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?