I’ve been reading quite a bit of C.S. Lewis lately. I just finished Perelandra, a story about what would have happened had the the man and woman resisted the original temptation. Lewis makes an interesting point. When Jesus comes back to set things right here, it won’t be an ending. It will be a re-do after a false start.

Eternally speaking, we haven’t even really begun. If you look at history like a novel, everything that has ever happened is like the preface and title page (and maybe the prelude) compared to what’s coming. Or in movie terms, history is like a sneak preview.

Most of us think of heaven as the place where all adventures find their ending, but I’m beginning to think that heaven is where the real adventures start. This life is just about getting us ready and prepared for those adventures. Put it this way, the best chocolate, the best sex, the best day, the most fantastic vacation (or anything that causes euphoria and bliss) doesn’t even begin to compare to the real joy that awaits. All these things are pale shadowy imitations and substitutes for the real thing.

Probably the biggest disservice to heaven came from whoever painted it as sitting on white clouds in white robes playing harps all day. Honestly, to me that sounds like a good way to be bored to death. And that’s just not what I get from reading Revelation.

The best description of heaven that really got me excited was in The Last Battle where C.S. Lewis describes heaven as the first day of summer when you realize that classes are over and the first day of vacation (or as our British friends would call it, the start of holiday).

It will mean an end for some things. Like jealousy, comparison, worry, fear, hate, death, taxes, saturated fats, desk jobs, and humidity. Seriously, it will mean the end of injustice, poverty, hunger, and so many other ills that plague society. But every good thing you and I have ever loved and everything that made us truly come alive will be there in their truest forms.

If you aren’t looking forward to heaven, maybe it’s because the heaven you’ve always been taught about really isn’t all that exciting. I recommend C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy (as well as The Great Divorce) to get a better glimpse of what heaven’s really like.

And yes, there will be chocolate in heaven. Probably Ben and Jerry’s.

You are not the names given to you in childhood by parents or relatives or friends who spoke out of anger or frustration or disappointment or resignation.

You are not your grades in school or the level of your education.

You are not the house you live on or the job you go to every day or the care you drive or the clothes you wear.

You are not the one who got fired or couldn’t save your marriage or keep hold of your friends.

You are not your addictions or struggles or fears.

You don’t have to be what all the magazines and songs on the radio and television programs and movies tell you you need to be to be successful.

You are loved, more loved than you could ever possibly have thought possible, by the God who made EVERYTHING.

You are worth the price God chose to pay for you, which was the most outrageously lavish price ever paid for anything ever– the life of His only perfect Son.

You are a child of God. You are the bride of God. You are His beloved.

 You are the one He shouts and sings over and dances around in the night while you are sleeping.

You are the new name He is giving you that is already written on a white stone, carved out so it can’t ever be removed or erased or taken away.

If you’re me, you probably will read all these and be reminded that what you feel about yourself in the dark moments is not the truth. What you think others think about you isn’t the truth, either. Both of those things will lie to you.

You are what God has declared about you in bold red print. You are the promises that are as true as the God who gave them.

As the song says, You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You’ve been remade.

Don’t live as worthless throwaways anymore, but as the priceless and loved and treasured children of God that you are.

The world will tell you you’re worth what you look like or how well you dress or how talented you are. The world will tell you that you’re only worth something if you can prove yourself and be better than the next guy. Then your worth only lasts until some upstart comes along and grabs your spotlight.

God tells a different story. He sees something He made when He sees you. He sees His image on you. Just like an antiques dealer or art critic will tell you that a signature increases the value of something, so does God. That’s what imago dei, or the image of God means. To be an image bearer is to wear God’s signature on you. You aren’t worthless; you’re priceless.

You’re twice valued because not only do you bear the Divine signature, but you were worth to God the most extravagant price ever paid for anything. The precious blood of God’s only Son, the very life of Jesus, purchased you for God. That speaks volumes of what you’re worth.

God made you and Jesus died for you. That trumps anything anyone has ever said about how you’re good for nothing. It trumps any word of condemnation, any time anyone told you that the world would be better off without you, any time someone you loved basically told you that you weren’t worth the effort. Jesus speaks a better word, and that word is that you are His Beloved.

