How can we deal with anxiety?

God wants us to be happy and yet 40 million Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder (nimh.gov). Where can we go to find peace? In Paul's letter to the Romans he writes,

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:4-8).

The first thing Paul notes is that in everything we do we should ask God for what we need, yet it is not just about asking for what we need; Paul makes it clear that we must also give thanks. We must develop a heart of gratitude by first thanking God for the good things in our life. While keeping those good things in mind we should then ask God for help with the things in our life that are causing us distress, or ask Him for that which we are in need of. Paul then gives us another key to defeating our anxiety. How often do we focus on the areas of our lives that are causing us the most pain? It's human nature. Personally, when something has gone astray in my life, and my emotions are out of balance I often become so fixated on what's bothering me that I become blinded to the world at my feet. It's then I must remember: whatever is true, whatever is gracious, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious ANYTHING that is excellent; ANYTHING that is praiseworthy --> THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS.

In the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our pain, in the midst of our peril we can fight for joy. It all starts with thanksgiving, and a plea for the Lord's help. It is then we who must make an effort to meditate on the truths in our lives, the things that are beautiful - anything that is worthy of praise. For me this might mean spending more time meditating on how much God loves me or using my imagination to put myself in a bystanders shoes as Jesus was on the road to Calvary to be crucified. What must His mother have felt? Oh, how deep the love she felt for Him... how that must have penetrated her heart. I then can move on from there to think about how much my family loves me, and how much I love my family.

Meditate on your families love... feel your brothers embrace, be encapsulated in your father's words as he says, "I love you" before going to bed. Oh how majestic the earth is in its beauty and splendor. Put yourself on the top of a mountain as you gaze off into the clouds as you begin to comprehend the vastness of the earth - the billions of people with dreams, loved ones, and sorrows both very different and much the same as your own. Meditate on the love a mother has for her newborn, the selflessness of Mother Theresa, the intellect of Albert Einstein, the wisdom of Solomon. There is so much to be grateful for - there is so much to praise in this life - and yet it is so easy to become so wrapped up in our own little world, our own sorrows, our own pain that we forget the goodness of God in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.

A dear friend sent me this photograph this evening with the caption, "God is so good."

 Isn't it beautiful how amidst the clouds casting a dark shadow against the water the radiance of the sun powerfully reflects off the water as it begins to dip below the horizon? So too does God illuminate our own lives amidst the darkness that is surrounding us. Thank Him. Ask for His help. And remember, as the darkness approaches, all we need is a little light to find our way to safety.

Faith and Love,
Dylan

A Problem with Evil

        --> In Dostovesky’s The Brothers Karamozov, one of the characters, Ivan, cannot reconcile suffering with goodness. He relates life to water in a cup with a belief that before the age of thirty there would be enough life left where the goodness in his life would overshadow the suffering in the world, but that at the age of thirty he would be sure to fling the cup down as his youth would be overtaken and the injustice and suffering in the world would be too much to bear. He’s ready to accept there’s a harmony in God’s justice and the suffering of the world, but he can’t accept it. Ivan struggles in his inability to understand God, saying,

"I accept God and am glad to, and what's more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was 'with God,' and Which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don't I'? Yet would you believe it, in the final result I don't accept this world of God's, and, although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men- but thought all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see it and say that they've met, but still I won't accept it. That's what's at the root of me, Alyosha; that's my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I've led up to my confession, for that's all you want. You didn't want to hear about God, but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so I've told you"  (Dostovesky 203).

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Ivan returns the 'ticket' God has given to him in His mercy and grace, as he has become so focused on the role suffering plays in serving for justice, failing to consider the “pouring out of the cup” as a sacrificial act of love. The Gospel of Mark points to the fact that Jesus came not to live a life of comfort, but a life of service, sacrifice, love, and to die an incredibly gruesome death at the hands of his enemies; illuminating the role this sacrifice and suffering has in the redemption of humankind as a necessary means for resurrection. Sacrifice does not solve the problem of evil, but rather gives purpose to suffering as a way to transcend the power evil has placed upon the many through the confines of agape - selfless, sacrificial love.

