christianity

Thank you, Chris

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“God of love,
we thank you that Chris is in your gentle and loving hands,
far from the cruelty, violence and pain of our world.
When the trouble was near,
we could not understand how you seemed
to remain far away.
And yet it is to you we turn;
for in life and death
it is you alone whom we can trust,
and yours alone is the love that holds us fast.
We find it hard to forgive the deed
that has brought us so much grief.
But we know that, if life is soured by bitterness,
an unforgiving spirit brings no peace.
Lord, save us and help us.
Strengthen in us the faith and hope that Chris
is freed from the past with all its hurt,
and rests for ever in the calm security of your love,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
All
Amen.”

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you for being a good son, husband, and father.

Thank you for leaving behind a legacy of undying love and unquenchable faith.

Thank you for inspiring me with the way you lived out your faith even in dying, to the very last moments when Jesus called you home.

Thank you for your words of encouragement to me and thinking of me when what you were going through was a million times worse than anything I’ve faced.

You’ve inspired me to be kinder and more patient with those in my life.

You’ve reminded me to hug my friends and family as often as I can and to say, “I love you” whenever I get the chance.

You’ve compelled me to not take tomorrow for granted, but to seek forgiveness and reconciliation today while there is still time.

I and so many others are better people and more in loved with Jesus for having known you.

I know at this moment Jesus has you tightly gripped in a great big ol’ bear hug as He whispers in your ear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Attaboy, Chris!”

Thank you, Chris.

” I know your life
On earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain
You weren’t afraid to face the devil
You were no stranger to the rain

Go rest high on that mountain
Son, your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a shoutin’
Love for the Father and Son

Oh, how we cried the day you left us
We gathered round your grave to grieve
I wish I could see the angels faces
When they hear your sweet voice sing

Go rest high on that mountain
Son, your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a shoutin’
Love for the Father and Son” (Vince Gill)

Revisiting the Old Fears

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All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends” (Ann Voskamp).

Sometimes they do come back.

I’m talking about fears. Every so often, you will run into one of those along your path, usually when you least expect it and thought you had dealt with it.

Here’s a few examples.

Someone stops responding to your texts. The fear says, “See? You’ve offended that person in some way. You’ve ruined the relationship and it will never again be the same.”

A good friend moves to another town. “The fear moved in and whispers, “She won’t tell you to your face, but the real reason she moved was to get away from you.”

The one that dogged me for years was this: “Every one will eventually abandon you. Once they’ve seen what you’re really like, they won’t want to have anything more to do with you. They’ll start by growing distant with you and then disappear altogether. Nothing you do matters. No one notices anything you say. You might as well never have been born.”

Or maybe your fear goes like this: “You’re not worth someone’s love. No one could ever be attracted to you. You are repulsive to the opposite sex. You will always be alone.”

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Fear lies. That’s its nature.

Fear doesn’t come from God. Ever. Fear comes from the father of lies and means to keep you from God, imprisoned in your anxieties and phobias

Remember, perfect love casts out fear. And you are perfectly loved, just as you are, not as you should be or could be.

Name the fear. Expose it. Demons die in the light. Rebuke that fear OUT LOUD in the name of Jesus.

You in and of yourself will never defeat fear, but the power of Christ in you has already beaten it once and for all. That power is yours now to claim.

If you’ve allowed yourself to be mastered again to that fear, repent and move forward. Shame is a close relative of fear and is just as bent on keeping you away from God. Shame is also a defeated foe.

You as a child of God fight not for victory but FROM it. Keep that in mind and have a blessed Monday!

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A Good Weekend

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As I stepped into my car to head home from a Sunday School class party, I could hear the hypnotic drone of cicadas and felt 10-years old again and ready for the next big adventure. That’s what life really is. At least for those who have their eyes open to appreciate the mystery and wonder in each gift God unwraps daily called life.

I still fondly remember running through the streets of downtown Nashville with my friend Katie to catch the next act at Live on the Green, Michael Franti. It was a moment I never imagined happening, yet if you were to ask what my all-time favorite moment was, this one would be climbing the charts. And no Gatorade ever tasted better than the ones from the Exxon convenience store on the way home.

How can I forget an impromptu Starbucks session of great conversation and good coffee drinks? I can’t remember two hours flying by that fast. It was yet another in a long line of unexpected treasures and blessings God has showered on me lately.

