Warning: Don’t Read This…

My life has taken some weird, cool, controversial turns religiously, philosophically, theologically…

As I explained in A New Kind of Christianity, and as I explain even more energetically in my upcoming book (Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?), I don’t think the way forward is taking out or throwing away deeply held Christian beliefs. Rather, I think we need better understandings of those beliefs.

via Q & R: Sin? – Brian McLaren.

… and when I saw this note and promise of a new book from Brian McLaren, I was juiced to kick all that up a tad.

Faith and belief are so much bigger than I think we give credit for in our lives and in the lives of others. Over the past twenty years or so now, folks like McLaren, Rob Bell, John Piper, Louie Giglio, Phylis Tickle, Tony Jones, and so on and so on have challenged me and my beliefs. They’ve questioned me while giving me foundations to build on. They’ve encouraged me while ripping out chunks of hardened-heart.

We’ve got it too easy in lots of respects. Church doctrine tells us what to believe as men and women before us have done their own wrestling – so now do and believe the way we’ve nailed it down. Don’t ask questions – doubt and uncertainty are hard, but our beliefs are rock solid. Stand for this so you won’t fall for anything different.

That’s a generality, and I hate going there. But it’s true – in the midst of church life there’s very little room for question or disagreement. There’s no time for thinking things out and making them our own. The faith passed down is already good enough, and it’s a slap against the establishment to attempt to go our own narrow way.

All of that to say that I’m looking forward to the new book to come, and I look forward to wrestling with angels in order to lay hold of real and meaningful blessing.

Where’s The Map?

• “I have had prayers answered – most strangely so sometimes – but I think our heavenly Father’s loving-kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me.” - Lewis Carroll
• “Don’t pray for lighter burdens, but for stronger backs.” – Anonymous

My lovely wife Vicki and I had a conversation the other evening about church, about what the morning sermon had sparked, about what we were thinking and hoping. There’s no map for "spiritual growth", and we’re both looking for some direction for the "what next?" of our life together. I hope it will translate into prayer together for direction, for our own lives as productive members of society, for our kids growing up in the world and not of it.

For me, I like conversation as a directional tool. It’s my compass, my google map. My ideas bouncing out against your ideas and their ideas and her ideas and his ideas. Point and counterpoint leading to some good point for us to make our way towards together. If anything, that’s what we might be missing most right now in removing ourselves from small groups. So, practically at least, that might be our opening push in the coming month or so, just getting back into the swing of a gathering with like-minded and like-directioned folks. We’ve also talked about talking more together. Isn’t the marriage model really the smallest and most intimate small group? Our own prayers together, our own conversation and mutual uplift, our own growth as husband and wife – those things with some intentionality and oomph will do much to add to the spiritual formation of our family, too.

One of my "intentionalities" is going to be the seven-day challenge at LifeChurch.tv. Follow the link and leave a comment if you’d like to be a part. Basically, tonight at 9pm ET/8pm CT, the leaders will be online sharing something from their hearts on using our online opportunities to share life and Jesus with a world in need. If you’ve read this far, you probably have a gumption within – maybe that can be my book title, The Gumption Within – to do something meaningful, or to at least be encouraged to head in that direction. For me, this will be "small group" this week, each night with 100+ folks online experiencing something new and empowering together.

Wiped Out P.M.

With the perturbing afternoon I’d been having, I clicked through on the ESV Bible site for their devotions on my phone. I went straight to today’s "Daily Light", and it almost brought me to tears, like a sucker punch I just really was not ready for.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.—With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.—The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.—I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.—But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”—May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.

Eph. 6:10; 2 Cor. 12:9, 10; Ps. 71:16; Rom. 1:16; Phil. 4:13; Col. 1:29; 2 Cor. 4:7; Neh. 8:10; Col. 1:11

I don’t know if I can adequately convey what these verses made me feel, what these words are doing inside me right now. Part of me wants to rest in the promises, knowing full-well that God means to be all this and more. But part of me is just pissed off, not that easily blown off and laid aside. That’s the verbose blogging side right now, by the way. Some things are going very well, but some things are just really stressful right now. Work is good, and I am really glad we’re getting some good things done on this trip. But other tasks are just weighing on me for what’s needed. Then there’s church, where we’ve got good understanding encouraging friendships, and where I’ve also got such a pile of angst built up that it’s completely overwhelming.

