For all the ones who wouldn’t give up on me
When I would have given up on myself…
For the ones who modeled patience
As they gave and gave me the gift of waiting…
Thank you for showing the sweetest of love.
For everyone who saw what I saw before I saw it –
The many changes I need to make in me…
For everyone who showed me grace
When they found me stuck in my own stubbornness…
Thank you for showing the sweetest of love. [click to continue…]
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When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.
It’s time to face the facts.
Anybody ever say that to you?
Did they ever follow it with something that sounded like good news?
Where did reality get such a bum rap? I don’t mean Debbie-Downer-such-a-frowner stuff where you look for reasons to be miserable. I certainly don’t mean TV shows that pass for “reality.” I mean an honest assessment of the brutal facts that say, “Where you is is where you is.”
So… um… Where you is?
Do you realize that the only way you can ever experience meaningful change, positive results, breathtaking opportunities or fulfilled potential is first to enter the doorway of truth? [click to continue…]
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This is an interesting time. Another school year is in the books (to coin a phrase). I don’t think I’ve ever seen more snippets from graduation speeches than I have this year. Lots of talk about knowledge, the future, credentials and stuff.
It’s also a time for remembering, especially on this day, that freedom isn’t free. What we know and enjoy today is based on the sacrifices of men and women who gave their lives so we could be free from oppressive and abusive government.
It’s a time in which we are reminded almost daily that we live in a world where people die before they’re “supposed” to, and that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness may be inalienable rights, but they’re not time-bound guarantees.
At any point in our lives, most likely, we can point to things with humble gratitude and declare, “I don’t deserve this.” At any point in our lives, we can point to things with frustration and despair and declare, “I didn’t sign up for this.” At any point in our lives, it’s a valid question to ask, “Where is God in all this?”
So in this season of talk about knowledge and the future and no guarantees and credibility and freedom, I wanted to encourage you with some reminders that have encouraged me lately. [click to continue…]
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CNN had an interesting story yesterday. The headline: “When Christians Become a Hated Minority.” Like so many other current cultural debates, it assumes that Christ followers are camped out on one issue. Maybe that’s because that issue is the one place, seemingly, where the world has managed to join forces with the tide of popular opinion. Now anybody who speaks out against homosexual behavior or gay marriage is a hate-filled bigot.
The article fairly raises the question of whether Christian-haters are the new bigots. It points out that many believers avoid saying anything about, well, anything for fear of the backlash.
This raises a painful question for Christians: Why are we being trampled on? It sure seems that anywhere you turn anybody and everybody has the right to say whatever they want, do whatever pleases them, and demand to be accepted. But let somebody mention Jesus or the word “Christian” and the arrows fly from all sides.
Here’s the problem: We’re asking the wrong people. [click to continue…]
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These days I make a trip to the bank just about every day. I’m on a first name basis with most of the tellers, which feels good. And most days it’s a pretty straightforward deal – one or two deposits, mostly business. Even a left-handed guy like me can get that right. About the worst mistake I ever made was driving around in a cluttered truck and realizing that beneath all that clutter was a deposit I forgot to make. For about a week.
Then came Friday. Four deposits. Three different accounts. And one of those was a check I’d written to myself to deposit in our personal account.
I pulled up to the window and realized I hadn’t endorsed the check I’d written to myself, so while the probie teller waited for me patiently, I paused to do that.
I’d venture to guess there was about a six-inch gap between the deposit drawer and my truck window. And somewhere in that six inches, as I reached for the drawer with a pile of bank bid-ness, that freshly-endorsed check was sucked away. Weird even for the dusty plains, the drive-through lanes had formed a wind tunnel. And the wind tunnel took my check.
My assumption: Oh. This is frustrating. I’ll have to get out of the truck and pick it up off the ground.
My reality: Y’all, it was gone. Vaporized. On its way to Amarillo, I suppose. I always fuss because Amarillo gets all the rain (out here we refer to it as “moisture”). Now they got my check. [click to continue…]
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Way back in the day, Chuck Bolte and the Jeremiah People did a hilarious skit called “The Service” about five people sitting on a church pew waiting for the service to start. There was an older couple, a younger couple who had it all together and knew it, and a young wife who in tears admits that her husband has left her and moved into a hotel.
Out come the clichés. In one place, Chuck who played the younger man, said something like, “You see, Julie, as Christians we’re on God’s winning team. We make our baskets, we sink our putts, we cross the goal line!” Then he asks that penetrating question: “Julie, have you made Christ the center of your marriage.”
“Look,” she says. “I don’t know how to make Christ the center of our marriage. I come here for help and all I get are words… words I’ve said to myself a thousand times.”
Ouch. But hey, at least she got some words. Sometimes church people don’t even do that.
In 35 years of some sort of ministry, I’ve been blessed to receive a lot of gritty grace. Sure, some people got it wrong. But I’ve seen enough people get it right to dismiss my own “inner Pharisee” and pay it forward. They taught me how to run to the spiritually wounded, not away from them. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way. [click to continue…]
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A few years ago I was having coffee with an old friend and colleague. I was in a pretty wounded state at the time, and felt compelled to tell him my story. He was compassionate, listened attentively, then asked, “How can I help?”
“I was thinking about visiting your church,” I said, “and just wanted you to know.”
“Well, I’ll be honest with you,” he replied. “We’re not much of a healing place.”
Wow. There it was. Translation: We’re more interested in fresh blood than spilled blood. But to be fair, his church was and is true to its mission as they perceive it. And at least he was kind enough to be honest.
For years I have heard the old saying, “The Christian army is the only army in the world that shoots its wounded.” Let me say right up front, that’s not accurate. If you really believe that, you’ve never been in a corporate “army” or a political one. The wounded get eliminated there all the time.
But the church is supposed to be different, right? We’re supposed to be trophies of grace, havens of love, lighthouses of hope and (make your own cliché here: [blank] of [blank]). So what’s up with that right foot of fellowship? [click to continue…]
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You’re feeling disappointed or rejected,
Lonely or loveless,
And even though you know better than to believe all that in your head,
You’re too lost in “to-do’s” or “he-did’s” to even recognize your own heart.
Time to come and find your rest.
You’re feeling restless or impatient,
Guilty or angry,
And even though you know you live face-to-grace,
You’re too consumed with how far you have to go to recognize whose job it is get you there.
Time to come and find your rest.
You’re feeling anxious or worried,
Burdened or exhausted,
And even though you know it isn’t your load to carry,
You’re too loaded with responsibilities and cares to recognize that you’ve picked them up again.
Time to come and find your rest. [click to continue…]
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You can’t do that.
What?
You can’t disappoint God.
What do you mean I can’t disappoint God?
Just what I said.
Well I don’t think He’s too pleased!
I didn’t say you can’t displease Him. That’s a different conversation. I said you can’t disappoint Him.
Okay, why do you say that?
Because to be able to disappoint Him, you’d have to be able to surprise Him. And whatever else He is, He is not surprised.
He knew this would happen?
Yep.
He let this happen?
He gave you a choice. And you made it happen. But none of it caught Him by surprise.
(Silence… wheels turning…) [click to continue…]
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On this cold December night, when life, relationships and future hope seem more complicated than ever, I pray that that the Father of lights would give you the joy of His presence and the gift of simple happiness throughout the coming year, with the light of every new sunrise.
I pray that he would remind you often of how deeply you are loved, unforgettably engraved in the palm of His hand, steadfastly held by His grace day and night.
I pray that in an age where nothing seems to last, that the One who promised us a home with Him forever would keep the language and love of forever dancing in your heart and mine as long as you and I have breath. [click to continue…]
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