spirituality

Seeing With New Eyes

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I had a flashback to an old memory. Actually, it was less of a flashback and more of a memory of my mother telling me about it.

When I was 4 or so, I had the notion to pour Comet Cleanser on my head. It seemed like a fine idea at the time to my 4-year old mind. That is, until it got into my eyes.

I don’t remember any of this, but apparently I burned or damaged my retinas pretty severely. I had to stay in a dark room away from bright lights and have drops in my eyes every four hours. According to the story, there was some doubt as to whether my retinas would grow back.

They did.

I don’t know what triggered that memory. I do know that I’ve had experiences that have caused me to look at myself and others through new eyes.

Like tonight. The teacher at Kairos spoke about the tale of the Good Samaritan. Only he said that Jesus taught the parable to show us not that we’re the Samaritan who helps others, but the badly beaten, naked man lying in a ditch on the side of the road, desperate for help.

Maybe you’ve thought to yourself, “Hey, I’m a nice person. I try to help others and do the right thing most of the time.”

But if you’re honest you look at your life and you see deception and manipulation. You see those times when you failed and didn’t do the right thing. You know that if people could read your mind and see some of the thoughts you have in the dark of night, they wouldn’t think you were so nice.

The fact is that we’re all in need of rescue. We’re not as noble or kind or brave as we thought we were. We’re not nearly as able to help ourselves.

But Jesus is so much stronger than we ever knew. He’s so much more than able to reach down and rescue us from the messes we fall into. He’s able to change us into loving people who don’t do kind things as much as they exude kindness. It’s his love inside us by which we love others who aren’t lovable.

I know even after more than three decades of being a Christian, I need Jesus every bit as much now as I did when I first believed. The only thing that’s changed is that I see so much more clearly how good and great he is, how much he loves me, and how committed he is to me.

I haven’t had any more eye emergencies since. Hopefully, I’m smart enough now not to pour household cleaners on my head. Lesson learned.

 

My Break From Facebook Update

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It’s been 5 days since I last logged on to facebook. That may not sound like much to some of you, but for me, it’s a big deal. I’ve been known to check in multiple times during the day, mostly to see who liked or responded to one of my posts. Not like in the past, where I lived or died by who liked my status updates, but I still like to see who’s keeping up with me.

I catch myself starting to go to the website out of habit and divert myself to msn.com or espn.com. You don’t realize how addicting something is until you go cold-turkey from it.

I find that I am less anxious for the most part. The only thing I worry about is the notion that when I get back to facebook after Easter, that I will have far fewer friends than I did before I took a break from it/gave it up for Lent/took an extended cyber-holiday (pick any of the three).

I’m committed to seeing this though. I’m committed to using the time I normally spend on facebook to spend time with God in his word and in prayer. If you ask, “How’s that workin’ out for ya so far?” I say, “Up to this point, not so much.”

I remember what a pastor said. Fasting is giving something up to in essence say no to its demands on you, because no one and nothing has the right to make demands on your life other than God. I’m not calling this a fast, but I am recognizing that facebook does tend to dominate my thoughts more than it should and periodically, it’s good to step away to regain proper perspective and right thinking.

I feel at the moment like the runner who’s a mile or two into a marathon and thinks that there’s no way in the world he’ll finish. I don’t know how I can possibly hold out for the next few weeks. But if I take it one day at a time, one mile at a time, one step at a time, it doesn’t seem so hard anymore. Kind of like most things in life.

So pray for me that I put the new-found free time to better use. Pray that I am open to what God has to say to me during this time and the humility and bravery to not only listen to what he says, but to put it into practice.

I’ll keep you updated periodically as to how I’m doing with this. In the mean time, may you find freedom in giving up those things you thought you couldn’t live without to find more of abundant Life.

 

Not Alone

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Have you ever looked at somebody else who seems to have it all together and been a little envious? Maybe it’s a guy with the classic good looks who has a successful career and always seems to have a beautiful girl on his arm. Or maybe a girl who never seems to have any problems and is the one that every guy wants to talk to.

