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I would say that i’m a logical person.  Some say they see the glass half full other the glass half empty but there are those of us who would say, “well technically both are equally true”.  We’re sometimes labeled realist, but i prefer the label: Biblical.

In the Bible what you’ll find is an infinite and unconditionally all-sovereign God.  He’s the creator and He calls the shots.  He knows the end from the beginning and He makes no bones about it.  This for me defines every aspect of my thinking.  If it wasn’t for this reality i don’t believe it would be possible to worship God with all my mind.

I’ve heard it said and more frequently hinted at that to believe or have faith in God we must reject what is logical—this is a lie.

God doesn’t defy logic, He infinitely exceeds it, you can’t reject logic to receive God.

Just to be clear, what i’m saying is that logic and truth go hand in hand. You cant have one without the other.  I make this claim by defining truth as Jesus Christ.  In other words the God (the person and His nature and work) revealed in the Bible is the very definition of truth—it is the standard by which we discern what is good and evil, what is truth and what is a lie.  What is true is logical and what is logical is true.  This isn’t to say that truth is logic, they are the same thing but they describe one another.  That being said, truth can be beyond our comprehension and thereby not appear to us as logical.

When things happen to us that don’t seem logical (i.e. someone we love dies or we’re sold into slavery for no apparent reason), that doesn’t mean they aren’t, it just means we don’t fully understand God’s logic or God’s purpose.  This is not because God defies logic or contradicts logic, rather He infinitely exceeds it.  Do you see the difference?  If something happens and i don’t understand the purpose, i can still trust that God’s the good author, who knows the end from the beginning and i can and should do so logically for this very reason.

Now if things happen that in fact do contradict our logic, this only means our logic isn’t logic at all, it’s really foolish ignorance and we’re on the slippery slope of doubt and almost there.  The remedy for such foolishness is to repent and trust on Christ our treasure.  If you are on this slippery slope, and you find your “logic” being defied by God, there is a recorded prayer from the Bible that you should pray, “I believe, help my unbelief!”.  Amen.

You know what i’ve been thinking a lot about lately? Infant baptism. Have you ever really thought about that topic? If so, i would love to hear some of your thoughts. If not, you should.

If you are interested in doing a little reading on the subject, here are two articles one arguing for by R.C. Sproul and one against by John MacArthur.

No, i am not talking about pastors and evangelist or any believers for that matter. I’m talking about when evil things happen, when bad stuff happens we are all so quick to rebuke the devil and blame it on a fallen world and for some strange reason we, in those times, suddenly forget that God—the creator God, the One the Holy Scriptures speak of— is sovereign. Meaning nothing can get by Him. That means when evil things happen (i.e. captivity, death, destruction), God is ultimately the one from whom it comes.

I guess that’s my point, sometimes God’s tools aren’t exactly what we’d expect from an all good God—and He is ALL GOOD (cf Is. 10, Amos 3:6, Job 2:10). Does an evil tool taint a good, just God? Can God, who is the standard of good and justice even be tainted?

Suppose maybe we should think about these things next time evil things are going down? Suppose maybe instead of instantly rebuking satan or answering evil with neat and seemingly logical answers like, “well you see the earth is cursed, blah blah blah, darkness and cold and heat and light blah blah blah…”, we should just humbly confess our inadequacies and weakness and repent of our inherent foolishness and trust on the preeminent Christ who is our Source?

I suppose we humans tend to forget that water is wet and fire is hot, and God is God and we are not…

“Patrick could put himself—imaginatively—in the position of the Irish. To him, no less than to them, the world is full of magic. One can invoke the elements—the lights of heaven, the waves of the sea, the birds and the animals—and these will come to one’s aid, as in the incantation of the “Breastplate.” The difference between Patrick’s magic and the magic of the druids is that in Patrick’s world all beings and events come from the hand of a good God, who loves human beings and wishes them success. And though that success is of an ultimate kind—and, therefore, does not preclude suffering—all nature, indeed the whole of the created universe, conspires to mankind’s good, teaching, succoring, and saving.

