CHANGE OF BLOG SITE

As of August 1, 2011 I will be blogging under a different website and blog name. Please go to:
http://www.soulpoint.wordpress.com/ in order to follow my blog. All of the blog postings from this site are listed under the new site in the 'Archives' section.

Thank you for your interest in my blog.

The Morning Came Without My Help

While sitting on my back deck one morning recently listening to the birds sing, enjoying the trees and plants, and just taking in the beauty of that new day, a thought occurred to me: “The morning came without my help”. I had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. I did not play any part whatsoever in its arrival, and yet it came anyway.

Sometimes I get all caught up in what I am doing. What contribution I am making in this world. What effect my presence here is having. Sometimes it’s good to just sit and be aware that a lot of things seem to happen just fine without my involvement. In fact, if I was honest, sometimes my involvement just seems to get in the way. Some things are supposed to be received as a gift from the One who loves to love us whether we had anything to do with it or not.

Why is it that I am often so obsessed with what I am doing, what contribution I am making, what kind of influence I have over people and situations? I understand the fact that we are created to participate with God in creation; in His kingdom. I know that the God-image in us longs to create, to bless, to work toward righteousness and justice. But as much as I would like it to be, I don’t really think that is always the primary motivation of my striving. There is something much more neurotic at play here. Much more self-centered. Many of my pursuits lead to worry, anxiety, fear, and guilt. Many of them feel more like a weight pressing down on me than a lifting up of my spirit that comes from some truly noble or selfless act.

Control. That’s it. Much of my striving comes from a need to control the world around me, at least my world. I know that there is really nothing I can do about Afghanistan, or the Gulf oil spill, or the economy in Greece. Nothing, that is, except worry. But there is plenty I can do to control my world isn’t there? Aren’t there lots of things that really depend upon my efforts, my abilities, my talents? Things that just couldn’t happen without my involvement? I’m afraid that reality tells me there are probably far less of these than I think. Mornings teach me this. Mornings come without my help. Amazing. I guess there are some things that are not intended to be controlled. Some things are just there to be enjoyed. And some things (quite a lot actually) might just happen anyway, even without my help.

“His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is Your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23

Leaning Toward Our Suffering

5th Week of Lent

There is a truth in life that most of us are fairly reluctant to accept. In fact we usually go to great lengths to avoid the searing impact it usually has on us. It’s summed up in phrases like, “No pain, no gain”, and “It’s always darkest before the dawn”, and, “Suffer not, live not”. Each of these expressions point to the truth we spend great energy trying to avoid: that pain, darkness, suffering do not have to be ends in and of themselves. They can actually be guides to something that we would have never been able to experience without them.

As we enter into the last week of lent, the week that we call Holy Week, I am struck once again by the fact that you cannot arise to the light of Easter without going through the darkness of Holy Week. Each year I face this, and each year something inside me wants to scream, “NOOOOOO. Don’t make me go there. Don’t make me walk through pain and darkness and suffering. Just give me a Mega dose of Easter life and joy. THAT’s what I really need!” And yet each year I step into Holy Week knowing, “No pain, no gain”, and “It’s always darkest before the dawn”, and “Suffer not, live not”.

You see the richness of Holy Week for me is that it stands as an incredible metaphor concerning the redemptive power of suffering in our lives. It is, of course, anchored in the redemptive suffering of Jesus on the cross for us. But it does not, it cannot, end there. The suffering of Jesus grew out of His living in the Father’s love for Him and for all humanity. It had meaning. And when we live our lives in the Father’s love then our suffering can have meaning too. Redemptive meaning.

Now, I want to be very cautious here. I know that there is much suffering in our world that is tragic and even horrendous that doesn't deserve the glib, and perhaps flippant expressions that I’ve listed above. There are some levels of pain and suffering that simply defy understanding in this life. Even so, I am still convinced that life lived in the Father’s loving embrace means that our suffering can somehow be miraculously “redeemed”, it is “bought back” in such a way that His glorious and ultimate will can be done in us. It does not mean that God always initiates the suffering that threatens to crush us (though I am sure He sometimes does). It does mean that there is no suffering so great, there is no evil so deep, there is no darkness so grim that God cannot redeem it for His own life-giving purposes in us.

As I said, by nature we seek to avoid things that hurt us at all levels: physical, psychological, relational, spiritual. And yet it is often in the facing (dare I say even embracing) of these hurtful places that we find our greatest healing. It is as we lean toward our suffering that we truly experience God leaning toward us.

Jesus demonstrated this for us when He came to a place in His life when it was time to head toward Jerusalem in order to face and embrace the suffering necessary for our healing. He was at the furthest place from Jerusalem that He ever travelled in His ministry years. Way up in northern Palestine, in a town called Caesarea Philippi. Luke 9:51 tells us that, “As the time approached for Him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus RESOLUTELY set out for Jerusalem.” In other words, He turned His face toward, He leaned toward the point of what would be His greatest suffering. He knew what was coming and He walked toward it.

Jesus' resolute courage and determination to live within the Father’s love created what we call Holy Week. It embodies the heart of Christianity: the death and resurrection of Christ for us. It also serves as a timeless reminder that as we face and embrace the challenges, pain, darkness and suffering of our lives, but do so embedded in the Father’s love, that we too will awaken into the light of new life.

I recently heard someone use the example of falling into quicksand as an illustration of leaning toward our suffering. When someone is sinking in quicksand intuitively they begin to fight and squirm trying to get themselves out. In doing so they shift their weight from one leg to another, each time putting all of their weight on the very small surface of the bottom of one foot. As a result, all that their squirming accomplishes is to sink deeper and deeper. But if there is any hope of getting out of quicksand it requires doing something that is counterintuitive to what we might think. A person must displace as much of their body mass as possible onto the quicksand itself in order to keep from sinking further. Then you can begin to turn and try to roll your way over to the side and to safety. In a sense we must lean into, lay against, or get close to the very thing that threatens to destroy us. “Getting with” our own suffering, as odd as it may sound, is often the only way to keep it from destroying us.

So, I now turn my eyes now toward Holy Week. I face my own times of suffering. I lean into the often confusing darkness that grips my own soul, knowing that Jesus has already walked there and is waiting on the other side. So this coming week I have an odd suggestion for you. Attend a Holy Week service of some kind, but make sure that it is the darkest, most morose, depressing service that you can find. Put off, just for a moment, the joyful celebration of the resurrection. That will come. But this coming week lean into the pain that comes before the gain, the darkness that engulfs us before the dawn, the suffering that produces life and healing for us. Leaning may make us feel a bit off balance, but that is exactly the place we need to be in order to live in the embrace of the Father.

Paying Attention

4th Week of Lent

I am reasonably sure that I am not the only driver who has ever had this experience: you are driving along and you find yourself so distracted that all of a sudden you realize that you are 2 exits past the one you intended to take.

