What Once Was Dead

August 4, 2023August 5, 20231 Comment

I haven’t written in a long time…that’s not quite true, I haven’t posted in a long time. I’ve written quite a lot but not things that I want to share with the world. I haven’t posted on social media in a long time (although I spend way too much time on Instagram) and there are a whole host of reasons for that but today I wanted to share my thoughts with whoever might be brought to this small corner of the internet.

When I first bought my house, 11 years ago, there was a beautiful, lush Japanese Maple tree in my backyard. My oldest niece, who was 4 at the time, was looking at the house with me prior to my purchase of the property and she announced “this will be my climbing tree and I will always climb it here”. She did climb that tree, as did her siblings and cousins. We put a sandbox at the base of the tree because it was well-shaded, easily viewed from the kitchen window and provided a safe place for the kids to play.

One spring a large portion of the tree didn’t develop any leaves. I was so sad that the tree would lose a large limb but I thought “it will still be beautiful”. The following spring most of the tree showed no signs of life. My arborist told me that it was a lost cause and that there were dozens of reasons that it suddenly died. I didn’t have the heart to cut it down. I decided to leave it alone for a while and think about what I was going to do about the tree. There was no life left in the limbs so it wasn’t safe for climbing anymore. The sandbox was moved to a different part of the yard where there was shade to be found, but it was far from the house and hard to spot from the kitchen window. It meant changes to the routine of being outside. I mourned the end of tree climbing adventures for my nieces and nephews. I thought about how long it would take for another tree to become as lovely. I felt like a little piece of me shriveled up with the tree. It was such an important emotional part of what made my home feel like home.

I finally decided that, at the very least, I needed to trim back most of the dead branches. My brother spent a Saturday helping to trim limb after limb that had once been full of vibrant burgundy but were now empty, barren. I left the weirdly, twisted skeleton in my yard and all winter my family asked me what I was going to do with it.

Spring came again, as it so often does, and with it a plan. I decided to plant wisteria and trumpet vine at the base of my dead tree. They need a framework to start growing on and the old tree became a natural trellis. It took a few years for my vision to spring to life but slowly, tendrils and wisps of green began to wind their way around the old dead limbs. We hung bird feeders from the places where my nieces and nephews used to dangle from the tree. What was once a glorious living thing became alive once again. It is a vastly different sort of life than what it once had but there’s something magical about the tree that it never had before. The wisteria blooms in early summer and the purple blooms hang like clusters of grapes filling the air with perfume. As the days grow longer and warmer, just as the wisteria blossoms begin to fade, the trumpet vine begins to display its showy coral trumpets. The tree buzzes with the sound of bees and hummingbirds. Every day is a spectacular display of bunnies, bluebirds, and finches.

In winter, we continue to feed the birds so even on the grayest of days, the tree is filled with color. Winter birds, like cardinals and blue jays, perch on the old gnarled limbs and bring a splash of cheer to the view from the kitchen window. There are squirrels and chipmunks and wise, old ravens who frequent the tree. The mourning doves always come just before sunset and coo to bid the day farewell.

I never saw so many little friends when the tree was full of its own beauty. It wasn’t until it had to make room for another kind of glory that I began to see all the creatures who frequent my old, dead tree. To put it another way, it wasn’t until it died that it could enter a new season of life.

When we talk about new seasons we tend to think of exciting new adventures. We picture fresh and green, beginnings and opportunities. We don’t often realize that some new seasons begin with a death. Some new seasons begin with dormancy. Some new seasons begin looking totally unfamiliar, leaving us unlike who we thought we were. Some new seasons tear us limb from limb, refashioning us into a different sort of life. New seasons can be slow in coming. They can take years and years to begin to unfold their colors.

I was talking to an incredible friend at church this past Sunday. She was about to celebrate her 90th birthday. She was telling me with great excitement about the Bible study that she’s been hosting for women in her community. They gather weekly for several hours to talk about Jesus. This little group is flourishing and vibrant. My friend’s eyes were sparkling as she was telling about her group of ladies, most new believers, and how God has been using them to teach her as much as she’s teaching them. When I told her how excited I was for her she answered “all this is happening because I finally learned to yield to God, and it only took me ninety years.” I remember a similar conversation with the same friend nearly 20 years ago when she’d been removed from leadership of a small group without notice in a very unjust fashion. It had caused her a great deal of heartache but she forgave and continued to pursue God, even though her limbs had been cut. Here she is seeing a harvest, in an unexpected way, from an avenue or branch that she thought was dead. Isn’t it just like God to revive our dreams in a way that is more than what we could imagine? More beautiful, more fulfilling, more inspirational, more joyful, more…well to put it simply, just more!

What dreams have become dead in your life? What season has ended in death? Are you feeling the emptiness of a dormant season? Take another look. What sort of framework is God preparing inside all the dead limbs of your vision? What sort of storehouse of life giving “sap” is He building in your dormant days? What reserves of “more” is He preparing for you? What sort of tendrils and wisps are beginning to swirl and twirl around the pieces of your soul that have long been barren?

We get excited when we hear verses like Isaiah 40:4 where it talks about “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth”. We shout and say things like “won’t He do it” and while the answer is a resounding “YES!” We don’t often consider that leveling mountains and turning rough places into plains can be laborious processes with long stretches of what seems like barrenness and death. Can God do instant works? Absolutely! Does He always work instantaneously? In my experience thus far…no, He doesn’t always work instantaneously. I have noticed that He works patiently, over many years, moving us from one season to the next. With great care and gentle hands, lest the clay crack, He molds us.

If you are floundering and feel like you’re in a season where you are a dead tree I have a few final thoughts for you:

You are not alone! I’m available to commiserate, just drop me a line and we can talk about barren seasons.
Take a look around and take stock of the things you know God is doing in your vicinity. You might not realize that He’s been pruning you to be the framework of something spectacular.
Tell Him your deepest thoughts about the season you’re in! He hasn’t forgotten your dreams but He might be refining them. He hasn’t been ignoring your emptiness, He’s been preparing to fill it. He is big enough to handle your frustrations and anger. He’s not embarrassed by your anguish and He’s not ashamed of your doubts.
As my sweet nonagenarian friend said, yield to God. Once you’ve poured your heart out with all your wounds laid bare and told Him all the things you have buried in your deepest soul, listen! Listen to His plans for you. Start with the Bible. Listen to what He’s planted for you there. Get back to basics. Stop trying to find the specific verse that applies to your current life circumstance and makes you feel goosebumps for a moment, and focus on getting to know Jesus! Let getting to know Jesus be the core activity of your day. Seek Him and you will find Him! In the process you will discover that He’s been beautifying your dark season with light, wonder, and glory that can only come through rebirth. He’s been preparing new fruit that could only come after a severe pruning. He’s been making something completely new out of what you once were. Hallelujah!

New Year, Same God

January 2, 2023January 4, 20231 Comment

I’ve never been a fan of the annual declaration “New Year, New Me”. I always wondered “what is so wrong with me that I have to be made into a new me every year?”. The declaration has fallen out of favor in recent years but that doesn’t stop people from making resolutions or plans to change. It makes sense, moving to a new year reminds us that time is not static. It reminds us that change is ever present, and it can feel like a good point to evaluate our lives and make decisions about how we want to venture into a new season. We make our plans to workout more, eat better, read through the entire Bible, learn a new skill, take up an old hobby, get together with friends, travel, finish that book we’ve been planning to read forever, etc. We make our plans and often, not always but often fall short. I have also seen a bunch of people joking that no one should declare that “this is my year”. The past few years have been a crap-shoot of misery and we shouldn’t tempt fate by being excited about what is ahead. We should enter the new year calmly and carefully.

There’s an old Yiddish adage that comes to mind “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” which means “Man plans, and God laughs” or my personal favorite “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!”/ To a Mouse (Robert Burns). This line from Burns’ poem is often translated “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” but we rarely include the end of this thought “and leave us nothing but grief and pain instead of the promised joy”. Appropriate as these may seem in light of shattered resolutions, broken plans, and horrible years, I don’t believe that God laughs at our plans. I wonder if his heart is a bit like mine when I listen to my nieces and nephews concoct grand schemes for adventures. I love to listen to them dream up awe-inspiring building projects, weave fanciful stories, make glorious plans and set audacious goals, knowing full-well that they’ll never come to pass. There is a joy in hearing them describe their wild dreams and an even greater joy in helping them try to make something out of those dreams. The end result is never quite as fantastic as what they imagined but it is still beautiful, and watching their intense faces of concentration and hard work, followed by giggles and laughter are the gifts of those moments of plans gone awry. I love Proverbs 16:9 because I think it’s more like those moments with my little loves than the image of God laughing at our plans. In the Amplified version it says “A man’s mind plans his way (as he journeys through life), but the Lord directs his steps and establishes them”.

