March 2021 Newsletter Letter

Friends in Christ --  I've been watching a series on Netflix called Blown Away.  It's a competition among glass blowers where every episode is a 4-hour race to see which artist can create the most stunning and beautiful piece.  As someone with absolutely no artistic talent, I'm always impressed by talented artists, and the work these artists do is incredible.  Watching a talented artist at work is watching the end point of a long, long process.  They've put in countless hours, years, and decades to hone their craft.  No one comes in on day 1 and is a finished product.  They consult the muse and invest in the craft, growing in ability over time. 

  It's not unlike Christianity.  None of us are finished products, but we grow in faith over time.  From the beginning of our faith journey, we're called to put in the time, to invest in our faith, so that we grow as Christians, as disciples.  We're learning what God has in store for us, daily depending on God, and maturing as believers so that we can then teach younger Christians about our faith.  Lent is our faith life in miniature -- we start at Ash Wednesday and walk towards the cross, emerging on the other side of it as a people transformed. 

  I heard a thought from a colleague the other day that contemplated that perhaps the church's greatest strength is learning to sit with people in their pain.  It's really stuck with me.  As Christians, we have a fundamental hope that allows us to dwell in the most painful parts of life and trust that the end of a chapter is not the end of the story.  We can sit in those places and hold people where they are -- even at our lowest points, we know that God is there, that God comes to us, because God is unafraid of the messes of our lives.  I see such strength in the way that the people of Highlands love one another.  There's a tenderness and a willingness to embrace one another in the hard places.  I hope that others come to know the love that I've seen in our congregation, because it's the love of Christ, who comes to us and loves us as we are.  

  Friends, this Lent, on our journey to Easter, may we pay special attention to the people in our communities in pain, and may we be willing to sit with them in their pain.  We can't fix most things.  When we don't have words, we can sit in silence, bearing the light for one another, living witnesses to the unfathomable grace of Jesus Christ.  Thanks be to God.

It should be easier, right?

What does my heart truly want?
  To be closer to God than my next breath, to trust his steady and faithful presence, to search for his coming with anticipation, to be guided by his knowing Spirit each and every day.

  I know this to be true, and yet somehow I manage to insulate myself from the presence of God -- not knowingly, not willfully, but slowly, steadily, without intention or effort, I drift from the will and closeness of God, preferring easier things.  I busy myself with tasks and chores, many of them important, and I always manage to leave off the most important thing.  The small crack that exists on one day is widened by lack of effort, and it soon turns into a void, and I stare into the chasm and wonder how it arrived and if there is any hope for filling it.  Over the years, my heart has grown calloused and indifferent, and I wonder what tomorrow holds.

  While some of the parables in the Bible leave me fearful, wondering if it is too late, others give me joyous hope -- like the prodigal feeding himself in the trough, like the coin lost in the woman's house, I believe in a God who searches for the lost.  I know that I am lost, because I do not recognize the surroundings in which I live -- they are familiar, and yet they are not right, because the anxiety in my soul tells me that this is not the life to which God has intended me.  There are pieces that are correct, but I have assembled them wrongly, believing other things to be more important.  I believe God seeks my heart, calling to me in the deep, blowing the Spirit across the smoldering embers of the faith I have neglected, stirring something to life.

  The journey will not be easy, and the temptation to turn back, to choose an easier way, is always present.  I know not where the road leads, and I can scarcely make out the next step in the murkiness of modern life, but I believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life, and as that light has shined in the darkness for ages past, I believe it still shines today for those of us who long for direction on the path that leads to life.

Slow Jogs

  Yesterday, I went out running.
  Slowly.

  Which is strange, because on Sunday morning, I was an award-winning runner!  That's right--age-group champion at the local 5k!  (It helped just a bit that there was a 10k and a half-marathon at the same time, meaning all the seriously fast runners were competing in those, leaving just a few of us in the 5k.  I finished 10 minutes ahead of the 2nd place runner in my age group, and it wasn't because I was running quickly.
  But I ran much, much faster on Sunday than I did yesterday.

  I can almost hear you cry out--'Why did you run so much faster on Sunday?'

  I had someone to pull me along.

  When I was racing on Sunday, there were people in front of me to set a pace, to keep me accountable, that served as motivation when I was running.  I wanted to catch them, and I knew that if I slowed down, I'd be caught by those behind me.  That was a powerful motivator.

