THE GIFT OF GRACE pt2

In part 1, we looked at what Grace is and where it comes from. Now, in part 2, we'll take a deeper look into Grace and what our response to it should be. In his letter to the Romans, Paul talks about two different kinds, or works of Grace, both coming from the same source, but having two different functions. These two kinds of Grace are what I'll call Saving Grace and Enabling Grace. We've already seen the basis for Saving Grace in part 1. It's found in Romans 3:23-25. Paraphrased, is says no one is good enough to meet God's standard, and in that condition He has provided for us a way, through Him, to rise to the standard required by Him, that He would be glorified. This is Saving Grace, the Grace by which we obtain the righteousness of God and the right to be adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters.

To see the second work of Grace, Enabling Grace, two passages, one near the beginning of the letter and one near the end, need to be linked together. In Romans 12:3 & 12:6a Paul writes, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” and “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them...”. Paul's use of the word Grace here refers not to a Grace simply by which we are saved, but rather a Grace that enables us to act. In verse 3, he's referencing the Grace he has been given to act, and in verse 6 he's referencing the grace that we've been given to act.

So what does this mean? How does Grace allow us to act? To answer this, Romans 1:1-5, specifically verse 5, needs to be linked with with 12:3&6. Romans 1:1-5 says:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

In verse 5, Paul first talks about his own enabling Grace, and then speaks of our enabling Grace, in the phrase “obedience of faith”.

To unpack this, the reality that Grace has to be claimed must be understood. Grace is a free gift to us from God “to be received” (Romans 3:25). That means that it's ours only if we receive it. How do we receive it? Simple: Believe. “...God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” Or, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). With both Saving Grace and Enabling Grace, in order to claim it, to walk in it, we simply must believe it's ours. In the case of Saving Grace, to believe means to trust in Christ's work on the cross. In the case of Enabling Grace, to believe is to trust that God has given us the ability, authority and power to do what he calls us to do. When God calls, he gives the Grace to follow the call. To believe in enabling Grace is to obey what God calls us to do. This is what paul is meaning in Romans 1:5 when he uses the term “obedience of faith”.

Finally, there is a peace to be found in the Grace of God. In both instances of Grace, when we receive it, there comes with it a confidence that God will accomplish what he sets out to do. When we trust in Christ's work on the cross, in his Saving Grace, we can have full confidence that all our sins are forgiven and that we have a place in God's family forever. When we respond to God's calling with the obedience of faith, in his Enabling Grace, we can have full confidence that God will bring about His desired outcome. In both instances, the confidence in God's grace should leave us with the peace that God is firmly in control. All we need to do is believe, show up, and do what he tells us. He'll take care of everything else. Grace. It's that simple.

THE GIFT OF GRACE pt1

Grace is, by far, the simplest doctrinal truth in the life of a Christian. Grace rests at the core of what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and the ability to live out of our inheritance as children of God rests squarely on the reality of Grace. Unfortunately, since it is so breathtakingly simple, Grace is also one of the most over-thought and over-complicated doctrines. In the 16 chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans, the word Grace appears 18 times. A good understanding of Grace can be gained by looking through the words of Paul in this magnum opus of doctrinal revelation centered around Grace

In Romans chapter 3, Paul gives us the essence of Grace, namely the free gift of God from God to us. He starts by making this statement in verse 23: “All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God,”. Look closely at this verse. Grace is beautifully evident here, but it's very easy to miss. Notice that this verse doesn't end with a period, but rather a comma. Paul says no one is good enough to meet the requirements put forward by God, but he doesn't stop there. What follows in verses 24 and 25 gives us the foundation on which our understanding of Grace is based. All together these three verses read.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

If read carefully, a theme emerges from this passage: Grace is from God. All of it. Here, read it again. See if you can pick it up.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Grace is not a result of anything that we did, or even can do. Grace has it's source 100% in God.

Because Grace is a gift, owing it's origins totally and completely to God, we have no claim on it other than it was given to us. This means Grace cannot be earned. Paul makes this point beautifully in Romans 11:6 which says, speaking of being chosen by Grace, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” Grace is a gift. A gift cannot be earned. Romans 4:4-5 says “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness”. There is a beautiful and breathtaking truth to be found here. Grace is a gift which was freely given, regardless of our worthiness or unworthiness to receive it. Here's the beauty of it. If there is nothing that qualifies us to receive grace, there is also nothing that disqualifies us from receiving grace. Grace is ours, whether we like it or not. What then becomes important is how we respond to it. We have a choice. We can either embrace what God has given to us, or we can leave it behind, choosing instead to rely on our own merit.

In part 2 I'll look at some finer distinctions made about grace, as well as a clearer understanding of what it looks like to receive the gift. Stay tuned.

UNTITLED MEDITATION

I was meditating on an issue I'm currently facing, a dilemma if you will, in which I'm presented with several possible outcomes. Some very, very good, some rather bad, and some carrying more neutral consequence. As I was thinking on these different possibilities, in my mind I was bringing out the spiritual director that I often bring out with helping others with similar dilemmas. As I was guiding myself through the facts of my own situation, I became suddenly aware of startling state of mind. I was comfortable. Even though there's pain in this uncertainty, there's a heart ache that's sitting with me in this dilemma, I was content to sit in it. I knew it. I am acquainted with it. If I sit here in my pain and my heart ache, I know what to expect. I know what's coming, because I control it. Even though it hurts... It's safe. There is a reluctance to move out of it one way or another.

As I recognized this in myself, I immediately saw that there was a deeper condition beneath this one. This desire to stay put and hang out in my heart ache was coming from a place of fear.

There's a very real fear that we all carry. Some of us carry it out in front of us, allowing it to affect our life and faith in very detrimental ways. Others of us have faced it and beaten it with the grace and love of God, but it still follows us, like a lingering echo from the past occasionally making it's way into our ears, whispering the destructive “what if”. What if God doesn't come through? What if God doesn't have our best interest in mind? What if God doesn't want me to have what I so desperately want? What if God's mad at me for what I've done. What if...

This place of fear stems from a issue that's deeper still. These anxieties all come from a common root of mistrust of God or a lack of trust in God. In God's Love. In God's Grace. In God's Character. I discovered that in this particular situation, I am having a very hard time trusting God's words in Jeremiah 29:11. I know He's good. I know He's got my best interest in mind. I know that He loves me and wants to give me only the best. I know his desires for me and his will for my life are better than anything I could conjure up on my own. But yet experiences, wounds from my past are affecting my perception. The pain of my past is casting doubt on my future. It's at this point that I must simply let go of my control and let God do his thing. It's at this point that another set of “what ifs” come into play.

What if... What if God actually gives me what I desire? What if I actually get what I want? I'm used to operating from a place of pain. A place of disappointment. A place of damage control and recovery. What if God begins to give me the desires of my heart? This is uncharted territory. The prospect of facing the unknown is strangely uncomfortable. It's unfamiliar. It's not “safe”. I don't know what to expect, like I know what to expect in the pain. I have no idea what's coming. All that I have to stand on is God's declaration that He loves me and the reality that He died so that he could be with me.

As I see all this, it's on this final revelation that I stand. God loves me with such an intensity that he died the horrible death of the cross just to be with me. If at the end of all this I come away with nothing but Him, how can I possibly say that I got the short end of the deal. So I stare into the unknown, standing on the precipice of His love with this simple prayer: “Lord I love you! Help me to love you more!”

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani

This evening I was tracking an idea (at least I thought I was) through the letter to the Hebrews. Now before I begin, let me tell you a little bit about how I read the bible when I'm after something. My translation of choice is the English Standard Version (ESV), for a couple reasons, but one of them is the simple fact that it's heavily footnoted. The translators were very careful to note where a translation might be in question or uncertain. They also were very good about citing passages throughout the new testament where the writer is referencing or alluding to an old testament writing. When I come across a foot note, I make sure to pay attention. In the instances where the footnote points to an old testament writing, I finish reading the thought the writer of the New Testament text is making, and then I go track down the passage they're referencing so I can get a proper perspective on what the writer might be saying. Many people in Israel at the time of Christ had memorized a substantial portion of the Scriptures, so when someone would drop a phrase or portion of Scripture, even if it was incomplete, the listener would be able to fill in the rest to understand the point the speaker was making. This is called an allusion. For instance, in Matthew's Gospel account, in chapter 3 when John the Baptist drops the passage from Isaiah “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight'”, the lister in that day, would have heard that, and filled in the rest of that passage in Isaiah. Take a look at Isaiah 40:1-5, and see if that sheds a new light on what John is saying here.

