A Culture of Lives

While Christians confront the culture (and its views on ‘life’ issues) in various ways, there is one way that I think we can all agree on – supporting those who are pregnant and celebrating pregnancies.

My wife and I are expecting our first child on April 9, 2009 (my 29th birthday). We got our first ultrasound last night, and I am promoting life like never before (even though the life issues are already at the top of my list) – I am excited, I show people the ultrasound (see below), I’m giddy when we go to the doctor, I tell people the story of how our child kicked the wall while I was watching the ultrasound viewer, and I grin when anyone congratulates me.

Maybe it’s easy for us to rejoice in this fashion – the child was planned, it didn’t take long to get pregnant, we’re financially ready, our families are excited, our church family has been supportive, and we want a big family eventually – and I understand that it’s not always an easy situation that people find themselves in when pregnant. 

But with all respect to the challenges that come with some pregnancies, I am going to plaster my life with a celebration of the blessing that God has already provided us! This can surely be a “culture of life” position that we can all agree on.

For your viewing pleasure: My baby sucking a thumb (according to the nurse…)

Bowling Blind

I was inspired by this story (It’s a shorter one. Read it.): http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3389079&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1

Not because it is such a great feel-good article, and not because there’s anything otherworldly about the achievement.

Rather, it was inspiring to see someone with so little ability use what he had to accomplish something wonderful. By our society’s standards, a 78-year old man would be picked last for the bowling team. Or any team for that matter. Add to that the fact that he’s legally blind.

But he used what little sliver of peripheral vision he had and he did something amazing.

Personal sporting achievements don’t appear all that often in the scriptures. Actually, they don’t show up at all.

But often we see a story of someone with one gift or one chance to make the right decision. A short man climbs a tree, a woman pours a bottle of perfume, and a blind man yells as loud as he can to get the attention of Jesus. They’re not models that we should follow, or trophies in a trophy case for their respective actors, but they show a truth that the scriptures teach throughout: We have little, and we are simply called to use it.

The greatness of a Christian journey will not be measured by the relative accomplishment on one’s resume, the awards and trophies in their religious trophy case, and the renown and respect they have earned within the community. Rather, the Christian journey will be marked with moment after moment of little choices – to use what you’ve got in each situation, no matter how big or how small.

When we get to be the religious version of a 78-year old blind man, our opportunities to glorify God will neither be greater or less than the moments we have right now to serve the Lord. He will always be in charge of the results, but we will always have that sliver of peripheral vision to use or not. It’s a huge responsibility, made possible by an even larger grace that was offered to us on the cross.

Thank God daily for the slivers you have, and praise him for what he can do with it.

The Real Power Of Prayer

 

Prayer, as the common belief goes, is powerful. It can do things that man alone cannot do. Fasting, then, is high-octane prayer, as I have heard it termed on Christian radio.

But, prayer in both of those senses is seen as a means to an end. Usually the end is well meaning: a cured disease, a saved soul, or a rainless wedding day. And we are told to pray and make our petitions known to God. He desires that we talk to him like best friends do – like married couples do. (Like married couples are supposed to do).

Maybe prayer is even more than that, though…

Today I discovered a wonderful yet almost paradoxical effect of prayer. I was driving home from work, and I had just been reminded of how long it had been since the last time my wife or I had been to the mechanic. It has been so long, that I cannot remember the last time we were in. It has truly been a burden off of our backs for quite some time – as losing a car for a few days can be stressful on many levels.

So in my rejoicing over the blessing that our cars had been, I decided to pray and thank God for it. “Thank you, Lord, for the reliability of these two cars you have given us” or something pious and cheesy like that. (I did mean it, but who knows what words I actually used).

