Human Sexuality and Gender–What Say You Nature?

Posted on December 22, 2012 by StriderMTB

We live in a day where there is monumental concern over the genetic altering of crops and the general manipulation of a fragile environment to benefit our needs. “Don’t mess with nature” is the often repeated warning. And when an environmental disaster of some type occurs due to man’s reckless miscalculation of nature’s ways, we are reminded, “You can’t ignore nature.”

What I find most odd is that many of the individuals who seek to warn us of the negative implications of manipulating and ignoring nature are the same individuals who advocate that human sexuality and gender can be manipulated to suits one’s own preferences. Stand up a naked woman and naked man next to each other and you will see what fits where and how nature designed and intended for human sexuality and gender identification to function.

I’m not addressing this issue from some spiritual or moral bully pulpit. I’m simply asking questions that any objective observation of nature requires us to make! In nature whenever and where ever we see animals functioning in ways that reduce their chances of propagating and surviving we recognize that something serious has gone wrong in it’s  development–i.e. it’s unnatural. Why? Because we recognize that it’s not natural for a species to work against the flourishing of it’s own species.

Take away all the heterosexual men and women from the planet and homosexuals die out in one generation. Whatever the cause, whatever the preconditions that may set someone up with a homosexual orientation, nature tells us something serious has gone wrong. I’m not even talking “morally” wrong. I’m just establishing a consistent pattern of identification and judgement based solely on nature. So from a naturalistic standpoint, an individual saying, “But I was born this way” doesn’t thereby impugn nature’s retort, “Something has gone wrong with your development.”[1]

If all men decided they didn’t like their bodily identity and the gender imprinted on it, and resolved to be transexual women, they too would cause the human species to die out within one generation. Why are these considerations of nature hardly considered when it comes to redefining human sexuality and gender?

Our culture today seems more and more inclined to dismiss nature’s hard-wiring and biology and instead leave it all “up for grabs”, as if it nature hasn’t spoken and thus human sexuality and gender is an open ended question for each person to make up for themselves.

We are so concerned with the manipulation of nature’s environment today. Where is the concern in messing with human nature? Why is it today that human sexuality and gender, as nature and bodily identity has given it to each person, can be so offhandedly dismissed and ignored without any thought being given to deleterious repercussions down the road? If nature and bodily identity can be so easily tossed aside to make room for “progressive thinking”, what’s to stop the next generation from accommodating and affirming all those disenfranchised, marginalized adults who simply prefer pre-pubescent little boys and girls? When a culture allows personal preference to be the highest court of appeal to justify human sexuality, a troubled world is soon to follow.

[1] As a Christian this response of nature does not equate to “And therefore you have less moral value than a heterosexual.” A person’s sexual orientation does not reduce their moral worth as a human being any more than being born disabled or with down-syndrome does. The same cannot be said about the animal kingdom where “survival of the fittest” is often the cardinal rule of worth to your species and it’s flourishing. But as a Christian I can argue that humans supersede the animal kingdom in one essential way–we are made in the image of God. Our intrinsic worth and value come not from our contributions to the human species, but that we reflect and share the image of God that distinguishes us from the rest of the creation. That being said, natural law is God’s instituted means to establish balance and order in the natural world. We rebel against it to our personal detriment.
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“I Was Born Gay”- Why the Current Gay Debate Is Irrelevant

Posted on December 18, 2012 by StriderMTB

Often in debating those who advocate homosexual behavior in the Church one will find themselves being asked, “Did you choose to be a heterosexual?” The real question being asked of course is, “Do you remember consciously making the choice that you would be attracted to the opposite sex?”

This question and the resulting answers are what dominate the current debate spectrum on homosexuality. However the question distracts from the larger issue. For whether one is born with homosexual orientation or not is ultimately irrelevant in terms of God’s grand scheme of holiness and sanctification. If I were to concede that a person is born with same-sex attraction that would not justify it or allow it to escape the moral prohibitions against homosexual behavior because God’s Word makes clear that we are all born in sin. In short the natural inclination of our hearts is to be self-centered sinners, but that doesn’t therefore justify our fulfilling of those natural desires. Let’s delve into this further.

