Point of Aim

The archer stands with feet slightly apart, side on to the target, solid and yet relaxed and confident; after all, he’s just completed a bull’s eye and knows that he can repeat it indefinitely. He pulls to a full draw and adopts a nice tight anchor with the nock of the arrow directly below his aiming eye and sets the point of aim at just the right spot and without thinking, runs through a checklist of items – stance, arm position, tension on the string, wind, anchor, point of aim…let’s fly the arrow and bull’s eye again! The archer knows that with any deviation from repeating the shot the result will be different and that he will not achieve the bull’s eye if his point of aim is off, even a percentage of a degree. If he moves further from the target or even closer, to the right or to the left, he must adjust his point of aim to compensate for the changes if he hopes to achieve the bull’s eye. For him to change his position relative to the target and not change the point of aim is folly and sure failure; the target remains the same, his goal remains the same, he has changed, and so he must compensate to achieve his goal.

As Christians, our lives are like that. The target is always the same, Jesus Christ and His Righteousness. The goal is the same, being welcomed into His Kingdom to hear the words “Well done My good and faithful servant.” The problem is that we change in relation to the target and our goal of achievement does not remain the same. We age, learn worldly wisdom, enter into relationships, gain maturity and responsibility, and sometimes find it difficult to locate the target or even care about it. Then something happens to remind of us of who we are and what He means to us and our desire to hit the target is refreshed. How do we aim from our new position, where do we find our point of aim? We take our stance as before, fully draw the arrow of our commitment, find the tip of the arrow, and we let it fly only to see the arrow fall short or strike to the side, or even sail far and above the target. Life on campus, in the new corporate office, in retirement, becoming a parent, spouse, or from a hospital bed has changed us in relation to the target. So what then? We can’t go back to where we first drew a bull’s eye, we are forever changed by any of those circumstances and the target remains the same. Perhaps we get blessed with an abundance of grace and the first new arrow strikes true. Excellent! What with the next arrow? Still we’ve changed, that’s inevitable and, frankly, desirable since we are clay on the Potter’s wheel and must change to be the piece he wants us to be.

What do we do as archers for Christ when our arrows fall off target? His grace is enough, His sacrifice complete. We ask forgiveness, take out another arrow and adjust our point of aim, and let it fly again! The change in our point of aim does not necessarily need to be radical; actually it probably shouldn’t be radical. A small change, subtle adjustment in the altitude of our aim is probably best most of the time and will allow for each arrow to draw closer to the bull’s eye with precision and prediction. Radical changes in our position to the target may require radical changes to our point of aim but once we see our arrows falling more and more true to our goal, the changes should become more subtle. Remember this; we are not finished until our last arrow falls true to the target.

What is in a Name? Plenty.

Juliet, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I believe that I have to agree with her; after all, if you take away my name I am still employed by AT&T, am 6’3”, bow-legged, don’t have quite enough hair, and smell fairly good after a shower. The only problem in getting rid of our names would be how people would find us. For sure, looking for me someone could use the physical traits I’ve listed and what I do for a living. Do you think someone who doesn’t already know me could find me? There are over 6 billion people on earth but we’ve already trimmed that down to the 300,000 who work for AT&T. You could start using things that define who I am or what I carry in my soul; things like, he loves kids, prays for people, is a bit of a curmudgeon, likes making people laugh and helping them through hard times. You could start describing things I do like; occasionally writes blogs, likes riding motorcycles, was a fair basketball player, liked coaching. We have narrowed it down but there are still a lot of people out there with many of those traits. Just to keep it simple and allow folks to find me because, most of the time, I like being found because I like people; I think that I’ll keep my name.

Over the years I have accumulated a number of nicknames, most of them good and fun; some, not so much. I’m sure we all are collecting them, from our families, our friends, our work friends, teams, and any number of places and they are usually for something we’ve done or do or say or some physical attribute that stands out for some folks. I’ve been jotting mine down while writing this and was up to 20 when I posted it. Some of the ones used to tease me or given to me in a disparaging way I can live without. There is one that I earned as a less than complementary comment on my basketball skills that I came to embrace because it associates me with my high school basketball team that I am still proud to have been a member of. There are two that I embrace now and love to hear. A few weeks ago I posted a Facebook status of “More melodic than the sounds of the harp, or uplifting than the chiming of village victory bells are the shouts of ‘Opa’ from my grandchildren when I walk into the room.” I got many likes and a few comments on that one and it’s true, I love hearing it and it makes me feel loved. The other one has grown over my years of youth ministry and one that many of the kids, some now young adults, who came through the junior high group and went to Mission Arizona use. When I hear it from these young people that I love, pray for, believe for, and hope for, it makes me feel loved and cared about. They call me Jer Bear.

 

What, you may ask, does this have to do with Calvary’s Thread? Why, plenty of course. We have a bible full of names for God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit. I have a list of them at my elbow in two columns, three pages long. They are very descriptive of who God is, what he is to his people, and how he relates to us. When we use them in our prayers, in our worship, and how we describe Him to others, God feels loved and appreciated. We should use them whenever we can because while He is unfathomable, they help us understand who God is and helps us relate to Him.  My friend Courtney recently posted a Facebook status and wrote the name out “G~d” and explained that our Jewish brothers and sisters don’t write out the whole name out of a deep reverence for Him. However we call Him; do it reverently.

Here are just a few names for our God for your consideration:

V  Alpha and Omega, as well as the Almighty in Revelation 1:8

V  Blessed Hope in Titus 2:13

V   Bread of Life in John 3:29

V  Changeless One in Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8

V  Good Shepherd in John 10:11

V  Helper in Hebrews 6:20

V  King of kings in Revelation 19:16

V  I am in John 18:6

V  Great Physician in Luke: 4:23

V  Lord of the Harvest in Matthew 9:38

V  Rose of Sharon in song of Solomon 2:1

V  Our Shelter in Psalms 61:3

This is the link I found to a nice resource for the names that I’ve used here:

Crown Him With Many Crowns

For our two brothers who will be spending a lot of time in the Gospel of John over the next few months and those of us who will be hearing them, I did a quick scan of this document and found that John’s Gospel accounts for 29 of the listings.

 

I think that it is worthwhile to consider all of the names for God and even to use descriptors from our own creative source because He is, after all, inexhaustible (I didn’t find that one on the list but find it appropriate). Then, when we are done with this consideration, I think that it would be worthwhile to simply empty our thoughts of all names and descriptors to love Him as God.

