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For the Love of the Game

MLB opening day is next week. More importantly, High School baseball begins tomorrow afternoon here in Athens. Forecast is sunny and 75 degrees.

For me this week kicks off a series of about 19 weeks of solid baseball, which can otherwise be called pure ecstasy. I love this game. It has brought me so much joy in my lifetime. And now that my kids are beginning to play it I know it will continue to bring many more years of joy.

Fourteen hours from now I will be hearing those two precious words being shouted from behind home plate... "Play Ball!!!!"

The Darkest Friday Afternoon

A "Good Friday" Reading: Matthew 27:45-54

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

. . . . . . . . . . . .

I think it's fitting that the weather is a little gloomy today. When the Bible refers to the sixth hour, that's 12:00 NOON... about the sixth hour after the dawning of a new day. At NOON darkness fell over the land. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Jesus, who was in every way God, had died. Immanuel, "God with us", had breathed his last human breath. He was only in his early thirties. He had only been in ministry for 3 years. His followers had left their jobs to be his disciple, which provided no pay, and rarely even a place to sleep. Now what do they do?

Was it all for nothing? Did the God of the universe get defeated by his enemy... the one who claimed he could be like God, and gathered a following for his own glory? Had he won? Had he accomplished his goal to... to destroy the God of Creation?

It appeared so on Friday, around NOON.

But if if it was SO dark, SO terrible, SO horrifying... then why do we call it "GOOD" Friday? Seems odd, doesn't it? That the day we set aside to remember the death of Jesus is considered GOOD??!!

Many believe this name simply evolved... as language has a tendency to do. They point to the earlier designation, "God's Friday," as its root. (This seems reasonable, given that the word "goodbye" evolved from the phrase "God be with you.")

Whatever its origin, the name of this holy day offers a lesson to those of us who assume that "good" must also mean "happy." We find it hard to imagine a day marked by sadness as a good day. Especially we we have defined those two words as synonyms. They are not necessarily.

There are many GOOD things I do for my children that do not make them happy. Like yesterday, for instance. April took Brock and Kaylee to the dentist. It was a good day, and a good parental decision. But, I don't know about your experiences, but there is absolutely nothing about going to the dentist that makes me happy. Doing something GOOD does not always mean it’s going to make people happy, or that you are even being "kind" to them. Kindness and goodness are two separate fruits of the Spirit. Perhaps that's why they are both listed separately.

Of course the church has always understood that the day commemorated on Good Friday was anything but happy. Sadness, mourning, fasting, and prayer have been its focus since the earliest centuries of the church. A fourth-century church manual, the Apostolic Constitutions, called Good Friday a "day of mourning, not a day of festive Joy." Ambrose, the fourth-century archbishop who befriended the notorious sinner Augustine of Hippo before his conversion, called it the "day of bitterness on which we fast."*

We live in a culture that can be defined with this phrase... "the pursuit of happiness". Everyone is looking for something that will give them "meaning". And ignorantly, all too often they define "meaning" as "happy". Its consumerism at it's worst. And in the midst of the height of Western consumerism, Good Friday calls to a surprising stop this "pursuit of happiness." The cross reveals this pursuit for what it is: a secondary thing. God's GOODNESS is revealed on the cross. When you recognize the extremes to which His Goodness went for you, and you believe it to be true, and you put your faith in Him. Then happiness follows. It follows obedience.

Good Friday... the commemoration of Christ's death, reminds us of the human sin that caused this death. And we see again that salvation comes only through godly sorrow... both God's and, in repentance, ours. To pursue happiness, we must first experience sorrow. He who goes forth sowing tears returns in joy. What a great paradox.

At the same time, of course, Good Friday recalls for us the greatness and wonder of God's love... that He should submit to death for us. An act from which He is eternally far removed. Death is opposite of Who God is. He is LIFE. He is LIFE-GIVING. But he submitted to death because it was the only way we could receive the LIFE He wanted to give us.

In parts of Europe this day is called not merely "Good," but "Great" or "Holy" Friday. No wonder! When you recognize what has been done, no words can accurately describe the day.

It may be dark today... but very soon, just as he promised, the Son will rise again.

* Cited from a Christianity Today article

Relationship

Around Christmas time we’re accustomed to driving past church billboards and seeing familiar phrases like, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” I’m going to take that one step farther and say, “Jesus is the reason for every day of our lives.” I have a good reason for saying that. I’m not saying it because I want to be some kind of smarty-pants. I’m saying it because as Easter approaches many people become acutely sensitive to “church”. I think it is relevant to point out one of the fundamental reasons why holidays such as Easter mean so much on the Christian calendar but I find it equally relevant to point out that the amount of adulation that gets put into a day like Easter is something that should extend to every facet of our everyday lives. Now before I get too far into this I want to make it clear that I’m not attempting to downplay the importance of Easter or Christmas or any other significant day in the life of Jesus. This isn’t going to be a commentary about that sort of thing. What I’m going to talk about has everything to do with relationship and how God has pursued us since the dawn of our existence. Why do we celebrate Jesus at all? The answer is simple. It is this answer that I want to briefly explore because I’ve found that it is something that helps keep my mindset where it needs to be in celebrating Jesus everyday of my life so that praise becomes a habit but never a chore.

