This is not a story of tragedy.

It's not a story that should cause outrage or shock or anger. You should not be appalled, surprised, or bitter. You shouldn't write your congressman or send in a letter to the editor, or ask for your president and the United Nations to step in. 

This story is not a story of sadness or horror or evil. It's not something to weep and mourn over, as those in the world weep and mourn. It's not a story of defeat or dark conquering the light.

This is the story of the gospel.

The gospel is not a pretty truth. It isn't a Disney movie or a summer blockbuster. It doesn't wrap itself up neatly in 90 minutes and leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's brutal and gritty; it's jarring and ugly. It's not tame, but is so dangerous that it cost - and costs - absolutely everything. 

But it is THE truth. It is reality.

The gospel is God's way of saving mankind through the sacrifice of His Son. It's a story that cannot exist without bloodshed and agony, torture and death. It's a story that is only possible because the God of this universe loves His corrupted, dark creation so much to physically go into the darkness, take its best shot, and come out on the other side wounded, but not defeated.

It's a story that teaches us that death is not the worst-case scenario for our lives, but instead, that sometimes death is a necessary consequence to a life lived well. And it's a story that shows us that death is not the end, but rather, simply a path we will all take on the way to an eternity of our choosing.

If we have chosen well, that eternity is glorious.

It's that reason that the earliest believers stood up to their persecutors with no fear. They knew, full well, that the weapons of this world could do nothing to touch their souls, and that because of Jesus paving the way, if we take the best shot our enemies have - death - we'll one day rise again, stronger than ever before. They suffered for doing good, were executed in droves, and each and every day walked knowing this could be their last.

And they grew. And they spread. And they started a movement of faith that has built a heavenly kingdom on earth for two millennia.

The story of Yusuf Naderkhani is not a story of defeat. It is a story of victory. It is Christ's Spirit in the heart of a man who, like 171,000 of his brothers every year, will lose his life, only to find that in death, he'll really live. He will die for his faith, at the hands of his enemies. This shouldn't surprise us, as in every place Christians have lived for 2,000 years, there has been persecution and death. 

But in every place there is persecution and death, Jesus wins. That's because in Christ, we have hope and faith, and the perspective to not only tolerate our enemies, but love and forgive them. That makes the story outlandish and asinine; foolish and nearly unbelievable; counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. It also makes it beautiful.

This is not a story of tragedy.

This is the story of the gospel.

It can be humbling to be faced with just how far off the mark you really are sometimes.

That people would have their priorities out of whack should be nothing new. After all, just this week on Facebook, three topics seemed to dominate the thoughts of my friends more than any other:

- Facebook's design change, which seems to catch everyone off guard even though it happens every three months;

- The St. Louis Cardinals making a potentially too little too late run to the Major League Baseball playoffs; and

- The execution of Troy Davis, a more than likely innocent man who was put to death in Georgia Wednesday night despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn't guilty.

So, to review: a minor change by a free service, a potential playoff run by a sports team, and the ending of a man's life. And yet, the first two topics were overwhelmingly more discussed than the third. Don't get me wrong, I'm not any better - my most discussed Facebook conversation this week was about a tattoo I had finished Monday, so I have no room to talk. All I'm saying is that people seem to care about asinine things much more than what is truly important.

But then we're faced with a single conversation that Jesus had when He was on earth, and it's obvious just how far off the mark we really are. As we discussed during our Wednesday night bible study class, when Jesus met a woman at a well in Samaria, He had all sorts of reasons not to talk to her:

- She was a woman, which means that as a single man, it was socially unacceptable for Jesus to address her. Plus, once the topic turned to theology, no self-respecting rabbi would EVER waste his breath talking about God with a woman in those days.

- She was a social outcast, a woman who had earned a horrible reputation as a floozy who jumps from bed to bed, and as a result, had absolutely no friends to speak of. Plus, considering Jesus was a man and she was a woman who kept getting me to sleep with her, there was a whole other set of temptations in play as well.

- She was a Samaritan and He was a Jew, which is roughly the equivalent difference of being in the Tea Party and the Taliban. As John comments in his recording of the incident, 'Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans.'

- Jesus was hungry and thirsty, and spent His lunch hour going hungry to talk to this woman.

In other words, no matter what type of excuse He wanted to make, He could have. He broke social, political, and religious rules to talk to her, and He did so at potentially the temptation to sin sexually, all while His stomach was rumbling.

