Life of Pride

What must it have been like to know the young man Jesus? Such power. Such genius and leadership ability. At the age of twelve, he stumped the smartest scholars around. Thousands upon thousands flocked to hear him speak and to experience the wave of healing that washed out of him to make people new wherever he walked.

To an outside observer, he must have looked like a young leader of amazing potential. Someone to be cultivated — or feared.

But what did this young leader do? At the height of it all, just when things looked like they were really taking off, he gave himself away. He counted it all loss because his Father had other plans for him. In his death, he brought eternity into the present age. He bridged an impossible chasm so that we who are his children may walk straight from one reality into another.

The only person worthy to hold power of any sort is the one who has already given it all away and expects nothing back. The Father grants authority new again every morning, until the day he gives it to someone else. Then you leave it behind, and you cross the bridge, and you see Jesus and forget everything else.

This is basically a placeholder website still. I have a lot I want to do to it, but not enough time. Mr. Ted Slater from boundless.org suggested that I register the domain name, so I did.

Today’s topic is the stereotypes and limitations we impose on ourselves in life. I think we do this out of fear; we seek to discover the “rules” and then to adhere to them, in order to avoid possible negative consequences.

But we look in the wrong place for the rules when we study only the world around us. In truth, there is no script, only simple principles that we can carry with us anywhere we go:

1. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (i.e., everything).
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does its neighbor no harm, so in these two commandments are tied up all the law.

Love, however, is a lifelong art that will require every faculty we possess, and then the help of the Holy Spirit. Every person is unique, and so requires a slightly different approach, which must be discerned. So we must fine-tune the skills of wisdom, discernment, and listening.

I also say love is an art because it can only be learned by hands-on practice. Also because it is beautiful. Love of the true sort heals the flaws of daily interactions and renders life in harmony. It is fairly unnatural to us and requires daily wrestling and instruction from the Master, God Himself.

Love is freedom. It binds me to the opinion of only one being — my Lord — God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No man can imprison my soul. I owe men allegiance only as my true Lord commands.

I’ve decided to kick off my new blog with a little imaginative speculation on the universe. This isn’t scientific in the slightest, only an experiment in bending my mind.

Up until last week, I have thought of the universe as a huge emptiness with various pieces of matter flinging themselves around in it. Last week, however, I dimly recalled the topic of dark matter and did a quick Google search. Apparently, 80% of the universe’s matter is invisible. It is spread out somewhere between the visible stuff.

So then my thinking began to turn on its head, much like this famous picture of the Rubin vase:

If you look at the “dark matter,” you see two faces. Otherwise, you see only a vase.

So I started thinking “what if,” which is when things get dangerous. What if, I wondered, our universe were a black something spread out, with 3D holes poked into it? Beyond our universe is a 4D something that is 100% sheer light that shines through the holes?

Preposterous, you say? Probably. But I recall an experiment I did when I was a kid. I took a sheet of black construction paper and poked holes in it with a pin, then covered a light with it. This 2D sheet covered a 3D object, and lights shone through. The sheet itself had substance, and to 2D creatures crawling around on it, the infinitesimally thin slices of light they encountered would themselves seem to have heat and substance.

The sun brings light and life to living things. We also say that about God. What if our sun and all the other stars were just the tiniest pinpricks of God’s glory?