Paying attention. It was drilled into us in Drivers Ed. (those of us who actually took Drivers Ed.). It is the mantra of mothers teaching their children how to cross the street (“look left, then right, then left, then right again, then left again, etc., etc.”). It’s what coaches mean when they scream at their players, “Get your head in the game!” It’s what wives want when they ask, “Are you listening to me?” It’s why we have what are called “distracted driving laws” which tell us that while we are driving we should not text, eat, put on make-up, look at the scenery, sing too loudly, or talk to anyone but ourselves. Why? Distraction prevents us from paying attention, and paying attention is important to staying alive.

What is true of the physical world around us is also true of the spiritual world within us. Just as we are so prone to allowing distractions to divert our attention in our daily lives we are equally prone to letting distractions keep us from paying attention to the present work of God in our spiritual lives. That’s one reason why Lent is so important for us. It is a period of time where we intentionally pay attention. We should be doing this all the time but distraction is often a drug far too powerful to resist on an on-going basis. So we enter into seasons during the year like Advent and Lent and Easter (yes, Easter is a season not a day). Lent calls us to attend to the presence of God around us and within us. More specifically, it calls us to attend to the present presence of God around us and within us. This is a critically important distinction to make, because if you are like me you tend to focus the energy of your attention either in the past or in the future.

For me, my distraction drug of choice has always been the future. I have spent so much time and energy through much of my life extending myself out into the future. It’s not bad to have dreams and aspirations but for me those have often robbed me of living fully in the here and now. I admit that I have not always been “fully present” in my own life. I have been “out there” somewhere dreaming and wondering what life will be like someday.

For others their distraction drug may be the past. This is especially tempting for people as they enter into their mid-life and senior years. They look back at what life was like when the kids were little, or when they were working, or when twitter was how birds sang in the back yard first thing in the morning. Back then. Back when life was good (though if we were honest we didn’t always think so at the time).

Now, there is nothing wrong with a nostalgic look to the past, or with a hopeful gaze into the future. We would not be human if we did not engage in such activities. In fact, it is one of the things that truly sets us apart from other aspects of creation. The problem is when we dwell there in such a way that the present begins to fade in importance. But the past-lovers and future-dwellers will tell us these are often much more preferred places to live than the present. Perhaps, but the problem is that God is a God of the present. He dwells eternally in the here and now. Isn’t it interesting that God said to Moses, “I AM”, not “I WAS”, or “I WILL BE”. Those are true to be sure but God chose a phrase that communicated that He is ever present in the here and now.

Reflecting back upon His presence with us in the past, or thinking ahead hoping for His presence with us in the future may be comforting exercises but God is ever calling us to dwell with Him fully in each moment as it presents itself to us. Neglecting to do so robs us of the intimacy of God’s presence. Attention to the present moment with God is the only way to truly hear Him and experience His presence with us.

I have to admit, though, I’m not very good at this. I want to be. I desperately want to live in such a way that I am aware of God in the hundreds of little things going on around me in every moment. I would love to cultivate the kind of present moment relationship with Him that makes discerning His will nothing more than a glance upward instead of needing a 3 day silent retreat just to get the ball rolling. But, I confess, I am often addicted to distraction. That’s why I need Lent. It’s why I need this Lenten season. If there is any great need in my own life right now it’s the need to let go of the past AND the future and to live fully in the present moment just as it is, with all of its pain, joy, confusion, peace, fearfulness, or contentment. Whatever it is, it has God present in it. And who would want to miss that?

Rain at Winter's End

3rd Week of Lent

[I came across this poem by Ruth Haley Barton and it so captures my own feelings during this lenten season that I offer it to you for your own reflection.]

Rain at Winter's End
by Ruth Haley Barton

‟Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person's hand
is rising out of the sea!″
I Kings 18:44

I love the way the rain comes at winter's end
to hose down the sooty earth,
and wash away the dirt that comes from who-knows-where.

Oh God,
I need a cleansing rain in my life,
dirty as I am with the grit and grime of these dark years.
My heart is hard and crusty
like patches of old snow in the yard,
my life littered with trash I don't recognize
and dead, brown grass where it used to be so green.

Today I would settle for a little cloud
no bigger than a person's hand
far off in the distance
rising out of the sea of this disillusionment.

Today, if I saw such a cloud
I would run like Elijah--
loins girded,
strengthened by the hand of the Lord
in hopes that I could be there when the deluge came.

Warm rain
Softening the hardness of my heart
Washing away the pain
Enlivening this dead earth.

Today, if I saw even a hint of such a cloud,
I would lay myself down upon the earth
and bow my heart low
Waiting for the miracle that would signal the changing of the season
the end of this drought
the coming of spring
in the winter of my heart.

Letting Go

2nd Week of Lent

There is a tree in my neighborhood where I walk (see picture). I have been watching this tree for several months now. I have watched it go from beautiful green to many shades of orange and brown in the fall. But this tree is different from the trees around it. The other trees went through the same process but one by one they began letting go of their leaves so that now they all stand completely barren. No sign of any former life on them. But this one tree has not yet let go of a single leaf. She stands completely full of dead, shriveled, brittle leaves and, as far as I can tell, not one has yet to fall to the ground. I call her "The Clinging Tree".

Every time I walk past this tree I feel a deep sense of understanding and empathy for her. She clings to what once was. She is hanging on to the beauty that her life used to be. She tenaciously holds on to that which used to define her as a healthy, living, vibrant part of God’s creation. I imagine her looking around at her neighbors, watching what was happening to them and thinking, “That’s not going to happen to me. I refuse to look like that, all barren and empty. Who wants to gaze upon or stand beneath a tree like that. No, I will hold on to my life and never let it go.”

She doesn’t realize that she is the one who looks odd now. The other trees, even in their barren state, look quite normal. That’s what happens in winter. That’s how you are supposed to look. That’s how a tree prepares itself for the new life of spring. But the other trees don’t seem to be willing to share what they know. Their silence seems as if they are holding back some secret, some inner knowledge of how things are supposed to work. Or maybe they know something that we don’t. Maybe having gone through a few winters themselves they have come to learn that letting go doesn’t come from someone telling you that it’s time. It comes from an inner awareness that refusing to let go never brings back the past, it only prevents us from receiving the present and walking into the future.

Spiritual writers for centuries have talked about having ‘attachments’ in our lives. These are not things that have attached themselves to us but are things that we have attached ourselves to. They may be obvious things like money or possessions or career, but they may also be more subtle things like attitudes, memories, or a previous golden era in our life. There really is an endless list of what could be an attachment for us because all of us are different. The common denominator for any attachment, though, is that it either does, or once did, or we hope that it will some day give us some sense of purpose, belonging, or fulfillment. We end up looking to it to give us something that God says only He can give.

When we let go of these attachments in appropriate ways and at appropriate times it may feel like we are closing ourselves off from life but actually we are instead opening ourselves up to the new life that waits for us when there is sufficient room to receive them. Attachments are to the soul what clutter is to one’s home. Just watch the T.V. show ‘Hoarders’ sometime to see what effect clutter has on people’s lives. Attachments are clutter in our soul. Letting go of the old is the only way of receiving the new, whatever that will be.

