Mike Glenn

A Good Reminder to Myself

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I talk to myself sometimes. Out loud. I tend to use a British accent so it’s more fun and less creepy.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself of certain things. Repeatedly.

1) You are not your job (or lack of one). You are not your salary. You are not a title or a profession. You are exactly who God made you to be. And He said you were good.

2) God’s in the past where you messed up and where you got hurt, healing your wounds so they no longer bleed into your present (thanks to Mike Glenn for that one. He’s right there with you in your present. And He’s already in your future, waiting on you with plans that will blow your mind.

3) It’s okay to feel scared and unsure. It’s okay to have doubts because faith by its very nature comes with doubting. If we knew with 100% certainty, we wouldn’t need faith.

4) If you are loved and if you have friends, you are not a failure. If God loves you and calls you friend, then you have already won.

5) Whatever happened today, be it good, bad, or ugly, tomorrow is a new day filled with fresh possibilities and a clean slate. You can start over.

Maybe you’re having a great day and you’re loving life and everything is going your way. That’s wonderful. Maybe not. But everybody will at times go through storms. Everyone will go through deserts where your faith seems dead. Everyone will go through dark nights where God seems impossible to find.

No matter what your feelings or senses tell you, no matter what your circumstances tell you, God is there. He has not left you. He has not forgotten you. And He never will.

By the way, this blog is best read with a British accent. It sounds so much more sophisticated that way.

Church and State and Everything in Between

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First of all, I’d like to state for the record that both Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi get on my nerves, so I guess that makes me an independent.

Tonight at Kairos, Mike Glenn spoke about politics and the Kingdom of God. Basically, he said we as the Church (in general) gave up faith in the power of the Gospel and traded in the role of prophet for the illusion of political access.

We thought that if we got “our” people into office and got “our” laws passed, things would get better. But you can only pass laws to keep people from hurting their neighbors. You can’t pass laws that make people love those neighbors.

I heard a great analogy tonight. Food doesn’t change the salt, but rather salt changes the food. In the same way, the world shouldn’t change believers, but believers should be the ones changing the world. We are called to be salt, and it only takes a little salt to make a big difference.

Why do we act surprised when lost people act like lost people? Are they the problem with this country? Is it dark because the darkness killed the light?

It’s dark because the light has failed. It’s dark not because believers have been too different from the world around them, but because we haven’t been different enough.

This made me think: some people are so good at blending in with the world that even Jesus won’t be able to recognize them when He comes back.

I’ll say it again that it’s not about taking back a country (that was never really ours to begin with), but advancing a Kingdom. Our hope doesn’t lie in a President, but in a coming King who will set all things right.

Do go and vote. That’s important. But at the same time don’t put your hopes for a better future into the hands of politicians, because that has never ended well.

Long after presidents and countries and politics are no more, Jesus will still reign as King and Lord over all. Long after political parties have bit the dust and governments have fallen, Jesus will still be in charge.

That’s where my hope lies.

Addictions: Lessons from Tonight’s Kairos

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When you think of the word addiction, you probably think of the junkie with the needle in his arm or the guy staggering from a bar at 2 am, too drunk to even be able to walk in a straight line.

But maybe addiction looks like the man who works 80 hours a week every week or uses food as comfort to ease the pain he can’t handle. Maybe you’re like me and your addiction is the approval of others. Whatever it is, you’re not alone and there’s hope.

The story of recovery from addiction is the story of moving from slavery to freedom. The Bible says that you are a slave to whatever you choose to obey, whether that be God or a controlled substance or a relationship or a hobby or a career.

Whatever it is, it’s a form of idolatry. You are giving power to something or someone other than God to hold your life together. The thing is that nothing else has the power, the weight, to keep your life together and keep you from spinning out of control.

I loved what Mike Glenn said. He says that Jesus doesn’t stop by your unraveling life to inform you that you’re going to hell. He comes to you in your moment of greatest weakness and says, “You are Mine. You belong to Me. And you don’t have to stay here in slavery.”

You will never overcome addiction alone. You need someone else, whether that be an accountability partner or a 12-step group. It takes time and work.

Jesus died so you wouldn’t have to be beholden to anything ever again. He died to provide you a way out.

The hard part is that often Jesus will take you and walk you through the painful event or memory that you’ve been trying so hard to anesthesize or drown out or numb or run away from. He will take you through it rather than throwing you over it, and you face it and overcome it and never have to be afraid of it ever again.

If God is for you, who can ever be against you? No one. Nothing. And if God said it, that settles it, whether you believe it or not.

I have never been a drug addict or an alcoholic, but as a recovering approval-addict, I know that there is freedom and victory in the name of Jesus. I know what it is through His mighty name to overcome and triumph.

