To Describe God

Below is an edited version of a prayer I wrote in February 2005. I’m posting it because I think to at least some of it you’ll relate.

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If I should try to describe You, God, I might say You’re like a mist; You form various shapes, but appear everywhere and different. I trust You to know my heart and know how I would not accuse You of changeableness, but accuse my understanding of not grasping You.

You are like a firefly on a dark summer night. I may believe You are there, but until you turn on Your light, I’m not certain where.

Sometimes You appear as a possible predator to my happiness; like a rattlesnake somewhere on a ranch, and I’m praying none of mine will step in Your path and take death’s poisonous exit.

Sometimes I long for You, ache for You, despair of being had by You. You stand nearby as my Invisible Observer, but You don’t make a sound. I end up on the floor with my paper gods with faces cut from magazines, little creatures no bigger than myself whom You have made.

Sometimes I listen for You and feel proud that I actually want to hear You. I hear buzzes, I hear cars, I hear the whistle of a train, but not one small whisper from Your lips.

I panic sometimes. If You should ever leave it to me to find my way Home, I’d be lost forever.

But I believe in You, God. You have been my Father, my Guide, my Strength, my Sustainer. In You is the only hope in which I can dream.

Funny. It is good to say that—the only Hope in which I can dream. Getting here has not been so easy. I’ve come kicking and screaming, but You didn’t put me down.

Oh, if only this was the end and all the refinement I need could be made with these “small” losses; if only I didn’t know greater sacrifices might await me. Oh, how lonely and scary and heart-wrenching one short life can be. You do not ask for more than You gave. You ask for everything.

What will Home be like with You? How is it that our tasks will look so small from the light of Home? What do I need to know or realise in order to let go and let You hurt me and still trust You completely?

Open my eyes wider. Not inwardly. Upwardly. Father, I see a shrivelled worm as I look inward. I see a sad excuse for a human—talentless, friendless, pointless, but still holding on to my pride to not get hurt and to my mini-gods.

What does it mean to be a Christian? What is it like to be free of myself? Where is the dividing line, the gulf that I can cross or be flung over and become the outward clothes of the Living Son of God? Where do You begin and I end? Draw it up. Point me there. It’s time that life began—No turning back.

Here are my fears. You’ll need to check all my pockets and hiding places. There are always some fresh ones lying around.

Here is my fear of losing those I love—of dying while they live or living after they die.  Here’s my fear of getting older and my desire to die early. Here are my fears—of rejection, of being unchanged and entering eternal shame, of success, of failure. Here’s my fear of never getting any closer to You or of getting too close to You.

Father, these are scary things to give up. All these fears, these quirks…You aren’t going to find anything left of me when they are gone.

It’s a starting place. I already feel myself reaching for my comfort “blankets.” I’ll take them all back, if you let me. PLEASE don’t let me. Let’s go forward, Father. It’s time. It’s past time.

How Are You?

There’s an art in sharing oneself.

I've discovered in most friendships that it is much easier to listen and to ask questions than to share (unless it’s trite facts). I find I feel a little smug when I’ve finished an hour and a half conversation with someone that is all about them.

Then a thought dawns on me. What if when I stand before God expecting praise for my listening ability, He looks sadly at me and asks why I was so stingy with myself?

Ninety or more percent of those I talk to actually don’t want to know any details of my life. I’m sure you’ve found that too. You begin to share something on your heart or answer their question about how you are when you notice they have mentally vacated the premises. Or you share something troubling you and they have an over-simplified, patronising solution that you’ve never found to work. Or you are told that how you feel is not a valid feeling, so you leave feeling worse than when you’d arrived.

I have a friend who I help with vacuuming once a month. The best part is sitting down with her after it’s over. I’ve shared my broken heart with her, and she empathised. I've poured out frustrations, and she sides with me. She doesn’t have pat answers. She doesn’t over-spiritualize. She just cares about me. Throughout our time, she also shares—she tells me of her struggle with grief over her mother’s death and the holidays coming. She has shared her couple-decade-old-hopes that never became reality. She listens and she shares. It’s a rare gift. I treasure those moments.

