imagination

Inbetweeners

One of my least favorite parts of coaching baseball were game days with a threat of rain. Maybe it would drizzle. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the radar shows lots of activity right about the time we are scheduled to get to the field. Maybe it shows it at game time. I would check the hourly weather every 10 minutes, then check the hourly weather on all of the other sites, I’d call the other coaches to see what they thought, then I’d call them again, then I’d call my wife and grumble that it should either rain or not. I never liked the in between. I wanted God to make it easy for me, sunshine or pouring rain. Actually, that’s not true, I can’t say “easy,” because so many of our choices and the consequences aren’t easy, but I wanted to know the path to take. Even if it wasn’t the path I wanted, I wanted to know it was the path I was supposed to take.

Um, “supposed to?” Who decides what’s supposed to happen? Who we’re supposed to be? How it’s supposed to go? Is there ever a path we’re supposed to take? … Anyway.

We are in the midst of a building decision. I presented the paths several months ago and we’ve been praying ever since. The last 2 weeks, we began sharing our thoughts, answers, prompts. I hoped we’d all have the same conclusion. I hoped it would rain or not.

Of course, it was drizzly with colors possible on the future radar. 47% chance, which means it might rain. And it might not. Now, we’ve lived long enough, and if we’ve been even half-awake, we’ve experienced 0’s & 100’s that didn’t pan out. We don’t hold anything to be, as my son says, a “for sure-ski.” But we do like black and white, gray is uncomfortable. Gray also invites the Second Guessers, who are laying in giddy breathless anticipation to tell us we’re wrong and how could we possibly have made that decision???

So, is it going to rain or not? Then, we’re super spiritual and say, “if God is in it, we’ll know.” But is that really true? Probably not if we read and believe the Bible. When the Israelites were preparing to cross into the Promised Land, they were faced with a Jordan River at flood stage. The raging water could have been interpreted as God not being in it, right? If He was, He would certainly make it a shallow slow trickle, right? But instead, they were to send the priests with the Ark of the Covenant into the water. Do you think there was a chance they wondered if they misheard? Is that really what He said? Maybe He said “wait, and then send the priests in,” or maybe we were late to listen and He said “DON’T send the priests with the Ark into the water.”

Jesus got out of a boat in a storm and asked Peter to get out with Him. Maybe He’d save him. I wonder if Peter thought, John the Baptizer followed Jesus into the unknown and it ended…well, it didn’t end awesome for him. What if He’s going to say, again, “Blessed are those that don’t fall away because of Me,” after I drown?

We don’t usually get assurance for the next step. That’s what faith is, the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)” The Israelites didn’t know what the Jordan would do or how they’d cross – they hoped. But they didn’t know.

And add to that complexity and confusion, sometimes faith means to go and sometimes faith means to not go. Sometimes, we have a choice between 2 good paths. Do we follow the Law and leave our donkey in the hole or cross the street to avoid a dead/dying man, or do we get the donkey out and rescue the man and put him up at a nearby inn? All of those are good, they are all the right answers. Now what? And then, sometimes we do the right thing and it doesn’t turn out very great. Does that make it not the right thing, do the ends define the means?

We are inbetweeners. Maybe it will rain and maybe it won’t. Maybe we will grab our donkey, and maybe we’ll send the priests into the Jordan, but what I can say is that we probably won’t know if it’s the ‘right’ thing. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as one ‘right’ thing.

Maybe the point of all of this is a relationship WITH Our Creator, and if we hold His hand, trust Him with us and with the gifts He’s given, put (and keep) Him first, then every choice is the ‘right’ choice. And if we don’t, then none are. I guess we’ll see. Unless we don’t. Ha. I like this last choice, this last “maybe,” the one that doesn’t have us choosing a building or now, but instead, has us choosing only to be WITH Him. Yes, that’s the one, where we’re with Him in the gray, if it rains or not.

Where I Was Wrong

Yesterday, we discussed John’s 1st letter, chapter 1, verse 6, which reads, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” AND I wrote a post last week about where we spend our time, money, energy, (who the AI on our phones says we are) and if those spaces are consistent with what we say we believe is important. If it’s not, John says we are liars.

