The Surrendered Life

CHANGE OF BLOG SITE

2011-08-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

As of August 1, 2011 I will be blogging under a different website and blog name. Please go to:
http://www.soulpoint.wordpress.com/ in order to follow my blog. All of the blog postings from this site are listed under the new site in the 'Archives' section.

Thank you for your interest in my blog.

The Morning Came Without My Help

2010-05-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

While sitting on my back deck one morning recently listening to the birds sing, enjoying the trees and plants, and just taking in the beauty of that new day, a thought occurred to me: “The morning came without my help”. I had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. I did not play any part whatsoever in its arrival, and yet it came anyway.

Sometimes I get all caught up in what I am doing. What contribution I am making in this world. What effect my presence here is having. Sometimes it’s good to just sit and be aware that a lot of things seem to happen just fine without my involvement. In fact, if I was honest, sometimes my involvement just seems to get in the way. Some things are supposed to be received as a gift from the One who loves to love us whether we had anything to do with it or not.

Why is it that I am often so obsessed with what I am doing, what contribution I am making, what kind of influence I have over people and situations? I understand the fact that we are created to participate with God in creation; in His kingdom. I know that the God-image in us longs to create, to bless, to work toward righteousness and justice. But as much as I would like it to be, I don’t really think that is always the primary motivation of my striving. There is something much more neurotic at play here. Much more self-centered. Many of my pursuits lead to worry, anxiety, fear, and guilt. Many of them feel more like a weight pressing down on me than a lifting up of my spirit that comes from some truly noble or selfless act.

Control. That’s it. Much of my striving comes from a need to control the world around me, at least my world. I know that there is really nothing I can do about Afghanistan, or the Gulf oil spill, or the economy in Greece. Nothing, that is, except worry. But there is plenty I can do to control my world isn’t there? Aren’t there lots of things that really depend upon my efforts, my abilities, my talents? Things that just couldn’t happen without my involvement? I’m afraid that reality tells me there are probably far less of these than I think. Mornings teach me this. Mornings come without my help. Amazing. I guess there are some things that are not intended to be controlled. Some things are just there to be enjoyed. And some things (quite a lot actually) might just happen anyway, even without my help.

“His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is Your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23

Leaning Toward Our Suffering

2010-03-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

5th Week of Lent

There is a truth in life that most of us are fairly reluctant to accept. In fact we usually go to great lengths to avoid the searing impact it usually has on us. It’s summed up in phrases like, “No pain, no gain”, and “It’s always darkest before the dawn”, and, “Suffer not, live not”. Each of these expressions point to the truth we spend great energy trying to avoid: that pain, darkness, suffering do not have to be ends in and of themselves. They can actually be guides to something that we would have never been able to experience without them.

As we enter into the last week of lent, the week that we call Holy Week, I am struck once again by the fact that you cannot arise to the light of Easter without going through the darkness of Holy Week. Each year I face this, and each year something inside me wants to scream, “NOOOOOO. Don’t make me go there. Don’t make me walk through pain and darkness and suffering. Just give me a Mega dose of Easter life and joy. THAT’s what I really need!” And yet each year I step into Holy Week knowing, “No pain, no gain”, and “It’s always darkest before the dawn”, and “Suffer not, live not”.

You see the richness of Holy Week for me is that it stands as an incredible metaphor concerning the redemptive power of suffering in our lives. It is, of course, anchored in the redemptive suffering of Jesus on the cross for us. But it does not, it cannot, end there. The suffering of Jesus grew out of His living in the Father’s love for Him and for all humanity. It had meaning. And when we live our lives in the Father’s love then our suffering can have meaning too. Redemptive meaning.

Now, I want to be very cautious here. I know that there is much suffering in our world that is tragic and even horrendous that doesn't deserve the glib, and perhaps flippant expressions that I’ve listed above. There are some levels of pain and suffering that simply defy understanding in this life. Even so, I am still convinced that life lived in the Father’s loving embrace means that our suffering can somehow be miraculously “redeemed”, it is “bought back” in such a way that His glorious and ultimate will can be done in us. It does not mean that God always initiates the suffering that threatens to crush us (though I am sure He sometimes does). It does mean that there is no suffering so great, there is no evil so deep, there is no darkness so grim that God cannot redeem it for His own life-giving purposes in us.

As I said, by nature we seek to avoid things that hurt us at all levels: physical, psychological, relational, spiritual. And yet it is often in the facing (dare I say even embracing) of these hurtful places that we find our greatest healing. It is as we lean toward our suffering that we truly experience God leaning toward us.

Jesus demonstrated this for us when He came to a place in His life when it was time to head toward Jerusalem in order to face and embrace the suffering necessary for our healing. He was at the furthest place from Jerusalem that He ever travelled in His ministry years. Way up in northern Palestine, in a town called Caesarea Philippi. Luke 9:51 tells us that, “As the time approached for Him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus RESOLUTELY set out for Jerusalem.” In other words, He turned His face toward, He leaned toward the point of what would be His greatest suffering. He knew what was coming and He walked toward it.

Jesus' resolute courage and determination to live within the Father’s love created what we call Holy Week. It embodies the heart of Christianity: the death and resurrection of Christ for us. It also serves as a timeless reminder that as we face and embrace the challenges, pain, darkness and suffering of our lives, but do so embedded in the Father’s love, that we too will awaken into the light of new life.

I recently heard someone use the example of falling into quicksand as an illustration of leaning toward our suffering. When someone is sinking in quicksand intuitively they begin to fight and squirm trying to get themselves out. In doing so they shift their weight from one leg to another, each time putting all of their weight on the very small surface of the bottom of one foot. As a result, all that their squirming accomplishes is to sink deeper and deeper. But if there is any hope of getting out of quicksand it requires doing something that is counterintuitive to what we might think. A person must displace as much of their body mass as possible onto the quicksand itself in order to keep from sinking further. Then you can begin to turn and try to roll your way over to the side and to safety. In a sense we must lean into, lay against, or get close to the very thing that threatens to destroy us. “Getting with” our own suffering, as odd as it may sound, is often the only way to keep it from destroying us.

So, I now turn my eyes now toward Holy Week. I face my own times of suffering. I lean into the often confusing darkness that grips my own soul, knowing that Jesus has already walked there and is waiting on the other side. So this coming week I have an odd suggestion for you. Attend a Holy Week service of some kind, but make sure that it is the darkest, most morose, depressing service that you can find. Put off, just for a moment, the joyful celebration of the resurrection. That will come. But this coming week lean into the pain that comes before the gain, the darkness that engulfs us before the dawn, the suffering that produces life and healing for us. Leaning may make us feel a bit off balance, but that is exactly the place we need to be in order to live in the embrace of the Father.

Paying Attention

2010-03-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

4th Week of Lent

I am reasonably sure that I am not the only driver who has ever had this experience: you are driving along and you find yourself so distracted that all of a sudden you realize that you are 2 exits past the one you intended to take.

Paying attention. It was drilled into us in Drivers Ed. (those of us who actually took Drivers Ed.). It is the mantra of mothers teaching their children how to cross the street (“look left, then right, then left, then right again, then left again, etc., etc.”). It’s what coaches mean when they scream at their players, “Get your head in the game!” It’s what wives want when they ask, “Are you listening to me?” It’s why we have what are called “distracted driving laws” which tell us that while we are driving we should not text, eat, put on make-up, look at the scenery, sing too loudly, or talk to anyone but ourselves. Why? Distraction prevents us from paying attention, and paying attention is important to staying alive.

What is true of the physical world around us is also true of the spiritual world within us. Just as we are so prone to allowing distractions to divert our attention in our daily lives we are equally prone to letting distractions keep us from paying attention to the present work of God in our spiritual lives. That’s one reason why Lent is so important for us. It is a period of time where we intentionally pay attention. We should be doing this all the time but distraction is often a drug far too powerful to resist on an on-going basis. So we enter into seasons during the year like Advent and Lent and Easter (yes, Easter is a season not a day). Lent calls us to attend to the presence of God around us and within us. More specifically, it calls us to attend to the present presence of God around us and within us. This is a critically important distinction to make, because if you are like me you tend to focus the energy of your attention either in the past or in the future.

For me, my distraction drug of choice has always been the future. I have spent so much time and energy through much of my life extending myself out into the future. It’s not bad to have dreams and aspirations but for me those have often robbed me of living fully in the here and now. I admit that I have not always been “fully present” in my own life. I have been “out there” somewhere dreaming and wondering what life will be like someday.

For others their distraction drug may be the past. This is especially tempting for people as they enter into their mid-life and senior years. They look back at what life was like when the kids were little, or when they were working, or when twitter was how birds sang in the back yard first thing in the morning. Back then. Back when life was good (though if we were honest we didn’t always think so at the time).

Now, there is nothing wrong with a nostalgic look to the past, or with a hopeful gaze into the future. We would not be human if we did not engage in such activities. In fact, it is one of the things that truly sets us apart from other aspects of creation. The problem is when we dwell there in such a way that the present begins to fade in importance. But the past-lovers and future-dwellers will tell us these are often much more preferred places to live than the present. Perhaps, but the problem is that God is a God of the present. He dwells eternally in the here and now. Isn’t it interesting that God said to Moses, “I AM”, not “I WAS”, or “I WILL BE”. Those are true to be sure but God chose a phrase that communicated that He is ever present in the here and now.

Reflecting back upon His presence with us in the past, or thinking ahead hoping for His presence with us in the future may be comforting exercises but God is ever calling us to dwell with Him fully in each moment as it presents itself to us. Neglecting to do so robs us of the intimacy of God’s presence. Attention to the present moment with God is the only way to truly hear Him and experience His presence with us.

I have to admit, though, I’m not very good at this. I want to be. I desperately want to live in such a way that I am aware of God in the hundreds of little things going on around me in every moment. I would love to cultivate the kind of present moment relationship with Him that makes discerning His will nothing more than a glance upward instead of needing a 3 day silent retreat just to get the ball rolling. But, I confess, I am often addicted to distraction. That’s why I need Lent. It’s why I need this Lenten season. If there is any great need in my own life right now it’s the need to let go of the past AND the future and to live fully in the present moment just as it is, with all of its pain, joy, confusion, peace, fearfulness, or contentment. Whatever it is, it has God present in it. And who would want to miss that?

Rain at Winter's End

2010-03-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

3rd Week of Lent

[I came across this poem by Ruth Haley Barton and it so captures my own feelings during this lenten season that I offer it to you for your own reflection.]

Rain at Winter's End
by Ruth Haley Barton

‟Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person's hand
is rising out of the sea!″
I Kings 18:44

I love the way the rain comes at winter's end
to hose down the sooty earth,
and wash away the dirt that comes from who-knows-where.

Oh God,
I need a cleansing rain in my life,
dirty as I am with the grit and grime of these dark years.
My heart is hard and crusty
like patches of old snow in the yard,
my life littered with trash I don't recognize
and dead, brown grass where it used to be so green.

Today I would settle for a little cloud
no bigger than a person's hand
far off in the distance
rising out of the sea of this disillusionment.

