Captured in the Collision

When we become acutely aware that Jesus is near in a particular moment, we stand on the threshold of encountering something far greater than visible need or expediency – we encounter the Living God. We stand pensively as opportunity knocks at the door of our heart. We volley in the moment between good and best. But how often do we miss it? For me, it seems very often. May God forgive me for missing the opportunity to be Captured in the Collision.

Much has transpired in the life and ministry of Jesus over the 3 years He has been traveling and bringing the Kingdom of God to bear upon the lives of people He met. And the characters in this scene are no exception to that rule.

Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9 begin to set the scene for these very pronounce opportunities. John 12:2-11 reveals another view of the pending Collision.

As we watch the story unfolding there are SEVERAL THINGS to note about pending Collisions that God is seeking to Capture us in… let’s look.

1. Jesus hangs out with the LEPER’S – Matthew 26:6; Mark 14:3
The people who were ceremonially unclean and socially ostracized – the dregs not typically invited to church

2. Jesus hangs out with the ONCE DEAD – John 12:2, 9
The people who have an incredible testimony of once being dead in their sins – but whom Jesus raised to life

3. Jesus commends those CAPTURED in the COLLISION of a decision made that HONORS Him above ALL ELSE – Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8
The people stuck between a rock and a hard place – but who tend to discover His presence in the moment and choose best over good.

The key thing for us to NOTE is obedience in the moment. It’s about being keenly aware of when Jesus shows up in your midst or proximity. At any given moment, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus may show up. Are we developing an awareness that realizes Jesus is here?

The problem we face is; PRAGMATISM kicks in and we miss the moment. We miss the opportunity that the Savior, the Healer, the Baptizer has shown up in our moment of life. All we seem to be able to do is look at the outward needs or issues of life and we miss that He’s reclining right in our very midst. Right in our own dinning room, living room, car, cubicle, back yard, family room, bedroom, sidewalk, or possibly even our church sanctuary!

How aware are we that our Savior is near? How sensitive are we to His plan and His will for the moment? And are we READY to anoint Him or honor Him for what He is about to do?

My suggestion is that we, much like the disciples and others in the room, fall into indignation about all the OTHER things that NEED attention or NEED funding or NEED helping or NEED fixing or WHATEVER!

Are you consumed with outward EXPEDIENCY and missing the fact that the Savior is honoring you with His presence? That’s a question that you need to be able to answer – honestly. Because your answer may determine WHY you may not have experienced His ultimate favor and commendation?

Now here’s the POINT: God sets up life scenarios where we are CAPTURED in the COLLISION of decision. In the midst of EXPEDIENCY will you FIRST turn to Him and honor the FACT that He is right with you in the moment.

STOP! The next time you are in the middle of making a decision about doing what appears to be a good and right thing… is there something GREATER waiting to be attended to?

“For the poor you always have with you; but you do not always have Me.”
John 12:8 (NASB)

If you will hone your spiritual senses to the fact of His presence in your midst and if you will honor Him and anoint Him… if you will sacrificially apply your love and acknowledgment for what He is about to do and what He has done. He in turn will honor and commend you.

Pain as Cause

Back to my spiritual travel log, I don’t think Gilligan really wanted to go home, because life on his island wasn’t that painful. Are you like me, when I was a kid I used to think it would be cool to live in a hut and sleep in a hammock and run around in the jungle and hang out with pretty girls and goofy science guys and rich people (I still feel that way)?

Gilligan felt little pain once he was marooned. Oh I know maybe he couldn’t hang out with his buddy Dobie Gillis any more, but the island was pretty cushy.

Once we begin to move from cushy to pushy, things change. I just read an AP online headline “Obama: Economy causing many ‘incredible pain.’” Hmmm… I don’t doubt many are feeling the pinch or cinch of less cash or retirement funds, but pain?

Come on… pain? Maybe our president should take a refresher course on what pain IS. Pain is not having a smaller house, or less latte money, or not getting the new plasma TV, or having to drive an older car, or shopping at Aldis, or trolling the Good Will for alternatives in our wardrobe or even brown bagging it every day at work.

Real pain seems more proficient. Real pain seems to be more about things that cannot be altered by coping mechanisms or medicine. Real pain seems more like stuff that sticks in your soul and won’t go away. I think Mr. Obama really means; “incredible inconvenience” but somehow “pain” seems a little over the top.

Most of the reasons we’re in this economic mess is greed and over extension of credit. Kinda like our consumer eyes were “bigger than our stomach”. My mom used to say that to me when I took too big of a helping of something, then I couldn’t eat it all.