If an individual with same-sex attraction says they were “born that way” and that their feelings are “natural”—fine, but that matters not in terms of whether or not that grants you God’s permission to fulfill those natural, born-with desires. God’s Word says we are all born with a natural inclination to fall in step with this fallen world. We all have a natural bent to miss the mark of God’s ideal—which is the truest definition of sin. In fact the Greek word “harmartia” translated as “sin” in the N.T. literally means, “to miss the mark.”

So we are all born with a natural propensity to be self-centered creatures as opposed to God-centered persons and “miss the mark” of God’s ideal. Therefore any attempt on my part to fulfill self-centered desires that are contrary to God’s ideal is by definition sin–thus making me a sinner in need of repentance and transformation. There is a reason why Jesus stated, “You must be born again”in order to be realigned with God’s Kingdom ideal (Jn. 3:7). So biblically speaking, attempting to gain traction with God by saying, “But I was born this way” doesn’t get me anywhere. If anything it only confirms the premise that we truly are born in need of God’s renewing, reconciliatory, life-transforming work from day one.

As a man with heterosexual attraction I can say I was born with a natural, self-centered desire to be sexually attracted to all women and take them all to bed. It’s completely natural! However the Bible bluntly prohibits me fulfilling this natural, sexual desire outside the boundaries he set forth. According to the N.T. I can’t have sex with any women outside God’s established covenant of marriage.  I could say, “But being sexually attracted to my secretary or my friend’s wife is instinctual for me. I was born this way.” Once again my “being born this way” doesn’t gain me any traction with God because I too was born in sin.

It is for this reason that Christ came—not so we could stay in our sin but that we could be liberated from its power which forever seeks to suck us into a self-centered worship of our passions and desires. Christ came to empower us to walk before God in holiness. None of us are yet perfect in the sense that none of us are 100% holy and without sin. But we are to desire to be perfect. We are to desire to be holy. The Bible commands us to be holy as He is holy. The Word tells us the lynchpin that connects our sinful selves with the transformative work of God’s holiness is repentance.

I often hear honest, soul-searching gay men and women ask, “How can I deny the natural affections and desires I was born with? Didn’t God create me this way from day one, and in virtue of that fact isn’t it justifiable for me to fulfill these instinctive desires?”

The answer is no.

What God did is create your image-of-God-bearing-soul in the context of a misaligned, fallen world that wars against your soul constantly from day one. The Apostle Paul reminds us that our true loyalty and citizenship is not to the kingdom of this world but another Kingdom. He writes, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God…I urge you, as foreigners and exiles of this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pet. 2:10-11).

Paul no doubt had his own personal struggles with born-with, sinful desires. He elsewhere states with brutal, gut-wrenching honesty,

“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:18-25).

Paul speaks of the natural inclinations of his body and mind as a “body subject to death.” Sin will always bring death to Kingdom life unless we make a preemptive strike against our body of death and “put to death, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed… and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” (Colossians 3:10).

Understanding that the transformative, renewal life of the Kingdom of God cannot co-exist with the life of the “old, natural man” is no doubt why Jesus emphatically stated that all allegiance to the old life must die in order for the new to come. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24).

Someone says, “But I love my girlfriend. I would die for her. It’s only natural that we want to sleep with each other now. Therefore there’s nothing sinful about us living together unmarried.”

Someone says, “But I love my secretary. Having an affair is the only way we can share our genuine love together. How can it be sinful to deny each other our sincere love?”

Someone says, “But I truly love my gay partner. We’ve been together 10 years. How can something that feels so right and natural be sinful?”

All these responses only confirm the point of the above scriptures—natural, in-born desires and passions–even love’s presence are not God’s custodians of truth concerning Kingdom life. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, the satisfaction of our desires and the object of our love and affection can be wrongly misplaced.

God says,

“Do you love Me more than your girlfriend?”

“Do you love Me more than your secret love affair?”