Today, if I saw such a cloud
I would run like Elijah--
loins girded,
strengthened by the hand of the Lord
in hopes that I could be there when the deluge came.

Warm rain
Softening the hardness of my heart
Washing away the pain
Enlivening this dead earth.

Today, if I saw even a hint of such a cloud,
I would lay myself down upon the earth
and bow my heart low
Waiting for the miracle that would signal the changing of the season
the end of this drought
the coming of spring
in the winter of my heart.

Letting Go

2010-02-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

2nd Week of Lent

There is a tree in my neighborhood where I walk (see picture). I have been watching this tree for several months now. I have watched it go from beautiful green to many shades of orange and brown in the fall. But this tree is different from the trees around it. The other trees went through the same process but one by one they began letting go of their leaves so that now they all stand completely barren. No sign of any former life on them. But this one tree has not yet let go of a single leaf. She stands completely full of dead, shriveled, brittle leaves and, as far as I can tell, not one has yet to fall to the ground. I call her "The Clinging Tree".

Every time I walk past this tree I feel a deep sense of understanding and empathy for her. She clings to what once was. She is hanging on to the beauty that her life used to be. She tenaciously holds on to that which used to define her as a healthy, living, vibrant part of God’s creation. I imagine her looking around at her neighbors, watching what was happening to them and thinking, “That’s not going to happen to me. I refuse to look like that, all barren and empty. Who wants to gaze upon or stand beneath a tree like that. No, I will hold on to my life and never let it go.”

She doesn’t realize that she is the one who looks odd now. The other trees, even in their barren state, look quite normal. That’s what happens in winter. That’s how you are supposed to look. That’s how a tree prepares itself for the new life of spring. But the other trees don’t seem to be willing to share what they know. Their silence seems as if they are holding back some secret, some inner knowledge of how things are supposed to work. Or maybe they know something that we don’t. Maybe having gone through a few winters themselves they have come to learn that letting go doesn’t come from someone telling you that it’s time. It comes from an inner awareness that refusing to let go never brings back the past, it only prevents us from receiving the present and walking into the future.

Spiritual writers for centuries have talked about having ‘attachments’ in our lives. These are not things that have attached themselves to us but are things that we have attached ourselves to. They may be obvious things like money or possessions or career, but they may also be more subtle things like attitudes, memories, or a previous golden era in our life. There really is an endless list of what could be an attachment for us because all of us are different. The common denominator for any attachment, though, is that it either does, or once did, or we hope that it will some day give us some sense of purpose, belonging, or fulfillment. We end up looking to it to give us something that God says only He can give.

When we let go of these attachments in appropriate ways and at appropriate times it may feel like we are closing ourselves off from life but actually we are instead opening ourselves up to the new life that waits for us when there is sufficient room to receive them. Attachments are to the soul what clutter is to one’s home. Just watch the T.V. show ‘Hoarders’ sometime to see what effect clutter has on people’s lives. Attachments are clutter in our soul. Letting go of the old is the only way of receiving the new, whatever that will be.

The process of metamorphosis (what caterpillars go through to become butterflies) has become a life metaphor for me lately. I read recently that not all caterpillars go through this process in the same way. When it comes time to begin spinning the cocoon that becomes the womb that eventually gives birth to something new, some caterpillars actually resist this initial process and thereby put off entering into what will turn them into a butterfly. They cling to their former state, refusing to let go of what once was. This state of clinging is called “diapause”. It results in either putting off new life until next season or, in some cases, simply means death. Isn’t it interesting that creation is full of things that have a hard time letting go. Whether it’s a stubborn tree refusing to shed its leaves, or a caterpillar clinging to its former self, or you and I fiercely gripping onto the attachments of our lives the outcome is always the same: new life gets delayed.

Lent is a kind of long winter that is intended to be a time of learning how to embrace our own emptiness and barrenness while at the same time holding onto the glorious hope of new life. But often we try and sit through winter clinging to things that offer a false hope of spring. The irony is that we do this, not because we are trying to avoid spring, but because we desperately long for it. The problem is in thinking that by clinging we will receive what our hearts most long for. But it is only in letting go that we can sit with our own emptiness in the patient awareness that spring is just around the corner.

Isaiah 43:18 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” When it comes right down to it there is only one appropriate kind of clinging; only one kind of attachment that is actually healthy for the human soul. It's summed up in three simple words spoken by Jesus at a time when His disciples were about to enter into the biggest “letting go” season of their lives: “Abide in me”. Tenaciously clinging to Jesus will help us to release our grip on those other attachments that we think can give us what we desire most.

I am waiting to see what happens with “The Clinging Tree”. But until then she reminds of my own clinging tendencies and how there is a kind of stark beauty in being empty and barren while waiting for the magnificence of spring.

[I have listed in the post below a copy of one of my favorite poems. It beautifully speaks of the process of letting go.]

The Sacrament of Waiting

2010-02-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

The Sacrament of Waiting
by Macrina Wiederkehr

Slowly, she celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green, then the orange, yellow, and red,

finally she let go of her brown.

Shedding her last leaf she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky she began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf she watched its journey to the ground.

She stood in silence wearing the color of emptiness,

her branches wondering:

How do you give shade with so much gone?

And then, the sacrament of waiting began.

The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness.

Clothing her with silhouettes they kept her hope alive.

They helped her understand that her vulnerability,

her dependence and need, her emptiness, her readiness to receive

were giving her a new kind of beauty.

Every morning and every evening they stood in silence

and celebrated together the sacrament of waiting.

(from, Seasons of Your Heart)

Lent: A Slow Walk Through Winter

2010-02-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

Ash Wednesday 2010

It has been an unseasonably mild winter here in the Pacific Northwest. While other parts of the country are getting slammed with snow and ice and flooding I am walking around my neighborhood looking at cherry blossoms emerging from trees that only a few weeks ago looked empty and barren. I started noticing a week or two ago the buds coming much earlier than normal. I’m not a winter kind of guy. So when I see new life emerging from what once looked lifeless something in me grabs on to that as a sign of hope that my own sense of barren emptiness may soon give way to the glorious gift of life and beauty.

I love spring. But the thing about spring that we often forget is that it has to follow winter. Spring is only spring because there has been a winter. During winter everything looks like it has died. The grass doesn’t grow; the trees have lost their leaves; it’s dark and grey more than it is light (remember I’m talking about the Pacific Northwest here). To the uninformed observer it might look as though it's the end of life. There was a spring, a summer, a fall and now everything has died and life is over. But to the person who has been through a few winters of their own they know that what looks like death is only the preamble to a glorious new beginning. But this new beginning must, let me state that a little more forcefully, ABSOLUTELY MUST!!!! be preceded by the death of winter.

Ash Wednesday is the day that we enter into a kind of spiritual winter called Lent. For the next 40 days leading up to Easter we remind ourselves that new life is always preceded by death. We learn anew the value of letting go, giving up the old in order to make room for the new that God will soon bring in us. Just as the trees must release their grip on each leaf and allow it to fall to the ground and die, so must we release our anxious clinging to those things that only hold us back from entering into the spring of our soul. In a sense we must surrender to the winter in order to more gloriously grasp the spring.

As I said, I’m not a winter kind of guy. In my mind winters are something to endure in order to get to the spring. If there were some other way to get there I would take it. I think that may be why so many people head south to Arizona during this time. It’s an avoidance technique used to deny the existence of winter and move right from fall to spring. But this doesn’t work when it comes to the spring time that God wants to bring to our soul. There is no avoiding winter in the spiritual world. People try, but it is simply impossible to arrive at new life without going through a kind of death and emptying of self. In fact new life is a far more powerful experience when we not only go through our own spiritual winter but actually embrace it. That’s right, this winter-hating, avoid-the-cold, detest-the-darkness kind of guy is saying that we must learn how to embrace the winter, not out of necessity, but out of love for God and the journey toward a deeper life in Him.

One of the most counter-intuitive aspects of the spiritual world is that life is only arrived at through death. Lent gives us an unhurried time to walk through the winter, observing what is dying (or needs to die) in us. It allows us time to listen to the darkness of the tomb that brought forth the light of new life. It tells us that when we feel the dark, bleak spiritual winter of our own soul that this is not an end but simply an overture to a new symphony of life that will soon be performed in us.

Lent is intended to be a slow walk. You are supposed to feel the cold, sense the darkness, enter into the emptiness. A slow walk through winter is the only way to fully emerge into the promise of springtime. So maybe the thing that you most need to give up for Lent this year, is hurry.

[I invite you to pray with me the lenten prayer by Henri Nouwen that I have included in the post below.]

A Lenten Prayer

2010-02-17T23:00:00.000-08:00

[Taken from, The Road to Daybreak, by Henri Nouwen]

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me.

Amen.

Less Is More

2009-12-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

Of the many, and profoundly valuable, things my wife has taught me over the years one of the greatest is the power of a simple phrase that she has used for as long as I have known her. Less is more. She usually uses this phrase at times when I have wandered into the dangerous world of excess: a long sermon; attempts to smother our house and yard with Christmas lights; an overly ambitious home improvement project; the purchase of life’s necessities (like a boat, a motorcycle, or a double case of Costco peanut butter). At times like these I hear her sweet and melodic voice gently saying, “You know David, less is more.”

Christmas is a good time for prophets like my wife to step up and say “enough is enough”. I’m not exactly sure how it got to be like this. It’s almost like someone has been adding more and more things to Christmas in an attempt to confuse and distract us from it’s real meaning. So for all of the brave and daring prophets who would boldly stand against the tide of ‘more is more’ I have a verse. Every prophet needs a verse, so here it is:

“But you Bethlehem Ephrathah,

though you are least among the clans of Judah,

yet out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,

whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

(Micah 5:2)

Don’t miss that first line: “But you Bethlehem, though you are LEAST.” The prophetic lesson from this verse that must be proclaimed to the uninformed masses is this: The truly important things of life are usually wrapped in simplicity. Less is more.

Bethlehem was a small and insignificant village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was so small and insignificant that in Joshua 15, after the conquest of the Promised Land, when all of the towns and villages of the province of Judah are listed, Bethlehem isn’t even mentioned. Maybe it didn’t even exist at the time. Maybe it was so small that it was really nothing more than a watering hole for animals or a rest stop for travelers.

In fact in the Old Testament the only significant thing about Bethlehem was that David was born there. David, Israel’s greatest human king, comes out of this small and insignificant village. And then in the New Testament, Jesus the Messiah, the world's ultimate divine King, is also born in Bethlehem.

It seems like the things of God are often placed in sharp contrast with the things of this world. The things that God says are insignificant we tend to magnify. And the things that God says are of great and ultimate value we tend to minimize. The greatest things often do come wrapped in simplicity.

From God’s perspective, less is often a better representation of His truth and power.
• God has Gideon reduce his army from 32,000 men down to 300 and then says, “now you are ready to go against the Midianites in battle.”
• David defeats the Philistine giant Goliath with only a sling and 5 smooth stones, 4 of which he doesn’t even use.
• Paul comes to the point of realizing that God can use his own physical infirmity to actually make him a much stronger person.
• Jesus stands before a crowd of 5,000 with one little boy’s lunch and manages to use it to feed them all.

