On Being A Small Group Leader

Resolution 2007: The Health Doctrine

2007-01-15T14:01:00.000-05:00

Like practically everyone else, my goal for the year is to lose weight. However, this year I want to try a different approach. Instead of just saying “I need to lose 70 pounds”, instead I want to develop a biblical understanding of health issues like weight, exercise, etc. Hopefully, I’ll periodically begin to investigate scriptural teaching on these matters.

Ideally, my weight loss won’t be because I don’t want to die young and I don’t want to buy a new wardrobe. Instead, I hope it will be because I have a more biblical understand of God’s viewpoint on health and body issues.

Resolution 2007: Christianity Without The Mirror

2007-01-10T11:57:00.000-05:00

I’ve been writing some curriculum for a seeker-oriented small group that we’re leading in 2007. It’s been a discouraging search for material, and it’s led to a serious New Year’s Resolution.

I’ve been to a pair of Christian bookstores, and it’s astounding to me how evangelism is nearly ignored on their shelves. I found stacks of books on how to be a better (fill in the blank).

Want to be a better father? We have a full rack of books. Need to spice up your sex life? We’ll be happy to help.

Need books on how to explain Jesus to a non-believer? Uhhhh, look on the back shelf of the bookstore, at the bottom of the rack. We have a couple of books that might have something to do with that.

What has happened to us?

How have we turned Christianity into “holy” narcissism? How did we turn the call of a holy God into a means of self-fulfillment?

I admit, I’m loaded with self-interest, but did Jesus really die for my emotional stability and vocational productivity? I’m sure he cares about those things, but the Great Commission places no priority there.

For 2007, I need to explore a Christianity that pushes me outside of myself and into the lives of others. I need to focus less on God’s blessings and more on God’s directive to Go.

I want to be more involved in activities that are redemptive in nature. I want to help people understand who Jesus is. I want to manifest God’s love for a fallen world by serving those in difficult circumstances. I want to spend more money on feeding the poor and less on feeding my ego. I want to reflect more of Jesus, instead of looking at my reflection in the mirror.

Don’t be deceived; this isn’t my personal call to asceticism. I don’t want to completely shrug off the legitimate blessings God has given me and my family. I’m not going to sell the house or get rid of the dog. I just want to evaluate the choices I make, and make them with a mindset that is more reflective of the Bible, and less reflective of the book topics at the local Christian store.

Taking this road makes my stomach churn.

I worry how much God might remove the blessings to challenge my commitment.

I definitely know my own weakness. I know how angry I get at God when my good deeds don’t "pay off".

Just this week, I was pretty ticked off. I wrote a $500 check to our end-of-the-year fund at church, and several hours later I was handed a completely unexpected bill for $622 in car repairs. Why don’t my good deeds make me immune to these things?

That, unfortunately, is the perfect example of my own self-centered worldview. Rather than recognizing the good that $500 might create in ministry opportunities at church, I’m primarily concerned that God didn’t fall to His knees in gratitude for my overwhelming generosity. Can I be any more arrogant? Exactly when did God become my manservant?

So, I begin this path, where my faith is more about God and others, and less about my personal fulfillment.

If I can make strides in this direction, 2007 will be a success.

Two Full Years

2006-12-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

So, I’m thinking a lot about time right now.

The story of Joseph in the Old Testament really set me down this path. He is imprisoned after his boss’ wife makes a false rape accusation against him. He helps out a guy with a dream interpretation, and the guy promises to help Joseph when he gets out of prison. Instead, he forgets. So, more time in the pokey for Joseph.

In fact, Genesis 41:1 starts off this way -- “When two full years had passed”.

Wow!

The desperation of that phrase really hit me. Two FULL years. TWO full years. Two full YEARS.

Joseph is already in prison because he stood up for righteous living by rejecting the advances of his boss’ wife (a rejection that led to the false rape charge). Then, he helps a fellow prisoner out. This guy reneges on his promise, and Joseph sits in prison for two more years.

104 weeks.

728 days.

17,472 long, lonely hours.

I wonder if he felt betrayed by doing the right thing, and being tossed in prison for it. I wonder if he ever shook his fist at God for forgetting him. I wonder how much his faith wavered.

It seems that one of the best ways God forges our character is to make us wait. He uses time to his advantage to mould us and force us to rely on Him. Our greatest mistakes happen when we circumvent time to get what we want on our own timetable.

There have been two occasions when the time thing really worked out for me, and one when it hasn’t.

The first was when I was single, and wanted to be married. I consciously chose to wait as long as it would take to find someone who would fit me emotionally and spiritually. During that time, people laughed at me, lectured me, and even questioned if I "liked girls".

It was 7 long years before I met Karen, but thank God I waited! Yesterday was our 18th anniversary, and it’s been sheer bliss to be married to her.

The second was when we wanted to move to Pittsburgh. We invested five years of praying before the doors finally opened. It was hard to wait, and we lived in a spiritual desert until then. But, when the timing was right, the circumstances fell together in miraculous ways. Living here is the first time since we’ve been married that we felt like we were “home”. The wait was worth it.

I’m struggling with the time factor in relationship to health matters. I’ve been waiting for a long time for the persistent pain I live with to go away. I’ve accepted the fact that the pain may be something God has chosen for me, for reasons only He understands. But, I still get angry and still think I’m being “picked on”. And, I want it to stop.

I don’t understand my circumstances, and I don’t always like them. I don’t always like trusting God -- but where else can I turn? He is in control, and He knows best. My challenge is to believe that.

God Is Stupid

2006-11-21T21:41:00.000-05:00

I had a conversation with a friend last week about why the Christian life isn’t enough for us. Often we know what is best, but we choose to reject that for some sort of self-serving lifestyle choice.

It’s a question I’ve been considering every since that conversation. Why do I turn away from clear Biblical teaching, when I know better? Why is it that I can experience all the positive aspects of a righteous life, but still want the “benefits” of unrighteousness?

I’ve come up with three explanations for why I step outside God’s boundaries.

1) God Is Stupid.

Harsh, but accurate. Sand off the shellac of rationalization, and that’s the untreated wood beneath. Disobedience is often a result of our belief that God doesn’t “get it”. This mindset determines that God has no real understanding of my life, so I have to take matters into my own hands.

As an exaggerated example, consider a man who can’t find a job. If his God is stupid, then it’s logical to expand his employment options to include armed robbery, opening an adult bookstore, or becoming a pimp. After all, he can’t find a job, and clearly God is too dumb to figure it out. Going outside of God-defined boundaries to make some money is justifiable when you serve a stupid God.

The antidote to God-Is-Stupid thinking is trust. Trusting means that, whatever it is I need (and we would be well-served to stop identifying our wants as needs - a subject for another day), I can trust God’s timing in delivering it. It may be painful to wait, and it may not make sense, but I will trust God anyway. Trust is sometimes brutally difficult.

The caveat to trust is recognition that I may never get what I want (or think that I need). Hebrews 11 is filled with examples of people who trusted God in difficult situations, and lost their lives. They may have been trusting God to deliver them from the situation, but God instead chose to walk through the pain with them. I don’t necessarily understand that, but clearly God sometimes operates this way. Trust is refusing to step outside of God’s boundaries, no matter how painful.

2) God Is Small.

In this mindset, I know what God has said, but believe God isn’t powerful enough to make it possible. I have to help Him out. This is related to, but different from, God Is Stupid. In God Is Stupid, God doesn’t even understand the situation. In God Is Small, God understands the situation, but doesn’t understand the methodology.

A perfect example of “God Is Small” thinking is the story of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 16). God promises the couple they will have a child. However, when it doesn’t happen right away, Sarah decides God is too small to accomplish childbirth through an old woman. In an unbelievable act of stupidity, she actually encourages her husband to have sex with another woman (I wonder how hard Abraham resisted?) so Abraham can have his child outside the boundaries of marriage. Sarah believed that God would achieve the ultimate goal of allowing Abraham to have a child, but He wasn’t big enough to rejuvenate her own aging plumbing.

The antidote to God-Is-Small thinking is contemplating God’s omnipotence. When we accept (not just recognize) God’s power, we get a bigger view of God. As that view gradually expands over time (the way spiritual growth normally happens), we can increasingly trust God even during the course of His meeting our needs.

The caveat is that God’s power is often revealed in process. Seldom does God invoke the “presto-chango” methodology of Instant Divine Intervention. Instead, He works within the boundaries of time, probably to teach us patience and trust. When I’m able to wait for God, I’ve conquered God-Is-Small thinking.

3) God Is Sightless.

This is blatant rebellion. “I know it’s wrong, but I’m doing it anyway.”

Now, we can clean that up with a lot of rationalization (what about my needs?!?!), but the truth is we would rather do what we want instead of what God wants. This is Garden of Eden thinking. Adam and Eve knew what God wanted, but they chose their own path. God didn’t understand their need (I’m sure they didn’t view it as a “want”) to have more knowledge, so they ate from the forbidden tree.

That didn’t work out so well.

However, we are just dumb enough to believe that, for us, it will work out better.

Probably this error is the one most prevalent in our lives, when we’re honest. John Ortberg, in his book “God Is Closer Than You Think”, says the most common prayer among Christians is “Don’t look at me, God.”

There’s no way to sugar-coat this. It is pure rebellion. “I want my way, and I’m going to take it.” My experience has been that men are adept at this one in the realm of sexual behavior.

The antidote to “God Is Sightless” thinking, as odd as it seems, is recognizing God’s judgment.

That’s not something we like to think about. We like Happy Jesus who loves everyone, who plays with little puppies and is as placid as Perry Como.

We don’t like the angry Jesus who goes into the temple and overturns the tables and the benches (I’ve always wondered if someone was sitting on the bench at the time it was overturned), and who calls the Pharisees names. We don’t like the angry God who dispenses judgment over nations in the Old Testament.

But, it’s reality. God doesn’t put up with sin forever. It has its price, and God will prove to us that He’s not blind.

The caveat is that God’s judgment is rarely immediate (see “presto-chango methodology” above). God is often (although not always) patient, and that grace-laden kindness tempers His judgment. However, it does not quell it.

A person may get away with one affair, or one misleading expense report, or one month of stolen cable service. However, eventually, he or she will pay the price for the sin. God wasn’t joking when He told us we would reap what we sow.

So, Alfie, what IS it all about?

2006-11-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

We just started leading a small group for people with questions about God and Christianity. It's ultimately designed for non-Christians, but isn't that exclusive at this point.

Pretty scary and a big stretch for me to move into this arena.

One of the first questions someone asked was, "What is the purpose of life?"

Wow. Quite a starter! ;-)

Anyway, that question reminds me of a song from my childhood. It's an old Burt Bacharach song. I think it was the title song to the movie, Alfie. It asks the same question:

What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?

Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind?

And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
Then I guess it's wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
What will you lend on an old golden rule?

As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there's something much more,
Something even non-believers can believe in.

I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie.

When you walk let your heart lead the way
And you'll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie

So, what *is* it all about? That question was rather jarring for me, because I don’t think about those questions often enough.

What is my purpose? Why are things so messed up? The election results look like we’re headed down the wrong path. There isn’t enough money to go around, and there isn’t enough food to go around, and not enough love to go around.

In the center of it all, there is You. That has to be enough for me. The problem is not your insufficiency; the problem is my inability to see you in the circumstances of my life.

You are there. It Was You, like the song says.

Father, I need to know your presence all over again. I feel lost and alone and sad. Especially sad. I miss you, and I miss the way I used to live. I used to be more disciplined in prayer. I used to read your Word more. I used to memorize scripture. I used to weigh less, which is disturbing to me, right until it’s time to eat.

I have a “used-to” spiritual life. That’s bad.

A Dance?!?!

2006-09-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

Megan has her first school dance today.

How can that be? How can she be 11 years old already??

Just yesterday she was wearing the little one-piece pajamas and watching SportsCenter with me before I went to work. She’s still the little girl who came home with rocks in her pockets, convinced she had just made the geological discovery of the century. She’s still the independent-minded 4-year old who didn’t want me to walk into her preschool with her because she wanted to do it by herself. She’s not old enough to go to dances … with BOYS?!?!?!?

All these parental changes create incredible, almost overwhelming, angst. I’m understanding more and more than my parenting is becoming less a captain of the ship and more of an attendant-- trying to get her ready for the time when she leaves the cruise and moves on to the dry land of her choosing. Yeah, I know she’s only in the 6th grade, but it's all going so fast.

Thank God I have 6 more years before she heads out for college. The trick now is to make those years meaningful.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. We seem to be on our way to being the family I’ve always criticized. When we eat meals together, it’s often rushed to get to the next activity. We don’t spend a lot of time together any more -- or at least it seems that way. The years are going by so quickly, and we seem to be spending them more in parallel universes. That troubles me a lot.

Parenting makes me realize how dependent upon God I really am for everyday survival. Good thing He’s there, He cares, and He’s in control.

As a father has compassion ...

2006-09-05T10:59:00.000-05:00

I’m struggling all the time to figure out this Daddy thing. I never know if I’m doing the right things by my kids, or if I’m forever damaging them with my incompetent approaches to parenting.

I’m thinking about this passage from Psalm 103:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

What does that possibly teach me about parenting? God’s approach to me is pictured by a compassionate father dealing with his kids’ transgressions.

Here’s what I know about God as my “parent”:

I don’t get immediately punished when I do wrong. Last weekend, Megan was determined to push the limits we set for her. They were good limits, and kept her from harm. They were also limits imposed by a proper authority, for whom she should show proper respect. All in all, our rules were proper and reasonable. No problem there.

The problem is, she kept disobeying and pushing the rules until I eventually had to sit her down and remove some privileges from her.

Everything here seems to be textbook Parenting 101 -- set clear rules, establish punishments, and consistently and quickly follow through when willful disobedience takes place.

Good enough so far … until I read “slow to anger, abounding in love”. How often do I violate God’s rules for life, and go by seemingly unpunished? I know that all my sins will eventually come home to me, but in the interim, God isn’t hovering over me and pouncing on me when I deliberately disobey him.

How do I square my parenting over the weekend with this passage? I want to just rationalize it away … but I get aggravated when people just rationalize away what seems to be a clear biblical teaching with “well, it can’t mean …” because the teaching would contradict conventional wisdom. If God says to forgive someone over and over, that’s what it means. There’s no wiggle room for “yeah, but, I have to protect my own self-respect … I have to teach them a lesson … I just can’t do that yet”. Where does that verse give me a time limit until I have to obey it? It says forgive … and when I don’t, I’ve deliberately disobeyed God. Christians are way too quick to dismiss the hard teachings with rationalizations.

So, I can’t do that with my parenting approaches either. “Slow to anger, abounding in love” seems to equate pretty clearly with “as a father has compassion on his children”.

Am I quick to anger? Absolutely. Do I abound in love? I think I do. I believe that I do. The kids’ reactions to me seem to indicate that. But, I still have to be slow to anger. Just because we still have pretty warm relationships doesn’t mean I can rationalize my quick to anger approach to parenting.

"Slow to anger" means just that. I think it means patience. I think it means teaching the same lesson over and over. I think it means being compassionate instead of angry. I think it means remembering that my daughter is a sinful being, just like her Daddy. I think it means explaining the same thing over and over before I become angry. I think it means being more willing to rely on teaching than on punishment/reward methods.

But then again, what the heck do I know …? ;-)

Football Season

2006-08-14T15:21:00.000-05:00

At church yesterday, our pastor challenged us on the notion of being a disciple. He made an interesting distinction between being a member of the fan club, and being a member of the team. Using a football analogy, he talked about how football fans know all the stats about their team, dress up in face paint for the game, etc., and think they’re part of the team.

It’s a nice notion, but it isn’t true. Only the team members are on the team. The rest are fan club members, and nothing more.

He then tied that into being a disciple. God is building a team, not a fan club. Dressing up like a Christian, coming to church, wearing the “face paint” of the right expressions, words and deeds still don’t make you part of the team. Until you are personally involved in the team, you’re just a fan.

That’s challenging to me. I know I’m on the team, but how committed am I to the team? Am I really a disciple? Do I really set aside other things for the privilege of being a contributor to the team?

That’s a key issue for me to consider this week.

2006-08-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

How much does God desire that we come to the complete end of our ropes? Is that the only way He can cause some of us to respond to the kingdom that rules over all?

I’ve been reading about the rich young ruler, who came to Jesus and asked, "what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?".

That seems like such a softball for Jesus to hit out of the park. Time for a lecture on grace vs. works, on how God’s provision means we don’t do anything to obtain (not inherit -- it isn’t passed on from generation to generation) salvation. C’mon Jesus, lay out the theology for me here.

Instead, Jesus does a curious thing … he tells him to keep the commandments, and then when the rich kid says “yep, I do that”, Jesus tells him to sell everything he has and come to follow him.

What? What kind of stupid answer is that? Keeping the commandments can’t save you. Taking a vow of poverty isn’t a one-way ticket into heaven.

Then, yesterday I read the story of the expert in the Law who asked Jesus basically the same question -- what do I do to inherit eternal life.

Ok, Jesus, you missed the last one, but you’ve got another chance. Please, give him the lecture. Tell him how we’re saved by grace, not by works, lest any man should boast. How it’s not by works of righteousness that we have done. Quote some verses -- mini-sermon time. Tell a dog story to illustrate grace.

In other words, do it our way.

Jesus didn’t tell the message the way we do. We want to have all the answers in place before we open our mouths. We want to make the message easy and simple and winsome. We take away all the commitment, all the price to be paid, and jump right to the answers.

Now, here’s what I think I know. Jesus knows no one can keep the commandments and follow the law perfectly. He knows selling all your goods won’t get you into heaven.

Here’s what I don’t know. Why didn’t he just say that?

It seems to me that one possible explanation (I don’t want to be so presumptuous that I declare authoritatively what Jesus is up to) is that Jesus decided to take these guys to the end of their ropes before they can go any further spiritually.

For the rich kid, he said, in essence -- if you can’t give it up, you aren’t ready to follow me. For the religious guy, he said if your religion doesn’t make you love the most reprehensible person in the world, and make you do so at your own expense -- you aren’t ready to follow me.

What seems like a free pass from Jesus -- If you want to work your way to heaven, here’s how -- instead could have been a way to forcing the person to learn himself that it doesn’t work that way, because it can’t. You can’t keep the commandments perfectly. You can’t love your enemies in that way -- or at least these two guys couldn’t, and Jesus knew that.

If Jesus were going to lead a seeker group, like I’m planning to do, I think he would probably be much more inclined to leave people twisting in the wind for weeks, months, even years. I think he would set the bar impossibly high for those who want to get to heaven by good works, and then challenge them to fail. I think he would leave questions unanswered to force people to confront the issues for themselves. He would personalize the message for each person based upon their individual experiences.

Am I that smart? Can I communicate that way?

And what is the end of the rope he wants me to release before He really uses me in this ministry?

That’s my question today -- if I were to get to the end of my rope, what would it be like? Is there any way I can turn to God before I get to the end of my rope, and avoid some of that pain? What does it take for a believer to voluntarily submit before the pain needs to reach that level? Because I’m all about avoiding that type of pain (or any other type of pain).

Ok, that’s my angst for the afternoon.

Why can't I pray?

2006-08-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

Why is prayer so hard?

- It feels like a monologue. I talk, but no one talks back.
- I’m sure I’m not interesting. Why would God listen to me, when there are important people out there doing important things?
- I don’t know how it’s supposed to work.
- I’m not sure if praying for myself is selfish
- I’ve heard about “listening prayer”. I don’t get it.
- I feel guilty when my mind wanders -- which it does every time.
- I wonder if anyone is really there.
- If God is there, I feel unworthy to talk to him. I know all the verses that say otherwise, but still …
- It gets boring.
- It seems repetitive to prayer every day for things. I’ve asked God to make me a better husband repeatedly over the past 18 years. How many times do I need to ask before it’s pointless to keep repeating it?
- After being away for too long, I feel guilty coming back to God and feel like I have to spend the first 5 minutes of every prayer apologizing for not praying.
- I have a hard time finding the time and opportunity to pray for extended periods of time.
- I’m not good at it.
- I can’t seem to pray for extended periods of time like all the faith heroes. Don’t any of them every fall asleep 30 seconds after they start praying?
- At some subconscious point, I’m not sure it works.
- I don’t know if prayer really changes God, or just makes me submissive. Not that submissive is bad, but if that’s what prayer is really about, then it seems that the more “spiritual” I become, the less I need to pray. That doesn’t make sense.
- It isn’t valued in Christianity. We spotlight great speakers and great thinkers and great writers, but not great pray-ers.
- I’m lazy, and prayer is hard work.

I remember the MC Hammer song “Pray”. It was so incongruent to hear the words of this song about the need the pray, and then see a Hammer video with barely dressed women dancing suggestively. But, look at the lyrics:

On a mission start to doubt, here we go  Kicking back, read these words we need to know. Living high, living good, living long Take a minute, bust a prayer,  And you're good to go.

I wish I could sign on to that program, but that makes prayer a commodity. Insert x amount of prayer into the slot, receive y amount of “living high, living good, living long”. It would be great if prayer were a way of manipulating God, you know? Imagine what it would be like to have the prayer to convince God to do my bidding? The Browns win the Super Bowl, I’m instantly wealthy and retire a rich man, I lose weight without having to diet … what a plan! And what a crock.

Prayer is hard. I don’t get it. I do it because I’m supposed to, which I guess is better than never praying. But I have to admit, it’s a struggle and it makes me feel tremendously guilty to struggle at something so fundamental to the Christian life.

Brain Twirl

2006-07-20T14:54:00.000-05:00

To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.

Hamlet felt it.

The brain twirl.

The spinning of opposing forces in your head. The tornadic winds that blows choices before your eyes. Then, it whirls them away again. There, the right choice appears … but wait, perhaps the next choice is the right one. That one, it’s not the right choice -- but it would be easy and comfortable and pleasant.

And so the brain twirls.

I have a somewhat distant friend who I fear is wandering from the faith. Do I speak up? Do I continue to pray and hope God puts up the stop sign? Am I the highway department, responsible for planting the warning signs along his road so he is sure to see them? Do I let him just continue on, and deal with the consequences of his own poor choices?

Brain twirl.

Am the right person to start a seeker ministry in our church? Will anyone come? Do I have the right heart? Does such a group exist just to insulate me from my fear of personal discussions about spiritual matters? Do I trust God enough to fail? Why should I step away from the safe arena of “Christian” small groups to do something that both excites and terrorizes me? What if I say or do something stupid that turns someone against God and our church?

Brain twirl.

How can I be a good father, a good husband, a good employee, a good student, a good son, a good neighbor, a good brother, a good citizen, a good steward, a good Christian, a good dog owner, a good driver, a good volunteer … all at the same time?

Brain twirl.

The reason for the twirl? One of the most subversive, insidious, painful pieces of brain twirl literature I’ve ever encountered. In His Steps, by Charles Sheldon.

I dare you to read it.

God dares me to live it.

Repent

2006-07-14T11:35:00.000-05:00

When I hear the word "Repent", I think of cartoons like this one. It's the guy who is warning that the end is near ... and usually he's a little bizarre looking.

Still, it's good advice.

In my study of how Jesus dealt with individuals regarding their own spiritual direction and destiny, I came across Mark 1:15, where Jesus said "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

I've been struggling over the word repent, wondering just what it was Jesus wanted to communicate. Why is "repent" part of his message ... apparently a central part of the message, because I'm assuming the writer distilled down the message into a quick summary?

In my studies, I learned there are two words typically translated as repent in the New Testament. One is to feel badly about something ... especially feeling bad about the consequences. It reminds me of all the politicians who suddenly feel terrible and just want to be with their families ... after their affair with the secretary becomes public. It's not feeling bad about the action, it's feeling bad about getting caught. That's the kind of repentance that Judas had, based upon the Greek word in the text.

The other word is one that carries with it a change of mind, a change of direction, a change of behavior. It goes beyond feeling bad about sin, or wishing we wouldn't get punished. It's a change of mind that says ... "that was wrong, and I won't do it any more."

The problem is, if we stop at that point, then it looks like salvation is works-oriented. "Sorry I did wrong, God ... I'll do better, and then I'll be a Christian and you'll like me."

I think that repentance is not over sins (plural, the activities of sin), but sin, the condition. And even more so, the self-righteousness that says I can eventually be good enough to work my way into heaven by overcoming the sins. I think that's the part that needs to change, primarily because of the next part of the phrase ... "repent and believe."

Repent ... change your mind about something -- and believe ... think something new.

When we repent of sins, we recognize those actions were wrong. However, we have to take the next step and believe something new. "Those were sins, and I'm walking away from them ... but I need to walk to something new." That "something new" is the gospel message ... that kind of remedy to sin (stopping) is not enough. You need to believe something new, which is that righteousness is something bestowed by God, not earned by stopping sinning.

That's what I think at this point, anyway.

One other thing I learned. Repent is a command. Jesus didn't invite people to follow Him. He commanded them to. We don't invite people to follow Jesus. We tell them that God has commanded it. It's not optional.

Interesting.

Repent - Easton's Bible Dictionary
Repent - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Beatles and seekers

2006-07-03T12:04:00.000-05:00

This weekend was an odd mix of events for me, and they all conspired to remind me again of the need for the seeker small group ministry that we’re launching.

Friday night, we stayed up late with the kids to get a glimpse of the International Space Station as it flew over Pittsburgh (it’s actually visible with the naked eye as a white speck, like a star, that moves across the earth. You can check viewing times here). The level of achievement is amazing. People built it, figured out how to get it into space, figured out how to keep it there, and figured out how to send people and materials there like a giant warehouse operation. Amazing!

But all that accomplishment doesn’t satisfy people. It doesn’t bring internal peace or external happiness. The satisfaction isn’t lasting.

Saturday, there was a funeral for a co-worker. 34 years old, found dead in his new home by his family. No one knows what happened. How do you deal with the injustice of such an event?

Sunday, we went to a wedding reception. It was nice and all, but I kept noticing the faces of the people around us, and listening to the conversations. Why is it that people look so sad until their level of alcohol consumption goes up? It seems they have to numb themselves before they’re able to smile and have fun.

It all reminds me of the old Beatles song, Eleanor Rigby.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

There are lonely, unsatisfied people everywhere -- even in the midst of a party where they appear to be having a good time.

I sometimes forget that human beings are designed to be happiest, and most satisfied, when they’re in a right relationship with their Creator. Until that point, there are moments of happiness, and moments of satisfaction -- but those moments doesn’t last. They *can’t* last. I’m convinced God designed us so those things can’t last. We were designed for Him, not ourselves. We are creation, and just like the rest of creation, God’s glory is the reason for our existence. Until we reach that point, everything is fleeting.