My family is great, the real shiny bright spot in everything that is Rick’s Life right now. And I am so sorry, feeling like I am letting them down by being on the road, being stressed, being pissed, being unavailable and so not in the moment. I can honestly say that right now I feel the best I have ever felt about our marriage, our kids, growing old together, sharing life and all that comes with – but I also feel like what I’m bringing to that table, all the baggage I’m lugging, is wearing a rut in the carpet, wearing out the floorboards in the front hall.

Back to those verses, and how that are backhanding me right now. Because I know it is His strength, His joy, His more than sufficient grace. And I get the feeling that "this jar of clay", all this stuff and stress and sludge, all this is what makes that all the more real and … see that last part? His grace and power and all sufficient stuff is for endurance, it’s for patience, it’s for putting up with all the stuff I’m putting up with. It’s not taking any of it away, and I actually have to endure and be patient in order to see His hand at all. "I can do all things… toiling… struggling…" – no one gave me those pages in the rulebook when I signed up for this. Someone left that part out. I don’t mind that we’re here, don’t care that we’ve ended up at this spot in the journey. I just wish someone had done a better job with the head’s up.

So my prayer this evening, as I keep working a bit and suck it up and get on with what needs me – my prayer is that tonight I embrace all of the above. The struggle and the toil alongside the sufficient grace and strength and power of God.

Wrestling & Swimming

I find that when I’m at a low point, the high points are easier to spot. They might be harder to grab onto, but I recognize when they’re there. Being challenged is such an encouragement. I think it cracks me out of my me-ness and gets me thinking more outwardly, more positively, and ultimately more hopefully.

"God, uh … Please rescue us from distractions, from stress, worry, tension… give us open hearts and fresh minds to listen for what you want to say today… now, we take a moment to stop, to slow down, to breathe a little more deeply. Uh, we are going to wrestle with the deeper, uh, truths. We are going to swim in a deep stream. And, uh, please give us the strength to resist the superficial shallow forces in our culture that would want to keep us numb, that want to keep us busy so that we don’t think about what really matters. So now as we reflect on the risen Christ… please give us tremendous wisdom and insight and most importantly hope. In the name of Christ, everybody said, Amen."
- Rob Bell, praying before sermon, "progress and joy"

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.
- Paul, Philippians 1:23-26

Pray for Deiter

Mark Scandrette posts, “This morning I heard that my friend, Dieter Zander, one of the cofounders of ReIMAGINE had a stroke last night and is in serious condition. Please pray for him and his family and community.” Dieter was one of the first voices I heard in the journey that’s brought me to this point – please pray for him in healing and recovery, and for their family in comfort and peace in the midst of all this.

Push

Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself…. To say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest 08/28

Prayer is one of those activities that comes upon me in spurts. Part of me wants to think that I’m in a constant attitude of prayer – listening, conversing with God, paying attention for Him to speak. But that might just be laziness on my part, since most of the intentionality is gone if I think of God just hanging around all the time. And then there’s the part that Chambers brings out above, about how this is a time that more important for the life of Christ growing in me than for "me" getting anything for "myself". So I’m conflicted in some of my thoughts this morning on what prayer is and what I need to be living out because of it.

Most of my life, prayer as an activity leaned towards the legalistic side. Not in a bad way, just taking more the form of something to do instead of something more natural. So then I think I’ve swung the other way, wanting it to be something more real and not as manufactured. But in doing that, leaving some of the intention behind, I’ve found myself in a place where it’s not happening over there either. I’m not feeling bad for not having a consistent "prayer life", but I do sense that I’m missing out by not making more of it than I’ve been recently. I’m also not sure where this train of thought might lead, so I’m hedging all bets. I just want this thing called "a Christian life" to be meaningful for me and for those around me who happen to experience life alongside.

