Pastor Joe’s Blog

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast from Science Friday in which Professor Jeff Lichtman of Harvard talked about his project to map the wiring diagram of the brain.  What an ambitious project!  The idea is to image the brain down to the scale of nanometers – examining the connections between individual nerve cells.  In order to store this kind of detailed image from one cubic millimeter of brain tissue with an electron microscope would require 1000 terabytes of storage, or 1 petabyte.  To image the entire human brain would require more digital storage than is currently available in the entire world!

The amazing thing is that this image would be unique for every individual because no two people have exactly the same wiring pattern of neurons in their brains.  And even if it were possible to complete this project, it wouldn’t explain how the brain works.  There are so many unanswered questions about our brains.  How does it store memories and retrieve them?  Where are the memories stored?  How do emotions work?  There is so much we simply don’t know about how the brain works.  Even our ability to read this article – understanding the symbols on the page and making sense of them – is a remarkable feat!

The human brain has abilities that go far beyond the best computers available.  While computers might be fast at complex mathematics, human intuition and reasoning processes leave computers in the dust.  This biological storage and processing organ is truly amazing.  This caused me to wonder.  How could we conceive that our complex bodies could simply build themselves through random and chance collisions of basic elements?  No matter how much time is given, this simply wouldn’t be possible.  We owe our existence not to chance, but to purpose.

Why are we here today?  We are here because an amazing Creator designed us with a purpose in mind.  If we believe that life evolved by chance, then we really don’t have any purpose of existence.  But when we understand that we are creations rather than accidents our lives are filled with purpose!  Find your purpose today by turning to the One who created you.  He made you because he loves you.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” —Psalm 139:14

Today I was listening to a science podcast from NPR on the formation of solar systems. The guest was Mike Brown, a professor from Caltech, and he was discussing his frustration when it comes to finding solar systems that are like our own. The main problem seems to be our understanding ofgas giant planets like Jupiter. Previously, scientists theorized that planets like Jupiter form far from their sun where it’s cold and water freezes.

However, as more and more solar systems are discovered, scientists are finding a very different trend. It seems that almost all of the systems that have been discovered have gas giants that are close to the sun. The reason this is important is that it means the likelihood of a smaller rocky planet like earth existing in such a system is nearly impossible. In fact, only one star has been discovered to have a solar system like ours so far.

Apparently, the pattern is showing that our planet is a rare exception in the universe. Granted, we can only make estimates based on what we have discovered so far, but the picture is looking grim when it comes to finding other planets capable of supporting the kind of life we have on earth. It is exciting to find more and more star systems with planets, but we aren’t finding planets like our own. Is it possible that we are alone in the universe?

In a book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee called Rare Earth, the authors postulate that complex life is uncommon in the universe. They cite numerous factors in our solar system that make life here possible and note that those factors all have to come together in the right way. It almost sounds like our existence here is a miracle.

While we continue to sweep the heavens for signs of alien life, it might be worth noting the uniqueness of our own existence. When we step back and look at the universe, we notice just how precious and rare life is. Some might be tempted to think that life appeared here by random chance, but the more we learn the more we realize just how large the odds are against life generating spontaneously. Could it be that we are not here by chance but rather by design?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
—Genesis 1:1 (NIV)

Our church began 21 days of prayer and fasting a little over a week ago.  It’s great to start the new year by spending time with God and getting a better focus on life.   Personally, I have been looking forward to this time so that I could spend time alone with God, renewing my passion and gaining direction for my life and ministry.  While it has been helpful, I think the greatest revelation to me is the battle that takes place between the flesh and the spirit when you enter into a time of renewal like this.

You might think that I’m talking about the battle to desire food when I’m supposed to be fasting.  But that’s not the real issue here.  There seems to be a strong battle going on inside of me as I determine each day to set aside time to pray and seek God.  My spirit longs for His companionship and desires to spend time with Him.  But my flesh is pushing me to rush through it and get to work.  It seems like I feel an unusual “push” inside of me to get my work done.  There’s this voice within me that cries out, “Hey, you don’t have time for this! You’ve got way too much to do today to just sit around and pray and read!”

