Apply Within: Sending My Resume to Heaven

The title for this came to me early this morning and for once I did what a writer should do and wrote it down. I let the idea of putting a resume together for entrance into heaven run through my mind awhile wondering how I could make an application for entrance into the Kingdom of God. It was like a stream slowly meandering its way through a meadow. By all rights I should have been allowed to drift back to sleep on a lazy Saturday morning.

 

I think my mind is a bit fertile for this because I have found myself introducing Jan to Jesus while praying for my mother-in-law saying things like “Jesus, bring healing to our sister Jan, your servant, a Deaconess in the church, a woman of faith who serves the poor in spirit, the poor in the world, and serves the church. Remember her and bring restoration.” I have been building her resume to Jesus who knows all of that and more about her. I suppose I should just simplify things and stop the bargaining; “Jesus bring healing and restoration by your power and grace, let the act of your perfect sacrifice have its full effect.”

 

When I’m at work I often turn to those who have experience with the particular issue that I am wrestling with so why not with this issue? I sought out the wisdom and words of a couple of old-timers, Paul and James

Paul put together a very nice resume in Philippians 3, versus 4b-6; he has an impressive pedigree. Yet in versus 7&8 he sets that notion aside, “⁷Yet whatever gain I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him,”

So my anemic resume; son of pillars of LCPC, longtime youth worker, struggling Christian writer…really mean nothing when it is measured against the perfect sacrifice and doesn’t, in itself, get me any nearer to Jesus.

James sets the stage for his discourse on faith and works in chapter 1 verse 22 of the book of James, “²²But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” In chapter 2: verses 14-26 James juggles faith and works with the keynote in verse 17 “¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” And he follows this with “^18band by my works I will show you my faith.”

 

I have found myself checking off items on my Heavenly To-Do List thinking that this is the pathway to heaven. It is just no so; it is not as simple as that at all. While thinking over Paul’s and James’ words I picture an old-fashioned balance scale and for me to pile good works on one side so that works outweighs faith and sits firmly on the table is no good; I’ve simply made myself look good to others. And conversely, if I pile faith up on the other pan and it comes to rest on the table, I have deceived myself. This begs the question of how does one pile up faith without works; what does that look like? Do I sit around reading scripture and then walk around reciting the “I believe ins” of the Apostle’s Creed and count that as faith. No, I must achieve the great balance, first by believing and building up my faith and then by doing the things God sets in front of me because of my faith.

 

When all is said and done and I find myself at the Gates of Heaven standing in front of Saint Peter perhaps I will just make it simple and read him this while he checks for my name in the Book of Life, “Dear Peter, I am a sinner, a man with a weak heart and checkered past. I am here to throw myself on the boundless grace of Jesus and claim the power of His resurrection. Only Jesus’ forgiveness can get me in; nothing that I’ve done or not done, good or bad, can get me in.”

Stop. It's Time to Pray

Romans 8: 26 “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” NASB

A couple of Sundays ago Ashley, our Director of Children’s Ministries, spoke to the children that had gathered on the chancel stairs. I had a pretty good view from stage left of the chancel as I prepared to follow the children’s time with the prayer of confession. It is Operation Christmas Child time so the church family is busily gathering supplies and gifts to pack what we hope will be well over three hundred boxes for needy children throughout the world. Ashley shared how at the Samaritan’s Purse packing stations while the workers are preparing all of the collected boxes to be shipped to over a hundred countries a voice comes over the loud speaker system saying “Stop. It’s time to pray.” Everyone stops whatever they are doing and prays over the boxes, blessing them with the Spirit, and praying for the recipient to know Christ through the gift and the givers.

That phrase has stuck with me and is my nugget from the service. It has become a touchstone over the last couple of weeks. With my mother-in-law suffering a debilitating stroke and a few days later my sister-in-law was in a freak accident in which suffered a broken pelvis I have much to be in prayer and intercession for with these two who are so near to my heart in such deep need. At work, during my walks, working at home, and even while vegetating in front of the TV the phrase resonates in my mind and I have to quiet myself in some way and pray. Even while gathered with the family in the hospital room with my mother-in-law, one not fully aware while we carry on conversations of every kind, the reverb comes to me, “Stop. It’s time to pray”. And so I do stop and touch each one with a feather of prayer to aid in our vigil; we pray and hope, wait and see.

