Under New Management

Who owns the Kingdom of God? Before you say ‘God’, followed by ‘that’s a dumb question’, let me include something Jesus says in Luke 12:32.

“Don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.”

Uh-oh.

Wait, maybe ‘give’ in the greek means something totally different. Let’s check it out at blueletterbible.org.

 to give something to someone

a) of one’s own accord to give one something, to his advantage

1) to bestow a gift

b) to grant, give to one asking, let have

c) to supply, furnish, necessary things

d) to give over, deliver

Oops.

So here’s my question to you: have you been treating the Kingdom of God like you are an owner?

I was a business owner for a period of time. I worked late, I worked weekends, I spent a lot of my own personal money to run it. I gave it everything I had.

When I went back to working for a corporation, I never, ever worked late. You couldn’t have gotten me there on a weekend with a cattle prod.

I didn’t care if that company made or lost a billion dollars. I did my job, and I did it well enough to get raises and promotions, but I didn’t really care about it.

Jesus talks about this difference in John 10:12-13 as it pertains to shepherds:

“A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.”

So let me ask you you again: do you treat the Kingdom of Heaven like the co-owner you are? Or are you just treating it like a meal ticket?

Is it so much a part of your life that it’s a part of your identity, or is it just something you do?

Personally, I wouldn’t trust me with God’s shoe. But God has given me so much more.

The difference between an owner and an employee is that an owner bears ultimate responsibility. There’s no one to pass the buck onto. If, as an owner, you don’t do the work - it simply doesn’t get done.

The Kingdom of God is under new management - you.

When people encounter it, are they going to want to become a co-owner with you?

Who Are You Becoming?

Facebook changed the layout on my profile the other day, and one of the things it does is make ‘notes’ you have written somewhat more prominent. Because of this, I found several notes I had written back in 2009 and earlier.

They were about topics like evolution, the environment, abortion, etc.

Here’s the fun part about these notes that I wrote: As I was reading them, I mostly disagreed with them.

That excites me so much.

Why? Because that means I am growing. I am changing. I’m not the same person I was 4, 5 , 6 years ago.

That’s a good thing, because I wasn’t perfect 4, 5 or 6 years ago. I had areas of my life that needed to change, and needed to grow.

I hope that 5 years from now, as I’m reading my tumblr/wordpress archive, I find some posts that I think are silly, just like I now think my facebook notes are silly.

Growth and change are so important to me because I know I’m not just like Jesus yet. In fact, I have a ways to go in order to get to that point. To be honest, I’ll probably never actually reach that goal. But I can grow closer than where I’m at now.

I find that my hard edge of theological rigor has been supplanted by humility and love.

I’m spending less time trying to be superior, and more time trying to be relatable.

I’ve learned that you can’t argue people into the kingdom of God, but you can love them into it.

Yesterday, I read this in Romans 2:4 (MSG) - “God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness, he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.”

I look back at my life and I see that I’m not the same that I was. I realize that I am becoming something other than I was. And that speaks to God in my life.

Because people rarely change, but when they do, it’s almost never on their own.

If I’m different, I believe it’s because I have invited God to be a part of my life. And he loves me enough to not leave me the same as he found me.

Please forgive me for all my imperfections, and in the areas where I am getting it wrong. Because the most important thing about me is is this:

I am becoming more like Jesus.

As you open your life to him, I know you are too.

How to Receive God's Guidance For Your Life

I was reading the Bible today, and I found this: “One day as they (several prophets and teachers in a prominent church) were worshiping God - they were also fasting as they waited for guidance - the Holy Spirit spoke…”(Acts 13:2) These first century believers - among them somebody who has to be considered if we ever build a Mt. Rushmore of church fathers, Paul - have no idea what to do next.

So they’re waiting, and seeking God’s guidance. How? By worshiping and praying.

It doesn’t say that were freaking out. Doesn’t say that they were starting dozens of new initiatives simultaneously to find the right one. It also doesn’t say that they sat around and waited for opportunity to knock.

These people clearly want to know what God’s plan is. Rather than going off in a random direction, they waited until they knew it so they could cooperate with God’s plan.

Imagine a builder who doesn’t get the blueprints from their architectural firm by the time they are ready to start construction. Does this builder just say, ‘oh well’, and start building whatever comes to mind? I hope not. I hope they would wait, and seek out those blueprints.

I hope they would realize that building without a plan is not only foolish, it’s dangerous. And when the blueprints arrive, the first thing they would have to do is tear down the mess they started.

Paul and the other believers realize that God has a blueprint. For their lives, for their church, for the world. And rather than just starting to build as fast as they can so that people see ‘results!’, they take the time to seek out what the blueprints say.

I don’t know why God sometimes withholds these plans from us. I do know it drives us nuts. At least it does that for me.

But this does teach me patience. It teaches me dependance. It teaches me faith.

It reminds me of the value of the Planner.

So the way to receive God’s guidance for your life is to seek them, and don’t start building until you have them. Again, this isn’t a license for laziness. Remember the story about the master who goes on a trip and expects his servants to be productive while he’s gone?

