Now were was that slide ruler… ah here it is. Let’s start with a short expedition into the world of physics. You probably know from your high school science teacher that all things are made up of little particles called molecules. Much to my surprise, molecules are not made of Styrofoam and tinker toys. Instead they are actually made up even smaller particles called atoms, which in turn are made up sub-atomic particles called neutrons, electrons and protons.  There are even smaller particles, but let’s stop there before some of us have an aneurysm.

Of course we don’t ever see things from a “sub-atomic” point of view. We experience the world at a macro level – where all of these  particles are joined into various types of “matter” with properties of mass, density and energy. We sit on a chair, read a book, feel the wind, swing a tennis racquet, eat a sandwich and take a shower without ever thinking about this “micro” or “sub-atomic” world at all. In our macro level of existence the world is a much different place. It is characterized by large objects that can be experienced by our senses. In the “large object” world we don’t see things as having any sort of  inner energy or movement. In fact, we call things that just sit there inanimate objects.

In our “macro” world where things move or stand still everything behaves according to certain rules. We can pick up a rock and throw it, but we would never expect a rock to suddenly travel from one place to another on it’s own. Chairs in the living room don’t ever produce more chairs – even if we put a blue chair next to a pink chair.  You are not likely to hear anything standing next to a block of wood and listening to it intently.  Our macro world is predictable and “solid”. It does not appear to pulsate with any sort of rhythm or motion. It is what we might call “static” in the same sense that superman is static – unchanging, without inner conflict, unyielding and predictable.  Our macro world lulls us into a false sense that what we see is all there is!

Now we do not take that approach with the spiritual world. We know that there is more than what we can sense. We understand that faith is required to walk in the Spirit. We make noise about how much more there is of God than we can know or understand. Yet with creation we seem to think that God has exposed the whole expanse of his cosmic creative ethos to our puny 5 senses and 3 dimensions. But if science can teach us anything it should be that there is always more to discover!

Exploring the macro world out into space, science has yet to reach any sort of conclusion on the size and nature of our universe. The consensus scientists have now are not the same ones they had a mere 5 years ago. The more we think we know, the more we come to understand how much we don’t know. Hundreds of theories about the universe have come and gone in just the last decade. We as Christians have seen these theories variously as either threatening or affirming our view of God and we have dismissed or embraced them accordingly – but in most cases we miss the point. The big picture is that the universe is vast and infinite and will never be completely encapsulated in a philosophy, a theory, or a mathematical equation. Like our God who is infinitely creative, the universe itself is the infinite expression of the very creative impulse that brought us into being in his image.

Indeed, as science advances it does so in a cycle that careens from arrogance to humility and back to arrogance again. When consensus builds around a big idea and science solves one of the thousands of mysteries that has dogged its path, scientists often celebrate by puffing out their chests and extolling the virtues of science as the ultimate human endeavor. A few years later however, those same scientists are back to scratching their heads over new mysteries that have emerged from the same solution they were so proud of a few years before.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of quantum physics. In the same way that astronomy is the study of the “macro” universe that we all live in, the study of quantum physics is geared toward examining the micro world that seethes and teams all around us making up everything in the macro world. You may not realize it but the micro world is just as infinite as the macro world. The further scientists delve into the world of the sub-atomic the more  there is to discover.

Infinite? How can the small be infinite?  Consider this illustration. Take a line exactly 1 inch long and divide it in half. Then take one of the resultant lines and divide it in half. Repeat the process until you can no longer do so. Wait… when is that exactly? At what point does the line become no longer divisible by 2? Truthfully there is no limit to the number of times you can make the line smaller by dividing it. There is only a practical limit – notably the point where it becomes impossible to measure.

Does this sound a tad silly to you? You might think that it’s an exercise in futility – like trying to figure out how many angels fit on the head of a pin or how many congressman it takes to screw in a light-bulb.  In reality this is exactly what quantum physicists are trying to do everyday.  They are trying to find ways to measure things that are infinitely small. In fact, one of the major obstacles in the entire world of quantum physics is that the act of measuring has an impact on the item being measured. In other words, just finding a way to look at a sub-atomic interaction causes the results to be skewed. But what scientists are finding out at the sub-atomic level is the same thing they are finding out at the astrophysics (macro) level. There is always still more.

Since this is a devotional blog I know you expect me to bring it back to that original idea – that God created all of the universe as a giant symphony. We are almost there – but you have to hang with me through one more round of physics and then we’ll bring it home. So keep your thinking caps on as we struggle to understand just a tiny bit of the sub-atomic world beneath the surface of all things.

Unlike the macro world, the sub-atomic world is never ever stationary or static. Indeed, nothing stays still. Electrons, protons, neutrons, gamma rays and photons are constantly moving and interacting. In fact, it turns out that these little particles can be examined to understand how much energy they possess (their “energy state”) or they can be examined to determine their location in space, but you cannot know both of these things at the same time. This behavior is so bizarre that it has folks with Einstein level IQ’s fighting over competing explanations at egg-head conferences all over the world.

It seems that particles have 2 contradictory properties. In some sense a particle is not a particle at all but a wave. It acts more like a wave of possibilities than it does like an individual little speck of something or other. These possibilities are always dividing and coming together, dividing and coming together like waves splitting  against an obstacle. Yet in a very real sense these particles do exhibit the behavior of a “speck of something”. A particle can be seen or detected at a particular space and time for example. At that particular space and time it is very much a particle and not some kind of wave. But when you isolate the space and time of a particle (it’s “particleness”) you lose the ability to know anything about how it moves or functions (it’s “waveness”). In fact, the very act of observing it causes it to lose it’s wave like properties.

This disconnected view of particles and how they behave is typically referred to as wave particle duality and it is a science fiction staple.  Physicists explain it by saying that a particle exists in space and time but not in the same way that a large object exists in space and time. Instead of moving smoothly from one location to the next a particle appears to “pop in and out” of existence at particular locations in time and space.  Predicting the location of a particular particle along a time continuum is a matter of understanding the “wave of  possibilities” for a particle. This is actually an observable phenomenon.  For the better part of the last 40 years physicists have been illustrating sub-atomic particles not as solid mass but as a cloud of probabilities because sub atomic particles seem to go popping and crackling through space disappearing and reappearing willy nilly like dancers under a strobe light at an 80’s disco party. And where a particle will appear next is uncertain. It can only be expressed as a probability and not a certainty.

Wait a minute! Am I actually saying that at a micro sub atomic level tiny particles appear to pop up here and there at given points of time and space? …and this popping in out of existence is actually what makes up the whole universe?  Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying – and that’s the current state of quantum physics theory. Of course anyone whose ever had their 3-year old “pop into existence” next to the bed at 3:00 am asking for a drink of water knows exactly what this sort of popping behavior is like.

Indeed, the scientific world is in the dark as to why a particle that is at one time here is suddenly not here and is instead over there. Somehow particles, like Prince Hamlet,  “decide” to be or not to be. They follow a path of possibilities laid out for them by… by some rules or plan yet un-deciphered. So the universe that we know and we live in is held together by rules governed by tiny particles that somehow decide where to be at a given moment. Or at least that’s what science is going to hold onto until they find an explanation that does not require faith.

We on the other hand, have this magnificent description from Hebrews 1:1-3.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power.

What holds the universe together? What helps the infinite number of particles “decide” where to be in time and space to make up this sensate universe in which we live?  It is the Word of God – that same word that called the universe into being to begin with. That same Word who saw shapeless matter and fashioned a beautiful blue marbled planet held suspended in space (and time!) and populated with amazing carbon based life forms. That same word who brought man from the dust and fashioned him in the Imago Dei – the very image of God, holding within him the very breath of God from which his life emerged.

What would it “look like” if we could translate the way God experiences the universe into our own poor senses? What would we “see”?  Our God, outside of creation – outside of time and space – encompassing all things that are, that have been or that will be, within His will… holding them together with His Word. Does the world shimmer and pulsate for God?  Does He see the movement and life and constant motion at the sub-atomic level like He sees the motion of stars and galaxies? What would it be like to be aware of the constant behavior of  every molecule and atom?

And let’s not forget. God, being outside of His creation, wholly “other” than His creation, chose willingly to become a part of his creation to rescue fallen us! He chose to subject himself to the limitations of a body – made up of the molecules and atoms that He Himself held together with his Word. And still today he chooses to befriend us, rescue us, redeem us and love us. What an unimaginable God we serve!

In Luke 19 the people were crying out “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in Heave and Glory in the Highest!” The Pharisees wanted Jesus to rebuke them for offering such high praise. Do you remember his response?  He said, “…if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out (vs. 40).”  For Jesus this must have meant something very different. Hyperbole and metaphor aside, Jesus the creator could sense the movement and rhythm of the universe both macro and micro. Holding the very universe together and understanding fully the nature of matter and the laws of physics, Jesus knew that the “rocks could cry out” and proclaim his Glory in a way that surely would have silenced the Pharisees and all of history. Wow… that has to be the best inside joke of all time.

There’s more to this story that I want to share. There is the nature of time and space, the idea of harmonics and parallel universes. But first I want to see how this particular post is received. This line of thought is important to me. It broadens my view of God and of his plan for my life. It brings new power to his willingness to be born in human form and die on the cross. Still, the discussion might be uncomfortable for some and unimaginably boring for others :)  So if you like this post and you would like a couple more along the lines of quantum physics (a topic I’m currently interested in) let me know and I’ll be glad to share whatever God puts on my heart.

Life has a number of pedal tones to it - underlying themes that draw us back from time to time. Death is one of these themes. Like a pedal tone at the end of a fugue it grows increasingly louder the longer the song is played. No matter how far afield our melody strays, death will be answered. It is a note that must be and will be resolved - eventually eclipsing all other melodies. Studies show that 1 out of 1 people will die. Wow, that is really depressing. Wasn't this supposed to be a devotional blog?

Holding On to Life

If all this talk of death seems rather un-spiritual to you I would remind you that the Bible is full of wisdom about the nearness of death and the tenuousness of life. Psalm 103 verse 14-17 says

Now that is a stark picture. Man is like a flower. The wind blows it away and its place remembers it no more. It's as if it was never there. Consider for a moment the billions of people who have lived and died - and nothing is ever written about them. No songs sung, no biographies, no faint remembrances entombed in faded tint-type pictures... nothing. They are gone and the place where they lived and spent years remembers them no more.

When I was 7 I remember visiting my Great Grandma Kruger. She lived on her own till around age 93 and then the family moved her to a rest home. I remember walking down the austere halls with that foreign smell that seems so alien to a 7 year old boy used to tearing up and down a tree lined street in search of outdoor adventure. It was the smell of the closet - the smell of fragile things shut up and protected.

My great grandmother was tall in her day, but by the time I met her she was stooped with age. She shuffled along with tiny steps as I held her hand. She smiled at me and said "My... ain't you all grown up? I saw you once when you was a baby." This is the standard opening line for any female relative to a small boy. As she spoke her dentures clacked up and down in a way that was startling and a little disturbing to a child. In spite of my shyness I could not take my eyes off of those teeth merrily clattering about in her mouth as she spoke, as if they were at odds with her lips and competing for attention. I smiled and thanked her.

We spent some time in her room, a tiny spartan affair with tiled floors and a throw rug. The bed was one of those hospital types with gears and levers to put it in different positions. It was framed in bright tube aluminum rails. That same bright aluminum was a prominent feature of the small bathroom with rails for the tub and toilet. She had some nice plants on the window shelf, each one carefully placed on a doily. At the time it seemed like a foreign landscape. As I look back on it now I can see that her place on the earth had already begun to forget her even before her journey was complete. The baking of warm bread on a summer afternoon or the planting of flowers in a spring garden had been replaced by tiled floors and tube aluminum rails.

My father and mother chatted away in loud voices with my great grandma leaning forward with a strained look to hear each phrase. They went through lists of obscure relatives that I did not know and would never meet

That's my memory of my Great Grandmother - a vague memory of a small woman bent with the weight of her 96 years living out the remainder of her days in a small room with aluminum rails and carefully tended plants. I have no real knowledge of her. I do not know of her joys or tears. I don't know what she was really like. Instead, I possess a caricature in my mind of an ancient woman in her last days. My children will never even have that much of a recollection of her. When I and my brother and my cousins pass on, so too will her living memory pass on. She will be little more than a name in a family tree or a keepsake passed on from child to child with the words, "I think this belonged to your great great grandmother Kruger".

Wow. I thought I was depressing before. Now I've gone completely off the deep end. I really have to stop reading post-romantic Russian authors. "Ok", you say, "I get it. We are here a short time, we all die, and we are not remembered beyond a generation or two. Besides making us feel forgotten do you have a point?" Stop a moment and consider how you feel about what I have said. Do you see death as an ending or beginning? If we are honest, our visceral reaction to any discussion of death is to shun it - to shy away. We have forgotten to live in hope of the resurrection! We don't see death as a graduation, but as an ordeal - a punishment. We accept death's sting even though Jesus has taken it away. Why? Because we love this life so dearly.

I'm afraid it's true. We have an iron claws grasp of life. In our modern world we shuffle death away to the sidelines - like an unpleasant necessity. Our funeral homes are pristine, quiet places. We embalm the dead and dress them in their finest. We make up their faces to mask the fact that they are gone. When someone dies before the age of 60 we shake our heads and say "tsk tsk... such a young man...". People die in hospitals, hospices and rest homes - removed from "normal" life. We are uncomfortable talking about it. We avoid writing wills and making plans for those that remain. We are death-a-phobics. We are scared to death of death. We bring to bear all the voices of our song to try and drown out the pedal tone of death.

Yet death marches on us all. It is a powerful awesome note rumbling along in the bass. It's the kind of note that you can feel through the seat of your pants as you sit in the pew. The older we get, the more death becomes a pending feature of our song. No amount of plastic surgery, no medical breakthrough, no exercise regimen can mute the pedal tone of death. It's rumbling will eventually demand that all of the notes of our personal fugue come into harmony with it. From dust we are made and to dust we will return. Our lives must eventually find the key center. In the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:

Well it might seem counterintuitive but my encouragement to you (yes it is an encouragement) is to stop and listen for a moment to that pedal tone. Instead of blocking it out with music or TV or half a gallon of chocolate chip mint, stop and meditate on it for a moment. You are going to die. Nothing you do can prevent it. God may heal you dozens of times. You may be healthy and satisfied with your life. You might come from a line of ancestors with terrific longevity. In the end, you too will die. Why "meditate" on this morbid topic? Because we miss something precious in our walk with God when we cling to this life too tenaciously.

Death Reminds Us We are Foreigners

This life absorbs us. It contains us and consumes us. Our thoughts, aspirations, dreams and visions all seem to be gathered around this life. Except for the very old or the terminally ill we no longer have a sense that we are traveling to a "final destination". The truth is we do not actually belong here. When our journey here is complete we go home. We are like heavenly foreign exchange students walking through life with our vision fixed on the horizon. Take a look at this great passage from Hebrews 11. After listing men of faith Enoch, Noah and Abraham the author goes on to say:

When we see this life as a journey we tend to value different things. I go on several business trips each year. My wife is my main travel agent and I am a picky traveler. I don't like certain airlines because I want more legroom. I like direct flights. Some hotel chains are on my black list because the wireless Internet is subpar or they don't serve an adequate continental breakfast. I want a GPS and satellite radio in my rental car. I like all the details to be worked out ahead of time so nothing is left to chance.

Yet, even when Ann has managed to arrange my trip perfectly with everything in its place, I would still rather be home, reading my book in the living room with my little beagle curled up at my feet and the sound of the ping pong table or X-box coming from the basement. Home is where I belong. It's where I'm at ease and comfortable. It's where I'm truly loved. It's where I'm known for who I really am. When life threatens to overwhelm me, it is at home that I find freedom from its relentless pressure. So too, death has "lost it's sting" because we don't really belong here. We are in the process of heading home where we are truly known and loved.

As I age this is what I really value - to be able to be myself and be known for who I am without pretense or artificial barriers. I think we spend the first half of our life trying to figure out who we are the last half of our life trying to figure out how to let others know who we are. But Jesus sees through the dark glass that we can't penetrate for ourselves. He knows us for who we are. Heaven is really home, where we can at last rest and be at peace with who he has made us.

Now I don't want anyone to think that I am advocating an unhealthy obsession with death. I'm not suggesting that we stop living life or stop enjoying the blessings of God. But I am suggesting that as Christians we should not contemplate death with the same shuddering fear of the world. The resurrection allows us to look at death in a different light. We don't love death - but we don't fear it either. After all, ultimately we do not belong here. "Jesus, help us to understand that we are destined for another city. Teach how you have conquered death. We want to walk with you and live the life you have destined for us to live. Amen."

If there is a theme for humanity and my life in general it would be "People do dumb things". Please understand, I'm not awash in self-loathing. I am a child of God - a creature of his making adored and loved by Him. The best way to describe being in Christ is that "I am in Him" and through his grace I can partake in everything He is (how wonderful!), and yet I am "becoming like him" as I walk and learn and grow and take on his nature. That's one of those mind benders that grabs you when you think about being a Christian, I am both complete and I am becoming complete. You have to admit that's pretty neat.

Paul said it well in his merry-go-round verses on sin and grace in Romans 7. After glowing in verse 6 about being "released from the law" and now able to "serve in the new way of the Spirit", he can't help but opine 10 verses later:

Yet a few paragraphs later in chapter 8, Paul is back to writing with soaring phrases about how nothing in heaven and earth can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Paul (like us) was in Christ - yet still becoming like him.

That thing in us... that bent toward doing what we know is wrong... is what my dad in his Pentecostal vernacular used to call "the flesh". When I was a lad I didn't exactly know what the flesh was but I knew it was closely related to the word "naughty". In fact it was confusing. I remember Dad preaching fire and brimstone sermons about the sins of the flesh. I also remember my mom in Sunday school talking about how the Children of Israel in the wilderness looked back with longing for the "flesh pots of Egypt" (see Exodus 16:3 KJV). I didn't know what those flesh pots were either, but putting the two and two together I figured Abraham's children were in for a thrashing. Now, every time I hear Sean talk about "flashpots" in reference to a big musical moment I think to myself "yeah... the flashpots... the flashpots of Egypt!"

