Emmanuel

There are some things that aren’t even worth doing if you only do them once a year. Like taking a shower.
Or brushing your teeth.
Or changing your underwear.
Or celebrating Christmas.
Wait! Did I just casually transition from a supposedly humorous random statement to a public service announcement about  the evils of holiday consumerism and the fleeting nature of a traditional happy American Christmas? No, at least I don’t think so.

Christmas is over and nobody knows what to do. How much longer do you have to keep you tree up? Do you have to slowly wean yourself off Christmas music or can you just do a clean break and get back to real life? Is it appropriate to wear your ugly Christmas sweater a couple of days after Christmas? The answer to the last one is easy, no.
Though nobody really wants to admit it, the general consensus immediately following Christmas seems to be a big sigh and a silent “I’m glad we made it through that one” muttered under our breath. I am not saying that we all don’t enjoy Christmas but I think we can all agree it takes far too much effort to do it any more than once a year.

There is a word though, or really a name, that we associate with Christmas that should be a part of our daily vocabulary.
Emmanuel.
Or Immanuel, whichever floats your boat.
God has a bunch of names and they all mean something different which is cool because it just shows the great vastness of who God really is. Throughout Scripture, God revealed these names to His people at the exact time when they would need to know that specific characteristic of God that would deliver them from whatever was coming against them. God knew the exact name he would have to be known by for His people to trust that He had everything under control and knew what He was doing.
In the book of Isaiah chapter 7 we find yet another wicked king refusing to listen to a godly prophet. Judah is surrounded and King Ahaz is refusing to seek guidance from God. The prophet Isaiah keeps telling the king “Hey, God wants to bring victory and defeat your enemies, quit being a pansy and man up a bit. God’s got it so you can stop freaking out” (I may have paraphrased a little, that might be the Message version). 
King Ahaz still isn’t convinced so Isaiah tells him “The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”₁ 
One quick glance at the footnotes in my handy dandy NIV Bible tells me that Immanuel means “God with us.” God was telling the king in this book that soon they would go through the worst times they ever thought possible as punishment for their sins but soon, He would actually be with them. Someday there would be peace, hope and a Savior from all that oppressed them. God would be with them like He was with Adam and Eve in the garden. He could walk with them in person.
And that is what we know as the Christmas story. It all boils down to the fact that God, Creator of the Universe, came down in human form and was actually with His people in a way they could see and touch. He wasn’t like the other gods that could only be reached by ritual and sacrifice to the elite. He was a living, tangible being that wanted to live life with His people. in every other belief system, members of that belief do things for and to their god. God gave His people the opportunity to do things with  Him.
I think it is amazing how many people God chose to be with the moment He entered the world. Just look at your nativity set, that is, if you haven’t already taken it down. Everybody in it got to be with God in a way that only they could understand. Joseph the carpenter found Him in a wooden stable. The shepherds were experts in livestock and found their Savior in a feeding trough. Three Wise men found their Savior in the city of Kings, where King David and a good portion of his descendants were buried.
And then there was pregnant Mary.  The Father was with His child, who was “with child” with the Father.
If it ended at Christmas then there would be no point in celebrating it at all. Sure we could acknowledge it and say “Hey remember that one time when God was with us? That was really neat,” but that would be completely missing the whole point of what God was doing in history. Emmanuel doesn’t mean “God was with us.”
God is with us now just just as He was two thousand years ago in a stable.
What would our year look like if we actually lived like we believed God was with us? We pray for His “presence” a lot like it is the catchword we have to say to start feeling good about our worship.  When we  commit ourselves to actually having a “quiet time” we want to get that nice warm feeling inside like we just talked to the Creator of the Universe and enjoyed the conversation. Praying for God’s presence is the easiest way to do that.
Sometimes we forget about the word “omnipresent.” God is already here whether or not we get that bubbly satisfaction of feeling spiritual.  He is here because He is Emmanuel.
He is with us.
When we work, when we play, when we argue, when we dream, when we feel it and when we don’t- He is with us.
The hope of Christmas then, is not that we could have one day a year when the whole family can get together and be nice to each other. It is not that we would become extra generous and catch the spirit of giving for the month of December. The hope of Christmas isn’t even that we remember to make Jesus the “Reason for the Season” by deciding to talk about Him twice as much as we talk about Santa just so that everyone knows where our priorities are.
The hope of Christmas is that we remember that God is with us. That no matter what this next year brings we can hold our head up because we know that God Himself is with us. Not only is He guiding and directing, but He is on His hands and knees digging through the trenches with us. He was with us during everything that happened last year and the year before that and the year before that.
Life would get lonely if we only recognized that once a year. So how about another round of Christmas for everybody?

1-Isaiah 7:14 NIV

Elevator Music

Have you ever found yourself in an elevator waiting to reach your floor when all of the sudden, your favorite song comes on over the tiny speaker and you decide to hit a few more floors before you leave so you can finish the song?

