Most of them, anyway. Found this today. Aside from one sketchy section, it’s fun.

Enjoy.

Source: BCO

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Internet memes.

According to the dictionary a meme is “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture… A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.”

Lots of big words, all strung together.

Simpler words that stood out to me?

Idea. Culture. Spreads. Phenomena.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “A meme is an idea that behaves like a virus.

Thanks Malcolm. Got it.

The weeping woman

The meme I chose for my graphic on this post, the weeping woman or just “the weeper,” has become the poster girl for transmission of a cultural critique: So many people in our society are pathetic whiners.

No one posts that picture with the caption, “My dad died today,” or “I have cancer.” That’s not what’s being transmitted.

Last week I created and posted a version of this meme that read, “Still haven’t seen Avengers.” I read one awhile back that read, “My relatives don’t know their wifi password.” So The Weeper is the spoiled brat crybaby making mountains out of molehills that we all love to hate.

But there’s more.

The reason this meme has resonated isn’t just because she’s the image of all the whiners we despise. The weeper, I’m sorry to say, is all of us—and she’s become our online, public confession. ‘Cause the truth is, I was a little bummed that I hadn’t seen Avengers yet. And it really is annoying when you visit someone and you can’t log on to their network because they have no clue what their password is. I, too, am lame at times.

A few other common memes:

Hey Girl… it’s me, Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling is the poster boy for this meme, which is essentially a pep talk coming from a dreamboat. If Ryan asked me to do x,y,z… I’d do it for sure. Sigh… Or, it just plays on rampant female fantasies about sitting down with Ryan to talk about whatever because he’s just dreamy.

To girls. Just ‘sayin.

Willy Wonka

A campy photo of Gene Wilder is paired with a patronizing comment designed to strip a victim of the last vestiges of their imagined dignity. This one resonates because Willy says what we’ve always dreamed of saying. He’s sarcasm incarnate.

He’s all of us without a filter.

Late Nite With David Letterman

Four score and six hundred and eleven years ago, when all we had was late night television, lived a man named David Letterman, a talking head who opened each show with a fresh comedy routine inspired by current themes and events in our culture. His best segments made his audience roar with laughter by pointing out the absurdity of what we already knew. They resonated, they indicted. And were re-enacted a thousand times the next morning around the water cooler in the office.

The water cooler has been replaced by Facebook and Pinterest.

David Letterman has been replaced by all of us.

Memes resonate because at some level, they tell the truth.

What do you think? Why do memes resonate? What’s going on?

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I got a phone call from SiteLock and worked it all out, but while we were waiting for something to take effect the dude I was talking to asked me what my site was all about.

“Oh, I’m writing about how Geek and Faith come together,” I explained.

“Huh. That’s interesting.”

I know, I thought.

“Yeah,” he went on, “Cause geeks are usually atheists because they believe in science and stuff.”

“Oh, I’m not sure about that,” I said, happy to explain. “In fact, being a geek helps my faith. Curiosity, imagination, a willingness to stand up for what I believe are all really important. That kind of thing.”

“That’s really interesting,” he said, then finished up our business call. I think he probably poked around my site after our conversation.

But it got me thinking. Because I think Geeks make great Christ-followers. My question isn’t, “How can a Geek be a Christian?” My question is, “How could a Geek possibly be an atheist when they already have so much in common with the heart of Christian faith?”

The Bible

The Bible may have been written two thousand years ago by shepherds and prophets, but it leaps to life in the hands of a geek. I mean, come on—dragons, angels, demons, super-powers, plagues, teleportation, witches, leviathan, behemoth, the nephalim, David’s mighty men, dead people rising, epic battles, love stories, armageddon, prophecies, fantastic beasts, dreams and visions, supernatural missions from God, Jesus being “the one,” … Shall I go on? The Bible is textbook Geek, people.

Imagination

Geeks traffic in imagination. Well, guess what? That’s what prayer and faith and hope are all about—imagining possibilities and potential where only darkness reigns and daring to believe that light will triumph. Prayer, properly understood, is a form of time travel, envisioning what can occur in the future, asking God to do that, and then stepping back into the present moment. Faith thrives in the hands of a true geek because imagining comes naturally.

