Needful Seeds

Hourglass

2011-12-28T19:08:00.000-05:00

And the more the sand sinks
the faster it falls
Burying our moments like fossils
in the deepening bottom
Until at last, all we hold dear
slips slowly through our hands
and quickly beyond our reach

Not lost - but saved
in the storehouse of a coming Age
When the Time Keeper breathes
life into lives long returned to dust
And revived, we mine those memories
like diamonds
or favorite toys in the sandbox

The Soundness of Silence

2011-11-28T21:43:00.001-05:00

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

- Paul Simon

In mylast post, I made my best attempt at expressing the beauty and necessity ofwhat can often be one of the most challenging spiritual disciplines. Yet evenin its difficulty, silence really is profoundly beneficial as well asfoundational to the Advent season. I began thinking that for all the poeticattempts of the last blog entry, there wasn't much offered in terms of whatsilence might actually look like in our day-to-day life. After all, most of ourdaily interactions require verbal communication on some level. While Icertainly am no expert on the subject, I would like to suggest just one waythat we can practice silence and maybe begin to enter more deeply into thereality of God's presence: take rests.

Whenlistening to our favorite music, we may not think much about the rests (pausesbetween the notes) involved, but music wouldn't be music without them. Withoutrests, our favorite songs would be reduced to a messy blend of noise. The sameis true of our lives. When we plow through our days with no momentarypauses, no centered attention or consideration, our hearts and minds becomecluttered with dissonant sounds. On the other hand, when we allow rests tobecome part of our daily experience, not only will we get a moment ofrefreshment from the racket, but the sounds of our day will begin to have thecontext they need to form a melody.

How mightwe allow rests throughout our day?It's as simple as pausing for a moment from whatever we are doing and beingpresent to God, to ourselves, and to the people and places around us. It's theopposite of being somewhere while at the same time being "somewhereelse." In a rest, we turn our attention to God as His presence pervadesall we see, hear, and experience. We're not causing God's presence to occur;we're merely acknowledging and momentarily attending to the constant reality weare mostly too noisy to notice. We do not rest to escape reality; we rest toenter reality. And there is a lot of reality in a single moment.

Whenshould we take rests? In thebeginning, we take rests whenever we remember to take them. Eventually, we takethem whenever we become aware that one is happening. When you begin to hear themelody, you also begin to hear the rests.

In thebustling noise of our lives, we can often talk without speaking. We can often hearwithout listening. But as we learn to live in step with the Spirit, we learn tospeak without talking. We learn to listen without hearing. There is a soundnessto silence, if we will only rest in it.

The Language of Advent

2011-11-27T19:12:00.001-05:00

Thismorning I woke up early for band practice before church. The sun rose, as itseemed to me, even earlier, unaffected by the numbers on my alarm clock and therecent time change reflected there. It filtered new rays of light through acanopy of misty clouds, sending with them what may be the last remains of theseason's warmth. A cool breeze blew through branches overhead, teasing theleaves still holding fast to near-winter branches while their less tenaciousrusty-brown brethren rustled together across the driveway.

I stoodthere for a moment, looking and listening. A shaggy black dog shifted down thestreet, sniffing from mailbox to mailbox. He found nothing, the squirrels nestledaway in their nests. The birds had abandoned the trees like the leaves, takingtheir early morning canticles with them. There was no other stirring, no othersound. The wind whispered a hush over the neighborhood like the Spiritsilencing Zechariah when he doubted the angel.

Zechariahwas one of about 18,000 Jewish priests serving in the years leading up to thebirth of Jesus. Every year, he served a regular term of two weeks in the temple, during which priests were selected by lot for special duties. Thishappened to be the year Zechariah was chosen to go into the temple to burnincense. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Zechariah would have aonce-in-a-lifetime experience. As the anticipated day drew near, Zechariah studiedhis role well. He knew exactly what to do. He knew the procedures to cleanse himselffor service. He knew just how to enter the chamber. He knew the proper way to lightthe incense. He knew exactly the words he was to use in prayer. And when thetime came, Zechariah had said everything perfectly according to plan, until theangel appeared.

"Youwill have a son," the angel announced. Forgetting his national history,the aged and childless Zechariah stammered out his only unrehearsed utterance – doubt of the angel's extraordinary promise. It proved tobe an unfortunate deviance from the script. As a result, Zechariah would not beable to speak another word for over nine months until the birth of his promised son. He would be able only to listen as others celebrated the miracle ofhis wife Elizabeth’s conception. With a mutetongue, his ears would ring all the louder with the news that the promise had been true. In the absence of words, he would saturatein the silent faithfulness of God. And when Elizabeth's son was delivered like a coal to Zechariah's lips, his first words would now echo the angel:"His name is John."

Zechariahwas not just chosen to burn incense. He was chosen to announce the one whowould announce the long-awaited coming of the Christ. It is the arrival ofChrist that we celebrate in the season of Advent, the very name of which means"arrival." But as any mother will tell you, arriving is alwayspreceded by waiting. Waiting is the hard lesson of Advent. And while Elizabethand Mary were learning the lesson ofAdvent, Zechariah was learning the languageof Advent: silence.

Adventwill teach us to wait for Jesus if we will allow it, but it will require silentlips and hearts. And we cannot learn silence without stopping to listen. We simplyare not able to take true hold of the promise in our current clutter, in ourrote routines and rituals. Yet if we give momentary pause, we will see thateven creation is slowing down to listen. The trees, perhaps soon heavy andwhite, will bend their burdened branches to the earth as if to eavesdrop. Theymay catch wind of the promise that even as the last leaf falls to the frostedearth, seeds also have fallen.

For now,waiting…

…in faith…

…and silence.

Always Looking

2011-11-07T16:50:00.000-05:00

Although we are brand new customers of TIC Federal Credit Union, I have never been inside one of their buildings. TIC happened to be the institution that the car dealership used to help us finance our new vehicle. Last week, I had no idea where to find a local TIC branch to make good on our first payment. The website claimed there was a branch in our hometown of Smiths but provided no address. Smiths isn't a big place, and I've lived here all my life. I thought I could picture where it was probably located.

So off I went in search of TIC. But when I arrived at my targeted destination, what I found instead was a Wells Fargo. I know Smiths like the back of my hand. Where else could this place be? I was running out of time, and I had to pick up my kids from school. The payment would have to wait. After all, I'm sure there's a grace period. Then, on the way to my kids' school, I spotted what I had been searching for. There was the local TIC branch directly in front of Walmart. Now, although I almost never enjoy going to Walmart, I must say that I have been there countless numbers of times. How long had I driven past this very TIC and never paid it one ounce of attention? Why had I never seen it before? Why couldn't I find a place that I had been next door to for years?

When my son, Noah, was younger, he would find coins on the ground almost everywhere we took him. Like a little hawk, he would pick up coins in his sight that we would have stepped right over. I always thought it was because he was closer to the ground. One day I asked him, "Noah, how do you always find money on the ground?" He replied, "Because I'm always looking."

Wherever He went, Jesus would beckon the crowds to "repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus says the Kingdom of God is here among us. It is somehow present in the world in which we live, work, and drive our cars. Jesus' words are no less true today than when He spoke them, and we are no more likely to really believe them than His first audience. In some ways, it is much easier to believe in a coming Kingdom of God than a present one, if we dare to believe at all.

Could it be that we live right in the midst of this ever-present Kingdom each day and never notice it? I'm not talking about gold-plated thrones and blue-haired ladies with fancy jewelry on TBN. I'm talking about the reality of hope and of love, and of Jesus reigning over all things, and of God getting His way, and of dead, flat-lined hearts being made alive in the process. I'm talking about new hearts that open new eyes to see a morbidly ordinary world being transfigured in goodness and beauty by a resurrected Redeemer. Do we pass through this reality like ghosts haunted by our busy schedules and broken lives? Do we step over gold coins on our way to pay the bills?

Perhaps the reason we miss seeing the Kingdom of God is simply that we aren't looking. It's why when Jesus tells us about this Kingdom, He also tells us to "repent." Repentance is a fundamental shift in our thinking that leads to a radical change in our living. Jesus is calling us to think differently about God, about the world around us, and about the way those two intersect. The Good News is that God has intersected our world. He has broken in from the inside. He has planted a Seed that is sprouting buds, yeast that is spreading throughout the whole batch of dough. If we are too blind and distracted to see God's work around us, there is still hope for us that we might become part of His work. Our hope is that this Jesus who gives our world beauty for ashes is the same who gives our eyes sight for scales. This same Jesus who commands us to "seek first the Kingdom of God" also promises that "all who seek shall find."

To what can I compare the Kingdom of God? How can I describe it? It is like a little boy who always finds treasure wherever he goes because he's always looking.

Stop Trying to Stop Sinning, Part 1

2011-10-25T19:05:00.000-04:00

What if the best thing you could do for your Christian life is to stop trying not to sin? What if your efforts to stop sinning are at best a waste of your time and at worst actually hurting your spiritual life?

While in high school, I worked at a pharmaceutical retail store similar to Walgreen's. My boss, an older Christian man with a charismatic personality, had a favorite question that he asked me repeatedly. I am sure he asked me this question at least once or twice a week. "Brad" he would say to get my attention. "Do you love Him?"

I knew he was referring to Jesus. I would answer affirmatively, slightly embarrassed at his forwardness. He would press further. "But do you really love Him?"

Jesus asked a similar question to Peter after the Resurrection. Walking beside the sea with Jesus, Peter's memory must have stung like salt in a wound. Despite his bold promise never to forsake Jesus, the cross had proven Peter's fortitude false. He had denied his Lord, his Friend, three times with a curse.Yet Jesus responds to Peter's unfaithfulness not with a curse, but with a question. "Peter, do you love Me?"

It's interesting that Jesus never mentions Peter's sin, though it seems very likely that it's the subject of both their minds. (After all, Jesus asks Peter this question a number of times equal to Peter's denials.) Jesus could have asked Peter: "Do you promise never to deny Me again?" Isn't this the approach we take with Jesus when we sin? We ask forgiveness, and we promise to never commit that sin again. Yet Jesus wasn't interested in whether Peter would deny Him again in the future. He was interested in whether Peter loved Him in the present.

Why would Jesus take this approach? Perhaps because He knew that Peter could have all the boldness in the world without requiring any love in his heart. As the Apostle Paul would later say, Peter could have even the courage to give up his body to be burned, but without love, gain nothing. On the other hand, a heart overflowing with love can spill only faithfulness to its beloved.

What if Jesus is less concerned with your potential to sin than He is in your potential to love Him? What if the preventative to sin is not vain promises bound to fail in our moments of testing? Rather, what if the antidote to sin is a heart that is ever growing in its capacity to love the One in whom there is no darkness? Christian, have you ever committed any sin while looking fully in love to the One who in love fully bore your sin?

Do you love Him?

The All-Satisfying Face of God

2011-09-20T10:50:00.000-04:00

"You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness."
Psalm 17:14-15

My kids and I have started a new morning ritual this school year. Every day, as we make our way to their school, one of them reads a Psalm aloud. After the Psalm, there is a moment of silence and then a prayer. That quiet moment between the psalmist's prayer and our own is one of the most tangibly (and yet intangible) holy moments of my day. The Lord has spoken prayers into our hearts, and as the truck engine rattles and hums its doxology, we silently prepare our hearts to respond in kind. By May, we will have traversed our way through the streets, through the school year, and through the Psalter with our prayers for mercy, justice, and jubilation over both.

Last week, Noah read Psalm 17 for us. I have probably read this Psalm numerous times, but it took my 10-year-old son reading these verses about children for me to more deeply understand what this prayer means. It is a prayer about satisfaction.

The wonder of humanity is that we are all creatures and creators at once. We were made to live and we live to make. We build, write, shape, draw, and compose. We each utter new sentences every day that have never been spoken since the dawn of man. And like our Maker, we always end up with creations that bear a remarkable resemblance to ourselves. All of our writings are biographies, and all of our paintings are self-portraits. No wonder we think so much of our own work; it's like looking into a mirror at only the best part of ourselves. And we are satisfied with what we see, our own likeness. Our children are the perfect picture of this phenomenon. We have "created" them, and in many ways, they are a reflection of ourselves. (Not to mention they really do look just like us.) The psalmist says that we are ultimately satisfied with these treasures, our works and our own creations, because they bear our own image and likeness.

Realizing our bent to seek satisfaction in ourselves, the psalmist's final words fall like an iconoclastic hammer upon the mirrored halls of our hearts. He says, "When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness." The psalmist is not content to stare at his own pale reflection in the window. He looks beyond the refraction to a vast display of God's creation which bears His image. Having seen the sun, he can no longer be satisfied with the dim, secondary light of the moon. He awakens with the dawn and turns his sight toward the One whose eyes are "like blazing fire" and whose face is "like the sun shining in all its brilliance." There is only one likeness which can bring true pleasure, true satisfaction. It is the face of God.

Here Comes the Sun

2011-09-08T22:30:00.000-04:00

"Here comes the sun.
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright." - George Harrison

I could never live in the state of Washington. It rains too much. Or so I've heard.

Every so often I wake up with this feeling that something is missing, like the means to get up and start the day is still tucked away somewhere under the bed covers. Eventually I slug my way over to a window and realize that I was wrong. My absent enthusiasm is not hidden under sheets but behind thick, dark clouds. It's a dank, dismal morning with no visible sunrise.

The weather really does affect me this way. On mornings such as these last few since the storms of Labor Day weekend, the despondency hangs in the air like a gray mist. Every hour is an exercise in apathy. Eventually, coffee and necessity get the damp bones moving and doing their daily tasks, but with little pleasure.

But then... then there are mornings like this morning. You wake up and you sense something new in the air. Joy has risen early and woken you with its quickening light. You walk outside and feel the early stirring of autumn that is rustling the summer leaves. You hear sounds, no longer the weeping of raindrops, but the music of the new world coming alive. And then you look up and you see it - the golden virgin sky, once shrouded behind the dark veil, now in her full and shining face revealing the radiant source of all her glory. The Sun has risen. His raging ferocity stirs mirth in the warm soul. His consuming blaze gives life to the green earth. His blinding light gives sight to the open eye.

Let him who has eyes to see, see. He cannot stay hidden forever.

Mission

2011-09-06T20:12:00.000-04:00

"Make a table of acacia wood - two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold molding around it."
Exodus 25:23-24

Honestly, it's one of those parts of the Bible that is really easy to skip over. When the Lord wants you to build something, He can be painfully explicit in the building plans: use this much of this material on this part of this thing which is to be this size - no more, no less. And so on and so forth. I realize that, tedious as it appears, this is still God's Word, so I sort of feel guilty if I skip over it. My typical solution? Speed reading.

But when I recently encountered the passage in Exodus in which God gives building instructions for His tabernacle, I wasn't bored. I was actually a little jealous.

I was jealous because these people were receiving instructions, a mission to accomplish. When they put their hands to that task, gold-plating that wood or carving out that cherubim, they knew that what they were doing was exactly what the Lord wanted them to do. Moses had spelled it out down to the last detail.

Tim Keller says that mission is a need of the human soul. We all need to do work that is meaningful, that accomplishes some worthwhile purpose. I can testify to this: I used to have a mission. I used to know that what I was doing was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. That knowledge, friends, is worth more to me than gold - even a solid gold cherubim.

Now, the leading that I've followed has brought me into a wilderness where there is no clear road and no signposts. There are no instructions. Why won't He spell it out? Why won't He give me a blueprint like He did in the Egyptian wilderness?

We all go through the wilderness at some point. The Israelites spent 40 years there; Jesus spent 40 days. Who knows how long I will spend out here. But where the Israelites were led through the wilderness by the letter, like school children who needed every detail spelled out for them, Jesus was led into and through the wilderness by the Spirit. Jesus didn't need details (or bread). He needed only to trust His Father. Jesus, in His human knowledge, had no roadmap to the cross. But through the Spirit, in complete love and surrender to the Father, He had only to put one foot in front of the other, obediently doing what each day and moment required. And His mission literally saved the world.

I still struggle with want of clear direction. In this sense, the letter is so much easier to follow than the mysterious Spirit. But following the letter and loving God are not one and the same, and only one fulfills the other. The former can be done without the latter, but the Spirit leads us into the will and the love of God. I must not seek God to find a purpose; I must find my purpose in seeking God. So for the present, I will try to learn not to eat rocks, and when to jump, and Whom alone is to be to worshiped, all without a blueprint. And when I learn to dine on true Bread, and jump only when He jumps, and worship the Father alone and nothing besides, perhaps I will also find myself no longer in the wilderness, but surprisingly in the midst of something else: a mission.

Come and See

2011-07-10T22:41:00.001-04:00

"And I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
U2

"God looks down from heaven on the children of man
To see if there are any who understand, who seek after God."
Psalm 53:2

There is this scene in the early chapters of the gospel of John where Jesus has one of His first encounters with a couple of His future disciples. Up until this point, these two men have been disciples of John the Baptist. But when Jesus shows up and John begins to call Him "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," the disciples can't help being drawn to this mysterious figure.

After one such comment by John as Jesus passed by, these two disciples begin to trail Jesus, following Him from a distance to get a better understanding of this holy stranger. Jesus is aware of their presence, and He turns and asks them a simple, yet very revealing question: "What is it you are seeking?"

Psalm 53, in the midst of declaring that there is no one who does good (not even one), also tells us that God is looking over the billions of people on this planet for anyone who is looking for Him. God is seeking seekers of God. The question of Jesus to His future disciples is God's eternal question to us. What are you seeking? What do you want? What are you after in this life?

If you spend enough time thinking about this question, you will find that it is not one that can easily be answered. Go ahead, try it. Don't accept your first answer point blank. Dig deeper. What is it you are truly seeking in the heart of your heart? Chances are that it is not God.

The two men to whom Jesus asked this heart-searching question, perhaps in an act of diversion, responded with a question of their own: "Lord, where are You staying?"

"Come and see," Jesus replied. And they did. Jesus did not press the question further at that point, although over the next three years these men would learn to seek the will of God above their very lives. For the moment, their simple and honest question would suffice: "Where are You?"

Perhaps this is all God expects from us for now. Is it a hard thing to say that I am seeking God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. There is no one who does good, not even me. But trailing several steps behind what my heart should truly desire, it is enough to stutter a sincere beginners question. "Where are You, Lord?"

"Come and see."

