I had a scary thought the other day...

As you may know, my wife is due to give birth to our first child on May 26th. It seems like a while since we first found out we were having a baby. Since that time it feels like we've already been through a lot with our little boy. Doctor appointments, ultrasounds, first kicks, getting fidgety and hungry, hiccups, birth classes, etc... Just the frequent rolling around in the womb and the occasional karate kick have given me some sense of connection with him. All of the experiences of the last 8 months have really helped form a bond between me and my son. I already feel so connected to him. Sounds crazy, huh? I'm so happy for my little boy because he's got two parents who wanted to bring him into this world, who can't wait to meet him on his birthday, and who are both united in their willingness to provide for him and raise him up in the way God wants him to go. What a lucky kid! Just to have two loving parents waiting for him is so much more than what many babies get when they are brought into this world.

Then the thought hits me, "Oh, what if something happens and he doesn't make it?" At this point, total devastation. I can't even imagine the heartbreak. My mind can't even think much past the question because it knows that answer involves unspeakable pain, anguish over the loss of someone so special, the loss of a lifetime of memories, the squandered potential of life at its very beginning. Just the thought of a little person so loved never even getting the chance to meet the ones who want him is just nothing short of pure tragedy. I don't think my life would ever be the same. I don't know how long it would take me and my wife to pick up the pieces. And our poor child would be gone. No chance to pick up any pieces. No chance to even live just a few moments with the ones who love him. Absolute horror.

Its so hard just to write those words. I know that the thought, as horrifying as it is, is not at all what God has planned for this little baby boy. And I know that me and my wife would do anything to keep him safe. God has given me his peace about this, and I'm sure my little boy will be perfectly safe.

But if there is really evil in this world of ours, and I mean true evil, would it not want to kill, destroy, and do everything that it could to snuff out the innocent life of my child? Would it not want to make me and my wife realize the devastation that I described in the paragraph above? Would it not want to make sure that my baby's life was cut short, and he would never get a chance to be loved and cared for? You betcha!

God has given me such a peace about the safety our child, so its not really an issue in my mind. But how many other babies in this country are not so lucky? Ours has two parents who love him and protect him. Other babies in this country are born only to find that life in this world consists of being bundled up in a garbage bag and thrown into a dumpster. Even more never get the chance to make it to the dumpster because they are mercilessly mutilated in their mother's womb and sucked out piece by piece because the parent(s) can't support the child if it was born. Or perhaps the mother doesn't want to damage her career. Maybe she thinks her partner will not love her anymore if he finds out she's pregnant. Whatever the reason may be, its all okay to do this in this country.

What a tragedy it would be to lose my own child whom I love so much. But what an even greater tragedy for all those babies that don't even have a person in this world who loves them enough to just let them live. In our world and our media today we vilify people or groups or people who commit horrible atrocities such as genocide, and rightfully so. We think of how bad it is to kill innocent people and slaughter them just for being of a certain race or religion. It is bad. Its horrible. In fact it pains the human conscience to think of innocent people being killed. Shouldn't we feel even more pain when those who are killed are even more innocent? The most innocent? If we found the most innocent person in the world and brutally killed him, wouldn't that be one of the most evil things a person could ever do? So why is it that when we abort a baby (the most innocent and delicate form of life that I can think of) our society doesn't seem to care? Are we blinded to something? To take the most innocent form of life on our planet, completely disregard it, treat it as an inconvenience, and flush its hopes and dreams down a tube before it even has a chance to survive, is the most evil thing that we humans could ever do. What a sad sad thought. Even the fact that some little baby has nobody in the world who loves him is such a massive tragedy. But then to kill that baby on top of that? Pure evil! By definition!

