redemption

Just Ask

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“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?” (Luke 11:13 MSG).

I wonder how many times I’ve used prayer as a last resort.

How many times have I obsessively worried about something and tried to figure out ways of handling it myself and it never even dawned on me to pray about it?

You’d think for as long as I’ve been a believer that I’d be quicker to prayer than I am.

I’m guessing you feel the same way.

I think it points to a lack of faith. It says that I really don’t believe that God can handle my problem. Oh sure, He can deal with everyone else’s issues but for some reason in my own mind, my circumstances are different.

I look at it this way. If God can raise Jesus from the dead, He can handle pretty much anything I’m ever going to throw at Him. He’s not going to be shocked or surprised at the needs I lay before Him.

I keep up with Ann Voskamp, a fantastic writer who also happens to put some of the best posts out there on social media. She usually ends them with the hashtag #preachingthegospeltomyself. For those who are unskilled in reading hashtag-ese, that means “preaching the gospel to myself.”

A lot of what I write is me reminding myself of what I already know. Scratch that. Nearly all of what I write is me preaching to myself and stirring memories of times before when God was faithful.

All it takes is the tiniest yielding, the most hesitant agreements, and God can show up and do what He does best– amaze.

 

Peter, Peter, Peter

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 “As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.

Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. ‘A ghost!’ they said, crying out in terror.

But Jesus was quick to comfort them. ‘Courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.’

Peter, suddenly bold, said, ‘Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.’

He said, ‘Come ahead.’

Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, ‘Master, save me!’

Jesus didn’t hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, ‘Faint-heart, what got into you?’

The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down. The disciples in the boat, having watched the whole thing, worshiped Jesus, saying, ‘This is it! You are God’s Son for sure!'” (Matthew 14:22-33, The Message).

I’ve been thinking about Peter, the disciple with the chronic case of foot-in-mouth disease. He got into trouble by saying things and acting out without really thinking it through. Not that any of us can relate, right?

He often gets a bad rap for the whole sinking bit. After Jesus calls him to walk on water, he gets so far out and sees the waves and panics and . . . . down he goes. Only a fast-acting Jesus keeps Peter from sleeping with the fishes. Literally.

But for a moment or two, Peter walked on water. Other than Jesus Himself, Peter is the only other in history who can make that claim.

While it’s easy to chide Peter for taking his eyes off Jesus, you have to give him kudos for getting out of the boat in the first place. After all, there were eleven other disciples who stayed put.

Peter left everything he knew, everything that was comfortable, and everything that made sense in that moment to come to where Jesus was. To me, failure would have been Peter staying in the boat and saying, “No thanks, Jesus. I’m fine. Really.”

I can relate to the other disciples. It’s easy to stay in the boat and criticize the ones who try to get out and do something. It’s easy to sit where you have something tangible to hold onto in the middle of raging waves.

But that kind of faith never gets you anywhere. It’s the faith that takes risks, that takes that step of faith out into the scary unknown, that leads us to where Jesus is. That’s the faith that takes us to places where we see the impossible becoming reality.

Lord, I want that kind of faith that Peter had in that moment. I want to step out of the boat, get my feet wet, and make fool of myself if it will help get me a little closer to You.

Amen.

 

Absolutely Positively Definitely Maybe

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Definitely-Maybe-2008-movie-quote

“That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens” (Romans 8:18-21, The Message).

Such a great moment in the movie. I’ve actually owned Definitely, Maybe for a while and just now got around to watching it (one of the few perks of being without a job).

I love that line because it reminds me so much of God and the Story He is writing. And I do so love stories, especially when they’re well-told and have happy endings.

I know that ultimately God’s Story is about God, as it should be, but one of the very happy side effects is you and me finding redemption and freedom and abundant life. Because of God’s Story, you and I have a Story that we get to share. Because of God’s Story, we know that our Story will always have a happy ending because God has written it already. I read the last page of the book and I know that it’s good.

It’s hard to remember that when the Story seems headed for tragedy or when the current chapter seems like it will never end and circumstances will never change or get better. It’s hard to see that happy ending when you’re wondering how you’ll pay the bills or make your struggling marriage work or find that job that makes you come alive.

