Fear and faith are not opposites. Fear is not a lack of faith, but faith in circumstances. You fear when you trust your circumstances more than you trust God.

Finagle's First Law: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. Finagle's Second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to their own pet theory. Finagle's Third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. Corollaries: 1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. 2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately.

Laws of Experimentation: 1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. 2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points. 3. Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it pleases. 4. If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.

A woman at the post office one day sees a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter, methodically placing "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. Once they're all stamped, the man takes out a perfume bottle and sprays scent all over them. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she goes up to the man and asks him what he is doing. He says "I'm sending out 1,000 valentines signed, 'You know who'." "But why?" asks the woman. "It's my job. I'm a divorce lawyer," the man replies. Boy, you can't trust anything anymore, can you? Really--you can't trust anything anymore Internet email Government Friends Romantic relationships Yourself Is there anything worthy of trust today? Anything we can rely on?

The Indians asked their Chief in autumn, if the winter was going to be cold or not. Not really knowing an answer, the Chief replied that the winter was going to be cold and that the members of the village were to collect wood to be prepared. Being a good leader, he then went to the phone booth and called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is this winter to be cold?" The man on the phone responded, "This winter is going to be quite cold indeed." So the Chief went back to speed up his people, to collect even more wood to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again, "Is it going to be a very cold winter?" "Yes," the man replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter." So the Chief goes back to his people and orders them to go and find every scrap of wood they can find. Two weeks later he calls the National Weather Service again, "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be *very* cold?" "Absolutely" the man replies, "the Indians are collecting wood like crazy."

Trust=>Consistency + Loyalty. Trust is proved through delegation.

[this is an excerpts from In Two Minds] Sometimes I almost feel on fire with the immensity of this: each of us is a person, alive, growing, and relating. From the moment we wake to the moment we fall asleep we think, we feel, we choose, we speak, we act, not as isolated individuals but as persons among people. And underneath everything lies trust. From friendships of children to agreements among nations life depends on trust… The highest reaches of love and life depend on trust. Are there any questions more important to each of us than, Whom can I trust? How can I be sure? That is why when trust goes and doubt comes in such a shadow is cast, such a wound is opened, such a hole is left. …Doubt is not primarily an abstract philosophical or theological question, nor a state of morbid spiritual or psychological anguish. At its most basic, doubt is a matter of truth, trust and trustworthiness. Can we trust God? Are we sure? How can we be sure? Do we trust on him enough to rely on him utterly? Are we trusting him enough to enjoy him? Is the whole of living different for that trust?

Not long before his death, Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys. He writes about some friends of his who were trapeze artists, called the Flying Roudellas. They told Nouwen there's a special relationship between flyer and catcher on the trapeze. The flyer is the one that lets go, and the catcher is the one that catches. As the flyer swings high above the crowd on the trapeze, the moment comes when he must let go. He arcs out into the air. His job is to remain as still as possible and wait for the strong hands of the catcher to pluck him from the air. One of the Flying Roudellas told Nouwen, "The flyer must never try to catch the catcher." The flyer must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him, but he must wait.

The rich young ruler was willing to obey, but not to trust.

Jayne O'Conner said, "I grew up thinking that someone was watching over me. I feel a little less watched over now." She was talking about the Old Man of the Mountain, a 40-foot tall natural outcropping of granite ledges in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which looked like the profile of an old man. Two hundred years ago Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote a famous story about it: "The Great Stone Face." The image was on New Hampshire license plates and quarters and about a million souvenirs; it was the official state emblem. Sometime on May 1 or 2, 2003, in a heavy fog, the 700-ton face fell. It broke apart and slid down the mountain in the dark. Steven Heath, one of the residents of nearby Franconia Notch, said, "It's something that has been a part of our lives forever. At first it was disbelief. No one could believe he came down. It's like a member of your family dying." Another man said, "I'm absolutely devastated by this. It makes you wonder if God is unhappy with what is going on." There are times when it seems the most dependable, reliable presence in your life disappears into the fog in the middle of the night. The next morning, that "mountain" you've depended on is gone, and "it makes you wonder if God is unhappy." But the Bible teaches again and again there is only one Rock that will never crumble: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever."[note to self--I need to get a photo of this]

In the movement associated with John Wesley, people met together in little communities to help hold each other accountable for their deepest values and most important decisions. Wesley had a beautiful phrase for this: he called it watching over one another in love. Before someone entered into this community, they would be asked a series of questions to see if they were serious about living in mutual accountability. Sometimes when I speak on community I'll read these to church leaders, and ask them to imagine these questions being posed to attenders at their churches: · Does any sin, inward or outward, have dominion over you? · Do you desire to be told of your faults? · Do you desire to be told of all your faults—and that plain and clear? (By this point, church leaders are inevitably laughing at even the idea of people putting up with such pointed questions.) · Consider! Do you desire that we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear concerning you? · Do you desire that in doing this we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom? · Is it your desire and design to be on this and all other occasions entirely open, so as to speak everything that is in your heart, without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?

I work with a group of interns that come out of secular colleges. These are very committed believers. They're the cream of the crop. I find they don't have any difficulty saying that something is true, but only with great difficulty can they say something else is false. It's inbred in them by their educational system that to make any such claim is arrogant and impossible. If you even mention the idea of truth or give reasons against post-modernism, you find a strong emotion arising that even goes against any argument. I remember one young man after class came up to me and said, "I really appreciate what you're telling us, but as soon as you mention giving reasons for faith, I have a strong reaction that rises from my gut." I did a poll the next day and found that about two-thirds of the class of these very committed believers felt the same thing. Art Lindsley, on true truth, Dick Staub Interview June 9th, 2004

My grandfather always said, "Don't watch your money; watch your health." So one day while I was watching my health, someone stole my money. It was my grandfather.

In the new book Preaching God's Word (Zondervan), the authors (Terry Carter, J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays) write, "I had a conversation once with a former navy diver about diving deep, really deep. He told me that he had been in situations so deep and dark that it was almost impossible to keep from becoming disoriented and confused. What a terrifying feeling -- being under water, unable to see your hands in front of your face, not knowing which way is up, panic engulfing you. I immediately interrupted my friend, 'So what did you do?' . . . "Feel the bubbles," he said. . . . When it's pitch black and you have no idea which way to go, you reach up with your hand and feel the bubbles. The bubbles always drift to the surface. When you can't trust your feelings or judgment, you can always trust the bubbles to get you back to the top.' "Apart from the experience of scuba diving, we need a way to determine what is real and true. Sometimes in life we get disoriented and desperate. At other times, we find ourselves drifting aimlessly. God knew that we would need advice and instructions about how to live. In the sixty-six books of the Bible we have a reality library -- stories, letters, guidelines, and examples from God that tell us what is true and real. In a world that is changing faster than we can imagine, we have something stable, true, and real. . . . "People who gather faithfully to hear a sermon need something more than noise generated by the surrounding culture; they need a word from God."