Christmas Ramble...

Through the course of life we will be asked the question; Who are you?
For most of us, the cursory response is our name or the name of our parents.
We don't typically wrestle with the deep philosophical question of who am I, until we get toward our teen years and beyond... but it is an interesting question, none the less.
I grew up in a family with a rich heritage that was founded in our faith in Jesus Christ.  There was never any question that what we believed was synonymous with who we were.
As I got older and began to really delve in to what it meant to have faith in Christ and the tension of making that faith my own, I discovered the aforementioned assertion to be even more certain than in my tender youth.
This, however, was not always the case... who I was or am, was not always synonymous with what I believed.
As one begins to grapple with issues of faith and in particular, having a personal relationship with Jesus, it is easy to find inconsistencies tucked in to the fabric of liturgy and life in the every day.
I have written and spoken about this on many occasions, but I'm going to ramble on about it again anyway...
When we focus on people and the hypocrisy between what they say and what they do, it's easy for our "faith" to unravel.


And the unfortunate consequence of this reality is, this is where many people get derailed in their faith.  As children or young adults, we observe failures in people to whom we look up and the disappointment and disillusionment this brings, serves to chip away at our faith in God.
As the old saying goes, (there are many variations on this) "what you do is more important than what you say."
With that in mind, we have to, as adults, be vigilant in our behavior, publicly and privately, so that we give no one cause to question their own faith in God.
Now comes the conundrum, or the contradictory statement; what we do does not define who we are.
Our identity cannot be derived from or achieved by what we do, though many try.


This can be especially difficult to swallow, when there are many in our society who put a premium on personal performance and achievement as a means for acquiring distinction or glory.
And while you might be able to find some semblance of notoriety through achievement, from a humanistic perspective, when one realizes that we are so temporary in nature, that what we do barely serves to make a ripple in the grand expanse of time and history and that we are not the center of the universe, it is possible to obtain a little clearer perspective as to what, or rather, who it is that actually defines us.  
Once we grab on to that framework, it aids us in building an understanding of who we are through the lens of Christ Jesus. Because, out of our relationship with God, flows the life we falsely think we can achieve through our own efforts or merit.


Again, it is easy to get focussed on the doing, because we are a production oriented society, but we really must lose our fascination with doing and try to find some success in just being...
What the heck?  So, are we supposed to assume the lotus position and meditate on our navel until we reach some form of enlightenment?
Not exactly.
Being is not meant to sound like some pharmaceutically induced state of nothingness.  I'm talking about an actual state of being...like being in relationship with another person.  "I'm in a relationship", denotes a state of being present, being with, being about, philosophically, emotionally, physically, spiritually engaged in a place of connection.  And this connectivity has little to do with what you've done to get there.  It's like you just knew and you said yes...
All of that to say, that at this time of year, Christmas time, this belief holds most true for me.  
I know it sounds absurd to think, write, even say such a thing but then,
it is so highly imperceptible to think that out of such humble beginnings could come such wonder and mystery, glory and truth.  An unwed teenage mother, a baby, a barn, lowly shepherds, a middle-aged carpenter, a strange celestial anomaly, 3 noblemen from some far eastern land traveling so many months to get to their destination by following said celestial anomaly, angelic hosts...


See, we didn't do anything to make that miraculous event come about.  It happened as a result of God's sovereign will.  
And this state of being that I'm talking about, happens in much the same way.  
God has opened an opportunity to us, to step in to the reality of being with him...each of us, to know Him.
What we've done or what we can do, doesn't interfere with or help us obtain this reality.  We simply have to believe and to ask...


It's like we just know and we say yes...


And out of this most unorthodox, unbelievable circumstance comes the hope of the entire world...the very Son of God, through whom we have life, significance and identity...not because of what we or anyone else has done or can do, but because of who He is and who we now are through Him.


Grace and Peace

Seeing is Believing

O.k., so I had this revelation this morning...well, maybe "revelation" is a little bit strong... But, anyway, I was listening to one of our pastors give a brief discourse from a story out of the Bible found in the historical account of the various Judges that lead the nation of Israel before the ancient monarchy was established.
The story he was referencing was about a guy named Sampson.  Maybe you've heard of him?  He was dedicated to God by his parents and they were told that if he followed a certain way of living, (fulfilling a vow called the Nazarite Vow), where he was given particular instructions about everything from what he could eat and drink to his appearance, that God would use him to save Israel from their oppressors.  
In this instance, as a result of Sampson keeping this vow, God gave Sampson supernatural strength.  Long story short, Sampson had a bit of difficulty fulfilling his vow.  And so, he lost the strength God had given him and he was taken captive by the enemies of Israel.  


