What if...

It is election night. I love election night (even if I am really missing Tim Russert and his white board). The air. The excitement. The upsets. The victories. It is almost as good as March Madness.

I live in a very Republican area. It is hard to be a democrat or independent and a Christian in this area. I have been told that if you are not a Republican, you really can't love God. So, on this historical evening, the emails have already started. The conspiracy theories. The critical comments. The calls for lawsuits against the process. There is a lot of defeat for many people I know tonight. But part of me wonders.

What if as children of God we chose to pray for our president - no matter who that is? ...as Christians we chose to honor our president? ...as those with the greatest hope in the world, we chose to respect and submit to our president?

What if God is trying to do something BIG? What if God has a plan that is miraculous by human standards? What if this is the man that God has appointed for His purposes and to glorify His name? What if we are called to pray, and love and show grace? What if this is the perfect candidate in God's perfect plan for this moment? What if...

What do you do in the morning when your candidate has lost the big election? What do you do when your candidate has won the big election? You pray. You pray for wisdom and discernment. You pray for courage and strength. You pray for humility and a servant's heart. You pray for God's name to be glorified - not a man or a country's. You pray for your president. You pray for your vice president. You pray for the house and the senate and the cabinet. You pray for the staff and the pages, the assistants and administrators. And you pray that God will make you the servant that He wants. One who is will to honor authority - even when that authority is not your chosen man. Because in the end the cliche is still true. God is still God. He is still sovereign. He still appoints leaders.

Second Chances

My pastor talked about second chances on Sunday. I am always relieved to be reminded that my God is a god of second, third, fourth, one-hundredth chances. As I spent some time praising god about all of the chances that He has given me, I was challenged to think..."Am I a person of second chances?"

Jesus has called me to be His disciple. I want to follow after Him with my whole heart. So, am I a person of second chances?

I know about forgiveness and forgiving people over and over again. I know about love and caring for people. But, am I a person of second chances?

No. Not me. But I want to be. My heart cries out to be. My head thinks it would be awesome. It will revolutionize my life. So, God, make me a disciple of second chances...

An Outside Adventure

I am sitting here watching my cat. He is sitting by the back screen door watching the outside world. As the squirrels or birds approach, he will get into a crouched pose, ready to attack. He loves to interact with the outside world in this way. He is still a predator at heart.

However, he hates it outside. I tried to take him out once because I thought he would enjoy it. I could feel the terror in his heart as we stepped outside. I don't know if he remembers being a stray that had to fight for every meal. I don't know if he can still feel the bites of other animals, but he fought me with everything he had in him to get back to safety.

As I sit here looking at him, I have to think that I am a little like my cat. I love to look at the world and imagine all of the possibilities. I love the thought of a grand adventure. I even prepare myself for them, but when it comes time to step out of the door into the wide open world, I fight to get back in where it is safe.

Why do I live in the constant tension of stepping out into the life I was made to live and staying in the comfortable places? Why is it so much easier to bask in the sun while dreaming of adventures but rarely stepping out into the sun and taking those adventures? I don't know. Do I have it in me to actually be the person I want to be? Maybe. Someday.

Stingy Forgiveness

Forgiveness. For me this is one of the toughest things that Jesus ever instructed me to do. Over the last year, I have gotten a lot of practice in forgiveness. Both giving it and receiving it. The other day as I was sitting at my desk, I heard the question, “Do you forgive like I forgive?” Of course I don’t forgive like Jesus. I don’t have His superpowers or His perfection. I am just me – walking around trying to live the best that I can as a disciple of Jesus Christ. How am I supposed to forgive like Him and what does that even look like?

Then I thought, STINGY. Yep. That is my type of forgiveness. Cheap. Miserly. Just what will get be by, so I can check one more thing off of my good Christian to do list.

I have become quite capable and even talented at forgiving people, releasing them from what I think they owe me, but never allowing them back into my life. I no longer blame them, or hold the offense against them, but I also don’t really love them as Christ wants me to do.

But I want to forgive like Christ. Lavishly. Extravagantly. With all I have. And continue the relationship. Love the person. This is what Christ does for me. I don’t know how this will look in my life. I don’t know that I will be successful at changing all that I have done for, well, my entire life. But, I do know that I want to be like Christ and I will let Him renew me by the transforming of my mind.

