My Story... (Part 2)

So, continuing my story from last time, I had given my life to Jesus in high school and expected things to change for me.  And a lot of things did!  But all my life previous to that I had learned to look like the "good boy" despite having things about me that would say otherwise.  I had learned to hide the yucky things that I did.

I think that when I was a junior in high school I was on an awesome retreat called Chrysalis.  It was a pretty extreme retreat where we weren't allowed to know what time it was or communicate with anyone outside.  Not for everybody.  On this retreat, we spent some time in prayer and fasting and God surprised me.  He gave me an idea that I was called to become a pastor.  Wow!  Both incredibly cool and wonderfully scary.  I wasn't sure what this meant for me at the time.  I knew I had a lot of work to get done.

In my senior year of high school, I started a Bible study as an official school club.  I was pretty proud of that because I went to a public high school in Seattle and had to prove that that would be okay.  We met regularly all year and the four or five of us that attended together really enjoyed it.  And also this year I applied to SPU for my college education with a degree in Christian Theology.  It seemed like everything was building up to what I needed to do to become a pastor.  But there were some things in my "closet" that still needed the grace of Jesus.

When does a person know that they are saved and headed to Heaven?  When I first consciously gave my life to Christ, prayed the "Prayer" of salvation, I thought that I was prayed and done.  God would make things better for me and I would be living in the comfort of Heaven from then on.  That's how it works, right?  One and done?  The answer was: nope!  False expectations can twist your thinking around in so many directions that you are dizzy like when you step off that carnival ride that spins around and around by the time it's all done.  But what I'd expected from Jesus was a false expectation.

Despite getting married to an absolutely amazing woman, despite going through a tough process and getting ordained in the church, despite having success in my work and my life, I had trouble following me.  I personally fought with an addiction for most of my life: I was addicted to sex.  I can't count the number of times I wanted to be free from it and prayed to God to take that temptation out of my life.  But He didn't.  I thought I was stuck.  I had found ways to indulge myself since I was young.  I had thought that marriage would fix me.  It didn't.  I had thought that becoming ordained would fix me.  It didn't.  I had thought that reading the right books on becoming pure would help.  They didn't.

My problem was that I had expected God to remove the temptation from my life, but instead, He wants us to have the chance to say "yes" or "no" to it.  His strength would enable me to find a way through but I still would have that temptation in my life.  It seems that my answer was a combination of 1 Corinthians 10:13 and James 5:16.  Not only did I need to pray, but I needed to seek the prayers and help of another lover of Christ.  I needed people in my life that I could be honest with.  But I had isolated myself in my shame that I had no one that was keeping me spiritually honest.  So, in the end, I needed to join a sex addicts' group.

What a change I have experienced through this pile of crap I had gathered and piled up in my life and coming out of it with the help of other people!  I learned that living on my own without other Christians in my life meant I was pointed at hell.  Jesus came to this world not only to pay the price for my sins but to start a relationship with me.  Feeling the love of God and sharing that with others means that I have to be a person in the world who has good relationships with real people.  Love is not a feeling, but an action.  I could pray constantly throughout my life, but if I don't love (share the grace and goodness God gives me) the people around me, I gain nothing (1 Cor 13).

So, did that fix me?  No.  I am still a broken person that makes mistakes in the world around me.  But I am a broken person that gets his strength from Christ.  I am a broken person that follows the path that God has put me on.  I am a broken person that is loved by the other broken people around me.  I am a broken person that has the choice to love those around me too.  The point is not that I will get "fixed" but that I will learn to lean on Christ for help in my life.  No matter what I will face or go through in my life.  My relationship with Christ has been growing by leaps and bounds these last several years--and it encourages me to seek to love those around me too.

Yes, that means that though I have faced times of poverty and have no idea where the money to pay bills will come from I still am loved by Christ.  That means that though I have experienced brain cancer and the prospect of a drastically shortened life I am still loved by Christ.  Though I struggle in my relationships to be present and worthwhile I am still loved by Christ.  No matter where what choices I make in my life, I still have the love God gives to me.  And it is through the love I experience from Christ that I can love others.

My Story... (Part 1)

There is something that I love listening to: people's stories about themselves.  My Grandpa Bob loves telling stories about things that happened in his past and I will sit there in rapture visualizing the various scenes that he shares.  We all have stories.  I have a story too!  I thought that this week I'd share a part of my story (if I were to share the whole thing, we'd be here for quite a while... 😁).

