faith

Remembering May Day Six Years Later

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“When you go through deep waters,
    I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
    you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
    you will not be burned up;
    the flames will not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2, New Living Translation).

It’s hard to believe that it was six years ago that the historic 1000-year floods hit Nashville. I remember sitting in front of the television seeing news broadcasts featuring images that looked like they could have come from the latest disaster movie. It all seemed too surreal to be real.

I also recall not being able to go into work that day because of the flood waters that made the street out of my subdivision impassible.

Most of all, I remember that even though there was much property damage and even a few lives lost, we survived. In many ways, Nashville is better and stronger than it was six years ago.

For me, it continues to be a reminder that my real treasure isn’t here on Earth where thieves break in, where rust corrodes, and where flood waters destroy. My real treasure isn’t things. It’s people.

My most treasured possession is Jesus because I know that I am His. I am overwhelmed in a flood of a great affection that is stronger than my fear and doubt and shows no sign of abating. That’s still the love that keeps me going.

There is no famine or flood or fire that can separate me from God’s love in Jesus. There’s nothing at all that will keep Jesus from getting to where I am and meeting my deepest need at that moment.

The best news of all is that this love of God is still available to anyone who asks. This Jesus is still willing to come into the heart of anyone who seeks Him by faith. Remember that when those proverbial flood waters overwhelm you.

 

Yet Still More Randomness on Hump Day

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Every now and then, I come to write these blogs and I really don’t have a theme. I have lots of ideas in my head that are all disconnected (and 95% of them are song lyrics or movie quotes).

The one theme that keeps reemerging like the chorus of a song is grace.

There are days when I feel confident and suave. I feel like my life’s going well. I’m able to truly appreciate how very blessed I am and I have all the confidence in the world that God is truly in control and that He’s got my future in good hands. Those days are grace.

Then there are days when my latent dorkiness comes to the surface. Just about every conversation feels awkward. All those old fears about people not wanting to be around me once they really get to know me come back. Those days are also grace.

Every day I wake up is grace. Every day I wake up I need God’s grace, both the good and bad days. There aren’t days when I can get by with a little less. I always need as much as I can handle (and then some).

Grace means that it’s okay that you’re not always okay. Grace means that you can celebrate brokenness because you know that’s where the light gets in (and where God’s light gets out).

So maybe I did have a theme after all. Who knew? I didn’t until I started typing.

Grace has certainly been the theme of my life. As much as I need it, I’m not always good at extending it to those who disappoint me. Maybe I even need grace to be able to give grace.

God never tires of being gracious with me. He loves me with a holy love that meets me where I am in my mess yet refuses to leave me where He found me.

I’m also thankful for that on a Wednesday night at 10:40 pm.

 

You Matter

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If you haven’t heard it from anyone else all day, hear it from me: you matter.

Even when you feel alone and neglected in the middle of a crowd, you matter.

Even when it seems no one wants to bother to get to know you or your story, you matter.

Even when you don’t feel like you have anything to contribute, you matter.

Hear it again– you matter.

God made you with a unique blend of talents and passions and designed you to play a part that no one else but you can play.

You have a story to tell that at least one somebody out there needs to hear– even if some days that one somebody is you.

Even in the midst of your worst pain, God sees you. He has not forgotten you. He has not abandoned you.

Even when it seems no one notices or cares about you, the right people will. There will always be someone who will encourage you and support you (and even sometimes rebuke you in love if needed).

Maybe your job is to look up and look around. Look for the ones on the periphery who look out of place. Look for the ones on the outside who don’t feel like they have anybody on their side or anyone who even knows they’re alive.

Perhaps all it will take is a smile and a kind word. It could be that simply sitting and listening is all it will take.

Remember that as the body of Christ, we’re all in this together. If I don’t work right or you don’t work right, we don’t work right. It’s that simple.

So to be obnoxious and repeat what I’ve already said, let me say it again– you still matter. I will keep repeating it and restating it until you finally start to believe it about yourself and those around you.

You matter.

 

Everyone’s Welcome

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Have you ever been around a group of people and felt alone? Have you ever been in the middle of a group discussion where they included everyone but you?

The kingdom of God is for you.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone else which abruptly ended after they decided you weren’t interesting enough to keep talking to? Have you ever felt categorized and labeled and made to feel less than adequate?

The kingdom of God is for you.