So back to my “pursuit” in Hebrews, I was tracking a thought that I had had a few days previous. So I began in chapter 2, and after a time of unfruitful searching and following foot notes, I came back to verse 12 which contains a passage from the Psalms that I had not followed because I didn't think it spoke to the idea that I was after. So, having exhausted all other avenues, I thought I would follow the note I'd skipped. The allusion the writer uses here is from Psalm 22, so I turned to Psalm 22 to read it in its entirety to gain perspective on what the writer was saying. Let me say here that I don't spend much time in the Psalms, so I was unaware of what Psalm 22 said, though after reading it, I'm sure it's one of the most widely known Psalms simply because of it's prophetic nature. So I begin reading Psalm 22, and the very first words of the Psalm say “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. At this moment, I stop dead in my tracks. I've heard this before. In Matthew 27:6, Jesus is on the cross, and it says “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a load voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If we can take one thing from all the accounts of Jesus speaking, its that he does not use words idly. When He speaks, he puts every word exactly where He wants it, exactly when he wants it. So what does this mean? Why does Jesus quote Psalm 22 here?

Psalm 22 is the prophetic Psalm that contains the prophesy that His hands and feet will be pierced, his bones will not be broken, he would be mocked, the soldiers would divide up his clothing. At this moment in time in the life of Jesus, this prophesy is being fulfilled. We can see that, the people around him can see that, and that's precisely why Jesus says this. If you're not familiar with Psalm 22, take some time right now and read through it once or twice. I'll wait.

Jesus quotes this Psalm, not to point people to what is going on. They can see with their own eyes that he's suffering, that he is being pierced and that his garments are being divided up. But what they don't see is the rest of Psalm 22.

For those witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus, and then hearing him quote Psalm 22 while it's being fulfilled, would have filled in all the rest of the Psalm. I'm looking specifically at verses 27-31. If one is witnessing the first half of a scripture being fulfilled, exactly, right in front of you, I would assume one would naturally assume that second half will come to pass as well. For the Jews at this point, this extraordinarily exciting! If they got it, “they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. GOD HAD DONE IT! The afflicted will now eat and be satisfied; their hearts will live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD. Kingship now belongs to the LORD and he rules over all nations. This is very, very good news.

So when Jesus utters these words on the Cross, it's not just a cry out to God, it's a call to all who have ears to hear. He's pointing people toward the reality of what's actually going on. Jesus is buying their freedom. With this simple phrase, he says “Listen up folks, look at what's happening. There's something here that you have to see.” And for those there in that moment who heard this and connected the dots, their world exploded and their paradigm was turned upside down. In just one instant, with only four words, for those people that got it, Jesus changed everything!

God I pray that as we search your Word, you will lead us to connect the dots. Give us eyes to see so that we can see what you're up to. God help us to see, so that with only a few words, spoken at the right time in the right place, you will change everything!

GOOD FRIDAY

It's April 22^nd, 2011, Good Friday. Because Good Friday is a day in which Christians all around the world remember Christ's death, I would like to spend some time myself remembering and meditating on the crucifixion of our Lord, and I'd like to invite you to come along with me. I'm going to look at three different angles, or vantage points, of the crucifixion of Jesus and what we can take from each. Join me as I look at the crucifixion from the most common perspective, Christ's death in relation to us and what we gained as a result, a slightly less common vantage point of Jesus' followers, his disciples, and those closest to him the night this beautifully tragic event occurred and what they may have gone through, and then a vantage point that is rarely looked at, the Crucifixion from the perspective of God, what He did, why He did it, and what He got as a result. In doing this, I hope to paint a picture that has both vivid lights and deep darks which, when put together, create a rich image of what happened on that horrible magnificent day when Christ crawled up on that old rugged cross.

The first perspective, the view from our seats right here, is widely spoken of, so I won't spend a whole lot of time on it, just enough to get the point across. The plain and simple of it, as any street evangelist will tell you, is that Christ died to pay for our sins. It all started back in Genesis 3. After Adam and Eve broke the first ever command of God – do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will surely die – and they were naked, scared and ashamed, God came to them and covered their nakedness and shame. It's easy to miss. It's a little verse revealing mercy amidst the chaos of God's judgment. Verse twenty-one of chapter 3 says “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Did you catch that? In their nakedness and shame, God, instead of taking their lives as he said he would, sacrificed other creatures to cover them. He created garments of skins. You can't make a garment out of the skin of something that's still alive. The creation story is, of course, a poem. This, I believe, is figurative language illustrating a truth about our relationship with God. This idea continues as God give the Israelites the sacrificial system by which their sins, the short comings, there nakedness and shame is atoned for. The Israelites were able to bring their sins, through a priest, to God and then kill other creatures to cover their sins. This was a life debt being paid. Our life is in our blood; without blood, we have no life. So we exchange our blood for the blood – the life – of another of God's creatures, as he did for us in the Garden. Because we are the pinnacle of God's creation, anything that is killed in our stead is an imperfect sacrifice, and thus is only a temporary solution. This is why every year the sacrifice would be made. Every year this would be repeated. God would allow us to cover our sins, our shame and nakedness, with the life of lesser creatures. But God, in His divine providence, in a small town outside of Jerusalem called Bethlehem, provided a sacrifice that would once and for all cover our sins. Forever. Since there's nothing in creation that can serve as our replacement in death, God became a man and did it himself. This brings us the Cross. To Good Friday. God, sacrificing Himself so that our sins, our shame, our nakedness, our broken and fallen state can be covered perfectly and permanently. Simply put, God, Jesus, died so that we might live. Jesus gets crucified, we get saved from death. God gets death, we get life. It's a propitiation. A replacement, a transaction in which one person's debt, namely me, you, the person you passed at the supermarket, the person who cut you off in traffic, is settled by another person's payment, namely God in Jesus Christ. But it's so much more than that. We'll look more deeply at the other side of this transaction in a moment. But first, let's look at what was going on down on the ground as this beautiful debacle was taking place.

Try for a moment to put yourself in the shoes of the disciples of Jesus as he was teaching, performing miracles, ticking off of the Pharisees and getting away with it, and loving folks like no one has ever loved them before. This man is amazing, astounding, and if you're following him, I mean really following him, taking his teachings to heart and applying them to your life, you're convinced that this man is who he says he is: the very Son of God, the long awaited and prophesied Messiah. Put yourself in Jerusalem at the time of the Triumphal Entry of Jesus (Matthew 21). He comes into town in a kind of royal procession, he cleanses God's temple, puts the corrupt religious elite in their place. You think to yourself “This is it! It's really happening! Jesus, the Messiah is going to reclaim our promised land and re-establish Israel as the great Kingdom it once was in all of the glory of King David and King Solomon. The time has come, finally!” Now take that expectation, that love that you feel for the Man that has healed so many, possibly even YOU, and befriended the un-friend-able, that excitement for God and His people and the rich history that is fueling it, pushing it forward like a freight train speeding full tilt down a hill – He's really going to do it! This is it – and bring that energy, that momentum, to the hill outside of Jerusalem where Jesus has just been crucified and killed. Stop reading for moment and just let that sink in.

Can you imagine the heart break? Can you imagine that shear indescribable, soul shattering pain that these people went through? This is a broken heart wrapped in a humiliating defeat covered in a fear of death and tied off with a broken faith. There's no sugar coating this. This is excruciating pain. This is the kind of pain that is purely emotional, but is so incredibly intense that it manifests itself in painful ways in the physical. The bitter weeping that had to have been going on. This is the kind of heart break where your heart feels like it's physically breaking open, ripping in two. This is misery. This is agony and anguish. This is Good Friday. But I can't stop on that note. Let's take a look at what God saw.