As I’ve learned in reading books, you don’t put down the book when the characters run into hard times. You keep going with the hope that those struggles will lead to something better. As Corrie Ten Boom says, you don’t jump off the train when it goes through a dark tunnel. You trust the Engineer to get you through.

I don’t want to be that guy who says things like, “Hold on, it will get better” or “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” When you’re feeling overwhelmed with anxiety or discouragement, bumper sticker quotes don’t really do the trick.

You need to know that God is still faithful to His promises. You need to know that the same Jesus who conquered death and the grave can conquer your circumstances. You need to know that He will finish what He started in you because He said He would.

That’s a happy ending.

 

Your Identity

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Tonight, Mike Glenn spoke from Matthew 22:34-40. Those wacky Pharisees were at it again, trying to trap Jesus through one of their questions.

“Teacher,” they asked. “Which  commandment in the law is the greatest?”

As usual, Jesus saw through their smokescreen and gave a brilliant answer. Love God with everything that’s in you and love your neighbor as yourself.

For years, I never really thought about the “as yourself” part of the command. But for you to truly love others as God would have you to, you have to love yourself. It goes against a lot of what we’ve been taught about how loving yourself is wrong and prideful.

Loving yourself is simply seeing yourself the way God does.

Mike talked about how when God created you, He said, “It is very good.” Imagine a world-class chef tasting his own masterpiece and declaring, ‘Ahhhh, it is verrrry gooood” and you have an idea of what this means.

God looked at you and was pleased. He didn’t shrug His shoulders and say something like “Eh, close enough.” He said you were very good.”

Mike went on to say that when you find your identity not in what your enemies or friends or even you say about you but what God truly says about you, it changes the way you live. It changes the way you love yourself, others, and– ultimately– God.

That’s something that I’m still learning, but I’m to the point where I have days where I see myself as the Beloved of God and let that be what defines me. And those days are becoming more and more frequent.

So let me remind you once again. You are not your spotty resume. You are not your latest failed marriage. You are not the guy who’s still trying to find himself and still not having a clue about who he is. You are not whatever failures or  fiascos you’ve had in the past.

You have worth because you were created in the image of God and then prized highly enough for God to send Jesus to die on your behalf. You are the Beloved.

 

Reminders for When That Mid-Life Crisis Hits

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homer

Maybe it will hit in the middle of the night.

Maybe you’ll wake up and wonder where your life has gone and what you’ve done with it.

Maybe you’ll have that pounding in your chest and that overwhelming anxiety, scared that you’ve wasted your one and only life up to this point.

Maybe, just maybe, you feel like it’s too late to make anything of yourself and that you’re doomed to mediocrity.

Remember this: not everything that pops into your head is from you. The father of lies can be incredibly sneaky about pushing little fabrications into your mind about your identity and your purpose.

If you let him, he’ll have you believing that you have no purpose or worth. That your life doesn’t matter. That it’s too late to change and become who you might have been, that best self you always dreamed you might be.

Let your Abba Father speak truth over you. Hear Him call you Beloved, not out of anything you’ve done to earn special merit or out of any outstanding character traits that you possess, but simply because you are His.

Let your Abba Father remind you that you have supreme worth because you are created in the image of God and because Jesus paid the ultimate price for your redemption.

That’s what counts in the end.

Not salary.

Not titles.

Not awards.

Not accolades.

But simply living out of being the Beloved of your Abba and letting that love define who you are and what you do. If you end up with everything you could possibly want, everything the world says you need, and miss out on God, you have nothing. But if you end up with God and nothing else, you will have found everything that truly matters in the end.

Just think about that for a while.

 

 

A Repeat

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image

“Everything will be fine in the end. If it’s not fine, it’s not the end.”

Every time I hear those words, they ring more true than ever. These words are from a movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but that doesn’t make them any less true.

That’s the story of the Bible. That’s the story of unfolding redemption, played out through history. The Gospel.

Adam and Eve knew fine, but their wrong choice ended that. Their sin, the choosing of self over God, made it so that everything was not fine. And so it remains.

Ever since that first sin, it’s been the opposite of fine. It’s been a catastrophe, a disaster, an epic fail. We are cut ofd from God, from each other, and from our true selves– who we really were designed and created to be.

But Jesus came to undo what Adam did, to bridge the gap between man and God, as only God in human skin could. He came to make everything fine again.

Paul says it a little more poetically in Romans 8:28: “We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan.”

