But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. Matthew 14:27-29 NIV
Two years ago today I did something that I thought I would never have the faith to do. I walked into my boss’ office and gave my resignation for a job that most people would love to have. I had no real plan, no real savings, no real idea of what was going to be in store over the next two years. If I had known, I don’t know if I would have done it, but if I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t know that I could. I did something that I thought was impossible.
In the above scripture, Peter did something that he thought was impossible. He walked on water. Yet, he knew that if Jesus gave him the power to do it, then it was possible. Peter called out to Jesus and said that if it is Jesus who is calling out to them, then Peter would be able to do things that seemed impossible, like walking on the water. I can only imagine what that experience was like. There they are in the water with nothing but dim light, as it was right before dawn. The winds pick up and start to shake the boat, but suddenly they see a figure walking on the water. They thought is was a ghost, but Jesus tells them not to be afraid. Peter, the bold one, knows that the only way to be sure that it was Jesus is to ask for something that seems impossible and then do it. Jesus answers his request, and Peter walks on water.
When I got the feeling that it was time for me to quit my job, I wasn’t sure that it was God leading me. Things started to happen all around me: changes in management, dissatisfaction with my work, frustration about not helping the people I wanted to help, apathy about production, less energy, recession, all types of things. I even had dreams about it for months. The feeling started to get stronger and stronger until I knew I had to do something. I waited and waited, but finally decided that if God was calling me to do this, then things would just work out. So I quit.
The things that happened to me after I quit would seem impossible to most people. They seemed impossible to me! I never would have thought that I would be able to have an office and it not cost me any out of pocket money. I never would have thought that I would have been given a chance to take a month long vacation in a foreign country. I never would have thought that while making 80 percent less than what I previously made that I would still be in my house. I never would have thought that I would have been able to write a book and get a nationally known speaker to write the foreward. I never would have thought that I would be able to still pay for my car and be only 4 payments away from complete payoff (Hallelujah!!!) I never would have thought that I would have been able to say that God did all of this without giving me more money. He actually took it away! But one thing I do know is that it was Jesus who was calling me.
These two years have taught me many lessons. One of them is that sometimes we have to step out to do something before we are sure that God is the one calling us to do it. Sometimes actually stepping out is the only way we know that God is the one calling us to do the impossible. We don’t always get the confirmation until we get out of the boat. But if you think that it might be Jesus calling you in the midst of your boat being shaken, then maybe you should get out. Peter did. I did. And now I know for sure that it was Jesus calling me. There is no way that I would have been able to do what I have done these last two years if it wasn’t him. So do yourself a favor: If you think Jesus is calling you, step out and see. His sheep always know his voice.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
A Child is Born
A Child Is Born
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV
Today, we celebrate the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It i a day where we might spend time with family and friends. We might exchange gifts, or even a day just to have a chance to relax. With all of the hoopla surrounding the material side of Christmas, we might forget the truth of what we are actually celebrating. That is if we even know the truth of what we are celebrating.
We often hear people reminding us to remember Jesus during these days. Remember that we are celebrating his birth and his coming to earth as a baby in order to live as our king. But what does it mean to celebrate Jesus’ birth? What did he actually come to do?
Celebrating Jesus’ birth is not like celebrating our birthdays. Not exactly anyway. On our birthday we might have a party to celebrate God giving us another year of life. Maybe we use it as an excuse to drink and party. People buy us gifts and we eat cake and ice cream and have people do special things for us. But we were not born for the exact same reason that Jesus was born. Not to my knowledge anyway.
Jesus was born to deliver us from oppression. The oppression that he was born to deliver us from is often called sin, but I don’t just mean the context of how most people talk about sin in referring to your “behaviors”. I mean deliver from all things in our life that keep us in bondage and keep us from being free in our relationships, with God and with each other. This oppression is hard to see when you live a “good life”. Because it is often hidden for even ourselves. But deliverance from this oppression is the heart of God. He wants us to be free. And he sent a child here in order to make us free.
Something is always trying to oppress you, or enslave you to it. When it gets out of hand, we call that addiction. But there are also people who are functioning addicts. Some people are addicted to attention. Some are addicted to material possessions. Some are addicted to indulgence. Others are addicted to fear. Some are even addicted to religion. Some are addicted to money. But something is always after us to enslave us to it. But Jesus came to deliver.
The above scripture says that the “zeal” of the Lord will accomplish this. To me, that means that the passion and pursuit of God will send a child to earth in order to put a new reign on earth. Instead of us being addicted to things that are bound to the earth, we can link up to Jesus and be free from everything else. It is God’s passion and pursuit of you that will accomplish this. He is after everything in your life that seeks to enslave you to it. Even those things we think are “good things”. If you become a slave to it, you need deliverance from it.
It is during this season that we seek to celebrate the entry of our Lord into this world to free us from anything that would hold us captive. Yet, so many even during this season will become slaves all over again. As the alcohol flows, the credit cards come out, the food is consumed and the emotions run high, be careful not to enslave yourself to any of it. Going into debt or over indulging in holiday celebrations is a sure sign that we have no idea what this season is really about. We must remember that we are born to be free. Because Jesus was born to free us. This Christmas, do yourself a favor and reflect on something. There is always something trying to enslave you. What is after you now? How can you celebrate this year by not giving into it, but being free from it?
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV
Today, we celebrate the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It i a day where we might spend time with family and friends. We might exchange gifts, or even a day just to have a chance to relax. With all of the hoopla surrounding the material side of Christmas, we might forget the truth of what we are actually celebrating. That is if we even know the truth of what we are celebrating.
We often hear people reminding us to remember Jesus during these days. Remember that we are celebrating his birth and his coming to earth as a baby in order to live as our king. But what does it mean to celebrate Jesus’ birth? What did he actually come to do?
Celebrating Jesus’ birth is not like celebrating our birthdays. Not exactly anyway. On our birthday we might have a party to celebrate God giving us another year of life. Maybe we use it as an excuse to drink and party. People buy us gifts and we eat cake and ice cream and have people do special things for us. But we were not born for the exact same reason that Jesus was born. Not to my knowledge anyway.
Jesus was born to deliver us from oppression. The oppression that he was born to deliver us from is often called sin, but I don’t just mean the context of how most people talk about sin in referring to your “behaviors”. I mean deliver from all things in our life that keep us in bondage and keep us from being free in our relationships, with God and with each other. This oppression is hard to see when you live a “good life”. Because it is often hidden for even ourselves. But deliverance from this oppression is the heart of God. He wants us to be free. And he sent a child here in order to make us free.
Something is always trying to oppress you, or enslave you to it. When it gets out of hand, we call that addiction. But there are also people who are functioning addicts. Some people are addicted to attention. Some are addicted to material possessions. Some are addicted to indulgence. Others are addicted to fear. Some are even addicted to religion. Some are addicted to money. But something is always after us to enslave us to it. But Jesus came to deliver.
The above scripture says that the “zeal” of the Lord will accomplish this. To me, that means that the passion and pursuit of God will send a child to earth in order to put a new reign on earth. Instead of us being addicted to things that are bound to the earth, we can link up to Jesus and be free from everything else. It is God’s passion and pursuit of you that will accomplish this. He is after everything in your life that seeks to enslave you to it. Even those things we think are “good things”. If you become a slave to it, you need deliverance from it.
It is during this season that we seek to celebrate the entry of our Lord into this world to free us from anything that would hold us captive. Yet, so many even during this season will become slaves all over again. As the alcohol flows, the credit cards come out, the food is consumed and the emotions run high, be careful not to enslave yourself to any of it. Going into debt or over indulging in holiday celebrations is a sure sign that we have no idea what this season is really about. We must remember that we are born to be free. Because Jesus was born to free us. This Christmas, do yourself a favor and reflect on something. There is always something trying to enslave you. What is after you now? How can you celebrate this year by not giving into it, but being free from it?
Monday, December 12, 2011
Re-Occupied Philly
Re-occupied Philly
“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 NASB
A few weeks ago, I was downtown for a meeting and had a chance to walk around the Occupy Philly area. I walked around reading the signs of people who were sleeping in tents. Some were humorous. Some a bit vulgar. Others thought provoking. I finally ended up walking by a group of three women with a sign that had pictures of books on it. They were “occupying” the Quaker Interfaith tent and offered me a seat and we had an opportunity to chat for while. As I sat there, I noticed several people come up to them with bags of food that they wanted to offer to those who were sleeping as well as one gentleman who brought a bag of clothes to give out to people. There was a sense of community there that was refreshing to see in these days and times. There were people of all ages, races and ethnicities. Some were certainly a little off, but for the most part, it was peaceful. My conversation with the three ladies at the Quaker tent was enlightening. They shared with me some of the history of Philadelphia that I didn’t know. They told me about their own lives and things they participated in during their lifetime. They also told me why they were there that day and supported the movement. I was a nice conversation.
Then a few weeks later I was back downtown and noticed that all of the tents were gone. Occupy Philly had been evicted. The area that was sectioned off was empty with the exception of policemen who were guarding the space. I was a little sad, wondering what will happen to the momentum of community that had been created by the Occupy movement. What will happen next?
Then, I happened to notice across the street the Christmas Village that is set up every year downtown. Everything is decorated to the holidays and there are street vendors everywhere with goods to sell. I walked around for a bit and looked at the vendors and their goods. There was the guy selling artwork, which looked pretty interesting. There was the lady selling handmade scarves. There were the beer and sausage guys. And one of my favorites, the Chaddsford Winery. A lady that I was walking close to was complaining about the police who were standing around doing nothing while cars turned the corner too quickly. She was dropping “F-bombs” like they were going out of style. The people behind all of the booths looked bored and like they were just waiting out their shift. There were pictures of Santa Claus all over. But interestingly enough, there was not one part of the Christmas Village that pointed to Christ. It was pure commerce.
Occupy Philly was evicted and the Christmas Village was ushered in. The spirit of Christmas was alive and well during the time I spent at the Occupy Philly Interfaith Quaker tent. But the materialism of Christmas replaced it across the street. There were people sharing and giving at Occupy Philly, but people selling at the Christmas Village. It made me think about priorities and where they lie in our society. Maybe the Occupy movement was a little too unorganized to thrive in its current state, but the spirit of what they started doesn’t have to die. They became a voice for the majority of us who have the least in this country. They interacted with one another in ways that brought us together instead of looking at everything that makes us different. They had a sense of community instead of individualism. They valued each other instead of profit.
As we go into the Christmas season, I hope that we can keep in mind that riches will not last, but what we build and do for God will. In the season of giving, we must remember that what we have comes from God and that we have a responsibility to one another. No matter what you have or don’t have, most likely you are part of the 99%, not the 1%. There is more of us than there are of them. But every time we put more emphasis on spending money and buying into materialism, we give the 1% more power. Let’s do something that reflects the love of Christ this Christmas, who came to occupy the flesh so that we might have access to the divine. Let’s re-occupy Philly (or wherever you are) with the things that Jesus came to give us, instead of the things we will leave behind when we die. Maybe you can give something to someone and not expect anything in return. Maybe you can go out and give blankets to those without a home. Maybe you can invite someone who has no place to go to spend time with you and your family. Maybe you can make a friend of another race. Don’t just make it about presents. Let the One who came to occupy your life, fill you with what you need to bless someone else this season.
“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 NASB
A few weeks ago, I was downtown for a meeting and had a chance to walk around the Occupy Philly area. I walked around reading the signs of people who were sleeping in tents. Some were humorous. Some a bit vulgar. Others thought provoking. I finally ended up walking by a group of three women with a sign that had pictures of books on it. They were “occupying” the Quaker Interfaith tent and offered me a seat and we had an opportunity to chat for while. As I sat there, I noticed several people come up to them with bags of food that they wanted to offer to those who were sleeping as well as one gentleman who brought a bag of clothes to give out to people. There was a sense of community there that was refreshing to see in these days and times. There were people of all ages, races and ethnicities. Some were certainly a little off, but for the most part, it was peaceful. My conversation with the three ladies at the Quaker tent was enlightening. They shared with me some of the history of Philadelphia that I didn’t know. They told me about their own lives and things they participated in during their lifetime. They also told me why they were there that day and supported the movement. I was a nice conversation.
Then a few weeks later I was back downtown and noticed that all of the tents were gone. Occupy Philly had been evicted. The area that was sectioned off was empty with the exception of policemen who were guarding the space. I was a little sad, wondering what will happen to the momentum of community that had been created by the Occupy movement. What will happen next?
Then, I happened to notice across the street the Christmas Village that is set up every year downtown. Everything is decorated to the holidays and there are street vendors everywhere with goods to sell. I walked around for a bit and looked at the vendors and their goods. There was the guy selling artwork, which looked pretty interesting. There was the lady selling handmade scarves. There were the beer and sausage guys. And one of my favorites, the Chaddsford Winery. A lady that I was walking close to was complaining about the police who were standing around doing nothing while cars turned the corner too quickly. She was dropping “F-bombs” like they were going out of style. The people behind all of the booths looked bored and like they were just waiting out their shift. There were pictures of Santa Claus all over. But interestingly enough, there was not one part of the Christmas Village that pointed to Christ. It was pure commerce.
Occupy Philly was evicted and the Christmas Village was ushered in. The spirit of Christmas was alive and well during the time I spent at the Occupy Philly Interfaith Quaker tent. But the materialism of Christmas replaced it across the street. There were people sharing and giving at Occupy Philly, but people selling at the Christmas Village. It made me think about priorities and where they lie in our society. Maybe the Occupy movement was a little too unorganized to thrive in its current state, but the spirit of what they started doesn’t have to die. They became a voice for the majority of us who have the least in this country. They interacted with one another in ways that brought us together instead of looking at everything that makes us different. They had a sense of community instead of individualism. They valued each other instead of profit.
As we go into the Christmas season, I hope that we can keep in mind that riches will not last, but what we build and do for God will. In the season of giving, we must remember that what we have comes from God and that we have a responsibility to one another. No matter what you have or don’t have, most likely you are part of the 99%, not the 1%. There is more of us than there are of them. But every time we put more emphasis on spending money and buying into materialism, we give the 1% more power. Let’s do something that reflects the love of Christ this Christmas, who came to occupy the flesh so that we might have access to the divine. Let’s re-occupy Philly (or wherever you are) with the things that Jesus came to give us, instead of the things we will leave behind when we die. Maybe you can give something to someone and not expect anything in return. Maybe you can go out and give blankets to those without a home. Maybe you can invite someone who has no place to go to spend time with you and your family. Maybe you can make a friend of another race. Don’t just make it about presents. Let the One who came to occupy your life, fill you with what you need to bless someone else this season.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Perishing at Sea
Perishing at Sea
“But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.” Jonah 1:3-6 NIV
Maybe when you were a kid, you heard the story of Jonah and the whale. We know that Jonah ran away from doing what God told him to do and ended up in the belly of a whale for three days. But before he got to the whale, he was on a ship, with other people. Jonah wanted to go in the opposite direction of where he was supposed to go, and found other people who were just minding their own business sailing away to Tarshish. Jonah was told to go to Nineveh. Tarshish is located in the extreme west in what scholars say is southern Spain. Nineveh is located in the east in Iraq. Is Spain near Iraq? Not so much. Jonah went to the farthest place he could think of to avoid doing what God called him to do. But do you think Jonah expected God to just say, ok? Not at all. God sent a huge storm to the boat that Jonah was in, which affected the others on the ship. As the other sailors tried to keep from dying out on the sea, Jonah was asleep below deck. . . chillin’.
There have been a million sermons on Jonah preached over the years. I have preached one. It is actually one of my favorite passages of scripture. It reveals so much about the heart of God, the mercy of God, the power of God, the love of God, among other things. But in this passage, what I find myself drawn to are the other sailors in the ship. I can imagine the panic in their hearts as the wind began to blow harder and harder. I can see them looking around for ways to ensure that their ship didn’t go down. I can hear them all crying out to their own gods for help in the violent storm. And I can also see their confusion as to why the guy asleep in the deck doesn’t seem to have the same urgency as the rest of them.
We can all be Jonah in our lifetime. But sometimes we are also the sailors. We are being affected by the disobedience of others not moving towards what God is calling them to do. Sometimes the storm we are in is not because of us, but because of who we are carrying with us. Maybe we were going exactly where we needed to go, but the person we invited along is running away from God. If that is the case, God can, and often does shake things up so that we can begin to take notice of who and what is around us. The storms in our life are not always about us being off track, but may be about who is in our boat.
In these days, God is calling people to take their positions in various places in society. It is not for nothing. Nor is it just about you getting more money or more material possessions. God is calling people to take positions because there are people who are going to die if we don’t go. God was going to destroy Nineveh but was giving them one more chance to repent. He was using Jonah to deliver that word. And God loved Nineveh so much that even when he was angry with them, he still made provision to save them. And wouldn’t even let Jonah get away with running away. So much so that he was willing to send a sea to those he was with.