Conviction

Geeks are willing to stand on the fringe of society for what they believe and how they choose to live. They’re used to eye-rolling, patronizing comments, misunderstanding—and standing firm in their geekdom anyways. As Emily Expo wrote in the recent Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo article, The Union Of Nerds, “We have refused to bow to the social standards of what apparently makes a person popular; we have stared into the faces of judgement but have remained proud of our love… we… have the ability to autonomously flaunt our idiosyncrasies and take pride in our devotion to all things creative, imaginative, and unique… we, my friends, have the power to tell the world that we will be ourselves—whether the world likes it or not.”

Hello, these are the precise qualities Jesus is looking for in his followers!

Heroes

Geeks gravitate toward classic archetypes, especially heroes. Research shows that people who see their lives as part of an epic story tend to live more satisfied, fulfilling lives. Walking the throngs during comic-con here in Calgary a few weeks ago was awesome, not so much because of the exhibits or workshops, but because there were thousands of heroes walking around in costume. Geeks want to be heroes, want to stand up for what’s right and make a difference. They dare to believe that average people can be heroic. Which is fantastic. Again, this “hero will rise” calling is exactly what God has printed in his recruitment brochure.

Calling All Geeks

If you’re a Geek wondering how you fit with faith, please hear me: The church needs people just like you. My church needs people just like you. Some churches don’t quite know what to do with us, true, but maybe those churches aren’t particularly dialled in to what makes for an awesome Christ follower.

What do you think? Do you resonate with this post?

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I could talk about splinters in your mind, rabbit holes, blue pills, deja vu, the Question, fate, or serve a dozen other juicy steaks—real or otherwise. But the most powerful moment in that entire movie (to me, at least) punches holes in my reality and gives me a new theme song with a mere two letters:

NO.

Remember?

Just a few minutes earlier, Neo has done the unthinkable, the impossible. He’s stood toe to toe with a killer agent, Agent Smith no less. Not only has he survived, but he persevered and won the fight. Not wanting to press his luck, knowing Smith will re-spawn a thousand times if necessary, Neo runs.

Smith and the agents give chase. Pavement pounds, fire escapes rattle, bullets sing, doors slam, and the agents close in, relentless.

Finally, a door flings open in front of Neo and there he is—Agent Smith, gun drawn. The smirking demon unloads an entire clip into Neo’s chest and decorates the wall behind him with a kaleidoscope of fresh blood. Neo sinks to the ground and flatlines.

Neo is dead.

And then, in one of the great romantic moments in movie history, Trinity leans in close, faith swelling in her ragged soul. With her love, with her kiss, at her command, Neo comes back alive. He stands up in the hallway to face the unholy trinity of agents one last time.

Not a re-spawn. A resurrection.

They draw their guns as one and unleash all hell, a hailstorm of bullets screaming down the hallway at their target.

Neo simply raises his hand, blinking slowly, and rejects the assault.

“No.”

No?!

No.

The bullets freeze midair like time itself is broken. In fact, it is—but not really. What’s actually happened is that Neo finally sees the Matrix for what it is. Finally sees the agents for who they are. Sees their bullets for what they are.

Lies. Unreality. Click. He’s hacked the matrix.

He doesn’t have to dodge a bullet that only exists in his mind. At this realization, the entire arsenal of his formidable enemy clatters to the ground like children’s toys.

Just say no?

In Ephesians 6:16 Paul says, “Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Satan is the father of lies, the architect of a deceptive matrix keeping humanity in bondage. Much of his power is simply the power of “mysbelief.” Among other things, faith means seeing the world the way it really is, seeing satan for who he is, seeing the cross and victory of Christ for what it really is. This is why Jesus declares, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

Faith extinguishes Satan’s flaming arrows. It’s how we say “Yes” to Jesus and “No” to the devil.

Probably the best part after Neo says no is the contorted horror peeling Smith’s plastic face when he realizes his gig is up. I would love to see the look on the devil’s face each time the same thing happens to him.

When I see him for who he is… and say…

no.

Amen?

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——

I am loving movie week!

Most of my personal favourite movie moments come from the Lord of the Rings, but if I had to choose one it would have to be from Return of the King.

The enemy has breached the gates of the white city, and even now are just outside throwing themselves against the seventh and final barrier. The defences have failed, the king of Rohan lies dying on the battlefield below, the steward of Gondor has thrown himself off the citadel and the true king Aragon is nowhere to be found. Frodo lies captive in a dark tower of Mordor and Sam has claimed the ring for himself.