“Do you love Me more than your gay partner of 10 years?”

“If so, deny yourself loving these people more than Me and come follow Me.”

Is this not essentially what Jesus said when he declared, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:37).

And again, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate [by comparison] his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26).

I’m not just spouting off at the mouth. I know something about “hating” your own life and putting to death the natural passions, desires and affections of human existence—for the sake of loving God more. I am 35 and still a virgin. Yet I have an intense sexual attraction to women! The natural inclination of my body and desires would love nothing more than to fulfill that desire at every turn of my head!

I long to be loved and to love in a sexual context. I’ve had girlfriends and even been engaged—but never married. My unmarried state is the reason I cannot disobey God’s Word and start thinking I deserve sex simply in virtue of the fact that I desire sex. It’s not a one-to-one correlation.

People often ask me why I hold out so long? What keeps me from fulfilling every urge of every fiber of my human constitution? I have often thought of this myself. “Why are you doing this, Matt? Why don’t you just give in to what is natural and what you long for so much?” During those intense, soul-searching battles I have only had one answer to give myself to keep me going:

“It is because you love Jesus more than you love satisfying your sexual desires. Your relationship with God is just as real as any earthly relationship that demands loyalty and commitment, and he is lovingly asking you to remain faithful and true to him and his Word. Period.”

Lastly, can an individual with same-sex attraction still be a cherished son and daughter of the King of Kings and a true brother or sister in the Lord? Yes indeed. I have no intention to get involved in the emotionally charged debate about being “born this way” because as I spell out above it is irrelevant to the greater scope of holiness and sanctification.

Therefore it is not same-sex attraction in and of itself that is sinful, but rather it is actively acting on and indulging one’s homosexual attraction that is sinful. For sake of argument it may well be that one is born with same-sex attraction—but homosexual behavior is the choice.

As a heterosexual male I was born with a self-centered desire to think sexual thoughts, look at porn and indulge in sex with any woman I found attractive. It may not be sinful for me to be attracted to a multitude of woman I am not married to, but for me to act on that attraction would be a choice—a choice to sin. Even if I were to only choose to let my mind wander and act on that attraction in my mind it would still be sin—otherwise known as lust.

Jesus said, “Whoever looks at a woman with lust—sins.” In fact Jesus said he has committed adultery in his heart! (Mt. 5:28). And yet the fact remains, it is natural for me to lust after women.

Bottom line: Looking to our natural, born-with proclivities and desires to give us the moral justification we need to fulfill our passions and desires is a dead-end. It is bankrupt. The Bible says any choice to act on the desires of our flesh outside the commands of God is sin and must be repented of—not justified.

You see, this is largely left outside the current debate and discussion. We are not categorized before God as ” better sinners” or “worse sinners.” Instead, we are either unrepentant or repentant.

Paul said that in his prior, unrepentant old-life he was “dead in sin” but after turning to Christ he became “dead to sin.” It didn’t mean he didn’t have sinful desires that forever were seeking to be fulfilled. Rather it means he found a source of holiness that empowered him to abstain from fulfilling those desires and passions that sought to rule his soul.

It could be said that my example of heterosexual attraction falls short of the mark because a heterosexual man or woman can at least get into a Christian marriage and fulfill those natural desires and passions in a holy context. But in regards to homosexual attraction there is no holy outlet—there is no option for a biblically sanctioned marriage. In other words the sexual ethics of the Church ask far more of a brother or sister with same-sex attraction than other members of the body of Christ.

However now the discussion is no longer about what is morally justifiable but what is fair. It is not fair that heterosexuals can alleviate their sexual passions by getting married whereas homosexuals cannot. And that is correct. It does not seem fair. However God does not seek to make the world “fair” in terms of what we think is fair, nor does he seek to justify the reasons why many things in the world are not fair. There is much evil in this world that causes great injustice and much unfairness and people every day are born into conditions and disabilities that put them at a disadvantage. Again life is fallen, not fair.