We all have a responsibility to one another. My calling in this world is not just about me. But if I decide to run away from what I know God is calling me to, I can eventually cause disruption in other people’s life. Not because I mean to, but because God loves me and loves the world. The word that God gave to Jonah to speak in Nineveh was a word that was going to save the land from destruction. But Jonah didn’t want to go and other people suffered. If we are selfish enough to believe that our own choices affect only us, we are foolish and sadly mistaken. And we also must be willing to call other people out when they are running away from their call and their purpose. If not, we may all perish at sea. And if I know that I am running away from what God is calling me to, maybe I need to confess. I don’t know how much what other people around me are experiencing is because I am out of place. Can I love my brother or sister enough to get where I belong? Maybe if we all stop running away from God, we can calm the stormy seas of this world.
“But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.” Jonah 1:3-6 NIV
Maybe when you were a kid, you heard the story of Jonah and the whale. We know that Jonah ran away from doing what God told him to do and ended up in the belly of a whale for three days. But before he got to the whale, he was on a ship, with other people. Jonah wanted to go in the opposite direction of where he was supposed to go, and found other people who were just minding their own business sailing away to Tarshish. Jonah was told to go to Nineveh. Tarshish is located in the extreme west in what scholars say is southern Spain. Nineveh is located in the east in Iraq. Is Spain near Iraq? Not so much. Jonah went to the farthest place he could think of to avoid doing what God called him to do. But do you think Jonah expected God to just say, ok? Not at all. God sent a huge storm to the boat that Jonah was in, which affected the others on the ship. As the other sailors tried to keep from dying out on the sea, Jonah was asleep below deck. . . chillin’.
There have been a million sermons on Jonah preached over the years. I have preached one. It is actually one of my favorite passages of scripture. It reveals so much about the heart of God, the mercy of God, the power of God, the love of God, among other things. But in this passage, what I find myself drawn to are the other sailors in the ship. I can imagine the panic in their hearts as the wind began to blow harder and harder. I can see them looking around for ways to ensure that their ship didn’t go down. I can hear them all crying out to their own gods for help in the violent storm. And I can also see their confusion as to why the guy asleep in the deck doesn’t seem to have the same urgency as the rest of them.
We can all be Jonah in our lifetime. But sometimes we are also the sailors. We are being affected by the disobedience of others not moving towards what God is calling them to do. Sometimes the storm we are in is not because of us, but because of who we are carrying with us. Maybe we were going exactly where we needed to go, but the person we invited along is running away from God. If that is the case, God can, and often does shake things up so that we can begin to take notice of who and what is around us. The storms in our life are not always about us being off track, but may be about who is in our boat.
In these days, God is calling people to take their positions in various places in society. It is not for nothing. Nor is it just about you getting more money or more material possessions. God is calling people to take positions because there are people who are going to die if we don’t go. God was going to destroy Nineveh but was giving them one more chance to repent. He was using Jonah to deliver that word. And God loved Nineveh so much that even when he was angry with them, he still made provision to save them. And wouldn’t even let Jonah get away with running away. So much so that he was willing to send a sea to those he was with.
We all have a responsibility to one another. My calling in this world is not just about me. But if I decide to run away from what I know God is calling me to, I can eventually cause disruption in other people’s life. Not because I mean to, but because God loves me and loves the world. The word that God gave to Jonah to speak in Nineveh was a word that was going to save the land from destruction. But Jonah didn’t want to go and other people suffered. If we are selfish enough to believe that our own choices affect only us, we are foolish and sadly mistaken. And we also must be willing to call other people out when they are running away from their call and their purpose. If not, we may all perish at sea. And if I know that I am running away from what God is calling me to, maybe I need to confess. I don’t know how much what other people around me are experiencing is because I am out of place. Can I love my brother or sister enough to get where I belong? Maybe if we all stop running away from God, we can calm the stormy seas of this world.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Opportunity Risk
11/16/2011
Opportunity Risk
“The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.'
"The master was furious. 'That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.
"'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.'
Matthew 25:24-30 The Message
I have not written a blog post in a while. I have been terribly busy with school and sometimes did not really have anything valuable to contribute (or so I thought). I think it’s been all writing papers and dealing with life as usual for me these last few weeks. But a couple of weeks ago, God had me spend a considerable amount of time in prayer and fasting. I have several different things going on in my life and I was really confused as to how I was going to do them all, so I did nothing instead. I just kept going with the flow of things, which meant just go to school. I figured it was ok to just be still until I knew which way to go. But God put a sense of urgency in me to take steps in the direction He had already given me to do. Part of the reason I left my job in 2010 was to start a ministry that would be a non-traditional ministry. But because I didn’t know what that looked like, I just kept it in the planning phase in my head. But there are some practical things I could be doing right now to get that going. I just wasn’t doing it. God gave me a swift kick in the butt to get me going and now I’m back, taking action again. That is the fortunate part of the story for me.
In this passage in Matthew 25, Jesus is using a parable to illustrate what the Kingdom of God is like. He is basically saying that God gives us all something that we have to make use of in this world. Some people have multiple “talents” and to others He has given just one. But all of us have the responsibility to not just sit on what we have been given. Eventually, the Master will return to collect on what he has given you to use. And if He finds that you have buried it, then the bible says things will not be good for you.
Many people think that by taking a risk and going out to use what God has given them will end up in such failure that they sit and do nothing. They think that it is better to play it safe and make sure that they don’t lose what God has given them. But the bible speaks contrary to this idea. The bible actually says that if you don’t use it you will lose it, and the Master will NOT be happy about that. Yes, God is loving and forgiving, but the risk that you think you are taking by using what He gave you is NOTHING compared to the risk you take by not using what He gave you.
The servant who buried his talents said that he knew the character of the Master and figured that it would be better to play it safe instead of risking what he was given. But the problem with this line of thinking is that he said that he KNEW the Master. His actions did not line up with what he said. If he knew the Master, why would he bury what he was given? This passage speaks to Christians today who claim to know God. If you truly know God, why would you think that you have the right to sit on what you have been given without consequence? Most people function under the assumption that this passage is speaking about the future return of Christ, so they figure they have their whole lives to get busy on what God has given them. I am telling you now that this message is not just for some random future date when Jesus comes back. This message is for now! You have no idea when the window of opportunity that God is giving to you will close for this season, so instead of assuming that you have all the time in the world to get busy using your gifts, you are better off using what you have in the best way you know how until God gives you more instruction. It is better to be found using your gifts and talents than not. Even if you mess it all up, at least you tried. The worst thing you can do according to Scripture is do nothing. That is a recipe for disaster in the kingdom of God. Make the best of what you have been given without fear, and God will reward you with an opportunity that is well worth the risk. To those who think they know God, act like you know God and move.
If God is calling you to start a business, then move. If God s calling you to go back to school, then move. If God is calling you to start a ministry (Shayna), then move. If God is calling you to write a book, then move. If God is calling you to move to another city, then move. If God is calling you to buy a house, then move. If God is calling you to do whatever, then move. If God is calling you to it, then God has already given you what you need to make it happen. It is up to you to use what you’ve got to get what God (and you) want. God is not asking you to use anything He hasn’t already given you. The servant in the parable wasn’t asked to use the five talents of someone else. Just the one he was given. You have no idea when your door will close or if you will have time to try again. If you feel like you have been sitting on what God gave you out of fear, then repent and start moving again. You may find that God is gracious enough to give you another chance. Move in faith, not fear.
Opportunity Risk
“The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.'
"The master was furious. 'That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.
"'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.'
Matthew 25:24-30 The Message
I have not written a blog post in a while. I have been terribly busy with school and sometimes did not really have anything valuable to contribute (or so I thought). I think it’s been all writing papers and dealing with life as usual for me these last few weeks. But a couple of weeks ago, God had me spend a considerable amount of time in prayer and fasting. I have several different things going on in my life and I was really confused as to how I was going to do them all, so I did nothing instead. I just kept going with the flow of things, which meant just go to school. I figured it was ok to just be still until I knew which way to go. But God put a sense of urgency in me to take steps in the direction He had already given me to do. Part of the reason I left my job in 2010 was to start a ministry that would be a non-traditional ministry. But because I didn’t know what that looked like, I just kept it in the planning phase in my head. But there are some practical things I could be doing right now to get that going. I just wasn’t doing it. God gave me a swift kick in the butt to get me going and now I’m back, taking action again. That is the fortunate part of the story for me.
In this passage in Matthew 25, Jesus is using a parable to illustrate what the Kingdom of God is like. He is basically saying that God gives us all something that we have to make use of in this world. Some people have multiple “talents” and to others He has given just one. But all of us have the responsibility to not just sit on what we have been given. Eventually, the Master will return to collect on what he has given you to use. And if He finds that you have buried it, then the bible says things will not be good for you.
Many people think that by taking a risk and going out to use what God has given them will end up in such failure that they sit and do nothing. They think that it is better to play it safe and make sure that they don’t lose what God has given them. But the bible speaks contrary to this idea. The bible actually says that if you don’t use it you will lose it, and the Master will NOT be happy about that. Yes, God is loving and forgiving, but the risk that you think you are taking by using what He gave you is NOTHING compared to the risk you take by not using what He gave you.
The servant who buried his talents said that he knew the character of the Master and figured that it would be better to play it safe instead of risking what he was given. But the problem with this line of thinking is that he said that he KNEW the Master. His actions did not line up with what he said. If he knew the Master, why would he bury what he was given? This passage speaks to Christians today who claim to know God. If you truly know God, why would you think that you have the right to sit on what you have been given without consequence? Most people function under the assumption that this passage is speaking about the future return of Christ, so they figure they have their whole lives to get busy on what God has given them. I am telling you now that this message is not just for some random future date when Jesus comes back. This message is for now! You have no idea when the window of opportunity that God is giving to you will close for this season, so instead of assuming that you have all the time in the world to get busy using your gifts, you are better off using what you have in the best way you know how until God gives you more instruction. It is better to be found using your gifts and talents than not. Even if you mess it all up, at least you tried. The worst thing you can do according to Scripture is do nothing. That is a recipe for disaster in the kingdom of God. Make the best of what you have been given without fear, and God will reward you with an opportunity that is well worth the risk. To those who think they know God, act like you know God and move.
If God is calling you to start a business, then move. If God s calling you to go back to school, then move. If God is calling you to start a ministry (Shayna), then move. If God is calling you to write a book, then move. If God is calling you to move to another city, then move. If God is calling you to buy a house, then move. If God is calling you to do whatever, then move. If God is calling you to it, then God has already given you what you need to make it happen. It is up to you to use what you’ve got to get what God (and you) want. God is not asking you to use anything He hasn’t already given you. The servant in the parable wasn’t asked to use the five talents of someone else. Just the one he was given. You have no idea when your door will close or if you will have time to try again. If you feel like you have been sitting on what God gave you out of fear, then repent and start moving again. You may find that God is gracious enough to give you another chance. Move in faith, not fear.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Spirit of Religion
The Spirit of Religion
“The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. These liars have lied so well and for so long that they've lost their capacity for truth. They will tell you not to get married. They'll tell you not to eat this or that food—perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by believers who know better! Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out. God's Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy.” 1 Timothy 4:1-5 The Message
When I had my conversion experience in 2000, I was incredibly hungry for the word. So much so that I went out and bought a bible and began to read it from beginning to end. Since I didn’t attend a church, I just thought it was a good idea to read the bible and do what it said to do until I could find a church home. I got to a particular chapter in the book of Leviticus that told the Israelites not to eat pork, so I gave it up too. I felt like if God said don’t eat it, then there is probably something good about that. I hated to give it up because I really liked ham and bacon. But I loved God more, so I decided to give it up anyway.
Years later, I read this scripture and realized that giving up pork wasn’t really necessary to my faith in Christ. But by that time, my body got so used to it that I never went back. So now I don’t eat pork for health reasons, not to be holy. But this morning as I was praying I began to pray against a spirit of religion in someone’s life. And that prayer led me to this scripture again. It deals with the false teachings and deception of people who force a particular set of rules upon others in the name of religion, or as they may say, in the name of Jesus. But our faith in Christ has nothing to do with rules and regulations or who can be the most holy by abstaining from this or that. The premise behind our faith is that Christ did it for us. If you try to “be saved” by adding a bunch of restrictions to your life that God never asked you for, then you are in danger of inviting a religious spirit into your life. And the religious spirit invites a seductive spirit.
Now don’t think that I am telling you that your life should have no discipline whatsoever and that you should just do whatever you want since Christ paid it all. Any mature believer in Christ cannot live recklessly and think it’s ok. But what we learn in our walk with Christ is how to let the Holy Spirit be our guide, not our rules. If you begin to make your rules your guide, then you are basically saying that you trust them more than you trust God. And maybe in some areas of your life, you need to do that because you don’t yet know how to let God keep you in that area. But as you mature, you will have to let go of the rules and trust your position in God as His child and as someone who has committed their life to Him. God may start you with a rule, but lead to to His Spirit.
It’s like a parent raising a child. Good parents begin to let go of the reigns a little as the child demonstrates maturity in order to teach them how to function as an individual. When you are young, you need the protection of your parents who are teaching you how to function in this world. But as you get older, they have to trust that what they have sown into your life will hold you. So you don’t see many 18 year olds with a 5 year old’s “bedtime”. Or you may have a later curfew at age 16 than you did at 9. The rules tend to diminish in favor of your parents trusting you to use what they taught you to be your guide. Otherwise, you would never learn how to think for yourself.
With a religious spirit, the necessity for people to have rules to govern them is essential because the goal is for you never to think for yourself. Just follow the rules. Don’t ask any questions. It may be taught under the guise of trying to keep you holy, but in truth it is actually inviting a spirit of seduction into your life. The more rules you lay upon a person, the more their spirit will attempt to fight to be free from that bondage. Think back to kids you knew whose parents held the reigns so tightly on the children. Many of them may have even been the stereotypical “preacher’s kid”. But when they got a chance to be free, what did they do? They went BUCK WILD! I have seen some crazy examples of people who seem to live double lives, where one minute with their family they are the most straight laced kid you would ever see and the next they were going crazy in the club. I’m sure we all know people like that.
This religious spirit is subtle. But it’s effects are devastating. As the scripture says, it turns people away from the faith. It seduces them into thinking that there is some standard of behavior that is necessary at all times and if you cannot meet it, you would be better off not even trying. It makes people think that because they don’t drink or smoke or have sex or eat pork that they are better than people who do. But don’t think for one minute that these things are the source of any holiness you may have. It’s one thing to abstain from these things out of love for yourself and for your God. But it is another to do these things in an effort to be seen as holy and look down on other people for not doing them. You may very well be inviting a seductive spirit into your life. And there is no telling what that spirit will do.
This religious spirit is prevalent in our churches. And the more rules they have, the greater the devastation of people straying from the truth. They may argue and say that scripture says, “Be ye holy for I am holy” and that is why the put so much emphasis on behavior. But the scripture never said act holy. It says be holy. Holiness is a state of being not a state of doing. If you can “be” holy then all of your actions will come from that place. And the only way scripture tells us to “be holy” is to abide in Christ. Then you will “do” holy things. But if your rules lead you, you will disappoint yourself every time. And the more you disappoint yourself the easier it is to stray away. And the easier it is to stray away, the more likely it is that the seductive spirit will make you do more things that you will be ashamed of. And the more that spirit can make you ashamed, the easier it is to hide from the God who loves you anyway. And the more you hide, the more works you will want to do to get back into God’s good graces. And there the religious spirit has you. Back to a works based life, where faith in Christ is irrelevant. Who needs the cross when you have service? If your acts of service can make you clean, then the cross was unnecessary and Jesus should have just kept performing miracles. It would have been a lot less painful. But Jesus did go to the cross. Not to force you to give up meats or to not get married or to beat yourself up every time you make a mistake. He went to the cross so you can trust in the fact that there is nothing you can do to win God’s love for you. God’s love has nothing to do with you. God’s love is about God’s love for you. It is up to you to respond, not to replace it with your good deeds. Pray for us all.
“The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. These liars have lied so well and for so long that they've lost their capacity for truth. They will tell you not to get married. They'll tell you not to eat this or that food—perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by believers who know better! Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out. God's Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy.” 1 Timothy 4:1-5 The Message
When I had my conversion experience in 2000, I was incredibly hungry for the word. So much so that I went out and bought a bible and began to read it from beginning to end. Since I didn’t attend a church, I just thought it was a good idea to read the bible and do what it said to do until I could find a church home. I got to a particular chapter in the book of Leviticus that told the Israelites not to eat pork, so I gave it up too. I felt like if God said don’t eat it, then there is probably something good about that. I hated to give it up because I really liked ham and bacon. But I loved God more, so I decided to give it up anyway.
