192 Jesus Anonymous

Through a close friend, I’ve recently been allowed a glimpse into world of the Anonymous Recovery Groups, and while it is one of these groups’ principles not to rely on advertisement to flourish, I would like to share some thoughts and lessons I’ve gleaned from my acquaintance with them, and from my many discussions with my friend about them.

As Christians, it has been drilled into us that it is expedient to do whatever we do in the name of Christ, and it is my belief that salvation from our sins and death is found in no other, as the Bible states.
Yet here is a program that seems to be accomplishing a world of good, yet without calling it “Christian” or associating it with Jesus, even accomplishing the salvation of tens of thousands from physical addictions, but also what one might call spiritual problems, even if this may be a slightly different matter than the spiritual Salvation the Bible refers to.

The honesty, openness and depth of conversation within these groups is something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in a church or even during Home gatherings, meetings or in Bible groups. After all, Christians are usually people who have their act somewhat together, at least more, on a general scale, than those that attend Anonymous groups. Having a common problem that provides a common basis for Anonymous group members to come together presents – from my point of view – an advantage that many churches and Christian movements don’t: the humility, the readiness to open themselves concerning a weakness, thus ready to attack sin head on in a way one will hardly ever find in a church where people often play a masquerade for years, one hardly ever gets to know their brethren on a truly personal level, and all that connects one another is the fact that they just listened to the same sermon, sang a few of the same songs, etc.

The question I’ve had to ask myself as a Christian was, is it possible that God instigates movements on earth that may not be able to be defined clearly as Christian? Apparently, yes. Is it possible that these non-Christian movements can sometimes bring forth more and somewhat even perhaps better fruit than some obvious Christian movement or church? Apparently, yes.
It reminded me of the passage in which Jesus talks about those who prophesied in His name, cast out devils in His name, etc., (and mind you, one has to be a Spirit-filled and born again Christian, in order to cast out devils!), and yet telling them, “I never knew you.” Yet in another passage welcoming those who all they ever did was visit the prisoners, care for the sick, feed the hungry, no matter in whose name.
Apparently Jesus does not mind whether what we do we do in His name as much as whether what we do is the right thing to do.
Obviously, a lot of wrongs have already been committed in His name, as it is. Apparently God is more concerned about genuinely helping people than He is about the advertisement, and whether it was done on His behalf or not.

Imagine you were God and had to watch how people slaughtered each other by the millions for millennia on His behalf… Wouldn’t you be glad if someone eventually came around who gave you a break and just did something good, no matter in whose name, or in no one’s name in particular?

Yes, the name of Jesus is important and powerful, and it is our duty to spread the good news that He indeed saves. But apparently there is something even more important in God’s eyes than what we say and preach, and that is what we do.
God seems to avail Himself of any program that works, and the 12-Steps programs have proven to work in millions of changed lives around the world, and God doesn’t seem to care much whether this has been accomplished under the flag of Christianity.
If a program works, you’ll use it. You install it, run it and enjoy the benefits. Totally regardless of whatever it says on the package, or what brand name it is.

One would have to ask themselves to what extent Christ Himself would consider Himself a Christian, if He were to walk among us today. Maybe in the light of all that’s being said and done in His name, He might even prefer to remain anonymous.

191 Insights from the Belly of the Whale

“Salvation is of the Lord!” Those were the magic words that got Jonah out of the belly of the whale (Jonah 2.9).

Jesus prophetically compared Jonah’s experience inside the whale to the three days he would spend in Hades between His crucifixion and resurrection.

He also invited His followers to take up their cross upon themselves and follow Him.

In other words, every true believer is going to go through their own experience in the “belly of the whale” at one time or another, experience their own “3 days in hell.” And it’s usually not until we realize that salvation is truly of the Lord, that we emerge from it.

What’s so special about that revelation, that salvation is of the Lord? Because before we find out, we try to save ourselves by any thinkable and possible means. The Lord is always our last resort, after all else has failed. Usually, anyway.

We first expect our own wits, strengths and efforts to save us, and if they won’t do, then at least some tangible, visible and audible person of flesh and blood to pull us out, and sometimes, God in His mercy will send such a person along. But if He’s been trying to teach you to rely on Him and Him alone, and you have any sort of rank or validity as a prophet, even a disobedient prophet like Jonah, you can be pretty sure there’ll be no other hand pulling you out of that whale except God’s.