In 1980 I remember experiencing pain that altered my life for years. Maybe I’d seen it coming, but when it came… wham! It hit me hard. When I was 17 years old, I knew I heard the voice of God calling me into the Gospel ministry. By the time I was 19 I knew I was to be a preacher of the Gospel. I assumed that being a pastor is what God wanted for my life, until I ran smack dab into grave hypocrisy.

When I saw what appeared to be the most spiritual people on campus, doing very unspiritual things, like hosing each other over at the Zoo, or sneaking out and getting drunk late at night. All the while they were applauded for their outward appearance of holiness; I got scared.

You see, I had no desire to “look” holy, but I sure wanted my heart and life to be holy. I didn’t care if I looked like a sinner, but I sure wanted to repent of my sins and accept God’s grace and forgiveness. Yet as long as I looked like I was a sinner (back then looking punkish’ must have been sinful) I was presumed guilty.

As a result I became very disillusioned. I felt some kind of pain that caused me to run from God (or I thought I was running from God, but it was really Christian hypocrisy I was running from). As I began to run, I said to myself… “I’m not gonna fake anything… I’m gonna do what I want and live like I want and I don’t give a rats butt about what others think.” Because I was sure not gonna be like those hypocrites.

In the midst of my journey through the back side of the desert (or Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd – in keeping with my life genre) I found people that accepted me and loved me just the way I was. No pretense, no hoops to jump through (except the occasional 6 pack or dime bag that was on me), no membership requirements – except this: chill out dude.

Hmmm… I wonder if that’s how we treat people as they curiously approach the Kingdom? Or do we throw some obstacle in front of them. Some religious obstacle that will prove they are really serious about God, church, neck ties, clean language, no drinking or smoking, and giving lots of money in the plate? Or do we simply say; “Let’s eat, let’s chill out… and I’m buyin’”.

Maybe Gilligan didn’t have it so rough after all? I’m wondering what kind of PAIN will cause us to change. To cause us to draw near to God… so near we can smell the Skin Bracer He put on this morning after He shaved?

Later!

the FIRST CHURCH syndrome

I thought it was about time that I shared a chapter or two from my spiritual travel log. It’s about a journey I went on several years ago. Kind of like the theme song from Gilligan’s Island, you know; “…a three hour tour… a three hour tour…” I never understood the gravity of my tiny ship being tossed about on the seas of discontent until 41 years later. It was supposed to be a pleasure cruse.

Marooned on a desert island isn’t fun unless it’s Gilligan’s Island. All too often over the years my ship wrecked pleasure cruse, was not like Gilligan’s experience at all.

As I begin to share from my travel log, let me say that as much as I’ve struggled with the persona of my religious heritage, I’ve also spent my life embracing it and loving much of the experience. Friends and my personal relationship with Jesus Christ have made it bearable over the years, but I still have some concerns that need to be released like one of those helium balloons at the funeral of a child.

Those of us that have attended or have been members of any church USA that has the word “first” in its name will hopefully understand what I’m trying to say.

As a child, I was raised to believe that our church was important, very important. So important that it was “first” or “best” in town, so we thought. For most of my childhood and teen years I surely believed that. Sometime in my teen years I realized that a few other churches felt the same way. There were some kids at church camp from another part of the state who thought they were very special too. As a matter of fact, the competition and animosity could often become very stiff and confrontational. I always thought we were “first” so we must be the “best”. Right?

Where did this idea come from? Which one of my spiritual forefathers planned it that way? I ask that because, when I read the New Testament I don’t find that kind of polarity between believers, as a matter of fact I find the opposite.

One thing was for sure, we used love and acceptance like money. If the group liked you, they rewarded you with payments of love and acceptance. If they didn’t like you, you got short changed. You got very little love equity if you were different than the group.

Maybe this happens elsewhere, in other church communities, and communes, and cults, and compounds somewhere out in the Texas desert, but I now realize, that wasn’t the way Jesus intended it to be.

One thing I remember was how the most popular and accepted of the group, had the best clothes, clearest skin, could sing like someone on a record, and were very good at playing group games like Rhythm and Fruit Basket Upset. And most often carried an image that they were very close to God, yet all the while going out after church on Sunday night and sneaking cigarettes at Pizza Hut or making out in their cars behind the church building long after the lights were off and everyone went home.

My personal collision with values or the lack thereof finally reached a pinnacle in the spring of 1980.

I’ll pick up on my travel log later, but one last thought. Being “first” church USA may simply garner being “last” church in HEAVEN. Imagine if we actually took to heart Jesus and Paul’s teaching on love and humility.