  When I was out on my own yesterday, there was no accountability.  If I slowed down, nothing happened.  There was no one to catch me, no one for me to catch.  I could have walked and no one would have known.  I was all by myself.

  Life is harder by ourselves.  When we're alone, and accountable to no one, there often aren't consequences for slacking off.  When we don't have partners to walk with us, we drift, because it's hard to keep yourself disciplined.  We're made to be together, to encourage and support one another, and slogging through alone, without a community, is tough work.  Much tougher, and it's so much easier to stop when you're doing tough work alone.

  So may you find a community.  It often takes work to find and create one, but I truly believe this initial work pays off many times over, as the rest of the journey is much, much easier when someone else walks with you.

Beating back the darkness

  Darkness lingers.

  If this awful news of Robin Williams has taught me anything, it's that darkness lingers at the threshold of every single human life, and darkness is never content to remain a safe distance away, to dance on the perimeter of the human life.  Darkness scurries in under the cover of night, infiltrating our minds, hearts and relationships despite our defenses, and seeking a foothold from which it might enlarge its influence in our lives.  We may try and cast it out, destroy its influence upon us, but no matter how hard we try, it seems to linger in the shadows, on the perimeter, in long forgotten places, to re-emerge at 'a more opportune time', which is when the Devil decided to return to tempt Jesus after being rebuffed by Jesus in the wilderness.

  We like to think of ourselves as strong, but none of us are strong enough on our own to beat back the continual infiltration of darkness.  No matter how many resources we may have, be they financial or emotional or relational, we eventually find ourselves weakened, through life circumstances or choices of our own, and over time, if we do not discover others to help us bear the load, we weaken, and no longer able to stand up straight, we begin to forget what the horizon looks like as our heads become lowered to the ground, our eyes become fixated lower and lower until all we can see is the next step, and eventually we become so low, so overburdened by the things we are carrying, we begin to doubt if we can even take the next step, and it begins to be so tempting simply to lie down where we are, to stop moving forward and let the weight and darkness that hammer away at our defenses consume us.

  Each and every one of us, I believe, need to bear light for another.  The light of love and hope that shines within us needs to be shared, for in so doing we help bear one another's burdens.  This is true community, when we stand beside one another and help lift one another's vision back to the horizon, to encourage and support one another in the next step and the possibility that lies beyond that.  It's so easy to forget what hope looks like when it is shrouded in the clouds of darkness, when that despair has taken hold of the human heart.  We need a brother or sister to remind us, to help us forward, to help shake the mire of hopelessness from our vision. 

  And when we have been encouraged, we need to remember to share that encouragement to others.  Just as we ourselves are in need of ministry, we have a responsibility to one another to be selfless, to minister to others.  We do not simply receive, but in a complicated dance that does not always feel natural, we give and take, sharing our resources, sharing our strength, sharing our hope and helping one another go forward in life, acknowledging the reality of the darkness to break in to any of our lives, but pledging to do all we can to beat it back to the perimeter, rallying our defenses to the weakest point, letting our collective care for one another be our strength, just as the Israelites rebuilding the wall in Nehemiah's time were always ready to run and assist the ones who were in danger of being attacked.  At the sound of the trumpet, each one was ready to go.

  So will we run to one another to share our strength and light?  Will we listen well enough to one another to be ready to respond to genuine crises?  Will we be willing to sound our own trumpet, to reach out and let another share our burdens?  We are all vulnerable and broken in some way, but we need not be ashamed of that, for our brokenness can bring us together and make us stronger if we allow it to be shared.

  Revelation promises that in the end, light will conquer and destroy darkness.  One day, there will be no darkness left to linger on the periphery, to steal into our hearts and slowly tear down what we seek to build up, to bend our backs with cares to the point that we no longer can see the sun shining in the sky.  Christ alone can achieve this victory, but until then, we must allow the light to shine through one another and do everything we can to help one another take the next step in hope.