We as a society must be incredibly deceived to not be able to see this. Deceived by what? Well doesn't it make sense that pure evil would want to disguise itself? Because if we really saw it for what it was then we would be repulsed. So it goes by the name "choice" or "women's rights" or "childhood planning". Pretty sick if you think about it! The baby has no choice, no rights. God has a plan for that baby's childhood, but we overrule with our own plans. This disguise is not really much of a disguise to the trained eye. You see, pure evil has, as it's roots, pride and arrogance. Satan became who he is because he was prideful and arrogant. Now look at the disguise of abortion. "Choice": Human arrogance to think that we get to make the life/death choice for others. "Women's Rights": Human pride that says we are more important than those others whom we kill. "Childhood Planning": The arrogance to say "Let's just discard God's plan for this child. Let's put to death the plans that this child may have. After all, we know better. The timing just isn't right. Things may go wrong." So essentially what we have is an act of pure evil being disguised by pure evil. You'd have to believe some kind of a lie to think of it as anything else.

The biggest lie: "Its not a baby/child. Its my body". Oh really? Going through this whole process of having a baby has been very educational. Did you know that a baby can survive outside the womb as early as 24 weeks old? If a baby is born at 24 weeks, then we say "now he has rights", but if he stays in the womb and is aborted at 30 weeks then we say "I made the choice because its my body." So if you have a child who is born at 24 weeks and you dump him in a trash can at 30 weeks, that's murder! Clearly there is a massive double standard at work here. In one instance its the mother's body, in the other its his own body. Which is it? Abortion advocates always overlook these facts. Its not your body. Its another body. Its just inside your body. And it needs you to survive. It is no threat to you! You know, our first ultrasound was at around 8 weeks along and we could see the heart pumping blood. The brain even starts functioning at a very early time as well. People don't have two brains, and they don't have two hearts. But people in our country still tell themselves that its their body. And that lie only helps to cover the shame and pain caused by this act of pure evil. The cycle continues and pure evil disguises itself with pure evil and covers up the results by telling lies. And we are all led to think that there is no problem here.

I've always been opposed to abortion mostly because of my background and upbringing. This whole process of becoming a parent has really opened my eyes to the whole issue. Before, it was a brutal thing that was done to babies. It still is brutal thing that is done, but its so much more now that I understand the love a parent should have for a child. And the tragedy of the murder is so much more magnified when you consider how this is a totally innocent person who does not even have at the very least the love of the ones who should love him most. The ones who are choosing to have him killed. If that's not pure evil, then I don't know what is. If that's not pure evil, then there is no such thing. For how can we call one bad thing evil and another bad thing good. It becomes meaningless. I hope for our sake as a culture and a country we can regain our morals because the state of things right now show that we are way off base.

Afgan Christian Killing


It's been a while since I've last posted. As you can imagine, I've been a bit busy since the news of our baby arrived. The last several months have been filled up with various activities of which Nesting has been the chief. Its alright though. I'm excited to get to prepare things for our new little one. The due date is May 26th and I'm sure our lives will never be quite the same after then.

It's funny but the reason I decided to post today has nothing to do with my baby. He'll be along soon enough and I'm sure I'll make many posts with him as the main subject. I was looking at the news today and I was suprised to see an article about an Afgan man who converted to Christianity who was being sentanced to death because of his conversion. I don't intend this post to be a Christian perspective on this particular situation but rather a genaral thought provoking post about where our country finds itself right now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11955289/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11973510/from/RS.2/

This article really makes me want to respond in a couple ways. Obviously, the fact that a Christian man is being persecuted in such a way makes me very sad. This man may become a martyr for Christ. This on its own is a tragedy for this man's family and Christians everywhere. I could write a lot about this, but I don't think it would be anything that you couldn't find in any other Christian blog. The unique thing that concerns me about this situation is different.

Here is a country that we set out to liberate 4 years ago. We destroyed the Taliban and created a new government that is supposedly more respectful of human life. Here is a religion (Islam) that our country's leaders have billed as a "peaceful" and "tolerant" religion. We're told that MOST muslims don't adhere to the extremist views of those who attacked us on 9/11. Yet, a couple years after we risk our own lives to establish a peaceful democracy in Afganistan, we see a person being put to death in Afganistan for converting to Christianity. This is what we fought for? This is respectful of human rights? This is the law in the "new" Afganistan? This doesn't sound very tolerant to me.

