sideways

One of my favorite words is ‘snug’.

‘Snug’ makes you feel all tucked in as a down comforter beside a warm fire on a snowy night. It’s short for snuggle and who doesn’t like a good snuggle? Even the word feels cozy.

I remember our ritual of tucking our little Graham into bed at night, signing off with the words “sleep sweet in Jesus.” He usually never fell asleep until mom acquiesced and laid with him until he dozed off.

On those rare occasions we let him sleep with us he would position himself sideways, his head cradled in Sandy’s side and his piggies burrowed into mine. So long as he could feel both of us, Graham sailed into the ocean of dreamland all safe and sound. Our little bug all snug and warm.

As he grew, those rituals rightly tapered off and Graham needed our touch and reassurances less and less, but never completely.

He never ended a phone conversation or left our company without “love you” as his own ritual. Those glancing words were his way of still touching us both to make sure we were still there, still in his corner, still accessible. More so when he knew he had upset or disappointed us. Even still so when we had hurt him. His love yous were like his fingers thrumming on Sandy’s tummy or his feet kicking me in the night: I’m still here, are you there?

How we wish we had one more night of our little boy pointing east and west to our north and south and completing our universe.

His last night on earth Graham fell asleep all alone and never woke up. We weren’t there to play with his feet or tickle his tummy or tuck him in and, six years later, that still kills us.

A few hours after I found out Graham took another voyage to another place not immediately accessible to us, I tapped the breast of God with my outstretched hands and kicked at the door of heaven with my feet. I needed assurances. East and west, God, here I am… are you there?

More importantly, is Graham there?

I had dreamed* Graham was burning in hell and I could hear his screams. My heart was racing to know, is our Gra-Gra safe and sound with you, Lord? I don’t have the most acute or accurate memory to tell you how it happened, I can only tell you that it happened.

God said, “Go to my Word.”

I opened my Bible to Psalm 85 (didn’t know why) and read these words:

Psalms 85:2
You forgave the iniquity of your people;
you covered all their sin. Selah

I kept reading, and the more I read the more my heart felt reassured. I zipped through the rest of the short chapter, into the next, and on into chapter 87 where I read these words that sealed it for me. I knew it from my head to my toes: Graham is safe. He is snug. He is home. And I’ve never doubted it since.

Psalms 87:4-6
4 Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush—
“This one was born there,” they say.
5 And of Zion it shall be said,
“This one and that one were born in her”;
for the Most High himself will establish her.
6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.” Selah

Those nations included in God’s census? They were not only Gentile lands, they were rebel nations with checkered histories. And God made room for them in His Eternal Zion too.

My sister texted me this morning saying she knows how difficult this day is for us, but reminded us how much she loves us and how much she loved Graham. I thanked her for loving him with all his messes and goodnesses, that I didn’t understand how God’s grace works, but I sure am thankful for it.

Grace is for sideways people.

Jesus said he didn’t die for healthy people but those east-west souls whose lives are so crooked with sin they have no hope of ever finding True North.

We east-west people were put on an upright cross with Jesus (2 Timothy 2:11), were laid in the grave with Jesus (Romans 6:4), but when he was raised from the dead, he took us with him, pointed us North, and taught us how to walk upright. Straight up.

Graham is in that number. I know it because God said right there in the text, in so many words, “Graham is born in Zion. He’s a registered citizen. He’s mine. Satan, you can’t have him.”

“This one was born in Zion

Make no mistake,

this one is Mine

This one was born in Zion

This one will never,

this one will never,

This one will never die”**

Do you need some reassurance today? First you’ve got to be sideways. But then you’ve got to want to change your direction, and you’ve got to reach out and touch the only One who can make that happen.

You don’t earn it. You don’t luck into it. You certainly can’t hold onto someone else’s coattails and get in. Unless it’s Jesus, and you most definitely can do that because he’s made provision for it. It’s called faith.

In the end I know my son went to sleep sideways, touching Jesus, and woke up on top of the “Holy Mount” where “glorious things are spoken.” (Psa 87:1,3)

Selah,

and hallelujah!

