Kairos

Let Your Light Shine

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“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16, The Message).

That’s what lights do– they shine.

My takeaway from Kairos tonight is this: being a light and shining is not about me trying harder, like one of those wind-up flashlights that constantly needs winding. It’s not about me generating my own light by better morals and doctrines.

Being a light is about being plugged into the Source at every moment and reflecting the light. It’s not about self-promotion or increasing your influence or growing your brand. It’s about being God’s flashlight to help those in a very dark world find their way home to God.

If you do it right, God gets all the attention and the glory, not you. After all, the cure for a world full of broken and hurting people is the true Light of the world.

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining – they just shine” (Dwight L. Moody).

Does God Want Us To Be Happy?

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“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses).

Tonight at Kairos, Chris Brooks asked the age-old question, “Does God really want us to be happy?”

I admit that for years the answer has always been a knee-jerk version of “No, God doesn’t want us to be happy. He wants us to be holy.”

Maybe happiness and holiness aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe holiness doesn’t have to mean a dour demeanor and grumpy face. Perhaps there is happiness in enjoying God and His good gifts.

The problem isn’t in seeking happiness but that we seek for it in the wrong places. We seek to find fulfillment and joy in the created rather than in the Creator, and in the gifts rather than in the Giver.

It’s not that we desire too much but that we desire too little. We can glorify and make an idol out of just about anything (or anyone). Careers, possessions, relationships, children, morality, and even worship (more accurately, the worship of worship and the adrenaline rush it brings).

We can’t seek happiness and joy outside of God because it doesn’t really exist. At least not true happiness and joy. We often end up over-stimulated and under-satisfied. Nothing apart from God brings a lasting gratification.

That’s why there’s always the push to do more, buy more, consume more, and be more. It will never be enough.

God is enough and in Him are joys and pleasures and happiness that will never end.

 

More Than You Can Handle

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The old saying goes like this: God will never give you more than you can handle.

It sounds good. It sounds biblical. The only problem is that it’s not.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says that God will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but will provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure.

The key difference, as Chris Brooks explained tonight in Kairos, is that we are often given more than we can handle by ourselves. Our strength lies in community and our ability to endure rests in fellowship.

If God never gave me as an individual more than I could handle, I’d more than likely slip into self-righteousness and be completely lacking in grace toward others who are struggling. I wouldn’t know the sweet communion that comes from prayers of desperation and surrender. As it is, God often allows me to go through circumstances and situations that force me to rely on God’s sustaining strength and the combined power of community.

The problem with God never giving me more than I can handle is that if I’m struggling, then the fault must lie with me. I must not have enough faith. I must be doing it wrong.

Even the apostle Paul and his companions went through situations that were beyond their ability to bear. Paul himself was given a thorn in his flesh that he begged God to remove, but God declared that His strength would be made perfect in Paul’s very weakness he felt he could not endure.

I love what Chris said. He said that yes, God will give you more than you can bear. He will give you more grace, more love, and more mercy than you can handle. Not only that, but His mercies and grace will be new every morning.

I confess that God Himself is more than I can handle sometimes. If I could completely comprehend and grasp all that is the Eternal Mystery with my finite understanding, then what I am beholding isn’t the Infinite God but a god of my own creation.

God is so much more than anything I could dream up or imagine on my own. He’s big enough for whatever is too much for me to handle and strong enough to get me through what I cannot bear and tender enough to surround me with those who will be able to bear with me through seasons of trial and temptation.

 

Thanks for 25 Years

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Thanks, Uncle Mikey, for 25 years.

You’ve been pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church for a quarter of a century. The only things I’ve done consecutively for that long are eating, sleeping, and driving.

25 years ago, I was on the verge of my freshman year at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. Brentwood Baptist Church and Kairos were nowhere on my radar.

25 years ago, I was nowhere near the person I am today. I think a lot of who I am now is due to your influence.

10 years of Kairos (mostly under your teaching) have made a huge difference in my life. I never would have known about the brilliance that is Henri Nouwen had you not recommended him to me a long time ago.

You taught me that what I do isn’t nearly as important as who I am (and Whose I am). My identity isn’t wrapped up in or defined by my job title, my marital status, my income, the car I drive, or my net worth. My identity is define by who Jesus says I am– Beloved. Who I am is a son of God, a child of my Abba, redeemed and cherished.

You always ended Kairos by telling us that if we hadn’t heard it from anybody else, that you and the rest of the Kairos crew loved us and that we mattered. I wonder how many people in the crowd heard those words directed at them for the very first time in their lives.

