My Stop With God

Ralph Waldo Emmerson once wrote, “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown.” I disagree. Man has been cursed with a short memory. I know because I am one.

Life has a certain way of taking something that is so clear in one moment and covering it up in the next. My problem is that the second I lose sight of it, I can’t remember what it was truly like or how to find it again. This is a struggle I face over and over again in my relationship with God. My walk with God can many times be better described as my stop with God. The relationship that defines my existence has a tendency to get lost in the midst of that very same existence. The world that I am forced to walk through leaves it’s grease and grime over the most fundamental part of my life. As I attempt to fix this problem I don’t struggle with complacency nearly as much as I struggle with my approach.

I get sick of the muck covering my heart so I try to wipe it away, but I only succeed in blurring what’s underneath even more. As I said before the problem was not a lack of effort, but a bad approach. I always tried to find my way back to the heart of God in my strength. I would study harder to try to understand Him more. (How foolish am I trying to understand a God I cannot even fully comprehend?) That inevitably fails. So I try to love people to make it back to God, but the motive of my heart is clear to Him and the immovable will not be so easily manipulated. In a last ditch effort I pout, hoping God will have pity on such a poor soul. The Father is far too great a parent to encourage good results from bad actions. The more I tried the more blurred it became.

After all of this a friend gave me the best advice I have heard in a long time. She said, “Maybe if you stop trying to analyze God, He could reveal Himself to you.” (Light bulb moment!) God is not a mystery to be solved. He is not a boss waiting for you to complete an assignment. He is not a Father who sacrifices the long term to satisfy the short term. He is God.

I am going take that advice. I am going to seek Him just to be with Him. The bad news is I tried to fix it the only ways I knew how and learned I didn’t know how to fix it. But thanks to a friend, today I remembered the good news and that is that I don’t have to know how to fix it. I just have to remember to find the One who does.

The question

I love good questions. To me a good question is far better than a good answer. A good answer is like the route you take to work everyday. I t does not change much. But a good question is like the beginning of an uncharted path. You never know what amazing places it can take you.

This week my pastor asked his grandson Brady a question I had never thought to ask before. He asked him, “What do you think Jesus is thankful for?” Brady shouted, “Me!” without even thinking about it.

I began to walk down the path of this question in my mind and think of what in this dark hurting world Jesus is thankful for. I thought about how He is probably thankful for the man or woman who gives money to the homeless person begging on the corner because He knows that compassion is more important than what is done with the gift. I thought He is probably thankful for the churches that come together to seek Him because He knows that love and worship are more important than having the correct theology. I thought He is probably thankful for those who held their tongues when everything inside them wanted to complain, or insult, or prove their point because He knows that sometimes no action is the greatest action of all.

As I began to think about all the things God is thankful for it brought to mind more questions. How many things do I do that God is thankful for? Am I giving enough? Do I have enough faith? Do I love people the way I should? I began to think about how fall short I fall from the man I should be. I thought about all the times I let my mind wander where it should not go. I thought about how lazy I can be. I thought about how I want to be right at all costs. I thought about how little I do that God can look down from heaven on and be thankful for.

I want to do better. I want to be better. But I finally reached the end of this path and do you know what I found? I had good answers, but Brady had a better one. God loves the things we do to show His love and build His character in our lives, but not nearly as much as He loves us just for who we are. Regardless of what you have or have not done, if you asked God what He is most thankful for His answer would always be you.

Moses and Oral-B

I spend a lot of time trying to hear from God. I read my Bible each day, have quiet prayer times, worship wholeheartedly, and so forth. So it surprises me when God chooses to speak to me when I am brushing my teeth. The more I think about it though, he more I like it. I think it’s a testament of our relationship. You don’t interrupt a man in the bathroom unless your relationship with him is pretty firmly rooted.

So there I am after work tonight scrubbing my molars with my Oral-B when God flips a light switch on in my head. He suddenly gave me a deeper understanding of a scripture I had read and thought about last week. But before I can share what He is teaching me I need to catch you up on what I taught myself.

