Snow tracks and sidetracks.

Snow is amazing.

Living in the DFW area, it's incredibly rare that we get anything more than sleet and ice once or twice a year. So, when I woke up at 1 in the afternoon and realized that my only class that day was canceled due to "averse weather conditions" (7 inches of snow), I did what any red-blooded American college kid would do - I went back to sleep for another 2 hours.

When I woke up again, I sat in my warm, comfortable room, and talked to a few friends over the internet for about an hour before deciding it was finally time to go outside and have myself some fun. Being the Texas-bred individual that I am, I quickly put on pants, Underarmor, ski bibs, a t-shirt, a huge jacket, a beanie, and the biggest boots that I had, in order that I would not even get the slightest bit chilly when heading out into the cold. I didn't have any gloves, but I had pockets, so I was all good.

Walking outside with camera in hand and phone in pocket, I proceeded to watch quite a bit of people having a good time sledding, sculpting, fighting, and generally enjoying the once-in-a-Texan-lifetime opportunity. However, since most of my friends were nowhere near the action, I decided to simply observe for the most part, and take quite a few pictures.

That changed when I was charged by a lone individual. My hands occupied with my camera, I was helpless against the three-snowball onslaught, and made a semi-distressed noise as the white spheres of doom exploded upon my protective layers. I was not prepared for such savagery! The girl who invited me to join the war shortly after confirmed my thoughts - I could no longer stand by idly.

It was an epic battle.

What began as two sides of 20-versus-10 quickly morphed into 20-versus-10-versus-7, and then to 40-versus-5, and then to approximately 50-vs-50. Snowballs flew, soldiers fell amidst the icy field, orders were shouted, and allegiances were formed and broken subconsciously by the frantic warriors. At one point, a lone individual darted through the carnage wearing nothing but red boxers and brandishing a bright green towel as a rallying beacon, skilfully avoiding the barrage of death-spheres being flung at him by the opposition and working his way back to his defenders, who allowed him to re-dress in safety.

However, all good things must come to an end, and I left for supper as the snowball war was winding down, grabbing some very good pictures on my way to the dining hall. Walking inside forced me to remove a layer or two, only to re-prepare them for the trek back. As I returned to the earlier scene, only a few scarce individuals remained, the forts and giant snowballs and igloos the only testament to their earlier existence.

Now you may be thinking, "Well, that's a great story, but what does it have to do with anything aside from you having a great time and getting amazing pictures?" Well, keep reading, and you'll see.

Essentially, my day was a collection of examples of Christianity - everything from outsiders' responses to our own actions.

Feel free to go back and re-read them if you wish - everything below this line will still be here when you get done.

Ready?

It starts at the very beginning - from the moment I first looked out the window and saw the snow. While my initial reaction was that of pleasure, I soon realised simply from the chill coming from the window that it was much more comfortable outside. Sure, there was an undisturbed world of excitement and adventure waiting for me, but there was also a warm bed and several more hours of sleep to get. Surely I'd have time to do it later; sleep was more important.

This mentality of "well-sure-it's-good-but-maybe-later" is pervasive in both the lives of Christians and non-Christians, and always has been. While we may be willing to give up some things, the more difficult requirements of Christianity are generally ignored (Matthew 19:16-22), preferring to stick with what we know and are comfortable with. It is clear that we don't really need to worry about anything that we give up in order to more thoroughly immerse ourselves in Christianity (Matthew 19:27-30, Luke 12:22-34), but we worry about these types of things anyway, and generally keep them held tight, preventing us from fulfilling our potential. It's something that I still struggle with quite a bit.

While I was tempted to draw some form of metaphor between bundling up and resisting the parts of Scripture that we find less appealing, I do not feel that such a point needs addressing at this particular moment, and so I have opted to skip it in favor of the next. This is not meant to imply that a valid point cannot be made; I simply feel that making such a statement is not my place at the time.

Let me continue, then, skipping far ahead to the snowball fight. I had imagined more comparisons when I originally conceived this note, but I feel that this one is the most essential, and I intend to flesh it out as fully as possible.

In this note, snow is symbolic of God. The pure, vast, untampered fields of snow that fell (and were clearly visible along the highway on my drive to work later that night) struck a solemn chord somewhere within me, and the only thing that I could think to compare them to was our Creator. Even though it was a scant 7 inches of snow, the entirety of the city seemed to be blanketed with perfection - a truly calming, somber experience (and one that I will likely not see again, should I continue to live where I do).

However, man is ill equipped to leave such things as they are, or to handle them in their state. Throughout the day, emergency sirens sounded constantly as individuals failed to recognize the power of the snow and ice and sent their vehicles plunging into guardrails and other cars, or sent their rears plunging to the concrete beneath their feet. Many of the fields soon became warzones, and the once-pristine blankets of snow were rapidly turned into countless defenses against equally countless offenses. While a bad time was had by few and a good time was had by many, at the end of the day, those parts of the snow that had been played in were unquestionably altered by men to fit their temporal needs.

