What's In a Name?

I said in my first ever blog post that in my second ever blog post I would explain the name of the blog. Well, this is my sixth post, and I am now getting around to it. My bad.

On a basic level the name "Battling Unbelief" explains my life. Before I came to place my trust in Jesus Christ I battled with unbelief by fully agreeing with it. This doesn't sound like much of a battle, but lostness is an unrelenting battle. Depravity has a way of not only putting you at odds with others, but putting you at odds with yourself. Ironically, you're so self-centered that you hate yourself, you punish yourself, you're sick of yourself. My unfettered unbelief gave me reason to battle a host of things, most of which had to do with my selfishness. I battled fear, pride, loss of influence, lack of significance, the inability to impose my will on others, lust, insecurity. All of this generated a visible anger at the God shaped void I had in my heart. All of life was a battle, because in conjunction with being at odds with myself I was at odds with the ONE who actually makes all of reality come into agreement. I was in submission to the tyranny of self, rather than in submission to the authority of a Holy and Loving God. God dispels fear, provides significance and offers a will that is higher and more glorious than my own. As I suppressed the truth in unbelief, my battle wasn't so much with the truth, but with my inward desire to remain in unbelief in light of that truth. Romans 1 tells us this is the plight of every unbeliever, proving that if unbelievers are anything, it's exhausted.

After coming to faith in Christ, my battle with unbelief changed. The Spirit of Christ has reoriented my heart. My bent is now to run to God, not away from Him. I am now able to have less concern about my own significance, or about imposing my will onto others, by having a greater concern about His will and His glory. I have given myself away to His mercies and come into submission to His good care. I have believed the truth of the gospel, and no longer have to battle with the weight Truth imposed upon me. However, I still battle unbelief. Every sin and every pattern of sin in my life is a sin or pattern of unbelief. When I lie, even in the smallest of ways, it's because self-preservation is more important to me than what I believe about the truth of the gospel. When I lust it's not because I slipped, it's because carnal thoughts displaced what I believe about the beauty and grace of Jesus. Lust declares that you believe in the worth of the flesh above the worth of the Savior. Ouch.

This clearly explains that belief in the gospel is not a one time event that marked the beginning of my relationship with God. Belief in the gospel marks every step of my life. The gospel doesn't constitute the ABC's of my Christian life, but the A to Z. Believing the gospel is not something I graduated from after a few years of being a Christian, it is the continuum of my existence. Knowing these things, the overriding confession of my heart on a daily basis must be, "LORD, I BELIEVE." But I also must confess with equal vigor, "HELP MY UNBELIEF." Therein lies the battle...therein lies the name.

The third way this title explains my life is that it's tied to my vocation. I'm a pastor, which is to say I work with people, specifically dealing with how they will confront the unbelief in their own life, or how we can together confront the unbelief in our church and the world. I don't see the pastorate as some magical vocation. All vocations come under the Lordship of Jesus, and all work can be done with his glory in view. We all have a calling, and because I am not good at anything else, God called me to teach and work with people. This is no more important than the calling to be a lawyer or a landscaper...it's just not. As long as these callings are being engaged in faith they please God. Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin so even pastoring people can be done in a sinful way. Thus my battle rages.

So given the name, this blog is an exercise in how I confront unbelief with the truth about who God is and what he has done in the person and work of His Son, Jesus. This applies to my life as a pastor, a husband, father and friend. This applies to how I work with people and how I engage the world. It's a battle. Peter referred to it as a war of the soul. Paul called it a struggle. He told Timothy it was a fight. My prayer is you fight with me.

Let's Do This.

Is blogging cool? 

To some, I suppose, it's cool. But I've determined I have no real clue what cool is anymore, so maybe I should avoid the question altogether. Anyway, blogging has certainly become much more than a fad. If someone said "blog" 5 or 6 years ago people might say, "God Bless You. Are you coming down with something?" If someone said blog 3 or 4 years ago people might respond, "Oh, he's one of those guys." You say "blog" today, and most people say, "yeah, I read that one too." So let's determine on the front end that blogging isn't cool. It's become too mainstream to be cool. Maybe for the early adopters it was some variation of cool, but for most of us it's just become part of the information black hole that is the innerwebs. The endless number of angles on a given subject can suck you in like a astronomical vacuum. Consuming hours on the meandering thoughts of others is just part of this world...I've at least learned that much. 

So reading blogs has become normal. It's on par with reading the newspaper or checking email. It's just something we do now. Writing a blog is on the cusp of normal. Blogs have become places for families to interact, for pastors to communicate with parishioners, for journalists to expound their pieces. The manifold use of a blog is fairly exhaustive. For many, however, the blog is just another exercise in vainglory and narcissism. It is the big brother of social networking, which is another internet anamoly that is now mainstream.

The whole Facebook thing is both socially and technologically phenomenal. In fact, just the other day a friend of mine pointed out that we all now can live like superstars.  People seem to care what we do on a daily/hourly basis (facebook, twitter), people read whatever crap we write (blogs), and we live along with our own personal soundtrack (ever taken a walk with your ipod in your ears and thought "Man, I am cool. This is a scene out of an indy film!")? 

Here is my fear of things like the facebook status, it blurs a very important distinction between (a) how I really am and (b) how I want to project myself. it is exactly the same with blogs. 

 

Today I am (a) feeling lazy and could waste the entire day with naps, Sportscenter, and pop tarts.  But, I don't want to project myself as lazy.  So, I (b) tell people that I am going to finish looking at the reformed epistemological framework of Herman Bavinck. This intellectual mumbo jumbo is what I sort of need to do today, but it is not what I am currently doing.

This might not seem overly frightening, other than I have now become a promoter or ad salesman of myself (Jay is always doing such intellectual stuff, he is very smart).  But, for a generation raised on this, I fear that the distinction may be departing.  College kids think that (b) IS (a). They think they are being honest, not projecting what they want people to think.  

  

It is as if they are all on the bachelor. They lie to themselves and say that they forget that the cameras are on. They tell themselves that their projection EQUALS their true identity.  

This is not good for a number of reasons.  One of them being that a honest self-identity is very important for life, and not to mention, for a proper understanding of our need for the gospel. 

Second, when I was in college I didn't really even use email and no one had a cell phone. I was a part of the last of the legitimately un-wired college students. Today this stuff is an extension of the individual (txting, twittering, etc...). No one takes a picture, or ponders a moment of activity without thinking about how it will be framed on their facebook for all their "friends" to see. I don't think we understand the social ramifications of such an outlook on life. This is part of the reason I have ditched my experiment with facebook, and have taken to blogging.

So blogging...yeah, how will I keep from going about this like the attention seeking social networker that pines for comments and online interaction? How will I keep this whole project from being about me? How will I contribute to the blogosphere in a manner that one, doesn't just regurgitate what everyone else is posting and two, doesn't presume that everyone really wants to hear what I have to say? Here are just a few ways:

1) I will seek to be positive. I neither want to be a doctrine cop, or a Debbie Downer. My hope is in an unchanging, radically gracious, powerful God and His Gospel. I have very little to be negative about.

2) I will leverage this blog for the gospel. More about this in my second post.

3) I will occasionally post pictures and updates regarding my marvelous family. This is borderline narcissism, but my wife and children are beautiful so I would be doing any reader I might have a great disservice if I denied them photographs of my family.

4) I will be honest. I don't want to distort who I am or what I am struggling with for the sake of perception. I will not use this forum to manage my public relations, and exalt myself. As I mentioned, there's enough of this sort of tomfoolery going on out there.

5) I will not post everyday. Too much pressure...I want this to be joy, and not a burden.

That's about it. Let's go...