First day of school, part XXI

  For the 21st time, this is my first day of school.
  You'd think, with that much practice, that this would be easier.  You'd think I'd be ready and enthusiastic and eager to begin a new phase.
  Instead, I can't help but question whether I've gone completely out of mind and taken a large step off the deep end.  I've spent most of today trying to figure out exactly how I ended up here, why we moved 7 hours north to embark on a 2 year journey of new beginnings.
  I think what it comes down to is that I, like so many others, get trapped into thinking that I'm not good enough.  I look to all these external places to get my validation, when ultimately some part of me knows that it doesn't matter how many other people affirm me, that it doesn't matter if Ohio State thinks this is the right decision--what matters is whether I'm willing to look in the mirror and accept that God loves me no matter what.  Until I'm ready and willing to accept God's perspective on things, I'm going to struggle to find other people and other things that will tell me that I'm good enough.  Until I accept God's grace as the final word on my status, I'll wrestle with the sense that I'm a fraud that doesn't belong.
  It's tough.  I was comfortable in the pastorate.  I was pretty good at it, and growing at some of the not-so-good parts.  I loved the people I served dearly.
  But I do believe that God was calling us into the next step, and I desperately want to give Rachel the option of working part-time so she can spend more time and energy with the kids.  I believe that we are being faithful (although I also recognize that just because I believe that doesn't always make it right).
  Change is simply difficult, and some part of the psyche always resists change.  On the evening before my next first day of school, I am nervous about new places and new people and a whole world of unknowns.
  So I breathe in, and I breathe out, and I remind myself that God will use this, that his sovereign will can lead us into a new day, where a new pattern of life might help us live and grow in discipleship in a new way.  I am a child of God, and nothing that happens tomorrow or over the next 2, 20 and 200 years will change that.

  And when people ask me what I did on the eve of 21st grade, I'll tell them that I made some pretty impressive looking muffins:

Stuff, part II

  So there I was...

  Rachel & I visited a nearby church this morning, and let's just say the sermon left my mind wandering a bit.  (I have no problem at all with people who preach from a manuscript.  I do, however, have a problem with people who read their entire manuscript devoid of any passion or energy and use the exact same tone of voice throughout the entire thing)

  Over the last two weeks, I've been dealing with our stuff.  Some of it has been going into a storage shed.  (I hated to do it, but that piano wasn't going into our second story condo, and there was no way I was getting rid of that.  It's got history.)  Some of it has been given away.  Some of it has been stared at as I've tried to figure out what to do with it.
  I've been trying to figure out why I have such a problem getting rid of some of it, and then I realized that it was rather simple:  this stuff belongs to me.  It's my stuff, and we have a history, a relationship.  To get rid of it is to discard that history and relationship, and that's almost never easy.
 
  The reason this occurred to me in church is this:  if I hesitate strongly to get rid of my stuff, some of which needed to go years ago, how much harder it must be for God to get rid of what belongs to him--the people he has created.
  Some people will paint a picture of a God who seems almost eager to condemn.  When I read Scripture, the overall witness seems to be that God is eager to save.  I get the feeling that God is never eager to cast off the people that belong to him, that God has a hard time letting go.  C.S. Lewis says it so beautifully when he offers the suggestion that the doors of hell are locked from the inside.  Lewis is reminding us that it's not God who rejects--it's people who reject God.  Those people, I believe are beloved by God, and God laments at having to let go of them, laments allowing their rejection of him to become eternal.
 
  I believe that we belong to God, and surely God longs to keep us close, to bring us back, to embrace us with the fullness of God's love.

Stuff

  Well, that was different than I expected.

  In preparation for the big move, we got a quote or two from a full-service agency, but going on the assumption that I could drive a truck in a straight line without hitting anything, I rented a 26 foot moving truck and hired folks in Chattanooga & Columbus to load and unload the truck.  I couldn't rent anything bigger than a 26 foot truck, and about a week after arranging the rental, I started wondering if there would be enough room on the truck for all our stuff.  Brad, the head of Bizzy Bee Movers (They were really, really good, if you're in Chattanooga and looking for movers), said it might be close as to whether or not everything would fit in the truck.

  When moving day came, it wasn't close.

  Not even by a little.

  Fortunately, Penske offers unlimited mileage.  So I drove to Columbus.  Then drove back to Chattanooga.  Then back to Columbus.  1,400 miles in all.  (Big thanks to John Brandon, who did the first two legs of the journey and a whole lot of work on either end.  I don't know if I would have made it without him.)

  In the end, I'm left with one clear, overwhelming fact:  we own too much stuff.

