There are times when I feel so overwhelmed that by the time I sit down to pray I don't know where to start.  And I have this feeling that to God I must sound like a spiritual toilet being flushed - I don't have to explain the imagery on that one.  But really - sometimes I start thinking of all the things that I need God's help in and realize there really isn't enough hours in the day to pray for all of them.  So I end up mentioning as many of them to God as I can and crying, "Lord Help Me!"  I kinda feel unspiritual when I do that - I mean, we are supposed to have really intelligent and meaningful prayers with God right?  Well, maybe sometimes, but when did we get the idea that God gives a crap about the wittiness or craftiness of our prayers?  I know my God is big enough to handle all the stuff in my life without me having to have good English in my prayers.  At the end of the day he is looking for trust, not overblown prose - thank God.  

 

When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that 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.  

-Matt 6:7-8

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I love the creativity of Erwin McManis and the folks at Mosaic. I also love the music from Glen Hansard. Thus the greatness of this video

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Simon was an ordinary man.  He and his family were devout Jews, in fact they had come from Cyrene a little Jewish outpost in Libya to Jerusalem for the Passover.  He and his wife and their two boys Alexander and Rufus were probably excited about being a part of the festivities and being in the very presence of God’s temple.  Simon didn’t know that he was about to get closer to God than he ever imagined.  As they were coming into the city form the country they heard a lot of yelling and they knew something was going on.  As Simon drew closer to the crowd lined along the road he could see that their piercing eyes and jeers were directed to a bloody and mangled body that was slowly and painfully taking steps towards a nearby hill, carrying a thick wooden beam on his shoulders.  As he looked at this man pain and disgust filled his heart, and then he made eye contact with one of the Roman soldiers that was prodding the man along.  “You,” he said to Simon, “come and carry this man’s cross.”    He submitted and carried the cross. 

Has your life ever come into contact with the cross?  Has the path you are walking ever intersected the via dolorosa – the way of suffering.   Ultimately the way of the cross is the way of submission and service.  Now when we here those words:  submission and service, we tend to get all sorts of distorted images in our head.  Different people and groups have monopolized what submission should look like.  That is why when many people here those words in a Christian context they think of women submitting to their husbands.  I want to tell you now that submission is not meant as something that brings gloom and stifles life, but rather something that frees us and brings the life that is truly life.  The reason we practice the Disciplines is not for the Disciplines sake, but rather that they bring freedom.  The freedom that comes from fasting is that we know how to be content with much or with little.  We do not need all the luxuries this life can afford and frankly we learn to not desire them.  The freedom that comes from submission is that we are able to lay down the terribly heavy burden of having to have our own way.  Do you realize how many marriages would be saved and how many churches would not split if people just learned submission – if they learned that they did not have to have their own way, and that certain things aren’t really that big of a deal.  That is not to say that we should simply be a door mat for people to scrape the mud off their shoes, but through practicing submission we learn how to discern between things that are really important and things that will not cause the world to collapse if they aren’t done as we suppose they should be. 

Submission was the cornerstone of what it means to be a disciple.  In Matthew 16 Jesus says that if anyone wishes to become his disciple they must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.  For when we lose our life for his sake we find it.  C.S. Lewis said it this way: “Nothing is truly ours until we give it away.”  True life – life that is really life, life that is different from the hum drum cycle of work, eat, sleep, play, work, eat, sleep, play, work, eat, sleep, play – only comes when we choose to grab hold of the life that God has for us and lay down our lives before him and say “not my will but yours”.  And if we are honest with ourselves we will have to admit that there are parts of this Bible that clearly tell us what the will of God is, but we lack the courage and conviction to do it. There is freedom in submission.  There is joy in submission.  

