Why Are We Surprised?

This is the face of the Christian these days, as the world sees it. 

I wish I were wrong. I wish I were overreacting, and that it's only in personal experience. The fact is, it's been a long time since someone accused me to my face of coming across this way (so I pray there aren't a bunch of people silently thinking it!). It's what you hear in the media. It's what you can see in the responses of non-Christians or non-spiritual types on social media platforms, when they rant and rave against our attitudes, judgments, and airs of superiority that come out in rantings and ravings of our own.

Look, I get it. I have been the chief of sinners, of the overly indignant and righteously angry variety, many many times. I have been the Matt Walsh-esque ranter and raver over the atrocities of our godless society, and have found justification in the manner of delivery because many others will yell "Here, here!" and "Amen!" along with me. 

And hey, I get it... I've seen the headlines. I've witnessed the manifestations of leftist living in my communities, and have shaken my head quietly to myself. Probably in the not too distant past my own Facebook page has occasionally had more frustrated posts shared that just bemoaned the loss of Christian values along with more popular outspoken Christians like the Robertsons of "Duck Dynasty" (and don't get me wrong, I love the show, love the values, love the family). 

The point is, what good are we doing by being so shocked at the horrible deeds of murderous ISIS members? What's accomplished by public outrage over the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage nationally? Are we fixing anything or getting anywhere when we rant and rave piously about how the government isn't kicking down the door of Planned Parenthood? 

Why all the ruckus? Why all the clamor and commotion in righteous wrath? Why are we so surprised at the way the world is living and operating today?

I say this not to discredit the evils in all these things. Rather, I want to encourage us all to wake up and smell the coffee. This is ALL - all of it - to be expected....IF we understand the times in which we live.

"The person without the Spirit does not

accept the things that come from the Spirit

of God but considers them foolishness, 

and cannot understand them because they are

discerned only through the Spirit. The person

with the Spirit makes judgments about all 

things, but such a person is not subject

to merely human judgments, for,

'Who has known the mind of the Lord

so as to instruct him?'

But we have the mind of Christ."

- 1 Corinthians 2:14-16

Americans today have lost the culture. It's a simple fact of the times. Every dominant civilization throughout the course of history has ridden the same roller coaster of morality in their own national history. Everywhere the gospel has thrived at one time has eventually turned its back on God's Word and kicked it to the curb. That may very well be what's happening, historically, before our very eyes as the 20th century has transitioned into the 21st and the new parameters of enlightenment are qualified by just how unChristian they can be. We are continually becoming a nation of "persons without the Spirit." And St. Paul says in the above portion of his letter to Corinthian believers that wherever there's an absence of the Spirit, there's an absence of wisdom. There's an absence of discretion and ability to make proper judgments. 

It's just such a sad thing to see happening, though. That's why we all get so worked up. Maybe at the center of it there is often a truly righteous zeal for God's Word to be protected and abided by, and although we may have said, like Joshua in ancient times, "As for me and my house, WE WILL serve the Lord," we're grieved in our souls to watch as so many other millions of people or families just have abandoned him, or never really knew him to begin with. 

But if you're like me, all this supposedly righteous anger and stern indignance comes out in its frowny-faced, index-finger-wagging form because we believe the lie that we're actually better than others. 

We forget that the sins we each commit every Sunday afternoon, barely hours removed from church fellowship, are every bit as damning as the ones committed by Muslim extremists, abortionists selling baby parts, crooked politicians, homosexuals, or criminals whose acts reported in the evening news make our blood boil.

If you're not a committed follower of Jesus, this message isn't for you. I pray for you, and hope that you'll find the peace and amazing promise of a heaven free of charge, thanks to Jesus Christ, that has been mercifully given to me and all true Christians. I pray that you'll understand we don't mean to be so.....mean...We're just upset that we look around in our world and feel sometimes, culturally, like it's all closing in on us and the values we hold dear. Frankly, we're proud of ourselves and the stand we want to make, and we just get - well, defensive! If we take it out on non-Christians like you and judge too harshly, when we should be focusing on our own problems and lives, we're very sorry. It's NOT how Jesus lived, nor how he wants us to live and represent him. Seriously.

But brothers and sisters in the faith we share in Christ, this message IS for you, and for me. 

We need to chill out. 

We need to stop believing the lie that A) we're better than the ones we think are ruining the culture, and we should shame them all back into line, and B) that this world's salvation is about us. 

This is our Father's world. The wisdom that comes through his Holy Spirit, that we're privileged to possess, comes only from one place, and when and where it's found, that's literally a miracle. By nature, every last one of us, including the pastors, including the life-long Lutherans, including the faithful Baptists, including the born-again Methodists, including the spiritually passionate and the ones who know every Bible verse hands-down...we were ALL born diametrically opposed to God and his will. If it weren't for his act of mercy, to reach into our lives, just as we wish he would with those in the headlines, we'd be JUST as lost. We'd be JUST as despicable looking to the pious ones. 