Next thing you know, at the busiest intersection on my entire commute, my ‘91 Cadillac Brougham stalls. Nothing. Dead. The traffic was so loud, I almost didn’t even know what was going on. The next 3 minutes (which felt like 40) involved a combination of any of the following: wondering what to do; hoping I wouldn’t die; starting the car and pressing the gas hard while holding the brake; realizing that the power brakes were toast; praying that the light would remain green so that I would get to keep my foot on the gas;  pulling off into the bike shop about a mile away from my house; breathing a sigh of relief; calling my wife when I regained my composure.

Again, this happened in the middle of my prayer thanking God for how long it had been since we had been to the mechanic.

As I type this, the car is at the mechanic. Tomorrow morning, I will get a call telling me the condition of my car. But tonight, I can rest in the fact that God knows what he is doing. I realized how long it had been since I thanked him for the cars – and it was just long enough for him to get the message across.

Prayer is communication with God, not merely (or primarily) a means to an end. The end will always be a growth in the relationship. The results on the ground will always be a little less reliable.

That is why we walk by faith, and not by car.

I hope I get my car back soon, but I am really glad I got this little lesson at the car’s expense.

Carpe Diem and The Christian Calling

The idea of “carpe diem!” (seize the day) is used mainly with non-religious implications. If life gives you lemons, they say, make lemonade. (Try not to inquire about what to do if life gives you AIDS or unjust imprisonment or fill in the blank…)

But the idea is simple enough and can be redeemed by the Christian: When God has you in a situation, you’re there for a reason. We often will put up blinders and look ahead to our future hopes and dreams. Or, we will look ahead to the resolution of some stressor in our lives. This is fine – we need to have hope and we need to work towards resolutions in life.

But, we must remember that ministry is going on all around us, 24/7. If you are one step away from having everything you currently hope for, then ask yourself “Why”?

I am currently (along with my wife) anxiously awaiting a pastoral position to open up in the place God wants us to be. Until then, we have myriad unknowns to work through: Where will we live until then? What should we do for jobs until then? Should we try to start a family now or later?

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

But the temptation for us is to look ahead to the future when things fall more into place. We’ve got to spend our time and emotional energies on the ministry we are involved in at the moment: Marriage, our church, bible study, and the community we live in. There will always be a hoped-for tomorrow, but yesterday will only ever be a memory. The most literal meaning of “carpe diem” is actually “harvest the day”, which is a wonderful metaphor for the Christian calling.

So, friend, carpe the diem for Christ, and hope for the future you feel called to. This is not a contradiction. It is itself a calling. Don’t miss out on today:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. – James 4:13-14

If Preachers Were Really In Charge

 

I preached a sermon tonight at my home church. What most people don’t know is that I skipped an entire page of notes and started giving away my ending – until I realized that I was on the wrong page.Sweating and flustered, I tried to recover by making one point and then retracing my steps to the place I was actually at. In addition, I fumbled over my concluding statement – you know, the one that everyone is supposed to remember!

Needless to say (and why do we even say that?) – I sat down afterwards and thought to myself, “It’s not about me, it’s not about me.” This was to remind myself that even if my performance(?) was off, God could still use it.

Of course, God had something else in mind, because evidently, nobody noticed that I got completely lost. (I’ve got one or two people who really are completely honest with me, and I asked them about it). In fact, the first person who came up to me afterwards asked for a copy of the message (to my near bewilderment).

This is all to say that we are but spectators during a worship service. It is never about the quality of the music (even though we should strive for excellence) or the eloquence of the preacher (even though we should strive for clarity and potency) or the lighting, the prayers, the coffee afterwards, etc…

We serve a God who will use our efforts and do his thing. He did his thing tonight, and I for one glad that preachers are not really in charge of the results.

(And I’m glad that nobody noticed my blunder – but it’s not about that, is it?)

Consider Paul’s distribution of credit:

Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done. Romans 15:17-18

Only 275 More Days Until Christmas!

While counting down to Christmas is a favorite past-time of young consumerists everywhere, there’s another countdown going on behind the scenes – There are 275 days until many Americans will go back into a church to listen (or sit through) a gospel presentation. Easter was yesterday, and these Americans heard something in a church – and the rest of the year they will either avoid the message completely, or they will come into contact with average Christians who are living out their faith in everyday life.

