"Hard things first." I didnt come up with it, I stole it from a guy who did. It was the theame of a whole year of minisrty for Stundent Venture. Its the only one that I ever really understood very well. And I got to understand it. And Im still learning to understand it.
Not because Ive got it down, and Im always rushing to do the hard things. Actually it's quite the opposite. If i could choose, I would live an easy, soft life. This might sound funny, but hard is SOOO hard some times. And easy is SOOO easy. But everybody does easy.
Jesus says that the way to heaven is hard, and there arnt many people that come this way. Are you one of those people? Am I? I want to be, but as Im climbing the road sometimes seems clogged with those comming back down.
"Excuse me, pardon me!" I cry timidly, trying to make my way through the croud, as they push and jostle me. The number of people suddenly seems to multiply from tens to the tens of thousands, a whole army of people pushing towards the wide road.
What am I supposed to do about it ? God what can you do about it?
Im tired.
Some times I want to stop struggleing.
Some times I want to stop being so burdened for people to where I cry during prayers.
Some times I want to stop digging in, to stop trying, to give up and turn back.
I want to stop feeling like I am always failing You, like I havent and wont ever do all that is required of me. Im tired of feeling lonley, weak, and afraid.
And yet through all of this You whisper
Peace, Be Still, I Am God
but what about all this other stuff i need to do, and people to help, and and and and...
Peace, Be Still, I Am God
but what about every thing that Im not, im not an evagilist, im not a speaker, im not faithful. and what about everything that i am. liar. hateful. lustful. sinner.
Peace, Be Still, I Am God
I just want to do it right
Peace, Be Still, I Am God. Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you. You have come to me thirsty, drink deep and long and have your fill. You have come hungry and I am the bread of life. You have come worn out and exausted, I will be your strength. You have come weary; I will be your rest and your comfort.
The hardest thing is knowing that God loves me, and delights in us.
Its so easy to get caught up in the locomotion of life, to do and do and do, trying to win the approval of those around us, or worse still the approval of God. We get chained down in our expectations of ourselves and forget that in our weakness, His strenght is made perfect. Its hard for us, for me, to remember precisely who God is, and what Has done for us. He says to us:
Peace, Be Still, I Am God. Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you. You have come to me thirsty, drink deep and long and have your fill. You have come hungry; eat for I am the bread of life. You have come worn out and exausted, I will be your strength. You have come weary; I will be your rest and your comfort.
March 31, 2006
March 30, 2006
With Radical Enthusiasm
"Go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey my commands and lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age."
We are all probably pretty familiar with this verse. Infact I wouldn't doubt if most of the people who have ever talked about or written about discipleship pull this verse out at some point. In fact people use this verse to talk about missions, small group bible studies, baptisms, the trintiy and a flurry of other things. They were the last words of Jesus that Mathew recorded. They are important. Its kinda like the Post Script on the letter of the life of Jesus. It's the important closing statement, the words that are left echoing on the ears of all those present. I wonder how long it took for them to begin speaking again. I wonder how long before they put those words into action into their own lives
And yet, so often when we read this verse or even recite it from memory, it gets the same un-impassioned reading that we often give to John 3:16. You know the one I'm talking about. Slightly monotone, slightly annoyed, with all the excitement and passion of a rock. Yuck. I once heard a guy say that familiarity breeds un-familiarity. What I mean is this: we are often so aware of the notion that we disciples of chirst and that one of our jobs on earth is to make disciples of other people, that we often don't even ask ourselves if we really know what discipleship is, and if we are really involed in discipleship.
"Follow me"
Just two simple words spoken as a command. Jesus would meet these cast out guys, fishermen, tax collectors, and the like, and then he would say "follow me" and they would go. Now Rob BellA has an amazing description of what it meant to be a disciple in the 1st century, but the jist of it is this: disciples were expected to be so close, and so involved in the life of the person they were following that they became like them, doing the same things that the rabbi did. Peter steps out of the boat not because he belives in Jesus, but because Jesus belived in Peter, that Peter could become like his Rabbi.
Our first and formost responsibilty is to answer the call of Jesus on our life. It is not enough to have mere intelectual assent to a set of doctrines or a standard of conduct. We must be actively pursuing and following in the steps of Jesus. This is a reminder and awake up call. If you picked this up to read it, I am assuming that you are a christian and probably some sort of leader as well. Something Ive learned as of late is what I call the "me first" rule. When God speaks, when something jumps of the page of His Word, or when I hear sermons and messages, its all for me first. Simply put, I am not a channel of information from God to the people around me, I am a follower of God. I noticed this first in my quiet times, where I would read and say things like so-and-so needs to hear this and this person would totally be blessed by this. I would listen to sermons and hope that certain people in the audience were listening up. But I was just pushing away the things that God wanted to pour into my own life so that I wasn't giving others something I had read, but rather some thing that was a part of my own life. Then comes the next part.
"Follow me like I follow Christ"
Pauls call is the model for our discipleship to day. What it looks like is this. I follow Jesus; he changes and shapes my life, teaches me things and grows me up. Then God brings along someone else who needs what we got, teaching, encouragement, admonishment. A warning and an ecouragement: our disciples will become like us, for good and for bad. I've seen amazing replication of amazing people in their diciples, who have a passion for the lost, a hunger for the word and a longing for God. I've also seen those same people pick up nervous habits of the one who disciples.
