Unexpected

Rain falls on dry ground
Without forecast
Gray fog, mud

No thunder, lightning,
Or end in sight
Clouds hide clouds

Sometimes surprises
Aren’t exciting,
Just unexpected

Unmotivated sorrow
Alone together
Patient anxiety

I watch the rain and wait.

Mind Tracking Spirit

Mark chapters 5-8; the difference between faith and "mind-reliance."

One of the greatest barriers to Christ working in our lives, it seems from this section, is us leaning on our own understandings and traditions. As the Pharisees are accused of stomping on the law in order to uphold their own traditions, it seems to me that we stomp on the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit when we demand God to work in our preconceived frameworks. When we do this we, like the crowd at the house of Jairus, laugh at what Jesus has planned - it seems ridiculous.

Conversely, it is when people look for the fringe of Christ's garment or the "crumbs that fall from the table" that real transformation occurs. The Syrophoenician woman essentially says to Jesus, "My faith goes beyond theology. My faith is in you and not social constructs that surround you." All of this reminds me of two statements, one is by someone like Anselm or Augustine (great church history knowledge, eh?). He was speaking about the place of reason in faith and said, "Reason informs our faith." An elderly pastor who teaches at Asbury sometimes, Jimmy Buskirk, always said he wanted his churches and seminaries to be "mind tracking Spirit."

Both of these thoughts come down to this: the Spirit and our faith lead and then we do our best to understand it. This provides for two things to happen. First, no artificial "edge of the world" is created, or said better we do not limit God by demanding he stay within the lines of our present understanding. Second, there is room for mystery because some of the things God does we may never fully understand. But if reason leads, we only allow God to go to that boundary.

The culmination of this idea comes when Peter confesses Jesus as Christ - as Messiah. Jesus says to him (paraphrase), "I'm so glad you have space in you to receive revelation from heaven that goes beyond your own analysis of what you see and hear and think. What you just said did not come out of your mind but from the mouth of God through your mouth." Of course he quickly tries to lock Jesus back in Peter's understanding of what it means to be the Messiah and is rebuked for having his mind on worldly things again, but hey, at least he got it right once.

Final note; in this section of Mark it is people in the know about religion or the human identity of Jesus who get it mixed up. Those who have lost hope in religion or who don't know THE religion in the first place seem to see Jesus clearly. Their minds have not locked him into being a resurrected John the Baptist, or Elijah, or merely a prophet (as Herod's servants report and as Peter claims is the word on the street). They are free to just see Jesus with Spirit-eyes.

The Wilderness Cooked

I recently listened to a talk given by a guy named Graham Cook. He is from England and grew up in a crime family until a dramatic encounter with Christ changed his life. He has been ministering for over 30 years now. While there were a few things I didn't agree with (I think sometimes people take something God is telling them about their life and what he will do for them and make it the standard for all people), he made a couple of really powerful points. One of them, about "the wilderness," I wanted to capture here. He used the sequence of events in Luke around Jesus' baptism. Here is the shortened version.

Jesus is claimed as the beloved son in whom the Father is delighted before he has ever done anything. Then, the Holy Spirit takes him out into the wilderness where, during forty days of fasting, God does some amazing revelation about himself and Jesus. Jesus is given an "inheritance word," a word from God that he can have confidence in. The enemy is then allowed to draw near and be defeated, and then Jesus walks into the temple, reads out of order a text from Isaiah (Is. 61) proclaiming this inheritance word for the next season of his life. So, what if the wilderness is where God takes people he is most delighted in?

What if the wilderness is God's favorite place to take people to strip away distractions and reveal who he really is and who we really are; then strengthen us with our own inheritance, draw the enemy (who may have been plagueing us for years) very near and allow us to defeat him, then send us out to fulfill what he has for us in this next season? He mentions that we can either go into the wilderness by design or default; by God's design or out of our own doing (Moses did the latter by killing a man in Egypt and getting exiled). But when God takes us into the wilderness by design, beautiful things (though often difficult and painful) can happen.

This was important for me to hear because I have experienced this very thing. Oh, and by the way, I, like Moses went into the desert by default, but God eventually met me there anyway. How gracious of him!

Away

I had posted this poem sometime ago, under the old feetclean format. The boy is doing better, but I thought I'd bring it back out as I'm still praying this in many ways.

I lie here; you lie there,
Standing? Talking? Having fun?
I cannot say exactly where
You are beloved son.

Memories both rich and clear
Mind projected movies play
Twisted plot brings forth a tear
Happy ending, this I pray

My arms, my legs, hearing, sight,
I offer these and even more
If at the end of this dark night
My son walked through the door.

How can you be within my heart
yet far beyond my arms' embrace
Oh God be there while we're apart
and guide him to his rightful place.

The House God Built

Yesterday we dedicated a house for Pastor Johnny Thomas. Johnny started as a ministry partner along with his congregation, New Bethel Missionary Baptist. He has since become a mentor, pastor, and friend. His old house was full of black mold which was slowly killing him due to his violent, allergic reactions. Yet, he knew God had called him to the neighborhood in which he lives, so he would not leave.

Enter a couple of small groups, some dedicated volunteers from both our churches, and 8 months later...look what we have. You can check out the full story here http://www.thehousegodbuilt.blogspot.com/.

Yield Sign

Just reading the 13th chapter of Matthew - the parable of the sower. Here is an interesting line that stood out during this latest reading of a very familiar parable. Verse 23:

As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

It's not enough that we bear fruit, though that is tremendously important, but also that we yield the harvest. That means we give it over to the farmer rather than holding onto the fruit for ourselves. What that means is that God is given glory for what is produced rather than me.

Is the gospel bearing fruit in your life? If so, is the fruit being yielded to the Father?

A Couple of Things

I read this little tidbit in 1 Peter: "So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you." It seems to me that most of us, especially those who serve in some kind of ministry as volunteers or paid staff, don't always live this way. We serve, but then we look for our significance from those we serve or those who supervise or watch our service. We don't do it completely humbly, expecting and waiting on God to honor us rather than others.

As we think about how and where we will serve, our decisions are sometimes based on the honor the position or location will bring us and not our calling. When it comes to giving our worries and cares to God, we're not sure he'll want them, or we see them as petty, or we view it as something we are supposed to do because good Christians aren't supposed to worry. But do we really believe that the motive is because "he cares" for us and doesn't want us burdened with them?

I'm learning to put the two together in ministry. To serve humbly and when I become worried about my importance and significance, I give that to God because it says he cares, and it says that at the right time, he will honor me. I need to leave that up to him.

In the Gutter

Bob Tuttle, Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary, once gave a sermon with an illustration that spoke of a student who had "inadvertantly condemned a part of himself to hell." At the time, it was very helpful to me because I realized I had done the same thing and found healing from that message through confession and prayer.

I'm amazed now how often I find this to be the case with people. I prayed with a woman the other day who, with one breath, said, "I believe Jesus died for me, to save me from my sins, but he can't really want to be with me; I'm a gutter woman." Do you see the issue here...why would someone die for a person whom they didn't want to be with? The new creation thing is right out the window.

The problem is that we often have trouble appropriating God's grace to the "worst" parts of ourselves. Self-condemnation makes the receiving of God's forgiveness impossible. David once said, "I know your desire is for your truth to reach my inmost being." God wants his unconditional love and sufficient grace to descend even into hell to reach those parts we've condemned, that they may be resurrected and given new life - and that we may be whole again.