Christmas Is Being Known

I would be dead without hope; “If your Law had not been my delight then I would have perished in my affliction.”  This is why Christmas matters.  It is all of Christ and all of hope made tangible.  I realized early on that I was capable of good things; I have lofty goals and a romantic disposition.  Beauty causes my heart to soar.  A brisk wind stirs my soul and music makes me sing.  I want the best for humanity but I am not deceived.  I do not expect world peace.

I am capable of great evil.  Christ constrains me.  Without hope hedonism becomes my god.  I will feast on food and flesh and never be sated.  Never.  Knowing this about myself at times leads me to despair.  And the world we live in; let’s not even begin.  So much dark.  Which is why Christ living here as a man makes Christmas of bedrock importance to me.

I feel awkward and out of place.  I don’t fit in.  This is my normal experience.  God gave me my wife, daughter and some close friends to make it through.  Christ knew loneliness.  You’re God living in flesh; pitching a tent among humans.  You know what not fitting in feels like.

Christ put up with all the junk that I do.  The selfishness of men and the unruliness of individuals; poverty, hunger and sickness experienced all firsthand.  I live with my brokenness.  Christ sees into the heart of man.  Wicked governments?  He was crucified by them. Sin his stripes. Whores his best friends---you think they didn’t share their torment, shame and anger with Him?  I am reminded of the song by Rich Mullins, ‘the whole world rests on the shoulders of a homeless man; He had the shoulders of a homeless man.’

Christmas is being known.  It is that beautiful mystery; ‘For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are; yet without sin.”  For He is the image of the invisible God…by Him all things were created…all things have been created by Him and for Him…He is the beginning and the end.  Christmas is all about hope.  Being fully known I’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus.  He is with me in my struggles here where I don’t fit in.  He has reserved me a place imperishable and undefiled.  Finally home fully known.  Entering into rest and realizing hope.

This Isn't A Call To Walden

My phone died.  The whole weekend without being stalked, followed, liked or texted. I didn’t wake up to my phone; didn’t check it before bed and went a whole night without beeps telling me someone cared.  My Saturday night was restfully quiet; I went Sunday morning without screen time.  This experience isn’t that unique.  I’ve had a Smartphone for a month.

This isn’t a call to Walden.  There is visual and visceral delight in seeing your life flash in Instagram.  How tremendous to be followed by people you’ve never met; and who cares why they’re following you?  Putting your family photos and activities out there is a sane safe thing to do.  Truly---I’m borderline addicted.  And Facebook is a great mix; pics of kids; prayer requests and political posts.  The knee-jerk is to respond to every half-baked post.  Wrestling with that; grace and light are good; inflammatory repartee---perhaps not.

I’m seeing my phone’s death dimly through this grid (call it a life app) I’m working through.  When all the information and data stream in unfiltered its overwhelming.  Adrenaline flows and stress mounts.  There is no peace.  Doing the things I enjoy (the things that make me come alive) restores my passion.  Life posted and pictures ‘liked’ in Instagram is positive.  Monitoring my walks on Strava ties me to technology while I’m walking up hills I’ve not seen; praying prayers I’ve prayed before.  Tying technology to my life is good.  Getting tied down by it isn’t.

Like Moses-Wandering and Waiting

I’m waiting for my own burning bush.  Like Moses this is my wilderness period.  Moses’ wilderness season is set in motion by his slaying an Egyptian.  My season is due (loosely) to a change in management.  Murder or management God is sovereign over all of it.

Certainly we are all as qualified as Moses, David and even Paul to accomplish some great spiritual work.  The Haystack prayer meeting is said to be responsible for launching the great missionary movement in the early 1800’s: 

“It was Mills' custom to spend Wednesday and Saturday afternoons in prayer with other students on the banks of the Hoosack River or in a valley near the college. In August, 1806, Mills and four others were caught in a thunderstorm while returning from their usual meeting. Seeking refuge under a haystack they waited out the storm and gave themselves to prayer. …Bowed in prayer, these first American student volunteers for foreign missions willed that God should have their lives for service wherever he needed them, and in that self-dedication really gave birth to the first student missionary society in America."  Kenneth Scott Latourette, the foremost historian of the church's worldwide expansion, states,  It was from this haystack meeting that the foreign missionary movement of the churches of the United States had an initial main impulse."

Moses, King David, and Paul; all murderers and David an adulterer on top of that.  We delude ourselves believing it was because they were brave and bold.  Not true.  Moses excused himself on grounds that he was, “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”  Paul’s testimony to the Corinthians was that he was “with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”  On these grounds I am more than qualified for a fruit-bearing season.  