I grew up with a single mother and one brother.  We lived in a one bedroom house and my mom had to sleep in the living room to give us all the space we need.  We went to church--often for both services Sunday morning.  My brother and I did many things there.  We were acolytes--cute young kids who lit the candles during the service; we went to Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, and other events held at the church; we were at church during meetings that our mom went to; and for a while we just hung out when my mom did some janitorial work.  I was baptized there and sung in the choir for kids.  They held many concerts there too, which were a mix of fun and boring ones.  It was at this church that I learned about going to church as part of religion.  Something that we do without thinking much about what it means in our lives. 

I had made surface relationships with people throughout the church but never learned that what we learned should really be applied to our personal lives.  I knew God, but nothing about the Trinity.  There was no real exploration of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the persons of God.  I learned here how to best seem like I was a "good boy."  It seemed that everyone thought that I was a good boy and treated me that way.  I seemed to like that best.  I could "know" people without really knowing them.

This was something that I learned to lean on as I grew up: I knew how to act like a good person but then could do whatever I wanted to on my own.  I wasn't a bad person, but I definitely made some bad choices that ended up hitting me later in life.  I'd lost my virginity and became addicted to pornography by the time I ended my freshman year at high school.  I'd given up my religion and spent time studying Wicca through the beginning of my sophomore year.

Things changed for me in later high school as well: I met Jesus Christ and gave my life to him during my sophomore year.  I'd been dumped by a girlfriend because she said she was looking for a Christian to be with and that made me question what it meant to someone to give up a great relationship (humble of me, right?) because of their beliefs in Christ.  That led me to some of my friends and their youth group.  Ultimately that led me to confess my belief in the fact that I was a sinner and needed the grace that Jesus provides to us through his crucifixion and the everlasting life provided through his resurrection.

My life opened up for me at this point.  I had taken all the mess and uncomfortableness my life had become filled with at this point and gave it over to Jesus.  I no longer needed to worry about being a "good boy" on the outside.  I no longer needed to worry about the consequences of my actions.  I had Jesus' forgiveness on my side.  I had a new view on my life and what it could possibly become.  I had started to find out more about the Trinity and what that might mean to me.  I had received relief and help in my life.  I knew that I had a God on my side that could and would help me to grow and change.  It felt supremely freeing to me.  I had begun to grow.

However, what I'd learned earlier in my life about looking like a "good boy" would still persist and come to make things look good in my life while I was still secretly dying too.  But more on that next time!  What I'd received here was a realization that there is a God in the world who loves us so much that he sacrificed his own life for us.

Difficult Endings: Death. How do I follow God through this?

My Grandma and Grandpa, years ago... :-)

Do you have anyone close to you?  Do you have anyone close to you that is also close to leaving this world?  Dying?  I do.  My grandmother.  Mom's mom.  Grandma.  She has been struggling with cancer for the last several years but has now reached the point where medicine cannot help her anymore.

I visited her yesterday and shared some very precious time with her.  She had been told a few days before by her oncologist that there was nothing left.  That news was so crushing to her.  Crushing for me too.  My Grandma is only a little while from the eternal.  I have been having a hard time normalizing that in my mind.

This woman is almost like a mother to me in my realm of people that I care about.  She's been there when times had been tough for me.  She's been a cheerleader for my best the whole way through.  She constantly asks me questions about what I am doing and what I am planning on doing.  Questions about how I think about this news story or that person in government.  Questions about my favorite sports teams.  She has promised me that if I ever needed physical help or finances that she and Grandpa would be there for me.  I have been able to trust her to be a safe person to listen to me.  And this wonderful woman is leaving now...

I have been thinking about my own needs coming up, and the needs of my family at home and my larger family.  I have been thinking about my Grandpa and how he might react.  The entire time I have been mulling over the future in my mind I have also been praying.  My wife has been awesome too because she knows how important Grandma is to me and she has blessed me.  But I have relied upon the strength that God gives me to make it through.  Heavily.  I cannot point to a scripture and say that "this Bible passage" helps me.  I do think about what I read in II Corinthians 4:16 which says, "So we do not give up.  Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day." (NCV)  Paul writes about how all of us wear down over time.  Although I don't like that fact, I can trust it's true.  But our minds are made new by Christ's graceful gift to us.

