faith

Witness to Your Life

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Sometimes, the most powerful impact we can have over someone’s life is a silent one. There are no words necessary.

Sometimes there is nothing more meaningful than to look at someone as if to say, “I see you. You are not alone. You are not forgotten. I am a witness to the fact of your existence and your life is not in vain.”

So many are hungry for such a look. They so desperately need to know that somebody — anybody– sees them in all their hurt and despair. They want answers and a way out, but just as much they want at least one person to see their struggle. Even more than a kind word, a smile at just the right time can be the difference between life and death, pressing on and giving up.

I’m comforted to know that there is never a moment when God doesn’t see me. Not in the sense of waiting for my transgression to pounce on me in vengeful wrath, but in the sense of a loving Father who wants to guide His child safely through.

There is nothing I can experience that God in Jesus did not also live through. There is no temptation, no struggle, no pain that He isn’t familiar with, and thus there is no time and place where He won’t provide a way through or a way out.

Maybe this week take time to give a smile to someone you pass in the hall or on the street. Maybe offer a greeting. You never know the power of those kind words that come out of really seeing and acknowledging someone as one of God’s children.

Once you understand the Father’s heart toward you, you begin to live out of the overflow of unconditional love and acceptance and there is enough love to pass around to someone else who needs it as badly as you.

 

More Quotes I Love

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“But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand” (C. S. Lewis).

“What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing” (C. S. Lewis).

“Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has—by what I call ‘good infection’. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else” (C. S. Lewis).

I started out to write something original, but I decided I didn’t like what I had written so I borrowed a little from some writing I did like. You can’t go far wrong with Mr. Lewis.

I promise tomorrow that I will be back with my own words.

 

Under the Sun: The Poverty of Just a Little More

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“Throughout this experiment, I let myself have anything my eyes desired, and I did not withhold from my mind any pleasure. What was the conclusion? My mind found joy in all the work I did—my work was its own reward! As I continued musing over all I had accomplished and the hard work it took, I concluded that all this, too, was fleeting, like trying to embrace the wind. Is there any real gain by all our hard work under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, The Voice)

King Solomon tried and failed. Most of us will try and fail. We will seek to find our identity and fulfillment with anything under the sun and not find it.

If your identity is from making money, you will never have enough. You will always need just a little more to be happy.

If your identity is in possessions and status, you will always be striving for the next big purchase, the next big promotion, the next big . . . you get the idea.

If your identity is in your relationships, the other person will never be able to live up to your expectations. Whether its your spouse or your children, they can never come close to being able to define and complete you.

Nothing finite can fill the infinite gap that exists inside of each of us. Only the Infinite can do that. Only God can do that. Only God can be big enough to build your identity on and find completeness in.

Solomon found out through experience over his long life that anything under the sun, while good and well in and of itself, made for a poor replacement for God. His assessment at the end of His life? Have a healthy reverence for God and do what pleases Him– let your identity be in Him.

 

All Those Transformers

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“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12:1-2, The Message).

The key is to be transformed rather than conformed. So many in an effort to appease the culture we live in have surrendered their convictions and beliefs to the point that they no longer have anything unique to offer anyone in the way of hope and salvation.

That’s being conformed. God wants us transformed.

We’ re supposed to be different. We’re supposed to think, speak, and act differently than those around us. At times that may mean holding unpopular convictions and beliefs. We may be seen as outdated and obsolete. We may be viewed as narrow-minded and hate-mongers.

Yet those same people are paying attention to everything we say and do. Those same people will long for that peace and hope when they see it in us. As long as they see it in us.

No one is impressed when we fit in so well that no one can tell the believer from the non-believer. That changes no lives and impacts nobody.

I still say that if you want to see change, you often will have to be the change. More accurately, you will have to be the one changed a.ka. transformed.

 

 

In a Merle Kind of Mood

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Like many of you, I was shocked and saddened when I read of the passing of Merle Haggard. I had heard that he had been ill and in the hospital, but I had no idea that he was anywhere close to dying.

I only recently came to understand his genius. I picked up a boxed set, entitled Down Every Road, containing 100 of his best songs. He didn’t sing about pick-up trucks and girls in short shorts, but he had more country in his little pinkie than 75% of those styling themselves as country music artists have in their entire bodies.

I wonder why it took me so long to discover how good he was. I also wonder why we so often fail to appreciate what we have until we’ve lost it. We don’t fully realize the blessings of the people in our lives until it becomes too late to tell them.

Maybe what I’m telling you is to vocalize your appreciation for every good thing in your life (and every good person, too). Don’t email. Don’t Skype. Don’t text. Tell them face-to-face with actual words that come from an actual heart filled with love.

Maybe what I’m telling you is to hold everything loosely and to realize that nothing in this life lasts forever. Even you have an expiration date. So if you know you and everyone around you won’t live forever, perhaps it will remind you to cherish and relish  the days you’re given as the gifts they are.

Maybe what I’m telling you is that life is too short to waste on music that you don’t like. Find what speaks to you and go listen to that. Even if it’s from a time before you were born.

I find myself listening to a lot of Merle today. It just seems appropriate to honor the man who made so much great and lasting music. I hope and pray that he truly does rest in the peace of Christ that passes all understanding.

 

 

Aslan Is on the Move

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“They say Aslan is on the move—perhaps has already landed.”

And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning— either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

From The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Compiled in A Year with Aslan

Aslan is on the move.

 

Revisiting Revelation

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I’m in the middle of a class on the book of Revelation at Brentwood Baptist Church. Actually, I started in the middle of the class after another one I was in ended.

This book is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of imagery. Some of it’s pretty, but some of it is unsettling and disturbing.

There’s also quite a bit of disagreement on what it all means. I’ve come to decide that there are people on all sides that are strong believers with solid theology who have come to different conclusions about this book.

