Fighting for Reality

A couple years ago, I shared a devotional with my fellow staff members at Carson Simpsons Farm, the summer day camp I worked at for four summers. The devotional was based around the plot of the matrix, and I tied that into a biblical view of life. And the more I live my life, and see how God works in the world, the more parallels I see with that film and real life. Now obviously anyone who has seen the movie and done even a bit of research will want to tell me that the creators of the Matrix borrowed from many different religious and philosophical schools, and the film is in no way a truthful, correct Christian movie. And I understand those objections. But even so, it's almost, dare I say, providential that God allowed this film to be made. I don't think it's coincidence that so many Christians see the biblical nature of the film, and I wouldn't be surprised if I heard of hundreds of testimonies as to how the Matrix was a tool God used to draw them to Himself.

Now why am I bringing up the Matrix so randomly. It's been a while since I last watched the film. But my life, and particularly my reflections and meditations on God have led me to conclusions that seem strikingly similar to the themes presented in the Matrix.

The big theme I see over and over again in the film, and in life, is the struggle to control, and dominate the mind. Our thoughts. There is very little we do, in a moral sense that is, that doesn't pass through our minds at some point. Our mind is the source of all our actions, the ones that will be judged that is. It is the gateway or channel by which the gospel of Jesus Christ is recieved. Without the mind, we can not process what we hear? And if we can not process the gospel truth through our minds, then we can not possibly say that we have any capability of accepting that truth.

Romans 10:14 "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"

There are three questions raised in that verse where the mind is an essential and implicit factor in salvation. We can't believe or make any sense out of our hearing without a mind to interpret and respond to the message. I wonder how often Christians think about the vital role that the mind plays in a Christian's life. Usually I only hear about the heart, our deisres. Now people may want to debate the relationship between our heart and mind, but scriptures seems to find some difference between them.

Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'..." Why would he make an effort to make a distinction between the heart and mind if they were the same thing? Why make sure to mention both? I wonder if it's because so often we neglect the spiritual health and vitality of our minds, thinking that they don't play as serious of a role as our hearts perhaps.

Now to say that the mind and the heart are two seperate functions of our being does not mean that they act independently of each other. On the contrary, the very interwoven nature of the two is why it is so utterly crucial that we take time to nurture, and care for each. When one suffers, so the other does as well. It's similar to the body and soul relationship. We do not deny that our physical health has a direct correlation with our emotional status. When I'm healthy, I'm generally pretty happy. But when I'm sick, I'm generally prone to depression and distrust in my circumstances.

Thus it goes with the mind and heart as well. As I've mentioned before, our heart is so crucial to our faith. A faith or trust in God that has no affection for Christ is dead. A mere head-knowledge of our savior and Lord will bring no one into the kingdom. The heart must be fought for. But how is that fight waged? How do we bring our hearts into conformity with the gospel? How do we come to love the things that God loves, and hate the things that he hates. How do we see him each day as more beautiful, and more satifying that all of the temptations that scream in our ears from morning till night. I believe that this war is largely waged on the battlefield of our minds.

Our minds, if you like imagry, are perhaps like filters to our hearts. The mind only lets the heart engage with what it will allow it to recieve. The heart reacts to the things our minds are engaged with. If we engage our minds with only trivial ideas and matters, the heart has very little to work with there. And yet, the heart must love. The heart must ache for desires. The heart must attach itself to...something. And thus, if you only feed your heart with garbage, the heart will learn to love that garbage. The heart will see that garbage as food to nurish itself, unaware that that filth is slowly destorying it. Speaking at least personally, the heart to me seems pretty stupid, while the mind tends to be the more intelligent partner in this relationship. There's a lot of things I know in my mind, that I just can't seem to get my heart to go on board with. At the same time, there are a lot of things are know are pretty stupid, and yet my heart tells me that these stupid things are of the utmost importance, and all-satisfying.

So, if we recognize the weakness of the heart, we must take some huge steps to helping it out. Now, please let me clarify something here. When I say that the heart is stupid, I don't deny the fact that when Christ enters the heart, the heart immediately gets incredibly wise beyond all nature, and affirms the truth that Jesus is all satisfying. But with that said, the heart is still so easily swayed by sin. So I just wanted to clarify by saying that I believe that every human heart, at it's core, understands that only Jesus can satisfy it's deepest longings and desires.

Now back to the fight. Basically the point of this blog is to awaken us to the fact that for the sake of our hearts and minds, we must fight to see REALITY each and every day. Now what do I mean by reality? I would like to break up reality into two subcategories. The first one would be "normal reality," or "seemingly tangible reality." The second category I would like to present would be "ultimate reality." The clearest example I can see for this is in the gospel of John. Over and over again, Christ makes this distinction between the seemingly tangible reality, and ultimate reality.

