Brennan Manning

Wise Words from Rich Mullins

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Rich Mullins would have turned 70 today. Instead, we remember him and celebrate his legacy 28 years after his untimely passing in 1997. I sometimes wonder how much more great music he could have produced had he lived longer, but I’m thankful for the catalog of great albums and songs he left behind. Songs like Awesome God and Sometimes by Step are still sung in churches and youth groups and retreats all over the world.

I ran across something Rich wrote that was an interesting take on happiness. He definitely marched to the beat of his own drummer and didn’t conform to anyone else’s idea of normal, but I suppose that is what makes his music so memorable and lasting. Here’s what he wrote:

“1. Forget about finding happiness. Happiness is not worthy of your search.

2. Bake a cake – a really rich cake, preferably from scratch and especially if you are an inexperienced baker or a tested, tried, & notoriously awful cook. The value is in the baking more than in the cake.

3. Call up some enemy of yours and invite that enemy to eat the cake with you. If the cake is good you may lose an enemy and gain a friend. If the cake is bad, at least vengeance is sweet.

4. If you can’t think of a single enemy, then call up a friend. Invite your friend over to eat the cake with you. If the cake is good the favor may be returned. If the cake is awful your friend may go buy one from a bakery for you. If you are without any enemies or friends, take your cake to an old folks’ home. Eat it with them! If the cake is good you will no longer be without friends. If the cake is terrible you will no longer be without enemies.

Finding a friend, making an enemy – now those are things worth pursuing. Happiness may come tagged on – but even if it doesn’t, at least you will have done something and established some relationships.

5. Memorize Isaiah 40 or the first Psalm or Psalm 91. Read the closing chapters of the Book of Job. Meditate on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). Write out one of the Prison Epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Collosians) and send them to some other unhappy person.

All of this may not make you happy but it will tell you how to be holy. Once you tie that knot you may find yourself in a position to be made happy.

6. Work hard. Clean something. Find new and more space-efficient ways of folding your clothes. Rake someone else’s yard for them. If you are unhappy maybe you can help someone else be less so.

7. Go back to the third chapter of Lamentations and then repeat after me:

“It is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear
The yoke while he is young.
Let him sit alone in silence
For the Lord has laid it on him.”

8. Reread the 23rd Psalm and remember that if the Lord is your shepherd, then you are in a lush pasture. You are by a still stream. If it seems otherwise to you, it may be because you would rather be happy than be God’s. If this is so, then you have more reason to be happy than anyone. God has chosen you – ungrateful, decadent you – and being His is a joy and a happiness that goes beyond anything else you may seek, and in your folly settle for. God will (in His mercy) make you discontent with anything less than Him.

So we have only one step left…

9. Rejoice.”

Either/Or and Even If

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day.
Either he will shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings” (Francis de Sales).

This is an either/or that counts as a win-win. Either God shields you from suffering or He gives you unfailing strength to bear it. In both cases, God is with you. In both cases, you see God’s hand at work. In both cases, you come out on the other side with stronger faith and a deeper love for God.

I think this current culture is one of the most anxious cultures in history. It seems to me that’s because we have instant access to more information these days. In fact, it’s an overwhelming amount of information, more than we know what to do with. We weren’t meant to carry the burden of all that weight of knowledge.

In fact, it’s not your job to fix everything. That’s God’s job. And the last time I checked, He wasn’t looking for any help. He’s been doing just fine managing the whole world for as long as the whole world has existed. And that’s way longer than you or I have existed.

God’s job is also to take care of you, whether that means going around suffering or going through it. In both cases, God is fully present. In the case of suffering, sometimes we are more acutely aware of that presence because we are more keenly aware of our need of it.

In either case, we are in good hands.

Showing the Way Out

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

When your brain is french toast, sometimes it’s good to let someone else take over. In this case, it’s Uncle Mikey, a reference that us old Kairos faithful will understand while the rest of the world calls him Dr. Mike Glenn:

“I’ve long joked that sympathy is overrated. When things are going bad for me, I really don’t want someone to tell me they know how I feel. I want someone to come and say, “Yes, I know how you feel and I know the way out.”

I think we forget how completely sin messes up our lives. Sin not only messes up our lives, it messes up the way our minds and bodies work. Ever talked to people trying to justify their addiction? In their minds, they’re making complete sense. That’s what happens. Sin destroys relationships, bodies, minds, and souls.

That’s why telling someone what they’re doing is wrong without offering to help them get out of it is, well, pretty much a waste of time. You may feel better, but the person you’re talking to won’t. What’s more, they’ll probably just get mad and walk away, more committed to their destructive choices.

Jesus shows us another way. First, Jesus never confronted anybody without giving that person a way out. The religious leaders of the day, Jesus pointed out, were quick to make a lot of rules but never helped anyone keep them. Jesus would always point the person to the way out of bondage.

