Turn on the Lights

An older gentleman got out of bed one night to use the restroom. He almost forgot, but he put on his glasses so he could see.

As he stepped out of bed, he bumped his knee into the night stand and let out a bit of a whimpering yell as not to wake his sleeping wife. A few steps later, the elderly man stepped on the dog's tale and caused it to bark and nip at the man's foot, nearly knocking him over. He finally got to the door to enter the hall, but he fumbled around for the doorknob and created a scratching ruckus loud enough to wake his wife.

"What are you doing, Edgar?" (His name is Edgar. I probably should have mentioned that sooner.)

"I'm going to the bathroom, but I can't find the door," Edgar responded. His name is Edgar. Did I tell you that?

"Well...have you got on your glasses?" Myrtle asked. Her name is Myrtle, but you don't really need to know that.

"Yes, of course I've got my glasses, Tabitha," he answered. I forgot. Her name is actually Tabitha.

"Is the doorknob still there, Edgar?" Myrtle came back.

"Yes, I'm sure the doorknob is still there. Where else would it be?" an impatient Edgar snapped.

"Did you bother to turn the light on?"

I wear glasses. Many people wear glasses. Those who are insecure enough in their appearance wear contact lenses or go around blind. Glasses are great for making your vision clearer and letting you see better either at a distance or closer up. That's fantastic, I think. You know what else glasses are great for? Making a fashion statement, which you wouldn't know if you wear contacts or had wimp laser surgery done.

The point I'm getting at, though, is that glasses can do some things well and others not so much. Unless your glasses are of the night-vision variety, they will not help you see in the dark. That's just not something that normal eyeglasses can do. For that, it's best that you just turn on the lights.

Edgar had forgotten that crucial step, and he ended up causing some problems. A lot of us have the same problem when it comes to our spiritual lives. We're real clear on what we think of Jesus, but we don't really have Jesus.

It's great that you spend time in the Bible reading about Jesus. That's fantastic. It's wonderful that you read message boards and supporting materials to see what people have to say about Christ and our relationship with God. Cool! Do that. I love it that you want to have deep, religious conversations with people and pick their brains about who Jesus is to them and what He means when he says this or that. Good! But y'all...there is so much more than that.

When we take care of the intellectual aspects of religion, we're putting on glasses in the dark. It makes the picture clearer, sure, but you still can't really see the picture, can you, because it's still shrouded in darkness. There's no such thing as a saving knowledge.

Don't misunderstand me. Our knowledge of Christ and our Biblical IQ can lead to a saving faith, sure, but that intellect alone will never be enough. You're just seeing the dark more clearly.

John 5:39 (NLT)

"You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me!

It is great if people want to know who Jesus is and what He did, but knowing is just half the battle. It all comes down to faith, and faith is far more active than knowledge. Faith requires sacrifice. And action. And doing stuff. Which is action.

But before I get to action, let's talk about those Scriptures I referenced up there...with Scriptures. (Cue Inception button) I fully believe that the Bible is the Word of God and that we should take it at it's Word. If we do not, we are essentially calling God a liar, in my opinion.

I've heard people say that they admire the teachings of Christ but they do not see Him as God. Some people go so far as to say that perhaps there is a grand conspiracy that Jesus' political followers made him out to be more than He said He was later on so that their movement would gain traction.

Interesting theory, really. However, it has a few flaws. The primary flaw is this. If you say that you like what Jesus said and you like his political movement, but not the statements about Him being God, then how can you trust the political statements in the Bible? How do you know they're really what God said?

That is why we have to ask ourselves if we trust the Bible's claims of God fully or not. If we do not, then we have no business claiming Christ in any way, shape or form, whether religiously or politically. If we do, then we must take Him at His full Word. Fully.

The reason I branch off into this tangent is because if we are going to approach the idea of Faith in God through intellectual knowledge about God, then we have to understand what exactly that intellectual knowledge of God indicates. If our knowledge of God is flawed, then our Faith will never be fully realized. Again, consider the story of Edgar and Mary. Or Maybelle. Whatever her name was. You have buttons. Scroll up and read it again. Seriously, that story couldn't take you more than thirty-seconds to read. I'll wait.

So consider the story of Ed and Willamena once more. Had he turned on the lights, but not put on his glasses, his vision would still be obscured. Now we know that our knowledge of Christ will never be complete in this life, but that doesn't mean we should not strive to know God more, and if the light is on, then the picture really will become clearer the more we know of Jesus Christ and who He is.

When you pair the two together, knowledge and faith, you get a brilliant picture of who God is, and that is an image that nobody should half experience.

