“Ozzie, you have no idea what kind of things I’ve been through.  Moreover, you have no idea what sorts of things other people have gone through.  How could you say to just have faith in situations that you know nothing about?”

“PC, you’re an idiot.  I wrote one of the most timeless devotionals ever written.  I have thought on these things for a long long time.”

“You’re side-stepping my question, Ozzie.”

“Fine!  Are you prepared to let God do as He likes with [you]–prepared to be separated from conscious blessings?”

I began getting a bit frustrated with Ozzie.  I asked whether he actually wanted me to believe that God would give me times of desolation and darkness–on purpose.  He said, “Yes!” as though I were an idiot for asking.  He said, “PC, it is not that we choose it, but that God engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there.  Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings.”

Of course I did not completely understand.  “What’s wrong with feelings and blessings?”

“Pay attention, PC!  I just said ‘bolstered up by’ feelings and blessings.  Is your faith based only on blessings and feelings?  Do you still have faith when neither of those are present?  If not, then you don’t have a very solid faith at all.”

“Alright Ozzie!   Let me get this straight.  You’re saying that God gives me times of desolation and difficult circumstances…my God of love does this to me, and I need to be PREPARED for these things so that I can still trust that all is well even when it doesn’t FEEL like it is?  I have to have faith that is not DEPENDANT on good feelings and blessings, and in fact remains if I have neither one of them?”

“YES!  That’s exactly what I am saying!”

“ALRIGHT!  You don’t have to yell at me.”

Ozzie’s always yelling at me.

I have no idea why you love me, why you bring me up to you in intimacy and love. How, oh God, could you love such a spec as I am? I could never praise you enough or give you enough (though you have everything), and yet you give me so abundantly much. I will never fully understand it.

Today, Augustine said something that actually made me smile right here in the coffee shop.  He is talking about the wonders of being a baby and asking questions of God regarding where was before the womb…what was he before the womb?  After asking many great questions, he writes,

“Do my questions provoke you to smile at me and bid me simply to acknowledge you and praise you for what I do know?”

What a great image and challenge in and of itself!  I love the image of God smiling at all my crazy questions.  I find myself smiling when a child asks, “Does God have feet?” “Whatcha doin?”

I have to think God sits up there and smiles when his children ask him questions.  I’m sure he just smiles at Augustine’s questions because they’re brilliant, and if he smiles at Augustine, he roars with laughter over my questions.

I can imagine myself telling my daughters, “You know what; just enjoy what you do know and go play.”  I can certainly see God telling me, you know a lot of other things about me.  Do not overlook those.  Praise me for those things.

The room is full of them, and there is Jesus just hanging out with them as if He did not see what we all see in them. Why are they all there anyway?

Only a few hours ago, Jesus invited one of them to follow Him. The man did leave all the things that make him one of them to follow Jesus. We will give him that, but then Jesus went to hang out at his house. Now Jesus is with the one who is unwelcome. He invited the man to follow Him, and then went to the man’s home.

For the first time ever, here is a holy teacher willing to take one of them under his teaching and care. Here is The Epitome of one of us taking on one of them.

Now the house is full of them.

Of course it is! All these people are crammed into the man’s house to follow and hear Jesus. Though the call and invitation was to one, it seems to have drawn all the others.

Which ‘sinners’ do you like to avoid? Who of them need finally to be invited into your life, your love, and your care? Who of them would be able to tell all the others about you being different from the rest of us who avoided them?

That one invite into your life just may draw many others to Jesus.

So I asked
for strength
for wisdom.

Rarely do I ask for much
I am more content to pursue intimacy
than to ask for things

brokenness makes you ask for things

I started asking
and I waited…

……..

……..

I listened until
I was frustrated with the silence
Just before I fell asleep, I lay there
with dried up eyes and I heard:

“I am not a genie. I am your God, and I love you. If you want strength, I am not just going to GIVE you strength. It will start to get really difficult now. Will you be strong in those times or not. I am not a genie; I am your God who loves you.”

