The Good Goad. Ecclesiastes Part 1

So a little over a week ago I finished up a midweek study on the book of Ecclesiastes where we looked at some of the larger themes that it wants to share with us.  There were quite a few people who asked if these studies would be recorded because you were not able to be there. I do not have a recording, but I have decided to write a summary of sorts from what I have learned from this fascinating book. First a few thoughts about the book in general…

Ecclesiastes is a part of what is often referred to as the wisdom literature in the scriptures. There is so much to say about this particular genre, and actually I will say more about it in the upcoming sermon series we are kicking off next week called Life Hacks, which is all about wisdom, but what I will say for now is that it can be difficult to do a study through wisdom literature verse by verse. I mean just read through a chapter of Proverbs and try and find some sort of coherent flow of thought. It bounces all over the place and jumps from topic to topic.

It’s like my daughter, Gigi. She wakes up ready to go. The other morning she had a wild dream and she couldn’t wait to tell me about it. In the course of our 4 minute conversation about her dream we covered a plethora of topics—I mean everything from how our bodies are made before we are born to how she thinks there is a drain in her tummy that opens and closes when she has to go to the bathroom. When she is excited to tell you something just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Reading some of the wisdom literature in the Bible can be a bit like that and so I have found it helpful to first do a of survey of the book as a whole, identify some of the larger themes, and then keep those themes in the front of your mind when you are reading through it a section at a time.

Here’s another observation that I think is important to notice upfront. Ecclesiastes seems to call into question some of what the other books in its genre say about wisdom—particularly the book of Proverbs. In the book of Proverbs there is a sort of systematic approach to wisdom that is focused on getting us to see the importance of making good choices. If you do A, B, and C, then D will more than likely happen. For instance in chapter 3 of Proverbs alone we are told that making wise choices leads to a longer life, peace, safety…

Ecclesiastes undermines all of this. Just read through chapters 1 and 2 of Ecclesiastes after reading Proverbs chapter 3.  Go ahead…I’ll wait. Two totally different perspectives on things, right? And yet they are in the same Bible…hmmm…

See, I think Ecclesiastes was written for the people who did A, B, and C, but D didn’t happen…instead F happened.

I wonder if anyone can relate?

I think they are both in our sacred text because both are needed. Making wise choices is a good thing. Living our lives with intentionality and with perspective is a good thing, but what we must keep ourselves from is buying into this illusion that we can control what comes our way.

At the heart of it—wisdom isn’t about figuring out some magic formula to make life behave. Wisdom is about living well even when life doesn’tbehave.

In life we really can’t control much of what happens to us…loved ones get cancer, people pass away, we get fired, we get rejected, spouses are unfaithful…so much of this is totally out of our control, but there is one thing we can control in the midst of all of this and that is how we respond to it. That is the heart of what wisdom is all about.

As you read through the book of Ecclesiastes it will rub you the wrong way. It will be a bit uncomfortable and even disorienting because, again, it undermine so much of what we hold dear. That’s the point of the book. Towards the end of the book we are told that these words are like goads, which were tools shepherds would use to herd their sheep. They were sticks with nails on the end of them. Bottom line—they hurt. In a way these words are meant to hurt a little—they are meant to sting—they are certainly meant to disrupt. Embrace that. I promise you won’t regret it.

That’s where we will leave it for now. Hold me accountable to finish this out because I’ll find all sorts of excuses to quit.

I Wake Again

 

“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me. I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.”         Psalm 3:5-6

I found this progression intriguing. This is a psalm of David when he is on the run from his own son, Absalom. One could certainly call this a troubling situation. I mean, seriously. Yet when it comes to finding strength and perspective to trust God he starts with something so basic, so seemingly mundane—something most of us are too rushed, too anxious to consider.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.

This is something that happens night after night. It is an evidence of God’s provision at the most basic level. In the same way—you just took a breath—did you have to try and do that? Can you alone take credit for the air that fills your lungs?