I probably won’t ever get a chance to say these things to you in person. I’m not nearly as good expressing myself in conversations as I am writing things down. But I do want you to know that I am one of the people whose lives are better for you having said YES to Jesus all those years ago and been faithful to the call which led you to Brentwood Baptist Church 25 years ago.

Thanks, Uncle Mikey. We rise up and call you blessed.

 

Going Before

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I drove home with the windows rolled down for the first time in months. The night air on my face felt like a caress. I had Lori McKenna’s Numbered Doors playing. It was a perfect summer moment.

I’ve been thinking about what Audrey Brooks, the speaker and wife of Kairos Pastor Chris Brooks said. The Good Shepherd will never lead us to a place where He has not already gone before and made a way.

The more I as a sheep learn to hear and recognize the voice of my Shepherd, the more I know that His heart for me and His plans toward me are good. The more I know that I can trust Him without reservation, knowing He will not lead me astray. The more I can trust Him with my loved ones.

Being called a sheep isn’t a compliment. The more I learn about sheep, the more I realize that left to themselves, they won’t end up anywhere good. They can be easily led astray by enticing voices. I find that too often I can relate to stupid sheep.

I’m thankful for a patient Shepherd who keeps calling after me, who keeps reminding me of my identity, who persists in guiding me in the right paths that lead to rest and healing.

There’s not a valley so dark that I will go through where He has not already been through and come out on the other side victorious. He can and will lead us safely through.

“Experience has taught me that the Shepherd is far more willing to show His sheep the path than the sheep are to follow. He is endlessly merciful, patient, tender, and loving. If we, His stupid and wayward sheep, really want to be led, we will without fail be led. Of that I am sure” (Elizabeth Elliot).

 

A Great Definition of Repentence

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“Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged” (J. I. Packer).

That’s it. I think for the longest time I figured that repentance was turning away from what I was doing wrong. It was ceasing to sin.

That’s only half the story. As a friend of mine once told me, you turn away from a sinful behavior, but you also turn toward something positive to replace the old bad habit.

Otherwise you end up like the man in the parable told by Jesus who had been possessed but did nothing to fill the void. He ended up worse off than he was before.

If you don’t replace the sinful behavior with a good and godly discipline, you will simply replace it with another bad or worse habit. The best example that comes to mind is the people at an AA meeting who are chain-smoking. They gave up one habit only to replace it with another.

As my pastor says often, repentance isn’t beating yourself up. It isn’t feeling bad about what you’ve done. It’s like driving in your car one way, doing a 180, and driving the other way. You turn from sin to God.

The older I get, the more I see how much I need to repent from. I also see that even my repentance is a gift from God. I see that God isn’t hovering over me, ready to berate me for my foolish behavior and poor choices. He’s wanting me to claim my true identity not as a sinner but as a child of God.

The more I see myself the way God does, the more I live out of victory instead of defeat. The more I live out of grace and obedience instead of sin and despair.

 

Two Different Kinds of Prayer

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I’ve been mulling over what I heard from Chris Brooks at Kairos tonight. He spoke from Luke 18:9-14 about two men who went to the temple and offered two vastly different prayers to God.

One was very devout. He said all the right words and spoke out of a life that was consumed with faithfulness and devotion. He went above and beyond the minimum requirement. In terms of what most people look for, he was the model picture of faith. But God didn’t heed his prayer.

The other was a scoundrel. He knew it. His prayer was less of an exercise in devotion and more of a cry from the core of his being, almost a primal scream. “Have mercy on me, a sinner,” was his repeated refrain and his anguish took the form of beating his own chest while echoing a mantra of desperation. His is the prayer God heeded.

I’ve been guilty of trying to impress God with flowery language and pious phrases when what He really looked for from my prayers was transparency and honesty. What He longed for from me was my soul laid bare and my deepest sighs and groans laid at His feet.

I’m still figuring out the whole prayer thing. A lot of the time I feel like I’m praying to the ceiling, airing out my laundry list of wants and needs, and reciting rote words that sound and feel hollow and empty.

Sometimes, the best prayers are the shortest. A lot of the prayers that moved Jesus to action were less than ten words– “Have mercy on me, Son of David,” “I belief, help my unbelief,” “Remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”

What matters most is not what you say or don’t say to God, but an attitude of confession and repentance with a heart willing to listen and to obey whatever Jesus asks.