Augustine wrote, “Grant my prayer, O Lord, and do not allow my soul to wilt under the discipline which you prescribe. Let me not tire of thanking you for your mercy in rescuing me…so that I may love you most intensely.”

Disciplines are ‘prescribed’ to us by God. We are called to live a life of discipline; to celebrate it even. There is nothing wrong to be said of discipline, but it becomes dangerous once we begin celebrating the discipline instead of God. We can often get so caught up in the discipline that the most important thing is that we get the discipline accomplished on a daily, weekly, or regular basis. We are no longer actually connecting to the heart of God as was the intention of the discipline in the first place.

We are certain of God: we are uncertain of what will happen next. There is much to be said of faith and the spiritual life as it applies to certainty.

We are so obsessed with certainty. Is it really all that necessary? Well, its not if you are living a life of faith…the spiritual life. The spiritual life is not one of certainty. The moments I am so uncertain of what would happen next are the moments my faith is stretched and made stronger.

When you stretch your muscles they grow. They do not necessarily grow stronger and bigger, but they do grow more flexible, which allows them the ability to grow stronger in time.

So here I am a man in need of flexibility. I am a man in need of faith…because I am certainly uncertain. These are now the times of becoming more flexible, and that flexibility makes strength more available. That ability ultimately leads to strength.

- A love letter from a stranger means nothing to us…but even a tiny note from my wife means the world…most of our not liking scripture is just not understanding or being in relationship with the one from who the letters were written

- Discipleship: action needs to be important, not just a Bible study…Application is a must throughout, but doctrine has to be important or at least clarifying of the essentials…contracts is necessary; this is a commitment you will only get what you put in…

-[vision casting] ENVISION a new culture SHARE vision with everyone GET ALIGNMENT with leadership MODEL the culture you want to create FORM URGENCY sense

- “Boredom is the natural byproduct of redundancy…and church ministry is redundant by nature.” … create new and fresh experiences with God instead of repeating the same stories over and over and over again..we tell the same old stories about God because we are having no new experiences with him…the pastor needs to teach and lead in a way that creates new opportunities and new experiences for the church family…but my teaching and leadership cannot be new, fresh, and alive if my personal experience of God is not new, fresh, and alive

- Pull away…look within…look around…Fill up…change it up

- “Greed is a sign of slavery; you have to hold on to something because you NEED it”
- “Generosity is a sign of freedom.” – Cody Cannon

- “People who don’t know Christ do not get to OUT-SERVE Christians.” -Cody Cannon

Here were some of my favorites:

#1 – “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” – Catching Fire, Hunger Games 

#4 – “It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it takes to fall apart.”  - Mocking Jay, Hunger Games

#8 – “Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” – Pride & Prejudice

#23 – “What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda. It’s that precious, fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think” – Heaven is for Real

#31 - “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.” – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

#33 – “While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.” – Radical

#36 – “Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.” – Outliers

#38 – “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

#45 – “Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.” – Steve Jobs

It comes right after the phrase, “Though Satan should buffet, tho’ trials should come…” The challenge comes when you read, “Let this blest assurance control.” This phrase requires our action. I really need to learn how to LET this assurance of God’s goodness and provision to control my thought and spirit. Easier said than done a lot of the times, but today I am begging for it it. I beg that God would let this assurance control my thoughts and heart. I beg my soul to LET this assurance control things. I hope to be controlled by God’s blest assurance rather than my worry, my fears, my self-consciousness. I beg my soul within me to be controlled by God’s blessed assurance.

Interesting how these things are perfect encouragement today as well.

—–

June 6 (Sunset…THE LAST BIG ONE…WHEN GOD SPEAKS)

I climbed up on the rock face behind my site to watch the sunset over the lake. Well, actually, the sun sets behind the mountain in front of my site, but I can still experience the sunset if I don’t see the sunset. I climbed up on top of the rock face and looked out over the lake at the mountains that spring up on the other side. I watched as the shadow cast from the mountains in front crept up the mountains behind my site. I just sat and watched for a while. It kind of reminded me of a canary being put to sleep. It was as if God were putting the mountains to sleep for the night.