People who keep up with harps and harpists say that Lily Laskin, the French harpist, took the harp out of the living room and made it a featured solo instrument on concert stages all over the world. She died on January 4, 1988, at the age of ninety-four. Upon her death, she was credited with popularizing the harp and reviving many musical scores written for it by such composers as Handel and Camille Saint-Seans. She started playing the harp as a child and continued giving public performance well into her eighties. At the age of sixteen, she became the first woman harpist at the Paris Opera. Best known for her interpretation of Mozart she gave a landmark performance of his concerto for flute and harp, at the Salzburg Music Festival in 1937. She recorded it many times during the years, along with works by Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.

Pete Maravich, the outstanding basketball player of modern times, died on January 5, 1988. While at LSU, he averaged forty-four points per game. No one defensive system in the Southeastern Conference could stop him. Some coaches devised complicated double-team defenses to shut him down. Others let him shoot at will and put pressure on the other four players. As a professional player, Maravich consistently knocked the bottom out of the basket. His dazzling rerformances sold tickets for big bucks. Host teams could be assured of a sell-out game when "Pistol Pete" came to town. Ironically, Maravich died at the age of forty just after playing a pick-up game at a local church gym.

Both Lily Laskin and Pete Maravich gave themselves to that which they considered important. She was totally submitted to the harp, and he was in subjection of basketball. Lily once said, "I have built my life around the harp." On many occasions Pete observed, "Basketball is my whole life."

What is your whole life?  What has the love of Christ compelled you to submit to? 

Many of us will wait in long lines of traffic, get to the arena early, an stay up late just to watch a lady VOLS game.  Some will sit through the rain and snow and cold, and wade through the massive crowds at Neyland stadium to watch a football game – and pay good money to do it.  But when it comes to really sacrificing for the flesh and blood people Christ died for – when it comes to laying our lives down – we shrink back.  Submission is the mark of a disciple, and it begins with submitting to the will of God.  

When we submit to God we need only to obey, we do not need to broadcast our submission.  When we submit to others silence is often the best method.  A submission that demands recognition is more akin to passive aggression – it is a ‘OK – I’ll do it your way’ submission.  When we submit we are fighting a spiritual battle.  Especially when we submit to others.  Our flesh cries out for us to have it our way, but the Spirit beckons us to surrender.  There are two battles in submission.  The first is the outward act.  When we submit to someone else and we do something their way or allow something to be done a way besides our own – this is first part of submission.  This is the easy part.  The second and harder battle is the inward battle.  For we can easily assent to doing something someone else’s way while inwardly rebelling and holding contempt.  The flesh will cling to many reasons why we are right and they are wrong, but all the while the Spirit is telling the flesh – be crucified, be crucified, be crucified. 

Submission frees us to truly love our enemies.  When we can freely lay our will down, God enables us to ask for blessings upon our enemies.   When we don’t have to have it our way we can have compassion on those who want it another way.

Many times submission and service go hand in hand.  Service is often times the outworking of submission.   True service is a hidden lifestyle.  It regards the smallest task as worthy as the biggest.   Many times our pride and self-importance hinder service actually being authentic in our lives because we do it with the wrong heart and we do it self-righteously.  Self-righteous service insists upon serving.  True service recognizes that sometimes it is better to not force service upon someone.  Self-righteous service demands recognition.  True service yearns for secrecy.  Self-righteous service relies on feelings.  True service is driven more by the will than by feelings, and is ready to serve even when feelings are not present.

When Jesus was with his disciples before he was betrayed – he served.  He was gathered with the 12 in the upper room and he served them.  He was the most powerful person in the room and he did not insist on his way.  He did not even give an eloquent speech.  He did not draw attention to the fact that he was about to die and his soul was tearing apart.  No – he knelt down and washed the crap from their feet.  When he was the most powerful person in the room he served. 

Jesus came to wipe out the pecking order.  It wasn’t that he wanted the first and the last to simply switch places.  He chucked the whole system and did away with firsts and lasts because we are to love all regardless.  The last is supposed to serve the first and the first is supposed to serve the last. 

