Thursday, November 10, 2011

Activate


            I’ve always been pretty good with directions. There was a time when I got very lost in a sketchy area of Sacramento following my high school’s senior prom, but my date and the other couple with us seemed to enjoy the adventure of it all and things worked themselves out, but other than that one time, I cannot recall if I have ever been so lost that I did not know how to find my way out. My mom will tell you stories of how when I was a very little version of me, I would disappear in department stores only to be found hiding inside those round clothing racks presumably just playing a game, but as far as I can remember, I have a difficult time getting lost even when I try. That is up until these past couple of weeks.
            Recently I have felt lost. I have been lost underneath the pile of books that I always seem to have around me. If they are not stacked on the table I am sitting at, they are in the bags that I have been carrying around as I work through the mountain of school work I have each week. I have been lost underneath a mountain of theories, principles, theology, and vocabulary while the thoughts in my try painstakingly to move the mountain from on top of me onto the computer screen that I sit in front of even as I write this. Daunting is not good enough an adjective to describe the intellectual challenges I have stepped into, challenges which found me lost and not sure where I was, buried at the bottom of a mountain. Yet even there, a glimmer of hope fell across my eyes as I worked to dig myself out.
            Amid the whirlwind of textbooks and journal articles, there were many a time where I just needed to believe that there was more to life than just what I could find in a book or read about online. There had to be more to truth than vague and conflicting conceptions of what is real. There needed to be something tangible that I could hold onto. With my head spinning and my heart aching I stumbled across this quote by Ron Highfield:
“The Son of God did not become incarnate, die, and triumph over death to solve a theoretical dilemma.”
And just like that, I could see a tunnel of light leading me out from under the mountain.
            Highfield’s statement fell in the middle of a paper written to argue against another person’s theory, and there I was attempting to argue my own. Yet with arguments upon arguments he was still able to see that arguments without action are void. Let me say that again: arguments without action are void.
           
Jesus was a man of action.

 It seems to me that so much of the popular Christian culture lives in the realm of the theoretical, myself included. It is a wonderful thing, for example, to know and understand that we are all generally called to share the gospel with everybody, yet so often we decide that it is fine to keep this understanding to ourselves. We actively choose personal comfort over our greater responsibility of acting.
When Jesus was faced with the most difficult of situations, he still chose to act. Yet when I am faced with even the most simple of propositions, I choose passivity. I need Christ to activate my life in a way that my own selfish desires cannot. I need Christ to activate my potential to live out the dreams that he has placed into my heart. I need Christ to activate my will to choose to do what is good and what is right when everything else seems to be going entirely wrong. Arguments without action are void, but in order to act, we need Christ to activate us.
           
            

3 comments:

  1. I'm just going to throw this out there Scott, but not all people need religion to be good people, nor happy people. As much as you may think you need Christ to unlock your good will... You don't. Christianity takes the perspective of making people feel guilty about who they are... But it doesn't need to be that way. One thing I have always lived by... If you are a good person... No matter what, if there is a just religion or just "God" you would be rewarded for being that person no matter what your faith or lack of faith may be. I used that rule of thumb to awaken from the religion that had been pressed upon me for oh so long... and realized that I was the only person responsible for my actions. There is no reason why someone named Jesus Christ should claim that he's lived my life through its depressing burdens... because if any other person had been in my shoes other than me, they'd have killed themselves. Life is too short to worry about spreading the word of something that has no factual evidence backing it... It is better to live life with the philosophy of, Respect, and be kind to others. No other rules are needed. Religion is just a crutch that humanity uses when we fear something, or do not understand something. That is why you aren't coming up with answers from your books of choice, because the answers are up to us to provide and act on... The questions are things you probably already know the answers to, and just don't realize it. You are a good person Scott... You have nothing to feel bad for. Just remember that.

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  2. Thanks Scott, great post. I needed to hear something like that today

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  3. @Aphotic... interesting perspective. If you would, could you answer a couple questions for me... You said "if you are a good person... if there is a just religion or a just God, you would be rewarded for being that person no matter what your faith or lack of faith may be." This seems logical to me ... that a just Being would be the rewarder of good no matter what. But in your opinion, what should that same just Being do in response to what is NOT good within us or in response to the bad stuff we’ve done... or for that matter the good stuff that we’ve neglected to do? I just returned from a N. Cal university conference on genocide and from a non-religious, purely philosophical vantage point, it was obvious that each human being has the propensity for both good and evil. Those who ended up committing heinous acts, for the most part started out as pretty decent people. Some “good” folks simply neglected to act or made seemingly minor compromises and things escalated into genocide. It was disturbing to say the least. It seems to me that focusing on one end of the spectrum without considering the other end could be rather detrimental. What is your view of this issue?

    Another question... if there is a just religion or Being who rewards us based on our good qualities and acts, what is the standard by which goodness is judged? It seems that justice would require a clear communication of the “standard of good” if we’re to be rewarded for achieving it. It seems unfair to all of us to leave this standard undefined.

    Re: the lack of factual evidence you mentioned, are you talking about the person of Jesus Christ? Because whether I’m religious or not, from a purely historical perspective there is massive evidence of the man's existence.

    Re: personal responsibility for our actions... you’re on target for sure.

    As an outsider here, it seems that you and the blog’s author have a basic underlying difference in your views of the way the world works. If one believes that through God (or specifically Christ) all things were made and that He is the binding Force that holds all things together, then Scott’s comment about needing to be activated by Christ would be valid. If you do not believe in God as the creator and sustainer of life, then your view of functioning independently of Him is understandable. I think it’s vitally important to figure out what is true however because truth does not change based on what we believe about it or not. Truth is rock solid.

    On a more personal note... from reading the above, it seems your life has been difficult. I'm truly sorry. I hope that you find peace for your heart. It is a beautiful thing when one can emerge from life's blows and still hang onto kindness and respect as you have.

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