That’s the whole story. It will be fine in the end because God has promised it would be.

Everything will be fine in the end. It’s not fine yet, but that only means it’s not yet the end.

Out of Control

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outofcontrol

Has there ever been a moment in your life when you felt out of control? Like when you stopped and looked around and wondered how in the heck you got there and how you’d ever get out of the mess you’d made?

I think EVERYBODY has felt that way to some degree or other. Kinda like King David, who started out lusting after a neighbor’s wife and ended up with not only adultery but lying and mass murder thrown in. It took a bold prophet named Nathan to get David out of his downward spiral.

You will at some point get yourself into a hot mess. You will wonder how you could have been so STUPID. You may well wonder if escape is even a possibility.

I love what I heard someone say: it’s never too late on this side of heaven to become what you might have been. It’s never too late to become the dream God had when He thought you up and gave you a purpose before anything was made. That gives me hope.

That means that those days that seem wasted, those years that seem lost have really served a purpose– to get you to where you are, with all your life experiences, good and bad, all your successes and failures– to be the person God can use to do what NO ONE else can do, to the calling only YOU can fulfill.

Even if you’re an 80-year old backwoods shepherd like Moses. Or a nobody sitting in a prison like Joseph.

God can take nobodies and confound all those who think they’re somebodies. He uses the lowly and the nothings in the world to shame all those who think they’re hot stuff. That’s my take on 1 Corinthians 1:25-30. Or as one translation puts it:

“You can count on this: God’s foolishness will always be wiser than mere human wisdom, and God’s weakness will always be stronger than mere human strength.

Look carefully at your call, brothers and sisters. By human standards, not many of you are deemed to be wise. Not many are considered powerful. Not many of you come from royalty, right? But celebrate this: God selected the world’s foolish to bring shame upon those who think they are wise; likewise, He selected the world’s weak to bring disgrace upon those who think they are strong. God selected the common and the castoff, whatever lacks status, so He could invalidate the claims of those who think those things are significant. So it makes no sense for any person to boast in God’s presence. Instead, credit God with your new situation: you are united with Jesus the Anointed. He is God’s wisdom for us and more. He is our righteousness and holiness and redemption.”

 

Things I Love 29: She’s The Tear That Hangs Inside my Soul Forever

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island hammock

“How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can’t I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.” (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are)

Just to give you a context for this particular blog, I have the TV on. Late Night with Conan O’Brien to be specific. So I apologize in advance for any random goofiness that filters into this blog. Oh wait. That’s filters in every other time. Never Mind. Back to #836.

836) Impromptu dashes to Starbucks in the pouring rain for a cold foam mocha that was totally worth it.

837) A tall glass of orange juice.

838) Conan’s wacky brand of humor.

839) Watching a thunderstorm from a safe place.

840) Hugging my grandmother and telling her I love her.

841) The way my little niece’s eyes light up when she sees me.

842) The way the song “Easy to Love” as sung by Ella Fitzgerald perfectly captures the way I feel about a certain someone.

843) Any day without Fox News.

844) Bacon.

845) Kevin Bacon (just because he’s the coolest . . . and in a very non-gay way).

846) Peanut M & Ms

847) The most recent screen adaptation of Les Miserables.

848) Changing machines that could turn my brother into a puppy (if only I had a brother).

849) Finally getting past level 33 in Candy Crush Saga.

850) Melatonin that helps me sleep at night.

851) James Bond movie marathons.

852) Encouraging facebook messages sent at just the right time.

853) Remembering when Bruce Willis had hair.

854) BOTH pairs of  Crocs that I still wear, regardless of whether they are in fashion anymore or not.

855) Every single episode of Firefly and the movie follow-up called Serenity.

856) Pretty much everything Joss Whedon has ever been associated with.

857) The peace of God that comes out of nowhere when I least expect or deserve it.

858) The drive-in movie theatre in Watertown.

859) Driving anywhere late at night with good friends.

860) That the wheels on the bus DO go round and round.

861) That Nosferatu is still the creepiest and most effective adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

862) God picking me up every single time I fall.

863) The concept of flying monkeys. Brilliant.

864) The ending of It’s a Wonderful Life that tears me up every single time.

865) That the thief on the cross was the first person Jesus welcomed into heaven.

