Barney Wiget's Blog, page 44

Live While Alive

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God doesn’t usually hand out due dates and deadlines. He doesn’t tell us how much time we have to finish our work here on his earth. I guess he expects us to live responsibly, sensibly, and obediently all the time. We don’t know when our final performance review is scheduled, so if we’re wise we make every effort to stay on task.

Someday the Teacher will say, “Time’s up. Turn in your project, as is.”

David Brainerd wrote in his journal, “Oh, that I might never loiter on my heavenly journey!”

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

From the Heart to the Heart

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There’s no doubt that apologetics helps some people overcome intellectual barriers to faith, but it’s my experience that the most formidable wall is in the will rather than in the head. My suggestion then is to speak to their spoken and unspoken questions. When we respond with our life of faith instead of memorized clichés, and open ourselves and our honest struggles to our friends, we’re showing them the gospel at work.

The artful witness wants to speak to the heart and the head. Realizing that some things can’t be cognitively detected but must be spiritually discerned s/he, in order to increase their chances of getting to the heart of matter, will look to the Spirit to help them see beneath the surface.

When we speak from the heart to the heart it’s called “discernment.” We cultivate discernment when we’re willing to download less and listen more (to others and to the Spirit).

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Love Drew Me

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I usually lean away from an information-heavy witness. Not that many people are moved to faith by a four-step bullet-point proof for Intelligent Design or rhyming sermon points that promise a “blessed life.” Our culture is glutted with slick pitches everywhere else and my guess is that most people are more interested in connecting with the eternal and living meaningful lives.

Of all people, the apologist and author of the classic work, Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Josh McDowell said, “The evidences did not bring me to Christ. The evidences got my attention, but it was God’s love that drew me. It was the love I saw between a group of genuine believers who loved not only Jesus Christ but also each other––and even me! The evidence got my attention, but love drew me.”

Propositional answers to sincere questions can be very helpful at times, but it seems to me that most people (especially postmodern generations) want answers that are personal and grounded in real-life experience. They’re not usually looking for, or particularly receptive to, philosophically satisfying answers. They want to know if we’re for real and if our faith makes an actual difference in real life situations.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Wait, what did he just say?

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Not to kick a guy when he’s down, but did anyone else watch the president’s post-election press conference? I couldn’t tell if I’d tuned in to an MMA bout or an episode of “Drunk History.” For example, just take this one exchange wherein he was asked an important and relevant question, an answer for which someone could’ve put on a 3 by 5 card for him to read. Here’s the question:

“What about healing the divides in this country?” You ready for his answer?

“Well, we want to see it healed. And one of the things I think can help heal is the success of our country. We are really successful now.”

So far so weird, right? We’re going to heal the nation’s divides by financial success? Make more money. Is that his solution to every problem? The Beatles said it best: “All you need is MONEY!”

It gets weirder. You’re gonna need your thinking caps on for this one.

“We’ve gone up $11.7 trillion in worth . . . China has come down tremendously, tremendously. China would have superseded power; now they are not even close. China, I found it very insulting. I said it to them, China, 25 is very insulting. Twenty-five, they are going to take over economically, the world. I said that’s not happening. We’ve gone way up and they’ve gone down—I don’t want them to go down, we’ve had a good meeting and we will see what they can do. Millions of dollars will soon be pouring into our Treasury from taxes China is paying, and if you speak to Mr. Pillsbury, who is probably the leading authority on China, you know who else hasn’t? China hasn’t. We are going to try to make a deal with China, I want to have great relationships with President Xi, as I do, and also with China.”

Maybe it’s just me, but though I understand all the words, I have no idea how they relate to each other in any logical sequence. Plus, tell me again what taxes in China have to do with healing the divides in America? I know politicians do this when they don’t want to answer the question, but really?

I realize how hard it is to speak extemporaneously, but this is beyond the pale.

I’m purposely not even digging into how he berated the election losers from his own party, accused a black Haitian-born reporter of being “racist,” called the election results a “very close to complete victory,” yelled at another reporter calling him a “rude, terrible person” and his news company an “enemy of the people,” and claimed to have some secret solution to the abortion issue.

My point isn’t only to make fun of Mr. Trump’s performance in front of the cameras. I continue to believe, and believe that everyone else ought also to believe, that he is flagrantly unfit for the office of President of the United States. It’s not only his performance and persona, but his ideas and policies that I find revolting and unbiblical.

