Set Free VBS 2014 Day One

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It was a perfect evening for ministry. You couldn’t ask for better weather. I remember last year I was melting in the heat. This year? It almost felt like fall.

We didn’t have a huge turnout, but there were several kids there. God knew who needed to be there. Once again, I was just blessed to be there to witness the volunteers loving on these kids, many of whom probably don’t get to see much tenderness or affection expressed toward them.

I don’t know about numbers or if any of these kids prayed to receive Christ. I do know several of them went forward to pray at the end. I do know they heard the message of Jesus’ love. I do know that these seeds weren’t planted in vain.

I can’t wait to go back tomorrow and see who shows up. I’m planning on bringing my “real” camera (the one that’s just a camera and not also a phone and a calculator and an iPod and a thousand other things). There will hopefully be pictures to share on my next blog.

In the mean time, just remember that cup of cold water. You don’t have to do everything for everybody. Sometimes, you can do one small thing for one person and make a world of difference. At least in that person’s world.

That’s what it’s all about. Loving people the way God loved you. Not so you can get people to pray a prayer and put another notch on your salvation belt. Simply because these people are created in the image of God and have worth and value if for no other reason than that.

I think I heard once that it takes something like 6 or 7 meaningful encounters before a person chooses Christ. No one person can save a soul– only God can do that– but each one can plant that proverbial seed, say that word of encouragement, offer that cup of cold water that adds up to a changed destiny.

That’s what I’m hoping for.

 

Love on a Perfect Tuesday Evening

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I sat outside Chick-fil-A with my chocolate cookie and sweet tea and enjoyed me some night air. It was as perfect a night as you will find on a mid-July Tuesday evening in Nashville. Normally during this point of the year I’m sweating like a chicken that’s about to be Sunday dinner.

Kairos was great as usual. Mike Glenn spoke from 1 John 3 about love being more than kind words. I’m convinced more than ever that love is a CHOICE. Feelings come and go, but you can still choose to love. You can choose to serve in love and give in love.

The best definition of true love is seeking the best for the beloved. Even if the best isn’t the easy choice. Or what the beloved prefers.

Love is a three nails and a cross. Love is sacrifice. Love isn’t about getting your own way but giving up your rights.

If I’m honest, I don’t love well. Very few of us do. Apart from God, no one can truly love at all. We love because God loved us first and showed us how.

That’s where I am on this Monday, July 15, at 9:55 pm. Learning to love by learning to be loved by the Maker of all loves.

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is still just to love and be loved in return.

What I Need on Mondays

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I need one of these first thing on a Monday morning, filled with my delightful blend of coffee, creamer, and sugar. Heavy on the creamer and sugar and light on the coffee. Or as I like to call it– coffee-flavored sugar milk.

I used to not drink coffee at all. Then I graduated to frappacinos, then to cappacinos, then to lattes, and finally to the grown-up drink. The other grown-up drink.

Mondays come awfully early in the week, so I need a cup about the size of the one pictured above. I also need about 8 hours more sleep. And maybe a vacation.

But most of all I still need grace. Every moment of the day, every day of my life.

It’s funny how I start to think I’m entitled to grace. The very nature of grace means that no one is entitled to it, no one deserves it, and no one should expect it because it is still the unmerited favor of God. Or as I’ve heard it put– God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

So that’s it. I need more sleep, a vacation, a ridiculously-sized cup o’ joe, and grace. Not necessarily in that order.

 

Observations on a Sunday in July

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As you may or may not be aware, I’ve joined a new church plant/regional campus of Brentwood Baptist Church. We’ve leased the old Acuff-Rose Publishing building on 2510 Franklin Pike and have been renovating it.

The pastor talked about how the room that will be used as the sanctuary/worship center once had a very different use. It was filled floor to ceiling, front to back, with shelves. These shelves were used to store boxes and boxes containing criminal records of inmates. Pages and pages of proof of mistakes and failures and crimes these people were now paying for.

He went on to talk about how amazing that this room would now be used for worship. For celebrating those who’ve been set free from their shameful pasts and forgiven for their failures and mistakes.

How cool is that?

There’s nothing and no one that God can’t repurpose for His glory. Just ask Joseph. Or Saul a.k.a. Paul.

I love what my pastor once said about how the worst moment of your life that you swore you’d never tell to a living soul can now become the very first line of your testimony. How you, the chief of sinners, are now the beloved of God.

God’s good like that.

Seasons

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The writer of Ecclesiastes talked about there being a season for everything in life– a time to be born and a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to mourn, etc.

I’ve found that to be very true. Especially in my social life.

There have been times when I have constantly been around people and there are times when I’ve felt alone. There have been times when I felt very popular and times when it seemed like I was the only one not invited to all the social activities I was seeing plastered all over social media.

I’ve come to terms with that.

I am who I am, regardless of whether that makes me popular or not. I have friends who I still see on a regular basis and some that I don’t see nearly as much as I used to. Again, that’s okay.

It doesn’t matter who else knows me and knows where I am when God does. While it  would be nice to occasionally hang out with celebrities (and who hasn’t daydreamed about that?) and have some of them know your name, the best part of all is that the God of the universe not only knows your name but has it engraved on the palms of His hands.

