irony

In everything she does, she can feel this aching knowing that there has to be something more. All of the things that she’s put in place to give her a sense of purpose only seem to echo off the walls of empty rooms. For her, it’s not about going to church or finding God. She does that. She is that. But there’s still something missing.

The ‘kingdom of God’ is a completely ‘other’ existence. We all have to start out in one ‘reality’ before we enter the other.

We are born into the first one and are fully equipped to navigate it. There is an order to things there. First birth and then death. Work hard, learn everything you can, achieve, succeed, give back, stay fit… A long life of possibility and a systematic way to get the most out of it.

We’re spiritual beings, so we tap into whatever speaks to us. When it fails to reach the depths of our spirit, we get more aggressive, more militant. There are always ways to fill up our time with physical actions we hope will deepen a spiritual experience. If you’re busy enough, you don’t have to think about the hollow echo. If you can hear it, you add another noise, another trinket, another sound absorbing layer.

People turn to extremes to numb their emptiness. The workaholic, socialholic, chemiholic or churchaholic, it’s all the same.

Churches are great at loading your life’s truck bed up with as much as you can handle. It’s as if to keep you too busy to sin. You may be empty, you may have questions, but if you’re not sinning then who cares?

I do.

So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don’t we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us… -Acts 15:10-11

There is a completely ‘other’ existence and it doesn’t need anything from the ‘birth to death’ reality to sustain it. The actuality is, hanging on to any part of the ‘birth to death’ way of life keeps you plugged into it and, as long as you are plugged in to it, you cannot ’see’ the ‘other’ existence.

It’s more likely for a person who doesn’t know the religious song and dance to catch the subtle breeze of ’something else’ long before the church-going trust fund babies do. It seems that God likes to whisper His secrets into the ears of those the rest of the steeple-topped world don’t even notice. There is a point where you think you know so much that you start to take over and rewrite the book. Trying to ‘out-god God.’

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And [those], who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. -Romans 9:30-32

I’m trying to use these scriptures from ‘the Rock’ to challenge your thinking, to send your rock solid assurance in yourself sprawling. It’s not simply to be a punk trying to knock out windows to no end. I want to knock down walls so you can finally see this ‘other’ existence.

Paul had to be struck blind for a while. Jonah had to be swallowed by a (metaphorical?) fish. The Israelites had to walk through hell on Earth.  Job had to suffer immeasurably. The prodigal son had to squander his inheritance. Hosea had to marry a prostitute.  Jacob got his hip dislocated in the wrestle. Eli had to lose his sons. Moses conversed with a burning bush. Lazarus spent four days rotting in tomb. Peter had to deny the man he said he’d never betray. I had to be knocked flat on my face in the mud. We all have to experience what it is to have everything we know about life and faith be ruined by the wrecking ball of God in order to see the Truth of this ‘other’ existence. If it hurts, so be it. If it leaves you limping for the rest of your natural life, what of it? Let it all be counted as loss when you gain real life in the end.

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness. -Phillipians 3:7-9

a birthday of sorts

Twenty three years ago today, I was adopted by two people with the biggest hearts I’ve ever met. I want to pay homage to them, lovers who lost their world so it could be given it to those who didn’t have one.

He was a good ol’ boy with an outlaw temper and a heart bent toward Jesus. He was raised on a dairy farm with horses, calloused hands and the kind of muscles a country girl dreams about. His dark wavy hair and dark eyes were fixed on her from the start.

She was the opposite of him. A cheerleader in short skirts and long hair that matched her golden heart. Not even summers riding horses with a boy who later became Don Johnson could steal her heart away from him. When a girl loves a boy, she’ll do some crazy things. She never went to church until she went with him.

Horseback rides in the Ozark Mountains and basketball games were the terrain of  high school sweethearts with hearts as big as their dreams.

Anyone who knew them back then would tell you they wanted six kids to raise between the farm and church. And there was no reason why this all American love affair couldn’t do just that.

They were married barely out of high school and started their family. It would have been a walk into the sunset if their babies had been healthy.

But they weren’t.