I could give you this perfect picture of what discipleship should look like. You spend 15 minutes discussing personal struggles and joy, then 25 minutes discussing the book or scripture that you read durring the week, and then 10 minutes praying for one another. But true discipleship is messy. Its getting involved in peoples lives to such an extent, that you can look across a crowded room and know what a person is stuggling with. I know. Ive been called out like that. Discipleship is loving a person so much that you cant bear to see them stay as they are. Its invasive and uncomfortable sometimes. Especially for us, because we see so many kids perishing that it can be overwhelming to have 50 kids that you are responsible for, right? But in our group down in Lake Elsinore I have seen one man's investment in a handfil of guys change our youth group. Because he replicated the heart and passion that he had for God and for students into these guys, and now they come and serve on Sunday nights and througout the week and they are now discipling others. But it wasn't a one month investment, or 6 months or a year. They are going on three years. And this guy has commited to them for life. Its true that these guys don't need as much guidence as they once did. They've learned to go to the sorce for guidence and for teaching and to hear from God. But he is still there to pray and support and encourage. He wants to see them grow up to be mighty men of God, who allow God and not the world to influence and change them.
This is where we should all want to be because lets get honest for a moment. Two hours on Sunday morning and two hours of youth group are not enough. Not enough to get inside the lives and heads and hearts of the kids that you are ministering to. Now Im not discounting the miraculus working of God in our youth groups, but there is only so much growth that can happen in four hours a week. It takes us getting involved in our kids lives. Its more that just meeting once a week. Its going to games, seeing shows, reading the bible with them, late night phone calls, seeing their rooms, and chating with them on myspace. Its picking them up in your car and running errends, and letting them see the way that you and your wife handle arguments, and opening the doors of your house to be a sanctuary from the world. Its all that and more because discipleship is not something we do. It's a way of living.
I want to live my life in such a way that my radical enthusiasm becomes their radical enthusiam.
We are all probably pretty familiar with this verse. Infact I wouldn't doubt if most of the people who have ever talked about or written about discipleship pull this verse out at some point. In fact people use this verse to talk about missions, small group bible studies, baptisms, the trintiy and a flurry of other things. They were the last words of Jesus that Mathew recorded. They are important. Its kinda like the Post Script on the letter of the life of Jesus. It's the important closing statement, the words that are left echoing on the ears of all those present. I wonder how long it took for them to begin speaking again. I wonder how long before they put those words into action into their own lives
And yet, so often when we read this verse or even recite it from memory, it gets the same un-impassioned reading that we often give to John 3:16. You know the one I'm talking about. Slightly monotone, slightly annoyed, with all the excitement and passion of a rock. Yuck. I once heard a guy say that familiarity breeds un-familiarity. What I mean is this: we are often so aware of the notion that we disciples of chirst and that one of our jobs on earth is to make disciples of other people, that we often don't even ask ourselves if we really know what discipleship is, and if we are really involed in discipleship.
"Follow me"
Just two simple words spoken as a command. Jesus would meet these cast out guys, fishermen, tax collectors, and the like, and then he would say "follow me" and they would go. Now Rob BellA has an amazing description of what it meant to be a disciple in the 1st century, but the jist of it is this: disciples were expected to be so close, and so involved in the life of the person they were following that they became like them, doing the same things that the rabbi did. Peter steps out of the boat not because he belives in Jesus, but because Jesus belived in Peter, that Peter could become like his Rabbi.
Our first and formost responsibilty is to answer the call of Jesus on our life. It is not enough to have mere intelectual assent to a set of doctrines or a standard of conduct. We must be actively pursuing and following in the steps of Jesus. This is a reminder and awake up call. If you picked this up to read it, I am assuming that you are a christian and probably some sort of leader as well. Something Ive learned as of late is what I call the "me first" rule. When God speaks, when something jumps of the page of His Word, or when I hear sermons and messages, its all for me first. Simply put, I am not a channel of information from God to the people around me, I am a follower of God. I noticed this first in my quiet times, where I would read and say things like so-and-so needs to hear this and this person would totally be blessed by this. I would listen to sermons and hope that certain people in the audience were listening up. But I was just pushing away the things that God wanted to pour into my own life so that I wasn't giving others something I had read, but rather some thing that was a part of my own life. Then comes the next part.
"Follow me like I follow Christ"
Pauls call is the model for our discipleship to day. What it looks like is this. I follow Jesus; he changes and shapes my life, teaches me things and grows me up. Then God brings along someone else who needs what we got, teaching, encouragement, admonishment. A warning and an ecouragement: our disciples will become like us, for good and for bad. I've seen amazing replication of amazing people in their diciples, who have a passion for the lost, a hunger for the word and a longing for God. I've also seen those same people pick up nervous habits of the one who disciples.
I could give you this perfect picture of what discipleship should look like. You spend 15 minutes discussing personal struggles and joy, then 25 minutes discussing the book or scripture that you read durring the week, and then 10 minutes praying for one another. But true discipleship is messy. Its getting involved in peoples lives to such an extent, that you can look across a crowded room and know what a person is stuggling with. I know. Ive been called out like that. Discipleship is loving a person so much that you cant bear to see them stay as they are. Its invasive and uncomfortable sometimes. Especially for us, because we see so many kids perishing that it can be overwhelming to have 50 kids that you are responsible for, right? But in our group down in Lake Elsinore I have seen one man's investment in a handfil of guys change our youth group. Because he replicated the heart and passion that he had for God and for students into these guys, and now they come and serve on Sunday nights and througout the week and they are now discipling others. But it wasn't a one month investment, or 6 months or a year. They are going on three years. And this guy has commited to them for life. Its true that these guys don't need as much guidence as they once did. They've learned to go to the sorce for guidence and for teaching and to hear from God. But he is still there to pray and support and encourage. He wants to see them grow up to be mighty men of God, who allow God and not the world to influence and change them.