What matters more than what we pray or when we pray or how we pray is that we pray. I believe God honors the earnest prayer offered in faith, even if the words aren’t right (or even if there are no words at all).

Just pray.

 

Another Night of Worship

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It’s 10:19, I’m tired, and my feet hurt. A little. That’s a good thing. A very good thing, in fact.

I tallied just over 13,000 steps today after getting in over 22,000 yesterday. I’ve put in quite a bit of walking lately, which hopefully translated into burned calories and lost weight.

Tonight was the semi-annual Kairos Night of Worship. The theme was Wildfire, praying  to be the spark that leads to revival fires breaking out in this land.

I’ve been praying for revival, especially in my own heart. Everyone goes through seasons of dryness and numbness in their spiritual walks and I am no exception to the rule. I know faith isn’t solely about feelings, but I also know that it can be rough when it feels like you’re going through the motions.

Still, God is faithful, even when I’m not. His fidelity more than makes up for my lack of it. If it were up to me, I’d have fallen away a long time ago, but it’s not. God is more than up to the challenge of holding on to me during the seasons when I’ve felt like letting go and giving up.

It was a great night. Sure, the worship songs were amazing and the teaching was stellar. For me, the best part was the reminder that my primary identity, the core of who I am deep down, is that of Abba’s child.

All of my failings and weaknesses do not define me any longer. My on-and off-again passivity does not define me. Being Abba’s child and hearing my Abba call me Beloved is what defines me both now and forevermore. That’s what I choose to identify myself as from this day forth.

I’m thankful for family and friends who consistently remind me of my true identity and who encourage me to be better today than I was yesterday. Thanks, everyone.

 

 

Reminders from Uncle Mikey

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I’m laying in bed next to a very sleepy geriatric cat. That’s what I call the good life. It has nothing at all to do with what follows, but I thought I’d throw that little tidbit in for free. You’re welcome.

I’ve been thinking a lot about last night’s Kairos. It started off with a blown generator and a bunch of us sitting in the dark. That always makes for an interesting evening.

It also marked the triumphant return of Mike Glenn to Kairos as guest speaker. It felt like old times again.

He talked about how while each of us have given names at birth, we all have names that either we’ve given ourselves or we’ve been given by others. These names are usually the result of our mistakes and failures. I’m sure many of us have names that involve profanity of some sort.

The prime example is the possessed man among the tombstones who identified himself as Legion. There were so many competing voices in his head that he couldn’t find his own identity anymore.

When Jesus calls someone, He gives that person a new name. Think of Paul becoming Saul, or Simon becoming Peter. He gives us a name that describes not who we are but who we are becoming, our very best self that Jesus is in the process of bringing about.

You are not your worst mistakes. You are not the names people called you before they wrote you off as hopeless. You are not your addictions or your fears.

You are who Jesus says you are. You are Chosen, Beloved, Son or Daughter, Friend.

You have a name that only Jesus knows that one day He will reveal to you. One day, He will write it on a white stone and give it to you. Then and only then will your story make complete sense and you will see how everything in your life has led to you becoming who Jesus always meant you to be.

Thanks, Uncle Mikey, for another good and timely word. Do come back to Kairos soon.

 

Feeding the Multitudes: Inspired by Tonight’s Kairos Message

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Jesus said something that struck me as a bit odd during the account of the first feeding of the 5,000. When the disciples asked how they were to feed all the multitudes who had followed Jesus, Jesus said to them, “You feed them.”

On the surface, it seems strange that Jesus should ask such a monumental task of 12 men to feed what probably amounted to 20,000 people (counting women and children). Why would Jesus ask that?

I think what Jesus wanted was their willingness to sacrifice whatever they held in their hands for the work of Jesus. In this case, it was two fishes and five loaves given to them by a small boy. It was at the same time a sacrifice and a confession of woeful inadequacy.

That was what Jesus blessed and multiplied to minister to the many.

In this day and age, many of us are praying for peace. We ask that Jesus step in and make peace by bringing unity to the racial tensions and strife.

Jesus says to us in turn, “You go and make peace.”

“How?” we ask.

“What do you have in your hand?” Jesus asks us.

“Not much. Not nearly enough to accomplish reconciliation. But whatever I have is Yours. I give it to You.”

What Jesus is looking for in us isn’t extraordinary ability but unconditional availability. What He asks from us isn’t great acts or passionate speeches. What He asks for from us is our very selves.

That’s where the miracle begins.