If I had the nerve...

When the cause is worth believing in the world will come to on its feet to its knees. There is a cause worth living for. People die for some of the dumbest reasons but they will live for only the most impact-ful. There is a profound problem with the understanding of God and what we hear and understand. It is like the brain sending a signal and the muscle is anxiously waiting for the signal but the nerve is disconnected and the signal never comes. The brain grows impatient at the lack of response and the muscle atrophies due to the lack of stimulation.

So we find ourselves today those of us that believe in the love of God for man. We are so frustrated at the lack of response, yet we know the message has been sent loud and clear, repeatedly. The humbling confession is really this… I am the nerve, the conduit of the message. The nerves of the body when broken will grow and try to find it’s way to re-connect with the rest of the nerve, because the signal will be sent. I need to find a way to connect with the fragments of people in my culture to re-connect them with the signal of the God that loves them. The hope that lies with in them will die if the signal is not sent, if the message never gets through. I just can’t let up, finding a way to get the message out to the ones that need to hear and move. Because once that muscle moves the recovery can begin.

hardback or hard look

I was just wanting to buy a book, not intending to make any statements or seek any answers to the mysteries of modern capitalism but it seems as though destiny had it’s way… I simply went in to a bookstore to find a book by a popular Christian philosopher. It seemed like minutes but after an hour of being lost in all those titles I wanted to walk out with about ten books. Then my loyalty took over and I went to the Christian bookstore about a half a mile away and l couldn’t find the book. They didn’t know the author since he wasn’t a pop-culture icon, and they could get the book in five days. So I ended up using the bathroom. Re-affirmed in the fact of my disdain for the “Christian culture” and my own conviction of the contributions I make to the problem.

The problem isn’t that a chain bookstore has a greater selection of the deeper and more intellectual works of Christendom than the local Christian bookstore, it’s that as a pastor I have contributed to the consumer appetite that says; fresh and easy is better to read than deep and heart wrenching. Too many programs that say, “if you attend you are a disciple”, and too many distractions to keep us from hearing what God has to say to us. All of those spiritually mature people that I speak to are looking for something more, more meaty. John Wimber said it best, “the meat is in the street”. Disciples are those that are like their master, to do in imitation what our master did, is a sign of spiritual maturity, do it enough and the master’s practice’s become your own. What did the master do? He prayed, read scripture, walked with people, invested in them, healed the sick, loved the outcast, touched the untouchable, and taught about God’s relentless pursuit for the hearts of men and women.

So I guess worse than the lack of books in a Christian bookstore maybe the greater sin was to ignore the others in the chain bookstore who where seeing the very rare occurrence of someone actually walking into the religion section. I confess, I was lost in my little world of intellectualism, not even bringing up the titles to the Buddhist, or the atheist who works there and is paid to discuss these books with me (talk about a captive audience)! So my soapbox crumbles… I have no place to stand other than these two things: first, I’ll buy online, second, when I do go back to the bookstore, I’ll ask for a divine appointment and look to see what the Father is doing. Then use the bathroom.

Community, an interesting thought really because this side of eternity there is no real hard fact model of true community… we are a broken people living in a broken state. I even think Christ himself did not see true community here on earth; the only honest community Jesus knew was really his relationship with the Father and the Spirit. The three in one so in love with one another that they are lost into one. Yet these beings exist with a person all their own yet so deeply in love and so known by one another that thought and action are known and understood and felt in depth and understanding. I see community as an unattainable in fullness while we are here on earth. Or is it…

The divine invitation is extended to us all by this being of love, come and dance. Yes, dance… dance with the One who loves you and is inviting you to love so deeply that you to re lost in love. So lost you lose yourself in the vortex of the spin, and all that doesn’t matter spins off; leaving behind what is pure.

I want to get lost in that intimacy. To be known so deeply that I know my very thought is heard and known. The slightest doubt or emotion is so understood that it does not get misunderstood but is put in its proper place in our relationship.

That is possible here, because God is here. Maybe then since God is here and God is in me there can be a glimpse of community on earth. Perhaps… perhaps we just need to act that way and let relationship flow. Let it flow.

