new book

I started reading a new book on the bus this morning, courtesy of my good friend Zach. It is called Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood by Nate Larkin. Very much a continuation of some of the ideas that John Eldridge brings up in Wild at Heart, only more focused on the need for men to have authentic and real friendships with other men. It is very frank, poignant, and has already gripped my heart in a powerful way. I'm going to love this one...

a leaf on the river, or floating vs flailing

Last night at house church we took turns describing where we feel like we're at this summer--what is God doing in our lives during this season? This was my answer:

I feel like a leaf floating along the surface of a river. Now let me describe why, as this seems like a random yet poetic image. We're going through the exciting and yet often frustrating rollercoaster season of looking for a house this summer. Among some 50 houses we've seen in about 3 months, we've found several houses we really like, and both opportunities have sort of flopped. No need to go into that story, but if you want details you can email me or I may put another post on this story later. Erika has really been feeling a frustration with this and just wants the whole process to be OVER--to be moved in and done with all of the hoping and wishing and wondering whether this house will be the one or not, etc. I tend to be more on the opposite end of those feelings, continually sensing that God is taking us through this process in His perfect timing and will lead us into the right house at the right time for the right price and in the right area. (Erika knows this too, but the frustration gets to her more often than it does me).

So this brings the whole leaf thing into the picture. In all of the ups and downs of house-hunting and (eventually) house-buying, I really do feel like we're being directed, pulled, along by the great current of God. It's a peaceful and steady stream most of the time, while sometimes there is a stronger, faster current, and sometimes the leaf may get dunked for a bit when the surrounding rocks create rapids around it. But either way we know the leaf is going to continue to float along at the pace of the river. As long as it stays in the river, it doesn't stop. And of course there is no question of trying to swim away or flail about in the water--flailing is not in the nature of a leaf. It is a floater--even when it falls from a tree, it sort of just glides gently to the ground.

This is what I am called to be. A floater, not a flailer. There are so many things in the society we live in that scream to me that I'm supposed to flail about and swim this way or that--to latch onto this rock jutting out next to me because it looks quite secure, or to glue myself to that big hunk of clay because surely it's not going anywhere any time soon. To do my own thing, to look out for number one and nothing else, to kick and scream so as not to sink....

But then there's this other voice inside of me--the one that is softer than the gentlest whisper--which says, "Just float along and trust me. I'll take you where you're supposed to go." And I realize this is what I was created to be--a floater, not a flailer.

And so I rest in God and trust in Him. He'll take us where we're supposed to be.

Leviticus

So Erika and I have been reading through the "Chronological Bible" every night starting on January 1 of this year. Over the last few weeks, we've gotten into the sections of Exodus and Leviticus that can sometimes seem dreary and redundant. I mean, let's face it, it's not the most uplifting thing to try to do a devotional conversation and prayer time after reading about skin disease treatment and how to handle bodily discharges.

And yet I'm amazed at how each time I read through Leviticus, God does reveal something new to me. How He wanted so badly for His people to stand out from the people of the land around them that He gave them very precise and specific practices and laws and responses to things. He says it repeatedly..."Do this because I am the LORD your God and I am holy". Because He is their God and because they are to reflect who He is, and because He is so UNLIKE anyone or anything we could ever find anywhere else, He asked His people to live in a way that would reflect that they are different, that they are unlike the inhabitants of the lands around them who do the things that break God's heart, such as sacrificing their children to other gods or doing the nasty with family members and anyone else who came along, thus breaking down the sacredness of sexual intimacy between husband and wife. I've heard many times that whenever you see something repeated in Scripture, you should pay attention to it because repetition is a very important literary device in Hebrew thought and culture to say "PAY ATTENTION TO THIS, EMPHATICALLY, FOR THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT!" God tells His people repeatedly that He is the LORD their God and that He is holy, therefore they are to be holy. They are a reflection of Him, and He cares about His reputation because He wants people to know who He is and what He is all about. I believe He wants us to draw from this, particularly given the world we live in today, which hasn't really changed that much from the culture of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

One huge thing that I felt that God was revealing to us last night as we read in Leviticus was the absolute necessity of having a mediator, a priest, to atone for our sins. In the Old Testament, the Israelites are required to bring forth animals fitting certain requirements for the appointed priest to sacrifice for them so that the shedding of blood and the sacrifice would atone for their sins. God tells His people multiple times that they are not to try to make these sacrifices on their own, but that they must bring them before a priest who can make atonement for them.