Years later, I read this scripture and realized that giving up pork wasn’t really necessary to my faith in Christ. But by that time, my body got so used to it that I never went back. So now I don’t eat pork for health reasons, not to be holy. But this morning as I was praying I began to pray against a spirit of religion in someone’s life. And that prayer led me to this scripture again. It deals with the false teachings and deception of people who force a particular set of rules upon others in the name of religion, or as they may say, in the name of Jesus. But our faith in Christ has nothing to do with rules and regulations or who can be the most holy by abstaining from this or that. The premise behind our faith is that Christ did it for us. If you try to “be saved” by adding a bunch of restrictions to your life that God never asked you for, then you are in danger of inviting a religious spirit into your life. And the religious spirit invites a seductive spirit.
Now don’t think that I am telling you that your life should have no discipline whatsoever and that you should just do whatever you want since Christ paid it all. Any mature believer in Christ cannot live recklessly and think it’s ok. But what we learn in our walk with Christ is how to let the Holy Spirit be our guide, not our rules. If you begin to make your rules your guide, then you are basically saying that you trust them more than you trust God. And maybe in some areas of your life, you need to do that because you don’t yet know how to let God keep you in that area. But as you mature, you will have to let go of the rules and trust your position in God as His child and as someone who has committed their life to Him. God may start you with a rule, but lead to to His Spirit.
It’s like a parent raising a child. Good parents begin to let go of the reigns a little as the child demonstrates maturity in order to teach them how to function as an individual. When you are young, you need the protection of your parents who are teaching you how to function in this world. But as you get older, they have to trust that what they have sown into your life will hold you. So you don’t see many 18 year olds with a 5 year old’s “bedtime”. Or you may have a later curfew at age 16 than you did at 9. The rules tend to diminish in favor of your parents trusting you to use what they taught you to be your guide. Otherwise, you would never learn how to think for yourself.
With a religious spirit, the necessity for people to have rules to govern them is essential because the goal is for you never to think for yourself. Just follow the rules. Don’t ask any questions. It may be taught under the guise of trying to keep you holy, but in truth it is actually inviting a spirit of seduction into your life. The more rules you lay upon a person, the more their spirit will attempt to fight to be free from that bondage. Think back to kids you knew whose parents held the reigns so tightly on the children. Many of them may have even been the stereotypical “preacher’s kid”. But when they got a chance to be free, what did they do? They went BUCK WILD! I have seen some crazy examples of people who seem to live double lives, where one minute with their family they are the most straight laced kid you would ever see and the next they were going crazy in the club. I’m sure we all know people like that.
This religious spirit is subtle. But it’s effects are devastating. As the scripture says, it turns people away from the faith. It seduces them into thinking that there is some standard of behavior that is necessary at all times and if you cannot meet it, you would be better off not even trying. It makes people think that because they don’t drink or smoke or have sex or eat pork that they are better than people who do. But don’t think for one minute that these things are the source of any holiness you may have. It’s one thing to abstain from these things out of love for yourself and for your God. But it is another to do these things in an effort to be seen as holy and look down on other people for not doing them. You may very well be inviting a seductive spirit into your life. And there is no telling what that spirit will do.
This religious spirit is prevalent in our churches. And the more rules they have, the greater the devastation of people straying from the truth. They may argue and say that scripture says, “Be ye holy for I am holy” and that is why the put so much emphasis on behavior. But the scripture never said act holy. It says be holy. Holiness is a state of being not a state of doing. If you can “be” holy then all of your actions will come from that place. And the only way scripture tells us to “be holy” is to abide in Christ. Then you will “do” holy things. But if your rules lead you, you will disappoint yourself every time. And the more you disappoint yourself the easier it is to stray away. And the easier it is to stray away, the more likely it is that the seductive spirit will make you do more things that you will be ashamed of. And the more that spirit can make you ashamed, the easier it is to hide from the God who loves you anyway. And the more you hide, the more works you will want to do to get back into God’s good graces. And there the religious spirit has you. Back to a works based life, where faith in Christ is irrelevant. Who needs the cross when you have service? If your acts of service can make you clean, then the cross was unnecessary and Jesus should have just kept performing miracles. It would have been a lot less painful. But Jesus did go to the cross. Not to force you to give up meats or to not get married or to beat yourself up every time you make a mistake. He went to the cross so you can trust in the fact that there is nothing you can do to win God’s love for you. God’s love has nothing to do with you. God’s love is about God’s love for you. It is up to you to respond, not to replace it with your good deeds. Pray for us all.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Victor or Victim?
“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." John 10:18 NIV
The other day, I was laying in the bed thinking about my life over the past year and a half. I have been provided for in ways that I would have never thought were possible. But I have also been in need in ways I never imagined. And on that particular day, I had an overwhelming sense of peace, even though I think most people in my financial situation would be puling their hair out. I recall that two ears ago, I made 80% more money than I did when I filed my tax return the year before. To most people that would spell financial disaster. And it does feel like that sometimes. But at the same time, I know that this is exactly where I need to be. It’s strange. I have peace in the middle of a storm, just like God promised.
But what makes it worse is that I chose this life. For some people, this type of stuff happens to them as a result of life circumstances. Maybe they lose their job, or become ill, or have to take a pay cut to care for loved ones. But for me, I choose this life, on purpose. Truthfully, that makes me feel different. Everytime, I cannot make a payment when I am used to making it, I still feel different. Everytime I am supposed to get paid for some work I did, but there is a delay, I feel different. Everytime I look at my bank account and wonder if I will have enough to go grocery shopping or get gas, I still feel different. And I feel different because I choose to do this. I am not a victim of my circumstances. No body is doing this to me. I followed my God to a place where He led me and He has promised to take care of me. And He has done just that.
Jesus spoke to his disciples about his death in the above passage. He is letting them know that no one is going to take his life from him. He is willingly laying it down for a specific purpose. And he has the authority to change his situation at anytime. There is a reason for him to have to die this way. But no one should feel sorry for him or treat him like a victim. He is doing this on purpose, as strange as this may sound. It has to be done this way.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to go where Jesus leads. And the result of some of where he leads is not always pleasant. It is not always filled with the type of financial benefits that some say we will get. It is not always filled with riches and fame. Sometimes the blessing is in the power that you have to choose not to be wealthy, and still have the same peace and authority that some people equate to money. Sometimes, what God is showing us is that it is not in having that gives you the power, it is in choosing to lay down your life, for a greater purpose that becomes the power. Because if you choose it, then you also have the power to get out of it at anytime. But if you are constantly playing the victim role, you will never be able to see your authority. No one is doing this to me, I am choosing this life and one day I will choose to take this life up again and live it with the true authority I have which is not rooted in money or possessions.
Many prosperity gospel preachers would have you believe that the moment that you start to live your life for Jesus, everything becomes easy. You suddenly have more money, more fame, better health, whatever you may need. But the truth is, if God gives you any of that stuff, then your boasting is not in having it, it will be found in giving it up. Following Christ is not about what you obtain. It is about what you sacrifice. You don’t have to be a follower of Christ to get stuff. But it takes supernatural power to give up what most people spend their life trying to get. Yet once you get it, God may ask you to give it up in order to make sure you recognize who is truly in control. Think about some of the greatest stories in the bible related to this: Abraham, Hannah, Paul, David, Jesus. There is a point in your life when you realize that anything you want can be yours if God wants you to have it. But when and if you get it, it is never about you. And your power lies in the fact that nothing but God has a hold on you. Because He gave you the power to lay down your life, and to take it up again. You are not a victim. No matter what people may think. They might feel sorry for you or think that you are not making wise decisions. But if that’s what they think, they need to see it again from another perspective. You are not being killed, you have laid down your life.
Following Jesus is not easy. Let me not lie to you. And God will not ask you to give up something you never possessed. But what you cannot give up, actually possesses you. And as long as that possesses you, you do not yet fully belong to God. When nothing in this world can hold you, you are actually more powerful than you know. I knew that when I was planning to leave my job a year and a half ago that I was going to have to quit. I was trying to plot to see if I could get fired so that I could get unemployment (true confession). But something in me knew that this was not going to work. I had to choose this. And because I chose this, I feel more powerful than life choosing this for me. It gives me strength when I need it. It gives me hope and it give me power. I can take up my life at any time, but I choose to keep going and wait for God to take me down the path. It makes me a victor and not a victim. So I encourage any of you who feel like God is calling you to lay something down, to do it. Because eventually you will not possess that thing that he is asking you to lay down. The difference will be in how much power you feel you have in the midst of it. Will you be the victim or the victor? Will you be the one blaming the devil for what he is doing or the one who knows that nothing the devil does can harm you because you chose this? It’s easy to have life happen to you, just keep living. Something's going to go wrong eventually. But laying down your life puts you on the offensive. You have the chance to choose your life and your death. You are not living as a victim. You will have more power than you will ever know.
The other day, I was laying in the bed thinking about my life over the past year and a half. I have been provided for in ways that I would have never thought were possible. But I have also been in need in ways I never imagined. And on that particular day, I had an overwhelming sense of peace, even though I think most people in my financial situation would be puling their hair out. I recall that two ears ago, I made 80% more money than I did when I filed my tax return the year before. To most people that would spell financial disaster. And it does feel like that sometimes. But at the same time, I know that this is exactly where I need to be. It’s strange. I have peace in the middle of a storm, just like God promised.
But what makes it worse is that I chose this life. For some people, this type of stuff happens to them as a result of life circumstances. Maybe they lose their job, or become ill, or have to take a pay cut to care for loved ones. But for me, I choose this life, on purpose. Truthfully, that makes me feel different. Everytime, I cannot make a payment when I am used to making it, I still feel different. Everytime I am supposed to get paid for some work I did, but there is a delay, I feel different. Everytime I look at my bank account and wonder if I will have enough to go grocery shopping or get gas, I still feel different. And I feel different because I choose to do this. I am not a victim of my circumstances. No body is doing this to me. I followed my God to a place where He led me and He has promised to take care of me. And He has done just that.
Jesus spoke to his disciples about his death in the above passage. He is letting them know that no one is going to take his life from him. He is willingly laying it down for a specific purpose. And he has the authority to change his situation at anytime. There is a reason for him to have to die this way. But no one should feel sorry for him or treat him like a victim. He is doing this on purpose, as strange as this may sound. It has to be done this way.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to go where Jesus leads. And the result of some of where he leads is not always pleasant. It is not always filled with the type of financial benefits that some say we will get. It is not always filled with riches and fame. Sometimes the blessing is in the power that you have to choose not to be wealthy, and still have the same peace and authority that some people equate to money. Sometimes, what God is showing us is that it is not in having that gives you the power, it is in choosing to lay down your life, for a greater purpose that becomes the power. Because if you choose it, then you also have the power to get out of it at anytime. But if you are constantly playing the victim role, you will never be able to see your authority. No one is doing this to me, I am choosing this life and one day I will choose to take this life up again and live it with the true authority I have which is not rooted in money or possessions.
Many prosperity gospel preachers would have you believe that the moment that you start to live your life for Jesus, everything becomes easy. You suddenly have more money, more fame, better health, whatever you may need. But the truth is, if God gives you any of that stuff, then your boasting is not in having it, it will be found in giving it up. Following Christ is not about what you obtain. It is about what you sacrifice. You don’t have to be a follower of Christ to get stuff. But it takes supernatural power to give up what most people spend their life trying to get. Yet once you get it, God may ask you to give it up in order to make sure you recognize who is truly in control. Think about some of the greatest stories in the bible related to this: Abraham, Hannah, Paul, David, Jesus. There is a point in your life when you realize that anything you want can be yours if God wants you to have it. But when and if you get it, it is never about you. And your power lies in the fact that nothing but God has a hold on you. Because He gave you the power to lay down your life, and to take it up again. You are not a victim. No matter what people may think. They might feel sorry for you or think that you are not making wise decisions. But if that’s what they think, they need to see it again from another perspective. You are not being killed, you have laid down your life.
Following Jesus is not easy. Let me not lie to you. And God will not ask you to give up something you never possessed. But what you cannot give up, actually possesses you. And as long as that possesses you, you do not yet fully belong to God. When nothing in this world can hold you, you are actually more powerful than you know. I knew that when I was planning to leave my job a year and a half ago that I was going to have to quit. I was trying to plot to see if I could get fired so that I could get unemployment (true confession). But something in me knew that this was not going to work. I had to choose this. And because I chose this, I feel more powerful than life choosing this for me. It gives me strength when I need it. It gives me hope and it give me power. I can take up my life at any time, but I choose to keep going and wait for God to take me down the path. It makes me a victor and not a victim. So I encourage any of you who feel like God is calling you to lay something down, to do it. Because eventually you will not possess that thing that he is asking you to lay down. The difference will be in how much power you feel you have in the midst of it. Will you be the victim or the victor? Will you be the one blaming the devil for what he is doing or the one who knows that nothing the devil does can harm you because you chose this? It’s easy to have life happen to you, just keep living. Something's going to go wrong eventually. But laying down your life puts you on the offensive. You have the chance to choose your life and your death. You are not living as a victim. You will have more power than you will ever know.
Monday, September 26, 2011
A Word About Prayer
A Word About Prayer
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name . . .” Matthew 6:7-9 NIV
Have you ever been in a church service or in the presence of someone who is praying and hear them use a bunch of words to address God, before they even get to anything substantive? Maybe they start calling out the various names of God in their prayers: “Lord God Jehovah, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Ruler of Nations, Lord of All . . .” On and on and on. All of this before they even get to the very thing they are praying about. I wonder if they know that it’s not necessary?
Jesus tells his disciples not to pray like this. In that day, the “pagans” as the bible calls them, used to heap all kinds of titles and praise words on their god in order to win their affection so that they could get what they wanted. They would introduce their prayers with things to “butter up” their God, hoping to get their god’s attention. But those who walked with Jesus were instructed not to pray this way. Jesus told his disciples to pray from a position of intimacy with their God. Not from a position of begging for “stuff”.
He tells his disciples to address God as “Father”. That describes a relationship. You don’t go to someone you are in relationship with heaping on a bunch of names before you ask for something from them. If you do, they usually know something is up. You want something from them that they will probably say no to. So you feel the need to butter them up first before you ask. Jesus says that God already knows what you are going to ask for, so there is no need for all of the babbling beforehand.
When I call my Dad, I don’t hit him with all of his titles before I get to the gist of what I’m calling for. If I called and said, “Father of Shayna, Erica and Rick; Husband of Donna; Son of Jannette and Herbert; Teacher of students; Resident of Mt. Airy; Owner of a White Car; Former Changer of My Diaper . . .” he would think I’d lost my mind. That’s not how you address someone with whom you have a relationship with. I just leave it at “Hey Dad”. And then proceed with the conversation.
For those who are in relationship with God as our Heavenly Father, there is no need to go on and on and on before you come before Him in prayer. Jesus has already made it possible for you to simply say, “Hey Dad”. There is nothing wrong with praising God for who He is, but it is not necessary for talking to Him on the regular. Don’t think that you are out of order for simply talking to your father. Those who feel disconnected may think they need to start off their prayer with the babbling, but know that it is not necessary. As a matter of fact, I think God would like it very much if you just say, “Hey Dad”. Especially if you have not spoken to God in a while. That doesn’t change the fact that you are still His child. You don’t have to work your way back up to get in good with God again. He already knows what you want to talk about. He just wants you to know that you can talk to Him. No mater how far away you feel you are. Don’t pray like someone who has no relationship with God. You already do. Just say, “Hey Dad”. I am sure He will answer.
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name . . .” Matthew 6:7-9 NIV
Have you ever been in a church service or in the presence of someone who is praying and hear them use a bunch of words to address God, before they even get to anything substantive? Maybe they start calling out the various names of God in their prayers: “Lord God Jehovah, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Ruler of Nations, Lord of All . . .” On and on and on. All of this before they even get to the very thing they are praying about. I wonder if they know that it’s not necessary?
Jesus tells his disciples not to pray like this. In that day, the “pagans” as the bible calls them, used to heap all kinds of titles and praise words on their god in order to win their affection so that they could get what they wanted. They would introduce their prayers with things to “butter up” their God, hoping to get their god’s attention. But those who walked with Jesus were instructed not to pray this way. Jesus told his disciples to pray from a position of intimacy with their God. Not from a position of begging for “stuff”.
He tells his disciples to address God as “Father”. That describes a relationship. You don’t go to someone you are in relationship with heaping on a bunch of names before you ask for something from them. If you do, they usually know something is up. You want something from them that they will probably say no to. So you feel the need to butter them up first before you ask. Jesus says that God already knows what you are going to ask for, so there is no need for all of the babbling beforehand.
When I call my Dad, I don’t hit him with all of his titles before I get to the gist of what I’m calling for. If I called and said, “Father of Shayna, Erica and Rick; Husband of Donna; Son of Jannette and Herbert; Teacher of students; Resident of Mt. Airy; Owner of a White Car; Former Changer of My Diaper . . .” he would think I’d lost my mind. That’s not how you address someone with whom you have a relationship with. I just leave it at “Hey Dad”. And then proceed with the conversation.