I found it interesting that in a place with people gathered in an activity inherently good and with a Christly objective that we are also in need of reminders to stop and pray. I think it is another instance of Martha versus Mary, Mary stopped, prayed, and paid attention to the best thing while Martha needed to be reminded to stop her good work and heed to the groaning of the Spirit. We need to be reminded from time to time to give voice to the groanings within us; pause a bit in our labors, in our joys, and in our sorrows, to acknowledge the Spirit within us that intercedes on our behalf.

Of all of the things I have to be thankful for, a list that I cannot do justice to or am deserving of, I am at this moment extremely thankful for the nugget that I picked up, the echo of hope that invades my conscious thought to give me an opportunity to thank God for that list and pray for those that the Spirit has placed on my heart.

Yes, one would be you.

In His grip, jerry

Love, the Word of Life

There is no doubt about it; love is running rampant in our family. Lauren and Taylor’s wedding was a great experience of love between the two of them as well as the outpouring that I felt with all of our friends and family celebrating with us. Our niece Kaylynn and her fiancé are a real solid couple and are next up on what is now a wedding parade. The Cornelius family with Ashley and Matt, Teya and Jeremiah, and Curt and Jean are a continuing love story that fills our hearts. I have to list Kayla and Grady’s marriage too, they are wonderful, and she’s our bonus daughter. And now to top the wedding cake in this parade are Ani and Daniel getting married. We just had the fantastic experience of meeting Ani’s family and friends at the engagement party and seeing Daniel’s friends and our side of the family get to know each other. I loved every minute, even kicking the evening off with the honor of blessing the rings and relationship in front of our new friends and I am indeed deeply honored.

It is only by God’s grace that such overwhelming joy should be mine and as undeserving as I feel that I am, I will take it just the same and in the spirit that it was given. In honor of these kids and God’s working in our lives I offer a few thoughts on love.

The first Epistle of John offers a clear picture of love and I appreciate how John starts his letter off from a position of strength, standing on the rock of his apostleship:

1 John 1: 1 – “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

Once he sets the stage and completes the foundation for his letter John talks about walking in the light and forsaking sin as a result of it. He addresses the letter to his dear children (2:1, 12, & 13), his dear friends (2:7), fathers (2:13 & 14), and young men (2:13 & 14). He tells us how we’ve overcome the evil one, been forgiven, and known the father. He warns us not to love the world and that the antichrist is already walking the earth. Then John tells us about love, where it is from and that it is the reason we can overcome the world.

1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

First we hear how great a love the Father has for us, giving his son as a sacrifice to reconcile us to Himself, then John tells us how to love with a couple of my favorite verses (yes, at least in part because it confirms my assertion that love is a verb), 1 John 3: 16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” with 1 John 3:18 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

John then continues with more warnings and an admonition to the test the spirits and comes right back to the powerful word of life that can overcome ungodly spirits. He counsels us with words that end in a classic three-word phrase; read it here, 1 John 4: 7 & 8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Love your friends, love your parents, love your children, love your God, and love all those He puts in your path. Love and cherish them all.

I struggled with the title for this post so I decided to bookend it with the alternate title:

Love: the Word of Life.

In His grip,

jerry

Something Old – Older Than Dirt

For Lauren and Taylor:

1 John 4: 7-8 “⁷Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

I did the math; it’s true. After all of these years of hearing it said of others and now approaching the time where it will be (if it hasn’t already been) said of me, “He’s older than dirt”, I have at last found something that actually is older than dirt. Love, and proved by a simple algebraic equation: if A=B and B=C, then A=C. Therefore, if God is love (1 John 4:8 above) and God created the earth or dirt (see John 1:3 below & Genesis 1) then Love is older than dirt.

John 1: 1-5 (New Living Translation) “¹In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He existed in the beginning with God. ³God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. ⁴The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

I could easily end this post right there and be vindicated in putting a little something out there that is worthy of a few moments of thought but I want to have a little fun with this and share what drove me to write this.

