Jesus

Singing in the Dark

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“If we wait till we have clear enough vision to see the expected end before we stay our mind upon Him who is our Strength, we shall miss an opportunity that will never come again: we shall never know the blessing of the unoffended. Now is the time to say, ‘My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise,’ even though as we say the words there is no sense of exultation” (Amy Carmichael).

It’s much easier to praise God and be thankful when all our plans come to fruition, when we have the perfect spouse and the perfect kids and the house with the white picket fence.

But what if you don’t have any of these things? What if your spouse and kids aren’t quite perfect? What if the picket fence is faded and peeling and the house is falling down?

If you drew a breath in the last few seconds, you have a reason to praise and give thanks, if for no other reason than you’re still here. You still have a purpose to fulfill that no one else can do and a gift to contribute that no one else has.

You can praise and be thankful without knowing all the answers or, sometimes, without knowing any of the answers, because your trust is in the One who is the Answer to all questions, in whose face questions fly away into nothing.

Usually these times mean that God is preparing something for us that our feeble minds can’t handle at the moment. If we truly knew what He has in store for those who love Him, namely us, then our brains would explode. It’s too much to handle all at once.

So trust in God’s heart when you can’t see His hand.

That’s all for tonight.

 

New Technology and Old Comforts

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I love new technology as much as the next guy. In fact, I’m wearing my Apple watch which automatically unlocks the MacBook Pro on which I’m currently typing these words.

Technology is fantastic. When it works.

I also have an elderly feline napping in my lap as I type these words. She’s always ready to curl up on or near me and do what she does best– sleep.

If I had to choose between the two, I’d take the old comfort just about every time. Eventually the technology becomes obsolete and gets replaced, but old comforts are always in style.

My elderly feline turns 17 this year. I hope she decides to stick around for a while, as I do love our little therapy sessions.

I hope you have some source of comfort in your life that you can go to when your life gets overwhelming or stressful.

Of course, the ultimate comfort and peace comes from the Prince of Peace. Even in the midst of the most trying situations, I’ve known a deep-down peace that truly transcends my comprehension and goes far deeper than emotions.

I pray that for you above all.

Plus, a cat in your lap never hurts, either.

A Writer’s Advice

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“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt” (Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)

I don’t claim to be the best writer or blogger ever. I do know that I feel most alive when I’m writing and the words seem to flow out of me like they’re coming from somewhere else. Sometimes looking back, even the posts that I thought weren’t that great at the time seem to have improved with age.

I’ve been at this blog post business for going on 7 years and nearly 2,400 posts. That’s a lot of words. Not all of them have flowed out of me. Some days, I feel like Moses attempting to draw water from a rock.

If I have any advice for those who want to be writers, whether professionally or otherwise, it’s this– just write. Write a lot. Write every single day, even if what comes out feels like pure stupidity.

I’d also add one more thing. Find your own voice and be true to it. Don’t write or sing or paint or sculpt or film what you think will appeal to a mass audience. Do what speaks to you and what makes you happy and what makes you come alive. Create for an audience of one– yourself.

Ultimately, it’s not about numbers or popularity. It’s about expressing yourself and leaving a bit of yourself behind, whether on canvas or paper or vinyl or film. Success as I see it is staying true to your original vision.

Again, just write, write, write. That’s the only way to truly get better and to develop your own unique voice. The more you write, the better you will get at it.

Here endeth the lesson.

Time, Talents, and Treasures

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“Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me, I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf:  So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide, All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you” (The Lord of the Rings)

“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God” (Leo Buscaglia).

Tonight’s topic for the Bible study at Room in the Inn was the parable of the talents. The gist of the story is how one man was given five talents, one two, and the other one. The first two immediately invested the treasure while the third one unwisely buried it.

The first two earned the praise of the master while the third one showed his true colors and saw the fruits of his dishonesty.

I wonder if that third man, instead of thinking of ways to use what talents he had, spent his time bemoaning how the others had more than he and how unfair that was. His envy warped the way he saw the master and his motives.

I wondered tonight why the talents were distributed unequally. Why not give each one five talents? Or two?