Ebb

I often wonder when the day becomes night the exact moment from one to the other. The difficulty lies in identifying the when. Is it mostly light so still day? I don’t know. Is there a moment of absolute in transition? It gets even more confusing observing the waves coming into shore; yes, there is a definite line but it always moves. Each wave brings its new boundary at the edge of its reach, only to pass the line to next wave to surpass or fall short. Is there really an absolute line if it’s there for a moment? Things come, things go and more than just making them true, it makes things, moments, and people precious.

I think we have an awkward time with the fact that things are not always steady and stable. Some things by definition must be fluid and I wonder if even the most hardened things, like concrete aren’t fluid at one time. I wonder if my pre-suppositions, my projected expectations are not the source of my confusion? I think maybe my thoughts are too "either / or". When in truth the things I ponder are "this /and". For instance a Loving/Just God. At some point Justice will see something as wrong and say so. Is it loving to say something is wrong- even if it hurts and the person your telling doesn’t see it? Does a loving parent love a child by punishing the child? Is it beautiful to see the hand of God move in compassion though it takes a painful or tragic experience to bring out that opportunity?

Both/and, that answers it for now. Life is much more both and than we will ever know.
Shalom...

Shallows and Deep

We all live through the cycles, the ebb and flow of our spiritual passions. We long and crave for meaning and substance but he truth of the matter is that we are a people that get distracted, too distracted. Life is heavy, and unrelenting in it’s day to day weight. I think it is the day to day that indeed does muddy the water and indeed puts us in our place a place of turbulence. We find no peace in the hectic driving pace of the day to day.

Life is like a river, and in it’s shallows you find the turbulence and the struggle of water crashing into rock. When my life is in the shallows is also when it seems to crash into the rest of the obstacles set before it. Yet in the deep there is room to move, even if you hit you can swirl around and have space to recover.

Our faith grows in the deep, it has room to move and swirl in the space. On the other hand faith is strengthened in the shallows the testing of what is true and what stays together. So the turbulence though in our weakness distracting is the source for affirmation; the furnace of life. Truth be told we need both one let’s us know of possibility the other let’s us know it’s real. Our problem is- we miss the point and settle for being distracted!

When's it enough?

When’s enough? When is it just too much? When can you say it’s just enough? When can you just let up? SO many things are crying for our attention - from the trendy crisis in Africa to the homelessness in your own town. So what do you choose? What do you do? The rumbling in your heart quickens and the tired ache of your body screams. Maybe we are asking all the wrong questions and coming from a place that will always leave us weary. More times than not we ask the question “What do I need to do?” When I ask for what “I need” I ask from a place of need, want and selfishness, not a place of health. The question should be “What does God want me to do?” The answer can only come from an all knowing, whole, and healed source. I ask God. Then, when I ask God, I can’t seem to explain my perspective clearly so instead I wander into excuses to describe my heart condition, then in time I get… what were you made to do?

The flood of trite answers like glorify you God and share You with the world Lord, wear thin as time reveals the content of my heart, which just wants to escape the light of truth. A truth that simply says I am to do and be what His hand has created me to be and nothing else. A simple answer at first yet the consequences are profound for I must now know Him who created me and seek His counsel on what I am to be. And yes we all try to ask in prayer, but do we seek… relentlessly? Do we seek our fulfillment like we seek our pleasure or our
comfort? The answer is often no and our struggles with the greater scheme of life often is left behind in a commercial break on Gray’s Anatomy. Yet the questions of purpose still come up in the most vulnerable times to read your heart and once again stir up the question… what are you going to do?

If you will spend the time and courage it takes to sit in stillness and see what God has put in you. I think you’ll find a wondrous light, or lens to see all of life through so that you can make sense of it all. I won’t be a part of saving the whole world and making a difference in the lives of every human on this planet- but I will change a few. Maybe I will not solve all the world’s problems but yet the gifts I have and the passion I have fit in this set of needs and I can make a difference there. I will make a difference there.