I remember Friday and Saturday in downtown Franklin, seeing some of my favorite McCreary’s people and savoring yet another beautiful summer night visiting my usual haunts and trekking my familiar path up and down Main Street. I especially recall how quiet it was in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as I sat silent and still and expectant, waiting on a Word from God.

I finally fell asleep at 4:30 this morning after another night of tossing and turning. I think I’ll sleep better tonight. At least I hope I do. But even that time awake gave me time to reflect on all the little gifts that eucharisteo had opened my eyes to see.

I remember something my Sunday School teacher Derek Webster said. He said, “God believes in you even more than you do.”

I have to write that down somewhere. Oh yeah, I guess I just did. But I need it in a place where I can find it and see it every morning, because I know some mornings I’ll wake up and not be as excited to be alive. Those old self-doubts will creep in. The enemy will whisper, “See? Nobody really cares about you. No one would notice if you weren’t around. You don’t make one bit of difference to anybody.”

That’s when this Truth of God comes in. God says differently. To me. To you. To anyone who heard and followed the voice of Jesus. God said you do matter because I made you. Jesus said you matter because I thought you were to die for. You have a gift and a purpose that no one else ever in the history of mankind has ever had. Only you can play the part God wrote for you in the Great Romance He’s written out in history.

You being you makes God smile. You being who God created you is what the world around you needs to see more than any Billy Graham or Mother Teresa. You coming alive to your gifts and talents will be the ripple in the ocean whose effects will last far beyond your own lifetime.

Yep. All that from four days in August.

Alone But Not Lonely

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I was literally sitting in the dark on the upstairs patio at Frothy Monkey. One friend has been AWOL from my life for a while now, another moved to Cookeville today, and yet another was instagramming about how much fun she was having with friends listening to music at Franklin Mercantile just down the street.

And I sat alone in the dark.

And I was okay with it.

Sometimes, it’s good to be alone. In fact, it’s more than good. It’s necessary. You can never really effectively be present in a crowd if you can never be alone. You only hear your true name and your true identity in those times of aloneness.

It took me embracing those times of being alone to hear that I am my Abba’s beloved and to know that I belong to Him and He is very pleased with me.

I tried to message my friend to find out if she was still in the area and got no response. So I walked over to the Franklin Mercantile only to find I had missed everything. The crowd, including my friend, was gone.

I was still okay.

That used to be a recurring nightmare of mine. I’d find my friends had all left me suddenly or that I was just a step or a second too slow and would just miss them.

But tonight, I knew I wasn’t alone. Those Strong Arms that hold me up in the day and in the crowded places are just as able to carry me through the dark places where I am alone.

You can only hear your Abba singing over you when you’re alone. You can never truly appreciate God as a refuge and stronghold and place of rest in a crowd, but in those times when no one else is around.

I pray you can embrace being alone as much as you cherish being with family and friends. May you learn to love the dark, for that is where your Father will whisper precious promises to you that you will come to cherish more dearly than anything you can find at any other time.

Bittersweet Memories, Regrets, and Grace

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Today, I found out that a friend of mine who has cancer is in ICU. He’s septic and may not make it through the night. And if I’m honest, I didn’t really know him in high school. Or at least I don’t remember much about him. I regret that.

Lately, he’s been one of my biggest encouragers, even though what he’s going through is a million times worse than anything I’ve ever faced. I’m praying for one more miracle.

I find myself missing my childhood best friend Nathan. I miss my Grandmother Iris and my Granddaddy Bud. I miss both Uncle Bob and Uncle Monty. I even miss my high school homeroom teacher.

I have lots of unspoken words I wish I had spoken and a lot of unfulfilled promises I intended to keep but didn’t.

I can never go back and tell these people what they meant to me. I can never see their faces and hear their funny stories and hear tales of a legacy of faith that’s been passed down. I can never ask those questions that I thought I would have time to get around to.

But grace means that I still have a chance to set that right. I can say those words to the people who are still in my life. I can make good on promises I made to family and friends in honor and memory of those whom I’ve lost and miss still.

Don’t presume that you’ll have tomorrow to say your “I love you”s. Don’t think that anybody whom you love is guaranteed a tomorrow. Whatever you need to say or do, today is the day.

I’ve said before that when you take things and people for granted, what you’re granted gets taken. And I’ve asked the question before: “If God only let you keep what you thanked Him for and were grateful for verbally, what would you have left? Who would you have left?”

