Daniel In Parallel

I'd decided to stop writing this blog because of lack of material and lack of time. No sense in keeping up something that isn't being contributed to, right?

But I ran across something in reading Daniel that needed to be shared.

Who knows, maybe this will launch me back into writing regularly. Hope so, anyway.

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In Sunday school we are covering the book of Daniel via the "Be Resolute" book by Warren Wiersbe. It's a good deep study behind what makes Daniel tick, along with expounding on what God was doing behind the scenes.

We just finished chapter 4 of Daniel, discussing the last days of Nebuchadnezzar, with the culmination of his 7 year discipline for being such a prideful beast of a man, and basically making a profession of faith, before his son Belshazaar took the throne.

The study up to this point took about 3 months, so it was a very in-depth look, just at the relationship between Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar.

I am also doing daily bible readings using the Our Daily Bread devotional (free, if you're interested here's a link). On top of the devotional itself, centering on a specific passage, there is a set of chapters that will get you through the Bible in one year.

Surprise! Today's reading is Daniel, chapters 1 and 2.

I went into this thinking, "Yeah, maybe there's something God wants me to see that I didn't pick up on in the previous 3 months of going through it." And you know what, there was something in there I didn't expect.

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At the end of chapter 4, the following events have happened:

• Daniel and his three friends impacted the guards when turning down royal food in favor of water and vegetables, proving their allegiance to God was more important that defiling themselves with food sacrificed to idols
• They also avoided being killed when they were able to describe and interpret the king's dream (when no one else could)
• Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael declined to worship the king and were thrown into a furnace, and they survived
• Nebuchadnezzar was challenged by God with another dream in which his pride was going to be punished, and it was for 7 years.
  
• When the 7 years was done, Nebuchadnezzar finally gave glory to God, completely, acknowledging that He is in control of all things. This appears to be as close to a profession of faith as you can find in the Old Testament.
  

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You notice things when reading through a second time. Starting off, Nebuchadnezzar was being used by God to punish the Israelites, while at the same time, setting him up to be affected by a group of godly men in a way that would change the most powerful kingdom ever to rule.

Let that sink in. God used Nebuchadnezzar to punish Israel, while at the same time getting Daniel and his three friends in a position to positively affect Babylon. God does cool things like that a lot.

Just thought I'd share.

Step by Step

Wow. It's been awhile. Last publish was back in December.

So I guess it's about time.

I wanted to share with you my thoughts on how people arrive at their ideas.

It struck me that no matter how different people get idea-wise--how they approach ideas or their own leanings--it's because there are thousands, if not millions, of steps to that point.

It's like taking a step in a random direction, and then seeing where you are in relation to everyone else. After thousands of steps, you may not be in the same zip code as other people.

The steps aren't random though. Each idea that you take in actually builds upon the previous ones.

However, it's not just random ideas so much as it is the people behind the ideas. If you really get down to brass tacks, you will find that people don't follow ideas, they follow people.

And when people follow other people, it becomes a lot less random.

People all start out at the same place. As they get older they become introduced to different sources of information, which in turn varies where they go.

Christians are attacked because of their ideas, when it's pretty obvious there's a path from where they were to where they are. There is a progression that led them to where they are, and leading them to where they're going.

These attacks do not make sense. If how people think is governed by what information is introduced to them, then why are Christian ideas considered invalid?

More information is available from God. God Himself is another source of information--information you can't get from any person, any group of people, any groupthink.

And it's not like we're trying to hide it from everyone else--we're actually commanded to share what we know about God.

But how many times are we struck down or labeled because of what we're trying to say? People get their ideas from other people--so what's wrong with these ideas?

Is this information somehow wrong? How can someone who thinks God doesn't exist confirm whether an idea about God is wrong? It's impossible.

Think about it. There is a completely different source of information out there, but some will refuse to explore the option.

Maybe what God says flies in the face of how they want to live their life.

But is that really an excuse to not pursue God?

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There is no such thing as true relativism. If there were, people wouldn't care about what Christians had to say. It would just be a bunch of words. But continually, there are foul words about what we believe.

But something about what we're saying hurts. And it's just words. We can't make you feel guilt, or conviction or anything else about your life. Anything you feel in response to what we say, that's coming from inside.

Encouragement During Economic Downturn

I posted this on the church newsgroup last week:

It seems like lately we only ever hear about the bad stuff happening in the job market. Last night on here, I saw at least 3 posts about someone getting laid off. That, coupled with what the media is constantly saying, it appears that all we ever hear about is the bad news.

