Every Good Endeavor and The Freedom We Have in Work

This year has been one characterized by highs and lows and apathy and excitement. But I suppose if I turn back the clock and try and scrutinize any year of my life I could probably say much the same thing. Still, the here and the now feels just as much like that as I can remember and the major reason I hold this sentiment is because of work. I came off a wonderful, restful, community-filled weekend on a Church Men's Retreat in Palm Desert only to feel like I got hit with a sledgehammer during the week.

In one sense, it's a tremendous blessing that I have a good job in a good environment and having what I can see as a positive impact on society. But sometimes that doesn't make getting through the day any easier or the prospect of a new week any less daunting. If I'm honest if sometimes feels like I don't have anything to offer and work is a pointless ordeal. That's what goes through my brain on any given day.

But recently aside from going through C.S. Lewises Mere Christianity once again, I have been methodically reading sections of Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor. And what is that book about you might ask? Precisely what I have been grappling with this year. Work.

The first part of the book is about what God's view of work is and it helps to give us a vision for what work can be like. Listening to some of Keller's sermons in the past on these topics proved enlightening then and the information is a good reminder that God created us to work and create and cultivate for the betterment of society and for human flourishing. Those are inherently good things that lift up any type of work and give it an inherent worth that is placed there by our Creator.

Still, recently I have been struggling to maintain that vision and I have been dealing with the next stage explored in the book which are the drawbacks of work because it was ruined as an institution after the Fall. Things changed and that's part of why now work can be so difficult and taxing on our daily lives as human beings. That's just the way it is. It can be life-giving but also strenuous and difficult.

Recently the idea of idea of excellence in all aspects of work has been something I've been wrestling with. Because I know that part of my witness is the very fact that I want to love other people well by building relationships and encouraging others daily. I want to live my life with integrity and intentionality that is open about my spiritual convictions. But more recently I've felt like my ability to witness has taken a hit because I realized that perhaps I'm not a cut above my coworkers as much as I wanted to be. On a practical level, on the level that they see most clearly, perhaps I am not so superior.

First of all, that's an extremely humbling which is hard in itself if not extremely necessary. But I also felt in some small sense that I was failing. And the desire to excel and be better is good but that illusion of reaching perfection some type of self-actualization that sets me apart is absurd. Returning back to Keller's analysis of work he wrote something that spoke exactly into my struggles recently. It encouraged me and put a word to what I was feeling. I realized something profound:

God extends Common Grace to ALL people.

In light of that Keller writes the following,

"Without an understanding of common grace, Christians will have trouble understanding why non-Christians so often exceed Christians morally and in wisdom. Properly understood, the doctrine of sin means that believers are never as good as our true worldview should make us. Similarly, the doctrine of grace means that unbelievers are never as messed up as their false worldview should make them."  

BOOM. Enough said. If I can comprehend that reality, that frees me up so much again. I know that I have been saved by grace and that frames my whole perspective. But the God of the universe in his immense love for his Creation extends grace to all peoples indiscriminately. That's awesome and with that freedom, I hope to continue to grind, stumble, and crawl my way through my life as I strive to live a life engaging with a culture in a way that never succumbs to dualism. Because there is no dichotomy between spiritual and temporal estates. They all fall under the grace of God.

All the Glory to Him,

Silence: Learning from Endo and Scorsese

If we can take Martin Scorsese's varied film career as a reflection of human life than his completion of his long-awaited passion project Silence is not all that surprising. He's crafted numerous classics, countless cultural touchstones some spiritual, some historical, and some incredibly human. 

But at this point in his career it seems like he has nothing left to prove to us as his audience and maybe at this point in life, if nothing else, we could do well to try and learn from someone like him. Because given the climate with funding and the like, Scorsese could not have made such a film just for other people or money or acclaim. He must have made it, at least partially, for himself.  