Ah... we Pentecostals were sincere, and we had a whole routine about the flesh. The flesh was the reason we didn't "smoke or chew or go with girls who do". We didn't dance or go to movies or wear too much makeup (I never minded that last one too much). On the other hand we did have hayrides and potlucks where we made out and pigged out. We invented a self-righteous version of feeding the flesh that was clean faced and boogy free, but it originated from that same spot in us - that silly, take charge, selfish, untamed part of us that has to be yielded to God over and over again. Isn't it amazing how the second we begin living out of the law we start climbing up over the top of people and looking down. The moment you think that filling in all the boxes on your holiness checklist actually makes you holy, you have lost the true meaning of being in Christ.

That's not to say I don't believe in the flesh. Certainly the new testament is full of advice about taking off the old "sinful nature" or "carnal spirit" and living through Christ. The Apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans waxes downright eloquent on the topic. I just know from long and painful experience that "the flesh" cannot be overcome through following rules - no matter how well intentioned. The flesh can only be overcome through grace and help of Jesus. That is why Paul said in Romans 12 "There is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus". Grace is the anecdote to the Flesh, not the law.

This misunderstanding... this cross-wired view that we have of grace and the law... keeps us living by rules and not absorbing the full impact of grace. The truth is that living by rules is the surest way to find yourself "in the flesh". Because that selfish, silly, self-destructive, petulant sinful nature of ours rises up in self righteousness under the law. But like a child who takes too much ice cream at the buffet, that same sinful nature is incapable of "keep the rules" for long. It keeps us doing dumb things. It keeps us living in that Moe, Larry and Curly world where everything seems to end with a whack on the head or a poke in the eye. Can't you see that Jesus is not just a nice-to-have accessory that enhances the quality of our lives? The truth is that without Him we sink back into self-destructive and downright ignorant behavior. Without Christ Our life music goes from the soaring strains of Mozart to the tawdry sound of Curly's "nuck nuck nuck".

The flesh crops up at an early age. I remember a family biking excursion several years ago. My boys were 6 and 7. I had pulled our truck out of the garage and put the bikes on the bike rack at the rear of the truck. I was in the garage doing something else when I heard a commotion out on the driveway. I rushed out to find that my six year old son Matthew had curiously stuck his head up into the wheels of the bikes (which were 2 or 3 feet above ground on the rack). There was a little space between 2 of the bikes and his head fit in there perfectly.

Meanwhile my other son Aaron had thought it was a good idea to slowly turn the pedal on one of the bikes until it rotated perfectly around so that the opposite pedal came to rest tightly underneath the Matthew's chin. Matt was now caught like a cat in the cookie jar, standing on his tiptoes and hollering irately at Aaron through clenched teeth. Aaron (now seeing that perhaps this was less of a good idea than he previously thought) was scurrying back and forth from one side to the other trying to figure out how to get that pedal to move in the other direction. Each attempt moved it a little more tightly upward against Matthews chin. Aaron was saying frantically over and over, "don't worry Matt, you won't be in there forever."

Now Matthew probably knew better than to stick his head into that small opening, and I'm pretty sure that Aaron knew better than to spin that pedal up under Matt's chin... but they both did it anyway. There is something in us, some piece of us that starts doing battle with God at an early age. That something... that fleshly "I want" and "I need" and "what if"... talks us into the dumbest things. People do dumb things. Forgive me if you find that too trite. I know it doesn't tell the whole tale.

To put it in other terms, every person has a bent toward doing things that they know to be wrong. Sometimes we even ignore (or even embrace) evil consequences. I have left jobs I know I should have kept. I have knowingly hurt people I love. I have ruined relationships with good friends while maintaining relationships that should have ended. I have done the most egregious, bone-headed and intractably wrong things over the course of my 44 years. The point is that we as Christians miss this about ourselves - that we have a nature, an old man - dead, but often rising like a zombie from the grave bent pell mell on sin and self-destruction.

Well so what? Why is it important that we understand how selfish and stoogesque we are? After all we have found grace. We are yielding our will to Jesus and he's making all things new. There's some truth to that. We don't want to fall into the trap of being so enamored with grace it becomes a ticket to sin. We also don't we want to wallow in the past or in the sins he has cast away from us through his grace. But because we miss or dilute it or soft peddle this tidbit of truth, we are missing something marvelous and wonderful and soaringly powerful about Jesus.

I fear that we have only grasped the tip of the iceberg when it comes to grace. In our hearts I sometimes think we believe that Jesus death was necessary for the "totality of the sin of mankind", but our sin didn't really cost him that much. While the truly egregious sinners were locked in max security awaiting the needle we were at club fed enjoying gardening and the prison library. Sure Jesus pardoned both us and the really bad people - but it wasn't too hard of a call when it came to us.

Do we really think like that? I think we do. We have forgotten the lesson of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount - if you hate your brother you are guilty of murder. If you lust after someone not your spouse you have committed adultery. Jesus wasn't creating new commandments. He was speaking directly to the Pharisees and pointing out the fallacy of believing they followed the law perfectly when their hearts were so far from God. I think that's the same fallacy that we encounter again and again in our own hearts. We believe we are worthy of his Grace, and that belief has the power to corrupt the very nature of grace itself. Our poor understanding keeps us from a very real experience of being overwhelmed by God.

I believe that to know... to really and truly know... my own dark places, no matter how ugly, is a gift that allows me to glimpse of the power of Grace. It reminds me of that old Bill Gaither song "The Longer I Serve Him":

Lord, make us aware of our lasting need for you. Help us to love ourselves because of your transforming power and not because of our own gifts. As we are complete in you, continue to complete us. Most of all, help us to recognize your grace in each area of our life and live out of the grace to the glory of your name. Thank you Jesus. Amen.

Two for You and One for Me

If you are a parent or a sibling you will immediately understand the following family dynamic. My sons, Aaron and Matt, are 15 and 13. They have a mercurial relationship that is partly based on loyalty and friendship, partly based on love and family ties and partly based on competition. Actually I have to remind myself daily that the relationship is only partly based on competition - because it seems like they are always competing. It's not just games either. Aaron has a "Matt scoreboard" and Matt has an "Aaron Scoreboard". Scoring uses a byzantine set of rules that largely follow the pattern, "2 for you and one for me". When Matt's slice of pie is larger than Aaron's, Aaron gives Matt 2 points, but when his slice of pie is larger he registers only one. When Aaron wins at Monopoly Matt gives him 2 points, but when Matt wins he gives himself only one point... and so on. The result is that in the mind's eye of my boys the other son is always ahead. This set of rules causes one word to hover in the mind of each young man - the word fair.

Now in our house "fair" is right up there with words that get you fined by the FCC. We don't talk about fair. We communicate to our children that we love them, that we are doing our best to be good parents, that we have the best of intentions and that we are trusting God to help shore up our inadequacies. If one child feels slighted we point out that others might have a different view of the situation, and even if the scales seem temporarily unbalanced there are times when they are in his or her favor. We talk about charity, putting others first and being grateful. Of course if all of that fails I resort to the old standby. I look at them cockeyed and say philosophically, "Well.... life is not always fair." Then I pat myself on the back ("well done old man... you've managed to teach them a lesson they will never forget"). Actually as I write this I suddenly feel like calling my father and apologizing for my teen years.

My own inner child (my inner "Wahhh!" as I like to call it) has the same radar - or perhaps I should say "fair-playdar". I look at the folks in my circle and I tend to give them 2 points for each of their blessings and only 1 for each of mine. This keeps me perpetually looking up from the bottom of my self made barrel - and worse, it keeps me looking at others. What is the cure for this "poor me" attitude?

Jonah's Cautionary Tale

Most folks remember Jonah because of this 3 day vacation in the stomach of a large fish. I like to remember Jonah's battle with the worm. Jonah would have made a great Dr. Seuss character. It's almost like God drafted the Grinch to be a missionary. Why was it that Jonah was reluctant to go to Nineveh? Was it because he didn't like the food? Did he suffer from sea sickness? Was he shy and timid? In fact, Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh because he hated the Ninevites. In chapter 4 after God has chosen to spare the city Jonah flat out loses his cool. I love the way the Message Bible puts it:

Whoa... It seems Jonah really only likes the fire and brimstone side of the whole prophet business. He stomps his foot and says, "I knew it! God you are just not fair". He marches off and in verse 6 God shows his humorous side. He has arranged a broad leaf plant to grow - a nice shady spot. Jonah was pleased and (as the message bible put it again) "Life was looking up". Verses 7 and 8 are pretty comical.

As my dad used to say, "If God can use a worm Mark, he can surely use you" (or was it a donkey). And how about that Jonah - what a drama queen! Does it seem to you like he's way over the top? He makes Jim Carey look like Henry Fonda - "Oh noooooo.... a worm has killed my shade!!!! life isn't worth living anymore...". Sheesh!

God goes on to chastise Jonah for his lack of perspective. He cares about the shade tree and not about the citizens of Nineveh because his perspective doesn't reach beyond his own self-interest. If I am honest I can see Jonahesque qualities in my own view of the world at times. I wonder about my perspective. I wonder if my brand of faith would work in other countries where folks are living a lot further down on Maslov's pyramid.

Gratitude

The cure? Well... what do I tell my children when they stomp their feet and pout? What do I tell them when they complain that life or circumstances aren't fair? Of course! I tell them to be thankful. I try to help them find the proper perspective. When I am feeling pouty and petulant, I should take a moment to list all of the ways that God has blessed me. I need to remind myself that I do not deserve the favor of God. That's where grace can really lift me up. I am not an innocent bystander. I was his enemy and he befriended me! I was a stranger and he took me in. I was at odds with him, running away, raging against him and demanding control of my destiny - yet he pursued me and gently won me over. Once again, the key to overcoming so many of our foibles turns out to be yielding to him.Yielding to Jesus expands our circle. It adds new variables to our equation and changes the outcome. The more of the big picture I see, the more ashamed I am of my peevishness. What do I have to be miffed about?

If my life ended, right now... today... with no fan fare, no grand send off, no poignant goodbyes, no profound and memorable last words... if it was just over and I went on to be with him, I still could not complain that God had dealt unjustly with me in this life. I still could only wonder at his blessing and grace. Jesus doesn't just "make things ok" for us. He doesn't just smooth out the bumpy spots. Jesus lavishes love on us. He takes our sins and flings them as far as the east is from the west. He finds us when we are actively opposing him and loves us into repentance. He draws us, woos us, cajoles us, persuades and pleads and sways us. Were he a lover we would say he was "making a fool of himself". Is it any wonder that Paul said emphatically in Romans 8:38 (New Living):

Lord help us to avoid the pitfalls of fairness. Let me always see myself in light of your grace and mercy. May I not strive to climb but rest in you.

Subtle Pride

Hmmm... Can it be that my pride keeps me from asking God? Isn't not asking for stuff more humble than asking? Well, that depends on your view of pride and humility. If you think humility is something akin to the "Wayne's World" caricature of bowing and saying "we're not worthy" then yes, I suppose that not asking is more "humble" than asking. In me, however, there is something else at work than just a sense of unworthiness.

Think about our general way of communicating for a moment. Do you ever get miffed at a friend or acquaintance for something they failed to say? One of those annoying little habits we have as humans is to make our feelings about others dependent on contrived expectations. Consider the haircut. It's a change of appearance - right? After getting a haircut do you find yourself keeping score on who notices and who doesn't? We can't help but internalize the expectation that folks should notice a change in our appearance - and if they don't notice it means that they are not paying attention. Somehow, it feels belittling to have to ask, "Hey... did you notice my haircut?"

Of course a haircut is trivial. There are many other areas of our life where we have this same dynamic working under the surface. People feel unappreciated at work because no one notices the excellence of the job that they are doing. Sometimes spouses feel unfulfilled in marriage because their counterpart can't correctly discern and act on their needs. Friendships die or wither because one person feels unnoticed in some way by the other. Don't you think God shakes his head at us sometimes. Proverbs 4:23 says:

Now that is a pearl of wisdom if ever there was one. Most of the time when I slip up I'm not "keeping my heart". I'm allowing it to run roughshod over reality and common sense. These slights I imagine from others are often things of my own making! When I create secret expectations and then allow myself to become embittered when others don't "measure up", I have created a downward spiral that has the potential to corrupt all of my relationships.

Here's the kicker - we often have the same dysfunction operating in our relationship to God. Why don't I approach God with my needs and wants? Is it because I feel belittled by the act of asking? Internally I have Him set up to prove that he's thinking about me. "If he really loved me," I secretly ponder, "then he would know I'm fill in the blank and rush to meet my need." Otherwise, I'm free to believe he is not thinking about me at all. And believing that we are being neglected by God allows us to act selfishly. It gives the sinful nature a foothold.

In fact, a personal episode brought this home to me. It was several Sunday's ago and I was on the platform. I was struggling that Sunday. Work pressures, my daughters impending college choices and other things had been really weighing on me. Pastor Dave was there and he left the platform and approached someone in the congregation to pray for them. Our pastors are like that. When the Lord leads them they strike out and open their hearts. In any case, as I was singing and worshiping I found myself thinking "Hey, God knows I am needy too. Why doesn't he ever send Dave or Les or Tracy to pray for me?" (I use just their first names when I'm thinking). It was an "unguarded" thought. I was not "keeping my heart with all diligence".

As I pondered this thought I became more anxious and unsettled. Self-pity is always an accelerated downward spiral. It just feeds on itself and gets worse and worse. Wasn't God aware of my situation? Wasn't He my Father and Savior? Why didn't He.... Ah... why didn't He what? Why didn't He meet my need in the way I expected? Why didn't He pander to my petty expectations for attention? You see how that works? I had "set God up" to disappoint me. How could it be otherwise? Of course, God didn't really disappoint me. I had simply made the whole thing up in my unguarded heart. Isn't it amazing how easily we are miffed when we decide to set the agenda for ourselves? The truth is that I had not asked God. I had not approached him. I wasn't drawing near to him or seeking him. I had not laid my burdens at his feet and rested in his care. Instead I was rampaging around willy nilly trying to tell God how he should go about meeting my needs even though I had not yet entrusted my needs to Him.

Child Like

In Mathew 7:8-11 Jesus compares asking to the relationship between a child and a Parent:

Jesus is clear about it. Asking and seeking are a part of the equation for receiving from God. The dynamic is that of a parent and a child. Of course God could simply monitor our needs and make sure his plan is moving along in our lives, but God is not an aloof benefactor. He is not like a stern and absent Father sending his children to boarding school and monitoring reports from the headmaster. God is an engaged Father. He wants his children to come to him. He wants to hear our praise, our sorrows, our joys, our suffering and yes, our wants and needs.

As a father I completely get this. Each night around the supper table I ask each of my children 2 questions:

• How was your day?
• Did anything exciting happen?

If they are in a reasonable mood, each of my kids (young adults now really) tell me about the fun stuff and the ugly stuff - and I shy away from neither. I'm looking to help, comfort and instruct them in any way I can. Often I'm just looking to have a conversation with them. I delight in the little details of their lives at school. Whether we are discussing the latest topic in History or quoting from our favorite movies, I just enjoy "communing" with my family. My goal as a father is that they may grow and thrive in Jesus and His life.

Jesus instructs us to approach him as his children. Children know how to ask. Like the verse above we can easily imagine a young child saying to his Father, "can I please have a fish?" Of course if I gave my son Matthew a snake instead of a fish he would probably be delighted, but perhaps that is a cultural thing. The point is that children know how to ask, just as parents know how to provide. Children know how to present what they need and what they want. They often confuse the two, but that's where the wisdom of a parent can help them sort it out. And that is the approach that God wants from us. He wants us to honestly approach him and ask. He wants us to trust in his wisdom and grace.

Jesus, Help me to stop striving with my needs and wants and un-met expectations. Help me to lean on you. Help me to trust you enough to lay my burdens at your feet honestly and without pretense. Help me to acknowledge your wisdom and my own foolishness. Help me to learn to open my heart and ask.

When I was in college I did quite a bit of spelunking (caving). In and around Springfield Missouri are numerous caves, many of them little known and well off the beaten path. One such cave was a favorite of mine. In the Fall of each year we would gather up a gaggle of Freshmen into three or four old cars and head out to Mullen's cave. Mullen's cave was a half mile into the back country of a rural Missouri farm. Our group of 15 or 20 college students would sneak through a cow pasture without rousing the cows (or the farmer that lived near by). Passing through a copse and around a steep incline the mouth of the cave would appear suddenly - a great maw, like God had punched the earth with an awl.

Caves don't always have stand up entrances. They are not tunnels so much as holes in the ground. Mullen's cave entrance was no exception. The mouth of the cave was an incline down and under an outcropping of jagged stone. Once inside the cave the night sky was quickly swallowed in the darkness. Lit by the pale glow of 15 or 20 flashlights, the floor was littered with boulders and slabs of rock as well as mounds of bat dung. The cave stretched back into the earth for about a mile. Such a journey with a large group of college students was a raucous hike filled with witty banter as we snaked single file through the cave's winding passage. It was a wet cave and sometimes the trek required wading knee deep through black pools of 40 degree water. The front of the cave was visually uninspiring with muddy floors and a pocked ceiling of stone. The only entertainment was the occasional bat that would raise shrieks from caving newbies.

About two thirds of the way back the cave would get interesting. Stalactites and stalagmites appeared like forests of rock the deeper we went. At the very back of the cave a cavern of about 180 feet wide by 50 feet high opened up. It featured beautiful rock formations and several rivulets of water running down the rock surface in a timeless cascade. It was a stunning, other-worldy site and well worth the effort. Newcomers were nearly always satisfied. This is what they had expected. A long hike with some obstacles to see a beautiful cavern deep beneath the surface of the earth.

If you turned around and left Mullen's cave right then you could go back to and be satisfied. You would return in mud stained clothes and your legs would probably hurt, but you would have a great story to tell about how you had braved Mullen's cave and lived to tell the tale. But going just that far into Mullen's cave doesn't make you a caver. We didn't bring our new found friends to this cavern to leave them unchallenged. Mullen's cave had a few secrets yet to reveal.