When God has become truly all that you have got left, then that’s where you can probably safely say, “Welcome to Rock Bottom Club!”

When everyone else is gone, every other crutch kicked away, those people who have made you depend on them like a drug only stand by and watch you go through your withdrawals from afar while getting the next junkie in line hooked on them, then it’s time to find out whether God is really enough or not.

It will prove whether your faith was merely a pretty bubble that popped at the introduction of the needle, reduced to a little splash in the face, or whether it was something solid, something your life can depend on.

If we’re honest, the role to which we often restrict God in our lives is not much more than a slap in His face.

It’s those belly-of-the-whale experiences that restore Him to His proper position in our life as our only hope, our only true Savior.

When the fakes are gone and have faded away, it’s time for the true Savior to step in and show that it is in His power alone to save, and “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm” (Jer.17:5).

Down there, in the belly of the whale, you find out who your friends really are.

And once the fish has vomited you out, back on dry land, you may not feel like much more than just that: a pile of fish vomit, but at least you’ve got a much clearer perspective now of your world around you and who and what you can really rely on, without all the deceiving appearances and delusions that blurred your vision previously.

You may have tried to figure out every possible way, tactic and maneuver out of the dark, going through all the possible tricks, measures or merely lucky events that might save you out of your fix, but in the end, the sum of your wisdom boiled down to this: “Salvation is of the Lord.” No one and nothing else will ever cut the cake or do the trick. No one.

190 Love Is Forever

Another passage from the Scriptures that never made quite sense to me was Matthew 6:22-23: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” – Especially the last bit, “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness…”

I know, all the humanists and believers in the good in mankind will howl at me, but I think I figured out what it means.

If you’ve ever been betrayed by someone you believed in, forsaken by someone you fully trusted in and relied on, someone who was like a light in your life, and they drop you so abruptly that you suddenly realize that the light you confided in for so long was only an illusion, then you’ll know what this passage means.

Darkness is the absence of light. In other words, the light wasn’t ever really there, you mistook it for the real thing, and the person in question may have believed in it as the real thing, but what determines whether it’s real or not is whether it lasts.

Because one thing I have always believed is that love is forever. If it isn’t forever, then it wasn’t real love in the first place.

The level of emotion will not always remain the same, naturally, but there is one ingredient that will make all the difference in the world, between real love and the fake: faithfulness.

The Bible says that if you’ve been put in charge of anything by God, there is only one thing that is required of you: to be faithful.

You may not have a lot of strength, you may not have a lot of gifts, you may not be nothing much at all, but you are one thing, and that is faithful.

That is the one tiny spark that makes all the difference in the universe between the real light and the fake, between true love and that which many people may mistake for love. It may not seem like much at all, but apparently, that’s what makes the difference.

After the love has gone, what is there left to believe in? Apparently far less people have that real, lasting kind of love in them in our world today than we may think, which is why there is so much heartache, disappointment and so many broken relationships and marriages. Too many shiny fake versions of love that promise happiness in exchange for that seemingly insignificant ingredient we despise, that has almost vanished from our vocabulary:

that tiny little factor of faithfulness.

Love is forever. Everything else is only a fake.

Jesus knew that there were people who believed themselves to be benefactors of mankind, oh, and they can be radiant, and that light in their eyes may sparkle deceivingly real. But when their light is gone, just as quickly as you turn off a light switch, then you know it was only an artificial fake after all, no real love, real light.

The sad thing is that it usually takes time to find this out. – Sometimes quite a long time, in fact. Time is the great tester, and it certainly is the factor that will prove our degree of faithfulness, and thus, the degree of authenticity of our love. Some actually have it, and some actually don’t.

It’s shocking when you realize that that light was never really there, and you find out in shock what Jesus meant… “If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

This type of people can wreak quite a bit of devastation in one’s life. For all they give, they subtly demand more in return, more dependence, more devotion, almost like an addiction, like a drug.

You may think you’re receiving their light, but since it isn’t really real, but only a fake, it doesn’t bear fruit, you’ve only invested in darkness, poured your life into a vessel with holes and are ultimately left empty, sucked dry and devastated…

They’re probably the closest thing to vampires in the real world. They may not suck your blood, but drain your life’s energy out of you, and the hollow shell they leave behind will be a sad reminder that it pays to put your trust in Someone Greater than frail flesh and blood, and blessed are they who do, indeed.