Man has long wrestled with God since the days of Jacob. Nothing is new under the sun in a sense. And Scorsese by way of Shunsaku Endo is doing a truly remarkable thing to consider these very questions. I admire him for having the wherewithal to even begin to tackle this material. 

Coincidentally this is also a very faithful adaptation of Endo's novel Silence, a historical fiction based on true events about two Portuguese Priests who head to 17th century Japan in order to spread their Christian faith--a faith that already has approximately 300,000 believers but is under fierce attack by the Japanese magistrates and for good reason. 

They often are lacking cultural understanding meaning their message is neither contextualized or delivered in such a way that is helpful to the people. The question is asked whether the faith missionaries brought is even the same anymore or do you simply trust that it will reach the people you supposed. In this case, the Christian "Gospel." 

But delve into this issue and doubters can beg the question, can the Truth (capital T) be universal? There's certain similarities between religions. From a cursory level, you can either draw up the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism or cast them far apart. Father Ferreira finally concedes that doing good is enough. It leads to human flourishing but at the detriment to your beliefs. What are we to do with that dilemma? Most importantly of all, potentially the most volatile and insidious question of all can we still be worthy of love if we have doubted, turned away, or recanted. 

But this is not a film to stew in or even a film to view alone. It is meant to be seen together, ruminated over in tandem, and considered with a certain amount of thoughtfulness. It asks for its viewer to be open, to be aware, and if need be, do their own amount of soul searching. Are their questions that you've never been willing to confront? And this goes for anyone from any type of background, belief, or point of view. 

For Christians, this undoubtedly would be a tough picture because it confronts their doubts head on. For those who do not consider themselves all that religious, it throws you right into the dilemma of a spiritual man and demands you at least consider the questions placed in front of you. 

Humility of these Japanese is astounding and the utter hopelessness of the priests at times is equally telling. It flips the paradigm that we expect. However, I think we would all do well to watch this film and always revert back to scripture. 

For me it recalls the passage from the Old Testament in 1 Kings:
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 

If there's any great hope we can take out of this film or life in general, it is that God is always present even when we think otherwise. Even now God is working in Japan--in the hearts of the Japanese and, yes, even in my own heart, as hardened as it is sometimes. 

I would encourage others interested in these topics to read Silence and Makoto Fujimura's companion piece Silence & Beauty. But above all, revert all these texts back to scripture. Because that's where we can see God's true heart for his people. 

Advent: I'll Be Home for Christmas

The very fact that I've been away from this blog so long might suggest something about the season of life that I'm in right now. It's busy. I feel unmotivated at times. There are continued disciplines in prayer and scripture reading, but that doesn't always mean that I feel like I'm growing. 

But recently I had the great joy to have one of my close friends spend the week with me and true I had work during the day and those responsibilities to think about but in the evenings he blessed me with wonderful life-giving conversation. 

We talked about many things, spiritual and not, but what of the discussions that really struck me was this idea that everyone is looking for HOME, whatever that means. And often Christians are looking for that within the church community. They are looking for a place to feel same, a place to be poured into, a place to call their own and be their self.

If we take it a step further still, that's ultimately what Jesus did for all of humanity. Here He was fully God and he left his Heavenly Home, humbled himself and came to earth as this humble baby in a lowly manger stall in Bethlehem. Do we even understand how drastic a change this is? Have we gotten into our heads what this means?

He left his perfect home where he had divine fellowship and came to our broken world to bring home to us now. If we look at his ministry years that's really what he was doing. Getting to know people. Teaching them. Healing them. Breaking bread with them in their homes. And it didn't matter what kind of home they had before. He was looking to bring them the true and everlasting eternal home that comes with the Good News of the Gospel. 

That home has come but it is also promised for eternity! Thus, it seems obvious that as Christians we are called in a sense to make home on earth for other people. Developing Christ-centered communities with others so that we can bring others in to find belonging, hope, and ultimately renewal through the very fact that they too can have a relationship with the God of the Universe. 

