The Snake Pit

“Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.”

Numbers 21:6-9

So Israel screws up (again) and as a result, God’s hand of blessing and protection are removed long enough to result in an epidemic of snakes infiltrating the area where they live. The snakes lead Israel to repentance, and with that repentance they make a request: they want Moses to ask God to take away the snakes.

But God didn’t take away the snakes. People still got bit. They still had to have their guard up. However, God did provide a means of deliverance from total destruction. If they trusted in God enough to look to the solution he provided, they wouldn’t die.

I think we often pray and ask God to take away sin and temptation from our lives. We often pray that God would remove challenges and difficult circumstances.

But sometimes, that isn’t his plan. We still get bitten, we still have to deal with dangers lurking around us. Sin still stalks us through the corridors of life.

We can choose whether to let it destroy us completely, or to look to the solution God provided: his Messiah that hung suspended between heaven and earth on the cross. In looking to him, we find that we are allowed to live and not die. We are delivered from that things that would normally destroy us.

I sometimes wish that God would just take away the snakes and let me live a life of comfort and peace. But I don’t get a vote. So I am left with two choices: look to cross and receive life or spite myself by ignoring him.

I hate being snakebit. I don’t like having to deal with the brokenness of myself and others on a daily basis. But I’m deeply grateful that God has heard the cry for forgiveness that has gone up to him out of the wilderness of this world and responded with salvation.

The Only Thing That Counts

So check out what I found in the Bible yesterday: Paul is talking to the church in Galatia about how you can’t earn God’s favor.

Sometimes, I feel like my life isn’t perfect because I’m either doing something wrong, or there’s something I’m not doing, or there’s some spiritual secret I haven’t grasped yet.

But I have to remind myself that even if I one day got it all together and became perfect from that moment forward, God wouldn’t owe me a dang thing.

If I act super spiritual for a week, God isn’t up in heaven saying, “well, I guess I have to give him that thing he’s been asking for now.”

If I’m going to let God utilize me, it’s going to be the imperfect version of my that exists now and always will exist.

This is what Paul is trying to hammer home to the Galatians: stop trying to make yourself perfect for God. When you make him part of your life, you become perfect in him.

And that’s when Paul says this:

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Bang.

That’s God’s grading rubric. Did your belief in God lead you to undertake actions based on love?

I think I subconsciously keep a running score on my own Christianity that’s based on how well I’ve avoided sin and done the ‘holy’ things: praying, reading the bible, etc.

I’m not saying that avoiding sin and praying and reading scripture is bad or worthless; I’m saying that’s not what God is primarily after. Those things will come out of a life of faith expressing itself through love.

The best results come when you’re doing things the right way, not when you’re trying to make the outcome look good.

Hope and Fear

Have you ever been to the place where hope and fear are wrestling for control of your emotions? I’ve been living at that intersection for a while now.

I’ve been waiting on the opportunity to begin working at a job that has more meaning for me than the corporate job I’ve been at for a number of years. “Waiting” may not be the best word here. “Frantically trying to find something else but not being able to force anything to happen” would probably be better.

Yesterday, I was at a really low point. I felt like everything within me was driving over the cliff of depression and anger and frustration.

Somebody on my twitter feed put up a quote by a character on The Wire that said: ”A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It’s the [stuff] that happens while you’re waiting for moments that never come.”

I felt like my life was a prison sentence to mundane mediocrity. I wanted somebody to blame for the fact that my life isn’t the fairy tale that I’d like it to be, and God is an easy punching bag.

He’s all powerful, so anything that goes wrong is his fault! As these thoughts kept filling my head, I realized how childish I was being. I also recognized the voice of the enemy, telling me to ‘Curse God and die’.

I apologized to God for being immature and I worshiped him. I thanked him. I asked for help and mercy.

On the way home, a thought came to me. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” I knew it was scripture, so I looked it up. It’s Proverbs 13:12.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Eugene Peterson, in The Message puts it like this:

“Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick, but a sudden good break can turn life around.”

I had no idea why the Holy Spirit was telling me this. I have been living in a place of unrelenting disappointment for many months. I knew I was heart sick. For God to confirm, ‘look, I know that being in a depressing rut for a long time will really hurt you’ didn’t make me feel any better.

Heck, I had been chastising myself for wanting something better. “God has me here, so I need to learn to be okay with it. I need to learn how to be content in the midst of frustration” was my attitude. But the Bible said something completely different. Constant frustration will make your heart sick. You need fulfilled dreams to be happy. This sounds more like something Barbie would say in one of my daughters cartoons than what we expect from the Bible.

Yet here was the Holy Spirit, bringing this very thing to mind.

Later that evening, I got some really good news. Not good enough to let me quit my job immediately, but good news. A door opening really wide.

I have felt like a plant that was in a too small pot and not getting any water or sunlight, and this news felt like water and sunlight. I believe the day is coming soon when I’ll be moved to a bigger pot so I can begin to grow into the tree God wants me to be.

I’m deeply grateful to serve a God who cares about me, even though he doesn’t owe me anything.  A God who knows how much we need hope, and showed up yesterday after my time of testing to give me what I haven’t earned.