Near the back of that large cavern was a depression in the earth next to the rock wall. If you bent down low enough you could see that there was a gap under the wall about 18 to 24 inches tall. We would gather our little flock together and one by one squeeze under the rock wall into a small room on the other side. The room was about 4 1/2 feet tall, 4 or 5 feet wide and about 25 feet long. At the far end of the room was a pool of water about 5 or 6 foot wide.

What happened next would always separate the cavers from the pretenders. No matter how many times I did it I was still petrified each time. Usually only about a third of the newcomers would even try it. One by one we would enter the 40 degree water and wade toward the far end of the room. The water would become waste deep as you near the wall. Feet first you would feel for the opening in the wall that was less than a foot below the surface of the water. It was just big enough for a full grown man. Bending at the waste you woud slide the lower half of your body through the opening till just your head was still about the water. You would take a deep breath and grip your flashlight (bundled up in a baggie) and shoot under the wall, groping the ceiling for the air pocket you were told would be there. About 3 or 4 feet beyond the wall you would find that air pocket as the ceiling began to slop up again. It was just enough air to get your nose above the water. From there you had another 10 feet to go to get into the next room. Groping and thrashing you would move as quickly as you could till you lay in the mud of the room on the other side. No thrill ride or roller coaster I have ever been on compares to the sheer adrenaline rush and panic of that black journey under the wall.

One by one we would take the icy trip alone until all of us that were going on were in the next room. Several more obstacles remained including a climb through a 25 foot stair-step waterfall and a slide down a muddy incline, but none of them compared to that lonely, awful, panicked journey under the wall. The reward? The other side featured several caverns as big or bigger than the previous one. The return trip required a journey through the water again, but somehow the way home was always easier. Back at the college those who had made the journey through the water saw the experience of caving differently than the others. To them it was an initiation. It wasn't just that they were completely covered with mud or that they ached from head to toe. It was the fact that they had accomplished something, however trivial, that required overcoming their fear. No longer just college students who had been caving, they were cavers now.

So it is with us in worship. We put in enough effort to make it to the first cavern, but we are sometimes reluctant to go through to whatever is beyond. We have a satisfying journey and bask in the warmth and blessing of the love of God. We adore Him and we celebrate what He has done for us. We offer a sacrifice of praise and then we stand around enjoying his presence and clapping ourselves on the back for how open we are in worship. We go home and talk about the worship service - but are we really worshipers? Have we been transformed by the experience? Are we becoming more like Him? I think there is more God wants to do in us. There is more of Himself He wants to show us and give us. But to go further we have to swallow our fear of really seeing Him. We have to trust Him - his goodness and His faithfulness. We have to overcome our fear, take that deep breath and plunge beneath the surface - groping our way to the unknown riches He has for us on the other side.

His father was a soldier and very brave she had told him. He fought for his country and he was a hero. Sam imagined his father in a solemn ceremony receiving a medal from a stern and official looking man. People were clapping and bowing. His mom told him his father was a leader of a platoon and that other men looked up to him and respected him. Sam imagined his dad gesturing and signaling his men to close in on the enemy as shells and gunfire erupted around him.

She told him his dad loved him very much and always thought of him the whole time he was away. She told him that just the thought of Sam helped to keep his dad alive during his captivity. Sam wondered how a man could be so strong and brave. He didn't think he could ever make it through something so terrible.

A son growing up without a father has a strong idea of what a father aught to be. His idea grows out of his need and his longing for a father who is present. Sam was no different. In his inner world his dad lived as a caricature of the perfect father. He was a strong, young man. He knew everything. He never corrected Sam. He never said anything that was hard to understand. He always played with Sam - right down on the floor. He was the perfect dad. Perfect in so far as a young boy can imagine him. He was an impressive image to be sure - but shallow… not so much a portrait as pencil sketch by an unskilled artist.

Now, as he waited anxiously at the airport gate, Sam wasn't really wondering about the man that would emerge from the plane. He thought he knew him pretty well. He was expecting the man of his imagination. His dad... his hero... his mentor... his playmate... his protector and defender.

The man who emerged was slightly bent from the years of solitude and mistreatment - but he still bore the posture of a soldier. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks hollow. He wore his uniform proudly and saluted the officer waiting to greet him, but he had an air of weariness… the air of a man at the end of a very long journey that few had traveled. The horrors of war were not yet a distant memory that could be broached in the company of fellow soldiers. They were too recent. He had given much and he was tired.

"Is this my dad?" thought Sam. Sam was struck mute as the man came closer. Although he could not have expressed it, something was happening to his image of his father. It was morphing from fantasy into reality. At 7 years old some ideas are difficult to grasp, but Sam began to understand that his father was a real man who had suffered. All of the things he knew about his dad, his heroism and leadership, his devotion to his country, and his love for his son and wife, began to take on body and form in his heart. Fantasy gave way to reality as he began to see his dad as a real person for the first time.

The weary soldier approached the crowd - many admirers and well wishers stopping him to clasp his hand and wish him well. He replied politely as his eyes searched the crowd for someone. Finally he spotted them... a woman and a small boy holding her hand. The soldier's eyes went from weary to alert and sparkling in an instant. His paced quickened and he nearly ran as he finally - at long last - found himself in her arms again. Sam stood very near, looking up in wonder. The soldier, laughing and looking down at him, wrapped his thin and wiry arm around him and pulled him into the embrace as well - crying and laughing and hugging and crying some more. They were a family again. Sam thought, "I wonder what happens next?"

This simple story reminds me of what Paul said in 1 Cor 13:11-12:

Do I believe that my caricature of God reflects him accurately? Do I blissfully presume to "know" who his is... his nature and his mind? I suspect that while I'm analyzing crayons and water colors, God is the Cistene Chapel. I "see a poor reflection as in a mirror" - and remember that mirrors in Paul's day were little more than polished brass.

I want that same moment of wonder that Sam had with his father - that moment where I see Jesus and what I know about Him takes shape in my heart as reality. Can we, as worshipers, find a way to see through our own preconceptions? Can we discover the new thing that God wants to do? Do we bind God with our memory and our fantasy and our point of view and even our theology? Is the God we worship a caricature... a pencil sketch... or is He the real thing? I wish we were less comfortable with our own view and more anxious to see him as He is. Often I think we believe we are "finding the river" when in reality we are simply sinking into a comfort zone of worship. We need to ask ourselves if we worship for medication or for transformation.

Spiritual Lemmings

Sometimes I think we presume how God aught to move based on how he is moving on others. I find it odd that people associate a location with the move of God rather than hearts. God moves on hearts. When enough hearts are bound together in faith and yielded to him there is a group dynamic that occurs. We sometimes call it revival, but it is really a breakthrough of unity and repentance. We forget that this renewal experience is available anywhere that 2 or 3 are gathered together in His name. It's not unique to a place. It is unique to the people in that place who have chosen to come together. It requires hunger, repentance and what my father used to call waiting on God. With our blackberries and cell phones and Tivos we are not so enamored with waiting anymore.

When I was a boy I remember fishing with my father at a smallish lake in Eastern IA named "Cody Lake". We fished for catfish and we had very different approaches. My father would find a spot under a shady willow. He would bait his hook and, using a Y shaped branch stuck in the ground, he would prop up his pole and wind the line taut. Then, he would wait. It was maddening. He would simply wait. He had infinite patience with catfish.

My brother and I marched up and down the shoreline casting here and there. Trying to figure out where the fish were biting. Meanwhile Dad sat peacefully eating sardines and crackers in a lawn chair while keeping and eye on his pole. I would usually catch a few bullheads and blue gills while restlessly trying different spots, but Dad was quite content to wait.

After an hour or so we usually noticed some movement from Dad. Sure enough he had a bite. He would lean down and ever so slowly reel his line in just a bit to make sure the line was taut. Then he would wait for the right moment. He could crouch there, hands at the ready, staring intently at the tip of his pole, for minutes at a time. When the fish finally took the bait he would leap into action and set the hook. The result? Usually Dad came back from fishing with a stringer of 4 or 5 pound catfish while most of my fish were too small to keep.

When it comes to seeking God are we busy running around looking for a bite, or are we waiting on Him with an open heart? I suspect we are far more like my brother and I than we are like Dad. We seem to think God is busy playing favorites and picking sides. We focus on the "place" where God is moving and take trips to Florida and Texas and Colorado to "see the move of God". Sometimes we focus on the "movement" that God is using. We end up aping a particular kind of music. We read the most popular books and mirror the theology of the most popular preachers and churches. We even focus on who God is using. We create followings around individuals and we are over-awed that a particular person is especially anointed.

In each of these cases we are forgetting that the enemy wants to distract us from the one thing that really matters - who God is. There's nothing wrong with traveling to hear a speaker or reading a good book from an annointed man or woman of God, but why focus on the movement or the place or the messenger? None of these things is lasting. None of these things is any more than an imperfectly polished piece of first century brass. He is the source. He is the river. We need to find a way to make him the center of our focus - to see him as he is and not as he is reflected in all of these other things. And it starts with that same patience demonstrated by a wily cat fisherman. We need to get our house in order and then wait upon God.

Killer Expectations

Of course we also presume how God aught to move based on what we expect to happen. When God shows Himself in some powerful way we are moved and touched and overwhelmed with awe. Unfortunately we too often spend the rest of our spiritual energy trying to recreate the feelings and circumstances of that moment rather than continuing to focus on Jesus.

I grew up in Pentecostal churches. Most of them were fairly traditional and included hand clapping, speaking and praying in tongues, gifts of the spirit, healing services, "tent" meetings. The preaching was fiery and energetic. My father, a mild mannered man in most respects, can bring the house down with smoke and thunder. I was never quite able to master the art of preaching in the Pentecostal style.

Years ago in eastern Iowa, Dad invited a traveling evangelist to come and hold services in our small town church. We'll call him Brother Tom. He had a massive pompadour of sandy blond hair, a cleft chin, and a huge basso-profundo voice that could scare sinners clear down at the tavern on the river. Brother Tom's thunderous sermons would shake the thin window panes in our simple one story church. The first time he came to preach revival broke out and over 400 hundred souls flocked to our small sanctuary. Services stretched past midnight as folks fell on their faces and sought God in repentance and sincere longing to see him move.

Brother Tom was an anointed and sincere man. He seemed truly taken with a passion to see God move on his people. But even back then Brother Tom's revivals had started to come with a feature. Tom was beginning to specialize. In most of his revivals folks were being "slain in the spirit", alternately known as "falling under the power of the Holy Spirit" or just "falling under". You may have seen this before even in some of our services. A person being prayed for (or sometimes just worshiping) will be overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit and fall down to the floor. Some folks go straight and tall with a great "thump" like a fur tree hewn in the forest while others slump to the ground in a jumble of arms and legs.

I have seen folks "go under" and stay prone for hours. I myself have been "slain" a half a dozen times and I remember each one vividly. When God works this way it is wonderful and powerful. But Brother Tom began to notice that it was a special feature of his revivals. He began to believe he was gifted to see folks slain in the spirit. Indeed, folks began coming to his services with the intent to see folks slain or to be slain themselves (rather like the coliseum without the lions).

My brother and I (ages 7 and 9) took on the task of defending modesty during these services. In our conservative church, all of the women wore skirts. When they fell it sometimes resulted in the display of a knee or two. We would walk around the alter area and politely ask men for their suit coat jackets (everyone wore jackets in those days). Then, we would wait for a woman to be slain and we would discreetly cover up her legs as she lay prostrate. It was a little like being a bat boy. We would wait in the on deck area and rush out and do our job as soon as a lady fell.

After that first revival, Dad had Brother Tom back year after year. His services became more and more about the slayings. I remember Brother Tom and Dad talking about how good a service was and saying things like "18 filled with the Holy Spirit, 15 saved and 33 slain" - a bit of a cross between a Gallup poll and a police blotter. Brother Tom got pretty good at getting people to fall too. He would work up quite a sweat praying down the glory in the prayer line.

As he got older he started giving them a bit of a push. Brother Tom started to take signs of resistance personally, or as a lack of faith. His prayer would intensify and he would talk about "yielding" to the Holy Spirit and "letting go". The crowd was with him too. Pretty soon some folks would go up to get slain and others would go up as a test to see if they could resist being slain.

Now I don't doubt the sincerity of most of the folks who were slain. As an active participant in such events I can testify that God does move in this way from time to time. I don't even doubt Brother Tom's sincerity. He was a generous, loving and deeply spiritual man. He went on to write a book on the Biblical principles surrounding being slain in the Spirit. But I do doubt the impact of these later revivals. They seemed to become all about the show of being slain in the Spirit. I suspect it was a caricature of Jesus we were seeing and that we missed what he was really trying to show us.

Here's the painful truth. We are easily sidetracked by the effects of God's move. Like children who think Christmas is more about toys than family, we rush off to play and forget our benefactor. There is no litmus test for God's move - no paricular manifestation that means revival. I firmly believe that one of the keys to seeing God move is to be open to whatever he has planned. If we can divest ourselves of our preconceptions about Him... if we can turn away from our crayons and pencil sketches and lift our eyes we might see Him in fullness and majesty - as He is, not as we imagine him.

We need to allow God to move in His way and in His time and in confirmation of His Word and His character. I suspect that if you looked at the genuine revivals in history you would find that very few of them began with a formula borrowed from past experience or copied from another move of God somewhere else. Instead, they started with open people actively moving toward God, turning away from self and yielding to Him. Why imitate the effects when you can go to the source?

Change is Hard

Ah... but there is a reason we choose comfort. Change is hard. Exposure to God's move - to his holiness, his sense of justice, his immeasurable mercy and love - these things always compel changes in us as a body and as individuals. We cannot leave the true presence of God unchanged. The move of God is awesome, but not in the same way that a husker victory or a new pair of shoes is awesome. It's awesome in the way a hurricane or massive forest fire is awesome. It can inspire wonder, but also terror. To embrace His move we have to trust Him. We have to let go and yield to His will.

Jesus, as we enter this season of choir help us to embrace what you have in store for us. Help us break free of our notions of who you are and show us your face. May we be exposed to you in a new way, and may we never be the same.

Angels and Music

Of course it is true that angels and heavenly being worship God, and the Bible is replete with examples. The book of the Revelation holds several passages in chapter's 4 and 5 where angelic beings are worshiping God. Isaiah describes creatures hovering around the throne of God in unceasing praise. On the night of Jesus birth the sky was filled with angels proclaiming his birth and glorifying God. In all of these passages angels are "saying" or sometimes "saying with a loud voice". In none of these chapters are angels singing.

And then there is Lucifer - who is sometimes described as a "musical angel" - or perhaps, since he is fallen, we should call him the artist formerly known as a musical angel. You can take a look at Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 if you want a bit more information. The idea that Satan was musical is based on these two passages. In the Ezekiel passage there is a reference to the tambourine and flute and in the Isaiah passage there is a reference to "stringed instruments". In both of these passages there is some dispute among Bible scholars as to the exact meaning of the passage. Certainly it would be hard to leap from these 2 passages to the idea that I have often heard this last decade that "Satan was in charge of music in heaven before the fall". In any case there is no reference to Satan singing (a rather horrid thought now that I think about it).

Now there are a few clear cut cases of musical angels in the Bible. One is in the book of the Revelation chapter 8. In this passage seven angels play the trumpet. Of course each trumpet call is a different judgment on the earth so they are accompanied with things like hail, fire, a meteor etc - not exactly Vivaldi, but it is certainly music with an impact. There is also the trumpet call at the day of the Lord (see Matthew 24) but an angel is not said to be the trumpeter (sorry Gabriel).

Where Do Musical Angels Come From

Ok, so singing angels aren't in the Bible. You might well ask, "Then where did the idea come from?" One place is our tradition of Christmas. We associate Christmas with both music and angels - and the Christmas story includes a "choir" (a large group or band) of angels - so it's not hard to see how we make a leap to singing angels. Singing angels may be found in hundreds of stories and traditions throughout the two thousand years of Christian history. In fact, one of my favorite Christmas stories (of recent vintage) is "Brother Heinrich's Christmas" by John Rutter - a musical sketch that includes a song given especially to a humble monk and his donkey by, you guessed it, singing angels.

Our Special Gift - Heart Strings

The logical upshot of this whole line of thought is that you have access to a great gift. At least, your gift, the gift of singing, is unique to our condition as a fallen (and redeemed!) race. Take a moment with me to consider why you sing - or rather, what is it about singing that is so meaningful and feels so right? We use song at funerals to express deep sorrow and pain. We use it at weddings to express joy and the thrill of new beginnings. Our patriotism is given a voice when we sing the Star Spangled Banner and our heart leaps into our throat. And in worship? In worship we feel drawn... pulled toward the throne of God as we worship with our voice. We move from lip service to an actual yearning to be in his presence. When we sing it is the instrument of our heart that is performing - raising it's melody in an expression of our deepest emotions. Our heart-strings are plucked by our voice.

Can angels know the depth of despair that we reach when we are fully aware of our sin? Can they know the sorrow and pain of death and loss? Can angels know the soaring, unspeakable joy of the love of God expressed in the sacrifice of his Son? You may have never considered it, but these are the things that impassion our songs and make them so meaningful to sing. I'm sure angels stand in awe of his love. I'm sure they experience a love and relationship with God that is uniquely their own. But they will never know God's love in the same way as those under grace. They are not in need of rescue. They can cry out and proclaim His glory but they have no need for His mercy. They cannot lay claim to "Abba Father". The voice of angels in song would be the voice of perfection and unity. It would be beautiful to be sure... but without the heart strings of the human voice.

So when you sing, consider the great gift of the human voice - especially the voice of the redeemed - lifting the cry of the heart to God. If angels are present, I suspect they are in awe of the power of your heart strings.

Now what is Grog describing? And more importantly, what is the point? As to what he's describing if you said a bowling alley you get a gold star. The short description above is how one of the ancients might describe bowling. The description is fanciful and uses points of reference (worship, beasts, stones, trees, paths) that seem laughable to us, right? Why is Grog having difficulty? Well you might think it's because he has never seen a bowling alley. But the problem with Grog is not just that he's never seen a bowling alley. The problem is that he has never seen anything remotely like a bowling alley. He has no point of reference on which to hang his hat (or his animal skin). His only choice is to describe what he has seen based on what he knows and has experienced.

