A friend asked: "Query: Are we, as Christians, required to do our best in everything we do?"
And this was my answer:
"I think that we ought to try to do "our best" but that "our best" doesn't mean our best in everything. We live in a world with responsibilities and consequences and we have to do our best to balance everything out. You can spend tons of time on any one thing, such one of several papers or HW assignments, and do really well on it but that means doing not as good on something else. One most apply the principle of diminishing returns because there is always a certain point where, because of lack of sleep or whatever other reason, that the amount or improvement gained is no longer worth the amount of work put into a project. When you reach that point, or because of time restraints before you even reach that point, you have to say 'I've done my best to put good work into this and balance everything out and I only had x amount of time to work on this so I'll trust God with whatever the consequences are.' and move on to whatever project is next."
What do you think?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Dreams
Dreams are funny things and for years I had no idea what to make of them. Are they are gifts from above? Are they the out workings of my inner thoughts and my subconscious? A pointless amalgamation of the random sensory data my body collects while I sleep? Or the newest theory in the scientific arena: my mind's attempt to process the data piled up in my short term memory and learn from the day's experiences; simply a method of sorting through everything so can my brain can log important stuff away in long term memory and forget the rest?
I have come to the conclusion over the years that sleep is all of the above. At times I have relived the events of the day before and seen them in a new light as I slept. I have dreamt events and conversations that, knowing myself and the people in the dream, never happened but very well could have. When I have been burdened greatly by some thought, prayer, or desire my dreams have given voice to that stress in one way or another. I know that just as my writing often reflects my subconscious and semi-conscious thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, so have my dreams. At times I have been able to label each of these occurrences, each of these uses and purposes for my dreams but several times in my life I have been left wondering, without ever really making up my mind fully, if certain dreams were gifts of spiritual insight that I should heed. I am always hesitant to assign such divine weight to my dreams but I sometimes wonder if I should be. If my dreams encompass and incorporate all of the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological elements of my life then why not the spiritual too? Though as human beings our need for physical rest is the most obvious reason and purpose for sleep Scripture promises that God will speak to His children in dreams and visions.
In Scripture God speaks in dreams that seem to be baffling riddles until explained by His chosen servant (Joseph, Daniel, Samuel...) to both kings and peasants alike. Throughout the history of Israel we are told that the men of one family or another, one tribe or another, had dreams and visions or were good at interpreting them. (I have often wondered if there is a distinction there or simply two names for the same thing.) On the other hand God seems to almost always speak to His servants directly. If He doesn't speak vocally to them in their waking hours He speaks to them with spoken clarity in a dream, or sends an angel to vocalize His message in waking or in sleeping. There have been times in my life where I have heard God speak to me with audible clarity. At times I have listened to Him and to my eternal shame at times I have ignored Him. As far as I know the only dream, given to a servant of God, that was allegorical and thus left open for interpretation was Joseph's dream about the twelve sheaves of wheat and sun, moon, and the twelve stars bowing before him. The only other time I can think of where the recipient of the message is confused as to its origin and meaning is when a very young Samuel hears God calling his name and thinks that it is Eli and Eli tells him, until the third time, he is dreaming.
These two events give me encouragement and frustration at the same time. They leave me wondering if God is speaking to me subtly and even directly but I am missing it. They encourage me that perhaps I am right when I think there is more to a dream, that I should take the spiritual hints, or obvious overtones, in it very seriously. And yet since I lack the overwhelming conviction that I have recieved a message from the Lord that is seen in almost all of the Biblical occurances I, perhaps like Eli, can't help but wonder if it really was "just a dream" and if I should "go back to sleep".
I wish I knew for sure whether there was more to a dream or not. I wish there was some authority I could turn to, but almost everyone I have ever heard talk about dreams and visions was either completely naturalistic about it, ended their discourse sounding as vague and undecided as I already felt, or sounded like a complete nut that based their beliefs off personal feeling and not scriptural evidence. Maybe I’ll ask some of the Bible professors here. I really respect several of them for how well they have thought through all the various ways to interpret things even if I disagree with them on exactly what they choose to believe. I guess aside from asking them, my parents, and pastor, the only thing to do is what I always end up having to do, wrestle it out for myself: search the scriptures and ask the Lord for answers.