Second, Jesus walked with sinners as they found their way. The scandal of the incarnation is that God loves us so much that He came into our world. He walked into our lives and told us if we’d follow Him, He’d show us the way home.

Whenever I talk about abortion, I always mention our partnership with Hope Clinic, a crisis pregnancy center in Nashville. I always want people to know there are people eager and ready to help, no matter what situation they’re facing.

Since the beginning of time, God has been on a Divine rescue mission. We, the local church, are extensions of that work. Finding the lost is great, but telling them the way home—and then walking it with them—is even better” (Dr. Mike Glenn).

The Crisp Weather Is Here

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

It’s my favorite time of the year. We’ve officially gone from sweaty weather to sweater weather. Granted, there are people who wear sweaters all year round, even in 100 degree weather. I’ve made my peace with that. Just as I will learn to accept people who wear shorts and a t-shirt in 20 degrees in January.

But I digress. I love fall, especially when it’s cold enough for flannel. That’s my favorite kind of clothing because it feels like you’re wearing a hug. I have an unhealthy amount of flannel shirts in my closet that I can finally wear and not die from heat stroke.

All my favorite holidays are coming up — Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Especially Christmas. I’ve accepted that I have OCD, which in my case stands for Obsessive Christmas Disorder. One can never have too many Christmas records, ornaments, t-shirts, movies, etc. There is no such thing as too much Christmas. Now decorating for Christmas before Halloween is another story, but again I’m not judging.

There’s something about fall where the earth rests and all is still. It feels like nature is preparing to go dormant for a season. There won’t be any growth or new life for a while, but underneath all the falling leaves and eventual snow is the preparation that will lead to new spring flowers to come.

The cycle of life that God created is a beautiful thing, and I’m here for all of it. But I have to confess for the umpteenth time that fall will always be my favorite.

A God You Cannot Exaggerate

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Many Spirit-filled authors have exhausted the thesaurus in order to describe God with the glory He deserves. His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words can’t contain Him. Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?” (Francis Chan)

That’s a mind-blowing concept for me. To think of a God that I can’t exaggerate.

There’s no word to encapsulate how big, how great, how majestic He is.

There’s no way to describe how absolutely perfect and sinless He is.

There’s not a way to express how totally other than us God is.

Our finite minds aren’t big enough to comprehend God’s infinite love for us. Even if we weren’t marred by the fall, still our minds would not be able to hold all that God is.

All that we know of God — all of it — is because God revealed Himself to us through nature, through Scripture, and ultimately through His Son, who is the exact imprint of all that God is.

Another mind-blowing concept is why God would want to make Himself known to us. We bring nothing to God except our sin. We have nothing to offer God except for the filthy rags of our righteousness. God has no need of anything at all outside of Himself.

Yet He wanted to make Himself known. It was His pleasure to reveal Himself to fallen people like you and me. It was His glory that you and I might be saved and come to be called His sons and daughters.

And that, my friends, is reason enough for worship.

A Prayer for When You Feel Exhausted

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

This one is for those who are too tired and worn out to think of the words to pray. Some of you know what that’s like. Some know it on an almost daily basis. You can pray these words when you can’t think of any of your own:

Dear Father,
On days like today when I feel exhausted
I feel like I can’t even pray.
And I don’t mean to complain.
Because there are so many who are
less blessed than I am.
The time comes when a person easily recognizes
That running on empty is not a good thing.
When I have nothing left to give
And nothing left to offer,
Then I know that I’ve been using my own strength
Instead of relying on Yours.
Why do I do this when You are the God who never tires?
Help me, Jesus. I need You so much.
May I learn to lean on You consistently
So I can soar like the eagles
without even a hint of weariness.
May this be the evidence of Your Almighty Power.
Amen” (Anonymous).

Learning to Pray

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

This one is from Dr. Mike Glenn (but for all the Kairos folks out there, he will always be Uncle Mikey):

“In Luke 11, we have his version of the Lord’s Prayer. To introduce the prayer, Luke tells us the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them how to pray.

I’ve always been fascinated with their request.

For one thing, I’m not sure it’s what I would’ve asked Jesus.

Knowing me, I would’ve asked Him to teach me to walk on water (we know how that worked for Peter) or to raise the dead. I would’ve gone for something impressive, something flashy.

But this isn’t what the disciples wanted.

Why?

I think they could tell there was something powerful yet intimate in the way Jesus prayed. Things happened when Jesus prayed. People changed when Jesus prayed.

And the disciples knew if they could learn to pray like this, they would be able to do more than they had ever imagined.

Too many times we treat prayer casually. It’s something we do before we go to sleep or before we eat, but we rarely pray knowing there’s potential in our prayer to change the world, to change someone’s life.

This is what the disciples wanted to learn how to do.

It’s what we in the postmodern church need to learn as well.”