The process of metamorphosis (what caterpillars go through to become butterflies) has become a life metaphor for me lately. I read recently that not all caterpillars go through this process in the same way. When it comes time to begin spinning the cocoon that becomes the womb that eventually gives birth to something new, some caterpillars actually resist this initial process and thereby put off entering into what will turn them into a butterfly. They cling to their former state, refusing to let go of what once was. This state of clinging is called “diapause”. It results in either putting off new life until next season or, in some cases, simply means death. Isn’t it interesting that creation is full of things that have a hard time letting go. Whether it’s a stubborn tree refusing to shed its leaves, or a caterpillar clinging to its former self, or you and I fiercely gripping onto the attachments of our lives the outcome is always the same: new life gets delayed.

Lent is a kind of long winter that is intended to be a time of learning how to embrace our own emptiness and barrenness while at the same time holding onto the glorious hope of new life. But often we try and sit through winter clinging to things that offer a false hope of spring. The irony is that we do this, not because we are trying to avoid spring, but because we desperately long for it. The problem is in thinking that by clinging we will receive what our hearts most long for. But it is only in letting go that we can sit with our own emptiness in the patient awareness that spring is just around the corner.

Isaiah 43:18 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” When it comes right down to it there is only one appropriate kind of clinging; only one kind of attachment that is actually healthy for the human soul. It's summed up in three simple words spoken by Jesus at a time when His disciples were about to enter into the biggest “letting go” season of their lives: “Abide in me”. Tenaciously clinging to Jesus will help us to release our grip on those other attachments that we think can give us what we desire most.

I am waiting to see what happens with “The Clinging Tree”. But until then she reminds of my own clinging tendencies and how there is a kind of stark beauty in being empty and barren while waiting for the magnificence of spring.

[I have listed in the post below a copy of one of my favorite poems. It beautifully speaks of the process of letting go.]

The Sacrament of Waiting

The Sacrament of Waiting
by Macrina Wiederkehr

Slowly, she celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green, then the orange, yellow, and red,

finally she let go of her brown.

Shedding her last leaf she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky she began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf she watched its journey to the ground.

She stood in silence wearing the color of emptiness,

her branches wondering:

How do you give shade with so much gone?

And then, the sacrament of waiting began.

The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness.

Clothing her with silhouettes they kept her hope alive.

They helped her understand that her vulnerability,

her dependence and need, her emptiness, her readiness to receive

were giving her a new kind of beauty.

Every morning and every evening they stood in silence

and celebrated together the sacrament of waiting.

(from, Seasons of Your Heart)

Lent: A Slow Walk Through Winter

Ash Wednesday 2010

It has been an unseasonably mild winter here in the Pacific Northwest. While other parts of the country are getting slammed with snow and ice and flooding I am walking around my neighborhood looking at cherry blossoms emerging from trees that only a few weeks ago looked empty and barren. I started noticing a week or two ago the buds coming much earlier than normal. I’m not a winter kind of guy. So when I see new life emerging from what once looked lifeless something in me grabs on to that as a sign of hope that my own sense of barren emptiness may soon give way to the glorious gift of life and beauty.

I love spring. But the thing about spring that we often forget is that it has to follow winter. Spring is only spring because there has been a winter. During winter everything looks like it has died. The grass doesn’t grow; the trees have lost their leaves; it’s dark and grey more than it is light (remember I’m talking about the Pacific Northwest here). To the uninformed observer it might look as though it's the end of life. There was a spring, a summer, a fall and now everything has died and life is over. But to the person who has been through a few winters of their own they know that what looks like death is only the preamble to a glorious new beginning. But this new beginning must, let me state that a little more forcefully, ABSOLUTELY MUST!!!! be preceded by the death of winter.

Ash Wednesday is the day that we enter into a kind of spiritual winter called Lent. For the next 40 days leading up to Easter we remind ourselves that new life is always preceded by death. We learn anew the value of letting go, giving up the old in order to make room for the new that God will soon bring in us. Just as the trees must release their grip on each leaf and allow it to fall to the ground and die, so must we release our anxious clinging to those things that only hold us back from entering into the spring of our soul. In a sense we must surrender to the winter in order to more gloriously grasp the spring.

As I said, I’m not a winter kind of guy. In my mind winters are something to endure in order to get to the spring. If there were some other way to get there I would take it. I think that may be why so many people head south to Arizona during this time. It’s an avoidance technique used to deny the existence of winter and move right from fall to spring. But this doesn’t work when it comes to the spring time that God wants to bring to our soul. There is no avoiding winter in the spiritual world. People try, but it is simply impossible to arrive at new life without going through a kind of death and emptying of self. In fact new life is a far more powerful experience when we not only go through our own spiritual winter but actually embrace it. That’s right, this winter-hating, avoid-the-cold, detest-the-darkness kind of guy is saying that we must learn how to embrace the winter, not out of necessity, but out of love for God and the journey toward a deeper life in Him.

One of the most counter-intuitive aspects of the spiritual world is that life is only arrived at through death. Lent gives us an unhurried time to walk through the winter, observing what is dying (or needs to die) in us. It allows us time to listen to the darkness of the tomb that brought forth the light of new life. It tells us that when we feel the dark, bleak spiritual winter of our own soul that this is not an end but simply an overture to a new symphony of life that will soon be performed in us.

Lent is intended to be a slow walk. You are supposed to feel the cold, sense the darkness, enter into the emptiness. A slow walk through winter is the only way to fully emerge into the promise of springtime. So maybe the thing that you most need to give up for Lent this year, is hurry.

[I invite you to pray with me the lenten prayer by Henri Nouwen that I have included in the post below.]

A Lenten Prayer

[Taken from, The Road to Daybreak, by Henri Nouwen]

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me.

Amen.

Less Is More

Of the many, and profoundly valuable, things my wife has taught me over the years one of the greatest is the power of a simple phrase that she has used for as long as I have known her. Less is more. She usually uses this phrase at times when I have wandered into the dangerous world of excess: a long sermon; attempts to smother our house and yard with Christmas lights; an overly ambitious home improvement project; the purchase of life’s necessities (like a boat, a motorcycle, or a double case of Costco peanut butter). At times like these I hear her sweet and melodic voice gently saying, “You know David, less is more.”

Christmas is a good time for prophets like my wife to step up and say “enough is enough”. I’m not exactly sure how it got to be like this. It’s almost like someone has been adding more and more things to Christmas in an attempt to confuse and distract us from it’s real meaning. So for all of the brave and daring prophets who would boldly stand against the tide of ‘more is more’ I have a verse. Every prophet needs a verse, so here it is:

“But you Bethlehem Ephrathah,

though you are least among the clans of Judah,

yet out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,

whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

(Micah 5:2)

Don’t miss that first line: “But you Bethlehem, though you are LEAST.” The prophetic lesson from this verse that must be proclaimed to the uninformed masses is this: The truly important things of life are usually wrapped in simplicity. Less is more.