There are a few things that most everybody agrees with when it comes to Revelation:

  1. The hardest part of the story is never the last part. There may be a lot of darkness but there are also much brighter days ahead when Jesus truly comes back for his Bride the Church.
  2. The good guys really do win. That is, Jesus wins. Good overcomes evil and justice prevails over injustice. There’s not a wrong that won’t be made right when Jesus comes in sight.
  3. Worship is still the best witness. I don’t mean just singing hymns or worship choruses. I mean a daily life of sacrifice and surrender, of renewal and transformation. I mean a life that declares the worth and glory of God 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
  4. The end of the story is really only the real beginning. I still love how C. S. Lewis puts it inThe Last Battle where he says that all of history was just the title page and preface while eternity is where the real story begins– a story that gets better and better with each new chapter.

Having said all that, I confess that this particular class still makes my head hurt. I really can’t keep up with all the dragons and beasts and bowls and trumpets and all that other imagery.

It helps to keep in mind that John wrote this book to believers undergoing incredible persecution and torture for their faith. The purpose was (and still is) to show that no matter how bad and hard life gets, God will always have the last word.

 

Ten Years Later

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”

It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing” (Ephesians 2:1-10, The Message).

Recently, I ran into a former fellow Kairos greeter that I hadn’t seen in a while. It was great seeing a blast from the past. It also got me thinking.

This fall will mark ten years since I started greeting at Kairos. Outside of school, the only other activities that I’ve done consistently for at least ten years are breathing, eating, sleeping . . . you get the idea. Ten years is a long time.

I’m thankful for Kairos. I’m thankful for Mike Glenn who helped get it started way back when and for Chris Brooks who is carrying the torch onward.

I’m thankful that I am not who I was ten years ago due in large part to the ministry and teaching of Kairos.

I’m thankful for the many people who have crossed my path in that time and for the numerous little footprints they’ve left in my heart. I don’t see most of them anymore, but I remain grateful for each one of them. I am a composite of all the best parts of everyone I have ever met.

I’m thankful that God isn’t done with this ministry. I see that what might have looked like an ending was really only the beginning to another chapter with better things still yet to come.

Kairos is proof that all God needs is a place to start– even the most hesitant and reluctant of agreements– and He can transform anything and anyone for His glory. There really is no such thing as a lost cause in the economy of God’s grace and mercy. There is a place for anyone and everyone who wants to turn around and follow Jesus. It’s never too late for anyone to be who God in Jesus created them to be.

That’s still the story of Kairos. That’s still my story. That’s the story that I hope we will be telling for years and years to come.

 

 

18,000 Steps and Counting

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I was supposed to meet my friend at Radnor Lake, but that plan fell through. So I had a little deviation from my normal Monday routine. I stopped by Grimey’s Too, one of my favorite used music stores, then headed over to Crockett Park in Brentwood. After all, this was too pretty a day not to get in some walking.

I started off my hike with 7,000 steps on my Fitbit. I ended up with over 18,000. That’s a lot of walking for an hour and a half. I felt great afterward. Sore, but great.

I still believe that the key is to slow down occasionally. That is about as counterculture as you can get these days when the mantra is always more and faster and hurry up. We have all these time-saving devices and actually save less time and have less down time than any previous generation in history.

I work hard at my job. I also know when it’s time to stop. The almighty job can consume you if you let it, but it makes a pretty poor idol. Just ask any of a number of people who dedicated their lives to a company and a career only to get laid off due to “less than expected profits.”

Plus, you can almost never go wrong with exercise and fresh air. Nothing can clear the mind and calm the soul like nature can. The added bonus is all those endorphins that kick in after a good sustained walk (or jog, if you prefer).

You still choose what’s important. You still decide what matters by what you deem worthy to make time for. Too busy is a myth. If something (or someone) is truly significant to you, you will always find time for it (or them). Period.

At the end, I saw probably one of the best college basketball finals ever. I really didn’t have a dog in the hunt, so I was able to truly enjoy the best two teams in college basketball showcasing why they both deserve to be national champions. Unfortunately for North Carolina, Villanova had the last word. And the last shot.

So go for a walk tomorrow. Just get up and move. Preferably outside if the weather is still nice.

 

My Plan for 2016– The Saga Continues

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I managed to make it to another of Brentwood Baptist’s campuses today. Originally, I had planned to go to The Church at West Franklin today and then hit up The Church at Woodbine in May. Plans change.

I found out last night that a friend of mine was playing in the worship band for Woodbine, so I went there. The newly revised and updated plan is to visit West Franklin on May 8, God willing.

That was the main focus on the verses that Doug Jones preached from. The gist of the passage from James 4 is this: don’t make your plans and assume that God will automatically bless them. Instead, you and I need to make plans with the added tag of “God willing.”

You aren’t promised next year or next month or even next week. In fact, no one is promised a tomorrow. Every day you and I wake up is a gift from God. Every day we survive is only due to the grace and mercy of God.

Still, I’m thankful I chose this day to visit Woodbine. I got to see the beautiful old church building that has been revitalized and re-energized with new lifeblood. I got to see a visiting middle school choir from Atlanta that plans to stay the week and help out The Church at Woodbine and the surrounding community.

Afterward, I hit up a few thrift stores that I hadn’t been to in a while. I came up with a few finds, including one that may or may not be worthy of Antiques Roadshow. More on that later.

I’m grateful for The Church at Woodbine and for Doug Jones for a community that reaches out to their neighborhood with both love and truth. You need both to see lives change. Too often (especially in this current culture) the church has shied away from convictions under the guise of acceptance and ended up offering cheap grace that comes without repentance or transformation and with little impact on the community. But that’s another topic for another blog.

I’ll give you a full report on The Church at West Franklin two weeks from now.