The Intervention

I recently finished reading the heart-wrenching book "A Thousand Hills" by Stephen Kinzer...

And all I can say is "Wow."

Before I begin, I highly recommend the few of you that actually read these little blog things to go and purchase a copy of this book. Fair warning, though, it is not an easy book to get through.

And do not worry, my words here are not just a synopsis of the book as I will be attempting a semi-amazing analogy at some point, as I usually do...

In "A Thousand Hills," Kinzer follows the amazing story of Paul Kagame, whose rebel army single-handedly invaded Rwanda to end the 100-day genocide that claimed nearly one million lives in 1994.

The book begins with Paul Kagame fleeing Rwanda as Hutu extremists attempt to slaughter his Tutsi family in the early years of his life. Growing up as a refugee in Uganda, he quickly rose to fame among his exiled brothers as he created the most audacious covert operation of modern clandestine warfare. Building a rebel army within the Ugandan army, the exiled Tutsis became poised to take back Rwanda, since the government would not allow them to return to their homeland...

As the clock ticked down to the impending, unforseen atrocities that would be more barbaric than Hitler's Holocaust, Kagame was sent to the United States for extensive military training. Still being a high ranking member of the Ugandan Army, he departed for America so no one would suspect his true intentions. The rebel force was left in the hands of his close friend Fred Rwigyema...

Halfway through his training, and after nightly phone calls to Uganda, a date was set for the rebel's invasion of their homeland that had kicked them out. October 1, 1990 would be a date to go down in history.

On October 1, 1990 in the wee hours of the morning, thousands of well-trained Rwandan exiles-turned-soldiers marched across the border into their homeland that some had not seen decades. The Rwandan Army, unsuspecting and unprepared, fled from their posts.

Over the next few days, Paul Kagame stopped receiving information about the invasion. Concerned, he finally discovered that Fred, his life-long friend and commander of the RPF rebels, had been killed in battle.

Kagame, knowing that without a strong leader the rebels would lose, prepared to return to take the reins of what would become one of the most desperate, vile, and devastating war/genocides the world would ever witness.

...........................

This is where things get really interesting.

..........................

Leaving the United States top military academy drew international attention to Paul Kagame. It soon became known that he was going back to Rwanda to a devastating war that no human being could possibly imagine...

As he departed the U.S., Kagame realizied he was being followed. Over the next several days, he would be playing a cat-and-mouse game with CIA agents, Belgian secret service officers, and central African assassins. The world was determined to not let Kagame return to Rwanda to continue the war for his people's freedom...

After eluding police, customs officials, and government agents at airports in London, Brussels, Addis Ababa, and Nairobi, Paul Kagame ended up in an airport terminal in central Africa, tired, exhausted, and pursued by a near invisible enemy. Sitting in a chair in the terminal, trying to figure out how to get to Uganda, the soon to be rebel leader broke down.

Knowing that every second he wasn't in Rwanda meant his men were dying, Paul Kagame bowed his head...
To this day, Kagame admits he has no idea what came over him at this moment. All he recalls is that a firm resolve entered his willpower to get to Rwanda, regardless the cost.

It was from that moment onward, that the hand of God came upon one of the few heros that survived the Rwandan genocide. And as pure evil, hatred, and inhumanity began to rear it's hideous head in Rwanda, Paul Kagame marched within a foot of a Rwandan government assassin and onto a plane. The next day, he was reaching the front lines of one of the most desperate wars Africa had ever witnessed.

..........
I'll tell you how his story ends later...

It's time for that semi-amazing analogy...

I've always wondered why God allows awful things like genocide to happen. Perhaps it is to remind us of how much we really need Him or perhaps it is Him giving humanity a chance to stare evil in the face and defeat it...
If the latter is so, at least partially, then God has his own intervention plan...

Intervention is really an amazing concept. My Mac dictionary defines "intervention" as: "the action or process of intervening."
I guess intervention can only be defined by what it is: that is, an outside force entering into a scenario or item that is in some form of conflict, many times with no gain for the outside force.

