Pouring From An Empty Glass

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“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
(Isaiah 40:30-31)

My heart is so heavy tonight.

Somewhere in the world, someone is suffering. It might be two cities over, it might be next door. It may be happening in your head.

All around me, I feel the shockwaves racing from the epicenter of a crumbling world. An earth that groans for reconciliation, a kingdom that has, for so long, run from its king but is desperate for Him. And maybe they don’t even know that he is what they really desire.

I write in flowery, pretentious prose because the groaning is too close to home, and I am tired. On days like today the purpose behind my calling to be minister of the Gospel of Jesus is so very clear, and the need so evident, but even still, so very hard to grasp in my hand.

I feel like an empty glass, striving to continue pouring out, even when nothing is left. If I were smarter, or older and wiser, I might just put the cup back under the faucet and allow myself to be filled again before I try to continue giving. But my go to is always to stress about it and demand answers to questions I’ve not been brave enough to ask.

Seasons of transition and turmoil often feel like seasons of silence, and I’ve not figured out why. To be separate from others is one thing, but to feel like your prayers are going unanswered or that God has left are the most terrifying times one can experience.

To ask God where he’s gone but then remembering: I have pastoral aspirations and responsibilities, I’m not allowed to ask those questions.

But then. Maybe sometimes it takes talking to an impartial audience. Oh, that’s it, I’ll write a blog. I’ll be transparent about my struggles and questions and folks will be sure to solicit some help, or at least someone will congratulate me for being open and honest (because thats the fashionable thing to do), that or it’ll bring out the “I told you so’s” from the atheist crowd.

Maybe writing these thoughts will un-knot my mind long enough to let me hear God speak. Maybe if I quiet myself just enough…

…They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…

Weariness. It’s probably the most poetic word to ascribe to that poured out glass feeling. It’s such a beautiful way to say “beaten down, washed up, beyond tired.”

When I look back on the past ten years of my life, I’m met with a reminder from God. It was always during the times I’d described myself as weary that God spoke most powerfully into my situation. It was always when I was at my wit’s end that he either gave me the answers I so feared or used me, by words and actions, to speak the truth of the Gospel into the lives of others.

Suffering doesn’t always hit you over the head and grind you into the dust. Sometimes it’s that dull ache in your chest that won’t go away. The anticipation that comes from the fear that something bad is about to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

And then, though we don’t always have the answers to life’s burning questions, we press on. We wait on God to speak or to propel us into the very action that our souls crave without knowing it.

I’ll say from experience that God has used me most effectively when I was in transition. When I stopped moping and accepted that things aren’t always going to be easy or feel good. But God. He saw the needs in my life and in the lives of those around me and he finally spoke. Or maybe I finally listened.

To be filled, we have to put ourselves in a position to receive from God that which restores us and mends our brokenness so that others, seeing the healing of God within us, will be drawn to repentance and salvation and receive what God wants to give them.

At the end of my life, I want to look back and say with resolve that I have poured out all that which was given to me, and to know with confidence that God’s wells never run dry. What you might think is silence could be preparing you for something better.

I preach this not just to you, but to myself. AΩ

Of Intentions and Idols (Let Us Run)

I sat with my class in a corner of the sanctuary, music played throughout the building, people sang and prayed and worshiped. I saw children running, only to be stopped by concerned parents and shushed by the present clergy. This was a sacred place, a holy place to encounter the divine.

And on the stage, one might’ve expected to see a pulpit rising above the crowd. But instead, there stood several monolithic statues, faces etched from stone, frozen in time forever, or at least until the years ate away at them, paint faded and crumbling. These were the gods and goddesses of the Hindu faith, impersonal sentinels with stony faces looking toward their devoted worshipers indifferently.

A lot of folks, especially those of my own religion, would compare this scene to that of an ancient city in an ancient world that bears no resemblance to our own. But that is not true. It is a world we live in, and a world we find ourselves entrenched in, even in the Christian faith.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to travel to a Hindu temple in Charlotte. It was an interesting experience, one where I gained much respect for the people, but also came away with a deeper understanding of my own sinfulness.

This particular instance was a more vivid depiction of idolatry than I’d ever seen in my own American dream-ridden life or in the lives of the people around me. It’s a lot less subtle when you watch people literally bowing down to and offering food to statues who will never be able partake of it. But what I saw there was a reflection of my own heart and my own proclivities.

Tim Keller, hearkening back to John Calvin, says that our hearts are idol factories. This means that something about human nature points to the inescapable fact that we are wired for worship. And if God is not the center of our worship, we will surely find something to take his place. I saw people in that temple physically bowing down to idols, participating in what we would call idolatry, but hey! At least they are honest about it.