It seems easier to share with some I’ve never met. It’s often easier to think things through in e-mails and remember to ask things of which you may or may not be interested, because it’s staring at you in black and white. When you’re face to face, though, what you ask or what you share is what is most prominent on your heart or mind.

It’s safer not to share. Rejection, of any kind, pierces deep. 

Do you find it easy to share yourself with others? Why or why not? Who do you have to listen to your hopes and dreams and to trust you with their own?

Once Upon a Time

If you've grown up in the church, it seems you're likely to have one of two reactions to her current state: 1) You're disillusioned with her call and the reality of how that call is or isn't lived out or 2) you're excited about a new trend or vision you see developing and pulling away from the old.

I've long bemoaned that my Biblical Studies major did not allow me time to delve into church history. Besides what one is forced to hear in local and world history classes, I have been woefully ignorant of the narrative of the church. A friend recently recommended a sermon series taught by a pastor—Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church—on church history.  They're engaging, a great overview, and allow one to decide where to begin exploring on a deeper level.

One thing becomes clear as one glances over the timeline of persecution, hypocrisy, and revivals—God rarely, if ever, works the same way twice. The people He saves, the methods He uses are often as unique as snowflakes. Once the church latches on to a custom or person—as did Israel in the book of Judges—she becomes imprisoned again to the world, the flesh, and the devil; she becomes a mockery for the outsiders (Romans 2:24). It's as if the method, the program, the idea becomes (or maybe just the pride at mastering it) an idol. 

It still is true, is it not? Maybe the reason organizations, stores, programs, and churches fail, close, and die are because they have become the idol that blocks the face of God from the perishing. 

History illustrates another point: what God uses to awaken the church, to save the lost—is often not without error. He may use the person, may use the program, but without bringing everything back to Scripture, that very tool of salvation, if you will, may become the stumbling block for generations to come. 

This can mean 1) that you shouldn't throw out the good with the bad. I had a teacher who went so far as to state emphatically that Augustine was not saved. Yet he was one of the first to emphasize salvation by grace alone. We can learn truth, as it lines up with the Bible, even from one that we may strongly disagree with on minor issues.

2) This also means that you should never follow a person or a system with absolute loyalty. Just as your political party may betray your trust by applauding a position for which you oppose, a teacher, a writer, a denomination can ignorantly or craftily weave in distortions of the truth. 

If Paul, one of the first great theologians, commended the Bereans for searching the Scriptures to make sure what he taught was the truth, we must all the more guard our hearts lest our favourite preachers, our pride in a theological label lead us down a divisive road that will distract, not only us from glorifying God, but others from finding Him.

...let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Founder and Perfecter of our faith....Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ~Hebrews 12:1-4

You and I have been created and raised up "for such a time as this." Let us run well to the end.

(You can download the thirteen sessions on church history here.)

Called to Serve, a review

One of my brothers served in the military, but I have no personal experience in it nor have I ever been married. Yet, in "Called to Serve" Tony and Penny Monetti write in such a way that one can empathize with the feelings they have experienced and long for the solution. This book gives those outside the military and military family life greater understanding of how to pray. For those in such a life, it gives practical comfort and advice for warriors, their spouses, and even their parents.

If I am permitted to make a plug for one of our books, I highly recommend buying one for yourself and for a military family you know. If you order two or more copies at Discovery House Publishers, you'll receive a 30% discount.

To find out more about how you can help those in the military or receive help if your family is serving, visit the Monetti's site—Called to Serve Ministry.

Have you or someone in your immediate family served in the military? If so, what is one of the hardest things you’ve faced? If not, what are ways that you’ve helped a military family?

God's Love Letters to You

When I looked over the Thomas Nelson books available to review and saw one by Larry Crabb, I immediately download the e-book. And I'm not disappointed.