From God’s perspective less is often more. In fact from God’s perspective less is often preferable because God usually uses small and insignificant things to demonstrate His power. When we are seeking to live our lives around the concept of less we will be able to see our own deep need for Him more clearly. Simplifying our lives enables us to reduce things down to the bare essentials and be content with that.

Now, I’m not talking about giving away everything you have and living in a garage somewhere. What I’m talking about has more to do with your state of mind than with your state of wealth. You can simplify your life whether you are rich or poor, employed or unemployed, married or single, young or old, because simplicity begins as a condition of the heart. Only from that starting point can you go on to make choices about the condition of your life. James 4:10 tells us to, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.” Here’s another verse you prophets can use to illustrate that in God’s eyes less is more.

So, are you moving toward less this Christmas or are you moving toward more. I encourage you to begin thinking more in terms of less. Think simpler. Try to shrink your view of Christmas down to what matters most. It’s not the shopping, or the decorations, or the eating, or cramming as many social events into the month as you can. It’s about a baby, who’s poor and insignificant parents travelled to a small and insignificant village so that God could come to earth in the simplest and lowliest of means. And so it is for our great and eternal blessing that at that time and in that place less really became so much more.

A Christmas Journey

2009-12-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

“Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,

‘Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?

We saw his star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Matthew 2:1-2

Travelling is a part of life. You may enjoy travelling, you may not, but we all travel. It’s built into the fabric of humanity. It’s how we all arrived at the point we are today, it’s how we will continue on into the future. Humanity is on the move. It always has been, it always will be. I love to travel, though I must admit that lately I have loved spending lots of time at home in peace and quiet with family and my dog worshipping me at my feet. But even this is a kind of travelling. Home is, must be, a significant part of our journey through life.

As this advent season begins I am thinking a lot about this idea of travelling and journey. Journey lies at the heart of Christmas. The wise men journeyed from the east. The shepherds journeyed in from their fields. Mary and Joseph journeyed from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Jesus journeyed “from heaven to earth come down”. The Jews themselves had been on a long journey ever since the call of Abraham, and even before. We cannot really understand the Christmas story without paying attention to this idea of journey. All of these journeys come together and find their focal point in a manger in Bethlehem. But this is not the end of the journey. It is the heart and soul and reason for the journey. It’s the fulfillment of the journey, but the journey goes on from here.

Even before Bethlehem God the Son was with us (humanity) as part of the triune God. Now He continues to be with us in the person of Jesus: God made man, God with us, Immanuel. Here is an interesting and mysterious thought: Jesus brought us to His own manger, and, He walks away from it with us. Don’t try too hard to figure it out. That’s why it’s called a mystery. Jesus never really begins a journey with us. He has always been there. We begin our journey with Him by standing before the cradle in Bethlehem and then moving on to places like Galilee and Samaria and Capernaum and Jerusalem and Golgotha. But these aren’t places we just visit once and move on. Our journey involves frequent trips back to these places both to remember as well as to “see anew”. Jesus brings us back here because there are always new things to gain from them that then change us and send us on our way only to bring us back again at some point. And each time we come back we are different people, so we see these places and hear these stories differently. That’s the amazing power of advent. Each time we come here we are different. Our journey has taken us to new places and we have seen new things and then our journey brings us back again to the Christmas story and we see it in a different light because we are different. And each time we leave it and continue our journey we are different because of having come back here.

There is no real destination to our journey. I know that goes against our very western mindset that every trip must end at some place. I mean that’s the purpose of a journey right, to go someplace? Not really. In our journey there is no ultimate destination. Even heaven, commonly thought of as our final destination, is not so much the end of our journey as it is the beginning of another, greater journey. The purpose of the journey is not getting someplace. The purpose of the journey is the journey itself because our ultimate destination is simply to be with Jesus. Walk with Him, rest with Him, BE with Him. Our journey is not about going someplace, it’s about being with Someone.

This Christmas season I am participating in a journey that has been going on for thousands of years (really ever since humanity first learned how to walk). Walking with Jesus through advent this year I will see the sights, hear the sounds, experience anew the rough and raw humanity of Christmas. This Christmas is different because I am different. And I fully expect to leave this time different from the person I was when I got here. And so the journey continues.

Unlikely Places of Grace

2009-11-06T23:14:00.000-08:00

“Tremble, O earth, at the PRESENCE of the Lord,

at the PRESENCE of the God of Jacob,

who turned the rock into a pool,

the hard rock into springs of water.”
Psalm 114:7-8

God often does the unexpected not only because He can (that goes without saying) but also because it usually throws us off just enough to where we actually notice He is doing something. I’m convinced that He uses the common and the likely but these are also the very places where we often miss seeing the moving of His grace. It is precisely because they are likely that we sometimes see grace as common, natural, coincidental, rather than a divine break-in from a Heavenly Intruder. To shake us out of our blind indifference sometimes God comes in unlikely places of grace.

The Psalm above refers back to the Exodus 17 story of Moses striking the rock at Horeb which then produces water to satisfy the thirst of the Israelites. This ‘striking incident’ was preceded by the Israelites complaining to Moses about their condition and wondering if God was really with them or not. God’s meets their need, but in an unlikely way.

The most likely solution to the Israelites problem (thirst) would have been for God to lead them to a river or stream or spring where they could drink. Those would be likely places, normal places, to get water. But God chooses an unlikely place, perhaps the most unlikely place of all, to satisfy their thirst – a rock. A rock is not something that I would have thought of. Of all the places I can think of to satisfy my thirst I would have never come up with a rock. Rocks are, to say the least, unlikely places to find water.

Put this in a long list of Biblical examples of God’s grace coming from unlikely places: an ark is built far from the nearest body of water; a donkey speaks a word from God; a teenage boy kills a giant and then rules a nation; an evil empire becomes God’s hand of ultimate mercy for His people; a man of God is told to marry a prostitute as a living example of God’s love; a fish becomes the vehicle to deliver a prophet; water gets turned into wine; a boy’s lunch feeds 5,000; and the most unlikely place of all for God’s grace to be found is when the finality of a cross and a tomb become the birthplace of eternal life.

Though not nearly on as grand a scale as these I can come up with my own list of unlikely places of grace. Just like the Israelites thirst, I too have felt a desperate need. And just like the Israelites complaint, I have sometimes said (or at least thought), “God, are you with me or not?” I have looked for answers and solutions to my deep needs in all of the most likely places. But more times than not it has been the unlikely places that God has used to meet these needs.

In fact sometimes these unlikely places have at first appeared as hard, immovable obstacles (like rocks). I perceive them as things that are actually standing in the way of what I most need, or at least think I need. I think that ill-health is an obstacle to fulfilling God’s call on my life, but He uses this to issue a deeper call to find my rest and fulfillment in Him alone. I think that being out of work is keeping me from adequately taking care of my family, but He uses that to show me that my deeper need is to trust in Him. There are all kinds of apparent obstacles in our lives that God may want to turn into an unlikely spring of grace to refresh us and bless those around us.

How does this all happen? Psalm 114 above gives us the answer twice in verse 7. The “Presence” of the Lord. I capitalize the word "Presence" because here it almost sounds like person’s name. “Presence” is a person. God’s Presence transforms the unlikely broken, hard places of our lives into springs of grace and mercy. And this really is what our heart most thirsts for: the Presence, filling the most unlikely places with His grace.

Does God Dwell in Darkness?

2009-10-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have been reading an old spiritual classic called, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, by Jean Pierre De Caussade. He talks about our tendency to miss seeing God in the places where He most longs to reveal Himself – in the ordinary and mundane, even in the places that we often think are hurting or destroying us. Dark places. God often comes to us in “events that we imagine to be our ruin.” And then he says something that shatters not just a few of my sacred pre-conceived notions of how God works in our lives. Sometimes, “there is no remedy for this darkness but to sink into it.”

I sometimes reflect on Psalm 40 where the psalmist is praising God for “lifting [him] out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.” I sometimes imagine myself in that pit desperately clutching to the sides trying to keep from falling into the depths of what I just know is death and destruction below. I look up and cry out to God for help. I try and picture Him leaning over the edge of the pit and grabbing my arms, pulling me to safety and security, placing “my feet on a rock”.

But maybe I have the picture wrong. Maybe it’s not so much about me waiting for God to reach down and lift me out as it is my letting go and falling into the darkness I so dread because in the darkness is where His presence is waiting for me. Maybe He is not above me, but below me waiting for me to fall, not so much into the darkness, as into Him. “There is no remedy for this darkness but to sink into it.” Maybe the place I most fear is the place where He most dwells.

The story is told of a man who tripped and fell off a cliff. Clutching at the grasses on the edge of the cliff he finds that he can put off his fall for a moment or two. “Is there anyone up there?” he cries out. “Yes”, came a reply, but nothing further. “Who are you? Why don’t you help me?” shouted the man. “I’m God”, said the voice, “and I will help you, but you must do exactly as I say.” “OK”, whispered the man. “What do you want me to do?” “First, let go!” The man thinks for a moment and then says, “Is there anyone else up there?”

Sometimes surrender to God is not so much a movement upward (the most logical direction to us), but a movement downward, seemingly deeper into the darkness that we dread. Maybe God is actually present in the dark places that we fear to go in ways that are unseen, unknown to eyes that do not see “by faith”. De Caussade calls these dark places “afflictions” and says that it is in these places, “that God, veiled and obscured, reveals himself, mysteriously bestowing his grace.”

I must admit that the idea that God may actually dwell in the darkness I most fear is a difficult one to grasp. But then it is my grasping that often prevents me from falling into the grace that is my soul’s deepest desire. True spiritual surrender is usually counter-intuitive; it just doesn’t make sense. If we are in a pit common sense says to fight and claw our way out or to wait for someone to come and pull us out. Who would have thought that the way out might actually be down rather than up.

To me, this is one of those “leaps of faith” that I find so difficult to take. I mistakenly think that darkness, pain, suffering, affliction are things to avoid not things to embrace. They are things to get past quickly not things to linger in finding a deeper place of God’s presence. “Let go”, God often says. “for the way of my grace may not come from above but from below, from underneath you, from those places you most dread, for even there I AM.”

Dark places often fill our lives but I am coming to see them as Jacob did when he encountered God at Bethel. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16)

What's In a Name?

2009-09-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

I love the names that are given to people and places in the Old Testament. They didn’t just name their children John or Samantha or Trevor because they liked the sound of the name. They came up with names that spoke to the deep meaning of something that had happened in their life. This “naming” of their experience was a powerful way of expressing their own life perspective that had grown out of their struggle or joy.

Joseph did this with his first two children. Joseph’s life had been marked by a long series of betrayals, injustices, and disappointments. Any one of these could easily have made him an angry, bitter, resentful, or vengeful man. But they didn’t. And the first glimpse we see into how Joseph’s suffering had shaped his heart was in the naming of his two sons.