I think there’s something to learn from that. Some people have more gifts and talents than others. The question isn’t how much you have but what you do with what you have.

You can waste your talents by comparing them to others, which leads to either pride when you have more and self-pity when you have less. The end result is never fruitful or good.

Or you can use what you have where you are to bless and serve those in your path. You may not have the more showy talents, but God has uniquely gifted you and molded you to play a role that only you can play.

You can compare or you can contribute. The choice is yours.

Pray Boldly

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I probably need to start off with a disclaimer. I’m not advocating the prosperity gospel, name it claim it, blab it grab it, kind of theology here. I don’t think God’s purpose is to satisfy our every whim and desire, no matter how foolish or ridiculous.

I do think sometimes we have a reactionary response and go too far in the other direction. Sometimes, I don’t think we pray boldly enough.

When someone you know is seriously ill, it’s safer to pray for wisdom for the doctors. It feels not quite as risky to pray for the medicines and operations to work.

While those are all good and well, I wonder if God wants us to pray more boldly than that.

Do I believe God will heal every sickness every time? No.

Do I believe that God wants us to pray for healing every time? I think so.

My Bible says to ask. It says to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking until God responds. Keep praying boldly even if the answer sometimes isn’t what you wanted.

The underlying question is this: do you really believe deep down that God wants what’s best for you? Do you think God has the power to bring it about?

I’ve come to believe that when God says no, it’s not because He’s punishing us. It’s usually because He’s seeing the bigger picture and has something way better than what we’re asking for. We’re thinking finite and temporary while God is thinking infinite and eternal.

Still, God says to ask. He also says that we don’t get what we don’t ask for. So pray boldly and keep praying boldly. As you grow closer to the heart of God, you may find your prayers changing as your will aligns with His. Still keep praying boldly.

I think that says it all.

 

My Translation for 2017

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Those of you who have followed me and my blog posts for some time probably know that I read through the Bible every year in a different translation. Last year, I chose the Holman Christian Standard Bible. This year’s pick has been the New Jerusalem Bible. I get the joy of reading through those extra books not found in the typical Protestant Bibles.

I’m almost through the book of Genesis.

I’m reminded yet again that the people God chose in creating a nation of His own were far from perfect. All of them had character flaws and a sometimes staggering lack of good judgment. I can relate.

God still doesn’t always pick the best looking or the best dressed or the most type A personalities. Some of the choices He makes with people He works through might seem like head scratchers to a lot of us, but God knows what He’s doing.

Remember God chose you and God chose me, not because we were the most qualified to get the job done, but because God delighted in doing so. The ultimate result is that the credit for anything good that comes out of you or me goes directly to God.

It’s also a reminder that when I get aggravated with those biblical characters choosing poorly and being ignoramuses, I can remember that I occasionally am one of those, too. I imagine some of you are as well.

I love how in the Gospels, Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, not because of who he was but because of who Jesus saw he would become. It took a while for Peter to live up to his own name and Jesus put up with a lot of immaturity and foot-in-mouth disease from Peter and never gave up on him until he became one of the most powerful spokesmen for the early Church.

I’m thankful that God still chooses to work through nobodies and screw-ups and neurotics. I’m most thankful that there’s still nobody that’s too far gone for God to redeem and restore and repurpose.

 

How You Know You’re Officially Old

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thejoshuatree

I can still remember where I was when I first heard U2’s The Joshua Tree.

It was my first foray into the world of U2 and Bono. I recall being captivated by the sounds coming out of the headphones connected to my Sony Walkman (cassette player, no less). I bought the album on cassette, CD, and finally the deluxe 2-CD edition that came out about 10 years ago with B-sides and unreleased tracks thrown in for good measure).

I still remember what it felt like the first time I experienced it. I had never heard anything like it before. It blew my 15-year old mind.

This year, that album turns 30 years old.

I’m officially old.

Most albums from the 80’s sound very much like they came from the 80’s. You can listen to how the drums were produced and almost pinpoint the year the song came out.

The Joshua Tree doesn’t sound like an 80’s album. It sounds like a classic album whose sound is universal and timeless. It sounds as fresh and new today as it did way back in 1987.

