Appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after resurrection. Image via Wikipedia

I remember from my college days a skit performed at a Campus Crusade for Christ conference. The girls in the skit did a parody of Bill Bright’s Four Spiritual Laws tract.

For those familiar with the tract that teaches about God’s wonderful plan for our lives, someone came up with the idea that the single Campus Crusade girls had a wonderful plan for the lives of the single guys: marriage. It was a well-done, thought-out skit aimed obviously at getting the single guys in the room to notice the single women and to, well, propose to them.

The girls didn’t plan on the guy in the skit asking them how their “plan” fit into the Apostle Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 7:7. The laughter in the room, particularly from the guys, was loud.

Driving them off…

While the Bible clearly teaches that Christ will return for His church and likens the return to a wedding ceremony by referring to the church as His “bride,” it stymies me as to how some folks can compare this to Christ’s relationship with single women on an individual basis.

I’ve actually heard single women claim that Christ is their husband, as if that’s supposed to offer some sort of comfort to single women longing to be married.

As a single guy it’s a huge turn-off!

For starters ladies, announcing that you’re married (at least to the honest single guys out there) is like wearing a very large wedding ring. We get the picture! You’re off limits!

Implied in this premise is a bit more insidious and somewhat insulting.

Trying to attract “the good guys” out there, while dating the not-so-good guys isn’t the answer either. I’ve seen that first hand, and have heard people actually question women as to their choices. But I digress…

The honest Christian man will admit that he’s not perfect, and in fact is likely far from it. If he’s also honest with himself and others, he’ll admit that his pursuit of perfection (God calls this holiness) is very real, even though he hasn’t yet attained it. Single Christian women claiming Christ as their “husband,” spiritually speaking or otherwise,  imply that no human male is good enough for them to marry. And so, we move on.

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Image by raphaelstrada via Flickr

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you hear things on the radio, listen to a sermon and have other things come into your brain that make you wonder…

Is someone orchestrating the stuff I’m hearing?

Is someone trying to get my attention?

What is my response?

It’s been one of those weeks!

As a truck driver I get time to listen to the radio… LOT’S of time! So between Christian radio, talk radio and podcasts downloaded to my iPod there’s never a shortage of stuff to think about because of what I’m listening to. So when I start hearing seemingly random comments in various media that connect a single thought, or funnel my thinking into a single thought, I have to wonder what God is trying to accomplish in my life.

Not the grand notion of personal holiness (that’s God’s obvious goal in my life), but what specific thing does God want to work on in my life. That is the question that pops to mind.

What I’ve learned in following Christ is that these moments require a tangible response that, if not responded to immediately and in the right way, always have consequences beyond the original sin that is prompting these thoughts.

I urge you: if God is speaking to you like this — trust me, you’ll KNOW it when He does — to take the steps God is prompting you to take. The peace you feel after taking these steps will assure you that you did the right thing.

Think about it: Jesus was relatively new on the scene, humanly speaking. I doubt he was dressed for success or rode around in a jewel-covered chariot. So, what made him so attractive that they ultimately followed him to their own cruel deaths? Why would they follow if they had no idea where he was going?

The good news is we do know where Jesus was going and that he’s coming again.

Are we willing to follow Jesus to our death (it may be a physical death or simply a death to what we think is a good thing), or only as far as the padded church pews where we are more concerned with sitting next to the popular people?

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NEA headquarters in Washington, DC. Image via Wikipedia

I recall hearing a pro-life advocate suggest that Christians are too eager to share what they’re against and not what they’re “for” in terms of political arguments and debate. I thought he made a good point. But then I continue to read stuff like this.

Apparently the National Teacher’s Association — that’s the union that represents the working conditions and pay of teachers while falsely claiming to have the best interest of the children at heart — thinks that sex education should begin (wait for it…)

…in Kindergarten!

I guess kindergarten teachers don’t already have enough stress in their lives. After all, it must be simple as pie, according to the NEA, to teach children their shapes, colors, numbers and alphabet, so that they can go onto the first grade and learn how to read. Now teachers are going to have to, if the NEA gets its way, incorporate “age appropriate” class assignments on the birds and the bees and why some boy bees like other boy bees.

But aren’t they already reading books like “Mom and Mum Are Getting Married” and “Daddy, Papa and Me” as part of the gay lobby’s efforts to indoctrinate children into an abhorrent lifestyle choice?

Cultural rot in America is running rampant, and it’s just examples like this that help illustrate the point.

Christians are called to be salt and light in a world of bland and dangerous darkness. It’s not enough to complain from our padded pews in church, we need to be in the culture, affecting a positive change, while at the same time pointing people to the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ.