God's Love Letters to You gives a wonderful glimpse at the whole context of God's Word. Far from a feel good read, Dr. Crabb shows the reality of pain in a framework of love.

"But God's way of thinking and His way of loving are so far above us—and so different sometimes from what we think they should be—that His way of speaking life can feel harsh, even insensitive and uncaring. And for good reason: His words of life speak death to what is in us that needs to die."

The formatting of the e-book annoyed me at points, but it was just nit-picky things such as spacing. The quotes from writers outside the Bible jarred my assumption that the content concentrated on God's finished Word. Yet, the quotes added their own explanation and often were ones I highlighted for future reference.

If I taught a small group or class for young Christians, this text would be required reading. The way it touches upon suffering and love throughout the Bible, reveals the continuity of God's working through our own pain and His sovereign plan, which includes and redeems that pain. The questions at the end of each chapter too would be richer shared with others, especially those beginning to grasp the scope of God's work in our lives and world.

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You can purchase this book from the retail store of your choice or by clicking one of the links below.

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My Wordless Prayer by Craig Courtney

This video shares the ache of my heart at many times in life (maybe a bit is always there—crying out). I believe this will speak for your heart at times too—when you need to pray, need to connect your heart with the Father, but the words just aren't there.

Praise be to God—He hears even our wordless prayers

Some Days are Diamonds

An old John Denver song has frequently come to mind. The chorus says—

Some days are diamonds;
some days are stone.
Sometimes the hard times
won't leave me alone.
Sometimes the cold winds
blow a chill in my bones.
Some days are diamonds;
some days are stone.

Regardless of whether or not you like country songs, everyone can relate to diamond and stone days. Because stones are common, they fill most of our time making the diamond-days more precious.

Internally, I've been gathering the stones of late. Just because they're prosaic pebbles doesn't mean some are not of rare beauty in colour or design. Yet others are sharp and cut deeply.

But these thoughts aren't really where my mind has been dwelling. There's a verse in the song that describes it.

Now the face that I see in my mirror
more and more is a stranger to me.
More and more I can see there's a danger
of becoming what I never thought I'd be.

Please forgive the depressive tone. And bear with me, because I'm sure—if you've lived long enough—there has been at least once where these words have rung true.

That moment may have come when you've worked your hardest, only to be told your efforts aren't needed. You're being laid off.

Or maybe it's in marriage. You see a wedding photo and glimpse for an instant all the lovely dreams you had of the kind of spouse you'd be and the kind of spouse you'd have. Now those visions are so distant, you hardly recognize yourself.

I'm at a place where I'm believing this is one of the best positions in which to be . . . at least for a while.

Sure, it's much nicer to always be happy, to feel life is coming together, making sense. But that's not where humility grows. Those sparkling, beautiful spots are not where we come face to face with our need to be washed over with the love and grace of God, broken-off from our old sinful nature, and smoothed out on the lonely bottom of life's ocean.

No. It is when we face ourselves in the mirror without the amiable make-up we put on for others, when we face the flaws in our human nature and admit that they are a fault—it is then that we are broken down to the basics and God can begin shaping us, polishing us, preparing us to become—not dry stones in His Kingdom, but—glittering jewels, whose brilliance the earth could not host.

If you're there—if your life isn't what you planned it to be, if you're less than you dreamed you'd be, if your failures are greater than you can live with—it is now that you can be rubbed and tumbled to beauty. Now is when you can give your plain, dry-brown-heart fully into the Artist's hands and let Him make something beautiful of you.

Don't be discouraged! He who began a good work in you WILL carry it to completion (Philippians 1:6).

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ~John 12:25

When we think we know how our life is going, it's easy not to depend on His leading. But when life surprises us, we cling to Him. And that's right where we should be.

Can you relate? Has the face in your mirror ever seemed like a stranger? Are you there now or what happened to change things for you?