Flashback to the Garden of Eden. The world was in a state of harmonious perfection with the creator. God was for the world and the world was for God. Every breath from every creature spoke the same name: God. God had completed a masterpiece and that masterpiece was flawless. God had left no blemish upon anything. Perfection simply is not a satisfactory enough word to captivate into description all that God had done. God had a great passion for a particular part of His creation. Humans were the pride of God. Perhaps one of his most complex and fascinating creations. In that time humans were without flaw.  Adam and Eve were united in oneness with the very Spirit of God. There was only truth between God and His beloved human creation. Between the two existed a deep sense of intimacy and love. Humans were unabashedly naked before God not only in flesh but in soul as well. It was the ideal relationship in the ideal time. Yet humans were not brutishly treated slaves. Humans were given the gift of choice and it was this fundamentally beautiful gift that would tear a savage rift between their perfect relationship with the perfect creator. One seemingly innocent act of defiance would lead to a catastrophic windfall of consequence that would forever haunt God’s beloved human creation. The worst part of it all was that the humans did it to themselves even though they were told what was best for them. Human choice separated the perfection of oneness that we enjoyed in our relationship with God. Nothing that would follow would ever seem the same. Yet in that very instant God sets into motion a chain of events to undo what had been done. Sin temporarily stood between God and His beloved creation. Yet God is not a creator to be denied. God was so intensely passionate about His human creation that He saw to it that one day the relationship He desired to have with us would be restored. The scar of sin would one day be taken away. Generation after generation came under God’s guidance without the complete knowledge of all that was to come yet they strived hard under the will of God for a labor they might never see come to fruition with their earthly eyes. The promises of God are iron clad and for those who believed there was no denying the sway of the creator. Enter Jesus. Jesus walked the world in perfect obedience to God. Jesus walked into death under the sway of obedience to God. Jesus was resurrected and the Holy Spirit came under the direct commands of God. The Holy Spirit filled us just as Jesus promised that it would. Jesus fulfilled the long stated promises of God. Our relationship with God, which was broken by sin, was now restored through the actions of Jesus and the intercession of the Holy Spirit. Something that had been lost for thousands of years was permanently restored: Relationship.

On Easter we think of many things. Several words come to mind such as salvation, crucifixion, and resurrection. None of these are bad things but I think it is important to remember that we exist as saved creatures. As such I think it is important to honor what God has been doing for us since our inception of life. Though He could have, God never gave up on us. Jesus was the representation of so many things and among the most powerful of those is the example of how much God desired, and desires, to have an immensely deep relationship with us. I feel like I’ve said that word “relationship” so many times in this one post but then again I think it’s the kind of thing that cannot be emphasized enough. Jesus died not only to give us life but also to restore God’s passion with us. In other words, Jesus gave his life so that we could reconnect with God in a way that hadn’t been possible for a very long time and by accomplishing his task Jesus gave us the open door to life through that relationship. This life of love that we enjoy in God is tender and compassionate. When we look at God we should not see some legalistic old person with staunch rules and an arms length perception of what it means to have a relationship. God cradles us because He loves us that much. He loves us with the kind of tender ferocity that sets our souls alight with the grace of His touch. Jesus made these things possible through the power that God had given to him. Jesus knew what it was to have the perfect relationship with God. Take one moment to just step back and digest all that God did for Jesus in their unique relationship. It’s almost more than the senses can handle. Yet it’s all true and it’s the same kind of offer that we have extended to us today. God is waiting to be indulged and to indulge each of us with His joys. On this Easter Sunday I become acutely aware of this very thing but I also try to take it one step further and remember that every day of my life is a cause for tremendous celebration. Why? Because Jesus is the reason for every day that I breathe life in and out. I celebrate because God did this not only for me but all people. We have life and we have a love in this life that surpasses all others. That love is fulfilling like nothing else can be. That love is God and Jesus opened that door for all. The amazing thing is that anyone is free to walk through that door. There is no heart that God cannot lift up. There is no soul that God cannot invigorate with the love of life. There is no person incapable of having the kind of relationship that God desires to have with us.  Thank you seems almost trite to say in the face of such gifts. So I try, in every moment, to let my heart resound the kind of praise to God that only the truth of my very being could give. Thank you God that you pursue us so. Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice so that we could come to know the world of your Father as it was always meant to be.

Maundy Thursday

Traditionally we remember this day in history as the day when Jesus sat down to share the Last Supper with his disciples before the gruelling final hours which led to his death on a cross. Literally, The word "Maundy" comes from the Latin word "command" (mandatum), and it refers to the command given by Jesus at the Last Supper that his disciples should love one another.

This evening (Wednesday) at the house church meeting I was attending we discussed this last supper, and the exchange of words that took place between Jesus and his disciples, as it's recorded in John's gospel. After Jesus gave them the news that one of them was "unclean" and would soon betray him to the Jewish officials who were trying to have him arrested, the disciples begin a rumbling of conversation to one another about what the heck Jesus was talking about, and who he could possibly be referring to. In that moment, Peter leaned over to John and told John to ask Jesus who the betrayer is going to be. So John quietly leans over and asks Jesus (emphasis mine). Then Jesus (as the rumbling conversation is still going on) quietly tells John, "It's the one to whom I give this piece of bread." He then dips a piece of bread into the bowl and hands it to Judas. Judas accepts it and takes a bite, not realizing what he has just communicated. Jesus knew all along who his betrayer was. Now John knows too.

Jesus then leans over to Judas and quietly tells him to do what he has planned, and to do it quickly. Now Judas knows that He knows.