No? Me either.

The truth is, nobody really cares abut elevator music. Its’ sole purpose is to fill dead silence. It never sounds like anything anybody would really listen to. When I think of elevator music, I usually think of somebody who got fired from their job as a Ringtone composer and was now pretending to be Kenny G.

It kind of makes me wonder about the people who make elevator music. I mean, did they intentionally set out to make music for people to only hear for the few seconds they were in transit? Or did they set out to make truly great music that just ended up in an elevator? I don’t know much about the elevator music business, but I am sure it definitely has its ups and downs. Get it? “Ups and Downs”? Like in an elevator? Never mind.

I wonder if whoever composed these elevator masterpieces was in reality a very passionate musician. What if they were the kind of musician who dedicates their whole life to their craft and practices for hours upon hours a day? What if this tune that almost went unnoticed while I was traveling in an elevator came to this musician in a dream? What if he was up all night composing what he knew would be a masterpiece? What if he poured his heart and soul into his work and the only place that would accept him was an elevator?

It all leads to the question that I have had scribbled to a Post-It note stuck to my wall and running through my brain for the past couple weeks: “What happens when your passion amounts to nothing?”

I have a confession to make. I usually begin my blogs with no idea of how I will end them. I just start writing and eventually my thoughts organize themselves into something logical and I figure out the answer to whatever I was asking before I hit publish.  That is how I began this one; hoping that by writing I would be able to finally figure out the question that I have read every morning posted on my wall.

I am already 405 words into this post and I still have no idea what the answer to this question is.

What does happen when my passion amounts to nothing?

What if nobody ever read a single thing I wrote? What if I never saw one person come to know God through anything I did? What if I get into full-time ministry and realize I can’t do it and everything I have done my whole life amounts to nothing?

I thought I was asking God this question, but I think He is asking me.

If my passions amount to nothing, does that change who God is?

If my passions amount to nothing, does that change who I am?

Is my whole perception of who God is and who I am wrapped up completely in seeing physical results?

Really I have to ask myself, “Am I passionate about God himself, or am I passionate about being recognized for being passionate about God?”

If I am passionate about God then it shouldn’t matter if what I pour my life into becomes nothing in the eyes of the world.

I am here in life doing what I do because I want it to amount to something. Everything we do is for that very hope. That is why people go to college and start families and go after the best jobs. That is why we are supposed to do well in school and make good decisions, we want it to amount to something. Nobody intentionally plans to be underappreciated and over looked. Everyone aims for Billboard Top 20, not the tiny speaker in an elevator.

I want to live a life that doesn’t revolve around me trying to find approval and self worth. I want to live a life that isn’t all about impressing people. I want to be OK knowing my greatest efforts may end up in a an elevator. I don’t pretend to know what I am doing or how I am going to get there, I just know that I want to live for more than an early retirement. I am living for  a heavenly retirement, because that is where my citizenship lies.

It is a good thing we are not waiting to stand before God and hear him say, “Well done my good and successful servant;” we wait to hear Him call us faithful.

Connection Failed

I really have no idea what I would do without internet. I really think the Earth would stop spinning if something happened to to it.

My brain is actually connected to the internet. Seriously.

Whenever I get a thought that I feel is worthy to be shared with the world I pull out my phone, type it up and send it to my Twitter account. From there, this thought is tweeted to everybody who follows me (I like to pretend more people follow me than actually do), sent to my Facebook as a status update, and posted to the side of my blog for my readers to see. Some thoughts come to me that I want to write down but not publish yet so instead of using my brain to remember all that stuff I send that thought to my Evernote account (via Twitter) where it is stored in a big electronic notebook filled with random ideas that sync with my computer every time I turn it on. Many of these random thoughts evolve into bigger ideas and as my brain begins processing and hashing them all out my fingers begin typing and with one click the whole shebang is published to the world on my blog account, usually without me even proofreding fr spelllling errors. Then I post a link to this blog on Facebook.

Someday I am sure that Google+ will make it’s way into my brain, but I am not cool enough for that yet.

I was thinking about this the other day and something occurred to me that makes me continually grateful. What if I was trying to do all this with dial- up?

Ooh, just saying the word dial-up just brings back painful memories of the electronic dark ages of the nineties.

Remember dial-up internet? It took like four days to check your email and you had to pay by the minute? Signing on would take forever and then for some reason your computer would begin making noises that sounded like R2-D2 was having and asthma attack while you waited patiently for that happy little guy to say “You’ve Got Mail!” The worst part of it was that it seemed like every time you would finally get to 99% connected point some jerk in another room would accidently pick up the phone and cancel your connection.

I think that there are seasons in our lives that feel like our prayers travel through a dial up connection.

