brennan manning

Life Lessons from a Dying Baby Bird

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Earlier while I was mowing the lawn, I almost ran over a baby bird in the yard. It was so tiny and scrawny that I almost mistook the little guy for a leaf or debris. I looked around for a bird nest he might have fallen out of, but couldn’t find anything.

I cupped him in my hands and took him to the side of the house where I wouldn’t have to worry about accidental “bird”-slaughter with the lawnmower.

It was obvious from the first moment I saw it that the bird was most likely not destined to live much longer. It didn’t have very many feathers and couldn’t fly.

I felt awful watching him open his little mouth looking for food. I wish I could have done more, even though I know there was precious little I could have done to save this baby bird.

That made me think. Sometimes there are people in our lives that we desperately want to help. You may have tried numerous times but in each case, either the help is not wanted or not received.

Sometimes, all you can do for someone is to love them. You can no more save them than I could that baby bird. But maybe in loving someone like that you can save yourself.

There is so much fleeting beauty in this life that passes like a vapor. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it and afterwards, you are never the same. I think it was another God-wink moment.

I suppose I’ll give the little guy a proper burial out of respect when he finally passes. It seems like the very least I could do. Maybe there’s a bird heaven where he’ll finally find his wings and his family.

I know that this isn’t how it was supposed to be in the beginning and I also know one day when all creation is restored, all things will be put right again.

PS When I woke, the little bird has passed away. I gave him as fitting a funeral as I could manage at 6 am before my morning commute. I like to think my life is just a bit richer for knowing this little guy.

Just About a Perfect Night

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Tonight was darn close to perfect.

I got to see my old college roommate and friend from Union University way back in the day with his new wife this evening. I didn’t know very many people there (actually only two total), but I enjoyed the unseasonably cool weather and being a part of some great conversations (though my ambivert self did more listening than talking).

It was an older house with a fantastic backyard that made for a good place to hang out. They even had chickens in the back of the yard. If I lived there, I’d string up a hammock and sleep in the backyard every night. Or at least when the weather was decent.

Nights like these are God-winks in the middle of a long week where it always seems that it should be a day later than it is. I felt all day long that today really should have been Thursday, but my calendar said otherwise.

I hope the fall-like weather continues, but I also know this is Tennessee, land of the perpetually changing temperatures. We just might get all four seasons in this week.

In the mean time, I’ll keep choosing gratitude for every day I’m given and looking for all the God-winks and small blessings I can find wherever I can find them. Oh, and tomorrow’s Thursday for real.

 

 

To All My Single Friends

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I don’t usually give advice when it comes to relationships, given my less than stellar record in that department, but tonight’s sermon from Kairos inspired me to pass along some hopefully helpful tidbits.

Well, actually one  tidbit. Don’t settle. Ever.

Don’t ever settle for someone who abuses you physically, mentally, emotionally, or in any other way. In fact, if you’re with someone who does that, leave. Immediately. Don’t wait around and hope it will change or that the other person will change. Just go.

Don’t ever settle for someone who treats you like you’re less. As in less than the amazing image bearer of God that you are. As in less than the son or daughter of the King that you are.

Don’t ever settle for someone who takes you for granted.

Don’t ever settle for someone who still thinks and acts like a child and wants freedom without responsibility.

Don’t ever settle for someone who is complacent about who they are and where they’re going in life, someone who isn’t willing to make the effort to change.

Don’t ever settle for someone who doesn’t bring out your best self and inspire you to be all that God created you to be.

Don’t ever settle for someone to not be alone. Some of the loneliest people are the ones who settled for people they weren’t meant to be with and who made them feel inferior and alone.

Don’t ever settle because of the lie that you are somehow less than complete or less of a person without someone in your life. Only Jesus completes you. If you’re not already whole, no one can make you whole.

Don’t be afraid to be alone. There’s a vast difference between alone and lonely. You can be alone with God and be more fulfilled than in any relationship. In fact, it’s good for everyone at some point to be alone so that you become comfortable with who you are.