I like to think I try to love everyone I encounter, and I know that there's nothing more exciting in my life than helping someone discover who Jesus is and begin a relationship with Him. But to the truth is, I don't have Jesus' priorities - I would have taken any of the above excuses and used them to avoid talking to this woman. And that wouldn't make me a bad person; it would make me normal, with normal priorities and common sense.

Thank God that Jesus wasn't like that. He valued this woman's heart, soul, and eternal life much more than any real or imagined excuse He could have concocted. And He didn't just love the woman that much; He loved you and me the same.

So while I'm eternally grateful for the love Jesus shows, the truth is, I have a high mark to reach for... and so do you. No matter where you are in your relationship with Christ, you're not 'there' yet - you haven't gotten to the place where you can be yet. That should cause us to not only look at our Facebook pages, but how we spend every day of our lives. And when we do, of all the emotions that we undoubtedly feel, there's one that should overwhelm us more than any other.

Humility.

Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God's critic, but do you have all the answers? - Job 40:2

Science and I have had an interesting relationship over the years. As the son of a chemist and a public school teacher, you may expect that I was raised with the belief that pursuing truth via the study of the natural and physical world is not only a noble pursuit, but one that only those that wish to bury their heads in the sand would reject. And as I got deeper into my relationship with God (and, unknowingly and unfortunately deeper into the strange American Christian sub-culture), you can guess that I got a healthy dose of the 'Science=Evil' indoctrination that so many in the secular world have (rightfully) spent their time mocking. Yet, try as I might, I can't seem to marry myself to any one extreme viewpoint.

The reason is simple: both sides are wrong. What the scientific community doesn't seem to understand is that the bible does NOT teach that the world is only 6,000 years old; it does NOT teach that concepts like evolution, natural selection, and life having a common ancestor are incongruous with faith in God; it does not encourage dark-ages, unthinking acceptance that never questions or probes or years to discover more and more about the world around us. 

And what the Christian sub-culture community doesn't seem to understand is that science doesn't have to exclude God, and that simply because people natural explanations that give more of an answer than 'God did it,' that does NOT mean they're hell-bound heathens that have consciously decided to pray to the disembodied soul of Charles Darwin.

Instead, people of all theological leanings have asked the same basic questions and sought the same basic answers no matter who they end up believing about God. And that we're asking the same questions is not the only commonality we share: we are alike too, in our ignorance.

No, really - we're all terribly ignorant. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

If you're a Christian, this shouldn't be news. After all, one of the most famous stories in the bible is the account of Job, and the climax of that narrative is God putting Job in his intellectual place. The message is simple: we have so little knowledge of the world around us that when it comes to second-guessing and making accusations to God, we do so with absolutely zero credibility or credentials. Simply put, if we can't explain the basics of the world around us, we're in no position to be going toe-to-toe with the maker of all existence.

And if you're not a believer, this shouldn't be offensive. After all, honest scientists know their limitations, and it is those limitations that keep the scientific community constantly searching. And if our brightest minds can't explain how to measure the coast or how gravity works or even the mathematical equation of solitaire, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that thus far no solid, plausible explanation has been given for the birth of the first life-forms on earth without divine help.

At the end of the day, then, we should all be humble enough to admit that we there is much more that we don't know than we do. Our shared ignorance means that we all place our faith in something or somebody, and that means we are all much more alike than we'd like to admit. Therefore, the constant bickering, distrust, and pot-shots from both sides only serves to continue divide people that, let's be honest, don't need any help dividing anyway.

Maybe one day we'll have all the answers. Until then, though, I'm content trusting that despite my ignorance, there's a God who knows all that loves me. And if you think I'm a moron for that, that's okay, because I know that your knowledge and wisdom has brought you to such a lofty intellectual mountaintop that you can't even explain why things that go up must come down. And you know what?

Not knowing really is okay.

Give all your cares and worries to God, for he cares about you. - 1 Peter 5:7

Nothing lasts forever.

It's been with me for longer than almost anything else in my life. It pre-dates my Christianity and my awareness that girls exist; my ability to drive and my experience doing a job of any kind. Since I've had it, I've graduated from elementary school, junior high, high school and college; I've gotten married, bought a house, and sat in a chair being tattooed for more than 45 hours. It has been a part of my life for literally as long as I can remember, and everywhere I have gone in life - physically and otherwise - it has been by my side.

But unfortunately, if yesterday is any indication, we're nearing the end of the line.