While we’re waiting for the plans, we should be productive. Meeting with other believers, having devoted prayer time, fasting - these are all efforts. I guarantee you they were also reading the scriptures and being a part of the local community of believers.

You can plant shrubs and mow the grass while waiting for the plans to build.

Don’t let your life become a vacant lot, or overgrown mess while you wait. Just don’t start major renovations without a plan.

How to Have Peace in Frustrating Circumstances

In the past couple of years, I was in a situation where I felt that God was telling me about a coming transition, but I could never find signs of that transition being imminent. Most of my despair and frustration came from the fact that I didn't know if I had really heard from God, so I was almost always wrestling with despair.

In situations like these, I think about the story in Matthew 8 where Jesus and the disciples are in a boat when a huge squall comes up. The disciples start to freak out, but Jesus remains asleep.

Keep in mind, several of these guys are professional fishermen. They have seen storms before. If they think they're going to die from this storm, chances are good that they knew what they were talking about.

So in this panic, they wake Jesus up. He calms the storm, then he says something that was troubling to me: "Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!" (Matthew 8:26)

Seriously, Jesus?

We're seriously supposed to find ourselves in the midst of deadly storms, look over to see you asleep and say 'No worries!'?

But I found something interesting in what I was reading today.

In Acts 12, Peter has been arrested. He's kept in jail for several days, guarded by 16 guards. The church is praying for Peter, but the day of his execution has arrived.

To be extra sure that Peter isn't going anywhere, he has been chained directly to TWO guards!

And what is Peter doing, hours before his scheduled murder, in prison, chained to the guards?

"Peter slept like a baby." (Acts 12:6)

Wow.

Well, maybe Peter knew God would free him, and that's where his faith came from. Except that after an angel appears and busts him out of prison, Peter says this:

"I can't believe it - this really happened!" (Acts 12:11) Peter wasn't expecting to be freed. He figured the worst would happen, but he was willing to accept God's plan.

I am reminded of a story that's not in the bible, so take it with a grain of salt. A man named Smith Wigglesworth - a great evangelist - once woke up in the middle of the night to find satan himself standing at the foot of his bed. Wigglesworth said 'Oh. It's just you.', then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Faith isn't about believing the best will happen until it finally does. Faith is about fully accepting that what will happen is according to God's plan. We can certainly ask God to do things - the church was fervently praying for Peter's release. But when Jesus prayed to avoid the cross, he accepted that then answer was 'no'.

If God tells you something is going to happen, trust in it. Jesus wasn't worried in the boat because he knew God's plan. Nothing would derail it.

Peter isn't worried because even though he doesn't know God's exact plan, he knows that nothing will derail it.

God is in control. That's why we can sleep in the storm. That's why we can sleep like a baby when our execution is scheduled the next day. That's why we don't need to worry about the health of our children, or about where our next job will be.

I know it's easier said than done, but there is hope. Peter went from freaking out in the storm to being at peace in the darkest of circumstances.

Let us continue to grow in our faith until we can rest easy when everyone else is freaking out. I can't think of many more powerful ways to point to God in our lives than that.

A Christian View of Tragedy

Today, America again experienced an attack of mass violence. The detonations near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed 3 people, maimed many more, and injured more than a hundred.

One of the two victims, it has been confirmed, was 8 years old. My oldest daughter is 8 years old, so this information was particularly impacting to me. I’m not sure how it would feel to lose any of my kids, and I certainly hope I never have to find out.

This comes after the terrible events late late year in Newtown, Connecticut where 26 children and adults lost their lives in another mass attack.

In the recent past, we have seen attacks in movie theaters, malls, schools and colleges.

I am of the opinion that these types of events, for the foreseeable future, will continue. (Until the depression, mental illness, anger, frustration, etc that cause these events has been dealt with, I don’t assume peoples’ actions will suddenly go in a different direction.)

Columbine, a decade ago shocked us to our core. If that event happened again today, we would shake our head and lament it as the latest event in a series of others. The 13 deaths in that event (Or 15, if you include the shooters who took their own lives) may be viewed as thankfully lower than Virginia Tech, Newtown or Norway.

How are the believers in an all-powerful and all-loving God supposed to view these events?

Are they part of God’s mysterious plan?

That would leave us in the place where we must bury our questions and our feelings of deep sadness - for to do otherwise would be to doubt God. I reject that stance completely.

I think God is just as saddened as we are by these events. I mentioned the pain I would feel if my daughter was killed.

Well, each person is a son or a daughter to God. Their loss is great to him. And also painful is the fact that one of his children committed the terrible act.

Jesus, after all, wept at the grave of his dear friend Lazarus - and he knew that he was about to resurrect Lazarus!

Jesus understands the pain of personal loss. The idea of a need to be stoic - that is, essentially emotionless - in the face of such event is foreign to the Jesus I see in the scriptures.

In fact, Jesus specifically addressed two events of mass violence and tragedy that were on the mind of people who were listening to his message.

