grace

A String of Random and Disconnected Mutterings

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

For those of you who blog or do some other kind of writing, you know that some days you have this incredible burst of inspiration and creativity, and some days you don’t. Or as the old commercial says, “Some days you feel like a nut, some days you don’t.”

I think as I sit in front of my laptop at 11:37 pm that today is going to go down as one of those nutty yet uninspired days. I just have some randomly disconnected thoughts to share.

I keep thinking about a blog that I read recently. It speaks to how the world tells you “only,” as in only the best qualified get the jobs, only the most talented will make the sports teams, only the most popular can be in the social clubs. But God says “every.” As in “every one who asks, receives,” and “every one who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I like that. I like it so much I’m putting a link to the blog here so you can check it out for yourselves.

http://brianlamew.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/only-versus-every/

I’m also convicted by how shallow most American believers are. We don’t really know what we believe or how to articulate it. We are by and large Biblically illiterate and easily taken in by all kinds of false doctrines and heretical teachings.

I am also still stoked about the super deals I got at thrift stores recently. I bought a suitcase for $8, a tennis racket for $3, and  a Johnny Cash autobiography for $2. But so far, no tacky Christmas sweaters.

I think that the difference between all the other religions and faiths and Christianity is grace. Religions are all about what you have to do to appease God; Christianity is about what God in Christ has already done, and all you have to do is receive it. Religions are all about working harder and being good enough (although how good good enough is is rarely ever defined); Christianity says you can never be good enough, but you can trust in the perfect life of Jesus and believe that he died in your place.

That’s all for now. More randomness to come in the days and weeks ahead. I can promise you that.

 

Some Things Never Get Old

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

There are a few things that never get old:

1) Friends who accept you for who you are, goofiness and all.

2) Cats sleeping contentedly in your lap.

3) When the Titans win, especially when they win in the last minute.

4) Fall weather.

5) Things that bring bring back childhood memories in droves, like carving pumpkins.

6) Knowing that the best is still yet to come.

7) Good books and good movies.

8) Grace.

My Rant About Tennessee Driving

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

First of all, I am not a perfect driver. I am what is known in the technical sense as direction-impaired. I have done my fair share of unintentional sight-seeing and taken a few unintended scenic routes because I turned the wrong way once (or five times).

But sometimes I’m driving and I see someone doing something that compels me to speak out loud to that driver. I’m aware that that person can’t hear me and I probably look foolish, but I say things like:

“You know, those yellow lines in the center of the road? Not just for decoration anymore.”

“The term ‘middle of the road’ is an expression not to be taken literally. Pick a side and drive on it.”

“You know that little stick thing coming out of your steering wheel? That’s called a turn signal. Learn how to use one.”

“That red light still means stop. And I’m pretty sure it hasn’t become optional.”

There are some cases when I have no words, like when someone swerves over three lanes to make a last-minute right hand turn. Or when someone takes an hour to turn into a parking lot.

The funny thing is that I do some mindbogglingly stupid stuff when I’m driving. But I can justify my own driving because I was in a hurry or stressed or preoccupied. Sometimes, I just have to look at the other driver and mouth the words, “I’m sorry.” Usually spoken to the rear-view mirror.

I should probably give more grace to other drivers. If I weren’t so preoccupied with judging other people’s driving skills, I might just be a better driver myself. I’d hate to think that someone else used my standards when judging me as a driver.

It’s easier to make it black and white and point the finger in any area of life, but much harder to extend grace. I’m really good at receiving it, but not nearly so good at giving it out.

Just another reason why I’m so glad that grace isn’t about what you or I deserve, but about the mercy of God.

 

Running the Race

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

It’s hard to turn on the television and not hear something about the Olympics. Especially when somebody like Missy Franklin wins the gold medal for the US. You can’t help but want to root for somebody like her, the all-American girl who made us all proud.

I was watching some of the track and field events and watching in awe at the speed of some of these people. They truly are the best at what they do and they win because they’ve invested a lifetime worth of training into preparing for this moment.

Right now, I’m thinking of another race. The race Paul talks about. Only this race isn’t to the fastest or strongest. This race is all about finishing well.

The only way you don’t win this race is not to finish. Sounds easy, right? But there are so many distractions and temptations that try to divert our attention and get us off course and out of the race.

I can personally attest that there have been times when I’ve been paying too much attention to the crowd or who’s around me and comparing my pace to theirs. It’s easy to get too caught up in where you’ve been that you can very lose your way.

There’s only one place I should train my eyes on. One destination I should aim for. The finish line. Paul talks about keeping our eyes on the prize and fixing our eyes on Jesus, the true destination.

In the end, it won’t matter if I ran faster or slower than the person next to me. It won’t matter that I lost focus at times or found myself in the stands instead of in the race at times. It will only matter that I finished well.

It’s not about how you burst out of the gate at the starting gun. It’s not about how fast a pace you set in the beginning. All that matters is finishing well.

