You can thank the Joann, aka Mom, for me posting a new recipe for Sugar Free Lemonade Tea. And here is the beautiful thing in relation to the carb Nazi, it has less than 1 gram of carbs! Let me know if you like it!
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Who Are You?
Greetings All,
As you can see, the pace of life exceeds my ability to accomplish the little things of life like making Blog posts. Since I last posted I have been in charge of Field Day Limbo for elementary students, seen two middle school band concerts, presided over the Pillow People performance at the talent show, attended the middle school awards night, shared about being a pastor at career day, been to our District Conference, Seth's Baccalaureate and the chiropractor. When I put the list in writing I get a little overwhelmed and sometimes wonder how it all gets done. The truth of it all is that we have a wondrous and mysterious God who meets our every need and keeps the tapestry of our lives woven together. Often times that means empowering us to keep putting one foot in front of the other; other times it means bringing people in our lives to help us out; at still other times it is a supernatural thing that we just can't understand. The tapestries of our lives will get a little frazzled and worn on the edges, but the seams that God has sewn still hold and we look back from the other side of the Jordan praising God for getting us there yet still wondering just how He got us there.
God has gotten me to today and has confronted me with a pretty profound question, one that I think haunts many, if not most, of us. It is a question that the author Alice Knotts of today's devotional entry in The Upper Room Disciplines raised. The question is the title of this post, "Who are you?" Or to personalize it, "who am I?" It was a question of the wholeness of our identity. She commented how so many times people only view us as parts: what our occupation is, who our parents are, are we married or single, are we rich or poor? The answer to these questions all contribute to the whole of who we are, but there is a larger issue related to defining our identity, but we will come back to that in a moment. First let us expand the discussion a little further.
For us as Christians this question is highlighted by the words of Christ in Luke chapter 9, verse 23,
"And he said to all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross daily and follow me.'" (English Standard Version)
Here we are in the midst of trying to define who we are and Jesus comes along and tells us to deny ourselves. If we don't know who we are, how can we deny ourselves? For that matter, just what does it mean to deny ourselves? Does this mean that we are supposed to give up our secular lives and become pastors and devote every waking hour to the Church? Does it mean that we rigorously pursue holiness and define ourselves by all of the things we don't do, that is the things "we deny ourselves?" Dr. Mulholland has a possible conciliatory point.
"How often do we find persons and churches who define the Christian life by abstinence
from certain practices and behaviors. Detachment from these practices and behaviors
becomes the primary focus of their life rather than an ever deepening attachment to God
in love." The Deeper Journey, pg. 65.
Mulholland is writing in the context of trying to identify our true self versus our false self and our false religious self. He is writing to get at the deeper root of the question, "who am I?" For many of us we define ourselves by the physical and situational circumstances of our lives. I am a father, a son, a pastor, a friend, a former business executive, a guitar player, a recovered alcoholic and the list goes on. Yes, this is part of us, but it is easy for us to get bogged down in all of these as we try to be better at each one and miss the most important aspect of our identities. For others we define ourselves by what we are not, or by what we do not do: I don't drink, smoke or gamble; I am not a bad person; I don't hang out in bars; I have never been to prison, etc. These are also a part of us, but they too can distract as we get focused on making sure we don't do certain things or do do others to aid our reputations of not doing certain things. We don't got to bars, we do go to church; we don't read trashy romance, we do read the Bible; we don't say cuss words, we do quote King James scripture. It is no wonder we really struggle with the question. We are so busy doing and not doing that we forget to simply "BE!"
"Being" is the very root of the question, "who am I?" To use a slang version of the question, "who do you be?" While all of the above statements about ourselves are a minuscule portion of the answer, the root and bulk of the truth is that first and foremost "we are children of God." We are beings created by God Almighty, the creator of the universe, the redeemer of humanity, the source of all love. We are people who were created to be in relationship with the creator of the universe. That is hard to believe, but it is true. Who are we? We are people that God wants to spend time with; we are people that Jesus would really like and that He would like to hang out with; we are people with a purpose to receive God's love which we are then expected to share with others; we are people that God delights in!
Who are we? We are people who will always be loved and because we are loved by God, we can love others and they can love us. To deny ourselves is really more of turning ourselves to the pursuit of God's love rather than a list of Do's and don'ts. It is making the trajectory of our lives pointed towards the cross of Christ, living our lives in a way that makes it easy for others to believe in Jesus. Can I let you in on a secret? Not drinking a beer or saying a cuss word or being in church every Sunday generally does help someone else believe in Christ; but loving someone who the world deems unlovable, loving someone who hates us, loving someone who feels like nobody loves them points to the glory of God and His love in our lives and that kind of exposure to love can move anyone and help them to believe in Jesus and even more so to believe that God loves them. Part of everyone's internal makeup is a desire to be loved; but the root of our identity is the truth that we are loved!
God is love. We are created in God's image. Who are we? We are love!
In Christ's love,
Faron
As you can see, the pace of life exceeds my ability to accomplish the little things of life like making Blog posts. Since I last posted I have been in charge of Field Day Limbo for elementary students, seen two middle school band concerts, presided over the Pillow People performance at the talent show, attended the middle school awards night, shared about being a pastor at career day, been to our District Conference, Seth's Baccalaureate and the chiropractor. When I put the list in writing I get a little overwhelmed and sometimes wonder how it all gets done. The truth of it all is that we have a wondrous and mysterious God who meets our every need and keeps the tapestry of our lives woven together. Often times that means empowering us to keep putting one foot in front of the other; other times it means bringing people in our lives to help us out; at still other times it is a supernatural thing that we just can't understand. The tapestries of our lives will get a little frazzled and worn on the edges, but the seams that God has sewn still hold and we look back from the other side of the Jordan praising God for getting us there yet still wondering just how He got us there.
God has gotten me to today and has confronted me with a pretty profound question, one that I think haunts many, if not most, of us. It is a question that the author Alice Knotts of today's devotional entry in The Upper Room Disciplines raised. The question is the title of this post, "Who are you?" Or to personalize it, "who am I?" It was a question of the wholeness of our identity. She commented how so many times people only view us as parts: what our occupation is, who our parents are, are we married or single, are we rich or poor? The answer to these questions all contribute to the whole of who we are, but there is a larger issue related to defining our identity, but we will come back to that in a moment. First let us expand the discussion a little further.
For us as Christians this question is highlighted by the words of Christ in Luke chapter 9, verse 23,
"And he said to all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross daily and follow me.'" (English Standard Version)
Here we are in the midst of trying to define who we are and Jesus comes along and tells us to deny ourselves. If we don't know who we are, how can we deny ourselves? For that matter, just what does it mean to deny ourselves? Does this mean that we are supposed to give up our secular lives and become pastors and devote every waking hour to the Church? Does it mean that we rigorously pursue holiness and define ourselves by all of the things we don't do, that is the things "we deny ourselves?" Dr. Mulholland has a possible conciliatory point.
"How often do we find persons and churches who define the Christian life by abstinence
from certain practices and behaviors. Detachment from these practices and behaviors
becomes the primary focus of their life rather than an ever deepening attachment to God
in love." The Deeper Journey, pg. 65.
Mulholland is writing in the context of trying to identify our true self versus our false self and our false religious self. He is writing to get at the deeper root of the question, "who am I?" For many of us we define ourselves by the physical and situational circumstances of our lives. I am a father, a son, a pastor, a friend, a former business executive, a guitar player, a recovered alcoholic and the list goes on. Yes, this is part of us, but it is easy for us to get bogged down in all of these as we try to be better at each one and miss the most important aspect of our identities. For others we define ourselves by what we are not, or by what we do not do: I don't drink, smoke or gamble; I am not a bad person; I don't hang out in bars; I have never been to prison, etc. These are also a part of us, but they too can distract as we get focused on making sure we don't do certain things or do do others to aid our reputations of not doing certain things. We don't got to bars, we do go to church; we don't read trashy romance, we do read the Bible; we don't say cuss words, we do quote King James scripture. It is no wonder we really struggle with the question. We are so busy doing and not doing that we forget to simply "BE!"