The Worth of Worship

Never in my entire life have I fully understood the act or life of worship before God, but what I can say is that it seems to entail a wonder and an awe that can only be experienced when we finally realize something is far greater than us.

When we stand at the railing over looking the edge into the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side of Niagara, or when we’re present at the birth of our first child, or when we’re at the bedside of a beloved believer who slips over that threshold from this life to LIFE eternal, we can for one small moment begin to experience an interface with TRUE worship.

If worship is about WORTH, and it is, then that tells us quite a bit about what we worship.

Without getting into the specifics of each others idolatry, may I suggest this simple TEST? What is the first thing you wake to thinking about? What is the last thing you think of when falling to sleep? What do you spend your time doing? Who are you communicating with most? Where does your money go? What are you doing with your talents and abilities?

Simply put, what parts of your life do you subscribe worth to? Granted, people and relationships are of utmost value, but ONE relationship is of preeminent VALUE and WORTH above all else; your relationship with God.

The Apostle Paul teaches us that worship and acknowledgment of God is the primary guardian against lies that invade our lives. He further teaches that when we decide that the things of God are not worthy of retaining in our hearts, minds and lives, we put ourselves in grave jeopardy. We put ourselves in the position to believe lies that will ultimately separate us from the light and life of God.

Even as believers, if we fail to give the proper worth and glory to God in all that we do, we will begin the subtle erosion of defenses that God has established through the life and practice of WORSHIP. (Romans 1:18-32).

So the next time you’re tempted to implement some sort of man made contraption to satiate the voids in your life, STOP. Stop and take a moment to ask God if what you are about to buy, say, think or simply do is an act of worship?

Don’t get me wrong, eating a Wendy’s Double Stack .99 cent cheese burger may not seem much like an act of worship, but stopping and bowing your head and giving thanks for the dollar to buy the food and thanking God for the ability to feed yourself and not need the assistance of a nurse or a feeding tube, or that you can sit at rest and in ease not worrying about your immediate safety, are at least several things you could consider as thoughts of worship and things worthy of thanking and praising God for. You see, even in the simplest and smallest things, you can give God the GLORY and give Him THANKS. For therein are the first and most simple practices of worship found.

If you will begin to worship God in the small things, when it comes time to worship Him in a corporate and public setting, that will come much easier. Don’t just take my word for it, try it.

Welcome to My Subdivision

I wonder how many of us live in the burbs? How many of us live in subdivisions? Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of being away from the din and the clatter of metropolitan life (although there is something electric about city life). But I wonder if honeycombed neighborhoods of manicured lawns and cookie cutter houses are really what life is all about? Ask the other two thirds of the planet.

Anyway, as far back as I can remember, kids seemed to naturally gravitate and move in orbits of like values and desires. Some might call them clichés, and maybe that’s what they were. But the funny thing is, when I got older, I thought those things would go away. They didn’t.

Often just like when we were kids, being cool is very important to adults. It just looks different, and usually costs a whole lot more. How often do we sacrifice the reality of self for being cool? How often do we posture and position ourselves for greater advantage, even at the risk of loosing touch with who we really are? You know, fitting in so we can get ahead, or to simply survive?

Fitting into a social structure or community is part of being human. We do tend to be gregarious in nature, but should we ever trade our identity for group conformity?

As I see it, here’s where the idea of community and gregarious nature implodes. When the collective soul of a community (family, church, workplace, school) begins to look and smell all the same, something has gone way wrong (the only homogeneous thing I like in life is milk).

I love the fact that God in His infinite wisdom has created each of us with distinct DNA and finger prints and stuff like that. You know, the stuff that physiologically makes you you and me me. That is a very important teleological precedent. If God made us all different why do we try so hard to be like each other?

My hypothesis is this: most of us have at one time in our lives believed a lie; a lie about ourselves that we believe to be true. Let me give a couple of examples.

If I don’t… they won’t. If they do… I should. If God is… then why am I. I should have… but I didn’t. And so on and so forth.

Most of the lies we believe to be true about ourselves destroy the Imago Dei in us. And most of the lies are found in very big and logical questions. Yet all the while, God tells us that human logic is NOT the logic of God.

Before I digress too much for the one or two readers of my blog, let me say this: Conformity for the sake of fitting in STINKS. It smacks of the original lie plied against our Garden fore parents. It smacks of the addictive void that the suburbs offer to anyone who might just take one puff. It smacks of IDOLATRY at its finest.

I do not want to fit in, just to fit in. Oh I want to get along, but NEVER at the expense of loosing who GOD created me to be.

It’s kinda funny to think that God’s grace is only sufficient for those who are WASP’s and who vote Republican. Or for those who live in the suburbs or the subdivisions of life. They must have God’s favor, right?