In Luke 13, Jesus is informed that Pilate (the same one who would eventually sentence Jesus to death) had just executed some people as they were offering sacrifices at God’s temple.

You can be sure that this news hit the ears of those in Israel as hard as the news of Newtown hit mine and yours.

In response, Jesus reminds his followers of another recent tragedy, where a building fell on and killed 18 people.

And Jesus tells them this: That these people were no better or worse than anybody else.

They didn’t die because they were bad or evil. They died because Pilate was cruel. Or they died because a building was poorly constructed.

Jesus doesn’t go into a long explanation about mankind having free-will, and therefore at fault. He doesn’t  start talking about how God works in mysterious ways, or that it was ‘just these people’s time’.

He says “Unless you turn to God, you, too will die.” (Luke 13:1-5 The Message)

In other words, the only thing you can control is whether or not you are ready to stand before God.

Jesus says as plain as day that we will have to deal with tragedy and pain in this world. (John 16:33) There is no way around it. Following Jesus isn’t insurance against pain.

But here is what he guarantees: That he’ll never leave us. He’ll never forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5) He also guarantees that he’ll make something beautiful out of the mess (Romans 8:28)

C.S. Lewis said that God “whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.”

You don’t need to believe that God causes pain, but I encourage you to believe him when he says that his kindgom is overtaking us, and that he brings with himself the healing and peace that we all long for.

I don’t know when or where the next act of mass violence will occur in our nation. And I can’t tell you that it’s part of God’s plan.

But I can tell you that it won’t derail God’s plan.

And I can tell you that he invites all of us to be a part of his plan to restore this world.

In the second to last chapter of the Bible, God says he is making all things new.

We’re not there yet, but I assure you that God fulfills his promises.

Rejection

I was reading John chapter 12 today in the Message translation when I got to verses 47-48, where Jesus says this: “If anyone hears what I am saying and doesn’t take it seriously, I don’t reject him. I didn’t come to reject the world; I came to save the world. But you need to know that whoever puts me off, refusing to take in what I’m saying, is willfully choosing rejection.”

Jesus says that he doesn’t reject anybody. But some people reject him.

I look at the infinite patience Jesus had for people who were leading corrupt or broken lives. I wondered how Jesus did that. How could he show such mercy and grace to people that were living in a manner completely opposite to what God had called them to?

I think it’s because they never rejected him. You never see a prostitute or thief or leper that Jesus forgives or heals telling him off; questioning whether he is sent by God.

The people who rejected him were the ones who didn’t think Jesus had the right to forgive and even heal. They didn’t take him seriously. Those were the ones who Jesus had to confront and combat regularly.

It’s very easy to see fault in other people’s lives. But when our response stops being compassion and acceptance, I think we become people who don’t take Jesus seriously.

Whispers in the Deep

I love how Anne Lamott describes God in Help, Thanks, Wow: Way beyond us and deep inside us. God is a being far beyond our comprehension. I mean, seriously, how am I supposed to understand a being for whom time and place are not limitations? Whose existence fills both without effort? The God who describes the whole of planet earth as a footstool (Isaiah 61)?

Yet this same God says the place he most wants to dwell is not within grand structures of stone, marble and gold. He says he wants to live within us. Humanity. His creation. (1 Corinthinans 6:19-20)

But instead of some process where God ends up destroying us by his overriding presence, he desires to live alongside us. To be a wellspring of life that does not diminish us, but rather increases us. To give us fuller life - a life “more abundant” is how Jesus describes it. (John 10:10)

I love that God is willing to be a ‘whisper’ within me. So that I have to seek it out. To quiet myself to hear it.

God, who could make it impossible for me to ignore him, makes it easy and effortless to disregard him.  The most valuable things in life are available in an unlimited supply (love, hope, faith, joy, etc), but they are not gained without pursuit.

I love that God is the same. His presence is in infinite abundance, but it is in no way common. Taking it for granted will ensure that we are never able to find it.

Walls

Walls are built for a purpose. That purpose is either to a. keep something in or b. to keep something out.

An example of keeping something in would be the Berlin Wall. It was erected to prevent people in Eastern Berlin from emigrating out. The leadership there had created an oppressive government and had to resort to building a wall (along with mines and guard towers) to keep the citizens from leaving.

An example of a wall being built to keep something out would be the Great Wall of China. Built (originally) by a Chinese emperor circa 200 BC, it was rebuilt by the Ming Dynasty largely for the purpose of keeping Mongols out of China.

We (humanity) naturally want to build walls. We like to carve out our own place and protect it.

Those of us who have chosen to become members of the Body of Christ must resist this temptation.

We have often succumbed to the temptation to keep ourselves safe from the elements of the world that are less than savory. Elements that we can’t imagine could ever be sanctified. More specifically, to keep out the “wrong kind” of people.

And in doing so, the walls we built to keep ourselves safe and sanctified have become the walls of our own tombs.

