It's me, mike hillebrecht

Consider the following scenario.

You have just arrived at the grade school to drop off your child for another day of elementary learning. You notice that there appears to be a number of vehicles in the parking lot sporting the logos for a variety of local new stations and a few from outside of your community. Curious as to the meaning of this discovery, you park your vehicle and enter the school only to witness a flurry of excited activity. All about you are adults with cameras jockeying for positions around a cluster of closed doors while arriving children take up their seat in the hallway leading to these doors. Off to your side you catch a glimpse into the main auditorium where many adults have gathered before a column of tables and chairs placed uniformly upon the stage.

A mother of one of the children sitting in the hallway taps you on the shoulder and with inquisitive eyes flickering around the unfolding drama asks you what is happening to which you shrug your shoulders and shake your head in wonder. As you both look around at many of the other parents present, each holding the same expressions on their face, the clamor of the school bell shocks everyone to attention.

Suddenly, a bustling of young bodies arises as if on cue and a door surrounded by all the photographers flies open and out prance a cadre of young children, six in number, each sporting the most whimsical grins as the march in unison toward the auditorium being led by a woman who you recognize as the kindergarten teacher. The whirling machinations of cameras, the flashing of lights from the cellphones of proud parents provide no answer to what is happening as everyone from the hall files into the auditorium, greeted by the applause of the people who had already taken up their seats.

You enter the room and take a position standing along the back wall with several parents amidst the cables and video cameras stationed there to record the proceedings. You watch as the six children ascend the stairs to the left of the stage and proceed to take a seat in the center of the tables while several adults enter from the right and jockey for positions in the remaining chairs.

A hush falls over the room as the principal maneuvers her way to the front of the stage. “Thank you all for coming today to this very special meeting. It is a great privilege and honor to have such a distinguished panel of scientific experts here today,” she says as she turns and makes a sweeping gesture with her arm towards the adults seating upon the stage.

“I would like to ask before we begin this symposium that you would keep you questions until the end so that each of the six participants will have ample opportunity to present their findings. We have set aside a block of time specifically for those representing the media for answering your questions and it will follow this meeting and be held in room 105, just down the hall to your right.” There is a rustling that transpires as a few camera people and reporters gather their equipment and scurry out the door, heading towards room 105.

“For our first presenter, I would like to introduce you to Perry Whitman. He is 5 years old and known to sleep longer than most of his peers at nap time.” A chuckle rises from a number of the participates while Perry’s cheeks turn a bright crimson. “Perry will be describing…” she halts while searching the pockets of her blazer. Locating a piece of paper, she unfolds it and adjusts her glasses. “Perry will be releasing his findings dealing with the quantum differential in oscillating quarks and how it might be possible to capture the latent power they produce.” A standing ovation greets Perry as he climbs the steps to the lectern and adjusts the microphone.

Ludicrous, right? Some 5-year old presenting advanced scientific findings before a panel of esteemed scientists! Almost as ridiculous as trying to present the message of grace to fundamentalist believers. Think about that one for a minute because the comparison is intentional. Little children, Kingdom of God. Baffled believers like parents and reports who have lost their steam toward being esteemed. If I must spell this out for you, well… Go Perry!

For a moment, I would like you to consider the population of your local church community. How many of these fine people are dealing with life-threatening illnesses? How much are you involved in their suffering? How many of these illnesses are affecting children? How often do you pass them by justifying in your mind that what they are enduring is just not in your ministry profile?

There is no easy way to state this: We’re all selfish. We think about our own needs long before we’ll even consider the need of others. I’m not picking on you because it’s an indictment on myself just as much as upon any of the rest of you.

Personally, I hate sick people. Not in the way I hate cantaloupe. More in the manner that I just find it difficult to be around whiners – not in the sense of someone who listens to Adele’s music – but in the sense of someone whose pain and suffering is something I can’t remedy. I hate that the promise of,”…greater things than these shall you do…” hasn’t manifested in my life particularly when I’m around the very people that a “greater thing” would certainly help. I’m willing to give, they’re able to receive, we don’t see the end of our…faith?

Don’t think that you can get away with it either. A promise is a promise – it has no respect for who hears it. Yes, I know that we have to step out of the boat of logic and in faith pray for the wholeness of those who are less than whole. But, sincerely, I’ve spent over 23 years out on the storms of less-than-whole life calling out as waves tossed me to and fro, desperately clinging to a promise as a preserver, and well, the condition in the boat is no drier than in the water – I just do not plunge down as far.