Learn to love God and yourself. Learn to embrace the season of life you’re in and be fully to where you are, wherever you are. You can only be a better person for it.

Go Preds: Why I Love the Underdogs

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I think I’d root for the Nashville Predators right now even if I weren’t living in Nashville. There’s just something about the underdog that makes me want to pull for them, even if the odds against them seem insurmountable.

I believe that God has a special place in His heart for underdogs. You really see it when you look at the birth narrative. The ones chosen to be first to witness the incarnate God in the flesh, Jesus, weren’t the high-ranking religious leaders or the well-to-do in-crowd-ers.

It was some smelly shepherds keeping watch over their flocks in the dead of night whom God appointed to be the first witnesses of Immanuel. They were the first evangelists who immediately took the news of Jesus and speed it everywhere they went.

I’d love to see the Preds win the Stanley Cup. Regardless of what happens from here, I think they’ve served the city of Nashville and their fans proud by the way they’ve persevered and overcome so much already.

I’m thankful that God still loves the outcasts and unwanted and underdogs of the world. There’s no one that God cannot love, that God cannot rescue, that God cannot save to the uttermost. I know because I was one of them. Maybe you were, too.

So I say, “Go Preds!” and “Go God!”

 

 

Empty Bucket Lists

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“The best lives don’t have Bucket Lists as much as they have Empty Bucket lists.

Because the thing is when I kick the bucket, I don’t want there to be anything left in my bucket. When I kick the bucket, I want the bucket right empty.

I don’t want my life to be how I took experiences — but that I gave exceedingly.

That I gave every last drop, that I poured it all out, that I held nothing back. Because the way to really live is not to try to fill your life up — but to spill your life out” (Ann Voskamp).

Very rarely anymore do I read words that completely blow up my world as these did.

I was all about my bucket list. I may not have written it all down, but I had it all up in my noggin and just waiting for the right opportunities.

I keep thinking about the acronym for GIFT– Give it Forward Today. That’s the best way to a fulfilled life. Pour yourself out for the sake of others and ultimately for the sake of Christ.

I’m all about experiencing life and trying new things. I’m all for not sitting on your couch in front of Netflix, waiting to die but confronting your fears and living each day to the fullest. But it’s not about hoarding life as much as it is giving it away every single day.

I do think though that life isn’t about filling up your bucket but about emptying it out so that at the end, there’s nothing left. I hope that at the end when I take my last breath, I will have been all used up for God with nothing left to spare.

PS I still recommend the book The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp if you haven’t already read it. I put the link to buy it off amazon.com on my last blog post.

 

 

I Just Want Enough Time

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“I speak to God: I don’t really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done — yesterday.

In a world with cows to buy and fields to see and work to do, in the beep and blink of the twenty-first century, with its ‘live in the moment’ buzz phrase that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync? To have the time to grab the jacket off the hook and time to go out to all air and sky and green and time to wonder at all of them in all the light, this time refracting in prism. I just want to do my one life well” (Ann Voskamp).

I’m gonna leave that right there. No need to add anything or elaborate further because this says it all perfectly.

I might add that Ann Voskamp has a new book called The Broken Way that I’m really loving. Here’s the link if you want to go buy something awesome:

Good night, friends. Be sure and cherish all the moments you’re given for as long as you’re given them.

 

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

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As I type these words, I have a very sleepy geriatric feline nearby helping me to keep it all in perspective. Her little world revolves around eating and napping (and the occasional poop). It’s that simple.

Earlier this evening, I was thinking about all that we tend to stress and worry about. In the grand scheme of things, in view of eternity, 99.9% of these things don’t really matter.

I imagine that two years from now, I won’t even remember what I was so obsessed and stressed over on this June 2, 2017. If it won’t matter two years from now, why should it matter now?

I still say that everyone needs a dog or a cat to remind them of life’s simple pleasures and the ultimate joy of not taking yourself seriously. And sometimes, naps really are the answer to whatever’s ailing you.

