I had the chance to be a part of a wedding of two of my favorite people in the whole world, John Engebretson and Michelle Stark. It was a beautiful wedding, more so because both are not only in love with each other, but with Jesus.

They chose as their first act as a married couple to take communion together. That was a sacred and sweet moment.

The pastor who officiated the ceremony had some really good words on what love in marriage looks like.

He said that the Greek had different words used for love. One is eros, which is basically glandular love. It’s something like “You meet my needs and make me feel good and satisfy my urges.” That’s not nearly enough to make a marriage work.

The second is philia, or brotherly love. He described it as an “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, but I’ll stab you in the back if you stab me in mine” kind of love. That’s not enough, either.

Agape love, God’s love, is what a marriage needs. It’s the love that says “I love you regardless.” The love that is unconditional, unlimited, sacrificial and selfless.

Agape is what send Jesus to the cross for a people who had rebelled against His Father and rejected Him time and time again. Agape is God saying, “I will love you no matter what, whether you love me or not, and My love will never stop pursuing your heart.”

The wedding cake had a normal front, but the back half had lego pirates, because everything is better with pirates. Duh. That’s kind of a given. Who didn’t like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribbean? Really.

I hope that if God blesses me with a woman who looks at me and my weirdness and still wants to be my wife, that I have a ceremony like that. One that honors God and honors marriage.

Society, culture, and the media have done everything to undermine marriage or to take the marriage vow lightly, or use it in vain. These days more than ever a man and a woman have to be intentional about living out a godly marriage that honors God and each other. One that demonstrates Christ’s love for His bride. One that really shows just how much God loves His people.

And yes, I really do still think God’s got someone for me. I also see that it’s no fairy tale happily ever after dream, but a lifelong swim against the current, but with hidden blessings and treasures that only God could have though of.

PS It’s good to be back blogging after a weekend in Ohio. Ohio’s good, but there’s no place like home.

For some odd reason, I was reminded today of when I worked at a church back in the day and put together their bulletins. Apparently, some of the older members would get there early and grab a bulletin and comb it over looking for errors and mistakes.

Usually, I did good. Once though, I was supposed to put “in honor of” a certain beloved former pastor and I put “in memory of” instead. Oops. I can imagine him uttering the infamous line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail  “I’m not dead yet. . . . I feel happy!” (5 of you just got that last joke and the rest are thinking I’ve gone daft).

I think sometimes churchgoers are that way. They will comb your life and look for the least little mistakes to hold over you. A lot of us see God the same way, as the Supreme Micromanager, looking for what we’ve done wrong over the course of the past 24 hours to punish us.

I have very good news. God is not like that at all. I’m thinking of all the times I’ve screwed up in the last hour and that alone would probably fill up a couple of pages in God’s celestial diary.

No, when God looks at me, He sees what Jesus did for me and how He took all my mistakes, screw-ups, and sins and paid for them. God looks at me and sees Jesus’ perfection and is pleased.

The point is that none of us can look at anyone else’s mistakes with a judgmental heart because we only have to look in the mirror to see the guiltiest party. There’s a verse that says that if God counted our sins against us, who could stand? If God were as critical with us as we are with each other, no one would be alive.

So, just as God showed us mercy, we should probably show each other a little more mercy and grace. We should forgive because we always stand in need of forgiveness ourselves. And most of all, cut yourself a little slack. God knows you’re weak and stumbling and He loves you anyway. And if He can love you, why shoudn’t you?

For your added reading pleasure, here are a few of the more humorous bulletin bloopers. http://www.bible-reading.com/bulletin.html

I can imagine that when I get to heaven, if God were to ask me one question, what that question would be.

It probably wouldn’t be any of these:

Did you hate all the right people and tell them I hated them, too? Did you do your best to make them feel excluded and left out?

Did you vote for the correct people who had all the right stances on the political and social issues?

Did you have the right millennial view of the tribulation and rapture?

I seriously doubt God would ask any of these. If He were to ask anything, it would be something like this:

Did you love the people I sent into your path, regardless of if their lifestyle and beliefs matched yours? Regardless of whether they were easy to love or if they loved you back?

Furthermore, did you demonstrate My love for them? Did you represent Me as a god who hates all the people you do or as a God who is bigger than you and your likes and dislikes?