“…As you’ve done it for the least of these…” Who is the least in your life? The sick are. The single mother who has a child with a rare disease who treks every day to therapy and doctor’s offices all to keep a little one from experiencing the dread of not be able to be around friends who don’t understand what’s happening. The grandparent who has to spend the final days of a well-deserved retirement huddled on the couch embracing a feeble grandchild dropped at the doorstep every morning so the parents can attempt to make enough money during the day to pay for the medicine the child needs to make it through the week. The list goes on and on, the circumstances unfold in varying degrees of suffering and despair.

How many of these stories can you even relate too? How many are just in your community, your circle of acquaintances alone? How many are you just plain old oblivious too? Before you go and get your condemnation all jacked up realize that we’re all unaware of these things for one reason: people in despair don’t tend to publicize it very much. They’re stuck in it and its all they can do to keep their heads above water.

How do you help? Don’t ask; do something, anything, no matter how little it seems to you. Size is not measured by volume of work accomplished but by the volume it shows just that you care enough to help. IF you’re really looking to score points, come back tomorrow and do something else. And the next day too. And next week. It’s easy to alleviate your sense of guilt the first couple of times, and then justify your absence due to the hectic schedules of a life dealing with normal. Try abnormal for a change, then you’ll know hectic because that is where it got its true definition.

Additionally, get that humble attitude out of your gullet. Pride has no place here. If you can’t stand the smell of vomit or diarrhea, so what. Your ego doesn’t smell any better to a family facing the existence of another sleepless night trying to soothe a crying child lying in pain. Giving them the opportunity just to take a shower can often give them the additional stamina to deal with the mess one more night.

Yeah, I hate sickness. I hate having to deal with it and how it bends you to meet its demands rather than the demand of wholeness. I hate that you never seem to get a break, a leg up on it even when your eyes are all puffed up from tears that never seem to stop flowing or blood shot from 36 hours of never seeing what a fresh bed looks, or even feels like. I hate that lovers get lost in parenting to the point of losing each other at a time when each other is all you’ve got left since friends left you weeks ago. I hate that the least you could do is more than you’re willing. I hate how begrudgingly you hope someone takes your place just so you can have a life, any life, just not the life you presently have.

What I really, truly hate is that many reading this will skip right along without missing a beat and remain ignorant to the souls around them who I’m trying to point out to you. My only consolation regarding this comes from a preacher who once said that God doesn’t put any more on you than you can handle – which is why most of your friends leave you – because in the midst of your suffering, the little they offer is the last thing you need to handle.

My rant is over. Now, try to carry on with grace. I dare you.

We don’t see eye to eye. We’re not even on the same page.

Does that frighten you? Are you fearful that by reading this you’re getting into something you hadn’t bargained for? Have you decided to back off just for the sake of being sure nothing will cause you any harm?

Or do you feel intimidated? Is there something that you lack and are afraid to admit it? Or do you feel vindicated now that I’ve finally admitted how there is a difference between us? Or do you feel relieved now that you don’t have to continue with the charade?

Let me level with you. We’re all on different levels or at various stages. Equality just ain’t happening, now or any time soon.

Your worldview might be at, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” while mine is at, “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the word was God…” Your worldview might be, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion…” while mine is, “…the kingdom of God is within you…”

On the surface, it might appear that we’re speaking the same thing, yet you know we aren’t. It is this knowing which is producing in you one of two emotions: envy or contempt. You either want to be like me, or wish that I would hurry up and be like you. Yeah, sure, you’ll continue to love me, but it’s such an ordeal at times. More often than not, the ordeal, not the love, takes the decisive, primary role of considering how we’ll deal with each other.

Wisdom, or the lack thereof, makes one haughty, prideful, egotistical, maniacal in-your-face-fist-pumping-I-told-you-so rude. So, the choice is to not pursue wisdom or hide behind the façade of humility while patiently waiting for the line to catch up with you knowing they have no intention of even moving in your direction.

Development in any discipline requires sacrifice. Your commitment of time to master the discipline is the obvious sacrifice. The hidden sacrifice is the loss of community or station. We each orbit in a sphere of like-mindedness, a body of fellowship which adheres to similar beliefs and viewpoints.

A new discipline, a new thought, a new paradigm acts like an asteroid impact to the communal body; shattering long held alignments and fracturing tectonic plates of similarity causing enormously wild gyrations in emotions and responses. Sometimes fragments fall away from the impact left to navigate their own gravitational orbit; other fragments often just fall apart, scattered about on the celestial winds, wispy dust particles from a bygone era.