Patrick could speak convincingly of these things. He could assure you that all suffering, however dull and desperate, would come to its conclusion and would show itself to have been worthwhile. He could insist that, in the end, you too would hear the words “Your hungers are rewarded:  you are going home. Look, your ship is ready.”  He could speak believably of the superabundance of a God who in response to humble prayer feeds his lost and wandering people with heavenly manna—and a crew of lost and starving sailors with the herd of very earthly pigs.” (How the Irish Saved Civilization p. 131)

“The key to Patrick’s confidence—and it is the sort of ringing, rock-solid confidence on which a civilization may be built, an unmuffled confidence not heard since the Golden Ages of Greece and Rome—is in his reliance on “the Creator of Creation,” the phrase with which the “Breastplate” opens and closes.  Our Father in heaven, having created all things, even things that have since become bent or gone bad, will deliver us, his children, from all evil.  But our Father is not only in faraway heaven, but lives among us.  For he created everything by his Word, which was with him in the beginning, which became flesh in the human Jesus, and flames out in all his creatures:

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice—and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His  crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.

This magical world, though full of adventure and surprise, is no longer full of dread. Rather, Christ has trodden all pathways before us, and at every crossroads and by every tree the Word of God speaks out. We have only to be quiet and listen, as Patrick learned to do during the silence of his “novitiate” as a shepherd on the slopes of Sliabh Mis.” (How the Irish Saved Civilization p. 132-133)

When you feel like just shutting it all down, closing the doors (imagining of course they’re mine to close).  People are so ungrateful, so selfish and self centered, i see it so clearly in myself and even more clearly in others.  Humanity is so lazy when it comes to all the right things and so zealous and motivated when it comes to all of the wrong things (or so it seems).  If i am able to see it, if we are like that towards those we can see and physically interact with then how much more severe is the problem when it comes to the One we cannot see, we cannot always feel, or cannot physically interact with (or so it seems).  This complacency is a cancer destroying us from the inside out.  This lack of satisfaction in the One Thing.  The One Thing that matters, the one thing that has any weight of glory or worth.  This is the One Thing that constantly goes unnoticed, goes purposely ignored.

We are such a stiff-necked, rebellious people.  We revel and pleasure ourselves inside our houses like filthy swine rolling around in the filth we eat and have eaten and will soon eat again.  We demand that our entire existence and the surrounding universe revolve around those pleasures.  The only problem is our existence and this universe thankfully cannot ever, not even for but one moment, facilitate those pleasures.  The moment we think we have manipulated the order of the universe, that we have ‘got one by The Man’, is the moment that we sowed our corruptible seed and we immediately reaped our corruption—our conflict began. We will always reap death and destruction; it makes no matter how beautiful the seeds we sow look like, how pleasant they feel or smell or even how wonderful they taste.  It doesn’t even matter what they sound like accompanying the music in their hollow homes.

We are dying of starvation and malnutrition while we sit at a banqueting table.  Are we blind or are just not willing to see?  Does the answer to that make any difference?

We often don’t like what we see and assume we are just reading the wrong script.  ”Um, excuse me, stop everything, I believe I have the wrong script, I must have picked up someone else’s part.  This couldn’t possibly be my role.” We’re pretending to be in an imaginary theater all the while sheepishly standing on the stage (the only stage) as the extra, the casualty, the butt of the joke wanting nothing more than to simply run off the stage, escaping the spotlights and hide behind the curtain in the shadows.  But escaping the stage isn’t going to be as easy as you may think, go ahead and try but you will soon find that the stage transcends you because the story transcends you.  You’re always in front of an audience.

N.D. Wilson observes from a tilt-a-whirl:  Complain.  Whine.  Be a fusser.  The story needs those as well, because every butt needs a joke, and the audience must laugh.  Whether they (and God) laugh at or with is up to you.

The curtains have already been torn away revealing the stage.  There is no other theater and no alternate scrips to be the wrong ones to read.  There is one stage—one story.  You are a part whether you like it or not, all of creation is.  You can kick and scream but you are here now and the story needs that too, consequently the author cast you even though you didn’t make the audition—you didn’t even sign up…