This is where we should all want to be because lets get honest for a moment. Two hours on Sunday morning and two hours of youth group are not enough. Not enough to get inside the lives and heads and hearts of the kids that you are ministering to. Now Im not discounting the miraculus working of God in our youth groups, but there is only so much growth that can happen in four hours a week. It takes us getting involved in our kids lives. Its more that just meeting once a week. Its going to games, seeing shows, reading the bible with them, late night phone calls, seeing their rooms, and chating with them on myspace. Its picking them up in your car and running errends, and letting them see the way that you and your wife handle arguments, and opening the doors of your house to be a sanctuary from the world. Its all that and more because discipleship is not something we do. It's a way of living.
I want to live my life in such a way that my radical enthusiasm becomes their radical enthusiam.
March 27, 2006
Earnestly Risking Authenticity
Willy, Dave and I met this week and started talking about the word again only we were talking about what it means to meditate on the word. We read last week in small groups Psalm one which says "I will meditate on your word day and night." But I wonder what that really means.
Does meditating day and night, mean that I need to don an orange robe, go find a cave to live in up in the Ortegas, and sit cross-legged humming to my self for the rest of my life?
Hmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm
I'm going to go with the answer of probably not. How would you ever get anything done? Monks don't write papers for English class or do algebra homework or take out the trash or put up with siblings. They have removed themselves from this life. So what would it practically look like to engage in meditation on the scriptures.
When I think of meditation, I think of bar-b-que. In Texas it doesn't matter what you are cooking, but if you cook it on the grill, its barbeque. Every thing from hot dogs, to T-bone stakes, to fish, to ears of corn: its all bar-b-que. And the best bar-b-qued meats are the ones that have been sitting in marinade all day long. The marinade soaks to the inside of the meat, changing the essential quality of the meat by breaking down some of the tough fibrous tissue so that come cooking time its tender and ready to eat. It also takes a rather boring and plain pieces of meat and adds to it the richness of flavors that things like garlic, soy sauce, and Ruby's Red Rub add to the mix. For it to work though, its an all day process. Its gotta soak.
And so when we read the word we gotta get marinated in it. Its not enough to slap a little A-1 bible sauce on our lives and call it a day. Aint no amount of special sauces going to cover up a tough piece of meat, it needs the marinade.
So I thought about what it looks like in my own life and just wrote down some of the things that I experienced through out my day on Wednesday, while I was meditating on the word.
So the first thing I would say is you gotta start early in the day to marinade something. How can you soak yourself in the word, if you haven't cracked a page in the morning?
Its 5:15. I fought getting up this morning. I snoozed the alarm but my neighbor who starts throwing tools in his truck at 5:10 has woken me any ways. I started reading 1 John 3, and its amazing how distracted that I was. Late night at school plus morning devotions equals a severe lack of focus. I was already being distracted by things I needed to get done like cleaning the dishes in the sink before people started showing up for the Ruthless Trust Breakfast Club at 6:30. I was thinking about work and ministry and church and my hopes for the future, and life in general, about everything except for 1 John. I kept having to wrestle in my thoughts like they were a pack of wild alligators. CS Lewis describes this in his book Mere Christianity.
"The real problem of the Christian life comes where we do not normally look for it . It comes the very moment that you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice and taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, life come flowing in. And so on, all day We can do it only for moments at first"
"We can do it only for moments at first" What an encouragement that is. That it's not a super perfection thing, where I've got to have it all right, but a moment by moment that is seasoned with God's grace. There's two verses that kinda stuck out to me.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love that the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!
1 John 3:18-19 Dear children let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
Okay so now its 6:15. People are early and I still haven't finished the dishes or made anything for people to eat. Looks like cereal and bagels this morning. We are reading this book called Ruthless Trust by a guy named Brenning Manning. Its always amazing to me that God wants to provide answers to the questions in my head. You see, when a scripture verse sticks out, its not because I think its poetic, or pretty, or that someone else needs to hear that. Its usually because I have some issue or question that is brought up by the passage itself. This morning it was the question "do I belong to the truth?" And the answer from Manning's book? Not really. I think most of the time, I probably want to belong to the truth, even though sometimes I don't. Maybe. Wishy washy bull honky. I've got an issue with being open, honest and real. And I don't know what to do about it.
Eight o'clock. I check my email before starting work. New MySpace messages. Oh goodie! There's times were I wonder if, like Dave says, we are too plugged in. I cover that thought with the reasoning that I don't have TV or Internet at home so I'm okay. I read start reading some thing that Ali wrote. Its amazing.
"I am so overcome by the gentle peace of Christ. Realizing that a life of meaning and joy takes discipline, it is necessary for me to awake each morning and choose to follow Christ. I must take each day one at a time. Living for Christ this way (daily) is so much simpler and refreshing. The future does not make me as anxious. I am content with what I have and where I am because I am with Christ. Difficulties keep finding me and taunting me, but I still find joy and peace in my Savior. I watch people in my life that I dearly love get thrashed by lies, poor decisions, and worries;; my heart breaks for them. True freedom is only ever found in Christ. So, I am choosing trust and hope in God today, because what if there is no tomorrow????"