And as for the fate of our society, our culture, and our nation.... All we can do about that is live how Jesus lived, and pray about the results. 

Jesus' M.O. was not all about the table-flipping in the temple bazaar. It was love-centric. It was hope for redemption cloaked warmly in acceptance of the person, and value of their humanity and their eternal soul. It was sacrifice, humility, and a courageous willingness to lay himself down for another, no matter the personal cost. It was a submission to God's will at the expense of personal comfort or agenda. It was never about appearances and pedigree, and ALWAYS about what's on the inside, the heart of man. 

God doesn't call us to be judges up on high pedestals. We can speak his truth and convey his wisdom and reason with people who don't have his Spirit yet...but when the situation allows it, and with tact, with gentleness, and with a love and concern for their spiritual welfare, not with the selfish desire to be right or to be vindicated. 

God calls us to be faithful. What was Jesus' image of faithfulness? Did he get dragged to his crucifixion, kicking and screaming, frothing at the mouth with furious condemnations of his accusers and executioners? Did he rant and rave about how they'd get their just desserts in the flames of hell for treating him, God's own son, like that? 

Nope. He was silent, like a lamb before the shearers. As he was led to his own physical slaughter, he quietly bled, and prayed, and yearned inside for there to be room in heaven for all those he would save with his blood. And upon the cross, as the spikes pulled through the flesh of his wrists, and the jeers of his fellow Jews and Roman soldiers seared in his ears, he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

They know not. Remember that. Because they don't have the Spirit, like we do.

Is it in stark opposition to God's ways? Yes. Is it the kind of living that will earn hell? Perhaps. 

But we'll pray them and love them into heaven long before we'll finger-wag them there. 

And when they stand next to us in eternal paradise at the foot of Jesus' throne, we'll look exactly the same to our Savior who loved us all. 

The Next Place

"It's just a temporary body, Mommy. You don't have to go to the next place."

Long after the credits rolled, I sat stunned and thought about what I'd just been taught by the movie "CHAPPiE." Could it be that there's more this film was saying about mankind's perception of this existence than just some fanciful curiosity about artificial intelligence, as a possibility in our modern society?

I've seen other movies in the past 10 to 15 years that explored this idea of artificial intelligence, but something about this film - maybe even this one line with which I opened, uttered by CHAPPiE to a deceased Yolandi - really struck me with a thought:

We don't want this life to end. 

To give a quick background on everything (and if you haven't seen this movie, and would like to without a spoiler, then go rent it on Redbox, watch it with a grain of salt - it's rated R for pervasive language and violence, mostly - and come back to my post later):

CHAPPiE is created when an engineer repurposes a scrap robot from a futuristic robotic police force that's been put into play in Johannesburg, South Africa. His maker, Deon, has had a breakthrough in A.I. and CHAPPiE is the test bot who comes to display extraordinary development and all the traits of humanity, down to discerning between right and wrong, truth and lies, and fear and loyalty. CHAPPiE is caught between the influences of good and evil (i.e. Deon, his programmer, and a family of criminals). In the end, he comes to realize the gravity of the fact that his battery, which is inextricably connected to his body's chassis, will run out, and he'll die, in essence. Among all the fracas of the various plot lines converging, CHAPPiE wants to find another robot body to download his own consciousness into from a programming he's made himself. He gets his chance to first see this manifested successfully when he transfers Deon's consciousness into another robot before he can die of a mortal wound. The two get CHAPPiE transferred into another robot (there are lots of vacant, "offline" robot bodies lying around by the end of this flick) before his battery life ends, and they return to the family of criminals to help Ninja (CHAPPiE's "daddy") bury his girlfriend, Yolandi (who had CHAPPiE call her "Mommy"), who died in a gunfight. As the movie ends, CHAPPiE is accessing manufacturing to autonomously create a replica robot body for Yolandi, so her consciousness can be transferred off a flash drive it was saved to from syncing with her consciousness earlier in the movie by way of a helmet that controls other robots. Before that final image of Yolandi's replica creation, CHAPPiE says the words I opened with as they bury Yolandi:

"It's just a temporary body, Mommy. You don't have to go to the next place."

"The next place," according to Yolandi in the movie, as she tells CHAPPiE about death one night, is the name of the ambiguous place we go to when we meet our end. 

Aside from what CHAPPiE learns experientially during the movie, there's no direct indoctrination of this sentient being that he shouldn't want to die, or that going to the "next place" is a horrible thing. The fact that CHAPPiE wants so badly to stay alive that it essentially overrides his program and leads him to break promises to his maker, to not commit crimes, to ensure his survival, seems to suggest that this subtext of the story is a reflection of our society's view of the afterlife. 

I wonder if this is why movies about artificial intelligence are so popular, and seeming to spike in number in recent years ("Lucy," "Transcendent," "Ex Machina"). Mankind has always been searching for a solution to the problem - as mankind sees it - of mortality. Be it the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon tried to find as a conquistador, or any other elixirs or scientific advancements, fictional or real-life, that have been concocted...it's as if we just can't stomach the idea of having to die, or lose others to death. 