The Lotus of Pleasure

2011-05-26T17:32:00.000-04:00

The trees around them all their food produce:
Lotus the name: divine, nectareous juice!
(Thence call'd Lo'ophagi); which whose tastes,
Insatiate riots in the sweet repasts,
Nor other home, nor other care intends,
But quits his house, his country, and his friends.
- The Odyssey, Homer

We need a new car.

Well, need is a strong word. But here, you be the judge. On our 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan, there is a huge crack in the windshield. The CD player is broken. Right turning signal doesn't work. Driver and passenger side windows do not roll down. (The passenger side window is kept up by two sticks lodged at the base. That's right, sticks.) The tag light is out (I know because I recently got pulled over for that one). Now the passenger side door interior is falling off the metal frame when you open the door. My patient wife has driven this van for about 9 years, and we claim to hold on to vehicles until they fall apart. Well, it's falling apart.

Anyway, the worst part is that we have no way to signal a left turn since both the blinker and the window are broken. I joked to a friend who was riding with me recently that at least the air conditioner works. I quipped that if I had to choose between the blinker and the AC, I would choose comfort over safety. My friend wholeheartedly agreed, both of us laughing at the silliness and inevitability of our choice.

The truth is, we choose comfort and pleasure over lots of things. Not only do we sometimes choose comfort and pleasure over safety, we often choose them over more difficult options. It is much more pleasurable to take a short cut to what we want or need than to take a route that is more costly or demanding. Often, however, it is the demand and cost that makes the obtaining worthwhile.

Many times, we also prefer comfort and pleasure to what is right. Not that comfort and pleasure are wrong in themselves, but often they will make us avoid the moral question altogether. Almost everyone wants to live morally, but almost no one wants to give up comfort or pleasure. What happens when doing the right thing conflicts with our desires? It's the choice between a turn signal and air conditioning.

In Homer's The Odyssey, a group of warriors journey back to their homeland after years away in battle. They want nothing more than reunion with their wives, children, and loved ones until they discover a land filled with mysterious lotus plants. The men eat the lotus plants which drug them with comfort and pleasure until they forget all else. Falling to the seduction of the lotus plants, many of the warriors never return to their beloved homes.

Pleasure is a powerful gift from God, but it is a powerful drug as a god. It may have a stronger hold on us than we think. Are we unable to do the difficult thing? Are we unable to do the right thing? Have we been drugged into apathy? If so, who or what is dosing us?

Choosing comfort and pleasure above all else is dangerous. The body is enraptured, but the soul becomes numb. We had better wake up, however discomforting, however painful. Otherwise, we might never make it home.

The Music Inside

2011-05-20T12:23:00.000-04:00

The rain beat heavily on the windshield, my wipers wiping furiously as I sped down the highway. The wind blew with even greater fury as small leafy branches flew across my path, ripped from the strong arms of their trees and carried helplessly now by the will of the storm.

Inside my truck, I was driven by another will. I was on a mission.

I had just dropped off my children in the safety of my parents' home where they were staying the night. The task now before me was to pick up dinner and a movie before my wife returned home from work. On the other side of this storm was a Friday night stay-at-home date: hot wings and The King's Speech. Meanwhile, there was only the torrent of wind and rain and highway.

My son is afraid of bad weather. He gets nervous around lightning, thunder, and dark clouds. Before I left him at my parents' house, he expressed to me his worry over the weather that pounded against the walls and roof that protected us. I assured him that there was nothing to fear. "That's why we have houses - to keep us safe." Sometimes the difference between inside and outside is profound.

As I drove through the storm in my truck, the difference between interior and exterior became even more contrastive. Before embarking on my mission, I put on one of my favorite worship CDs by Fernando Ortega entitled "In the Shadow of Your Wings." As the storm raged and threatened me from the view my windshield, I listened to Fernando's delicate piano-playing and to his voice singing the Pauline blessing: "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

When you are weather-beaten and worn. Grace...

When you are threatened and afraid. ...peace to you...

When you are tossed about like an orphaned branch. ...from God our Father...

When with the disciples you cry, "Lord, I perish!" ...and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What matters most is not the sounding of the storm outside, but the melody of the music inside. When the music inside is dark and troubled, no shining sun can tune it. When the music inside is light and peace, no howling tempest can drown it. May Christ teach our hearts a new song that, when we need shelter from the storm, we might be able to say with the psalmist, "In the shadow of Your wings, I sing because You help me."

Graduation Party Speech

2011-05-18T17:09:00.000-04:00

Me with my wife, children, and parents

Last Saturday evening, my parents hosted a graduation party in my honor. Many of my closest family and friends were present, so I felt compelled to give a speech in their honor. The following is a transcript of that speech.

Dear Family and Friends:

I want to thank you all for coming this evening to my graduation party. I could scarcely be more excited if I were celebrating my eleventy-first birthday. Special thanks to my parents are in order for all of preparations for tonight and for hosting the party here at their home. It is fitting that we should celebrate my academic accomplishments here, because it reminds me that whatever academic or vocational success I could hope to have, I am still the boy who played in this very yard, cut its grass on hot summer days, rode my bike up and down this dirt road, and had countless adventures through these very woods. What I mean is that there are greater things that go into shaping a person than getting a degree.

This graduation has been a long time coming, my course work spanning a total of 14 years. I began attending Columbus State University after high school in 1997 and went through the summer of 1998. Katie and I were married in the spring of 1998, and I began working full-time at CB&T. I returned to CSU in 2000 when I was hired by TSYS through the ICAPP program at CSU. I worked at TSYS for five years as a programmer. Meanwhile, in 2001, a month after Noah was born, we made another life-changing decision. I took a part-time position as the youth pastor at Crawford Road Baptist Church. I fell in love with the students and the work, and in 2006 I left TSYS to do youth ministry full-time. In addition to doing what I loved, the church allowed me a flexible schedule so that I could re-enroll at CSU. My first class as a Communication major was in the fall of 2006.

Much has taken place in the five years since that semester. I have been a high school teacher, a church-planting pastor, and a full-time student. Katie has been a church secretary, a full-time student, and a registered nurse. We have offered our home to two teenage girls, and have only recently become a family of four once again. Our children have aged from 5 and 7 to 10 and 12. Now Gracie has graduated from sixth grade and will soon head into her teenage years. This has been a wonderful journey, and I have much to be thankful for.

And with a thankful heart, I now come to the real matter of this speech. This is where I thank all of you for your part in this journey. To my friends, old and new, you have enriched my life in so many ways. I have never been a social butterfly, the life of the party, with too many friends to count. No, I would rather have a few friends who I know are true, who are there in good times and in bad, and who stand the test of time. You are those friends, and your support of my family over these last years has been such an invaluable source of strength for us. Thank you.

To my family: Griffiths, Elliotts, Gilmers, and Gordons, please know that Katie and I feel so blessed to be part of such an amazing family. As parents, you have provided such a great example, not only of a strong work-ethic, but also of commitment to the relationships that matter most. This example helps us to do our best at work and school without losing focus on our marriage and children. Thank you for your faithful love to one another and to us. To our brothers and sisters, you have been an amazing source of encouragement to us. We are so thankful for the closeness that we share. Thank you for your love and support.

To my children, Gracie and Noah, thank you for your patience as I went to school these last five years. There were times when I had to finish an assignment or study rather than play with you. I hope those times didn’t happen that often, but thank you for understanding when they did. I have seen both of you act selflessly over the last few years, sharing your space and your things without ever complaining. I am so proud of both of you, more than I could ever be proud of a degree.

To my wife, Katie, you absolutely share in any success that I have accomplished. I wouldn’t be half of who I am now if you had never married me. Thank you also for being patient with me as I tried to juggle work, school, church, and family. But, you know, we did it. Over five years ago, we made a plan. It wasn’t easy, it took a lot of hard work, but here we are. We did it. Thank you for taking the journey with me. Where do you wanna go next?

Finally, I thank God. I realize that I have been blessed infinitely beyond what I need or deserve. In the words of a great hymn, He has given “pardon for sin and peace that endureth, Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine with ten thousand beside. Great in Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father!” All things belong to Christ. And in Christ, all things are given. The accolades of man will soon be forgotten, but the cross of Christ will never be forgotten. Before the cross of Christ, I will boast nothing. The accolades of man will soon be forgotten, only may Christ say to me, “Well done.” For you, my friends and family, for you, my wife and children, for every achievement, for every accomplishment, for every success, here and after, I say, “Soli Deo gloria!” To God be the glory!

Amen and Thank You.

Eyes to See

2011-05-13T20:03:00.001-04:00

"Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people." Isaiah 12:2

Someone recently asked me what I enjoy about blogging. I immediately knew my answer. Blogging, when I write regularly, gives me eyes to see. It's the same thing that happens in the discipline of journaling, which is why the tagline for this blog is "a journal." Referring to journaling, or blogging, as a discipline is fitting, as anyone knows who has tried to maintain one. It takes commitment and work. In the case of blogging, your thoughts are formatted to be shared and read by others. Sometimes you wonder if anyone out there is reading, but in the end it doesn't matter if they are or not. (Dear reader, let me assure you that you are appreciated. I do thank you for reading. What I mean is that...) It's not about the writing itself (lines on a screen or page) but more about what the process of writing causes you to see in the world. It's about having eyes to see.

For the last few months, I have had tunnel vision. Like a distracted driver on his cell phone, my field of vision has been significantly shrunk to focus only on what was right in front of me. Some of this narrow vision may have been necessary as I finished my last semester of college, but it's all too easy to stay in this visual mode if I am not woken up to the greater world around me. This waking often comes in whispers and unwelcome waiting. Today I heard a whisper and felt a nudge. I was waiting for a party to end.

It was my daughter's sixth grade class graduation party. The kids were swimming at a teacher's house, and my wife asked me to join them after my afternoon dentist appointment. I was thinking that I'd rather go home and have some time to myself, but I knew that she could probably use my help. I went to the party. We ate, talked with the other adults there, and watched the kids play in the pool. Eventually, all the kids left as parents came to pick them up, everyone except one girl. My wife and I were responsible for making sure everyone got home, so we had to wait for this girl's parents to arrive before we could leave. The girl called her mom, and I gave directions over the phone.

As we waited for those next thirty minutes, I began to survey my surroundings. I had been here for two hours, but had I really looked before now? I saw a wooden fence with a wide pasture on the other side. I saw cows grazing in the distance. I saw an old open-air workshop behind a small wooden shed standing on cinderblocks. I saw vibrant green shrubs and blossoming flowers and clinging ivy that climbed one of the walls of the house. But even amid the beauty around me, a true appreciation alluded me like a movement in the corner of your sight that disappears when you turn toward it. I could see nothing extraordinary, nothing beyond the surface beauty, but I should have. What I did see today, more than anything else, was my own tunnel vision. And in seeing that, I felt a nudge that seemed to say, "Wake up. Look. Keep looking."

Journaling is a discipline because truly seeing is a discipline. More than a discipline, seeing is also a responsibility. When we fail to truly see the world around us, we fail to be present to the people and places God has given us. There is rebellion in choosing not to see the gifts we have been given, when we fail to give these gifts our attention and delight in them. Tunnel vision is ultimately not due to stress, but to a stiff neck. It took a sixth grade party today to loosen me up a bit. It took an inconvenience to hear a whisper. It took a fence and a field to feel a nudge. It took a blog post to remind me to keep looking.

Merton's Prayer

2011-03-12T23:13:00.001-05:00

By Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

Who Is It For?

2011-03-08T11:13:00.001-05:00

I recently heard this story in a sermon by Tim Keller. It is a fictional story, so don't go looking for it in the Bible. The story is by Elizabeth Elliott, though I'm not sure of the original title.

-----

One day, Jesus instructed His disciples to find a stone to pick up and carry with them as they walked the road together. Peter, in particular, responds by selecting the smallest stone he can find, and he carries it as they journey. Eventually, Jesus and His disciples become hungry, but they have no food.

Jesus has the disciples stop by the road, and He says to them, "Now take out your stones."

As they bring out their stones, Jesus turns the stones into bread and invites them to eat. By now, Peter is regretting his choice of stone. He looks at his stone turned bread, and it's just a little crumb. He eats it, grumbling to himself, and afterward he is still quite hungry.

After lunch, Jesus tells His disciples to go find another stone to carry. This time, Peter goes and finds the largest stone he is able to bear. As they walk, he can barely carry the thing, but he can hardly wait until supper.

Finally, about supper time, hungry and exhausted, Jesus and His disciples reach a river side. As they are standing on the bank, Jesus once again asks them to take out their stones.

"Cast your stones into the river," He says. "Now follow Me."

The disciples obey, but they are perplexed by this command. This isn't what they were expecting.

In response to their frustration, Jesus simply asks, "Who were you carrying the stones for?"

Silence is a Room

2011-01-24T09:01:00.000-05:00

Silence is a room

furnished by image

and illuminated by experience.

I enter alone

and discover presence.

Language waits outside

as I rest among realities

it is powerless to describe.

Scar Stories

2011-01-18T20:06:00.000-05:00

One of my assignments this semester is to analyze a family story that is told regularly and has become a symbolic part of the larger family narrative. I've been thinking of what family story I might choose. I could tell of the time my little sister got a spanking on the way to Disney World for singing the Chili's jingle a zillion and one times (one time too many, apparently). I could tell of how Katie once called me in tears after she had tried to cut Noah's hair, accidentally forgetting to put a guard on the trimmer. (He had to wear a toboggan in his school Christmas program that year.) I could use those, or I could use a story I heard recently in a completely unexpected moment.

I heard the story - or, more specifically, a reference to the story - in a hospital ICU room, my family surrounding my Uncle Ronnie as he lay comatose in the hospital bed. We had just gotten the news. Uncle Ronnie has been battling a rapidly advancing cirrhosis of the liver for several months. He was recently put on the list for a liver transplant, but now this. His mother, brother, sisters, wife, children, and the rest of us now stood around the bed, silent, teary-eyed, afraid. Eyes shifted about from Uncle Ronnie to the floor and back again. After a moment, my aunt Charolette spoke up.

"Do you remember that scar?" Uncle Ronnie's legs stuck out from the bed sheets, revealing a deep scar just above his right ankle.

"At the train tracks?" asked another of his sisters.

"Yeah." And suddenly there was laughter, conversation, relief.

I was amazed at how this little bit of story served to break up the stony silence, how it brightened up that night-time ICU ward. It lifted us from the dismal moment and into the grand narrative where brothers can get cut up at the railroad tracks and still live to tell the tale. Surely that narrative power is worth a scar or two. There is no way that Uncle Ronnie could have known as a boy what that scar would one day accomplish, how that little moment of pain would lift his family out of their own heartache if only also for a moment. If he had, wouldn't he have gladly endured it?

I suppose heaven will be full of scar stories. When we get our new bodies, I hope all the old scars remain. We will sit around and tell the tales of how we got broken, bruised, and cut to the bone and how we always managed to get back up, dust ourselves off, and keep going. We'll tell of how we eventually suffered the heaviest blow, each in our own way, until the day finally came when we didn't have to hold our breath anymore. I suppose we'll laugh at each other's stories as a man laughs at the unfounded fears of his childhood. And when we've exhausted our storehouse of tales, having saved the best for last, we will ask Jesus about His scars. And, just like the zillion and one times before, He will tell the Scar Story that is the source of all joy, and we will remember and be lifted.

How to Make a Life-Changing Decision in Just Three Years

2011-01-03T20:55:00.000-05:00

We're staying.

After three years of discussion, prayer, and more discussion, we're staying where we are. Billy asked me if I thought I had lost the debate. Katie remaining unconvinced of the move, had I reluctantly conceded? I told him I didn't think so. While Katie's feelings weighed heavily in the decision, our choice to stay here rather than to go to seminary is just that, our choice. There are many wonderful reasons to stay put, loving and being loved not the least of those reasons.

About three years ago, while serving as youth pastor at Crawford Road, I began to sense that God had given me a heart, and maybe even a calling, for ministry. That is, I knew that I loved to teach people the Bible, to tell them of Jesus and His unrelenting love, and to demonstrate as best I can what it means to be a Christ-follower. The church confirmed this calling in my life, and several pastoral mentors of mine began to suggest that I think about attending seminary. I did. Becoming a full-time staff member at Crawford Road enabled me to go back to school for my bachelor's degree, the first step in my journey towards seminary. (I'm not sure how the saints at Crawford Road now feel about my full-time years there, but I can literally say that they changed my life. For that, I am grateful.)

I began looking for seminaries, and I quickly discovered Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, AL, which I loved for three reasons: 1) It is close to home, 2) It is rooted in church history, 3) It is an ecumenical school, meaning that several denominational traditions are represented in the faculty and student body. For two years, I have not been able to envision any plan for my future other than attending Beeson.

My plan for Beeson was a vision that Katie did not share. Katie has been very supportive of my calling to ministry, and I know that she would have gone to Birmingham with me. Still, she was not happy about the idea of moving, and this kept us from making a final decision.

One of the reasons that moving seemed so necessary for me is that there seemed to be no work in this area for which I was qualified and that felt satisfying to me. Moving to Birmingham would open doors for our future that just wouldn't open if we stayed here. Two things began to change my perspective about this. First, there was our church, Missio Dei. One of the things that did bother me about moving was leaving our newly formed church. I love the people of Missio Dei and believe in our mission with all my heart. I began to wonder why I should go to school to work toward pastoring a church when I am already pastoring the best church of which I could imagine being a part. Perhaps there were other ways to improve my knowledge and abilities apart from moving. Even so, I am not receiving a salary with Missio Dei, and there are bills to pay and children to feed.

There was still the question of career. Fortunately, I discovered linguistics. My interest in language was a complete surprise to me. I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise; I've loved arranging words in thoughtful and affecting ways in songwriting and preaching for years, and I'm learning to love the power of words in prose and poetry as well. As I took more courses in linguistics and in Spanish, I began to develop a love and respect not only for words and language, but for non-native speakers of English. It may sound strange, but when I am out and I see a group or family of Hispanic persons, I feel drawn to them. I want to speak with them, get to know them, see the world through their eyes. I believe this desire is from God.

