The more I realize that I know nothing, the more in love I fall with God. I don’t know if it’s the idea that there is this divine presence out there that has all the answers, or if it’s that God simply just makes me comfortable in my boxed little mind, but either way, I’m strengthened despite my ignorance.

I got pretty depressed a few months ago, thinking about how there doesn’t seem to be any more mysteries in life. We know what the entire world looks like. We are able to see the smallest particles, and the particles of particles, pretty much as small as they come. We know we are in a universe that seems to be expanding, even in its indefiniteness… There are very few stones left unturned…

But the things that haven’t been discovered yet are the discoverable. How can we possibly see an end to the universe? How many trillions upon trillions of stars and planets have yet to be seen by human eyes?

And God is the biggest mystery of all… after all, he created an entire universe full of mystery… yet, many claim to have him pinpointed to a single theology. But God can work in so many different ways- ways beyond our understanding- ways beyond our comprehension.

Sure, there are things I believe about God. I believe God became man. I believe that God is personal. I believe that God is triune. I believe that God saves human kind… but I don’t think that’s it. There is so much more to be discovered about God. I believe in the authority of scripture, but clearly, such a small book can not fully define our God who is Father, Son, and Spirit- all while being one God– A God who is dramatic and unpredictable– A God who knows each human being on a deep personal level, and loves us enough to make a way to be with him once more… This God I worship… He can’t be defined. The Methodists, the Lutherans, the Catholics, the Anglicans, and whatever denomination there is out of over 40,000 out there, none of us can know everything there is to know about God. None of us know the way he works. If scripture teaches us anything, it’s that God is unpredictable… because His ways are not our own.

I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that.

Maybe one day I’ll know what God knows… But doesn’t the mystery make life so much more enjoyable?

Tonight, my wife and I are going to Cincinnati tonight to see Jimmy Eat World. We will enjoy it.

In the mean time, enjoy this!

Aren’t they great?

Rock stars have it good. I mean, besides all the money, chicks, and cocaine.

A few years ago, I lived about an hour away from my school. Because I was so close, every now and then, I would make a commute back home to see my family and friends, or just to help out with some church events.

One time, I came home to help my church with their annual cookie bake. This event is one of those crazy Youth “all-nighters”. I took full advantage of this knowledge and asked my two best friends, Jake and Joel (they are twins, just to give you some sort of visual), to come home with me to help out with this event. They agreed, but had things to do the next day, so they were a little reluctant. I told them I would drive them to Celina and back to Fort Wayne if they’d come with me. They were happy to come along.

So we spent about 8 hours in Celina, when I asked if they were ready to go home. They said yes, after all, it was 1am.

I was still planning on going back to Celina that night, so I wanted to get to Fort Wayne and back to Celina as quickly as I possibly could, so much so that I was driving 87 mph in a 60 most of the way.

That’s when we were pulled over.

The highway patrolman was very polite and asked if I knew how fast I was going.

“Yes sir. 85 mph.”
“Actually, I clocked you at about 87. Why do you think you need to go so fast?”
“I’m just in a hurry to get back home, sir. I apologize.”
“That’s fine. Can I see your license and registration, please?”

He also asked to see Jake and Joel’s ID’s. We all handed him our licenses and he walked back to his car to pull up our information.

Joel, who was in the passenger seat, turned to me and said with a smirk, “87 in a 60? That’s reckless Op! Haha!”
“Yeah… I’m gonna get it big time” I said.

After a good 5 minutes or so, the patrolman came back and handed our ID’s back to us. As he was handing them back to both Jake and Joel, he asked the following:

“Hey now, are you guys in a band by any chance?”

Jake and Joel were in a band. They were called Bluff Cheque, where Joel was the lead singer and lead guitarist, Jake was bass and microcorg, their older brother, who played drums, and another friend who sang back up and played rhythm guitar. I wasn’t in the band.

Joel answered, “Yes sir, we are.”

“I knew it! You guys played at my daughter’s school a couple weeks ago, and I chaperoned. You did great. Thank you.”