Pause. Imagine for a moment... you are Judas. You know what you are about to do. You know it is going to hurt Jesus. You know Jesus knows because he's looking you in the eyes and telling you what you are thinking. And what do you do? You go ahead and do it anyway.

Ever been there? Ever stood face to face with temptation? Knowing that Christ's presence is with you by the Holy Spirit because you can feel it plain as day. And yet you still choose to do what you had planned to do, even if it brings Jesus pain? What a terrifying place to be. To be able to so easily and so defiantly deny Jesus and take the selfish road.

Back to the story. John says that the disciples saw Judas get up and leave but had assumed Jesus told him to go buy supplies for the Passover. See, this is why I kept emphasizing "quietly". I had always assumed that these statements were announced aloud for all the disciples to hear. But doesn't it seem strange that Judas would accept the piece of bread from Jesus if Jesus had just announced, "The one to whom I give this bread is the betrayer." I know I'd be sitting on my hands. There's no way I'm taking that bread!

Jesus just knew. And he just let it happen. At the beginning of that entire scene John tells us that Jesus knew the time had come. He knew that all of his work on earth was now reaching it's climax. He knew what had to happen. And he wasn't about to stand in the way. For God loved the world so much, that he devised a crazy plan to reconnect His creation with Himself after we had screwed up the relationship in the beginning. This plan meant that He would have to suffer at the hands of His very creation. The Creator getting punched, beaten, mocked, made fun of... by the ones He created. The irony of it all was, the guy who had Him arrested, the guy who punched Him, the guy who made fun of Him... were the very people He was suffering for. He was taking the punishment they were giving so they wouldn't have to receive it.

That's how much he loves us. He could have stopped it. He could have had that last meal on Maundy Thursday and then skipped town. He could have given in to the "Last Temptation" and ran off with Mary Magdeline and start a normal family. He could have... but He didn't. If He had, I wouldn't be writing these words. I would never sing a song of praise. I would not know joy. If He had chosen to break His promise to redeem His people, then "hope" would be a word that no one could define. There would be no life. Only death. Evil would win. We have no way of comprehending the doom we would face.

Thank God we don't have to.

Born Again

Of the many clichés that exist in mainstream Christianity the notion of being “born again” is perhaps one of the most popular. Not until a few weeks ago did that phrase make me step back and say a very profound, “huh…”. For whatever reason there seems to exist this ideology that once you are dipped in the water, i.e. baptized, you come up clean. Yet how does one define clean? What is it that you are cleansed of and how? What happened in that brief moment of submersion? The notion that I always felt I was expected to believe was that through baptism we are born again in the Holy Spirit (I’m alright so far) and that our lives start fresh (still okay). Now that we have this fresh life we should just be able to call a halt to all things sinful in our lives (huh). After all, I’m a card carrying Christian now. I’m officially certified to be holy through my actions, such as dutifully attending to my appointed church responsibilities (huh). Therefore I pledge to never do following: drink, smoke, go to bars, swear, hang out with sinners, and basically shut myself inside my safe church culture where everything is controlled, contained, screened, quarantined and brought out FDA certified on the other side. In such a fashion I will be the squeaky clean model of what it means to be Christ like (double huh). In this way I demonstrate how I was born again through the Holy Spirit. I now solemnly pledge that since I have done all these things, and are thereby holy, that I will voraciously do the following: go to church every time there is a meeting, attend every festival or event sanctioned by the church that I am certified through my rank of membership to attend, tithe approximately (perhaps more if I’m feeling frisky) 10% of my annual yearly income, join all the committees that I can possibly fill my schedule with, go on every missionary journey to third world countries that I’m able to attend so I can come home and demonstrate to the impoverished surrounding community all the good works I’ve done for people thousands of miles away (the locals like that I think), and basically jump through every hoop imaginable so that I will remain in good standing with the authorities figures that truly keep the church functioning like a well oiled and well invested machine. I mean if that’s not what it means to be “born again” then I don’t know how else you’d describe it……….(huh).

I Corinthians 1:30-31 says “God alone made it possible for you to be in Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made Christ to be wisdom itself. He is the one who made us acceptable to God. He made us pure and holy, and he gave himself to purchase our freedom. As the Scriptures say, ‘The person who wishes to boast should boast only of what the Lord has done.’”

Q: What makes us holy?

A: Christ

Q: Why?

A: “He made us pure and holy, and he gave himself to purchase our freedom.” OR “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

When you are first born what can you really do for yourself? Not much right. You need someone to feed you, to change you, to hold you, to talk to you, to bathe you, to clothe you, to….well… pretty much do everything. As infants we are helpless. We can hardly hold our own heads up without support. How insane would it be for a mother to turn to her newly born infant and say, “Well, you’re out now so go forth into the world and start your life. Don’t just sit there looking up at me and drooling all over yourself. Get up and go do something. What’s wrong? Are your own little legs too weak to carry you? What are you some kind of dummy? Can’t you even hold a spoon to get some applesauce in your mouth? Can’t you do anything? Surely you don’t need to go back into the womb and cook a little more. You look and feel pretty well done to me. What’s wrong with you?” Don’t those statements just sound absolutely crazy? Who in their right mind would say something like that to a baby that’s not even an hour old? Yet when we are born again as Christians do we ever hear anything that sounds similar to the statements made above? Does any of this sound familiar: “Well, you’re a Christian now so go forth into the world and begin converting everyone you see to the faith. Don’t just sit at home; come down to the church so that we can reach out to the world by hardly ever leaving our building. What’s wrong? Isn’t your newfound faith strong enough to carry you away from sin? Can’t you just stop yourself from sinning? What’s so difficult about that? Isn’t your faith stronger than that? Can’t you just put your old life behind you? If you can’t you must not be much of a Christian? Where’s your faith? Where’ve you been? We missed you last Sunday? How’s your walk with God? Where are you at with the heart of Christ?” Do questions such as these truly bring us any closer to what it means to be “reborn” or help bring us closer in our relationship with God? Perhaps some of them do but perhaps some of them have the opposite of the intended effect.