Jesus does a similar thing in his teaching on worry and anxiety. He points our attention to the birds in the sky and to the flowers of the field. When is the last time you noticed the birds in the sky and flowers of the field?

This of course can seem trite when we are in the midst of losing it, but in fact, like with everything else, Jesus wisdom is profound. I’ve heard that the Greek word for anxious has as its root the word for parts. To be anxious is to be scattered-to be fragmented-its when a part of you is here and another part of you is not here. In the midst of this sort of mental state-taking time to notice the small and the mundane is exactly the medicine we need because it brings you back together. Noticing something you see everyday requires a presence of mind and consciousness that is moving in the opposite direction of anxiety.

Then Paul says to us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Peace in the midst of anxiety is preceded by thanksgiving.

Often when anxiety or worry has us in a strangle hold we look, and only look, for big signs of God’s provision. In fact most times a total alleviation of our anxiety is the only thing that will do, and yet over and over again the sages, the ones who have come before us and traveled beyond us, do not point us in that direction—instead they point us to the evidence of God’s faithfulness that we are in the habit of missing—that we do not see because we are not paying attention.

Here in lies the great secret of peace—it does not come solely from the alleviation of what troubles us, but from a grounded awareness and trust that the God behind everything is in fact good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 for 7 part 1: Its Good to be Distorted

I haven’t written in a while. I want to tell you that its because I have been working on a book, which happens to be true (its a curriculum aimed at launching small groups. You can check it out here if you are interested in that sort of thing), but the real reason is that I’m just not good about this sort of thing. 2016 has started off strong however, I’ve lost 14 pounds, haven’t missed a work out in 4 weeks, and I fixed our washing machine and microwave. Tadow.

I thought I would get back into the swing of things by totally ripping off my wife. This Sunday is our 7th wedding anniversary and a few days ago she wrote about the 7 things she has learned during our 7 years of marriage, which you can read here, and so I thought I would follow her lead, which is a pretty common occurrence.  I’m not sure how to break up the 7 so I’m just going to go with what feels right and if it doesn’t make sense than it probably has more to do with you not getting it than me not making sense. Make sense? So here is part 1. If part two doesn’t come out next week than please bug me about it.

Being distorted is a good thing. When my wife and I went through our premarital counseling we had to take an assessment that would let us know about our expectations going into marriage. According to this assessment we were what is called idealistically distorted. Basically we were looking at our relationship through rose colored glasses. We both thought the other person was way better than they actually were. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that we had a long distance relationship the entire time we were dating and throughout our engagement. Its easy to think someone is flawless when you don’t see them every day. For a long time I thought that being idealistically distorted was a bad thing and that in order to have a healthy marriage we would have to come back down to earth. But now I’m not so sure.

According to the creation narrative in Genesis chapter 2 God places Adam in the middle of this paradise.  There is no sin, no disruption, no since of brokenness in God’s good world, everything is as it should be and yet something still isn’t right. In verse 18 God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” So creation is good and yet it isn’t good that Adam is alone. It sounds kind of funny but it makes perfect sense. God handcrafted Adam in God’s likeness, in God’s image. Remember, God is Trinity–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s impossible for us to wrap our brains around how that works…how God can be three and yet one, but we can be sure of what it means. God isn’t just in a relationship, God is relationship and Adam has been made in the image of this relational God, which means he is hardwired for connection, but the only problem is there isn’t a someone else to connect with.

So Adam has this longing and desire to connect with someone who is like him and God is very much aware of that, but notice what happens next. God has Adam go and name the animals. Donald Miller points out in one of my favorite books Searching for God Know’s What, that this would have taken a long time and with every new animal Adam named he would have been reminded of his longing for a companion. God made Adam wait. Its not until after Adam named all of the animals that God put him in a deep sleep and created Eve out of his own flesh. You see God not only wanted to give Adam a partner, a companion, but it was God’s desire for the foundation of that relationship to be this deep sense of awe and wonder, this appreciation and respect.

