Success!

[Nate Flynn]

 

      I couldn't sleep last night. But I wasn't trying to. I was responsible for the nursing care of a baby that was born 4 days ago with a heart that had the two great arteries in swapped positions. This would have caused death for 19 centuries after Jesus was on the earth. In the last century, however, a man by the name of Vivien Thomas changed that in pioneering heart surgery, with dexterity that was said to be "something the Lord made", which is the title of a movie portraying his struggle in 1935 to be a black cardiac surgeon.  

      By the end of my 12 hour shift, the baby was headed to the operating table for surgery to correct his heart anomaly. During my shift, I couldn't help but wonder how amazing it is that healthy babies are born at all. With all the correct anatomy and molecular structure that has to occur over nine months in a women's body (while she's living her own life!) to make a healthy baby, it's astounding it happens so frequently.  

      Also during my shift, something caused me to think of one of my professors from my first degree in Journalism. I remembered him to be the picture of extreme arrogance. Dr. Frank Niles had this strange charisma and philosophy surrounding his entire life that caused him to bully us as students and allow him to get away with it. I got to thinking, maybe he was a fake, and all these years later (12 years to be exact), maybe he was found out and fired. I literally expected his picture and bio to be gone from the university website, and what I found actually gave me a guttural reaction of disgust. At first, I was amazed that I had thought he might be found out, and then I was distraught that he wasn't, and he was as strong as ever at spewing his self-aggrandizement philosophy. What's unfortunate is that he's been at a Christian university for this long, and yet denies the basic tenets of the Christian faith which are spelled out in the Bible. He has launched a large industry that speaks of reaching our full potential in every area of life: work, play, and relationships, all without the mention of God.  

     Sure, his gig is just a little twist on the trendy self-help culture we've immersed ourselves in as a nation, but I was grieved to see university students (Christian or not) mesmerized by his charisma, disguised as he was by having a platform as a professor, taking in his load of rubbish on videos of him on the website. I instantly noticed the counterfeit revival he spoke of as soon as it was on the horizon. Not because I've studied counterfeit religion so much, although I have. But because of my encounter with the Son of God Jesus (His own claim that he then proved by dying and coming back to life), and knowing that real truth (capital T) well.  

     And that truth backs itself up with my entire existence and experience. See, Frank's goal is to help you become a better you (as stated on his website), and to reach your full potential of happiness, success, and meaning. He begins and ends with himself as chief example of how to overcome adversity and achieve whatever it is you set out to achieve. There's no mention of God. Why God? Well, without God, there is no you. Without God, there is no life beyond the grave except eternal separation from Him.  

    I read article after article of his talking about 10 steps to get here, 7 steps to achieve this, and 3 simple steps to arrive where you want to be. But is where we want to be found anywhere on earth at all?

    You see, our full potential is about a new body, a new mind, and a new glory. It takes a miracle to get there, not hard work. Just as it takes a miracle to have a healthy baby. You can't grunt and bear your teeth, and out comes the healthy baby, you have to trust God to do His good and perfect will, which might mean it's different from what we think is good and perfect. In other words, it's empty philosophy at best and cunning deceit at worst (I Timothy 4:1-3, 2 Peter 1:16) to tell a person they can reach their full potential in life without first coming to the end of themselves. And then, reaching our full potential must include losing our lives to find them, and letting the outer man die, and watching the inner man grow.

    So I've got 2 steps for you to find not only happiness in this life but in the next as well:  

 1: Come to realize that you are a sinner broken before Creator God. You will never amount to anything apart from Him. You will never find lasting happiness apart from Him. You will never have meaning, in this life or for eternity, that is apart from Him.  

 2: Accept His terms for how to re-connect with Him to find eternal happiness, eternal meaning, and eternal satisfaction. What are His terms? They can be found written in the book of Jeremiah, in the Bible, chapter 31: 31-34. Accept His Son's sacrifice on your part for forgiveness of your sins, and bam, you're done.  

    Now, as a child of God, grow in the grace and knowledge of Him who saved you, and rest in the promise, NOT of earthly success, oh how insignificant that is!, but in the weight of glory soon to swallow us up in life!(2 Corinthians 5: 4).

 

 

 

 

 

[John Becker]

Nate. I think you are challenging us to have a whole heart transplant!  It is not about bettering ourselves, but living into who God intended us to be. Being whole people whose hearts beat to the rhythm of our maker.  Thank you!