The Golden Idol of Apathy

I asked God to divert my anger and sorrow away from things that don't matter - Kanye West's rantings, Green Day being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame before Deep Purple and Cheap Trick, the fury of Bernie vs. Hillary - to things that do matter.
So, this month, He allowed me to somehow injure my back, my prescription drug plan to change so that my medications would cost more than I can afford every month, that my most important medication would not be covered at all, so that I'd lose it completely, and that my glasses would break, and I'd not be able to afford new ones.

In the book of Daniel, three men of God, about to be cast into a furnace for refusing to worship Babylonian idols, said, "our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up."

In my case, the false gods and gold images with which I'm tempted are in the form of bitterness and disbelief in God, for allowing me to suffer - which is something He never promised we would be exempt from. I've never understood the thought that "bad things happen, so there must be no God." For this to hold merit or logic, God would have to have first promised that He would protect us from the smallest to the most bone-chilling of horrors - which He has not promised. "If x is y, then x cannot be z" does not work here. He has not sworn to wrap us in bubble wrap to protect us from life's everyday trials and tragedies, nor has He bound us in a moral straight jacket that prevents us from committing wrongs that hurt others - slightly or severely. And I'm glad He hasn't - would love be love with the grueling effort, to choose it?
Instead, God promises us reconciliation to Him through His Son Christ Jesus, who suffered unimaginably on the cross so that we could each be offered the gift of eternal life and a personal relationship with Him - but not without suffering and sorrow on Earth. He has promised to comfort us in the midst of terrors, to give us strength when it seems the world is pitch black in darkness, to give us wisdom and discernment when we seek Him in hope, in desperation, in fear, or in confidence.

God has broken no contract in which He promised protection from each hardship and horror. He has not wronged me in the 29 years I've been alive, and I will not turn away from Him to serve the comfort of apathy, cynicism, and anger. Lord, make these words not boastful, but keep Your hand and on my heart; let me never stray from You to serve what is hopeless and bitter, but to minister to those in sorrow and pain - as You've commanded each of us who believe.

Good gosh I'm interesting.

"Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls—
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The LORD God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills."
-Habakkuk 3:17-19

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-29-15: "A Foreign Hunger"

"...on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." -Matthew 16:18

This may sound melodramatic - and I could always be wrong - but I believe Christianity is slowly entering an age where it is most embraced, most sincerely practiced, in those places in the world we often (sometimes carelessly) call "less fortunate." Countries that don't have a cupful of the luxuries we enjoy in America and most of Europe.
I believe one of the reasons for this is the appearance of evil in America - how we in the States perceive evil, what we label to be harmful. Diligent Christians in America are used to the tactic of evil being disguised as things that are good and beneficial - Black Friday is a great example. The media encourages self-indulgence to sell products and rake in money, and we as Christians have to be very discerning in America to see what is noble and what is not. What is truly good, not selfishness disguised as prosperity, liberty, and health.

But in countries like Somalia, Sudan, Syria, evil is not a wolf in a sheep's disguise, but a wolf in a wolf's combat fatigues.

People in the violent slums of the world are so used to being blatantly oppressed, tortured, used, killed, that they know evil when they see it. Therefore, when they're told about the light of Jesus, there's no mire of luxury and worldliness to obscure it. There's no comfort in the ways of the world to deceive them, at least not as easily as it does in America. There's no "prosperity gospel" nonsense, no schisms of theologies to muddle the message. People who are oppressed know that the world is an ugly place, and the beauty of the Gospel is such a stunning, stark contrast.

I believe the difference between hearers of the Gospel in America and hearers in deprived nations harkens to the words of a man named Agur in the book of Proverbs: "Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches - feed me with the food allotted to me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, 'Who is the LORD?' Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God."
I think so many in America have filled our bellies and forgotten God - or have become so bitter by hardship that we say "to hell with it" and outright curse the name or notion of God. Those in other countries, however, seem to be in some sort of strange middle ground; they're certainly not rich, but even as hungry and deprived as they are, they're even hungrier for truth and light.

They're not more willing to accept Jesus Christ because they're gullible - they're willing to accept Him because they see evil more plainly, more nakedly, because they see the works of the ruler of this world so much clearer than we can in the comfort and haze of so many worldly mirages. Therefore to them, the goodness of Jesus is all the more radiant. Those in the countries where the stars seem to never shine are not more willing to accept Jesus Christ because they're uneducated, because they'll worship anything - they're willing to accept Him because they see so many lies and the destruction they cause that they so much more clearly recognize the truth, and rejoice much more in the light it shines.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." -John 3:19-21

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." -Matthew 24:14

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-15-15: "I Saw It On TV"

If asked to give a reason as to why I believe the entirety of God's word, this book we came to call the Bible, to be the absolute truth, I suppose one of my answers would be that I've seen it all unfold before me on television.
The Bible is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, and it peddles no easy answers. It promises persecution and hardship for those who zealously believe and proclaim it, and assures us that evil lies in the hearts of humanity, as our race chooses every day to disavow and disobey the loving and merciful Christ through whom we were formed. I've seen people do hideous things even in His name, blaspheming their Creator who despises such violence and corruption.