What if there's no tomorrow to make things right? Do I find my hope and joy and peace in Jesus, or am I thrashed by lies, poor decisions and worries. My own lies and my own poor decisions, my own worries.
Ten thirty. I get in my car to drive up to Moreno valley for work. I have the "heartimus unimus" card in the dashboard of my car. I don't know if I've just never really read it before or what but it said, earnestly risking authenticity.
Earnestly- doing it with all your might.
Risking to the point were you are out of your comfort zone.
Authenticity- being real. Being who God made me.
So I threw up a quick prayer, God help me to be that man. Earnestly risking authenticity with my friends, with my family, with people I hardly know, and with complete strangers. I don't wanna hide who you've made me and what goes on in my head any more.
High noon- Its lunch time I take off to my parents house to sit and write on my lunch break but my friend Sarah comes on Aim and I talk to her instead. She's in St Petersburg Russia teaching English. She had canceled classes because one of the students, Demitri, had died the previous day from pneumonia. "They didn't teach me how to deal with this in any of my classes." She wrote. "What do I tell the other students. How do I explain that God is good and in control and will work this out, when I don't even feel that myself." My answer was you don't. You morn with the students, and when they ask you why you be as honest as you can. "I don't know why this happened, and I'm sad because of it" Earnestly risking authenticity.
One o'clock hits and a friend of mine calls for some encouragement. I've had people call for encouragement but never come right out and say it. I believe the exact words were "Adam, I need a pep-talk!"
1 John 3:18-19 Dear children let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
What happens when we belong to the truth our hearts set at rest in His presence. So I just spoke out some truth, nothing I hadn't said before, and nothing that I wasn't willing to say again, just the reality that God has created us each with gifts and talents and treasures, and that when we come to grips with that truth our hearts are set at rest in His presence.
Crash Boom Bang rolls around, this is when the other verse comes into play.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love that the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!
All day long verse one was still rattling around in my head. "And this is what we ARE!" And I'm sitting at Crash, Boom, Bang wondering how many of them realize that they are children of the living God. Then I smack my self on the head and wonder if I realize I'm a child of the living God. Because a lot of the problems I have with being authentic and real come from the fact that I have some sort of image to uphold. Not an image of coolness or a tough guy, but of the pastor dude. The sort of guy who shouldn't struggle with the basics, right? Its okay for me to say to people I struggle with the application of the soteriolgical axiom of the second ecumenical council. (Don't worry there's no test at the end of this) But its hard for me to say, wow, I struggle with reading the word on a daily basis, I struggle with having mental distractions while I am praying, and I struggle with loneliness and doubt. But as I start to share these things I don't find condemnation, but rather camaraderie. Willy and I have set ourselves to being in the word in the morning, and sometimes its hard and I have to look over at him for encouragement.
Its now a little after midnight, I'm writing this for Sunday thinking what's the conclusion; how do I wrap this up? Two things.
First, when you or I meditate on the word, there will come a place were the rubber meets the road, were we will either do what it says or we wont. And if we wont it will start to gnaw at us. Remember that this is only a day in my life, and that this issue that God is working with me on has really been a process of His word and His Spirit marinating my soul to tenderness and when that fails, He has been gnawing on the tough spots with all the gusto of a dog with a rawhide bone.
And secondly marinating starts in the word and depends on the Holy Spirit to bring verses back up, all day long. That living in the truth of Gods words will bring rest to our hearts in His presence.
Be you encouraged! For though we can do it only for moments at first, God is faithful to complete the work that He has promised to complete in us
Does meditating day and night, mean that I need to don an orange robe, go find a cave to live in up in the Ortegas, and sit cross-legged humming to my self for the rest of my life?
Hmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm
I'm going to go with the answer of probably not. How would you ever get anything done? Monks don't write papers for English class or do algebra homework or take out the trash or put up with siblings. They have removed themselves from this life. So what would it practically look like to engage in meditation on the scriptures.
When I think of meditation, I think of bar-b-que. In Texas it doesn't matter what you are cooking, but if you cook it on the grill, its barbeque. Every thing from hot dogs, to T-bone stakes, to fish, to ears of corn: its all bar-b-que. And the best bar-b-qued meats are the ones that have been sitting in marinade all day long. The marinade soaks to the inside of the meat, changing the essential quality of the meat by breaking down some of the tough fibrous tissue so that come cooking time its tender and ready to eat. It also takes a rather boring and plain pieces of meat and adds to it the richness of flavors that things like garlic, soy sauce, and Ruby's Red Rub add to the mix. For it to work though, its an all day process. Its gotta soak.
And so when we read the word we gotta get marinated in it. Its not enough to slap a little A-1 bible sauce on our lives and call it a day. Aint no amount of special sauces going to cover up a tough piece of meat, it needs the marinade.
So I thought about what it looks like in my own life and just wrote down some of the things that I experienced through out my day on Wednesday, while I was meditating on the word.
So the first thing I would say is you gotta start early in the day to marinade something. How can you soak yourself in the word, if you haven't cracked a page in the morning?