I want to be involved in this seeker ministry because I want to help people find that deeper satisfaction and comfort that I know exists -- because I experience it.

Ticked Off

2006-06-29T11:20:00.000-05:00

"It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that."

That quote from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day pretty much sums up the last 3 days of my life.

It culminated last night when I took a mid-term in my class -- a test for which I had very little time to study, and even less comprehension of the subject matter. (Does any sane person really care about Economics?) I know it will be the worst grade I’ve ever received on a test in my collegiate career, which now spans 28 years. It’s possible it will be the worst grade I’ve ever received on a test (I got a 67 once in biology in high school -- the only test I ever flunked, and it still makes me angry).

I was the first one finished with the test, because it doesn’t take long to write, “I have absolutely no idea” 25 times. Since I had nearly one hour until class resumed after the test, my wounded pride and I came back to my office. I was white-hot with personal loathing at my own stupidity. I was discouraged, exhausted, and pouty.

In times like those, I’ve found that it’s wise to turn to the Psalms. I came back to the office and listened to a recording of the first 15 psalms, and as I did so my addled brain began to function again.

However, it wasn’t a restorative function. It was a reflective function.

I began asking myself why I was listening to these psalms. I realized that I was listening to them because I wanted God to make me feel better about the test. I wanted God to reassure me that the test wasn’t that important; that I have a great wife, great kids, a great church, a good job, and reasonable health. I wanted to stop feeling like a failure. I wanted to plug in to the Bible so it could be my vending machine of emotional healing.

Those thoughts took me back to an interview I had read earlier in the day. Michael Card, in an interview with Christianity Today, was talking about being wounded and the role of lamenting in the life of the Christian. There was a story about a paralyzed man who cried out to God, “You don’t have to heal me, just don’t leave me.”

I realized I was using God for his provision (“make me feel better”) rather than for his presence (“Let me know you’re there while I’m suffering”). While I’m sure God delights in making provision for his people, just as I do for my kids, what I think he wants more is our presence.

Nothing makes me feel as good as when my daughter walks up to me and cuddles up under my arm. She doesn’t want anything from me, other than to be with me. On her last day of elementary school, she was upset about leaving elementary school. She came running to me, and I held her and let her cry it out. Eventually I did what I could to make her feel better (the restorative power of a trip for ice cream), but first I just gave her my presence.

So, last night I spent time lamenting. I told God how ticked off I was. I grumbled out loud about Economics and studying and how much harder it is for me to learn and retain things than it used to be. I called myself stupid. I called my professor stupid. I stayed angry instead of pretending it was “all goo d” (there is no way to express how much I despise that phrase).

Rather than shaking my fist at God and ordering him to make me feel better, I invited him into my “suffering” and told Him all about it.

It was a different experience, and I wanted to write about it.

A bunch of Sick, Twisted Freaks

2006-06-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

Two blogs in one day …

Well, I saw Glenn Beck last night at Heinz Hall. I really enjoy his radio show, and find him to be an excellent communicator. He also approaches life from a pretty conservative and moral point of view, which appeals to me as well.

Most of the show last night dealt with “Things I’ll know for certain right before I die”. There were some humorous things on that topic, and some serious topics as well. It was a fun night, and also a thought-provoking night.

However, I left thinking that the show was a little incomplete -- or that it missed the target for me.

Beck’s message last night seemed to be that it’s all about family. I can’t buy that message, although I’m sympathetic to it.

I’m all about family and relationships. I’ve tried to orient my life so I won’t have too many regrets about the type of father and husband I am. I’ve scaled back career goals so I can have more time with my kids and wife. I’ve really tried to live so that I can have fewer regrets.

However, I have to believe that life is all about God. Family is a close second, but if family is my life, I’ve missed the point. It is God who gives meaning to family. It is God who gives meaning to life. A sound family life, and a sound personal life, flows from God.

Kenny Crosswhite, a NASCAR chaplain, spoke about this at our church a couple of weeks ago. He said that life is mostly about God, and a little about us. However, most of us live our lives as if it’s mostly about us, and a little about God. Probably, if we followed that to its logical conclusion, we really believe that God is really about us. We live like God is expected to take responsibility for our happiness and comfort. I think he’s much more interested in our righteousness than our comfort.

I need to think about this one more, but I think I’m on the right track. I think Glenn Beck misses the point when he elevates family above, or equal to, (or never really mentions) God. I hope he believes that. I wish he had talked about it.

One Hungry Dog

2006-06-13T12:16:00.000-05:00

I couldn’t feed our dog this morning.

For Tucker, there is no happier time on the earth than when he gets fed first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon. He is the embodiment of joy when we open the food container.

However, today, we couldn’t feed him. He’s been scratching intensely for months, and the vet has decided to do some intensive allergy tests today. He needs to be sedated, so he couldn’t eat this morning.

If dogs can feel sadness, Tucker was sad. I got up and let him out as usual, but instead of feeding him afterwards, I went directly to my morning workout. He was confused and did everything he could to “remind” me that the dog was, indeed, hungry. He danced and pranced and ran in circles and anything else his canine mind could conceive to get me to feed him.

But I couldn’t. I knew the only way we could solve the allergy problem was to have the tests run, and that meant no food. I had no way to communicate that to him. Even if I told him, he wouldn’t understand. All he knows is that he counts on me to feed him, and I didn’t. All I knew is that I had to inflict short-term discomfort for his long-term benefit.

Interestingly, eventually he just accepted it. He went back upstairs and laid down on his blanket. He didn’t keep trying to get me to feed him. He didn’t whine and bark and complain. I’m sure he wasn’t happy, but he eventually accepted his food-less state of being.

I wonder if God feels the way I did this morning when He has to put me through a test that He couldn’t possibly explain to me, because I would never understand. I wonder why it’s so hard to go lie down on my blanket and accept my state because my Master knows better. He knows what He’s doing, and is probably pleased when I don’t spend all my time whining and barking and complaining.

Perspective

2006-06-08T11:24:00.001-05:00

“I am weak, I am poor, I am broken, but I’m yours.”

That’s a line from Jennifer Knapp’s song “Hold Me Now”. The song puts the listener in the place of the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1-11). The religious leaders were ready to stone her, an act apparently consistent with the letter of their law. Jesus reacted instead with a higher law -- a law of grace.

I’ve certainly never experienced anything that dramatic, but I can identify with the lyrics. It seems like I bring so little to the cross. My weaknesses are stones that drag me to the bottom of the sea. My anger is an unwanted anchor. My doubts are recurrent waves. Life wears me down sometimes, and punishes me to the point of quitting.

At those moments, all that rescues my soul is the promise that “I’m yours”. That is the green pasture in which I must lie down each day. Rest comes from the settled fact of being God’s. No matter how much I feel like doubting or denying, I belong to Him. My sins, my doubts, my discouragements -- they’re all part of the package. They don’t separate me from Christ.

Indeed, they often drive me to Him, as my soul seeks green pastures. The grass is always greener on my side of the fence. The brook is always more refreshing. The sky is always blue.

On this side of the fence, perspective overcomes the clouds, and they become transparent.

There is great hope in Christ.

Perspective

2006-06-08T11:24:00.000-05:00

“I am weak, I am poor, I am broken, but I’m yours.”

Indeed, they often drive me to Him, as my soul seeks green pastures. The grass is always greener on my side of the fence. The brook is always more refreshing. The sky is always blue.

On this side of the fence, perspective overcomes the clouds, and they become transparent.

There is great hope in Christ.

The End Of A Group

2006-06-05T11:58:00.000-05:00

We met for the last time last night. After roughly two years, our small group appears to be finished. We had a great time last night, eating too much and laughing and talking. The Smiths brought their new baby, and he was the star attraction, of course. Mark couldn’t be with us, but when the Air Force tells you to go to Guam, one merely may ask when the jet leaves.

We talked a couple of times yesterday about how we evaluate our time together. There were some real victories. We saw answered prayers for jobs and good health. We shared burdens for non-Christian friends and family and co-workers. We reached a good level of intimacy, so we became more than a collection of strangers. We worked our way through the Book of Romans, which I thought was an excellent study time and a time of sustained growth and community development for our group. We finished up with Philippians, which was another interesting and challenging study.

I think friendships were both formed and strengthened. We have more friends now than we had before. In fact, last weekend we went to a couple of baseball games, and a different couple went with us each night. That’s really something for us, because we seldom seem to have people to do things with. Lots of good things happened.

As always, as the leader I have regrets. I made my share of mistakes. There were times I didn’t trust my own judgment, and it hurt the group. I also thought our group had the wherewithal to go where few groups go in terms of intimacy and community, but that was a misread on my part. I tried to force that on the group, and people weren’t ready for it. That created some conflict that set me reeling for several weeks. It was a great learning experience, although a dark valley at the time.

I also learned a lot about myself as a leader. I think I reinforced the belief that small group leadership is my “calling” (although I’m sure I believe in such a concept). I found that I could take some chances -- some that worked, some that didn’t. However, we had a gracious group that put up with forays into creative ways to communicate a message. I also have a gracious God who I believe smiled at my attempts to please Him.

I also learned that my desires for small groups are changing. I want something messier. I want a place where the tangles of life come apart, and get put back together in community. I want a place where people wonder if God really exists -- and others who are joyfully convinced He not only exists, but also loves us. I want a place where big questions get asked -- and take weeks, or months, to begin to find resolution. I made every attempt to be “real” (whatever that pretentious word means), but who knows if I was? No one really probed to find out … and I wish they would have. I heard others speak in Christian-speak and spiritual clichés -- and I realized that if they were telling the truth about their own lives, I was by far the worst Christian in the group. I wish my leadership skills had allowed me to unpack those discussions, but there seemed to be walls from time to time that I didn’t know how to break down.

Still, it was a good experience. How many things in life ever really live up to your dreams? Outside of my marriage (which has exceeded my wildest dreams), nothing does. You always hope for your dreams, and work toward your dreams … but learn to accept that sovereignty holds sway over human effort.

God gave me this group, and now it’s time I give it up. I’m at ease with that, even as I experience the loss a leader feels when “the flock” scatters. Sovereignty is real, and it’s comforting.

I'm STILL thinkin' 'bout eternity

2006-05-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

Psalm 103:15-17 says

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children-

We have those little white weeds/flowers in our yard. I don’t know what they’re called, but a former neighbor called them “wishies”, I guess because you’re supposed to make a wish, and then blow on them to scatter the “flower” (and the weeds) to make your wish come true.

Those weeds picture my life.

I’m back on the eternity theme again. What a contrast in these verses between the wisp of time my life is, and the unending nature of God’s mercy. My life springs up, then the wind blows across it, and it’s gone.

I’m temporary. I forget that. Actually, I’m not temporary. My life on this earth is temporary. My life is everlasting … it will never end, but it will change locations.

My future location is secure because it doesn’t depend on my choices during my little wisp of a life. It is determined by God’s everlasting mercy, not my choices.

Thank God!

Still Thinkin' 'bout Eternity

2006-05-10T11:20:00.000-05:00

I read an article today with Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo, talking about whether the current concept of Hell is really an accurate understanding of what God says about it.

I find myself generally disagreeing with both men on so many things (how interesting will it be to share Heaven with people with whom I disagree -- I wonder how wrong we'll both find out we were). However, I also find myself challenged by the questions they ask.

When I think about eternity, I think about Heaven. I don't think about Hell. Is it real? I presume so. Is it constant burning and torment? I sure hope not. Do people get a second chance after death? I don't think so, but I sure hope so. All these thoughts make my brain hurt.

I still keep thinking about eternity, and wondering what impact it should have on earth. I don't know how important earth is. I don't know how much what I do here impacts what happens there.

At one point in my life, when asked to assess the percentages about how much the gospel is about this life and how much it's about eternity, I would have said 2% now and 98% eternity.

I think I'm probably at about 25% vs. 75% now. I'm gradually understanding that there is a "now" component to Christianity. I tend to disagree with McLaren and those of his ilk, who seem to put a 98% vs. 2% emphasis on this life. I don't think they believe in a works-based salvation, but I'm not sure they think much about setting my affections on Heaven either. I'm sure McLaren could argue me under the table on that point, but McLaren won't answer to God for me -- only I will. So, I gotta go with my understanding, rather than his.

I want to make a difference here, but I want to make it because of my view of eternity. I want my earthly experience to be better both for me and others, but I suspect a sharper and more intentional focus on the next world would dramatically impact my behavior in this world.

I love the perspective of this song, written by Baxter and Stevens in 1937:

Farther Along

Tempted and tried, we're oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested though in the wrong.

When death has come and taken our loved ones
It leaves our home so lonely and drear
Then do we wonder why others prosper
Living so wicked year after year.

Farther along we'll know all about it
Farther along we'll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We'll understand it all by and by.

Faithful till death said our loving Master
A few more days to labor and wait
Toils of the road will then seem as nothing
As we sweep through the beautiful gate.

Farther along we'll know all about it
Farther along we'll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We'll understand it all by and by.

Yes, we'll understand it all by and by.

Eternity can help me understand the suffering today, by making me realize I can't understand it all in this life. I ask why because I want to understand. God doesn't always explain, but I think He always says "just wait, and you'll understand it when you get here."

Eternity keeps me humble. Is Campolo right? Am I right? Are both of us right? Are neither of us right? I don't know - but we'll find out soon enough.

Eternity keeps my head from exploding.

Where are the lions?

2006-05-08T12:54:00.000-05:00

How earthbound am I? How earthbound should I be? On the one hand, it’s all about heaven. On the other hand, this is where you put me. Psalm 103:15-16 (As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.) puts me to mind how fleeting it all is. Right now, it seems like my life on earth is the most important thing. I forget that maybe you have 500 worlds like this one, or nothing like this one. You may have innumerable planets with intelligent life on them, and we’re just one place -- not the entire focal point for you.

Or, we may be it. But even if we are, our lives are just a wisp. We’re like grass. We grow up and look pretty, but then we’re gone, and the world is not even perceptibly changed from your standpoint. The earth won’t remember who I was or where I lived. I know some people will, but they’re fleeting also. Maybe something I’ve written or said or done will get recorded and some future generation will read it … they will live fleeting lives as well.

I probably don’t think about eternity enough. If I did, maybe my sufferings wouldn’t seem so vital. OK, probably they would. I think I could still manage some self-pity, even with a proper view of eternity.

But still, it’s **forever**. Forever is a long time. That’s your view of history. It’s forever. It’s not just my life or my experiences. I forget that you aren’t all that concerned about my comfort -- especially in comparison to how concerned you are with my character. I’m not here to take it easy. I’m here to become more like Jesus, and that’s major spiritual surgery. I imagine there are days you cut deep, sometimes without anesthetic. Then, you give me time to recover, and learn that the surgery fixed an underlying problem -- even one I didn’t know about.

Do I have enough trust in you to whether than without asking why? No, not at all.

Am I supposed to? Maybe.

I don’t know the answer to that one. I can certainly see David crying out to you, and accusing you of not caring. Was David sinful in doing that? Actually, I’m not sure we know. I’m not sure about Job either. As I read the book, it was early in the process, before Job started complaining and asking why, that it says he didn’t sin. After that, Job repents, and God says that Job said the things that were right. However, we really can’t tell if he repented of sin, or just gained a better understanding. Was he turning from (repenting of) sin, or just turning from an inadequate understanding of God that did not rise to the level of sin?

Again, I’m not as confident as I used to be about that one. Sure, David was a man after your own heart, but he was also a very sinful man. How are we sure that David didn’t sin when he accused you on not paying attention? That seems to violate something -- although I can’t name what that would be.

Why isn’t asking why a sin? "Whatever is not of faith is sin." How is it that asking why isn’t a lack of faith? Who am I to expect an explanation from you? Why am I permitted the privilege of challenging your thinking?

When I think about eternity, asking why seems so short-sighted.

I don’t know.

Wonderin’ Where The Lions Are
Bruce Cockburn

Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Walls windows trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I'll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...

Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake
Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take
Pointing a finger at eternity
I'm sitting in the middle of this ecstasy

Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun,
Polished as precise like the brain behind the gun
(Should be!) they got me thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...

Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay
One of these days we're going to sail away,
going to sail into eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...

So, I woke up today, and we aren’t in nuclear war, like this song alludes, and no one took a shot at me from the hills as I drove in, and all of my senses are in reasonable working order. Things aren’t so bad … but still I want to ask why.

Why don’t I make as much money as someone else? Why do I have the physical ailments I do? Why do my kids fight so much? Why am I just a plugger, instead of someone special and notable and influential? Why don’t I have new ideas that transform the workplace, or make the world a better place? Why don’t I pray? Why do I make time for 24, but not an hour of recreational Bible study? Why, why, why? The question runs through my mind all the time.

I really hope it’s not sinful.

As Porky Pig Used To Say ...

2006-05-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

That's all, Folks.

Several weeks ago, I told my small groupthat I won’t be leading our group in the next ministry year. Now, I’m looking to this Sunday, which will be our last time together. So far, no leadership has risen up to replace me, so it appears likely this is it for our group.

There’s always a melancholy feeling for me when a group ends. This group has been an interesting one to lead.

I’ve tried more things with this group than ever before.

I’ve experienced more interpersonal conflict with this group than ever before.

I’ve experienced more personal doubts and public failures with this group than ever before.

I’ve experienced more intensely personal and challenging conversations with this group than ever before.

I’ve felt more exhilaration with this group than ever before.

I’ve felt more inadequate with this group than ever before.

The question I’m asking myself is, did we ever reach Christian community? Did we embody that? Would I even know if we did?

I think that’s a mixed bag, and hard to evaluate. We certainly had good conversations at our meetings. We certainly were friendly with each other at church. It seems like some pockets of people established community, at least in my definition -- which means that you’re together with each other outside of the small group meeting.

However, I don’t know that I ever established real community -- and it’s my fault. I’m just not the type of person that people warm up to, I guess. I experience such loneliness almost every day, even though I have a great wife and great kids and all. But, I long for the additional relationships of friends who are close and who are comfortable doing nothing together.

I don’t know if it’s realistic to expect an entire group to get to that level -- but it remains my goal. We lived it in Warsaw, IN -- and those were not ideal circumstances for us. However, we had people there who seemed to like being with us, and would do nothing with us all the time.

I miss that, I have to admit.

So, am I the black hole of emotional neediness?

Well, Do They?

2006-05-02T12:29:00.000-05:00

Do real Christians ask why?

In Phil. 4, Paul says he’s learned to be content in all circumstances. Is contentment similar to floating on a raft in a pool? Whether there are waves or no waves, I continue to float. Unless the waves get too big, I’m content either way, because I’m high and dry, and just drifting along. Does contentment imply an indifference to the circumstances? Does asking why mean I’m not content?

I hear these stories of people who have cancer or lose a child or end up paralyzed, and the highest praise they are paid is “I’ve never heard them ask God why this happened.” Is that contentment? Is that what God expects?

I ask why all the time. Why do I wake up with pain every day? Why don’t I have as much money as other people? Why was I chosen to be a Christian? Why do I keep putting more money into my car? Why don’t I get the blessings others get? Why can’t I sing and play guitar like Nate? Why don’t I have any close friends?

So, do real Christians ask why?

Trusting God with my Unhappiness

2006-04-26T07:28:00.000-05:00

I had a talk with a friend last night about the changing ways that God reveals himself to us. As I do, he has a rather academic approach to Christianity - which means that doctrine and reading and learning excite him. That’s something that has served me well as a small group leader -- I love to learn and study. I get fired up when I outline a verse, break it down into its component pieces, study it out thoroughly, and then put it back together. I think it goes along with the gift of teaching -- the gift of study is one I love having, and wish I could exercise it more.

However, he’s learning that Christianity is more than just academics. It means acting on the learning, and living it. That’s his challenge right now -- to take what he knows to be true, and act upon it. The base is established; but action has to flow out of that base of knowledge. It’s my challenge also.

I know that God is sovereign -- but am I willing to act upon it? Do I really believe that God’s in control -- enough to keep me from worrying all the time? Do I really believe it enough to be voluntarily unhappy as the price of doing the right thing? That’s always a tough one for me.

There are things that make me happy that lead me toward sinful behavior. Eating makes me happy -- but gluttony is a sin. Am I willing to trust God’s sovereignty when I’m hungry? Am I willing to be temporarily unhappy for the greater gain?

It seems like such an odd pairing, putting sovereignty together with discipline. After all, doesn’t sovereignty mean that God is in charge and will accomplish his will, whether I’m fat or thin?

Yes -- if I’m only academic. However, when I move beyond academics, I realize that sovereignty plays out in real time. My decisions somehow play into God’s sovereign control of the universe. I realize that I’m responsible for my choices.

I would be much happier if I had the $750 or so that we give each month. We certainly have plenty upon which to live, but we certainly would like to have more. We’re going to Disney World in June, and money is tight. We’re going to be in debt for a few months to pay for this trip. $750/month over the next 4 months would pay for the trip, no problem.

There’s the dilemma. Am I willing to be temporarily unhappy (and temporary means, in this case, the rest of my life -- which is still temporary) about giving $750/month (or whatever 10% ends up being), in order to gain the greater good of being obedient to Christ? Am I willing to keep giving when keeping the money for me would, at least short term, make me happy?

So far, I am. But, to do that, I have to trust in God’s sovereignty. I know that God is sovereign over my finances. However, it’s more than academic. I have to live it, not just know about it.

There have been victories, and our conversation last night reminded me of the greatest victory I’ve won in this battle.

I was a miserable single person. By the time I hit about 22 years old, I was not only single; I was alone. I was lucky to have one date/year. However, by God’s grace, I pretty much avoiding dating anyone I wouldn’t marry. There were some standards I had established as things that I considered to be non-negotiable, and I stuck to them. People ridiculed me. People told me I was being too picky. People told me I was being unrealistic. People told me that it made them sad to be alone. Heck, it made me sad for me to be alone. But, for some reason, I was able to trust God with my unhappiness.

It took seven years, but ultimately trusting God’s sovereignty paid off for me. I am married so far above what I deserve, it’s ridiculous. My marriage is an act of Grace on God’s behalf toward me. I’m glad I trusted God through those years when people and circumstances both told me that it wasn’t worth it. The result is spectacular, and I don’t believe I would have the marriage I have today if I had not trusted God, however imperfectly and impatiently, during those low times.

I had a chance to learn what David meant when he wrote that even if he walked through the valley of the shadow of death (a dark, lonely, scary place), he would fear no evil, for God was with him.

I walked through some difficult days when I was single. Unlike David, I feared “evil”. I feared being alone forever. I feared dying alone, and no one even caring. I feared every Friday and Saturday night alone. I feared that others were right -- that my standards were too high; that I was being unrealistic; that the loneliness wasn’t worth it. But, somehow, by God’s grace, I stood firm in my completely imperfect understanding of sovereignty.

And God came through for me, with a woman who is so far above my standards, and my wildest dreams.

Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits …

Afterglow

2006-04-25T07:30:00.000-05:00

I’m still rejoicing over last Sunday’s small group. What a great time to being together and of considering the Word. It was very challenging to discuss some real cut-to-the-heart issues like what role Heaven plays (and should play) in our lives, and how we spend our money.

I’m still fascinated by how resistant most of us were to truly get excited about Heaven. We carried this concern that thinking too much about heaven would make us no earthly good.

Personally, I think that old saw is heretical. If we are truly (and accurately) heavenly-minded, it has to translate into deeds on earth. If we are heavenly-minded, it must translate into doing good, because that’s what Heaven is all about. Heaven is not about a retirement plan; it’s about an active lifestyle now that is preparation for what lies ahead. I think it’s like the football team that works through summer camp and all the hot practices for the chance to play in the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl provides the motivation for the practices. The difference for Christians is that we all get to go to the "Super Bowl".

It was a fascinating discussion, and encouraging to hear others express how engaged they felt throughout the evening.

There is something so good and pleasant when we dwell together in unity. I think that’s what we did Sunday night. We disagreed on something things, but we were unified. We felt guilty about some things, but we were unified. We were confused and unsure about some things (should a Christian own a sports car?), but we were unified.

That’s why I think so many people were excited last Sunday night. It wasn’t just that we had a good, engaging, challenging discussion. It was the fact that we experienced true common-unity around the teaching of God’s word.

As a small group leader, it just doesn’t get any better.

Jesus, take a lap

2006-04-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

So the challenge for me today is to get God to run around in my head again. I’m in a spiritual dry spell. I need grace to rain down and water my soul. I need for the spring flowers of renewal to bloom again.

So, how is that I get into these messes? I know that I can’t always be on the mountaintop, but I wonder how it is that I go a couple of weeks in the spiritual desert. Why don’t I become thirsty earlier? Why don’t I seek out the oasis sooner? Why don’t I seek God and ask to be transported from the desert to Eden?

Looking at this one, I see two common errors on my part.

First, I let my disciplines slip. I’ve been out of my routine lately. We’re moving offices at work, which has fouled up my prayer schedule. I’ve been working against a ton of deadline pressures both at work and at school, so I’ve been lax in attending church and studying. I find it so frustrating that my spiritual commitment is weak enough that I can’t work around a disruption in my schedule.

Second, I’ve quit reading the Bible for myself. Instead, I’ve been reading to prepare for our small group meeting. It’s a subtle but distinct difference in approach for me. When I read for the small group, my primary thought is “what can I draw out of this to share with the group?” When I read for myself, my primary thought is “what can I draw out of this to become more like Jesus?” The practices are the same, but the end goal is entirely different. It also means that my study time can become academic, rather than redemptive.

The Prevailing Lover

2006-04-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

Psalm 103:11 -- For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.

What is great love? Your love is described as being “great”. I looked up the word, and in addition to being translated as strong, it is primarily translated as prevailing.

This is Isaiah 42:13 - The LORD will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies.

Here’s how the dictionary defines prevailing - To be greater in strength or influence; triumph; To be or become effective; win out

I like the idea of God’s love being strong enough that it will prevail. There is a war going on behind the scenes, and sin sometimes seems to be winning. It doesn’t take much news viewing to make you think the bad guys are winning.

But, God is a warrior. God is in the battle, and he will win, because His love is great. In Psalm 103:10, we see the collateral damage of spiritual warfare -- we sin, and have earned judgment. However, God chooses to forgo giving us what we warrant. Instead, he shows mercy by not giving us what we deserve. He gives us what we don’t deserve -- He gives grace because his love is stronger than sin. Wow!