I have noticed, that when things aren’t going the way we would like them to, we question our connection first. We always doubt our ability to hear from God and His ability to speak to us.

This isn’t new, it happened way back in the garden.

In Genesis we find two people who have a closer walk with God than anyone has ever had since, with the exception of maybe Jesus. The Bible says that God would actually walk with them in the garden and speak to them. There was no sin or death that could get in the way of their relationship and they could communicate freely at anytime they wanted. Nothing could interfere with their relationship.

Then comes this dumb serpent who tries to mess everything up. He says to Eve, “Did God really say ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”₁

Notice that the serpent didn’t try and attack the logic of God’s command, try and prove it wrong or convince her that his idea was better. The serpent questioned Eve’s ability to hear from God and she fell for it. We do this all the time.  Life gets hard and God tells us something that doesn’t make sense at the time so we question our ability to have heard from Him correctly. We forget how long we have been in this journey with God and we forget how many times we have heard directly from Him.We forget how well we know His voice.

Eve was so deceived into believing the serpent heard God more clearly that she completely forgot that is was she who used to walk with God. How could that serpent know what God told her, he wasn’t there! The enemy wasn’t there when you heard from God, in that moment where you broke down, humbled before God and He wrapped you in His arms and began whispering dreams and purpose into your heart. He wasn’t there when you decided to give God everything and have an actual relationship with Him.

Satan attacks what he is most jealous of.

He used to be able to go to God whenever he wanted. He used to be able to sit at his feet and worship Him. He used to be able to hear from Him, but he threw it all away. Now he has to convince us that we can’t hear from Him.

Ever find it funny how many times we go through things and wonder if we are even saved? That no matter how long we have known God and seen Him move, whenever we mess up or are just confused we always question our salvation?

I think it is time that we remind Satan that He wasn’t there when that preacher or Sunday school teacher gave that altar call that drove you to your knees and compelled you to give everything over to God  for the first time. He wasn’t there when you were rolling around in the dirt of your past and a hand came down from heaven to pick you up, wipe you off and give you a new name. How could he possibly know what you and God had a private conversation about? He isn’t in the loop, don’t let him convince you he is.

There is nothing wrong with our connection.

I’m tired of seasoned Christians asking themselves if they were sure they heard from God when they began dreaming of the impossible or wondering if they will still make it into heaven after they made a little mistake.

In Ephesians Paul talks about the armor of God and starts with what he calls the “Helmet of Salvation.” People wear helmets to protect their heads. They are pretty important.

I think the reason Paul calls Salvation the helmet is because that needs to be what guards our thoughts. Everything that comes into our mind needs to go through the filter of the knowledge that we are saved and have a real, tangible relationship with a real, tangible God. We hear from God and our helmet covers our ears so that we can’t hear from anybody who tells us otherwise.

When we pray, God hears us. When He speaks, we hear Him.

Let God remind you that you know what His voice sounds like and that He knows what yours sounds like and there is nothing wrong with your connection.

Let your prayer life be in 4G.

 

1-Genesis 3:1 (NIV)

Glowsticks

I used to really like rocks.

I would collect them, read about them, and talk about them all the time.

Did I mention I didn’t have too many friends back then?

Anyway, because of my love of rocks all I wanted for Christmas one year was a Rock Tumbler, which was supposed to take the boring rocks I found in my back yard and turn them into beautiful polished gems over a certain period of time. I had no idea how long this certain period of time was supposed to be but I was super excited when I got one and, with the help of my mom, assembled everything and placed my ugly rocks into the little plastic bucket that fit into this rotating motor on the tumbler. The basic concept was that if you put enough rocks and a little bit of water into this bucket then they would slowly grind themselves to perfection while the machine continued to spin constantly. This sounded great until after a week of hearing the rumbling sound nonstop from our garage where the tumbler was all we had was what looked like a bucket of wet cement with a bunch of rock chunks in it.

The thing just kept grinding and grinding and we never saw results.

Life can feel like it is in a Rock Tumbler sometimes.

We know we need God to change us and help us grow and develop but sometimes it seems like we are just going in circles. The grinding process of our lives seems to have been going on forever and we look at ourselves and still just see ugly rocks. Everything goes in circles.

Every time we finally come back up for air and get our footing back life tends to throw us another curveball that sends s back to the grinding process.

This was what I felt the other day when I felt like God was saying to me that I would be going into a season of breaking. I wanted to point out to God the rough time I had been having lately. I wanted to remind him of every thing that went wrong last year. I felt like I deserved to at least leave a season of breaking before I entered a new one.

It was like God was saying “Hey remember that brief moment recently when you felt well rested and excited about life? Hope you enjoyed it.”

I had to ask myself, is my life going to be spent on a mountain or in a valley? If mostly a valley, then is it worth it at all?