I love the word establish. It means “to set up or put on a firm or permanent basis”. Who better to establish something in my life than God. The Bible is full of verses about his faithfulness and constancy. James 1:17 tells us “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Hebrews 13:8 says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Deuteronomy 32:4 calls Him “The Rock – his work is perfect; all his ways are just. A faithful God, without bias, he is righteous and true.” No offence to Dwayne Johnson but this is The Rock that I want to be established on. This is the one who directs and establishes my steps. Last year I started thinking about how to be more intentional about following his direction for my steps. What does that look like? The obvious answer is to follow the will of God…yay for church platitudes, she says with heavy sarcasm…following the will of God is an obvious answer but can be a difficult practice. People have driven themselves to near madness trying to discern the will of God for their lives. That is a weighty and personal conversation I’m not going to get into here but I will tell you where I started and how it has helped me to make my plans and trust his direction.

The second half of 1Thessalonians 5 is a little passage that, in my Bible, carries the heading “Christian Conduct”. It covers how we’re to relate to one another and carry ourselves if we bear the name of Christ. Verse 18 is one of those verses that gets quoted a lot and for me it was the key to finding God’s will. It says this (again in the Amplified version) “in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” So, the will of God for me is to be thankful and continually give thanks to God. Gratitude, consistent and earnest gratitude is God’s will for me. As I make my plans and I set forth my hopes and desires I do so fully recognizing that God will direct my steps and his will is that I walk with gratitude even when my plans and his direction don’t line up the way I want them to.

When we quote 1 Thessalonians 5:18 we often misapply it. We hear “for everything give thanks” but it says “in everything give thanks”. This is the power of words and an important distinction! For is one of those common words that doesn’t really get evaluated. For carries a vast array of meanings but when we talk about being thankful for something it carries the meaning “because of” or “with respect to”. Giving thanks for everything is not only difficult but very nearly psychotic. We expect to be thankful for happy things and desired outcomes but, if we go around telling people that we’re thankful for a devastating circumstance they might question our sanity. Being thankful for everything also makes liars out of us and a holy God does not call his people to be disingenuous. I’m not thankful for my Dad’s death. I’m not thankful for unexpected job loss or sickness. I’m not thankful for cruelty and pain. However, I have been thankful in those circumstances.

In is another word that we don’t bother to define. In “expresses the situation of being enclosed or surrounded by something”. To be thankful for God’s faithfulness while surrounded by difficult circumstances is how we can see his direction meet our plans without being crushed, disillusioned or broken. It is honest and genuine to say I’m not thankful for my Dad’s death but I am thankful that God carried me in that season. I can say I’m not thankful for the loss of a job but I am thankful that God has continued to show himself faithful while looking for a new job. I can be thankful in a surrounded place because, like the calm in the eye of a hurricane, God is with me, establishing me, growing my faith, showing me his faithfulness, while circumstances swirl around me like a devastating storm. Being thankful in everything takes practice. It is not easy to walk in God’s will over our own but like any habit the more we do it, the easier it becomes.

Last year I started a “Gratitude Jar”. It’s a quart canning jar that I keep by my desk. Whenever something happens that I want to remember I jot it on a scrap of paper and put it in the jar. On New Year’s day I opened my jar and read the blessings. Some of them were easy to be thankful for like “Anya (my niece) got baptized” and “my Crown of Thorns plant blossomed”. A lot of them were “in” moments of gratitude like this one “the whole house air conditioner died but was replaced quickly and God provided financing, and I am believing he will continue to provide the money to pay if off quickly.” I’m not grateful for my air conditioner giving out but in that circumstance I could see God at work and I am grateful for that. Here’s one that made me laugh; my mom had knee replacement surgery early in the year and one of my notes said “Mom is 2 weeks post op and we haven’t killed each other”. I am grateful for the surgery that has given her back her mobility and has been a life-changing gift for her. In the moment of recovery I wasn’t thankful for the frustrations of her post-op care but I was thankful that in the mess we were surviving by God’s grace.

So back to my original thought. It’s a new year and I have no need to become a “new me” because I’m already made new in Jesus; “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17”. I am going to call it, this is my year! (I don’t believe in fate or karma so I have no qualms about calling it my year.) This could be a horrible year filled with terrible circumstances for which I am not thankful; but it is my year of continuing to follow God’s will and have him direct and establish my steps. Gratitude in every circumstance is not the whole story but it is a great start. Over the past year of intentionally practicing gratitude I have noticed that I’m not as shaken when my circumstances are less than desirable. I can be thankful in them and see where his direction is better than my plans. Here I am at the start of a new year. The “Gratitude Jar” has been emptied and is ready for a new year of moments that I have been thankful in and I know that it will fill quickly because the year may be new but God is the same!

There’s a lid for every pot, but what if you’re a skillet?

December 7, 2022December 8, 20221 Comment

They say to write what you know and I know being single. I’ve never been part of a couple, I am not dating Jesus and I am not self-partnered or in a season of singleness. When I do my taxes I check the box that says single. It’s a description but not a definition. I do not feel called to singleness. It’s simply that, in the words of my Uncle Van, I have yet to meet a man who deserves to be as happy as only I can make him. Truthfully most of the time I’m okay with that and occasionally I am not.

As life goes I am spectacularly blessed. I love my job, sincerely, I get to do things I enjoy with people I respect and get along with. I own a sweet cottage on an adorable street in a nice town. I have a small group of genuine friends, from around the globe, who make me laugh, hold me accountable, and support me when I need encouragement. I have a wonderfully weird family for who I am beyond grateful. They are the people who keep me grounded, and help me dream. All in all life is good.

It took me a while to get to a place where I could live my life in the moment without always being aware of what I lack. It can be an enormous challenge, in the culture I grew up in, to be a single person. What culture am I talking about…the North American church, specifically the protestant, evangelical, charismatic, North American church. In the culture in which I live, move, and have my being, marriage is the paragon of virtues. Please understand, I am not knocking marriage! I have a deep respect for marriage, for what it is meant to be, and would love to participate in that time-honored covenant. That being said, I believe we have put marriage on a pedestal it doesn’t deserve. Why would I say something so scandalous. Let me tell you why.

One of the great gifts of being an older single woman is perspective. I have moved through all the different age groups; nursery, Sunday School, youth group, Bible College, singles ministry, ladies groups, small groups, prayer circles, etc. I have watched as we have spent decades preparing people to grow up and have godly marriages. I have watched people, who were never prepared to simply grow up and be godly individuals, flounder and flail when they haven’t met their soulmate by their early 20’s. I have spent hours counseling young women who felt like failures, forgotten by God, because they were approaching 25 alone. I have seen fantastic young men try and fit into molds they weren’t made for in order to become the sort of prince that would catch the eye of this year’s model of an ideal Christian woman. Many parts of this culture are just beginning to realize that there’s more than just marriage along the narrow road.

I have been blessed with a litany of “when you’re married” thoughts by people whose simple possession of a marriage license suddenly made them sages. The same people who are still walking, talking disasters in desperate need of sanctification (just like me). These are thoughtful people who have said things like “you’re so lucky you’re single because you have time to focus on your relationship with God” or “use this time to let Him prepare you for your perfect mate”. These people inevitably forget that I knew them before they were married and am acutely aware of the imperfect state they were in when they married. It is not our marital status that should give us permission to speak into the lives around us. The only thing that qualifies us to speak into another’s life is the Holy Spirit working through us. FYI, marital status is not a qualifier for being led by the Spirit. Believe it or not, being single doesn’t mean I have any more time to focus on my relationship with the Lord. Being single means I have different responsibilities, not lesser, just different.

I suspect that should I ever marry, I will be just as rubbish at the start as my beloved brothers and sisters-in-law, who all married relatively young. Why? Shouldn’t my years of life-experience make me more prepared? No, I’m still just as human now as when I was an idealistic young person. I may be more aware of my faults and foibles but I’m still a cracked pot carrying the weight of glory. I suspect living closely with another human being requires as much grace when you’re in your 40’s as it does in your 20’s. That is why I spend time talking to my nieces and nephews about who they are, their character, their relationship with God. My oldest niece has begun to notice boys and daydream about her future. This is a precious thing and I will not squash it! I will, however, remind her that her worth in God’s kingdom lies not in her marriageability but in her availability.