Walls, as I have pointed out, are designed to keep people in and/or keep people out. The church should be in the habit of neither of these efforts.

Show me where Jesus built walls around his ministry. He had infinite grace to be among these “disreputable sinners” and “scum” (Mark 2:15-16 NLT). The only people who found themselves on the outside looking in were the very people who had built walls in the name of God: the religious leaders. The people who filled God’s temple with con artists.

Even then, Jesus did not lock them out. They repeatedly came to him, and had access. It was their own choice to ostracize Jesus. To build walls attempting to keep him out.

You should note something in common with the famous examples of walls I listed at the beginning of this article: they both failed. The Berlin Wall fell. The Great Wall failed multiple times at preventing invasion.

Our churches must not become stale and stagnant like water in a bottle. They must remain free and alive like a river.

By accepting everyone and empowering members to go out into the community, we build ties with the community. We become integrated, and we have the opportunity to make an impact. Just like a guy I read about: wait...what was his name? Oh, right. “Jesus”.

Our purpose is not to carve out a safe, secure, comfortable area in this world. It’s to expand the borders of God’s kingdom. A kingdom of grace, peace, acceptance, justice, forgiveness and healing.

Look at Revelation 21:25 - at the end of this age, when the New Jerusalem comes upon the earth, it’s gates never close.

If ‘keeping people out’ isn’t a priority in God’s eternal kingdom, is that something we should practice in our churches here and now?

I, for one, don’t think so.

The Value of Social Engagement

Years ago, I had the idea that we in Christianity were not only not obligated to help make this world a better place, but that it was counter-productive to our goals. Sounds crazy, right? Well, let me explain how I got to that conclusion.

I believed that social engagement would make this world a better place. But our purpose as Christians is to get to heaven and take as many people with us as we can, right? So the better this world is, the less likely people will want to hear a sales pitch about escaping it.

As (admittedly) stupid as this conclusion was, you have to admit it was logical. If heaven is the point of believing in Jesus, then we absolutely should not be a force for improving this world.

It wasn’t until I began to understand that ‘getting to heaven’ was a dumb goal that I started to reassess my thoughts on social involvement.

Only once I started to see that Jesus gave us the exact opposite goal - bringing heaven to earth - did I realize that being a force for good in this world was not only acceptable, it was actually mandatory.

I noticed 1 Peter 2:12: “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

It seems to me like God wants us to give Him a good name. God knows that how people view Him will depend on what they see coming out of the people who claim to know him, love him and follow him. Doesn’t seem fair that God has put himself in a position to be judged based on dumb stuff I do, does it? But God knows that’s how it’s going to work.

Churches can focus very hard on trying to get people saved, to get them into Sunday School. What if a church focused on being such a benefit, such a blessing to the community that people thought more highly of them? So that, perhaps, they will think more highly of God?

The old viewpoint I had on working to improve the world around us was, “aren’t we just making this life more comfortable, when in reality the hardships of the this life will force them to turn to God?”

But that doesn’t seem to be God’s approach. He made Abraham a vehicle of blessing. Jesus welcomed and accepted the “disreputable sinners” who came to him seeking a relationship.

At the end of the Bible, we see that God has created peace and unity in the renewal of the earth. Our job is to reveal God’s overall plan by working to accomplish it in the communities where we live and worship. How can people know what God wants to accomplish if we don’t put it on display as much as possible?

This is a value of social engagement: that, like Jesus, we do the things we see the Father do (John 5:19): restoring the world, providing avenues of blessing, and accepting the outcast.

That we would introduce people to the kingdom of God by spreading it here on earth as far an as wide as we can - indeed, as Jesus commands - to the ends of the earth.

Church and the Local Community

Imagine that you go to a church where nobody under 6 feet tall was allowed to attend.  It’s a normal church by all other standards, there is just nobody there who is less than 6 feet tall. How would that church be different than other churches? Might it start to focus on issues that taller people deal with more frequently, such as back and/or knee problems? Would that church ignore issues that shorter people have to face? Accessibility issues for little people, for instance?

Maybe the sermons at that church would start to become tailored for tall people, since short people aren’t a part of the community.

Over time, that church probably would not be as effective in reaching the community around it which is full of people who are under 6 feet tall, right? I mean, if you exclude people who live, work and play right in the community, the church stops looking like the community and then it loses its influence, right?

In order to be effective in the goal of spreading the gospel, I believe that a church must resemble the community where it is located.

Does your church look like the community it’s found in? Are the same gender ratios in your community found in your church? The same variety of color?  Do you have business people and homemakers? What about homeless people? How about people with special needs?

Who is being excluded from your church family, either on purpose, or because you’re not making it reasonably possible for them to attend?

It’s human nature to be drawn to people who are similar to you. But when we do that in our churches, we create county clubs. Cliques that exists just to make us comfortable. I’m pretty sure that is NOT what Jesus meant when he told us to go into the world and make disciples.

The church should resemble the community because the more we relate and connect with them the more we bring the Kingdom of God to them.