It’s the disruption, the waiting, the life upheaval that is the most difficult.  Yet Gods’ desire, His purpose, is wrought as much in the forty years of shepherding as in the forty years of wandering and waiting for the Promised Land. 

My own burning bush won’t be leading a nation or nailing thesis to a Wittenberg door.  It may be greater platform for my writing or greater opportunity to minister to my neighbors.  Meanwhile Midian is a harder place to live than the kings courts in Egypt.  I just have to trust in the loving kindnesses and sovereign care of the King.  Through it all I hope to gain the heart of Moses who “left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”

The Father Wound, Freud and Gods Promises

“The message delivered with my wound…was simply this: You are on your own, John.  There is no one in your corner, no one to show you the way and above all, no one to tell you if you are or are not a man.  The core question of your soul has no answer, and can never get one.”---John Eldredge, Wild At Heart

A change in my role at work, from running a department to being an employee in one has escalated my anxiety to significant levels.  I needed to lose fifteen Lbs. but not this way.  Day after day I make the drive into work.  Physiologically I feel it.  Each mile and each minute closer to work causes some level of anxiety which I am not used to.  This isn’t normal.  I know God’s promises; I recite Philippians to myself---“Be anxious for nothing.”  I tell my soul, “God is with you.”  The feeling does not abate.  Where does this come from I ask myself?

Freud was convinced that a father was responsible for the development of principles, rules and values of society within a child, if the father was missing; the child’s view of his position in society was askew. (Lynn, D.B., 1974).  God makes it clear that a father is so much more than that.  Our earthly fathers impact our view of Father God.  Like Eldredges’ dad mine went missing for most of my childhood.  I don’t know what its like to have a dad that is accessible, supportive and, yes, huggable.  My dad was distant for a chunk of my childhood.  An invisible parent for part of my formative years.  So when God says, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand,” I can’t relate.

There’s much in the mix; Eldredge says part of the yearning of the male heart is the yearning for validation.  You can see that in the father picture, right?  Validation is in a dads’ job description.  When I look at God’s promise in Isaiah 41 I can’t relate.  That big protective, passionate papa that I have in God doesn’t square with the father I had.  I suspect that’s true for most of us. 

I think that is a piece of the puzzle that’s missing.  I am having trouble assimilating the truth of who God is as my father.  When we are frightened sometime we fall back to early belief and experience.  That isn’t always a good thing.  Much better to fall into and rest in that which is true.  The Father I have now is a perfect father; accessible, supportive—and, yes, someday huggable.  Til that day comes I learn to hold tight to who He says He is and let go of that which never was.

Private Lives, Social Media

Lazarus didn’t post his resurrection on social media (‘Puppy is glad master returns to life’). A small circle of friends knew of his sickness.  That same circle grieved at his death, a larger circle was aware of Jesus raising him from the dead.  Still it was a very private and personal event affecting primarily Lazarus, his family and close friends.  We see the world through a private prism and close friends walk with us through our experience.

This prism is uniquely my prism; the way I see the world not perfectly balanced, my fear, paranoia and personality color my perception.  Lazarus had his sisters---and Jesus in the flesh.  His acquaintances may have seen him weeks before he got sick and maybe a month later.  “Hey Laz, you’re lookin good.  What’s shakin?  Anything new?”  Not being in the close group they missed his brutal sickness, his slide into death and his resurrection.  His close friends knew---they were there through all of it. 

The more things change the more they stay the same.  In an age of social media we still connect with others as we always did.  Sure I like knowing what your cat is up to.  But what impacts me—and you---is the time and work we put into personal connections.  The phone calls we make to each other, the hour sipping coffee with one another mid week, the texts that we shoot to each other to find out if we’re still shining in the midst of the encroaching darkness.  That’s the point.

Though my prism is unique; God made you my friend because you see and understand my viewpoint.  Sometimes you grieve with me.  Often you come alongside like Jesus in the flesh; to comfort me or question me---making my perspective more reasonable and realistic. 

The prism can imprison too.  Tempting to pull into myself and give into my view.  That too is why I invest in relationship with you my close friend.  I may need you to pull me back from the abyss.  Its reciprocal.  One day I will be there for you as well.  Meanwhile: you should see how this girl trained her dog to do circus tricks!

Have You No Scar?

“I’m sad to say that my marriage did not survive, and that’s been part of the unmaking that God’s been working in my life. He’s been so kind to me in helping me understand that crisis and disaster and personal failure and sorrow do not have to be something to be ashamed of or be hidden….” Nichole Nordeman in an interview with World magazine.

