04 December 2011

Message in a Labyrinth

"A long season of Surrender to beat Temptation; walking the Path in the Climate that is given."


The cryptic message came to me while walking the Labyrinth on ACU's campus on the morning of my first day of seminary.


A labyrinth is not a maze; you do not have to figure a way out, and you cannot get lost.  There is only one path to follow, for as long as you are willing, with one end in mind.  But you never know where you will turn.  You cannot look too far ahead without losing your place in that moment.


ACU's Labyrinth has a winding path with words like "Faith," "Light," "Sin," etc, around it.  You walk through it, stopping at any point for however long you need to do so.


I stopped at "Temptation" first.  One of my greatest temptations has been isolation, enjoying the lack of responsibility and drain of energy that comes from living on my own.  And that's exactly how much of this first semester of seminary has gone—spending hours on my own in my apartment, in the library, eating on my own.  And isolation is exactly where the Accuser brings us to draw out our greater sins.


The very next word I came to was "Surrender," and that cryptic message crystallized: "a long period of Surrender to beat Temptation."


"Surrender to what?" I ask.


I found my answer in After You Believe by N. T. Wright.


See, Surrender entails Obedience, particularly to a new Authority.  Obedience is not a one-time decision—it entails thousands of little actions over time, being formed into a new person by the Master.  Spontaneity can't do this, but Authenticity can.


What N. T. Wright calls "Eschatalogical Authenticity:" actions which become genuine through practice, and are informed and molded by one's beliefs of what is to come.  Specifically for Christians, this means actions taken in light of living within the promise that all of this world will be redeemed, resurrected, restored to God.


"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ." - Philippians 1.6


It's been extremely difficult to do that this semester, partly because of my isolation.  Still I have no church to call home, but I feel like that is changing.  I have not had the habits of body that I need to be healthier; I have not had the habits of heart to really be sensitive to people around me; and I have not had the habits of soul to become closer to God every day.  Only some days.  And I seem to have only had strong habits of mind to learn more about the nature of my God, which I guess is to be expected in seminary.  The problem is, if I'm not really doing the healthy habits, it probably means I'm walking in unhealthy ones.


‎"Part of the problem about authenticity is that virtues aren't the only things that are habit-forming," N. T. Wright warns me.  "The more someone behaves in a way that is damaging to self or to others, the more 'natural' it will both seem and actually be."


I need to remember here I'm going, because it will tell me how to act now.  I going to a life in Christ.  And so, I look to Hamlet and The Lord of the Rings to remind me that obedience, not spontaneous action, creates the habits of Christ in me, and that if I lack one then I should act like I have it anyhow—how else can it become genuine habit?


"assume a virtue, if you have it not...
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on.
Refrain tonight;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency." - Hamlet


"The westward road seems easiest.  Therefore it must be shunned... Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen.  There lies our hope, if hope it be.  To walk into peril." - Elrond


"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost." - Gandalf


As we enter the winter,
Dig your roots deep in the Spring.
By strenuous road he'll make
Heart, Mind, Soul be genuine.


Grace & Peace

23 July 2011

A Crazy Random Happenstance

Friday I drove to Dallas for my last nose check-up, then went straight to Abilene to look at some of my books for seminary.   If you ever see a Greek-English Lexicon, you'll probably never want to go to seminary.  I didn't have that feeling, though.

Sitting at Monk's Coffee Shop in Abilene as Rosten Callarman serenades me acoustically, I am met with a Crazy Random Happenstance.

First, some awesome quotes, because I'm a quote junkie.

"for, after all, any man's actions correspond to the habit of perfection attained by him."—John of the Cross

"Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation."—Oswald Chambers

And, from Scripture:  1 Timothy 1:5b-6
"You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.  And you became imitators of us and of the LORD, for you received the Word in much affliction, with the Joy of the Holy Spirit."

Wait... did the Bible just say we should be imitators, when Oswald Chambers said that imitators aren't truly sanctified, that they only "imitate" and are not genuine in their sanctification?

And does being an "imitator of the LORD" mean it's all up to us to be sanctified?  Is sanctification or perfection "attained" by us alone, or is it an "impartation"—a gift—of the Spirit?

I read all of these these when I opened the first book I got for seminary (I'm reading early, figured I might finally be a good student since I'm in grad school) called "After You Believe" by N. T. Wright.