This is, of course, nothing new. We want to live forever, and in a way that's totally natural. There was a time when such a desire would've been completely normal and would've been realized, since we were originally created to live forever, by God. That original design, though, was sabotaged by the Fall into sin and ever since those first people, Adam and Eve, mankind has been pining for the immortality that we lost. 

The "next place," however, doesn't have to be the dreaded destination that most will make of it nowadays. 

The creators of the idea in the film "CHAPPiE" will have you believe that one way of looking at the consciousness of humanity is that it's the soul. Science has yet to truly come to terms with what the consciousness is, and maybe that's because it is the soul, as God speaks of it in Scriptures. Maybe the lines on that subject are too blurry for us humans to ever understand. 

But what I can know, as a Christian, is that my soul is meant for heaven. That next place that waits for me, until the God-ordained time when I'll pass away from this earth, is a beautiful place that will be the awarded to me because of God's mercy and grace. It will be an existence completely devoid of sadness, anger, sin, pain, death, or fear. Everything dark and dreadful about this life on this fallen earth will be in the rearview mirror and fading fast. As many a hymn will say, "Heaven is my home." I'm just a tourist here. 

Watching CHAPPiE struggle and strain with his last gasps of energy and battery to survive to prolong the "life" of his maker, Deon, and then to ultimately extend his own consciousness -- basically, to live forever, just makes me wonder "WHY?"

What is there here that's so worth clinging onto? What is the often times maniacal drive of man to try and stay alive, as if every inch he creeps closer to death and the afterlife is a torment and a cruel harbinger?

I guess where there's no God, there's no hope of anything more. Maybe that's all these artificial intelligence plots serve to remind us of. Of course, there'll be other messages sent in movies such as this that suggest that this is all about an evolutionary truth that, in the grand scheme of things, mankind has only ever been an entity of consciousness, and the human body as we know it today is just the latest vessel we've had to deal with traveling in. If we were to evolve further and live on in more durable shells like robots or other mechanical means, maybe we'd be better off?

Or maybe....just maybe....we're not meant for any of it. We do serve a purpose while here in this mortal life, but that's God's purpose. It's a sometimes mysterious mission, but it grows ever brighter and more vibrant under the light of God's grace, forgiveness, and new life in Christ. And when this time here is up, according to his heavenly plan, we get to go to "the next place." 

This "we" I'm referring to is anyone who has the one true God in their heart. It's true that, without knowing him and his plan for me, and all of the liberating truths he has in store, this life's brevity and fragility could be so frightening, and could lead me to scramble for any options that could prolong my time. That's why it's an indescribable relief that, thanks to Jesus Christ, I've been given the prospect of a far different ending one day.

That ending will be only the beginning. "The next place" will be the place where God's always been wanting me to be, the true home I long for in my heart. That's where eternity in God's presence begins. I guess the makers of "CHAPPiE" got one thing right: We can live forever. 

Just not here. Nor should we want to, considering how immeasurably greater life in "the next place" can be.

In the deepest part of my being, I wish for this destiny for everyone. CHAPPiE was spot on. It's just a temporary body...But we do have to go to the next place. If heaven, where God dwells in eternity, is your next place, you'll be doing better than ever. 

The Christian Franchisee

So many things in life can feel impossible at times. Those of us possessing melodramatic tendencies know especially well how it can feel overwhelming to do this thing called life. For the Christian, it can be even worse if you, like me, are a hypocan'triac. 

(Okay, okay, I'll pre-emptively oblige my wife's request to explain the geeky made up term: a hypocan'triac - not to be confused with a hypochondriac, someone who always believes they're sick - is someone who's always up against something impossible.)

See, the hypocan'triac suffers from a disease of the mind. It's all in their head. After all, Philippians 4:13 encourages us with the message that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." When God's power attends the man or woman who truly wants to be about his will and his business in life, their missions and pursuits cannot be stopped. Successes may not always come in streaks or bunches, and may not be to the scale that our human perspective feels entitled to require of God for us to see proof. But with God, nothing is impossible (hence the name of this blog site). 

But the hypocan'triac just continually feels overwhelmed by something that CAN'T be done. Maybe it's a pesky temptation that hasn't been defeated, and it's become a vicious and debilitating pet sin. Maybe it's circumstantial; the checkbook just refuses to be balanced, the favorite sports team just will not have a winning season, or the spouse fails over and over to meet some very *cough* reasonable expectations about coexisting in the same household. Or it might be more big picture stuff, like discovering a true and defined purpose in life to really feel invigorated by. 

To be honest though, whether you share the symptoms or behaviors of a classic hypocan'triac, or you're just someone who has experienced feelings of impossibility in life a couple times...there's good news for all. 

[Spoiler alert: I already tipped it off in a general fashion with the Philippians passage.]