 

I love the fall. It is absolutely beautiful outside. I love seeing the brilliant colors that trees become capable of painting themselves with. I walked outside the other day and saw  this tree that looked like it was on fire. I had never seen so many yellows and oranges on a tree before and I stood there breathless. I never noticed that that tree was even there because it just always blended into the rest of the forestry behind it.

I thought to myself, “Why can’t this tree look like this all the time? Why can’t it always be this beautiful?”

And then I remembered. This tree is dying.

Soon the leaves are going to turn from yellow to brown and then they will shrivel up and fall slowly to the ground. Then the branches will be bare and exposed to the harsh cold of winter while nobody even notices because of how ugly they have become.

I thought about how cruel of God it seemed to be to make this tree such a spectacle at its’ weakest point.

If this were the highlight of this trees’ life then it would be cruel but it isn’t, because next spring it will come back.

Every spring this tree sees will make it stronger and more beautiful. A truly great tree is one that has been through some things, and is still standing.

Life is not a question of either valley or mountaintop. We go through the valley so that we can become the mountaintop.

When you realize that the rest of the world living apart from Christ will experience a plateau life at best, never reaching the heights that they were created to reach, it is easy to see that the mountain tops are worth the valleys. It is impossible to live your whole life without being broken. The question is, then, who are we going to let do the breaking?

We can let the world break us, rob us of our identity and hope and send us to destruction, or we can let God break us so that He can reshape us, heal us, and set us toward a greater glory than we ever could imagine. It is not a choice of staying whole or being broken, it is just a choice of whether or not we want to be broken for a reason.

What does it mean to be in a season of breaking? What does it mean to let God break us? I think it is the only method possible for God to rip off and destroy all the things we have put on that keep us from being the light He created us to be.

For some reason, when Jesus said that we were the “light of the world” we got this image of a candle stuck in our heads. I think a more accurate picture would be a glowstick.

A glowstick is one of those plastic tubes filled with a strange neon liquid that undergoes a chemical reaction and begins to, well, glow. The thing is, though that  to start this chemical reaction, the tube has to be broken. Not breaking it would be an injustice to its purpose. If nobody snapped it then it would remain the rest of its life as a useless plastic tube. God snapping us in half is the best thing He could ever do for us.

That is not too fun to think about.

C.S. Lewis wrote in  A Grief Observed  that “God always knew my faith was a house of cards, Him knocking it down was His only way of showing me that.”

The thing about glowsticks is that they don’t last very long. Neither do we.

When the light of a glowstick begins fading, sometimes they have to be snapped again. Their life is a cycle of snapping and glowing, snapping and glowing, snapping and glowing.

There will come a point when snapping will do it no more good and everything has been completely used up that would give off any kind of light. And then that is the end.

We always feel like when God is braking us that this will be the last straw and that this time will be the one that does you in. The truth is, it might be.

It is a good thing that God never promises to make you live forever here on earth, but up in heaven where there will be no more need of breaking.

God, I give you permission to break me of everything that gets in the way of you glowing through me. Break me of everything that doesn’t look like you. Break me of my wants and desires that fail in comparison to the desires you have for me. Whatever it takes, break me. I want you to do the breaking and not the world that I live in. Whatever you do will be so much more worth it. I’ll take whatever you give me.

Gotcha

I think everybody remembers the time when they learned how to ride a bike. For me it seemed like it was straight out of a T.V show. It went something like this:

I woke up one day  with a certain determination to conquer something and that could only mean one thing- it was time for the training wheels to come off my blue Huffy bike and for me to become a man. I saddled up for the first time and experienced the wobbliness of my bike as my dad was there with his hands on my shoulders saying “I gotcha.” He pushed me back and forth on the sidewalk outside our house until I was finally ready to try it on my own.

I took a deep breath and was off. I could feel my dad’s hands leaving my shoulders and began to pedal faster and faster. I was free! My legs started pumping and I could feel the adrenaline rushing as I found myself four feet away from him. Now I was 6 feet away, now 10 feet, and suddenly 12 feet away from my dad!

And then I fell into a cactus.

I don’t know why my neighbor decided that having a pet cactus was a good idea but it was pretty traumatizing now that I think about it. The experience ended with me standing in my living room without a shirt on while my dad plucked hundreds of cactus spikes out of my back. Some of the spikes were long and easy to see but some of them were tiny and seemingly microscopic.  I remember my dad with tweezers staring at my back and yelling “gotcha” every time he plucked one out.

I think that lately I have been in a season of “gotcha.”

I feel like I am in one of those transitional phases that no body really knows what to do with. I know that great things are about to happen so I get myself all psyched up and ready to be bold and take risks. I want the freedom to be pedaling on my own and actually going places but it seems like everything is silent. There is no inspiration, revelation, or motivation and all I keep hearing from God is “I gotcha.”

