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An Easter Lament

I have been told that you are a healing God; that you give sight to the blind and make the lame man walk. You bring the dead to life and stretch out the withered hand. So I have been told.

But I see another story when I look around. I see your people and I consider your children. We are sick and we are weary. We bear up under crippling illness. We labor to breathe through broken lungs. We wrestle through sleepless nights as illness creeps through our bodies. 

We cry and we pray and we plead and we beg. And we get worse.

Where is this healing? Where is your deliverance? How can we touch the hem of your garment when you dwell in heavenly places?

Are you unprovoked by our pain? Are you punishing us for our father’s sins? Or our father’s father’s? 

But I know that you are a suffering Savior. Your body too was broken. And I know that you are a compassionate Savior. You wept as Lazarus lay lifeless in the tomb. I know that you are a fearless Savior. You touched the leper and embraced the man with dropsy. You are God with us; close to us in our sickness. 

Could this be enough?

If we must taste death and taste it often, can your nearness be our wholeness Will you hold us tightly to your chest and absorb our pain into your person? Could you sing us a lullaby and stroke our hair until we fall asleep? Will you weep for us, touch us and embrace us? If our bodies must fade away, can we fade into you? Would this be enough?

I think it could be enough.

For you can redeem our disease, even when we are not rid of it. You savor the precious moments of sweet kisses on feverish foreheads. You hold us close as we nestle in tight and relax into your embrace. Though we are not delivered from our sickness, you ensure that our suffering is not in vain. 

You will never leave us alone in our pain.

For this we will praise you. Though we do not understand, we will praise you. Even when we doubt your power, we will praise you. When we question your goodness, we will trust you still. We will go down with you into the pit and we will not shrink from death; whether it comes slowly to us day by day or swiftly to us on evil’s wings.

We rest in your promise that you will never leave us or forsake us. We cling tightly to the hope of our resurrected bodies. We endure it all for the sake of knowing you;  and we relish in the truth that someday we will be made new.

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The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

Albert Einstein

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Love is vivid. I never wanted the pale version. Love is full strength. I never wanted the diluted version. I never shied away from love’s hugeness but I had no idea that love could be as reliable as the sun. The daily rising of love.

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (via bookmania)

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God's Retroactive Truth

Science is an amazing thing. Truly. The more we learn about science, the more we can begin to understand the multi-faceted wisdom of God. Those of you who spend any amount of time with me know that I have recently been on a kick about "the deeper truth." Those of you who don't spend any amount of time with me should know that I learned of this concept through a Greg Boyd sermon . It is definitely worth 47 minutes and 26 seconds of your time to watch. At its core, this teaching concentrates on seeing the difference between what your flesh says is true about you and what God says is true about you. Your flesh may say that you are a no good, lousy failure... and on the surface, that may even be true about you. However, those who are in Christ have a new and much truer truth- the deep truth.  The deep truth about those who are in Christ is unbelievably beautiful. The Bible says that we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), without condemnation (Romans 8:1), the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16), dearly loved children (Ephesians 5:1), the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21), and those are just a few. Knowing this truth, Paul implores the church at Colosse to "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:2-3)

If we are ever to be transformed into the image of Jesus, we must first set our eyes to the deeper truth of who we are in Jesus.

[Enter Science.]

Recent studies on the brain and memory are uncovering some incredible information on the way memory retrieval functions,

Your memory is no video camera, it edits the past with present experiences.

While many of us have always thought that our brain records experiences and stores them away as "read-only" files to be brought up when triggered, these findings actually indicate the opposite. In fact, according to the above mentioned article, "the memory rewrites the past with current information, updating your recollections with new experiences."  What this means for us is this: God designed our brains to overwrite the surface truth of our flesh with the deeper truth of what He says about us. The truth of God has the power to retroactively change the way that you perceive yourself and others! 

Consider then, the following passage: 

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5: 14-21

All who receive the free gift of salvation by submitting to the lordship of Christ have retroactively died in Christ and have been raised with him. As we set our minds on this truth: the truth of our newness, our cleanness, our innocence, our righteousness and our unsurpassable worth in Christ, our brains will, by design, rewrite our memories and experiences with what has been true about us all along. 

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Behold that image, and watch as God rewrites your past, sustains your present and empowers your future! Ericka

[erickajanehenry]

I wish the whole world would embrace what it hates. Find what you’re afraid of most and go live there.

Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters (via bookmania)

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CONTINUED: How do you disprove the red letters of Jesus when he says, "But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife."? (Mark 10:6-7) Jesus himself said that God made man and woman at the "Beginning" of creation. This doesn't allow for millions of years for evolution before they were made. I am not trying to stir up conflict, I just want to hear your reasoning. Thanks! -Lucas Cherry

First of all, I think its important to note that I do not need to nor do I want to "disprove" anything Jesus said in order to maintain my position. If I ever get to the point where my theology does not match up with what Jesus says, my theology MUST do the changing. 

Let’s put this baby into context and see what happens :)

Mark 10

New International Version (NIV)

10 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.

4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’[a] 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[b] 8 and the two will become one flesh.’[c] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

Jesus is responding to the Pharisees, who per usual, were trying to ensnare him with questions. They are trying to pit Jesus against Moses with their question about divorce. When Jesus responds he is setting up a comparison between God’s acquiescence to human nature and God’s original design as displayed in creation before human sin was introduced. So at its core, this passage is not about creation, its about God’s design for marriage! We have to focus on what Jesus was focusing on. Its because of the Fall that divorce has even become an issue. Jesus is essentially saying that when God created humans, he created them to enter into monogamous, lifelong partnerships.

Jesus couldn’t possibly have meant that humans were created literally at the beginning of creation, because even the Genesis account states that they were the last of created things and the pinnacle of all created things. When placed in the chronology of the creation account, they are created at the end! Using this verse to place humans at the strictest sense of “beginning” may be asking too much.

[erickajanehenry]

It was interesting to read your post about creation vs evolution. I have a couple questions: If the Word of God is truly inspired, as you said you still agree with, why would God lie about the start of the world? Genesis 1 uses the Hebrew word "yowm" which is the word for day. I don't see why, if the Bible is inspired, God would inspire men to write something that is not true. Secondly: SEE NEXT POST

Ok, great question! Yowm is the word for day. I have no objections to that. I don’t think that accepting the Hebrew definition for day automatically means that a non-literal translation is equated to God lying. Take for instance, all of the parables that Jesus told. Every word that he used had a quite literal meaning. Seed means seed. Sower means sower. Rock means rock. Weeds mean weeds. I could go on and on. However, we all know that Jesus was telling a story! We wouldn’t say “Jesus used the literal word for seed, so that must mean that the parable of the story was not a parable! It must have literally happened!”

The type of speech Jesus was using is taken into consideration. We have to use real, literal words to tell stories. In the same way, when we recognize that the creation account in Genesis was a story used to explain why the world is the way the world is, and where creation came from, it makes sense that Moses used literal words to tell a non-literal story. 

Make sense?

Ill answer your other question in the other post :)

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This is how I want my future daughter to be!

Here’s today’s Daily GIF!

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Humble Ramblings on the Creation vs. Evolution Debate

Before leaving for Bible college, my ideas about creation and the Bible were similar to that of Ken Ham. Young earth. Literal reading of Genesis. The lie of evolution, and all that jazz. My beliefs on these topics were largely grounded in my understanding of the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. From the time I was nine, both implicitly and explicitly, I had been taught that being a Christian meant accepting everything in the Bible as literal and scientific truth. If even one verse in the Bible was inaccurate, then the validity of the entire Bible was at stake. You can probably understand how this understanding of my faith led me to accept certain "understandings" however illogical and unscientific because, "The Bible says it, and I believe it, and that settles it." 

Imagine my surprise, when, upon my first week of Intro to Theology, my very godly and incredibly intelligent professor explained to my class that an accurate understanding of the creation account need not be literal. He went on to say that Ken Ham was a decent writer, but a terrible exegete. In other words, while Ham wrote compelling books about the topic of creation, his interpretation of scripture involved the introduction of his beliefs into the reading of scripture. Exegesis, which is the correct way to interpret scripture, involves a wide range of critical disciplines such as historical analysis of the cultural backgrounds of the text, author and original audience.

This new perspective was admittedly, very troubling to me at first. Finding out that you quite possibly have been wrong about something you were "certain" that you were right about is often times unsettling. This proverbial shaking that I was experiencing was unbelievably important to the health of my spiritual maturity, though. Hebrews 12:27 speaks about God shaking things up so that only the unshakable remains. What I mean by that is this; up until this point I had been basing my security in my salvation in the rightness of my beliefs. My value and stability was steeped in my ability to be certain about things that logically, I could never honestly be certain about. I believe this is one of the reasons why critical and intellectual people often find themselves on the outside of the Christian circle. Certainty-seeking belief is not compatible with truth-seeking belief.  If only because seeking truth requires at least a temporary understanding that I could have been mistaken in my previous understanding. I cannot experience cognitive dissonance and certainty at the same time.