If I say Morrissey is my favorite artist (he is), but listen to The Beatles every day, far more often than I listen to Morrissey, am I lying when I say Morrissey? Maybe. John says yes.

So, the question is, do I have to change the way I behave to have fellowship with Him? Essentially, are there things I have to do?

Then, after the service, a man gave me his thoughts. He said, “You have to change your life, you have to be different.” Really? Have to?

Are there things we have to do to have fellowship with Him? I now think it’s a bit more complex than that.

Paul will occasionally address, in his letters, the belief some held that, if we are saved by grace, if our salvation is truly by/through His grace alone, then we can (and will) do anything we want. This is true. (Maybe not the “and will” parenthetical.) It’s also a distortion. He writes those letters to people like me.

This is what I taught often in the early days of my ministry. I wanted, I needed, to settle any doubts of whether we are loved, what unconditional means, and how big His grace is. I’d say, “Does that mean we can do anything we want? Yes.” I followed that up with “…but what we want changes.” The emphasis was clearly on the “Yes,” and not the “…but.” And, perhaps not surprisingly, my ministry was not as effective as it could, or should, have been. I was limiting, or cheapening, the Gospel.

There is an idea of cheap grace. If you owe 50 cents, and I don’t make you pay it back, that’s nice. If you owe 50 billion dollars, and I don’t make you pay that back, then that’s much more than nice. The debt I pay for you is humongous. The forgiveness of something so large is life-changing. Where I was wrong is that by de-emphasizing the debt, I also de-emphasized the forgiveness. I minimized the gift. It doesn’t change the answer, it is still His grace alone, but it does certainly alter each of the moments that follow.

If it isn’t life-changing, like the $50,000,000,000, maybe we simply don’t know it’s 50 billion dollars, or we don’t have any concept of how big an amount that is. There are some very cool demonstrations on the relative size of a billion on YouTube – maybe we need to watch one.

Do we have to be different? We just are. Maybe we don’t have to, but maybe that’s because we stop using terms like that. Maybe we just don’t understand any longer why it would be a have to at all.

I used to avoid the word ‘sin,’ at all costs. I don’t anymore. Now, it’s the vehicle to adequately frame His forgiveness. It’s not attached to shame or judgment, instead, it’s the best way to illustrate His sacrifice. The want does change, and if it doesn’t, then maybe we don’t know what 50 billion dollars is.

When we understand the size of the gift, there’s a certain gratitude and shift in perspective that goes along with that and radically transforms our minds & lives. But even then, there will still be times we come to a fork in the road, hear a voice of temptation in our ears, and have to choose whether to “walk in darkness.” And I’m pretty sure, in those cases, it’ll help to think about those 50 billion reasons to follow the one that leads to the light.

“Gifts”

The Buddhist saying, “the world is divided into those who are right,” is really tearing me up this week. A general rule of ministry is that we are given the “gift” of attack in the spaces we are most vulnerable, in those hard to reach places where we will be wildly uncomfortable. AND that these “gifts” will be given at the worst possible time.

I used to not really believe in spiritual warfare or the devil or demons or anything like that – I thought it was fiction to excuse our own poor decisions and behavior (which, of course, it is, sometimes). But I was wrong, I believe all of it now. I also believe that God can, and does, take these moments and transform them. We grow in/through the battlefield. And most importantly, in the fight, we see that He is there, that He has never left us alone.

Division is probably the greatest tactic of the enemy, constantly whispering our right-ness, our superiority, into our ears. Our heads and hearts are filled with “how they are,” or how to view “them.” That’s why humility is so important, and so impossibly hard.

Socrates says, “wisdom is, above all, knowing what we don’t know. He taught an intellectual form of humility that freely acknowledges the gaps in our knowledge and that humbly seeks to address our blind spots.” What we don’t know?? It’s hard to remain arrogantly superior with gaps in our knowledge, or blind spots.

And Aristotle understood humility as a “moral virtue, sandwiched between the vices of arrogance and moral weakness.” Like Socrates, he believed that humility must include “accurate self-knowledge and a generous acknowledgment of the qualities of others that avoids distortion and extremes.”

Division based on our being right is not generous. Instead, it ignores the qualities of others. And our supremacy thrives on distortions and extremes!

