Thou shouldst have but one ambition – to love Me and to be near Me. Let Me take care of all the rest. Let Me arrange the pattern of thy life. Let Me direct thy service, and it shall be not a service of dead works and self-effort, but an overflow of divine love. This is My Father’s work. I do not require and have not requested thy work. Nay, but ye become a hindrance when ye set about to work for Me thus. Set thy heart to be near Me. Live close to My heart. Look upon My face. I will satisfy thee completely. I will keep thee from anxiety. I will heal all thy diseases. I will cause My face to shine upon thee, and thou shalt be glad.
Now, isn’t that just the best news you could hear all day?
If you’ve followed my blog for the past several years, you know I have referenced Shepherd chapels before. Then, it was the endearing love of a mother for her newly and severely disabled son. Go ahead and read that account. It’s definitely tissue-worthy.
What a mother. A certifiable hero.
Today I was doing a bit of spying again from the back row during chapel and set my sights on a wife and her disabled husband a couple of seats in front of me. Again the homily from an over-trained but well-intentioned chaplain was dry and unaffecting, failing to connect with the core needs of the audience. But never fear, the real sermons happen all around you at a Shepherd chapel. That’s where the scenes and sounds of glory take place. So it pays to sit on the back row sometimes.
But for the record, and as a pastor, I wouldn’t encourage it.
This afternoon’s message came from the pair in the photo. Danny, like the son in the aforementioned story, is a quadriplegic. He cannot move his arms. He would have to be assisted just to give his wife a hug and, even then, would not feel the warmth of her body.
I don’t yet know Danny’s story but I know enough that he was able-bodied when he got married to this woman, and now he moves his chair by blowing into a straw. I wish you could see this marvelous woman love on her man, checking every few seconds to see if there’s anything he needs, jumping up to wipe the spittle from the corner of his mouth, smiling at him just to assure him that he is still the man she married, albeit diminished, and would marry him all over again.
That is truly heroic if you ask me.
I am sniveling as I think of the Sandy’s and Mrs. Danny’s and the mommy’s who rarely get the attention they deserve. We are the victims of fortunately unfortunate circumstances and they are the angels, the saviors, the heroes.
Check out the body language of this wife who, I’ve no doubt, will grow old with her husband through sickness and health. Take careful note that she is seated on a white folding chair, but occupies only half of it—the half closest to Danny. She wants to be as near to him as the space between a wooden chair and a wheelchair will allow. It’s like they were teenagers in love in a movie theater. This is intimacy. Have your Hollywood sex all you want.
I remain transfixed by the love story unfolding before me. Sure there will be new adjustments and—yes—those dratted, humiliating physical limitations, but I applaud this heroic woman for rolling with the punches and braving whatever lies ahead.
I know about heroes. I live with one. If you want to read about Sandy and our amazing love story, scroll down the right margin of my blog to “Categories” and look for “Sandy” in the drop-down menu. Our story is well documented and you’ll get the picture. It’ll make you mist over too.
So…hat tips to the families, the wives, the moms and dads…of all who suffer…
…oh, and to the Emily’s (whose athletic sixteen year old brother became a quad a few months ago and ministers to him as tenderly as if she were his own mother).
From where I sit? You guys are the true heroes. Bless you.
“Beloved, now it does not appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him face to face.” 1 John 3:2
“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!” 1 Corinthians 13:12, The Message
We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature…is still soaked with the sense of exile. –JRR Tolkien
The Father is longing for the day in which He can present to His Son, and to the earth, the one who “made herself ready” for His return. –David Sliker
Twenty-eight years ago–today–a passel of bridesmaids and groomsmen joined the minister and prospective bride and groom–‘the Sange’ and me–for the rehearsal of our wedding. It was August and it was hot. Even the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwaterians called it hot.
Vows were already written and in the hopper, the gown was hanging ready, tuxes were rented and the accoutrements of the next day’s celebration were gradually taking their place throughout the church. Amid the overbalance of familiar was a sprinkling here and there of transcendence. As the hours grew closer to the unveiling, however, the balance of common and sacred would shift. Dramatically.
Shortly before midnight Sandy and I parted ways: she to her house, me to my hotel. It wasn’t lost on me that the next time I saw her, she would take my name and I would take her home.