For those who are in relationship with God as our Heavenly Father, there is no need to go on and on and on before you come before Him in prayer. Jesus has already made it possible for you to simply say, “Hey Dad”. There is nothing wrong with praising God for who He is, but it is not necessary for talking to Him on the regular. Don’t think that you are out of order for simply talking to your father. Those who feel disconnected may think they need to start off their prayer with the babbling, but know that it is not necessary. As a matter of fact, I think God would like it very much if you just say, “Hey Dad”. Especially if you have not spoken to God in a while. That doesn’t change the fact that you are still His child. You don’t have to work your way back up to get in good with God again. He already knows what you want to talk about. He just wants you to know that you can talk to Him. No mater how far away you feel you are. Don’t pray like someone who has no relationship with God. You already do. Just say, “Hey Dad”. I am sure He will answer.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Jehova Jireh? My Provider
Jehova Jireh? My Provider.
“I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. 19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:18-19 NIV
One of the hardest parts of living by faith in your finances is getting used to the reshaping of your mindset. If you are, like me, used to living in a condition of surplus, then living according to your needs being met is a real challenge. It’s not even that I had a whole bunch of money before, but it was certainly more than I have now. I don’t even think I recognized how much surplus I had until I didn’t have it anymore. I was used to working on a budget, putting some money away for savings and investing, giving, traveling, going out with friends, giving gifts, all with my paycheck. But now, I have no regular paycheck. I get money at random times for various clients that come through at the times when I need it. And usually it has nothing to do with me doing any advertising for them. They just come. Now, if I didn’t know where I was spiritually at this point in my life, I would probably quit school, focus exclusively on my business and get back to the place where I was more comfortable. And believe me, it’s tempting. But God does show me where He has me at this moment, so I continuously fight the temptation. And I also know that this is just a season.
Paul was speaking to the Philippian church about his own financial condition in the above passage. He was living off of the money he made from making tents and whatever else he needed from the support for the churches he started in various towns or cities. He never really put the burden of supporting him on the people, but the Philippians gave out of their hearts for taking care of Paul and his needs. Paul said in the previous verses that he had learned to get along with means and also to get along without them, and one thing he had come to realize is that he can do all things through Christ who strengthened him. That’s what that scripture means. Whether Paul had a lot or a little, he could survive and be content with where he was at the moment. God was his true source, and God touched the hearts of people to help Paul when he needed it. And for that, Paul prayed that God would give them all they needed. Their concern for him was genuine and even though they were not the richest church that Paul helped to start, their kindness and generosity was unmatched. And the people who gave touched Paul’s heart.
I have received so much from people during this time in my life. And it always comes when I need it. Whether it is a service I provided through financial planning or just a person choosing to give me a gift, I am truly grateful. And I have learned how to get along with means and how to get along without. And I, too, know that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I pray a special blessing over those who have helped me in any way during this time. Those who have chosen to bless me as I bless others, and those who God has laid on my heart to bless, even when I think I am so broke. I have still been able to give to others. I have not missed a thing. As a matter of fact, I have done even more now then I did when I had a paycheck. So hopefully this encourages others to truly learn to trust God in their financial situation, whatever it may be. If you have means, don’t put your life in it, but learn to share freely. If you don’t have means, learn to see the provision of God in this place, and you will be able to handle it even if He chooses to take you out of that place into a season of abundance. But Christ gives you the strength to do it all. And if you don’t have it then maybe you don’t actually need it the way you think you do. That is something else I’m learning. Just because I want to take care of it financially right now doesn’t mean that I need to. God is still in charge.
“I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. 19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:18-19 NIV
One of the hardest parts of living by faith in your finances is getting used to the reshaping of your mindset. If you are, like me, used to living in a condition of surplus, then living according to your needs being met is a real challenge. It’s not even that I had a whole bunch of money before, but it was certainly more than I have now. I don’t even think I recognized how much surplus I had until I didn’t have it anymore. I was used to working on a budget, putting some money away for savings and investing, giving, traveling, going out with friends, giving gifts, all with my paycheck. But now, I have no regular paycheck. I get money at random times for various clients that come through at the times when I need it. And usually it has nothing to do with me doing any advertising for them. They just come. Now, if I didn’t know where I was spiritually at this point in my life, I would probably quit school, focus exclusively on my business and get back to the place where I was more comfortable. And believe me, it’s tempting. But God does show me where He has me at this moment, so I continuously fight the temptation. And I also know that this is just a season.
Paul was speaking to the Philippian church about his own financial condition in the above passage. He was living off of the money he made from making tents and whatever else he needed from the support for the churches he started in various towns or cities. He never really put the burden of supporting him on the people, but the Philippians gave out of their hearts for taking care of Paul and his needs. Paul said in the previous verses that he had learned to get along with means and also to get along without them, and one thing he had come to realize is that he can do all things through Christ who strengthened him. That’s what that scripture means. Whether Paul had a lot or a little, he could survive and be content with where he was at the moment. God was his true source, and God touched the hearts of people to help Paul when he needed it. And for that, Paul prayed that God would give them all they needed. Their concern for him was genuine and even though they were not the richest church that Paul helped to start, their kindness and generosity was unmatched. And the people who gave touched Paul’s heart.
I have received so much from people during this time in my life. And it always comes when I need it. Whether it is a service I provided through financial planning or just a person choosing to give me a gift, I am truly grateful. And I have learned how to get along with means and how to get along without. And I, too, know that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I pray a special blessing over those who have helped me in any way during this time. Those who have chosen to bless me as I bless others, and those who God has laid on my heart to bless, even when I think I am so broke. I have still been able to give to others. I have not missed a thing. As a matter of fact, I have done even more now then I did when I had a paycheck. So hopefully this encourages others to truly learn to trust God in their financial situation, whatever it may be. If you have means, don’t put your life in it, but learn to share freely. If you don’t have means, learn to see the provision of God in this place, and you will be able to handle it even if He chooses to take you out of that place into a season of abundance. But Christ gives you the strength to do it all. And if you don’t have it then maybe you don’t actually need it the way you think you do. That is something else I’m learning. Just because I want to take care of it financially right now doesn’t mean that I need to. God is still in charge.
Monday, September 12, 2011
You Have a Song
You Have a Song
“Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.” Psalm 96:1 NIV
Last winter, when we had our crazy blizzard conditions, I was outside shoveling the snow. I had my iPod on and was listening to a great song I love by Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir called, “Wonderful to Me”. The song is just a simple song of adoration and worship to God, but it is extremely soothing. You can feel the love that the singer has towards God. It invites you into their intimacy and calls you to embrace your own intimacy with God. A good worship song is supposed to do that for you. To take you into a deeper place with God. A place where all is well.
But as I continued to listen to the song, I started thinking about my own words and what I actually want to say to God when I’m in that place with Him. I started thinking about my own song. I have an intimate relationship with God. I have things that I can sing about. (Not necessarily sing them well, but it is heartfelt). It’s nice to listen to the words of other people and their relationship with God, but we have our own words. You have a song that you can sing to God that reflects who He is to you. And it’s a song that no one else can sing like you.
When we think of intimate relationships, we know that those relationships are precious. People that we are intimate with know things about us that no one else knows. We share things with them in a way that is special. We might have private jokes, or sayings that only the other person understands. We might have nick-names for each other that no one else quite gets and you don’t want everybody calling you that name. It’s reserved for those special people in your life with whom you share intimate details of yourself. It’s the beauty of having intimacy. To know that there is another person on this earth that is so close to you that they know a lot of what you know about you, and sometimes more. And this is the relationship we have with God, if we go there.
Maybe some of us don’t want to go there with God because we feel unworthy to be invited into that type of intimacy. Maybe we have done things that we are ashamed of and don’t want to be exposed. But the beauty of having that relationship with God is that none of it matters. He already forgave you, before you even knew you needed to be forgiven. He forgave you so that you could be intimate with Him. Anybody you are intimate with probably has had to forgive you or you forgive them at some point. It’s one of the prices of intimacy. You know too much. You can be your full self, the good, bad and ugly. But this intimacy is energizing. And it can make you want to sing!
When I finished my shoveling that day, I wrote a song to God. I’m not going to write it out here. It was just for Him, unless He tells me to share it with others. It’s not the first time I’ve written a song or a poem to God. But it was a reminder that I can get all enamored with someone else’s song, but I do have one of my own as well. I wrote another one about a month ago and actually put that one to music. Maybe I’ll share that one day or give it to a musician to turn into something, but I was happy just to have my own song. And I’m sure you do too. I’m sure you can think of something to praise God for today. You have a song. Just the fact that He calls someone like you to be in intimate relationship with Him is worthy of something! You don’t have to be a songwriter to do this. You just have to be in relationship. If you have ever been in love before, you probably did something that seemed stupid to express it; a poem, a song, a rap. We have all probably come out of ourselves for love at some point. The same is true in our relationship with God. How about you show God just how you feel about Him today. Even if it starts out with anger or hurt or frustration. At least it’s honest. And it’s how you feel. Not someone else. And that is what God wants. An honest relationship. Can you write God a song today?
“Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.” Psalm 96:1 NIV
Last winter, when we had our crazy blizzard conditions, I was outside shoveling the snow. I had my iPod on and was listening to a great song I love by Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir called, “Wonderful to Me”. The song is just a simple song of adoration and worship to God, but it is extremely soothing. You can feel the love that the singer has towards God. It invites you into their intimacy and calls you to embrace your own intimacy with God. A good worship song is supposed to do that for you. To take you into a deeper place with God. A place where all is well.
But as I continued to listen to the song, I started thinking about my own words and what I actually want to say to God when I’m in that place with Him. I started thinking about my own song. I have an intimate relationship with God. I have things that I can sing about. (Not necessarily sing them well, but it is heartfelt). It’s nice to listen to the words of other people and their relationship with God, but we have our own words. You have a song that you can sing to God that reflects who He is to you. And it’s a song that no one else can sing like you.
When we think of intimate relationships, we know that those relationships are precious. People that we are intimate with know things about us that no one else knows. We share things with them in a way that is special. We might have private jokes, or sayings that only the other person understands. We might have nick-names for each other that no one else quite gets and you don’t want everybody calling you that name. It’s reserved for those special people in your life with whom you share intimate details of yourself. It’s the beauty of having intimacy. To know that there is another person on this earth that is so close to you that they know a lot of what you know about you, and sometimes more. And this is the relationship we have with God, if we go there.
Maybe some of us don’t want to go there with God because we feel unworthy to be invited into that type of intimacy. Maybe we have done things that we are ashamed of and don’t want to be exposed. But the beauty of having that relationship with God is that none of it matters. He already forgave you, before you even knew you needed to be forgiven. He forgave you so that you could be intimate with Him. Anybody you are intimate with probably has had to forgive you or you forgive them at some point. It’s one of the prices of intimacy. You know too much. You can be your full self, the good, bad and ugly. But this intimacy is energizing. And it can make you want to sing!
When I finished my shoveling that day, I wrote a song to God. I’m not going to write it out here. It was just for Him, unless He tells me to share it with others. It’s not the first time I’ve written a song or a poem to God. But it was a reminder that I can get all enamored with someone else’s song, but I do have one of my own as well. I wrote another one about a month ago and actually put that one to music. Maybe I’ll share that one day or give it to a musician to turn into something, but I was happy just to have my own song. And I’m sure you do too. I’m sure you can think of something to praise God for today. You have a song. Just the fact that He calls someone like you to be in intimate relationship with Him is worthy of something! You don’t have to be a songwriter to do this. You just have to be in relationship. If you have ever been in love before, you probably did something that seemed stupid to express it; a poem, a song, a rap. We have all probably come out of ourselves for love at some point. The same is true in our relationship with God. How about you show God just how you feel about Him today. Even if it starts out with anger or hurt or frustration. At least it’s honest. And it’s how you feel. Not someone else. And that is what God wants. An honest relationship. Can you write God a song today?
Friday, September 2, 2011
For the Love of Money
For The Love of Money
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” - Matthew 6:24 NIV
Today, I went back to school since being off for the summer. It’s been quite an eventful year for me. I went to Rome for a month, Canada for a weekend, New York for dinner, went to an Eagles game out of state, ate out at some pretty nice restaurants, started a real estate business, finished my final edits on my book and all of this happening while I am in the worst financial condition of my adult life. It is the most ironic thing in the world to me. I have never felt so rich and so poor at the same time. I love it and I hate it. I love it when I see God do something for me that only He could do. And I hate it when I want to do something that I don’t have the money for and have no real prospects of getting it.
I would have never advised a client to do the things that I am doing financially right now. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that the choices that I am making would be a good idea. Ever. I still wouldn’t advise anybody to do what I’ve done: Leave a well-paying, lucrative career in a top financial firm to go back to school to study how to help empower urban neighborhoods economically and spiritually; all after buying a house that was twice the size and expense of your perfectly good house; starting a business that helps anybody with their finances regardless of asset level or income; conduct workshops for people who can’t pay you; Write a book that will hopefully sell enough copies for you to make a few dollars. . . I could go on. I feel like an idiot most days when I actually think about it. And today, after talking to a company I owe money to about when they might get the money they are owed, I went from being in a really good place to being in a really down place. Just in a matter of two minutes.
I got some really great news about my book, better news about my real estate business opportunities and had a really good day in class discussing strategies to help empower the urban poor. And in one conversation, I was brought low. And it was driving home after that conversation that I got a revelation about the place that I am in right now financially and why it is necessary. I am breaking up with money. And breaking up is hard to do.
I’m a capitalist. My favorite game as a kid was Monopoly. I had my first business at 10 years old. I work for commission because I hate working for a salary. I loved money. I loved what it could do. I loved the feeling of having it. I loved the thrill of making it. I love the security I thought it provided me. I loved the joy it gave me when I had it. I loved helping other people make it. I loved giving it. I loved investing it. I loved saving it. I loved using it. I loved money. And if God is going to use me to build His kingdom, I can’t love money. I have to love Him more.
When you love money, even with good intentions, you can hurt people. And since God is in the people business, he won’t let you love money but for so long and keep hurting people. Eventually you are going to have to choose. And if money is winning in your life, then he might just let you go along until money shows itself to be what it truly is: A selfish lover. Money doesn’t love you. Money only loves itself. And since in intimate relationships, you become one with your lover, you too, will become selfish. Eventually you take on the character of money and it controls you and everything you do. It becomes the filter for everything you desire. It can overpower your will and make you it’s slave. Just like an abusive lover. It will use you for its own pleasure and then drop you when you can’t give it what it needs to thrive: power. As long as money has power over you and your life, you will always be it’s slave. As long as you consult your money before you consult your God, you will know who your master really is.
I have been breaking up with money for a while. We both knew that the relationship was going bad, but I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. I knew that I had given money far too much power in my life and it was ruining my relationship with God. So God stepped in and gave me the courage to walk away. But every now and then I am reminded that I still have feelings for money. Like an old lover who calls you out of the blue. You moved on with your life, started to live again without them. Thought you were over them, until they called you. And that phone call sent you into an emotional spin that you didn’t even know was possible. You still have feelings for them. And you are not as strong as you thought. So you can’t just say that you are over them. You are still in process.
That’s where I am with my relationship with money. God is helping me to put Him in the place where money used to rule my heart. And I don’t know if that battle will ever fully be won in this lifetime, but I can do my part to make sure that I stay out of positions to give money that power over me again. When I look at what God has done for me without money, I am amazed that what I thought money would do, God did. He is showing me how to put money in it’s place as my servant, not my master. I am learning how to tell money what to do for me and not be ruled by what it wants me to do for it. And as long as I don’t forget that my God loves me and my money doesn’t, I will be in good shape. It’s remembering that in times of need that is the hard part. Y’all pray for me. . . As a matter of fact let’s pray together. I think we might all need help in this area.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” - Matthew 6:24 NIV
Today, I went back to school since being off for the summer. It’s been quite an eventful year for me. I went to Rome for a month, Canada for a weekend, New York for dinner, went to an Eagles game out of state, ate out at some pretty nice restaurants, started a real estate business, finished my final edits on my book and all of this happening while I am in the worst financial condition of my adult life. It is the most ironic thing in the world to me. I have never felt so rich and so poor at the same time. I love it and I hate it. I love it when I see God do something for me that only He could do. And I hate it when I want to do something that I don’t have the money for and have no real prospects of getting it.
I would have never advised a client to do the things that I am doing financially right now. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that the choices that I am making would be a good idea. Ever. I still wouldn’t advise anybody to do what I’ve done: Leave a well-paying, lucrative career in a top financial firm to go back to school to study how to help empower urban neighborhoods economically and spiritually; all after buying a house that was twice the size and expense of your perfectly good house; starting a business that helps anybody with their finances regardless of asset level or income; conduct workshops for people who can’t pay you; Write a book that will hopefully sell enough copies for you to make a few dollars. . . I could go on. I feel like an idiot most days when I actually think about it. And today, after talking to a company I owe money to about when they might get the money they are owed, I went from being in a really good place to being in a really down place. Just in a matter of two minutes.