These “gifts,” and attacks can produce a result that is in direct opposition to the one intended. We can see them as the biggest & best evidence that we have much more work to do. We won’t need to prove or defend our imagined superiority, because we will be secure in our identity in him: loved, accepted, forgiven, and made holy. This knowledge will give is the courage to be vulnerable and uncomfortable. We won’t want to build any walls, because we will be too busy tearing them down. And we can keep taking a sledgehammer of love to the fear and inadequacy that draws these silly lines of division. And we can open our eyes to the peace of Jesus Christ, and as we do, we can encourage others to do the same.

This is (and we are) a New Creation, it’s time we act like it.

Colors

The youth group is going through some changes. (Sometimes, God answers prayers before you even know you have a need for the prayer.) A few weeks ago, the new leader asked a deeply profound question, and I’ll ask it here. We’ve asked variations of it a million times, but maybe that’s the point. Keep asking, seeking, knocking, until our perspective changes, until we change.

So, he says look around this room at all of the blue things. Then, after a few moments, he has them close their eyes, and he asks them, “Ok, what did you see that’s red?” Right?!!? Of course, nobody knows. There are plenty of red things, but none of them were looking for red things.

This is so important, because we find what we’re looking for. How many times have you been looking for that specific lost sock, and then, days later, look for a different sock, and remember that you’ve seen it, but can’t remember where? We find what we’re looking for.

Once, I went to a lecture/sermon given by a famous author named Shane Claiborne with some friends. He blew our minds with his talk of kindness, grace, simplicity, loving like Jesus in real life. His was one of those talks that left you different. You might not yet be sure how, but the you that walked out was very different from the you that entered. The 4 of us went out to eat afterwards and talk about what just happened, and ask important questions of ourselves: What did this mean, for each of us, how would we react tomorrow/next week/next year, what would our dreams look like now, and on and on.

One of us, though, stated, with more than a little offense, “I just wish he wouldn’t have slammed the Catholic Church like that.” None of us remembered anything like that, and when pressed, she referenced 1 line in the middle of a long story about something else entirely. We often find exactly what we’re looking for. We were going to be inspired, and she was going to be offended. We each got what we paid for, that night.

When you leave your house today or tomorrow or Sunday morning, what are you going to be looking for? Will the world be a dangerous place where people are selfish and untrustworthy? You will find that, to be sure, because some of us are dangerous, selfish, and untrustworthy. But what if your eyes were open for the opposite? What if you are searching for beauty and generosity and love? That, too, is there. I would suggest in far greater supply. But I would, wouldn’t I? Because, for me, that is always the “blue” of the exercise.

The question is, what are our blue’s and what are our red’s? Are they what we want them to be? Are they authentic, or are they simply reflections of someone/something else? Are they serving us well? Do they inspire us to love more and more, or limit us? Are our world’s bigger or smaller because of our blue’s? Do we need a shift in our perception?

Sure, it’s scary to reflect and question our tightly held ideas (that have become like our childhood security blankets, soft and comfortable), but we only grow when we choose to have the courage to turn the lights on and discover/re-discover the people we’re called to be. And things are much less scary with hands to hold.

Those People, pt 2: Sports & Sandals

Last night was a big high school basketball game. Our local high school hosted a hated (as hated as high school rivalry is, which is to say, manufactured and superficial) rival school, the winner would go to the playoffs, the loser would not. The teams are very well matched, the schools are mirror images. The officiating was abysmal, again, and had more of a role in the outcome than any of us would like. The good guys lost, in overtime, in a too-stressful, exciting, if not overly well played, game.

There is no reason to write about that, nothing unusual or noteworthy – in sports, people & teams win, and others lose. Lessons are learned, we develop (or not) through both results.

However, what happened after the game is what I want to tell you.

High school kids are mostly the same, loud, and loudly obnoxious. We don’t think they’re all that similar, but that’s because these are ours and those aren’t. We think their student section is worse, absolutely horrible, their players and coaches are unsportsmanlike, and they think the same about our student section, players and coaches. It’s situational blindness, and it’s common in all -isms.

Our student section was boisterous and aggressive, their players played to that increased energy. When their player hit a 3-pointer, he’d turn and glare at them with 3 fingers raised, which threw our kids into a frenzy. It was hot and noisy and passionate and looked like we were heading for a bench clearing melee.