I am only in the introduction for now, but N. T. Wright explains my questions by looking at the rich young ruler and Jesus (Matthew 19:19-30; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-30).

Here, the rich man asks Jesus what he must DO to gain eternal life (which has a very different meaning to a Jew as it does to a modern Western Christian, but I won't go into that here), and Jesus in the end doesn't give him a set of rules but gets to the man's heart.  He knew the rich man was greedy, so he told the rich man to sell all his possessions, give them to the poor, and follow Jesus.

Jesus told the man he needed new character.

Not "Rules" with a capital-R.  Not a morally relative statement of "be true to yourself."

Jesus cuts to the heart of why we are here to begin with, which Wright explains can be found in gaining character by way of virtue.  

As I go on in Wright's book, and in my Graduate School of Theology work, I'll post more about this because it seems to be extremely relevant to the whole theme and reason I started this blog—to explain my Passion for Christ and His people as I work it out in a Practical manner.

Until then, I'll leave you with another quote I've learned to love recently:
"It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words.  His character is his message."—Henry Drummond

Grace & Peace, ya'll

03 April 2011

Kingdom of Children

"And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
—Philippians 1:6


It's an odd thing, coincidence.  Particularly because I don't believe in it.


In reading last week, I ran across the afore-quoted verse and wrote it down, for no spectacular reason.  Days later, I get a card in the mail from Peggy Richardson, a letter of encouragement from a new friend. Phil. 1:6 is the precise verse that she gave and spoke about as an encouragement for me.


She was talking about God's work and will for me as I go to ACU for a Master of Divinity.  She's the great-aunt of my best friend, and we met somewhat randomly at dinner after one of his basketball games over spring break.  We both got placed at one end of the table, and what I feared might be an awkward dinner turned into one of the more fulfilling conversations of my life.


God surprises us like that, sometimes.  Wouldn't you agree?


From Texas, Peggy's also lived 40 years in New York (professing to be a pizza connoisseur) and loves to travel.  She is a three-time cancer survivor.  Her husband died a few years ago, and she is mere weeks removed from having a pacemaker put into her heart.

Peggy is thankful for all the good that's been given to her, and she regrets none of the pain.  She is ecstatic in the Joy that her pain brings (really, that God brings using pain as the vessel) because she knows it was all a part of God breaking her of her stubbornness, softening her heart, and bringing her to depend upon Him and not herself or something else broken.

So she reminds me: even if God has to wreck me, He will complete the work of bringing me to Him, of reconciling me.

"Come, let us return to the Lord;
For he has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us, and He will bind us up...
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
His going out is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth."
—Hosea 6:1 & 3


Presently, that work is humility.  I seek knowledge.  I seek truth.  I seek to be higher and deeper into Him.  And through all my seeking, I am walking along a cliff that drops off into conceit.


Even in my continual study of prayer, to know more about the act and the relationship and what it means and what it looks like, I can over-analyze and over-spiritualize every single thing about it and become inordinately focused—a truth my younger sister knows all too well.


So what does God give me, as encouragement?


Mark Driscoll, talking about the first word of the Lord's Prayer in Luke ("Father"): 
"Some of you struggle in prayer because you're too focused on prayer.  If you want to grow in prayer, don't focus on prayer—get to know the Father...  If you want to learn how to pray, don't look to religious people...   Look at children with a father who adores them."


And Jesus Christ of Nazareth:
"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."

Children terrify me.  I think it's because I was always the awkward, outsider nerd as a child.  Or felt that way, at least.  I feel like I don't know how to connect with them.


On the flip side, I feel like I may not know how to be a child anymore.  So then how can I really pray?


Thinking about Peggy, about her life and the journey it has been, I've been wondering much about my future.  And I came to an intriguing question.


What if, as my body gets older and older and closer to death, the goal of God's "ministry of reconciliation" in me is to make my spirit younger and younger, more like a child's that is full of life?


"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."—2 Corinthians 5:17


Because if He is to become more and more my Father, then I have to become more and more a child, His child.


And how can I be conceited about anything then, knowing my weakness and helplessness and vulnerability next to His Love and Will and Power?


I think I can become more of a child by being around children.
I think I can become more of a child by living holy, as God is holy.
I think I can become more of a child by inviting God to BE Father, then see what He does.