I got some really great news about my book, better news about my real estate business opportunities and had a really good day in class discussing strategies to help empower the urban poor. And in one conversation, I was brought low. And it was driving home after that conversation that I got a revelation about the place that I am in right now financially and why it is necessary. I am breaking up with money. And breaking up is hard to do.
I’m a capitalist. My favorite game as a kid was Monopoly. I had my first business at 10 years old. I work for commission because I hate working for a salary. I loved money. I loved what it could do. I loved the feeling of having it. I loved the thrill of making it. I love the security I thought it provided me. I loved the joy it gave me when I had it. I loved helping other people make it. I loved giving it. I loved investing it. I loved saving it. I loved using it. I loved money. And if God is going to use me to build His kingdom, I can’t love money. I have to love Him more.
When you love money, even with good intentions, you can hurt people. And since God is in the people business, he won’t let you love money but for so long and keep hurting people. Eventually you are going to have to choose. And if money is winning in your life, then he might just let you go along until money shows itself to be what it truly is: A selfish lover. Money doesn’t love you. Money only loves itself. And since in intimate relationships, you become one with your lover, you too, will become selfish. Eventually you take on the character of money and it controls you and everything you do. It becomes the filter for everything you desire. It can overpower your will and make you it’s slave. Just like an abusive lover. It will use you for its own pleasure and then drop you when you can’t give it what it needs to thrive: power. As long as money has power over you and your life, you will always be it’s slave. As long as you consult your money before you consult your God, you will know who your master really is.
I have been breaking up with money for a while. We both knew that the relationship was going bad, but I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. I knew that I had given money far too much power in my life and it was ruining my relationship with God. So God stepped in and gave me the courage to walk away. But every now and then I am reminded that I still have feelings for money. Like an old lover who calls you out of the blue. You moved on with your life, started to live again without them. Thought you were over them, until they called you. And that phone call sent you into an emotional spin that you didn’t even know was possible. You still have feelings for them. And you are not as strong as you thought. So you can’t just say that you are over them. You are still in process.
That’s where I am with my relationship with money. God is helping me to put Him in the place where money used to rule my heart. And I don’t know if that battle will ever fully be won in this lifetime, but I can do my part to make sure that I stay out of positions to give money that power over me again. When I look at what God has done for me without money, I am amazed that what I thought money would do, God did. He is showing me how to put money in it’s place as my servant, not my master. I am learning how to tell money what to do for me and not be ruled by what it wants me to do for it. And as long as I don’t forget that my God loves me and my money doesn’t, I will be in good shape. It’s remembering that in times of need that is the hard part. Y’all pray for me. . . As a matter of fact let’s pray together. I think we might all need help in this area.
Monday, August 29, 2011
The Days of Our Lives
The Days of Our Lives
“For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” - Psalm 90:9-12 ESV
So far, I have lived for approximately 11,719 days give or take a few for leap years. I don’t know how many days I have left on this planet. No one does. Sometimes we think of our lives in terms of years, yet our lives are lived one day at a time. That gives us a day at a time to make this life worth something. Not looking out towards the distant future, but one day at a time. When we are little, everything seems like it is so far away. We can’t wait to hit double digits; then we can wait to be teenagers; then we can’t wait to start driving; then we can’t wait until we are18; then we can’t wait to drink; we can’t wait until our insurance goes down at 25; then we start to want to pump the breaks a little bit as we approach age 30; the we cross over the 30 mark and barrel down towards our mid thirties; then here comes 40; and so on and so on, if you are fortunate enough to keep going. But each of these milestones in life was a day. And there were a bunch of days before it that we had to live. But how we live those days is up to us.
In Psalm 90, Moses is actually teaching us how to be fruitful with whatever number of days God gives us. He says that we may get 70 or 80 years if we are lucky in this life and some of those days are spent in toil and trouble. But if we can learn to consider God during those days, then we can gain a heart of wisdom to use our time on this earth in an productive way. And I am not just talking about what we do for a living. I am talking about spending our time on what actually matters.
This past week, we experienced natural disasters that we don’t normally see in my area; an earthquake, tornados and a hurricane. For some, these event will just pass by as just another day. But for 9 people at least in the path of hurricane Irene, their lives were cut short. One of them was an 11 year old boy. He didn’t live to see 4,380 days. For those 9 people, their days on this earth ended. We always hear the saying about it’s not about the date you are born and the date you die, but what you do with the “dash” in between. But that’s usually saved for things like funerals when the people sometimes take a moment to actually reflect on their life and what they do with it. But I think that for us to do what we are called to do on this earth and live on purpose, we need to think, not in terms of years of our lives, but the ‘days” of our lives. And we need to do it often, not just at a funeral.
For some, the “Days” of their lives are drama (ha, ha - pun intended). Filled with useless arguments, wasted opportunities, unspoken words, deep regrets and painful memories. For others, each day is a new chance to make their lives a little better by living in it. Moses‘ prayer was to have God teach us to number our days in order that we get a heart of wisdom. There is wisdom in making every day of your life count for something. There is wisdom in not always putting things off for a future that may never come, but using the time you have wisely. There is wisdom in making the most of every day you are given and moving on from past hurts and disappointments and mistakes. If you learn to number your days, it may sound depressing, but you might find that you begin to live your life more purposeful. I have a lot of good memories in my 11,719 days lived on this planet. I have some bad memories in those same number of days. But if I look at it in terms of days, I feel better about the bad ones, because the good ones far outweigh the bad. And every day that God gives me is a day to make it a good one. Somehow, some way, I can make some good happen daily.
Living life one day at a time is wise. And Moses also said that it seemed like no one considered God’s power during their time on this earth. How many days do you consider how powerful God is? How many days of your life do you spend worried about how strong the enemy is, or has been in your life? How many days of your life will you spend lamenting over how much someone else hurt you? How long will you not consider how strong God is to bring you to another day, where you have the most powerful force in the universe on your side? How many days will you continue to waste on things that are beneath who you are in Christ?
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. But that does not mean that you are afraid of God. It means that you know how powerful and strong He is, and you are grateful that He is on your side. Grateful that He has given you His spirit to be your guide. Grateful that He has promised to be with you all the days of your life. Grateful that every day, you are forgiven for not being perfect. Grateful that in Christ, you are perfected everyday. No matter how many or how few days you have. God is with you everyday. He is on your side everyday. You can talk to Him everyday. You can embrace your “true” self everyday. You can cast off fear everyday. You can walk in faith everyday. And if you mess it up, you can try again tomorrow if He gives you another day. But don’t take your days for granted. You don’t know how many you have. So make today count.
“For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” - Psalm 90:9-12 ESV
So far, I have lived for approximately 11,719 days give or take a few for leap years. I don’t know how many days I have left on this planet. No one does. Sometimes we think of our lives in terms of years, yet our lives are lived one day at a time. That gives us a day at a time to make this life worth something. Not looking out towards the distant future, but one day at a time. When we are little, everything seems like it is so far away. We can’t wait to hit double digits; then we can wait to be teenagers; then we can’t wait to start driving; then we can’t wait until we are18; then we can’t wait to drink; we can’t wait until our insurance goes down at 25; then we start to want to pump the breaks a little bit as we approach age 30; the we cross over the 30 mark and barrel down towards our mid thirties; then here comes 40; and so on and so on, if you are fortunate enough to keep going. But each of these milestones in life was a day. And there were a bunch of days before it that we had to live. But how we live those days is up to us.
In Psalm 90, Moses is actually teaching us how to be fruitful with whatever number of days God gives us. He says that we may get 70 or 80 years if we are lucky in this life and some of those days are spent in toil and trouble. But if we can learn to consider God during those days, then we can gain a heart of wisdom to use our time on this earth in an productive way. And I am not just talking about what we do for a living. I am talking about spending our time on what actually matters.
This past week, we experienced natural disasters that we don’t normally see in my area; an earthquake, tornados and a hurricane. For some, these event will just pass by as just another day. But for 9 people at least in the path of hurricane Irene, their lives were cut short. One of them was an 11 year old boy. He didn’t live to see 4,380 days. For those 9 people, their days on this earth ended. We always hear the saying about it’s not about the date you are born and the date you die, but what you do with the “dash” in between. But that’s usually saved for things like funerals when the people sometimes take a moment to actually reflect on their life and what they do with it. But I think that for us to do what we are called to do on this earth and live on purpose, we need to think, not in terms of years of our lives, but the ‘days” of our lives. And we need to do it often, not just at a funeral.
For some, the “Days” of their lives are drama (ha, ha - pun intended). Filled with useless arguments, wasted opportunities, unspoken words, deep regrets and painful memories. For others, each day is a new chance to make their lives a little better by living in it. Moses‘ prayer was to have God teach us to number our days in order that we get a heart of wisdom. There is wisdom in making every day of your life count for something. There is wisdom in not always putting things off for a future that may never come, but using the time you have wisely. There is wisdom in making the most of every day you are given and moving on from past hurts and disappointments and mistakes. If you learn to number your days, it may sound depressing, but you might find that you begin to live your life more purposeful. I have a lot of good memories in my 11,719 days lived on this planet. I have some bad memories in those same number of days. But if I look at it in terms of days, I feel better about the bad ones, because the good ones far outweigh the bad. And every day that God gives me is a day to make it a good one. Somehow, some way, I can make some good happen daily.
Living life one day at a time is wise. And Moses also said that it seemed like no one considered God’s power during their time on this earth. How many days do you consider how powerful God is? How many days of your life do you spend worried about how strong the enemy is, or has been in your life? How many days of your life will you spend lamenting over how much someone else hurt you? How long will you not consider how strong God is to bring you to another day, where you have the most powerful force in the universe on your side? How many days will you continue to waste on things that are beneath who you are in Christ?
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. But that does not mean that you are afraid of God. It means that you know how powerful and strong He is, and you are grateful that He is on your side. Grateful that He has given you His spirit to be your guide. Grateful that He has promised to be with you all the days of your life. Grateful that every day, you are forgiven for not being perfect. Grateful that in Christ, you are perfected everyday. No matter how many or how few days you have. God is with you everyday. He is on your side everyday. You can talk to Him everyday. You can embrace your “true” self everyday. You can cast off fear everyday. You can walk in faith everyday. And if you mess it up, you can try again tomorrow if He gives you another day. But don’t take your days for granted. You don’t know how many you have. So make today count.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Al Bundy Syndrome
The Al Bundy Syndrome
“The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” Haggai 2:9 ESV
Remember the show “Married With Children”? The father, AL Bundy was a shoe salesman who hated his life. He never wanted to have sex with his wife. His kids basically had to fend for themselves. He hated his next door neighbor and always called her a chicken. The show was comical! I used to love it. The one thing he always brought up was his glory days in high school when he was a start quarterback. He always talked about Polk High School, and how he scored four touchdowns in one game. That memory would always take him back to a place and time when he felt like “the man”! The time when he peaked in his athletic career. And he loved meeting back up with people from those days who remembered him for his success.
In thinking about this particular scripture in Haggai, I was reminded of Al Bundy. Israel was kind of like that. They were in the process of rebuilding the temple that was destroyed. The former temple was amazing! Solomon built it and it was a great symbol of Israel’s wealth and power in the world at that time. People from everywhere looked at the temple and concluded that God must have loved Israel and blessed them because those were their glory days. They had peace in the land; incredible wealth; a famous king; notoriety and respect. Them, according to scripture, because they turned away from God and forgot that it was He who gave them this power, God sent them into captivity through Babylon, Persia and Assyria. Where they were formally living in wealth and freedom, them found themselves in slavery to other nations who took their symbols of wealth and destroyed the temple. Everything that they looked to as a symbol of God’s blessing on them was taken away. And seventy years later, they were tasked with rebuilding the temple.
But the new temple didn’t look like the old one. It didn’t have as many amenities that they had before. There was less gold and silver and bronze. It wasn’t as big as it was back in the day. It may have been quite disappointing to Israel to see that they were being given a chance to rebuild, but it didn’t have as much “stuff” as they did before. God was encouraging Israel that His presence was not evident by a temple made by the hands of men. He was always with them, regardless of their outward conditions. It may have looked like they had less wealth and power than they had before, but God’s presence was all they needed. And if they had that, then they would always be a reflection of His glory.
This same syndrome can be true for us in many ways. Many of us are looking back to the days when we had more money, more popularity, more fame, more success in our eyes. It may look like God is not “blessing” you in the same way He did in the past. But the one thing we have to remember is that the presence of God in our lives is not indicated by how much Stuff we accumulate. As a matter of fact, it is often evident more so in the fact that without all of our “stuff” God still provides. This of how much “stuff” Jesus owned. Not much. Not even a home. Yet there was no question of how much God was with him.
The more we get stuck on our self-proclaimed glory days, the less we focus on what God can do and is doing in our life right now. Your best days are not behind you, they are ahead of you. Regardless of how much you have materially. If you fall into the trap of thinking that the best of your life was lived in the past, then you will get stuck there. You will miss the opportunity to embrace the life that God called you to live in the present. God was with you when you scored four touchdowns in one game, and God is with you now. God was with you when you became prom queen and God is with you now. God was with you when you had a six figure income and God is with you now. God was with you when you when you won those awards and God is with you now. It doesn’t matter what physical manifestations you have or don’t have. If God is with you, then you have all you need right now. Never-mind what you had before. It was not the best of what God can do in your life. The best is yet to come.
“The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” Haggai 2:9 ESV
Remember the show “Married With Children”? The father, AL Bundy was a shoe salesman who hated his life. He never wanted to have sex with his wife. His kids basically had to fend for themselves. He hated his next door neighbor and always called her a chicken. The show was comical! I used to love it. The one thing he always brought up was his glory days in high school when he was a start quarterback. He always talked about Polk High School, and how he scored four touchdowns in one game. That memory would always take him back to a place and time when he felt like “the man”! The time when he peaked in his athletic career. And he loved meeting back up with people from those days who remembered him for his success.
In thinking about this particular scripture in Haggai, I was reminded of Al Bundy. Israel was kind of like that. They were in the process of rebuilding the temple that was destroyed. The former temple was amazing! Solomon built it and it was a great symbol of Israel’s wealth and power in the world at that time. People from everywhere looked at the temple and concluded that God must have loved Israel and blessed them because those were their glory days. They had peace in the land; incredible wealth; a famous king; notoriety and respect. Them, according to scripture, because they turned away from God and forgot that it was He who gave them this power, God sent them into captivity through Babylon, Persia and Assyria. Where they were formally living in wealth and freedom, them found themselves in slavery to other nations who took their symbols of wealth and destroyed the temple. Everything that they looked to as a symbol of God’s blessing on them was taken away. And seventy years later, they were tasked with rebuilding the temple.
But the new temple didn’t look like the old one. It didn’t have as many amenities that they had before. There was less gold and silver and bronze. It wasn’t as big as it was back in the day. It may have been quite disappointing to Israel to see that they were being given a chance to rebuild, but it didn’t have as much “stuff” as they did before. God was encouraging Israel that His presence was not evident by a temple made by the hands of men. He was always with them, regardless of their outward conditions. It may have looked like they had less wealth and power than they had before, but God’s presence was all they needed. And if they had that, then they would always be a reflection of His glory.
This same syndrome can be true for us in many ways. Many of us are looking back to the days when we had more money, more popularity, more fame, more success in our eyes. It may look like God is not “blessing” you in the same way He did in the past. But the one thing we have to remember is that the presence of God in our lives is not indicated by how much Stuff we accumulate. As a matter of fact, it is often evident more so in the fact that without all of our “stuff” God still provides. This of how much “stuff” Jesus owned. Not much. Not even a home. Yet there was no question of how much God was with him.
The more we get stuck on our self-proclaimed glory days, the less we focus on what God can do and is doing in our life right now. Your best days are not behind you, they are ahead of you. Regardless of how much you have materially. If you fall into the trap of thinking that the best of your life was lived in the past, then you will get stuck there. You will miss the opportunity to embrace the life that God called you to live in the present. God was with you when you scored four touchdowns in one game, and God is with you now. God was with you when you became prom queen and God is with you now. God was with you when you had a six figure income and God is with you now. God was with you when you when you won those awards and God is with you now. It doesn’t matter what physical manifestations you have or don’t have. If God is with you, then you have all you need right now. Never-mind what you had before. It was not the best of what God can do in your life. The best is yet to come.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
MIrror, Mirror
Mirror, Mirror
“If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20 NIV
This scripture is a hard one. Most people I know who are believers in God will usually confess some type of love for God. They love Jesus. They love Allah. They love the Creator. Whatever God they worship, they say they love. My faith in my God says that if I say that I love my God, then I cannot truly love my God unless I love the people God created. And therein lies the rub. People get on my nerves. People let me down. People disappoint me. People mistreat me. People annoy me. People misunderstand me. People talk about me. People are fake. People lie. People cheat. People do all kinds of things that make it really hard to love them. And yet, my God calls for me to love them anyway. Even with all of their obvious faults, and even for the stuff I don’t even know about yet. I have to love people.
