Chastised...

God chastised me today.


A few minutes ago, I finished up an appointment with a Pastor of a local church that I know. He has shared with me before that he would like it if I would come and step in as the worship leader at their church. The really short version is that the Lord has not lead me there and so I will not be joining them.


He has called me a few times and wanted to 'get together' and chat. I am a guy that typically has no trouble getting together to chat. However, if I can be a bit transparent with you, I was not all that excited about connecting, fearing I was going to get worked over in terms of joining their ministry.


A bit of background, here... I have said to several people over the last couple of years that God is taking my heart in the direction of ministering to pastors and their families and others who give themselves to ministry. It is absolutely amazing to me that there are as many people in ministry as there are who are profoundly damaged and hurt. I have sort of been wondering how that might look down the road, as God prepares opportunity for that and sets up what is to come. Whatever it might look like.


So, here we are having coffee and chatting. I am being cordial as we are catching up. Eventually, it occurs to me that my heart is not at all in the right place. Sometimes this takes much longer than I wish it would with me. (That probably never happens to you...) As this pastor begins to share with me what is going on I am seeing, again, how much hurt is attached to all of this. This is not specifically people doing intentional, damaging things. Mostly, this is just situational. There is a grand baby that was not supposed to live once born. There is a child in the middle of a divorce. There is the reality of the last year of ministry in his church with the difficulty that it has brought.


I was initially tempted to look at my watch and was a bit anxious to get on to the other work that I had to do. But then, I could feel God leaning on my heart. He was saying to me, "Right now, there is nothing more important for you to be doing. He is here. Pay attention and plug in! Get past your agenda and try to see mine. 'Mr. Worship Leader, trying to be Godly man', get over yourself and recognize that I have work for you to do, right here, right now. Oh, and, uh...love ya!"


Hmmm. Oops. "God, forgive me. Use me. Help me to see people all around me that are hurting. Thank you for giving me opportunity to serve you. Thank you for being patient."
We talked. He talked. We prayed...I got a chance to ask God to bless him and his family.


Look, I have no idea if he got anything out if our time together or not. But I did. Boy, did I ever.


I know. I get it. We all have stuff going on. Much of it is painful and not very fun. Alicia and I know a family living in Colorado. One of their sons has a genetic disease that I can neither pronounce nor remember the name of. The doctors told them to not get too attached to this kid as he would not be going home with them. He was not expected to live. No one knows much about the disease because everyone who has it dies before anything can be learned about it. Before we left Colorado, the dad said to me that every morning, if he has slept, he wakes up and goes into the son's room and puts his hand on his son's chest. He does this to see if he is still breathing. Seriously!? They have several hundred thousands of dollars in medical bills AND they, literally, never know if their son will be alive when they wake up!


How you doin'? Maybe, just a chance...not quite as bad as that family? I am not saying - at all - that each person's pain is not significant. It is. And we are designed to feel it. (Still don't get that sometimes.) The point is that others are hurting, also. Maybe even more than you are. There is work for us to do even in the midst of our own agenda.


God chastised me today. I needed it.

Is it possible?

Is it possible for someone who is not a "believer", not a Christian, to worship God?

Let's discuss this. Anyone...?

Pedestal

By now, surely you've seen the commercial, an insurance commercial, I think? You go to the door and there it is. The only thing you have to figure out is what to put on it. What is the single most important thing to you? If you could only choose one thing in your life, what would it be? The what is only part of the fun. The why is the really interesting part.

I know that some of these things require a bit of thought. Feel free to take it slowly if you need to...we've got lots of time...then share. Seriously, even if you don't usually reply on blogs, take 30 seconds and tell me. Please.

...?...(follow up)

Right, so here's the deal...you hear people say all the time, that they want to be successful. What does that mean? If you ask the question, "Why do you want to be successful? Why is this important to you?" the whole thing can take you some place you didn't know you would go.

Example: Why do you want to be a success at your business? Because I want to make good money.
Why do you want to make money? Because I want to be able to do the things and buy things that I want to do, things that are important to me.
Why do you want to be able to buy things? I want to be able to provide for my family in ways that demonstrate how much I love them.
Why do you want to be able to provide for them and demonstrate how much you love them? They are the most important thing to me on this earth.

Maybe this seems a bit tedious, but if you do this you can gain fresh perspective on the things you do everyday. Now, instead of being grumpy about having to get up and go to work, you can understand more clearly that the reason you are getting up and going to work and trying to be as successful as you possibly can is this - your family is the most important thing on earth to you and you are going to do everything you can to demonstrate that to them and take care of them. Therefore, it is critical that you do a good job at work and be successful. The focus gets taken off of the work and rightly get placed on why you are doing the work. For each, the answers may be very different.

There is no reason for me to get grumpy when my wife asks me to stop at the store on my way home and pick up some milk. Why am I getting the milk? 1) We need milk. 2) My wife asked me to. 3) By getting the milk I am honoring my wife by doing something she has asked me to do. 4) Not only did she ask me, but she asked me because she needs my help. If she needs my help, I will gladly give it. 5) As I willingly and gladly (maybe with God's help...) help her, my children see a dad that cares enough about mom to help her help them. They see an example of love in action. If I don't get the milk or am pissy about it, my children also learn from me... The reason I get the milk when asked is because I love my wife and my children enough to help my wife and set my kids up to see what love looks like.

