I’m tired.

No, I don’t mean the kind of tired where you need to go to bed and sleep for 14 hours (although that does sound great right about now).

I mean tired as in weary in my soul.

I’m tired of Mondays. Honestly, they seem to crop up every week or so. Don’t they ever stop?

I’m tired of how quickly the weekends go by. It really feels like Mooooooonday, Tuuuuuuuesday, Weeeeeeeendnesday, Thuuuuuuursay, FridaySaturdaySunday, Mooooooonday, etc.

I’m tired of coronavirus and COVID-19 and social distancing and self-quarantining and people getting sick and dying who should have no business getting sick and dying.

I’m tired of all the racial strife that never seems to go away and wonder if we’ve learned anything from the teachings of Jesus.

I’m tired of people talking at each other instead of to each other. I’m tired of people who shut their ears, close their eyes, and make pouty faces whenever anyone disagrees with or dissents from their opinions, as if they are being persecuted when ever they are contradicted.

I’m tired of people who keep trying to “improve” on the gospel of Jesus Christ and end up turning it into one of those “other gospels” that the Apostle Paul spoke against because only the true Gospel of Jesus has the power to change and transform.

I’m tired of people who claim Christianity who are known far more for who and what they are against rather than what and Who they are for.

I’m tired of EVERYTHING being political and politicized to death. Whatever happened to common sense and common human decency?

I get tired of waiting, but I never tire of hope. Therefore, I wait with the hope that Jesus will one day make all things right and whole and new again.

“We deafen God day and night with our words, ‘Lord, thy will be done.’ But then when God’s will does happen, we are furious and don’t like it a bit. When our will becomes God’s will, that is certainly good; but how much better it would be if God’s will were to become our will” (Meister Eckhart, A Call to Selfless Service).

I remember that Elisabeth Elliott once said that in order for God’s will to be done, my will often has to be undone.

I’m not a fan of that.

I don’t like my will to come undone. I don’t like my plans to fall apart and my dreams to disintegrate. But often that is precisely what must happen in order for God’s will to be accomplished in my own life.

Something else for me to remember is that God’s will is bigger than just me. It’s wider and grander and broader than my two little eyes can see and more than my puny mind can comprehend. It’s about way more than just my hopes and dreams and desires and goals.

God’s will is about all of time and eternity. It’s about so loving the world that He gave is one and only unique Son so that no one should be lost but that all might have eternal life.

Sometimes my priorities need readjusting and my mindset needs rebooting. I need to see outside my little world to the bigger world that God is working in.

God, help me to see people the way you do and love Your world the way You do. Help me to want Your will above my own and may Your purposes prevail in and through me every day. Amen.

In the midst of all the gloom and doom media coverage of all things pandemic (among other issues), I thought I’d give you a brief respite from all the negativity by updating you on my little feline named Peanut.

She’s a very docile and gentle 3-year old tortie who loves her some naps. I mean the person who came up with the phrase cat nap has probably never seen an actual cat napping. It’s anything but brief.

She also likes to rub up against my legs, which I believe is her way of leaving her scent on me and marking me as her property. Like that was a really big secret before, right? She’s owned me ever since she picked me out to be her human at the animal shelter.

She has her manic outburst of energy for the day, usually lasting about 5-10 minutes. She gets out all of her energy and exercise for the next 24 hours so she can devote more time to napping. I think that’s brilliant.

Pretty much her job is to lay around all day looking cute. I’d say she does that quite well. In fact, I think I’ll keep her around for another 15-20 years. That is, if she’ll have me.

“THE HOLY SPIRIT IS PROPHETICALLY WARNING HIS PEOPLE… 

…the only way to thwart a coming dark spiritual season is to heed Christ’s warning and apply His prescribed solutions. Here in the United States the winds are blowing with such hostility and contempt toward Christians that things are said against believers that would never be said against a Muslim, or Minority. 

Even notice the rooster on the weather vain? It is there because Pope Nicholas I decreed in the 9th century that all churches must show the symbol of a Rooster on its dome or steeple, as a symbol of Jesus’ prophecy of Peter’s betrayal (Luke 22:34). It was a reminder that the fixed laws of North, South, East and West will not change or move even when the winds of persecution can cause us to bend with the times.

When the church has no affixed, absolute, biblical truth on which it stands – when it has no ‘line in the sand’ truths, it has ceased to be the force withstanding the gates of Hell on earth. The danger is this – with this mindset the church is reduced to a good will, humanitarian organization with only a weak Christian philosophy. 

Rick Renner says: ‘It is no secret that the spiritual environment in the world is undergoing a radical change and a great gulf is beginning to divide those who are moving away from established truth and those who see what is happening and are responding by making personal re-commitments to absolute truth. The winds of change are blowing and it is producing a sifting, a dividing — a separation of wheat from chaff. The rift has become so severe that who is wheat and who is chaff may be looked upon differently depending on which group to whom you belong.’

Our job is to recognize these truths, then re-calibrate and upgrade our own lives so to honor Godly principles. A changed Church must start with us” (Lance Wallnau).

