This Might Be the Blog Entry of the Year

This is an exerpt of a post from http://www.internetmonk.com/. In my opinion, we should read this over and over. Tremendous. - DOB

This post is inspired by a FoxNews piece updating the situation of disgraced megachurch pastor Ted Haggard. Haggard was a major leader in evangelicalism until he was brought down by evidence of sexual sin and drug use.


Dear Ted,


May I call you Ted? Not “Pastor Ted,” “Reverend Haggard” or any other ministerial name.
You may not feel like it, but you’re at a good place. Finally. It’s taken a while, but you’ve made it to the place where the Gospel of Jesus has its power. On the verge of the fourth Sunday of the season of waiting, you’ve made it to the place where all that can happen now is for a savior to be born to a virgin. Your savior, no less. Yours and all the other losers.


Yes Ted, honesty, your best gift now has arrived.


“Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard says in a new documentary that he still struggles with his sexuality yet is committed to his marriage for the sake of his children.”


Struggles. YES!

"He now sells insurance and, in the documentary, says he isn’t successful. ” At this stage in my life, I am a loser,” he says.”


Loser. YES!

Ted, I hope I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but all those years that you lived in the center of the evangelical circus, all those years you covered up your struggles and desires, all those years you were taught to lie, deny, obfuscate and yammer on and on with various high-octane versions of the evangelical revival story (complete with band and movie clips), you were far, far away from the truth.

You were living a lie and you were teaching a lie.

And some of the things you’ve said since your fall? How you were fixed with a few sessions of counseling? Not good, Ted. Not good. A very bad place. Avoid it.

Now, Ted, now…now you are starting to see the light. You can say “I was abused as a second grader.” “I struggle…..I’m a loser.” This is major progress.

My recommendation is to find a good group somewhere that will understand how you feel and what you’ve experienced. You see, the evangelical version of that you can say you strugglED and you WERE a loser, but now everything is all right because you prayed a prayer, got saved and got called to preach. You know that’s not true- you’re not all right. You’re a walking wreck and lying about it has just made things worse.

Read the whole post here. If you just read one post a year, this one is it. - DOB

A Charlie Brown Christmas (Enjoy!)

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 2:20-23
So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

In a former life, I worked extensively in banking. Especially in the nonprofit sector where there are all sorts of worthy causes that do a great deal of good. In this one instance, I worked on a nonprofit entity that is well-known to a particular geography in the eastern United States. The entity was struggling financially and one of the executive managers of the bank was on its board of directors. This manager had a long record of service in the bank and was highly respected for his contributions and financial acumen.

The financial condition of the nonprofit began to deteriorate and the executive tried with all his might to help this particular entity. He was personally tied to it and he genuinely wanted to see it succeed. Well, the financial deterioration increased in severity and, finally, action had to be taken to protect the bank's interest. This was done, but there was an additional caveat. A head had to roll. It turned out that this executive manager who had given so many years of dedicated and competent service was fired. To add insult to injury, there were certain ambitious young managers who gleefully and smugly approved of this "justice".

Perhaps you have seen this happen in whatever part of the world you live in. Maybe it was a coach who gave years of successful service, impacted many young lives, had a bad season and was fired immediately. Maybe it was a pastor who had a public moral failure and was subjected to a self-righteous feeding frenzy.

The givens of life very quickly destroy two naive notions: cause-and-effect and self-created identity. Cause-and-effect basically says that you will get out of a thing what you put into it. For instance, if you read your Bible, good things will happen (commonly called "magic"). If you succeed academically, you will be accepted into Stanford Law, work on Wall Street, marry the man of your dreams, and have a fulfilled life. This is a terrible myth, as the former bank executive will be quick to tell you. The empirical fact is that life will crush cause-and-effect thinking.

Another thing that dies is the idea of a self-created identity. This is baldly prevalent in the United States but it is the same in Africa or anywhere else. It is Aristotle's idea that "you are the sum of your actions" but it the idea of the natural man most profoundly. If this is true (and it is if there is no Christ) then life is "vexation" and "striving after wind" because you have to re-create your identity every day for your entire life. Even if you were to theoretically succeed, the end of your life comes and you are quickly forgotten. Your gains are distributed among others and the whole process begins anew.

In this short devotional, I invite you to despair of cause-and-effect thinking and self-creation. Receive, instead, the perfect and unconditional gift of eternal love through our Savior Jesus Christ.