The Complete Christian: An Oxymoron

I’ve heard people use the phrase ‘complete Christian’. He or she is a complete Christian. The idea being that they’ve put it all together and they are as close to being Jesus as they can possibly be. Personally, I think this is kind of silly. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12 talks about how we are all parts of the same body. If I’m a toe, I may be the best toe that ever lived, but I’m still just a toe. I’m not a complete body. I can’t set off and do great things on my own.

I wonder what your Christianity looks like. I’m sure it has some things in common with my Christianity, but I hope it isn’t exactly the same. I say that, because I know I don’t have it all figured out.

I believe we’ve made Christianity the art/science of ‘having all the truth’ or ‘being right about everything’, when in reality, it’s designed to be a seekingafter the truth.

We’ve made it a destination, when it has always been a journey.

‘Christian’ isn’t something you are as much as it is always something you are striving to be.  The word Christian was originally a pejorative term meaning ‘Little Christs’.

God wants us to seek him, he says this repeatedly in the scriptures, and it’s pretty clear that while we won’t fully discover him on this side of eternity, we’re supposed to keep looking.

When we stop looking, we stop finding.

We seem to fear people coming to different conclusions within the same church - we think that having different conclusions will lead to division and church splits, so toeing the line becomes all important.

As a youth minister, one of my primary goals is not to teach my teens what to think, but rather how to think. I’d rather my kids find out what it is they actually believe instead of having me tell them what I want them to believe…and I believe that kind of attitude leaves room for the Holy Spirit to work!

This is my Christianity. Get your own.

God: The Unreliable Genie

Jon Acuff, who writes the fantastic blog Stuff Christians Like put up a post that really resonated with me recently. He talked about the fact that when he has troubles or issues in his life, he wants God to give him a present that will fix it. Instead, God gives his presence in the midst of the trouble.

As I look back over the past year of my life, I totally got what he is saying here.

I began looking for a way to leave the corporate job that I don't care for over a year ago. Sometime in February last year, I had a powerful event where God poured out his Spirit on me in a new and fresh way.

I mistakenly thought this was a signal that all my dreams and desires were about to be fulfilled.

As I had to keep making the long commute everyday to a desk where I didn't want to sit, I began to grow impatient and frustrated with God.

"Why would you give me passion and your Holy Spirit if I'm just going to keep living this meaningless corporate existence" was the attitude that began to pervade my thoughts.

God, it seemed, was cruelly taunting me.

But I eventually began to realize what Acuff is referring to. God isn't a genie. He isn't looking for wishes to grant. And he isn't looking to see what he is getting out of you.

A friend of mine, Zach Neese, wrote a book recently called How to Worship a King, which has this statement:

"God didn't create you so that He could use you. He created you so that He could know you."

I worry so often that I'm wasting my years at a corporate job, so when I come to God, I've already got a grievance against him. But I don't think he sees it that way at all. My job isn't a problem that is #15,987,446 on his list of things to do.

My purpose in this life isn't to achieve enough to be able to stand up against everyone else's resume.

What in David's life qualified him to be a king? What in Peter's background prepared him to be a foundational pillar of Christianity? What did Gideon do that earned him the title Mighty Man of Valor as he was hiding in the bottom of a well?

God's purposes for what we do are his own. They are inscrutable, and trying to decode or discern our path is not only impossible, it leads to frustration, as it did with me.

As I got more and more caught up in what God "wasn't doing", his presence faded in my life. He gave me a wonderful gift and I didn't appreciate it for what it was, only for where I thought it would take me.

I've had to spend quite a bit of time getting rid of my attitude and seeking God's presence in my life again not as a means to an end, but as the most wonderful end in itself.

I mean, seriously, God wants me to know him? He wants to invite me into his presence so I can simply be changed and filled by his Spirit?

I'm not back to where I was a year ago yet, but I'm getting there. And I'm grateful to have screwed up yet again, to find that God's way truly is best.

Should Christians Tithe?

I had a conversation about tithing the other day with my teens. We talked about whether giving 10% of our income is what God requires/expects. When your church is having trouble making budget, you’re very likely to hear about Malachi 3:6-10 either quoted or directly referred to. “Don’t rob God.” “Bring thewhole tithe into the storehouse.”

But does this apply under the new covenant?

In Matthew 23:23, Jesus affirms tithing as a discipline that the Pharisees should continue to practice.

But I think it’s impossible to discuss the topic of our financial giving without looking at Luke 21:1-4.

While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”

It seems to me that the criticism that Jesus levels against the rich men making donations is not that they were giving less than 10%. It is that they had an abundance, yet they kept it mostly for themselves.

The standard of giving that Jesus provides in Luke 21:1-4 is to not give only as much as we are required. To not give only what is comfortable for us to give. It is to give even when it hurts to do so.

To give all that we can, not all that we must.

Jesus wants us to live a life that is dedicated to doing the most good, not the least acceptable amount of good.

To love lavishly, abundantly and generously. To give, even in our own need, not only once we have excess to spare.

I think supporting a local church is a good thing. If you’re committed to the community of your local church, by all means support it, including with financial provision.

