Today came news that Myron Rolle, a safety on the Florida State football team and Rhodes scholarship winner, will forego the NFL for a year to study medical anthropology. This is a headline story that gets about 6 paragraphs in the newspaper. I could not help but contrast this to the coverage that Adam Jones, released by the Dallas Cowboys last week, received. ESPN covered the story ad nausem, even featuring program devoted to some dramatic charges against Mr. Jones.
The disappointing aspect of this to me was ESPN bombarding the airwaves with the Adam Jones story. The message that was delivered was simple: If you want to get on TV, engage in questionable behavior. My young sons, and kids everywhere, are receiving the message that doing the right thing will not get you noticed, but revealing bad character will make you a national celebrity. This is not confined to athletics, but is true in all walks of life. We get bombarded by aberrant behavior from Hollywood actors and actresses all the time. Even CNBC is in on the act covering the Bernie Madoff story at the expense of all else.
In my opinion, ESPN needs to devote more time to covering Myron Rolle and less time covering Adam Jones. Rolle, generally projected to be a second round NFL draft pick this spring, earned his undergraduate degree in pre-med in two and a half years, then earned a Rhodes scholarship. He becomes the highest profile athlete since former Senator Bill Bradley in 1965 to win a Rhodes scholarship. Mr. Rolle still hopes to play in the NFL after completing his studies at Oxford, then after playing days he wants to open a clinic for the needy in the Bahamas. Mr. Rolle's story offers up to young people everywhere the importance of education. Mr. Rolle was able to parlay his outstanding athletic ability into something more meaningful. Kids everywhere need to be shown that excellence in education, not just athletics, is the path to opportunity.
No child ever grows up dreaming of being a junkie. No child grows up dreaming that one day he may murder someone with whom he/she argues. Or sexually abusing a young child. But these things happen, largely because so many of these children grow up in a situation where they have no hope. Inner city kids do not see that education is the path to an opportunity to lead a better life. They see drugs as the path to escape, they seek shelter in the protection gangs offer, they see law enforcement as the enemy and they see the Adam Jones's of the world as heroes. Why would Adam Jones be a hero to these kids? Because ESPN bombards them with his image. However, Mr. Rolle is the hero. Come on ESPN, show the kids a better way.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
It Is NOT God's Will
Why do bad things happen? I believe this is the hardest question that life throws at us. All of us encounter tragedy at some point in our life. Unbelievable tragedy sometimes occurs. For me, this was my wife's death in 1999 at the tender age of 31. She left behind two sons, 2 and 1. Why would a loving and merciful God take such a beautiful, loving woman, Mom, wife and daughter so young and leave her kids without a Mom and the rest of us to ponder a life cut woefully short? I do not know the answer to this question. I will never know the answer to this question in my lifetime.
Adam Hamilton, Senior Pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas is the best preacher I have ever heard. The man's sermons continually amaze me and cause me to think about my own faith and how to make it better. His sermon today addressed this very difficult question: Why do bad things happen?
First, let's question the question, if that makes sense. Does God allow bad things to happen? The assumption behind this question is that God is in control. And I believe that to a certain extent He is. However, if He is in total control, why is the Bible full of stories about His people constantly NOT doing as He commanded them to do? The Bible is full of stories about God picking up the pieces. If God were in full control would Adam and Eve have partaken of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and introduced sin into the world? But can God prevent bad things from happening? Intellectually, it makes sense that God wrote the laws of nature, in a creation period version of a software program (Laws of Nature 1.0?). This says the Laws of Nature that God programmed will never be broken. Yet we hear stories of miracles occuring today. The deathly ill person who recovers. The person who survives a terribly tragic event buried under the rubble. So the Laws of Nature do not appear absolute. Yet these events are so few and far between that we still wonder. And we still ask ourselves, why would we worship a God that would even fathom these terrible tragedies?
Even today, I have no answer to this question. I know that God is. God is mysterious. He loves us and yet he allows us to suffer. The text of Pastor Hamilton's sermon was the book of Job. Job is a righteous man who suffers many bad things as Satan makes every attempt to get Job to turn away from God. What this book of the Bible becomes about is the advice of Job's friends. Job's friends tell him he must have sinned against God and that Job suffering is the Lord's retribution. The modern day equivalent is "this must have been God's will." Throughout the book, Job counters that he does not know what he has done to deserve all the suffering he endures. And many of us today feel the same way. So, why would I worship a God who let a terrible tragedy happen to me? I have spent many days being angry at God. I still get angry at God. Yet a friend once told me "God is still listening." And He has sent me people to help me deal with it.