It didn't seem to make sense to me at first why the people couldn't just offer the sacrifices on their own--I mean, the priests were already following a bunch of other requirements that probably monopolized their time, so why not help them out a great deal by letting the people slaughter the animals on their own? Then it occurred to us as we read last night that God was setting the stage for the ultimate MEDIATOR and PRIEST, Jesus. He is the one who sits before God and intercedes on our behalf, He is the one who atones for our sins--actually by sacrificing His own blood--and He is the one who did the work so that we would not have to. So basically it dawned on us that God is painting a beautiful forepicture of what He's going to do by sending His Son Jesus a bit further down the road.

So we're just once again amazed at how God's Word is never boring, even when you're going through those creaky chapters that go over the law and Hebrew practices in detail.

Clean slate

At house church Sunday night, we talked about how God is taking our ideas about church, prayer, etc, and wiping the slate clean, giving us a fresh start on how we see these things. Sometimes the really old things can become fresh and new and full of life in a way we never experienced before.

During our discussion, I saw a vision of God wiping a page clean, removing all the print on it, and presenting a new, white sheet of manuscript (it looked kind of scrollish or papyrus-like actually) to us, and I knew it to mean that God wanted to wipe clean all of our previous conceptions and misconceptions about church, particularly the really old things. That He was going to make the old new again and show us things through new and fresh eyes.

I wanted to share an of one of the ways God is showing me this. My brother-in-law Sean sent me a link to this website that gives you different prayers used in the Episcopalian community thoughout the day, and I have started doing the noontime prayer here at work. It has been a huge blessing, and a refreshing 5-10 minutes to take during my lunch break and allow the Lord to refuel, refresh, and refocus my heart. Here's the website if anyone is interested:

http://www.missionstclare.com/noon/noonlist.html

Have an awesome day!

Steven D

Neighborhood shootings and the everlasting peace of God

I wanted to share a random and interesting thing that happened to us this weekend, which reminded us of God's amazing and everlasting promises.

Sunday morning, Erika and I had a leisurely morning sleeping in, and I woke up around 9:30 or so, let the cat out of the guest room where we exile him at night (otherwise he tends to come in and pounce on our heads at 4 AM), took a shower, got dressed, made the bed, etc, and around 10:00 finally made my way into the kitchen/living room area to make us some coffee. I clunked around in the kitchen a bit, then decided I should head over to the window to open the blinds and let the beautiful Sunday morning sunshine in. As I got to the kitchen table window, that's when I noticed that there seemed to be what looked like pieces of white paper shredded up all over the floor.

"Oh, Moses must have gotten ahold of something and taken it out," I thought. But then I realized there seemed to be a chunk missing from the wall at eye-level with me next to the window-seat area. And then as I walked around the couch to inspect it, I discovered that there were tiny shards of sparkling glass all over the carpet, intermingled with bits and pieces of our wall and of white paint. That's also when I found the circular hole in the window and heard the sound of lawn mowers outside through the broken window.

"Ok, so a rock must have come through the window," I thought. So I picked up my phone, called the building maintenance people to tell them we needed someone to come repair a window, but then I realized that there was the chunk missing from the wall too. A rock sure didn't do that after coming through the window! So I told the building maintenance people about this too, and said I thought maybe someone stabbed a spear or a long piece of pipe through our window. And as I said it I realized how dumb it sounded, but it still hadn't registered in my head what must have happened.

Then I headed over to kitchen to start making coffee, and that's when I found the 45-caliber bullet on the carpet and an indention in the wall where it had hit before falling to the carpet.