He looked at me and said, ” You’re lucky. You just got out of a speeding ticket today!”
“Thank you, sir!”

The cop went back to his car, and in my car, there was a collective sigh of relief… followed by rounds of laughter and amazement that we were treated like rock stars. A local band and their best friend made a cop star-struck!

I really liked the feeling.

That same year, our school had an “airband” competition. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a competition involving air instruments and lip-syncing. Some friends of mine (including Jake and Joel) and I decided to do it. We chose to do the song “Calculus” by the satirical boy-band, 2gether. We decided to call ourselves “High Five”. After we auditioned, word got around quickly that we had a good act (we went to a very small college).

The next night, we went to our school’s arts and music building where the competition was being held. We were among the last of the acts to show up. When we entered the room, we were surprised at the amount of cheering we got. Someone yelled, “Woo! High Five!” and many other were calling out “Woo!” and “Alright!” Five girls even got together and made shirts in support of our airband. That year, I really felt like a rock star.

Here are a couple pictures from that night. Poor quality, but whatever. We’re still rock stars.

In the picture on top- from left to right: Chris (The “older brother”), Jimmy (that’s me- the “Bad boy”), Joel (the “heart throb”), Jake (the “shy one”), and Zach (the “baby” in the group). We tried to make them as accurate to ourselves as possible… even though I’m not exactly a “bad boy”, I probably fit the description the best….

The picture on the bottom is us with four of the five girls who made t-shirts specifically for our airband.

And the event also produced this poor quality video



Oh yeah… and we won the competition that night.

That’s right… I’m a rock star.

A Zamboni Driver!

… at least is will be a good retirement job.

Ok, everyone… I know you’ll just laugh at me. Nobody believes me… and honestly, if someone told me the same thing, I wouldn’t believe them either. Despite what others may say about this, it is my blog, and I should be able to get this off my chest if I want.

Ok… here it is…

Every morning for the past week, I’ve been waking up to the same day, playing out the same scenarios. No one else seems to notice this, and I have no idea why. Why does this have to be happening to me? I’ve tried to get out of this many many times, but without fail, I wake up every morning to find out it’s February 2nd… Groundhog Day. Apparently, there is nothing I can do about this situation. No one believes me anyway… Why doesn’t anyone else notice this?

Oh well… Let’s hope that Punxsutawny Phil won’t see it’s shadow. I know what will happen, but I can’t tell you. What I can tell you is that we will have 6 more weeks of winter.

Please, no trolling.

I don’t really like to get into this because this is where we are lacking a great deal of hindsight. But I was curious what you think.

When it comes to pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, and all of these different theories on how Jesus will return and bring us back into harmony with God, I stay pretty neutral. The book of Revelation is hard to decipher as it is, but I think we tend to either over-complicate it, or just blow it off altogether. Anyway, I learned this view from Dr. Wes Gerig, a very credentialed and experienced biblical scholar at Taylor University Fort Wayne. I’m not saying I agree with it. I just want some opinions on it.

Here is a picture of what Post-Trib looks like. This is from the notes of Dr. Wes Gerig

1. The beginning of the seven-year tribulation period. (Dan. 9:24,27)

2. The revelation of the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist, at the mid-point of the 7 years. (Dan. 9:27; Matt. 24:15; Rev. 12:7-17)   (666- Rev. 13:16-18, 14:9-12)

3. The terrible suffering of the church at the hands of the Antichrist. (Matt. 24:9-12, 15-28; Rev. 7:9-17; and others)

4. The wrath of God poured out on this world with only unbelievers suffering. (Rev. 16)

5. The convulsions in the heavens. (Matt. 24:29,30; Luke 21:25-27; Rev. 6:12-17; 16:17-21)

6. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST TO THIS EARTH (THE REVELATION) (Matt. 24:30,31; II Thess. 2:1ff., Rev. 11:15; 19:11-16)