Tend my flock

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” John 21: 16

 A couple of Sundays ago I was sitting in church trying in vain to prepare myself to worship and I just couldn’t get beyond my disgruntled parishioner’s attitude; a couple of events were dominating my mind with disapproval and concern. I prayed for the Lord to show me what to do about it, how to behave, and dozens of other how questions. The immediacy of the reply was striking, like a bucket of cold water on my back. The reply itself was no less shocking in the conviction it brought to me. There was no how in the answer, nothing to tell me how to behave about my concerns, and not really any mention of the events at all, only a command, “Tend my flock.”

 This took me straight away to John 21: 15 – 19 where Jesus reveals Himself after the resurrection to Peter and the other disciples who had gone fishing. Jesus then confronts Peter’s betrayal by questioning Peter’s love for Jesus. To each of Peter’s three replies that he loved Jesus, Jesus replied in return “Feed my sheep”, “Take care of my sheep”, and again, “Feed my sheep”. Have I betrayed Christ, denied Him, any less than Peter when I put my servant’s call to the side? No, and unfortunately far more than the three times Peter made his denials. Still nothing concrete about how this would take place or what shape it might form.

Fine; now what? It used to be somewhat simple to identify myself as a shepherd when I was consistently with students as a Sunday school teacher, Jr. High/Sr. High Advisor, mission trip leader, session member, and committee chairperson. I’ve drifted and fought the tides since those “job titles” ended and, quite frankly, used the separation as an excuse to give up or grouse about things. The task at hand is to identify His sheep that I need to take care of; not an easy task and not one that likely will take any concrete shape in the near future. As an elder in the church it is still incumbent on me to find the flock, tend the flock, and see them safe.

John tells us of Jesus speaking on the attributes of the Good Shepherd in chapter 10 of his Gospel; verse 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-“. The more we strive to be good shepherds the more we will identify the sheep we are to care for and the more they will identify with us. We cannot pick and choose the members of our flock, we cannot pick and choose whom we will serve and feed. Even when segments of the flock might not be cool, hip, or in the center of what our personal vision is for the flock, we must seek the Father’s wisdom to meet their needs even when it might require efforts that take us away from the limelight or if it takes resources we would personally rather see going elsewhere.

Jesus defined it like this in John 10: 11 when He said “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” It is probably pretty plain to anyone called to any sort of shepherd’s ministry that this doesn’t only mean literally dying for the sheep, but, and sometimes more difficultly so, setting aside the things we’d rather be doing to take care of the sheep, all of them.

As for me, seeing the way I shepherd change and identifying those I need to tend, I think that I’ll start by looking for ways to effectively pray and intercede for them, find creative ways to make sure they are fed, and seek for ways to make sure they are healthy and looking to the Father. I think I’ll start with this group:

V  Family - wife, kids, sisters, parents, grandkids…extended family

V  Alumni, some who have grandchildren of their own now, others who haven’t yet reached High School, and a whole bunch in between

V  Fellow workers who’ve served well, some I see now and some I miss very much

That’s probably a big enough group to work with now. They should start seeing me pop up from time to time to encourage them or just check in. I should be more consistent with this communication tool and I am going to see how Tangent can be revitalized in some creative way to keep folks connected. God help me.

Good Grief...Where Did That Come From?

I believe that Christians inherently carry grief that, for the most part, remains beneath the surface. It is the grief for our God having to suffer for all of our shortcomings and the knowledge that we do not live up to the sacrifice He made for us. Our grief bubbles out from the least of events to our most poignant losses and carries with it components of the personal loss and the underlying grief for our inadequacies. Grief should never be summarily dismissed as an unchristian display of disbelief; after all, didn’t Jesus himself grieve for his friend Lazarus, his family, and friends? I encourage you to read John 11: 1 – 44 as Jesus shows us how to grieve and comfort those who also grieve, and transcend the grief to victory.

My latest brush with grief has caught me by surprise. It was like a cloud on the horizon, all fluffy and white, harmless seeming as it made its appearance, only to reveal its dark underlining as it cleared the horizon and came fully into view. For certain, this was no monsoon but a cloud that carried with it the promise of a brief shower and the potential for heavenly fireworks and the rumblings of discontent. So strange that the loss of our pet cockatiel Mo, whom I dubbed The Sentry as I dug his grave, would release such feelings complete with all the classic pains. I learned many years ago not to be ashamed of my penchant for emotional displays; they are a part of who I am and I try to embrace the moment and share it with my friends and family to become a point of bonding. I believe that grief, like many wounds, benefits from being in the open and breathing to help the healing process. Bearing that in mind, we must guard against letting the grief fester and become infected; the complications can be costly.

I let one of my greatest loses grew to the point of becoming cancerous. I’d lost one of my closest of friends, Doug Clark, to an untimely accident at the hands of a drunk driver, Doug being the only one in his car that died and was the only one in the car without a broken bone. I questioned God to the point of swearing to myself that I would ask Him for an explanation of this when I finally meet Him. Where was He for me in this? Was not Doug the first person I knelt with in prayer that opened the door to Christ to enter his heart? How could He take him like this, what was the point? I carried those questions and they fermented into a bitterness that could only be cured by a miracle healing, one came at the hands of the first Mission Arizona team I was on that, when I exposed the scars of this, laid hands on me and brought healing to my spirit. The faith and capabilities of junior high students are amazing.

Let’s wrap this up with a quick look at Jesus and Lazarus, shall we? Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus was ill but did not immediately run to Bethany to heal him. Instead, Jesus continued with what he was doing and operated in faith that God was yet to be glorified in Lazarus. Even though Jesus faced the enmity of those in the area, once Lazarus was dead he left for Bethany knowing God would be glorified in him and his friend Lazarus, “the one you love” (John 11: 3). Upon arriving on the scene Jesus faced the questions about him not being there for them and then his grief came into the open and he grieved for his friend and those who also loved Lazarus. In short, Jesus recognized that grief was on the horizon, continued to do the Father’s will, met the grief when it came upon him and his friends, and then took charge of the grief and in faith raised Lazarus from the dead. I love the last part of this scripture where Jesus says “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” To me He is saying, take off the bindings of your grief and be free, rejoice that my Kingdom draws near.” And to that I have to say that I have a large heart, plenty of room there to remember the lost in kindness, and let more in.

In His Grip - jerry

Who’s in Control Here Anyway?

Romans 7: 15 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.” (NIV)

I have been casting about looking for something to write about, to post in Calvary’s Thread, for weeks now as well as something for Iron Side Up and PAR and have little success to show for the casting. The struggle is not necessarily over a lack of material, there was Mission Arizona, church each Sunday, riding to work and little jaunts around town, and I spent two days in PAR’s first destination taking notes and yet, there has been no writing. I feel so strongly that I should be writing; so much so that sometimes I think that if I’m not writing or working at it then I am distracted, to the point that even sleep seems a waste of time. So then, why am I not writing? Certainly the responsibilities of work and maintaining a home and family take a lot of time and cannot logically be set aside. Indeed, if I were to set them aside, what then would I write about? Abandoning myself and my loved ones? Not likely.