In the tension of “yes, but not quite yet” we ran the gamut of emotions in those in- between hours of preparation and realization, consecration before consummation, fine-tuning until finality…one moment we were walking on sunshine, the next walking in the quicksand of time stand still. Waiting. Doubting. Wondering. This is for life, sport. Am I really ready to commit to this? How could I even dare form the question? How many hours yet? Anticipating. Waiting. Then: watching as her face floats up and docks with my conscious thought: ah, yes, she is the one who causes my heart to race!
Until a few minutes after six on August 20, 1983, I had a pretty good idea about Sandy. I had memorized her face–from the gorgeous mole above her left cheekbone to the ‘talent specks’ in her hazel/green eyes. I knew she had a slight discoloration in one of her front teeth from a childhood mishap and a cute, subtle worry line between her eyebrows. I knew the shape and color of her lips that needed no artificial coloring. Yeah, I pretty much had her down.
Yet, all I had in the “yes, but not quite yet” was a blurry familiarity of my girl. It was stick-figure reality compared to the 3-D HD image I would soak in a few hours later. Even still, in my dusky twilight timescape, the image in my mind was Rembrandt in quality. Up until “then”.
And I was in love. Boy howdy, was I in love! I didn’t need any more evidence to convince me I had made the right choice. Or so I thought.
I was pretty composed until the doors of the lobby popped open and a bedazzling white surprise came into view. Suddenly, everything else faded away and I had tunnel vision as I watched this one I thought I had a handle on, move toward me. The most beautiful vision in the room, and she was making her way to me! The transitions from friends to modest lovers and now matrimoniously one was completed. For good. Why would she come to me?
Because nine months earlier I said (not word-for-word translation): “Here’s a crazy thought. Marry me. I promise to love you—and only you—always.” Somewhere in that goofy proposal, for better for worse for life, Sandy could not imagine another life. Thankfully.
Can you imagine “that” Day? The Eternal Day? When all our strifes, burdens, cares, failures, wins, blessings, hardships, doubts, waverings, repentings, struggles, following, pursuing, obedience, disobedience, falling, rising, trusting, warring, defending, sighing, crying and rejoicing—everything we knew of this life and all that was necessary to prepare us for the next—will have run its full course and we will be clothed with immortality. And why? Because, through it all, we believed what He said: “Follow Me, and I will make you…”
Follow Me. Through this narrow gate. Down this narrow road. It’s taking us Somewhere…you will never believe what’s ahead.
Thought you might be encouraged with a fresh voice today that echoes my own. Or vice versa. Well, anyway, we both are echoes of the True Voice. Today’s Hat Tip goes to Kurt Willems, a pastor who calls himself a “lower-case evangelical, fairly charismatic and sometimes contemplative.” He says he’s “done living like a Christian.” Me too.
Something happened last week. I went on a retreat with an amazing spiritual director / teacher named Jan Johnson. By the end of our time together I realized that I’m done with living like a Christian.
I’m done serving the poor.
I’m done going the extra mile.
I’m done being a husband who strives to love his wife as Christ loves the church.
I’m done visiting the sick.
I’m done opening up my life to Christian community.
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. (David, Psalm 139:5)
We are distressed/hard-pressed/troubled/squeezed on every side… (Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8)
Nobody puts ‘Baby’ in a corner.
(Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing)
I’m feeling ‘hemmed in’ these days. Diminished. Limited. Grounded, like a teenager: no keys, no car, no friends. Just school, then home.
On top of that, I feel cornered. Outnumbered.
It’s redolent of a scene in Thor where the Viking hero and his compatriots infiltrate the Frost Giant’s lair and are met by a relentless enemy in wave after wave, each giant becoming more formidable than the last and more numerous than before.
Yeah, that captures it nicely.
On every front a vexing battle is being waged and it seems like I am losing ground.
Ministry.
Family.
Finances.
Friends.
Health.
Some fronts are more like skirmishes while others border on “Shock and Awe.” These days I look like the Arizona border, Iraq (in March, 2003) and Afghanistan all rolled into one. Continue reading »
What you see right now is not exactly what you’ll see 30 days from now.