Two thousand years ago when Jesus was walking around Israel, He was smashing through all these roadblocks that people thought were in their way of getting to God. Now the people who were perceived to be far along that road did not like this because they were in an elite category. There were so many roadblocks to God that not very many people were considered to be close to Him and chosen by Him. Jews believed that if you had any kind of physical handicap it was a product of your sin. They believed that if you did not follow the letter of the law set by Moses and the extra 300+ rules created since him, then God would not speak to you. They believed that God controlled all the wealth in the Earth and if you were poor it was because God did not favor you. This last one sheds light on the scriptures I was reading.

One day a very rich man came to Jesus and asked Him what he had to do to be saved. Jesus told him the answer that applied to everyone who was listening, then Jesus told him the answer that applied to just him. He told him, “Go and sell everything you have. Give it to the poor and come follow me.” The Bible says that the man went away very sad because he had many possessions. It’s at this point that Jesus turns to the crowd and utters the famous phrase that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. The crowd stood in disbelief. If richness was a sign of God’s favor and it was hard for rich men to make it to heaven then who could be saved? Jesus was trying to teach the people that God does not favor men who love their money more than God. Once I learned all this I thought I understood the situation completely. Then a week later I went to brush my teeth.

Standing in front of my mirror God gave me a glimpse of what the rich man felt and his sadness was motivated by something totally different than I expected. In that man’s culture his wealth automatically gave him great influence and respect much like our culture today, but he received something that our culture does not attribute to the wealthy. People assumed that he was close to God. His riches were a symbol to people who believed that wealth was a sign of being one of God’s chosen few. I don’t think he was sad because he found happiness in all his stuff. Rich people will be the first to tell you that the things they buy can’t sustain their happiness. I think he was sad because he did not want to lose his spiritual place in the minds of everyone who knew him.

This is what God is teaching me. It is very popular these days to use the quote from Gandhi that says, “Be the change you want to see in the world”, but there are very few people actually being the change. We like to go to church so that people will see us and think we are faithful to God, but we don’t like to wake up early on our Saturday and go help the poor. We find ways to help our friends judge our walk with God based on what they see. If we are not careful we can begin to attend church, or raise our hands in worship, or even preach to assure people that we are one of God’s chosen few. God knows what we love more than following Him and He WILL ask us to give it up. God wants to have a close relationship with me whether people know it or not. When we become more concerned with people believing we are close to God than actually being close to God, then we have become Pharisees. When God showed me this I really began to check my motivation on everything I do. And I asked myself if I truly love God the way people think I do based on everything I don’t do. What I found out was that I have some work to do, but I know that now I can work on it caring only what Jesus thinks. I will not walk away.

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Stuck

Sometimes I just feel stuck in life. I don’t think this is such an uncommon feeling. When I feel this way I try to look around and see what might be holding me back. Here’s what I got.

I feel like I have become more concerned with my sin than with my walk. The sad thing is, I look around and I see a trend of this happening with a lot of Christians and especially churches. We have become focused on justification more than salvation. The problem with that is that justification is step 1 and salvation is step 2 through infinity. Justification is the forgiveness of our sins and the return of our good standing with God. Salvation is the process in which we become more like Him and fall deeper in love with Him. This is why the Bible says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Justification is important, but it can also become a hindrance in a way. If we have the mindset that our problems or relationship with God is based on our sin then we will spend our energy on removing or avoiding our sin (which is impossible. Or as the Bible says “our righteousness is as filthy rags”) as opposed to strengthening our relationship with God. It’s time to get past step 1 and start living the life that step 1 makes possible. God came to give us life more abundant, not just forgiveness. If we are only looking to get our pass to heaven than by all means stick with justification. But if we want to begin to truly live then lets move past our sin and start walking with God. Let me know what you think.

The Tree

So my awesome roommate Josh Poole and I are trying to get saved again. He came up with a brilliant idea to get us back on the path of righteousness. His idea was that every Sunday, instead of just walking away from church and saying, “That was really good”, we should come up with two things that we could take away from the service and apply to our lives the following week. Today marks the first Sunday of our attempt to be more like Jesus.