The truth is, I’ve got way too much to do to not spend time in prayer!  That struggle is always present, but it seems to be magnified right now as I determine to spend even more time in prayer.  I have made some progress on some days.  But not every day is successful.  This morning started with a dental appointment and got busier as the day progressed.  So what do I do?  Should I give up and just forget about it?  Absolutely not!  Each day is a new opportunity to allow the spirit to conquer the flesh.  Jesus said that if we are to follow Him, we have to deny ourselves and take up our cross.  It’s the idea of overcoming the desires of our flesh to satisfy the desires of His Spirit.

This is a never ending battle.  Some days we win, some days – not so much.  But we never give up.  Are you struggling to turn over control to God in some area of your life?  It takes discipline and hard work, but it can be done.  Also, never forget what Jesus said, “With man it’s impossible.  But with God all things are possible.” Never underestimate the power of grace in our lives.  Turn your struggle over to God and allow Him to overwhelm you with His wonderful grace!  Each day is a new opportunity.  Give it to Him and watch what happens!

Helix Nebula

My son recently sent me a link to a really cool web site: http://www.wikisky.org/  From this site you can view some amazing pictures of our universe taken from observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope.  To me it is absolutely mind blowing to consider just how vast and diverse our universe is.  Something even more amazing is the idea that it just happened by accident. 

Lately I’ve been reading a book about the origins of our universe and mankind.  The Bible is very clear about the fact that everything that we see was created by God.  Exactly how He created everything is still being discovered as we explore our world, but it’s hard to deny that creation is the work of a designer.  The natural laws of the universe dictate that systems decay into disorder unless acted on by an outside force.  The big bang would have left nothing more than a big mess if not directed toward order by an outside force.  Instead it resulted in incredible systems of order and complexity – from massive galaxies down to sub atomic particles.  All of it is amazing and awe inspiring.

The order found in our universe is a clear indication that creation was designed on purpose and not a random event.  Not only was it designed on purpose, it was designed for a purpose!  If nothing else, God created the universe as a place for us to live.  That may sound like overkill, but then again, He is a pretty big God!  But this also begs one more question:

If all of creation is here for a reason….why are we here?  Do you know why you are here?  The one who made you knows, and He wants you to find out.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.  —Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

In 1973, Raymond Guay killed a 12 year old boy.  He has served 35 years in prison for his crime and recently got paroled.  In 1993, Raymond became a Christian while in prison.  The question is, do you believe that a man like that can change?  Pastor David Pinckney of Chichester, NH, does and is willing to demonstrate his conviction.  He has allowed Raymond to live in his home with his family of five children for two months while he tries to get a job and get back on his feet.  The residents of this small town are outraged and have even threatened to burn down the pastor’s home.

The victim’s sister, Randy Zimmerman, said:

“You don’t shoot a little boy in the face and find Jesus.  People don’t find Jesus who are capable of doing things like that.”

Is she right?  When I first heard this report on Good Morning America, I really wondered if I would have the courage of this pastor to allow a convicted child murderer to live in my family’s home.  Admittedly, I do believe that people can change but saying that and putting your family on the line to prove it are two different things.  In an interview the pastor responded to the question, “What do you say to those who say that people don’t change?”

“I disagree.  I think people change and I think if people don’t change, first of all the gospel of Jesus has no merit and we’re kind of a hopeless society if we don’t think people can change.”

This guy’s right.  If we don’t think that people like Raymond can change, then what kind of God do we serve?  Is He powerful enough to help a decent family man but not powerful enough to change a murderer?  It’s not a matter of whether or not we have faith in Raymond to change, but do we have the faith to believe that  God can change people like Raymond?  It’s a great question…what do you think?

Our church has gone through a lot of changes recently which has really kept us busy.  I suppose you could call it a good kind of busyness, but even good busyness can be a problem.  I’ve been so busy with administrative duties related to our name change and new by-laws that it has bottle necked my spiritual life.  Today I tried to do something about that. 

I’ve been reading about lectio divina lately.  If you don’t know what that is, check out the link.  It’s a great way to be more focused and contemplative with your devotional time.  Since reading about it, I’ve really wanted to take some time to try it out.  This morning I got my Bible out and chose a passage.  Normally I read systematically through the Bible, which I did at breakfast as usual.  But I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to the Psalms for this excercise.  I turned to Psalm 63:

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Boy was that appropriate!  I had just played a song on the piano that we are going to introduce to the congregation as a new song this Sunday: The More I Seek You.  The words jumped out at me!  What hit me was that I needed to do something so simple – I need to seek God.  What do we do in our prayer time?  Most of us seek answers for problems or help for someone else.  But do we really take time to just simply seek God Himself?  Let me tell you that I actually found it difficult to be still and know that He is God. 