So what have I been doing?  Something of everything to be honest.  I feel the desire to hide, to share, to pray, to cry, to shout in anger, to expect the worst, and to tremblingly hope.  She is still here and she still is my Grandma.  All I can do otherwise is trust and have faith that God knows what He is doing and will bring her home before too long.  Please pray for her and for those around her.

Sensational Easter Sunday!

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Wow!  I love Easter Sunday!  Especially this last service that we had at my church.  The pastors had worked really hard in preparing us these last several days.  It started with a very experiential Good Friday service where we looked at and felt several parts of communion and Jesus's "last days."  We left that night with no "promise" of an awesome Sunday.  As far as we were left, Jesus was dead.  Gone.  Buried.  Ended.  I was able to leave that service feeling a little bit of what the disciples felt: a loss of a great teacher, mentor,
and friend.  I was able to think of what that must have been like for them, which is not something I had been able to really accomplish before.

Then we came in on Sunday morning and that service picked up where the Good Friday service ended.  With a dead Jesus.  But we continued the story through how those nearest to Jesus were able to pick up hope person by person.  It was absolutely amazing to notice how Jesus went and visited with people personally and talked with them until they realized that Jesus was really
alive and was talking to them.  Not a big event, but lots of little ones that individually would have been absolutely spectacular!

That hit me right where I tend to hide.  When I hide, I do my best to isolate myself, put up a shield of "no one passes," and wait until I come out and hope everything has gone away.  I have been wrestling mightily with that character defect for a long time.  I have to intentionally release myself from that so that I can function as a more healthy individual.  So when I thought about the fact that Jesus came for all of us,  I realized I was adding the fact that he came for
me personally and individually as well.  Same thing for you too!

So, the next time that I think that I can hide from other people and God I have something to connect with and think about. I was not created to be alone.  Jesus died so that I wouldn't be alone.  He gives me grace so that myself wouldn't be alone.  He gives me his Love so that others wouldn't be alone either.  What a sensational Sunday!

14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert,[b] the Son of Man must also be lifted up. 15 So that everyone who believes can have eternal life in him.
16 “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. 17 God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. 18 People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God’s one and only Son. (John 3:14-18 NCV)

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All power in heaven and on earth is given to me. 19 So go and make followers of all people in the world. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach them to obey everything that I have taught you, and I will be with you always, even until the end of this age. (Matthew 28:18-20 NCV)

 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In God’s great mercy he has caused us to be born again into a living hope, because Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  (1 Peter 1:3)

 Amen!

"Good" Friday???

So its Easter week this week.  Yay!  I love the part where Jesus comes out of the tomb and...wait!  What is today?  Good Friday.  What happened on this day that we celebrate so much?  Christ's death.  How is the trial, humiliation, torture, and crucifixion of an innocent man to be considered, "good?"  How can we look at the great sacrifice of God in His son, Jesus Christ, and call that horrible day good?

When I think about acts like that, thoughts about the terrorism and the degradation of humankind involved in this act, I feel empty and lost.  Then, when I think that Christ willingly chose to do that for me I shudder and weep because of that cost.  When in the garden of Gethsemane he asked God to choose something else for him. Yet at the end of his prayer, he affirms that God's way is the best way.  Knowingly choosing an extremely painful death. Yet we call this act "good" on the Friday before Easter.

He endured an extremely painful torture session where they robed him as a "king" in jest and then beat him and whipped him.  He was forced to carry his (extremely heavy) cross from that place up to the top of Golgatha, being mocked and whipped along the way.  And he did this willingly!  He could have stopped it at any time and choose instead to be rescued by angels, but instead, he sacrificed himself to this awful scenario and kept enduring it for a reason greater than himself.  And yet we still call this act "good" on the Friday before Easter.

On the top of Golgotha (a name which means the place of the skulls), they nailed Jesus to the cross and lifted him up to hang there.  The weight of his body would be pulling down on the nails in his hands and feet, suffocating him as time wore on.  Yet he stayed there.  Suffering.  In tremendous pain.  Dying.  He was a man who had done no wrong in his entire life. He had lived a perfect life.  He should have been honored, not crucified.  Yet here he was, dying with guilty men.  The real good man being punished with sinners.  And we still call this day good.

