Kairos

Finding Rest for Your Souls

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“We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health” (Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less).

Tonight’s topic at Kairos was keeping the Sabbath.

It was not the usual guilt trip about how you shouldn’t go to Wal-Mart on Sunday or how if you skip church you must be a heathen pagan.

It was more about how God designed the seventh day for rest. Not merely sleeping in one day a week (though that is a good thing in my opinion) but truly resting in body, mind, and spirit.

Chris Brooks, the Kairos pastor, pointed out that we don’t rest from our work as much as we work from our rest. Interestingly enough, the Hebrew word for work can also be translated as worship, so even our labors can have an element of rest in them if we view our jobs as offerings of worship rather than just tasks and to-do-lists.

I still love what Macrina Wiederkehr said: “Work is love made visible.” When we see that our job isn’t something we endure to get to Friday, but an act of worship and a demonstration of love, then it becomes less of an ordeal and more of a joy.

In a world where busyness is glorified and justified and promoted, God says to rest. God says that you can get more done in six days with a day set aside for rest than you can by charging ahead full speed for seven days without a break.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Jesus, Matthew 11:28-30, The Message).

Take Your Time

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One of my favorite Kairos moments from back in the day when Mike Glenn used to lead the prayer time.

Put both feet on the floor, he’d say. There’s nothing that will come up in the next few minutes that’s more important than what God’s saying to you right now. Relax and breathe. All those errands will still be there later. Right now, all you need to do is focus on God.

We live in a culture that celebrates busyness. Not necessarily productivity. Just busyness. The mantra of the age is that we don’t have time because we’re so very busy doing God knows what.

The idea is to never have a dull moment or any down time. We have all these time-saving gadgets that create more time to get more done. As a result, we have less leisure and free time than ever.

Maybe the most freeing words anyone will ever tell you– take your time. That was my takeaway from tonight’s Kairos message.

Sometimes, it’s good to focus on your breathing. It’s good to be silent and still. It’s good to rest. Above all, it’s important to be in the moment, not always thinking ahead to the next big event or thinking back to the what if’s and the could have been’s.

“There’s no present like the time.” That may be my new favorite line from a movie. Time is not infinite. You get a precious few years to live, too few to waste in busyness. Life is to be lived and savored and not merely gotten through.

Take your time.  Wherever you are, be all there. Do less but do it with everything you have, offering it as your spiritual act of worship. Enjoy the little things and pay attention to the moments in your life.

Also, take plenty of naps. Those are good.

 

 

 

What’s Your Worth?

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Today for a lark, I decided to look up the value of my 1997 Jeep Cherokee on the Kelly Blue Book website. I had no delusions of grandeur, thinking I owned a Lamborghini or a Mercedes Benz. I knew my car was old and had over 300,000 miles on it.

Still I was a bit surprised by the result. $800 was the maximum value of my car. I could probably trade in my car for a nice bicycle, but not a really nice one. Just sorta nice.

I was more amused than offended. I know that I couldn’t get anything close to as good as the car I have now for $800. I’d be doing really good to get something that even ran for $800.

I got to thinking. If you took all the raw materials that made up a human body, what would be the worth of all those elements? I was curious, so I googled it and got the result of $5. That’s the going rate for a body’s worth of these raw materials.

I remembered something my pastor said. He said that your worth is more than what you are made of. If you were on Antiques Roadshow, the appraiser would put on his white gloves and talk in hushed excited tones.

My pastor said that if he could turn you upside down and show you the Artist’s signature, that would prove that not only are you of great worth, you are priceless.

You have more than God’s signature on you. You bear the Imago Dei, the image of God, in you. You are unique and one of a kind, and there has never been nor ever will be anyone else exactly like you.

You are also worth Christ dying to redeem you. Bear that in mind when people judge your worth by your income or your title or your possessions. Whether you live in a gated mansion or in a cardboard box, your worth and your identity is not what you have but in Who made you and Whose you are.

Oh, and I still love driving my $800 Jeep.

Being a Pray-er

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I really believe some people have the spiritual gift of prayer.

I think that when some people go to pray, it’s as if words other than their own come pouring out and every word seems anointed and filled with power.

I know someone like that. He’s one of the fellow Kairos greeters that I’ve been blessed to get to know recently and he definitely has the gift of prayer.

Not everyone has that gift. Not everyone is as eloquent and poetic when they pray. But we’re all called to pray unceasingly in every situation.

I’ve come to believe that some of the best prayers come from people who aren’t the best pray-ers. Some of the best prayers don’t have words.

