on you mark, get set, go, no wait, wait, wait, waiting.....

I want to be honest with God which just makes sense.

Sometimes when I read the letters from Paul to the churches I get caught up in the immediacy of them. The first letter to the church in Corinth is a fine example.
If you are  virgin, don't get married because of the situation, and if you are married don't leave, and in all of it don't get caught up in your marriage.

It reads like "cancel date night".

Now for the honesty....that was  really long time ago.
And I am waiting...and sometimes doubt creeps in.

Now folks throw verses around like 2 Peter 3:8...with God a day is like a thousand years..
but if I am honest (good idea, remember) it doesn't help some days.

Sometimes God's word is just really hard to deal with.
This is when I look past the word of God to the God of the Word.

Jesus was resurrected and showed himself to others and this is documented by other historians outside the Bible. Those who testified to it were killed for it and did not deny it. Those who saw him alive did not recant.

This, as much sense as it does not make (life from death) makes sense.
Guess God knew it was hard to believe, so he he showed us...

If God had a smell

He will shield you with his wings! They will shelter you. His faithful promises are your armor. 

 I have known fear in my life. 

I have known loneliness too,

and a hefty dose of uncertainty.. .

and all to the measure of late-night-numb-face-can't-pray-levels.

I have cried uncle, or rather screamed it.

I would love to tell you that at these times I heard an audible voice from God...I haven't so much. 

But I have truths and promises hidden, and friends who will sit with me. 

God told me that in times like this he wraps me up in his feathers. 

I know what this smells like. I used to have a adopted parrot who had 11 owners and was a chronic feather plucker. I would hold him close to my face and feel his warmth.

He smells like new feathers to me. 

He also smells like wine...

when i needed it most in my life God gave me a gift;

the smell of wine overcomes me at church...no matter where I sit. 

So to me, He smells like feathers and wine

which is the best way express love.... adoption and sacrifice

the most beautiful word in the whole world?

I was stuck on watching "Super Nanny"for a while and I have no idea why. I guess it was the accent. British folks just know more than we do...

Anyway she had this thing called "the naughty spot", a physical dot she would place on the floor and tell kids to sit on it. It was like a movable penalty box. I guess it was a more PC than a chair in the corner and a dunce cap.

Most of the world has a hard time with correction and disciple. We feel like this guy with a "stupid" sign over our head.

It's no different in church in that it must discipline and correct...except perhaps that church folks often really do put signs over our heads when we fail.

But it's important to note that God still does judge and hold us accountable and tells the church to do the same. We just don't hold the sign up.

Super Nanny would say it's like the list of "family rules". Certain rules apply to our family. This is Torah...what we do. So if in our family folks are living lives that are not in line with the family rules, we are to remove them from church. Honest. God made the family rules, and if folks don't change, then the naughty spot is outside the church. But there is  a method that must be followed;

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, 

you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. 

And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.

Galatians 6:8

The goal of God's disciple, and yes, even anger at times is not to make us cry "Uncle!" but "sorry".

The bible uses a lovely word for this. It is the most beautiful world in all creation. 

It says:

i love you

come back

i forgive you

i will hold no list of wrongs

The word?

Repent.  

we are called to help those in our family...

 

When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. 

I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.

 

It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”

1 Corinthians 5:9-13

change your life in 30 days!

Would you like to change your life? Pray this prayer and meditate on it each day for a month. Trust me, it's not a magical thing, it will train your heart to put things in proper order. 
Almighty God,
         Father of all mercies,

we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
     for all your goodness
     and loving-kindness
     to us and to all whom you have made.

We bless you for
      our creation,
      preservation,
      and all the blessings of this life;

but above all 
           for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
                      for the means of grace,
                            and for the hope of glory.

And,
       we pray,
             give us
                 such an awareness of your mercies,
                 that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
                 not only with our lips,
                 but in our lives,
                 by giving up our selves to your service,
                  and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.

my personal testimony; i am dumber than dirt

I didn't graduate high school.

There were three (3) people in my class with a GPA lower than me.

After summer school I was given my diploma and accepted to a summer program at a college.

One month into my time there I almost died from blood-alcohol poisoning. When I came to in the ER all wired and tubed up the doctor said "congratulations. I wish I could have video taped you. You should be dead."

I was dismissed from that school twice, and finally left because of "poor performance" but not before one of my friends was killed while a bunch of them drove home drunk from a bar.

I attended a community college and applied to another school one year later.

I was on academic probation three times at that school. I was about to be dismissed when, by God's grace (whom I blasphemed daily), I was enrolled in a study course. I lost the one thing that kept God from working in my life;

My pride.

My GPA rose from a 0.67 (point-six-seven) to a  3.25 (three-point-two-five). I graduated from that school on the Deans' list, but not after I picked coffee for the Sandinistas' during the contra war, became a rabid surfer and rock climber, made many protest marches at the UN, the Capital, and the White House.

