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.

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!

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope." -- Princess Leia Organa

Do you recognize this?  Probably.  This is from a movie that I personally LOVE!  Star Wars, Ep 4.  Here Princess Leia is asking for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi for the situation of her planet and the revolution.  It is found with the help of Luke Skywalker who seems to be pretty handy with droids.

Ever feel that you are facing a situation that doesn't seem to have any answer that you can provide?  I know that I have.  Ever feel that there is nothing that you could do to change the situation, but you do not like where you are headed and desperately want out?  I have.  Have you wished that you owned a nice little droid named R2-D2?  I totally have.  😄  That little bot is so awesome and helps the team get out of so many different situations...

But I don't have a helpful R2-D2 rolling around my house.  I have to face problems with that kind of help.  I know that I used to be someone who would Google everything, look it up on YouTube, or find something in the library.  In fact, I still think of those answers first.  I have a personal thought system that makes me want to be "the man" and be the one with all of the answers.  I tremendously struggle asking others for help.  Which is fine if you are trying to build a new chair or paint a room.  But imagine making mistakes with another person.  You said something that was a lie, or misrepresented them, or talked about them behind their back.  I have done all three of those, and more too.  Now imagine facing that person who is asking you if that was true, and the only real answer you can give is, "Yes."  Further, imagine seeing the hurt you have caused them running through their face and all you can think is, "I hurt that person, there is nothing I can do to heal that, and I suck."  Been there.

What do you need here?  A friend that you can trust with deep, intimate ideas--like this conundrum.  I have found that I cannot face life's challenges and pains without someone else.  I can try on my own, and I sure have done that way too many times, but that usually ends up making the situation worse.  The truth though is that I have been most successful when I went to a friend and explained what went on and how I thought and felt about the whole situation.  It helps to have someone who loves you enough to hear your sins and still be there.  I am not specifically referring to a spouse, but they should be that kind of person too.  I am one who finds this kind of help difficult to find, but it is very much like Leia's cry out to Obi-Wan.

'Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so God can heal you. When a believing person prays, great things happen. '
James 5:16 (NCV)

Do you have an Obi-Wan in your life?  If not someone who can wield a light-saber, someone who can listen to you, love you and push back when they need to.  Someone who knows you and shares themselves with you in return.  Someone who will pray with you.  Someone who is a great friend.  If not, time to find an Obi-Wan.

"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."

I said no, but they said yes 100 times... 🎎 🖌

I love this video. It inspires jokes and cracks at home about things that we don't want to do or things that our kids are whining about doing.  I found this first in a Facebook post, which I followed to its place on YouTube.  Today I found this article about it.  Basically, though, the video is her explaining the "Why?" question by blaming it on her doll.  Very cute!

The funny part of the situation is that we all do this ourselves.  Our issues may not be an improper use of nail polish.  But we are all good at making excuses for them and ignoring the consequences.  I did a little search to find out how often certain things happen to be discussed in the Bible.

What?	Times?
Kill	1083
Money	249
Sex	212
Sabbath	134
Other Gods	84
Drunk	70
Lying	70
Greed	21
Stealing	13
Covet	11

But my question now is, how often do I think of these things?  How often do I encounter them in my own life?  Do I really think about really killing people?  Or fear being killed?  Rarely, if ever.  But I am reminded of the scripture found in Matthew 5:21-22, where it talks about how anger harbored towards someone, is the same as murder.  I have frequently been angry at other people.  Or what about other things?  Do I worry about or am concerned about money?  Yes!  I may not go out thinking about how I could rob banks, but I find myself jealous of some of the things that others have.  All the things on the above list I have to say at one time or another I was guilty of to some degree.  

I hate lists of things I am not supposed to do.  So I have redefined them in my mind:

• Kill = Support and encourage life and growth which God has designed (i.e., everything!)
• Money = Be good with what God has given me and treat it like I am just a caretaker.  When I see a need, then I get the opportunity to go and meet it if I  am able to.
• Sex = Honor the gifts God has given to others, guard what he has given me and leave the gifts of others alone.
• Sabbath = Honor God with rest.  Even He rested after creating everything.  I need to follow His lead and do the same.
• Other Gods = God is first and foremost in our world.  He created everything, including me!  And He loves me.  Looking elsewhere for inspiration, love, and hope would be like me plugging my laptop into a pile of dirt and expect it to work.

I could go on, but you see that I needed to re-understand what God has for me.  The point for me is to not walk around saying "no" to everything.   But see God's handiwork and learn what He says yes to.  If I look around the world around me I can say that God has said "yes" in so many different ways and so many different places that He overshadows what else might be trying to attract my attention.  I just need to choose to listen.

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.

Are we truly free, or are we not?

Freedom!
When I hear this word I get an image in my mind from the movie Braveheart, where William Wallace is encouraging his side and yells, "Freedom!!!"  Where in my own life do I have a desire for freedom?  And what is freedom?

Freedom is: noun

1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: "He won his freedom after a retrial."
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint
4. political or national independence.
5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: "a slave who bought his freedom."

There are times when I feel like there is an enemy and that I am the target of all his attacks.  Whether or not that is true, I long for this feeling of freedom.  But what do I want freedom from?

I want freedom from:

• Pain/suffering
  
• Slavery
• Addiction
• Oppression
• Sexuality
• Cruelty
• Boredom
• Politics
• Self
• Others
• Emotions
• Technology
• The "MAN"
• Religion
• Body/Image
• Gossip/Criticism
• Government
• Too much to do
• Etc...