189 Let It Rain! (Days of Noe)

I used to wonder about this passage in Matthew 24: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Mt.24:37-39).

I used to wonder, “Why, Jesus, what’s so bad about eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage? Why should that merit the end of the world?”

But if you take a closer look at people’s eating, drinking and mating habits, you get the point.

While 40.000 starve daily in one part of the world, obesity is becoming a major disease in another.

While in one place people don’t even have enough drinking water to survive, in another they drink themselves to death.

It’s the imbalance, the selfishness that matters and makes it so ugly… the unwillingness of the rich to share, and their sickening, self-indulging indifference.

And then there’s the mating game. A whole nuther story.

Have you ever frequented a dating site? Like – in a “civilized,” Western country?

I once wrote an entry about the devaluation of human life in reference to what some nations are willing to pay for the corpse of a butcher as compared to what they’re willing to eke out for the corpse of his victim…

Well, you’ll see the devaluation of human life (along with the sheer absence of human intelligence) nowhere as blatantly as on a dating site.

Here they present themselves like merchandise in a supermarket, and mind you, the customers are picky. “Looking for Mr. Right” or “the perfect man” … or woman, the “girl of my dreams, ” etc.

Whereas members of less “developed” countries are a lot more modest. Perhaps one day the world will see the difference between so-called civilization and truly civilized people, among whom respect is still a given, and courtesy not a “Huh, what’s that?”

Not to mention that in the entire process of feverishly trying to obtain the objects of their affection that might quench their burning needs (or lusts?), the most important Factor is – as usual – left out of the equation almost entirely: the Giver of all things in the first place.

Maybe that’s why Jesus said not labour for the meat which perisheth… although everybody of course, keeps doing it, even the most devout of His followers.

Of course, it would be a sacriliege and the epitome of political incorrectness to preach anything different, for man’s greatest religion and god has become the work of his own hands. After all, the work of his own hands is what will earn him those most desired shreds of paper in the universe, which Jesus said we couldn’t serve, if we served God,;and those, in return, will by us foood, drrrink, and will help us to impress the other sex (either by means of taunting our apparel and plastic surgery, or our vehicles, houses and yachts). In short: materialism.

Since everything begins (evolution) and ends (lifeless corpse in coffin) with mere lifeless matter which is supposed to have brought forth itself, the space between the beginning and the end, that which we refer to as life, revolves around the same: lifeless matter. In other words, not really life at all, since the one thing that gives life, as Jesus said, is Spirit (John 6:63), coincidentally, the same stuff that God Himself is made of (John 4:24).

It’s not that I don’t like to eat, drink or am not totally amazed by the opposite sex. Nor do I try to pretend to come across as some sort of spiritual wonder child, since I’m subject to the same desires and needs as everybody else.

It’s just that the way we go about it and still have the nerve to call “civilized,” to me comes across as rather barbaric.

If that’s what brought on the flood (along with many other evils that find their modern counterparts), then let it rain, Lord, let it rain!

188 Prophetic Ingredient

I’m a firm believer in the fact that God can speak through just about anything and anyone, even people who are totally oblivious to their being used as a vessel for a higher, divine purpose.

The movie “Answer Man” points out the principle of how God can use even anything but perfect people to speak to the world through them, often very much in spite of themselves, rather than because of any specially pious qualities on their part.

In my free eBook project “The Deeper Meaning of Everything” that’s precisely the point I’m trying to stress: God speaks to us through everything.

In my movie blog “Talking Pictures” I try to point the lessons I glean from the movies I watch, and I also firmly believe that God has sometimes inspired songwriters – often totally unbeknownst to them – to broadcast downright prophetic messages to the world through their songs.

A few classic examples: “Let It Be” is, I believe, a prophetic song about the time of the end. “When I find myself in times of trouble…” – The Great Tribulation?

“Mother Mary” in the song, in my opinion, represents the Holy Spirit, “speaking words of wisdom.” Later it says, “Whisper words of wisdom,” indicating that those words won’t always be spoken out loudly from pulpits with microphones, but a cloudy night is coming, through which there will still be a light shining on those who believe, culminating in the great awakening to the sound of music (the “last trump”) at Jesus’ Return.