My very last day of work before Christmas I was walking down the street and it hit me. Taken in this light, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is really a song of Advent. Because we are waiting expectantly to be taken home by our Heavenly Father but He has also graciously provided home to us now through his son. That is something that we can plan on and it won't be in our dreams. 

Merry Christmas to all!

All the Glory to Him.

Thoughts on Culture Making

This past month I've been reading Andy Crouch's informative book called Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling and it's been a thought-provoking discussion on how Christians are supposed to "engage with culture" in a sense. This is a topic that I'm particularly passionate about, not only as it pertains to film and music, but all types of art because so often it seems like Christians either isolate themselves from the culture completely or completely immerse themselves within its folds until they reflect it.

In fact, Andy Crouch lays the groundwork for the many different approaches we can have towards culture which is all very conveniently relayed to the reader through various words beginning with the letter "C." First, we can condemn culture for its many flaws and the things that we see amidst it that is wrong or debased. The next strategy is critiquing culture (something that I've tried to hone in on) and yet this approach often means we acknowledge the good and bad in the culture without actually enacting any type of change.

Also, it's very easy to consume culture without any sort of consideration for what we are ingesting. The same goes for copying culture. The fault with that is we are simply reflecting the world and not adding something new to the cultural conversation. The important distinction to make is that all these approaches are necessary at one point or another but they are not the answer all the time.

What Crouch really entreats of his readers is that they create culture as well as cultivate their own talents and the culture that is already available to them so they can have an impact in their sphere of influence.

Although it's hardly exhaustive, he goes through scripture in an abridged fashion to show just how our God is truly the Creator and he created us in such a way that we might reflect him as people made in his image. In Genesis, he created a framework, a sandbox in a sense for us to be creators and cultivators of the earth much in the same way that He is. It is built into our very existence to be creators and to be workers.

Crouch makes the point that Israel as God's chosen people had no way of removing themselves from the culture around them and so in that way, they were constantly forced to be a part of the culture that existed around them. Furthermore, the tower Babel is the ultimate example of our creative powers and cultivating abilities being perverted in such a way that God was forced to step in and impose himself on his Creation.

Then, Acts is another important piece of this cultural narrative because it is really in this moment that the narrative of the Creator of the Universe through Jesus Christ is being preached to every nation from Jerusalem, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So once more this cultural exchange and world change is happening on a seismic level as the radical power of the Gospel begins to move rapidly.

Finally, going to Revelation, the connection is made back to Genesis and there are a great many details that I cannot articulate, but essentially all that was present in the beginning has now been cultivated to its utmost capacity. And eternity, far from being a stagnant picture is potentially full of cultural activity and cultivation. At this point, we would not expect anything less. But still, it was a wonderful reminder because our God truly is THE CREATOR and he has called us to be the same, imperfect as we may be.

Early on Crouch gave me a particular conviction to continue pursuing what I am passionate about which is film. Writing about film, talking to others about film, and maybe even helping making films of my own. He gave the example of a scriptwriter needing to watch films, hone their trade and continually cultivate their skills with discipline so that they might  use the full capacity of their talents to create culture.

This entire book was really a call to arms not to just be one to critique culture but to also be someone audacious enough to create culture and place myself within the cultural discussion that is constantly being advanced. But Culture Makers also gave me an important check. Before I go after these high-minded, idealistic attempts to have this monumental industry on the film industry or the culture of large, I need a dose of humility.

I need to be reminded of the extent of my "world" and God's will with my attempt at cultural activity. In my own mind, I have these grand designs like I was saying about how I'm going to have a major impact. True, a great deal of this is out of sincerity because I desire to see continued cultural change in the contemporary media, namely the film industry. However, before any desire for acclaim begins to fester, I need to be reminded even more so that perhaps God's "world" for me is only the people at my work or the few people I interact with every day. I can have just as meaningful an impact on that level and even if my grand ambitions do not come to fruition as I envision, so be it. God can still use me as a culture maker -- living out my design as a creator made in his image. That is enough.