What emerged from this shaking was an understanding that my salvation and security in my relationship with Christ rested on none other but Christ himself. Christ crucified is truly the only thing or person that I can be certain about. Jesus is the reason that I have a relationship with God. Jesus is the reason that I am declared right with God. Jesus is the reason that I have been adopted into the family of God. Jesus is the reason that I have light, love and life. No intellectual understanding can bring me peace with the Father. No victorious debate will offer me forgiveness of sins. Only Jesus can do this. It only follows that my security and identity be staked solely and completely in Him.

Still reading? haha! Kudos to you.

This revelation about my identity and security in my faith in Jesus has led me to explore and accept some beliefs about the Bible that are very different than that of 18 year old Ericka.

I believe in the Bible because I believe in Jesus, not the other way around.

The Bible on its own, without Jesus, is a dead book.

The Bible was written FOR us, but not TO us. Essentially, when the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the OT and NT, He was giving them a message for a group of people who were living AT THAT TIME, which is also useful and applicable for us today. This means that the Bible is steeped in cultural influences and should be read in light of that.

We must work diligently to find our place in the audience of the scriptures.

The Bible is not a text book.

The Bible is not a science text book.

The writers of the books of the Bible were not concerned necessarily with scientific accuracy. They viewed the world in a completely different way than we do now.

There are many different genres in the Bible.

The Bible is inerrant and infallible in the sense that its original manuscripts say exactly what God wants them to say and are completely dependable and trustworthy.

With all that being said, I will now put some of my thoughts out there concerning creation and evolution.

Creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive.

The purpose of the creation account was NOT to give a definitive and scientific explanation of the creation of the cosmos. The people who would have read (or heard the account as passed down through oral tradition) the creation account when it was written had a drastically different understanding of the world and how the world worked. Not going to go into this now, but I will put some links at the bottom of this post if you are interested in checking it out.

                                   Depiction of the Ancient Near Eastern Worldview

The creation account in Genesis is incredibly similar to many other creation accounts in Mesopotamian literature, which were also not created to give a scientific representation of how the cosmos were created.

The creation account in Genesis is incredibly different than many other creation accounts in Mesopotamian literature. Unlike all the other creation myths, Genesis shows God alone as the creator. This is HUGE. Also, in contrast to all other myths, God creates the cosmos merely by speaking. Check out some of the other creation myths in my links below to see why this is so critical.

The purpose of Genesis as given to the people at that time was to show them WHO made the universe, HOW that deity relates to mankind, and WHY the world is the way the world is now. Genesis answers those questions the following counter-cultural way: God, who alone is infinite, created all things with great ease and good intent. That same God created human beings to live in loving relationship with Him and to represent his loving rule to all of creation. Man sinned against God, therefore allowing the consequences of sin to breach this loving relationship and inflict evil and darkness upon all of creation.  These truths would have been extremely radical in the pagan society to which they were proclaimed. 

If the creation account in Genesis serves to communicate these points, the Big Bang Theory and the process of evolution are both plausible explanations of the way that God created all created things. 

In light of this understanding of the Genesis account, it seems to me that a literal understanding of the scripture is not only unnecessary, but burdened with difficulty. There are several questions that arise from the text if you read them honestly and openly, without projecting prior beliefs onto the text. However, once you come to a point where you can regard the creation account as non-literal (if you do) there are MANY ways that the account can be interpreted. I'm not here to advocate one way or another. 

In any case, believing in a literal understanding of the creation account is NOT essential to having a loving and transforming relationship with Jesus. I challenge those who take offense to this statement to do a heart search and ask yourself, “Am I getting my value and identity from Jesus alone, or from the perceived rightness of my beliefs?” On the same token, a literal understanding of the creation account does NOT disqualify any believer from a loving and transformational relationship with Christ! Believe it or not, the founding fathers of Christianity had varying beliefs about the creation account. Personally, in my research so far, I feel comfortable accepting scientific discoveries such as the Big Bang Theory (not just because the show is hilarious) and evolution, while maintaining the holiness of the Bible and upholding its infallibility.