You look at these mountains and they even LOOK old and tough. They look like they have put in a long day’s work. All day long I have watched these mountains in amazement. To amaze a guy in the 21st + century is a pretty daunting task. We need to be entertained by bigger and better things, and for years to this day, mountains have been bigger and better. Even now they are bigger and better than most things. They have succeeded in amazing me all day long, and that is no easy task. So they deserve the sleep and rest. So God put the mountains to sleep like a little canary.

You see the blanket draped over the cage, but you know there’s a bird in there. This is why after the shadow covers the mountains entirely, the moon will come up and cast its special light upon them to make them silhouettes. They just look like big black masses beyond the deep blue space of water, but you know there are mountains over there. They’re just sleeping!

While God was putting the mountains to sleep, he spoke to my heart words I needed to hear. I just sat and listened for a while. He sounded a bit like a conversation a friend of mine had with Brennan Manning a few years ago over cigarettes and coffee at the Anderson, IN Waffle House. My friend and I (along with others) had been digesting Brennan’s words for a couple years at that point. My friend had established a comedy/drama team based heavily on the writing of Brennan Manning and the songs of his ‘soul mate’, Rich Mullins. My friend asked Brennan for any advice to offer a group of young guys who wanted to serve God and spread his love through comedy and drama.

This man who we all were pretty convinced could walk on water with Jesus, whose words we had sucked all we could from said a rather unexpected thing. He said, “Get a job!”

God spoke a similar message into my heart tonight. A bit more tenderly, but the same idea! He said:

“I know you’re worried and you’re scared. I know you are questioning why you left a profession you love to follow a path that had not lead back to that profession. I know you are scared about what you are going to do, and that you feel like your passion has been removed. I know all of this, but I have a new and different plan for you. You are going to do bigger and better things for me, but you are not ready yet. You have some passions in your heart you have not paid attention to. You have passions you do not know about yet. I will show those to you when you are ready, but you are not ready right now. In the time being, while I am preparing you and raising you up, get a job. Get a job, pay your bills and support your family. This job does not need to be a career or even something you are passionate about; I am preparing you for that and remember you are not ready yet. You will find what that is in time, but go on looking hard after me. I have bigger and better things for you outside student life. You will reach more people for me. You will bring glory to me through new things in the future, but for now you need to work and support your family. You need to pay your bills and continue learning. Look further for those passions you have ignored and the ones I will reveal to you in time.

I love you PC!

This is an objection to Christianity which I am tired of hearing. Essentially, this statement says that hypocrisy takes away the validity of Christianity. It says, “I will not become a Christian because of the hypocrites. I cannot believe Christianity because of the hypocrisy.”

There are two reasons this statement and belief frustrate me;

1) Its true
2) It does not make any sense

First of all, to say Christians are hypocrites is absolutely true. In fact, most people are hypocrites. As long as you present an ideal lifestyle and belief system as the one you are to live to an imperfect humanity, we will always be hypocrites. Ideal lifestyles take work, and you generally have to work through our imperfect realities to make them happen. This means that mistakes will happen. This means that not everyone is prepared to be perfect, but we still more forward.

Second, I get frustrated with hearing the objection to Christianity on the grounds of Christians being hypocrites because it does not make sense. It literally does not make logical sense. In fact, this objection commits a logical fallacy (that of trivial objection); it focuses on the wrong thing. This statement focuses on insignificant things while ignoring the main point. The statement does not make sense, because to hear someone say, “I do not believe Christianity because there are too many hypocrites,” needs only one response.

The main point is whether or not a person believes in Jesus. So you could say,

“Could it be possible that Jesus was from Nazareth? Could it be possible that God is a God of phenomenal love? Could it be possible that the cross was real and accomplished what it says it does? Could all of these things be possible EVEN IF Christians are hypocrites?”