I look forward to starting to read one of the preeminent Christians on topics of culture in Francis Schaeffer. But I already have a great deal to think about.

All the glory to Him,

The Four Loves and Where the Light Shines Through

I've been a little slow in getting a new post out as I have entered an exciting new chapter in my life, which nevertheless has made things a little bit hectic the last several weeks. However, there are two things that I am eager to talk about because they have been fairly impactful during these same weeks.

C.S. Lewis's Four Loves is a short read but it's been thoroughly engaging in the way that Clives Staples is always engaging. He breaks down the book into the eponymous loves: Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. And although he says a great deal that is eye-opening on it all, I will try and collect a few morsels that stood out in my mind.

The first things have to do with friendship. If you've listened to Tim Keller before he used Lewis's example about his friends Ronald and Christopher to illustrate a key point. When Christopher died, far from having more of Ronald, Lewis received less of him because it's in try fellowship with numerous people that we see more and more of others revealed. Different sides or aspects to them that we would have never been able to bring out on our own. And that's the beauty of the body of Christ and living in community with a great multitude of believers. It enriches our relationships.

Another thing Lewis brought my attention to is the fact that all great movements, religions, and what have you got started because at a most basic level people would actually sit together across from each other and talk. They would have deep conversations and actually get to know each other on a far deeper level. Apart from just being a theory, Lewis enacted this in his own life as the Inklings, the group of writers who came together for discourse and closer still, friendship.

I think Lewis has a point and unfortunately it seems like our modern generation, our modern culture has lost some of that tendency. We have Facebook friends and Twitter feeds that hardly foster deep conversation. They either give us surface level sensory overload or lead to raging spats that serve no obvious purpose but to tear people apart from one another. The art of honest to goodness conversation is slowly being lost and much of that is often sucked away by our technology averting our attention.

One final point that Lewis made that was especially enlightening suggests that friendships do not reflect how great we are because of the people that happen to be in our lives, but they are only a further reflection of how great God is.  It shows how faithful he is in our lives to give us friendships that we do not deserve. Friendships that would otherwise be a shambles or not exist altogether without his good graces. In other words, our Friendships add yet another crown to his glory. Imagine that. That's pretty cool....

More recently, with all the unrest shaking the world at home and abroad, I've been deeply comforted by the latest album by Switchfoot. It's aptly titled, "Where the Light Shines Through" and it perfectly encapsulates how many people feel right now or want to feel. It's joyful but underlying that joy is an honesty about the confusion and brokenness that still overtakes our world. Here are a couple tracks I recommend. I'll leave it at that.

All the glory to Him,

Refined by Fire and Culture

Last night and this morning I had the opportunity to listen to two very poignant sermons that really resonated with me.

The first was given by the joyously enthusiastic James White who spoke in particularly on Daniel Chapter 3 and the narrative of how God delivered Radshack, Meshach, and Abendego from Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. There were a number of things that stood out including the fact that these three men were not cocky in defying the Babylonian king but they knew the truth, the reality that there God was the one true God and they were not going to be compromised in their faith.

Pastor White also looked in depth at this imagery of fire, suggesting how often God reveals himself in the flame and we can use this metaphor in our own lives. We are constantly being assaulted by trial and tribulations, going through the fire in a sense, but it's in precisely these moments that God continues to refine us more and more in his image. We are supposed to become more and more like him and how is that possible without adversity that forces us to trust completely in Him.

These past weeks, these past four years and really for much of my life, I'm always wrestling with difficulties and those prayers that seemingly went unanswered. I'm happy now that my prayers have progressed a little bit. In my baby steps, I've moved from simply saying "Why God?" to "How are you going to reveal yourself in these circumstances, God?" And wouldn't you know, God always does show up. But its in those interim periods, those "meanwhile" moments that are paramount to my own growth.

