Idiot or Possessed?

My favorite author of all time is Fyodor Dostoevsky. If you have never read one of his books, then do it...now. This morning I was sitting near the bookshelf, drinking my coffee, and looking at my stack of Dostoevsky books. One of my favorites is called, "The Idiot." It is about a man with epilepsy. Right beneath that one was another one that I love called, "The Possessed." Then something dramatic happened...I began to think.

In our society, and based on our common definitions, being termed an 'idiot' means something quite different than being 'possessed'. When one thinks of an idiot, he thinks of someone who is stupid, juvenile, goofy, immature, or many times, just different. When one thinks of one who is possessed, he thinks of one who is controlled by something that is dwelling within. Nearly every time one of these terms is used it is used in a negative sense. For example, "My son's tantrum was so bad that I thought he was possessed." Or, "I don't see any dinosaur shaped ones!" "Oh, for crying out loud! They're in boxes, you idiot!"

In the first example, the child's behavior was so awful and unwarranted that the joke is to say it had to be induced by an indwelling force. In the second example, Rex is so simple that he fails to take into account the obvious.

Based on that...I think that Christians are supposed to be both idiots and possessed. I don't know...I'm just spit balling here. However, when I read through the Bible I find a slew of evidences of Christians being both. Point in case, which one of us wouldn't have thought Peter an idiot as he stepped out of the boat and onto the water? How about Jonah, as he told the sailors to throw him overboard into the sea? Or even Christ, as He willingly went to be crucified?

And then there is this question of being possessed. Certainly we see negative examples of this in the Bible, but what about the good? What about the men of God who were so wholly changed that people thought them crazy? The men whose actions were so out of character that there could be no question as to Who was controlling their life? What of John the Baptist, living in the wilderness? What of Stephen, speaking into the heavens as he was stoned? What of Paul, rejoicing while in prison? What of the apostles boldly facing persecution for their faith? Truly, these were men possessed.

I don't see too many idiots for Christ anymore. I don't know...maybe it is just me. When is the last time I have stepped out in faith against what was completely obvious to the world...to see what was unseen? I wonder if anyone has ever looked at my life and said, "Wow...that guy is completely nuts." And were later amazed as the picture of faith unfolded and God revealed His plan. Sometimes I see people out on the corner of some street preaching. That makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes, I think to myself, "that person is crazy." Maybe they are crazy. Maybe they are crazy enough about Jesus to do anything to expand his kingdom. Maybe they are crazy enough to put their pride in check to a degree that I cannot even imagine. Of course...they could be genuinely crazy...which would kind of ruin my whole thing here.

I also don't see too many people completely possessed by God. That doesn't mean that there aren't people like that. Remember, this blog is more about me than anything, and what I write is more a self-indictment then anything. So I guess what I am wondering is if people look at me and think, "okay, that it totally uncharacteristic...what is wrong with him?" But in a good way. Trust me, people have thought that about me before in a bad way, and chances are they will think it again. But wow...just inviting a friend to church is hard stuff sometimes. Striking up a conversation about fantasy football is easy, but try steering the conversation away from a game-saving field goal to a life-saving Savior...and woah...not easy. At least not for me. Why is that? Why were the disciples so possessed that they willingly faced death...preaching to the end...when today it is hard to get 50% of the church back on Sunday night and 25% back on Wednesday? I am not saying that church attendance always equals 'rightness' with God...because we all know people as backward as the day is long that would NEVER miss a church service...but I am using it to show a point. By and large we don't live as people that are possessed. I don't live as one that is possessed.

My prayer is that God will enable us to be a bunch of possessed idiots for Him in this world. I can look like an idiot on my own...but more as an embarrassment to my wife rather than as a glory to God. Apart from God I simply do not have what it takes to "lay my life down." God doesn't call many of us to lay our lives down literally...but He does call us to be aliens here. We should stick out. We shouldn't be comfortable. The world should look at us and think, "What a bunch of idiots. What would possess them to live like that, or act like that, or give things up like that, or do that, or defer to another like that, or serve like that, or love like that, or care like that, or do that, or not do that?"

Being possessed by an unwavering faith in Christ is the answer. I have faith...but does the world see it?

A Song for the Hard Times

"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below, praise Him above ye heavenly host, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

"His name is Jesus, precious Jesus. Lord Almighty, King of my heart, King of glory."

Today I just needed to sing. I don't know what you are going through, but I know what my family is going through. It is tough. I am not even going to describe today. Suffice it to say, when I put my bread in the toaster tonight and said, "Why does it smell like my toast is on fire? Oh, because it is," and saw that the bottom of my toast had caught fire, Erin and I just started laughing...because I really think that the only other option would have been tears.