I still love that Jesus chose shepherds and fishermen and tax-collectors and prostitutes to be His followers. He invited the outcasts and outsiders to be His disciples and entrusted them with the greatest work the world has ever known.

The kingdom is a party where everyone’s welcome. There’s no height limit, no age limit, no intelligence quota, no hip factor. All that is required is that you come as you are and admit that you need help. The one stipulation is that you confess that you can’t fix what’s wrong with you and only Jesus can.

It really is a shame that in so many churches so many believers who profess this Jesus will practice the opposite of what He preached. They preach grace but what they practice is a set of unwritten rules to follow if you want to belong and fit in.

Being made in the image of God gives a person dignity. The fact that Jesus died for that person is more than enough to validate their value and worth. Who are we to belittle those Jesus loved enough to suffer the cross for?

This coming Sunday, let’s go out of our way to welcome those outsiders and misfits in the same spirit which Jesus pursued us when we were outsiders and strangers. Let’s choose to be vessels that the transformative love of Jesus can flow through.

 

From Hostility to Hospitality

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“He is the embodiment of our peace, sent once and for all to take down the great barrier of hatred and hostility that has divided us so that we can be one. He offered His body on the sacrificial altar to bring an end to the law’s ordinances and dictations that separated Jews from the outside nations. His desire was to create in His body one new humanity from the two opposing groups, thus creating peace. Effectively the cross becomes God’s means to kill off the hostility once and for all so that He is able to reconcile them both to God in this one new body” (Ephesians 2:14-16, The Voice).

Chris Brooks brought another fantastic message to Kairos tonight that I much needed to hear. It was rooted in Ephesians 2:11-21 about how we were once hostile to God and everything He stood for, but through Christ we have been reconciled and brought into right relationship with God.

His mantra throughout the last few weeks has been “And you . . . but God . . . all grace.” As in and you were lost and far from the promise, but God made you alive and redeemed a sinner into a son and now your life is all grace.

He said something again that struck me. He said that maybe those Muslims that we keep hearing about aren’t the greatest threat to Christianity, but it’s greatest prize. Maybe what they need to see is not our retaliation with further hostility but our hospitality in welcoming them with the gospel message the way God once welcomed us through that same message.

Only through Christ can an enemy truly be transformed into a friend and a stranger become a brother. Only through the grace and mercy of God can so many different kinds of people previously estranged from each other be invited to the same table to sit together and enjoy each other’s company.

So many times churches and communities of faith have looked like people encircled with arms locked, facing inward and more determined to keep the wrong people out than to let the right ones in.

The true gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to stand outward with arms not locked but outstretched in welcoming those who feel disenfranchised and alienated from every other group to come sit at the table of fellowship. We offer the same Christ to others who brought us along from citizenship to family to living stones in the temple of God.

I love that the gospel of grace is still for those who don’t quite fit in and don’t have their acts together. The message of hope is still for those who continually mess up socially and financially and in every other way possible. The truth that still sets us free is still for the outcast and downtrodden and used-up and for those who are still in bondage to the lies and addictions that were sold under the guise of liberation.

The gospel is still for you and me. The gospel is for everyone.

 

Back to Radnor

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Sometimes, you just need to get back to nature. There’s an almost irresistible urge to get away from everything mechanized and electronic and just commune with God’s creation.

For me, that was the urge and Radnor Lake State Park was once again the place to go to  satisfy that craving. It had been far too long since the last time I actually hiked there.

Almost immediately, I felt my blood pressure lowering and my anxiety levels bottoming out. Not that I was overly stressed, but any normal working day carries with it some amount of stress and worry.

I read somewhere that if you have trouble sleeping, the best way to reset your internal clock is to spend a week away from everything electronic and digital. For most of us, that’s not exactly the most practical solution.

I do think that even an hour or two can be beneficial to resetting your mental calm. You can actually hear yourself think. Life slows down for that brief period of time. Everything that seemed so pressing and urgent fades into the background for a little while.

I love it. I don’t know why I don’t go there more often.

The extra added benefit is that I got at least half of my 10,000 steps there. I walked until I was weary. But it was a good kind of weary that usually leads to a good night’s sleep.

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to live that way all the time. You hear all the time that the best nutrition is to eat foods as close to the way God made them as possible. I wonder if we could learn to live as close to nature as possible if we wouldn’t be healthier– and not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

Anyway, I recommend Radnor Lake if you’re ever in the area. It’s good for your soul.