Read Matthew 27:32

Simon’s life intersected the cross and nothing was the same.  His family was changed.  In Mark we find that Simon is the father of Rufus and Alexander.  The fact that they are even mentioned says that they were esteemed in the first century church and their names were common amongst the church.  I am convinced that if Simon’s life had not intersected with the cross, we would have never known Alexander or Rufus by name.  I have a feeling that when that Roman Centurion recruited Simon to carry the cross Simon’s life was changed.  As he saw the bloodied body of the Son of God taking step by step the road to the cross.  And as he walked behind him and saw the deep gashes that submitted to the worst of crimes.  He saw the ultimate submission first hand.  Has your life intersected the cross?
 

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Have you ever had one of those moments when you kick yourself because you forgot your camera?  A couple of years ago Sarah and I were visiting family and we were in Bristol, TN where Sarah went to college and we drove past one of Bristol’s fine dining establishments – Ryan’s Steakhouse.  The place of every kids dreams because you automatically get desert with anything.  I am pretty sure you could go and just get a glass of water and still get desert.  Ryan’s is not a good place for a diabetic.  But as we were driving past Ryan’s and I had that “where is my camera” moment.  The sign in front of Ryan’s said, “Join us for Lent”.  I can’t even try to explain that one.  Join us at our super all you can eat buffet during your season of fasting.  Needless to say our culture does not quite understand the discipline of fasting. 

I was able to find this more disturbing buffet sign online however.  We live in a culture of excess.  It is this excess that wrecks us.  We over-eat, we over-work, we over-spend, we watch too much TV and spend too little time in the things that would shape us into followers of Christ.  Don’t be fooled, we are being shaped by something, but many times it isn’t things that are making us look more and more like the selfless King we hail on Sunday mornings yet forget about during the week.  Tonight we are focusing on the spiritual discipline of fasting.  Now while there are many things we can fast or abstain from I would like to deal with one we have all together forgotten in our modern Christian culture – that is fasting from food.  Even in John Wesley’s day the discipline of fasting was losing ground, as he states that, while some have made it into something extremely legalistic, others have completely disregarded it.  Beloved if we were to be honest with ourselves, our church, and our culture we would have to admit that we fall into the latter category.  We have essentially taken a century long fast from fasting itself.  Richard Foster describes his efforts to find any sort of research or writings on the practice of fasting as he was writing the book we are using for this study and he found that there was not one book about fasting published between 1861 and 1954. 

One possible reason we have such a deficiency of fasting in our culture is that there are no specific commands in the Bible to fast.  I am sure if Jesus had said somewhere, “Fast once a week” then we would have all sorts of Bible studies and conferences and even songs about it.  We do have references to people in the Scriptures fasting, yet there is no ongoing commandment to fast.  So the first question we need to ask ourselves is this:  do we need to fast? 

Did you know that John Wesley required all the Methodist preachers to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays?  Can you imagine if we still required that of our Methodist pastors.  I believe our number of pastors would be a lot slimmer – no pun intedended. 

In the sermon on the mount Jesus gives us some instruction regarding fasting that will help us understand our call to it.  In Matthew 5-7 Jesus is shaking up the religious tradition.  You remember he said those controversial things like, “you have heard it said…. but I say to you….”  And in 6:16 Jesus gives a clear distinction about how fasting should be done and how it shouldn’t.  He says:
“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

An important word we must not overlook in this passage is the word ‘when’.  Jesus did not command the disciples to fast – it was assumed they would be fasting.  Jesus did not say ‘if you fast’ but rather, ‘when you fast’.  The world of 1st Century Jerusalem and 21st century America are two completely different worlds.  In their culture fasting was a common occurrence.  People knew how to fast in those days.  They knew what you should eat before and after a fast so that you didn’t get constipated or the opposite.  They knew that you a few days into a longer fast you need rest.  However, people in our culture think that if they skip breakfast and lunch they are going to die. 

