Caution: You Are Scary

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There are some things in this world that are just plain freaky.  There’s no way around it, and there’s no other word to describe it.  And, if I’m honest with myself (which can be difficult at times—another blog for another day), I usually find freaky things to be scary, too.  Not always… but usually.

One of these freaky things that have also been deemed by yours truly as scary are cockroaches.  I literally cannot think of a good reason for the creation of cockroaches.  Go ahead, try to come up with one.

…See?  No good reason.

Cockroaches are freaky.  I remember being told as a child not to be afraid of bugs, because I was a lot bigger than they were.  But it does not matter how many hundreds of times bigger I am than cockroaches, because on top of being able to move really fast and hide themselves better than a ninja on a dark night, they also can fly, and they can survive a nuclear winter.  I can’t fly OR survive a nuclear winter.  (Yes, I left out the ninja one on purpose.)  However, I have been facing my fears—mostly because a man can only defer killing bugs to his wife for so long before he starts to feel his sense of masculinity slipping away—and I truly have no problem dealing with them anymore.  In fact, I might even say that the cockroaches fear me, because I am straight up fierce toward them.  No more playing games: if you are going to be that scary, AND come into my house uninvited, you are probably going to die.

The Israelites underwent a similar transition of being fearful to being fearless, too.  While they were in Egypt, they were afraid of pretty much anything: being in slavery, being freed from slavery—you name it.  But God leads people through victorious incidents so that they will live with a victorious identity, and after seeing so much of God’s power and provision on their journey to the promised land, the Israelites started to actually be feared by others.  In Deuteronomy 2:4, Moses relays a message from the Lord to the Israelites: “You will pass through the territory of your brothers the sons of Esau who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you.  So be very careful.”

The first part of that sentence I get.  I can relate to others being afraid of me.  (Well… at least freaky bugs.)  It’s the “be very careful” part that catches my attention.  One of the interesting things about God is that He is the ultimate power in the universe; but He’s not a bully, and He’s not reckless.  History shows that for many people, more power leads to less self-control, but it’s not that way for God.  He is both unmatched in power and unsurpassed in wise restraint, and He wants His people to represent Him well.  So He tells them ahead of time that they are going to be scary, therefore they need to be self-controlled.  The more fearless we are, the more careful we must be, because God’s ultimate goal is not for Christians to display His power by conquering everything around us, but by standing as an example of the strength and victory that Jesus can provide to anyone who will follow Him.

The Father has granted every disciple of Jesus a level of authority and power that cannot be overcome.  Cockroaches?  No mercy.  I will stomp on them in Jesus’ name without a second thought.  But people?  I’m hoping that I’ll be extra careful—careful to represent both the Lord’s power and His wisdom to the world in such a way that invites them into a victorious identity in Jesus.

I’m Thinking About Becoming a Painter

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Since August 27, I have been directing the first year of Awaken City Church’s Internship Program.  There are seven interns who meet every week, Monday through Thursday, from 8:00am to 12:00pm.  It’s a really cool program that the church has put together and enabled (and you can find more about it here), and it’s the setting of this here blog post.

When someone says that politics on Facebook are frustrating, it’s a vast understatement.  When someone says that Windows Movie Maker is the worst program ever developed, it’s a vast understatement.  When someone says that Orange Push-Up milkshakes from Cookout are delicious, it’s a vast understatement.  Sometimes, you just can’t find words that adequately describe what is true.  It is to this that I appeal when I say that preparing for and leading this Internship Program has been a wild, exciting, challenging, and hopeful journey for me.  I am learning about emotional and spiritual muscles that I didn’t know I had; not because I’ve been told of them, but because they have been stretched and strengthened — they made themselves known!  In some ways, feelings teach anatomy better than textbooks ever could, if you’ll just listen — anatomy of body, certainly, but also of mind and heart.

Georges Seurat “felt” a piece of God’s heart, I think.  Attributed as one of the founders of pointillism, Seurat created pictures by using individual points of color.  (Side note: despite its appearance, his last name is not pronounced “sewer rat.”)  God set this all up in a similar way.  Life comes with events that are colorful and mentionable in their own right, but together they create something more brilliant than themselves — “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” as Aristotle said.  This resonates with me right now, because so much has seemed to happen in the last few months that I have difficulty isolating events in my mind, and I rather see the “big picture” more often than not.