Though God never seeks to justify the evil in this world, he does seek to overcome it with good. As such seeking to make life as “fair as possible” for ourselves is not what we are called to do as Christians. We are called to die to our old lives, to put away the sinful passions of the flesh that war against our soul, pick up our cross and physically demonstrate the glory of Jesus’ kingdom through a daily choice to not live under the flag of our own allegiance.

Through lives lived out in holiness we represent and radiate to the world the character of our God. The church today is so ugly and only radiating a very low-level communion with God because she is not holy! She is a greedy, gossiping, divorcing, sexually promiscuous, and sexually immoral church. We are in desperate need of Christians who are willing to truly pick up their cross and die to their natural, in-born indulgences and lives of surrender, submission and beauty before God and the world.

If indeed an individual feels they were born with same-sex attraction let them not think that by consequence they cannot be part of God’s grand intention to radiate his character and kingdom through us. If such an individual were to choose to NOT to fulfill their sexual passions, but instead were to choose to lay down such an attraction before the Lord, to die to those desires, to live a celibate life as long as those desires remain–who knows what great and glorious ways God can express his love and beauty through them!

They may never develop an attraction towards the opposite sex but their life can be a testimony of the Lord’s grace, power and majesty nonetheless. Some may say again, “But it’s just not fair!” But God says, “You were bought with a price. You are not your own. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:20).

A life surrendered to God has no limits because a life surrendered to Him is a life that says, “Live your life through me.” The Bible says that a life that was once dead in sin but is now dead to sin is a life that is alive to God. Such a surrendered life is like an open channel for Him to touch our world in the places where it hurts the most.

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Where is God when Evil Visits?

Posted on December 17, 2012 by StriderMTB

It was a few days ago that great evil visited Newtown Elementary School in the form of a crazed maniac unleashing his personal hell on innocent children. And a great many people and pundits continue to wonder, “How can we make sense of this evil and where was God?” But we cannot and never will be capable of making sense of such evil because in it’s purest form hatred and evil is utterly irrational. But in today’s culture psychoanalysts don’t like the term “evil” because in their estimation all actions must be catalogued and accounted for somewhere in their flow chart of “disorders.” Moreover as to God’s perceived absence in the cultural tragedies of today, Mike Huckabee (whose every contention I don’t support) happened to say it best when he commented, “We’ve escorted God right out of our culture and we’ve marched him off the public square and then we express our surprise when a culture without Him actually reflects what it’s become.”

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God, Christmas and the Newtown School Shooting.

Posted on December 17, 2012 by StriderMTB

God didn’t think the world needed Christmas because it needed another festive holiday. He knew it needed rescue…it needed a Savior. He didn’t see peace on earth and goodwill towards men. He saw bloody Crusades, Salem Witch Trials, Wounded Knee, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge and the tragic slaying of school children in Newtown yesterday that bore the marks of the resident evil that often dwells center stage within the soul of mankind. We like to think adding more laws and codes to the “rule book” will make it all go away and sequester us in peace.

But the enemy is not outside the walls–it is within. Christmas is about remembering the day the eternal Son of God made the choice to put on human skin, enter into our suffering and subject himself to the full extent of evil our world is capable of twisting out of a misuse of human freedom. The empty tomb reminds us that hatred and death do not have the final word. Evil is a parasitical leech on this world that will one day be shed like dead snake skin.

Until then we are called to be torch bearers and ambassadors pointing the way forward because “light has shone out of darkness…to give us the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Christ came to give us a new direction and a transformed nature where righteousness peace and joy can become the genuine hallmarks of the human heart lived out. Until we embrace His life laid down and then raised up again we will have to settle for Hallmark printing for us what we fail so often to live out.

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Prejudice and Preference: How God is Dismissed

Posted on December 16, 2012 by StriderMTB

Because of modern science we now know the universe does not have an infinite number of past events and it indeed had a beginning. Big Bang cosmology has successfully validated that the universe is not eternal and that roughly 14 billion years ago all matter, space and time came into existence in less than a split second– in fact far less. Given the scientific brute fact that prior to the universe coming into existence there was no matter, no space and no time, the cause of the universe must necessarily be a timeless, spaceless, immaterial and uncaused entity. God is the only reasonable explanation of a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, uncaused cause that one can arrive at concerning the universe’s origin.