The Jewish day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, was the most common fast in ancient Jewish culture.  It was prescribed for the Jewish people as a part of their ritual of atonement in Leviticus 23.  It was a time when the people were to ‘afflict their souls’.  This word that we translate ‘afflict your souls’ carries with it the idea of disciplining and humbling ourselves before God.  It was with this attitude that the people of God were to come to the Day of Atonement, in a spirit of repentance and submission to God.  As we approach the Lenten season we too should begin to reflect on the great price Christ paid for us.  As we approach our glorious Day of Atonement that is not recreated every year, but rather remembered and celebrated let us jump into the ongoing story of God and let Him mold us in this season. 

The Christian calendar used to be one of those things that I snubbed my nose at and said it was just an archaic ritual, but after really embracing the spirit of Lent as a community in seminary I realized what fertile soil the Christian year is for producing the fruit of a life drenched in the narrative of God.  Did you know that some churches have stopped celebrating Easter and emphasizing the fact that every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection?  Of course we never want to lose sight of the life-giving resurrection of Christ, but we will never know the glory and wander of Easter morning if we have not waited and fasted through lent. 

Fasting is assumed in the life of a follower of Christ.  When asked why his disciples didn’t fast, Jesus responded that they shouldn’t fast while the bridegroom was with them, but there was going to be a time when the bridegroom was not going to be with them and then they would fast.  We are in that time now when the bridegroom has left and we are eagerly awaiting His return.  We are now called to fast. 

And while we are definitely called to fast, we shouldn’t do it without reason.  Before you begin fasting you should make sure that your body can handle it.  If you have health issues related to diabetes, blood pressure, and other things you should check with a doctor before beginning a fast.  Not everyone should practice a food fast for health reasons.  If you can’t, then don’t feel guilty or less spiritual.  The fact that Christ never commanded fasting allows us liberty to refrain from it if need be.  There are also many other things to fast besides food.  However, fasting can have numerous physical benefits including weight loss, lowering of blood pressure, arthritis relief, and lowering of cholesterol.  Hippocrates used fasting as a means to prevent illnesses nearly 2400 years ago.  Dr. Issac Jennings was awarded an honorary degree by Yale many years ago after prescribing a special colored pill, partial fasting, and water as a cure to many fever producing illnesses.  Later he revealed that his pills and powders were simply stained fragments of bread. 

However, while there are many physical benefits to fasting our fasting always focuses on spiritual purposes.  And while there are even more spiritual benefits to fasting we must keep our focus primarily on God.  If we come to the task of fasting with a heart tuned to glorifying God and desiring primarily to grow closer to him through the fast then we will guard our hearts from loving the blessing more than the blesser.  Our eyes should be turned more towards the person and glory of God than the outcome of a fast.  However we should not completely neglect the effects of a fast.   There are many goals for which we would seek God through a fast:

• To overcome sin
• To seek direction
• For intercession
• For preparation for spiritual warfare
• Transformation/Closer walk with God

There are also different ways to fast from foods:

• Partial Fasts are fasts that forego certain foods (ie. Chocolate or caffeine or meat).  Eating is still allowed, however it is limited.  A good example of this is Daniel’s commitment to eat only vegetables and water while King Nebuchadnezzar had the other captives eating delicacies (Daniel 1).
• Normal Fasts are fasts that forego eating, but still allow liquids (water and juices).  Normal fasts can be as long as 40 days before actual starvation begins to set in.  After the first day or two one will experience weakness and tire easily.  The best remedy for this is resting.  After the third or fourth day your body will adjust to the situation.  Normal fasts should be broken with fresh fruits and vegetables.  Before starting a normal fast many try to overeat the day before.  This is how we come to get Fat Tuesday, the day before the start of Lent when people gorge themselves.  However, this is not wise as it does not properly prepare the body for the extreme change in diet it is about to experience.
• Absolutes Fasts are fasts that forego both water and food.  An absolute fast should only be undertaken with clear direction from God and then only for 3 days at the most, any longer carries the risk of death.  In the Bible Moses held an absolute fast for 40 days, but there was clear supernatural intervention to sustain him through it. 