The game ended, emotions soared, our players cried at a missed opportunity where a game was won/lost in 1,000 different ways and could have easily gone our way. They may look like adults, but they are 16 years old. They are kids, and we can say it’s just a game, but at 16, everything is of the highest importance. Do you remember having your heart broken, thinking you’d never recover? That you would never love again? That she was your soul mate, your person, and there would never be another like her? And now we don’t remember her name or what color her eyes were. We held strong opinions on trivialities, fought over pro football teams, and made list after list of best albums (and whoever didn’t agree was wrong, and was only embarrassing themselves.) A basketball game does matter, A LOT, to a 16 year old who had sweat for months, or in the case of my boy, the last several years, thinking, dreaming of this moment, and to come up short is absolutely devastating.

They would be forgiven for an angry outburst or moment of regret.

After moving through the line, shaking hands, their players moved quickly in the direction of our bleachers… We held our breath and waited.

We’ve been talking about divisions, right? And how we build our walls so high and thick to emphasize the difference between US and THEM. We are right, obviously, and they are wrong. And this week’s quote/question was about if our relationship with Jesus, His sacrifice, His Kingdom was more important than any and every difference we have with others.

What would these pretend distinctions lead to, in a high school gym in Pennsylvania? We already know, have read countless news stories and watched too many new stories, where it has already led, so many times before. We already know we’ve too often chosen our walls over Jesus.

So, what happened? They shook hands, smiled, appreciated the terrific environment for high school sports, affirming the discipline, effort, and skill of the contest. They celebrated the experience they were privileged enough to share.

Then, afterwards, they all met up again to talk, as friends might, with more that united them than could ever divide, in the hallway on their way to the bus.

I watched, with tears in my own eyes. Sure, from the loss and my boy’s crushed spirit, but also from this gorgeous picture of the Sandals of Peace. If we can just keep our eyes open to the divine all around us, I think we’re probably treated to beauty like this, to the sight of God’s Kingdom breaking through into this hurting world, more than we can possibly imagine. We just get so cynical sometimes, believing the darkness will never lift, believing that we’re mean, nasty, untrustworthy and irredeemable in our broken-ness. We can close our eyes and lose hope, but sometimes, in an unlikely place, we see that our faith has not been misplaced, that Jesus, and love, wins.

New Creation

So, I have this very great friend who got married on New Years Eve. We’ve known each other for 20ish years and in those 20ish years, we’ve been through everything. She was married to a guy who turned out to be a, well, he turned out to be a guy NOT to be married to. We cried together, the 3 of us, The Angel, her, and I, in our rented apartment. I stayed in relationship with him for her, until I couldn’t, because as it turned out, he was also a guy NOT to be in relationship with. We drove together to pick up her things. We watched movies, ate ice cream, wept, laughed. We followed Jesus together, we mourned the loss of our church together. We fell apart, then returned. We hurt each other, picked each other up, carried the other, said things we can never take back, and said and did things that cemented our lives to the other. She prayed for God to bring her a good man, a man more after God’s heart than hers. She wondered if the prayer was unanswered or if the answer was a gentle, soft, “no.”

But, of course, there would be a man (I spoiled the ending with my first sentence) with such a beautiful heart, the kind of man that could/would be her husband. It’s not always that the best people get the best things, but when it happens, it must be savored.

As they enjoyed their first dance, the only 2 people in the world, I thought of this passage in Isaiah: “…The Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43:16-19) This was truly a New Thing. The “former things,” the “things of old,” we would not remember. That guy is forgotten. The years and years of patient waiting on the Lord, wondering if this moment would ever happen, are forgotten. In His timing, He had made a “path in the mighty waters.” Her mourning had turned to dancing before our eyes, and our only duty (our honor, our privilege) was to perceive it.

Earlier in the day, we discussed the new year, and our preparation for it. These 2 weren’t passively waiting for a miracle, and they weren’t restlessly trying to manufacture that miracle. They didn’t settle for less 10 years in. They simply stayed on the path, listening, wide-eyed and open-hearted, becoming the woman & man they are today. To paraphrase the verse in Proverbs 21:31, their horses were prepared for battle – they had prepared well, faithfully – but this victory was the Lord’s. This victory was always the Lord’s.