“Joseph named his firstborn MANASSEH and said, ‘It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household’. The second son he named EPHRAIM and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’” Genesis 41:51-52

Two names that speak powerfully to how suffering had shaped the heart and soul of Joseph into a humble, healed, God-honoring man. A man who sees his present situation as chief administrator of all Egypt under Pharaoh as something that came, not in spite of his suffering, but directly because of it. Not happenstance or coincidence, but directed by the hand of God. When Joseph named his sons Manasseh and Ephraim he was putting his own suffering into proper perspective. At the same time he was demonstrating for us the surrendered life that God calls us to.

Manasseh: “God has made me forget all my trouble”. Obviously Joseph is not having a lapse of memory here. “Forgetting” has nothing to do with an inability to remember. It has everything to do with how those memories are remembered and their effect upon us. Joseph had arrived at a place where, by God’s grace, he was able to let go of the sting of his suffering. Those events had hurt him and hurt him deeply but they were not hurting him any longer.

We all have experiences that need to be renamed in our lives. Our hope is that we are moving toward a place where all of our suffering can be called ‘Manasseh’. The sting of it removed and replaced by an assurance of God’s grace in using them to perfect His person in us. These experiences may be a deep hurt or injustice inflicted on us by a friend or loved one. It may be the loss of something or someone that we just can’t seem to get past. It might be an illness or physical struggle of some kind that causes us to dwell on the better days prior to its onset. Whatever this suffering is must be seen in the light of God’s grace and renamed so that the sting and power they have over us is removed with His help and mercy.

But just having the sting removed is not enough. God doesn’t merely want us to experience 'Manasseh Grace', He wants us to go on to embrace 'Ephraim Grace'. “God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” Joseph doesn’t see his life as merely healed from the past, there is a present fruitfulness that emerges from the soil of his suffering. He was not where he was in spite of his suffering; he was there because of it. He was there because God had shaped and formed him in his suffering, not freeing him from it but using it as a divine tool for sculpting his soul and preparing him for this place of service. The brash, proud teenage boy who got himself into trouble with his brothers was gone. Joseph was now a man of profound wisdom, humility, and discernment, all of which had been carved into his soul by God with the tool of suffering.

Who wouldn’t like a life that was pain free, worry free, a life untouched by deep disappointment and discouragement? There is part of me that wants to believe that this kind of life must infinitely better than my own. I wonder, though, what life would be like if we spent as much time and energy yielding to God and the tool of suffering as we do fighting it. I think we all deeply desire a life of wholeness and fruitfulness. But this is generally arrived at through trial and suffering not in avoidance of it. And really, who can avoid it? In our obsession to be rid of all trouble and heartache we usually just created fertile ground for anger and resentment. How much better is 'Ephraim Grace' where fruitfulness comes to us not in the absence of difficulty but as a direct result of it. I am becoming increasingly convinced that suffering is a tool. Who uses that tool, and to what end, depends entirely on to whom our lives are yielded: ourselves or God.

In reading the Joseph story I was convicted that my own complaining about my suffering needs to be replaced by renaming my suffering Manasseh and Ephraim. This won’t necessarily remove the suffering but it does hold the power to transform it into something that actually will bring to me my deepest desire: wholeness and fruitfulness.

I wrote this prayer in my journal after some reflection on Joseph’s experience.
“Lord, I surrender my heart and life to You, not to be set free from suffering, but to be shaped and formed by it under the power of Your Holy Spirit. Make whole and fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

What’s in a name? That depends entirely on the name you're using.

A Place of Quiet Rest

2009-08-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

“Come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place

and get some rest.”

(Mark 6:31)

I have been thinking a lot about rest lately. When I had to leave pastoral ministry last summer for health reasons I entered into a time of rest (I call it a “season” because that helps me think that it won’t last forever). At first I thought this was primarily for physical rest. My body was completely exhausted and needed a break. It’s been a year and I have had plenty of physical rest yet there is still an exhaustion that plagues me. I am beginning to see that “rest” means much more than simply the ceasing of activity. I am in a “season” of rest but I am finding that I need to do much more than rest physically.

Ceasing from activity is a necessary first step in the rest that Jesus calls us to but it must go much deeper. I think the kind of rest that Jesus is talking about is closely associated with the word ‘wholeness’. Wholeness implies a kind of rest that goes much deeper than our physical need. It goes all the way down to our soul and spirit. This is the place where our truest self resides. It’s also the place where brokenness lives. It’s hard to really be at rest when we are broken in those deep places. When we are broken we are fractured, divided in a sense. Think of a compound fracture in your arm. It is ‘divided’ from itself, in a way, and needs to come back together in order to heal. As long as it is divided from itself it is not well or whole. Parker Palmer in an excellent book called, ‘A Hidden Wholeness’, says that life is a journey toward living an undivided life. In essence, a whole life. Brokenness creates a kind of division within us. Things are not quite right. They are out of sync. Brokenness creates disorder in the soul and it’s hard to be at rest in the presence of disorder.

That’s why we can cease from our outward activity and still not enter into a place of true rest. Ceasing is the doorway to true rest, and it certainly does provide a measure of rest, but we must walk through this doorway in order to get to the deeper places of rest that Jesus calls us to. We must rest from our activities, but once there we must learn to rest from other things as well.

We need to learn how to rest from our false sense of identity. It’s exhausting on the soul to try and be someone that we are not. And it’s impossible to truly discover and embrace our true self apart from that quiet place of reflection when the voice of our soul and the voice of the Holy Spirit come together and speak the truth to us. Most of us have numerous “false selves” that we don’t even know are false. Brennan Manning calls these “imposters”. If we live with these imposters for long we begin to treat them as real and this creates a divided soul and a divided soul is not a soul at rest.

We also need to rest from attitudes and thought patterns that deplete the soul rather than fill it. The soul that has been surrendered to Jesus will be ill-at-ease with certain attitudes that are contrary to the Spirit of Jesus in us. For instance, anger and bitterness will deplete the soul rather quickly. So will things like jealousy, lust, and envy. We need to learn how to rest from (cease) these in order to enter into the rest of Jesus.

Sometimes we need to rest from our pursuits. Some of our pursuits are good and noble: learning and knowledge; exercise; hobbies; service and ministry. But even these require a certain level of striving and sometimes we need to rest from our striving (maybe only for awhile) in order to re-engage them with energy and passion. Other pursuits are less than holy and noble. Busyness, obsessions, harmful habits. Sometimes we are not even aware of what these are until we enter into that quiet place and let our soul and the Holy Spirit speak to us.

When Jesus calls us to come away with Him to a quiet place in order to get some rest ceasing our activities is only the beginning. Having removed ourselves from the frantic busyness and relentless distractions of our lives we can then listen to the voice of our soul that stands in desperate longing for a deeper awareness of the presence of Jesus. Only then can deep rest come, rest, not just of body, but of soul. That is the cry of the psalmist who says, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.” (Psalm 62:1)

The Power of THEN (no not Zen)

2009-05-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

[A Series of Thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"THEN you will be able to test and approve what God's will is,

his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Romans 12:2b

The Bible is full of powerful words. Words that encapsulate the truth of our faith. Words like sacrifice, blessing, atonement, assurance, sin, faith. Words that have layers, like an onion (some even come with an odor and make you cry). Words that you can spend hours studying and still not exhaust their meaning. Preachers love words like these. We can preach a 32 week sermon series on any one of them and still have material left over. Words like these give depth and breadth and life to our understanding of God and faith.

But there are other kinds of words in the Bible that are just as powerful if you understand what is going on around them. They are ‘connective words’. Words like ‘therefore’, ‘because’, ‘finally’, even the word ‘and’ is powerful because it connects two or more thoughts while saying that they are still unique (like getting married: the two become one while not losing their ‘two-ness’). These connective words are absolutely critical in order to understand the flow of thought in a Biblical passage. If we ignore them we run the risk of misinterpreting the true meaning and we end up missing the value and blessing of what they are connecting us to.

Another one of these simple connective words is found here in Romans 12:2 and provides a great ending to this blog-series on Romans 12:1-2. It’s the word ‘then’. It connects everything that Paul has said thus far in chapter 12 to what he now says about the “good, pleasing and perfect” will of God. Who doesn’t want to know what God’s will is? Who doesn’t want to find out the plan and purpose that God has for each of us? And yet too many times we jump to this without being connected to what leads us to it. In other words, we sometimes beg and plead and bargain with God for Him to tell us what His will for our life is without realizing that His will is often revealed naturally to the one who is living in submission and surrender to Him.

Paul has just said that we are to offer ourselves as “living sacrifices” to Him. This is an act of “spiritual worship”. He says that we are not to “conform any longer to the pattern of this world”, instead we are to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind”. If we are living like this, if we are seeking Him in every way, if we are yielding our will to His will, our mind to His mind, our spirit to His spirit, “THEN”, Paul says, we will “be able to test and approve what God’s will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will”.

The word ‘then’ is essential if we are to understand what Paul is saying. The knowledge of GOD’s will is dependent upon the surrender of OUR will to Him. You wouldn’t see this if not for that simple word ‘then’ connecting surrender with knowing God’s will. And in the end, we usually find that God’s good, pleasing and perfect will is not just revealed TO a surrendered heart, His will for us IS a surrendered heart. Knowing His will is often simply the ability to see and rest in the fact that our surrendered heart is all that we really need to know. We want to know God’s plan, God’s purpose, God’s leading, God’s wisdom for our lives, and sometimes He gives us a clear sense of what those are. But before all of these, His good, pleasing and perfect will is simply a heart that trusts Him fully.

So THEN, the surrendered life is the only life that brings God’s will into focus for us, because the surrendered life IS God’s will for us.

Conformed or Transformed -pt.4

2009-05-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

[A series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Romans 12:2

In a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy said this, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” I don’t know all of the issues or threats he was facing that motivated him to say these words but I doubt that he had in mind Romans 12:2, “Do not CONFORM any longer to the pattern of this world…” Yet there is a poignant truth to Kennedy’s words when it comes to those things that threaten to restrict and restrain us from becoming all that God wants us to be.

When we conform to something we give to it the freedom to shape us according to its will and value system. In essence we are formed “with” it (con = with; con-form is to be formed with something). It is a choice we make. Paul says, “Do not conform any longer”. The implication is that we should stop doing this. It’s up to us. We have a choice. There is nothing being forced upon us.

Now, that is not to say that there are not powers around us that are trying to draw us in to their particular view of life. There are indeed such forces all around us. Political views, social perspectives, moral values. We are daily inundated with messages that are trying to shape us and form us to be something that we were not created to be. It is the value system of this world. Paul calls it the “pattern” of this world. Pattern implies design and shape and purpose. The pattern of this world calls to us to become a part of it. To weave ourselves into its design in such a way that it’s hard to tell where “me” ends and the “pattern of this world” begins.

I love how J.B. Phillips translates this verse, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold.” How often do we do this? How often do we allow our own convictions to be shaped more by fluctuating social values than by the fixed truth of God’s Word? Conformity to the pattern of this world is indeed the “jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” We cannot be free while being bound to the way of thinking this world calls us to. We cannot grow and become all that God has created us to be if we have planted ourselves in the soil of this worlds values.

