could be tigers and rhinoceros roaming the streets of NYC or the great Midwestern plains.  Without humanity, the world would look very different.

  Isaiah takes a stab at this too – as he foretells the fall of the mighty Babylonian Empire.  At the time, the most prominent empire on the planet, Isaiah doesn’t even blink as he portrays the violent overthrow of the fortified capital and the Babylonian region.

  20 Babylon will never be inhabited again.

  It will remain empty for generation after generation.

  Nomads will refuse to camp there,

  and shepherds will not bed down their sheep.

  21 Desert animals will move into the ruined city,

  and the houses will be haunted by howling creatures.

  Owls will live among the ruins,

  and wild goats will go there to dance.

  22 Hyenas will howl in its fortresses,

  and jackals will make dens in its luxurious palaces.

  Babylon’s days are numbered;

  its time of destruction will soon arrive.

  We tend to assume that the world as it is today is a “given,” when in fact we are always just a few short hours away from a complete natural disaster waiting to overtake us – bringing us “back to nature,” (as if we could ever leave it).  

  Babylon was known for its power and might – conquering even the mighty power of nature with its hanging gardens, and hydro-power.  But even before the time of Christ the city had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self.  The gardens had overrun the city, and now plants once again controlled the once-powerful city.

  The next time you find yourself walking in a major metropolis, or driving down a freeway, look around and consider for a moment “life after people,” and