Grace is a cosmic force greater than an asteroid, more powerful than any black hole. It shatters everything it touches, realigns all chaotic structures and propels hearts at breakneck speed towards the all-consuming vastness of unrequited love. When grace grabs wisdom by the jugular and transfers it’s egoic pulse with the harmony of a universal commitment to the highest union, the trappings of superiority, the last vestiges of one-upmanship dissipate into the ether of the one-man-ship.

My plateau may very well be your peak. It is, plateau or peak, however, our journey, not a destination. While the vista might appeal to a part of us, it will change only when we decide to move on. Movement is neither forward or backward in a journey, it is merely momentum towards the destination. Wisdom is neither forward or backward, it is merely the path. Grace is the illumination of the path on the journey along many levels, over many peaks, across vast chasms of uncertainty and perilous heights of doubt. We’re all on the same path, we’re not all on the same level.

He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. (Joh 9:25)

Jesus notoriously attacked blindness. Whether it was a physical impairment like the man in the verse from above, or the type that clouds the mind of someone like the Pharisees who were questioning this man, blindness was a condition which I believe he took great pleasure in eradicating.

Let me give you a little science trivia that I read recently. The colors white and black aren’t actual colors. The color white is actually the integration of all the visible colors in the spectrum. Black is simply the lack, or non-existence of the spectrum integration.

When a person is healed of blindness, they can see the integration of visible light, an action they were incapable of accomplishing before. The Pharisees suffered from a focal blindness which was singularly sin-consciousness. Churches across the globe suffer today from this same malady.

In another passage from John, Jesus and the disciples come across a man blind from birth sitting by the road and the disciples ask if the blindness was the result of some sin the parents or the blind man committed. Jesus’s response was neither applied but that it was so the glory of the Father could be displayed, a claim which confounded the disciples then just as much as it does religious people today. Sin-consciousness is blindness, a dark veil spread over the mind making it unable to see the spectrum of human integration. Even blind to grace.

Blind to grace – blind to Jesus; blind to the kingdom of God – blind to Jesus; blind to love – blind to Jesus; blind to compassion – blind to Jesus.

Doctors will tell you when a person is blind, their other senses will heighten to compensate for their lack of sight. Having lived with someone who was blind I can attest to this phenomenon. Their sense of touch is more highly acute, hear things at a level which can’t be understood, and smell things that “normal” people don’t even know exists.

Yet, Jesus never said to a group of blind people, “those who have ears to see…” simply because I think he knew that they already did. His grace gave them the ability to integrate, to become a part of the spectrum of human culture, no longer isolated, a light, set on a hill that all could see.

Some would say that grace is blind to our sin. Wrong. Grace has no reference, no integrational map for the color we paint our sins with. Sin is our own schema at trying to act as god through moral and holiness codes. We may appear before the Creator covered in mud, maggots and misery but He will see the royal hue of true blue children trying their best to act like Him rather than just accepting that they are.

Grace is blind to the singular focus of…being human. It recognizes one to be divine; it moves all from “me” to “us” within the triune panoply. It is blind to the darkness found in exclusiveness, bringing us into the vast, marvelous light of a kingdom filled with the panorama of depth, breadth, height, and width of an all-encompassing love.

We may not know how it happened, but now I know that I was blind, and now I can see. Grace did this to me. It has been done for you too. Can’t you…

“Love your neighbor as yourself…” “Love your enemy…”

Have you ever considered the implications of these two commands from Jesus? Probably not like I’m about to address.

I read some time ago that the single most important discovery to all humanity was that we were capable of repressing thoughts or emotions and disassociating from them. Events, often traumatic, could be set aside in order to carry on the acts of living. Regrettably, the psyche retains these moments, never forgetting, always replaying at the most inopportune times. Only through proper therapy can these moments, the emotions and assorted beliefs be reintegrated back into the make-up of the human.

What is fascinating though is that when these emotions, thoughts or beliefs are not addressed, they take on a shadow persona within each of us. Over time we begin to react towards others who demonstrate the tendencies we have repressed. Often our reactions are manifested in vehement internal contempt for another person or people group. In essence, we create enemies not for who they are or what they have done, but entirely because they remind us of…us.

Why do you find it impossible to love your enemy? Simply because you can’t love yourself. There is that famous quote, “We have found the enemy, and it is us.” Most people laugh this off not understanding the great truth that lays within it. Why can’t you love yourself? What thoughts, feelings, emotions have you repressed, stored on a dark shelf behind a secured door in the recesses of your mind that somehow seems to peak out whenever you’re around someone who depicts their tendencies?

