master of puppets

Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.  - 1 corinthians 13:12


there are so many events in our lives that really knock us down. as Christians, these events often bring about fervent prayer. we're taught about the power of prayer on a regular basis, and in many cases see that power as we or those we know rejoice in answered prayer. so what happens when we're really praying hard for a situation in our lives that has us so stressed out, and our prayers aren't answered... at least not in the way we're expecting?

bitterness, anger, confusion.. these are a few of the many reactions we might have as a result of a prayer unanswered. another reaction that isn't all that uncommon is for someone to become angry with God. to question God. now i don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to show this kind of emotion, but to what extent does it get taken? i do think there is such a thing as a healthy skepticism, because we don't have all of the answers. but at some point trust has to take over. faith has to become stronger. when these things occur, that skepticism shrinks. the doubts in our minds are replaced by the knowledge and acceptance that we won't know all there is to know in this life, but we trust in our Father to take care of us.

now let's take a step back and look at this anger that we might have towards God. you may disagree, but i believe it stems from a belief that God is in control. i say "belief" because it just might not be factual. stay with me here. some might see that as blasphemy or whatever, but is that true or are we so accustomed to what we've been spoon-fed that we don't believe any other way is possible? do we really believe that God is pulling the strings and that we're simply his puppets? if we go that route, then we believe that we're predestined to do what we do and to die how we die and to go to heaven or hell. if that's the case, doesn't it become harder to quell any anger towards a God who preselected us to perish before we were ever born? if this is the way we are to believe, then what are we to make of 2 peter 3:8,9 that says "but you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. the Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think. no, he is being patient for your sake. he does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent."?

i don't believe that God is the master of puppets. so is God in control? let's look at it this way: do you have free will? the answer is, of course, yes. so since we have free will, is God in control of our actions? NO! if he were, then we wouldn't love him. it wouldn't be love because love must be given, not taken. and so for us to love God, he gave us free will. and with that freedom, we choose to obey or disobey him. so if God isn't in control of our actions, is he completely in control?

i, like many others, contend that in order to give us free will so that we may love him, God gave up a measure of his control. so i'm not saying that God wasn't once in complete control, but i am saying that he gave up some of that control in order that we may love him!

the other thing that leads to our anger is that we have COMPLETELY lost sight of the fact that there is spiritual warfare going on around us. it's so easy to dismiss this, isn't it? to live life like there isn't a villain. to simplify things and to think God is lounging around waiting for our requests so that he can jump at the chance to show us his love by answering our prayers. let me show you what i'm talking about.. in daniel 10, there is a section that completely attests to this fact. verses 10-13 say this:
          "Just then a hand touched me and lifted me, still trembling, to my hands and knees. And the man said to me, “Daniel, you are very precious to God, so listen carefully to what I have to say to you. Stand up, for I have been sent to you.” When he said this to me, I stood up, still trembling.
           Then he said, “Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer. But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia.”

in light of this, how do we now view our prayers? and let me just say, this is a very small portion of prayer. it's so dynamic that entire books have been written about the very subject and probably only touch on a small chunk of what prayer is and how powerful it can be. i want to leave you with one final excerpt from the book letters from a skeptic that i feel beautifully summarizes the latter portion of this blog about warfare. i hope you take the time to read it, and i hope that in some way your view of our El Shaddai, our loving Father, changes in some way. just remember, God doesn't promise to deliver us from every storm, but he does promise that he'll be right beside us and we'll be a different person on the other side. may God bless and keep you.

"let's say there was a little house inhabited by american allies on normandy beach when d-day broke out. in fact, let's suppose that the family in this unfortunate beach cottage consisted of the son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren of the head captain of the invading american fleet. there they were, caught in the crossfire of this terrible battle. let's say they had a radio line with this captain and could radio their requests to him during the battle. they told him they were being hit both with enemy fire and with american fire. they told him they were wounded and needed supplies, hungry and needed food, etc.

now the captain cares a great deal about his son and his family and would like to answer every one of their requests. but, at the same time, there is a larger battle to fight, thousands of other lives to consider, and the outcome of this important battle which must be of preeminent importance. so sometimes this captain can meet his son's requests. but other times, given the strategic warfare of the enemy, he cannot. and perhaps sometimes their requests are not even to their own advantage given the course the battle is taking.

