Running against Horses

I’ve been to two funerals and a wake last week and they were absolutely wonderful experiences.
Those were the first funerals I had ever been to. In each event I got to celebrate lives well lived, grieve with those who lost, have joy at the impact they make and wish that I would earn the same accolades when I pass into eternity as well.

Far from being glum and depressing (perhaps because they were African American Baptist and Nigerian affairs) they joyously celebrated the lives of Godly people who loved their families and served their communities. It’s rare when you are holding back tears one minute and then laughing uproariously the next, they were almost like weddings they were so happy.
These events were actually inspiring to me and when I left, I felt like I had known the person who passed for some time, even though that wasn’t the case.

At one, I heard a sermon preached on a little passage in Jeremiah that completely changed my view on suffering in life, and gave me pause about the hope that I have. For context, the sermon was preached by the son of the pastor who had died. It was very powerful in its simplicity – I’ll try to summarize.

Verse:

"If you have raced with men on foot
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in safe country,
how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” - Jeremiah 12:5

Context:
Jeremiah was getting frustrated. God had called him to be his prophet to Israel, to get them to repent and pronounce the consequences if they didn’t. While Jeremiah had initial confidence in this task, his trust faded when things started getting very difficult. He is known as the “weeping prophet” due to his grief for Israel and the difficulty he endured at their hands (he gets thrown in a well and left to die at one point), and especially the troubling visions of its destruction in the book of Lamentations.

So like Elijah, Job and David, he gives his complaint to God when he is at the end of his rope The verse above was the beginning of God’s response. So why did I find God putting Jeremiah in his place so inspiring for my life now? Because it reminded me that I get tired easily when I run on my own power (fueled usually by my own pride). God hadn’t designed us to do anything worthwhile – much less ordained by him- on our own power. That is why Job, Jeremiah, Elijah, David, Moses, Abraham and everyone else whom we reckon as “righteous” has a similar conversation with God in which they laid their frustrations at his feet.

When we are worn out with the trials of life - our “men on foot,” that experience produces the diligence and humility in us to go to God so that we can race even against horses. I believe God was showing Jeremiah his weakness, warning him of the trials to come, and proving his faithfulness and wisdom by implying that it is possible to thrive and succeed in harder circumstances. By letting us and our desires get frustrated even in the “simple” things of this life, I think God is actually preparing us. We are stronger than we know if we depend upon him, and much weaker than we thought when we don’t.

Have you ever looked back on something and realized it was God who got you through it? Have you ever accomplished something and realized it was not on your own? By reminding Jeremiah that he is not doing as well as he anticipated, with trials still on the horizon come, I think God is actually being very fair and inspiring to him, though Jeremiah may not feel that way at the time. Sometimes the best advice or critique does not suit our ears upon first hearing. But the truth is there, God will not forsake us, and will actually bless us and empower us to endure and accomplish that which he has in store for us. However, we forsake ourselves when we don’t stop our striving and get coaching from Him.

I learn I run better and longer when following common wisdom, the advice of those smarter and more experienced than me, and in communion with others who are better. How much more so God, who is with us and will avail his infinite power, wisdom, and love to get us to finish the race and receive the crown of life He has in store for us.

So yeah, two funerals and one wake halve allowed me to see that over the course of these lives that impacted so many people - they raced against horses and won a reward in heaven. And we are expected to do the same. Be blessed.

Hope Floats

Before Jesus and his disciples got in the boat to cross to the other side; they were interrupted by two potential candidates to be His followers. The first was a Pharisee who told Christ that he will follow Him “wherever you go.” To which Jesus replied "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

This response was to let him know that it wasn’t going to be comfortable, easy, consistent or materially secure existence. Being a Pharisee was perhaps the most secure existence one could have in Jerusalem: you can’t argue with respect, influence, education, steady income and provision. People aren’t going to stop sinning and they were there to atone for them and legislate morality. Even Pilate and Herod were not as secure as the Pharisees, they were hated as symbols of oppression and had to beware the political schemes and machinations of the empire, rivals and even their own family members.

The other man, who also wanted to follow Christ but then first bury his father, was given a similar seemingly discomforting reply. The gospel does not make it clear whether either man got onto the boat with Christ, but when he and his disciples do set off, they are caught in a storm comes that has the power to sink the boat.

