peace

The Ticket

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Sometimes you are reading along in a good book and something jumps out of the text and you have to stop and re-read it at least two or three more times. That’s the way it was for me reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.

She was talking about being fearful of persecution or death. Her father described it like a child with a train ticket.

The father doesn’t give the child the ticket months and months ahead, because the child might misplace it or accidentally tear it up. The father waits until they are ready to board the train until he gives the ticket to the child.

In the same way, we find that we are given grace to handle adversity not way before, but just as we are about to face it.

Jesus told His disciples not to worry about what they would say when facing hostile persecution. He promised that at just the right time, the Holy Spirit would give them the words to speak. Time after time, the disciples were able to speak out with a boldness that could only come from the indwelling power of the resurrected Christ.

Are you worried about the passing of a loved one? Are you fearful of your own death? Are you anxious about how you would handle persecution and if you would deny Christ and live rather than die professing His name?

Just trust Him for today and let tomorrow take care of itself. Pray for strength for the day and whenever death or trouble or trials come, you will find that God gives you what you need to stand up in it.

You find that your world didn’t end like you thought it would and you will hear words coming out of your mouth that only Jesus could put there. You will find strength in the exact moment you need it, usually not a moment before.

I love this quote from The Hiding Place about how each of us will face Jesus when we die:

“Dear Jesus, thank You that we must come with empty hands. I thank You that You have done all . . .on the cross, and that all we need in life or death is be sure of this.”

 

I Know: Living in Captivity

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Lots of people quote the above as their favorite verse. Lots of people go even further and call it their life verse, me being one of them. It’s nice to know that God’s got your future in His hands.

But when you look at the context, this is written to people in captivity who are longing for home. The funny part is that they are longing for a home they’ve never seen, but only heard stories about.

Many of us feel like captives. Maybe you feel trapped in a job you don’t like, but you’re afraid to step out in a bad economy and look for new work, so you stay and stress and count the minutes to the end of every day.

Maybe you feel like your family doesn’t know or appreciate you. Maybe you feel like your spouse is always tearing you down and never offering anything positive. Maybe you’ve being going to a church for a while and you still feel like a stranger and an outsider.

Maybe you feel like your friends have all moved on and left you behind in your pain. Maybe you had your romantic hopes dashed yet again and feel even less desirable than ever.

Read the first part of the verse. God knows. He’s aware of your distress. He sees the tears you cry in the dark when you’re alone and feels the pain that hides behind the facade of a smile.

He has a plan for you. He has a dream for you that is bigger than you but that you get to be a part of. He has a future for you that is as wide-open and free as His amazing grace.

I love how one author said that when you are in a dark place, listen very carefully because God has a special and very precious word for you that you won’t be able to receive any other way.

Jesus knows what it feels like to be alone and forsaken. That’s why He said He would never to either to you. Ever.

Keep trusting and keep believing, even when you don’t feel like it. Keep clinging to Jesus. If all you can pray is “Help me,” keep praying that over and over until it becomes your mantra.

I have never known a storm that didn’t leave a rainbow or a night that didn’t turn into day. Your time is coming and God’s got good things coming your way. Hold on.

Dumb Mistakes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I remember vividly when I was a kid waiting for my sister. She took ballet and I would wait outside the building until her practice was over. One time, I had the genius idea and thought, “When she comes out, I’m racing her to the car.”

Lo and behold, she came out and I took off running. I didn’t stop until I sat down in the car. Then I looked up. I thought, “Hey, you’re not my sister. Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t our car.” It was probably one of the most awkward situations I’ve ever been in.

Maybe your mistake wan’t as funny. Maybe it was devastating or tragic. Maybe it ruined a friendship or even a marriage. Maybe you feel like you’re still paying for that mistake made so many years ago.

You’re not alone. Moses messed up royally. He got angry with God’s people and spoke as if he and not God were responsible for giving the Israelites water and helping them out of jams time and time again.

Then there’s David, who committed adultery with Bathsheeba, lied to and tried to deceive her husband, then finally had him killed. I think that qualifies as an epic fail.

The good news is that your story doesn’t have to end with failure. God offers forgiveness and a fresh start if you own up to what you did and are willing to change and go in a different direction.

I love what David wrote in Psalm 51 after he confessed to his own sin and repented of it:

“Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.

Scrub away my guilt,

soak out my sins in your laundry.

I know how bad I’ve been;

my sins are staring me down.

You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen

it all, seen the full extent of my evil.

You have all the facts before you;

whatever you decide about me is fair.

I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,

in the wrong since before I was born.

What you’re after is truth from the inside out.

Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,

scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.

Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,

set these once-broken bones to dancing.

Don’t look too close for blemishes,

give me a clean bill of health.

God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

Don’t throw me out with the trash,

or fail to breathe holiness in me.

Bring me back from gray exile,

put a fresh wind in my sails!

Give me a job teaching rebels your ways

so the lost can find their way home.

Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,

and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.