On TV, I've seen President Kennedy shot down in Dallas by a confused, aspiring revolutionary. I've seen men fight in Vietnam and be spat upon by their countrymen upon returning home, called "babykillers" by those who claimed to love peace. I've seen masked men kill hostages in Munich during the Olympics. I've seen politicians and trusted public servants lie under deposition when accused of wrongdoing. I've seen a twisted man bent on revenge for what went down at the compound in Waco blow up a building and kill children in Oklahoma City. I've seen planes flown into the World Trade Center towers by suicidal maniacs. I've seen a deranged twenty-year-old man enter a school in Connecticut and slaughter teachers and children; I then saw other mad men deny the first mad man ever existed. I saw one hundred twenty people robbed of their lives in Paris by men who gave themselves the right with bullets and hatred.

And, on TV, I've seen a child called Genie raised in isolation for thirteen years, a child developmentally disabled by abuse, who could not speak, delight in laughter and joy at the sight of helium balloons; I saw her use her hands to communicate, sign language that opened her heart to those around her.
On TV, I saw men and women in New York City risk their lives and abandon their own safety to rescue others in the midst of raining rubble as towers collapsed behind them. I saw a Holocaust victim named Eva Kor forgive and embrace a former SS bookkeeper, Oskar Gröning, at his trial, encouraging him to continue to tell the truth about an atrocity that many deny ever took place. I saw Amish men and women extend forgiveness to a deviant who entered their schoolhouse and executed their daughters; I saw one Amish man embrace the gunman's father. I saw men, victims of prejudice, released from prison for murders they did not commit, freed by DNA, by truth, and by faith, against all odds, against all hope.

On TV, I've seen human beings do the evil that only comes from hating and rejecting the love of God, the love He instills even in those who don't believe He could do so. And I've seen the good that can only come from Him, in the midst of the ugliness in this world, good and mercy so alien to us fleshly, greedy, angry, creatures who desperately need our Savior. You don't have to take my word for it, but I tell you, I've seen it in person, right before my very eyes. And what I wasn't there to see, I saw it on TV.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings."
-Jeremiah 17:9-10

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-25-15: "God's Will"

One of the "Christian terms" some believers use the most carelessly, without prayer or much discernment, is "God's will." Some even use it as a means to comfort others when someone else has done some horrible thing. "It was God's will" - as if God approves of us doing sinful and destructive things to hurt others and ourselves. When a woman discovers her husband to be unfaithful, there are some who would say, "It was God's will." No, it wasn't God's will that the woman's husband spit on their marriage.

I was doing some research on mass murderers for a YouTube video I recorded about the gun control debate. I read about James Oliver Huberty, who in 1984 killed twenty-one people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California. When Huberty was a child, his mother claimed she had received a "calling" from God to leave her family and become a sort of street preacher. The abandonment by his mother devastated Huberty, and he spent his childhood - most of his entire life - sullen, angry, and in pain.
I've often said: in His grace, God often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.

God can call us to do some very seemingly crazy things. He called the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, as a message to disobedient Israel, who had repeatedly turned away from God, who remained loyal.
God called another great prophet, Jeremiah, to wear a yoke around his neck as a sign to Judah, whose apostasy would lead to their destruction by the Babylonians, and who scoffed at the idea of wearing the "yoke" of Babylon for their own good, denying that Jerusalem could be taken by any foreign nation.
God called the apostles to proclaim the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ in decadent Rome, telling them beforehand that they would be persecuted and killed for doing so.
God can, and will, call us to do some daunting, weird, and frightening things. But He will never call us to sin.

James Huberty's mother's calling to preach may have been from God, but it was not His will that she abandon her son, leaving him to become a bitter loner. God does not contradict Himself, and being perfect, He cannot - He is so pure and good that He is incapable of it. Though we often wait for God, who sometimes remains silent for a season, as we wonder what He wants us to do, what His will for us is, though we often go days or years without answers, we can be sure that He will never call us to do wrong, to do that which is of the devil, who only seeks to "steal, kill, and destroy."
We can be sure God's will includes abundant love and mercy, that His will calls us to show such things, love and mercy so alien to our natural, fleshly state. We can be sure God's will includes sacrifice, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, for the sake of blessing others. We can be sure God's will includes His goodness shining through us, so that we may be a light to the world.