However some self-proclaimed intellectuals like to say they have too much stock in rationality to believe in God and are quick to quip that they instead believe in science. What they fail to grasp is that positing God as the ultimate explanation for the origin of our universe is the only scientifically and philosophically rational position one can take. But some individuals have such a strong and unflinching predisposition to reject the entire concept of God apriori that they find it impossible to truly be rational on the matter.

For example some people’s rejection of God as being the ultimate explanation for the origin of the universe is based on nothing more than a prejudicial disregard for an unpleasant caricature of God they have formed in their minds. And they see little to no reason to affirm their caricature of God as being the uncaused cause of the universe. But when one digs a little deeper it is all to obvious that the personal disdain these individuals have towards the God hypothesis does not lie in rationality but in preference. They don’t prefer to think of a cosmic, personal Being watching over the affairs of earth and whose existence lies sequestered and unaccessible to their scientific probing.

But what if we simply throw out the whole concept of God being a “personal Being.” Let’s just strip it down it down to bare facts and be honest about what we are facing. We are in need of a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused cause– are we not? Forget about calling it “God” and assigning personal attributes to it. Let’s just qualify it as an impersonal “thing.” Whatever that “thing” is we can rationally agree that it needs to be timeless, spaceless, immaterial and uncaused– that is to say an eternal, non-contingent “thing.” Can we not?

At this point I have often found atheists to be more agreeable and encouraged to connect the dots of rationality as to how the ultimate explanation of the universe must fit those category terms. This tells me that they don’t reject the God hypothesis on rational grounds but on preferential grounds. They agree that the cause of the universe must be a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, uncaused “thing” of immense power. They just don’t want to call that “thing” God.

Prejudice and preference. Two pitfalls that blind us to true, scientific inquiry and acceptance.

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Splitting Us Open

Posted on December 7, 2012 by StriderMTB

Hebrews speaks of God’s Word as being “sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart.”

Definitely not a relaxing passage that instills a sense of quiet rest. If you were a product of the 1st century you would no doubt have images of bloody and vicious warfare slicing and dicing its way into your mind. For the double-edged sword was the super-weapon of the Roman empire. Few armies had capability or weaponry to contend with Rome’s two-edged, iron gladius or spartha swords. It literally conquered kingdoms and laid waste to cities and towns–including Israel’s own.

It was designed to cut both ways and in particular pierce right through armor and penetrate all the way to the gut. The heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, bones–nothing stood in it’s way. It separated men from their lives by the millions. Lesser quality, one-edged swords of the 1st century were little more than improvised farming tools with an edge and operated more like hacking instruments. More often than not they could be stopped upon contact with bone. But not the Roman, double-edged sword. It could go right through your body–nothing escaped it’s penetrating power to lay cleave to whatever it wanted.

This is the imagery Hebrews is borrowing from. Can one hide from God’s word? Can one remain sequestered behind the hidden sins, thoughts and motives of the heart? Forget about it. When it comes to God’s Word there is simply no place to hide, no refuge to flee to, no citadel of the flesh to camouflage one’s true thoughts and intentions. Many in this world are very adept at polishing the outer life and keeping the sin-darkened inside a safely guarded secret. But even if it seems we can “keep up appearances” for awhile, the message of Hebrews is that in the end all will be exposed. We must all give an account in the end.

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Marriage: to be or to flee

Posted on November 18, 2012 by StriderMTB

Today I read a blog post on love and marriage that explained the dynamics of marriage with one of the most profound analogies I have ever come across. I couldn’t help but think how desperately young CHRISTIANS need to read this post. The gist of the analogy (at least my general twist on it) is that if marriage were approached as a building under construction–such that it will last–the capacity to forgive and remain in fellowship would be the foundation and the i-beams. If you get that wrong everything just begins to sag and shift under the pressure of it’s own weight. The roof and drywall are the secondary elements of fellowship and friendship that affirm the unique identities of each person while at the same time nurturing their shared life and interests. And lastly the paint, the trim and the pictures hung. This is attraction, beauty and sex. The world of glamour, movies and novels tells us that this is the most important quality in a marriage and deserves the greatest amount of attention and focus. However if one only makes a building out of trim and paint they have done nothing but create a bubble that is doomed to “pop.”