  It's odd.  We didn't think we had an overwhelming amount of stuff.  We don't spend recklessly.  We try not to buy extra things.  But over the years, it just accumulated, and we didn't throw much out.  Much of the stuff comes from having small children, and I had a lot of boxes of books, but so much of it was just stuff, stuff that wasn't particularly meaningful to either of us, stuff that we weren't in a big hurry to get rid of but that we didn't necessarily use.  Rachel and I both had a prevailing sense of shame when we looked in the back of that first truck and realized that it wasn't big enough for everything we own.  We thought about the kids we sponsor in Africa and South America, wondering what they might say about our over-abundance of stuff.  I wondered if Abraham debated what size truck to rent when God called him into the unknown.  I wondered what Jesus might say to the disciples who showed up with two 26 foot trucks in tow.

  So what do we do now?  We've talked a lot about seriously evaluating the amount of stuff, about giving a lot away and being very careful about how we accumulate in the future.  The 2 boxes of books I have to give away are a trifling amount, but it's a start.  The move was eye-opening for us, and we hope that it will create some momentum to live more simply, that our stuff might not become a burden to weigh us down and prevent us from moving forward into the future God has prepared for our family.  May we not be so concerned about stuff and be more concerned about having open hands for what might come our way.

No More Night

  The world's best scientists tell us that the earth will meet its end when the sun expands to such a point that it consumes the earth within its girth.
  But we already knew that, didn't we?  Thousands of years ago, the apostle John tells us in Revelation what the end will look like--the earth will be consumed in the light of God.  There will be no more night, he says, because God himself will be our light.  There will be no more darkness, because the light of God's grace and love will envelop every corner of the renewed and redeemed earth.  There will be no more shadowy corners where evil lurks, because evil will have been destroyed.  The light of God will be all there is.
  We will be swallowed up by grace, and of this state, there will be no end.  What science has recently learned has been lurking in the pages of Scripture for years, ready and available to all those willing to learn.

Home

  If no one lives in a house, does it still accumulate dust?

  It's strange in our house right now.  Most of the pictures are off the wall, and we boxed up the TV today.  We don't watch much TV, but for the last 5.5 years it has stood sentry over the fireplace, ready to light up the room.  My two Ansel Adams prints have followed me everywhere for the last 13 years, and they no longer frame the kitchen cutout anymore.  So many places around the house are barren, devoid of the things that have made this house our home, and each day the house looks more and more like it did on the first day we walked into it, before it was ours.

  And it gets me thinking about home.

  Houses are concrete things, very definite places with walls and windows and dust and spiders.  Home, though, is more abstract.  Home is the place where the soul rests, where the rapid pace of life slows a bit as your feet ascend onto the couch.  Home is the place where you bring your newborn for the first time, and home is the place where you watch them grow.  Home is a place where a marriage, a partnership is made.  Home has roots deep in my heart.

  It's not hard for me to leave behind this house.  I'll miss my blueberry bushes, and the basement I finished.  I'll miss the light streaming in through the windows and our great neighbors.

  The hardest part is the memories, the moments that have made this house into our home.  I'll take those with me, and we'll make a new home in Columbus, but it's just a strange thing, one I can't quite grasp, that makes it so hard to leave this home behind.  It's been home for so long, and I feel like part of me belongs here.

  It's home.

Singing as we Go

  We sing to Caleb before he goes to bed, and one of the songs I sing often is 'Amazing Grace'.  Well, apparently it's stuck, because the other morning we were walking down the stairs on the way to the car and he started singing 'Amazing Grace'.  There he was, singing as he took each stair, one by one, with his teddy bear clutched in one hand and the other grasping the railing for support.

  There was something about the scene that so filled me with fatherly pride and love for him.

  And I couldn't help but think about how much more God loves us, and how proud he must be of us.

  There we go, clutching onto whatever support we can find in this world, taking each and every step with the utmost care, uncertain of whether we are big enough to make it through this life, usually trying to hold onto something or someone for dear life, because we don't think we can do it on our own, and our hearts are often singing praise songs to God as we go, uncertain yet confidant in his grace and his love, thankful for the chance to move forward and seemingly ready to tumble down the stairs all at the same time.