I also think that we have amazing opportunities to support other organizations which we can learn about through the internet or through other contacts. Your church may not be committed to helping slaves across the world gain freedom, but you can give money, time, effort to this cause above and beyond your church membership.

You can support the ministries of your church while also helping to feed and clothe the homeless in your area.

I’m not trying to infer that you should never spend money on yourself or your family for fun purposes. I don’t believe you must live in poverty, while giving away every available dime. If you wish to do this, that’s your choice.

I don’t think Jesus was upset with the rich people because they didn’t give every last coin, I thing he was upset that they were simply living up to the minimum standards and thinking that was good enough. That God just wants people to fulfill obligations.

We serve a God that held nothing back from us. Let us be careful in believing that we can give him a 10% commission in order to satisfy him.

Money isn’t going to go with us to the afterlife. It is a tool that we can use only here and now. Let us use it wisely, treating a device of this temporal life as seeds with which to plant a crop that may be reaped in heaven.

Perhaps instead of viewing 10% as a set number that we must never go under and that we need not exceed, we should instead seek to give all that we are able at any given point in our lives.

From our abundance or our need, let us seek to be generous. To give all that we can.

Why Don't We See The Book Of Acts Happening Today?

I’m reading through Acts again, which always raises questions in me regarding modern day ministry. In the New Testament, Jesus did signs and wonders to confirm that his message was from God.

At one point, in his attempt to engender faith from some Pharisees, Jesus says, “even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:38)

Peter used the healing of the beggar at the temple as a platform to launch into the preaching of the gospel, and it was because of that miracle that the Sanhedrin couldn’t severely punish him. They couldn’t deny it. (Acts 3)

In Acts 5, the scriptures say that “the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people” (verse 12), and that because of this, many people believed in Jesus and joined the church - to the point that the religious leaders had to attack the apostles in an attempt to stop their momentum.

Later in Acts, we read that as Paul and Barnabas shared the message of the gospel in Iconium, the Lord “confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders” (Acts 14:3).

I wonder why nothing quite as spectacular as what we see in Acts seems to occur today (speaking of America), where signs and wonders accompanied the message of the Gospel? Is our message so wrong or weak that the signs and wonders don’t come? Is it because we’re a nation/generation demanding a sign out of arrogance and selfishness (a la Matthew 12:38)? Am I lacking faith or the ability to understand God’s directions?

I really don’t know. But I also know that people who are only ever seeking mystical manifestation of God’s presence worry me. Is a “glory cloud” the kind of thing we’re after? If you tell somebody that it seemed a little hazy at church last night, is that the coming of the kingdom of God?

I’m not trying to point fingers at anybody else without first and foremost pointing them at myself.

Who’s got two thumbs and is trying to figure out how to be a part of ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done’? This guy.

And because I have no idea how to include signs and wonders into my message, I focus on the things I do understand: That God is in the business of changing - transforming - lives for the better.

I know he still binds up broken hearts. I know he still gives hope and joy to the downtrodden.  But am I just functioning this way out of weakness and defeat? Is this how God wants me/us to work in the world? All message and no demonstrations of proof that this message is true?

I know that the bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, but I also see Jesus saying that the apostles couldn’t fast while he was with them, but they would do so when he was gone.

When Jesus sent out the 70 as emissaries, he instructed them to take no bag or extra tunic, but in Luke 22:35, he says that now they should not only take a purse, but a bag and that they need to get a sword.

In John 9:4-5 he says, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

So when Jesus was on earth, did he take the brunt, the weight of all the things that we now must bear?

Why did Jesus indicate things would be different after he left?  Are we simply seeing the result of changing realities that we can’t fight against?

But back to Acts: What about Philip? The bible says that great signs and miracles are occurring through Phillip during his ministry (Acts 8:13), yet the apostles send Peter and John to Samaria and it is only when their hands are laid on people that they receive the Holy Spirit.

Why didn’t that happen through Phillip?

Why were people laying in the streets of Jerusalem in the hopes that Peter’s shadow might touch them (Acts 5:15)? There were thousands of believers in Jerusalem by this point, why weren’t the same miracles occurring at their touch?

I don’t believe the dispensational theology that says miracles were something God did through the apostles and he doesn’t do that any more. I’ve experienced the power of God and seen the transformations he can bring forth. God has allowed me to witness and participate in miraculous events, and those signs have strengthened my faith.

I don’t have answers to this issue, only questions. Mostly about the ways I’m missing the mark. I know that I am the emissary of an all-powerful, loving God - but why should others believe me? Where’s the demonstration that he approves of my message?

In this world where everyone has more messages being aimed at them then ever before, I don’t want to be just one more voice clamoring for attention, feeling pressured to make grandiose claims in order to attract an audience.

I want to present the true gospel and figure out how to let God stand behind his own message.

Two Edged Sword

I used to read the bible to gain knowledge; to find the ways scripture confirmed that my theology is correct. Now, I read it to be changed. The book of Hebrews describes the Word of God thusly: “[It] is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12)

I so often used the scripture as a weapon against other believers, in order to show that I was right and they were wrong.