Myself and so many of those I love fill their lives with a plethora of distractions and luxuries that we like to pretend have no ultimate grip on our lives. And idolatry barely ever starts out as a bad thing…Idolatry, in its simplest form is making good things ultimate things. It is where admiration turns to obsession, where appreciating God’s good gifts becomes focusing more on the gift than on the Giver, where want becomes overwhelming need.

Here’s a good test for whether or not that thing you love is an idol to you: If it were to be taken away, could you go on living? Obviously, I’m not talking about enough food to live or water. But the point is that the problem doesn’t lie in the idols themselves, many of these things are innately good gifts from God. But the problem is somewhere deeper, the problem is inside of us, in our hearts. We are desperate to worship, but not so desperate to be obedient to the thing we worship. Which is why worshiping God seems so difficult, because of what that demands of us.

But the catch is that you cannot worship anything without obeying it, whether you realize it or not. All this makes me thing about that anti-smoking commercial that was floating around a while back. Here it is:

The thing is, whatever you devote all of your time, energy, and devotion to will stop being a good gift to be used and start making the rules for you. You build your life around the thing you idolize. We turn good gifts like sex into porn, prostitution, and nymphomania. We turn food into gluttony or anorexia and bulimia. We make something good sinful and let it reign over our lives. Instead of God.

I have a lot to learn about idolatry, but I see it in my everyday life. My prayer for myself as well as for those who are reading this is that we will return to Christ, worship him as he ought to be worshiped, and place our affections on him, and not on the idols that we hold dear. It is God’s desire for us to seek first the Kingdom, and it is my desire that that would be my desire as well.

“You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.”-Saint Augustine

Pursuit and Faithlessness (or, Holy Week and where I find myself.)

“Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.” (John 19:15-16)

Since I was a child, I was always as fascinated as I was terrified by the events of what those in my tradition of faith have come to call “Holy Week.”

How could people who revered Jesus at the beginning of the week, even so far as to throw palm branches and their coats on the ground to make way for him and call him Rescuer, their Hosanna, join the chorus for his demise by Friday? And what is so good about Friday, anyway? How could the disciples, who dedicated everything and vowed allegiance to him and walked and talked and lived with him for three years just abandon him in his darkest hour? What kind of disciple would do that?

These were the thoughts that crossed by mind as I was a boy. But as I grew up, those questions gave way to more powerful questions, questions that came from experience and from the fear that comes from having your faith tested. Questions like, if I were in their position would I do the same? Surely I would. Surely I have.

How many times have I abandoned Christ for something much less fulfilling? How many times have I praised him in one breath only to curse him in the next? How many times have I accepted the title of disciple in the light but abandoned it in the dark, or when it demanded too much of me?

What is loyalty to Christ, and do I myself have it?  Do you? Do any of us, for that matter?

As we reflect on Easter, on the glorious resurrection of Jesus, who paid for all of our sin and shame on the cross, it is my prayer that we would not lose sight of the fact that it was our transgressions that put him there.

The story isn’t simply one we read of characters in a book. No, the story of Scripture is more revealing and powerful than that. We are invited into the story, recalling that though our sins and betrayal are great, a debt we can never pay, what held Jesus on the cross was his love for all of us.

Though our sins are as scarlet, he has washed them white as snow.

And though we are forgiven, we can’t forget what it cost. We cannot withold forgiveness from those who don’t deserve it, because that isn’t what our Hosanna did.

We cannot cling to past sins that try to chain us to shame.

We can’t cling to present sins that keep our world shrouded in dark.

We can’t forget that our identities are tethered not to who we have been, or who we have been believed to be, but to whom we belong.

That the Cross is as relevant today as it ever was.

As a kid, I always wanted to blame people trapped in a book, because Jesus was the hero, and the people who betrayed him, who denied him, whipped him, and killed him were the bad guys and I was angry at them for what they did.

But that was before I realized that their story is my story, I am just as capable for that treachery and just as culpable for it.

When asked by Pilate if Jesus was their king, the chief priests answered that they had no king but Caesar, but maybe even that was a lie.

In my own experience, I have lived as king of my own heart and life, and I suspect the same was true of them.

I have lived in pursuit of holiness, grasping and rules and regulations to handcuff my heart to something that slightly resembled God, but left me wanting.

I have lived in pursuit of everything but holiness, indulging in everything I could to fill the emptiness inside me, but all it did was leave me broken and handcuffed to pain.

And I have, in those elusive moments of honest clarity, pursued Jesus, the crucified and risen Savior. He rescues me time and time again. And I deny him like Peter. And I sell him like Judas. And I just run away like the others.
Abandoment. In the face of such a wondrous love, I spat.