At first I misunderstood. I thought God was using the “gotcha” that implied He had caught me or something. Like He was standing over me with tweezers plucking me out of something I enjoyed and was proud of Himself for it. We say that word to emphasize our dominance over whatever it is we have just captured and subdued but that didn’t sound like something God would say.

What He was really saying was this, “I gotcha, I’m right here. Can you feel my hands on your back guiding you? Can you feel me feel me behind you pushing you and encouraging you? You aren’t ready to be pedaling on your own yet but I still have you. Yes you are about to move faster than you ever have before but you are also going to have to pedal harder than you ever have before so right now, just enjoy the fact that I am right here with you. The revelation and inspiration will come later because all you need to know is that I am here with you. I have you even in your in between phases. I just wanted to remind you I was here. I gotcha.”

Wait, pedal? Your hands on my back guiding me? Early childhood flashback? Oh! I get it.

Sometimes we will be in times where God is using the tweezers kind of “gotcha” and pruning out all the things stuck in our life that shouldn’t be there. Other times He is using the other kind of “gotcha” and just reminding us that He has us in His arms. Parents and children everywhere understand this. When you have a bad dream and come running into your parents room and they give you a big hug they say “Don’t be afraid, I gotcha.” When you are learning to ride a bike and are about to fall over, you dad behind you reassures you by saying “You can do this, I gotcha.”

God just wants to remind us that He has us. We don’t need a sign or miracle, just the pat on the back that tells us He is still here. Quit worrying about everything and stop and realize that God has everything under control and the only thing he wants to do is enjoy your company. Enjoy His presence now or you might fall into a cactus later.

Is this what it feels like?

Bright lights on brand new eyes and a first gasp of breath. Unfamiliarity whirrs by the tiny newborn baby with the reddish skin and big round eyes as he is passed from rubber gloved hands back to his only companion for the last nine months. He can’t see her very well but can feel her arms comfort and soothe and he knows her voice so well already. In his first moment of life, lungs still unaccustomed to breathing, he wonders to himself for the first time, “Is this what love feels like?”
Everything was fun until he tripped over that rock. Laughing and running on a summer day it came out of nowhere and now the three year old giggling boy had a hole in his jeans and warm blood running down his knee. Oh but Daddy is here, picking him up and holding him close. Daddy is always there when he needs him. Amidst intermittent sobs, the boy thinks to himself from the arms of his father that this is what love must feel like.
She makes fun of him at school because she doesn’t want anyone to know. A big heart drawn in bright red crayon on a sheet of notebook paper folded over eight times was sent across the room in secret. The boy with the blonde hair opens the note, looks up at her, and smiles. Her cheeks turn rosy red and she tells all her friends that this is what love feels like.
He used to love playing baseball, he really did, but now it is not so fun. When daddy said he would be his coach he thought everything was going to be great and that he would finally get to see him but he didn’t know how much daddy like to yell. It wasn’t his fault, honestly, nobody could have hit that pitch. That didn’t stop his coach from screaming his name loud enough for everyone to hear and calling him a girl. “I guess this is what love feels like” the player muttered to himself as he slumped back to the dugout throwing his red cap into the dust below his cleats.
Everyone’s bodies are changing, and some are getting more attention than others. It didn’t take long for the pre-teen girl to realize that the guys in her class seemed to like her more when she wore that particular red shirt with those particular shorts. Looking in the mirror in her bedroom she realized that by just showing a little bit more, she could really know what love felt like.
Her head buried under a pillow drowning out her screaming parents downstairs, she realized that she is never too old to cry. One last slamming of the door and it is all over as her eyes turn red from tears. Now she lives in two different houses but neither of them feel like home and she has convinced herself that all of it was her fault and that’s just how love actually feels.
Drenched in sweat his teammates lift him onto their shoulders and the crowd goes crazy. That was his name they were screaming, and just because of a lucky catch for a lucky win. He could already picture his bright red jersey displayed in the trophy rack of his high school and smiled because now he felt good enough to know what love felt like.
No girl had ever let him go this far before, this time must be the real thing. The lights were dimmed and the movie was over but she was still there with her big red lips inviting him closer. One hand sliding up further than it ever slid before and a quick decision and they were off. He woke up the next morning ready to tell the guys in the locker room all about what love felt like.
He was a really great guy, she couldn’t afford to lose him. No other guy looked at her the way he did and now was the time to show him that she really loved him. One momentary lapse of reason and the red ribbon in her hair was pulled out and everything started moving in a blur. She got caught in the moment that she wished would last a lifetime but faded away the next day when she never saw him again. If this is what love felt like she didn’t want anything to do with it.
School was impossible and the parents just didn’t understand, but thankfully he had his friends. Playing video games downstairs it all started innocent until one guy reached into his pocket. So small and insignificant, but everyone wanted to try it. A couple puffs each and everyone was having a good time telling jokes and laughing with red eyes. This was where he could escape and be with people who actually understood him. He had never felt love anywhere else so he guessed that this is what it must feel like.
Hardly recognizable as human, the man hung bloodied and beaten and on display for the world to see. His body was red with stained blood and open flesh as the nails piercing his hands suspended him against a wooden cross. Insults and saliva flew toward him without relief but he didn’t say a word. He knew that sometimes love had to feel like this. He also knew that soon He would be able to  come down from that cross and wrap His arms around His children and show them what Love really felt like. He would get to show them that the things they thought were love that hurt them so much were never love at all and the things that they experienced in life that felt like love were just a shadow of the real abundant Love He was giving them. Love kept Him up on that cross, and Love took Him off it and sent Him into our lives.