My family is consumed right now, and rightly so, with the marriage of a young man, Taylor whom I’ve known and enjoyed since he was in third grade Sunday School class and come to respect as a man, to our daughter, Lauren whom I’ve known, loved, enjoyed, come to respect as a woman, along with the whole litany of emotions dads have with their kids since I’ve known she was coming on the scene and that my story had a new character to be written in for the next few chapters.

The other day I was considering what to wear at the wedding in addition to my new gray suit and I thought of getting my Grandpa Matt’s watch out of the box I keep it in and having my own “something old” with me. It is not an expensive watch, nor is it beautiful beyond what it means to me. I’ve been blessed to feel special connections to both my grandfathers and this watch is what I have from Grandpa Matt. I still feel his presence from time-to-time and I’d like to say only whenever significant events like this one are on me but he’s been “around” a few times when I’ve made a bloody fool of myself and I’ve felt his disapproval of my behavior. Oh, that cloud of witnesses can be a tricky thing.

I picked up the self-winding watch with the intent of getting it repaired so that it would be ticking the day of the wedding. I set the time on that early morning and it began ticking immediately. I put it on and wore it to the office and throughout the day and when I took it off that night before bed it had stayed within a minute of the GPS time I had set it to.

I choose to believe that Grandpa Matt is smiling with me now as I wish Taylor and Lauren that thing which is older than dirt, Love. And Love abundantly.

 

Virtual Christ

A few days ago I was taking a web-based training course at work “Ethernet VLANs”, course number 60527394 with VLAN being the acronym for Virtual Local Area Network. The course material defined virtual as being “a logical representation of a real device”. I began wondering if being Virtual Christ would be good or bad; can you blame me, wouldn’t you rather think about Jesus than Ethernet VLANs?

Can we be Actual Christ on earth? Not so much, since He is a real being having a real and resurrected body; just ask the Apostle Thomas (John 20: 26-28). How then are people to get to know Him unless He appears to them as he did to those waiting in Jerusalem (Luke 24: 36-49), on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-32), or fishing on the Sea of Tiberias (John 20: 1-14)? They will get to know Jesus just as those first-to-be-called Christians got to know Jesus (Acts 2, read it all, it’s good for you); they did it through those who already knew Him and who spoke God’s word by the power of the Holy Spirit. If we cannot be Actual Christ then we must be Virtual Christ, a logical representation of him that functions and behaves the same as the real deal.

Jesus himself encourages us to do this saying “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me.” (Matt 10: 40) Virtual Jesus.

I will be commissioned tomorrow as a Kids’ Hope mentor and have been reviewing the materials in preparation for this new adventure. Since we are in an official capacity on the school campus we cannot pray with the children we mentor and nor can we witness to them in any overt way. We are there to love them, relate to them, minister to them, and to help educate them. The official manual encourages us to “Be Jesus with skin on” to the kids.

Paul helped me out with this as well with his instructions for us to be imitators of the apostles. Read through 1 Cor: 11:1, Phil 3:17, 1 Thess 1:6, and 2 Thess 3:7 and be encouraged to imitate the apostles or those godly men and women who set the standards for service within our own churches and homes.

LANs started out as computer networks in the same room that soon spread to a network within the same building and then through a campus environment only to be one upped by “WAN”s, Wide Area Networks as transmission techniques and media improved. That’s all the internet is, a very wide area network of networks. Common users in the VLAN, those who are not related to Timothy McGee (NCIS), have no idea where the other network users are or where the equipment resides that comprise the VLAN. It acts just as a network would that resides in the home or office and is indistinguishable in its performance.

I have been blessed to know a lot of young people over the years, many who served with me during Mission Arizona (MAZ) trips where we served the Pima Indians at the Vah Ki Presbyterian church and the surrounding neighborhood. Several of those kids have friended me on Facebook and I note that those who go to MAZ and later go on to serve in the Dominican most often post profile photos of themselves with the children they meet. That is a wonderful representation of Christ and how he is with the children and a great example of Jesus with skin on. It is those times that make the deepest impressions on us as well as those we serve.

Be imitators of the apostles and of Christ; be Jesus with skin on to the people He puts in our path. Go ahead, be Virtual Christ and a powerful representation of the real device.