___________________________________

* I know this wasn’t a “God–dream” because God does not manipulate his own by fear; this was either a construct of my own subconscious or a direct attack from the enemy

** Wayne Watson, “Born in Zion”, from album “Giants In The Land”, 1987

called to smaller places

“O, Theophilus…” Acts 1:1

I was recently in a conversation with a close friend and regular reader (and commenter) here, about how our respective ministry lives have shrunk down and how to make peace with that.

I remember telling my friend “I must rededicate myself every day to the prospect of making an eternal impact on a single individual if that’s all I’m called to do for that day or for the rest of my life.”

This is quite a turn of events for someone who has preached to audiences of mega-churches and statewide youth rallies and professional ball clubs and national conferences. It’s not a gig I would’ve signed up for 40 years ago, but here we are.

It isn’t that I don’t get opportunities here and there to mount the platform and proclaim the word. I’ve probably preached more in the last six months than I did in the previous 10 years. This, too, is a mercy of God. Just three days ago I sat in front of a packed house of highschoolers and laid myself bare with a message on brokenness. It was glorious. And (dare I say) fun. I say ‘fun’ because this is what I’m wired for and called to.

But this morning, my heart’s ‘check-engine’ light came on as I found myself settling in for a fresh rereading of Acts. No, it wasn’t an angry red flashing light but rather an amber light informing me I needed some routine maintenance; an oil change, if you will, to insure I’ll be fit for the next 3,000 miles.

So, yeah, the book of Acts….

….written by Dr. Luke, the eminent travel secretary and personal physician of Paul.

This one single man contributed to nearly HALF of the New Testament and that fact alone blows my mind.

Think of it: half your New Testament is the private correspondence between two people!

The good doctor never attained apostle-status as he was not an eyewitness of the Resurrected Lord, but he is always mentioned in the same breath as those who founded the Church, especially God’s choice apostle, Paul.

He may not have been at the tomb or touched the hands and side of Jesus, but he was in the front row of many of the most critical events and “greater things” of which Jesus told his followers they would participate.

Here’s what hit me, and why I want to share it with you today. I’m imagining that you might be reading this having memories of times when you were able to use your gifts more regularly and that they felt necessary, and appreciated, and beneficial to the Kingdom.

Today, or in this season, not so much. The luster is buffed out and you feel you may be a forgotten commodity and way past your prime. You can remember a time when your name came up in conversations and when stuff needed to get done, you were the go-to guy or gal. But now you’re rusting in a corner, feeling more of an afterthought or anachronism.

You are most definitely NOT.

I hope you hear this. If you can, understand you are in maintenance mode (from which you will be updated and glitch-free); in a holding pattern (from which you will most certainly land); in a winter of unseen, unfelt growth (out of which Spring will come again); God is not finished with you; he may just be redirecting you to where – and to whom – you will do HIM the most good.

Case in point….Luke.

What struck me about this amazing servant of Christ was a note I put next to the first verse. The verse reads:

Acts 1:1
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,

And this is what I wrote:

Luke wrote his two tomes for one man (“lover of God”), so it could be said that a greater portion of the NT was written to convince a single man of the nature and validity of the Gospel! Thus, Luke was one of the most ardent disciple-makers in the NT.

That’s what I call a ‘SINGLES’ ministry!

Most certainly, Luke routinely disconnected from his wider ministry alongside Paul to make sure there was a single man properly discipled from new birth to seasoned faith. There could have been literally scads of letters exchanged between the two over a long period of time. We just have these two preserved in canon.

Luke’s gospel was a primer for Theophilus to better understand the Christian faith, and his chronicles of Acts were a user’s manual Theo could carry about so as to discover for himself life in Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit.

I hope you’re as encouraged as I am! Being a physician by trade, Luke was more familiar with one-on-one ministry anyway, but as a skilled researcher and writer, it was necessary for him to accompany Paul and other early ministry teams in their travels. He saw the really cool stuff. He wrote about it all.