There’s an insidious kind of casualness to relationships these days. Maybe it’s because of people having 5,000 friends on facebook. Maybe it’s because no one thinks they’re really and truly mortal. But once someone is gone from your life, you can never rewind the tape. You can never skip back to the last scene. You can only live with those unspoken words and unfulfilled promises.

I know this is not one of my usual frivolous and witty posts. But sitting in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church with tears rolling down my face, I was reminded that sometimes I need a wake-up call. I need to be reminded that life is precious and people are more precious. Right now, have one purring cat in my lap that I must attend to, so I bid you all adieu and a good night.

A Kairos Greeter Prayer

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“I want the last face you see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this thing. I’ll be the face of love for you” (Sister Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking).

Lord,

I’m just one person. There are so many hurting and lost people who feel like nobody sees them. There are so many crying out for someone to notice them in their pain and anguish. Some will be here tonight for Kairos. Some will bring their profound brokenness, their wrist scars, their needle marks, their shattered dreams, their dashed hopes.

Help the first face they see in mine to be the face of Love. For some, it could be the last face they see, and may they leave this world knowing they saw at least one face filled with Your lovingkindness.

Help them to not see Greg Johnson, but Jesus Christ. May it be His smile they see and His words they hear and His hope they receive.

Let Your joy be in me and let it overflow to those who walk by. May your peace radiate outward from me in tangible waves to those who are in bondage to fear and doubt and anxiety. May You be everything in that moment and may I be nothing but a vessel for You to love Your people through.

I can’t touch every single hurting person, but I can be Jesus to just one. I can love the person in front of me. I can show grace to the next person who walks by my door.

Most of all, may they not remember me or Michael Boggs and the worship team or Mike Glenn (or whoever else happens to be teaching that night). If they don’t remember any of the lyrics to any of the songs or anything of the message, may they walk away knowing they have met with You, the Almighty Creator and King of the Universe as well as the Abba Father and Counter of the Lowliest Sparrow.

And may they never be the same again.

Amen.

All Those Celebrity Crushes

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It seemed so harmless. You know. The game where you name your celebrity crushes? How can there be any harm in it?

But I started thinking more about it today. Probably more than I should have. After all, one of my spiritual gifts is over-thinking things.

I think the problem is this. When we get involved in those crushes, we are buying into the world’s definition of beauty. And it is a very superficial, surface kind that only goes as deep as the glossy 8X10 paper it’s printed on.

Dr. Michael Easley, one of my favorite teachers, always says, “Don’t let the world teach you theology.” I say, “Don’t let the world define beauty for you.”

Beauty is more than body shapes and skin tones. For me, beauty isn’t what’s on the outside transforming the inward, but what’s on the inside coming out on the outside. In other words, a woman whose heart is at rest and who is comfortable in who she is as a woman will show a kind of beauty that make-up and cosmetics can’t touch. A man who is confident in how God made him and who knows who he is in Christ will have a kind of handsomeness that is more than chiseled abs and sculpted arms.

Beauty is who you are more than what you look like. Beauty is character– joy you can’t contain spilling out of every pore and coming out as kind of a glow. You know it when you see it. And like I’ve said before, you have to look with a different set of eyes to see it. You have to be able to look at others the way God looks at you.

Another thing. Celebrity crushes feed into distorted and unrealistic expectations and standards. Girls don’t want a nice guy. They want a nice guy who looks like Ryan Gosling. Guys want a sweet girl who looks like Kate Upton.

The problem is that no one looks like that. Not even those celebrities. There is always photoshopping and touching up that goes into the image. Not to say that physical attractiveness isn’t important, but hopefully what you find attractive in a person will be kindness and grace as much as looks.

So I’m currently deleting all my celebrity photos. Most of all, I’m going to start praying that God transforms my character into one that will attract the woman He has for me. I’m praying you won’t get so caught up in looking for the perfect man or woman that you miss that imperfect person who could make you perfectly happy. I’m praying you will let God choose, for God always gives the very best to those who leave the choice with Him (thanks to Elisabeth Elliot for that one).

I think I’m looking for a face to call home.

 

Movin’ On Up (To The East Side)

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Once again, I had the fun privilege of participating in the annual Belmont Move-In Day for incoming freshmen. You couldn’t have asked for better weather, i,e, mid 70’s with low humidity. It was perfect.