I know many believers who feel that they are the only ones who really, truly understand the character of God. That they have discovered the sacred secrets hidden in the scriptures.  And they have the theology and proof texts ready to prove it.

I’ve realized that the word of God is actually a weapon meant to be used on myself.

I love the song “The War Inside” by Switchfoot. It talks about the fact that living this spiritual life has less to do with fighting “what’s out there”, and more to do with what is inside of us. Here’s part of the chorus.

I am the war inside

I am the battle line

I am the rising tide

I am the war I fight

N.T. Wright also talks about this issue in Evil and the Justice of God. The line between good and evil isn’t something that we look and and pick a side to stand on. It runs right down the middle of each of us.

Paul himself talks about this in Romans 7: “…when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind…”

Reading the Bible isn’t about winning arguments, it’s about looking in a mirror that shows me what I could be. What I should be, then letting God work to bring that person into existence.

I’m no longer interested in getting people to agree with me. Instead, I’m interested in being more like Jesus.

The God Formula

We all know the story of Job. He has to deal with some pretty bad circumstances: losing everything and getting very sick. He has some friends that show up to comfort him and (very pointedly) try to fix his problems. The problem with Job’s friends is that they thought they understood God. They knew how God worked. They had the formula memorized.

If you live right, God gives you blessings.

If you live in an impure way, God will come against you with judgement.

Job lost his wealth, his family and his health. This meant God was angry with him; therefore Job was living sinfully.

Job’s friends were trying to help him: repent of your secret sin and God will forgive you! But Job was insistent that he had not sinned.

But his friends would not - could not - believe him. Because if what Job said was true, then everything they thought they knew about God would be wrong.

Listen to what the youngest of the friends says as he makes one final attempt to get Job to admit to his wicked ways: “Be assured that my words are not false; one perfect in knowledge is with you.” (Job 36:4)

In other words, “I can’t believe what you’re saying, because I know I’m right.”

I was struck when I read Elihu’s speech (Job 32-37) that it includes some portions that are almost identical to what God says later (for example, that he commands lightning and snow).

Job’s mistake was thinking that God had committed an error.

Elihu’s mistake (and the 3 other friends) was thinking he knew exactly what God was doing.

Job, knowing that he hadn’t brought these curses upon himself through foolish living, was forced to conclude that God’s sovereignty allowed him to act as he pleases, and the only viable choice of humanity is to accept that. As Job says it, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)

I’d love to pretend that Jobs friends were the last people to make this mistake, but when Jesus shows up, he tells the religious experts in his day that they have made the same mistake of making God into a formula which they understood.

“You [The Pharisees] diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

They thought they knew the formula, but when the the culmination of God’s design arrived, they didn’t recognize it in the least.  Jerusalem was destroyed because the time of God’s intervention arrived and they were blind to it. (Luke 19:44).

I think the fact that we think we have this whole God/Jesus/Bible thing down pat can turn us into monsters, too.

We have hundreds of different denominations (which are basically forbidden in 1 Corinthians 3) because we think all the other denominations are doing something wrong, and we are doing it right.

We spend so much time and energy bickering and in-fighting rather than fulfilling the purpose Jesus gave us. To be conduits of God’s Kingdom come and will being done on earth.

God cannot be put in a formula. He cannot be understood. He cannot be explained. We can only say the things he has told us to say. To speak of the things we see him do.

Paradoxically, it is only when we accept that we never fully know him that we can actually begin to connect with him in a greater way.

In Jesus' Name

I have made the decision to stop saying “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of all my prayers. Not because I believe that I shouldn’t pray in Jesus’ name, but because I believe that praying in Jesus’ name doesn’t mean slapping 3 words onto the end of whatever I say.

I watched a video by Francis Chan where he talked about this. We pray ‘I want, I want, I want, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme….In Jesus’ Name, Amen.’ and we call that praying in Jesus’ name.

I think that’s closer to taking the lord’s name in vain than it is praying in Jesus’ name.

The Seven Sons of Sceva (Acts 19) thought that they could toss Jesus’ name around in order to accomplish their own agenda. It didn’t turn out so well.

I’ve realized that I have spent most of my Christian life trying to get God to go along with what I wanted to do. I seem to forget that he is a lot smarter than I am. That I am the insignificant speck of dust and he is the infinite creator.

So these days, I have stopped tacking on the phrase “In Jesus’ Name” to all my prayers, and instead tried to learn to pray for the things he wants to do - forgiveness of sins committed against me; provision on a daily basis rather than an overabundance I can place my trust in; protection from the evil one - who is greater than me, but not greater than God; and for the coming of his kingdom and his will on this earth.

Rather than ‘how can I get what I want?’, my driving question is ‘how can I participate in what he is doing?’

Instead of saying that I’m praying in Jesus’ name, I’m actually trying to do it.

Sin to Serve

When I was younger, I struggled greatly with pornography. It was, by far, the greatest battle I’ve ever fought in my life. When I finally got past this addiction (and I thank God for this), I found that I despised that particular sin more than any other. It had held me in bondage for so long and caused so much grief and pain, I just couldn’t stand it. And that feeling bled into people who were still trapped in it.