Nolo Contendere

If you are ever in the mood to feel guilty about your life, you should probably just read the first five books of the Bible.
In those books there some very long lists of sins we didn’t even know existed that we could easily blacken our consciousness' with. Didn’t know you should feel bad about cutting the hair on the side of your head? Well Leviticus 19:27 says you should be, apparently God really digs sideburns. If you read earlier in that chapter in verse 19 you will find that you are also a dirty rotten sinner for wearing clothing woven out of two different kinds of fabrics. Think you are innocent of this one? What about that T shirt you have that says it’s made of 99% cotton? What’s the other one percent? What do you have to say for yourself Mr. half-breed polyester?
Deuteronomy 22:12 tells us to make tassels to wear on the four corners of our cloak. What!? You mean to tell me that you haven’t made your own tassels and fastened them to the corners of all your cloaks? You don’t even wear a cloak? I don’t know how you expect to make it to heaven.
If reading all these laws doesn’t make you feel guilty, you should at least feel guilty about not being able to get through the book of Leviticus.
It is ridiculous to think of anyone looking for things to feel guilty for but I think we do it all the time. We walk around with huge signs on our foreheads advertising all of our failures and mistakes because we think it will explain to the world why were are what we are today. We know we aren’t good enough for God’s grace and for some reason, we keep looking through our past to find more proof that we don’t deserve it.
In Exodus we find a people plagued with guilt. God gave them the opportunity to pay for their crimes by having the priests offer sacrifices on behalf on the people. In order to do so, the priest would have to enter the Holy of Holies, the place where God Himself dwelled. The priest had to walk in with the guilt of his people and know that at any moment God literally could strike him down and that He had every right to do so. Bells were fastened to the edge of his garment and a long rope was tied around his waist just in case, should God’s wrath be so fitting, that the priest fell down dead before the Lord, the people on the other side of the curtain would hear the bells and be able to reel in the body of their priest.
The people recognized their guilt and recognized the holiness of their God and had to walk with the stains of everything they had done wrong trailing behind them into the presence of God.
There was, however, another article of priestly clothing that is generally overlooked and was ordained by God to be worn. On the turban of the priest was to be a sign made of pure gold that read “Holy to the Lord.” Try and imagine this.
The priest would walk in with the guilt of his people behind him and the full awareness that he could die for his crimes but all God would see coming towards him was this sign on his forehead that read “Holy to the Lord.”
He wasn’t looking at all that was behind him, He was looking at the sign that said that this man and the people he represented were holy- set apart and purified, and that they were good enough to walk into His presence.
We as people tend to view our lives from the lens of our past. We take all of our past experiences and put them together as the basis for our identity and expect that God does the same thing. We forget that God is bigger than our understanding of time. He gets to see our lives from the lens of our future. In His perspective, we are already standing beside Him in paradise as completed and perfected souls who’s robes have been washed clean and crowns already rewarded. He sees us how we actually are.
Who are we to see ourselves otherwise?
If you are accused of a crime, you always have one of two options. You could either plead innocent, or you could plead guilty. However, in some cases a third option is given, that is, the right to plead “Nolo Contendere.” Nolo contendere is Latin for “I do not wish to contend.” It basically means that you are accepting the punishment for the charges you are accused of but you don’t have to live the rest of your life with the word “guilty” all over your record.
I think it is time that we as Christians plead Nolo Contendere over our lives. We accept that we deserve the punishment for our crimes and that we don’t deserve the grace of God, but are refusing to walk around with guilt labeled on our foreheads. We will not let guilt be the motive for everything we do.
We will go to church because want to be with God and His people, not because we feel like we owe God.

We will share our faith with the world because we get to, not because we have to to make sure we are good Christians.
We are guilty, but that is not how we are defined.