It was on the cross that Jesus was finally able to cry out at the end of his life the words, "It is finished!"  His life was at its end.  His suffering on the Earth was finished.  His work to pay the price for all the sins that everyone else committed was finished.  He died shortly after saying those words.  They took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.  It was finished indeed.  And yet today, Christians all over the world celebrate the work that Jesus had done and call today, "Good Friday."  Why?

With Jesus's body lying in a tomb after having been tortured wrongly, he had paid the price for our sins.  For our mistakes.  I can hold on to freedom from all my sin because of his payment for me.  I am free because Jesus died for me!  You are free because Jesus died for you!  We can live lives free from shame because Jesus had paid the ultimate price for us.  And we did nothing to deserve it.  The acts themselves were terrible, but we are free because of them.  It is a very dark day, but for us, it is a good one.  That is why today is Good Friday.  Amen!

³ He was hated and rejected by people.
    He had much pain and suffering.
People would not even look at him.
    He was hated, and we didn’t even notice him.

⁴ But he took our suffering on him
    and felt our pain for us.
We saw his suffering
    and thought God was punishing him.
⁵ But he was wounded for the wrong we did;
    he was crushed for the evil we did.
The punishment, which made us well, was given to him,
    and we are healed because of his wounds.
⁶ We all have wandered away like sheep;
    each of us has gone his own way.
But the Lord has put on him the punishment
    for all the evil we have done.

⁷ He was beaten down and punished,
    but he didn’t say a word.
He was like a lamb being led to be killed.
    He was quiet, as a sheep is quiet while its wool is being cut;
    he never opened his mouth.
⁸ Men took him away roughly and unfairly.
    He died without children to continue his family.
He was put to death;
    he was punished for the sins of my people.
⁹ He was buried with wicked men,
    and he died with the rich.
He had done nothing wrong,
    and he had never lied.

¹⁰ But it was the Lord who decided
    to crush him and make him suffer.
    The Lord made his life a penalty offering,
but he will still see his descendants and live a long life.
    He will complete the things the Lord wants him to do.
¹¹ “After his soul suffers many things,
    he will see life and be satisfied.
My good servant will make many people right with God;
    he will carry away their sins.  (Isaiah 53:3-11 NCV)

"Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL."

Dave Bowman

HAL

Ever have one of those moments when it seems like everything and everyone are against you?  One of those times when it feels like there is someone out there making things happen and that they might be watching you...  Well in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey the character Dave Bowman was in that particular setting and didn't find that out until he was floating outside the spaceship, locked out by his defective AI computer.  He starts by requesting, "Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL." Which is then followed by HAL's response of, "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

I know what it feels like to be in that place.  Well, not in the "locked out of a spaceship, floating in space, and need to knock out a defective AI" place exactly.  I have been in that place where you feel like your options are zero and you wonder what else could go wrong.  So what do you do at this point?

You could do any number of things:

1. Find a corner and hide there.
2. Create a racket and let everyone else know of your problems and things you can't do.
3. Belittle those around you and make yourself feel better.
4. Put on your steely gaze and pretend that there is no problem.
5. Jump out of your spaceship with no helmet on (example from 2001...)

Actually, I would personally recommend none of the above.  What we need to do at this point is to surrender ourselves and our problems to God.  We need to be within His embrace as we move forward.  I have found that often the answer is not so much what do we do, but who do we cling to?  There is such a warmth and peace present in God's presence.  There is a feeling that no matter what happens next, I am being watched over by the Father, in the grace of the Son, and will go forward through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This isn't a form of hiding or fighting.  It is a recognition that whatever will come next, will need to be faced in the arms of God.  Whether God moves me to hide, fight, flee, or dance and praise His name I need His power to do that.  I can (and have, far too frequently) tried to step out on my own.  The phrase, "I got this..." ran through my mind each time.  What goes through your mind when you are in this situation?  How often has it ended out worse than better?  For me, it ended in greater pain and trouble than I started with.  But is changed when I accepted that I need God in everything.  Everything.  What about you?

I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.  Philippians 4:13 (NCV)

“I know that you can do all things and that no plan of yours can be ruined."  Job 42:2 (NCV)

He prayed, “Abba, Father! You can do all things. Take away this cup of suffering. But do what you want, not what I want.”  Mark 14:36 (NCV)

"God, I am here today and I need you.  Come to my side right now and let me know that you are here.  Be with me and share your voice and peace as I wonder and fear and hurt and want to lash out.  I don't know what to do, but you do.  Please help me to do what I should and not what feels comfortable to me.  I rely on you, utterly and ultimately.  Amen."