Is that good?  Bad?  Either?  Neither?  I don’t know.  I think God sees both at once, and that’s quite boggling to me.  But I do know this: I’m being boggled into being by a God who works all things together for the good of those who love Him.  Knowing God enables me, in some miraculous and profound way, to know myself — particularly when life is too “all over the place” to be able to work point-by-point.  I am, after all, made in His image; what He does and how He does it speaks to me about me just as much as it does about Him.  In these times of “big picture” vision, I’m thoroughly reassured that He knows what He’s doing, and I’m exactly who and how and where and when and what He wants me to be.  And that’s a vast understatement.

Sometimes you see the point, other times you see the painting.  Sometimes you just want to delete your political Facebook friends and go get a milkshake.  The “point” of all this is simply that in all of those times, God is at work.  He may seem “on the scenes,” or He may seem “behind the scenes,” but He’s got this crazy, confusing chaos of consciousness collectively calculated down to the last conjuncture.

Hmm…maybe I’ll stick with writing.

Siding and Deciding

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Have you ever started something with no idea what you’re going to do with it, or where it’s going to go?  Perhaps you had a canvas and some paints, and you set to work without any clues as to what the finished product would be.  Or maybe, in a frustrated and desperate attempt to be super-spiritual, you’ve prayed the oh-so-very pious “God, lead me to whatever scripture You want me to read today” prayer, and let your Bible fall open randomly to 2 Kings 9:20, at which point you decide to never do that again, because who is God to tell you how to drive?  Your road rage isn’t THAT bad…whose side is He on, anyway?

It’s also possible that you started writing a blog post without any plans for what it will communicate.  But I would never do that…

To start when you know the beginning, but not the middle or the end, is actually a simple task.  Because there is no distraction by way of details or developments, all you must do is decide.  Decide to start, and with each brushstroke or page turn or speed limit sign passed or word typed, decide to continue.  Nothing good may come of it…but you’ll never know if you never decide.

The same applies to trusting someone.  There is no real plan one can put in place to trust someone.  Sure, relationships are built and strengthened, but trust is not something you simply stumble upon or unexpectedly find yourself in.  Trust always begins with a decision.  You cannot trust someone unless you share something with them, or give them responsibility, and watch what they do with it.  Likewise, no one can know if you are trustworthy unless they decide to put you in a place of trust, and you are not proven trustworthy until you have made the decision to protect what’s been given to you.

Many people are waiting for the moment they suddenly find themselves in an intimate relationship with God, free from fear and doubt and skepticism, and defined by trust and love.  Some live their lives waiting for a sign that they can trust God; that He’s good, and that He has their best interest at heart.  But that moment doesn’t exist.  And the “sign” is already here—it’s called the Bible, and it is filled with stories and promises that point to God’s goodness, and His love, and His desire to be in a Father-child relationship with each one of us.  The only way to develop trust with God is to decide to trust Him.  There is no shortcut, and there is no way to ease into it.  At some point, we just have to make the decision.

I know that everyone has been hurt.  No one is free from offense.  If you want to, you can come up with countless excuses as to why God “doesn’t deserve your trust,” or why it’s too risky.  But the only way we can discover the “middle” and the “end” of trusting God is by deciding to begin.  Decide to start, and with each day lived…each situation encountered…each person interacted with…each speed limit sign passed…decide to continue.

Only good will come of it.  But you’ll never truly know until you decide.

How to Interrupt Someone Without Being Rude

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My wife has her bachelor’s degree in English.  She loves reading, she loves writing, and she loves speling correctley and how to talk good.  She very often mentions how much she misses school.  So, in an effort to be clever and romantic, I enrolled her in an online course called “Writing Beyond School I,” from the Rozema Institute of Liberal Arts—of which I am the chancellor, the Provost, the I.T. head, the professor of every class, and even the campus police.  The first assignment in this course, coded ENG-999A (I bet YOU haven’t taken a 900-level course), is to keep a blog updated at least once a week.  She has been passing with flying colors so far, and I’d highly encourage you to check it out here.  She is a better writer than I, and more entertaining, too.

