brennan manning

One of My Favorites

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Fri Sep 30 - Sun Oct 2, 2005

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
Fri Sep 30 – Sun Oct 2, 2005

Often at night, I’ll put on my headphones and get out whatever CD strikes my fancy and lull myself to sleep with some good music.

Last night, it was Gillian Welch’s Time (the Revelator). I love her music. In an age where music feels mass-produced, it’s a refreshing change to find songs that seem hand-crafted and lovingly spun.

I have all her music. I could put on any of her CDs and instantly be transported into a happier place of mind.

I actually got to see her and Dave Rawlings at the Ryman back in December of 2011. It was the last stop on their tour and it was fantastic. They had no opening act and played for 2 1/2 hours. It’s at least in my top three best concert experiences of all time.

Also, the Dave Rawlings Machine is good stuff, too. It’s basically a reversal of her albums with him doing the lion’s share of lead vocals.

Basically, go with whatever music moves you, whether it’s popular or not, top 40 or not, recent or not. Even if it’s Kenny G or Zamfir, Master of the Pan-Flute.

I wouldn’t want to live in a world without music and art. It would almost be like living in a world with justice but no mercy.

So yeah, I like music.

The end.

A Certainty that Cannot Be Shaken

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“We say, then, to anyone who is under trial, give Him time to steep the soul in His eternal truth. Go into the open air, look up into the depths of the sky, or out upon the wideness of the sea, or on the strength of the hills that is His also; or, if bound in the body, go forth in the spirit; spirit is not bound. Give Him time and, as surely as dawn follows night, there will break upon the heart a sense of certainty that cannot be shaken” (Amy Carmichael).

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what happened in Paris.

Granted, I didn’t even hear about it until I’d gotten home from work.

I turned on CNN and saw where at least 153 people had been killed in what looks like ISIS terrorist attacks on innocent civilians.

If it happened there, it could happen here. But still, the fact that it happened anywhere matters. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Attacks on liberty are a threat to liberty anywhere and everywhere.

I still don’t know why things like that happen. I know it’s a fallen and broken world. I know that people are capable of the worst acts, as evidenced by the Holocaust and Slavery and a million other atrocities.

I also know that God is in control.

I know that God can take the worst tragedies and turn them into something beautiful.

I still believe that in the end, Love wins. Jesus wins.

I know and believe with all my heart that, try as it might, darkness can never truly drive out the light. The only failure is a failure of the light when it refuses to shine.

I’m praying for Paris. I’m praying for all those who are burdened by oppression and injustice tonight.

May God have mercy on us all.

 

Why I Love Old Abraham

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“By faith Abraham heard God’s call to travel to a place he would one day receive as an inheritance; and he obeyed, not knowing where God’s call would take him. By faith he journeyed to the land of the promise as a foreigner; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, his fellow heirs to the promise because Abraham looked ahead to a city with foundations, a city laid out and built by God.

By faith Abraham’s wife Sarah became fertile long after menopause because she believed God would be faithful to His promise. So from this man, who was almost at death’s door, God brought forth descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as impossible to count as the sands of the shore” (Hebrews 11:8-12).

“That’s what Scripture means when it says, ‘Abraham entrusted himself to God, and God credited him with righteousness.’ And living a faithful life earned Abraham the title of ‘God’s friend'” (James 2:23, The Voice).

I like Abraham. I can relate to Abraham.

Sure, he was the father of many nations. Sure, he’s the one through whose line came the Messiah, the Hope of the World.

But he also had clay feet at times.

Remember the time when he lied about his wife, saying she was his sister? Twice?

Remember when he tried to help God out by agreeing to go to bed with Sarah’s servant Hagar to produce the heir God promised?

Remember when Abraham had a hard time believing that God could keep His word in giving him a child?

Yeah, I can relate to all of that. Abraham’s my kind of guy.

The Bible is full of people like that. Not saints in the sense of people who walked through life with halos hanging over their heads who never messed up or got a hair out of place or got their knickers in a bunch. More like saints who stumbled and fell often, but kept getting back up, kept trusting in the next step, kept trusting that God knew where he was leading them through all the deserts and foreign countries.

Sometimes faith is simply showing up and taking the next step, trusting that God knows where He’s leading you. As Corrie Ten Boom said, faith is trusting the conductor of the train when it goes into a pitch black tunnel instead of jumping off the back of the caboose.

I suppose we’re all thankful that even faith the size of a mustard seed can move  mountains and uproot trees. It can change stubborn old hearts like yours and mine.

Best of all, faith leads you to the place where God is, where you were always meant to be, the place where your heart can rest.

 

More Borrowed Wisdom From One Mr. Lewis

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I have the crud, so I invited a guest blogger to share his thoughts. Well, I copied and pasted from something C. S. Lewis wrote. It blew my fuzzy, hay-fevered mind. I hope it blows your mind as well.

“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God.

But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him.

But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him.

You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal.

So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

You’re welcome.