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It’s no secret that I’m a fan of KLOVE radio. The tough part is I have access to its signal only a few hours each day while driving truck. I cherish the time I have to listen to Christian radio and to people I seem to connect with on the air.

The YouTube video here was shared on Amanda Carroll’s blog on KLOVE. I’ve quickly become a fan of hers over the past several months as I’ve listened to this lady share candidly and authentically.

In her latest blog she shares the following:

I’ve been there. I’ve pretended to have everything together… I remember walking into the doors of my church after my former husband had left the family…and pretending like he was just on another business trip.

Because the last place that you should not have it all together is a church… right… no.  Eventually I had the guts to not “fake it” and be honest, and be broken, and get help.

I’ve been there too. I’ve had to explain to people in church why my former wife wasn’t with me in church anymore. It’s hard, especially breaking through the deafening silence that follows their exclamation “oh” after you utter the “D” word in church.

The Bible tells us that God uses our troubles as a means of comforting others. In 2 Corinthians 1:4-5 the Apostle Paul writes:

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.

I’m learning how to be God’s instrument to comfort others while at the same time accepting His comfort. What a blessing it is!

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Image via Wikipedia

Perspective is a wonderful thing. It can provide a fresh viewpoint on things otherwise taken for granted.

For instance, in the decade-long war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve been told that 4,977 American service members lost their lives in combat operations. According to  the website Iraq Body Count, the number of civilian deaths during this same period in Iraq alone, ranges between 104,569 and 114,235.

According to Wikipedia, the number of U.S. military members killed since the Revolutionary War totals about eight times that, or 848,163. That’s only a couple hundred thousand more than the reported 625,000 American deaths recorded for the American Civil War, and about twice the number of American deaths Wikipedia reports from World War II. It’s fair to note that the American Civil War lasted four years: from 1861 to 1865.

More recently, and with little to no fanfare or media attention, America needlessly lost 661,241 lives. That’s right, according to the annual report of a well-known organization that receives US tax dollars from the federal government, more than six times the number of reported civilian deaths from military operations in Iraq were killed in the United States in 2009 and 2010. All died through violent means.

But it’s okay. The deaths happened legally.

In 2010 Planned Parenthood facilitated the removal of 331,796 unnecessary tissues from women. They followed that up the next year by saving the lives of another 329,445 women through vital medical procedures the organization claims is guaranteed by the US Constitution.

While this is what Planned Parenthood advocates would like you to believe, and it’s essentially what they tell women coming in for abortions, according to a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, their own 2009-2010 annual report lists it a little more succinctly. They call it “abortion services.”

So, over the course of two years, Planned Parenthood managed, in part with millions in taxpayer dollars from the federal government, to kill at least 661,241 human beings in the United States. I say “at least” because we don’t really know how many women died following those medical procedures.

While from one side of the Planned Parenthood mouth they claim to be suffering economically right along with the rest of us, they managed to eek out these vital medical services with what they report in their 2009-2010 annual report as $487.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements” while also reporting a whopping $1,009,600,000 in total net assets. Total net assets grew from the previous annual report by more than 1.47%. Government grants and contracts provided $363.2 million in revenue to Planned Parenthood during its 2009-2010 fiscal year, according to the organization’s annual report.

So you see, perspective paints a bit of a different picture when you compare the number of war deaths over America’s history to the number of innocent human beings who had no voice, and no opportunity to otherwise speak up for themselves, who had their lives needlessly snuffed not on the battlefield, but on the table of a medical clinic, under the direction of a physician otherwise charged with saving lives.

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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

I like this quote by famed photographer Dorothea Lange because of its simple truthfulness. Have you ever stopped to notice how light is sometimes more beautiful when contrasted by darkness?

Sunrise against the LaPlata Mountains in southern Colorado. © Todd Fitchette

This occurred to me yesterday morning as the sun began to rise under a layer of dismal grey clouds. In fact, for a moment in time, those clouds actually became much more as the earth spun and the light of the sun streamed under them and lit them from below, causing them to glow magnificent shades of red and orange.

My immediate thoughts were of thanks… appreciation to God for His majesty and creation as I drove slowly in a small, southern Colorado valley where I commonly see deer, elk, livestock and an occasional mountain lion.

Cresting the hill as I ascended from the valley I witnessed another spectacle. The sun was turning the east-facing slopes of the LaPlata Mountains into a glowing reflection of God’s majesty and creative talents. Warm colors that can only be created by the sun peeking through the atmosphere and reflected by the warm hues refracted by clouds that were just minutes before a dark and depressing grey, and now reflecting a host of colors back for me to enjoy.