"Being" is the very root of the question, "who am I?" To use a slang version of the question, "who do you be?" While all of the above statements about ourselves are a minuscule portion of the answer, the root and bulk of the truth is that first and foremost "we are children of God." We are beings created by God Almighty, the creator of the universe, the redeemer of humanity, the source of all love. We are people who were created to be in relationship with the creator of the universe. That is hard to believe, but it is true. Who are we? We are people that God wants to spend time with; we are people that Jesus would really like and that He would like to hang out with; we are people with a purpose to receive God's love which we are then expected to share with others; we are people that God delights in!
Who are we? We are people who will always be loved and because we are loved by God, we can love others and they can love us. To deny ourselves is really more of turning ourselves to the pursuit of God's love rather than a list of Do's and don'ts. It is making the trajectory of our lives pointed towards the cross of Christ, living our lives in a way that makes it easy for others to believe in Jesus. Can I let you in on a secret? Not drinking a beer or saying a cuss word or being in church every Sunday generally does help someone else believe in Christ; but loving someone who the world deems unlovable, loving someone who hates us, loving someone who feels like nobody loves them points to the glory of God and His love in our lives and that kind of exposure to love can move anyone and help them to believe in Jesus and even more so to believe that God loves them. Part of everyone's internal makeup is a desire to be loved; but the root of our identity is the truth that we are loved!
God is love. We are created in God's image. Who are we? We are love!
In Christ's love,
Faron
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Be Not Afraid?
NRS Luke 8:37 "Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned."
Many of you may recognize this passage as being the conclusion of Jesus' encounter with the Gerasene demonic where he drowns a thousand demons in a bunch of pigs. The story on its own merits is a little bizarre. I mean really, a demon possessed guy who can't be shackled and spends most of his time naked amongst the tombs, a legion of demons who has a spokesdemon that is bold enough to ask Jesus for a favor, and a herd of pigs in the thousands whose poor sense of direction leads them off a cliff to their death. All of these characters are more than bizarre, but the thing that has always struck me the strangest about this story is the verse quoted above. The crowds come to see if in fact the report they received about the power of Jesus was true and when they discover that the report is not just factual in their minds, it actually is true, they are seized with fear and they ask Jesus to LEAVE!
In their fear they ask the Savior of the World to leave from their land. In their fear, they ask the one person who can redeem them from that very fear to get in his boat and go. Whenever I read this I am reminded of one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now. Through out the book the narrator is irritated with Marvin who just will not leave and constantly expresses himself, "The time has come, the time is now, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now! Marvin K. Mooney, I don't care how, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!" The poor guy just wants Marvin to leave and so do the people of the Gerasenes, "Jesus of Nazareth, I don't care how; Jesus of Nazareth will you please go now!" The difference in Jesus and Marvin is that Jesus leaves at the first request. "So he got in the boat and returned," is the rest of the verse. At their request he leaves without protest, but he leaves the former demoniac behind to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I never cease to be amazed at their actions in this chapter. I cannot quite grasp the thought of witnessing something so incredible, so God empowered and then asking Jesus to leave. It is amazing what we do in our fear; but truth be told we are probably not all that different than the people of the Gerasenes. How often do we ask Jesus to leave a particular area of our lives? How often do we let fear control our actions and the direction we move in our lives? Amidst reading this piece of scripture this morning, I have also been reading a book by Dr. Robert Mulholland Jr. called The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self. In chapter two he describes what he identifies as our "false self," that identity we all create for ourselves that is not centered in a relationship with God. He describes many characteristics of our false selves like being protective, possessive, manipulative, destructive, self-promoting, and self indulgent but he begins his description with the observation that one of the primary characteristics of our false self is being fearful.
He notes how the story of the fall begins with fear. Once Adam and Eve eat of the fruit that they believe will put them on an even playing field with God, when He comes looking for them walking through the garden in the cool of the evening, they hide. When He confronts their behavior and asks them, "why?" They simply respond, "We were afraid." Adam and Eve have altered their identity from being rooted and centered in God to being rooted and centered in self, and it is so early in this process for them that they have not begun the unhealthy process of creating their self identity in work, or play, or the expectations of others. In the absence of an self identity rooted in either God or the unhealthy world their response is fear. God has given them no reason to fear Him. They know nothing of punishment, or consequence, or even death but for whatever reason they are afraid of God. Mulholland further observes that so often in the Bible when people are greeted by the presence of God the first instruction to them is "Do not be afraid." Our lives seperated from God are rooted first and foremost in fear.
I think this help explains the behavior of the people in the Gerasenes to an extent. These are Gentiles, they are not the people of Israel. They are used to worshipping gods, that is statues and sculptures, idols and images, ideas and stories rather than worshipping the one true God who does the miraculous all of the time. They have lived their lives seperated from their creator and while they have gotten right the need to worship something beyond themselves, they have gotten the object of that worship wrong. Pagan worship practices were really rooted in self. Sure they came to a temple to offer a sacrifice to their "god," but then they would indulge themselves in overeatting or temple prostitutes and their presence would be about trying to manipulate their "god" into doing something for them. I would argue that part of the indulgence was rooted in the lack of a real expectation that their "god" would do anything. That is the part they got right, idols, self created gods are not living, are not real and therefore cannot do anything! Sometimes life is easier with no expectations for the amazing or miraculous; with no expectations of a God who actually cares about us and wants to be involved in our lives; with no expectations that we have value and worth to the creator of the universe.
When we think we have no value to God the natural response is fear, because the Creator of the Universe clearly has the ability to eradicate our presence from the universe and if we have no value to Him, He is probably more than willing to do so! The people of the Gerasenes have been so used to their gods doing nothing that when the one true God shows up in the person of Jesus Christ and expresses his love for a single individual by freeing him from a lifelong torment by demons they don't know how to process this truth. First, their gods are their gods and the Jews' God is the Jews' God, so why would the Jews' God be interested in one of them. Second, why would a god be interested in the life of an individual when historically individuals have no value to gods? Third, if this God will allow a bunch of pigs to throw themselves to their death off a cliff in the process of freeing the demoniac, what will this God do to them who have been less than hospitable to the same demoniac?
Sometimes when we are confronted with the truth that the Creator of the universe loves and cares about us we feel fear rise up from within our depths because we have lived under our own self identity and the belief that we do not matter to God for so long that we cannot understand. We see God as holy and seperate and ourselves as.....well, less than holy and we do not understand how those two things can exist together, so we are afraid that the holy will destroy the unholy. We are afraid at the thought of the self identity we have created and lived with for so long being destroyed and replaced by something we don't recognize or understand. We get comfortable in our seperateness from God and the thought of anything else is more than a little scary. God rushing into the lives of those in the Gerasenes brings such an unknown that they would rather live in their current situations, even if that means being possessed by demons, than to confront the possible freedom that would come through Jesus.
In realizing this, I have to ask myself, where has fear controlled my relationship with God through Jesus? Where have I allowed the comfort of my self created identity to cause me to push away whatever it is God is trying to do in my life? Where have I chosen to stay in misery and pain because the unknown future in Christ was just too scary for me? Am I really different than those in the Gerasenes? No, I don't have access to a bunch of pigs and I don't know any naked guys hanging out in cemeteries, but am I not just as afraid at times when I am confronted with the power of God and with the truth that I really do matter to Him? Haven't I asked God to leave my presence at times with thoughts like, "I want to live for you God, but let me do this or that first." Kind of like the young man who wants to bury his father before he follows Jesus, "yeah Jesus I want to follow you but just not yet, so do you mind going on your way until I am ready?"
The good news is that we don't have to be afraid. While life in Christ brings many unknowns and at times things that make us uncomfortable, life in Christ is defined by the love God has for each of us. We are loved by the Father and the Father's desire for each of our lives is good. He wants joy, peace, hope, love and freedom for each of us. He wants each of us to know that we have value to Him. He wants each of us to define ourselves not by what we hear others say, or what we see in the mirror but by His love for each of us. He wants each of us to replace our fear with a hopeful faith in Him. A faith that is rooted in the hope of peace, joy and love in the Father. God knows that our fear is rooted in our sin and rather than deny either He tells us, "be not afraid." He acknowledges our fear and meets us in that fearful place to help us move from a fearful life rooted in sin to a place of faith and hope; but He will not force that on us and if we ask Him to depart He will respect that, but He will leave a constant testimony to His love for us and He will be right there by the shore waiting on us to invite Him back into our lives.