•   •   •   •   •   •

I was born to a fifteen year old, mentally ill girl. All she knew was the streets and how a beautiful girl could survive on them. I was brought up in the trenches and no stranger to the decaying leftovers of existance. I was the oldest of four. My mom took the brass knuckles of life and the hollow haunting in her eyes told so much more than her busted open lips could. Me, my two brothers and sister moved around in separate foster homes for years. My siblings were too young to fend for themselves, but for whatever reason, I was born with two clenched fists and a set jaw. I took care of them the best I could, but evil men are more malicious than a smart mouthed kid from the city streets could maneuver.

We were tossed around like soiled clothes. The pain and abuse we endured raged an unpaid debt all the way into who we would become. My mom could take the beatings herself, but she couldn’t take watching them ripping into my body, too. She tried her best to make sure we were fed, but existing is a monster to those who can’t pay the price. We were the kids out the window who laughed with sunken eyes and hugged with jutting ribs.

I was nine when she put her signature to a piece of paper that said she couldn’t protect us anymore.

•   •   •   •   •   •

Rowland and Donna started their lives with a plan, but then God stepped in with His plan. Their children were born with a disease that killed them. Donna tried to console her husband while she tried to console her aching womb. Her third pregnancy ended when she was twenty-two years old and seven months along. The baby was taken from her along with her ability to conceive again.

They had more love than they could give and when their two living babies started dying from a disease that only existed for them, they began looking outward for babies with no home. They’re simple people. When the city workers stuck a catalogue of broken hearts in front of them, they said yes to the first set of eyes they saw.

They never intended to adopt four kids at once, but couldn’t stomach the thought of siblings being torn away from each other. They knew they had enough love even when the rest of their family thought they were crazy for adopting a ten year old (me), a seven year old, a five year old and a four year old. They were thirty and thirty-one years old and had just buried their second baby. Seven years later, they had to bury their third. ‘To think that God would take a child from his mother while she prayed…’

I asked her, once, why she thought that God would allow her to suffer so much and take her babies from her. Her answer has shaped me and sings in harmony with the message of my life. She said that she believes God didn’t allow her to keep her own children because He knew that I needed a Mommy.

I remember taking a needle and poking holes in our fingers so we could put our blood together and make it official. A kid’s ritual to let her know I adopted her back.

Even after the hell I put them through (some street strays can’t be tamed), they never backed away from being my ‘blood.’ They never changed their minds, no matter how many times we’ve broken their heart.

They gave God their lives and He used them. They walked through things that destroy people.

And now I’m about to show him what he’s in for—the hard suffering that goes with this job. -Acts 9:15

Giving your life to God should not come with a sense of entitlement. He never promised an easy road. He warns the opposite. But, somehow still, He manages to turn loss around and fuse it together into something that sweeps a lot wider than you could have reached had everything gone according to your plan.

I wanted a family, but was born to a woman who couldn’t take care of me. They wanted children, but weren’t able to make them healthy. The two little boys they adopted after us never asked to be born to a mother who loved drugs more than she loved them. God used the open arms of two high school sweethearts to gather the lost treasures of two broken families.

If you’re paying attention to this story and you’re counting, God was paying attention to the details because they got their six kids. We’re not all grown up yet, but we’ve already started filling their house with more. They’re only fifty-three and already have nine grandkids who come running into their arms when they come around.

I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11

Here’s to adding to your future out of the future you gave to me.

honor goes like this

We all want to know what God’s plan is. We want to know what He’s doing so we can do it, too. God spoke through Isaiah and laid that plan out. He says that He’s had a plan since the beginning. It’s the same plan now as it was before Day One.

Isaiah 53 starts out by foretelling the agony that His Son will suffer for the sake of humanity. The first nine verses illustrate His rejection, grief, bruises, torn flesh, oppression and judgement. All horrific prophesy given by God and verse ten says it has always been His plan:

Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. -Isaiah 53:10

Do you ever wonder why God made the human race knowing that they would turn on Him? We have a free will, but God gave us that free will, therefore, it’s secondary to His will. He has a plan and we play our part in it. Free will and all.