I have experienced, in the church, the feeling of being lesser than, of being unworthy, of being some sort of consolation prize (dear married ladies please do not, for the love of all that is holy, tell single women that you told your husband “if I were to die before him I want him to marry you” – we’ve met your husbands and we’re not interested…no lie, this has happened to me several times). For those of you, who like me are still traveling this faith journey on your own, and don’t feel called to a life of singleness, you are not forgotten! You’re not lacking or less than. As we follow Jesus and walk in obedience, it is the faithful giving of our hands to do what we’re called to do that matters. There might be a lid out there for whatever sort of pot you are, but in the meantime you can still be useful. I have a small teapot that has no lid. I don’t use it for tea. I use it as a planter. It has a beautiful long vine that drapes over a bookcase. It is my favorite teapot. It adds a special sort of beauty because it fulfills its purpose in a unique way. I think I’m much like this teapot. There are days that I am intensely aware that I don’t have a lid and my heart yearns to have a lid and function the way teapots should function. Most days though, I realize that my life is filled to the brim with a different sort of usefulness. It is precisely my lack of lid that makes me perfect for this season. Dearest church, dearest single friends, dearest married friends, dearest divorced friends, and widowed friends and friends too young to pay any notice to things like this; let’s encourage one another not only to be godly spouses but to be godly people. To add beauty and wisdom, value and integrity, wherever we are, no matter our marital status, age, race, financial state, etc. Let’s simply encourage each other to run our race with endurance. We are not all in the same lap but we’re on the same track. What a beautiful thing to recognize that one day all we cracked pots, with lids and without, will be made whole.

Thanks to James Orr @orrbarone for making this photo available on Unsplash 🎁 https://unsplash.com/photos/I0EyZ02Ke3E

That First Line is a Doozy

July 7, 2022August 4, 20231 Comment

When I was a kid watching Sesame Street I fell in love with the sketch where Smokey Robinson sang “U Really Got a Hold on Me” while the letter U put the squeeze on him. All these years later whenever I hear the Miracles sing “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”, I still picture Smokey Robinson being pursued by a giant letter U. Lately, I have been thinking about the first line of that song quite a lot. It starts with a rather shocking confession…”I don’t like you, but I love you”. When you read the full lyrics of the song you get a picture of a very unhealthy relationship but that’s not my point so I digress.

The Bible has a lot to say about love. There’s a lot about how God loves us and, over the past few years, I have heard many voices spending a great deal of time on the topic of God’s love. It took Google less than a second to return over 3 billion results when I searched “the love of God” and over 2 billion for “how God loves”. The love that we aren’t talking about quite as much is how we, the sons and daughters of God are supposed to love. When I looked up “how Christians should love” there were still a lot of results but only 1.9% as many as how God loves. It is critically important for us to know that God loves us. The knowledge that God loves us is what has drawn most of us into the family of God. To find out the Creator of all things knows you, warts and all, and loves you, is a life-giving revelation for which there is no equal. The problem with this disparity around how much we talk about God’s love and how much we talk about our love is that many of us have stopped at knowing we are loved. If the entire point of a relationship with Jesus was merely discovering that we are loved and transitioning from being a creation of God to a member of His family, wouldn’t it make sense for salvation to be immediately followed by passage into eternity. It would be cool! Imagine you have the revelation that God loves you, you repent of your sins and then are swept up to heaven in a flaming chariot a la Elijah; or you discover the intense, sacrificial love of Jesus, repent of your sins and then, like Enoch, you just disappear (Genesis 5:24 tells us Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him). Tada…saved, instantly delivered into Paradise, eternal happily ever after. However, this is not the full intention of God’s love for us. Love is a multiplier. Love is meant to reproduce. That’s part of our responsibility as Christians (little Christs, little anointed ones) we are meant to reproduce the love that has been given to us by loving the same way we are loved.

Here’s a very quick look at how we are loved: 1 John 4:8 tells us that His love is perfect and expels fear, Romans 8:35-39 tells us that His love is secure and that nothing can separate us from that love, Ephesians 3:18-19 tells us that His love is so immense that we will never be able to fully understand the greatness of that love, Psalm 5:11-12 calls His love a shield in which we can take refuge, Psalm 36:5-7 tells us that His love is unfailing, Psalm 86:15 calls His love faithful and declares God to be full of compassion, mercy and patience, 1 John 3:1 calls us children of God because He has lavished His love on us, Ephesians 2:4 tells us that even though we were dead in sin, He made us alive with Christ because of His great love for us. These verses only scratch the surface of how He loves us.

Here’s a quick look at how we’re supposed to love: In John 13:34 Jesus tells us that we are supposed to love one another the same way he has loved us (just a quick reminder Jesus sacrificed himself to show his love for us, so you know big shoes to fill and whatnot!), 1 John 4:19-21 tells us that if we say we love God but hate our brother we are liars, because if we can’t love our brothers who we’ve seen we cannot love God who we’ve never seen, 1 John 3:16-18 tells us that we understand what love is because we know Jesus laid down his life for us, so we should be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters, we have to love with actions and truth, not just with words, Romans 12:10 says that we should love deeply and outdo one another in showing honor, Ephesians 4:32 instructs us to treat each other with kindness, compassion and forgiveness, Proverbs 17:17 tells us that we should love at all times, 1 Peter 1:22 lets us know we should love earnestly from a pure heart, John 13:35 tells us that the way people will know we are followers of Jesus is if we have love for each other. If the last few years are any indication, the little anointed ones have become very hard to identify. It can seem that in order to love each other we have to be the same in all things; beliefs, opinions, tastes and styles. We seem to have decided that in order to love each other we have to like each other and this brings me back to Smokey Robinson.

I Don’t Like You, But I Love You

Many moons ago, when I was a young, idealistic youth leader with my theology degree in hand, I set out to make an impact on the young lives entrusted to me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there were some of the youths that were challenging to appreciate.

I was telling my dad that I felt like a failure because I should adore all of the kids when he spoke some of the most freeing words I have ever heard. He said “Baby doll, you don’t have to like everyone, you just have to love them.” Mind blown! I don’t have to like everyone. Well of course not. There are some genuinely unlikeable people in the world. Odds are pretty good that there are people who think I’m a genuinely unlikeable person (believe me I get it). Even Jesus seems to have found some people unlikeable, or at least found their behavior unlikeable. We see him challenging and calling out Sadducees and Pharisees throughout his earthly ministry. We find Jesus having a discussion with Nicodemus, a Pharisee in John 3. I find it incredibly powerful that it is to a Pharisee that Jesus speaks John 3:16, one of the very first verses that most of us learn. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. This cornerstone verse about the love of God and the life saving gift of Jesus Christ is given to a member of one of the groups that Jesus referred to as hypocrites and broods of vipers, love poured out on the unlikeable. In John 19 we see this viperous hypocrite, this same Nicodemus, coming after the crucifixion to help prepare Jesus’ body for burial. In a moment when many of the disciples were nowhere to be found, this unlikeable man was risking his reputation to honor Jesus. What a beautiful picture of how love moves.

In Mark 12 a scribe asks Jesus which of the commandments is the most important and Jesus distills everything into two points. First, in Mark 12:30, he says “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Secondly, in verse 31, Jesus says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” In Matthew 7:12 Jesus gives additional insight into how we love others when he says “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” Over time this has come to be called the Golden Rule, the gold standard for how we should treat each other. We are to put all we have into loving God and, out of that love, flows love to those around us. Dr. Michael W. Waters put it so beautifully in the documentary “Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom”, he said “I think you can be distant from movement where you’ve not fully embraced the command of God to love your neighbor as yourself. When you love your neighbor as yourself, that’s not just a child over there that’s hurt, that’s my child. That’s not just a community over there that’s ostracized, that’s my community. You feel the pain through proximity.” In Genesis 1:27 we are told that humanity was created in the image of God. Like a piece of pottery bearing the fingerprint of the potter, every person that you meet bears the image of God, regardless of whether or not they acknowledge Him! Every person is not a child of God, sonship is reserved for those who are in relationship with Him through the redeeming power of Jesus, but that sonship, that adoption into the family of God, is available to everyone. Lately I have been wondering how these not-yet-adopted image-bearers are going to see Jesus. I can’t think of a single day in the past few years where I haven’t seen Christians completely forgetting that our love for each other is the way that other image-bearers will recognize that we belong to Jesus. I have seen progressives taking swipes at conservatives and conservatives throwing punches at progressives. Mocking, scoffing and shaming have become our favorite tools. We point to Jesus and how he called out the Pharisees and Sadducees completely ignoring the fact that he rarely talked about them when they weren’t around, he primarily addressed them directly. We choose to hide behind our social media walls thinking that these platforms give us the authority to reshape our brothers and sisters in our image and forget that it’s not our image that matters. It is the image of God that matters, and how we interact with each other, while calling ourselves little Christs, shapes how image-bearers see Jesus. There’s nothing wrong in calling out sin, there’s nothing wrong in sharing our preferences, there’s nothing wrong in giving voice to our concerns and having disagreements. Paul seems to have been a font of disagreements, we know that he and Peter had some theological scuffles (in Galatians 2). We also know that Paul and Barnabus parted company (in Acts 15), not over ideological differences but over personal opinion. The beauty of these disagreements is that we see (in 2 Timothy 4:11) that the rift was healed. Paul and Barnabus differed in personal opinion but were united in the necessity of sharing the love of God. Their disagreement resulted in a doubling of the good news being spread. We can disagree but we have to approach each other with neighborly love, even if we don’t like each other. We don’t have record of Paul bad-mouthing Peter or Barnabus every where he went. We have no record of Barnabus creating anti-Paul followers. We have no record of these little anointed ones celebrating when their brothers floundered, but history will have these records of us. We seem to put a tremendous amount of effort into making sure that people know who we don’t like. It is high time for the little Christs to take a step back and make sure that we are being known by our love…for each other! We’re good at being known by our love for our platforms, projects and preferences but is that pointing lost-image-bearers to Jesus? If your delicate sensibilities are bothered by this then you are going to hate this next bit.