To view Good Friday, the cross, from this vantage point, we need to position ourselves in Genesis 1 and 2 to get the proper view. In Genesis 1, we find the beginning of the creation poem. This is a far-off view of what God did at the beginning of time. To sum it up, in an overflow of his own creativity, God created all that is. The universe. Light, dark, land, water, day, night, stars, trees, fish, bugs, heaven, earth, everything flowed out from his mouth as he uttered the words of creation. When everything was in place, all as he wanted it, he said to himself, “Let us create man”. And then, out of an overflow of his own love, he created humanity. We can take a couple things from this. First, God loves us. We are the only creature, the only single species (if you want to call us that) that he specifically called into existence by name. Everything else he called into existence with a general word of creation; the seas and everything living in them; the birds of the air; every living creature that walk on the earth and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth. These are all general categories. After everything else is created, God says, “let us create MAN.” Us. Specifically. God loves us. Specifically. Second, we are much more than the rest of God's creation. We are part of God's creation, but we are much more than mere creatures. God breathed his very spirit into us. His breathe, from his mouth, he blew into our nostrils. I don't know if you've ever tried blowing into someone's nostrils, but if you're not intimately familiar with that person, it is extremely awkward. God specifically breathed HIS breath into us, his very spirit. We were created in the image of God, his spirit is a part of who we are. We are set apart from all the rest of creation. Special. Loved. In the beginning we were joined together by our spirits, our spirit in His and His spirit in ours. The two were... one. Sound familiar. In the beginning, God and Man were married, joined together by God himself. It was wonderful, but before too long, something went horribly wrong and the focus of God's love and affection began to thumb their noses at Him. They turned their back on him, chose to live life without him. We walked away from God. Even so, God continued to provide for us. He covered us in all the ways we needed covered. Gave us everything we needed. From the moment we left the Garden, God began the task of trying to win back our affections. God spent the entirety of human history attempting to get us to fall back in love with him. The entire Old testament is the story of God wooing his people back into his arms. But we continually turned our back on God, continually offended God, and continually rejected God. But, like a resolute and lovesick husband, he never gave up on his wayward wife. Then, in an act of perfect and desperate love, God himself came to live among us and give up his very life to bring us back into the perfect union we had in the Garden. Jesus, God become man, lived among us, modeled to us what the perfect union that we walked away from and were continually rejecting looked like, felt like, smelled like, sounded like. Then he crawled up on that cross and died in order to give us a perfect way back into his presence. The writer of Hebrews says in chapter twelve, verse two, that “for the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross”. What was that joy? It was us! What a perfect love! As Christ was being nailed to that cross, he was looking at me, at you, thinking to himself 'hang on, don't give up. I'm coming.” It was YOU that kept him on that cross, not your sin. It wasn't you sin that held him there, as a popular worship song states, it is God's furious, passionate, fiery love that held him there. Is there nothing that God won't do to see us back in his arms? God, the immortal eternal great I AM died in order that he may have us again. What did God get out the deal? He got YOU! What a glorious picture! What a perfect love! THIS is Good Friday!

So it's my prayer that we would step into this reality that's been prepared for us. God, will you take us by the heart and bring us back to you. Show us who you are, what you've done, and how much you love us. Give us a full and proper perspective of the cross so that we can see with absolute clarity what happened on the third day through the resurrection. God it's clearly evident by what you've done that you love us. Help us to come to a place of reciprocity where we can meet you in that love.

THE BEAUTY OF THE CROSS

In my short experience as a follower of Jesus Christ, I've come across a lot of stumbling blocks, and I've encountered many people whose faith has been challenged or even extinguished by the same issues. One such obstacle that I seem to come across often is the issue of the cross being overly horrific. The thought that God would ordain the death of his Son in such a manner (or even at all) is simply off-putting to many, and to still more it is simply offensive. More often than not, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is expressed as a transaction by which one Man's undeserved suffering is exchanged for a different, undeserving man's pardon. To be clear, this is what happened on the cross. But to be clearer still, the cross itself is only a small part of the story of Jesus Christ. Even the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is only a portion of the Grand Narrative of God's divine romance.

Just like anything else, when the story of the cross is taken out of context, or only in a partial context, it often is misunderstood or not understood at all. Jesus, his life and ministry, and his horrible death is much more than a transaction by which our sins are forgiven. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a manifestation of a furious love that burns with more passion than a thousand suns, and that has been brilliantly ablaze since the dawn of creation. Let me begin at the beginning...

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...” I feel it's important to note here that the creation story is not meant to be taken literally. It's meant to capture the essence of creation. It's a poem. That's what poems do, capture the essence of a truth.

This story begins in Genesis 1, when God, in an overflow of his own creativity, creates all that is. And then, out of an overflow of His love, He forms a creature out of the dirt and endows it with His very Spirit (Genesis 2). In the beginning, man was created in a perfect union, he with God and God with him. But after a time, something went horribly wrong and the objects of God's affection, the focus of His fiery passionate love, began to thumb their noses at Him, rejecting Him both as their God and as their lover (Genesis 3 and onward). Thus, God set in motion the most beautiful love story ever written.

For thousands of years, God patiently walked along side humanity as they ignored and offended Him. Like a husband bound by a sacred vow to his wife, He faithfully never left her side, keeping watch over her and meeting her every need, even in the face of continuous rejection. For thousands of years, he attempted to woo her back to Him, and for thousands of years, she rejected Him again and again and again (Exodus - Esther). Then, in an act of perfect and desperate love, God himself laid down his life in order to bring His beloved back into a perfect communion with Him (Matthew 1 – John 21).

While Jesus was crushed by the Father, the Father, being one with the Son in the trinity, did it with expectant joy, knowing that with His sacrifice, he would finally win back his bride that he had known at the beginning in the Garden, inseparably joining the two together as one, His Spirit in ours and our spirit in His. Perfect love reunited. ... The only catch is that the bride has to choose to take the gift that the Bridegroom joyfully purchased for her.

It is only the divine power of the burning passion of God's heart that can take history's most potent and brutal instrument of torture and death and transform it into the most astounding and breathtaking instrument of Love. God loves you with more passion and burning desire than you can even begin to imagine. God literally gave up His life to win your heart.

I said at the beginning that the cross, when viewed as a cold transaction is often offensive. likewise, when a proper perspective is gained on what the cross really is, the result is equally and beautifully disturbing. If you understand and comprehend the scope of what you've just read, you will likely find yourself standing face to face with Jesus Christ, Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, and as you meet his gaze, He will gently whisper into your heart “your move”.

Philippians 4:6-7

Many people have Bible verses that they've committed to memory, and that they allow to guide their life. Large decisions and life changing junctures are often marked by a reflection on these passages. These are most often referred to as life verses. I would venture to guess that everyone that reads Scripture with any kind of consistency has adopted a life verse, even if they are unaware of it. The mark of a life verse is that in every course-altering situation one finds themself in, before every significant choice one faces, the same verse or passage of scripture comes to mind. Sometimes we find a life verse. Sometimes we come across a verse or passage that we find great wisdom or comfort in, and we commit it to memory and adopt it as a guide for living. Other times, our life verses may find us. We might read a passage in passing and not think anything of it, but for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit brings it back to us again and again. In either case, when a life verse has been identified, it's important to spend some time meditating on it. If this verse or passage is to serve as a guide, than to understand what it says, and more than that, what it means is vitally important.

I fall into the latter camp, having had a life verse find me. There was a time in college when I was attempting to memorize large numbers of verses and passages from the Bible using a program developed by the Navigators called the Topical Memory System or TMS. What the TMS does is it pulls together scriptures from throughout the Bible about a given topic and lists them all together in order that one can easily lookup and memorize them. By the end, if the program is completed, thousands of verses or passages will be committed to memory. That's if the program is completed. I, on the other hand, was somewhat lacking in resolve and commitment, and only lasted to about 30 or 40, which, at this point, has dropped down to about 15 or so that I can pull up from memory alone. Included in those 30 some passages was a verse from the apostle Paul, as he writes to the church in Philippi. Philippians, chapter four verses six and seven reads

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:6-7

As I continued on, looking at and memorizing more passages of Scripture, I kept coming back to this one, not because I found some profound sense of solace or peace from it, but because it would just pop into my mind. Whenever I would feel stressed about anything, the Holy Spirit would bring Philippians 4:6-7 to my mind. Again and again this verse would pop into my head. This was the case all throughout college and into life post-college. It's been a year or so since I've recognized this verse as a life verse, and so now, I'm going to dive into it, meditate over it, and try and draw out both what it says, and what it means so that I and whoever else wants to come along can glean from this passage some of the wisdom it has to offer.

To begin with, I think it's important to highlight what this passage is not saying. It's easy to see a passage like this one with the words “...the peace of God … will guard your hearts and minds...” and think “Great! All I have to do is pray for the crap in my life and it all will go away!”. The reason this is easy, at least for us in the United States, is because we've built a society that is largely hedonistic. Comfort, ease, pleasure all equate to “good” and discomfort, difficulty, pain all equate to “bad”. When we hear the word “peace”, we associate it with “good”, which is a correct response. The problem comes when we think of all the things we've associated with “good” coupled with the compartmentalized separation between those things and the things we've associated with “bad”.

In the Kingdom of God, a God-centered paradigm, the things that fall under both good and bad in our worldly paradigm often migrate from one side to the other. For instance, pleasure can be good, but there are times when it may migrate over to bad. In the Kingdom paradigm, pain still sits on the side of bad, but there are times when it will migrate over to the side of good. So on and so forth (we'll explore this more fully in a moment). It is with this shifted paradigm that we can see what it is that this verse is telling us.

