It's been an intense week of grieving.
Not grieving on my part per sé, but rather a week of coming alongside those who are experiencing tremendous loss. It can be a very helpless feeling, but in the midst of my paralyzed impotence, I have seen God move in ways I've never yet seen in this short life of mine.
You see, there is plenty of reason to despair. This family that is so dear to me has lost a loved one that, for all intents and purposes, did not "know Jesus".
That bit in quotes is said in my sarcastic televangelist voice.
What cause is there for hope when our religion dictates that all those who haven't prayed the sinners' prayer are in an eternal state of weeping and gnashing of teeth? No, our hope lies in uncertainty. Our hope lies in knowing that, whatever it is that happens to us once we leave our skeletons behind, it is not something we can rationalize or predict or imagine. Our hope lies in the fact that Christ died for us while we were still sinners, not once we prayed the sinners' prayer. Our hope lies in the fact that He loved us first.
I say I saw God move in ways I'd never seen Him before because of a conversation I had with Manicotti. "If we as imperfect people can feel such a strong desire to see a person be saved, imagine the desire that God feels for that person."
That is a hope that only God can instill. And yet it is a hope based in uncertainty, in a healthy distrust of our own reason. What a fascinating God we love!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Remembering the Freedom of Peace and the Cost of War
(I realize this is a day late, but I wasn't really at a computer at all yesterday. Please be gracious.)
Freedom isn't free.
What!? Really!?
I think that's bullshit. Semantically and conceptually.
Mankind was created free. Free to love and be loved. Free to enjoy life to its fullest.
What cost us dearly was deviating from that freedom. From the day we chose to sell ourselves to pride and greed we have paid our pounds of flesh in the form of disease, famine, abuse, loneliness, disaster, and war.
What is perhaps more sad is that we've convinced ourselves that we can buy our freedom back. We buy it with cash, with third-world labor, with the blood of our fellow citizens. But we've mistaken 'freedom' for 'standard-of-living'...a mistake that is costing the lives of thousands on both sides of our current war. We've put our way-of-life above life itself.
But you can't buy something that's free. Weird as it sounds, it cheapens it.
This is not to undermine the sacrifice of millions of soldiers. Rather it is a hope that, for those two minutes of silence at least, we dwell not on a past that has become distant to many of us, but instead on the freedom from pride and greed that comes from Christ alone...a freedom that, if taken seriously, should spell the end of war. A freedom that, thanks to His sacrifice, is free.
What will you do with that freedom?
Thanks, Braveheart ;)
Freedom isn't free.
What!? Really!?
I think that's bullshit. Semantically and conceptually.
Mankind was created free. Free to love and be loved. Free to enjoy life to its fullest.
What cost us dearly was deviating from that freedom. From the day we chose to sell ourselves to pride and greed we have paid our pounds of flesh in the form of disease, famine, abuse, loneliness, disaster, and war.
What is perhaps more sad is that we've convinced ourselves that we can buy our freedom back. We buy it with cash, with third-world labor, with the blood of our fellow citizens. But we've mistaken 'freedom' for 'standard-of-living'...a mistake that is costing the lives of thousands on both sides of our current war. We've put our way-of-life above life itself.
But you can't buy something that's free. Weird as it sounds, it cheapens it.
This is not to undermine the sacrifice of millions of soldiers. Rather it is a hope that, for those two minutes of silence at least, we dwell not on a past that has become distant to many of us, but instead on the freedom from pride and greed that comes from Christ alone...a freedom that, if taken seriously, should spell the end of war. A freedom that, thanks to His sacrifice, is free.
What will you do with that freedom?
Thanks, Braveheart ;)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Intercession: The Art of Delivering Babies
Part two of a two-part series on good intentions gone horribly awry:
There is perhaps no instance in which one can feel less helpful than when someone very dear to oneself is hurting or experiencing loss. Our sunday-school solution is to pray, but how often is that prayer meant as a quick cure-all, intended merely to cheer someone up because we hate to see them hurting?
Only minutes after committing this exact crime against my lovely Manicotti (another food nickname you can expect to be seeing a lot of, dear reader), God struck me with this little gem from Mr Oswald Chambers:
"Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way, God is going to touch the whole world with His saints"
Imagine you are a father-to-be. Your pregnant wife goes into labour, and you wish more than anything that you could take her pain from her. This person you love so tellement much is in inexplicable pain, and you feel absolutely helpless.
Impulsive prayer would be the equivalent of stuffing her full of Tylenol and waiting around to catch the baby.
Intercession, however, is driving her to the hospital, helping her up the steps, and handing her over to the doctor. It is being humble enough to say "I haven't the slightest clue how to administer an epidural, but I will help you get to the person who does".
*the italicized bit is, again, an excerpt from My Utmost for his Highest. If you haven't gotten the idea yet, it's a dang good book, so go buy it!
There is perhaps no instance in which one can feel less helpful than when someone very dear to oneself is hurting or experiencing loss. Our sunday-school solution is to pray, but how often is that prayer meant as a quick cure-all, intended merely to cheer someone up because we hate to see them hurting?
Only minutes after committing this exact crime against my lovely Manicotti (another food nickname you can expect to be seeing a lot of, dear reader), God struck me with this little gem from Mr Oswald Chambers:
"Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way, God is going to touch the whole world with His saints"
Imagine you are a father-to-be. Your pregnant wife goes into labour, and you wish more than anything that you could take her pain from her. This person you love so tellement much is in inexplicable pain, and you feel absolutely helpless.