Praying starts and ends with God. Sure, I bring my needs and wants to God, but sometimes there are no words. Sometimes, I need to know that God inside of me is praying to the God above me through the God in Christ who is beside me.

That’s prayer.

 

Coming Home

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“Isn’t it right to join in the celebration and be happy? This is your brother we’re talking about. He was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found again!” (Luke 15:32).

Editor’s Note: I still have The Crud, compete with intermittent coughing spells, so forgive me for any typographical errors I made while I was in the middle of hacking up one of my lungs. Hopefully, I’ll be better soon.

Every one of us has been a prodigal at some point. Every one of us.

Not all of us have run away to a far country to waste our lives and money on scandalous living.

Some of us have stayed at home and been just as far away from the Father.

As my pastor Mike Glenn reminded me today, lostness isn’t a matter of geography as much as it is of relationship.

All of us wander off in our affections and in our priorities. All of us.

All of us at some point will have that awakening when we come to ourselves and realize just how far away we’ve gotten.

It’s not Jesus who was lost. I was. You were. We were. Jesus found us. That’s the story of the Gospel. That’s my hope.

Some of you are praying for prodigals in your life who still haven’t come home yet. Some of you are the prodigals still out in the far country, ashamed and embarrassed to admit defeat and start the journey homeward.

Remember that God is the Father who never turns away any prodigals who come back in true repentance and faith. This is the God who doesn’t wait for us to get to Him. He runs after us while we’re still a long way down the road.

Every one of us at some point will be a prodigal again. It’s in our nature to wander and it’s in God’s nature to bring us back.

That will never not be good news to me.

The end.

 

 

To Starbucks or Not to Starbucks?

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“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable” (Brennan Manning).

I went to Starbucks and got my caramel apple spice beverage. It’s not on the menu anymore, but I asked for it and they were able to make it for me. It was uber-yummy. I might even get one when I go back.

Yep, I went there. Literally.

I know some people are upset with Starbucks for not having “Merry Christmas” emblazoned on all their paraphernalia. It’s not even Thanksgiving, people. What do you expect?

This is my take. Starbucks is not a Christian company. I never had any illusions that they were. They are a for-profit company. Period. They also make darn good caramel apple spice beverages.

I’m much more bothered by people who profess faith with their lips but deny it with their lifestyles, as Brennan Manning mentioned earlier.

I’m bothered by Christian businessmen and women who will engage in unethical practices and behaviors under the guise of “it’s just business,” as if their faith and their business ethics don’t mix and the people who get turned off by their bad witness don’t matter.

I’m bothered by people with Christian bumper stickers plastered all over their vehicles whose driving gives a very different kind of witness than those faith-based slogans. Not that I ever drive badly. Oh no.

I’m bothered by Christians who are the most obnoxious and demanding people at restaurants, who tip the least, who show the least amount of grace to those who serve them. I’m extremely bothered by the fact that Sunday is the day a waitperson dreads to work most of all because of all of the church people.

I’m bothered by believers who haven’t done a very good job of representing what Jesus was all about– namely, forgiveness, grace, second chances, and a home for all types of broken people. I’m bothered that people know us by what we’re against instead of what we’re for.

I’m bothered that Christians still think that we can elect a savior in the form of a politician who knows how and when to say the right things to tickle people’s ears.

I’d rather see my Merry Christmases lived out than spoken. I’d rather see people who celebrate the birth of the Christ child by following His example and, better yet, by being so filled with the Christ-presence that they bring Jesus into every place where they live, work, and play.

I’m okay with a “Happy Holidays” or a “Seasons’ Greetings.” I don’t expect Starbucks or Target or any other retailers to do my evangelizing for me. It’s not their job. It’s mine.

Oh, did I mention that it’s not even Thanksgiving yet? Let’s at least hold off on the “Merry CHRISTmas” rants until November 27, please. Thanks.

 

No Bad Days

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“As long as your heart’s beatin’
There’s no bad days
You got something to believe in
There’s no bad days
As long as you’re dreamin’, reachin’, seekin’
Make no mistake
As long as you’re breathin’
There’s no bad days” (Django Walker/James Slater/Patrick Davis/Jeff Cook).

My old boss used to say, “Any day without a toe tag is a good day.”

My take on that is that any day you wake up is a day that you still have a purpose and a reason to be here.

Any day you open your eyes to the new morning is better for you than many who won’t get the chance to experience the new set of 24 hours.

Every single day you’re alive is a blessing.

To be sure, I do believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with Jesus.

I also believe that life isn’t something where you pass the time until you die. It’s something you get to live only once.

One of my favorite lines from the movie Gladiator goes something like this: what we do here and now echoes in eternity.”

Your small acts of love, your random acts of kindness, you’re showing up and not giving up on a daily basis causes a ripple effect that will be felt long beyond your earthly years.

So make it count.

Oh yeah, and remember to keep things in perspective. In my own life, I’ve found that most things aren’t worth getting upset over. You waste too much time and energy fretting about what you can’t control and what ends up being transitory.