Read the verse quoted above (Philippians 4:6-7) again. This verse is telling us to take action in two specific ways. First, Paul tells us “Do not be anxious about anything...”. What does this mean? What does it mean to be anxious? There are two definition for this word that are consistent with the original greek, the first being a mental distress or uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune, and the other being to seek to promote one's interests, whether to provide or care for others or for one's self. Whether it's worrying about circumstances or worrying about the things we or others need, Paul says don't do it. Don't worry about it.

Anyone who's ever been living and breathing knows that this is very easy to say, but very, very difficult to do. That's why Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on to give us a second action point. He says don't worry about it, “but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”. Instead of being anxious about our life and the things we need to live it, Paul tells us to ask God for it. In Matthew 6:8, Jesus says “your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” For our lives and the stuff we need to live it, we just need to come before God in prayer and supplication. Supplication is just a big word that means asking God for things. Don't worry about it, but rather, ask God for it.

The only way in which you and I can truly be free from worry about anything is if we have a calm or a peace about whatever it is that's causing the anxiety. That's what Paul tells us we will get when we do this, but there's something he says in between prayer and supplication and peace of God that's very important but easy to overlook. It's the small phrase “...with thanksgiving...”. Again we come to the issue of paradigms. This tiny phrase is easy to overlook because we think about anxiety and view it from our worldly paradigm, giving thanks for it is the last thing we think to do. Worry, difficulty, pain, these are all bad things from our point of view, why would we give thanks for them? But in the Kingdom paradigm they migrate to the other side, the good side. From this point of view, these things are a gift. To show that this is so, we'll need to look at a few other passages of Scripture. In Paul's letter to the Romans, he writes

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” -Romans 5:1-5

Later, Peter would speak to the Christians living under the rule of Emperor Nero, known for his hatred for and sadistic tendencies toward Christians, saying

“In this [your inheritance from God] you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. … Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” -1 Peter 1:6-7, 1 Peter 4:12-13

Around the same time as Peter was writing, James wrote to the twelve tribes of Israel that were now scattered around the region, speaking to the same issue. He says

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” -James 1:2-4

All three of these apostolic writers share the same conviction that trials – pain, difficulty, suffering – are not things to curse God for, but rather to thank Him for. In all three passages, the word suffering has been equated with the words “rejoice” or “joy”. Why? Both Paul and James say that through suffering, our character is shaped into the likeness of Christ's. Peter tells us that perseverance in our times of trial and suffering will act as an indicator, letting us know that our faith is genuine and not just a construct of our own minds. Both of these are to be desired, both are good. When we look at our hardships, our pain, our difficulties through this lens, we begin to view these times of suffering as a gift.

Go back up and read the passage form Philippians again, then think about what we've just discovered about suffering. When we put this verse and the reality about suffering together, we can see that Philippians 4:6-7 is more than just a way of coping with our difficulties, more than just a shelter from the pain of life in a fallen world, but it's a call to radically transform our lives by aligning our paradigm with that of the Kingdom of God. Rather than viewing undesirable circumstances as something to wait out or get through, Paul is calling us to embrace our suffering, experience our pain, live in our difficulties, not simply weather them. When we do this, our character begins to resemble that of Christ's.

It then becomes clear that the peace of God that Paul speaks of in verse seven is not simply a dulling of our anxieties or a comfort to be had amidst our pain. The peace of God that Paul talks about comes from a supernatural conversion in which our pain is transformed into rejoicing, our suffering is turned to laughter, and our difficulties become our joy. Our anxiety is not just relieved, it's radically changed and flipped upside down by the love and redemptive power of Christ. When this happens, the peace and calm both of heart and mind that we find in Christ will characterize our life as anxiety ceases to be a part of it. When we live out of a Kingdom paradigm, when we put on the character of Christ, it becomes a defensive barrier that's set up all around us, and whenever difficulties, pain or suffering come into contact with it, they're immediately transformed into rejoicing, into a joy that surpasses all understanding.

This passage has shaped, and is continuing to shape my life. But this passage, by itself, can't give the peace of which it speaks. This passage simply points the way to a larger truth, that the peace of God is free for the taking in and through the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ. If you don't know Jesus, if right now you can't say that you have a relationship with Him, it is my prayer that He would break into your life, and that you would welcome him with open arms. May you experience the unshakable peace of God that is found in Christ Jesus, and may you experience what it means to truly be free, to live in the Kingdom of God right here, right now.

Remember

Today, I recieved a letter in the mail with no return address. It was in a small envelope, like a thank you card sized little thing. The address was hand written, but I didn't recognize the handwriting... at least not at first. Being curious, I opened the letter and slid out a card with a yellow pink and green floral pattern on it. It looked like a thank you card, so I quick played back the past few weeks to try and recall what, if anything, I had done that warrented a thank you note. I came up blank. So I opened it and began reading. The salutation struck me as a bit odd, and then I immediately knew what this little note was. It read as follows:

God,

I love you. I love you bcause you loved me, and continue to love with all you are. God, I want with all that I am to love you with all that I have, with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I will do this, but this isn't something I can do alone. I am coming back, and together, our love for each other will make something beautiful.

This card was addressed to me, but it was a letter to God. The handwriting on the envelope was my own. I had written this in church one morning as an excercise the speaker that Sunday had us do. He told us to write a love letter to God (the message was about our love relationship with God); to write down what we were feeling for God right then, right there, and to address it to ourselves and seal the envelope. This was between us and God. No one else. So I did.

I had been living apart from God for a spell (at least it felt like I was apart from God, I know He was right here with me the whole time), and that morning's message had rekindled a deep desire to fall back in love (or maybe really fall in love for the first time) with the God that I used to lean on and listen to. The Spirit that morning awoke something in me that had been dormant for a while. It was like my heart began beating again, or I felt the sun on my skin after a long cold night. I left church that morning feeling great. I spent the rest of the day communing with friends that I love deeply, and I went to bed, praying to God for the first time in perhaps a year.

I woke up the next morning and went to work. I still felt the warmth that I'd felt the morning before, but it was slightly duller. Every subsiquent day it grew duller and duller, until life became "normal" again. I still felt the connection with God that was made (or re-made) that morning, but the warm fuzzies were all gone, only a memory. As time went on, the memory of the warm fuzzies faded and retreated to that place all lost memories live, and all I had was the connection with God (which is a good thing), and that eventually began to feel "normal".

Once something begins to feel normal, we begin to take it for granted. This is precisely why over and over and over and over in scripture God tells his children REMEMBER what I've done. Remember how I delivered you from Egypt. Remember how I delivered you out of slavery, misery, oppression, and brought you into the promised land. Remember.

But, as I had, the Israelites forgot. The warm fuzzies faded into a distant memory, and the memory faded into obscurity, and eventually disappeared, and their relationship with God became stale and forced. Nothing more than ceremony and ritual. Nothing but religion.

This note that I got in the mail was like a tap on the shoulder from God (from me... that's wierd), like he was gently telling me "Remember what I've done for you. Remember how it used to be and how my son gave His all (literally) to lift you up out of it. Remember how good it is when we're together. Remember." This brought tears to my eyes because I had forgotten something so incredibly precious to me. And I remembered what Christ had done for me, and how grateful I am for it. How much I love Him for it. It brought tears to my eyes because I know that I will forget again, and my God deserves so much more than that. So here's another letter to God, this one I'm not mailing, but praying:

God,

I am so thankful that you loved us enough to come among us, forsaking your divinity and becoming like us, so that you could pay our debt. Thank you for the amazing, outrageous, scandalous grace that you've given us in Jesus Christ. Thank you that you love me so much that there's nothing I can do that will change it. God, I love you, beyond what I can put into words. Help me to remember.

Do This in Remembrance of Me

The drink offering was a companion offering to the Grain (and Burnt) offering. This was as if they were offering a meal to God. In a meal, the drink, the beverage that is served with the meal, is intended to aid in consumption and digestion. We drink while we eat to "grease the gears" so to speak, but it's the food that we're interested in because it's the food that gives us the most sustenance, the most nutrients.

Jesus talks about these offerings with his disciples in the upper room. He likens his body to the bread, or grain offering, and his blood to a drink offering. Now this is odd, considering that we think of His blood as the central piece of the Christian story, and He compares it to an adjunct offering.

What does this mean? Could it be that the Blood he shed isn't what he wants us to focus on? It's His body that he compares to the grain offering. What if that's what he wants us to see? What if it's not about the blood, not about the salvation (though our salvation is vital to what he calls us to do), but the breaking of his body that is the point?