What are we doing to prepare for this beautiful gift of our lives? And how? Are we patiently faithful, or are we still choking the wheel, trying desperately to force what we want, when we want it. Are we frustrated & confused at the perception that God isn’t listening, or isn’t going to show up? When will it be me, my turn? Why isn’t He answering? Where is the victory?

I stood in the front as she walked down the aisle, I wondered how many of these questions she asked, and how hard it must have been to not settle for just another warm body. I have a great job, and I got to stand in front of everyone, look at them both, and say, “you both deserve this.”

I don’t know what this year will look like for us. I know it’s not off to the greatest start, as I sit here with a box of tissues on my lap waiting for the sinus medicine to work, but it’s only the 4th. I do know last year ended with a Big Win. We have questions to answer, horses to prepare, moments to craft, and people to love. So many people to love. He’s doing a new thing, for us, in us, around us, through us, and maybe we have 20 years of waiting to do, maybe we have ex-husbands to forget, maybe we have colds & flu’s to suffer, pain and loss to endure, but it’s springing forth, even then, even if we can’t yet see it.

Congratulations to the Mr & Mrs. And to all of us, a very happy New Thing!

Coincidence

What stories are we telling ourselves? What meaning are we assigning to the circumstances of our lives? Where have we believed lies instead of Truth? What lies, specifically? Where do they come from?

The last few months have held some of the most important practical implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and faith, in general. Too often, we stow our faith away in a nice, tidy box in the corner and take it out at convenient times, comfortable places. Sunday morning, (maybe not every Sunday morning), we go to a special building, spend an hour or two, and come home to watch football. Maybe we remember what the sermon was about, but probably not, more likely a few words or phrases. Maybe we talk to someone else, maybe we sing along to the band, maybe someone asks us how we are and maybe we tell the truth.

That last paragraph is a generalization of the American church that may be true for each of us to a certain extent. The point is, sometimes we have different sides of us – a work Chad, sports Chad, friend Chad, spouse Chad, church Chad, on and on. And our spirituality is something where the gap between theology and practice can be very, very wide. What in the world could the rebellion of David’s son Absalom possibly have to do with us, here, now? And we can list facts of Jesus’ birth, life, and death, but do any of those facts really impact my cubicle or today’s math test or my next text message?

The short answers are A LOT, and YES, they absolutely do!

So, these last few months have had a bunch of planks that make a sweet bridge across that theology-practice chasm. Yesterday, we discussed the stories we tell and why? What makes us believe what we do – about God, about us, about everything and everyone else?

It’s always surprising (though I don’t know why it continues to surprise…it’s like being surprised when the sun sets, the rain stops, or our Dallas Cowboys win) how these passages we study are weaved into current or calendar events. We choose a book (that I will admit sometimes feel random to me) and the 4th chapter on unity/division happens to line up with an election cycle. Or right as we’re diving into helmets of salvation and digging through the trash of the damaging lies we’ve accepted, New Year’s Day is 3 weeks away and we’re reflecting on the year that was and that will be, where we’ve come from and where we’re going to. What could be more vital in engaging our imaginations to paving the new roads of our lives than this?!?

This isn’t coincidence. This is invitation.

Now we have a choice as to what box we’ll check: Yes or No? He comes in our direction in a million different ways, extending His hand to us – will we take it and jump? Can we finally erase the disconnect between all of our faces, combining them into the one He calls us to wear? Of course, it’s scary and hard, that’s why He gave us each other to do it all together.

Current Favorite

I’m going to share my lovewithacapitall post, again. There was a prompt on the hosting website and, as I began to fill this screen, I realized what I was actually writing about. The post, instead of being about the movies and songs we like now, superficial and light (as was surely intended by the prompt), quickly morphed into Sunday’s message on salvation, grace, and the cultural attraction to conditionality.

We are MFPs, extravagantly loved, and accepted, adopted into God’s family without a trace of the word “current.” And we are invited to also eliminate the currency of our love and commitment, become hi-fi brothers and sisters, and change the world, one extension of forgiveness & grace at a time, together.