Unbutton my lips, dear God;

I’ll let loose with your praise.”

All I can add to that is

Amen.

Waiting

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

Waiting is not doing nothing. Waiting is not sitting idly by watching for God to drop our dreams in our laps.

Waiting means getting ready. It means preparing your fields for rain so that in due time you may reap a harvest.

Waiting means an open mind, a listening ear, and a softened heart.

Waiting means trusting in God’s perfect timing, not forcing anything or speeding things up, but actively trusting that God knows what He’s doing and that what He’s doing is for His glory and for your good.

Waiting means letting go of what you’re grasping with clenched fists to receive what God is preparing you for. It means possibly letting go of something good to receive something better.

Waiting is not something you can learn about by reading up on it or studying other people who wait. You can only learn to wait by waiting, by experience of trial and error and frustration and impatients that finally resolves into peace and serenity and the faith of a child.

Waiting means living with tension and notes that don’t resolve. It means being content with not having answers, but only silence to your myriad of questions.

Waiting is to be still and know that Yahweh is God. He’s in control and His plans will prevail.

Waiting the right way is never in vain and never without its rewards, among those the being greater knowledge and closer intimacy with God. That and that alone is worth the costs that come with waiting.

There’s a lot more to learn about waiting that will take a lifetime to master, but I know this: waiting is a good thing.

 

Carried

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“When you can’t run, you crawl, and when you can’t crawl – when you can’t do that… You find someone to carry you” (from an episode of Firefly).

I was watching one of my favorite TV series tonight (and yet another great series that the Fox Network killed way too soon– but that’s another blog for another day) and I heard this quote and it made me think of the Church.

The Apostle Paul speaks about us being in a race, a race that we should seek to run well. He speaks about how we train our bodies so we will finish well. Obviously, this isn’t a literal race, but the live of faith lived with a finish line in view.

Sometimes, when we can’t run any longer, we crawl. Maybe we’re exhausted or burned out or wonded or have lost our way. Whatever the case, every single one of us will at times find ourselves crawling.

Sometimes, we can’t even crawl. We’ve come to the end of our abilities and have no strength or energy to move one more inch. That’s when someone else has to carry us. And we have to be humble and honest enough to ask.

Scripture calls us to carry each other’s burdens. Sometimes that means we carry each other. It means we believe for others when they can’t believe for themselves about getting through a trial or tragedy or test.

If you think of prayer that way, it really does change your perspective. Prayer is not saying kind words about someone else to God, but rather taking that person to God. You can almost visualize carrying that person on your back into the very presence of Jesus Himself.

I’ve always loved the poem Footprints and especially the image of only one set of footprints in the sand being the times when God has carried us. If we’re honest, there’s not one moment when we are not completely taken care of, deeply loved, and carried by Abba Father.

May that be the last image you have before sleep and dreams take you tonight.

 

 

Silence

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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.

 

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.

A Prayer for Those Who Grieve

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 8 Comments

I found a beautiful prayer for those who have lost loved ones and still feel the void where that person used to be. It doesn’t matter whether the loved one was a few minutes old or 100 years old. The loss still hurts. So hopefully this will being you comfort:

“We seem to give her back to thee, dear God, who gavest her to us.

Yet, as thou didst not lose her in giving

So we have not lost her by her return.

Not as the world giveth, gavest thou, O lover of souls

What thou givest, thou takest not away.

For what is thine is our always, if we are thine

And life is eternal

And love is immortal

And death is only a horizon

And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

Lift us up, O God, that we may see further,

Cleanse our eyes so that we may see more clearly,

Draw us closer to thyself that we may know ourselves nearer to our beloved who art with thee.

And while thy Son prepareth a place for us

Prepare us for that happy place,

That where they are and thou are we too may be,

Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. “

Amen.

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.

An Easter Toast Revisited

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

“We raise our glasses and drink to love that never gave up.”

Easter isn’t about defeat. Probably you’ve heard that the Cross is where the devil had his way and won and the Resurrection is where Jesus came from behind and won the victory once and for all.

Ok, maybe not in those words, but something to that effect. Let me set the record straight.

The cross was a victory. Why do you think the devil tried so hard to tempt Jesus into deviating from His mission, first in the desert in the beginning and then in the garden at the end?

But instead we get to share in the spoils of the victory Jesus won. We get a share in His inheritance. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus perfection because that perfection is now ours.

I’m not perfect and I sure don’t claim to know all the answers or have every fine point of theology figured out. But I do know that once I was without hope and now I have hope, thanks to the cross.

Once I was lost and now I’m found, thanks to the cross.

Once I was a stranger and an outcast and an outsider, but now I’m family and a child of God, thanks to the cross.

Just as God raised Jesus from the dead and defeated death, I know that God will one day raise me up to eternal life, just as surely as I know the sun will rise in the morning.

I like what I read in The Book of Common Prayer today. It says what I want to say better than I could:

“O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever Amen.”

That’s worth raising your glass and toasting.