If asking what I am leads me to know who I am then what I do serves the person I am created to be. I can move and serve within the parameters of where I fit and the issues I understand and the people that also resonate with the same issues I do. Interesting how when we ask for answers from the source of truth and health we get answers that fit who we are. So now I pray for the late night commercial with Sally Struthers and the needy children but I know my calling, I know God will provide for them as He has provided for me. I also openly enjoy the fact that we are all a choir, singing our part as loud as we can to win over those with our calling and yet walk in harmony with those who have different parts or causes in the song to fulfill what God has asked us to do in this lifetime.

The Journey Home

The journey home is always a whirlpool of emotion really. The sense of home yet the struggle or tension to get there. A sense of rest and peace and yet a knowledge of the work that needs to be done. The comfort of the familiar but the apathy that can be found in a place that doesn't challenge us. So the tension creates itself with the themes and thoughts that come from this place we live in go back to and many instances long for.

The question is what is home, for some a place of rest and sanctuary in the familiar, for others home is the place you sleep in. The issue is never home the issue is what do you long for? Do you long for peace? If so... is it home that will provide that? Is home a place that gives that to you? More often than not home is a level of stress and chaos that we are wiling to live with and in that context we are calling it peaceful. The truth of the quest for peace is what is inside you soul? Can you close your eyes, silence the noise and exhale, finding stillness, comfort and quiet in the midst of a day. I see this comfort like putting on your favorite sweater, warm and true over time. Home is where my favorite chair is, where I rest and CAN close my eyes and slow life down.

The dependence of location for peace and rest really leads us to a dependence on external forces we can't control. What if you kids have their friends over, house is mess or a pipe breaks? You see there are too many outside forces, too many variables to really count on. Yet when peace is a gift in the soul, a refuge in the dance where we dance with our maker we find ourselves at peace.

So dance, engage and see Him as the quiet invitation to come and release all to Him.

Prohetic Irony

The previous article I wrote just before a motorcycle accident that has left a huge impact. I didn't know or anticipate any problems on a seemingly uneventful ride. Yet so much more lies under the surface. After a partially crushed foot, compound fracture to the femur, and a dislocated shoulder and two weeks four days and nineteen hours in a hospital and the rest of that time on a couch or a wheelchair well I've had a lot of time to think and listen. Pain and suffering, the handmaidens of deepening character change it seems. Asking why me really doesn't really address the why. It only addresses the lack of character in you heart. The why is found in asking... how will you glorify yourself in this God?

So much of what we think is really short of the fullness of what God wants. There is the promise of God working things out for good for those who are called according to His purpose. I think the question is are we willing to see the fullness of His good break into this present situation. Is it enough to live through an accident or is it the stories told by the people involved saying, how can this be... only God could have spared this life! Perhaps the miracle is in the relationships in the emergency room that tell the tale of the moving of the hand of God to speed a recovery? Maybe it's the tension built in the conversation about amputation and the body is The Body praying for God to move in healing and He does, while the E.R. is wondering and smiling at the wonder of that movement. When there is a disruption of our world, our minds, hearts and lives just get offended. God often offends our hearts, minds and lives to get our souls bare and malleable to His movement and His will, to make us more like Him.

There lies an uncharted country, the realm of brokenness and vulnerable availability that is the realm of super natural impact. That realm is the realm we need to be in. And the concurrent awareness of the hand of God moving thought he situation to fully reveal himself to mankind. So when our world is shaken will you look for the outcomes of the hand moving through the hearts and minds of the people surrounding you? As the issues of your soul and the ache of your heart are brought into a place of light and familiarity can we let God’s gentleness and kindness move us to deeper repentance and grace.

P.S. Read the previous post for the full sense of irony!

Electricity

There comes the clouds, then the flash and the crack of sound the jolts your core, left in wonder and shock, the toxic combination arises in you, how close was that and I hope it doesn't hit me, yet, all the while you crave to see it again! As intoxicating as the moment is caught in the beauty of power and disturbed by the power that can kill we always sit, in awe and wonder. It’s the uncontrollable, the un-manageable, maybe not wild but certainly “bigger than who I am”, that we are in awe of. There is and has always been and surely always be a super natural engagement with things only God can do or control. There’s the intoxicating tension, can God do, and will he?