Maybe you were embarrassed as a child by a teacher in front of your friends. You’ve taken the turmoil of that moment and shelved it, however, every time you’re with your friends around a person of authority you loathe them and find it difficult to even show a modicum of respect to them. Or maybe you sway the other direction and just clam up, unable to communicate for fear of being embarrassed once again. This causes you to hate yourself for being so easily manipulated.

It is extremely easy to point out our enemies. We do it all the time even before we’ll pick out our friends. This is the power of repression. Friends are a mirror of who we long to be associated with. Enemies too are a reflection, yet it is a fractured image of ourselves. The greater the internal pain, the greater the outer hatred.

So how do you, we, rectify this matter? Forgiveness.

Mothers have always told us that need to forgive someone who has harmed us. Nations attempt to forgive their enemies of war. Sometimes it works with greater bonds of friendship developed. Other times…well, you know how that works.

Enemies need to be forgiven. Grace needs to be extended. Yes, you’ve been hurt; yes, you are not the one who deserves all that this has created; yes, you are a good person who has experienced something bad. Forgiveness will not magically make all the pain, all the suffering, all the internal dialogue of self-righteousness disappear in a moment. Honestly, it may never leave you. However, it will set you onto a path which will lead to being whole.

Yes, you will have to keep forgiving for a long period of time for all of this to feel right. Consider that some of these issues go way back in your life and daily you have conjured up their memory in a variety of situations. It may require you to forgive the same number of times that you relived the experience just to reintegrate yourself.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to overcome it sooner. But understand that this process is not a microwave answer to being civilized. You’ve stewed on it for a while, allowed the moisture from your tears to evaporate, let the saucy bits of despair burn to the edges of the pain, setting the whole matter to a low simmer, and then walked away ignoring the pungent aroma of hopelessness. Forgiveness will clean up the matter, but you’re are going to have to get into it up to your elbows and press through the tougher, stuck on spots. Yet, eventually, when it’s completed its work on you, and in you, the mirror, the reflection will be filled with love.

Neighbors and enemies, integrated, made whole inside and out. This work never starts outward first. It always begins within…

We’ve all experienced it. Traveling down the road when suddenly fluorescent orange signs and flashing lights signal your attention to the impending work which lays ahead. “Fines double in work zone,” whiz by you while you’re trying to keep from slamming into the rear end of the vehicle which has just merged into your lane. Bumper to bumper traffic moving as a centipede through the long landscape of caution cones and barrels keeps you on high alert, anxiously looking for the end, or possibly a turn-off from the monotony of obedience to the rules. We long for a journey that is void of such inconveniences.

Thank goodness that church life isn’t like this, right? Actually, church is the longest running public works project on record. There is scaffolding to reach the heights and tarps to cover up the sacred which probably date back to Peter and Paul still proudly displayed across the globe as a testimony to the crawl with which this work still isn’t complete. Most of the congregants are so use to the dust and debris they’ve even memorialized portions of it just to keep the workers from cleaning up, tolerating temporary barricades and warning lights as they develop into “coming soon” shrines.

Most, regrettably, don’t even notice. To them this is normal. However, there are the few who embrace the work, not as part of the crew, but as those who, on their own feel the compulsion to deconstruct all they’ve been a part of in the realm of churchianity. They’ve lost the awe and wonder of a coming attraction and are drawn to the smell of the grime and dust beyond the barricade. The glory of an artist’s rendering has been supplanted by the glory of a cross-shaped piling sunk deep into the rock bottom of a yearning heart. This impaling can never be expressed in terms the multitude will understand but it is what all, knowing or unknowing, desperately seek.

Many from this intrepid class will feel compelled to toss out past events, personal experiences which drove them to the place they now occupy. It’s as if they missed the sign proclaiming the payment doubles for ignorance. Signposts don’t always need to be a warning. They also declare historical moments along the journey. Even sacred areas are protected during construction. How would you know work needs to be done if you didn’t experience the fleeting peak state of ecstasy?

Church, you and I, us and them, are being built up. We are a work in progress, not a remodel project. Nothing like this was ever here before just so it could be torn down to bring in a new design. This is what most who begin to accept the nature of grace first believe. Rarely do they recognize that rather than being a wrecking ball, grace is the very fabric, the ultimate intention of what the structure of church is truly all about.