Hypocritical Christians do not make Christianity false. Hypocritical and generally sinful Christians do not disprove the cross and what happened there. Sinful Christians do disprove Christianity; in fact, I would go on a limb to say it proves Christianity’s gospel even more. This proves that imperfect people are still able to be Christians. That’s pretty good news to me.

Jesus was starkly clear when he said in Luke 14:26 “if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sister, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

Too many of us have made idols of our own children and spouses. We think we are loving them by doing this. We think we are raising and supporting good Christian families by doing that, but we are only idolaters. 

We are not going to build strong families by our own diligence, but only if we seek God and his kingdom first…and then all these things will be added to you.

The solution is seeing parents, and particularly men, seek to be Christ followers FIRST. It is seeing men love Jesus Christ more than their mothers, fathers, wives, and even their children.

Because when we do this, we have a fellowship and connection with the greatest love of all. When we make an idol out of our kids or family members, we lose connection and fellowship with the source of greatest love.

When we love Jesus MORE than anything and anyone, He gives us all we need. He returns children’s hearts to their fathers and fathers to their children (Malachi 4:5-6).

I have done a lot of healing in my life, learning to be a man without having the constant input from a father.  As Donald Miller wrote in his book Father Fiction, “wounds don’t heal until you feel them.”  I began to feel the wounds years ago…probably in college.  I began to ask myself questions about how I saw the absence of my father affected me.

Now again, I have to clarify that my dad is not some deadbeat dad who I am just now blaming for anything.  He did his best to love me all he could from a distance.  Divorce is crappy, and he did his best to love me throughout my entire life.  That being said, truth still remains, I did a lot of growing up without a father, and of course that sucks…plain and simple.  In that growth, though, I have learned a lot about who I really am as a man, but that only happened once I allowed myself to feel my wounds and grow through them.

I mean look at me now.  I am a husband to my best friend, which is a fear [wound] I once thought I would never heal from. I am a father to 2 beautiful girls God has given to me, I am convinced, to wreck me each and every day. I am a man who desires to love my wife every single day with an integral outlook and dedication.  I am learning to accomplish myself as a wounded healer. I am always healing wounds as I discover them, but I am much more of a man even now than I ever dreamed when I was younger.  I can now resound with Miller:

“We are the ones who will wrestle with security who will overcome our fear of intimacy, who will learn the hard task of staying with woman and our children, who will mentor others through the difficult journey of life, perhaps rescuing them from what we have been rescued.”

Our culture, today, calls for action. Our culture and our world needs experiential proof. Now the word “proof” may spark our old attention, but we need to begin seeing “proof” very differently than we always have before.

We have exhausted ourselves at proving we are right and they are wrong, but we are only going to reach our culture today….NOW…when we learn to prove our Christian motives to love and serve when we actually go out in the world to love and serve.

Our world and culture no longer hear our words of “proof” for the right and wrong of Christianity; it has moved forward and awaits us to prove we are Christians by actually BEING Christians in the world around us.

One main reason lies in our expectations of religion and the fact that they do not meet each other very well.

So many of us do an excellent job at confirming Nietzsche and his view of religion as an opiate for the people.  We have turned religion and especially Christianity into an opiate, a strong pain reliever, an ultimate high to calm us beyond anything we have ever known.  We have come to a point where we hate religion because it does not give us calm clear life. We get frustrated when Christianity does not offer us the clear cut answers and life we thought Christianity would be.  We soon come to realize that Christianity is NOT always clear and easy.  We come to realize that Christianity shakes us to the core.  WE realize that Christianity is not as SAFE as we had hoped and thought.

Christianity was and is never intended to be safe, and we cannot depend on it to be so.  In fact, Christianity is not safe and will always be uncomfortable, and if it is comfortable we are not experiencing true Christianity as it is intended to be.  We need to be shaken continually.  That is what Christianity does; it shakes us up.  It moves us to responsive action.

This is the reason so many Christians today are frustrated and close-minded.  They are closed to challenge and questioning because they want their faith, their religion, their Christianity to be clear, stable, and safe.