In summation, creation vs. evolution need not be a debate. Many believers are unnecessarily barring critical, intellectual people from the kingdom based on what could be a non-issue. If God created the world in 6 days, Christ still died for all of creation in order to bring us into relationship with himself. If God created the world through the process of evolution over billions of years (why would that be any less amazing?), Christ still died for all of creation in order to bring us into relationship with himself. If I am right about all of the beliefs I hold concerning the interpretation of the Bible (HIGHLY unlikely) then I am no more saved or beloved by God than if I was wrong about all of them! As long as Christ crucified is at the center, and I am striving toward and honest and truth-seeking relationship with Him, I can rest in that. 

Those of you who would like to talk further about the different considerations that are undoubtedly raised by the position I currently espouse, message me on Facebook or submit your questions in the ASK ME section of my blog and I’d love to dialogue further!

With love and humility,

Ericka

http://biologos.org/blog/ken-ham-vs-bill-nye

http://biologos.org/blog/series/genesis-through-ancient-eyes

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/epic/hd_epic.htm

http://reknew.org/2012/10/pre-modern-readings-of-genesis-1/

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“Grand ideas kill first efforts. Begin with something in your range. Then write it as a secret.”

Louise Erdrich (via theparisreview)

This is actually really good advice.

(via yeahwriters)

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If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

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Truth should never travel faster than love.. 'Well they gotta know where I stand!' OK. Then you'll be standing alone.

- Steve Wiens, The Space Between Sermon @ Woodland Hills Church

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It is Well with My Soul- The Story Behind the Song

The modern American church is certainly not wanting for cliches. Just take a scroll through Facebook or Twitter and you will find a plethora of well-meaning Christian-ish sayings in the form of posts, comments, tweets and hash tags. Some of my not-so-favorites include:

-God won't give you more than what you can handle. -There is a reason for everything, we just might not understand on this side of glory (said to a young woman who recently miscarried) -God works in mysterious ways!

Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with tragedies and misfortunes, many believers I know are inclined to attempt to explain away, circumvent or over simplify the nightmarish experiences that one has while living in this world. Many times, these well-meaning "comforters" fall remarkably short of consoling their hurting friends while doing a pretty decent job of offending and hurting them.  

The fact of the matter is this: 

- God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. - 1 Corinthians 10:13 - Every effect has a cause, but that doesn't mean that God is ultimately behind any or every tragedy that occurs. Many times evil things happen because we live in a world populated with free agents who desire to do evil things. - God has made the mystery of his ways known to us through Jesus Christ crucified. We do not have to wonder how God works, we can rest assured that the picture of God is ultimately sacrificial, cross-like love.

Horatio Spafford must have somehow avoided these misconceptions about God, as evidenced by his life and legacy which includes the famous Christian hymn, It is Well with My Soul. You are probably familiar with this tune, but the context of its writing will surely put this beautiful song into its proper, albeit tragic perspective:

"He was a prominent lawyer, a senior partner in a large and thriving law firm.He and his wife were also prominent supporters and close friends of evangelist Dwight L. Moody.A series of family tragedies began in 1870 when their only son died from pneumonia at the age of four.

Spafford invested in real estate north of an expanding Chicago in the spring of 1871. When the Great Fire of Chicago reduced the city to ashes in October 1871, the same year that Spafford invested in Chicago real estate, it also destroyed most of Spafford's sizable investment.

Two years later, in 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday somewhere in Europe, and chose England knowing that his friend D. L. Moody 

would be preaching there in the fall. He was delayed because of business, so he sent his family ahead: his wife and their four children, daughters eleven-year-old Anna “Annie”, nine-year-old Margaret Lee, five-year-old Elizabeth “Bessie”, and two-year-old Tanetta.

On November 22, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Ville du Havre, their ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel and 226 people lost their lives, including all four of Spafford's daughters. Anna Spafford survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Spafford beginning "Saved alone." Spafford then sailed to England, going over the location of his daughters' deaths. According to Bertha Spafford Vester, a daughter born after the tragedy, Spafford wrote "It Is Well with My Soul" on this journey. " (Wikipedia)

These were the words he penned:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. (Refrain:) It is well (it is well), with my soul (with my soul), It is well, it is well with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul. (Refrain) My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! (Refrain) For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: If Jordan above me shall roll, No pain shall be mine, for in death as in life Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul. (Refrain) And Lord haste the day, when my faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.

May we allow ourselves and the ones that we love to also find the blessed peace that from attributing evil to Satan, goodness to God, and anticipating the day that God will right all the wrongs with his unfathomable love.

[erickajanehenry]

Confusion sometimes masquerades as complexity.

Michael Hyatt, What Should You Look for in the People You Hire?

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There are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with an estimated 27,000,000 in bondage across the globe.ex