I doubt that Paul McCartney was aware of any such divinely prophetic ingredient, since his ideology certainly seems to be an entirely different one.

“Bye Bye Miss American Pie” also had a greater prophetic significance than Don McLean ever realized, if you’ve watched the development of pop music over the past 4 decades since that song was written, and perhaps even he knows by now that “The day the music died” wasn’t just the day Buddy Holly’s plane crashed. I often joke that it was the day Madonna recorded that song.

Then there was the ’71 album “Who’s Next” by The Who, a musical milestone, with their song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” ending with the line that so perfectly describes the succession of the current administration to the previous: “Meet the new boss! – Same as the old boss!” – I’ve even seen people wearing t-shirts with that line on it in reference to Obama…

Maybe I’ll come up with a list of other examples of songs with a touch of the prophetic…

In the movie “Hurricane” the statement is made that people don’t find the books they’re looking for, but their books find them.

In my life, pretty much the same applied to every song I felt magically drawn to. Even if at the time I first heard and started liking the song the meaning of the lyrics didn’t seem to bear any resemblance or parallel to what was going on in my life, later on, it did, and I realized why that song had “found me.”

Maybe you’re too rational, dogmatic or restrictive to consider that God could possibly work in such ways, and certainly the theory of Evolution wouldn’t lead to such a seemingly bizarre conclusion that our Creator should be involved in even such small details in our lives.

Well, Jesus gave us a clue that He’s more into details than many of us may think when He said that every hair on our heads was numbered, and no sparrow falls the Father doesn’t keep track of.

So, next time you hear a song and you feel its tug on your heart strings, listen to what it’s got to say. Chances are the Author of Life Himself has a message to you.

187 To Be Or Not to Be of This World

Being a politically correct Christian with a politically correct God and Christ these days means to refrain from separatist tirades indicating that there should be any sort of division between true believers – Christ’s genuine disciples, and the rest of the world.
“The world,” that mass of people Jesus told His disciples they were not a part of, if existent at all, are always the Hottentots in far-off countries who wouldn’t be able to afford our bestsellers on Pop-Spirituality in the 21st century anyways.

So, let me be politically incorrect here once again and heat up the old forgotten and despised doctrine of John 15:19 and harp a little bit on that: Is there such a thing as “the world” in the sense of something we should not be part of, if we call ourselves followers of the Maker of that statement, or is it just a myth, and we’re all so super goodie-good and moving toward the point of enlightenment in our evolution which will usher in universal peace without the Almighty having to resort to any of the drastic measures He announced in the portions of His Book that are carefully being avoided by popular Christian authors?

Of course, it’s natural to want to erase any existing lines of division between yourself and your target audience when that audience is supposed to eke out 30 bucks for your latest compilation of divine wisdom. But are those potential readers really being helped and enlightened by the illusion that all is at peace, the Devil’s on vacation and there is no actual spiritual warfare going on?

Progress, in the eyes of the liberal, widely accepted brand of the Christian faith, seems to be equivalent with the eradication of any and all lines of separation between them and the world, and thus it’s being drilled into our minds for the umpteenth time that “We are,” indeed, “the world…”

But ignoring innumerable wrongs still won’t make a single right, and remaining silent about some of the qualities of the world may easily put us on the side of the enemy camp, as far as God is concerned, no matter how vocally we may be rooting for “Christianity.”

Personally, I think I’d rather watch “Matrix” one more time, for some inside scoop of what’s really going on.

One of the reasons why I do believe in the existence of such a thing Jesus called “the world” (that I don’t feel I belong to), is that I have found out that there is, in fact, also a distinction between lies and truth.
Now, for many folks in our success-oriented world, that distinction is nearly non-existent. They’re so used to lying, they can’t tell the difference anymore.
It wouldn’t occur to them to call anything their political leader or anyone says on TV or anywhere, for that matter, an untruth or a lie, because it would mean that they would have to be more careful about their own truthfulness (or lack thereof), and who wants to pay that sort of a price?

So if mass murderers like Charles Manson or warmongering Nobel peace prize winning presidents (see why you can’t be serious about being part of this world?) want to go on and on about how much they love Jesus, we’re all cool with it, because that sort of hypocrisy is what we call “freedom” here, in the liberated West, and watch out, we’re soon coming to a town near you to liberate you, too!