Before you say, “Pray for the man,” I do and I will. But he’s wearing me out, folks!

Shortly before her death, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote:

“The course of history is directed by the choices we make and our choices grow out of the ideas, the beliefs, the values, the dreams of the people. It is not so much the powerful leaders that determine our destiny as the much more powerful influence of the combined voice of the people themselves.”

If we really want America to be “great,” I believe we should combine our voices in opposition to this particular powerful leader and make sure this never happens to us again.

Donald Trump: The Great Respecter of Women?

[image error]over the last 35 years it will nauseate you. If it doesn’t, well, that says something about your view of women.]

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. Proverbs 31:10-11

Treat older women as mothers and younger women as sisters, in all purity. 1 Timothy 5:2

Ladies and gentlemen, the midterm elections tomorrow boil down to the validation or repudiation of President Trump, and not only his misogyny. It’s up to you to decide which you prefer to do.

 

Whose To-Do List Do We Do?

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“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.” Martin Luther King Jr. – the day before he was assassinated

In reality, everybody is terminal. Cancer reminds me to take full advantage of whatever time I have right in front of me and manage it wisely. The membrane between this world and the next is so thin it’s almost translucent. Before it tears I want to follow the Lord of both worlds as closely as I possibly can. On the other side, time doesn’t seem to be an issue, but over here clocks tick every second and calendar pages turn over every month.

When I was first diagnosed I worried about dying before my story was finished. I had, and still have, a number of things I want to achieve, people to reach, and chapters to live. It’s not so much the dying part that bothers me as living long enough and well enough to complete my story and complete it well. I believe that God will do his part to give me enough time to do everything he wants me to do. I may not have enough time to do everything on my to-do list, but I think I can still do what’s on his.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

Making Adjustments

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A few years ago the prospect of bouncing back from my losses seemed remote at best. But over time, my soul has begun to heal, and hope has steadily seeped back into my hoper. And while I continue to grieve the defeats, in the last few years, my grief, as a predominant sentiment, has diminished. As I sat in my car listening to the Beatles song, When I’m Sixty-Four*, drying a tear or two, I thanked God that it was indeed only one or two tears, and not the thousands I would have shed a few years before. I mused about what had changed and I realized that the Lord had helped me make a lot of adjustments over time.

… while I’m having to make some radical adjustments to my original plan, it calms me to know that he knows what I don’t know, knows a different destination that I don’t even know exists, and he knows how to get me there.

“If I don’t have red, I use blue.” Picasso

*Less than a couple weeks from now. Ouch!

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

Can Donald Trump Be Trusted and Does it Matter? (Part 3 of 3) By Barney Wiget

 

“Christian faith is about truth, and whenever you try to mix power and truth, power usually wins. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” Cal Thomas, vice president of the Moral Majority from 1980 to 1985 

“Within its proper bounds — confined to stunts on a desert island or in a fake boardroom — the ethos of reality television is relatively harmless. Transposed to the highest level of politics, it is deeply damaging.” Michael Gerson, served as President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006 and as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006

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Of all the things to which I object about our president, and these are innumerable, I object most to his dishonesty, his bald faced deceit in speeches, on Twitter, and interviews.

He expects us to accept his version of reality, and when we don’t, he lashes out and yells: “Fake news!”

I concluded Part 2 with Jesus’ claim to be “the Truth.” If it’s true that he’s the truth then he’s the Prototype, the beginning and the end of all that is true. Therefore, anything that coincides with Jesus is the truth. Conversely, that which is contrary to him can’t be true. And it’s my observation that our president’s ideas, policies, and lifestyle are utterly out of sync with Jesus. He is an expert purveyor of that which is untrue.

Knowing full well that “alternative facts” sink into our psyches only after numerous repetitions, Mr. Trump doesn’t simply conceive a lie one time. It reoccurs over and over in all available media until our minds glaze over and like automatons, we find ourselves buying whatever bull he’s downloading that day. “Repeated dishonesty,” says Neil Garrett, postdoctoral researcher at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, “is a bit like a perfume you apply over and over. At first you easily detect the powerful scent of a new perfume. But over time and with more applications you can hardly sense its presence, so you apply more liberally.”

READ ALSO: Hyperbole is the Worst Thing Ever!