Because its risky! Trusting anything or anyone, especially God, is incredibly risky. In fact, if there is no risk then its not really trusting is it? I mean think about it; if I am not risking anything…if it were really really easy, then there would be absolutely no need to trust. Its hard to trust God because he’s risky. You pay the risk that he’s not real…since he IS real, you pay the risk of him not hearing you, you pay the risk of him saying “no” to any or all of your deepest questions, you pay the risk of him not feeling close, you pay the risk of his discipline (whatever that looks like), you pay the risk of him not meeting whatever expectations you may have (because he hardly ever does)…..

But it is all of these risks that actually make TRUSTING possible…not easy, but utterly POSSIBLE. If you had none of these risks, you would not be able to trust God at all. The very fact that you are still pursuing is, in fact, trusting God. Trust is not feeling at ease…trust is taking the risks.

“The farther I run away from the place where God dwells, the less I am able to hear the voice that calls me the beloved, and the less I hear that voice, the more entangled I become in the manipulations and power games of the world.”
- Henri Nouwen

There are times I have certainly sensed God offending me with the things He brings my way. There have been times He speaks loud and clear through a devotional, through actions or words that have hurt me and offended me. A lot of those times, I have resulted to the, what I thought was, the faithful response of, “Well God is in control, and He knows best.”

Of course that is very true, but I have rarely gone the next step when God has offended me. I have rarely taken a look at myself and tried to figure out, “Well then what is God telling me here? What is He getting at by offending me? What needs to die within my life? What is getting in the way of my serving God completely?”

If God is going to continue offending me until there is nothing left to hurt or offend, how long will I go without killing all those things left in my life to be offended and hurt? I do not want my service or relationship to God to be ruined by anything.

But then I try to make this practical and wonder if there have ever been times people have done that with me. Has anyone sought me out solely for the benefits I may bring to them? Has anyone ever sought out my friendship because of something I might offer them?

I cannot recall anyone doing that to me (primarily because I do not have a whole lot of rewards to offer), but what if someone DID pursue a friendship with me SO THAT they may get something out of me as a reward? What if nobody pursued friendship with me because the relationship was reward enough? I would feel pretty used. I would feel like the relationship was not sincere or intimate. That relationship would only LOOK LIKE a relationship.

I have to recheck my relationship with God now. Afterall, Hebrews blatantly tells us that God rewards those who seek Him out, but is that WHY I seek Him? Do I seek God so that He will reward me? That is not a relationship; that is a transaction.

Further, most people do not know they are loved unconditionally by God. Because most people do not know that, they are unable to love others well.

Oh I say I know God loves me, because my minds can logically admit that of course God loves us. I mean he has to, right? But most of us do not really understand or grasp the fact in our heart, soul, and spirit that God is passionately in love with us. We do not fully believe that reality, because if we really believed the unconditional love of God for us, we would bleed with that reality.

If I really lived a life that was fully confident that God loves me tenderly, I would be bringing and pouring that kind of love out on everyone I came into contact with. If I truly accepted and lived my life with the full understanding of God’s unconditional love for me, I could not hold back healing reconciliation and hope from oozing from my life.

If I truly lived my life in acceptance of God’s unending love for me, my only desire would be for everyone to know about it. I would want the only message from my mouths and life to be, “YOU ARE LOVED!”

But many of us do not know that love well enough. Many of us have not truly accepted that love nor believed that love enough. Many of us attack ourselves and tear ourselves down for a myriad of reasons, and with each one, deny the fact that we are tenderly and deeply loved. We are unable to really accept that unconditional love because we hang on to our own conditions. We have a death grip on all the conditions and limits we have placed on love, and in so doing, are incapable of accepting real and true unconditional love.

Truth of the matter is that the unconditional love is there whether I like it or not. I am deeply and tenderly loved whether I believe it or not. If I could learn to live in that understanding though, it would revolutionize the way I love those around me.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not shouting “I’m clean livin’.”
I’m whispering “I was lost,
Now I’m found and forgiven.”