Well since I’ve now officially violated my own New Year’s resolution of short posting, I’ll conclude by saying, the only thing I want to reflect is Jesus. And when I don’t, I know His grace is sufficient. And when I do, don’t feel bad, you don’t have to look like me either. Someday there will be no suburbs or subdivisions.

Pain & Fear

Stay tuned for some thoughts on Fear versus Pain. How can they exist in the life of a believer? Where do they fit if at all?

Sooner or later, everyone will hear and everyone will speak. Why not make it elective and initiate. He will reciprocate.

Early On

“Early on, I made the mistake of wanting spiritual feelings to endure and remain romantic. Like a new couple expecting to always feel in love, I operated my faith thinking God and I were going to walk around smelling flowers. When this didn’t happen, I became confused.
What was more frustrating than the loss of exhilaration was the return of my struggles with sin. I had become a Christian, so why did I still struggle with lust, greed, and envy? Why did I want to get drunk at parties or cheat on tests?” (Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p.66.)

If I didn’t know better… I’da thought I was quoting myself. And in a way I am. Many of us have gone through what Miller is describing. That sense of “early on feelings” of goodness, grace, love and hope. Yet all too often they fad like early morning fog in Mystic Iowa.

When the “good feelings” fog faded in my life, the lie I begin to believe was that something was wrong with me. When you start to think something is wrong with you… the fleshy response of self-preservation begins to kick in… and you get ticked off at the rest of the world… because you’re sure THEY are causing you to feel bad... even God.

Can you believe that, we actually get mad at God… thinking that in the mix of all we’re feeling it’s somehow His fault. Or it’s the fault of our spouse, or our pastor, or the church, or the schools, or the government, or the liberal pagans that are infiltrating our precious religious culture, or the Taliban or Al Qaida, or Al Gore, or Bill O’Reily, or Jimmy Swaggart, or Jimmy Hendrix, or Bill Marr, or our diet, or our lack of opportunity or privilege. Oh how wrong we are.

As I see it NOW. The “early on feelings” of goodness, grace, love and hope are real. But they are real, because they are relative to the centrality and proximity of God’s voice. Jesus speaking our name, Jesus calling us out of darkness into light… no condemnation, but only acceptance and remedy for the moment and eternity, that’s what we hear. It is that Voice that most often comes when the PAIN we are experiencing becomes so deafening that all other sounds and voices are silenced. You know… the kind of pain that is so loud that everything in our existence hits zero degrees Kelvin… it’s that colder than ice type of pain… where we hear the Voice of Love – the Voice of Life.

As we realize the truth that a single solitary Voice called us from our tombs of death, pain and bondage… life, peace and joy become more and more of a reality. The “trick” that the enemy of our souls wants us to accept is that… the hearing of that Voice is a one time thing for all the rest of our lives. But that is the most treacherous lie we could ever embrace. That “trick” keeps religion in power. That “trick” keeps wounds from healing. That “trick” keeps the masses living in the shadow lands… somewhere between dark and light… between victory and defeat. Pain.

When we accept the facts and the truth that comprise the Love of God – we cannot but help understand that He wants to hang out with us 24/7 and He wants to talk to us and wants us to talk to Him. What do you think happened in the Garden? Do you think Adam and Even dressed up and went to church on Sunday and Wednesday nights? And God put on His best suit and “preached” at them for 45 minutes and then they went back to their tree house for fruit and nuts? I don’t think so. They walked and talked with Him. They sat and shared their thoughts and hearts. They laughed and embraced. They communed with each other. They listened to each other. They experienced the good feeling of RELATIONSHIP... until they (Adam, Eve and we) believed a lie… until that lie brought pain. At that point Adam and Eve took evasive fleshy actions that led them into sin… into darkness and deafness… ultimately into death.

Lies always and eventually bring pain. Then we start to feel the need to cheat, drink, envy, covet, and lust. Can you see the reversal that occurs? God desires that “early on good feelings” continue, but those feelings are absolutely contingent upon our willingness to ONCE AGAIN and regularly HEAR THE VOICE OF LOVE.

Stop right now and think about your “early on” experiences with THE VOICE OF LOVE. Would you like to get back to those “early on feelings” of goodness, grace, love and hope? You can.

Call… email… comment… blog… scream… cry out… pound down another shot… do whatever you feel you need to do… but DO NOT REMAIN SILENT, because He’s not! Stop. Listen. You will hear His Voice.

One thing I know for certain… my life and my mission are to facilitate a connection between you and Jesus. Is that your phone ringing? Maybe it’s God?