I just discovered that U2 will be embarking on a 30th anniversary tour of The Joshua Tree, where they’ll play the entire album from start to finish (with other songs thrown in, I assume).

If they come anywhere Nashville, I might just have to sell a kidney or mortgage my cat to get a ticket. After all, it’s on my bucket list.

This album remains one of my favorite faith-based albums of all time. Actually, it’s one of my favorite albums of all time, period. I can’t overemphasize how much of an impact it had on my musical formation and appreciation. I might have had crappy musical taste back in the day, but I got at least one album right.

Guess what I’ll be listening to tonight as I fall asleep?

 

 

24/7 Gratitude

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“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.

Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God” (Henri Nouwen).

I’d only add one thing. This kind of gratitude only happens when we learn to find God in everything. It happens when we seek and see God’s hand in the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, the pleasant and the painful.

I don’t believe that God causes the bad, the hard, and the painful, but I do believe that God is at work through those times and can turn even the worst of them into something way better than we could ever have dreamed of with our small finite minds.

Being grateful in everything even includes those awkward, in-between times when it’s not quite terrible but it’s not close to being awesome either. It’s hardest of all to give thanks in the hallway between God closing one door and God opening another, but that’s where you find so many little things to be thankful for that add up to a heart brimming over with gratitude.

“Celebrate always, pray constantly, and give thanks to God no matter what circumstances you find yourself in. (This is God’s will for all of you in Jesus the Anointed)” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, The Voice)

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

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It’s Wednesday, January 11, 2017. I’m so tired that I originally typed that it was Thursday. It’s not.

My traveling music adventures continued today as I chose Gillian Welch and her new album to accompany me on my homeward trek. Yesterday, the choice was the lovely Norah Jones. I’m keeping it mellow.

All the continued rhetoric over the election is making me tired. I don’t know how  praising one side and bashing the other has ever really changed anyone’s mind. All it does is further polarize and alienate us from each other.

I’m thankful that my ultimate allegiance is not to this or any other President. It’s not to a flag or a country or a platform, but to a King and a Kingdom that will last well beyond any President or Congress or Supreme Court. It will last forever.

In these hectic, crazy days, it’s helpful to sit still for a bit and practice breathing in and out slowly, remembering that because of the resurrection, the worst thing is never the last thing. Every trial is temporary and all pain is passing. The Prince of Peace and what He brings will be eternal.

So chill out. If you must err, err on the side of grace and forgiveness rather than judgment and condemnation. Remember that each of us is walking a difficult path.

I still believe that if you want to see difference in your life and in the world around you, you have to be the difference. Once you start doing that, you won’t have time to snipe and criticize from the sidelines.

As always, keep the music recommendations coming. I’m alway on the lookout for good new (or old) music to add to my already ridiculous collection.

Thanks and good night!

 

 

You Can Never Out-give God

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“Our Lord Jesus is ever giving, and does not for a solitary instant withdraw His hand. As long as there is a vessel of grace not yet full to the brim, the oil shall not be stayed. He is a sun ever-shining; He is manna always falling round the camp; He is a rock in the desert, ever sending out streams of life from his smitten side; the rain of his grace is always dropping; the river of his bounty is ever-flowing, and the well-spring of his love is constantly overflowing” (Charles Spurgeon).

I’m not one of those people who believe that with enough faith, you can name and claim vast sums of money, mansions, and other material wealth. I don’t believe God is a celestial genie whose sole purpose is to give us our every wish and whim.

I do believe that God always gives the greatest gift– God gives God.

The greatest blessing isn’t the kind that shows up on a bank account statement. It isn’t one that you list on your income tax returns.

The greatest blessing from God is that serene peace that comes from knowing God will keep every promise toward you and there will never be a moment where you slip out of God’s hand.

The greatest treasures aren’t things. The currency in heaven isn’t gold– it’s love. it’s those who will be there because of your testimony both spoken and lived out. All you can take with you is what you’ve given away, as the line from It’s a Wonderful Life goes.

I’m all for those who are financially successful. I’m all for having nice things. I also know that he who dies with the most toys, still dies, and you can’t take those toys with you.

All you can take is the love of God that you’ve given away.