The rest of the morning consisted of me calling our sister-in-law Heather to see what we needed to do (as she is our source for any information on what we should do when we're not quite sure if we should call 911 or go somewhere else to report something), calling 911 and discovering that when you do that on a cell phone it automatically puts the phone into "Emergency Mode" which disables vibrate mode and text messages, watching cops pretend to re-enact the latest episode of CSI in our living room, watching neighbors outside walking around staring at the 3 cop cars at our apartment and thinking, "well, we thought they were such a nice couple, but I guess they weren't, he must have beaten his wife or something", Erika making waffles and offering them to the cops, the maintenance guy showing up and scratching his head as he stared at our wall and at the window, Moses freaking out and hiding under the bed as usual when we have more than 2 strangers in the house, and me getting into a conversation with one of the cops about sleep apnia and CPAP masks and him telling me I need to start using mine.

As far as we can tell, what happened was that a shooting broke out around 4 AM behind the King Soopers grocery store in the building next to where we live. Some people were shooting handguns, and nine shots were fired, one of which made its way into our apartment without us even realizing it. Of course, Erika and I are such heavy sleepers (Erika sleeps with earplugs since I snore) that we didn't hear a thing, or even notice anything odd until it was time for coffee. The cops said no one was killed in the shooting, but a girl involved in the fight was injured, though it wasn't too serious an injury. This was a big surprise to everyone, as our neighborhood is typically a safe, non-shady neighborhood. We're thinking about asking the building management to lower our rent!

The coolest thing about the story though is that God used it as a reminder to us that He is in control and that, despite all of the dangerous things that could be happening around us at any time, we know we are in His hands and that he is protecting us. Whether it's in the case of a drive-by shooting, a battle with immigration, an unknown future, a dark night of the soul, or any kind of opposition, God has us in His grip and surrounds us with His peace. Now we may not necessarily be in La-La Land during all of the opposition, but we certainly did sleep through this one!

the new 4-letter word

I've been thinking lately about a word I'd like to remove from my vocabulary. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I was at a lunch gathering with some other Christians, and the guy speaking started sharing about how he had realized how the new word of the decade, the word that he heard at least 50 times a day if not more, was a four-letter word that he wished he would never have to hear again--a word that so clearly represents what our culture has become, much to the detriment of our physical and spiritual and emotional health, and certainly much to the detriment of the God who created us.

The new four-letter word is "BUSY".

You hear it EVERYWHERE you go and from nearly EVERYONE you talk to in any sphere of life these days. Everyone is BUSY. I'm so sick and tired of hearing it and seeing it that I think I'm just going to start bleeping it out of my vocabulary...A typical conversation nowadays, in passing, goes something like this:

[Tom is walking down the street and bumps into John]
--"Hi, John! I haven't seen you in a while. How's it going?"
--"Hey, Tom! Well, I'm OK. Just really [beep!] these days."
[A familiar voice chimes in, it becomes apparent that Martha has stopped to greet Tom and John]
--"Hey, yall! How are you doing these days? It's been forever!"
--"Hey, Martha! Good to see you. I'm sorry I haven't returned the email you sent me a couple of months ago--I've been meaning to get back to you, but I've just been so [beep!]."
--"Oh, that's OK, Tom. Actually I'd forgotten I sent you an email. With my new promotion at work, I'm keeping very [beep!] too. What have you been up to?"
--"Well, I have been pretty involved in this new ministry that we started up at our church. We really believe it is going to make a huge difference in people's lives. But ever since we've started it, my wife and I have been super [beep!] and haven't had much time to invest in relationships or anything else."
--"Wow, Tom, that sounds so great. We'll I'd better go, the boss is waiting! And I have a really [beep!] day ahead of me! You take care, and tell Samantha hi for me! John, it was good to see you too, take care!"
[Tom and John wave goodbye as Martha rushes off down the street]
"Well, John, I hate to rush, but I need to get going too."
"OK, Tom, that's fine. I'd ask you to join me for coffee sometime this weekend, but I have a really [beep!] weekend ahead."
"Thanks, John, actually me too. We'll figure something out sometime soon. Take care and God bless!"
[Tom and John hurry off in opposite directions]

How is it that we live in a time in which we have so many inventions to save us time and energy, and yet we still find ourselves so [beep!] all the time? I just don't get it. Instead of creating more free time, more downtime for ourselves, we find ourselves being ever-more-overwhelmed by a sense of drowning in things to do, tasks to take care of, meetings to go to, phone calls to make (which have become more of an obligation than a pleasure to us, unfortunately), emails to send (which we keep putting off because it stresses us out to think of all the emails we have to send and thus the whole joy of emailing people, the former excitement of hearing that "you've got mail!" exclamation upon opening your email, has nearly disappeared altogether). We even see our relationships as a burden these days--stressing out over the idea of planning a coffee date with someone whose friendship should actually be a source of joy and refreshment to your life. What the heck is happening to us?