What if the Blood of our Salvation is just meant to "grease the gears"? But grease the gears to do what? What does Jesus say in the upper room that night? He tells his disciples that the bread represents his body, broken for them, and the wine represents His blood, poured out for them (grain offering and its drink offering), and then he gives a command. "Do this in remembrance of me." What are we to do? He just dipped some bread into some wine... is that what he means? Perhaps... That's what he just did, but what was he just talking about? He was talking about pouring himself out, breaking himself open for others.

Jesus was notorious for talking about several things at once, surface level things and their deeper hidden-meaning kind of counterparts. Is there anything in this story that should make us think this moment in the upper room is any different? What is it that Jesus is saying? Of course, he's telling us to observe the ceremony that they shared in the upper room, but there's so much more just underneath the surface. As he's talking about breaking himself open and pouring himself out, he tells us to "Do this in remembrance of me". He's telling us that we are to be the bread and the wine, that we are the Eucharist. We are to be the grain offering and drink offering for others. We are to be Jesus to those around us.

To take a page from Rob Bell, "Over and over God speaks of the widow, the orphan, and the refugee. This is how you remember God: you bless those who need it the most in the same way that God blessed you when you needed it most."

Just like God came alongside you when you were at your worst and lifted you up, so to you are to come alongside others when they are at their worst. When you see others at the point of desperation and without hope, you are to go to them and stand beside them, letting them know that they are not alone, that they are loved, just like God came to you when you were in that exact same place.

We don't remember God with a piece of bread and a sip of wine. We remember God with our entire lives.

No Big Deal(s)

Mother Teresa once said "We can do no great things, just small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it." As I read this, I understand it completely because this was one of the main themes of Jesus' ministry when He was in the world, but at the some time this concept seems to me completely foreign. The culture in which we live values production, it values efficiency, it values quantity. In a culture like that, love tends to take a back seat and numbers, how much we do, how much we make, how many we reach, become the driving force behind much of what we do. Especially, I would argue, in the one place in which we would do well not to hold this mentality, the Church.

Before I begin, I need to say that This is a difficult subject for me to write on, mainly because it is so foreign to me, and because of that, I'm not real sure what a wholly love-driven culture, or even a love-driven church would look like. Despite this shortfall, I'm going to do my best and posit what thoughts I do have on the subject (most of which come from the book The Irresistible Revolution written by Shane Claiborne).

Immediately as I read the above quote, the passage in the Gospel of John comes to mind where Jesus says "Truly, Truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do" (John 14:12). It seams as though Jesus is saying just the opposite of Mother Teresa. But because the Kingdom of God is an upside down kingdom (a nearly complete inverse of the kingdoms of the world), we must take a closer look at this statement of Jesus.

Let's begin by looking at a few of the things that Jesus did, things that could be viewed as great. In Mark 5:22-23,35-42, Jesus hears the plea of Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, to come and heal his daughter. By the time Jesus gets to his daughter, she has apparently died. But Jesus, being Jesus, goes to her anyway and raises her from the dead. Amazing! You might have noticed that in the scripture reference there is a significant gap (11 verses missing). That's because right in the middle of going to heal Jairus' daughter, he is interrupted by a woman who had been suffering for 12 years. She had a discharge of blood it says in Mark. According to Jewish law, that basically means she was isolated, cast out of the city, out of community with other Jews, and not allowed in any part of the temple, effectively separating her from God. With just a touch of Jesus' clothing, she was made well. Stopping, Jesus turns and affirms the woman's faith, all the while Jairus daughter is busy dying. Wow! Later, in Mark 8, Jesus is teaching and ministering to a great multitude of people and it's getting late. Jesus tells His disciples to feed them. Feeding 4,000 people itself is no simple task (a great feat in itself). But Jesus does it with only five loaves of bread and two fish. That's pretty great if you ask me. Then, in Mark 10, as Jesus is leaving Jericho, he stops and heals a blind man (that's no small feat either!). Then, to take the cake, in John 11, Jesus' good friend Lazarus dies, and after FOUR DAYS of being buried, he resurrects Lazarus, bringing him back from the dead! If that's not great, I don't know what is!

So these few things that Jesus does are pretty great, pretty spectacular things. And He says we will do even greater things than these!? What's up Momma T? What do you mean "We can do no great things"?

Mother Teresa understood something very important about the nature of the work Jesus called us to, and about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God, as I said earlier, is an upside down kingdom. She understood this, but more importantly, Jesus LIVED this. So if we are to begin to understand what Jesus is saying, we need to begin looking at his life and teaching not with the understanding we have of this world or the eyes we've learned to look through from this life, but with the Kingdom eyes that Jesus had, and that we will have once we understand what Jesus is up to. This is the problem that the disciples ran into time and time again, and something that continually frustrated Jesus.

Let's take another look at those same miracles, but through the lens of the Kingdom of God (as best we can). In Mark 5, it says that Jesus was with a great crowd when Jairus came to him and begged him to come heal his daughter. Jesus left this great crowd of people that he was no doubt teaching and ministering to, to go help out one man. Jairus was at the point of desperation to come and beg Jesus, the man the priests and Pharisees eventually killed, to come help his sick daughter. Jesus didn't leave the many to help the one just to show off his God powers, to be a spectacle. No, Jesus did this because he felt Jairus' desperation and in helping him, Jesus loved him. No other reason was necessary. Out of love Jesus went to Jairus daughter. Then, on the way, His love quest was interrupted by another person who was at the point of desperation. In turning to affirm the bleeding woman's faith, instead of condemning her for fouling all the people around her, Jesus loved her. There's no greater reason for his display of power. Love. That's it. So much love, in fact, that he delayed his mission for another desperate soul, allowing Jairus' daughter to slip from life into death. It's love. All of it. Then Jesus feeds 4,000 people. This one is a bit easier to see with Kingdom eyes because Jesus states his reasoning plainly. he says "I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat." Jesus doesn't multiply the loaves and fish for a show of magnificence, He does it because the people are hungry. He fed them. That's it. When he was leaving Jericho, a blind beggar named Bartimeaus heard that it was Jesus that was passing by, which gave him a sliver of hope, so he began calling out "have mercy on me!" Jesus, hearing this, even among people rebuking Bartimeaus, called him over. Instead of immediately healing his eyes, he asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?". Jesus didn't just do what was sensational or spectacular, he was concerned about what this man wanted. And then, upon Bartimeaus expressing his desire to see again, Jesus restored his sight. Jesus wasn't interested in showing off. He was interested in loving Bartimeaus by doing what he asked. If he had wanted a pet duck, Jesus would have went and found a duck. His answer to Jesus' question didn't matter, Jesus would have done whatever he said because He loved him. Again, Love. That's it. And then there's Lazarus. Oh man! If this isn't love, I don't know what is! This whole story takes 44 verses to unfold. Basically, it begins with Jesus hearing that a close family friend (close enough to be a family member) is sick and at the point of death. He wraps up what he is doing and goes back to Lazarus' town, where the people there were trying to kill him, to help his friend. As he's leaving, he basically tells his disciples that Lazarus has died and he's going to raise him up again. When He gets there, He finds that Lazarus had been entombed for four days, and his family was grieving his death. He tells Lazarus' sister that he will live again, and asks to be taken to his tomb. Up to this point, Jesus has been able to hold his grief in, but when he sees the tomb, he breaks down. The shortest verse in the Bible: John 11:35 "Jesus Wept." he feels the grief of those around him piled on top of his own. He then proceeds to raise Lazarus and call him out of the tomb. This miracle undoubtedly showed many things about Jesus, such as demonstrate his authority over death and, as he says in 11:4, glorifies the son of God, but the main reason he did it I would argue is because he loved deeply both Lazarus and his family. Love. That's it.

Now that we've looked a bit closer at these miracles to discover a common underlying reason for them all, lets take a couple steps back and look at the bigger picture just to drive the point home. In all these miracles, Jesus does something to or with these people to help or improve their life right where they were, right when they were. But that's not the point. What he did is not as important as why he did it. Look at it in a long term perspective, an eternal perspective (the Kingdom perspective). He healed Jairus daughter and the woman's sickness. It's almost certain that in the course of their lives they got sick again. He fed the crowd that was with him; they got hungry again. He restored the sight of Bartimeaus. It's a sensible assumption that as he aged, his sight once again began to give out. He resurrected Lazarus from the dead (hardly an insignificant act); he died again. All the things He did were ultimately temporary and didn't last. Only one thing stayed with each of these people Jesus helped: the love of Christ. He loved them. Even when sickness and hunger return, when sight fails, when death once again approaches, the love that Jesus showed is still there, is still felt. THIS is what Mother Teresa understood.

