Category: God stuff

I heard a question Friday night, and I’m still thinking about it. I was talking to my pastor, and he related part of a conversation he’d had with another pastor regarding ministry.

And the question was this:

“When was the last time you were inconvenienced for Jesus?”

I can’t think of a time when I’ve done something for someone, believer or otherwise, without first considering whether or not I had the time, or the money, or whether or not I liked the person who needed the favor.

I don’t think I’ve allowed myself to be inconvenienced for Jesus.

Why not?

Because even after all I’ve been through, and all the healing I’ve been blessed enough to receive, I’m still self-centered much of the time.

Because it’s all about me.

Not about Him, and not about serving in His name. It’s not about doing things sometimes just because they’re right things, and they need to be done.

It’s about what’s convenient to me, and about what I need.

I hope to have the chance to be inconvenienced again soon.

When was the last time you were inconvenienced for Jesus?

Jenny and I were talking to David on the way home after dinner Saturday night, and it occurred to me once again that I need to do a few things differently if I am to be an example to him of…anything, really. There are a ton of things a boy needs to know before he becomes a man. He will need to know how to treat a woman one day, and it’s my job to show him that. I can tell him all I want, but I also need to show him, and the way I do that is by loving his mother, and treating her (and honoring her) the way Jesus would.

He will need an example of how to be a believer in a fallen world, and it’s my job to show him that, too. He’ll need to know about handling struggle, and hardship, and blessings. If I am the leader of our family I hope to be, then these are all things he (and John) will be looking to me for answers about. And one of the more complex things I’ve been thinking about, and wondering how on earth to explain it to him, is what to do when we mess up. When we turn away from God, willfully. When we know what we should do, and do the exact opposite. It could be for lots of reasons. Maybe we feel we’re entitled to something because life has been a bitch, and we deserve _______. Or who knows why?

But we fall, and we sin, and one day we wonder what to do about it. We wonder if we can go back. We wonder if God will still listen to our entreaties.

I need to show my kids that we’re never so far from God that we can’t turn back toward Him. I need them to know that His love for us is so much greater than our mistakes. And silly as it sounds, I need them to know that I am not some perfect ideal of belief, of faith. I need them to know I’ve fallen, too. That I’ve been light years from God, and that even as far as I’ve been, when I turned back to Him, God was waiting for me.

Last night David and I were reading his bible, and we got to the parables in Luke. We read the parable of the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve read Luke, or the Lost Son Parable in particular. And it still gets me every time.

In David’s bible, the lost son is depicted as a despondent-looking young man in filthy robes, approaching his father with his head down. The father is depicted as smiling, happy, with his arms held wide open to his filthy

17“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 20So he got up and went to his father.
”But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…”

There are a few books in the bible I’ve read more than once. More that I’ve read several times—and many, unfortunately, that I haven’t read at all. But I keep coming back to Luke; especially, the parables found in Luke 15. I must have read Luke more than a dozen times in the past year. Particularly, the parable of the lost son.

Today, I remembered that I posted about it last year, and it occurred to me to go back and raid my own post. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been feeling like the lost son again of late—the lost son ready to return to my Father.

Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been wasting away my inheritance. Wasting it with my feeble prayer life and inconsistent discipleship. Wasting it with my poor example to David. Wasting it by not being the strong leader my family needs me to be.

And now, I’m ready to come back to my Father. So again, I turned to my old friend Luke. But maybe it isn’t just me. Who among those who believe has not done the same? Who hasn’t been the lost son? Who hasn’t taken generosity and love for granted? I think of all the times I’ve responded to God in a like manner. Maybe that’s the point, though. At least for me.

Personal conviction. And awareness that I need to repent anew.

Something always strikes me about that parable. Not so much the son’s apparent repentance–to me that smacked of forced contrition, not true remorse. He’s broke, and hungry, and has nowhere else to go. He’s just relating what he’s going to do, not baring his heart, or even seeking forgiveness. He came to his senses, it says, but that’s all. The son could have just been talking about finding a meal at that point.

He’d wasted away his inheritance. There was a famine. Why not return to the source of the inheritance, where the servants fared better than he was at the time?

Certainly, all those things are important. Yet what impacted me most was the father.

His grace toward the son.

The passage mentions that he sees his son when he was still a long way off, so he had to be outside looking for him. Scanning the horizon. Desperate to see his son return. I can see him standing there, shading his eyes with a hand.

Looking.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Not seeing.

Yet every day, looking.