Examples of fasting in the Bible (not an exhaustive list):

• Seeking the LORD (2 Chronicles 20:3-4; Nehemiah 9:1-3)
• Repentance  (Jonah 3:5-9; Joel 2:15; 1 Samuel 7:6)
• Intercession (Matt 17:21; Daniel 9:3; 2 Samuel 12:16)

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We are beginning a series on the spiritual disciplines entitled 'How?' (as in, 'how do you pray?' 'how do you fast?' etc) during our Sunday evening service.  The series will follow Richard Foster's book The Celebration of Discipline. I hope to have the manuscripts of all of the sermons on here, but this one is particularly appropriate for this blog because it tackles the 84th Psalm from which the blog gets its name...

What is your day to day faith like?  A comic book or poetic novel? An info-mercial or a mini-series?

The other day I had the privilege of taking Morgan to her swimming lessons.  This is a privilege that usually falls to Mommy, but since she had to work and I was off I got to take her.  Now the fact that Morgan takes swimming lessons, and loves them, is a small miracle.  When we first started taking Morgan to the pool, or the ‘big-bathtub’ as  a we called it, she would be terrified once she was in the water.  She would cling tightly to whoever had her in the water.  And we wouldn’t even think of swishing her around in the water because we couldn’t loosen her death grip.   However, we tried to take her swimming as often as we could to get her familiar with the water.  The last time I was able to watch one of her swimming practices her instructor was getting her to jump into her arms in the pool.  A feat which she conquered enthusiastically, and of which I was very proud.  But this time her instructor had stepped back about 5 feet and was calling Morgan to leap off the steps and swim to her.

When we first start God is very real and present to us, but as we go along he beckons us to jump out a little farther. 

The psalmist says that the presence of God is something he absolutely longs for.  In fact his soul is completed in the presence of God.   That what he says in Psalm 84:  “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord… My soul longs, it even faints just to be in your house” – to be with you.   In another place (Psalm 63) it says, “my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water”. 

And we have all experienced this right?  We come to those points in our day or in our life where we absolutely know we need God and we try to pray or we try to put forth extra effort to be a good Christian, but all the things of this world begin to drown out what God is trying to say to us.  And it isn’t long before we begin to turn up the volume on our radios, our mp3 players, we max out our schedules, and begin aimlessly channel surfing, and God’s voice fades into the background of our lives. 

And we do all of this because we are in pursuit of something good right?  Somehow we fool ourselves into thinking we are making our life qualitatively better by chasing after the wind.   We think that by busying our lives we are making our lives happier, when essentially we are just making them crowded and avoiding things we really need to deal with.  A study conducted by researchers at a number of universities in the US have found that people who deal with stress in their lives by avoiding it, whether escaping through TV, music, or other means often create more stress for themselves while people who confront their stress and engage in non-passive activities were better off. 

Our culture does not allow us much time to really think.  All of our thoughts are being provided for us – by billboards, by commercials, by magazines on the rack, by radios, by text messages and emails… I took Morgan to the store the other day and as we rounded the cereal aisle she started jumping up and down excitedly because she saw this cluster of fruit snack boxes that featured just about every popular cartoon character known to a 2 and a half year old.  This world bombards us with the things it wants us to think about – and it is a dry and weary land – and beloved our souls are crying out for something more.

So these spiritual disciplines that we are going to be studying for the next few weeks are really practical ways to hear God’s voice.  They are ways to put us in a position for God to transform us from the inside out.   As we study them we need to be cautious of a few things.  Here is your disclaimer:  There are two big dangers.  The first is turning the disciplines into Law.  We can easily slip into legalism and believe that if we are practicing the disciplines then we are super spiritual and if someone doesn’t then they haven’t quite arrived yet.  We can easily become as Jesus described the Pharisees, white-washed tombs – looking spiritual on the outside but actually being dead on the inside.  The other, and possibly more grave danger, is to merely study the disciplines and fail to practice them.  

When Morgan’s instructor was cheering her on to jump out towards her Morgan knew what to do: “Jump like a kangaroo, jump like a kangaroo.”  But every time her instructor said “Go”, instead of leaping forward into the water Morgan would gently put her head in the water and push of the step towards her instructor.  She knew what to do, but time after time she chickened out.  God is calling us to leap out to him and to meet him where he will change us. 