Thank God for the preserved record, the intimate details of Christ’s suffering sweat-drops of blood and the first-hand testimony from those who experienced Pentecost! Just remember, he did it ALL for a single individual.

**Dr. Luke made a huge difference in the one, and we are all the better because of it.**

In the past decade I’ve come to accept that I can do perhaps even more good off the platform, investing in the few. These days, a living room or a cozy corner in a coffee shop is my nave and I’m seeing the kingdom play out just fine in the lives of a handful rather than a crowd.

I recall the story of Jesus praying alone when Peter & Co. interrupted, informing him he was needed elsewhere. They wanted their Messiah to finish up (?!?) and giddyup and go. Bigger fish to fry, they told him. Jesus brushed that notion away and said something that goes against the grain of our American ‘event-driven-crowd-gathering-go-big-or-go-home’ ministry ideal.

Jesus told them he needed to go to the smaller places too. (Mark 1:37-38)

Theophilus was Luke’s “smaller place.”

Lydia was Paul’s “smaller place” (Acts 16:13-14) and from that encounter the Church at Philippi was birthed – one of the apostle’s most enthusiastic supporters.

The Ethiopian eunuch was Philip’s “smaller place” when he was uprooted from a big-tent revival in Samaria (Acts 8:26) and whiplashed into the desert.

A single person.

Big ministry.

Great reward.

Where is your smaller place? It may be that you are resisting going there because you feel (sorry not sorry) too gifted, too called to bigger things. You’re missing something quite beautiful right under your nose.

That lone eunuch evangelized an entire African kingdom.

Sometimes…big things come in small packages.

Edward Kimball paid a visit to a young man in his Sunday school class at his workplace and shared the love of Jesus with him. Young Dwight Moody got saved and became one of the eminent gospel evangelists of history. Through a line of converts spilling from Moody’s ministry came J. Wilbur Chapman, Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham, and Billy Graham. And it all goes back to a man with a burden for a single young man. Moody was Kimball’s “smaller place.”

Don’t let the earlier point mist away from view: we have the Gospel of Acts and the Chronicle of the Acts of the Early Church because Luke followed his Lord’s example and went to the “smaller places” too. Remember that the next time you hear a sermon from his gospel or read a devotional from his other letter.

It started when Luke got a burden for one person and decided to write him a couple letters. You don’t need a microphone or a following or a reputation. You just need a big, small heart, a single purpose, and maybe a pen.

Remind me to tell you about “Puavo Fivre”….

can i have your attention, please?

Luke 18 is all about being heard.

First, in Jesus’s signature story-form, we find a widow hanging on to her last thread of hope; unfortunately, her hope is found in a Gentile judge (not a picture of God, btw) who has little time for her. Nevertheless, through persistence, she at last gets a hearing and a judgment…in her favor.

We transition to a true-to-life episode that contrasts two worshipers at the Temple. One is in his customary pew, spouting off all the religious jargon of a prig (C.S. Lewis’s word), while the other won’t dare set a foot inside the narthex lest he be struck by lightning. One expects he will be heard (he is not), and the other only dreams of being heard (he is), at which we find he gets, not a day in court, but a seat at the table.

Next we see playful Jesus bouncing babies on his knee. The disciples lose their bleep and try to whisk the little hooligans off to their mothers. In no uncertain terms, the Lamb of God lets his men know they had best leave well enough alone. In fact, if they resist the bleatings and shovings of little lambs to be under the watchful eye of the Shepherd, they’d find themselves outside the pen.

Widows need justice.

Tax collectors need mercy.

Children need time.

All need Jesus.

And all just want the ear of the King.

As the chapter rolls out, nearing its end, a blind beggar is straining to be heard over the loud din of a gathered mob as the God-Man Jesus passes by. Blind “son of Timothy” (he’s so much an afterthought the poor fellow does not even warrant a name) is not seen and he is not heard – at first. Everyone around him tells the pathetic man to shush as the Holy Man cannot be bothered by someone who is so obviously a wretched sinner. He’s having none of it. The scripture tells us all the bluster just made him “call out even louder.” The man wanted to be heard.

