blessing

Silence

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I saw a silent movie tonight at the Franklin Theatre. Well, mostly silent. If you want an explanation, I recommend you rent or stream a movie called The Artist to find out.

It was a bit strange watching a movie with (almost) no spoken lines in a movie theatre. I think only one other silent movie has been made since Hollywood went to talking pictures back in 127.

Silence can be uncomfortable.

On occassion, I try to be still and silent to better be able to hear God’s voice. It’s harder than it sounds (and I get the irony in that last statement). I last maybe a minute or two until the ADD kicks in and I forgot what I was supposed to be silent and still about.

The culture we live in is addicted to noise. TV, radio, iPod, or excessive talking. It doesn’t matter. We can hardly go one second without noise, even if it’s background noise that we tune out.

But silence is golden. There’s truth to that cliche. The believers of old practised the art of silence. They took vows of silence and took retreats where they didn’t speak the entire time. I think they knew something we didn’t and consequently, many had a deeper, fuller walk with God.

Silence is also one way God speaks to us. Many times we want answers and God gives us silence. We say, “If only I knew that I wasn’t supposed to get married, I could move on with life” or “If only I knew I was supposed to look for a new job . . .”

We think silence is unanswered prayer. Many times, silence is God’s way of preparing us for something that is too big for us to receive right now. It’s like He is saying, “I’m holding out on the good right now so I can give you something great later on.”

Learning to be comfortable with silence is a sign of spiritual maturity. Too many times, silence seems deafening. We have too many voices in our heads screaming at us that we need to drown out with noise.

But when the voice of Jesus speaks, all other voices are stilled. We have true peace, perfect silence.

May you and I learn to be still and know that He is God.

 

It’s Wednesday

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I keep thinking about how Aaron Bryant described the father in the prodigal son parable. Especially about how radical his expression of love for his son was.

The son had his return speech down-pat. He would be a servant and work his way back into his father’s good graces. At least this way, he would have three square meals and a roof over his head. Better than that pig slop and pig sty he came from. Literally.

What did the son see? Did he see his father standing far off with his arms crossed and a look of disappointment or anger or shame? Did he see his father turn his back away to not see him coming down the road?

No.

He saw his father take off running down the road, tears streaming, and practically tackle him in the biggest bear hug ever in human history.

From a cultural standpoint, there are several things wrong. First of all, grown men didn’t run back then. At least not respectable ones. Second, the right thing to do would be to disown the son and have a funeral and consider him dead.

I think the definition of prodigal fits the father more than the son. It’s lavish, excessive, extravagant, and almost wasteful. That describes perfectly this love the father had for his wayward son.

That’s the kind of love the Father has for us. A love that caused Him to take on the lowly flesh of a slave and take that long, arduous, painful march to the Cross to die a humiliating and criminal death for you and me.

It’s Wednesday. You’re halfway through another week, looking forward to another weekend that will probably be over all too soon with another Monday right behind.

Remember that you are greatly blessed, highly favored, and (best of all) deeply loved. Your Abba is still very much fond of you and always will be.

May that be what carries you through Thursday and into the weekend and beyond.

The Kingdom of God Is Like . . .

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

The Kingdom of God is throwing a birthday party for a prostitute who has never had one in her life and giving her a birthday cake with candles and the gift of unconditional love.

The Kingdom of God is leaving the safety and comfort of the suburbs and going to the unsafe part of town to share a meal with homeless people.

The Kingdom of God is forgiving the person who took a part of you that you can never get back, whose wounds still have scars, and whose words still cut.

The Kingdom of God is hate turning into love, enemies turning into friends, the lost becoming found, the dead coming alive, and the hopeless rising up with new hope.

The Kingdom of God is a feast where the guests are the blind, the lame, the poor, the outcast, the forgotten, and the nobodies and where the least of these have the best seats in the house.

The Kingdom of God is wherever the people of God choose to be malajusted (to borrow a phrase from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)  to a world that prizes sex over love, greed over compassion, votes over justice, war and weapons over peace, religion over Christ, and where life is regarded as cheap.

The Kingdom of God is more than taking back our country; it’s about taking back the world and turning it right-side up again and filling it with justice that runs like a river and mercy that flows like a neverending stream.