There is an old hymn - “Amazing Love, how can it be, that Thou O God, shouldst die for me?” I’m not aware of a hymn that sings of Prevailing Love, but we need one. Not only did God die for me, He lives for me. He loves me with a prevailing love, a love that will win out in the end.

There is little glory in the battle. The glory comes later, when the war stories and told and retold. The glory is in the shared glances of men who shared a foxhole, who know they did a great thing for their country, and for one another. The glory comes later, when the victors -- those who prevailed -- write history.

The history of my life will be written by the One who prevailed on my behalf, and the glory will be reflected back on Him.

Father, thanks for loving me that way. Show me how to love my kids in the same way. Show me how to love my wife with a prevailing love, that wins out over opposition and problems and challenges and busy schedules and household chores and never-enough-money-for-everything.

Psalm 103:11

2006-04-03T09:33:00.000-05:00

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.

How high are the heavens above the earth? Well, if this has to do with the sun, moon and stars, they’re very high. Light years. Unfathomable distance.

We can’t even comprehend your love for us. It’s huge, it’s essentially (if not truly) limitless. It’s bigger than any human mind can conceive.

The question is why? Why would you love us like that? Why do you persist in loving people who let you down constantly?

It’s not just an occasional episode of wrongdoing. I’m totally sinful. I’m completely capable of denying you at the drop of a hat. I hope that I don’t, but I’m certainly capable of it. I’m prone to give in to sin at nearly every opportunity. Even when I don’t give in, it still tempts me greatly. I know my sins grieve you, but still you love me. I don’t get that.

It’s beyond comprehension. I guess that's the point.

Just Give Up

2006-03-28T10:25:00.000-05:00

I was reading today about how Paul had all these “things” that he could have counted on for his righteousness, but he chose instead to cash them in for the redemption that only Jesus gives.

They were things that were “good things” -- if God did indeed weigh good vs. evil on a scale, it would certainly have looked like Saul was “in”. He was a religious leader, fighting hard for the purity of the faith, as he defined it. He was a leader among leaders, keeping the law explicitly (and publicly, for all to see). However, when you look at his list, you begin to realize the sinful nature of many of those things he was doing:

Phil 3:4b-6

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; -- This was pride. Paul was basing his position on the accident of his birth.

in regard to the law, a Pharisee; -- This was arrogance and pride. The Pharisees were ostentatiously religious, and happy to lead you know it.

6as for zeal, persecuting the church; - These were actions of hate; beating and stonings in the name of God are evidences of misplaced zeal. It grows out of religious pride.

as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. - Faultless? This was lying. I’m sure they considered themselves faultless, but no one possibly could be. However, I’m sure Saul would have presented himself that way, and others did also. Once again, it’s pride.

Pride runs through all of Saul’s actions, and Paul (the new man) looks back and realizes the pointless nature of it all. Just like Jesus in Chapter 2, who humbled himself, Paul does the same thing. He sets aside all the things that bring personal pride, and humbles himself into obedience by following the teachings of Jesus -- words that remind us that we can never do enough good things to earn God’s favor. Instead, we must humbly accept that Jesus did it, and we can’t.

That is true humility. We want to prove ourselves; God wants us to give up.

So, how am I different now, compared to times when I was walking away from God? What things have I set aside?

I’ve had to set aside the myth of being in control. That is pride -- *I* am in control. Sovereignty teaches me just the opposite. I make my plans and do my best, but ultimately God is in control.

If my small group flops, I’m responsible for my leadership activities, but the results are in God’s hands. If I was faithful and it fails, God be praised. If I was faithful and it succeeds, God be praised. If I was not faithful, then I’m accountable for that -- but not for the success or failure of “the group.”

Results are in God’s hands, so I have to set aside the myth of being in control.

The more I do that, the more I find inner peace. The more I submit to sovereignty, the more I’m able to experience the peace that only God can give.

It will never be perfect peace for me; my wiring is not channeled that way. Anxiety and worry are part of my framework, and may be my thorn in the flesh. I’ve chosen to set aside the arrogance of insisting that God take it away. I’ll continue to pray that way, but the prayer must be followed with Jesus’ words “not my will, but thine be done.”

Am I willing to live with anxiety, just as others must live with a cancer that never heals, or arthritis that continuously progresses? Unfortunately, we tend to categorize mental afflictions as things that indicate sinful lifestyles, while cancer, etc. don’t carry that stigma. But I digress.

God, thanks for the progress you’ve worked in my life. I know that it is you who works in me to will and to work of your good pleasure. Thanks for being willing to take time to work on me.

Strike a match

2006-03-24T10:29:00.000-05:00

Story Side B

“Hold Me Down”

Pin it all on me He said as He turned His head to the sun
I'm the only one who can wash it all away
Take a look at yourself; Do you know when things aren't right?
Are you willing to stand up and fight? For what you say you're believing in?
We all are human we make mistakes but We were given a choice to make.

[chorus]
What do you live for? Is it something to stand for? Is it everything that you believe in and more?

A reason to give more, finally you found yours And it's everything that you believe and more
And as I look around It's impossible to deny
Even though sometimes I try You still take me back again
My God I've finally found a friend to Follow to the end

[chorus]
What do you live for? Is it something to stand for? Is it everything and more

[chorus]

You're what I live for, you're what I stand for And you're everything that I believe and more
My reason to give more, finally I found you. And you're everything that I believe and more.

This song asks, “What do you live for?” That’s a good question. (And a good song from this new group)

I’m reading the Warren Bennis book “On Becoming A Leader”. I’m about 2/3 finished with it, but his main thesis is already established. He says the true leader is someone who fully expresses him/herself, rather than someone who is seeking to prove him/herself.

Ok, it’s a little esoteric.

However, I think the main point is that people respond to passion, and passion comes from finding whatever that thing is inside you that makes you burn. Then, when you find it, you fan the flames, and invite others to come watch you burn.

So, what is it about me that makes be burn? If I fully expressed myself, what would I say?

I believe my great passion is that people read and follow the Bible’s teaching In general, that is something that has usually expressed itself in ministry to other Christians.

I am disheartened by the lack of biblical understanding among people who say they believe the Bible is directly inspired by God, and inerrant. If they believe that, why don’t they read it? Why doesn’t it change the way they live? Why don’t I read it more? Why doesn’t it change me more? Why do people believe the only way they can learn the Bible is if someone else digests it and then feeds it to them like a mother bird to a baby bird?

If I fully expressed myself, I would devote my spare time to this one pursuit … learning the Bible, and teaching it to others. It’s at the core of all that I am.

I am finding that desire beginning to express itself in a desire for non-believers to experience the Bible as well. I think it’s where the seeker small group desire is coming from. However, at this point, it’s still a side voice -- but it’s getting louder each day.

The other “voice in my head” has been screaming at me since the mid 80s. The message is that people long for community, and small groups uniquely provide that in the church.

This is something I recognized when I was helping to lead a single’s group in our church. Most of the challenges we faced were because people wanted a place to belong, and they were adamant about it.

As a society, we’re too fragmented. Heck, we have neighbors across the street who are in our small group, and we hardly ever see them. We all come home, open our garage doors from the car, and disappear into the darkness, never to be seen in our neighborhood until the next morning, when the doors go back up and we hop into our cars to leave the neighborhood.

I wonder of much workaholism results from our desire to belong somewhere. Work has become the new community, and I think that’s unfortunate. Relationships built primarily around task struggle to establish any intimacy. If you believe, as I do, that people want to know and be known (even as they deny that), then even workplace community will fall short.

I believe that a true Christian community best fulfills the desires for community. It’s a place where we can know and be known by God, and then share that with our spiritual family.

I think that’s even more powerful than the community of a family. That outside influence of the spiritual family brings vitality, enthusiasm, confrontation, encouragement, fresh ideas, different perspectives -- the ideal situation is a quality family involved in a quality small group.

Ticked off

2006-03-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

From today's prayer journal -- Thoughts on Psalm 103:8 -- The Lord ... is slow to anger.

How much do I depend upon the fact that you are slow to anger? It’s a good thing you are, because I would be a lightning rod of perpetual attraction if you were quick to anger.

How can you be so long-suffering? If anyone is justified in righteous indignation, it’s you. But, it took you 33 years before you overturned the tables in the temple. I get angry at the drop of a hat.

How can I be slow to anger with my kids? How can I be slow to anger with my co-workers, with my neighbors, with the guy who slowed me down this morning on the Parkway? What makes you slow to anger? Is there anything in this psalm that might provide clues?

Maybe it’s because you are active in working righteousness and justice -- and you’re confident in your abilities to do so at the right time. Maybe my anger with others is because I’m not willing to allow you to set the retribution timetable.

You said that vengeance was yours. I sought my own vengeance today -- not by physical attack, but by clearly expressing my unhappiness with the person who got in my way. Instead of yielding the rebuke to you, I took it upon myself. I had no biblical grounds for confrontation. All I had was a perceived personal affront, and I pounced. Forgive me for that.

Now, how do I translate that to my small group?

It’s easy as a small group leader to become impatient with people. I’m hypersensitive to any event, action or off-hand comment that causes me to believe people are unhappy with our group in any way. I don’t want to be that way, and I’ve made progress in that area. I'm gradually learning that conflict and disagreement can be very positive.

But, I’m still quick to anger -- especially anger that I turn inward. There are times I’m angry with others, but almost always, I’m angry with myself. I’m angry because I think I’ve failed you, and the people in my group, when things don’t go well. I’m angry because I know how much you can do for people, and when I’m not able to help them immediately see that, I view it as my own failure -- I get angry at myself for being ineffective.

Somehow, teach me how to be slow to anger with myself as I continually try to figure out what it means to shepherd a group of your sheep -- a group that includes me.

My heart longs to achieve significance to you. Jesus said he had completed his job; he brought glory to you. That’s what I long to do also. I want to be able to say to myself at the end of my life that I brought glory to you. Teach me; mold me; make me that kind of small group leader.

Calm In The Chaos

2006-03-06T10:38:00.000-05:00

I heard this song today -- Broken World, by the group Across the Sky.

I appreciate the thoughts in this song. I know that many people don’t feel the disappointments of life like I do -- we’re all wired differently. But, for those of you who do, maybe there’s some encouragement in her for you today. “You make sense of the madness, and You make darkness flee. You bring such a calm to the chaos in me.”

Across The Sky - Broken World

Promises shattered
Answers don't come
Friends say goodbye
Plans come undone
Dreams get crushed
Lies get told
Words can turn cruel
Hearts can grow cold

CHORUS
In a broken world where we cry to feel
Some hope that helps these hearts to heal
You're my strength, You're my refuge
In a broken world, Jesus I'm holding to You

You make sense of the madness
And You make darkness flee
You bring such a calm
To the chaos in me
Show me life
Tell me truth
Day after day I keep running to You

CHORUS
In a broken world where we cry to feel
Some hope that helps these hearts to heal
You're my strength, You're my refuge
In a broken world, Jesus I'm holding to You

Long ago, we fell so far
Yet You came to where we are

CHORUS
In a broken world where we cry to feel
Some hope that helps these hearts to heal
You're my strength, You're my refuge
In a broken world, Jesus I'm holding to You

Time With Dad

2006-03-01T10:16:00.000-05:00

For yesterday's prayer time, I picked out a couple of songs, and then wrote out prayers as I listened ...

Hi,

I want to sing to you and along with the music. Thanks for putting songs in my heart. Thanks for the worship that I sometimes feel when I sing to you. Jeff Jimerson and BE Taylor are singing Light of the Stable. How cool! It still gives me those holy goose bumps. "Hail to the newborn king." I love you, God. I give you my praise tonight. The music is transporting me into a different world tonight, where you are the at the center and everything else is forgotten.

Thanks for that holy place I just went to. It’s good to go there, and just be swept up with you. I’m so fortunate to be in Christ. I kept thinking last night about just how different I am from so many who are in my class. I have an absolute reference point for life. I don’t always look there, but it’s always there and it never moves. The ethics may shift for some, but morality for me doesn’t shift. Your teachings are constant, and valuable, and wise. My value and my consistency and my wisdom is drawn from my faithfulness to those things you have chosen to reveal to me. I bow before you in humility, recognizing that you are so far above me, so out of reach. Somehow, someway -- you remain accessible to me even when you are so utterly different from me. That’s how Jennifer Knapp can sing “Refine Me”. She’s asking for your correction because she is humble before your ways.

I sit here and question why my God love me. "Alpha and Omega, Prince of Peace, O my King of Kings. The Great I am, Jehovah Jireh cares for me. Holy One, the Holy Father, the Blessed Trinity. All Consuming Fire, burning in me." Great words from Jennifer Knapp. Jehovah cares for ME! Wow! Amazing, unbelievable. Who am I? I’m just another plugger trying to follow God in my own unperfect way -- and yet. And yet. And Yet. God loves me. No one can explain that. It creates the All-Consuming Fire that is burning in me right now. At this moment, before this keyboard, I feel invincible. I feel God’s presence, and we are a majority. What a moment.

Mercy Me -- "Take this world from me, I don’t need it any more. I am finally free; my heart is spoken for."

When I became more able to say those words, my life relaxed. When I began to not worry about promotions and paychecks and bigger houses … when I began to recognize God’s sovereignty over such things … my life just slowed down. What a beautiful thing. What a beautiful way to live. Since I was seven, my soul was spoken for. That was when God reached down in Lucille Gulobov’s 2^nd-grade boys Sunday School classroom and rescued me. However, my heart hasn’t always been spoken for. It’s been divided. But, at this point in my life, I’m closer than ever to having a *heart* that’s spoken for. Thanks for bringing me to that point in my life.

Third Day - Innocent. Our legal system declares people Not Guilty. It means there isn’t enough proof to say beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did the crime. However, God comes to me and makes me completely innocent.

"I am innocent, and I have been set free, and I no longer have chains around my feet. And no matter where I go or what they say, I am innocent."

It’s not that someone can’t prove something against me. I was just on a jury. We found the defendant not guilty. But, he’s far from innocent. He went back to jail to face seven more felony counts. He was not guilty, but not innocent. I’m innocent. God has taken away any claim that I’m guilty, and has completely wiped the record clean.

Mercy Me - I Can Only Imagine

What will it be like to see Jesus? I look forward to seeing my Dad in heaven. The earthbound part of me thinks Dad is the first person I’ll look for. I’ll bet that’s not true. I wonder how many years I’ll just follow Jesus around, just looking at Him, just being near Him …

"I can only imagine, when all I would do, is forever, forever, worship you. Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance before you Jesus, or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine …"

Leadership Assessment, Part 5

2006-02-20T12:18:00.000-05:00

Back to the Assessment ...

Is my small group Growing in these areas…

• Keeping a daily connection with God, with spouse, with family?

I don't know. Here is one of my frustrations with the level of sharing in our group. We don't talk much about this, as a general rule. I don't ask about their daily practices of spiritual disciplines, and I don't know much about the family relationships. We hear bits and pieces, but those issues are not part of our discussion. My sense is we talk about work, we talk some about ourselves personally, but not much about how Christ makes a difference in our relationships with others.

Grade - C-

• Obeying God more today than a few months ago?

I do believe this is taking place in the lives of people. There does seem to be spiritual growth. The biggest difference I'm noticing is that we have fewer "Grandma is sick" prayer requests, and more "Grandma needs Jesus" prayer requests. That indicates to me that people are developing more spiritual sensitivity in their relationships with others.

Grade - A

• Becoming more loving?

This is hard to answer. The group has always been warm and accepting. The relationships between each other seem to be genuine. I think people like each other. However, I think of loving as being action. Again, I don't know how much information I have on how much individuals are ministering to one another. I get tangential evidence this is happening, but I couldn't document it. For that reason ...

Grade - B-

• Becoming less judgmental?

I'm going to take a slightly different approach to this question, and answer it in two parts:

Are we less judgmental -- I think so. We have a current of nearly virulent anti-Catholicism that has always bothered me. I doesn't bother me theological, because I do have sharp differences with Catholicism. However, the things I hear concern me, that perhaps we don't have compassion for people who we believe to be trapped in darkness -- and that includes the hierarchy as well as those in the pews. I don't know if Catholics are biblical Christians -- I honestly don't. I just want to be sure that we aren't developing a culture where it's OK to be unpleasant toward those who we believe teach false doctrine. And I think there is some progress there.

Are we less prone to solve problems? That's not judgmental, but an area we've discussed. I think we do have more senstivity to the idea of allowing people to share their stories without "getting fixed" afterwards. I think we're developing a mindset that we need to be slow to speak and prone to listen.

Grade - B

• Becoming more serving?

I think we've always been serving as individuals -- it's a group of leaders. We never server together as a small group, but do serve together occasionally as individuals.

Grade - Individuals --A; Group - F

Mick Jagger and me

2006-02-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

Who satisfies your desires with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:5)

Satisfaction is a concept, a grace, that doesn’t come easily for me. I’m not easily satisfied. I’m always looking for more. I’m an intellectual shark, always needing to be on the move looking for the next morsel of knowledge. Sometimes, I do feel like I’m ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 3:7).

Some part of that is good. It drives me to learn more, to know more, and to more effectively lead my small group. It keeps me from being lethargic and unmotivated in study.

However, every virtue has a corresponding vice. In my case, every virtue seems to have two corresponding vices.

In the matter of learning, one of the problems can be making learning an end unto itself. I’m interested in things like the definition of words, the sentence structure, and word relationships. However, if it stops there, I’m an educated fool, because there is no corresponding transformation. The purpose of building knowledge is transformation, not intellectual ego stimulation.

The other vice is a lack of thankfulness. I’ve been fortunate to have had the time, method, and opportunity to learn. I’ve had access to vast libraries. I’ve wisely invested money in reference books to expand my resources. I’ve had opportunity to teach, which is always the best way to learn.

God has sovereignly placed circumstances in my life which have been bellows for the flames of learning. However, when I fail to be satisfied, to be thankful for the experience and process of learning, I miss out on God’s blessing.

God gives knowledge to me, and it should satisfy me. That satisfaction is probably my missing motivation. I tend to learn because I’m afraid I’ve missed something, or that I’ll teach error. How much better would it be for me to have a motivation that bubbles up from a heart that has experienced satisfaction in God’s word, and it leads me (rather than drives me) to learn more?

Lord, teach me how to experience the satisfaction that comes from your good things.

Leadership Assessment, Part 4

2006-02-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

More questions about the group today:

The Life and Ministry of my Small Group Community. Is my group…

Demonstrating the "one-anothers" of Scripture toward each other?

Well, there are 57 of them, I think, so it's hard to say. I think there is a good deal of mutual support in our meetings. I don't know much of what happens outside of the small group, however. I have to grade this out as an imcomplete, because we don't talk about these things much, so I don't know.

Raising up apprentice leader(s)?

Yes, Mark is my apprentice.

Shepherding one another by:

Making contact with my group members outside of our meeting times?

Again, this is something I don't know much about. We make contact with a few members, but not all of them. I try to take the lead by sending emails, but they don't generate a lot of "discussion" -- which is fine. They are just my attempt to communicate with others, and also to encourage a bit of group cohesion.

However, I do know there is a "girls night out" this week, and that's a step in the right direction. I'm really excited for them to have that opportunity. I hope they have more of them.
I'm grading this at B-, but that's a grade that is made somewhat out of ignorance.

Welcoming new people and facilitating follow-up as they enter our group?

This is somewhat of a non-issue, since we don't open our group up to others. I think the Adams have been folded into the group pretty well ... they seem to feel accepted and comfortable. I would have to grade us out as a "B" on this one, because I don't know that I personally have done enough to make sure the Adams' are feeling welcomed and assimilated.

Caring for the emotional and physical needs of group members (providing food/physical resources, going directly to the church benevolence ministry for specific financial needs)?

You know, I don't know about this one. I'm sure we're open to it. In fact, I'm positive if someone came to our group with a legitimate physical/financial need, we would rally in amazing fashion. I think we did that very well when Mark had his shoulder surgery.

What concerns me is that we don't hear those needs at all. Does it mean we are, as a group, not needy at all? Or does it mean we don't have the type of community where those things are open for discussion? I think emotional pains are shared, but I don't know if they are being ministered to.

Overall, here's what I'm beginning to see -- I don't know much about the lives of my group members outside of the group. I don't know if people are gathering together outside of our meetings. I don't know if they feel welcomed and included. I don't know if they have needs.

This is truly one of my failings -- I'm not certain of the state of the individual people in our group. I probably concern myself so much with "the group" that I can easily forget about "the individual". I need to find ways to improve on that.

Why I Lead A Small Group

2006-01-30T23:11:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I remembered why I am a small group leader.

In a leadership class I’m taking, a guest professor launched into a polemic on how he has told the people who work for him that there is no such thing as a bad day. He told them, and us, that bad days are only things that you construct in your mind, and there is no reason for a bad day. So, he doesn’t permit them in his office any more.

At that point, a woman in the class spoke up. She informed the professor that she recently found out her four-year daughter has leukemia. Her daughter is suffering through regular radiation treatments. Through her tears, she told him there was no way the day she found out about her daughter’s leukemia was a good day.

To my shock … to my horror, he proceeded to tell her that she could choose to make that day, and all the days of her daughter’s treatments, good days. All she had to do was to make that choice. He even told her that the death of a loved one can be, and should be considered, a good day.

Then, he went on to say that people just choose to “wallow in things such as this” instead of deciding that it doesn’t have to be a bad day. He then pointed out that Mother Teresa was “happy” in the midst of suffering, and clearly intimating that this woman should do the same in regards to her daughter’s leukemia.

I was absolutely dumbfounded by what I heard. To my shame, I never responded, and no one else did. I don’t know if it was deferential treatment to a professor or utter shock that rendered us speechless. I pray to God it wasn’t because everyone agreed with him.

I am just crushed for this poor woman. I can’t stop thinking about her. My heart is breaking for her. Her pain was publicly invalidated. How abhorrent.

Tonight reminded me just how cruel people can be to one another in the guise of “self-improvement” and “positive thinking”. What a complete lack of compassion. I can’t imagine a worldview that leads you to need this sort of thinking to survive.

That’s why I’m a small group leader.

I want to be sure people like this woman have a place to go where they are loved, not told to keep a stiff upper lip. That’s what I want my small group to be. I want it to be a place where people can acknowledge their bad days, not hide them or pretend they don’t exist. I want a small group where people come to get well, and that means they bring their pain and struggles with them and are free to talk openly about them. There is no healing in hiding a wound. There is no redemption in an imaginary reality.

Small groups can love people in a way that no other organized ministry can. Sometimes, that love is shared through wise counsel. Often, it is shared through a listening ear, an understanding touch, or a tear streaming down a compassionate face.

There is so little love in a world of positive mental attitudes and “just think happy thoughts”. I believe those views of life create a smokescreen to conceal the way that worldview breaks down in the midst of true, unexplainable human suffering. Unfortunately, I’ve known Christians who try to live this way. Fortunately, they are increasingly in the minority.

Christians are uniquely positioned to share true compassion with people who are hurting. We can do it by living with people in the real world, not an imaginary construct. We can do it by listening, by counseling, by consoling. We can do it because we have God’s love within us … and God truly cares about our bad days.

Here’s how I’m asking you to pray:

1 - Pray for this woman and her daughter. I don’t know her name or any of the circumstances, other than the fact her daughter is 4-years old, and has been undergoing treatments for the past five months.

2 - Pray for me. I have a strong desire to be able to talk to this woman next week. I want to apologize to her for what happened in our class, just on behalf of humanity. I want to encourage her to deal honestly with her pain. I want to tell her that my friends are praying for her and her daughter. If the opportunity arises, I want to assure her that God welcomes her bad days, and He desperately wants to walk with her through this process.

I realize that this may not be God’s plan for me in this situation, and obviously I will need to bow to his sovereign will. However, at this point I’m praying specifically that God will create a circumstance before, during, or after our class next Monday where I can talk with her.

3 - As hard as I’m finding it to do, please pray for the man who perpetrated this cruelty. What a sad world he must live in … a world where he needs to deny the reality of his circumstances in order to get through each day. He needs to experience God’s love as well. When he does, he can begin to give God’s love to others instead of offering a cruel, harsh, imaginary world.

Thanks for listening. Feel free to share this with others, but only with those who you believe will really join me in prayer.

Thanks

Matt

God! New and Improved!!

2006-01-25T12:23:00.000-05:00

Psalm 103:2 tells me to “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”

The passage then goes on to list some of the things God has done for us:

Forgiveness
Healing
Redemption
Compassionate Love
Satisfaction
Justice
Grace
Abundant Love
Grudge-Free Forgiveness
Understanding
Persistent Presence

Wow! That’s quite a list. What is interesting, however, is that the psalmist seemingly presents God as a product … it has benefits, it meets needs. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. Buy God, and here’s what it will do for you. It rings a little smarmy.

The word translated "benefits" seems to means works, or recompense, or dealings -- it means to remember the things God has done. That’s what the rest of this psalm does; it reminds the readers of God’s magnificence.

I’m still working out how I react to this notion of God’s benefits. I’ve always been hesitant about theology that says “Try God, and you’ll be happy!” “Try God, and your problems are solved!” On the other hand, God seems to be perfectly willing to encourage people to take him for a test drive. Psalm 34:8 tells us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” This psalm says God comes with a benefits package.

When I take a look at the list of things the Psalmist cites as reasons for praise, however, it quickly becomes clear the benefits are rooted in God’s character. God is forgiving. God does provide healing (although there is no promise it happens on this side of the grave). God loves us with great compassion. God satisfies the longing in the human heart, in a way that only He can. God understands us, and stays with us.

When I present those things as the “benefits” of knowing God, it doesn’t feel like marketing any more. Instead, it feels like a treatise on His character, and I need not fear offering that to those who have no relationship with a forgiving, healing, redeeming, compassionate, satisfying, just, graceful, understanding, constant God.

Father, thanks for these insights from your word. I pray that, if they are worthy, you will use them to encourage and bless others also. If not, then they exist for my remembrance, and that’s OK also.

Thoughts on Psalm 103:1

2006-01-20T13:08:00.000-05:00

Psalm 103:1 - Praise the Lord, O my soul ...

So, when I call you Lord, what does that mean? Well, this is the word Jehovah, which is God’s proper name. One source says it means “He Who Is” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08329a.htm).

That seems to be confirmed in other places as well. When God told Moses, I Am That I Am, I think He meant He is completely self-referential. God doesn’t need any outside validation. As humans, we look for proof that God exists, and that’s understandable. We’re rational people, and being asked to believe with no reason at all is folly. So, we can develop our proofs of God and create our arguments, and it’s all good.