My life is soooo busy that it is hard to slow down enough to focus on simply being in God’s presence.  That’s a bad place to be!  But I am committed to doing just that.  It may take some time, but I will endeavor to slow down enough to hear that still, small voice of God that comes to us during meditation and contemplation.  Don’t get me wrong, I felt like the prayer time today was productive, but I’m not satisfied.  There’s more and I know it.  When is the last time you really slowed down and felt like you had quality time with God…alone, just the two of you?  If it’s been a while, or if you’ve never done it, I urge you to seek Him!

The Bible says that God created the world from nothing. He simply spoke and *poof* everything came into existance. Theologians refer to this act of creation as being Ex Nihilo - a Latin phrase that means “out of nothing.”  It seems that our government is getting into the creation business lately.  Yes, that’s right, they are creating cash ex nihilo!  Out of nowhere cash seems to be multiplying in congress.  A trillion here, a trillion there…every where we look money is just oozing from our capital.  I wonder where all that money is coming from? 

Just today our president handed congress a multi-trillion dollar budget that will increase our deficit to record highs.  Wait a minute…didn’t he say that he would bring the deficit under control if elected??? Hmmmm….  What’s the answer to fixing a recession? Why, spending money that you don’t have, of course!  Isn’t that how we got into this mess?  Buying houses we can’t afford, cars and plasma screen TVs on credit cars…paying for stuff with money that doesn’t yet exist.  Ask yourself a question, where does the government get money to operate?  Taxes.  Guess where the money for all this spending is going to come from.  Taxes.  Guess who’s gonna pay for all this spending.  We are.

I’ve got an idea.  If the government has this great power to create cash ex nihilo, how about giving me something I really need.  Let’s have a few more days in the week and a few more weeks in the year.  It seems like I’m forever behind in my work and could use some extra days to get everything done.  So, congress, see if you can pull a few extra days out of nothing for me.  It sure would be helpful.

I don’t know how many blogs I’ve started, but here we go again!  Hopefully I’ll keep up with this one better than I have in the past.  Our church just changed names and that meant a new web site and consequently, a new blog site.  We are now Horizon Church!  I’m really excited about the  name change and believe that great things are in store for us as a church. 

I’ll make this one short…I really need to finish my sermon for Sunday.  I’m speaking on creating community in the church.  We seem to live in such a disconnected world these days even though we have access to more ways than ever to connect.  I wonder if we spend too much time “virtually” connecting rather than interacting with someone face to face.  And here I am interacting with you “virtually!”  OK, back to the sermon.  I’ve enjoyed our little chat, let’s do it again some time!

EDIT:  You’ll notice that there are a few posts in here that are older than this one.  I decided to keep my old posts from my last blog and bring them in here with the original post dates so that I could delete that one.

I had a healthy helping of humble pie today, and it is soooo delicious! OK, so it tastes like garbage, but hey, we all need some from time to time. I just turned 43, yipee. The good news is that I don’t really feel any different than I did 15 years ago, so maybe I’m in a state of growth suspension. For the most part I’m in pretty good shape and still look young. But there is one area that simply can’t be avoided and I don’t like dealing with it.

For most of my life I’ve had great vision. I never needed glasses as a kid and always felt good about that. Even though I have done a lot of reading, my eyesight has been pretty good. But there’s a condition that afflicts everyone over 40 that changes the landscape in this arena – presbyopia, or “short arm syndrome.” As I approached and passed 40 I noticed that my arms had to hold small print further and further away. Finally I gave in and got some over the counter reading glasses.

This past Saturday I was out in my yard practicing with my pitching wedge and my reading glasses fell out of my front shirt pocket. By the way, golf is a great tool for teaching humility too, but let’s do that another day. I didn’t notice it until I came inside and needed to read something, of course. So I spent quite a bit of time out in the yard wandering around looking for my glasses. When it got dark I got out the flashlight, but came up empty handed. Normally this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I knew that I had to preach the next morning. I needed some glasses! I decided to make a trip to the drug store and that’s when pride entered into my heart.