I love what happens when Adam wakes up. When he first lays eyes on her he recites the first poem. The JPS Torah Commentary translates Adam saying, “This one at last. Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.” This one at last. He then goes on to call her woman, but I like to think he said, “Whoa-man.” The image in Genesis 2 is of God as the attendant walking Even, the bride down the isle. That’s always my favorite part of the wedding. Watching the grooms face when he sees his bride for the first time. Whoa-man.

I guess for me, the most important thing that I have learned over the past seven years is that being idealistically distorted is actually a good thing. In fact, not to long ago I read about a study that was done by a group of researchers from several universities who were wanting to identify the common denominator behind successful marriages. They decided to take a different approach than what had been done in the past. In the world of social sciences typically when researches are attempting a study like this they will study the negative examples and then just reverse their findings. So if they wanted to see what was behind healthy marriages they would study unhealthy marriages and then tell us what not to do. Based on this approach, researches found that couples in unhappy marriages tend to have an un-realistic picture of their spouse, they don’t really “get” one another, and they have an inaccurate sense of each other’s strengths and weaknesses are.

This group of researches wanted to go about it in the complete opposite way. Instead of studying unhealthy marriages they studied healthy ones–people who had been happily married for at least 10 years. Based on the previous studies they expected the people in happy marriages to have a more realistic or a more down-to-earth picture of their spouse, but the crazy thing is their researched discovered that the complete opposite was true. People in happy marriages actually had an even more unrealistic sense of who their partner was. Over and over they would rate their spouse higher in various categories than the spouse would rate themselves. Like I said, being idealistically distorted is actually a good thing.

In the next several posts I will share some thoughts on how we do that–how we stay distorted, but for now I just want to say that I truly do believe I am the most fortunate fool on the planet. The fact that I get to go to sleep and wake up next to Lindsey Cunningham is the most tangible proof of God’s grace in my life. Her name means “peaceful isle” and that is exactly what she is for me. I have a hard time simply experiencing anything. I am constantly trying to get beneath the surface of things and attempting to “figure them out.” Except when she is around. She has taught me the importance of enjoying things for what they are. She has softened me in all the right ways and at the same time pushed me to be a better human being.

No, things aren’t perfect. In many ways my expectations for how things would go or how they would turn out haven’t been met. That’s life. It’s all about change, conflict, and learning from our mistakes, but I guess if what is fueling our willingness to love someone is anything less than a sense of awe and wonder about who they are and a committed posture of gratitude toward the One who put them together than I’m not sure that our marriage will never be as good as it could be.

Here’s to staying idealistically distorted kiddo!

 

 

Remember That Thing Jesus Did?

I absolutely love scary movies. I mean the creepier the better. I’m not into the over-the-top really gory movies but I enjoy the ones that can freak you out without all the blood and guts…you know like the Notebook. Just kidding. Kind of.

Sure some out there would want to stop me right here and have a discussion about wether or not I should be into that sort of movie…perhaps another time.  I believe that I am free to watch a scary movie. (Mark 7:14-22)  They don’t bother me in any sort of what that tempts me or pulls me off center. I can watch them, have a good time, and then leave that experience there.

So I believe that I am free to watch a scary movie, but here’s the thing…I don’t.  You see, my wife can’t handle them. It isn’t that she simply doesn’t enjoy them; they mess her up. They bring all sorts of things into her heart and mind that pull her off center.  Early on in our marriage I would convince her to watch them anyway and I would explain how she didn’t have to feel bad about watching them and that they couldn’t do any real harm-that it was all just for fun, and a couple of times she gave it a shot, but after I saw how they messed her up I decided to let them go. I haven’t watched a scary movie in years. My experience with them has been reduced to watching trailers and reading Wikipedia on my lunch break.

You see just because we can doesn’t mean that we should. What may be enjoyable for you may be terrifying and even oppressive for someone else.

This is what the apostle Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Verse 23 summarizes the point he is making throughout the whole chapter quite nicely: “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say-but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’-but not everything is constructive. NO ONE SHOULD SEEK THEIR OWN GOOD, BUT THE GOOD OF OTHERS.”

