Vox Lucens

I’ve spent a good portion of the last couple of weeks just feeling overwhelmed with life. There’s the normal craziness (which still hasn’t settled down since completing studies!) but in it all I have been trying to switch paradigms. I’m trying to go from thinking about life in terms of “getting through law school, to thinking about long-term goals, from career to passions to dreams of success.” It’s different, and trying to come to grips with the uncertainty of it all is a rather terrifying thought.

But as I was struggling through all of this, I went back go a passage of Scripture that is fast becoming one of my favorites the book of 1 John. There I found a simple phrase that gave me such encouragement that I want to share it with you.

Chapter 3 starts with a simple phrase, saying, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us…”

Behold, John tells us. Look - just look at the love of God!

So I thought I’d try it. Where does one look for the love of God? I tried looking at my past, and sure enough, there it was. God has opened every door I needed, proving His faithfulness at every turn and that is not even mentioning His unbelievable gifts of salvation and forgiveness.

I tried looking at my present, and God’s stamp of love is all over. I have a job that I not only enjoy, but that gives me the opportunity to do a good work while gaining experience. And God has brought me through the challenges of law school and the Bar.

And I tried looking at my future. Of course, I can’t know that future, but His promises are so clear. It does not take much faith to see His love all over my future, too.

Am I overwhelmed? Do I doubt and fear?

Behold.

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us…

Right about now, I am dedicating a good deal of time to worrying about whether or not I’m on the list. Granted, it’s a list that probably doesn’t exist yet, but sometime soon, it will be finished, taken to some dungeon underneath a Los Angeles office building, and placed on the servers of the California State Bar for the world to peruse.

[Sidebar] I don’t know why it feels appropriate that CalBar should have their servers in dungeons. But I can’t shake that visual. [End Sidebar]

Whether or not I’m on CalBar’s upcoming list will have direct implications on my future and my life. It’s rather important. But wondering whether I’m on the list is the worst part of the whole process. It’s worse than studying for it, and worse than taking the test. It’s just waiting, and wondering…and in the wondering, I’ve begun to think about lists in general, especially lists that are important.

The first one that came to mind is far more important than the Bar pass list, as strange as that may sound. While the Bar pass list could affect the rest of my life, there’s a list that affects my eternity.

But there’s a very nice thing about this list: I don’t have to wonder whether I’m on it. In fact, I can be certain. I don’t have to worry about the subjectivities of my graders, or machines goofing up my little circles filled in with a No.2 lead pencil, a proctor losing my stuff, or data being corrupted in upload. There’s a very simple “in” or “out,” and there’s no subjectivity or chance of a mistake.

And I know that I’m on that list. As I tremblingly wait for the decision of some unknown graders, I am grateful for that certainty.

Are you on the list in the Lamb’s Book of Life?

[Thanks to all who visited my site this afternoon and bore with the “test” post–and even commented on it! I am experimenting with FeedFlare, and discovering that this server is incredibly slow.]

I’m going to do something new for this blog, something I don’t think I’ve ever done before–a movie review. It isn’t often that a movie sticks out as being either so good or so bad I actually want to write about it. (Red Dawn would be an exception, on the bad side, but I can hardly even think about it without feeling nauseous, which is not conducive to blogging.) The fact that this concept is rather foreign is probably obvious by the fact that I’m filing this post under “Humor (?)” and “Inspirational,” neither of which really fits.

All introductory comments aside, let’s cut to the chase: Expelled was fantastic. It was thought-provoking, brilliantly produced, and highly entertaining.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am a proud member of the “young-earth creation” crowd, which, if one is to go by this movie, is apparently a kook fringe of society. I tend to think we’re a little more stable–and intellectually honest–than that, so perhaps the vilification took the path of water on a duck’s back, but let me say at the outset that this is no creationistic manifesto.