If marriage is indeed one of the great gifts and mysteries of God that parallels and uncloaks our relationship with Him (as Paul implies in Eph. 5:31-32) then it’s no wonder with over a 50% divorce rate the American church is foundering on the rocks of hypocrisy. Not a judgement–just a general observation. So much of it stems from an egregious over consumption of first-stage love exposure from Hollywood and a severe lack of counter-balancing, bubble-bursting instruction from more legitimate sources on marriage.

How has Hollywood made a gold mine out of becoming the supreme tutor on the nature of “true love” for people today? And this despite the fact that the divorce rate in Hollywood is around 80%? It’s because celebrating the first-stage of love is the easiest and most attractive frame to shoot in, write in and sing about. It’s boy meets girl, it’s the first eye contact, the first kiss and the fuzzy wuzzies are just bursting out of the screen and zeroing in on your own heart.

Think about it–when was the last time you saw a romantic movie that celebrated two people who met and married… 20 years ago and whose sons and daughters are now part of their circle of love? Not many flicks out there. No–such lengthy marriages are good entertainment only insofar as they provide comedy fodder for T.V. sitcoms like “Married with Children,” “Roseanne” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Mom is usually the one holding down the fort and poor old Dad is usually portrayed as dysfunctional and disoriented and seeking to escape all meaningful responsibility. One gets the distinct impression that the message being conveyed is that life after marriage and kids is about survival not substance. Well does it have to be? It hasn’t been so in my parents marriage. Why is that? I have often wondered that as I see other marriages fall by the wayside…either in divorce or simply two people sharing a bed but who stopped sharing souls a long time ago.

By the grace of God I think my parents BUILT their marriage life with divinely-inspired architectural soundness. The blog post I read today gave me a picture that I will never forget on how God intends for all his children to build a house of true love. The author is Jessica Leigh Francis and she is truly a guru of captivating writing. You can read her post on marriage here. 

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Like a Little Boy’s Toy Boat–a poem on love lost

Posted on November 17, 2012 by StriderMTB


I’m a terrible poem writer. I’ve only written two in my life. One was on the tragedy of homelessness and the other is below. I was reminded of something recently that made me remember this poem I wrote almost 10 years ago upon the end of an engagement that sent me into a dark night of the soul. That year revealed my utter fragility and dependency on the Lord. Sometimes letting go of another’s soul is the most loving thing you can do for them, especially when you know holding on to them will rob you both of your unique identities and thwart you both from discovering the joy, beauty and gems of life that God meant for you to mine out of the souls of others. Moreover doing what you know is right is not always supported or reassured by the emotions that come afterward. Emotions can be a cleansing of the soul but they are never good custodians of truth.

             Like a Little Boy’s Toy Boat…

“Please God…please don’t require this of me…please don’t ask this of me, Father.”

“You must let her go, my son. You must lay her down. You know this must be done. Please, my child, obey and trust me in this.”

I bend to my knees…I let go…and like a little boys toy boat, I watch my dreams drift away in a current too strong for my heart to bear. My eyes struggle to pierce through a teary dampness to catch the last few remaining glimpses of a life that cannot be mine. The distance between our bodies expands until there is nothing left but empty space and silence. The wake of a former presence washes over me and I am left standing on the shore all alone.

Descending shadows breath across a snuffed out wick as the darkest night closes in around my soul. The ground disappears from under my feet and I fall into a misery that has no bottom. Tears cascade off my face like rocks off a mountain slope. Truth has broken through to the surface and it has shattered my heart into a thousand pieces. Black paint has spilled across the canvas of my heart and it has drowned out all my colors. Memories pass through my mind like shrapnel and the straining of my ears is only met with the deafening silence of answers. Hours pass deep into the night and the wetness of my pillow reminds me that my nightmare is not one of dreams.