These practices put you in a place where God’s grace works on you.  It isn’t by our will that we are transformed through these things, but because God has chosen to work through these things to change us from the inside out. 

Later on in the Psalm, the writer says that, “happy are those in whose heart are the highways to Zion”.   Psalm 84 is a particular kind of psalm that was written as a pilgrimage psalm.  It was meant to be thought upon and dwelt upon as Jews traveled from places like Gallilee and Nazareth to the city of Jerusalem, to Zion, where the temple was located, and thus where the very presence of God dwelt.   That is why at the beginning of the psalm the writer dwells upon God’s courts and his presence.  And then here in this verse he refers to the highways a pilgrim would travel.  But it takes an interesting turn in this verse when the writer shifts the focus inward to the state of the pilgrim’s heart.  Happy are those in whose heart are the highways to Zion.   Is the real you… not the church you or the work you, but the real you, is the real you constantly on that journey to have more of God and to be in His presence?  Do you have the journey towards His presence in your heart? 

If you do, it says that you pass through the deserted wastelands on your way and you make it a place of springs.  Because you are letting God’s grace transform you from the inside out you pass through the valley of tears and you make it a place of joy. 

The first 4 disciplines we are going to study are inward disciplines – they help us to examine the state of our heart and hear what God is saying.

Now the first two and probably the most important two disciplines are prayer and meditation.

Meditation and prayer are like close cousins.  Sometimes they blend together.  Yet the church at large doesn’t really have a good understanding of Christian meditation.  In fact some of you are probably thinking of sitting cross legged and humming – but this is not what we are talking about.  Christian meditation is basically this:  listening for God’s voice and then obeying it.  If you got one without the other it ain’t meditation. 

A good down to earth description for meditation is ‘chewing your spiritual cud’.  You know that a cow eats grass and then regurgitates it to chew on it before it is fully digested and produces that wonderful fruit we call milk.  In a similar way before mediation can really be effective we need to have some substance to chew on.  The more you know scripture the better.  If you are not a student of the Bible then now is a good time to start.  One of the best ways to meditate is to take a small passage and read it over and over.  Don’t hastily skip over the seemingly insignificant passages, but rather let them soak in for hours or even days.   Get into the story as you read.  Be the disciple jumping out of the boat to follow Jesus.  Be the woman straining to touch the hem of his garment.  This type of meditation is a place to sanctify your imagination. 

We always say that prayer is essential to our Christian life – correct?   We could say that it is to the spiritual life what eating, drinking, and sleeping are to the physical.  Yet we don’t come up with nearly as good of excuses for skipping a meal or a nights rest as we do for neglecting our prayer life.   We must first off quit giving prayer all this lip service without actually doing it.  We must recognize the importance of it.  When you pass through valley of tears, are their still tears there?  How is your prayer life? 

The beautiful thing about prayer is that we are not going to mess up the whole world if we get it wrong.  It is for beginners.  And the beautiful thing is that we will always and forever be beginners.  God has given this precious gift to us so that we can learn how do it by doing it.  It is a learning process and we can fail at it and keep going.   And every failure provides a new moment of learning.  There are many categories of prayers, but tonight I want to discuss one we often are very weak at and uncomfortable with – prayers of intercession.  So many times we have prayed and nothing has come of it that we begin ending all of our prayers for other people with, “yet your will be done… amen”.   When we look at Jesus’ prayers for others he never ended that way.  But we have wrongly come to disbelieve in prayers that actually make a difference.  For instance, if I were to come home and flip on the lights and they didn’t come on I wouldn’t simply claim that electricity didn’t really work – I would go to the fuse box, or call the electric company until the lights came on.  In the same way we cannot dismiss prayer simply because our prayer did not come to pass.  We check to see what is wrong with it. 

