Our starting points impact our end results. We often begin our interactions with God from a certain perspective or an understanding that limits our ability to comprehend what God might want to say to us.
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We typically define an enemy by identifying what it is that they are trying to take away from us and then unite against that enemy. It makes us feel as if we are doing something “Christian”, as if we are standing for the truth. The irony is that the Bible tells us over and over again, “Do not fear.” It was one of the first things that Jesus said to the disciples after the resurrection.
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I think I know what I want but I just don’t seem to know if God is willing to do it. Over the years he seems to do things in ways and for reasons that I don’t understand. My lack of clarity about who God actually is has direct implications to how I live day to day. So much of our lives and the way we think and react flows out of our perceptions and understandings of what God is like. What is he “willing” to do?
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My wife and I love this time of year. All four of my daughters are home, after Christmas Eve my work slows down for a few days, and I get to spend time at home with the people that I enjoy the most. These days remind me to be thankful for all that I have been given in my life. It’s an important lesson to remember.
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I’ve been reading America, The Farewell Tour by Chris Hedges. If you know his writing you will understand the impact of that sentence. Hedges is a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner, and prolific author who never fails to stir my thinking. I often say that I can only read one book of his per year because they all leave me depressed. It’s not because they are bad or poorly written, quite the contrary. Hedges writes hard hitting content that digs deep into the day to day and exposes what is actually happening in the world around us.
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I have been on this spiritual journey for a while, and I have learned that often it is pain that is the catalyst to growth. I know myself well enough to know that usually it takes something that stings to get my attention.
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Last Sunday was the first week of Advent, a Sunday when churches all over the world and throughout history have celebrated the idea that Jesus’ birth brings hope to our broken world. I love that we start our journey through this season focusing on hope. Hope means that we are still waiting. Hope takes an honest look at the brokenness of the world around us.
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In our world today speed and efficiency is prized above almost everything else. Technology has allowed us to speed the pace of our lives and to accomplish more in a 24 hour day than would have ever been thought possible in the past. While we celebrate this is our culture, we are starting to feel the emotional and spiritual fatigue that comes from living at this pace.
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Years ago, when my kids were still small, we spent an afternoon at the Mall. As we left that day everyone (except for my wife) was grumpy, but especially me. The overstimulation of what was available to have and all that we had to say no to created something in me that wasn’t very pretty. I went home and wrote this little poem. I still find it to be true…
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I’ve been around the church for my whole life and one thing I have always found to be true is that when people feel a sense of religious/spiritual rejection it is a very deep and painful wound, often one that lasts for years and years. It’s a wound which often leads people to hate and resist the very thing that they are being drawn to.
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I find the same is often true of me. I head into my day on mental autopilot, with my to do list and the expectations of people moving me forward much like the puppeteer manipulates his marionette. All of my actions simply become reactions to things that are already pushing and driving me in a given direction. I am beginning to realize that this type of life doesn’t leave any space to recognize the gifts of God…
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I’ve been reading through Ezra this week and this morning I read the riveting 2nd chapter. Let me give you a sample of what you will find there…
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Spent some time crossing the border to the US the other day. Here’s the mental rabbit trail I went down while I waited.
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All I need to know about pastoring a church I learned coaching high school girl’s basketball. I’m very serious about this, so much so that I’ve considered writing letters to seminaries around the world to tell them that they need to include a practicum in their programs focused on coaching youth sports. There are a lot of things I have learned, but I want to share one truth specifically that I am finding very relevant now…
Eight and half years ago my dad went home to be with Jesus. I still think of him almost every day. He lived a quiet life and worked hard to provide for his family. He prayed each morning with my mom for every single one of us. I can remember hearing them at the breakfast table while I got dressed for school, “God take care of…, protect…”. One by one, name by name, the list growing as my older siblings got married and had children.
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The question isn’t so much who will we elect as it is who are we becoming.
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Last night I saw the highly acclaimed movie, A Star is Born. I had heard great things about the movie, and the acting and story did not disappoint. It was a powerful portrayal of the relationship between the two main characters, rotating around the themes of love, hope, brokenness, and suffering. The question I came away with was, “Why do we as human beings want to see sad movies?” Isn’t reality sad enough? What is it that draws us to this experience of something on the screen that we would avoid at all costs in our real lives?
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My relationship with church has not been without its challenges. At different periods along the way I have found myself disillusioned with the whole concept of church, frustrated with how slow things are to change, and often hurt by those who claim to love me. Despite all of this, I’m still here, and it’s not just because as the pastor I get paid to be here. (Although that does help.) I’m sticking with church because…
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As we mature we begin to see that even the best things we have to offer God were really all about us and our ego. It’s a devastating realization, and one that brings us so much closer to the place we need to be to receive all that God offers. No one illustrates that more clearly than C.S. Lewis in his poem “As the Ruin Falls.”
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