I think the order of events is significant here because we see the two biggest barriers to following Christ – trepidation and tribulation. Trepidation – the initial hesitance to leave behind, or make less important, the comfort and obligations of this life. Can we truly say that we count everything we take joy and pride in as “rubbish” as Paul states for the sake of knowing Christ? Those who approached Christ were used to “the things of the world,” and while that does not condemn them, Jesus warns them that in following him, he expects their priorities to be radically changed. So what can we let go of that impedes

Then there is the tribulation. When we actually get on the boat and go into open sea we can be coasting along fine but easily fall victim and feel exposed to unexpected storms. The storm came up as unexpectedly on the disciples as sea as it did those on shore. Yet, while it was seemingly much more dangerous to the disciples to at sea, they forgot that they were in the presence one that could silence the wind and waves with a word.

Like the disciples, and like the prophets and kings and men and women of God before them, we can look about frantically for where Christ is and wonder if he even cares that we are about to drown. David many times laments the lack of the presence of God. Moses and Elijah both poured out their frustration and bewilderment at their bad fortune and apparent abandonment. However, what did all those people do when they were at their wits end? They took it to God, albeit in self-justified anger, frustration, confusion and grief.

David wept and vented, Abraham sighed, Moses complained, Elijah whined and the disciples exasperated “do you not care that we are about to drown?”

Is there value in us being at our wits end and seeking God? I think God wants that frustration from us at times because it shows that we actually value the relationship. I think about all the people I’ve felt true disappointment in – those people were definitely closer than acquaintances. I don't want to make it sound as base as God wants to rile us up, but he wants to show us consistently that he is present, and that his will is as good as it is mysterious. However, ultimately it allows him to show us that he has infinite wisdom, and our best in mind. It may take us time after the fact to fully grasp that - be we have ample time as we are delivered and on dry land again on the other side of the sea, following Him to what lies ahead.

God bless

Pissed Off & Sick and Tired

You ever get sick and tired of being sick and tired? I am sick and tired of watching born again Spirit-filled, whether you speak in tongues or not, children of the Most High God suffer. I know in this world we will have trials, Jesus promised that we would, but Jesus also promised that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.

I am pissed off that Jesus gave up His place in Heaven, came and lived on this earth, endured ALL He did in order for us to walk in freedom and we do not even believe that we can.

I am sick and tired of watching my Chrisitan Brothers and Sisters, especially my sister's struggle with areas of their past and life when God's Word tells us that we are to forget the former things and remember them no more because God is going to do a new thing in us.

I am pissed off that when we become saved that the Holy Spirit seals us, Jesus lives in us, yet we feel like we have to struggle with areas of our life. He is in us, He wants to deliver us, He wants to make us free, yet we are afraid to let Him.

I am sick and tired of "Chrisitans" judging other "Chrisitans" when they come to them admitting their sin, seeking healing and prayer, and they walk away feeling even more condemned than they were before. Have we forgotten that there was no good in us until Jesus came and set us free? That regardless of what we did or did not do, how much time we spent in the clubs and the bars, even how much time we did or did not spend in the church that we ALL were on our way to hell until Jesus found us. Yes, He found us because we were too busy trying to clean ourselves up and "get our life right" before we would go to church and give our life to the Lord.

I am just pissed off and sick and tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

National Day of Prayer Today!

Sorry, its been a minute...

I don't know if I'm going to make it to city hall today (didn't plan on it) but today I encourage and join with you all in praying for our nation. Not just its leadership but the entirety of civic life. I realized this morning how easy it is to lambast our leaders (some more than others depending on your political philosophy) but overall they need as much grace getting out of bed each day as we do.

One of my prayers today is that Christians will show an attitude of attention, respect, and restraint to our leaders while seeking to hold them accountable. Irregardless of our political beliefs, we belong to a faith in which the Apostle Paul encouraged slaves to not be disrespectful to their masters so that their masters may be converted by their witness of character. Paul was not supporting the insitatuion of slavery, but the reconciliation of man with God. We need to be keenly aware of the impact our individual witness and actions can affect an entire system for the kingdom of God.