John 1:12-13 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan-this rebirth comes from God.

My favorite part of this translation is, “This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan.” Being reborn has everything to do with God and very little to do with us. God gave us Christ so that we might be acceptable to him. It is Jesus who makes us Holy and it is God who paved that way to begin with. I think the first and perhaps most fundamentally important element of “rebirth” is first to understand who it comes from and why. I hearken back to the quote from I Corinthians above. “God alone made it possible for you to be in Christ Jesus.” I love the wording in this sentence that says “God alone”. The scriptures make it very clear that it was God who had the plan, knew the plan, and executed His plan to perfection. For God alone made it possible for each and every one of us to be in Christ. “For our benefit God made Christ to be wisdom itself.” Listen to this later passage from I Corinthians on wisdom, “But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the mighty power of God and the wonderful wisdom of God. This ‘foolish’ plan of God is far wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is far stronger than the greatest of human strength.” “He is the one who made us acceptable to God. He made us pure and holy, and he gave himself to purchase our freedom.” Turn your ears to this passage out of Hebrews, “Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people’s bodies from ritual defilement. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our hearts from deeds that lead to death so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.” I think this makes it clear where our rebirth of spirit comes from. If this is true then we can turn our attention to what being reborn entails for our own lives.

I Corinthians 3:1-2 “Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would mature Christians. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. I had to feed you with milk and not with solid food, because you couldn’t handle anything stronger.” I love the fact that Paul uses the words “infants in the Christian life.” When you are spiritually reborn it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you gain some infinite cosmic knowledge, know the Bible by heart, know every hymn by heart, know every church ritual by heart, know every ounce of Christian history by heart, or even really know the way that God wants you to walk the path. I think part of being reborn is to simply acknowledge that your life is on an aimless path and you see that God is the only answer. By humbling yourself and admitting that you need a caretaker in every aspect of your world then you open the most honest doors of your heart so that Christ can move in, set up camp, and begin a strong work in your life. In this new spiritually reborn life we are like infants. All we’ve ever known is our old lives and the desires of that life. We are bound to struggle against what we’ve always done versus what God truly wants us to do. For many people there is a very genuine struggle there. Nowhere is it written in the scriptures that just because you are reborn you will suddenly have a dandy and carefree walk through some new age of reason. Yet why are so many Christians being drug over the coals because, “Hey, you’re a Christian now. You should no better about doing that kind of stuff.” Yet in this new spiritual life we remain infants and meanwhile there’s a whole culture out there telling us that we should just hurry up and mature. It’s like saying to a newborn, “Would you hurry up and turn 18 so you can go off to college, get a real job, and let your tired old folks to retire to their time share in the Cayman Islands. I mean I know you’re only 36 minutes old but would you get on the stick already.” Why are Christians expected to be baptized one day and then suddenly overnight become fully mature Christians? It’s just a stupid expectation. Take a look at how Paul was handling the Corinthian church. Here are his own words; “I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. I had to feed you with milk and not with solid food, because you couldn’t handle anything stronger.” In short, we are all still growing. Being “born again” doesn’t mean that we grow up overnight. I know that I personally feel like I’m in an infancy state with regards to my spiritual development. It’s taken me over a decade to learn some very basic lessons about God and Scripture. God is teaching me how to crawl now. For the last ten years God has held me, supported my head, fed me, clothed me, rolled me over, helped me burp out my idiocy, and changed me. Now I feel as though he’s saying, “Alright it’s time to learn how to crawl now and very soon it’ll be time to take your first steps.” Nobody said maturing in the “Christian” life would ever be an expedient or simplistic process. However, God is like the perfect parent. He gave us our Spiritual rebirth and He’s taken the responsibility into His own hands to be a good parent to us. He is still teaching all of us throughout the trials of every day. Like every child we’re bound to screw up but God is a patient parent and He knows what is best. I think it is important to remember that He gave us this life and he’s constantly busy helping us nurture that life. Some of us have already hit the stride of our Christian adulthood whereas others of us are still growing but it all remains in the family. As a family we help one another and we each have our roles to play. Not only is God helping us to grow from our new birth, but also each member of the family is helping one another to grow. It’s like a circle that always comes back around to God.