Bethlehem was a small and insignificant village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was so small and insignificant that in Joshua 15, after the conquest of the Promised Land, when all of the towns and villages of the province of Judah are listed, Bethlehem isn’t even mentioned. Maybe it didn’t even exist at the time. Maybe it was so small that it was really nothing more than a watering hole for animals or a rest stop for travelers.

In fact in the Old Testament the only significant thing about Bethlehem was that David was born there. David, Israel’s greatest human king, comes out of this small and insignificant village. And then in the New Testament, Jesus the Messiah, the world's ultimate divine King, is also born in Bethlehem.

It seems like the things of God are often placed in sharp contrast with the things of this world. The things that God says are insignificant we tend to magnify. And the things that God says are of great and ultimate value we tend to minimize. The greatest things often do come wrapped in simplicity.

From God’s perspective, less is often a better representation of His truth and power.
• God has Gideon reduce his army from 32,000 men down to 300 and then says, “now you are ready to go against the Midianites in battle.”
• David defeats the Philistine giant Goliath with only a sling and 5 smooth stones, 4 of which he doesn’t even use.
• Paul comes to the point of realizing that God can use his own physical infirmity to actually make him a much stronger person.
• Jesus stands before a crowd of 5,000 with one little boy’s lunch and manages to use it to feed them all.

From God’s perspective less is often more. In fact from God’s perspective less is often preferable because God usually uses small and insignificant things to demonstrate His power. When we are seeking to live our lives around the concept of less we will be able to see our own deep need for Him more clearly. Simplifying our lives enables us to reduce things down to the bare essentials and be content with that.

Now, I’m not talking about giving away everything you have and living in a garage somewhere. What I’m talking about has more to do with your state of mind than with your state of wealth. You can simplify your life whether you are rich or poor, employed or unemployed, married or single, young or old, because simplicity begins as a condition of the heart. Only from that starting point can you go on to make choices about the condition of your life. James 4:10 tells us to, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.” Here’s another verse you prophets can use to illustrate that in God’s eyes less is more.

So, are you moving toward less this Christmas or are you moving toward more. I encourage you to begin thinking more in terms of less. Think simpler. Try to shrink your view of Christmas down to what matters most. It’s not the shopping, or the decorations, or the eating, or cramming as many social events into the month as you can. It’s about a baby, who’s poor and insignificant parents travelled to a small and insignificant village so that God could come to earth in the simplest and lowliest of means. And so it is for our great and eternal blessing that at that time and in that place less really became so much more.

A Christmas Journey

“Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,

‘Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?

We saw his star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Matthew 2:1-2

Travelling is a part of life. You may enjoy travelling, you may not, but we all travel. It’s built into the fabric of humanity. It’s how we all arrived at the point we are today, it’s how we will continue on into the future. Humanity is on the move. It always has been, it always will be. I love to travel, though I must admit that lately I have loved spending lots of time at home in peace and quiet with family and my dog worshipping me at my feet. But even this is a kind of travelling. Home is, must be, a significant part of our journey through life.

As this advent season begins I am thinking a lot about this idea of travelling and journey. Journey lies at the heart of Christmas. The wise men journeyed from the east. The shepherds journeyed in from their fields. Mary and Joseph journeyed from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Jesus journeyed “from heaven to earth come down”. The Jews themselves had been on a long journey ever since the call of Abraham, and even before. We cannot really understand the Christmas story without paying attention to this idea of journey. All of these journeys come together and find their focal point in a manger in Bethlehem. But this is not the end of the journey. It is the heart and soul and reason for the journey. It’s the fulfillment of the journey, but the journey goes on from here.

Even before Bethlehem God the Son was with us (humanity) as part of the triune God. Now He continues to be with us in the person of Jesus: God made man, God with us, Immanuel. Here is an interesting and mysterious thought: Jesus brought us to His own manger, and, He walks away from it with us. Don’t try too hard to figure it out. That’s why it’s called a mystery. Jesus never really begins a journey with us. He has always been there. We begin our journey with Him by standing before the cradle in Bethlehem and then moving on to places like Galilee and Samaria and Capernaum and Jerusalem and Golgotha. But these aren’t places we just visit once and move on. Our journey involves frequent trips back to these places both to remember as well as to “see anew”. Jesus brings us back here because there are always new things to gain from them that then change us and send us on our way only to bring us back again at some point. And each time we come back we are different people, so we see these places and hear these stories differently. That’s the amazing power of advent. Each time we come here we are different. Our journey has taken us to new places and we have seen new things and then our journey brings us back again to the Christmas story and we see it in a different light because we are different. And each time we leave it and continue our journey we are different because of having come back here.

There is no real destination to our journey. I know that goes against our very western mindset that every trip must end at some place. I mean that’s the purpose of a journey right, to go someplace? Not really. In our journey there is no ultimate destination. Even heaven, commonly thought of as our final destination, is not so much the end of our journey as it is the beginning of another, greater journey. The purpose of the journey is not getting someplace. The purpose of the journey is the journey itself because our ultimate destination is simply to be with Jesus. Walk with Him, rest with Him, BE with Him. Our journey is not about going someplace, it’s about being with Someone.

This Christmas season I am participating in a journey that has been going on for thousands of years (really ever since humanity first learned how to walk). Walking with Jesus through advent this year I will see the sights, hear the sounds, experience anew the rough and raw humanity of Christmas. This Christmas is different because I am different. And I fully expect to leave this time different from the person I was when I got here. And so the journey continues.

Unlikely Places of Grace

“Tremble, O earth, at the PRESENCE of the Lord,

at the PRESENCE of the God of Jacob,

who turned the rock into a pool,

the hard rock into springs of water.”
Psalm 114:7-8

God often does the unexpected not only because He can (that goes without saying) but also because it usually throws us off just enough to where we actually notice He is doing something. I’m convinced that He uses the common and the likely but these are also the very places where we often miss seeing the moving of His grace. It is precisely because they are likely that we sometimes see grace as common, natural, coincidental, rather than a divine break-in from a Heavenly Intruder. To shake us out of our blind indifference sometimes God comes in unlikely places of grace.

The Psalm above refers back to the Exodus 17 story of Moses striking the rock at Horeb which then produces water to satisfy the thirst of the Israelites. This ‘striking incident’ was preceded by the Israelites complaining to Moses about their condition and wondering if God was really with them or not. God’s meets their need, but in an unlikely way.

The most likely solution to the Israelites problem (thirst) would have been for God to lead them to a river or stream or spring where they could drink. Those would be likely places, normal places, to get water. But God chooses an unlikely place, perhaps the most unlikely place of all, to satisfy their thirst – a rock. A rock is not something that I would have thought of. Of all the places I can think of to satisfy my thirst I would have never come up with a rock. Rocks are, to say the least, unlikely places to find water.