Lies repeated with sufficient frequency are believed because they are convenient and reinforce prejudices. Mr. Trump repeated the crock that he had passed the “biggest tax cut in history” seventy-two times! Eight months into his presidency over seventy percent of registered Republican voters still doubted Obama’s American citizenship! Though he recanted later, he’d already said it so often that non-critical-thinking, bright-red-hat-donning rally goers will take it to the grave––Obama’s from Africa![image error]

The first lie ever told is recorded in the Bible’s first book, “You shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4) and the last chapter of the final book concludes with an indictment of liars, ones so immersed in the art, they “love and practice falsehood” (Revelation 22:15). Some people practice lying, but others love it! They’re frequent flyers on the Balderdash Airline. And from where I sit, our president has earned enough free miles to fly from here to Jupiter!

READ ALSO:

“President Donald Trump is a serial liar who appears to exult, if not take pride, in every petty deceit,” says Henry Giroux (named as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period by Routledge), “particularly if it casts him into the glare of publicity.” He can’t help himself. It’s an addiction, an obsession. “As the theatre of lies, insults, and childish petulance triumphs over measured arguments, a world emerges in which the only real choices are among competing fictions.”

It is the prerogative for people to believe what they want to believe. That’s why there are so many hucksters in the world. Many Americans want to believe the incessant bovine excrement that Mr. Trump shovels everyday and so they do. Someday they’ll realize they’re buried in it up to their noses.

Evangelical theologian Stanley Hauerwas said, “For anyone who has given himself to self-deception as constantly and continuously as Trump seems to, no amount of evidence will matter.” Naively I thought the tsunami of balderdash that dominated Mr. Trump’s campaign would taper off over time. Unfortunately it shows no sign of letting up and is even building. It continues to wash over the landscape piling up mud and sewage throughout.

“The coming destruction can never touch us, for we have built a strong refuge made of lies and deception.” Isaiah 28:15 (NLT)

That which gobbles up our president’s tall tales as though true is the same naiveté that imagines cheating death and dodging the grave. It makes sense that deceivers will be judged, but apparently the deceived aren’t let off the hook. Though they didn’t generate the lie, they swallowed it, and there’s a price to pay.

Like Isaiah cautioning his tribe against trusting fraudulent building materials, I felt compelled to tell what I consider to be the truth about lies, specifically the flood of lies that are spawned in the White House. Though I’ve been more blunt than usual, I can’t help but worry about my own tribe of Jesus followers who blindly trust the word of the untrustworthy man in that House.

READ ALSO: This article by Jim Wallis 

As I said in the beginning, politics is a dirty business and all politicians treat truth like it’s made of malleable clay. It’s like it’s part of their job description. But as Stephen Hayes, a FOX News Contributor and Editor in Chief of neo-conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, in reference to the president’s lying ways, said, “We should care about aggressive dishonesty.”

No more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself. Ephesians 4:25 (The Message)  

Losers Make Good Dancers

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You turned my mourning into dancing. Psalm 30: 11

If you ask me, a lot of Christians worship the idol of “Positivity.” They’re afraid to grieve and are self-medicating on happiness. Though I advocate no grim view of God or the practice of sour spirituality I just think that in our effort to avoid despondency, we have mislaid the healthy art of lamenting our losses. We pretend they’re not losses after all or that God’s perfect will is always done or that if we just wait long enough we’ll see the good in everything.

Mourning is nonnegotiable. It can’t be avoided in any life fully lived. The healthiest thing to do after losing something – and we all lose things – is to grieve. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge and grieve their losses – the small ones and the large – is drowning in a river of denial, and you can’t dance while drowning.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

The Good Legacy

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I want to live the rest of my time here in such a way that when I leave this place, it’s a little bit better of a place than it was before I got here. I don’t want people muttering under their breath at my funeral, “Don’t let the door hit you in the back!”

I figure if I really care about leaving a good legacy the least I can do is avoid leaving a bad one! Some professional athletes will be remembered more for their doping or their gambling than for what they accomplished on the field. In order to leave a good legacy I realize that I don’t have to do anything heroic; I just need to avoid doing anything horrific. Once in a while I’ll put a request in God’s suggestion box for an extra inning or two but mostly I just pray for his help to make the best of the inning I’m in.

Forty some years ago I decided to follow Jesus, and I intend to keep making that decision. At least I’ll try. I’ve been toying with an idea for an inscription on my headstone. “He tried.”

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).