but the unfortunate family in the beach cottage doesn't have this broader perspective. they only know that the captain is on their side, that their requests are heard and are taken into account, and that sometimes their requests are granted and sometimes not. but they, lacking this strategic perspective, have no idea why this is the case. they don't have a purview of the whole battle. their perspective is limited to the tiny windows in their cottage."

letters from a skeptic - dr. gregory a. boyd & edward k. boyd

i against i

But those who still reject me are like the restless sea,
      which is never still
      but continually churns up mud and dirt - isaiah 57:20


one of the more frustrating things in (my) life is dealing with "the sin that so easily entangles" as (i) we try to live the life that Christ has called (me) us to live. it's by no accident that we struggle with the things we struggle with. i agree wholeheartedly with john eldredge who brings to light that the things we struggle with are the things that the tempter has been pounding us with since we were children; he sees an opportunity for weakness, and he exploits it while we're young. this thought hit me all at once as i could easily trace back to my younger years the moments when those things with which i wrestle began to enter my mind.


so the bigger question is "what do we do about it?" in our generation, it is harder to overcome these sins. i believe that completely. why? because we want that instant "getification". fast food chains thrive, our freezers are filled with microwavable foods (we even have premade pb&j sandwiches!).. there are so many things to list that back this up, but i'll just stop there. so why does this make overcoming sin that much harder? we become so consumed with the end result that we get frustrated with the process. the process isn't an overnight thing. it's the way of transformation, and it takes time. so with our minds consumed with instant results, we give up on the things that take time. 


in the book celebration of discipline, author richard foster says in conclusion to the verse above that "the sea does not need to do anything special to produce [mud] and dirt; that is the result of its natural motions. this is also true of us when we are under the condition of sin. the natural motions of our lives produce [mud] and dirt. sin is a part of the internal structure of our lives. no special effort is needed to produce it. no wonder we feel trapped."


wow! such a simple thought, yet a lot of us never can lay it out quite like that. this makes it so much easier to identify with paul when he talks about being a slave to sin. foster goes on to talk about our fight against this lifestyle, and says "we determine to never do (whatever your sin may be) again; we pray against it, fight against it, set our will against it. but the struggle is all in vain, and we find ourselves once again morally bankrupt... heini arnold writes, 'we... want to make it quite clear that we cannot free and purify our own heart by exerting our own will.'"


this is where we become our own worst enemies. we try to fight this battle ourselves, and we trust in our own will. 


i'm going to hit you with 3 quotes here, so stay with me.. foster concludes that "willpower will never succeed in dealing with the deeply ingrained habits of sin." emmet fox writes "as soon as you resist mentally any undesirable or unwanted circumstance, you thereby endow it with more power--power which it will use against you, and you will have depleted your own resources to that exact extent." and finally, heini arnold concludes "as long as we think we can save ourselves by our own will power, we will only make the evil in us stronger than ever." how true are these words? if you've ever wrestled with sin as you try to live a life honoring God, you know the power and truth of these words. 


so how do we defend ourselves? we live a life of discipline; we stop fighting alone; we drop the fear or reaction, rejection, and judgement; we confess our sins and seek accountability. we see this process the way that foster sees it: the doorway to liberation. we have to be patient, we have to be willing to try, to change, we have to be willing to seek God in new ways, and we have to be willing to be transparent. accept responsibility and invite change. God does great things through broken people. 


so may you patiently seek and live the process. may you stop relying on your will and fighting against yourself. may you live a life of spiritual discipline. may God bless you and do great things through you. 


sources:
celebration of discipline - richard j foster
freedom from sinful thoughts:Christ alone breaks the curse - heini arnold
the sermon on the mount - emmet fox 

what i miss

i've been pretty busy as of late with different goings on, so i guess i haven't post a blog in a while as a result. may have a few coming in a short period of time as i've still been thinking about various things.

early this month i was at a little conference for the future of youth ministry, and there was a lot of emphasis placed on family. sometimes it seems as though some parents view youth ministers as the ones who should bring Christ into the lives of their children, and that we ministers should be the main avenue of teaching. while i love the task that i have ahead of me in directing teens in the way of Christ, the time that i'm given to spend time with teens pales in comparison to the time they have with parents. in any given week, i spend 3 hours max with teens.. more often than not, i don't even get that much time with them. so in this, it's no wonder that in recent studies youth ministers were 17th on the list of influences in a teen's life (parents placed 3rd behind friends and media).