Here’s what I’m talking about: On my way home from work, I pass by a porn shop. Anytime I saw somebody going into the shop, I’d get mad at them. Didn’t they know how disgusting that place was? Didn’t they understand that they are hurting themselves as well as the girls being exploited? Why are they being so stupid?? Can’t they see how trapped they are?

But all this anger I felt at them was really anger I had felt toward myself. I had to learn to have compassion for those who are aren’t yet free from bonds which held me. To truly love the ‘sinner’ while hating the ‘sin’. Instead of passing the disappointment I felt in myself onto them, I had to learn to pass the hope that would eventually be fulfilled when I was free. To have the compassion upon them that God had on me. I completely deserved to be cut off forever from his Grace for what I did, but instead, he loved me when I least deserved it. This is what I had to learn to feel for those who were/are still in the midst of the quicksand I was pulled from.

See, I don’t believe getting delivered from a sin is enough. I believe God wants us to actually work to undo it’s effects in the world. To serve those who need a hand up.

I completed a race this past year call The Tough Mudder. Toward the end of this grueling 10 mile event was an obstacle called ‘Everest’ (link has some language, mute if you prefer). It was a quarter pipe, like you’d see at a skate park. We had to run up the increasingly vertical side of the pipe, grab onto the ledge, and pull ourselves up and over. The problem was that the preceding 9 miles of running up ski slopes, overcoming obstacles and being purposely kept wet in the freezing temperatures left most of us far too drained to beat this challenge. The surface of the quarter pipe was also pretty well slathered with slick mud.

So what happened is this: people built human chains for others to climb up and get on top of the ledge. Then, the people at the top of the ledge would lean over and help pull others up to the summit. At the point I went, I had to run and jump, barely grabbing onto the ledge that was 12 or so feet off the ground. At that point 2 or 3 guys grabbed my arms and helped haul me up. I probably would never have made it on my own. Once I was up, I turned around and helped the guy who came up behind me.

I think that’s how beating sin should work. If I had stood at the top of that obstacle and shook my head at how pathetic the people below were, I would have been the worst hypocrite on the planet. It also would have resulted in a ton of failure. Once you get up, give a hand to the others trying to get up.

I know God is the one who delivers us and frees us. But I also know that he made us to live in community and to help one another. If we don’t fulfill our roles, fewer people are going to make it over the challenge. And how horrible it is to be like me and instead of helping, standing at the top and angrily shaking my finger, discouraging anyone who would seek to ascend.

Jesus never sinned. But instead of loathing the wrong that people did, he had compassion on people. He alone had the right to look down on us, and he didn’t. He was the only person who could beat the obstacle of sin on his own. But instead of continuing to run off, leaving us to follow in his example, he stopped and reached over the ledge; ready to grab the muddy hand of anyone who would follow in his footsteps.

We must follow this example. We must accept his help to get over the challenges of sin we find in the path of our lives, then be ready to turn and offer a hand to others.

The Incomplete God

I believe in an incomplete God. I pray to an incomplete God, sing praises to an incomplete God and read the scriptures of an incomplete God. It’s not that God is incomplete, mind you. It’s that my understanding of God is incomplete. So I am left believing in a God who I only partially comprehend. I worship the tip of the iceberg, knowing that there is so much more which is beyond my perception.

I can’t tell you why one person dies of cancer while another recovers against all medical odds.

I can’t explain why one person wins the lottery while another struggles to feed their children.

I don’t know why some of my prayers yield amazing results while others seem to go unnoticed.

But the thing is, I’m a super analytical person.  I don’t like unsolved mysteries. I want a God that I can understand and explain. That way, everything makes sense. I don’t have to be confused or surprised in any situation.

So I fill in the blanks.

I take the God who in judgment destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the God who in mercy spared Nineveh and I draw connections to explain the differences.

I take the God who stuck Annanias and Sapphira dead and the God who forgave the adulterous woman and I color the spaces in between.

I take the God who killed almost everything on earth in the time of Noah and the God who came as a man and bore the guilt of the entire human race and I figure out a way to explain it simply and easily.

And I end up with something that isn’t God. Or rather, it’s a God created in my own image.

Because, despite vaguely understanding how feeble my mind is in comparison to the greatness of God’s existence, I prove over and over that I’d rather have a complete but false God than an incomplete/incomprehensible real God.

Only when things in my life occur which can’t be explained by my false God do I have to wake up to what I’ve done. And those are the times where I must do violence to the God I’ve created. Instead of having the ability to understand and explain what’s going on, I simply have to echo Ezekiel who, when asked something beyond his comprehension, answered “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)

I have to face the fact that most of the time, I don’t know why God does whatGod does when God does it.

It’s when I start trying to improve God in my own eyes that I get myself into this trouble. When I try to make better sense of him in my own understanding.

So I do my best to worship the God who I can’t fully see or understand, leaving the blank spaces free from my own conjecture and speculation. The places where he has clothed himself with shadows, I cannot force him to be revealed.

He is, for me, the incomplete God who is greater than I could ever imagine.