  If I can be filled with pride at the sight of my son coming down the stairs with Amazing Grace on his lips, how much more must God be proud of us when we praise his name in the midst of our uncertainty and tremulous steps forward in this life?

Wasn't I supposed to have all this time?

  An interesting thing happened on the way to Columbus, Ohio.

  On the bright side, Caleb now knows how to spell Ohio, which will serve most useful this fall.  (We have football tickets!!)

 
  So I'm no longer an installed pastor.  I'm still a pastor--that's part of who I am, and I don't know that you can remove that any more than you can take away any other part of my identity.  I won't stop being a pastor.

  But it's going to look differently than it does now.  I won't be in an office serving as pastor for a particular group of people.  I don't know whose pastor I'll be... and it's hard to be a pastor without people to pastor, just like it's hard to be a shepherd without any sheep.  (Fortunately, my sheep didn't all flee from my presence!  It was my decision to move forward into a new stage, and it was not an easy one, but I believe that ultimately it will prove to be the right now.  Again, as a disclaimer, I also believe that navy blue and black are the same color.  I'm not always right.)

  Ministry is evolving in this country, and I think more churches are going to be forced to look at part time ministry and bi-vocational ministry as necessary options.  Church attendance and church budgets are shrinking, and the churches that were built upon and sustained by an older generation will have to evolve as we face challenges with new generations.  I do not for a moment believe the church is in trouble--Christ assures us of that.  I even am bold enough to believe that the church will thrive in this country, as it is already thriving in others.  But there may be a challenging time of adaptation as mainline churches struggle to find their footing.  I hope to be a figure able to help with the process of stabilization with a business degree and theological training.  I believe God will use it all for his glory.

  The kids, well, they're doing great.  It's been wonderful to have so much time to play with them lately, although it can be exhausting and trying.  More good than bad, though, as we've run through the aquarium and climbed through the children's museum and slid down the slip-n-slide.  We've discovered that Caleb has seemingly endless energy reserves, except when he doesn't, and even then there is always an hour of energy he holds back for when it's time to nap or go to bed at night.  On the days when he seems the most tired, those are the days when he's still singing 'Happy Birthday' to himself an hour after we've put him to bed.

  Kids... what an adventure.

  We've talked to the kids about moving, and Caleb knows the big concept of it... but I think the actual change is going to be hard.  New place to call home, new school, new church, new friends--it's a lot to take in.  Rachel and I struggle with it, so I expect he will, too.  But kids are also tougher than I tend to give them credit for, and so I have a hunch he'll fall right in line, moving ever forward, as Rachel and I watch in wonder as he and Danielle grow and change before our every eyes, and we drink in the gift that God has poured out upon us.

An Offering

  As a pastor, looking back, I think Moses had to deal with a lot of things I've never had to deal with.  That whole golden calf thing, for example, hasn't been a problem here.  The people have never complained because they didn't have any water to drink.  I was never worried about the Egyptian army catching up to us.

  Also, I never had to ask the people to stop giving.

  In Exodus 36, the tabernacle is being made.  Moses calls every skillful person, every person whose heart is stirred, and he asks them to do their work.  Also, the Israelites are asked to bring gifts for the construction of the temple.  They are supplying the artisans, and every morning they bring their freewill offerings.

  And they don't stop.

  Each and every morning, they bring more and more, so excited are they by the Lord's work.  They don't stop, and eventually the artisans complain to Moses, The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.  So Moses gives a command:  No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.

  That's right--Moses asked the people to stop making an offering, because they had given so much it was becoming an overwhelming burden.  The people were so excited by the work of God in their midst that their generosity overwhelmed the stewards of the gifts and they were asked to stop their giving in order to use the gifts already given.

  Can you imagine?  What a problem to have!  Can you picture a society in which the people of God are so excited about the work of God in their midst that their generosity and desire to be a part of God's ongoing work overwhelms the structures in place to handle such gifts?

  What would it take for the church to have this problem?

  According to this website, three to five percent of Christians tithe.  From various articles, including this one, I think the average percentage given to a church is around 2-3%.

  Are we just not excited about what God is doing?  Are we too distracted, too interested in other things?  Is God low on the priority list?  Have churches done a poor job teaching the tithe?  What constrains our giving?