The story that John 5 tells is one that is common in the gospels. Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders of the day, very intelligent men, just after performing a great many miracles. These guys don't like Jesus very much, and He rebukes them for it. Go read John 5 and see how Jesus talks to them. He says that Moses will judge them because Moses wrote about Jesus long before any of these things had happened, but they would not believe. They had no faith in Jesus.

Let's jump ahead, though. Look to John 18, specifically v. 10-11. While Jesus is being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Simon Peter cuts off a dude's ear with a sword. I'm not sure if that's the worst aim ever or the best aim ever, because it can't be easy to cut off an ear, but he was probably aiming for the middle of this guy's head. So...yeah.

Anyway, look at what Jesus says to Simon Peter. He tells Simon Peter that He must go do what He is supposed to do. Jesus tells Peter that these things must happen. Peter didn't know what Jesus was going to do. Peter lacked knowledge, but man, did he have some faith, or what? Not necessarily the right faith, maybe, but his love and his passion for Christ was so great that he was willing to attack a servant of the high priest. That's pretty serious, y'all.

So that's what happens when we pair faith and belief with ignorance. We get action without direction and results. We get action without compassion. I think that right there describes so much of what the Christian culture is about these days: we act without concern for consequences. We're chopping off ears left and right because we're trying to defend Christ.

Had Peter known what the purpose of this arrest would ultimately be, I doubt he would have been so eager to chop off a man's ear. Or head. Either way. But Peter had no idear. (Ha. I didn't even mean to type that, but I did, and now I'm leaving it because I like puns.)

To review: knowledge without faith is darkness, but faith without knowledge is dangerous. When we do not know and understand Christ's capacity for love, we act without thinking or loving people. We fail to realize just how much God loves people, even those who do not know Him. Yes, we are absolutely called to minister to the lost and share Christ's message with them, but we cannot do so at the cost of everything we're working for. If we chop off people's ears, how will they hear that God truly loves them?

So what happens when faith and knowledge come together? Stephen.

Go read Acts 7. In Acts 7, Stephen becomes "the first martyr." More importantly, he schools the Sanhedrin. He recounts their entire history and their religion, but he does so while proclaiming Christ. He knows that this will get him killed most likely, but Stephen has the faith to follow Christ's calling to the end. Stephen uses the knowledge he has of Christ and the Jewish faith to spread the Word.

"I don't think God's going to call me to share the gospel with the Sanhedrin, Adam." Yeah. You're probably right. I think they've disbanded by now (speaking of which...did you hear about Motley Crue?), but that doesn't mean you can't put your knowledge and faith to action. I have a hard time believing that Stephen's first time speaking up was in front of those guys. Oh. That's right. He was there specifically because he had been caught sharing with people about Jesus, along with a little good'ol fashioned courtroom lying.

When our faith and our knowledge of Christ come together, we can do incredible things. Not just for others, but also for ourselves. Like I said, I want you to read your Bible. I want you to be in the Word. Great! Do those things. But do them with the light of Jesus guiding your reading. Do them with the knowledge of Christ guiding you closer to Him.

Please. Turn on the Light. If you do, people will see it.

Also, put your glasses on. Don't step on the poor dog's tail.

"Someone Always Has It Worse Off..."

If there is one phrase that is the worst, most overused phrase in the English language, second only to "If there is one..." whatever, it's this: "Someone always has it worse off than you."

There are a couple of reasons I hate this phrase. First, it's literally impossible. I know there are a lot of people in the world, let's say 7 billion and one. That would mean that there is one person who, at that moment in time, has it worse off than 7 billion others. Aside from a land-swell of pity I feel for that guy or gal, because they must be having a really bad day, we must admit that there is a lowest of the lows. There just has to be. "But Adam! It's just a figure of speech. You can't take it literally." Bullcrap. If I can't take it literally, then don't say it. Because if you know me, you know I'm going to take it literally.

The second reason I hate this phrase, though, is a little more important. There are few things you can tell someone that sound more selfish and heartless than this throw-away phrase. You may think it's offering someone perspective on how other people are in pain, but what you're really doing is telling someone that their pain is less important than someone else's. And worse, you're giving them the idea that you really don't care to talk about the pain they're feeling because "someone else has it worse, so I should really go listen to that person instead of you with your silly little problems."

Yes, we should always maintain perspective when we're hurting, but that doesn't mean that our pain is any less real. If I kicked you in the leg and then chopped off your friend's arm, I'd go to jail. But before that, what if I said to you, "Hey. At least I didn't chop off your arm." Wouldn't you still be hurting? Would your leg be any less swollen? No. That still happened. Your pain is still real. Yes, your friend is worse off, but you're still hurting, too. And it isn't right for anyone to deny you the care you need to heal that hurt.