With that being said, I feel that I have done a sorry job of leading by example in this arena, and so I too am going to set myself yet again toward the goal of writing a little more regularly.  Here’s my first step in that direction.  (Rather, this is more like my 104th step in that direction…but very few of those steps have been consecutive and uninterrupted.)

That seems to be the way life goes.  It is unbelievably difficult to have any plans work out uninterrupted.  This past Saturday, Rachel and I drove about thirty minutes to a park with the intention of playing disc golf (which I used to be decent at, and have since lost my touch due to not playing very often – similar to my blogging consistency).  Upon our arrival, we discovered that there was no disc golf course to be played, contrary to what I had read on a website.  So, somewhat dismayed but not yet deterred, we began walking around the park, and found ourselves on a gleeful journey through a forest that was more entrancing than either of us expected, filled with golf ball treasures and bamboo grove adventures and being watched by an older couple with binoculars from across the lake, whom we walked with back to our car shortly thereafter.  (They did admit to watching us, and helped us find our way back to the parking lot, at which point the truly creepy idea of older folk observing Rachel and I through binoculars had faded significantly.  Very friendly people, when all was said and done.)

The moral of the story is to never trust the internet.

The second moral of the story is that the interruptions of our plans are often the only part of our plans that make their way into our memories.  Sometimes the interruptions are much more significant than a missing disc golf course.  Sometimes they can last years.  But they are placed there for a purpose, and just because you’ve been delayed doesn’t mean you’ve been denied.  God has good plans for you, and as we hold fast to hope and walk in faith, we’ll find our hearts’ desires…and we’ll find some unexpectedly wonderful interruptions on the way.

Becoming a Word Search Whiz

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“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.”
Psalm 40:1

My wife has recently discovered that she’s very skilled at word searches.  She has installed and uninstalled countless word search apps to her iPod—some because they’re designed poorly, but most because they’re simply too easy for her.  She solves these puzzles in seconds.  And while I consider myself fairly decent at word searches, I’m nowhere near as talented as she is.  I find myself thinking that there is nothing there, while Rachel is busy finding something on every line and column.

I doubt that Israel had word searches back in David’s time, but I’m certain that they frequently experienced similar feelings of waiting for something and finding nothing.  Yet David makes it clear in Psalm 40:1 that it’s not just about IF you wait, it’s also about HOW you wait.  Waiting is like a spiritual marinade: waiting with a righteous attitude that “tastes good” to the Lord (as opposed to something He’d want to spit out) will result in a favorable reward, but waiting with a wicked attitude only builds up barriers to God’s intervention.

It’s no good waiting on God if your waiting consists of complaints, criticisms, and concerns, because as you wait, they’ll permeate your heart and mind, and you’ll lose the faith needed to receive whatever God gives you when the time comes.  Doubt refuses everything it’s offered, but persistent faith draws out blessing…even if it wasn’t there to begin with.  Sustained faith doesn’t just receive whatever it’s given; it actually fuels the creation of something worth receiving.  Our attitude in the valleys determines our altitude on the mountaintops!

In the physical realm, waiting requires no effort.  But in the spiritual realm, waiting requires a lot of effort.  If you want to work out your spiritual muscles, just try waiting patiently, rooted in faith, fed with hope, bearing joy and thanksgiving.  It’s no easy task!  Yet, as David discovered for himself, waiting patiently works perfectly—it never goes unanswered.

Ironically, most people find themselves “suddenly waiting.”  It is rarely our intention to wait; we don’t often want to work out our spiritual muscles.  But we have a Helper who is committed to making us strong.  And in the meantime, God is hard at work, making even our “nothings” into “somethings.”

Divine Dentistry

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“Freely you have received; freely give.”
Matthew 10:8

I am quite convinced that I have the largest sweet tooth of our day and age.  Or at least, I did, before all the cavities ate it down in size.