Furthermore, we are called to be obedient and respectful to every authority in this world as they are placed there by God. Of course we do not have to on the points where they do not agree with God’s law, but again, there is as difference between the testimony of our character and the preferences of our minds. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” Jesus said, after being asked if it was lawful to pay taxes, “and unto God what is God’s”. Jesus used the illustration that money was Caesar’s since it bore his image, but people are God’s since we are created in His image. In praying for others and our leadership, let us remember who we all belong to. The Caesar’s of our time need just as much grace as we do getting out of bed, Lord help us all to remember that we belong to you, and you want us to care for and pray for each other.

Surely He did!

Isaiah 53:4-6

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the
punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Its amazing how Isaiah wrote this more than 700 years before Christ and yet it describes him to a t. Likewise Psalm 22 prophesies the suffering of Christ:

16 Packs of dogs close me in,and gangs of evildoers circle around me; *they
pierce my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones.
17 They stare and
gloat over me; *they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my
clothing.

Yet even in the midst of such suffering we should be reminded of Christ's words to his disciples and to us:

I am the good shepherd.. and I lay down my life for the sheep….. The
reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my own life—only to take it up
again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and authority to take it up again.”
“I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of the world is coming.
He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I
do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”

(Jn 14:30-31)

Enjoy your Good Friday with the shepard who lay down his life to grant you an eternal one!

Passion 1

Yesterday I had a thought occur to me:

The biggest miracle in my mind that Jesus ever performed was never once doing his own will.

Seriously, I know he walked on water, healed the sick, released the possessed, spoke the truth with wisdom and authority and was resurrected from the dead through the power of the holy spirit - but all that would have been for naught if he "just wanted to do his own thing."

I don't say this lightly, I look at the state of my persistent rebellion against God, whether inspired by fear, laziness, pride or arrogance and I realize - I simply can't do this. I can't do what God wants me to all the time - its nigh impossible for everyone. And yet Christ did just that. I know some people who have the wrong concept of sin think "No big deal, I think Jesus was a good person" because Jesus is as good as or better than them or hundreds of thousands of other people on earth. However, ask the same person if they can go through a day without being self-centered or self-interested or continually ensure that their actions are at the prompting or benefit of someone else ahead of their desires.

So the reason I bring this up is today is Palm Sunday - the liturgy starts Joyous - the triumphal entry - and ends sadly and suddenly - Christ's betrayal, trial, and crucifixion. This reading stuck out to me glaringly from the bulletin and reminded me that through it all, Christ was in this for the glory of God:

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point death - even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

- Philippians 2:5-11

Paul is right, this is the facet of Christ that is most impressing me and and making me praise him is the fact that he did it all for the Glory of God, for 33 years whereas I can't be bothered to think of someone else for more than 3 seconds. Praise Him who did this for you and I, praise Him who did this with the end in mind of God's glory and our benefit. His greatest miracle is an everlasting one as he changes our hearts to do the same.

Preparing for Life's Trials

"I have told you these things so that in me, you will have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." -John 16:33

Why is it that we prepare for everything in life, except for our trials? We study for exams and quizzes, we save for our wedding, we save for vacation, we even save for the dream car that we always wanted as a teenager and plan to purchase in our mid 50's. When in reality, there is no guarantee that we will live until our 50's, be able to take a vacation, or even get married (I apologize to those of anxiously waiting and praying for your spouse.). Why don't we put that much time into preparing for life's trials? We know they are coming, yet we find ourselves preparing for them in the middle of them and at that point, it is no longer preparation, but mere survival. In John 16:33, Jesus tells us that we will have trials. What more do you need to know. It would be helpful to know when they were coming and what it is concerning, but we do not. However, we do know that we can overcome because he has overcome. Does us knowing that we will overcome make us complacent and keep us from preparing? I am not suggesting we worry, but maybe we should take some time getting ourselves ready. Questions or comments?

Singing Sunday 2

I don't have a hymn for today - just a bridge from a band I love - House of Heroes and their song "Field of Daggers". Simple words, but they could just have easily been penned by Fanny Crosby - had she known how to play a killer bass or lead guitar...

"Spread wide Your wings, O God,
Relieve this scarlet fever,
Catch every tear of mothers in mourning.

Bring life to tired hopes,
Buried in fields of flowers,
Bring many sons of battle to glory.

With every drop of blood,
Caged in this tired body,
I long to bring my father to glory.