Here’s why I bring this up. My family and I just recently moved back to South Carolina after being away for six and a half years. I am so proud to once again call this state home. After the senseless murder of 9 people at Emmanuel AME the response of this state has been breathtaking. In a nation that is so volatile right now-the demonstration of compassion and forgiveness by the family members who lost loved ones and the expression of solidarity by the city of Charleston and the entire state has been otherworldly.  Someone captured it perfectly this past week saying, when Christianity is incomprehensible to the world that’s a good sign its the real deal.

But of course there is the darker side to all of this as well. After a tragedy like the one that has taken place at Mother Emanuel the necessary conversations about how to respond and where to go from here get infected with the unnecessary spirit of division and contempt that has plagued the human race since Genesis chapter 3. Something that has always bothered me when these conversations start to happen is when I see Christian brothers and sisters being so defensive over their own personal freedoms, rights, and privileges at the expense of others.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Yes, there may be a minority, and I repeat a minority, of white folks who look at the Confederate flag and do not see it as a symbol of racism or hate but instead see it as a symbol their heritage, honor and southern culture. That might be true. However I can assure you that when the majority of African Americans look at that flag they see a symbol of racial oppression and hate.  As a follower of Jesus if I knew that a personal freedom or symbol of my heritage caused that kind of pain to a fellow human being…shouldn’t I be willing to lay it down?

When I see the amount of passion and zeal with which fellow Christians will defend their individual rights, privileges, and freedoms at the expense of others it makes me wonder…

Remember that thing Jesus did?

Just in case, Philippians chapter 2 is a beautiful reminder. Verse 6 says, “Who being very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-even death on a cross!”

made himself nothing…humbled himself…died on a cross all so that we might have life.

Verse 5 is the one that stings though.  “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

As followers of this Messiah, the times when we lay down our individual rights, privileges, and freedoms for the sake of someone else-those moments become the very places where the kingdom of heaven breaks in and new life bursts forth.

Remember, when Christianity is incomprehensible to the world-thats a good sign its the real deal.

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

So I turned 32 and found out that the baby headed our way is going to be a girl. Of course I couldn’t be happier, but when I found out that we were having another girl I think I felt some hair fall off the back of my head.

In my last post I mentioned how I wanted to use our move as an opportunity to do some things differently. Most of these things aren’t new…I’m just not as committed to them as I would like to be.

The first change or has to do with keeping the main thing the main thing. This is about as basic as it gets, but way easier said than done.

One of the things I admire the most about Jesus is that he lived out of this deep connection with God. He had this inner life that was completely saturated with the love of his Father. John’s gospel is the one that really lets us in on Jesus inner life. In chapter 5 Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” This sort of language is all over the place in the gospel of John. Everything Jesus did—how we lived, the way he saw the world, the way that he loved other people was a response and over flow of God’s love for him.

Consider some of the ways the inner life of Jesus fleshes itself out. For instance in Matthew chapter 5 Jesus tells us to, “love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.” The only way you can do something like love your enemy is if your own inner life is full of God’s love. Or Jesus says later in Matthew chapter 6, “Do not worry about your life.” Jesus wouldn’t tell us to do something like that if he didn’t do it himself, and for Jesus this life free from worry and anxiety was an overflow of his hidden life with God. Jesus was consumed with the knowledge of the goodness and generosity of God—when you truly know that God is on your side, what is there to worry about? Jesus also lived in such a way that he genuinely cared about other people, but at the same time what they thought about him didn’t affect him all that much. Jesus was so filled with God’s love toward him that he didn’t need other people’s approval, he wasn’t overly influenced by what they thought of him, he didn’t need to prove himself, and as a result he was free to give himself away—no strings attached.

Jesus was really good at keeping the main thing the main thing.