  I'm sure the answer is complicated, but it's a question worth asking.  When we look at the Israelites excitement to give, and we look at our own giving, when I look at my own giving, how excited am I to give to God's work?

 

Ugh

  As a minister, I hear about a lot of terrible things that happen to people.  There's something about ministers that encourage people to open up.  If someone doesn't have something terrible in their own life, they'll often share the most tragic medical situation they can think of that's going on in someone else's life.
  For a time, I tried to come up with pastoral answers.  There is an implicit pressure to say something wise that will explain this all away, that will somehow make it right and balance the scales in life.

  But let's be honest--sometimes, things in life just suck.

  There's no explaining it away.  There are times I would shake my fist at the heavens and cry out 'Why?' if I wasn't so burdened with despair.  There are times when things are so bleak for some people that trying to find the immediate silver lining is just trying to rush through the grief.  Sometimes, there is just pain and misery in life, and there's no good reason and no good explanation and no good.

  It's just evidence of the broken world, and it reminds us that it's not the way it's supposed to be.

  And while I believe that all of this strongly points to our need for a Redeemer, sometimes it just feels right to mourn the fact that while this is not the way it's supposed to be, it's the way it is--it's awful, and we don't know why or how or what comes next.  Let's just own the awful situation in front of us, acknowledge that there may well be nothing we can do about it, and sit in that place for a bit.

  Sometimes, I just have no words.  Not just because I haven't figured them out.  But because there simply are no words for some of life's deepest pains.  There are only tears and heartfelt sobs that break the hearts of family and friends, but immediately trying to fix the pain isn't the right next step.  Sometimes, as I explain to Caleb, things are just broken.

  I believe they'll get set right eventually, but that's for another day.  Right now, it's just broken.

  And that sucks.

Random Friday Thoughts

  In Exodus 24, verses 9-11 tell us that Moses, Aaron and 72 other elders in Israel saw God.  They saw the God of Israel, and it says that his feet were perched on top of 'something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness'.  There, they saw God, and they ate and drank.
  They saw God.  They saw God in his glory, and clearly struggled for the words to describe God.  It's a moment many of us long for.
  And yet, after Moses had been on the mountain for 40 days, these were the folks in charge of making the golden calf to worship.
  The ones who saw God.  Less than 6 weeks later, they were ready to worship a calf of gold, despite having seen God in his glory.

  Such is the condition of the human heart.  We have such short memories, and are always so tempted to reach for what is easy and convenient.

  It's easy to believe that a vision of God would compel us to live properly for the rest of our days.  Here, we have evidence that it barely sustained Aaron and the elders of Israel for 6 weeks.  They got distracted.  They must have forgotten, although that is hard to believe.  Their human minds turned from the vision of God to the immediate situation around them, and they were soon so distracted that they had wandered from the path altogether.  They were so lost, despite this glorious vision.

  There is no easy solution to living faithfully.  There is never going to be a pill that we can swallow to keep us from sinning.  It's going to be a struggle to stay faithful, and temptation to stray is constant.  Let's not fool ourselves and think there is an easy way out.  Instead, let's wake up every day and put our faith into action, living out what we believe, and gathering as a community be strengthened together for our faithful service and worship.  We can't do this on our own.  We will fall short.  We believe that God is merciful and gracious, and we need to remind each other of this fact.  We have short memories, but together we can remember all that God has done.

 

Hoping

It's been an interesting winter for weather. There's been a lot to talk about when it comes to the weather, particularly if you live in the north, where it has snowed a lot. If you donated money to charity every time it snowed, you'd have been a very generous person this winter. (And what's with naming winter storms? I'd like the record to show that I strongly oppose this movement. Hurricanes are one thing. But are we going to be naming every weather pattern that crosses the country soon? Will I soon be enjoying 'Sunny Day Violet'? Will the weather channel tell me that Tuesday might be 'Overcast & Grey Greg'? Does July hold 'Heat Wave Hamlet'? How come no one ever consults me on these decisions? [editor's note: the reason no one consults Keith is because of paragraphs like this one.])

Where were we?

Right—weather.

If you're like me, you hope the weather will be nice this weekend. But what is that hope rooted in? Basically, you hope that atmospheric conditions work themselves out in such a way that nice weather happens to coincide with the days we're off work, rather than, say, on Monday, when we're stuck inside staring out the window. The atmospheric conditions, as far as I know, don't care one bit about our weekend. Come to think of it, I doubt they even know what a weekend is. I don't see many desk calendars littering the skies whenever I'm on an airplane.