This is a hard time. It is a hard time for a lot of people. So many of my friends are hurting. We are all struggling so hard to bear each other's burdens, all the while trying not to collapse beneath the weight of our own.

Our pastor, Jim Stady, brought a powerful message Sunday morning. He didn't know how this week would turn out for so many of us (and it is only Tuesday night!)...but God did. If you get a chance, read 2 Chronicles 20 1-30 sometime soon. While you're at it, contact Bible Baptist Church and get a copy of the sermon from last Sunday morning.

I am not going to try and preach via blog, but I want to quote one part of one verse. It comes from verse 12, "neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee." This is King Jehoshaphat talking to God in reference to a conspiracy of nations that were gathered to attack Judah.

This week, I kind of feel like that. I know I am not alone. I kind of feel like saying, "Hey God...it's me...I'm stuck...and uh...it's all on You." Because really, if you think about it, it is.

Okay, I fibbed, I want to quote one more verse. It is verse 22, "And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten."

So today, since there was nothing else to do, I began to sing. And I sang and I sang. And pretty soon God became bigger than my problems. Even though there are still plenty of things wrong, they became overshadowed by all that is right. I began to realize that with God consequences can become blessings; hardships, delights; and sorrows our greatest joys.

I am praying for all of us today. I don't know what you might be going through, but I know what I am going through...and I know that my situation is not terribly unique.

I think, that no matter what you are going through, you should start to sing and praise. Let God lift up your head, because frankly, sometimes He is the only One Who can.

Foundations

If you know me at all, you know that I like to read. If you don't know me: Hey! I like to read. I do not like to limit my reading to any genre in particular...except I do find that I mostly agree with a dear friend who once said, "Nothing worth reading was written after 1964." I am not sure how my faith in that statement will effect my desire to write...considering that everything that I write is after 1964. Except for that one thing, but I cannot get into that. The point is that I read old books of all kinds. You may have noticed that my idea for the title of this blog came from a strange source: Niccolo Machiavelli. I have read many of his writings and I learn much from them.

One thing that I learned is to imitate excellence. Now, the Bible exerts me to be like Christ, and that is the goal of the Christian life. But even if that were not my mandate...the world recognizes the mimic-ability of excellent men. Outside of the Christian realm, Jesus Christ was still a most excellent man. Anyway, all of that is beside the point and not really at all what I wanted to talk about in this post.

I want to talk about foundations. According to dictionary.com, the definition of foundation is: the basis or groundwork of anything. What I am discovering in my life, is that I am having to build from the top down. My life is full of responsibilities and as a result things are pretty much 'built' the way they have to be. There really is not a whole lot of wiggle-room in my situation. For example, my job does not in any way, shape, or form, allow me to develop the things that I am passionate about in life. But my main goal is to provide for my family, and in that regard, my job comes through. So, even though I am looking for other occupational options, I am rather limited in what I can accept.

Another definition of foundation is: the lowest division of a building, wall, or the like, usually of masonry and partly or wholly below the surface of the ground. The main thing that catches my eye in this definition is the end. Just like the foundation of a house is below the ground, so the foundation of my life is below the surface. The foundations of my life are set in my heart and in my mind. The Christian's life depends largely upon the foundation that is built. When the foundation is shaky, or incomplete, the outer life will crumble eventually.

Machiavelli said, "anyone who does not lay his foundations beforehand could do so later only with great skill, although this would be done with inconvenience to the architect and danger to the building." That is where I find myself lately. Perhaps you have been in a similar situation. I am finding, to my dismay, that there are huge gaps in areas of my life that should have been foundational. Now, with God's help and through His strength, these areas are being addressed, but things are not as easy to fix now.

God has a plan and a purpose for my life. He always has. I think that my continual failure to solidify foundational things in my heart has pushed that plan back a few years. I do not want to get into a theological debate about how God knows the future so this was all in his plan. That doesn't hold water anyway because God exists outside of time and the Bible states that Christ was crucified before the foundation of the world. From my very human perspective, it seems as though failures in simple areas such as faith, steadfastness, temperance, and meekness, have slowed my pace.

Praise God that He is patient, and that His working in my life does not cease. The past few months have been almost like an awakening for me. It seems as if I have been asleep, and things that I have dreamed about are becoming real. Simple, foundational things that I have heard preached from the time I was born, are making sense to me. And I never had them set in my life. So many things that never seemed to work out for me make perfect sense now.

