Love Languages, More or Less

You might be familiar with the concept of the five love languages. In his book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, Gary Chapman expresses that they are: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, & gifts. Basically, his point is that different people value these different things to different extents, so in order to best love someone you need to find out which they value most & use those to demonstrate your affections.

Which is all well & good.

But the more I live life, the more I try to love & be loved, the more I crave love... the more I think it's both more & less complicated than that.

I really just like to know that someone thought of me. & I try to apply that to how I love others, more than any particular 'language'. Even within each language Gary Chapman lists, I find I have a whole range of feelings-- I adore hugs (from most people anyway), but I don't always like to be touched. Some gifts are super generic & don't make me feel much of anything, but sometimes the simplest tiny gift can express a lot. Some words of affirmation are just tossed about, & some are from the heart.

If you love someone, you'll pay attention to them. That's the root. You defer to their whims, you study their tastes, you listen when they talk. You learn to notice when they're stressed out, & how to help them relax. You see when they did something that was hard for them, & you encourage them. You figure out their sense of humor. You stand up for them. You let them go first. You give them the bigger slice.

To use a personal example... I've learned that my husband likes to be given opportunity to be spontaneous. So sometimes I try to analyze if he could use an evening out of the house, & just spring on him with "let's go out", & give him total control of where we go & what we do. I think it makes him feel trusted, & that his opinions are valued. On the other hand, I like to have things planned out in advance. That makes me feel like someone cared enough about me to think through all of the details. So my husband can show me love by thinking ahead, plotting out what I might like.

I'm not writing to totally discount the Love Languages concept, but I do want to encourage us all to not put love in a box. Use all of the languages, & learn new ones. Love people any way you can, & try to see the love in what people do for you.

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Bonus! Some of my 'other' love languages, off the top of my head:

-food
-80s references
-book recommendations
-compliments on my house
-questions about my life & my opinions
-involving me in your life by letting me help with something or just venting to me about a problem
-not interrupting me

In the Beginning...

via apod.nasa.gov

"In the beginning, God created..." - Genesis 1:1

The first verse of the Bible begins the greatest story ever told with this simple statement. That statement is sufficient for my faith and hope in the beautiful story of redemption that we are a part of. "Genesis shows that God, by his very nature, is Creator. That He is there before the beginning of the Story."

As a Christian, a believer in the Creator, I struggle writing this post for fear of judgement - that I'll be accused of headed down a slippery slope of atheistic thought.

As a scientist, an explorer of the created world, I struggle writing this post for fear of judgement - that I'll be accused that believing in God is nothing but a fairy tale and inhibits rational thought.

But "it's not as simple as 'A vs B.'"

I'm writing to tear down the false dichotomy, to bridge the gap, to give hope that science and faith are beautifully woven together and are not mutually exclusive.

On Tuesday night, I was one of the ~800,000 tuned in to the live stream* of the "historic evolution/creation debate" between popular science communicator Bill Nye the Science Guy and Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham. I went into it expecting that I would agree with Ham on basic theology (God is Creator, the power of the Gospel message, etc), but would mostly agree with Nye on scientific facts regarding evolution. The difficulty in watching the debate was that the two men were debating different things: theology and science. The two are not mutually exclusive nor do they belong in a debate against each other.

Ken Ham insists that "creationism" is reading the Bible as a literal historical account of our origins. He admitted that there Christians who do not read Genesis as a literal account (24-hour days), but basically says that they are wrong. His view of Genesis is that it is historically valid as a scientific text. This is where I strongly disagree. 

I am a "creationist" in that I believe God created. But nowhere does God's Word claim to explain the scientific laws of nature that were created. The fact is that while the Bible is a "living document" (still applicable to our lives today), it was written by and for peoples who lived in an ancient culture. Would Moses be able to read and understand a scientific textbook about gravity or the speed of light? Would Noah be able to understand the complexities of neurological disorders like autism or muscular dystrophy? Most likely, they wouldn't...most people today don't even fully understand these things. Doesn't it make more sense that the inspired Word of God would be more focused on explaining WHY there is a Creator rather than HOW did He create?

I fully admit that I don't have clear cut answers. It's possible that by a miracle, God created in literal 24-hour days. It's possible that a "day" to God is a mere millisecond, and that millions of years could had passed. I DO believe that God created. I DO believe that he chose to create man in his image - not his literal physical image, but that we have the intellect to know him and seek truth. It is through this gift of intellect that man has continued to seek for truth in our world...and this includes science. 


 
Bill Nye explained several different scientific points - observable data from our natural world (our created world) that evolutionary principles are fact. Ken Ham asserted that any belief in evolution is a "naturalist" view of the world and that there is no compatibility with a Creator. However, Bill Nye confirmed that there are millions of people who have no problem reconciling** their faith beliefs with scientific discovery, even though he himself takes on an agnostic/atheistic worldview.

I'm an "evolutionist" in that I believe that God has gifted us with the joy of scientific discovery so that we can better understand the universe he created and know him. Current scientific evidence of evolutionary principles is real, is observable, and is NOT a gateway to an atheistic worldview. "If the earth is really billions of years old, then I can trust that God is patient." It's simply awe-inspiring to think of the grand scale in which God works. I can enjoy pursuing scientific discovery through the lens of a Christian worldview and simply learn more about God through the observable world around us.

But none of this really matters. Salvation is not based on if you are a young-earth creationist, old-earth creationist, theistic evolutionist, evolutionist, or whatever made up -ist title you want to give yourself. 

We need to stop promoting a culture of scientific illiteracy and instead choose to pursue scientific discovery with open minds. We need to stop finding ways to divide the body of Christ and instead choose to celebrate the much greater story that started "in the beginning..." 

via learningtodogood.com - my Career Day talk as a service through our church

*You can still view the archived debate for a while longer. They did not give a time period when it would be taken down, but I believe Answers in Genesis plans to sell DVDs as well.
**Here are several responses from Christian scientists and scholars who are part of the BioLogos Foundation. Also, I wrote a bit about NIH director Francis Collins' book before...a must read for anyone who wants further insight on the evolution/creation dichotomy and that there is #anotherchoice.
***I'm open to explaining/discussing more details on the topic of this post if people want clarification. Comments are open. But only respectful, civil discourse will be allowed.

(cross posted from www.marielmohns.com)

Little Kid Faith

I remember being very small & sitting on my bed one night, telling God that I'd believe in Him if He healed the cut on my finger.

In a way, that's the dumbest thing ever.

& yet, yes, He did create my body to heal. I want to hold on to that part of me that sees Him in the details of what He has created.

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I remember being pretty small & spending an entire day telling God how much I wanted to not be sick, so I could go to the Amy Grant concert that I just knew would be the highlight of my life thus far. I even took my medicine without complaining, & drank as much water as I could, to help Him out.

He didn't heal me that time, but I believed in Him anyway, because I remembered how much else He had done for me. I want to hold on to the part of me that remembers what He has done.

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I remember my first year as a teenager, secure in the knowledge that God loves me, but somehow not expecting Him to like me. He was my Healer, my Comforter, my Savior, even my Daddy-- but I didn't know that He had plans for me to be happy. It took some real-world events to make me see the "abundant life", "desires of your heart", "your joy may be complete" sort of verses as applying to me. I'm still trying to be the kind of person who knows that His will, though not always easy, does involve me having joy.



-Valerie