If you were to trace the root of all of our anxieties and our worries, at their core you would find something that we have been holding on too tightly—something we are asking to be and do too much. Your anxiety about work, or your relationships—who is or isn’t in your life—your worry about what that other person thinks about you, or that belief we tend to live by that what we really need is just more stuff—at the heart of all of this is a struggle to keep the main thing the main thing. When we truly ground ourselves in God’s love and acceptance for us than we are actually free to enjoy all of these things for what they truly are—not a substitute for God, but a gift from God—a gift to be enjoyed and appreciated.

One of John’s favorite words is the Greek word meno. It means, “to abide.” This word shows up over and over again in John’s writings and it is this idea of remaining, dwelling, residing; making your home in. It’s continually choosing to live and act out of God’s love for us regardless of how feel or what others voices and influences are telling us. It’s like when I became a dad. I didn’t feel like a dad. I couldn’t keep a goldfish alive for longer than a week and now I was responsible for another human being? The day that kid was born my identity changed. I was now a father regardless of how I felt about it. Since then I’ve had to learn to live out of my new identity and to act on what is now true about me and in the process I’m growing into a pretty good dad. In the same way when we identify ourselves with Jesus and embrace his death and resurrection as our own-when we embrace that love for ourselves—our identity changes. We are made into what scripture calls, “new creations.” The rest of the Christian life is a matter of learning to live out of that new identity, which requires us to continually abide in God’s love and to embrace what is true about us regardless of how we feel about it.

So here’s to abiding. Here’s to catching ourselves in those moments when the main thing isn’t the main thing and and re-grounding ourselves in the truest thing in the universe-that we are loved by God.

Where We Are Going and Who We Are Becoming

In April the family and I moved from Ohio back to Columbia, South Carolina. This isn’t the post where I want to fill you in all of the details…that will come at another time.  We moved back out of a burden and a love for this area. It was a difficult decision to leave our community in Ohio and Ginghamsburg Church, but it was one that we knew we had to make. I do plan on sharing more about all of this in the future, but right now I want to talk about something else.

One evening before the move I was having a conversation with a close friend. It was one of those conversations that kept going on long after we stopped talking. We were discussing the opportunity that change and transition can bring to how you live and who you understand yourself to be. Its a chance to sort of recreate yourself.

We tend to assume these sort of roles and identities that are a combination of who we understand ourselves to be but also who other people believe or need us to be. This of course isn’t always a bad thing, but it can be limiting.  Like in high school I was known as Nick the “jock” or Nick the “funny guy.”  At first I undoubtedly worked really hard to be known in this way, but eventually my commitment to this identity probably had more to do with a role that I was expected to play within the social construct of my high school.  I remember when I moved from Indiana to South Carolina experiencing this sort of freedom when I realized that no one there knew who I was and that I could now be whoever I wanted.

That conversation with my friend opened my eyes up the opportunity this move had presented me with. It was a chance to really examine my life. What changes do I want to make?  Am I becoming the person that I feel compelled to become or am I just grinding myself deeper into a rut carved out by my own fears and other people’s expectations?

There is a word that I haven’t been able to shake.  It’s haunting me.  Intentional.  How much off what I do and how I live is intentional–on purpose, and how much of it is reactionary?

The psalmist prays, “Teach us to number our days that we main gain a heart of wisdom.”  It makes me think of when people say they wish they could go back to a certain time period and do things differently. Well what if we lived like we could?  What if we lived right now like it was our second time around?  Perhaps a question that would help us do that would be something like, “10 years down the road what I am going to wish I did right now?”  Intentional. What a great word.  What an even better way to live.

I’ve been spending the past two months wrestling with this and I’ve come up with a few changes I want to make.  Most of them aren’t new ideas or paradigms, just ones that I haven’t been very good at living out of.  But perhaps you could stand to join me in this.  How intentional are you living right now?

A lie we tend to live by is that we can put this off-that we can get around to it later. I don’t think that’s how it works. See we are all headed somewhere.  We are all becoming someone.  The question is are we headed where we want to go and are we becoming who we want to be?