Admit it. You’ve envied. You’ve coveted. You’ve probably wanted to trade places or, if you’re feeling really spiteful, you hope something bad happens to that person. Not tragically bad, but embarassingly bad.

But have you ever stopped and wondered what really goes on in that person’s life? Do you ever stop to think that maybe behind that perfect facade, that person is hurting. Maybe that person is looking at you and envying you for something he or she doesn’t have.

The point is that you never know the whole story. You only see the surface, not what’s underneath. You may never see the pain, the frustration, the unfulfilled longings, the pent-up anger, the quiet desperation.

Maybe that person is you. Maybe you’re the one who’s hanging by a thread to your faith, who has all but given up on believing that anything will really ever change. Maybe you just don’t feel anything anymore and don’t think God really knows or cares about you.

You’re not alone.

I know when I’ve been deeply discouraged, the words “I know what you’re going through” were more helpful to me than the person speaking them realized. I didn’t want to hear that everything was going to be fine. I didn’t need to hear what I needed to do to get over it. I just needed to know that I wasn’t alone in my struggle.

The biggest lie of the enemy is that you are the only one struggling and that you can never tell anyone, but most go on secretly bearing your pain and shame. The truth is that we are all broken in some way, dealing with a shameful past full of secrets and a pain that never seems to go away. Some are just better at hiding their brokenness than others.

So, even though you might not want to hear it at the moment, it will get better. It did for me. God does know where you are and what you’re going through and yes, he does care. He even loves you in spite of the dark bitter thoughts you carry in your mind.

And you are most definitely not alone.

 

Saints and Sinners

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quote-every-saint-has-a-past-and-every-sinner-has-a-future

 

“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

How true is that? All believers have something in their past that they’d rather forget, whether it was 15 years ago, 15 days ago, or 15 seconds ago. Every saint wishes at one time for a time machine to be able to travel back to that crucial moment and choose differently.

I have done and said some incredibly stupid things. I know you have. Unless you’ve lived in a bubble all your life or have perfected the art of self-deception, you have moments in the past that you regret. It’s easier to receive forgiveness from others and even from God sometimes than to forgive yourself and truly move on.

But forgiveness means just that. You are forgiven because of Jesus. Not because of your stellar track record or your perfectly good intentions, but because of Jesus taking your place and the punishment you deserved for all your failings and shortcomings.

All it takes is confession and repentance.

Every sinner has a future. No matter how badly you’ve screwed things up and how massive the wreckage your life has become, there is still forgiveness. There is still a clean slate and a fresh start. Not just up to three times before you strike out. God’s mercies are new every single morning. With every sunrise there is a do-over, a new beginning, a fresh start.

If you confess your screw-ups, God is faithful and just to forgive you. It doesn’t matter if you feel forgiven. You are. It doesn’t matter if you still feel guilty. That feeling isn’t from God and you don’t have to own it. After all, faith is believing when common sense and feelings tell you not to.

I’m more thankful than ever today for an unending supply of grace and forgiveness that belongs to me in Jesus. I didn’t earn it, I didn’t deserve it, but it’s mine. The same goes for you, too.

 

Some Things I Found While Randomly Surfing the Net

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“Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s Creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing you have received . . . but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage” (St Francis of Assisi).

I still can’t help thinking about the Ash Wednesday Mass at St Philip’s that I attended Wednesday. I’d like to say that I was brave enough to go down front and receive the ashes and the sacraments, but I wasn’t. I stayed in the very back and observed everyone else going forward, but I couldn’t make myself go. Even though I didn’t know another living soul there, I could have gone, but I chickened out.
It was still a beautiful service. To have the visible reminder of just how serious sin and its consequences are on your forehead is to remember the terrible price it took to pay for that sin. To receive the sacraments is to remember that it took a broken body and shed blood for that sin to be paid for.
I know I’ve sinned in the area of things left undone. I’ve sinned by listening more to my fear than to my faith. I’ve been more concerned about pleasing those around me than pleasing God. I’ve sat down when I should have stood up and walked.
But I also know that I’m forgiven. What I deserved, death and hell, fell on Jesus, and what I didn’t deserve, life to the fullest and grace overflowing, came to me and those like me. All I can do is be thankful and show that same grace to others who need it, too.
Since this is Valentines Day, a.k.a Single Awareness Day, I’m throwing in some wise words from a woman who epitomized grace and style. These are wise words to live by:

