NeilCraigan.Com

Technology and Nature

Another day at the lake, the haunting cry of the Loon fills the air. The sun sets and there is a strange blend of the natural and technology.

A Thought From Lake Wapo

I am sitting by the water, coffee and bible in hand, a slight breeze is blowing off the lake, the morning sun gently warming my shoulders. The swallows darting back and forth in sharp angles over the surface of the water are working hard to reduce the mosquito population.

I watch while an eagle, in all its majesty, soars overhead in its quest to catch a fish for breakfast. I count the seconds between the beats of its wings, one gentle beat every fifteen or so seconds. Another eagle appears over the lake, a juvenile, flying somewhat harder than the mature adult that was here a moment ago, still learning to soar on air currents.

I worship.

Wisconsin Blogging!!!

Well, here I am in Amery, Wisconsin, on the shore of Lake Wapogasset. Any blog posts this week will be coming from here...

It's beautiful at sunset...

(Photographs by eldest and second child)

Just a thought from Erwin McManus

I've been reading Erwin McManus's new book "Wide Awake." It is well worth the read, there is a lot of great stuff to be gleaned from it. In this book he makes reference to his former book, "Seizing Your Divine Moment" which is now published as "Chasing Daylight."

In the fable from the former book he has young Ayden asking his mentor this question,

Have I learned everything I need to know?

To which the reply comes...

You know everything you need to learn.

I wonder how many of us are still willing to be learners and realize that the we will never have learned all we need to know? We have an infinite God therefore it will take an infinite amount of time to get to fully know God. Looking forward to eternity!

Aborted Landing

I have to begin with a confession... I don't like flying! If God meant for us to fly we would have wings and I have yet to find anyone who can tell me what good it is that my seat cushion can serve as a flotation device when I'm at 36,000 feet. At that altitude I need an anti-gravity device or parachute. What bureaucrat decided that flotation devices where cheaper than parachutes?

As you can imagine my favorite part of flying is when we are safely on the ground. So as we approached the Minneapolis airport I was playing my usual mind game of guessing how long it would take to be safely on the ground. I looked out the window and could see the runway some 20 feet below, I knew we weren't going to land short, I could breath again when... the engines roared and we went up and to the right with great gusto! The flight attendant made an announement, "you may have noticed we didn't land!" No, really, we didn't land, I thought we were on the ground!

A few moments later the captain spoke over the intercom system. She told us that air traffic control had brought us in to close the plane in front of us and we had to abort our landing and go round again.

I was glad that we had a competent well trained pilot, I was less than thrilled that the air traffic controller made an error, but in retrospect I was delighted that with all the air traffic in the area there was still someone looking out for us.

When I'm sitting in the seat of a plane my life is in the hands of the pilot and tower. I can see out the side to see where I am but I can't see what lies ahead, I had no idea there was anything, much less another plane right in from of us. When I fly I am forced to live in the present, I can't see the future, I can only live in the moment. Of course all of life is lived in the present, we only fool ourselves when we think we know the future. But there is one who knows my future so I have to trust in the greatest pilot of all, Jesus Christ. He not only knows where we've been and where we are but he also knows where we are going. Travelling through life at the side of Jesus is the greatest adventure of all.

Second time was a charm, perfect landing!

The God Who Slows Down To Run With Me

Kelly suggested that I post this here as well as on my running site...

Last night at our interval workout I ran the first of my sets alongside Alisa Harvey. You may be asking, "Who's Alisa Harvey?" Alisa is the world record holder of the indoor masters mile, and the US record holder for the masters 800 and mile outdoors, 800 and 1500 indoors. Alisa has attained a level of athletic performance that I will never come close to achieving.

So what happened last night? Did I speed up so I could run with the best in the world? Not exactly, Alisa graciously slowed down to allow me to run alongside her (she headed off with some faster runners about half way through our second set). But for a few minutes I was running around the track with the best in world!