And the story cuts to the emotionally and physically depleted Pippin, who sits with a haggard and blood stained Gandalf. In a moment of calm certainty, as the enemy works tirelessly to bring down the final gate, Pippin speaks to Gandalf about their coming deaths.

Pippin: I didn’t think it would end this way.

Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path… One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass… And then you see it.

Pippin: What? Gandalf?… See what?

Gandalf: White shores… and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Pippin: [smiling] Well, that isn’t so bad.

Gandalf: [softly] No… No it isn’t.

Tolkien

I was watching an old BBC interview with Tolkien, and at one point  the interviewer asks the wisened old writer of the Lord of the Rings, if he can sum up the story.

I think Tolkien, smoking a pipe and with an ale close at hand, gives a grunt and says something about the difficulty and unsatisfactory nature a few sentences have in summing up such a large story. But then, he seems to think better of it, and answers simply that his story is about death.

He proceeds to pull a carefully folded up newspaper clipping to read a quote from Simone de Beauvoir, and begins to read it in his infamous crisp and precise articulation for the camera.

“There’s no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural. His presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”

I love this moment between Gandalf and Pippin in the Return of the King. You forget sometimes, when Gandalf is especially tired or defeated, that he is a powerful being from far beyond this world. In this moment, Pippin looks at their situation and justifiably pronounces they’re at the end of the road, at least from his perspective.

Jesus

I wonder how many times Jesus pulled this similar firm, but loving rebuke. His friend had died, the wine was gone, there were too many people to feed, the kingdom his followers longed for wasn’t coming, or his disciples were faced with Jesus’ own death.

“End? No the journey doesn’t end here.”

The disciples, like Pippin, have been fighting the good fight, but their perspective is off. How often are we thinking of life in human, natural terms, and overlooking, even forgetting, the nature of our fight, our identity in God, and even the nature of God himself.

Me

How often am I dejected with God when the car breaks down, as if He has abandoned me to the hardships of this life, or promise to quit teaching sunday school next year when my brilliant lessons are met with blank stares and dismal attendance. Or how often do I give up when I feel like a relationship at work has become irreparably damaged? These moments begin to reveal just how wrong my thinking has become, how we’ve been trying to make life work on our own terms and within narrow views of God and his values.

But when reminded of the true perspective, Pippin is able to steel himself for the coming fight. The Rohan armies below have given Aragorn time to return with an unstoppable force, Sam’s momentary selfishness has saved the ring from falling to enemy hands, and their sacrifices have allowed Frodo the opportunity to destroy the ring and Sauron forever.

What a difference a little perspective makes.

- Steve

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GLADIATOR: MAXIMUS’ BIG REVEAL

Gladiator is one of my top three movies. Through brilliant writing, acting, and directing, this story radiates powerful and yet painful lessons on love, leadership, loyalty, and self-identity.

I remember the first time I took it all in, watching spellbound as Maximus gained a great victory in Germania for Rome. In the wake of the celebration, the Emperor is murdered by his treacherous son Commodus, who orders Maximus executed, along with his family.

My heart raced with Maximus across the sprawling countryside back to his home. I mourned with him as he found his family butchered by Commodus’ men on his farmstead. I cheered and marvelled as he rose in stature as a gladiator until that breathless moment when Commodus, the slime bag usurper of an Emperor, stepped into the arena to meet this mystery warrior (Maximus is hidden behind his mask):

Commodus: Your fame is well deserved, Spaniard. I don’t think there’s ever been a gladiator to match you. As for this young man, he insists you are Hector reborn. Or was it Hercules? Why doesn’t the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real name? You do have a name.
Maximus: My name is Gladiator.
[turns away from Commodus]
Commodus: How dare you show your back to me! Slave, you will remove your helmet and tell me your name.
Maximus: [removes helmet and turns around to face Commodus] My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Oh man. Do you see it?

Maximus’ mortal enemy doesn’t recognize him. He wonders aloud who this gladiator must be—some kind of hero, reincarnated? A demigod, perhaps? Who are you, mystery man?

I am gladiator. He turns his back in defiance. In a bold act of dignity. I am who I choose to be.

Now the fangs come out, the power struggle has begun. Slave, you will remove your helmet and tell me your name. 

Slave.

No, not a demigod. But not a slave, either.

My name—my full name, by the way—is Maximus Decimus Meridius. You have stripped me of my position, but I’m still who I am. You have murdered by family, but I’m still who I am. I am now in chains, but I am still who I am.

