"Bubble Bobble Bad Words", *OR* "Rationalizing"

Should we try to rationalize the Bible when it doesn't make sense?

I've been a Christian for over half my life, and completely read through the Bible twice, not to mention the dozens of times I've re-read select parts of scripture as part of devotions or study. I still, and I'm sure this will continue for the rest of my life, come across things I'd forgotten with every reading. That, or I'll read a passage with the eyes of experiences, a little more spiritually mature than the last time I studied them.

And still I encounter passages that don't make sense or seem contradictory.

The Bible is truth. I have to believe that. If there were parts of it I chose to follow and parts I didn't, then it stops being truth and starts being God's Wikipedia page, free to be edited and glossed-over by whomever at their leisure. When I start picking 'good' scripture and 'bad' scripture, I literally believe in nothing.

But what do I do when I come across passages that seem contrary to my view of God?

The Bible says that God is full of compassion and slow to anger (Psalm 103:8). But, early Friday morning, I read a passage in Numbers (the most underrated book in the Bible, in my opinion) that left me confused and disturbed.

"The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punished children for the sins of their father to the third and fourth generation." (Num. 14:18)

Context is important. The context of the passage is one of the most famous in the Old Testament. After their rebellion and complaining, God determines that the Israelites aren't worthy to enter the land of plenty He's created for them, because of their rebellion and impertinence.

But even with context, the verse left me shaken. Is THIS the same God whom Jesus came in the name of? How can God punish children for sins their fathers committed, three and four generations down the line? What sin could possibly be so bad that great-grandchildren, who never even met the sinner need to be punished? What did they do to deserve that? How is that a God who the same verse says, 'abounds in love and forgiveness'?

I circled the passage and kept reading. A few verses down, I discovered this next passage:

"As for your children, that you said will be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you - your bodies will fall in this desert." (Num. 14:31)

In the context of the passage, this verse makes more sense. Only the generation of people who've rebelled and turned their backs on God will be punished. Their children will be given a chance to have the land that God promised them. Whew! That certainly makes me feel better. God won't punish the generations for the sins of their fathers after all.

But wait... which one is it? Do I serve a cruel God who punished straight down generational lines? Clearly both can't be true. Does this make God a liar? Does this mean the Bible contradicts itself?

Surely there was some way I could rationalize this. Some how, I could come up with a world view in which both statements were true, that sometimes God punishes later generations and sometimes He doesn't.

Which brings me back to my leading question: should I even try rationalizing the Bible when it doesn't make sense?

I must remember that God isn't like me. When I try to imagine God thinks like me, and I try to put context of what God does by imaging what I would do in the same situation, I am disempowering God to an insane degree. It's akin to trying to understand why a motorcycle works because I have the basic knowledge of how to get a tricycle to go. I understand they both have wheels and move me around... but the comparisons stop there.

My mind and God's mind have even less in common that the tricycle and the motorcycle. In order to understand anything about scripture, I have to first understand that it was first breathed by One higher than I. Second, I have to accept that when God speaks, he says what he means, and when He speaks through others, they say what He means, too. There's no room for rationalization. But it's possible to understand scripture without rationalize it. If it wasn't, there would be no point for God to leave scripture for us.

Without going too deeply into the theology of sin: sin and rebellion from God make us grow apart from Him. God doesn't wait for us to somehow purify our lives of sin before He reaches out to us and wants to form a relationship with us. God is not amused by sin, but he is not surprised by it, either. He desires to form a relationship with us in spite of our sins, knowing we will sin all our lives but desiring to start a fire in us that continually encourages us to leave our sin behind, to be in a process and attitude of repentance. From this, God can show us His will for our lives and help us live in the abundance of His love despite our sin.

It is in trading the desire of repentance for the desire of sin where the true danger lies.

I'm a father of three girls, and they do and repeat everything I do. Including the bad stuff. Faith loves to play the NES classic edition with me, and her favorite game is Bubble Bobble. She likes being the blue and purple dinosaur, and she likes we both can play at the same time and continue as many times as we want when we die.

The numbers in the lower corners are the lives each player has. They go quicker than you'd think. 

Dying is nothing in this game. It can happen dozens of times in a single level. But last night, when my little green dinosaur dropped after getting touched by a bad guy, I let a bad word slip. 

It was quiet. I don't even think Faith heard. But Hillary was sitting in the room with us. And she heard, and gave me a look to let me know that she'd heard.

We don't curse around our children. It's not something I want to teach them them to do. But Hillary's look told me everything I needed to know about that situation. I had not only possibly taught my daughter a bad word, but, even worse, I'd taught her that it was completely appropriate to use it in a situation where things didn't go quite as you'd like.

