The Father's smile

So much of our spirituality and religion is greatly affected by who we know God to be. A.W. Tozer said, "Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than a low or unworthy conception of God." We all have within us a gallery images of who God is, and those images dramatically affect our responses to Him. This gallery greatly affects the faith and religion we live out each day in relationship with God. The trouble is many, if not most of those images are distorted at best or entirely false at worst. This God many of us relate and respond to is not the God of scripture, and we begin to wonder why some of us live out such a grim, hard, and loveless faith each day.

It is because the God we have come to believe is distant and hard to please. God becomes a cold Father demanding your work without encouragement or love or pride in you. It is very difficult to serve that god with enthusiasm or joy. It is difficult not to chalk up other more enthusiastic brothers and sisters to fanaticism when the god you know is cold, removed, and grim. But this is not the God presented in scripture. This is the god of the Pharisees and he will always drive a Pharisaic religion and faith.

The moment I was first ambushed by the love of God is when I came to see the Father of Scripture who loves and delights in me, His son. He comes close to me in a true fellowship where I can find rest and healing. He is not hard to please.

Yes, he disciplines us, but I have come to know His delight and smile. He will correct and challenge me with the smile of a Father who is tender and proud. My Abba is proud of me and knows I am His "imperfect by promising" son. I see His delighted smile which knows I am coming to look more and more like my Abba every day.

This journal

It has been since June that I resigned just after starting this journal. Journals have legs to walk with you through various journeys and seasons. Journals have backs and hearts to carry a great deal of things so you do not have to. This journal is a gift from a friend I have not seen or spoken with in many years. It was a random gift which arrived just before an enormous life change I did not foresee at the time. This journal came to me from a friend who has always been a strong encouragement to "Keep writing. Always keep writing." This journal came from this friend just before a season where it would have been easy to cease writing.

This journal has carried a lot of the things I never wanted to carry. If I could only displace those thoughts and processes on the back and heart of this journal, I could get through days, which would have been otherwise very discouraging and debilitating.

This journal contains the weak prayers of limping through the process of learning to ask God 'what' instead of 'why'. I rarely get answers to 'why' questions, but I have learned to look at any and all circumstances asking, "God, what are you doing in me through this?"

This journal contains notes for interviews come and gone for positions I thought were great, if not perfect, but clearly not where God was guiding and calling me.

This journal contains notes for sermons along the way for beloved groups who, unaware to them, gave shock paddles to my heart by giving me opportunities to do what I love in a season when my heart was weak and confused for the future.

This journal has been able to carry the promise of prayer my heart made for the new year. It proves that the challenge remains. It is written in ink after all.

This journal, #38, passes a baton to #39 with promise and hope attached. It uses the discouragement and healing as a springboard to speak to my heart, "You are a better leader, husband, and father than you were before we began walking together, but more importantly, you are closer to the heart of Jesus than you were before we met."

My Word of the Year 2015

Several years ago I quit making resolutions or new years goals. I accepted, then, a challenge to choose only a word for the year. "One word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live or what you want to achieve by the end of 2015. One word that you can focus on every day, all year long. It will take hard work, and will require intentionality and commitment. But if you let it, your word will shape you and your year. It will guide your decisions and help you grow.”

This year my word is: PRAYER.

While I would say I am a man of God's Word, I want to be more of a man of prayer. Prayer is not an element of my relationship with God, it IS my relationship with God. I have to realize my relationship is dependent upon communication and time together.

If I wrote my autobiography, someone could read it inside and out, over and over again. They could highlight important parts about my story and things that mater a great deal to me. But that person does not know me. That person and I have no relationship. We have never sat and spoken together.

Much like this, I can study God's Word inside and out, over and over again. I can highlight important parts and dedicate years and whole college degrees to studying things very important to God. But I could do all of this and still not know God. I do not have a relationship. I have not sat and spoken with Him.

I am a man of God's Word and a man after God's heart, but I want to be MORE of a man of prayer than I have been before. I want to be more of a man of prayer at the end of 2015 than I am right now. I want to know Him more intimately. I want to be terribly close to His heart, and that will only come as we sit and speak together with more intentionality and frequency.

Addressing God

How do you address God in prayer? Is it personal or is it stale and rehearsed? Unless I find the right name to address God by, I have to question from the get go how free or real my connection with Him might be. If I can only address God on general terms, I cannot find a personal connection. If I have to put the word "the" before the term I use to address God, it is only an anonymous prayer. It is general and not personal.

There are moments you read through the Psalms and other spiritual writers to find a bursting prayer connection, and it most often comes from the address of God at the get go. Anthony Bloom says these moments "burst out with something which has the quality of a nickname, something which no one else could possibly say...which is made possible only because there is a relationship."

The Psalmist comes right out and says, "You are my Joy." Not that God is joy (which he is). Not that God is the Almighty (which He is). Our prayer becomes personal when we are not only stating facts about God, but when we come out of the gate personally addressing God with relational terms.

You are my God. You are my joy. You are my refuge. You are my greatest good...

