Monthly Archives: December 2010

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” – Luke 9:51

I have given in to the annual introspective gravity of New Years, and true to form, have looked for guidance from Jesus (it seems more and more that I can do nothing of significance without some sort of connection to him to justify it).

It seems a bit odd to me that this resolve made by Jesus was necessary at all. My view of him is that he had “resolutely set out” for his mission of love in Jerusalem long before this moment.

His resolve showed up countless times…

• …like when he didn’t give into Satan’s 3 temptations in the desert.
• …like when he walked away from the people who wanted to make him their earthly king.
• …like how he persevered with his slow-to-believe-or-understand disciples.
• …like when he came from heaven to earth in the first place.

He seems like a pretty resolute guy, you know? But here he is…resolving once again to stay on mission. Resolving, perhaps, to take his next appropriate step towards that mission at the appropriate time.

“What do I need to resolve to stay on mission?” it makes me ask. “What is my next appropriate step towards my  mission at this time?”

It’s a good question for all of us.

I like to think of myself as a pretty resolved kind of guy. I know my mission and I try to protect it and live it out with zeal and gusto.

Knowing your mission is of paramount importance. It provides you with the luxury of what you need to say “no” to in your life. But there are still plenty of decisions within that mission that must be discerned, decided upon, and then resolutely set out for.

I love Jesus for being a model of this for me.

Do you know your mission? Do you know your next step appropriate step towards it?

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” – Jesus

I can’t identify the precise moment when it changed, but I remember life before making a priority of peace.

Back then, I didn’t think twice about sacrificing peace at the alter of busyness. I killed it often at the alter of meeting other people’s “needs”, demands, and expectations. Sometimes, peace got bled by me at the alter of my own insecurity, striving, and image management. Less often, but most painful for me, I killed peace at the alter of worry, control, and worse-case-scenario fantasies.

Those were tiring, soul-starving, non-stop-action days. I was “there” for a lot of people. I was “appreciated” for my hard work. I was “honored” for how well I performed. I was “proud” of all the “accomplishments” I saw in my life.

But I was not at peace. I lacked a deep and abiding, untouchable and transcending peace.

These days, whenever the peace of my heart is compromised, I notice. And reestablishing it’s integrity immediately becomes the priority of all my energy. Why? Because without a peaceful spirit, I stop trusting anything I say or do. Without a peaceful spirit, I know that everything in my thinking is skewed. Everything I do, say, and feel are suspect.

So I basically put everything on hold to explore and resolve what is going on inside of me…and let me be clear about one thing I’ve learned…it most assuredly IS inside of ME that the problem of peacelessness resides, no matter how much I’d like to attribute it to outward circumstances.

Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” He implies a certain amount of power available to us here, an inward authority over the troubled heart.

He goes on to suggest that he gives a certain kind of peace (“my peace,” he says).

And his kind of peace, evidently, is not available from our outward circumstances in the world (“I do not give as the world gives,” he says).

So why, then, do we work so hard to create or control outward circumstances to try to feel peace? Why do we pretend that if “so and so” would just do things different, or if “such and such” wasn’t happening, that all would then be well?

No, the problem of peacelessness is not in the world. It is in us. There are certain circumstances that are not yours or mine to change. And there are certain people that are present, not to torment you, but to play a provocative role in your ability to develop a self-responsible, eyes-wide-open, invulnerable sense of empowering peace.

Then, and only then, can you trust your outward actions and decisions and words.

The most disorienting of peace challenges to my heart are the ones that I can’t seem to explain to myself. “Why is this bothering me so much?” I ask myself. “Why am I obsessing over this?” “What is that reaction about?”

When this happens, there is usually some unconscious, unresolved history that God is trying to work out in me. A big part of my job, then, is to “let it happen” (or better said, “let Him happen”)…to cooperate with the unsettledness of it all and let it take me where it (or He) needs me to go.

Many people I know (me included), whenever they experience some assault on their peace either get too involved (by controlling, throwing fits, or emotionally blackmailing) or get too passive (by not caring, hiding behind judgments, or denial).

But these strategies for finding peace come from the world. They provide a way too cheap alternative to peace that works like a drug, providing temporary relief that will not be able to withstand the weight of future challenges to a truly peaceful heart.

May Jesus leave us the peace that can. His peace.