I see a new day coming!
Maybe tomorrow...
Woe to the king of nothing.
I see a clean blood running,
Brothers of sorrow.
Here is your kingdom coming!
Here is your kingdom coming!"

I like these lyrics because for me Lent always brings a season of disappointment. I'm not good at keeping my word, or fasts very well - and any success I have in either department leads often to pride and me realizing that I missed the point of whatever spiritual discipline I have embarked on at current. But it reminds me that I am working towards and end that I cannot achieve by myself - the doing of the will of God and a love for Him. In these words, I see God's ultimate purpose and rejoice in it - but I also see how powerless I am in light of it. It doesn't depend upon me, but for my sake, God wants me to get involved. This song - and all others in that particular album by house of heroes pretty much chronicles things throught he perspective of being a "soldier" for Christ. And lent tends to be an introspective and hard slog in the battle at times but its also a good time to be reminded why we are "fighting the good fight."

I think the verse today from the Epistle captures it magnificently. We are in the war because:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - 2 Corinthians 5:21

There you have it. We are fighting because we are being made into what we tried in vain to be ourselves - the righteousness of God. In a culture and age obsessed with self-salvation, self-satisfaction, and self-aggrandizement, I don't have to go far to find my idols. Yet, somehow, God is taking fallen, imperfect and impetuous man and is redeeming us for his glory?


I like Rev. Timothy Keller's paraphrase about Christ's sacrifice "He took a man who died loving us so that we might live to truly love others." Sometimes I focus on the outward fruit of my faith without realizing that first and foremost it takes a deeper and more significant inward devotion to and adoration of the God who picks us up out of self-imposed dust-heaps.

Praise Him, and keep rockin.

Diety and Disaster

Luke 13
Repent or Perish

1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
2Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

6Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. 7So he said to the man who took
care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on
this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the
soil?'
8" 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and
I'll dig around it and fertilize it. 9If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not,
then cut it down.' "

________________________________________
This was the gospel reading for yesterday at church. It really struck me for many reasons, especially in light of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Imagine if Jesus was walking amongst us now and preaching – and the earthquake just happened, or someone brings up 9-11. I think Jesus could have just as easily incorporated that into his message:
“Do you think that these Haitians are worse sinners than all the other people because they suffered in this way?...Or those 3,000 people who died when the Twin towers collapsed when the world Trade Center was attacked – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in New York City? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Now, far be it for me to put word’s in Jesus’ mouth, but I see his point – that these disasters did not have anything to do with righteousness and guilt before God. The same God whom the bible says “makes it rain on the just and unjust alike” can also impart disaster on both parties simultaneously. Why then the “But unless you repent, you too will all perish” quote?

I think Jesus was trying to drive home a point about death. Everyone wants to die at a full age, in their sleep and at peace with themselves and God. A tragic disaster affords nothing of that from a human perspective, and a cruel one seems like divine punishment – whether or not the person believes in God. However, when Jesus says perish, I think he means something more than being cut off from life.

What are your thoughts on this passage and God’s role in natural and man-made disasters?

Who is this?

“He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
- Mark 4:39-41

I wonder if sometimes we say “Who is this?” especially when we are supposed to know better. I was listening to a wonderful sermon by the Rev. Timothy Keller, a Presbyterian minister up in New York City discourse on Knowing God.

He started his preaching with the focus on the fact that none of the questions we have about God or Christ can be properly or rightly answered until we realize that we are encountering a person, not a religion. To this effect, we have to make an effort to actually relate to the person of God. He made a wonderful illustration that if there is an athlete whom all the girls love because he is a star football player, that person will expect that his prowess on the field is the way he can attract a woman. However, if he meets a rather bookish girl who “doesn’t know the difference between a first down and a hole in one” yet he wants to get her attention, he can’t give her a book on the rules of football, demand that she read it, and then be open to his advances based on the merits of his skill.

Rev. Keller stated that we have to get to know someone through the way they deem through their heart. So when Jesus says that he is “The Way, the Truth, and The Life, and that no one may know the Father except through him” it really challenged me to sit and think – am I trying to know God through the way God has designated that I know him. If you want to get to know a person, and they give you a list of their interests and times they are available to talk, would you then say “No, actually this time works better for me, and I only want to talk about this, so please change your preferences so that I might really get to know the real you.”