Sometimes, it’s prostrating yourself on the floor and opening up your hands in a gesture of complete surrender.

Sometimes, it’s silence and tears when the words won’t come.

Sometimes it’s a simple two-word mantra repeated over and over, such as “Help me, help me, help me” or “Thank you, thank, you thank you.”

Sometimes it’s sitting in adoration and basking in the glory of God without asking for anything at all.

You may not consider yourself a good pray-er, but you can still pray. You are still called to pray, no matter how fluent you are or whether you stumble all over yourself when asked to pray in public.

All that you need to pray is a sincere heart and a simple faith. That’s it.

That said, I still love to hear people pray who have the gift of prayer. I knew a guy in Memphis who had as dramatic a testimony as I’ve ever heard, and when he opened his mouth to pray in a group setting, the Spirit moved. He prayed with more authority and confidence in God’s sovereignty than I have ever heard from anybody else.

But I think the prayers that impresses and touches the heart of God the most are the ones you and I pray every morning and every night with a childlike trust and dependence that God is absolutely able to do whatever we ask of Him. Those are His favorites.

Finding Rest for Your Souls

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“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message).

That’s the key. That’s how you can navigate through a busy life without becoming harried and hurried.

I heard today how Pastor John Ortberg had become overwhelmed with busyness and asked his mentor, Dallas Willard, what to do. Willard’s response was simple: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

The key is to define yourself in terms not of your performance but in your identity as one dearly loved by Jesus. Once you work from your true identity and not for a false one, everything changes.

It’s good to create margins in your schedule and take seasons of rest and rejuvenation. Sleep is good. Naps are good. Finding a hobby that inspires and relaxes you is good.

The point is that none of us were ever meant to go nonstop 24/7. That’s not a sustainable way of life. Being in a hurry all the time actually causes you to get less done and to miss out on so much that’s important in your life.

I love the way one writer puts it:

“It’s ironic that in a culture so committed to saving time we feel increasingly deprived of the very thing we value. … Despite our alleged efficiency … we seem to have less time for ourselves and far less time for each other. … We have quickened the pace of life only to become less patient. We have become more organized but less spontaneous, less joyful. We are better prepared to act on the future but less able to enjoy the present and reflect on the past” (Jeremy Rifkin).

Serving Christmas

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Today was Serving Saturday for The Church at Avenue South. It also happened to be the day that members of Kairos served the community at the Lexington Garden apartments in Madison, Tennessee.

Serving is good for me because it’s a good way for me to get out of my little world and go where people are way more thankful for a whole lot less than I have. I get reminded that I have much, and as the verse says, “To whom much is given, much is required.”

Perhaps the best gift you can give yourself during this season of Advent and Christmas is to volunteer and serve. I can think of no better way to break out of the narcissistic consumeristic version of Christmas as portrayed on just about every commercial.

It’s a lot easier to be content when you realize just how blessed you are, materially and otherwise. It’s also much harder to complain when you understand that so many people where you live are fighting a daily battle to feed and shelter their families.

When God became Incarnate in Jesus, He chose the poor as the first messengers of His arrival. He chose to be born through a peasant couple. His first missionaries were those raggedy shepherds tending their flocks nearby.

I still believe that God is with the poor and God is with us if we are with them. God’s heart has a special place for the poor in spirit who have no other advocates than those of us who claim to be His followers.

I wonder if instead of buying gifts for those who already have too much stuff, it might be better to give to those in need who can never hope to repay you or even properly thank you for what you’ve done. After all, isn’t that what God in Jesus did for each and every one of us?

 

Slouching Toward 3,000 Blog Posts

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I had all these amazing and wonderful ideas for blog posts earlier in the day, but then sleepiness happened and here we are. I’m essentially making this stuff up as I go along tonight. Don’t expect too much inspired genius from me on this Tuesday, November 1, 2016 at 10:37 pm.

First of all, I can’t even believe it’s November. Especially when it’s in the upper 80’s outside during the day. Dad-gumit, I want some authentic fall weather!

I read something that made me chortle out loud. It basically said, “Some days I feel like I’m in shape, and some days I feel like a busted can of biscuits.” I’m sure 99.9% of you just related to that last sentence. The other .1% are lying to yourselves. Both of you.

I’ve decided that while I consider myself an orthodox believer, my ideas about God have been too small and too narrow. For me, that hasn’t been so much on the theological side of things but rather in the experiential arena.

Often, I don’t pray big enough because I don’t really believe big enough. Do I really believe that God is bigger than what I’m facing? Do I really believe God wants what’s best for me? Do I believe God can accomplish what’s best for me?

