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.]

First Responders -pt.1

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

“Therefore, I urge you brothers,

IN VIEW OF GOD'S MERCY,

to offer yourselves as living sacrifices,

holy and pleasing to God ...”

(Romans 12:1)

By nature we are a ‘responsive’ people. There are hundreds of things every day that we respond to, either consciously or sub-consciously.
· Traffic
· An irritable spouse, friend, or co-worker
· The weather
· The news
· Health issues
· Car trouble
· Job frustrations
· Economic fears
· Strained relationships
· And on, and on, and on ……

Our days are full of things that we respond to that then determine our mood, health, success, failure, effectiveness, ineffectiveness, etc. We cannot not respond to these things because we are by nature ‘responders’. I wonder, though, what would happen to these responses if our first and primary response was to God’s mercy and grace.

We are called in Romans 12:1-2 to live in a certain way. We are to be “living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God”. But in order to get to this place we must become people who respond, first of all, to the grace and mercy of God. The problem is that we too often respond first to these other things and then hope that God’s mercy will ‘fix’ our responses. It can, and often does, but how much better our responses would be to these other things if we first were responding (an on-going response) to His grace and mercy.

‘First Responders’ is a term usually used to refer to those who are the first on the scene after an ‘incident’ (accident, storm, crime, terrorist attack, etc.) They are also sometimes called ‘Incident Response Teams’. We need to realize that an ‘incident’ has occurred, and is occurring daily in and around us – God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love has been poured out to us in Jesus (Romans 5:5). It is active and alive. It happens in us and to us and through us. It finds its heart and core in the gift of Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection.

But this is not merely an historical event, it is an ever-present event. It expresses itself in salvation, new life (abundant and eternal), comfort, strength, wisdom, healing. God’s mercy has gone before us, it presently surrounds us, and it will take us into our future. Our whole life is to be lived to response to His mercy. We are called to be First Responders to the grace and mercy of God, living as if this ‘incident’ were continuously occurring in our lives.

The question for all of us is this: will we be First Responders to the ‘lesser incidents’ of our lives (worry, fear, ambition, greed, anger, brokenness, etc., etc.), or will we be First Responders to the mercy of God that is “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23). If we can learn how to become First Responders to the mercy of God maybe our secondary responses to the hundreds of things we face daily will somehow be transformed. “Therefore, in view of God’s mercy . . . .”

Sacred Wounds

“By His wounds we are healed.”

Isaiah 53:5

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you

leaving you an example that you should

follow in His steps.”

1 Peter 2:21

As a team leader for several medical teams into the poorest parts of Haiti and Guatemala I have seen a lot of sickness and injury that I would never have been exposed to in the U.S. I remember very well a woman with severe burns that had been treated improperly for several months. I remember the man who came in with a deep machete wound from an attack on his family. The wound was severely infected from improper medical care. I remember a woman who had broken her leg and it hadn’t been set correctly so that now she was permanently disabled. Wounds that are not dealt with properly can have lasting, sometimes devastating, results.

In our culture we usually deal well with any physical wounds that happen to us. What we aren’t so good at dealing with are the emotional and spiritual wounds that come to us all. These wounds often become sources of infection in our soul and spirit. They aren’t dealt with properly and so they continue to hurt us rather than becoming a source of healing. ‘Sacred Wounds’, on the other hand, are wounds that have become ‘healing wounds’ for us and others. Irrespective of their origin they have been transformed by God’s grace so that their destructive or harmful potential is gone. They now become a source of help and hope. It doesn’t mean that they no longer hurt (this is very important to understand). It means that they no longer harm us or those around us.

Some hurts we carry with us for a long time: the death of a loved one; the loss of a relationship; the disappointment of a broken dream; the hurtful words of a friend; a prolonged illness that robs us of strength, vitality, and hope. It is wrong to think that these hurts are only healed when the pain they carry is gone. They are healed when the harm they carry is gone; when they stop doing damage to ourselves and others. Then they become ‘sacred wounds’, wounds that have a redemptive power to heal.

Jesus wounds were sacred wounds. His wounds are what provide for our ultimate healing and wholeness. But Jesus is not the only one with sacred wounds. Listen to these words, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps.” (1 Peter 2:21). “Sharing” (Philippians 3:10) or “participating” (1 Peter 4:13) in the sufferings of Jesus means more than simply receiving them as our source of healing. We are to follow His example by allowing our wounds to become sacred wounds – places of healing for self and others. Grace must flow in 2 directions: into us for our healing, and through us for the healing of others. Our wounds can only become sacred wounds as they are healed and transformed by His sacred wounds. Our wounds are only sacred because they exist within a greater wound – the wounds of Christ.

The wounds of Jesus became sacred when He surrendered them into the hands of the Father. “Not my will but Thine be done.” (Mark 14:36). “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke23:46). Christ modeled for us how wounds become sacred: through surrender, letting go of them. Not clinging or clenching them tight fisted. When we cling tightly to our wounds we continue to draw out their poison. The more we squeeze the more poison they produce. The more poison they produce, the more harm done to ourself and others.