I am learning not to rush the healing process, but to believe that the healing is happening. There is joy in seeing the shackles and chains of addiction and strongholds fall away and you find that you are walking in freedom for the first time.

That’s what I pray for each of you– freedom.

Speaking Life into Each Other

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Have you ever posted something on facebook with one specific person in mind, just hoping that person would read it and comment on it? I have. . . I mean, a friend of mine has. . . . ok, I’m so busted. That was me.

Maybe if you’ve done it, too, you were like me and felt crushed and ignored when said person didn’t comment or even like the post.

I realize now how co-dependent and passive-agressive that was (not to mention somewhat OCD). Looking back, I see just how silly and juvenile that was.

The thing with co-dependency is that you always need to be liked and affirmed and acknowledged. The sad part is no matter how people do, it will never be enough. It’s kinda like a drug, where you need more and more to feel normal.

What I need are friends who will tell me the truth in love.

As I have mentioned before, I am in the healing process. I am finally learning to like me. I can finally stand to look at myself in the mirror. I can finally like being around me.

It’s because I have people around me who speak life and healing and wisdom into me. I have people who see me the way God sees me and help me to see myself that way.

In a conversation with a friend at Starbucks, I had an interesting revelation. My friend said that Hebrews speaks of Jesus as putting a human face on God. Then I got to thinking afterward, maybe you and I put hands and feet to Jesus when we serve each other and those around us in need. When we speak the words of Jesus into each others’ lives.

I am a lot better at not wigging out when people don’t respond to my posts or texts. I get that people have lives and issues other than me and that I can’t realistically demand to be the center of everybody’s attention all the time. That’s not healthy.

But I know that I have God’s full attention 24/7 and that He is speaking to me all the time. Sometimes when I’m alone with my Bible open or sometimes when I’m in a one-on-one conversation with a friend or sometimes through random posts or texts or sightings around town.

I am coming to the point where it’s not about me, but helping people to find their YES in Jesus and come to know and believe about themselves what God says about them and sees in them. That’s my ministry and calling.

May you be as comfortable in silence and solitude as you are in a crowd and learn to love yourself as God does. It is so very freeing.

Baggage Part I: Letting Go

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Who doesn’t have baggage? I certainly know I do. I’m pretty sure anyone who is over the age of 5 and who still has a pulse has accumulated some kind of baggage over the years.

What is my baggage? Probably right now, I’m carrying around the constant need to be validated, affirmed, approved, and liked every single moment.

I find myself at the end of conversations thinking I’ve said or texted the absolute wrong thing and ruined the relationship. Things like, “Did I really just end the conversation with ‘Text me’? Is it even possible for there to be a lamer ending to a conversation?”

I think I let go of a little bit of my baggage tonight. I think I’ve finally come to the point where I may not trust myself to keep my relationships alive, but I know that God will keep the right people in my life for as long as they need to be there.

I’ve mentioned before that I am a work in progress. I’m 4o and my dating history reads like a black comedy or a tragedy (either one works, so take your pick). I haven’t had a real girlfriend since I was 5 (her name was Carrie, by the way).

I think I’m more comfortable with my own path and not trying to hijack God’s plan for someone else. I’m learning to enjoy the process and the journey and not be so OCD about the destination.

I think I’m learning that I don’t have to be clever or witty (or even overly coherent) for God to speak through me.

I’m finally learning to be patient with my own process and who I am becoming. I’m more patient with the shortcomings of others, because I’ve seen so much of my own and I’ve seen how very strong God can be in my weakness.

What is your baggage? You have a choice. You can either hold on to your shame and guilt and fear and anger or you can hold onto Jesus, but you can’t hold on to both. And yes, I borrowed that one from Mike Glenn.

You don’t have to carry that baggage forever. You don’t have to let it define you or be a pemanent part of your wardrobe. It all begins with saying, “I can’t do this anymore. I need you, Jesus, to take this and carry it for me.” It may be a process, but it’s so much fun to feel the weight fall off.

May you find that what you’ve carried all this time is one day no longer a part of you. May you find more and more freedom in Christ. May you hear and believe the words at this very moment that “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Amen.

Vessels: Meditation on Kairos Tonight

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I love the illustration Mike Glenn used tonight in Kairos. He spoke of washing down an Oreo with a glass of milk, only to discover at the bottom of the glass some residue left from the dishwasher.

You woudn’t say the top half of the milk was clean and keep drinking. You wouldn’t say the glass was mostly clean. You’d say the glass was dirty.