And then right before I  hit post, this commercial showed up, reminding me that when peace reigns in my heart, the world looks like a totally different place.

I while back, I went to Zimbabwe. I left many tears on the ground of that nation.

Because of what I saw and reported back to my family, every night, my two sons and daughters, who go to bed having had 3 square meals a day, pray for the kids I met there. Specifically, they pray that they would each get at least one survival meal each day.

You can help those prayers be answered and give a very meaningful gift to that special someone who has everything. You can feed these hungry kids AS your gift to your loved one.

Just go here and decide what level of gift you would like to give. You can…

• Feed one child one survival meal a day for 1 month – $10
• Feed one child one survival meal a day for 3 months – $30
• Feed one child for a whole year – $120
• Fund an entire feeding center for a year (approx. 200 children) – $2000

Or you can help a family feed themselves by…

• Providing a pair of rabbits for a family – $10
• Help a family start a rabbit business (1 dozen rabbits) – $60

I’ve been there. I took these pictures myself. I’ve seen hundreds of widows and thousands of orphans who are suffering in this nation. I know this pipeline through Operation Starfish Africa not as an “operation”, but as friends of mine, natives of Zimbabwe who take the call to get food to their nation’s children personally. They have had to buy food on the black market and get this survival help to people covertly in some cases.

100% of your money goes towards food. No admin costs for the people organizing it are necessary or even wanted.

Follow the instructions at this link and help secure these meals for these hungry kids.

Follow the directions and you can pay through debit or credit card. You could write your own, but you can also put in your email address and receive a special Christmas note to print out, put it in an envelope, and either mail it or put it on the Christmas Tree for your loved one letting them know of the gift of life you gave on their behalf.

In Zimbabwe, when someone is grateful and wants to say thank you, they put their hands together as if they were praying and look at you in the eye.

When they are unbelievably humbled and full of intense gratitude and want to express the depth at which they feel it but feel helpless to do so, and words can not express it adequately, they still put their hands together and look you in the eyes, but then they drop to their knees.

So here is the little girl that received a McDonalds toy that my daughter sent me over there with to give away. She was one of the few children I met that was not orphaned and lived with a mom and a dad.

So look her back in the eyes, and allow her to express the deep gratitude that will be felt by her less fortunate peers that live all around her.

I give you mine as well.

About 6 years ago, I had an incredible experience in Maui, Hawaii.

I was there because my mother-in-law had cancer, and she had always dreamed of taking all her kids and grandkids to Hawaii. So she did. Incredible thing #1: My mother-in-law, who was told she had about a year to live, beat the cancer. We praise God for that to this day.

While I was there, I went on a little trek to the interior of the island by myself. It began with a hike through a giant bamboo forest. The gentle sound of these tall and looming stalks of bamboo in the wind made me wonder about what gods the ancient Hawaiians worshipped.

I ended up at a clear and beautiful stream, which I started following up. This led me to a picture perfect waterfall. It was about 20 feet high, falling into a perfect sized pool, good for swimming or just sitting beside, watching and listening to the falls.

I found a rope tied up the left side of the waterfall, so I climbed it and was able to keep going. This led me to a 30 foot high waterfall into a pool about 3x the size of the first! I was all alone on this trek, ahd the place to myself, and just gawked at it, spellbound.

Inspired by the promise of greater things, I climbed the rocks beside this waterfall and kept going again. I ended up at a spot where the stream could not be followed on foot any farther, as it disappeared between 2 winding walls of ancient solidified volcanic rock. I had been alone for this whole trek, but I still hid my backpack and hiking clothes in some distant brush, and swam up the river to see where it would go. I kid you not, I was in Eden as I swam through floating wild fruit through this watery corridor. After a couple of bends, it dead-ended at a small waterfall about 8 feet high. I swam to it’s base and the only way up was to grab the rocks behind the water and climb up the falls.

Then…glory.

I walked around another bed and what I saw was nothing short of awe inspiring. I was at a giant pool of water (more like a small lake) that was covered with mist caused by a 150+ tall waterfall that was falling from what looked like the top of a volcano! I now it wasn’t, but looking up, it felt like I had entered into the rounded shoot of a huge volcano.

I stayed for a long time…all alone…worshipping.

Ever since that day, I have wanted to go back and take my son, who was 4 at the time.

He’s 10 now, and I’m starting to save up.