I got my Super Nintendo for Christmas in the early 90s, and even though other video game systems have moonlighted in my life, it has been what I've played the most. I shudder to think about the hours I've spent as Mario or Link or Ken Griffey Jr. or Batman or Starfox; the months I've given to seasons of NBA basketball and NHL hockey; the years I've perfected knocking out everyone in 'Super Punch-Out!!' quicker than you can pronounce the name of the computer generated character. The Super Nintendo has been in my possession through so many phases of life that the characters have become part of the family in some cases, and they're forever frozen in their 16-bit stage in my heart and mind.

But sadly, as I decided to spend a day off plowing through some old games yesterday, I discovered a sobering reality: she doesn't work like she used to. The game only comes on about half the time that I hit the 'power' button, and when it does, there's a new feature of every game in the form of a strange blue stripe down the middle of the screen. It may work for a little bit longer, but the writing is on the wall: if it's not on its last legs, it's pretty darn close.

The truth is, though, that even if I have had my Super Nintendo for almost 20 years (and no, I've never typed a sentence that makes me feel older than that), that's the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. And yet, it's practically an antique. The point is simple: nothing in this world lasts. And it doesn't matter how much we want it to or what we'd give for it to; no matter what, at a certain point, we have to say goodbye to everything.

Everything, that is, except God.

When we come the realization that literally everything in this world is temporary EXCEPT our relationship with God, it makes sense to turn to Him for help, to trust Him with our future, and to look to Him for guidance with today. No matter where or when we seek God, we can - He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

It may be silly to know that the thing that has been with you the longest is something as trivial as a video game system, but the truth is that in the end, nearly everything we fight for, chase after, and dream of in this life is every bit as trivial as a Super Nintendo. And in moments of clarity when we realize as much, it's comforting to know that the one thing that will last - the God of this universe - cares about you.

And that is a line whose end we will never come to. 

It may be 'just' Independent Ball, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be the Best Night in Baseball.

This past Sunday was just that - the Best Night in Baseball. And I mean that literally: that was the name of the promotion at the epic battle between the Gateway Grizzlies and River City Rascals, two independent minor league baseball teams who happen to both be within a couple hour's drive from Ashland. It had everything that minor league baseball great - goofy promotions (after the game, everyone covered the stands with toilet paper), hilariously great, cheap food, and baseball that's not quite as good what's on the major league level. And best of all, for less than the price of a movie ticket, we had the best seat in the house for the game and perhaps the longest post-game firework show I've ever seen (it was the last game of the season, after all, and they were emptying their reserves).

What sticks with me a few days later, however, is a comment from one of the players. In the eighth inning, both teams stopped the game for a brief retirement ceremony for a long time Grizzly, and he had a chance to address the crowd. When he did, he thanked the normal people - his parents, his wife, the fans - but his comments towards the organization were most telling. He thanked them, in part for how they treated him, saying,

'You guys always treated me like a big leaguer, even though this is just Independent Ball.'

If I were a member of the Gateway Grizzlies front office, I would take this as the highest of compliments. After all, the Grizzlies ARE just a second-rate act in the shadow of the St. Louis Cardinals, and it would be easy for the organization to treat the players as such. But, apparently, they don't, and that speaks volumes about their character.

And the amazing truth is, this is how God treats each one of us. Last week during our Wednesday Night Bible Study (which, if you haven't been to, you're missing out), we talked about the first miracle of Jesus. He was at a wedding reception, and the bride and groom miscalculated how many people would be in attendance. As a result, they were out of wine, which in those days would have been a public humilation on par with finding your mug shot on TMZ after a night of partying with the Kardashians. To spare them, Jesus did what no one else could do: He turned water - 150 gallons of it, to be exact - into the best wine any of them had ever drank.

Now, I'm sure there are more spiritual, deep meanings to this miracle that we could talk about. But what sticks out to me is this: Jesus cares about stupid things like social norms and public faux pas. He didn't belittle their conundrum, citing that they shouldn't complain about booze at a party when there are so many people suffering in the world; instead, He helped them in their time of need, and in doing so, taught each one of us that no matter how small our problems may be, He cares.

In other words, He treats us like big leaguers, even if we have independent ball lives.

It doesn't matter if you're 'just' someone in a small town trying to make it by; it doesn't matter if anyone else notices or if you have a huge platform to impact other people; it doesn't even matter if it's something more significant than a temporary social custom. If it's important to you, it's important to God - period.

Jesus loves you, and that means He cares about every aspect of your life. Even if it's 'just' that you need some water turned to wine, He can do that. And when He does, and He makes a difference in your life, there are only two words to describe how your life - big or small or long or short or significant or insignificant - is:

The Best.