Feet and Trees

Now ask yourself how you see God. If you came face to face with God would you have any points of reference with which to describe the experience? Would your description make better sense than that of Grog's bowling alley? Well actually now that you mention it we we have some non-fiction descriptions of encounters with God in scripture. For example, how about our friend Isaiah? In chapter 6 he recounts the following:

You have probably heard this passage before. Have you ever wondered to yourself about what Isaiah actually saw? What colors did he see? How loud was the noise really? What does a seraphim really look like? The points of reference used to describe the scene are ones that Isaiah could put his finger on - a robe, a train, a throne, and wings. We have in our mind an image of these seraphim that is cast in our own likeness, as men with 6 wings, a face, and feet. But did it ever occur to you that Isaiah may really be struggling to describe something that is beyond his reach? In my mind I imagine Isaiah grasping for words as he put pen to paper (or quill to papyrus). Do you think when we reach heaven and see a seraphim for the first time we are going to laugh and say to ourselves, "those don't look like feet at all" just like we would say to the ancient man "those aren't trees".

A Prophet on the Edge

Another Old Testament writer who saw a vision of God was Ezekiel. In the first chapter of Ezekiel he describes his encounter. Unlike Isaiah, Ezekiel takes more time to really try and describe what he's seeing. He starts out with a great fiery cloud with dust and lightning. He has figures he describes as "like a man" except for multiple animal faces and some other peculiarities. From there things get stranger. He is clearly describing something for which he has no point of reference. In fact what he is describing is so far out of the realm of human experience that Ezekiel's description begins to sound like a man on the edge. Feel free to read the whole of Ezekiel chapter one at your leisure. Meanwhile, consider verses 15 through 21 (New King James Version):

Hmmm.... maybe like me you have heard this passage of scripture from the pulpit before. Perhaps you have heard a quixotic remonstrance on the theological implications of the four creatures. Maybe some rare theological talent in the academic underbelly of a seminary has decoded this image into something that is understandable. As for me, I can't help but think, "What in the ham sandwich are you talking about Ezekiel?" It seems obvious that whatever Ezekiel saw, he did not have the words to describe it adequately. It was quite simply beyond him.

Glimpses of God

As we approach worship one of our goals is to see God as He is. This phrase crops up often enough that I'm afraid it might lose its power and meaning. There are times in worship where something is happening that we cannot explain. My father would call it "the glory falling". Some might call it "the anointing". Pastor Les might refer to it as a "thin place". Whatever we call it, the presence of God becomes powerful and real. It engages us and pulls and tugs at the blinders that keep us from seeing Him. When it occurs it can leave us changed. We do not have a point of reference to describe exactly what we are experiencing. The moment is completely "other" than anything we have experienced before. In fact, some worship leaders have used the term "otherness" to describe this exposure to God's holiness. The Greek word for holy, Hagias, is often interpreted as "set apart" or "other". Try a Google search for the "otherness of God" and you will stumble onto a number of articles about it including this excellent article on The Otherness of God by a Trinity favorite, Matt Redman.

How Do We Get There?

So how do we begin to drop our pretensions about God and see him for who he is? I wish I had a single answer - but I'm on this journey too. The Word of God gives us many clues - spiritual hunger, humility and repentance all figure among them. One key is to be able to acknowledge our tainted view of God so that we can divest ourselves of it. Paul said in First Corinthians that now we "see through a glass darkly but then we will see face to face." I must to be willing to acknowledge that I do not know Him as he is. I only know Him insofar as I have yielded to Him. I only know Him insofar as I have released myself and become absorbed into His life. I still carry around many pre-conceptions and expectations that need shredding.

In the "Screwtape Letters" author C.S. Lewis has an older demon writing to his nephew instructing him on how to be a better tempter. On the subject of prayer Uncle Screwtape lectures on the importance of keeping the "patient" (the tempter's human subject) focused on the image of God he has constructed in his own mind. He writes:

This is my prayer... That I would worship God not as I think He is but as He is. I love that turn of a phrase by Lewis, "what Thou knowest Thyself to be". God is so Holy and set apart from creation that the only point of reference that really holds weight is His own knowledge of Himself. That is deep enough to fry your noodle. If we really grasp what it means it can shake us to the core (or as Anna Marie says it can "rock our faces off"). I suspect that when we truly are exposed to his holiness we will be filled with wonder and awe. Perhaps our language will be insufficient to describe it any more than that of Grog's shining orbs and tiny white trees, but I know that we will never be the same.

Lost in Translation

William would be the first to confess he had always been a little awkward when it came to the ladies. His approach was something of a cross between a bull horn and Archie Bunker. His problem you see, was that he spent quite a bit of time with his foot in his mouth. We often told him that he needed to tone down a bit, but he couldn't help himself. When his mouth got him into trouble he would compound it by speaking more. Every attempt at trying to "fix" his verbal indiscretions would end up making things worse. William complimenting a young lady would go something like this.

William was smooth like that. A few Christmas's ago, while William was attending Grace University, someone decided to play matchmaker and fix him up on a blind date. The girl in question was a believer but she was a Mexican national and spoke no English. The matchmaker assured William that she would tag along with a date of her own and serve as a translator. This sounded odd to William but it was worth a shot. He arrived at the location to pick up his date... but there was no translator. The matchmaker had bailed out.

Picture two people - one who knows only English and one who knows only Spanish - thrown together for an evening of food and fellowship. William, with a sense of irony I suppose, bundled her into his car and headed for (where else) a Chinese restaurant. After all, since his date couldn't understand him and he couldn't understand her, it seemed like a natural progression to have a waiter that neither of them could understand. I was laughing hysterically when William described it to me.

Now my expectations for such an evening would be limited. It's certainly a funny story but not a recipe for 2 people to fall in love and make beautiful music together. In fact, that is exactly what happened. God in his mercy had put William with a lovely girl who would not be aware of his ability to eat shoe leather every 5 minutes. The 2 of them babbled on and laughed and found ways to communicate that were basic enough to not require complex verbal skills. At the end of the evening William managed to ask her out again - although he's fuzzy on how he got the message across.

But Wait There's More

Remember how our expectations often trip us up? Amazingly, God buries little gems in us that He unearths when he needs them - and they are often a complete surprise to us. We are moving confidently (or aimlessly) down one path and God picks us up and puts us on a completely different path, where we and we discover we have the hidden resources to accomplish something completely new and different. That is an amazing thing about God. All through the Bible, people were led by God to do remarkable things, often with a sense of surprise that God would use them in that way. Think about Moses, Gideon, Joseph, David, Peter, and Philip - all of them went in directions that must have felt completely different than what they ever expected. Yet God exposed gifts in them that he had placed there for his own purposes.

This was the case with William. William had an unremarkable academic career and had never really put any effort into learning a language beyond his freshmen year of High School. Yet it turns out that with the right motivation he had a gift for languages. As he dated his new found love interest he found he was able to speak conversational Spanish with an increasing level of fluency. He went out and bought a book and boned up on the language. After a few months he was fluent enough to hold an entire conversation in Spanish - although imperfectly. After six months he proposed to his love, and to hear him tell it he confused the verb "to marry" and missed the reflexive tense. He ended up asking his love to marry him ... to somebody. Still, this hidden gem in the way he was wired blossomed under the right conditions.

Now William works as a real estate agent. His special gifts allow him to shepherd Spanish speaking clients through the process of buying a new home in the largely English-only world of real estate and finance. He has 2 adorable (and bi-lingual) children and he's learned a few other languages along the way - although none quite so well as Spanish.

I'm sure that William never expected a blind date to develop into a career and an entirely new direction for his life - but that is what happened. Just like Joseph and Mary started out heading to Bethlehem and ended up in Egypt, God takes us on his own path for his own reason. If we can just stop looking for it (whatever it is) and start trusting him, we can begin to enjoy the journey so more freely.

My Own Story

In another post I will share some of my own story. It is grimmer than the tale above but it is a powerful story of redemption. More than a decade ago I crashed hard and bitterly. Because of my own selfishness I lost my ministry and nearly lost my wife and children. Yet just like William, God had placed in me the talents and abilities that he wanted to use for my benefit and the benefit of others. As soon as I hit rock bottom he began to unearth them little by little. He is still doing so and I am still learning to let him.

Learning not to Strive

Yet Paul tells us clearly that he has learned the secret of being content. It was a process for Paul (as it is for all of us). Our culture demands that we live in a state of discontent. We need more stuff, more money, more food, more love... Our economy depends on the fact that we can't seem get enough of anything. We are a discontented lot. Can we really learn to be content? Which brings us to the "Holiday Season" - that stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year's where the urge to splurge is so omnipresent.

Now let me be clear about this. I love the holidays (especially Christmas). I have a traditional family with one wife and three kids. I have the usual spate of in-laws (the Ammons) that keep me on my toes. My own mom and dad live in Phoenix since the summer so we will not be seeing as much of them. Time with the extended Kruger or Ammon family is the usual event with some tension, lots of love and copious amounts of food. I fancy myself as an amateur baker and I love to make pies, pumpkin rolls, cheesecake and Crème Brule.

During the holiday season our house is filled with the smells of nutmeg and cinnamon, the sounds of sappy Christmas music on the piano and the chatter of warm hearted people telling rusty old stories that never fail to entertain us even though they are told each year. At the age of 42 I am more content than I ever imagined I could be. In my youth I was ambitious and driven. As a middle age man I, like Paul, have learned something about being content. I don't lay claim to being able to do it perfectly, but I have a secret that has helped me (with God's grace) mostly overcome discontentedness in my life. Here's my secret in three easy steps.

Point A - I Am Flawed

I am a broken. I am shallow and selfish. I want my own way. I am not what God intended me to be. I cannot be what God intends me to be without his help. This condition of my heart is not the result of parental misguidance, personal tragedy, a flawed upbringing or bad nutrition. It is the natural state of my fallen humanity. Our society has forgotten that the human heart is brutal and untamed. A century ago when told that Hansel and Gretel met a wicked witch, everyone understood that she was wicked. If written today the Brothers Grimm would have to add an extra chapter about her awful upbringing and the unfortunate circumstances that caused her to develop her odd choices for housing construction material and her taste for children.

The truth, ugly as it may seem to us, is that we are flawed and bent on evil. We need redemption. We are in need of Christ and his Grace desperately. There is no way for us to "fix" ourselves. The only way we can overcome this essential selfishness of being is to turn to Jesus and allow him to live through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Savor that for a moment... God lives His life through us. Consider Paul's words in Galatians 2:20:

Point B - Everyone I Know is Equally Flawed

Newsflash - we all live under the same curse. No one - not Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, Pastor Sean, or your favorite Christian singer - is particularly gifted at "being righteous". When it comes to taming our selfish heart we all must rely on Jesus living through us. That means that each of us is flawed. None of us can claim the high road. Each of us must approach the cross with the same humility. Each of us must acknowledge that we were an enemy of God, and that we are dependent on His mercy and grace.

Point C - When Point B Bugs You Refer to Point A

It's amazing how often we fail to connect the dots between our own condition and the hearts of others. I'm not shocked when people in the kingdom act petty and self-righteous. Why? Because I often find myself acting petty and self-righteous. I know what I am capable of and so I leaven my expectations with forgiveness. When people fail, through Christ I can still feel good about them. Please note that I did not say that I can still "love" them through Christ. Certainly it is true that love is the basis for our relationships and Christ's love governs us all. But when I use such a well-worn gospel cliché, I am often being slyly self-righteous. We sometimes use a sort of God-speak to make ourselves feel better - as in "Sister so-and-so is a no-good, backstabbing, gossipy busybody.... but Jesus gives me the strength to love her" (add soft organ music here). We summon our spirituality to help us bolster our (undeserved) sense of superiority.

But when I remember how flawed I am. When I remember the things I've done and the things I've said that were not in keeping with the character and nature of God, and when I remember how truly marvelous and all-encompassing the love of Jesus is for me, then I can give others a break. I can even consider them favorably and without resentment. Forgiveness and reconciliation come more easily and readily to me when I keep my own flawed nature in perspective.

OK, But What About Contentedness

Now you might find yourself saying:

"Good for you Mark. You have figured out that the fact that you are an idiot makes it easier to deal with the flaws of others. But what does that have to do with being content? How did we end up on this 'I am flawed you are flawed' path?"

Ask yourself this question, "Why am I discontented?"

In our case discontentedness is rarely about need. Even the poorest among us is well fed and well clothed. Indeed, it has been my observation that discontent seems to rise with wealth. I believe this is because being discontent is about what we want and what we think we deserve. Discontent is that condition that causes marriages to break because people fall "out of love" with each other. Discontent and bitterness go hand in hand. Discontent comes with a lexicon of words like "fair" and "right" and "deserve". That's it isn't it? We are discontent because of what we believe about what we deserve? I deserve a better house, a better marriage, a better life. Discontent is usually about how we fight to keep some areas of our heart from yielding to his more perfect plan.

In my own life, the great struggle within me is between yielding to God and conquering and controlling my own little kingdom (see my post on What Pinky and the Brain Can Teach Us About Love). In some ways we are all little Napoleons running around expanding territory and inventing ice cream. We are in the deceptive business of measuring ourselves against others. We think in terms of status and rights. When talking of other's behavior we say "should" and "shouldn't" but when describing our own we use words like "I just...." and "I only...".

We are not discontented because of a violation of our rights or being treated unfairly or some injustice. We are discontented because we are wretchedly self-centered and focused on our own advancement. Our expectations and sense of what "aught" to be is too often tainted by our constant work to make it to the top of the heap.

Yet when we recognize how His love transforms us we can begin to rest in Him. We can realize that by His standard (the only one that matters) we are all flawed and fallen and in need of his Grace. We can stop measuring ourselves against each other. We can begin to live in community with each other - all working toward the same goal of reflecting Jesus in our lives. So my great secret to contentedness is the same secret to so many things. Walk with a consciousness of what God has done in you, and let him live through you.

Naturally our decorations consist of the usual ribbons and bows. We have ceramic figurines of penguins in various Christmas garb. My wife Ann is a penguin lover from way back - long before Morgan Freeman could even spell penguin. We have many objects with a "story" on our tree. Decorating the tree is as much about remembering as it is about making something pretty. Amidst the sounds of loudly sung carols and Christmas songs (also a Kruger tradition) you might hear....

.... and on it goes with each ornament adding its little piece of family history. It's our own little private history that will probably never be recorded, but it stays with us from year to year as a running narrative.

Homemade ornaments with snapshots of our children's faces pasted on a paper cutout of a Christmas tree or wreath with the help of a teacher have survived another year. Small, painted nutcracker men made of wood or little reindeer made of clothespins sit happily in the branches next to fancy ornaments of glass and tin. The tree is dotted every year with embroidered snowflakes tatted many years ago by Ann's grandmother. In the evening, as I sit in the room and write (as I'm doing now), or play the piano, or do a crossword puzzle with Ann, the room seems a cogent reminder of how God has blessed us with joys and triumphs and sustained us through tears and sorrow.

The Hidden Meaning

Also among the decorations are dioramas of the nativity. We have about six of these set up near the tree or elsewhere in the house. They range from a single ceramic figure of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, to a couple of elaborate scenes replete with wise men, shepherds and angels. My father brought us one from Israel that is carved out of olive wood. It has a wonderful savory smell and the skin is smooth like finely tanned leather.

There it sits on the mantle, enshrined among the penguins and snowmen and red and green. What is it about the "nativity scene" that holds our attention? It doesn't have the garish pomp of a oversized benefactor in a red suit laughing and shaking and handing out presents. It doesn't have the sentimental feel of hot cider or sugar cookies. It's a strange, unearthly scene. A lowly, common setting, a new mother and father, animals and shepherds - surely the oddest of all royal births.

The nativity scene is an attempt at a snapshot. It's a frozen moment in time. It is that moment when the Son of God was acknowledged as living in the flesh among His creation. He was finally here! Think about it. All over the world in thousands of different statues, dioramas, paintings and sculptures the "crèche" (fr. crib or manger) is given a place of honor. Millions of figures and images are all trying to capture the essence of a single verse of the Bible:

This single moment in history is Christmas. The spirit of the season is really His Spirit. The "holiday joy" is really the message of Joy to the World that burst on the scene that holy night. No matter how many other things try to crush it, there is Jesus, in the center, in the manger. It's hard to avoid if you are looking for it.

The Alter

What we think of as the "manger scene" started as an alter, not a decoration. Most scholars believe that St. Francis of Assisi (known for his fondness of nature and animals) first used a simple, unadorned, straw-filled manger as an alter for Christmas mass. But the manger was an alter long before that. On the night he was born the little manger was an alter as well. Those who saw the miracle worshipped the new born king. But the alter was not just one of worship. It was also one of sacrifice. Jesus emptied himself to become one of us (Philippians 2) and offered up his life freely starting that very night. Little more than 30 years later the sacrifice was complete as he bled and died on the cross.

Here's my Christmas charge to you. Look for that little alter as you do your shopping or handle your Christmas preparations. I think you will find, as I have, that the manger alter is everywhere. I have found the manger in the mall, at the gym, in people's yards, even on television. Each time you see the manger remember it's purpose. I think you may be surprised at how often you are given cause to stop and wonder.

No More "He Said / He Said"

When it comes to listening to the voice of God we are all so human. I loved what Pastor Les said in the second service on Sunday about how God's will blossoms in community. I don't remember the exact words but the gist of it was that God's direction emerges from the striving of the various members of the body of Christ as we all attempt to follow his leading. The word he used was "imperfectly".

One of the most often heard phrases in church conflict is "God is leading me" or "God is leading us". Each side, committed to following Christ and committed to his Lordship has a right to claim that God is leading them. Think about it. Two camps, each with a commitment to Christ, each sharing the same basic values, come to different conclusions - and each of them claims God is leading them. So what do I do with this information? Do I consider the side I disagree with less spiritual? Are they deceived? Do I take a stand, raise my stone tablets and say, "Who is on the Lord's side"?