What God is this who loves me still?
Who seeks my heart and my devotion,
even when I am blithe to his pursuit, going about my merry way and pretending the lover of my soul doesn’t exist?

Friends, as we think about Easter, I pray we remember what it cost. I pray we share the life giving Gospel again and again. I pray we never turn it into a self help manual, but as a key to unlock doors and let the light pour in.

God is faithful, even when we are faithless.

Happy Easter week.
Honor Christ.
Keep it holy.

ΑΩ

Struggling with Sin (and the masks we think we hide behind)

I remember sitting in my older Sister’s youth class once as a kid. I don’t remember why, but I remember that I was there. Larry, the youth minister, was clutching a piece of tin foil in his hand and talking about how we so often hide behind masks, and then he pushed it into his face and made a cast of his face from it, to illustrate his point.

Being a kid who obviously didn’t belong in a class full of 15-18 year olds, I didn’t really have a good grasp of what was going on, so I started laughing at the awkwardness of the situation and everyone stared at me. Years later, my sense of humor hasn’t changed much, but I did one day learn to understand exactly what it was he was talking about.

It took me a while to truly understand “the sin that so easily entangles.” To really “get” why we would have any desire to hide.

But, like all children, I grew up, and now, more aware of all my frailties, I stand as a man in desperate need of the grace I so vehemently preach.

And, thank God, I am not alone:

 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:15-25)

Paul grasped the struggle of sin better than countless theologians since could ever hope to know. He lived it. He didn’t describe it in the polished, pretty way we so often describe our battle with sin. He didn’t try to make himself look good, and he was one of the foremost leaders in the church at the time!

What’s more, he didn’t simply speak of his sin in the past tense. We know Paul had a long rap sheet before he came to Christ, but Paul’s struggle is one that he refused to gloss over and pretend didn’t exist.

The raw honesty in Romans 7 shows us in and out of leadership what is required. A realistic look at who we are, and and intimate understanding of what can save us from this “body of death.” (Spoiler alert: It isn’t in or of ourselves.)

This puts me in the mind of Peter Parker in the Spiderman comics. More specifically, with Venom.

You are probably familiar with the story. Alien symbiote bonds with Spidey and takes over completely, turning him into this ravaging monster. He grapples with the fear of losing the power the alien gives him and the fear that it will take him prisoner completely.

It is a strong example of what sin does to us. However, the difference is, Venom comes from outside of Peter Parker. In our own struggle with the sin that so easily wraps itself around us, it comes from within. But like Peter, or like Frodo and the ring, we do not want to let it go.

Christian culture can be divided into two camps: Those who know full well that, apart from Christ, they are messed up sinners without hope, and the people who live their entire lives trying to convince themselves and everybody else that they aren’t.

Because if you know you are a sinner and embrace that Jesus is the source of all the good in you, your life will be lived not to please everyone around you. Not to keep worrying over whether or not you’re on God’s “nice list” and fear the proverbial lump of coal in your stocking, but knowing that because of what Jesus has done, your sins have been thrown into the ocean, never to resurface.

Yet we still struggle. Paul’s words are as much a source of comfort as they are of conviction. He identifies with the human condition.

He is a church leader, an apostle, a man who regardless of his sins in the past, saw Christ and was changed forever, who isn’t afraid to say “I am a mess.”

Isn’t that a source of hope for people like you and me? That we aren’t alone in our struggles.

The only one who can rescue us is Jesus, and Paul’s letter to the church at Rome assures us of this, even before chapter 7.

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:9-11)

Reconciliation meaning that which was severed, is now put back together. Meaning the estranged are received as wayward children embraced by the love of a Father who never gave up on them. Reconciliation, meaning that the rift between God and those engaged in battle with their own sinful desires is healed, and that wound will never be reopened. Forgiveness. You aren’t immune to sins pull, but you are exonerated.

I read a story in the beginning of a book by Michael John Cusick called  Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle.

In it, he tells of a teacher whose student is struggling with lustful thoughts. It grieves the student (much like it grieved Paul) that he continued to do what he didn’t want to do, what he knew he shouldn’t do. And the teacher spoke a story to him.

There once was a beautiful skylark who flew high above the sky. One day, the lark saw a merchant pushing a cart full of huge, delicious worms down the road. The bird flew down and asked how much the man was selling them for, and replied, two worms for one feather.

“Well, it’s just one feather, it won’t hurt anything.” the bird said.

He immediately plucked a feather and gulped down the worms. They were incredible.