They say your skin sheds and regenerates every month. Off with the old, and papa’s got a brand new bag! If you’re keeping score at home, that’s about 3 billion skin cells that wave a white flag each and every day. Why does this happen? Glad you asked. Your skin, the largest organ of your body, is also the first line of defense against the body’s enemies: dehydration, infection, injuries, air quality, and temperature extremes. Gotta keep it pristine. Durable. Resilient.
Oh, and your skin constitutes about 20% of your full body’s weight, so, technically, you lose a fifth of your mass each and every month. Before you reward yourself with that extra scoop of rocky road, remember you also put it right back on.
Sorry.
Followers of Jesus also shed and regenerate every day. I like to read Watchman Nee and Oswald Chambers and Paul because they inform me that life in the Spirit is about subtraction. The crucified self. I also thumb through Guyon and Spurgeon and Paul because they bring out the renewing power of Christ in me. So I thought I might sate your palate with a menu that is rich in vitamins and minerals to get us ready for what awaits outside that door in the mean streets of life today. Continue reading »
Dare I ask You to show Thyself? I want to, but only men who camp by the burning bush and turn aside from their pursuits will be drawn into Your glory and behold the consuming fire. Only men who extract, better: subtract themselves, and downright disappear, having left the camp behind, venture up the mountain of holiness, and vanish through the smoke, will touch the scepter. It is a fearful thing…
…and yet…lest I forget…
…there is the Accessible Man, Christ Jesus, full of grace and glory, the Son of Man (the last Adam, hooray!) and He has shown Himself to me. I leave the burning bush for a moment and am transported to a beach where a Man sits on a seashore cooking breakfast. He. Just. Sits. There. Food is sizzling and aroma is rising, and He waits for company. An earlier time, this Same Man swings in alongside a funeral procession and catches up to the casket. Another occasion, this Highly Accessible and Available Man pats his leg and a child jumps up into His lap and bounces, or plays with His fingers, or whatever. Remarkable. Continue reading »
May You, O God, shepherd me to Your private pastures, with cooling waters and fresh, vital springs…draw me into Your Life and introduce me to the reality of practicing Your presence. I ask for Your baptism to flow down over me and drown me in grace. I know well that there is “more” and I aim to go after it. As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, I want my soul to pant after You. Not just words, here, but heart and passion and desire. Rush to me, O God. Call me away. My spirit accepts the invitation to Rise Up and Come Away!
Lord, show me the deepest things, the deepest parts of You. Take me there and may the five sanctified senses in me experience You to the fullest. I yearn to hunger for Your Word again! To meet with You in the closet at our daily appointed time where we can embrace and linger in the air of closeness.
Take me higher! Make my feet as hinds’ feet and walk me upon the craggy heights! Take me from the congregation and draw me to the pinnacle of Your desire for me. All that You have for me is my desire. You are most glorified when I am most satisfied in You and I want and wish to glorify You. May this life hold no attraction for me; I pull from it even if its talons hold on for dear life and rip me apart. May the claim of my life become: “the world is crucified to me and I to the world!”
Put a holy dissatisfaction in me for the things of this world. I do not desire its accolades and acceptance but Yours alone. This is the cry of my spirit! My soul follows far behind at times and has for a long time, but I cannot go on in complacency and indifference. Stir me, Lord. Stir my heart for the things that matter to You and may the crevasse that I have allowed to come between us be bridged by Your gracious invitation to come along and follow hard on Your heels.
I pray for a heart of integrity, hands of skill, a voice of impact, the eyes of Elisha, the baptism of the Spirit and the tongue of the learned. For an inoffensible spirit, unconditional love and the fear of God and not man.
While the Hebrew word is difficult to translate, most believe it is a musical term that means “pause” or “interlude.” I’ve also read that it could be a worship leader’s direction to change the tempo. For instance, to have the instruments and singers s l o w d o w n, or, in some cases, pick up the cadence. If you dig even deeper, you find the word is also understood to encourage reflection. Like the applause sign in a live studio’s taping session, some suppose it signals to the listener “there is something hidden here; do not miss it…listen very carefully…”
Oh, and a really neat tidbit about “selah” is that it is used in thirty-nine of the Psalms, which is, as you well know, equal to the number of books in the Old Testament. And what is the Old Testament? It is the history of the people of Israel that is written down for our benefit and teaching. You’ll find that hidden little gem of a truth in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.