Its 5:15. I fought getting up this morning. I snoozed the alarm but my neighbor who starts throwing tools in his truck at 5:10 has woken me any ways. I started reading 1 John 3, and its amazing how distracted that I was. Late night at school plus morning devotions equals a severe lack of focus. I was already being distracted by things I needed to get done like cleaning the dishes in the sink before people started showing up for the Ruthless Trust Breakfast Club at 6:30. I was thinking about work and ministry and church and my hopes for the future, and life in general, about everything except for 1 John. I kept having to wrestle in my thoughts like they were a pack of wild alligators. CS Lewis describes this in his book Mere Christianity.
"The real problem of the Christian life comes where we do not normally look for it . It comes the very moment that you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice and taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, life come flowing in. And so on, all day We can do it only for moments at first"
"We can do it only for moments at first" What an encouragement that is. That it's not a super perfection thing, where I've got to have it all right, but a moment by moment that is seasoned with God's grace. There's two verses that kinda stuck out to me.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love that the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!
1 John 3:18-19 Dear children let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
Okay so now its 6:15. People are early and I still haven't finished the dishes or made anything for people to eat. Looks like cereal and bagels this morning. We are reading this book called Ruthless Trust by a guy named Brenning Manning. Its always amazing to me that God wants to provide answers to the questions in my head. You see, when a scripture verse sticks out, its not because I think its poetic, or pretty, or that someone else needs to hear that. Its usually because I have some issue or question that is brought up by the passage itself. This morning it was the question "do I belong to the truth?" And the answer from Manning's book? Not really. I think most of the time, I probably want to belong to the truth, even though sometimes I don't. Maybe. Wishy washy bull honky. I've got an issue with being open, honest and real. And I don't know what to do about it.
Eight o'clock. I check my email before starting work. New MySpace messages. Oh goodie! There's times were I wonder if, like Dave says, we are too plugged in. I cover that thought with the reasoning that I don't have TV or Internet at home so I'm okay. I read start reading some thing that Ali wrote. Its amazing.
"I am so overcome by the gentle peace of Christ. Realizing that a life of meaning and joy takes discipline, it is necessary for me to awake each morning and choose to follow Christ. I must take each day one at a time. Living for Christ this way (daily) is so much simpler and refreshing. The future does not make me as anxious. I am content with what I have and where I am because I am with Christ. Difficulties keep finding me and taunting me, but I still find joy and peace in my Savior. I watch people in my life that I dearly love get thrashed by lies, poor decisions, and worries;; my heart breaks for them. True freedom is only ever found in Christ. So, I am choosing trust and hope in God today, because what if there is no tomorrow????"
What if there's no tomorrow to make things right? Do I find my hope and joy and peace in Jesus, or am I thrashed by lies, poor decisions and worries. My own lies and my own poor decisions, my own worries.
Ten thirty. I get in my car to drive up to Moreno valley for work. I have the "heartimus unimus" card in the dashboard of my car. I don't know if I've just never really read it before or what but it said, earnestly risking authenticity.
Earnestly- doing it with all your might.
Risking to the point were you are out of your comfort zone.
Authenticity- being real. Being who God made me.
So I threw up a quick prayer, God help me to be that man. Earnestly risking authenticity with my friends, with my family, with people I hardly know, and with complete strangers. I don't wanna hide who you've made me and what goes on in my head any more.
High noon- Its lunch time I take off to my parents house to sit and write on my lunch break but my friend Sarah comes on Aim and I talk to her instead. She's in St Petersburg Russia teaching English. She had canceled classes because one of the students, Demitri, had died the previous day from pneumonia. "They didn't teach me how to deal with this in any of my classes." She wrote. "What do I tell the other students. How do I explain that God is good and in control and will work this out, when I don't even feel that myself." My answer was you don't. You morn with the students, and when they ask you why you be as honest as you can. "I don't know why this happened, and I'm sad because of it" Earnestly risking authenticity.
One o'clock hits and a friend of mine calls for some encouragement. I've had people call for encouragement but never come right out and say it. I believe the exact words were "Adam, I need a pep-talk!"
1 John 3:18-19 Dear children let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
What happens when we belong to the truth our hearts set at rest in His presence. So I just spoke out some truth, nothing I hadn't said before, and nothing that I wasn't willing to say again, just the reality that God has created us each with gifts and talents and treasures, and that when we come to grips with that truth our hearts are set at rest in His presence.
Crash Boom Bang rolls around, this is when the other verse comes into play.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love that the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!
All day long verse one was still rattling around in my head. "And this is what we ARE!" And I'm sitting at Crash, Boom, Bang wondering how many of them realize that they are children of the living God. Then I smack my self on the head and wonder if I realize I'm a child of the living God. Because a lot of the problems I have with being authentic and real come from the fact that I have some sort of image to uphold. Not an image of coolness or a tough guy, but of the pastor dude. The sort of guy who shouldn't struggle with the basics, right? Its okay for me to say to people I struggle with the application of the soteriolgical axiom of the second ecumenical council. (Don't worry there's no test at the end of this) But its hard for me to say, wow, I struggle with reading the word on a daily basis, I struggle with having mental distractions while I am praying, and I struggle with loneliness and doubt. But as I start to share these things I don't find condemnation, but rather camaraderie. Willy and I have set ourselves to being in the word in the morning, and sometimes its hard and I have to look over at him for encouragement.
Its now a little after midnight, I'm writing this for Sunday thinking what's the conclusion; how do I wrap this up? Two things.
