Taking a Little Desert with Me

This morning going over Romans, slowly, but maybe not slowly enough, I remembered a discussion Laura and I were having yesterday. The new has arrived in doing church and the old sounds so old. Actually, we just have new ways of saying the same old stuff, but really, all of our theology and doctrine and even church ideas are a heritage we have from other generations. In fact, we are in debt to them, and really, we couldn’t produce today what they did years ago. It’s not in us.  It is not our culture.

Think of the hours AH Strong put into his concordance. I have all of that at my finger’s touch, in a second. Yet that isn’t the point. In Strong and others like Warfield and Thomas and Machen and Chafer, and the list goes on, you had men who had to take time, and in time and in repetition comes meditation and remembrance and new discovery and depth. The heritage they left was more than the product on a shelf.  They instilled depth in those they knew and who followed them.  Depth is something we lack today simply on the level of time. It is all too easy. Too quick. Too instant. We have to multi-task or we die.

Yesterday I was looking at the tulips and realized how easy it is not to trust God. We planted them and then certain ones came up quickly and bloomed….all one color. Questions and disappointment. I thought we bought a varied varieties bag, and why were the others taking so long? Then some others bloomed. Yellow variegated. Not bad. Now the bed is full of older and newer blooms. It’s beautiful. Variety all over, different colors, shapes, sizes, and my point, different timing, slowly, persistently God made development. What an amazing thing. The older ones aren’t missed because the newer ones look so beautiful. I couldn’t have planned it better.

God plans stuff like this, and it happens, but only for those who wait. It was the same with the plants in front. We’re thinking we killed them with mulch, trying to uncover, find, them. Then one day they were there.

Speed and ease rob us of depth, and with God this means depth of relationship and love, real love. Spiritual love is the kind of love and trust and joy that just knows and is confident in quiet. It brings peace with it wherever it goes.

So how does God break us out of this? My experience: He uses the same plan He did with Moses, David, Elijah, and Paul. He sends us into the desert. Phones don’t work there (or no one calls us). Lost at first, we finally become comfortable with quiet and barren vistas. Finally the ringing in our ears dies away and we hear it: nothing. Then eventually we listen into the quiet and hear His voice. A word or phrase in His Word piques our interest and we slowly begin to give that thought room to roam through our minds and hearts where previously there was too much multi-tasking and distraction and self importance.

Even before I begin to mention to others what the Lord has been massaging my mind and heart with regarding discipleship, I know in most churches it wouldn’t be embraced. Why? The approach is too slow. Even to think of Jesus building into the lives of the disciples for 3 years, in the life of the church today, it seems to be too long a process. We are too busy multitasking. We need instant and auto pilot. If it took a master carpenter 3 years of focused chiseling and sanding and crafting to make His disciples, what makes us think it should only take a 12 week class and sporadic “checking in.”  We lack the time and patience and focus, not the tools.  It’s so important we need to go slow.

It took time, but we’ve got birds outside that are a joy to watch. We’ve got plants all over that are growing and even if we’re not here to enjoy them, someone will. We’ve got new thoughts growing in our hearts, new insights growing in us. Loving Christ has once again become a mysterious joy and mission . There are verses that I’ve read before, but finally discovered, and I wonder how I ever lived without them and all because of the quiet, slowness of life. Funny, that fruitfulness would come in the desert and that if He’d kept me in the main flow of life, I would have remained harried and barren. I know the Lord will lead us from here, but now I feel a little like Naaman the Syrian asking Elisha, “Can I take a couple donkey loads of this ground with me.” Wherever He leads us, I need to make sure, from this point on, to take a little of this desert with me.

Where is Jesus?

This morning in Deut. 31 God says the people will turn away from Him yet recognize that their problems stem from God leaving them. God says He will hide his face from them. Now, theologically, God cannot not see them. But relationally, He will “turn away” and let them reap what they have sown until they turn to him. Obviously He gives them gentle nudges, but until they are fed up with the emptiness of their lives and see His distance as something they have created, which they can no longer live with, they won’t change and won’t see his “relational” blessing. The question is, “Would they want to see His face?” What does it take to “see His face?” Is it simply obedience or is it more?

What if it works like this with the Lord? Israel lost sight of God because their lives were full of themselves and stuff and idols. What about us? Do we see God, we who believe in Christ? I don’t think so. We call the daily “nothing” normal, and really don’t want more of God unless it rains. Our lives are full of ourselves and stuff and idols. We don’t even miss Jesus. We think of following as a duty and we don’t mind not having duty and obedience laid upon us. He seems quiet enough about it all. Maybe He’s okay with it. We call this normal.

All of this made me think of “New Moon.” Bella was “sick” in love with Edward, but they were separated. She could only see him if she was in trouble or taking a risk. So, she kept getting herself into situations where she would see him and hear his voice. It was dysfunctional, but it made a good point.