2 Cor. 6:16-18
as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty."

07 March 2011

The Painful Smile of Joy

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."--John 8:32

How often do you feel trapped and burdened by a lie?  Doesn't even need to be a blatant lie, just a lie of omission where you can't bear to be totally honest with someone.  I know that I always feel an oppressive weight on my shoulders every time I can't bring myself to be completely honest.

Jesus' words in context from John 8 most certainly meant primarily that Jesus, the Truth, was here to set all men free of sin.  Yet I think it is a fact of all truths—they all can be a release of a burden weighing you down.

Even lies that we have believed about ourselves, once we know them to be lies, show a truth about us that allows us to grow in God's wisdom.  For instance, I have always been arrogant, but because of constant depression and the lies it told me, I never saw the pride in my heart.  But once I saw the depression, it became a truth--the truth that depression is a struggle for me--that set me free from it. Now I can fight it.  Because how can I fight what I don't see?  Then later I could see the arrogance in my core, and battle that as well.

That's why the first step to recovery is to admit; and to admit something, we have to see it.  The truth of the recognition sets us free from the burden and bonds, and God can take control of that part of us—when we give it to Him.

I should caution: honesty is the best way, but context matters here.  Without a relationship with someone, or without maturity on their side, and they probably can't take even well-meaning and caring honesty.  Let's be honest: we live in a world still permeated by fear and distrust.  But as we live together, work together, fellowship together, we create a trust that allows such honesty with grace that it truly frees us.

Yet that freedom does not mean that there is no longer a struggle.  Every wound that heals leaves a scar, whether on the body or mind or heart or soul.

Because we are still sinners.  We, even in good intention, continue to misunderstand each other.  We continue to be held by fear of what we do not know.

We continue to hold our hand on our wounds instead of uncovering it to Christ, or to each other (James 5:16), so that the Great Physician can heal it.

Lord God, Great Savior, break down the walls of our shame.
Shatter the bars of our fear.
Let us run free.
To You, Lord.
Let us smile again.

Part of that freedom comes through forgiveness: 1) by God forgiving us; 2) by us forgiving others; and 3) by realizing that, as we forgive others, we free ourselves from the bitterness and guilt of holding onto whatever pain they caused.  Maybe I'll break that down another day; for now, just know that I get those distinctions from the Paternoster ("Our Father" Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) when Jesus says, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."  It's a command, and a requirement for our forgiveness, leading to deliverance from evil.

There is deliverance in honesty, too.

"Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips."--Proverbs 24:26

Honesty implies that we give up the fear of rejection or hurt or the unknown, and we jump out of the boat like Peter did (see Matthew 14:28:29 & John 21:7) because we trust Jesus Christ, the Great Redeemer, to make whole whatever broken attempts I make to serve another.

I see honesty like that in Charles and Glenda Tipps, from my church.  Everytime I ask Charles how he is doing, he tells me that he is in pain, and that God takes care of him.  Yet he smiles, and you can see both the pain and his joy in his eyes.  When I ask them what I can pray for, they say, "Strength;" they are 85 and 84 years old.

The painful truth, spoken through a joyful smile, presents a paradox in which I can only assume divine strength makes it possible.

When I tell them it warms my heart to see them still holding hands out to their car after church, Glenda honestly replies, "Well after 62 years, we have to help each other stand up!"

And I'm sure they do; on the outside they look frail.  But anyone with eyes can see that helping each other stand physically is only a by-product of the fact that these two souls continue to find Joy in the freedom that comes from leaning into each other more and more as they both run to God at life's finish line.

And that is our Joy: to run until we get to Him in all of His Glory.  To C. S. Lewis, Joy manifests itself to us the way sunlight breaks through clouds.  We can't take the full force of God's glory now, but His rays penetrate our lives and cause us to follow the Son-beam back to the Son in adoration.  And it makes us thirsty for more of Him.

"It is that unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction," says Lewis.  "Anyone who has experienced it will want it again.  Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief."

"But then it is the kind we want."

Meaning, that Joy of encountering God's glory is itself a desire that cannot be satisfied until we are with Him until eternity.  So sometimes, if not most times, being in the presence of God can bring pain.

Remember Isaiah 6, when the angel touched his lips with a burning coal?  Yeah, doesn't sound enjoyable.  But it did set him free from his "unclean lips" that lied and slandered and gossiped.