But, there is some good news. Obviously, none of this surprises God. He knew this was coming trillions of years ago, and He's not chewing His fists over the status of this nation's economy--and neither should we.

God has always supported us. I think about how chaotic the world would be if God didn't maintain control of it. For the most part, we have jobs already, which is more than some of the most impoverished places can say. For that we should be really grateful.

God may be using this time to "shuffle the deck"--shake up the population to get them in a prime position for spreading the Gospel even further. You hear about people one or two at a time being inserted into secular society and seriously leveraging people toward Christ, but with the moving and shaking going on in the job market, God might possibly be using this evil for good by shoehorning thousands of people in places where otherwise an opportunity wouldn't be present.

For those of us looking for jobs, I'd like to share a word picture. I play computer games, and if I have to kill monsters to get a certain kind of item, I find that 99 times out of 100 the monster drops something totally useless. But it's exciting, because every time that killing blow lands, I wonder, "Could this be it??" Usually it's something dumb--but that's okay because there are 99 other monsters left.

The same idea I carry into interviews. You might go to 100 interviews and bonk on 99 of them... but that last one that pays off is finally it. And as a bonus, while it seems like it's taking forever to find something else, it won't seem like it took as long when you're finally at the new job.

Also, this is prime opportunity for us to not put God in a box. As some of you know, both Charlotte and I are looking for something different job-wise. Lots of prayer has gone into this. The other day I received a note from a headhunter regarding a temporary gig for about 8-12 weeks. Here was my train of thought: Is it a job? Yes. Is it secure? Probably not, but you know what? God is in control. I can't cherry pick the opportunities because I don't see security in something lasting 8-12 weeks. I also shouldn't see security in any job because as we know too well, people get laid off sometimes, even in a "permanent" position.

I couldn't help but think this was how Abraham felt when the Lord told him to go to a country that He would talk about later. Didn't even give him a destination, He just said, "It's south." That's even LESS secure than anything we can face, and yet the Lord did some wonderful things with Abraham because of his faith in the Lord.

I heard a sermon one time about a guy equating God to a mapmaker. The theme was "Why would anyone want to march off their map?" Why would anyone want to trade what's comfortable, visible and traversable for something unknown, "out there" somewhere? There's only one reason why someone would want to do something and it's this: They've talked to the Mapmaker.

Folks, we know the Mapmaker. Yes it’s uncomfortable to walk off the map, but there comes a point where the only way to take the next step in your faith in Christ is to make the next step be off the map. The Lord’s not going to steer you wrong and He can put us in places so much better than anything we can decide for ourselves, because He has the kind of sight to know what’s best.

I don’t know if this spoke to anybody but it feels like I’m done. Hope everything is going well for everybody.

Love you all,
Michael Fritzius

Arguing Into The Kingdom

I have to give an apology.

For years I have been steeped in the idea that arguing one's beliefs are just part of Christian life. I come from a long line of debaters and can clarly remember the highlight of any family gathering being an argument of Some Kind was going to happen. Every time, without fail, there would be some kind of verbal brawl.

But I was convicted on the way home today. There was a program on the radio that shot right through me, and one of the things that really stuck out was when he said, "You can win the argument, but lose your audience."

I could argue about whatever, and it still wouldn't accomplish the goal I thought the arguing was meant for. There could be 100% of the facts on my side, and I could even possibly convince the other person I was right about my faith, and it still would not matter. That freshly-convinced person with all the head knowledge would still go to Hell.

Faith isn't a brain excercise, it's a heart issue, and I can't convince someone's heart to change. When I look in the Bible and see that Jesus never argued with anyone, just simply acted or quoted scripture, it hurts me. It hurts because now I realize that I haven't been representing Christ in this area of my life. It shows that my actions on this blog really is a poor witness, and when I go back and see that I've written this:

This whole blog, including the arguments we have, is meant as a witness for what God's done in my life.

And now I'm sitting here thinking, wow, what a great way for me to show what God's done in my life. By arguing. Instead of spending time coming up with actual USEFUL blog entries, that minister to Christians, or flesh out some other ideas about the Bible, I argue.

One thing a good friend uses during sermons is, "It's not about being right, it's about being rescued." I really never understood that as fully as I do now.

Nobody can be argued into God's Kingdom, and Christians aren't called to debate their beliefs.

Anonymous, I wish I could get across how sorry I am for fighting with you about beliefs. The truth is, unless God does the saving work in a heart, none of what I say matters. If I could change your mind, it wouldn't matter, because head knowledge isn't what God is looking for. My true goal in that was for you to know Christ, and I've failed at showing what He's even like. As I've said above, He didn't argue points, just acted to show His character.