God's desire for each of us is good and while we may not know what that good looks like, we can trust in our Faithful Father that His will for our lives is always better than our own desires. While fear may be our instinctive response, we do not have to let that fear control us. We can overcome our fear and move into a deeper relationship with God so that we can find a new identity that is rooted in Him, that can be free of fear and marked by hope, joy, love and freedom. Let us each be challenged today to grab a hold of our brothers and sisters in Christ and together enter this relationship with God to its fullest rather than being like the people of the Gerasenes who as a group ask Jesus to depart. Let us support each other to overcome our fear and invite God to do the mighty and miraculous in our midst!
In Christ's Love,
Faron
Many of you may recognize this passage as being the conclusion of Jesus' encounter with the Gerasene demonic where he drowns a thousand demons in a bunch of pigs. The story on its own merits is a little bizarre. I mean really, a demon possessed guy who can't be shackled and spends most of his time naked amongst the tombs, a legion of demons who has a spokesdemon that is bold enough to ask Jesus for a favor, and a herd of pigs in the thousands whose poor sense of direction leads them off a cliff to their death. All of these characters are more than bizarre, but the thing that has always struck me the strangest about this story is the verse quoted above. The crowds come to see if in fact the report they received about the power of Jesus was true and when they discover that the report is not just factual in their minds, it actually is true, they are seized with fear and they ask Jesus to LEAVE!
In their fear they ask the Savior of the World to leave from their land. In their fear, they ask the one person who can redeem them from that very fear to get in his boat and go. Whenever I read this I am reminded of one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now. Through out the book the narrator is irritated with Marvin who just will not leave and constantly expresses himself, "The time has come, the time is now, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now! Marvin K. Mooney, I don't care how, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!" The poor guy just wants Marvin to leave and so do the people of the Gerasenes, "Jesus of Nazareth, I don't care how; Jesus of Nazareth will you please go now!" The difference in Jesus and Marvin is that Jesus leaves at the first request. "So he got in the boat and returned," is the rest of the verse. At their request he leaves without protest, but he leaves the former demoniac behind to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I never cease to be amazed at their actions in this chapter. I cannot quite grasp the thought of witnessing something so incredible, so God empowered and then asking Jesus to leave. It is amazing what we do in our fear; but truth be told we are probably not all that different than the people of the Gerasenes. How often do we ask Jesus to leave a particular area of our lives? How often do we let fear control our actions and the direction we move in our lives? Amidst reading this piece of scripture this morning, I have also been reading a book by Dr. Robert Mulholland Jr. called The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self. In chapter two he describes what he identifies as our "false self," that identity we all create for ourselves that is not centered in a relationship with God. He describes many characteristics of our false selves like being protective, possessive, manipulative, destructive, self-promoting, and self indulgent but he begins his description with the observation that one of the primary characteristics of our false self is being fearful.
He notes how the story of the fall begins with fear. Once Adam and Eve eat of the fruit that they believe will put them on an even playing field with God, when He comes looking for them walking through the garden in the cool of the evening, they hide. When He confronts their behavior and asks them, "why?" They simply respond, "We were afraid." Adam and Eve have altered their identity from being rooted and centered in God to being rooted and centered in self, and it is so early in this process for them that they have not begun the unhealthy process of creating their self identity in work, or play, or the expectations of others. In the absence of an self identity rooted in either God or the unhealthy world their response is fear. God has given them no reason to fear Him. They know nothing of punishment, or consequence, or even death but for whatever reason they are afraid of God. Mulholland further observes that so often in the Bible when people are greeted by the presence of God the first instruction to them is "Do not be afraid." Our lives seperated from God are rooted first and foremost in fear.
I think this help explains the behavior of the people in the Gerasenes to an extent. These are Gentiles, they are not the people of Israel. They are used to worshipping gods, that is statues and sculptures, idols and images, ideas and stories rather than worshipping the one true God who does the miraculous all of the time. They have lived their lives seperated from their creator and while they have gotten right the need to worship something beyond themselves, they have gotten the object of that worship wrong. Pagan worship practices were really rooted in self. Sure they came to a temple to offer a sacrifice to their "god," but then they would indulge themselves in overeatting or temple prostitutes and their presence would be about trying to manipulate their "god" into doing something for them. I would argue that part of the indulgence was rooted in the lack of a real expectation that their "god" would do anything. That is the part they got right, idols, self created gods are not living, are not real and therefore cannot do anything! Sometimes life is easier with no expectations for the amazing or miraculous; with no expectations of a God who actually cares about us and wants to be involved in our lives; with no expectations that we have value and worth to the creator of the universe.
When we think we have no value to God the natural response is fear, because the Creator of the Universe clearly has the ability to eradicate our presence from the universe and if we have no value to Him, He is probably more than willing to do so! The people of the Gerasenes have been so used to their gods doing nothing that when the one true God shows up in the person of Jesus Christ and expresses his love for a single individual by freeing him from a lifelong torment by demons they don't know how to process this truth. First, their gods are their gods and the Jews' God is the Jews' God, so why would the Jews' God be interested in one of them. Second, why would a god be interested in the life of an individual when historically individuals have no value to gods? Third, if this God will allow a bunch of pigs to throw themselves to their death off a cliff in the process of freeing the demoniac, what will this God do to them who have been less than hospitable to the same demoniac?
Sometimes when we are confronted with the truth that the Creator of the universe loves and cares about us we feel fear rise up from within our depths because we have lived under our own self identity and the belief that we do not matter to God for so long that we cannot understand. We see God as holy and seperate and ourselves as.....well, less than holy and we do not understand how those two things can exist together, so we are afraid that the holy will destroy the unholy. We are afraid at the thought of the self identity we have created and lived with for so long being destroyed and replaced by something we don't recognize or understand. We get comfortable in our seperateness from God and the thought of anything else is more than a little scary. God rushing into the lives of those in the Gerasenes brings such an unknown that they would rather live in their current situations, even if that means being possessed by demons, than to confront the possible freedom that would come through Jesus.
In realizing this, I have to ask myself, where has fear controlled my relationship with God through Jesus? Where have I allowed the comfort of my self created identity to cause me to push away whatever it is God is trying to do in my life? Where have I chosen to stay in misery and pain because the unknown future in Christ was just too scary for me? Am I really different than those in the Gerasenes? No, I don't have access to a bunch of pigs and I don't know any naked guys hanging out in cemeteries, but am I not just as afraid at times when I am confronted with the power of God and with the truth that I really do matter to Him? Haven't I asked God to leave my presence at times with thoughts like, "I want to live for you God, but let me do this or that first." Kind of like the young man who wants to bury his father before he follows Jesus, "yeah Jesus I want to follow you but just not yet, so do you mind going on your way until I am ready?"
The good news is that we don't have to be afraid. While life in Christ brings many unknowns and at times things that make us uncomfortable, life in Christ is defined by the love God has for each of us. We are loved by the Father and the Father's desire for each of our lives is good. He wants joy, peace, hope, love and freedom for each of us. He wants each of us to know that we have value to Him. He wants each of us to define ourselves not by what we hear others say, or what we see in the mirror but by His love for each of us. He wants each of us to replace our fear with a hopeful faith in Him. A faith that is rooted in the hope of peace, joy and love in the Father. God knows that our fear is rooted in our sin and rather than deny either He tells us, "be not afraid." He acknowledges our fear and meets us in that fearful place to help us move from a fearful life rooted in sin to a place of faith and hope; but He will not force that on us and if we ask Him to depart He will respect that, but He will leave a constant testimony to His love for us and He will be right there by the shore waiting on us to invite Him back into our lives.
God's desire for each of us is good and while we may not know what that good looks like, we can trust in our Faithful Father that His will for our lives is always better than our own desires. While fear may be our instinctive response, we do not have to let that fear control us. We can overcome our fear and move into a deeper relationship with God so that we can find a new identity that is rooted in Him, that can be free of fear and marked by hope, joy, love and freedom. Let us each be challenged today to grab a hold of our brothers and sisters in Christ and together enter this relationship with God to its fullest rather than being like the people of the Gerasenes who as a group ask Jesus to depart. Let us support each other to overcome our fear and invite God to do the mighty and miraculous in our midst!