That’s worth celebrating.

So maybe I spend a night or two alone while people I know are off having a grand time at places I wasn’t invited to. I’ll live. Things like that don’t bother me anymore.

It took a very long time for me to get to this point. I don’t claim to have fully arrived or to be 100% mature about all this, but I am so much further along than I was two years ago.

That’s the key– not so much looking at how far you have to go but seeing how far you’ve already come and the progress, no matter how small it seems, that you’ve made. That’s what really matters.

 

A Puritan Prayer on Contentment

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I have a book called The Valley of Vision. It’s essentially a collection of really old, i.e. 1600’s Puritan prayers. I chose one of them at random to share with you (and because it’s just so freakin’ awesome).

“Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Your love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Your mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to You, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Your love.

When Your Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; His kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny. Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.

When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have His graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where You will show Yourself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, hasten that day.”

Those Puritans sure knew how to pray.

What I Had For Lunch

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I see all these posts about food on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter, so I thought I’d share what I had for lunch today. It was rather yummy.

My workday ended at noon so I made an impromptu decision to try out a new place that a friend of mine recommended. I went to Taqueria del Sol on 12th Ave South. I had a Memphis BBQ Taco with spicy jalapeno coleslaw that was delish (as all the hip kids nowadays say it). I also had a Peruvian Steak Taco, which was as divine as a taco gets this side of heaven.

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After, I walked over to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream for some — wait for it– splendid ice cream. I had something called The Buckeye State, which consisted of salted peanut butter (in honor of Lebron James going back to Cleveland) and a flavor called goat cheese with red cherries (which tasted uncannily like cheesecake).

I forgot to mention I had to walk a country mile to get to these places because parking is horrendous in that part of Nashville. It was also hot and I sweated profusely.

But it was worth it. The only thing to make it better would have been friends to share the experience with [cue sad trombone sound]. But maybe next time one or more of you can come with me.

Life is too short not to be spontaneous and try new things. Sure, some of those will not turn out great, but the ones that do will more than make up for the ones that do.

Now, what ever will I do for an encore on Saturday?

When You Forget

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As often as I’ve been doing this whole blogging thing– very nearly four years– you’d think I’d remember. But I went all day yesterday and forgot to write anything. Again.

How could I be so forgetful? The same way you and I are forgetful every day. The same way those pesky Israelites kept forgetting those miraculous interventions from God and kept complaining.

Stress and worry have a way of causing amnesia. It’s hard to remember what God did for me last week or last year when I have an unpaid bill due today.

There’s a verse in 2 Timothy that talks about how God remains faithful when we’re faithless because He can’t deny Himself. That’s what worry is. Unbelief.

God is faithful. Period. Whether or not I have a good memory about all the other times God provided, He still provides. That is very comforting.

It’s a good thing tomorrow’s Friday. Today is Thursday, right?

Eternal Life and All That Jazz

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I have a confession. Until very recently, I didn’t get overly excited when thinking about heaven. I know. That makes me a bad Christian. The thought of all those people riding white clouds and playing harps in white robes and never-ending church services didn’t appeal to me all that much.

All I kept thinking was how I couldn’t go to heaven until I had checked off several things off my bucket list like 1) create a bucket list, 2) get married (which implies dating), 3) eat at In-N-Out Burgers. I do have priorities.

But, as i have mentioned, I really started to get what heaven was all about when I read C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle where Lewis describes the feeling of heaven as the first day after school ends for the summer and that first day of vacation. That I could relate to.

Eternal life is the same way. It’s not just living forever. That in and of itself would be no fun. Kinda like when I watch reality TV. Oh wait. That only seems like an eternity.

Eternal life is not just quantity of life but quality as well. It’s life in abundance and to the full. It’s the best kind of life you could possibly imagine.

1 John says that the essence of eternal life is knowing and being known by Jesus. Imagine running into Tom Hanks in a restaurant. This would be 10,000 times better. And it’s 10,000 times more likely to happen.

Eternal life is knowing that Jesus knows your name. Not only that. He names and defines you. It means He declares victory over your destiny. Eternal life is trusting that the future is as Jesus says it is and being so confident as to live that way now (I stole that one from my pastor).

So your assignment is 1) to read The Last Battle (and preferably the other six books in the Narnia series), 2) make your own bucket list, and 3) to chill about heaven and eternal life.

Radnor Revisited

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I actually look forward to Mondays. And yes, I’m sure they make pills for this, but hear me out first.

Mondays are the day I meet with my accountability friend and we go walking in Radnor Lake State Park.

We start off on the main paved trail and then usually take the Ganier Ridge Trail, which is more taxing but also more rewarding. There’s nothing like walking under a canopy of trees with no sounds but of the leaves rustling in the summer breeze. And there’s the occasional squirrel or deer.

I almost fee like Frodo on his quest or the four Pevensie children on their way to see Aslan when I’m there. It’s like I leave my normal existence and get transported to Middle Earth or Narnia. Or I go back in time to when there was less noise and more green on the planet.

If you live in or near Nashville, I recommend going to Radnor Lake. But not on a weekend. It gets crazy crowded then.

But there is something about going outside an communing with nature. Maybe that Walden guy was on to something.