I'm Taking My Ball And Going Home :-p

I had an interesting interaction yesterday. I ran into an atheist. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, but this “conversation” will be one that I may never forget. (I know it’s a long read, but it’s worth it)

I use many different social networks. At last count, I had accounts on seventeen different sites that allow interaction between folks. I don’t have all of those accounts because of a false sense of importance or popularity. I don’t have those accounts to carry out some clandestine or secretive interaction with folks- in fact, I try to use the same user ID’s (either my name or the America Ministry name) on all of those accounts. The purpose for all of those accounts is to interact with as many people as possible to spread the Word of God and tell them of the wonderful sacrifice that Jesus made for all us. In other words, I take a “shotgun “ approach with a part of my ministry and then focus on the individual when the questions start being asked.

One of the networks I use is Google+. Many people have heard of it, but very few have tried it. It combines all of the best features of Facebook and Twitter with very cool privacy features. One of the cool features is that you can search for people by an interest (hobby, favorite sports team, etc.). I am just getting real comfortable with it, and yesterday I was looking for some like-minded folks (as in fellow Christians) to strike up a conversation with.

So, there I was, searching through a number of faith related public posts when I found a very negative comment about Christians. I clicked on it and brought up the entire chain. The initial post in that thread was a very bitter diatribe in response to someone posting the odds of a single person fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies as Jesus had. For those of you that don’t know, the odds are in the neighborhood of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. The numbers were accurate, but the response was one that we are all too familiar with- “who could be stupid enough to think that a supernatural being has ever walked the earth.” I’m not quoting directly- more on that later.

My curiosity always gets the best of me when I see things like that, so I expanded the thread to follow the conversation. The conversation was just what I expected to see- the Christians were defending their faith to the death (including an absolutely wonderful teenager), and the atheists were simply finding different ways to say it was impossible for a being like Jesus to ever exist and that it was all a fabrication and conspiracy. They gave no facts or supporting information to their view, and just proceeded to do the internet version of sticking their tongues out, trying to appear intellectually superior because they knew it was impossible for Jesus to do the things He did. I abhor that superior mentality, and never tire of taking it on. So I decided to throw my two cents in.

Being a public post, anybody could respond. So I did. I responded to one of the atheists (we’ll call him George). George has just posted another version of, “You are stupid to believe.” Our conversation went something like this (again, not direct quotes):

Me: I see you don’t believe in Jesus. How about Aristotle?

George: Huh?

Me: Do you believe that Aristotle existed?

George: What do you mean?

Me: Do you accept the fact that Aristotle lived and died?

George: Yes. Why?

Me: How did you come to the conclusion that he lived?

George: History books

Me: Did those same history books expose you to his teachings?

George: I don’t get it. Where are you trying to go with this?

Me: Here’s exactly where I’m going. You have been bashing folks for believing that a supernatural being ever walked this earth, despite hundreds of existing manuscripts that were written in the first 200 years after the events of the life of Jesus Christ, long before the church became any kind of political or social power in society. Yet you openly admit to believe the existence and teachings of a man whose reputation is built on a small handful of manuscripts that weren’t written until 1,400 years after he died. Based on those facts, who would appear to be the gullible one here?

I never heard from George again. The silence was deafening. I wasn’t getting any thread update notifications, as I was during the back and forth debate. A few hours later, I decided to go back and reread the thread. I couldn’t, because the ENTIRE THREAD HAD BEEN DELETED! I can’t quote from it because it doesn’t exist anymore. The original poster, the one who was bashing someone for their knowledge of the odds of fulfilling the prophecies, had removed the entire conversation from view once an undeniable truth was used to undermine his foolish beliefs.

It would have been so easy to just skip over that thread, thinking that someone else would take care of the problem. It would have been easy to think that I had dealt with that mentality so many times in the past and that I wasn’t in the mood to do it again. We all encounter people like this on a daily basis. When we do, we need to do everything in our power to defend our faith and meet the enemy where they stand. At times, we act like the Bible is the only source of power we can rely on and ignore all of the facts and evidence left in the wake of Jesus. At times, the way to get a person to ask the right questions might be to present them with the real world logic they are trying to use against you. If they dismiss the Word of God as fiction, use the real world evidence that can't be dismissed. Once they consider the truth from their real world perspective, they may start to comprehend the error of their ways (just ask Josh McDowell).