The thing that caught my attention this morning was, that the Nazarite vow that Sampson took, stipulated that he was never to cut his hair, and from the Biblical account, it's really easy to make the correlation between his hair and his strength...that one was dependent upon the other.  
Now, in my opinion, his strength was not totally dependent upon his hair, it was just symbolic of his devotion to God and of the gift God had given him...
The reason Sampson lost his strength was because his heart wasn't in the right place.  He made a mockery of the gift God had given him and so the symbol of his strength was the means God chose to remove his strength from him.  ANYWAY, so much for trying to make a long story short...


So as a result of his arrogance, his head was shaved, he was taken captive and his eyes were put out.  The main point I'm getting to, eventually, is that once his eyes were put out, his hair began to grow...
You can reference this in the Bible in the section called Judges; chapters 13-16)
The lesson in this is: with humility, comes the strength to do what God has designed/called us to do.  
If we are not careful, we become blinded by our perceptions of reality and we  think we can see so much and in our arrogance we perceive little.  What we must do is allow God to give us the eyes to see what it is he is doing and allow Him to accomplish in and through us his desired outcome.
So in order to really see, we must in a sense, become blind...humbling ourselves in light of the fact that God is God and we are not...lest we lose the ability to perceive who He is and what He has for us to do.

Heart Issues

I've been doing a lot of study and teaching about the contrasting lives of Saul and David from Biblical history.
Saul, we see rise from obscurity to the monarchy in ancient Israel as a result of God's sovereign choice.  (the institution of a monarchy was to satisfy the whining of the general populous...this was not God's idea.  He relented and gave the people what they wanted.  You can see how well that worked out for them...)
Anyway, I digress.
Saul is a case study in someone who has an inferiority complex and uses their position and power to compensate for it.  His errors in judgment and subsequent poor leadership decisions serve to be his ultimate undoing. 
What do I mean...well in the interest of time, and blog space, I'll sum it up this way; when God gives specific instructions, it is apparent that He wants those instructions to be carried out to the letter.  Saul repeatedly failed to do that.
Why?  Well, I'm not qualified to dig in to the psychology of the decision making process of Saul, so, I'll summarize it my thoughts as to why, in a moment.
So we have Saul, the not-so-great king of Israel.  Enter the scene; David, humble shepherd boy from the town of Bethlehem in Judea.  
Why is David significant in this contrast of characters?  Well, he is the hero to Saul's villain, if we must put it in that context.  
David, was the antithesis of Saul.
- Great faith in God
- Hunger and passion for God
- David wanted to please God rather than appear great in the eyes of the people.
- David was unshakeable in his confidence in God's faithfulness and purpose for his life.
- He was humble in the midst of great success.
- He was persistent in his pursuit of God.
- He was a man of character, courage and loyalty.
- Humble...recognized that God was the true King and that he was just God's chosen representative.


That's quite a list.  Though not an exhaustive list it serves to help us compare these two characters and see that Saul is essentially the opposite of each of the characteristics that David possessed.


Now, this certainly doesn't mean that David was perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  He certainly had his faults and failings... He committed murder so he could be with another man's wife, disobeyed God's instructions and was an enormous failure as a father to his sons.  
However, in spite of his humanity, here's the biggest difference in my mind, between Saul and David;
David was humble and teachable and accepted God's judgment and correction in his life.
Saul's arrogance and presumption that he was in complete control, led him not only to make foolish decisions; it blinded him to the reality that it was his character flaws that caused him to fail.
Saul was too quick to put his trust in himself rather than in God.


So if David was indeed a man after God's own heart and the "hero" in this comparison, what does that mean for us?
Well, if I can sum it up, in a probably too simplistic manner, all God is looking for is someone who will trust Him and act upon that trust, whose heart is completely devoted to God.


More to come from the lives of these two men...

Freedom

July 4th, with it's rocket's red glare and the bombs bursting in air...give proof through the night that my neighbors are willing to turn our quiet little suburban street into a war-zone like cacophony of celebration that supports my assertion, people just want an excuse to blow stuff up.  

You might as well take a $100 bill and light it on fire many times over...anyway, as you can probably tell, this might turn in to a rant if I don't redeem it in a hurry...

Freedom, that's what July 4th is supposed to be all about.  Freedom to celebrate ones citizenship in the greatest country on the planet...freedom to light off countless incendiary devices...

Freedom to be and to do whatever we feel like, within reason.

That, dear friends, is where the road turns severely in an unsavory direction.  The unsavory direction being when we use our freedom as an excuse to exercise the "right" to choose whatever behavior seems prudent to us at any given moment, even if it seems unreasonable or without reason.

I don't want this to turn in to a political statement, because, well, that's not the nature of my business.  However, I do want this pithy little tome to include the idea that we were created for freedom that exceeds anything that could be achieved as a result of our civil liberties and even our imaginations.

There was this guy named Paul, who in the first century, shortly after the death of Jesus the Christ, encountered this same Jesus on the road.  You could call it an epiphany of sorts.

It was through this very dramatic introduction to Jesus that Paul discovered, freedom is more than an idea, or desire or political agenda...freedom is in a sense, a person, the person of Jesus.  