God is not limited by sin, He uses it. You can get a better understanding of this when you consider how you came to a place where you knew you needed a savior. It was when you knew your sin. Need grew in the courtyard of knowledge and the thirsty plant of ‘need’ drank the rain it never noticed when it fell on the empty courtyard many times before. What good is ‘Living Water’ when there is no ‘thirst’?

God uses sin as a doorway to Him. His plan rigged the system to fail proof your life. You might consider that we are set up to fail. There is scriptural evidence to that effect:

In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in. -Romans 11:32

We think about God’s standards, make those His will and His plan goes completely over our heads. He has standards and He’s never backed away from them. His will is that you know Him and His plan works it out so that you have no way out of His way in.

He makes sure that you feel what it’s like to be on the wrong side of right because the only way you can get to Him is through Jesus. Jesus didn’t come to square dance with saints, He came to rescue sinners.  He fulfills His purpose when He tells His Father that you’re righteous when we all know you’re not. The more the contrast, the more honor. God honors Jesus when He takes the failures under His wing. The less they are, the greater He is. In this way, the least become the greatest.

God uses sin to display His sovereignty. If sin is a certainty all by itself, then there is nothing new set loose by acknowledging the Truth about what God does through it. There is only freedom to be set free. If sin is free to terrorize, then God made it His slave. He made the worst become His biggest tool. He didn’t eliminate it, He put it to work.

The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him. -Isaiah 53:10

God is honored when the worst of men experience His life changing grace. The bigger the debt, the greater the gift and it’s all about the gift. You are not measured by how much you’ve achieved, you’re measured by how much you’ve received. God is not looking for your sin, He’s looking for His son.

I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors—Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep. -Isaiah 53:11-12

It’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Jesus is rewarded ‘extravagantly’ when He embraces ‘the company of the lowest’ and takes ‘up the cause of all the black sheep.’

In light of that scripture, it doesn’t take much to figure out how to be like Jesus. Stick your neck out for those who the rest have washed their hands of. You might be rejected by your ‘brothers’, but you’ll be honoring God who honors Jesus who passes His honor on to you only to receive more honor for what He’s done for you. And they cycle continues to ‘life, life and more life.’

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. -Romans 8:31-34

Take up the cause of Jesus and embrace the worst, the lowest, the least, for Him. He’s in front of the Father ’sticking up for them (us),’ so you stand in front of everyone else and stick up for them, too. Not because the person is innocent, but because the work of Jesus is ‘finished’. When you carry the weight of another person, you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it to Him.

I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me. -Matthew 25:40

dramatic flair

We try to avoid struggles or difficulty and we try to save others from it.

But, if we grow the most in our darkest moments, then what does aversion do? What place does sympathy hold?

If we saw our pain as the pains of growth, would we rebuke it as though we were not meant to struggle? Would we step in and try to take the experience away from another?

Would you say, ‘I never want you to be anything more than you already are, so I’ll never let you hurt.’

I have hurt a lot in my life and I wouldn’t wish any of it away. It’s the road patience, faith and wisdom took to get here.

If you can look at the pain in life like you would look at the pain of a woman in labor, it might help you get through it. Pain helps you let go. A woman in labor can’t control the birth, but she can focus her mind on what is happening. You have to give up control and focus on what is being born in you. Spiritual birth is not without physical pain.

‘If you limit your knowledge of God to the feel good, sunshine moments then you are missing half of the story. He’s not a dancing monkey out trying to get everybody to feel good and fall in love under rainbows. He’s not limited to being the Lamb of God because He’s also the Lion of Judah. His concern is to bring you to a place where you know Him. You must be emptied of yourself and filled up with Him. Don’t underestimate the process in which you are emptied of yourself. They don’t call it death for dramatic flair.’ -Grace Is For Sinners

get over yourself

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. -Collosians 1:15-17

God, who is Love, planned for Jesus before He planned for you. Jesus came first and He comes last. (I’m not trying to show off with redundant and forced proclamations about a sandy blonde half surfer-looking/half halo endowed Nazarene whom I know nothing about. I’m saying this to an end that should set you free.) The plan for Jesus came first. Knowing that, believing that, you have to let it complete its implication that your sin has no power.