I've had some things really get in my way this year so far. I realize that much of this hindered feeling is self-generated and overplayed in my mind, but there's truth, too, in the reality that obstacles have sprung up in my way as I seek to move forward as a husband, father, friend, church volunteer, citizen, employee, and grad school student. Just one big example of these things to get me wearing out the word "impossible" again is a year's worth of neck, shoulder, and back pains that have culminated in an MRI diagnosis and surgery recommendation for July. I'm not over-exaggerating when I say that'll throw a bit of a wrench in our summer's spokes. But I've gone farther than that in my mind and heart as I anticipate that event and its before-and-after ramifications. Suddenly, having a good summer and a successful rest of my 2015 seems to be leaning toward "impossible." 

What a wuss I can be! Would I really succumb that easily/quickly to "just getting by" mode, or to having a "damage control" year?

Thankfully Pastor Jason at our church, Hope, recently gave a powerful sermon to close out a recent sermon series called "Undone." His message that particular Sunday, "Right Hand Man" (check it out on hopeinjesus.org - see Messages tab), made a life-giving point:

"Jesus' life is not only to be admired, it is to be experienced."

When hearing again that day about the deeper meaning to the day of Jesus' ascension back to heaven, I was reminded that as a Christian, all this defeatist talk is just so counterproductive. The idea has taken time to set in and take root because, well, we hypocan'triacs are a little too set in our ways sometimes. But God keeps knocking at the door of my heart with his truth-o'-grams, waiting for me to be ready to really let it in. 

Do you get that? Do you grasp that we've got so much important and amazing work to be done, as Christians, that we can't afford to sit around whining and wondering if something is possible or not?? 

Your life is God's work. OF COURSE it's possible!!

Matthew 28's final verses hold something for the reader that's considered by Christians the world around to be the "Great Commission." In other words, if you're a follower of Jesus and you wrestle with the ages old existential query, "Why am I here?" you may want to start with Matthew 28:19-20. It'll guide so much of your ambitions, and begin to heal wounds and solve problems faster than any other manmade philosophy. And the passage of the sermon I'm citing refers to the same account from a different angle, in Acts chapter 1. 

Therein lies the empowerment to "do work, son." Because Jesus left behind his mission for us to carry on, we know we are meant to succeed.  

You see, while it's wrong thinking and false theology to want to act like Jesus because we think it'll put some icing on the cake of our salvation, which only his blood won for us on the cross, it IS acceptable and spiritually enlightening to recall that every Christian is an embodiment of Christ's roles of prophet, priest, and king in our own individual lifetimes. We have been endowed with the mission. We have been left with the humbling responsibility to keep his kingdom growing in the hearts of mankind even today!

When you look at the words of the Great Commission, it's sobering to note that Jesus didn't say it was somehow optional to be an evangelist with your life if you've become a Christian. It's no add-on, custom feature when you buy into following Jesus (and, theologically speaking, for the record, the Bible shows there's no actual buy-in, per se, it's a free gift, a true inheritance). He said in Acts 1:8, "...You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

When he said, "...you WILL BE my witnesses," that was a little stronger and more affirmative language than, "You can decide to maybe be witnesses if you want," or "If you feel like you've got the gift of sermonizing, and nothing stands in your way, you can consider being witnesses." 

Also worth noting about this passage is its timing. Christ's words came as an answer. His disciples' question was the same type of question we often ask of God. They were out there in that meadow, gathered together, and as the sensation that Jesus was about to doing something else really big was mounting in everyone's minds, disciples asked, "Are you at this time going to restore the Kingdom of God?" 

Jesus' answer: Nope. You are. You're my witnesses. You know the truth. You have facts, a real actual story of salvation for all people, and YOU get to be the ones to go share it. I'm leaving you behind with that mission. 

We too more often than not spiritually rest back on our laurels and ask this sort of thing. Not necessarily about a full, dramatic restoration of the kingdom (which, in the disciples' case, meant that Christ would ruthlessly overthrow the Roman empire's presence in the Judean province and set the Jews free of their political and earthly oppression). But we have our own preconceived notions, whimsical dreams, or even real issues in life that seem insurmountable to us, and we just want God to solve it. Maybe it's because we're thinking about how powerful God is, and it's as natural to ask him to step in as it is for a pipsqueak little boy to ask an MMA fighter to go take down the neighborhood 3rd grader bully. But maybe it's also laziness. I know for me, it usually is.

But we're meant for more. God had a reason for his plans to not include Jesus converting the entire human race before returning to his home in heaven, next to the throne of the Father. His reason was that he delights even more in having entrusted that huge mission to his children, his redeemed sons and daughters - YOU and ME - and letting us share in the tremendous glory of accomplishing it. We get to be the Lord's tools. We are his hands and feet, bringing that saving word of truth with us. We are his megaphones, calling out hope in the midst of confusion and darkness and spiritual hopelessness. 

There is some serious work to be done. We have been left something big to get done. It won't be all on us to make it happen, because luckily the power of God has also been left behind to us to use in his name. 

Here's an analogy I think is very fitting. The Christian, the Jesus-follower, is very much like a franchisee. 