We live in a society that believes that the point of life is to be continually happy, avoiding all types of difficulty and hardship so we can live a life of perfect tranquility. First of all, no life is like that and secondly, is that really the best type of existence that we can have? The moments that I often remember the most are the difficult ones because it was in the wake of such struggles like tragedy, sickness, death and failure that I saw God more clearly. He also uses those circumstances to reveal the character of those around. We can more fully appreciate the gifts that he has given them because they can bless us just as we can, in turn, bless them in their moments of struggle. That's awesome...


As I enter a new stage in life and a new job it's was equally pertinent to listen to Tim Keller's Sermon on Culture and the picture we are given in Isaiah of a thriving Jerusalem that in many ways seems like a picture of what eternity will look like. The beauty of this image is the implication that our vocations will almost have eternal significance because from the beginning our God was a creator a cultivator and a worker.

That means that those same principles apply to us and when we are doing work, in a way, that is glorifying him, we are reflecting his character for others to see. We are, in a sense, more in his likeness. That's why it is misguided to say that only a certain vocation or passion is doing the work of God because that is simply not the case. But also, it seems to make it clear that eternity will be even more fulfilling than are present lives. They'll still be a need for workers, creators, and culture-makers but the difference is that we will have our fully glorified bodies and also be in perfect community with our Lord and savior. As I get ready to go into my first real job that is an exciting perspective for me to take on in light of eternity.

Fallen Star

There's a special house at UCSD. It's not real, but only a piece of art that for all intent and purposes looks like a real house and it's furnished with all the trappings we expect in a home. However, this building hangs off the side of the engineering building on campus in plain sight of anyone who turns their eyes heavenward for even a brief moment.

It bears the name Fallen Star for significant reasons and there's a universality to its moniker. Physically the home is disorientating. Inside its walls our realty is made subjective, our point of view and everything we accept as true is shaken up for a few brief moment. We are forced to question all that we know to be true and truly view the world around us in a different way.

And thus, this physical manifestation becomes a perfect symbol for the reality that most every person goes through. In high school when we're maturing and trying to figure out who we are amidst waves of peer pressure. Starting off college, entering a foreign environment with new challenges, not knowing what to expect and not knowing where we'll be. Leaving college going off into the great unknown of the work force and continued life with other people.

And the beauty is that we are never actually there, because until the day that we die we will be sojourners in an unknown land. There's always a road to be traversed, new paths to be traveled into the unknown. Thus, the Fallen Star is always pertinent, because in some way shape or form we exist in the realm of the uncertain.

As we grow older we become less shaken and more comfortable, but in our youthfulness we can often get wade down by storm of doubt and anxiety. Our equilibrium is shifted and we are forced to question all that we once knew. But out of this difficulty comes great things that we could never expect, forcing us to shed our old skins and look at the world with new eyes.

While I look back at my four years of college I can see the cycles in my life more clearly. I can remember feeling like a Falling Star when I first got to this university that I felt unfit for. This wasn't the school for me. I was waiting for God to show me why he even placed me here. Sure enough, over months and quarters and years he has. Refining me, humbling me, forcing me to step out in faith and ultimately causing me to become more content in him -- through the joys and the trials.

Now this chapter is coming to a close and I look back rather wistfully, but I have more contentment and hope than regret, because I saw God do big things in my life and I know he will continue doing just the same. So perhaps I am once again leaving UCSD a Fallen Star, transplanted and turned upside down, but then again that's what God did with the entire paradigm of civilization. Through the death of his Son Jesus Christ he turned the world upside down and that means we live our lives not worrying about anything.

Because what's the bottom line? In our confusion, disorientation, backwardness, and upside down state, our God is right side up, perfectly all knowing and sovereign over all of us. He's got the stars in his hands and we can be totally content in the fact that he will continue a good work in us -- even in our fallen state.