Impulsive prayer would be the equivalent of stuffing her full of Tylenol and waiting around to catch the baby.
Intercession, however, is driving her to the hospital, helping her up the steps, and handing her over to the doctor. It is being humble enough to say "I haven't the slightest clue how to administer an epidural, but I will help you get to the person who does".
*the italicized bit is, again, an excerpt from My Utmost for his Highest. If you haven't gotten the idea yet, it's a dang good book, so go buy it!
Lazarus and the Firefighter
Part one of a two-part series on good intentions gone horribly awry.
Last night was literally the fifth time in one month that Lazarus (John 11:1-44) has come up in my conversations with God, and always at the most appropriate times. For anyone who doubts that God communicates with us personally, you stand corrected.
How many times have I sounded like Martha when I pray: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
"If you had been here"...there's a sense of resignation. It's over. I believe Jesus can heal, but can he resurrect?
"I know that even now"...sounds strikingly like the tagline I end many of my doubtful, resigned, woeful prayers with. Cuz you gotta say it, right? You can't actually tell God that you think his power has reached its limit.
And then it comes: "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day"...my classic phrase to make sure I 'cover God's ass' (to use the crude legal term), so that if this prayer never gets answered, at least God won't look bad. How noble of me.
Martha and I have one big thing in common. Our faith (well-intentioned as it may be) is placed in the future, because it's easier to fantasize change tomorrow than it is to ask for change today. That's not the kind of faith God looks for, because God is today ("I am" sound familiar?). Even if our prayer isn't answered exactly as we expect at this very instant, that doesn't mean God is not acting. The faith God looks for is the kind of faith that seeks for how God is working today, even if it's not how we expect.
God is acting now to answer your prayers. God is anything but passive. If there's one churchy phrase I absolutely despise, it's that God "allows" things to happen. A firefighter who stands on the street "allowing" an apartment building to burn is a sick sadist that should be shot. But a firefighter who sacrifices himself to save the people inside, even if it means pulling them deeper into the fire on the way out...that's the God I want to come rescue me.
*the first bit of this is from Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for his Highest. If you haven't already, go buy it and read it.
Last night was literally the fifth time in one month that Lazarus (John 11:1-44) has come up in my conversations with God, and always at the most appropriate times. For anyone who doubts that God communicates with us personally, you stand corrected.
How many times have I sounded like Martha when I pray: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
"If you had been here"...there's a sense of resignation. It's over. I believe Jesus can heal, but can he resurrect?
"I know that even now"...sounds strikingly like the tagline I end many of my doubtful, resigned, woeful prayers with. Cuz you gotta say it, right? You can't actually tell God that you think his power has reached its limit.
And then it comes: "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day"...my classic phrase to make sure I 'cover God's ass' (to use the crude legal term), so that if this prayer never gets answered, at least God won't look bad. How noble of me.
Martha and I have one big thing in common. Our faith (well-intentioned as it may be) is placed in the future, because it's easier to fantasize change tomorrow than it is to ask for change today. That's not the kind of faith God looks for, because God is today ("I am" sound familiar?). Even if our prayer isn't answered exactly as we expect at this very instant, that doesn't mean God is not acting. The faith God looks for is the kind of faith that seeks for how God is working today, even if it's not how we expect.
God is acting now to answer your prayers. God is anything but passive. If there's one churchy phrase I absolutely despise, it's that God "allows" things to happen. A firefighter who stands on the street "allowing" an apartment building to burn is a sick sadist that should be shot. But a firefighter who sacrifices himself to save the people inside, even if it means pulling them deeper into the fire on the way out...that's the God I want to come rescue me.
*the first bit of this is from Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for his Highest. If you haven't already, go buy it and read it.
Monday, November 3, 2008
And the odometer keeps on rollin'...
20.
It's a pretty insignificant age, really. No new priviledges, no previously-forbidden-areas/substances/activities whose interdict has been lifted. You're not a teenager, but you can't even call yourself a twenty-something. You're just...twenty.
Which leaves absolutely nothing to distract me from milking this day (and the year to come) for all it's worth. I feel more confident and directed than ever before, which only means that I've beat one level of life's nintendo game and am now moving up to the next one, full of its fair share of the good (foxtails that make you fly, stars that make you invincible), the bad (poisonous flowers rising from green pipes), and the ugly (Bowser. 'Nuff said.).
Basically, c'est-a-dire that it's a year of brand new everything, which is equal parts exciting and terrifying.
God, I want to devote this year to you. Otherwise it may as well not be lived.
It's a pretty insignificant age, really. No new priviledges, no previously-forbidden-areas/substances/activities whose interdict has been lifted. You're not a teenager, but you can't even call yourself a twenty-something. You're just...twenty.
Which leaves absolutely nothing to distract me from milking this day (and the year to come) for all it's worth. I feel more confident and directed than ever before, which only means that I've beat one level of life's nintendo game and am now moving up to the next one, full of its fair share of the good (foxtails that make you fly, stars that make you invincible), the bad (poisonous flowers rising from green pipes), and the ugly (Bowser. 'Nuff said.).
Basically, c'est-a-dire that it's a year of brand new everything, which is equal parts exciting and terrifying.
God, I want to devote this year to you. Otherwise it may as well not be lived.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)