When Christians talk about “the world,” it’s usually in the context of John 3:16 to let everybody know how much God loved the world, no matter how haywire it had gone.
But we ignore the admonition of that same John a little later in the Bible for us not to love the world, nor the things in it.

That’s a lot harder message to preach, brother, and if you do, just wait and see how many books you’ll be selling then!

I like the way Bethany Dillon put it in one of her songs, “Aimless,” (and I strongly hope that she still knows what she was singing about):

“They’ve always known this wasn’t home.”

I’ve always known this wasn’t home.

How about you?

186 The Race of the Mystery Riders

A Slightly Different Interpretation of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

When Jesus made the much dreaded statement in Matthew 6 that we cannot serve God and Mammon (the god of wealth = materialism), He must have already known that while millions would someday profess to be His servants, in reality they were going to dedicate the bulk of their attention and efforts in service to this competitor in the quest for man’s most precious commodity, time.

While most interpretations of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse claim that the rider on the white horse is supposed to be the Antichrist, I personally contend that the proper interpretation of this passage should ascribe the identification of the white rider to Jesus, and the other three His fiercest competitors throughout time, perhaps in some sort of a race for our souls, and when time is up (literally!), there will only be one of them left.
Who are those mystery riders? War, materialism and death, also known by other ancient names by which they were known, revered and even worshiped for millennia: Ares (the Romans called him Mars), Mammon and Hades.

Luckily, the Bible already tells us who is going to be the winner of the race, since it foretells a time in which men will beat their swords into plowshares and will learn war no more, which eliminates Ares, the god of war from the equation.
We are also told the fate of Hades, the god of death and hell in the lake of fire.

So what about Mammon, the god of wealth? In our current terms, Mammon can easily be replaced by a word for the stuff that allegedly rules the world: money.

Some think it will last forever.

The Bible tells us differently.

In fact, from what the Bible tells us, it seems that of the four riders, Mammon will be the first one to yield up the ghost.

Granted, this is just one of my own personal theories, but it’s based on some serious thought:

When the Antichrist imposes his mark of the beast in the new economic order everyone from Kissinger to the Pope is expecting with excitement (as foretold in Revelation 13), it seems that will be the end of money – or at least cash – as we know it.

Perhaps one reason why the Almighty won’t be so fond of that new method of trade at all will be the fact that Satan will have managed to create the perfect imitation of His own system of currencies: faith. The object of man’s desire will have been placed from the visible to the invisible realm, the perfect counterfeit of God’s system.
And for those who fall for it, I guess it’s going to be like having made their choice for the other side.

If my assumption is correct, and it’s Mammon who bites the dust first when the AC implements the mark, it might also explain one of the most mysterious passages in the Bible about the Endtime:

“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only

he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.
And then the lawless one (The Antichrist) will be revealed,
whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth
and destroy with the brightness of His coming.”
(2Thess.2:7,8)

Some scholars interpret this passage as to be referring to the Holy Ghost as “He who now restrains…until he is taken out of the way;” that the Antichrist cannot be revealed unless the Holy Ghost be taken away.
But how are the final two witnesses in Rev.11 going to give their testimony without the Holy Ghost?
And for the benefit of all those “left behind” during the Great Tribulation (which might be more than many people think, especially in the light that the Rapture is only going to occur after it, as Jesus said), let’s all pray to God that the Holy Ghost isn’t going to be taken away.
But it would have to be someone or something that was already around in Paul’s day, which certainly applies to money…

So, here’s my little theory for you on the race of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: Jesus, Ares, Mammon & Hades…

185 The Illusion of Change

Painful reminders that not all that glitters is gold...

Probably one of the greatest deceptions taking place in our times is the illusion of change, and I’m not just talking about the Obama administration, although it’s definitely a perfect example of it.

In order to create the illusion of change, some actual change has to take place, but only on the surface.

And it’s true, on the surface, things have changed a lot over the past 100 years: our ways of getting from point A to B, our methods of communicating, or keeping ourselves fed, clothed and entertained.

However, no substantial change has taken place in the deep motivations of mankind for our actions, no significant change of heart.

We’re still ruled by the same fears and lusts as our ancestors of all times. We just think we are superior because we have changed on the surface.