And, for now, those islands of Joy that God provides in the stormy seas of our lives must direct us to Him as we hope in His glory.  That knowledge must be the fuel of our faith, because His glory means our salvation.

"It (faith) will be counted to us (as righteousness) who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
--Romans 4:24b-5:5

Because of the freedom found in the "knowing"--the truth--that Jesus brings us, "we rejoice in our sufferings."

As for me I subscribe to the teachings of Luther and Kierkegaard.  As for Kierkegaard, he believes that God, who creates everything out of nothing, must first reduce us to nothing if He is to use us.
"God cannot use a man until He hurts him deeply."--Martin Luther

I don't mind what pain comes my way.  I know talking about it makes people feel irksome; "What is he, emo?  Talking about feelings like that?"

But I am free to talk about my pains, as Charles Tipps is, because I have already given it to Christ.  He heals it and brings it back to me as wisdom and faith and Joy, because He has already borne it all Himself.

"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
He has put him to grief...
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied."
—Isaiah 53: 10, 11

And so, we in Christ can unashamedly bear the painful smile of Joy.

01 March 2011

More Than Watchmen...

Isaiah 62:6-7a
"On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem..."
Micah 7:4b-7
"The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a mans enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me..."
Psalm 130:5-6
"I will wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."

I think my fingers are gaining a permanent layer of sticky.  The last couple of weeks at Hope Pregnancy I have seen no guy partners, so I and the other volunteers stuffed and stuck addresses on hundreds of envelopes.  Busy time for the center, just not for me.  Which isn't all bad.

One of the other volunteers said that sometimes we just need a break from the heavy work we do at Hope, and these mindless days are a way to keep us from feeling weighed down by the wonderfully challenging counsels we give.  And I can always enjoy a day of the simple.

More than that, on these days it feels that I am able only to pray for clients.  Instead of serving them by listening, telling the Good News, and offering information and services for them, I just pray--and I love it.  How?

Because I know that I am a watchman, like those in the verses above.  Because I love the power I find in prayer.

Don't believe in the "power of prayer"?  Well I can't say that belief is easy on this topic, not at all.  Which I think makes it worth the struggle.  Part of prayer is for us individually, to look to God in good and bad and strength and failure and hardship, then to see our own limitations; He doesn't want to humiliate, He just wants us to see the truth that we must depend on Him.  In truth, if we believe the Scriptures then we know that "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ"--as a gift, so no one can boast (Romans 10:17).

Even if we have received this gift, it is like all other gifts from God in that it must grow if you want to see God's power in it.  You have to exercise it, or it will atrophy; you have to eat the food that will sustain it's growth, the Word of God, or it will starve to death.

So we start simple and small with what we can lift for now, then we keep asking God for more faith because we will not be complete until the New Heaven and New Earth.  We will always need more.  I know, some of us are too proud to ask for these things, especially if we feel like we've already received much from someone.  "I've gotten so much more than this person, I'll be fine on my own.  I can use what I have to fix my own problems."

Sorry, but even the Greeks knew that man only fixed a problem by creating a bigger one.  Why do you think there hasn't yet been a master political plan to fix everything that all people love?  Why do you think, with all of the good that even one person can do like Greg Mortenson in the book Three Cups of Tea, do we still have millions of people still enslaved (there are more now than ever before, I believe) and entire governments willing to slaughter their people to stay in power?

Can't fix it ourselves, guys, so God gives us prayer as a way to take part essentially in His Creation.  Think about it--if God is outside of time, then He heard and answered our prayers at the same moment that He created everything.  Sometimes it seems He maneuvers world events to answers those prayers, and sometimes it's Him actively intervening in our time.  He does answer prayers, even through scientific breakthroughs that some use to debunk the idea of God, and those answered prayers change the world.

And if we're weak prayers, know this: God has placed watchmen in the walls, in positions to defend people and be open to outsiders and see what comes from the horizon, to pray night and day for us.  More than that, He sends us His Spirit to cry out to Him for us! God is praying for us to God!

And I feel called by that Spirit within me to be like a watchman.  My Myers-Briggs Personality Type is the Counselor (INFJ), which is described as one who engages people deeply to share their burdens and help them grow.  God tells watchmen to basically pester Himself with prayers for His children.  So I pray night and day, waiting with absolute assurance of God who will shine through brighter than any morning sun cutting through the clouds and reflecting off snow-covered mountains.  And I couldn't love it more.