So what is the alternative to being conformed to the pattern of this world? Eugene Peterson tells us clearly in his translation of this verse in The Message. “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it WITHOUT EVEN THINKING.” We cannot keep from being conformed to the pattern of this world if we are not thinking clearly, if our minds are not focused on something beyond this world. We must be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”.

There is a natural pull of our minds into the pattern of this world. We must “renew” our minds, train our minds, to think differently. We cannot do this if we continue to look to the world and it’s prophets to tell us how to think. We must raise our minds above all of this to something else. The way of renewed thinking lies in where our minds are focused. “Set your minds on things above, NOT on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2)

If we take our cues from this world then we will inevitably be conformed to it. But if our minds are focused intently on God and His Word then a transformation takes place in us and we begin to be shaped by the eternal values of God’s truth rather than by the ever-changing values of this world.

Conformed or transformed? Shaped by this world or shaped by God’s Word? Both are choices we make. They each lead in opposite directions: One toward bondage and stagnation, the other toward freedom and growth. Doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.

Life is a Sanctuary -pt.3

2009-03-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

[A Series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God,
WHICH IS YOUR SPIRITUAL WORSHIP."
(Romans 12:1)

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” declares Jaques in Shakespeare’s play ‘As You Like It’. Jaques is waxing eloquent here about the developmental “stages” (no pun intended) of life and how it is a place to present our performance to a watching world. Had the Apostle Paul been exposed to Shakespeare he may have described his words in Romans 12:1 like this: “All the world’s a sanctuary, and all the men and women merely worshippers”.

Have you ever thought about worship like that? We tend to think of worship as an event that we attend and how well we worship is often dependent upon how good the action is up on the stage. Or if we are a bit more spiritual we might think that worship can also take place in our own devotional times of prayer and the reading of Scripture. I think Paul is talking about something much deeper here when he says we are to “offer” our bodies as living sacrifices as an act of “spiritual worship”. He has already talked about offering ourselves to sin and impurity (Romans 6:13 &19), now he speaks of the opposite of this which is to offer ourselves fully to God in worship.

If indeed, “all the world’s a sanctuary, and all the men and women merely worshippers” the question, then, is who (or what) are we worshipping? We all bow down to something don’t we? Our careers, our family, habits, leisure activities, addictions, possessions. We all have a tendency to place something or someone at heart of our life, a place that should be reserved for God alone. We do this, I believe, because humanity was created to worship. What we worship is as varied as each individual personality.

Whenever I see a Hollywood "red carpet" event where all the stars arrive and strut and pose for the photographers I can’t help but think I am watching a worship event. The gods and goddesses of our culture are everywhere. They wear sports uniforms or star in movies. They hold public office or run large companies. Sometimes they are teachers or musicians or even pastors. Sometimes they are not people at all but rather ideas or value systems. Anything that captures a place in our hearts that belongs to God alone is a form of worship. The Bible calls it idolatry.

“Spiritual worship”, Paul says, is a sacrifice of our whole selves to God alone. It’s not an event like Sunday morning worship. It can’t be reduced to a particular form (traditional, contemporary, formal, informal). It’s not restricted to certain body postures (kneeling, hands raised, dancing, standing). All of these can express our worship but worship by nature must transcend these and be something that encompasses all of our lives, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

The essence of “spiritual worship” is that it is a life style rather than an event. It’s a daily decision to live in such a way that everything we do, everything we say, everywhere we go is an act of worship. We cannot offer our bodies as living sacrifices once a week on Sunday morning. We must offer ourselves totally and completely to God, body, mind and spirit. Anything less is not really “spiritual worship” and runs the risk of becoming something closer to idolatry.

“All the world’s a sanctuary, and all the men and women merely worshippers” really does describe this life. The only question left to answer is who is on the red carpet?

Going Home: A Journey's End

2009-03-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

[Here is a link to a video tribute that I made for my dad which was played at his memorial service:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3DjZQPLhes ]

My father, Rev. Robert W. Hicks, died peacefully in the presence of family on Friday, February 27, 2009 at 11:48 pm. He was 94 years old. It was a departure for us who loved him, it was an arrival for him and all who stood waiting to greet him. A departure or an arrival depends entirely on who is travelling and where they are going. For us who were impacted by his presence for so many years, he was departing: leaving family, friends, loved ones. Leaving a wife of 65 years. Leaving his body that had carried him from the Georgia farm to the Colorado Rockies to the South Pacific to the Pacific Northwest to South Korea and all points in between. Leaving his home here that had nurtured and cared for him so well.

But for him and all those who have gone before him, and especially for his Savior whom he served so well, it was not a departure but an arrival. It was an arrival home, his true and final home. My dad lived in many places over the past 94 years. Places in Georgia where he grew up and began his ministry; places while serving his country here and overseas; places he lived with my mother while in ministry and in retirement. All of them served their purpose for a time, but they were all merely way stations along the way to a final resting place.

My father was an introvert by nature. He was never really comfortable in social settings. When he and my mom would be in someone’s home or at a social event the time would inevitably come when my dad would say, “OK, well I guess we better be getting home now.” In recent years as his mind was increasingly losing it's hold on reality he seemed to be obsessed with going home. While in his own home, with his wife and family, he would often say, “Who’s going to bring the car around so we can go home”, or he would pack a bag (usually filled with books) and say, “I’m all packed and ready to go home now.” Sometimes when I was leaving his house I would tell him that I was leaving and he would say, “Well I’m trying to leave too. Who’s going to take ME home?”

It almost seems like his whole life was spent just trying to get home.

I imagine a young boy caked in red Georgia dirt plowing a field longing for the time when he could get back home and continue reading that Zane Grey novel.

I picture a seminary student living in Atlanta many hours from his rural family farm house looking forward to going home and getting some real southern cooking from his mama.

I see a young army chaplain stationed in the South Pacific knowing that his young bride was about to give birth to their first child and longing to be home with them at that moment.

I envision a pastor who worked long hard hours in many different churches over the years looking forward to coming home at the end of the day to a house full of hugs and smiles from his wife and kids.

Going home is a wonderful thing. And now at last, after all these years, my dad is finally home. I’m sure that in this life the times of being able to go home was a great blessing for him. But there is nothing that can compare with what happened on Friday, February 27, 2009 at 11:48 pm. At funerals and memorial services we sometimes use the phrase “dearly departed” to refer to the one who has passed on. With my dad I much prefer the phrase “dearly arrived”. Welcome home thou good and faithful servant.

This old American folk song beautifully describes my dad’s life long journey toward home.

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
Travelling through this world of woe
But there's no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go

Well I'm going there to meet my mother
Said she'd meet me when I come
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

I know dark clouds will gather 'round me
I know my way will be rough and steep
But beautiful fields lie just before me
Where God's redeemed their vigils keep

Well I'm going there to meet my loved ones
Gone on before me, one by one
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

I'll soon be free of earthly trials
My body rest in the old church yard
I'll drop this cross of self-denial
And I'll go singing home to God

Well I'm going there to meet my Savior
Dwell with Him and never roam
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

"Living Sacrifices" pt.2

2009-02-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

[A series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers,

in view of God’s mercy,

TO OFFER YOUR BODIES AS LIVING SACRIFICES,

holy and pleasing to God…”

(Romans 12:1)

Sometimes we have the opportunity, or the necessity, to give up something. Several years ago we gave our couch and love seat to our daughter Kellie who was moving into a house with some girls at college. They needed some furniture, we were looking to get rid of some furniture, it worked out great. But it wasn’t really a sacrifice on our part. It didn’t cost us anything (except for the backache of moving it for her). Last summer I had to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life: to give up a job that meant everything to me for the sake of my health and the future of the church. It cost me a lot and still brings a sense of grief when I think about it. Sacrifices costs us something.

Romans 12:1 says that we are to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices”. It says that we are to do this in response to something. “In view of God’s mercy” or “because of God’s mercy” or “in light of God’s mercy”. [See previous post, ‘First Responders’ for more on this.] No matter how you phrase it it still means the same thing. Something has happened that we must respond to, and the most appropriate response is to sacrifice (give up) something of value. If it doesn’t cost us something it’s not really a sacrifice.

Sometimes the things we sacrifice (give up) are not necessarily positive things. We may sacrifice our health because of bad habits; our job because of irresponsibility; our children due to neglect or indifference; a relationship because of an inappropriate word or response. On the other hand, some of our sacrifices are more positive, even commendable. We might sacrifice our time in order to help someone; we may give sacrificially to something (giving more than we can afford) so someone can be blessed; we might give up a dream job in order to take a lesser job because it is better for the family. To sacrifice is to intentionally give up, or lose something, that is of value to us. Sacrifice costs us something.

When King David’s prayer was answered that a plague against Israel would be stopped he went to purchase the place where the angel of the Lord had brought about this miracle. At this place there stood a barn and David made an offer to the owner to buy the barn and the land in order to build an altar of thanksgiving to the Lord (the future sight of the Jerusalem temple). The owner tried to give it all to David along with an ox so that he could offer a sacrifice to the Lord. But David said, “I will not sacrifice an offering that costs me nothing” (1 Chronicles 21:24). Interesting concept: it seems that the nature of the offering is not nearly so important as how much it cost. In other words, what is it worth to the person making the sacrifice?

If you are in need of a car and can’t afford one it’s not a sacrifice to me if I give you my neighbors car (other than possibly some jail time). But if I give you my car, it’s a sacrifice. If you need someone to take you to a doctor’s appointment it’s not a sacrifice for me to say, “I’m sure my daughter Brianne would love to take you.” If a missionary needs a new roof for an orphanage in a poor village in Africa it’s no sacrifice on my part if I go and ask my friend Bill to give to this project because he has lots of money (Bill’s name has been changed to protect him from you going and asking him for money.) These things may be well and good but they don’t constitute a sacrifice on my part.

Paul says we are to offer “our bodies” as living sacrifices. Our bodies are very important to us. You may not like how it looks or how it is performing right now but they are still very precious to us. They house our mind, spirit, and soul. They allow us to do what we do in this life; go where we go, enjoy relationships, hobbies, nature, etc.. We can’t do any of this outside of our bodies and what they offer us. This is why ill health, old age, and disabilities are so frustrating and even devastating for some. They limit our bodies from allowing us to do what we want to do. Our bodies are precious. To offer our bodies as a living sacrifice is to willfully and intentionally give up our rights and ownership of them to someone else. We do this because of (“in view of”) God’s mercy. God’s mercy is the result of the greatest sacrifice of all because it cost Him His only Son. We are to sacrifice (give up ownership of) our bodies, our whole selves, to God and His purpose for our lives.

This sacrifice that we give up is a “living” sacrifice because it is on-going. In the Old Testament if you sacrificed an oxen you only did it once (makes sense doesn’t it?). The sacrifice we make to God is an on-going, daily, regular sacrifice, not done once, but done as a life-style. It’s like breathing. We don’t say, “Yeah, I breathed once when I was born and I haven’t needed to take a breath since.” Likewise, we cannot say, “Yeah, I sacrificed myself to the Lord back in 1981 so I don’t really need to do it again.” It’s a living sacrifice, meaning it’s on-going.