In Christ's Love,
Faron
Monday, May 17, 2010
A Free Red Robin Burger
Greetings all,
I thought I would post this up as I find Red Robin burgers to be scrumptiously delightful and no they do not fit the carb Nazi's plan, but that doesn't take away from their yummy goodness. If you go to this page http://www.redrobin.com/eclub/ and sign up for the club they will send you a coupon on your birthday for a FREE burger. I signed up about a week ago and got the coupon last Friday for my burger. I had a salad instead hoping for a better carb count, but when I looked it up on http://www.calorieking.com/ it actually had more carbs than a burger, just my luck. So next birthday it is a free BURGER for me, none of this salad stuff, although it was really good. Okay, sign up if you want a free burger.
In Christ's Love,
Faron
I thought I would post this up as I find Red Robin burgers to be scrumptiously delightful and no they do not fit the carb Nazi's plan, but that doesn't take away from their yummy goodness. If you go to this page http://www.redrobin.com/eclub/ and sign up for the club they will send you a coupon on your birthday for a FREE burger. I signed up about a week ago and got the coupon last Friday for my burger. I had a salad instead hoping for a better carb count, but when I looked it up on http://www.calorieking.com/ it actually had more carbs than a burger, just my luck. So next birthday it is a free BURGER for me, none of this salad stuff, although it was really good. Okay, sign up if you want a free burger.
In Christ's Love,
Faron
Today's Yummy Goodness
Good morning all,
I have just posted three new recipes that are sure to tickle your taste buds and rapidly expand your waist line. Enjoy and let me know if you try them and like them!
In Christ's Love,
Faron
I have just posted three new recipes that are sure to tickle your taste buds and rapidly expand your waist line. Enjoy and let me know if you try them and like them!
In Christ's Love,
Faron
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Prayer for/from the Weary
Greetings all,
I have been working on stuff for this post since 9:00 this morning and here it is 10:15 at night and I am just now getting around to typing it. I have been thinking alot about prayer lately as we have made this shift at church from praying specific prayers for certain things to the simple prayer of "God Do Something!" That shift came as a by product of our prayer meeting last month as we were sitting around worrying about church stuff and trying to figure out what we needed to do and how we needed to ask God to bless what we were doing. Amidst that we came to this revelation that all we were really doing was asking God to place His stamp of approval on our plans, but we were not necessarily depending on Him to do anything of substance.
We had to wonder if our prayer was birthed from an expectancy that God could and would do something like Elijah when we prayed for God to send fire from Heaven or was it birthed out of a hope that He might do something like the person that buys a lottery ticket and prays, "O God let me win." Our simple prayer of "God Do Something" was as much a statement of trust and expectation as it was anything else. The Father knows what we need and His desire for us is good, so we can and should trust Him to know what needs to be done in our personal life, our congregational life, and in our community life. At the same time I have been asking myself, "But shouldn't pray be something more? Can we simply wait on God to do something or shouldn't we be acting on His behalf?"
Amdist all of these thoughts running around in my scattered brain I have been reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr. and the power of his preaching. The book is called King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and it is written by Dr. Mervyn A. Warren. It has been a fabulous book on the simple mechanics of preaching, but more than that it has been full of excerpts from 15 different sermons that Dr. King preached. Not only have those excerpts led me to reading his sermons, they have also provided both inspiration and "hmmmmmmmmmmm" moments. Yesterday I was reading chapter six and the subject of prayer came up through out the chapter and there were a couple of quotes that struck chords with me regarding my questions about prayer in general. Let's call that a "hmmmmmmmm" moment.
The first is found on page 136 and it came from a sermon entitled "The Answer to a Perplexing Question." It begins, "The idea that man must wait on God to do everything has led to a tragic misuse of prayer. He who feels that God must do everything will end up asking him for anything. Some people see God as little more than 'a cosmic bellhop' that they will call on for every trivial need. "
Okay, I have encountered these people who expect God to find them a parking place, or their missing keys or at its worst, a job when they won't even send out a resume'. Is this what we are doing with "God Do Something?" Are we expecting Him to do things that we shouldn't be expecting Him to do? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The second is found on the following page from the same sermon, "Well I am sure we all need to pray for God's help and guidance in this integration struggle, but we will be gravely misled if we think it will come by prayer alone. God will never allow prayer to become a substitute for work and intelligence. God gave us minds to think and breath and body to work, and he would be defeating his own purpose if he allowed us to obtain through prayer what can come through work and intelligence. No, it is not either prayer or human effort; it is both prayer and human effort. Prayer is a marvelous and necessary supplement of our feeble efforts but it is a dangerous and callous substitute."
For King prayers and work went together with prayer being the imploring request to God to act on behalf of humanity working in cooperation with the intelligence and ability to work that He placed in each of us. Can you see my confusion based on these quotes? How is a humble, country preacher supposed to ignore such strong words from the man who changed race relations for an entire country? As I read the chapter I kept thinking, "Did we have it right to start with? Should we be asking God's blessing on our actions? Should we be asking Him to empower the outcomes of our efforts? If they go hand in hand, does that mean we do them simultaneously, or does one come before the other?"
Some enlightenment came from reading Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from Bardstown, Kentucky and some of his writings regarding war and praying for peace. He pointed out what a bizarre contradiction it was for us as a nation to pray for peace while at the same time we invest billions of dollars into building war machines to better enable us to eradicate the human race from the planet. He was writing amidst the Cold War and was really addressing the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, but his point is applicable across the board especially in light of MLK's belief that prayer and action go hand in hand. Merton is basically stating that we need to make sure that our action doesn't contradict our prayer. He uses the example that he completely understands the fellow who will prayer for healing and take medicince, but it would be ridiculous for a fellow to pray for healing and then drink poison. Our actions must align with our prayers, or we are probably praying in vain.
Add to my reading of these two influential men of the sixties the story of Paul and Silas from the 16th chapter of Acts who are in prison praying and singing hymns to God. Luke tells us that the prisoners were listening to them, but he does not bother to tell us what the words of their prayers were. I don't know about any of you, but I would like to know the words of the prayers that led to an earthquake that shakes the foundations of the prison, frees the prisoners and converts a jailor and his family. I would like that little recipe for getting God to do something in the same way I would like the recipe for P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps; but for whatever reason Luke does not seem to feel like we need to know that magic formula any more than the owners of P.F. Changs are publishing their secret recipes; and I think I know why.
I would venture to guess that Luke is a much wiser man than I who anticipated folks like me coming along after him who would look to the words of the prayer as a formula for God to act and with an expectation that He would. In essence as if the prayer was the contract to force God to act on our behalf. I can see me now, "God I prayed Paul and Silas' prayer, but I have yet to feel the earth move and the walls haven't shaken and my bank account still only has $4.23. What is up God? Are you slacking on Your end? You did it for them, now You have to do it for me!" Now some of you are probably thinking that I am being a little obstinate with God, but you know that even if you weren't willing to type it or say it out loud, you would probably be thinking the same thing. So often we expect God to respond in very defined and specific ways and we like to be the author of those definitions and specifics.
I wonder if that is part of the problem with trying to broaden my understanding of prayer? I want to be in control. I want to tell God what I want Him to do and what I am willing to do. I want to say, "Okay God, You bring the people into the church and I am willing to preach them a good sermon about You;" but I think I am much less inclined to say, "God I will go preach on the Lancaster Square at noontime if that is what You need me to do to reach people with Your love." It can be a little unnerving to turn control of our life and actions over to the creator of the universe. He just might ask us to do something uncomfortable, or potentially embarassing or even humanly impossible. He might expect us to move out of our comfort zone to use the gifts that He has given us and that we are comfortable with using in a less comfortable environment. I can remember as a young man, probably like many of you, not wanting to hear the call of God because I was sure it could only be a call to serve as a missionary in someplace that had brightly colored snakes that could kill you with one bite and no indoor plumbing! I don't like to give up the illusion that I have control over placing myself in snake encountering spots, even if it is God that I am supposed to be trusting with that control.
Perhaps prayer is first and foremost about giving up control. Perhaps it is not us asking God to bless the actions that we have decided are appropriate to take, but rather to surrender control of the outcome of those actions and to listen to guidance on how to perhaps change going about some of those actions. Paul and Silas' prayer had to have been along the lines of "God we are weary and worn, beaten and imprisoned and there is nothing we can do, but we know you can do something. God Do Something while we do the one thing we can do, sing your praises."