True, I'm making a lot of bold comparisons and outlandish statements, but there's a great truth here that we need to understand as a culture. People are hurting. And as the church, we need to understand that people are hurting. There's a country song out there called "Merry Go Round." If you haven't heard it, yet, I suggest you go take a listen right now. This next sentence can wait. If you have heard it, remember that line in the 1st verse, I guess you'd call it the second stanza? Let me relay it here:

And it don't matter if you don't believe 
Come Sunday morning, you best be 
There in the front row like you're supposed to, 
Same hurt in every heart,
Same trailer, different park.

That's some tough music and lyrics to deal with. Do you see that? This song is talking about people seeking out help, sitting through church no matter what, just because they're in pain. Sure, they may be in the right place, but it isn't working. Why is that?

Some people would tell you that the reason the church isn't good at consoling hurting hearts is because we like to act like we've got it all together and nothing's wrong. I think their may be some truth to that, but it must go deeper. That can't be all that's wrong. I think the reason we're not good at consoling hurting hearts is because we don't act like their pain is real. Or like it matters. In this generation of Christians, we've gotten really good at looking at war-torn nations and third-world countries and seeing how we can help them. And I commend that. But we can't look to them and see their problems and start ignoring the hurt in the guy sitting next to us at dinner.

But what if we think someone's pain is...well...stupid? We've all seen Apollo 13. We all remember that scene where Tom Hank's daughter freaks out because the Beatles are breaking up, and she doesn't even realize that her mother is freaking out because her husband is about to ride a tin-can into space on the back of a giant explosion. Sure, we can look at that and say that her reaction is a little ridiculous in the face of her circumstances, but it was real pain to her. That girl was a wreck because four mop-headed tea-drinkers weren't going to be making music anymore. It's stupid, though! Sure, the Beatles are great, but that doesn't merit her reaction at all. But would she listen? No. She was hurting, and she wanted to deal with that hurt, not have someone tell her it was pointless and short-sighted.

Let me offer you a seemingly irrelevant piece of trivia that will prove essentially revealing in about ten seconds. What is the shortest verse in the Bible? Anyone know? Yes, you sir with your hand up! It's John 11:35, "He wept," or "Jesus wept," in heathen translations that don't love God. (I will admit, my own favored NLT goes so far as to translate it as "Then Jesus wept." AH! Blasphemy!) So what was Jesus crying about?

If you know the story, you remember that Jesus had just learned that His friend Lazarus was dead. That's understandable, isn't it? Jesus' close friend, probably his closest friend who was not one of the 12, is now dead. I wouldn't blame Jesus or anyone else for crying...

Until we examine things a little more closely. Jesus is the son of God, right? So He should know that Lazarus is in a better place. He should know that Lazarus is now with the Father in Heaven and is infinitely more joyful now than he was when alive. So Jesus shouldn't be crying. Jesus also knows that He is about to raise Lazarus from the dead. After all, the whole reason Jesus didn't come to see Lazarus sooner is because He wanted to let Lazarus die so that the Father's glory and power could be revealed through Lazarus' resurrection. So Jesus shouldn't be crying.

Should someone have given Jesus a stern warning about how unspiritual He was being? Or should someone have reminded Jesus why He was there? No. Of course not. Especially because Jesus wasn't crying at Lazarus' death. Let's take a closer look at what is really happening here:

John 11:30-38 (NLT)

Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there. When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them.
They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance.

Why was Jesus crying, then? He wasn't sad because of Lazarus' death, so why was He upset? Jesus was upset because He saw that someone He loved was in pain. Read that second paragraph again, verse 34, "When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him..." Jesus was not upset because of His own pain or sadness. Jesus was upset at the pain He saw someone else going through. Jesus was upset because one of His children was upset. The Bible tells us that Jesus was angry because of their pain. It drove Jesus to anger that someone He cared about was having to go through this situation.

