December 9th, 2011

Desperation and Trust: a Psalm for the weak

I’m writing this from a weak place.

The Lord has been very good to us. All my needs are met. There is so much to be thankful for and I am undeserving of the blessings that are all around me.

Yet, I am struggling. Reaching and grasping for contentment and trust in the Lord.

This morning I woke to read an e-mail stating that the home we are attempting to purchase is slipping out of our grasps. The appraisal came back with an acceptable value, but “subject to repairs”. That line, “subject to repairs” is what is keeping the lending bank from giving us the loan; and it is that decision that is making this gorgeous, sunny December day so painful.

Moments after reading this, I opened my Bible and read these words:

You are my King and my God. You command victories for Israel. Only by your power can we push back our enemies; only in your name can we trample our foes. I do not trust in my bow; I do not count on my sword to save me. You are the one who gives us victory over our enemies… O God, we give glory to you all day long and constantly praise your name.” Psalm 44:4-8

This Psalm is heart-wrenching and strangely familiar today. So with nowhere to turn and no answers, I confess my weakness and present this situation with this claimed truth: There will be no victory unless the Lord provides.

“Lord I trust You alone. You are my strength and a mighty mountain which I hide within. You protect me out of the goodness of your heart and not because I am worthy of it in any way. You desire me and I bask in your love. Father of heaven and earth, in utter and complete surrender, I come to Your throne-room asking for You to do what only You can do. Come. Change my heart. Move a mountain. It’s my desire that we would have this house, but Your will be done.”

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November 20th, 2011

Advice for young men

When I lived in Mexico, an older gentlemen from the U.S. came to visit us. During an afternoon in “el desierto” (a deserted place up in the forrest and mountains nearby that we went to get away with God) I perceived that he was very wise and asked him for the best advice he’d give a young man. This is what he said:

  1. Don’t think with your crotch.
  2. Find out where God is actively moving and be there.
  3. Never stop learning.

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November 20th, 2011

Are we there yet?

The LORD directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way? -Proverbs 20:24 NLT

My wife and I have been in a season of life where we are asking God regularly, “What are you doing with our lives? Where do you want us to go? Lead us!”

It’s been a long and challenging journey, often feeling alone and bewildered. Some things that God has revealed through this challenging process is our need to maintain an attitude of dependence on Him. We don’t get to know where He is taking us, but if we say we trust Him, then we get the joy of sitting back and not fearing. The fact that we are anxious about it shows that we don’t trust Him or we don’t believe that He is fully good. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that my plans will have a better outcome than His; which really makes me out to be a stubborn teenager all over again, believing that I know more than my parents.

Do you know more than God? Can you rest in the faith that the Creator of the universe has more in store for you than you could ever prepare for yourself with your tiny mind and little hands?

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. -CS Lewis, Weight of Glory

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November 18th, 2011

Discipline towards goals leads to life change and success

I’ve been on a journey over the last years, learning about discipline; spiritual discipline, physical discipline, emotional discipline and mental discipline. In no way have I come to fully understand or even utter the word “master” regarding these disciplines, although I have learned much and am still learning much.

Regular, even gentle, steady pressure, exerted over time will result in dramatic, powerful and lasting change that could not be accomplished with even extreme force otherwise.

Spiritual Discipline
Through regular times of meditation and prayer, not trying to move mountains or discover some unearthed truth, I have encountered God in ways that are precious and dear to me; ways that no super-stadium worship service or Martin Luther King style speech could. Small, simple times of hiding away with the Lord are one of the many ways to know Him, but a very effective way indeed.

Physical Discipline
I’m no Sylvester Stallone or Tony Horton in the gym, but I have found that regular, short periods of physical exertion produce satisfying results. Two or three easy runs a week and several pushups and sit-ups a night have restored my body to feeling strong and healthy.

Relational Discipline
Life is full of events, meetings and responsibilities to uphold, so I’m well aware of how key relationships
in my life can fall by the wayside as other urgent priorities strip away my time from truly important priorities. A weekly breakfast with my wife draws us back to intimacy and keeps us on the same page. Scheduling one short hang-out time per week with a close friend or relative does something for my soul that nourishes like nothing else can. And when I die (which is eminent, though I’d like to think myself invincible) I won’t be wondering on my death-bed whether my business plans succeeded, but instead whether my siblings, parents, wife and friends know that they are loved.

Mental Discipline
Learning is a joy to me, though I am often condemned by the fact that I have not completed my bachelor’s degree. So scheduling short 45-minute study breaks in my day to learn something new or finish one more class towards my degree is both rewarding and inspiring. With the pressures of work and providing, learning can take the back seat, but if I intend to grow and succeed, I cannot neglect mental discipline. I welcome any who read this to hold me accountable in this area, and will celebrate with you when that degree is completed.

The reason these things are so key in my life is because I am no hero, no great leader and no prodigy. I’m a simple man with blatant weaknesses and areas of necessary growth. So only by regular and small effort can I have any hope of seeing great life-change and success in my life.