What does this tell us today? First, that tragedy is going to happen. Tragedy is a part of life and we cannot control it. What can we control? Our response to tragedy. We should be beacons of hope, strength and courage. I remember the day my wife died in that tragic car accident. The accident occured just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, many miles from my home. One of the things the hospital did for me was call a couple of local churches. One church sent down lay people from their church to come and be with the kids and help me in my darkest hour. The pastor's wife from one church went to Wal-Mart and bought diapers for the boys and a change of clothes for all us, since our suitcases were in the car that was in the salvage yard that was closed for the evening. The generosity of these people will never be forgotten. No one told me "this was God's will." No one told me this was punishment or judgement for sin in my life, or in Angie's life. They came, they comforted, they provided hope.
Adam Hamilton, Senior Pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas is the best preacher I have ever heard. The man's sermons continually amaze me and cause me to think about my own faith and how to make it better. His sermon today addressed this very difficult question: Why do bad things happen?
First, let's question the question, if that makes sense. Does God allow bad things to happen? The assumption behind this question is that God is in control. And I believe that to a certain extent He is. However, if He is in total control, why is the Bible full of stories about His people constantly NOT doing as He commanded them to do? The Bible is full of stories about God picking up the pieces. If God were in full control would Adam and Eve have partaken of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and introduced sin into the world? But can God prevent bad things from happening? Intellectually, it makes sense that God wrote the laws of nature, in a creation period version of a software program (Laws of Nature 1.0?). This says the Laws of Nature that God programmed will never be broken. Yet we hear stories of miracles occuring today. The deathly ill person who recovers. The person who survives a terribly tragic event buried under the rubble. So the Laws of Nature do not appear absolute. Yet these events are so few and far between that we still wonder. And we still ask ourselves, why would we worship a God that would even fathom these terrible tragedies?
Even today, I have no answer to this question. I know that God is. God is mysterious. He loves us and yet he allows us to suffer. The text of Pastor Hamilton's sermon was the book of Job. Job is a righteous man who suffers many bad things as Satan makes every attempt to get Job to turn away from God. What this book of the Bible becomes about is the advice of Job's friends. Job's friends tell him he must have sinned against God and that Job suffering is the Lord's retribution. The modern day equivalent is "this must have been God's will." Throughout the book, Job counters that he does not know what he has done to deserve all the suffering he endures. And many of us today feel the same way. So, why would I worship a God who let a terrible tragedy happen to me? I have spent many days being angry at God. I still get angry at God. Yet a friend once told me "God is still listening." And He has sent me people to help me deal with it.
What does this tell us today? First, that tragedy is going to happen. Tragedy is a part of life and we cannot control it. What can we control? Our response to tragedy. We should be beacons of hope, strength and courage. I remember the day my wife died in that tragic car accident. The accident occured just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, many miles from my home. One of the things the hospital did for me was call a couple of local churches. One church sent down lay people from their church to come and be with the kids and help me in my darkest hour. The pastor's wife from one church went to Wal-Mart and bought diapers for the boys and a change of clothes for all us, since our suitcases were in the car that was in the salvage yard that was closed for the evening. The generosity of these people will never be forgotten. No one told me "this was God's will." No one told me this was punishment or judgement for sin in my life, or in Angie's life. They came, they comforted, they provided hope.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
A Message of Hope Amidst the Turmoil
Hope n. expectation of fulfillment or success
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
Where's the hope? The ADP jobs report came out today and again, we are reminded of the troubling times in which we currently live. According to ADP, the private sector lost 693,000 jobs in December. This is an astouding figure for a full year, much less one month. It also marks the largest monthly job loss since ADP began tracking private sector job changes. On top of that, we see daily images of Bernie Madoff, the man who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. One of his investors, a Frenchman who had lost $1.5 billion, committed suicide. German billionaire Adolf Merckle also committed suicide rather than watch his business empire crumble. The chairman of Satym Computer Services Ltd resigned today after saying he had falsified assets and earnings of the company for several years. Ironically Satym in sanskrit means "truth." The headlines, in short, remain full of despair.