Looking back 14 years after the last machete stroke ended a Tutsi life, God's intervention plan in Rwanda was clear: and Paul Kagame was the central character in a story of blood, toil, genocide, war, and now onward to redemption.
But the story of Paul Kagame is only a small part of the history of supernatural intervention on our behalf. It culminated approxametly two thousand years ago on a hillside outside of Jerusalem...the most Glorious Intervention we have ever witnessed. It is an Intervention that happens everyday all around the world.

That's the analogy...
Now back to our Rwandan hero...

Over the coming years, Paul Kagame would lead the RPF rebels into battle against a government that intended to execute every Tutsi in Rwanda. By 1994, what Kagame most feared came true as government troops and the Interhammwe militia set up road blocks across the country. Every Tutsi that was stopped at these roadblocks was dragged to the side of the road, sometimes molested, and then hacked to death with machetes...

Seeing that the United Nations peacekeeping force would not intervene to stop the slaughter, Paul Kagame realized what had to be done. God was about to use the man He had saved from the merciless international agents that had hunted him four years before to a point of hopelessness, and end what mankind did not have the guts to face...

In mid-April, only days after the Rwandan government started massacring civilians, Paul Kagame and his rebel force exploded from northern Rwandan in a last-ditch, desperate invasion to end the killing. A few weeks later, RPF rebels captured the capital city, Kigali, and were appalled at what they found. Tens of thousands of human carcasses filled the city, and that was only the beginning....
The dead bodies were so numerous that RPF soldiers saw enormous rats that were the as large as medium sized dogs, weighing up to fifty pounds.
They had been feasting on the dead bodies....

The official death count eventually reached one million lives. Nearly ten percent of the Rwandan population was hacked to death with machetes in only 100 days...

God gave humanity a chance to save Rwanda, and we failed. Luckily for us, God rose a man up to do what no one else was willing too.

While the story of Rwanda is a sad part of our history, it is also full of miracles. The fact that Paul Kagame was even involved is a mercy of God. The world abandoned Rwanda...so God used a Rwandan to end what is perhaps the worst atrocity ever committed in the modern world.

But Paul Kagame's story is only one of millions worldwide. God didn't just intervene in the bloodshed at Golgotha or in the vileness of the Rwandan genocide, He intervenes on a daily basis, whether it is using men to end evil or just simply comforting the hurt.

Certainly, Paul Kagame's story is incredible, and it doesn't end there! Today, he is now president of Rwanda...and reconciliation between murders, rapists, and the victimized is already underway. Forgiveness in Rwanda is a very real thing....just as it is in our daily lives...something I've had to learn a great deal about lately.

Paul Kagame is certainly one of my heros. His intervention was nothing less than incredible. But it points to something far greater, well, two things far greater:

1. Our desperate need for salvation from ourselves.
2. God is in the middle of The Ultimate Glorious Intervention in each and every follower of Christ.

The story of Paul Kagame, as grim and as beautiful as it is, is a firm reminder that we cannot save ourselves. Something that is essentially above us is the only hope we have, and it does not take a Christian to realize that something is seriously wrong with this world. The secular world, whether they know it or not, is screaming for salvation...just turn the news or a radio on sometime.

So, to application and beyond...
What I took away from "A Thousand Hills" is that even in the midst of genocide, God was working miracles. If God can orchestrate events and people to end such atrocities, then hell, our problems are a walk in the park for God...

So why then do we worry about them so much?

God, I feel like a complete jackass when I put my problems in that light...I am blessed beyond belief and all I see is the problems I face. But in reality, those problems are very superficial...

After all, I don't carry the weight of responsibility of leading a rebel army to end genocide. Even more so, I do not carry the responsibility of God...

Looking back over 20 years I can see, just like Paul Kagame, that God has intervened to save me more than once...I'm guessing He has great plans for me...

Maybe we should all take a look back and see His faithfulness even when we failed...cause, let's be honest, we failed pretty big in Rwanda, and we are failing again in Darfur.

Yet, the miracles keep falling from God by the millions, and we have blinded ourselves so much with our own petty crap that we do not even see them...

Truly, we are wretched creatures....

In Christ,
Hackett

The Life of a Pawn

Having the ability to multi-task is a great thing, or at least I always thought it was. My job position and many other things in life call for a multi-tasker, one of the few things I am consistently good with, as it is a gift. But sometimes too much of a gift can be not so good or even harmful to situations, people, or oneself.