There is a connection between our relationship with God and our relationship with people. The bible tells us that we are created in God’s image. All of us. Not just black people. Not just white people. Not just the people you like. Not just the people who do what you say. But all of us are created in God’s image. As a matter of fact, the best way for us to see God is in human form. God is invisible. God is a spirit. But if we are created in God’s image, then we bear an image of what God looks like. God came to earth in human form through the person of Jesus Christ. People who walked with Jesus or saw him in that day got to see God up close and personal. The one in who no sin dwelled. The one who walked in love and loved others. The one whose life we now read about in the pages of scripture. The one who said that he was going to be the only way for us to connect with God again. And then he was murdered. By people. People who said they loved God. They killed an innocent man, but they said they loved God. God says that’s not possible.
But truthfully, it’s just hard to love some people because we can see where they are just plain evil. We are exposed to the wicked plots and self-serving behaviors that they exhibit. And who wants to just let people get away with stuff? I mean nobody wants to be looked at like they are a pushover. And sometimes you just want to let people know that you know what they are doing or what they think they are going to do. Or you just want to fix them because they are so off! Seems pretty natural to me. I know I feel like that. Especially when you can see the problem and it’s glaring you in the face.
But I got convicted one day a few years ago. And God showed me that the evil and the imperfection that I am so quick to see in other people is a reflection of what I am doing to God. Our human relationships are a mirror for our relationship with God. That’s why we cannot say we love God whom we cannot see, if we don’t love people who we see everyday. We have to learn to love each other because it will also help us learn to love God.
Think about the imperfection you see in your most challenging relationship. Maybe it’s with a parent or a child. Maybe it’s a romantic partner. Maybe it’s a co-worker. Maybe it’s a friend. Take a look at what is most challenging in the relationship and reflect on whether or not you are doing the same thing to God. If the person is stubborn and wants things their way all the time, would God say that about you in your relationship to Him? If the person is afraid of commitment, have you truly committed to God? If the person is not spending quality time with you, how much time are you giving to God? If they are being rebellious, how rebellious are you with God? If they can’t keep their promises, how many promises have you broken to God? If they refuse to go deeper and be more intimate, how intimate are you with God? These are hard questions, but if you actually take a moment to reflect on it, you may end up cutting that person a little more slack. Because what you then realize, is that even though you have done this in your relationship with God, God still loves you anyway. God still provides for you. God still looks out for you. God still keeps you. God is still God to you, regardless of how you treat Him. And he never leaves you.
I’m not saying that every relational issue can be immediately resolved with this simple reflection. However, I do think that those who profess to know a loving, forgiving, faithful God, have no right to be so quick to judge the faults of others without first reflecting on how they are treating the one who loves them most. And just maybe, if you focus on doing the thing with God that you are quick to judge in someone else, then you will find that they are still loveable anyway. You may just see them a little differently. At least that is what happened to me. I stopped focusing on being frustrated with the person and started to focus again on my relationship with God. I saw where I was not as committed as I thought I was. I saw where I was being stubborn. I saw where I was afraid to take a risk. I saw where I was not walking in my purpose. And I started to pray about that. I started to confess that although these were faults in me, God still loved me. Although I fell short in my relationship with Him, he never left me. He found a way to love me. Through His son.
And that is probably the only way any of us can stand to have a chance at loving other people. Through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we would just leave people in their sin as we engage them in relationship. If there was no way for God to love them, I don’t have a chance to love them, because all I could see is their faults. But God chose to make a way for me to be loved by Him and for them to be loved by Him. I don’t have the luxury of judging someone else and choosing not to love them because I see their faults. I’m doing the same thing to the God I say I love. And maybe I would be a little less judgmental and critical of others if I first look at my relationships with other people as a reflection of my relationship with God. Consider them a mirror. Check the reflection first before you speak in judgement.
“If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20 NIV
This scripture is a hard one. Most people I know who are believers in God will usually confess some type of love for God. They love Jesus. They love Allah. They love the Creator. Whatever God they worship, they say they love. My faith in my God says that if I say that I love my God, then I cannot truly love my God unless I love the people God created. And therein lies the rub. People get on my nerves. People let me down. People disappoint me. People mistreat me. People annoy me. People misunderstand me. People talk about me. People are fake. People lie. People cheat. People do all kinds of things that make it really hard to love them. And yet, my God calls for me to love them anyway. Even with all of their obvious faults, and even for the stuff I don’t even know about yet. I have to love people.
There is a connection between our relationship with God and our relationship with people. The bible tells us that we are created in God’s image. All of us. Not just black people. Not just white people. Not just the people you like. Not just the people who do what you say. But all of us are created in God’s image. As a matter of fact, the best way for us to see God is in human form. God is invisible. God is a spirit. But if we are created in God’s image, then we bear an image of what God looks like. God came to earth in human form through the person of Jesus Christ. People who walked with Jesus or saw him in that day got to see God up close and personal. The one in who no sin dwelled. The one who walked in love and loved others. The one whose life we now read about in the pages of scripture. The one who said that he was going to be the only way for us to connect with God again. And then he was murdered. By people. People who said they loved God. They killed an innocent man, but they said they loved God. God says that’s not possible.
But truthfully, it’s just hard to love some people because we can see where they are just plain evil. We are exposed to the wicked plots and self-serving behaviors that they exhibit. And who wants to just let people get away with stuff? I mean nobody wants to be looked at like they are a pushover. And sometimes you just want to let people know that you know what they are doing or what they think they are going to do. Or you just want to fix them because they are so off! Seems pretty natural to me. I know I feel like that. Especially when you can see the problem and it’s glaring you in the face.
But I got convicted one day a few years ago. And God showed me that the evil and the imperfection that I am so quick to see in other people is a reflection of what I am doing to God. Our human relationships are a mirror for our relationship with God. That’s why we cannot say we love God whom we cannot see, if we don’t love people who we see everyday. We have to learn to love each other because it will also help us learn to love God.
Think about the imperfection you see in your most challenging relationship. Maybe it’s with a parent or a child. Maybe it’s a romantic partner. Maybe it’s a co-worker. Maybe it’s a friend. Take a look at what is most challenging in the relationship and reflect on whether or not you are doing the same thing to God. If the person is stubborn and wants things their way all the time, would God say that about you in your relationship to Him? If the person is afraid of commitment, have you truly committed to God? If the person is not spending quality time with you, how much time are you giving to God? If they are being rebellious, how rebellious are you with God? If they can’t keep their promises, how many promises have you broken to God? If they refuse to go deeper and be more intimate, how intimate are you with God? These are hard questions, but if you actually take a moment to reflect on it, you may end up cutting that person a little more slack. Because what you then realize, is that even though you have done this in your relationship with God, God still loves you anyway. God still provides for you. God still looks out for you. God still keeps you. God is still God to you, regardless of how you treat Him. And he never leaves you.
I’m not saying that every relational issue can be immediately resolved with this simple reflection. However, I do think that those who profess to know a loving, forgiving, faithful God, have no right to be so quick to judge the faults of others without first reflecting on how they are treating the one who loves them most. And just maybe, if you focus on doing the thing with God that you are quick to judge in someone else, then you will find that they are still loveable anyway. You may just see them a little differently. At least that is what happened to me. I stopped focusing on being frustrated with the person and started to focus again on my relationship with God. I saw where I was not as committed as I thought I was. I saw where I was being stubborn. I saw where I was afraid to take a risk. I saw where I was not walking in my purpose. And I started to pray about that. I started to confess that although these were faults in me, God still loved me. Although I fell short in my relationship with Him, he never left me. He found a way to love me. Through His son.
And that is probably the only way any of us can stand to have a chance at loving other people. Through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we would just leave people in their sin as we engage them in relationship. If there was no way for God to love them, I don’t have a chance to love them, because all I could see is their faults. But God chose to make a way for me to be loved by Him and for them to be loved by Him. I don’t have the luxury of judging someone else and choosing not to love them because I see their faults. I’m doing the same thing to the God I say I love. And maybe I would be a little less judgmental and critical of others if I first look at my relationships with other people as a reflection of my relationship with God. Consider them a mirror. Check the reflection first before you speak in judgement.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Curse of Adam
The Curse of Adam
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19 NIV
Today, I am going to deal with the other third of this curse from the garden: Adam’s Curse. I first started looking at this upon preaching my second ever message in 2007 in which I discussed “The Family of God”. As I prepared I noticed a few things that seemed out of place in society relative to what God created. And I found myself constantly going back to Genesis to read and re-read chapter’s 2 and 3. There is so much here that if we can just meditate on these things for a while, we can probably change the world. And I feel especially strongly that the lives of men can change if they understand what the curse of separating from God actually yields.
First I will deal with the first portion of the passage regarding Adam listening to his wife. Some people blame Eve for the fall, but Eve never got the instruction from God. She got it from Adam, who got it from God. God said, “Because you listened to your wife . . .” To me, that tells me that God speaks to men and gives them instruction and holds them accountable for what they hear. Not to judge it, but to obey. That is, if it comes from God. If they obey other instruction, then they will have to suffer the consequence. Or, even more, the world suffers because men do not hear from and/or obey the commands of God. The first part of the curse, affected the ground because of Adam. Because Adam came from the ground, it was cursed because he was cursed. The whole earth suffers the consequences of a man’s separation from God.
Second, this separation creates an antagonistic relationship between men and the earth. There is always a battle. We see shows like, Man vs. Wild and marvel at what seems to be the crazy battles of man going against nature or animals. But that is not the picture that I get from the garden of Eden as to how things were supposed to be. Prior to the fall the ground must have cooperated with humankind in order to get food. Otherwise, the curse would just be a pronouncement of what already existed, not a consequence of disobedience. He was always to get food from the ground, but all things worked in harmony. So that tells me that part of Adam’s curse is to have to painfully work to get his food and the ground that he gets it from will be resistant.
Third, the effect of the curse describes the type of work that Adam would now have to pursue. That word toil means laborious labor. The type of work where you just slave away all the days of your life. The type of work that adds no value to your life. Meaningless work. Slave labor. Never enough reward to equal the labor involved. Always feeling like you are playing catch-up. Never ahead. Always feeling like the world is against your advancement. The third effect of the curse is for a man to constantly work without purpose. Toil was not God’s design for your life. You were created to have purposeful work. The effect of the curse is for you to constantly feel like you “Gotta do what you gotta do”. “Gotta make this money”. The third effect of the curse will cause you to disregard the pull of purpose in your heart in favor of making money the quickest way you know how.
Gentlemen, you are called by God to work in this world in a way that is redemptive and life giving. Yet, because of your separation from God, you have settled for making money by any means necessary. Totally disregarding the desires that God has placed in your heart for you to go out and fulfill. You probably have this nagging feeling all the time that you were created for more. Good. You are supposed to when you are not where you belong. That nagging feeling is God tugging at your heart, trying to get you to finally stop and realized that you now have an opportunity through Jesus Christ to connect to your source again. You can finally stop living under the curse and start living on purpose. You can finally stop trying to hustle your way to feed yourself and your family and learn how to let the ground work for you instead of against you. It is possible. There are people doing it. There are people who have responded to the call of God and ignored the voices of anyone who speaks against what God has already said. It is possible to live life on purpose. It is possible for you to have the life that God called you to and not live is this constant toil. If you are reading this, then consider this a tug at your heart by God. He is planting a seed, or watering what has already been planted. You know that you are not where you want to be, but you are not sure what to do about it. My advice: Learn how to connect to your source and obey His voice. In that type of life you will find purpose and meaningful work. Without it, the curse prevails. The life you desire is already yours. It’s up to you to respond.
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19 NIV
Today, I am going to deal with the other third of this curse from the garden: Adam’s Curse. I first started looking at this upon preaching my second ever message in 2007 in which I discussed “The Family of God”. As I prepared I noticed a few things that seemed out of place in society relative to what God created. And I found myself constantly going back to Genesis to read and re-read chapter’s 2 and 3. There is so much here that if we can just meditate on these things for a while, we can probably change the world. And I feel especially strongly that the lives of men can change if they understand what the curse of separating from God actually yields.
First I will deal with the first portion of the passage regarding Adam listening to his wife. Some people blame Eve for the fall, but Eve never got the instruction from God. She got it from Adam, who got it from God. God said, “Because you listened to your wife . . .” To me, that tells me that God speaks to men and gives them instruction and holds them accountable for what they hear. Not to judge it, but to obey. That is, if it comes from God. If they obey other instruction, then they will have to suffer the consequence. Or, even more, the world suffers because men do not hear from and/or obey the commands of God. The first part of the curse, affected the ground because of Adam. Because Adam came from the ground, it was cursed because he was cursed. The whole earth suffers the consequences of a man’s separation from God.
Second, this separation creates an antagonistic relationship between men and the earth. There is always a battle. We see shows like, Man vs. Wild and marvel at what seems to be the crazy battles of man going against nature or animals. But that is not the picture that I get from the garden of Eden as to how things were supposed to be. Prior to the fall the ground must have cooperated with humankind in order to get food. Otherwise, the curse would just be a pronouncement of what already existed, not a consequence of disobedience. He was always to get food from the ground, but all things worked in harmony. So that tells me that part of Adam’s curse is to have to painfully work to get his food and the ground that he gets it from will be resistant.
Third, the effect of the curse describes the type of work that Adam would now have to pursue. That word toil means laborious labor. The type of work where you just slave away all the days of your life. The type of work that adds no value to your life. Meaningless work. Slave labor. Never enough reward to equal the labor involved. Always feeling like you are playing catch-up. Never ahead. Always feeling like the world is against your advancement. The third effect of the curse is for a man to constantly work without purpose. Toil was not God’s design for your life. You were created to have purposeful work. The effect of the curse is for you to constantly feel like you “Gotta do what you gotta do”. “Gotta make this money”. The third effect of the curse will cause you to disregard the pull of purpose in your heart in favor of making money the quickest way you know how.
Gentlemen, you are called by God to work in this world in a way that is redemptive and life giving. Yet, because of your separation from God, you have settled for making money by any means necessary. Totally disregarding the desires that God has placed in your heart for you to go out and fulfill. You probably have this nagging feeling all the time that you were created for more. Good. You are supposed to when you are not where you belong. That nagging feeling is God tugging at your heart, trying to get you to finally stop and realized that you now have an opportunity through Jesus Christ to connect to your source again. You can finally stop living under the curse and start living on purpose. You can finally stop trying to hustle your way to feed yourself and your family and learn how to let the ground work for you instead of against you. It is possible. There are people doing it. There are people who have responded to the call of God and ignored the voices of anyone who speaks against what God has already said. It is possible to live life on purpose. It is possible for you to have the life that God called you to and not live is this constant toil. If you are reading this, then consider this a tug at your heart by God. He is planting a seed, or watering what has already been planted. You know that you are not where you want to be, but you are not sure what to do about it. My advice: Learn how to connect to your source and obey His voice. In that type of life you will find purpose and meaningful work. Without it, the curse prevails. The life you desire is already yours. It’s up to you to respond.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Curse of Eve
The Curse of Eve
“To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 NIV
Quite often we read the bible and do not see how the words written thousands of years ago have any relevance today. Or, we gloss over certain scriptures and stories because since we’ve heard them a thousand times in some way shape or form, we become numb to them. But I thought that it would be fitting to revisit an old story in the beginning of the bible and look at it’s relevance today.
The story is of the fall of Adam and Eve. Maybe we have all heard this one before. Adam and Eve were chillin’ in the garden with God and Eve got tempted by the serpent to eat from the one tree God told them not to. Adam ate too, and here we are today in a fallen condition. Later, in swoops Jesus to save us from this fallen condition and we are supposed to have access to this previous blissful state of existence. Sounds great.
But what I have found is that one of the challenges of religion is that it doesn’t give you the opportunity to understand what you believe and why. In many churches if you ask too many questions, you are told that you think too much and that you need to stop questioning God. Personally, I am a curious being and I wasn’t about to put my faith in something that some human being told me to, simply because they are doing things that somebody else told them to do. I want to know. And when I look at the curse of Eve, as a woman, I want to know how this applies to me today.
The most evident application of this is the first part. Painful labor. If you have ever had a child naturally, or have ever witnessed birth, you can attest to that one. I saw my Goddaughter come into this world, and let me tell you, I am still amazed that women do that everyday. How in the world can something so big come out of us like that? I cringe just thinking about it. But I wonder if it was always supposed to be like that? I don’t know anyone who has had a painless birth experience without the assistance of drugs. If you know, please have her contact me so that I can take notes for when my time comes.
But it is the second part that I have always had questions about. What does it mean for the woman to have her desire to be for her husband and for him to rule over her? After much study, prayer and observation, I have an idea. And I think the manifestations of what this means are painfully evident in today’s society. And it can start with a simple question. How much of a woman’s time is spent doing things in order to please or get the attention of a man? And once she gets the attention from that man, how does he treat her? I have heard countless stories of women whose sole purpose in life seems to be to get a man in some way shape or form. Their entire existence is all about some dude. They don’t think about anything else. Don’t have any other goal. Don’t desire anything but a man. And those women that I have seem behave this way are also some of the ones whose hearts get broken badly. The ones who repeat the same pattern in their relationships over and over and over again. And it may get worse if they have kids. Because their desire may still be for a man who doesn’t want anything to do with her and he can use that against her. She is living under the curse. Even if she does go to church.