Please don't get me wrong in this - I love snowball fights. I am simply making a point, and snow happens to be my tool for doing so this time.

Throughout history, mankind has constantly corrupted the public face of the Church for their own gain. From the Indulgences sold by the Catholic church in the Middle Ages to modern-day bigots ignoring New Testament commands in favor of Old Testament doctrine, people never stop attempting to use God's word to somehow prove that they are superior to others. This occurred in Biblical times (Acts 8:9-25, Acts 19:13-17), and it is still occurring today.

It seems to me that ultimately, the root of this issue is humility. When people firmly believe that they have in their possession a means to control anything, it is a very simple matter to cease considering the viewpoints and concerns of others while remaining confident in your own, unshakable position.

This is true of nearly everything, not just Christianity. The various Islamic factions continue their infighting, the conflicts in the Middle East show no signs of ending, nuclear research in Iran and North Korea continues despite warnings and sanctions, evolution is widely taught as fact with no attention paid to its numerous flaws, heads of major corporations continue to embezzle funds, corrupt government officials in our own country and in all other nations continue to behave as if they are above the law... the list goes on. The simple fact of the matter is that humility is not something that comes naturally to most people, and this is plainly, painfully evident.

It should be remarked, then, that Jesus was not only a staunch advocate of humility, but also a firm practitioner of it. He did not surround himself with religious leaders and prominent individuals, but instead ate and accompanied tax collectors (who were despised at the time) and 'sinners' (Matthew 9:10-13, many more). He did not proclaim himself a mighty ruler and instantly overthrow everyone, but allowed himself to be treated absolutely terribly, in order that something much more important than himself could be accomplished.

The world is expected to be shallow, materialistic, and prideful. However, as a Christian, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" (Philippians 2:5-7). We are expected to live as Christ lived, which entails a great deal of humility. We, as humans, are not above reproach, and it is guaranteed that we will be rebuked, corrected, debated (and the like) by both those who follow our God and those who do not. Regardless of the circumstances, however, there are clear outlines for our behavior (Mark 12:29-34; Ephesians 4:2-3; Colossians 3) and a clear definition for what those entail (1 Corinthians 13), and we would be foolish to abandon the greatest tools at our disposal in a vain attempt to preserve our pride.

The Ghost of Christians Past

Let's talk about ghosts for a minute.

There are a whole lot of people who believe in ghosts. Personally, I think that the Bible teaches that there's two options when we die, Heaven or Hell, and nobody gets to stick around after death and make their own decision (Philippians 1:21-23; Luke 16:22-23); however, for the sake of the point we're going to leave that question as an assumed "unanswerable."

Essentially what we have now are two types of people - the kind who believe in ghosts and the kind who don't. The people who believe in ghosts feel very strongly that ghosts exist and can (and do) interact with our world in a tangible way. They will go to great lengths to prove their belief, also, taking countless pictures and videos, exploring strange places, investigating abnormal circumstances, and trying to convince people that these ghosts are real and really do matter to us. However, in many situations, they keep quiet about their beliefs, because there's a lot of people who think that ghosts are made up, and who wants to be thought of as the crazy guy who believes in ghosts?

Those on the other side, the people who do not believe in ghosts, are equally as confident in their decision not to believe. They may have seen something that was difficult to explain, but hey, there's a lot of things they don't know, so surely there will be some sort of valid explanation for these things once we learn more. For now, they'll just attribute it to swamp gas, or electromagnetic fields, or hallucinations, or something more standard, and work with that. No amount of video footage, blurry camera photos, and strange readings on funky machines is going to convince them that something that they can't see is relevant.

Sound fair enough?

This is a big issue with Christianity today. It's an issue about God, too, but that's not the point I'm making.

Christianity today is a ghost.

As Christians, we go around spouting our proof every here and there, wherever it seems relevant. We surround ourselves with sermons, music, anything that can reaffirm our beliefs that we're doing the right thing by believing in Jesus. Sometimes, if people around us seem receptive to the idea of this Jesus fellow, we'll go into great detail about how there's so much in favor of Christianity and how we're always supposed to love everyone and turn the other cheek and so on, but generally, we keep our thoughts and opinions to ourselves, because who wants to be thought of as the crazy person who believes in that Christianity stuff?