So he returned day after day to the peddler. And day after day, he continued to pluck them until one day, the bird discovered he could no longer fly. He was crushed, he had squandered all of his feathers and lost his purpose, what he was made to do.

The bird had an idea. He went to work plucking worms from the ground and gathered enough to give to the man and get his feathers back. So he went. And the old peddler laughed and said “I deal in feathers for worms, not worms for feathers, and with that he disappeared.”

The teacher stopped the story and the student sat, dumbfounded. “It breaks the heart of the Father when we trade our feathers for worms,” the teacher said, “but moreso, it breaks the heart of the Father when we think we can buy them back.”

We cannot ever buy those back.

Those were bought back for us, long before we even sold them.

“While we were sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.”

So today, I pray that you have come face to face with the Cross. The beauty of that symbol is that what was an instrument of death became our redemption. The body of death, or more clearly, the day to day struggle with our sin that never seems to have an end, has been overcome by the death of Jesus, who in his glory and grace, refused to stay dead, showing his power over the death we deserved and offering us a life free from shame forever.

What we could never buy back for ourselves, that which we lost in sin, it was bought for us.  And to think it’s our responsibility to do it ourselves is an insult to the grace of God. 

The struggle with sin is real, it is strong, overwhelming, persistent. But the love and grace of God is also real, it is strong, overwhelming, persistent. It is with us even when we try to hide behind platitudes and tin foil masks. When we don’t want the world to see us, God sees us. And because of Christ, he loves us just the same.

Screaming from the Sidelines

The characteristic of holiness, which is the outcome of the indwelling of God, is blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s word and an amazing tenderness in personal dealings. –Oswald Chambers

It happened yesterday. I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping against my better judgment. Amidst the clinging and clanging of the Santas with their bells and the singing of carols as I pulled out of the parking lot, I heard a semi-robotic voice screaming at the top of his lungs through a huge megaphone. I looked to my right and saw sandwich boards graffitied with apocalyptic proclamations like “The End is Near, the Day of Judgment is now, women shouldn’t wear pants, etc.”

The young man (who couldn’t have been a lot older than me) was shouting in the best angry preacher voice he could muster. He spit out doctrinal statements faster and with more gusto than even Eminem could attempt. Most of his statements, at their core, I agreed with. But the whole mess just sat wrong with me. I sat at the red light for a good while listening to him as he ran up and down the street like a wild man, screeching as if he were an animal. He claimed that nothing could save you except Jesus. Agreed. That we as humans are inherently flawed and sinful. Agreed. That church tradition is not the final authority on Jesus. Agreed. But for all of his systematic theology, he was missing something. And I pulled into a nearby parking lot to listen and see if he would say it.

Not once was the love of God mentioned. In his eyes, God was a raging beast, poised to strike and throw whatever was left of you into the furnace as a punishment for looking at him the wrong way. Jesus was the only way to tame the beast.

This is not the God I serve.

This is not the God that scripture declares is the only true God.

No, the Bible portrays God as something much better and much more than we can perceive through our darkened glasses. It was love that compelled the Father to send his Son to us to die in our place and bear all of our sin away. It was in love that God turned away while Jesus died. It was in love that Jesus, who knew all of the wars we would wage and the death we would bathe ourselves in said “Father, not my will, but yours.”

See, I hate seeing this picture of God presented on the street corners to people who are just going to shut it out or get angry. I hate that the Church has reduced the Gospel to a list of doctrinal statements and propositions. I hate that instead of seeing the love of God patiently displayed through the lives of the people closest to them, unbelievers are faced with people who couldn’t care less about them and don’t love them unconditionally. People who will say, Jesus is the only way to God, but…you may want to try agreeing with my legalistic list of do’s and don’ts that have nothing to do with the Gospel.

Christians are truly in a culture war, but we will not win it this way. We will not win the culture war by waving signs and screaming through megaphones and compromising the glorious Gospel that God, in his love, sent his son to die for the sins of the world and trading it for the lie that God hates you.

Even if your message is, “Jesus loves you,” it’s not going to be received well if the person is shouting at you (unless of course, you’re at a For Today concert.)

Culture isn’t changed by legislation or a million angry street preachers with fists raised in defiance. Culture is changed by the tough work of discipleship, Christian people loving the non-Christians many segments of Christendom have long neglected. Building relationships and trust and speaking truth in love in the context of that relationship. Witnessing is not a proposition and it is not a screaming match. It is a patient love and an honest life. People respect honesty, and they respect you if you respect them, no matter what.

As the Church, we must be better. We must love people enough that when we present them with the Gospel, there can be no denying that we are doing it out of love. No more screaming from the sidelines in a culture war we cannot win. Show God’s love like Jesus did, by personal connections and by sacrifice. Do not shy away from speaking the truth, but be assured that the truth is a person, not a thing. And let that realization color how you see everything. That is the Gospel.