Above the Fog

It was a good day for a hike with friends and as I looked out of my upstairs window I could see a gray on gray morning, gray sky above a fog and I could just make out the trees in a silhouette across the street. As I drove down Briggs to hit the cross-street that would take me over to New York Avenue I was first immersed in the fog and just as I turned right onto Whittier Avenue it started to thin out and I could see the underbelly of the cloud cover. Whittier soon became Orange Avenue with early morning walkers; couples with dogs, singles with and without, and a jogger or two. As I made my way across the little valley squid like tendrils felt their way over the street, reaching for my Subaru like I was Captain Nemo cruising the depths of the sea.

From Mt. Lukens

I survived the fog’s attempt to draw me deeper into the shroud and reached Deukmejian Park, the trailhead where I met with my friends of faith, Scott, Steve, and Greg; it turned out that Geoff went on ahead earlier to avoid holding us up, the task that now would be left up to me. Somebody had to slow these guys down. I fell in with Scott, or rather, he fell behind to keep me company and we talked; mostly about our kids and their triumphs and struggles, my Lauren’s upcoming wedding to Taylor, his Lauren’s sprouting career and blossoming life of faith in the her new church. We talked about our sons winding paths that we believe will bring them to a solid footing of faith in our Lord. While we traversed the switchbacks climbing the face of Mount Lukens we came to the spot we’ve named John’s Point in remembrance of our late friend and fellow hiker, John Olson where we found ourselves well above the fog; we noted that we live in the valley, work there, and travel to and from all the places that we need to be and only occasionally climb up above for the vistas and a clear view over the Verdugos, over L.A. and on to Catalina Island as it peeked up above the fog out in the Pacific.

Our spiritual lives are often like that; down in the valley and so often in the fog, we need to cling to Jesus to take us through all the day-to-day foggy moments. I find that for myself, I often times have to find some way to rise above the fog to see that He has been with me all along. I got lost there for awhile in my own thoughts and reflected on “Squinting Through Fog”, a faith-blog by Cameron Lee that I’ve been enjoying for his insightful and often times witty commentary on life and the Scriptures. I recommend it: http://the-fog-blog.com. At this point in our hike I really liked Cameron’s explanation of his blog name and here, with his permission, I cut and paste that explanation: “The name of the blog comes from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of 1 Cor 13:12 in The Message: ‘We don’t yet see things clearly.  We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.  But it won’t be long before the weather clears…’  Each post is thus an attempt at faithful “squinting,” an exercise of biblical and theological imagination in the midst of the sometimes ambiguous journey we call the Christian life.”

I recommend that you squint in the fog and peer into the mist to find the risen Christ in everything you do and I recommend that you find a way above the fog and take in the wonders of His vast creation to find your place in it and how you fit into God’s story.

Sometime you have to go to more extreme measures to get above the fog only to find out once you get there the fog lifted while you were on your way up.

Flying over San Clemente Island, coming in for a landing.

Something Borrowed – Commitment to What Love Is

This is the second of possibly three posts that I am taking from the commitment ceremony that I presided over a few weeks ago. While considering scripture references for the message I automatically shied away from some passages that some folks might consider overused and tired but as I further considered the two who were committing themselves to each other, babes in faith, and the likelihood that there would be those who would benefit from the milk of the scriptures instead of the bread or meat amongst their work friends it seemed fitting to use the one that I felt led to go with.

 

From my ceremony text with the names changed to offer the participants’ privacy:

      The Apostle Paul told us what love is in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a “Love is patient and kind. It does not envy, nor does it boast; it is not proud. Love is not rude and is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.”

      For love to do all of those things it takes effort and a commitment to make the effort to love well. To be really good at it takes practice. Like anything else we want to be good at, we must commit to practice and commit to be humble when we don’t love as well as we should.

      I don’t believe that Jesus is in love with us. He is the greatest example of commitment to love that we have. The scriptures are full of how He acted towards us and His final sacrifice that he freely gave for us is the perfect example of what love is, he totally committed Himself to love us.

      Love is a commitment to sacrifice what we want so that we can give to another and be that person the other wants and needs us to be.