This past Sunday was Music Appreciation Sunday at LCPC and the Romans scripture was read as part of Pastor Wilson’s sermon about Self Control as one of the Fruits of the Spirit and off I ran with reading more of Romans than I have in some time. Self control; I sorely lack it and thus what I do is not what I want to be doing. Putting aside sleeping, eating, working, and home responsibilities I still have hours that I can devote to story telling. My biggest enemy is time wasting and the biggest chunk of that is in front of the TV and then the other are games on my “smart” phone. How can I be saved from myself, or can I? I can, but not by myself or in myself but only through God’s grace can I change patterns that I’ve set up for decades. It doesn’t help that I have such low self-esteem when it comes to writing and believing that it makes a difference making avoidance of failure a favorite pastime. God has not made this directive easy.

My answer came later in Romans 7, good of Paul to provide the answer to the question, no?

Romans 7: 21 – 25 “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

In light of that, I need to do several things:

1 –Believe that I delight in God’s law in my inner being and feed that consistently and the well will not be so dry and I will that much closer to the creative nature of God.

2 – Believe that I am delivered by Jesus Christ and that He continues to deliver me and act like it. Walk away from those things I hate and cling to those things I love.

3 – Don’t be satisfied with token attempts, cry out to God with continued trips to the foot of the cross in search of Calvary’s Thread.

4 – Believe that what I’m doing has merit, even if just to connect myself more firmly to His Grace.

In His grip - jj white

MAZ in the Rear View Mirror

I haven’t written a word to print in weeks, at least four since it was a week or so before Mission Arizona (MAZ) 2012 and it is now two and half weeks after. It seems a lifetime ago that we were frantically painting the last of four brick walls the team built so that we could get on the road, packing strategically so that the truck and trailer with Paul and Jacob could head straight home, and making our way to the wonderfully refurbished church sign for our team photo. Much of the emotional highs of the trip for me have already faded with a couple of weeks of turmoil at the office, two road trips to the north, and a weekend in Santa  Barbara for Teya’s birthday with my parent’s down from Oregon for the festivities. Most of the hardships of the trip filtered away during affirmations while both the kids and adults said things about each other that showed the spotlight on all that was good about this short mission trip and service week; it was like a kalidascope of great aspects of each person. People often ask if I’m going next year after each trip and I always respond that I don’t start thinking about it for at least a month after the highs and lows have evened out to allow for a more objective time of consideration and prayer. I like to draw a parallel for my participation in MAZ to Walter Alston and his tenure with the Dodgers as manager of the team. I understand that he always had a one year contract and met after each season to determine the owner’s satisfaction with his performance and he managed the team for 23 seasons. I have a year to year agreement with God on weather I go and how involved I’ll be. The process will likely be kicked off with this post and last a few months. I have much to do and need to make some significant progress on them before I’ll know for sure.

This trip was full of surprises just as each one of the twenty trips I’ve done; even the one I stayed home on a couple of years ago held a surprise which was the simple fact that I believed He wanted me home that year. This year’s biggest surprise was a dog that I just could not be mean enough to in order to keep it away; the mantel of the stern task oriented timeline driven discipline guy has worn thin. I would much prefer to laugh, play, and goof off with the kids and joke around with all the adults but that role has not been mine to play. This is not to say that I don’t have fun, I have plenty and great memories with a number of very cool kids and friends. Naynay, as the dogs shortened name came to be, was well ensconced with the early group by the time I arrived with the bulk of the team on the Monday following Easter and it was too late to impose the rules of “outside the camp” for the reservation dogs. No petting, feeding, or otherwise fraternizing with the dogs inside our sleeping area is the way I like it so that we can avoid distractions and the keep the specter of an animal coming home with us away. Dashed beyond all recognition was my resolve to stick to the plan and I have to say it must have been God’s plan with Naynay; to what purpose still remains a mystery to me.

We did a lot of work on the reservation at the Vah Ki and Stotonic Presbyterian churches. If you’ll excuse the run on sentence we replaced the floor tiles in both bathrooms, poured a concrete slab equipped with a finished block wall for seating, replaced seven or eight windows in the 1890s adobe church building, broke out bad concrete and re-poured them to make the walkways more usable to the wheel chair and walker-bound folks, installed a drip watering system to two new trees, filled in three sections of a wall to the meeting area to hold back the desert sands, painted over graffiti, restored the church sign with the artful Paige and Delany as primaries and covered it with Plexiglas to protect it from graffiti (brilliant idea Todd), repaired numerous toilets, closed in and added windows to the mud room entrance to the fellowship hall, added another sand barrier to the other entrance to the hall, sanded and painted the floor of the other 1890s adobe church and replaced about fifty feet of eight inch baseboard, cooked a meal and held a mini-VBS for the neighborhood and church folks, and dozens of other little things that escape me now. We did a lot of work and that was all good but the thing that stands out for me as special was the mini-VBS that Ashley Adamson thought of and the impromptu testimony from Kenny, the nineteen year old son of the lead elder from the Stotonic church. After sharing his heartfelt story of how he came to be saved he had each of us share something about ourselves and that was fantastic even if we kept it simple. The exchange between the Pima people and our group that evening was very gratifying. Kenny then presented our kids and adults with some reusable lunch bags with water bottles and a cool logo from an event called “Mul Chu Tha”, running in Pima is the simple translation although there is more depth to it. Then Kenny and his dad, Lenny, presented me with a tee shirt they had from a special event celebrating and depicting the flag raising on Iow Jim with the phrase “Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue”. As with many American Indian tribes I’ve seen, the Pima deeply honor their veterans; one of their own, Ira Hays, was part of the flag-raising, last in line and closest to the flag itself. I am very humbled by this and feel undeserving since I escaped the horrors of the Viet Nam War by the luck of the draft and did not serve in the armed forces.