• The hope of the Christian- Titus 2:14
• The consummation of the age- Matt. 24:3,6,14; 28:20
• The Day of the Lord- II Peter 3:10
• The Day- Heb. 10:25
• The Parousia (the coming of our Lord)- II Thess. 2:1

7. The Rapture of the Christians in the first resurrection. (Rev. 20:4-6; Matt. 24:31, 37-41; I Cor. 15:51-57; I Thess. 4:13-17; II Thess. 2:1)

8. The defeat of the armies in the battle of Armageddon by Christ’s spoken word. (Rev. 16:13-16; 19:17-19,21)

9. The casting of the Antichrist and false prophet into Gehenna (Rev. 19:20)

10. The binding of Satan in the abyss (Sheol [Hebrew], Hades [Greek]). (Rom. 10:7) See Luke 16:19-31

11. The marriage supper of the Lamb here on earth (Compare Rev. 19:7-9; Matt. 25:1-13)

12. The rewarding of the believers’ works at the judgment seat of Christ or “The Bema Judgment” (II Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10; compare I Cor. 3:12-15)

13. The millenial reign of Christ with His Church here on earth (Rev. 12:5; 19:15,16; 20:4; I Cor. 15:23-28)

14. The loosing of Satan from the abyss (Rev. 20:8)

15. The deceiving of the nations by Satan (Rev. 20:8)

16. The “war” against Satan and the nations brought to an end by fire from heaven. (Rev. 20:9)

17. The casting of Satan into Gehenna or “The Lake of fire” (Rev. 20:10)

18. The resurrection of all the unsaved in the “second” resurrection (Rev. 20:12)

19. The great white throne judgment (Rev. 20:11-14)

• See Rom. 2:5 where the purpose of the great white throne is given as “a revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
• See Heb. 9:27 which says that the real judgment of people comes immediately after death, when people are assigned right then either to heaven or hades, waiting Gehenna.

20. The casting of all unbelievers into Gehenna, “the lake of fire,” the second death. (Rev. 20:15)

21. The new heavens and the new earth in which dwells righteousness for all eternity (Rev. 21, 22)

Any thoughts?

“The truth of the Christian message hinges not on the inerrancy of Scripture or on our ability to hamonize the four Gospels but on the resurrection of Jesus. And the historical relaibilty of the Gospels does not hinge on the inerrancy of Scripture or on proof that no mistake of any kind can be detected in them.“- Fabricating Jesus pg. 31

Any thoughts on the inerrancy of Scripture?

Many people like to equate the two. Some would say that Christianity brings forth happiness. Others say that if you become a Christian, you won’t have a care in the world therefore, you can live a happy life.

These are lies… and I really wonder where some people come up with these to begin with. Certainly, Paul wasn’t happy when he was about to be beheaded. I doubt that Peter was just dandy when he was hanging on the cross upside down. I imagine they were scared. I imagine they were upset. And there is nothing wrong with that, even if the cause they were dying for was the most noble cause of all.

There is nothing wrong with happiness either. Happiness is a good thing, but ultimately, not the goal of life. I could say the same about every emotion, including contentment. All emotions are good, but if we are living for emotion, we certainly aren’t living for God.

Jesus never promised anyone they would be happy if they’d follow him. He did give us a list of ways we could be blessed, and he told us and showed us how to do some really good things, but in Christianity, your personal feelings aren’t what matters. It’s the feelings of others we are to care for. We are to put ourselves last, and as Jesus says, the last will be exalted. But it’s important to remember that we don’t put ourselves last so that we’d be exalted. We put ourselves last because caring for our brothers, sisters, neighbors, and enemies is the right thing to do.

In time, this will bring forth joy, but happiness and joy are two different things. Happiness is a simple emotion. Joy is a lifestyle brought forth through discipline… not just the simple fact that we’ve given our hearts to Jesus.

All in all, it seems to me that if Christians are using happiness as a lure to get others into the Church, both the converter and the converted will sorely be disappointed when they come across a tragedy sooner or later in life.

Don’t live for happiness. Live for God, who will bring you out of any situation where happiness is missing.