The Sinful Invalid

In John chapter 5, we read the story of a man who had been an invalid for 38 years (v. 5). Jesus approaches this man and heals him. Amid the commotion, Jesus slips away into the crowd. Later, after the man has been accosted by religious people that are upset with the fact he is carrying his mat (at Jesus’ direction), it says that Jesus came back and found him again.

And this is what Jesus says to him: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (v. 14)

Whoa.

What?

I’m so curious here about what Jesus is referring to. Did the man become an invalid through sinful action? Or is Jesus indicating his sinfulness while he was apparently unable to do more than lay next to a pool, hoping to be healed?

I have no idea. There’s simply no way to know for sure.

But the fact that Jesus tells him to ‘stop sinning’ tends to indicate (at least to me) an active continuance as opposed to something that happened long in the past.

But without the physical ability to do much more than talk and lay around, it seems that any sin he was committing was internal.

Was the man full of bitter and anger over his condition?  Or perhaps lustful or greedy for what he could not have?

This hammered home to me a point I read in Psalms this week. In Psalm 24, David asks who is able to be in the Lord’s presence.  He then provides an answer to his own question in the next lines of the song:

“Only those whose hands and hearts are pure” (v. 4)

People who are pure, inside (heart) and ouside (hands). What we think/feel (heart) and what we do (hands).

We put a lot of emphasis on whether what we do is sinful. But honestly, I think our actions and words aren’t the issue. Those things come out of who we are.

We spend so much time trying to change our fruit, but we do it in silly ways. You can’t glue oranges on an apple tree and think that the tree has changed.

I think the work the Holy Spirit does within us is about planting new trees. God’s not after lip service. He’s not after us doing stuff to get points from him. He’s about us acting out of the resurrection life he is creating in us. Rather than attaching oranges to an apple tree, he’s taking the time to uproot the apple trees and plant orange trees in their place.

That process takes time. For the first few seasons, my orchard is still going to produce more apples than oranges. But as the work continues, as there are fewer apple trees and the orange trees mature, slowly but surely there will be evidence that this orchard creates oranges, rather than apples.

Just because the invalid may not have been able to act on his sinful nature doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. And Jesus was warning him, not as a threat, but in love. The man had just been given the ability to but action behind his desires. If his desires aren’t corrected, that only gives him the ability to head headlong into his own destruction.

What Jesus did seems dangerous to me. Why heal a guy that may end up being a real jerk?

Clearly, God’s respect for our free will is astounding. He gives chances that may be completely squandered. I make stupid, selfish, shortsighted choices all the time. I wish there was an easy way where I could turn off the part of me that wants to find spiritual shortcuts or loopholes. But instead, God insists that I should have the ability to frustrate or ignore or undo his work.

What an amazing God we serve. That he lets us co-author the story of our life to such a degree. A God that offers us new and abundant life, instead of mandating it.

Theology: Knowing God

I think that studying God, theology, the bible, etc, is like studying the moon.  If you buy the biggest telescope you can find and put it on maximum zoom, you’re going to learn a lot about the part of the moon you can see. You can also move the telescope around a see zoomed in pictures in different areas. But there’s two things to keep in mind:

1. You’re not going to be able to scan the entire surface of the moon with that telescope (or if you do, it’ll be so fast you won’t really see anything)

2. Even if you did see the entire surface of the moon that way, you’d still have a lot to learn about the moon.

See, if we just focus on one area, we’re going to miss a lot. At some point, you need to step away from the telescope and look at the whole sky. To see how beautiful the moon is, suspended in the black with stars around it. To see how the moon affects the tides here on Earth.

Don’t miss the beauty in the midst of the study.

I could focus my telescope on one particular crater and learn everything there is to know about that crater. Then, when people talk about the moon, I could talk for hours about that one crater. And people would be interested for about 5 minutes, then they would want me to shut up. There’s more to the moon than the one crater I know all about.

We can get so fixated on one point that we miss out on what’s really happening.

Alot of evangelical theology is based on the message that people who don’t believe in Jesus are going to hell, and they need to be saved. So we hand out tracts and talk through bullhorns and try to force people to come to church with us where we use an altar call to try and get them to say they believe.

I’m not saying that people aren’t going to hell. And I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s a minor deal.  But God is bigger and greater and grander than ‘the being who sends people to hell.’

God created this world, where we find joy and sorrow; heights and depths; pain and pleasure. More than that, he became one of us. The infinite, in one man. He who holds the galaxies in the palm of his hand, using feet to walk from one town to the next.

People who are so locked into their own theology that they think they are the only one who really ‘gets’ God scare me. A lot.  Because I have totally been like that in my life. And I was so blinded by my ‘right answers’ to let God be who he is. I turned the bible into a book of answers and doctrine instead of what it is: The story of a God and the flawed people he loves.

In Christianity, we say that we don’t have a religion, but rather a relationship. Then we put so much structure and so many requirements on that relationship that it becomes a religion.

I have a feeling that there is a great deal of truth in this world that we refuse to acknowledge because we didn’t think of it.