Get on Your Knees and Fight Like a Man

It’s no secret that I wish I was a teenager in the eighties.
Give me some high-top All Star Chuck Taylors, cassette tapes and face melting guitar solos any day and I will be happy. This is a little weird, I know, because I was born two years after the eighties were over. I think that my odd fascination with the era of Reagan and big hair comes from my early discovery and love for a band called Petra.
If you don’t know Petra, you are missing out on life. They were true pioneers in putting Christian lyrics to electric guitars (and the more than occasional synthesizer and key-tar).
I usually have any one song from their thirty-three year musical career playing in my head at some point in the day but lately I have been hearing one in my head that I hadn’t heard in forever. In 1987, Petra’s This Means War  album came out and on it was the song “Get on Your Knees and Fight Like a Man.”
Now out of context, this is kind of a funny title. Can you picture some big burly men getting into a brawl at a saloon and getting on their knees to proceed with their dual? For some reason the idea of midgets having a slap fight keeps playing in my head whenever I think about this. I don’t know about you, but I think that that is pretty hilarious. In fact, I keep trying to write this post but I am getting distracted by visions of angry midgets beating the mess out of each other.
But that is not what this song is even remotely about.
The verses of this song talk about being at the lowest point circumstantially than we ever could imagine. They talk about having the world fall on top of you and all your resources being exhausted and your options dwindling. Lately, I can relate.
This past week, God has been stressing to me the importance of what I thought an elementary truth, that is prayer. I thought I was good on this one. I mean, even non-Christians know that Christians are supposed to pray, I understand all that God.
I have always understood the importance of prayer but I don’t think I could honestly say that my life or even my schedule reflected that.
I want prayer in my life to be more than an emergency kit that I never use unless I absolutely need it. We seem to have this mentality that after we have done everything we know to do and our circumstances still haven’t changed then “all we can do is pray.”
All we can do? That makes it sound like that is the least promising thing we are capable of doing to get the results we need.
Why don’t we realize that going to the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever present God of the universe first before wasting our time with what we think we can do is the most logical thing we could ever do?
I know we all know this but do we really know  this?
I guess prayer is one of those things that is great in theory but can be boring in practice. When we think about radically following Jesus, we usually think about selling everything we own and moving to Africa or having the faith to tell that guy in a wheelchair that he is healed and should go run around the block. In the back of our mind, prayer just means turning off the T.V and sticking our face in the carpet while we try and think of what to say to God.
When I think about prayer, I am not usually thinking about the spiritual forces of good and evil colliding in epic war for humanity. I am secretly thinking about midgets slapping each other.
It sounds ridiculous and I am exaggerating a little bit but I think that is how we really view the effectiveness of getting on our face before God.
We are so action oriented that the idea of locking ourselves away to pray seems less effective than going out and trying to fix everything on our own.
I tell God all the time that I want to change the world but when was the last time I humbled myself to the point of getting on my face before Him in desperation to see Him move? A lot of times I think that I am O.K. if I just say a couple words of prayer under my breath for somebody. Sometimes I tell God that I am going to pray in my bed as I am falling asleep.
Obviously, there is nothing wrong with praying like that but lately God has been showing me that there really is something to setting a part a certain amount of time and physically getting down on the floor and warring against the forces of evil.
It is really inconvenient, but doesn’t the effort you put into prayer reflect your passion for whatever you are praying for? What would your life look like if you got on your knees and fought like a man for an hour every day? Ooh an hour, that’s a little much. That would be really hard to commit to.
But if you are desperate enough to complain to the world about your problems, an hour can’t be so bad.
One thing I have found is that it is really easy to pray for yourself and your own problems. Sometimes we get discouraged when our prayers aren’t getting answered so we give up. What if, instead of praying for ourselves for an hour, we prayed for somebody else’s problems? I don’t know why but whenever I dedicate that much time to someone else, my prayers get answered and so do theirs.
If I can’t carry my burden, I’ll drop mine and pick up somebody else’s.
What can we change about our lives to reflect that we actually believe prayer is more than a midget slap fight but the opportunity to bring Heaven down into our problems? I want to spend more time praying that God will do something than I do hoping that He will bless me when I do something.

Checkmate

I used to think I was pretty smart, until my five year old little sister beat me in Chess.

I have no idea how it happened because the last game I played with her was Candyland and I wasn’t sure then that she could handle the intensity of the molasses swamp and now I was finding my king pinned between her bishop and her queen with no hope of escape. She got me good and I had nothing to say. I just left the table and buried my head in shame.

When I heard that my brothers had taught her how to play I expected that she vaguely understood the rules but would still fall prey to the number one mistake of every beginning Chess player, that is, to play the game of Chess like a game of Checkers.

You see, in the game of Checkers, the point is to take as many pieces as you can from your opponent while keeping all of yours in play. It is a last man standing kind of thing and new Chess players usually assume that since the boards look the same that the rules must be the same so they use their armies to just knock out their opponent. However, Chess is different. The game is not about how many pieces you collect, but about one specific piece that needs to be taken out. The point of Chess is to go after the king.