Put this in a long list of Biblical examples of God’s grace coming from unlikely places: an ark is built far from the nearest body of water; a donkey speaks a word from God; a teenage boy kills a giant and then rules a nation; an evil empire becomes God’s hand of ultimate mercy for His people; a man of God is told to marry a prostitute as a living example of God’s love; a fish becomes the vehicle to deliver a prophet; water gets turned into wine; a boy’s lunch feeds 5,000; and the most unlikely place of all for God’s grace to be found is when the finality of a cross and a tomb become the birthplace of eternal life.

Though not nearly on as grand a scale as these I can come up with my own list of unlikely places of grace. Just like the Israelites thirst, I too have felt a desperate need. And just like the Israelites complaint, I have sometimes said (or at least thought), “God, are you with me or not?” I have looked for answers and solutions to my deep needs in all of the most likely places. But more times than not it has been the unlikely places that God has used to meet these needs.

In fact sometimes these unlikely places have at first appeared as hard, immovable obstacles (like rocks). I perceive them as things that are actually standing in the way of what I most need, or at least think I need. I think that ill-health is an obstacle to fulfilling God’s call on my life, but He uses this to issue a deeper call to find my rest and fulfillment in Him alone. I think that being out of work is keeping me from adequately taking care of my family, but He uses that to show me that my deeper need is to trust in Him. There are all kinds of apparent obstacles in our lives that God may want to turn into an unlikely spring of grace to refresh us and bless those around us.

How does this all happen? Psalm 114 above gives us the answer twice in verse 7. The “Presence” of the Lord. I capitalize the word "Presence" because here it almost sounds like person’s name. “Presence” is a person. God’s Presence transforms the unlikely broken, hard places of our lives into springs of grace and mercy. And this really is what our heart most thirsts for: the Presence, filling the most unlikely places with His grace.

Does God Dwell in Darkness?

I have been reading an old spiritual classic called, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, by Jean Pierre De Caussade. He talks about our tendency to miss seeing God in the places where He most longs to reveal Himself – in the ordinary and mundane, even in the places that we often think are hurting or destroying us. Dark places. God often comes to us in “events that we imagine to be our ruin.” And then he says something that shatters not just a few of my sacred pre-conceived notions of how God works in our lives. Sometimes, “there is no remedy for this darkness but to sink into it.”

I sometimes reflect on Psalm 40 where the psalmist is praising God for “lifting [him] out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.” I sometimes imagine myself in that pit desperately clutching to the sides trying to keep from falling into the depths of what I just know is death and destruction below. I look up and cry out to God for help. I try and picture Him leaning over the edge of the pit and grabbing my arms, pulling me to safety and security, placing “my feet on a rock”.

But maybe I have the picture wrong. Maybe it’s not so much about me waiting for God to reach down and lift me out as it is my letting go and falling into the darkness I so dread because in the darkness is where His presence is waiting for me. Maybe He is not above me, but below me waiting for me to fall, not so much into the darkness, as into Him. “There is no remedy for this darkness but to sink into it.” Maybe the place I most fear is the place where He most dwells.

The story is told of a man who tripped and fell off a cliff. Clutching at the grasses on the edge of the cliff he finds that he can put off his fall for a moment or two. “Is there anyone up there?” he cries out. “Yes”, came a reply, but nothing further. “Who are you? Why don’t you help me?” shouted the man. “I’m God”, said the voice, “and I will help you, but you must do exactly as I say.” “OK”, whispered the man. “What do you want me to do?” “First, let go!” The man thinks for a moment and then says, “Is there anyone else up there?”

Sometimes surrender to God is not so much a movement upward (the most logical direction to us), but a movement downward, seemingly deeper into the darkness that we dread. Maybe God is actually present in the dark places that we fear to go in ways that are unseen, unknown to eyes that do not see “by faith”. De Caussade calls these dark places “afflictions” and says that it is in these places, “that God, veiled and obscured, reveals himself, mysteriously bestowing his grace.”

I must admit that the idea that God may actually dwell in the darkness I most fear is a difficult one to grasp. But then it is my grasping that often prevents me from falling into the grace that is my soul’s deepest desire. True spiritual surrender is usually counter-intuitive; it just doesn’t make sense. If we are in a pit common sense says to fight and claw our way out or to wait for someone to come and pull us out. Who would have thought that the way out might actually be down rather than up.

To me, this is one of those “leaps of faith” that I find so difficult to take. I mistakenly think that darkness, pain, suffering, affliction are things to avoid not things to embrace. They are things to get past quickly not things to linger in finding a deeper place of God’s presence. “Let go”, God often says. “for the way of my grace may not come from above but from below, from underneath you, from those places you most dread, for even there I AM.”

Dark places often fill our lives but I am coming to see them as Jacob did when he encountered God at Bethel. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16)

What's In a Name?

I love the names that are given to people and places in the Old Testament. They didn’t just name their children John or Samantha or Trevor because they liked the sound of the name. They came up with names that spoke to the deep meaning of something that had happened in their life. This “naming” of their experience was a powerful way of expressing their own life perspective that had grown out of their struggle or joy.

Joseph did this with his first two children. Joseph’s life had been marked by a long series of betrayals, injustices, and disappointments. Any one of these could easily have made him an angry, bitter, resentful, or vengeful man. But they didn’t. And the first glimpse we see into how Joseph’s suffering had shaped his heart was in the naming of his two sons.

“Joseph named his firstborn MANASSEH and said, ‘It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household’. The second son he named EPHRAIM and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’” Genesis 41:51-52

Two names that speak powerfully to how suffering had shaped the heart and soul of Joseph into a humble, healed, God-honoring man. A man who sees his present situation as chief administrator of all Egypt under Pharaoh as something that came, not in spite of his suffering, but directly because of it. Not happenstance or coincidence, but directed by the hand of God. When Joseph named his sons Manasseh and Ephraim he was putting his own suffering into proper perspective. At the same time he was demonstrating for us the surrendered life that God calls us to.

Manasseh: “God has made me forget all my trouble”. Obviously Joseph is not having a lapse of memory here. “Forgetting” has nothing to do with an inability to remember. It has everything to do with how those memories are remembered and their effect upon us. Joseph had arrived at a place where, by God’s grace, he was able to let go of the sting of his suffering. Those events had hurt him and hurt him deeply but they were not hurting him any longer.

We all have experiences that need to be renamed in our lives. Our hope is that we are moving toward a place where all of our suffering can be called ‘Manasseh’. The sting of it removed and replaced by an assurance of God’s grace in using them to perfect His person in us. These experiences may be a deep hurt or injustice inflicted on us by a friend or loved one. It may be the loss of something or someone that we just can’t seem to get past. It might be an illness or physical struggle of some kind that causes us to dwell on the better days prior to its onset. Whatever this suffering is must be seen in the light of God’s grace and renamed so that the sting and power they have over us is removed with His help and mercy.