so what is this evidence of? to me, it's that we as a country are losing our sense of family. abc family has this little slogan they like to throw out there all too often: "a new kind of family". is this what america now views as family? shows like the secret life of the american teenager where teenage pregnancy is running rampant and gossip and scandalous rumors thrive, or pretty little liars (the title says it all, right?) where lies and covering the truth are a huge part of life and where a big part of the story line is a budding homosexual relationship.. is that truly the portrayal of "a new kind of family"?

if this is truly where we're headed, then children of our children will see the family life that we've known behind some rope at a museum somewhere.

this brings me to the title of this post.. as i was sitting at the conference, one thing kept going through my mind: i miss the days when dining room tables weren't just decoration. it seems now that a lot of homes have those tables for "special occasions" or just to fill the space. they've been replaced now by couches, coffee tables, and television. in the past week i've had a couple of opportunities to sit down at big tables in restaurants with friends and just enjoy each others company, stories, hopes.. an opportunity to shut out the distractions and be truly engaged in what's going on in the lives of my friends.

isn't this what it comes down to? being truly engaged and interested in what's going on in someone's life. and not only that, but taking the opportunity to ask and to listen? at some point and for some reason, we become ok with both hearing and giving the response of "fine". the response that says "thanks for asking, but we're not about to start discussing what's really going on because you don't really care and i don't want to talk about it. (in so many words)" the "how are you" question is now more a greeting than an inquiry, and perhaps this is the gradual fade into a new kind of family.

but to this i say it's not too late. we can take back what family really is. we don't need media to dictate the direction we go as a country. so may you take back what was taken from you in the name of entertainment. may you stop greeting and start inquiring. may you turn off the tv or radio and listen. may you rediscover the purpose of the dining room table.

no lie

but now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. - colossians 3:8-10

i'm not really sure where it all began, but for a few years now i've been hearing people say things like "not even gonna lie" or simply "no lie". at first i didn't think much of it. but i guess as i've heard it more and more and seen it grow in popularity, it has grabbed my attention. 

likewise, i'm not sure when we got to the point as a society when we started having to preface our statements or stories by saying "what i'm about to tell you isn't a lie", but to me that kinda says that anything else you say can't really be trusted. sometimes we may say some things that sound unbelievable, so it's not such a bad thing to say that it's not a lie. but then again, it's not a part of our everyday conversation to drop some strange facts that require this (unless your name is layton welborn). 

now when Jesus taught, he often would say "i tell you the truth!" some may argue a similarity and try to downplay this verbiage, but i don't feel like this is related at all to us saying "no lie." you see, when Jesus taught, he was teaching new things. he was teaching new law. he was showing people a new way. the truth, as it is used in the new testament, often refers to the word of God. 

but he also had this to say when talking about those who want to do the will of God: "those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.*" such a simple concept, isn't it? recently at a youth rally david rubio brought forth 3 things that we have to do to live Godly lives, and one was simply tell the truth. why has this become so difficult? what do we have to gain by lying as adults? deception? 

that really seems to be the only reason to live a life in which you have to inform someone when you're not lying. paul addresses this when he's instructing us on living as children of God by saying "since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.**" 

a life of deception may have the appearance of happiness, but is ultimately empty and always searching for something to make it better. we should embrace our lives as they are and stop living behind this mask. so may you be YOU. may you live a life of truth. may your words be honest. may you live without the mask. 

*john 7:18 from the new living translation

**ephesians 4:21-23 from the new living translation 

a change in the winds

i've been with the white house congregation for almost a year and a half now. it's one of those weird points in which you look at someone and know them so well, yet you remember when you were strangers not so long ago. i have no doubt that this is where God wants me to be even though i lost some things and people in this move. any time i'm not at church on a sunday morning, whether it be a day off or that i'm on a trip, i miss my family. i wonder how God's word touched them that day, or how their faces may have been overcome with joy as they brought their gifts of praise that morning.

despite this bond, there are still a lot of ways in which we see things differently. isn't this the case with any relationship? one party thinks this, while the other thinks that. it's the beauty of our uniqueness.. if that's even a word. recently i made a change that was... well, unpopular may not be a strong enough word. but you get the idea.. and it wasn't in spite of anyone or anything. it wasn't to stir up any controversy. and though i will benefit spiritually, it wasn't even done with me in mind.