I have come to the conclusion over the years that sleep is all of the above. At times I have relived the events of the day before and seen them in a new light as I slept. I have dreamt events and conversations that, knowing myself and the people in the dream, never happened but very well could have. When I have been burdened greatly by some thought, prayer, or desire my dreams have given voice to that stress in one way or another. I know that just as my writing often reflects my subconscious and semi-conscious thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, so have my dreams. At times I have been able to label each of these occurrences, each of these uses and purposes for my dreams but several times in my life I have been left wondering, without ever really making up my mind fully, if certain dreams were gifts of spiritual insight that I should heed. I am always hesitant to assign such divine weight to my dreams but I sometimes wonder if I should be. If my dreams encompass and incorporate all of the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological elements of my life then why not the spiritual too? Though as human beings our need for physical rest is the most obvious reason and purpose for sleep Scripture promises that God will speak to His children in dreams and visions.
In Scripture God speaks in dreams that seem to be baffling riddles until explained by His chosen servant (Joseph, Daniel, Samuel...) to both kings and peasants alike. Throughout the history of Israel we are told that the men of one family or another, one tribe or another, had dreams and visions or were good at interpreting them. (I have often wondered if there is a distinction there or simply two names for the same thing.) On the other hand God seems to almost always speak to His servants directly. If He doesn't speak vocally to them in their waking hours He speaks to them with spoken clarity in a dream, or sends an angel to vocalize His message in waking or in sleeping. There have been times in my life where I have heard God speak to me with audible clarity. At times I have listened to Him and to my eternal shame at times I have ignored Him. As far as I know the only dream, given to a servant of God, that was allegorical and thus left open for interpretation was Joseph's dream about the twelve sheaves of wheat and sun, moon, and the twelve stars bowing before him. The only other time I can think of where the recipient of the message is confused as to its origin and meaning is when a very young Samuel hears God calling his name and thinks that it is Eli and Eli tells him, until the third time, he is dreaming.
These two events give me encouragement and frustration at the same time. They leave me wondering if God is speaking to me subtly and even directly but I am missing it. They encourage me that perhaps I am right when I think there is more to a dream, that I should take the spiritual hints, or obvious overtones, in it very seriously. And yet since I lack the overwhelming conviction that I have recieved a message from the Lord that is seen in almost all of the Biblical occurances I, perhaps like Eli, can't help but wonder if it really was "just a dream" and if I should "go back to sleep".
I wish I knew for sure whether there was more to a dream or not. I wish there was some authority I could turn to, but almost everyone I have ever heard talk about dreams and visions was either completely naturalistic about it, ended their discourse sounding as vague and undecided as I already felt, or sounded like a complete nut that based their beliefs off personal feeling and not scriptural evidence. Maybe I’ll ask some of the Bible professors here. I really respect several of them for how well they have thought through all the various ways to interpret things even if I disagree with them on exactly what they choose to believe. I guess aside from asking them, my parents, and pastor, the only thing to do is what I always end up having to do, wrestle it out for myself: search the scriptures and ask the Lord for answers.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday, November 9, 2007
I Said "No."
I will never forget that night. God spoke to me with almost audible clarity and I ignored Him; to my eternal shame, I deliberately disobeyed Him.
My family was on vacation in Florida. Were almost to the condo we were borrowing from some friends and we stopped for dinner. It was just a little Chinese buffet, nothing special but we were all starved after traveling in the van all day. My parents ordered the food while my sister and I got some tables pulled together and sat the younger ones down. After acquiring a stack of napkins and straws I decided I should wash my hands before getting everyone’s drinks. The place was one of those where the bathrooms are right next to the kitchen and as I came out from washing my hands I glanced into the kitchen, what I saw made me sick.