We’ve not reached the pinnacle of our stature. While some after 30 years of pew sitting haven’t even got past the excavation work to pour footings, others after one sermon seem ready to install the weather vane over their grass hut to detect which way the wind of the Spirit is blowing. Yet work is in progress even when you don’t feel like attending, singing the same old same old, and hearing the monotone discourse of worn out stories with moral inevitability. We often miss the work that happens to us, the work that shapes us, transforms us, knocks chips off our shoulders and pulls splinters from our eyes.

It is harrowing work detonating the ego and admitting we’re not there yet. However, no progress is ever made unless the truth hidden under the rubble is uncovered. That is the work. Revealing the truth, not some imitation from a bygone era; not some paint chip outdated and called back into a patina of worthlessness; not some ancient fresco using garish modern tiles as a substitute for defining the eyes and mouth; not some IKEA-fashioned cabinetry to compliment the weathered beaten wainscoting.
Knots and worm holes, chinks and cracks are all testimonies to a life lived. One day, suddenly, we realize there is no devil in the details simply because we are the details. Stresses endured and temperatures suffered express a witness to the durability and resolution of the eternal blueprint we comprise.

Caution at the merging ahead of us or blind negligence in taking a short cut around the work. We chose. Meanwhile, work rolls on.

Attention: The follow contains language and words that have been deemed inappropriate by someone – not me – who thinks for you. Readers discretion is your choice.

The single most asked question for all of humanity is, “What does this all mean?”

This is a damn inclusive statement. ALL covers a lot of territory, physical and mental, which can only be defined by the person who utters the question. However, I don’t know of one person who hasn’t reached the end of their limits at one time or another and exhaled this plea of clarity into the chaos swirling about them.

My answer to this question will not sit well for many of you. So why offer it you may ask. Because I’m tired of people asking something as obnoxious as this and not truly wanting an answer just so they can play the role of the victim. They seem to need to express their feelings, venture into the womb of despair and seek solace and comfort from any who will pander to their moaning. If that seems harsh, get over it because the answer is worst.

What does it all mean? Who told you it had to mean something? Shit happens. It is the by-product of eating.

Your chaos and pandemonium swirling about the life you’ve constructed is not unique. It is tailor-made by you, for you. It’s entire meaning is whatever you want it to be. So pick something noble, worthy within the bigger scheme of life. Or just forget about it. It doesn’t matter anyway – unless you want it to.

Are you trying to find some cosmic answer to your existence? What would having that answer do to your present situation? Bad things happen to good people just as easily as bad thing happen to bad people. The only common denominator is that things happen, period. Good and bad are simply judgments about the nature of how you view something. In other words, it only a meaning you decide upon.

So what does it all mean? If you’re going to ask, then as I said, make the answer noble. You think you’re the only one grappling with this issue? You’re not. So make your answer one which will help others to deal with the issues. Quit looking for an answer and be the answer. (God, I hate clichés! Proactive BS by all accounts.)

No amount of positive thinking is going to change diarrhea thoughts. You’re better off inhaling straight shots of Febreze and hope you recover from the tingling feeling of mountain freshness than trying to squeeze an ounce of lemon juice from the putrid filth swirling within your realm of perception.

Let’s get this straight: People suffer. Some more than others, but we all do it.
Life is like that, has been like that, and will continue to be like that. Truth hurts. Denying it doesn’t take it away. Accepting it doesn’t make it go away either. Making the best of it, somehow relieves it. Laughing when everyone else is crying, as strange as it sounds, makes it enjoyable for the moment. Hell, if it’s going to stick around, might as well make a party of it.

Jesus stated that the kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. Adults don’t get it, literally.

Jean Piaget was a renowned child psychologist who told a story about a study of how children process information at differing ages. He classified them as “preop,” the stage prior to being able to do mental operations; “conop,” the stage where only concrete thinking occurs; and “formop,” the stage where the child is able to think abstractly and complete formal mental operations.

Each child is given the exact same assignment where they are presented with a number of beakers with clear liquids. Three of these clear liquids when combined together would create a yellow liquid. The problem the children were to solve was to determine which of the three liquids produced the end result.

The “preop” child will mix a few of the liquids and then give up. The “conop” child will mix three liquids at a time, varying the three liquids throughout the process until the result is arrived or gets tired and gives up. The “formop” child will formulate a plan varying the liquids before actually beginning with a vague plan of how to conduct the assignment.

Which of these three children does the Kingdom of Heaven belong to? Which of these three categories do you fit in? That last one is kind of a loaded question. You’re possibly of an age where you don’t think a description of child development applies to you having graduated long ago from this stage in life. However, these descriptions are not age specific. They apply to the development all of us move through when confronted with a new idea, paradigm, or architype in life.