 

That’s the Gospel

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“”The One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today. To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because he assures us of God’s love for us. He sets us free from guilt because he died for us, from the prison of our own self-centredness by the power of his resurrection, and from paralysing fear because he reigns, all the principalities and powers of evil having been put under his feet. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship. He introduces us into his new community, the new humanity he is creating. He challenges us to go out into some segment of the world which does not acknowledge him, there to give ourselves in witness and service for him. He promises us that history is neither meaningless nor endless, for one day he will return to terminate it, to destroy death and to usher in the new universe of righteousness and peace” (John Stott).

First, the gospel is bad news. We’re all messed-up sinners in dire need of redemption. Then it is good news. God took on human form and became one of us to rescue us from our sin and ourselves. Then it is the best news ever. We not only get the penalty for all those sins paid for, but we get the blessings and benefits of Christ plus eternal life.

For it to be the true gospel, it has to tell the whole story. Not just the pretty or politically correct parts. It needs all of it. Any other gospel is really no gospel at all with no hope and no redemption.

After all, it’s the true gospel alone that still brings salvation.

 

 

Mystery in the Journey

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The older I get, the less I’m sure about. The more I realize that there’s so much that I don’t know and probably never will.

The older I get, the more I believe God is calling me to trust in spite of the mystery of my life– or maybe because of it. After all, faith is trusting what we can’t see or feel or touch or taste with our physical senses. Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.

I do believe rest comes from cessation of striving after knowing all the answers. Tranquility comes with making peace with unanswered questions and unfulfilled longings. Peace comes when you and I finally understand that God doesn’t give answers as much as He gives Himself and He doesn’t grant our desires as much as He gradually becomes the greatest desire of our hearts.

So I trust in God in the midst of the unknown when there’s so much that doesn’t make sense. I cling to the Promises when I can’t see beyond the next 24 hours what my life will look like.

And that to me is the most restful place to be.

 

Down from the Mountain

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“You see, all have sinned, and all their futile attempts to reach God in His glory fail. Yet they are now saved and set right by His free gift of grace through the redemption available only in Jesus the Anointed” (Romans 3:23-24, VOICE).

So many see Christianity as another option, just one road among the many that lead up the mountain to God. They say that all paths get to the destination but in different ways.

How about this? There may be several roads that lead up that mountain, but none of us will get to God that way. None of us are strong enough or brave enough or stedfast enough to make it all the way up.

How about this? God didn’t wait patiently for someone to find a way up to Him. He came down from the mountain to us to help us get to Him. He didn’t merely show the way or even offer to walk before us up the path. He became the way.

Jesus is our way up the mountain. Not by chanting and meditation. Not by praying five times a day. Not by sin management and moralism. Not by keeping a set of rule. Not by any amount of sacrifices or religious rites.

How then?

By simply believing that Jesus is Who He says He is and He did what He set out to do. It’s by trusting that Jesus took on our imperfections and sins and failures and death, instead giving us perfection and righteousness and new life.

If it had been up to me and my own efforts, I’d still be at the foot of the mountain looking up in despair. But thanks to God, I’m on my way up and guaranteed to reach the top. And my victory song will be that Jesus led me all the way there.

Witness to Your Life

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Sometimes, the most powerful impact we can have over someone’s life is a silent one. There are no words necessary.

Sometimes there is nothing more meaningful than to look at someone as if to say, “I see you. You are not alone. You are not forgotten. I am a witness to the fact of your existence and your life is not in vain.”

So many are hungry for such a look. They so desperately need to know that somebody — anybody– sees them in all their hurt and despair. They want answers and a way out, but just as much they want at least one person to see their struggle. Even more than a kind word, a smile at just the right time can be the difference between life and death, pressing on and giving up.

I’m comforted to know that there is never a moment when God doesn’t see me. Not in the sense of waiting for my transgression to pounce on me in vengeful wrath, but in the sense of a loving Father who wants to guide His child safely through.

There is nothing I can experience that God in Jesus did not also live through. There is no temptation, no struggle, no pain that He isn’t familiar with, and thus there is no time and place where He won’t provide a way through or a way out.

Maybe this week take time to give a smile to someone you pass in the hall or on the street. Maybe offer a greeting. You never know the power of those kind words that come out of really seeing and acknowledging someone as one of God’s children.

Once you understand the Father’s heart toward you, you begin to live out of the overflow of unconditional love and acceptance and there is enough love to pass around to someone else who needs it as badly as you.