There I lost a friend to a drug overdose. I stopped that lifestyle.

I graduated with a degree in Political Science/History and roamed until two years later I found myself in Fort Collins, Co. house-sitting for a friend while he went back East to get married. I was climbing with the folks I was reading about in magazines. Big, crazy stuff...

Then one day something (I would later learn His name) crept into me. I sat down on a rock beside the cliff up the Poudre River in Fort Collins, CO and said "god, you know I don't believe in you, but if you are real, please show me. I've had enough. Help me."

And I experienced one of those "blinding-light" things folks talk about. I was bathed in a gold light I could feel more than see.

The next day I bailed. My car was already packed (at that time I was living in it), and drove home non-stop.

I went through a carton of Marlboro's, my brakes went in Ohio, my 5th gear disappeared somewhere  by the Gateway Arch in MO. When I pulled in the driveway 39 hours later my dad's face was like "what are you doing here?"

To make a long, beautiful story a bit shorter:
I was married-divorced-married (YEAH!)-went to seminary-buried my first son at childbirth-graduated-blessed my a daughter-deposed-blessed my a daughter-ordained in Tanzania-worked in America as missionary-helped start a church-woke up today-read the passage below-wrote this.

Why?
I want to encourage you all who are like me who are told you are dumber that dirt by world standards, that you are the apple of the eye of the God who crafted the universe with a whisper, and to remind you that Christ, His one and only Son, values you above all else, even to the point of death.

may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. 

May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, 

every good thing that is pleasing to him. 

All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. (Hebrews 13:21)

You are beautiful. I am beautiful.
...oh, and I think it's pretty sweet that one day God introduced me to the lead geologist of the richest mine in East Africa and had us sit down in the Gold Lounge in the Dubai Airport and talk about Jesus over Hagen-Das and espresso.

"The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, 

“If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

                                                                        1 Corinthians 1:21-30

cry me a river

You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn
    through the sleepless nights,
Each tear entered in your ledger,
    each ache written in your book.
     Psalm 56:8 

We cry.
We cry over broken relationships.
We cry over lost loved ones.
We cry over tragic situations we cannot change.
Do we cry with God?
Not cry out to God, but do we cry with God.

Why would we do such a thing? 

...because our hearts have be exchanged for his heart. 

God puts a new heart in those who come to him, really come to him. 

God consumes them from the inside out. 

When we realize that there was a beautiful exchange of Christ for us we are undone. 

It's easy to spot the person who has seen God face-to-face. 

They have puffy circles under their eyes some days. 

Their beds at times are not slept in. 

There is a dull ache in them that cannot be soothed by anything except by the presence of God.

God, eat me like a fig!

The deacon at our church grew up in Cyprus. He is constantly telling me stories about life there. I love them because they are about village life: honest, open, raw.

We were talking about figs one day
"You know Father Bryan the figs in Cyprus are just the best! But you have to check them before you eat them, not so for the ones that come to America, they spray them. You need to cut them open closely and look at the little white dots. My mother's eyes were no good for this so it was my job to do it. If you see the little white dot move, it was a worm and you threw it away. It could not be eaten."

This is how God examines us too. He looks at the inside, not the pretty outside

“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
    a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
    and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
    I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
    not as they pretend to be.”

                                                         Jeremiah 17:9-10     

                      

God uses the Holy Spirit to examine our hearts. He looks for worms and of course they are full of them deep-down in side. That's because we are human...and even if we are truly abandoned to God, our heart's will never be worm-free until Christ comes and claims us, or he returns.

God does not simply rid us of all our worms and eat our hearts in one big bite. Oh how I wish he would.
We need to offer it to him for checking, and the only way we will ever do that is to look into ourselves and compare our hearts to His.

When we do this two things become apparent:
His heart is lovely.
Ours is not.

God knows are hearts are like this but he does not see them as they are, but as they will be!
Clean, whole, restored, perfect...

 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. 

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart 

and give you a tender, responsive heart.

  

Then we can love and praise him as we should...

But we need to ask him to do this from the inside out, not the outside in. 

We need new hearts first, not just stop bad actions...

               

feast in the dirt

A) "The Bible is our instruction book!"
B) "The  Bible is God's love letter!"
C) "The Bible is the manual for life!"

or D)...the Bible is the history of a God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

 Yep, there are commands in Scripture.
God tells us to do and not due certain things.
Yep, it speaks of his love for us when He left the throne and was humiliated on our behalf.
Yep, it says "this is how to live life until I come to claim you.

But above, and in, and through it all...

The Bible is the record of God's faithfulness. 

I've been reading the First Book of Kings. It recalls the stories of a mighty prophet who ran away in fear all the time from people. Now, that may seem silly, but I find it comforting and in a good way.

If you read the bible according to A, B, or C, you will say;
 "look how God uses imperfect people like us!