I’ll try to explain this the best way I can.

Jesus and all that He finished on the cross comes first and nothing can trump that.

It is Jesus and …nothing but Jesus. You may say, ‘but, sin…’ However, you still have to follow it up with Jesus. There is no, ‘Jesus, but sin’ There is only ’sin, but Jesus.’ I’ve heard many people say, ‘Yes, Jesus died for our sins, but you have to….‘ I’m saying ‘NO!’ you don’t ‘have to‘ anything.

‘For everything, absolutely everything,…‘ even sin? ‘For everything, absolutely everything…finds its purpose in him.’

If you believe that, then you are free. Is this making sense? If you mention sin, you always have to mention grace. Why not just live in grace and let sin die? Don’t speak the ‘dead language of sin’ just speak the life language of grace.

From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. -Romans 6:10-11

Sin illuminates Jesus.

More need, more provision of grace. Jesus wins. Grace wins. We find our (a sin flawed human race) purpose in Jesus. If He was destined to be our Savior, it was because your destiny, without Him, is to die in sin. When you fall down, you are reminded of your insufficiency. It’s never a bad thing to be aware that you need Jesus. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s sovereignty over what is designed to destroy you. When you fall, take inventory of your weakness, trace it down to the root and submit it to God, then move on. When any attack comes and tries to hold you down, tell your attacker that your sin is irrelevant because of Jesus.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. -Collosians 1:18-20

People are terrified to teach you these things because they think it sets you free to sin. It just sets you free.

Your inclination for sin is and will always be there, so instead of leaving you high and dry, God sets your feet firmly planted in Him. You shouldn’t be scared. It’s not a ‘freedom to sin’ it’s a ‘freedom in spite of sin.’ You’ll sin whether you’re free or not. Jesus, simply put, took care of the problem of death.

Ask any Christian, any person with a heart after God, if they want to sin. Better yet, ask yourself that question and you’ll find a screaming ‘NO!’ But, is your desire to not make bad choices enough to keep you from them? At times, yes, but overwhelmingly and ultimately no. Paul beautifully described the battle that we can all identify with. Grace doesn’t make you want to sin. Grace sets you free from the death it demands.

Grace and your belief in the finality of Jesus’ sin conquering death marks you for life.

You are a slave to grace, never free from it, never able to outrun it, never able to out sin it. Your life and all of its flaws are a perfectly crafted petri dish specimen of God’s plan for humanity. Jesus is the constant and you, in Him, are an example of what His death accomplished. You see here that not even sin can mess up God’s purpose, it only magnifies it and continually creates the ‘new’ in His already written and published story of His salvation power.

I’m saying this: Alright, so you messed up. So what? Learn and get off your butt. My gosh, get over yourself and get on with your purpose.

You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. -Collosians 1-21-23

bury what’s dead

There are no accidents, only sovereign purpose.

If you’ll never see your own results, would you keep at it? Do you think you have a choice?  There isn’t enough sweat in you to do what you’re being used to do. Take a nap and wake up, you’re still there. Gather the crowd, stack your electrolytes and sprint until it hurts, you’re still there. Does it feel pointless? Is that defeat? Find that feeling and chase it to the source: pride. You should make your own t-shirt because you’re not getting any special treatment for your effort.

Whatever your circumstance has destroyed needs to hurry up and be buried.

Come on, I’m wearing my best black. My Barbie posed feet are aching and my flowers are drooping. Let’s get on with it. The dead can’t hear that painfully long goodbye speech.

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! -Romans 8:12

Are you in a place where your religion is tuckering out? Is your god not talking back? Not carrying you like you think he should?

God is not conventional and He doesn’t navigate within your common sense. He has purposes and plans that we have never considered. But, religion tends to over step the line when they try to box up a pretty ‘god’ for people to worship.