This priceless treasure we hold, so to speak, in a common earthenware jar—to show that the splendid power of it belongs to God and not to us. We are handicapped on all sides, but we are never frustrated; we are puzzled, but never in despair. We are persecuted, but we never have to stand it alone: we may be knocked down but we are never knocked out! –2 Cor. 4:7 Phillips

When I was a new believer there was something that happened in church.  We called it “conviction.”  The pastor taught the Bible and I recognized that there was a gap between the life I lived and the way God wanted me to live it.  Sometimes I made easy course corrections.  Long term issues like pride and arrogance still spring up like weeds in a garden.  There have been some issues of deep moral brokenness that took me many seasons to realize affected me---and years of struggle to get a grip on. Group counseling was immensely helpful in coming to terms with sins committed in my brokenness; as well as confession and accountability to other men.  “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again,” says Proverbs. 

The conviction I mention above happens because I believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word. Therefore it has authority over how I live out my life---and the choices I make.  My first marriage ended in divorce.  When dating my second wife we committed to doing it God’s way; so much so that we enlisted accountability partners---primarily to keep us out of bed.

We yearn to know Christ so we embrace His word.  My heart breaks today.  Friends who are Christ followers are unwilling to make Biblical choices which will wound them in the short run.  They choose saving face over deeper grace.  They choose shallow happiness over the abounding deep joy found in clinging to Christ.  Yes we slip and stumble; but we are raised seven times through Christ that He might ever more be magnified in us.  In the words of Amy Carmichael;

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail they bright ascendant star,

Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?

Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent,

Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent

By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned:

Hast thou no wound?

No wound?  No scar?

Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow me;

But thine are whole: can he have followed far

Who has nor wound nor scar?    

When To War Against The Culture

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

I look at the state of the world and feel that I can do nothing. It is easy to watch the news and get into a depressed funk.  The funk leads to flight, flight to fantasy escapism. Our world is wired for that.  So easy to retreat into hours on Facebook, to watch ‘reality’ television or to find that perfect Zone Out app that you’ve been looking for.   It’s a battle we all face; I spend to many hours on Hulu myself.

My daughter is the arrow shot forward into the next generation.  I’m fortunate to have a child, fortunate to see she’s gleaned some principal values from her parents among those are a love for Jesus and a love for nature.  That’s a great thing. 

Still my heart cries, “What else can I do?”  The world is so big, the Syrian refugee crisis looms large, the Mid-East is a powder keg awaiting a match (can you say Uranium enrichment?) and things at home have grown from bad to worse.  At least knowing all the facets of my Pit Pal BBQ app will garner short time rewards (like great ribs).  Big picture stuff I can’t fix; right?

A current option bandied about by some in Christian circles is the Benedict option (think Benedictine monks).  To quote Rod Dreher, “Let’s stay involved in the outside world, but let’s also do a strategic retreat. That’s not, “head for the hills.” That’s doing things like turning off the television. Back away from the culture.”  Marvin Olasky’s counter to this is what he calls The Daniel Option.  Taken from the book of Daniel the idea is to engage culture at whatever juncture possible.  When individuals and culture are defying God and Judeo-Christian principals we need to take an aggressive stand. 

Daniels’ story shows a man that knew how to live quietly and peaceably in the midst of a pagan culture.  He also knew when and how to rock the boat to draw attention back to God.  Being ‘salt and light’ we are to saturate the culture.  Faithful fenced-in isolationist folks say we need to regroup to fight better.  I say we’re in this shape because we stopped fighting in the first place.  We withdrew from the public square and the public school leaving a catastrophic vacuum.

I have few answers when dealing with the big bad world.  I suggest we plant our feet and fight.  We pray for wisdom; there’s a balance between both Martin Luther the monk and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Both understood when to fight on their knees and when to peaceably protest in the public square.  In that spirit may we be as bold, as brave and as successful in our day-to-day lives.  We start there.

Want a Positive Perspective? Go Outside.

“Nature is calling him to health and beckoning him to joy.  He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy…..Charles Spurgeon

She unlaces her sandals and walks to the water.  Waves crash upon the sheen of sand, lit by the crescent moon.  Deeper she goes, salt and surf causing her shaved legs to tingle.  She hopes there is nothing under the water to scare her or cause her harm.  She shivers and smiles. 

She’s come to pray.  It was one of ‘those’ weeks---and the following weeks promise no better.  Part of the problem with all the regular life crap is that she can’t wrap her head around the why.  Can’t get perspective; don’t feel like giving a darn.  Giving in and giving up seem reasonable.  Can’t find God in the mix; can’t get herself out of the mix. 

When everything comes crashing down the beach gives perspective.  Pushing the pedal through the curves means less than half-an-hour from house to sand. 

