Ever resented the success of someone you thought was a jerk? I’ve been there. 

I mean, look at Charlie Sheen.  Why is a guy strung out on meth & coke who has run off 3 different wives and alienated his own children by chasing porn stars and waving around guns get paid mad cash for sharing his crazy with thousands of ticket holders on a world tour? If you are going to church, working hard, paying your taxes and still struggling to get by then how can you not go, ”Hey Lord, what is that all about?”

The Charlie Sheen of the Bible may be Jacob.  Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the Jacob’s story in Genesis 27-33.

Here is what’s happening on the interweb the kids are all crazy about:

Precisely because divine revelation is for man’s benefit we dare not obscure its informational content nor mistake God’s disclosure as automatically saving. Supplying sinful mankind with a lucid divine assessment of its woeful predicament, God’s revelation informs us as well of God’s gracious provision and indispensable condition for reversing that condition.

Simply hearing God’s revealed good news, his dramatic offer of redemption, does not redeem us automatically. In William Temple’s words, “No greater gift can be offered to men; yet many refuse it” (Readings in John’s Gospel, p. 50). We are not redeemed by “good tidings” alone.

-Carl F.H. Henry

The rider in the video is a guy named Danny MacAskill.  He has mad skills and travels around the world taping himself doing stunts.

The video is awesome yet if you think about it, Danny MacAskill is stupid!  Who risks their life for a free Youtube video that people will post nasty comments under?  It doesn’t make sense

Of course, sometimes God doesn’t make sense either.

When I was a runaway wanna be filmmaker in the late ’80′s and early ’90′s, I studied Hollywood renegades like John Milius, Martin Scorsese and William Friedken.  I was especially intrigued with Milius who helped write Dirty Harry and Jeremiah Johnson and direct flicks like Conan The Barbarian and Red Dawn.

Milius never fit in with the secular left of southern California.  He volunteered for the military but, like me, was turned down for physical reasons.  He turned to film and quickly won over the accolades of his fellow upstarts that happened to include George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola.  Milius earned their respect with his talent even while they were slack-jawed by his routine of carrying a .45 1911 pistol while riding a Harley and turn up his nose at fine restaurants preferring to eat at burger joints.  Everything about Milius seemed crazy to the secular left but they still admired him for his talent.  After all, he penned dialogues like the “U.S.S. Indianapolis” speech in Jaws (one of the greatest scenes in film history!).