The question of "Why?", or "Why not?" (as in why am I not doing this), I believe, can have profound impact on what happens in your life and in your home everyday. Take a minute and read Philippians. Read the whole thing, its not very long. See what it says about the importance of attitude. So...go ahead, ask yourself this question and check to see where you are.

Why?

This picture is a part of this post, really, only because I like it. These rocks have nothing to do with anything specific.

I do, however, have a question. It is this -

Why?

Now, don't be 12 and say, "Because." And don't think about it from a 4 year old perspective when they go months on end with this as their default response to anything you say to them.

You may be thinking, "Why, what!?" You tell me. That is exactly the point. You figure it out.

Seriously, for the next day, or three, let this rattle around in your head. Ask it to yourself often. Here's the thing, though...think about it. I mean, really think about it. Try to answer the question. Seriously.

Kick it around. You may actually learn something about yourself. Share, if you dare.

More to come...

The border

Take a look at this picture. (If you double click on it, you can see a larger version.) A friend of mine took it when we were in the UK. We were standing in England looking into Scotland. The fence that you see is what marked the border between the two countries. That's it. Just a few posts and some wire.

Now, look at the grass. It is exactly the same on this side of the fence as it is on the other side of the fence. What!? England is exactly the same as Scotland! Well, not exactly...but right there, where that fence is, it sure looks the same. The weather is the same. The soil is the same. The grass is the same. But if you are standing beside that fence and you take a step, just one step, across that line, you are in a different country.

If you have ever been to Scotland, you know that the farther north you go the more the topography changes. When you are standing at the border, doesn't seem very different from England. However, when you are standing in the Highlands, it is easy to recognize that you are no longer in England. The thing is, you have to keep driving in order to see the dramatic differences between the two places.

So...my wife and I are currently in the process of figuring out what we want our lives to look like, what we want our family to be. We want to be intentional about how we spend our time and the direction we go with our children. Anyone who has done this understands, very well, that this is not an especially easy thing to do, the details of which, are an entirely different conversation! There are several, maybe many, aspects of life that all of this applies to, not the least of which is a spiritual agenda.

Tell me if you can relate to this: You figure out that you need to make a change. You want to make a change. Maybe God is leaning on you and wants you to become something that you are not. Maybe it is as simple as, I don't know, say doing the dishes after every meal rather than only once a week. (If the truth were told, I don't believe that you can actually separate what God wants you to be from all of the other "simple" things in your life. But, again, a different conversation.) You have made the decision to change. Now, a particular few times, all of a sudden, everything seems different. However, I don't think that is the norm. Usually, you take a step and you are disappointed to find that you feel exactly the same as you did before you took the step.

Right, so back to Scotland. You have to drive quite a ways to get England out of your rear-view mirror. But pretty soon, often without even recognizing it, you realize that you are no longer where you were when you crossed the border. Things are different. If you keep driving, everything is different. Everything has changed. Even so, you would hard pressed to define exactly where the change occurred. Almost always, though, the change did not happen at the border, just the other side of the fence.

Same is true in every other aspect of your life. Maybe the first step, or six, don't feel like they have moved you very far. The reality is, they probably haven't! Sometimes you have to go quite a ways before you see that things are different. Keep walking...keep driving...keep moving. Believe that you are in a different place. Eventually, but probably not as soon as you would like, things will begin to look different. The weather will change. The soil will be different.

Don't stop at the border.

Photo by Charles Cairncross

"Hold you, Daddy."

It is not too uncommon for Asher to wake from a nap a bit whiny and a little fussy. Typically, this clears with little or no fanfare. Most of the time, he wants to be held and comforted. This also happens whenever he gets frightened or concerned. Interestingly, he even does this in response to various forms of "discipline."

This is what happens: he comes running to me with his arms up and says, “Hold you, daddy.” I pick him up and love on him for a moment or eight. Except in rare cases, that is enough and he is right back to what he was doing before all the commotion.

How often, when we get frightened or concerned or even disciplined, do we run to God with our arms up and say, “Hold you, Daddy.”? Again, it is interesting to me that when something contrary happens to him, he wants to be held. When is it that we grow out of that? Seriously, when something contrary happens to us, very often the response is bitterness or disdain for God. We tend to want space between the “offended”, me, and the “offender”, God. After all, he had the power to make all of this very different and chose not to.

Look at David when the prophet Nathan comes to him and says, “You are the man.” After the baby, born from sin, dies, what is the first thing he does? He gets up and gets cleaned up. Then he goes to the House of the Lord and worships and probably writes Psalm 51.*

He went to God with his arms extended, hands in the air and said, “Hold you, Daddy.” This is the same man that God calls a man after His own heart.

Maybe a better response for us would be to run to God with our arms up and say, “Hold you, Daddy.” Then see what happens…

Oh, I need to be more like my son.





*For the complete story read 2 Samuel 11 & 12
Photo by Inglin Photography (Mimi)