On a honest note, putting aside the fact that I am in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the world just because I live in America and don’t have to worry about the government I submit to trying to harm me for power’s sake, life has not exactly been as peachy as I’d like it to be…
Stress, over-reaching, and too much running on an empty tank finally caught up with me recently. An overloaded mind and body that is already stressed can only go on for so long, and unfortunately it took me almost being hospitalized to realize that….


Being forced to take a break for me was definitely a mind-boggling experience. It gave me time to think about stuff that was really going on in my life and what priorities needed to actually be priorities. I guess it is a universal trait of multi-taskers to not stop thinking; hopefully this particular one can use it for good…

Anyways, part of my thought processes were finding analogies or different scenarios that could help me better understand my own current state of affairs. In a nutshell, at this point there was no need for split-second decision-making, thank God, because it would take me quite some time to find anything to relate too.

And, oddly enough, the thing I could most relate my present situations too was a simple chessboard. Well, not just the board, the pieces are perhaps more important, at least they are as important…
Whatever measure of importance is not really what I want to speak of, although I am sure it would make for a rich topic once you see how it is to be applied:

My proposal is that all of us, regardless of social, economic, religious, racial, or even physical locale status, live on a chessboard of sorts.

If you are not familiar with the game of chess, let me briefly explain the objectives and overarching goals of the game:
The main goal is to force the opponent’s king into a position where it can no longer move…aka “checkmate.”
Minor goals include clearing the board of any opposing piece that blocks you from the checkmate, advancing across the board in a strategic way that limits the other player’s options, and being skilled enough to have a flexible plan that will allow you to win.

It sounds simple enough, but in all honesty it is not. Chess is a very complex, complicated game…

But regardless of complications, the analogy I pulled from the game and compared into my life, or perhaps even God-inspired, was that we are like pawns on a chessboard…and when reality hits the ground running, life becomes uncontrollable. Unfortunatly for the pawn, this can be an every play scenario; or, in our lives, a possible every day scenario.

Perhaps the main problem is that I, like so many others, consider myself the king on the chessboard. Sure, all the other players are important, but they all should be looking out for “number 1.” (me) Right?
Apparently not…

Romans 9 speaks of God’s enduring and uncompromising power. Flipping idly through the Scriptures in my down time led me to verse 18:

“Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”

Wow…talk about hitting home. If the High King of Heaven can control our hearts, then am I really the King on chessboard? Not at all! Living the life of a pawn seems to be much more appropriate for a fallen being such as I and the rest of humanity.
I’ve always known the Gospel to be offensive to many, and in all honesty it can be. No one, especially in our society that puts so much emphasis on independence, likes to hear that they are not the king on there own chessboards…. even some of us professing believers…like me….

I’ve seen, read, and studied the historical, archeological, and other secular accounts of the Scriptures to believe that it is THE inspired Word of God, a love letter to a fallen world. So, when I come to stuff like this…sometimes it can be a little bit of a slap in the face. I guess, in a way, the Bible is like a best friend: Soothing when it needs to be, challenging when confrontation arrives, and still there to pick you up when rock bottom is more than just a reality…way to go Evan, you are kinda like the Bible!

But back to the chess analogy…

Most of us know how to live in the illusion that we are in charge (yes, it is an illusion). But I dare say we know very little about being the pawn. In all honesty, it sounds kind of lame: pawns have the appearance of being the weakest player and are very limited in movement. Our illusionary “kingship” sounds much more exciting. But is it really?

Is submission, please don’t wince at the word, really such a bad thing? Is being a pawn really that bad? Do we even understand what the pawn’s (our) position is?

The pawn is really an amazing part of the game of chess. When combined with other pawns, whole sections of the board can be secured, opposing pieces can be defeated, and, when joined by more powerful pieces, the game can be won.
We look around our world and we see that it is small groups of people that are making the biggest difference. A pawn, or person, going solo quickly burns out and is defeated. A group of pawns holds their ground and may even gain some….
But a pawn/person who is with a group of pawns with the support of the King and other stronger players…comes close to being unstoppable.