In the end, what will truly matter is not how much money we made or how much we accomplished or even how correct all our doctrines were.

What will count in the end is how much and how well we loved. Not just the ones like us who voted like us and held our values and looked like us.

But God will look at how we loved our enemies and those who slandered and persecuted us. He will look at how we loved the outcasts and the marginalized and the downtrodden.

I know that I don’t have anywhere near the capacity to love like that. If I’m honest, I really don’t have the capacity to love at all.

But the good news as I was reminded today is that not only did Jesus die for me, but Jesus lives for me. Jesus lives in me and can love through me way better than I could ever love.

That’s what I’m praying for you and for me. That we will be willing to show and share the love of Jesus with all those God puts in our path. That we will show them how great God is and how wonderful Jesus is.

 

 

 

In view of the recent trial and acquittal of Casey Anthony, I’ve been thinking a lot about her and her deceased daughter. Honestly, I don’t know whether the outcome was the right one or not.

I do know that it’s easy to look at all the evidence and see where blame falls Casey. There are too many inconsistancies in her story, too many points that are unexplainable, too much behavior on her part that is inexcusable.

If she were truly and completely innocent, would she have acted differently? Would she have contacted the police sooner? I think so. Her actions are not the actions of an innocent mother.

So I pick up a stone. Lots of people probably would, given the opportunity. Mostly what I hear in conversations about her is judgment and condemnation. She deserved to go to jail for a very long time for what she did and how she lied about what she did. Maybe.

I do remember another story about a woman caught red-handed in the very act of adultery. I remember people standing around her with stones, ready to cast them and fully justified in doing so.

I remember the words of Jesus. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” So I look at the stone in my own hand and remember my sins. I look at what I could have been apart from the grace of God– something so much worse than Casey Anthony ever thought about being.

I remember that when it came time for judgment, I received mercy instead. I recall the man Jesus hanging on the cross that should have been mine. I remember He died so that I could go free, declared innocent and justified. Just as if I’d never sinned at all.

So how can I throw any stones? I can’t. I can grieve for the tragic loss of a little girl. I can weep at so much brokenness and shame and secrets and dysfunction.

I can pray for the soul of Casey Anthony. Maybe she can find forgiveness and mercy in the embrace of the Savior. It wouldn’t be the first time a murderer has found grace. Remember the thief on the cross? Remember the apostle Paul?

I truly do hope that justice comes for the little girl. I also hope that mercy comes, too. And grace. Because I know that I need grace just as much as Casey Anthony does. So do you, if you’re honest. We all do.

I have yet another confession to make. I am not cool. Sometimes I can fool myself into thinking I am, but that erroneous thinking gets corrected in a hurry. Like when I try to say something ultra-hip, people look at me like I have a third eye.

I am not trendy and I am not that person everyone wants to know and hang out with. I’m just not. And the most shocking confession of all? I don’t care. I don’t want it. I’m not interested anymore.

It seems like being cool is a lot of hard work. You have to keep up with the latest fashions and trends and practice constant vigilance. I’d rather watch old TV shows and take naps and wear what’s comfortable.

A word of warning to the hipper than thous. The more current and trendy you are now, the more likely you will look back at yourself ten years from now and say something like, “What was I thinking? Why didn’t someone tell me I dressed like a hobo?”

Better yet, those pictures of you now will provide hours of unintentional comic relief for your kids. They will look at the facebook photos of you and laugh and think you were such a dork back when.

I’m more interested in one trend– being myself. I’d rather be me with one or two friends than be a phony for hundreds. I realize some people are better socially gifted than I am, and that’s fine for them. I am just not.

I manage to avoid the major fashion pitfalls, like black socks with sandals and shorts pulled up to my Adam’s apple, but beyond that, I like what I like.

My sage advice? Don’t let anyone else tell you who you should be, what you should wear, who you should like, what you should eat, etc. Do what you like.

Be who God made you to be. Believe that God is your biggest fan and roots for you and likes you for you. And most of all, relax. Most of what you’re so stressed about 1) won’t ever happen, 2) won’t be nearly as bad as you fear it will be, 3) won’t be the end of the world, and 4) isn’t remotely difficult for God to get you through.

That’s all. Good night.