May I suggest that our leaders and the people of this country need to start being more realistic about what Islam really is if we are going to "win" this war on terrorism. As Americans we like to think about religion and politics and being two seperate entities. We try to keep our religious values out of politics out of respect to those who may believe differently. So, its hard for us to comprehend how religion and politics can be so tightly interwoven. That's the way it is in Afganistan. Their religion is their way of life. They don't have other religions to cater to in Afganistan, so its not hard to pass a law that says you die if you convert to Christianity. If that's what the religion says, and 99% of the people in your country are followers of that religion, then that's the law. How can Islam be the peaceful tolerant religion that we are told it is? We just gave this country freedom. Kicked out the Taliban. They could have passed any law they wanted and what did they pass? The Kill Christians Act. And this is the kinder, gentler, peaceful, tolerant Afganistan. We upgraded the government, but the religion still keeps things the same. We've seen many people on TV come and talk about how Islam is a peaceful religion. Yet when given all the tools to make a wonderful new country, they revert back to a basic lack of human rights. What we are being told and what we are seeing happen are two different things.

As far as I can see, the battle that America is faced with is a battle of ideas and beliefs, not people and weapons. This has manifest itself in the form of a physical war. But killing terrorists doesn't solve the problem because the ideas still survive. Not just the ideas and beliefs of Osama Bin Laden, because he has only read and interpreted the Koran as he saw fit. He and all of his followers may die, but someone else may come along, read and interpret the Koran the same way, and continue to cause grief worldwide. The religion itself fuels these people to do what they do. It also provides the justification they need. I don't pretend to be an expert on the Koran, but my guess is that there are pieces of Koran that compell muslims to "Kill Muslims Who Convert" and "Kill the infadels" and "Wage Jihad". If its in the Koran then how can we expect to just round up terrorists and consider ourselves safe when any person who truly studies and follows the Koran could potentially start obeying it and wage jihad.

Another part of the equation seems to be the complete lack of outrage by the "peaceful" components of Islam. When Christian leaders in this country misbehave (Jim Baker, Catholic pedafiles,etc...) there is wide condemnation from the Christian community. Where is the Muslim condemnation of terrorism? Where was the outrage and condemnation when Nick Berg had his head cut off? Am I missing something or are these acts not being condemned because the Islamic religious authorities believe the acts are permissable. By not loudly condemning such acts it appears that the "peaceful" Islamic communities around the world approve of these acts. I'm sure there are many factors at play here, but overall this is how things appear to the public. This religion doesn't look peaceful at all.

America's leaders also need a reality check when it comes to our image. When I say image, I don't mean our image to other countries or the world. I'm specifically talking about the way our emeny sees us. On one side of our goverment we've got a president who is trying to defend the country. On the other side we've got an opposition party that is doing everything it can to make the president look bad and thus regain their power. In the process of trying to regain their power, these people are staining the image that our emeny sees. I'm going to take a wild guess that say that I don't think the enemy sees us as being completely united against them and willing to do anything necessary to destroy them wherever they are. How can they when they see our own congress trying to censure a president for defending the country? This image that we are projecting combined with their religious/political beliefs is giving them a no reason to stop their war against us.

I heard it said on the radio recently that we probably couldn't have won WWII if we had the Congress/Senate and the politically biased media that we have today. Unfortunately, I have to agree. I don't see enough stomach for prolonged conflict in our congress or senate and our media only seems to only report on things that we do wrong. It should be noted that WWII was won because of image. Germany was crushed militarily, but Japan surrendered to our image. This is an image that says "we will completely destroy you and use any means to do so". Once the US dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese situation was totally hopeless. They believed that there was no way to win. How could they believe otherwise? We could have just stood back and nuked their cities one by one and not lost a single soldier. So they surrendered unconditionally because they believed there was no way to win.

It seems that on the battlefield where we fight now it is not enough to capture or kill your enemy because he will continue to come at you. When fighting an emeny like this (and Japan was equally as fanatic) you can only win by making him believe he has no choice but to surrender. Given the image that we currently project to our enemy, I'd say we're going to be in for a long fight. We might even be losing. One thing is certain. We haven't given our enemy any reason to surrender yet.