I guess the greatest fear of stepping down to the position of the pawn is thinking that the King taking our place will be like any other human, and we could be sacrificed to get what he wants…
But what we forget, what we forget, is that Christ, the King, sacrificed Himself for the pawns.

So, in this light, is being a pawn really degrading? On the chessboard of the world, the King sacrificed Himself for the pawns…. apparently we are worth something…and we haven’t even considered that the chessboard was also created by God…
And not only do I know that I am worth something from my King’s sacrifice, but I also know that I am worth something by the fact that if I do not take my proper place on the board, no one will replace it…in essence keeping my individuality while submitting to something higher than me.

This is what makes Christianity more than a religion: it is a lifestyle choice that involves submission everyday. It is personal. It is taking your place on the chessboard and sticking with it.
Of course, being a pawn does not mean things will always be easy. There are some major opponents in this world as well. There are things such as violence, genocide, and even oppressive governments that sit on the other side of the board, things that are much larger than us. Thankfully, we are not the only pawn the board. And even more so, we have a King who not only never loses, but also created the playing field.

Perhaps being a pawn isn’t such a bad thing…
It means submitting yourself to Christ as independent being. Submission doesn’t make you any less of a person…but perhaps the thing we forget about independence is that to be independent in Christ we must be dependent on Him…a paradox, I know. Freedom in Christ is being dependent on Him, and from that one dependence being independent in all else. Submission may not be such a bitch after all…a lesson we could all learn from…

Maybe multi-tasking isn’t such a bad thing after all either…

Anyways, I’m going to go be a pawn now…you are welcome to join me if you like. I’ve been assigned a pretty scary place on the chessboard, and my submissive independence is needed there.

I sincerely hope you find your place on the chessboard as well, and the sooner the better.

In Christ,
Hackett

...For More Than A Name

This is my "testimony" I suppose...hope you learn something from it...


Lately, I have been contemplating the story of Jacob wrestling the Lord in Genesis 32:22-32. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it goes as follows:

Genesis 32:22-32

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.

Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."
But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.

............................................

April 6, 2008 will be a day I won't forget for the rest of my life. There was no major life-altering event that took place, it was just a normal Sunday, until I came upon an old CD in my car.

To avoid being laughed at, I will not tell you what CD it was...most of you will probably guess it when I tell you the name of the song, which happens to be the last one on the album...

The name of the song is "24," and no it is not after the TV show...and please spare me the jokes because I still listen to the album.

Over the past couple months, I have been doing a lot of evaluating...from relationships to work to achievments. You could say I've been looking back over the past 20 years to see what good I've done, any differences I have made....you know, the usual self-evaluation everyone does every few years...

I have to say, at first I was not impressed with what I saw: a half-ass attempt at life, a bad relationship with both parents, and armfuls of disappointments, regrets, and failed opportunities. While the past year or so has been much more fruitful, I was shocked at how much time I had wasted for the majority of my life.

That, however, was about to change...

God has spoken to me once in my life when I was an angry 16 year old sitting in a jail cell for something I didn't do. After my parent's selfish divorce, I never healed. Both my parents forced me to talk about it before I was ready to.
Divorce is one of those things that can never fully be healed, only time can help. My mother and father apparently didn't realize that.

By the time I was 16, I had become so used to the pain I was numb to it. I didn't let people in, because I was scared I would get hurt again. I had locked the safe to my heart and soul, and I made sure the key was inside before I shut the door.
Then what was supposed to be a normal day at school ended with me in a jail cell downtown...

As I sat in that concrete room, something happened to me. I prayed that God would talk to me.
Now, this is usually the point that people say they asked Jesus into their hearts and everything was okay after that.
But not me...

I could feel the presence of God in the room, and I had been waiting for this opportunity. God used a false accusation made against me to blast open the vault into the deepest part of me, and I was so mad I was going to let him see inside.

I let God have it. I told Him I hated Him for giving me two parents that only thought about themselves. I told Him I hated Him because everyone in the world seemed to be hurting, and no one was getting better. I told Him I hated Him for putting me in a jail cell because I was in class doing what I was supposed do. I told Him I hated Him for allowing the principal of my school to wait to have me arrested until the end of school so I could be put in handcuffs in front of the entire school population. And at that moment, I truly did hate God.