“I considered the direction of my life, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.” Psalm 119:59

Profound

I was reading some from Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy this morning and he was talking about John the Baptist and his confusion with Jesus’ identity while he was in prison and it struck me how plainly I understood the passage. What struck me about it was my resistance to accepting how plainly I understood it—it was as if I was convinced that there was a deeper meaning…something more profound about why John the Baptist was unsure of Jesus identity…but there isn’t—Jesus wasn’t doing what he thought, as Willard says, a hot blooded Messiah should do—lead a socio-political revolution.  I guess what I am realizing is that profound is not necessarily complicated.  “Profound” is a matter of accepting what is—truth—as it comes to us in a way that actually impacts and changes how we see the world and how we live.

Maybe we…I…am addicted to this continual pursuit of the “more” profound because I don’t want to assimilate the truth that is right there in front of me into my every day life.

The deepest most profound truth is the one that has made it’s way past our intellect, past our reason, past our excuse making, procrastination, and rationalization and has rooted itself deep into our bones—that has mixed with the air that we breath and the blood in our veins and that proves itself to us over and and over again in the way that we live, the way that we love, and the way that we continue to act on it even when we don’t want to.

I guess what I am wondering is what would happen if what we have discovered to be true actually guided how we lived our lives…
That God is for us and with us
That we have received grace upon grace
That people are worthy of love and forgiveness not because of what they have or haven’t done, but simply because they are people
That what we do here and now matters
That in the end love and life triumph over fear and death

Wouldn’t that be something?

“But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
-Matthew 11:19

Blank Pages

Lately my son has been asking me to draw pictures for him. He’s really into Transformers right now so the picture is usually a sad stick figure version of whatever shape shifting alien robot happens to be his favorite at the time. This of course is one of the things I like most about being a dad—its ok for me to be into Transformers again and I now have a legitimate excuse to peruse the toy isle looking at all of newest action figures

Before the drawing begins we look through different pictures of Transformers on my phone and he picks out the one that he wants to see me put on paper. Based on the pictures he usually chooses, I think it’s safe to say that my son has this unwavering optimism when it comes to what he thinks his dad is capable of drawing. In fact, several times I have confessed to him that the picture he chose is too hard for daddy and that I don’t think I can draw that and his response every time has been, “Yes you can daddy. You can do it.”

Yes you can daddy. You can do it.

My favorite part is how he emphasizes that second “you” as if to say, “You don’t understand, I’m not just asking anyone to do this—I’m asking you.”

I know what some of you are probably thinking right now—he’s going to use this story to illustrate what our faith in God should look like. Now where there are certainly some points that could be made in regards to that, what I am personally learning from my son is what God’s faith in us looks like.

I’m not talking about some naïve form of humanism here, but what I can’t help but notice when I read about how Jesus interacted with the people everyone else gave up on is that he had this unwavering optimism about who they could be and what they were capable of.

One of my favorite encounters with Jesus can be found in Mark chapter 5. Jesus was surrounded by a huge crowd of people and there was this woman there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, and in trying to find a cure she exhausted all of her resources to no avail. Word about this man named Jesus had reached her and she couldn’t shake this crazy thought that if she could see him or perhaps even just touch him that she could be healed. So she worked her way through the crowd and she reached out her hand just far enough so that her fingers brushed the edge of his cloak and immediately she was healed. What Jesus did next is what I find so interesting. Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched me?” The disciples think the question is a bit strange because he is surrounded by so many people but Jesus is persistent and waits for the person to identify themselves. Eventually the woman runs up to Jesus and falls at his feet and he says to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed your, go in peace and be free from your suffering.”

Daughter your faith has healed you…

Now why did Jesus do that? If all she needed was to know that Jesus was the source of her healing than Jesus could have just let her sneak away, but he didn’t do that. Jesus made sure that she knew her faith was involved in what had just happened. This was an act of empowerment on Jesus part. He wanted her to know that when her faith—as meager and fragile as it may seem—intersected with his power unbelievable things could happen.