I pray that the men on the street corner know that. Most importantly, I pray that they show it. I pray that we will not fight to win the culture war by sweeping generalizations and ugly caricatures of God, wholly devoid of any scriptural truth. God’s love is not a condemning love, but a patient one. Surely, he’s been so patient with me, and his kindness leads me to repentance for sin, not his rage.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (1 John 3:19-24)

Forgiven and Fading (a poem)

We stood on the shore, drifting in and out of our own misplaced reminiscence, ambivalence coursing through our once vibrant ,now broken luminescence, pretentious contentiousness gnawing at the fabric of relationships we left in our wake.

We sat, feet in the sand and buried deep.  How long did we believe we could hold on to our past offenses as they dove into the sea like stones that would rest at the bottom of God’s shrinking memory, sensory perception making me perceive that I needed all my sins like all my sins needed me.

Like forgiveness meant nothing, so I could continue on my spree. And as long as God was still good, I had an excuse for still being me.

And as the cold water rushes past my chest, and I stand, buried up to my neck, I cry out for a savior that could save me from the man I never wanted to be. Oh, sweet release, for a heart that can fly free past this world’s cruel bonds.

The singer sang that our sins were stones at the bottom of the ocean, but did he count on me swimming deep enough to raise them from their graves and indulge in emptiness again and again and again?

And, if God really has amnesia, then what does that mean for me? Those fading memories sing exoneration’s song, clawing past all my insufficiencies and resting in that He is enough. Before the throne of God above… I am emptied of excuses, I am left all too aware of all that I am not.

So I stand on the shore, waves of nostalgia and regret pulling me in like a rip tide, to bury me with all my past disgraces, wherein the traces of all my mistakes would tether to me to God’s indelible wrath and that I myself would sink in his fading memories. …I have a strong and perfect plea… Please, please Jesus, set me free.

But instead I stand before a throne, and the Son looks forward with eyes ablaze and says “my child, you are set free.” …a great High Priest whose name is love, who ever lives and pleads for me. 

Open Doors to Both Heaven And Earth

“The finality of God’s revelation must surely, therefore, be found in Jesus, whom, through his redemptive act, provides the means for the liberation of humans. We are not left – as humanists would have it – to save ourselves. Through Christ we are given a key that opens the doors to both heaven and earth.”-Gary Garner

We are not left to save ourselves. This is the startling core truth of the gospel, the truth that everything Christians believe is built upon and the truth that we so often completely miss. I am doing a study with my teenagers at church based on J.D. Greear’s book, Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary.

The thesis of the whole study is based on a simple prayer:

“In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, and nothing I have done that makes You love me less. Your presence and approval are all I need for everlasting joy. As You have been to me, so I will be to others. As I pray, I’ll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.”

It is so simple. Everything I need, I already have in Christ. There is nothing that I can do to make him stop loving me in the same way that there is nothing that I can do to make my parents just stop loving me. Oh, sure, I can infuriate them and turn my life into a trainwreck, and it would break their hearts. I could be the kid no parent wants and be riddled with bad decisions and unhealthy relationships and it would kill them, but I have been blessed with a mom and dad that I know, no matter what, would never stop loving me.

And when I think about God and Christ as revealed in the Gospel, I multiply that love and acceptance by a million. I know that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Yet, this is an idea that Christians so often quote as a platitude, or something that gives them the moral high ground or permission to live like they want, yet never actually believe when it comes down to it. I can say that Christ is enough until I’m blue in the face, but eventually, if I am honest with myself, I think of all my sin, and all of the promises I made to God that I trampled to the ground and I don’t believe it.

It’s as if Christ’s death on the cross, and subsequent defeat of death in the resurrection, was some cosmic solid God did for me with the expectation that I would (or could) repay him for it. So I spend my life trying so hard to earn what I can never earn, to pay God back in some substantial way that I don’t have the capacity to even grasp mentally.

This…this is not the Gospel. The truth of our redemption is simple, yet complicated idea because we as humans percieve God in the same way we operate  by the world’s standards. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You do something for me, I do something for you.

And yes, we say things like “we owe God our lives” and on some level that is true. However, God sent his son to die for us so that we could have eternal life with him. Where we deserved punishment, he poured out grace. Where we deserved hell, he made a way for us. But Jesus paid a price that we could never come close to satisfying. And he did it out of love.

“But, Stephen!” you might say, “It can’t be that easy? Why would God do that if I’m just going to fail him time and  time again?”