PERSPECTIVE
We operate under conviction that God can do the extraordinary, until it comes into our world. Crisis invades our situation and we believe for other situations but when it comes to our specific context we hesitate, stutter in our response, our faith is the issue in crisis. So how do we respond? In obedience and say God you can do it. In faith saying God you can. In love saying God I trust you. In hope saying honestly God, only you can.

That is the truth of perspective, from where we sit and see life only God can, only He can do the intoxicating wonders bigger than our life and our need. That is really a God, a God that can, and will. He wills to do the powerful the earth moving because He is by nature good, He is so good.

What have we become?

Right now there is genocide in Darfur, a ten-year-old child has just been abducted as a soldier or a prostitute in South East Asia. In Africa genocide of a different sort is happening, as many die each minute from AIDS. These issues though are out of sight out of mind. Yet children go to sleep hungry in the U.S. everyday. Even more tragic is this, Brittany Spears and Anna Nicole Smith have been the headlines while the true tragedy was going on... go figure! Yet before we get too upset at the media for not alerting us to this injustice, it's their job to make money by telling us what they want us to hear, think about this...

The greatest tragedy is this, while all those horrible things were going on, the very heart of God was breaking. Breaking for those that are victims of all this global injustice and of course all those in need going hungry here. There must be a deeper under current though, heartache that only a father can experience when his sons do not care about each other. As this father has left all the resources to his children to resolve all the need from war, and starvation to depression and loneliness his heart must be breaking. We have been given all things and some of the solution lies with us and within us.

The solution lies with us as we see the things we have as tools in the hands of a visionary, powerful, and compassionate God. Do you think that God has the vision to see that the things you have can be used for more than your pleasure but to for the very change of soul in another.

The solution within us is to lean on the very father that deposited His spirit within us to speak and guide us in all the "moments" we face in the day to day, or the overwhelmingly important. This whisper that guides our heart is what we need to resonate with the heart of the AIDS victim or the child prostitute and make a compassionate response with action or prayer.

So take the moment to respond, listen, and move with the whisper of His Spirit.

Repentance, Restitution, Rehabilitation

Forgiveness seems so cheap these days, the simple I'm sorry followed by the ever more trivial- it's cool. I feel like the depth is gone, left to a people that would rather"move on" than walk through it together. Forgiveness is a sacred priviledge, a moment that man gets to experience an attribute shared by God and God alone. No other creature has an opportunity to comprehend the magnitude of the act of forgiveness. We are conscious of all the offenses and consequences, we are aware of the depth of pain and still we are asked to say in essence, your relationship to the person is more important than the wrong done to you. We are expected to value others more than ourselves and our situation. We are told to love. This seem so unfair till we realize that there is an expectation that is often overlooked or passed over. The responsibility of the one who caused pain, the forgiven one, to repent, bring restitution, and rehabilitate- now we have a sacred and just balance.

To repent, turn away from a previous path, implies a heart switch. Once headed in a direction now your heart has completed the 180 and is going in the opposite direction. If your heart is now set in a direction to restore a relationship and set that course you must then move to pay back, make right what damage you physically cause in order to restore that person financially, physically, even their reputation, if your heart is right about going all the way the effort will seem right- not easy. Then the final step, rehabilitation, an on-going process to make a new life habit in the direction of obedience. This part continues on till it is a part of you and your character. No longer a cause of pain and strife but to be a giver of hope and life. A true redemption of your entire being.

So now we see the theft of true restoration through forgiveness in the " I'm over it and move on" model. We are left empty of the move of God. We rob our brothers with the simple "move on" or "I'm over it" there is really so much more, so much on both sides of the equation that we are shorted because we lack courage, and truth. No wonder we cry out like Isaiah- woe to me for I am undone. Our process of reconciling as brothers and sisters is too shallow, too instant- just add water and mix, and very, very undone. I guess God knew best... we need time to heal and process to finish and leave it done and right.

Relative to what?