“You’ve heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:43-48

We aren’t just commanded to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we’re not just commanded to love our neighbors, we are commanded to love our enemies! Not only is it possible to love someone we don’t like, we are explicitly told we have to love people we don’t like. The most vile tyrants to ever walk the earth are still made in the image of God. This means I have to love and pray for people regardless of political stance, theology, behavior, religion etc. We have this horrible habit of looking at people as our enemies. We scream at the “opposition” through our megaphones. We carry our picket signs and we vilify those we view as being against us. We make our stands against people bearing the image of God completely neglecting Ephesians 6:12-13 which reminds us that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” I have seen a tendency to behave like Peter during the arrest of Jesus. He tries to win a spiritual battle with human weapons and ends up hacking off someone’s ear. We are trying to wrestle with flesh and blood thinking that it will change the outcome and we forget that we’re in the middle of God’s great plan. Could you imagine what would happen if instead of shouting at each other through our megaphones to try and win whatever battle we’re fighting, the children of God crossed the dividing lines we created and threw our arms around the lost image-bearers in front of us? Loving like Jesus loves us requires action. Loving requires us to lay down our lives for our friends, it requires us to love our enemies, it requires us to pray for the ones who are persecuting us. Loving requires us to remember that we don’t fight by earthly means, “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:4

I’m not saying that we don’t hold convictions or that we embrace actions that violate the Word of God. I’m saying that as we walk out those convictions we do so through the lens of 1 Corinthians 13. We mostly use this for weddings and we usually start in verse 4 but when we’re talking about how we interact with people who bear the image of God, how we love the children of God, and even how we love our enemies we really need to start with verse 1.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The next time you’re about to go into the world, be it virtual or real, ask yourself how you are showing love. Are you Peter swinging wildly and chopping off ears? Are you rude or arrogant in how you’re sharing your thoughts? Are you insisting in your own way, irritable, resentful? Are your actions pointing to Jesus or are you just a noisy gong? I think that’s my biggest question for you today, especially when you are dealing with people you don’t like, are you loving them to Jesus? Honestly telling someone “I don’t like you, but I love you” is going to get you more traction than the most persuasive speeches. Especially, when that love is supported by actions that point image-bearers to the One in whose image they were created. Who knows, if we go around loving everyone, even those we find unlikeable, we might just find ourselves liking people a whole lot more.

Olive, Friends of Job and the Word Until

January 9, 2020August 1, 2021Leave a comment

At least once every other month I see the people of God arguing on social media and I start a blog post but I step back and think “am I adding to the noise or am I contributing to peace-making” and then I usually delete my post. This time I’m not deleting because I have a unique perspective on this particular argument and I want to share. It could be that I’m just adding to the noise but this time I feel like my noise might be valuable so here goes…

Very recently there was a church praying for the resurrection of a precious 2-year-old, Olive, who stopped breathing. This church family gathered to pray for God to miraculously resurrect Olive back to physical life. I saw a lot of people on social media joining the call to pray for resurrection for Olive. I was also introduced, through social media, to a large number of people decrying the prayers, worrying about the mental and emotional health of the parents and disparaging the church leaders who allowed this. The questions that come to us, as believers who look with great anticipation to an eternity in the presence of God, are many; why would we ever want to call someone back from the face to face presence of God, isn’t Olive better off where she is now, how can this be healthy for her family, shouldn’t they just accept their loss and move on, how is this fair to other people who’ve lost children and on the questions roll. I absolutely understand how disturbing and weird it can seem to pray for resurrection. I understand how nerve-wracking, uncomfortable and even fear inducing it can feel. I understand because I spent a week in October 2004 praying every night for resurrection, just like Olive’s family.

This is probably the most personal thing I will ever share, and I have been pretty candid with my posts so bear with me as I tell this story. I’m not asking you to believe my story but if you’re here I’m asking you to listen. On a random October evening in 2004 my dad suffered a massive brain aneurysm. His doctor told us that it was the worst brain bleed he had ever seen and that we shouldn’t expect Dad to make it through the night. My incredible, loving dad defied the odds and, even after suffering a second brain bleed in the hospital, he made daily progress much to the doctor’s astonishment. For several long weeks my days consisted of a morning trip to the hospital on my way to work and a hospital stop on my way home so that Mom could grab a bite to eat. I would get home, fix supper for my grandmother and younger brother and then I would try to psyche myself up for the next day. I loved the quiet mornings with Dad in the head trauma unit. He would wake up and talk to me about anything and nothing. The conversations were short because it took a lot of energy to talk and he was on a lot of meds. I wrote down everything we talked about in a journal for which I am incredibly grateful today! On Sunday, October 17, 2004 the phone rang letting us know that a blood clot had been dislodged from behind his knee and had caused a pulmonary embolism. I will never forget walking into the trauma unit and seeing the tear-filled eyes of all the nurses as we came through the doors. That was how I knew he was gone. The rest of that day is mostly a blur. I remember some specific moments but overall I just moved along in a state of shock. After making a few calls to out of town family, our pastor and close friends; my mom, brother and I got back in the car and drove to church, it was Sunday morning after all. That was home for us and those people were our family. We sat and worshiped, we were wrapped in hugs, enveloped in prayer and held by comforting hearts.

*Important note: I am one of those wonderfully weird charismatic Christians and everything that follows is through that lens.*

That evening the calls and emails started coming in from across the states, Canada, Mexico and from as far away as Paraguay, Zimbabwe, and Israel…pray for resurrection! Some people had seen visions or dreams that my dad showed up somewhere saying that he looked at his watch wrong. Others just called to say that they knew that God was asking us to believe for something miraculous and they would stand with my family. Without hesitation, beginning on Monday night a small group of friends gathered with us at our church to pray for my dad to be resurrected from the dead. We prayed every night until Saturday when we had his memorial and buried his body. You might be saying “Wait! Your dad wasn’t miraculously resurrected?!” and I will answer “not this time” but stay with me, I promise that I’m getting somewhere!

Why did we pray without hesitation? That is a miraculous story in and of itself. I knew a little bit about the story growing up but Dad didn’t really talk about it because he didn’t remember it well. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I heard my grandfather tell the whole story while he was preaching on the resurrection power of Jesus at a little church in Louisville, KY. I’m giving you the short version of a very long story. My dad had seizures as a child and young teen which were thought to be related to a bad case of Scarlet Fever (it wasn’t until my youngest brother started having seizures that we realized it was a genetic thing). When Dad was 14 he was fishing in a Texas river with my grandfather, my uncle and a family friend. While standing in the river Dad had a massive seizure and drowned. It took over an hour and a half to get to any sort of civilization. He had been completely unresponsive, had taken no breaths and was declared dead. From the moment that Dad was fished out of the river until that pronouncement of death, my grandfather held my dad’s head in his hands and spoke into his ears. He declared over and over the words of Psalm 118:17 – you shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord, into my dad’s ears. He begged God to let his son live for the sake of my precious grandmother. You see my dad’s oldest brother had been killed in a car accident years before at the young age of 21 and it nearly destroyed my tender-hearted Grandma. Grandpa reminded God of every promise he could remember and refused to give up! He fought in every way he knew how for his son’s life and God listened! My dad, miraculously, coughed up buckets of sludge, sand and river water and began to breath. He went from a stiff, blue corpse to a warm, breathing, perfectly whole pink body in a matter of minutes with absolutely no physical evidence of what had happened. The only thing my dad ever told me about this event was that he wasn’t really serving the Lord at this time and he didn’t know what his eternal destination would have been and it was the grace of God that he was given his life back. In addition to my dad, I grew up being taught in both church and elementary school by an incredible woman, Grace, who was resurrected back to life. Grace was shown a glimpse of Heaven but she would only ever talk about Jesus and how his eyes were full of love and I have also known Joel for almost my entire life. He is a Haitian pastor who died as a child and was resurrected in the coffin on the way to his funeral. I always chuckle when I think of how shocked people must have been to hear the sneeze coming from inside his coffin.