I think life is sometimes like that. We’re encompassed by depressing grey clouds that chill us to our bones. A dismal fog sets in and we can’t see beyond the immediate.

But God is nevertheless there, and as His light pokes through the darkness onto all that is around us, we begin to see hints of His glory and can’t but help recognize that the source of this light radiating around us comes from the same one who spoke light into existence and the one who created us to have relationship with Him.

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Image via Wikipedia

Probably my favorite song on Casting Crowns’ new CD “Come To the Well,” the song “Spirit Wind” has encouraged me to read through the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. Not just read it for the sake of adding it to another list of books read, but as the lyrics encourage, to ask God to breathe His breath of life into my soul.

Aside from the musical talents of Casting Crowns, I really like this group for the thought-provoking and challenging lyrics they put into song.

Written by Casting Crowns frontman Mark Hall and by Jason Hoard, the song is dedicated to Hall’s pastor when Hall was a youth Pastor in Alabama.

This song is dedicated to Bro. Randy Kuhn, my pastor when I was a young youth pastor in Samson, Alabama. He preached passionately about Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones. As I looked out at our little church I saw how dry we were spiritually and for a minute it was as though he was Ezekiel praying for God to breathe into our church and make it a light in our little town. Since then, many of the teenagers in that church are now youth pastors and senior pastors all over our country. ~ Intro to Spirit Wind from the CD jacket

What a legacy for that pastor! Not to have a popular Christian group to praise him or write a song based on what a young Mark Hall would witness, but that many of those who went through this church under Pastor Kuhn are now part of a mighty army serving God throughout the United States.

Imagine our once-great nation, faltering as it is economically and socially, if God would breathe His life back into the souls of our churches and families. How different would circumstances be in this dry and weary land if we would heed Ezekiel’s message to Israel and react appropriately to the example of history as foretold to Ezekiel and recorded for us in the Old Testament.

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Casting Crowns during the "Until The Whole World Hears Tour" in Bakersfield, Calif. © Todd Fitchette

Okay, I admit it: I am a big Casting Crowns fan. So when news came out earlier this year that they were releasing a new CD I couldn’t wait. The tough part was wondering how the guys and gals from Atlanta were going to upstage their previous efforts.

It’s hard to say that they’ve done it in spades with their latest compilation titled “Come To The Well” without making it sound like their earlier albums are anything less than they are. In short, I was wondering how Mark Hall and crew could improve on the perfection that was “Until the Whole World Hears,” or “Lifesong,” or “The Altar and the Door,” or even their freshman entry with its hits “Voice of Truth” and “If We Are The Body.”

The title song “The Well” is written by Hall and Matthew West. It’s inspiration comes from several passages in the Gospel of John and one in Isaiah that talks about Jesus Christ as the living well and the source from which we can permanently quench our spiritual thirst and hunger.

In John 4:1-54 is the historical account of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

The woman at the well thought she was standing by a well and talking to a man. In reality she was standing by a hole in the ground; she was talking to the well. She thought she already had her source but she was in fact dying of spiritual thirst. We often come to the Father with our well. We already have our own idea of what will fill us. Then we ask God to bless our ideas, our source, our well, but we soon realize that Jesus is not the blesser of our plans; but the Author of life! He is our source. Any other well we attempt to draw from is just a hole in the ground. ~ from the CD jacket intro to The Well.

The song and its lyrics are a haunting reminder for all of us to simply leave everything else behind and turn to Jesus for the living water that only He provides.

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The song paints a picture of the life of a young girl as she transitions from teenager to young mom while lamenting the absence of her biological father from her life.

Inspired by Psalm 68:5 and James 1:27, Mark Hall, lead singer of Casting Crowns writes in the CD jacket:

This isn’t a song about a girl. This is a song about hundreds of girls that Melanie (Mark Hall’s wife) and I have seen come through our student ministries over the years. This song is a wake-up call to fathers to love their daughters and a message of hope to orphans, spiritual and physical, that God is the Father to the fatherless.

Beautifully sung by Melodee Devevo, the story starts with a 16-year-old girl who would much rather have her daddy with her to celebrate her birthday than the gift-wrapped excuses and flowers he sent in his stead.

Parents truthful to themselves and others will admit that raising children is not easy; their job is difficult but so very rewarding. Divorce doesn’t make it any easier, what with visitation schedules, child support and the physical chasm that geography creates when these fractured families live in different states.