The workers having already taken my family the food were standing around talking, one girl had her back to me and I don’t know if she waited at a “gentlemen’s club” or what caused them but I could see grooves in her back. Pressed into her back a quart inch wide and a quarter inch deep they came out of the front of her shirt, over the top of her should and down her back disappearing once more inside her shirt. The halter top made them hard to see from the front but painfully obvious from behind her.
I couldn’t move, none of them noticed I was there, and I could help but stare as a little whisper with the strength of the ocean behind it spoke inside me. “Go talk to her.” I heard Him say.
My entire being revolted at the idea. “No!” was my immediate response, “Why? What would I say?” I internally flinched at the awkwardness I would feel.
“Tell her she’s worth more than that.” He answered simply.
I stood there and, like Jacob, wrestled with God. “No.” the thoughts tore through my mind, “What would she say? What would her friends think? What would my family think?” I turned and walked away. I went and eat my meal in misery.
God wasn’t giving up. The girl stood behind the checkout counter, right where I could see her, for the entire meal. Then we sat in the parking lot for at least a half an hour waiting on my parents to get down shopping for groceries at the Publix next door while she and her friends stood around their cars talking after they closed the store for the night. The entire time God was wrestling with my heart, and I wrestled back. That wrestling match of me verses God ended that night after I went to bed, and it ended for the last time.
That night was a turning point in my life, but I didn’t know it at first. I thought everything was going to be fine, I’d repent later and everything would go back to normal but it didn’t. God pulled back and over the next few months I almost never felt His presence, not even at church. He was sending me a message and slowly I understood it, “You promised me your life, you promised to do My Will, but apparently you’ve changed your mind. So you want to do your own thing now? You think you know what’s best? Fine go head then, I won’t get in your way again. When you decide you want to stop playing games and do this from real I’ll be here.”
After that it was no longer God vs. Me, He left me to myself, it was Me vs. Me: the Old Me against the New Me. I had a choice to make: was I going to choose to follow Him, or was I going to choose to live for myself? I had to decide which things I really wanted, a girlfriend, a car, a life of fun in sin, or what He promised, the incomparable sweetness of communion with Him, the provision of all my needs in due time, lasting and meaningful pleasure. I couldn’t have both it ways, I had to choose one or the other, and I spent two years sitting on the fence unable to decide.
I was still a dutiful son to my parents, followed their rules and worked in the family business, I still went to church and worked as an AWANA leader, but I was cussing when around people who didn’t care, I used pornography, I went to good Christian school that forbade drinking and smoking, and I directly violated the contract I signed saying I wouldn’t partake in their use. I didn’t really run off whole-heartedly into sin but neither did I really seek God, and as living a lie always does, it really started to hurt.
The application is, I hope, obvious: we are all faced with this choice. As college students finally out from underneath our parents’ protective umbrella most of us are faced with this choice more pointedly than ever before. I’m not saying smoking cigars or drinking alcohol are inherently sinful activities and I’m certainly not saying girlfriends or cars are bad either, I don’t know what it is in your life that is an idol for you, what issues you struggle with; I simply present my story as an encouragement.
I can tell you first hand that the things of the world become empty and contemptible very quickly, and that nothing can compare to the amazing richness of a life lived in actively pursuing God. Choose Him and you will never regret it.
"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 (KJV)
~ Andrew J. Goggans
"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:8
- add Go Play With Fire!
My family was on vacation in Florida. Were almost to the condo we were borrowing from some friends and we stopped for dinner. It was just a little Chinese buffet, nothing special but we were all starved after traveling in the van all day. My parents ordered the food while my sister and I got some tables pulled together and sat the younger ones down. After acquiring a stack of napkins and straws I decided I should wash my hands before getting everyone’s drinks. The place was one of those where the bathrooms are right next to the kitchen and as I came out from washing my hands I glanced into the kitchen, what I saw made me sick.