So many times our prayers for others are the only prayers we ever utter.  We come to God and say, “here you go, do this… please”.  And yet we rarely take any decent period of time and listen for what he wants us to pray for.  An effective intercessory prayer presupposes that we are perpetually on that highway to Zion in our heart asking, “what is your will?”  In this type of praying compassion is key.  Foster states that, “the inner sense of compassion is one of the clearest indications from the Lord that this” is something you should pray about.  If your heart cries out about a particular person’s situation then begin to pray. 

There are many misconceptions that keep us from praying that I want to briefly deal with:  one is that praying is essentially asking things from God.  The deeper and deeper we go in prayer the more we realize that prayer is more listening than speaking.  It is essentially spending unhindered time with the one who desires a relationship with you.

Another misconception is that prayer should always be solemn and heavy.  Foster testifies that the more common experience of prayer is one of lightness and joy and is often accompanied by laughter.  Have you ever laughed with God?  It is enjoying His very presence.

We also tend to think that God has everything just as he wants it and he really doesn’t need our prayers, but in reality he has given us the responsibility to pray.  1 Cor 3:9 says that we are co-laborers with God.  God has let us in on the divine Kingdom building and one of the principle responsibilities he has given us is that we should change the world through prayer. 

And a final misconception is that we should pray only once for any one thing – anything more is shows a lack of faith.  However, there is nothing in the scripture that warrants this belief and in fact scripture calls us to do the exact opposite – to pray pray pray. 

So may you be one who has highways to Zion in your heart
May you constantly be seeking God’s presence
May you pass through the dry and weary land and bring joy
May you be one who leaps off the step into God’s presence.




 

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Having had the opportunity to be a semi-stay at home dad while in seminary I revel at the chance to spend a day with Morgan.  Today I got to take her to swim practice, a privilege usually had by mommy.  At 2 years and 8 months old, Morgan absolutely loves the water.  This was not the story this last summer, a mere 6 months ago.  When Sarah and I would take her to the pool, or the big bathtub as we had to call it, she would usually cling tightly to whomever she was in the water with.  That is why seeing her jump fearlessly into the olympic size pool today was so remarkable.  

At one point in the practice her instructor had poised her on the steps in the water at the shallow end of the pool and stood about 5 feet back beckoning Morgan to leap forward into the water towards her.   Morgan had grown comfortable with jumping into her instructors arms, but this was something new. It took a little more courage to jump into the space between herself and her instructor.  The first 3 times I watched Morgan try to do this she always started enthusiastically.  She would begin jumping up and down in place as her instructor cheered her on.  But every time instead of jumping she would simply sink down into the water and swim towards her instructor.  It was one of the things she was used to.  For a 2 and a half year old she could swim under water pretty good.  But she had never leaped out into the water.  She knew what to do - 'jump like a kangaroo'.  This she did well - over and over - in place, but never out into the space between herself and her instructor.  

When Joshua came to the river he knew God could part the waters and allow a safe passage for His people.  He had seen it done with Moses.  All he did was lift the staff and voila - the waters parted.  But God was calling Joshua to something more - he was to step out into the waters.  As we begin God holds our hand and we are fairly secure in that he will catch us as we jump into the waters.  Yet when we grow God takes a step back and lets us jump into that space between us and Him.  He lets us step into the adventure.  What once seemed terribly frightening is now embraced.  Often we know what and how to do the things we know we should, but we simply jump up and down and never do them.  God is calling us to jump.  To trust and jump. 

Posted In: spirituality sappy-things

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I was introduced to two great artists today.  The first, Ed Cash, is currently a producer of many major Christian recording artists such as Starfield and Bebo Norman.  However, before his major producing days he recorded a few records of his own.  The one I was able to sample is "Where Were You?"  The lyrics of which are poetic - something that is not common amongst Christian songwriters in these days.  The other band, while receiving a little more air-time on contemporary Christian radio, is equally soulful with its lyrics.  The band Leeland is made up of a handful of young men whose lyrics and music connect your heart with the spiritual and physical brokenness of our world.    

