Category: John

Dig Deeper

Pressing into our Doubts Can Lead us Straight to Jesus
3 minute read

I remember the first time I ever saw the Matrix: I was probably in middle school, maybe late elementary school, I’m not sure. But the memory of the experience itself is vivid and clear. There’s a lot going on in the Matrix trilogy, and I know a lot of you aren’t Matrix people. I get it. Sci-Fi isn’t for everyone (unless you start talking about the Avengers), so I won’t get into all the details. But there is one thing that I haven’t ever been able to shake.

Through the years, it’s always stuck with me that this idea of an entire world moving and working beneath what I perceive at a first glance absolutely fascinates me. To learn that there is more going on beneath the surface than I originally believed swings the door wide open to adventure, excitement, and all kinds of fun.

I think this is why I haven’t been able to shake it, though: every single day I’m learning that this thought of more to discover waiting for me below the surface of my perception is actually real. It’s everywhere. There is way more going on in the world than what we can see, or otherwise naturally apprehend.

The Bible has been teaching this for millennia, and to a degree, I’ve concurred. Paul says we don’t wrestle against flesh & blood, but spiritual powers. The entire book of Job is about an unseen deal between God & the enemy to test Job. I could go on.

What I’m learning though, is that this “unseen reality” motif is everywhere. Even in the abstract ideas and traditions that we carry on as Christians.

Don’t get me wrong – some traditions carried on by the church are vital, necessary, and sometimes even commanded by Jesus Himself; baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and others like marriage, service to the poor and underprivileged, etc.

But a lot of us have never stopped to ask ourselves why we do what we do. There might be reasons that I tell myself is my motivation for giving to the church, but is it really why I do it? Is it that reason that motivates me, or is there something deeper?

I’m finding that whenever I ask myself “Why do I do that this way?” or “Why do I even do this at all?” What ends up happening is 1 of 2 things:

EITHER:

  • I come to the conclusion that I’m doing what I’m doing for the wrong reasons, so I need to course-correct, and when I do, I fall ever more deeply in love with Him.

OR:

  • There’s an even better, fuller, more satisfying reason in Jesus to do what I do that I had overlooked, or had never been shown before, and I fall ever more deeply in love with Him.

Either way, they both end up in the same place: knowing why I believe what I believe always draws me closer to Jesus. Not once in my life has this ever resulted in growing a dislike for Him in me at all. It always shows Him to be more attractive and captivating then I had previously understood.

This is very difficult for people who have been taught to never doubt. That’s a big cancer in the church across the world that I’m hoping to help remove. Jesus never shuts down doubt, He invites His followers into an experience with Him. Thomas was never shamed for His doubt – He was invited to look at the fact of Jesus’s holes in His hands and side to prove the reality of what He hadn’t yet seen. He just had to dig a little deeper.

For example, why do I believe the Bible is inspired by God?

Answering that question with: “It tells me it is, and I believe it!” is good, but it’s not enough. I wish it were. God gave me a brain that never stops asking “Why?” Thankfully, He’s all about making His glory known, and He does it in ways that are anchored in facts. When I dug deeper into this belief, I found all kinds of fascinating reasons to love the Bible, believing that it came from God alone, through humans. In fact, the very information that shows how the Bible was written and compiled through human means and humans themselves is the very information that has convinced me it is from God alone.

So here’s my challenge: start asking yourself why you do what you do as you live your life. If you have the humility to second-guess yourself in your gut reactions and dig a little deeper into the things that you do, you just might end up right in front of Jesus.

And I’m telling you, there is no where else in the world you would want to be than with Him.

The Good Cowboy

This post is password protected due to subject matter of adult themes. If you’d like the password, email me at tyl3rhirsch1@gmail.com

“It’s the stuff that masquerades as the real thing but it’s not. The perplexing thing is, instead of putting the fake stuff down, our reaction is usually to put more fake stuff on or decide that the fake stuff, while not that good, is good enough.” -Bob Goff

When I was probably fourteen or fifteen years old, my dad took me out to the pasture to check on our cows. He had only recently begun raising cattle, so the herd was still small, and most of them were heifers, which means they’d never had a calf before.