It does not say how long he looked for his son. Only that:

”But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…”

It kind of makes you think about the shepherd looking for his ONE lost sheep, rather than writing it off because he still has 99. He will pursue the lost one, and he will be filled with Joy when he makes it back home with that one sheep across his shoulders.

That’s the same Joy God feels when we return to the fold.

How he felt when, like the prodigal, I came to my senses. When I stood, looking across the Colorado river with tears running down my face and holes in the knees of my jeans. Was it forced contrition with me? Perhaps in a sense it was. But God did not care how I came back to him—just that I returned.

He felt joy. And scripture also tells us that angels rejoice.

But look again at the father’s reaction upon seeing his son.

“his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…”

He did not stand waiting with his arms crossed, brow furrowed with displeasure. He did not grudgingly accept a tentative and awkward apology.

He was filled with compassion for his son, and he ran to him.

He ran.

He ran, probably forgoing all semblance of dignity.

He ran, robes flying, probably with arms extended. Running across the field to his lost son.

He ran, and he was filled with compassion.

He ran, and when he got to him at last, he threw his arms around him, and kissed him.

No condemnation, no judgement.

Just love.

He threw him a party, and killed the fatted calf.

Yesterday, I read that passage again and I thought about Jesus scanning the horizon for me, desperate to see me. I thought of him running toward me with his arms outstretched, running across a field to get to me. He’d been waiting for me all the time I’d been holding out, waiting for me to come to him. Waiting for me to come burdened, and afraid, and encumbered by the world.

He waited for me, even though I was not ready. Me, in my dirty robes.
He waited for me with his shepherd’s arms outstretched. He waited for me, in my unclean and starving state—impure in both thought and action.

Me, covered in the filth of my journey home.

Me.

And when he saw me, he could wait no longer.

He ran. And when he finally reached me, he threw his arms around me
and kissed me.

And there was rejoicing in heaven.

What length will God go to rescue even one lost sheep? 

I thought I knew.  Or maybe I did know, but I didn’t realize–didn’t feel the truth of it in my heart.  But now, today, I think of Easter.  I think of Good Friday, and that it wasn’t very good.  I think of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, in fulfillment of prophecy.  I think of him surveying the temple of His Father, and throwing the moneychangers out on their collective behinds.  He could have left after that, his mission partially accomplished.  He’d stirred the pot, and gotten people thinking.

But He’d also gotten himself noticed by the Romans, and the Sanhedrin.  This, too, was in fulfillment of prophecy.  He got himself beaten, whipped, spat on, mocked, and killed.

He had a sheep to rescue–lots of sheep to rescue.

He did that for me.

Me.

When I think about how little I think of myself, or when I look in the mirror and am disgusted, I need to remind myself that the face I see looking at me was created in the image of God, and that same God sent his

only son

down to a filthy, disgusting world to die on my behalf.  But this world, filthy as it is, also has a rough beauty about it.  There are things about it that are enthralling. 

Distracting.

It’s easy to get lost.

And the question remains:  what length will God go to rescue even one lost sheep?  Search your heart for that answer.  See yourself as that lost sheep.

What length?

……..

My friend’s sister had a baby over the weekend–a son.  They waited until he was born to find out the sex, and I think I would like to do it that way, too, if Jenny and I are blessed with another child some day.  Anyway, this little boy is adorable, with lots of dark hair

(sidebar.  It sucks when a newborn has more hair than I do.  But such is my life)

and cute little chubby baby-cheeks. 

My friend took a bunch of pictures, but one of them in particular really stuck out to me.  The baby is lying there wearing one of those little knit gangsta beanies that babies are made to wear when they’re newborn.  You see his father’s hand gently reaching down and touching the top of his head with the back of a single finger.  I don’t know what he was thinking when he did it, or if he said anything at all.  My friend captioned the picture with “Dad’s Hand.”

And it speaks to me.

It speaks of a father’s love for his son.

It speaks of welcome.

The hand looks as if it has seen work, and will see more.  It looks comforting, but also strong, and it will protect the baby at all costs.

It made me think of how we are always that baby to God–we are always a newborn that He loves above all, and would do anything

anything

for. 

He reaches down to us, to me, and gently touches the top of my head with the back of his finger.

Sometimes I feel that gentle touch, and sometimes, like the baby in the picture, I am unaware. 

 But that does not make the touch any less real.

I was just thinking about freedom, and that it always comes at a cost.

That cost is blood. 

 Just think of it.  Our fledgling country was oppressed by the English crown.  We were taxed without representation.  We fought for our freedom.  Many, many, were killed.

