Key West, Fun, Purpose, and the Matrix...

Nicholas L. Laning

Just a couple of hours ago I did something incredibly uncool.  One day back from family vacation snorkeling the reefs just off the Keys in Florida, I couldn't help myself.  After doing some recon to make sure the pool was empty, or at least close to it, I broke into action.  My contraband was hidden underneath the towel hung gently over my arm.  There, in the middle of my Uptown Dallas apartment pool, I broke out my Darkfins (rubber gloves with webs between the fingers to help you swim faster, and my dive mask, and I swam.  

The differences between snorkeling in my glitzy apartment pool and the ocean were stark.  The water being sans salt meant I couldn't float anymore, and the water that bubbled into the nose part of my mask did not burn.  There was no swaying of the tides.  And, most obviously, there is nothing interesting to look at.  No ethereally painted fish or eels that remind one of some far away planet in a sci-fi movie.  

And yet, despite all of that, I found myself very, very pleased.  My pleasure has nothing to do with my pool or anything outside really.  The truth is, as great as vacations are, there is something incredibly unnatural about them after a while.  It hit me that, while on vacation, you are prone to think of yourself even more than you already do, which is quite a feat for such a self centered lot as we humans.  The name of the game is pleasing yourself.  At first this sounds great, but inside, the more we indulge, something dies.  What dies is purpose and love.  We are not meant to think of only ourselves.  God calls us to love others.  


All day I have been meditating on Corinthians 13.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 

Don't skip a single line.  Read that and be amazed.  We are nothing without love.  Nothing!  We are to be kind, not arrogant or rude, to have hope, to endure!  What wonderful, incredible words!!!  Amen!!!  So much fun was had on our trip.  I saw things that I will never forget.  It was wonderful.  Yet, I am excited to stop thinking about myself all the time, and get back to the truly great things, and start loving God, and loving people.  I love to travel, and when I have thought about my travelling in the past, I have imagined it as a means of self indulgence most often.  Now, I still long to travel, but as a means to love others, to share things, to connect with those whom are spreading the gospel around the globe.  Hopefully, God will see it fit to allow me to love in this way.  If not, then so be it.  

Something that my brother shared with me really helped me in my seeing this world for what it is.  As we flew back home, he told me this analogy... believing in the Bible, or at least saying you do, and then getting so caught up in the minutia and tedium of this life, is foolish.  Imagine that you have been brought out of the Matrix.  You have been shown that your life in the Matrix is a lie.  You are a slave to this trick.  You decide you are going to fight the machines and bring about truth and freedom.  Then, when you get put back into the Matrix for your mission, instead of remembering your charge, you get caught with the minutia of the life you once had in the Matrix.  None of it ultimately matters in comparison to the truth, yet you are completely absorbed in rearranging your CD collection while the battle rages on.  Now, I am not saying this life is an illusion.  This is an analogy, and all analogies are limited.  This life is incredibly important, but it is not important in and of itself.  It is only truly important in light of eternity.  And yet, we live as if this is it.  That is not Biblical at all.  According to God's word we are to live for that which is eternally good.  That may mean not having everything go your way here and now.  It may mean next to nothing going how you want it to here and now.  It changes our view on money.  Having a ton of it, while comfortable, may be your downfall eternally, a distraction from duty (though not necessarily).  You may end up marrying someone who is not the person who makes you the most happy here and now, but in light of eternity, is the person God chose for you to glorify Him.  You may not be healthy.  You will only get to not experience everyone in your life dying if you die first.  If you believe what the Bible says, if I believe what the Bible says, then our eyes will see world completely differently.  We will be less likely to get caught enjoying what is temporary to the point where we stop fighting for the eternal.  


My hope and prayer is that God would give us fresh eyes to the truth, that we would fight for what is eternal and good.

Is Freedom Why We Should Celebrate the 4th?

free·dom 

[free-duhm]  

noun

 

1.  the state of being free  or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.

 

2.  exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

 

3.  the power to determine action without restraint.

 

4.  political or national independence.

 

5.  personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.

Americans are obsessed with freedom, independence, and liberty.  I can't help but wonder... are we really free?  If so, from what?  We are not a part of the United Kingdom.  While I am grateful that we are our own country, that isn't really what everybody is celebrating, because Britian is a pretty awesome country.  If we'd lost, and we were still part of the UK, life wouldn't exactly be horrible.  Our teeth might not be as awesome, but we'd sound cooler when we talk.

So, what are we really celebrating?  We've already checked off definition four.  We're certainly not celebrating number one.  If you are reading this you are probably not incarcerated.  And, if you commit a felony, you very well could in up so.  So that's not it.  

