Happy Friday! Here’s a recap of the several places where I saw grace, law/gospel implications, and good news show up in surprising and unexpected ways. As always, feel free to drop a comment or share your favorites moments of experiencing or noticing the grace of God this week…Enjoy!
End of Days?
Last week, Bored Panda published 50 Of The Most Incredible Shots That Were Submitted To The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. According to the article, these awards consist of “an annual competition that invites photographers from all around the globe to share their funniest and wittiest animal photos”. Of note is #21 (Angel Bear)…in which I think we have found the apocalyptic beasts described in the book of Daniel…
…In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.
The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.
And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’
“After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule….
Daniel 7:2 – 7 (NIV)
Who Will Deliver Me?…
An insane video surfaced last week depicting a Vermont trooper rescuing a little girl who had fallen through ice in a pond. Watching the footage created a visceral experience for me as the officer’s body cam captures nearly cinematic underwater photography as he makes the sacrificial gesture to save this child’s life. I was reminded of a passage from Watchman Nee’s classic, The Normal Christian Life in which the late mystic depicts the manner in which only our helpless disposition can facilitate the one way love of our rescue in Christ…
I was once staying in a place in China with some twenty other brothers. There was inadequate provision for bathing in the home where we stayed, so we went for a daily plunge in the river. On one occasion, a brother got a cramp in his leg, and I suddenly saw he was sinking fast. I motioned to another brother, who was an expert swimmer, to hasten to his rescue. But to my astonishment he made no move. Growing desperate I cried out, “Don’t you see the man is drowning?” and the other brothers, about as agitated as I was, shouted vigorously too. But our good swimmer still did not move. Calm and collected, he remained just where he was, apparently postponing the unwelcome task. Meantime the voice of the poor drowning brother grew fainter and his efforts feebler. In my heart I said, I hate that man! Think of his letting a brother drown before his very eyes and not going to the rescue!
But when the man was actually sinking, with a few swift strokes the swimmer was at his side, and both were soon safely ashore. Nevertheless, when I got an opportunity, I aired my views. “I have never seen any Christian who loved his life quite as much as you do,” I said. “Think of the distress you would have saved that brother if you had considered yourself a little less and him a little more.” But the swimmer, I soon discovered, knew his business better than I did.
“Had I gone earlier,” he said, “he would have clutched me so fast that both of us would have gone under. A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.”
The Normal Christian Life
Jesus H. Christ…
Admittedly, I always thought Jesus H Christ was considered a pejorative term and blasphemous epithet. However, according to Bible expert and YouTuber, Dan McClellan, there may actually be a legitimate historical origin to the colloquial expression. Whether there’s any validity to this explanation or not, I cannot completely confirm as I have not thoroughly researched it (I mean, we’re talking about YouTube after all…). Still, his analysis is interesting and for sure gave me a different perspective…
You’re Not So Special After All…
You may not be as special as thought you were…A new study based in AI sets out to disprove the common notion that “no two fingerprints are the same”. Gabe Guo, an engineering student at Columbia University co-led the research that drove this investigative project. It turns out (at least according to the research Guo and his team undertook), that your individual finger prints are more similar to one another than the consensus has previously held on the matter. Though, we are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made, it turns out that we might be a little more ordinary than we anticipated. While you might not be as unique as you presumed, you are loved far beyond what you can comprehend…in spite of your sin…and in spite of your boringness, haha. That AI was involved in arriving these conclusions reminds me of two nearly parallel scenes in the films, A.I. and Tron Legacy in which the artificially intelligent beings express disenchantment upon discovering they are not in fact, ‘one of a kind’. This indeed would indicate A.I.’s ability to become truly sentient…and very human…
Steve Jobs, Technology, and Behavior Misalignment…
A recent Forbes magazine article highlighted the tension between what Steve Jobs anticipated in the advent of the personal computer versus our present day stress, anxiety, and despair resultant from the misuse and overindulgence of social media and smart technology. According to the article, “There is a fundamental misalignment between human attention and intention when engaging with screens.” Imagine that…St. Paul would of course argue, “the [law], which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death…” The article proposes practical solutions (ironically rooted in tech) to our modern dilemma, yet I found the closing quote of this brief piece to be more insightful,
As Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl put it, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” It is time for technologists to help humanity reclaim that space.
I think the gospel actually gives us better news…that space between stimulus and response can be occupied by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ. Our wills are powerless against the allure of newer, bigger, and more ‘promising’ tech advances…conversely, His grace is sufficient in spite of…
No Personality Required…
This piece from Business Insider bore a strong resemblance to a Mockingbird article that released earlier this week. Shoji Morimoto enjoys renting himself out to people who want him to do absolutely nothing while they spend time in his presence. Morimoto’s ‘Do Nothing’ rental provides him a unique solace and a ‘passive form of entertainment’. According to the article,
Morimoto believes the job is a great fit for his introverted personality.
“The client wants to do something, and I just go along. No deep commitment is expected and no personality required,” he wrote in his memoir.
“It’s funny that someone like Rental Person should be in demand. I suppose you could say my lack of individuality has become my ‘product,'” he said.
While Morimoto insists that he is a service provider rather than a service user, his trademark approach to forming relationships with strangers free of expectations and requirements sounds more like ministry than the quirky hobby he describes to be in the memoir he has recently penned. In fact, it sounds like more than ministry…it sounds like grace in practice…
Law-in-Life feature: Finding Your Sweet Spot…
And of course, what weekly round up would be complete with our signature law-in-life feature, haha. This week, my box of sugar brought the law to bear on my poor conscience. Not only does this brand of cane sugar promise to sweeten your morning coffee…it also has the power to sweeten your life’s most significant moments. What a bold claim that C&H sugar will not only enhance your morning wakeup routine, but will effectively deliver sweetness (i.e. righteousness) to your very home…This sugary substance not only has the very ‘recipe (law) for happiness‘, but it also retains the power to “create magical moments that you’ll never forget… ” Thank God though for the grace that forgets our sins…and to that, I raise my cup…
Law, Grace, & Daily Living 