Consider the hypothetical story Ivan tells at one point in which a noble man’s dog is hurt by a young boy. The young boy is then stripped, and set to run through the field only to have the noble man let loose his dogs to devour the boy right in front of his mother’s eyes. This story is both gruesome, and incredibly irritating as the boy is not only completely innocent, and doesn’t deserve to die, but even worse is the fact that his mother watches him, as he is mutilated, humiliated, and killed in cold blood. Ivan’s natural inclination, as well as even Alyosha’s, his monastic brother, is to enact retribution on the noble man - to have the noble man receive adequate justice for his actions. Just as the boy is so innocently killed, and unrightfully suffers, does Ivan see God’s justice as flawed, as  Ivan punctuates, “when everything cries out what is just, thou art just, but what pulls me up here is that I can’t accept it and while there’s time I won’t” in regards to God’s “free” ticket of grace, and mercy.

Yet, while we sympathize with the boy and mother, and scorn the noble man, Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 9, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” And again, in Mark 10, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” There is an interesting parallel between the young boy so innocently killed, and what Jesus is noting in his disciples becoming like children to enter the Kingdom of God. Before the distinction is drawn, we must consider what is meant by “the Kingdom of God.”

Jesus declares, “truly I say to you, some of you will not taste death until the kingdom of God will come in all its power” (Mark 9:1). Here Jesus is predicting the end of an age, an end to an age in the immediate future - an end to the age of “the law,” welcoming an age of freedom, liberation, and redemption. Isaiah 52 says, “you were sold for nothing, you will be redeemed without money,” and in Mark 10, “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” If the Kingdom of God did come in all its power, one can make the claim that the cross itself is the Kingdom of God.

The cross is both powerful and emancipating.  It no longer becomes about justice, the trial, or the grievances of suffering; except it becomes everything about justice, the trial and the grievances of suffering, in so far as Jesus came not into this world to fill his cup, but to pour it out, “And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:23-24). So too does Jesus make the reference to his cup, as life in the Garden of Gethsemane. Deep in prayer, and affliction, feeling the weight of the sins of the World bearing down upon His soul Jesus cries out, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). It is in this moment of great affliction of agony, and sorrow, when Jesus proclaims, not my will, but yours. It’s this act of selfless sacrifice that illuminates the redemption of humanity.

Just like the young boy in Ivan’s story was humiliated, tortured, and killed at the hands of his enemies with his mother looking on, we know from John that Jesus’ mother also watched as her son so innocently suffered at the hands of his enemies, “but standing by the cross of Jesus was his mother” (John 19:25).  The power of the kingdom lies in this innocent, sacrificial suffering – the suffering that the innocent young boy endures at the feet of his mother. The death of the innocent cries out. Just as the young boy was so innocently killed, so too was Jesus. Jesus, a man incapable of sin, came to suffer for the multitude of sins, and yet, there is evil in the world and the young boy still suffers at the hands of his enemies. How can this be reconciled?

If Ivan so much sympathizes for the young boy, and finds anger in his death, so too must he sympathize for Jesus, and see his death as unjust. Yet Jesus came not into this world so that we might have no suffering in the world, but to pour out his cup so that we may be liberated in our suffering. Jesus continually points to the fact that in order to inherit the kingdom, a man must become a servant, and put himself last, to become like a child – innocent, much like the boy. Part of this innocence and servitude is the notion that a servant cannot be greater than his master; if they persecuted Jesus, then surely his followers would be persecuted as well. Drawing from John 16:33, Jesus recognizes that his disciples will in fact experience great suffering and great sorrow, “in the world you will have many troubles; take heart, for I have conquered the world.” It is in this suffering and sorrow that Jesus has liberated us. Jesus comes to pour out his cup, and spill his blood not for fulfillment in this world, but so we may have eternal life. It no longer becomes about the law in enacting justice with an over-fixation on a just, merciful God. The power of the Kingdom of God transcends that.

Christ’s challenge is radical in that he is calling us, much like Ivan, and even the young boy to meet him in our suffering, knowing that he will be with us until the end of this age into the next. Ivan represents our very human nature in our lack of faith, giving into the fear of evil. In rejecting the ticket, Ivan sheds light on his lack of faith in God’s love of giving His one and only son for humanity’s redemption. Ivan feels the weight and burden of the suffering and pain of the world – the weight that was taken off his shoulders, and bore by Jesus on the cross.