In fact, it’s not much of a manifesto at all. Ben Stein’s bent towards intelligent design is purposefully obvious, but the point of the movie is not to persuade you that intelligent design is the truth. It’s designed to open the door to a rational debate on the subject–something that has not happened for decades. And that is the first reason I liked it. This 90-minute film recognized the inherent limitations of the persuasive quality of 90-minute films, and still made a profound point. While no one is going to be persuaded to shake their firmly held evolutionary beliefs because of a documentary, they just might be willing to think things through after it.

But the even better reason I liked this movie was the sheer brilliance of its production. As a student–and fan–of effective communication, I could not help but marvel at the elegance (if I may use a Dawkins-esque word) of the documentary. From opening scene to closing credits, it was built around one tantalizing extended metaphor that gave life to the overarching point of the movie. And underneath that extended metaphor, every element of the film, from the cinematography to the backdrops to the abrupt cuts to 60’s-vintage black and white reels, provided the foundational building blocks to the actual dialogue.

No, I’m not going to tell you what that extended metaphor was. I’m hoping, if you haven’t already, that you’ll go see this film and find out for yourself.

My friends in the creationist crowd, if this movie is successful, you and I need to be ready to do our part. We need to be ready to provide the evidence of the Creator. It’s out there, but it has been suppressed in public life for years–and if this movie can serve as a tiny crack in the dam of the establishment, we should be ready to pour through that crack with all the science and logic at our disposal. But let us remember, in the long run, that this science and logic is not the end game; our end goal must be to point all who see us to our Creator. This movie won’t do that…but it just might give you and me the platform we need to impact someone for eternity.

And to think, just the fact that Ben Stein called Richard Dawkins on the carpet would have alone been worth the price of admission.

This weekend I had the chance to head up to Virginia for Easter, and catch the sunrise service at the Arlington Memorial Cemetery.

I left feeling proud to be an American, and uplifted by the music and what really was a powerful, personal salvation message. But mostly, I left with a powerful visual of the Resurrection that I have simply not been able to shake. It first hit me when singing Bill and Gloria Gaither’s great hymn, “Because He Lives.”

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living, just because He lives.

What an absolutely ironic thing to sing in the middle of a graveyard. Surrounded by uniform white headstones, singing about life just doesn’t seem to fit. And yet it does; that is the message of Easter. That white tombstone doesn’t signify the end. It is the beginning!

And as we walked back to the car after the service, that visual persisted. All around the tombstones, the signs of life were unmistakable. The trees, the flowers, the robins all showed life. What a picture of eternity that is–eternity thanks to the resurrection. We live in a world of death, physical and spiritual, a world of all the pain and tears sin can muster.

But that’s not the end. That’s the beginning. The beginning of glorious, unending, perfect eternal life. Because He lives…

Happy Easter.

***UPDATE***

Well, not really an “update,” I guess–It’s Monday morning, and He is still risen! But I’m still thinking about Easter and it’s meaning for us as Christians, and I shared some of those thoughts at Remember Ambassadors. Check it out, and let me know your thoughts: Easter’s Power.

Last month, The Weekly Reminder ran a series based on 1 John 4. It is an amazing passage of Scripture, especially in dealing with our relationships with other members of the Body of Christ.

1 John 4:1-6

1 John 4:7-11

1 John 4:12-16

1 John 4:17-21

While I was writing those, there was one phrase in the chapter that just never seemed to make sense. In the middle of John’s writing on love, and why we love God, there is a seemingly unrelated sentence: “No man hath seen God at any time.” Right after saying that, the apostle goes on talking about love, talking about how God’s love is perfected in us when He dwells in us:

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

This morning, as I was meditating on the passage, this phrase jumped out at me again, only this time I realized why it is there. It is not random–in fact, it fits perfectly. You see, we ought to love one another, as we are told in verse 11. But why is that important? Because although no man has seen God, it is entirely possible to see God’s perfected love in the lives of His children.

What a responsibility that is. No one can physically see God, not the believer, not the unbeliever. But both can see God reflected in us. Does demonstrating our love to the Body of Christ matter? It absolutely does–it is how people see God.

[Cross-posted at Remember Ambassadors.]