What is truth is the question that Pilate asks... What is truth is also the question culture asks today, and what is it? Is it a physically reproducible expression of intelligence or process? Is it a meaningful analysis of an observation? Or is it an observable universal that is far beyond us? Is there an overarching truth that means more than our opinions, observations or pontificating? If there is a truth that is larger than us then is there a story bigger than us? Is there a meta-narrative that spans the story of man and the universe that is absolutely true above and beyond our observation and scarier beyond our comprehension? Is truth merely a sign that there is something bigger than us. A force or being so much larger and too big to control. Is this truth along with this being absolute- final in authority and infinite in knowledge? Then if it exists we must answer to it and measure our knowledge and our souls against it.

Then comes the big question, what if I fall short? What if I answer to this ultimate truth and my answer is I am just so small, too small and I must yield to this truth? If I yield will this truth move me into a greater depth or place of understanding? Will it make me more compassionate? Will it make me a better spouse or father? I believe that the answer to our soul cravings is this very question. Is God bigger than me and all of my shortfall, questions and pain? Well if I am that small and insignificant my answer doesn't matter. God's answer has been a resounding yes. I trust that yes to be bigger than me and my need, as big as the universe.

Sacred Space

It seems to be that bashing has become a pastime in our lives. So many rants, really reveal more of the content in our souls I think than we care to reveal. Think about it- why would you bash a gay? Because there is an issue in you. If you consider the fact that the gay lifestyle has a shorter life expectancy, and higher suicide and drug use, a reasonable compassionate person would have heart ache not condescension or hate as a response. In the same vein it amazes me how Christians will bash the church. The simple fact is the church is the bride of Christ- right? How would you like it if people were running around saying how much they love you but your wife's a witch! Friendship- over! Yet the entity that is intended to be a sacred space for meeting with God. We have heard it taught (out of context) that the body is God's temple. 1 Corinthians 3 16 is speaking of the body of Christ (not your body) and that the gathering of believers is a Holy Moment a sacred space intended for God to meet His people and His people to worship him. The verse speaks of heaping destruction upon the temple. That pauses my thoughts, and pontificating, it makes me ask, am I a destructive force in this? Do I build up the temple? Lastly, is God's presence so valuable that I am willing to die to myself for the sake of His body uniting? It all boils down to the simple fact that we have agendas, expectations and needs that we bring to the table every time we gather. The question is what do you do with those things? If you expect what is pure and true you build the house. If you don't bring that you are a tool to tear it down. So what do we die to today?

Ashes to beauty

Saying good bye to a dear friend today I saw the power of a life well lived. Connie James, a faithful servant was given a going away party as her friends an family remembered the moments and times that best described the moments of Connie's life that were well lived. Working with children and wondering how to more effectively display the love and wonder of Jesus. Passionately and relentlessly being a model of love, truth and grace.

I saw the tender balance of love, grace and truth most on the mission field. The tension of the desire to reach people by sharing moments of love and giving in compassion, and firmly correcting an American kid from our team in a moment of selfish indulgence. So often a scene so contrasted by the selfless giving of the Mexican Nationals and the other team members. Connie would always bring people to a place of "centering truth" - a truth that brings you back to yourself, an awakening. I learned from her as we all have, to be that factor of right perspective and grace. I still am learning and I am thankful for the insights to grace tempered by discipline that she taught me. So I know that Connie is now looking in the eyes of the most majestic being in all the universe. The One whose breath gives life and healing; takes away pain and makes us whole.

Grace and peace to you.

The story of us...

The challenge of faith comes to us in one vivid picture, in a very difficult question... How can you be a relevant and hopeful expression of the church to a despairing world; full of the power of God, compassion and grace impacting your community and living out the kingdom of God? As a community's need cries out, there needs to be a response. An awakening truth needs to be spoken. A truth that brings people to a place of this realization, God can meet me here.

Another challenge is the challenge of the moment... How do I get through this_______! A timely verse, word or thought could well be the awakening God has for you.

We are a people on a Journey, seeking God and moving towards the light into agreement with heaven. These "posts" are hopeful expressions. Words of encouragement, words of care to support you through the day.

Welcome to the trellis!