a life...

I am on the light rail, the public train in Denver, Colorado. I am on my way back from a day of training.

 Talking is a rare commodity. Papers and oblivion to the world, yet keenly aware of others all around.  We seem to be content with not talking, yet have this desire that over takes our self control, usually facilitated by someone else who also loses their ability to remain silent and looking busy, distracted or asleep. Kids often engage others as they have not bought into our incessant need to abide by social norms. 

My experiences this week have again convinced me that the social norms are not helpful. When I feel the Spirit move me to break into someone’s world they seem happy to have someone care enough to make the effort.  I will admit that for me, if I make this my habit even if the “spirit doesn’t move” I am quicker to be obedient when I do hear His still small voice.   

Paul speaks about training ourselves in righteousness. I would dare say that this is what I am referring to with my processing above.  

So, what do we do about this?  I am not saying that we have to share the gospel with everyone we talk to.  I think we just need to be nice and friendly.  One of those morning shows had someone make a challenge… Talk to one stranger everyday.  What a great challenge.  I think this is what I will blog about. I think I have finally found some motivation to write.   

Thanks for taking the time to “hear” my thoughts.

Paul shares in 1 Cor. 9 about how his desire to share the gospel has shaped who he is and decides what he does and does not do. This passage has led to a large dichotomy among believers today.   

With great passion many have sought to “purify” the church, to make her holy while here on earth.  They abstain and preach abstinence for the sake of the weak.  They criticize others who do not abstain with absolution, saying they compromise the gospel for the sake of culture.  The driver of Paul’s actions was a desire that people from. Very different cultures and belief systems could hear and see the Truth.  He was true to the gospel, to that none would argue.  If Paul became like one not under the law, did he continue to be a radical advocate of unequivocal obedience to the law? Did he possibly abide by the law himself, but find ways to be homest and loving to those not under the law?  How did he identify with them? 

I suppose it is good to be light from to time.  Daddy is one of my favorite names.  This little one has the cutest voice when she calls me.  There may come aday when I regret her learning to take me down.  For now, it brings me nothing but smiles!!!!

The circles in which I run often ask the question, “How do you help someone change?”.  Many have posed answers.  Many write case studies about effective ways to see life change happen.  Jay Adams wrote a whole book on it, and his conclusion could be summed up with just a few words.  We can’t, but God can.  He says that scripture can invoke change in someone.   While I disagree with many of his ways of dealing with people, some things are undeniable.  Gaining a new perspective can help someone change, as can significant events.  Ultimately though, if we are going to see substantial life change, it will happen as a result of God intervening.  It may be a loss or a crash or even a birth.  Regardless of the catalyst for the change, in time we will fall back into our old ways if we do not find ways to keep the new perspective that we have.

 I am holy.  This has been the most difficult thing in my life to accept. This is not a result of anything that I have accomplished, but is a reality that has become me because I have given away my right to this life and given control of my dreams, purpose and even vision over to the only one who is Holy without the work of another.  My perspective changed drastically as a result of this understanding. At first I was angry.  Then I was overwhelmed with sadness and ultimately I worshiped.  Change happened when I owned the gift of the scripture and what it has to say about me.  

So, the question for me is not how to help people change, but how to help them live in the reality that they are holy.  Peter told us that we need to be holy because God is holy.  If I understand that I am holy, I will change the things in my life that are not holy.  If I don’t I get eaten up inside by my own hypocrisy.  As we all know, that is not a pretty thing. Who loves a hypocrite?  God does, and I am so thankful. 

Exodus 24:9-11   Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

This is one of the most outrageous pasages to me for three reasons.

1.  This really happened.  These men climbed a moutain and saw God.  They are part of the very few in the history of the world that have seen God and lived to tell about.

2.  They didn’t just see God, but they hung out with him.  They drank and ate with God.  This was not take out. They communed, took in, and watched God. 

3.  God allowed them to see Him and it didn’t affect their lives for very long.  Just a few chapters later these same men have not only created an idol, but they ”sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” Ex 32  

 Somehow I have in my head that if I could only see God, I would not longer lose perspective.  There would be no way that I would ever skip ingesting the Bible everyday or pass on sharing faith, hope or love to someone in need.  If only I could see God on a moutain.  But, these men prove to me that there is nothing in this world apart from God that keep my perspective.  There is no one time experience that will protect me, or those with whom I serve, from making some really poor choices.  I can make this life all about me every day, if I choose to. It is not that difficult to forget what I have been shown. 

These men were entrusted to see God. They had already been entrusted with leading God’s people and now they got the ultimate experience in life.  Yet, they ”got up to induldge in revelry”. 

This challenges me t0 pray for those who lead my community of faith.  It challenges me to keep my eyes on what God has done, is doing and will do in the future.  It has challenged not to forget. 

What about you?

Psalm 25:8-9 

Good and upright is the LORD;
       therefore he instructs sinners in His ways.

He guides the humble in what is right
       and teaches them His way.

This morning I woke reminded that His mercies are new every morning.  Somehow, mine weren’t.  Somethings happen in my life that are hard to let go of.  I say that I forgive, and I truly beleive it when I forgive.  Then I wake up the next day and it is still there. I try to forgive again, and yet I somehow lose it again.  We should all be so glad that I am not God. 

