Your Last Marble - 12.28.10 0800

There's a story about John (the one who wrote the gospel) that has been tattooed to my brain since the first time I heard it years ago.

When he was too old to get around by himself, people would sort of carry him around. As they passed by others he would keep saying one thing over and over. Placing his hands gently on people's heads he would say, "Love one another."

Can you picture it? An endless, repetitive motion punctuated by and endless, repetitive phrase? When I hear the story I wonder if he could say anything else.  I wonder if he mumbled it inaudibly and people just dismissed it as the ramblings of an old man. I wonder if he recognized anyone. This was the self proclaimed beloved disciple, the only one rumored to live into old age and escape martyrdom. Being so close to Jesus, possibly his closest friend, has to have had an effect.

Mostly this story makes me think hard about what I might be mumbling when Father Time has worked his magic on me. What is going to be my catch-all phrase when I only have the strength to say, and maybe even remember, just one sentence. I've heard about people visiting the more mature generations of their families and talking about how their grandparent didn't seem to be all there, or how they kept reliving a single moment of their past. Was this how it was for John?

Imagine being so ingrained with Christ's message that when you had but one marble left rolling around upstairs, the one memory you latched onto until your passing was the message of love.

I hope that'll be me.

I hope that as time passes and God refines me more and more into the image of Christ, that his message of love just saturates me. I hope that the final image I leave my friends and family with is as obviously stamped by Jesus as John's was.

 II Corinthians 12:6-10

Suck It Up - 12.25.10 0800

Every time I read Pail's epistles and try and get a feel for who the guy was, I almost always reach the same conclusion; I don't much care for him.

I'm sure he's a nice enough guy and everything, but I don't think I could spend much time with him. He always strikes me as having a bit of a pretentious, know-it-all attitude that's hard to be around. I could be flat out wrong of course. After all, I'm basing this off of some 13 letters he wrote to struggling churches, some while he was in jail, so I'm sure that'll color it up a bit. I'm just saying that, at this point, we probably wouldn't be BFF's.

But there is a passage of scripture that he wrote that makes him the most relate-able person in scripture to me.

Have you ever hit a point in your Christian walk where you thought, if I could just get a handle on this one vice I think I could really make this Christian thing work. Most of us have at least one thing that we've realized is holding us back from being totally devoted to God. Paul never said what his was. All he tells us is that he asked God three separate times to get rid of it and each time God said no. This must have been quite the struggle for Paul. He's used to being a Jew, someone who could attain perfection by upholding every jot of the Law. Now he's a Christian, trying to be an example for other Christians, and he's got this one thing that he just can't overcome.

The thorn in his side.

And God says no.

But God, won't you give us whatever we ask for? If we're faithful enough, won't you eventually answer our prayers, remove our struggles, maybe even make our lives a little easier to follow you? why would God tell Paul - the professional Christian - no to a request that would surely make him a better leader and a better example to follow?


Because his grace is sufficient.

What does that even mean?

I think it means that God saw Paul trying to be perfect, and thus missing the point. He was trying to get the point when he wasn't doing anything wrong, where there were no more obstacles to overcome or vices to deal with. And what does God say?

Suck it up.

You will have your vices. Your struggles. Your obstacles. This is life. And there is on thing to remember through it all.

My grace is sufficient.

We are gonna make mistakes. The hard part is to remember not to let it wear us down or make us feel de-valued. God's love is unconditional, he's made that clear.

Thank you Paul for trying so hard and for asking the tough questions. We may not ever be best friends, but I'm looking forward to meeting such an inspiring example of God's grace.

II Corinthians 12:6-10

The Greater Sacrifice? - 12.21.10 1730

(I wrote this for my friend's site when he was doing a Christmas Special, inviting other authors to write about Christmas)

“No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life for his friends.”

–Jesus the Christ, Gospel of John

How blasphemous would it be to disagree with his statement here? 

Kind of a rhetorical question, I mean you don’t need to answer it, but I did want to say that I wasn’t sure I was completely behind him on this one. 

And what I mean is that I’m not sure that’s the greater love. 

Now, there’s no arguing that it’s love, even great love, but the greatest love? It may be for some, but it’s not for me. For me, it’s not that he died for me (though my appreciation for that knows no bounds). The greatest love is that he lived for me.

There are many I would die for. My friends, family, wife and even strangers. I could die for all of them. For some reason that is easier for me to do than live for them. I’m not sure I would give up my job for them, for example. If my brother needed a job and the opportunity to just switch with him, me unemployed and him to have a job – maybe my job – is a hard thing to swallow.

Would you do that? 

Hard to remember that Christ did.

“…but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature.”   -Paul, Epistle to the Philippians

My wife brought something up the other day that really got me thinking and we talked more about it later. When we think of the sacrifice of Christ, it’s his death and resurrection that come to mind. The Cross. Calvary. Beatings. A host of images really. But with “sacrifice” there is definitely something that doesn’t usually come to mind.

Swaddling clothes. A manger. Arms. Hunger. Dependence. Actual physical form. 

Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t just include his death on the Cross to free us from sin’s slavery and its wages, it also includes the life he lived. 