I don’t for a second believe that this implies that what we perceive as an unanswered prayer is due to a lack of faith—that is a mystery, but what comes jumping out at me is Jesus’ unwavering optimism and his desire for us to know what we are capable of.

I bring this up because for many of us sin has been made to seem like it is the point of the story—the gospel has been made to be all about what we aren’t, what can’t happen, and all of the ways in which we don’t have it all together, but what I read in the pages of the New Testament is that the gospel—the good news—is this disruptive announcement about who we really are and what is true about us.

It’s not that God isn’t concerned with our sin—the cross is proof of God’s concern for our sin, but sin isn’t the point—the new abundant life that is available to us in Jesus is the point.

1 John 3:1-3 says it best, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (Notice the exclamation marks—yes, the author is shouting this at us) The reason the world did not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

Did you catch that last part—“when Christ appears we shall be like him…”

Let that sink in.

One of the biggest reasons why so many of us struggle to experience the reality of our salvation—to live into the new life offered to us in Jesus isn’t because we have to small a picture of God, but because we don’t have a big enough picture of who we could be. It’s not that we don’t have a high enough view of divinity—it’s that we have to low a view of humanity.

When Christ appears we shall be like him.

Woah.

2 questions in light of all of this—

One, do you want this? Do you want to experience the kind of life that Jesus has to offer? Do you want to be made into the likeness of Christ? Because even though Jesus has made this beautiful life available to us—we often settle for less don’t we? That’s essentially what sin is—it’s when we settle for less; it’s when we give into things that are beneath us. In what ways have you settled for less? What lie or sin are you are allowing to define you?

Second question is quite simply, “Do you believe it?” The thing I have noticed when I draw with my son is how differently we see that blank piece of paper. When my son looks at it all he sees is possibility—all of the things that it can be. Not me. When I look at that blank piece of paper I see it through the lens limitation—what it can’t be. That’s how many of us live our lives—we take our cue from past experiences, present frustrations, or anxieties about the future. Faith isn’t about dismissing all of this, but it is about seeing all of it in light of the hope that we have in Christ. What, or who have you given up on? What is that thing that you say can’t or won’t happen? What would it look like for you to re-orient yourself around the gospel—the good news about who you really are and what is possible in Jesus?

Aware

I’m learning a lot from my children—they really are the best teachers. They seem to be in a constant state of amazement—to them it is all a gift. Nothing is “just” anything—it is all a reason to say wow. The older we get the harder it is to hold onto that—instead cynicism and discontent take the place of awe and we grow bored with life. We get locked into the daily grind of just getting by, just going through the motions, checking off our to-do lists, punching in and punching out that we grow complacent—we lose touch with the wonder and the mystery of it all. Maybe you can relate, but sometimes, if I’m not careful, I can get to the point where I feel like a rock skipping across the water—just moving from one day to the next—living on the surface of things when all I really want to do is sink—to enjoy the deeper things in life.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “God has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we.”

“God has this eternal appetite for infancy.”

Our God never grows up.

We see this from Jesus when he was teaching us not to worry—not to be anxious. Jesus points our attention to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field—normal every day surroundings that we take for granted, but God never stops noticing—never stops celebrating.

That joy that we all long for isn’t somewhere else—it’s screaming at us from our everyday.

Being present is more than being around. One of the greatest lies we come to embrace is that being alive is an unremarkable thing. It sneaks up on us like the pin pricks of a sleeping limb and drives our awareness into more and more remote places until we are convinced that an encounter with the Divine was something that happened a handful of times in our distant past or lies just out of our reach in another time and another place. But we are here, we are not alone and that is amazing.

In the end Fredrick Buechner said it best…go figure…

“It is life that is going on. It is always going on, and it is always precious. It is God that is going on. It is you who are there that is going on. OBSERVE!! There are few things as important—as religious as that.”

I’d love to hear from you–what is something familiar you have recently rediscovered?