Yet Mark’s Gospel ends with silence, rather than praise, as a young man tells the women at the tomb to go out and tell the people that Jesus has risen, “’But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. ’And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:7-8). Those three women didn’t see Jesus, and either do we or Ivan.  There is trauma, and fear in the coming of the Kingdom, yet a sort of paralyzing ecstasy displayed only in silence. As hard as it is to grasp, Mark is calling us to enjoin ourselves to the suffering of the innocent child, enjoin ourselves to the suffering of Christ, for in this innocent suffering we are reminded we are not of this world. Christ’s suffering, again, is meant not to liberate and free us from suffering in this world, but give us life in the world to come. Like Ivan, we cannot always understand the ways of God, yet Mark raises the point that one can live either in fear and silence of the power of the kingdom of God - the cross in its foreboding display of suffering as a necessary means for the redemption of the world- or be set free and resurrected in its magnificent life-giving power. Set free to in the love of Christ in his taking on humanity’s sins so that we may have eternal life.  Set free in agape. Set free in faith. 

Faith and Love,
Dylan

A Life of Undying Commitment: Falling in Love

As a young Christian man, I can't wait to marry, and I certainly can't wait to make love to my wife. I believe sex is one of the greatest gifts God has given to mankind. In fact, one of the most lovely, genuine descriptions of passionate, poetic erotica is found in the Bible! Just linger in the beauty of Song of Songs, "Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies... Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou has ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck... Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue" (Songs 4:5, 9, 11 KJV). I find Song of Songs to be a particularly positive celebration of human love and sexuality within the context of marriage. Sex is meant to be beautiful, to be cherished and desired. God wants us to enjoy His creation, for His creation is "very good" (Gen. 1:31).

While The Song of Songs displays sexuality in such a radiant light, one specific verse jumps out at me, "[do] not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (Songs 3:5 ESV). Before I came to know God and know about his love, I really struggled with a fitting understanding of sex. I have known what it's like to have lust govern my heart. In the past, I've tried to quench the need for intimacy in my life with the many ways the world offers me: casual hookups, pornography, and even long-term relationships where the fixation is on self-satisfaction, without any regard for honoring God through it. All of these physical pleasures appeared to 'fix' the problem of intimacy at the surface, but deep down, all this did was provide me with a lustful buzz soaked in transient feelings of pleasure and self-validation. Hooking up was quick fix for self-doubt, a need for acceptance, to feel wanted, hot and loved. But after it was done, it was done, and left me just as empty. I didn't find the love and intimacy I longed for. All these physical pleasures didn't quench my thirst; it only made me thirstier - for real, consuming, passionate, ever-lasting love.

At the time, the prospects of how to fill this void in my life seemed bleak. I was nearing the end of my high school years and had reached a point where I had put my girlfriend on such a pedestal as the source of both my happiness and sadness, hoping that she was going to complete me. I became clinically depressed. I felt so broken, so empty. I had internalized my angst to the point that each passing day only drove me closer to the ground until I had nowhere to go but to my knees. Humbled, I replaced my girlfriend on the pedestal with God, and, as a result, my perspective was changed. I no longer looked to her for the source of my fulfillment and happiness, but it was now God who would provide. He was creating a new heart in me, a heart desperate for Him. He filled my life with love, His true love that changed how I saw everything.

Over the next few months my heart was made entirely new. I started to see new qualities in women that I hadn't seen before. I started to see my family differently. I started to love. I began to realize that just as God created water for good purposes, floods and tidal waves are water without control, destructive and frightening. It became clear that the more power something has to do good, the more it has the capability of inflicting an equal magnitude of destruction. When we desire to please our flesh rather than experience the blessings God has for us outside of marriage in honoring His will, we open ourselves up to the abuse and perversion of such an amazing gift. As a result, purity took on an entirely different meaning, no longer holding prudish and dispassionate connotations, instead becoming the guarding of my body, mind, and soul from influences that were driving me away from a selfless disposition grounded in selfless love, drawing me away from God.