I’m gonna go back to my illustration with my parents. I fully understand that not everyone has a supportive family and the amount of people with bad Fathers is especially astronomical in today’s society, but there is a reason (outside of the patriarchal society in which Jesus came) that God is called Father, there is a reason that Jesus refers to him as Abba (which roughly translates to “Daddy.”) There is an affection from a Fatherly love that is like nothing else. A love that accepts, a love that will hold you in his arms no matter where you are, where you have been, or where you are going. One of the sweetest things I’ve ever experienced happens every time I sit at the table and eat with my parents: I hear them pray for my sister and I.

The love they have shown us is unconditional. And there’s a lot to be said about how God’s love is reflected in mothers as well, but that is a blog post for another day.

The love of God is real, it is strong, it is persistent. If you are in Christ, your past is erased with every step, your present is secure, and your future is more beautiful than anything you could ever imagine.

The Gospel is simple: God came to earth wrapped in skin, he lived a life without sin, died a death we deserved and took on all of humanity’s brokenness and iniquity and rose again after three days, defeating death and overcoming the grave with the power of a love that only the God of the universe could show.

Our job in all of that is significantly less than we have convinced ourselves. We are to confess that we are sinners and accept what has already been done for us. No excuses, no trying to buy back our freedom, no bargaining with God. Everything that you need, you already have in Christ. That is the Gospel.  That is the freedom of the Christian life.

ΑΩ

Dirty Words (or, how we sterilize Jesus and the Gospel)

Depression. Anxiety. Suffering.

What are the first things that come to mind when you hear those words? 

It’s no secret that I was raised in church, my Dad being an associate pastor for much of my childhood, and I knew a lot about the Bible. I could tell you what it said about any issue, well, almost any issue. You see, in my formative years, I knew a few things about my faith but firmly rooted myself in the notion that I knew everything. I was that kid.

And I was wrong.

1.) I knew that God was good.

2.) I knew that Jesus loved me.

3.) I knew that Jesus wanted me to be happy.

I knew that the first two were true, and by extension, the third is true. And if people weren’t happy, well, obviously they were lacking in understanding the first two. Because duh. Because Jesus. Because good Christians don’t get sad. Good Christians don’t get depressed. And good Christians certainly don’t take medication for it. So if words like depression or anxiety flew across my radar, I chalked it up to a blatant misunderstanding of who God is.

Because for me in those days, the Gospel was wholly contingent on happiness, on how I’m getting along, on how much faith I had and the sincere belief that if something was wrong in my relationship with God or in my life, it must be my fault.

I believed that lie until I was old enough to comprehend that my Dad, a pastor, suffered through the very things I decried as faithlessness.

The echoes of Job’s friends had been my theology, the cries of Jesus’ disciples asking whose sin caused the man to be born blind had been my theme song. I was the Pharisee, antagonizing the son of God with my disbelief because I believed that I could be justified in myself, because my goodness depends on me.

Let me be clear: Depression, mental illness, or a general suffering is not sinful. It is not selfish. It is not evil.

Countless people I know and love have suffered with crippling mental illness. I myself, though I don’t know what living with a chemical imbalance feels like, have seen grief and pain and felt the sting of an emptiness in losing someone I loved. Until you have walked through the darkness with someone who can’t explain the gnawing depression inside of them, until you have stood by them at their most dire moments, do not assume to know what it’s like for them. And if you have walked with someone through their sickness, you know better than to assume anything.

In the church, we don’t have an excellent track record with ministering to people who are depressed. We’ve made words like “anxiety” and “mental illness” into bad words, symptoms of our lack of trust in a God who is good, who loves us, who wants us to be happy.

I no longer believe those criteria are the proper formula for ultimate joy. Ultimate joy rests in Christ and his work on the cross. And feelings are fleeting, joy is a constant understanding of those truths without having to moralize every little thing that happens in our lives.

So I won’t judge a fellow Christian who is suffering with depression, won’t tell them to just be happy, won’t tell them that if they are hurting, they aren’t trusting God enough. Because I believe that God is greater than your depression (that he is good), I can trust him to one day help you find resolution, and find peace. Because I believe that the love of Christ is stronger and better than anything this world can offer (that he loves you), I can trust that he is with you in the middle of your struggle. And because I believe that God wants you to know the difference between finite happiness and everlasting joy, I can trust that no matter what you’re feeling, Jesus is better and I will sit with you in your pain and cry with you and pray with you and suffer with you. 

Back to John 9, when Jesus’ disciples asked him about the man who was born blind:

“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi,who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.  “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.”-John 9:1-7

It was a popular idea in that day that suffering came because of someone’s sin. Jesus cleverly debunks this myth and shows his power over stigmas by saying “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” and proceeds to upset the status quo even further and rub his dirty spit on the mans eyes. After rinsing them in the pool of Siloam, he was healed.