"Show me the money!"

"SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!" -- Jerry Maguire

How many people remember this movie?  The above picture is from a phone conversation he had between himself and Rod Tidwell.  (Click the link above to see the movie clip)  Here he is asking Rod to stay his client, where eventually Rod asks him to say "Show me the money" and has him repeat it until he is shouting it in his office--with co-workers watching his bizarre antics.  What I have asked myself is how much money would it take to get me to do something like that?  First, answer the question for yourself...

For me, I think that the lower limit would be about $20.  What was yours?  Jerry was facing losing part of his income if Rod left his firm and went to someone else for contracts and public representation.  I'm not surprised he did all of that--though it is quite a humorous scene. 😁

Putting aside Jerry and all of his issues, I then asked myself, "What does God think of all of this money stuff we have in our lives?"  I mean that I just filed my taxes and needed all of the required paperwork in order to do that.  Recently, my wife and I opened savings account for our kids and that took a looooooong time.  Every month we go over our budget and make sure that we didn't overspend it.  Two summers ago we bought our first house.  And all of these things are part of how we spend the money that we've earned--and to avoid going into debt.

Years ago, my wife and I decided to get together and learn how to handle debt and money according to how God would want us to do that.  I know that I had wracked up almost $7k on a credit card, and wanted to be out of that way of acting.  My wife wanted us to be on the same page for what we spent and creating a budget.  We found an amazing program called "Financial Peace University" that was hosted by Dave Ramsey.  Before a couple years had passed we had eliminated all of our debt except student loans and were starting to build a legacy.

“We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.”  ― Dave Ramsey

This quote reminds me of the Bible verse Psalms 22:7 "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender."  People we love don't really care about the things we own.  If I have a solid roof over my head, food to eat, and some money to tithe then I have enough.  But far too often we get to a place where we worry about having the "next" or the "better" thing.  *Cough!* iPhones?

“Act your wage.” ― Dave Ramsey 

What does this mean?  Have I been trained to buy more than I have money for, to go the extra mile (with debt), and compete with my neighbors?  Yes.  People working for financial solution businesses out there are trying to make money.  This brings to mind the idea of "contentment" with where I am and what I have.  1 Timothy 6:6 says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain." and the following verses talk about how those who aren't content and allow money drive their wagon and fall into ruin and death.  Being content means knowing what I can and what I can not spend my money on, and what I need to have in place in order to spend anything--and be perfectly okay with that.

“Pray like it all depends on God, but work like it all depends on you.” ― Dave Ramsey

What makes this plan work for me is understanding two things: 1) Everything I have comes from God, and He gives me the strength and ability to do them 2) I have to go and do my best because participation in the relationship is key.  I don't just want to get by, I want to leave something for my grandkids to enjoy!  Proverbs 12:22 says, "A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous."

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. HELEN KELLER” ― Quoted by Dave Ramsey 

This last quote contains important information for me personally: money management is part of my character, and that "character things" are often difficult and filled with issues. I have yet to encounter something that caused me to grow that didn't involve trouble.  Either I take a view that is not "normal" or there is some other obstacle in my way.  But!  Continuing to pursue God's way always has paid out dividends in the end, though there are often times when I cannot see the way.

All of the above quotes and information on handling money come from Financial Peace University and the website www.daveramsey.com

Wandering Wondering While Waiting

Everything changes over time...well almost everything.  God--Father, Son, Holy Spirit--does not change, ever.  He is all powerful and all knowing and does not change.  But everything around Him does.  Sometimes I wonder what that might be like, but then it overwhelms my mind and I just can't envision it.  For me though, things change and never the way I expect them to.  Kids grow differently than I think they will.  People react differently than I expect to the things that I say.  Phenomenal changes occur and mess everything up.  Positively or negatively I get stopped often by changes in the world around me.

So how do I adapt to change then?  How do I understand what is coming and what to do when it comes?  The problem lies in the fact that change cannot be predicted conveniently.  There is always something out there that is unknown and will have an effect on how things will go.  Ultimately I am left in the now, this moment, and have to see what is brought into my life.  So how do I do that?

I can prepare the best I can.  I can search online and google for the answers.  I can talk to neighbors and professionals galore.  I can prepare until I am wound up tight and expecting things to change for the worst at any moment.  But, there is a way that I have been learning to follow instead.  I follow God's word in my life.