Through my linguistics minor, I will be certified through TESOL to teach English as a second language. I am considering getting a teaching certificate in order to work with students in public schools who are non-native speakers of English. These students struggle in classrooms where they are not able to fully understand what is being taught. In many cases, they are simply thrown into an English environment and expected to survive on their own, or they are placed in special education where they do not belong. This field is also a perfect fit for my work with Missio Dei, which is Latin for "mission of God." The name refers to the idea that God is creating one people out of many nations and many tongues. The mission of God is a cross-cultural mission - a fact that has escaped many churches in this area. To be fair, opportunities for cross-cultural ministry have not been demographically significant in past years. That has changed, and there is much work to do.

Career and ministry aside, there is another reason to stay: our family and friends. It's difficult to leave somewhere when so many people want you to stay. Cultural observer Andy Crouch commented here on the cultural trends of the last decade. One of those trends was regarding place. Crouch writes:
Urbanologist Richard Florida observed that young adults meeting one another no longer ask, “What do you do?” They ask, “Where do you live?” More and more people will change careers in order to stay in a place—connected to family, friends, and local culture—than will change place to stay in a career. The 20th-century American dream was to move out and move up; the 21st-century dream seems to be to put down deeper roots.

Our decision to stay put is a decision to put down deeper roots.

I mentioned before that I came to this decision through prayer. Of course, I was praying for God to reveal to me His will for our lives. Was it His will that we move or that we stay? For several reasons, including my own sanity, I felt like I was nearing decision time. I needed answers. For help in listening, I turned to Thomas Merton, a monk who has taught me much about what it means to seek God's will. Merton says:
Our vocation is not a supernatural lottery but the interaction of two freedoms, and, therefore, of two loves. It is hopeless to try to settle the problem of vocation outside the context of friendship and of love. We speak of Providence: that is a philosophical term. The Bible speaks of our Father in Heaven... In planning the course of our lives, we must remember the importance and the dignity of our own freedom. A man who fears to settle his future by a good act of his own free choice does not understand the love of God.

What Merton is suggesting is that sometimes, while we are waiting for God to write in the sky His choice for our lives, God is quietly whispering to His child, "You choose." In his love, He has given us the freedom to choose how we best want to please Him. This is the freedom I began to feel. And I chose.

One final question I had when making this decision was why had I felt so strongly that I should go to Beeson, that it was what the Lord wanted, when in the end, He knew I would stay. In other words, why go through all the fuss? Recently, I was looking back through all of my Facebook statuses from over the last year. My first status for the year 2010 was a quote by C.S. Lewis: "The longest way round is the shortest way home." Now, I don't remember where I read that or why I posted it at the time, but I can tell you what it meant to me at the end of 2010. It meant that I needed to seriously consider leaving so that I could intentionally choose to stay. My life and work here are no longer a necessity; they are a choice.

My Year in Facebook Status 2010

2010-12-23T23:45:00.000-05:00

Train Wrecks and Children

2010-09-13T23:32:00.000-04:00

I don't usually keep up with the dramatic lives of celebrities. Left unchecked, I enjoy a train wreck as much as the next guy, but I'm too much of a wreck myself to rubber-neck towards the follies of others. I do confess that I once had a subscription to People magazine as a teenager, but I think it was mostly to find out the latest on Mariah Carey. Confession #2: I once had a huge crush on Mariah Carey.

Forget that. I was in the library recently when I ran across this People magazine headline - Anniston: "I don't need a man to be a mom." My first thought was, "Wow. I guess Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt broke up." I told you that I don't keep up.

My second thought was, "Yes, you do need a man to be a mom. That's kind of how it happens." I know that's not what she meant, but I couldn't help it.

My third thought was, "My, how fathers are becoming disposable." In Canada, there is now no line for the father's name on birth certificates, only a line for the mother's name and an "other" parent.

My final thought was about how a statement like this is completely adult-centered. I get what Jennifer is saying. She can be a mother to her child without a husband. Unfortunately, many woman are forced to do precisely that. God bless them. Still, this situation shouldn't be praiseworthy. The fact that it is praised shows how self-centered we adults are in these rough family situations. We are almost never child-centered. For example, it may be true that moms can be moms without a man. But it is never true that a child can be a child without a mother and a father. Every child has a mother and a father. Every child needs a mother and a father. Children suffer when their fathers fail to father them. And children suffer when we pretend fathers are not essential to their development as whole persons.

It's time that adults stop the tunnel-vision that sees only how bad marriages affect us. We must adopt a child-centered view of these troubled situations. What is best for them always trumps what is best for us. It's one way to stop a train wreck.

How to Love Muslims (A First Step)

2010-08-28T20:17:00.000-04:00

If you are a Christian, consider for a moment how you might respond to the following statements:
1) Christians are cannibals; in their worship they eat flesh and drink blood.
2) Christians are atheists; where is the statue of their god?
3) Christians protest funerals of soldiers, holding signs that read "God hates fags."
4) Christians murder abortion doctors.
5) Christians are hypocritical.
6) Christians are judgmental.

It may seem odd, but statements 1 and 2 were actually criticisms of the early church. Today we might respond by pointing out that these are complete misconceptions of the Christian faith and not true at all. Christians do not eat literal flesh and blood in Communion. Even Catholics, who believe in transubstantiation (the belief that the bread and wine actually do become Christ's body and blood when taken in Communion), do not eat human beings but consider the transformation of the bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ to be supernatural in nature. Statement 2 is also a misconception. The ancient Greeks and Romans could not conceive of an invisible God, but that doesn't mean that Christians were atheists in refusing to make an idol of Him.

To statements 3 and 4 we may say that although the people involved in these acts claim to be Christians, they are not representing true Christianity, least of all Christ. True followers of Christ do not promote hatred and certainly do not murder.

Finally, to statements 5 and 6 we may admit that, regretfully, Christians do sometimes act in judgmental and hypocritical ways. However, most Christians recognize that these are not qualities we should approve of in our lives. Christians are called to lives of love, mercy, and integrity, but we do not always live out our faith perfectly. Therefore, these complaints have some truth, but of the kind we wish to correct.

Now, in a conversation, perhaps you would be able to respond to these complaints and clear things up. But what if, rather than listening to you, they insisted that their statements are true because that's what they have been taught? Or what about the millions of people who believe things like this, but who have never met a true follower of Jesus? What about the millions of people in the East who think Christians are immoral because most of what they see from us are TV shows and movies that come from this "Christian" nation? Is that fair?

Yet... how often do we do these same things to Muslims? Do we assume that we understand all Muslim beliefs, or know how to interpret the Koran better than they do? Do we attribute the actions of radical Muslims to all Muslims everywhere? Do we easily point out the flaws of Muslim practice without realizing that we fall short of our own Christian ones? Do you personally know a practicing Muslim?

Do not misunderstand me. I am not arguing for Muslims. I am not defending Muslims. I am arguing for Jesus, who taught us, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and "Love your enemies." Do we want non-Christians to be fair in their judgment of our faith and lives? Then we must do the same. Statements that are intended to rouse fear and contempt for a people group can in no way be loving toward that people group.

But perhaps fear is the real issue. We are afraid, and for good reason; we have been terrorized. We fear that Muslims will destroy our country, or worse, that they will take it over. We fear that Christianity is failing in the West, and that Islam is rising. But is fear the proper response to events in our world? The fear that we feel may not be unfounded, but for the Christian, fear is not only unnecessary, it is unacceptable. From the moment Christ entered this world in flesh and blood, we have been told, "Fear not."

Faith is the opposite of fear. And we are people of faith. We believe in a God who created the cosmos, and who will consummate things in His way and in His time. We believe in a God who defeated His enemies by laying down His life. We believe in a King and and Kingdom who will soon appear to set all things right and establish His reign, world without end. Do we believe this? Then fear not.

I call for Christians to rise above the unfair rhetoric of fear when it comes to our Muslim neighbors. We cannot help if we are accused of not following the teachings of Jesus; we can help whether or not we prove it true. Let us show Muslims the courtesy we hope to receive from those who disagree with us. Love has always been our best apologetic.

A Moment Realized

2010-08-22T21:27:00.000-04:00

A moment, the moment it's realized to be
Slow time that passes too quickly to seize,
Strange presence familiar of loved ones and things,
An island awareness amidst the rote sea,
A dream upon waking from deeper a dream,
Reveals what is real by what seems not to be

To Suffer With

2010-08-18T13:03:00.000-04:00

Compassion - sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it
(from Latin, com- meaning "together, with" + pati meaning "to bear, suffer")

We found out a few days before the kids started back to their small private school that both of Gracie's best friends would not be returning this year. The first we knew of at end of last year. It was disappointing, but there would be other opportunities for the girls to see one another, and Gracie still had one good friend left to spend the school year with. And now, we had learned that this second friend would be attending school out of of town.

Needless to say, Gracie was quite discouraged. Sure, there were other girls (a couple) in her class, and there were bound to be one or two new girls (there are), but these were her two best friends. I put her to bed that night, knowing that she needed some comfort, but not quite sure of what to say to her. For a while, I just laid with her. Finally, I offered, "Do you want to pray the Psalm?"

Fairly often (but not nearly often enough, I'm afraid), we pray through Psalm 23 while I put the kids to bed. Normally it's simply a recital of the words, and though God's Word is always powerful, we do not often see its immediate effect. But over time, if you allow it, even a dripping facet will fill up a pool. This night, the words of the Psalm called to the depths, and we swam in its waters. She repeated after me: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear... for You are with me." My eyes became pools of their own in the beauty of that moment.

Now, the school year is underway, and Gracie is doing well. She has taken responsibility for making the new girls feel welcome and befriended. But there is a new boy in her class as well. You might say this boy is... well, different. At least, that's probably what the other boys would say about him if you were to ask. That, or something worse. Gracie described to Katie how he sits alone at the lunch table and how the other boys scold him harshly for dropping an easy catch in P.E. She has asked some of the boys to reach out to him, but to no avail. Gracie feels troubled about this, but also feels bound by the awkward sixth grade social rules. She can be a friend to him, but it's another thing to be his best friend. He is a boy, after all. Still, he's different, and to Gracie that's a good thing.

When Katie explained to me what Gracie had told her and how Gracie was feeling, I was proud of her, but not surprised. We have tried to teach Gracie to be a compassionate person. We have sponsored children from Compassion International. We have taken her around the poor and broken as our church has served them. We have tried to exhibit compassion in our own lives, none of this done perfectly, mind you. But when I saw Gracie's compassion in that story, it hit me what we had really been teaching her all along. We taught her heart how to hurt. We taught her that's its not enough to be happy that you aren't the loser; Christ calls us to hurt with the loser. I am convinced Gracie could be among the most popular in her class. She is one of the oldest (and prettiest), and it is a small school, after all. She is accepted. And yet... she chooses to hurt for those who are not.

We have taught our little girl how to have a broken heart. But we have also taught her "I will not fear, for You are with me." When we suffer with others, our God also suffers with us. He is with us. And He blesses us. "Blessed are the merciful, they shall obtain mercy." They say it is lonely at the top. But we are never alone at the bottom. Even at lunch tables. Even when your friends are gone.

They Drank the Water

2010-08-15T21:39:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, my hundredth post.

It was the last night before Gracie and Noah started back to school. We decided to take everyone to see The Karate Kid. Monica told the story today in worship:

Just before we pulled onto Manchester Expressway from the interstate, while we were sitting at a red light on the exit ramp, we noticed a ragged man sitting against a road sign and holding a cardboard sign of his own that read: "Homeless and Hungry. Please Help." I thought about the man. I thought about my kids sitting silently in the backseat. I thought about how stopping to help might make us late for the movie.

I rolled down my window. "Give us five minutes. Be right back."

We went through the drive-thru at Krystal and headed back to where the man was waiting. I turned on my flashers and pulled over as close as I could to the curb. Katie rolled down her window and handed the man the food. "Jesus loves you, brother" I told him. We made it to the movie.

I thought nothing else about it until yesterday when Monica mentioned that the act of mercy had meant a lot to her. I was happy to hear that. I told her I thought that was just the normal Christian thing to do. Jesus says that whatever we do unto the least of these, we do unto Him. The truth, though, is that I didn't do what I did entirely for that man. No, I did it for my children. Jesus also says that if we give even a cup of cold water to the little ones in His name, we will have a reward. I hope they drank the water that night. And I hope the man enjoyed his meal.

God of My Fathers

2010-07-29T17:16:00.000-04:00

"Like my fathers I am looking for a home
I'm looking for a home beyond the sea
So be my God and guide me till I lie beneath these hills
And let the great God of my fathers be the great God of my children still"
- God of My Fathers, Andrew Peterson

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending an Andrew Peterson concert with Katie and our best friends. We drove through Atlanta to Jefferson, GA to sit on the front row of Galilee Baptist Church for the show.

This was also the same night my father was admitted to the hospital. My mom called as we were leaving our house and told me that dad had driven himself to the emergency room with a pain in his chest. She told us to go ahead to the concert and that she would keep us updated. She didn't sound worried, so we left and asked her to let us know what happens.

She texted back while we had stopped for supper and said that they found a blood clot in his lung. I asked her what I should do, and she said that there was nothing much we could do but pray. We were on the other side of Atlanta by now, and she told me to just stay and attend the concert.

We were one of the first ones at the church when the doors opened, and for the first time ever we were front and center for the show. After about an hour, Andrew came out and the music began. The show was amazing. After several songs, he introduced a new one called "God of My Fathers." The song had just begun when I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I could tell that it wasn't a text, but a call. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and discovered that the call was from my mom. What was I to do? I was sitting on the front row in this packed church in the middle of a song, but I had to take the call! I stood up and briskly walked, head down, to the back of the sanctuary and into the lobby. My phone stopped buzzing, so I dialed back, my mind only guessing at the reason for the call. She was supposed to text me updates, but this was no text.

She answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, what's going on?"
"Your daddy wanted to know if you can preach for him tomorrow."

After Andrew finished the song, I walked back to my seat both a little annoyed and very relieved that the call was not serious. But later, I wondered, "What if it had been serious?" Because I know that one day I will get that call.

I'm sure when that call comes in I will feel a certain amount of anxiety and sadness. I'm sure that I will grieve. But after all is said and done, I think that I will be grateful. I will be grateful for a father who knows, loves, trusts, and serves Christ. I will be grateful for the legacy he leaves behind in his church and his family. I will be grateful to God for His steadfast faithfulness. I will be grateful for a great cloud of witnesses who will spur me on until the day I, myself cross the finish line. And on that day, like Andrew, I will pray with a grateful heart that the great God of my fathers be the great God of my children still.

Six Flags and Stories

2010-07-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

Last Friday, I took a trip to Six Flags with some family. Katie didn't go. For some reason, she doesn't enjoy being whirled around high in the air at 70 mph. Whatever.

To say that the day was a scorcher would be an understatement. In fact, when we were waiting in line for The Scorcher, one girl in front of us almost passed out from heat exhaustion. (I don't quite believe that though. I think she chickened out of the ride.) By the end of our first coaster, our clothes were drenched in sweat. By the end of our second or third, we were seriously looking for a water ride.

It was past time for lunch, and our energy was draining fast, but we decided to get wet before we headed to our car to eat. We went to Thunder River. Two hour wait. We'd starve by then. We went to Splash Water Falls. An hour wait. So then we thought we'd just head for the bridge where all the water sprays up from the ride. Back in the day, you would get more wet from the bridge than from the actual ride. We stand on the bridge for like five minutes waiting for the next boat to send that wave up into our faces. Finally, one floats around the bend. Get ready, here it comes. The boat plunges downward. The wave rises up... and falls beneath our feet. Not a drop to cool our baking bodies.

So we decide to take the sky carts to the other side of the park where Six Flags has built a small water park. We're sure to get wet there. While we're in line, we begin to discuss how we might just be willing to shuck out $10 for a drink in the park, which only an hour before seemed ridiculous. I thought of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. For once, I totally understood Esau. I told Katie's sister, "I won't need $10 if I'm dead." We're all suckers if we get hot and thirsty enough.

Once we reached the water park, we couldn't believe our eyes. There was water everywhere, and you didn't even have to wait in line! Imagine walking barefoot through the desert sand, mile after mile of blistering sun and parched tongue. Then you see an oasis just ahead offering shade and water. That was us. And we were in heaven. We took off our shirts and shoes and ran to a tall pipe that gushed gallon upon gallon of cool water over our whole bodies. We stood there splashing and giggling like school children.

Call me a nerd, but that joy reminded me of Frodo and his friends as they reached the elven city of Rivendell in The Lord of the Rings. They had been traveling for so long. Frodo was attacked, and no one was sure if he would pull through. When he awoke after days of unconsciousness, the joy shared between that fellowship was so relieving and so refreshing.

I began to notice that these stories, Esau and Frodo, had found their way into my experiences that day, bringing understanding to both the stories and the present moment. I wasn't just famished, I experienced the famishing of Esau. I wasn't only joyous in that cold water, I was experiencing Frodo's joy. These stories helped shape my awareness of my own story.

What stories shape the way you see your life and experiences? Which ones find their way into your own story?

Sinners, All Shapes and Sizes

2010-07-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

We took the kids to the Psalmond Road Pool today.

All human beings seem to be born with an innate ability to size one another up. We contrast and we compare (to ourselves, of course); we decide what we like and what we dislike in other people. That is, in our esteem of others, we decide who we would or wouldn't want to be. The catch being that this practice says more about who we are than anything else.

Now, if we all carry this uncanny ability to judge one another in almost every fashion, the public pool is one place that we hone our skills to perfection. You know what I'm talking about. From the chubby boy who keeps losing his trunks in the back to the thin woman in the string bikini, there are people in bathing suits, all shapes and sizes, some leaving more to the imagination than others. We notice. We can't help ourselves. We notice who's been working out and who shouldn't have put that on in public. And if we're not careful, there's a little bit of pride, a little bit of lust, a little bit of envy, a little bit of shame.

But what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? To have the eyes of Christ? Perhaps two things. We begin to look around at people in bathing suits and see more than bodies. We begin to see souls. We begin to see sinners, all shapes and sizes, all feeling a little bit of pride, lust, envy, or shame. We are all ugly. And we begin to see treasures, even the least of these, that God loved enough to dive in to His own creation to suffer and die to rescue. We are all beautiful.

My, the things you see at a public pool.

Green Pastures, Still Waters

2010-07-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

I zoned out while driving today. I mean, scary "zoned out," like when you are all of a sudden on a road and you don't remember how you got there.