So, the rest of the year is up to us - the Christians who go to work in the secular arena (offices, restaurants, schools, etc). The world is watching, and many of them have seen enough of us going about our business as if Jesus only matters on one day a week. We join in the gossip, laugh at the naughty jokes, and complain about the guy who cut us off in traffic.

Maybe if we’re a little different these next 275 days, we can get the message out more than twice a year. Let’s hope so.

Changing Vows

 As a follow-up to my last post on love, I found an interesting article. This has got to be one of the clearest “sign-of-the-times” articles in a long time: click right here.The traditional wessing vow line “til death do us part” is being replaced all the more frequently by less committal promises like “as long as love shall last.”

Let’s be honest for a moment – some marriages end up with one partner being relentlessly abused both physically and mentally. But these are thankfully few and far between.

For the rest of these marriages, the agreement leaves open the possibility for the alternative paraphrase of the above lines to be something like, “as long as it feels good to love you back”, or “as long as I still enjoy it.” Now, this may be a healthy way to appraoch your liesure time and recreational activities, but not a marriage!

A funny comic strip can be seen here, depicting the issue…

Marriage is a union where we commit to love the other person specifically when it’s not easy to do so! What are we actually communicating if we promise to love someone as long as it feels good? We all do things as long as they feel good – and after all, we’re not married to our bicycle, or TV, or anything else we enjoy for a time.

Let’s allow our Christian marriages to shock the world. With more and more divorces-on-demand (and the silly TV shows that exploit them) we have a real opportunity to show the world that Christ is perfectly faithful to his people, even though we don’t deserve it!

Christian Love Should Stand Out

Allow me to offer a suggestion.

Here are the current Top 10 songs in the country:

Carefully look up the lyrics to these songs, and tell me why the Christian community cannot offer something better? Something rational? Something beautiful?

Because the Top 10 songs include 8 or 9 love songs (they will change each week, but the content probably will not), and they’re pure and utter nonsense. They don’t offer reciprocal love – rather, they are merely about how the other person makes me feel, and how the other person can serve my needs, and how I can’t live without the other person. Maybe there’s one word or two about loving them back, but the majority of the songs are the epitome of self-serving narcicism.

There’s hope in this, though – if we were even doing a mediocre job in our relationships (we’re not), then we could change the climate, and change some hearts.

Let’s show the love of Christ to each other, and it will blow everyone away. They’ll either love it or be so confused that they watch in amazement!

Fridays Are For…

 The Wikipedia entry on “Friday” tells us that the day’s name is somehow related to “love, peace, and relaxation, as well as with emotional intensity and quashed dreams.”

May Friday be everything you hoped it would be. But, don’t let Friday be the best day of the week – the world teaches us that working is bad and relaxation is good. We understand that both are good, and a hard week’s work makes the relaxation all the more enjoyable.

The Scriptures say a lot about hard work, so enjoy this smaller post on your day of relaxation. You earned it, as long as you worked hard this week

Don’t Be Honest Unless Nobody Will Get Hurt

I was watching one of those middle-of-the-day TV shows with some hosts and a guest or two. The guest was someone who gives advice in a popular advice column, and the topic was “When it’s OK to lie.”

I should just stop typing now… but there’s a need for it.

Our culture is so obsessed with self-esteem and feelings that telling people the truth (even gently) is not cool if it will hurt their ego. For further well-nuanced thoughts on the topic (not necessarily coming to the right conclusions), check out here, here, and here.

It is so freeing to be a regular truth-teller. You don’t have to remember who you lied to, and your friends and loved ones will come to respect you (and trust your integrity).

James reminds us about integrity:

Above all, my brothers, do not swear-not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned. (James 5:12)

Be careful with your honesty, but let honesty prevail.