Saturday, March 29, 2008

Gandolf's Wisdom


I recently sat down and watched the first episode of Lord of the Rings. It was a bit like sitting down to a cup o coffee with an old friend. I hadn’t watched it for years. I still am taken aback by the profound wisdom in Gandalf’s advice to his young hobbit friend Frodo…
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.
Ever wonder about the "other forces at work in this world"? I’ve been wondering about them lately. I’ve been keenly aware lately of just how vulnerable we are to the attacks of forces beyond our sight. Thankfully the forces that pulsate behind the scenes are not just dark ones but they are also from the light and good!
I remember someone once told me that we too often act like its peace time in the middle of war time...and I believe there is a significant amount of truth to this statement.
We forget that there are forces beyond our line of sight and this can be to our own discouragement. If we forget then we can be under attack and unaware or we can also miss the forces that are at work for our encouragement which we so desperately need.
As the Apostle Paul wrote... we wrestle not against flesh and blood...
The problem can also be that we just wrestle not! Period! We skip along whistling in the dark unaware of forces both bad and good at work in this world.
How about you... have you been wrestling lately or are you just whistling in the dark?
God is Good All the Time.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Blinded


I had an interesting conversation the other day in a local book store. A complete stranger engaged me in a fairly one-sided conversation. It was one of those kinds where getting any more than an occasional grunt or mmmmm in sideways is all there was room for. Verbal diarrhea comes to mind; overly opinionated and reckless with his conversation he proceeded to move from issues of race, religion, politics and even conspiracy theories. It was rapid fire and I found it a bit shocking and even a tad bit rude.
I'm pretty sure that he mistook me for an avid fiction reader and things progressed from there. At first I went along with it, I even mentioned a new novel I had heard about thinking it was fairly new and that he wouldn’t have read it yet. Was I ever wrong! He not only had read it but had read several of the same author’s books. We danced around the books on the shelf as he picked one after another out and asked me if I had read it but never actually let me respond. He proceeded to tell me the main plot and a summary of several books.
At one point he got stuck. He looked at me for help as he tried to remember the name of a fabulous mystery author but I was of no use and so we went to the till and had the cashier do a search.
Finding little satisfaction at the till he led me off to the corner where the Divinci Code was and that’s when the conversation got interesting. He told me that he pretty much had to believe that Jesus was a real guy but that the miracles and stuff were just sleight of hand and the stuff of legends. He then proceeded to put all his faith in the fictional book that Brown had written. The Divinci Code was the real deal as far as he was concerned. I kept on mentioning that it was a fictional book based on conspiracy, conjecture and a pretty good imagination. But he was not about to back down. He preferred it that way. It was easier for him to dismiss the real Jesus and his claims and his miracles and completely embrace a wild fictional character whose name was Jesus and he had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene.
It was a fresh reminder that the god of this world has blinded the minds of those in this world from the truth. I walked away from that meeting a bit frustrated and even sad that this man would rather believe in crazy fictional conspiracy than the real deal Jesus Christ who rose from the dead!
Happy Easter Everyone!