This kind of sacrifice, one that is of great value to us, one that is on-going, one that costs us something, is a sacrifice that is “holy and pleasing to God” . And that, after all, is all we really need to know, isn’t it.

[More on our sacrifice being our "spiritual worship'

in the next posting.]

First Responders -pt.1

2009-02-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

[A Series of Thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

“Therefore, I urge you brothers,

IN VIEW OF GOD'S MERCY,

to offer yourselves as living sacrifices,

holy and pleasing to God ...”

(Romans 12:1)

By nature we are a ‘responsive’ people. There are hundreds of things every day that we respond to, either consciously or sub-consciously.
· Traffic
· An irritable spouse, friend, or co-worker
· The weather
· The news
· Health issues
· Car trouble
· Job frustrations
· Economic fears
· Strained relationships
· And on, and on, and on ……

Our days are full of things that we respond to that then determine our mood, health, success, failure, effectiveness, ineffectiveness, etc. We cannot not respond to these things because we are by nature ‘responders’. I wonder, though, what would happen to these responses if our first and primary response was to God’s mercy and grace.

We are called in Romans 12:1-2 to live in a certain way. We are to be “living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God”. But in order to get to this place we must become people who respond, first of all, to the grace and mercy of God. The problem is that we too often respond first to these other things and then hope that God’s mercy will ‘fix’ our responses. It can, and often does, but how much better our responses would be to these other things if we first were responding (an on-going response) to His grace and mercy.

‘First Responders’ is a term usually used to refer to those who are the first on the scene after an ‘incident’ (accident, storm, crime, terrorist attack, etc.) They are also sometimes called ‘Incident Response Teams’. We need to realize that an ‘incident’ has occurred, and is occurring daily in and around us – God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love has been poured out to us in Jesus (Romans 5:5). It is active and alive. It happens in us and to us and through us. It finds its heart and core in the gift of Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection.

But this is not merely an historical event, it is an ever-present event. It expresses itself in salvation, new life (abundant and eternal), comfort, strength, wisdom, healing. God’s mercy has gone before us, it presently surrounds us, and it will take us into our future. Our whole life is to be lived to response to His mercy. We are called to be First Responders to the grace and mercy of God, living as if this ‘incident’ were continuously occurring in our lives.

The question for all of us is this: will we be First Responders to the ‘lesser incidents’ of our lives (worry, fear, ambition, greed, anger, brokenness, etc., etc.), or will we be First Responders to the mercy of God that is “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23). If we can learn how to become First Responders to the mercy of God maybe our secondary responses to the hundreds of things we face daily will somehow be transformed. “Therefore, in view of God’s mercy . . . .”

Sacred Wounds

2009-02-11T12:37:00.000-08:00

“By His wounds we are healed.”

Isaiah 53:5

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you

leaving you an example that you should

follow in His steps.”

1 Peter 2:21

As a team leader for several medical teams into the poorest parts of Haiti and Guatemala I have seen a lot of sickness and injury that I would never have been exposed to in the U.S. I remember very well a woman with severe burns that had been treated improperly for several months. I remember the man who came in with a deep machete wound from an attack on his family. The wound was severely infected from improper medical care. I remember a woman who had broken her leg and it hadn’t been set correctly so that now she was permanently disabled. Wounds that are not dealt with properly can have lasting, sometimes devastating, results.

In our culture we usually deal well with any physical wounds that happen to us. What we aren’t so good at dealing with are the emotional and spiritual wounds that come to us all. These wounds often become sources of infection in our soul and spirit. They aren’t dealt with properly and so they continue to hurt us rather than becoming a source of healing. ‘Sacred Wounds’, on the other hand, are wounds that have become ‘healing wounds’ for us and others. Irrespective of their origin they have been transformed by God’s grace so that their destructive or harmful potential is gone. They now become a source of help and hope. It doesn’t mean that they no longer hurt (this is very important to understand). It means that they no longer harm us or those around us.

Some hurts we carry with us for a long time: the death of a loved one; the loss of a relationship; the disappointment of a broken dream; the hurtful words of a friend; a prolonged illness that robs us of strength, vitality, and hope. It is wrong to think that these hurts are only healed when the pain they carry is gone. They are healed when the harm they carry is gone; when they stop doing damage to ourselves and others. Then they become ‘sacred wounds’, wounds that have a redemptive power to heal.

Jesus wounds were sacred wounds. His wounds are what provide for our ultimate healing and wholeness. But Jesus is not the only one with sacred wounds. Listen to these words, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps.” (1 Peter 2:21). “Sharing” (Philippians 3:10) or “participating” (1 Peter 4:13) in the sufferings of Jesus means more than simply receiving them as our source of healing. We are to follow His example by allowing our wounds to become sacred wounds – places of healing for self and others. Grace must flow in 2 directions: into us for our healing, and through us for the healing of others. Our wounds can only become sacred wounds as they are healed and transformed by His sacred wounds. Our wounds are only sacred because they exist within a greater wound – the wounds of Christ.

The wounds of Jesus became sacred when He surrendered them into the hands of the Father. “Not my will but Thine be done.” (Mark 14:36). “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke23:46). Christ modeled for us how wounds become sacred: through surrender, letting go of them. Not clinging or clenching them tight fisted. When we cling tightly to our wounds we continue to draw out their poison. The more we squeeze the more poison they produce. The more poison they produce, the more harm done to ourself and others.

But when we let go of them in surrender to the Father we allow His healing salve to be rubbed into them. Interesting word, ‘salve’ (ointment used for healing). See how closely it looks like the word ‘salvation’. Salvation is the process of rubbing the healing ointment of God’s grace into our deepest wound (separation from God). Surrendering our hurts and wounds to God is the process (transformation) of moving from poison to grace-filled healing. These sacred wounds of ours then also become a source of healing to others. Bitterness and anger is the poison that comes from wounds we will not let go of. Grace and blessing flow from sacred wounds.

What Power Lies Within

2009-01-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

“And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead

is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead

will also give life to your mortal bodies

through His Spirit, who lives in you.”

Romans 8:11

Our perception of ourselves is formed in various ways. Our childhood experiences can shape our adult responses. Our looks can shape our self image. Our successes or failures can shape the level of self-confidence we have. One word from another person can sometimes determine whether I feel good or bad about myself today. All of these things and more, over time, can create a perception of what we think is real about us. They become things that “reside” within us and we give them the power and permission to determine who we are. We allow them to give birth to a person within us that may not in any way resemble the person we were meant to be.

The revolutionary truth that Paul tells us in the above passage is this: The Spirit of God Lives in Me! Think about that. Roll that one around in your mind for a while. Repeat it over and over until it starts to sink in. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (no small feat by the way) lives in me! What kind of awesome power is this? What kind of incredible energy is this? What kind of profound ability is this? And it lives in me! Truly, “I can do (and be) all things through Him who gives me the strength.” (Philippians 4:13)

So, the question I keep asking myself is this: Which spirit in me am I going to allow to determine who I am? The spirit of my childhood experiences? The spirit of my successes or failures? The spirit of what I look like? OR, the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead? His Spirit, His power, His wisdom, His love defines who I am. Not my upbringing, my weakness, my ignorance, or my sin. God’s strength is far and away greater than my weakness. This seems like a ridiculously obvious statement doesn’t it? Of course God’s strength is greater than human weakness. But, why then do we so often live as if our weaknesses and failures and sins are more powerful than God’s strength?
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my weakness.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my fears.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my inabilities.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my inadequacies.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my mistakes and my sins.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my lack of trust and faith.

The power of the Spirit of God within me is far greater than the combined power of all my strengths and weaknesses. And that power, that Spirit, defines who I am. Nothing else really matters. Now, if only we could believe this.

Life Is Who You Are

2009-01-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

As a child when I was bored and my mother would ask me what was wrong I would say, “I don’t have anything to do.” Apparently we learn early on that life takes on meaning, significance, and fulfillment primarily from what we do. As we grow this perspective becomes increasingly distorted and often takes on a life of its own. Sports, grades, and relationships give us a sense of self-worth. Later, career paths, leisure activities, and keeping busy tell us that we are contributing to life and are therefore significant. I don’t want in any way to demean the importance of what we do in this life. The choices we make to do what we do have a profound impact on our life as well as the lives of those around us. However, I think that in many ways we have turned things a bit upside down. Many of us tend to pursue life as if what we do IS who we are. In other words, apart from what we do life really doesn’t hold much meaning. That’s why so many people have such a difficult time when it comes to retirement. It’s why illness or injury often takes such an emotional toll on us. When we can’t do the things we want we are often left with an aching sense of worthlessness and insignificance.

I was thinking of this the other day after watching a rather thought provoking movie and the phrase came to me, “Life is not so much what you do, but who you are while you’re doing it.” I doubt that it is original to me. It probably came to me because I have read it someplace, but until I remember where (which is unlikely) I will lay claim to it.

We become far too obsessed with what we do, and in the process we forget that character is far more important than activity. True meaning and significance has more to do with character than it does with busyness. Activity doesn’t fulfill us. Who we are while we are active (or inactive) is what fulfills us. In other words, what we bring with us into the actions of our lives (the “doing”) is what offers us a sense of joy and fulfillment.

Romans 5:3 says that “character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us”. Isn’t it interesting that character is the thing produces that which encourages, inspires, and fulfills us (hope)? It doesn’t say that activity produces hope which doesn’t disappoint us. It says that character does this. Hope does not come from the things that we wish will happen (health, the right job, relational healing, etc). Hope is not born outside of us but within us. Who we are determines hope and fulfillment more than what we do. [Now, there is an aspect of hope that does comes from outside of us in that God is the ultimate source of hope but that hope must become incarnate in our character for it to impact us.]

If we really took this seriously it would cause a monumental shift in our outlook on life. It would change both who we are and what we do. Activity would take on new meaning because meaning would come from inside of us. Times of inactivity would be far less annoying because character always seems to fill the empty space that inactivity creates. We become far more comfortable with just “being” and less insistent on always “doing” something.

Someone once said that character is what you are when no one is looking. I don’t think that’s true. I think that character is what you are, or at least what you should be, when everyone is looking. The things people see us doing, and not doing, should be a reflection of our character.

So next time you find yourself neurotically searching for something to do, make sure you first of all have found something to be.

“To those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called TO BE holy… grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 1:2-3

The True Purpose of Waiting

2008-12-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

My sister recently sent me a poem by John Milton entitled, On His Blindness. I’m normally not a big fan of 17th century poetry so as I was reading it nothing much was really sinking in. I was having a hard time getting past the archaic phrasing and odd use of certain words. English has evolved to be so much more understandable in our day (please see the humor here). I struggled through the poem until I came to the last line. The last line forced me to go back and re-read and re-think each word and phrase that Milton was using. Before telling what that last line was let me try and summarize what my sadly underdeveloped poetic mind thinks he is saying.