Kicking at the water she half-skips, half-walks onto sand.  She lays down---can shower later.  So much force to the breaking of the waves.  They roll on forever.  The vastness of the sea; seems no end to it.  She feels small by comparison.  “A good thing,” she thinks.  Perspective; God created this.  Staring into the sky she remembers, “He calls them all by name; because of…His might…not one of them is missing.”

She recalls standing at the base of a waterfall on the Virgin River; water crashing down a red rock canyon.  The peace she felt that instant.  Pristine, cold water; refreshing, life-giving---life felt balanced and purposeful.  Felt full of possibility.  There was a purpose---a design.

She shivers.  Cold creeps in through wet clothes.  She walks back to the truck.  A quiet, subdued ride home.  Satan still roars; the problems still loom.  They seem manageable now though, “or should I say, managed?” she says to herself. 

What's Black And White In A Gray World?

How do we establish right and wrong without objective measure? “Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” said the Impact Team, an individual or group that claims to have completely compromised the database ofAshley Madison (AM), the site for married men and women (the Impact Team claims ninety-plus percent of everybody on the site are male) wishing to have an affair.  The Impact Team advised AM that the site must be shut-down immediately or they would make public customer records, files and credit information and other significant data.  How can the Impact Team make a moral judgment about AM then break the law and commit some serious sin themselves? *

The Impact Team is blindly headed down a slippery slope.  They claim moral absolutes exist for others only.  Hypocrisy at least.  More likely the result of life lived in a culture that ignores absolute truth.  Is it okay for me to break the law and hack a company yet wrong for you to have a sexual affair?  Is it okay for me to publish the sins of one man or many men without going to each man first individually?  That is the Biblical standard from the same God that gave us the rule for marital fidelity. According to Greg Koukl, “An ethical discussion involves comparing the merits of one view with those of another to find out which is best. But if morals are entirely relative and all views are equally valid, then no way of thinking is better than any other. No moral position can be judged adequate or deficient, unreasonable, unacceptable, or even barbaric.”  So I question this act of barbarism.

I began to cheer when I heard this report.  The cheer stuck half-way in my throat.  True, having an affair is a egregious act.  Hacking into a company’s computer files based on your own personal values is evil on a different scale. The Bible states revenge is to be placed in Gods’ arena and not ours.  We are specifically told to put aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy and slander.

One is reminded of the story in the book of Judges wherein a certain man sets up a shrine because he wants to become a priest.  The text goes on to say, “In those days there was no King in Israel…,” there was no law, there was no guidance and there were no absolutes.  It finishes with this famous commentary upon those days, “every man did what was right in his own eyes.”  May God deliver us from those who do evil and call it good.  There are absolutes; we must not pick and choose.

*Some evidence infers this is the work of an employee with a grudge...

The Summer Of Letting Go

Regret is like Necrotizing Fasciitis.  It will destroy you from the site of the wound outward.  The wife said the luggage would be fine in the back of the truck---midday, crowded parking lot, nice restaurant.  My gut told me otherwise.  I second-guessed myself and simply moved the truck to where I could visually check on it.  Walking back out to the truck the sight of cut tie-downs and missing luggage was like being punched in the stomach. 

Each of us spent the ensuing hours in negative self-talk, accusing ourselves, berating selves, pounding on our hearts as the poison in the wound spread outward.  We sensed the poison spilling out between us.  Conversation was cold and stinted.  A day in and we decided this had to stop.  The past is past and focusing on the ‘what-ifs’ would only rob the present of all its’ joy.

I’m close to my daughter.  The Daughter spent that week with us in the Sequoias.  Haven’t seen her much since then; she’s eighteen and her calendar is full.  Come September she will start college.  I’m used to seeing her multiple times per week.  Used to lots of face-to-face time.  That will change.  Most days I’m fine with that.  Still I feel a disruption in my soul someplace---a sort of emptiness.  Not all sadness. Its simply change and difference and growing up.

Sending The Daughter off to college is a predictable change.  The news I received at work yesterday was much less expected.  A different direction means I’ll be demoted.  I’ll lose some autonomy, a chunk of freedom and some perceived job security.  It rattles the cage a bit.

A friend noted that in her childhood the vacations where things went wrong were the vacations most remembered.  The good stories, the ones we tell over and over are those where the victor overcomes.  A cure is found for the creeping bacteria, the trip goes on despite stolen suitcases, and the daughters’ college experience deepens, moulds and changes her life.  The man demoted finds joy in the midst of it all.  The greatest regret would be a failure to push forward and persevere.  Conflict colors the ending and makes it a happy one.