I have a dream! Part 2

The dream for "greatness" is alive in all of us.

We are all aware of this dream because it's God's dream for all of us. I just read Erwin McManus saying the same thing in his book, Soul Cravings, "The maddening reality is that each and everyone of us has been created with a soul craving to become - to become something - something better, something different, something special, something unique, something admired, something valued, something more than we are."
The original disciples were also caught up in this dream and asked Jesus about it on more than one occasion. Jesus never really rebuked them for such aspirations but used the opportunity to redefine "greatness" for them. He described a "greatness" that is not found in title or position or exercised in acts of power and control but displayed in the role of a servant and in humble acts of love, kindness and service. He made greatness possible for all.

Let me be the first to say that I certainly don't feel that I have achieved anything "great" or have become "great" in any way. But God has shown Himself "great" in my life. He took the broken and shattered dreams and fulfilled them all. He gave me a wife that I can't imagine life without. He gave me a beautiful family. He allowed me to fulfill my original calling as a youth pastor and has called me beyond that to "greater" things. I feel a little like Job after all was taken from him in the first chapter of his book and returned to him in greater ways in the last chapter. God is good and God is great!

I have also seen Him do "great" things in other people's lives in which He has allowed me to play a small role. There is no boasting in accomplishment or character when living God's dream of greatness. Our acts can seem so small and trivial, and our words so random and ignored but they become great because our great God takes them and puts His love and His power behind them. We can only say, "God is good and God is great!"

I am still pursuing the dream.

I believe that God still has greater things for me to do, that there is yet a work for me to accomplish. I believe that everything that has happened in my life up to this point has been preparation for this work. That work may be in Denver or somewhere beyond but I am ready now to get going. I am anxious to move forward. I am excited about the future. I am ready for the adventure. I never want to stop pursuing this dream.

I have a dream! Part 1

I have a dream.

My dream began at a very unusual time. It came to me in my darkest hour, during my greatest failure, at my lowest point, when all my other dreams seemed to be shattered. It came to me through a prayer that I would verbalize out loud to God. God seemed very far away and I would shout it out hoping God would hear. "I don't want to die like this, God! I don't want this to be the end of my story!" I know it sounds morbid but thankfully God, in all of His faithfulness, heard me. At that point it came to me - an overwhelming sense that God had something "great" for me to do. And not just a "great" work to accomplish but that He actually wanted me to be "great." This was a bold dream, a completely absurd dream, possibly could be construed as an arrogant dream but, I assure you, it was a God dream. For me, it took the shattering of my dreams and future in order to embrace the dream that God had for me. It took this low point to realize that . . .

God has a dream for me.

It's a dream for me to achieve greatness in the way that God defines greatness. It's a dream for me to find success in the way that God defines success. It's a dream for me to truly live as He defines living. It's easy to miss out on this dream. We are often duped into thinking God saved us to be "good." So we go by the rules, conform to a standard, put on our Sunday best. We strive to be "good" instead of pursuing something "great." It can be a disappointing life to live to be "good." It's hard to be "good." We and everyone around us fail at it often. And when this happens, we tend to write people off, judge and condemn, as well as live with guilt and shame that God never intended us to live under. We were never able to be "good" before Christ entered our lives and to pursue it now falls well short of God's dream for us. I'm not suggesting that we are suppose to be "bad" or that being "good" doesn't matter but I am saying that "good" is a poor substitute for "great." God's dream for you is bigger than that. And, to be honest, its easier to be "great" than "good." To be "good," I have to follow a lot of rules but to be "great" I only have to keep two: Love God and love others. And the funny thing is, when you start practicing these, you find it much easier to be "good" and to be "good" for the right reasons.

And now I have a dream to fulfill God's dream.

(To be continued)

The Mystery of Worship

I've recently had a few powerful worship experiences. Each was in a different setting (in a downtown park, in a suburban school, in a downtown office building) involving different activities (one involved listening, one singing and communion, another involved serving) with different people (one was mostly black, inner city brothers and sisters, one was predominantly white, suburban brothers and sisters, one was with homeless strangers) but each contained the essential elements of worship - spirit and truth. Worship is where we encounter the unpredictable Spirit and the unchanging truth of the Word of God.

I've started to view these two elements as strange bedfellows rather than warm companions. For me, truth, is contained in the Bible. I can hold it in my hands, carry it around with me, put it on the shelf or the night stand. It is concrete, solid, tangible. I always know where it is. It provides surety, stability, security. It is solid ground, a sure foundation on which I can build my life. It is a rock that I can trip over, stub my toe on, pick up and throw at someone, or simply sit and rest upon it. It gives me a sense of balance in a changing world. It lets me see tomorrow. Its predictable - whether I follow truth or ignore it, the outcome is predetermined and sure. I like truth.

But then there is Spirit. Jesus reminds us that God is spirit and somehow, in worship, our spirit must connect with His. But Spirit is nebulous. It is undefined, impossible to contain, unpredictable. It is infinite, invisible, incalculable. I can't see it, smell it, or grab it. If truth is solid, spirit is gas. If truth is ground, spirit is air. Jesus said it was like the wind - we don't know where it is, where it is going or when it will show up. We like spirit but only when it behaves.

Unfortunately, we usually don't allow both of these elements to operate freely. Truth without spirit is rigid and predictable. It is prone to legalism and prompts you to judge. It sets the "order of service" in stone. It formats the sermon to "three points and a poem." Truth is used to tame the spirit rather than to unleash it. Spirit is reduced to a lump in your throat or a tear in your eye as if it is an emotion rather than a force.