That’s good news for me. It means that it’s never too late for me to really start running the race with all that’s in me, arms outstretched toward the destination, eyes locked in on the prize of having Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

It also means that whether I ran great or poorly yesterday doesn’t matter. All that matters is how I run today.

So how will you run your race today?

 

 

It’s The Little Things

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I’ve come to a few conclusions in my time. One of them has come to me recently.

I’ve always been a fan of the epic movies like Lawrence of Arabia or Braveheart or Gladiator, with big battle scenes behind a massive soundtrack and bold and daring actions. Life is sometimes like that. But most of the time it’s not.

Most of the time, courage isn’t the absence of fear, but being afraid and still taking the next step of faith anyway. It means shutting your ears to what those fears are telling you and choosing in the moment to believe what God has been telling you all along about yourself, your friends and family, and your circumstances.

Most of the time, faith isn’t doing incredible deeds like leading masses of people to Christ or flying halfway around the world to be a career missionary. It’s going next door and doing a small act of kindness for your neighbor. It’s moving out of your usual circle of friends and sitting with someone who looks lost and lonely.

Sometimes, belief isn’t supreme confidence that you know everything there is to know about God and His ways and how He will act. Sometimes, it’s a very small mustard seed. Sometimes, it’s the wavering confession amidst doubts that says, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

It’s not about big faith in God, but faith in a big God. The saying goes that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. I say that sometimes, it’s about showing up even when you don’t feel up to it, when you feel utterly powerless and weak, when every part of you is telling you to throw in the towel and quit.

Those are the times that God shows up. When you are weak, the Bible says, that’s when the power of Christ is made perfect. Paul even goes so far as to boast in his weakness because he knows that God shows up strongest in our weaknesses.

Keep believing. Keep taking the small steps of faith. Keep holding on to that quiet courage that says you can try again tomorrow. After all, it really is the little things, the small things done with love that really matter in the end.

Awake and Alive

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement” (from the movie Joe vs. The Volcano)

The Apostle Paul urges us to not be asleep, but to awake from our slumber. He doesn’t mean to never sleep at all. He means to be alert and paying attention to what’s going on around you. To not have your head buried in the sand and to know the signs of the times. To always be ready for Jesus to come back at any moment.

To be awake is to not sleep-walk through life. It’s to not be so focused on getting stuff done and accumulating stuff and titles and trophies that you miss life. So often, life– real life- is in the small details that we overlook in our rush to get to the next big phase of our existence. We’re either so focused on what’s next or on what in the past we could have done better that we miss what God is doing right now.

I heard a beautiful illustration today about the parable of the virgins waiting on the bridegroom. In the parable, some were ready with their lamps filled with oil and some were not. In that day, the husband-to-be would go away and prepare a place for his bride-tobe, usually adding an addition to his parent’s house. When he was done,  he would come back for her and take her there.

She didn’t know when he was coming back, so she literally had to be ready every single day. She had to be made-up and adorned in her wedding apparel in case today was the day he showed up.

We need to be ready in the same way. We need to be living the faith we proclaim now. We need to be loving people radically and both demonstrating and declaring the supreme goodness of Jesus right now. We need to be Jesus to those around us who need Him desperately right now.

Most of all, we need to live with eyes wide open (as another song I heard once said). Those who are really and truly awake can’t help but see God in everything and see His blessings at every turn. We will be the most joyful, most content, most alive people the world has ever known because we really have seen the glory of the coming of the King.

The question for you and for me is: will we continue to sleep-walk through our existence and wonder at the end what it was all about, or will we come alive to God’s calling and purpose and live in the complete joy of being exactly where God wants us to be living out God’s dream for us?

A Desparate Prayer

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Have you ever been to a party and found out you were being socially awkward? Did you feel like you were trying too hard and forcing conversation and you imagined the other person was like, “Please, just stop talking before you hurt yourself”? Did you think to yourself, “Wow. Did I really just say that? What the heck?” and find that you couldn’t make yourself stop?

Have you ever felt like you were forcing a friendship or other relationship instead of letting God guide it in His own way? Did you feel that even you knew that God’s plan for the relationship was better that you couldn’t stop trying to take control?

Have you ever felt like no matter how you jumped through all the religious hoops, you never could pray enough or evangelize enough or worship loud enough to meet the exacting standards?

Then you probably know what the tax-collector felt when he prayed, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”

Note: He didn’t say that he was a sinner, one among many, but the sinner. Not just someone who messes up, but isn’t as bad as others, but the chief of sinners. That’s from the Greek.

Guess what? When you can pray that prayer and mean it, you are truly set free.

You are set free from trying to earn God’s approval, as well as the approval of others. You find that approval is already yours through the finished work of Jesus Christ. You find that you are good enough, because God says you are good enough.

If you’ve ever gone through a season where you can see your own brokenness, then you know that sometimes the only words you can find to pray are “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.”

God says that He is close to the cries of the broken-hearted, those who know they don’t have what it takes in and of themselves. His strength is still made complete when we confess that we are weak and not only confess, but boast in that very weakness.