The rising of the morning brings only the bowing of my head as I collapse into a pool of tears. The coming day seems as if it’s filled with dread. It stretches out before me like a road with no horizon. Its passing is long and lonely. And as I crawl back under the covers to prepare for a night without stars—the dam breaks again. Throughout the watches of the night my eyes find no rest, my heart is weary, and my soul is far from peace. The breath of God’s name escapes my lips more than once. . .

Minutes blend into hours, hours into days, days into weeks, and weeks pass into months. All my summer birds have taken flight and left behind cold, winter’s chill. The numbness of life is met by only the pain of sorrow…it continues to come and go like a silent tide in the night. Dreams, visions, and longings daily visit my tired soul like a hundred small deaths. The reminder of times that were. . .the reminder of times that cannot return. My thoughts are hollow, flat and lifeless. I try to focus, I try to concentrate, but my eyes cannot gaze for long upon my Lord for they are brimmed with tears. “It hurts so deep, God…I cannot get to it.”

I climb out of a pit only to fall facedown into another. And as emotions once again collect as tiny puddles in my hand, I cry out, “When, O Lord, will the dawn awaken and take away this shadow that has fallen upon me?”

It is then that a pierced hand stretches forth, reaches into the dark night of my soul, curls around my tiny and crumbled frame, and lifts me up high to a place where the tentacles of despair cannot reach. I am drawn close to a wounded side—a side which bears the marks of one who has borne my griefs and carried my sorrows; one who has treaded the ground of Gethsemene’s dark night and Calvary’s high hill. Strong hands that speak of the driven nail gently press against my heart and the voice of the Ancient of Days is not silent:

“It had to be my child, it had to be. . . I too know the pain of loss. I too have drunk from the bitter wine of sorrow and disappointment. You cry because your heart is broken; I cry because my world is broken. Will you go to my world? You may not understand it now, but only that which is broken can be used for mending. My world needs mending. My world needs me. True it is for you as it was for Moses, no man can see my face and live. The self, the original man, must shrivel up and die—and upon the soul will become stamped my image. Do not be downcast—Lift up your head for even now I am turning the water of your tears into new wine.”

As the sighing of my heart begins to wane and the misty fog of emotions begins to lift off my soul, I dwell upon the lessons I have learned:

We will meet the Lord in the furnace of affliction long before we meet Him in the air.

And in our Heavenly Father we find more than we could ever lose in the world.

-StriderMTB

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Why Obama won in 2012

Posted on November 15, 2012 by StriderMTB

Republicans are kidding themselves if they think the political culture of our grid-locked bureaucracy in Washington would have fundamentally changed into a bureaucracy deserving the nation’s admiration had Romney won the election. As an old Israeli friend of mine once said, “The shit always floats to the top…and it usually smells the same when it gets there.”

That being said I’m sure Romney would have sought to institute policies that would have somewhat altered the trajectory of our national consciousness. But in my opinion he only would have delayed the inevitable. The U.S. has slowly become a nation of consumers and spectators rather than producers and achievers. More concerning is we fail to distinguish the difference between a “hand-out” and a “hand-up.” Once people believe it is primarily the responsibility of the “haves” to ensure the livelihood of the “have nots” a threshold has been crossed, a barrier of the mind has been breached…and it takes years to convince otherwise.

I’m all for the “haves” extending a helping hand UP to the “have nots,” but when money and resources cross over to the other side in the form of entitlement and pity it erodes what little self-determination and personal incentive such people had left. This in turn gently escorts the mentality of most people into a state of resignation and passive consumption with hands held out…and almost nare a word of thanks when something is put into it. And any attempt to ween them off the “boob” of assistance that has gone far too long can be met with rage. I’ve seen this in the white-skinned Appalachian region, the black-skinned ghetto and the brown-skinned Asian slums. It’s not a matter of color or race but method and mentality.