My dad had already been resurrected from the dead once so it wasn’t a big leap to think that it could happen again. I mentioned that we gathered with a small group of friends but we weren’t the only ones praying. All our international friends, the kids at my brother’s college and other loved ones far and wide joined us every night that week in October. I was comforted by the routine of those nights; curling up on the floor under the pews I had grown up in, hearing familiar voices calling out to God, crying and hoping with people who had helped raise me in the faith, those nights spent seeking God strengthened me for what was to come. I was amazed at the great, expectant faith all around me but deep inside I was terrified. I harbored an intense fear that if I didn’t believe enough it wouldn’t happen. I believed without an ounce of doubt that God could raise my daddy from the grave but I didn’t know if He would. I didn’t know if I believed enough. I didn’t know if I had even a mustard seed’s worth of faith and it tormented me…until. I love the word until because it is pregnant with promise. Until means something is coming and my until was one of the singlemost revelatory faith-building moments in my life and it completely changed me. I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling because I didn’t want to burden anyone or cause anyone else to feel afraid. I wanted to be strong for my family, honor my precious Dad and have faith in my Redeemer so I just kept going, planning a funeral, meeting people at airports, coordinating food drop offs, taking care of my grandmother who lived with us and so on. Eventually I mustered up the courage to tell my mom. She had given her bedroom to my grandparents and was sleeping in my room. I confessed my fears to her and she told me the last thing I ever expected to hear. She didn’t tell me that she shared my fears or that it was going to be okay or anything you might expect. What she told me was that she had awoken every night that week to discover me praying in tongues in my sleep. I have always been a sleep-talker, my college roommates could tell you some great stories, but this was different. Mom said that I was praying with intensity and she would lay there and join me. I had and still to this day have no recollection of praying in my sleep all those nights. That was my until, it was a recognition that greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world, I understood that my flesh was weak but my spirit was willing and for the first time I really felt like I actively understood Romans 8:26. I didn’t know what to pray or how to pray and my conscious self was struggling but the Holy Spirit was interceding for me and I could rest in the hands of the Comforter. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew that my spirit was in tune with the Holy Spirit and I could believe without fear that whatever God had in store would be for the ultimate good of those involved. I have sat under some of the most incredible Biblical scholars alive, I have graduated from Bible College, I have seen miraculous healings with my own eyes but this week of praying for something outlandish was one of the most important periods of growth in my spiritual walk. It has been a steadying point at times where I didn’t think I could keep going. It has become a reminder that I am not alone no matter what the circumstance. It reinforces every verse and promise about how God cares for me and guess what?! We buried my dad on October 21, 2004, he wasn’t miraculously brought back to life for a second time. But there is still an until!

So this brings me back to Olive and social media and the point of this post. As I got sucked into the morass of negativity on Twitter I kept finding myself thinking again and again of Job’s friends. They had the best of intentions but they brought him nothing of real value. They brought accusations and empty words when they thought they were giving him wisdom of the highest caliber. I began to feel deeply saddened for these people who seemed to have lost their childlike belief that God can do anything. This is the God who created all things, split the Red Sea, held the Sun in place during a battle, commands angel armies and provided salvation to all; just to name a few small things. I was heartbroken for people who seemed to be more concerned with labeling people as heretics than about following Romans 12:15-16 which says “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.Never be wise in your own sight.” I understand the importance of making sure that our actions line up with the Word of God and in my own circles, with people I know and whose lives I can see, I am quick to speak up if I see something out of whack. I trust those same people to do the same if they see me going out on a spiritual tangent. I get exhausted with the way that we, and by we I mostly mean the North American church because that’s where I live, seem to feel like we have the right to share our opinion just because we have an avenue to share our opinion. I’m all about calling out foolishness and we have some great examples of people doing just that in the Bible (I’m looking at you Jesus and especially you Paul). The thing about Paul that is different from the Twitter-ranting crowd is pretty simple. Paul was an overseer with responsibility to watch over specific groups of people and he was writing letters to those under his care about immediate threats to their spiritual wellbeing. If you’re a pastor or parent who isn’t doing the same thing for your congregation or family then you aren’t doing your job; but if you are just jumping into public forums calling people out because you can are you actually protecting or training anyone or are you simply causing division. Whenever I see church arguments played out in public forums John 13:35 comes to mind “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” It is absolutely possible to show love to someone with whom I disagree and still speak with wisdom, cautioning those who I know personally to carefully seek the Word for how to respond to potential heresies. What would it cost to publicly encourage Olive’s parents or others like them, mourn with them, rejoice with them and still privately share your thoughts and concerns with those who you personally know? The answer is nothing, absolutely nothing. What fruit might grow from a public display of love? Oh so much! What if our entire approach to social media was the classic “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all?”

Okay back to the until…Olive didn’t miraculously get up from her coffin like my friend Joel, Dad didn’t walk out of his grave but that doesn’t mean that all those prayers went unanswered! We won’t see them…until…but we will see them. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words. – I Thessalonians 4:13-18. I can’t wait until…

Questions

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019Leave a comment

The pain of the unknown washes over me and I wonder…at what point did I surrender good sense? When did I give up my autonomy? How could I have been so careless? But it was God wasn’t it?! I was so sure I heard him. It was confirmed over and over again, but was it really…if the confirmation was only in my own heart…did it happen if no one else witnessed the confirmation? The heart is wicked and deceitful! Have I been duped? Have I been a pawn? I just sit back and keep it all inside. I never push back, I never request answers. I never hold accountable… because I am afraid the answer will be my deepest fears. If someone else were in these shoes I would tell them to run but here I stand with some twisted sense that I’m being faithful to Someone beyond, who sees what I can’t see. I stand in faith waiting for a joyful end. I stand letting hope break over me like crashing waves, feeling simultaneously warmed and torn assunder by each new wave, all the time fighting the niggling voice in the back of my mind that says I am just letting the tide pull the ground from under my feet. Let the tide come! I know the voice, I know who I follow and if the shore is far behind me, if the hope is dashed on rocks of grief and loss, I will walk on water to the promise.

A Good Cry

April 20, 2019April 21, 20191 Comment

It’s Friday, just another Friday. It’s mid-April 2019. The view from my window is a bit hazy and the weather forecast is calling for rain, rain and more rain. The news is full of tragedy and triumph, depending on your political persuasion. All appearances would lead you to believe it is just a normal day but, as we well know, looks can be deceiving.

I have been fighting back tears all day. They come without warning as I’m going about my “just another Friday” routine…morning commute, spreadsheets, conversation with co-workers, random errands, etc. These are inconvenient tears for a busy day but I embrace them completely.

I am a good person, or so I have been told by friends and loved ones. This good person (again by outside reports) is kind, sweet, funny, nice to children and old people, loving to family and friends, giving and caring, never killed anyone or stolen anything, not a home-wrecker, a good citizen and faithful taxpayer who votes responsibly, compassionate to man and beast alike, a goody-two-shoes and generally a pretty boringly good person who leads a life devoid of scandal. My second favorite book, the dictionary, defines good as morally excellent, virtuous, righteous, pious, of satisfactory or high quality. I am a good person and that is why I can’t stop crying.

Remember…looks can be deceiving.

You see, I know that beneath my good appearance lies deep darkness. On any given day, to be honest, at any given moment, there is jealousy, insecurity, anger, selfishness, laziness, lust and a whole host of other unpleasant, rotten, vile and wicked tendencies bubbling in my heart and mind. This good person is mean, judgmental, harsh, cruel, has a sharp biting tongue and a quick wit that can tear you limb from limb (ask my brothers they’ll confirm without hesitation), is unyielding, demanding, demeaning and rude. I know, I know this is just being human. Everyone has bad days, rough moments, frustrations and thoughts that would make a sailor blush. That doesn’t mean you’re not a good person, right? Well, this good person has never killed anyone or destroyed a marriage or anything even remotely like that; but if it’s the thought that counts then murder, adultery, theft, hatred and limitless violence are all in the mix of this good person! This isn’t why I can’t stop crying, I mean really, this good person has no remorse and cries for no one but her petulant self.