In fact, Maximus insists, I am still the Commander. Present tense. Still the General. Present tense. Still loyal servant to the true emperor. Not outwardly, but inwardly. You have taken nothing from me, I am still who I am.

His words rise like an incoming, unstoppable tide.

And then, the best part: I am still father. Present tense. Still husband, present tense. Yes, you killed them, but my love and my commitment will hold fast until the end of time and there is not a thing you can do about it. Your evil has ruined my life, but on another level, it has changed nothing. You are powerless, Commodus.

And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

How can you not jump up and cheer, heart in your throat?

How much of my identity is pressed and shaped by the pressure, evil, and discouragement around me? Jesus would grab me by the scruff of my jacket and pull me close, so that I’m eyeball to eyeball with eternity himself, ablaze with passion for me. His love is unnervingly passionate.

“You are who you are, Brad. Danger can’t change that. Hardship can’t change that. The haters and doubters can’t change that. Your failures can’t change that. Tragedy can’t change that. No thing can…

But some one can. And that somebody is you. You can choose to be who you are, who I’ve made you to be—or you can choose to live as though you’re less than you are.

But I need you to be Brad, need you to stand fast, need you to be unflinchingly loyal to the people I’ve called you to love, come hell or high water. What say you?

So I rise.

I. Am. Brad. I will live my destiny, in this life AND the next.

——–

What do you think? What’s your favourite movie moment?

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Favourite? Let me rephrase that.

“Favourite” doesn’t cut it, because I also use that word to describe fifty-one flavours of ice cream or the coolest t-shirt in my closet. My favourite movie moments are better than that. They’ve jumped me with almost violent epiphanies that un-dragoned my heart with merciless talons of truth; the proverbial toothpaste was out of the tube and there was no putting the sticky stuff back.

Sure, I could sling some pithy buckshot from The Terminator, like ”I’ll be back.” Or T2: “Hasta La Vista, baby.” Or maybe a forgotten oldie from Cobra, one of Stallone’s vapid, pre-botox flicks: A terrorist with a bomb strapped to his body was going ballistic in a supermarket until Sly showed up wearing cool shades to face him down. “I’ll blow this place sky high,” the baddie threatens, to which our hero replies, “Go ahead. I don’t shop here.”

But those are just laugh out loud moments, not real favourites.

Here’s favorite #1.

The Matrix: Spoon Boy

You can watch the Spoon Boy clip here, if you’re interested.

On his first cryptic visit to the Oracle in The Matrix, Neo steps into an apartment full of children doing “impossible” things. One boy seems to be using his mind to bend a spoon like it’s made of rubber. The little master notices Neo standing there and takes him to school.

Spoon Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Spoon Boy: There is no spoon.

Neo: There is no spoon?

Spoon Boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Spoon Boy Theology

Caveat: I don’t believe in telekinesis or relative truth.

I do, however, believe many of my life problems are like that spoon. I cast blame and ascribe power to all kinds of people and external forces, when in reality the real problem lies with my perception. A good number of my problems are magically “solved” when my attitude changes, for example. Or I see an obstacle in front of me and waste all kinds of sweat and tears trying to move the mountain when the real mountain sits untouched in my mind in the guise of an unhelpful opinion.

As a Pastor, I’m in the spoon bending business—life change, I mean. The problem is, I can’t change anyone’s life. Only God can. The more I focus on changing lives—bending spoons—the fewer lives and spoons change. The more I let God change and bend me, the more he is able to work miracles in and through me.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they pointed to spoons. The serpent made me. That stupid tree is the problem. The woman you gave me totally caved. The wind took it. The sun was in my eyes.

God sighed, I know he did.

Because the only real spoon that needed tweaking was inside them, in their hearts. And the only thing more exciting than changing the world is allowing God to change me.

Hey, I’d love to hear about one of your favourite movie moments. 

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So does my family. Nearly every Saturday we pile onto our mid-sized sagging sectional, snorfel down a home-made pizza fresh out of the oven, and enjoy a movie together while supper gets converted into gas (which we share with each other throughout the second half of the movie). There’s nothing like pizza movie night.

I know many people who like movies. Liking movies is pretty much par for the course in our society. There’s nothing notable about that.

Me, I love movies.

I guess that makes me a movie geek.

