can your commitment to christ stand the credibility test?
does your devotion to god ooze consistency?
do people…all people within your sphere of interaction…know that you love them?
how do they know it?
if i speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, i am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. if i have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, i am nothing. if i give all i possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, i gain nothing. 1 corinthians 13:1-3
show me your faith without deeds, and i will show you my faith by what i do. james 2:18
i’m up late tonight…by myself…with my thoughts that are random and uncontrolled…and pretty profound for me. maybe for you, too.
writing is both therapeutic and cathartic for me. i find myself writing things that expose my weaknesses and my pain…as well as my joy and the mundane.
in the midst of all the amazing good in my life (and there is a lot), everything is not perfect. it’s not for anybody. i just want to make sure you know that it’s not for me either! there are things that i wish were different. there are things that remind me of past hurt. there are unpleasant consequences from past mistakes or unknown shortcomings. it’s just life, i suppose.
it doesn’t effect my faith. at least not negatively. if anything, sadness causes me to draw close and experience the reality of a god who embodies a peace that transcends my understanding and brings wholeness to my bones.
tonight, i had a long conversation with an old friend who has been given a second chance at life. his journey of faith has been a long and bumpy one. questions and doubt have always been front and center. his recent bout with the enemy has brought some clarity. his search is yielding some relief…some answers. i think a saving faith is taking up residence in his soul.
i’m glad he never gave up the fight. i’m glad god never let go of him.
there are others in my life that are on this same journey. i hope their story has a similar conclusion.
here’s another rich mullins tune. i told you earlier in the week that rich had an understanding of death that inspired me. this is the song that cemented my belief that god was using him to speak to my soul, rattle my faith system, and give me a personal story that needed to be bigger than life…and death:
Elijah
The Jordan is waiting for me to cross through
My heart is aging I can tell
So Lord, I’m begging for one last favor from You
Here’s my heart take it where You will
This life has shown me how we’re mended and how we’re torn
How it’s okay to be lonely as long as you’re free
Sometimes my ground was stoney
And sometimes covered up with thorns
And only You could make it what it had to be
And now that it’s done
Well if they dressed me like a pauper
Or if they dined me like a prince
If they lay me with my fathers
Or if my ashes scatter on the wind
I don’t care
But when I leave I want to go out like Elijah
With a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire
And when I look back on the stars
It’ll be like a candlelight in Central Park
And it won’t break my heart to say goodbye
There’s people been friendly, but they’d never be your friends
Sometimes this has bent me to the ground
Now that this is all ending
I want to hear some music once again
‘Cause it’s the finest thing that I have ever found
But the Jordan is waiting
Though I ain’t never seen the other side
Still they say you can’t take in the things you have here
So on the road to salvation
I stick out my thumb and He gives me a ride
And His music is already falling on my ears
There’s people been talking
They say they’re worried about my soul
Well, I’m here to tell you I’ll keep rocking
‘Til I’m sure it’s my time to roll
And when I do
When I leave I want to go out like Elijah
With a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire
And when I look back on the stars
It’ll be like a candlelight in Central Park
this video was shot shortly before his death in a jeep accident in september, 1997.
we had lunch with an old friend today. we had not sat and talked…really talked…since 1990. in 1990, he was a just a kid. he’s a man now. older. wiser. deeper. it was great to be around him.
as we talked, old wounds of mine were opened. i thought about things that i had long since buried. i remembered a lot of good stuff, but some of the pain was still there. lurking.
but it’s in the past and i have moved on. older. hopefully wiser and deeper, too. we are all products of our past. life events…both good and bad…are the things god uses to shape us and mold us and turn us into something for noble purposes. or not.
i’m grateful for the pain and the struggle and the injustice and and difficulty and the mistakes and the growth curve that my life journey has produced. i would not be who i am without it.
i am even more grateful that god never quit on me…even when i doubted…even when i wanted to give up…even when i called his existence and wisdom into question…even when theology and philosophy didn’t square up with what i heard others saying and doing.
i am grateful that faith and reason learned to coexist in my world. i am grateful that i got to the point that i didn’t have to have answers for everything and that i became (by the grace of god) a pursuer of the “big picture”.
i am most grateful that i didn’t let people define god for me…or ruin faith for me…or box me into corners where there was no reasonable way out. i am grateful that hurt or mean people did not suck me into bitterness…or lure me into apathy…or blindly call me to a life of judgmental self-centeredness (though i struggle with it everyday).