Wax On, Wax Off

If you've seen "The Karate Kid", you know about Mr. Miyagi.

If you're not familiar with this guy, allow me to explain.

In "The Karate Kid", a young guy is troubled by getting picked on, so he approaches Mr. Miyagi about teaching him some karate. Instead of karate though, he gets taught how to "sand the floor", "paint the fence" and waxing the car, using the elusive "wax-on wax-off" technique. Further, when the kid tries taking shortcuts to do the job faster, Mr. Miyagi comes out and corrects him. One scene showed the kid (Daniel) sanding the deck until night, and instead of using the two hand-sanders, he was using both hands on one. Mr. Miyagi called him on it, showing him the right way yet again--do a few circles with the left, and a few with the right. Left-a circle, Right-a circle. Finally the kid gets upset and complains that all he's doing is being used for odd jobs... and it turns out that the way the jobs were done were training him for karate. The same weird, unefficient moves that were used in sanding the floor, painting the fence and waxing the car were ideal for defending against punches and kicks.

Today I'd like to talk about how God sometimes plays the Mr. Miyagi card.

We're human. Sometimes we take shortcuts in life. The things we used to do the "right way" evolve into doing things the "better way"... better because the job the procedure is applied to gets done faster, or with less energy.

God sometimes gives us stuff to do, not just to keep us busy, but to train us for something else later on. There is a "better way" that we can do it--a way that makes it easier on us--but are we defrauding ourselves out of bigger lessons that could be learned by doing it the right way? How often do we think that God is focusing on the job at hand, when He's really not, and we concern ourselves with getting the job done well?

I just got done reading 1 Samuel 13, and the part where Saul chose to make the sacrifice instead of waiting on Samuel really stands out. Samuel was the one that was supposed to do the sacrifices, but Saul chose to do it when Samuel hadn't shown up by the proper time. Saul's reasoning was that the sacrifice needed to be done so that his army would defeat the Philistines, and Samuel wasn't there, so the next best thing was to just do it himself. Instead of using biblical ethics, he used situational ethics.

That wasn't the proper response. Putting that rule in place wasn't for Samuel's job security, it was for people to learn to trust and wait on the Lord. Samuel was God's prophet, so if he really needed to be there at a particular time, God would get him there on time. Saul's reaction to this really revealed what was in his heart. When things got dicey, Saul trusted in himself, not in the Lord.

So, my point is, think about what things are going on it your life that God's given you to do. What kind of work is going on inside you that seems indirectly related to the job? Don't short yourself by doing things the quick way if the right way nets you more growth in your faith in the Lord.

Behind the Scenes 3

Received another comment from Anonymous:

Your opinion does not change the fact the invisible fairies are true either. What kind of argument is that? There are books dedicated to the question of where "morals" and a sense of right and wrong come from. Simple answer, if society doesn't figure out that lying and throwing rocks aren't productive, its a society that doesn't last long. When you treat people nicely, you feel nice as well. It isn't some magical being who channeling rules into our heads. If what your talking about is truly unknowable and you concede that point, then you still remain ignorant in your description of it. Merely asking the question doesn't get you off the hook. Atheists who haven't moved things along? Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, Einstein...you've reduced this to name dropping because of your ignorance? The fact that you end on the absolute ridiculous Pascal's Wager only shows just how little you know what your talking about. Didn't you know the only people god lets into heaven are the people who have the gull to disbelieve in him? Are you willing to gamble? Understand how ridiculous you sound, then try again.

Your opinion does not change the fact the invisible fairies are true either. What kind of argument is that?

You're not getting what I'm saying here. Neither of our opinions have any effect on whether what I'm saying is true.

There are books dedicated to the question of where "morals" and a sense of right and wrong come from. Simple answer, if society doesn't figure out that lying and throwing rocks aren't productive, its a society that doesn't last long. When you treat people nicely, you feel nice as well. It isn't some magical being who channeling rules into our heads.

If what your talking about is truly unknowable and you concede that point, then you still remain ignorant in your description of it.

I never said it was unknowable.

Merely asking the question doesn't get you off the hook. Atheists who haven't moved things along? Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, Einstein...

I was thinking sarcastically along the lines of Hitler and Stalin...

you've reduced this to name dropping because of your ignorance? The fact that you end on the absolute ridiculous Pascal's Wager only shows just how little you know what your talking about.

All I did was state a two-variable problem: Either this is true or false, and what would be the possible reactions to it? Even looking at it from a utilitarian point of view, the choice is obvious.