This also means that I’ve had a terribly hard time learning to share those sweets.  There are many times in my past in which I’ve been reluctant to hand out a few pieces of candy (single-digits, mind you) from the three-pound bag I was eating from.  I’ve repented for my candy-hoarding since then, but that’s how I was: I valued the various combinations of sugar and high fructose corn syrup so much that I was very selective in giving it away.  I knew the end of the bag was coming, and I wanted to make the deliciousness last as long as possible.

I’m afraid this mindset may have infiltrated my faith.  I have been guilty, at times, of being very selective in giving away blessing. And I think it’s because I’ve had a “The end of the bag is coming” approach.  In Christianese, that translates to a “poverty mentality.”  It means that when we don’t truly believe God’s resources are endless, we end up hoarding the blessing, fruit, favor, gifts, and power that come through a relationship with the Father.  But Jesus turns all of that upside down with this statement: “Freely you have received.”

Understanding the abundance of God is vital for our lives to reach their maximum potential in Christ, because we cannot receive more without first giving away what we have.  In this single statement, Jesus teaches the disciples that our eagerness and effectiveness in ministry is directly related to our understanding of how much blessing God is pouring out on us.  If we believe that God only gives a little at a time—that we’re reaching the “bottom of the bag”—we will be very selective when we give it out.  However, if we are aware of God’s overwhelming abundance and infinite nature, we will be eager to give it out at every turn, because we know that our hands can never be emptied of the riches of heaven.

We all have a spiritual sweet tooth that longs for the overflowing riches of a relationship with the Father.  Sometimes, we get “cavities” of fear or hopelessness that diminish the size of our dreams.  Satan might even convince us that we need our hopes pulled out completely.  But as we begin to give out of what we have—whether it’s a giving of love, of faith, of prayer, of service, or of money—the Holy Spirit fills the spaces, and instead puts a crown on the longing of our hearts.

The Bible has some Hunger Games, too (Part 2)

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This is a two-part blog series I wrote for Awaken City that I wanted to re-title over to my blog as well!

I started this blog mini-series by looking at the beginning of Jesus’ temptation, and I’m going to complete it by looking at the end.  There’s a huge amount of wisdom that we can gain from the middle, but I’m just focusing on the two things that have most recently caught my attention in my own journey through the scriptures, because if the Holy Spirit is teaching us something, we secure it and steward it by sharing it!  So…here it goes!

In Matthew 4:3, Satan unsuccessfully challenges the very statement God proclaimed just three verses earlier.  He tries again, and still fails.  He shifts his tactics in the third temptation, suggesting that his way of attaining what was promised to Jesus was better than God’s way, but still Jesus stood fast.  And after Jesus overcame all the temptations that Satan threw at him, something incredible happened in verse 11: “Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.”

I’ll take that any day!  (And the great thing is that through Jesus, we all can!)

There’s something powerful about the word “ministered.”  The Greek word used here is diakoneō, which means “to serve, wait upon, or minister,” which is basically exactly what the translation says—but that’s not the cool part.  The cool part is the other places in scripture where this same Greek word is used.  In Matthew 8:15, it describes Peter’s mother-in-law serving a meal.  In Luke 10:40, it describes Martha’s cooking.  In Luke 12:37, it describes a master waiting on his servants reclining at the table.  In Luke 17:8, it describes a servant preparing supper for his master.  In John 12:2, it describes Martha bringing food to the dinner table.

What’s so powerful about the usage of this word is that it very frequently describes serving a meal, and that’s precisely what Jesus is longing for prior to Satan’s temptations.  It doesn’t say so specifically, but I have a feeling that the angels actually brought Jesus meals, just like they did for Elijah.  And it’s at this point that Jesus experiences the same thing David did hundreds of years earlier: “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires.”  Jesus shared this principle with his followers through the parable of the prodigal son—the things the son went looking for in the city were the very things the father gave him when he came home.  God wants to grant our desires, develop our dreams, and answer our longings.  He’s a good father!  We simply have to cling to His words—even when Satan tries to challenge them—and He will bring it all to pass.

We all get “hungry” at times.  There are times when we feel weak.  But when we choose to be faithful in the process, we find favor in the payoff…and just like Jesus, it will be precisely what we were longing for in the beginning!