 
Now Jesus has an eternal view of all things. He knew that Lazarus' death was all part of God's glorious plan, and He even knew that it would all work out for the best. But did He give Mary and Martha a stern talking to, or did He give them a sermon about how things will get better, or worse, did he tell them that, "Someone else has it worse off than you?" No, Jesus did not. He knelt down and endured that pain with them. If Jesus is moved by someone else's pain, how much more should we be?
To Jesus, this situation was pretty silly. He knew that Lazarus was but minutes away from being alive again. And even if Lazarus had stayed dead, Jesus had an eternal view of the situation. He knew that Lazarus was with the Father and was probably better off dead. To Jesus, Mary and Martha probably looked a little bit like that girl crying over the Beatles. There were more pressing matters at hand, and they should've just pulled it together and had faith in Jesus, right? But Jesus didn't condescend to them. He didn't treat their pain like it was stupid. He loved them. And He consoled them. And He empathized with them. Jesus cared for them, no matter how silly their pain looked to Him.

Now I'm a sucker for a sob story. I really am. If someone comes to me in pain, I crumble. I'm not quite a sympathetic cryer, but I hate to see people in pain. For me, it takes something pretty silly for me to want to tell somebody that their pain is pointless. For some of you, though, you probably won't stop for anything less than a life-threatening injury. We all have a different threshold of empathy. Where our threshold is just doesn't matter. What matters is that when people are in pain, we don't have to understand or agree with what they're crying about. We just need to find a way to be there for them. The worst thing you can do for someone in pain is to tell them that what they're feeling is wrong, or that it doesn't matter. The best thing you can do for them is offer them a shoulder to cry on.

But what do we do if someone really is dealing with something that is kinda silly? You folks know that I am a huge Georgia fan. If you cut me, I bleed red and black. Well, mostly red, but just go with it, okay? So this past December, when we came within a few yards of playing for the NCAA Football National Championship, I almost wept. It was a tough few days for the Bulldog Nation. I still can't really talk about that game without getting angry or borderline depressive. But these are the times when we have to ask ourselves if someone's pain is worth feeling? Alabama fans didn't really care, they were ecstatic, and they should've been. Tech fans were pretty jubilant about it, too. And so were a whole slew of other fanbases. They probably thought it was funny. And you know what, in the grand scheme of my life, I know it doesn't really matter. That doesn't make it any less real. That doesn't make it any less upsetting.

What it really comes down to is this. We don't have to agree with why someone is upset. We don't have to agree that it really matters. What we do need to understand, though, is that if someone is important to us, then their pain should be important to us. The subject of it may not important to us, but their pain should be. Their may come a point where we have to lightly encourage them to move on and outgrow that pain, because few things can be worse than wallowing in a long-forgotten injury, but that should never be our first inclination. Our first thought should always be to empathize with someone and make sure we treat them and their pain like they're important to us. Because they are important to us.

So let it be known that if you ever tell me "Someone else always has it worse off," that someone will very likely be you.

And if your favorite band ever breaks up or your favorite TV show gets cancelled, I'm here for you. For a little while.
Adam W. Wynn


Author's Note: Adam Wynn is the author of the mildly unknown internet novel "Will Baker is Dead," and is currently preparing to marry the love of his life, Ivey Nash. If you have any problems with that, do not come to the wedding and expect to hear "If anyone has reason these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your piece," because we're cutting that part out. He enjoys writing and speaking and teaching children about Jesus on the weekends.

The Prodigal Son's Older Brother and The Ray Lewis Dilemma

As I've said before, most of us imagine ourselves to be the protagonists of our own epic story, when the truth is that we might just be the antagonist in someone else's. Or, if we're lucky, we get to be the comic relief. Either way, we often have a very self-centered view of the world. Not in a selfish sort of way, just in a way that means everything we see or hear or experience revolves around us. See? Totally not selfish.

So this week I've been preparing a lesson for our children's church this Sunday (shameless plug - bring your K-5 kids to Mars Hill Baptist in the Athens/Watkinsville area at 10:30am!) on "The Prodigal Son." You see, we're spending the first three weeks of February talking about some of the small holidays we celebrate in the month of February, and how they can be connected to the Bible. Some of them are admittedly a bit of a stretch, like comparing the story of Lazarus to Groundhog Day (yes, I'm brilliant), but this week we'll talk about God's love for us and how that's evident through the story of the Prodigal Son.

If you're not familiar with this story, I'll let you take a minute to read up on it in Luke 15:11-32.

[INSERT JEOPARDY! MUSIC]

Done? Good. Now let me summarize what you just read. The story of the Prodigal Son is a parable Jesus told. In fact, it's the third parable in a series of three (not a trilogy, though, George Lucas didn't do this one) about lost things being found. There was a missing coin, and a missing sheep, but also a missing son. More accurately, a runaway son. The younger of two brothers asked for his share of the inheritance, essentially telling his father "I wish you were dead," and went off into the world. He spent his money on wild living and whatever similar nonsense, and wound up broke and in the dumps. Quite literally. He was feeding pigs.