A member of our church had land they let dad use to let his cattle graze on, and the easiest way to get to that land from our house back then was straight through the pasture on the neighbor’s property, where he was grazing a herd of his own. As we rolled up to the fence separating the two properties, we noticed something out of the ordinary. The neighbor’s bull was pacing along the fence, snorting and huffing and dripping snot out of his nose like a water faucet. He was heated.

At first I thought he was just mad, but then I figured it out: our heifers were on the other side of the fence, and he wanted them.

And that was a major problem.

You see, it was March, and cows have a gestation period of about nine months. If that bull were to jump the fence and breed our heifers, their babies would be born in the dead of winter, lowering their chance of survival to almost zero.

Immediately my dad jumped into crisis mode. He inched the four-wheeler closer and closer to the bull, coaxing him away from the fence as best he could with his voice and with grain, but it did absolutely nothing. The bull was 110% determined to get over or through that fence, whatever it took.

And eventually he did. Even though the fence was sharp and spiny barbwire, he risked getting tangled and even ending his life to jump the fence and chase the heifers for 30 seconds of pleasure. It didn’t matter what my dad said. Even though he was looking out for not only the bull but for the heifers, their calves, and the bull’s owner, too (because once the calves are born it becomes an issue figuring out who they belong to), even though he was doing all that, the bull couldn’t hear him because he wasn’t my dad’s bull.

“I assure you: Anyone who doesn’t enter the sheep pen by the door but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t recognize the voice of strangers.”

When my dad has his cattle breed, he’s intentional about it. He keeps the bull separate from the cows until the right time so that when the babies are born, they’re set up for success. It’s not to limit the cows and keep them from pleasure, but to look out for their best interest and well-being, as well as their babies’. The whole thing is incredibly deliberate–no sneakiness, no tricks, no lies, just honesty and openness and care.

I think Jesus thinks of sex the same way.

We want to do it our way, when we want it, where we want it, how we want it, not listening to what he says. But if we’re honest, truly full pleasure, truly fulfilled intimacy is only achieved at the right time, in the right setting. Sex is for marriage. That intimacy is unparalleled, and God knows it. In scriptures like 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 He’s warning us, “Don’t jump that fence! You’ve been given a time and place to experience that pleasure and intimacy, and it’ll be given again in the future! If you jump now, not only will you risk hurting yourself, there are so many others’ lives you’re affecting, too. I love you. I care about you, all of you. Listen to me.”

But if we’re not spending time hearing what His voice sounds like, actually acting like we’re His, how are we going to hear him when we’re ready to risk it all for thirty seconds of pleasure?

It takes time. It takes effort. If we’ve accepted His free gift of grace on the cross and in the empty tomb, we’ll be with Him in paradise but to know Him and to hear His voice in the darkness today, we need to listen in the places He’s already spoken, like His Word.

That bull made it over the fence. He bred something like 15 to 20 of our heifers. Most of their calves died that winter.

The decisions we make when we think we’re in the dark, we think we’re alone, and that no one else will be affected reach much farther than we could ever imagine.

For the millions of people out there who are struggling with lust, pornography, masturbation, premarital sex, and all other kinds of sexual immorality, listen to me:

I get it.

I’ve been there.

Heck, I am there.

It’s not bad that life is stressful and you want a break from it. It’s not bad that since you feel like people don’t like you then all you really want is to feel good about yourself–to feel powerful. It’s not bad that you desire intimacy and pleasure.

All of those desires are good desires. What is not good is when we think that porn, sex with our girlfriend/boyfriend, or anything else that isn’t Jesus will meet those needs.

They won’t.

Like, ever.

Think about the shame and humiliation that always follows. We can’t escape it.

But when we fix our eyes on Jesus by waking up every single morning and deciding every single hour to commit all over again to fight for Him, filling our minds with His promises by memorizing scripture, and being real, open, and honest with those who are closest to us and that we know will tell us the absolute truth when we mess up, we will hear His voice when He calls us away from the fence and leads us right through the door to the real stuff. The good stuff. The best stuff.

Psalm 16 says “In His presence, there is fullness of joy, at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Who is at God’s right hand?

That’s right–Jesus.

In His presence, walking daily, hourly, heck, by the minute, with Him showers pleasure and joy like we could never imagine.