I know I’m not supposed to be, or rather that people think I’m not supposed to be, me being a pastor and all. But I am, and there you have it. I’ve loved movies for as long as I can remember and so I’ve decided to embrace that about myself.

I love to escape, to roam the lush forests of Pandora or tremble with the troops guarding Troy or run along walls and dodge bullets with Neo for two or three hours.

Sometimes Jerry Bruckheimer or one of his buddies asks me to check my brain during the opening scene, or way in advance—like during the TV trailers—in which case I leave my brain at home. I’m okay with that if what happens next is good fun and doesn’t pollute my heart. They call these movies popcorn flicks, probably because you need a popcorn fix (which is more like a sedative than an upper) to augment your lack of mental stimulation while you’re watching them.

The best movies, of course, don’t require popcorn.

I love to watch movies with great, fallible heroes, men and women who snag my heart and take me on a journey of wonder and becoming and sacrifice—like Hawkeye from Last of the Mohicans, Maximus from Gladiator, Lucy in Narnia.

I love hearing God speak to me through movies, sometimes in the most unexpected times and places—like from the electric chair in the Green Mile, the slow mo denouement of Return of the King, the scrambling, manic comedy of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.

I love movies that ask big, daring questions and venture big, daring answers—like The Matrix, The Dark Knight, or Equilibrium.

Not that I love every movie, or love all movies equally. Nuh uh. Some movies are a waste of my time and leave me with a spiritual hangover. The best movies teach me, inspire me, and move me.

So this week I’m going to blog about movies. One: How God uses them. Two: Magical movie quotes. Three: Magical movie moments.

Hopefully, you won’t need no popcorn.

But what about you? If you’re a movie lover, what do you love about movies? 

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Geeks, meet Randy Ingermanson.

Brad : Good morning.

Randy : Hi Brad!

Brad : It’s really good to have you Randy. Let me get started. On your site you introduce yourself by saying, “Hi, I’m Randy Ingermanson, physicist, novelist, and all around geek. But that’s way more than enough about me.” How do you think people have connected with that mini-bio?

Randy : I have no idea. I’ve never actually really thought about it. I assume there are a lot of geeks out there who might find the combo of physicist/novelist interesting.

Brad : Yeah, geeks like me. But you’re probably the only real, live physicist I’ve ever known. What exactly do you do? Are you working on any world domination/ destroy the planet stuff, or what’s your particular bent?

Randy : I used to do actual physics work for a defense contractor in San Diego. Computational stuff where you analyze a giant machine and figure out how it ought to work in theory, then compare it to how it actually works in practice. Then about 12 years ago, my ex-college roommate asked me to come work in his little biotech startup company. I was a little tired of the government cutbacks every two years, so I decided to get out of defense work and try the biotech stuff.

Brad : Your response reminds me of a question I once asked Siri when I first got my iPhone 4S: “Siri, are you the beginning of skynet and the end of the world?” She answered, “We were talking about you, not me.”

Randy : It’s turned out well.  I still work half time for Vala Sciences in San Diego.

Brad : I’m glad there are people smarter than me out there working on this stuff. Switching gears, this has been “Time Travel Week” at Bradhuebert.com. So I’m interested in your books, especially the time travel series. Tell us about that.

Randy : Sure. Three of my novels are time-travel novels set in ancient Jerusalem. The premise of the first one is simple: A physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.

Brad : I love it. The premise, I mean. (FYI, Randy’s novels have earned him several prestigious awards).

Randy : If you like time-travel and are interested in the New Testament, this is going to interest you. I had been studying ancient Jerusalem for a long time. I found a local Messianic Jewish synagogue that was going on a tour of Israel, so I went along with them and wound up spending about 15 years in their congregation. Not that I ever became a member, but I wanted to know how Messianic Jews think.

Brad : That’s some deep research, Randy.

Randy : My lead character, Rivka, was a young archaeology student who came from that congregation in San Diego. In the story, I changed the name of the congregation, but everybody knew which congregation it was. Poor Rivka accidentally gets transported back in time along with our naughty physicist, and her job is to stop him.

Brad : Do you write like Crichton, weaving in a lot of science, or do you just use it as a backdrop for a good story?

Randy : I put in less science than Crichton.

Brad : Good, I find him really wordy.

Randy : Of course, a lot of his is made-up science. So is mine. I just choose to insert less made-up stuff into the story. You can’t have time-travel without making up stuff, so I tried to limit it as much as possible. Crichton has great, great story premises. I have never much liked his endings, but his beginnings were always awesome. Different writers have different strengths.