We hope for a lot of things that don't have much grounding. Have you ever hoped a car wouldn't break down, despite the horrible sound emanating from under the hood? Hopes don't do much good then. Have you ever hoped a person would changed, despite the fact that every piece of evidence suggests that the person has no interest in changing? What is that hope rooted in, other than your own desire?

But when we talk about the Christian hope of life beyond death, we're talking about a hope that is rooted in something real—the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We don't idly hope for resurrection because it's some bright idea we came up with. We hope with confidence in resurrection because Jesus himself was raised from the dead, and he promised that we would have a resurrection like his. Our hope is rooted in history, in the idea that what has happened will happen again. Jesus' resurrection is the assurance that what he said is true, and so when we wonder how we can have such bold a hope, we look to Christ and remember that he has been raised, and so we, too, shall be raised.

This is why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, takes such pains to list the number of folks to whom the resurrected Christ appeared. They were proof of the boldness of our hope. They had witnessed Christ, raised from the dead. Because he lives, we, too, shall live.

What great hope we have!

3 days

  Sometimes, we wonder what God is up to.  We wonder where God is, especially in our pain and suffering.  We cry out to the heavens, wondering when God will act.

  In Exodus 16, we begin with a victory song.  Both Moses and Miriam celebrate the victory the Lord has achieved over the Egyptians.  The Lord closed up the sea on the army of Pharaoh, and all the people of Israel witnessed God's amazing deed.  We're told, in Exodus 14:31, that the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.

  What happens next?

  3 days later, out in the wilderness, the people started complaining.

  3 days.

  By day 3, the people were already anxious that the Lord wouldn't provide for them.  They were already on the lookout for evidence of God in their midst, and when they couldn't immediately find it, they started complaining.  This pattern repeats itself, over and over again.  God delivers the people from something or someone, and just as soon as the next obstacle arises, the people seem to have forgotten completely all that God has done, and this leads them not to trust in the continued grace and provision of God.

  

  Our task, then, is to remember.

  By remembering all that God has done in the past, we are reminded to trust that God will still provide, that God still cares and that God will not abandon us.

  Remember, then, all that God has done.  When the next obstacle arises, may you trust fully in God because God has proven himself to be completely trustworthy.

Being Rich, part II

  Wednesday, I was thinking about what it means to be rich toward God.  What does this mean?  How do we get it?

  First of all, I think we receive rather than obtain it.  The second we start to think that we can obtain it we do two things:  we become like the folks at Babel, certain that our own achievements or brilliance can work out our relationship with God, and we turn a relationship with God into a commodity, something to possess or obtain, as though we can put it in a safety deposit box and keep it there.

  So when we view wealth toward God as something to be received as a gift, we can change the way we think.  Rather than think about finding something to clutch, we can think about how we can open our hands to receive the gift.  What shape of life best enables you to receive the gift of wealth in God?  What patterns, habits and rituals will open your hands, your heart, your eyes and your ears, to receive blessing from God?

  Spiritual disciplines certainly come in handy here.  Prayer, solitude, quiet, meditation, fasting and other disciplines are all good for quieting the busy-ness of the human soul to the point where God can break through.  Spiritual disciplines are certainly old-fashioned, but there is nothing new under the sun, as we read in Scripture.  It's easy to wait for some new technique or pill that will revolutionize spirituality, but the fact of the matter is that we just have to buckle down and do the work.  We have to make time (We'll never find time if we just leave it to chance).  We have to set aside pockets of our day intentionally.  We need to decide ahead of time and stick with our plan.  God certainly is at work in all the things we do, in all the places we go, and we need to cultivate a mindset of awareness to pay attention to God throughout the day, but it's wishful thinking, I believe, if we think we can do that without also having intentional time to tune ourselves in, without distractions, to God's frequency.

  When we daily walk with God, we build the relationship and better learn the character of God.  In so doing, we recognize the wealth God is pouring upon us, and we stand in awe of the grace of God.  All of life is changed by this one relationship, and wealth, true wealth in God, makes other types of wealth pale in comparison.