They carry it around in holy parades, then take it home and put it on a shelf. And there it sits, day in and day out, a dependable god, always right where you put it. Say anything you want to it, it never talks back. -Isaiah 46:6-7

Stop focusing on yourself.

It’s not about what you could do or want to do. It’s not even about what you’ve done. If you’re in the trench, it’s because you need to know what it is to be in the trench. If you’re eating slop with pigs, it’s because you need to know what it is to eat slop with pigs. Everything you are going through, have gone through and will go through is not just for you, it’s for the rest of us, too. How can you help someone navigate a path you’ve never walked? You’re not here to be a doll on a shelf, in a pew. You’re here to learn and then teach what you’ve learned. Life is not perfect. People will fall in the same traps you’ve fallen in to and when you come out, turn and help those who are were you were.

Where you are now is absolutely crucial to your purpose. You haven’t messed up God’s plan for your life, you’re living it. God has not made a mistake in allowing your sin or your suffering. Suffering destroys the ’self’ in you. Thank God. You go through the hell so that you can become something that God can pour out for others.

Grapes have to be mashed in order to be poured out wine.

Hang in there, this matters. Keep notes, others will need them.

You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people. -Oswald Chambers

foundation

“You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives. It’s who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.” -Jesus, Luke 6:43-45

We’re always reaching for that next step. If we could, we’d take them two at a time just to get to our destination. Our destination is that place of approval and importance in purpose. We want a show-n-tell for our efforts. We want to be recognized for our work. In chasing that, we neglect our foundation.

Your purpose is the task at hand. It’s the mundane sprinkled with moments of ‘extra-ordinary.’ If you try to make the ‘extra-ordinary’ ordinary then you become a thrill junkie. Right now is never enough. You’ll never be content.

Get a handle on what is right in front of you so that when that illusive ‘crossroad’ of opportunity takes place, you can move into it with practiced ease. When the ‘extraordinary’ task is finished you can go back to practicing in the mundane for the next one.

If you can’t excel at the small things, how can you be trusted with the bigger tasks you’ve been called to do?

The ordinary is your foundation. It’s the ground on which you stand. If you only tend to the larger things, the things that get noticed, you lose everything when your foundation crumbles.

Practice. Get a grip on what you have. Practice with what is right in front of you so that you’ll be ready when the big stuff comes.

Approval comes with disapproval. Popularity comes with infamy. Your importance is gauged by your foundation. How can you handle with wind on the mountain if you aren’t burrowed into it? How can you take the slander out in the world if you don’t know who you are at home?

Life’s tests are like fire burning up the cheap materials and leaving what it solid. The better your foundation, the more that will be left standing when it’s your turn to get hit.

To put it practically: A well tended marriage, well cared for kids and a smoothly running home make for a safe place to land when the world bites at your back and chips away at your self-worth.

Or, to put it another way, you are God’s house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. -1 Corinthians 3:9-15

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stolen water

“Stolen water is sweet,…” -Proverbs 9:17 ESV

If God cares about you at all, your secret will be found out. The storm-wet footprints of those who slip through the dark may dry by morning, but if you have to work with the lights off, you won’t see the other evidence you left behind. You’re careful not to leave scars, but those who love you can feel when your blood leaves your veins. You erase all the messages, but all it takes is getting your timing off one time and there’s nothing you can do about it. You clear your history, but your brain is missing that button. You can bury the bottle, but you renew your problem every time you empty a new one.

You can’t make yourself not want it and you can’t control how fast you need more. You have an addiction. The honeymoon period lasts a long time, but it’s not long before you realize you’re attached to a ball and chain.

“Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” -Proverbs 9:17 ESV

How many holes do you have to dig before you’ve dug up all your good and you’re nothing but a backyard of buried secrets? No green, no new life and you’re tripping on a rusty chain. Why would anyone take the time to wash a dog that keeps going back to his dingy holes? Maybe you’d prefer the backyard. You can be the paranoid guard of secret holes, always looking over your shoulder.

You think it would be better if nobody knew and you can get this under control by yourself. You may be able to make it to the shower before anybody sees what you brought home, but there are some things you can’t wash off. There are things you can’t fix by yourself.