Milton was a gifted poet. He had written the classic Paradise Lost. He was a deeply devout Christian who believed that his poetry was a gift from God and he had a responsibility to use this gift for Him. But in the prime of his life Milton became blind. This poem speaks of his struggle in feeling like he was no longer able to use his gift as God had intended (“And that one talent which is death to hide, lodged with me useless”). He asks God why He would give him a gift and expect him to use it but then withhold the means to do so (“Doth God exact day labor, light denied?”). He comes to the conclusion that ultimately “God doth not need either mans work or his own gifts”. He says that there are several ways to serve the Lord. Some serve Him by crossing “land and ocean without rest”. They are seemingly tireless in their work for Him. But this is not the only way to serve the Lord. In his last line Milton says, “THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT.”

Wow! That totally alters my perspective on waiting. Normally we wait for something or someone and we are finished waiting when that something happens or that someone comes. The only purpose in our waiting is for the fulfillment of something. Have you ever said, “I waited all that time for nothing”, meaning the thing that you were waiting for did not happen so there was no purpose in the waiting. It was a waste of time.

In this season of my life I am in a time of waiting. I am waiting for health to be restored. I am waiting for the next season of ministry to be revealed. I am waiting for a renewed sense of purpose. I am waiting for another opportunity to serve the Lord using the gifts and talents He has given to me. In my mind I am thinking, “My waiting will be worthwhile when all of these things have happened”. I am waiting for something. Milton has shown me that this is a faulty way to view my time of waiting. Not everyone can serve the Lord tirelessly across land and oceans. Sometimes, “they also serve who only stand and wait”.

There is a purpose in the waiting, and the purpose is not the fulfillment of that which we are waiting for, something out there, in the future. We can serve Him even while we stand and wait. Even while our hearts are breaking at not being able to do what we used to, or what we want to; even when confusion and fear consume our soul and distort our vision; even when our desires for personal fulfillment are frustrated; even then, “they also serve who only stand and wait.” It's not just that we can serve Him while we stand and wait. In other words, we may not be able to do everything but we can at least do something. It's not that at all. It's that our standing and waiting IS a way of serving Him.

Isaiah 30:18 says, “Blessed are all who wait for the Lord”. Waiting for the Lord (not waiting for something to happen but waiting for Him) is really the highest form of service to the Lord. So for all who, along with me, occasionally find themselves standing and waiting, take heart. Your opportunity for serving the Lord has never been closer.

Link to full text of John Milton’s poem
http://www.bartleby.com/101/318.html

Extraordinarily Ordinary

2008-12-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

I have had a book on my shelf forever (I inherited it from my father) called, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Men, by Samuel Shoemaker. It’s a book about Christian living but it’s the title that has always intrigued me. When I think of the word extraordinary I think of a great adventure, an heroic act, or some amazing talent. The word sounds to me like it should be reserved for people like Teddy Roosevelt or Alexander the Great or Mother Teresa. My life doesn’t feel extraordinary. Most of the time it just feels, well normal, swinging back and forth between boring and dull.

But I do have to admit that periodically it has been punctuated with some things that I guess could be described as extraordinary. Standing at the altar with the most beautiful woman in the world; holding my daughters seconds after they were born; performing a wedding in a hot air balloon; pastoring a church that ended up pastoring me; feeling the strength and power of God when I had neither. These have been pretty extraordinary experiences that have marked my ordinary life.

I think that life shouldn't be looked at as extraordinary or ordinary as if it can be one or the other. I think that life is a combination of both of these. We need each one to define the other. We know when something is extraordinary because we know what ordinary feels like. And things often seem ordinary only when compared to some extraordinary event or ideal.

When I think of Christmas I think of both of these words together. It certainly was extraordinary. Angels singing in the sky, a teenage virgin giving birth, wise men finding a little obscure home in Bethlehem simply by following a star (have you ever tried to follow a star?). But it was also profoundly ordinary. A stable, a donkey, a poor young couple, taxes. The town of Bethlehem didn’t even know what was happening. It was ordinary. But the miracle of Christmas, the miracle of the Incarnation (God with us), is what happened when the truly extraordinary comes into contact with the truly ordinary. When heaven touches earth. When angels sing to humans. When God becomes a man. When thousands of years of prophecy are fulfilled in one single, ordinary night.

What happens when the ordinary comes into contact with the extraordinary? Life! Our life. And when the extraordinary mixes in with the ordinary it’s sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Ordinary things begin to take on extraordinary qualities. We begin to see that our sometimes dull and boring lives are really just a reflection of something much greater. In the ordinariness of human life God sent an extraordinary gift. Jesus was born into the mundane, business as usual, life of a small insignificant village. Most of them never realized that in the midst of their ordinary lives something truly extraordinary was happening.

God help us not to make the same mistake.

A Harvest Worth Waiting For

2008-12-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

OK, today I was just reading through part of the book of Hebrews, minding my own business, when out of nowhere this passage hits me in the face. “Endure hardship as discipline” (Hebrews 12:7). I’ve seen that verse before and it left me alone but today, for some reason, I get slapped in the face. I probably should have seen it coming. The whole hardship thing has been a very present reality for me lately. “Endure hardship as discipline”.

Well first of all, it rubs me the wrong way that I have to “endure” hardship. “Endure” sounds to me like it’s going to last for awhile and be rather unpleasant. I can “put up with” something but to “endure” sounds like I better hunker down ‘cause it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride. I would much rather put up with hardship than endure it.

Secondly, why do I have to endure it as discipline? Discipline sounds like either punishment or a really painful exercise routine. Neither of which I am very fond of. But there it is: “Endure hardship as discipline.” It does offer some comfort to read on (it’s usually dangerous not to). “God is treating you as sons.” Knowing that God is responding to me as a dearly loved child helps me understand that He is not random or haphazard in how He treats me. He is not treating me as a stranger. He loves me as a son. Discipline then is not some kind of punishment or painful exercise, it is a form of guidance. It is a way that God takes us from one place to a better place. “God disciplines us for our good that we may share in His holiness” (v. 10). And this process of discipline produces in us “a harvest of righteousness and peace” (v.11).

Now, harvest is a word I can enjoy. Unlike 'endure' and 'hardship' and 'discipline' the word 'harvest' sets well with me. It is full of hope and fulfillment and satisfaction. Harvest is often used in Scripture to speak of joy. But harvest comes as the result of a lot of hard work, sometimes even pain and heartache. When I pick up an ear of corn and eat it I just think about how good it tastes. When a farmer picks up an ear of corn his thoughts go back, sometimes years, to the process of preparing the land, planting the seed, watering the field, picking the ears, getting them to market. I don’t think of those things because I haven’t participated in the whole ‘discipline’ process of getting to harvest.

I wonder if a farmer enjoys eating corn more than I do. I’ll have to ask one someday. I do know that when my harvest of righteousness and peace comes there is no one who is going to enjoy it more than me. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to learn how to enjoy words like ‘endure’ and ‘hardship’ and ‘discipline’, because that’s the only way to get to the good stuff!

Morning Symphony

2008-11-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

This morning I am sitting at a table outside of a cabin in the foothills of the Chilean Andes Mountains. We have come here for a little rest and fun before I leave Chile to return home. From where I sit I can look out over a deep valley and up to the tall hills on the other side. I can hear the river roar far below carrying tons of water – spring run-off from the mountains. The trees around me are Eucalyptus and give off a very distinct aroma. There are crickets everywhere, birds chirping, and roosters crowing. There is a slight breeze blowing which rattles the brittle Eucalyptus leaves and brings a little relief to the already 85 degree day. I can hear people playing in the distance. There is the cackle of some kind of turkey-looking bird that I’ve never seen before. A minute ago a gecko ran across my table and was not at all interested in my attempts to befriend him (the one in the commercial is much more sociable).

Everything is alive. Everything seems to have this perfect rhythm to it. It’s all doing what it’s supposed to be doing. There is a strange kind symphonic beauty to it all lead by a conductor who cannot be seen but whose presence is clearly obvious.

But I feel out of place here. There is a disconnect for me. Everything seems to be alive and have their specific function (except for the flies. I’ve yet to figure out their function or beauty). And yet sitting here in the middle of life and beauty I feel like I am the one thing that is out of place. I’m not sure what part to play in this symphony. I feel like I’ve been given an instrument but have no idea how to play it. Life seems to come naturally to the things around me but I don’t feel that same life inside of me. It’s not that death lives in me (if it’s even possible for death to live), it’s more an awareness of the absence of life.

I would love to enter into the symphony of life that fills this valley. But until the music overwhelms me once again and magically draws me into participation with it I am left to making a willful, conscious choice to join in. Psalm 63 begins with the present, unshakable reality that the psalmist is experiencing. “My soul thirsts for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” That is his current reality. But he doesn’t allow himself to stay there. He reflects back on his past experience with God. “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” Present reality leads to past reflection which then opens the way to a conscious choice for the future. “Because you are my help, I WILL sing in the shadow of your wings.”

The present reality of the psalmist hasn’t changed. He is still in, “a dry and weary land where there is no water.” What has changed is his decision to enter into life anyway. So I guess I will try and open my mouth and sing. It’s hard to compete with crickets and birds and wind and rivers, but I will try. Maybe the conductor won’t notice my feeble attempts to blend in. But then again, maybe he is the one who is inviting me to join them.

Pits and Rocks

2008-11-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

I wish that life was such that we never had to go through difficult times more than once. I think that everyone should have to go through hard times once in their life. It creates strength of character and substance of soul. But I wish that we all only had to go through one of these per lifetime. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Learn your lessons, grab some maturity, and move on. Unfortunately for most of us it seems like life is a series of hard times. Once we go through one and are ready to get back into life as it should be we find ourselves dealing with something else.

There is a psalm that I have kept coming back to for many years.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” (Psalm 40)

Over the years this psalm has spoken to me in one of two ways. Sometimes it is literally my testimony. God has taken me through a rough time and now I see it behind me. He has lifted me out of the pit and now I stand firmly on solid ground singing my heart out in praise to Him. But there are other times when this psalm becomes more a cry of desperate hope. It becomes an intense plea that one day (and it better be soon) I will find myself rising out of the pit and watching all of the mud and mire disappear while I am placed on strong, solid ground. Then I will be able to sing a new song and move on in obedience to Him.

If you read this entire psalm carefully it is really a story of both places. Being in the pit and being on the rock. The psalmist is not saying, “You know, once I was in a pit and now I am out. Maybe you too will someday be out of your pit.” After verses 1-3 give testimony to being lifted out of the slimy pit he goes on in the psalm to say,

“Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord” (v. 11)
“Troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me and I cannot see” (v. 12)
“Be pleased to save me, O Lord, come quickly to help me (v. 13)
“Yet I am poor and needy” (v. 17)

So which is it for this psalm writer? It is both. Life often takes us back and forth between spending time in the mud and mire, and spending time on a rock. It sometimes feels like just when we have learned the 4th verse to that new song while standing on the rock our feet begin to slip and we find ourselves standing in mud looking up at the slimy sides of the pit once again. This back and forth journey of pit to rock, rock to pit is an unsettling way to live and we sometimes go from sighs of relief to sighs of desperation.

