Tough Questions

My cousin recently died in Iraq and I promised myself I wouldn't blog about it because I didn't want to. The story is that he died by a suicide bomber. The thing that makes the story special is that he and his company engaged the suicide bomber and shot him which in turn saved lives. News articles were written in the paper and stories were run in the news about my cousins' death. They interviewed my uncle and how he felt about his death. His neighborhood street was lined with American Flags and yellow ribbons. He was honored in the Iowa Senate. The funeral visitation lasted eight hours. My mom wrote the following in an e-mail sent to me. I only share this with you because I found them quite hard to ponder about and think about. I do not look for sympathy.

The whole thing was overwhelming. There was so much to think about and I am still processing my thoughts on life, war, honor, freedom, military service etc.

• Sacrifice a life for the country's freedom vs Jesus’ sacrifice for our freedom?
• Why the military is steeped with honor and respect and pride and the church is not?
• Why ordinary people would stop and get out of their cars in the middle of the freeway in the cold drizzly weather to stand respectfully with their hand on their hearts or saluting, while the funeral processional went by?
• How when you sign up for the military, the military becomes your family - or does it become your religion, since you are to obey your commander above all else?
• Does showing a military slide show at the funeral glorify war/violence? Isn’t Jesus for peace?
• Did they have a funeral for the suicide bomber? Is him family mourning him the same way we are mourning?
• His brother wants to go to Iraq and get revenge for his brother's death. What do you say to him?
• What motivates the guy who voluntarily drove over 50 miles to put up over 300 American Flags around the outside of the church?
• What would Jesus do?

He did witness to his fellow soldiers about Jesus while in Iraq.
And there are others coming to Christ as a result of his quote.

"It's like this. All the other pretend gods want you to die for them, but instead
Jesus died for you."


This is how I replied:

I admire all the patriotic flag-waving things done in honor of what he did. I'm just not quite sure what to think about all this either I guess. I think I just don't like politics/patriotism and religion mixed together. Those are tough questions. Very tough questions.

• I think Jesus' sacrifice for our freedom trumps all. He died not just serving for a country but died for all of mankind serving God.
• After reading "Jesus for President" and reading about how much of tax payers money goes into the army and war I do not think highly of the Army. I appreciate what they do protecting our country, just don't like the way they go about it. We had a chapel speaker once who would go out in the street and ask people what they thought of Christians and then ask them what they thought about Jesus. They responded that Christians were hypocrites, cults, and responsible for the Crusades while Jesus was God's Son who died for us.
• I don't know what motivated people to stop in the middle of the highway.
• Martin Luther King wrote about law once. He wrote that there is earthly law and heavenly law. Some laws are the same (murder is wrong) and some laws are different. He says heavenly law trumps all. So I guess if an Army commander goes against heavenly law, you follow the real commander of Jesus Christ.
• If I were to make a slideshow at a funeral I would hope it glorifies service and sacrifice, not war/violence. I guess people interpret things differently. I remember seeing a campaign ad supporting McCain and it was a soldier glorifying the war. It showed him close up then slowly zoomed back to reveal that he had lost his leg in combat. I guess that sends a message for war glory.
• I would assume they had a funeral for him. I think their religion glorifies honor and dedication through suicide bombing the same way we glorify it through fighting for freedom.
• On revenge: Leviticus 19:18, Romans 12:19
• I guess the guy who drives that far feels compelled to put up flags the same way dad felt compelled to stick around for the funeral for so long.
• I don't know what Jesus would do. He wept when he learned that Lazarus died and visited their family, but he didn't die in a war or by a suicide bomber.
  
  It's all very confusing and I'm never quite sure what to think. Comments?

The Judge

"Sure, I'm a sinner, but not as bad as that guy over there."

I think we all do that a lot on comparing ourselves to other when we should really be looking at the plank in our own eye. Community helps lower judging others I think. I can enjoy people without judging them first. I must first look in the mirror and see myself and then look at them. We all make mistakes and to judge someone else for something you have done is not fair.