If we were “sick” in love with Jesus, I guess we would seek all those activities and go to all those places where we could “see” Him and “hear” His voice.

In Brad Paisley’s song “Raining You,” he expresses something similar, how his memory of his lost love is nearer to him when he remembers standing with her in the rain.

If I had my way
It would do this every day
I would never see the sun
Because the closest I get
To holding you again
Is every time that sky opens up

It feels like it's rainin' you
I can't explain it
But I am baptized anew
It feels like it's rainin' you
It feels like it's rainin' you

If we found Christ in a certain place, would we forsake every other place to be with Him? What if we’re looking for Jesus in the wrong place? And what if our hearts are so full of other stuff that we now lack the love necessary to really seek His face and desire His presence, even if we knew where to find it.

So where is Jesus to be found? For this we go, not to “teeny-girly-vampire romance,” or a great Country singer, but to William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. The video is verbatim from an address he gave. So, where is Jesus according to Booth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aTqk5YGiRo

Could it be that we only really “see” Him and “hear” His voice, if we are engaged in His work. What would drive us to work hard with the lost or work hard getting a church to please and follow Christ in His mission? Obedience, sure. Duty, money, job, etc. All of these would work, but the only pure motive is love for Jesus, being “sick in love” with Him and wanting to see His face and hear His voice. Love. Maybe it is in the darkness of the harvest that we remember His love, and renew our vows and are baptized anew, and see Him.

Somehow I just don’t think this is as hard as we make it. Love God with everything, Love your neighbor as yourself. Give praise to God in all you do. The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart. Just do it.

This next link is only for those who need a motivational rush. It’s various quotes of William Booth and CT Studd ending with a prayer from Valley of Vision: Puritan Prayers  p.177 God’s Causes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zg10wdrczY&feature=related

Easter: Standing with a Master

Well an unusual Easter for us on several counts:

First, I’m not preaching

Second, we were in the overflow room

Third, there were donuts and coffee….and that is a good thing.

Fourth, we were rear-ended on the way home because an elderly couple slammed on their brakes, for maybe another elderly couple and though I managed to stop on time, the lady behind me didn’t and wham.

But the elderly couple got away…I mean, they booked out of there and I wouldn’t want her to lose her license or get heat from her kids. Lord, let them be independent as long as possible. So that was a good thing.

The Lady behind, who hit me and pushed me into the couple in front, had a 2-month-old, who, because of the brilliant technology behind plastic bumpers on European and Japanese cars, and the brilliant technology that goes into the making of car seats, didn’t even wake up… I mean the baby.

And I think Laura and I and Golf are no worse for the wear.

As I sat in church today, I realized how tired I am of Easter services. I like Easter, but the apologetics and the blazing songs, what does it mean? I know what Easter means, but there isn’t the newness of touch, as to what it means. Surely it should touch and not just be informational. This kind of goes along with Donald Miller and other writers regarding the spirituality or spiritual element of following Christ. It is not all head and it isn’t even all heart. I can explain both of those just from human experience, but where does the spirit become engaged. We still only move on the levels of flesh and humanity and fail to bridge the gap to the spirit.

My Friend just moved from Olathe to Omaha. His friends took him out to some bar and had some singer sing a song they had made up for him. They announced that he was getting a divorce and moving to Omaha. He got a round of applause from the humans in the room. That is the best humans can do. Our minds tally up the experiential information and crunch the numbers. Our emotions flow through the crevices of our brain looking for networks of feelings. All very human and Ok, but where is the spirit? We do the same in church during an Easter service. We dig within to find experience with God that makes the resurrection valuable. We search our brains for feelings telling us there should be joy. And as we draw blanks or stir up some concocted feelings and rationale, we squeeze our eyes shut and try to find emotion in a song… we don’t know, unless we open our eyes and read the words, but because you’re in the overflow, you don’t get all the words…and then the message is an apologetic for the resurrection and that really isn’t a problem for many people anymore. Is a post modern interested in the logic of the resurrection, or rather how or if it works, why it’s important, what makes God God, and how does this touch the soul? And even we don’t know. So where is the hope? Is it pie in the sky, the dessert plate waiting for us after we die? How does this help my friend whose life is lying in pieces? How does it make sense for me in the suburban ghetto, trapped in comfort thinking in my ever bloating body?

So I’m reading in Romans 14, way off the trail beaten by pilgrims looking for motivational devotion and there is a strange verse, “For to this end Christ died and lived again….”

Whoa! Who put that there? There it is, a reason for the resurrection. I’ll bet this was preached a lot on Easter, Not.