Number five is surely a part of it.  We certainly are celebrating the end of our hypocrisy on touting political freedom for one set of people and yet denying it for another.  Still, this is only a piece of the puzzle.

We are left with two and three.  Let's try two.  Are we exempt from external control, interference, or regulation?  I know, I chuckled too.  The answer is a huge no.  Our lives are incredibly molded by outside forces.  Let's start with the government we'll be celebrating.  It restricts us all the time.  You can only drive so fast.  You cannot yell "fire" in a movie theater or "bomb" on an airplane unless there actually is a fire or bomb.  Haven't you seen meet the parents?  You are not free to wear whatever you want.  If you walk around naked in ninety-nine percent of public places you are going to get arrested.  Your money is not completely your own.  The government will take your money and do what it wants with it.  You can vote, but that isn't the same thing as actually controlling the situation is it?  You will pay your taxes or pay the consequences.  That's just government.  We start our lives under the rule of parents.  Then we add teachers.  Then we swap teachers for bosses. 

There are the restraints of relationships.  Any time you add a relationship to you life you add regulation.  It may be done willingly, but because you desire to not be lonely.  You are taking on the freedom of not feeling alone, of being loved, of having someone to something with. There are sets of things we cannot do because of each relationship we have.  Just one little example, you are not free to kiss your friend's girlfriend.  You may be physically free to do so, but you are not free to do so and expect to keep that relationship.

We craft our actions around those in our lives.  If you don't think this is true, that you really do actually do whatever you want, I am going to just call you a liar.  No one does whatever they want.  We are all, to various extents, pushed and pulled by others, by peer pressure.  No one acts alone.  You cannot.  Why?  Because you are not free to do whatever you want and have friends!  By definition, having a loved one means sacrificing for them.  That means giving up one thing for another.  I could keep going for a long time on this one, but the point is made.  We are not free at all from external control, interference, or regulation.

So, our last hope is number three... the power to determine action without restraint.  This isn't all that different from number two.  We surely are not able to determine action without restraint.  We are restrained by the lack of time, money, ability, health, and on and on it goes.  We are lied to all through life that we can do whatever we want, to dream it and it will come true.  HA!  I almost broke some bones as a kid because I actually believed this and tried jumping off high stuff with the hopes of flying.  (I was five, so go easy on me here)  I may be free legally to make it to the NBA, but I am not physically free to do so.  My body will not what it takes.  I am limited with what my brain can do.  (stop nodding so vigorously!)  Every human is retrained by faith in something.  Christians, atheists, Buddhists, whatever.  None of has the freedom to know the answers to the universe.  We all must rely on faith, and whatever we choose to believe will change how we live.  As a Christian I am free to do many things, but there is much restraint with following Christ.  Atheists may be free from the laws of the Bible, but lose the freedom to feel eternal purpose.  They are not free to be moral without being hypocrites, as all we are is matter.  Every worldview has its freedoms and restraints.

Lastly, we are not even free with ourselves.  So many of struggle with God because we long for freedom from being told what to do.  We long to "be free".  Yet, the truth is that we are not even free in our desires.  I was never asked to have the desires that I have.  Not ever.  Like the Apostle Paul, I am constantly doing things I don't want to do, and am unable to do things I want to be able to do.  No one came to me asked me if I wanted to be selfish, greedy, lustful.  I was just born that way, and so were you.  If I were asked what I want to be my desires, my answer would not be anything near to what I was born with, and neither would yours.  We all long to be better, to be stronger, to love others more.  It is often when we reject those desires that, ironically, we find the most joy and pleasure.  Is that not true?  Is it not in actually in restraining ourselves that we feel the most free?

We are not free.  Not wholly.  All of us are captive to a great many things, both inside and out.  It is with this understanding that I celebrate July 4th not because of freedom, as freedom isn't really there.  No, I am thankful for God's provision.  I am thankful that God has given me so much.  I am thankful that God has given me the only true freedom to live forever with Him.  He has set me free from sin, not that my desires are completely whole in this life, but they are better, and growing stronger each day.  I am free from having to spend an eternity in hell,  because God restrained Himself in human form, gave up so much.  Jesus put himself under the restraint of government, a human mother, teachers, friends, the restraints of an earthly body.  He allowed himself to be flogged and crucified unjustly so that I could be free from both hell, and my own sinful nature.  So, tomorrow I will be celebrating my freedom, but not the freedom form Britain, or from government, or from others, or even the freedom to what I want.  I will be celebrating the victory of Christ over death. and the freedom I now I have to come to him as I am and be delighted in when I don't deserve it.  I will be celebrating an eternity in heaven where I will be free to love as I have not been in this life.  To God be all glory.

 

Romans 5: 12-21

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned--  

13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.  

14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.  

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 

16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.  

 17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.  

19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 

20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,  

21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.