The workers having already taken my family the food were standing around talking, one girl had her back to me and I don’t know if she waited at a “gentlemen’s club” or what caused them but I could see grooves in her back. Pressed into her back a quart inch wide and a quarter inch deep they came out of the front of her shirt, over the top of her should and down her back disappearing once more inside her shirt. The halter top made them hard to see from the front but painfully obvious from behind her.
I couldn’t move, none of them noticed I was there, and I could help but stare as a little whisper with the strength of the ocean behind it spoke inside me. “Go talk to her.” I heard Him say.
My entire being revolted at the idea. “No!” was my immediate response, “Why? What would I say?” I internally flinched at the awkwardness I would feel.
“Tell her she’s worth more than that.” He answered simply.
I stood there and, like Jacob, wrestled with God. “No.” the thoughts tore through my mind, “What would she say? What would her friends think? What would my family think?” I turned and walked away. I went and eat my meal in misery.
God wasn’t giving up. The girl stood behind the checkout counter, right where I could see her, for the entire meal. Then we sat in the parking lot for at least a half an hour waiting on my parents to get down shopping for groceries at the Publix next door while she and her friends stood around their cars talking after they closed the store for the night. The entire time God was wrestling with my heart, and I wrestled back. That wrestling match of me verses God ended that night after I went to bed, and it ended for the last time.
That night was a turning point in my life, but I didn’t know it at first. I thought everything was going to be fine, I’d repent later and everything would go back to normal but it didn’t. God pulled back and over the next few months I almost never felt His presence, not even at church. He was sending me a message and slowly I understood it, “You promised me your life, you promised to do My Will, but apparently you’ve changed your mind. So you want to do your own thing now? You think you know what’s best? Fine go head then, I won’t get in your way again. When you decide you want to stop playing games and do this from real I’ll be here.”
After that it was no longer God vs. Me, He left me to myself, it was Me vs. Me: the Old Me against the New Me. I had a choice to make: was I going to choose to follow Him, or was I going to choose to live for myself? I had to decide which things I really wanted, a girlfriend, a car, a life of fun in sin, or what He promised, the incomparable sweetness of communion with Him, the provision of all my needs in due time, lasting and meaningful pleasure. I couldn’t have both it ways, I had to choose one or the other, and I spent two years sitting on the fence unable to decide.
I was still a dutiful son to my parents, followed their rules and worked in the family business, I still went to church and worked as an AWANA leader, but I was cussing when around people who didn’t care, I used pornography, I went to good Christian school that forbade drinking and smoking, and I directly violated the contract I signed saying I wouldn’t partake in their use. I didn’t really run off whole-heartedly into sin but neither did I really seek God, and as living a lie always does, it really started to hurt.
The application is, I hope, obvious: we are all faced with this choice. As college students finally out from underneath our parents’ protective umbrella most of us are faced with this choice more pointedly than ever before. I’m not saying smoking cigars or drinking alcohol are inherently sinful activities and I’m certainly not saying girlfriends or cars are bad either, I don’t know what it is in your life that is an idol for you, what issues you struggle with; I simply present my story as an encouragement.
I can tell you first hand that the things of the world become empty and contemptible very quickly, and that nothing can compare to the amazing richness of a life lived in actively pursuing God. Choose Him and you will never regret it.
"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 (KJV)
~ Andrew J. Goggans
"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:8
- add Go Play With Fire!
My Dad: A Renessiance Man
I remember what it was I was going to post about: my Dad. A thrity min nap, a shower, and a meal will do amazing things for a tired body and soul!
While I was in the shower I was thinking about Star Wars (no big suprise there since I just picked up the New Jedi Order series again) and it reminded me of when I was explaining what I had been reading in the books and how they were challenging my thinking to my father, which made me remember that on the same day I was talking to him about the book Frankenstein and the life of its author. That got us into a discusion of the histroy of the era and the philosophical ideals that shaped it and still influence our culture to day. So in the middle of talking about the literary devices used in Frankinstein and the influences on Shelly as she wrote it, (her own life experiences, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Milton's Paradise Lost) my dad was struck by the Irony of the situation.