But, from God’s viewpoint, it’s all unnecessary. He stands on his own, without any need of recognition from us. The Bible never argues for God. He is, regardless of our belief. If no one in the world believed in Him, He would still exist and still rule, regardless of our acknowledgement. It’s an interesting, and difficult, teaching -- but it does seem to be the Biblical treatment, based upon how God names Himself and reveals Himself to us.

When I’m called to praise the Lord, it requires me to acknowledge who God is. He is completely different from me. He isn’t a Super Man, He is God. Completely different, completely self-contained -- needing nothing from me to survive, but completely extending Himself to me because He knows I’m designed for exactly such a life. When I praise God, when I kneel before Him in respect while offering him the gift of my life, I become fully human. It is that connection with the divine that fulfills and completes my life. There is no way to explain that satisfactorily, but I can continue to testify to it.

When I kneel before the Lord, I give up my right to run the universe. That sounds ridiculous, but that’s what most people desire. We want to run things. We want to be in charge. We want to order the world in the way we wish. For some, that means winning elections and confirming Supreme Court justices. For some, that means rejecting materialism and personal property, and living simply in communes. For some, it means clawing and scratching to the top of the corporate ladder, where wealth and power give temporary meaning to an empty life.

When I acknowledge God as the Lord, as Jehovah, I lose that right. I give up the myth of personal autonomy and yield myself to the God who created me, and the people around me, and the creation upon which I live. I give God my rebellion, and He returns my life to me in abundance. I give up empty striving for completed fulfillment. No wonder we must exclaim that God is beyond understanding -- but is willingly interesting in a relationship with me just as I am.

Something to develop further …

A New Brain???

2006-01-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

I’m beginning to memorize Psalm 103 after successfully memorizing Psalm 34 over the past 6 months. I’m really looking forward to memorizing this psalm. I think there is a chance for the Word to renew my mind into a more thankful spirit, and that’s something I really need.

What does “praise” mean as used in Psalm 103? One explanation said it means “to bring a gift to another while kneeling out of respect.” (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/27_bless.html)

I love that word picture. I come before God, kneeling in respect, while presenting a gift to him. In this case, the gift is to praise him, I believe, and also the gift of my bowing before Him, recognizing my otherness from him. My life is a gift to God, just as it is a gift from God to me. It is a truly reciprocal gift that spirals upward. God gives me life, I give it back to him, he returns it in more abundant life, I return it to him in all its abundance.

I praise God when I ascribe worth to him. It is my act of recognizing his greatness, and telling him so. I do that not because God has an ego to be salved, but because I have an ego to be squashed. God doesn’t need the praise for his own sake. He is completely self-existent, and needs nothing from me to be complete.

God requires praise because it forces me to bow before him, and when I do that, I become completely human. That is the point when I begin to be transported to Eden. I come closest to what Adam must have experienced when I praise God. The closest taste of heaven I can experience is when I praise God.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sovereignty, and it is cause to praise God. My health has been up and down lately -- but God is sovereign, so I will wait on him. My health is not a surprise to him. I would like to earn more money -- but God is sovereign, so I will wait on him. My payroll stub is not a surprise to him. Our nation is at war, and terrorism is a pervasive background threat -- but God is sovereign, so I will wait on him. The future of our nation is in his hands, not our generals, not our politicians, and not our judges. It is God to rules in the affairs of men, in some majestic and mysterious way that always sees his will accomplished, and always holds us responsible for our own actions.

How great is our God!

¹ Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

² Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-

³ who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

⁴ who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

⁶ The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

⁷ He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:

⁸ The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

⁹ He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;

¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;

¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

¹³ As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;

¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children-

¹⁸ with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

¹⁹ The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.

²⁰ Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.

²¹ Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.

²² Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Leadership Assessment, Part 3

2006-01-17T11:55:00.000-05:00

Today, I'm moving into a new section of the Assessment, with the questions dealing more with the group's progress. It's another step in evaluating my performance as a small group leader.

The Life and Ministry of my Small Group Community. Is my group…
• Making intentional relational connections with people in need of Jesus and inviting them and their families into Christian community?

This questions comes at an interesting time for our group. Until last Sunday, my answer would be "I don't know". After Sunday night, I think my answer is "it seems to be heading in that direction." We were discussing spiritual New Year's Resolutions, and one of the topics that came up a lot was the desire to share Christianity with non-believers. For some, it was trying to strengthen existing relationships with those outside the faith, while others expressed a desire to begin to establish them.

We are fortunate in our group that we have one guy who is determined to be an evangelist in his workplace, and Casey's stories are a constant source of encouragement and challenge to us.

I think we're moving ahead in this area. Because of the attitude, I would rate this as a B grade.

• Facilitating group members to become involved in accountable discipleship relationships?

This is a topic that I don't believe has ever come up. I'm not aware of any move toward these relationships with other group members outside of the group. However, several women in our group are involved in a women's Bible Study at church. Several men have recently completed a leadership training course. I don't think this is something that we have even discussed in our group. I guess we would grade as an F in this area.

• Selecting a balance of study topics that address the specific growth needs of the group and, over time, give a “whole counsel of God” perspective (rather than choosing similar studies repeatedly)?

Well, let's review what we've done so far. We started with John Ortberg's "If You Want To Walk On Water" video series and book. It was Christianity 101. After that, we did a study of Romans. Then, we started Eugene Peterson's book "A Long Obedience In The Same Direction". A very good book, but didn't work for us. We're now beginning a study of Philippians. I think we're very balanced. Grade = A

Well, today was a real mixed bag. We're balanced in our study time, we're growing in our desire to reach out to others, but we're not encouraging accountability relationships. I'm not sure if this is an area we'll ever move into.

Streetwalker

2006-01-13T08:05:00.000-05:00

I had a chance to walk through some of the Oakland section of Pittsburgh today.

Usually, I'm chained to a computer at work, but I took advantage of the nice weather and the need to have some papers sent to another office and walked them over in person.

I was in a pretty good place spiritually, so I was inclined to sort of "tune in" to the people around me and try to see them from God's point of view.

What I saw was interesting, disconcerting, and eye-opening.

The predominant emotion I saw on the faces of people was boredom. They looked like they were disinterested in everything going on around them. I wondered how much they were bored, and how much they felt like the key to survival in the city is to avoid engagement with other, non-useful people. In that world, the only people with value are those who can further your career or your personal situation. If that's the case, it's sad.

There were two construction guys working on a remodeling project at one of the churches. As I walked by, they were criticizing their boss in very colorful language. The juxtaposition between the harsh language and the church in the background was odd. The answer for their anger was right behind them, but they may as well have been 1,000 miles away from a church.

I met a guy on the street who was soliciting funds for an organization called Food For Life. He said they were raising money to feed kids, and also provide job counseling for their families, so they didn't have to depend on handouts. He was a nice guy, very courteous and engaging. I told him I didn't give money in person, but if he gave me a brochure, I would be happy to take a look. He looked disappointed, and referred me to the organization's web page. Throughout, he remained friendly and polite.

He also turned out to be a liar.

The organization he cited doesn't show up on the internet. The web page link he gave me resolved to a bank in Jerusalem. He wasn't raising money for kids. Instead, it looks like he just hit on a new way to panhandle. I'll bet it's working well for him.

As I went on down the street, I passed a large Catholic church on the corner. It's a spectacular building and the interior is beautiful. As I walked past, I had the urge to go in. Something inside of me (God?) kept telling me to go inside. Very odd for me, because I'm a hard-core Reformed Protestant. But, the compulsion continued, so, I decided to go in. At the very least, it would be a nice place to sit quietly and pray for awhile, surrounded by all the beauty of the church.

On my way in, a woman rushed up to me and asked me for some spare change. I didn't give her any. I never do.

I'm looking back on that encounter and wondering about it. Because the first guy was polite and well-dressed, I assumed he was legitimate, and I was seriously interested in his cause. Because the other woman was unkempt and pushy, I assumed she was up to no good.

Why did I react that way? What about my world has so jaded me that I assume the well-dressed people are legitimate, and the poor people are liars?

I know all the stuff about not enabling people to not work and so on. But what I don't know is that woman's story.

Was she desperate, and her instinct was to go to the church and hope that the people there would have mercy? Did she have hungry kids at home with nothing to eat? Did she go home at night laughing at the people she conned that day?

Those questions really trouble me. Do I really care about the poor? Didn't Jesus care about the poor and the outcast? Would Jesus have lied to her that he had no money in his pocket, knowing that wasn't true? Was she a fraud?

Well, I went on into the church ... and walked directly into a Mass. I felt like a jerk for walking in during the middle of the service, so I just slinked into a corner of the sanctuary and began observing.

In my limited experience with Catholic Mass, it seems to me that most people couldn't wait for it to end. They look bored, they mouth the words of the liturgy in a monotone and as fast as they can.

This service was much different. In this large sanctuary, there were only about 40 people -- and I was one of the youngest by far (at age 45). The priest spoke with passion about the verse under discussion. There was a woman in front of me who was completely intense about the service. In fact, her public prayers were delivered with about the same passion as I see among the more demonstrative people in my church during a worship service. When this woman prayed the prayers, she was praying, not reciting. She was talking to someone, not performing a religious duty. She sang with a passion. She was completely engaged during that Mass.

It was quite an experience for me. It's so easy to be critical of the Catholic church -- they often make it easy. But, are there people in the Catholic Church that God has redeemed? Is it possible for someone to be redeemed despite an incomplete or even incorrect theology? Can someone grasp that grace, not works, saves you -- and come to that understanding inside the Catholic faith?

I wish I could answer those questions. The official Catholic church talks about salvation by grace, but every Catholic with whom I've spoken tells me their good works get them to heaven. The more informed Catholics do believe that grace saves them, and that grace is transmitted via the Host. Can trusting in that form of grace redeem a soul?

I don't know. It was just like the two instances of being hit up for money on the street. Do I judge other faith systems by their outward appearance, or by their individual stories? It is fraud in nice packaging? It is truth in shoddy clothing?

It was a good walk.

Small Group ministry assessment

2006-01-11T12:25:00.000-05:00

This is the assessment tool I'm using for my self-evaluation ...

http://smallgroups.com/secure/dynamics/012005news/feature3.php

Small Group Ministry Assessment

The Group Leader(s) Heart
• Am I actively modeling a Christ-centered devotional lifestyle in my relationship to God, my relationship to my spouse, and my relationship with my family (e.g. with my children)?
• Am I experiencing the nurture and safety of a leadership community and regularly attending training events with that community (group leader huddles, retreats, coaching one-on-ones, etc.)?
• Am I being prayed for, and am I praying specifically for those in my sphere of influence daily?

The Life and Ministry of my Small Group Community. Is my group…
• Making intentional relational connections with people in need of Jesus and inviting them and their families into Christian community?
• Facilitating group members to become involved in accountable discipleship relationships?
• Selecting a balance of study topics that address the specific growth needs of the group and, over time, give a “whole counsel of God” perspective (rather than choosing similar studies repeatedly)?
• Demonstrating the "one-anothers" of Scripture toward each other?
• Raising up apprentice leader(s)?
• Shepherding one another by:
• Making contact with my group members outside of our meeting times?
• Welcoming new people and facilitating follow-up as they enter our group?
• Caring for the emotional and physical needs of group members (providing food/physical resources, going directly to the church benevolence ministry for specific financial needs)?
• Growing in these areas…
• Keeping a daily connection with God, with spouse, with family?
• Obeying God more today than a few months ago?
• Becoming more loving?
• Becoming more approachable?
• Becoming less judgmental?
• Becoming more serving?

The Group Leader’s Role in the Group Gatherings and the Church as a Whole
• Within the life of the church, is our group finding a good balance between learning, service, outreach, worship, fun, fellowship and rest? Are we finding healthy balances between Life Stories and Bible Truth, between Care and Discipleship, between Kindness and Confrontation, and between Openness and Intimacy?
• Is there a larger purpose and mission in our group gatherings?
• Is the logistics of group gatherings being worked out? (where, when, food, kids involvement, etc)
• Is the group preparing for multiplication?
• As needed, are group members embracing congregation-wide service and vision?
• Is the leader or administrative person in the group keeping attendance and individual group member records for updates to the church, reports and directories?
• Am I, as a group leader, completing occasional reports and self-evaluations designed to help me with the above?

Leadership Assessment - Part 2

2006-01-11T11:57:00.000-05:00

This follows up on the post from Thursday, Jan. 5

The final two questions of the Leader's Heart assessment are:

Am I experiencing the nurture and safety of a leadership community and regularly attending training events with that community (group leader huddles, retreats, coaching one-on-ones, etc.)?
Am I being prayed for, and am I praying specifically for those in my sphere of influence daily?

Today, I'll tackle both questions.

Am I experiencing the nurture and safety of a leadership community and regularly attending training events with that community (group leader huddles, retreats, coaching one-on-ones, etc.)?

The short answer is no. One of the real struggles I have as a small group leader is the sense of being on an island. I often feel like I'm the only one leading a small group. I know I'm not, but I feel like I am. We don't have anything at our church that ties our small group leaders together. We had talked about a newsletter or something to tie people together, but I just didn't have time to do it. In the past we've tried training events, but the turnout was sparse.

The one thing I do have is a very encouraging coach. Ken is great at letting me vent things and talk things over with him. It's not really a coaching one-on-one (we don't have scheduled times or huddles -- Ken has tried, but getting people together is really difficult.) I feel bad for him. I quit coaching because no one seemed to want to be coached. It's odd that small group leaders who are committed to building community don't seem to desire it amongst themselves. Maybe I'm the weak link in the small group leader chain, but I need that extra contact. I do believe that iron sharpens iron, but the iron has to be in the same place at the same time for that to happen.

I joined smallgroups.com to see if some sense of community could happen there, but it hasn't. I don't participate in the forums like I should, which is unfortunate. It would be great to make contact with people. I have sent a couple of posts, but nothing much came of them. I should double my efforts there.

Am I being prayed for, and am I praying specifically for those in my sphere of influence daily?

The first part is hard to answer. I don't know if anyone is praying for me. I hope so, but I don't really know. No one asks me how they can pray for me, and no one tells me they're praying for me. So, I don't know.

Am I praying specifically for others? No. I have tried to establish the practice of praying for my small group members at least once every week. I was doing pretty well until the holidays hit, and now my prayer discipline is slow in returning. I don't know that I'll ever get to daily for each individual, but I would like to make it at least 2-3 times week for each person. That's a goal -- we'll see if I hit it.

So, the summary of the Leader's Heart section is that I seem to grade out OK in the modeling section, and not so good in the relational questions with other small groups and in prayer.

So, now I have something I know I can work on.

Next up is the Community assessment of our group

Leadership Assessment - Introspection

2006-01-05T15:48:00.000-05:00

I found this list of evaluation questions for a small group leader on the Small Groups website where I have a membership. Since I’ve been feeling like our small group is lacking something, I figured the best place to start the evaluation process is with me. If leadership is central to success, then I have to be brutally accountable to myself, as well as others.

So, today I’m diving in with the Leader’s Heart set of questions:

The Group Leader’s Heart

• Am I actively modeling a Christ-centered devotional lifestyle in my relationship to God, my relationship to my spouse, and my relationship with my family (e.g. with my children)?

I am assuming a devotional lifestyle means Bible Study, prayer, service, etc.

Well, with my kids, I definitely am modeling that. I eat breakfast with them every morning. During that time, I have them check me as I attempt to memorize Psalm 34. It’s amazing how much of the passage they have memorized simply by listening to me recite the psalm. It has embodied the axiom of people learning more by what they catch than by what they are taught. I don’t think the kids would have even tried to memorize a large chunk of Scripture on their own, but they’ve pretty much learned it listening to me.

In addition, they see me reading my Bible each morning at the breakfast table, and most mornings (yeah, I forget sometimes) we pray together before they go to school. We started that when Megan was having some problems with some of the girls on the bus. They were doing the typical catty girl things, and Megan was really hurt by that. So, we began praying, and shortly thereafter, the girls became nicer, and Megan was moved to a new bus route with some nicer girls! Thanks, God.

Of course, they see us going to church, serving in various capacities, and they see me leading the small group. So, I think they’re getting a balanced view of the Christian life from my example (more so from my wife, but she’s not getting evaluated here! J)

One of the best evidences that the kids are “getting it” was last night at the dinner table. We were talking about some situation that was causing me a little stress (I forget the exact topic), and Derek said, “well, we could pray that it will work out.” Not bad for an 8-year old.

In the kids area, I feel pretty good about things.

With my wife, I’m not so sure. She’s gone by the time we eat breakfast, so she doesn’t see the Bible study. I do my praying before the keyboard at work, so she doesn’t see my prayer life. We don’t pray together at home, mostly because I feel very awkward about it. I don’t know why, and I need to change that, but at this point, it just doesn’t happen, except for at the dinner table.

Karen does see me serving in various capacities, and I try to talk about spiritual things with her. That’s a little awkward sometimes, because I think she feels the need to fix the issue, and so sometimes I think it makes her uncomfortable. But, this has gotten much easier the past 6 months or so.

The other section deals with my life with God.

You know, as I look back, I think I missed the spirit of the question … even though the stuff I’ve written is still relevant. I think the idea is, am I modeling Biblical relationships with those people.

Is my relationship with my wife biblical? I think so. I think we have a marriage founded on biblical concepts. We work hard to have a marriage that is honoring to God. I don’t think we have any overt relational issues that are in direct violation of biblical teaching. There’s always room to do better, but I don’t think there is anything in our relationship that isn’t God-honoring in some way. I try to show my wife love and honor. I try to never speak poorly of her in public, or in private. I work at being supportive and encouraging. I would like to be a better husband, but I think our marriage is founded on a solid foundation.

Is my relationship with my kids biblical? Sort of. As noted above, I try to model spiritual disciplines before them. We attend church enthusiastically, and talk with them about spiritual things when the opportunities arise. However, I don’t think I really embody the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

I don’t know how much I actually impress (makes me think of pressing a seal into soft clay) biblical principles upon my kids. I don’t know that I talk about them as I’m sitting, walking, lying down and getting up. I don’t know if the words of God really permeate our home, like this passage implies. I think I’m lacking some here. It’s tempting to evaluate this in light of “other people”, but I know that’s the wrong standard. The Shema is the standard, and I’m not great at living up to it. I think I probably have a C+ grade in this area.

The final area of evaluation is my relationship with God. I think the Shema establishes a good standard for judgment again -- love the Lord with all heart and soul and strength. Boy, can anyone really say that they do this? It’s not the position of my life, but I think it is the direction of my life. I can’t always claim that I love holiness more than I love sin. I can’t always say my actions are holy and pure. My motives are always suspect. My ability to rationalize is pristine. I’m well aware of my sinfulness.

That said, I do think in the past few years I’ve been moving in the right direction. My heart is more submissive and trusting of God than it used to be. I’m much more of a holistic Christian than I used to be. I’ve made progress in my ability to pray somewhat consistently.

I think I probably grade out at a C+ or B- on this one -- not because of where I am, but because of where I’m headed.

Next time, I’ll look at the final two questions in the Leader’s Heart section.

Root Cause Analysis

2006-01-03T13:01:00.000-05:00

It’s good to be back at the keyboard. I’ve been a dry well for the past month, so I decided to take some time off from the blog.

I’ve been trying to evaluate why I’m so dissatisfied with my small group. I’ve made some strategic decisions to try to move our group deeper into its commitment to one another, but that seems to have quickly deflated. But, it seems to go deeper than that for me.

After thinking about it, I think my dissatisfaction is not so much from the leadership standpoint (although I do need to begin the evaluation process), but from the standpoint of a participant. As a member of the group, I’m not happy with the way things are going (which I think puts me in the majority!).

I see our group developing too much of a meeting mentality, and I don’t want to be in a meeting-style small group. I long for more. I long for community. I long for a small group that really does life together, to further overuse the cliché. I don’t like the once-every-two-weeks style of small group, where group interaction is limited (if that) outside of those times.

I’ve experienced community, and it’s hard to be satisfied with less. That “community” group was together a lot. We watched TV together, we played basketball together, we prayed together, we served together … we were part of each other’s lives. I know you can use the excuse of having kids, of being busy, etc., etc. -- but the truth is, we don’t desire that type of community.

If we did, we would adjust.

We would do the busy things together. We would go to the kids games together. We all eat dinner every day -- why can’t we eat it together? We go to the grocery store, we go to church, we go to the movies -- but we never do those things together.

I’m in search of a new paradigm. I’m weary of the standard “Do Announcements, do the ice-breaker, do the study” format.

I don’t care so much what “everyone got for number 3”. I’m much more interested in whether they’re praying, and if so, what about? I’m more interested in what God taught them this week from their personal reading, or from something that happened to them. I’m less interested in what they learned, and more interested in what they’re becoming.

You know what I really want? I want a small group that is socially spiritual.

I want a small group session that is just a group of people hanging out in the living room. We’re all reading the same book (maybe even a book of the Bible?), but when we get together, it’s not to answer a preset curriculum. We’re there to talk about life, and how God is relevant. I want a small group where the television is on. I want a small group that doesn’t have to cancel because the game is on. I want a small group where people are comfortable having side conversations, like you have at a party. I want a small group that is less knowledge-based. I still want knowledge to be a part of it, but not so prominent. I would rather we all just read one verse each week, and really talked about it. I want more of how the verse intersects with life, and far less time sitting around criticizing the author. I want someone to ask about my spiritual life, and be really interested in what I have to say.

I wonder if this is a pipe dream. It seems no one I know wants to have this type of community … or do they? I wonder if many people desire it, but pride and fear keeps us from it.

Are we too proud to admit we need friends? In the men’s leadership group I was in last year, most of us were too proud to admit it. We ridiculed the very idea that we needed friends -- *I* ridiculed it.

I lied.

I do want that. For some reason, I’ve not been able to develop those deep, spiritual, committed friendships I used to have -- and really miss. I have a list of acquaintances, but not that strong friendship where I feel completely comfortable just being friends.

I sometimes envy people who have that “Cheers”-type life -- a place where everybody knows your name. Although I have no desire to hang out in a bar, wouldn’t it be great to have a coffee shop like that where you could hang out with others and just be together? Or, even better, a living room?

That’s what I really want from a small group. But, there’s no way to put that demand on a group. It has to want to do the same thing.

I wonder if it could be intentional -- if a small group could be started and developed just that way. Some people use that model for accountability groups -- but even they are programmed to death. I’m weary of programs and models and formulas. I love teaching, but I want to receive as well as give at a small group meeting.

There has to be a better way -- and I have to find it. I think my spiritual and emotional stability depends on it. I’m tired of all the independence. I’m tired of inconsistent Christians who say they believe in community, but continually make lifestyle choices that deflect it. I’m tired of living a life that only exists at work and within the confines of my family. I love my family, but I want more. I need more.

I’m tired of being around people who hide emotionally, and excuse it by claiming to be “a private person”. A family that spends all of its time defending privacy is a family that lacks emotional stability. There is no intimacy in a home where everyone is determined to protect their privacy -- which is probably a refined way of saying “I don’t want anyone to know what I’m like”.

I’m also tired of being a small group utility … I don’t want to be know for my leadership skills, or for my Bible knowledge, or for being a good facilitator. I want to be a real person in my small group, and not feel like even my self-revelation is just a way to try to get others to provide a little window into their souls.

I think this is why I’ve been a dry well for the past 6 weeks or so. It seems I’ve begun to figure out why -- now I have to start figuring out how to change things.

Anticipation

2005-12-21T14:00:00.000-05:00

Anticipation is one of the best gifts God has given us. Anticipation is the chance to experience future joy right now. It is a down-payment on excitement.

Christmas is filled with anticipation. Kids can’t wait for Christmas Day to open their presents. With every day marked off the calendar, anticipation grows. The exhilaration of Christmas Eve makes it nearly impossible for kids to go to sleep. There are other times in life that create great anticipation (an imminent wedding, a reunion with an old friend, dinner at a special but long-neglected restaurant), but there is no square on a calendar more packed with anticipation than Christmas.

I already have my Christmas gift … a nifty new CD player for my car. I love it. It’s one of the best gifts my wife has ever given me. Beyond that, I don’t expect much besides maybe some socks, gum, your basic stocking-stuffer items. And I’m fine with that. I don’t need the gifts.

My anticipation grows in a different garden. Tonight at 6:00, I get to put on my extra layers of clothes, grab a flashlight, and direct traffic into the church parking lot. It is the first of eight Christmas Eve Services at Orchard Hill Church, and I get to be there, and serve.

Christmas at Orchard Hill is amazing. There have been so many transformed lives. I’ll never forget the story of the man who was out looking for a drink on Christmas Eve and followed the searchlights to what he assumed would be a party. Instead, the lights drew him to Orchard Hill, and his life is filled with a different kind of party.

This year, we’ll probably have 8,000-9,000 people are our Christmas Services. Almost all of them will go past me in the parking lot. I’ll be bundled up in warm clothes and a Santa hat precariously pinned to my stocking cap. Some of the people will be on parade, wearing their absolute finest Christmas outfits. Some will be casually dressed, a tradition that is welcomed at our church. Little boys will be wearing clip-on ties and wondering why. Their dads will be doing the same. Little girls will get to play dress-up with the new dress from Grandma.

They’ll show up from all over our area this week. Some will know what to expect, and others won’t have any idea. Some can't wait get through the doors, and others can't wait to get back home.

But, they will all bring one thing with them … a heart designed to be unsatisfied apart from God.

Some of the people will drive in totally aware of that perfect design. For them, the service will be uplifting. Their hearts, already in tune with God, will rejoice at the opportunity to celebrate Christmas.

For some, their hearts will be in neutral. It’s Christmas, that’s nice. Enjoyable music, the new pastor’s pretty good, the one woman who sang was pretty cute. But, it won’t go much further for them.

My anticipation is for those people who are coming with a desperate heart. Most of the time, you can’t tell who they are. They smile, say Merry Christmas, tell you they’re doing well … but their heart knows the lie. The heart says I don’t know how I’m going to make it through Christmas. How will I get through this service without completely breaking down in tears? Why did my husband leave? How am I going to pay the rent next month? Why did my girlfriend tell me she’d rather date my best friend? Why did Mom have to die this year? How do I explain to the kids that Santa didn’t have much money for presents this year? When am I going to give up the cocaine? Why can’t I stay away from the porn sites? What if someone finds out my gambling is out of control? Why is suicide so bad?

They’ll be there, but we’ll probably never know it. They’ll hide it, and we’re far too polite and distant to find out.

But they’ll know. And they’ll show up, desperate for something. Anything. There’s not much anticipation, just desperation.