At least it was for a good reason. It was five o'clock. That is the time of Missio Dei's call to afternoon prayer. A text goes out to all our pray-ers, and we pray together. The afternoon prayer is Psalm 23. This is what I was meditating on while I zoned out.

It isn't much, but this is what occurred to me during that unaccounted for period of time: The Shepherd (who, of course, is Jesus) makes me lie down in green pastures. These are lush places where my body and soul are satisfied my my Shepherd's care and provision. It is here that I can truly say, "I shall not be in want."

But the Shepherd also leads me beside quiet waters. This explains the green pastures. In fact, I cannot lie down in green pastures until I have let Him lead me beside quiet waters. My soul must be at rest within me. As the Psalmist says, "I have calmed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me" (Psalm 131:2).

But if I find my soul restless, looking here and there in dissatifaction, then I know that there are desires I must be weaned of. I must learn to trust my Shepherd alone for my desires, not only to provide for them, but moreover, to provide the right desires. And when I want for nothing that He does not want, I find myself beside quiet waters. When I am beside the quiet waters, I find myself content to lie down. When I lie down, I find that the green pasture is oh, so satisfying. And when I am satisfied by the Shepherd alone, my soul is restored.

----------------------

Anyone who wants to try out our rhythm of daily prayer is invited to join us. We pray three times a day: 8:00 am, 1:00 pm, & 5:00. A text goes out at these times and calls us to prayer. If these times are not available for prayer, no worries. See it as a reminder for the next moment you do have available.

We pray the following Scriptures, alone or with personal prayers:
8:00 am - Psalm 103:1-5, 20-22
1:00 pm - Matthew 6:9-13 (the Lord's Prayer)
5:00 pm - Psalm 23

Let me know, and I will add you to our list.

Dare to Join Us

2010-07-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

"The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people."
Acts 5:12-13

This passage interests me on a personal level. Here's why:

The early church had grown to about five thousand believers. The apostles were performing miraculous signs by the Holy Spirit. The gospel was being boldly proclaimed. The church was united and generously shared all that they had with one another. The believers met in homes, but being Jewish, they also still met regularly in the Temple. They had a specific place. Like a high school cafeteria, everyone knew where the Christians were gathering: a place called Solomon's Colonnade. And like a high school cafeteria, everyone was afraid to join them.

Here's what interests me though: They were highly regarded by the people. Everyone thought well of the Christians. God was performing miracles through them. A beggar had just recently been healed at the Temple. Everyone praised God. The Scriptures were being presented in a new light because of this Jesus, and it was making sense. They loved and cared for one another. Everyone thought so well of them! But no one dared join them? Why?

Fear. They wouldn't join them because they were afraid. The Jewish leaders had threatened the apostles not to talk about this Jesus: "Don't even do good in His name. We don't want to hear it." No one wants to be thrown out of the Temple. The Temple is the center of Jewish life. So admire from a distance. Wish you had the courage to join in. Walk past what you know is right so that life can go on as normal.

This interests me on a personal level because this seems to be the response to our church sometimes. I could be wrong, but people seem to admire our efforts. Of course, everyone does not share this admiration, but for now, I'm thinking of the people who do. They seem to acknowledge that we are following Jesus in ways that seem good, true, and beautiful. We are not perfect by any means, but they seem to respect our courage for trying something fresh and new. And yet... they walk right by. They dare not join us. Why? I can only speculate.

Is it fear? Fear of being labeled with us? Fear of novelty? Fear of not fitting in? Fear of having less time in their weekend? Or is it the fear we all face of having to commit to something? The fear of having to surrender our lives to this God who surrendered His life for us? Fear that we are not ready to lay aside our fears?

Of course, there is no single answer. Yet here is my appeal: If you are one of these distant admirers, (not just of our church, but any church), how long will you keep walking past? We are not perfect, but we have committed to one another. We worship together, we serve together, we sacrifice together, we suffer together. Because that's what it means to follow Jesus. It means being a part of His body. So lay aside your fears, whatever they may be. Perfect love casts out all fear. If we are the body of Christ, then His arms are wide open. Dare to join us.

Carelessness

2010-07-14T13:55:00.000-04:00

A poem that I wrote a couple of years ago:

Carelessness

I do not think
I do not hear -as words drop from my tongue like fine china-
the crash
I do not see -as bloodied feet bury within themselves the shards-
the wounds
Carelessness is my crime
for which everyone else must pay

The Joy and the Ache

2010-07-13T14:28:00.000-04:00

I woke up today with an ache in my soul. I am not unhappy; quite the contrary. There is forward movement in my walk with Christ. Everything is well with my life. What is this ache? Why is it there?

Sunday there was great joy. I officiated the wedding of Bo and DaLin Broadwater. While waiting to walk out before the congregation, I prayed that God would fill our hearts with great joy. He came through. Part of my prayer during the ceremony was that Bo and DaLin would represent well the picture of Christ and the Church that marriage is meant to be. They came through. Their love for one another was as thick in the air as the humidity outside. We all left with drops of it on our brow.

But sometimes after the joy there is an ache. The ache is there to remind us that as sweet as the gifts of these moments are, they are but foretastes of the joy to come. There is a wedding feast coming where the wine will never run dry, where love will ring out in our laughter and life will swell in our lungs. There will never be a purer Bride, and there will never be a more radiant Groom. And the sun will never set on that Day.

That Day is not today. For now, we have joy because of these pictures, and we ache because of these pictures. We are right to do both.

What He Wants

2010-07-08T22:44:00.000-04:00

Living for God means seeking to fulfill the will of God in my daily life. To do this, we must forsake our own will as our Lord did in the Garden.

I was reminded today how willing I am to seek God's will in "large" matters in my life (where I will go to school, how to lead the church, where my family will live in five years), and yet seldom do I consider God's will in the "small" decisions of my everyday life. And yet these choices are what truly shape us. These choices are what prepare us for discernment at those grand forks in our journey.

Let us rediscover the joy of a will completely surrendered to the will of a heavenly Father, day by day, moment by moment. What He wants is better than what I want.

Live for God

2010-07-07T21:23:00.000-04:00

What does it mean to live for God?

How quickly we forget that our lives are His. How unconsciously we draw our breath from moment to moment. But He does not forget. Nor does He cease to provide it.

What do I prefer to think about? How do I prefer to spend my time? A man in "The Great Debaters" tells his son, "We do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do." Is this how we offer our lives to God? Offering up what we "have to" so that we may enjoy the rest doing what we will? Thinking about what we will?

What does it mean to live for God?

4th of July

2010-07-04T23:44:00.000-04:00

We're home from the fireworks out in Ellerslie. It's late, so I'll post lyrics to one of my favorite Independence Day songs. There's not a lot of rah-rah-rah, but there is a lot of perspective.

----------------------------------

"4th of July" by Ben Shive

The first star of the evening
Was singing in the sky
High above our blanket in the park

And by the twilight’s gleaming
On the 4th day of July
The city band played on into the dark

And then a canon blast
A golden flame unfolding
Exploded in a momentary bloom

The petals fell and scattered
Like ashes on the ocean
As another volley burst into the blue

But the first star of the evening never moved

We stood in silence
The young ones and the old
As the bright procession passed us by

A generation dying
Another being born
A long crescendo played out in the sky

This nation, indivisible
Will perish from the Earth
As surely as the leaves must change and fall

And the band will end the anthem
To dust she will return
So the sun must set on all things, great and small

But the first star of the evening
Will outlive them all

Give Us a Sign

2010-07-02T22:39:00.000-04:00

If God exists, and He wants all people to believe in Him, why doesn't He just prove that He exists? If He gave us all a clear sign, would anyone cease to believe?

Let's suppose for a moment that God decided to give you, the reader, a sign that He exists. That might satisfy you, but what about the billions of others in the world? If this is the way God works, showing signs to some and hiding them from others, then who's to say that's not already going on and you just happen to not be one of those fortunate people?

We will have to go further. To answer our skepticism, we will have to suppose that God has decided to reveal Himself to all people everywhere. Now, to achieve this kind of revelation, and to make sure nobody misses the sign, it seems that God would have to give various kinds of signs at every moment of every day. After all, not everyone is paying attention to the same kinds of things at exactly the same time.

Let's think about this. What would happen if God displayed signs for all people every day? What would happen is that we would call it nature. We would rightly study them, explore them, and occasionally be amazed by them, but we would wrongly fail to attribute any sort of divine message to them.

Could it be that this is what is happening every day? Could it be that there is a God, as Jesus taught, who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on all people?

But perhaps someone will think that sending sun and rain is not much of a message. I have a feeling we would see the magic of it if God only revealed these things to us individually. But let's put that aside for a moment, because this God that Jesus reveals is also a God who reveals Himself in very personal ways. He reveals Himself more fully to some people than to others. Is this fair? Absolutely, because these personal messages are never meant for the recipients alone. These messages are meant to be shared with the world. And they have been. The question is whether we will accept these messages given to prophets and apostles or whether we will demand a sign for our eyes only.

We cannot have it both ways. Either we want a God who reveals Himself equally to everyone, or we want a God who reveals Himself to certain people more directly than others. If we choose the first option, then we can't complain that the sign is nothing "special." If we choose the second, then we can't complain if we are not a prophet.

Fortunately, we do not have to choose between the two. God has done both. We have just to open our eyes to the impossible occurances that unfold around us every day (i.e. nature). And if we can learn to see that, perhaps we can begin to trust those who tell us that they have seen "even greater things than these."

"Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"
- The Prophet Isaiah (53:1)

Contemplative

2010-06-30T22:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think I was more of a contemplative when I worked at TSYS. There was just something about sitting isolated in my cube in front of a computer screen all day that gave you time to think and write. I had to be there, and though my job was to write in database languages, the English language had so much more life. And so my mind would wander, and my keyboard would record what I saw and heard.

Now there are so many distractions. I am more free, and yet true freedom exists within some boundary. Not that I am itching to go back to TSYS. It was a good job, and I am immensely thankful for my time there, but those days are past and I am thankful for that, too.

It's no wonder the monastics write the way they do, with thoughts that usually reside two or three levels deeper than most of us exercise from day to day. The monks are confined to the same place and to the same work day after day. This is torture - unless it's your calling. And unless, because of the regimen, your spirit is able to delve into the depths of the mysteries of God.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at except that maybe if we want to contemplate the riches of God in Christ Jesus, we might have to give up some freedom in order to gain it truly. We might have to give up some entertainment. We might have to submit ourselves to boredom, which is the greatest fear of our generation. And when we are willing to do this, and when we sit still for just another moment longer, perhaps something in the depths will begin to be seen and to be heard: light and "wake up!"

The Wrong Drink

2010-06-28T21:46:00.000-04:00

"You never get what you want
You never get what you want
And I don't think it's my fault
You never get what you want, do you, baby?"
- Patti Griffin

The other night we were on our way to Billy and Megan's house. We were only a mile our two from our house when I decided that I was very thirsty. I had just watched Katie take some change out of my cup holder and put it into her purse. "I'm thirsty. Get that change, and let me stop at the drink machine."

"You can get something to drink when we get to Billy and Megan's."

"No, that's 30 minutes away. Just let me stop."

We pulled into the grocery store parking lot in Smiths and parked next to the drink machine. It was on Katie's side, so she got out. "What do you want?" I couldn't decide. "It's between Pepsi, Mountain Dew, or Sunkist Strawberry." "Well, just decide," she said as she stood beside the machine. After another moment or two, I decided that a Sunkist Strawberry sounded tasty and refreshing. Katie put the money in the machine, and the can dropped to the bottom. As she got back in the truck, she handed the drink to me, "It's hot." I took the can from her. It was hot. Oh, well.

Now, how was I supposed to know that when I selected that drink in that drink machine at that grocery store and opened it, that it would spew all over me and my truck interior? I couldn't have known. But that didn't stop Katie from declaring that it's what I get for making us pull over and buy a drink for me. It's times like this that, if you believe in a sovereign God who wills even the life and death of sparrows, you wonder why He would allow such a silly and meaningless annoyance as a spewing beverage on one of his children. But if God is truly sovereign then such a nuisance may indeed be silly, but it is never meaningless.

So what does it mean? I think I know, but I don't want to talk about it.

Acts Four and a Ford Explorer

2010-06-27T22:05:00.000-04:00

"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had... There were no needy persons among them."
Acts 4:32, 34

We have a faithful sister in our church who is going to serve at a youth camp for the summer. Throughout the year, she ministers to teenage girls and to the homeless and needy. She is a student at Auburn. And she needs a car. She needed a car.

We studied Acts chapter 4 in worship today. We like to say that we believe in a capitalistic society and a socialistic church. We're mostly joking; the church of Jesus should transcend those categories. What we mean is that we want to be as united as the early church - "there were no needy persons among them." We took a step closer to that today.

After worship, Billy and I went to purchase a Ford Explorer for our sister. Then we, along with Katie, Megan, Carter, Fifi, Gracie, and Noah, drove it to her house. Her parents came outside (they were privy), and she soon followed. She emerged from the house with a curious wonder as to what all of us were doing in her driveway. I dangled the key from my finger and lifted it toward her. A look of astonishment came over her as she took the key and began to hug everyone. It was a great moment.

The Scriptures are not meant to be merely read, or even studied. They are meant to be lived. I hope we accomplished that in some small way today. I hope that the Word of God takes root ever deeper into our everyday lives. I hope that Bethany has many adventures in her Explorer, the first of which will come as she leaves for the camp in North Carolina this week. And I hope that our Jesus is glorified by His church. Solo Dei Gloria.

Forever Young

2010-06-22T22:27:00.000-04:00

"Forever young, I want to be forever young.
Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever?"
- Forever Young by Alphaville

"I only smile once in a while
'cause I don't want the lines on my face."
- Fall Apart Again by Brandi Carlile

I heard an ad on the radio tonight about a product that takes away aging spots on the skin. In the commercial, a lady calls to cancel her cosmetic surgery because she has discovered this product. Cosmetic surgery used to be for the rich and the famous. Now, more and more people are going under the knife in order to defy time and maintain a youthful appearance.

The god of youth is a cruel god. She only loves us when we are beautiful. With each passing day, her heart yearns more and more for someone else less aged. We may fret, we may sweat, we may spend our last dime trying to please her, but after all is done she will leave us still.

But there is God who grows sweeter with time. This God would have the wisdom of a gray head before the vanity of youth. This God reveals beauty to those who embrace the person He is shaping them into rather than one they always wished they could be. This is a God who generously rewards "a long obedience in the same direction." This is a good God who blesses the young and the old, and who never leaves us or forsakes us.

Do not wish away your wrinkles or your gray hair. Act your age. A lifetime is nothing to be ashamed of.

What I Have I Give You, pt.2

2010-06-21T21:54:00.000-04:00

So now that we know what this healing is a picture of and what it should point to in our minds, namely the restoration of all things in Jesus, let’s rewind and take a better look at how this microcosm of restoration came about. There is a crippled man who has been carried to the Temple gate where he must beg in order to earn a living. Peter and John are on their way to afternoon prayer. The crippled man sees Peter and John and asks them for money.

Now, when this man (who is probably seated on the ground) calls out to Peter and John, what is the first thing they do? They look at him. They look straight at him. Have you ever seen someone approaching you on the street, and you just know they are going to ask you for money? What’s the first thing we’re tempted to do? Look straight ahead. Don’t look at them and maybe they’ll keep going by. There was a man, I can’t remember his name, who became voluntarily homeless for a period of time on the streets of a major city. One of the things he noted was that during this period, no one on the street would make eye contact with him. Imagine being around thousands of people every day and being essentially a ghost to all of them. Over time, this has a huge affect on an individual’s self worth. The first thing Peter and John do is look at this man. He would not even look at them at first, perhaps staring at the ground in shame. Peter tells the man, “Look at us!” They look him in the eye. They treat him as an equal. Before they do anything, before they give this man anything, they give him their attention. They give him dignity.

The next thing we notice is not what Peter gives this man, but what he doesn’t give him. “Silver and gold I do not have. It’s all plastic these days, man. You know how it is.” Peter does not have what this man is seeking. He quit his job to follow Jesus - he doesn’t have any money! There’s a way of giving to the poor that is simply putting a band-aid on the situation. Now, there’s nothing wrong with giving money, but Peter is interested in something deeper. When Peter is finished, this man won’t need to beg for money. Who cares if Peter doesn’t have silver or gold? We have to keep this in mind when we’re building for the Kingdom. We can do good for people, but if our good works don’t point to Jesus, we’re merely handing out band-aids. We can’t build for the Kingdom without telling people what we’re building for. We can’t just point to the Kingdom with telling people how they can enter the Kingdom. Do you see? If Peter had given this man a coin in Jesus name, he could have bought a loaf of bread, but he could never have gotten inside that Temple gate.

“Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” And he offered his hand. Now, think about this. How did Peter know that when that man took his hand and stood up that he would be able to walk? Peter did not heal the man. He told the crowd, “We are just ordinary men. God did this.” How did he know Jesus would back him up? I think maybe because Jesus had told Peter he would. “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it.” And so,“In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

Peter tells the crowd that it was by faith in Jesus that this man was healed. I want to ask, whose faith in Jesus? The crippled man’s? We not told that this man is a follower of Jesus. We don’t know what this guy thinks about Jesus. We're not even told if he became a follower of Jesus after the healing. I'd like to think he did, but we're not sure. So whose faith healed the man? I think it was Peter’s. Peter acted for this man’s good and trusted Jesus to back him up. Peter trusted Jesus to bring restoration to this man through his own faith and action.

Father's Day

2010-06-20T22:20:00.000-04:00

Top two Father's Day moments:

1) Gracie: Part of my sermon today was to encourage us to be willing to get involved for the good of people and trust Jesus to bring restoration through our faith and action. On the way to our Father's Day lunch, Grace told me she had a dream last night that fit with this theme. She was at a prison where she saw a woman who seemed like she had been a prisoner there for a long time. The prisoner saw another woman, possibly a visitor, and reached out to hug her. The other woman completely ignored the prisoner and walked away. Gracie said, "I woke up and was thinking about that. Is it better to help someone who may or may not have done something bad, or is it better to be safe?" That is the question, isn't it?

2) Noah: When I opened my Father's Day card, Noah informed me that he had especially helped to pick out the card. He then sat in my lap and read the words to me, as if he had written them himself: "If true wealth in this world were measured by how much a man is appreciated and admired, Dad... you would be one of the richest men on earth." Indeed.