Much like the verses from Song of Songs, Proverbs helped my understanding of sex marriage. Just look at these verses from Proverbs: "Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving doe, a graceful deer. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love" (Prov. 5:18-19 NLT). I began to understand that sex within marriage was not about self-satisfaction and filling a void of intimacy and admiration, but about commitment and an undying love. The marriage vow, "till death do us part," demands a loving, sacrificial commitment that depends not on circumstance, but upon faith and love.

In spite of this new perspective Christ gave me senior year of high school, I was not completely fulfilled. I had initially thought that, with my newfound understanding of love and purity, all my problems would go away and that I would feel completely satisfied. Yet while a part of my soul had been greatly healed, another piece of my soul felt an ever-greater longing, and the solutions I found didn't satisfy my desire for intimacy. I was still not sure what to do with the Bible's emphasis on the goodness of sex within marriage, and my own desire to marry some day. What was I to do in the meantime if I have to wait a long time before I marry, or if I don't get married at all? For a long time, like many Christians waiting for marriage, I took hold of the statement "true love waits" and became overly fixated on waiting. But in adopting that mantra, I felt I lost perspective that God alone is everything. I've now simply stopped waiting. This is not because I want to sleep with women before I'm married! To the contrary, I finally understand that He is not to be confused with the gifts of marriage and sex. Marriage and are great, but God is even greater - He is the giver of these gifts. He is not just a means to the life we think He would want us to have; God is life itself!

Augustine wrote, "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you." We can never find fulfillment in this world, for our hearts are designed to long for home - to long for Heaven. On the other hand, God's gifts in this world, although good, will be always imperfect, tainted by humanity's imperfection. God's love for me, on the other hand, is perfect, and satisfies my heart's desire. Even God's gifts ultimately point toward Himself! When making love within marriage, two human beings are unified in a powerful mingling of two souls and bodies, illuminating and modeling the relationship God has with us. Marriage is not just about enjoying an earthly love; rather, it is about enjoying and growing toward God. Yes, I still long to "know" my wife, but how much greater does the artist know his painting than the man the artist sells his painting to. So it is with God.

We are often still led astray in believing that it's about us. We fool ourselves into believing that marriage is about us and that within its bounds we are completely fulfilled - the focal point still on ourselves. But the more I give myself to God, the more it becomes not about sex and my own happiness but about Agape. It becomes about God's infinite love for His creation, and our receiving that love undeserved in grace. God is Agape - God is love. He is the source of all gifts, all good things, and it is in Him that I place my hope, my love, and my desires. I no longer want to live like I'm waiting for something. I want to live for Him, knowing that His timing is perfect with all things. I want to live for Him as He gives my life purpose - my singleness purpose. As I live for Him, satisfied now, I will one day be able to love my wife more perfectly if I marry. More importantly, I can now love everyone more perfectly - all the time. Agape.

Faith and Love,
Dylan

Investing in God

It is paradoxical - prayer. We believe that doing something is more valuable in the long run than taking the time to step back, decompress, re-center and pray. We think that we have to complete this assignment, to go to this athletic practice, to watch that YouTube video, and if we have time to spare we will pray. We have created a culture that is centered around doing - that prayer is nice, but our time can be better spent doing something more productive. We tend to think we will have time for God later. The common conception is that God will be there when we're done with what we're doing, but do we ever stop to consider the payoff for our time? Every second on this earth is valuable.

Whether we spend it reading a book, or watching Grey’s Anatomy, invested time is something we can not refund. When it's gone, it's gone. Investing our time is a lot like investing our money. If we invest our time in trivial matters it’s like getting paid and then immediately going to best buy to buy that new camera we've been wanting. We have a new camera, yes, but nothing else. When we invest our time in God our ‘revenue’ is multiplied. Spending just 30 minutes with God when we would normally browse FaceBook or check Twitter allows us to invest in our future. We grow our relationship with God, and in doing so we are more able to discern His will for our life.

 If you wanted your relationship to be better with your boyfriend you wouldn’t expect your bond to grow if you didn’t talk, so why is it any different with God? God wants your heart, your time, your attention. There’s 24-hours in a day. You do the math. Sometimes doing nothing is more valuable than doing something. Make God a priority and embrace a brighter future.

Faith and Love,

Dylan