let me put it this way.. christmas vacation is my favorite christmas movie, so i'll use an example from that. some of you at this point are saying "what? you're dumb. a christmas story is the greatest christmas movie of all time.. etc, etc.." yeah yeah, we get it. he wants a bb gun and has to wear bunny pajamas. and when he gets what he wants, he furthers the stereotype that adults have been throwing out the whole time by being irresponsible with the gun and hits his eye. wee. i digress.. in christmas vacation, clark griswold is hard at work to make his house the best one on the block in order to enhance his family's holiday experience. he works through the night, he suffers several falls, but he gets the job done. and when he urges his family to come and see what he has done, they are hesitant. they're comfortable inside, it's cold outside, they're perfectly content where they are. but he keeps on them until they come out as if to say "it'll all make sense once you see this!" all of the hard work, all of the time he put into his work would make sense once they saw the result, and in turn it enhanced their holiday experience.

so for a few months i'm sitting in this situation of "it'll all make sense once you see this.." and as i sit, i know what's coming up. i'm so excited that the words of ellis "red" redding from the shawshank redemption come to mind when he said "i find i’m so excited i can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head." i can't help but contrast this with our salvation. it's like as God is inviting us to receive this free gift, we're yelling back that we're ok where we are. it's cold out there, and it's warm in here.. we're content with where we're living. maybe because in the beginning, this is the only life we know. we're used to it, we've adapted. and God is saying, "look, i have something better for you. it'll all make sense once you see this." once we accept this gift, we get that excitement growing in us.. red goes on to say "i think it’s the excitement that only a free man can feel. a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain." the only difference is, we know the conclusion. but the journey, though uncertain in so many ways, is exciting and full of adventure. embrace it. live it. feel alive.

and rest assured, it'll all make sense once you see.

a case of the mondays

i've been thinking about blogging for quite some time now. not that my thoughts are all the provocative, but i guess i just felt like putting my thoughts down for others to read in this modern format. with that being said, i'll start with the thing that has plagued me most over these last few years now that social networking and "statuses" are such a big part of our lives.

probably the most popular subject i read about as others attempt to tell us how they're feeling on any given day is "friday". you've inevitably read a status dealing with this topic, and you know exactly what that means. it means that someone is longing for that day, longing for the weekend to be here. typically i see this the most on mondays, or even the aptly labeled "hump day" that is wednesday. perhaps a weekend filled with rest, or an event that someone is looking forward to.. the possibilities are endless. so why does this plague me? i'm not disturbed that someone is looking forward to an event in their lives, but what does disturb me is how we tend to live for 3 days. it seems as though the majority of our week is something to "get through", but isn't it the little things that make life worth living? what do we miss when we look ahead so much?

i'm not a beatles fan, nor am i a fan of john lennon, but i have to give him credit for his singing "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans*." it should bother us more that we're not living for each moment, shouldn't it? when i think about this, i get charged up as though i were listening to an invigorating speech by william wallace himself. he's essentially shouting to us who have lost our zest for life "do you want to hide and live a life worth regretting, or do you want to live for this moment and know that you did everything you could?" sadly enough, the church is not immune to this. i wish i could see christians every day who are making the most of the time they have. i often wonder if the words of Jesus have fallen on deaf ears as he exclaims "a thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. i came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.**" the very words we claim to follow are the words that tell us to wake up and live for each moment. such simple words.. "wake up!" if only we would.

or perhaps it's that we look to the past as the "prime" of our lives, and we long for it as though we can get back to that place. there's a word for this: nostalgia. do you know someone like this? or perhaps you are this person. or have been. i have been. in living life like this, i can attest to the words of rob bell when he says "there's a certain kind of despair that sets in when we believe that things were better back then. when we're stuck back there. when we're not fully present. when we're still holding on to how things were, our arms aren't free to embrace today... if you live in the fantasy that you will get around to it tomorrow, that you'll get around to them tomorrow, you will wake up and it will not be tomorrow, it will be yesterday and you will have missed it, you will have missed them... the answer is to be so fully present here and now that you don't miss a thing in this day.***" how true and powerful are these simple words that remind us that all we have is today.

so may you live this life. may you live the life Jesus has provided for you and called you to live. may you wake up. may we all.

*i know it's not an original quote, just liked the wording
**john 10:10 from "the message" translation
***from the video today in rob bell's video series nooma

note: i encourage you to check out today as well as the movie click as these both touch on this subject in some way.