Didn't you know the only people god lets into heaven are the people who have the gull to disbelieve in him? Are you willing to gamble? Understand how ridiculous you sound, then try again.

Anon, I haven't made fun of you, or called you names on your blog, so don't track mud through mine, ok? I'm not required to sit here and reason with you. You and I have got two totally different ideas on what's true and what's false.

I'm required to witness what's happened to me, to people around me. That's why it's called "witnessing"--it's because I was there when it happened, and I was who it happened to. You weren't there. So stating that what I'm saying is false because it's never happened for you is moot. Stating that it's false because you don't believe in God is moot. And really, if I said it's true
because I believe in it, that would be moot.

We're going to round and round on this because I'm talking about absolute truth, not this "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me," stuff. This is the kind of real truth that exists regardless of if everybody believes it's false. It's true... and it doesn't care what any of us think.

This whole blog, including the arguments we have, is meant as a witness for what God's done in my life. You can say anything you want about how I'm deluding myself, or how I'm blinding myself to the truth, but everything you're saying about it goes against Truth. That doesn't make you differently-opinioned, it makes you wrong.

There. I said it.

I'm sorry that I can't pull God out of my back pocket and say, "Here's God. He's real. Repent and believe." The only thing I have for you is my witness of what God's done in my life. I didn't choose for it to happen. I didn't wake up one day and say, "It's a slow day, I think I'll get saved." It wasn't on my own terms. Most Sundays I'd go to church and sit under preaching, and come
home and sin dozens of ways and none of it would bother me. There was a little bit of niggling in the back of my mind about how I was living my life, but I could squash that down easily enough and keep going. I also made sure to pray for forgiveness so I could live like I had a license to sin.

One day though, I remember looking in the mirror and suddenly I realized what a mess my life was. No lead-up to this point, just WHAM, I was convicted. It wasn't my timing, and up to then, teachings just kind of slid over my head. I cannot explain why it happened when it did other than it being supernatural.

Such a radical change has happened in my life, and already I know you might say it's just a bunch of psychological misfirings or mental conditioning, but I'll explain anyway. I wish you had been my right-hand man five years ago, going with me everywhere I went and doing everything I did. If you were, you'd see how different things are now.

Everything about me has changed.

The best way I can describe it is, I'm a changed person inside and out. What's more, I can look back and compare to how I USED to act, and what my responses USED to be to certain things, and it's totally the opposite. My motives are different. Now, everything I do is for God's glory. I belong to the Lord. I use the word "belong" because the evidence of what He's done is so clear to me that it's like looking down and seeing a brand on my skin. There is no doubt.

Anon, I've given you some of my background in the past, back when we first met. You know that my line of work requires some intelligence. Does it even seem possible that I could switch it off in favor of believing in some cosmic vending machine?

Behind the Scenes No. 2a

Received a comment from someone curious about the goings-on at camp:

I read the blog "The Camps, and a Prayer Request" and then I read the comment posted by anonymous. Wow! I don't think two people could have beliefs/opinions any different than these two. I'm curious...did the kids have to be forced to sit and listen to the preaching or were they there because they wanted to be there? Does God really want to send everyone to hell? Were the kids hyped up about what they heard, forced or not? How do people know where to find a passage in the Bible that suits their situation? Where do I turn to find help?

I'm curious...did the kids have to be forced to sit and listen to the preaching or were they there because they wanted to be there?

The kids and staff were sent rules and schedule and what's going to happen at the camp. Everybody knew way ahead of time that coming to the camp means they would hear some preaching. We did keep a schedule on when things happened. They weren't forced though, and many stayed around in small groups discussing what they'd just heard.

Does God really want to send everyone to hell?

Of course not. This is why He sent Jesus for us to take the punishment on His behalf. Up until Jesus' crucifixion, people were responsible for providing for their own sacrifices. The reason for this is that God told the people these sacrifices were just a shadow of a perfect Sacrifice that would come later on. They were told to excercise faith in God's promise, that it would be fulfilled, and if they did their sins would be forgiven. Jesus was that perfect Sacrifice.

How do people know where to find a passage in the Bible that suits their situation? Where do I turn to find help?

If you're looking for a particular type of passage, a Nave's Topical Bible should help. Verses and chapters can be found based on subject matter. If you're looking for help, and you're not a Christian, please don't waste time. The Bible says that if you seek after God with all your heart, soul and mind, He will be found. If you have a healthy fear of Hell then I would say you're probably pointed in the right direction.

Hope this helped.