Information Junkie

I am an information junkie. I want to know things. I want to understand what is happening in the world around me. I want to understand the past. I want to track the present. I am almost constantly seeking out knowledge, researching something. It's not all bad, but I believe that part of what drives me in this is my desire for control. On some level I believe that it is up to me to make sure I don't miss the good, or that I will be responsible if something preventable and bad happens.

It may sound crazy, but I think that if I understand the past and the present that I will be able to predict the future; not in a mystical sort of way, but by connecting the dots and seeing the big picture, seeing the trajectory of events. I still don't completely understand where this started in my heart or why I am compelled in this way, but I feel it deep in my soul. I don't want to be caught unaware, or flat footed. I want to be able to see threats and opportunities. I want to be competent. I want to be "on top of things". I want to make good decisions.

I believe that some of this is from God, a part of the way that He made me; however I think that it can also be twisted. I think part of it is fear based. Fear that I (or those I love) will be hurt if I fail to be vigilant. I'm afraid that something will happen that I could have, should have, foreseen. I am afraid that if I let down my guard, I will be taken advantage of, or I will become a victim of something that "I should have seen coming". On some level I seek to be God, and fail to trust Him. Even as I write this, I remember.

I remember being victimized. I remember a leader, a friend, who took advantage of me as a boy and who wounded me deeply. He was a leader in the church. I remember kicking myself (not literally) and condemning myself and my failure to see it coming. I remember vowing that I wouldn't be taken in again. I wouldn't be fooled again. It started back then. The tendency to try to peer past the surface of things, try to discern what is going on at a deeper level so that I can protect myself. Is even this a gift from God?

God says that He is working all things together for good. Is my propensity for research and reflection a gift from God? I think it is, but it is also, at least in part, a result of the abuse I suffered as a boy. Because of what happened there is a wounded part of me. A part that fails to believe that He really is in control or that He really is going to take good care of me. I wonder what it would look like for me to really trust Him. How might my ability to take in and analyze data be used by Him rather than being a tool of my fears or desires. What would this gift from Him look like if fully redeemed and set free?

Easter Reflections

I watched a man in a wheel chair take communion on Good Friday. As this man with severe disabilities (I assume he had cerebral palsy) passed me with his care givers on his way toward the communion elements I thought, "Man! He is going to enjoy heaven! There are no wheel chairs in heaven!"

Then as I sat there reflecting on what Christ endured on the cross and on the state of our world today it was like a penny dropping and a pattern emerged from the random thoughts and experiences of the last few weeks. The disparate and seemingly unrelated events and ideas were suddenly revealed to be an intricate pattern of information that can only be understood as communication. Like one of those dot pictures that you stare out waiting for the moment when it "pops" and you can see the 3D picture within. The dots don't change, the picture doesn't change, it was there the whole time. It's just that one minute it's a mass of confusion and the next minute it's a carefully crafted work of art.

Our world was created perfect. Man was created perfect in body and soul. We had perfect capacity for understanding and communicating with each other, the world around us, and God. Then, the world was marred. We ruined it. Now the world, and all of us are twisted. The vestiges of residual glory are still all around us, but we are not what we were or what we will be. Like the man in the wheel chair. He was clearly a man with hands and feet, face and hair, but nothing was working quite right. He is a glorious ruin, a shadow of what we were meant to be. But he will not always be that way. One day He will be free. One day he will be perfect.

Jesus was perfect. He was perfect in body and soul. The world He lived in was the same twisted one that we inhabit, but He was not twisted. Then, in the passion on Good Friday, He was twisted and marred. His perfect body was torn, rent by the various instruments of cruel torture. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. The perfect sinless One was made imperfect and sin-full for us. On the cross Jesus was made sin. He was forsaken by God. He experienced the hellishness of separation from God that the rest of us experience our whole lives.

We no longer recognize the horror of it, because we have known nothing else. We can not imagine what it must have been like for Him. We are a world full of blind men. He could see, but was suddenly struck blind. Because we are all blind, we can hardly imagine what it would be to have sight. Then, the Seeing One came, and He explained the things we could not see. He offered to heal us so that we could see as well. But, we loved the darkness and so we sought to kill Him, to eliminate the One who exposed our blindness. That was good Friday.

But the beautiful surprise is that the story didn't stop on Good Friday. It continues and finds it's fruition on Resurrection Sunday. The Seeing One did not stay dead or blind. He conquered death and even now gives sight to the blind. His marring is our healing. By His stripes we are healed. He has conquered sin and death and has opened to us the way of the eternal kind of life. Man! We are all going to enjoy heaven!