This morning the most incredible pastor on the face of the planet, Pastor Lloyd Zeigler, spoke on prayer. In his sermon he told the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. I never really put this story in the context of the events surrounding it. For those of you like me, allow me to go all historical on you…

It is the week of the Passover feast in Israel and every year at this time hundreds of thousands of Jews travel to the city of Jerusalem to worship and sacrifice at the Temple of God. Jesus and his band of merry disciples are also heading to Jerusalem. When they arrive Jesus heads to the temple and he sees what is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations has been turned into a money making business by the religious leaders who run the place. He gets really mad and turns over their tables and kicks them all out. They do not like this…at all. That afternoon Jesus heads out of town to find some lodging because A) There are a lot of really angry Pharisees looking for him and B) There are a whole lot of people in the city and not many open rooms. So Jesus and his boys head to the nearby city of Bethany. The next morning as they are heading back to Jerusalem, Jesus sees a fig tree in the distance. Being hungry Jesus goes to the fig tree to find some figs. (In the book of Mark it even goes so far as to say that it is not the season for figs to bloom.) When He could not find any figs on the tree He cursed it saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” The next day when Jesus and the disciples are again heading back to Jerusalem they walk by the same fig tree and it has withered all the way down to the roots.

Now even though this has nothing to do with what my incredible pastor spoke on, I began to think about this and here is what I am going to try to apply to my life this week.

Jesus knew that the fig tree should not have fruit on it at the time of the year when he walked up to it but He didn’t care. He was hungry. Also, even if the tree had produced fruit early it had probably all been taken by the thousands and thousands of people who passed by that tree before Him on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus still expected the tree to bear fruit.

I am a tree. I am, as a child of God, supposed to bear fruit to those who are hungry. To those who need joy, I should share my joy. To those who need hope, I am supposed to feed their hope. To those who are watching to see if I live what I say I believe, I have to give nourishment to their faith. The problem with this is that sometimes I feel like I have been picked dry. Most days I don’t even feel like I am in the season where I should have fruit at all. But God is looking for me to bear fruit whenever there is someone who is hungry. If I cannot bring the fruit of the Spirit when a soul is hungry then they may starve.

This week I will attempt to be a perpetual fruit bearing machine. When I have been plucked dry, I will dig my roots deep and find a way to pop out another fig. That is my challenge to myself. Pray for me. God loves to test our words. So here goes. Anybody hungry?

The Other Side of the Door

It is hard to imagine a world without electricity. My very ability to share these worlds relies on electricity in multiple ways. Yet only 200 years ago everyone on Earth still lived this “backwards” way of living. Even today an estimated 1.6 billion people still live without electricity.

My perspective on electricity got changed when I read a book and electricity was compared God. I grew up in a Christian believing family and have been going to church for as long as I can remember. This is a gift from God, but at the same time it is hard for me to truly know what life is like for those who have never known what it is like to have a relationship with God. I have many friends who are not saved and I can relate to them, enjoy their company, share life with them, but I cannot fully put myself in their shoes. It’s like growing up in a house with electricity. I can understand what it is like to live without electricity, but until I live without it I can never know what that truly means. I can understand that you would have go out and chop down a tree with an ax and bring the wood back to cook with and stay warm, but until my life is reliant on me doing that everyday I will never know how that affects my mind, my emotions, and my view of the reality of life.

This deep disconnect with those who have not experienced an encounter with God has always posed a problem for me. I know that part of my job as a Christian is to share this great gift with those who do not have it. This process can be very awkward. For a long time I thought the only to do this was to go out and tell them. I was the electricity salesman. I would do my duty and knock on doors to share all the great benefits of electricity. I just never took the time to wonder what it was like from the other side of the door.

From the other side of the door I was the hundredth person to show up “selling” all the great things electricity had to offer.
Feeling lonely? Christ will bring you peace! Are you sick? Jesus is the great healer! Is life too hard for you? Jesus can make all your troubles go away! All this for the low low price of total submission, weekly attendance in your local church, and 10% of your income. It’s a steal!

I was the used car salesman that would tell them whatever they wanted to hear so that they would buy the product. And I was not the only one trying to sell. Some people don’t buy because they are afraid of change. Some people don’t buy because they don’t believe the product will do what it says. Some people won’t buy because they are not willing to give up what it takes to get it. Some people won’t buy just because you smell.

Then I read two sentences that changed my life. They are found in Mathew chapter 13. Jesus tells this short story. “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” In these two sentences I found a new way to live and share the beauty of God’s love.