Wounded and forsaken
I was shattered by the fall
Broken and forgotten
Feeling lost and all alone
Summoned by the King
Into the Master’s courts
Lifted by the Savior
And cradled in His arms

I was carried to the table
Seated where I don’t belong
Carried to the table
Swept away by His love
And I don’t see my brokenness anymore
When I’m seated at the table of the Lord
I’m carried to the table
The table of the Lord

Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup
This world has left me lame
Even in my weakness
The Savior called my name
In His Holy presence
I’m healed and unashamed

You carried me, my God
You carried me

 

-Carried to the Table, Leeland 

Posted In: spirituality culture

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I have a bunch of magnetic poetry on my office door at the church.  Every once in a while someone will actually exercise some creativity and make a poem or statement.  Sometimes they are really good and I will leave them up for a while, and sometimes I am not sure whether it was one of the staff that created it or if a random 7th grade boy stumbled upon a chance to express his mix of hormones and lack of self control on my door (I say this not meaning to paint all 7th grade boys with the same broad brush stroke... well, yeah I do, never mind).  However, I came into the office the other day and found this word of truth jumbled together as a magnetic voice, calling me to something a little more real than my usual hurried day.  It said, "Whisper not unto the darkness but praise the soul of the righteous son living in the light."   The beautiful thing about this is that it wasn't created by one of the folks in the office who have Masters or Doctorates in theology, but rather it came from the heart of an 11 year old girl.  When our culture has become so inundated with technology and a life of doing, it is breath of fresh air to see the fruits of contemplation springing from youth.  There is hope for the church, God's Spirit carries on...

"In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" - Joel 2:28

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I will never forget the opening chapel of my second or third semester at Asbury.  There was this huge painting of Jesus crucified at the front of the chapel.  And as J.D. Walt was finishing his sermon he pointed to the painting and said, "Behold your syllabus".  Those are probably the most significant three words of my life.  This is the man we are called to imitate?!  It is the most absurd thing, yet the most world-changing thing that could ever be imagined.  Dying to live.  Becoming last and least so that others might become first and more.  Loving wrecklessly because he has wrecklessly loved us!  That kind of love always leads to a cross.

 

Posted In: theology spirituality

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I first was exposed to Shane Claiborne as a naive youth worker at Resurrection 2002 (a United Methodist youth conference held at Gatlinburg TN every Januray).  He came on stage with crazy hair, crazy clothes, and a crazy message - care for the poor.  It was something I had always felt was key to the Christian life, but something I had always explained away in favor of a 'mainstream faith' that prized orthodoxy over orthopraxy.  So when I heard and saw this guy living and giving credibility to a  Matthew 25 sort of life - God put a fire in my bones and has broken my heart time and time and time again (mainly because I always try to fix it) for a broken world.  Please don't assume this means I have lived this uber-selfless life - not at all.  

So, needless to say, I was excited when I heard Shane was writing a book.  Throughout college my friends and I would dream of being a 'Simple', the term for one who lives with the The Simple Way in Philadelphia.  So now that you know I am totally unbiased when it comes to this book :)  I can tell you that it is great.  There are few places where he is a little too extreme for me.  Namely, where he denounces paying ministers or church staff.  I probably don't like this part because I am a paid pastor :) - but as a paid pastor I know that this job would be nearly impossible if it required one to work full time elsewhere.

With that being said, Claiborne presents a very well reasoned treatise on radical living in the 21st century.  The best part of the book are the stories.  These aren't just a set of theological axioms pulled out of someone's head or a few greek words, they have been lived out from the inner-city of Philly to the slums of Calcutta.  These stories of a radical faith speak much clearer than most of the theology I read in seminary.  Although both are needed, this is a breath of fresh air.   Another aspect of the book that keeps you turning the pages is the love and brokeness that Claiborne exudes in each story, and each call for a deeper faith.  The dedication reads like this:

Dedicated to al the hypocrites, cowards, and fools... like me.

May we find the Way, the Truth, and the Life in a world of shortcuts, deception, and death. 

Posted In: spirituality social-issues

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