Clearly they were giving up control, because I cannot imagine them praying for an earthquake. Who would ever think to pray for an earthquake for a prison escape? A key, sure; a shovel, maybe; an earthquake, probably not! But they did pray and they did do something. They surrendered control to God in prayer and He Did Something incredible. Work, intelligence and prayer went hand in hand so MLK would have been proud. Their work of praising did not contradict their prayer of "God Do Something," so Merton would have been proud. Their very prayer and simultaneous action embodies our prayer at BUMC of "God Do Something" as we continue to put one foot in front of the other trying to communicate to people how much Jesus loves them and how they are deserving of His love.
Maybe the appropriate prayer is "God Do Something" prayed with a willingness to do whatever it is He calls us to do while at the same time doing the things that we can do in our intelligence and ability. Prayed with an expectation that not only can He do something, but that He will do something. Prayed from lives that are lived in cooperation with God and that do not contradict our prayer. We cannot ask God to do something then push Him out of the way while we do it. How many times have I asked my kids to do something only to end up telling them, "never mind, I'll just do it myself because it is easier that way." It isn't that it is easier, it is that it leaves me in control of how it gets done. Finally we must pray out of a desire to give up that kind of control and to trust that God knows what He is doing even if it gets done differently than we would have done it.
Paul and Silas were weak and weary when they prayed something from prison. At times we are all weak and weary in our lives when we finally decide to pray. There are those in this world who are weak and weary and don't even know that prayer is an option for them. For all of us, from all of us, out of hearts that long to see the earth shake and walls to come tumbling down while we give up control we pray, "GOD DO SOMETHING!" and we truly expect that He will with our cooperation!
In Christ's love,
Faron
I have been working on stuff for this post since 9:00 this morning and here it is 10:15 at night and I am just now getting around to typing it. I have been thinking alot about prayer lately as we have made this shift at church from praying specific prayers for certain things to the simple prayer of "God Do Something!" That shift came as a by product of our prayer meeting last month as we were sitting around worrying about church stuff and trying to figure out what we needed to do and how we needed to ask God to bless what we were doing. Amidst that we came to this revelation that all we were really doing was asking God to place His stamp of approval on our plans, but we were not necessarily depending on Him to do anything of substance.
We had to wonder if our prayer was birthed from an expectancy that God could and would do something like Elijah when we prayed for God to send fire from Heaven or was it birthed out of a hope that He might do something like the person that buys a lottery ticket and prays, "O God let me win." Our simple prayer of "God Do Something" was as much a statement of trust and expectation as it was anything else. The Father knows what we need and His desire for us is good, so we can and should trust Him to know what needs to be done in our personal life, our congregational life, and in our community life. At the same time I have been asking myself, "But shouldn't pray be something more? Can we simply wait on God to do something or shouldn't we be acting on His behalf?"
Amdist all of these thoughts running around in my scattered brain I have been reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr. and the power of his preaching. The book is called King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and it is written by Dr. Mervyn A. Warren. It has been a fabulous book on the simple mechanics of preaching, but more than that it has been full of excerpts from 15 different sermons that Dr. King preached. Not only have those excerpts led me to reading his sermons, they have also provided both inspiration and "hmmmmmmmmmmm" moments. Yesterday I was reading chapter six and the subject of prayer came up through out the chapter and there were a couple of quotes that struck chords with me regarding my questions about prayer in general. Let's call that a "hmmmmmmmm" moment.
The first is found on page 136 and it came from a sermon entitled "The Answer to a Perplexing Question." It begins, "The idea that man must wait on God to do everything has led to a tragic misuse of prayer. He who feels that God must do everything will end up asking him for anything. Some people see God as little more than 'a cosmic bellhop' that they will call on for every trivial need. "
Okay, I have encountered these people who expect God to find them a parking place, or their missing keys or at its worst, a job when they won't even send out a resume'. Is this what we are doing with "God Do Something?" Are we expecting Him to do things that we shouldn't be expecting Him to do? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The second is found on the following page from the same sermon, "Well I am sure we all need to pray for God's help and guidance in this integration struggle, but we will be gravely misled if we think it will come by prayer alone. God will never allow prayer to become a substitute for work and intelligence. God gave us minds to think and breath and body to work, and he would be defeating his own purpose if he allowed us to obtain through prayer what can come through work and intelligence. No, it is not either prayer or human effort; it is both prayer and human effort. Prayer is a marvelous and necessary supplement of our feeble efforts but it is a dangerous and callous substitute."
For King prayers and work went together with prayer being the imploring request to God to act on behalf of humanity working in cooperation with the intelligence and ability to work that He placed in each of us. Can you see my confusion based on these quotes? How is a humble, country preacher supposed to ignore such strong words from the man who changed race relations for an entire country? As I read the chapter I kept thinking, "Did we have it right to start with? Should we be asking God's blessing on our actions? Should we be asking Him to empower the outcomes of our efforts? If they go hand in hand, does that mean we do them simultaneously, or does one come before the other?"
Some enlightenment came from reading Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from Bardstown, Kentucky and some of his writings regarding war and praying for peace. He pointed out what a bizarre contradiction it was for us as a nation to pray for peace while at the same time we invest billions of dollars into building war machines to better enable us to eradicate the human race from the planet. He was writing amidst the Cold War and was really addressing the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, but his point is applicable across the board especially in light of MLK's belief that prayer and action go hand in hand. Merton is basically stating that we need to make sure that our action doesn't contradict our prayer. He uses the example that he completely understands the fellow who will prayer for healing and take medicince, but it would be ridiculous for a fellow to pray for healing and then drink poison. Our actions must align with our prayers, or we are probably praying in vain.
Add to my reading of these two influential men of the sixties the story of Paul and Silas from the 16th chapter of Acts who are in prison praying and singing hymns to God. Luke tells us that the prisoners were listening to them, but he does not bother to tell us what the words of their prayers were. I don't know about any of you, but I would like to know the words of the prayers that led to an earthquake that shakes the foundations of the prison, frees the prisoners and converts a jailor and his family. I would like that little recipe for getting God to do something in the same way I would like the recipe for P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps; but for whatever reason Luke does not seem to feel like we need to know that magic formula any more than the owners of P.F. Changs are publishing their secret recipes; and I think I know why.
I would venture to guess that Luke is a much wiser man than I who anticipated folks like me coming along after him who would look to the words of the prayer as a formula for God to act and with an expectation that He would. In essence as if the prayer was the contract to force God to act on our behalf. I can see me now, "God I prayed Paul and Silas' prayer, but I have yet to feel the earth move and the walls haven't shaken and my bank account still only has $4.23. What is up God? Are you slacking on Your end? You did it for them, now You have to do it for me!" Now some of you are probably thinking that I am being a little obstinate with God, but you know that even if you weren't willing to type it or say it out loud, you would probably be thinking the same thing. So often we expect God to respond in very defined and specific ways and we like to be the author of those definitions and specifics.
I wonder if that is part of the problem with trying to broaden my understanding of prayer? I want to be in control. I want to tell God what I want Him to do and what I am willing to do. I want to say, "Okay God, You bring the people into the church and I am willing to preach them a good sermon about You;" but I think I am much less inclined to say, "God I will go preach on the Lancaster Square at noontime if that is what You need me to do to reach people with Your love." It can be a little unnerving to turn control of our life and actions over to the creator of the universe. He just might ask us to do something uncomfortable, or potentially embarassing or even humanly impossible. He might expect us to move out of our comfort zone to use the gifts that He has given us and that we are comfortable with using in a less comfortable environment. I can remember as a young man, probably like many of you, not wanting to hear the call of God because I was sure it could only be a call to serve as a missionary in someplace that had brightly colored snakes that could kill you with one bite and no indoor plumbing! I don't like to give up the illusion that I have control over placing myself in snake encountering spots, even if it is God that I am supposed to be trusting with that control.
Perhaps prayer is first and foremost about giving up control. Perhaps it is not us asking God to bless the actions that we have decided are appropriate to take, but rather to surrender control of the outcome of those actions and to listen to guidance on how to perhaps change going about some of those actions. Paul and Silas' prayer had to have been along the lines of "God we are weary and worn, beaten and imprisoned and there is nothing we can do, but we know you can do something. God Do Something while we do the one thing we can do, sing your praises."