Why I Gave Up Ministry

I have given up ministry. This may seem a strange statement coming from one who is employed to do ministry, but it is the truth.

Now, I have not given up ministry in the sense that I have left the ministry or given up on God. I am simply doing away with the word and attitude and philosophy of “ministry” in my life.

In February, I realized that God was changing my heart. He was changing me and in the process changing how and what I do. I had fallen into a mold where ministry was a way to fix people, adapt people and make them into disciples – not of Jesus, but of men. That was not who God had created me to be. That was not what I truly wanted to be. And even though my role models and mentors were that, I still had to be me. Authentically me. Truly me. Freely me.

I had fought against people trying to “fix” me or “minister” to me or “invest” in me. I wanted real relationships where I knew I was loved and respected. Relationships built on genuineness, not a structure of fitting the mold. I began to think that I might not be the only one feeling this way. Were the people that I interacted with feeling this way, too? Had I done all of the things that I hated other people doing to me?

Then, I heard that voice, just a whisper, a fleeting hint, “Yes.”

I knew. I had done that – to more people than I could count. It was a moment of truth for me. A moment of repentance and redemption and restoration.

So I gave up ministry. Just as I once gave up religion for a relationship with Jesus Christ. I gave up ministry for relationships with people. To hang out with people – not invest in them. To live life with my friends – not fix them. To love people – not minister to them.

A Glimpse Through the Clouds

I was driving home tonight and it was one of those great nights. I had just come from a meaningful time with friends, there was nothing plaguing my mind and I was in one of those zones where I am not really thinking – just observing.

Then, I noticed the sky. It was not one of those beautiful sunsets that so many people write about or notice. It was an odd, cloud filled sky. It was not really stormy, but there was a cloud cover over a majority of the sky. The clouds were a grey and blue and a little yellow and oppressive. Sure, they were complex and amazing, but I wasn’t really comfortable with them. They looked like storm clouds – and ones that covered the sky. The clouds felt like my life. Not stormy. Not raining. But cloudy. Then I noticed that all around this cloud – just on the edges of the horizon – was blue sky. As I looked toward the edges, the perspective was so distorted that the cloud cover looked like mountains in the distance. Could this be the curve of the earth? Was I seeing the clouds wrap around the planet?

I spent a few minutes just in awe of this site that most people would probably just pass off as another front moving through life. But I was struck. Something deep within me was intrigued. Something was speaking to me? It was as if there was a voice in my soul, just beyond what I was capable of hearing, ready to speak great and marvelous things. But what? And how could I hear that truth?

As I was struggling to hear that still small voice inside of me, I saw a very small break in the clouds. Just a break, with a little light. I realized that in this break, I could see the top of the clouds – the top, bright, shiny, yellow-white clouds. Could this be the same clouds that I saw as oppressive?

And then, that small voice said, “That’s it.”

“What? What’s it?”

“That is what I see. When I look at these clouds, I see beautiful clouds reflecting the light that is shining on them. You thought the clouds were like your life and you are right. When you look at these clouds or your life, you see the dreary, complex, not quite comfortable, but I see the beautiful, well crafted, light reflecting clouds.”

And then it happened. The sun broke through the clouds in one of those blinding moments. A moment that causes you to squint, tilt your head, grab your sunglasses or just stop in your tracks. As the sun broke through, I knew that this was a moment. A life changing moment. I still saw the clouds. They were not dissipating. They did not magically disappear. But I barely noticed them. I could see little beyond the amazing light.

“See. I told you.”

The clouds no longer mattered. They were an essential part of that moment, but the light was the focus. And life will be complex. Beautiful. Dreary. Stunning. Oppressive. Freeing. But God, with that small voice that speaks to my soul, will always break through. Not always when I want or think, but when it is time. In a perfect moment beyond reason or knowing. In a breathtaking, mind-blowing, gentle moment. So in those cloudy moments – come Holy Spirit. In those dreary days – come, Lord Jesus. And in those oppressive phases – come Father, come!

21-February-2008

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure

of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.

Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show." - Andrew Wyeth

Winter

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." ~Ruth Stout