We throw the word "hate" around way to loosely nowadays. Not many people truly understand what hate is, but I do. I was consumed with it at that point in my life. Hate is murderous, vengeful, and very rarely okay.
And in a jail cell downtown, I had a wrestling match with God, just like Jacob did.

The details of that fight I will keep to myself, but I walked away with a limp like Jacob did. After that, the hatred slowly left.

I guess I didn't realize until April 6, 2008 what had really occurred in that cell downtown at God knows what time of the morning. Then I heard the lyrics to that song:

"I want to see miracles...
To see the world change...
I wrestled the angel...
For more than a name...

For more than a feeling...
For more than a cause...
I'm singing: Spirit take me up in arms with you...
Cause You're raising the dead in me."

.............................

I guess it really hit me then what had happened that night 4+ years ago. I saw miracles and I saw the world changed. I had wrestled God, like Jacob did, but for much more than a name. In a sense, I walked away with a limp, and so did God. We wounded each other, I with my hatred and Him with His Love. His weapon proved to be the stronger that day, thankfully...

After that, the hatred slowly left me. I went back to school and never received an apology for getting screwed over. I was physically threatened more than once by other students, and I lost most of my so-called "friends." To this day I do not have a good relationship with either one of my parents because of the way they both handled their divorce. I carry a chip on my shoulder to this day about that, but it is no longer against God, it is against those people, because they screwed up, not God.
And yes, I know I should forgive them. But forgiving someone is an everyday process, not a one time deal. But I'm working on it because
I finally realized God wasn't the problem, people were.

Over the next four years after that I had more wrestling matches with other people, spiritual beings, and situations, and I carried my wound into every one of those battles with me. Who would've thought a wound could save you!

Jacob received a new name after his fight, I got so much more: a wound, a new knowledge of God, true friends, and respect; all things I didn't have before. I wrestled God and almost won until He wounded me...how many people can say they've "wrestled the angel for more than a name"? Probably not many of us....

So, if you are reading this and are angry with God over something, maybe it is time for your wrestling match with Him. Mad about the way the world is? Mad about something that happened to you? Just mad and decided to blame God for it?
There's only two solutions if you call yourself a Christian. One is to realize people are the problem, not God. The second one is a wrestling match with the Creator. Before you go blaming Him for everything like I did, remember that He didn't mess this world up, we did and we do everyday!

At least give Him the right to defend Himself before you blame everything on Him. You may be surprised at the outcome...after all, you are only human. You aren't as high and mighty as you think you are. You may think you are the only one who is trying to fix the world, but you aren't. Your career may even be focused around helping to fix people or things, but God is in the same business.

After all, He allowed His own Son to be killed so that the healing process for the world could begin. Can you honestly say you've done that much compared to His actions? Have you killed one of the most important things to you so that something lesser and undeserving could benefit from it?
I bet you haven't.

Think about it.

In Christ,
Hackett

The Little Thing Known as Life

No politics, attacks against the religious right, or words about a dying America in this one...sorry if you are disappointed.

I really just wanted to use the medium of the internet to answer a question an old friend of mine posed to me recently, that question being:

How am I supposed to live life?

While that is quite possibly the vaguest question I have ever heard, I will attempt to answer it here.

This question has potential to be answered dozens of different ways. One can look at it from a religious, moral, positive, legalistic, spiritual, personal, thoughtful, public, silent, negative, how-to-save-the-world, political, glass half full, physical, hole in the donut, or environmentally-safe standpoint...

Sarcastically speaking, basing my life choices around the concept of recycling and global warming seems slightly ridiculous to me. My sincerest apologies to Mr. Al Gore...
But back to the question my good friend asked me...

How am I supposed to live my life?

I guess I am not going to waste your time by answering the question everyone asks at some point in their lives in such a way that would represent one of the options I listed above.

The best way to answer that question is not a one-sentence answer, it is not a certain set of rules to live by, it is not found in taking a stand for something, it is not found in selfishness...it is not found in millions of things, although some of these things are consequences of living life a certain way.

You see, many people think living life a certain way means taking a stand for something, living for yourself, or for whatever...

I think are culture has the wrong concept of the question "How am I supposed to live my life?"

