QUARTER OF A CENTURY

I'm jumping on my soap box for my 25th birthday, grant me the freedom to expose some lessons I've learned short life.

Its been a great ride, I can't believe my odometer is turning over to 25. I hope you don't mind, I'm going to step onto my soapbox for a moment to write about some things I've learned in my last few years on this planet.

First, the world we live in is hurting, and lying to itself about the solution while slowly drinking itself under the table. Its marching in its own funeral procession. Why? Well, that answer is very obvious...we are trying to define ourselves without God.

We teach our children that they are intelligent monkeys, they're smart, but ultimately animals. We teach them their existence is by random accident and that coincidence is the mother of all creation. As Dawkins is fond of saying, "We are just dancing to your DNA". We teach that life is about what makes you happy, so you better find what makes you happy because when you die, you fall into the black abyss of nothingness. We teach that we should love people, and use things, but we love things and use people.

In doing so, we strip ourselves of our human dignity, our human value given to us by a loving, caring Creator. We take that which is intrinsically woven into our spirit and cast it into the dirt. We trade the beautiful truth for rags, and we proudly wave the banner of rags over our heads as we shout freedom.

And yet, there is this part of each of us that understands there is more to life then life itself. There is this aspect of our life that cannot be mathematically measured nor scientifically observed. We understand the value of love without knowing its currency, the destruction of hate without the ability to quantify it.

Yet, we keep on marching into the future with our feet firmly planted in mid-air. And so a poet writes this,

First dentistry was painless, then bicycles chainless, soon the carriage was horseless and many laws enforce less. Next cookery was fíreless, telegraphy was wireless, cigars were nicotenless, coffee cafineless. It was not long before oranges were seedless and the potting green was weed less, the college boy was hatless, the proper diet fatless. New motor roads are dustless the latest steel is rustless, our tennis courts are sod less and our new religion.... godless.

What is purpose, where are we going, what is our creed, who are we? As long as we continue to exchange the beauty of God for the rags of modernism and relativism, we will continue to drift afloat in the ocean devoid of meaning.

Well, world, good luck with this endeavour, but I will not be joining you. Go on believing you are a highly evolved animal, I happen to have realized in my 25 years that I am a creation of God, a uniquely crafted being with intrinsic value apart from my ability to produce, think, perform, or impress. I have found my value in Christ and I have been liberated from the drudgery of life. I have been restored from the ravages of a broken world....and you know what, I hope you have or will one day realize the same thing.