You have an audience. Who is your audience? Do you know?
Kevin is a student who was in my youth group and a brilliant young man who had a big future and a small wallet. He wanted to get into one of the most prestigious technical/engineering colleges in the world: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. We prayed often for him to receive scholarships and grant money and win contests and somehow overcome his family's financial challenges (when your dad has brain cancer, great gobs of money are not flowing in) and also that his dad would continue to win the battle with cancer. These prayers began before he entered his senior year of high school and now he is one year away from his BA.
There has been at least one of my godkids/students going to Rose for the last 8 years and there are three attending at the moment including a senior and a junior and a freshman. One of the guys who graduated is already a captain in the Army Reserve and a city planner in his spare time. Anyway, Kevin had a chance to come home for the weekend and I got to talk with him at church today. He was excited to tell me that he has a job with Microsoft for the summer and apparently has a bright future with them if he chooses to remain with them. Between academic achievements and scholarships and the grace of God he is managing to make it through when the money problem could have stopped him. But he had a dream and a trust in God and put it in God's hands. Would God work to allow him to go? Awesome. Otherwise he could still go to an ordinary college and knock down A's like a pro bowler knocks down pins. Kevin has a "3.8 something" GPA at Rose taking high level courses.
Two other Rose students are brothers, one who is already a campus leader (the senior) and a freshman who has all the ability to follow suit. Anytime I get a chance to have a conversation with one of these guys it is so fun, because they can "speak geek" and most folks I know find it boring.
Genetic Algorithm flowchart
Genetic Algorithm flowchart
Kevin and I had a nice long discussion of Genetic Algorithms, as he has designed them and is quite familiar with them. He pointed out that, while GA's do mimic natural selection they are a program running on a system with preselected starting points and "DNA" built in to guide the process towards a goal. In other words, when you look carefully at GA, it is a lot like a exceedingly dumbed-down version of an organism. His last GA project involved designing an optimal automobile design beginning with a eight plotted points (and I believe a square or a triangle) as a starting situation and he was to cause the program to design automobile shapes with wheels and test their ability to roll optimally. That is a very non-specific description of the complex explanation he gave me. He did agree that a GA has a design and a designer, has specific goals and has a kind of a DNA code to guide that process to the desired end. Programmers and design and code? None of that supports macroevolution, so pay no attention when some commenter tries to present GA as an example of a Darwinist process. It is more like a creation model as it is all about design and planning and coding. An actual GA designer who is sharp enough to be an honors student at Rose and be sought out by Microsoft has confirmed this. I mean, this is a guy who can discuss astrophysics and he isn't even taking any classes in that discipline but he understands all about the white-hole event horizon hypothesis and the problem of the singularity at the beginning of a so-called Big Bang. You can discuss red-shifts and shifting constants and, well, they had to start shutting off the lights to chase us out of church and his family was calling him on his cell phone because we didn't want to stop talking. Smart, funny, interesting, wonderful guy is Kevin!
Kevin also promised me to review the famed Hartnett equation and give me a definitive answer as to whether the equation is simply a matter of a "notational error" or if it is just plain wrong. Once he speaks to this I now have a way to contact Hartnett and present him with the opinion and ask him to respond. So hopefully within about a month the Hartnett fuss will be settled. Unlike my other egghead friend who is too busy to deal with it at the moment, Kevin can find time to check it out and he is an occasional reader of this blog. I was kind of surprised he reads it very often as he has studies and classes and projects and friends and other concerns, so hey Kevin, if you read this one? We are all proud of you, you are the bomb!!! So thanks to Kevin in advance for speaking to the situation.
The message at church today was really fascinating and a presentation before the message was also inspirational. One aspect of it probably deserves a blog post all by itself so I'll wait on that one, but the message by Pastor Ric was so dead on and I wish Christians could understand it in their minds AND hearts. The simple truth is that we were made to glorify God and God is not here to make us rich or give us an easy life. But on the other hand, God's grace is absolute. Like Ric said, if God has a refrigerator then your picture is on it. To be a Christian isn't a free ticket to heaven or a guarantee of riches. Most people are willing to settle for success in a temporal field that will not in the long run mean anything at all. Consider this portion of the Bible - Matthew 6. Now if you read it all you see that Jesus was teaching a LOT about living the Christian life but here is how He summarizes:
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
God is not a money tree. But if you know the Bible and live according to the teachings of the Bible, you will work and be diligent and use your talents and you will make enough money to meet your needs. That is not the important part of life. Relationships are more important than riches and no relationship is more important than the relationship with God. If you have a relationship with God then you will want to do what you can to follow His plan for your life and do things that have eternal consequences.
