Thought from CSI (Miami)

Seriously, C.S.I. is the best unbelievable TV show. Have you seen it? The situations are overblown, the timing is completely unrealistic, and the expectations on justice much too high. Still I watch as if the sky will fall inside the TV screen.

I was reading a devotional this morning that stated in some way how God was sufficient enough for the example and still is sufficient enough for our lives. When we live our lives apart from Him, we’re showing that He actually is not enough. I didn’t need someone else to tell me this but the timing was wonderful.

And so that’s what CSI is - insufficient. And lately it’s just inappropriate. Realistic and improper. But it’s attractive so I stay and watch it when really I’m saying that my God isn’t enough and somehow, this unbelievable, impossible presentation can cut it. This can be my escape and my rest and I’m good to go. I do that with so many things - expect enough from things not based on reality, not based on God.

I really don’t want my life to be telling God He’s not enough. Isn’t that what Christ refuted when He came down? He gave a truth we could hope in. He met an expectation that was out of this world. I am more than enough for you. I am all and more. He said it on the cross, hands stretched out. Human form. It was reality we could believe in.

Hebrews 5:8-9

“Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him.”

Amen

The Son of God, Emanuel, is Here With Me.

Romans 8:24a-25 “For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

Pretty looking church thing

So I’m at the University walking around feeling pretty good after taking a final - and I come across their beutiful church, or meditation center. The campus itself has gorgeous landscaping and water pieces - it’s great - every work building should be like that. But I’ve never gone inside the place as beautiful and inviting as it seems. Here’s what I encountered when I finally entered on the last week of class:

• a lot of windows let me see most of what I thought I saw from the outside
• there was only one way to get in (I tried to leave out a different door, but the hedges and flowers were surrounding me. I’m sure I looked crazy as I was debating whether or not to cut through the flowers, I couldn’t get out of there, it was weird.)
• there was no cross, or any symbols whatsoever
• there was no one inside.

 It was the University religion building, like a physical education building, but with no true purpose than organizing the religious club offices. I’ve heard of church without walls, but what’s a church without a cross? I can be at home, or in a parking lot, in a crowd at a converted grocery store it doesn’t matter, but if 2 or more are gathered in Christ’s name, He’s with me. The symbolism isn’t necessary. The building isn’t necessary. But it is an expression of respect - a visual statement that we honor and follow God and commit to worshipping Him as a group of believers. The church shows unity and should not show ambiguity for whom it represents. I would call it irreverent and disrespectful at the least; there should be no shame in whom I  worship. 

So if the church is the body of believers in Christ, is there a point in having a universal meditative/spiritual center with windows and flowers on the outside, and some pews for weddings…if its purpose isn’t to hold a body of believers in Christ? Why have a building at all if it’s for the unknown god. There is no glory there.   

What’s the deal with living water?

I wish I could remember where I saw this connection, but when the Israelites were in the wilderness on their way to the promised land, the words Massah and Meribah would bring bitter memories as they wandered. In Exodus 17:7, the Israelites are recorded for doubting God and thinking Him insufficient to provide for their needs as He lead them on a journey to what was called the promised land.

In the land of Massah and Meribah God came through and met their needs making water spring from a rock. This was right before the Israelites complained that they had been brought to the desert out of slavery to die. Much earlier, God had caused ten plagues to cover Egypt and show His desire to let the Israelites be free. They named the place after their moaning.

Every time the Israelites would hear the name of that place in the wilderness, it’d be a reminder of their faithlessness in God to provide. It’d be a reminder of those who never made it to the promised land because of their decision to walk without God rather than trust in Him.

Still, God provided. For the woman at the well in John 4, Jesus leads her to a living water that she could only imagine. The living water was an allusion to the safety and salvation in Christ, our hope and life spring. She would find out that He provided more than what she would ever find at a well, in a rock, in anything made by man or even God unless it was God Himself. We are energized and relaxed by a water that will never run out, even when faith wavers. His waters are too deep.  

Foto found here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/viewtopic_archives.php?TopicID=182731&page=0

Blessed are the Poor

For most, our social lives are constructed around those with similar social habits. If we have the fortune of graduating a high school, we’re around other graduates…college, other college grads, and on up. When is there opportunity to meet other people? Public transportation? Inside a fast food restaurant or yoga class? Not exactly. 

Why is empathy lacking when it comes to having empathy for those less fortunate than ourselves? It’s easy to not have a clue if I don’t even understand, if I never took a class on social conditions, or had the lesson modeled by parents, friends, a movie. I have no idea that empathy can be taught until I’m taught it by circumstance. And then, before any philosophical thinking and sociological academia, I remember Jesus already covered it. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matthew 5:3). It’s the first thing Jesus says as He gives His sermon on the mount. He’s looking out at a mass of people and this is on His mind. There will be times when you’re going to go to work and never have to face an entire grouping of my creation. There’ll be times when you seem like nothing compared to the ‘everything’ that others have. I imagine that He was seeing into the future when He looked into some of the faces in the crowd of all of us who would think again and again of how little we feel. He knew those who truly did have nothing. ‘Theirs is the kingdom of God,’ He said.

Somewhere, peace to those who live as a have-not or have-little. God’s kingdom is their domain. Where am I in all this? I want my life to be mingled up with everyone else. I want to have the empathy to understand, to better know and help someone who may have so little. So I can know what little I have. If Christ recognized those who had less, who am I?