I had a blast as usual (this being my 3rd year) and was thankful yet again that the dorm I was assigned to didn’t have six floors. And that I was in much better physical shape than that first year.

I know college is supposed to be somewhat traumatic at first, but I think it’s the parents who are more traumatized than the kids. Most of the freshmen looked thrilled at the new possibilities and the open potential that lay ahead. The dads look mostly stoic and the moms looked to be on the verge of tears. Ok, not really, but that’s how I imagined the scenario playing out when no one else was watching.

Seeing a guy carrying up an old-school non-flat screen TV reminded me sharply of an old TV I dug out of a dumpster. It had the usual colors of a color TV, but it also had a green button that (amazingly enough) turned the whole screen green. I’m not sure what purpose that button served. It did make for interesting sit-com experiences.

That old TV worked for the rest of my senior year at Union University. In fact, it worked up until the day I brought it home. I can say for sure that I got my money’s worth out of it.

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Anyway, I met a lot of amazing people. From some of the Belmont students I met, I can tell you that my hope for the future is considerably brighter. They seem a lot more mature than most incoming college freshmen, Or at least more mature than I was at 19 (who am I kidding? I’m still not all that mature).

I’m praying that God will lead these freshmen to find godly mentors and older students who will walk ahead of them down that narrow road that few find, but leads to so many good things. I’m praying they take risks, go for broke, laugh a lot, cry without shame, and fall in love with Jesus more and more every day.

I’m praying that they will look at the naysayers that tell them that the world is too far gone and beyond saving and headed for hell in a handbasket (apparently, a very large one) and prove them wrong by going out and changing that world, one heart at a time.

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Jesus Is Your Peace

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This is just a reminder for those weary and worn ragamuffins who occasionally stray from the road and get lost in the dark from time to time. There’s always a Voice calling your name to lead you back. And the name of that Voice is the Prince of Peace.

When you’re tired and you can’t sleep, Jesus is your peace.

When the one you really like prefers someone else over you, Jesus is your peace.

When your spouse wakes up one morning and decides he or she doesn’t love you anymore and doesn’t want to be married to you anymore, Jesus is your peace.

When a friend whom you trusted hurts you and the wound goes deeper than pain, Jesus is your peace.

When your good intentions get maligned and people ascribe you malicious motives, Jesus is your peace.

When you have a week of Mondays at work and nothing seems to go right, Jesus is your peace.

When you’ve been out of work for months and begin to wonder if you even have anything worth offering to anybody, Jesus is your peace.

When you’re bending over a sick loved one and your only prayers are tears, Jesus is your peace.

When your child hovers between life and death and you are powerless to help, Jesus is your peace

Through whatever storms or calm, joy or sorrow, victory or defeat, gain or loss, Jesus has been, is, and will always be your peace.

Amen.

 

Early Autumn Breezes

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Today was perfect. It was like God sent a sneak preview of fall about two months early and gave us Nashvillians (and lots of other folks) a break from the usual heat and humidity that’s the norm for this time of year.

I actually ate lunch outside and went for my usual walk and for once didn’t sweat like that pig that’s about to become Sunday dinner. It was lovely. And I managed not to get hit by any cars, which is always a plus.

I think it’s amazing what little surprises come your way when you let go of expectations and assumptions of other people and live in a kind of anticipation of what God will do next. When you have those rare moments when you’re totally unaware of self and focused on being the kind of person to others that you’ve always wanted them to be to you. You can’t control other people or how they’ll respond, but you can control you. You can choose Christlikeness in each moment and leave the results to God.

I’ve long ago stopped trying to figure out Tennessee weather and enjoy the mild sunny days, whether those come in January or May or August. Who knows? The next day could be hot. Or rainy.

As my old boss used to say, any day without a toe tag is a good day. That is, any day you’re alive is a day worth living. I know most of us are always eagerly awaiting the next Friday so the all-too-short weekend can begin. But there’s a lot of good things happening during the week if you’re not too busy looking ahead to see them.

On a side note, it’s amazing how a certain smell in the air or the way a breeze hits me can trigger memories of what I was feeling when I was 15. It’s as if for a brief moment I’ve time-travelled back 26 years and am reliving a single good moment. For some reason, autumn does that to me more than any of the other seasons.

I digress. Go enjoy the weather. Go for an evening stroll or lay out in the hammock. Sit on the back porch or lay out in the grass under the stars. Even if it’s for 15 minutes. You won’t regret it. I promise.