Sorry for the little dose of reality here. But as I see it, America needs to start getting realistic about the religion of Islam and it needs to get realistic about what it takes to win this war. You need to know your enemy before you can beat him. I don't think we're there yet. This whole situation in Afganistan with the Christian killing is a prime example. We don't know or don't want to admit what Islam is all about. Just the fact that this kind of law would be on the Afgan books after what we did shows that we don't know what this religion is all about. And as I've stated before, we can't beat them if we don't know who they are.

God please help us if we don't figure this out soon!

I just recently found out the exciting news that I am going to be a Father! It seems kind of funny right now because the news was a bit of a surprise to both me and my wife. When she first told me, I was happy and excited. Since then, the last couple weeks have gone by, and the happiness and excitement remain, but for different reasons. At first I was happy because of the excitement of the moment, the thought of having a baby, and the big change this would be to our lives.

As the weeks have gone on, I find myself dwelling on other aspects of the news, yet still just as excited. I’ve begun to think about what this little person will be like. I wonder whether it’s a boy or a girl. I wonder what kind of personality he will have. The more time goes by, the more I begin to realize the responsibility involved in being a parent. This little person is going to be looking to me for everything. The decisions I make will impact how this child’s life will go.

I also get hit with the sobering reality that this child may make his own choices (good or bad) that will also determine the course of his life. I guess in some ways it worries me that this little person could someday make a choice that would destroy his life. What a sobering thought! That this person could take the life that you’ve given him and throw it away. Would they really do such a thing? Others have. Do they know the heartache this would cause their parents? Maybe he won’t care. All I can do as a parent will be to raise this child as best I can and leave the rest of the details to God.

When I look at myself and see all the excitement and anticipation that I’m going through coupled with the realization of this person’s need for provision and direction, I can’t help but wonder if this is what God felt when he was creating the world. Surely he was excited at the thought of having a kid because that’s what Adam was. In fact, God knew full well that by creating Adam and Eve He was creating an entire world of people all with the capacity to know Him and be called sons of God.

“for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. “ Gal 3: 26

Can you imagine what kind of excitement He must have felt? I’m only having one baby. He’s making billions. Do you think that being made in the image of God means that we would have the same response to having children? It’s funny to think, but I believe that God was feeling a lot like I am now. The only thing is that God actually knew the answers to the questions I have now. He knew that these offspring of His would not only turn their backs on Him, but give Him the middle finger while they walked away and destroyed themselves.

Can you imagine? I don’t even know if my child will be so bad as to do that to me. He certainly could! But all I can say it this point is that I’m already filled with love for whoever this child may turn out to be. He may turn out to not love me at all, but I’ll still love him because he’s my child. Of course, he may turn into a person who loves me back, and that just seems like that’s the way it’s really supposed to be.

What a position God put himself in though. He knew ahead of time that His creation would reject Him, but He still chose to create us. He knew that He would literally have to go through hell for us, but He chose to do so anyway. What a Father! Could it be that just the thought of creating us caused Him to love us so much that it didn’t matter what the cost was, He was creating us anyway. And just so we could have the chance to live life the way it’s really supposed to be, in relationship with Him. That’s not just love. That’s crazy! Right? When I think about these things it leads me to one conclusion. If the Bible is true, then God is either crazy, or God loves every one of us more than any human could ever comprehend or even imagine.

Isn’t it just amazing what a little baby can show you?

Is gambling a sin?

To me, the issue of gambling is a complex one. Most people tend to go blindly either for or against it because its too difficult to sit down and weigh the pro's and con's as well as account for social dysfunction and abuse. As far as I know, gambling addiction is a compulsive behavior that is closely akin to other compulsive/addictive behaviors such as alcohol abuse, overeating, drug abuse, smoking, etc... Usually, people who are addicted gamblers will also drink, smoke, do drugs or whatever because their problem goes farther then just gambling. I believe this is why gambling has been given the "vice" label by modern society. Especially in Christian circles, gambling is practically on par with most every other "vice" such as smoking, drinking, etc... Its pretty much thought of as deviant behavior.