“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run her fingers through it once a day. For poise, know that you never walk alone” (Audrey Hepburn)

Speaking Louder than Words

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I heard a great illustration from a pastor today. The way our culture is becoming so image-driven, in a few generations we’ll all be walking around with huge thumbs for texting, enormous eyes, and tiny ears just big enough for ear buds and to hold our eye glasses up.

In other words, it’s all about the eye. But did you ever stop and think for a moment that the old saying is not, “The hand is quicker than the ear?” Magicians don’t set out to fool your ears, do they? Why? Because the eye can be deceived much more than the ear can.

So listen carefully. Don’t be deceived, whether it’s politicians or elevision preachers. Listen carefully to what they’re saying and whether it lines up with the word of God.

And now, since I don’t have a clever or witty segue way (or one at all, actually), I moved on to point #2, which is that talk is cheap. I will tie these two thoughts together at some point. I promise.

But speaking of promises (see, now that was a clever segue way), it seems to me that my generation and younger are really good at making promises, but not so much at keeping them. It’s sad, but you hear someone say a variation of “I’ll be there” or “I’ll meet you there,” you usually expect them not to show. If they do actually keep their word, it’s a minor miracle.

Words are cheap. Especially when it comes to politics and faith. It’s easy to talk a good game, but much harder to back it up. In the arena of faith, people are sick and tired of professing believers who do nothing but profess. If they never see any evidence behind those words, why should they believe anything the person says?

Jesus told us that his family isn’t flesh and blood. It’s those who follow him and do what he says. The evidence of whether or not someone belongs to Jesus is obedience to Jesus. Period.

So don’t talk love. Show love. Don’t talk compassion. Show compassion. Your actions really do speak louder than your words, especially if they don’t match your words. People will remember how you acted far longer than they will remember the actual words you spoke.

And every single bit of this is for me as much as it is for anybody else. I’m bad about speaking and then not following through with my actions. May you and I both be known to keep our promises no matter what and to live out what we believe rather than just talking a good game. May we speak our faith out loud, but live it out even louder. And no, I couldn’t come up with a way to tie both my points together, so I’ll leave that up to you. Just preach the gospel at all times with your attitudes and actions and, if necessary, use words.

That’s all.

Sanctuary

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I love old churches.

There’s one I particularly love in downtown Franklin. It’s an old Espiscopal church that dates back prior to the Civil War, and every time I step inside I feel like I’ve been transported to a vanished age. One where life was a lot less fast-paced and complicated.

A sanctuary is a place of safety and peace. It’s also a place where God comes and takes up residence.

The Apostle Paul said that believers are the temple of God. That means that you and I are the place where God dwells, where people come to meet God and to find peace.

I love that.

In a world filled with violence and unrest, people are desperately searching for calm. Where there’s so much upheaval and turmoil and chaos, people are looking for rest.

We as believers should be that place of calm and rest. People should see our lives and be drawn to our light. They should see God in us and the difference he makes in the way we respond to the storms and turmoil in our own lives.

That means that when those storms come, we know that God isn’t vaguely out there somewhere beyond the clouds. He’s not trapped in a building with a steeple or locked away behind  ornate church doors. He’s in us, with us, and for us.

We can know the peace of having the same Jesus who calmed the storms with a word of his mouth living in us. That same Jesus that overcame death and hell.

I’m thankful for sanctuary. I’m thankful that God has come to make his home in me and in all those who cling to Jesus as Lord and Savior. I know that means that I should be different than those around me, so they will be drawn to the God inside.