Clearly they were giving up control, because I cannot imagine them praying for an earthquake. Who would ever think to pray for an earthquake for a prison escape? A key, sure; a shovel, maybe; an earthquake, probably not! But they did pray and they did do something. They surrendered control to God in prayer and He Did Something incredible. Work, intelligence and prayer went hand in hand so MLK would have been proud. Their work of praising did not contradict their prayer of "God Do Something," so Merton would have been proud. Their very prayer and simultaneous action embodies our prayer at BUMC of "God Do Something" as we continue to put one foot in front of the other trying to communicate to people how much Jesus loves them and how they are deserving of His love.
Maybe the appropriate prayer is "God Do Something" prayed with a willingness to do whatever it is He calls us to do while at the same time doing the things that we can do in our intelligence and ability. Prayed with an expectation that not only can He do something, but that He will do something. Prayed from lives that are lived in cooperation with God and that do not contradict our prayer. We cannot ask God to do something then push Him out of the way while we do it. How many times have I asked my kids to do something only to end up telling them, "never mind, I'll just do it myself because it is easier that way." It isn't that it is easier, it is that it leaves me in control of how it gets done. Finally we must pray out of a desire to give up that kind of control and to trust that God knows what He is doing even if it gets done differently than we would have done it.
Paul and Silas were weak and weary when they prayed something from prison. At times we are all weak and weary in our lives when we finally decide to pray. There are those in this world who are weak and weary and don't even know that prayer is an option for them. For all of us, from all of us, out of hearts that long to see the earth shake and walls to come tumbling down while we give up control we pray, "GOD DO SOMETHING!" and we truly expect that He will with our cooperation!
In Christ's love,
Faron
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Stones, Songs, Children and God
For those of you with children, do you ever look at them and ask yourself, "Is this really my child?" Sometimes our children behave in ways that we don't recognize, both good ways and bad ways and we wonder where it came from. Or they have particular likes or dislikes that are so far away from our own that we just sort of watch and think, "hmmmmmmmmmm........" I can say with great confidence that my father would watch me listening to all of my eighties guitar rock and shake his head wondering, "What in the world is he listening to that awful stuff for? Surely he can't be my son!" When you grow up listening to the King of Rock and Roll sing Gospel songs, hearing your child listening to the screaming guitar of "Running With the Devil" by VanHalen could be a little unsettling.
The good news is that over the years my taste in music has broadened, and I have come to appreciate and even often times prefer the music of my father's era, just as my sons Faron II and Declan have come to appreciate the rock and roll music of my day. I so enjoy my boys rocking out with me, yet I have to confess that I often look at my daughter Faith and her choices of music and I shake my head and think, "What in the world is she listening to that awful stuff for? Surely she can't be my daughter!" Rap, Hip Hop, Pop; categories that I don't even have a name for; music that doesn't actually require instruments; lyrics that are so full of inuendo that this pastor who in his previous life cussed like a sailor sometimes blushes. She loves it and I listen and shake my head. What is funny though is when she gets out of the car and it is a while before I realize I still have her radio station on and that I have been bobbing my head to the music.
I guess our children's taste can influence us as well as we can influence them. I have come to enjoy a few, let me repeat "A FEW" of her electronic dance beats and her pop radio songs; and little Bailey informed me after soccer yesterday that "a few is only three!" I am still holding out hope that she will develop a taste for truely good music and by that I mean music that requires instruments, a vocalist who can actually sing and lyrics that can move the soul. This past week she has given me a glimpse of hope for her musical tastes. As a reward for her helping me mow the grass last week I promised her a new CD. What she chose was a country group called Lady Antebellum and their latest album Need You Now
I had heard one of the songs on the radio and listened to enough of it on the way home from the store with her to ask her to let me download it to my laptop, but I hadn't listened to the whole album until this morning. It is an exceptional album, both the male and female vocalist have voices that are both pure and crisp yet with just enough raspy to remind us that this is country music; the instruments can range from a lead guitar solo that would do Eddie proud to a mandolin and piano that catches you just feeling happy; and the lyrics are ones that can and do move your soul. There is hope for my daughter! It is one of those soul moving songs that really struck me this morning as I was reading my Bible.
I try to read through the Bible once a year, some years I make it and some years I don't. I read Old Testament and New Testament simultaneously to keep me balanced by grace and this morning in the Old I was reading Joshua chapters 3, 4 and 5. This encapsulates the story of the Israelites first entering the Promised Land with Joshua. We see the priests walk into the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant and the waters pile up as the Israelites cross on dry land; we see the wilderness generation circumcized, the first Passover celebration in the Promised Land and the end of God providing manna for them to eat. The account of this morning's chapters ends with Joshua taking off his sandals as he is told he is standing on holy ground.
I enjoyed all of that but the thing that struck me this morning is part of the story that I have read many times because it always speaks to me in new and refreshing ways and this morning was no exception. Chapter four recounts the creation of two memorials made from twelve stones each. One in the river, and one set up in Gilgal. The river one marks the place where the priests stood with the Ark and the Gilgal one is set up as a memorial meant to provoke the question from their children, "What are these stones for?" An earlier reading of this account helped me recognize that these twelve stones were not pebbles, rather they were what is known as standing stones. They are large stones that are placed in a way that could not occur naturally to let those that come after know someone was here and perhaps that something important happened here.
There is a stone like this in Mammoth Caves as you walk up to the cafeteria in the cave. It is a stone four or five feet high, a couple of feet wide that probably weighs hundreds of pounds. Nobody knows who put it there, they just know somebody did. It is a standing stone to testify that someone had been in that part of the caves years ago. The catch is that it doesn't testify to any specifics. The Gilgal stones have a very specific purpose to point towards a very specific event. The stones were taken from the river as they were crossing and they were set up so that their children and their childrens' children would ask "What do these stones mean?" The question was to be the prompt for the story of God bringing the Israelites across the Jordan on dry ground into the land He had promised them from long ago. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and that He should be revered forever.
Here is a monument specifically designed to ensure that the Israelites are telling their children about the mighty works of God so that they will always know that He is real, that He is mighty, that they are His and that He is faithful to do what He promises and He has promised to be with them always. The thought of this hit me a bit in the gut as I began to ponder, "What are the standing stones in my life? What are those things that point me to tell my children the stories of God the Father and how He has interacted in my life? Even more, what are my standing stones to remind me of what God has done? Do I have standing stones, or has the challenges of my life buried them where they can't be seen anymore?"
It was amidst these questions that one of Faith's songs struck and the hope I have for her music taste inspired some hope in this old preacher and uncool dad. It was track four, a song called "Hello World." It is the male vocalist and the music begins with the elegant simplicity of the piano which always strikes a chord in my soul. Sometimes music that the church world considers secular gets it more right than praise music or hymns. There is a beauty in the reality and rawness of the lyrics of a hurting world that can point us to God in a truth inspiring kind of way.
The song tells the story of a husband and father who tells us that "sometimes I feel as cold as steel, and broken like I'm never gonna heal," but he finds a little hope in the chocolate covered face of a little girl in traffic, and in the little white crosses outside a church and in his wife and kids that meet him at the door. It was in the soul moving piano chord progression and the lyrics of this country song that my theological questions about standing stones were answered. Of courese I have standing stones, my life, our lives, are littered with them. They are our children, our families, our friends, our churches, our pets. They are those ornaments on the Christmas tree that reminds us of a Christmas past or a vacation trip. They are that old shirt that you have been hanging onto since college that still smells of bonfire. They are the little jewelry case of keychains and coins that mark 30, 60, 90 days sober. They are a doll carriage and a BB gun; a dent on a fender and a ripped tent; sausage balls at Christmas and homemade decorated cakes on birthdays.