In order to influence the local community, we must resemble it. Because a church that excludes parts of the community will find itself detached from the community as a whole. It will be ignored because it does not relate to or understand the community.

Just as a church with a height restriction would be laughable, so is one that only accepts the “best, brightest, and wealthiest” among us.

When Wishes Come True

There's an old Chinese Curse that goes like this: "May you get what you wish for." You read that right. It's a curse. Not a blessing. Not a proverb. A curse.

The idea is that none of us really knows what we want in life. The things that we think would make us happy will just make us miserable.

I spent the last several years asking (begging) God for the opportunity to work at a job that would be in line with my passion in life: strengthening and expanding the kingdom of God. I am also passionate about developing critical thinking in others.

God gave me two positions at almost exactly the same time: adjunct professor and executive pastor.

I couldn't be more excited. I also couldn't be more busy! These are my dream jobs, and now I feel like I have been taken out of the desert and made to drink from a fire hose.

You know that Christian cliche about how 'if you're not asking God for something so big that without His help, you'll fail', then your prayer isn't big enough? Well, my prayer was big enough.

Here's the thing: I wasn't looking for a particular position that was easy. I wanted one that was worth it. I know I have that now. So I'm willing to fight and struggle to learn what I need to know in order to advance God's kindgom from the position he has placed me.

I also know that being so busy is a great way to forget about God altogether. So I am most fearful, not of failure, but of taking on this great challenge on my own.

I am honored that God has given me something so big, and now, I can't wait to see what God wants to do in me and through me after giving me everything I wished for!

Prayer

I’ve been reading quite a bit of material on other faiths recently, as preparation for a class I’m teaching this fall. There’s one faith that I just did some in depth study on where a daily prayer ritual exists. To complete this ritual takes between 2 and 3 hours each day. I have a great deal of respect for people who are disciplined enough to devote 2 to 3 hours to saying the same stuff each morning before the sun rises and after the sunset, and I don’t mean to belittle their efforts in worship and devotion; but I do respectfully believe that prayer is supposed to be so much more.

I worry that when prayer becomes a ritual, it loses its power.

Having a wedding ceremony once? Beautiful and meaningful. Having a wedding ceremony every weekend? Pointless and tedious.

I see signs of ritualization of prayer in Christianity. Here’s what I mean:

Praying over our food at each meal.

Praying before every athletic event and practice.

Praying before bed every night.

Praying when we wake up every day.

Isn’t it possible that “saying a prayer” 10-15 prayers a day will turn the prayer into an obligation? Perhaps I’m dead wrong here. Perhaps saying a prayer before every single meal will help some people remain focused on God’s generosity or provision.

I pray over some meals and not others. The funny thing is that the times when I don’t pray, God doesn’t turn the meal to worms and give me food poisoning.

Another faith I read about writes prayers on flags. Each time the wind blows the flag, they believe the prayer is sent up to heaven.

I simply can not accept this as an appropriate attitude for the Christian faith. Yet, when we say obligatory prayers at certain times, I feel we are doing essentially the same thing.

I’m not arguing that you or anybody else should pray more or pray less. Just that we must be weary of letting prayer become a ‘thing we do’. I find that often repeated rituals rob something of its genuine essence.

I believe prayer is important and valuable. Too important and valuable, in fact, to let it become a chore. So I pray all the time. But I don’t feel pressure to do it at any particular time.

I don’t think God is waiting behind a tree waiting to cause me harm if I forget to ask for protection on that particular morning.

I do think that spending time listening for God on a daily basis is important. Some days I don’t feel like I heard anything specific. Other days, I get distinct, strong impressions of what God is saying to me or showing me.

Prayer, reading the scriptures, singing, fasting; these are very valuable tools in the process of ones spiritual development. But like tools, they must be used for a purpose.

If I simply pick up a hammer and hit a piece of scrap wood everyday because ‘it’s a hammer and it’s supposed to hit wood’, I’m not actually building anything. ‘Praying because you’re supposed to pray’ is the same thing.

Let’s not feel that we need to pray more, let’s try to pray more genuinely, more interactively. For when we connect with God, then we have used the tool to accomplish its true purpose.

Waiting on God

I noticed something in the Bible today: Jesus didn’t take shortcuts. He was born as a baby, not a man.

He let John baptize him, despite the fact John thought it was ridiculous. Jesus’ response? “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.” (Matthew 3:15) In other words, this is plan God laid out, so we’re gonna do it right.

After John the Baptists imprisonment, Jesus went to Galilee in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah (see Matthew 4:15-17)

See, despite the fact that Jesus was fully qualified to fulfill his role, his calling at any point; he had to wait until it was time. He had to do all the things that needed to occur before beginning his ministry. He had to do the first things first. Because God’s plan is to be followed, not picked and skipped like some out of date procedure.

The past two years of my life, I have been waiting. Waiting for God to put me in a place that could fulfill my calling in a full-time position. I have been working at a job that allowed me to support my family and put myself through Graduate school. With school complete, I sought a job that would be in line with my mission, my calling.