No, I do not believe that depression cannot be healed. But when we moralize chemical imbalances it’s no better than moralizing blindness or a broken limb. I read somewhere before that when someone gets a cast, people flock to sign it, and when people say they are depressed, people run away.

This stigma is everywhere, but it bothers me the most that it exists in the church. We claim love and mercy and grace, yet many of us cannot be sensitive to hurting people because we have sterilized the Gospel. But I serve a Jesus who holds you in your pain. I serve a Jesus who breaks protocol and in the sight of a sterilized, sanitized congregation and rubs muddy spit on your broken heart.

A Christ who doesn’t care where you’ve been, only where you are.

A Savior who saves us from our darkness and loves us in the midst of it.

A God who commands us to mourn with the mourners and rejoice with the rejoicers.

A Lord who tells us, time and time again, to come as we are and be made whole.

The Man that God Wants

I looked down at the note card filled with writing and then back up at him. I saw eyes full of pain, scarred from a life of bad decisions and suffering inflicted on him by others. I saw genuine repentance in his eyes. I saw a heart that seems irreparably broken into pieces by a lifetime of living a life that he was not made to live.

It was a normal night with the prisoners, like the many I had experienced over the past four years. I spoke on Ezekiel 37, the same passage I preached from my last Sunday at Beulah. There are some things that God just sears into your head, never letting you forget. And from time to time, it becomes necessary to speak those same passages over others. As I talked about the grace of God, a God who does better than simply making us to be good people, but instead brings us from death to life and continually issues the charge for his people to prophesy to the ruah (breath, wind, spirit) and let the power of God bring the dead around us, the dead in us, to life again, I looked out, wondering if the words I believed were from the Holy Spirit held any weight or could hold meaning for anyone in the room.

And I caught one man’s eyes. He may have been in his mid thirties and had tattoos all over exposed skin. He looked lonely, quiet, and like he didn’t really feel comfortable. We broke up into groups and the man I locked eyes with came up to me and asked if he could speak to me away from the group. Hesitantly, as to not want to leave my partner alone, I went to the corner with him where he handed me a note card with prayer requests written all over it. In it, he talked about a lot of things that were going on in his life. The rest of the details were very personal and it’s not my place to share, but on it he wrote, “please pray for God to help me change into the man that he wants me to be.”

We talked for maybe 20 minutes and he began to cry. He kept saying it felt stupid to cry, and I encouraged him to do whatever he needed to do. The Spirit then prompted me to intercede for him out loud, so I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for Jesus to overcome him with need. Need for him, daily, purposefully, an ever consistent longing for the presence of God that will break the chains of addiction, depression, and the need to be self-sufficient.

We were not made to do life alone. And from the college campus on which I currently reside to a homely old prison chapel made of cinderblock walls and pews creak and groan when you sit on them, God has a funny way of placing people in our path that need his mercy.

I need his mercy, every day of my life.

And this man, who told me that he didn’t believe he could even construct a pure thought if he tried, was so overcome with his need for a Savior that I looked at him and smiled. From somewhere deep in my soul, I smiled and told him that maybe the purest thought we could ever have is in our need for God. We spoke about a lot of things last night, and he pretty much spilled his whole life story to me in the span of a few minutes and I was reminded of why Prison Fellowship has been such a huge learning experience for me.

I let him know that, though I’d never struggled with some of the things he has dealt with, I know what it feels like to feel so incredibly lost that the only words you can speak to God are “help me.” I understand that most days I value myself and my desires above my desire for Christ. I know what it feels like to be addicted, lonely, and afraid. But that he is not alone.

That Jesus Christ is the only desirable thing in me, and the sole objective of our lives is to make him the sole desire of our hearts.

He told me he missed feeling the Spirit on him, and I told him that I do too.

He told me he wanted to become the man God wants him to be, and I told him that I do too.

And as he spoke, I saw the spark of desire in his eyes and knew that he was so close to seeing what I strive (and many times fail) to see every single day.

God wants a broken heart, a contrite spirit, he wants us to be men and women that are primarily concerned with desiring him more fully. He is not content with half-hearted devotion, but instead wants everything from us.

A decision to follow Christ is not about the perks you can amass, it’s about finding your greatest treasure buried in a field and selling everything to buy the field so you can have the only thing that consumes your heart. It’s about coming to end of yourself in a jail cell and realizing your need to be saved. It’s about sitting across from a self-proclaimed loner/addict/criminal and seeing his desire for Christ and reminding yourself that he and you aren’t so different. It’s about growing up in a Christian home with loving parents and being so consumed with doing the right thing that you lose your way and become a slave to legalism and secret sins that rip your soul to shreds and coming to the end of yourself in a college dorm room your freshman year and realizing your need for Christ and knowing that you are nothing without him.