The beauty of our lives as Christians is that God is alive and well working in every aspect of our lives from the mundane to the spectacular. He is there when we are doing laundry and cutting the grass; He is there when we are sending children off to college and letting them drive by themselves for the first time; He is there when we are getting married or burying a loved one. Not a moment of our lives goes by without God's presence so we don't need a giant standing stone to remind us of His mighty work in our lives and the lives of the body of Christ. We simply need to look around at all of the little and big things in our lives, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the grace filled and the painful. We are surrounded by reminders of God's presence, we just have to look and listen. When we look we might see that chocolate covered face of a little girl waving that reminds us there is hope and joy in God. When we listen we just might hear hope and joy in the music and lyrics of a song that was introduced to us from an unlikely source. When we recognize that God-filled hope, joy and love in those everday things then we need to tell the stories of God, or our past, of our hope for the future, of redemption, of salvation, of freedom. We need to tell the stories to inspire us to draw ever closer to God so we can more clearly hear His voice in the lyrics of unexpected songs. Despite my taste in music, I am my father's son, and Faith is my daughter and all of us are children of the Father.
Let us give thanks to the Lord today for His presence and for His grace filled reminders everyday that He is with us and that in Him is peace, hope, joy, love and freedom!
In Christ's Love,
Faron
Here is a link to the song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhnhtLR31KU
and here is a copy of the lyrics:
Traffic crawls, cell phone calls.
Talk radio screams at me.
through my tinted window I see
A little girl, rust red minivan.
She's got chocolate on her face,
Got little hands, and she waves at me.
Yeah, she smiles at me.
Hello world,
How you been,
Good to see you, my old friend.
Sometimes I feel, cold as steel.
Broken like I'm never gonna heal.
I see a light, a little hope
In a little girl,
Hello world.
Every day I drive by
A little white church,
It's got these little white crosses
Like angels in the yard
Maybe I shoudl stop on in,
Say a little prayer
Maybe talk to God
Like He is there
Oh I now He's there,
Yeah, I know He's there.
Hello world,
How've you been?
Good to see you my old friend.
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel.
And broken like I'm never gonna heal.
I see a light, a little grace, little faith unfurled.
Hello world.
Sometimes I forget what livin's for,
And I hear my life through my front door
And I breathe it in,
Oh I'm home again.
I see my wife, little boy, little girl.
Hello world.
Hello world.
All the empty dissappears;
I remember why I'm here;
Just surrender and believe;
I fall down on my knees.
Oh, hello world,
Hello world,
Hello world.
The good news is that over the years my taste in music has broadened, and I have come to appreciate and even often times prefer the music of my father's era, just as my sons Faron II and Declan have come to appreciate the rock and roll music of my day. I so enjoy my boys rocking out with me, yet I have to confess that I often look at my daughter Faith and her choices of music and I shake my head and think, "What in the world is she listening to that awful stuff for? Surely she can't be my daughter!" Rap, Hip Hop, Pop; categories that I don't even have a name for; music that doesn't actually require instruments; lyrics that are so full of inuendo that this pastor who in his previous life cussed like a sailor sometimes blushes. She loves it and I listen and shake my head. What is funny though is when she gets out of the car and it is a while before I realize I still have her radio station on and that I have been bobbing my head to the music.
I guess our children's taste can influence us as well as we can influence them. I have come to enjoy a few, let me repeat "A FEW" of her electronic dance beats and her pop radio songs; and little Bailey informed me after soccer yesterday that "a few is only three!" I am still holding out hope that she will develop a taste for truely good music and by that I mean music that requires instruments, a vocalist who can actually sing and lyrics that can move the soul. This past week she has given me a glimpse of hope for her musical tastes. As a reward for her helping me mow the grass last week I promised her a new CD. What she chose was a country group called Lady Antebellum and their latest album Need You Now
I had heard one of the songs on the radio and listened to enough of it on the way home from the store with her to ask her to let me download it to my laptop, but I hadn't listened to the whole album until this morning. It is an exceptional album, both the male and female vocalist have voices that are both pure and crisp yet with just enough raspy to remind us that this is country music; the instruments can range from a lead guitar solo that would do Eddie proud to a mandolin and piano that catches you just feeling happy; and the lyrics are ones that can and do move your soul. There is hope for my daughter! It is one of those soul moving songs that really struck me this morning as I was reading my Bible.
I try to read through the Bible once a year, some years I make it and some years I don't. I read Old Testament and New Testament simultaneously to keep me balanced by grace and this morning in the Old I was reading Joshua chapters 3, 4 and 5. This encapsulates the story of the Israelites first entering the Promised Land with Joshua. We see the priests walk into the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant and the waters pile up as the Israelites cross on dry land; we see the wilderness generation circumcized, the first Passover celebration in the Promised Land and the end of God providing manna for them to eat. The account of this morning's chapters ends with Joshua taking off his sandals as he is told he is standing on holy ground.
I enjoyed all of that but the thing that struck me this morning is part of the story that I have read many times because it always speaks to me in new and refreshing ways and this morning was no exception. Chapter four recounts the creation of two memorials made from twelve stones each. One in the river, and one set up in Gilgal. The river one marks the place where the priests stood with the Ark and the Gilgal one is set up as a memorial meant to provoke the question from their children, "What are these stones for?" An earlier reading of this account helped me recognize that these twelve stones were not pebbles, rather they were what is known as standing stones. They are large stones that are placed in a way that could not occur naturally to let those that come after know someone was here and perhaps that something important happened here.
There is a stone like this in Mammoth Caves as you walk up to the cafeteria in the cave. It is a stone four or five feet high, a couple of feet wide that probably weighs hundreds of pounds. Nobody knows who put it there, they just know somebody did. It is a standing stone to testify that someone had been in that part of the caves years ago. The catch is that it doesn't testify to any specifics. The Gilgal stones have a very specific purpose to point towards a very specific event. The stones were taken from the river as they were crossing and they were set up so that their children and their childrens' children would ask "What do these stones mean?" The question was to be the prompt for the story of God bringing the Israelites across the Jordan on dry ground into the land He had promised them from long ago. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and that He should be revered forever.
Here is a monument specifically designed to ensure that the Israelites are telling their children about the mighty works of God so that they will always know that He is real, that He is mighty, that they are His and that He is faithful to do what He promises and He has promised to be with them always. The thought of this hit me a bit in the gut as I began to ponder, "What are the standing stones in my life? What are those things that point me to tell my children the stories of God the Father and how He has interacted in my life? Even more, what are my standing stones to remind me of what God has done? Do I have standing stones, or has the challenges of my life buried them where they can't be seen anymore?"
It was amidst these questions that one of Faith's songs struck and the hope I have for her music taste inspired some hope in this old preacher and uncool dad. It was track four, a song called "Hello World." It is the male vocalist and the music begins with the elegant simplicity of the piano which always strikes a chord in my soul. Sometimes music that the church world considers secular gets it more right than praise music or hymns. There is a beauty in the reality and rawness of the lyrics of a hurting world that can point us to God in a truth inspiring kind of way.
The song tells the story of a husband and father who tells us that "sometimes I feel as cold as steel, and broken like I'm never gonna heal," but he finds a little hope in the chocolate covered face of a little girl in traffic, and in the little white crosses outside a church and in his wife and kids that meet him at the door. It was in the soul moving piano chord progression and the lyrics of this country song that my theological questions about standing stones were answered. Of courese I have standing stones, my life, our lives, are littered with them. They are our children, our families, our friends, our churches, our pets. They are those ornaments on the Christmas tree that reminds us of a Christmas past or a vacation trip. They are that old shirt that you have been hanging onto since college that still smells of bonfire. They are the little jewelry case of keychains and coins that mark 30, 60, 90 days sober. They are a doll carriage and a BB gun; a dent on a fender and a ripped tent; sausage balls at Christmas and homemade decorated cakes on birthdays.
The beauty of our lives as Christians is that God is alive and well working in every aspect of our lives from the mundane to the spectacular. He is there when we are doing laundry and cutting the grass; He is there when we are sending children off to college and letting them drive by themselves for the first time; He is there when we are getting married or burying a loved one. Not a moment of our lives goes by without God's presence so we don't need a giant standing stone to remind us of His mighty work in our lives and the lives of the body of Christ. We simply need to look around at all of the little and big things in our lives, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the grace filled and the painful. We are surrounded by reminders of God's presence, we just have to look and listen. When we look we might see that chocolate covered face of a little girl waving that reminds us there is hope and joy in God. When we listen we just might hear hope and joy in the music and lyrics of a song that was introduced to us from an unlikely source. When we recognize that God-filled hope, joy and love in those everday things then we need to tell the stories of God, or our past, of our hope for the future, of redemption, of salvation, of freedom. We need to tell the stories to inspire us to draw ever closer to God so we can more clearly hear His voice in the lyrics of unexpected songs. Despite my taste in music, I am my father's son, and Faith is my daughter and all of us are children of the Father.