**by the way, read that book Three Cups of Tea. It will challenge your perspective on global politics, on Pakistan & Afghanistan, and on the influence that even one person without any seeming resources can "randomly" have on thousands of lives.

25 February 2011

Adoration, & 24 Hours of Prayer

Luke 7:37-38, 50
And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that [Jesus] was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment... And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Last Thursday my church held 24 Hours of Prayer & Fasting.  I was part of the onset, up from midnight til dawn before catching an hour of sleep and going to class.  Class all day, including finishing a paper, then another hourlong nap before joining those in prayer for the last five hours at the church.

That morning, I fell asleep when reading from my prayer journal laying down, and it hit me in the face. That night, when things were wrapping up, I thought I would pray for a couple more minutes.  When I woke up, half and hour had gone by and I literally could not stand up.  I tried so hard, I'm serious, but my legs had fallen asleep!  I felt like I was in a scene straight out of Bambi...

Friday I still had a headache from lack of sleep, food, and hydration.  And it was totally worth it.  Sitting in that quiet chapel with good friends trickling in and out, singing, bowing, kneeling, weeping, laughing--it was pure, unadulterated Joy.

I'm serious about my Joy.

In the previous post, I mentioned that I had been brought up before the church to explain a skit that my college group does.  It was "merely" a fun skit, meant for laughter.  When I was done, my preacher then asked, "So there was no point?"  I stepped back up to the microphone and said:

"It is a shadow of the Joy we will have in Heaven."

I mentioned previously my struggle with Pride, and this was certainly one of those moments--wishing to bask in the rays of sunshine coming from people's praise of my witty and "deep" reply.  Thank God, I admitted that I stole the idea completely from C. S. Lewis.  Foree had seen the skit as silly; Lewis would have replied to him like this:

"I do not think that the life of Heaven bears any analogy to play or dance in respect to frivolity...  Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant things down here; for 'down here' is not their natural place.  Here, they are a moment's rest from the life we were placed here to live.  But in this world everything else is upside down.  That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends.  Joy is the serious business of Heaven."

I felt like basking in the heat from people's praise, but it was only a shadow, and it wasn't directed where it was supposed to be--toward God.  Even in crediting C. S. Lewis for the idea, to my shame I did not direct people's attention to God myself; I can only hope the Spirit did.  Because the things that we call "pleasures" are "shafts of the Glory" that strike our senses.  God's glory IS our Joy, a Son-beam striking us until we praise and worship and adore His Most Holy Name (Romans 5:2).

That's why the woman was weeping in Luke 7.  That's why she cleaned Christ's feet.  That's why she anointed Him.  Being in the Presence, the Glory, of the God-man, she became acutely aware of two things--His righteousness, which showed her complete brokenness, and His merciful Love, which saved and cleaned and sanctified and justified her.  And she had no choice to worship Him, especially through tears.

That's the thing about Joy.  It's not a happy pill.  It can hurt.  But it's a heart-ache that is purely God changing us from the inside out, creating His life in us that leads us into Adoration.  We are saved by faith, but we adore because, when we come into contact with who God is, we have no choice.  To thank Him for what He's done.  To praise Him for who He is.  Regardless of whatever dirt or baggage or guilt we feel in us.

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God..."--Romans 8:15-16

The Spirit bears witness.  God Himself bears witness to God that we are His, so who are we to say we are not good enough?  He has lifted us up into His presence.  "Heaven drew earth up into it."  And so we adore.

My Pride, Nebuchadnezzar's Humiliation

I am shot through with Pride.  Many times, I feel like I could be a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar.  Not blatantly--no one speaks so straightforwardly today.  Where Nebuchadnezzar told an empire to bow to his image on pain of death, I would speak degrading things about myself so that others would lift me up and tell me what's awesome about me.

It's such a quiet thing today, arrogance is, that we can ignore because we think we're DOING things that are humble, when in the end it's our heart's direction that matters.

Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind, praise God, due to that arrogance.  He was not really a man anymore, living as an animal.  He lost everything he had on the earth, and I can only hope God would be as merciful to me if I ever am overcome by Pride like that.

How could that be Mercy?  Listen:
"At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever,

for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay His hand, or say to Him, 'What have you done?'

At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendour returned to me.  My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me.  Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are right and His ways just; and those who walk in pride He is able to humble."