So in a culture that worships at the alter of productivity and efficiency, what are we to do with this? How do we work to show the upside down kingdom of Love within a culture that only understands numbers? We ignore the numbers. For us, the numbers should mean very little. Whether we help one person or one thousand people, if we do not make the love of Christ manifest to them, it means nothing. Jesus understood this very well. There was a time when Jesus' disciples came to get him because all the people in the village had brought their sick out to be healed, and he told his disciples that that they were moving on to the next city. Even though there were still people there that hadn't been healed, his Love was already there. Healing the sick, as we discovered, is a temporary thing. There were cities where Jesus had not yet been that did not yet know the love of Christ.

Just like the mustard plant (which was considered a weed) just needs one tiny seed to spread throughout the entire garden, so too love just needs one small foothold to spread throughout a community... throughout the world.

So we indeed can do no great things. The things that appear great in this world, ultimately have little significance. What has very great significance is the small things that we do to convey and spread the love of Christ. To someone who needs a friend, stopping by to chat is far greater than a new car. To someone in desperate need of a car, helping them get a car will be far greater than stopping by to chat. Numbers don't matter. It's the love behind what we do that makes all the difference, in this world and the next.

"We can do no great thing, only small things with great love. It's not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it."

A Sculpted Heart

After saying yet one more good-bye to a treasured friend moving into a new season of life and out of my own, I find myself thinking again on the significance of community and what it does for a person. I can't say that good-byes are fun, neither can I say they are easy, but one thing that I am certain of is that they leave a mark.

After this particular good-bye, I feel like I've been able to put a finger on something that I've felt in every good-bye but haven't been able to articulate. And it's this: No matter who the friend, how close I become to them, or how deep a love I have for them, I inevitably give them a piece of my heart and I get a piece of theirs. This is why a good-bye is such a hard thing. There is a piece of my heart in this person, and they are leaving with it; taking a piece of me that I'll not get back.

At first thought of this, I was startled to find that I am loosing bits of my heart here and there. I thought that I should be saving those pieces or something, saving them for God, or my future wife, or kids, or something big like that. But then I realized something important. With every piece that's taken from me, I become someone a bit different each time. With every chip, my heart takes on a new shape. This, in turn, slowly sculpts me into the person who I will be, and has thus far made me the person I am today.

Relationships, loves, friendships, crushes, all of these social connections are God's tools that He uses to sculpt us into the person whom we will become. Michelangelo's David wasn't poured into a mold, it was carved out of a solid piece of marble. If little pieces (and very big pieces) had not been chipped away, it would still remain just a rock. But because it lost bits of itself, bits of what it once was, it is now a timeless masterpiece.

My heart is much the same. If I refuse to let go of pieces to those who would take them, I will remain the same person who I am today, not changing, not growing, not being refined into something more, but just living, just being. By allowing myself to feel the pain and grief of every good-bye, the sorrow of watching a piece of myself leave with someone I love, I allow my heart to be sculpted into something that will be unique and all the more beautiful with every loss.

Good-byes are hard, and they are sad, and they are most definitely painful...

But they are good.

Untitled Reflection #26

I find myself at the end of a calm summer in a college town, facing the imminent return of the students and the subsequent bustle that accompanies them. In my little corner of Manhattan, home to Kansas State University, I'm watching this transformation take place. As the coffee houses fill up again and the roads once more become a bit more dangerous, I feel my mind fill with anticipation. In my spirit I feel a reinvigoration, and in my heart an excitement grows. But why?

I suppose it could be the prospect of facing the unknown. The tension of not knowing who I will meet if I take a stroll across town, mingling with the possibility of getting to know new and interesting people. It could be... But I don't think that's it. I've been thinking about this, and I think I've discovered where this feeling welling up inside me is coming from. Simply put, it's life. It's the life that is beginning to happen around me.

As students come back into Manhattan and repopulate the houses and apartment complexes that have been sitting empty all summer in a calm silence, they bring with them an esprit air, an atmosphere of intelligence and independence, and occasionally one of hilarious and sometimes hazardous idiocy. There comes with returning students an excitement that seems to hang in the air.

The new freshmen coming to college for the first time leaving their parents behind and beginning a new chapter that will preface the story of their lives in the "real world". The returning student meeting friends after a summer apart. The fraternities and their inhabitants filling the air with the smell of burning charcoal, seared meat, beer, and the occasional obscenity, and their female counterparts preparing to judge and indoctrinate brand new sorority sisters into the culture of consumer fashion. And, of course, the lawn parties dotting the lawns of every street, letting loose the sounds of clanking washers and loud music while brandishing signs that say things like "You honk, We drink". All these things, these people just doing what they will, combines to form the strange and unique experience that is life in a college town. Life beginning to happen all around me creates a sort of energy that reaches into my being and plucks a string that resonates with the life that is simultaneously happening within me.

I'm part of this dance. I'm the non-student, watching all this happen from the outside with a smile, remembering that I was once on the inside of it all. I was once the new freshman, I was once the dorm-dweller rushing through the madness of move-in day, I was once a contributor to the chaotic ballet that is college life. I've put in my time and I've had my fun. I'm now content watching it from the outside while composing my own new and unique part of this never ending dance called life.

Moving forward, Loving Back

Fractured and broken souls
Finding comfort, finding reprieve
In the jagged cracks and holes
Of the broken souls of others.

Together we come, and together grow
We become one, as though we are now
Together, broken... but together whole.
Our broken pieces rest in the light.

We grow close, we become one.
And then, as it does, life moves on.
We now come to a fork in our road.
Your ways not mine, our way is gone.

Though time has come for our ways to part
souls once connected will always find love.
A distance between and a world away,
Our bond is solid, tethered heart to heart.

The time has come for each to ask
Our paths diverge... where to now?
We find comfort in the broken souls,
Of each, our broken past.

TRUST

As I sit in the black cold that surrounds me,
I hear a voice calling, faint and dull out of the darkness.
"Do you trust me?"
I continue to sit, paying no mind to the call.
The black gets deeper and the cold is growing.
I hear again. "Do you trust me?"

"Who are you?" I ask, to which there is no reply
So I sit, nowhere to go, nothing to see, nothing to say
nothing to feel but the cold that's killing me.
"Do you trust me?" once again calls from the void.
"Who are you?" I ask again, to which there is no reply
"Get up and walk toward me" the voice calls.

It's dark and cold, I can't see anything.
I don't even know where I am.
Who knows what will happen should I move.
"I can't see what's in front of me." I say to the voice.
"Do you trust me?" the voice calls again.

My warmth is waning as the cold begins to seep into my being.
The darkness begins to suffocate me as I ponder the voice.
If I move, there's no telling what will happen to me.
But if I stay here, I will be consumed by the darkness.
I stand up.

My heart races as I struggle against the decision before me.
If I move, there's a chance I could perish.
If I stay here, I will live until the darkness consumes me.
In my mind I'm flying as I hold my breath.
I make the decision and take a step.

I'm still alive.
The frigid darkness is still engulfing me.
"Come toward me" the voice calls out.
"Who are you?" I ask again, this time finding a reply.
"I... am"

"You are what?" I ask.
"Do you trust me?" the voice asks again.
The darkness surrounding me is still growing colder and deeper.
"I don't know." I say, standing, shivering in the dark.
"Come toward me" the voice says again.

My heart begins to beat as I take another step.
I move forward as my foot finds more solid ground.
I take another step, and another, and another.
"Do you trust me?" the voice calls out again.
"I don't know" I say again.

One foot after another, I walk toward the voice.
The darkness is becoming unbearable.
The cold is sucking all the warmth out of me.
I can't breathe.
Out of desperation I begin to run.

"Do you trust me?" the voice is louder this time.
My heart is pounding as I struggle for breath.
I can feel my life beginning to drain.
I can't run fast enough to escape the darkness.
My body is beginning to go numb.

I'm running as fast and hard as I can.
I use the last of my strength as my legs buckle and I fall to the ground.
I'm gasping for air, but there is none.
"Do you trust me?" the voice calls again, louder than before.
With my last breath I scream, "Yes!"

My lungs are filled with air as I heave.
I can breathe!
"Who are you?" I shout, panting with deep heavy breaths.
"Look, and see" the voice says.
I lift my head and look toward the voice.

In the darkness I can scarcely make out a faint glow.
"Come toward me" the voice says again.
I rise to my feet, and with the hope of light I begin to run.
My breathing now comes easily as I run.
The cold still surrounds me, but light is ahead of me.