Here it is:

Yesterday’s site prompt was, Who are your current most favorite people? It’s an strange question, feeling clunky and slightly unsettling. Most Favorite People should surely be capitalized, as if a title or award that is bestowed on the deserving. However, the inclusion of the word “current” implies that this title can also be rescinded. What is earned can be taken away.

Current MFPs are Chris Evans and Bong Joon-ho, star and director of the dystopian nightmare (yet still hopeful) Snowpiercer movie. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who is expecting a baby with his girlfriend Sarah Jane Ramos, is, too. Why do I know who his girlfriend is? Or especially that they are pregnant? Is this really important for us to know? I’m not certain that all lines between public and private should be erased, but that’s a little strange for me to say as I sit in my living room chair writing a blog where I share all of the personal, sometimes intimate, details of my life with you. But I get to choose what is shared. Maybe Dak Prescott or Ms. Ramos issued a press release, but very often the breaking information/news is clearly not for me. The social contract of fame, whether I like it or not, has a very high cost.

What is unsettling to me about this question is the conditionality of it all. If Snowpiercer was terrible, would Joon-ho make this list? I wasted an hour of a Netflix movie, 6 Underground, before I had to turn it off with extreme judgment, and that director isn’t an MFP. Dak has been awesome lately, but the next time he throws 4 interceptions, or loses another playoff game, will he, his girlfriend, and his baby still be Most Favorites?

Nev Schulman, Max Joseph, and Kamie Crawford – hosts of Catfish – are perpetual MFPs. That sounds right. If they are truly our Favorites, they should remain favorites, right? Not all episodes of Catfish are great. In fact, most new episodes aren’t.

Morrissey is the best example of this contrast. He often says regrettable, problematic things, not every song is an A+ anymore, some solo albums are admittedly average, but he will stay my #1 MFP forever.

I’m so far considering celebrities or famous artists I’ve never met, but the temptation to carry this idea of currency is insidious, infiltrating our actual relationships and lives. We commit to our spouses, children and friends with the same level of faithfulness as our quarterbacks, and directors. If we don’t feel it right now, we move on, they were a current love, but that’s over and we’re down the road onto the next “current.”

Fidelity means “the quality or state of being faithful or loyal,” and maybe the term hi-fi shouldn’t apply only to our stereos. Maybe we should be hi-fi. Currency is fine for singers and sports teams, but not families and communities. I wonder how everything would change overnight if the impulse to disconnect, leave and find a new current based on this moment alone, were left behind. If our MFPs were never again current, and just remained the favorites they are now. Maybe we could just give our love, based not on performance, covering over the metaphorical interceptions and 6 Undergrounds. Maybe we could begin to choose hi-fi over why-fi, and just see what we could build.

About The Weather

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances…”

Next week is Thanksgiving, so it’s a terrific time to reference these verses. Give thanks in all circumstances. We talk often about creating lives of gratitude, and the reason we do it so often is because it’s so difficult. It’s far more natural to allow lives of resentment and lack. Nobody has to tell us to take anything for granted, to hold grudges, or to try to control everything and everyone. I don’t remember any class syllabus with, “The Necessity of Wanting What We Don’t Have.” Yet, these are the wide paths we regularly walk.

Do we rejoice always? Pray continually? Give thanks in all circumstances? All? Really?

The words of Scripture confront us with a gigantic, usually unspoken, question. Are these characteristics we are asked to build realistic? Is the life Jesus (and in this case, Paul) calls us into possible? Or are they simply ideals, never meant for practical use?

It’s easy to argue the latter. Listen to how that passage begins (verses 13-15): “Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

Do I even have to ask if we live in peace with each other? How about our success in being patient with everyone? Everyone? And strive to do what’s good for each other and for everyone else? That’s infinitely more complicated when we’re focused on doing what’s good for ourselves, right?

In a world where peace is in such short supply, where the accepted norm is to pay back wrong for wrong, these words seem so far away. Loving our brothers and sisters, moms and dads, loving ourselves, is so challenging, how can we honestly be expected to love our neighbors, much less our enemies? It’s hard to even guess what it means to love our enemies. Is it hyperbole? Just pie-in-the-sky rhetoric that sounds awesome on a mountainside or in a letter to a church?