At this juncture I believe there is a very critical distinction to make. As you’ve been reading all this stuff above you might have found yourself asking, “So does that mean it’s alright to drag your feet and just be immature in the spiritual life while you go through the painstakingly long process of growing up?” My answer is simple. No. It’s not okay to just drag your feet. It’s like knowing the right thing but never doing it. What kind of sense does that make? However, I think we could all relate to knowing what it feels like to know the right thing and do another. Do me a favor. Don’t go beating yourself over the head with this kind of talk because what is done is done. It only wastes time to go back over your life and say, “Oh I could have done this or I could have done that or I did this when I should have done that.” It’s critical to learn from our mistakes but it’s just as critical that our past mistakes don’t rule our lives. Why? Because we now have a new life through the Spirit of Christ. In this given, given being the operative word, life we have many new things to do, learn, and share. We have a cavernous amount of room to grow. We all grow in different ways. We all share the Spirit in different ways. We each have something fresh to offer even though we might convince ourselves that this isn’t true. Being “born again” has nothing to do with some fancy set of rules and miles of pageantry. It has everything to do with the Holy Spirit coming in to our lives and re-shaping us. The Holy Spirit comes in and helps us chisel our true selves from the person that we were. This process can take a while but it is time well spent. The Holy Spirit helps us bring the best of ourselves to the surface. This process is, however, a two way street. It’s like being in any relationship. If you put nothing into it don’t expect to get much out of it. We have responsibilities in this born again life. We have a responsibility to seek God with the most intense passion that our souls can possibly muster. As we do this we find that our limbs become stronger. Our minds become sharper. Our souls become more sensitive to the movings of the Spirit. Our lives mature into a mesh with the will of God. The goal is that one day there would be no evidence of our own selfish desires and that a person could look at us only to find a portrait of the love the God has stored in us. We all know from personal experience that growing up is never easy but the rewards on the other side are beyond what our youthful immaturity could have ever imagined. We walk this Spiritual road not because we want rewards but rather we walk this road because we seek relationship. That relationship we find in God is more pure than anything we shall ever know. God is busy walking us from Spiritual childhood to Spiritual adulthood and we owe it to ourselves to acknowledge our guide so that we can be unabashedly taught how to walk in the light of His ways.

Thank You God for Ordinary Days

We are advised not to "Sweat the Small Stuff" as the popular book tells us. I think that we should do even more.  Not only should we "not sweat it" but we should actually embrace the small stuff, and thank God for it.  Let me explain what I mean.  God has been dealing with me today about being thankful for the simple ordinary things of life.  For example, my son has been keeping track of the NCAA brackets, and really having a good time.  God spoke to my spirit today, and said "enjoy this moment with him, he is only young for a little while."  This thought in turn, has caused me to put my thoughts into words, and write a poem, which I would like to share with you.   

The Poem is entitled,

Thank you God for the Ordinary Days.

I thank you God, for the ordinary days, for waking up, to give you praise.            A cup of coffee as I ponder your ways, I thank you God for ordinary days.            

Thank you God for the singing birds at morn, for the covers that keep me warm.  Even the alarm clock that sends me on my way, thank you God for ordinary days

Thank you God, for the ordinary days, for blue sky and sunshine to brighten the way,                                                                                                             For music and laughter, as the kids run and play, Thank you God for ordinary days.

Thank you God, for family and friends, memories of what we've done, and where we've been,                                                                                        These angels here in human form, have stood with us, through calm and storm.

You've given me such blessings, too numerous to name, Your touch anoints my life so nothing is the same,

I praise you Holy Father for all the little things, because of You, the ordinary becomes, EXTRAORDINARY...

When everything is finished, and all our work is done,                                        It's the ordinary things that we will cherish, as we recall them one by one.

I hope that you will take a few minutes, and thank God for the Ordinary days.

 

            

A Musical Prayer

Last night I came home and felt a strong compulsion in my heart to pray. I felt the irrepressible urge to pour my heart out to God. I felt like God was calling on my heart to engage in an intimate moment with Him. In my music I am vulnerable. My music is the voice I best know how to use. I sometimes wish that I could speak in this voice and no other so that my most pure heart can be given to God at all times. This is a weakness of mine I realize and I’m trying to let a voice spring from every ounce of my being. But as many of you know this is a learning process and God is yet busy teaching me how to do many of these things. Yet I love to express this voice to God. So I sat down and planned nothing. I simply found a sound that moved me. I turned off the lights, lit a candle, and stripped my soul naked before God. This is what came out of that moment. Perhaps it’s nothing to write home about but that doesn’t really matter to me. This was the conversation that God and I had last night. It was His love pouring into me and my heartfelt attempt at pouring it back out to Him. Sometimes the things we do can feel insignificant or inadequate. Yet God is a steadfast presence holding us there in the dark beside the candle. He wraps us in His warmth. He kisses the top of our head and cradles us. He sways us in His arms like his greatest love. His smile weakens us because it is so beautiful. He is there with us when we look upon the night sky and behold the majesty of the stars calling us home. He is there with us when we behold the splendor of life an invigorating sunrise. He is the rain that covers us in love and grace. He is…everything. He has been this since before the rise of time. He has been this all our lives even before we knew the sustenance of breath. He is the kiss of joy upon our lips. He is to be praised in all things. So let all our voices, in whatever form they might come, rattle the heavens with abounding joy. Go ahead. He is listening………………………

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The Missionary to the Irish

Today everyone in town is drinking green beer, taking an extra long lunch to watch the opening round of the NCAA tournament, and enjoying the fragrance of spring in the air. And somehow, I don't think St. Patrick would mind. He was, after all, the missionary to the Irish!