Twice.
Look it up.
The point I am making is that we have been called to a “selah” life. Sometimes we pause. Sometimes we pick up the pace. At times we rest overnight. At other times, we park at the foot of the mountain for a year or so. We sing (“alamoth” at the beginning of Psalm 46 is thought to indicate a choir solo for all the sopranos), we dance, we bow, we kneel. When our Director tells us, we pack up our tents and get a move on. And when He tells us otherwise, we make camp and get our groove on. There is marching and there is standing still. He speaks and we listen or He is silent and we wait.
Right about now some of you are moving into an “aha!” moment. You’re thinking, This is starting to sound like hearing and following the Voice of God and you would be right. Life is way too harsh and unforgiving to attempt on our own. Three million (or more) people moving as one through the desert can get noisy and distracting, so you can see how weekly sabbaths and daily selahs can turn a march into a journey. Likewise, as you and I journey through life, we must be constantly attuned to those inner prickings and promptings from the Holy Spirit:
“Make camp here for awhile. I have something I want to teach you.”
“There is an enemy afoot. Be on guard.”
“Turn here.”
“You need to let go of that. It will be a snare. Give it to Me.”
“You need to spend some time today with her. I will give you words that will encourage her.”
“Wake up. There is much to do.”
The “selah” life is the Spirit-led life. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons and daughters of God,” the Apostle Paul says. As we pass through this wilderness on the way to Promise, every step walked in faith is a lyric to the Almighty. Every mile is a stanza of praise. Two or three walking together is a church hymn. Tribes and nations journeying as one is a cantata that the angels want to add to their repertoire. As for me, I cannot wait until the grand finale: the Hallelujah chorus!
Selah.
7O God, when You went forth before Your people,
When You marched through the wilderness, Selah. 8The earth quaked;
The heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God;
Sinai itself quaked at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
Psalm 68:7,8
Should we not be pining for a holy wind to stir the flames of passion within?
Is love abated?
Are the embers turning to ash?
He has charged us to buy gold, refined in the fire. What could this possibly mean? Remember, the Laodiceans boasted of their riches and self-sufficiency (Rev. 3:17). They arrogantly strutted atop the pedestal of prosperity, deceived by the wealth they rolled around in, seeing it as God’s favor all the while pushing Him to the outer margins of their existence. They blindly played at religion and made a good living at it.
Their All-Knowing Judge saw it differently:
“You stink with poverty.”
“Your Sunday best cannot hide your indulgences and adulteries.”
“You no longer look to Me and I have removed light from your eyes.”
“You’ve turned sour in My stomach.”
But there was grace even for them. Yeshua called them to seek—to ask for, to eagerly want!—a crisis in their fellowship. Such crisis as would lead to purity, transformation and a baptism of renewed Love! He said, “I counsel you to BUY FROM ME gold, refined by fire…” The word translated ‘counsel’ means to partner with, agree with…to come to the same conclusion! He’s telling them, in essence, There’s no other way…
But to trust and obey.
“Buy from Me?” Just how was that possible? He had just told them they were POOR. With what currency could this transaction be completed?
You must let Me place you in the furnace.
No God, anything but that! we say.
It’s the only way, Child.
You will never learn to Love Me until all of self is abandoned. Until then, there will always be an obtrusive challenger for My affections…
Now…
This is going to hurt…
But I love you too much to let you go away. Remember My promise to never leave you?
It’s still binding, even in this horrible, beautiful place.
I know the flames scare you. But those very flames are your freedom.
It happened on a beach one day. A Man was feeding some others with grilled fish that had been ‘imported’. He had no fishing pole, no boat, no net. The fish…just…appeared. The men who gathered at the Man’s fire were experienced fishermen and had just hit the mother lode that morning and were dragging in their nets bulging with the greatest catch of their lives. But the story wasn’t about their fish so much as it was the Man who was offering them fish from out of the blue. And not sea-blue, either.
Really, the story is about the Man.
And what He is after.