I usually do this backwards. I usually judge my roommates and convict them about it and then realize that I have done the same things. There is no degree of what is worse than which. My roommates are highly judgemental people, but so am I. They judge people they don't know based on how they're dressed or what they said. So do I. They curse with their tongues and have little respect for others. So do I. They're two-faced people. They act differently depending on the person or gender they are hanging out with. So do I.


Slowly realizing this makes me convicted and makes me feel terrible. How is it possible to critique someone without critiquing yourself? I guess it would be both admitting that you are both sinners and both need help. So I guess it is a tag team thing; both of us battling together to become better people. In the end, we'll never reach perfect people status.

We cannot judge one another because we're all imperfect. Yes, terrorists are just as bad as you and me. The ACLU, democrats, republicans, and atheists are just as worthy to be judged as you and me. For there is only One who is able to judge us. He is perfection and the only perfection. We are not worthy of Him but that is not the case. He sent the perfect spotless lamb to be sacrificed so that we may be perfect through Him. He is the Judge.

Judge Judy can't touch this...

Worship : Chapter 9

I wrote the following in 11th grade for my bible class and I thought I'd share it with you. For class we had to read a chapter out of this book called "Finding Faith" by Brian D. McLaren and then answer some response questions replying what we got out of the chapter. This is what I got out of chapter nine.

I have experienced God through Ritual, Nature, and Art/Worship the most out of the five experiences. I have examples from all of the three above which I will discuss in another question.

Worship/Art: I am interested in further pursuing worship and art. It’s hard to do something you love and still keep God involved sometimes. For me, my personal experience in this is baseball. I absolutely positively without-a-doubt love baseball. I love playing it and I enjoy watching it (hence the die hard Twins fan). There were times were I would think that I loved baseball more than I loved God. I realized then how much I was grabbing onto a worldly desire and possession. God is so much better than any worldly possession of desire. I think so many professional athletes play for only for themselves so much, and that they only play to earn the big contract to spend on other worldly possessions. Other athletes who play for the love of the game, which are a select few, are the ones who have the good attitude and love playing the game. I think Morneau said it best when discussing his contract when he said “That my agents job, I just want to play baseball.” Wow, sorry totally getting off topic. Recently, in the beginning of baseball season, Mr. Callahan talks about who we represent on and off the field. He told us that the biggest thing we represent as part of this team is God. He said how you play out there in the field is an act of worship. My mom always tells me to do the best I can in everything even if I don’t like it (homework). I think God wants you to be successful in everything you do, but to always do it not for worldly glory, but for the Lord.

Ritual: Something that stuck out to me when it talked about rituals was a story about when I first started working out on a consistent basis. People say it takes at least 21 days to get into a continuous habit. I’m not sure that this section is also considered to be habitual but I only worked out if other people were working out to keep me company. After awhile I would start working out by myself cause because it became a habit. I’ll admit it was harder with nobody around to push me to my limits but it still became a habit. Another time for me was trying to get me to read the Bible everyday, it was hard for me because I would always find an excuse to not do it and it was hard for me to keep it a habit. Then someone became my accountability partner and reminded me a lot to read my bible everyday, it was very encouraging for me and really enjoyed it. This person was somewhat of an odd source for being such an encouragement for me but I really appreciated it and reading my bible everyday eventually became a habit for me. He also talks about how habits are too much and how when we do them everyday they just get old and you don’t tend to learn anything from them. That is true in some respects, going to church every Sunday can sometimes be a drag, I'll be honest. Working out every day seemed to do nothing for me, but when you look at the end result, from the first time you worked out to the last time, you can really really see a difference. I think if you have the right mind set and want to expand in your relationship with God and church then it won't become such a drag.

Nature: I like taking pictures a lot, and every time I take nature shot and analyze it I can always see God’s beautiful design in this world. There is this spot at my cabin (which I’m not exactly fond of) that I can see all the way down the lake and all the trees and sunsets and the way the light comes from it is just marvelous. A moment happened today when I was procrastinating before dinner and not doing homework. I was looking at Brittany Brackett’s Facebook pictures from her recent mission trip to somewhere and it had this picture of some flowers in a sketchy part of town. Under the picture was a caption “God’s beauty in an ugly place.” It struck me as that God is everywhere, even in the most desolate places.