So why the tears?

This is the day that I remember what makes me a truly, genuinely good person. In an almost mystical, wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey sort of way, a few thousand years ago a man chose me above himself. In anguish and desperation, in a garden, he chose to follow through with a plan concocted at the beginning of time. This man was the only truly good man who has ever set foot on this spinning blue planet. He was the only person who didn’t hide an “it’s only human nature” heart of darkness beneath his goodness. He was completely, wholly, remarkably good, in the dictionary sense.

Today is Good Friday, some people call it Glorious Friday, Great Friday or Crucifixion Day. This is the day when Christians remember the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This is the day we honor the choice that was made by a morally excellent, virtuous, righteous, absolutely perfect man. Every single day of my life is caught up in this choice. Jesus chose to take on my heart of darkness and carry it with him through torture and suffering into a grave to be buried forever and to add victory to victory he came out of that grave with the incredible gift of life in partnership with him. He took the weight of the darkness and in return gave freedom that I can hardly begin to understand or attempt to explain. I still have thoughts that embarrass me and emotions that try to rule me and I still mess up in spectacular fashion. The difference is that I am no longer bound to the ugly darkness hiding behind a mask of false goodness. I am truly, genuinely good because Jesus has made me good. Any darkness that tries to pin itself to me is quickly handled and conquered. I cry because I am grateful. I am chosen and loved and free and grateful. I tear up because I remember again the deep darkness that was my soul. I cry cleansing, happy tears because I stand surrounded and supported by a valiant hero who will never fail. I wipe my eyes and I marvel that thousands of years before I existed I was known. I was planned for, fought for and won by the ultimate Good!

This might not resonate with you at all. You might be a completely lovely, incredibly perfect person who is unquestionably good. You might not struggle with the hidden darkness that I did. That’s great! I’m very happy for you and glad that you are alive in the world. I’m simply sharing my story. My story just happens to be wrapped up in a very old story that has been shared by generations of people from all over the world. Vast numbers of diverse people who have realized that their goodness wasn’t really good at all and have found a true, real and living Good who has made all the darkness completely powerless. My story is one of a person, not a good person but a human person, who has been made good by an incorruptable Goodness. I live my life knowing that all the things about me that are called good by my friends and family are really the result of my relationship with the greatest Good. If you want to know more about my story I will gladly share it anytime but right now my heart is so full it’s leaking out my eyes…

I think I’m going to go have a good cry.

What are you looking at?

January 12, 2018October 10, 2020Leave a comment

When I was little, there was a woman at church who would always go to the front of the room and dance very expressively, when worship started. I grew up in a church where most people danced but they didn’t rush to the front of the room, they simply danced at their seat or in an aisle. I would often find myself watching her and in my great wisdom (I was probably all of 10 years old, so I knew everything already) I would think “she shouldn’t do that, she’s distracting people, does she just want everyone to see her, that’s not very godly”. One week, as we walked to the car after church, I voiced these thoughts to my dad, expecting him to agree with my wisdom and commend me for my maturity. I will never forget the look of disappointment that crossed his face (I’m tearing up as I write this because it comes back to my mind’s eye so vividly) which startled me because it was the last thing I expected to see. He gently grabbed my shoulders and turned me to look directly into his eyes and he said something to me which has been a hallmark and cornerstone in my life. He said “Babydoll, why are you so concerned with someone else’s worship? All you’ve told me is that you have been looking at the wrong thing. You haven’t been focusing on God. You don’t have the right to judge another’s worship when you aren’t even offering up your own.” I was hurt by what he said because I always wanted to make him proud and I felt like I’d let him down but his words captured my attention. The next Sunday as my eyes would drift to the lady dancing at the front (who I have to tell you was one of the sweetest most sincere people you could ever meet) I remembered what my dad said and I turned my concentration back to God.

Now that I have added enough years to my age to recognize that I really know very little I still cling to those words my dad spoke to me a lifetime ago, “…you have been looking at the wrong thing. You haven’t been focusing on God.” They come to me when I feel like something is askew in my world. These words have led me time and time again to seek out other words that keep moving me in the same direction that my dad pointed to so many moons ago; “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3, “He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.” Psalm 112:7 (this one held me afloat the year my dad died), “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.” Psalm 91:14

In our Christian platitudes we often compare Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with the physical Sun. We talk about how our lives are supposed to revolve around Jesus “the Son” the way our planet revolves around the Sun and this is true but it doesn’t encompass the whole truth. It’s not a full picture because, while we’re encouraged not to look directly at the Sun, lest we be blinded (expensive eclipse glasses ring a bell), if we stop looking at Jesus we will spin out of our proper orbit. Hebrews 12:1-2 encourages us to “…run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…” Some translations say “fixing your eyes on Jesus” and I love the way that this wording illustrates the point. If I am fixed or fixated on something then all my concentration is on it. The next verse, Hebrews 12:3 hits this point again when it encourages us to “consider him…so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted”. Thinking carefully about Jesus, about every facet of him, is critical if we want to grow in our faith. It is even more critical if we are feeling our faith slipping away.

In the past several years I have watched as people who I know, love and admire have turned away from the church, their faith and ultimately Jesus. These people run the gamut from dear friends to acquaintances to artists, teachers and musicians who I may not personally know but who have deeply impacted my life. I have observed some key commonalities among these souls. Each of them started out with passion about something good; social justice projects like fighting poverty and rescuing people trafficked in sex trades, challenging hypocrisy and sin in the house of God, helping others to find healing from life’s wounds, teaching people how to exercise self-care so as not to become burnt out by life, all really good things, important things, necessary things to be passionate about.

I have noticed that in each of these situations the slide away from faith always starts with a shift in focus. It usually comes out as hyper-awareness of the cause that they’re involved with. This is the most dangerous moment because they still think they are okay. They repeat certain popular verses and quotes repeatedly (i.e. “faith without works is dead” or “I need to put my oxygen mask on before I can help another put theirs on”) to justify the intensity of their focus on their passion but if you’re listening you’ll notice little shifts that show a new shallowness to the scope of their conversation. They stop talking about the spiritual thrust behind their good works. They stop bringing new insights from the Word of God into conversation. They begin to talk more about the difficulties of what they’re pursuing than the gains. That’s always how it starts, a subtle shift in focus.

The next thing that I have seen is a distancing from the church. This often starts with quiet complaints about how people aren’t embracing their cause or statements about how “this church isn’t meeting my needs”. They will begin to ask questions like “how can a loving God allow so much pain and evil in the world?”. You’ll start hearing them talk about hypocrisy in the church and they’ll regularly talk about people who they’ve met through their causes who don’t follow God but are absolutely incredible people. I get this, I really do! I struggle with the church because I have grown up in the church and have pastors hanging off so many branches of my family tree it’s astonishing. I have seen the good, bad and ugly in every shape and form. I’ve taught Sunday School for every age group from infant to adult. I have worked at a bible college, Christian theatre and church finance office. I have been a youth leader, worship leader and dramatic arts leader. I have taught, preached, counseled and then some. I’m just trying to point out that when it comes to church stuff I have been around. I have seen abuses of every kind take place inside a church. I have been verbally abused by leaders who were supposed to care for my soul. I have watched precious men and women get used up and tossed away without so much as an apology. I have seen people full of hope get crushed over and over until their hope is dashed. In all that I have seen and experienced I have come to this one overwhelming conclusion about the church. It is full of people and people are the worst! I love going to church when no one is there and the building is quiet and peaceful but I realize that the instant I walk into that quiet and peaceful building I have just ruined it. I am a people and I am the worst! This is part of the problem with losing focus on Jesus. The instant you stop focusing on him you stop looking at people through his grace-filled eyes. You begin to concentrate on the ugliness in the church and not the incredible work that God is doing as he purifies his people. Honestly, there are some days when I am standing on the stage getting ready to help lead worship and I look at the congregation and I think “boy, it’s a good thing I’m already saved because if you told me that becoming a Christian meant I would have to be like these people I would run as fast and as far as I could”. I’m pretty sure that there are people who think that when they look at me too (as previously mentioned I am the worst!). The beauty is that when I fix my eyes on Jesus, when I remember not to judge the lady dancing wildly at the front of the sanctuary, I find myself loving all of these people. I remember that they are just like me and if Jesus can make something valuable out of my life then he can do the same with all these other messes in the church. There is incredible strength, compassion, wisdom, joy, comfort, love and so many other amazing qualities that are revealed in the church when our focus is in the right place. It doesn’t mean that we ignore or gloss over the issues, it simply puts the issues in the frame of God’s greater picture and provides the grace to work through them. When we stop focusing on Jesus we get hyper-critical of everyone but ourselves. We either get so focused on what we think are their problems that we forget that we must choose to love one another or we get so focused on our value that we devalue those people who don’t measure up to our standards.