Brad : Did your writing about time travel change the way you think about life in general even though it is a speculative concept?

Randy : It forced me to think about some of those pesky things like free will and determinism. And the question of whether you can change the past.

Brad : I like to say that we can’t change the past, but we can change our history—because our history is our take on the past, and is full of biases.

Randy : A lot depends on whether you believe in the many-universe idea. Because if you travel back in time and you connect to a different universe, then you can “change the past” by making the past in THAT universe different than the past in your own. But I don’t think you can change the past in your own. As Stephen Hawking says, we have to make the universe safe for historians. But it’s still possible that you could travel back in time and influence things. You could do that only if in the past for your universe, you had already arrived from the future and influenced those things.

Brad : This week I’ve been blogging about how we, standing in the present, “travel” back into our history and forward into possible futures all the time. Our minds have been designed to navigate time.

Randy : Yes, we’re constantly moving forward in time. And our minds can take us anywhere, anytime. Of course, we don’t have a complete history of the past, so there’s no way to know if time travellers from the future have actually been there.

Brad : Ha. True. Randy, one last question. If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?

Randy : I’ve never actually thought about that. I’m not a superpower kind of guy.

Brad : Gasp. really? Then how will you achieve your goal (and I quote) “to become Supreme Dictator for Life and First Tiger and to achieve Total World Domination.”

Randy : I already AM supreme dictator for life. You didn’t know?

Brad : I missed the memo.

Randy : Check out: http://www.SupremeDictatorForLife.com. I guess I forgot to tell anyone. It’s always nice to control the world from behind the scenes.

Brad : Um, right. Thanks for your time, Randy. Any last thoughts?

Randy : There’s always more to learn, so I try to keep an open mind.

Brad : Good advice, brother. Thanks for this interview.

Randy : Thanks for having me!

Be sure to check out Randy’s site, and leave him some comments below.

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Today, the finale:

AXIOM #5: Don’t get stuck.

This is the white-knuckle fear plaguing all time travellers: What if I can’t get back? Gulp. And it’s a biggie. Even Dr. Who fears this possibility: Without his Tardis, his time machine, he’s stuck wherever he happens to be visiting.

Obviously, you wouldn’t want to visit the past and get stuck there either. Same with the future. Most of us want to live in our real time, in the now. Unless we’re growing up believing the Victorian era was really steampunk and think it was totally cool. I promise you it wasn’t, and you wouldn’t want to live there.

Moving on, you’ve probably met people who are stuck in the past.

• The weird guy at work who is “so eighties.” I mean, he still listens to Van Halen. The old Van Halen. But who am I kidding, does it matter which Van Halen?
• The girl you know who never stops talking about how bad her previous boyfriend was.
• The guy who never forgave himself for his moral failure a few years back.

What about people stuck in the future?

• The couple who are so focused on laying up a nest-egg for retirement that they are losing their children in the present moment.
• The guy who can’t stop worrying about the responsibilities of the coming week.
• The self-employed woman who can’t stop talking about what life will be like when she becomes financially independent.

What about people stuck in the present? Yes, that’s possible, and just as tragic:

• The dude who never plans ahead because he’s too busy living by the seat of his pants.
• The girl who is so focused on being accepted in the moment that she gives herself away to the guy of the month.
• The leader who is never aware of history and never builds on the richness of the past.

But not getting stuck isn’t just about avoiding things. It’s about mobility. A healthy person (and a thriving Christ-follower) is able to navigate past, present, and future with fluidity and skill, without getting stuck as they jump back and forth. They leverage both their past and their future to thrive in the present.

Speaking of the present, that’s where we live our lives, so mature Christians are able to live in the moment most the time, traveling into the past or future when going there will help them thrive more fully in the now. For example,

• They travel into the future in prayer to lay a request before God. Then they return to the moment at peace, sure God will take care of it.
• They travel into the past with Jesus to deal with a wound or disappointment. They return to the present with perspective and can move on with life.
• They travel into the past to thank God for what he’s done for them. Then live in the moment with gratitude.

Notice I said mature believers live in the moment, not for the moment. Living for the moment is about pleasure seeking. Living in the moment is about stepping up and owning our one and only life.

By the way, this is only the tip of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to time travel. But what do you think? Has this been a helpful series for you? Please comment below.

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