Spirit without truth is more like drunkenness rather than empowerment. You wake up the next morning and wonder what happened, what you did, what you said. Experience trumps truth. It is prone to false teaching and misguidance.

But what made my recent experiences meaningful was the presence of the unpredictable Spirit and the unchanging truth together. I went to places where I didn't know the order of service, what the protocol was, where I was going to sit, who I was going to see. I heard truth, sang truth, ate and drank truth, and practiced truth with people who had different perspectives and backgrounds. And when I woke up the next morning, there was a sense of awe that the truth lives in every setting and the Spirit moves freely and powerfully in the hearts of men.

A Sweet Story

While going through one of her Mom's picture albums, Pattie came across a picture of a young lady holding a baby. She did not recognize the new mother. But behind the picture was a card written by the young lady to my mother-in-law. I am giving you the contents of the card so that you can get a glimpse of Pattie's mother and how her love affected even this stranger.

Dear Mrs. Carolyn,
My name is _________________. I don't know if you remember me, but I had a baby eleven months ago. While I was pregnant, you wrote me a letter. I never wrote you back, but I wanted you to know that I slept with that letter beside me for 6 months while I was expecting. That was a very hard time for me but I'll never forget - you wrote to me that you were excited for me. That made me so happy. Everyone else told me that they were sorry I was going to have a baby. But not you; you were happy for me. Knowing that helped me through one of the hardest times of my life. You also wrote that my daughter would be a blessing. You were so right. I'm sure you know from my Grandma that my brother died 2 days after my daughter came. His birthday is soon . . . I've been missing him so much.

I came across your card today and it reminded me of how lucky I am to have my daughter.

Thank you for taking the time to write to a perfect stranger over a year ago. Your words have helped me so much.

I love you,
_____________________

Here She Comes

I received this little illustration several years ago at the funeral of my dear friend, Mark Kram. It has always meant a lot to Pattie and I. We put it in the program of my Mother-in-law's funeral.

I was standing upon the seashore; a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. And someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone.”

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and span as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”. . .

. . . And that is dying for those who trust in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross for their salvation.

Labels, Lenses and Light!

In Luke 11, Jesus makes an interesting statement. “See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.” How can “light” be “darkness?” A little background: Jesus just cast out a demon from a man. Everyone is amazed yet some claim He is using the power of Satan to cast out Satan in order to deceive people. Jesus points out the folly of such thinking yet this still creates doubt in people’s minds. And, even though they had just witnessed a miracle that only God could do, they ask for another sign. Jesus refuses to do tricks and says there will be only one other sign given: the sign of Jonah. Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish and then was found alive. So, too, Jesus will be three days in the grave and then will be found alive. Then He begins to warn them about missing what they are seeing. He says others, such as the Queen of Sheba and the people of Nineveh, believed and repented with far less proof. Then He makes the statement, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness.” How we see things determines the health of our lives. Our perceptions influence our actions. The way we think defines what type of people we are. So He says, “Make sure that the light you are following (your perceptions, thinking, etc.) is truly light and not darkness that will eventually lead you to destruction.”

We all look at life and the world through lenses. The more lenses we have,the more skewed our perceptions become. Lets picture this as sunglasses. The more layers, the darker our shades become and the more apt we are to miss what the light is trying to show us. We are in somewhat of a trap. The way we see things determines the kind of people we are and the kind of people we are determines the way we see things. It is only through the power of the Gospel and the truth of the Word of God that we are set free from this cycle and our eyes are opened to new realities and our lives transformed.

Lenses are simply any label we use to define ourselves. The problem with labels is that we tend to take on the characteristics and viewpoints of that label - good and bad. Any label that we take on ourselves becomes a layer over our eyes and can keep us from seeing life through God's eyes and His truth. Here are some of the labels that have defined me: white, American, male, non-denominational (I shed myself from the Baptist label only to take on this label,) conservative, Republican, middle class. I have more but these are a few. It is clear that Jesus wants to shed us of all these labels or lenses that have left us skewed, oppressed and enslaved and wants us to see life through only one lens - that of Jesus Christ!
Galatians 3:26-28 says, "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Colossians 3:9-11, "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all."
Are you missing what the Light is trying to show you? Are you viewing life through the lens of Jesus Christ or through others labels that are attached to you? “See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.”

It Takes Two To Tango!

I began reading the Gospel of Luke this week. In chapter 1, the angel appears to both Zechariah and Mary. Both question the angel yet Zechariah is chastened and Mary gets a free pass. I used to think it was because of Mary’s youth or that she is a girl or that the magnitude of the news caused God to handle her more gently. But in reading this anew, I realized that, even though they both received impossible news (the prospect of children even though they were either too old or unmarried) and both had questions, Zechariah’s question expressed doubt (How can I be sure of this?) while Mary’s expressed faith (How will this be?) Zechariah wanted a sign or some assurance that this would happen. God gave him one - the sign of silence because he “did not believe.” Mary expressed certainty that this would happen but asked “how.” She was wanting to know what she was suppose to do to make this happen. She assumed that she would have to take an active role in this process and that a suitable partner must be available. There is (at least in her day) only one way to get pregnant. It takes two to tango. Was she to marry Joseph quickly and purposefully get pregnant? But then God delivers the bomb shell - she would become pregnant through an act of the Holy Spirit. She did not have to do anything. God would take care of everything. Her response is astounding without a trace of doubt, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” Her cousin, Elizabeth, confirms her faith by saying, “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

God speaks. He doesn’t waste words. What He says, He will do. I can doubt and live in instability or I can believe and walk with confidence. Blessed are we who believe that what the Lord has said will be accomplished!