I was at MAZ ‘12 with 35 fantastic kids and adults and thought of them often while riding to Sacramento a couple of Saturdays ago. Each of them played a significant role in this trip and it is they who make it worthwhile, their smiles and friendship gave me miles of pleasant riding along Highway 5, a long and boring route for some. I’ll have to make an attempt at listing each one and something special about them in a post. It may not surprise some to hear this next part but most of you will raise an eyebrow to it. As much as I love the Pima people of the Gila River Indian Community and cherish serving them, the biggest reason I can think of for doing this trip are the kids that go. Being a part of the opportunity they have to serve, learn to live in community in adverse conditions, seek God in new and refreshing ways, exposing them to the plight of the poor and disadvantaged, and preparing them for other avenues of service is, for me, the most rewarding aspect of the trip. It is, as it always should be, about them. All right, we can throw in all the advisors into that mix as well since we all are children of God and have much to learn. I’ve run way past my blog post length limit and still have so much to relate…

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Burger King

A couple of Sundays ago Matt, Ashley, and the kids came down from Santa Barbara for a few days at the start of Ashley’s spring break. Part of the plan for Sunday was that some of the family would take in “The Hunger Games”; I hadn’t planned on going but it ended up with Ashley, Lauren, and me. We went early enough to grab something to eat before getting into the long waiting line, something I very rarely do is to wait in line on an opening weekend for a big movie. I am more the “let’s wait a week or two, still see it on the bigger screens but not with the agony of waiting in line” type. On the way through the parking structure directly to the In and Out was a homeless man waiting around for a hand out and not being really overt about his request, if I had my blinders in place I could have, and did actually, walk right by without giving it much thought. While in line Ashley asked if we could add a cheese burger to our order for the man; what’s a dad going to do, say no? What does the Heavenly Father do when his children ask for a way to help somebody? He provides them the way. We added the burger and Ashley made the delivery. I’m very pleased with how my kids are turning out; it is quite a blessing when they show me how compassionate they are, how thoughtful, and how loving they are. It can also be a bit convicting.

Yesterday after my morning swim I decided that a Burger King breakfast was in order since it was just half a block out of my way back to the office. My path down Main Street in Alhambra to the “restaurant” from the LA Fitness took me on the opposite side from a large church whose entryway is used by homeless folks for nights. On the way by I observed a couple of them stirring and thought to myself “I’ll just stay on this side of Main on my way back and cross to office down the way” and I was immediately brought up short. I was the bad guy in the parable of The Good Samaritan, down to the very act of walking down the street on the opposite side so as not to get involved. This is not the first time I’ve wrestled with this conundrum of how to meet a need larger than myself and on this very spot and with coming face to face with the needy. I changed my approach and determined to buy gift coupons to hand to them on my way by except that Burger King sells gift cards instead and so I got one. The signals would have favored the lesser path and I had to push the walk button and wait for the signal change to take myself by them. There are three that morning while usually there are one or two and as I approached one of them was straitening up from being sick in the city flower garden and the area reeked of alcohol confirming my decision to get a gift card over cash. The unfortunate reality is that they’d use the cash for their addiction rather than what they need, food. I hand off the card to one of the men and pat him on the should giving a silent prayer and feeling broken myself rather than good about it; I probably should have dropped off my breakfast as well since there were three men and stuck to the instant oatmeal I keep in my file drawer. I’ve tossed a pebble in the rushing river trying to dam it up.

What are we to do with the homeless and the acute need of the hungry? There are any number of institutional ways of handling it and we participate in them. We have money withheld for “Habitat for Humanity” from my check and that’s good but pretty antiseptic. At LCPC we have a number of efforts underway and we support most of them. We give to the mission trips; the Rosarito Orphanage getting started, Project Dominicana, the Men’s Mexico Trip, and then there is Mission Arizona where we give and I go along and get dirty with the mission team. Our Children’s Ministry group supports the Children’s Hunger Fund as well as a number of other support efforts and our Deacon’s do the Neighbors helping Neighbors as well as supplying a closet full of food and gift cards for families in the area in deep need.

These are all good and worthy efforts to be involved in but I still wrestle with the problem when I come face to face with it. The person who is begging and hungry, standing right in front of me does not want to hear “I give at the office”. What does that do for him? I see a need for me to fundamentally change the way I approach this. First, I cannot purposely avoid the issue by walking on the other side of the street; that is no longer a real option. I need to meet the person and assess the situation for what it is in the moment. If I think that what aid I am equipped to give them is really harm, as in giving cash to the homeless person who has a substance abuse problem, then I need to address them and decline. Secondly, I need to arm myself to give some instant aid if possible perhaps by carrying gift cards/certificates to a local food place for the people I come across. I could even take this a step further and purposely make my way by this church and do a census, buy them all a breakfast and forego my own or delay my own. Thirdly, I could possibly get directly involved with one of the other missions to the poor.

At this point in my post I could let it go for your consideration but I must throw a cautionary tale out for you to think about as well. Last summer Cindy and I were taking a late walk during a weekend away and the street was pretty deserted. A homeless man stopped his cart to allow us to pass by the little bottleneck in the sidewalk and did not seem to be asking for any assistance while simply being polite. I smiled and gave him a nod in recognition of this courtesy as we moved along and we were met with an explosion of emotion from him and a tirade ensued about what I thought was so funny and a rant went on about many unrelated injustices that he’s suffered. This man was mentally and/or emotionally disturbed either as a result of or resulted in his homeless condition.  If any of us determine that we are called in some way to minister to the homeless we need to exercise some caution as to when, where, and how we go about it. The homeless can be desperate and disturbed and we need to be prepared for that and pray for guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit as we go about the Lord’s business. I guess that can be true about most things…

In His Grip - jerry

Inside Out

I have a thousand things I could put in this post; Mission Arizona is consuming my thoughts and yet I’m unprepared. My writing has dwindled to nearly nothing this week and my scripture reading has been sporadic. The conflicts in time and emphasis are poised to topple me over and in a heap. I’m in a struggle about MAZ coming up in two weeks; is this trip God’s ultimate will for me now? Is it something that He thinks is okay for me to do? Or, God forbid, is it not His will at all? The doubts are crushing and I should have seen them coming, they always do.

Still the only things I can think of to share right now are the words of a praise song from this morning that I’ll write as a prayer arrangement. “From the Inside Out” by Hillsong United:

A thousand times I’ve failed, still Your mercy remains and should I stumble again, still I’m caught in Your grace. Everlasting; Your light will shine when all else fades. Never-ending; Your glory goes beyond all fame.

Your will above all else, my purpose remains. The art of losing myself, in brining You praise. Everlasting. Never-ending.

In my heart, in my soul Lord, I give You control. Consume me from the inside out, Lord let justice and praise become my embrace to love You from the inside out.

Your glory goes beyond all fame and the cry of my heart is to bring You praise from the inside out.