You can’t control most of what happens to you. You can only control you and how you choose to respond to it, Better yet, you can choose to surrender to the God who not only controls it all, but works it all together for good– your good and His good.

That was for free.

 

Music I Like

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I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t care how old the music or what format it is. If it speaks to me and tells me my story, I like it.

I used to look down my nose at country music. I thought it was too hick for me. Then I tried to listen to it and didn’t like it.

Later on, I found some Dwight Yoakum. It turns out that I really did like country music after all, just not the sugar-flavored pop with a twang that passes for country music these days. Yes, I just showed my age.

I have just about every kind of genre from just about every decade that music has been made. I like it all.

Lately, I find myself gravitating toward the road less traveled, musically speaking. I don’t tend to go for top 40 as much. I like more alt-country and Americana-style music.  But not to the point of being hipster. I’m not there yet.

There’s still nothing better to me than the right song at the right moment. It’s almost like the song becomes a part of the soundtrack of your life and the moment becomes etched in your memory.

I like the Grateful Dead, mostly because every time I listen to one of their songs, I think about Uncle Bob and how much he loved the Grateful Dead. It makes me happy. Hopefully he’s up in heaven smiling at my new musical broad-mindedness.

I also tend to avoid music awards shows like the bubonic plague. All they do is reward mediocrity and popularity over actual talent. Generally speaking. And that was my soapbox speech for the evening.

The beauty of music, as well as art, is that there really is no such thing as bad art. Art and music are subjective, and chances are that what turns me off completely may speak to you where you are and you may love it. More power to you.

As Uncle Mikey aka Mike Glenn says, that’s why Baskin Robbins has 39 flavors of ice cream. Not everyone likes Rocky Road. Not every one likes what I like in music. Some actually like Justin Bieber. God bless and keep listening. Just make sure you have your headphones on when you’re around me, please.

 

 

Neighborliness

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“Neighborliness is not a quality in other people; it is simply their claim on ourselves. Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience. We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship).

Who is my neighbor? That’s the question that the expert in Jewish law asked Jesus. In other words, who am I required to love?

Jesus turned the question around from “Who is my neighbor?” to “How am I being a good neighbor to those around me?”

So, a neighbor is anyone who is in need and who is within my power to help. I can’t help every single one in need, but I can meet the needs of those who are in front of me, and those by Jesus’ definition are my neighbors.

Ultimately, the Good Samaritan is a picture of Jesus Himself. I’m the one who foolishly took the dangerous road alone and ended up beaten up and robbed. I’m the one lying half-dead on the road whom the Neighbor spotted and had pity on.

That changes the parable quite a bit, doesn’t it? It means just as the Good Samaritan wasn’t the kind of hero the Jewish audience was expecting, Jesus wasn’t (and isn’t) the kind of Messiah we were expecting.

We prize physical strength and virility. We prize magazine-cover good looks. We love take-charge, grab-the-bull-by-the-horns people.

I wonder sometimes if we’d know Jesus as Messiah if He showed up today as He did almost two millennia ago. People were expecting someone to rally the people against Rome, but instead got a man who insisted that we turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.

Sure, Jesus overturned those tables in the Temple, but He also said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

I’m thankful most of all that in Jesus, I got not the kind of Savior I might have wanted, but the kind I so desperately needed. He loved ( and still loves) me just like I am but refuses to let me stay that way.

PS Credit for all of this goes to Mike Glenn, courtesy of tonight’s Kairos message. Check it out some Tuesday evening if you’re ever in the Brentwood/Greater Nashville area.

 

Here’s the Deal

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So I found out today that the cost to repair the transmission on my Jeep is $2700. I almost needed the smelling salts as I typed that sentence. I’ll be sans car for up to four weeks. Pass those smelling salts, please.

That’s a lot of money. All for some itty bitty parts that decided on their own without consulting me or anyone else to stop working. All for some unseen mechanical gears that I didn’t even know existed until they decided to break down. Rude.

A lot of life is like that. Things break, people die, situations change. What seemed like a sure thing vanishes like the morning mist and what you thought would last forever ends abruptly without any warning.

It’s easy to let those things make you cynical, believing that only the very worst scenarios will play out and that nothing good can ever happen and that people are only out to get you.

Or it drives you deeper into all the Mystery that is the Abba Father.

As big as my car bill is, God is bigger.

As big as the void that is left by the passing of a loved one is, God is bigger.

As big as the hurt caused by the rejection of a friend or a family member, God is bigger.

As big as the accumulation of scars and wounds from a broken relationship are, God is bigger.

God is bigger than anything you will face today or tomorrow or the next day or any day after that.

God is bigger than any problem that you will ever face.

God is bigger than your fears and your doubts and even your unbelief.

Whatever circumstances, God will prove that He is enough. Everything you could possibly desire or want or hold in your hands without God is less than holding onto nothing but God.

That’s a lesson that all of us learn eventually, whether that means losing everything in a literal sense or in coming to the end of your own schemes and plans.

God is enough. God will be enough.

That is enough.