This little trap of the enemy is so clever. He loves to combine our thirst to be on top of the heap with a sense of righteousness ("self" righteousness). The truth is that no one has a corner on the voice of God. I mean no one. Think about it. As saints we can all strive to hear his voice and not one of us is on the inside track. Pastors and leaders and teachers hear Him. Regular Joes who drive busses or sit in offices hear Him. Phone operators, baristas, students, homemakers - they can all reach out to hear Him. Men in prison on death row have an equal opportunity to seek him and find him. That's the promise of Jeremiah 29:13:

Now consider how you feel about what I just said. Did you catch yourself saying "Yep, I have heard from God and I am right"? Do you use this knowledge to reinforce your own belief and question other saint's sense of what God is telling them? Hanging on to what God has given you is an admirable trait. Using it to taint your relationships and make you feel more righteous than others is not. In fact, you are playing the serpent and posing the same question he posed to Eve at the beginning - "Did God really say?" Here's my advice Instead of playing "He said / He said" let's just play "He said" and let God sort it out.

Get Some Perspective and Stay Positive

When I think back on some of the disputes I have witnessed I must say that I'm often amazed at how serious everyone took the issues at hand. I hope this doesn't get under anyone's skin, but Church conflict can be a source of great humor and shake-your-head amazement. People are passionate and earnest about the oddest things!

• Baptism - Long ago I heard of a furious argument that resulted in a splinter group. The issue was whether or not an additional person who was not an ordained minister should be allowed in the tank as an assistant. The issue came to light because he pastor was worried about the upcoming baptism of a large parishioner.
• Decorating - Actually this one crops up quite a bit. The color of carpet or pews seems to be an issue that is seated quite close to our salvation in the evangelical church. Thankfully the "burnt orange" faction was ousted in the late 80's in favor of the "aqua velva blue" sect.
• Music and Worship - Conflict over music happens like voting in Chicago - early and often. Music is one of those areas where everyone has an opinion and everyone feels obliged to share it. Folks think the music is too loud. They think it is boring. They think it's too exciting, too "rock and roll", not enough rhythm, too much dancing, not enough hands in the air, too much clapping, not enough clapping, people praying with their eyes open, not enough hymns, too many hymns, too many vocals, bad haircuts on the worship leader, not enough worship, too much worship. I once saw a church split over whether any songs should be allowed in a minor key (It's the devils key).
• Theological Issues - Ok, so some of these are important, but sometimes they are just not worth the hassle. And in most cases they diverge quite a distance from the core beliefs that bind us all together. Should we really be fighting over whether Jesus was a Nazarite or just formerly from Nazareth? Is it important whether Paul had poor eye sight or was just short and grouchy? Does it affect anyone's salvation if the instructions on the number of prophecies in Corinthians are a code we should follow or (in the words of Captain Barbosa) "really more like guidelines". Theologians in the middle ages argued over how many angels could fit on the head of a pin (hence the moniker "pinhead theologians"). It's nice to know we have come so far.
• Church Ministries - People feel passionate about what God has called them to do. Sometimes they are irritated that others don't feel as passionate. When my wife wanted me recently to help her pick out carpet she was chagrined that my main goal appeared to be getting it over with and keeping her happy. To her it was an adventure and an important decision, but to me it was a chore. I don't know whether to choose "antique sandstone" or "jute brown" and I can't tell the difference anyway. Sometimes the same dynamic exists around the ministries and departments of a church. People want to raise the profile of the ministry that they care about. They can be disappointed and even embittered when others do not share the same passion.

Looking at this list it should amaze us how quickly our humanness overcomes our Godliness. Most of us need to get over ourselves and have a bit of a laugh at how petty and shallow we can be. These conflicts aren't about God or the Christian life. They aren't about seeking him and knowing him. They aren't even about protecting the faith. In most cases they are the same conflicts I see in business every day. They are about status, success, power and self-worth. We simply can't seem to get over ourselves.

Looking back on my own approach to conflict in church life I can see that they often non-events. I was so concerned about my church and about righteousness. I can remember writing and arguing for my point of view and listening to earnest church members fret over what to do. Why all the hullabaloo? Here is the real newsflash - Conflict is inevitable (even in churches). Conflict does not mean the death of the Body of Christ. Conflict does not mean anyone has to "lose out with God". The truth is that God's church will prevail. The reason we take it so seriously has more to do with our personal "human" stake in the issues than with righteousness.

With that perspective we can turn around our viewpoint. We can see things in a positive light. Yes, conflict is hard but it often produces fruit. It may drive some folks apart but it can also bring people together. Conflict can help us clarify what is really important. It can help us resolve outstanding issues that may have been festering in our hearts. And it can force us to focus our eyes more clearly on Jesus. It can allow us to overlook ourselves and walk in love toward one another.

Choosing to Trust and Believe

When you have a problem with someone you have a choice. You can go them, confront them and berate them. This is really want we want to do isn't it? We drive home alone making speeches to ourselves and laying out our case. We explain over and over (to ourselves with no one to point out any flaws in our impeccable logic) why things are just so, and why we have a right to our wounds. If we manage to muster enough courage (or meanness) for a confrontation we face our adversary and give him or her "a piece of our mind".

Does this behavior draw us together? Does it make us feel better about that person or about the situation? By and large it has the opposite affect. We are less prone to compromise and more entrenched in our position. We feel more justified in our feelings and less likely to seek a true reconciliation. Now don't misunderstand me. There is a time to confront and a time to hash things out. But for Christians that time should always be proceeded by humility, love and forgiveness.

How much better it is if we settle the issue before conflict arises. We will believe the best of our brothers and sisters. We choose to trust. We choose to forgive in advance. We choose to lay aside ourselves and empathize with family. We choose to "bear each others burdens". That is the Christian ethic. The words of I Corinthians 13 are more than just hollow platitudes. These are the behaviors and actions of a Christian. This is how we choose to be. We trust each other, we believe the best, and we forgive each other.

Lord, help us to choose that kind of love.

God's Plan B

You see, what bothers me most about the idea of His sovereignty is "Plan B". You know what a "Plan B" is don't you? That's when the ceiling fan you just repaired flies off its spindle and goes careening through the living room window. Your wife looks at you and says, "Ok... what's plan B?". Plan B means "How do we fix this... how do we repair the damage?" Plan B means settling for something less than perfect. Sometimes I think that's my life in a nutshell. Of course God is at work in my life, but most of the time it seems like He's patching holes that I've made in his plan for me. I'm sure what God's "perfect" will is for me - but I've been on "Plan B" almost from the moment I fully commited my life to him. I have not "gotten it right" yet. I'm still off of the path that I'm sure God intended for me. How can God's will be fulfilled in my life if I'm on Plan B. Is there a point where I completely miss what He has for me and never have the opportunity to get it back?

Ah... but there it is. Can you see it? Can you see that small inner child looking up at you reproachfully with his "that's-not-fair" stare? Why do we constantly take out the weights and measures when we examine our walk with God. This journey that we are on is about going deeper with Him. Whatever gets us to that goal is His will. No one who has been tainted by sin can claim to be following God's perfect plan with regard to his or her life's direction. We live in a plan B world. The only way to make it right is through the Lordship of Christ and the covering of His blood. That sacrifice is what wipes the slate clean. That is why this verse comforts me. It's about resting in him. It's about the assurance that He will prevail in my life.

You see I still have many plans in my heart. Some of them are birthed from my walk with God. Other plans are fanciful and still others spring from my own ambition. My heart is deceitful and prone to wander. I pray about what God wants for me and try to discover His purpose, but my heart is so full. It is bursting with desires, teaming with plans, rife with hopeful ambition. I pray for wisdom, but I am still out there - making decisions, living life. When God chooses to remain silent on one of my plans, how do I know the way?

When I'm troubled by this, I remember how small my understanding is compared with His. It is worth it to trust God. Every time I give up something I thought was precious I find that it was a trinket compared to what He has for me. I do not trust Him perfectly yet - but I am able to rest in Him. I know that His Plan B is already light years ahead of my plan A. He can refocus my walk and bring it into balance. He can deliver me from my own designs and make "His purpose prevail". His plans for me can capture the desires of my heart and as I walk with Him and become more like Him, my desires and His desires can merge within the tapestry of my life. I know that in spite of the many failures I have had, God has a purpose and a plan for me. His "perfect" will for this moment and this hour is that I walk with him and trust him. My prayer is, "Jesus, give me the strength to trust you and to yield to you. Allow me to rest in you. Let me feel your gentle tug as I walk through the many decisions of my life both great and small. Let my heart be consumed by what you have for me."

I think about the woman I knew then. I was sure I knew her. I thought I knew her likes and dislikes. I was confident that I had a grip on what she thought and what she cared about. Most of all, I thought I knew what it meant to love her and to be in love with her. Those of you who have been married for longer than a few years are probably amused by this notion. Frankly, I don't think I knew her at all. In fact, sometimes I think the whole idea of being "in love" is a little selfish and shallow. Of course without the idea of "being in love" we would have to scrap most popular music and literature and we could no longer feel superior to cultures that arrange marriages. Still, it begs the question, is being in love about me the lover or about my beloved? The excited man on the radio answers the question for many people. Being "in love" is often about me - about having my expectations met.

We see ourselves as a puzzle that is missing a piece. We look for someone to "complete us". Did you ever stop to wonder why we do not think of ourselves as a piece in search of a puzzle? We constantly badger God for the blueprint to our own life, but do we ever ask, "Lord, how do I fit into your plan for my neighbor, my city, the world at large?" Sometimes we act like we are alone in the universe. I suppose God often has a chuckle at us (I'm so glad he's fond of us and not down on us). I suspect we look like little tin-pot dictators rampaging through our lives and trying to bring everything we can under our dominion. In any case, when it comes to learning about control marriage can be a good teacher. Usually it serves to illustrate how little we know and how little we can control - which brings me back to my lovely wife and her youthful looks.

What "look" of my wife am I most fond of? If I knew my wife completely and loved her totally the minute we said "I do", I suppose you could call that the pinnacle of my relationship with her. Everything would be down hill from there. The reality is a stark contrast. Ann often recounts the story of waking up next to me shortly after we were married and panicking. "Who is this guy? Who did I marry? What have I gotten myself into?" she thought. Many marriages would never take place if the couple actually knew how hard it is to build and maintain a good relationship in marriage. On the other hand, nothing can teach you to really love and give of yourself quite like it. In marriage (especially a marriage with Jesus as the head) love grows and matures and blossoms. It's not a light switch or a possession or something on a check list somewhere (take out the trash, feed the cat, be in love with your wife, pick up your son at school). Instead, married love is the totality of the life you share together. Over time you become so inter-connected that life without your spouse is simply unthinkable - just like over time life without Jesus becomes unthinkable.

Would I want my wife to look like the day I married her? Speaking for myself I have to say no. I love my wife more now than I have ever loved her. Every cute little crease at the corner of her eye is like a sweet shadow of some happy moment we have shared. Her face (like mine) has aged through our life together. We have three children together. We have fretted and prayed through illness and laughed and celebrated through little triumphs. We have pondered momentous decisions together. We have gone through tragedy and suffering. We have held each other up when things seemed unbearable. We have spent contented hours playing cribbage or yatzee or doing crossword puzzles together. Each event that we have shared has added to the depth and permanence of our relationship. As a silly boy I fell in love with Ann Ammon. I was taken with her charm and wit and beauty. But unlike that thoughtless boy and that carefree girl, we have grown together. I cannot imagine what life would be like without her. She is with me now. In this time of my life she is my beloved and it is who she is now that I want.

Jesus sees my beginning and my end. I wonder what face he sees when he thinks of me? Is it the face of the innocent child? Do you suppose it is the face of a petulant youth? I believe it's the face of the man growing to love him. How wonderful that Jesus is with me. He's really with me - at this moment, at this hour, at this time in my life. He's not glowering over me with his arms folded waiting to be disappointed. Like my wife, Jesus is sharing my life with me. He is allowing me to grow in my love for him. And just like in marriage, his love and forgiveness allow us to continue to grow together in spite of my frailty.

As a Father I understand the term "selfless love", although I'm an imperfect practitioner. I want the very best for my children. I want them to grow and mature in God. I want them to study hard in school, receive high marks, go to a good college, and handle disappointment with honor. I want them to be happy and confident - meaning content and "at rest" with their place in the world and what God has called them to be. I am desperate that my sons not repeat my sins and failings in their own lives. I watch for signs of my old arrogance and self-importance creeping into them and I do my best to help them see it and deal with it (without becoming an ogre). I think and pray about my children more than anything else in my life.

Relational Trust

Although I have not always been trustworthy, my children have always trusted me. That's the way children are. A father is a larger-than-life figure in the life a a small child. It seems he can do anything and it feels like he knows everything. A child-like trust is the kind of black and white trust that we usually mean when we talk about trusting God. Early in their development my children simply believed what I said. They believed I was good and that I could protect them and help them. They thought I was so smart that I knew things they could not possibly know. Trust was absolute. I think this might be part of what Jesus meant when he told the disciples they needed the "faith of a little child".

Of course as children get older they don't stop believing in you, but that does not mean they continue to accept everything you say at face value. They have their own mind and will and they begin to see things differently. Children (especially your own children) have a gift for seeing through any inauthentic beliefs or behavior in your life. They can see right through hypocrisy, blind spots and personal failings. They don't buy into crusty old excuses you've used for years to medicate your own pain. So, as they mature, they often become a bellwether for your own ability to change and grow. If you look closely at your interaction with your children you can usually find out how static and entrenched you have become. Watch and you will see some of the fallow ground in your own life that God needs to plow. I think my children have been a great influence on me as a man, a husband and as a father - perhaps as great as I will ever be on them.

Here's the question - should I see this new ability to see through me as a lack of trust? Do they no longer trust me because they struggle with buying into everything that I say or everything I believe? Should I be wallowing in self-pity wondering why they don't trust me any more? The truth is that my children do trust me. They know that I love them and want what is best for them. In fact, they will still follow me and obey me even if they disagree with me. You see, this trust does not have a basis solely in my credibility. My children, as they grow into young men and women, no longer believe that I know everything and can solve every problem - but they still trust me. In spite of an occasional (or sometimes more than occasional) lack of faith in my knowledge and ability, they are convinced that I love them and want what is best for them. That is the basis of their trust in me.

Now obviously I'm not suggesting that God can not be trusted to be credible. Unlike my example of an imperfect human father God can be trusted not just to love us and want what is best for us, but to always know what is best for us. God is sovereign and omniscient. My point is that our trust in God is not like our trust in the dictionary or the constitution or a bank. It's not simply rooted in his veracity and credibility. Like a child's trust of a parent, our trust in God is ultimately rooted in our knowledge that he is our Father. He loves us. His plan is for our benefit - plans to "...prosper us and not to harm us...to give us a hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11). Like so many parts of the Christian life, trust is a component of our relationship with God. It grows or diminishes as we are exposed to his nature as our Father. This keeps us from turning trust into a prerequisite we check off our list and throw away.

When Bad Things Happen to goo...uh... to People Who Think They are Good or at Least "OK"

The reason this is important to me is that my personal experience with trusting God has been a constant wrestling match. I believe that Jesus is truth and life. I don't just give lip service to it, I believe it in my heart. Yet when I am faced with fearful and human events and decisions, believing that God is sovereign and omniscient does not always provide me with comfort. Things have happened in my life that I struggle to explain inside the context of God's plan for me. Like my children I sometimes ask God why. Why is this happening? Why am I hurting? Why is he silent?

My trust in God falters when it is not connected to his personal relationship with me. I find myself identifying ruefully with the man in Mark chapter 9 who pleaded for Jesus to deliver his son, "...Lord I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!" Thank God for including that story. It seems to me the man is saying "Lord I trust in your goodness and your faithfulness and your love for me. Help me to believe in your specific plan as well!". That describes me pretty well. My prayer is:

"Lord help me trust you, not like I trust a dictionary or a load bearing wall - but like a child trusting his father. I believe that you want what is best for me, even when I don't understand your ways! Even when I am suffering I know you are good. Even when I am wrestling with your will I know that who you are can guide me. Even when I face tragedy and heartache I can still trust in your unfailing love. What a wonderful Father you are."

As the story unfolds, each of his daughters breaks with tradition and resists an arranged marriage. Tevye is forced to abandon tradition in order to maintain relationships with his daughters. In other words, he has a choice between his daughters' needs and the demands and expectations of tradition. That same choice often faces us as individuals and communities of believers. We wrap ourselves in traditions that comfort us and make us feel secure and then we are forced to make choices between love and acceptance and the maintenance of our habits. Let me explain using my own heritage as an example.

In the Pentecostal tradition in which I was raised we called the worship time the "song service". The "old time" Pentecostal style was a steady four-four beat (emphasis on beats 1 and 3) with a piano, organ, loud male lead and the obligatory pastor's wife singing alto. We liked upbeat songs and we believed in hand clapping, shouting, foot stomping and vigorous praise to God. We raised our hands and spoke in tongues. Pentecostal's are now thought of as traditional and conservative, but back then we were very much anti-establishment. It wasn't just about the gifts of the Spirit either. We derided the stuffy, liturgical Presbyterians, Lutherans and Methodists. Even the Baptists were way too buttoned up for us. We had found the latter reign of the Holy Spirit and we were living in freedom. Even though the style was quite different from the style of Trinity, I recall the same freedom of expression and abandonment that I often sense in our own services.

But strange things happen when you think you have cornered the market on God's outpouring. You start to think that you have discovered the way things ought to be. You forget that God is a creator and doesn't stand still. You turn freedom into habit, habit into custom and custom into tradition. You begin to feel secure, not because of your relationship with God, but because you think that doing what you ought to do will keep you safe. So we Pentecostals got stuffy. Oh, we still raised our hands and stomped our feet - but when folks came along with banners or electric guitars and drums or (shockingly) dance, we harrumphed and poo pooed them away as shallow posers. Having discovered freedom we were determined to institutionalize it.