These things burn images into your retina. They carve their messages into the lining of your skin. Nobody can see just how bad it is, but they watch you squirm like a worm on a hot sidewalk, like a princess with a rash, like a star athlete with a twisted ankle.

“Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.” -Proverbs 20:17 ESV

Your digging has damaged roots. You’ve isolated yourself with burned bridges. You were giddy with the attention of seduction, but now you’re just alone. Now you have to face what you’ve become. A fence climber, a gravedigger, a child left behind after a funeral.

“Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” But he does not know that the dead are there. -Proverbs 9:17-18 ESV

You may describe what happened as ‘getting caught’, but you’ve got it wrong. You’ve been found. The backyard has been seized and you’re being questioned while you watch them dig up your secrets. The excruciating shame shocks your body as the cloak of darkness is ripped away. You see your naked form in the light of day and don’t recognize the emaciated mass of gray you’ve become. You’re not so sexy when everybody around you isn’t drunk on stolen water.

There will be gawkers who snap your image while you’re stripped down and squinting under the bright lights of reality. You will be let down by those who you used to respect because when the lights come on, you’ll see them for who they are, too: immature and blind. Don’t pay attention to them. You’ll see the backs of heads more than you will the kindness in eyes. It takes a team of fighters with a lot of faith and a few scars of their own to help you walk.

You’ve been found out because you have a purpose. You’ve gone through your ‘boot camp’ of sin recognition and utter helplessness so that you can be part of a team who help the fallen make the long walk home. We all have impurities in our making. A little pressure, a little heat, a little dance with the devil will make some of those dormant weeds bloom. If you can see it, you can follow it down to the source and root it out.

There are many things you may have built in your life, but if they’re not meant to be there, they’ll be destroyed.

Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely. -1 Corinthians 9:13-15

If you have been caught in your sin, then your shackles have been cut. There is an upward climb through rocky woods before the open spaces of freedom. Sometimes slaves are afraid of the space between chains and freedom, but you don’t have to go this alone. There are others who have been there and there is One who has walked this before. No matter how many times you slip back and lose ground, you will never be left behind. He will never give up on you. When you can run, run. But, even if you have to crawl, keep moving.

The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does. -1 Peter 5:9

thoughts on ‘pain’s purpose’

Today I’m over at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee talking about ‘Pain’s Purpose’. There are many ways we respond to pain and many ways that pain is introduced to our lives. Be it sickness, injury, or our own failure, pain has a purpose. It makes us weak and it makes us want to let go. It has a purpose because where you are weak, He is strong and where you want to let go, you now have free hands to grab on to Him.

I have an analogy: Pretend that someone gave you a bucket of marbles and told you to use all of them except one of the colors. You don’t know what colors are, they’re all marbles to you. So, you try some way to separate them out based on your guesses, ease of use and feelings. Marbles that don’t roll the way you want them to are rejected for that task and marbles that are not ‘pretty’ are rejected, too. The formula doesn’t work all the time because the colors don’t match up and every task is different. What didn’t work yesterday works today. We get used to the inconsistency and learn how to roll with ‘not knowing everything.’ But there are those times where nothing makes sense and you’re standing there with a mess of marbles and no clue what to do.

Life is like that. God tells us to die to our ’selves’. We have a task to do and we can’t use a particular color of ‘marble’. We don’t know exactly what that is. It’s all ‘life’ and separating spirit from flesh is confusing. Especially if we think spiritual well being feels good to the ‘flesh.’ So, we reject things that don’t roll smooth or look pretty. Sometimes we’ve got it figured out and sometimes what worked before doesn’t work now. Sometimes we see our pain/failure/inadequacy and wonder how to complete the task to get rid of the discomfort. It’s a mess and we need clearer answers. It would be easier if we were told what that color was or what our ’selves’ were so that we could take them out of the picture.