First, when you or I meditate on the word, there will come a place were the rubber meets the road, were we will either do what it says or we wont. And if we wont it will start to gnaw at us. Remember that this is only a day in my life, and that this issue that God is working with me on has really been a process of His word and His Spirit marinating my soul to tenderness and when that fails, He has been gnawing on the tough spots with all the gusto of a dog with a rawhide bone.
And secondly marinating starts in the word and depends on the Holy Spirit to bring verses back up, all day long. That living in the truth of Gods words will bring rest to our hearts in His presence.
Be you encouraged! For though we can do it only for moments at first, God is faithful to complete the work that He has promised to complete in us
March 7, 2006
Called
If you can do any thing else, then go do it.
But if you cant do anything but this, then you are called.
But if you cant do anything but this, then you are called.
March 1, 2006
Mysteries
1 Tim 2:8-9 "Deacons must... hold to the deep mysteries of the faith with a clear conscience"
So the verse means this for me (wow, i cant believe I just wrote that. My bible intrepretation teacher would have my head if he read that): I must hold to the deep mysteries of the faith with a clear conscience. But as I've reflected and meditated on the verse, I realized that I didnt really even have a clue on what the "deep mysteries" even were. I thought, okay, "The Trinity", God as one and as three. Right. Deep mystery number one solved. Okay "Calvinism vs Arminianism" Yes... No... Neither...Um Both. Right...Deep mystery number two solved. Okay "Escatology".......
So on and so on.
If is true that my brain "solves" these "deep mysteries" why would I still need hold them with a clear conscience. Wouldnt it be true that there would be no cognitive dissodance (a phrase I picked up in psycology) and I wouldnt have to hold them I just would have them. Now you can write this off to semantics and greek translations and what ever else, but I usually hold on to something, cause I love it (like a treasured memento or a loved one) or because it threatens to get away from me (like a climber on a rock or a wild horse) And somuch of what we loved in the begining, what made our eyes sparkle like newborn children, threatens to get away from us. The deep mystery which we once embraced has been replaced by something less real, something less than God. The deep myteries that I've been abble to come up with go something like this.
God is real.
God speaks.
God does stuff.
God loves us
God has changed my life
God changes other peoples lives.
God hears us.
So in my mind, these are the things that I ignore the most, believe the least, and are probably the most true thing I can experience. How does the Pretrib,posttrib,pantrib(thank you Monty) argument compare to the simple yet profound statement that God is real.
God is real. I start there. Because its true and I miss it. If you've been reading my blog, there was one about trusting God. And I realized that as a pastor I was missing it. I was missing the growth and power of God in my life to affect personal change. Oh my ministry was doing good. I adressed problems with the proper application of scripture, personal anctidotes, and quality goofing off time to where I saw growth in others, but never really inmyself. But to others, growth and expansion in ministry IS growth with God. Or at least looks like it. When asked about how my life was going, I always talked about ministry, never what GOd was teaching me. Dont get me wrong, I prayed, I read, I led worship. But somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my brain were the beginings of the hints of wispers of doubts. "Adam, you are wasting your life. What if its not true?" And to be honest those doubts still exist. Knowing that alot of what I do and who I am and the choices Ive made SEEM to be leading me away from the things I once had and what I desire most in life. Because God is real. Of all these things, if I dont hold to that, then my life is just a sham, my ministy a jobchoice and my relationship with God, just me talking to the celing. The funny thing is that its so obvious to us we ignore it. We almost laugh out loud when someone accepts the Gospel for truth and their eyes get bright with the reality that God exists. Deep mystery ..1
God speaks. When I speak of KN or MS, you've heard me say these words "I am no mystic." You may have even thought you knew what I was saying. In one sense it is true that "magical" thinking about God gets us into all sorts of trouble. On the other hand what I was really saying is that "God doesn't speak to me" with underlieing conclusion that "God doesn't speak to them either" and ultimatly the realization hits me now that "God doesnt speak at all because He's not real." (Are you a priest that I might make you my confessor? You didnt mean to be so candid in your email, and neither did I, yet I feel compeled to write.) But God does speak. He even speaks to me, and not in the "the bible is all of God's word we need" sort of way, though that seems to be the primary way. Its not audible. Its not a voice. I've seen a vision but only one. I have dreams but I never know what they mean. The best way I can describe it is as a thought that I have that injects itself into my "inner dialoge" which usually and almost always I reject with that same inner dialog. And its not little things. Its insight into peoples lives that when spoken allows people to releace things. Its insight into the hearts and minds of the church. And as weird as it sounds it's insight into my own heart and motives and feelings. And within the last couple of months or so, there have been four or five big ones and countless small ones, where some of them I was faithful to say, and some of them I wasnt, one of which the phrase in my head was "there's no way in hell" and the other voice said "that's right because you are not destined for that place" and then somebody else stood up in our church and said the exact thing that I had been told to say. Not just the jist of the comment, but word for word the sentance I was denying in my head. I'll pause at this point for you to reconnect your brain after the shock. Im not a skitso. I dont hear voices in my head. Like I said, its my own voice, only its not. The weight and the intrusiveness of the thought is diffrent than the normal free association that goes on in my mind. I wish I could explain it better so that, you myfriend, halfway accross the world, would be excited that God speaks. Reading this over, i kinda sound like a lunie. This is the first time I have ever tried to articulate the interaction. And to write it down, even here to a friend, makes me feel kinda vulnrable and I keep writing in little things to push off that vulnrability. But it is one of the things that made my list on the deep mysteries of God.
The rest of them might be more self explainitory, or less in need of explination, or something.
