hometown hero

Pick a hero, it can be anyone. It can be an athelete. Teacher. Firefighter. Politician. Musician. Humanitarian. Youth Pastor. Parent. Sibling. Relative. What do they have in common?

They all come from somewhere.

Still thinking of that hero? Where are they from? If you go there, there is probably a statue or a road named after them. Maybe a museum or library in their honor. Some have sandwiches that carry their name. Others of less popularity have toilets that carry on their identity.

Jesus whas a hero. (No, duh, Nate. Did you really pay for that education?) No, he was. In John, you read about how He goes home and gets received by His fans. But not because of who He is--but because of what He did. Every hero is the same way. They aren't given hero status because of who they are, but what their accomplishment was.

It all started when Jesus simply talked to a Samaritan woman. It was like a Yankee fan eating with a Red Sox fan. Republican and Democrat. Paula Adbul and Simon Cowell. Jon and Kate.

Jesus broke the rules. And His hometown loved Him for it. And eventually killed Him because of it. They hated Him for it. It required them to give up their traditions and routines of a holier than thou attitude and simply, come.

What He taught and how He lived was so radical, so extreme, so crazy that it actually made sense: love.

Where people drew lines, He drew circles. He did the unimaginable and simply befriended the people who were not born of the Jewish heritage which makes Him--GASP--a hero.

So what does that make us?

-NW

fresh start

It is an argument that has been around for years: If God is so loving then why does He send people to hell?

Our persepective is completely off course.

We are too focused on how loving God is that we forget how just He really is. So we build a case against God and make ourselves believe that God is just too good and loving to send anyone to hell. We rule out His justice nonsense because it's more convenient that way. But it's impossible to remove one without the other. I invite you to look at Genesis.

God is fed up with His creation, so He flushes it down the toilet with a flood. That is God being just.

God, at the last minute, scoops down and saves Noah from the drain and uses him to start over. That is God being love.

Not long after, God irritably laughs at the people when they try and build a tower to Him and knocks them over and changes their languages. That is God being just.

The new nations are in serious need of the Rosetta Stone but are allowed by God to start over. That is God being love.

When God wipes the slate clean and gives us a frest start, we tend to think it's God just being love but in the end it's just God being....God.

-NW

the doggy in the window

I only know one line from the song and it's "How much is that doggy in the window? I do hope that doggy is for sale."

I can envision a child walking past the pet store and seeing the puppy all chaotic and energetic with tail wagging like a wiper blade. He is leaving paw prints all over the window and letting the window fog up from its breath. The child, so captured by the puppy's cuteness, excitement and emotional connection, starts begging to be the new owner of the pup.

This must be what Enoch felt. In Genesis, we say hello and goodbye to Enoch practically in one verse. It says "Enoch walked steadily with God. And then one day he was simply gone: God took him."

I can imagine Enoch playing the role of the puppy and God the role of the child and God was so amazed and impressed with just the sight of Enoch, let alone the consistency, that God just flat out took him out of the window called Earth and became a proud new owner of another committed follower.

I ask you to look at your life and consider how much it cost God to purchase it through His Son, Jesus.

Did He get a bargain in you like He did in Enoch? Or did He overpay?

-NW

the merry-go-round

So goes the merry-go-round, so goes life.

It is the endless routine of going in circles and it always costs a quarter each turn.

Whether you're riding a horse, fish, zebra ostrich or any other exotic animal, the journey is the same. One complacent, predictable future of left-hand turns.

It is the same each day. Doesn't matter which day of the week or month of the year. The variables like temperature, holidays and weather all change. But the end result? All left-hand turns.

When you finish a grade in school, there is another one waiting for you a couple of months later. When you graduate, there is another 4 years of school preparing for your arrival. When all of your hard work adds up to a degree, there is more hard work already waiting for you in an office called a 'career.'

Maybe that is what the Ecclesiastes author wrote "chasing the wind." Maybe he should have just written, "life is like riding a merry-go-round."

If this is true then I'm amuzed at our amuzement park dilemma. Why do we live out our lives riding the merry-go-round waiting desperately to get off but then feel the regret, sorrow and emptiness of a missed opportunity when we feel our bolted down exotic animal coming to a stand still?

-NW