But there is the end of verse 18: “…for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” What about that? We wish to know God’s will for us and our lives, but maybe we already do, we just keep asking because we don’t like the answer. God’s will for us is that we are patient? Sounds that way. That we give thanks in all circumstances? But what if the circumstances are terrible?!? (Just a quick note; it does say in all circumstances, not for all circumstances, and that’s a big distinction.)

The last 3 words are the keys to all of it, of course. Chad alone can’t do any of these things with any consistency, if at all. But Chad in Christ Jesus is a new creation with a new nature, and with those things being true, anything and everything is now possible. We can be patient, kind people in a chaotic, upside down world. We can rejoice always, and we can give thanks in all circumstances. We don’t have to live the way we have been, we can live beautiful lives of hope & love in the middle of this hurricane. And maybe that can calm the hurricane. Or maybe it can’t. I don’t know. But it doesn’t really matter if I know or not, that’s what faith is.

Next week is Thanksgiving, and it sounds perfect to be the jumping point into living 1st Thessalonians 5 lives. Even if the turkey is dry or the pies are burned. Even if we happen to be alone (and if you are, maybe you would call me). Even if lots of things. We can start there, one day, step, moment, at a time. Let’s try to change this weather together.

Questions…

“…as we contemplate how we spend our time and money, it’s important that we realize that being a healthy member of a healthy church will have a direct impact on those issues as well. There’s nothing we can do for our families that will have a greater positive impact than making sure we’re members of a healthy local church.

I’ve seen evidence of this firsthand as I’ve had conversation after conversation with fathers and mothers who are committed to family discipleship, but who are struggling tremendously as they either attend an unhealthy church or no church at all. These families don’t testify of overwhelming joy and fulfillment because “family is enough.” On the contrary, they testify to struggle, strain, loneliness, fear, isolation, and despair.

Family discipleship is absolutely critical, but there’s no substitute for healthy membership in a healthy local church.”

Voddie Baucham Jr wrote that in a book called Family Shepherds. It’s the perfect kind of book; it’s convicting, challenging, an absolute call up to me (and, honestly, probably all of us), but it is also a book with which I don’t always agree. These parts engage me, invite me to dive a bit more deeply into what I say I believe, what I truly believe, if they are the same, and why I believe those things. Then I am satisfied because I still disagree (based on solid teaching, learning, understanding, and/or practice) or, in a very uncomfortable twist, I am left untethered to my own ideas (either because they come from a faulty theology, a cultural hijacking of my spirituality, or from nowhere at all, simply because I’ve never examined them) and have a decision to make. Do I let go of the known past and step into the unknown abyss? Or do I continue to cling to old, wrong, misguided baggage?

You already know which I’d prefer to choose. You also know which I actually choose.

This is not why I included the earlier quote, it’s just why I care about the book, and why I like it so much.

I included the passage because it confronts all of us, on some level or another. Do we belong to a local church? Should we? Do we take it seriously? What exactly is family discipleship? What do we testify to, in our own lives and families? Is it joy and fulfillment? Or is our story one of struggle, strain, loneliness, fear, isolation, and despair? What does it mean to have a “healthy” membership? What is a “healthy” local church? Is the Bridge one of those?

3 small-ish paragraphs that beg soooo many questions. Are we asking them or just turning the page? Are we wrestling with these concepts or falling asleep as we try to finish the chapter?

Is there really “nothing we can do for our families that will have a greater positive impact than making sure we’re members of a healthy local church?” It feels like a conflict of interest for me to ask these questions, because I happen to know of a local church that would love to have you. But if I take my job seriously, my purpose isn’t to increase Sunday morning attendance (well, I suppose it is a purpose, or part of a purpose, but it’s nowhere close to THE main purpose, which is to share the Gospel, point everybody to Jesus, tell & show them He loves us here and now, loving in the way I do all along the way). My professional and my personal missions happen to be the same, so my call is to ask questions that will lead us to who we really are, which will always, always lead us to Him.

Maybe there isn’t a clever last line to this post. I usually like to do that;) But maybe we’re just asking questions and figuring out if we’ll answer them honestly, and then, if we’ll move based on those answers. Who knows? I just love that we can find out together.