But just having the sting removed is not enough. God doesn’t merely want us to experience 'Manasseh Grace', He wants us to go on to embrace 'Ephraim Grace'. “God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” Joseph doesn’t see his life as merely healed from the past, there is a present fruitfulness that emerges from the soil of his suffering. He was not where he was in spite of his suffering; he was there because of it. He was there because God had shaped and formed him in his suffering, not freeing him from it but using it as a divine tool for sculpting his soul and preparing him for this place of service. The brash, proud teenage boy who got himself into trouble with his brothers was gone. Joseph was now a man of profound wisdom, humility, and discernment, all of which had been carved into his soul by God with the tool of suffering.

Who wouldn’t like a life that was pain free, worry free, a life untouched by deep disappointment and discouragement? There is part of me that wants to believe that this kind of life must infinitely better than my own. I wonder, though, what life would be like if we spent as much time and energy yielding to God and the tool of suffering as we do fighting it. I think we all deeply desire a life of wholeness and fruitfulness. But this is generally arrived at through trial and suffering not in avoidance of it. And really, who can avoid it? In our obsession to be rid of all trouble and heartache we usually just created fertile ground for anger and resentment. How much better is 'Ephraim Grace' where fruitfulness comes to us not in the absence of difficulty but as a direct result of it. I am becoming increasingly convinced that suffering is a tool. Who uses that tool, and to what end, depends entirely on to whom our lives are yielded: ourselves or God.

In reading the Joseph story I was convicted that my own complaining about my suffering needs to be replaced by renaming my suffering Manasseh and Ephraim. This won’t necessarily remove the suffering but it does hold the power to transform it into something that actually will bring to me my deepest desire: wholeness and fruitfulness.

I wrote this prayer in my journal after some reflection on Joseph’s experience.
“Lord, I surrender my heart and life to You, not to be set free from suffering, but to be shaped and formed by it under the power of Your Holy Spirit. Make whole and fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

What’s in a name? That depends entirely on the name you're using.

A Place of Quiet Rest

“Come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place

and get some rest.”

(Mark 6:31)

I have been thinking a lot about rest lately. When I had to leave pastoral ministry last summer for health reasons I entered into a time of rest (I call it a “season” because that helps me think that it won’t last forever). At first I thought this was primarily for physical rest. My body was completely exhausted and needed a break. It’s been a year and I have had plenty of physical rest yet there is still an exhaustion that plagues me. I am beginning to see that “rest” means much more than simply the ceasing of activity. I am in a “season” of rest but I am finding that I need to do much more than rest physically.

Ceasing from activity is a necessary first step in the rest that Jesus calls us to but it must go much deeper. I think the kind of rest that Jesus is talking about is closely associated with the word ‘wholeness’. Wholeness implies a kind of rest that goes much deeper than our physical need. It goes all the way down to our soul and spirit. This is the place where our truest self resides. It’s also the place where brokenness lives. It’s hard to really be at rest when we are broken in those deep places. When we are broken we are fractured, divided in a sense. Think of a compound fracture in your arm. It is ‘divided’ from itself, in a way, and needs to come back together in order to heal. As long as it is divided from itself it is not well or whole. Parker Palmer in an excellent book called, ‘A Hidden Wholeness’, says that life is a journey toward living an undivided life. In essence, a whole life. Brokenness creates a kind of division within us. Things are not quite right. They are out of sync. Brokenness creates disorder in the soul and it’s hard to be at rest in the presence of disorder.

That’s why we can cease from our outward activity and still not enter into a place of true rest. Ceasing is the doorway to true rest, and it certainly does provide a measure of rest, but we must walk through this doorway in order to get to the deeper places of rest that Jesus calls us to. We must rest from our activities, but once there we must learn to rest from other things as well.

We need to learn how to rest from our false sense of identity. It’s exhausting on the soul to try and be someone that we are not. And it’s impossible to truly discover and embrace our true self apart from that quiet place of reflection when the voice of our soul and the voice of the Holy Spirit come together and speak the truth to us. Most of us have numerous “false selves” that we don’t even know are false. Brennan Manning calls these “imposters”. If we live with these imposters for long we begin to treat them as real and this creates a divided soul and a divided soul is not a soul at rest.

We also need to rest from attitudes and thought patterns that deplete the soul rather than fill it. The soul that has been surrendered to Jesus will be ill-at-ease with certain attitudes that are contrary to the Spirit of Jesus in us. For instance, anger and bitterness will deplete the soul rather quickly. So will things like jealousy, lust, and envy. We need to learn how to rest from (cease) these in order to enter into the rest of Jesus.

Sometimes we need to rest from our pursuits. Some of our pursuits are good and noble: learning and knowledge; exercise; hobbies; service and ministry. But even these require a certain level of striving and sometimes we need to rest from our striving (maybe only for awhile) in order to re-engage them with energy and passion. Other pursuits are less than holy and noble. Busyness, obsessions, harmful habits. Sometimes we are not even aware of what these are until we enter into that quiet place and let our soul and the Holy Spirit speak to us.

When Jesus calls us to come away with Him to a quiet place in order to get some rest ceasing our activities is only the beginning. Having removed ourselves from the frantic busyness and relentless distractions of our lives we can then listen to the voice of our soul that stands in desperate longing for a deeper awareness of the presence of Jesus. Only then can deep rest come, rest, not just of body, but of soul. That is the cry of the psalmist who says, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.” (Psalm 62:1)

The Power of THEN (no not Zen)

[A Series of Thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"THEN you will be able to test and approve what God's will is,

his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Romans 12:2b

The Bible is full of powerful words. Words that encapsulate the truth of our faith. Words like sacrifice, blessing, atonement, assurance, sin, faith. Words that have layers, like an onion (some even come with an odor and make you cry). Words that you can spend hours studying and still not exhaust their meaning. Preachers love words like these. We can preach a 32 week sermon series on any one of them and still have material left over. Words like these give depth and breadth and life to our understanding of God and faith.

But there are other kinds of words in the Bible that are just as powerful if you understand what is going on around them. They are ‘connective words’. Words like ‘therefore’, ‘because’, ‘finally’, even the word ‘and’ is powerful because it connects two or more thoughts while saying that they are still unique (like getting married: the two become one while not losing their ‘two-ness’). These connective words are absolutely critical in order to understand the flow of thought in a Biblical passage. If we ignore them we run the risk of misinterpreting the true meaning and we end up missing the value and blessing of what they are connecting us to.

Another one of these simple connective words is found here in Romans 12:2 and provides a great ending to this blog-series on Romans 12:1-2. It’s the word ‘then’. It connects everything that Paul has said thus far in chapter 12 to what he now says about the “good, pleasing and perfect” will of God. Who doesn’t want to know what God’s will is? Who doesn’t want to find out the plan and purpose that God has for each of us? And yet too many times we jump to this without being connected to what leads us to it. In other words, we sometimes beg and plead and bargain with God for Him to tell us what His will for our life is without realizing that His will is often revealed naturally to the one who is living in submission and surrender to Him.

Paul has just said that we are to offer ourselves as “living sacrifices” to Him. This is an act of “spiritual worship”. He says that we are not to “conform any longer to the pattern of this world”, instead we are to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind”. If we are living like this, if we are seeking Him in every way, if we are yielding our will to His will, our mind to His mind, our spirit to His spirit, “THEN”, Paul says, we will “be able to test and approve what God’s will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will”.