In closing, may I urge you to take a step towards increased discipline in one area of your life? Where can you add a gentle but steady goal-oriented pressure in your life? How have you seen this already play out in your story?

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November 1st, 2011

Responding to Shekinah Glory in Work as True Worship

The “Shekinah” of God is the “glory or radiance of God dwelling in the midst of His people” [Foster, Celebration of Disciplines, pg. 138]. Almighty God is in your presence right now as you read this sentence off a computer monitor. Stop for a moment and try to grasp that; bask in the wonder and awe of that. Our response to a completely holy (set apart, different, perfect, righteous) God is Worship.

Richard Foster quotes Frank Laubach, “Of today’s miracles, the greatest is this: to know that I find Thee best when I work listening.” The idea is that we were meant to engage with God throughout our daily roles, chores, tasks, jobs, etc. Our lives were not intended to be fragmented and compartmentalized. The truth is that the distractions which often keep us from God may just be the exact activities He wants to be known in the most.

Seek God while you work.

This doesn’t mean that there are times when you must pull away from work and activity to practice other disciplines that draw you into His presence, but as a regular practice, begin learning to see, hear and know “the Teacher” in the midst of your life. Live with a “holy expectancy” that God will be found in your moment-by-moment activities. See God in the faces around you, the voice of the phone call you are on and in the words of the e-mails you read. I am not advocating pantheism in any sense, but advising you the both welcome Him and become receptive to Him in each situation.

It is commonly taught in most evangelical churches today that we as a culture worship many things; sports, celebrities, success, family, etc. Foster/Tozer points out that “the essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” Let me break that down in a vulnerable sense: my workaholism can stem from a fear of not having enough. That ultimately stems from my un-true belief that God will not provide and thus I must take charge. This “unworthy thought” of God detracts me from worship of Him and leads me towards pain and destruction.

Analyze your life-patterns. Is your behavior reflecting an inadequate view of God?

Foster also points out that Worship causes confession; confession of God’s glorious nature and confession of our inadequate nature. This is good and something that should be done in community, for the edification of the Body of Christ, his Church.

As you head into the rest of your day, where might God be breaking into your presence with His Shekinah?
Are your thoughts of Him right? If not, which areas of your life are being affected by them?
How do you need to respond to God’s glory today? Confessing His greatness or your smallness?

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October 31st, 2011

Music worth listening to

These artists make amazing music. They also walk with Jesus. Their thoughts, struggles and passions come out through their music. As a musician myself, I understand the difficulty of being catalogued alongside typical “Christian” mainstream music. The average radio station will murder a song and turn it into something despised and abused in the matter of weeks. So, I don’t wish these guys get “found” in the sense of radio-play, but absolutely believe they deserve credit and appreciation for their incredible indie/alternative musicianship and dedication to the Gospel.

Sufjan Stevens – www.sufjan.com
Timmy Curran – www.timmycurran.net
Zach Williams – www.zachwilliams.com
The Civil Wars – www.thecivilwars.com
Eisley – www.eisley.com
Over the Rhine – www.overtherhine.com
Gungor* – www.gungormusic.com

There are actually many more amazing artists, many of which are available for free download on Noisetrade.com.

*Gungor recently was featured on K-Love, a Christian radio station in Chicago. Their song “Beautiful Things” will most likely be exploited and will overshadow their other incredible songs. If you can look past the faults of the radio-station community, you’ll love their music.

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October 14th, 2011

Discipline leads to life

I was reading Proverbs this morning and came across this verse:

“People who accept disciple are on the pathway to life, but those who ignore correction will go astray.”

This verse stands out to me because I’ve begun to see the truth of it. For a long time, scripture reading, devotionals, “quiet-times” and other similar cutesy forms were a drag to me. I’d encounter seasons of energetic bursts where reading was enjoyable, but those would quickly die off and I’d slump back into my normal excuses for why I “didn’t have time”. The bottom line was that I wasn’t meeting with God and so all these attempts were futile.

This pattern could probably summarize most of my adult spiritual life.

Somewhere over the last year, I really became fed up with my relationship with God. I began asking some hard questions; things like, “Should I be telling people about God, when the truth is that I don’t really have a relationship worth sharing about? Would I really want people to have the same faith story that I have? Do I know God? Does He know me? Do I know me?”

Master Yoda, Star Wars

"Do or do not. There is no try."

These questions culminated with a lot of frustration. I felt as if God wasn’t speaking, but if I was honest, I also knew that I wasn’t seeking Him very hard. So I came to the conclusion that I was done “trying”. Instead, I was going to resolutely seek God (no “try” – I heard a Yoda quote this week, “Do or do not. There is no try.”). In a bout of defiance and desperation, I told myself and the Lord, “There is a chair downstairs that is going to become my ‘holy chair’. I’m going to be in it every morning. I’m going to read the Bible, some books that stir my heart and mind, and wait for You to speak. You may not talk to me for a very long time. I haven’t talked with you that much, so it’s easy to understand. But I’m going to be there. And if you need me, that’s where I’ll be. Waiting and available.”