Then it clicks…

Our pain is God telling us what our ’self’ is. Does sickness hurt your spirit or your body? Does a broken leg hurt your spirit or your body? Have you ever sinned and saw the separation between your spiritual desire and your ’selfish’ desire? When someone dies, does it hurt your heart or your spirit? Pain is a tool. Paul was given a ‘thorn in his flesh’. There are many different interpretations as to what that was. I have a few of my own. But, the outcome is the same: His flesh was marked so that he never forgot where it was. When you forget where your flesh is, you get cocky, self-righteous and impatient with others. The ‘thorn’ was a handle, a grip. It was a blessing.

At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’ Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. -2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Pain, sickness, death, failure are all things that show us the difference between flesh and spirit. It only serves as a tool to help you know what not to consider when completing your task. To die to your ’self’ as instructed. These things actually make it easier for someone to do just that.

Check out the original blog and join the conversation here. I’d love to hear your thoughts. (I’ve disabled comments here, so we can all communicate in one place.)

where else would I go?

Morning fog rose up from the ground and swirled around the feet and legs of the gathered crowd.

“Rabbi, when did you get here?” -John 6:25

They were looking at him like a circus freak. Their excitement radiated around them like needle junkies looking for the next hit.

They had seen him walk through baskets of bread and meat broken from five loaves and two fish. They stuffed themselves as the buzz of new celebrity swarmed around them like drunk flies. They gawked and talked as they sprinkled their shirts with crumbs.

Jesus was their new drug.

They searched for him all morning until they finally found him.

Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free. -John 6:26

They were coming around for what they got out of it. Fat hungry flies forming a new addiction.

‘…what do we do then to get in on God’s works?” -John 6:28

There are no cheat codes for getting this. People want to know what they have to do because, although believing is the simplest instruction, it’s the hardest thing to do. They want a way to get by without giving in.

I’ve seen many people come and go. Collision victims stumble in to a Jesus experience until the guilt is gone and the new rubs off. The municipally prudent add the Jesus spice to their baking because that’s the proverbial cherry on top of a socially responsible life. Some trade the church life in for a damaged, dead-end life they can’t seem to escape otherwise. Jesus is not a band-aid, he’s not a decoration and he’s more than a lifestyle change.

There are those who have been abducted by an unmistakable overtaking of experience and witness that cannot be mistaken for anything other than the living God. They cannot deny it because the vision is forever seared into the pupils of their eyes. If I could paint you a picture, I would show you the sky. The stars in the Northern hemisphere, the sun setting across an endless ocean and the sun rising over the mountains try to tell you what no set of words can properly articulate.

Jesus said, “Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God’s works.”

They waffled: “Why don’t you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what’s going on? When we see what’s up, we’ll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. -John 6:29-30

‘Dance, Monkey. Then we’ll put money in your tin cup.’

All Jesus had to do was start talking ‘kingdom’ talk and not apologize for how it offends the natural senses. He says he’s the ‘Bread of Life’ and by consuming his flesh and drinking his blood, they would have eternal life.

A person will die if they don’t eat or drink. Jesus is saying he’s the source of life for the real life, the spirit life. ‘Eating and drinking’ are believing. You get eternal life by believing.

Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don’t really believe me. -John 6:35-36

For a man who spent his life walking from town to town to announce who he was and what he was doing, he never seemed to care what people thought of him. He never freaked out if people walked out while he taught. He didn’t even care if they ran off to spread the news that the Galilean lunatic was encouraging cannibalism.

Jesus didn’t care about what he looked or sounded like because what was supposed to happen would happen. It’s just a matter of time.

Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go. -John 6:37

Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. -John 6:43-44

Many among his disciples heard this and said, “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.” -John 6:60

“Does this throw you completely? What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen. Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this.” (Jesus knew from the start that some weren’t going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would betray him.) He went on to say, “This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father.” -John 61-65

Jesus was not worried about losing a follower at intersections of contention. There is always that point and the sooner you get there, the better. He knew that the group would be sifted by the truth and he said as much. It came as no surprise or discouragement that several walked away.

After this a lot of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. -John 6:66

I think the scripture reference numbers are interesting. 666.

Jesus turned to his twelve and asked them if they wanted to leave, too. I love the way Peter answered him. I’m with Peter.

Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? -John 6:68

inspired by John 6