So keep an eye out for some great books for sale on eBay.

For starters, I’ve got two Church of Christ treasures that some of you might be interested in here and here.

I’ve got a couple of cool and useful Bibles here and here.

And the crowning jewel (thus far) is this copy of Bacon’s Essays that was a gift from the Reverend AW Tozer to his friend the Rev. F. Bertram Russell (this is the only one with a reserve price…I’ve held on to this one for over a decade).

I’ll have many more, including some very interesting ones printed in the 1800s, 1700s, and even a couple from the 1600s.

Do me a favor and spread the word to anyone you think might be interested!

Watch out Maui…here we come!

If Jesus Christ is man—And only a man—I say That of all mankind I cleave to him, And to him will cleave away. If Jesus Christ is a God—And the only God—I swear I will follow him through heaven and hell, The earth, the sea, the air.” –R.W. Gilder

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…And he will be called Mighty God.” – The prophet Isaiah

How did Isaiah make the leap? How did he make the leap, over the course of one verse, from “look, here’s a baby of ours” to “and by the way, he is God.”

And how about Thomas? Isn’t this Jesus he speaks to the carpenter? Didn’t this guy come from Nazareth (what good comes from there)? And was not Thomas realistic and scientific enough that he was able to look at the convincing testimony of his 10 best friends in the world who claimed they saw Jesus back from the dead and still shake his head in disbelief (Jn 20:24-25)? Yet he looks a grown human being in the eyes and is able to say, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:26)

I’ve made the leap, too. And it is not because I am certain without a doubt. Oh, at times I am. At times I am blindly certain, finding myself believing it with very little evidence or feeling. At other times, I’m almost helplessly certain (my favorite kind) because I have seen such marvels in his teachings, or through actions done in his name, or through personal, mysterious experiences in or around me. But sometimes, I’m “certain with doubts”. That is, I’m certain in spite of some fairly valid doubts that (I hope) come from the integrity of my heart.

How have I made the leap, then? How have I come to look a human baby, a human being in the proverbial eyes and be capable of such a seemingly absurd statement as that of Isaiah? As that of Thomas?

How can I summon the faith to follow Jesus as God?

Well, I think its more complex than I have the ability or energy to completely think through or articulate at this stage of my life. However…

As a pragmatist, I have found the life, teachings, and ways of Jesus to work.

As an idealist (and, ironically, as a realist), I can’t find any high and noble virtue or value introduced by any other philosophy, political system, or religion not already embodied and promoted by him.

As an extremist, I find nothing that boldly calls for and daringly promises so much.

As a romantic, I love that everything he is and does is motivated and explained by love.

As a judgmental skeptic, I can’t find anything wrong with him.

As a sociologist, when I see his character, mission, and priorities imitated, I see unstoppable good flood into and through people.

As a contemplative, I can’t seem to exhaust his depth, but as a simpleton, I find his teachings easy to grasp and easy to discern application

As a scientist, he gives me categories to explore parts of humanity that science can’t.

As a relativist, he gives me a way of being open to new points of view without being afraid.

As an absolutist, he gives me a few strong, hard-to-argue-with bedrocks upon which the rest of life can be interpreted.

As an activist, he gives me something worthwhile to do, not as part of my life, but as my life.

As an ecumenicist, he gives me a basis upon which to call for unity.

As a sinner, he offers the only message that satisfies and heals completely.

As a son, the God he describes as Father is the only God I want.

As a follower, he gives me someone I can trust.

As a leader, he gives me somewhere of worth to take people.

Something in me is saying that I’m just barely skimming the surface of some very deep waters in me. Dark waters that must be plunged into fully in order to find the treasures.

But for now, this is a satisfying post to write. A sort of, “reasons I believe” proclamation.

Ultimately, I think I’ve experienced enough of myself, others, creation, and God in the light of my followership of Christ to have decided that even if Jesus Christ wasn’t God, I’d follow him still.

Interestingly, that may be how Thomas navigated through all of his complexity to arrive at making the leap that Jesus was God.

After all, earlier in the story, he was the follower that said, in spite of any doubt that would suggest it unwise, ill-advised, dangerous, or unnecessary, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (Jn 11:16)

If Jesus isn’t God, well, then among all mere men, I choose to follow and die with him. In my journey, study, and exploration for truth, I have too many reasons not to.