I've thought and prayed a lot over the last couple years about several things along these lines. Like a lot of people, I was a little put off by the idea that our church would give itself a name like Aqueous that sounded so "new age" or "hippie". After all, it had never been done before. I think we've all grown past that time because everybody can see that just because we don't look unlike any other church or sound like any other church doesn't mean that God isn't in our midst. If anything, our name seemed to spark curiosity and interest especially from non-Christians who thought that real churches only had certain names, "churchy names". Well, that time has really been a lesson for me and made me think about what is really important. Is having a "churchy" name really important?

This thought simply breeds a whole list of questions. What does a Christian look like? Does he wear snappy clothes on Sunday? Does he go to a church with a "churchy" name? Does he always keep his nose clean and make sure that he never watches a movie rated above G? Would that person really be a Christian if he drinks? or smokes? Like I said before, what is really important? I'm pretty sure that God has let us know what's important by giving us the Bible. We'll find out what's important by reading it for ourselves. However, we as Christians seem to supplement the Bible with what is socially acceptable. The church name, for example, is not a very socially acceptable name to most other Christians. It raises eyebrows. It invites condemnation from other Christians. Is it really important then that we name ourselves to please other Christians? After all, like Jesus said, its not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. What's important is a church full of people who's hearts are devoted to God and who are reaching out to the lost. Our name sparks interest with nonbelievers. "Churchy" names don't mean much especially to someone who's predispositioned against Christianity. Its socially acceptable to offer grape juice for communion instead of wine because we think "wine may cause an alcoholic in our church to sin". That's great for the 1% of Christians who are recovering alcoholics, but for the rest of us, who cares? Is it really important? We serve good food/deserts in our gatherings. Its a really good thing to do because socializing and eating go hand in hand. Are we going to stop doing that because somebody with a massive eating disorder might start a eating binge because they scarfed a couple of peanut butter cookies? Of course not. Its socially acceptable to have food back there (maybe not depending on which Christians you talk to). But is that really important?

Is it important to God that I don't smoke? Is it important to God that I don't drink? Is it important to God that I don't overeat?
"All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything." I Cor 6:12

Socially acceptable church behavior is not smoking, not drinking, not overeating, and yes, not gambling.

But is that really important, or has the church just made it important?

Is it helpful to smoke? No. Is it a sin to smoke? The Bible doesn't mention it.
Is it helpful to drink? No. Is it a sin to drink? The Bible doesn't say good things about drunkards and getting drunk. But drinking in general is not mentioned.
Is it helpful to overeat? No. Is it a sin to overeat? The Bible tends to lump gluttons and drunkards together.
Is it helpful to gamble? No. Is it a sin to gamble? The Bible doesn't mention it.

It would be reasonable to think that smoking and gambling are on par with drinking and overeating. As such then, these things are not sins, yet they are something that should be done in moderation with a sound mind.

It seems that the modern church has gone to the extreme and forbid (or looked down upon) these things. Are these things lawful? Yes according to Paul. What is really important? A heart given to God is what's important. If we as Christians remove ourselves far from the world to the point where we don't drink,smoke, overeat, gamble, watch any non-Christian movies, turn on the TV (because the news is awful), let our kids play with "heathen kids", etc... then we will cease to be in touch with the world at all. Like Paul said, we live IN the world, but are not OF the world. If we were truly to be living separate from the world then God would have taken us from the world by now. Does this mean that we should all be drinking and eating and gambling? Not at all. Like Paul said, all things are permissible but not beneficial. Christians tend to think that worldly "pleasures" such as these are things that we should never be a part of. Why should we not enjoy the things that God has created as a part of this world? So if I think a little rum tastes good with cola, am I sinning by drinking that? No according to Paul. Is it helpful for me to have rum in my coke? No, of course not. But are there any pleasurable things in this world that are truly helpful then? Only in as much as we give thanks to God for them. I am also responsible to God not to defile myself if I choose to drink. Therefore, I keep these things in mind and always make sure that I have a tight leash on whatever I'm doing. Like Paul says, not being enslaved by anything.