God loves us. Yes He does. No really. I mean it.
I thought it didnt need any explination but Im wrong. (The internal dialog/God speaks thing again) How many things do I do inlife to earn affection. I clean my room so my parents praise me. I get the right clothes and listen to the right music so my friends my like me. I take a girl out to dinner so I might get a peck on the cheek at the end of the night. I work hard so my boss accepts me and gives me a raise. All of my life I have had to earn my affection. Very rairly is "love" given without a reason. Its tit for tat and risk analisys. If I give them this much affection and energy, how much am I going to get back. This person didnt respond the way I wanted them to last time so im going to just hold back a little more this time.
But God does not do risk analisys.
And that way of loving is so forign to us that we ulimately do not hold to the truth that His love is permanant. And I end up working off my sins. We scoff at the middle ages, with their indulgences but I get them! Its way easier to "work off" my sins, than it is to relized that He loves me even when I don't love Him. In Him there is NO TURNING. It is amazing to see a new christian say, I found this verse and its amazing. Have you ever read it? Its John 3:16... and before he can finnish we cut him off with our quick, deadpan, un-empassioned recitation, that leaves him there with a bittler taste on his lips, his excitement like ash in his mouth, and it poisins the soul. God loves us.
Read it with a stirred up soul, empassioned for the mysteriy of God's love.
FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON SO THAT WHOM EVER BELIVES ON HIM SHALL NOT PERISH, BUT WILL HAVE THE EVERLASTING LIFE!!!!
And when we believe that, and that before it, my lens starts to bring something into veiw.
I cannot remain the same in His love. He wont allow for it. Jesus is the impertinant fix-it man. I call him into do a simple job like stoping a leaking faucet and come home to major remodel, with an added story, new windows and an east wing. Theres stairs and cranes and alsorts of activities, and when confronted about how he's "ruining your house" he comes back with the line "Im just making it perfect" Of all the impertinant..... aggg......agggg.....arrrrrr. But yet isnt it the truth that when God started working on you, and when God started working on me that neither one of us saw the road ahead. Not just the exterior one of travels and homes and friends and ministry. No I mean the inward one where God broke me of pride, and anger and the one where he continues to breakme of loneliness and uncertainty. Where He's brouhgt faith and joy and hope and love to make me perfect. To make you perfect too. God changes people's lives. For the better. Because He loves us he will tell us. And all of that because God is real.
And the last one is that God hears us.
I am no "back burner" project with God. Neither are you. God doesnt have the kids you work with on the back burner, your friendships, your relationship with Him, nor your futurespouse on the back burner. God is not a "back burner" sort of God. Rather His thoughts about you are at the forfront of His mind, numbering as numerous as the grains of sand. He says "Trust me Adam, for you are in the middle of everything that I have planned for you." He says it to you, he says it to me , he says it to all of creation, even while it growns, even while it pains in the labor of the new life to come. God hears us, and changes us to love Him more, because He first loved us, speaking to us that He loves us and that He exists.
These are the deep mysteries. The ones that I will hold on to lest they get away from me.
There might be more. Maybe you can come up with a few. I dont know.
So the verse means this for me (wow, i cant believe I just wrote that. My bible intrepretation teacher would have my head if he read that): I must hold to the deep mysteries of the faith with a clear conscience. But as I've reflected and meditated on the verse, I realized that I didnt really even have a clue on what the "deep mysteries" even were. I thought, okay, "The Trinity", God as one and as three. Right. Deep mystery number one solved. Okay "Calvinism vs Arminianism" Yes... No... Neither...Um Both. Right...Deep mystery number two solved. Okay "Escatology".......
So on and so on.
If is true that my brain "solves" these "deep mysteries" why would I still need hold them with a clear conscience. Wouldnt it be true that there would be no cognitive dissodance (a phrase I picked up in psycology) and I wouldnt have to hold them I just would have them. Now you can write this off to semantics and greek translations and what ever else, but I usually hold on to something, cause I love it (like a treasured memento or a loved one) or because it threatens to get away from me (like a climber on a rock or a wild horse) And somuch of what we loved in the begining, what made our eyes sparkle like newborn children, threatens to get away from us. The deep mystery which we once embraced has been replaced by something less real, something less than God. The deep myteries that I've been abble to come up with go something like this.
God is real.
God speaks.
God does stuff.
God loves us
God has changed my life
God changes other peoples lives.
God hears us.
So in my mind, these are the things that I ignore the most, believe the least, and are probably the most true thing I can experience. How does the Pretrib,posttrib,pantrib(thank you Monty) argument compare to the simple yet profound statement that God is real.