Right away I noticed that the merchant was never “sold” the pearl. There was no sales pitch, no bartering, no back and forth. He saw something with a value that was so obvious that none of that was needed. The only question that remained was “Are you willing to give up what it takes to obtain it?” And the only one who asked that question was the merchant to himself.

This is the ultimate challenge for me. All the luxuries I have by being plugged into the “electricity” of God, like peace, wisdom, strength, and joy, are easy for me to see, but am I inviting others into my life so that they see them as well? And am I living the life that they would want? I have been given the advantage of electricity, but how am I using it? I want to live my life in such a way that the closer people get, the more they see the value of it. That is not an easy undertaking. I need to use that electricity to do some home repair. And instead of going to their homes to tell them how much better it would be with electricity, I want to invite them to mine to share the life I live. I believe if I do it right they will clearly see the “value of the pearl.”

Many people without electricity have seen the lights through the windows and wondered. They have heard the laughter from inside the house. Don’t wait until they are all the way home. Stop them. Invite them in. Show them the other side of the door.

The Painting

It was a battle within. Some days it’s all he could think about; other days, he didn’t see the point of even trying. He was not a naturally gifted artist but the paint pulled him to it like few things had in life. It was therapeutic. He never grasped the intricacies that made other artists’ works stand out, but his works had a clarity of emotion that was hard to duplicate. Today his hands became meticulous from the moment they held a brush. They seemed to take on a life of their own as each stroke seemed not to add, but instead peel back a layer of reality to reveal what was hidden beneath. The process was long. He could feel the energy being sapped out of him as it only can when your heart is being wholly committed to a task. He had never painted to gain praise, but he could feel the anticipation rising from within about how people were react to this piece of his soul on canvas. The last strokes were his initials JS in the bottom corner. Slowly he set his brush down. There was nothing more to be done. It was complete.

The events of the following weeks became a blur of single moments. A nervous excitement filled him as he stood in the back of the auction house. He did not care how much it sold for. He was here to see if this snapshot of his soul could move someone else the way it had him as he created it. The cloth draping the painting fell to the ground as the auctioneer introduced his piece. “We will start the bidding at…” This simple phrase usually played the first note in a symphony of words and action, but the room remained silent. It was almost as if the room became a painting itself as no one moved or spoke. He waited as long as his hope would last before he slipped quietly out the back door.

“Excuse me sir,” said the secretary in the lobby, “You must stay if you wish to collect your commission.” The echoes of his brisk steps quickly became the only trace left of him in the auction house.

His mind swam as the thoughts came crashing over it like waves. Did I really think people would like it? How could I deceive myself into thinking I was a real artist? Why did I even try to do this? By the time he reached home he had made up his mind that painting was just a waist of his time.

At the auction house, the people sat in disbelief. They had seen works of art, but never a piece that seemed to unmask emotion and reveal its essence. Slowly people realized that they could spend a lifetime trying to match their heart to this canvas. The first hand went up slowly, but the bidding did not crescendo for another 30 minutes.

Bob Garrison sat in his office looking over all the paperwork that accompanied his newest piece. As head curator for the J. Paul Getty Center, he was responsible for maintaining the prestige of one of the world’s foremost art museums. This new painting brought with it a sense of mystery along with its 4.3 million dollar price tag. It had been in circulation for almost 17 years and could only be traced back to an independent auction house. Many researchers tried to discover the unknown artist who created a masterpiece, but none had succeeded. Like a man married for years, he let his mind drift back to the moment he realized he had found something truly special. His outstanding track record, along with months of convincing, had finally swayed the board to acquire this piece. His prize was now displayed in the east wing.

It was not hard to hear the echo of little feet in this hall of the museum. The little boy sat down on the bench and folded his arms in frustration. He could not understand the point of looking at pictures for so long. His increasing antsyness had gotten him in trouble and banished to the bench by his father. He looked over at the man who sat on the other end. He was staring at a painting as if he were watching a movie. The boy looked at it too. It was pretty.

“Do you like it?” the man asked without taking his gaze off the art that hung on the wall.

“I guess. It’s better than lots of the other ones.”, replied the boy.