If I’m honest, I might profess it with my mouth but deny it in day-to-day living, day-to-day worrying, day-to-day doubting.

God is more than a benign teddy bear figure or a crazy older relative or a cosmic law enforcer or a celestial genie in a bottle. He is the Lord Almighty that caused Isaiah both to see himself to say both, “I am a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips.” and “Here I am. Send me.” I’m still trying to wrap my head around all that God is (and probably will for the rest of eternity).

As far as feeling like that busted can of biscuits, might I suggest more celery and less Halloween candy? Just a thought.

 

Living in View of Eternity

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The guest speaker at Kairos made an astute observation: he said that most of us live like practical Sadducees.

Sadducees were a sect of Jewish religious leaders who denied the resurrection. For them, life ended at the grave.

A lot of us pay lip service to heaven and that sweet by and by, but live as though the here and now is all there is.

The result? We live with a kind of frenetic desperation. We determine our worth by our stuff. We settle in relationships because we think nothing better will come along. We’re always falling victim to FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out.

When Jesus came to give life and give it to the fullest, He did mean here an now, but I believe that life will find its truest and fullest expression in the life to come.

In C. S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, he describes heaven not as a shadowy phantom-land but as place where every blade of grass is so real that it almost hurts to walk on it. A place that’s too much for some because it’s so very real and present.

We are to live in the now, but we should also live under the shadow of eternity, knowing that a whole human life is only a heartbeat in heaven (stolen from a Robin Williams movie).

Because of eternity, failure is not final and death will not have the last word. Defeat is temporary and suffering gives way to joy. Love wins and hope survives.

I still love the imagery of heaven in The Last Battle as the real and true Narnia while the present world is only a shadow and a copy. It’s the real beginning of the story that only gets better with each new chapter, the best story ever written.

 

That Faith Chapter

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“All these I have mentioned died in faith without receiving the full promises, although they saw the fulfillment as though from a distance. These people accepted and confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on this earth because people who speak like this make it plain that they are still seeking a homeland. If this was only a bit of nostalgia for a time and place they left behind, then certainly they might have turned around and returned. But such saints as these look forward to a far better place, a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God because He has prepared a heavenly city for them” (Hebrews 11:13-16, The Voice).

I thought about the next blog post as I drove down Concord Road on my way home. I had the windows rolled down, inviting the balmy and breezy night air in as Ray Charles bemoaned in the background. That really has nothing much to do with what follows, but I thought it might enhance my cool hipster factor a bit.

Here goes.

God is not ashamed of you. That’s the takeaway from tonight’s Kairos.

In Hebrews 11, there’s a long list of heroes of the faith. By faith, they conquered their circumstances and clung to faith in God in the midst of overwhelming odds.

Just about every one of them also had a major blunder or two on their resumes. We’re talking about adultery, drunkenness, lying, and the like.

Yet they’re heroes.

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that the real heroes are the ones who persevere and keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter what. They readily acknowledge their weaknesses and grab hold of God with everything they’ve got.

God is never ashamed of anyone who reaches out to Him in faith. God will never despise anyone who calls out to Him in the midst of a great despair.

It’s not about great deeds of heroism but small acts of kindness and faithfulness over a lifetime that leave a legacy. It’s the determination to keep going in spite of repeated failures and mistakes.

Ultimately, it’s much more about God keeping His promises to us than it is about us keeping our promises to Him.

God is not ashamed of you. The end.

 

More Kairos Takeaways

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Something Tyler McKenzie said at Kairos has been playing on repeat in my head ever since. Basically, he said that we should see people at the very least as those made in God’s image and those loved and died for by Jesus.

Even Donald Trump? Yes.

Even Hillary Clinton? Yes.

The same goes for your gay co-worker, your Muslim neighbor, your obnoxious uncle, or anyone else in your sphere of influence.

It’s much easier to hide behind a laptop and cast stones at those who offend us. While we may claim to be a society of grace, what we really are is a society of outrage that would rather spew dialogue than seek understanding.

It’s much harder to seek to love as Jesus did, even with those who crucified Him. It takes someone who has experienced God’s love for him or her in Jesus to even be able to come close to loving like that.

When you’re more concerned about being reconciled than being proven right, you’re on your way to that kind of love.

When you stop dehumanizing those who disagree with you and hold opposing views, you’re on your way to that kind of love.

For true racial and ethnic reconciliation to take place, it will take all of us seeing each other through God’s eyes. Will it be easy? Not hardly. Will it be worth it? Absolutely.