  Also, wealth toward God changes the way we view these other kinds of wealth.  We no longer see them as the most important thing--they become tools that can enrich our lives and enrich the world around us, but each of them as a gift from God rather than the most important thing.

  So may we strive for wealth from God by opening our hands and hearts to receive the blessings of God.

Being Rich

  What if you won the lottery tomorrow.  You'd be rich, right?  (I know, I know... you'd have to pay all those taxes.  No one feels sorry for people who, after they pay a lot of taxes, are still rich.)  Well, you'd be rich in money, anyway.  Your money could buy you all sorts of things.  You could buy big, shiny things, like a car or boat or house.  You could buy small, shiny things, like a new phone or computer.  You'd be rich.

  Well, imagine you weren't monetarily rich.  But let's say that you have a wealth of great relationships.  Let's say you have family that loves and supports you, celebrating with you when life was going well and walking closely alongside you when it wasn't.  Let's imagine that people touched base and really listened to you when you spoke.  Let's say you are surrounded by people whom you love and who love you in return.  You'd be rich in another way, right?

  Maybe you're an idea person.  Perhaps you can't stop coming up with new ideas about how things might be done differently, about how one thing might be improved and another might be overhauled.  Maybe your life is filled with notebooks overflowing with sketches and reminders of a new idea, and you may even struggle to concentrate on one idea because there are simply too many to manage.  You'd be rich in ideas, right?

  In Luke 12, we're told that we should strive to be rich toward God.  What does that mean?

  We know that this is the only wealth that will stand the test of time.  Every other form of wealth will fade away, but wealth toward God will last forever.  It's certainly the most important wealth we can ever hope to possess, and it guides how we use all other forms of wealth.

  But what is it?  How do we get it?

  More on that Friday...

Still More Excellent

  "Strive for the greater gifts.  And I will show you a still more excellent way."  (1 Cor. 12:31)

  Can you imagine telling Billy Graham that there is still more for him?

  Can you look the pope in the eye and say that he needs to grow spiritually?

  Christianity is indeed a bottomless ocean into which we dive.  In this lifetime, it is impossible to ever achieve a complete knowledge of the things of God.  It is somewhat humorous to me that my degree is called a 'Master of Divinity'.  As if such a thing was possible.  I suppose 'This Person knows a little more about religious things' doesn't sound quite as prestigious.  Who's going to pay for that degree?

  From the days we first look to the heavens with a curious glance to the very last breath our mortal bodies draw, there is more to learn about God.  We never know enough, we have never mastered the material.  The wise choice, I believe, is to accept this and invest our lives as students, humbling admitting how little we know and seeking out knowledge of God, that it may lead us deeper into a relationship with God.  We shall never have all the answers, but Paul still encourages us to learn, to strive, and trust that the truth is always even more excellent than we can ever grasp.

  The truth of God is always just beyond our reach, no matter how high we have climbed.  No matter how wondrous and loving we comprehend God to be, he is always more than we can dare to dream.

Thoughts on Sex

  I don't think it's too bold to say that the sexual ethics in this country are pretty loose.  I think a lot of people are having a lot of sex with a lot of other people in relationships outside of marriage.  I'm not going to go looking for research to corroborate this, but I've seen and read enough studies to know that celibacy outside of marriage is probably not the prevailing ethos among a lot of folks.

  While many branches of the Christian church have been really good about condemning folks for doing so, I don't know if they've been as excellent at explaining why we believe that sex should take place within the bounds of marriage.  I think Paul captures some of this well in 1 Corinthians 6:16:  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”   

  I think Paul is telling us that something more is happening during sex than just a physical interaction.  There is a level of intimacy that demands a committed relationship where, as Tim Keller put it in an excellent sermon, we can be emotionally naked as well as physically naked.  To believe that we can have one type of intimacy without the other is, I believe, preventing sex from being fully what it was designed to be.  

  Looked at in this way, the church should be able to say that we want sex to be within marriage because we want people to experience the fullness of what God intended sex to be within a covenanted relationship, rather than settling for a cheapened version that fools us into thinking that physical intimacy alone is all that sex is about.  The church can hold up the covenantal relationship of marriage and say that the reason to confine sex within marriage is because it gives us the emotional commitment to allow us to experience the full delight and glory of sex.  We can approach this positively, rather than negatively.  I think it might make a big difference.