Tag Archives: Scripture

I’d Like To Take A Minute, Just Sit Right There…

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Spoiler Alert: this will not be a story about how I became the prince of BelAir, or have anything to to with that. So if you now have that song stuck into your head, I am not sorry, it’s a great jam. Go enjoy it here in its entirety.
Fresh Prince of Bel Air

Late in my high school career I was introduced to the band Nickel Creek. They are a wonderful folksy band with a banjo. I am such a sucker when it comes to banjos. Unfortunately not long after my introduction they decided to stop playing for a little while. I was bummed and consoled myself by listening to their songs on repeat. One song in particular I listened to constantly was Doubting Thomas. It was a smooth song that just seemed to strike a chord deep down in my soul. Eventually Nickel Creek and Doubting Thomas slipped away into the nebulous realm of nostalgia. Until a couple of weeks ago.

During the process of moving some music around from computer to external hard drive I stumbled upon a folder labeled “Summer 2004.” When opened I immediately fell into the world of that bygone summer and once again was captivated by this little song.

I don’t know if you know the story of Thomas, but I personally think he gets a bad rap. He will perpetually be known as “Doubting Thomas” for his lapse in faith, but I would like to call attention to some of his other deeds, the few that scripture give us.

In the narrative of the death of Lazarus in John 11, we hear about the death of Lazarus a friend of Christ whom he loved. In the naïveté or ignorance of the disciples they try to tell Jesus that he shouldn’t go back to Judea to see Lazarus. Once they learn that Lazarus is not asleep as Christ first said (a metaphor they didn’t get) but rather dead it is in that moment we see the courage and love of Thomas when he says in verse 16,

“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Now I am not sure about you but as previously stated. I think this show tremendous courage and trust in Christ’s plan. Which we later learn is to raise Lazarus from the dead, so that they might understand the true power of God, as well as to foreshadow Christ’s own resurrection.

When we again meet Thomas in scripture it is after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and this is pivotal to his story and reputation. Remember what he said about Lazarus? He has seemingly lost that courage and confidence he previously held, and honestly wouldn’t you? If your dear friend and mentor had been brutally tortured and killed out of cowardice and fright, wouldn’t you be distraught?

When Christ appears to his disciples the first time post-resurrection Thomas isn’t there. And he doesn’t believe them when they tell him about it. In fact he says he needs to see the marks on his hands and wound in his side before he’ll believe it. Even after he had witnessed the miracles of Christ, there is only so much logic, reason, and faith the brain can sustain when one grieves for the loss of a loved one.

When Christ appears again he shows his wounds and scars to Thomas, it is in that moment that Thomas falls to his knees and gives us one of the greatest prayers when he says,

“My Lord, and my God.” Jn 20:28

Christ continues with a gentle chastisement about true faith, to believe without seeing, as a lesson for future generations.

All it takes is but a moment for Thomas to forever be remembered as a doubter. However when you look at the whole picture we see him as he truly is an example for us all to learn from, in his courage, his doubt, and his prayer.

I leave you with this verse from Nickel Creek, a good reminder of how small and human we all feel, and it is in those moments we need faith the most.

Please give me time to decipher the signs. Please forgive me for the time that I’ve wasted. I’m a Doubting Thomas, I’ll take your promise, though I know nothing’s safe. Oh my of little faith.

Give the whole song a listen here. Listen and love my friends, listen and love.

Landshark

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Growing up I had an overwhelmingly vivid and overactive imagination, the only time that this became a problem was when I was going to bed…or to a lake…or to the ocean. 

We’ll get to the lakes and ocean later, but when it came to bed time, there were a few bedtime rituals that had to be adhered to. 

1.) Closet doors completely shut…no cracks allowed.

2.) Everything cleared out from under my bed and a 5 foot radius around my bed.

3.) Night prayers…I couldn’t go to sleep until my mom or dad had come in to hear my night prayers. 