Think about it. Any entrepreneur is going to automatically be striking out on their own to accomplish their goals of financial freedom and business autonomy. But to buy into a pre-existing franchise and utilize all the tools, resources, programs, services, and reputation of the franchise in one's own individual business endeavor is very savvy. It's the act of harnessing something that was started without you, that you just carry forward, and as long as you stick to the program, you yourself can be a successful embodiment of the franchise's brand which you represent. 

As a Christian, we receive the already existing, undeniably effective, all-important enterprise of the one true faith, and the commission of the Kingdom of God whose reign expands within hearts and minds of people. We're not mere representatives. We're not meek, bored, underpaid employees who don't qualify for any benefits, or can be laid off at any moment. We are the owners of the kingdom too, because it was left behind by the original founder, Jesus Christ. He has given us the rights of children, and with his advocacy and empowerment, we're not meant to fail. 

So if there was ever something to aspire to that could never be labeled futile, or impossible, it's carrying out God's work. You don't have to be a pastor or a Sunday School teacher, you don't have to be a Seminary professor, you don't have to be the most knowledgeable elder of your local congregation. You don't have to be this or that. You just need to be a Christian. 

Is a Christian someone who's morally better than others? Someone who sins less, or commits puny, PG-rated sins? Someone who's memorized every Bible passage? No. Every Christian is someone whose evil heart has been made new by faith, whose slate of unspeakable deeds and thoughts is washed clean, and who now belongs to God instead of being his damned enemy. 

All you need is the laminated tag of being a franchisee of the Kingdom. And you got that handed to you for free - no entrance fee, no capital, no solid credit score requirement - all because Christ found you worthy of his sacrifice on the cross. 

Hypocan'triacs really run clean out of excuses when joining those slack-jawed disciples on that grassy hill, watching Jesus ascend to heaven, with those words fresh in the mind...

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)

There is no "can't." There is no impossible. There is just a mission, a Great Commissioner who set me free with his own death and resurrection, and a promise that I'm never alone in my endeavor. 

I am the Kingdom. I am the temple of God. I am the franchise headquarters. His mission is mine. His power is mine. 

Now that we know that success is promised, and victory is sure, and nothing's impossible, let's get to work!

Pssssssst...Look Up.

I'm going to be really vulnerable, really transparent, and show some brokenness right now. I hope you don't mind. In Euro-American culture - in most cultures, I think, in fact - it's not exactly masculine to lay it out there like this. But sometimes, truths of God, and going along with His "culture," is counter-cultural to everything we know. 

And right now, that's ok. It is Lent, after all, and Lent is when we are stripped to our most vulnerable place, to our core, to where all is made evident and nothing can be hidden anymore. How could our sin, our pride, our facades, and our brokenness remain hidden when Jesus is making his way to that bloody cross, and about to be literally stripped, and to hang there for us, in all his humiliating vulnerability?

So, here it is...

I need people. 

Yeah, so? You shrug as you start humming and clapping to the tune of "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers. We all need *clap* somebody....to lean...

NO. Listen. You don't get it. I NEED people. 

Look, it's nothing I like to admit. A basic need of human living, psychologists may say. We are indeed relational beings. It's why solitary confinement drives prisoners literally crazy. But for some of us, it can go to unhealthy lengths. 

My brokenness is that, lately, I am needing people too much. This is not something I go around thinking to myself about at a conscious level each day. This has been a recently re-recognized disruption of my psyche, and I only truly became aware of it to its fullest extent today in a singular, solitary, painful moment of clarity. More on that in a moment...

Sometimes we're going along and, you know...something just feels....off.  You have some things in place, some critical things have panned out your way, you have the confidence of the love of those closest to you, and yet you just feel off. 

For me, I often find it curious and kind of deranged that anyone can ever feel alone in this day and age. We have social media outlets, shopping malls crowded with people, bustling cities, bars, coffee shops, libraries, bus stops, train depots, subways, churches with fellow church-goers joining you every Sunday morning, workplaces, and, for many of us, people right in our own very domiciles (either a spouse, spouse-and-kids, kids, significant other, or at least a roommate). Getting away from people, for those who value true alone time, is actually a very highly sought after commodity and challenging thing to come by....when you want it. 

And yet, as ultra-connected as we are, with as busy lives as we lead, and with fellow human beings swarming all around, we can still wind up feeling ALONE. 

Maybe you can relate. It's not a feeling of actually not having anyone around, and physically being alone. It's the feeling that no one draws near to you, relationally, and no one understands you; no one knows what you're specifically going through, right NOW. 

If you're me, what do you do about that?

I guess, in retrospect, what I end up doing about it is proverbially scampering around, looking sideways at each person in my life, sizing up their availability to be closer, to "get me" more, and to fill those needs of validation, appreciation, encouragement, respect, loving affection, reassurance, or whatever it may be that my soul feels a lack of inside. It tends to be 'round about that time when my gauges' needles are all quivering up at the top of the meters and I'm red-lining in these pursuits or concerns that I finally hit a wall and sit back and realize I'm doing it, and that I should chill out. 