You ever talked to someone who glazed over when you began expounding your latest revelation? Preop meets formop. You ever listened to sermon that you felt so far beneath where you were at even though everyone else eagerly lapped up the words like a dog at a water bowl on a hot summer day? Preop meets formop. You ever scratch your head after listening to a teacher and wonder what did they mean from all that they said? Preop meets formop.

So where are you as a child of the kingdom of Heaven? Where is the person you listen to every week for guidance in this kingdom? Where are your friends, family, even your children?

Could it be possible that the Law is preop material in the kingdom while grace is formop material? What if the cross is conop while resurrection is formop? What if Love is really a formop matter that we’ve been treating as a preop issue? What if everything that you’ve spent the last twenty to thirty years learning came from people who never advanced beyond preop? What if faith was preop while grace is formop?

Adults don’t get the kingdom simply because the kingdom is a learning process you never graduate from. It is the ultimate continuing education program.

How often when you were growing up did you hear someone – typically a person displeased with your attitude – claim, “Actions speak louder than words…”? “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” was probably your default answer then, even as it is today. We hate it when others try to make us conform to their perception of how we should behave around them.

So, let me make a claim here which will be expanded within the rest of this posting: Grace speaks louder than belief.

A teacher recently said to me that beliefs guide our perceptions and values structure our actions. The trouble that we get into is when our actions run contrary to our beliefs, something he called cognitive dissonance. I’ll speak about that in a moment too, however, I want to explore these two issues of values and beliefs.

Beliefs guide how we see things in life, our perception. Each of us has a unique perspective on how best to live in this hostile environment called life. We focus on certain things while neglecting other items which often are right next to our center of attention. This is pretty common for instance when you’re driving a car. You focus on what lies ahead more than what is going on behind or beside you (except if you’re driving in Los Angeles). Novice drivers have difficulty at first trying to tune out all that flies at them when they get behind the wheel simply because they have never experienced the level of concentration required to propel a vehicle down a road faster than a bicycle.

I’m coming to realize that beliefs are not very dependable. Yes, you read that correctly. Consider these common beliefs: Santa Claus; tooth fairy; leprechauns; and the Easter Bunny. Before you dismiss any of these, realize that each of us clung to these as children. They guided the perception of our little world. Now that we’re older though, rarely do we permit them to influence how we navigate through our life.
Beliefs change with age or with greater knowledge. Today, we don’t believe that the sun orbits around the earth, yet it has not been too long since that was the prevailing tenet of all science. What beliefs do you presently have that could use a serious review? Probably many, yet, the uncertainty which comes from the examination keeps the vast majority of people from ever considering that there may possibly be a better belief to guide them.

I’m amazed at the number of people who feel compelled to ask one another what they believe. What difference does it really make if, in the course of living, a belief can change? One day you believe that you’re sitting on the top of the world, everything is going your way, and the next day, after you’re laid-off from work and hit a car leaving the parking lot, your top-of-the-world-life is in the gutter. Beliefs change like the leaves on the trees. What…don’t believe me?

Notice at this precise moment I have challenged a belief! How I look at something and how you look at something. Which is right? Both can’t be right, right? Can both be wrong? Can one be right for the wrong reason, or, wrong for the right reason? After all, aren’t beliefs just words anyway? Yes, Virginia, beliefs do employ words to describe what they are about. But what speaks louder than words?

Do you think that you’re very trustworthy? Is that a quality that you look for in others? How about courteous; are you one to open the door for others? These are two of the twelve characteristics of Boy Scout as defined by the Boy Scout Law. Believe what you want about the benefits of this organization, there is fundamental truth in the values which the Scout Law promotes. For those of you who do not know what the Scout Law is, it reads as follows: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. This list of twelve characteristics are the values which have defined who a Boy Scout is for over one hundred years. These values structure how a young man is to conduct his life at home, in school, on the playground, with friends and adults. Are these missing values in society today? Yes. Does it take an organization like the Boy Scout to instill these values into our children? If the family can’t do it, the schools won’t do it, and the church doesn’t think of doing it, and the media makes no money from it, then probably yes.

When I see how you handle yourself as a customer hands to you a $1,000 in $50 bills which are intended for your boss, then I’ll know you’re trustworthy, despite what you believe. When you let another driver enter into your lane to make the turn off without getting all up in their grill, then I’ll know that you’re courteous. When I see you respect the environment by picking up the napkins off the floor of a fast food joint, then I’ll know that you’re clean. This is how values work. We are hard-wired to them.

