religion

Safe in the Storm

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I’m sitting here typing contentedly away on my laptop and listening to the rain lash against the window of my bedroom. I hear the thunder rumbling in the distance. I love it.

I don’t love storms when I’m driving in the middle of them and can barely see the road through my windshield. But when I finally make it home, I can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

I think it was John Piper who describe the fear of God kind of like being in a storm from a safe place. You’re able to witness the power and majesty of the storm while protected from the dangers of it.

I think we forget that God is all-powerful and all-present sometimes. We focus on the loving aspect and forget sometimes that He is also a holy God. Well, I do, anyway.

It is a good feeling to know that this God who could destroy me with one word from His mouth calls me His child. He has promised that He won’t leave or forsake me and that He will finish what He started in me.

He’s promised to bring me safely through those storms that come into my life. Not only that, but I will come out stronger on the other side.

I am learning what it means to fear God. I am learning that if you fear God, you need fear nothing else, for if God is for you, who could ever be against you? This fear of God isn’t a trembling terror, but more of a reverential awe of a God who is bigger than all that is and has existed before anything was. This same God who knows my name and the number of hairs on my head.

I pray you find that fear of the Lord that leads to wisdom. I pray you know that God is holy, but that He loves you more than you can possibly imagine. By the way, the storm has passed, as all storms do. But God remains.

 

 

Just Call Me Joe

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I think maybe you and I can relate to Joseph (I mean the one from Genesis, not the one who married Mary, the mother of Jesus, although he’s a pretty cool dude, too).

He found himself in a fairly rotten situation. Sold into slavery by his own brothers. Ok, so he got a little cocky with the whole coat of many colors and maybe overshared with the whole “one day all of you will bow down to me” dreams. But he tried to do the right thing for the most part.

But I love the part where it says that God was with Joseph. That’s what stood out about him. Whether he was being sold in the slave market or running Potipher’s household or wasting away in a jail cell or ruling as one of Pharaoh’s top men, God was with him. It was obvious.

I love the fact that Joseph didn’t mess around when Potipher’s wife tried to seduce him. When “No” didn’t work, he got out of there. What really matters is that he didn’t wait until she made advances to decide how he would act. He was about pleasing God from the beginning. By the way, I picture Potipher’s wife looking like Anne Baxter from The Ten Commandments. Or maybe Angelina Jolie. Take your pick.

I also love the part where God’s favor was with Joseph. Not just when Joseph was in a good place or riding high on success. Even in a dark prison cell, God’s favor was with Joseph and God used Joseph to impact the lives of those around him.

I can relate to the fact that Joseph had a hard time forgiving his brothers. I would have, too. But in the end, he forgave them and took steps to reconcile with them.  That’s the important part.

My takeaway from Joseph’s life is that God can uses you no matter where you are. Just because you’re not in a good place doesn’t mean God isn’t with you or working in and through you. In the end, your story is about more than just you. Just as God used Joseph to save an entire nation, so God may use you to impact the lives of people you may never meet.

I love the fact that you don’t have to be a perfect saint with a spotless past for God to use you. You just have to be willing and available wherever you are.

There Be Dragons in the Book of Revelation

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I started attending a new Bible study led by Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church and lead teacher at Kairos on Tuesday nights. It’s all about the mysterious book of Revelation. Yeah, that scary book at the end of the Bible before you get to the maps.

It’s really not about how things are eventually going to turn out one day. It’s about how they already are. It’s not about how one day Jesus will ascend to the throne, but how He’s already there.

I confess I’ve missed the point of the book in the past. It’s not about who the anti-Christ will be or what day the end will come. The reason John wrote the book was to encourage believers who were facing intense persecution by a very hostile and anti-Christian government.

It’s about how evil forces in the world will try to rise up against God and His people, but how God in Christ has already overcome the enemy. The outcome is not in doubt. Jesus has already won the battle at Calvary.

The best takeaway from tonight’s study was that this book was written in worship to communities of worship about whom to worship. Not Caesar, but Christ.

Revelation is a reminder that the ending to my story is already written and it is a happy ending. No matter what I’m currently facing or how hopeless my situation seems sometimes, the best really is yet to come.

So I suppose I really will be spending a lot of time in that last book of the Bible. I could read all the commentaries and bible study guides and Tim LaHaye books in the world, but I’d be much better off just reading the book itself. Only God’s Word is living and active. Only God’s Word is God-breathed.

There will be more about those dragons and seven-horned beasts and other special guest appearances from the Book of Revelation in blogs to follow. I’m looking forward to it.

 

A Disciple

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I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what being a disciple of Christ really looks like. I think it looks like more than someone who is a fan of Jesus, who likes Him on facebook. It’s more than someone who goes to church every Sunday and reads the Bible every now and then.

Back in the day, if you wanted to be a disciple of a rabbi, you would literally leave your family and your job and go live with the rabbi. You would eat your meals when he ate his, go wherever he went, and sit at his feet and hang on every word he spoke. You would try to become just like the rabbi you were a disciple of.

That’s what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. You leave everything else behind and immerse yourself in Jesus’ words. You spend as much time with Him in His Word and in prayer as it takes. Which honestly is a lot more than I typically spend in either of those things. More than knowing about Jesus, you want to know Him and follow Him.

A disciple is someone who belongs to Jesus. Oswald Chambers put it best when he said, “If any man come to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his life also, he cannot be My disciple,” not, he cannot be good and upright, but, he cannot be one over whom Jesus writes the word “Mine.” Any one of the relationships Our Lord mentions can compete with our relationship with Him. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself, but if that is the case, then, says Jesus, you cannot be My disciple. This does not mean I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be ‘His.'”