Parenting is a big deal in my life. It should be, in the life of anyone who's really trying not to screw up their kids. It's a massive responsibility, as pointed out by God several times in the Bible (and demonstrated by God with his own Son). Provided she even heard it, I don't think one curse word is enough to turn Faith onto a path of destruction in her life. But it would be naïve of me to think that my words and actions aren't going to mold her future attitudes and behaviors.

What my children see in me now, for better or for worse, it going to affect what they do and say. And that, in turn, will mold their own children. And their children's children. If we as parents aren't careful, the sins of the father can literally become the sins of the children. And then my children really will be experiencing the fallout from my sins, to the third and fourth generation.

I'm not a believer in God's cosmic "slap-on-the-wrist", that He physically punishes our sin here on earth. If that were the case, wicked people would always get their comeuppance, like the bullies in an 80's teen movie. And we all know that's not the case, because bad people prosper all the time in this world. Real punishment from sin is what sin creates in our lives: separation from God. It fills our ears with spiritual cotton, preventing us from hearing God's voice. It covers our eyes with spiritual cataracts, blinding us to the beauty of God's creation and the splendor of what He's blessed us with. Worst of all, it creates distance between the only One we were ever truly meant to have relationship with. When we are separated from God by sin, we cannot live the life of the fullest that Jesus desires to bring us.

Those are the consequences our children may have to face because of our sins.

This post has gotten pretty heavy. They tend to, whenever I talk about parenting. But the beauty in this is that God doesn't expect us to go through the struggles of life and the pitfalls of parenting alone. Remember, even though the Israelites turned their backs on Him, God never abandoned them. Even though they had to wander in the desert because of their poor choices, He still provided for them.

No matter what trolls on the internet try to say, the Bible doesn't contradict itself. God has provided Truth for us because He is a God of order and not of chaos. The Bible does not need to be rationalized to be understood, but it does need to be studied, prayed over, discussed with spiritual friends, and experienced in real life to be understood. It takes a lifetime of careful, conscious effort.

Faith likes to play Bubble Bobble because we can continue as many times as we like if we lose all our lives. Much like the video game, God gives us as many chances as necessary for us to return to Him, as long as we continue to live in an attitude of repentance.

Just watch your language. And write down those passwords! 

Father's Day: Introspective stuff (or, "Manning Up")

I just celebrated my fourth Father's Day, and this one was the busiest yet. Actually, the last few months have been the busiest of my life, what with the birth of Elliot Katherine Smith in October of 2016. I can count on one hand the number of full nights of sleep Hillary and I have gotten in the last eight months, but it's been the most amazing eight months of my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

In fact, I wouldn't trade the last four years for anything, either.

Three years ago, Hillary and I were preparing for our wedding. As such, her daughters, soon to be my daughters, needed a name to call me. They'd been calling me 'Graham' for over a year, and although that had been fine when Hillary and I had been dating, it just didn't have the feeling that any of us wanted. 'Daddy' was already taken... so Faith, and by proxy, Zoe, since at that time Zoe wanted to do whatever Faith was doing, decided I would be called "Dad."

So even before Hillary and I were married, I became Dad. I officially had kids.

This was what was waiting for me when I came home from a mission trip to Guatemala that summer. Tears were shed. 

Fast forward a few years, and my life looks completely different than anything I ever planned. Hillary and I survive one miscarriage and then have Ellie Kate. She turns out to be absolutely amazing, and the cutest baby that has ever lived. Yes, I'm biased, but I am more than willing to back that statement up with independent research 

Good luck to anyone else vying for the title. This is your competition. 

I was lucky enough to spend Father's Day weekend not only with my father, but all three of my children, since other concerned parties asked to have the entire weekend free because of previously arranged engagements. More power to ME: I couldn't think of any other people I'd rather spend Father's Day weekend with.

And what commenced was a lot of swimming, playing, and all-around fun. And one big reminder that I am, without a doubt, the most blessed man on the face of the earth.

Last night, as I was feeding Ellie Kate her bedtime bottle and rocking her to sleep, I noticed a printed canvas that sat on her bookshelf. You all know the kind: there are hundred of them at Hobby Lobby, with fun and inspirational sayings printed on them. This one had been in Ellie Kate's nursery since we'd brought her home, but I don't think I'd read it until that very moment (it had been partially covered by "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"). I'm not sure when we bought this particular canvas, or if someone bought it for us, but here's what it says, in white letters on a pink field:

Read me a story 

and tuck me in tight. 