Culture thinks that living for something is the way you are supposed to live your life...I think that is a grey area leaning closer to the black side of the spectrum.
We do not do the things we do because we are living for something, we do what we do because of the idea or belief behind what we live for.

For example, my amazing girlfriend Taryn works with mentally retarded teens at Youth Villages. Many of these kids have bad family backgrounds and other major issues that I can not even imagine. The majority of society has kicked them aside and doesn't give a crap about them, all except for a small group, which includes Taryn.

Now, Taryn does not work with those kids just for a paycheck, although that is a plus with the job. She doesn't help them just because she looks down on them and feels sorry for them. She doesn't help them just because she went to school and trained to help them. No, there is something deeper behind that, it is the reason why she helps them....

She helps them because she is called to it and because she knows it is the right thing to do.

It's not so different from the consequences from my beliefs, which include an anti-genocide website, a small group of people that have become interested in Darfur, and thousands of dollars in aid making a difference in Sudan.
But back to Taryn...

My point is that Taryn doesn't do what she does because she is living for helping disabled kids. The fact that she works with them is a consequence of a belief she has. She lives for the belief, and that has consequences. In her case, its a dozen or so kids who have never been loved finding out that somebody cares about them. God's providence placed her in their lives, not Taryn's view on how to live life.

Now, I have not answered the question yet because I hoped to show that to answer that question, we need to understand what the question means.

How am I supposed to live my life?

That question isn't asking FOR WHAT I should live my life, the question is asking HOW...
Taryn's life is a perfect example of that. She doesn't live for the kids she works with, she lives for the BELIEF that has led her to helping those kids.

You see, beliefs have consequences...

So, hopefully you understand the question better now, unnamed friend...
But now it is time to answer your conundrum...

And for that, and please do not laugh, I would like to go to the movie Troy...
While Brad Pitt is not my favorite person in the world, he plays a brilliant role in a brilliant film. If there is anything that can answer the question of how we are to live, it is films like Troy that can tell us...

The film opens up with the narrator, Odysseus, setting the stage for the movie. In essence, he asks the very question every human beings asks themselves, whether it is knowingly or unknowingly, at some point in their existence:

"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

Odysseus, in so many words, is generally asking our question at hand.

"How am I supposed to live my life?"
Odysseus asks this question. Men that believe in something seem to be the ones that are remembered, at least it appears that way to Odysseus.

But what Odysseus does not understand is that he answered his own question when he asked it. Let me explain...

Please look closely at his last line from this quote:

"Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

Odysseus answers his own question before he is even done asking. And the answer is surprisingly simple:

Allow whatever it is that driving you to light your heart, mind, and soul on fire.

Odysseus wants to know if strangers centuries from him will remember the men of his time, and indeed we do! We remember them because of how they lived:
Everything they did we remember because of how they lived...they loved fiercely and they fought bravely because of their driving ideas and beliefs.

So, application time...

"How am I supposed to live life?"

Live as the men of Odysseus' time did:
Love fiercely, fight bravely, stand your ground, achieve the unachievable, and go past your own abilities...

The perfect example of a man who did that is Christ Jesus...and the world is far better off because of His willingness to do what no one else could or would...

So, to wrap things up, I would like to end with another quote from Troy, this one from the hero Achilles:

" We men are wretched things. "

We are to live as Odysseus suggested, but we also live with the understanding that we will sometimes fail. Achilles was right, "we men are wretched things."

We must live honestly with ourselves; that is, with the understanding that this world is screwed up. We are bound to lose battles because our fallenness has bound us to failure.
But, that is the beauty of true Christianity. We know we will sometimes fail, but we do what we do anyways because of what is driving us: Christ's redemptive work.

That is how we are supposed to live: we are to live like Achilles, who stormed the beaches of Troy with only 50 men, we are to fight fiercely like Odysseus, who captured Troy with his whit, we are to love fiercely like Hector loved his wife and country, and we are to sacrifice unconditionally like Christ did, even if it means giving up the very breath in our lungs.

If anyone can think of a better way to live, let me know...
But I am 100% certain that living life as an emissary, soldier, and son/daughter of Christ is the most honorable and highest calling any mere mortal could ask for.