Blood bought our freedom.

The Civil war.  All killed were Americans.  But the war was not fought for land, or money, but to make men free.

Freedom attained through shed blood.

Or think of the trench warfare fought during the WWI.  Miles of trenches.  Machine guns, barbed wire, mustard gas.  Men fighting savage hand-to-hand battles to free Europe.

Many thousands were killed to attain that freedom.

Which was purchased with blood.

WWII.  The Emperor of Japan and Hitler’s failed attempt at world domination.  Millions killed in death camps.  A war fought across Europe and the Pacific.  Many, many, many Allied soldiers killed.

Freedom bought with blood.

Wars upon wars.  Korea, Viet Nam.  Iraq.  Afghanistan.  Perhaps not all thought of as “noble” conflicts, such as the first world wars.  But none fought for gain, or territory.

For freedom.

Blood is always the cost.

And then I think about Jesus.  I think about blood shed for freedom.  I think of a man laying on his face in Gethsemane, sweating blood on my behalf.  I think of a man

                                             son of man

having his back, arms, legs shredded by whips on my behalf, to attain my freedom.  I think of steel spikes being driven at an angle through bundles of wrist nerves, to maximize the pain.  Of those same nails being driven through feet positioned on a wooden block.  I think of blood running to the ground.

For my freedom.

My freedom.

The freedom of many.

The freedom of all, should they desire.

Purchased through blood.

 

I always thought I’d have to be perfect for God, or perhaps more accurately–that I would have to be perfect to know Him.  That’s what it seemed like, anyway.  The Christian people I knew growing up certainly seemed that way.  The guy that led the youth group I went to for a while as a teenager was like that.  Not that he said he was perfect–he was just this tower of faith, and love, and patience for the handful of obnoxious teenagers in his charge.   That was someone I could never even imagine being.

Then there were the “others.”  The people that I met through the church my brother went to for a while. 

You know who I mean. 

These were men and women who did all they could to draw attention to the wonderful Christian lives they were leading. To make sure everyone could see how they obeyed the “rules” set forth by God. That is, when they weren’t picketing places and telling people everything they did that was wrong, which would be sending them to hell, eventually.

Observe my faith, and be awed.  See how much I care about the virtue of my children, and how willing I am to protect it, at any cost.

It was all about THEM.  They spent so much time being uber-Christians, that I knew I could never meet that sort of standard.  I would never be able to serve a God who demanded such things.

I would never be perfect.  And if I tried to be, the person I was now would always, always undermine any potential I might have for the future.

That person was far from perfect.

That person was flawed, and broken, and wounded.

That person–that man, was a liar.

That man lusted, and drank to complete excess, and blasphemed.

That man stole, and coveted, and was full of self-pity and entitlement.

That man indulged in relationships empty of all but sin.

That man did not honor his mother and father, even when they were alive.

That man felt he was such a bad friend that he helped drive someone to a bullet.

That man did anything and everything he could to willfully run from God.

That man resisted salvation with every fiber of his being.

That man thought that since God made his life difficult, then he would damn well stay away from Him.  It was not that he doubted God’s existence.  He didn’t–not anymore. He had seen things that convinced him God was real, and cared, but only for those people who led perfect and flawless lives. As servants.

There was no way that man was going to give up his own will for the will of another, even God.

He just didn’t want anything to do with Him, or what he had to offer, which was subjugation.  Conformity.  No sense of self.

That man had no concept of anything but self.

That man did not care about anything, or anyone, because it seemed that no one cared about him.

Why would God want anything at all to do with that man?  And since that was the man I was, what would be the point of approaching God with any sort of entreaty?  He would tell me to pee up a rope.

But then something happened.

I met a series of people that either told me about Jesus, or showed me his love in a very practical way.  Nothing was demanded of me, and a picture was painted of a very different sort of Jesus than I was accustomed to. 

This Jesus just loved.  

The Jesus I heard about was less concerned with a litany of rules, and more concerned with gathering lost sheep.

This Jesus cared about that man, just as he was.   Right then.

Not as he should be.

This God was in the business of healing, not condemnation.

This Jesus was a physician, and a Father.

I began to develop a different sort of awareness, and sought more and more knowledge.

I sought knowledge of God.  I began to hunger and thirst for righteousness.  I began to heal.

And I began to realize in my heart that perfection was not required.  A strict set of rules did not have to be observed to know God, and to be his child.  The Jesus that I learned about loved me in my state of disgrace, long, long before I ever sought him.  He loved me enough to endure the whip, and the crown of thorns, and the cross.  Enough to walk a steep path with a heavy piece of wood balanced on his bloody shoulders.