The ultimate delusion that keeps most of us up at night is that we’re in complete control and it’s up to us to orchestrate all the events and occurrences in our lives so that our plans work out just right.

Pets are good reminders that we’re not and it’s best not to even try. Just enjoy your life and do what you can and trust God for the rest.

As the old saying goes, don’t sweat the small stuff– and most of it is small.

 

What You’re For

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I’m remembering something Uncle Mike (known to the non-Kairos folks as Dr. Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church) said a few years back.

He said that it seems lately that Christians are known for what they are against. You name it, they’re against it. He went on to say that at his old church, they’d get together and celebrate the fact that they hadn’t done anything that week.

It’s good to have convictions and standards. It’s good to speak up for what you believe in. To be silent about the things that matter to you is to give consent.

But I wonder if we haven’t fallen into that old trap again about being known more for what we’re against rather than what we’re for.

Here’s a few suggestions of what we can loudly proclaim that we’re for:

  1. Grace. No one deserves it, but grace is open and available to anyone. Even the Donald Trumps of the world? Yes. Even to the Hillary Clintons? Yes. Jesus died for these and for all.
  2. Life. Not just the unborn and not just Americans. All life matters because all life is sacred and every human being bears the Imago Dei, the image of God, whether Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Christian or Muslim.
  3. Love. Not just for those who treat you right and who always agree with you. Jesus said to love your enemies, even those on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
  4. God. There is still no one too lost or too far gone or too past hope for God to reach down and redeem and save to the uttermost. Not even you.

As always, speak the truth but speak it in love and never in an insulting or demeaning way. The people who disagree with us are not our enemies– the battle isn’t against flesh and blood but against those spiritual forces that Paul talked about. Abba’s children should never stoop to mocking or belittling others.

“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 13:12-13, The Message).

Staying True to the Truth

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“Jesus, the favorite Child of God, is persecuted. He who is poor, gentle, mourning; he who hungers and thirsts for uprightness; is merciful, pure of heart and a peacemaker is not welcome in this world. The Blessed One of God is a threat to the established order and a source of constant irritation to those who consider themselves the rulers of this world. Without his accusing anyone he is considered an accuser, without his condemning anyone he makes people feel guilty and ashamed, without his judging anyone those who see him feel judged. In their eyes, he cannot be tolerated and needs to be destroyed, because letting him be seems like a confession of guilt.

When we want to become like Jesus, we cannot expect always to be liked and admired. We have to be prepared to be rejected” (Henri Nouwen).

That’s it. Jesus said that if they hated Him, they would hate us. He also said woe to those of whom everyone speaks well. That’s not a good sign.

I’ve seen a trend lately where American believers want to fit in and be accepted, even at the expense of compromising away their convictions and doctrines.

What you end up with is a sort of “Be nice to each other” kind of theology that is of no use to anyone. We will have lost the very message that set us apart and got people’s attention.

I still love what Mike Glenn said about the world not hating us because we’re too different but because we’re not different enough. That’s where the Israelites screwed up by being too much like the nations around them and not nearly enough like the set apart people God called them to be.

Above being liked and being relevant, the priority of believers is still to remain faithful to Jesus and His gospel, no matter what.

 

Learning to Breathe

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“Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing—it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God’s plans may be, we are there and ready” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

I think we are being programmed to rush and stress and worry. The classic definition of stress is that everything has to happen right now. Nothing can wait or be delayed. It all has to be now.

I get caught up in the frenzy from time to time and let worry get the upper hand. After all, you only slow down when you’re sick, and then not even all that much.

Tonight at Kairos, I was reminded that God has a much bigger and broader time table than me and my own plans. God’s designs and timing for me are not only far better than whatever I could conceive, they’re perfect.

I think my obedience sometimes looks like faithfulness in the small details as much as the grand gestures for God. It’s me e getting up and showing up every day and not giving up but growing up.

Here we are, God, ready and willing for whatever’s next.