If I am the building in this equation, then yes, damage has been done to the building in this process. I suffered through many things that would have been easily avoided had the foundations been set in stone. If God is the architect, then yeah, maybe from my perspective it is an inconvenience for Him to have to teach me things that I should have learned before I was ten years old. But since God is both the architect and the builder, than there is no lack in the great skill that is needed to fix the foundations in my life.

That is true in the life of every believer. God has a plan, and it is never to late to learn the basics...even if you've been building without them for years.

Troubleshooting

I am not going to lie. This has been a sub par week for my family. First, Erin's paycheck came a day late in the mail, making our rent one day late. I tried explaining this to the front office, but they were hearing nothing of it. They shut off our cable and charged us a ten percent late fee. All this for being one day late...and we had a valid reason. Erin couldn't work because we have cable Internet...which was shut off with the cable...even though we pay the cable company directly for the Internet. Thursday was an absolutely terrible day at work, and the old me would have had a serious meltdown. I would have gotten fired, if not jailed, and my testimony would have been shot...among other things. Fortunately, the new me just had a minor meltdown, I almost quit, and I am pretty sure that the prayers I solicited from my FaceFriends had a lot to do with my keeping sane. I had a job offer in Nashville that was right in line with what I want to be doing with my life, only to find out that it paid 10k less than I make now. Today, we had an eviction notice on our door because we hadn't paid the $87 in late/cable connect fees. We paid our entire rent...but they were going to evict us for the late fee...which we paid today.

Oh yeah, and Thursday, Dylan ate his own poop. When I was at my lowest at work, I got a call from my wife. She was in hysterics as she told me the tragic story of a boy, a tub, and a turd. She had given Dylan and Ronin a bath. When they were finished she began letting out the water and she got Ronin out to dry him off. When she got back in the bathroom to get Dylan, he was throwing poop everywhere and he had it smeared on his face and in his mouth. When everything else has gone wrong, my first born son eats his feces. My wife said he reminded her of a monkey, tossing it around with such delight.

Is there any spiritual application here at all? I don't know. Is there something to making a meal out of the poop life throws at you? Should I be contemplating how God can take even the dirtiest and stinkiest sinner and turn them into something good? Should I be angry at the devil for coming into my life and messing it up every time God starts doing something positive? Yes...maybe...I don't know. I think that the spiritual lesson for me this week was a simple but needed one.

It is easy for me to go around talking about how I feel God working in my life. It is easy for me to talk about how a wonderful change is taking place, and I feel like a different person. It is another thing entirely to live that out. I am reminded of an old Calvin and Hobbes comic that I read. Calvin asks his dad how they figure out the weight limits on bridges. His dad says that they just drive heavier and heavier trucks over the bridge, and when it breaks, they weigh the last one and put that as the weight limit. I know that isn't really how bridges are tested, but things are tested. If something is wrong, it is fixed and tested again. It is called troubleshooting. You have probably experienced it before. Perhaps you were on the phone with tech support about some product. They say, "try blah blah blah." And you do. Then they say, "did that fix it?" I think that maybe it always seems like things get hard after God starts working because there is some troubleshooting going on. Not on God's part, because He knows the problems and the solutions. I think this is done for two reasons. One, I think it is done for our benefit. It gives us the chance to realize just how much God is working on our behalf...how much He is investing into us. Second, I think it is done to bring glory to God. The old Ron Young would have handled this last week far differently than the current model...and God is the only explanation for why that is. I can't explain it, because as far as I know I am still the same sarcastic person that I have always been. But this week has made real to me what I have been feeling for quite some time...God is putting much effort into troubleshooting Ron Young...and He's making things work.

That's good news.

First

God has been doing a lot in my life lately. I have needed it for some time. I am going to keep this short, frankly, because I don't really have much to say at the moment. I really hope that you can find some use for this blog...I hope that it can be a blessing.

I like this idea of first. I enjoy reading articles on Fox Sports, scrolling down to the comments section, and seeing it blazing like the sun: "first!" I always wonder what prize is attached to being the first to post. What is really great is when the poster has their profile blocked. No one can see who was first anyway.

I think that I do that a lot in my own life. I sit by and look for opportunities to be at the top of things that do not really matter at all. I go the extra mile, and if no one notices, I draw their attention to the fact. It is funny, because I even have this thought process that I go through. For example, the other night I cleaned the living room and the kitchen while Erin was away. I told myself that I was not going to say anything to her about it because I had done it to be kind, not to be thanked. Not more than five minutes after she got home, I blurted out, "did you see everything I cleaned?" It was bothering me that much that she had not said anything. It was my way of saying: FIRST!

I think that God knows when I'm "first" and when I'm not. I am afraid that I oftentimes lose the blessing from Him when I pridefully seek the gratitude of others.