What am I really asking to be saved from?  What do I really want to be free of?  It seems complicated at first but the truth for me is that I want the freedom to do what I want when and where I want to do it.  But the truth is that we are never truly free.  My actions have consequences.  There is a cost for the things I choose to do, because with every "yes" there are a bunch of "no"s. Sometimes, when I am crying for "freedom," I am asking for there to not be consequences for my actions.  

So what?  There are situations that people these days still desperately need freedom from.  Are they crying needlessly?  No.  There are things that we can do to help them (and ourselves) from oppression.  Important things.  Things that we need to do.  But the greatest source of true freedom that I have ever found is Jesus Christ.  He loves me (and you too) and has worked to free me from the ultimate consequence: death, eternal death.  You see, our lack of freedom in the world ultimately stems from harms derived from a person's sins.  It could be our own sin or that of someone else.  Sin is where we "miss the mark," much like missing the target when shooting an arrow from a bow.  It could cause unintentional pain, or it could have done that because I wanted it to.  But it harms people, it harms me, and it harms Jesus as he took the consequences for it himself.

I don't really know how to explain how that works.  But I have faith that it is true. However, what does that have to do with what I said earlier?  There are ultimately two sides, led by two great sources.  Your choices will determine which one rules your life.  I have found that God's ways are always the best--even when it doesn't make sense in the right now.  The other source is calling me to try to please myself, try to put myself first in everything.  That doesn't seem to be bad, right?  But if I am the center of my own universe the other people in the world are just there to please me.  Does it work though if I am doing that, you are doing that, and we all seek our own selves first?  What that does is lead to envy, strife, hate, anger, fear, and aloneness as you sink further and further away from other people.

"5 Those who live following their sinful selves think only about things that their sinful selves want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about the things the Spirit wants them to do. 6 If people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. 7 When people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they are against God, because they refuse to obey God’s law and really are not even able to obey God’s law. 8 Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.
9 But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But the person who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. 10 Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God."  

Romans 8:5-10 (NIV)

For me, my life was headed towards death.  I thought that I was going to be okay because I had said the prayer where I told God I was a sinner and needed Him in my life.  But my actions were stating that I didn't truly believe that.  So instead I continued my sin and tried to lead others to God.  If I had continued my sin I truly would have died and created a bigger hole in the lives of my family than I already had.  I found out that I truly needed a relationship with other Christians and a real relationship with Jesus. Like when I had first prayed that prayer.  I was hopeless. Stuck.  What I needed was freedom and could only get that from Jesus.  I needed to shift who I was putting in the center of my universe.  No more me.  It needed to be Jesus.  I have been glad since then because since I have found a relationship with Jesus I have never been closer to Him than I am right now. Am I perfect?  No.  Do I still sin?  Yes.  Am I finding a difference in my life?  Absolutely, and the Holy Spirit is working on who I am as I learn to be more open and intimate with Him.  Freedom?  Yes, most definitely!  From what I thought I wanted?  No.  But freedom from sin and a relationship with someone greater than I could ever imagine is what I have gained.

How do I become better?

 We all want to be better than we are today.  Deep down there is always something that we can pick out of who we are and want to be better there.  We want this so much that slogans like:

"Training to be better...Just read Scripture!"

How to be "Good, better, best..."

"I'm better than before..."  Etc....

Tend to prick our brains and we at least are interested.  But! Are we seeking to be "Better Christians" Or have a better relationship with Christ"?

Question: Why do you want to be better?  So you can feel better about yourself, or so you can experience life more fully?  Is there guilt or shame tied to this question for you? Are you in competition with someone?  Do you feel lost and don't know who you are?  You feel that you are set free by the grace of God and want to be better because of that?  Why do you want to be better?

I know that we all want to be better than we are.  I also know (from personal experience) that we want to be better for a variety of reasons--often all at the same time!  I know that I want to be better because I am afraid of losing what is important to me.  I want to be better because it may end strife and difficult conversations between myself and others.  I want to be better than "that guy" because I feel competitive.  I want to be better because I want good things to give to my loved ones.  I want to be better because Jesus has made me clean of my sins and I want to live up to that.

Who doesn't want that?

But my motivation changes how and why I seek to be made better.

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)

Here are what some of the terms used in that scripture mean:

• Teach: show or explain to (someone) how to do something.
• Rebuke: sharp, stern disapproval; reproof; reprimand.
• Correct: 1) (adj) free from error; in accordance with fact or truth. 2) (verb) put right (an error or fault).
• Training: the action of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behavior.

Each of those terms is about change.  Basically, it means that God has inspired Scripture to change us.  But who is it supposed to change? Strangers?  Sinners?  Wayward people?  No.  Scripture was not inspired by God so that we can stand on a street corner yelling at people to change their lives over to Jesus.  It is intended to change us, the believer.  We can and should use scripture to help us as we talk with other people about our faith.  But it is intended to be read and used by us so that we know some things about God.  It tells who God is.  It shows us what God wants us to do.  It teaches us how God has acted toward humanity in the past.  It was created to develop a relationship with Him. All the things listed above are intended for those who already love Him.

So when we read Scripture, we are reading what God has written to us.  Sometimes like a love note, sometimes like a history, always an explanation for us to pray with and think over and learn to apply to ourselves.  When I wonder what I need to be doing, I know that one thing I need to do is go read the Bible.

Want to become better with me?