Tell me you love me 

and kiss me goodnight. 

I've shed a lot of tears over my kids already, even in the short time they've been in my life. But as I held the baby in my arms and read this, really read it, I had to bite my lip to keep the tears back as I faced a truth that I'd always known. It had been easy to ignore in the eight months since we'd brought Ellie Kate home, because of the breakneck pace that life has taken, but in that quite moment I was forced to confront it. 

I only have a short time to influence this little life before she steps into a harsh, bleak world. The world will not tell her she is loved, will not look out for her best interests, will not care whether she is happy or fed or encouraged. The world, given the chance, would chew her up and spit her out like it had millions before her. 

How long do I have? Ten years, before her friends suddenly have more influence than me? Ten years before me telling her "I love you" isn't enough for her to realize that she's beautiful, that she's amazing and special and perfect just the way she is? 

Even thinking back to the time that's already slipped away, the time I frittered away staying focused on keeping diapers clean and getting her to sleep through the night and moving her from bottles to baby food, without realizing those were moments I'd never get back... I realized I'd already lost so much time. 

And then I thought about Faith and Zoe, the older girls, and I got really horrified. 

Already, Faith is reaching the age where she'd rather spend time alone in her room with a piece of technology than with her mother and I. She's EIGHT. And if this is what she'd rather do, I have no one to blame but myself: if I want to encourage her to spend time with me now, and to foster the necessity for quality time so she'll still want me in her life when she's a teenager, I need to get off my butt and invest in her NOW. I know there are already voices from outside her, pulling her this way and that: and if you have a child around the same age and you think your kids are immune, PLEASE don't fool yourself. It starts earlier now than it did when we were kids. 

And Zoe... sweet, little Zoe... all she wants is someone to play with her. Legos. Play-Doh. Doc McStuffins. Dinosaurs. It doesn't matter to her. If you sit in her room and play with her, you're her best friend. 

How much time have I already missed with these girls? I've only been in their lives for four years, which means I'm already behind the curve. How often have they needed my time and attention, and I've simply been too hard-headed to notice and offer myself to them? It's not THEIR responsibility to seek me out for me to invest in them: It's up to ME to intentionally invest in these kids. 

Maybe I'm agonizing too much about this. After all, I don't *think* there's anything wrong with the time I spend playing video games, or watching TV, or goofing around on the Internet. I don't think too many of these opportunities have slipped through my fingers yet. But if I don't let myself become a little paranoid - if I'm not constantly on the look-out for every opportunity to make sure my kids know how loved they are - I'm going to blink, and these important moments are going to be gone. 

Ellie Kate has already moved out of the Duckling Room at daycare. Now she's a Piglet. 

Faith has seen hundred of videos on Youtube Kids, the contents of which I am completely oblivious of. 

Zoe wasn't even verbal when I met her. Now she's reading three- and four-letter words. 

The Steve Miller Band lied. Time doesn't keep 'slipping' into the future. Time screams into the future like a meteor entering the atmosphere, and only when you take a look around do you realize how much time has passed and how old you really are. 

I know one thing for certain, though: without God's help, I'm never going to be able to make the most of my time with my three girls. If I focus too hard on them, make them the center of my life instead of Him, I'll end up elevating them to a place they were never supposed to be: as the center of my life. And, while this sounds appealing while they're small and sweet and cute and cuddly, I have to remember that I'm the one they're looking up to, and what I teach them matters. If I teach them that earthly relationships are what we should strive for, that it's okay to make another person a god in your life, that's the kind of relationships they're going to look for. 

And if I'm afraid now of having my hands full when they're teenagers... I'll really have my work cut out for me if the girls make every little boy they fall in love with the centers of their universes. 

One day, the girls are going to be grown. And the things I teach them now, when they're young, are going to matter. While it's vitally important that I show them love and affection and caring that only their daddy can provide, it's even more dire that I teach them there's Someone who loves them on a level that I could never even approach. That, no matter how much someone on earth says they love them, that Another loved them so much that He sacrificed everything to be with them.

They need to learn that there is such a thing as love that can never be taken away, love that never fails, that never grows old, that always fulfills. 

There's no way to slow down the rate at which the girls are growing up. The two older ones have already been through so much in their young lives. If I want to make sure I'm not royally screwing up this Daddy business, I'm going to have to keep my head on straight and keep my eyes on Jesus. We, as parents, are the first line of defense against the forces that do, and will forever, assail our children. 

Time to man up. 

"Overcompensating" OR "The Realm of Possibility"

I ran another marathon.