I shudder to think how many times in my life I’ve inadvertently been guilty of that, but I digress. Sometimes in God I want a willing accomplice, butler, chauffer, or ego-boost – but not necessarily to know His will much less put it above my own and into practice. It’s easy to be “always triumphant” when you’ve determined for yourself what “triumph” looks like (however legitimate your desires are) outside the will of God. Its also easy to be gravely disappointed in the same scheme of things. Christ reminds us that can’t even make one of our hairs turn white or black in our own power – how much moreso to accomplish all the things we plan and desire?

Knowing God takes us out of our will and fundamentally into God’s. Rev. Keller had a great quote from one of his mentors – Elisabeth Elliott – which I quote imperfectly from memory but the gist was that we never ask God for help in doing something, we rather ask God for the obedience and discipline to remain in His will – even and especially since we don’t always know the details and what exactly that will looks like.

This brings back the fundamental question of knowing God. Jesus’ disciples rebuked him first – asking emphatically “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?!?!” How many times do we do that in our lives in different and desperate situations – yet without realizing that Christ could just as easily respond “Don’t you care that I died to give you eternal life that you may know God?”

I pray that I can stop asking "Who is this?" so much and get to know him better, especially through this time of Lent. God bless.

Singing Sunday

Singing Sunday:

I’m taking a chapter from The Mountain Brooke playbook and naming a day and the purpose for a blog!

Behold the Singing Sunday!

I know a certain redhead
with gaudy pipes of gold
who could a song so sweetly sing
and gladden hearts so cold

I miss my friend and hearing her sing on Sundays and Wednesday nights and the random times a favorite song of hers was on the radio or her computers and she just had to let me know how much she liked it by singing along to it.

So I’m instituting singing Sundays – because its mainly when I get to blog and thus reference a particular hymn and how it makes me feel from church. Today is “I could not do without thee” - Czech out the whole hymn here - but for now, the two most impactful stanzas to me from the hymn by Frances Havergal:

I could not do without Thee,
O Jesus, Savior dear;
E’en when my eyes are holden,
I know that Thou art near.
How dreary and how lonely
This changeful life would be,
Without the sweet communion,
The secret rest with Thee!

I could not do without Thee;
No other friend can read
The spirit’s strange deep longings,
Interpreting its need;
No human heart could enter
Each dim recess of mine,
And soothe, and hush, and calm it,
O blessèd Lord, but Thine.

Rend Your Heart

The opening sentence in today's morning prayer service is from Joel 2:13,

"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity."

The image I get in my head when reading this is of Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt at the beginning of a wrestling match. What does this action signify in the Jewish mind, though? In ancient Israel, rending (or tearing) your outer clothing was a sign of mourning. It demonstrated grief mixed with deep regret and was a ritual sign of heartbreak. It presents the mourner and those present with the ability to express their sorrow, in effect creating a sort of emotional opening for each person to release the feelings of his or her heart.

Joel was speaking to a rebellious people who used the action of rending their garments as proof of their devotion to the Lord. To the people around them they appeared to be repentant, but the condition of their hearts was a different matter. They fell into the trap that we see time and time again in our society of “fake it ‘til you make it.” We suppose that if we can fool everyone else into believing some lie about us, whether it be how secure we are, how pious we are, etc, we will eventually become what we desire. Sadly, we do not even know we are living this way until the fruit of our works is made known to us, through the Holy Spirit or other people. The truth of the matter is that we can only become who we were created to be as we die to ourselves more and more and allow the perfection of Christ to shine through us.

Each of us has reason to mourn and rend our garments. We lament our sinfulness in the presence of the Most High and cry out to Him to make us new in Him. Our hearts ache to be made whole and our souls sigh with longing to be loved. Sometimes we mourn the death of hopes and dreams we idolized. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death (2 Cor. 7:10).” If we act like the children of Israel and try and pretend we are repentant, but really are not, we actually hurt our own heart and God can see our pretense for what it truly is.
We can look to David, a man after God’s own heart and see what true repentance looks like. Psalm 51 resounds with the heart of the penitent and gives hope in verse 17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Let each of us in this season of Lent come before our Maker with a broken spirit and a contrite heart so that the joy of our salvation may be renewed within us, for then and only then will we be empowered to show transgressors the Way, the Truth and the Life!