As Tevye said, "Sounds Crazy No"? I can tell you from experience that this particular issue, a church's style of worship, is very serious to many people. I won't speak to recent history, but years ago I saw many churches split over worship customs. These congregations had traditions that were being "bumped" (to borrow a Beauchampism) by new forms or styles. Often congregations ended up splitting worship behaviors into sanctioned and unsanctioned lists. Things like hand clapping, hand raising, piano, organ and a snare drum (every other Sunday) were all sanctioned. Things like electric guitar solos, un-hymnish choruses, full-fledged drum kits, instruments that did not play the melody, any form of movement below the waist, and any hair cut resembling the Beetles or Elvis were all un-sanctioned. Obviously I'm being facetious - but the fact remains that churches routinely split over music in the 70s and 80s and 90s and they are still doing it today.

I hope the point is clear. Our traditions and customs do not in themselves bring us life. They do not have the power of relationship or the impetus of the Spirit. Like Tevye, if we live by following the "oughts" we find ourselves in the same difficult place as he. Do we sacrifice relationships for the sake of honoring our code? Does our identity come from knowing "what God expects us to do"? Or does our identity come from knowing him and who he is? Instead of desperately seeking to judge ourselves according to a code of conduct, we need to desperately seek after him. Security and stability flow from our connection with the person of Jesus, not from following the law. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:6

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant-not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Ah! The letter kills. The letter stifles. The letter brings death. The purpose of the law is to draw us to God by teaching us that we are fallen (see Galatians 3). The law is not a life bringer. The old covenant is a reference library for sin and only a harbinger of redemption. It is the New Covenant of the spirit that gives life.

In my own life I often get introspective about what is genuine about my faith. I know that I can't be even an adequate father or husband without Jesus. My life is full of many things that are centered on my faith. Church, devotions, writing, praying, choir, service, being a father, and being a husband are all things with my faith as a central feature. I wonder if, like Tevye, I have any blind spots. I wonder if there are elements of tradition that I take at face value as if they were articles of faith. Do I think because of my own customs and habits that I know "who I am and what God expects me to do"? Lord, keep my face turned toward your face and not on myself. I want to walk with you, not just live for you.

One of the things I love about Trinity Church is the acknowledgement of the journey. We, as a church, are not pretending to have all the answers. We are not pretending to have arrived. Pastor Les often acknowledges the tension between opposing view points and he always counsels grace and relationship instead of "staking out a claim" in one camp or the other. I don't envy him the task. It's a mine field that I'm sure bumps people every week. But continuing to "do life" together (as he puts it) is one of the things that tranforms Trinity into a life giving church with many disparate folks participating. I tell you it's as shaky as a fiddler... A fiddler on the roof! How do we keep our balance? I'll tell you in one word... Not tradition.... but Jesus.

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We as Christians often think of change as an epiphany. We love the idea of the rescue, the turn-around, the new birth, the "new creature" that we become in Christ. These are all important and certainly when we come to Christ it is an about-face. I love the fact that Jesus took care of eternity in a single instant in time. Old things are passed away and all things are new. But as often as the Bible talks about radical and sudden change, it also talks about discipline and the process of walking with Him.

After we make this radical turn around we are instructed to keep the faith (1Tim 3), work out our own salvation (Phi. 2), accept God's discipline as sons and daughters (Heb. 12), present our bodies as living sacrifices (Rom. 12), die daily (1Cor. 15), put on the whole armor of God (Eph. 6) - and the list goes on. The Christian life is a series of steps involving yielding decisions where we are consciously choosing to lay aside ourselves and our old nature and take up Christ and his new nature. We are making choices between our way and His way.

In my life when I sense that something about me needs to change I start with prayer. Sometimes, through grace, change comes easily. I'm healed of my thinking or pattern of behavior and God furthers his grace in my life bringing glory to Him. Usually, however, change comes through trusting God, setting goals, and practice practice practice. Breaking habits and setting new habits is hard work. God is there cheering us on, but he sees the "process" as just as important as the "outcome". Look a little closer and you will recognize that something wonderful is at work here.

My son Aaron is very bright. When he started seventh grade they put him in eight grade algebra. When presented with an algebra problem he can often simply stare at it for a few seconds and then "solve for x" and move on. Recently, I was surprised when he brought home a worksheet with a poor grade early in the semester. The conversation went something like this:

• Dad: "Aaron, I noticed you missed a bunch on this worksheet. Did you not understand the problems?"
• Aaron: "No I understood ok."
• Dad: "So... why the wrong answers?"
• Aaron: "All the answers are right, the teacher is just really picky."
• Dad: "picky? You mean that right answers aren't enough?"
• Aaron: "Apparently not. She told me it wasn't enough to have the right answer. I needed to show how I got there. I needed to 'show my work'."

The little light went on in my head. I recall having a similar conversation with my first year algebra teacher about "showing my work". In algebra, the task of the teacher is to teach the process of arriving at the answer, not just the answer itself. An algebra teacher teaches the students dozens of little routines for figuring out this part of the equation or that part of the equation. As the problems get more complicated the student assembles these routines into larger routines (algorithms). So, when teaching beginning algebra, the answer you arrive at is not as important as the process - the path you took - to arrive at that answer.

In our lives sometimes Jesus does the same thing. He allows us to struggle with the process of change for a greater purpose than just arriving at some destination. We learn the "routine" of trusting him by "showing our work" - by walking through the process with him. As our trust in him grows we are able to tackle bigger challenges. Eventually we learn that it is the walk with Jesus that provides the keys to change. As we show our work he refines our process and with practice we become more like him. We arrive at the desired outcome thoroughly different.

Sure, God could pick us up and remold us like Gumby, making changes willy nilly - but would those changes be as permanent without us showing our work? God is looking for more than that. He's less concerned with behavior, personal comfort, solving our problems or changing our circumstances. His goal is to make us into his image. For my part, each day I pray that God will help me embrace His process for my life.

We hiked up and across the cliffs that bounded the shore using a well worn path. The beach was lined with spurs of rock that extended out into the sea. From the top of the cliff they looked like rough brush strokes knifing through the smooth edge of the water. Up close these rocks were full of crevices and shallow pools that collected water at high tide. Star fish and sea anemone by the hundreds clutched the rocks in these pools. A group of sea birds hammered away at mussels grouped on an outcropping of rock. They exploded into flight whenever a crashing wave sent up a white foamy spray. Two dolphins circled lazily about 250 yards off shore; their distinctive dorsal fins clearly visible. The salty air mingled with the green smells of southern California making us all hungry for sea food. It was a spectacular day.

We dabbled in the tide pools taking care to take only pictures and leave only footprints. Our hike back took us along the cliff about 100 feet above the sand. We walked slowly trying to absorb the scene - unable to take it all in. The sun crept into the ocean, reaching the horizon just as we found our way back to our vehicle. The golden hue reflected on the water made me feel so small and yet so wonderfully blessed to be there at that time and that moment. It was a performance by God that I'm sure he equals but he never duplicates.

It had been a nearly perfect day. As we reached our car the children chattered on and on about the starfish, urchins and other sea life we had been fortunate to see. The parking lot was large and there were still about 40 or 50 cars in it at this point. It was dusk and people were packing up picnic baskets and rounding up children. A wedding party in full regalia was moving toward the face of one impressive looking cliff for a photo shoot - a good idea if you don't mind sand in your fancy shoes. We were tired and hungry and ready for seafood.

We decided that it would be a good idea to try and get a recommendation from a "local" on a seafood restaurant. After all we had passed a dozen restaurants on our way from Anaheim and several of them were just a few miles back. We began by asking the question "are you from around here?" to a few of the folks standing near by.

• Young Couple: "No we are from the bay area."
• You lady with a stroller: "No, I'm from west of LA."
• Older couple with grandkids in tow: "Uh... no we are from around Sacramento."

It seemed that Malibu was a bit short on Malibuians. Finally we asked an older fellow nearby. He chuckled and looked at us wryly. "Dos people up der...", he said in a thick eastern European accent as he waved his hand to the hills full of magnificent houses, mansions and villas, "de don't come down here", and he pointed to the beach, still glowing in the remnants of the sunset. His tone made it clear. The wealthy, famous and privileged did not dabble in the simple pleasures of the beach.

My first inclination was to think to myself, "Of course... those high falutin' folks on the hill and their fancy-pants cars and houses would never lower themselves to come down to the level of the common man." But then I got to thinking about how easy it is to ignore the familiar - even when it is exceptional. I sometimes take my wife and children for granted, even though they are marvelous. I sometimes take my church or my pastors or my job or my friendships for granted. The familiar can quickly become mundane if we do not freshen our view. That's why Jesus wanted us to have the faith of children. Children have a delightful sense of discovery about them. Everything is new and fresh to them. In my own life I struggle to maintain that sense of wonder.

Abandoned Faith Versus Calculating Faith

In chapter 19 of the Gospel of Mathew, starting at verse 13, we find two interesting stories from Jesus ministry. When you are reading the Gospels it is a good idea to pay attention to how the stories and parables are arranged. There is often a recognizable connection between seemingly different passages if you are looking hard enough. In this case the two stories are that of the children being brought to Jesus and the inquiry of the "rich young ruler". In verse 13:

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. 14 But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children." 15 And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left. (New Living Translation)

Then, in verses 16 through 22 we have this interesting story

Someone came to Jesus with this question: "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?"
17 "Why ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. But to answer your question-if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments."
18 "Which ones?" the man asked.
And Jesus replied: "You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. 19 Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself."
20 "I've obeyed all these commandments," the young man replied. "What else must I do?"
21 Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
22 But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. (New Living Translation)

Now this young man (let's call him Bob) was a lot like us when we think we have it all together. What was Bob looking for? It seems like he was looking for a single action - that one thing he could do that would guarantee he would obtain eternal life. Bob was hitting up the holy man for an insurance policy. If Jesus had said "travel to Jerusalem and offer a sacrifice" he would have been up to it. If Jesus had said "live a life devoted to your community" he could have handled that as well. Bob's idea of faith is formulaic. He wanted to find the right set of rules and act on it to hedge his bets. If Jesus had suggested something that he could do easily and check off of his list he would no doubt have trusted Jesus far enough to do it. You might notice his interest in Jesus was merely self-interest couched as respect (which is why Jesus chided him for his flattery).

But Jesus wasn't interested in building up Bob's own sense of self-importance by giving him another status arrow for his quiver. Jesus wanted to reveal to Bob that, while he was building his fancy house of self, the true riches of the kingdom were shining all around and he was failing to take notice. Jesus did not ask Bob to participate in a ritual or some outward sign of devotion to God. He asked him for a radical departure from the life he was leading. Jesus asked Bob to abandon the possessions he was banking on and follow Him. So we see these two pictures. The kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children. Jesus calls Bob to a radical departure from self-interest to a life of trusting faith in him.

Bob was a lot like the folks in those fancy Malibu houses - missing the spectacular beauty of the shore in favor of artificial trappings of self-importance. "Dos people up der... de don't come down here". He was so afraid of losing what he had gained that he had lost the ability to let it go and trust in anything larger than himself. He went away "because he many possessions". Following Jesus wasn't in the cards for him. He had come too far down the path of success. That is not the mindset that is required to follow Jesus. To follow Him means to become like children - un-layered with duplicity, unencumbered with status, and unburdened with ulterior motives. The faith of a child is an abandoned faith. It is a naked faith. It's faith that "buys in" with a whole heart. That's the kind of faith that can appreciate a sunset.

It was for the aunt (Doris) of a young man in the congregation. She was in her early 60's and she had died of cancer. The funeral was being held at our church but the presiding pastor (Pastor Roy) was from the local Free Will Baptist church. Free Will Baptists are an Arminian splinter off the Calvinist tree that goes back more than 200 years. In Big Stone you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a Methodist or a Free Will Baptist. Aunt Doris had been a Free Will Baptist all her life.

Pastor Roy started quietly, almost formally. He described Aunt Doris' life, her children and extended family. He talked in warm hearthy phrases. She was a fine, decent woman, a good Mama, a good Grandma. She made wonderful peach cobbler and she was always ready to sit and chat a spell with a cup of rich, strong coffee. Her passing was a great loss to all who knew her. This was standard funeral fare. It was so comfortable and soothing that I was completely unprepared when Pastor Roy exploded.

It was like lightning. In one motion Pastor Roy picked up his Bible, strode to the edge of platform and began preaching like his pants were on fire. Now I'd been listening to such preachers all my life. Usually they start with a text, get into a groove, and then sort of accelerate up to cruising altitude. But Pastor Roy went to thirty thousand feet like he was first mate on the Enterprise. One minute he was comforting the grieving and the next minute he was flailing his arms, waving his big King James Bible (open so the pages would rattle and flutter) and raging against the power of Satan the ravages of disease. His preaching was emotional, angry, and indignant.

I'm sure my eyes widened and my jaw dropped just a little. When I regained my composure I looked at the folks in the pew. As Pastor Roy continued his harangue the family and friends swayed back and forth and begin to respond in kind. They would shout and cry and even moan in response. It was as if they were all participating in some sort of avant-garde performance art. To me it was a spectacle, but to them it was why they had come. This bouncing, waving, shouting man was expressing a righteous anger. He was giving in to grief and berating the heavens for taking away someone so loved and cherished. And the mourners were right there with him. It was a catharsis - a chorus of passionate, gut-wrenching, group pathos. He unleashed their hearts from the bonds of propriety and let them to grieve openly and publicly.

Twenty minutes later it ended as it began - like a great book clapping shut. Pastor Roy was back to his soothing, comforting self. He instructed folks that they could file by the casket if they wished. Friends went first followed by family. Tears and audible sobbing were abundant. As the family went by more than one of them clutched at the body and had to be gently pulled away. I thought to myself that Aunt Doris must have been an incredible woman to engender such emotion at her passing.

An hour later I found myself in the church basement eating lunch as was the custom after a funeral. Ladies of the church had brought in a delightful spread of chicken, ham, potato salad, corn bread, and of course pie. The same folks, who so recently seemed unable to let go of Aunt Doris, now sat on metal folding chairs with paper plates across their knees chatting comfortably and with great affection about her. They laughed about her quirks and mannerisms, told stories about her child rearing idiosyncrasies and remembered fondly her favorite sayings.

Over my three years in the mountains I witnessed several funerals. I came to understand that there was a form to them. There was a ritual that included public and open grieving. These folks felt as if something was bound up inside of them and they let it out. The process of letting it out allowed them to be comforted. Not that they were no longer sad - but that they could move on and not be paralyzed by grief. I'm not suggesting that this is way all funerals should be conducted, nor am I suggesting that everyone at the funeral was released from their grief by the process. There is, however, something intuitive and genuine in the way these folks allowed themselves to grieve so heart wrenchingly.

I am reminded of Jesus' words about those who mourn. He said in Mathew 5:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted

The message bible uses this lovely turn of a phrase:

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

We often talk about bitterness and unforgiveness as paralyzing forces in our lives. We know that if we harbor these things in us they will inhibit our relationships and make us unable to draw close to God and to others. What about grief? In Jesus' words above it is clear - to be comforted you must be willing to mourn. If you are experiencing a paralysis in your life - an inability to "get past" a certain point - it's possible that you have not allowed yourself to mourn.

We all have things to mourn - not just the loss of loved ones, but the death of dreams and expectations, the loss of relationships, sometimes even the loss of innocence. In order to be comforted you must be willing to mourn. Mourning means "counting as lost". It means acknowledging that something is gone, never to return in this life. Mourning means finality.

Failure to mourn brings paralysis in our lives because we spend our time looking backward. We continue to insist that there is a certain way everything "aught to be" and we continue to strive to make our situation meet our expectations. Life moves on around us, but we are cemented in place, still trying to make sense of it all. People with deep wounds are hurting and I want to be sensitive here, but the truth is that a failure to mourn is rooted in the same old propensity to have our own way that seems to mess up every other area of our life. We have to acknowledge our loss, our lack of control, our inadequacy to explain everything, and we have to turn to God to be comforted.

I have some experience with mourning. My life has not exactly turned out like I had planned. I had to mourn the loss of my own dreams for what I might become. In some cases I have had to mourn the loss of relationships. I was hanging on to things that were long gone - and it stunted my ability to grow. It hindered me from knowing and being known by others. As I went through the process I realized some things about myself and about loss.

First, the things I was holding onto were not real. In many cases I missed what might have been, not what actually was. Many of these things were, in fact, based on my own expectations and rooted in my trust of my own judgement. Am I so wise that I can say the way things aught to be? That's why I love that little twist of a phrase about mourning in the Message Bible - "Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you." Isn't it amazing how many of our issues come down to simply trusting God and letting go of our own expectations?

Secondly, I found that, as a Christian, I'm not comfortable with this idea of mourning. Counting something as "lost" seems defeatist. Because I believe that God is personally involved in my life, it seems like a lack of faith to declare anything, any dream or relationship or loved one, to be "lost". Once again, I prove my ability to "pick and choose" from among God's attributes. Because he is powerful he can resolve or repair my loss - but in his love he can also comfort me and be my strength. Should I shoehorn God into meeting my expectations for a life without pain? Or should I throw myself into his arms and allow myself to be comforted? Should I allow him to control my destiny? Not acknowledging loss is a form of self-deception that keeps us from genuinely facing the truth and allowing God to work in our lives here and now.

Please understand, I'm not saying that God cannot restore relationships, fulfill dreams and heal sickness. Indeed he has done all of those things and more in my life. But there is a time to mourn. There is a time to let go. If you are in that place in your life where you are confronted by loss, allow yourself to mourn. Sometimes we are afraid to offend God. The anger and sorrow we feel over loss resides in our heart but we have somehow convinced ourselves that expressing it to Him is wrong. Pour out your heart to him. He can handle it. David often expressed his heart to God. The Psalms are filled with the very human cries of a man struggling with tragedy, triumph and his personal relationship with God. The Psalms can be a great starting point if grief is your issue. As for me, I have found that abandoning my heart to him is the greatest of comforts.