You put a remote control into a man’s hand instead of a plow or shovel, and he’ll think he’s “evolved.”
– Or a machine gun instead of a sword, and he may think he’s come a long way. But the end result is the same.
You put a black face on the President, and at first everyone is awed: We’ve certainly never seen THAT before, nor did we ever think we were going to live to see it, but when it’s just the same stupid white men pressing the buttons on his remote control who controlled the last puppet, it’s “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss…”

That’s what stinks about organized Christianity, also increasingly referred to as “Churchianity:” It totally misses the drift of its supposed Founder. Christianity as it is has become a force for conservatism in this world, when its original Founder was and is the total and absolute opposite.
What Jesus was and is and will always represent in this world of phony changes, is total Revolution, and total break with the decaying, sinful ways and attitudes of man, which haven’t changed a bit since Adam and Eve, except that they’ve gotten worse, similar to the condition of a carcass over time.

If He is the Life, we are the dead. If He is the Way, we’ve been certainly going in the opposite direction. If He’s the Truth, then most of what you will hear from us, the pride and glory of civilization, is the opposite. Just turn on the TV and count the lies you will hear within 30 minutes. Providing you are still able to discern between truth and lies. You’ll get the drift.

So, change has happened, alright: the lies have become more and bigger. The condition of the carcass humanity has worsened. However we’re more delusional than ever in our perception of ourselves as the greatest thing to ever have happened on God’s earth. Until perhaps we catch an accidental glimpse of the 40.000 people we allow to starve each and every day right in front of our noses, just to make sure there’ll be enough left for us tomorrow…

So, you may buy into all the hype and rah-rah of progress, advance and the glories of mankind, I don’t buy it. As Dylan once put it:

“So, sing your praise of progress
and of the doom machine
the naked truth is still taboo
whenever it can be seen.”

What’s worst about the illusion of change is that it makes us think we don’t need any real change.
What’s worst about the illusion of health is that it makes us think we don’t need the Doctor.
What’s worst about our oh so great perception of ourselves, is that we’ll never realize just how badly we need Somebody to drag us out of our mess.

What’s worst about Satan’s puppets acting like all the saviors we ever needed is that we’ll never realize how badly we need Jesus.

What’s worst about our blindness is that we actually think we see.

Thus is the deadly venom of the illusion of change.

Saint John’s visions of the coming leader of the New World Order, commonly referred to as the Antichrist (with reference to his intentions and philosophical inclinations, thus leading to the conclusion that he could not be the Pope), strongly indicate that he will be the culmination of all previous world empires rolled into one, from ancient Egypt to Rome. In other words, even though he may be availing himself of every hi-tech facility thinkable in order to control, enslave and terrorize his global subjects, underneath, it’s going to be the same barbaric and tyrannical spirit as always.

The only One actually ever effecting REAL change in the course of history will be Jesus.

He may have subtly done so during His first coming.

It will be significantly less subtly during the next.

184 The Creation Message: Keep Hanging In There!

Probably not only to the vast majority of scientists, but also to most adherents of modern science, which includes the majority of the world’s population, would consider the creation account of the Book of Genesis outrageous and a downright slap in the face of all that is currently regarded as science.
And, granted, it is a little bit hard to believe. Once you get over the 6-days factor, you still have this seemingly insurmountable obstacle: “You mean to tell me that the earth was just hanging there for 3 days in the nothingness of empty space, and that God actually created all plant life on it before He even created the sun and the rest of the stars, as in, the rest of the matter of all the billions of galaxies in the universe?”

I admit, it sounds totally outrageous. Picture the earth, trees and grass and bushes and all, circling around the spot where tomorrow the sun is going to be…

Very absurd indeed.

But then, so is the notion of anyone walking on water, raising folks, including Himself, from the dead, healing the blind from birth, turning water into wine, feeding thousands from a few loaves and fishes, etc., etc., etc.

The God of the Bible is either the greatest story teller and liar in the universe, or He’s definitely capable of a few stunts that leave the rest of us speechless, including creating universes in very unorthodox manners. Obviously, the vast majority of my fellowmen subscribe to the former of these two options. And I can hardly blame them. It takes a lot of faith to believe this account, so contrary to all that 99.999% of all other existing books on the topic of our origins tell us. It takes faith that can only be acquired by the life-long experience that everything else that is said in that outrageous and most disputed of all books – the Bible – actually works.
Of course, few have ever had the courage to try to find out whether these things work. They don’t mind listening to some well chosen portions of it once a week, and amazingly enough, that already seems to be doing the trick of getting them through the rest of the week.
But as someone who can testify first hand by 30 years of experience that God really keeps His Word when He promises that if we would seek first the interests of His Kingdom, then He would give us all the things we need for life, like food and clothing for free (see Matthew 6:33), along with a host of His other Promises, it’s also not entirely impossible to believe that the first chapter of the Book I based my life on is also more than just (non-science) fiction.