For me, and for the others who will be serving this week, their desperation is our anticipation. We can’t wait, because we have seen what God can do in a Christmas Service. We’ve watched divorced couples get remarried. We’ve seen angry kids become humble servants. We’ve seen drug addictions broken, work addictions forsaken, empty hearts filled. Often, it started at Christmas.

That’s why I serve … the anticipation of knowing that God just might choose this night to break through all the barriers and restore a heart.

So, this week, when the cars drive by, sometimes too fast, sometimes with Mom and Dad arguing in the front seat and the kids complaining in the back seat, I’ll be praying for each car.

Praying … rejoicing … and anticipating.

I love Christmas.

Does God Know What He’s Doing?

2005-12-13T15:53:00.000-05:00

Why would God have placed me into small group leadership? That’s what I don’t get.

I’m feeling like a failure as a small group leader today. I’m afraid our group has missed the target, and that reflects back on my leadership. I wonder if my dreams for a small group just can’t be accomplished, because they aren’t realistic. Even worse, I wonder if they are realistic, and I’m just not a good enough leader to get us there.

I’m tired of being a Bible Study leader. If you knew me, you would know how odd that statement is. I’m insane about Bible Study. I believe the Bible is the only way God speaks to us. I believe that the biggest problem I see in the lives of most Christians is a lack of Bible understanding (not knowledge, by the way).

But, I no longer desire a small group that is primarily a Bible study. Life is hard, and I think we need more than Bible knowledge. We need community. We need people around us who keep us going and encourage us and minister to us. After 2 years, I still feel like our small group is more Bible Study than family, and steadily moving away from the family description.

I don’t feel comfortable calling most of the people in our group on the telephone. I feel uncomfortable emailing them. When I do email people about things, I rarely get any feedback or discussion. I wonder if they feel as uncomfortable as I do, or do they just not feel the need for community among our small group members. In either case, it seems I’ve not really cast the vision for that type of small group.

Why am I in leadership when I have never had the capacity to galvanize people to a cause? I can’t seem to do anything like that. In 5 years of inviting people to church, exactly one person has come. In three years of trying to get people to sign up for our parking team at Christmas, I have never convinced one person to help. People don’t respond to me … I wonder if I actually drive them away.

So, I am back to asking myself if God really knows what He’s doing. I know His calling on my life is to be a small group leader. I have no doubts of that.

That certainty is why none of this makes any sense. Why call me when I'm not adept at leading people. I can lead studies, but apparently not people.

Still, I will continue to lead my small group, for as long as they will permit it. I have to. I’m compelled to. This is what God made me for. I don’t see the results, and I do see my failures. But, I walk by faith, not by sight -- and I understand that today like I rarely have before.

Humiliated

2005-12-08T14:44:00.000-05:00

I'm back to thinking about Jesus' emotional life. I was reading today in Matthew 9 about Jesus' activities. He heals a woman, and everyone rejoices. Then, when he tells them he's going to heal a girl who has died, Matthew 9:24 says this:

"And they began laughing at Him."

So, there are two ways of looking at this.

We could approach it by saying that this scorn didn't bother Jesus, and he just kept on going, oblivious to the scorn of others. That seems like the more spiritual answer. I also think it's a bad way to look at the life of Jesus.

I have been laughed at a lot in my life. Some of it was self-inflicted, but some of it was just cruel. I've been made fun of because I've been fat most of my life. I've been ridiculed because of the problems I had with epileptic seizures. I've been humiliated by people making fun of my phobia when it comes to doctors.

When that happened, it hurt me. I didn't have the ability to just set it aside and keep going. It wounded me. I've spent most of my pretending it didn't, but it did. It also sidetracked me.

Now, if Jesus was not wounded when people laughed at him, how could he possibly understand me? If he was above emotions, how could he help me with mine?

I'll choose to believe that the Wounded Healer did feel the pain in this situation ... and then kept right on going, pleasing and glorifying His Father.

I think that's my task also. I don't need to pretend I have no emotions. I do have them, and it's appropriate for me to feel them. It's also appropriate for me to not give up because of my emotions. The ability to minister to others in my small group is not because I've learned to overcome my emotions, but because I'm learning to continue working and ministering and serving in the midst of whatever pain I might be experiencing.

That is such a freeing thought for me. I don't have to be bullet-proof. I can acknowledge my wounds. However, I also don't have to be destroyed by the pain. My Father understands, because His Son went through the same things.

I'm overwhelmed by the thought of God becoming man ...

The Corner of the Shawl

2005-12-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

This is a portion of an article posted on Christianity Today.com, from Rob Bell's book "Velvet Elvis." This isn't the central point of the article, but it's so interesting that I wanted to preserve it so I could find it again.

The complete article is here - http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/004/2.122.html

Shalom
The tzitzit (seet-see) first appear in Numbers 15 when God says to Moses, "Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands."

God tells his people to attach tassels to the corners of their garments so they will be constantly visually reminded to live as he created them to live.

The word in Hebrew here for "corners" is kanaf. The word for "tassel" (or "fringe") is tzitzit.To this day, many Jews wear a prayer shawl to obey this text. The prayer shawl is also in a lot of interesting places throughout the Bible. One of the most significant is in the prophet Malachi's prediction about the coming Messiah: "The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings." The word Malachi uses for wings is kanaf—the same word in Numbers that refers to the edge of a garment, to which the tassels were attached.

So a legend grew that when the Messiah came, there would be special healing powers in his kanaf, in the tassels of his prayer shawl.

Fast-forward to the time of Jesus: A woman has had an illness for twelve years and no one can cure her. She pushes her way through a crowd to get to Jesus, and when she gets close to him, she grabs the edge of his cloak. Jesus, a Torah—observant Jewish rabbi who keeps the Scripture commandments word for word, including passages like Numbers 15, would have been wearing a prayer shawl.

So when the woman grabs the edge of his cloak, she is demonstrating that she believes Jesus' tassels have healing powers. She believes that Jesus is who Malachi was talking about.

She touches his tassels and is healed, just like Malachi said.

But I don't think the physical healing is Jesus' point here. I think it is what Jesus says to her as they part ways. He says to her, "Go in peace." Shalom.

Shalom is an important word in the Bible, and it is not completely accurate to translate it simply as "peace." For many of us, we understand peace to be the absence of conflict. But the Hebraic understanding of shalom is far more. Shalom is the presence of the goodness of God. It's the presence of wholeness, completeness.

So when Jesus tells the woman to go in peace, he is placing the blessing of God on all of her. Not just her physical body. He is blessing her with God's presence on her entire being. For Jesus, being saved or reconciled to God involves far more than just the saving of your physical body or your soul—it involves all of you, living in harmony with him—body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions—every inch of our being.

End of a Journey

2005-12-01T13:14:00.000-05:00

I've just finished up a 2-year course of study with a group of men at our church. The study was based upon curriculum from Chrisitan Leadership Concepts. It was a long, often arduous experience, but as I've learned, it was a profitable time as well. I wanted to record my thoughts about CLC while they were fresh, and pay tribute to the men of our group who have had a true ministry in my life. Here's my summary of this experience:

I struggled with CLC most of the time I was in it. I think I had an inaccurate understanding of what CLC was (I thought it was much more doctrine-intensive), and after I realized that, I could never figure out exactly what I was supposed to “look like” when the 2+ years of work was over.

There were some low times as I questioned whether I should just drop out. I felt like I was being a drag on the group, and that I was neglecting my family in a sense because I was gone so many nights for what sometimes felt like very little benefit. If it hadn’t been for the initial covenant, I probably wouldn’t have lasted. But, I’m glad I did.

When I sat down yesterday and began to list the things I’ve learned, I realized that I did accrue many benefits from CLC. I found that much of what I learned did not come from the “classroom”, but instead from my classmates. Proverbs says that as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Looking back, I know that I have been sharpened spiritually because of the time we have spent together. I thank all of you for the investment you have made in my life during the past two years.

So, I sat down and wrote out the things I’ve learned from you, and from the curriculum, during the past two years. I hope you find it encouraging. Perhaps it will even call to mind some good memories for you as well. I also hope I didn’t miss someone as I copied my writings into this message …

Bob F. - I learned the value of prayer. When Bob prayed, I believed that heaven stopped to listen. I want to pray like that.

Module 1 - Closer Walk With Jesus

There is a quote from Tozer that “The presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence.” I’ve worked to be more aware of God’s presence in my daily life.

Bob N. - I remember Bob talking about how he literally heads for the hills when life starts to close in on him, and how being in nature helps to restore him. It reminded me of the ministry God’s creation can have to my soul. I want to experience God in nature like that.

Module 2 - The Exchanged Life

This module was perhaps the most life-changing of them all for me. I began to grasp what it means to say I'm God's child. Manning consistently emphasized the value of being so aware of the true life that comes from knowing Jesus that we can live without reliance on the approval and opinions of others. I struggle with desiring acceptance too much, so this really changed me -- and freed me. Here are three key quotes for me:

“The lives of those fully engaged in the human struggle will be riddled with bullet holes. Whatever happened in the life of Jesus is in some way going to happen to us. Wounds are necessary. The soul has to be wounded as well as the body.”

“The greatest fear of all is that if I expose the impostor and lay bare my true self, I will be abandoned by my friends and ridiculed by my enemies.”

“Our obsession with privacy is rooted in the fear of rejection.”

I also learned the value of sticking with a book when my initial reaction is negative.

Casey - I learned the value of truly living my faith in the workplace. I tend to take my faith undercover when I go to work. His spiritual bravado in the workplace encouraged me. I want to be bold like that.

Module 3 - Leading Your Family

The biggest lesson I learned about my family is that I am the person primarily responsible for the spiritual training and development of my kids. It's not the church's job, it's not my wife's job; the duty falls to me.

Craig - I was challenged by Craig’s generosity and compassion. Little things make a big impact. I remember the night recently when Joel learned of the loss of his grandchild. The first words out of Craig’s mouth were “if you need plane tickets, let me know.” While I was trying to digest the enormity of the situation, Craig immediately saw an opportunity to help, and dove in. I want to be caring like that.

Module 4 - Study the Bible

I was challenged by the need to do detailed Bible Study. I love doing that, and don’t do it often enough. The story of Louis Agassiz and the Fish always inspires me to pour myself into Bible Study.

Jim - I learned the value of a word well spoken. Jim has the ability to wait for the right time, and then say the right thing. His comments are well-reasoned and evidence of a deeply spiritual way of looking at life. I want to be wise like that.

Module 5 - Standing With A Friend

I learned that, despite our (OK, my) protests they are unnecessary, most men lack close male friendships … and do so to our own detriment. It was interesting that when asked to name a close friend, most of us brought up the name of someone far away.

Joel - I learned the value of a smile. I have a family member whose face is naturally a frown. She always looks unhappy. Joel has a “happy face” that is evidence of a lifetime of smiles. I want to emulate that.

Module 6 - Apologetics

I learned that the best answers to Bible questions are wrapped in gentleness and respect. Being right is not enough.

Karl - I learned that just having the “right” doctrine is not enough. Love is the balancer in the equation. I want to care for other people like that.

Module 7 - Money or the Master

I learned about the idea of strategic spending. The goal is not frugality, the goal is stewardship. I have begun to think of 100% of my money belonging to God, not just 10%. I am living on an expense account. I should be able to justify every expenditure, just as I have to do when I travel for work.

Mark - I learned again the joy a newly-forgiven person has when he is able to revel in God’s grace and forgiveness. I want to be excited about God’s forgiveness like that.

Module 8 - Evangelism/Discipleship

I learned that the goal of discipleship is to work yourself out of a job. This module was also probably the start of a changing heart toward evangelism that is beginning to express itself in my life.

Mike H. - I learned the value of intentional solitude. When Mike spoke about taking time to get away by himself to take stock of his life, I felt a desire to do that also. I want to be that intentional about my spiritual walk.

Module 9 - Leadership

I learned to be content with my giftedness, and to not envy the gifts of others. I also learned to be confident in my giftedness, because it was given to me by God.

Mike M. - I learned the value of listening to people who don’t always see things the same way I do. Although I prefer to always be right, Mike helped me realize that if I listen to other viewpoints, I learn, and sometimes even learn that I’m not as smart as I thought I was. I want to learn to be more open to listening to others.

Module 10 - How To Teach The Bible

I learned that I have much to learn from others on how to teach the Bible.

Ram - From watching Ram, I learned the value of gratitude. Ram is very aware of the difference Christ has made in his life, and is open in expressing this thankfulness to God and others. I want to be thankful like that.

Module 11 - Reforming Our Community And World

I learned that I need to be involved in alleviating some of the suffering in the world, which is all a direct result of sin. This module led me to the most practical step I’ve taken because of my CLC experience. We have “adopted” a single mother in our neighborhood and send her an anonymous $100 Giant Eagle gift card each month to help her cope with her true poverty.

Module 12 - Working In Business Based On Biblical Principles

I began to consider how to raise my son to be a man. I want to be able to allow him the freedom to express his exuberant spirit, which I rarely did growing up.

God of the Playground

2005-11-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

How many times in Psalm 34 am I told that you rescue me? I count at least 6 times where you repeat the same basic message -- you are the Deliverer God.

Verse 4 - He delivered me from all my fears
Verse 6 - He saves him out of all his troubles
Verse 7 - He delivers them
Verse 17 - He delivers them from all their troubles
Verse 18 - The Lord … saves those who are crushed in spirit
Verse 19 - The Lord delivers him from them all

Why does that matter?

It matters because I need deliverance -- sometimes from circumstances, sometimes from outside enticement to sin, but usually I need deliverance from myself. Satan isn’t my biggest enemy; I am my biggest enemy. I’m the one who gives in to temptation. I’m the one who relents and gossips. I’m the one who feels proud and arrogant. I'm the one who is easily paralyzed by fear. I'm the one who is crushed by a lack of approval. I'm the one who gives up too easily.

I especially love the picture of verses 15 & 17 - The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry -- The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

When I read those verse, I think of how I watch my kids at the playground. I keep my eye on them, and if they cry out for help, I know their voices, and I respond immediately. If one of my kids gets in trouble on the playground, they know I’m attentive to their cry. They know I will be there to rescue them.

I've discovered that because they know that, they’re much more willing to go to the playground and try things out. Risk is OK, because they know I’m right there the instant they need me. When they were younger, I was standing right beside them all the time, showing them how to use the equipment, putting my hands up so they didn’t fall off the ladder to the sliding board, and catching them at the end of the slide with words of praise for their courage in going down the slide.

As they’ve gotten older, I stand off to the side now. I still watch them, but I let them try things on their own. I let them navigate the perils of dealing with the other kids on the playground. I let them fall down and get hurt, and don’t run to them right away so they have time to see if they can handle the hurt and still move on.

I think God is a lot like that. In those areas of my life where I’m taking my first steps, he’s right there beside me. I’m in that place right now in my ministry direction. I’m not quite sure where I’m headed next, so I’m leaning heavily on God to guide me, to hold me up when I’m about to fall, and to praise me when I reach the bottom of the slide.

In other areas, I’m stronger. I’m pretty devoted to Bible Study. I’m pretty consistent in my giving patterns. In those areas, I think God stands by more and lets me make my own mistakes. It’s part of growing up. In my infancy areas, I need to be certain that I can do something, and that requires a lot of divine presence and encouragement.

As I mature, I need to try out more things, to see if they fail or not. I still need divine presence, but it's a different kind of presence. Because I know God is watching, listening, ever attentive to my cry, I am increasingly comfortable taking risks in those areas. I’m becoming better at reading people with whom I disagree, to see if I can learn more. I’m increasingly comfortable in handling our money. And I believe God is standing by, coaxing me on, reminding me that it’s OK to try things, and that if I fall, he’ll be there to pick me up, and reassure me, and convince me to go back up the ladder again.

It’s good to know that the Deliverer God is standing by as I navigate the playground of my life.

Father, thanks for your provision for me. Thanks for your constancy. Thanks for your commitment to me. Thanks for your grace and your love and your presence. I’m truly blessed, and I’m not nearly as grateful as I ought to be. But for this one moment, my gratitude is growing with me, and I have to say Thank You. Thanks for helping me to come alive.

Jesus is a scaredy-cat

2005-11-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was afraid yesterday. I had to go in for a blood test, and I don’t like them much at all.

Fear is hard for a man. It’s emasculating, at least in the American culture (I wonder if that’s true for men in every culture?). Real men aren’t afraid. Big Boys don’t cry. Those are the myths of the American male, and they are truly myths. Men do get afraid, but we're told we're not supposed to.

As I kid, my family made fun of me because I was terrified of doctors. That was worse than being afraid. They thought it was funny. I still bear the scars.

We’ve been trying to teach our son that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to do what you need to do in the midst of the fear. That’s tough, because fear paralyzes. And, in America at least, fear humiliates. No one wants to be tagged a scaredy-cat.

I bought tickets for a Pitt basketball game last night. We’ll be sitting in the upper upper-deck. I’m afraid of heights. It’s not that I’m afraid that the chair will snap off and I’ll go careening to the floor. I’m afraid of the sensation of being up high, of the churning in my stomach and the flushness of my face as my blood pressure rises.

I’ve realized that Jesus was afraid also. When you really read the account of Jesus praying in the Garden, it’s unmistakable:

When they arrived at the place, he said, "Pray that you don't give in to temptation." He pulled away from them about a stone's throw, knelt down, and prayed, "Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?" At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.

Luke 22:40-44

If you are willing to be honest about what you’re reading, instead of trying to filter it so that it goes down better, this is Jesus in weakness and fear. Jesus said “pray that you don’t fall into temptation”, and then he went to pray. Why? Because he was tempted!! He was tempted to give up, to walk away from the task. He was weak at this moment. We know that because the angel came at strengthened him. The only people who need strengthening are the weak. The strong don’t need strengthened.

Jesus was afraid, and he was a real man. He was a man’s man. But he was afraid. He was weak. And his example proves to me once again that emotions are not feminine.

Jesus: The Feminine Side?

2005-11-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

I don't know who it was that did us the great disservice of categorizing emotions as a feminine trait, but his (I'm sure it was a male) damage has lived long beyond his life.

We were talking about various grief styles, and one of the things that was said clearly equated crying and being feminine. I don't know if the speaker meant to do that (I suspect he did), but it was at least a Freudian slip.

I bought that line for many years, and ended up a tightly-wound ball of pent-up emotions. For some twisted reason, men are only allowed to have certain emotions -- anger and fury, for example. Have those emotions, and you're a "real man" with "fire in your belly". Anything else, and you're feminine. Sad.

It's a shame that more men can't admit honestly to whatever emotions they have, rather than trying to suppress them to prove their strength (and thereby prove their actual weakness by refusing to admit to what God has written inside of them). My life got much better when I began admitting to my "feminine" emotions like compassion, empathy, and the resulting tears.

Not all men are wired that way, but our ridiculous obsession with being cowboys means men who are divinely wired to feel, and feel deeply, are shut down -- just like I was.

It's caused me to start thinking about Jesus' emotional life.

I had an experience recently where I felt betrayed by someone. This person criticized me behind my back, violating the Matthew 18 principle. I felt hurt, I felt let down, I felt betrayed.

I know all the so-called manly things I'm supposed to do in those cases ... don't let them see you hurt, pretend it didn't happen, screw 'em, etc., etc. Fortunately, I'm no longer a Neanderthal. It hurt me, and I made no attempt to hide that.

I went for a long walk in the woods to try to process some of this. As I was walking, I realized that Jesus was betrayed many times. In the Garden of Gethsemene, where Jesus in all his humanity was sweating in agony as He prayed, asking His Father if there was any way for him to get out of the cross. When he finished, he looked up to find his "friends" had fallen asleep. He wanted them to pray not just for him, but with him. He didn't want to be alone, and reached out to friends, and they let him down. They betrayed him.

Peter betrayed Jesus by denying him three times. Peter probably wanted to save his own skin, because he didn't know if they were going to crucify all the followers of Jesus right along with him. After Peter denied Jesus the third time, the cock crowed, and in what must have been one of the most sorrowful and penetrating looks in all history, Jesus' eyes met Peter's, and they both knew Jesus had been betrayed.

Judas traveled with Jesus. He did ministry with Jesus. He sat at his feet and learned from the best teacher -- ever. And yet, it only took a couple of bucks for Judas to sell Jesus out. Betrayed again.

It helped me to know that Jesus was betrayed, and that he didn't make any speeches afterwards about stiff upper lips and pretending you don't feel it. I'm sure he felt the betrayal, and I'm he was with me yesterday as I walked and prayed among the trees and the overcast skies. He was with me, and he understood me completely. He knew my emotions because he had them too.

That's the comfort I find in Jesus' words "I am with you always".

Second Helping

2005-11-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was listening to Truth for Life today, and Alistair Begg made reference to a phrase "sacred excess". He was referring to our appetite for spiritual things, and that appetite is an indicator of spiritual health.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving, and it's a time of great excess. I can remember at least one time when I ate so much at Thanksgiving that I ended up in the emergency room with stomach cramps. Felt like I was going to die, but all I really needed to do was digest.

How wonderful it would be to have a spiritual appetite such that I can gorge myself on spiritual things? However, I'm not sure it's possible. When you eat to excess, your hunger is satiated and you eventually stop. With God, however, I don't believe it's possible to become satiated. In fact, just the opposite is true -- when I indulge myself in God's presence, I just want to keep going back.

When you follow the advice of Psalm 34:8 and "Taste and see that the Lord is good", you don't get full. Instead, you get more hungry. Being in God's presence makes us hunger more and more for him -- and with that indulgence, there is no need for a trip to the emergency room.

Prayer from a quiet house late on Sunday night ...

2005-11-20T21:29:00.000-05:00

It’s great to be here, actually praying on a Sunday! How often have I done this? Not many times.

I just want to be here tonight. I don’t want to ask you anything, except for my friends who are struggling in their relationship tonight. I pray for reconciliation.

I’m so glad I’m in your family. It’s nice to know I can be with you, and you will be with me, and we can be together. I can listen to music that honors and praises you. I can think about how steadfast Mount Zion is, and realize that you’re more reliable than a city on a hill. I can consider how you wrap your arms around us in a celestial hug, and I’m safe in those arms, even when the storms blow or when my way is unclear.

I’m a fortunate man, God. Your blessings are great. I’m so prone to complain, but I hope there’s a part of me that is grateful. This is a bit of a forced gratitude, but it’s a good and honest gratitude, I hope. I trust this is a step in my learning to have you at the top of my mind. My wife is great, she’s so understanding and caring. She loves me and makes me feel comfortable -- how can it be any better than that? I never imagined I could have a marriage like this. I never believed that someone would be able to accept all my problems and sicknesses and self-doubts and eccentricities -- and treat me like I’m normal in spite of all of them! I’m blessed.

Our kids are great. They’re kids, and they need persistent discipline, but they’re good kids. This weekend, Derek’s tooth fell out, and the Tooth Fairy forgot to show up, much to Derek’s disappointment. When Megan found out, she took a dollar from her piggybank and put it in Derek’s tooth pillow and tried to convince him the tooth fairy did show up after all. When kids "get it" enough that they do things like that, how can I be anything but thankful?

We have a nice house, even with the little problems like my not being able to stand up straight in much of the basement or the garage. It’s safe, it’s warm, it’s dry, it’s air-conditioned, it has running water and plenty of food on the shelves. So many go to bed tonight without a bed, or a house, or something to eat. You’ve been good to me beyond belief.

My every breath is testimony to your grace. I have offended and disappointed you so many times that any act against me would be justified. Yet, you keep showing mercy. I life because of your persistent grace. I walk and talk and see and do because you choose to withhold what I deserve, and instead give me what I don’t deserve. Your grace is amazing.

It was fun to listen to the Christian music station on the cable box today and sing along with Amazing Love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me. I had never heard that song until I went to Pensacola Christian College. That was a pretty awful experience (talk about a place that lacks grace), but I learned to love singing Amazing Love and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing before dinner. Those are great hymns, and I love singing them. Sometimes, I miss the hymns -- but love my church the way it is, and wouldn’t want a steady diet of them!

I'm thankful for my church. Orchard Hill is the ideal place to raise a family. I've learned so much about God from the teaching there. It's a place where you just can't give enough money or enough time. It's an amazing church with some incredible people, and I get to serve there. It amazes me.

God, I am truly blessed. Thanks for letting me be a part of your kingdom.

How Do You Mend A Broken Heart?

2005-11-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hi,

There are many ways we describe a broken heart.

Sometimes, it’s the result of a love gone astray. We often use that term for someone who has been abandoned by the person that seemed to be Mr. or Mrs. Right. In those cases, the heart hurts. The rejection feels terminal.

At other times, it’s death that breaks our hearts. There is no joy in the casket. The person is gone, and this side of heaven, we’ll never hear that voice or feel the embrace again. One of the most mournful things I’ve ever heard in my life was when my grandfather died. In the cultural tradition of Appalachia, the body lies in state in the home until the funeral. When it was time for the hearse to make that final drive, those of us who were pallbearers carried the body out of the house to the car. As we did, my grandmother stood behind us, chanting in the sorrowful cry of a broken heart “when he goes through that door, he won’t come home no more.” It still haunts me.

Parents often know broken hearts because of the fall of their children into sin. I had a boss once whose daughter revealed she was using cocaine. She did all the right things, going to treatment and so forth, and Joel felt relieved about that. However, it was obvious his heart was still broken. A broken heart often splinters the face.

Sometimes God breaks a heart. In that case, it’s very close to a literal break. Spiritually, God uses his Word and our circumstances to bring us to the end of ourselves, because that’s where God is. My sin can break my heart. My self-sufficiency can settle into my soul like concrete, and it takes a supernatural jackhammer to break through and cause me to see my lack.

In Psalm 34:18, God tells us he is near to the brokenhearted. He doesn’t say he’ll keep us from being brokenhearted. Instead, He promises his presence. It’s much like the doctor who tells a kid that the shot will hurt a little, but he can hold Mom’s hand. The shot is necessary for long-term health, so avoiding it isn’t an option. However, the doctor knows that the presence of one who loves us helps us endure the pain -- and the fear of the pain.

In our small group last week, we had two people who displayed every evidence of brokenheartedness.

For one person, the heartbreak was loneliness. She felt alone in the midst of her church. She felt she was being treated like a utility, instead of a person, and it hurt. Her tears said as much as her words. We all hurt for her. We were thankful she shared her pain, because it allows us to use our spiritual gifts, and gives us direction in prayer. In the end, however, we couldn’t fix her broken heart. Instead, we must commend her to God, who is close to her broken heart.