      Mary grew in her love for John; first as friends and then over time she grew to love him as a woman loves a man and committed her heart to him.

We need to commit ourselves to what love is, not what we think it should look like using the world’s standards, but by what the Word of God says. Anything less than a full commitment allows us too wide of an opening to deviate to serve our own needs.

God is Love. (1 John 4: 8)

 

Something Borrowed – Love is a Verb

A few weeks ago I had the great privilege to officiate over the commitment ceremony for two of my friends and have been very blessed by the experience. Something borrowed? I decided on using “Love is a Verb” as the central theme of the message for the ceremony. I “borrowed” the theme from a couple of sources; one being the sermon Dr. Rick Lyon while the other being the outline for a sermon that I carried in my bible for a long time before Dr. Lyon used it.  I was encouraged by the previous uses of the theme and I took them as confirmation that the concept was solid, even if I was my own source…

My plan for the next two or three posts is to borrow from the ceremony by using excerpts from the text and either expound a bit more or let them stand as is for comment and the hoped for blessing they could be to you the reader and me the writer. The title of the message is “Love is a Verb; Commitment a Higher Calling”

From the text with the names changed to offer the participants’ privacy:

      Love is a verb. Love is the action that we take, how we treat each other, and how we care for each other.

 

      Being “in love” is something that happens to us and it is a fine thing, a wonderful thing. Still, even when we are in love, we must choose how we will love someone:

      As a friend

      As a brother or sister

      Or, as men and women are meant to love each other

      In Mathew 22: 37-40 Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

      Jesus didn’t say “be in love with everyone”, he told us to love them and act like it.

      John fell in love with Mary right from the start; he looked for ways to spend time with her and get to know her and to find some way to express his feelings for her. He grew in his love for Mary and committed in his heart to love her as a man is meant to love.

I think I’ll stand by this as is and simply wonder what would happen if a church preached the two great commandments while the congregation found and made great ways to implement them. It would be simple and yet simply powerful.

Cindy and I 37 years ago this past week exiting our ceremony.

 

for the wondering heart…

Hebrews 10: 25 “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (NIV)

During the past few years I’ve talked with friends who told me that their home church just “doesn’t feel like their church anymore”. There are a number of reasons leading up to this; some of them walked away with levels of disillusionment due to some sort of disagreement within the church or between themselves and different leadership areas within the church, or the worship and word changed in ways they can’t identify with, or the person themselves feel that they are changing and can’t relate to the home church any longer…  I can well understand much of what they are going through having left a church in near complete disillusionment to be without a home church for several years. It is a painful and numbing process.

I recommend that anyone leaving a church body not to wait too long to begin an intense search for where God is leading you; we really don’t have all that much time to waste on the sidelines of our faith. We don’t want to spend some of our prime time to be a blessing and to be blessed wasting away in the wilderness. We need other Christians around us for encouragement or as Hebrews 10: 24 says “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”

Searching is not a bad thing to do as long as we keep in mind that we are looking for direction from the Holy Spirit. In fact, if we are not searching for that direction we could very well stop growing and stagnate to become lukewarm. Consider two lines on a graph, one being a state of contentment for where we are spiritually and the other our need for community and growth. While our contentment is riding high and our need for the body is running low we are in danger of being lukewarm. Over time our contentment will lag and our need for growth will increase and at some point they will intersect. It is then that we are spurred to search, to strive to belong, and our crying out for the Spirit will intensify. Then we can be led and then we can be open to the revelation that God has a purpose and place for us.

1 Corinthians 12: 18: “But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” (NIV)

Let the Spirit set us in the body as He will, let us keep searching and striving to know His will.

…as a little child

Mark 10: 13-16 (NASV) “¹³And they began bringing children to Him, so that He might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵ Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it at all.’ ¹⁶ And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands upon them.”