The final step in this slide away from faith is sliding away from Jesus. It generally comes with lots of uses of the word “spiritual” instead of “Christian”. There’s a concentration on how everything feels instead of what the Bible says about a situation. The biggest sign is when they stop using the name Jesus. Why? When you personalize someone by calling them by name you have to recognize who they are. I have a friend who became deeply offended with a family member and over time I noticed that my friend just stopped calling this person by name. They would refer to them by title “my _____” in conversation so you’d know who they were talking about but when these people were in the same room my friend would never once say the other persons name. It was weird to say the least. I have also seen the reverse where someone referred to another person by a term of endearment but after an argument began to call that person by their formal first name. What you call someone and how you refer to them speaks volumes about your relationship. When people stop using the name Jesus it speaks of broken relationship. If they haven’t completely walked away from their faith yet then you’ll usually hear them use Christ or simply God instead of Jesus. A simple Google search (or several years studying theology) will show you that Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is a title indicating that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah. In the original Greek it is Christos and it means anointed one. When you say Christ you are referring to an office not a person. It’s the same with God. That is not a name, it is a descriptor. God never reveals his name, although in the Bible he gives us many things to call him based on his character, and so we use the term god which refers to a supreme being and we spell it with a capital G to indicate that he is the highest, most supreme but it’s not his name. The Bible has a lot to say about the name Jesus. Acts 4 shows us Peter and John talking to the religious leaders about a crippled man who had been healed. In verse 10 Peter says “let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.” Peter goes on to make a very powerful statement in verse 12, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Peter doesn’t say there’s no other title or term. He says there is no other NAME. In Luke 1:31 the angel, Gabriel, comes to Mary to announce God’s plan to bring a Savior into the world. Gabriel give specific instructions about the name of the Messiah. He told Mary “you shall call his name Jesus.” In Matthew 1:20-21 an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and instructs him to name the baby Jesus. In verse 25 of the same chapter it says “And he called his name Jesus”. One of my favorite verses about the name of Jesus is Philippians 2:9-11 “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” There is so much importance tied up in the name of Jesus which is why it is such a glaring signal when someone stops using it. As I mentioned before, it speaks of broken relationship.

My Grandma Maxwell used to sit at the piano and sing old hymns and through her I learned to treasure some of the old songs that we don’t often sing anymore. One of my favorites is this one:

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conqu’rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

As Christians, anointed ones, we are supposed to impact the world around us. We’re supposed to do justly and love mercy. Luke 10:27 tells us that we have two major functions. First “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,” and secondly we love “your neighbor as yourself.” When we put the second part ahead of the first then we lose focus. When we don’t love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind we lose purpose. If our focus remains on Jesus then we will not be destroyed. We won’t be left unfinished or without purpose. Look at Hebrews 12:2 again “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Focus on Jesus, the founder and perfecter and you will be established and made complete. It takes time, effort and practice to focus on Jesus but it’s the same in any relationship. If you want to know someone you spend time and you concentrate on them. If you find your focus shifting and your heart becoming unsettled ask yourself “What are you looking at?”

On Release and Restoration

September 23, 2015September 23, 20152 Comments

I want to preface this post with a warning that there is little whimsy within. This is a serious topic that has been heavy on my heart for some time. I finally decided to put my pen to paper, technically my fingers to keyboard but you get the gist. I have been thinking about the parable of the Prodigal Son a lot lately. I have shared my thoughts with family and a few friends thinking that in sharing my thoughts I might free my mind to move to a new topic but this story has stuck with me so I am sharing my thoughts with you.

Luke 15 is a collection of lost things. It is, for me, a very visual chapter. Jesus, the master of truth as story, beautifully shows us the desperation of God’s heart for the lost. It is a short chapter which recounts three tales; a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son. We often concentrate on the lost son and ignore the other lost items in this passage but if you look at them in their entirety you see that the unifying thread doesn’t play out the way we expect it to. First, Jesus tells the story of a man who, having 100 sheep, leaves 99 in order to go find the lost sheep. Secondly, he tells the story of a woman who, having lost one of 10 silver coins, searches every nook and cranny of her house until it is found. Both of these stories end with the man and woman calling their friends together to celebrate the recovery of that which was lost. Jesus tells us, at the end of each of these stories, that there is rejoicing in heaven when a sinner repents. I have always loved that thought. I remember when I become a found sheep and I was so excited at the thought of, as my dad always put it, partay time in Heaven, on my account. Finally, Jesus tells us the story of a man who had two sons. The younger son came to his father, asked for his inheritance and shortly thereafter took off only to find himself penniless, friendless and envying the posh lifestyle of pigs. He wises up, heads home and, just like the man and woman in the previous two stories, his father calls all his friends to come and celebrate the finding of what was lost.

As I kept reading this chapter over and over I had a realization about these stories and why they felt slightly disconnected to me. I looked at the three lost things and the ones who had lost them and found some very powerful instructions for us. As a public service announcement I’m about to, as my Grandpa Gill would say, “quit preaching and go to meddling” so please be prepared for the possibility of uncomfortable moments ahead. Here we go, let’s dive in and I’ll share my realizations on:

The Parable of the Lost Sheep – The Unknowing Lost

I have the unusual perspective of having worked with sheep in years past and I learned very quickly that sheep are not the sharpest knives in God’s drawer. We read that the sheep were in the wilderness or open country, they were not in a pen or sheepfold. They were free to graze wherever they wanted and a sheep will stumble into danger very quickly. It doesn’t seem at all unlikely that a sheep, in open wilderness, will wander off into the unknown. They are not wise, they are not crafty or devious, but they just don’t pay attention to where their stomachs lead them. It is a shepherds duty to be mindful of where the sheep are. He cares for them because they can’t care for themselves. If a sheep is lost there is a high probability that it will not be long for this world. There is great joy when the defenseless lost one is brought back because the shepherd knows the danger of the wilderness that the sheep cannot begin to comprehend.

The Parable of the Lost Coin – The Overlooked Lost

The lost coin is in a different situation. It is lost in a place of safety. It is lost at home. The coin can’t wander off (although my money does seem to fly out of my pockets with unprecedented speed sometimes). The coin has been lost because someone lost it. There is no evidence of theft or malicious intent, just a lost item. It makes me think of the old adage “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. There’s no danger facing the coin, it simply has to be looked for. It was misplaced and neglected, probably in the busyness of every day life. Once she realized the coin was missing, the woman thoroughly searched her whole house. With great effort and determination she turned on the light and put some elbow grease into finding it. Anyone who’s ever done a spring cleaning only to discover misplaced or forgotten treasures among the dust bunnies and cobwebs knows the feeling of elation when a lost item has been recovered. You feel giddy, excited and accomplished when you find what you set out to find. When something has been lost its value is so much greater because you have a clearer understanding of what it is really worth to you. And now to the main event…