Amen

The Good Shepherd

John 10: 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”

Have you set yourself on a Lenten path of sacrifice, searching, and repentance? How is that going for you? As for me, for as long as I can remember I’ve been successful at giving things up for Lent, saying extra prayers, and getting to Easter in one piece. For this year I put the task of writing a page a day in front of me as my Lenten journey knowing I’d have to give up time wasting activities to do get it done and I’ve failed over the last several days. It takes self-discipline, the kind I apparently lack, to take something on and put aside other mindless activities. It is a lesson in failure for me but one that may be embedded deeper than those chocolate or soda free Lents of my past. While in college I took an Art History class mostly because I couldn’t draw, paint, or sculpt and I needed the “humanities” units. Our professor assigned us the task of finding a piece of art and sketching it out and then writing about the elements of the piece using our sketch to demonstrate our points. After many hours of trying to sketch out a simple charcoal drawing by Rembrandt and failing miserably just to get a semblance of his sketch on paper I was forced to give up. I couldn’t get the thing to fit the page or when I did the angles were completely wrong, and then the shading… I knew I was going to get my first F of college but I wanted to turn in something so I wrote “A Lesson in Failure” which was rewarded with an A and the explanation that my struggles in all the areas I described had given me a unique perspective and that the narrative of my struggles demonstrated that I had learned more that way than if a simple sketch came with no thought at all. Other artistic students had done some pretty nice drawings but were not rewarded as nicely as I had been. Now you know one of the reasons why I’m writing in the search for my creative side. We can learn from our Lenten mistakes because we have a good shepherd to take care of us and teach us.

Jesus is the good shepherd and it took the ultimate in self-discipline for him to lay down his life for us, his sheep. He sets the great example for us; surely we can lay aside rather simple self-seeking pleasures to take on the Kingdom purpose in our lives. If Jesus can lay down his life, I can set aside watching so much mindless TV, explore my creative side, and write a page a day. I can set aside being a mindless driving machine and be kinder on the road, set aside a driven goal at work and be a kinder colleague, or set aside my routine to listen to somebody in need of an ear before church service. I can.

John 10: 14 – 16a “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.”

He is our shepherd, we know him, he knows the Father and through him we know the father. We must be like him and recognize when we are to be in the role of the good shepherd and lovingly tend the sheep that the Great Shepherd brings to us to care for. There are other sheep not in the sheep pen and we must bring them also and must protect them from the ravening wolves, those thieves and robbers who do not come through the gate to the sheep (John 10: 7-10). Jesus is the gate and we enter the pasture through him, become shepherds by him, and obtain the rewards of knowing the Father because of him and his sacrifice.

Good shepherds; find your sheep, tend your flocks.

On the Road to Emmaus

Luke 24, 13 – 35: “On the Road to Emmaus”                

Two men, one named Cleopas, took the opportunity of a seven mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus to talk about a tumultuous week for them where Jesus had made a triumphal entry to the city only to be buried a week later. They heard the news from the women that the body of Jesus was not found and that angels had told them He had be raised from the dead and yet they walked in unbelief along a dusty track when Jesus came to them and, I think, because of their unbelief they did not recognized them. Jesus could have told them then and there it was he they were discussing but he let them continue. I imagine that had they recognized him on their own they would have worshipped and had no need of the lessons Jesus was about to lay on them. Verse 27: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Jesus broke bread with them in verse 30, their eyes were opened and he disappeared in verse 31 and then verse 32: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” They got up at once and did better than a 10K to get back to where they belonged and shared the story with the Disciples.

Do you find it as I do, that along whatever part of life’s journey you are on that Jesus had been walking with you, explaining himself to you, and only afterwards did we recognize Him? Our hearts burn within us, we know something, someone, is right there but we do not see it. I do it all too frequently and it is because of my unbelief that I hadn’t seen Him there with me at my deepest need. We shouldn’t fret too much about that as long as we recognize Him when he breaks bread with us and then get back to where we belong and tell the story to the other disciples.

I cling to the thought of Jesus meeting me on the way because I am so frequently on the way and busy with the journey that I need to have him meet me in that way or I fear that I’ll miss him completely. For years during Mission Arizona I’ve sought Jesus out because I just couldn’t do what was needed and felt that the trip was failing, that I was failing. Most of the time I hear the still small voice tell me that He’ll meet me on the way so I get up from me seat in the desert, start gathering the kids from their quiet times believing that He’s there and that brings me peace. He has never failed to show himself in the children or adults of the team, the people of the reservation, or some other seemingly insignificant event. I’ll be moving through the day, herding the groups along, taking stock of our progress and then Jesus is there with us. What a fortunate man I am!

It is an awesome feeling to recognize Jesus in midst of the din and clutter of our lives during the hectic chase to complete all the tasks that we’ve piled up like a homecoming bonfire stack of wood. Imagine the cacophony of questions Cleopas and his pal were bombarded with once they related their experience to the Disciples. All the side discussions, the rumble of excitement and then Jesus himself is there with them and simply says “Peace be with you.” (Luke 24: 36) He had to settle them down just like we have to settle down our children and quiet their spirits so he could explain himself to them again and impart the lesson so they would be ready once the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost. In verse 45 he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. How I need that yet again, meet me in the way.

Jesus, open our minds to understand the Scriptures and see you here in our midst.

Prepare the Soil

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3: 10-11

I came out of the Ash Wednesday service with a pensive walk pausing only briefly to greet a couple of the families who had already made their way out. That was as it should be since we were instructed to give thought to who we really are underneath the facade we put up to ourselves and others. We need to consider our nature and what we are at our core that drives the behaviors that give evidence to our sinful selves and not just the acts of sin. While it is good and necessary to confess the acts, we are doomed to repeat these offenses if we don’t dig down to the root of darkness within and remove it.

I looked forward to my short night-ride home; there is something about riding at night for me that I really like. There is a feeling of mystery about it, a heightened awareness of the solitude of the ride and this night I embraced it having some serious thoughts about what is truly separating me from God. There was the anticipation that He would expose it to me, allow me to see the gulf between us, and therefore be able to bring the Holy Spirit to bear on the roots of it to dig it out. That is a scary proposition; make no mistake about it, seeing who we really are and working out the roots of sin is painful and something that is all too easy to run from. Knowing that I’ve only scratched the surface of it doesn’t help getting into it all that much for me. I am thankful for Lent and having the community of believers considering this both as individuals and collectively leading up to our celebration of Christ’s victory over death. I am thankful that during our Ash Wednesday service we were able to hold true to the spirit of it and not put on a happy front just to be upbeat before we left.

Once the source is revealed to me, will I dig it out or attempt to throw dirt back over it to give the appearance that there is nothing there but fertile soil? All too often, I find just the hint of a root and toss a little soil back in place and rake it around making all the right motions of working things out but not truly facing up to it.