There is a reason Yellowstone National Park has signs everywhere, “Don’t feed the bears because they will not learn to forage for themselves.” Living in one of the poorest Asian countries, I see the poison of an entitlement mentality strike the poorest of people and keep them in state of disillusioned poverty despite the valiant efforts of well-intentioned humanitarian organizations. It is not a question of intention but methodology.

This is the gist of my concern in terms of my personal distillation of why Obama won the election. I don’t at all believe he won because the nation is turning radically more liberal. (In fact 11 million less people voted for Obama this year than in 2008.) I believe he won because he executed a political strategy to present himself as one who will protect and preserve the entitlements many Americans have become convinced they can’t do without. Romney was simply too scary to entertain because he didn’t seem to hold to the view that government’s main concern is to nanny the nation and guarantee equal results for everyone.

Therein lies the difference between the generation of yesterday and today’s generation. In my parents generation there was an understanding that government’s job was to work towards a culture of equal opportunity but not equal results. But that has all changed today. People have subsumed equal opportunity with equal results, but in many cases they have little to nothing to do with each other. The fact is some people are more ambitious, studious and disciplined in availing themselves of the opportunities that come their way. Just ask a school teacher.

But perseverance, ambition and self-discipline coupled with downsizing and sacrificing for tomorrow is simply not in the general consciousness of many young people in the U.S. today. The election of 2012 was more of a vote to retain government as one’s personal treasury for the bumps in the road than a vote to elect a leader who could make the tough decisions while still imbuing confidence for tomorrow.

The following is an excerpt from a writer named Rick Joyner who from time to time has some insightful points to offer:

          Obama won reelection with the worst economic record of any President since Jimmy Carter. The Federal government is dysfunctional, and by accepted accounting standards, it is bankrupt. Gridlock has dominated the last two years, and he won while giving the American people almost no plan for how he intends to fix anything during his second term. One would think that Obama must be one of the most remarkable campaigners of all time, but his campaign was not that sharp this time. So how did he win?

         The pundits and analysts will un-package this election from every angle over the coming weeks, and I do not want to address those here. One is now being discussed that I believe is true, and it is a sign of inevitability. 

The theory is that we, as a nation, have crossed a Rubicon. Half of all Americans now receive some kind of benefit or income from government on some level. These will likely vote for the one who promises to protect this, and vote against anyone who threatens it.

         Our Founding Fathers were just as afraid of the tyranny of the masses as they were the tyranny of the king. They had witnessed in the French Revolution what happened when the masses ruled, and they established in our Constitution firewalls against the tyranny on both sides. Both of these firewalls have been breached or torn down altogether now, and as the Founders warned, the Republic cannot now long survive.

         Thomas Jefferson warned that the Republic could not last if the people learned that they could vote for themselves the resources of the national treasury. That was breeched a long time ago, and we are now at the point where the entitlement mentality it has created in the masses is about to destroy us. We were led down this road by both the Democrats and the Republicans. This is not sustainable, but one is not likely to get elected to office if they even talk about trying to correct this. We are now very close to collapsing the whole system. Then elections will no longer be held at all and we will face a terrible tyranny. We will first face the tyranny of the mob, and then we will face the tyranny of the tyrant. –Rick Joyner [1]

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Evangelism–not a long-distance relationship

Posted on September 8, 2012 by StriderMTB

I was thinking today about evangelism which is fundamentally “to bring good news to people.” Evangelism for the Christian is not a long-distance relationship or form of communication. Christian evangelism is in its greatest form when the distance between broken people and hope becomes bridged with truth. For this is the essence of the incarnation of the Son of God, which is nothing less than Christ traversing the distance between God and man and taking on the skin of our soiled existence in order to embody good news and truth up close and personal. Christian evangelism is most pure when the evangel’s good news is felt and seen–not just heard. It is no wonder that the apostle John said, “Whoever claims to live in Jesus must walk as Jesus walked” (1 John 2:6).

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