Then love breaks in and I experience the beauty of life in ways I dreamed about, but for so long never lived.  Then in an hour, a fire in our complex brings back the reality that we are intimately impacted by those around us.  There was little warning, except the voice of my little girl over the last few weeks asking us to pray against a fire.  The complication was that a large water leak caused them to shut off the water for our complex this morning, an extra ten minutes of flames can have a large impact.  Peggy, a neighbor had just left when she got the call that her apartment was being flooded as they tried to put out the fire in her upstairs neighbor’s house.   

We asked a few neighbors to help pitch in and the largest donation came from a Muslim neighbor.  Overwhelmed by the gifts, Peggy was off to buy socks, underwear, and toothbrushes. 

Maybe to top it off, or maybe just another one of those days, when the water was finally turned back on, our bathroom and bedroom flooded.  We should be dry in a few days.  Today in class we pondered the value of work.  Work that doesn’t entail seeing someone made whole, repaired or “ministered to”, the common work that most of us do.  A guy showed up at our house and cleaned up the mess.  Today, his work was sacred to us.  He may go home tired and feeling somewhat less than adequate, not being a missionary or a pastor, but he was my hero today. 

The scriptures tell us not to count on tomorrow.  It also tells us that we are to work as if unto God, no matter what we are doing. 

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds.

Being blind for a long long time…In John 9 Jesus heals a blind man.  His disciples asked if this man or his parents had sinned and that is why he was blind.  Jesus said neither.  It was only Adam’s original sin that would allow God to use the frailty and falleness of man to display His glory.  The man’s parents must have been crushed by his lack of sight.  Yes, he was a boy, which was a good thing in those days, but blindness would cause him to be a beggar, not worthy of the time invested in normal children who would be productive and eventually inherent and even cause the family name to go on.  No, from the beginning I can imagine that there was deep heartache in the parents of this boy.  The hours of weeping, the hurts of broken dreams, and this was just for the parents.  Once you begin to look at the life without site, in a hard world lacking any luxuries, you might begin to realize what this life of pitch black was.  You look nice today, what a pretty…, these are all lost phrases on this man.  Since the beginning, he has been utterly dependent on others.  Something, unless the rest of us, he has never grown out of.  Jesus shows up and finally give reason to the pain, agony and heartache, the utter uselessness of this man’s life.  John 9:3 says “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.�  Not one of us can say that we have had a completely useless life.  This is most definitely true for this man.  A man who lived to adulthood in obscurity and shame, shunned by many in society and a burden, God chooses to use. 

Our foster daughter may often feel like this man throughout her life.  Why didn’t my mom and dad love me?  Why did I get passed around?  Does anyone really love me?  Am I that messed up that people don’t want me?  To her and to me, to each of us, the years of heartache, being lost, dying on the inside, physical pain, are for a reason… that the work of God might be displayed in our lives. There will come a day when we are finally able to see.  That promise is from God and is recorded by Paul in 1 Cor 13:12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.â€?   Today, I say let us endure.  Whatever may come, let us hold tight to the truth that one day we will understand fully.  For now, I pray for you and for me that we would have the ability to trust and rest in the arms of the one who made us as we are for a reason.

“Anthropologists define an idol as anything that is sacred such that it defines our self-worth, becomes the controlling center of our life, and is the last in a series of priorities to go.� (Your Work Matters to God-Sherman and Hendricks p.37)  God is to be our idol.  The commandments tell that we are not to make for ourselves an idol, or have any other god before the One True God.  Yet, from an anthropologist’s viewpoint, God is our idol.  Yet, many would never call God our idol, because our lives do not flesh out this definition.  For many, we do not allow God to define our self worth.  We have bought into finding our value in the job that we do.  Our desires are often our priorities instead of God being the controlling center of our lives.  Lastly, our lives rarely show God as the priority of our lives.So, the question for me is would someone else say that God is my idol?  If not, then what do I need to rearrange in my life so that God will be the one in which I find my self-worth, the controlling center of my life and the last of my priorities to go?

After seeking God and asking for specific signs that this is God’s will, I am like Abraham’s servant.  Genesis 24:21 The servant asked for God to have the person Isaac was supposed to marry get water for him and his camels.  His prayer was answered exactly as he has prayed.  “The servant watched in silence, wondering whether or not the Lord had given him success in his mission.�  Why is that we don’t act as soon as God does what we ask from Him.  There is a story in Luke 16 about a man who died and went to hell.  He wants the poor beggar that he had once looked down on to go back and warn his brothers. Jesus finishes the parable with this incredibly difficult thought.  “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.� Many times I have sought God’s will only to be frustrated by the answer.  Other times I think that it must be God’s will, but am hesitant to act.  What do I need to be obedient?            

Camp
Kirkland once said that he thought it was less about the specifics and more about your heart.  I can see that.  If you are seeking God and are willing to do His will, then the things that we do in the world, the kind of job or where we live have little much less to do with God being honored than obedience in the little things that He says throughout the day.  My co-workers will see and hear the gospel if I am teacher, computer tech or counselor, living in California, Africa or
Florida.  So, my prayer… Lord help me obey the first time.  As I tell my kids.  Delayed obedience is disobedience.