This past weekend we celebrated my granddaughters sixth birthday with a dinner out at the “E-bar” in Santa Barbara, and sitting at a long table for dinner that evening were four generations; two sets of great grandparents, the two sets of grandparents, the parents, a great aunt, the birthday girl, and her two and a half year old brother. Our seating was adjacent to a grassy knoll that separated us from the asphalt and chain link fence of the Santa Barbara Airport; we were able to watch (and hear) the small planes come and go. It wasn’t long before a little boy about the age of our granddaughter found our two kids on the berm for grand adventures that started with observing gophers at work just below the surface of their entry holes and proceeded from there to running up and down the grassy area while letting their imaginations run wild. The little boy’s family was leaving and there was a great deal of commotion about him wanting to stay with his new friends that only ended with him being carried away which gave our party a chance to receive the food and begin eating. But with such an adventurous place at hand, eating really could only occur between unwrapping presents.

It wasn’t too long after taking a couple of bites and all the presents were opened that another little boy appeared and a new trio of adventurers was formed. Off they went; there were no negotiations, no questions, just sharing the excitement and creating toys from plants and other items found nearby.

I can’t help but believe that it is this quality of acceptance without question that so endears our Lord to children. Also, their simple faith in what we tell them, what they hear from God, or other teachers must be characteristics that are required for entrance to the Kingdom. This puts a great deal of responsibility on earthly parents and adults to be as truthful as we possibly can. If I were to have told them that there were 20 or so gophers lined up waiting to come out and start dancing, these kids would not only have believed it, they would have positioned themselves in such a way as to be able to observe them in the hope that they would be allowed to join in the dance. Faith, acceptance, action based on faith… These are the things that make working with children both exciting and frightening at the same time.

What other aspects of children is Jesus looking for? Do we have it and, if not, can we find it again?

Set a Fire – A Youth Sunday

1 Timothy 4: 12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity.” (NIV) Yes, I’m using a student bible.

I’ll preface this post with a simple statement that my favorite church service is one in which I feel like I could have reached out and touched the hem Jesus’ garment. The reaching would have been up to me. Youth Sunday nearly always provides such a moment and I always look forward to them and am rarely disappointed. I know what you should be thinking; what would it be like if we looked forward to each service, every class, and all the service opportunities with anticipation of the opportunity to touch the Lord? We would rarely be disappointed.

This past Youth Sunday I was met again and was not disappointed. I was the only one of my earthly family able to come for the early service and was surrounded by my spiritual family and joined in the pew by several middle school girls who would be taking part in the service. As we sang the praise song More, “This is more than my obsession…this is more than my confession…All of my fears and failures, I lay them down for something more” I was struck by the honesty of the worship that my young friend next to me was displaying. That broke my heart which for me is a sure sign of God’s presence and the surest way for me to reach out and touch Him.

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

The next praise song: Set a Fire, “Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain that I can’t control. I want more of you God.” We all want more; we need to make sure it’s God we want more of.

The student testimonies by Emily, George, and Xavier carried that same honesty, the same desire for more of Him. Through their simple stories, I was again blessed; by the nervousness at sharing, I was moved to pray for them and thank Jesus for their lives. The Cardboard Testimonies with Katie’s violin were a wonderful opportunity to meditate and bask in the healing touch of the Spirit.

Thank you to all the Timothies; I am blessed to know you because you are doing it, you’ve set the example in simple speech, in your lives, in the way you love each other, and in your impassioned faith. Pursue purity.

 

Why him Lord? Why now?

It has been over twenty years since I sat with a small group of seventh and eighth graders and the other adult leaders of my first Mission Arizona trip and told them a story that had begun nearly twenty years before that and, unbeknown to me, was about to take a blessed turn. I shared with them how I’d lost one of my best friends, Doug Clark, in some freak accident with a drunk driver getting on the freeway the wrong way. Doug was the only one in his car to be killed and the only one in the car not to have a broken bone. I couldn’t understand why this had happened, what good purpose could there be in it? He was the first person that I had prayed with leading him to accept Christ as his Savior. I told the little group about how angry I was and how that I held on to the first question I thought I would ask when I got to heaven myself, “Why him Lord; why then? Why did you take him from me?” Over the years, through a disillusioned breakup of the little church Cindy and our family were in and through years of being outside the church altogether, my anger turned to a bitterness that drove a wedge between me and God.