I love St. Patrick's Day. I love the story of Patrick, a simple English Christian who was kidnapped at age 16 by a band of Celtic pirates from Ireland, taken to Ireland and sold into slavery. During his slavery years in Ireland God made some significant changes in Patrick's life. He learned to pause and recognize God's "natural revelation". Being all alone, he sensed God's presence with the winds, the changes of seasons, the creatures of the earth, and at night as he laid under the stars. During his time in slavery, Patrick's faith was quickened, and he became what he called a "devout Christian".

Another significant change in Patrick was that he came to understand the Irish people, their language, and their culture. Not only did he come to understand them, he grew to love them... his captors!

To make a long story short, Patrick was freed from slavery a short time after these revelations. He returned to his homeland in England, trained for the priesthood, and immersed himself in the Scriptures. He then served for several years as a faithful priest in the church of England.

But he had another revelation around the age of 48. God was calling him to go back into Ireland, this time voluntarily, and for the the purpose of preaching the Gospel to the Irish. This became a very difficult thing to convince the Church to allow because one of the great issues of the church in that day was that Christianity's world mission was dependent upon two things: "Christianizing" and "Civilizing". Simply, Christian missionaries were taught to "evangelize" a people and to "civilize" them as well.

So basically, Roman Catholic Christianity had adopted a certain culture of civilization, and believed that a people group of another culture must not only believe in the gospel, but also adopt "their culture".

However, Patrick, having lived among the Irish in his younger years, knew that this would not be possible among the "barbaric" tribes of the Irish. But he went anyway. While there he resolved to live among the people, to learn from them, to love them, to work with them. And when he had become one of them, he began with what they already knew, and built on what they already had.

The missionary to the Irish. An example to us all. The divide between "unchurched" people and "churched" people appears to be getting wider and wider. We would do well to learn from St. Patrick. To understand our context, our community. There may be a price to pay. You may even be ridiculed and cast away by some of your Christian peers (Patrick was at first... no one believed his missionary journey would be possible). But if we take the time to understand the world around us, we will usually know what to say and what to do. Perhaps, if people know and feel that we have taken the time to understand and know them before pitching them a sales message, they just might risk opening their hearts to the God who also understands them.

If you are interested in learning more about this story, check out this book.

How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill

OasNet...I have a feeling...

Picture this: It’s a Sunday night at Uncle Bob’s (my beloved nickname for Bob Evans). Jamitha and I are spent after a long day. Bob Evans iced tea is fantastic and it really goes a long way in revitalizing me after a long day. This is one of the primary reasons we are at Bob’s in this particular instance. It is obvious to anyone that we are worn down by the toils of a rather big day and a nice quiet dinner is always a welcome topper to any such day. Conversation has been unfolding for probably the past fifteen minutes when we come to the topic of OasNet. I think it was me who asked the question, “So what do you think about OasNet?” Upon voicing this question it seemed like both our ears just stopped to take in the scope of all that had been discussed that morning. The conversation that follows is nowhere near as important as the conclusion. That conclusion can be summed up, I think, in one word. That word is: THRILLING! In a way OasNet just seems so big but I think that’s part of what makes it so exciting. Just hearing things about Oasis publications, Oasis music, stuff sold on Amazon, and the whole host of other things that were brought to bear over the weekend somehow seems distantly unattainable. But the reality is that it’s not distantly attainable. It’s happening right now. Whenever you have a big vision I think it’s easy to say, “Ah, that would never happen in my time,” but for us there is this incredible undercurrent of activity going on within the Oasis family. Here’s the thing to remember. That undercurrent of activity has always been going strong except now we’re just hearing about where that momentum has brought us and where it’s going to take us. It’s both exciting and a little scary. In any “movement” it can be easy to lose the original purpose that originally spurned the whole thing. With OasNet, however, I genuinely feel that everyone involved is conscious of what is important. A movement by itself is irrelevant and inconsequential without proper foundations. In the case of OasNet the foundation and purpose is very clear. This clarity reflects the beliefs that we so cherish. That’s what removes my fear about the movement being called OasNet. Everything that we do must reflect the truth of the gospel. This is something that the persons involved in OasNet know without any distortion of thought. The times to come are going to be simply inspiring. Personally, the more I think about OasNet the more jacked up I get. I’m also reminded of something when I think about this movement that is OasNet.

Picture this: You are a man alone in prison. Your name is hunted by many, feared by many, and viciously hated by many. It seems like most of the places you go the world becomes small around you and ridicules your efforts. Yet as you sit in your cell penning a letter to a nearby church, you realize the powerful things that God constantly does in your life and the lives of others. Whether you’re completely aware of it or not, you are at the beginning of perhaps the biggest movement in human history. You are at the front of perhaps one of the most important things that humans will ever do. You are spreading a message. You are helping create a movement that will compel generation after generation to seek the truth. God has done all this. God is at the head of this effort. God simply is. God knew even before the hand of time all that his children would do. God is the great architect. God simply is. This is why you go from place to place fulfilling the task that God has set for you. This is why you refuse to lay down and die. This is why you refuse to stop spreading the message that was given to you. This is why you live everyday for the God who loves you. God sent all things and as such these things are a virtual juggernaut.  Nothing stands before God and defies Him. God is possibility.