He eventually got so desperate that he crawled back to his father. The boy had a script he was going to follow, down to the letter, begging his father to take his son back on as a hired hand so that he could eat something better than what pigs ate. But you know what his father did? Well of course you do, because you just got done reading this story! But let me tell you anyway. He said, "Forget that! You're my son! We're gonna have the biggest party this town's ever seen, because you're back!" (Adam Wynn Translation, AWT)

It wasn't exactly a hard decision for this father to make, either. The story goes that the father saw his son coming from a long way off. That means he was looking for him, waiting for him to return. The father was so excited that his son was back that he never dreamed of treating his son anything other than an honored member of the family.

But not everyone was so excited. There was one character who took great insult at this younger son's return, and that was his very own hermano. That's spanish for brother. That's right, the older brother was enraged when he came back to the casa (in my version, apparently this family is Hispanic) to find that their father had killed the fattened calf and started a real party (or fiesta, for those of you worried about continuity). It was clearly a big deal to this older brother. So much so that he whines like a little girl about it to his father. Look what he says here in verse 29-30:

Luke 15:29-30 (NLT)

"All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!"

His father's response is priceless, though. He can't understand why this man is so upset that this younger brother has returned. He just looks at him and says:

Luke 15:31-32 (NLT)

“His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

That's a pretty good reason to celebrate! They assumed he was dead, they assumed this son of his was long gone, but he was finally back! He was alive!

The same is true when we come to Christ in a broken, humbled spirit. He forgives us and he lets us in to the family. That's a reason to celebrate!

So now on to the dilemma I so not-subtlely alluded to in my title. I, like probably 60+ million Americans, watched the Super Bowl this past weekend. It was a boring start, an interesting half-time, and then a power outage. After the power outage, it looked like the down and out 49ers were going to come back and make a miracle run at it...but fell short. So yes, the thing that most of us Atlanta folks had hoped wouldn't happen happened. The Baltimore Ravens and renowned-but-not-convicted murderer Ray Lewis won his final game in the NFL, the Super Bowl.

And of course, the first thing he said when given the microphone was "If God is for us, who can be against us!" My first thought, of course, was, "So it was God who got you off the hook for that murder rap?" Followed by a couple groans of, "Please shut up, Murderer!"

As you can imagine, I don't much care for Ray Lewis. I remember the trial. I remember the fervor over the deaths of two men in Atlanta, possibly at the hands of Ray Lewis. And I was bitter. I was angry. I kept thinking, "Where is the justice that a man like this can be involved in the deaths of two people and still go on to win the Super Bowl?" It doesn't seem right, you know?

And that brings me to today. You know, most of us like to picture ourselves the protagonist in our own story. That means when we read the story of the Prodigal Son, we like to think of ourselves as the reformed younger son, the one who returns from his wild living to sit at the father's feet. Sure, it's not perfect, but we can't be the father, because that's God, and we don't want to be the curmudgeonly older brother, because he's a jerk. But I started to realize. When it comes to this Ray Lewis debacle, aren't I kinda acting like the older brother? Am I not acting like the one who has all the answers and acted like he never received forgiveness for anything ever? Am I not thinking, "Why him, God? Why not me? Or at least someone a little more virtuous?" The truth is, I don't know Ray Lewis' heart. Only God does.

If you want my personal opinion, I think Ray Lewis is fake. I think he's using the Gospel as a cloak to make him more palatable to people, hoping they'll forget about his prior issues. But you know what the beauty of grace is? My opinion means nothing. The only opinion that matters is what God thinks of Ray Lewis. And I will yield that there is every possibility that Ray Lewis is a changed man. I may not believe it, but I don't have to.

And the same goes for each of us. No one's opinion of me matters except that what God thinks of me. When He looks at me, He sees a man saved by grace, covered by His Son. That's it. He doesn't see my past, he doesn't see my future mistakes. He just sees a soul saved by grace. So even when I start acting like the "older brother" I can sometimes be, God doesn't see that. He forgives it, and He moves on, and He loves me anyway, just like the forgiving Father He is.

If Ray Lewis is fake, then him and God are going to have a not-so-pleasant conversation one day. But. If he's not? Then Heaven celebrates for him, just like it did for me, and for anyone who calls on the name of Christ. I honestly don't know if I can ever get beyond what he did. It's something I'll probably hold a grudge for in the back of my mind for years to come, any time that someone mentions the career of the "Great Ray Lewis."

But it doesn't matter.