But when we let go of them in surrender to the Father we allow His healing salve to be rubbed into them. Interesting word, ‘salve’ (ointment used for healing). See how closely it looks like the word ‘salvation’. Salvation is the process of rubbing the healing ointment of God’s grace into our deepest wound (separation from God). Surrendering our hurts and wounds to God is the process (transformation) of moving from poison to grace-filled healing. These sacred wounds of ours then also become a source of healing to others. Bitterness and anger is the poison that comes from wounds we will not let go of. Grace and blessing flow from sacred wounds.

What Power Lies Within

“And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead

is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead

will also give life to your mortal bodies

through His Spirit, who lives in you.”

Romans 8:11

Our perception of ourselves is formed in various ways. Our childhood experiences can shape our adult responses. Our looks can shape our self image. Our successes or failures can shape the level of self-confidence we have. One word from another person can sometimes determine whether I feel good or bad about myself today. All of these things and more, over time, can create a perception of what we think is real about us. They become things that “reside” within us and we give them the power and permission to determine who we are. We allow them to give birth to a person within us that may not in any way resemble the person we were meant to be.

The revolutionary truth that Paul tells us in the above passage is this: The Spirit of God Lives in Me! Think about that. Roll that one around in your mind for a while. Repeat it over and over until it starts to sink in. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (no small feat by the way) lives in me! What kind of awesome power is this? What kind of incredible energy is this? What kind of profound ability is this? And it lives in me! Truly, “I can do (and be) all things through Him who gives me the strength.” (Philippians 4:13)

So, the question I keep asking myself is this: Which spirit in me am I going to allow to determine who I am? The spirit of my childhood experiences? The spirit of my successes or failures? The spirit of what I look like? OR, the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead? His Spirit, His power, His wisdom, His love defines who I am. Not my upbringing, my weakness, my ignorance, or my sin. God’s strength is far and away greater than my weakness. This seems like a ridiculously obvious statement doesn’t it? Of course God’s strength is greater than human weakness. But, why then do we so often live as if our weaknesses and failures and sins are more powerful than God’s strength?
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my weakness.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my fears.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my inabilities.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my inadequacies.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my mistakes and my sins.
· The Spirit of God within me is greater than my lack of trust and faith.

The power of the Spirit of God within me is far greater than the combined power of all my strengths and weaknesses. And that power, that Spirit, defines who I am. Nothing else really matters. Now, if only we could believe this.

Life Is Who You Are

As a child when I was bored and my mother would ask me what was wrong I would say, “I don’t have anything to do.” Apparently we learn early on that life takes on meaning, significance, and fulfillment primarily from what we do. As we grow this perspective becomes increasingly distorted and often takes on a life of its own. Sports, grades, and relationships give us a sense of self-worth. Later, career paths, leisure activities, and keeping busy tell us that we are contributing to life and are therefore significant. I don’t want in any way to demean the importance of what we do in this life. The choices we make to do what we do have a profound impact on our life as well as the lives of those around us. However, I think that in many ways we have turned things a bit upside down. Many of us tend to pursue life as if what we do IS who we are. In other words, apart from what we do life really doesn’t hold much meaning. That’s why so many people have such a difficult time when it comes to retirement. It’s why illness or injury often takes such an emotional toll on us. When we can’t do the things we want we are often left with an aching sense of worthlessness and insignificance.

I was thinking of this the other day after watching a rather thought provoking movie and the phrase came to me, “Life is not so much what you do, but who you are while you’re doing it.” I doubt that it is original to me. It probably came to me because I have read it someplace, but until I remember where (which is unlikely) I will lay claim to it.

We become far too obsessed with what we do, and in the process we forget that character is far more important than activity. True meaning and significance has more to do with character than it does with busyness. Activity doesn’t fulfill us. Who we are while we are active (or inactive) is what fulfills us. In other words, what we bring with us into the actions of our lives (the “doing”) is what offers us a sense of joy and fulfillment.

Romans 5:3 says that “character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us”. Isn’t it interesting that character is the thing produces that which encourages, inspires, and fulfills us (hope)? It doesn’t say that activity produces hope which doesn’t disappoint us. It says that character does this. Hope does not come from the things that we wish will happen (health, the right job, relational healing, etc). Hope is not born outside of us but within us. Who we are determines hope and fulfillment more than what we do. [Now, there is an aspect of hope that does comes from outside of us in that God is the ultimate source of hope but that hope must become incarnate in our character for it to impact us.]

If we really took this seriously it would cause a monumental shift in our outlook on life. It would change both who we are and what we do. Activity would take on new meaning because meaning would come from inside of us. Times of inactivity would be far less annoying because character always seems to fill the empty space that inactivity creates. We become far more comfortable with just “being” and less insistent on always “doing” something.

Someone once said that character is what you are when no one is looking. I don’t think that’s true. I think that character is what you are, or at least what you should be, when everyone is looking. The things people see us doing, and not doing, should be a reflection of our character.

So next time you find yourself neurotically searching for something to do, make sure you first of all have found something to be.

“To those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called TO BE holy… grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 1:2-3