We are told that grace awaits the repentant sinner and will be our reward. Faith that this will be so makes it so and this can sustain us during the search. We had best be prepared for the wilderness experience that the season of Lent is patterned after. 40 days; the length of time Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness and then being tempted before entering into His earthly ministry. 40 years; the length of time the Israelites wondered in the wilderness shedding all of the old to enter into the new. The wilderness is parched and barely able to sustain human life; who can survive it? None without the sustenance of grace, the manna of life from the Father.

Somewhere along Montrose Avenue between La Crescenta and Rosemont where the street lights thinned out and traffic fell behind I found something to sustain me. Grace awaits me. The power of His resurrection will get me through the wilderness and effect the change. The power of His resurrection is enough. Death of the sinful self to be resurrected in grace with Him; all that separates us from Christ falls away and we come “to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord” (Phil. 3: 8) From there we can minister to this earth from a position of fullness and be effective workers of the harvest.

Shameless Audacity

Jesus said while talking about prayer "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need." (Luke 11:8 [NIV]) I absolutely love the thought of shameless audacity; if I didn't have at least a measure of that when I was young then a beautiful and intelligent woman like Cindy never would have given me a second thought and now here I am married to her for over 35 years with three great kids and two fantastic grandchildren. I am a rich man because of a little timely temerity. I consulted with my friend Webster and he says audacity is "intrepid boldness" or a "bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints". A sampling of synonyms gives us brashness, brazenness, cheek, chutzpah, crust, gall, pertness, sauce...I like them all. The synonym that stands out for me in my little search is chutzpah which is defined as "supreme self-confidence".

Jesus has told us to approach the Father with intrepid boldness if we want answers saying after giving the example of the man coming to the door after midnight "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (vs. 9)" I confess, I have not been praying in this way. I'm too timid, too full of unbelief, and just too wimpy. I feel unworthy to come to Him and that's something I need to overcome. It's a given, I'm unworthy; I shouldn't dwell on it and let the thought of my unworthiness keep me from approaching the Lord for anything and everything. He paid the dearest price for my unworthiness and for me to let it come between us is a rejection of his sacrifice. I ask Him for good things for my family and friends, the church and her leaders, and for myself. I'm going to be audacious about it now but I had better remember one more thing. He also said to do it shamelessly or be insensible to disgrace, not give a care about appearances, and in spite of my sinful condition come to Him with chutzpah. He is the Father and what good father gives a scorpion when asked for an egg (vs. 12)? To come to Him shamelessly is not an affront to the Father but a statement of our faith that He forgives us all, that the power of His resurrection is enough to conquer everything.

Confession? Do it with confidence that He has forgiven us and longs to grant it to let us draw near. Intersession? Do it with chutzpah because He wants to be our shield and our rock. Guidance? Ask for it with brashness because He wants to lead us. Worship? Do it with audacious abandon because He wants to commune with us. Above all else, do it. Pray and then pray some more.

We Are What We Eat

Matthew 12: 35 "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him."

I realized a few weeks ago that my scripture reading was sporadic, even non-existent. Check that, I've known that for a couple of years and what I've come to realize is that I'm starving myself and my spiritual growth has been completely stagnate. I had run out of the good things stored up in me and too many evil things were coming out. My feeding on scripture had been okay when I was regularly teaching the junior high students; being responsible for the lesson and their growth forced me to read and meditate on a pretty regular basis. This is one of the big reasons I raised my hand whenever I could for teaching knowing that I needed that sort of stimulus to keep me going. Once others took the teaching load I was getting by on their lessons but increasingly becoming a spiritual couch potato with my spiritual gifts atrophying at a steady pace. I did what I had to do and gave myself a quota of one biblical chapter and one skills building chapter a day knowing that I would do it because I'm a checklist kind of guy and knowing I'd read more once I got there; after all, I'm a glutton, I clean my plate and go back for seconds.

When we eat bread, do we toast it, cut off the crusts, and slather it with butter, jellies, and peanut butter? What then becomes of the bread? It was there, we consumed it, but did we taste it? The nutrients might be there but we were hardly aware of the bread other than it was a vehicle to deliver all the other stuff and only after we changed it from bread to toast without crust. Some breads are better for all that but others need to be enjoyed for what they are, fine pieces of bread. Scripture is the same as a fine piece of bread, meant to be consumed and enjoyed for what it is, and not merely as a side dish but an integral part of the great feast Jesus spreads out for us.

I caught myself today in a trap all too common with checklist people like me. I went to Rick's Drive In & Out for lunch and had the white fish, rice, and steamed vegetables. When I sat down I took out my Kindle and started to read Matthew 27 and had gotten through some pretty important stuff without really tasting it. I was aware of everything around me, the people talking and eating all those things I really wanted to be eating like burritos, hamburgers, and fries...the flat screen had CNN on talking about a subject I'm coming to loath, politics. There were lots of people there and I love to people watch. I was struggling to read because I'd left my reading glasses on the desk at the office. I had come to the Lord's banquet table completely unprepared to enjoy the feast. I consumed the Word and the nutrients are there but will they nurture my spirit as they should or be like the seed the farmer tossed on the pathway to be consumed by the birds? There are loads of things in chapter 27 for me to consider; Judas hanging himself, the chief priests not caring about his condition and cold heartedly buying the potter's field; there was Jesus before Pilot and Pilot washing his hands of it, the people incited by the chief priests, and the soldiers mocking Jesus. Who was I today; Judas, a chief priest, Pilot, or a soldier? A soldier, I mocked Jesus by reading His story in such a way as that. I've reread this section; otherwise I'd never have known that I behaved like a disrespectful soldier.

What happens when we eat right and have a healthy diet of scripture? When we prepare outselves for the meal? "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit." (Matthew 12: 33) We should be able to examine the fruit of our labors and know if our spiritual diet is good or if it is bad. Do we have the fruits of the Spirit in our lives; love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? (Gal 5: 22-23) Do those we teach and have responsibility for have these fruits in their lives, are they growing in them?

Eat right, feed regularly, and enjoy the feast.

Are you going to wear that to Church?

Psalm 51: 17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Would you wear a spaghetti-stained shirt to church if there were a clean and pressed one close at hand? If you worked a whole summer’s day in the yard would you attend an evening wedding without having showered first? No, we’d like to be presentable for church and we’d like our hug with bride and bridegroom to be a pleasant blessing to us all. Neither then should we go into worship holding on to a sin-drenched spirit. With sin staining our wardrobe and drenching our spirit we won’t be presentable and will not get anywhere near enough to hug the Bridegroom.