In Christ,
Hackett

Life Without God

My girlfriend and I recently watched a very interesting movie called V for Vendetta.
While there are some things I strongly disagree with in the film, overall, there are many good points in the movie that could and should be applied to society today.

Let me briefly set the backdrop for the film:
V for Vendetta is a futuristic movie. While the film never tells exactly what has happened in the world, something has gone horribly wrong. America is no more, and later on in the movie we find out that there was some kind of world war/civil war that America lost. Britain is under totalitarian rule by a leader who much resembles Hitler, and the outlook for society is very bleak.

The film starts off in the room of Evey, an average citizen in England. The TV is on in her room as she is preparing to go somewhere late at night, past the government enforced curfew.

What the man, the so-called "Voice of London" said on the television shocked me.
He said the following:

"America...here was a country who had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony! Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again... Godlessness!"

Before I continue, I highly suggest this movie. There is a lot of Truth in it, and unfortunately, some lies. But you can decipher through that yourself...
For now though, I would just like to focus on that one line:

"America...here was a country who had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony! Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again... Godlessness!"

We come later to find out that those who are saying this do not believe in God either...
But that quote in and of itself was not made by some crazy "fire-n-brimstone" preacher...it was made by secular America.

It scares me that secular America is willing to say what we Christians are not willing too...America is on its way to hell, and fast.

R.C. Sproul once said:
"The days of sentimental faith are over. A foreboding atmosphere hovers over culture. In this atmosphere, humanity looks to the future, not with breathless anticipation and enthusiasm, but with a sense of helplessness."

As pluralism and post-modernism advances more in society by the day, we are starting to see the effects of "Life Without God."
Rising crime rates, terrorist threats, failing morality, more government divisions, more substance abuse...and a pop culture coming to the realization that life isn't as perfect as we think it is, in fact, that something is horribly wrong.

And V for Vendetta points to wear that is heading...

No, I am not saying that in a few years America will be a "colony" or that we will be sucked into a war that will be end for America. With how the world hates America right now, maybe in a hundred years or so that will happen, and that's a BIG maybe...

But what I am saying is that an America with no God is an America that will not be safe, and much less, not as enjoyable to live in. When people push God out of the equation, only bad things can happen.
If you don't believe me, just open a history book sometime...

The underlying theme in V for Vendetta is that there is something awfully wrong in the world...and if we don't do something to fix it soon, "Godlessness" will destroy it.

R.C. Sproul was right; something awful "hovers over culture." We live in a society where it has become easier to hate then to love. Indeed, nowadays it takes courage to love, and any one of the millions of mindless, desensitized TV watchers every night can easily find a reason to hate.
I know because, like you, I am one of them...

But "Life Without God" will do that to you...

As post-modernism, pluralism, and nihilism continue to scream from their cores that God doesn't care or that there is no God, and as we buy more and more into that crap, we are only setting our culture up to die.

And, as usual, the Church, which holds the One Lasting Solution, is silent.
And our silence is just as bad, no, it is worse than the lies that America is buying into.
I just hope we haven't passed the point-of-no-return.

Perhaps the scariest thing is that, like Hitler, post-modernists and pluralists believe that they are right...
And we saw what happened when Hitler thought he was right...

But V for Vendetta isn't all about dark philosophical ideals and such. V is the charismatic freedom fighter that is devoted to bringing down the evil that has captured the people. I won't ruin the end of the movie for you, but let's just say that V makes his stand, and the world of his day needed it badly.

While the hero, V, doesn't bring God back into the picture, he does bring the CHOICE FOR GOD back, something our culture may not have in the coming decades.
And when the day comes that the freedom to choose God, another religion, or no God are out the window, we can only bet that the other freedoms we enjoy will soon be gone as well...
Because religion and God are the only thing standing between the alternate world of V for Vendetta and our current culture.

And the Church is refusing to resist it, and in so doing is embracing the hell that is coming down the pipe.

If you think this all sounds unrealistic and impossible, just look at what happened in Nazi Germany, or at the fall of Rome, the fall of Jerusalem, the fall of Babylon...history repeats itself, and America is next.

Then again, I'm just a 20-year-old college kid. What could I possibly know about any of this...

In Christ,
Hackett