There we were having this discussion, while on a construction site fighting with a stuborn piece of vacuum pipe, and he just stopped what he was doing and said, "Y'know, not to brag, but I don't think very many other construction workers talk about philosophy and literary classics while on the job, do you?"
Thinking back on some of the many crazy, pointless, and down right disgusting conversations I've heard over the years I simply answered, "No, not so much."
I am not in any way trying to demean construction workers at all, most are hard working honest men, and there are many very inteligent poeple who work construction. But I have to say that there is something unusual about us, or more importantly about my father because I learned the habit from him.
My dad is a giant sponge, always seeking new ways to learn new things. Like many people of his generation my father never went to college but went straight to work after high school and started raising a family but he has (in my oppinion) more than made up for never attending a formal school by his constant desire to learn. Always seeking out good books or articles to read, and taking every opportunity to watch TV shows such as Nova, Natue, and history documentaries, my dad is a true renessiance man who has vast stores of knowledge about science (he built his own laser in high school), forestry and wildlife management, and computers, car mechanics, and (of course after working construction his whole life) home building. He can descuss religion, theology, and philosophy as well as almost any of my proffessors here at Bryan and knows the Bible better than some pastors I've met.
Why? Because of his love of learning. Because of his desire to know his Creator better by learning about every aspect of Creation. With a humble heart he will gladly let his children teach him about the things they have learned in college, soak it all up, roll it over in his mind, compare it to scripture, and find useful applications to his daily walk with God.
Teaching by example he has inspired all his children with that same spirit of life long learning ensuring that we never become stagnant but always continue to grow both mentally and spiritual.
That is the greatest gift he has ever given me, and that is why he is my hero.
While I was in the shower I was thinking about Star Wars (no big suprise there since I just picked up the New Jedi Order series again) and it reminded me of when I was explaining what I had been reading in the books and how they were challenging my thinking to my father, which made me remember that on the same day I was talking to him about the book Frankenstein and the life of its author. That got us into a discusion of the histroy of the era and the philosophical ideals that shaped it and still influence our culture to day. So in the middle of talking about the literary devices used in Frankinstein and the influences on Shelly as she wrote it, (her own life experiences, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Milton's Paradise Lost) my dad was struck by the Irony of the situation.
There we were having this discussion, while on a construction site fighting with a stuborn piece of vacuum pipe, and he just stopped what he was doing and said, "Y'know, not to brag, but I don't think very many other construction workers talk about philosophy and literary classics while on the job, do you?"
Thinking back on some of the many crazy, pointless, and down right disgusting conversations I've heard over the years I simply answered, "No, not so much."
I am not in any way trying to demean construction workers at all, most are hard working honest men, and there are many very inteligent poeple who work construction. But I have to say that there is something unusual about us, or more importantly about my father because I learned the habit from him.
My dad is a giant sponge, always seeking new ways to learn new things. Like many people of his generation my father never went to college but went straight to work after high school and started raising a family but he has (in my oppinion) more than made up for never attending a formal school by his constant desire to learn. Always seeking out good books or articles to read, and taking every opportunity to watch TV shows such as Nova, Natue, and history documentaries, my dad is a true renessiance man who has vast stores of knowledge about science (he built his own laser in high school), forestry and wildlife management, and computers, car mechanics, and (of course after working construction his whole life) home building. He can descuss religion, theology, and philosophy as well as almost any of my proffessors here at Bryan and knows the Bible better than some pastors I've met.
Why? Because of his love of learning. Because of his desire to know his Creator better by learning about every aspect of Creation. With a humble heart he will gladly let his children teach him about the things they have learned in college, soak it all up, roll it over in his mind, compare it to scripture, and find useful applications to his daily walk with God.
Teaching by example he has inspired all his children with that same spirit of life long learning ensuring that we never become stagnant but always continue to grow both mentally and spiritual.
That is the greatest gift he has ever given me, and that is why he is my hero.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