The other person gave every evidence of a broken heart, but we never heard the story. It’s hard as a small group leader to see the broken heart of one of the family, but to be forbidden from the story. It’s hard for the rest of the group as well. What do we do? I don’t know. I want to help, but help at the wrong time is piling on. What do we do? I do know. We commend that person to God. We ask God to heal the wound -- or increase the heartbreak if that is the best course. We ask God to bring our friend to the end of himself, because God lives there.

That’s why Psalm 34:18 is so important -- it reminds us that regardless of the pain, God cares and is in control. He walks with us. We want him to take away the pain, but often He doesn’t. He knows the medicine is for our long-term benefit, so He still gives us the injection despite our screams. He reminds us that He will hold us and embrace us and carry us, but he can’t take this pain for us.

God, I am humbled before your wisdom. I often rise up against it in foolish rebellion, believing that I know better than you how to run my life. I am so quick to tell you how it should be done, instead of falling before you and asking you to hold me while I walk through the valley of the shadow of pain. Remake my heart to better trust you. I long to know you not just at the end of my road, but all along the path as well.

Making The Right Play

2005-11-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

An open letter to God:

I’m changing, aren’t I? I can tell, I can feel it. And yet, in the context of you doing great work inside me, I’ve quit praying. It seems I’ve become so enamored with the results of the process, I’ve forgotten the disciplines of the process. I’ve walked away from my conversations with you.

Yes, I’m still exposing myself to the materials that are causing me to think about things I’ve never thought about. Yes, I’m growing more and more heartbroken for people who don’t know you. I’m looking for opportunities to become involved in helping people overcome the penalties of sin that we all pay, Christian or not. My heart is becoming burdened for people who don’t know Christ. I’m thinking about ministry all the time. It’s a magnificent obsession.

But, I’m not bringing those ideas back to you, so that you can sort them out for me, and speak to me. I’m become enamored with my own progress in the faith, and forgotten the source of it.

I know how frustrating it can be to watch a major league baseball player failed to do the fundamental things, like lay down a bunt in a crucial situation, or throwing behind the runner at second base.

Spiritually, I’m throwing behind the runner right now. I’m making the play, it’s just not the right one. I’m getting to the ball, stopping it from rolling to the fence. I’m keeping the batter from going to second. The problem is, I’m not stopping the other runner from advancing. When I focus on the outgrowth of your work in my heart, I do a lot of things right, but my failure to do the little things correctly hurt me, and my team.

Father, forgive me for my prayerlessness. I know it will happen again, so I won’t make any promises this time. Make me the kind of man who desires to pray. Build in my a great love for my daily conversations with you, so that it doesn’t get pushed aside by other, lesser, priorities.

Is That You?

2005-11-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

I've been seeking peace for some time.

I hear other Christians talk about experiencing peace, and I wonder what it's like. I'm usually pretty stressed, pretty intense, and pretty active mentally. I'm not sure people like me are wired to experience peace.

The problem is that's a stupid opinion. Jesus said "My peace I give unto you". If he gives peace, and I'm his child, then I'm wired for it.

But, what is it? What is it like?

Well, I think maybe I know.

I've noticed the last few days that I have a certain calmness about me. I'm still stressed, I'm still intense, and I still think too much for my own good. However, it's all undergirded by something highly unusual for me -- a general sense of ease. It's a belief that God is in control, and He is guiding me along.

What's interesting is that, although my circumstances are pretty good, they aren't perfect. I can't keep up with all my duties at work. A lot of nights we just run from one thing to the next, and that's draining. My health is up and down.

Through it all, I'm relaxed. If you knew me, you would understand how dramatic a statement that is.

God is in control, and I know it. More importantly, I TRUST HIM.

That's peaceful.

Thanks, God.

Obligation vs. Option

2005-11-07T00:00:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about Psalm 121:

¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
³ He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵ The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

The psalm seems to make some promises of physical protection, and I've found them troubling.

They're troubling because, if that is what this psalm is talking about, it means no Israelite who was traveling to Jerusalem (the context of the Psalms of Ascent - Psalm 120-134) ever slipped on the path, no one was ever harmed during any of their travels -- ever (according to verse 8).

That just doesn't match up with real life. We have promises of God's protection also, but the truth is that Christians do starve to death, they do fall down and get hurt, they die, they get cancer -- the bad things of life are not withheld from the Christian.

So, what is God saying?

I think the message is the difference between God's obligation to his people, and his optional physical care for his people.

There are plenty of promises in the spirit of Romans 8:

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

³¹What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It appears to me from that passage, which I think helps me interpret passages like Psalm 121, that God's spiritual protection is an obligation. He absolutely states that nothing can separate us from Him. That separation, in God's eyes, is what I believe He sees as the ultimate evil a human can face. To be a enemy of the God who created you, who loves you -- that is evil. For a Christian, the promise is that nothing -- hardship, sin, famine, suffering -- nothing can have that evil power of us.

In contrast, we think suffering is the greatest evil. That's why we get mad when we have pain. That's why difficulties cause us to lose heart and want to give up. It's why I want to give up sometimes. There is a part of me, the justice part, that says if I'm living a good life and trying to please God, I should get some cookies. But God says, the cookies are not the point. Don't settle for so little. Enjoy the incredible riches of unbreakable fellowship with me. Have cake, not cookies.

God does retain the option to protect us physically, but He doesn't seem to make absolute promises that Christians will never experience difficulties. Instead, somehow he decided that the way to bring glory to Himself (which is our ultimate purpose) is to let his people suffer the same things that others do. The glory is in the way the Christians journey through the sufferings, in contrast with those who have no eternal hope.

I think that's the difference between God's obligation to me, and his options before me. I need to be happier about the obligation, and roll with whatever option he takes in my life.

Mr. Howellberg

2005-10-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

In Psalm 34:11, the psalmist said "Come, my children. I will teach you the fear of the Lord."

“Will” is a strong word. It’s a word of declaration. It’s a word of confidence. I will do this. Not I will try this, or I will hope to do this, but I will do this. It’s a firm statement of confidence in his purpose and task.

I’ve been reading some about the “Jewishness” of Jesus. The Jews took this charge to instruct their children very seriously. No doubt, Joseph had a strong impact on the life of Jesus as he was growing up. It was expected in the Jewish culture. It’s reflected in the sh’ma and it’s attendant directions:

"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deut. 6:4-5)

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:6-9)

I’ve been thinking about this call to be my kids primary spiritual instructor. It’s easy to toss it back onto the church and expect them to do in 1 hour on the weekend what I could do for countless hours during the week. I need to move my focus away from supporting what the church is teaching. I need to focus on teaching, and expecting the church to support that. Of course, that presupposes that both of us are focused on accurately handling God’s word -- and emphasizes the value of both knowing God’s Word for myself and insisting my family attend a church that highly values God’s Word as well.

My prayer is that God will make of me a good Jewish father.

Isolated in Community

2005-10-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

I’m counting on Psalm 34:14 - “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry.”

Last night, I left the place where I’ve worked so hard to foster community -- and felt completely isolated.

I don’t know for sure what happened in our small group last night, and I intentionally waited for another sunrise before I put my words into print. I’ve been struggling and puzzled and lonely ever since we left.

Oddly, it isn’t that anyone said anything or did anything that directly caused my sense of aloneness. We got along very well. We had fun. We laughed a lot. We talked a lot. But, I left feeling like no one really “gets” me.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I left thinking I’m the only idiot in the group.

It all seems so easy for everyone else. They seem to be able to trust God with relative ease. I often struggle to believe He exists. They seem to have great confidence in God. I have my doubts. They seem, in the midst of struggles, to have everything all together. I, on the other hand, am like the disciples in the boat screaming at Jesus to pay attention to my fears. Why does life seem so easy for them and so terrifying to me? What is wrong with me (the universal question for people like me, I think)?

I’ve tried to figure out why I feel the way I do. I’m wondering if my frustration is that no one else seems to share my struggles. I unloaded some stuff last night, and instead of being validated that my struggles are legitimate, I heard reasons why what I’m feeling is so wrong. I must be an idiot, because other people can synthesize my lifetime of pain into one or two simple statements that should have kept me from all the pain. When I hear things like that, it confirms in my mind that I’m just missing it, that others know the secret that I can’t seem to locate.

Am I whining? I suppose so. It doesn’t seem very masculine, this inclination of mine to allow myself to actually feel my emotions. I wish I could be John Wayne. I wish I could be stoic. I wish I could just say the mantra Sovereignty and have all my emotions disappear.

But I can’t.

God, in his wisdom, has chosen the affliction of deep emotions for me, feelings that don’t go away with a few well-chosen words or the latest Christian author’s catch phrase.

I’m not sure if I’m more offended or wounded when someone considers my struggles to be unnecessary.

I think I’m offended because those snap answers just completely invalidate the process of struggle -- one that perhaps God has designed for me. Maybe this is so I can gain more insights than can be gained by clinging to a well-turned phrase. Maybe my struggle is what God expects of a person like me.

But, more than that, it wounds me that no one seems to understand what it’s like to struggle like I do. They all have answers that seem to serve them well. I can’t understand that, but I certainly envy them. I’m wounded that my experience seems to be, to them, something to be avoided. Why this compulsion to pull one another out of the struggle so quickly? Why do we fear Christians who struggle?

I feel like David when he said “no man cares for my soul.” Not that no one cares for me personally, but does anyone really care about my *soul* … that part of me that is so deep inside, a place that churns every day with doubts and fears, with confidence in God and optimism for the future?

My soul seems to make them so uncomfortable that they have to fix me right away. I know it’s because they want me to be better, and I do too. But, I’m not going to be a quickly-fixed person. My wiring is slower than that. A part of me does glory in the struggle.

This is the result of my decision about 2 years ago to allow myself the freedom to feel things inside again. I’ve shut down a lot of that, hiding behind a veneer of intellectualism and completely missing the relational side of Christianity. In many ways, I feel like I’m still dating Jesus. The relationship is pretty new to me, and I’m not sure which way it’s going. Trust is given haltingly as the relationship seems at times to be a tightrope without a net.

This is why the guiding verse of my life these days is “Jesus wept.” Why would Jesus weep over the death of Lazarus, when He knew he was on his way to raise him from the dead? I would have strutted in with all the self-importance of a magician who knows the secret to the trick. I wouldn’t have wept. I would have bragged or strutted or laughed, but never wept. But, Jesus did.

They only way I can rationalize Jesus’ willingness to weep was his willingness to embrace emotions, both for himself and for those around him. Jesus wept -- he chose to weep. He chose to feel the hurt of death and the pain of loss for those around him. He knew all the pat answers -- that God has a wonderful plan for your life; that people die because we live in a fallen world; that all we need to do is trust God and everything will be OK. But, he still wept.

Maybe he wept because he knew that his friends had suffered for three days with the loss of their brother, while He withheld the miracle in the short-term for the long-term benefit of those same people. Maybe he wept because He knew Lazarus’ resurrection meant his friends would mourn the death of the same brother two times. Maybe he wept because He personally felt the sorrow of loss of his friend Lazarus. I don’t know. I do know that Jesus wept, and that validates emotions for me.

That’s why I have to believe that God’s ear is attentive to my cry. I think it means He understands, even when others can’t.

It was strange the way I ended the small group meeting last night. I started praying, and I pretty much forgot I was in a room full of people. I laid it all out before God … my pain, my doubts, my anger at him, and my complete dependence upon Him. I have no one else. To whom else shall I go? He has the words of life.

It was a rough night emotionally. I haven’t recovered yet. I’m counting on God to provide me the only things grace promises me -- Healing and Presence. I hope they come soon.

Toys, or relationship?

2005-10-22T08:54:00.000-05:00

Why does God continue to co-exist with evil?

In writing about Psalm 121, Eugene Peterson says in “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” that the evil referred to in this psalm is the evil that unpleasant circumstances separate us from God’s purposes in our lives. He says that God’s promise of protection from evil is not a promise that Christians won’t get cancer, won’t have car accidents, won’t get fired, won’t die of starvation in Africa along with the non-believers … instead, it means that in spite of all those things, God remains steadfast in His relationship with us. Those unfortunate circumstances are not evidence that God has forsaken us. Instead, they are just like the good times of life -- experiences in which God wants to share Himself with us.

I don’t know how much I like that idea. I’m OK with the notion that when things go wrong, God is with us. I’m comforted by the fact that when bad things happen, I don’t have to look over my shoulder to see if God is zapping me with a lightning bolt. Too often, Christians want to find some sin that explains God’s “punishment” of bad times. We aren’t willing to accept that bad things happen simply because bad things happen, and God doesn’t commit to keep us from bad times.

But why? Why did Job have to suffer the loss of his wife and kids just so God could prove something to Satan? At times, Job seems like the cruelest of all stories, as if God and Satan were toying with the life of some poor unsuspecting human being.

It reminds me of an old Dan Aykroyd-Eddie Murphy movie, Trading Places, where two rich guys place a bet on whether a con artist would act differently if he were thrown into better circumstances -- in this case, having untold wealth. At the end of the movie, we learn the bet was for $1. It was just a couple of cruel people toying with the life of another person for their own amusement.

But, I have to resort back to the character of God. He says He is good. My only choices are to believe that He is good, or that He is not good.

If I believe it, I have to believe it fully. I can’t make out-clauses and loopholes for God. I see that all the time, Christians trying to make excuses for God because they don’t like the truth -- God doesn’t always seem to be very nice.

Or I can reject God completely. It’s intellectually dishonest to say the Bible is sort-of true. You can’t take a God who claims to be good and powerful and ruler over all creation, and then say “well, the nice parts of the Bible are true, but the other parts aren’t.” The Bible is either 100% true, or it’s suspect, and becomes nothing more than the latest Andrew Weil book.

So, back to the original question … why does God choose to exist in the midst of evil?

Answer - I have no idea. (FYI - the study of this topic is known as theodicy. For an excellent biblical treatment of the concept, see this Gary Crampton article.)

If I were God, I would protect my people. They wouldn’t get sick, their kids would always listen, their cars wouldn’t break down, they would never get divorced, and their kids would never do drugs. I would put them in a bubble and say to the rest of the world “Look at the benefits of knowing me -- don’t you want to sign up?”

The problem is, if I were God and did that, I would wonder all the time if the people loved me, or loved the toys. If people sought God because it meant a better life, then God is nothing more than an insurance salesman -- buy the policy, be in good hands, nothing bad will ever happen. People would sign up and pay the premiums. After all, 10% of my income is a pretty good price if it means bad things won’t happen to me. People would be standing in line to give 10%. Churches would have so much money that they could never spend it.

No, it seems that the God of the Bible has oriented himself more toward relationship than provision. The thing about relationship is that hard times show the strength of the relationship. If my wife bails out whenever things get bad, then I know that relationally things were already bad. If my friends abandon me when my money runs out, they were never really friends.

Those hard times, I suppose, are the times when God says to us “let’s see how strong the relationship is -- are you in it for the toys, or because you love Me?” That is the message of Job. God stripped all the toys away from Job -- his wealth, his family, everything. Through it all, Job never cursed God. Job was despondent. He didn’t understand. He was angry at God. But through it all, Job never walked away from God.

Why?

Job’s relationship with God was too strong for him to turn his back on God. Job couldn’t walk away, even in the midst of his bewilderment. He was mad with God, but He never hated God. Job was seeking God regardless of the toys.

That’s what Job’s counselors missed -- it’s not about the toys. Job’s relationship with God was about God. The fact God gave Job many creature comforts wasn’t Job’s reason for pursuing God. Job loved God because he loved God, not because he loved the benefits. When the toys went away, it didn’t mean God no longer loved Job.

That’s how Job could say “The Lord gave; and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I’m on a journey myself these days, to try to wean myself from seeking just the toys. I’m trying to purify my pursuit of God so that I’m seeking the only two things God promises me -- healing and presence. Healing for my sins and my hurts, even those deep cuts that no one sees. Presence because, as in Psalm 121, God is always there. The toys will come and go, and I’m terrified that God will take away my toys. My wife, my kids, my job, my house, my car, my digital cable and high-speed internet -- they’re all toys … gifts from God because He delights in me. He could take them away, and that scares me. I don’t want to be Job. In fact, when I read Job, I want to kind of hide away from God and say “don’t do that to me, I’m just a little nobody. For heaven’s sake, don’t brag about me to Satan!”

However, I need to look beyond the toys. I can be thankful for the toys, and I am. But, I need to pursue God not because of the toys, but because of God. I guess that’s the message of Job, and of Psalm 121.

Remember when ...

2005-10-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

It’s hard living with memories. I have good memories, but I have bad ones also. It seems the bad ones win the battle for air time in my mind. I don’t know how many times each day I have a memory of some stupid thing I’ve said, some ridiculous thing I’ve thought, some sin long-confessed but never forgotten. Or, I remember some wrong done against me, some cruel thing said to me, some personal snub that devalued me. When these thoughts rent space in my brain, I often feel physically ill.

I wonder what that says about me.

One thing it says is that I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, and I’ve had some bad things done to me. I have gone through some experiences that I regret and wish had never happen. I’ve had people hurt me deeply, and I’ve hurt others deeply. Although it’s easy to apply the “cancer test” (well, it could be worse, you could have cancer), I find that to be a meaningless contrast most of the time. My pain is *my* pain, and that’s what I have to deal with. If God gives me cancer, then I’ll deal with it. Until then, I probably need to be careful about making too many comparisons with others, unless they’re necessary to provide some perspective.

There are photographs of me as a kid at the beach, usually in some stupid pose.

The thing is, I wasn’t stupid. Instead, I was trying to mask the fact that I was fat, that people laughed at me, that one kid called me “Fat Matt”, and it hurt. Most of my life I’ve lived with being embarrassed that I was (and still am) fat. I thought standing in positions where my flabby chest and pudgy stomach weren't overtly seen would protect me from ridicule. Instead, I just look ridiculous.

So, why not lose the weight? I don’t know. I’m on the latest excursion into the land of diet. I’ve dropped 15 pounds (45 more to go), but I think if I got back to my high school weight of 165 pounds, I would still feel fat. That pain is drilled into my head.

The related pain is that I remember being embarrassed at the beach not only because I was fat, but also that my Dad was. I would give just about anything to have that stupid thought back. How could I have been so shallow, so harsh, so short-sighted about things?

It’s been 32 years since I was in the 7^th grade. But, I still remember being told by one of my cousins that his friend (female) said I was ugly. It’s never gone away. I still consider myself to be ugly. Now, that may be because the mirror doesn’t lie ;-), but it may also be because that pain burned itself into my soul and still hurts today. As I sit at this keyboard, those old hurts and self-doubts feel like fresh wounds.

It seems so foolish that a 45-year old man with a fabulous wife, 2 great kids, and so many other wonderfully undeserved things is still chained to the pain of what was, overall, a pretty normal childhood.

Why does it still hang on?

We’re talking about God’s providence this Sunday night in our small group. Psalm 121 is our text, and we’ll be thinking about God’s promise to guard us, to keep us from evil.

So, why did God allow (or plan, depending upon your theology) those things to happen to me? Was He guarding me when kids made fun of me? Was He guarding me when I acted like an idiot in junior high school? Was He guarding me when I made a fool of myself over some girlfriend or another in high school?

Psalm 121:7 says “The LORD will keep you from all harm - he will watch over your life;”

I have come to one realization the past couple of days … I don’t have any choice but to believe that God was indeed guarding me during those times. Not because it feels like it, not because I have some insight into God’s character I didn’t have before.

No, I have to believe it because God said so. I’ve staked my entire life, and my entire afterlife, on His character. Everything is riding on whether or not God’s word is true or not.

I believe God’s word is true in my head, but that doesn’t always work its way down to my emotions.

So, here’s the question for today … since God was guarding me when kids called me “Fat Matt”, when people laughed at me because I had seizures at school and called me “The Fainter” -- does that mean there was no harm in what they said?

Powerless?

2005-10-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

My daughter left for 3 days at a camp with her school this morning.

It's driving me crazy.

I was a reporter for several years, and every story I ever wrote, reported, or read about sexual predators keeps running through my head. I know statistically she is at no practical risk ... but all those other parents thought the same thing.

We're going to be talking about Providence in our small group this Sunday. Psalm 121 talks a lot about how God protects us. I've been thinking about that a lot as I prepare for group. Why is it that I feel so powerless when "all I can do is pray." Why do I consider that an undesireable condition?

That's simple ... the promises of God's protection don't appear to square up with real life. If God is protecting us, then why do people get hurt? Why do Christians die? Why are Christian kids sexually molested, beaten up at school, or humiliated by the ridicule of a nasty classmate? What kind of protection is that?

It's got to mean something besides God protecting me from harm. Problem is, that is the promise I want. I want God to keep me from harm. I want God to keep my kids from harm. I want God to keep my wife from harm. I don't want a promise that God will help me through the problems -- I want God to keep me from the problems.

So, Psalm 121 is very hard for me to understand, or believe. It seems like a lie. I hate to see that flowing out of my fingertips at this keyboard, but God help me, it seems like a lie.

This is Psalm 121:7 - The LORD will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life;

So why were Christians martyred? Why are Christians tortured for their faith? Why are Christians dying of cancer, and getting Alzheimer's? Exactly what harm is it that I'm being protected from?

I don't get it. So, I feel powerless.

All I can do is pray. Pray to a God whose promises seem like a lie. Pray to a God who says He is Good ... which means that everything He does is good. That includes withholding his protection from Christians. That's an unsatisfying answer, and its the tension I'll be living with this week as I prepare for our meeting Sunday night. But still, I pray, and try to believe.

This should be an interesting week ...

Devilish Big Macs

2005-10-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

Psalm 34:9 - Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

I'm on a diet right now. At first, it was exciting because I was losing lots of weight. Now that my weight loss has hit a plateau, the excitement is wearing off. Now, I’m feeling deprived because I’m not able to eat McDonald’s and pizza all the time.

The reality is, I know if I went to McDonald’s today, it wouldn’t taste that good. When I don’t eat McDonald’s, it loses its appeal quickly. (The same is not true for pizza, I must confess). After eating well for six weeks now, good food has begun to lessen my taste for greasy burgers.

But, I still feel deprived because of the limitations.

When it comes to being a Christian, I'm tempted to do the same thing … to think, "Man, it would be fun to … (insert your favorite sin here)."

I am prone to focus on what I’m “giving up”, instead of what being a Christian provides me. I have purpose, direction, and focus. I have eternal security. I have God’s constant, persistent companionship. I have community. I have significance. I have so much.

However, I still long for the McDonald’s of sin, instead of the premium steak of being part of God’s family.

My prayer today is that I’ll focus more on the so-called benefits of Christianity (I don't like the term benefits. "Benefits" makes it sound like being a Christian is a value-added experience, rather than a divine and providential gift, but it’s an expressive picture of the Christian experience) rather than the loss of the pleasures of sin for a season.

Sin’s pleasures are so temporary. There are still pleasures, but they are fleeting. The more I become like Jesus, the less I want the Big Macs of sinful behavior.

The sinful stuff just isn’t as satisfying as I imagine it to be in my less rational moments. It's being replaced by a taste for good food ... the meat Jesus spoke of when he said "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." (John 4:34).

That's a sign of spiritual growth in my life.

Satan, is that you?

2005-10-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

I told someone the other day that I thought Satan doesn't even know my name.

The more I think about it, the more I think that's true. As I understand it, Satan is a spiritual being (meaning he's not as limited by a body as we are), but he's not omnipresent. He can't be in two places at the same time.

So, if I believe Satan is attacking me, it means that out of all the people in the world, he's singled me out as the one to go after.

I just don't think I'm that important. There have got to be bigger fish to fry.

What I have to admit is that my sins and my failings are my own fault, not his. I don't need Satan to help me fail -- my own ways of failing are quite successful on their own!

Instead, I have to own my shortcomings, and recognize that they are covered by God's mercies. I need to realize that I need grace because I'm fallen, not because Satan is attacking me. Sure, he undoubtedly has his minions, and one of them may indeed be watching me ... but I have a feeling business is slow for him, because I'm pretty good at getting the job done on his behalf.

Satan isn't my problem -- I am. Protection from Satan isn't my greatest need -- grace is.

Grace - what a mess!

2005-09-30T15:10:00.000-05:00

Small Groups Conference, Session #7

John Burke

Topic - Shaped In The Chaos

This was the final session I could attend, and it was a great way to finish. An outstanding, thought-provoking session that I’m going to show to my small group.

The speaker’s comments are in plain text, mine are in italics

The Church must get messy feet, or the church will die off.

Jesus’ ministry was messy. After all, Judas was in his small group, and Jesus put him in charge of the money!

Man, I wish I had thought of this. It’s so true! Jesus knew who Judas was, what he was all about, and what he would do. And yet, Jesus still included him in his inner circle. Why? That’s worth thinking about.

The most important thing a small group leader can do is pay attention to the environment of the group.

I tend to agree, although I think ensuring that the Bible’s teachings are the basis for group discussion is also highly important … and rivals environment for primacy. That’s an undeveloped thought on my part.

Within the context of environment, he said a small group leader should:

1) Create a culture of grace-giving acceptance

We must have tremendous trust in God that He will clean up the messes.

This is soooo good! As a small group leader, I took giant steps in my development when I quit feeling responsible for the rate/pace/existence of change in my people. I had to realize that change is up to God, not me, so I should quit trying to make people change. Instead, I should concern myself with giving them the opportunity, and stop there.

We should provide people with “Grace with skin on it”.

a) Accept the person first … before they change

I wish I were better at this. I can accept people who are in need of change, but pretty respectable. I wonder how accepting I would be of an aggressive homosexual in my group, or of a couple who is living together and comfortable with it, etc. I hope I would be accepting, but I’m not sure.

b) Fix Mr. Fix-It

Help the person who wants to “fix” everybody to step back.

Yes, yes, yes!! A thousand times, yes! I get so bugged when I express a heartfelt struggle, and everyone wants to tell me either why my feelings are invalid, or what I’m doing wrong that caused the struggle. I think the fixers are well-intentioned, but usually I want to fix myself. I want others to walk with me as I figure it out, and I’ll ask for advice when I want it. Too often, offering the quick fix invalidates the person’s experience.

Grace is the foundation God uses to change people.

Yep, and we are often in the position to dispense it on his behalf -- or at least model it.

“Can people come to your small group to get well, or do they have to get well to come to your small group?”

Good question. I want to be slow to answer it.