What I Have I Give You, pt. 1

2010-06-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

Acts 3:1-21

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. As we think about fathers and the things fathers do, one thing we can say is that fathers fix things. You know, when you’re little and your toy breaks, what do you do? You bring it to dad, and he fixes it. Fathers also do a lot of handiwork and repairs around the house. Now, I’m going to be honest, I am a total failure at stuff like this. I don’t fix things. I can’t fix things. I don’t know how, and I never cared to learn, I guess. I can hang a picture or some blinds or change a tire, but beyond that I’m clueless. Now my dad, on the other hand, can fix all kinds of things.

So the other day, our toilet was running constantly. It wouldn’t stop running water, and so we thought, “This isn’t good. Our water bill’s gonna be through the roof.” So I went out to Home Depot and bought the parts and fixed the toilet. Well, actually my dad came over and looked at it, and then we got the parts and we fixed the toilet. Okay, well, actually he fixed the toilet, and I just kind of stood there for moral support. That’s how it is when we fix things together. He fixes the thing, and I offer my presence and an occasional tool. Basically, I mostly offer what he could probably do himself.

And this story (Acts 3) really begs this sort of question: What do we have to offer the world in Jesus’ name? It’s really Jesus doing all the work, so why does He need us? What do we have to give?

So we find ourselves at the Temple in Jerusalem. And we’re in front of one of the gates that lead to an inner part of the Temple. Only certain people can make it to worship beyond this gate. Only Jewish people can come in. No foreign worshipers. Only men can enter. No women. And no one who is ceremonially unclean or who has physical disabilities can enter. Now there is a crippled man who is being carried, maybe by his caregivers, to the entrance to this Temple gate where he will sit as worshipers enter. He's there to beg for money. Now, begging was a little different back then because this was essentially the Jewish welfare system. Charity was greatly valued in the Jewish culture, and so this man knows he will be taken care of financially by worshipers who can go deeper into the Temple than he can. So this is not a guy asking for money to buy beer. This guy is doing what he can to have his needs met, and he is relying of the goodness of God’s people who have been blessed with health.

The man has been carried to the Temple gate at three in the afternoon for a reason. This is the time of a call to prayer. People are making their way to the Temple at this time to pray together. We’re told that two of the Apostles, Peter and John, are part of this crowd who is gathering to pray.

The crippled man at the gate sees Peter and John passing by, and he asks them for money. Peter replies, “We don’t have any money, but we’ll give you what we do have. In the name of Jesus, get up and walk.” They helped the man up, his legs became strong, and he began to walk and run and leap. And guess where he runs? With Peter and John right through that Temple gate.

So that’s the scene. After this, a crowd begins to gather, and just like on Pentecost, Peter has words to explain what everyone is witnessing.

Now, we need to realize that miracles are never for their own sake. Miracles are never just for a show. Miracles happen within a specific time and place in order to point to Jesus in a unique way. The tongues on Pentecost said two things: the Messiah has come and He’s available to everyone, all peoples, all languages.

Peter explains to the crowd what this miracle means. His main point is familiar: Jesus is the Messiah. It was by faith in the name of Jesus that this man was healed. But it’s not just about this man’s healing. It’s about Israel being restored to God. Peter says that the people need to repent, change their thinking and living, so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord and that He may send Christ, who will remain in heaven until when? Until the time comes for everything to be restored. This miracle is about more than a man walking. It’s about restoration on a grand scale. It’s about the restoration available to all people in Jesus, first to the Jew and also to the Gentile.

Click here for Part 2.

Help Me!

2010-06-18T17:56:00.000-04:00

In her book, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott tells of the two best prayers that she knows: "Help me! Help me! Help me!" and "Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!"

19th century preacher, Charles Spurgeon, spoke of God's response to our cries for help: "The answer to the prayer is certain, if it be sincerely offered through Jesus. The Lord's character assures us that He will not leave His people; His relationship as Father and Husband guarantee us His aid; His gift of Jesus is a pledge of every good thing; and His sure promise stands, "Fear not, I will help thee."

Bitterness

2010-06-17T22:19:00.000-04:00

There is a poison in bitterness;
Lord, bleed my heart before it's too late.

The Name Game

2010-06-16T16:34:00.000-04:00

Today was the second day of my Concepts of Fitness class. We are active in this class, and since it's helps to all know one another, we played the name game today.

I hate the name game.

In case you've never had the fortune of playing, the name game can take many forms. The idea is to learn the names of each person in a newly formed group by forcing everyone to do it all at once and on the spot through some kind of activity. Ours involved forming a circle and throwing a ball to someone as you call their name.

The reason I hate the name game is simple: I have a terrible memory. This makes me terrible with names. I have trouble remembering a single person's name who just introduced themselves to me two seconds ago. Now I have 19 people whose names I have to learn all at once. The pressure!

It reminds me of something one of our camp pastors, David Rhodes, said at a youth camp one year. After informing us youth pastors that he is a serious introvert, he quipped, "If I don't speak to you, it's not because I don't want to. It's just that I'm afraid of you."

I'm proud of myself, though, because I actually did quite well at the name game today. I memorized everyone's name and called a person the wrong name out loud in front of the entire group only once. There is hope for me yet. Now I am thankful, because it really does make the class much more enjoyable when you know everyone's name and a little about them. Social situations greatly improve if you are proactive from the beginning. The longer you wait, the harder it is to get to know people. You can't bring brownies to your new neighbor after they've been living next door to you for six months. But once you take a deep breath and get over that hump, the rest of the ride is quite enjoyable. Introverts like me have to work hard to learn this lesson. Until then, there's always the name game.

The Ideal

2010-06-16T01:06:00.000-04:00

Wow. Dust off your monitor. I'm back.

I went to the late $1.50 movies tonight with my parents. This turned out to be a rare treat. How many 31-year-olds go out to a movie at 9:45 pm on a Tuesday night with dear old Mom and Dad? This either makes me lame or very blessed. You decide.

We went to see Clash of the Titans. I love these kinds of movies. I loved the old Clash of the Titans growing up. And I l...iked the new one. No, really, I did like it. Perseus vs. the Kraken. Good stuff.

In adventure movies like this (and in many types of movies, I suppose), you see the story of a hero, the ideal man, and a heroine/damsel-in-distress, the ideal woman. We are drawn to these figures because we all have a desire for the ideal man/woman, and we all desire to be the ideal man/woman. Pretty soon, we realize that we are not, and never will be, this ideal person. Nor will our spouses ever live up to this standard. Our flaws are too obvious, and while we may have some measure of success in hiding them from the world, this is an impossible effort in a marriage.

So what do we do? Some, seeing the flaws in their husband/wife (and too often forgetting their own), seek too easy a solution for this dilemma. If we don't currently have the ideal man/woman, we can find other means to have him/her. We can cheat. And cheating can take many forms. We can sacrifice our faithfulness and seek perfection in another, whether real or virtual. Or we can pressure and force our spouse to fit the mold by whatever means necessary, whether ridicule or plastic surgery.

But it's not real. It's plastic. It's counterfeit. We may as well love a mannequin, perfect body and no soul.

There is only one way to make our spouses more beautiful. Love him. Love her. Love him as he is. Love her as your ideal. When we desire plastic people, it is probably because we have plastic hearts. But it is love that transforms them. And it is our love that elevates our spouses to all that God created them to be. It is faithfully loving a real person for a lifetime that is truly heroic. It is love that makes the ideal man, the ideal woman.

Top Three

2010-01-15T21:40:00.000-05:00

Since I haven't posted in a few days, I'll just give the highlights of the last week. Here are my top three.

3) Working Out/Eating Better: This was week two of my and Katie's diet. It's still early on, but we're doing the best we've done in a long while. We feel better, and we feel better about ourselves. That little cloud is not hanging over my spiritual life anymore. It's great. I started working out with the P90X program. It kicked my tail last week (the X stood for eXtremely sore). This week, however, has still been difficult but much better.

2) Gracie's Question: Gracie asked me a good question this morning that had occurred to her the day before in chapel. The question was "We say that Jesus gives us eternal life, but don't we already have eternal life either in heaven or in hell?" My answer: In one sense we do all have eternal life already. This is true if by eternal life you mean eternal existence from here on out. But we are saying something more than this when we speak of Jesus giving eternal life. Here, "eternal" is a quality of life, not endless longevity of life. Eternal life is a quality of life that is characterized by love, joy, peace, goodness, beauty, trust, etc. This is why only Jesus can give it. On the other hand, life without Jesus will ultimately be marked by selfishness, hatred, pride, loneliness, fear, etc. When you really look at it, who would really call this "life" at all? So there is an eternal existence that is really a kind of death. This is what Jesus saves us from.

1) Seeing Back in Time: I learned in my Stars and Galaxies class that we can actually see back into time. Sound unbelievable? Check this out. When the Hubble telescope takes pictures of other galaxies, it is taking pictures of objects millions of light-years away. A light-year is the measurement for distance based on how far light can travel in one year. (For a frame of reference, light can circle around the entire earth eight times in one second.) To say that an object is millions of light-years away is to say that the light by which we see the object had to travel millions of years in order to reach us. This means that whenever we look at such a galaxy or distant star, we are actually seeing the galaxy or star as it appeared millions of years ago. Thus, we are essentially seeing back in time. This also applies on a lesser scale to the stars that we see in the sky with our naked eyes. Any star that you can point out, theoretically may not even exist anymore in the current moment. It could have exploded a thousand years ago. We would not know it, however, until the light from that explosion travels through space and eventually reaches us.

Wild Indians

2010-01-10T21:22:00.001-05:00

I heard the term "wild Indians" several times last Friday. (I work at a school.) It made me wonder. How old must that term be? Maybe it's as old as the 1700's when British settlers began to occupy North America. I guess it makes it easier to take someone's land if all they are is a bunch of "wild Indians." I wonder what kind of metaphors the Indians would have based on white people if they had won the West.

One Finger

2010-01-08T22:35:00.000-05:00

A couple of semesters ago, I was in a Language and Culture class when the professor asked the whole class a question and gave us the possible answers of, let's just say, A or B. I was relatively sure that the answer was B, but when he asked how many thought the answer was A, practically the whole class raised their hand. This caused me to seriously doubt my answer. When he asked how many thought the answer was B, no one raised their hand, including me. Too bad; I would have been correct.

I have talked with Gracie a few times about the difference between being a leader and being a follower. It seems to me that Gracie is more of a leader, and I hope to encourage her in that. Not only do I not want her to be a follower when the pack is going astray, but I also want her to be a voice that influences others for the good. Today I saw evidence, albeit small, that gave me hope.

Gracie is in the Student Government at Veritas. She is one of two fifth graders in the association. The group ranges from fifth to tenth grade, so Gracie and her friend are by far the youngest. Today I sat in on a meeting in which they were voting to make a decision. There were three choices: Choice 1, Choice 2, and Choice 3. Each person had to hold up the number of fingers that represented the choice for which they were voting. As the group began voting, the older kids held up their hands first: all threes. I watched Gracie as she was trying to decide her vote, and at one point I saw her hold up a one. She put it back down. No one else had seen her. Finally, all the other students were holding up their votes. Each voting hand in the room was holding up three fingers. Gracie was the last to vote. Everyone was watching her. Then, Gracie did something I failed to do only a few semesters ago. She held up one finger.

Fools

2010-01-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

Tonight I met with Megan, Brian, and Collin to talk through the bylaws we are writing for the new church. Sounds boring, right? It's actually not so bad. I enjoy the chance to be together with these fine individuals.

Talking through the way we are doing things reminded us of how people find the concept of a house church unusual and even somewhat... wrong? Brian's mother is worried that he has joined a cult. Collin's grandmother is asking tons of questions trying to figure out what in the world her grandson has gotten involved with and why in the world we would meet in the afternoon. Other family members have expressed their concern. People from our old churches talk about how they don't understand what we are thinking. You would think that we were having secret gatherings at midnight to drink blood and await the mother ship of the aliens we worship. (We don't do that.) We only have to laugh and wonder at what exactly the concern is over. I suppose that, for some, a church worshiping without a "church building" is like a man walking around without clothes. Maybe that's a good analogy. I suppose what seems natural to some seems shameful to others.

The sad thing is that all of us could show up to a "normal" service at 11:00 every Sunday morning, never take a risk in order to follow Jesus, never lift a finger to help our neighbor, and as long as we sat in our pew and smiled, we would all be spoken well of and considered "normal." No, thanks. Like the apostle Paul, we are happy to be considered fools. Only let us be fools for Christ.

What to Say?

2010-01-05T20:43:00.001-05:00

Tonight I got a call from my dad: "Where are you?" I was on my couch. I was supposed to be at the nursing home to play some songs for a gathering. So I got dressed quickly and headed over there. I arrived fifteen minutes late and a little flustered with a half-constructed set list in my head. Other than the fact that I am never able to sing loud enough at nursing homes (I would have never made it as an orator in ancient Greece), it went fine.

At the nursing home was a young man, I'd say in his early twenties, who was severely disabled. He was somewhat attentive, but he could not (or didn't) speak. Afterward, my parents were asking some of the others from their church what had happened to him. No one was sure, but someone thought that it involved a car wreck. My dad said that the young man's mother seemed angry at God when he had spoken to her briefly. That is not an uncommon emotion in such a tragedy. On the way home, I began to think of what I might say to this woman if we ever had an appropriate conversation to talk about what happened to her son. As I write this, I am not claiming to have an answer for what to say in a situation like this. I am simply trying to work through my own thoughts. I think I would hope to say something like this:

"Ma'am, I am very sorry for what happened to your son. I can't imagine what you and your family must be going through. What I can imagine is that you must have lots of questions without answers. I can imagine that there must be a lot of pain and doubt and what-ifs. I can even imagine that you would find yourself with feelings of anger, especially toward God. What happened to your son was a terrible, terrible thing. It doesn't seem fair. Why would God allow it to happen? But maybe anger toward God is a natural thing to experience here. Maybe it is even the right thing to feel in a way. I mean, what causes this anger toward God? Maybe the cause is that deep down you know there is a God. You know there is a God who is supposed to be loving and powerful and just. That is the right thing to believe. But how do we understand this situation in light of a loving and powerful and just God? There doesn't seem to be a satisfying answer. I can't tell you why God would allow this to happen. But I do think that, if anyone, God knows exactly how you feel. His Son suffered, too. Jesus was crushed unjustly, unfairly. The Bible says that He was a Man of sorrows, familiar with suffering and acquainted with grief. The good news is that after He suffered, God restored Him. He was murdered, but God brought Him back to life. God did this because this is exactly what God wants to do for all of us, for the whole world. Just like God raised Jesus, He will one day raise the whole world. He will mend the broken places and put everything right. Ma'am, I don't know why this happened to your son, but I do know that Jesus is his only hope for truly being well again: mind, body, and soul. Jesus is the only hope of wholeness for us all. I know things must be difficult, but please don't give up. Thank you for letting me share. Please just know that my heart is with you in hoping for your son and his recovery."

Pointing and Building

2010-01-04T18:57:00.000-05:00

Missio Dei exists to point to and build for the Kingdom of God in tangible ways as we embody the life of the risen Jesus Christ.
- Missio Dei Mission Statement

So the mission of God is to announce and expand the Kingdom of God. How then is it announced and expanded? What is our role as the church of Jesus in this work? Here is where we begin to speak of pointing to and building for the Kingdom.

There is a very real sense in which the Kingdom of God is a present reality. Jesus told us to "repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." That is, the Kingdom is upon us. It is here. Now. Perhaps closer than we think. We see it in every act of Spirit-filled act of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We sense its new ethic in every Christ-empowered sacrificial act of service. We sense its beauty and power in every breath of new life blown into some dark corner that death or despair had claimed. The mouth of Jesus' empty tomb proclaims a new hope over all of creation. This is all the work of God. Our role in this present Kingdom is to point. We point to this outworking of God's Kingdom like a local who knows all the best spots in town. We are to help others see these mysteries that are hidden in broad daylight. God is at work. Our role is to help others see that work and understand something more of it. We point to the present Kingdom.

But there is a very real sense in which the Kingdom of God remains a future reality. God is accomplishing His will, but there is still much resistance to that will. There is still much that is not good, beautiful, or true. There are powers that are visciously working against these very things. Death and decay still seem like the final word. But they are not. God's Kingdom will come; it will be fully realized. As Samwise Gamgee observes in The Lord of the Rings, everything sad will come untrue. All things will be made new. This future Kingdom is what we are building for. Notice that we do not build the Kingdom itself (which is God's work alone), but we build for the Kingdom. N.T. Wright makes this distinction in his book Surprised by Hope. He gives this illustration: Suppose we are stonemasons who have been given the task of building a statue for a great cathedral. We are aware that other teams are busy working on other structures (coats of arms, columns, turrets, etc.) and that other entire departments are busy about completely other tasks. We have not seen the overall blueprint, but we do our work trusting that the architect knows exactly how our work will fit into the whole. And when our statue is complete and is placed in its proper place within the cathedral, it will take on the full measure of its beauty and worth such as we could not have imagined when we were chiseling it back in the stone yard. We did not ourselves build the cathedral, but we built for the cathedral. In the same way, when we work for truth, goodness, beauty, and justice, we are committing acts that matter. When we serve others in love, when we tell of Christ and His mission of restoration, when we display unity as His body, we are building for the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is here. The Kingdom of God will come. Until then, we will point and build.

Listening?

2010-01-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

This morning as we began worship, Bethany challenged us to allow God the opportunity to speak to us each day. She reminded us that we live in a time and place in which we enjoy unparalleled access to God's Word, yet many of us neglect this access while believers in other parts of the world starve for it. She is right. We are so busy answering the question "What are you doing?" that we forget to ask "What is God doing?" The former question may be easier to answer, but let's be honest, it's far less interesting.

But perhaps asking what God is doing is not the place to begin. The question I must first answer is this: How do I become a better listener?

...

New Year

2010-01-01T00:13:00.001-05:00

It's a brand new year. There is fertile soil ready to be turned. May the fool I was last year lose himself. May some measure of Christ-likeness be formed in me these next 365 days. God have mercy and grant us grace and peace for the year ahead. Amen.

The Good Seminarian

2009-12-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

I am reading a book by Malcolm Gladwell entitled The Tipping Point. The book explains how ideas, products, or fads spread. There are three main factors according to Gladwell: 1) having people involved who are well-connected, who are gatherers of information, or who are persuasive. 2) having an idea or product that is "sticky," or that is worth spreading in the first place. 3) having the right environment in which the idea can spread.