I am, of course, describing Paul. What a fascinating person he must have been. I’ve often said that I would love to meet Paul. I would love to have known him in that day. Paul, as well as the other disciples, had an enormous task ahead of them. Yet they did it. The odds against their success were insane. Trust me, even Vegas odds couldn’t touch the mountain of opposition that these early church folks faced. Yet they did it. They beat the house. How? Remember that God is possibility. God was their center. Therefore there was nothing that they could not do if God so desired it to be. OasNet, or anything else for that matter, is not about us. It’s not about bringing glory to us. The center of OasNet is God. I know I’m praying for that as are many others. I hope you are as excited as I am about OasNet because I think God has given us this fertile bed of opportunity to do His work. As a family, and with God as our head, I believe God is going to help us do something really powerful here. This isn’t a commercial for fiscal success or any other kind of success for that matter. It’s simply what I feel deep in a place that I can’t quite explain. I leave such complications for God to bring clear to me in whatever way He sees fit. I love this family and I know how desperately we all want to pour our love into our creator. May this coming time continue to help us give the truth of hearts in a passionate expression of our worship to God. All my love…

Chad 

Musing on I Corinthians 2:1-10

2:1-2: Trends. There is perhaps no better example of a culture that understands trends better than the ravenous consumer culture of America. What are some of the biggest trends out today? Weight loss immediately storms into my mind. I was in Wal-Mart the other day with Jamitha and we were patiently waiting in the check out lane with our two items behind the lady with like six carts crammed with goodies. So I do what I always do in such a situation. I read tabloid headlines and magazine covers. I find myself reading the cover of Weekly World News and wondering, “How old is Bat Boy now? He has to be near triple digits by now. Yet here he is looking much the same way that he did 30 years ago. Of course, he is Bat Boy and as such must have some power of youthful longevity the like of which I will never comprehend.” After my weekly Bat Boy episode I turn my attention to the “real” magazines on the racks, which, coincidentally, are located just above the Combos and Snickers Bars. Every cover basically looks the same. There’s always some babe of the month showing off either her ample cleavage or her unnaturally tanned washboard tummy. She’s also usually making this seductive face that I’ve never seen any human being make either in the heat of passion or simply in the rhythm of everyday conversation. The headlines that surround the babe of the month tend to be one of two things, at least the prominent ones. Headline option A usually reads something like this: “237 ½ ways to make your man scream.” Headline option B usually reads: “The hottest diet trend that will help you lose half your body weight in 72 hours.” I’ll tell you why these headlines, particularly ones having to do with weight loss, irritate the socks right off me. Everything in this day seems about finding the path of least resistance. I remember once upon a time when exercise videos were all the rage. My own mother has a Tae Bo tape somewhere in the house. But now everything is about the pill that’s guaranteed to make you thin. These days it seems like the airways are curiously devoid of exercise talk. Exercise at least takes work. But now the public is not only endorsing but they’re buying products that more or less say sit on your butt and lose inches on your waistline with a mere “fill in a ridiculous amount of dosage” per day”. The tag line is always the same, “You won’t believe the results.” I’m sure thousands of consumers have found themselves in disbelief at the failure of these products sensationalist claims. So what is my point you ask? Trends are D-U-M!! Yeah I know there’s a “b” in dumb but it’s more funny without it. Trends sucker us. Trends have the longevity of a snowman in 110-degree weather. There is a simple truth contained in scripture and there’s a simple truth to teaching Christ. “…first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did-Jesus crucified.” These are the words of Paul to the Corinthian church as he explains what he felt was most fundamentally important for their church to first grasp. In Paul’s day, much like our own, there were tons of hot topics. There were gads of hot trends. There were oodles of religions. In other words, there was a whole army of gelatin tough trends that people in the Corinthian culture could choose from. Paul had to draw a clear line in the sand between what was trendy and what was eternal. This becomes particularly relevant when we consider the cultural make-up of the Corinthian people. After all Corinth was under the umbrella of the Roman Empire and that’s about as far removed as one can get from the message of Christ. Paul was faced with the ridiculously gargantuan task of stemming the philosophical and cultural tide of Corinth to teach the message of Jesus. Paul was going to take that culture’s live by the minute philosophies and replace them with the eternal philosophy of God and the salvation of Christ. As we know from experience, putting down a popular trend for something that actually makes sense is about as easy as teaching an infant how to cook a five star meal. In other words, old habits die hard.

2:3-5: I can relate, as I’m sure most of us can, from the overwhelming doubt that sometimes creeps in when trying to accomplish any of God’s appointed tasks. I remember nearly having a coronary the first time I ever led worship in song with the Oasis fellowship. I remember telling myself, “I believe with every ounce of my sanity that God wants me to do this. Since I believe this I know that He will help me find my feet and ultimately accomplish His will regardless of my own personal feelings of inadequacy.” I love the fact that Paul is unafraid to admit his own measure of self-doubt here. It’s a great message for the masses of people, myself included, who are afraid that they are too self-inadequate to accomplish a work for God. When we are alone we are, in fact, inadequate to accomplish God’s work but that is why God assists us and it’s another reason why we have the mind and Spirit of Christ. Paul says it best, “But the message came through anyway. God’s spirit and God’s power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.”