I wasn’t aware of the tears until I’d been sitting there for a moment after finishing my story when the young intern and my friend, Darren Bottino, gathered the others around me and they laid hands on me to pray. I was healed then of all the bitterness, God seemed so close that I could touch Him, and in all truth, He was touching me with the laying on of their hands. It was a bona fide miracle and the first thing I’ll do when I get to heaven is to thank Him for this small group of believers, their faith, and the sacrifice He made for me. Is it any wonder that I gladly answered His call to go back to Arizona and spend as much time with youth groups and sports teams as I have? My son was a part of that group and I hope that he reads this and understands what a big part he played in setting my feet back on the path God had chosen for me. I hope that many of my young friends read this and understand what a great impact they can have on other’s lives.

I still don’t know the answers to those questions I was going to ask; they don’t seem so important now. I feel like that by giving up the bitterness and anger over it that I’ve somehow honored my friend in it as well as honoring God’s call. I wouldn’t necessarily know what to say to someone else who’s lost someone they love so much, a family member, a best friend, a spouse, a parent…all the old clichés seem so trite when I think of them here. I believe that what I’d do is to simply be there as much as I could, let them vent or just sit there quietly reviewing the life they had with the lost one and what life might be like without them. For certain, I would offer a quiet warning about holding it in and being comforted by the heat of anger and how those things could spread like a disease and affect all their relationships. I can only bring two ears and an open heart to the mourner and help them grieve.

How about you? What things could you do beyond the “He’s in a better place now” solace? What would you bring? What have you already experienced that has shown good effect?

Bless you all to be there when needed, present and in the moment, a representative of Jesus' great peace.

I’d rather be…

I used to have the license plate frame “I’d rather be paddling” that I got from Sports Chalet and many times it was true because I really love being on the water paddling along the river or the lake, or the back bay…anywhere. We see those “I’d rather be…” frames all over the place and why not? They’re free and we love to be doing anything but being stuck in traffic. Then one day as I was driving along to something that I had been looking forward to for quite some time it struck me that I really wouldn’t rather be paddling, I was going to do something really great. Don’t ask me what it was now because it was a long while ago and it could have been any one of many things, worshipping, playing some goofy game with a bunch of Junior High Students, seeing their Talent Show, seeing my own kids, going out with my wife…the list can go on because I’m blessed with an abundance of wonderful people in my life. The point is, I don’t want to drive around advertising my regret if I’m actually doing something I love so I took the plate off.

What got me thinking along this line was during a Saturday Victory Motorcycle Club ride a couple of weeks ago I overheard one of my riding friends say “I’d rather by riding my motorcycle and thinking about God than in church thinking about my motorcycle.” I liked hearing that and applauded it and support the sentiment now. There is no reason why we can’t think about God and worship Him while doing whatever it is we are doing and, in fact, we should do just that. Jesus is the perfect example of this, naturally. He was always about his Father’s business and did nothing that the Father didn’t show him to do. He was in perfect obedience and contact with God. When we are in church, that’s where we need to be focused and not on the game we’re going to right after, or seeking out a fellow member to lodge some complaint, or how we’d rather be on the golf course, or doing Pinterest. When we are in church we need to be present; God is. When we are riding, shooting hoops, or paddling along a lazy river we can and should be in His presence. Others will know it when we are just as they will know it when we aren’t.

A word of caution though before we give up our Sunday services to go and think about God at the matinee, or the mall, or even for a stroll at Descanso Gardens, we cannot and should not forgo the gathering of the saints. Hebrews 10: 25 says “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” We need each other and the corporate times of prayer and worship if we are to hold fast to our faith. I’ve known precious few people, maybe one, who could honestly profess God’s love and yet not be even a part time churchman.

Peace

Psalm 130 – A song of ascents

How fitting that a Psalm of ascents would speak to me so clearly. My Lenten season had degraded to daily skirmishes to the point that a battle raged between my commitment for the season and my habits of escape and withdrawal that resulted in bouts of guilt ridden self loathing. All of this drove me away from the main purpose of Lent; drawing near to Christ and his suffering, embracing the sacrifice and victory that He has already won on our behalf.

Psalm 130: 1 & 2: “¹Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; ²O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.”