So, while sometimes we feel "in the dark" about God's will, we can be sure it has no association with the works of darkness, and that His light casts every shadow from among those who believe and diligently seek Him.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 7-19-15: "High People in Low Places"

Courtesy National Geographic

During the turbulent period of the kings of Israel and Judah, there rose an idolatrous practice in which worshipers of false gods would perform their rituals almost exclusively on altars built on mountains and hills (often called "the high places" in the Bible). They did this in the belief that being at a higher place made one physically closer to their god.

In contrast to the true God, however, it is at our lowest that we can worship Him fully and embrace His promises with joy; when we are humbled, when we are defeated, when we are persecuted and downtrodden, when we cry out amidst the cries and screams of terror in this world that we need His strength to help us back to our feet, out of the deepest, darkest places of the human heart and imagination. We are grateful to have a Christ who is with us not just in any geographical height or depth, but who loves us and strengthens us in lows, valleys, ditches, and trenches that are physical, emotional, spiritual.

OHMS,

Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:37-39

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 7-12-15: "Zephyrinus Blues"

Though not Catholic, my parents considered naming me Zephyrinus, who was bishop of Rome from A.D. 199-217. My mother was moved by his suffering and persistence in battling many heresies that were growing within the Church, specifically the "adoptionism" heresy. But, my parents settled on Bud, as St. Bud of Macedonia was known for his hygiene.

This led me to read about Zephyrinus, and his devotion to keeping the Gospel from the mire and manipulation of men. His experience is a testament to the fact that anyone who proclaims the truth of Christ will not have an easy time of it. After all, if everyone likes what you're preaching, you're probably not preaching the truth. Jesus never promises us cushy lives as His disciples - He promises the opposite. I thank God that He does not shelter us from the hard facts of life.

The Bible tells us we are Christ's "ambassadors," quite an important office. Like Zephyrinus, who himself had a high office but didn't resign to complacency concerning the Gospel, so should we, in our undeserved but awesome job as heralds of Christ, always expect and embrace suffering, and trust God to mold it into a testament to the beautiful truth we proclaim.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

PS Though he did not die a martyr's death, Zephyrinus was for a long time listed in the Catholic canon of martyrs (and is still acknowledged by some), for the spiritual and emotional anguish he endured in combating heresy. The word "martyr" means "witness." And though not all of us in Christ's flock will be literally put to death for our belief in Him, if we suffer with the same meekness and faith as Zephyrinus, we are witnesses indeed, and provide a stirring testimony for the God who gives us such strength.

"Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us." -Hebrews 11:36-40

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." -Winston Churchill

God's Job

I've been judged by many people in many hypocritical ways, but I suspect nothing compares to being judged like God is judged - by an inaccurate description we've created of Him, by the cramped box we've tried to fit Him in, rather than by His true nature, character, and by the very words He's spoken.

Among the most irksome reasons one can hear for a disbelief in God is, "Bad things happen." Which of course holds no philosophical water, as God's job has never been to keep us happy, or to keep the world healthy and clean. It's not even a Scriptural truth. In fact, before sin entered the world, and we people began turning the planet into, literally, a world of hurt, it was still not God's job to make everything comfortable - it was man to whom He gave the directive to tend the Garden and keep out lying intruders. And we all know how man did with that task.

Nor is God's job to, in a matter of will over will, change the already-made-up mind of the public shooter or the power hungry dictator. It is however among His sovereign duties to judge them for their actions and choices with divine and holy judgment. I realized long ago that if God did not allow bad things into the world - or, rather, allow people to choose to do bad things to each other - He wouldn't be able to give you and I the beautiful and glorious task of doing good things. And if He, in some trump of will, made us all do good all the time, would our good really be good? Wouldn't it be as fleeting as a blink or a breath?

It is not God's job to make people treat each other fairly, or to make sure every exchange and transaction between people is fair - don't tell God, who sent His sinless Son to die for my sins, about what's "fair."

One of God's chores is, I suppose, to keep things running; the weather, biology, time, all of those vast things we humans can't control, try as we might.
But even more vast than those things too lofty for me to comprehend is something even more puzzling to me and my bitterness - love. And God did His job, kept every promise in every prophecy He ever gave the prophets to utter, when He came to this earth in the flesh. He did His job to the fullest when He gave a Savior to be the perfect Atonement, the punishment for the sins of all who would be willing to accept that this Messiah took on Himself the very literal wrath of God, so that we who bemoan the injustices in this world without doing a thing to cure them, would be free from that wrath and given to a life under His grace - even the shooter and the dictator could have the gift of grace and cleansing of evil.

That's God's job. To love us, though we have turned His creation into a smoking, fuming globe of waste. But this job was certainly not something owed to us, definitely not something we deserved. It is a job He gave Himself, because no one else could. And He exemplified His job when He, in human flesh, let His hands be stretched out and nailed to an ugly stake of capital punishment. A part of love is keeping promises - He's promised to return someday, and that you and I who believe will spend eternity with Him, where this love is never approached by the darkness of doubt, of prejudice, of bitterness.