To prove the importance of environment and the influence it has over us, Gladwell documented several research experiments done in this area. One experiment involved seminary students at Princeton Theological Seminary. The seminarians were instructed to compose a speech on a given topic that they would subsequently deliver in another building across campus. Along the way to the other building, the seminarians would come across a man who would be gasping, coughing, and in obvious physical pain. At the beginning of the experiment, the seminarians were questioned as to their motivation for attending seminary. Then they were given a topic for their speech. Some were given a generic topic such as the benefits of a seminary education. Others, however, were told to give a speech on the story of the Good Samaritan. Finally, on their way out, some of the students were told that they were a few minutes late for their speech and that the review panel was waiting on them in the other building. The others were told that they finished early and that they had a short time before they would be expected.

The researchers wanted to see what factors would be most common among those who stopped to help the man in need. Three factors were considered in the experiment: their motivation for attending seminary (i.e. to be better prepared to help people, obey God, etc.), the topic given (which would be the focus of their minds as they encountered the man), and the time available to the students as they encountered the man. The results are interesting and just a bit convicting. The only factor that made a difference was time. Even those who had just prepared a talk on the Good Samaritan practically stepped over the man when they were told that they were late.

Thinking through my own experiences, I can believe these results. I can think of times when I stopped to help someone. It is usually when I am not in a particular hurry to be somewhere. Other times, I pass by hoping someone else will help the person in need. I am sure that the priest and the Levite in Jesus' parable would have had similar excuses. Do we assume that the Samaritan had a more leisurely lifestyle? This couldn't have been Jesus' point, to help others when it is convenient. No, Jesus' story is about loving our neighbor. Coming to the assistance of a neighbor only when it is convenient for us can hardly be called good or loving. What we learn from Jesus' story is that we when help someone in need even when it costs us, even when it makes us late for an important appointment, there can only be one factor at play: love.

Icons

2009-12-29T17:56:00.000-05:00

The thought occurred to me this morning that movies may be the icons of our culture. I am using icon in the religious sense; I am suggesting that movies are visual portals that connect us with some transcendent beauty or truth. Let me explain.

The origins of Christian icon use in prayer or worship are found in the Eastern Orthodox Church. One objection to icons stems from the second of the Ten Commandments: "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below" (Ex. 20:4). The Eastern Orthodox Christians, however, will tell you that they are not worshiping the icons. They see the holy images as a sort of window to heaven, a portal by which to encounter the divine. Just as Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), the icons transport us into His divine presence. There we encounter beauty, truth, and goodness.

Now I am in no way comparing watching a movie to an act of prayer or worship. But can we encounter something of goodness, truth, and beauty in cinema? If not, how is it that we can be so moved by movies? Has a film ever brought you to tears through the beauty of a story, showed you something true about yourself, or made you want to be a better person? It is not that every movie is Christian; they do not have to be. All goodness, truth, and beauty are God's goodness, truth, and beauty. God created them, and they come forth from Him. If I want to build a house, I must use materials God created. If movie-makers want to say something good, true, or beautiful, they must use God's goodness, truth, and beauty. It is all they have to work with.

Why is it that we continue to pay out the wazoo for these stories? Why is it that the average American household has more TV sets than people? One reason is because these movies and shows speak to our hearts in powerful ways. The visuals carry us into another world where goodness, truth, and beauty (or lack thereof) become more apparent than in our own world where those are sometimes harder to discern. Through these icons we see our own lives more clearly. Through movies, we are helped to appreciate and cooperate with the goodness, truth, and beauty that flows from God into our own lives. And as the credits roll, as we walk out of theater and back into our own world, we have only God to thank.

Avatar

2009-12-28T20:17:00.000-05:00

Monica and I met Patrick Kuykendall at the movies this afternoon to watch the much-anticipated film, Avatar. The movie is still fresh on my mind so I wanted to journal my thoughts.

First of all, as has been pointed out hundreds of times, this movie is visually breathtaking. Watching it in 3D made it probably the best thing I have ever laid eyes on. This alone is enough to spellbind you and keep you entranced for the entire three hours.

There is so much I could say, but I don't want to spoil the movie for those who have yet to see it. I will say that the selling point of the movie for me was the Na'avi people. These are the indigenous people of the planet Pandora whom the story of Avatar centers around. The story itself has been told before; most people are making comparisons to Dances With Wolves. But the Na'avis were captivating. There was something primitively beautiful about their culture and their connection to the environs of Pandora. I sympathized with the main character in his desire to become one of them. Somehow, to become a Na'avi was to become more human, or at least more humane.

To be a Na'avi is not safe. The rites of passage in this culture demand the risking of your life. Once passed, however, these trials foster a deep appreciation and understanding of life, what the Na'avis called "seeing." This resonates because we are all born with an innate desire for adventure, to sense the heroic thrill of overcoming peril to accomplish some good. Even the most timid of us have this desire for swashbuckling bravery somewhere down deep. We were created to experience our world the way the Na'avis experience Pandora. We are to embrace the adventure that lies waiting on land, air, and sea. We are not to shy away from the dangers of creation, but to subdue it and care for it. We are not to simply look at the world, but to "see" creation. This is how I expect to experience the New Heaven and New Earth. There we will enjoy everything that we now only catch glimpses of. Endless beauty. Endless adventure. And that will be even better than 3D.

The Kingdom of God

2009-12-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

Today we entered into our first yearly covenant at Missio Dei. The purpose of the covenant is to formally bind us together toward fulfilling a common mission. We have stated that mission as follows: "Missio Dei exists to point to and build for the Kingdom of God in tangible ways as we embody the life of the risen Jesus Christ." I hope to take a few posts to explain this mission statement more fully. I begin with the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God was and is central to the mission of Jesus. His message was, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand." There are many ways we can talk about this Kingdom, but we know from Jesus' prayer that the whole thing involved God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven. Thus, the Kingdom of God can be spoken of as God's reign over His creation. It is creation at its highest and best. It is when you cannot tell the difference between heaven and earth.

When Jesus fed the hungry, calmed the storms, or healed the sick, He wasn't just performing wonders, He was putting the Kingdom of God on display. When He spoke about loving our enemies, trusting God rather than fretting, and about the last being first, He wasn't just being genius, He was laying out the new ethic of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is about the reversing and the undoing of the present kingdoms. If it seems backwards to pray for those who curse, it's because, well, it is. If it seems foreign to consider a lustful stare adultery, it's because we have grown accustomed to a rival ethic of a rival kingdom. Before we write this Kingdom of God off as silly or impossible, we should consider what the alternatives have managed to produce: war, hunger, poverty, abuse, murder, disease. I could go on. On the other hand, what would happen if we truly loved others? What if we truly lived lives of trust and honesty? What if we truly esteemed others above ourselves? The answer: we don't know. We've never tried it. But one Man did. And He changed the world. But, as Dallas Willard points out, the way of Jesus had not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.

If we're going to get any closer to this Kingdom, then the first thing we have to do is change our thinking. Jesus' instruction was to "repent." To repent is to change our minds, to change our thinking. It is to change the way we view God, ourselves, and the world around us. We have had the broken mindsets of broken kingdoms for too long. We have believed in the failed "saviors" of power, wealth, and pleasure. Yet God is on mission in this world, if we have eyes to see it. He is reshaping the world for the goodness He intended for it. He is redeeming a humanity to live in this new Kingdom. And He has called us to join Him in this restoration project.

To be the church is to join God in His mission. To join God's mission is to work for the Kingdom of God. To enter this Kingdom of God is to repent. To repent is to believe that the world is a different place than we ever imagined it. It is to open our eyes to the God who is making all things new.

Christmas Eve 2009

2009-12-24T22:36:00.000-05:00

Tonight we went to Katie's cousin's house for the big Christmas Eve get-together... without Katie. She stayed home with a stomach bug. I'm hoping she feels better by tomorrow morning.

Earlier today, Gracie and I took a bicycle helmet over to a family's house for a nine-year-old little boy. Last week, the women of our church went shopping for this little boy and Tiffany and Dante's children. This boy, Dominick, lives with his grandmother. A couple of years ago, the grandmother told us, she bought Dominick a bike. His mother stole the bike and pawned it. So, of course, we had to get him a bike. Today we brought the helmet that another family had donated.

Sometime during my outing with Gracie, God moved in my heart. It is probably more accurate to say that He opened my eyes a little wider. I don't know how to say it really, or know how to communicate what I was thinking or feeling. It was quite subtle actually, but deep. I can only say that something good happened, and that I am thankful for moments like that, when God allows us to sense a profoundness that transcends language. We are let in on the secret that there is always more to each moment than we realize. There is always something just beneath the surface of every experience. There is a good God who loves us very much.

The Prince of Peace

2009-12-24T00:10:00.000-05:00

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests."
-The Heavenly Host to the Shepherds, Luke 2:14

After three months of praying and planning, Room at the Inn finally took place tonight. We held a banquet for our new friends Tiffany and Dante, and invited their family and a few friends from Highland Community Church who came along side us on this project. Our purpose was to reunite Dante and Tiffany with their children and the family members are currently providing care for them. Only one of the three children made it to the dinner, but the event was still a success. It was an edifying experience for everyone involved.

At the dinner, I spoke about how Christ was born to bring us peace. The angels sang (or said) "peace to [mankind]" at the birth of Jesus. But what is this peace? Is it the absence of war? Is it the absence of conflict in our lives? These things will happen in the end, but what of right now? What peace is there for the present moment?

The Jewish understanding of peace goes far beyond our definitions. We think of peace in negative terms: the absence of strife. But for the Jews, peace, or shalom, was a positive idea. Shalom meant wholeness, completeness, rightness. Shalom was the original state of things before the Fall of mankind. Shalom is the state of being that God intends for His creation. Shalom is not, however, our current natural state of being. Things break when they fall, and we have all fallen from what God intended for us. Thus, the world is a broken place. We are all broken people. Ours is a world of broken hearts and broken bones. We suffer through broken relationships and broken homes.

In the midst of this brokenness, the angels announce peace. They proclaim shalom once more over mankind. The Healer of the world is born. The Redeemer has entered into our broken world Himself to be broken. And in His brokenness, creation is restored. So we wait. We wait for the healing and restoration of all things. Yet this shalom is available to us now. This is the glad tiding of great joy.

The breaking of creation began in the human heart. The healing will begin nowhere else. Jesus offers healing and wholeness to our hearts. When hearts are made whole, there is no longer need for war, for conflict, for strife. There is no need for envy, or fear, or pride. We discover that there is a new Kingdom at hand. And on the throne of this Kingdom is one called the Prince of Peace.

Fourteen

2009-12-22T21:26:00.000-05:00

"Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ."
Matthew 1:17

For most of us, the Christmas story begins in verse 18 of Matthew 1: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about..." But Matthew begins his account with a long (dare I say boring?) genealogy. Why?

Matthew is writing his gospel for a Jewish audience, an audience who would have been far more interested in this genealogy than we may initially be. One reason for this interest would have been that the genealogy involved their history. Key figures such as Abraham and David appear in lineage. Matthew's original audience remembers that God promised to bless all peoples through Abraham's offspring. Even more interesting to them was the fact that Jesus is of the line of David, who reigned during the Golden Age of Israel. God promised David that his kingly line would never fail, yet at the birth of Christ, no Davidic king sits on a throne. When will God keep His promise? When will He raise up another David to restore Israel to her former glory? When will He anoint this king to rule in power and truth and righteousness to renew the hearts of the people? Matthew is stoking the coals of his people's desire.

Matthew's audience also would have had great interest in this genealogy because of one other significant detail: the number fourteen. Matthew purposefully sets up his genealogy to emphasize the number fourteen. The whole thing is divided up into three groups of fourteen. Why is this important? Hebrew letters have a feature lacking in the English alphabet. Each letter has a number assigned to it. This means that every word, every name, also has a numerical value. The numeric value for king David? Fourteen.

In this genealogy, Matthew is screaming at his audience, "King David! King David! Jesus is the King we have been waiting for! Jesus is King!" This is why Matthew chooses not to tell of shepherds and angels, but of Magi who bring royal gifts, and a rival king who has every reason to fear. May we, like the Magi, enter into this story though we do not share a Jewish lineage. May we share in the fulfillment of God's promise to bless all peoples through Abraham's seed. May we crown Jesus not as a foreign king, but as the King of kings, who reigns in power and truth and righteousness. May we join Matthew in proclaiming: Jesus is King! Jesus is King! Long live the King!

Save Us from Our Restlessness

2009-12-21T12:44:00.000-05:00

"She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins."
- An angel to Joseph, Matthew 1:21

The name Jesus means "The Lord saves." The angel instructed Joseph to give Mary's son this name because he would save His people from their sins.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard defined sin as seeking to find our identity in anything other than God. He said that sin is not only the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. We are all after something or someone that we hope will define us, fulfill us, make us happy.

The problem is that nothing can accomplish this in our lives. So we wander from relationship to relationship, commodity to commodity, job to job, hoping that the next thing will be the one to give us what our hearts crave.

This is what Jesus came to save us from: the restlessness of sin. He came to save us from the vain wanderings of our hearts that never lead us to that which we seek. He came to save us from sin - the futile attempt to fill the hole in our hearts with anything other than God.

Jesus said, "Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." This Christmas, may our wandering hearts receive Him, and in Him find their salvation, their rest.

Back from Business

2009-12-20T22:52:00.000-05:00

A good stretch, a crack of the knuckles, and we're back in business. (Actually the reason I'm back writing this blog is because my busyness has slowed down for a bit. So maybe I should say back from business.)

I'll begin with highlights from the last few weeks since I became too busy to blog.

1) Advent: Today begins the final week of Advent, the home stretch leading to Christmas. I regret that I haven't made this Advent what I could/should have. But I am better prepared to celebrate Christ's birth than I would have been otherwise, so I am thankful for that. I pray that the hope, faith, love, and joy of this season would find some room in my heart to live and work for the coming year.

2) My Paper: I spent a lot of time working on a paper, and then revising that paper, for a Communication conference this coming spring. I submitted it for review, and if it gets accepted then I will go to Memphis to present it at the conference in April. I should hear something by the end of January.

3) Room at the Inn: This project went a different direction than we originally planned. But we have connected with a couple who lives in the Highland community who are in the process of putting their lives back together. Both have had a troubled past, but have committed their lives to Christ and are on the journey toward wholeness just like all of us. We've put together a banquet for them and have invited their family members in hopes of encouraging them and in hopes of a first step toward rebuilding relationships there. I hope Christ is honored by our efforts.

4) Katie's Graduation: As most reading this probably knows already, Katie has graduated from nursing school. We are quite happy, and we're enjoying the moment.

5) Time Off: It's good to have two and a half weeks with our whole family at home. No school. No work. Much needed.

Pot Pie and Pecans

2009-11-29T15:57:00.000-05:00

"You have filled my heart with greater joy then when their grain and new wine abound."
- Psalm 4:7

We went to Highland this morning to serve a mission meal. We served over 110 people some delicious turkey pot pie, mac and cheese, and death by chocolate. Billy led worship, and I preached a sermon on joy. It was appropriate topic for such a joyous day.

After Highland, we met my family (late) at Country's for Ben's birthday. We sat outside and enjoyed the beauty of the afternoon. There was also a older man in a wheelchair who was selling pecans outside the restaurant. My dad bought a bag, and later Gracie wanted to walk over and buy a bag. She asked me to walk over with her. She walked over, ten dollar bill in hand, and asked for a bag. When he went to give her change for the ten, she told him to keep it. He was startled. He asked if she was sure, and once she assured him that the answer was yes, his eyes began his water. He was very grateful.

A few moments later, when we were leaving, I stopped to tell him that Jesus loved him. I wanted him to know what would motivate a little girl to part with ten dollars for a single bag of pecans (though he made her take two). He said that his wife was having surgery in the morning and that he was trying to get enough money to buy her flowers. We surrounded him and had prayer for him and his wife. It was a beautiful moment.

Once we got back into the truck, Gracie made several comments about the experience. It was all her doing. God used her to be a blessing today... to hungry people at Highland, to a pecan salesman, and to me.

Crunch Time

2009-11-23T19:00:00.000-05:00

Sadly, I will have to break from blogging for a couple of weeks. During that time, I have two research papers, two presentations, and one sermon to complete. If you are reading this before Friday, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

The Words of My Mouth

2009-11-18T21:38:00.000-05:00

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."
Psalm 19:14

Part of the research for my Lingustics paper involves recording interviews and conversations and then transcribing them word for word, down to every stutter and "um". This takes a while, about an hour and a half for a fifteen minute conversation. But it is interesting to see what a conversation looks like on paper, if not embarrassing. You find mistakes and verbal ticks that you never realized were there. You realize that it takes you longer to communicate an idea than you would hope. I think my speech would probably improve if someone handed me a transcript of it at the end of each day. But is that something anyone would really want? A written account of every word, every stammer, every slip of the tongue, or worse?

I noticed that being recorded was a smidge unnerving at first for some of the participants in my study. Something about that microphone makes us want to watch our language a bit more carefully. After a while, they would loosen up and begin to speak more naturally. But they could never quite forget about that digital soundtrack they were creating. The truth is, though, that the record of their words did not stop when I pressed the "stop" button on the recorder. There was another tape rolling.

Jesus said, "I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken." (Matt. 12:36)

That is unnerving.

May we not testify against ourselves on that day. May we not be found "a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips." May He put a coal to our mouths. May our be speech be seasoned well. May it spring forth fresh water to nourish those around us. May it bless and not curse. May we speak as though we are speaking the very words of Christ. And when the transcription is complete, may the Word made flesh find pleasure in its reading.

The Bread of Life

2009-11-17T15:42:00.000-05:00

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty."
John 6:35

I am tired and a bit overwhelmed. Wandering in the wilderness of scholasticism, I have two papers to write, one of which involves a good deal of research, in addition to my normal work load and two sermons to write during the same time period. And in the heat of this desert, I think I'm also catching a cold.

And yet... Jesus has drawn close and reminded me that He is sufficient. To be sure, He is sufficient to help me with all that needs to be done, but that is not what I mean. He is not a means to an end. Rather, Jesus is sufficient for my soul. There is no reason to fret, to stress, to worry. I will pray, "To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul" (Psalm 25:1), and God will send down His manna to give me just what I need just when I need it: Himself.