And those who walk in pride He is able to humble...

Whenever I do something good or learn something worth telling (in my opinion), my narcissism leads me to fantasize about how great it would be if I were lifted up before others and they listened to what I had to say.  I have had that recurring thought since elementary school.

So then last Sunday, I'm at church.  They show a slideshow from a trip I had gone on, and our preacher gets up and asks the guys in one particular picture to come up front.  I was one of those guys.

Foree, the preacher, says, "Now would one of you guys just explain what ya'll are doing there?"  We were doing a silly skit, one we like to use for laughter and enjoyment.  So I explain it to the church and get a chuckle and step back from the mic.

Then Foree says, "So there's no point to it?"

In that moment God, through surprise and a little humiliation taught me what I needed to know.  In that moment God showed me that the praise my flesh had desired for so long really wouldn't fill me.  That it was actually only a fleeting and relative thing and couldn't fill me.

He taught me, too, that He will lift me up when He wants and bring me down when He wants, and it will all be for His glory.

He taught me that He is the only constant, the only all-good, the only thing that could possibly lift me up and keep me there, wholly filled by Him.

"And those who walk in pride He is able to humble."

And I praise God for humbling me, as I know He will do--will have to do--for many years.

24 February 2011

On Arrogance, Forgiveness, and the Substance of Humility

"Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' So the last will be first, and the first last."
--Jesus Christ, Matthew 20:10-16


When you read the last verse, do you ever just hope it's true for those people that rise above you or are superior to you in some area, or have authority that they lord over you?  It's a pretty human notion to wish for our version of "justice."


What this verse is saying, in context, is that God does whatever He wants.


"Our God is in the heavens; He does all the He pleases."--Psalm 115:3


Essentially, we have no intrinsic rights whatsoever in regard to the Lord Almighty, which produces fear and freedom simultaneously.


We are afraid because we want our rights.  Our rights are meant to protect us, to keep others from taking from us or abusing us.  We're used to dealing with sinners every day, so it's not a wholly unfounded fear.


The problem with God's sovereignty comes from our own heart, not His power, because we fail to always trust Him.  The thing about God is that everything He does, or allows to happen, is for the best.


"What about Job?" you ask. "Job lost his entire estate and all of his children in the blink of an eye."


Yep.  And because of how Job responded--"the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, but blessed be the Lord"--we still tell his story thousands of years later as an example of great faith.  To this day and until the end of time, Job will encourage people he has never met because of the tragedy that befell him.


Job still called on God to treat him justly, however, and God merely told Job that men see merely their own place and time, but God sees the entire scope and is IN all times and therefore knows what is best for His creation.  Then God restored to Job more than he had lost.


"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding."--Psalm 111:10


Humility, as I know it, comes from this "good understanding."  It is "precision truth about one's self."  It is rightly seeing God, yourself and the world around you, all in right relation to each other.


Arrogance enters in when we displace one thing or give it a higher or lower position than it deserves.  It is arrogance that makes us think we can clean ourselves of our own problems.  It is arrogance that says, "No, Lord, I do not want to accept your mercy; I want to punish myself for my faults and mistakes so I can feel like I earn my own righteousness."


In reality, it's God's generosity that frees us and blesses us.  It is His Truth that shows us our true condition, not too high or not too low, so that we can navigate this life well.


In the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the Great Lion, Aslan, speaks to the young King Caspian: "You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve.  And this is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emporers on earth.  Be content."


And for when our arrogant heart wishes to condemn us: "By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything."--1 John 3:19-20

20 February 2011

Hershey's in my Pocket

As I sit in McAlister's, I reach into my right back pocket and notice something sticky.  Like pudding.  Flabbergasted, I have to lick whatever it is to find out what happened to my jeans.

What did I discover?  The bite-size Hershey bar my friend gave me at church this morning has, through the day, melted and burst from its wrapper, oozing out of my pocket through the hole that all jeans seem to come with nowadays.

The irony here is that I hope to one day be like Dean Martin.  No, not that Dean Martin, the one from my home church who was the kindest and most lucid man I have ever met.

He always had peppermints or gum or butterscotch for kids, but he only gave you some after you talked to him for a while.  When I was younger, we always talked about Texas Longhorn athletics, as he kept up with them all even until he fell asleep for the last time.