But the silence from heaven on when I would get to that place was deafening.

I wrestled with frustration. I cried, I yelled, I demanded, I set ultimatums, I proclaimed, I begged. I know what it’s like to try not to hope for something better because the hope just hurts.

I knew that God was preparing me and maturing me, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t really, really hate the process.

That season of my life is now coming to a close. In the span of 1 month, here are the changes to my life that are occuring:

- My wife gave birth to our third child (our first son).

- I was offered a full time position as a pastor at a local church.

- I will start teaching my first classes at a local university as an adjunct professor.

You should realize that being in ministry at a really awesome church and working as a professor are two things I have been asking God for over the course of the two years. And I’m ecstatic to have another kid. I always wanted to have at least 3.

God has given me all I’ve ever wanted, but only at the proper time.

My wife and I had another offer for a job before this, but we felt it wasn’t part of God’s plan. We had to turn it down at the time. That was painful, but now we see that if we had taken that position, we never would have gotten to ‘the promised land’. If we had taken the easy way out, we would have missed the awesome things God was about to do.

As I look back on the past two years, I see how God was with me the entire time. Even (perhaps especially) on the worst days, when I was full of despair and hopelessness.

I’ve heard the cliche many times that ‘Trusting God means trusting in his timing’. But it certainly is true. God isn’t mean or cruel or forgetful. He does let us deal with adversity and challenges and uncertainty. Not because it amuses him, but because (I believe) he wants us to learn to trust him more and more. My best friend put it like this: as a parent, it’s great to tell your kids some great news and see them dance around the house shouting with joy. But it’s also meaningful to hold them tightly and whisper words of encouragement when they are sad or hurt or fearful. A true relationship is not just built on the ‘highs’ of life. It is build on the lows and the normal, boring days as well.

There’s no way to rush depth in a relationship. It takes time and shared experiences. And I believe that is why God would never give us shortcuts. Because to avoid adversity or uncertainty would mean that his relationship with us will be cheapened and weakened.

He is not a fair weather God. He wants us to know that he’ll be with us in the worst of times as well as the best of times.

When Life Sucks

Can we get real for a minute? You know how when people ask you at church how you’re doing, you automatically say something to the effect of ‘I’m doing pretty good, how about you?’, even when you’re about as far away from ‘doing good’ as you can possibly get?

Your life may be falling apart around you:

- A relationship breakup

- A health issue or sick loved one

- Finances are a mess

- Can’t figure out what God’s plan is for your life

- You’re struggling with an addiction/major issue

But we still feel like, as Christians, we’re supposed to know how to be content in the midst of these situations. To be ‘doing good’ no matter how bad things get. I mean, look in the bible:

Paul said he figured out how to be content in any situation, then he backs it up by signing praises while chained up in a dungeon.

Joseph stays faithful to God while spending years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Job…I mean what can you say? This guy, in the midst of a specific and directed attack by the devil, refuses to curse God; despite the fact that he knows he didn’t deserve his treatment.

So we feel like we’re supposed to have a stiff upper lip, unquestioning blind faith, and above all, never to say thinks like ‘life really sucks right now.’

Having just completed a season - multiple years - of my life that pretty much felt like a barren wasteland, I have a new perspective on these times.

Here’s that perspective: you learn and grow way, way more during the times in your life where it seems like all the marrow has been sucked from your bones. When life seems to be only shades or gray, rather than vibrant color. When the soundtrack of life is more like fingernails on a chalkboard than a tuned up orchestra.

When life is good and well and easy, it’s pretty natural to coast.

I completed an offroad triathlon about a week ago. In the bike ride portion, there are some sections that are flat and easy. It’s hard for me to push myself to the breaking limit in those sections. Usually, I’m tempted to sit back and just pedal at a normal pace.

But in the sections that are steep, covered in loose rocks and dirt, filled with deep pits and large, sharp rocks that want nothing more than to wreck your bike, I don’t need any extra motivation to go all out. There’s no temptation to coast, because I can’t. The only way I can climb those insanely tough sections is if I give more than I thought I had.

Those are the parts of the race that ‘sucks’, and those are exactly the same parts that makes the accomplishment worthwhile. I don’t tell people about the easy sections later when I talk about the race. I talk about the parts that nearly broke me, but that I overcame.

I prove myself worthy by overcoming the hardest challenges the course can throw at me.

It’s the same in life. When, by God’s grace and mercy, you make it through the darkest days, the uncertain days, the days where hope seems to be a cruel weapon rather than the rope that keeps you from falling; those are the days that define who you are. Those are the days that strip away the things that are holding you back, keeping you complacent.

I didn’t want to spend two years of my life being refined and prepared. But as I am about to complete the transition into the life that I asked for, I see now that God did exactly what needed to be done. Only he knew what changes needed to occur in my life, so only he was qualified to put me in situations to bring those changes about.

In time, you will gain understanding as to why he has allowed you to bear the burdens which are in your life.