Paul is talking about the strong and the weak and the back and the forth judging going on, so he asked them what right they had to judge the servant of another. Everyone stands or falls before their own master and that master can make them stand.

Weak..strong…not important, it is their master who makes them stand. Each in relationship to the grace given them, in relation to the life and circumstances dealt to them. Don’t judge. Shut it if you can’t encourage, because it is their master who can make them stand.

My friend didn’t have a lot going for him. The equivalent of trusting Christ on an airplane seconds before fatal impact. Don’t judge. A mother with young kids…never judge. Correct if they are drifting, love if they are falling, lift if they are limping. But we can’t judge, because only their master knows their load and how they’re doing.

Here is the grace of the resurrection…we have a Lord, a master, we are not alone to live and die. “None of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lords.” I follow as I am.

Hold that thought…we have someone…Our Master, the Lord. Cool. I may be lonely; but I don’t live for me, I live for Him. I may die; but I don’t die for nothing, I die for Him. Regardless of my feelings, I’m wrapped in Him, in purpose, in direction. This day may stink, but tomorrow I awake and He’s still there and His Word and the Spirit’s silent work have healed the hole from yesterday.

How? The resurrection. “For to this end Christ died and lived again that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the Living.” He rose to be my Lord. He didn’t take a nap. He blew to the surface to get to work, to be my Lord. Before another charge could be made it was “Jesus Christ who died, yes who is risen from the dead, who sits at the right hand of God, who indeed makes intercession for us.” He rose to be my Master, my Lord. In honor of His resurrection, I follow as I am.

He is risen! But not to show He could do it, rather to be there to hold out His hand as your Lord. For my Friend?  Yes.  To me?  Yes To comfort? Yes. To lead? Yes. To give you purpose? Yes. To just hang out? Yes. Is He patient when we are weak? Yes. Does he wait for us when we stumble? Yes. He Loves me? Yes. For to this end, for this very reason, Christ died and lived again, for us, to be Lord and all that means, both of those who are already gone, and for those who remain. So because of the resurrection, if we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. And though we be weak, our master is able to make us stand, for He is Risen!

A Short Entry….April Fool!

April Fool’s Day is somehow not in order this year.  Laura and I were talking about difficulties we’ve had at “this time of the year” for the last few years, and then remembered, it was this time of the year in 2003 that we were falling in love. That’s a good thing to remember. Actually, in 2003, we were getting ready to meet tomorrow at DFW.

Yesterday we were in Topeka…now Google…or now Tapookle (or not ta pookle, that is the question!). It was OK but our real heart is waiting on the Lord. That was my prayer this morning. It doesn’t mean a lack of joy or anything, but reality is, that we are being pressed by the earth’s gravity and by sin and by living in this cruddy body, legally blind, legally deaf, and recovering from insanity. We just want the Lord…and a place to sow and reap with people who want to sow and reap…and will love the lost for Christ.

We now have many more birds in the yard. I’m not kidding, Laura and I both saw something from different levels of our house, out different windows, a male cardinal went after some seed on the ground near our house. His wife flew up to him, and I kid you not, he turned toward her and kissed her. We couldn’t believe it. We both…in different parts of the house…. saw it and yelled to each other. I was so excited I went down stairs and gave her the cardinal greeting.

In Tapookle yesterday, I found a little shelf thing for $2, that I’ve hung on the tree as a sort of bird feeder thing. Still a lot of experimentation going on. But what I’m wondering is if I’m becoming a bird lover. Seriously, I go out every morning, give them fresh seed in 3-4 areas and then fresh water. Then when I take a break, I’m looking out the window to see if they are enjoying it all.

So what is a bird lover. I’m sure a real bird lover, a professional, would scoff at me. Or would they welcome me because I have a “growing” passion. I’d like to think they would welcome me and show me the ropes.

So what does it mean to love God? I mean with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? That has really been on my heart lately. There is a spiritual relationship promised that I have to believe is more than we think. Jesus talks about something in John 14:21-23 that I’d find disappointing if God told me, “Oh Dan, you’ve had that for years.” I don’t think I do. When Jesus talks about the mutual abiding of John 15, I have to believe there is a purer simplicity to yielding to Christ than I have dared to live and that it naturally brings everything I want but am not willing to surrender for. The words in Luke 6 and in Luke 9 about being a disciple, give you the idea that we can hold back….and then, for the sake of insanity, call it “normal.”

Surely a “God lover” has to be a rung above a bird lover. The constant interest to see if they like what you put out there, just watching them, trying new things, captivation. Man, if I even loved my wife like this…crazy. So I really want to know what would I be thinking about if I was really a “God lover?” Would I be thinking about what to get Him…not to repay Him, but just to give Him a kick, to show how special He is to me. Would I be constantly running to the window to see what He’s up to. Would there be excitement and energy? What does “all your heart and soul and mind and strength” look like? I hope it isn’t what I’m doing now. And what if following the commandments of Christ is active, not passive like not getting in trouble, but active like showing love to the Lost He wants to reach and …bearing fruit…more, and more, and make better and better disciples?