I stuck with that defiance for some time. In fact, I’m in that chair right now. After some time though, things began to change. I began to change. My heart softened. My spiritual ears opened. And not all at once, but little by little, I have begun to hear the Lord and sense the Holy Spirit in my life. There are doubts and failures; I’ve fallen asleep more times than I’d like to admit (I call that “deep meditation”). But I’m still here. And if God wants me, He has full access.

I don’t deserve anything from the Lord. He has blessed me more than I deserve and rescued me from disobedience that leads to death. So my defiance is a little out of place. But it took that discipline and resolution to put me in a pattern that leads to life.

If you are reading this, will you join me in this solidarity protest against the spiritual realm? Be a squatter and camp out somewhere that you can be alone. Be resolute and firm. Tell God that you want Him and you are not leaving. And when you feel nothing for the first month or two, hold out longer. I promise that God will speak and the Spirit will move. It’s just that sometimes, our hearts have been much more disciplined in the ways of laziness and selfishness than they have been in the way of the cross.

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August 12th, 2011

Silence

Silence your body to listen to the words
Silence your tongue to listen to your thoughts
Silence your thoughts to listen to your heart beating
Silence your heart to listen to your spirit
Silence your spirit to listen to His Spirit

In silence you leave many to be with The One

-Mama Maggie Gobran, WCA Leadership Summit 2011

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August 10th, 2011

Blind Bartemeus

This morning I was hit by a passage from Mark 10:46-52.

46 Then they reached Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples left town, a large crowd followed him. A blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was sitting beside the road. 47 When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
48 “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him.

But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

49 When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.”

So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” 50 Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.

51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

“My rabbi,” the blind man said, “I want to see!”

52 And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.

Stories like these are strung throughout the new testament (everything after Micah) and I’ve read them countless times with very little impact. Today, though, it really stuck out to me that there was such faith, honesty and eagerness in blind Bartemeus. I love that when reprimanded, he only shouted louder. I love that he threw aside his coat, which I can assume would be an important piece of clothing that you wouldn’t want to misplace or have stolen if you were a blind man. I love that when asked, he was simple and honest to Jesus — not muddying his request by trying to impress Him. I love that Bartemeus was immediately healed.

I don’t have much to share that is mind-blowing, but I encourage you to sit with this passage and be in that town that day, on that road, watching this story take place. Let Christ heal you, or maybe heal your faith. Ask Jesus simply and honestly, “give me faith like Bartemeus.”

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August 9th, 2011

A Generous Kind of People

YouVersion has an excellent selection of scripture reading plans. I’ve used a few of them in my time with the Lord and it has been really good for me. Currently, I’m reading through a selection of verses on the topic of biblical generosity.

My first observation when I began reading was that the verses didn’t seem to be directly about generosity, or at least how I was expecting them. Instead, they catalogued references to God’s generosity towards us. As I thought about this, I realized how important that is; if we first grasp the generous love that God has towards us, then responding in generous love comes about more naturally, and not as an obligation. We serve a God who is stunningly benevolent towards us. Take a moment to be reflect on what God has blessed your life with and let Him move you.

The body of believers I gather with regularly has been talking about how God is a reaching, restoring and reproducing God. Recent conversations have revolved around the restoring aspect as it relates to local and global injustice. This caught my attention this morning as I read about generosity and the scripture repeatedly referred to ways that God is just and how He thinks about our behavior towards those in need. It became very obvious that this is important to God and that our stance on injustice has something to do with our understanding of generosity.

A discussion last night uncovered a definition of injustice that makes sense to me: Injustice is what makes you say to yourself, “That is not right.” For me, some of those things are single-moms struggling to make ends meet and no one to fight for them; children in verbally, physically or emotionally abusive homes; an elderly man spending the last 20 years of his life alone, while he lives in a suburban home on a street where Christ-followers live; a woman feeling as if her only way to be noticed is to wear low-cut shirts and hang out at the bars, or come dangerously close to death by overdosing, cutting or eating. These things make me cringe and cry out inside, “That is not right!”

Originally, I thought that injustice was only starving babies on distant continents or dictators exerting harsh and oppressive control — that is injustice and it must end. Yet, I’m discovering that not all injustice is out of our reach. Most of it is next door or across the street.

A generous kind of people is one that has encountered the restoring love of God and invites others to be swept away in God’s redemptive stream of life. I long for the label of “Christian” or “Christ-follower” be one that stirs pictures of people who are actively involved in writing a story marked by making right the things that are “just not right” and seeing the Kingdom of God come in fullness.

Parting thought: If you were to take a step toward removing the barriers that keep you from a just lifestyle, what would that barrier be? If you were to make one decision that advances the Kingdom in relation to injustice or invites others to join with you, what would that decision be?

In short: What is holding you back? How are you moving forward?

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