[photo: zaefonso // also for more, see the prayer synchroblog]

Challenged

So I pray that my boys will be better than me, because the stubborn path is so rocky, and overgrown with regret, and I’d just as soon they never know it, except perhaps by reading a few of the old man’s words. Mostly, I pray that God will work some miracle whereby a man like me can raise far better men. God still works miracles, you know, so I like to believe that such a prayer is more about genius than insanity.
- Tony Woodlief [thru Brutally Honest]

When I come across posts like this, where someone just lays it out in a way that’s real, in a way that I wish I’d written – I’m just floored. I posted yesterday that I’m having a back-and-forth with our son over basketball and learning to play the game and have fun. I don’t care about basketball as much as I care about him being able to mature, grow, learn, and "be better than me".

I was listening to a podcast from The Starbucks Experience, and Dr. Michelli mentioned a "Plussed up" response to someone asking for information. When someone asks for help, you can respond with contempt, with just simple straight info, or you can give more than was being asked in an effort to "plus up" the interaction. Right now, I see something in that thought process that can impact how I react and interact with family and folks around me. And I’m wondering – how can I "plus up" the time and conversations with my kids, my wife, to process better together what it means to live for Christ in this world?

Interceding…

One of the reasons I think I tend to get riled up about politics is that in the end, most times this stuff doesn’t impact daily life at all. It does, I know – but then again it doesn’t. Like right now – when my father-in-law is throwing his life away in all kinds of dysfunctions, and when my wife is caught in the cross-fire.

Please pray for Vicki, for her Dad, for the family in Asheville. Patience is needed to be sure – but more than that, healing and hope, forgiveness and deeper love, on all sides and in everyone’s heart together. Thanks.

Raining

Last night and tonight, we’re getting heavy rain. By "heavy", I mean the kind that falls sideways, making the loud pelting noise on our metal-roofed sunroom, washing small pets down the gutters out in the streets. Heavy rain – where the post-precipitation sky is a pale red and the thunder continues to roll long after the storm passes east.

I’ve received a few new books for review this week. One of them, what the heck am I going to do with my life?, is just a title that seems all too apropos, doesn’t it? It’s by Margaret Feinberg, a neat author and a really neat person. Another set of books is the Coffee Cup Bible Series – I’m going to work my way through Mocha On The Mount, just to see how this study might work for someone individually, how it might play out in a small group setting for our fall semester.

So what does the search for meaning in life and the study of the "discourse on the hill" over a cup of coffee have to do with me? with spirituality? with growing up or getting through the stuff of life? I don’t know, and I’m okay with that. It seems that things resonate with me all the time, matter of the moment kind of thing. Might be a song or a commercial or the way light is coming through the window during a storm – sometimes, it’s like everything comes through everything else to say something, anything, that might be meaningful for what needed at just that particular point in time.

But I don’t hear it all the time. Does that make sense? I don’t want it to sound like I’ve got a tuner in my head that is constantly tuned to the right channel to hear from God. Sometimes I intentionally ignore whatever’s coming; other times, I’m sure I’m too busy to be bothered. But when a moment clicks – wow. I can live off one of those "wows" for weeks, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few "wows" because I’m still basking in the lightness of the last pertinent "wow" that "wowed" me before.

The rain has stopped, and I’m not going to add any spiritual significance to it beyond that fact that rain has stopped. For me right now, in the flow of this moment, that’s spiritually significant enough. If I stretch it out, if I lay hold of it too tightly, I’ll lose my "wow" – and I don’t like doing that if I can help it.

For Prayer

A "friend of a friend of a friend" is pregnant, and considered having an abortion earlier this week. While she didn’t go through with it then, she’s now considering a "medical abortion" to remove the child, less invasive than a surgical procedure. Please pray that she’ll not only "do the right thing", but that she’ll do it for the right reasons. There is so much pressure, so many "cares of this world", and I just hope she can see past that, and that the Lord can carry that burden for her to renew a sense of hopefulness. Pray that she’ll sense new life in herself, and in the image of God that’s growing inside.

And no matter how this turns, pray that the Spirit lets her know there is real healing, real comfort, real hope and joy and grace in Christ.

Thanks.