'For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.'  Romans 10:12-17 (NIV)

And I get all of that: the God who created everything sent Jesus to fix everything so that there is no class distinction between us and all of us can receive salvation because he offers it to us and we have faith because he gave us that as well.  Sometimes I feel like one of the believers and sometimes I feel like one of those that didn't accept it.  But how does that help me hear God's word for me in my own life?  The truth is that it does and it doesn't.  What makes a difference is the fact that it is not just knowing about what Christ did for us, but having a relationship with Him.  "Relationship" is different than just knowing.  It is in my relationship with Him that sometimes I can hear his voice for me.

Sometimes?  Yes, sometimes.  I have found that I personally don't know everything that another person wants or knows.  Even asking them doesn't solve that.  What is the solution?  Sadly there is none.  Things take time from my perspective and often that time was intended to make me ready for the change.  What is important is not what I am going through or where I am at the time.  What is important for me is knowing that regardless of the consequences of the situation, Jesus Christ is with me.  I have but to relax from my anxiety and sense of control and just trust in Him.  An easy thing to do? Nope.  But worth it.

Too much honesty?

How honest do we have to be, really?

Last night in the car my wife and I were talking about how easy it would be to permanently ruin a person's reputation these days.  How many news stories have we heard recently where a woman accuses a man (correctly or not) of sexually assaulting her?  Even if he proves himself clear, he'll never rid himself of that accusation.  Yikes!  As a father of a son, I worry about possible future ramifications for him.  What if some girl tries to accuse him wrongfully?  He'll always have that taint about him. However, as a father of daughters, I would want to be able to crush anyone that mistreated one of them in the wrong way.   Such a knife's edge we have to tread these days!

It wouldn't be an issue if we could just trust what people have to say these days.  If we lived in a culture where no one lied then that wouldn't be something to worry about.  But I guess it would be fair to say the same about the other things we struggle with.  I know that I personally have lied before.  I cannot say, "I will never lie again" either.

How do we lie?  We can outright lie.  We can tell "white lies." We can shift people's attention away from the truth.  We say everything except that one part that would be a lie and stop there.  We can share nothing at all.  We can make excuses for what we did.  We can be downright crooked in everything that we say, or even just a little false once in a while.  But either way, I know that I am still a lier. 

Does it really matter if we lie to people?  They don't really have an eternal impact on my life, do they?  But they do.  I have become really convinced in the last couple of years with how important relationships with others is.  How I treat the world around me affects what my kids will have to deal with when they are adults.  How I treat the people I interact with affects how they feel about me and my effect on my family, my friends, and the world.  How I treat myself forms what I even think is truth and where I am really at in life.  (I know that I can lie even to myself!)  I can pray to God and lie there, but regardless of what my mouth says He knows the truth even better than I do.

So what do I do?  I know that I have lied in my past.  I know that even today I don't have a 100% accurate picture of where I really am at.  I know that I will lie in the future.  But the Bible speaks against lying.  It's even one of the Ten Commandments!

Luckily, I have continued to read through the Bible, not just ending there.  Paul writes to the Romans the following:

“21So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:21-25a, NIV)

Jesus Christ has done what the rest of us are not able to do: He lived a sinless life and then died on the cross so that I would have my sins paid for with His sacrifice.  He then rose from the dead so that I could instead have a relationship with him and live an abundant life!  So regardless of what I have done in my life, regardless of what I fail to do today, and regardless of how I sin in the future, I know that His love and grace cover me!  His love then moves me to seek to be honest in my life, but I don't have to worry about failing.

Let me use a circus example.  Honesty often feels like doing the high wire in a circus show.  I can fall off of the high wire stretched above and I know that God will save me.  He asks me to climb back up and try again, but he is the safety net that keeps me from death.  He is the trainer that offers words of encouragement and correction.  He is the roaring group of spectators that encourages me and celebrates when I succeed and moans when I fail.

The answer to lying?  God very much does not want me to lie.  He desires my honesty in all things at all times.  But he has also recognized that we are very self-centered most of the time.  He has taken care of the consequences as we build our relationship with Him.  I try to not lie in any amount.  But I still do.  God knows because he knows everything--and because in my spiritual life I confess to him (and a mentor) what I do.  I find it so much better to not be perfect but to be real.  Be real too.