How can I call my life clean if I have unconfessed sins and hidden bad habits and areas of mine that I’ve not put under the Lordship of Jesus? How can I expect God to use me if I am mostly clean? God doesn’t use lives that are mostly clean.

I need to be completely clean.

But that’s the beauty of it.

I can be clean if I just simply ask. First I confess. I agree with God that I did or said the wrong thing and left undone the right thing. That I chose my way instead of God’s way. Then I repent, turning 180 degrees from my way to God’s way.

Furthermore, if you want to be a vessel used by God, you can’t wait until the storms of life to get ready. You have to be ready.

Mary was already God’s servant when He called her to be the vessel to bring Jesus into the world. Joseph was already a righteous man when God called him to take Mary as His wife and raise Jesus as his own son.

They didn’t wait until God called them to get ready. They were ready.

The beautiful part of all this is it’s never too late to get ready. It’s never to late to ask God to mold and make you into the person God can use to impact the world around you.

Whether you’re 20 or 40 or 60 or 80, God can still take your life and use it to bless many more than you could possibly imagine.

I want to be like the loaves and fishes Jesus used to feed the 5,000. I want to be broken and blessed, so that the pieces of my life can bless far more people than a safe, unbroken life ever could. I want to be confessed and clean and ready when the time comes that God takes my life and uses it as He sees fit.

I hope you do, too.

The Kingdom of God Is Like . . .

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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.

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.

Takeaways from Kairos Tonight

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I feel like I blew it the last few days. I said and texted and posted some stuff that I now wish I could take back. In fact, there are whole sections of the last day or two that I wish I could have a do-over on. Today, I let fear and worry take over and I listened to them instead of the voice of the One who calls me Beloved and says good things about me.

In Kairos, I was reminded that the Gospel is about God’s YES rather than God’s NO. While the world and those around you may be telling you all the things you are not: not skinny enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, not talented enough, etc. Sometimes, even you feel that you don’t measure up or have what it takes.

The Gospel doesn’t start with how bad off you are. The Gospel isn’t about how much of a sinner you are and how wide you’re going to bust hell open. The Gospel starts, “For God so loved the world.” For God so loved YOU that He gave His only, unique, one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-another Son, so that if YOU believe in Him, YOU will not perish but YOU will have eternal life.

On those days when what you want to say sounds right in your head but comes out totally wrong out of your mouth or through your text, God loves you. When you completely give in to the anger and frustration and completely lose your religion, God still loves you. When you forget who you are in Christ and start trying to find someone or something to define you and make you complete, God still loves you. And He always will.

Brennan Manning said, “Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.” God sees not what we are not and all we lack, but who we are, His sons and daughters whom He loves and died for. He sees who we will be and He reminds of our future selves who are fully complete and mature and just like Jesus. That’s what we’re becoming.

All that from a sermon I heard tonight at Kairos. I’d say I needed to hear it. I hope you did, too. If nothing else, remember what I always say: Your Abba is very fond of you and is not even close to giving up on you, even if others are or even if you are. That’s the truth. Live out of that.

 

A Very Un-Christmasy Blog, Or Hard Lessons I Learned Again

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This isn’t the ususal yuletide greetings and jolly fat wishes for a happy and merry Christmas. This is what I had to learn yet again because my head is harder than that fruit cake you’lll probably get from FedEx, courtesty of Aunt Marge.

You can’t make anyone like you or be interested in you. You can only be who God has called you to be and run as hard as you can after Jesus. If God has someone for you, you’ll find them running just as hard as you in the same direction.

You can’t make anyone return your friendship. You can only be a friend for your part and keep being a friend, whether the kindly gesture is returned or not.

In fact, the truest love gives without expecting anything back. Love seeks the best for the other, no matter what it costs the giver, and never seeks what’s best for self over the other person.

Jesus loved like that. He came and gave all His love to a world that either rejected it, or –much worse than that– ignored it. Jesus died for ungrateful people who have yet to acknowledge His gift, much less receive it.

So maybe this is a kind of Christmas blog. It comes with a Yuletide Challenge: Find one person to give a gift to who you know won’t repay the favor. Seek out those who are unloveable and love them. Seek out those who are unwanted, and show them Christ wants them. Give not just presents or money or time, but you– your life, your aspirations and goals and dreams, everything you are. Give yourself away this Christmas.

I will probably need to re-learn these lessons again, but hopefully not for a while. They’re not the kind that are easy to learn. But every now and then, we need to be reminded.

I love what I heard someone say when explaining why we sing to God every week. It’s not that He needs to be reminded, but we do. We’re the ones who forget who we are and how much we need God and how faithful God has been, is, and will ever be toward those who trust in Him.

Now go drink some wassail.