The first act of ascending to the foot of the cross is recognizing our need for it, deep within us, until we cry to him with an intensity that rocks our soul.

Psalm 130: 3 & 4 “³If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? ⁴But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”

Then we confess and repent in order to receive the assurance of His forgiveness with our response of worship and praise.

I really love this next part; I can relate to the watchmen. One of my favorite things about Mission Arizona is to walk about the camp, late at night and into the early morning while watching over the mission team, praying for them, crying out for God to lead us and to dwell in everything we were doing. Under the moonlight with a star-filled sky while hearing the breathing of a couple of dozen people who were out working and serving Him all with the backdrop of coyotes in the distance and even a couple of times drums from the reservation, I was often times answered in the quiet and was assured that all would be well in the camp.

Psalm 130: 5 & 6: “⁵I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. ⁶My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Psalm 130: 7 & 8: “⁷O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. ⁸He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”

And we pray it now Lord; we put our hope in You, Your love never fails. Bring us to your redemption, from all our sins, all those things that keep us from having you always before us. We lift You up in victory, risen from the dead, sin and death vanquished. Come quickly Lord!”

Troubled Times - What Would Joel Do?

How odd; I would have thought that when setting out to write something at this time of year that it would be filled with the message of Christ coming to dwell with us or celebrating His birth in some way or the new year with new beginnings. I guess that’s not how the Spirit is working with me and that what’s been on my heart are events launching change and the horrible shootings in Newtown, CT along with all the Facebook postings, murmurings, and rumors. All this is driving me towards commentary I’d prefer not make.

Seeing the various political ramblings, the gun rights activists using the school shootings to suggest that we have armed guards on campus, the gun control activists using the shootings to crank up efforts to further the political drive at legislation to limit sales of various weapons, and the best yet, religious commentators suggesting the shootings are because we’ve legislated God out of the schools or that the states and courts are recognizing gay marriage as a right. In my personal search for the reasons of a senseless act I came up with a somewhat different viewpoint but resisted the impulse to post it as a FB status. I read a friend’s blog on the subject, a thoughtful consideration on where God was in all of this, and offered my un-posted status as a comment; I offer it here and hope that by the end of this post my point becomes clear:

“It’s my fault. I didn’t pray enough for God to protect the children so that he would directly intervene. I am to blame. I haven’t prayed fervently enough for God to raise up men and women of God who would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to see a need and be moved to love somebody enough to take action when that person needed someone to care. It’s my fault that I haven’t prayed enough. God help me pray.”

The other thing that has been of concern can best be described for me as church turmoil caused by poor communications about changes being considered in light of diminishing worship attendance and significant casualties to the church membership, something that’s be in motion over a few years now, at least from what I have observed.

How are we to react to such things; to tragedy, internal discord, or when it seems that events and people pile up against us? The Body of Christ is under assault, innocent victims to senseless acts are accumulating, day-to-day suffering grows, and it seems that the wicked and the opponents of God’s Kingdom are winning. How do we respond? With legislation? Clever ways to draw people in? Disguising the Gospel to make it more palatable or comflaging ourselves to attract new people before they see who we really are? Arm teachers and priests and train them in armed response?

Let’s look at Joel for a few minutes and see what he prescribes. Joel was witnessing an invasion of locusts on the land with horrific effects that promised years of starvation and suffering. Did he suggest that Israel arm all of the children and farmers, every one of God’s people to battle the pestilence? Not so much.  Joel 2: 12 – 17 shows us the way, the heart of it - “¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. ¹⁶Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. ¹⁷Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

God’s Kingdom is the answer and we can’t legislate it into existence or put up buildings so constructed in design as to bring the Kingdom to fruition. A response of repentance and crying out to our Lord is what will catch His ear and provide the answer. Joel 2: 18-19 “¹⁸Then the Lord will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. ¹⁹The Lord will reply to them: ‘I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.’”  Joel’s formula is fairly simple when boiled down to the bare ingredients; separation from God’s will, tragedy and opposition, repentance and seeking His face, forgiveness and restoration, and finally, judgment to evil (see Joel 3).

And so we pray, come quickly Lord. Joel 2: 27 & 28 “²⁷Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. ²⁸And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”