I admit, though, I’ve had my disputes with the Boss about it, and have sometimes asked Him, “How on earth could You? I mean, couldn’t You just have had the decency to please create this universe in some sort of orthodox, well-received and politically correct manner, instead of defying all that could be summed up as human common sense and having the audacity to bluntly contradict all of the sum of our combined wisdom and knowledge?”

What I got in response was something along the lines that just like everything in nature, the creation of earth was also some sort of actual, physical metaphor or example of a much greater spiritual truth. The sort of thing I’m going on about at length in my attempt at an eBook, “The Deeper Meaning of Everything.”

So, what sort of deep, mystical spiritual truth is the story of the creation of planet earth supposed to bear for us, what sort of deeper significance, parable or lesson is there to learn from it?

Basically, it is: “Keep hanging in there!”

Humans are frantic little beings, and even the term “beings” already implies that they’ve got to be frantically occupied with ensuring their own little existence, lest by the slightest little pause of all their frantic activities and incessant efforts to keep themselves alive they should bring upon their heads the end of the world as we know it. And so we feverishly work and work and work in order to artificially keep ourselves alive, only to sooner or later wind up in a coffin despite all our feverish efforts, and getting our planet a lot closer a lot sooner to that dreaded end than we might have if we would have paused long enough to think, or better: pray.

We think we’ve just gotta make it happen.

What God is saying by His outrageous statement of just letting the earth hang there by itself is: “Wrong!”

– We are not the ones who make it happen. He is.

We always worry that whatever we have is not going to be enough. We worry that the money we have is not going to be enough, and that the food we have is not going to be enough, and the space we have is not going to be enough.

Our remedy is then liquidating our rivals: all those useless eaters who don’t work as hard as we do on “making it happen,” and who just threaten to occupy our living space, eat away our food , breathe away our air, and present a danger to our own survival.

What God is trying to tell us by His outrageous statement in having had the audacity of creating planet earth before the rest of the universe is that despite all our frantic worrying, the fact remains that He is enough.
All it ever took and will take to keep each and everyone of us breathing and alive is His power, totally regardless of all our feverish efforts.
He can ensure life on our planet with or without our help, and the course of history is on its best way to prove that the way we’re going about it, is not going to work.

If we think we’re going to be able to save ourselves with our annual trillion dollars worth of highly sophisticated weapons, we’re utterly mistaken.
It will probably turn out that it would have been better off never having done anything at all, instead of spending this outrageous amount of time, effort, manpower and tax money (yes, that’s right: yours and mine) on the investment in technology with the one purpose of murdering our fellow humans.

So, who are we to tell God how He ought to have created His universe?

Oh, I forgot. We don’t really believe in Him, so it’s not really His. It’s ours. We think.
So we can do with it whatever we want, including blowing it to Smithereens.

Maybe we’re actually mistaken. Not only about how earth came into being, but also about our rights to treat this place the way we do, in other words: its destruction.

One reason for my audacity to prefer to believe the biblical account of creation,is that mankind has thus far utterly failed to convince me of their supposedly oh-so superior intelligence and smartness.

I can tell by their actions that there must be something dreadfully dumb about them.

So how are they going to tell me that they know better than God about how this planet came into being?

I’ve found by experience that God is a good Friend. I mean goood. He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t try to impress you by His stunts to convince you how much cooler He is than you. He’s a real Pal. I can’t say He disappointed me ever, not once. Sure, we have our disagreements, occasionally, but He always manages to get me to see His point sooner or later.

And I can’t say the same thing about people.

People lie. People are extremely deceived, especially when it comes to themselves and their supposed omniscience and infallibility.

It turns out that if I want something to really hang my life on, something to fully trust, I’m better off with the invisible nature of God, and that apparent nothingness my life revolves around than all the rah-rah and ado of my 7 billion fellowmen put together.

I may be very much alone in my opinion… on the surface.