Do you find any value in family? As strange as that question is, there are some people on this planet who find there to be no value in a family. They’ve been abused, ostracized, humiliated, shamed and ignored by the very people who brought them into the world. They don’t like being around people like you because they see how joyful your family is and they’ve never experienced it. Your life is cognitive dissonance to them. Astoundingly, their life is cognitive dissonance to you too.
What do you value? Vague, I know, so let’s start here. What do you value in a friend? A great meal? A memorable vacation? A partner for life? In your children or parents? For each of us the answers will be different; however, we all have an answer which we are certain of, no variance, no shifting opinions. Values are like that. Stable. Solid. Unwavering.

We are attracted to those things, people, places, or communities that we highly value. Conversely, we tend to stay as far away from those same things if they have little to no value to us. Or at least we like to think we do.
Consider the person who places a high value on family yet spends 12 to 14 hours a day pursuing a career while missing meals with children and spouse, and weekly special events at school or with friends. Consider the person who values personal integrity but is consistently late to appointments. These two events are examples of cognitive dissonance, the psychological stress of acting one way when your values, and even your beliefs, are another.

Here is a prime example of cognitive dissonance for religious folks. Most value morality while having a low value on immorality. Grace is another high value item. However, no one likes the truth of the high value found among the immorality of grace. No, you didn’t read that wrong. Grace is immoral and it has the highest value of anything you’ll ever experience.

Morality is a human construct. It is the code we attempt to live by as a societal being. We use that code to define transgressions against the fiber of our social systems or to promote exemplary behavior within those systems. Our entire justice system is derived and evolved from this code of conduct. Morality adheres to the code while immorality abhors the code. Grace doesn’t even care what the code is, period! This makes grace immoral and religious people hate that. Sure, they’ll extol the amazing nature of grace and all that it has done for and to them, but when they are confronted with a liar, an embezzler, an adulterer, an addict, a pedophile, a murderer, or any other person who has been defined by the code as a transgressor, and they admit that grace applies equally to these types too, cognitive dissonance kicks in. When you realize that God is not moral, is not bound to adhere to the code of mankind, cognitive dissonance kicks in. When you understand that Love is immoral, cognitive dissonance kicks in.

Here is the granddaddy of all cognitive dissonance. Jesus said that we should love our enemies. So how is that working for you? Probably not so well, and for a good reason. Let me bring in another statement. Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. A whole lot of people have difficulty loving even their neighbor simply because they don’t love themselves, just how on earth does Jesus expect us to love our enemies then? It might be better to understand that our biggest enemy is our own self. We somehow think that we can ignore the conflict swirling around ourselves while trying to love someone else who we are not particularly fond of.

If you want to learn the high value of grace, trying learning to love who you are. The actions required to minister grace to yourself pale in comparison to those you’ll offer to another. You may believe that you are a child the King, and yet cuss yourself out for dropping taco sauce on your pants while you drive down the freeway. You may believe that you’re healed, but that 102 temperature you’ve had for two days says otherwise. You may believe that your blessed in your coming and goings, but people who prefer that you bless them as you keep going are speaking a language you’re too deaf to hear.

Before you jump on the faith bandwagon here trying to tell me this is how you live your life, let me pronounce your claim to be pure bovine excrement if you catch my drift. Don’t come at me with that “faith of Abraham” shtick because it only shows me that you don’t have a clue. First off, that entire eleventh chapter of Hebrews was not written for you unless you’re Hebrew. Second, all of those people who it seems had great displays of faith stood on the hope of a future event coming to pass, which just so happened in Jesus. For you to confess that your faith is just like theirs is to ignore the simple fact of Jesus 2,000 years ago. It doesn’t take any faith to believe for something that has already happened. This is why your faith has no real value if you’re going to claim it is just like the heroes of Hebrews 11.

Let me go one further on the value of your faith. Consider just how valuable it is since God had to give you His. You don’t even get to depend on yours – you experience the reward of the faith of Jesus. Honestly, you walk in the sight of what His faith secured, period. Quit hoping for that day to come when you’ll receive the blessing of your faith in Jesus. Finished! It means today what it meant then.

Notice how I just questioned the value of your belief, your faith. I’m not questioning the validity. I’m trying to get you to see how it shapes your actions. You can believe one thing and do something that is in complete opposition to its underlying tenets and its present reality. Grace, however, is precisely what addresses this cognitive dissonance, which is how I can claim that grace speaks louder than belief. If you don’t like the way you act, change the value of the belief that says you need to respond that way. Only grace builds the bridge you need to get from one course action to another. Only grace, given to yourself as well as to others, will allow change to happen.