The reason for all of these rules, was fairly simple. Monsters. I don’t really know what they were supposed to look like, but I knew that they were up to no good, and they all but relished the thought of my paralyzing fear. I’m not entirely sure where they were coming from, but I also knew that they could get in through the closet, but they couldn’t enter the sanctity of my room if the doors were shut, they just had to stay in the closet all night. (Which now that I think about it, isn’t such a bad deal…I had all sorts of awesome in my closet, those monsters probably had a blast spending every night playing with my Disney Farm, and be-headed Barbies).  

The bed thing was different…I just didn’t like the idea of having anything around my bed, that I could step on in the middle of the night…and when I did wake up in the middle of the night I would stand on the end of my bed and then jump as far away from the bed as possible, you know just in case one of those closet monsters was sneakier than I knew. Finally the prayers were just a comfort to know that my parents were there for me, and would be all night, and so would Jesus. 

Now when it comes to bodies of water I was afraid of all sorts of things, but especially sharks. I mean seriously have you seen some of the marine life that exists? Terrifying. It didn’t help that my brothers thought it was funny to pull me under the water when we were swimming, or to yell “Shark!” just as I was jumping in. Fear of sharks is fairly rational, they’re scary. What’s irrational about this was I was afraid of sharks in all bodies of water…yes even swimming pools. 

My brother use to tell me that when he would yell, “shark!” I would immediately try to get out of the water, and I hadn’t even touched it yet, apparently it was the most cartoonish I’ve ever looked. 

Thankfully I’ve outgrown the closet thing, and the bed thing (under the bed is important storage space, especially in a college dorm room). I still have a fear of large bodies of water, I still freak out when someone swims up underneath me and pulls me under, which some of my former summer camp co-workers can attest to first hand. (I am not sorry for the bruised faces and bloody noses).

Talking with my roommate about these childhood fears, I had a realization, how did I ever become afraid of monsters in the closet? It’s not like my parents put me to bed as a child and told me to not open the closet or the monsters would suck me back into their circle of hell. So how is it that seemingly all children have some innate fear of the dark, and the monsters that lurk in the shadows?  Is it human nature to fear darkness and the things that can hide there? Is this fear something that is ingrained into our DNA? Can we escape it?

We seem to spend a lot of time fearing things that are inevitable, such as change, we cannot stop change from happening. Sorry team. It’s not possible. But the things we fear as children, like monsters and the dark, we tend to outgrow. Or maybe a better way to say it, is that our fears evolve to suit our maturity. 

Fear is a natural part of life. We should have a healthy fear of certain things. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is Fear of the Lord, but not so much in a way that we may fear a spider, or for drastic measure, a serial killer, but more so to be in awe of God’s power. Because the things He can do, should illicit a reaction that is nothing short of jaw-dropping-loss-of-speech awe, and naturally that should also scare us a bit, simply because we cannot begin to wrap our heads around all of His power and mystery. And that is a beautiful thing.

Scripture is filled with different verses about darkness, and Christ being the light of the world (for example check our John 9:5), and most prominently the words “Do not be afraid” appear 365 times in the Bible (that’s basically one for every day of the year-I say basically because we all know that a year is technically 365.25 days) We’re not supposed to fear the monsters that lurk in our closets or in the shadows, because we know that Christ conquers all, but just because we’re not supposed to be afraid, doesn’t mean we aren’t and shouldn’t be wary of what is out there. We know the devil exists, we know he plays on our fears, we know that there is some force of evil in this world that seeks our destruction. AND we as Christians know that evil is fighting a battle that has already been lost. (Hello crucifixion and resurrection)

You might be reading this and thinking, we don’t KNOW any of those things you just stated about evil, but I would ask you to go to the nearest website that shows movie trailers and take a look at the most recent and popular trailers. I bet you see at least 5 trailers for horror movies that deal with the supernatural, and there are at least two of those that talk about some sort of demonic possession. We as a culture are fixated on evil, but that is a conversation for another time. But I do believe society as a whole embraces the idea of evil being present in our world in some way or other. 

As long as we face our fears, and do not let them control us, and we always remember the words of Christ. Our fears cannot conquer us, we will conquer them. 365 days a year, wake up and say it in the mirror and mean it, “Do not be afraid.”

But seriously this is a real thing…Who wouldn’t be afraid of this?

Image

This is not an April Fools joke…read about it here 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070124-sharks-photo.html