To quote the ever incredible Relient K, "the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair." I always tell myself that if he would just come out and admit to what he did, or if he would just talk about it to the media and give us a clearer picture, maybe I'd forgive him. But he doesn't have to. It doesn't change anything. Do I have to go to the media and talk about all of my past mistakes? I mean, not that they would really care, but seriously? What does it change? If he's for real, then God accepts him and forgives him. And that's good enough for me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Adam Wynn is a fan of most Georgia sports teams, and as a result was very bitter about this year's Super Bowl all around. When he's not crying due to his unfortunate lot in life to be a fan of teams that will always come so close and yet never win a title, he is the Children's Ministry Coordinator at Mars Hill Baptist Church in Watkinsville, GA and a Part-Time Campus Minister at the Baptist Collegiate Ministries for both the University of Georgia and the University of North Georgia - Oconee. That's a long couple of titles. He is also engaged to the beautiful and intelligent Ivey Nash, the smartest nurse in Rome, GA. He is also the author of the internet sensation Will Baker is Dead. If you've never heard of it...well, that's okay. It really isn't that big of a sensation yet, anyway. He is also currently working on other writing projects that are due out sometime later than today. If you're into that whole social media scene, you can find Adam on Twitter (@42Cobras...go figure) or on Facebook (you don't need help with that one, too, do you?). Adam also has published a short story "Have Souls, Will Travel," available for $1.99 from Amazon for Kindle. He appreciates your business and your readership, but mostly, he appreciates it if you brush your teeth before talking to him, given his low tolerance for bad breath.

Wonka Was Right

Remember how in the original Willy Wonka movie he kept saying, "So much time so little to do!  Strike that.  Reverse it?" 
Well if not...he totally did. 
People (and preachers) usually like to say that, "We have so little time on this earth, so we should make every moment count!"  I gotta be honest with y'all.  When we really think about it, this is kinda wrong.  Sure, we have a ridiculously small time on earth...when you compare it to eternity!  But when we consider just plain averages, we see that we're doing pretty good.  The life expectancy for people in America is something like 150 years [citation needed].  We have quite a bit of time to do whatever we want with it.  If that weren't true, then why do you think we have 300 tv channels with 24 hours of crap programming just to fill our boring lives, especially when you consider that half of these shows are made up of watching other people's boring lives? 
We have an insane amount of time.  Not that we're promised all of it, mind you, but if all of us just live to the average life expectancy, we can expect to lead long and (questionably) fulfilling lives.  The problem seems to be, however, that we have so much time and little to do!  (See, told you he was right)  So some people go to work.  I guess they've gotten used to eating.  And so have their kids.  Some people go to school so they can learn and then one day go to work.  At this point, most of them aren't all that used to eating quite yet.  Some people meditate.  Others just watch wrestling and women's football (yes, it's a thing).  So many options! 
Now let me ask you a question.  When you were a kid and you wanted to go stay over at your friend's house for the night, how did you ask your parents?  Let me take a guess, here.  I'll bet 9/10 (conservative estimate) of you would have said, "Mom?  Dad?  Can I go spend the night at Jenny's?"  If you were a little boy, this question probably got a no.  If you were 15, it probably got you grounded.  And what did you do this weekend?  "I spent this weekend watching football?"  If you had one day left to live, what would you do?  "I'd spend time with the people I love...and write an angry letter to CBS for cancelling 'The Unit' in the fourth season." 
We have this concept that "spending time" is how we're supposed to look at our lives.  I had a Sunday School teacher once ask us how we would spend $86,400 in a single day if we had to, and there was no saving allowed.  The general conceit of the question was that there are 86,400 seconds in a day and that we should plan to spend them all wisely.  It was a great question and provided some real thought, but there's that nagging concept again.  That we should spend our time like a thing we're given and just have to throw away on junk food and bad movies (which is exactly how I like to spend my Saturday nights, oddly enough). 
In Ephesians 5, the same chapter responsible for bringing us the question, "What's the wise thing to do?" we see someone offer a slightly different concept of time.  Of our time.

Ephesians 5:15-16 (NKJV)

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, for the days are evil.