Grace, in all forms of its immorality, is a life style that people recognize long before you spout off on your beliefs. Does it affect your beliefs? Most certainly. It will change you in ways that only immorality can. This is a value you need to seek after with all your heart.

What do you believe? What keeps you moving throughout the day when pressures hit you from all sides and you’re longing to just make it home to the security of your warm bed? What makes you believe that your bed will be warm? What makes you believe that your home is secure? What makes you believe that the pressures you’re facing are for your demise rather than your benefit? What belief do you have that tomorrow will be better? What belief do you have that says all of this is worth anything?

As a child, did you believe in good days and bad days? Do children today have good days or bad days? When did you first recognize that a particular day was different from another day? As a child did you eagerly anticipate the arrival of a bearded fat man, dressed in red, who broke into your home, stole your food, yet left toys as a payment, and then departed without even waking up your parents? What made you believe this was a good event?

Also, what made you believe that a tiny, winged humanoid would visit your room at night, reach under your pillow for a recently rejected tooth, and exchange it for a token of commerce? Did you ever believe that you could exchange all your teeth at once just to acquire the latest action figure? When did you stop believing in this merry little denture nymph? Did it happen when you came to see the return on investment in a root canal outweighed the void in your mouth and the token you’d receive in return?

How many of the things that you believe, things that you hold dear to your heart, were simply beliefs handed down to you by parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, bosses, even, yes, preachers? How do you know if these beliefs are as valid today as the day that you received them? Where would you be today if just one of your beliefs changed? Is it possible to change a belief? If it is, how come we refuse to do it? If it isn’t, why are we so eager to adopt them?

Is it possible to live a good life believing something that isn’t true? In this instance, is the definition of “good” attached to what is true, or to the belief in what is really false? If believing in something which isn’t true creates a life of opulence, fame and notoriety while believing in truth creates a life of bitterness, sorrow and depravity, does it matter to us, or to our friends and family what we believe? Do we believe for our sake, or for the sake of those we seek to impress?

Do you believe yourself to be a good person? Do you believe you are a bad person? Do you believe that you are both good and bad? Do you believe that the difference is only in the circumstances? Do you believe this to be true for others? Do you believe people, good or bad, are always just good or bad? Do you believe that can love a bad person? Do you believe that love can change a person to become good or bad? Do you believe that believing in the goodness of a person makes that person good when they are around you? Do you believe that believing in the badness of a person makes that person bad when they are around you?

Do you believe that God cares about how good or bad we are when we’re around him? Do you believe that God doesn’t care about how good or bad we are when we’re around him? Do you believe in God being up-there, out-there away from your daily routine, or do you believe God is down-here, in-here among the events that confront us? Do you believe that God doesn’t love you because you don’t feel his presence? Do you believe God loves you because he is in everything that surrounds you? Do you believe that the grace of God is the only thing keeping you going in life? Do you believe that the grace of God is who you are for those in your life who find it hard to keep going?

Are you a believer? What defines you as a believer? Do you trust what you believe? Do you trust who you believe? Do you believe “in” someone, or, do you believe “on” someone? Do you believe in someone for who they intrinsically are, or, for what they actually have done? Do you believe that we can only believe one thing about someone?

Do you believe truth always prevails? How would I recognize this belief in your actions around others if they are deemed to be bad people?

Do you believe that dead people can live again? Do you believe in an eternal life or a life after this life? Is your belief in God predicated on death or life? Do you believe this life matters? Do you believe that the life we live determines the rewards we receive in an eternal life? Do you believe that the life we live determines the judgment we receive in an eternal life? Do you believe more in reward or judgement? Do you believe that someone can take on your judgement? Do you believe that only you can experience judgement? Do you believe that you can receive the reward of another? Do you believe that only you can receive a reward? Do you believe that someone can die for the sake of the life of another? Do you believe that this has already happened?

What would it take for you to believe that our Eternal Father, loved you and I, separately and collectively, so much, even before there was a world for us to inhabit, that he decided to give us all the goodness he possessed by creating our world, coming down to share it with us in the form of his son, Jesus, who lived a life just as we all live, died at the hands of persecutors upon a cross, was buried and rose to life again, imparting his spirit of life to all humanity, and continues today to pour out his love through the multitude of people in your life, all of whom have been made in the Father’s image and likeness, despite how they act around us? If you believed in Santa and tooth fairies, why not believe a truth which knows no lie?