Only lately, what my friend Josh posted about on Facebook is even more confoundingly true than usual. He said:

" 'Did God really say...' An effective deception that worked on Adam and Eve and still works on mankind today."

I shared with him that I thought this was so true, and definitely poignant about how Satan gets us to fall into many of our sins everyday. I didn't even realize at the time how self-indicting that was for me to say. 

I fall, and fall hard, for the lie Satan uses on me when he whispers with that conniving forked tongue, "Did God really say, 'Surely, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20b)'?" No, instead he slowly but surely, over the course of days and weeks, and maybe even months, eases me into a funk where I'm going about my days under the assumption that God, my Savior, has forgotten me. 

So, says my subconscious, since I'm not finding that approval, that validation, that encouragement, that empowerment or respect from God since he is absent and silent, why not search for it in my relationships with a spouse, a family member, a friend, a coworker, or whoever might oblige me? If I have to, why not even demand it or beg for it? Aren't my needs my NEEDS??

And the confusion, the desperation, the loneliness, and even at times, despair, settles in. It winds its way through the ebb and flow of everyday moods. It lurks when I'm tired. It pokes at me quietly yet annoyingly when I'm already on edge from some external provocation, like a child pestering when you're trying to focus on something else for a critical moment. 

And it becomes me. I become a man who believes he is marooned on an island. Surrounded by a sea of people who exist so that I may serve them, and yet my selfish and egocentric wiles driving me to hope to extract something from any interaction with them that I can. And all because...

I'VE FORGOTTEN JESUS. 

Yes, I still know he exists. But when those crunch time moments carry me onward and I can only look inside, or persistently all around at those who are my fellow human beings at my sides, it's as if I'm forgetting who he is, who he means to me, and why he went to that cross for me. 

Until that painful moment of clarity arrives. It may find you anywhere. It may find you on the trip to work, in your pew at church, on the sofa during a quiet evening, in the classroom during study hall; it may find you here, there, or anywhere....or it may find you while you're showering, and the state of relaxation and the ambiance of soothing water running down you to cleanse you somehow finds your fog clearing just enough to see it.

"Pssst....Look up," the Spirit said. 

Freezing in my place, and stopping every tiny motion or thought in my mind, I listen again...

"Why do you look in vain all around? Why do you run and run, and search frantically, my son?"

"Why do you forget me? I haven't forgotten you.........Look up." 

The whisper beckons within my mind. I let the thought run its course. Really, I can't help it. It seizes me and takes hold of me. The tears run with the shower water that already cascades down. 

I forgot all about him. I lost him in my fog. I let myself believe he forgets about me, and I went searching for what only he can provide. He's right there, looking at me, looking for me, waiting, oh so patiently, wondering when I'll wake up and look back up above it all, to see him again. 

And he continues:

"I cannot forget you. I don't know how. I wouldn't forget you, or any of the billions of you and your brothers and sisters, as I walked that bitter road to that rugged cross. It was with YOU in mind that I let myself be staked down, let myself bleed, let myself give up that final breath, and all while knowing the Father forsook me so he wouldn't have to forsake you."

"I know your pain. I know how it feels to be neglected. I know how it feels to be marginalized or forgotten about. I know worse pains, like being rejected vehemently, and being made the brunt of ridicule so fierce you can't grasp its very origin."

"I'm your brother.....I'm your truest friend. I never forgot those who are mine."

"So why have you forgotten me?"


Then the truth returns. It dispels that fog. It quiets the heartbeat that races in urgency and desperation without my even realizing it. The truth says...

What you seek you can ONLY find in me. I've been waiting for you, right here. 

The cross is where I see that Jesus doesn't, and can't, forget about me. Selfish sinner that I am, spiritually blind and prone to straying though I may be, his gaze is always on me, and his words of affirmation and affection are always drifting on the breeze of his holy presence. I can always find him when I simply seek HIM.

The cross is where I am found once again. It's where I get healed again. It's where I remember, with a force like a western wind gusting up to fill the sails of a boat listing adrift, that I am someone, because I belong to Jesus, and because he gave his all for me. 

I needed that truth to come find me again, so badly. I needed the reminder of my need for penitence and sorrow over this sin of self-centeredness, this sin of foolishly believing ancient lies that I am somehow alone. 

I hope that, if you need that reminder too, especially during this Lenten time, that you'll find it as well. I hope that you'll lay down whatever has been weighing you down, stop looking around, and...

"Pssssst......LOOK UP." 

Fixation

"You will keep in perfect peace

all who trust in you,

all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

Trust in the LORD always, 

for the LORD God is the eternal Rock.

He humbles the proud and 

brings down the arrogant city.

He brings it down to the dust.

The poor and oppressed trample it

underfoot, and the needy 

walk all over it.

But for those who are righteous,

the way is not steep and rough.

You are a God who does what is right,

and you smooth out the path 

ahead of them.