Why do we hope? First, we humans are relentlessly and endlessly optimistic. Hope gets us out of bed in the morning. We wake up believing that today will be a good day. We hope our favorite team will have a successful upcoming season. We believe our company's sales will grow this year, or that our investments will all perform well. We believe that next date will be with The One. Our hope breeds action. We are more likely to take action when we believe a positive outcome will result. We hope because, as the definition says above, we seek fulfillment. Hope gives us the opportunity to dream of fulfillment. Another way of saying this is that hope gives us vision. Hope gives us possibilities. Finally, hope gives us life. What sort of world would we live in if we could not hope that tomorrow will be better than today?
Why do we place our hope where we do? Why do we place our hope in people who are fallible, or we place it in money, which can be here today and gone tomorrow? Why do we place our hope in a financial system that is only as good as the people who are running it? In other words, we keep placing our hope in people and things that constantly fail us? My answer is that these things are tangible. It is easy to think "If only I have a little more of this thing, then I will be happy." Or we say "If only I had someone to share my life with then I will be happy." We place our hope, and bet our happiness, on people and things that are bound to fail us. It is much easier than placing our hope on something intangible.
After 2008, we need a reason to hope. What do we hope for? Certainly, we hope for happiness, for peace and contentment. We hope that good things will happen to us. We hope we will see and experience something truly amazing. But the hope is not going to rest in someone else. The hope is not going to lie in something, no matter what its value. The hope that our tomorrow will be better than today lies within us. Each of us possesses the ability to make our own piece of this world a better place. Hope begins with a Spirit endowed to us by our God, is breathed into us and allows us to hope. A Spirit that allows us to give and receive love, a Spirit that allows us to stand up to wrong and hope for the triumph of right. We want to believe, we want to hope. I find it best to place hope in the God that gave us the ability to hope in the first place. And then to believe that He gave me the gift of hope to make my world, and the bigger world around me, a better place.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
Where's the hope? The ADP jobs report came out today and again, we are reminded of the troubling times in which we currently live. According to ADP, the private sector lost 693,000 jobs in December. This is an astouding figure for a full year, much less one month. It also marks the largest monthly job loss since ADP began tracking private sector job changes. On top of that, we see daily images of Bernie Madoff, the man who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. One of his investors, a Frenchman who had lost $1.5 billion, committed suicide. German billionaire Adolf Merckle also committed suicide rather than watch his business empire crumble. The chairman of Satym Computer Services Ltd resigned today after saying he had falsified assets and earnings of the company for several years. Ironically Satym in sanskrit means "truth." The headlines, in short, remain full of despair.
Why do we hope? First, we humans are relentlessly and endlessly optimistic. Hope gets us out of bed in the morning. We wake up believing that today will be a good day. We hope our favorite team will have a successful upcoming season. We believe our company's sales will grow this year, or that our investments will all perform well. We believe that next date will be with The One. Our hope breeds action. We are more likely to take action when we believe a positive outcome will result. We hope because, as the definition says above, we seek fulfillment. Hope gives us the opportunity to dream of fulfillment. Another way of saying this is that hope gives us vision. Hope gives us possibilities. Finally, hope gives us life. What sort of world would we live in if we could not hope that tomorrow will be better than today?
Why do we place our hope where we do? Why do we place our hope in people who are fallible, or we place it in money, which can be here today and gone tomorrow? Why do we place our hope in a financial system that is only as good as the people who are running it? In other words, we keep placing our hope in people and things that constantly fail us? My answer is that these things are tangible. It is easy to think "If only I have a little more of this thing, then I will be happy." Or we say "If only I had someone to share my life with then I will be happy." We place our hope, and bet our happiness, on people and things that are bound to fail us. It is much easier than placing our hope on something intangible.
After 2008, we need a reason to hope. What do we hope for? Certainly, we hope for happiness, for peace and contentment. We hope that good things will happen to us. We hope we will see and experience something truly amazing. But the hope is not going to rest in someone else. The hope is not going to lie in something, no matter what its value. The hope that our tomorrow will be better than today lies within us. Each of us possesses the ability to make our own piece of this world a better place. Hope begins with a Spirit endowed to us by our God, is breathed into us and allows us to hope. A Spirit that allows us to give and receive love, a Spirit that allows us to stand up to wrong and hope for the triumph of right. We want to believe, we want to hope. I find it best to place hope in the God that gave us the ability to hope in the first place. And then to believe that He gave me the gift of hope to make my world, and the bigger world around me, a better place.
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