Because, as Paul discovered, it is only through Jesus, that we can find true freedom.  Freedom from the lies that have become our lives and freedom to become who we were intended to be.

Paul himself said, in a letter to some friends in a town in Galatia, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free..."

So in all your revelry and combusting this weekend, I hope you discover that freedom really is more than our ability to express ourselves in any way we see fit.  Freedom is about discovering and living in the life we were created to live, through relationship with Jesus Christ.

time keeps on slippin, slippin...

There are way too many cliche's about getting older and time passing and the subsequent realizations of one's mortality, so I'll spare you the drivel that slips so easily on to the keyboard from the tablet of my jacked up imagination...

Save but for this one little tidbit; "Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes...Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."

This little excerpt from the 4th chapter of James' (the brother of Jesus) letter to the church in Jerusalem, reminds us that we have so little time on the face of this spinning orb to really make a difference. We boast about things we have done or will do, but unless we really take stock of the types of activities we spend our time chasing, and evaluate whether those things serve to benefit others, we'll soon come to the realization that it's all been for nought.

We must begin, if we aren't already, making sure that we are doing things that are less about building wealth or a place in history for our name. We need to be about building up people. If we hope to leave any lasting legacy, (a positive one anyway), our investment of time, energy and resources, must serve to bring others up...not in a corporate kind of way, helping them climb the ladders of opportunity and accomplishment, but, building character and skills that serve to build people from the inside out and pass along the desire and ability to do the same for generations to come. (wow, sorry for that long run-on...)

If we can master that...or at least become proficient at it, we might just find that the life we live will not only last beyond our days walking this earth, but that we will leave the generations behind us in, perhaps, better shape than we found ours...

Ears to hear...

Typically my blog leans more toward the philosophical than the practical...but perhaps today I can blend the two a little more intentionally.
I'm a youth pastor and very shortly will have been in youth ministry for 20 years...
I've seen and experienced a little over those years, however, I don't pretend for a minute that I have this all figured out.
I love students and will always love students, but not everyone shares my affection for the pubescent masses.
Probably because, now, more than ever, teenagers are direct. Students speak their minds even if it's not polite or socially acceptable...which I happen to find refreshing, but to some, this is offensive.
To the aged ones out there, (anyone over 25) who feel disconnected and like you've lost touch or control or both... Don't worry, we all have those days, but this freedom of speech is striking you as disrespectful or irreverent and so it rubs you the wrong way.
This is more often symptomatic of a generational disconnect than it is a cultural norm, although we have experienced a consistent decline in the respect for our elders department over the last 50 years...but, I digress.
What we, like all other generations of adults before us must realize is this: Students are saying more than we are hearing. I don't think this is a startling new revelation, but, If you really want to connect with the teens in your life, hear them. Don't just listen to them and respond out of your annoyance at their lingo or feigned disinterest.
Actually take a moment and listen...focus and hear them.

In many instances, they are dying for you to hear them. yeah, you might not understand everything that's going on or coming out, but for God's sake...try. You'll never know how significant the effort is to them and the impact that it makes until you do. Though we may never permanently span the generation gaps, we certainly can make the effort to build a few little walking bridges here and there and be amazed at what comes of it.

Though Youth Ministry might not be for everyone, we all have a responsibility to bring those generations along that follow us...at the very least we should try and do it intentionally...Lord knows we're reaping the rewards of the accidental influence past generations of adults have had on the "angry youth" around them.

Stop, look, listen and be amazed.

Oh, give me ears that i might see more clearly, than i do through eyes that oft deceive me...hearing, not only listening...discerning, learning, loving, being.

you say goodbye and I say hello...

Why can't we say what we mean? I mean, really, why is it so difficult to communicate with one another these days?
There are many opinions on this subject, ranging from general civic indifference to the disconnect between people as a result of their digital connections through social media, to those living in fear of their neighbors...and on and on...
Then there are the Beatles...nearly 40 years ago, laying it out in plain, well, mostly plain English. "I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello..."
I think, therein lies the answer...for eternity, we have been living within the ambiguity of our words, daily eking out an existence from within the confines of our misunderstanding.
Bottom line: We just can't sort it out enough to spit it out...
Now, not everyone suffers from this malady. There are those who speak what they mean ad infinitum...incessantly jabbering on about everything and nothing...speaking without thinking.
The key, at least from my perspective is this...think about what you're saying before you open your yap. This may not be an iron-clad solution to our problem, but at least it cuts out the majority of misunderstandings.
This guy Jesus said it pretty plainly..."Simply let your yes be yes and your no, no; when you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.
Ah, maybe that's the ticket...we are so self absorbed that we cannot separate our words from the context of how they, or any given situation affects us personally.
Maybe instead of worrying about what our words mean to us, we should think about what they mean to the other guy before we let them fly...?
I say yes, you say no...