I posted the following in 2017. It’s from Tyler McKenzie, a pastor in Louisville, Kentucky. It may be 3 years old, but the sentiments are as timely as ever:

“If we’re not self-aware, there are many ways social media can make us less, not more, social. One way that quietly goes unnoticed (but whose painful consequences are undeniable in our culture) is that it allows us to choose and filter the voices we listen to.

It feeds confirmation bias politically, racially, culturally, religiously, etc. It creates a sort of self-made groupthink bubble in which you can simply screen out people who express any opinion on any thing that you don’t like.

No wonder the States of America are Divided, not United, today. No wonder literally everything feels so polarized – Choose your side! No wonder efforts to find compromise or solutions seem fruitless.

I believe the Jesus follower chooses a better way.

-We have the humility to listen, knowing that nothing about us is perfect, including our beliefs. God had to die for us wretches, after all.

-We welcome conversations that are challenging with those who are different because we know we always have a lot to learn and this may be another opportunity.

-We speak with truth AND love. Love without complete truth is enablement. Truth without love will never be heard because… you sound like a butthead.

-We honor the God-given-Jesus-died-for dignity of every human being, even our enemies, by at least trying to understand their beliefs, perspective, and cultural narrative.

-And we do actually try to understand others rather than just win arguments. The most loving thing you can do for someone with whom you disagree is understand and represent their argument fairly. 90% of frustration in disagreement comes from feeling ‘misunderstood’ or ‘misrepresented’ by the opposing voice.

Boiling it down, what I’m saying is this… The Jesus follower intentionally cultivates diversity in their life. God is an artist, and every person is another portrait that can lend us perspective on Him. #JesusIsWhy” (Tyler McKenzie).

“‘I SHALL NOT WANT,’ the psalm says. Is that true? There are lots of things we go on wanting, go on lacking, whether we believe in God or not. They are not just material things like a new roof or a better paying job, but things like good health, things like happiness for our children, things like being understood and appreciated, like relief from pain, like some measure of inner peace not just for ourselves but for the people we love and for whom we pray. Believers and unbelievers alike we go on wanting plenty our whole lives through. We long for what never seems to come. We pray for what never seems to be clearly given. But when the psalm says ‘I shall not want,’ maybe it is speaking the utter truth anyhow. Maybe it means that if we keep our eyes open, if we keep our hearts and lives open, we will at least never be in want of the one thing we want more than anything else. Maybe it means that whatever else is withheld, the shepherd never withholds himself, and he is what we want more than anything else” (Freerick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry).

I just want to repeat that last line because it’s the truth that we all need right now: Maybe it means that whatever else is withheld, the shepherd never withholds himself, and he is what we want more than anything else.

Maybe what I want more than the gifts of God is God Himself. Maybe what I want more than God giving me answers is to find that God Himself is the answer to all my questions.

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

In case you needed your priorities reset and rebooted, this picture should just about do it.

How many of us focus on what we don’t have and take for granted what we have?

I read somewhere more than once that if you have a roof over your head, more than one change of clothes, more than one meal in the last 24 hours, access to clean water, transportation, and people who love you, you are richer than most.

In fact, you might be in the top 5% globally speaking.

Somewhere out there someone would give anything to have one of your “bad” days. Your worst days are probably better than their best days.

So if you want the cure for the disease of comparison and complaining, it’s gratitude. If you want to eliminate envy and banish bitterness, the answer is to give thanks.

Measure your life by what you have, not what you don’t.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful^; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:4-13, ESV).

“Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always ‘me first,’
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love” (1 Corinthians 13:4-13, The Message).

How is everyone doing tonight? Are you coping well with the current state of pandemic affairs? Are you stressed out or are you remaining relatively calm?

These are not build ups to some point I want to make. I genuinely want to know how you are out there in the wonderful world of interwebs.

Please let me know how I can pray for you during this time. I know for me the best way to pray is for endurance for this season. I know it’s dangerous to pray for patience because that’s usually when your patience gets tested the most, but I think we all could probably use it right now.

Pray for our leadership at the national, state, and local levels –whether you agree with them or not– for wisdom and guidance. Pray for the coronavirus to go away.

Do let me know how I can pray for you. I’m not being rhetorical. I’m really asking, “How can I pray for you?”

I’m not the best at praying, but I’d like to pray for you.

That’s all.

“It is easy enough to write and talk about God while remaining comfortable within the contemporary intellectual climate. Even people who would call themselves unbelievers often use the word gesturally, as a ready-made synonym for mystery. But if nature abhors a vacuum, Christ abhors a vagueness. If God is love, Christ is love for this one person, this one place, this one time-bound and time-ravaged self” (Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss).

I probably mentioned this in an earlier post, but I wanted to repeat it in case you might have forgotten in all the chaos and pandemonium. You are important to God and your individual life matters to Him. Even if you’ve given up on the idea of God and no longer believe in Him, He is still for you.

His desire is still that you should not perish but that you should come to true repentance and faith. His desire is to see you become all that He created you to be, a fully alive son or daughter of God.

You still matter.