Lord, help me to love others as much as you loved me, and to show them the way to You the way you once showed me.

Amen.

 

 

In Everything Give Thanks

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Four little words say it all. In everything give thanks.

Notice it doesn’t say to give thanks FOR everything, but IN everything.

When you’re not sure if you will ever find another job, give thanks.

When you see loved ones getting older and weaker and more frail, give thanks.

When you wonder if the dreams God put in your heart will ever come to fruition and you’re hanging on by the most slender of threads, give thanks.

When you want to stomp and rage and cuss like a sailor at the way that person treated you, give thanks.

Give thanks that God is the same through it all. Give thanks that he has not forgotten you. Give thanks that he’s working through your pain and problems. Give thanks that God has been, is, and will always be God.

Give thanks that God works all things together for good. Give thanks that he will complete the good work he started in you. Give thanks that everything will be fine in the end, and if everything’s not fine, it’s not the end (borrowed from a really good movie).

In other words, in everything give thanks.

 

Forgiveness

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I remember reading somewhere that forgiveness is opening the door to the prison cell to set the prisoner free, only to discover that it was you locked inside all along. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing.

Note that I did not say that forgiveness is an easy thing. It is not. People you love have and will hurt you deeply, so much that you feel like your wounds will never heal.

Still the choice to forgive is the best one. Forgiveness releases that person’s hold over you and releases you from the slow death of bitterness and anger. Forgiveness means relinquishing the right to expect the person to ever make it right and realizing that only God can truly ever make it right.

I choose to forgive because I know I need it. When I was most in need of forgiveness and least deserving of it, I received it in abundance, more than I ever dreamed possible. Jesus didn’t forgive me in a miserly way, but prodigally and scandalously.

I’m called to forgive others the way Jesus forgave me. In the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, it says “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” That says to me that God will forgive us as much or little as we forgive others.

I know that forgiveness is hard. Humanly speaking, it’s impossible. “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” In other words, true forgiveness only comes from the heart of God. I don’t have it in myself. I can only ask God to open and enlarge my heart to receive God’s forgiveness. Then, as if pouring the ocean into a thimble, that forgiveness flows out and spills on to every person near me.

So, I choose by the power of the risen Christ and with the forgiveness I myself have received to forgive others. I choose not to be a victim or to be bound to my pain, carrying it around like a twisted trophy or adornment. I choose to be free and to set the other person free to receive forgiveness.

I love how Henri Nouwen speaks of forgiveness: “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.” (Henri Nouwen)

Scars

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I was watching Slumdog Millionaire tonight and the ending got me thinking. By the way, this is a spoiler alert, so if you haven’t already seen the movie and don’t want to know how it ends, don’t read any further.

Jamal, the main character, finds his true love, Nakita, at the train station. She’s trying to hide the scar on the side of her face, but he finds it anyway and gives her a kiss on the scar.

What a perfect picture of faith.

We all have scars we’re trying to hide. Some do a better job, so that you can’t tell they have any. Some don’t do as well because their scars are more obvious and less easily hidden.

We think God will be repulsed by our scars, by the bitter words we’ve spoken, by the horrendous things we’ve done, by the vile thoughts we’ve cherished from time to time. We’re sure that if he ever knew about those scars, he’d want nothing more to do with us. After all, haven’t so many people in our lives treated us that way? People we loved and trusted to be there for us always? They got one look at our scars and couldn’t get away from us fast enough.

I’m thankful every single day that God’s not like that. God seeks us out, and when he finds us, he gives us kisses of grace on our scars. He turns our scars into stories of transformation and amazing grace. Like I heard a pastor say, that one thing you never thought you’d ever confess to becomes the very first line of your testimony.

God appreciates scars because he’s got some of his own. Three to be exact. Two on his wrists and one in his side. They are reminders of the price he paid for you and me.

So maybe scars aren’t such a bad thing after all.