It sounds ridiculous, but the dynamic between forgiveness and love is a point that Jesus illustrated often. The story of the lost sheep (Mathew 18), the prodigal son (luke 15) and the hired laborers (Mathew 20) are all about God's grace to the undeserving and his "unfairness" in lavishing that Grace on us. Jesus loved to highlight the fact that God's grace was not a matter of merit or prestige. He explicitly says of the woman who washed his feet that her gratitude was great because she had sunken so low and yet she was forgiven.

How do we deal with this tidbit of knowledge? Should we envy those who have been saved from "extra" depravity? Should we seek out selfish actions and egregious sins to more fully experience God's grace? In fact, warning against this is the very point that Paul makes in Roman's 6 after his discussion of sin, the law and grace. He says in Romans 6:1:

Isn't that just like us? Here is this wonderful truth. God can forgive any heart no matter how dark and stained. Yet the danger is that we use his grace for our own selfish ends. Like Manut Bol at the buffet line we feel like we can eat anything we want with no consequences.

In fact, in this story as in many of the parables and stories related to grace, Jesus is targeting a spirit of religiosity. In the case of this woman the Pharisees were insensed at the fact that Jesus accepted her attention. They saw themselves as too good to be in the same room with her. This is the attitude that Jesus is pointing out - a self righteousness bigotry that puts people into categories of sinnish, sinfuler and sinfulest. How silly! Jesus is pointing out to these fancy-pants (or fancy cloaked) religious leaders that the humility of the forgiven sinner is a doorway to a deeper understanding of God.

This must have struck the Pharisees rather hard. They had made a lifestyle out of following the letter of the law with their feet so that their hearts and minds would be free to participate in hatred, lust, jealousy and envy. They had carefully crafted a rule book of accepted behavior - but the law brings death because it liberates us from the necessity of connecting with the heart of God. The more we make the rules important the more calcified and impenetrable our heart becomes toward Him. Following the law makes us like the rebellious teenager who says, "I cleaned my room and did my homework, now leave me alone!"

Isn't that how we treat God sometimes? We try to keep the rules in order to get God to leave us to our own devices. "Hey God, I'm faithful to my wife, I tithe, I show up at church, I smile and sing and I even read my bible a couple times a week. Now please don't lean on me too much. Let me get on with life down here." We use the law as a stand-in for real relationship with Him.

Can you see it? The line between being "pretty good" and being an "awful sinner" is really non-existent. Hatred is as bad as murder and lust as bad as adultery (Mathew 5). The problem with us is that, like the Pharisees, we don't see ourselves as too bad. We aren't filled with the gratitude of this woman in Luke 7 because we have convinced ourselves that we are better than she. That's the real point Jesus makes time and again. He exalts the lowly and humble who are real and genuine and he lays low the pretentious Pharisees. The truth is that her condition is our condition. Like her, we are perpetrators. That's tough to hear isn't it? We are "offenders" and "perpetrators" of sin. This is where our thinking needs to change. We have such a benign view of sin. We think of our sinfulness as if we are toddlers coloring outside the lines. It's pretty good. It's mostly right. It's just not quite good enough. But sin is more than just art-work that's not quite worthy of the fridge. Sin is a matter of willful disobedience.

In spite of the fact that we are rebellious, persnickety, willful, petty and downright selfish we still manage to think of sin as some external force that impacts us against our will. We consider ourselves good people who are victimized by evil, as if sin is a hurricane that roars into our lives, or a ditch that we fall into "accidentally". We talk about men of God "falling" and the "mistakes" that all of us make. Our language for dealing with sin is really a suave to help us blunt the force of our own responsibility. Looking at my own life, the times that I have fallen, I didn't trip and I wasn't pushed. I dove into sin like a penguin leaping for open water after wintering on the ice.

Thinking back at the most memorable sins that I've committed I'm struck at how often God would put obstacles in my way to try to keep me from sinning. I was literally "hell-bent" on sinning. In order to sin I would have to take risks, discount advice, ignore accountability and sometimes even scheme and plan to arrange my sin. Sin isn't an accident. God did not say in Romans that "while we were accidentally estranged from God through sin he died for us". He said that "while we were His enemies He died for us". The picture of our estrangement from God is the prodigal son - a willful, selfish squanderer.

Of course we don't like to admit we are selfish. But without that acknowledgment our relationship with God cannot reach its full potential because we will have a less than complete view of his forgiveness. It short changes our relationship with God. This was Jesus' point about the woman in Luke 7. He was telling the Pharisees, "she gets it and you don't". He was letting them know that as long as they insisted on the value of their own righteousness they would never be able to experience God's love in that fresh and personal way that this woman was able to experience.

The same is true of us. In order to be fully exposed to God's love in our lives we must also be willing to come face to face with our own sinfulness. When we see ourselves as offenders and not as victims then God's love, grace and forgiveness take on a deeper meaning. We can love much because much has been forgiven.

It's not a lack of care or discipline. We map out our careers. We plan for x number of kids. We believe we know how our lives will be as we marry, have kids, and work through our plan for life. I don't think it's about being "in" or "out" of God's will either. I think that's something we say to help us justify our decisions or explain when things go awry. The truth is that when that moment of true reflection comes, if we are honest, we discover that our idea of life as a roadmap is an illusion. Nothing ever feels quite the way we think it should. It turns out that we are terrible prognosticators. We experience unexpected joys as well as live through pain that seems impossible to bear. We go down roads and make decisions that we never intended. We end up dissatisfied with things we thought would satisfy us. We are not so much travelers with a "set destination" as we are explorers with a vague general direction.

We make a tremendous investment in directing our own lives only to find out that we are not in control after all (And in my case, thank God!). In that moment of reflection, are we disappointed? Do we have a sense we should be "further along"? Do we lack the wisdom to see our lives through the uncommon eyes of Jesus? This disappointment we feel is real and human, but it does not really reflect our walk with Him, and it certainly does not reflect his view of us and our lives. Here is my little secret. When I'm tempted to give in to disappointment, and I wonder about the path I'm on, I think about my granny.

Perhaps you didn't know it, but I'm a preacher's son. My father, the "Reverend William E. Kruger" has pastored in the Assembly of God denomination for more than 40 years. I grew up in AG churches throughout the Midwest. My pedigree as a Pentecostal runs deep. My maternal grandmother was a little hillbilly woman named Gladys who was a second generation Pentecostal. She cut her teeth at the old camp meetings and tent revivals of the south long before the Holy Spirit ever moved on the middle class. Of course she would cringe at being called a "maternal grandmother". To us she was just "Granny".

Granny lived in West Plains Missouri until a few years ago when she "passed" (that's how we refer to death in the Ozarks). By the time Granny passed she was late into her eighties and, in the way of the women of her era, she had 7 kids, 18 grandkids and nearly 27 great grand kids. Granny's passing was not unexpected. She had lived 30 years past her husband Richard. Richard, my grandfather, was a silver haired fiddle player who died of liver cancer before I was 8. I still remember fishing with him in the farm ponds that sprinkle Missouri's boot hill.

Granny was a plain faced woman with sensible therapeutic shoes - those earthy ovalish shoes with rubber soles that pad softly along the sidewalk. Her silvery hair was tied up in a bun on the back of her head. She had a wide smile and chuckling, throaty laugh that bubbled out of her. When she was caught off guard by something humorous she would laugh and then cup her hands on the side of her face and exclaim "oh my" or "well I never".

Sometime in her 50's or 60's Granny broke her leg. I don't really know the story, but I know that the small town doctor who cared for her failed to set the leg correctly, and consequently her leg was crooked. She walked with a cane as far back as I can remember. I can still recall her limping down the sidewalk going into the town square a few blocks away - a plump little woman with an inviting smile and a silver bun. If you looked in the dictionary under the word "grandmother" it would not surprise me if you saw Granny's picture next to the word as an illustration. Except for the limp, she and Irene Ryan were cut from the same cloth.

Granny had a way of speaking that was like the sound of warm-hearted folk music. It made you think of biscuits and gravy, blackberry cobbler and banjo music. She had an Ozark accent - an archly southern drawl peppered with colloquialisms. Listening to her made you feel like you had somehow fallen backward in time. Granny had her own vocabulary. Instead of "body" she would say "bidy" (rhymes with "mighty"). I remember her singing about heaven in her throaty Pentecostal alto, "...I'll hev a new bidy praise 'a Lord I'll hev a new life..." while she fried eggs and bacon for a late morning breakfast.

Although she was physically frail there was strength in her. Granny led the spirit filled life for more than 80 years. She outlasted her husband, her oldest boy, some of her grandchildren and great grand children and countless friends. From the perspective of some her life was insignificant. Richard and she lived a hard-scrabble life for more than 30 years before he died, and Granny lived on social security and what she could make clerking at the Salvation Army for 30 more years after that. Granny never owned anything significant. She never did anything spectacular enough to make the news. She never wrote a book or a song. She never started a business or a charity organization. She didn't found a church or a society. Her 80 plus years on this earth came and went and she passed unnoticed by the world at large.

But Gladys "Granny" Myers is not unnoticed by God. Granny raised her 7 children to serve God, and they have - faithfully and cheerfully blooming wherever God has chosen to plant them. They have faced tragedy and triumph with the same implacable faith I sensed in her. Amongst her offspring are several ministers like my own folks. This little lady, who lived alone without bitterness for 30 years still faithfully praying, going to church, loving God, teaching Sunday School, making casserole for the church pot-luck and quietly serving others, has had a tremendous impact on the Kingdom of God and on the world.

I wonder what was going on in heaven during those last few months before Gladys homecoming. Do you suppose the angelic "advance team" was preparing for her arrival? Do you think the angels hanging out at the local Starbucks (why shouldn't there be Starbucks in heaven - they are everywhere else) were buzzing with news of her arrival?

"Hey Jose, I hear Gladys is coming this week!"
"Gladys - Wow... VIP arrival eh?"
"Yeah I can't wait to meet her."
"Hey Paco, do you suppose we should go out to the arrival terminal and get a spot in the receiving line?"
"Ooo.. good idea Jose - I'll pack us a lunch."
"Ok, but no Manna... 1000 years of that stuff is more than enough."

Sometimes, when I'm frustrated that life isn't working out as I had planned, I think about Granny. I don't suppose she intended on living the life she ended up living - poor and alone for 30 years. Our plans are a part of our own context. We think about life in terms of benchmarks and milestones. We buy our first house, graduate from college, get promoted at work, see our kids graduate and retire. But God has a different standard by which to measure. He's not hung up on milestones or major events in our life. He can see eternity - we can barely see into next week.

So, when that moment of reflection catches you off guard and you are tempted with disappointment. Take a moment and consider what God thinks of your life. Let His standard eclipse your own and be content just to be with him.

To Be Loved

"Controlling" usually runs afoul of our capacity to allow ourselves to be loved. Notice, I said "to be loved". In my own experience my biggest hurdle has not been loving others, but learning to accept love from others. Once you make up your mind to love it can turn into a self-sacrificing and noble action you feel good about. It assuages your guilt and medicates your pain when you choose to love others. But to allow yourself to receive love - now that's another matter. There is something scary about being "the beloved" of someone else.

Perhaps you've never thought of it that way. Opening yourself up to love is not a "no-brainer". If you are a guy you probably get what I'm saying right away. It's a cliché that men are "afraid of commitment" - afraid to take a relationship to the level where intimacy requires trust and investment. In fact there is a tension in us men between "control" and "letting go". Society reinforces the idea that a man should be "in control". Men often seek to dominate their own "personal world". A man obsessed with control will even shrink his world down to only those things that he feels he can control. Such men often live lonely, isolated lives where they fail to connect with anyone. They have chosen status over community - power over love. Still, everyone has a few issues with control. We all have a thirst for control that battles with our yearning to be loved. Accepting the love of someone else is scary. It makes us feel shaky and vulnerable. We are much more comfortable "trying to take over the world". What makes accepting love, especially God's love, so difficult?

Scorekeeping

Many things might stand in the way of accepting God's love. Fear of rejection, fear of betrayal and false humility (pride veiled in woe-is-meism) all come to mind. I'd like to focus on one obstacle that has been working in me from time to time. One thing in my life that has stood in the way of accepting love (from God or from others) is a sort of competitive one-upmanship that keeps me evaluating my status. If you have kids this is a behavior with which you are intimately familiar. A few years ago my youngest son, Matthew, developed a bad habit when dealing with his older brother. He would antagonize his brother to the breaking point, and sometimes his brother would shove him or smack him or otherwise invade his personal space. Matthew would immediately break into the saddest most heart wrenching cries you've ever heard. His piteous cries were so convincing I thought a Laplander was chewing off his leg. He was trying to draw the attention of a parent. His goal was to garner sympathy and to be able to tell his side of the story first. He knew that if he could be reasonably believable he would "come out on top". Sometimes this actually worked and Ann or I would sympathize with him and discipline his brother - usually because his brother failed to take responsibility for his part in the ruckus.

I like to call this attitude "scorekeeping". Scorekeeping is the process of damaging or discounting a relationship for the sake of staying "one up". Matthew was willing to throw his brother under the bus in order to score points with Mom and Dad. What Matthew failed to recognize is that the score he was keeping only mattered to him. We parents usually manage to treat our children as they are without regard to the score. We parents are analysts, not handicappers. But in the world of sibling rivalry children are all grasping little mice bent on domination. Unfortunately this behavior is not unique to children. Scorekeeping crops up at work, in marriage and even (gasp) in the church. It seems like we spend a great deal of time and effort trying to figure out who is ahead.

Scorekeeping stifles our ability to accept love. If we allow ourselves to "let go" and become vulnerable then we lose the upper hand. We lose control of the situation. Instead of being "owed" we now "owe". That's what happens when we accept the love of someone else - it becomes an obligation. It's requires a response. That's the contract of the beloved. To be beloved by God obligates you to return his love. That is its drawing power. The capstone of that love is Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. Paul put it this way in Romans 5:

God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still his enemies.

Jesus' sacrifice has this great drawing power because it is rooted in love. It wasn't a mere transaction to pay the penalty for our sin. It was a personal sacrifice freely given. It compels us... it draws us to him. God didn't treat the human race like seabirds in an oil spill. He didn't just muster the troops to go "clean us up". He became one of us, lived with us, and died for us. When we recognize the true magnitude of his sacrifice we cannot ignore it. Jesus said of his sacrifice in John 12:

32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Jesus tells us in this prophetic word that his sacrificial act of love compels us to be drawn to him. This call - to accept his love - must be answered, and it cannot be ignored.

But accepting his love means you are no longer in control. It means you can't "win". There's no scoreboard - no tally of merits and demerits. Instead, accepting his love means that you are willing to allow yourself to decrease and Him to increase. On the other hand, resisting his love means maintaining control and "winning". Is that what you were created for? To stand alone on the top of the heap? The mouse-sized ruler of a kingdom of one? No indeed. You were created to love and to be loved.

His standard of measurement is quite different from ours. His desire is to know you and to be known by you. He's not keeping score any more than I was with my sons. Instead, he thinks of you as you are and as you can be through him. To accept his love means giving up on the dream of world domination - but only the domination of your own small world. In the words of that famous song that makes me want to hit myself repeatedly with a stick "it's a small world ... after all".

So give in to love - all the way. Abandon yourself to Him. Jesus Loves you. It's true. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that when he looks at me he experiences what I experience when I look at my own children, except infinitely deeper. His thoughts about us are vividly personal. That single truth, that Jesus loves me, is simple enough to be understood by a child of three yet so complex I unpack new layers every day. Unlike so many things that fall short of expectations, the love of God actually is a panacea.

What Does it Mean?

The phrase "new song" occurs several times in the Psalms. The Psalms are sort of a "playbook" for worship. Most of the behaviors and expressions that we participate in as worshipers are rooted in this ancient hymnal. Psalm 40:3 says:

That's from the NIV. The wordy but helpful "Message" bible puts it this way:

Elsewhere the psalmist gives us joyful instruction and encouragement as a Psalm 33:3:

...or Psalm 98:1:

Other places in scripture (both the Old and New Testament) give us this expression as well. Great! It's scriptural. Now what? What does it mean? What does it sound like? How do I participate? And where did I put my keys?

In a practical sense "singing a new song" means "singing extemporaneously". This fancy word sounds like anger management for former obsessive compulsives, but it really means "making it up as you go along". It's rather like one of those "everything" bagels from Brueggers. You take the band, some chord progressions, expressions of praise and adoration, and a bunch of different voices, and you mix it all together and see what comes out. Yes it's a little scary, but sometimes it's like an majestic waterfall - melodious, soaring, even roaring.... awesome and powerful. I think there are 2 parallel tracks we can follow to help us develop this skill in our choir. The first track is "spiritual preparation" and the second is "practical execution".

Spiritual Preparation - Transforming Me'ness into He'ness

How do you prepare to sing a new song? First, remember that worship is the process of scraping away the "me" and replacing it with the "He". The greatest obstacle to singing a new song is what we often call "self-consiousness". Maybe you think of it as fear and timidity or perhaps "a lack of confidence", but I'd like to encourage you to think of it in another way.

In my job I'm fortunate to get to speak to groups about technology from time to time. These speaking engagements usually involve lecturing to smart-as-a-whip geeks who have degrees in computer science. Although I have a college degree it is in Bible and music, so as you might imagine, these engagements cause me some angst. In fact, I'm usually pretty wound up before speaking at such an event. I'm nervous and concerned about what the group might think. In the back of my mind the "Emporer's New Clothes" is playing on reruns. I'm waiting for one of these "truly smart" geeks to snicker. At that moment I'll know the jig is up and I've been found out as a fraud. Can you see the parallel? I'm overwhelmed with a sense that I'm not up to the task. I'm self conciuous.

Usually, I get to the podium feeling queezy and begin an uneasy introduction. Oddly, something strange happens to me between the introduction and point "B". At some point I realize that I am relaxed and speaking easily. What happened? What loosened me up and made me "forget about myself"? I think I know what usually does it. You see, I really love technology. I love working with it, learning about it, and finding ways to make it work for my customers. I'm immersed in that world as a profession and I'm a geniune geek at heart. As I start to speak on my topic I become energized by the topic itself. I become engaged in the material. Inside of me the subject matter becomes more important than how I see myself.