2:6-10: I love the way this passage of scripture reads in the Message translation, “We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.” In the New Living Translation Paul refers to “mature Christians.” I think the Message really clarifies what Paul is truly driving at here. I used the phrase earlier “finding my feet.” I fell that I’m constantly in the process of finding my feet in the formation of my theology. By finding my feet I simply mean that I’m trying to learn how to walk in the understanding and wisdom that God provides for us. There are times when I’m reading scripture that I fell like I’m reading a foreign language. It seems that the meaning is sometimes cruelly hidden from me. For example, at this very moment I’m sitting in the Donkey Café in Athens devilishly eavesdropping on a conversation between two women who entered the room about five minutes ago. I have no idea what they’re talking about because they’re not speaking English. I’m not kidding. I think they’re speaking Russian, which one of my less tactful friends refers to as “talking f@$%ing Sputnik”. I’m relatively certain they are in fact speaking this language because moments ago one woman must have been saying something profound because the other woman replied in a tone of awe by saying very methodically, “Da…Da…Da…” Hollywood has taught me that “Da” in Russian means yes. Whether that’s true or not I’m not sure but if it was good enough for Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd to use in that movie “Spies Like Us” then I’m just going to run with it. Even though I can’t understand this conversation across the room, I find that by listening to the inflection of the voices and eyeballing their body language that I can begin to get a surface level sense of their conversation. In other words, the longer I watch and listen the more understanding I gain about the nature of their conversation. If I were to go over to this group of now three women, someone new just joined their ranks, and attempt to partake in their conversation then perhaps they would take pity on me by teaching me some of what they’re saying. By doing this I would gain a piece of understanding that isn’t necessarily floating around on the surface of what I’m seeing and hearing. I often feel that’s how understanding scripture and how it relates to God goes sometimes. We peel away layers of mystery or is it that scripture, or God, peels away our secretive layers as we study. I recently read a statement about reading the Bible that ran something like, “We don’t study and deconstruct scripture but rather scripture studies and deconstructs us.” I feel all the way down in my big toe that this is true.  I feel like scripture is teaching me. The more our relationship with God grows the more naked our very souls become before him. The more naked we become before God the more mature we become because we allow ourselves to be taught. We become vulnerable and empty only to be strengthened and filled back up. This means that we begin to stand more firmly on the ground that God has laid for our own lives. In this state our hearts, souls, and minds become more equipped to handle the wisdom of God. God replaces our ignorance and foolishness more fully with His own Spirit. In this fashion we grow stronger through the imperceptible power of the Holy Spirit. Because of God’s Spirit growing stronger within us our relationship with God blossoms tenfold. On the surface all this talk seems nothing short of insane but unlike all the fleeting talk of the world, this foolish spiritual babble holds the very keys to a greater eternal truth. God’s word and His ways are lasting. We cannot afford to look only at the surface elements of our relationship with God. “God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message but more like the oldest-what God determined as the way to bring out His best in us long before we ever arrived on the scene.” In short, the message of God and the plan of God was propelled into action long before any human manifested thought or plan. Often times humans have immense trouble seeing five minutes past themselves. We tend to live in a sense of the now whereas God exists in the realm of eternity. It can be exceedingly difficult to get our heads around this. Things didn’t begin with humans first then God. Genesis 1:1 – “First this: God created the Heavens and Earth – all you see, all you don’t see.” Humans aren’t even mentioned in the creation story until Genesis 2:7. The point is that humans tend to over emphasize themselves and their intelligence. I’m a big fan of this guy named Bill Maher. He’s a comedian who got his start back in the decadent 1980’s. He’s incredibly opinionated and insanely funny. He has a new show on HBO and the format is essentially that of topical discussion through the use of different panels of guests. One of the hot topics lately has been the issue of the Ten Commandments so Bill was reading through all the varying commandments and making certain remarks about the nature of the commandments themselves. Bill referred to God as a diva who, judging by the commandments, simply needs attention all the time. Bill also went on to point out that the Ten Commandments, when you break them down in his world, aren’t really moral at all. I wish I could tell you what the support to his argument was but he didn’t have the opportunity to go into it. Now even though Bill has some very strident opinions, that doesn’t stop me from enjoying his work and his political commentary. Yet his attitude perfectly illustrates the feelings of many who consider their own wisdom to be far better than any God manifested wisdom. Such people tend to pull out what they want from the history of religious crusades and causes that really had nothing to do with scripture so they can create a case for God being asininely brutal in His treatment of the world. This kind of argument is used to point out that in fact there is no God and history is simply made up by people who wanted money and power and they accomplished this by using God as a convenient excuse to justify some of the most despicable acts in religious history. Yet what is interesting is that God, in these instances, isn’t being defined by His own words but rather by what other people have done with those words. The sad thing is that history does reflect the truth that many people did, in fact, pervert scripture into their own terms so that they could execute unjustifiable actions to improve their own positions of influence. This, however, is by no means a fair way to describe, define, or justify God and His existence. “The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this scripture test: No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, never so much as imagined anything quite like it – what God has arranged for those who love him. But you’ve seen and heard it because God by His Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.” Again, we see the point re-iterated that conventional wisdom is as weak as a sheet of toilet paper in a nightmarish hurricane when stood next to the unfailing wisdom of God. If the full plan of God were truly understood by all then Christ would never have been crucified. Adam and Eve would not have committed their act of defiance in the garden. Yet impatience and curiosity tend to get the best of most people. Again, it’s hard to imagine the scope and benevolence of our creator. We run back into that wall where society and culture has spray painted lunacy all over God’s plans but still, underneath the graffiti of a doubting world the word of God is still very much intact thought it may seem buried and lost. God’s wall of reason continues to stand and the truth of its message always comes to the surface. Why? Because God is truth and therefore He will continue to rise to the surface high above all other things.