866) Never having seen a single episode of Honey Boo Boo (a record I intend to keep going).

867) The first two Die Hard movies (after that. . . . not so much).

868) True beauty that comes from within.

869) Those rare moments when I am totally selfless and God-focused.

870) That God knows me and calls me by name.

Things I Love 27: Every Rose Has Its Thorn

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island hammock

Even on a Monday there’s plenty to be thankful for. In fact, having a mindset of thankfulness can make even the worst of Mondays bearable and even good. And even the worst of Mondays are only 24 hours. Unless you’re Bill Murray on Groundhog Day. Then good luck. On to #761.

761) Hiking the Ganier Ridge trail at Radner Lake in the rain.

762) Knowing that even the worst of days last only 24 hours.

763) Seeing a baby deer with its mother.

764) The thought of having a bowl of cereal as a reward for finishing this blog.

765) Yard sales and garage sales.

766) Looking forward to another Kairos tomorrow night.

767) Being 100% condemnation-free in Christ.

768) Rescued pets.

769) Finally releasing my cares into the more than capable hands of Jesus.

770) Corn on the cob.

771) Being reminded of my dependence on Jesus and how it’s not up to me.

772) All those Back to the Future movies (even that confusing Part II).

773) Knowing that Jesus won’t ever give up on me.

774) That knowing is half the battle– thanks to the 80’s G. I. Joe cartoons for that reminder.

775) That all I have to to is stand and watch and God will fight my battles for me.

776) A good game of gin rummy (even though I never ever win).

777) The possibility, however remote, of going on a date with Kari Jobe.

778) Watching Halloween and Halloween II back-to-back on Halloween night.

779) Remembering all those late nights at Perkin’s when I was a student at Union.

780) That tree-lined road between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.

781) Those moments of clarity in the middle of the hazy days.

782) That God didn’t give me most of the things I prayed for.

783) The Pauline Baynes illustrations in The Chronicles of Narnia.

784) The fruit tea at Calypso Cafe.

785) Fried chicken at family reunions.

786) Bette Davis in Now, Voyager.

787) Picnics at Arrington Vineyards on Sunday afternoons.

788) How my cat looks so peaceful and serene when she’s sleeping.

789) Victor Hugo’s beautiful story of redemption and hope in Les Miserables.

790) Wading in a creek on an especially hot and humid day.

791) How much better I feel right now than when I started this blog.

792) Serving breakfast at an ungodly hour at the Nashville Rescue Mission.

793) Pure 100% Vermont maple syrup.

794) The beautiful and sad movie, Bright Star.

795) Not ever giving up on people because God never gave up on me.

796) Vh1’s Behind The Music– especially about the bands I loved growing up.

797) Whitney Houston’s 1991 version of The Star-Spangled Banner.

798) High fives and fist bumps.

799) Oscillating fans.

800) Whoever came up with the brilliant idea of those combination squirt guns and portable fans.

To All the Rahabs in the World

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I’ve blogged about Rahab before. Maybe because she’s got such a beautiful story. Maybe because I can relate to her brokenness so well. Or maybe it’s because it shows God at his redemptive best.

Rahab was a prostitute who hid the Israelite spies and lied about their whereabouts to the local police. She led them to safety on the promise that they take care of her family when they come to invade the city. Note: she didn’t ask for herself, just her family.

Rahab’s past is synonymous with shame. She had seen her life spiral downward into something she could never have imagined as a little girl. Anyone else in her position could have turned hard and cold and not even let those foreign spies in.

But there was something about them that got her attention. Something about those stories of their god who had led them through the desert and defeated their enemies. All her own gods had failed her. Maybe there was something different about this Yahweh.

When people look at people like her, all they see is something broken. Something to discard, to throw away. God sees the perfect piece that will fit into his master plan of redemption. He sees the mother of Boaz, the father of Jesse, the father of King David, out of whose line came Jesus.

I love the saying that broken pieces make the best stained glass windows. It’s true. The best testimonies come from the worst moment of your life when you saw that God could stoop low enough to find you in your filth and raise you up. That he could save anyone, even you.

So to all the Rahabs in the world, just remember this. You have a place in God’s story. You have a place in God’s heart. You are not a dirty whore. You are a beloved daughter, a beloved son, a beloved child of God.

Your Abba is indeed very fond of you.