Hammer on Anvil '

A friend of mine and I were talking early this morning about cloud formations as Hurricane Issac makes its way up here to the Midwest. We were both fascinated by how the system was still formed into a sort of circle, even as it begins to dissipate and play itself out. Then my friend said something I'd never thought about before. "They're predicting about 5 inches of rain from this storm-it's been dropping 5 inches of rain all along it's route. How does it pick up THAT much seawater, convert it to fresh, and dump it down on us? And why can't we figure out how to do that? If God can do it, why can't we?"

Most of us, in the course of our lives, will witness, hear about, or be involved in a heated religious discussion. As many different religions as there are (not counting the differing beliefs within the same religion), the odds are that passionate people are going to disagree. When I first became a Christian, my sister had a lot of questions for me-tough questions that I usually didn't have an answer for. Even today, I'm sure there are some of those questions I still don't have an answer for. 'Why does God let bad things happen to good people?' 'Why does the Bible teach inequality between the sexes?' 'How can the God who killed all those people in the Old Testament be the God of love?' 'How do you explain dinosaurs?'

The answer to these hard questions is not easy. Many times, the answer is, "I don't know". It is very easy to get frustrated in the face of these questions. For me, it's times like these that I think of the clouds. How could a big explosion have created the intricate weather patterns that are in storms? How could an accident have created exactly the right mix (made up of more variables than we can count) to sustain human life? How could evolution have played out so perfectly that it created entirely new, completely functioning species?

When asked one of the tough questions, my response is always the same: "I don't know all the answers-I am not God." What I do know is that God shows me something every single day to remind me of who He is, and how He is wholly different from me. If God can do it, why can't we? Because we're not Him.

What has God shown you about His character lately?

One of my most memorable experiences as a child was learning to ride a bike.  I remember the day that my dad took me to Western Auto to pick out my bike.  I knew which one I wanted - the bright yellow one with a black banana seat!  It was a great gift.  I was very excited to learn how to ride it and could not wait to get home, for my dad had promised to teach me to ride that very day!

His process for teaching me to ride was to take me to the top of our yard...  Side note:  our yard slanted down toward the road then across from the road was a fence which protected kids from a creek below.  He said, "Son, here is how you learn, hop on."  With no further instruction, I hopped on trusting he would teach me all the ins and outs of riding a bike....  He proceeded to let the bike go.  I probably set a world record for the longest first bike ride... I hit the fence.  After I was done crying and had my wounds bandaged up, I wanted back on.  This time I had questions:  How do you stop? How do you turn? How do you pedal?  How do you balance?  How do you not hit the fence.

Life is a lot like that.  We fall, we miss the mark, we get off course.  The question becomes, how do we bounce back?  I am convinced that successful people are not those without failure, but those who bounce back.  We should not be defined by our failure, but by how we come back from it.  This is the opposite of how many followers of Jesus live - we fail and then we beat ourselves up for failing.  We condemn and hate ourselves.  It's time to get back on the bike my friends.  Be defined not by your failure, but by how you bound back.

People are hypocrites. Chances are, you know more people than you can count who often say one thing and turn around doing what they claim is wrong.