God is real. I start there. Because its true and I miss it. If you've been reading my blog, there was one about trusting God. And I realized that as a pastor I was missing it. I was missing the growth and power of God in my life to affect personal change. Oh my ministry was doing good. I adressed problems with the proper application of scripture, personal anctidotes, and quality goofing off time to where I saw growth in others, but never really inmyself. But to others, growth and expansion in ministry IS growth with God. Or at least looks like it. When asked about how my life was going, I always talked about ministry, never what GOd was teaching me. Dont get me wrong, I prayed, I read, I led worship. But somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my brain were the beginings of the hints of wispers of doubts. "Adam, you are wasting your life. What if its not true?" And to be honest those doubts still exist. Knowing that alot of what I do and who I am and the choices Ive made SEEM to be leading me away from the things I once had and what I desire most in life. Because God is real. Of all these things, if I dont hold to that, then my life is just a sham, my ministy a jobchoice and my relationship with God, just me talking to the celing. The funny thing is that its so obvious to us we ignore it. We almost laugh out loud when someone accepts the Gospel for truth and their eyes get bright with the reality that God exists. Deep mystery ..1
God speaks. When I speak of KN or MS, you've heard me say these words "I am no mystic." You may have even thought you knew what I was saying. In one sense it is true that "magical" thinking about God gets us into all sorts of trouble. On the other hand what I was really saying is that "God doesn't speak to me" with underlieing conclusion that "God doesn't speak to them either" and ultimatly the realization hits me now that "God doesnt speak at all because He's not real." (Are you a priest that I might make you my confessor? You didnt mean to be so candid in your email, and neither did I, yet I feel compeled to write.) But God does speak. He even speaks to me, and not in the "the bible is all of God's word we need" sort of way, though that seems to be the primary way. Its not audible. Its not a voice. I've seen a vision but only one. I have dreams but I never know what they mean. The best way I can describe it is as a thought that I have that injects itself into my "inner dialoge" which usually and almost always I reject with that same inner dialog. And its not little things. Its insight into peoples lives that when spoken allows people to releace things. Its insight into the hearts and minds of the church. And as weird as it sounds it's insight into my own heart and motives and feelings. And within the last couple of months or so, there have been four or five big ones and countless small ones, where some of them I was faithful to say, and some of them I wasnt, one of which the phrase in my head was "there's no way in hell" and the other voice said "that's right because you are not destined for that place" and then somebody else stood up in our church and said the exact thing that I had been told to say. Not just the jist of the comment, but word for word the sentance I was denying in my head. I'll pause at this point for you to reconnect your brain after the shock. Im not a skitso. I dont hear voices in my head. Like I said, its my own voice, only its not. The weight and the intrusiveness of the thought is diffrent than the normal free association that goes on in my mind. I wish I could explain it better so that, you myfriend, halfway accross the world, would be excited that God speaks. Reading this over, i kinda sound like a lunie. This is the first time I have ever tried to articulate the interaction. And to write it down, even here to a friend, makes me feel kinda vulnrable and I keep writing in little things to push off that vulnrability. But it is one of the things that made my list on the deep mysteries of God.
The rest of them might be more self explainitory, or less in need of explination, or something.
God loves us. Yes He does. No really. I mean it.
I thought it didnt need any explination but Im wrong. (The internal dialog/God speaks thing again) How many things do I do inlife to earn affection. I clean my room so my parents praise me. I get the right clothes and listen to the right music so my friends my like me. I take a girl out to dinner so I might get a peck on the cheek at the end of the night. I work hard so my boss accepts me and gives me a raise. All of my life I have had to earn my affection. Very rairly is "love" given without a reason. Its tit for tat and risk analisys. If I give them this much affection and energy, how much am I going to get back. This person didnt respond the way I wanted them to last time so im going to just hold back a little more this time.
But God does not do risk analisys.
And that way of loving is so forign to us that we ulimately do not hold to the truth that His love is permanant. And I end up working off my sins. We scoff at the middle ages, with their indulgences but I get them! Its way easier to "work off" my sins, than it is to relized that He loves me even when I don't love Him. In Him there is NO TURNING. It is amazing to see a new christian say, I found this verse and its amazing. Have you ever read it? Its John 3:16... and before he can finnish we cut him off with our quick, deadpan, un-empassioned recitation, that leaves him there with a bittler taste on his lips, his excitement like ash in his mouth, and it poisins the soul. God loves us.
Read it with a stirred up soul, empassioned for the mysteriy of God's love.
FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON SO THAT WHOM EVER BELIVES ON HIM SHALL NOT PERISH, BUT WILL HAVE THE EVERLASTING LIFE!!!!
And when we believe that, and that before it, my lens starts to bring something into veiw.
I cannot remain the same in His love. He wont allow for it. Jesus is the impertinant fix-it man. I call him into do a simple job like stoping a leaking faucet and come home to major remodel, with an added story, new windows and an east wing. Theres stairs and cranes and alsorts of activities, and when confronted about how he's "ruining your house" he comes back with the line "Im just making it perfect" Of all the impertinant..... aggg......agggg.....arrrrrr. But yet isnt it the truth that when God started working on you, and when God started working on me that neither one of us saw the road ahead. Not just the exterior one of travels and homes and friends and ministry. No I mean the inward one where God broke me of pride, and anger and the one where he continues to breakme of loneliness and uncertainty. Where He's brouhgt faith and joy and hope and love to make me perfect. To make you perfect too. God changes people's lives. For the better. Because He loves us he will tell us. And all of that because God is real.
And the last one is that God hears us.
I am no "back burner" project with God. Neither are you. God doesnt have the kids you work with on the back burner, your friendships, your relationship with Him, nor your futurespouse on the back burner. God is not a "back burner" sort of God. Rather His thoughts about you are at the forfront of His mind, numbering as numerous as the grains of sand. He says "Trust me Adam, for you are in the middle of everything that I have planned for you." He says it to you, he says it to me , he says it to all of creation, even while it growns, even while it pains in the labor of the new life to come. God hears us, and changes us to love Him more, because He first loved us, speaking to us that He loves us and that He exists.
These are the deep mysteries. The ones that I will hold on to lest they get away from me.
There might be more. Maybe you can come up with a few. I dont know.
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