It's been more than a month since my last Runner Confidential, and in that post I talked about the process of training for this marathon. It chronicled my first marathon and how miserable it was, and I mentioned that, for the first time in my life, I was actually trying a marathon training plan.

I made that post before school started. Life has gotten a lot more complicated since then. The school year has gotten off to a good start, but it's definitely shaping up to be the most nose-to-the-grindstone year I've ever experienced. Getting to school early and staying late (and doing school work at home almost every night) has almost eliminated my ability to run in the mornings, and that's stymied the training plan I'd started.

But surely a few lackluster weeks of training wouldn't harm me that much. I'd still been putting in the weekly long runs, which are (arguably) the most important part of the training plan. And I'd been squeezing in training runs whenever I could. How much could my training have been affected?

Which brings us back to the marathon.

The Air Force Marathon on the Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, to be exact. Hillary and I drove to Dayton Friday evening, and after getting trapped at Wright State University's Nutter Center because of the 5K (they blocked the road that led out of the parking lot) and having to change hotels (our first one resembled something out of Silent Hill), we made it to Dayton.

After my last debacle of a marathon (see the last post, linked above), I'd made a list of things in my head that had gone wrong that I'd try my best to fix with this race.

Not eating enough carbs the night before? French toast dinner at Cracker Barrel.

Not enough food in my stomach before the race? I'd eat a bagel as I drove to the starting line.

Too dehydrated the night before? Drink water until my eyes felt like they were going to float out of my head.

Because of stringent parking regulations (and the promise that they'd once again close roads after the race started), Hillary couldn't drop me off at the starting line. Which really stunk, because her support and encouragement is one of the driving factors of my life. The thought of starting a race without a send-off from her was downright depressing. But she also needed her sleep, and I didn't want her to have to sit around, twiddling her thumbs at the starting line, waiting for them to reopen the roads.

So I let her sleep, and Saturday morning I drove myself to the Nation Museum of the United States Air Force. She wrote me the note above after I'd gone to bed. She was up later than me because she was feeling horrible and had to drive to the nearest Wal-Mart to get some medicine, but she was still thoughtful enough to leave this for me. It's reasons like this that make me the luckiest guy in the world.

And this was the only picture I took at the race that morning. Can you believe it? I was surrounded by huge, decommissioned United States Air Force planes, and I took a picture of the stupid port-o-potty. I think I got a kick of their spelling "clean" with a K. 

The race was delayed half an hour. Hillary later told me it was because of lightning, but I'm pretty sure they had a hard time getting everyone parked in time for the marathon to begin. 

At 8:00AM, I started running. 

I should have known from the beginning that something was wrong because my headphones didn't work correctly. I shouldn't have been surprised; they were a cheap pair American Airlines gave me for free when Hillary and I flew to Canada in July. From the start of the race, sound only came out of one ear bud. Although whether it was the right or left ear bud that worked kept alternating, there was never a point when both worked at the same time. 

But that wasn't a big deal. No one's marathon time has ever been ruined because of faulty earbuds. But someone's marathon time (namely, MINE) had been ruined because of dehydration. Forget that dehydration was to blame for my feeling awful after the Flying Pig Marathon last May; I did NOT want to be in that boat when the race ended.

Water station at mile 1? I wasn't about to pass it up. So I drank.  

Lack of nutrients also ruined me last time. So mile 3 seemed like a great place to eat my first energy gel, which I'd crammed into the tiny pocket on my running shorts. 

Another water station? I'd better have Gatorade this time, to make sure I'm replenishing sodium and electrolytes. 

My hamstrings are hurting at mile 10? I should wait until at least the halfway point to take my Tylenol and use my Icy Hot (also crammed into the tiny pocket). That way they have a better chance of lasting longer. 

Mile 13 approached. I thought I was doing pretty good. I mean, my hamstrings were getting sorer by the mile at that point, and my feet were sore, but I thought that was to be expected. 

But at mile 14, the pains had gone from bad to worse. And mile 15, worse still. Until, by mile 16, it felt like someone was holding a blow torch on my hamstrings and had taken a hammer to my arches. So I allowed myself a little rest time, when I stopped my fitness watch and simply let myself be still for a few minutes. If I injured myself, not only would I not set a personal record, I may not finish at all. 

It was humid and hot in Dayton that day, even if it was very overcast. My mouth felt dry. So during this rest, I drank two cups of Gatorade at a water station, and ate a Nutra-Grain bar I'd stashed in the back of my compression sock (which isn't as gross as it sounds). 

After around 5 minutes, when I decided my rest was over, I tried to run again. But the rest hadn't helped at all. My arches and hamstrings felt as awful as before. And now I had a full stomach, which was starting to cramp, to add to the mix.