Loving eyes

His love is more potent than any other because His eyes are more powerful than the rest His eyes see through the filth and crust they see through perversion

His eyes caught and catch glimpses of the Divine intention hidden in every person in every way His first loving act is to give new eyes

Whom have I

Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the LORD God my refuge, That I may tell of all Your work.                                                 - Psalm 73:25-28

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"Whom have I in heaven but You?" If I got to heaven and received all the promises of heaven, but God was not there, would I still want to go? If Jesus were not there, do I still even want it? I want to live a life now where I desire nothing but Jesus. I want god to be my only desire; not his blessings, not peace, not joy, but God alone. I want my heart to live a life by which God IS MY FULL PORTION forever; where my heart and mind fully realize that my greatest good in life is nearness to God.

I desire for God to be my greatest desire; not only His blessings, joy, peace, or provision. All those things are OF GOD, and that means peace, joy, provision, and refuge will only be found in Him.

This means that God is strength and refuge. He will only be MY refuge when i am found near and in Him.

Why we work hard

"but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, SO THAT he will have something to share with one who has need." -Ephesians 4:28

Why do we work hard? Why should we work hard and save our money?

We work hard and we are not lazy or stealing SO THAT we have money and resources to help those in need. We also work hard to steward and save our money for these same purposes. It is very oppositional to our American Dream and normal American perspective of money and gain.

Here in scripture we are told that we work hard FOR the opportunity to share what we get. This, for me, requires a check to my motivation and my worry.

Am I motivated to work hard that I may earn enough to be able to share and serve others OR do I work hard that I may earn enough to be able to say I've earned enough?

What worries me most when it comes to my work and my gain? Why am I worried in the times when funds are low? Am I worried because it means I will be unable to then give to those in need and share what I have. OR  Am I really worried because once more it is going to mean I cannot financially sustain the lifestyle and pleasures I have built for myself?

If I worried more about the former than the latter, somehow I think funds would be low on a much rarer occasion.

Ends and Means

Matthew Henry writes, "All who are chosen to happiness in the end, are chosen to holiness as the means." 

I have had this quote in my head for a couple weeks now. There is a great reminder to us in a culture obsessed with happiness. Over and over again we see people come through our doors prepared to end commitments and covenants because someone has told them, "Don't you deserve to be happy?" This very thing has lead to the breakdown of our lives, and it has lead us also to our addictiveness. 

This is the very nature of addiction. Things are addicting because they always leave you wanting more, and they destroy you all along the way. They cannot fulfill you. Whether it is sex or substances. Whether it is more stuff in our closets, driveways, or pockets. We are addicted to these things when we think the only important thing is our happiness, and we start to believe these things will make us happy. And they do…for only a moment. That is the very point of these things; to only make you feel good and happy for a short time so that you want it again. Do you have something you desire and crave more than Jesus and a connection with Jesus? Do you see how CRAZY and absolutely LUDICROUS it is for me to desire and crave anything more than I crave a loving real connection with Jesus Christ?

Wrestling with God

When I wrestlewith my kids, I hold back my strength so they can win

Intimacy in the Brokenness

Sometimes I strive so hard at living with the most excellent virtue, in absolute piety, in "Christian perfection" of sorts that I become more and more strained, confined and closed in. We can be so dependent upon upholding the rules and expectations we place on ourselves that we forget the relationship we were intended for. I think of the comparison between the prodigal and his brother.  I think of the difference in the levels of intimacy with the father they both resemble.  I find that in his brokenness and humility, the prodigal experiences far greater intimacy with the father than does his sinless, pious and self-righteous brother.

The true site of the Christian disciple is one of a man or woman who is able to praise God for all things, including his own sin, he who is not obsessed with the perfect portrayal of self and spirituality.  She who is not complacent and shackled by a practical life.  He who strives more for the relationship than the rules and understands that he has, is and will fail but can realize that God expects more failure from him than he ever does from himself.  She who realizes we do not have to come groveling to God with a clear presentation of our sins and failures IN ORDER TO BE forgiven, but realizes the prodigal's father did not ask for an explanation, and Jesus did not ask the adulterous woman for an apology or confession.  The disciple realizes that we will not be judged now or in the end for our sins because we have already been judged and found not guilty, but that God desires we show up in his embrace and accept his love.

Heaven without Jesus

Jesus, I want to love you so much I desire you more than this earth. I want my heart to desire you and not simply the things you give me through the cross or the things you promise in my heavenly home. I want to know that my heart would want nothing of heaven's beauty if you were not there. I want to know that you would not need to wean me from this earth the hard way because I would happily leave any comfort this world offers me to be with you. I want my heart to be more concerned with what you are to me instead of what you did for me. I want your cross to daily be more than a utility and instead focus on the beauty of the One who died  upon it. I want to stay awake and long for your coming instead of being comfortable and sleepy where I am.

I want all these things and regret that my heart does not always often live and act the same way.

You are my greatest love, and I want to live in such a way that I do not lie.