On religion and evolution

"I believe a true understanding of Darwinism is deeply corrosive to religious faith." (video marker 4:50)

-RICHARD DAWKINS

I would have to agree to an extent. True Darwinism and true Christianity are fundamentally incompatible.

Martha's Sailor

A careful man with careful hands
Walked down to the uncareful sea.
He cocked his chin, then touched the wind
To feel how the sailing might be.

The careful man with careful hands
Sat soundly on the docks.
Upon his lap with compass and map
He calculated knots.

The careful hand of the careful man
Moved crisply debonair.
He traced with pen--and traced again--
The route he chose to fare.

The careful man with careful hands
In full assessed his boat.
He checked barometers, gauges, thermometers,
And retied all the rope.

The careful hands of the careful man
At last pushed out to sail,
But for all his care he said a prayer
As night brought sudden gale.

The careful man and his careful hands
Sank deep in the uncareful seas.
With storm a-roll, up rose his soul
As he carefully rested in peace.

On Pause

To see my current adventure, visit my other blog, A Dollar to Remember. Read my previous post on this blog for a summary on what's happening. I will return to writing here when the experience is complete. Best,

Nathan

A Dollar for Remembrance

I will be eating on just a dollar a day.

Many people around the world can only buy food with the change we might have in our pockets. So in response, my girlfriend and I have chosen to eat as they would eat for the next month and a half (until Easter).

A few months ago, I was challenged by a preacher from Memphis. He emphasized the true immensity of God's heart for the poor, hungry, needy, afflicted and suffering. But I didn't know exactly how to respond.

Then my girlfriend brought up this dollar idea just a couple days ago. (Oddly, I had just read the beginning of Romans 12: offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.) I'm not a super-Christian. I just want to worship God more fully and rightly, and this seems to fit with God's heart.

This blog will now be on hold until Easter. I will instead be documenting my experience on this blog, starting February 6. Laura and I want to be able to look back on this to remember what it was like.

So A Dollar to Remember begins.

A Perfect Picture

I love the Old Testament.

I have a couple friends who say, "All we really need to know is Jesus." Jesus is life to us--God with skin, our Savior and perfect example. But the Old Testament is a critical part of the grand story of God and His relationship to people. It helps form our view of Jesus so much richer and fuller.

For instance, I ran across an intense picture today in Genesis. Chapter 22 tells the story of Abraham, the father set to sacrifice his son Isaac. I was struck by how similar Isaac and Jesus really are:

• His father loves him very much. (vs 2)


• He is his father's only son. (vs 2)


• He was the fulfillment of a promise. (21:1)


• He was sacrificed by his father. (vs 10)


• He went willingly. (vs 9)


• He carried the wood for his own sacrifice. (vs 6)


• On the third day, he was delivered from death. (vs 4)

Wow. Even thousands of years ago, they were foreseeing a picture of Christ. How much richer that makes it!

I love that.

Rest in the Yoke

My grandpa builds covered wagons--old west style. He and my grandma live in the countryside flint hills of the midwest U.S. Just like those of the Oregon Trail, he trains oxen and yokes them to pull massive conestogas across the rolling hills.

When I was younger, my grandpa used to let me help yoke up the oxen. The beasts were huge (and not just because I was small). The yoke itself, which connects the oxen together in pulling the wagon, probably weighed at least 30 pounds and was wider than I was tall.

So when the Bible talks about yokes, I know them first hand. This is part of the reason why I often had a hard time with the end of Matthew 11. Here, Jesus says:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

That was always confusing to me. From everything I've seen, being yoked is no restful thing! Yoked oxen undergo long and strenuous labor.

But now that I look at this in the larger context of what was happening then, it makes more sense. The Jewish culture in Jesus' time on earth was very legalistic, focusing heavily on the do's and don'ts of life. The religious leaders of the day would have imposed heavy laws on the people in order for them to remain in God's graces.

Jesus is not inviting people to come in from the playground and yoke up. Everyone (then and now) has a yoke already. Jesus, then, invites us to trade one yoke for another: the oppressive deed-focused yoke for his light-burden yoke.

That makes sense. I've fallen into that mindset before, thinking I have to be good to be loved. It's a terrible, scary feeling--a never-ending struggle to measure up. It leaves me exhausted and discouraged.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Even though Christ calls me to take up my cross and follow him (which is no simple action), his yoke is still infinitely better than the alternative. It is for freedom that Christ has set me free. I will not be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

As big and powerful as my grandpa's oxen were, this yokemate is the omnipotent Creator of the universe. I can find no place of greater rest for my soul than firmly yoked to him, my Savior.

I love that.

Giving Birth to Wind

Parents always seem to remember the story of their child's birth. However stressful and painful the months of pregnancy and labor, it's worth every minute to hold the tiny life as he takes his first breaths. The joy in that single moment must be indescribable.

Of course, that single moment doesn't always come. Sometimes the baby never takes his first breaths. Here's a video story created by one woman who birthed a stillborn child five months ago:



This morning I ran across a related part of Isaiah that had hit me hard about a year ago. At the time, I was spending a week in South America preparing to lead a team of college students to Santiago for the coming summer. We went to build relationships with the Chilean college students and walk our lives with Jesus among them. We prayed that they would want to walk with Jesus too.

The planning trip was overwhelming and disheartening. I seemed to hit brick walls everywhere: with people, with housing, with language, with my own fear. I tried everything I knew, but nothing was working out right. It brought me to the point of tears. Then I read these words of the prophet Isaiah:

As a woman with child and about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pain,
so were we in your presence, O LORD.
We were with child, we writhed in pain,
but we gave birth to wind.

Giving birth to wind--that's exactly how it felt. I was undergoing the pains of labor without the joy of the child's breath. It hurt, and it made me confused.

That's when I realized that I was trying too hard to do things in my own power. Only God himself could undertake the task. Only the Spirit could give birth to spiritual things.

As I cried out to God in frustration and bitterness, I remembered a verse in Romans 8, my favorite chapter of the Bible. It reads:

"And by [the Spirit] we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."

I still hurt, but knowing that I would one day share with Christ in glory was comforting. No matter the pain (hardship in South America, the loss of a child, or any number of sufferings), this is the gift for those who believe. As Jesus says in the book of John:

"A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."

We will no longer give birth to wind one day because of Christ.

I love that.