i will be eternally grateful for mercy, forgiveness (both for me and for those i interact with), for purpose, a higher calling than a mere existence centered on my own pursuit of happiness, and a the capacity to live life within the touch of people…in spite of the risk.
yeah, i’m a pretty happy guy tonight…and it has nothing to do with my location!
wanda and i were both born in san diego. we were on the back edge of the baby boom in socal, when many midwesterners were migrating to the coast. with the end of the korean war, the growth of hollywood, the transplanting of the brooklyn dodgers and the general lure of the coast, southern california was ripe for growth. our parents were part of it. we were the product of it.
here’s the house that wanda spent the majority of her childhood growing up in. vintage 60’s. yeah…that’s an suv parked on the front lawn.
here’s the piece of land that the house i grew up in was located on (it’s now a playground at a middle school):
it’s been 55 years since we were born.
we’ve known each other for 39 of those years.
we’ve been married for 34 of those years.
two years from now, we could both go to our 40-year high school reunions. i can tell you now that we won’t.
i feel like i’m talking about some other people. some other old people.
you blink and years pass. seeing things from my past today, has left me a little melancholy tonight. wanda and i have some amazing memories with each other. our first date at the san diego county fair…high school football games (my school kicked her school’s butt)…four-wheeling in the anza borrego desert…getting married at good old national city first christian church:
our first apartment…the national city la-la-la-love shack (which was only 30 yards up the street from where i spent my childhood. (our balcony was on the second story, right hand side):
look, you can either believe that life is nothing but a bunch of random, meaningless events that are sandwiched in between the “bookends” of your life and death. or you can believe that life has had the essence of purpose breathed into it by a sovereign god of design.
for me, i choose design over meaninglessness. purpose over chance. life over existence. a creator over a random accident.
what about you? have you made up your own god? do you live as if you (and your little world and little timeline) are at the center of the universe? or do you see something bigger out of your life?
do you acknowledge a creator-god who is having a hand in weaving your life story? do you believe that there is something greater at work in your existence?
narcissism or submission. you can’t have it both ways.
last night at our young adult bible study, we had a great discussion about grace and law and guilt and motivation and how to live out our commitment to christ in a way that is true to scripture…and not dominated by an unhealthy view of god, the church and ourselves.
paul wrote the letter to the galatians to challenge them to stay true to the gospel he had taught them (justification by faith) and to avoid turning to another gospel (a returning to the law…salvation earned by human effort). here’s where my questions come in.
we all openly admitted that our church upbringing had taught us to “do” things to please god. go to church…study the bible…be good to others…put money in the offering plate…bring a friend…give god your best…pray…memorize scripture…go to vacation bible school…sing the songs…have a daily quiet time…and the list goes on.
children are taught…in church, as well as in society…to take responsibility for ourselves. we are praised for effort and we take pride in our independence, work ethic, and success. we are led to believe that anything worth having will cost us. nothing is free. nothing of value comes cheap. it is better to earn it than to have someone give it to you. you’ll appreciate it more. there will be deeper satisfaction and the feelings of accomplishment will continue to push us to greater and greater effort and commitment.
so here they are:
how do you teach a child the concept of salvation by grace through faith from an early age?
how do we express the greatness of redemption from slavery to the law…while at the same time, teaching personal responsibility?
how do we teach children that god is not impressed by church attendance, sunday best, quarters in the offering plate, and being nice to friends?
how do we teach children that there is nothing we can ever do to earn any part of our relationship to our heavenly father?
how do we help our children build a concept of god and commitment to the kingdom that is free from legalistic works…and full of grace-filled, loving responses to god and people?
how can we help kids grow up into people who love…simply because they are aware that god has loved them first?
before i get to my axiom, i’d like to acknowledge the fact that the past couple of days of dialogue about worship has been one of my highest rated blog posts in the three-and-a-half years of doing this…over 115 different “views” and 18 comments. pretty cool!
normally, i dedicate thursdays to giving some of my personal life axioms…truth that, from my perspective, is self-evident. sometimes practical. sometimes philosophical. sometimes whimsical. but truth, no less. after a week off, i think i’ll pass on another one.