There is a another story about the best in the world slowing down to be with us. It is the story of God becoming human in Jesus. It is the story of God walking alongside us, working with us at our pace, gently guiding, encouraging and pushing us to be become more like Christ. A transcendent God, one who is wholly other, would be impossible for humanity to comprehend, or develop an intimate relationship with. So God, who is transcendent, became imminent in the person of Jesus, so humanity could experience redemption, develop an intimate relationship with God and have great hope for the present and the future.

The God who stated that no one could gaze on His face and live, the God of whom Isaiah cried, "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips... and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty" is now running alongside us as Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." (John 14:6-7)

Will you acknowledge the presence of Jesus running alongside you today?

One or Two Blogs?

Now that I have two blogs going I'm not always sure which posts should go on which site. My most recent post over that therunningrev is one that I wasn't sure where it would best fit. Perhaps I should only have on blog... what do you think?

Running Together

Last night it was interval workouts at the track. It's a great workout and hopefully I'll see the benefits of it before too long.

Before we started our intervals Jenny and I ran four laps to warm up. After the first lap was completed our 2 year old ran up to us and declared that she wanted to run with us. We slowed way down to allow her to keep up with us and taking hold of our hands the three of us ran about 200 meters before we left her with her sisters. In terms of exercise and physical results it was worthless in term of relationships and love it was priceless.

What price do you put on relationships? You can calculate this by looking at the activities or results you pursue at the expense of relationships with others. Now tell me, is it a fair trade?

A couple of weeks from now I won't remember much about last nights workout but I will never forget holding hands with our youngest child and running (very slowly) round the track with her.

NT Wright on the Colbert Report

God's biggest creature

I just love the majesty of God's creation!

Win the Prize

The Olympic Games are just around the corner. In those games the athletes are going to be competing for the ultimate prize, an Olympic gold medal. A few talented athletes will realize that dream and walk away with the prize. For many others they already know that barring a miracle there is no way they will win a medal let alone the gold. So why are they there? Why run if you have little realistic chance of getting through the heats of the 100m. Why run if your you're going to be ten minutes off the pace for the marathon?

Why? They run to compete, they run to represent their country, they run to do the best they can on the day. They run because that's what they do, they run.

I run.

I have a medals to prove that I run. They're not Olympic gold medals, they're not even winners medals. They are competitors finish medals! I've run marathons and I've finished and probably no one except me could care less. The feeling of crossing that finish line after 26.2 miles is one of the greatest feeling in the world.

The apostle Paul reminds us, "that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize." He then urges us to "run in such a way as to get the prize." Do you have to finish first to get the prize? No, you don't, you only have to compete and finish well to win the prize in the race of life.

I run the race of life to represent the kingdom of God, I do the best I can on any given day. I will run and I will finish well. How about you?

A Thought on Cultural Relevance

It was a discussion in Sunday School in which we were talking about the relationship between the church and culture. Someone asked for an example of how the church is living in a culture of a bygone era. I was surprised by my own answer.

I said that the Lord's Prayer is a great example of how the church is stuck in the past. I often hear people say how important it is for young people today to know the Lord's Prayer. But what they mean is that they want young people to memorize a particular translation of the prayer, one that uses archaic King James English, with lots of "thy" phrases. It would be quite unacceptable to these people if the children memorized a translation in contemporary English.

I grew up saying "trespasses" and now work in a congregation that says "debt" but I've also been in congregations where the word is "sins." There are other smaller variances as well, "which art" or "who art" in heaven, "in earth" or "on earth," or "forever amen" or "forever and ever amen." Of course all the versions I know by heart are still in old English and I for one have to have it written out in front of me or I regress back to the version of my childhood.

Relevance to culture is not just about music styles and Powerpoint but about the language we use in worship. We can still recite the Lord's Prayer in unison but let's use words that connect (remember we are working with English translation of the Greek). We can still say the Apostle's Creed, but let's make sure that our translation of the Latin to English doesn't need translating again from seventeenth century English to twenty-first century English.