His sacrifice also includes being born in the first place. 

God humbled himself. He took on the form of a servant and served his created beings. He gave up all the omni’s of knowing all, seeing all, doing all and became limited. Which one of us would do that? Would you give up your freedoms so that someone else could have them? That would be tough for me to do. But I would die for you. I would jump in front of the bullet for a stranger, friend, family or foe. But I would have a hard time living for you.

That is why the greatest love that Christ showed me was that he came down at all. For me, it would take a greater love to live for someone else than to die for them. 

He died for me. I thank him as often as I remember to for that. But lately I’ve been trying to remember to thank him also for deciding to be born in a manger, because that too is sacrifice. That too is love. That, for me, is the greater love.

Emmanuel. And I love him more for it.

Not everyone is Jonah - 11.30.10 1115

"What is God's will for my life?"

Have you ever asked this? Of yourself? Maybe heard someone else struggle with the question? At some point I'm sure we all ask it. Makes sense. I mean, you want to make the best contribution possible, and we're conditioned to think that life has two roads, the one that will be in God's favor and the one that will not. Sometimes we carry it a bit further. We remember God "orchestrating" stories in the bible, hear verses like "I have plans for you" in Jeremiah, and see God calling specific people for specific things and we think, what's my calling? What's my story? Where does God want me to be?

What's God's will for my life?

Well, let me ask this. What if he doesn't care?

What if he doesn't care what you do in your life so much as how you do it? When trying to decide on a life career in ministry, or politics, or anything, what if it doesn't matter which you choose?

What if, and this might sound strange at first but think about it, the answer to "what's God's will for my life" is much simpler than we make it out to be. It could be a simple three word sentence.

"To be Christlike."

He might not have specific plans for you. No doubt he did for many people in history like Jonah or Jeremiah, but:

what if they were called so that you wouldn't have to be?

What if God asked them to play certain parts in the grand plan to help bring the Christ event and further his kingdom so that you would not have to bear the burden of a specific task, or life. What if your only calling is to live free, to be Christlike.

Can God work through you as a doctor? Lawyer? Minister? Janitor? Yes. Can you find opportunities to be more like Christ in your decisions, in all those places, and maybe even bring others into a relationship with Christ? Yes.

What if the entire time you are wrangling your hands about choices in life, beseeching God, pleading "what do you want me to do with my life," and the whole time he is looking down at you asking, "what do you want to do with your life?"

It could be that he is simply waiting for you to make a decision so that he can begin filling your life with moments that will mold you into a more Christlike image.

What is God's will for my life?

I believe he's already told us.

Which God Weighs More - 11.16.10 0720

My mind battles with two images of God, the one I'm used to and the one I'm learning about.

In the one corner I have Static God. SG is transcendent, sitting on his throne above. He watches, observes, and makes calls based on what's going on down here. Every once in a while he will quickly step down and correct human history, putting it on a different path in accordance with the plan, but for the most part supervises what he has laid out. He has attributes like "righteousness" and "truth," and they radiate from him, sending vibes out that call us to be better, do better, much like a magnet pulls passively on passing-by iron filings. The distant judge. Setting the standards, we do what we can to live by them and please him with our actions. While I know that my salvation has nothing to do with my works in the direct sense, I can't help but picture him looking at me from afar, notebook of life in hand with a cocked eyebrow as he tallies my deeds for Day Omega. He loves me and draws me to his throne, pulling me to come closer, see clearer, and know that he is good.

But in the opposite corner I have Dynamic God. DG does not sit on a throne and is not passively supervising. He is on earth, in our lives, constantly nudging, correcting, and guiding history toward a goal. He also has attributes like "righteousness," but they are not static descriptions of his nature, they are active descriptions of his deeds. Rolling up his sleeves, he thrusts his arms into history to partner with us in making things righteous, working with us daily in accomplishing the overall plan. He is never at rest, but instead looks for, and sometimes makes, opportunities to correct and build the body of Christ into a more accurate image of Jesus. He is not a general calling the shots for his army, but a commander who leads his people into battle. The imminent mentor. Setting the standards, he holds our hand and shows us ways to reach them, often doing for us what we cannot in order to make them happen. Up to his neck in the swamp of our lives, he does not stop until all is a crop ready for harvest.

Both are in the ring, the arena of my mind, struggling for dominance. The Static God I've been taught versus the Dynamic God I'm discovering for myself. I see it in my prayer life and in my actions, the oscillating frequency of my bible readings and divine conversations. I don't wish to have Static God a part of my life because I don't believe that is the true God.

The more I read scripture and study Hebrew thought, the more I see nothing but the Dynamic God of activity. His just, righteous, and faithful attributes are reworking humanity and recreating creation in a way that is polar opposite to the magnetic throne that tugs and pulls from a central location in heaven. He is not only righteous, but works to make things righteous. He is not only merciful, but works with us to makes us merciful too.

We are created in his image. Humanity is also active and never at rest.

But am I emulating his activity, as a child of God?

Or am I eating from the tree of my own plan, as a son of Adam?



That tree tastes nasty.