I believe that everyone is looking for God, whether they know it or not. And I believe that God has left signposts that point to him in the most unlikely places. Signposts that reveal truth about him. People who are paying attention will pick up on these truths, and believe in them.

Nature speaks of a great creator.

Intimacy speaks of a need to be completed by somebody or something.

Dreams point to the existence of something greater just below the surface.

Mercy and compassion reveal that there is something within us that works against the primal urges we’re told that we consist of.

Art reveals a need to see more than just what our eyes can perceive.

I once thought that God needed me. That he needed me to tell people about what he is really like because I had so much insight. He couldn’t sideline me, because I was too clever and smart.

Now, I realize that I’m about as useful as asking an ant to explain a supercomputer. A know-it-all is about the last thing God needs representing him.

I don’t understand God. I can’t explain why he does the things he does most of the time. If I zoom in, I can probably start to explain small parts of him better, but I’d rather step back and see the vastness, the grandeur, the beauty of who he is. And I’m content to be amazed and surprised by what I can’t contain.

The Gospel: Marketing the Message

I was having a debate with another Christian over whether I should forbid my kids from hearing music by people like Lady Gaga. The other person was adamant that because she is lewd and vile, I should ban it from them in any form (including watching the new Chipmunk movie because they do a take on Bad Romance - you know, the whole Rah Rah Ah Ah Ah sequence).

But I disagree. Not that Lady Gaga isn’t lewd and what not. She totally is. That’s her whole image. It’s why people pay attention to her. I’ve seen her before she became the character of Lady Gaga. She was normal. And nobody cared about her. All the hyper sexualization and the crazy hair and clothes styles? Just a sales technique. One that has worked great for her.

Same with Katy Perry. She was a gospel/inspirational singer. Then she did ‘I kissed a girl’, started wearing different clothes (specifically, less of it), and suddenly she’s popular and trending.

I think they just do whatever will get them what they really want: fame and fortune. Selling their soul to gain the world seems like a great deal to them.

But I digress.

The reason I don’t really worry about my kids hearing/liking the music of such “poor role models” is this: If my message is better than Lady Gaga’s, then why should I worry if my kids hear what she is saying?

If my kids see/hear what she’s putting out there, are they going to latch onto it? maybe temporarily. We all try out images and styles from time to time. But we end up going with what proves to be genuine and true for us.

If I give my kids a genuine, true message of love, compassion, joy, etc through my words and my actions, what am I afraid of? That a woman who uses shock tactics to get attention is going to lead them astray? My kids are going to encounter such messages sooner or later. By delaying it until they’re out of my house, I don’t think I’m doing them any favors.

Now, I’m not saying that I have started letting my 7 year old watch MTV. I do believe that there are responsible restrictions to have in place. But letting my kids hear so much as a riff off a song adapted to a kid’s movie? Not one of them, in my book.

We serve the God who made the whole universe, intervened on our behalf by becoming a man, dying for us and preparing a place in heaven for us, yet we’ve made that message so boring that people are looking for something more interesting. How the heck did we get here?

Should we get mad when people at church spend most of the time on their phone playing a game? Or should we figure out why what we’re saying/doing doesn’t interest them? The idea of ‘show some respect and pay attention’ has given way to the attitude of ‘earn my respect and do something to deserve my attention’.

Our sales pitch of ‘come be bored for 2 hours each Sunday because you better be grateful for God’ isn’t working. Nor should it.

Lady Gaga has a terrible message, but she markets it well. So people listen. We have a great message, but we market it horribly.

So in my house, I’m trying to give the message of the true Gospel. Because if my kids see the real deal, I don’t need to worry about a cheap knock off keeping their attention for long.

It’s like if I give my kids hearty, healthy meals every day. Am I going to worry if somebody shows up trying to feed them dog food? Of course not. Shoot, I probably want them to try the dog food at least once so they better appreciate what they’re getting!

People hear lots of messages. I try to ask myself a question regularly: “Is mine worth hearing?” Because if it isn’t, they should probably just go back to playing Words with Friends so I don’t waste any more of their time.

Lavish

I read 1 John 3:1 today: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” That word hits me like a ton of bricks. “Lavished”.

Do you ever feel like you screw up so much that God must love you only despite how annoyed he is with you?

Or worse, perhaps you view God as a brooding, angry being who tells you that you better love him, or else he’ll throw you into the fire. (David Dark talks about this inThe Sacredness of Questioning Everything).

Yet that’s not what God does. He doesn’t teach us lessons by withholding his love until we ‘get it right’.

He lavishes his love on us, pouring it out, not in an effort to make us feel bad; but rather to draw us to himself.

He does not regulate his infinite supply, but instead he opens it in full.

Next time you’re feeling low, feeling like you don’t deserve the affections of a perfect God, remember this: that he is lavishing you with his love. You only have two choices: to accept it, or to reject it. There isn’t a third option where you can earn it or deserve it.

He is an endless spring. You are a cup. You can either be filled or stay empty. Whichever choice you make, it doesn’t take anything away from the spring. So why not be filled?

Whether or not you deserve it doesn’t matter. He gives it anyways. You just need to accept.