Don’t get me wrong- the Bible is the ultimate written source of power for us. But God does not stop there when it comes to arming us for the battle against enemies. The physical evidence to support the Gospels is overwhelming and can stop the “intellectual” in their tracks. Become familiar with the historical facts. Use them to your advantage. When you take the battle on the terms of the non-believer and use the kind of facts that they can’t dispute, they will disappear in a heartbeat. And sometimes they’ll take their posts with them.

Mr. (Im)perfect

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:21-24

Like many people, I commute to work every day. Unlike most people, my commute is 65 miles one way. I’ve been doing this since June 2002, and by best guess I’ve made the round trip just over 2,000 times. That means that my commute has consisted of over 260,000 miles over the last nine plus years. And my track record is almost perfect- I’ve never had a ticket of any kind and have never even been pulled over by the police. I consider myself to be a very conscientious and safe driver. Almost perfect.

On February 8, 2005, I was involved in a single car accident on my way to work. My driving perfection was no more. And the aftermath was interesting to watch. My family became more apprehensive when I drove to work in bad weather and people at church put me in their prayers (some to this day). I can admit that it changed my approach to driving in bad weather. The focus was on the one instance where I missed the mark. Despite a 99.975% success rate in getting back and forth to work, and the fact that I had driven 99.99992% of the total mileage without incident, people focused on the one time I missed the mark.

The accident was traumatizing. It would have been real easy to never drive again, fearful that the same thing was just around the corner for me. I was out of work for a month, and the medical bills (even with insurance) and cost of replacing the car put us in a bind financially. It created a lot of stress and anxiety for my family and friends, as they saw me in pain and completely vulnerable for the first week or two of my recovery. There are members of my church that continue to pray daily for my safe passage back and forth, almost seven years later. All of this because I missed the mark one time.

Instead of throwing in the towel, I dusted myself off and went about the task of starting a new perfect streak. While everyone else focused on the one negative trip, I recognized it for the blip on the radar that it truly was.

In our spiritual lives, sin is nothing more than missing the mark. We can discuss for days what actions actually constitute sin, but in the end it is anything that makes us fall short of the life Jesus taught us to lead. Any time we stumble in our faith, we miss the mark. If we miss the mark in any way, our perfect streak ends. The reality is that any “perfect streak” we have spiritually is going to be measured in seconds or minutes or hours (at best). I say this because we miss the mark on a very regular basis. To hit the 99.975% mark that I have driving back and forth to work, I would only sin 21.6 seconds of every day. I’m pretty sure I used that allotment before I was fully dressed this morning. So, no matter how hard I try, I’ll never come close to the level of near-perfection that I task myself with. I will spend a lifetime restarting my streak, over and over again.

Just like the reaction of my family and friends had when I rolled my car, each time I miss the mark will have an impact on those I love the most. It does not matter if they are present or not, or if they are directly impacted by whatever sin I commit. In the end, my actions have a direct bearing on the lives of those I love most. I can think that I am hiding it from the world. I can believe that nobody knows my deepest, darkest secrets. I can justify my actions my actions and words by thinking that I don’t care how others perceive me. I would be wrong on every count. Every thought I make, every action I take, every word I speak defines who I am as a person, parent, spouse and friend. People’s ability to trust and love will be based on the opinion they form about me. If I do something serious enough (like rolling a car over on the side of the highway), they are going to worry that I may not be able to fully recover from my transgressions. They will never look at me the same ever again.

This being the case, I always have to put my best foot forward and let people know that while I make mistakes and miss the mark, I am trying to become a better person all the time. I am trying to become a little more like Jesus every day. I vow to avoid missing the mark wherever possible. I make it a point to pick myself up, dust off and move forward. We all miss the mark. It is how we deal with it that determines if we grow closer to God.