So I will do what needs to be done, one step at a time. I will worship Jesus and believe that He is my daily bread. I may be tired, but I will not go hungry.

How to Identify an Idol

2009-11-15T22:19:00.000-05:00

Tim Keller on how to identify an idol in your life. Taken from an interview on his latest book, Counterfeit Gods. (Christianity Today, November 2009)

"Look at your daydreams. When you don't have to think about something, like when you are waiting for the bus, where does your mind love to rest? Or, look at where you spend your money most effortlessly. Also, if you take your most uncontrolled emotions or the guilt that you can't get rid of, you'll find your idols at the bottom. Whenever I hear someone say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," it means that person has something more important than God, because God forgives them. If you look at your greatest nightmare - if something were to happen that would make you feel you had no reason to live - that's a god."

Earth

2009-11-14T09:20:00.000-05:00

Last night after going to see Rumors at Smiths Station High School (what a great show!), I came home to find my family waiting on me with ice cream and the movie, Earth. We had been wanting to see this movie since it came out in theaters, but we never did until last night.

The visuals in this nature documentary were absolutely stunning even on our small little TV set. The shots captured of these animals are sometimes funny, sometimes scary, and most times simply awe-inspiring. It was also interesting to see the sun's course across the sky in the far north. Rather than run overhead to the other side of the sky from which it rose, it hovers just above the skyline and travels across the sky at that height both day and night. That is, it does until winter when it doesn't come up at all. The thought I kept having throughout the film is that no matter how creative our imaginary worlds may be, nothing could ever be more creative than the real one.

One of coolest features of the film was the way the camera could be sped up to accentuate the changes in plant life and weather. When observed in this way, even the most common flower is seen for what it is, a miracle. Miracles are all around us, they just move too slowly for us to notice in our fast-paced lives. It makes me wonder about the way in which God appreciates His world. Since God has infinite time and patience, how he must enjoy each little flower on each savanna, each snowflake atop each mountain, and each cloud formation rising from each ocean. How good of God to share His works with us! Yet we don't need infinity to enjoy them. We only need to walk outside.

Divine Appointment

2009-11-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

My spiritual director once told me about a prayer that he prays regularly: "Lord, help me today to be where I need to be and see who I need to see." "You'll be surprised who you will run into," he said.

It's more than just being at the right place at the right time. It's more than coincidence. When you are in that moment, you know there is Someone greater at work. It is a divinely appointed moment.

Take tonight for instance. In my Second Language Acquisition class this semester, I've had the pleasure of meeting a Hispanic man named German (pronounced "her-MAN"). German is from Chile, and he teaches English to non-native speakers in Columbus schools. Since I am in the process of learning Spanish, I felt compelled to get to know him a little better. We have often talked during breaks or as we walked back to our vehicles after class. For a while, I thought about asking him if he would be interested in meeting up sometime to practice my Spanish. Plus, who knows? Maybe we would end up talking about Jesus along the way. Yet, for whatever reason, I never decided to ask him.

Tonight, however, the opportunity fell into my lap. German and I were talking during the break. We were talking about plans for the future, and he mentioned that he would like to write a book. "About what?" I asked. He said he wasn't sure, maybe sort of a memoir. Suddenly, he opened up a bit. He said that he really didn't have anyone to talk to about stuff besides his wife. All of his good friends live back in Chile. Just as he finished explaining this to me, the professor called us back into the classroom. I returned to my seat in a startled awe at how God had revealed in that moment the reciprocal of my desire to meet with German. (This is the second time something like this has happened this year. The first was over the summer at Gethsemani with a Polish monk named Philip. But that is a story for another blog.)

After class, I did ask German if we could get together soon. We plan to. Divine appointment? We will see.

Stetzer on Being "Missional"

2009-11-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

The following is an excerpt from a post I found today on Justin Taylor's blog over at the Gospel Coalition. It is by Lifeway Research director, author, and missiologist, Ed Stetzer. You can read the whole thing here.

I thought this worthwhile to post especially for my Missio Dei readers. Stetzer talks about how "missional" Christianity has become a catch-all term for ministry as opposed to joining God in the very specific task of proclaiming the Gospel to all peoples around the globe. He makes some good points. If you have time, consider reading his entire post. The main thing I want to point out is this: When we say that we as Missio Dei value "incarnation before declaration," that should not be taken to mean that declaration is not important. Both are vital to being on mission with God as a people. It's simply that, too often, we Christians proclaim a Story that we aren't fully living out of ourselves. Before we can declare that the Gospel of Jesus is true and necessary, we must, by the Holy Spirit, put flesh and blood to it ourselves. Isn't this what God did in sending Christ?

Here is Stetzer:

"In refocusing on God's mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.

St. Francis allegedly said,"Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." Interestingly enough, Francis never actually said this, nor would he have done so due to his membership in a preaching order. But it is a pithy quote tossed into mission statements and vision sermons in missional churches all around my country. Why? It seems that many in the missional conversation place a higher value on serving the global hurting rather than evangelizing the global lost. Or perhaps it is just easier.

I am not urging a dichotomy here, only noting that one already exists. It is ironic, though, that as many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body; the mouth."

Reasons Why Today was a Great Day

2009-11-08T20:14:00.000-05:00

1. Crossroads Church - I led worship this morning for the believers at Crossroads. This is a new church plant that started the same week Missio Dei did. I enjoyed being with them today.

2. Missio Dei - As always, my brothers and sisters came through. Dusty joined us today, which was a pleasant surprise. We sang beautifully in Brian's perfectly acoustic living room (hardwood floor and no furniture), Collin taught on the Exodus, and we celebrated Communion.

3. Room at the Inn - The project is full steam ahead. For more info, see this post.

4. The Jets - Carter, Fifi, Pat, and the others played in the flag football championship this afternoon at the Civic Center. We showed up in Jets t-shirts made by Brian. They came in second. We are very proud of them.

5. My Family - As many of you know, I am blessed with a beautiful family.

6. Jesus - He holds it all together.

A Familiar Fragrance

2009-11-07T22:07:00.000-05:00

Tonight I caught a scent that I have not smelled in what seems like years. It was my wife.

Let me explain. Katie and I were sitting on the couch at my parents house when I laid my head on her shoulder. This is when I caught the scent. It was a familiar, pleasant smell that reminded me of being a teenager. It was a perfume she used to wear when we dated. If I had closed my eyes, we could have been 19 again sitting there beside one another. It is no surprise that smells can take you back, but it is usually surprising when it actually happens.

In some ways, it would be nice to go back to that time, if only for a moment. So much has happened in the last 10 years. I don't think either one of us would have imagined being where we are today, and that is a good thing. It makes me wonder where we will be when 40 comes around. Maybe it's a bit counter-cultural, but I am mostly excited about getting older. I want to grow deeper as a person. I want to grow in our marriage. I want to see my children grow and become what they will. And all of that entails getting older.

If there is one word I would choose to describe my feeling about the future, I would say "hope" pretty much sums it up. This is not because I think my life will keep getting better, though I feel that might be the case. It is because no matter what happens, no matter what, I know Jesus is very soon going to make all things right. In that day, we are all going to live the lives we've always dreamed of. That is my future. And when, on the New Earth, I catch the scent of a familiar fragrance, I will close my eyes and remember that life has always had a bit of heaven in it.

A Good Job

2009-11-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
- 2 Corinthians 8:9

We had a great discussion in my Church History class today. We talked about things from abstinence vs. chastity, to what it means to exist for God alone, to the desire to do more in life than get a "good job" and get rich. I shared with them how my career path has led me to actually make less and less money as I have gone from TSYS to Crawford Road to Veritas. Continuing on this trajectory, I am only a step or two from working for free! I realize that this situation is temporary, and I am only kidding, but a point is to be made. I decided several years ago that I would rather do something meaningful with my life and make less money than to have a well-paying job that contributes little or nothing to God's mission. Now, I realize that we can work for God's mission no matter where or what our occupation is. There is something to be said for being salt and light in a place like TSYS. For me, however, there was a desire to contribute to the Kingdom in my career itself. It's that same desire that pushes me now to teach and to study and to lead a house church.

I love seeing this desire in others as well. A former student from my youth group is becoming a medical engineer. He has already designed prosthetic legs for amputees in poverty-stricken Vietnam. My best friend is preparing to enter graduate school to become a speech pathologist. My brother-in-law has just begun college with hopes of going to medical school afterward. I have a friend who spent her summer pouring her life into students at a youth camp. I have another who is debating whether to enter law school or seminary. I know a lawyer who uses his knowledge and skills to be a force for good in our community. My wife is two months away from becoming a nurse who will care for babies during their first days. I could go on. When you ask these people why they want to do what they are doing, they will not talk to you about money, power, or fame.

So why do we do what we do? There is never just one answer to that question. My prayer, however, is that one answer might have to do with following after the One who made Himself poor so that we might become rich.

Loves Like a Leap

2009-11-05T21:50:00.000-05:00

The goal... is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
- 1 Timothy 1:5

This morning I ran across 1 Timothy 1:5 for the second time in recent days. It caught my attention both times, like an object in the ocean shimmering in the sunlight. I think the salience of these words is due to the simplistic beauty in which they stir a desire for what they describe: a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith. It is also striking that these three are said to produce love. How is that, I wonder?

A pure heart is an undivided heart. It is a heart singularly devoted. "One thing I seek," the psalmist writes. A pure heart produces a more focused, intense love, just as a laser beam's power comes from its concentration of energy. How fiercely could we love if our hearts were not so divided within ourselves?

A good conscience is worth all the riches in all the world. What must it have been like drift to sleep under the stars in the Garden without ever rehearsing a single regret, misstep, or hurt? What is more, a good conscience is worth more than any sin which so cunningly connives to take its place. On the other hand, a troubled conscience leads to fear. And fear, not hatred, is the greatest obstacle to love.

A sincere faith comes from an unshakable trust in God and His Word. Doubt produces fear, and fear, indulging us in self-preservation, cannot love anything but safety. Love is always risky. We may give of ourselves fully, only to be rejected or let down. But a sincere faith considers this possibility and, choosing to trust the other, loves like a leap into the deep end and into the arms of the Father.

May God grant us a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. The goal is love.

Peace

2009-11-04T21:54:00.000-05:00

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Ephesians 1:2

Peace comes from being right with God through Jesus. But once that happens, peace manifests itself in every facet of our being. For example, when you are putting your children to bed at night, and for just a moment you sense the wonder and the brevity of being there in the dark, quiet and still, with two of the most beautiful creatures God has ever made, you realize that peace has overflowed your heart and spilled into your conscious awareness. And then, like a deer stumbled upon in a forest, your eyes meet as silently as statues, each afraid to move before the other, until peace disappears into the thicket. For now, you are left with the spillage, but that is enough. There is always tomorrow night.

The Sole Cause of Man's Unhappiness

2009-11-03T22:54:00.000-05:00

"I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room."
- Blaise Pascal

I tried to grow my hair out again. It got long enough that I had to start putting some gel in it to keep it from getting poofy. Inspired by Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven, I was well on my way to stunningly cool and beautiful locks. That is, until today when I shaved it off again. I couldn't stand it. One of the reasons I shave my head regularly is that my hair has been terribly uncreative since my long-haired high school days. The other reason sounds a bit more austere; it is an exercise in simplicity.

One of the most esteemed disciplines in my eyes, I think it's high time I revisited what it means to live simply. For all of my whining about busyness, it is a discipline I have chosen, unwittingly perhaps, to neglect. Perhaps the hair in my bathroom trash can has served a reminder of this and is, therefore, not a complete waste.

Pascal's quote is a good place to start. It's quite true, isn't it? That we don't know how to sit still or quiet long enough to see what is truly necessary. But there is only one thing needful, and when we finally sit still at His feet, though the clutter around us complain of it, it will not be taken from us.

Giving Up

2009-11-02T21:57:00.000-05:00

Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again. He told the rich young ruler that he had to give away all his possessions. I think being born again is much easier.

I recently was told by a catholic classmate that I couldn't be a minister because I am married. She said that a priest should give their "whole" life to God. I tried to explain to her that we Protestants feel that we can give our whole lives to God and be married. She didn't buy it. She has a point though. Take monks, for instance. Monks give up a lot for the kingdom, and there is something to be said for that. Father Philip, a monk of my age that I met this past summer, is alone in a small, dimly lit room tonight, probably in silence. He will probably spend his nights this way for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, it's all I can do to find a moment to write this blog. Many people will scoff at the monastic way of life. I certainly do not. The monks point us to the deeper reality of what it means to live for God alone. We can all learn to live for God alone, married or not. Thus, the monks have something to say to us all.

What does it mean to give up something for God? I once heard a preacher say that he sensed God telling him to give up soft drinks, and so he never drank another one from that moment on. I wish it were that easy for me. Old habits die hard. But this afternoon as I was driving home in silence, in my moving monastic cell, God spoke to another rich young man. Perhaps I place too much emphasis on giving things up. Perhaps God is less interested in us giving up things as He is in us giving up on things. Maybe I don't need to give up soft drinks as much as I need to give up on the idea that they can make me happy. I need to give up on the idea of anything making me happy other than God. Because nothing can. Jesus knew the rich young ruler could never be as happy in his palace as he would have been laying beneath the stars with the Creator of it all. The monks are not just giving up comforts, they are embracing the Comforter.

Of course, giving up on things may entail the giving up of things. So I will continue to stumble towards the freedom and joy of living for God alone. I only pray that He never gives up on me.

Mission and the Church

2009-10-29T21:46:00.000-04:00

"It's not so much that God has a mission for His church in the world, but that God has a church for His mission in the world."
- Unknown

The Real Show

2009-10-28T21:35:00.000-04:00

Tonight we went to the fall festival at Lakewood Baptist. I was kind of stressed beforehand because Billy and I had promised to play music for an hour during the festival. I enjoy playing, but it was still just one more thing on my to-do list. It turned out that I actually really enjoyed getting to play music with Billy again.

Before the "show," we went into the school office and rehearsed. No one knew it, but that was the real show. Just one empty room, two friends, two guitars, two voices, and an audience of Three.

One of Those Days

2009-10-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

Today is one of those days when I question how much weight I can handle before the levee breaks. I feel as though I have no life, and when I do stop to enjoy it, I wake up the next day feeling even more pressed to meet deadlines. All I do is work, it seems, from morning to night. I can understand why our culture has drifted so far from God. It takes a lot to stay focused under growing work loads and stress. This is only temporary, but for me it will get worse before it gets better. Next semester will have me taking four classes at CSU rather than three. It's not the classes that bother me. It's the combination of those four with my Veritas four. Eight classes.

I don't want to complain. I am blessed to do what I am doing. It's just hard right now.

Wild Things

2009-10-26T21:18:00.000-04:00

I got my wish. After Katie and I went to the wedding on Saturday night, we went to the late showing of "Where the Wild Things Are." I was really looking forward to this movie. And it was worth it.

WTWTA is basically a movie about a book about a kid, only made for adults. It is a movie about childhood and what it's like to be a child. It's really fun to watch Max and the Wild Things, but it's also dark and messy in many places.

The thing about children is that they are such a beautiful mess. They are so innocent and playful, yet in the next moment they can be utterly selfish and foolish. I wonder how much of this we really grow out of as adults. Just because we become more socially conscious doesn't mean we don't throw our own adult kinds of pity parties and temper tantrums. We all have a bit of a wild thing inside. Maybe the worst part of growing up is that there is no one to tell us "no" anymore. You want too much chocolate cake? You want to spend all your money in the wrong places? You want to stay up past a reasonable hour? Go ahead. Who's stopping you? Let the wild romping begin!

But we are forgetting something. We still live in our Father's house. We will never get out from under His roof. And for the wild thing, this is a problem. He will not be allowed his selfishness, his foolishness. Or either he will be allowed it, like a whole pack of cigarettes at once, until he is sick from all of it. Then he will get tired of being a wild thing, cross the sea back into the kitchen, and finish his supper.

I Will Do My Part

2009-10-25T19:12:00.000-04:00

Katie and I went to a wedding last night. It was a friend of hers from high school. I think it was one of the better weddings I have ever attended. The service was a bit long, but it was very beautiful and deeply personal. The couple and the ministers really highlighted the communal aspect of marriage with the language and arrangement of the service. After all, marriages are about more than the husband and the wife. Marriage involves the whole community, which is why you invite friends and family to a wedding. They are witnesses of the founding of the marriage covenant and are thereby participants in its keeping. When marriages break apart, the whole community is splintered.

I appreciated that one of the ministers officiated the wedding (there were two) explained the meaning of a covenant as opposed to a contract. A contract says, "I will do my part as long as you do your part." Perhaps this attitude works well in business, but it works terribly in marriage. Instead, a covenant says, "I will do my part whether you do your part or not."

I know a man whose wife has been unfaithful to him. This has been very public and humiliating for him. The community of people surrounding this couple have tried to bring this young woman into account. This is only right. Remember, marriage between two people is also a communal thing. However, this woman has failed to show any public remorse for her actions. This has caused frustration within the community. Still, the man has accepted her and has accepted the consequences of her actions. Why? Perhaps he is being a push-over. Perhaps he should not let her off the hook so easily. Or perhaps he is saying, "I will do my part whether you do your part or not."

The marriage covenant is not for the weak, the selfish, or the faint of heart. Rather, it is in the marriage relationship that we learn the true meanings of strength, selflessness, and courage. As Christians, who have been on the grace-receiving end of the New Covenant in Jesus' blood, let us remember the sanctity of marriage and faithfully display to the world this picture of the covenant love of Christ.

God bless John and Erin.

Meatballs and Blessings

2009-10-24T15:11:00.001-04:00

Last night Noah and I had some guy time. I took him to Wendy's and then to the movies. I wanted soooo badly to see "Where the Wild Things Are," but all the reviews I saw said that it was not so much a movie for kids. Noah wanted to see "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" in 3D, so we did. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the film. It was quite humorous and had a neat story. It also turned out to be a movie with a father/son theme, so that's another reason it turned out to be good for us to see together. Plus, it had Mr. T.

I am proud of my son. He already has so many good qualities, and I look forward to seeing what God will do with his life. The main character has a father who has trouble expressing these types of feelings to his son. I think I do okay in this area in general, but there is a related matter I think I have neglected lately. Father James at Gethsemani said that my children need to hear a blessing from me every day. They need to hear, "I love you," but they also need to hear, "The Lord bless you and keep you."