While preparing for this post I really thought that I’d be taking this in a different direction from the worship topic but here we are, considering our worship again. With Mission Arizona looming ahead and having just concluded the LCPC devotional fast, I thought a related topic from either of those would be appropriate. Certainly, the fast touches on this since I experienced a couple of setbacks from the repentance aspect of my fast but a shotgun approach to some of my failings didn’t really hit home. However, I am holding onto the power of His resurrection for victory over the flesh. I had hoped, and this was a weakness of my approach, that I’d have an earth shattering announcement to make and that I’d overcome this huge mountain in the way, and that God told me distinctly to do this amazing thing. Oops. I overlooked a very important part of my reading, not by my design, Matthew 5 & 6 before the fast. I should have been looking to only make this for the Father, who is unseen so that the unseen Father would reward me thusly. (Matt 6: 18) It’s not about me. In the LCPC devotional blog Lee Cook said of his reading the Sermon on the Mount “Mostly, I come away challenged and inspired!” That’s the PC version, for me I came away convicted.

I believe that we need to spend a little more time in preparation for worship by turning away from sin and setting aside our personal grudges. In fact, the same should go for anytime we teach or attend class or participate in fellowship with each other, or go on a mission trip. Preparation is the key here for me; I need to make some honest prayer of confession before heading down the hill to the church. Most regularly scheduled services at LCPC contain a corporate prayer of confession but by then we’ve already sung a song or two and maybe heard the call to worship. I’m thinking that if I’m ready personally for worship then when we go into corporate confession as a body, I can then give myself a second review and then look to my repentance in the congregational view of my shortcomings. I want to come before Jesus as clean as possible ready for my worship to be accepted, a broken and contrite spirit. That doesn’t mean that I can’t sing out in victory or let out a shout of triumph; it just means that if I do it will ring true.

I think it would be interesting some day to close the sanctuary and have everyone meet in the courtyard first to pray and offer up our confessions; then, as all good Presbyterians do, file reverently and orderly into the sanctuary and get into worship.

Let’s raise the level of our worship by sinking to a new low of humility before the King.

Psalm 51: 12 – “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” 15. “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” 18. “In your good pleasure make Zion prosper”

Worship...Be Ready

John 4: 23 “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”

Are you ready to worship this weekend, prepared to love our God, and show it? Good, because now we have to worship to be ready, ready for His Kingdom and Christ’s rule over us. Revelation speaks frequently, 14 times, of the worship that will fill all eternity. We’d best be in practice for something we hope to be involved in forever and if we are going to practice it we should really know what it is. I won’t pretend to be an expert on worship and I will confess to using this posting to explore it and engage you in helping me deepen my personal worship, so let’s consider a few things, shall we?

My friend Webster (any of the youth around when the lay youth leaders were teaching know instantly that I refer to my dictionary as “my friend Webster”) says “to regard with great, even extravagant respect, honor or devotion; to perform or take part in worship or an act of worship”. I don’t always agree with my friends, even Webster. He’s close; I love the part of extravagant respect but I like it better as “great, extravagant respect, honor, and devotion”. It is all of those things wrapped up as one. When I think of extravagant I see a group of us going to breakfast together and someone trying to grab the check for the table and finding that a friend had already done that when they saw us walk in. We walk into a service or personal quiet time and exceed everything that was expected of us just because we love Him, that’s extravagance.

Presbyterians use the “Book of Order” to structure and govern the church, define worship, and define the rules of discipline. There aren’t page numbers to use a measurement so I took a copy and measured the pages by compressing the book and measuring each of the three sections, Forms of Government at 5/16”, Directory for Worship at 1/8”, and The Rules of Discipline at ½”. That’s telling but skewed since we also have a whole “Book of Confessions” that is full of worship, articles of faith, and confessions. I couldn’t find my copy right away but did find no less than four copies of the Book of Order.  Hmmm… The Directory for Worship talks about the order and content of various types of services as well as explore the definition of worship on several levels. I recommend that any Christian could read this as a part of their search for worship and they will find nuggets of great truth; I’ll be doing some more pointed reading of this myself. Here is one such nugget: “Daily personal worship is a discipline for attending to God and accepting God’s grace. The daily challenge of discipleship requires the daily nurture of worship”.

In “The New Testament Church” by John Robert Stevens, lesson 20 explores Worship in the Services and he says worship is to bow yourself down in adoring contemplation of God. John goes on to say that worship is more than reading the Bible and meditating on it, more than listening to a sermon, and more than most singing and praying. As for me, I believe that if we were infused with worship as we did any of these things; reading Scripture, praying, singing, taking communion; any of them, then our revelation of Christ would be immeasurably more true and powerful.

In John 4: 21-24 Jesus tells us what the Father is looking for, worshipers in spirit and in truth. If we want to grow, for the church in numbers, power, and effectiveness, for the person in knowing the power of Christ’s resurrection, we must seek a spiritual truth in our worship. When it’s not there for us we know it, when we get close we know it, when we touch it, even just the hem of it, we know it and are transformed. For the individual it will leave us drained of self, weak, and ready to achieve God’s purpose. For the church, if will be when each person reaches that point of selflessness and we’ll know it by the harmonizing oneness of purpose. For each one and the church together it will rise up to the Father like pleasing incense and we will be His beloved.

Ready? ... Worship!

Jesus said “I tell you the truth; anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Mark 10: 15

We should enter worship like a little child going to Disneyland; full of excitement, anticipation, wide-eyed, and eager. We should know this is going to be a fantastic experience just as the child knows that Dumbo will be a flight of fancy that takes her to fantastic heights. Their preparations for Disneyland don’t begin as the parent hands over the ticket and neither should our preparation for worship begin as we shake hands with the greeter. Parents should start getting ready for worship the night before since getting children to church is often times part of the spiritual battle to keep the parent from entering worship. Pray, connect with God in a personal way before you leave from home. The children come to the parents before they leave for Disneyland, asking, pleading, and dancing around like little fairies to line up an itinerary of rides and attractions and so we should go the Father asking for forgiveness, pleading to meet with Him, and dancing around at the thought of some undefined blessing, being one and/or receiving one.

It’s not just the rides that get them pumped up to be there but they also anticipate the characters. They carry no animosity towards Mickey and Minnie Mouse and they’re struck with admiration at the thought of meeting the princesses. You should be smiling about now at the thought of meeting your favorite characters at church, drawing some similarities between your friends and Disney characters; who is your Peter Pan, your Donald Duck, your Snow White? We shouldn’t bring animosity toward our brothers or sisters to worship; drop it at the foot of the cross and enter in.