By now all Bible-o-philes know I’m talking about the Man Jesus. He has finished His work as the atoning sacrifice, the Lamb offered for the sin of the world and days have passed since Resurrection Morning. And now, in glorified Body He sits on the beach, grilling fish, serving His Eleven (even Jesus had people leave His church) and eating with them. You’d think that would be the bulk of the breakfast conversation along with fish out of nowhere but it wasn’t.
There on the lakeshore in the misty morning, Jesus trolls for an Undivided Heart through which He can show Himself strong. He calls out Peter and asks, “Simon (his natural birth name), do you love Me?” Of course the rest of the question includes “more than these” and there are as many interpretations of “these” out there as there are denominations, but I just want to sit on these first five words.
I saw three things about that question this morning. First, Jesus reveals something beautiful about Himself through the question. He reveals that He is very interested in BEING LOVED. Secondly, not only does He want to be loved, He wants that love CONFESSED.
Think of your girl (or your man, as the case may be): when your heart went thump-thump-thump, your hands turned sweaty and your stomach turned cartwheels for her, how private was it? Could you keep it to yourself? Maybe you didn’t announce it to the whole school or even your parents, but you told someone. And dollars to donuts, I’ll bet you declared your undying love to that confidante for her. And when it became official? When she got your ring or letter jacket or jersey? Oh, by then the whole dang school knew! Right?
In other words, you don’t have to be told to spread the news. It’s a strange thing about Jesus, though. We seem to stifle our passion, zip our lips, avert eyes and avoid any conversation that might steer “there”—away from church, that is. I know of some men who take their wedding bands off when they are business travelling. I’ve seen a wife or husband swat their partner’s hand away or fend off an advancing kiss because people were (gasp!) watching.
And then I’ve seen couples doing mouth-to-mouth on each other in a mall, completely oblivious to the passing world around them. Now that’s confessing!
But there’s a third thing I saw from Jesus’ query. Jesus also wants this love to be UNCOMMON. And here I’ll talk about the “problem with ya.”
I have yearbooks where, say, my girlfriend writes a paragraph over her class photo or flyleaf about how much fun I’ve been, how great it is to know me, I’m so sweet, all that hoo-hah. Then she signs off with a “Love Ya!” I started looking over all the other autographs and end-of-an-era fare-thee-wells and was shocked to find that all the other girls who were my friends had also signed off. The. Exact. Same. Way.
When it hit me, I realized my girlfriend may have just as well said, “Sincerely yours” or even “Warmly”—or worse: “Have a great life without me!” I know, I know ”love ya!” is fun. It’s sassy. But my juvenile stirrings wanted more than just being her special pal. The ‘ya’ made our relationship seem common, less special. I knew it then: I was in her ’friend zone’, her insufferable stable of chums.
The Man Christ Jesus is calling His Bride out of the earth, illustrated by His calling out Simon Peter on that Spring morning.
He wants her love.
He wants her to confess their love openly.
And He wants it to be uncommon.
(Read: Agape)
“More than these?” (What? More than the other guys? More than the caught fish? More than the ‘uncaught’ fish? More than the nets? Who knows? It doesn’t matter. What matters is: “_________________ (put own name here), do you love Me?”)
It is hard to confess that too often my love letters to Jesus are friendly. Warm. Sometimes (dare I say it?) polite. Oh Lord, for a fiery heart, a flame-engulfed passion, a raging, out-of-(self) control molten River of Undying Love for the Son. May liquid-hot magma overflow the banks of my heart and consume everything in its path that the Glory of the Son might be revealed in me. God, deliver me from a ”Love Ya” heart!
And Sandy, my bride on this earth, who daily demonstrates in my personal world what God is doing on a global scale, this marital mini-series of where God is taking all of us, I cannot believe this will be the 28th straight Valentine’s Day we will celebrate together. I’m so happy the LORD has given you to me to love in this lifetime. I’m so glad the ya’s don’t enter into our life’s conversation. (Too often)
Your Life and introduce me to the reality of practicing Your presence. I ask for Your baptism to flow down over me and drown me in grace. I know well that there is “more” and I aim to go after it. As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, I want my soul to pant after You. Not just words, here, but heart and passion and desire. Rush to me, O God. Call me away. My spirit accepts the invitation to Rise Up and Come Away!
Dare we not fall upon our faces right now? Confessing, Repenting, Mourning, and Getting off the Throne?