The Kingdom of God is those who aren’t satisfied with climbing corporate ladders or making more money, but instead want to make a difference by embracing a lifestyle of downward mobility where they choose to lead through serving and counting others as better than themselves.

The Kingdom of God is an unstoppable force, because it’s main power is stronger than all the bombs and armies and weapons and strategies that have ever come against it– and that power is love.

The Kingdom of God is the faith of a little child who believes unquestioningly and trusts Abba unswervingly.

The Kingdom of God is you and me.

The Kingdom of God is now.

That Watershed Moment

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I will give you a scenario and then you can find out if you’re anything like me or if I really do need more pills. Here goes.

Tonight, I was debating internally whether or not I wanted to make the long trek downtown to work with the homeless at Set Free Nashville. Part of me wanted to go, but part of me wanted to not be bothered and stay home and veg.

The lazy part almost won. I had almost talked myself into not going, but then I went.

Guess what? The pastor was preaching to me. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. If I hadn’t gone, I would have missed out on a big blessing.

Maybe you’re in a place where you’re debating on whether or not to give up a Saturday to go serve meals to the homeless. Maybe you’re deciding whether or not to go to a Bible study even though you’re feeling wiped from a long day of work.

You will find every excuse not to go. You will have no trouble rationalizing staying and thinking of all the other chores you could be doing and/or all that rest you could be getting.

You might have a strange resistance to going and it will almost feel like you’re walking into the wind if you step out in faith.

I think that what you’re experiencing is spiritual warfare. The devil does not want you to go and receive that blessing, so he is trying his best to get you from going. Though sometimes you and I do just fine on our own for finding reasons not to step out.

One word: go. Get up off the couch, put down whatever suddenly seems so urgent and pressing, get in the car, and go.

I promise you will receive a blessing. You will receive a very precious word from God that you would have missed if you had not gone. You will serve, but find yourself receiving so much more than you give. You will find that you saw Jesus in the eyes of the least of these that you spoke to and served.

You will have the joy of knowing that God called you and you chose to obey and got to be where He was moving in power.

Go.

 

 

The Kingdom of God

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The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard, so very small in the hand, yet when planted, it becomes a tree that fills the heavens and where all the birds come to find rest amidst its branches.

The Kingdom of God is like a small pinch of leaven in a vast amount of dough that eventually penetrates every part as it causes the dough to rise.

The Kingdom of God is men and women leaving positions of importance and luxury to go live among the outcast as missionaries and bring hope to the once hopeless.

The Kingdom of God is those who leave father and mother and family and go to a strange land with only the promise of God to guide them.

The Kingdom of God is those who overcome because their testimony, the blood of the Lamb, and the fact that they were willing to give up everything, including their own lives, to gain a thousand times more in the Life to come.

The Kingdom of God is Jesus inviting all the Peters of the world, those ashamed of their betrayal and moral failures and wreckage their lives have become, and says to them, “I am entrusting My work in your hands  and giving you a new story to tell, the most  fantastic and the truest story you will ever hear.”

The Kingdom of God is the lame and the beggars and the outcasts and the nobodies of the world being chosen to the best party ever thrown, one that will never end and will only keep getting better.

The Kingdom of God is two or more, gathered in the name of Jesus, whether in a multi-million dollar church campus or in a tin hut with a dirt floor.

The Kingdom of God is here and it is advancing. No power in hell or on earth will ever be able to stop it, because nothing is more powerful than love. And Love has come and His name is Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is God ruling in the hearts of His people, taking broken lives and making them whole, taking stained souls and making them clean, taking shame and turning it to praise, taking mourning and turning it to dancing, taking ashes and turning them into beauty.

The Kingdom of God on its way and at the same time, the Kingdom of God is already here.

The Kingdom of God is NOW.

A Borrowed Easter Prayer

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

“It is truly right and good, always and everywhere, with our whole heart and mind and voice, to praise you, the invisible, almighty, and eternal God, and your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who at the feast of the Passover paid for us the debt of Adam’s sin, and by his blood delivered your faithful people.

This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

How wonderful and beyond our knowing, O God, is your mercy and loving-kindness to us, that to redeem a slave, you gave a Son.

How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and men and women are reconciled to God.

Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the offering of this candle in your honor. May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning—he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

This is from The Great Vigil of Easter in The Common Book of Prayer, one of my favorite devotional/prayer books. It expresses my thoughts about Easter perfectly and I hope it becomes the prayer of your heart this Easter Sunday and every day after.

