3 Months

I guess I just have nothing to say... or at least no time to say it. Maybe soon...

Christmas

As you no doubt have noticed, the rush of Christmas is here.

For me, this time of year brings about a dozen special concerts, performances, and worship services, which means additional planning meetings, late-night rehearsals, extra e-mails and phone calls coordinating musicians and their holiday traveling schedules, special music to learn, charts to prepare, and creative components to implement and execute. For most of us there are end-of-the-year meetings and Christmas parties happening almost every night. Some stack on top of that final exams, final papers, and final decisions about next year: classes to register for, budgets to turn in, and resolutions to be made about spending more time with family. We all go Christmas shopping for other people's Christmas lists and still manage to pick up what's needed for our own Christmas decorating for hosting our Christmas meals, all of which is fueled by our favorite Christmas coffee- coffee that requires a deeper (Christmas) mug with each door opened on the Advent calendar- the calendar that reminds us that although Christmas is "only" 7 days away, those 7 days will actually feel like one really long day when it's all said and done, just like October and November did.

But I'll stop there before this makes us even more weary. Here's the advice I'm giving myself, maybe you'll find it helpful too:

It's going to be a crazy week- it will help a lot if you can just accept that now.

These will be loooong days with little sleep. Pour another cup of Santa's White Christmas and smile because pretty soon you'll be on vacation at the beach with a book you've always wanted to read but couldn't because of all the books you had to read. And don't turn your cell phone on silent, that's not even close to good enough. Drop that stupid thing in the junk drawer at home and leave it a million miles behind- along with the notion that you might be "needed" while you're away. No one needs you. Go on vacation and be on vacation.

Finally, although it can't be said without stepping into a cliche, don't forget that super-human productivity is not what you were created for. No matter how many flocks of sheep you're tending right now, so to speak, or how many miles away you may feel, remember that the Light of the World is there in the dark, noisy, and far-too-overcrowded manger of your heart and He wants your worship more than your work.

God, give us grace to put no confidence in the flesh and to be satisfied in your spiritual rest.

Pregnancy, 11 Weeks

Here's an update of what our baby looks like this week! It's not our actual ultrasound, but it's representative of what our looks like. No offense, it's just that I'm still a little uncomfortable posting my wife's uterus online for the world to examine.

Our God reigns. Stand in awe of the work of his hands.

Miracle

My wife and I have been praying for over 3 years that the Lord would bless us with a family. Various health complications kept us from being able to get pregnant, and our doctors have been saying that it wouldn't happen without the aid of a miracle drug. Not that there's anything wrong with medicine (and given enough time, we may have considered those alternatives) but something about calling a drug a "miracle" doesn't sit right with me. We chose instead to wait and pray.

Today we're six weeks and five days pregnant. We got the ultrasound done yesterday. The picture above is a baby in the sixth week of development. I didn't have the ability to scan our actual ultrasound picture, so I ripped this one off google images, but it's almost identical to the picture we have on the fridge of our own little less-than-one-centimeter baby. The amazing thing is that even at this early stage, we could clearly see (with the doctor's pointing finger) the little guy's heartbeat (or, maybe girl's heartbeat).

The miracle we want to point to at the end of these seasons of drought isn't a breakthrough in medicine, it's the One who gives and takes away. If our lives, our getting pregnant or not getting pregnant, can somehow point to the real Miracle Maker, then we'll stand in awe of Him and be satisfied.

Medicine's great... but... this is a true miracle.

Evolution is Evolving

Not so long ago, brilliant physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, and biologists were discovering some of the most critical scientific laws of the natural world: universal gravitation, the laws of thermodynamics, planetary motion, and taxonomy- and none of them professed a faith in evolution. In fact, many of them believed in the Creator God of the Bible: Kepler (planetary motion), Pascal (mathematics), Boyle (chemistry), Newton (physics), and Linnaeus (biological taxonomy). Evolution took off just a little over 100 years ago, but these men in the 16/1700's were clearly not at a disadvantage, nor are any of their theories or laws any less relevant today because of the development of this relatively-new faith.

And faith is really what evolution boils down to. A scientific "theory" by definition is something that makes a grand prediction based on evidence that has been tested, repeated, and observed. Despite what evolutionists want you to believe (again, a key word), their own "scientific theory" is far from meeting these most basic scientific requirements. Furthermore, when evolution is used to explain not just the biological world but the big three questions of life (How did I get here? Why am I here? Where am I going?)- particularly these last two- then it is no longer operating in the realm of science but of philosophy. And that's a problem for a lot of really significant reasons.