Seriously, at 98 he knew without any announcement that it was my last Sunday at home before going to college.  I had actually been avoiding him, not wanting to break his heart by telling him I was going to Texas A&M.  But he caught me anyway, and so I told him, "Dean, I'm going down to College Station.  I'm gonna be an Aggie."

Ya know what he says?  "Well... I hear they have a good school down there, so you go get an education and come back and repent later."

NINETY-EIGHT YEARS OLD!  Sweetest man ever.  He cried when I did a 5th grade report on his life as a local lawyer.

So you see why I want to be like Dean.  I hope to be the guy who takes interest in engaging the younger generations and then reminds them to enjoy the little things like a peppermint or chocolate.  Sounds creepy, I know, but just trust me...

And now, sitting here with melted chocolate all through my pocket, I consider it a lesson for later in life: don't give the kids chocolate on a hot day; stick with butterscotch.

Most importantly, however, build the relationship.

"All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever."--Isaiah 40:6-8

Like a Hershey bar in my right back pocket, all of this will fade, even butterscotch.  The part that matters is that I don't just retire and get ready to die (even metaphorically in Aggieland, since technically my class is "dead"): I move with intentional initiative to engage the younger and create more than superficial relationships with them.

Over and over again in the Scripture, the burden to initiate action is given to the elder and to the man: I am relatively the former and literally the latter, so if I have no new relationships before I leave this town then the responsibility lies on me for the absence of joy it would create.  I would deny myself youthful joy, and deny them whatever nuggets of wisdom God has given me during my seeming eternity in College Station.

Regardless of how different we are in age, every single human being that I encounter is an immortal being.  We will all outlast this material world.

So keep that in mind next time you get to talk to someone.  Whether eight or 98, whether or not you like or dislike them, everyone has the dignity of being made by God, and we as Christ followers have the charge to regard them by what they suffer--much as we regard Christ by the cross.

08 February 2011

Sinners not Saints

In the words of Bob Dylan:

"You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed.
You're gonna have to serve somebody.
Well it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord,
But you're gonna have to serve somebody."

Yesterday proved to be a busy day getting back into the storms weathered in Hope.

Yesterday I presented the Gospel to three men.  I say "men;" one was only 19, a boy--now caught in the inevitable gravity of life drawing him into manhood that comes with being engaged and (possibly) a father--who moved to Texas to escape a troubled past.  His demeanor really impressed me, though.  He was definitely present, aware of the world around him.  Professed a work ethic that will serve him well, and that he really did not know much about the Gospel.

Neither did the other young man who grew up in a church-going family have the ability to give a concise or clear summary of the Gospel.  It just reinforces the fact that we American Christians claim a Christ whose words and message we honestly don't know; we follow because we're raised to follow, and I hope to God He will use me to help remedy that.  He also told me that he and his girlfriend both knew what the Bible said about sex, but, until this pregnancy "scare" as they called it, they did not think it was important.  Now they both decided it was time to be more responsible with the faith they confess.

The third man was the antithesis of scared.  Giddy might be the right word.  Awaiting news about whether he was going to become a father for the second time, he was obviously both nervous and very excited.  He said that he can afford a second child on his earnings as a researching doctoral student but no more; I wonder if they'll end up with twins this time.

Number 3 (yes, I do know his name, but confidentially!) grew up in Asia and said that he was unsure about spirituality.  I have talked to men with a similar background before, and it reaffirms for me the definite weirdness of the Gospel.

Let's be honest: we believe in a God, an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, all-sustaining Creator of everything who loves His creation so much that He says His own name is "Jealous" (Exodus 34:14); we believe he not only is One Being, but three Persons, each complete in Himself, all bound together as a whole in a way I may never truly comprehend; we believe one of these Persons came to earth to become fully man while remaining fully God so that He could die--God, dying; not only that, but we believe this man, who also is God, beat death and rose from the grave and was seen by over 500 people in the next month to confirm that He really was alive; and we believe that "whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

Can it get any stranger, honestly?

And so trying to convey that entire message to a man who grew up in a culture that, in this man's own words, does not teach anything about spirituality to younger generations is quite a challenge.  Have you ever given the complete message of the Gospel, from Genesis to the Cross to the Holy Spirit living in us as a promise of our eternal life in Christ, to someone that doesn't even believe he has a spirit along with his body?  To someone who doesn't know what the words "Gospel" or "crucified" or "Holy Spirit" or "salvation" or "sin" even mean?