God didn't intend for our lives to be this way. I really believe that. His whole reason for creating us was to enjoy Him, and yet day after day we miss out on it so much and end up living stressful lives that seem to pile up on us day after day and nail us into a coffin of [beep!]ness. Even (perhaps especially) in the church, the place where believers are supposed to find encouragement and rest and renewal, [beep!]ness reigns, and we often find ourselves instead stressed, fatigued, and overspent.

What the heck HAPPENED to us? Why the stress? Why do we feel so [beep!] all the time?

I have decided to start a revolution. Or continue one that started a long time ago. Maybe it is going on in other people's hearts as well--in fact, I know it is. I'm eliminating that four-letter word from my vocabulary because I refuse to live that way. God didn't intend for my life to be that way. I know this is true. I want to live my life enjoying God, enjoying my relationship with Him and with the people He places in my life, letting go of a personal agenda or a tight schedule that makes me stress out. I refuse to live that way.

Who wants to join me?

Enjoy the Silence

In all of the thinking I've been doing recently (yes it does happen!) about the fears in my life, I've really started to notice the way I react to things a lot more and asking God to help me understand why I fear the things I do. Particularly silence.

[moment of silence depicted by this clause within brackets]

It seems that when I'm by myself, I've really learned to enjoy times of silence and solitude--it's refreshing, renewing, rejuvenating, and above all, it opens me up to hear what God is saying to me a lot clearer than when I have noises blaring all around me (ie television, 80s music, even worship music).

But yesterday something new occurred to me. I was sitting on the porch talking to my buddies Sammy and Ryan, and one of those inevitable moments of silence desended upon us. You know, when you finish talking about a certain topic and nobody moves on to another topic, so you just kind of sit there and silently contemplate until someone says something again. It is definitely a good thing, an awesome thing, to have such moments as this. I believe with all of my heart that these moments were meant to be enjoyed--that God wants to use them to point things out to us and to just let us worship Him in the sound of calm, still peace. But this calm, still peace, this enjoying of the silence is a far cry from what is usually going on in my head in such a situation. We're having a great conversation, then for some reason or another, silence ensues, and my internal dialogue goes something like this:

Man, it's quiet all of a sudden. I wonder if I said something wrong. I wonder if I'm supposed to say something now, but what could that be? God, do you want me to talk? Please show me what to say. I don't like this, it's too uncomfortable. Maybe they're thinking weird things about me. Maybe I said something freakishly weird and that's why nobody is talking now. They're looking at their feet, I wonder if I have a booger hanging out of my nose or something. What if I offended them by something I said? What did I say anyway? I can't remember. They think I'm really weird now. Or maybe they think I'm thinking weird or mean thoughts about them because I'm not talking. Why does this have to be so quiet? Why am I so uncomfortable? Do they feel the same way?...

And so on and so forth. So the epiphany that hit me yesterday as this moment of silence hit us was that I never seem to have this problem when I'm alone. Like I said, I do enjoy the silence in those moments. I love to "Be still and know that God is God" (Psalm 46.10). But what about when other people are around? My freakish fear of what other people think about me, or a fear of offending or disappointing others or of giving them an impression of who I am that is not accurate, sets in. And the last thing I am able to do in such a situation is be still and know that God is God.

God is challenging me. He's quoting Depeche Mode and saying, "Enjoy the silence." (or rather, they're the ones quoting something He's been saying all along). And I'm going to accept that challenge and start facing silence instead of avoiding it. Start asking Him what exactly it is that makes me fear it so much and to walk me through the healing and transformation that I know He desires to take me through.

Maybe He's challenging you, too. Care to join me on this new adventure, this new version of Fear Factor?