I believe this is one of the secrets of worship. You can't forget about "yourself" while you are thinking about yourself. You must allow yourself to recede into the background. You must become engaged in the subject matter of who He is and what He has done. This is humility in worship. Humility is not the supression of self, it is the absence of self. As you worship, if you are absorbed in Him, self-conciousness no longer has a strangle hold.

Ok that's the theory - now where is the practice? It's all well and good to say that we need to "focus on Jesus", and become "engaged in who he is" (if you could see me now I'm making those little quote marks with my fingers), but where is the reality? Without some practical steps to make it happen it's just a cliche. As soon as something becomes a cliche it loses it's potency. What can we do? What practical steps can we take to put Jesus at the center? Wiser men than I may be able to give you better advice - but here are my two tips.

Let What He Has Done Lead to Who He Is

In your preparation try starting with a personal inventory. What has he done for you? What has he done in your family? In your church? In your body? In your personal life? What has he done for others you know and love? For our sin? For our redemption? What has he done for the world? What has he done to conquer Death and Hell?

You see, even when we start out thinking about what God has done for us on a personal level we still end up contemplating Him and who He is. We realize that his story is an epic while our story is small and personal - yet he still chooses to engage each of us personally. Hebrews 1 tells us that God has chosen to speak to us through His Son who is the brightness of His glory. God made his "big" story personal. He drew us into the thread of his plan for the universe. Wow! In the words of Jimmy Neutron's dad, "Now ya gotta admit that's pretty neat!"

Open Your Mouth and Sing

I know it doesn't sound like much of a "tip" but to sing a new song you do actually have to sing. Sometimes the most obvious tips are the best. I'm reminded of my son some years ago when he was 5 sitting at the breakfast table. He and I had this conversation:

I certainly know where he gets that stubborn streak. Since my wife occasionally reads this blog I'll just say for the record that he gets it directly from me.

Seriously, I'm often like that when it comes to spiritual issues.

Sometimes the answers are so obvious that they defy a deeper explanation. When the time comes to sing a new song your instructions are to open your mouth and begin to sing. Sing who He is. Sing what He has done. Sing your joy or your sorrow to Him. Sing your love for Him. Sing His name. In fact, sing all of His names. Listen to those around you sing with them. There's no special skill, no "rules of order", and no extra-sensory perception required. God isn't going to put you into a trance and make you sound like a rock star (except for Sean maybe). It's just orange... there isn't really another answer. Stop striving to figure it out. Open your mouth and sing and let God do the rest.

Seeing Others Without Assumptions

One day soon a little light bulb will go on in my son's head when he's making embarrassing noises with his brother and the two of them are laughing while the rest of us patiently endure. A little voice will say to him, "perhaps others do not think this is funny." At that moment empathy for others may triumph over self-importance. He may suddenly become aware of others as they are and stop assuming that others experience the world like he does. Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 13:

Childish Worship?

In my worship I sometimes find myself in the same place as my son at the dinner table. It's not that worship doesn't affect me. I find myself moved by the message and power of praise and worship in almost every service. Yet there is often something shallow and self-important about it. When I consider the songs and themes that move me the most, I realize that I am largely focused on what God has done for me or how he is reaching out to me. To use two examples from our upcoming worship service, the song "Friend of God" and "Amazed" both move me to tears practically every time we sing them. Which phrases tug at my heart? The phrase "He calls me friend" and the phrase "I'm amazed by you and how you love me". Am I moved by the character of God? Am I moved by His holiness? His Mercy and Love? His nature and power? Or is it possible that I am mostly moved by how God relates to me.

Please understand that I do not want to minimize or demean my sensitivity to such songs or such a great message as God reaching out to me. I'm desperately grateful for God's love in my life and I would be hopelessly lost without it. There's nothing wrong with having the attitude of a child reaching out for God to hold me. But in my worship I have a desire to move beyond how God has interacted with me and toward a revelation of who He is. I want to see who God is, without making assumptions, without my baggage or pretension.

I'm reminded of the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas". Not that awful Ron Howard/Jim Carey aberration that makes you want to poke out your eye. I mean the actual book by Dr. Suess - or if you prefer the wonderfully animated Chuck Jones version. The Grinch's idea of Christmas was pretty well defined. He had it all figured out. He knew, in his self-assured way, what Christmas was, and therefore he thought he knew how it could be manipulated. He was convinced there was nothing new that he could learn; no new insight that could be gained. Christmas, thought the Grinch, was a self-indulgent exercise of cloying sweetness and sentimentality. It didn't fit his world view. But the Grinch had his moment of "face-to-face".

In the climax of the story (and forgive me if i stretch this metaphor a bit thin) we find the Grinch at the top of Mt. Crumpet. He's expecting a big "Who Boo-Hoo", but he get's something quite unexpected - a song of joy. Christmas had come and he had failed to keep it from coming. Here is that wonderful stanza:

Here is the Grinch's moment of revelation. He "thought of something he hadn't before!" Suddenly it was clear in his grinchy soul that Christmas was bigger and grander and it meant "a little bit more" than his jaded view had allowed.

In my own walk with God I want a grinchy moment like that. I want to be able to ponder (as much as my pea brain can ponder) what God might be like in and of himself... apart from little old me. Perhaps when I get to that place I will no longer see through a dim glass - but see face to face. As we worship together as a body, and as we lead in worship as a choir. I think we should look for those moments where God comes shining through as himself. It may be a song, a corporate wave of emotion or anointing, a word from God or even something completely unexpected. It could, in fact, be something we "haven't thought of before". For my part, I'm going to get my puzzler ready and start waiting.

I can hear the strains of my daughter's oboe as she practices for school. I hear the scratching and clicking of my oldest son doing his math homework. The cheery voice of my wife echoes faintly from the basement where she is talking and laughing with my youngest son. Her voice charms my ear like the soft sound of a warm summer breeze. I hear the dog rubbing his ears on the carpet. He likes to do that before he settles down for a nap. I hear the hiss of the kettle on the stove (my daughter must be making tea). I wonder if anyone else can hear what I hear. I know that they cannot hear it. This sound... this cacophony of life... this is God's symphony written and arranged especially for me. How amazing!

As the new year approaches take the time to listen to your own music. Look back and consider what it sounded like this past year. I know that sometimes it's hard. I think of the conversations I've had with folks in the choir over this last year. I know of several choir members struggling through relationships with adult, or nearly adult children. Perhaps your song is like that - a crash of cymbals and discordant brass. Another choir member has told me of a struggle with loneliness. Perhaps that is your song - a lonely unaccompanied flute or violin. Still others have battled sickness or struggled with physical issues. Perhaps that is your song this year - low brass in a minor key.

I urge you to listen closer. Like any good symphony, if you listen closely you will hear the musical motif. What is a motif? It's a reoccurring theme. You know what a motif is (even if you think you do not). Just think of the first movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony (For you Classical music buffs you might recall the first movement is titled "Allegro (con brio)"). The motif in this piece is that part you always think about when you hear the name of Beethoven (da da da daaa). It's also the punch line to the joke, "What was Beethoven's favorite fruit?" (ba-na-na-naaaa). This marvelous piece of music wanders through powerful dark passages, sweet romantic interludes, frenetic string volleys and lonely haunting sections that can make your heart ache. Yet the motif of this song is so strong that you cannot possibly listen to more than 30 seconds without being aware that you are listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony. I wish I could have been inside of Ludwig's head as he wrote it. It is almost as if he is trying to escape that phrase. He tries every way possible, but no matter how soft and sweet or lonely and romantic or popular and conventional the music becomes, that theme (da da da daaa) comes barreling back in like an tidal wave.

In my own life there is such a motif. It is God's love for me. It doesn't seem to matter how hard I try personally to change the music to suite my own view, God's love comes storming back and takes over the song. It's the thread that binds my song together. Sometimes there are dark passages in my song where sickness, death, my own sinfulness, or the cares of life rise up and try to take over the melody. But if I listen closely, God's love and mercy are bubbling along below the surface like a booming pedal tone that you can sense without even hearing it. Eventually, no matter how far away I my song strays from God's intent, the overpowering motif of Jesus desire for me rises up to take over the song. That is a wonderful thing. As I look back over the years that have passed I realize how that God is always reinforcing his motif in my song. I can see his hand... his music... in all the events of my life. I'm so grateful to Him for that music.

As I reflect on the past year, I'm encouraged at how far God has brought me. Perhaps like me, you have experienced a year with many blessings and not many troubles. Sometimes I think to myself that no one has a right to be as content and blessed as I am at this very moment. On the other hand I think about years past when things were not as they are now - when God's motif was fainter and harder to hear. I'm reminded that there are those of us who have lost loved ones this year. Some of us may have given up on dreams or lost friendships. Perhaps you have wandered away to write your own song and the weight of it is crushing you. My encouragement is that we look for God's motif in the midst of our sorrow and even in the midst of our wandering. Close your eyes and listen - that sound you hear is God's music. Like an irresistible crescendo his motif can overtake your song at any moment if you let Him. Joy may be just around the corner.

Two Sundays ago Maurice gave a stirring performance of "Comfort Ye My People" and "Every Valley Shall be Exalted". These 2 solos are pretty far from modern, yet each of these songs is loaded with meaning. At the end of the songs the congregation in the service that I attended applauded fervently and even rose to a standing ovation. Last week the choir received an equally passionate reaction from singing the song "And the Glory of the Lord". This caused me to wonder, what was it about these songs and these moments that we as a congregation found meaningful? Of course some of the appreciation was for Maurice and his talent and some, perhaps, just for the novelty of hearing classical music in the midst of our free-wheeling and intimate service. Still, speaking for myself, my heart was moved and touched by these powerful songs. I sensed the same thing in others around me. What made the difference? What allowed us to receive from these songs that are so alien to our usual style?

Willingness to Receive

In my view, one difference is simply a willingness to receive. Sometimes it is that simple. Pastor Les' series on Handel's Messiah, the special nature of Christmas and the novelty of the music in context all combine to create a warm, receptive heart. We want to receive. We are ready to receive. We allow ourselves to open up to the message and the beauty of the song and we do receive. This begs the question, where else are we missing out? Is it possible that, while Handel slips by our defenses, we are blocking God's move in other areas?

It sounds like such a simple thing. The key to worship is being receptive. That's like saying the key to water is its wetness. But the truth is that we tend to shut off our receptivity for trivial reasons. Inside of all of us is a small voice selfishly whining all the time. I tell my kids it's their "inner waah". You know the inner waah? In worship it's that voice that says things like "this song is too slow" or "I never liked this third verse" or "why are the drums so loud" or "what's with Sean's outfit today" or "that guy wearing a rug is so distracting". The inner waah is a dictator. It wants you to believe if everything would just line up exactly the way you expect it to be that peace and happiness would result. The inner waah fails to recognize anything that does not make you and your needs the center of attention. Like a small child stomping its feet it threatens to be unresponsive unless the worship service meets its expectations.

How do we stay receptive? The opposite of the inner waah is the grateful expectation that comes when we recognize that God is God and we are not God. This shocking truth seems so obvious to us in our heads, but we sometimes doubt it in our hearts - or perhaps I should say we ignore it in our hearts. God is God... and I am not God. That's a great place to begin our worship. It's a wonderful posture to receive from Him. Proverbs says the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). It also says in verse 23 of chapter 19, "The fear of the Lord brings life; then one can rest in contentment." So stop listening to the inner waah. Fear the Lord and recognize that he is God and you are not God. Wouldn't it be nice to unburden yourself of all the judgments and expectations that shackle you in worship? Wouldn't you like to escape the tyranny of the inner waah? Say it with me - "God is God... and I am not God". Fear the Lord and be content.

Ok, so you are willing to receive - good. But we still have to figure out how to make Handel relevant. That means we are going to have to address our idea of the "worship experience".

Experiencing the Truth

We sometimes think of worship as a sort of visceral, inexplicable reaction that takes place in the heart. We place worship on a purely emotional level. My dog, Nick, is a warm hearted beagle who loves to be scratched. All you have to do is look at him and he rolls right over looking for a tummy rub. Like a lot of dogs, if you tickle his ribs in exactly the right spot he will kick his leg like he's running a marathon. He doesn't know why he's kicking his leg. He only knows the urge to do it is overpowering, and so he kicks. Sometimes we see worship this way. We think that if we scratch a certain place in just the right way worship will rise up within us - and sometimes it does works that way.

Sometimes, however, we miss out on important truths because we lack the wisdom to ponder them sufficiently. I often find myself in the trap of judging a worship service based on the level of emotion I experience. I might pass over a song loaded with depth because I'm not responding to it physically or emotionally - and I might miss what God has for me there. We need to recognize the power and anointing that goes along with truth. Our worship songs contain echos of His mind, His plan, His word and His thoughts toward us. That's pretty heady stuff. Sometimes I find myself singing a song in a ho-hum way and I stumble onto a phrase that comes alive to me at that instant and my heart leaps within me. Did you ever have that experience? A sudden surprise of tears or joy or awe that springs out of the words of a song? That's the power of worship - to experience truth in a way that makes it intimate and life giving and more than academic.

This brings us squarely back to Handel. The 2 songs we are singing come with a couple of liabilities. They are very familiar and they have a reputation for being stodgy and high brow. How do we, as a choir, overcome these draw-backs and bring these songs to life?

Connect the Music and the Message of the Song

We can overcome the familiarity of these songs by recognizing the power of the words. Because of the style of "Messiah" we often lose track of the words in the music. This is because such music is associated with symbols that seem to represent God's aloofness and distance from our every day life - not his relevance. We most often think of vaulted concert halls and majestic cathedrals when we hear music from "Messiah". We are less likely to think of God as near and personal. Yet the message of "Messiah" is as relevant today as the day Handel wrote it. "Messiah" encapsulates the thread of God's plan expressed through Jesus Birth, Death, Resurrection and ultimate triumph over sin death and hell. Elements of that story are a part of every worship song we sing. So the first task for us might be to experience these words again - as if for the first time.

Let's take "Halleluiah" as an example. This song has the misfortune to be named after perhaps the least important phrase in the whole song. In the context of this song the word "halleluiah" is really an expression of exuberance that springs out of the real message of the song. The heart of this song is the phrase "The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and He shall reign for ever and ever. King of Kings and Lord of Lords". The "halleluiah" is an expression of joy over that! We are saying halleluiah because of the revelation that the world is His and He will reign over it forever! He is the "King of Kings and Lord of Lords".

If I could change music history I would go back and change the title of this song to "King of Kings" - that is really the thrust of the song. If we connect ourselves to these words with a willingness to receive we will begin to see what Handel had in mind. In the section of the song that begins with the sopranos singing "King of kings" and goes through five repeated refrains each one elevated in intensity above the last Handel is trying to express that thought in ever increasing joy - until finally it explodes into "King of Kings and Lord of Lords ... and He shall reign forever and ever and ever". Whoa! That really rocks. Think about it this way. If the same phrase was in a contemporary song and started with an acoustic guitar and then added drums, bass, keyboard, and vocals through 5 iterations till the last one exploded like a cannon shot into the next refrain with the obligatory electric guitar solo... it would be, in the words of my Pentecostal father, "a barn burner" of a song.

So our task is to free ourselves of our pretension about this style of music, buy into the message with our hearts and mind, and deliver on the promise of Handel's powerful crescendo. The congregation, already willing to receive, will be right there with us.

I believe we have this picture in our mind of what we expect out of Christmas. It includes the smiles on the faces of our children or spouse, the warmth of being together and the aromatic incense of past Christmases as children. The perfect meal, the perfect gift, the perfect ritual, decoration or setting are all part of the complicated ingredients that envelop our feelings about this time of year. These expectations start out as idyllic and whimsical longings for childhood and the beauty of hearth and home.

Unfortunately these expectations often morph into individual little tyrannical demands that cause us to rush around trying to make everything perfect. It doesn't help that our culture sends us messages constantly about what a perfect Christmas might be like. The end result is that we purchase and schedule the joy right out of the birth of Christ. And the amazing thing about it is that we feel guilty! Because the season doesn't measure up to our own expectations we feel we have let ourselves and our loved ones down. We didn't buy enough, plan enough or cook enough.

Here's my advice. Instead of setting an impossible standard and trying to live up to it, let go of your expectations. You may even have to do a little mourning in the process - especially if you have lots of baggage (like me). Instead, let's approach the season of Joy by looking for joy where we find it rather than trying to create it for ourselves and those around us. Sure, follow through on those important traditions and rituals. Have your Christmas morning, open your presents, read the Christmas story and cook an enormous meal... and then just see what happens. Tear up the mental scorecard and look for opportunities to bless, love, laugh and experience the life of Christ within your traditions.

Give yourself grace - or rather, let yourself be exposed to God's grace! Didn't spend enough? You are forgiven. The Turkey's dry? Forgiven. Can't fit tab A into slot B? Forgiven. Trying to connect with your folks and running into that same old wall? It's covered - you're forgiven. Kids not thrilled with their gifts? Not your problem - you're forgiven. Filled with fear that you forgot someone? Forgiven. Can't tie a bow to save your life? Forgiven. Your Christmas lights take 2500 fewer watts than your neighbor and your blow-up Rudolph sags and looks tired and deflated? Forgiven.

Now stop putting so much pressure on yourself and on Christmas. Let joy bubble up from all of those holiday trappings. Your 2 year old son likes the box better than the toy and the cat is hiding in the tree. That's cause for joy and laughter - right? Your parents are home and they adore their grandkids and they are always genuinely glad to see you. Have you forgotten how precious that is? How that sense of belonging occurs so rarely in your life - in spite of the fact that they drive you crazy? Joy! The snow is crisp and brightly white and the fire generates that warmth that seems so personal - like the hug of an old friend. Joy! Your Christmas feast is bountiful and no one wants to leave the table. Joy! The Christ has come... God with us... the Messiah... the reason for the season. The reason for everything. Joy!

I am a joyful lover of Christmas. My kids think I'm pretty geeky but I love the music, the lights, and all the little tokens that say it's the Christmas again. It wasn't always that way. Years ago my expectations sucked the life out of the Christmas Season for me and my family. What I've learned is that joy is discovered where God has placed it in our lives - not created by us. And the person of Jesus is at the center of it all.