First of all, that's not what science was ever meant to do. That science is now casting predictions and theories beyond the realm of nature will have dire consequences in the near future (did I just use the word "dire"?). Observing the chemical makeup of a star is one thing; telling us that because the star is 10 billion light years away, we see it, therefore the universe is at least 10 billion years old, therefore the Bible is false, therefore there is no God, therefore... well that's quite a different system from science altogether.

Second, the idea that evolution should explain belief is a contradiction in terms. You don't explain beliefs; that's what makes them beliefs. I can give you astounding evidence for the Creator God of the Bible, but I don't expect that will make you believe (as telling as the evidence is). Belief is not a realm of understanding; it's a matter of faith.

While there's a lot more to say, as I've been trying to sort through this issue lately, the bottom line seems to be this: evolution is not a theory, it's an alternate faith- a faith in a world without God. The faith of evolution gives naturalists (again, a philosophy) a "way out" from the God problem ("God delusion," as leading atheist/evolutionist Richard Dawkins called it). Dawkins is famously quoted saying, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." In other words, science has found a way to explain- intellectually- all the things that centuries of brilliant men (i.e. Newton, Pascal) understood to be acts of a Divine Intellect in a great, foreseeing Creator. In his book, The Blind Watchmaker, he says, "Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders... Modern theologians of any sophistication have given up believing in instantaneous creation... The one thing that makes evolution such a neat theory is that it explains how organized complexity can arise out of primeval simplicity." (Dawkins, 450-451)

Evolution is evolving from a scientific theory to an all-encompassing worldview that requires faith in evidences unseen... that sounds a lot like a religion to me, and considering the repercussions of that are a little bit scary.

Dr. Gage's Blog

I added a new blog to the sidebar that you might be interested in checking out.  It's a new website by Dr. Warren Gage, one of my professors at Knox.  

Hope Can Hurt

This was one of those perfect journaling mornings; when I wake up feeling a little melancholy, I get a dose of sunshine from a happy wife's happy greeting, I get in the car and hear the song I carefully cued last night to be the soundtrack for this morning's drive ("Your Love is Strong" by Jon Foreman), and I sing along with a bleary throat and with my tear-filled eyes fixed on the sunrise over my hood.  But, unfortunately, at that moment when I realized "this is a journal morning" it was too late- I had already left it at home.  So, if you don't mind the transparency, I need a journal this morning...

What I didn't tell you about my melancholy morning is that it began with a melancholy evening.  

My good friend (and yours) Dan just got engaged this past weekend to an absolute sweetheart.  Dan and his fiance were here in town last night to celebrate with family, so I was honored with a chance to see them for the first time in a while.  You know those friends who leave and then come back- when you're hanging out, it's like they never left.  Talking and laughing is just so... normal... and right.  Everything's back in place it seems, and for a while you forget what life was like missing him, if only for a couple hours at his engagement party.  

At one point I went to the restroom (don't worry, the rest of this sentence won't be so creepy) and had a sort of deja vu/reflective moment (okay, maybe that's creepy afterall).  But the point is that I closed the door to the restroom and suddenly remembered being 13, closing that very bathroom door for the first time.  The familiar loud creaks of the wood floors, the nostalgic smell of the house, and the voices of my "family" in the other room.  It's not my home.  But it felt like home to me.  

Returning to the party and seeing Dan there, I half expected to be returning to a game of Mario Cart or continuing the ongoing game, "Dan do the raptor!"  But the "grown up" Dan is laughing with his bride-to-be... and I couldn't be happier for him.  

As it came time to say goodnight, the happy forgetfulness of what life was like without him slowly began to drop like a smile.  As I made the rounds of hugs and handshakes and walked out to my car, I felt like a kid running away from home.  Like I had to make a purposeful choice to tear the normalcy from my own grip and leave it behind for the sake of the call forward.  I guess it's not that unlike ministry, or any area of calling; I want to feel safe like I'm home and never take another risk.  But God's not finished with Dan and Christina in CA yet- and he's not done teaching me perseverance yet either.  So, for the sake of that call forward, we said goodbye.

There's a certain hope in melancholy days.  I can't speak for others, but it always seems to rear its head in the midst of the happiest times, like my good friend Dan's visit home.  It's not sadness; it's painful hope for what's to come.