Best Day Ever

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I saw a guy today wearing a t-shirt that simply said, “BEST DAY EVER.”

That got my mind working, probably more than it should, and I’ve come up with a theory to share with you.

You may have had great days in the past. You may have days you wish you could bring back or relive or take a trip in a time machine to. But no matter how good those days were, they are over.

Today is your best day ever because it is still alive with possibility. You can still choose to radically step out in faith, to make that phone call to a parent or child or friend, to seek forgiveness over a hurt you’ve harbored for a long time.

The Bible says, “Now is the day of salvation.”

That means that today, right where you are, no matter what you’ve done, it’s never too late to say YES to Jesus and have a new start and be a new person.

People will say that times where better back when they were children because there was less worry and stress. Maybe. But maybe they had good parents who kept the stresses and worries of life away from them until they were ready to handle it.

The best days are now, because that’s where God is moving and acting. That’s where people all over the world are calling Jesus Lord for the first time and finding the true and real life they’ve been searching for through many dead ends and false hopes over the years.

Even if today seems like a train-wreck of bad decisions and bad timing and bad outcomes, tomorrow holds all the promise of a new day with new possibilities.

No matter what happens, I choose to trust my God and wait in expectation for Him to do something amazing. I keep my eyes wide open to what He’s up to.

And that makes today the best day ever.

PS These opinions expressed do not represent the opinions of the good people at wordpress.com or anyone else. They’re just my own thoughts.

Forgetful

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

I am quite forgetful sometimes.

Sometimes, I will walk into a room and forget why I went there. Sometimes, I forget I even had a reason for going to that particular room.

I’ve even intended to write myself a note to remind myself of something, only to forget what it was that I was supposed to write down.

I can go to a rousing worship event and be challenged and blessed and motivated and the next day forget when I get bogged down by the everyday details of life.

I can forget how blessed I am and become bitter and resentful of others who have what I think I need right now.

Most of all, I forget who I am and Whose I am.

I listen to the voices that tell me that I’m just not good enough and I’ve only been faking it and it’s only a matter of time before the people around me catch on and expose me.

I  forget that I am Abba’s child and that He is very fond of me. I sometimes feel like I am flunking the school of life and forget that in Jesus I have already overcome and I am more than a conqueror.

I need to be reminded of a Love stronger than death, stronger than my failures and my frustrations and my forgetfulness. I need to be reminded that even when I don’t feel God, I am still held in His everlasting arms.

I need to be reminded that God still works all things together for my good and that He will finish what He started in me.

I bet you do, too.

That’s why we gather together. To remind each other of how blessed we really are. To encourage each other and speak blessing and truth into each other’s lives. So that when my faith is small, you can believe for me, and when your faith is small, I can believe for you.

We need the reminder that we can’t do this life alone. That the enemy’s goal is to get me separated from the community of faith where I am alone and vulnerable.

The best part is that as prone as we are to forget, God is as gracious to remind us of just how big and strong and good He is.

Friday Is a Good Thing

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I don’t think Fridays will ever get old for me. Knowing that the work week is over and that I have a few days of my own is a good feeling. Especially after you have one of those no-good, very bad days that you’re lucky to survive with most of your hair and wits still about you.

I like to think of Heaven as one long Friday, knowing that all the hard stuff and the bad stuff is over and the good stuff, the best stuff, begins and never ends.

C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia described Heaven as the the feeling you get on the first day after the school term is over and vacation has begun. That has always resonated with me more than any imagery about Heaven.

Sometimes, the only way you can get through a trial or an ordeal is the knowledge that at some point it will end. It won’t last forever and you won’t be consumed by it.

Take heart. That day is coming, even if you can’t see it or feel it. Even if you’ve all but lost any hope for an end to your pain and suffering and tribulation.

As certain as every week has a Friday in it, the end will come. Again, C.S. Lewis made it come alive to me when He described all of history as the title page and preface to the book, and Heaven is the actual story where each chapter is better than the last and there is no ending.

It’s not an end, but the true beginning that goes on forever.

Heaven’s not just some far away place in a distant time, but it’s wherever God breaks through and shows up in power. It’s wherever God is truly present in His people and where two or more are gathered in His name.

So, I say without any hint of sacrilige, “THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!”