So when life sucks, please, remain faithful to God. I promise he is remaining faithful to you.

Salvation and Works

I believe that we are not saved through works, but we are saved to work. I feel that ‘getting saved’ is like getting your diploma or degree.

It’s a great development, and to be celebrated, but it’s not the end point. You’re supposed to do something with it!

Who would get a degree in veterinarian school, then go live on an island where there are no animals? No, you go somewhere that you can start helping animals.

God did not pay a great cost to redeem us, just so we could sit around and be redeemed.

I believe his purpose is to redeem and restore the entire world (I get this idea from the book of Revelation). Once we have accepted his amazing, gracious gift, we’re supposed to continue and cooperate with his will: the expansion of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

We can’t earn God’s love. When I support a charity or feed a homeless person or visit a prisoner or share the gospel, I don’t earn an extra crown in heaven. What I’m doing, rather, is the same thing Jesus said in John 5:19: ”I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

I’m just doing what I see God doing. Caring for the downtrodden. Giving hope to the hopeless. Offering a hand to those who have fallen.

Because there is a great deal of work to be done in this world, and God himself has chosen to do it with and through us.

We are God’s plan A, and there is no plan B. This doesn’t point to how great we are, but rather how incredible God is. The epitome of perfection, willing to work through fallen, flawed and frail humanity because he values us.

Working for God and his purposes is not an obligation, it’s an honor. One that we’d have to be blind to refuse.

These Present Troubles

Jesus is clearly a champion of the poor, hungry and needy. Yet when a woman pours a year’s salary worth of perfume on him, and the disciples criticize this move as being too extravagant (“That should have been sold and the money given the poor”), Jesus says this: “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:8)

Jesus isn’t being callous and uncaring about the poor. He’s being realistic. This world is always going to have problems. There will always be trouble. You’ll always have something that needs fixing. Don’t use that as an excuse not to worship God.

I have several issues that I’ve been presenting to God repeatedly for a couple years, basically crying and saying ‘fix it!’

But God hasn’t snapped his fingers and made all the issues go away. What I have come to realize is that if God solves my current problems, I’ll just end up having different ones.

He wants me to seek him, follow him, worship him where I am. Israel wasn’t told to worship God once they got to the promised land. They were called to do it in the desert, before they ever got their promised inheritance.

If, no - check that, WHEN we have problems; health, money, relationships, school, career - we can’t get to the attitude that once God makes it better, we’ll really do a better job of loving him and living for him.

Jesus said that it’s okay, not to ignore the poor or forget about them, but to prioritize them. God is more important that our present troubles. We can lavish our love and affections on him, even from a place of brokenness and imperfections. Heck, what could be better than genuine worship in the midst of situations that try to rob you of your passion?

Jesus even says in John 16:33 that we are going to have trouble in this world. But that we should take heart, be encouraged. Because he is greater, and it’s all going to be okay in the final analysis.

God cares for the poor, desperate and needy; and he wants us to care as well. But if we are going to help restore this world, we’ve got to keep our priorities straight.

We need not feel guilty about giving God the best of us.

Asking Better Questions

Let me let you in on a little secret about me: my favorite questions are the ones that there’s no easy answer for, and possibly no definite conclusion to be reached at all. It’s because I got bored of treating the bible like a textbook a long time ago.

I’m not trying to win bible trivia at group meetings or prepare myself for the scan-tron test God gives everyone to see if they are allowed into heaven.

Here’s the kind of questions that I love :

Why does God change his mind in some places in the bible (e.g. Hezekiah, not destroying Israel after Moses pleads with him), but not in others (Sodom and Gomorrah, Not letting Moses into the promised land, Not removing the thorn in Paul’s flesh)?

Why does God allow so much evil and suffering in this world?

Why does God make it so easy for people to ignore him?

Why did God create Lucifer?

Why did God create humanity knowing they would fall?

What is God’s non-linear reality like?

Oh yeah, where does God come from? (That one makes my head hurt if I think about it for more than a couple minutes.)

I can give some answers, to varying degrees of satisfaction, to most of these questions. But most of it is speculation. So perhaps it’s unhealthy to ask questions like these.

Paul said that in the next life, we’ll get all the answers we want. So better to just ignore the mysteries until then, right?

I disagree. Here’s why I think there’s value in wrestling with “unanswerable questions”:

I heard a story about a guy who worked for Bose (you know, the speaker/headphone people). He had an idea for a new product. This product would simulate the sound in a large building, such as a stadium or auditorium, and let somebody hear exactly what music or talking would sound like in any seat of the stadium coming out of a sound system. By giving this device the blueprints for a building that wasn’t yet constructed, they could test and see whether they needed to make adjustments to maximize the experience of people in the seats. They could also test the performance of a large scale sound system before investing the money into it.

This guy pitched the idea to the head of Bose. The president of the company didn’t think this guy had any shot of making this product. But he gave the guy the green light anyways. When asked later why he would let somebody undertake an expensive project when he didn’t even believe it could be done, the president said that the guy had so much passion and enthusiasm for it, he just couldn’t say no. And the president figured that they would probably learn things from the project that would be useful to other projects, enough so that they could probably recoup their investment.