Reading glasses come in different strengths and I decided to get the weakest strength possible. I hated to admit, even to myself, that I needed anything more than minimal help with reading. I got the lowest power glasses they make and it seemed to be OK. The problem is my vision is much worse early in the morning compared to later in the day. So when I got up on Sunday and read the Bible for my morning devotions I was really straining to read, even with my new glasses. Rats! I dealt with it for Sunday and tried using them again on Monday morning and Tuesday I decided to give in and eat that humble pie.

They say pie is tasty and delicious. Maybe apple pie and blueberry are pretty good, but try taking a great big bite out of humble pie and you’d just as soon eat a mud pie – made with real mud. The truth is humble pie is good for the heart, soul and mind. I had to dig through the garbage can to find the plastic hanger that the glasses were attached to when I bought them so that I could return them to the store. I guess the Lord wanted me to eat lots of humble pie because I couldn’t find it the first two times I dug through the trash. Left over fajitas, some bits of broccoli and grilled chicken, dried up spaghetti noodles…you get the idea. But the third time was a charm. I took them back to the store and got a pair that was stronger, one that will help me to read even in the morning when my eyes are still asleep.

The moral of the story is this: If you let pride be your guide, it may lead you to a trash can searching for humble pie.

EDIT: After writing this post I learned the derivation of the term “humble pie” from NPR’s Wait Wait news quiz. It was originally umble pie made from the innards of a deer. Yuck!

This past Sunday was interesting. Our worship team rehearsed before the service like we always do. We had a few new team members so we spent extra time making sure that all of the volume levels were set just right. It seemed to be good and the practice went well, so we were ready for the service to begin. I had made a little speech to everyone to be sure and get on the stage on time, to try and be ready when the countdown was at one minute or so. Right before the service I remembered I needed to set up the wireless internet for our new interactive sermon. Guess what happened…I was running to the stage as the countdown reached zero – along with both of my sons! OK, off to a great start.

The service began and things were going OK, except that every once in a while I kept hearing some feedback. I kept looking around to see if anything was out of whack, but couldn’t identify the source of the problem. I looked up in the sound room and three people were trying to figure it out. As the service went along, it got worse and worse. I became rather irritated and I’m sure that it showed on my face. At one point I decided to spring into action. I put down my guitar and walked over to one of the monitors to reposition it. As I bent down it went crazy and out of panic I just pulled the plug. Later I realized that the wireless mic I was wearing caused it to do that – so that was my fault. Arrggghh…

So now our singers have no monitor. And the squeal, it’s still there, but not as bad. I finally looked at the sound room and indicated that they should turn me down in the monitor thinking that might be the problem. When you panic, you make terrible decisions. Great. Now nobody can hear me. The singers can’t hear anything and we’re trying to lead the congregation in worship. This was frustrating to say the least! I was so glad when we finished the last song and we could get off the stage. Our Associate Pastor got up and delivered a really great message and things seemed to go well the rest of the morning.

What’s really interesting is that I heard lot’s of people comment that the worship was really great, better than it had been. Huh? That’s wierd. Even my son who was on the drums and witnessed everything said it was really great. I missed it. Somewhere along the way, in the midst of the panic and frustration, I missed one of the best worship services we have had in a long time – and I was on the stage!

There are two lessons to be learned from this. Sometimes we can be so distracted by the storm around us that we miss what God is trying to do right in front of us. Just think of the disciples in the boat with Jesus as the storm comes up. They think that they are going to drown because Jesus is sleeping and the boat is filling up with water. But God was just setting the stage for a miracle to occur. How many times do we miss divine opportunities because we aren’t tuned in?

The next lesson is even better. God works in spite of us. We sometimes approach ministry as if it all depends on us. While we are supposed to work hard and give our best, we can’t underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit in ministry. In fact, without the Holy Spirit working, ministry isn’t happening. God works best through our weaknesses anyway – that’s what Paul said:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

So the next time you think everything is going wrong, just remember, when we fall apart, God doesn’t. Even when we fail to do our best, the Lord can work. He isn’t limited by our inabilities. His strength really shines in our moments of weakness.