I have to admit to myself, I am getting pretty excited about the possibility of being in a really messy group. My personal bent has always been to train the Christian, and I think it will continue to be true. That seems to be the roadmap Jesus has put before me. However, there is a part of me that would love to get so far out on the limb with God’s grace and forgiveness in a group that only God could pull it together. I wonder if I could trust Him that far?

Correspondingly, I wonder if our group is as “together” as I think? I’m scared that we might be allowing people to skate through. We had a situation in a small group a few years ago where one of the couples stopped attending, and decided to file for divorce. As a small group leader, that was painful for two reasons: 1) We didn’t even know. How could we not know? Why wouldn’t they tell us? And 2) When life got tough for them, why did they think the best way to handle it was to stay away from our small group?

Their marriage still haunts me as a small group leader. I need to be sure I’m creating an environment where those things can come to the surface, if they exist. I don’t know if I’ve achieved that in our group.

2) Create a culture of authenticity

a) Speed of the leader, speed of the team. My group will be as authentic as I am.

The need to be more of a model, and less of a “leader”, needs to be explored.

b) Find spiritual running partners

People who can work alongside you and encourage you

3) Create a culture of Growth

Come as you are, but don’t stay that way.

If you stay connected to God, fruit happens

Again, a great point. I am not a fruit producer, in my life or in the life of others. I work the soil, but God grants the growth.

Stay connected to God moment-by-moment, and be intentional about it.

Men At Work?

2005-09-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

Ever driven by one of those “Men At Work” signs on the road … and wonder where the men are, and what work they’re doing? ;-)

I think right now, I need a sign around my neck that says “God At Work”. People may ask why they can’t see him, and I’m wondering what work He’s doing, but I know He’s at work.

I’m still reeling from the Small Groups conference. It shook my spiritual equilibrium. I’m trying to determine if the anger that came out in those early blog posts is legitimate. Where they really advocating a downplaying of the Bible, or were they trying to say there is a different way to teach the Bible in this generation?

If the first is true, then my anger is legitimate. One of the things that has always scared me about the whole Seeker movement is the appearance that the Bible gets downplayed. (R.C. Sproul has an interesting article about this ... I don't agree completely with him, but it's worth considering). Too often, we forget that it is God’s Word, not methods or music or programs or the latest best-seller, that changes lives. We may use those things to establish common ground or create an environment, but a sermon without biblical content is just a talk. It is the Word that makes the different. It is the Bible that has the power to effect lasting change in a heart.

I think the criticism by those who attack the Seeker movement has some merit. (This link is to John MacArthur, who is vehemently opposed to the seeker movement. If if you disagree with him, it's a good article to read, because MacArthur, for whatever his faults, is dead-set determined to teach the Bible accurately. I respect that, and so give his opinions plenty of consideration. Points #4 and #8 are scathing -- and accurate.) I’m very sensitive to any whiff of downplaying the Bible in order to “relate better” or “present a more relevant message” or any of the other buzzwords that cover up the real outcome -- which is compromise. We forget that the world is supposed to think we’re nuts. They’re supposed to think we’re the bad guys. We forget that we’re the outsiders, and the non-Christians are the “normal” people. The natural state of man is to oppose the Bible and its teachings.

The problem is, the Bible is the only cure for what ails them … spiritual darkness. If we downplay that for any reason, we fail our God, and we fail the people who need Him (and don’t know it). I don’t want to be guilty of that.

However, if they are saying there is a different way to communicate the Bible, then I need to turn away from my anger and see if there are things I can learn from the “new thinkers” in the small groups movement. I remember when the move to a “contemporary” service was so controversial in our churches. I was angry with the “old people” who complained about the changes. If the old hymns were good enough for an earlier generation, it was good enough now, they said. We said, “times change; people change. We aren’t changing the message, just the means of delivery.”

Now, I may be one of the old people. I’m looking at the things that are being said, and I may be reacting more to the sense that the church is passing me by, and that my church isn’t going to be “my church” any more.

Fatal flaw in my thinking -- it’s never been my church. It’s God’s church, and I get to serve there.

So, that’s where God is at work right now. I can’t tell you exactly what He’s doing, but I can tell you He’s at work.

I think I’m embarking on a great adventure …

When God Sat At Our Table

2005-09-23T21:58:00.000-05:00

Our dinner plans weren’t working out. We wanted to go to the Macaroni Grill for dinner after the Small Groups Conference, but they had a 50-minute wait. Ken, Will, Margaret and I were already at the restaurant, and Tom and Kathy were going to meet us.

Disappointed, we walked over to TGI Friday’s and got a table there. It was our second choice, but at least we didn’t have to wait. In fact, they told us it would be a 20-minute wait, but we got a table in about five minutes.

When the food arrived, Ken asked Will to pray. I admit I felt pretty awkward about that. Praying at a restaurant feels weird to me. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true. Will didn’t really pray that long, but it felt like hours.

Will prayed for the conference and the food. I prayed for Will’s prayer to end.

Later in the conversation, we were talking about Hurricane Rita’s impact on New Orleans. It seemed so unfair, after all that city had just gone through with Katrina.

Tom asked me to say a prayer for the people of New Orleans.

Great. Thanks, God. I’m already feeling like everyone is looking at us, and now not only are we praying again, but I have to do it. I think God was snickering.

So, I prayed for the people of New Orleans. Quickly.

We went back to our meals and our conversation.

Then, God showed up.

Not God in the flesh. But, God definitely walked over to our table, and brought Brian with him.

Brian looked to be about 20-25 years old. None of us knew Brian. None of us had noticed Brian in the restaurant. But, God chose to bring him over to our table.

Brian had been watching us praying at our table, just as I feared.

Brian was on the downside of a awful day. Earlier on this Friday, Brian’s friend, Mike, had been killed in a car accident. A collision of metal, a broken neck, and a young man’s life was no more. Brian was left to make sense of all the pain.

Brian came over and told us he had seen us praying. He told us about Mike. He asked if we would mind, sometime, saying a prayer for Mike. He said he wanted strong people on Mike’s side.

So we prayed. Right there in TGI Friday’s. In the midst of all the noise, and the happy voices, and the beer glasses, we prayed. We asked for God’s presence in this situation. We asked God to make himself real to the family and friends as they grieved.

And we know God heard us. Because when Brian sat down at our table, God was sitting there too.

My hands are still shaking as I think about it, 90 minutes after it happened. God showed up. Brian needed God, and God showed up. He showed up in the midst of a group of people who love him. He showed up at a table where I was embarrassed to be seen talking to him.

I held Brian’s hand while we prayed. It shook some, but his grip got stronger as we prayed. I think Brian knew God was there at the table.

We may never see Brian again. We don’t know his eternal destiny, as we don’t know Mike’s eternal destiny. But I know this … Brian needed God tonight, and God showed up.

And I got to be there.

Pain

2005-09-23T18:18:00.000-05:00

Session #6

Speaker - Tom Keefer, Director of Pastoral Care, Willow Creek Wheaton

Topic -Shepherding People in Pain

Speaker’s Notes in plain text, my comments in italics

Statement by Dallas Willard

“Because God is sovereign, this world is a perfectly safe place to be.”

This statement is absolutely true, theologically.
This statement is absolutely false, experientially

Pain is the gift nobody wants. It can strengthen us, make us dependent upon God, warn us of danger, develop our character, and push us to community.

Five primary sources of Pain

1 - Choices or behaviors by other people

2 - My own choices or behavior

3 - Life in a fallen world

Includes things like sickness, pain, death, natural disaster

4 - Satan

5 - God

Ex. 4:11 -- ¹¹ The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ?

Perspectives on pain

“He has seen but half the universe who has never been shown the house of pain.” - Emerson

The truth of Romans 8:28 must inform our perspective on pain. Without a good perspective, pain will crush us.

What people in pain need

1. To be cared for

People in pain need companionship and love. Humans are amazingly resilient and can deal with incredible amounts of pain, but we can’t deal with the idea that no one cares for us.

This is so true.

2. To be listened to

What you say to a person in pain is much less important than that you show up -- the ministry of presence.

“Many a man would rather you hear his story than grant his request.” - Philip Stanhope

What listening can do

Cause people to feel valued, affirmed, supported, encouraged, and important.

Create a place of safety. When we listen well, it opens people up.

How to Listen

People send out signals to find out if you’re safe

Squarely face the person

Open posture

Lean in/forward

Eye contact

Relax

What to listen for

Within any given issue, listen for

Facts

Feelings

Thoughts

Wants and Needs

Actions taken or contemplated

3. To be prayed for

There is a powerful spiritual dynamic to prayer, but there is also a powerful emotional dynamic when someone prays for you.

Where possible, pray for the person in their presence.

4. Concrete help

Meals, visits, training/workshops, etc.

5. Resources/Referrals

Things beyond yourself or your church

6. Community

The need is heightened in pain and/or crisis.

There is a tendency for people in pain to pull back from community. We need to encourage them back into community.

The Needs Of the Person who Shepherds People In Pain

1. Balance

Balance the tension between “fix it” and “avoid it”

Balance the tension between “dependency” and “responsibility”

Galatians 6:2-5

Balance the tension between “compassion” and “boundaries”

It’s easier to go to one of the extremes of the continuum than it is to stay in the middle of a biblical tension.

2. Boundaries

Remember that your life is yours, and their life is theirs

a. Know what you’re responsible for

You are responsible to other people, but for yourself

b. Clarify the need

What exactly do you want me to do for you?

c. Know your triggers

Be aware of the buttons people can push to get at you, and make you violate your boundaries

d. Exercise your “No” muscle

e. Take your time

You don’t have to respond to every request in the moment

f. Communicate clearly

Tell people what you can and can’t do, without feeling any need to justify your response.

g. Use “I” statements

They don’t come across as judgmental

h. Be ready to absorb the fallout from maintaining your boundaries.

How to avoid burnout

1. Engage in replenishing activities

2. Cultivate life-changing, energizing relationships.

3. Build periods of silence and solitude into your life.

This is where you discover God loves you

This session was rather elementary. I would have preferred more examples and fewer bullet points, but still a good experience and a positive way to end the day.

Cloud-y Day

2005-09-23T13:55:00.000-05:00

Session #5

Dr. Henry Cloud

Turning Questions into Transformational Discussions

So, about 30 seconds into this session, I realized that I attended this same session last year, only with a different name. Thought about leaving. Glad I stayed, it was outstanding.

First off, Henry Cloud is a psychologist, and I love psychologists. I find them to be fascinating people to listen to. And, the material was still fresh, and was new to me all over again.

Cloud’s outline in plain text, my comments in italics

1. Why is this important?

2 factors that characterize good group experiences

1) Group cohesion

The “stickiness” of the group. The group is more than a group of individuals.

The key here is the need people feel for the group. If people think, “I need to get to my group”, there is a discerned need, and that’s good.

I seemed to hear this a lot when we talked about what we did over our summer vacation. Many people mentioned missing the group.

Questions are one of the most powerful tools for building cohesion. Issues of life flow from the heart. Questions can enhance vulnerability, and draw out a person’s heart.

2) Clear expectations about the purpose of the group.

2. The Power of Questions

Good questions create a learning environment, rather than a teaching environment. Questions that bring about experience create learning. The greek work for character is the word we also translate as experience.

Character change only happens when brokenness occurs. People can’t manage brokenness, they must transform it. This happens when people shut down defense mechanisms and coping mechanisms.

Brokenness is a big word in small groups right now. It’s essentially recognizing that doing things our way doesn’t work, because we’re broken. Our parts don’t fit together properly and don’t always serve us well. We can react by “dealing with it”, which involves accommodating the brokenness in ways that we can manage. Or, we can turn to God and ask him to fix it. It’s the difference between the prayer “God, help me” and “God, make me new”.

There are two kinds of experience

1) Your experience of who you are

What’s it like to be for you to be in the career you’re in?

What’s it like for you to be a dad?

2) An experience you have in the group

Encourage stories

Group has a safe, relaxing tone

3. Navigating the Truth-Life Tension

Truth and experience need to intersect in the small group. Neither is good by itself.

Truth-Life groups focus on transformation, love, and a well-ordered heart.

Ask questions that get to the real person.

4. Asking Better Questions

Open-ended questions that make everyone an expert, because everyone is an expert on his/her own experience. These questions should encourage people to talk about their experience.

Guiding Questions keep the group on track, and encourage members to deeper reflection or action. Pull from experience, toward a direction. Don’t issue parental commands; instead put the topic on the table.

How can we bring this vision to reality? Where are you with this topic?

Probing questions get under the surface and get to more. The key word in leading discussion is the word “more”. Challenge assumptions and beliefs. Get beyond the BS to the real stuff.

This is threatening to me. Concerned that it inhibits discussion.

Clarifying questions help members to understand what has been said. Clarify the contradictions in our statements, because contradiction is the essence of brokenness.

Good stuff here. It’s hard to see our own contradictions. Community can help us see the brokenness in us that we can’t see, or won’t see.

5. Discussion Killers

Judging

I violated this principle in our first session. I made a definitive statement about not putting a lot of emphasis on using “Read Through The Bible In One Year” type plans. A wise small group leader would have asked “how can daily Bible reading plans help or hurt our need to slow down when we read the Bible?” Fortunately, Rob called me on it.

Preaching

6. Remembering Process

Ask process questions … questions about the process itself. This begins with the leader’s attentiveness. Notice what people do, and ask about it.

“Have you noticed it seems dead in here tonight?”

“Why did it get so quiet when we read the Thou Shalt Not verse?”

I always feel awkward about this, because it seems like navel-gazing.

Cloud’s final statement was powerful … Small group leaders would be better small group leaders if they made fewer statements and asked more questions. Good point.

Reading about vs. Doing

2005-09-23T13:20:00.000-05:00

Session #4 - Creating Transformation Experiences In Your Group

Speaker - Dave Fleming

He had a nice outline, so again his outline is in plain type, and my comments are in italics.

Before I begin, first off the setting -- my Bible Study Denigration Awareness setting is at DefCon 2 right now, so I’m hyper-senstitive to people who are disparaging it in any way. Keep that in mind as you read. :-)

“All we do is read about drama” - That statement was made by the speaker’s son when talking about a school class. Instead of actually doing drama, they just read about how wonderful drama was. He learned the mechanism, but never got to do it. The speaker’s introductory point was that groups can fall in to the same trap -- talking a lot about life, but never doing in **in the small group setting**.

“We long for a community that experiences life more than one that dissects ideas.”

A challenging statement for me, because I like to dissect ideas. I’ve learned a lot from dissecting ideas. I need to remember to take the next step, and translate the dissected ideas into real world situations.

We need real change, not imaginary change.

He showed a quote from C.S. Lewis, who talked about how often he had dreamed of change, decided to make a change, and because he thought it, he assumed he had actually done it. He was often disappointed to find out that he had only imagined change, and had not actually made the change.

The Trek

From Holding Tank to Incubator

A Holding Tank group is on where life is put on hold when the group comes together. It is a parenthesis to life, not a place where life actually happens.

Incubating Life

Three Movements:

1 - From ideas to insights

Ideas is study that doesn’t penetrate the heart

Insight is a moment of enlightenment

I’ve been very fortunate that this is obvious to me. Study has always been about enlightenment. I learned early on that doctrine impacts life, and it isn’t just for the purpose of building knowledge. Doctrine (study of the systematic grouping of biblical teaching) must always be tied to life. This is why seminary was often boring. We learned great theology, but it was just amassing facts, not changing lives. I need to remember that this isn’t obvious to everyone.

2. - From “yesterday and tomorrow” to “right here and right now”.

Avoid the tendency to only think about what happened in the past, or focusing only on the future. Remember the moment of being together, and be together.

3 - From blah blah blah to sensitivity.

The context is sensitivity to “God moments”

Incubator groups live in the kairos experience

Kairos - a greek word that reflects the quality or dimension of a particular moment, rather than the passing of time. It’s used in Ephesians 5, where we’re told to make the most of every opportunity. Opportunity is kairos.

Kairos groups watch for the moment of potential life change.

At this point, I went on high alert. We did this exercise where he put a plant in the room, and we were supposed to let “the plant speak to us”. Yeah, I thought it was stupid also. After that, everyone was supposed to tell what the plant said. People were talking about how the plant was a symbol of growth to them, or it spoke to them about their marriage, etc., etc. The speaker then said “see, we didn’t even need to have a Bible study, and we had a moment together.”

AARRGGHH!!!!!

All of the insights that people had, grew out of their previous learning about scriptural truth. How else could they draw the analogy?? I hope we’re not a group that wants to sit and look at plants. Biblical moments are key, not just moments.

Making the Move

Creating and Incubating Transformational Experiences

Prepare

Gather attention

He did this by silent prayer and mediation to “center us down”. Groovy.

Initiate anticipation

He spoke here about the wonder of how all the decisions in all of our lives come together to put us in our small group, together, at one time. The charge to small group leaders was to remember the excitement of getting to lead a group, and how God has led people through millions of little decisions to bring them all together at this time, at this place, in this group. Pretty cool.

Observe

See together

Find the extraordinary in the ordinary (present moment) and tap the life within.

I want to be better at doing this.

Connect the message to life

Question - Ask a lot of them, and don’t be in a hurry to move on. See if a moment develops

Unearth - look for common threads in the conversation

Remember - or better, RE-member … put the pieces back together again

Imagine

What is?

What could be?

What is our part? (How do I live kairos?)

Remain

Nourish the vision of kairos

Expand

Ok, getting really squishy here. Can’t turn this into anything concrete.

Getting it together

How do start this

Risk it

Unfreeze the group - free yourself to try new things

Innovate - tap creativity

In all, a good session. I think we do this in large part, or at least I hope we do. I do want to find more ways to be active and thinking and learning during our times together. I need to be vigilant against my own tendency to love study, and make sure that, like Jesus did, teaching comes from real life, and informs real life.

I told my little group about the wine-drinking study we did last year, and they were really intrigued about how we did that. I think that night captures, in large part, what this session was advocating.

Surprised by a "liberal"

2005-09-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

Session #3

Speaker - Brian McLaren

Ok, I had a bad feeling about this one going in. I’ve read some things about Brian McLaren that haven’t impressed me. I find him to be mushy on some things, like the absolute truth of Scripture. Perhaps that’s an unfair reading of him …and it’s definitely an early reading of him. But, it’s what I brought to the table.

My opinion went further down when I read this statement in an article the conference printed to introduce McLaren. He was quoted, in the context of talking about the so-called Religious Right … “being anti-homosexual, pro-war, pro-rich and anti-environment is a very disturbed reflection of Jesus.”

Excuse me? I’m a conservative, but I’m not anti-homosexual. I’m anti-homosexuality, because I believe strongly the Bible condemns it as sin. That doesn’t make a homophobe (I’m not afraid of homosexuals), and it doesn’t make me a bigot. It makes a person who accepts God's viewpoint of homosexuality. Not homosexuals, homosexuality.

Pro-war? Does pro-war mean believing that sometimes peace comes through war? That sometimes there are things worth fighting for? If so, put me down in that category. Oh, and by the way, the Old Testament is filled with God-induced war. Unless we believe that God is just sort of making it up as He goes, and He learned in Old Testament times that war wasn’t good, we’re stuck with accepting warfare as something God, in his complete goodness, love, holiness, and justice, used.

Pro-rich? OK, he’s got me there. America is pro-rich. The American church is pro-rich.
Rationalize all you want, but it’s true. We all have more than we need, and we luxuriate in it. Look at the cars in the parking lot. Look at me. If we didn’t luxuriate in our bounty, I wouldn’t be fat.

Anti-environment? What does that mean? God is against drilling in ANWAR? That any standard for particulate matter in the air that is higher than some standard that some ivory-tower professor said was the right standard, is sinful? That conservatives prefer dirty water and dirty air?

So, in this view, real Christians are at least tolerant of homosexuality, must be complete pacifists (Hitler would love that view), and must bow down to the EPA. Please.

So, I went in pretty resistant to the guy.

Guess what? He was very good. He stayed away from the politics and what (in my early readings) appears to be some of the relativistic tendencies of the so-called Emergent Church movement. Instead, he spoke on the topic Shaped By Our Stories.

He talked about how in the past, Christians asked each other pointed questions … like “What sins have you committed since our last meeting?”; “Do you desire to be told your faults?”; and so forth. His point was not that we should restore those questions. His point was that we need to find questions to ask that open the possibility for us to share our stories.

He did a very good job of explaining why “story” is so important to spiritual growth. (Story = the truth about our lives. Story is not the same as Fantasy -- telling tales about how we want our lives to be, or leaving out the ‘bad parts’ of our human experiences, or selectively telling the parts of our story that undeservedly make us look good in the eyes of others). In fact, it’s the best explanation of it I’ve ever heard. Here are the highlights.

- Story telling causes us to reflect on our lives. When we become aware of our stories, we examine our lives. Think back … what do you remember about your early childhood? Probably, it’s just the things that you’ve told stories about. Those are the things that come back to our memory, and define our view of our personal history. The stories we tell, even if just to ourselves, determine the scripts of our lives. In some way, the stories of the past impact the stories of our future.

- Story-telling makes us accessible to others. Self-reporting our stories makes us humble. It bursts the bubble of hypocrisy.

- Story-telling helps us realize that we’re not alone -- that other people feel the same way we do. If we avoid Story, and instead tell Fantasy, then we start a form of spiritual one-upmanship, trying to top your Spiritual Giant story with my Spiritual Really Giant story.

- Story-telling causes us to start noticing things we might not have otherwise noticed. One example he gave was if we know that each small group meeting, we’re going to be asked to tell the story of a blessing we received from God, we’ll be looking for them more -- and become more aware of how blessed we really are in the process.

- Story-telling lets our stories become integrated into the biblical story. As we tell our stories, and read the Bible, we begin to see more clearly the common elements.

McLaren made the point that when God communicated with us (through the Bible), he told us stories … stories of Noah, of Jonah, of Daniel, of Peter, and of Jesus. When we pray, we tell God our stories (I love that picture!). Through Jesus, God enters our story. He drinks at our weddings and cries at our funerals.

It was really a powerful presentation on the value of telling our life stories to one another. My challenge coming away from this is figuring out how we integrate that into our small group. The trendy way is to have “My Story” in the group, where someone tells their complete story. I’m not sure I really like that idea. I think the better way is to have a group environment where we can ask questions of one another and learn from one another. I think the best way is for the small group leader to ask questions that open up opportunities for people to tell us their stories.

I Can't Relate

2005-09-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

Small Groups Conference, session #2

Speakers - Bill & Gail Donahue

OK, so in the spirit of full disclosure, I usually skip the Donahue session. I just never seem to be on the same wavelength with him. But, I went today.

Should have gone with my gut.

This really frustrated me. He spent the first 20 minutes of his session basically downplaying Bible Study in small groups. It was about how incomplete it was to observe, interpret and apply the Bible. Instead we should “listen, meditate, and respond”. First off, those look like the same things, only the second half is more squishy and “relational”.

I’m just about “related” to death out here. I don’t believe that relationship is the means to transformation, at least as it is being presented here so far. Relationship with Jesus aside from his Word, and the corresponding response of prayer, is just having an imaginary friend. Without the Word, Jesus can become anything, and anyone, I want him to be. They tried to pay lip service to the Bible, but it was all in this atmosphere that is de-emphasizing revelation for the sake of experiencing. Sorry, but experience is not the determiner of truth … Scripture is -- and it’s absolute.

Three things about this session really honked me off.

One, and it’s a trend here this year, is the assumption that I’m failing, and my small group is failing, and everyone else’s small group is failing. It’s kind of like people saying denying a drug problem is the first sign of having one. If that’s true, everyone has a drug problem, because no one can deny it. Circular reasoning at its finest. Everyone has to be failing, you’re a small group leader, therefore, you have to be failing.

Two, one of the anti-Bible Study statements was when he made fun of small group leaders who read Psalm 23, see the term shepherd, and then go do research about what a shepherd does. Somehow, that research isn’t helpful in transformation, it’s just information gathering. Then, he brings his wife onstage, who does an interesting presentation on some of the verses in the Bible about our being clay in the potter’s hands, while a potter was actually making a bowl on stage.

It really was a fascinating presentation. I guess that she saw the word “potter” in the Bible, then went and did a lot of research about what potters do, as part of her presentation on transformation.

Three, he made the point that Jesus said to the Pharisees (John 5:39) that they were just searching the Scriptures, but they never came to know Him. Nice try, but he left out a key phrase in what Jesus said about the Scriptures … “and they testify of me”. Jesus wasn’t downplaying the Bible, he was rebuking them for their inability to observe, interpret, and apply.

I’m not a happy camper after two sessions of this.

Crabby -- small group conference report #1

2005-09-22T17:39:00.000-05:00

Small Groups Conference, session 1

Speaker - Larry Crabb.

Topic - Building Intention Spiritual Formation Groups (not the announced topic, but it’s what he really talked about).

For the purposes of clarity, the notes from the session are in regular type. The things in italics are my thoughts.

On the road to transformation, there are two key truths:

1 - Nothing matters more than that followers of Jesus become people like Jesus

2 - Real change requires real community

Community allows us to see where we’re not like him. But for that to happen:

- We have to stop pretending we’re full of the Spirit when we’re dry as dust.

- We have to stop pretending we like everyone in our small group

Crabb really lives up to his last name sometimes.

- We have to stop pretending about differences and become authentic

- Others must tell us where we’re not like Jesus.

Wow. I agree (I think), but wow. What would happen in our group if we did that? I’d like to see some biblical basis for this idea. I know that Paul rebuked Peter publicly, and Jesus rebuked Jesus publicly. But, do those two examples mean that it’s normative behavior for every Christian?

To do those things, your group better be committed to the group. Their primary reason for being there can’t be to like each other, but rather to grow spiritually. Liking each other is secondary.

The aspects of building Intentional Spiritual Formation Groups (ISFG)

1) What are you after?

The Goal

What does a spiritually transformed life look like?

2) How do we get there?

The Process

Why does real change require real community?

3) What do we do?

The Plan

What happens in a group that spiritually forms its members?

The basic model of ISFGs (outline, then details)

1) Aim High

The Goal - Spirit-Alive Christianity

2) Get Real

The Process - Deepen Desire and Weaken Deception

3) Live the Vision

The Plan - Tune in to the spirit. Share stories of the soul. Relate like the Trinity

AIM HIGH

The goal is a spiritually forming life. This is not the same thing as being a good church member.

The contrast is between a “Good Enough Christian” and a “Spirit Alive Christian”

The Good Enough Christian is superficial. Three characteristics:

1 - Believe the right things (achieved by teaching)

2 - Stay moral (achieved by accountability)

3 - Keep busy (achieved by providing opportunity)

The Spirit Alive Christian has three characteristics:

1 - God-hunger.