The man chuckled unexpectedly and looked at the child with a bemused smile.

“Hey!” exclaimed the boy “It’s got my initials in the corner.”

“What’s your name?” asked the man.

“Jack.”

The stranger smiled a big smile. “It’s got my initials in the corner too. Would you like to hear a story?”

He is Jealous For Me

It’s been a long time since I have been on a date. When you are over the age of 25 and not married it’s hard not to think about that a lot. And the absolute worst thing you can hear is someone trying to give you “wisdom” by saying that love comes when you stop looking for it. I just want to tell them, “Great! Stop breathing. God will give you air when you stop trying to inhale it.”

This morning in worship we sang the Kim Walker song “How He Loves Us.” The first words are “He is jealous for me.” He is jealous for me. I’ve heard that about God, but understanding it and experiencing it are two totally different things. As I was singing the song God began to reveal something about my nature and His. I am not normally in the habit of questioning God’s will, but when it comes to being single I want to know why. I want to know why because if I know the “why” I can figure out a solution and fix this “problem.” Is it me God? Am I not ready? Is it her? Am I destined to be single forever? God has made a habit of ignoring these questions, but this morning He began to show me His perspective a little bit.

I have loved God for a long time. When times are hard I love God like a parent. I look to Him for strength and help. When times are good I love God like a friend. We laugh together and live life with passion. But to be totally honest, I have never let the part of me that wants a wife to fall in love with God. The concept of romance with God can be tough for guys. I think of the romantic process with girls in stages. It goes first date, hold hands, kiss, meet friends, meet the parents, get engaged, and then get married. How do I translate that with God? How do I learn to love Him like that? The how may be different for everyone but the why is the same.

God will never bring me something that I will love above Him, but even this He does for my benefit. He knows that apart from Him there is no fulfillment or peace. God always looks at things with a long-term perspective. He does not want to just spend my life with me, He wants to spend eternity with me. It’s much easier for people to tolerate sin (especially if it’s something we want) because we cannot see the end result of where it leads. God not only sees our actions and intentions, but He sees the ultimate result of where they lead. It’s like a cook who is chopping up vegetables with a very sharp knife. The cook sees the delicious vegetables being sliced, but God sees the pain that will come to the hand holding them if the action is continued. God will not give me a better job if He knows that when He does I will no longer rely on Him when I get it. And God will not bring me my wife if He knows she will take His place as the first love in my heart. And as hard as that can seem, I am truly grateful for that because what do I gain by a life of happiness if I lose an eternity of joy?

Tonight I have a date. We are going to dinner and then for a long walk to get to know each other. Tonight I have a date with God. I have no doubt that as I learn more about Him I will fall more in love with Him. I just need to open that part of my heart and commit the time I would to anyone I would fall in love with. I am excited to start this journey. So I finally found love. But it was not because I stopped looking for it. I just started looking in the right place.

God's Mobile Home

I have encountered a problem in my life. A long time ago I got saved and my heart became God’s mobile home. A few times a year I would hear a sermon and I would know it’s time to do some cleaning. I would vacuum and dust and be careful to avoid the closets. When all was said and done I would sit back, very proud of myself, and think, “God must love living here.” Recently I discovered that God does not mind a dirty house as much as one with a bad floor plan.

I have been in full time ministry for many years. I have also worked a “secular” job and done ministry on the side. In both cases I still confined God to the same mobile home He had when He first moved in.

I have been thinking about the poor a lot lately. I want to help them, but I don’t have a great deal of experience in that department other than buying the occasional homeless person food if they happen to be conveniently located near the fast food joint I was already going to. And I don’t count what my church does because honestly I am not actively involved in the process past my donations of money or clothing. It takes a lot of work to help the poor ya know. You gotta research places that already help them and then find one that will let you volunteer at a time when you won’t miss your favorite show. Or you can just go driving and try to find some poor people, but it might take hours before you can find ones that suit your taste.