The word ‘then’ is essential if we are to understand what Paul is saying. The knowledge of GOD’s will is dependent upon the surrender of OUR will to Him. You wouldn’t see this if not for that simple word ‘then’ connecting surrender with knowing God’s will. And in the end, we usually find that God’s good, pleasing and perfect will is not just revealed TO a surrendered heart, His will for us IS a surrendered heart. Knowing His will is often simply the ability to see and rest in the fact that our surrendered heart is all that we really need to know. We want to know God’s plan, God’s purpose, God’s leading, God’s wisdom for our lives, and sometimes He gives us a clear sense of what those are. But before all of these, His good, pleasing and perfect will is simply a heart that trusts Him fully.

So THEN, the surrendered life is the only life that brings God’s will into focus for us, because the surrendered life IS God’s will for us.

Conformed or Transformed -pt.4

[A series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Romans 12:2

In a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy said this, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” I don’t know all of the issues or threats he was facing that motivated him to say these words but I doubt that he had in mind Romans 12:2, “Do not CONFORM any longer to the pattern of this world…” Yet there is a poignant truth to Kennedy’s words when it comes to those things that threaten to restrict and restrain us from becoming all that God wants us to be.

When we conform to something we give to it the freedom to shape us according to its will and value system. In essence we are formed “with” it (con = with; con-form is to be formed with something). It is a choice we make. Paul says, “Do not conform any longer”. The implication is that we should stop doing this. It’s up to us. We have a choice. There is nothing being forced upon us.

Now, that is not to say that there are not powers around us that are trying to draw us in to their particular view of life. There are indeed such forces all around us. Political views, social perspectives, moral values. We are daily inundated with messages that are trying to shape us and form us to be something that we were not created to be. It is the value system of this world. Paul calls it the “pattern” of this world. Pattern implies design and shape and purpose. The pattern of this world calls to us to become a part of it. To weave ourselves into its design in such a way that it’s hard to tell where “me” ends and the “pattern of this world” begins.

I love how J.B. Phillips translates this verse, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold.” How often do we do this? How often do we allow our own convictions to be shaped more by fluctuating social values than by the fixed truth of God’s Word? Conformity to the pattern of this world is indeed the “jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” We cannot be free while being bound to the way of thinking this world calls us to. We cannot grow and become all that God has created us to be if we have planted ourselves in the soil of this worlds values.

So what is the alternative to being conformed to the pattern of this world? Eugene Peterson tells us clearly in his translation of this verse in The Message. “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it WITHOUT EVEN THINKING.” We cannot keep from being conformed to the pattern of this world if we are not thinking clearly, if our minds are not focused on something beyond this world. We must be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”.

There is a natural pull of our minds into the pattern of this world. We must “renew” our minds, train our minds, to think differently. We cannot do this if we continue to look to the world and it’s prophets to tell us how to think. We must raise our minds above all of this to something else. The way of renewed thinking lies in where our minds are focused. “Set your minds on things above, NOT on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2)

If we take our cues from this world then we will inevitably be conformed to it. But if our minds are focused intently on God and His Word then a transformation takes place in us and we begin to be shaped by the eternal values of God’s truth rather than by the ever-changing values of this world.

Conformed or transformed? Shaped by this world or shaped by God’s Word? Both are choices we make. They each lead in opposite directions: One toward bondage and stagnation, the other toward freedom and growth. Doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.

Life is a Sanctuary -pt.3

[A Series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God,
WHICH IS YOUR SPIRITUAL WORSHIP."
(Romans 12:1)

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” declares Jaques in Shakespeare’s play ‘As You Like It’. Jaques is waxing eloquent here about the developmental “stages” (no pun intended) of life and how it is a place to present our performance to a watching world. Had the Apostle Paul been exposed to Shakespeare he may have described his words in Romans 12:1 like this: “All the world’s a sanctuary, and all the men and women merely worshippers”.

Have you ever thought about worship like that? We tend to think of worship as an event that we attend and how well we worship is often dependent upon how good the action is up on the stage. Or if we are a bit more spiritual we might think that worship can also take place in our own devotional times of prayer and the reading of Scripture. I think Paul is talking about something much deeper here when he says we are to “offer” our bodies as living sacrifices as an act of “spiritual worship”. He has already talked about offering ourselves to sin and impurity (Romans 6:13 &19), now he speaks of the opposite of this which is to offer ourselves fully to God in worship.

If indeed, “all the world’s a sanctuary, and all the men and women merely worshippers” the question, then, is who (or what) are we worshipping? We all bow down to something don’t we? Our careers, our family, habits, leisure activities, addictions, possessions. We all have a tendency to place something or someone at heart of our life, a place that should be reserved for God alone. We do this, I believe, because humanity was created to worship. What we worship is as varied as each individual personality.

Whenever I see a Hollywood "red carpet" event where all the stars arrive and strut and pose for the photographers I can’t help but think I am watching a worship event. The gods and goddesses of our culture are everywhere. They wear sports uniforms or star in movies. They hold public office or run large companies. Sometimes they are teachers or musicians or even pastors. Sometimes they are not people at all but rather ideas or value systems. Anything that captures a place in our hearts that belongs to God alone is a form of worship. The Bible calls it idolatry.

“Spiritual worship”, Paul says, is a sacrifice of our whole selves to God alone. It’s not an event like Sunday morning worship. It can’t be reduced to a particular form (traditional, contemporary, formal, informal). It’s not restricted to certain body postures (kneeling, hands raised, dancing, standing). All of these can express our worship but worship by nature must transcend these and be something that encompasses all of our lives, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

The essence of “spiritual worship” is that it is a life style rather than an event. It’s a daily decision to live in such a way that everything we do, everything we say, everywhere we go is an act of worship. We cannot offer our bodies as living sacrifices once a week on Sunday morning. We must offer ourselves totally and completely to God, body, mind and spirit. Anything less is not really “spiritual worship” and runs the risk of becoming something closer to idolatry.

“All the world’s a sanctuary, and all the men and women merely worshippers” really does describe this life. The only question left to answer is who is on the red carpet?

Going Home: A Journey's End

[Here is a link to a video tribute that I made for my dad which was played at his memorial service:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3DjZQPLhes ]

My father, Rev. Robert W. Hicks, died peacefully in the presence of family on Friday, February 27, 2009 at 11:48 pm. He was 94 years old. It was a departure for us who loved him, it was an arrival for him and all who stood waiting to greet him. A departure or an arrival depends entirely on who is travelling and where they are going. For us who were impacted by his presence for so many years, he was departing: leaving family, friends, loved ones. Leaving a wife of 65 years. Leaving his body that had carried him from the Georgia farm to the Colorado Rockies to the South Pacific to the Pacific Northwest to South Korea and all points in between. Leaving his home here that had nurtured and cared for him so well.