I heard somewhere that salvation is when you believe in Jesus and sanctification occurs when you find out that Jesus believes in you. The truth is that you are precious to God, that He delights in you, that your Abba is indeed very fond of you and rejoices over you with loud singing.

It took me a long time to believe that about myself. I am still coming to terms with all that means to me. And yeah, I basically just wrote down what I heard tonight from Mike Glenn at Kairos. But I figure that truth is truth, no matter if I came up with it or someone else did. I’m not trying to be original, but faithful to what God has laid on my heart.

So my prayer is that you would live out of a joy that comes from knowing how deeply your Father God loves you and how much He values you. You were worth everything to Him, and there is nothing you are or have or do that can even begin to repay Him, but all He asks in return is for just you. Ain’t that cool?

To preface this, this didn’t come from any vision or audible voice. It came from part of a sermon I heard. Here’s what I heard:

“I know sometimes you feel like I’m missing, like you were walking along one day and looked up and realized that you couldn’t find Me anywhere. You thought I had left you. You tried searching for Me in all the wrong ways. You looked to everything and everyone else to fill My place.

Child, don’t you know I must be in my Father’s house? Don’t you know that now that house is inside you? Can you not recall Me telling you that if you were obedient to Me, I and My Father would come and make Our home in you? Didn’t you realize that I must be about My Father’s business? Don’t you know that His business involves you and those you love?

For you to love Me, you must know Me, and for you to love Me well is for you to know Me as one would know an old friend. I want to be in every pore of your being. I want to be what comes out when you breathe. I want those who look at you to see Me and be drawn to Me. That’s what I am molding and changing you into.  A perfect image-bearer and reflecter of the glory of My Father.

Child, why are you so scattered and anxious? Why are you still trying to earn what I’ve already given you? No matter what happens to you, even if it’s your worse-case scenario, don’t you know that even that can’t separate you from My love? Nothing can. Not death, not life, not tornadoes, not hurricanes, not earthquakes, not scandal, not failure, not persecution, not joblessness. Nothing, not even you, can ever cause Me to cease loving you and working for your ultimate good.

Trust Me always. Whenever you’re tempted to anger or lust or despair, choose My joy. Whenever it’s easier to compromise, choose My joy. Know that you can have joy in Me, because I am Someone you can trust in.

Rest tonight, My beloved, and listen for the sound of Me singing over you. No matter how faithful or faithless you’ve been, no matter how you think you’ve triumphed or failed, no matter if you feel valued or worthless at the end of the day, My song will always be the same.”

A Diving Bell and the Butterfly is about a man who has a massive stroke and is paralyzed completely, with the exception of one eyelid. His condition, called locked-in syndrome, has reduced his communication to one blink for yes, two for no. Someone else can read through the alphabet and when they get to the right letter, he blinks. That’s the only way he can communicate.

All in the space of a few moments, Jean-Dominique Bauby went from living a free and full life to being completely dependent on the care of others. He was literally trapped inside his own body. To the outside world, to those who didn’t know him, he was a vegetable. But his mind was still active, full of imagination and dreams and hopes.

How many are trapped inside their own past? Their own hall of shame that keeps them from expressing who they really are and being who God created them to be. How many can’t find words to describe the hurt, the pain, the rage, the despair inside? How many times have you been reduced to tears and sighs and groans?

The good news is that the Holy Spirit is a master at taking those tears and sighs and groans and articulating them into prayers. That inner voice that’s screaming on the inside while you’re wearing a mask of serenity and calmness on the outside.

You yourself are God’s love letter to the world. He will do whatever it takes to pull that masterpiece out of you. He won’t finish until your life is a poem (that’s what the word in Ephesians 2:10 literally means). One letter at a time, painstakingly, God is unfolding your story.

There have been times when my life feels like a War and Peace novel that’s taking too long to develop. But those are the best kind of books, the ones where the payoff is delayed, but comes just when you least expect it. Be patient with your life as God unfolds it over time. In the end, what comes out will leave the world speechless and take their breath away.

So, all that from me watching a French film at 10:30 pm on a Friday night on my computer. Who says I don’t know how to live?

Kites are one of those things that remind me of childhood. I know I probably have flown a few in my time, but I don’t remember any specifics. I guess I must have been a really bad kite-flyer and repressed all those tragic memories.

Kites are interesting. As long as they are tethered by a string, you can fly them anywhere and do just about anything with them. Having a breeze always helps. Kites without strings don’t do anything but fall.