No problem, I thought. I'll just walk for a bit. Until I start to feel better.

And my walking break lasted for the next five miles.

It was around mile 19, when I once again tried to run and was forced back to an old-lady-speed-walking-around-the-mall pace, that frustration started to set in. I'd spent all that time training, reading, and working to make my marathon time better. For the first time, I'd actually listened to running experts and followed a plan. I'd prepared myself as best as I knew how, trying to learn from past mistakes and taking all the necessary precautions.

For what? For this? 

It wasn't until around mile 22 that I was finally able to incorporate some running back into my locomotion, and even then it was only for a half-mile at a time. I even psyched myself up to run the last mile of the marathon, when the Museum was back in sight and I could practically taste the free banana. And even then I had to slow to a walk mid-mile to get enough strength to carry on to the finish.

When all was said and done, I'd run the slowest marathon of my life: 5 hours, 35 minutes. Far worse than the Las Vegas marathon, the one where I'd clearly gone in over my head and had no idea what I was facing.

Of course, there were plenty of extenuating circumstances I tried to blame my poor time on. As I mentioned before, it was very humid that day. And, being that most of the course was around airfields, a 20 mph cross breeze almost constantly batted me around like a ping-pong ball. My shoes were at least 3 years old, which I could at least blame for my arch pain. And the intermittent rain showered the course for the final four miles.

But when the race was over and I had to drive myself back to the hotel (where poor Hillary had been trapped for the entire day), I was forced to face a fact that honestly hadn't occurred to me until that moment: that it may not be physiologically possible for me to run the Boston Marathon.

In order to qualify for Boston, I'd have to run a Boston qualifying marathon in under 3 hours, 5 minutes for my age group. And yes, I knew this starting the race. But I'd started the Air Force Marathon thinking that my efforts were going to have some measurable impact on my ability, would at least put this impossible goal a few inches closer.

Instead, the goal has been pushed farther away than ever.

When the race was over, before I got back to the hotel to rescue Hillary from her isolation, when I was alone with only my thoughts for company, I thought this would be a jagged pill to swallow. But it wasn't. In fact, the realization that Boston may be out of my reach didn't bother me much at all. We spent the rest of the day lazing around the hotel room, watching college football. After that, we had dinner at Smokey Bones (aww yiss), and then I went to bed with sore hamstrings and a smile on my face.

Shouldn't abandoning this dream... I don't know... hurt a little more?

But then I thought back to when I ran my first marathon, in 2012, as a metaphor of beginning my life again after my divorce. I didn't run that race with the intent of punishing myself into training oblivion. I ran it because I thought it looked like fun, and because I got to run it with one of my good friends. And I kept running marathons because I wanted to challenge myself. And because I liked the electric atmosphere that surrounds racing. And because I'm a glutton for cool-looking medals.

In fact, the more I thought about my "dream" of running Boston, the more it occurred to me that it wasn't much of a dream at all. More of an afterthought, a 'next logical step' to racing. I had planned it for myself because it was seemed to come next in a list of tasks, without bothering to think if it what what I really wanted.

And what I briefly considered a physical limitation - simply being physically unable to push my body to complete such a race in such a time - wasn't really worth getting bent out of shape over.

There's someone who, daily, reminds me of that lesson.

Even though I know it's unlikely, I hope she always stays so blissful. I hope Zoe always has such blind enthusiasm for life, always sees everyone as equals, and never lets the difference in her normal and her classmates' normal bring her down. I hope she continues to remind me how great God is, and how much He's given me, and to never take for it for granted.

And I hope I can provide a good example for her. I hope that I can show her that there's nothing wrong with striving to get better, with pushing your limits. But I also need to show her that there's no shame in admitting that something may be physically outside the realm of possibility. And that, as long as you're doing what you love and you can go to bed saying you did your best, nothing else really matters.

I like racing. I like the atmospehere, the way entire towns turn out to cheer the runners on, and I am a sucker for cool medals. Maybe I'll run Boston one day. Maybe I won't. Maybe one day I'll have to dial back my racing and stick to half-marathons, or 5Ks. Maybe I won't. When all is said and done, I won't remember much from each individual race; they're simply going to be reduced to a series of meals hanging on my wall and bibs stuffed in a drawer.

What IS going to endure is the way I conduct myself upon realizing that something may simply be beyond my power.

One thing's certain: I'm never going the route of 'drastic overcompensation' again.

(Someone remind me of this post if I want to buy a sports car when I turn 50).

As far as medals go, I think this is the largest one in my collection. That's not overcompensating, right? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?