What's this?  We have to...redeem...the time?  We can't just spend it?  There's this natural conflict at work between redeeming and spending.  If I give you $500, you can just go off and do whatever you want with it.  Sounds nice, right?  But what if I give you a ticket good for $500 no questions asked?  You could just walk up to any bank and hand it to them.  What's the difference here?  Is the end result any different?  Just what's the big idea? 
If I give you $500 (and don't hold your breath), you've got all this money right there in your hand.  Piece of cake.  Just run off and spend it however you wish because it's good for anything.  But if I give you a ticket worth $500 at a cash register, how much good does that do you?  Can you give that ticket to your grocer and ask for change?  No.  You've gotta go and redeem that ticket first.  What you've been given is inherently worthless.  It means absolutely nothing until you get it redeemed.  Until you take that meaningless paper and turn it into something of value. 
That is the difference between how we view time and how scripture viewed time.  How God views time.  Some translations, the NLT for instance, translate this particular phrase "redeem the time" as "Make the most of every opportunity.." because that is what it truly means to redeem the time.  It's like we've been given something that is inherently of no good to anyone.  However, with that gift of time, we have the immense opportunity to make something beautiful.  Something valuable.  We can take what is given us and give it back to God, or the people around us, and even ourselves, as something that will actually be worthwhile.  If you really want to know what a man is all about, give him 24 hours.  Give him a day off to use however he sees fit.  What he does with that time is perhaps the most telling indicator of what kind of man he is.  You can tell what kinds of things are important to him and what people he sees worth being around.  You can tell what kind of civic or social responsibility he feels.  Does this man understand the value of time? 
We have been given the chance to use our vast allotment of time in whatever manner we choose.  Shall we spend it?  Or shall we redeem it?  We must take control of the hours and redeem them for noble and worthy purposes.  We cannot squander the time we are given when there is still so much to be done and so many ways we can redeem our time that will improve this world and will glorify the Kingdom of God. 
Now today is Labor Day, so feel free to spend it relaxing and preparing for a week of hard work.  Watch some movies on TBS/Peachtree TV, they put good stuff on today.  Grill out and eat some burgers.  But as you rest up for the days to come, don't forget to redeem the time with family and loved ones around you.  Consider how you might redeem the week ahead.  Think of ways to redeem your time otherwise spent wasting away in languid boredom. 
There is not a single day that comes with the promise of being worthwhile.  We are given so much time on this Earth that every second we spend wondering what to do or not caring about what we do is another minute we could have redeemed making this world a better place, help the people around us, or just help ourselves to live better, more meaningful and useful lives.  And when we really think about it, we're kind of fools to spend our time wasting such a magnificent gift that we've been blessed with. 
And with every hour we've already spent on this earth, maybe it's time to redeem some.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Adam Wynn likes to spend his time making people think about words they probably don't fully comprehend, like "redeem."  When he's not doing this, he works as an intern at the Baptist Collegiate Ministries at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.  And other times he spends less time by typing abbreviations.  He is the author of the wildly popular, as of yet unpublished novel, Will Baker is Dead.  In case you weren't sure, it's about someone dying.  He also has to keep his emotional complexes in check by reading nice comments from the blogosphere and shunning individuals who deign to question his literary and meta-literary (?) genius.  You can follow him on Twitter (but not in real life) at @42Cobras or find him on Facebook (but not at work/home) as Adam Wynn, in case you happened to miss the obvious conclusion of such circumstances.  His Alma Mater is the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs) in Athens, he is from Dacula, Georgia, and currently lives in Atlanta.  He's also grown rather fond of Rome, GA and a lovely young lady who lives there (Ivey shout-out).  If you want to buy his book, write your congressman and tell them to write their lawyers to write their literary agent friends they made fun of in law school and get them to represent it. 

A Dream Worth Failing At

"What would you strive to do if you knew you could not fail?"

That's easy.  World domination.
I mean seriously.  Why not?  If you can't fail, go for it!  After all, isn't that the dream at the heart of all man's accomplishments?  To truly own the world?  I think so.  So yeah.  If I couldn't fail, I would achieve world domination.  Why?  Because I can.  What more do you need?  Logic?
But here's the question.  Why don't more people actually try this?  It's been a while since anyone really put any effort into world domination, and I'm pretty sure they were a dirty, dirty communist (Gorbachev was a sneak).  We used to see it all the time.  From the Khans of Mongol fame to the Romans and Alexander the Great.  Then in the modern era you saw men like Napoleon and Hitler and Stalin.  We often consider these men horrible for what they did (and rightfully so), but you can't say they didn't go for it (or at least Napoleon, because I really don't want to heap any praise on Hitler or Stalin).  So if the answer to this question is so obvious, why is it then that nobody really ever tries anymore?
The answer is quite simple, really, and we've already proven it above.  What do we think of those three men who tried to dominate the world?  We think of them as tyrants.  As evil men.  And for the most part, we only remember them for their drastic failure.  Because when it comes to great feats such as world domination, failure is not just an option, but it is an option with near eternal consequences.  If you fail at it, you tank.  Napoleon is mostly remembered for "Waterloo."  Hitler is remembered as the man who killed six million Jews and killed himself in a bunker to escape justice.  Stalin...well, he tends to get off easy in history, but we'll just assume people mock him for dying of natural causes while only being the dictator of the largest country in the world (by area) and not the rest of it as a whole.  They failed, and they are mocked for it.

