The Wisdom of a Kayak Trip

Mike Hosey, Elder

The Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalms 111:10).

This simple, yet profound truth, does not mean that we are to be afraid of God. This is because the Bible also tells us that He will never leave or forsake those of us who have given our lives to Him (Hebrews 13:5) and that we can never be separated from His love (Romans 8:38-39).

Instead, what it means that we are to have a deep and real respect for His power and awesomeness, as well as His right and ability to discipline us (Hebrews 12:5-11).

See Attribution Below

A few years ago I undertook a 40 mile kayak adventure. In the first leg of that trip I came into some rapids.  As I paddled toward the rapids, the nose of my boat drifted toward the bank. I made a terrible mistake. I failed to keep my boat pointed down river and into the run -- something I knew I should do. The more perpendicular to the current I became, the more the current took control of my boat. When the boat met the resistance of a rock jutting above the surface, the current pushed the kayak over with a force well beyond my strength. I capsized, and into the river I went. I immediately grabbed my boat with one hand, and my paddle with the other, but the current was so strong that it took me to the bottom of the river -- even with a life jacket on. I was dragged underwater for I don't know how far.

When I emerged from the current (not unscathed) I had some bad bruises, and a healthy respect for whitewater that I did not have before. That respect had a bit of fear with it. But more than fear it had a sense of awe. I wasn't afraid of the rapids, but I had a respect for them, and I was in awe of them. I would run them again, but I would be very sure to respect their power and might.

The fear of the Lord is like that. It means that we respect Him, that we stand in awe of Him, and that we reverence Him. When we do these things we are wise, because they incline us to be wary of what He wishes to teach us, and to walk in those ways that He wishes us to walk, and to avoid those things He wishes us to avoid.

Photograph: Gb1 at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0] or [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html], via Wikimedia Commons. Greg Bulla

Thanking God For More Than Those Things He Has Given Us

Mike Hosey, Elder

For what I have received, may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received. - Margaret Storm Jameson, Novelist.

The truth in Storm's quote is both easy to understand, and undeniably hard to miss for anyone who has taken an honest evaluation of his own life and history. It is the truth in that quote that makes me favor the holiday of Thanksgiving as much as I do.

In fact, I tend to favor it more than I do Christmas. And I tend to favor it more than I do Easter. Please don't get me wrong. I love both of those holidays. But I also can't deny that the spirituality of Christmas is often lost to the economics of modern commercialism. And Easter isn't much better. Easter isn't even the original name of that Christian holiday. Easter is the anglicized name of the pagan goddess Ishtar. Much of the symbolism of that holiday is almost lost to the pagan practices that come with that name.

But ironically, Thanksgiving, a secular holiday, has at its core a simple spirituality that is not yet lost to our human selfishness. Thanksgiving is simply that. Giving thanks.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, this a special time set aside to give thanks to God for all that he has done for us. It is a time to give thanks for those things we have received (Psalm 136:1-26), as well as a time for giving thanks for those things we deserve, but that we have not received (John 3:16, Romans 8:1).

But it shouldn't be the only time that we give thanks.  The bible teaches us to give thanks always and for everything (Ephesians 5:20). That everything includes all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

In giving this thanks we remind ourselves and those around us that God's love endures forever and transcends all generations (Psalm 100:1-5).

And it keeps us from becoming like the wicked in the last days who possess an ungrateful character and no longer give thanks (2 Timothy 3:2).

 So I urge you to be thankful for all the things God has done in your life - for those things you have received, and for those things you haven't.

Loving the Truth

Mike Hosey, Elder

"Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it."  - Blaise Pascal.

Pascal lived and died in the 15th century, but he remains one of the greatest contributors to western science and thought in all of history. He was a great mathematician, scientist, physicist, and philosopher. His work impacted almost all of the physical sciences. It transformed some of them. There isn't much technology today that doesn't owe something to him. 

He was a Christian.

And his quote above nailed it (precisely because he was a Christian).  Read it again. Carefully. Think about it. 

In the past, I've defined the core of love as commitment. This rings true even in Pascal's statement. If we are not committed to the truth, then we cannot know it. 

Blaise Pascal 1623-1662

As a practical behavioral truth, this is self evident. Take gossip, for example. If we hear someone speak negatively about a person, and we assume that what we have heard is true, but never analyze it to see if the statement is consistent with what we already know about the person, and especially if we never touch base with that individual face-to-face, then we are not committed to the truth and we won't know it. Nor do we deserve to know it. And if we then spread the report, then there is much evidence that we don't love the truth. Instead, it appears, at least in that instance, that we love what tickles ears and inflames discontent. 

As a spiritual truth, the bible speaks much about Pascal's assertion. It describes Jesus as the word (John 1:1-12). And Jesus tells us that if we are committed to His word then we will know the truth and the truth will set us free from our sin. (John 8:31-32). 

He also tells us that He is the truth (John 14:6).  And reminds us that if we are not committed to Him that we cannot be his disciples (Luke 14:26; Luke 14:33) and therefore cannot fully know the Truth.

Just like in the 15th century, truth remains obscured by falsehood. In fact, it is more obscured today. But Pascal's statement stands firm. The more one is committed to the truth, the more of the truth one is likely to know.

God Just Doesn't Make Sense

Mike Hosey, Elder

From the very beginning, God began doing things that don't make sense to the human mind.

He has reasons for why He does what He does, and often, we can't discern what those reasons are until after the fact. Indeed, most of the time, we can't discern them until He actually tells us what those reasons are.

Creating Adam and Eve with the full knowledge (1 John 3:20; Acts 15:17-18; Isaiah 46:10) that they would fail miserably and that all of mankind would be tainted by that failure kicks off a long series of deeds that just don't make sense. 

The Bible is filled with instances that don't make sense to us now, and certainly would not have made sense at the time when the recorded events actually happened.

For instance, God told Joseph that he would have command over his brothers. So they robbed him of his coat and sold him into slavery (Genesis 37)! In Egypt, he was accused of getting frisky with his Master's wife -- that false accusation put him in prison. (Genesis 39). As horrid and senseless as that may have seemed for Joseph at the time, it ultimately saved his family, and his race. This is because he was rescued from prison and went to Pharaoh's court where he became a great political influence in Egypt -- which allowed him to set up space for his family and people to grow and flourish under Egypt's protection and wealth. God was in control and had a plan!

But the capstone deed that makes no apparent sense is that God allowed Jesus, his one and only son, a perfect son, and the only man to have never sinned, to be killed by depraved murderers and sinners who would then be offered grace and forgiveness because of the death that resulted from that killing.

At the time, it must have seemed crazy. Now we know that God was modeling for us a sacrificial love, rescuing us from our selfish and prideful failures, and uniting us to Himself in a profound and complete way.

So the next time your world doesn't seem to make sense, just remember that God works in ways that don't make sense to us. Have faith in His goodness and His plan.