Straight paths through crooked roads

Conversations with a teenage girl

As a high school teacher, I have had a number of conversations with teens.  I especially enjoy talking with girls even though I am now considered elderly.  I am fascinated with how they mature as compared to how boys mature.  Girls sure are more  complicated.  Boys are relatively simple.  (Aren't they, girls?)

I did not understand female humans very well in spite of being related to my mother and having a younger sister.  After all, they weren't really girls, you know? 

Having been married gets you up close and personal with the opposite sex.  As I studied my wife, I fell in love with not just her as an individual, but with her femininity.  When we had a daughter, I felt a special father-daughter bond that I have never lost.  (Amy is 31 years old right now.)

Well, just the other day my history class was about over and three of my female students started asking me about my years as a teenager.  They wanted to know about what decade it was:  the 1970's ?, the 1960's?, the 1950's?, the 1850's?

They wanted to know if I had enjoyed such artists as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, etc....I assured them that I knew of all of these but that I was not that familiar with their music.  These girls did not understand how I could be so naive, so culturally unaware, so disconnected with reality. 

In public school I am legally bound to not share my Christian testimony.  I could not tell them that these artists did not share my principles and values.  I could not tell them about the miracles of prayer in Christ's name for the healing of my wife and children, about the saving of our marriage, about the overwhelming fulfillment of a daily life in connection with the Holy Spirit, about the peace of mind about having peace with God.

No, I could not legally express that.  And, I can only hope that I give to my students enough evidence to convict me of being a genuine Christian.

Would our society today choose Barabbas over Christ?

Unfortunately, the world prefers self-destruction due to the consequences of evil choices over the humbling of self before the God Who loves them.

There He is, standing beside Pilate at the top of the steps in the Praetorium.  Christ is bloody from the beating he has recieved at the hands of the Romans.  This scourging is the first step in the sacrifice Jesus makes for you, me, and the rest of the human race.  Pilate wishes to release Christ but offers the crowd before him a choice to either receive Jesus who loves them sacrificially, or to receive Barabbas, one who is a convicted murderer and is most certainly going to harm others if released to them.  The crowd chooses Barabbas.

If we have studied the Biblical account found in Mark chapter 15, we know that the leadership of the Jewish priesthood wanted Christ crucified so as to end His threat to their position in that society.  But, why would the crowd agree with them?  Why would they accept a convicted murderer to be released from captivity into their midst where he is certain to kill again? 

What did the priesthood have to offer the crowd for accepting a killer?  My conclusion is that the crowd chose Barabbas because essentially they agreed with the Jewish priesthood on this principle:  they preferred the consequences of their own self willed decisions to humbling themselves before the God Who loves them. 

The world today still prefers self-destruction from the consequences of their own evil decisions rather than choosing to place their faith in the principles of truth in God's Word that would redeem their lives.  People today say that if they have nothing but a garden of weeds, at least it is still their own weeds.  They choose to be the captian of their own souls, the masters of their own fate, even if it is a garden of weeds and thorns.  If only they would trust the eternal Husbandman who cares for His garden, they would find fulfillment and peace, health and prosperity without such sorrow. 

It is the blessing of our God that He gives benefit to us and He adds no sorrow to it.  His blood that was shed in the scourging and on the cross of Calvary is His supreme blessing to us.  That gift has purchased our salvation from eternal destruction:  redemption of our souls from what should have been the fate of our evil choices.  Instead, He gives us the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to guide us through life to an eternal home of love and peace.

The world may choose Barabbas today.  I choose Christ today.  What is your response?

Christ is risen indeed-and is rising again in the new generation.

In a much earlier post, I mentioned the concept of the Christ life.  That is, the focus of understanding about the work of the Holy Spirit. He becomes the companion of the Christian and is indeed our Friend.  He brings the nature of Christ's character and motivation into our lives.  As we read the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit translates them into the language of our spirit.  The nature of our relationship to Christ is that the Holy Spirit is the living connection between the Christian and the Christ. Our walk with Christ changes from our striving to be good into a relaxation on the power of the Holy Spirit to be our Motivator in each daily situation.

So, when we speak at Easter of the importance of the resurrection of Christ, we speak again and again of how Christ is alive!  But, more precisely, He is alive in us by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  We need to commit the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John and the eighth chapter of Romans to memory so that we can ponder the depth of the meaning of this vital relationship.

The miracle of an Easter Sunday service is to see one generation after another all testifying to the power of the work of God in their lives to transform them from failure to progress and hope.  The children, the teens, the young marrieds, the middle aged, the grandparents, all demonstrate the presence of the same Holy Spirit alive in them by their individual new births by faith in Christ.

You can see a little girl in all sincerity give her heart to Jesus.  You can see an aged person smile at the mention of Christ.  You can see the former party girl mature into a loving mother and devoted wife.  You can see the former "player" mature into the caring husband and father and provider for his family.  None of this can occur without the moving power of the Holy Spirit Who is one and the same to each of these.

It was after a remarkably wonderful Sunday worship service.  The visiting speaker did not depart with the pastor to some Sunday brunch.  He remained after the service to greet and to give hugs to members of the congregation who were lingering to chat with one another.  The speaker would approach one person after another with the same warm question and answer.  "Do you love Jesus?", he would ask.  The person would respond with a "yes." "Well then," he would say.  "You love the Jesus in me.  Give me a hug!"

It is as St. Paul said.  In Colossians 1:26 he writes that it is Christ IN us that is the hope of glory.  That is to say, the hope of revealing the nature of Who Christ is in wisdom, in compassion, in faithfulness to those whose lives we touch. 

Christ is risen indeed in us.  This is not an arrogant assumption.  It is a miracle of faith placed by humility at Christ's empty tomb.