Sometimes now I think about Pilate bringing Jesus before the crowd after his flogging and telling them “behold the man…”

I see  myself in that crowd.  Looking up at a bloody, battered, and silent man.

I see myself calling for his death.

And he looks at me then.  He is far away, but he sees me there.

And he goes to the cross for me, even then.

Even then.

When I accepted him as Lord, it was not simply just an “aha” moment, where all things suddenly wiped off my slate (though it was that, too).  When I accepted His life, I also accepted his death, and entered into it.

I had to–it was for me.

And when I did that, the man I had been began to change.  A little at first, but then more and more.

With the awareness of  God’s love and acceptance, rather than judgment and condemnation, I began to grow, and I began to heal, and I began to care.

This man could treat people the way he wanted to be treated.

This man had genuine friendships.

This man could love, and be loved.

This man saw beyond himself.

This man longed to conform to his Father’s will for his life.

This man learned about life beyond short-term gratification,

This man saw the only cure possible for what ailed him.

This man began to put away childish things.

And with the knowledge I’ve gleaned over the past few  years, I have learned that only when I sought God’s vision for my life could I even begin to be anything approaching the person I had been designed to be, even before I was born.  What I had been doing for most of my life was trying to navigate the world without any real sense of direction.  It was really something wonderful the first time I wondered which way I should go, and heard my Father say, “This way…”

I remember the man I used to be.  But I am no longer him, though he is still a part of me.

I am a new creation, a new man.  I am not perfect, and I never will be.  I still struggle, and I still sin, and I still need to be forgiven.  But I am on a different path now.  I am walking toward God instead of away from him. I’m a husband, and a father of two boys who are just amazing examples of the wonder of God.

I am a new man.  Not always the easiest thing to remember, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

A new man.

I used to wonder why it was so hard to change my behavior. Even knowing Jesus, this was difficult to do. I remember praying and praying for God to help me be better at things, or rather, at NOT DOING THEM. But it was like Paul said:

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. (Rom 7: 14-17)

I knew my behavior was sinful (many behaviors, in many ways), but anything I tried did. Not. Ever. Work.

what’s going on inside of me

I despise my own behavior

this only serves to confirm my suspicion

that I’m still a man in need of a savior -DC Talk

And I would wonder why God would never change my behavior, no matter how earnestly I entreated Him. It wasn’t until the past year or so, after much healing, and much prayer, that I realized why:

God does not change behavior, he changes hearts.

I needed to change my heart. Or rather, I needed Jesus to change it from within.

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

It was this realization that just….shattered me. I could apply it to so many parts of my life, so many struggles. Even now I think about it.

Struggling with lust, or pornography, or acting sexually? Don’t just ask God to change your behavior, ask him to change your heart, to reach into it and find that Love that transcends all other types of love, and all substitutes for it. It’s been my experience–and part of my struggle–that my own struggles with these things were simply that. A search for something to fill the void–the sucking chest wound–the perceived absence of love had created in my life.

I had to ask God to fill that dark vacuum with light. With Love.

Or my struggles with my eating, or diet (which remain). Why is that so damn hard to change?

Because, even though I know better, what I’ve been praying for is for God to change my behavior. To take away desire. To take away my tendency to do what I don’t want to do instead of what I do.

Not to find what is lacking in my heart that causes me to eat like a Roman at a banquet, and replace it with a desire for Him.

Not to find that part within me that causes me to want to please everyone and replace it with a desire to please Him.

Not to find that place within me I retreat to when it gets hard, and dark, and cold, and to speak truth to me there.

Not to find the real me, the ME God wants me to become within the person I am right now.

I want to be that person, and I want to do those things, and I want to struggle less with certain things, and I want to see God everywhere, because he IS everywhere. But to do that, I also need to to this:

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding; (Proverbs 3:4)

I needed to trust in the Lord with all my heart.

I needed to trust the Lord with all my heart, every part of it.

I needed to be changed from the inside out.

And once I did that, I began to feel the desires of my heart become the desires of His.

And then I began to change.

Not with a “poof,” and a puff of smoke.

With a struggle. I still struggle. I struggle every day.

But something about having a strong back to help carry my burdens, and sins, to carry my yoke upon His own shoulders makes all the difference.

When I am able to give Him my burdens, then I the knowledge that I am a new creation actually reaches my heart.