The non-Christians, whether they're atheist, agnostic, wiccan, hindu, or whoever, just laugh. They see Christians mocking or assaulting homosexuals, spreading racist and backwards political beliefs, indulging in everything that non-Christians indulge in, picketing funerals, driving like bats out of hell in traffic, and the like, and they think to themselves, "If people who follow an all-loving God can do all this in His name, He must be a fake." Occasionally, they'll hear of miracles occurring, people dying due to their willingness to go to terrible places to preach the gospel, and astounding transformations in lives, but it's a simple matter to just say, "Well, sometimes medical things happen that we can't explain, people do crazy things for just about anything, and some people just reach a point of personal enlightenment. There's nothing special here." They are not shown the true form of Christianity, and so they dismiss it as pointless, unscientific, and the like.

True Christianity is a ghost.

Fortunately, there is a way to bring it back.

If you were a ghost-believer, and you had to convince your closest friend in the whole world that ghosts really did exist, it would help to be able to quote exact reasons why - personal narratives, various facts regarding ghosts, and so on - but the absolute best, most effective way to prove to them that ghosts existed would be to show them one. It is easy to rationalize away written occurrences, but who could keep believing that ghosts didn't exist after they directly saw one do something spectacular?

I'm not trying to claim that Christians should drag non-Christians to remote places, point out something awesome and God-done, and exclaim, "Look, I believe the right thing and I proved it, now convert!" This is inappropriate and will probably get you arrested or committed to a mental facility. Rather, we should live each moment of our lives entirely committed to glorifying God and manifesting Christ in our actions (Ephesians 5:1-2).

What better way can we convince people that there is a God who loves everyone unconditionally than by being living examples of this love (1 John 4:7-17)? It is incredibly clear in the Bible that the entire purpose of our new Christian lives is to love everyone with Christ's love (John 15:12), and therefore, this should be the primary focus of Christianity today.

Unfortunately, this can be very difficult. As humans, we are prone to judge everyone that we meet by their physical appearance, and to make immediate assumptions about them based solely on what we can physically see (1 Samuel 16:6-7). Sadly enough, this is even true in many of today's churches, where many of the fashions of the youth today are visibly and loudly frowned upon by active churchgoers.

The true form of Christianity cannot be shown to the world if we are not even showing it to our fellow Christians.

It's depressing when I hear about people who have been so harmed by Christians, whether directly or indirectly, that they refuse to give Christianity a chance. I get upset when I'm talking to people and they feel the need to preface their statements with "Please don't hate me for this but...." The attitude of the ghost of Christianity is one that has lost the true spirit of Christ, and rather than producing fruit, is actively scaring the fruit away from the vine!

When we begin judging people wrongfully (1 Corinthians 5:12) and treating people based on our human judgment instead of God's holy and all-knowing wisdom, we lose our ability as a faith to grow (John 15:1-8). The reason that the early church spread so rapidly, even despite its persecution, is that their members were an entire group of people who, even when they didn't even want to be alive, continued to live as Jesus lived (2 Corinthians 1:3-12).

Living this way is difficult, but rewarding beyond anything that we can imagine (John 15:9-14).

The analogy continues, at least in part.

People who don’t believe in ghosts (in terms of this analogy) will cite countless logical, scientific reasons why it’s just not possible for ghosts to be real, and will cling to them unceasingly. They are absolutely staunch in their belief and reasoning for not-believing, and will undoubtedly always have facts on hand to prove why ghosts don’t exist.

Opponents of Christianity, as well, will do the same thing. Whether it’s impossibly complex logical arguments as to why God simply can’t exist to rhetoric about why He isn’t needed, we are constantly bombarded by the illogical nature of believing in an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving Creator. The idea is dismissed as primeval or irrelevant, and Christians are dismissed as simple-minded fools.

In a sense, we are, or we should be, crazy to this world. The basic truth of Christianity – that God loves us so much that he sent his Son to die in our place so that we could remain with Him forever (John 3:16) is ridiculous when people fail to accept the idea that anything supernatural exists. However, since God created everything that exists and is not bound by the laws of nature that we can interact with, His strength and glory are utterly confusing to anyone who is not saved (or getting there) (1 Corinthians 1:18-20).

Christianity is intended to be somewhat contrary to the ways of this world. Our society encourages selfishness and a single-minded relentless pursuit of our own desires at the expense of everyone else if needed, while true Christianity (not its ghost) is selfless, kind, and involves a true sense of compassion for all people (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). This seems impossible to those who view true Christianity from the outside – but that’s a good thing! If people are looking at you, as a Christian, and are absolutely perplexed as to why you’re doing what you’re doing, then you can be sure that you’re somewhere close to the right track (1 Corinthians 8:23-25).

If people think that you’re insane for living true Christianity (proving the ghost), that’s a good thing! If people start calling you out for being crazy, God is able and willing to speak through you in order that He may be glorified and that the gospel can be preached (Luke 13:9-11). Ultimately, no matter what, as long as we continue to seek God’s will and allow Christ to be present in everything we do, we will be able to dispel the rumours and, just as in the early church, reveal the reality that is true Christianity (John 15:4-8; 2 Timothy 2:11-13).