Little children are not free from anxiety at going to Disneyland and a dose of it adds to the height of excitement. After all, when dad tells them they are tall enough for the ride that just last year they had to sit out while the big brother went on they are just a tad unsure if they are actually ready even if they are tall enough. Aren’t we big people the same way when the Father puts something in front of us for worship saying we are ready to go higher, deeper, see Him more clearly? Don’t we battle unbelief, thinking we are unworthy even though the great Sacrifice paved the way perfectly? Unless the big brother spooks them, the little child grabs hold of mom’s hand and goes on the ride anyway and so we should deepen our worship, grab hold of Jesus’ hand and enter in.

Frazzled when you get to church with all the hubbub of getting everybody into the car on time? It’s not too late to get set; grab a brother of sister and have them pray for you, with you; take an extra second or two on the way to your seat and hug someone; take a deep breath and let it out while letting the frazzledness run off you like water off a duck’s back.

We should be like the little child leaving Disneyland when we leave worship; spiritually spent because we gave it our all, a little sad at leaving because we loved it so much, deeply satisfied because it was everything and more than we anticipated, and ready to start charging up for the next time. Get ready for the next time because you are tall enough for the Matterhorn.

In His Grip,

Jerry

Shh...On Two Wheels, more or less

Shh…On Two Wheels, More or Less

    This past Sunday I was sitting in the balcony for the service because that’s where my family was and my personal preference is to be with my family and worship and, whenever possible, hear God speak to me. Early Sunday mornings it is my custom that when I awake to take that Sunday morning’s bulletin and pray through the services, the participants and their particular part of the service, for the church staff and their ministry area, for the congregation that morning, our missionary partners, and the various items found in the bulletin which is a wealth of information and prayer opportunities. Thank you Nancy for being so faithful to email this goldmine to me, I appreciate all you do in His service. Because of my early morning prayer session I was there in anticipation and ready to be blessed hearing from Ashley Adamson, our wonderfully blessed Director of Children’s Ministry. Ashley is the real deal, filled with the Holy Spirit, and actively pursuing God’s will. She makes me wish I were a little kid again even knowing I’d have to face those teen years and all that angst again. I believed that God was going to speak through Ashley to me and they did not disappoint me. As is so often the case, it turned out to be very timely for me.

    Ashley spoke to us about the blessings of silence, how we should seek out solitude to go with it, and to go so far as to create special places and times for ourselves to be silent before our God. We should never be lonely because He is always with us and should take advantage of such times when we find ourselves alone to embrace the solitude of the moment and listen for the voice of God. These are “great opportunities for Godly discovery”. She talked about the discipline to practice silence in His presence and how difficult an activity such a passive sounding thing can be. Imagine, not speaking, putting your mind in a receive-only mode, shutting down the thousands of random thoughts about your life, and directing your inner thoughts to the task at hand, hearing God speak to you. OMG (yes, I spent time with a bunch of teen babysitters last night at church), this is the hardest thing I undertake in my spiritual life! The silence part is not all that difficult for me as I am by nature, a quiet and introverted person, much to the contrary as to how God has determined to use me over the years. I am generally slow to speak and when I do it is usually with conviction. A very good friend has referred to me as an Ent; go ahead and Google the word for a laugh. It’s those times that I’m not following my own general rule that tend to cause me trouble. My biggest problem for this discipline is the quieting of my mind and harnessing my thoughts and bending them to be completely surrendered to listing for Him. Ashley referred to Richard J. Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” as a great resource of this practice and I have to concur; read it, you’ll like it. I use the word “practice” here because that is what this should be, practice and discipline. Starting out, go as long and completely into it as you can. Then the next time go longer and deeper. Sounds like a workout doesn’t it? If we want our spiritual abilities to improve then we have to exercise them. A principle that I have shared with young and old audiences is “SAID”, Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. If we practice being passive in front of the TV then we’ll get better at being passive. Trust me on this one, I’m pretty strong in the passivity department and it’s my biggest hurdle to writing. If we practice the spiritual disciplines then we’ll get better at being spiritual beings, in touch with Our Father and, as with any healthy practice, we will live longer and be filled with Joy. This is such a tough discipline for me that I often times go a long while without it and it then requires a difficult season ahead to send me to solitude. One such season starts about a month before Mission Arizona, peaks during the trip, and levels off a week or so afterwards. I seek short respites from the turmoil to charge up and find His direction and usually at some point during the trip when I’m feeling lost and ineffective and pleading for a meeting He tells me that He’ll meet me in the way and then He does. Is it any wonder that when I believe it to be His will that I embrace MAZ?

  Well, all this and I haven’t even touched on the “very timely for me” part or put this on two wheels. Perhaps there will be space for a paragraph on that toward the end. This has gone in a different direction than I thought it would but I’m having too much fun and feeling too blessed to stop now. Ashley used the forced silence of Zechariah (Luke, Chapter 1 is the reference) during his son John the Baptist’s incubation as her biblical anchor for the message. How great was that! It was the first Sunday of Advent, Zechariah starting on the journey to bring John the Baptist, the herald of Christ our King into the world. Sweet. Ashley shared how Zechariah’s silence was forced, a punishment for his unbelief, but that it was in truth, a real blessing to him. He came from the temple and the people knew he had seen a vision but was unable to speak. After his term of service in the temple was over he returned to Elizabeth, his wife and continued following the vision and she became pregnant with John the Baptist. The confirmation of Ashley’s contention that this was a blessing comes when Zechariah completed the command from the vision, naming his son John (vs. 62 – 66) and then bursting into prophesy (vs. 67 – 79).  I can’t help it, I have to quote part of the prophesy here, Luke 1, 76 - 79:

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

My friends, this is how I pray for my own children, their children, their spouses and significant others, and my beloved wife; that they go before the Lord, prepare a way for Him and give the people knowledge of their salvation. I thank Him for the tender mercy of their blessings in my life. Neighbors, this is how I pray for the children God brings into my life, the people who cross my path, and especially those that are yoked with me in shared service for MAZ and the children. I have a confession to make here. Typing this I broke down completely and wept with conviction because I don’t actually do this enough and fear that I’ve failed Him and in some way let somebody go by that needed a blessing right then. While I feel strongly that the Lord wants me to be writing, I believe that this is God’s highest calling to me; to pray for the children and bless those around me.

I was going to continue on with my timely practical application of Ashley’s message that I used on two wheels but I just can’t, maybe later this week. I have to leave this post here and encourage you, my friends, to seek out the quiet place, the silence, the solitude, and hear God speaking to you. You’ll probably be broken by it but a broken and contrite spirit, God does not despise.

In His grip, jerry