I love the next two words that come next:

“Jesus stopped.” (Luke 18:40)

Let your ears rest on those words and dispel every other noise around you right now.

He stopped.

Earlier, God, as the father in the prodigal story, is seen running. Here, he stops in his tracks.

You have to remember Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on mission to do what he came to do. Earlier in this same gospel we learn Jesus “set himself to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and Isaiah adds color to this with his face being countenanced like “flint” – so hard and firm and resolute was his bent to go forward to Calvary.

He stopped his march,

his mission,

time,

everything.

In that sacred second all held their breath as Jesus turned his piercing gaze from the road ahead to the tragic figure on the fringe of the crowd. Those lyrical eyes looked past the religious, the zealous, the able-bodied, the excited, the would-be followers, all of the rabble, and found him.

The throng had no choice but to part like the Red Sea as the poor man was brought to the Healer. The exchange took all of forty-five seconds, maybe a minute.

After all, what’s a minute delay when there’s a chance to change a person’s life?

Pilate would wait for him.

Judas would have time enough to plan his dirty deed.

The High Priest could use the extra minute to consider his ways.

Barabbas would be cool with it, considering how his fate would turn.

But the Son of Timothy? This was his only shot, and he was going to be heard.

Something else I love about the story is that it sheds light on the earlier scripture about the widow and her repeated appeals to the “unrighteous judge.” If you wait a tick, you’ll find that Scripture interprets Scripture.

That passage you’re struggling to make light of, keep reading; the hidden will come to light. I have often puzzled over that story until one day I realized God is NOT the judge of that parable. Unfortunately, the caustic judge – to many – is exactly who God is to them: obstinate, uncaring, elusive, aloof, mean-spirited, vindictive. This is not the point of the parable, proven by this moment of mercy for the blind beggar on the road outside Jericho.

He called out more intensely on that roadside. He would be heard. He would not take NO for an answer. *That* is the point of the earlier parable. But rather than nagging, you just up the ante.

The key to being heard, to getting the attention of God, is not verbosity but intensity.

God is not listening for a casual, half-hearted, ritual, repetitive, obligatory prayer, but he will stop in his tracks for a cry from a wounded soul.

In 2009 I prayed again and again like a persistent widow for God to do something for me I couldn’t do for myself. Each and every prayer was important to God, and I know he heard, but was waiting to hear the shrill edge of my desperation. That came weeks later as I was “quiet-timing with God” in my van. I simply but straightforwardly said:

If you don’t, God, it won’t. I don’t want to live another day with this. Oh God, I don’t have the strength to ask for it again. I’m tired. I’m desperate. Please…

Do you ever get the inexplicable sense when something shifts in the atmosphere? That happened to me as soon as my prayer trailed off. I didn’t even want to add an amen. I just left it at the Healer’s feet and crawl into his lap. I called out one more time, and I was heard.

God stopped for me.

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard God audibly, but it came pretty close in the front cab of my van.

I’ve heard you, Scott. I will answer your prayer – you won’t like the way the way I do it, but you will give praise to me in the end. I am with you. Trust me, Scott…

It may not have been these words exactly, but you get the gist. I needn’t tell you that my cry was supernaturally, specifically, and spectacularly answered within a few very dark and grueling months. There were moments I felt abandoned and more than a few when I felt fearful of the outcome, but God won the day and my testimony stands as a ‘miktam’ (Psalm 16): archived in holy writ, penned in 24-carat gold. It is my story and I’m sticking to it.

What are you wanting God to stop and do for you? Sometimes the hardest part of ‘faithing’ is in the last half-hour, when it seems like God isn’t going to come through.

F. B. Meyer offers this counsel:

The lock of prayer sometimes turns hard, and calls for strength of purpose. The kingdom of heaven has to be taken by force. Let us pray so that our prayers may reverberate with repeated blows on the gates of God’s presence chamber.

“Repeated blows.”

Maybe, just maybe, the next blow that falls will stop God in his tracks and break the door down. Keep hammering away with your prayers, beloved. You’ll get his attention. I promise. I’ve got scripture and a testimony that proves it’s so.