The Universe

Science isn’t sure whether our universe is actually infinite or not, but they say it’s “at least” 93 billion light years in diameter. One light year equals 5,865,696,000,000 miles. I’ll tell you what, let’s just go with ‘really, really big’.

Some people wonder whether we are alone in the universe. Is there life out there on other planets in other solar systems or galaxies?

I have heard the question asked ‘how can we be so silly as to think that in a universe as amazingly vast as ours, that we are the only life’?

But what if the whole, unbelievably enormous universe wasn’t made for us? What if it was made for a different purpose?

David said this in Psalm 19:1 “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.”

What if God made this astounding creation for the purpose of showing how great he is? To give us some kind of hint as to his expansiveness?

A creation does two things: it points to the skill of the one who created it, and it points to the greatness of the one to whom it is given.

Imagine a kings crown, made with purest gold, inlaid with resplendent gems and jewels. It reveals the skill and creativity of the craftsman who made it, but it also points to the greatness of the one on whose head it sits.

John 13:3 says “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.”

This great creation points to the one who is greatest of all.

So if this universe - in all its greatness - isn’t actually about us, but rather has the purpose of pointing to how great God is; I wouldn’t say it’s too big or too grandiose.

I’d actually say it’s just about the right size.

Fruit of the Spirit

We all know the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5: ”love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this fruit recently, wanting to see more of it. So I started really working on one or another at different times.  One a given day, I might determine to be patient. On another, to be good. On I would go, acting like a pinball, careening from one item to another. In the end, I think I looked like one of those people who twirl plates on sticks.  Once he gets up to nine or so, he’s madly dashing from one nearly falling plate to another with no rest. This is no way to live the Christian life.  I realized yesterday that fruit of the spirit is more like a warning system. If the Holy Spirit is being allowed to live and flourish in your life, these fruit are just going to be there.  You don’t have to put forth some superhuman effort to manufacture them. They’ll simply rise up and come out of you.   It’s when I DON’T see patience that I need to be aware that I’m not letting the spirit function in my life the way I should. When I’m not being gentle, it’s because I am living in my own power rather than God’s.

The ‘alert’ of a lack in any of those listed fruit is like my computer giving me an error if I try to get to a certain website. My network connection to that site has been disrupted; and until that connection has been restored, that website is not available.

Real Christians Limp

Some television-personality ministers seem to want people to think that being a Christian means being healthy, wealthy and wise.  Also, you apparently have ridiculously white teeth and an expensive hair cut (or in the case of some, an expensive hair piece). But I have noticed a couple people in the Bible who may not agree with such sentiments.

Jacob met God in the form of a man (Genesis 32). After wrestling with God and refusing to give up until God blessed him, God puts his hip out of socket.  Ouch.  Jacobs’ encounter with God resulted in him limping away, but with a new identity: Israel.  He didn’t walk away with more money, or whiter teeth and certainly not healthier.  Wiser, maybe.  But he was definitely changed. His destiny was cemented. After wrestling with God, Jacob walked different. People could see something had changed in him.

Paul had a thorn in his flesh that God refused to take away (2 Corinthians 12).  It seems to have been some kind of illness that most people found gross (Galatians 4). Was it leprosy perhaps? No way to know. But Paul didn’t walk in complete health or wealth. Maybe his disease even made his teeth really, really not white.

We Christians tend to forget how temporary our time on this earth is. We’re not writing the novel of our lives here, we’re only doing the preface. We’re just setting the stage for the real story.  If our goal is to be healthy, wealthy and wise on this earth, then we’d better stay away from God. Because his purposes seem to include thorns and limping far more often than we would prefer.

Real Christians limp.

God's Timing

“During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”” (2 Samuel 21:1 ) I found this story to be fascinating. First, because it gives some insight to God’s frequently unusual timing (at least from our perspective).

God deals with things when he wants to. Sometimes it’s immediate (as with Joshua and the Israelites at Ai). But sometimes it’s later, even much later.

So God wanted to deal with this thing Saul did. But it’s long after Saul is dead and buried that God brings it up.

We don’t know when in David’s reign this famine occured. It seems quite possible that it was a decade or more after David was first crowned King of Judah.

I don’t have a clue why God waiting so long before dealing with this issue that he clearly found to be of critical importance. And perhaps that’s the point of this story. There is no way we can know why God does what he does, when he does it.

He brings things up when he chooses to, and we must simply be ready to deal with what he sends our way. We make our plans, but he directs our steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

The second thing I wonder about this situation is this: Did David only ask God’s input after 3 years had gone by? Or did he ask sooner and have to wait for years for an answer?

From the text, it seems that David delayed asking God until 3 years had gone by.

It makes me wonder if there are situations in my life that God wants to bring about healing or deliverance, but I’m busy trying to endure them.

I had some minor health problem that I had been living with, but recently realized I didn’t have to. So I prayed for healing and God did it. I had some of those situations going on for years.

All the while God was just waiting for me to ask.

In the end, God’s timing is going to remain a mystery to me. My job is to ask and trust. And perhaps most importantly, to listen. Because if I can’t know God’s timing, at least perhaps I can know his purpose