If you read the Bible like D you will say;
 "look how Elijah is scared because he can't do it! See how God provides for him!"

Read the stories. It's about a God who feeds a man spiritually with his presence and physically with bread but more than that!

God reveals himself as above governments. 
God reveals himself as above wicked men who plot ruin.
God reveals himself as commanding birds and streams.
God reveals himself as controlling the wind and the rain.

To Him be all honor and praise and glory!
 

happy, shiney playdough people

The image is well-known and well-used:
We are clay, God is the potter, he does what he does we have no say...that's how it's preached.

Then people hem and haw and most often complain "oh it's not fun being mushed!"

...why this response?

Because we like what we make of ourselves, not what God does and this funny because the Bible says that we make a mess our ourselves and only God can make us beautiful!

"What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I’m separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure."

God tells us to cheerfully respond to his work in and through us. We are his for him to use for his glory. Be happy when things change! God is bringing you to a new place, to a new level of trust, to a new expression of him. 

Don't be afraid. 

He has good plans for you. Plans to bless you, not harm you. 

The NIV states in Philippians 2:12ff that we are called to work out our own salvation with "fear and trembling"...what God is getting at is that He saved us into a new life, come under his headship, and live out who he has made you to be...free, loved, redeemed, eternal people. 

To God be the Glory!
amen, and amen! 

Give it up, it won't kill you

Have you ever had nothing?
I mean nothing at all.
Not a dream, a hope, a plan?
Ever been desperate to the point of death?
If I don't have this I will die?

I mean desperate like making light from dark.
Life from death kind of desperate.



The Bible records in the first book of Kings chapter 17 a remarkable tale of just what kind of trust God asks of us...and proves he is good for it.

Elijah the prophet was sent on a rather unpopular mission to call a nation to repentance and announce a drought. No rain meant starvation and death...humiliation because God had turned his back. God told him he would be taken care of. He would drink from a nearly dry brook and the only food would be delivered to him by ravens. Elijah had to trust the water would hold and the birds would come.

He did and went
It did he drank
They did he ate.

Eventually the brook dried up and God provided another way even more ridiculous than a mud puddle and birds 

Elijah, I have a desperate woman who is near death. She has no one to care for her. All of her means are about to run out. Go to her and ask her to feed you.

He trusted and asked, she trusted and gave. God provided.

I ask you.
Will you have the same trust?
Will you take what God gives you?
It may be food from a mud puddle and scrapes from a birds mouth but if that is what he gives you will you take it in this life? Is God enough for you?

Elijah and the widow were both desperate and trusted and God provided.

You and I are in the same place of dependence, we just fool ourselves.
We are dependent upon God for food and water.
But even more so, we are dependent upon him for salvation. And just like he provided food for the prophet and widow and her son, he provides the impossible way for us.

Our life comes from trust, obedience and death. Not ours, but Christ's.

 [Jesus} Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Jesus gave all he had in trust and lived.
God asks the same of us.

I did, and went to God.
Jesus died in my stead and I live.
I gave up my life, and saved it.
...the option is there for all

God uses folks who are a little nuts

I was never a boy scout.
My dad somehow got involved with a program called "Indian Guides"instead. For a young boy it was pretty cool. We had fires, learned native dances, wore felt loin clothes over our blue jeans, and headbands with feathers and plastic bear claw necklaces.

My dad was the "Medicine Man" and even had a real buffalo head-headdress! He would run around the fires at big Pow-Wow's calling out to the winds and elements to send fire down. It always happened too...but as his kid I knew his elaborate system of trip wires and test-tubes or wires in trees. It was still cool, but all fake.

I can't find any information on the "tribe" we belonged to but the name sounded like "soo-key-og" which wasn't as cool as Mohawk or Appache.
We each chose our family name and since my parents had a massive Oak in the front yard  my dad claimed the name "Tall Oak", my older brother became "young oak" and I was "little Acorn."

Needless to say I was the brunt a a bit of harassment but it was always mitigated by the fact that my dad was the head pyro.

The cool thing now is that I understand God was setting me up.

The Book of Judges, chapter 6 tells of Israel's plight and the runt whom God chose to save his people so that they would never boast of their own power (Judges 7:2ff). This "tween-ager" was hiding in a wine press out of fear and God shows up and calls him out. "Greetings mighty warrior!" the angel declares and for the good fortune of God's people Gideon didn't believe it!

God does not need powerful men and woman. He is powerful. He uses the weak to shame the strong.

What God does use no they are insignificant yet are are faithful people who trust God's simple math;

Nothing + God + Everything
Everything - God = Nothing


God called down more than just Fire from the sky.
He called Jesus, and he brought the Fire of the Holy Spirit. No wires. No Tricks.

Are you hiding?
Re-check the work on your math folks.
Oh, and if you still get stumped. Check the back of the Book...