Tag Archives: Miracles

Black Swans are Out There

We have entered a period of history where a flock of black swans have congregated overhead. I am sure you heard the theory of “A Black Swan Event”.  It is a term originally popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a finance professor who used the phrase as a metaphor to describe rare, unanticipated occurrences that shatter the norms we use to predict and understand the world around us.

I personally marvel at the constancy of the seasons, the predictability of tides rising and falling, the time of day the sun will set and rise again the next morning. All around us we find a reassuringly measured and measurable world that seems to follow physical laws.

And yet, black swans are out there, ready to swoop in and mess up all our fondest assumptions, including the assumption that there are no black swans. The trouble is that while we may never have seen a black swan, they do tend to show up and they can change everything.

Miracles are Black Swan Events. We discount them because they often seem to be rare and sometimes contradict our understanding of natural laws and events. But just because someone may not believe they have experienced miracles does not mean they haven’t. It all depends how we look at reality.  If we assume God does not exist, then reducing everything to the laws of physics might make sense, but is the physical realm really the whole story? Or by limiting our explanation to one dimension, are we missing the presence of the spirit of God in our existence?

In his letter to the Romans, Paul says that we blind ourselves when we close our eyes to the reality of God: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, has been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” (Romans 1: 18-20)

Paul turns our modern materialistic assumptions on their head. We assume that the laws that regulate our solar system and universe exist because they exist, whereas Paul sees God’s hand in all of it. Conventional wisdom indicates all things can be known and all things can be predicted. And yet way off on the horizon, I see something like a tiny dark dot that seems to be winging its way in our direction.

Do Not Be Afraid: The Challenges of Following Jesus Christ in a Resistant Culture

Fear can be a legitimate response to an actual danger, but often fear grows out of an overactive imagination. If you stand at the edge of a ledge with a severe drop, you should feel trepidation.  As a boy, I feared the dark and some of that fear carried into my adult years. Fear, though, can bring on the incapacity to act. Action suggests commitment. Commitment may demonstrate belief, but belief may reveal something about one’s identity that you might prefer to keep under wraps.

In the early days of my spiritual awakening, when I began to read Scripture on a daily basis, I would often take a Bible to read while on the commuter train into New York City. In those days, I was acutely aware of being in a public setting. I would discreetly keep my Bible from the view of others. It was a foolish fear, but my desire to keep my Bible hidden bespoke what was taking place then in our culture, particularly in the east where I lived. And it wasn’t just me.

Jesus Walks on Water by Ivan Aivazovsky (1888)

Jesus Walks on Water by Ivan Aivazovsky (1888)

Whether the message came from the universities, the media, business or the political culture, Christianity in the 1980s had become less respectable among the ruling classes in America. Many important leaders within mainstream denominations had found fortune and notoriety by ridiculing important tenants of the faith. One had to keep one’s faith in Christ Jesus private. Jesus was acceptable if you said nothing about Him, but otherwise He was not very welcome in polite society. The culture was listening more to the words of Jesus’ enemies.

On the other hand, much has happened in the culture since then. Social media, music, certain evangelical leaders and even movies like the Passion of the Christ have stood up against the high tide of secularism and agnosticism.

For me, it has been a long journey from fear of ridicule to a passion and commitment to the Word of God. Most recently that outward expression of my faith has come in the form of my new book, Getting To Know Jesus and the new web site GettingToKnowJesus.com

The book grew out of daily podcasts recorded with Pastor Chuck Davis that we at first called In the Footsteps of Jesus. The intention was to introduce the Jesus of the Gospels in a way that would invite people into a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and why it matters. Our conversations were unrehearsed but focused. We presented the life of Jesus in the context of the entire biblical narrative and we happily depended on the truth and beauty of the story as told by the witnesses to the events that unfolded in Galilee and Judea over two thousand years ago. These conversations continue today as the daily Getting to Know Jesus podcasts.

Jesus Walks on Water by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

The world was hostile to Jesus in His own time. His own family, His closest followers and the leaders of the ruling religious class all either abandoned or attacked Him. Even so, Jesus was not afraid because He knew the Father as the Father knew Him. While He was not afraid, Jesus was alert and vigilant and He constantly prayed to the Father. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Peter, who, out of fear, had denied the Lord three times, told Jesus’ followers that dangers lurked everywhere and to be on guard: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of suffering.”

Sometimes it is appropriate to experience fear. But Christians are not called to hide. Rather, as Peter counsels, be alert, be strong and be courageous because Jesus promised He would never leave us, even to the very end of time.