The first example is with Jesus and the woman at the well. He says to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you(H) living water." 11The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12(I) Are you greater than our father Jacob?

Then later he tries to explain to her one more time, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of eternal life." Then the woman responds to him by saying, "Sir,(N) give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."

So twice Jesus explains to her about the living water, and both times she misses it. Jesus also talks to Nicodemus about being born again, and Nicodemus questions about the logistics of how someone can "physically" be born again. He asks Jesus if someone can enter into their mother's womb a second time. And then again in John 6, Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life, but all the people want is physical bread for tomorrow. Then once he starts talking about having to eat his body and drink his blood they say that that's just way too difficult for them and most of them walk away.

John gives us three very concrete, clear examples of how people so often miss ultimate reality, and only go as deep as the surface realities. Now as learned, well-read, enlightened 21st century Christians, many probably would mock Nicodemus, the woman and the disciples saying how foolish they were not to see the obvious truth behind Jesus' message. And yet, I believe we are probably more guilty of this error than any three of them were. And I believe we are guilty of it each and every day. Let me explain how.

Let's just clarify two things here really quickly. When I say "ultimate reality," I'm referring to Jesus. When I say "normal reality", I'm referring to everything else. Our health, relationships, work, hobbies, clothes, appetites, everything. Now I will not go on to say that "normal reality" is bad or should be avoided. Not at all. But never-the-less, it isn't ultimate, and something that's ultimate should by the very definition of ultimate, be of greatest importance.

But there's a problem we face. While Jesus is the much more infinitely valuable reality in our lives, he is much much smaller and seemingly unattainable than the normal realities of life. No matter who you are, I think if people were honest, it's much easier and quicker to respond to and act on our desire for the hamburger, than it is to go read our Bible and spend time with the ultimate reality, Jesus! It's much easier to devote large portions of our day to seeking our trivial information like gossip among friends, catching up on the football games, or watching the Simpsons (that last one would be me), than it is to meditate and study the scriptures.

And it's because Jesus is smaller in our lives than he should be. And to some extent, understandably. We can't see Jesus. We can't touch Jesus. We can't audibly hear his voice. And yet we can see people, movies, friends, advertisements, posters, billboards, and so on. The fact is that normal reality is so easy to grasp and attain, and understand, but ultimate reality is so difficult to get a hold of and understand.

And if normal reality is much easier to understand and experience, it will also be that much more easily satisfying. It will seem that much more immediately gratifying. But if ultimate reality is more hidden, where we see it through a glass darkly, it becomes that much more difficult to delight in and take pleasure in.

But here is the paradox. Jesus, ultimate reality is INFINITELY more to be desired and satisfying than all other reality. He is a fountain of pleasure that satisfies the soul in deeper ways than anything else could ever do. He is more gratifying, and more delightful than every single normal pleasure combined. In fact, normal reality was created for the very purpose of pointing us to the ultimate reality. And the pleasures of normal reality were created for the sole purpose of pointing us to the ultimate pleasures that are only found in Jesus!

So we have this paradox at work. The biggest reality in the world often seems like the smallest. And the reality that often seems the least desirable, is the one that is most fulfilling. Let's go back to John for a moment.

Those people were totally set on normal reality. All they wanted was food and water. They could care less about eternal truths. The screams of normal reality were so loud, that the ultimate truth of Jesus was inaudible to them. Their minds' filters were blocking out all eternal truth, so their hearts weren't getting any of Jesus.

In the same way, we too are so often held back in our desires, because our minds are focused on the wrong things. I believe the Christian life is all about a struggle each and every day to see reality as it really is. To see Jesus! We have to fight to see Jesus everywhere we go and in every moment of our lives. We need to fight to see Jesus in our homes, at work, at restaurants, at movies, and dare I say it even at church. Because there are million small realities that we don't have to fight at all to see every day that can come to the forefront of our minds, and completely block us from seeing Jesus in clear view.

And if our minds can't see Jesus, how will our hearts ever grow in affection for him? My encouragement to you today would be to fight for desiring Jesus, and to fight for your heart, with your mind. What is your mind's energy being spent on? Could it be used more wisely? Could you be feeding your heart with better things?

Now let me just preface one more time by saying clearly that I have left out the crucial factor in all of this, and that is the fact that our mind CAN NOT percieve ultimate reality without the Holy Spirit allowing us to see Jesus for the ultimate reality that he is. We, left ourselves, are blinded by sin to ultimate truth, and we literally can not see it apart from the saving work of the Spirit. But I say this more to Christians who have already had their eyes opened, but now fight each day to keep them open.

(Note: If you've seen the Matrix, hopefully this post made some more sense in light of the ideas the Matrix talked about.)