I run faster and faster.
I get closer to the light, the cold begins to subside.
I can feel a warmth emanating from the light.
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes! Yes!" I shout as I run

I am close, I can make out a figure.
As I come into the light, I see my God, whom I had forgotten long ago.
"Come to me" He says, this time unmuffled and clear.
I run into his arms, into his firm embrace
"I'm sorry" I cry, weeping into his shoulder.

This is Beauty

A single note drifts through the cool night air

It resinates wih calm and soothing bravdado as it caresses my ear

As my mind swoons underneath it's touch, I embrace the sensation

I choose to loose myself in the air of the moment as my soul is liberated

This is beauty

Governing Beauty

Today as I was listening to the 44th presidential inauguration, I was struck by the beauty of the democratic system that is the United States Government. The beauty that I speak of manifests itself in its ability to change hands in an eloquent and graceful dance that is the presidential inauguration. This was beautifully illustrated in today's events.

Before I unveil this illustration, let me first draw a backdrop to frame it, for just as a color by itself is just a color, however beautiful it may be, becomes a thing to be valued only when it is put into the context of a painting. All around the world there are as many different forms of government as there are countries for them to govern. A large majority of these governments do not handle transfer of power gracefully. There are precious few that have learned to make it work, but for the rest, a transfer of power is generally accompanied by a military or political coup, a civil war, or a conflict of some flavor or another, major or minor. That being said, let me present the beauty that is the United States Government.

At every presidential inauguration, the president takes the oath of office at exactly 12:00 noon because that is when the prior president's term ends and the president-elect's term begins; that's when the executive power is legally transferred. At the 2009 inauguration, in between the vice presidential oath of office (taken by former senator Joseph Biden) and the presidential oath of office (taken by the former senator and president-elect Barrack Obama), there was to be an arrangement played composed by John Williams especially for this occasion called "Air and Simple Gifts" . Playing this piece was cellist Yo Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, clarinetist Anthony McGill, and pianist Gabriella Montero.

As it turns out, the ceremony was slightly behind schedule. Obama wouldn't be sworn in until after the transfer of power had already taken place. However, that slight lag in the schedule allowed for a most beautiful display of the grace and elegance of the United States democratic process.

The quartet began to play. The arrangement by John Williams was a beautiful piece. It began with a slow prolonged violin solo, somewhat somber in tone reflecting the troubled nature of the times. Then Ma came in with the cello and it lightened a bit but still very beautifully captured the air of the time as it was a mix of minor and major strains. Then McGill came in with a light and melodic allusion to "Simple Gifts". The musicians then began playing a variation of "Simple Gifts" as they continued in a cheery yet pensive tone. The piece ended with a confindent set of prolonged chords, capped by a single bassy note held by Ma. Because the ceremony was slightly behind schedule, the musicians were still playing when the clock clicked over to 12:00 noon. In fact they were still in the middle of the piece.

Think about that for moment. That is absolutely beautiful! If you saw the inauguration, you may have felt it yourself. In a world where transfer of power within governments is often accompanied with conflict and often violence, on January 20th, 2009 in the United States of America, the transfer of power occurred to a chorus of inspiring strains of music. While countries around the world war with themselves and plot and plan against their own in order to usher in a new government, we, the United States, do it with beautiful melodies. How absolutely breathtaking is that!

At the end of President Obama's inaugural address, he concluded with the words, "God bless the United States of America." God has blessed the United States of America. His hand has been on us for quite some time. Even though we take the blessings He gives and misuse them, squander them, and even sometimes ignore them completely, He continues to shine His divine light on us. We are a beacon of light in a world so full of darkness. Testimony to this is the fact that our own government can change hands to such a beautiful and eloquent display.

We asked God to bless America. He answered. Our move.

Curious George

I've been listening to a song by Jack Johnson called "Upside Down". I really like it, partly because it's just a fun song, but also partly because it's from the soundtrack of Curious George the Movie. So, after listening to this for a week or so, it reminded me so much of the light heartedness that Curious George has, I decided I needed to watch the movie.

So, I went down to my local video rental establishment and rented Curious George the Movie... and I watched it. There's something about Curious George that, no matter what situation I'm in, no matter where I find myself, no matter how I feel, makes me smile. Is it his lightheartedness, or is it something more? It could be because he's a monkey, and monkeys are fun, but I don't think that's quite it.

When I think of Curious George, I think of a lot of things. I think of my childhood. I read Curious George books when I was a kid. Life was so simple back then. Sure, it had it's hardships and tough questions like, 'why can't I stay up and watch TV' or the difficult fact that we have to eat all our vegetables before we can have our dessert, but for the most part, life was easy; no responsibilities, no worries. I think also of Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. The movie begins and ends with a feather and a Curious George book. And, of course, I think of children.

All these things have a common thread, a common intersection: Innocence. That's what draws me to Curious George, and that's what conjures up a smile no matter the circumstance. Innocence. It's something that every person on the planet possessed at the beginning of their life. Some keep it longer than others, but we all are born with it. That's what Curious George personifies. A blissful naiveté that is unaware of the pressures and stresses of life and consumed not by the monotonous rhythms of daily life, but rather by the mystery and splendor that is the world surrounding him. It's something that I long for. It's something that one can only truly appreciate once it's been lost.

I believe this is the state in which we were created, and from which we were meant to live. In the beginning, it was just us, God, and the garden. Our needs were met, we had no worries, no anxieties. We were just left to be filled with wonder at the world which we had been created a part of. We were completely innocent. It was, quite literally, heaven on earth. But then sin entered the picture, and here we are.

But there is a hope. We have hope that we can once again enter into that state of blissful naiveté and innocence that is untouched by the horrors and sorrows of this world. This hope exists in Christ. It was with God that we were first created pure, and it's in and through Christ that we can be remade into that spotless existence once again. Only this time, with a very deep appreciation of what it means to be innocent. If Christ's outstretched hands and gift of re-creation find our acceptance, than a transformation back to innocence can take place. There will come a time when our worries will be no more; our sorrows will be soothed and the horrors of the world will be snuffed. Our existence will be wrapped up with and sustained fully by God, and we'll have nothing to do but be consumed by the wonder of both God's redeemed creation and God himself. We will regain the purity that we see so evident in children, and we find in Curious George.

Why does Curious George make me smile? Curious George makes me smile because it's in him, in his simple curiosity, that I see a glimpse of where we came from, and a hope of where we're going.

Tear

What is a tear that it carries such power?
Much more than a mere saline snivel,
a tear can sooth, and a tear can comfort.
A tear can destroy, and a tear can tear apart.
A tear can mark a beginning,
a tear can force an end.
A single tear can say more
than can a thousand pages.
Looking through a tear,
one can see into one's own soul.
Looking into a tear,
one can see through the defenses of the mind.
A tear can bare witness to the crushing depths of the heart.
A tear can uncover the soul.

What is a tear that it carries such power?
A single tear can force mighty men to the ground.
A single tear can bring forth emotion
from the most hardened heart.
With a single tear,
one can summon many in others.
One tear can render a myriad
of emotions and emancipate the heart
amidst a mire of intransigent indifference.
With one tear, the soul is liberated.
With one tear, an emotion is captured.

What is a tear that it carries such power?
A tear is an historian,
speaking of things past.
A tear is a prophet,
revealing that which is to come.
A tear is a traitor,
revealing secrets we would do well to keep.
A tear is small,
A tear is weak,
A tear is timid
But...

What is a tear that it carries such power?

A Beautiful Sunrise

I was out at a rustic old cabin made out of a barn one weekend for a retreat and something beautiful was shown to me by God. To give a little foundation to this story, this barn is out in the middle of the Kansas country, so the surrounding land is fairly flat; there's a few hills here and there, but for the most part, the skyline is level all the way around the house. And in this house, at the top of the roof, there is a small coop that has windows on all sides of it so you can survey the surrounding country from an elevated position. So one morning, before anyone else was awake, I went up into this coop to look at the sunrise (which, if you're from Kansas, or somewhere where the horizon is unadulterated by a lot of man made clutter, you know that sunrises can be spectacular. So I went up to look at the sunrise this particular morning, but was disappointed when I looked out. The sun was indeed coming up, but there was nothing else in the sky. It was just the sun trying to peek over the horizon. There were no clouds, no birds, nothing.