So my follow up question would be, then what was her desire before? If the curse said that her desire was now for her husband and he would lord it over her, then who or what was her desire for before the fall? And how do we, as women, learn to live there and not under the curse? The only thing I came up with was God. They already had everything else in the garden of Eden. All of their needs were supplied. They lacked nothing. They even had full access to one another. They were both naked an not ashamed. They had intimacy with God and intimacy with each other. Adam didn’t lord anything over her because she was his especially created partner. There was no hierarchy. Until the fall. Before that, all of her desires were met. So the only thing to focus on was God.
Moving into the implications of that for us today, I bring you to Jesus. The one who came to earth in order that the ultimate punishment which resulted from this fall would be fulfilled, and that through Him, we could find our way back to the place where we trust that God is meeting all or our needs and even knows and is working out our desires. So the only thing to focus on is Him. As we do this, our desires begin to change. Those things that we used to desire, don’t seem to appeal to us the same way. The things that we sought that would be harmful to us, but we wanted to do it anyway, lose their luster. Including how we engage men. Desperation is easy for a man to sniff out and use for his own agenda. It’s a consequence of the fall. But if you do have a desire for a man in your life, then trust God to lead you to him. That doesn’t mean simply sitting in the house waiting for some man to walk up to you door. But God has plenty for you to do. And as you seek out His purpose for your life and follow His path, you would be amazed at who and what else you may find along that path. Setting your entire being on getting a man will only lead to the consequences that were written in this book thousands of years ago: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Yet setting your affection on God has a better chance of bringing to you a man who won’t seek to rule you, but who understands true intimate partnership. And it can also help you to avoid unnecessary heartache. Learn how to live in the blessing, not the curse.
“To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 NIV
Quite often we read the bible and do not see how the words written thousands of years ago have any relevance today. Or, we gloss over certain scriptures and stories because since we’ve heard them a thousand times in some way shape or form, we become numb to them. But I thought that it would be fitting to revisit an old story in the beginning of the bible and look at it’s relevance today.
The story is of the fall of Adam and Eve. Maybe we have all heard this one before. Adam and Eve were chillin’ in the garden with God and Eve got tempted by the serpent to eat from the one tree God told them not to. Adam ate too, and here we are today in a fallen condition. Later, in swoops Jesus to save us from this fallen condition and we are supposed to have access to this previous blissful state of existence. Sounds great.
But what I have found is that one of the challenges of religion is that it doesn’t give you the opportunity to understand what you believe and why. In many churches if you ask too many questions, you are told that you think too much and that you need to stop questioning God. Personally, I am a curious being and I wasn’t about to put my faith in something that some human being told me to, simply because they are doing things that somebody else told them to do. I want to know. And when I look at the curse of Eve, as a woman, I want to know how this applies to me today.
The most evident application of this is the first part. Painful labor. If you have ever had a child naturally, or have ever witnessed birth, you can attest to that one. I saw my Goddaughter come into this world, and let me tell you, I am still amazed that women do that everyday. How in the world can something so big come out of us like that? I cringe just thinking about it. But I wonder if it was always supposed to be like that? I don’t know anyone who has had a painless birth experience without the assistance of drugs. If you know, please have her contact me so that I can take notes for when my time comes.
But it is the second part that I have always had questions about. What does it mean for the woman to have her desire to be for her husband and for him to rule over her? After much study, prayer and observation, I have an idea. And I think the manifestations of what this means are painfully evident in today’s society. And it can start with a simple question. How much of a woman’s time is spent doing things in order to please or get the attention of a man? And once she gets the attention from that man, how does he treat her? I have heard countless stories of women whose sole purpose in life seems to be to get a man in some way shape or form. Their entire existence is all about some dude. They don’t think about anything else. Don’t have any other goal. Don’t desire anything but a man. And those women that I have seem behave this way are also some of the ones whose hearts get broken badly. The ones who repeat the same pattern in their relationships over and over and over again. And it may get worse if they have kids. Because their desire may still be for a man who doesn’t want anything to do with her and he can use that against her. She is living under the curse. Even if she does go to church.
So my follow up question would be, then what was her desire before? If the curse said that her desire was now for her husband and he would lord it over her, then who or what was her desire for before the fall? And how do we, as women, learn to live there and not under the curse? The only thing I came up with was God. They already had everything else in the garden of Eden. All of their needs were supplied. They lacked nothing. They even had full access to one another. They were both naked an not ashamed. They had intimacy with God and intimacy with each other. Adam didn’t lord anything over her because she was his especially created partner. There was no hierarchy. Until the fall. Before that, all of her desires were met. So the only thing to focus on was God.
Moving into the implications of that for us today, I bring you to Jesus. The one who came to earth in order that the ultimate punishment which resulted from this fall would be fulfilled, and that through Him, we could find our way back to the place where we trust that God is meeting all or our needs and even knows and is working out our desires. So the only thing to focus on is Him. As we do this, our desires begin to change. Those things that we used to desire, don’t seem to appeal to us the same way. The things that we sought that would be harmful to us, but we wanted to do it anyway, lose their luster. Including how we engage men. Desperation is easy for a man to sniff out and use for his own agenda. It’s a consequence of the fall. But if you do have a desire for a man in your life, then trust God to lead you to him. That doesn’t mean simply sitting in the house waiting for some man to walk up to you door. But God has plenty for you to do. And as you seek out His purpose for your life and follow His path, you would be amazed at who and what else you may find along that path. Setting your entire being on getting a man will only lead to the consequences that were written in this book thousands of years ago: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Yet setting your affection on God has a better chance of bringing to you a man who won’t seek to rule you, but who understands true intimate partnership. And it can also help you to avoid unnecessary heartache. Learn how to live in the blessing, not the curse.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Getting Whiter?
Getting Whiter?
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Polonius in Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82
At the apartment that I am staying in here in Rome, there are several books on the bookshelf. One of them happens to be the book by Christian Lander, “Stuff White People Like”. It was a NY Times Bestseller and it is pretty funny. It started out as a blog with a list of stuff white people like and poked fun at the white culture. As I sat there and read through the list of stuff, I started to get alarmed because it seemed as though I liked a lot of the same stuff. I started to wonder how white I actually am. I mean stuff like Hummus, The Wire, and Asian Fusion food was on the list and I started to get alarmed. Then it got to stuff like Barak Obama, Hardwood Floors, and Brunch and I was like, whoa! Wait a minute. So decided to take the quiz in the back to find out just how white I am. Turns out I am 20% white according to the scale. Not too bad I guess. But it did get me to thinking about the social challenges of being an educated African-American in today's culture. There is a certain tension that exists between attempting to progress in society and maintaining cultural identity.
At first it was kind of funny. People would say stuff to me all the time about how I was a “special” kind of black person. In all fairness, I grew up in the “hood” but went to diverse schools. I learned how to have friends of multiple races and even got introduced to things that I wouldn’t have if I had all black friends. And it seemed to be the right thing to do. Why should we ever limit ourselves to experiencing one culture. I know the names of things that apparently some black people don’t. I use words to describe things that some people have asked me to define. I like learning about history and going to museums. I’ve studied abroad. I like hummus. I watch Cougar Town, and like it. I like irony. I don’t watch much TV and prefer to read. I like having conversations with other intelligent people. I like eating outside. I have a sort of “preppy” style about me. I even like some country music. But does any of that take away from my “blackness”? Most of my friends are black, but many may argue that they are like me. Most of us went to college. Most of us have interacted at some level with races other than black consistently. Most of us enjoy some of the same things.
It has seemed to get worse as I have gone further and further in my education. It seems to get even worse when you combine education and financial advancement. And here is the tension. As we advance in our educational and economic pursuits do we run the risk of alienating ourselves from our culture? And how much of it is our own fault for seeing our people in a negative light? Do we as educated African American men and women cause an intentional or unintentional rift between those of us with formal education and those without? The gap seems to get wider and wider. Furthermore, how do we hold onto a cultural identity in a world where our culture does not dominate? What does it mean to be an educated African-American today?
I see many dangers in this discussion. But nonetheless, I think it is a discussion worth having. I saw that after the “Stuff White People Like” book came out, there were responses by educated African Americans showing the stuff “we” like. There is a certain level of truth to some of it, but it seemed like the discussion stopped. I think it should continue. I think that I do have a responsibility as an educated African American woman to bring the valuable elements of my culture with me wherever I go. I think that I also have a responsibility to become as successful as God allows and never to let the worry of losing my heritage get in my way. My history as an African-American didn’t begin with slavery or being oppressed. There was a time before. If being exposed to and adopting the things that are a part of white culture come automatically with advancement, then we have to also become aware of what we are bringing to the table. There is such richness in our history as African-Americans that we must be mindful not to discard it in favor of majority opinion. At the same time, we must not also simply cling to the things that are stereotypical and are based on socio-economic status alone. But I am talking about the true things that we bring to the American culture. The community consciousness; our intellect; the strength of our families; the beauty of our artistic expression; our holistic spirituality and so much more.
The more we focus on getting away from some of what makes us African-American, the further we actually get away from uniting as a people. But we have to unite under the truth. Not only the things that makes people tell you that you “keep it real”. I mean the things that would be true if you were rich or poor. I think that what we would find if we parse out the economics of the story is that we are probably not that different. What was life like in Africa before institutionalized slavery in the Americas? Before we had to make due with what we were given? Maybe what we would find is that an increase in our financial condition or education as a people does not make us "whiter", but makes us "blacker" in some ways. Maybe it gets us closer to being what we were before we were slaves. Maybe that actually gets us closer to the truth of who we are as opposed to adopting a culture that is not our own. And maybe we can stop teaching our children that to speak properly in their native language of English is the equivalent of “talking white”. Maybe we can show them that to excel in life is not a “white thing” but is the expectation of a people who had the capacity to create the pyramids. And maybe we can stop trying to be something we are not and just be who we are. I don’t think I have to really worry about not being black. I can’t help it. There is stuff in me that makes me "black" that I can’t even control. But I don’t also have to be ashamed of learning something new and adopting it into my “blackness” either. In any event, I just wanted to put that out there because we seem to have a need to keep this on the table of discussion.
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Polonius in Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82
At the apartment that I am staying in here in Rome, there are several books on the bookshelf. One of them happens to be the book by Christian Lander, “Stuff White People Like”. It was a NY Times Bestseller and it is pretty funny. It started out as a blog with a list of stuff white people like and poked fun at the white culture. As I sat there and read through the list of stuff, I started to get alarmed because it seemed as though I liked a lot of the same stuff. I started to wonder how white I actually am. I mean stuff like Hummus, The Wire, and Asian Fusion food was on the list and I started to get alarmed. Then it got to stuff like Barak Obama, Hardwood Floors, and Brunch and I was like, whoa! Wait a minute. So decided to take the quiz in the back to find out just how white I am. Turns out I am 20% white according to the scale. Not too bad I guess. But it did get me to thinking about the social challenges of being an educated African-American in today's culture. There is a certain tension that exists between attempting to progress in society and maintaining cultural identity.
At first it was kind of funny. People would say stuff to me all the time about how I was a “special” kind of black person. In all fairness, I grew up in the “hood” but went to diverse schools. I learned how to have friends of multiple races and even got introduced to things that I wouldn’t have if I had all black friends. And it seemed to be the right thing to do. Why should we ever limit ourselves to experiencing one culture. I know the names of things that apparently some black people don’t. I use words to describe things that some people have asked me to define. I like learning about history and going to museums. I’ve studied abroad. I like hummus. I watch Cougar Town, and like it. I like irony. I don’t watch much TV and prefer to read. I like having conversations with other intelligent people. I like eating outside. I have a sort of “preppy” style about me. I even like some country music. But does any of that take away from my “blackness”? Most of my friends are black, but many may argue that they are like me. Most of us went to college. Most of us have interacted at some level with races other than black consistently. Most of us enjoy some of the same things.
It has seemed to get worse as I have gone further and further in my education. It seems to get even worse when you combine education and financial advancement. And here is the tension. As we advance in our educational and economic pursuits do we run the risk of alienating ourselves from our culture? And how much of it is our own fault for seeing our people in a negative light? Do we as educated African American men and women cause an intentional or unintentional rift between those of us with formal education and those without? The gap seems to get wider and wider. Furthermore, how do we hold onto a cultural identity in a world where our culture does not dominate? What does it mean to be an educated African-American today?
I see many dangers in this discussion. But nonetheless, I think it is a discussion worth having. I saw that after the “Stuff White People Like” book came out, there were responses by educated African Americans showing the stuff “we” like. There is a certain level of truth to some of it, but it seemed like the discussion stopped. I think it should continue. I think that I do have a responsibility as an educated African American woman to bring the valuable elements of my culture with me wherever I go. I think that I also have a responsibility to become as successful as God allows and never to let the worry of losing my heritage get in my way. My history as an African-American didn’t begin with slavery or being oppressed. There was a time before. If being exposed to and adopting the things that are a part of white culture come automatically with advancement, then we have to also become aware of what we are bringing to the table. There is such richness in our history as African-Americans that we must be mindful not to discard it in favor of majority opinion. At the same time, we must not also simply cling to the things that are stereotypical and are based on socio-economic status alone. But I am talking about the true things that we bring to the American culture. The community consciousness; our intellect; the strength of our families; the beauty of our artistic expression; our holistic spirituality and so much more.
The more we focus on getting away from some of what makes us African-American, the further we actually get away from uniting as a people. But we have to unite under the truth. Not only the things that makes people tell you that you “keep it real”. I mean the things that would be true if you were rich or poor. I think that what we would find if we parse out the economics of the story is that we are probably not that different. What was life like in Africa before institutionalized slavery in the Americas? Before we had to make due with what we were given? Maybe what we would find is that an increase in our financial condition or education as a people does not make us "whiter", but makes us "blacker" in some ways. Maybe it gets us closer to being what we were before we were slaves. Maybe that actually gets us closer to the truth of who we are as opposed to adopting a culture that is not our own. And maybe we can stop teaching our children that to speak properly in their native language of English is the equivalent of “talking white”. Maybe we can show them that to excel in life is not a “white thing” but is the expectation of a people who had the capacity to create the pyramids. And maybe we can stop trying to be something we are not and just be who we are. I don’t think I have to really worry about not being black. I can’t help it. There is stuff in me that makes me "black" that I can’t even control. But I don’t also have to be ashamed of learning something new and adopting it into my “blackness” either. In any event, I just wanted to put that out there because we seem to have a need to keep this on the table of discussion.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Rhythm of Life
The Rhythm of Life
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Genesis 2:2
Life naturally has a certain rhythm. A dance, if you will, that if you can catch, makes life enjoyable. It makes life worth living because we become naturally in tuned to the way God intended for life to be lived. I think for many of us, we are out of step with what God intended. I am especially talking about us, Americans.
Traveling in European countries I am always reminded of how exhausting it can be to be American. We work like nobody’s business. We live to work and make money and do it at the expense of our health at times. But here, in Italy, there is a little something that they practice that we may know as a siesta. Italians don’t call it that. It is actually a Spanish term meaning the sixth hour, where everybody takes a midday break. They usually eat with their family and/or friends, then take a nap. Government workers work from 8am to 2pm. Store owners close down their shop during the middle of the day and reopen at a later time in the evening. So if you need to make a store run at 2pm, you better make sure they are going to be around. I made that mistake on day 1 in Rome. I totally forgot that Italians follow the rhythm of life.
When we worship God, the Creator, we relate that to the first two chapters of Genesis where we review how God created the earth and heavens in six days and rested on the seventh. One thing that I think we overlook is the part about the rest on the seventh. For many people, this is simply a reason to not go to their offices or open their stores on Sunday, or even to declare Sunday as the designated day to worship, the Creator. But the seventh day didn’t exist until God created it. And it only existed for the purpose of rest. That was why it was created. Rest is a part of creation. Rest is a part of our rhythm of life. It’s not to be simply observed on a particular day (since there is no reason to assume that creation had to occur in a literal seven days). But rest is a part of creation as a whole.
Part of the reason that Europeans, in particular, observe the siesta is because of the practicality of it. It gets hot during the midday hours and it is hard to work and to concentrate on anything really important. They know better than to keep pushing beyond what your body will let you. They know how to follow a rhythm. They take a break and spend that time doing what we all may do naturally around that time. We Americans may call it a “2:30 feeling”, but maybe that should not be met with a surge of an energy drink but a pause to seek the creator on what activity, if any we should pursue. Too bad your supervisor or CEO didn’t get that memo, but some companies are catching on. After a while, we need to take a break or we will burnout. Money is not that important that you need to kill yourself to get it. And if you are a person who is out of rhythm, picture a person on the dance floor of life off beat. That’s you. Breaking it down on a slow song. McHammering to a Jazz tune. Slow down! There is plenty of time to make money. But you might not get there if you don’t learn how to get in step with creation.