 

Better Together

Over the month of May I had the honor of officiating 3 weddings and a funeral…isn’t that a movie title or something?  It was such a privilege to be allowed in on all of those really sacred moments and a reminder of what it means to be a community of people’s pastor.  What really struck me though is that in both of those settings–the highest of highs and the lowest of lows–what matters the most is…well, each other.  Wether it is watching people laugh, dance, and catch up at a wedding reception or standing with a family as people say their final goodbyes to their 10 year old son–what becomes so clear in both of these moments is how powerful and how important our connection with one another truly is.

I think you would all agree with me that what matters the most to us in life isn’t what we have, but it’s who we have—it isn’t our stuff or our accomplishments, it’s our connection—our relationships with one another. Our favorite moments in life—our favorite memories-are often connected to our favorite people and at the same time our most painful moments in life almost always have something to do with a relational break. All of this is a reflection of how we are wired—we have been created in the image of a God who is a Trinity—God isn’t just in a relationship—God is relationship and we have been made in the image of this relational God, which makes you and I relational creatures—our life together—isn’t just something that we do, but it is a vital part of who we are.

In John 17—Jesus is spending some of his final moments just before his arrest and crucifixion—in prayer. After praying for himself and his disciples, Jesus then finishes by praying for us—for you and for me—not that’s something to think about. And what does Jesus pray for? For all of our problems to go away? To keep us from trouble? No, Jesus prays that we would be one. In fact in verse 23 Jesus prays specifically that we would be brought to complete unity.

When we hear the word unity we tend to think of a sort of intellectual agreement, right? In our minds unity is about everyone being on the same page in terms of beliefs and values. Unity is something that in our world you can have from a distance because it usually has everything to do with what is up here. This isn’t what Jesus is talking about when he uses the word, “unity.” The word that Jesus uses in the Greek is a form of the word agape.  Agape, of course means “love,” but not just any kind of love—agape is the deepest kind of love. This kind of unity that Jesus is talking about here requires intimacy—it isn’t something that can happen from a distance because it goes beyond just a simple intellectual agreement—this kind of unity is about shared experience, it is something that requires us to get up close and personal—it’s about doing life together.

What’s really incredible is that Jesus goes on to say that as a result of our unity the world will know that he is from God—that he is who he says he is. As Jesus looks ahead the one thing that he knows is going to prove to the world that this Kingdom of God movement isn’t just another flash in the pan but that it is straight from heaven itself is the unity of his followers. It isn’t our beliefs, our convictions, our higher form of morality, or our political views—it isn’t our bumper stickers, our t-shirts, our worship music, or our rock star preachers—what is going to convince the watching world that this Jesus movement is for real is our love for one another and our shared life together.

You see Jesus knew that his followers were going to face challenges that were going to be too big for them to handle on their own. Jesus knew that they would need to make some serious changes in their lives that they couldn’t make on their own and Jesus knew that this followers would be able to do and be more together than they could ever do or be on their own. And so when Jesus prays on behalf of all of his followers—including you and me—Jesus prays for one thing—unity—the same love—a shared life.

Here’s what this mean. Christ-centered intentional community—what we call Life Groups at Ginghamsburg Church—isn’t optional—it is foundational to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and it is the most powerful and compelling way in which we demonstrate the revolutionary love of the gospel to the world that we live in. In our day and age people are desperate for authenticity, for something real, something that isn’t a gimmick. Everything seems so superficial and plastic. Imagine how appealing a community of people would be that was committed to being real and genuine, that practiced compassion, and forgiveness, that didn’t quit when things got difficult, and who opened up their homes up to one another and made an effort to meet one another’s needs?

So maybe you’re sitting out there and this is something that you want—you are ready. I want to personally invite you out to the next round of Group Life starting Thursday June 19^th. Group Life is a 4-week experience, led by yours truly that will put you in the same place at the same time with other people who are looking for people to connect with. We will spend four weeks getting to know one another and discussing the essential elements of Christ-centered community and then after that four weeks you will group up with people from the class and spend the next 4 weeks putting what we learned into practice. If you have any questions you email me a ncunningham@ginghamsburg.org. I hope to see you there!