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I don’t speak of this with pride.
I’m confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I’m weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not bragging of success.
I’m admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not holier than thou,
I’m just a simple sinner
Who received God’s good grace, somehow!

Many of us are dependant on the mountain top experiences, and we get frustrated and disappointed when we go back down. We go to a camp or a retreat to get pumped up, and we want to stay there because everything is so good there. Our walk with God seems so amazing and we want to stay there. But as Ozzie points out, its such a selfish way to use the mountain. The mountaintop is intended for inspiration for the descent back into the valley. Life is intended to be lived in the valley; not on the mountaintop.

There are many people in the valley who need inspiration and rescue from the brokenness, but they will never be reached if we remain on the mountaintop.

Does that mean we should not have mountaintop experiences? Are we selfish because we are on the mountaintop? No! We are only selfish when our desire is to stay on the mountain.

The mountain experiences are necessary. We need those times for inspiration and rejuvenation, but we cannot be so dependant upon them that we want to stay there. We should be excited and ready to descend the mountain back down into the valley where life is intended to be lived. We have to take with us renewal and inspiration back down the mountain into our daily lives with our daily interactions with different people. Otherwise we are some of the most selfish people around.

We are told to go out into the world and spread the gospel unto all nations. When we go to the mountain, we experience the gospel once again. We take it in once again; allowing ourselves to be saturated in the relentless love of God. We grow closer to the heart of God with very minimal interruption, but we cannot stay there. We cannot live in this moment. We are not intended or called to live that way.

The mountain is intended to be inspirational, but we are intended to bring that inspiration and live in the valley.

Sounds great! Why is it so hard to do?

We all have moments when our spirit could really use a rest. We all have moments when our hearts have been bested by our sin, our struggles, and the general beating that life often has to offer. We all have moments when we feel attacked by our past, held down by our present, and fearful of our future. Some of us live weary and heavy-laden, and this passage sounds like the most amazing freedom. Our hearts jump at the possibility.

But for the most part, our hearts remain weary and rest remains a “possibility”; never a reality. Why is it so hard to actually come to God? Why is coming to Jesus for rest so difficult?

First of all, it’s humiliating. We feel like peasants before God; utterly unworthy of the rest he offers. We see ourselves in the reality of our filth. We look at our sin and our predicament, and it paralyzes us. We stay back and grovel just outside of Jesus’ presence because we know we are unworthy, but we have convinced ourselves we are worthless, and there is a difference. We stay just outside of Jesus’ open arms, which offer our weary hearts rest because we fear rejection. We fear ourselves to be too filthy, too broken, and too far gone.

But Jesus still calls out to us, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden.” So he knows our predicament. He sees our filth. He realizes what has worn us down and languished our soul, and he STILL calls out to us to come to him.

It is only hard to come to Jesus for rest because we would rather stay in sorrow than to accept God’s GRACE that says, “I know you are weary, filthy, and broken, and I love you so much. Please come to me, and I will love the hell out of you.”

I am a pastor and I do have congregants. I prescribe books, music, films, and verses. I have spent years studying the anatomy of the heart, soul, and mind in order to recognize the inner workings of brokenness and the hope of restoration.

Doctors and I both want to see healing and restoration of broken places. Ergo, I am a doctor, right?

Here are a few of my most common prescriptions…read more here

Where SHOULD I go; what should I do to really forget all the wrong I have done? Augustine poses a very piercing question. How do I embrace God alone? I have dedicated a lot of my life toward embracing God, but I have a horrible time with consistency. I say “a lot of my life” because of the many pockets of inconsistency. I only wish I really knew how to hold fast to God, to embrace him enough to forget all the wrong i have done.

Seriously! I am sitting here wondering what it would be like to actually forget all the wrong I have done, and frankly, it seems unimaginable. I cannot imagine that kind of freedom. What would it look like; what would it feel like to forget all the wrong you have done and to fully embrace God, my only good? That sort of freedom would mean that my past would never come back to kick me where it counts. That means I would not linger when I HAVE done wrong; I would be quick to my only good. That means I would only run forward in life without cease.