Just a thought from A Geography of Time

A thought from "A Geography of Time"

"It is one of the great ironies of modern times that , with all of our time-saving creations, people have less time to themselves than ever before. Life in the Middle Ages is usually portrayed as bleak and dreary, but one commodity people had more of than their successors was leisure time. Until the Industrial Revolution, in fact, most evidence suggests that people showed little inclination to work. in Europe through the Middle Ages, the average number of holidays per year was around 115 days. It is interesting to note that still today, poorer countries take more holidays, on the average than richer ones."

In referring to anthropologist Allen Johnson, Levine notes...

"Borrowing from recent economic theory, [Johnson] argues that industrialization produces an evolutionary progression from a "time surplus" to a "time affluence" to a "time famine" society, which is how he characterizes more developed countries. The ultimate effect, Johnson argues, is on the tempo of people's lives..."

Climate Control in the Midst of a Storm

From the safety and comfort of my climate controlled office I just watched a strong thunderstorm sweep through the parking lot. The rain was horizontal and so were the young trees, bending to 90 degrees but not breaking. It was fierce outside and I was glad that I wasn't caught out in it, to be out in the elements would have incurred a high degree of discomfort and perhaps even some degree of risk. The people that care about me would have been upset if I had chosen to venture out into the elements.

Those same people keep their air conditioners at 74 all summer long and heat their homes to 70 in the winter, only venturing out at times that are safe and convenient for them before returning to the safety of their climate controlled environment.

We live in a climate controlled culture, in a climate controlled church. Clinging to the safety of Christian cliques, small groups, Sunday School, youth ministry. We pay our dues and the bills are paid and some of the money is sent to missionaries so our consciences can be appeased. We even welcome "sinners" when they are like us.

But please don't go out into the elements, into the world, it is a dangerous place. We'll provide "safe" opportunities for you to go for a while before you retreat back into our climate controlled church. The world is to dangerous for you, look what it did to Jesus! It might do the same to you and that would not be good and could not be God's will. Could it?

"Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." - Jesus

Looking for Winners

Last Saturday I found myself in the midst of a 5k road race. I normally prefer the slower, longer races like the marathon but occasionally I subject my body to these long sprints so I can learn to run faster. When all was said and done, much to my surprise, I finished third in my age group (not to many “fast” runners showed up) and this started me thinking about what it means to win.

Some people train for years to win something and then what? My father-in-law played in the Super Bowl on more than one occasion but he was always on the losing team, does that make him a loser? If you knew father-in-law you would know that he’s not a loser, in fact I would say that he’s a winner in every way. Or take my dad, he played for Ireland when they won the European Amateur Golf Championships, does that make him a winner? He is a winner, but not just because of an event in his past, he is a winner because of who he is as a person.

Success or “winning” has become so defined in our culture by temporal success in sport or business and in the process we have forgotten what it really means to win in this game of life. You may win the temporal game by gaining the most toys, the most expensive car, or the biggest house that wins (or being the pastor with largest congregation), but none of this counts in the eternal game of life, which is the game that really matters.

Winning in life speaks to our character, and our relationships, it addresses who we are when no one else is looking. It is focused not on a particular event but rather on a process, a process that we call discipleship. To win in life is to journey with Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to mold us into the image of God. The real winners in the game of eternal life are the people who have learned to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and mind and have also learned to love their neighbors as themselves.   

Big churches, great programs, engaging youth ministry, world class Christian education, and other objectives are all useful tools, but they must never become sacred cows, because they are not the game we are trying to win. They are simply means to an end.

The goal of this game of life, is not material success, a trophy cabinet full of awards or any other material possession, or even an efficient ministry structure. The end goal of this game is to see people become fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ so they can live life to the fullest and enjoy eternal life in the presence of God with all the saints who have gone before them or will come in the future.

Let’s play this game of life to win.