If those guys at prison and I have anything in common, it’s that we are united in our inability to save ourselves.

Humanity’s common denominator is its collective brokenness.

May Christ raise us up to be men and women who seek him, who desire him above every worthless thing and every worthless lie we have believed.

I pray that for me, that I could be the man that God wants me to be.

And I pray that for my brothers who have lived a life they weren’t meant for, that God would call each and every one of them to repentance and into a relationship with Jesus.

I’ve heard so many people talk about “jailhouse religion” and it frustrates me to no end. That may be true for some, but to doubt that God meets us at the end of ourselves and brings the dead to life in Jesus is to doubt that he is who he says he is. And, like I told my new friend, I don’t presume to know your life, to understand the depths of who you are, and I in no way mean to belittle the struggle that is this life, but God loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his son to die for you so you would be set free. Acceptance of this doesn’t make life easier, but it makes it better. It bends it toward purpose and makes you into the man or woman God desires for you to be as you desire him more and more every day.

I will keep my new friend’s note card. And I will pray for him daily, that God would undo the shackles he has placed on himself, and that at the end of the day, the desperation he feels would point him to Jesus, and if the only cry he can muster is “help” that God would honor that and draw him to himself. That his desire for Christ would overwhelm every vain thing that tries to take its place in his heart.

“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.”-A.W. Tozer

An Open Letter To Anyone Who’s Ever Looked in a Mirror (or, Cages)

Rubber grates on wood, removing the blemishes left by empty words in grayscale. Renovate these empty tombs we’ve built  in our transgression, rewrite the words of obsession that escaped our lips, sang in unholy dissonance, resistance from the truth that we won’t get this (without a struggle, anyway.)

Rephrase. 

                          Replace.

                                                           Rearrange.

Hues, shades of grey without the high class/low class publication, obscuring vision and igniting our useless fascination with our humiliation. As the dim glow of the screen sucks you into its grasp and sends you writing like the bodies you watched so selfishly or as the green haze pacifies and emptiness that will only return in full force, reinforce, FULL SPEED AHEAD to the days when you already feel dead, haunted by memories of the accusation, detonation of a situation which you had no control over. Sacrificing purity because of memories of it stolen, claiming necessity because of “injuries.” Gone to the bottle too quickly, feigning the feeling of being sickly so you can sacrifice the gifts you’ve been given. Or what about the sadness that manifests as scars all over your wrist?  Summon an insolent wish, drink away the pain only to wake up feeling the full brunt of the helpless depravity you’re grasping for a way out of. Squandering your talents and punishing reality with your pipe dream, (and yes we can hear you scream) rewriting promises made in favor of a more self indulgent script while the choirs of old scream for you to get a grip. Those voices that never made sense, and did you expect them to?

Apathy is a crypt. 

But true carelessness is a myth.

If your words mean nothing, please don’t take the time to say them. If your memories are too painful, know its better not to fade them with so much smoke or (God forbid) any more coke. Put down the bottle, rip the cord out of the monitor and understand that you are better than all the lies that have been told to you, all the betrayal that’s been sold to you. If rage fills your bones, just understand that it won’t be long and those memories will be obscured by better ones. After all, if you claim to be sons and daughters of the risen king, there’s more than enough of a reason to sing, and I know these words sting but trust me. There is a King whose voice sends ripples through the stars! There is healing in his scars.

They say you smoke, click, drink, shake with anger and fear, to become the full expression of what humanity has to offer. Well, I’ve seen what humanity offers and I’m afraid to say that it just feeds you to a coffer, don’t listen to the scoffers but grasp hold of the life that glides in front of your eyes. If I’m bathed in bloodshed, reset, recoup and understand that the blood shed once on that battleground hill was the sacrifice to end it all.

Ugly dissonance, dancing the dance of death before an Audience of One. You’ve got the match, but I’ve got the trigger and the gun. Its you against me, us against them, grasping, pleading, begging for an end to this uselss, reckless sin. Denial is a curse, emptiness a consequence. Repent.

Dear God, erase everything we’ve done.

Dear God, erase everything I’ve done.

King Jesus, replace this same old song with a melody that shrieks redemption from the swirling skies of a sinner who’s finally learned his place before the feet of a holy God, a sinner who finally hears the voice of his King, saying “Good and faithful servant, come home.”

“Jesus, yo quiero que este mundo te conosca.“