Before you begin scratching your head and pondering what might possibly be wrong with me that I could be disappointed with a crystal clear, blue skyed sunrise, allow me to explain. I am an artist, so I appreciate and, in fact, love scenes that are full of color and shape and line and texture, so my favorite sunrises (and sunsets) are those with clouds sharing the sky with the sun. So it follows that when I saw the sun alone in the sky, I was somewhat disappointed, though it was still a majestic sight to behold.

This made me think, as I was talking with one of my fellow retreaters. The most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen have been in a sky populated with clouds, puffy, jagged, fluffy, wispy clouds with surfaces to catch the suns red and yellow light filtering through the atmosphere, peeking over the globe. This was a novel thought. The sunrises that are most beautiful are the ones that happen when the sky is not perfect. When the sky contains blemishes and imperfections, when it is not crystal clear and pure open blue, the most beautiful sunrises are produced because the sun, of course, is there, but the clouds, reflecting the suns glorious light create a beautiful and captivating tapestry of color and light. With oranges and blues and reds and pinks and yellows, the sky seems to explode into a panorama of expression. I don't know about you, but when I look at a sunrise such as what I describe here, I am filled with a wonder at how such a thing could be created.

And as I was talking with my fellow retreater, I made the connection that I'd like to share with you. A sunrise is very much like us, as children of God, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus is, no doubt, beautiful all by Himself. The Glory of God become man and perfected through trial and fire and pain, and shining from the inside out with the powerful and glorious light of God can be nothing other than beautiful. But much like a sunrise, as we enter the picture with Christ, we become part of his beautiful scene, as his light reflects off of us. But like the clouds in the sky, we are not perfect. We are not pure and spotless, free of blemish. We have jagged edges, fluffy parts, wispy parts, all parts that when Christ shines his light on us, catch and reflect it back to him and out into the world around us. It's our imperfections that make us beautiful. It's our failures and our weaknesses, and our shortcomings, and our blemishes that in the light of Christ become a tapestry of oranges and blues and reds and pinks and yellows that are capable of taking the breath away from those who see it. Jesus said it as he was talking to the apostle paul: In your weaknesses, my power is made perfect. You might say, in our weakness, in our imperfection, Christ's beauty is made perfect.

If we were all perfect, Christ work on the cross would not mean much, and our redemption would mean little if anything. To redeem a perfect creation, one not need do anything. But when a creature is utterly corrupted, when it has been soiled beyond repair and made vile in the site of its creator, when the created has been made unfit to even be in the presence of the creator and then it redeemed, restored to a right relationship and made to be one with the creator, that is beautiful beyond anything that we could ever see or experience in this world. It's our imperfections that make Christ beautiful in the eyes of unbelievers, of those who don't know Him. It's the fact that we have our faults, we have our downfalls and we have our shortcomings but still can claim and exhibit the life and beauty of Christ in us through His redemptive work on the cross that most beautifully and effectively exhibits his wondrous redemptive power, and the amazing and outrageous grace that flow from his wounded body.

So don't hide it, brothers. Don't cover it up Sisters. Don't sweep it under the rug and pretend like it isn't there. Bring it out into the Light and allow Christ's power to reflect off it and refract through it as He covers it with his blood. Bring your ugly bits out into the open, and watch in amazement as He transforms them into a beautiful Son rise amongst his creation. If you are a redeemed creature, you have nothing that is not covered. Come out into the Light, all of you, and be glorified by His wonderful light!

Infinite Love

I just finished a wonderful book. It's called The Irresistible Revolution written by Shane Claiborne. It's primarily about the emerging underground Christian movement that's spreading and growing across North America, and throughout the world. The book has opened my eyes to a lot of things that I'd never thought about, but make a ridiculous amount of sense now that I see them in the light. One of the more potent things I've seen, and that I'd like to share, is a new angle, or a new paradigm through which I now see my identity in Christ and my relationship with God.

Growing up, and even after I committed my life to Christ, I had a very westernized, Americanized view of Christianity. Jesus died so that I could live. Let me unpack that. I was dead in my sin, condemned under God's wrath, and then Jesus arrived like a knight in brilliant white satin armor and stood in between me and God, absorbing the wrath that had been prepared for me. My debt being paid, my righteousness restored, I could now commune with God and enter into eternal life, having the life of Christ now inside me (Colossians 2:13-14). That is all true; beautifully and wonderfully true. But that's not all. There's more to this life we have in Christ than being joyful and freed from the burdens of sin and the worries of this world.

All that I've just described was purchased by Christ's blood on the Cross. God sent his passover lamb to atone for the sins of his children. The cross was only the atoning sacrifice. God could have done that in a few hours, a few days at the most. But God didn't do that. He spent 33 years in and among his creation. If the sacrifice could have been made, done and over with in a few days, why did he wait so long before he did it?

A year or two ago, the answer that I would have given to that question is "so that he could suffer through the ordeals and hardships, temptations and desires, fears and sorrows in this fallen world in order that he can help us overcome our own." And you know what, that's all true. Christ lived in this world and overcome it in order that we may be freed from it's power in Him. But that's not all. Christ overcame the world so that we can rise above it, but to what end? If all we needed was a ticket out of suffering, he could kill us dead the minute we except his saving grace; that would do the trick. But that's not what happens. There's something more here than just our being freed.

If you read through the gospels and look at how Jesus lived his life, you begin to see patterns. Most of Jesus' recorded interactions with people took place among those who needed healing, who needed love, who needed grace. There are interactions throughout the gospels between Jesus and the religious and social elite, but a majority of his time spent with people is among the oppressed and the poor (both physically and spiritually destitute). He even tells us what's going on. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17) He's not here to simply take away our condemnation, He's here to heal us.

Our ailment is not that of the physical world (though it may manifest itself that way at times), our sickness is a spiritual sickness. We live in a world that has fallen away from God and his life giving affections. We are born, and continue to be until the restoration of our relationship with God, spiritually anemic. We lack the life giving love that flows into us from God.

When you look at how Jesus lived, you can see Him again and again give the people around him life-giving, energizing love to counter their spiritual anemia. That's how he lived, and that's how we, as followers of Christ, are to live. We, possessing the well of living water that is the indwelling spirit of Christ in us, have what the people around us need.

I know a lot of people (I was once, and still may be from time to time, one of them) who hear this message and say, "I know! That's why I'm on the corner telling people about the life giving power of Jesus. That's why I hand out tracts, that's why I tell people that Jesus is the only way to salvation, that's why... etc." But that's not what people need. James says it best, "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking daily food, and one of you says to him, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" (James 2:15-16) People don't need to know about Jesus, they need to see Jesus, they need to experience Jesus. They don't need to know about the energizing shot of love, they need the energizing shot of love. A lot of people know about Jesus. Some people even know enough about Him that they know that they need what He has, but tragically, no one has ever showed them His face, or His love, and they remain anemic, despising Him for not coming to help.

The reason (at least one of them) that Jesus lived in the world and overcame it in order that we can overcome it in Him is so that we can be Jesus to those around us. Having overcome the world, no longer being subject to its pressures and stresses, having found our worth in something not of this world, we are able to absorb the pains and sorrows of others who are not yet in Christ. Having Christ as our anchor, we are able to lift enormous burdens. We are able to give until it hurts because the love that we give out of doesn't run out. We are able to allow those we are trying to help to trample us as we hold out the Gift of love to those who need it. We are able to get punched in the face, kicked in the throat, kneed in the groin, socked in the stomach, and kicked in the shins, and get back up and say, "I love you and want to help" because the love that we have, the love that flows from God, has no limit. The love of an eternal God is eternal.

This gives us enormous strength. Strength to move mountains, strength to change the world. If you are in Christ, if you have a relationship with Christ and his love is flowing into you, you have this strength. Most of us don't realize that we have this strength because we never flex our Jesus muscles. We always try and do things out of our own strength, out of our own will, out of our own love, and whatever we can't do out of our own ability, we label as impossible (I know, because I'm one of those people). We rely on our own strength, never stepping out in faith that Jesus' love will carry us.

If you're a follower of Christ, if you have a living relationship with God, you are capable of infinite love. In this finite world, in your finite body, you have been given an infinite love. Use it. Trust it. Go to those who need it and give it to them. An infinite love cannot be for one person, nor can it be kept inside. The finite cannot contain the infinite. You can't experience the full love of Christ without an outlet (it won't fit). It has to flow through you. Use the love, let Christ's love keep you together while the world tears you apart. Loose your life for them and find it in Him. Jesus came into this world to show us how to do this. Jesus came to show us how to be Jesus to others. You can follow Him and experience an infinite love, allowing it to flow through you, or you can sit and do nothing and only experience what love you can fit inside your finite being. It's up to you. Don't settle for the finite when you can have the infinite.