A Royal Wedding

I saw a little bit of a show on BBC America today where British Journalists were talking about the wedding.  As I was flipping channels, I noticed that they were talking about America's interest in the wedding.  They were saying that in the beginning there was a lot more interest in the United States than in Great Britton.  They talked about London being flooded with reporters from here and how Americans were keeping up with William and Kate via social networks.

This should not really surprise anyone because "Snow White", "Cinderella", "Beauty and The Beast" are stories that have been told to kids growing up in America for years now.  Add to that other stories such as "The Princess Diaries" as well as others and you can see why people here are interested in a real life story of a girl who marries a Prince and becomes a Princess.  It also doesn't hurt when the couple's appearance rivals that of a Barbie and Ken doll.

As a Bible teacher, I find this story interesting because there is a picture here of God's love for us.  Now, I really have a hard time talking about the church being the bride of Christ, because the symbolism here just makes me feel dirty, but the picture is one that many women really identify with.  I find the symbolism of God becoming my Father and Jesus my older brother much more palatable and just as valid here.  Both are a picture of a "commoner" being a part of family that they are not qualified for.

So, I wish the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge all the happiness and well being in the world.  Their love for each other will be a picture for all of us, about the love that God has for each of us and how He wants us to be a part of His family.

"Wikipedia" christians

One of the things that I have been thinking about this past week is how relational christians differ from what I call "Wikipedia" christians.  I am guessing that everyone knows about Wikipedia.  It is a non-profit  encyclopedia that is one of my favorite places to start when researching something.  It is a site that people will program information about a topic into that site.  That information is usually true, but it is not always true.  Since it is really just a program, it doesn't think on its own.  It will just bring up the information that has been programed into it when someone asks about a topic.  That is great for an encyclopedia,  but not so much for people.

Relational believers have a relationship with God and that is the basis for all their beliefs and actions.  It is much like having a relationship with a family member or a friend.  That relationship affects the way we act while serving as a buffer against what other people say.  A "Wikipedia" christian however, lets people program them with their thoughts about God and how they should act.  Without a relationship, Christianity becomes a "So and so" told me this is true and how that affects me, while someone else will make an opposing comment based on what they have been told and so forth and so forth.

Think of it this way, I can either know you or I can know what other people say about you.  If I know you, I do not need an extensive education about you.  So, we can know God or we can just know what others say about Him.

My ever changing viewpoint of Easter

The meaning of Easter to me has changed several times over my lifetime.  As I was growing up and during most of my teenage years, I thought that Easter was the most overhyped holiday where nothing happened and was nothing but a big letdown.  It was a time that people felt that they needed to buy new clothes to impress people that they only saw once a year at church service and that there was nothing else to this holiday.  Even as a believer, I felt this way.

Then as people whom I knew and loved started dying, Easter became a basis for my hope of seeing them again.  Heaven and the afterlife started feeling more real to me at that point.  Resurrection became something to look forward to.

About twenty years ago, I started approaching Easter in a different way.  I went through the gospels and aligned the events that happened between Palm Sunday and Easter on a daily basis.  Although my list did not match exactly lists that I saw was published,  I was confident in my results.  I even went further.  On Good Friday through Easter Sunday, I put the list down with the approximate time that I thought that they happened.  I used these lists to help me meditate on the events and to help me live the events in my imagination which in turn helped me to realize the humanity of Jesus as well as his divinity.  Doing this did help me to connect more with the holiday.


A few years ago during autumn my world fell apart.  Church leaders of the place that I was attending rose against me, orally attacking me and using their influence to turn my family against me.  This was a dark time in my life as I even cried out to God where was He in all of this.  I felt in my heart that God was using those experiences to help me understand the agony of the betrayal that happened during the cross.  I was only given a taste of that, and I could not handle it.  That event has changed Easter for me once again.  Reliving the week in my imagination no longer carried the meaning that it once did.  Now, I relish the outcome of the events.  The relationship that I have with God which would not be possible without those events.  I am now free to love others because of this so Easter has become a celebration, not only of things to come, but also for the friendship that I have with all of you.

Good Deeds

One of my favorite musicals is "The Fiddler On The Roof".  There are many scenes and songs in this movie that I like.  One of them revolves around the song "Do You Love Me".  The man asks the question to his wife "Do you love me" and she answers with all the good deeds that she has done and so he repeats the question.  The end of the song tells us and the man that she does.  I do agree that love does produce good deeds, but there are cases when good deeds are produced from something else.

Obligation will produce good deeds.  Anytime that you use a system of "do this or get punished", you will get good deeds.  Most people will pay their taxes, but I imagine that very few if any do this out of love.   From what I have seen, relationships that are revolving around this concept are not really strong and many have hearts that want to be somewhere else.  I do believe however that a person can have obligations, and do them  with love, but in that instance it is love and not obligation that is producing the actions.

Sometimes a person will do good deeds in order to put themselves on a pedestal.  The good deeds get them noticed.  In this case, love has nothing to do with it.  It is all about getting people to look up at them.

I believe there is another reason that someone will do good deeds.  This one is not talked about although I first noticed it on an episode of the original "Star Trek" series when I was growing up.  In the episode titled  "I Mudd" there were androids who sought to take over the human race by serving them.  As I have gotten older, I have noticed the same thing happening among people. Someone will want to do a lot things for someone, not out of love, but in order to control them.  A person like this will not want help in what they are doing because that would mean that they would lose some of their control.  They will end up looking like Rebecca in the Hitchcock film  "Rebecca".  Rebecca looked to be the perfect wife while being "Hell on Earth" for her husband to live with.

There are probably other things that will produce good deeds, but I do not think that any of them will come close to love.

Fear of being hurt

A boy in High School dates a girl, only to realize while on the date that she really likes someone else who is not going out with her.  The boy really caring for that girl encourages the boy (that the girl likes) to ask her out and he does so and he and the girl end up as a couple.  The first boy is glad that he did this but the circumstances put a hurt and a scar upon his heart that would last a lifetime.

You see this first boy had a hard time getting dates.  When a girl did agree to go out with him it, he would notice others making fun of her.  He knew when he encouraged his classmate to ask that girl out, it would probably mean that he would not be able to get a date to go to the Prom.  After well over a hundred phone calls trying to get a date, his fears were proved correct and he ended up staying home prom night and the rest of the school year.

Dates were few and far between for the next few years, before he found someone who would go out with him, not once but several times.  His fear of reliving the hurt that he had been through was so strong however that he became possessive of the girl.  By doing this he caused the hurt that he was trying to prevent from happening to actually happen to himself.

Some would say that he got what he deserved.  Others would say that perfect love drives out fear, so he did not really love the girl.  Still others would say that if he had loved God correctly then he would have not had this fear and would have not had done these things.  While there are truths in these sayings, they are also used to justify the sayers of not having a relationship with the man.

What would happen if someone (maybe the girl?) loved him with this perfect love.  What if he could experience this from others?  Is it possible that he could overcome his fear though the perfect love from another person?