I always thought God wanted to come and clean my house, but what He really desired was a remodel. Cleaning is much more convenient for me. I can get that done in a day, sometimes even an hour. But a remodel can take years in some cases. I have kept God behind the walls of comfort I built since I was young. God wants to knock them down.
My job and even my ministry have been so boxed in. I never gave God the freedom to roam by living outside the box. I think of the apostle Paul and how the Bible says that his job was a tent maker. What if he would have been satisfied with that ministry? What if he would have said, “I provide tents to those in need,” then patted himself on the back for doing “the work of God” and never moved beyond that specific work? If I am a senior pastor or the church janitor, or anything in between, and my ministry is confined to the job that I do then I have just turned my ministry into a vocation. When the only ministry I do is what I do for my “ministry” then I have taken the power of God to work through me to change this world and given it boundaries.

God has been telling me He wants freedom in my life and I plan on giving it to Him. Remodels are messy. And time consuming. But when they are through the value of the house increases greatly. God will not be satisfied with a new coat of paint. He knows where every one of His lost sons and daughters are in this world. He knows where every hurting person goes in the morning to get coffee. He wants the freedom to take you there. Will you let Him? Will I?

We are about to find out…

Glimpses of Greatness

I wanted to be Mount Everest. I found out I was an apple. Let me explain.

If someone were to write a book about my life no one would read it. To be honest, I don’t think I would read it either. I am not main character material. I don’t think I am even supporting character material. I have never done anything that most people would consider truly impactfull or daring. I am not famous or associated with anyone famous. As far as looks go, I have been blessed with a commonness that acts as a sort of social camouflage. In short, my life will never be viewed by the whole of society as being extraordinary.

I struggled with this idea for a long time. I had the misconception that if your life were truly great then society would recognize it. On more than one occasion I set out to become “great”. I even came up with a list of ten things that, if I did them, would thrust me into greatness. (I only finished one.) I viewed life like a giant pyramid scheme. I either had to influence a small group of people so greatly that they would follow in my footsteps, and the pattern would continue or I had to influence thousands of people in a small way thereby creating a great effect cumulatively. Looking back I realize how contorted my perception of life was.

Do you know what the largest mountain in the world is? If you were to say Mount Everest you would be wrong. Mount Everest’s peak is higher that any mountain in the world, but from base to peak Mauna Kea over 4,000 feet taller. Why don’t we know this? We don’t know this because two thirds of Mauna Kea is under the ocean and what we cannot see we do not care about. Society today is consumed by what we can see. We admire athletes because we can track exactly how successful they are with statistics. We love movie stars because we have proof of how amazing they are based on box office sales. It’s too hard to look up to the guy who feeds the homeless everyday because there is not an iPhone app to show us the effect he is having. We want heroes with accessible updates. I thought the validation from society would be proof of being great. I just wanted to make a difference. I was not willing to accept that even if the biggest part of me always remained hidden I could still do that. Then one day I read a book that helped me understand how wrong I was.

In the book A Brief History of Eternity, Roy Peacock explains how scientific laws have changed throughout history. Today we know that everything that has mass has an electromagnetic field and that field draws things to it. Even objects millions of light years away are affected by the pull of Earth in a minute way and vice versa. In 1686 Isaac Newton discovered gravity with the, now famous, apple falling to the Earth incident, but he had it a little bit wrong. Newton believed that the Earth pulled the apple towards it and that’s why it fell. Scientists now know that “falling” is an illusion and that both the apple and the Earth are actually pulling each other to each other. Because the Earth’s mass is so much greater the effect it has on the apple is much greater. This side of “the pull” is much more visible so it looks as if it just pulls the apple to it. But on an atomic level the apple actually pulls the Earth up to it at the same time.

It’s hard to believe that something as small as an apple could move the Earth, but the same principal holds true with everything in the Universe. That means that no matter what people see when they look at me I still have the power to move the greatest things. I am an apple. Just an apple. But apples have more power than I thought.

Now, more than ever, I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a better place. I am not deceived by thinking that I am greater than anybody else walking this Earth, but I have finally shed the weight of finding my worth from how others view me. Everyone has greatness in them. For a few blessed people it seems to shine bright at all times. For the rest of us it comes and goes. What if we learned to recognize it? What if we fight to capture it from others and ourselves when it comes? It would allow us to remember what is deep inside us on the days when we do not feel like we are shining. Sometimes those are the days when we make the most difference. Remember that even the apple has to fall to move the world.