LORD, we show our trust in you by

obeying your laws;

our heart's desire is to glorify your name.

In the night I search for you;

in the morning I earnestly seek you."

- Isaiah 26:3-9 (NLT)

Lately the spiritual mantra that I've tried to set forth for my family is to live by the words of Matthew 6:33. This passage basically says, Seek after the things of God first and foremost, and everything else will fall into place. The first 30-or-so verses of that chapter talk about all the possessions and material matters and agendas we chase after, and how God tends to that stuff for us. So verse 33 exhorts us to try fixating on our Lord and Savior, rather than on those earthly needs and issues, since he's promised to take care of it all anyway. 

Always a good M.O. for godly living. But always SO difficult, isn't it? That's why it's great that God provides multiple reminders of the blessings and positives of those who are found seeking God, in many other passages as well, such as this one above, from Isaiah 26. 

The point of that whole passage above, and Matthew 6:33:

Stay busy seeking God, and you'll find everything else. 

I've often wondered why it is that our Father in heaven makes such a concerted effort to convey through Scriptures that we should fixate on him. In my tainted humanity I ask, "Is he narcissistic? Is he self-centered in a vain way and just wants all eyes on him?"

It usually takes us off in all sorts of convoluted tangents and dangerous philosophical rabbit holes when we try to ascribe the same motives to God for the behavior we often display. After all, even though God does some things men are meant to understand and appreciate, many things - nay, MOST - are just wrought from an intellect and center of being that's so much higher than ours that we just can't grasp it. 

So let's use one thing we know is true from God's Word to understand another. If I can honestly say I know the central message of this anthology of ancient manuscripts, the Bible, is God's passionate, merciful, never-giving-up kind of love for mankind, his creation.....then how does this desire of his to always have our eyes on him fit within that?

Eureka! It's cuz he wants us to experience that love! It's cuz he wants us to trust him, and by doing so, to get out of our own way, so the blinders can be lifted and our widened and lifted gaze can fully behold all of the picture of his love. 

I have only managed glimpses of this in my lifetime, because I still fail so often to just trust him. I know in my head that he sent his only son to die for my sins, and that such a love must mean he REALLY has my best interests in mind all the time, so it would naturally follow that he'd take care of all the rest too (see Romans 8:32, part of one of my favorite chapters of the Bible). But does my heart follow? 

Isaiah says in 26:3, "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you."

Perfect peace, huh? Hmmm....

(I'm taking a moment to stop what I'm doing, stare out the window long enough to kind of daydream and picture that, and imagine such a thing...hold on a sec.)

*heaving a long sigh* Oh, to feel such a peace all the time. It's not like being zonked out by a hypnotist. It's not like being high or drunk and you just feel no inhibitions. It's not even so much a feeling of any kind, but rather a state of being. It's a knowledge. It's knowing that I'm never in control of all the moving parts of it all, and that's ok. GOD'S GOT IT.

This Isaiah 26 passage gives us the rundown on how each method of handling worries or going after our own agendas works out. Pretty simple stuff:

Be arrogant, think it's all about me, or trample on others in life - Watch! God will humble me (and, as experience shows, I just won't find what I'm chasing after by my own means. Even if I manage to, it'll be fleeting, and will escape me in time...). Trust in the LORD, however, and leave it all up to him, and, as verse 7 says, he will "smooth out the path ahead of them." 

Personally, I'm partial to smooth paths. Whenever I'm going somewhere, literally or proverbially, the smoother the path, the easier and more enjoyable the trip. 

Promises of God are worth my believing. I can keep running in circles and getting dizzy over fixating on my own efforts and accountability for things, even the needs and responsibilities of life...Or I can remember that Jesus himself declared God to be "the one thing needful," and trustingly envision all the rest of my worries and needs being tended to. 

God doesn't play Hide and Seek. He's always right there. My own crazy search and rescue missions of all the other stuff of life take me off into all these other directions, into thickets and bogs and dense dark forests, or into endless deserts or barren, steep mountainsides, or off into unceasing, bobbing, swelling oceans. I seek the "stuff," and I get lost. I get lost, and then I feel lost. 

But then I take my Lord at his word, and go seeking after him. What do I find when I get there? 

That he's already busy taking care of the arrangements and needs and concerns anyway. He just wanted me to trust, seek, and find him to know that. 

He wants me to fixate on him and thereby see him loving me as only God can. He wants me to catch him in the act of loving me. 

That sounds like a pretty awesome design.  

The Newness and the Maker

New Year's Eve can bring some of the most mixed emotions. I don't know what yours are this year, as 2014 ebbs out and prepares to give way to the new tide of 2015, but mine are certainly a mixed bag. There's nostalgia in reliving a few fond memories, remorse over some of the mistakes made or time I can call wasted - the missed opportunities, and there's expectation that comes from wondering how this blank slate before me will be written on. Will it hold many of the things I anticipate, or only a few? Will it be a year I'll look back on in 12 months and call a "good" or "bad" year? Part of my spirit really deeply longs for it to be a good year. 