In the absence of any other direction from God, we as Christians are left to obey the laws of the land. If drinking was illegal, then we should not drink. If smoking, then don't smoke. If gambling, then don't gamble. The Bible doesn't mention narcotics, but we avoid these things because they are illegal (not to mention unhelpful). I don't mean to say at all that Christians who don't drink should drink and those who don't gamble should gamble. If a Christian is already living just fine while not drinking or gambling then please continue to do so. But Christians should not be deceived into thinking that they can condemn those who do. After all, Paul says that these things are permissible. So is it really important if I drink or don't drink? Gamble or don't gamble? Smoke or don't smoke? God will direct each of us how we should go. For some this may be giving up all these things for others maybe not.

Now in regards to the question of using gambling to minister, I don't believe that what we are doing is using gambling as a selling point for Christianity. In fact, our Friday poker nights are not intended to sell anything to anybody. What we hope to accomplish is to build relationships with these people whereupon they may be more trusting of us. What I have come to realize is that if people won't come to us (believe me, most won't just show up to a "church picnic" or "church potluck" because they don't want Christianity shoved down their throats), then we must go meet them where they are. Well guess what, every non-Christian at my work who I've been praying for is also a poker player. These are people who know I'm a Christian, yet they see me doing a lot of the same stuff they do without defiling myself by becoming drunk, cussing, or compulsive about poker. When I first started inviting these people, they asked me, "Can I bring a beer?". They ask because they know I'm a Christian, but I said, "Sure". Why? Why should I let something like drinking (a permissible activity) deter people from coming to spend time with me who will eventually lead them to know God. Please don't think I'm trying to encourage any bad behavior. We've had one or two people who simply could not conduct themselves wisely and without compulsion. I don't invite them back. God may have other ways to bring them into the fold, but this is not it. So right off the bat, if people can't handle this responsibly, we'll find another way to include them. Poker night isn't it for them. It isn't hard at all to spot these people.

As far as setting the bar high, I'm not in favor of this. As Christians, one to another, we need to be accountable to each other to make sure that our conduct is good. We should set the bar high for ourselves. But not for unbelievers. Jesus died on this cross to get rid of the bar so that anybody could have a relationship with God. If there were a bar, then nobody would get over it. Its the same thing with bringing beer to poker night. For something like beer, its not worth shutting somebody out. These people trust me now. I can expand these relationships further because of the trust I've built with them on these nights. They still know I'm a Christian, but now they know that the bar isn't so high. In fact, I want them to see how low it really is. The problem is most people don't even want to consider Christianity because they'd have to give up everything that's fun. Well guess what! They don't have to give up fun. We can still have fun and be Christians too. There is a difference though, and they can see it. We have limits and we have boundaries. We have fun, but we don't defile ourselves. People will be so much more willing to accept Jesus once they realize how close they really are and how easy it can be. Lets not make it hard for them.

This was exactly the case when Jesus arrived on the scene. Pharisees were setting impossibly high standards for everyone, but Jesus came right to the wretched and gave them what they needed, a relationship with Him. That's why the Pharisees said "Look here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners". Do you think Jesus just went to these people's houses and preached at them all the time? No, he probably stayed a while, had something to eat and drink just like everyone else. That's why the Pharisees couldn't stand Him. He was all wrong to them. He didn't pay any attention to the rules and regulations that these people set up. Instead He came down and befriended the sinners and showed them true love instead of giving them a list of do's and dont's.

Now in conclusion, I'd like to say that I Cor 8 talks about meat sacrificed to idols and the problems with eating these foods. Like such, we have an activity which is considered among many Christians to be evil. I know that the Bible does not mention this at all and such talk is merely socially acceptable behavior being thrust upon people. But I Cor 8 also talks about how eating the meat can be a stumbling block to those who have weak consciences. Therefore, I think a public showing of such activities may not be wise. Nevertheless, I see no good reason to stop using these activities to reach out to non-Christians for the sake of those who already believe. As a church and as individuals, we need to be able to care for those already in the flock, while reaching out to those who are lost. So I guess I'm not sure where that leaves us, but I hope this helps further the conversation to where it should go.

Aaron