And that leads me to something I read in Blue Like Jazz. The basic core of being a Christ-follower is to show love, love that loves when it hurts, love that is rooted with Christ and Salvation and is absolutely amazing on this earth. And we don’t, I think, really ever get to this love. Example, do we thrive on our relationships to non believers? NO. We don’t even want to talk to them, much less really get to know them, much less have the connection with Christ that would allow His love to flow unhindered through us to them (and I’m back to Jn 15 again). We never really get there and that’s why I think I’m (we’re) missing something in loving God and being spiritually transformed in/connected to Christ. We’re just “good” sinful people with “our limits.” Again, funny how in a place like Romans 13…you don’t even know what’s in Romans 13 because it is a secret chapter that nobody (particularly a republican) wants to read…but you find that we should love our neighbor as ourselves…even in the guts of this chapter. Wouldn’t it be a horrible thing to get with Jesus and he gives us our performance review (Rom. 14, probably @Starbucks) and He would say, “All you had to do was go next door. You didn’t even have to give them the 4 laws or steps to peace. All you had to do was love them, like them, hang out with them.” But be warned, don’t look up from your latte and ask Jesus “who’s my neighbor,” because the only guy in history to have done that has eternal egg dripping down his face. Wouldn’t it be odd, I’m just thinking, if “neighbor” meant “neighbor?”

Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz says it in a way I won’t forget. (pages 218-221)

Mr. Spencer then asked us about another area in which he felt metaphors cause trouble. He asked us to consider relationships. What metaphors do we use when we think of relationships. We value people,…we invest in people…Relationships could be bankrupt,…people are priceless…all economic metaphor. I was taken aback.

And that’s when it hit me like so much epiphany getting dislodged from my arteries. The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. Professor Spencer was right, and not only was he right, I felt as though he had cured me, as though he had let me out of my cage. I could see it very clearly. If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us and, perhaps, we feel they are priceless. I could see it so clearly, and I could feel it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did.

The next few days unfolded in a thick line of melancholy, thought, and introspection. I used love like money, but love doesn’t work like money. It is not a commodity. When we barter with it, we all lose. When the church does not love its enemies, it fuels their rage. It makes them hate us more.

After Greg Spencer’s lecture, I knew what I was doing was wrong. It was selfish, and what’s more, it would never work. By withholding love from my friend, he became defensive, he didn’t like me, he thought I was judgmental, snobbish, proud, and mean. Rather than being drawn to me, wanting to change, he was repulsed. I was guilty of using love like money, withholding it to get somebody to be who I wanted them to be. I was making a mess of everything. And I was disobeying God. I became convicted about these things, so much so that I had some trouble getting sleep. It was clear that I was to love everybody, be delighted at everybody’s existence, and I had fallen miles short of God’s aim. The power of Christian spirituality has always rested in repentance, so that’s what I did. I repented. I told God I was sorry. I replaced economic metaphor, in my mind, with something different, a free gift metaphor or a magnet metaphor. That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on, lavishly. I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson.

Here is something very simple about relationships that Spencer helped me discover: Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.

If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religious and your political ideas will seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say.

After I repented, things were different, but the difference wasn’t with my friend, the difference was with me. I was happy. Before, I had all this negative tension flipping around in my gut, all this fundamentalism and pride and loathing of other people. I hated it, and now I was set free.  I was free to love. I didn’t have to discipline anybody, I didn’t have to judge anybody.  I could treat everybody as though they were my best friend, as though they were rock stars or famous poets, as though they were amazing, and to me they became amazing, especially my new friend. I loved him. After I decided to let go of judging him, I discovered he was very funny. I mean, really hilarious. I kept telling him how funny he was. And he was smart. Quite brilliant, really. I couldn’t believe that I had never seen it before. I felt as though I had lost an enemy and gained a brother. And then he began to change. It didn’t matter to me whether he did or not, but he did. He began to get a little more serious about God. He gave up TV for a period of time as a sort of fast. He started praying and got regular about going to church. He was a great human being getting even better. I could feel God’s love for him. I love the fact that it wasn’t my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God’s, that my part was just to communicate love and approval.

When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don’t. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak the truth in love. If both conversations are not true, God is not involved in the exchange, we are on our own and on our own, we will lead people astray. The Bible says that if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, that you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you. I think that is very beautiful and true.

Now, since Greg Spencer told me about truth, when I go to meet somebody, I pray that God will help me feel His love for them, I ask God to make it so both conversations, the one from the mouth and the one from the heart, are true.