Let us give thanks to the Lord today for His presence and for His grace filled reminders everyday that He is with us and that in Him is peace, hope, joy, love and freedom!
In Christ's Love,
Faron
Here is a link to the song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhnhtLR31KU
and here is a copy of the lyrics:
Traffic crawls, cell phone calls.
Talk radio screams at me.
through my tinted window I see
A little girl, rust red minivan.
She's got chocolate on her face,
Got little hands, and she waves at me.
Yeah, she smiles at me.
Hello world,
How you been,
Good to see you, my old friend.
Sometimes I feel, cold as steel.
Broken like I'm never gonna heal.
I see a light, a little hope
In a little girl,
Hello world.
Every day I drive by
A little white church,
It's got these little white crosses
Like angels in the yard
Maybe I shoudl stop on in,
Say a little prayer
Maybe talk to God
Like He is there
Oh I now He's there,
Yeah, I know He's there.
Hello world,
How've you been?
Good to see you my old friend.
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel.
And broken like I'm never gonna heal.
I see a light, a little grace, little faith unfurled.
Hello world.
Sometimes I forget what livin's for,
And I hear my life through my front door
And I breathe it in,
Oh I'm home again.
I see my wife, little boy, little girl.
Hello world.
Hello world.
All the empty dissappears;
I remember why I'm here;
Just surrender and believe;
I fall down on my knees.
Oh, hello world,
Hello world,
Hello world.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Belief Respecting
In my devotional time this morning I read the following statement from the The Upper Room Disciplines: A Book of Daily Devotions for 2010, "We are called to be witnesses to the ascension. God continues to be the ruler and Lord of all. Finding faithful ways to proclaim our convictions, while respecting others' beliefs is our God-given task." I am a bit perplexed by this as I ask myself the question, "If it is my conviction that a particular belief is wrong, can I respect it?" Does God being ruler and Lord of all make all faith claims equal as the author's statement seems to imply? If that is the case, what do we do with Jesus' claims of being the exclusive way to the Father?
I struggle with this because I believe that historically Christians have not communicated our exclusive convictions in very respectful or edifying ways and in many ways we continue some of those same hurtful patterns even today. For instance, as Christians many of us hold the belief that homosexuality is a sin and equally we all hold the belief that the only way to overcome sin is through the power of the Holy Spirit, but the way we behave towards the homosexual community is often times so unloving and disrespectful to them as people that we make it hard for them to come to a Christian walk where they can receive the very power we believe they need to overcome their sin. I believe that we need to truly alter the way we communicate God in Jesus Christ to others through a filter of love first and foremost. We need to always interact with people in the same way that Christ did, lovingly, respectfully, leaving their dignity as a person in tact. It is these beliefs of mine that make me sympathize with the sentiment the author is attempting to convey that we need to rethink how we share God's love, but the idea that to rethink how I communicate God's love to others I have to respect their belief even though I think it is wrong causes the hair on the back of my neck to bristle.
The question then becomes, "Does communicating God's love to someone mean I respect their beliefs or does it mean I respect them and their free will to choose another belief?" Can I respect a belief that I am convicted is wrong? If I know 2+2=4, if someone tells me, "no, 2+2=5" can I respect that belief that I know is wrong? I don't think I can, but I can respect the person and I can communicate the truth of 2+2=4 in a loving, respectful way that will hopefully convince them to amend their belief in five to the truth of four. What they choose to believe is beyond my control, but I can make a choice to love them regardless of what they choose to believe. To love is not to agree with a belief someone holds that we are convicted is wrong; to love is to operate under the truth that all people are creations of the God that we love so deeply and as such they deserve our love and respect.
There are many voices in the world and even in the Church that suggest that all faith claims are equal and that we should accept and respect those beliefs because, "we all worship the same God." The problem with that belief is that if all religious claims are the same, why should I even bother to choose? The very act of choosing is making a statement that we believe the thing we choose is better than the others, or at least that we think it is better than the others. When I buy a four-door Jeep Rubicon Wrangler my choice is suggesting that I like it better than all other cars in that price range. When I choose Christianity as my religious belief system I am making a statement that I believe it is true and that other religious claims are false because to believe the claims of Christ is to believe that He is the exclusive way to the Father. When I hold this belief I cannot respect the belief of the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu or any other faith claim because my belief informs me that they are wrong; however, I can respect all of the people that hold those beliefs and love them as creations of our loving God.
God is ruler and Lord of all, that includes everyone who makes faith claims different than Christianity; and He loves everyone regardless of our beliefs be them right or wrong; but that does not make all beliefs correct or worthy of respect. People deserve our respect, not belief systems. We need to be boldly humble in the way we communicate the truth of God's love for us through His Son Jesus, but we need to communicate it as absolute truth that will save someone from the sin and frustration of their lives and replace it with joy, hope and love! Our God-given task is to respect people and to love them in a self-sacrificing, always-putting-others-first kind of way. Truth is inherently true, by definition it cannot be false, but for someone to accept a claim as true it is best communicated with love and respect.
Let us be boldly humble in sharing the Love of Christ!
I struggle with this because I believe that historically Christians have not communicated our exclusive convictions in very respectful or edifying ways and in many ways we continue some of those same hurtful patterns even today. For instance, as Christians many of us hold the belief that homosexuality is a sin and equally we all hold the belief that the only way to overcome sin is through the power of the Holy Spirit, but the way we behave towards the homosexual community is often times so unloving and disrespectful to them as people that we make it hard for them to come to a Christian walk where they can receive the very power we believe they need to overcome their sin. I believe that we need to truly alter the way we communicate God in Jesus Christ to others through a filter of love first and foremost. We need to always interact with people in the same way that Christ did, lovingly, respectfully, leaving their dignity as a person in tact. It is these beliefs of mine that make me sympathize with the sentiment the author is attempting to convey that we need to rethink how we share God's love, but the idea that to rethink how I communicate God's love to others I have to respect their belief even though I think it is wrong causes the hair on the back of my neck to bristle.
The question then becomes, "Does communicating God's love to someone mean I respect their beliefs or does it mean I respect them and their free will to choose another belief?" Can I respect a belief that I am convicted is wrong? If I know 2+2=4, if someone tells me, "no, 2+2=5" can I respect that belief that I know is wrong? I don't think I can, but I can respect the person and I can communicate the truth of 2+2=4 in a loving, respectful way that will hopefully convince them to amend their belief in five to the truth of four. What they choose to believe is beyond my control, but I can make a choice to love them regardless of what they choose to believe. To love is not to agree with a belief someone holds that we are convicted is wrong; to love is to operate under the truth that all people are creations of the God that we love so deeply and as such they deserve our love and respect.
There are many voices in the world and even in the Church that suggest that all faith claims are equal and that we should accept and respect those beliefs because, "we all worship the same God." The problem with that belief is that if all religious claims are the same, why should I even bother to choose? The very act of choosing is making a statement that we believe the thing we choose is better than the others, or at least that we think it is better than the others. When I buy a four-door Jeep Rubicon Wrangler my choice is suggesting that I like it better than all other cars in that price range. When I choose Christianity as my religious belief system I am making a statement that I believe it is true and that other religious claims are false because to believe the claims of Christ is to believe that He is the exclusive way to the Father. When I hold this belief I cannot respect the belief of the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu or any other faith claim because my belief informs me that they are wrong; however, I can respect all of the people that hold those beliefs and love them as creations of our loving God.
God is ruler and Lord of all, that includes everyone who makes faith claims different than Christianity; and He loves everyone regardless of our beliefs be them right or wrong; but that does not make all beliefs correct or worthy of respect. People deserve our respect, not belief systems. We need to be boldly humble in the way we communicate the truth of God's love for us through His Son Jesus, but we need to communicate it as absolute truth that will save someone from the sin and frustration of their lives and replace it with joy, hope and love! Our God-given task is to respect people and to love them in a self-sacrificing, always-putting-others-first kind of way. Truth is inherently true, by definition it cannot be false, but for someone to accept a claim as true it is best communicated with love and respect.
Let us be boldly humble in sharing the Love of Christ!
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