But something – or rather, Someone – keeps telling me, that if I just hang in there a little bit longer, I won’t be alone that much longer. All of a sudden, there are going to be billions of bright shining lights all around me, confirming that I was right in putting my trust in “Mr. Invisible” after all.

Jesus Himself was left alone in the dark of the heart of the earth for three days, obviously on His mission to preach to the “spirits in prison.” But He didn’t have to go on for very long down there in that darkness.

Maybe God just needs a three days’ break every now and then to show us what He can do if we just dare to trust Him long enough that He was right, after all, contrary to all the gazillions of voices who claim to know better.

So, if you ever feel you’re totally alone and forsaken, hanging out there in sheer nothingness, and not knowing what to make of it, just keep hanging in there! Chances are, you’re not the first one in history who’s had to go through this experience.

Chances are, the very same thing happened, once upon a time, not all too long ago, though, to a planet called Earth…

183 Salute to the Younger Generation from Neanderthal

Some young folks seem to be wondering about us, the older generation of their parents, those survivors from the 60s and 70s, how on earth we ever managed to get this old and make it this far around, I mean, being such losers and all, with our loser hair-cuts, our loser clothes, and why, we didn’t even have cell phones back then, no ipods or computer games.

To be honest, sometimes I wonder myself how on earth I managed to ever get this old. Especially since we were lacking a few other things our younger generation touts, such as their undying self-confidence, not doubting for a second that the world is theirs for the asking or less, a snap of the fingers, along with the solid assurance that they have all the time in the world, and why, by the time they’re going to be really old, like in their 30s, they might have even invented some stuff to enable them to live forever…

We didn’t have any of that, since we were always scared stiff that the inventions of our parents’ generation were going to see to it that the world was going to come flying around our ears any day. The only dweebs who thought that time was on their side in our generation were the Rolling Stones.

So, I guess the secret of our survival against all these odds was that we simply made do with what we had. We were more or less happy for what each day brought, because, well, it may have well been our last, and we didn’t miss any ipods or cell phones or gameboys because we never even knew you needed to have these things in order to survive. As they say, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

I’m afraid we did have a few qualities, which, granted, may have been a little antiquated (since we were still way back on the first few steps of evolution compared to that quantum leap of enlightenment we all experienced during the first decade of the 21st century), such as that ancient thing called appreciation (I’m sure it’s not even in the dictionary anymore), and oh, yes, that one was really a joke: we called it respect.

We didn’t even know what it meant back then, but when you looked at someone, you didn’t immediately see the loser in them, but a howbeit primitive, but nonetheless human being, and we gave them the benefit of the doubt. They may have been different from us – even older, but we somehow gave them a chance to prove themselves to maybe not turn out to be a mega-loser, after all (although the evolution of the word “mega-loser” only set in a decade later, or two, I must admit). In other words, me might have given them a second glance, which, in essence is what re-spect means: “look again!”

Instead of Stalloneian invulnerability and Schwarzeneggerian immortality we had to do with an outdated item called decency.

Somehow, though, the fact that we were missing out on all the qualities that make the new generation so superior managed to perfectly elude us. We didn’t even realize.

We somehow managed to exist with only a fraction of the TV channels available to folks today, without all the wonders of hi-tech communication and just resorted to the available, though primitive means of verbal conversation, or even writing letters and such stuff.

Since we had a lot less things, those fewer things somehow meant more to us.

Even such tiny, seemingly irrelevant particles of our world as words still seemed to have a meaning to us – back then, that was, before our politicians enlightened us to the delusion of our ways (since they obviously proved the opposite to be true time and again, namely that words don’t really coincide with reality).

Yes, they were strange and bizarre times, and I guess the way most young folks nowadays relate to them was the way that we looked back on the Stone Age.

So, here’s a salute to you, the younger generation of the onset of the 21^st century, from one of those ancient cavemen: May all your dreams come true, and not turn into nightmares (just as many of our nightmares thankfully did not come true), and may you achieve all your goals. May those who lead you turn out to be truer than those who led us, and may you, too, learn to appreciate what you have, and – perhaps the way we did – despite all that wealth of new knowledge you accumulate, enjoy a little bit of the blissful ignorance occasionally, of all the things future generations will wonder how you managed to survive without; and may you – if possible – remember this one piece of advice from a 20th century Neanderthal man:

“It’s not having what you want, but wanting what you have” that counts.