This psalm, however, is not just a way of saying, “Sometimes life is great, and sometimes life stinks!” It goes much deeper than this. The point of this psalm is not the rescue from the pit to the rock, or slipping from the rock back into a pit. The point is found in verse 4, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord His trust.” And the song that we sing, whether from the pit or from the rock, has only one verse and it says, “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” (v. 8) It’s a song of surrender and submission.

So even though the song may be new when you are standing on the rock, the words are still the same. That’s what ties the pit and the rock together. They are not 2 distinct places from each other. They are simply 2 different places from where we can sing the same song.

Hidden Mountains

2008-11-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

The city of Santiago, Chile sits at the base of the Andes Mountains. These mountains loom over the city and appear almost as a kind of guardian or protector. Normally the house where I stay when I come here has a great view of the Andes. In the past I have been able to sit and look up at these magnificent examples of God’s power in creation. But this time it’s a little different. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived here was that a new apartment building has been built exactly where I used to be able to see the Andes. Now, instead of majestic, snow peaked mountains, you look up at a 15 story high rise. It’s an attractive building, but come on, no matter how creative man is he really can’t compete with the Andes Mountains.

Psalm 121 says, “I lift my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Mountains don’t offer us safety and security but they remind us of what does. Our help and hope and strength don’t come from the hills or the ocean or anything in nature. It doesn’t come from the relationships that, in desperation, we sometimes think will save us. It doesn’t come from our jobs or being in touch with our inner whatever. Our help comes from the Lord who made all of these things and can use them to create His masterpiece within us.

The problem is that sometimes we can’t see this. Sometimes the things we so desperately long for (like hope and wisdom and encouragement) seem to be hidden from our view. Obstacles come. We get sick. Someone breaks our heart. A loved one dies. The economy falls apart. But, the thing that I can keep coming back to is that I have seen the mountains before. I’ve seen and experienced God’s grace and mercy many times and just because they may be hidden right now doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. When I got to the house here and looked up and couldn’t see the mountains I didn’t think, “Wow, someone moved the mountains.” I realized that the mountains were still there, but I just couldn’t see them right now.

I also know they are there because when I drive around the city, or even when I walk just a few blocks to the north or south of where I am, I can still see them. They’re still there. Which tells me that sometimes we just need a change of perspective to be reminded once again of the help that God offers to us. Sometimes moving, even just a little bit, from where we are is enough to show us once again the eternal, unchanging, magnificent strength of God.

A Springtime Reminder

2008-11-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

As I write this entry I am in Chile. After 16 hours of travel I arrived in Santiago to the welcome embrace of close friends AND, sunshine. Since Santiago is almost as far south as we are north their seasons are reversed (they don't think so but they are. Who ever heard of 90 degree weather at Christmas time?). So I left the rainy, dark, cold fall of the Pacific Northwest and flew into springtime. It's easy to understand why the so-called snow birds fly south to Arizona and California in the winter time.

What a treat it was to sit out in the warm sunshine today and read and pray and think. As I sat there I tried to somehow will the sunshine into my soul and spirit because that is where I really need it. So with the sun above and the warm air all around me I picked up the book I am currently reading, Abba's Child, by Brennan Manning. I read a few pages and then I stopped cold (but not quite as cold as I would have a few days ago). These words jumped out at me, "The meaning of our lives emerges in the surrender of ourselves to an adventure of becoming who we are not yet." I thought for a few minutes about the trip I had just made from the dark and cold into the warm sunshine of Chile in the springtime. We often go through periods of having to wait for things to change, usually we are waiting for them to get better. Late fall and winter are like that. Things begin to hunker down. They go dormant. They lie in wait of another time when the warm sunshine will prompt within them the joy of new life.

"Who we are not yet" is the thing that gives us a reason to wait. It's what I am waiting for with great anticipation. I am tired of the hunkering down and dormancy of life right now. I am looking forward to the "not yet" that God has in store for me in His time and in His way. I hope that it is soon. Things seldom happen that quickly but I can still hope. But for now it was encouraging to hear these words that the meaning of my life emerges in the surrender of my life to the adventure of becoming. Sometimes I think I'd like to just skip the adventure and get right to the thing that I have been waiting to become. But the end result is not where "meaning" emerges. It comes out of surrender to the process of becoming that toward which God is drawing me. I deeply want to arrive at what God wants me to be. But I also deeply want my life to have meaning.

And so I yield once again to the process of getting there and am very grateful for a few minutes of springtime sun and warmth to remind me that though right now I am "not yet", I am on my way.

The Fourth Watch

2008-11-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

"Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and
go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountain to pray. When
evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and He was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night He went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw Him walking on the lake, they thought He was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw Him and were terrified. Immediately He spoke to
them and said: ' Take courage! It is I! Don't be afraid!' Then He climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down."
Mark 6:45-51
Normally I don't really like anyone calling me between 3:00 and 6:00 in the morning (the fourth watch of the night). Usually that means trouble. If the phone rings during that time I instantly get a pit in my stomach because that is just not the normal time you call someone, therefore, something must be wrong. One exception to this is when you are worried about one of your children and you get a call telling you that everything is OK. That is a welcome call. That's the kind of call you want to get in the middle of the night.
When Jesus came to His disciples during the fourth watch of the night they had been straining and fighting against the storm for some time. They were tired. They were afraid. They needed something from Jesus to help them and He gave it to them. They didn't need the assurance that the storm would be over soon. They didn't need a little humor to lighten the intensity of the situation. They didn't need a special word of prophecy or knowledge or wisdom that would help them put everything into perspective. What they needed was 3 simple phrases from their Lord: "Take courage! It is I! Don't be afraid!" When there is trouble in the middle of the night the only thing you really want and need is reassurance. That reassurance comes to us in the form of the presence of Jesus.

There are many times when I am straining like crazy at the oars of my boat, desperately trying to steer and control what is going on. I sometimes feel lost and lonely and confused. I feel like it I give up my straining I will give in to the storm and will be destoyed by it. I can sometimes get worried, fearful, and doubtful pretty easy these days. And no amount of straining at the oars seems to help. In fact, sometimes it takes away all my energy and strength which could be better placed in learning how to trust and listen to the voice of the One who comes to me in the fourth watch of the night and simply says, "Take courage! It is I! Don't be afraid!" In the end that is all I really need. The assurance of the presence of the Lord in the midst of my storm. I don't really need to know when the storm will end, or how we are going to get to the other shore (or IF we are going to get to the other shore). The most important thing I need in those moments is to hear the voice of Jesus assuring me that He is right there.

When our girls were little and were afraid or sick or unable to sleep we would rock them and sing softly to them. Eventually they would relax in our arms, not because all of their fears or illness or worries were gone, but simply because they knew someone was holding them who loved them and would never leave them in their distress.

So I for one would like more calls in the middle of the night. I would like more "fourth watch" experiences where I can simply hear the gentle, loving, reassuring voice of Jesus come to me when I am most afraid and most weary from my straining, and simply say, "Take courage! It is I! Don't be afraid!" Sometimes that's all I really need.

The Trust Factor

2008-10-31T05:19:00.000-07:00

Honestly? Where would you rather live? I mean really. If you had your choice as to which place to build your perfect home is it going to be in the wasteland where your only view is a small, dried up bush, or by a beautiful mountain river with lush vegetation all around?

The Israelites were presented with just such a choice in Jeremiah 17:5-8:

"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,

who depends upon flesh for his strength

and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands;

he will not see prosperity when it comes.

He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.

"BUT, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when the heat comes;

it's leaves are always green.

It has not worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit."

The key to whether we live in the desert or along a stream is found in the word 'trust'. Trust is very different from belief. We can believe in the existence of God, we can believe in the truth of His word, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you trust Him. Belief is an acknowledgement of truth. Trust is a complete dependence upon that truth. Belief puts you in the vicinity of the stream, trust firmly plants you next to it with roots that are sent out to draw in it's fresh, pure, life giving water.

Trust is the proof of our faith. It is what we desperately need in these days of worry, doubt, and fear. In days of economic distress, political uncertainty, and moral confusion we don't need a better belief system, we need to learn to trust in a God who is above all of this.

We often seek deeper and clearer levels of understanding in our faith but usually what is most needed is to simply trust in the One who knows. Trust allows us to go beyond ourselves and the uncertainty that plagues our lives and to live in the quiet confidence of God's love for us. He is in control and since He is, we don't have to be. Worry is a kind of feeble attempt at control. Things seem to be confusing or slipping away from our ability to control them and so we begin to worry which at least convinces us that we are still deeply concerned. We fear that if we let go of worry and just trust in God it will mean losing our ability to control the situation, which is exactly what is necessary if we are going to survive.

A man was spending several months working at Mother Teresa's 'House of the dying' work in Calcutta, India. He had gone there to try and clear up some of the confusion in his life and to seek out a new sense of purpose and direction. After a few months he finally had the opportunity to talk for a few minutes with Mother Teresa herself. She asked him, "What can I do for you?" The man said, "You can pray for me." "And what would you like for me to pray for?" The man said, "Please pray for clarity in my life." Mother Teresa said to him, "No, I won't pray for that. Clarity is the last thing that you are clinging to and must let of. I will pray that you will be able to trust God."

As we let go of our need to understand everything we are letting go of our dependence upon ourselves. Only then can we truly begin to depend upon Him and trust Him as we should. There is no doubt in my mind where I would rather be living. And so in these days of fearand uncertainty the cry of my heart is simply, "Lord, take me to the river!"

Open Doors

2008-10-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

I love this picture that I took while taking my daughter Brianne to school in England last fall. It is the front doors of the castle where she lived. It reminds me that we never really know the beauty that awaits us when we are willing to open the doors that God places before us. As long as the doors remain closed we too remain closed. Closed to the joy and beauty of stepping into God's great gift. Closed to new opportunities and relationships. And closed to the wonderful feeling of stepping from darkness into the sunshine.

God uses doors as access points to His plan and purpose for us. Sometimes He opens the doors for us, other times he asks us to open them. But it's up to us to walk through them. And why wouldn't we? It is as if God is opening the door for us to enter into His heart. Why would we not want to enter into this kind of intimacy with God? We may not always know what lies on the other side of the open door, but one thing is certain: That's where God is. And He stands there at the entrance to His will and purpose and simply says, "Come on in!"

Ruthless Trust

2008-10-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

The surrendered life is a life of ruthless trust in God. Brennan Manning in his great book, Ruthless Trust, says that being ruthless refers to action that is taken "without pity". Ruthless trust, then, is a trust in God without self-pity. It is a trust in God that refuses to cave into the modern push for self-absorption and the elevation of personal interest as the highest good. Ruthless trust believes in the grace and mercy and love of God no matter what else may try and distract us from it.

Manning says that childlike surrender in trust is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. Fear then (the opposite of trust) must be the defining spirit of in-authentic discipleship. "Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father's active goodness and unrestricted love."

My favorite quote from Manning's book is this:

"The Way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise."

Trust is not something that we merely talk about. Trust must be lived daily which means that it is going to be tested a hundred times each day. And each time we must simply respond in faith (not by sight) saying, "When I am afraid, I WILL TRUST IN YOU." (Psalm 56:3)