I didn’t expect Jamie to understand this principle, but she clearly did. Her eye was not on my knight, bishop, or even queen, but was on my king.

I realized this week that I had been playing life like a game of Checkers instead of a game Chess. I was going after all the extra stuff life has to offer instead of going straight to the King.

I mistook the things God blesses us with for God Himself and that can be dangerous. There are tons of things in this life that are good, noble things that we as people are always going after. A new season in life, new relationships, great experiences- you name and we will go after it instead of going after the One who gives it.

Jesus told us in Luke chapter 12 verse 31 to “seek his kingdom and these things will be added as well.” ₁

So I have to ask myself when I wake up in the morning and the Great To-Do list starts scrolling through my head what pieces of the game I am going after.

Am I really content with putting so much effort into capturing a pawn when the King is waiting for me?

Does my schedule reflect that me getting one more glimpse of who God really is is my very top priority? Why am I so concerned with fixing this, getting that done, or talking to that person when I have the opportunity to leave Earth and the way it thinks by spending time with the King of the Universe?

I want everything God has for me in this life, but I don’t want to want them more than I want to want Him. I want to measure the effectiveness of my day not by how much I accomplished but by how much closer I grew to God in the last 24 hours.

The world can keep it’s pawns and even its’ knights and bishops. I want to want nothing but the King.

_{1-Luke 12:31 (NIV)}

Dear God

Dear God, I can’t sleep.

Truth is, I haven’t slept for awhile.

Life keeps waking me up and I just can’t get my brain to shut up long enough to recognize the inside of my eyelids. I am worn out. I am dry. I am exhausted, in every sense of the word that I could imagine.

It is hard to sleep when it feels like the whole world is crashing down on top of you. God, why does everything happen at once? Why can’t things happen one at a time? Why not when I’m stronger?

I miss You so much even though I know You never went anywhere. You had to have been here the whole time but where then, have I been? I have been pouring and pouring out but am still needing You to refresh me. I don’t find any comfort in writing anymore, at least not tonight. I don’t find satisfaction in doing what You tell me to do. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I found satisfaction in anything.

I just want sleep. I just want rest. I just want everyone to stop expecting me to know what I am doing when I feel like I am falling apart on the inside. I just want to disappear. God, You expect too much.

You taught me not too long ago that the greatest revelations come when I am barely hanging on to the towel I am about to throw in. Well I am still waiting on the revelation. Give me something worth chewing on. Show me some nugget of truth that makes it all better and lets me wake up smiling again, That’s not too much to ask is it?

You always talk about forgiving people for their sins and everything they have ever done wrong and honestly I have never really had a hard time believing You but I never thought about what You asked me the other night.

I was busy doing ministry and trying to serve You when You interrupted my prayer and asked me a ridiculous question. You asked if I had forgiven You.

Had I forgiven You? You are God, You do everything right. You are the definition of perfect, why are You asking for my forgiveness?

Then I realized that you didn’t need my forgiveness. You have never done anything wrong but even if You had, You are big enough to not need my approval.

I need my forgiveness.

Intellectually I completely understand that You work all things for the good of those who love You but I’m not going to lie (anymore), sometimes my heart doesn’t believe taking the life of a twelve year old boy was in my best interest. Sometimes it is hard to convince myself everything my family has gone through and is going through will all eventually work out. God, sometimes I am just clenching my teeth and telling myself that You know what is best for me when really I am just angry that You are God and that I am not and that there is nothing I can do about it. Thank You for being bigger than my doubt.

Thank You for being real. Thank You for doing so much in my past that my future can’t not believe You will come through for my present.

I can’t honestly sat that I have no bitterness left. Frankly, God I don’t like You very much at the moment.

Thank You for being bigger than my moment. Thank You for being real when I can’t feel You. Thank You for planting so deep inside of me the truth that You are everything You said You would be that any thought that creeps its way into my heart that tries to say otherwise dies quickly.

I want to forgive You because I need my own forgiveness. I am not there yet even though I really thought I was. I know who You are, even when I forget.

I know that not only are You all-powerful, all-knowing and ever-present but that You are above all good. Even when I forget.

I know that You not only can heal, but really want to.

I know that You are the same God yesterday, today, and forever despite how I feel about You in the moment with my incredibly narrow human perspective. You are God and I wouldn’t change that if I could. I love You, and not because I have to, but because I want to and I have the right to.

God, I love You enough to not just accept that You know what You are doing, but embrace that You know what You are doing.

I will wake up tomorrow alive.

I will get up and I will bear it. I will walk in the truth that I know but cannot feel. God, I believe everything You have told me and I will keep telling myself that until I can honestly say it is true.

Thank You for a destiny worth suffering for. Thank You for letting me be just like You.

-Sincerely

           An Exhausted,

                   Dried Up,

                           Used Up,

                                   Survivor who still believes that You have it all under control

                                              Kyle