Psalm 51: Responsibility and God

Have you ever had a bad day?  Not just a, "Got up on the wrong side of the bed," kind of day but one that truly sucks?  I know I have--many times.  Some have been health-related, out of my control, days.  Like the day I ended up rolling over in a Honda Civic three times with four other guys and survived.  Or the day where I was diagnosed with cancer and spent many, many, many days dealing with and healing from that close-to-death disease.  But none of those days left me with shame like the ones caused by my own decisions and choices.

What do I mean?  When I read through Paul's first letter to Timothy and read these words:

15 What I say is true, and you should fully accept it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. 16 But I was given mercy so that in me, the worst of all sinners, Christ Jesus could show that he has patience without limit. His patience with me made me an example for those who would believe in him and have life forever.  (1 Tim 1:15-16 NCV)

Those words really struck a chord in my soul as I read them.  They were written by Paul who was considered to be one of the top leaders in the developing church and yet he still considered himself to be the worst of all sinners--and therefore greatly blessed by God's grace.  I too have felt myself to be someone who has sinned greatly in my life.  There have been many times in my life where I asked myself the question, "Should I do God's work today? Because I just did..." and would go ahead and do it but feeling increased guilt and shame as I did.

Then I heard from someone that God is bigger than we are.  I can't remember his name but I have been greatly affected by that statement.  God is bigger than my mistakes.  God can truly take everything I've done (sinful or not) and work that into the story of His grace for me.  I can take the prayer of King David found in Psalms 51:5-12 (NCV)

⁵ I was brought into this world in sin.
    In sin my mother gave birth to me.

⁶ You want me to be completely truthful,
    so teach me wisdom.
⁷ Take away my sin, and I will be clean.
    Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Make me hear sounds of joy and gladness;
    let the bones you crushed be happy again.
⁹ Turn your face from my sins
    and wipe out all my guilt.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, God,
    and make my spirit right again.
¹¹ Do not send me away from you
    or take your Holy Spirit away from me.
¹² Give me back the joy of your salvation.
    Keep me strong by giving me a willing spirit.

One of the things that made David a "Man of God" was how willing he was to turn and change when God called him to do that.  He took responsibility for his mistakes. He did not blame others or the situation.  He was by no means a sinless man, but he understood that he had a relationship with the Creator and Redeemer.  I have a model in Scripture that is not perfect, yet still longs for his Savior and wants to work his life in the ways of God.  That's what I want to do too.

I found this picture when doing some research on this blog.  Enjoy!

( I found it here: http://derekbruff.org/blogs/sketchnotes/2017/02/26/passion-psalm-51/ and he has awesome others to check out too!)

Peace!

 I remember waaaaaaaay back to my days in school.  Specifically, elementary school.  What I remember is that they told us to use the sign on the right side of this blog to be quiet.  They told us it meant we needed to be quiet.  If we weren't quiet they would come up and be more forceful and less polite as they asked us to be quiet.  Seemed at odds with what the sign meant even more years back.  In fact, when I was younger, seeing those pictures I wondered why they were always telling people to be quiet.  When I was older I found out that it was actually the peace sign that you could take with you.  Wow, huh?

Peace, what does it mean to you?  I know that over the years it has meant different things.  To someone in the time of Edgar Allen Poe, it meant to be calm and quiet.  To those in the 60's, it was part of a movement which wanted the wars to stop and people to be nice to one another (hence the hand and circle signs).  To us, it means different things even today.  So, what does "peace" mean to you?

My own definition of peace has changed over the years.  It started as being a boring time where I wasn't supposed to do anything or to speak.  Later I thought of it as some sort of hippy nonsense that didn't mean anything in today's world.  When I was older and working I wanted "peace" to fall over those gathered with me and so that they'd quiet down.  Most recently I have had a fundamental shift as to its meaning in my life.

For me now, peace is not something that I can make or give.  It is a certainty that God has a great love for me and that he has things planned out, all I need to do is trust Him the best that I can.  Peace is a calming, overwhelming sense of security, regardless of what is going on or happening.  Peace is knowing that whatever I face, God wins (and through my relationship with Him so do I).  It is awesome to experience that kind of peace.  It is something that no person, city, government, or country can truly provide.  It is only available through God and your relationship with Him.  I have thought that peace was just an emotion or an action to complete. I am glad that it comes from God through Jesus' self-sacrifice empowered by the Holy Spirit.  God keep me in your peace.

Philippians 4:6-7
 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”