But if they had succeeded!  Imagine how these conversations would go these days.  We could all be speaking French and enjoying great coffee or the world's finest pastries.  Or we could all be speaking German and enjoying leiderhosen.  Or...people would just say, "то был такой позор, что Сталин умер вскоре после завоевания мира, а невосходящие к бессмертию, как мы ожидали."  (Just like that)  

My point, you may ask?  Here it is.  That question that people like to tout as so inspirational?  It's crap.  It means nothing.  Obviously, if you could not fail at whatever task you took to, you would take to the greatest undertaking possible.  Obviously.  The real question, I tell you, is what will you do knowing that failure is always looming?  (And you can read it in English)  Sure.  World domination could be fun.  However, I'm not gonna try it simply because I do not want to be hanged for treason.  That thought does not appeal to me very much.  It's not worth it.  I will, however, keep trying other things.  I am all about writing me some books.  I am all about that.  I know I may never reach my goal of being a published author (this doesn't count), but I am still going to try because even at the risk of utter failure, I could not tolerate myself knowing I did not try.  This task, to me, is worth failing.  It is worth taking a big fat "swing and a miss" if that is what is to become of me.  And who knows?  I might just succeed.  

What do you find worth failing at?  That is what I want you to ask yourself right now.  What would you do anyway knowing that failure is the only possible outcome?  What calling, or what cause, is noble enough that it would merit your life's sacrifice knowing that you would never fully succeed?  Because this is what charities are.  The world will always have its poor and its hungry.  We will not end these things.  As long as this world turns, there will always be death.  And sickness.  We cannot win that fight.  Still, are these not great battles worth undertaking?  Worth trying to fight?  I think so.  

It is easy for us to say that we would cure cancer or end child prostitution if we knew success was inevitable. Yet the real way to measure the mettle of a man or woman is to see if they are willing and able to fight this fight even though it will never end.  Even if failure is the only way it will end, ultimately, they will take that mantle upon their own shoulders.  

As Christians, we are tasked with delivering the Gospel to all corners of the world to all people.  It is our calling to bring the people of this world to Christ.  The problem is that we will fail.  There are going to be people in this world who do not hear the call on their life.  Scripture tells us this.  It is a perpetually losing battle.  There is no way that all people will come to a relationship in Christ.  It doesn't mean that the ones who do are not worth it, however, that is not what I am saying.  Any man or woman who comes to salvation through Jesus Christ is a cherished soul.  But so to are the ones who never will, and that is what makes it tragic.  

Now I don't want to completely take focus away from the personal aspect of all this with the global and the grand, but they are not so greatly separated.  We all have personal goals that are likely to yield nothing but failure.  Okay.  Let's try to make it work.  As citizens of this world, we have a responsibility to care for the impoverished and the hurting.  Although we can never end their suffering on the whole, we must try to do what we can.  As members of the body of Christ, we have our own impossible mission that is well worth the task.  Accepting a challenge is easy when the outcome is certain success.  It is by definition no longer a challenge.  The hardest mantle to take on is the one we will never complete, but there is honor in the fight.  There is pride in knowing that we have accepted the fight against failure, and we have deemed failure worth our efforts.  I encourage you today to take on something that you may very well fail, but do so knowing that your trial is not wasted.  The only failure which is unacceptable is the one we do not strive against.  

Et si vos es curiosus, si sum vincere mundum, vos omnes latine loqui. Donecsollicitudin nunc.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Adam Wynn is the author of 42Cobras Publishing (what you just read) and the still sorta-kinda not finished internet novel Will Baker is Dead, originally published by 42Cobras Publishing (what you just read).  When he is not out tackling the world's failures, Adam works as the intern at Georgia State University's very own Baptist Collegiate Ministries and he lives in a National Park.  In case you were curious, this does not make him a Park Ranger, although he is still fighting the Park Services ruling on that matter.  He is a two-time graduate of the University of Georgia with degrees in English and English Education, meaning you have no right to question his grammar or spelling or lifestyle.  He speaks English gooder'n you and has the paper to prove it.  Twice.  He enjoys Braves Baseball, Georgia Football, and The Eton Wall Game, all while speaking in third person.  You enjoy second person.