For some, there's no emotions about New Year's. Some are plain old numb about it. Maybe it's been a moot thing for you for as long as you can remember, and you just want the hullabaloo to pass so normal life can get back into swing. Or maybe you've just recently become disenfranchised with all the fuss made about such things as nostalgia, commiseration, catharsis, and resolutions. 

Or maybe the pain of something that's hovering over your life like the deep darkness of these winter nights, that comes too early and lingers too late, is what's got you numb towards New Year's Eve this year. You just can't shed the dragging heft of this ugly weight in your life, and a calendar flip can't change squat about that. So what's the point? It's another day. So what? Working in retail as I do currently sure brings to light how many people might be, or admittedly are, living that way, as they have no issue spending all their time in a furniture store on a holiday, whether as a customer or employee, or have no special plans to do anything at home with family or friends. 

My friend, I can't account for all that you may be feeling as we sit at the doorstep of another year. I can't be sure exactly what might be cheapening the potential value of another New Year. 

But as I found myself thinking about this concept of "newness," I realized that it's all about the making.

Nothing can be new unless it's made new.

One of the most powerfully moving scenes in the 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ" was when Jesus, played by Jim Caviezel, took another of his nasty spills while struggling to carry his cross out of the city of Jerusalem and up to the crucifixion site on Golgotha. At this particular moment of the movie, the anxiety of Christ's path with the burden of the cross upon him, mixed with surging sorrowful music that mimicked the anguish of those around him who loved and followed him, mounted with Jesus' mother, Mary, running to his side after trying to work through the crowds to reach him.
There, joining him for a heart-wrenching moment on her knees, as her son, the Son of God, panted for his labored breath and peered over to her with blood running all over his face, she tried to console him, and her motherly heart broke for him in his pain. 

Jesus, though, despite his suffering and fatigue, still had his mind set on the purpose of all of it, and showed that he still believed in what he was about to accomplish. He took her face in a bloody hand, gently pointed it towards his so she was close enough to hear his chortled words, and uttered,

"Behold, mother, I make all things new..."

Tonight my point is very simply this:

Jesus Christ is the one who makes this year new, and makes you new too. 

"But I'm broken. I haven't felt whole inside in so long," you say.

Doesn't matter. Christ makes you new. 

"But this relationship is strained to the point of breaking, and I have no fight left in me to work on fixing it."

Doesn't matter. Christ makes you and your relationships new.

"But this addiction I've battled for years just won't let me go. It's got a grip so tight on me that I can't imagine being free."

Doesn't matter. Christ makes you and your behavior new. 

"But I'm so lonesome and feel like I have no one to love me."

"But I'm broke and sick of feeling like a failure."

"But I'm afraid of what my illness, my cancer, my condition, my chronic pain will bring in the days to come."

"But I just doubt that anything good is ever going to truly happen to me."

"But I am numb, and done with trying."

Doesn't matter. 

Christ has made all things new. 

It didn't look very promising in that dire moment when Christ was on his knees, bleeding, aching, sore from beatings, dirty and spit upon, and mentally taxed from all the hateful mocking of his opponents. He knew that death awaited him. But he rose from the ground and got back to his feet, shrugged the cross back onto the peak of his shoulder, and carried forward to that crucifixion site. There, even though his death sentence was carried out, the bitterness and ugliness of an apparent defeat was the victory mankind needed. 

It was a victory YOU and I needed. It made us new. It made everything new and changed everything forever. 

Your newness is not a cape to throw on whenever you feel triumphant enough to play the superhero in life. It's not a badge to wear proudly emblazoned on your chest when you have a day of proud accomplishment. It's not something you can take off and put back on - it's a part of you. 

Even in whatever feels ugly, disappointing, heartbreaking, maddening, or despicable in your life or in your very self, there is a newness that was MADE...made by Jesus on that day he died for you. That newness was assigned to you by his mercy, and whatever things that are weighing on you now as you contemplate another new year cannot erase that from within you. 

I wish for hope for you, my friend. Don't see the darkness. It's a disguise, no matter how real or convincing. The darkness of the world, and our lives that are affected daily by sin, is a shroud that only just barely hides the light beneath. That's temporary. Christ has promised to come back again one day, and take all those who belong to him home to enjoy Paradise, and leave this shroud of darkness and numbness behind. 

Wait on that day, and let that hope and expectation color over the gloom and numbness that sits in your heart. 

You are new. You may not feel it in this moment, but I pray you will realize it again and grab onto its sturdy truth like a bold hiking staff that will help you climb life's mountains. 

2015 may not look like much as it approaches. But remember, the night is always deepest and darkest before the dawn. The light is coming. It's a light of hope, and it cannot be contained. 

It's the light of newness, and it springs from your soul. It was made by someone, to live inside you, and that someone is the Lord, Jesus Christ. 

May your New Year be truly joyful, because of salvation and a home waiting in Heaven, regardless of how happy you are tonight. 

It's a New Year.....and a new you.