May that be your prayer today. “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”

And go to fellowshipnashville.org to check out the sermon on which most of this was based. It’s amazing.

Why I Love Underdogs

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I’ll be honest. Until this year, the College World Series was barely a blip on my radar screen. I didn’t keep up with it and I couldn’t tell you who won last year or the year before or even tell you any of the teams that made it.

Until this year. Little Stony Brook made it to the CWS. They were probably the longest of all the long-shots to make it in, but they did.

The main reason that I love underdogs in any sport is because I really and truly believe that God does.

God is a fan of the underdog. The Bible says so. Just look at all those passages about the poor, the orphan, and the widow. All those forgotten and abandoned by society.

The Bible says in James 1:27 that true religion is taking care of these. In other words, pulling for the underdogs of the world.

But not only that, I read that I was once an underdog, too. I was lost, dead in my sins, alienated from God, and without a hope in the world. I think the odds on me at Vegas would have been fairly astronomical.

But God in Jesus found me and made me alive and reconciled me to Himself and gave me a hope that nothing or no one can ever take away. Not only did I not go down to a crushing defeat, but I came out on the winning side. In Christ, I am more than a conqueror.

So I know that the underdog can win. I’m proof. And I bet some of you out there are, too. We are daily reminders to the world what the awesome power of the love of God can do if given even the tiniest bit of room to work.

So, yeah, I’ll be pulling for Stony Brook. But more than that, I’m pulling and rooting for you. Best of all, so is God. He’s your biggest fan.

Night Volleyball

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I participated in a game of volleyball at a Memorial Day cookout with some friends. Needless to say, none of us will probably be making the U.S. Olympic team in 2012 or anytime soon.

From a volleyball purist standpoint, we played the game all wrong. We didn’t set the ball up or even hit it correctly. More times than not, the ball went in the opposite direction of the net or under the net or even into the net.

Whoever invented volleyball was probably rolling over in his grave. Or else he died just so he could be buried and roll over in his grave. It wasn’t pretty.

But it was fun.

We gave each player a do-over on messed-up serves. We complimented each other on near-misses and flat-out whiffs. When the automatic lights went out, one of us would go do our best version of the Riverdance to get the lights back on.

By the time we were done playing, the game was more of a comedy than a competition. But we had fun and laughed at ourselves and with each other.

It was grace in action. Too bad we as believers aren’t that way all the time.

For the moments when I open up my mouth and say something stupid, I need grace.

For the moments when you send the text before you think it through and wish for the next 24 hours you could take it back, you need grace.

For all the times when we break our promises and fail to be light and salt and witnesses of the great God who saved us, we all need grace.

For all the times we screw up royally again after promising God and the world we wouldn’t, we all need grace. For daily falling short of all God meant for us to be to ourselves and each other and to Him, we all need grace. Desparately.

Grace isn’t just undeserved favor. That falls short of what grace is. Grace is undeserved favor in the face of deserved wrath. That’s something I learned recently and something I’m still thinking about.

Grace means that you’re not alone and neither am I. Grace means we walk together, we fall together, and we get back up together. We laugh together, we cry together, we fail together, and we overcome together.

And it took a game of night volleyball to remind me of all that.

Life Lessons from an 80’s Movie

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

I revisited an old favorite 80’s movie tonight, The Last Starfighter. I love its ridiculous premise and it’s extremely dated 80’s-style CGI. However, I wasn’t prepared to have a powerful life lesson dropped in my lap.

The main character lives in a trailer park when the movie starts. He does odd jobs like fixing antennas and dreams of leaving for something better. Something no one can relate to, right?

He just so happens to be very good at a video game. When he finally beats the game, he gets called into an adventure way bigger than anything he could have dreamed of and ends up essentially saving hundreds of worlds, including Earth.

In other words, he lets go of what’s familiar and comfortable to go out into the unknown. Kinda like Abraham and Sarah of old. Kinda like me.

I was in a job that paid the bills. Try as I might, I could never bring myself to love it. Yet it was familiar and comfortable and I knew what to expect. That is until this past Tuesday when my job got cut.

Now, here I am thrust into the unknown where nothing is familiar or comfortable. The choice is up to me as to whether I find another comfortable, familiar spot or really step out in faith into an unknown universe.

I love this quote from the movie. “Things change. Always do. You’ll get your chance! Important thing is, when it comes, you’ve got to grab with both hands, and hold on tight!”

That’s where the adventure really begins. You grab with both hands and hold on tight and trust that God knows what He’s doing even when you don’t.

I am also reminded of another quote, this from a concentration camp survivor, Corrie ten Boom.   “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

So when the time comes and you step out, you find that God gives you the strength and courage to make that step. You find that once your foot lands you know where and when to take the next step. And so it goes.

Will you stay where it’s comfortable and easy and predictable and familiar, even if it’s not your dream or your passion? Or will you step out into an unknown future where a known God has great plans for you?