When I spend time pondering questions that are far greater than I can fully grasp, I may not get “the answer” to that question. But I often gain insights and understanding along the way. The Holy Spirit may reveal something to me that I had never considered before.

The best questions, while maybe not having a final, direct answer, lead to other insights.

God has all the answers. He doesn’t need us to figure anything out so we can explain it to him. But I do think he’s looking for people that will ask questions.  Because only those who seek will ever find.

Mundane Mediocrity

It’s easy to see God in the extraordinary. It’s easy to cry out to him in desperation.

But how can we make our relationship with God part of everyday, normal life?

Here’s what I don’t like about facebook: it makes people feel like their lives are boring and uninteresting, but that everybody else has a ton of exciting/interesting stuff happening.

In reality, this is untrue. It’s an illusion. When you have 500 people who only post something that is noteworthy, it just seems like everybody else is busy and doing stuff. Most people are just making it through a boring day, same as you are.

But people usually don’t post things like: “Just heated up lunch in the microwave. Back to my desk for another 3 hours now.”

The challenge of being a true Christian for a typical American (in my opinion) is seeking God when everything is status quo. We don’t really need God to meet our dietary needs: we have plenty of food. Most of us are normally in pretty good health, or we go to the doctor and get medication if we need it. We’re not generally in danger of being attacked.

The things that are trying to compete for our attention are TV, facebook, games, etc.

Things that are passive and fun and easy.

Seeking God is none of those things. It takes time and energy and effort. You have to wrestle with your thoughts and emotions and focus.

If we only look for God in the ‘big events’ in life, I think we will miss the times when he is a still, small whisper. And in my experience, those are the words of life that prepare us to handle the big events.

God is still God even when life is a grind. We must resist the temptation to check out when everything within us wants to do exactly that.

Nobody likes plowing the fields, but without that work, you don’t see a harvest.

The Story

I’ve been thinking lately how much our lives are like a story. Stories, at least the good ones, take time to tell. They unfold, pieces at a time.

I read The Hunger Games a little over a week ago. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a well written book that told an interesting story.

The first page didn’t explain anything about the hunger games themselves. It didn’t clearly explain how we were looking at a nation that had arisen from the ashes of America in a dystopian future.

You learned or gleaned these pieces of understanding along the way. It felt like walking into a house that you’ve never visited before with many doors. Each one held a room full of details; some interesting, some bland.

I often want God to give me answers, or to make clear my future path and plans…but what he wants to do is let the story unfold. It’s a rich story with depth, not a book of quick answers and little left to wonder about.

The Bible itself isn’t a text book, it’s a grand narrative about God and the flawed people he loves.

In books, I never skip ahead to see what’s going to happen. It means less when you don’t know what it takes to get there. But in life, I’m constantly whining about wanting to know how it will all turn out. I think this would steal away from experience, the journey. And I think that life consists not of where we are, but how we got there.

Sometimes the story of our lives wanders and meanders, but that’s what gives it depth and breadth. The best stories take time to tell, and I want my life to be a great story.

Judgement in a Facebook World (or, What Would Jesus Post?)

Just because facebook gives us a glimpse into people’s lives doesn’t mean it also gives us the right to render judgement upon it. That’s the job of people in their lives at the local faith community level. What does the Bible say about Judgement?

It says not to judge hypocritically. It says believers should not judge those outside the church. It says judgement should be handled at the local church level through appropriate authority. It says judgment between Christians should not be put on display before non-believers.

The bible says that if you see another believer sinning, you should confront them.  So if somebody who identifies themselves as a Christian puts some seriously questionable material or comments up on their Facebook page, do we have the option and/or the obligation to confront that person?

Does Matthew 18 now involve the guidance to ‘first private message that person, and if they don’t respond then confront them on their wall’?

Rendering judgment upon people in Facebook just seems like a very dangerous precedent to me. I’m not entirely sure you can avoid hypocritical judgment when telling people what you think about their content on facebook. And are arguments between Christians really the thing you want their non-believing friends to see? You’re probably going to end up re-enforcing stereotypes that won’t lead anybody to spiritual life - that Christians are judgmental, nosy, and holier than thou.

I think we who are not in a place to interact offline with people should restrain ourselves to encouragement where possible. If you want to get into a conversation about whether you agree with somebody’s stance on gay marriage or abortion, that may be fine. But if you know that it will devolve into arguing, perhaps it would be best to restrict yourself.

Better, I think, to avoid those kinds of topics unless they can be discussed on a personal level, with a friend rather than a person who we kind of know and never see in real life.

I believe we as Christians should view Facebook and the social world not as a place where we should bring a ruler to rap the knuckles of others, but as a chance to encourage and uplift through affirmation. If Jesus had a Facebook page, I just don’t think he’d be interested in flaming people with it. It would be a place people would go so that they could be part of something great and good.