A disciple is willing to stand up to both political parties and hold them both accountable to what the Word of God says. Not what FoxNews or CNN or MSNBC say, but what God in Scripture has already said. A disciple is willing to stand up for the unpopular truths that will get him or her possibly ostracized and ridiculed and thought of as old-fashioned and narrow-minded and out of touch with reality.

If those are some of the qualifications of a disciple, then I’m not there yet. I still love my comfort way too much and I have too many allegiances and loyalties to people and things other than Jesus. Probably the majority of Christians, especially in America, would be in the same category.

Lord, make us disciples who are willing to forsake everything to follow You, no matter what.

Life as a Story

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I really love a good movie or a good song or a good book. There’s nothing better to me than a story well told, whether it’s in a 3 1/2 minute song or a 3 1/2 hour movie or a 300-page novel.

I like to think that’s because I myself am a character in a story. Not just any story. The Story of all stories, authored by the very God who made the world and everything in it.

The Story isn’t about me, though I tend to forget that from time to time. I get so caught up in my little drama and my own problems that I forget who the story is really about (and has always been about).

The Story has always and will always be about Jesus. He’s the great Hero who shows up when things are at their bleakest and when people are at their lowest and rescues us.

I take great comfort in knowing that my Story has a happy ending because I’ve already read the last page. No, I don’t know how I will die (though according to a facebook app, I will die in a rollerblading accident when I’m in my 90’s). I do know that Jesus comes back in the end and sets everything right again. And I get to be a part of that.

I love how C.S. Lewis puts it. All of history is just the title page and preface, but Heaven will be the actual story that never ends and keeps getting better from chapter to chapter. Heaven’s not an end, but the real beginning after a false start.

That’s why I love a good story. I always have, from when I was little up till now. So did Jesus during His earthly ministry. His way of communicating truth was through telling stories.

I hope that you and I can not only live our stories well, but learn to tell them to others and help other people find their own stories in the context of God’s great Story.

 

 

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.

Music & Memories

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“She wears denim wherever she goes
Says she’s gonna get some records by the Status Quo
Oh yeah…Oh yeah…” (Teenage Fanclub)

If you’re as much of a music nerd as I am, maybe you occasionally hear the opening line of a particular song and it transports you to a very specific place and time.

Maybe you go back to being in the car with friends at night on a weekend. You remember where you were, where you were going, the conversation, even the sights and smells.

For me, I hear the song “Silent Lucidity” by Queensryche and I go back to the Subway next to the Kroger’s where I used to work and the girl I used to have a crush on. I can’t remember what we talked about or what sub I ate, but I remember that song.

When I hear some songs, I’m 12 years old again, feeling the same feelings I felt back then. Or maybe I’m back to being 21 with a whole world of possibilities still opened up before me.

That’s why I love music so much. Nothing else has the power to bring back memories so vividly. All it takes is the intro and opening lines to a certain song and you’re back in the moment. It’s as good as a time machine.

Nothing takes me back to junior high better than a Chicago song. Bon Jovi takes me back to high school days. For college, nothing brings back good memories better than a Spin Doctors song.

What songs take you back? It may not be a song that went massive. It may be an obscure song that just happened to hit you at the right moment in such a way that it is ingrained in your memory, tied to a particular place and time.

But if you’re anything like me, you have at least one of those songs stored in the ol’ noggin. So let me know. What are the songs that make up the soundtrack of your life?

A Place to Belong

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“That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home” (Ephesians 2:19-22).

That’s what everybody is looking for, isn’t it? A place to belong? A place where we feel welcomed? I think so. We all want to be a part of something that is bigger than our individual selves.

No one likes to feel left out or unwanted. No one wants to feel ostracized and rejected.

That’s the beautiful part of the Gospel. God wants you to be a part of what He’s doing in the world. He wants you. Once you say YES to Him, you’re no longer a stranger or an alien or an outcast. You belong. You matter. You are now a child of the King.

That’s what the Church really is. A community of nobodies that God chose and gave a new name and purpose to. Strangers who now belong to God and to each other.

Maybe you know what it’s like to be picked last for a kickball team (or not picked at all). Maybe you know what it feels to be the only one not invited to a party. Maybe you know what it’s like when it seems like everyone is talking to everyone else in a group but you.

You have a purpose. You have a God that picked you because He wanted you and placed you in a family whose bond is stronger than flesh and blood.

You belong.

 

 

More Movie Theology

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“I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too. . . .Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken ” (from the movie Hugo).

Very few people know what they were born to do. Fewer still are actually living out of that purpose. So many have settled for jobs and routines and hobbies and weekends and wonder why they lead lives of quiet desperation (as Thoreau famously put it).

I think God made each one of us with a purpose. No one is a mistake. No one is an afterthought. You and I are uniquely and expressly designed by our Creator to do what no one else can do.

I am finding out my own purpose. I know part of it involves writing and communicating the truth of knowing who you are in Christ. I know that I want people to know that God doesn’t love them out of an obligation or because He’s God; He loves them because He wants to. He chose you and called you by your own name and set His affections on you. He not only loves you, He likes you.

Not only did God create each of us with a purpose, He made us to help each other find and fulfill our purposes. I truly believe that we can only be our true, God-made selves in the middle of a community of believers who both minister to each other and reach out to a lost and broken world.

May we know what it’s like to see people find their purpose, to see broken people find wholeness, to see lost people found, and to see dead people coming alive again. What could be better?

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.