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Genesis 2:2
Life naturally has a certain rhythm. A dance, if you will, that if you can catch, makes life enjoyable. It makes life worth living because we become naturally in tuned to the way God intended for life to be lived. I think for many of us, we are out of step with what God intended. I am especially talking about us, Americans.
Traveling in European countries I am always reminded of how exhausting it can be to be American. We work like nobody’s business. We live to work and make money and do it at the expense of our health at times. But here, in Italy, there is a little something that they practice that we may know as a siesta. Italians don’t call it that. It is actually a Spanish term meaning the sixth hour, where everybody takes a midday break. They usually eat with their family and/or friends, then take a nap. Government workers work from 8am to 2pm. Store owners close down their shop during the middle of the day and reopen at a later time in the evening. So if you need to make a store run at 2pm, you better make sure they are going to be around. I made that mistake on day 1 in Rome. I totally forgot that Italians follow the rhythm of life.
When we worship God, the Creator, we relate that to the first two chapters of Genesis where we review how God created the earth and heavens in six days and rested on the seventh. One thing that I think we overlook is the part about the rest on the seventh. For many people, this is simply a reason to not go to their offices or open their stores on Sunday, or even to declare Sunday as the designated day to worship, the Creator. But the seventh day didn’t exist until God created it. And it only existed for the purpose of rest. That was why it was created. Rest is a part of creation. Rest is a part of our rhythm of life. It’s not to be simply observed on a particular day (since there is no reason to assume that creation had to occur in a literal seven days). But rest is a part of creation as a whole.
Part of the reason that Europeans, in particular, observe the siesta is because of the practicality of it. It gets hot during the midday hours and it is hard to work and to concentrate on anything really important. They know better than to keep pushing beyond what your body will let you. They know how to follow a rhythm. They take a break and spend that time doing what we all may do naturally around that time. We Americans may call it a “2:30 feeling”, but maybe that should not be met with a surge of an energy drink but a pause to seek the creator on what activity, if any we should pursue. Too bad your supervisor or CEO didn’t get that memo, but some companies are catching on. After a while, we need to take a break or we will burnout. Money is not that important that you need to kill yourself to get it. And if you are a person who is out of rhythm, picture a person on the dance floor of life off beat. That’s you. Breaking it down on a slow song. McHammering to a Jazz tune. Slow down! There is plenty of time to make money. But you might not get there if you don’t learn how to get in step with creation.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Your Gift Makes Room
Using Your Gifts
“A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great.” - Proverbs 18:16 NIV
Ok. So I have been in Rome, Italy for the past week and I am due to be here for another three weeks. How, you ask? The short answer is God. The longer answer is that a gift I was given, I used for His glory and it made room for me to get here. Let me explain.
The above proverb is often quoted but I would say rarely understood. Partially because I think we overlook the gifts that God has given us. Or we do not attribute the things that we have as actual gifts. By definition, a gift does not come from yourself. It comes from somewhere else, or from someone else. According to Webster, there are three definitions for the noun gift of which I have chose two for the purposes of this discussion:
1 : a notable capacity, talent, or endowment
2 : something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation
A gift that you have is something you didn’t have to pay for and makes you notable. The good news is that we all have gifts. The bad news is that we don’t all use them. Several people have contributed to the funding of my trip to Rome. I didn’t pay for it. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the money. Most of you know that I left my job last year to start a business and attend school full time. That didn’t exactly equate to me having enough money to leave the states for a month to lounge in a foreign country and “Eat, Pray, Love” till my heart was content. That’s not what got me here. Obedience got me here. Obedience is a gift. I have the capacity to obey God.
A while ago, God told me to do something that I would have never thought to do and frankly didn’t really want to do, but knowing that God always has something in mind that I cannot see, I yielded and did it anyway. Turns out, it was an enormous blessing to the person and years later, a blessing to me in the form of the longest vacation I have ever taken. How bout that? But I cannot take credit for it. I’m not that nice. I’m just obedient. And even that is a gift. That person paid for my trip, voluntarily. It was another gift. So now I can use that gift to get exposed to people that I would have never had an opportunity to interact with, had it not been for the initial use of my initial gift. And had I not been obedient and left my job last year, I probably wouldn’t have had the time to be able to leave for a month. The way God made me has a place in me becoming the woman He created me to become. Your gift makes room for you and makes room for God to use you in ways you couldn't imagine. He is the initial giver and you give again when you use what He gives you.
I’m sure we can all think back to series of events that have occurred in our lives that came from one simple use of some gift that we have been given. Maybe everyone is not gifted to sing or dance or play ball, but we are all gifted with something. Even things that we overlook, like obedience. Some people are actually gifted in the opposite way. Those are the rebels. Even their rebellion has a place. I’m not a gifted rebel. I don’t do well bucking the system. I know my place. Every time I tried to do something rebellious, I got stopped dead in my tracks. Rebellion is not my gift. But I know people who are gifted in rebellion. Many of them are the catalysts for change. Malcolm X was a rebel. Harriet Tubman was a rebel. Rosa Parks was a rebel. Jonah was a rebel. That’s a gift. Maybe it will make you think differently about how we see the troublemakers of our day. Maybe they just don’t know how to use their gifts constructively.
But if we don’t look at our lives in totality, then we can miss the opportunities God is giving us everyday to use our gifts. And we can also miss opportunities to help others channel their gifts in constructive ways. We call people “goody two shoes” for being obedient, but maybe they are made that way for a reason. We call people troublemakers because they challenge authority, but maybe they are gifted to change the system that others obey blindly. We need both type of people. My obedience to God helped someone else in their time of need, and continues to bless others. Others rebellion can spark the change we need to revamp systems and traditions that no longer work. Maybe someone else is gifted in organization, but we call them anal. Maybe someone is gifted is functioning in chaos and are incredibly artistic. If we can all learn to see our little quirks as gifts from God, maybe we would use them more. Maybe those gifts would make room for us to be free in our lives in a way that we don’t yet realize. Maybe that freedom helps to free someone else. In any case, use what you’ve got all the time. You never know where it will lead.
“A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great.” - Proverbs 18:16 NIV
Ok. So I have been in Rome, Italy for the past week and I am due to be here for another three weeks. How, you ask? The short answer is God. The longer answer is that a gift I was given, I used for His glory and it made room for me to get here. Let me explain.
The above proverb is often quoted but I would say rarely understood. Partially because I think we overlook the gifts that God has given us. Or we do not attribute the things that we have as actual gifts. By definition, a gift does not come from yourself. It comes from somewhere else, or from someone else. According to Webster, there are three definitions for the noun gift of which I have chose two for the purposes of this discussion:
1 : a notable capacity, talent, or endowment
2 : something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation
A gift that you have is something you didn’t have to pay for and makes you notable. The good news is that we all have gifts. The bad news is that we don’t all use them. Several people have contributed to the funding of my trip to Rome. I didn’t pay for it. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the money. Most of you know that I left my job last year to start a business and attend school full time. That didn’t exactly equate to me having enough money to leave the states for a month to lounge in a foreign country and “Eat, Pray, Love” till my heart was content. That’s not what got me here. Obedience got me here. Obedience is a gift. I have the capacity to obey God.
A while ago, God told me to do something that I would have never thought to do and frankly didn’t really want to do, but knowing that God always has something in mind that I cannot see, I yielded and did it anyway. Turns out, it was an enormous blessing to the person and years later, a blessing to me in the form of the longest vacation I have ever taken. How bout that? But I cannot take credit for it. I’m not that nice. I’m just obedient. And even that is a gift. That person paid for my trip, voluntarily. It was another gift. So now I can use that gift to get exposed to people that I would have never had an opportunity to interact with, had it not been for the initial use of my initial gift. And had I not been obedient and left my job last year, I probably wouldn’t have had the time to be able to leave for a month. The way God made me has a place in me becoming the woman He created me to become. Your gift makes room for you and makes room for God to use you in ways you couldn't imagine. He is the initial giver and you give again when you use what He gives you.
I’m sure we can all think back to series of events that have occurred in our lives that came from one simple use of some gift that we have been given. Maybe everyone is not gifted to sing or dance or play ball, but we are all gifted with something. Even things that we overlook, like obedience. Some people are actually gifted in the opposite way. Those are the rebels. Even their rebellion has a place. I’m not a gifted rebel. I don’t do well bucking the system. I know my place. Every time I tried to do something rebellious, I got stopped dead in my tracks. Rebellion is not my gift. But I know people who are gifted in rebellion. Many of them are the catalysts for change. Malcolm X was a rebel. Harriet Tubman was a rebel. Rosa Parks was a rebel. Jonah was a rebel. That’s a gift. Maybe it will make you think differently about how we see the troublemakers of our day. Maybe they just don’t know how to use their gifts constructively.
But if we don’t look at our lives in totality, then we can miss the opportunities God is giving us everyday to use our gifts. And we can also miss opportunities to help others channel their gifts in constructive ways. We call people “goody two shoes” for being obedient, but maybe they are made that way for a reason. We call people troublemakers because they challenge authority, but maybe they are gifted to change the system that others obey blindly. We need both type of people. My obedience to God helped someone else in their time of need, and continues to bless others. Others rebellion can spark the change we need to revamp systems and traditions that no longer work. Maybe someone else is gifted in organization, but we call them anal. Maybe someone is gifted is functioning in chaos and are incredibly artistic. If we can all learn to see our little quirks as gifts from God, maybe we would use them more. Maybe those gifts would make room for us to be free in our lives in a way that we don’t yet realize. Maybe that freedom helps to free someone else. In any case, use what you’ve got all the time. You never know where it will lead.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Exceedingly Abundantly Above
Exceedingly Abundantly Above
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20 NIV
I have had a chance to reflect while being on this vacation and I realized that God has a clear pattern in my life that I often forget about. He always puts me in places I don’t qualify to be. Whenever I just relax and let God drive, He leads me into places that I could never have bought, fought, learned or talked my way into. He truly has done exceedingly and abundantly more than I can ask or imagine. But in order to get to the place where I could participate in this, I needed to let go of the reigns. That is the difficult part.
It always seems to make more sense to build up an impressive resume and then go for the job you want after you qualify for it. It seems presumptuous and even premature to go after something that you don’t qualify for and expect a favorable result. But when I look at my life, all of the things that I have done of any notoriety at all, have functioned out of this “God-principal” of believing what He said I am, and trusting that I could do what He said I could, before I actually qualified to do it. It was after I took the step of faith that my resume was built. But before I went, I never qualified. I have to always be willing to go, even when I don’t think I can do it.
The hard part in that is having the faith and confidence to go through the open door to a place where God is leading. Most of us only look at our past experiences and function based on what that has the power to get for us. But God will stretch you. And you often know that it is God that is stretching you when you start the conversation with, “oh I don’t qualify to do that.” But you actually want to do it. You can taste it. You can feel it. But it takes faith to actually go forward.
And when you do move in faith, you see that doors are opened that never would have been opened before. You could do things that you didn’t even think were possible. You start to notice God’s resume in your life instead of your own. And the more you learn to let God build a resume in your life, the more you experience the life He called you to live. If we are good people, you know, morally upright, people who just want a good life for ourselves, we can probably get it through very traditional means. Go get a good education, get a good job, marry a good spouse, raise good kids, volunteer for good causes, do good deeds, treat people with respect, retire to a good lifestyle, etc. We can play it safe in life and let our own experience be our guides. But it doesn’t take a bunch of faith to do that. Playing it safe all the time is not the presence of faith, but the presence of fear. When do you take a chance to go after something that only God can get you? When do you look something dead in the face that is taunting you because it knows that you don’t personally have what it takes to conquer it?
In the bible, David didn’t qualify to beat Goliath, but he did. Jesus didn’t qualify to be the expected king of Israel, but he was. Maybe God is calling you to step out on faith into something that makes no sense. Maybe your resume doesn’t support the endeavor. But are you going to let your lack of experience stop you from experiencing God? Not only do you have a resume, but God has a resume in your life. Think back on the things that God has done in your life and the things that have happened that He has lead you towards. What does that resume look like? Is the result more than you could have ever imagined? Mine definitely is more than I could have qualified to get done. And I don’t intend to stop now. If this is what God has called me to do, then in obedience, I will go. Whatever it is. It rarely makes sense. I usually start the conversation with, “How are you gonna do that God? I don’t have the . . . (fill in the blank)”. And that is my cue. That’s why it’s faith. You have no clue, but trust that God does.
The impressive portions of my resume (at least in my mind) have more to do with the risk I was willing to take to get there more than the accomplishment itself. People seemed to be impressed by certain things I have or have done, but the truth is it wasn’t me at all. I actually didn’t qualify for it. Everything from my car to my house, my career, my current vacation. None of it do I actually deserve on my own merit. I can think back all the way to my formative years when I was skipped in the first grade and didn’t qualify to be in with the second graders according to my age. I can’t say that I knew what God was doing or that I was even aware of the presence of God in my life in an active way. But the good news for us is that it has little to do with how much you know God, but how much He knows you. And when you do come to a point of deeper and intimate knowledge of Him, you can stop trying to build up your own resume and let your resume be built by God. The results of it will be more than you could have ever imagined. More than you could possibly do on your own.
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20 NIV
I have had a chance to reflect while being on this vacation and I realized that God has a clear pattern in my life that I often forget about. He always puts me in places I don’t qualify to be. Whenever I just relax and let God drive, He leads me into places that I could never have bought, fought, learned or talked my way into. He truly has done exceedingly and abundantly more than I can ask or imagine. But in order to get to the place where I could participate in this, I needed to let go of the reigns. That is the difficult part.
It always seems to make more sense to build up an impressive resume and then go for the job you want after you qualify for it. It seems presumptuous and even premature to go after something that you don’t qualify for and expect a favorable result. But when I look at my life, all of the things that I have done of any notoriety at all, have functioned out of this “God-principal” of believing what He said I am, and trusting that I could do what He said I could, before I actually qualified to do it. It was after I took the step of faith that my resume was built. But before I went, I never qualified. I have to always be willing to go, even when I don’t think I can do it.
The hard part in that is having the faith and confidence to go through the open door to a place where God is leading. Most of us only look at our past experiences and function based on what that has the power to get for us. But God will stretch you. And you often know that it is God that is stretching you when you start the conversation with, “oh I don’t qualify to do that.” But you actually want to do it. You can taste it. You can feel it. But it takes faith to actually go forward.
And when you do move in faith, you see that doors are opened that never would have been opened before. You could do things that you didn’t even think were possible. You start to notice God’s resume in your life instead of your own. And the more you learn to let God build a resume in your life, the more you experience the life He called you to live. If we are good people, you know, morally upright, people who just want a good life for ourselves, we can probably get it through very traditional means. Go get a good education, get a good job, marry a good spouse, raise good kids, volunteer for good causes, do good deeds, treat people with respect, retire to a good lifestyle, etc. We can play it safe in life and let our own experience be our guides. But it doesn’t take a bunch of faith to do that. Playing it safe all the time is not the presence of faith, but the presence of fear. When do you take a chance to go after something that only God can get you? When do you look something dead in the face that is taunting you because it knows that you don’t personally have what it takes to conquer it?
In the bible, David didn’t qualify to beat Goliath, but he did. Jesus didn’t qualify to be the expected king of Israel, but he was. Maybe God is calling you to step out on faith into something that makes no sense. Maybe your resume doesn’t support the endeavor. But are you going to let your lack of experience stop you from experiencing God? Not only do you have a resume, but God has a resume in your life. Think back on the things that God has done in your life and the things that have happened that He has lead you towards. What does that resume look like? Is the result more than you could have ever imagined? Mine definitely is more than I could have qualified to get done. And I don’t intend to stop now. If this is what God has called me to do, then in obedience, I will go. Whatever it is. It rarely makes sense. I usually start the conversation with, “How are you gonna do that God? I don’t have the . . . (fill in the blank)”. And that is my cue. That’s why it’s faith. You have no clue, but trust that God does.
The impressive portions of my resume (at least in my mind) have more to do with the risk I was willing to take to get there more than the accomplishment itself. People seemed to be impressed by certain things I have or have done, but the truth is it wasn’t me at all. I actually didn’t qualify for it. Everything from my car to my house, my career, my current vacation. None of it do I actually deserve on my own merit. I can think back all the way to my formative years when I was skipped in the first grade and didn’t qualify to be in with the second graders according to my age. I can’t say that I knew what God was doing or that I was even aware of the presence of God in my life in an active way. But the good news for us is that it has little to do with how much you know God, but how much He knows you. And when you do come to a point of deeper and intimate knowledge of Him, you can stop trying to build up your own resume and let your resume be built by God. The results of it will be more than you could have ever imagined. More than you could possibly do on your own.
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