In the same way, if I am tethered to something outside myself, I have freedom and mobility within limits. Left alone and to myself, I will fall every time. Obviously, I am tethered to God, but also to family and friends through accountability and responsibility.

I am also a fan of night lights. Every one knows as a kid that monsters don’t go near night lights. But even as an adult, there is still a comfort in having a night light on. Plus, it prevents that accidental hitting of shins on furniture and pain-induced profanity that accompanies said hitting of shins. I like my night light. It’s a miniature lava lamp that changes colors and keeps me occupied for hours (yes, I am easily pleased).

I am not called to be one of those stadium lights that can illuminate an entire county. I am not called to be a spot light. I am merely called to be a night light and to shine in the little corners I go to and help people to see their way in the dark.  To help them avoid getting tripped up by the daily issues and annoyances and problems of life. I don’t have to light up the whole world, but I can light up my world.

So my goal tomororrow is to fly high and shine bright. And maybe write a #1 country song about kites and night lights. But mostly to just be the best me wherever I am and show Jesus to the people around me. That’s all.

Good night, John Boy.

“So I am going to attract her;
       I will lead her into the desert
       and speak tenderly to her. 
  There I will give her back her vineyards,
       and I will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.
    There she will respond as when she was young,
       as when she came out of Egypt.” (Hosea 2:14-15)

I’ve never been like one of those people stranded in the desert. It’s almost a movie cliche that you see someone struggling across the desert, almost dead on their feet, barely putting one foot in front of the other in stearch of water and a way out of the desert. I do know a thing about being in the wilderness.

A wilderness is the place where you have to be stripped of everything else to find out what really matters. Sometimes, you literally lose everything. Sometimes, everything else loses its luster. Those people you counted on suddenly can’t be found. That dream you were sure would see you through has vanished like a mirage.

The desert is where you feel alone and forsaken. It’s where you feel like nothing is ever going to change or get better, that all you’ll ever see wherever you look is more of the same, hot sun and sand. The same job, the same rut.

The desert is also where God speaks tenderly to you. Some of the most precious lessons He will teach you will come from the desert. It’s where He will draw nearest to you, where you will be able to feel His heartbeat as He holds you close.

Don’t despise the gifts from the wilderness. The desert doesn’t last forever, but what you learn from it will. The God who gets you through the arid places will be the God who leads you beside still waters and through the valley of the deepest darkness. He’s the One who leads you to your enemies’ table and, eventually, to His own house where you will dwell forever.

If you’re in the desert, know that God is speaking to you words of comfort and hope and peace. Know that regardless of your location or your scenery, there is always one constant, one True North. God will be faithful to get you through, to walk with you through it, and to bring you out with precious promises you couldn’t have gotten any other way.

Then you will know it was all worth every minute of it.

We are gathered together at this gravesite to celebrate this life of Plan A. We are here to grieve how Plan A has died, how those dreams you had have been dashed, how those hopes have been stolen, how your innocence has been lost. We mourn the plans we thought were so certain, that life we envisioned.

We will never see that plan again. It’s gone. It’s over. That person you were supposed to grow old with is gone, those children you wanted haven’t arrived, that career that you banked on fizzled. That worse case scenario that you thought would be the death of you has happened and you’re still here, feeling numb.

I stand before you hear today to tell you it’s okay to grive. To weep and wail and mourn. To pour out your heart before God and not sanitize your prayers to Him. He already knows what’s in your heart anyway.

It’s time to let that Plan A go. Say your farewells, throw your roses, and walk away. Know that God has a plan B for you out there, and His plan B is way better  than your plan A ever would have been. You may have made all the plans in the world, but God is the one who directs your steps.

Bury your past. Bury that failure that haunts you. That loss that still defines you. That scar that taunts you. Those words you wish you could take back and those actions you can’t ever undo. Dig a hole, toss them into the ground, cover them up and walk away.

No matter how bad the past has been, know that God has redeemed it. Know that He holds your future. Know that Jesus went into the grave and took your past and left it there when He rose and walked out again on Sunday morning. His victory is now yours.

No matter how long it takes, I will learn to let go of what I can’t retract or undo and let God heal all those places I’ve broken and live in His gloriously perfect Plan B. I hope you will, too.