Let me tell you that not only is it tough, but it is so fulfilling, and totally worth it.  It makes you really think about what it is that you believe, and why.  Where those Bible verses are that support those beliefs. What logic flows from those God-breathed verses.  And how to put it in simple language everyone can understand, even those who have only spoken English for the last five years.

What I found laid quite simply before me was the truth that Jesus Christ said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 3:17).

Thanks to God for that, too, because I've seen my own brokenness; it hasn't been but a few days since the last time I used someone for my own purpose.

Then, these three quite different men spoke with me--one who has always been in the Church, one who has been to church, and one who for 35 years never knew what the word "spiritual" meant.  And the one most excited to hear and talk about the Gospel, who came back with his wife later that night to hear a full-on presentation of the story of Creation, was the one who'd never entered a church before.

I see more and more in my time at Hope that church attendance or other "checklist" items for Christians mean absolutely nothing if they skip the part where GOD HIMSELF CREATED US FOR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM!

If we get that part, THEN going to church and praying and fasting and tithing and all of those other things bring life; they are structure into which the life that we find in God grows.  Without that relationship, they are only rules to oppress people.

So, as Brennan Manning puts it, "the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints."  Can we please follow the example of the good people at Hope who have taught me so much about serving others?  Can we bring what help and healing and joy and wisdom and support and relationship that we can while telling people about Christ, instead of just beating the latter over people's heads?

Because that is exactly what Jesus did in His ministry here on earth.  All along Jesus always proclaimed His purpose and authority, but always hand in hand with the times He healed the sick and fed the hungry.  He proved (and proves) His love and power and authority THROUGH His service.  He did not separate the two acts; why should we?

27 January 2011

Back at the Plate

Finally got back into volunteering yesterday.

Still way too much that I need to do with graduation looming (hopefully), but it was time.  I'll get to work with different volunteers this time since our schedules have changed, but I will not be seeing Wanda anymore, the sweet retiree who handled finances for us, because "it was just time."

Randomly ran into her this morning as I went into Albertson's, and didn't recognize her at first!  That ever happen to you--you see someone a couple of times a week for a few months, then after not seeing them for a while you run into that person outside of the workplace in an unexpected way and can't for the life of you remember why they look familiar?  Well after almost passing her completely by, I snapped around in recognition and embraced my friend.  I'll be sad not to have her encouragement at Hope, and she said she'll miss the energy and work we "young people" do.

See, Wanda lives off of that.  She knows the words Paul spoke to Titus, that older women are to teach the younger.  She engages the youthfulness around her because she knows that such cross-generational ties add vitality to her life, and to ours.

So I will miss her, but I do look forward to the work still to be done.

Like yesterday, Ryan and I added to the endless clutter of the attic.  I get the feeling that I'll be helping organize that soon.

The happier notes of yesterday involved a couple of young women.  One got her ultrasound and could not wait to show us office workers the pictures of the 6-week old baby growing inside of her.  Seriously, "giddy" would be an understatement.

The other was a young girl who, although claiming Christian beliefs, wanted nothing more than to abort.  I don't know the details, but I am always heartbroken for them.  Not because I'm disappointed or appalled or whatever--I promise, there's no judgement on this side--but because I know that they are in pain inside.  Yet those people who find themselves in that crushing situation are precisely one of the reasons Hope exists, and it warmed us in the office to hear that, seeing her ultrasound, the young girl was reconsidering.

We're not in the business of chalking up "how many people changed their minds about abortion today" at Hope.  Changing minds only doesn't really help much in the grand scheme; changing hearts does, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit making the person of Jesus known.   We love His love.  We speak His Truth.  We show in every action His Grace and Mercy.  All the while, we are well aware of the words Jesus spoke in John 4:37-38--"For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.'  I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.  Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

We may see someone's life change in Hope; we have.  Yet we know it wasn't us who changed it, but that other people have been laboring for this one soul, and that Jesus Himself has been calling to it, as He does to all souls.  We also know we may be used to plant a seed of hope that comes from Him, and that someone else will reap the joy of walking with this person into Christ Jesus.

We keep praying.  We keep loving.  We keep working.  We keep Hoping.

"and Hope does not put us to shame, because God's Love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us."--Romans 5:5

Grace and Peace, ya'll