But for him and all those who have gone before him, and especially for his Savior whom he served so well, it was not a departure but an arrival. It was an arrival home, his true and final home. My dad lived in many places over the past 94 years. Places in Georgia where he grew up and began his ministry; places while serving his country here and overseas; places he lived with my mother while in ministry and in retirement. All of them served their purpose for a time, but they were all merely way stations along the way to a final resting place.

My father was an introvert by nature. He was never really comfortable in social settings. When he and my mom would be in someone’s home or at a social event the time would inevitably come when my dad would say, “OK, well I guess we better be getting home now.” In recent years as his mind was increasingly losing it's hold on reality he seemed to be obsessed with going home. While in his own home, with his wife and family, he would often say, “Who’s going to bring the car around so we can go home”, or he would pack a bag (usually filled with books) and say, “I’m all packed and ready to go home now.” Sometimes when I was leaving his house I would tell him that I was leaving and he would say, “Well I’m trying to leave too. Who’s going to take ME home?”

It almost seems like his whole life was spent just trying to get home.

• I imagine a young boy caked in red Georgia dirt plowing a field longing for the time when he could get back home and continue reading that Zane Grey novel.


• I picture a seminary student living in Atlanta many hours from his rural family farm house looking forward to going home and getting some real southern cooking from his mama.


• I see a young army chaplain stationed in the South Pacific knowing that his young bride was about to give birth to their first child and longing to be home with them at that moment.


• I envision a pastor who worked long hard hours in many different churches over the years looking forward to coming home at the end of the day to a house full of hugs and smiles from his wife and kids.
  

Going home is a wonderful thing. And now at last, after all these years, my dad is finally home. I’m sure that in this life the times of being able to go home was a great blessing for him. But there is nothing that can compare with what happened on Friday, February 27, 2009 at 11:48 pm. At funerals and memorial services we sometimes use the phrase “dearly departed” to refer to the one who has passed on. With my dad I much prefer the phrase “dearly arrived”. Welcome home thou good and faithful servant.

This old American folk song beautifully describes my dad’s life long journey toward home.

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
Travelling through this world of woe
But there's no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go

Well I'm going there to meet my mother
Said she'd meet me when I come
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

I know dark clouds will gather 'round me
I know my way will be rough and steep
But beautiful fields lie just before me
Where God's redeemed their vigils keep

Well I'm going there to meet my loved ones
Gone on before me, one by one
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

I'll soon be free of earthly trials
My body rest in the old church yard
I'll drop this cross of self-denial
And I'll go singing home to God

Well I'm going there to meet my Savior
Dwell with Him and never roam
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

"Living Sacrifices" pt.2

[A series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers,

in view of God’s mercy,

TO OFFER YOUR BODIES AS LIVING SACRIFICES,

holy and pleasing to God…”

(Romans 12:1)

Sometimes we have the opportunity, or the necessity, to give up something. Several years ago we gave our couch and love seat to our daughter Kellie who was moving into a house with some girls at college. They needed some furniture, we were looking to get rid of some furniture, it worked out great. But it wasn’t really a sacrifice on our part. It didn’t cost us anything (except for the backache of moving it for her). Last summer I had to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life: to give up a job that meant everything to me for the sake of my health and the future of the church. It cost me a lot and still brings a sense of grief when I think about it. Sacrifices costs us something.

Romans 12:1 says that we are to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices”. It says that we are to do this in response to something. “In view of God’s mercy” or “because of God’s mercy” or “in light of God’s mercy”. [See previous post, ‘First Responders’ for more on this.] No matter how you phrase it it still means the same thing. Something has happened that we must respond to, and the most appropriate response is to sacrifice (give up) something of value. If it doesn’t cost us something it’s not really a sacrifice.

Sometimes the things we sacrifice (give up) are not necessarily positive things. We may sacrifice our health because of bad habits; our job because of irresponsibility; our children due to neglect or indifference; a relationship because of an inappropriate word or response. On the other hand, some of our sacrifices are more positive, even commendable. We might sacrifice our time in order to help someone; we may give sacrificially to something (giving more than we can afford) so someone can be blessed; we might give up a dream job in order to take a lesser job because it is better for the family. To sacrifice is to intentionally give up, or lose something, that is of value to us. Sacrifice costs us something.

When King David’s prayer was answered that a plague against Israel would be stopped he went to purchase the place where the angel of the Lord had brought about this miracle. At this place there stood a barn and David made an offer to the owner to buy the barn and the land in order to build an altar of thanksgiving to the Lord (the future sight of the Jerusalem temple). The owner tried to give it all to David along with an ox so that he could offer a sacrifice to the Lord. But David said, “I will not sacrifice an offering that costs me nothing” (1 Chronicles 21:24). Interesting concept: it seems that the nature of the offering is not nearly so important as how much it cost. In other words, what is it worth to the person making the sacrifice?

If you are in need of a car and can’t afford one it’s not a sacrifice to me if I give you my neighbors car (other than possibly some jail time). But if I give you my car, it’s a sacrifice. If you need someone to take you to a doctor’s appointment it’s not a sacrifice for me to say, “I’m sure my daughter Brianne would love to take you.” If a missionary needs a new roof for an orphanage in a poor village in Africa it’s no sacrifice on my part if I go and ask my friend Bill to give to this project because he has lots of money (Bill’s name has been changed to protect him from you going and asking him for money.) These things may be well and good but they don’t constitute a sacrifice on my part.

Paul says we are to offer “our bodies” as living sacrifices. Our bodies are very important to us. You may not like how it looks or how it is performing right now but they are still very precious to us. They house our mind, spirit, and soul. They allow us to do what we do in this life; go where we go, enjoy relationships, hobbies, nature, etc.. We can’t do any of this outside of our bodies and what they offer us. This is why ill health, old age, and disabilities are so frustrating and even devastating for some. They limit our bodies from allowing us to do what we want to do. Our bodies are precious. To offer our bodies as a living sacrifice is to willfully and intentionally give up our rights and ownership of them to someone else. We do this because of (“in view of”) God’s mercy. God’s mercy is the result of the greatest sacrifice of all because it cost Him His only Son. We are to sacrifice (give up ownership of) our bodies, our whole selves, to God and His purpose for our lives.

This sacrifice that we give up is a “living” sacrifice because it is on-going. In the Old Testament if you sacrificed an oxen you only did it once (makes sense doesn’t it?). The sacrifice we make to God is an on-going, daily, regular sacrifice, not done once, but done as a life-style. It’s like breathing. We don’t say, “Yeah, I breathed once when I was born and I haven’t needed to take a breath since.” Likewise, we cannot say, “Yeah, I sacrificed myself to the Lord back in 1981 so I don’t really need to do it again.” It’s a living sacrifice, meaning it’s on-going.

This kind of sacrifice, one that is of great value to us, one that is on-going, one that costs us something, is a sacrifice that is “holy and pleasing to God” . And that, after all, is all we really need to know, isn’t it.

[More on our sacrifice being our "spiritual worship'

in the next posting.]