Which brings me at last to the point of this post. I've sung and/or spoken before big crowds and small groups and I have a God-given ability to speak extemporaneously and confidently and I have a God-given ability to sing lead or pretty much any backing vocal part. Some people have "flop sweat" aka performance anxiety and I don't. I know I can do it. But I still care about it whenever I do find myself in front of people and I still have to remember that it really isn't about me. It is about the song or it is about the message. These days when I sing or speak it relates to Christianity 99% of the time so I remind myself that it is is about what God wants to share with the audience...and I remember that this ability is a gift from God and not something I made from whole cloth.
So I suppose I am a performer, but it is a hobby rather than an obsession. People obsessed with performance often wind up being professional actors. Acting is fun (but on stage you sure have to memorize a LOT of lines) but it is just fun, nothing more. There are apparently actors and actresses that do not feel "alive" unless they are performing and they spend much of their life playing a part, even when the camera isn't rolling. That sounds like hell on Earth to me, frankly.
I have learned that just being who you are 24x7 is the most satisfying and peaceful and joyful state in which to be. So I am only a performer when it is my job to perform, otherwise I am just me. Same guy at home, at church, at work, hanging out with friends, whatever. Playing to an audience of people instead of just living your life is stressful. If you make up stories you have to remember them. If you play a part when with certain groups of people then you always have to be "on" around them. Yet so many people do just that, they are one way at work and another at home. Lots of Christians have a "church face" that gets put in a drawer and left there until the next Sunday service comes along.
So that means that they are playing to an audience when they are at work, or at school, or at any place they are being something other than real. Ouch. For me it is simple. I am just who I am and if someone watches me they will see an ordinary Christian guy doing ordinary things in ways that honor God. If they see me screw up (not being perfect) then so be it. I will do my best and keep on keeping on.
I thought on it all, and then thought about this blog and then of course I realized that I have an audience of sorts on the internet. Sometimes the crowd is pretty big, some days I get more than 700 visitors. Not anywhere near the huge numbers of people who read famous blogs like Michelle Malkin's blog, or Glenn Reynold's blog or that horrible Kos guy's blog. But I don't care, I don't do trackbacks and all that stuff and my blog is kind of a niche blog. I tend to write for an imaginary reader who is a reasonably intelligent Christian or a seeker who had not settled what he will believe. I hope to help people find Christ and to help Christians understand why a Young Earth and a historical Adam and Eve are historical facts rather than myth and thereby strengthen faith. So it is kind of cool that so many people come in and take a look and that some of them come back at least from time to time. Thanks, regular readers!
But then I rethought as Ric was speaking. It occurred to me that in fact the only audience that I really have that matters is God. My family and friends are living life along with me and we aren't acting. We are busy doing what we do not giving much thought to anyone who is watching us. We figure if we do what God wants us to do then if there is anyone watching we'll make God look good. But God is watching me all the time. Yep. God is my audience. I need to remember that God isn't just watching me, He knows my thoughts and motivations. Every second of every day I have top billing with God. He doesn't just have my picture in his wallet, he has direct access to my thoughts and feelings. I can tell you that in times of trouble that thought is far more comforting than disconcerting!
So do you. I am not unique. God is watching everybody and He knows the thoughts and intents of your hearts. Even if you don't believe in Him, he absolutely KNOWS about you.
Hebrews 4:11-13 - 1 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
You have an audience named God. He never sleeps. He doesn't just watch what you do, He knows why you did it and what went through your mind as you planned it or reacted to it or whether you just acted on a whim. God could tell YOU why you did it if you aren't sure. You doubt it? Well, sports fans, one of these days you will realize that God really did create the Universe from nothing and not only sustains it purposely and continually but understands everything that happens and why it is happening. You will realize that the Bible isn't just an old black book that looks good on a bookshelf, it is God's message to you and you are making a big mistake if you don't give Him a chance to tell you stuff. God wants to dialogue with you. Are you going to tell Him to "talk to the hand" or are you going to open up to Him and learn from Him and become His child or are you going to deny your heritage and renounce your rights as a member of His family and take your chances with the likes of Richard Dawkins and P.Z Myers? Rots of ruck!