Prayer isn’t a last resort when all else has failed. It should be first on the agenda of any major (or minor) undertaking. As Oswald Chambers said, prayer isn’t preparation for great and mighty spiritual battles. Prayer is the battle. Everything else is akin to cleaning up the spoils after the victory has been won.

Jesus, teach us to pray as you taught your disciples. Let us always remember the words you taught them so that we can use them to guide our own requests and petitions or simply fall back on them in time of need:

“Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
    as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
    Yes. Yes. Yes.” (Matthew 6:9-13, The Message).

Prayer for a Faith that Never Fails

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment
“Perhaps it is written in the tablets of your eternal purpose that we shall soon end this mortal life and die. It is well if this is so, for then we shall see your face that much sooner and drink gallons of eternal bliss. But if you have appointed for us grey hairs and a long and weary time; only grant us grace that, by infirmity, our faith may never fail us; but when the windows are darkened, may we still look out to see the hope that is to be revealed; and when the grasshopper becomes a burden, still let our strength be as our days, even to the last day.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

The Apostle Paul said that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Both are good. To die is to immediately be in the presence of Jesus and to be free from sin, death, and every form of suffering. But to live is to have one more day here because God still has a purpose for you and a meaning for your life.

To die for the faith is good and noble, but to continually die to self in a million small ways while still living in this world is way more difficult. To hold on to faith in a world that celebrates everything that is contrary to what we believe is hard. It’s like constantly swimming upstream when it would be so much easier to give up and go with the flow, as so many have.

But to hold on and keep believing is to cling to the promise that one day our faith will be made sight. One day we will see all the worship songs we have ever sung come alive in full 3-D 4K Technicolor glory. Whatever heaven is, it will make whatever hardships and loss we experience here seem light and momentary compared to the joy that awaits.

Whether God calls you home or wakes you up for another day, it’s worth celebrating. Either way, you are held and loved. Nothing has the power to remove you from God’s love or harm you apart from God’s sovereign plan that still works all things together for good. No matter what, it’s gonna be a good day.

Go Into All the World

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“To ‘go’ simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. He takes upon himself the work of sending us. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings. That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

I remember from my seminary days how Acts 1:8 could be translated as “Going into all the world” or “As you go into all the world.” The focus isn’t on the going but on the making of disciples.

I remember at my old church there was a sign as you exited the parking lot that read “You are now entering the mission field.” In other words, the mission field isn’t across the sea or across the country. It could be across the street or down the road. It’s wherever you live, work, and play. Where God has planted you is your mission field and you are a missionary, whether you raise your own support or make a living in a 9 to 5 desk job.

I wonder how that would change how you and I viewed our jobs or our errands if instead of seeing an office or a grocery store or a fitness center, we saw a mission field. I wonder how it would change how we saw the people around us that cross our paths on a daily basis.

I can confess that I am not very good at sharing my faith. When the opportunity comes, it seems like I always chicken out and talk about sports or the weather or anything but my faith. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am a missionary and the place where God has me is my mission field. And I can pray for those God has put around me.

May we pray for eyes to see what God is doing around us and then have the courage and boldness to join Him in what He’s doing. May we shift our focus from being employees and consumers and citizens to being missionaries who have been called and sent out by the same God who sends people to the Middle East and Africa and Europe. We have a mission field. We’re living in it.

Instruments of the Potter

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son–a headache, an insult, a long line at the check-out, someone’s rudeness or failure to say thank you, misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption. As Amy Carmichael said, ‘See in it a chance to die,’ meaning a chance to leave self behind…”(Elisabeth Elliot)

A quote like this seems to be so far removed from current American Christianity as to almost be another religion. Actually, it’s a lot closer to New Testament faith than what a lot of churches and professing believers hold to.

But it’s not easy. I have a well-developed sense of injury. I don’t like it when people mistreat other people, especially when that other person is me. I want instant vindication. I say I want justice but what I really want is more like revenge.

But seeing an insult as a chance to die to self? That seems like a foreign concept. But it wasn’t to Jesus. Look at how He kept quiet during the farce that passed for a Sanhedrin trial. He was unjustly tried, convicted, and murdered, but not only did He accept it as from the Father, He forgave the very people who killed Him while they were in the very act of killing Him.

If Jesus did that for me, surely I can suffer inconvenience and insult. I can handle a headache from time to time. But it all starts with the right attitude and the right perspective. Philippians 2:5 says for us to have the mind or attitude of Christ and goes on to list a downward trajectory from heavenly throne to earthly manger, from human to slave, from rejected to murdered.

To die to self is to come alive to Christ in me. That’s the real life anyway. Not me hanging on to my perceived rights and nursing grudges and bitterness, but choosing the way of forgiveness and acceptance as from the very hand of God, seeing it as God’s way of shaping me into the very image of Christ.