The Parable of the Lost Son – The Willful Lost

Oftentimes, when we talk about this story we concentrate on the prodigal and his journey to restoration but I found myself concentrating on the Father (just a little note…when I was sharing my thoughts with family and friends I discovered that my friend, Jason, was studying the same verses and he wrote a wonderful post about the Older Brother on his blog thechristiansage.blogspot.com, you should check it out). What stood out to me was the stark difference in the behavior of the Father in this story compared with the behavior of the man and woman in the previous parables. In the sheep parable it says that man goes after the lost sheep UNTIL HE FINDS IT. In the coin parable it says that woman seeks diligently UNTIL SHE FINDS IT. When his younger son comes to him and asks for his inheritance the Father hands it over. He knows his son, he knows what’s going to happen but he gives him his inheritance and, then in complete reversal of the preceding stories, HE LETS HIM GO. He doesn’t take off on horseback searching highways and byways, cities and towns. He lets him go! You see he understands something about this lost item that we seem to have forgotten in the church today. This wasn’t a lost sheep in open pasture, following his natural bent, or a coin in safety that had been misplaced or overlooked. This was a fully formed son who had been trained to recognize the value of his Father’s land, taught about the riches of his inheritance. He had been raised in the Father’s house, given every tool he would ever need to be part of the Father’s vision for the house. This was a son who willfully, intentionally left the safety of his Father’s house and the Father LET HIM GO! We know from the story that the son came to the end of himself and realized that, even if it was just as a servant, he would be better off in his Father’s house than where his own passion and desires had taken him. We also know that when he returned the Father, didn’t just throw a celebration, like the man and woman in the stories before, he saw him from far away and took off running to gather his son into his arms again. We have heralded this act of redemptive love in books, songs and more messages than one could probably listen to in a lifetime. (Here’s where the meddling intensifies) We have worked so hard to behave like and identify with this Father who loves without recrimination, who embraces his filthy, impoverished son with rapturous joy and blamelessness that we have totally missed the behavior of the Father up to this point. The Father let his son go and didn’t just let him go but let him go with no expectation of ever seeing his son again. We can see evidence of this in the last verse of the chapter where he says to his older son “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead…” How many people do you know who are desperately trying to hold on to a lost son, a willful, intentional lost son, by any means necessary? How many of us are turning a blind eye to sin in order to keep the prodigal from leaving? How many of us have skipped ahead to the end of the story and embraced the prodigal with no recrimination and great celebration without ever releasing them to pursue their own lust and come to the end of themselves? It makes me think of 1 Corinthians 5. Paul is dealing with the church about a man who is willfully lost to sin and Paul gives a bold instruction to them. He tells them to deliver the man to Satan…WHAT?! He essentially tells the church to give the man over to follow his own sinful lusts, not because Paul was a sadist but for a much higher purpose…so that the lost man’s spirit may be saved. Paul continues to remind the church that there were people that they weren’t to associate with, the sexually immoral, the greedy and swindlers, the idolaters, drunkards and so on, but he wasn’t talking about those out in the wilderness. Paul was talking about the willful lost in the Father’s own house. He didn’t give instruction to make them feel safe and welcome. He didn’t give instruction to validate their feelings and let them know that they were loved just as they were. Paul’s instruction was that the church was not to associate with these willful lost, not even to eat with them; in fact he ends this part of his letter with the statement “purge the evil person from among you”.The Father, like Paul, knew something important and valuable that we have forgotten. He knew that until his son recognized the value of the Father’s house he would never be able to truly be part of the Father’s house. He would be on the inside looking out and never be able to appreciate the sheer goodness of his Father’s house. Paul wasn’t suggesting that the willful lost be cut off in an effort to be cruel. Paul was looking beyond the here and now. He clearly states that the purposes of this releasing is for the saving of the spirit.The Father released his son, with full expectation that he would die before he saw him again. He knew that until his son had reached the bottom of his barrel there would never be a need for his redemptive, restoring love. When we are unable to release our sons we are making a very simple, incredibly dangerous statement. We are saying that we do not trust God. That’s it. We have allowed sin to stay, not just stay but be comfortable, in the camp because we do not trust God to care for the lost. The shepherd who searched until he found, the woman who diligently worked until she found, the Father who released with no expectation and received with restoring love…we trust our own powers to keep over His mighty, gentle hand. We allow fear and intimidation to deceive us into thinking that we can somehow love these willful lost into restoration. That’s not what the parable tells us. The willful lost must be released to God’s care because His infinite care is the only thing that will call the willful lost home. How many times have we delayed the Prodigal’s return because we never let him go? How many times have we run ahead and cleaned up the pigsty so that the willful lost won’t know the sting of their choices? How many times have we allowed a little sin to infiltrate our mindsets, values and morals for the sake of preserving a willful lost soul and not realized it until it was too late? If you have a prodigal, a willful lost, one who has been raised in the Father’s house LET THEM GO! Let them go with no expectation of return. Trust God to do what He does best, lead them by His loving hand to the place where they recognize the value of His house. Break the chains of fear and intimidation that you have allowed to bind you and release the prodigal. You cannot restore what has never been truly and sincerely lost. A willfully lost soul can’t see the need for restoration until they come to the end of their own will and find God’s will instead. I am sure that the Father of the lost son spent many hours praying, crying and hurting but I am also sure that in that moment of return all those tears were returned as joy. You see the Father trusted God. We get this beautiful hint when we read that he saw his son from afar off. He had no expectation of his son’s return but he hoped and so he watched for him. No one had to tell the Father that his son was coming, there was no unexpected knock at the door. He was watching and waiting and when he saw that precious humbled heart making his weary way home the Father ran. He ran to offer restoration before it was ever asked of him, he ran to offer love and compassion because his son was finally ready to receive it. Stop holding on to what you have no right to! Give your prodigal to God for the saving of their spirit and buy a good pair of running shoes because you have a glorious sprint to train for.

He Gets Me!

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015Leave a comment

I have been thinking a lot about mistakes lately. I make them, you make them, we all make mistakes. Most of the time mistakes are silly and unintentional, simply the result of not focusing on the task at hand (like going into the men’s room at Panera because you aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing). The mistakes that have been circling the drain of my consciousness have been the mistakes made through willful disobedience. There have been times where I have made choices based solely on my own desires, without regard for consequence or godly obedience. I’m not talking about the traditional good-church-girl taboos, I am talking about putting my desires above the needs of others. I am talking about choosing to serve myself and not those around me. These are mistakes that have led me to speak hurtful things to loved ones or be careless with someone else’s pain in an effort to get my own way. Selfishness leads to all sorts of disastrously elegant tangles that require nothing less than the mighty hand of God for extrication!

In the midst of my mistake centered pondering I was reading Lamentations (you know, the party book of the Old Testament) and I came across one of my favorite passages. I always forget that it’s in Lamentations because it inspires such hope and, let’s face it, a book with the word Lament in the title doesn’t seem to be the instinctual place to go when you’re looking for hope or a little cheering up. I love so many things about this passage. It comes after a diatribe about afflictions and sufferings with phrases like “though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer” or “my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is”. There are some very intense tribulations going on. There is discouragement,dismay and disillusionment and then there is verse 22:

Lamentations 3:22-24

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul “therefore I will hope in him.”

When I read this verse I usually focus on the fact that God’s love is steadfast and never-ceasing. I get inspired by the depth of his faithfulness and mercies that never end. I know that I’ve talked about new morning mercies with loads of people at one time or another but for some reason what struck me this time was that the mercies are new EVERY morning. It doesn’t just say that God’s mercy is never-ending or perpetual or always available. It says that his mercies are new.

I should probably interject here that I love reading the dictionary. I love etymology (the study of origins of words – not entomology which is the study of insects, although I’m sure that the study of insects has produced some fascinating, colorful language). I pulled up my old favorite, Noah Webster’s 1828, and looked up a few of the descriptors in this passage. New has some terrific definitions; “lately made, invented, produced or come into being; renovated, repaired so as to recover the first state; fresh after any event” etc. but my favorite was this one, “not before used”. Next on my plate was Every. Noah only has one definition for every; “Each individual of a whole collection or aggregate number. The word includes the whole number, but each separately stated or considered”. When talking about mornings, the word every, in this verse, includes all mornings collectively and each morning individually. All mornings to ever exist are included in this every. Now for the main event, Mercy. Here is what dear Noah has to say about mercy and his definition is so beautiful that I can make no addition; “That benevolence, mildness or tenderness of heart which disposes a person to overlook injuries, or to treat an offender better than he deserves; the disposition that tempers justice, and induces an injured person to forgive trespasses and injuries, and to forbear punishment, or inflict less than law or justice will warrant. In this sense, there is perhaps no word in our language precisely synonymous with mercy That which comes nearest to it is grace. It implies benevolence, tenderness, mildness, pity or compassion, and clemency, but exercised only towards offenders. mercy is a distinguishing attribute of the Supreme Being.”

I was struck again by the magnificence of this hope. Each morning, every morning, God provides benevolence, tenderness, mildness, pity or compassion and clemency (to forgive or to spare, tenderness in punishing, disposition to treat with favor and kindness) to me, the offender. Why? Because He knows me! The God of the universe knows me. He knows that I’m just as likely to be mean-spirited as I am to wander into the wrong restroom. He knows that I struggle with selfish motivation on every day that has a morning. He knows that I juggle potential mistakes like a circus pro. He gets me and, because my loving, Heavenly Father gets me, He made a way for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other when the cold hand of reality slaps me with the gravity of my mistakes. He gives new mercies every day because He knows me. Don’t get me wrong, the presence of mercy is not license to make mistakes willy-nilly. In fact, the presence of new mercy every day is evidence of such incredible, compassionate love that it should inspire the desire to be proven worthy of such benevolence. That is where the hope comes from. I have hope that each day, when given the opportunity, I will choose others over self, I will recognize the value of mercy and, through God’s great faithfulness, I will honor the mercy of the day with obedience and love. (Although you might still find me in the wrong restroom someday, blushing wildly and scrambling for the door.)

Prayer, Praise, and Ice Cream

The secrets to my survival

Category: Rocky Road