I Pledge Allegiance

2009-10-23T16:21:00.000-04:00

If you have ever been to a Vacation Bible School, you know the pledges. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..." "I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands..." "I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God's Holy Word..." The pledges are usually done in that order.

For a while now, I have had some reservations about pledging to the Christian flag. Not that I do not pledge allegiance to the Savior and His Kingdom. But a Christian flag? Where did this come from? It seems to me that the Christian flag is only used so that we can salute the American flag in church. Think about it. When have you ever saluted the Christian flag without saluting to the American flag first?

A couple of weeks ago I spoke at the Veritas chapel service. I noticed as the children did the pledges that they did them in the reverse order. They pledged allegiance to the Bible first, the Christian flag second, and the American flag last. I thought this was brilliant.

Before I explain, let me say that I am not anti-American. I love America. I love living in America. I just think that the Kingdom of God is a bit more important than the USA, and I assure you that those two are not synonymous. (I recently saw a t-shirt that said "JesUSAves." Yikes.)

Now think about this. Which is more likely? 1) Pledging my highest allegiance to America makes me a better Christian, or 2) Pledging my highest allegiance to Christ makes me a better American.

I think we need to seriously consider the nature of our patriotism within the church. It is backwards for a Christian to pledge allegiance to America before the Kingdom of God. It is a shortcoming when we remember the fallen from U.S. wars, but forget the blood of the martyrs who passed our faith along to us and who continue to die for the faith even today. We must not drape our crosses with the flag of any earthly nation, and we must reserve our highest allegiance to the King and the Kingdom that will reign in the world without end.

For the Sake of Consistency

2009-10-22T22:23:00.000-04:00

I am writing this so I won't go two nights in a row without posting. It's just that I had a big presentation due in my language acquisition class tonight, and I have been working hard to prepare for it. I do have something I want to post about, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. Katie says I must sign off now. So goodnight all.

Collision

2009-10-20T20:54:00.000-04:00

This looks interesting.

Doug Wilson sounds familiar, but I think this is the first I have read of him. Here is an excerpt of a piece he wrote for The Huffington Post. I think it is brilliant.

"So if the universe is what the atheist maintains it is, then this determines what sort of account we must give for the nature of everything -- and this includes the atheist's thought processes, ethical convictions, and aesthetic appreciations. If you were to shake up two bottles of pop and place them on a table to fizz over, you could not fill up an auditorium with people who came to watch them debate. This is because they are not debating; they are just fizzing. If you were to shake up one bottle of pop, and show it film footage of some genocidal atrocity, the reaction you would get is not moral outrage, but rather more fizzing. And if you were to shake it really hard by means of art school, and place it in front of Michelangelo's David, or the Rose Window of Chartres Cathedral, the results would not really be aesthetic appreciation, but more fizzing still.

If the atheist is right, then I am not a Christian because I have mistaken beliefs, but am rather a Christian because that is what these chemicals would always do in this arrangement and at this temperature. The problem is that this atheistic assumption does the very same thing to the atheist's case for atheism. The atheist gives us an account of all things which makes it impossible for us to believe that any account of all things could possibly be true. But no account of things can be tenable unless it provides us with the preconditions that make it possible for our "accounting" to represent genuine insight. Atheism fails to do this, and the failure is a spectacular one. Nor does atheism allow us to have any fixed ethical standard, or the possibility of beauty."

Room in the Inn

2009-10-19T21:10:00.000-04:00

Today's post is sort of a follow-up from my post on 10/12. It also began as I thought over what it would look like for our church to participate in the Advent Conspiracy.

I couldn't get to sleep one night last week; my wheels were turning: What if we found some families who are homeless this Christmas? What if we found a nice hotel and put them up for the night? Yeah, and what if we booked a conference room in the hotel and made them a Christmas dinner? We could have a Christmas tree and gifts for the families. Oh, and we could call it "Room at the Inn."

That sounds great, but what about the next day? They would be right back on the street. What if there was something more long-term we could do? (Here, a scene came to my mind. At the last Missio Dei game night, I ran into a friend from Highland named Ryan. He told me that he and others at Highland Community Church are starting a new non-profit called Truth Spring. Truth Spring is a long-term strategy to build for the Kingdom in the North Highland community. Their aim is to place displaced Christians in homes within North Highland to minister the Gospel in the community.) Wait a minute. What if we partnered with Truth Spring to also get these families into a house?

And that's how Room in the Inn was born. The project will be carried out by the saints of Missio Dei in cooperation with Highland Community Church, Truth Spring, and all who catch a glimpse of this vision and want to help. I will post again soon with more details about how everyone can get involved.

-----

I forgot to mention when I wrote this in a hurry last night that, of course, our desire in all of this is for Jesus to get a lot of attention. I didn't mean to leave that out. It's kind of the most important part. (10/20/09)

Sursum Corda

2009-10-18T21:35:00.000-04:00

"The Lord be with you."
"And also with you."

Today was a refreshing, reconfirmation that we are doing something right and beautiful with Missio Dei. After worship, I spent the afternoon with Rob, Ryan, and Joseph, all leaders from Highland Community Church. Missio Dei will be partnering with Highland and their new community development organization called Truth Spring for a Christmas project called "Room at the Inn." I will write more about that tomorrow.

For now, I will say that it is a blessing to be in such fine company. These men exude love and passion for Jesus. We talked about our upcoming ministry together, then we prayed. We talked about being the church, and then we prayed some more. Finally, we agreed to move ahead with our tasks at hand as we continue to pray for the Lord's hand to guide us. Being the church has never been more exciting.

For Missio Dei and for my brothers in Christ, I am thankful. As we sang in worship today:

"Let us give thanks to the Lord our God."
"It is right to give Him thanks and praise."

A Kingdom of Conscience

2009-10-16T22:31:00.000-04:00

"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe."
- Martin Luther on trial

I teach Church History at Veritas Academy in Phenix City. I let the class watch a movie this week called "Kingdom of Heaven," starring Orlando Bloom. The movie is about the conflict between Christians and Muslims between the 2nd and 3rd Crusade.

The main character, Balian (fictionally based on a historical figure), begins a reluctant hero, but soon becomes the defender of Jerusalem against the beseigeing Muslim army. Balian's arch-rival, however, is not Saladin, leader of the Muslim forces. Rather, it is Guy de Lusignan, the leader of the Knights Templar, who is determined to start another holy war against the Muslims. Guy is married to the princess of Jerusalem and is biding his time until her leprous brother, the king, departs to leave the position vacant.

(Spoiler alert)

At a key point in the movie, Balian is in a position to have Guy and his cohorts put to death. Bailan would then marry the princess and become the next king. Not only would this prevent Balian's own death, but also the impending holy war in which Jerusalem is sure to fall to Saladin. It is but "a little evil to accomplish a greater good." Taking his knightly oath to heart, Balian refuses to take part in such a scheme. When prodded to reconsider, he nobly speaks of the kingdom of heaven, "It is a kingdom of conscience, or nothing."

The movie raises a good question. Is it ever right to do wrong for the greater good? Or do we spoil the "greater good" when it is acheived by the wrong means? As I watched the film, I wanted Balian to kill his enemies. It would have spared the pain and destruction of thousands of Christians and Muslims alike. But I was wrong. That would have been the easy way out. Balian's way was unquestionably and incomparably more arduous, but it was pure. And though the battle was indeed lost, by God's grace many people were spared. And so the question for me is this: would I ever be willing to sacrifice my conscience for the "greater good"?

I pray not, though Jerusalem fall around me. When that time comes, may I be able to say with Balian the words that would later come from Luther, "Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."

Heralds

2009-10-14T19:55:00.000-04:00

Herald (n.): a) an official crier or messenger; b) one that precedes or foreshadows

"And for this purpose I was appointed a herald..."
- Paul (the first letter to Timothy, chapter 2, verse 7)

It's funny how one little word can pry open doors in your mind that once had blocked beautiful ways of being. Given the new responsibilities and challenges of our house church plant, I found myself turning to the book of 1 Timothy for some wisdom. There I ran across a word I had been recently exposed to in my reading of Beeson Divinity School brochures: herald. It's not that I had never heard of the word, but I had never seen it used in quite the same way. Timothy George, dean of Beeson, says that, as preachers of the gospel, we are heralds of another world. We bear the message of the gospel and of the age to come.

I can't quite explain it, but something about this wording is very meaningful to me. I've understood that we are stewards of the Good News for some time, but this is something a bit more. A person with the knowledge that they are supposed to share the gospel is one thing; a herald, however, cannot help proclaiming this news any more than the angels who sang of Christ's birth. This is what I want to be.

I am a preacher of the gospel. I am a herald of another world.

All Shall Be Well

2009-10-13T21:22:00.000-04:00

"All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well."
- Julian of Norwich

I love being surprised by hope. In the midst of our wrestling, in the center of our struggle, like a light in the darkness, hope appears, incredible and believable at once. I say it "appears" because it has been there all along. Only now, it has had enough of our flirtation with despair. It rises, bold as the morning sun, demanding to be seen and believed.

Andrew Peterson sings:

"And the night can be so long, so long
you think that you'll never get up again
But listen now, it's a mighty cloud
of witnesses around you - they say
'Hold on... just hold on...
Hold on to the end'

'Cause all shall be well
All shall be well
Break the chains of the gates of hell
Still all manner of things will be well"

Indeed.

Our David

2009-10-12T20:16:00.000-04:00

"Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."
- Michelangelo

Rob Bell told a story last week in Atlanta that surfaced in our discussion during worship this past Sunday. It's been on my mind ever since.

Two groups of artists participated in an experiment in which both groups were assigned the task of forming artwork from clay. One group was asked to focus on quantity of artwork while the other was asked to focus on quality. The results were interesting. The quantity group produced, in the end, quality art. After each piece was shaped, the group learned from their mistakes. They adapted their art-making, improving upon each piece. The quality group, on the other hand, sat around theorizing about the best way to make the art. They may have had some great ideas, but we will never know. After all their discussion, all they produced was a dead lump of clay.

This served as an example as well as a warning to our faith community. We can spend our time deconstructing the ways mission does not work. We can even theorize about ways to promote the good, the beautiful, and the true. In the end, however, what matters is that we get our hands dirty. May God guide those hands as we construct and mold and chisel whatever piece of His Kingdom it pleases Him for us to shape.

Only now, let us begin. After all, our David is somewhere inside the slab.

Divine Discontent

2009-10-11T21:12:00.000-04:00

Divine discontent is the invitation to wait on God to do it better.

What is the next right thing?

Stop. Don't move a muscle.

Prayer is your work now. Move. Sweat. Trade calloused hands for calloused heart.

Listen. Do not write another word, except...

Wait.

Bit and Bridle

2009-10-10T21:53:00.000-04:00

When I was a teenager, I once went horseback riding with a friend. Now, they say that horses can tell if you are intimidated by them. Well, why wouldn't I be? Have you ever climbed upon a horse? They are huge, strong animals. Anyway, the horse I happened to be riding was the most ornery of the bunch. When I pulled right, it went left. When I said to stop, it wanted to go.

Eventually, the road we were traveling ran beside a large pasture. Now, what I did not know at the time was that on the other side of this field, through a small grove of trees, were the stables. My horse, fully equipped with this knowledge, large muscles, and the fear of its rider, made the decision to call it a day. It bolted across the pasture with me holding on for dear life. It was upon the failure of my "whoa!"s to convince the horse to stop that I noticed the wooded area we were approaching. Like a familiar movie scenario, I imagined entering the woods and being clothes-lined from the horse by a tree limb.

I needed to act fast. Think, Brad, think.

Alright. I had two options:
1) Jump from the horse. I looked down. Okay, what was the second option?
2) Cover the horses eyes with my hands. It works in the movies. But if I let go of the horse's neck, I might as well choose option one.

While I deliberated on the least potentially fatal action, option three appeared. My friend, the girl who owned the horses, charged her horse up beside mine like Indiana Jones, grabbed my horse's bridle, and coerced the beast to a stop. No later than when we slowed to a trot did I put two feet on the ground. I traded horses with Ms. Jones.

"Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding,
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you."
Psalm 32:9

The Death of Comfort and the Life of Suffering

2009-10-08T23:30:00.000-04:00

I went to see Rob Bell in Atlanta last night with some friends. It was Rob's "Drops Like Stars" tour. He spoke about suffering and its role in shaping us into works of art. He reminded us that if you ask someone to describe events that have shaped their life, they probably will not say to you, "Last month I bought a new car." They will probably say something like, "The diagnosis made me consider what was really important in life." Or, "When our relationship tragically ended I was forced to reevaluate my whole future."

I wonder if I am too quick to run from suffering.

Rob pointed out that there is one kind of death in suffering, but there is another kind of death in comfort and complacency.

I wonder which death I am dying.

Michelangelo and Me

2009-10-06T20:56:00.000-04:00

I went to the doctor's office today to have some lab work done. Hanging on the wall there in the waiting room is a large close up of the hands at the center of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting, "The Creation of Adam." Adam's hand is on the left; God's is on the right. Their fingers almost touch... but not quite. I've always loved that painting, but today I noticed something about the hands that I had never noticed before. It seems like the fingers could touch.

They could touch, and yet they do not. Why? God's hand and entire arm is outstretched toward Adam. Adam's hand is ever so slightly limp. They could touch, and yet they do not.

I am so like my father, Adam.

Boy

2009-10-05T21:41:00.000-04:00

I have been avoiding this blog topic since it entered my mind Saturday night. However, it won't leave me alone, so here it is.

Saturday night I watched an excellent movie called, "The Great Debaters." It's about a debate team from a small black college in Texas back in the 1920's. Their success grants them the opportunity to debate white college teams, and they eventually defeat the national champion Harvard debate team. Of course, similarly to "Remember the Titans," it was set in time of much racial tension. Those movies always get to me.

It reminded me of a scene from my childhood. I rode the bus most of my school years, and while most bus-drivers are notoriously bad-tempered, our bus driver, Otis, was a kind and friendly man. Otis also happened to be a black man. And there was one bus ride with him that remains in my mind to this day.

It was tacky day at Smiths Station Elementary School. I don't remember what I was wearing that morning when I stepped onto the bus, but it must have been interesting because Otis gave me quite an astonished look. I playfully responded to his inquisitive glare with, "It's tacky day, boy."

This was quite innocent. My friends and I had been calling each other "boy" for days until it became a regular part of our speech. I thought nothing of it. Yet when Otis dropped me off at my stop that afternoon, he stopped me. He gently explained, "I'm not a boy. I'm a man."

It hurt to be misunderstood. I hadn't meant the word literally. I thought he would have known that. It wasn't until years later that I realized how Otis must have heard my comment. It was a racial slur. Not too many years back, black men had been regularly and systematically called "boys." That Otis would have heard my comment this way makes me sick to my stomach.

Racial reconciliation is a matter that I feel deeply and strongly about. Working with teenagers, there have been many times I have had to condemn and correct common racial slurs or jokes. With adults, it is harder to do. I would ask everyone to consider your words and the impact they have on others. Language that is racially divisive is wrong whether it is in the form of a slur or a subtle implication. This type of language reveals more about our own hearts than the character of another ethic group. We can and we must do better than this. Love, on the other hand, is not rude. It does not delight in evil. It does not consider others as lesser, but greater. And I submit that this ability to love another, even those who are not like us, with even our private language is what truly separates the "men" from the "boys."

Constant

2009-10-04T21:53:00.000-04:00

Keeping with the theme of marriage, I thought I'd post some lyrics I wrote a few months ago. Our family was going through some rough times, and things were pretty insane around our house. I would never want to go through it again, but one good that came was that Katie and I really had to rely on one another. I know that I could not have made it (and kept my sanity) without her.

On the monumental television series, Lost, a character by the name of Desmond finds himself waking up to different decades of his life. With some help, he discovers that the only way to hold himself together and survive this chaotic and traumatic experience is to find a "constant." That is, he needs to find something common to every point he flashes to and find his center in that thing. Desmond finds his constant in his fiancee, Penny. Because of Penny, Desmond eventually pulls through. I think we all need that person who stays with us through the hard times. We need a constant so that we don't give up amidst the ever-changing madness.

This is a song I wrote for Katie.

Constant
London bridge is falling down
Rome is burning to the ground
Above it all without a sound
A diamond sky

The flower blooms and fades away
Never a joy without a pain
But even in the dying of the day
And in the night

You are like the starry lights when all the earth is raging 'neath its view
When everything is crumbling, you remind me some things never do
You are my constant, you are my constant

Jesus spoke into the blast
Found myself on a sea of glass
I might look down, but I can't look back
'Cause you caught my view

And if it looks miraculous when walking on the water's what they see
You are my reflection in the water when I lose my faith in me
You are my constant, you are my constant

The tide returns and it leaves again
A looping rhythm without end
And you can't get out where you got in
But when I'm lost, I find...

You are my constant, you are my constant
You are my constant, you are my constant

Rings

2009-10-03T21:25:00.000-04:00

I went to my cousin's wedding today. Now, weddings are not my favorite thing, but they are usually good medicine for those who have taken vows and need reminders. I don't mean that those in bad marriages need reminders; I mean that we need reminders so that we won't have bad marriages.

During the exchanging of the rings today, it occurred to me that the ring you wear as a husband or wife is not a symbol of your love and commitment to your spouse. It is a symbol of your spouse's love and commitment to you. Doesn't the giver say, "With this ring I pledge to you my love"? This is obvious, but I have not been accustomed to seeing it this way. Whenever I consider my wedding ring, I usually think about my commitment, not Katie's.

In a sense, this is right. I need to reminded of the vows that I made to her. But this reversal is so much more meaningful, I think. When I look at my ring, what I should be thinking of is Katie's love and devotion to me. When I think this way, my vows seem less like duty and more like joy.

This standpoint is also more faithful to the gospel of Jesus, which is what marriage ultimately points to. The covenant relationship between and man and wife is a pointer to the covenant relationship between Christ and the Church. The ring is the symbol of the former; the cross is the symbol of the latter. When you look at the cross, what do you think of? Do you think of how it symbolizes your love for God? I hope not. I hope we would look at the cross and think of God's unmeasurable love for us. When we see the cross this way, our love and devotion to God can only deepen. And so it is with marriage.