This is a consuming hunger that possesses you, even in the midst of an argument with your spouse. A satisfied heart (winning the argument) is secondary. The goal is to seek to stir up God-hunger in my spouse, even in those circumstances. This is what allows you to take care of your mother even when there are nails in your hands.

2 - Kingdom-hunger

I long to reveal God to other people, no matter how they treat me.

3 - Holiness-hunger

I hate sin more than I love its pleasure

This one hits me hard. There are a lot of sins that I avoid because I’m supposed to. In my honest moments, I know my “holiness” is more discipline than desire. I know that there are a lot of times I would rather gossip at lunch than to go to my office to pray in that same time (my common practice). I would rather keep some of the 10% I give, because I want the stuff. There’s a part of me that truly wants to give it, but I confess I often look wistfully at that money and think “You know, if I cut back to 5% …” I love the sin of materialism (and its adulterous sister, creature comfort) far more than the holiness of joyfully giving back to God what is His already.

The idea of a Good Enough Christian is a very good one. One of my spiritual fears is that I’m settling for an average Christian walk, when God may have something so much greater for me.

THE PROCESS

The only place to experience real life-changing dynamics is a small group. It’s the only place you can look really bad in the atmosphere of love.

I don’t accept that it’s the only place (the home certainly seems like another place it could happen, as do friendships), but I do agree the small group is the only place in the organized church that this happens. I love this thought … in the ideal small group, a person should be able to come with all their pain and baggage, unload it, and even be rebuked for it, if necessary -- but never doubt he or she is loved. I don’t know if our group is at that point. We’ve seen some pain, we’ve walked through some external crises together, and we’ve heard some people express things they weren’t proud of. I don’t know if they felt loved afterwards. Something to think about.

Deepening Desire - The process calls on every person to desire only what grace provides. Grace does not guarantee, or even offer, better families, better ministries, or better friendships. Grace guarantees God and his favor.

I thought this was Crabb’s strongest point. We tend to believe that, if we do the right things, it will all work out. I remember when JoAnn took a courageous stand at work against some unethical behavior by her boss, and it cost her (and is still costing her, at least in the emotional atmosphere of the office). I tried to be very careful to not say “this will all work out in the end”, because I don’t believe that -- at least not in a temporal sense. It was quite possible that she would have taken the courageous stand, and it wouldn’t have gotten better. It was quite possible she could lose her job, and not find another job for 3 years. Or never. Grace doesn’t promise that our lives will go well. Grace doesn’t promise a free pass from cancer, or divorce, or depression, or unemployment. Grace offers two things:

1 - Forgiveness

2 - Presence

Jesus was very clear that we are to seek His Kingdom, and let him take care of the details. Sometimes, he takes care of them in ways we don’t like. At that point, trust has to kick in. That trust is what deepens desire, and it then becomes an upward spiral. God gives grace, I trust him, God gives grace, I trust him. All my other desires, although they still exist, are secondary to my trust of him. Easy words to type into a computer. Hard words to live out in real life. Community helps.

Weakening Deception - Sin, especially relational sin (sins against others, or odious to others) requires loving exposure, or we remain blind.

ISFG groups provide:

The safety of Grace - I accept you where you are

The excitement of Hope - I envision where you could be

THE PLAN

Tune in to the Spirit - Prepare our hearts

Share/listen to stories of the soul - Present ourselves to one another. Don’t worry about being vulnerable, it’s the wrong word. The right word is authentic

This is an interesting point. Vulnerability means I trust you, so I’ll tell you about me, knowing you won’t hurt me. Authenticity means I’ll tell you about me, then I’ll trust God to walk with me even if you hurt me.

Relate like the Trinity - Pour what’s most alive in me into you, and vice versa

Crabb likes to get mystical, and this was one of those times. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

I don’t get Crabb very often. I used to really like him, and I think he wrote the absolute best book on marriage I’ve ever read. However, he seems to have decided that the only way to spirituality is to be miserable, and stay there. I really disliked his downplaying of teaching as a means of transformation. I'm very uncomfortable with the way the Bible is being downplayed in the seeker-movement churches.

I am also frustrated with speakers who all assume that everyone’s life is constantly falling apart. Sometimes, my life is falling apart. Sometimes, it isn’t -- or at least it seems like it isn’t. He seems to believe that no one ever reaches spiritual maturity, and that Christ never really heals anyone -- otherwise, why does he always stress that everyone is miserable, and we need to bring out misery to our small group?

Travel-blog

2005-09-21T21:22:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, 9/21, 8:30 pm (CDT)

This week’s blogs will actually be travel-blogs, because I’m at the Small Groups Conference in Chicago. I hope to update things one or two times each day with some thoughts and ideas from the trip.

Victory #1 of the day was just making it here. I was really tested today by flying here. I get pretty nervous when I fly, and have to really work hard to trust God. Well, I did it. I was much more tense than I expected to be at the airport, but was also more calm during the flight that I expected to be. Nothing to worry about, right? Of course, I just watched a JetBlue flight make an emergency landing at LAX because of landing gear problems …

Tonight, I went to church at Willow Creek Community Church. Bill Hybels spoke tonight on John’s Letter to the Church at Pergamum in Revelation 2:12-17. Pretty interesting stuff.

He noted that these letters often have both commendation and confrontation. In this church, the commendation was that they held firm to their faith in a wicked city, even after one of their own was martyred. He asked an interesting question … if one of the Willow Creek members was killed for his faith, how would that impact the attendance at the next Wednesday night service? Good question.

The bulk of the message was about the confrontation. This church was tolerant of two groups of people who held to non-biblical positions within the church -- and God wasn’t happy. Hybels used that as a launching pad to ask “how Christian is tolerance?”

His context was people of different faiths, and he asked some good questions about inviting the new Hindu couple in the neighborhood over for dinner (he recommends it) and how to handle people who are diametrically opposed in their religion to the Christian faith. His answer is to be loving, which is a far greater challenge that mere tolerance. It is to be respectful and welcoming, with the goal of perhaps earning the right to plant seeds of Christ which someday may germinate.

He also talked about how far is too far. He told a story of a group of people who infiltrated Willow early in its history. They were, in his words, extreme Pentecostals. They were taking people aside after services and telling them they weren’t really saved until they spoke in tongues, etc. When the elders learned of this, they called the group in, respectfully listened to their side, and then respectfully explained Willow’s teaching. They then asked this group if they would hold fast to their teachings, even though it was against the teachings of Willow. When the Pentecostal group said yes, they asked them to leave the church.

He then said that the text points out the church at Pergamum was upbraided because it didn’t stand against people who “hold fast” to their teachings. He said their view is that all religions are welcome to come to Willow, as long as they hold loosely to their views, i.e., they’re coming to investigate Christianity, even if only to learn more about other faiths. However, if they come from other faiths, and continue to “hold fast” to their religion, they will be asked to leave ... and have been asked to leave. Some times things escalated until restraining orders and police officers were called him. All of this because they believed strongly in protecting the essential doctrines of the church.

Three thoughts about tonight:

1 - I wonder if our church has ever had to do that. I wonder how much of a doctrinal stand we make in such areas. I’m asking because I really don’t know. We don’t talk much about doctrine, which scares me.

2 - I’m growing more and more motivated in my “holy discontent” -- the lack of doctrinal knowledge among people I encounter in our church. It makes me mad, and it makes me want to do something about it.

3 - The service was very lively. Things were upbeat. The music they played before the service was some pretty up-tempo Third Day songs. The screens had continual messages about things coming up at the church. The worship music was upbeat and the people really participated. The place was only about ½ full, but it was pretty loud and people seemed really into the music. It was loud and proud.

I’m afraid to say it, but it made our church look pretty plain and dull. Yes, the grass always looks greener on the other side. But still, it truly was different … more alive, and more fun to be there.

That’s all for tonight. I’ll try to post late tomorrow afternoon after the first two sessions of the conference.

Mmm, mmm, Good!!

2005-09-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

I always thought the luckiest people in the world are the judges for things like “The Best Pie” contest. What a deal! How do you get signed up for that gig?

Taste is such a powerful sense. Taste is why we have Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream … and why we don’t have Broccoli & Cauliflower sherbet. When we see something that looks good at Brewster’s, but we’ve never eaten it, what do we ask? “Can I have a taste?” And the ice cream scooper says “Taste and see”. It’s not a challenge as much as it is an invitation.

When I first read Psalm 34:8 (Taste and see that the Lord is good ...), I was troubled. It seemed to violate Jesus’ rebuke of Satan in the book of Matthew, where Jesus said “it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Matthew 4:7).

At first, this psalm sounded like a test of God … as if God’s credibility can only be determined by our experience. I don’t believe that at all. God is credible because He is God. Experience is not the determiner of truth. Truth sits upon its own pedestal, with no need for me to validate it to make it true.

Then, it hit me. When I invite someone to “Taste and see”, it’s not to validate God. Instead of a test, it’s a word of encouragement to move closer to God. That experience validates the notion that we are created by God, for God. It validates that deep need inside the person being invited … a need so deep he or she may not even be aware of it.

God is not on trial when the Psalmist says “taste and see.” The person being invited is being positioned to learn the greatest lesson of life -- life is about God, not me.

Goosebumps

2005-09-15T23:00:00.000-05:00

"This flag is now your flag."

So stated Barbara Foster from the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, just before she and three other members of the organization handed out small, desktop American flags to those who admire them most ... new citizens of the United States.

I had the privilege this morning to attend the ceremony when a score of immigrants, including my friend Ram, took the oath of citizenship. They came from all over the world ... Iraq, Syria, Israel, Morocco, Thailand, even Canada and Mexico. An entire family of five from Germany, including three young children, became citizens together.

Regardless of their individual starting points, their common destination this morning was the American Dream, solemnized in a wood-paneled District Courtroom in downtown Pittsburgh, packed with friends and family who came to share this moment with them.

They shared something else this morning ... absolute joy at officially taking on the mantle of citizenship in the the country of their choice. Through tear-filled eyes, I watched the broad smiles of people who accepted the DAR's gift of a small flag ... their flag. The pride of citizenship has never been on greater display than it was in the faces of these newest of US citizens.

I was reminded that the citizenship I take for granted is a rare commodity. The freedoms I never question, they paid for with the sacrifice of their former citizenship.

As the judge said in her remarks, they took the risk of leaving all that was familiar to come to a new land. Many came with no more than a cursory knowledge of the language. Some came for education. Some came for a job. All have decided that, having tasting of the goodness of America, the past was worth sacrificing to become official United States citzens. They will never forget the homeland, but the choice to stay opens a bright new future, where the American Dream is now their dream.

When I left the courtroom, I saw a soldier walking up Grant Avenue. He was in dressed in fatigues and carrying his knapsack. I wondered where he was going. Was he just home from overseas? Was he on his way back? Had he seen combat?

Mostly, I wondered if he realized how much his willingness to take on that uniform helped to preserve the freedom that two dozen new citizens are now enjoying?

Home

2005-08-30T23:01:00.000-05:00

There's something good about going home, isn't there?

Even if the vacation has been great, it’s good to be home. It’s great to get home after a hard day at work. Even if no one else is home, it’s still good to be home. When it’s raining outside, it’s good to be home.

There are a lot of people in Louisiana and Mississippi who are still unable to go home because of Katrina. When they arrive, if there is a home there, it will be good to be home. If there isn’t a structure left, they can’t go home, and home has to move somewhere else. Eventually, that will be home, and it will be good for them to get there. People everywhere in that area are being told to be patient, but it's hard. Why? Because they want to go home.

I'm listening to Steven Curtis Chapman sing “We Are Not Home Yet”, and it reminds me again that heaven is waiting.

Life is hard sometimes, and sometimes life it sweet. In the sweet times, Heaven isn’t appealing. Sometimes, it isn’t even appealing in the hard times. I’m so earth-bound that I don’t allow myself to revel in the glory of Heaven, and the fact that I’m going. I’m in no hurry, most of the time. But, it’s going to be something. I’m going to feel well, finally. I’m going to be physically whole, and rested. God will be there, and it will be perfect. I will finally be perfectly and completely content. I'll be home.

A call for help

2005-08-09T23:00:00.000-05:00

My brother was driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike today when his car broke down. He had his wife and 4 kids with him, and was stranded alongside the road with transmission fluid flowing down the highway.

When he called me, his first words were "I need help." And of course, I was glad to help. He's family.

When I feel badly about asking God for something, I need to remember that phone call.

If I'm willing to drop everything to make sure my brother is OK, how much more is God willing to listen to me when I call him and say "Dad, I need help"? His love is perfect, and I'm his kid. Of course he wants to help.

Usually, when it comes to God, I feel like a pest. I figure God is sick of hearing from me, and he has other people who are far more important. I forget that I'm his kid. My kids know they can count on me, whenever, wherever, whatever. Heck, my dog knows that. How much more perfect is God's love for his kids, and how much more does perfect love stand ready to help?

It's also a good pattern for the church, and for the small group. We need to get past our fear of calling up someone and saying "I need help". After all, we're family.

Christmas in August

2005-08-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in my office on a humid, hot, rainy August afternoon, listening to Christmas music.

There's nothing better than BE Taylor Christmas music. BE has no idea who I am. although we have met a couple of times. He comes to sing at our church occasionally, and we celebrate our wedding anniversary by going to his Christmas concert at Heinz Hall every December.

The best part of his Christmas music is that you can listen to it year-round and be totally blessed. I'm playing it in my office now. I'm sure people think I'm nuts, but that's OK.

It reminds me that Jesus came as the Ultimate Space Invader. He pierced our world, was pierced himself, and his message pierces hearts all the time. I was reading in Galatians about how, at just the right time, Jesus showed up and children became full-heirs. Wow! I'm a full heir in the kingdom! A child of a king ... there is no privilege higher than that. Royal blood flows in my spiritual veins.

Fall on your knees ... oh hear the angel's voices. O night divine, oh what a night, when Christ was born. Oh night, divine, oh night, oh night divine. --- Sing it, B.E.! O Holy Night is my favorite carol anyway, and his version is just perfect.

My heart is pretty downtrodden right now. My health is slipping some. Our finances aren't in the best shape. I'm feeling lots of pressure spiritually to "do even more". Work is hectic and stressful. My kids are growing up too fast. My life is going by too fast. There's never enough time to be with my wife.

But, for a little while here in my office, it's Christmas.

B.E. is on the speakers, the baby who brings eternal life is in the manger, the angels are singing, the tree is twinkling, the snow is falling ... and I'm reminded again that God loves me.

The screen is getting blurry as the realization of just how blessed I am moves into my tear ducts.

It's Christmas in August ... and once again, it's Christmas in my soul.

Putting on a good face?

2005-08-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

Psalm 34:5 - Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

I read a quote somewhere to the effect that, if you're happy, be sure to tell your face.

That's pretty good advice, especially for a melancholy person like myself. I'm sure my face reflects my emotional experience, rather than the objective reality, of my life.

I'm forgiven. I'm loved unconditionally. Death has no power over my soul. God rules in my life. But, my face is far from radiant.

The thing is, I don't want to just put on a "happy face." I want it to be real. I worked for a guy once who everyone was convinced was a deeply spiritual man because he was always upbeat, always "on".

That's spirituality by personality, and it's fraudulent. He wasn't a bad guy, but he also wasn't a spiritual giant.

What I really want is an honest face that reflects a heart that truly rejoices. That's the journey I'm on.

For those of us in a small group, there's always a temptation to put on the happy face. It's easy to talk bravely at the "meeting" of how we trust God and believe in him ... but often the truth is that we're scared and worried, and don't know what we're going to do next. What is it about Christians that we think we should hide those emotions? Why don't we understand that trust and fear are not mutually exclusive? They reside on a continuum, not in their own silos.

I think the tension of being in community is our need to journey from fake to real. All of us start out fake, and many of us hardly budge from it. We know the "right words" and we say them. Then others reinforce us by telling us how brave we are spiritually because we are always on top of things. That, in turn, encourages us to say more "right words", and become more fake. It's a true downward spiral into the abyss of spiritual fraudulence

I think of all the so-called spiritual advice I've heard, one of the most offensive to me is "fake it till you make it" -- this idea that if you don't really feel something internally, just pretend that you do, and eventually that will change your heart.

The problem is, God doesn't start with our externals, he starts with our hearts. He makes us, and then tells us to stop faking it.

I've tried for the past several years to be as honest as I possibly can in our small groups, despite the risks. But I wonder how much I still deceive even myself. There's such a temptation to be the super-Christian, to know all the answers and to say the right things. It's even possible to profess a weakness, but to do so just so you can then say "the right thing". I know. I've done it.

What I really need in my life, and in my role as a small group leader, is to recognize my own brokenness, and then embrace it. Not wallow in it, but embrace it.

If I want to transition from a face that is covered with shame to one that is radiant, I have to go deeper. The deeper I go, however, the more it hurts and the more I risk. Deeper requires embracing brokenness before it can be released. Does anyone really want to know how afraid I am? Does anyone really want to know how unsure I am of myself all the time? The prevailing wisdom says that's not what leadership is -- that leadership has to set itself above and be a good example of all the good stuff.

Will people follow me if they know I sometimes wonder if God exists? Should someone who would much rather stay home and be alone even be leading a small group? Those are questions I'm asking myself right now.

By contrast, I know that those questions are not all that I am. There is a part of me that has a rock-solid belief in God. There is a part of me that has a growing confidence in God's providence. There is a huge part of me that lives and breathes for those 2 hours together every other week. But, I'm uncertain about letting both sides exist to any great extent.

There is a big gap between where I am today and where I want to be at some indefinite point in the future. My small group, and my family, are the two places where I have to live inside of that gap -- and live openly with it. It's easy to be fake at church. It's easy to be fake at work. It's hard to be fake in your family. There is too much proximity.

In the right kind of small group, it should be hard to be fake also. We should be living with both our fake selves and our faithful selves, in the open for one another to see, share and support each other. That is very difficult to achieve if you're only together 3-4 hours each month, but it's often what we have.

All of this grows out of the fact that I'm thinking some about my own mortality. I'm about to turn 45. My life is undoubtedly more than half over. I'm not in some mid-life crisis, but I am in a phase where I'm evaluating my life more.

I wish I had more time for friends ... and wish I had more friends.
I wish I had more time for fun .. and I wish I had more fun.
I wish I had more of an ability to participate in life ... and I long for more opportunities to participate.
I wish I had more confidence in God ... and I wish I had it 25 years ago.

Those thoughts are really driving my desire to be a better small group leader. The older I get, the more I realize how important community is, and how much everything about my life, and the lives of those around me, keeps us from it.

You don't have to be devoted to making a lot of money to let your job take over your life.
You don't have to be accumulating a lot of stuff to be materialistic.
You don't have to be a complete hypocrite to be spiritually dishonest.

All of those things, and so much more, rob us from community.

My life lacks spontaneous relationship. It's extremely rare when someone just drops in. How many people ever really, truly invite you to just drop in? Heck, we have to plan weeks in advance to try to organize a simple group meal. About the only spontaneous thing we have any more is email -- and I constantly hear people complain if an email is more than 1 or 2 sentences.

I long for those spontaneous events because I remember them, and I remember how good it feels when someone spontaneously decides he or she wants to be with you.

I remember when everyone had front porches. I remember when my dad's co-workers would stop by and say hello because they were driving by on the way to the grocery store. I remember when people used to call me at the last minute to see if I wanted to go to a movie, shoot basketball, or come over for dinner. Not as a teenager, but as an adult.

Am I morose? Maybe a little. But I think I'm more sorrowful about the state of our lives. We're so busy that we've programmed relationships just like we've programmed everything else. Small groups are often just "scheduled friendships" ... they're OK as long as they fit into the schedule. We'll drop everything for an emergency ... but will we drop everything just to be together?

I'm afraid that as long as I live this programmed life, it will always be easier to put on the happy face, and harder to have a face that is honestly radiant.

Delighted with judgment?

2005-07-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

I've been reading some different passages in the Bible where it appears that God's people are happy about the judgment coming to others.

It's a strange thing to read. They seem to be happy that God will judge and destroy people. Those people's souls are in the balance, and yet the followers of God are rejoicing that God will send them on to what is likely an eternity without Christ.

That's pretty harsh. We're supposed to love lost people, not root for their judgment, right?

So, I'm trying to reconcile that. How do you love people while hoping for their judgment?

The only way I can make any sense out of it is this ... these people are taking God's view of sin and judgment. God's justice demands that sin be punished. Sin offends God greatly. When we desire that God bring His judgment to bear on people who are actively working against God's desires for our world, our allegiance is placed squarely with God, and above our concern for the people who are in the path of judgment.

If my allegiance is with God, then I have to set aside the earthly viewpoint that weighs me down, and see things from a heavenly perspective. God's plans will succeed, and I'm on his side. His judgment is certain, and reinforces His majesty. It restates His absolute right to mete out judgment.

That's a hard truth, and I don't like it.

Programmatic Spiritualilty

2005-07-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

We just got back from a great vacation at Hocking Hills State Park in southern Ohio. It was a great week to be alone with the family and enjoy some spectacular scenery.

As is my custom, during my lunch break today (my first day back to work), I sat down at the computer to journal my prayers.

That's when it struck me -- I hadn't really prayed at all while I was on vacation.

I realized that my spiritual life, for all the strides I've made, is still more programmatic than it is relational. When I'm on a schedule, I'm pretty good about praying Monday-Friday. However, on the weekends, prayer slides. When I go on vacation, prayer evaporates.

I never have to be prodded to think about my wife and to talk to her. In fact, I seek out opportunities. I call her from my office just to say Hi, because I enjoy talking with her.

But, when it comes to God, that doesn't happen.

I'm really struggling to become a relational Christian -- putting my emphasis is on the relationship aspect of being a Christian, more than on the performance end of things. I'm a recovering fundamentalist who still has to fight constantly the temptation to judge myself and others by their performance.

As a small group leader, I struggle with putting all the emphasis on the Bible Study, to the detriment of the equally important "family" aspects of a small group. We "fundys" are great at insisting on the primacy of the Bible -- it's a legitimate strength. The problem is, relationship isn't built on programmed sessions. It's built on time together: often unstructured, often spontaneous.

I think my need to have a programmatic approach to my Christian walk is proof that I'm still immature spiritually. Admittedly, it's a good thing to be programmatic if that's what causes me to build relationship with Christ. However, I think my ability to build that relationship without the need for structure will be a sign of maturity for me. When that happens, I can schedule my devotional time, but not depend on the schedule to remind me that I need to be in communion with my Father.

I equate it to the romance between my wife and myself. When we first met, much of our interaction was scheduled, in the form of dates. We would plan to meet Friday night for dinner, a ballgame, whatever. We lived in separate homes, we had separate lives. Our lives came together at scheduled times, which allowed us to build the relationship.

However, there was a point at which the relationship moved to a different level. At that point, we became one flesh. We don't have to schedule time together, because we desire to be together. We live in the same house now. Our lives have merged. We're together as much as we can be, because we desire that relationship. We still schedule things together, but the relationship doesn't depend on that schedule. The scheduled events are a convenience, not a necessity.

That's where I want to be with Christ.

You Can't Handle The Truth!!

2005-06-30T23:00:00.000-05:00

Casey, one of the men in our small group, was talking about sin. He told us he had been asking God to make him aware of his own sin, so he could confess it and repent.

I'm very impressed with that prayer.

It reminds me of the popular scene in the movie "A Few Good Me n", where Jack Nicholson's character barks out the infamous phrase, "You can't handle the truth."

Our culture doesn't like the truth about sin. We're raising our kids to be "positive", to have inflated self-esteem that has no basis in accomplishment. Heaven forbid anyone tell little Johnny he did something wrong.

God remains politically incorrect.

Exodus 32
³³ The LORD replied to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. ³⁴ Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin."

³⁵ And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

Psalm 32

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD "—
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Proverbs 14
³⁴ Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Matthew 5
²⁹If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ³⁰And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Need we go on? ;-)

Sin is a good word that we are removing from our lexicon for fear of offending people. That troubles me. Actually, that pretty much disgusts me. Our sin is offensive to God, and we want to protect people from the utter stench of that offense?!? Sorry, but I'm not covering up the word sin because it bothers people.

Casey's prayer is a hard one to pray. It puts us into the position of having to take God's side against ourselves. We like our sin. It's fun. (for a little while) It brings pleasure. (for a little while)

When we turn to God and say "show me my sinful heart so that I might become more like you", we are telling God that we can, indeed, "handle the truth".

Well done, Casey.

On Being Fat

2005-06-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

I was thinking today about how being fat is the result of a series of small, poor choices. Pizza for lunch instead of a low-calorie sandwich and pretzels. Doughnuts for snacks instead of fruit. Milkshakes instead of smoothies. A third helping of lasagna.

I didn’t get fat overnight, and my pattern of indulging myself has built a mindset that encourages poor choices. I’m in the process of trying to retrain my thoughts, but it isn’t going well.

I don’t want it to go well.

I like to eat. I enjoy eating. I don’t think there is any deeper psychology to it than that. I prefer indulging to denying. As a result, I get what I don’t want … 70 extra pounds and all the health issues that go along with it. When I make The Big Choice, I choose to lose weight. The problem is, my little choices don’t coincide.

The same thing is true in my spiritual life. When I make The Big Choice, I want to be a man after God’s own heart. But, my little choices don’t always support the big choice. I choose self-sufficiency over humility. I choose the newspaper over devotional reading at breakfast. I choose anger over forgiveness. I choose arrogance over understanding. The result is that my life is inconsistent with my desired Big Choice, and so I end up with what I don’t want … flabby spirituality.

That’s the stuff that helps me understand Paul in Romans 7:

¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^F28 For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

The transition between verse 24 and verse 25 is the tension I think we all feel about the Christian life. It is the flash point of life, and it is the flash point that a small group leader (or any other leader in ministry) must help each person in the small group navigate. That tension is where ministry takes place. It is the point of becoming desperate about the small choices and recognizing the incompatibility between The Big Choice and the little choices. That desperation is the prime opportunity we have for pointing people to God.

Physically, I know I make bad dietary decisions, and I need to reverse that trend. I need to make consistent choices that support The Big Choice. I need to drop some weight, or I’m going to be miserable.

Spiritually, I need to do the same thing. I need to drop the weights that hold me back from being a lean, mean, Christian machine. I need to make more wise small choices, and that will continually lead me back to the place of verse 25 -- remembering that my choices are about God’s work in my life, not my own desires.

My prayer is that I will be humble enough to live in verse 25, glorifying God instead of indulging myself.