“know the difference between “going” to church and “being” the church.”
this one is not new. anybody who has known me for a while…like the past thirty years…knows what i believe about this. there is probably no one axiom that expresses the answer to the messes that so many people find themselves in on their spiritual journeys.
this might possibly be the issue that creates the turning point between wandering and trust…fate and hope…intellect and faith…law and grace.
no matter how hard we try, we who are raised in church culture (or raise our kids there) have a dividing line we must cross…a passing over, if you will, into the world that god intends for us to live in, and not the one our sunday school teachers would have us believe in (bless their hearts).
those who never make that move are destined to be stuck in a spiritual black hole…a belief in god as the creator, but overwhelmed by all that is wrong with the church and unexplained by theology.
our world is full of people who believe that this “going to church stuff” is the measuring stick of christianity…that somehow we impress god and others by our church attendance and ultimately win their approval and our salvation. church is not a destination. church is identity. it is what I am a part of every moment of every day. to miss this is to miss the whole point of being a follower of christ. to miss this is to miss the joy and purpose of belonging to the body of christ.
to miss this is tragedy that some never recover from.
here’s your question for today. give it some thought. what does your answer say about you? about what you believe about god? about what things are most important in your faith?
what’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of god?
in track and field, two of the coolest events (though not a spectacular as the 100m dash or the mile run) that we get to watch are the high jump and the pole vault. the bar is set on the standards for each competitor to try to get over the bar. as the athletes clear the established height, the bar is raised to a new height, making it increasingly more and more difficult to clear.
athletes are driven by the goal of attaining higher and higher pinnacles by continually raising the bar to new heights…new challenges…new targets. man…i love this metaphor!
are you constantly raising the bar in your personal life? are you seeking out new challenges? are your goals higher and loftier than they were last year?
are you doing anything by faith? or are you settling for things you know you can do? are you taking risks? are you attempting things that require prayer to accomplish? do you settle for “ok”, or do you relentlessly pursue better?
where is the bar being set in your relationships…in your study of god’s word…in your thought life…in your service…in your worship? is it time to be raising the bar?
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.Psalm 23:4
as far as questions go, there is not another question that demands more of our faith, pushes our intellect to the limit, and requires a greater expression of trust than the question of why bad things happen…and the companion questions regarding god’s role, god’s location, god’s purpose, and even god’s existence.
i imagine a lifetime is still not quite enough time to exhaust the depth of this discussion. but i found great comfort this past year from an unlikely source…the 23rd psalm. as i preached through the psalm last winter, i got to the fourth verse and realized that i had never really come to an adequate understanding of it’s meaning. but because i had methodically gone through the text leading up to the verse, the meaning became more than clear.
sheep go through valleys for different reasons. sometimes they go through them because the shepherd intentionally leads them there. they are led through valleys to get to higher ground where there is better food. sometimes, they are led through valleys because they are necessary paths on the way to the destination. still other times, sheep are led through valleys in order to return home…even though they are treacherous and full of danger, they are the only way to get home…and the shepherd knows it.
sheep also go through valleys because they are notorious wanderers. they easily get off track and go down roads they have no business going down. they ignore the careful leading of the shepherd and end up in peril and danger and sickness because they ignorantly trust their own instincts.
there are still other times that sheep end up in valleys because valleys are an inevitable part of a sheep’s world. in other words, valleys come with the territory. as bad and as dangerous as they are, they are part of natural contour of the land where sheep roam. sometimes they are led there. sometimes they wander there because of their own stupidity and hard-headedness. and sometimes it just happens.
do you see the lesson? we are sheep. sometimes bad things happen to us because we are led there. on purpose. by the design and determination of the shepherd. for our own good. to get us to higher ground…to greater nourishment…to a better place.
other times, just like sheep, we end up in valleys…bad places…difficult circumstances…gut-wrenching, dangerous, life-on-the-edge situations simply because we are stupid and prone to wander…going our own way, instead of following the gracious, loving direction of our shepherd.
and then there are other times that we walk through valleys, because valleys (bad things) are just an inevitable part of living in a fallen world…part of the contour of the landscape of life as we know it.
for me, it doesn’t get much more complicated this. what about you?
I am a husband, a dad, a spankin' new grandpa (big papi), a pastor, a teacher, a fellow-wanderer, a baseball junkie, a lover of 24, waffles, the first day of fall , loud music, kids, play, the grace of God, and St. Augustine grass!
I am a husband, a dad, a spankin' new grandpa (big papi), a pastor, a teacher, a fellow-wanderer, a baseball junkie, a lover of 24, waffles, the first day of fall , loud music, kids, play, the grace of God, and St. Augustine grass!
