What we do

This past weekend I spent a lot of time playing with my son.  Sarah had to work, met with some friends and took sometime to herself (which mother’s deserve!) and that meant I got to spend time with my son.  Let’s be clear, in no way am I complaining.  I thoroughly love spending time with Luke.  We play with tractors, we (he) goes down the slide we brought in the house during the winter months, we listen to a lot of music, we dance (in case your wondering he inherited my Dutch dancing ability), we wrestle and read books.  As his ability to learn has begun to match his curiosity the world, for both he and I, has become a lot of fun to explore.  I relish these times because I know this season will lead to another season.  That season will be good and full of joy, but it won’t be this season again.  So I will drink deep of this one now.

But that’s not what I want to write about.

As I was reflecting on my time with Luke I was struck with this thought.  For all the activity we did this week, none of it made me a father.  Playing tractors with Luke, hiding under the covers of the bed with a flashlight, reading books and changing diapers; none of it made me Luke’s father.  A babysitter could have done all that just as well.  And they would have been a babysitter, not a father or mother.  I am Luke’s father, not because of what I do, but because God saw it fitting that we should be blessed with Luke.

In the same way, I am not a Christian by what I do.  I am a Christian, a Christ follower, a disciple, because of God’s divine love towards me and the Spirit’s softening of my heart to be stirred with affection for Christ.  And that shapes what I do to be the things a Christ follower does.

This seems so straightforward, and yet, for all it’s simpleness we continue to return to the idea that what we do determines who we are.  If I stay away from rated-R movies, don’t drink beer, don’t cuss, don’t cheat on my spouse, don’t listen to certain music then I am a Christian.  Or maybe we should say it in the positive.  If I do go to church most Sundays, if I do volunteer and serve at church, if I do give some money to church, if I do go on a missions trip then I am a Christian.  But what we do (or don’t do) doesn’t determine what we are.

This isn’t to say that what we do is of no importance.  The reality is that if I am a follower of Christ, then I am going to do and not do a lot of those things.  But outward actions are not determinative of my heart’s affections for Christ.  Rather it is reverse.  My heart’s affections for Christ are determinative of my outward actions.  This is what James was getting at when he says, “I will show you my faith by what I do”  (James 2:18).  So the truth is that what we do is of extreme importance as it is evidence of our saving faith.

For some, this means they need to stop trying to become something by what they do.  Still for others it means they need to start doing.  And then for many it means we need to stop trying to judge who is in and who is out.  Because here’s the thing, I can’t see the heart.  Which means the only thing I can see regarding someone’s faith is their outward actions.  And sometimes those actions are done because of the heart’s desire for Jesus.  And sometimes those actions are done because they are trying to earn approval from Jesus.  But I cannot tell the difference.

I can only give grace.

Which is exactly what has been given to me.

 

Imitation as discipleship

In my last post I made mention of how the scriptures show discipleship happening in the midst of relationships. More specifically we see discipleship happening when one person is called to imitate the life of another as they imitate Christ.

See these scriptures.

You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia–your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
​​​​​​​​​1 Thessalonians 1:6-9

Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.
​​​​​​​​​Philippians 3:17

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me– put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
​​​​​​​​​Philippians 4:9

We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.
​​​​​​​​​2 Thessalonians 3:9

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1

I wonder, how many of us would be comfortable calling someone to imitate us? Maybe we should be.

Year in Review – 5 books I found most helpful/interesting/challenging

For most of my life reading was a purely mental exercise. What I mean by that is, I would read a book and learn a bunch of new things, but those new learnings rarely translated into new practices. The ideas learned were simply fodder to be used in conversations/discussion/debates to make me look well read and intelligent. What they didn’t do was shift how I thought, and more importantly, how I acted.

Let me add, this was also my approach to the Bible. I don’t think I am alone here. I believe this to be a massive problem within American Christianity. We live at a time where information is in excess. You can get your hands on books, commentaries, sermons, lectures, or studies easier than any other time in history. And yet for all the information that is available, there is little to show for how that information has impacted American Christians to live more obedient lives to Christ.

In effort to change my practice of learning, I am spending some brief time reflecting the five books that impacted me the most this year.

To Change the World – James Davison Hunter

There is a mandate on Christians to have an impact on the world around us. This mandate was instituted in the beginning when God breathed life into the man and woman, who were created int he image of the Creator God, saying to them, “Work in the garden and take care of it.” While not identical, in our work to fulfill this mandate we mirror God’s creative act.

Since the fall, this work has taken on a restorative or redemptive nature, again, to mirror God’s restorative and redemptive actions in the world. In other words, we work to make this a better place to live as God redeems and restores. This work has direct impact on culture. Hunter goes into detail about the differing views on what culture is. For some, culture is the sum total of the values that are held in the hearts and minds of people. For others, culture is what is produced by society in artifacts, art, music and the likes. His explanations, critiques and proposals on thinking about culture were extremely helpful.

The second part of the book moves into how those on the theological and political right and left, along with the Anabaptist approach their efforts to influence culture. He highlights how both the right and the left utilize power and authority to legislate for their particular morality, and how the Anabaptist choose to withdraw from the greater culture in lieu of using authority or power.

But perhaps the most intriguing idea put forth by Hunter was his idea of a faithful presence in the world. After highlighting the shortcomings of each of the aforementioned approaches, he draws upon the incarnation as a model to approach culture calling it, “the only adequate reply to the challenges of dissolution; the erosion of trust between word and world and the problems that attend it.” Hunter’s theology of faithful presence calls Christians to “attend to the people and places that they experience directly…[it] gives priority to right in front of us – the community, the neighborhood, and the city, and the people of which these are constituted.”

I think Hunter’s work is profoundly important as we continue to live in a society and culture that is markedly post-Christian.

A Failure of Nerve – Edwin Friedman

Friedman had my attention on page two when he wrote, “[this book] is for leaders who have questioned the widespread triumphing of data over maturity, technique over stamina, and empathy over personal responsibility.” That statement says a lot about the state of leading in our society. Friedman contends that throughout America there is a rampant sabotaging of leaders who try and remain a calm presence in the midst of a toxically reactive system. Rather than seeking emotional mature leadership, we have become a culture longing for quick fixes and band-aids that make us feel like a calm has been brought to the storm, but have done little to actually calming the storm.

This book challenged many of the assumptions I had about leadership, especially leadership in the church. To see such a challenge see my blog post here

The most challenging aspect to this book is that it will not give you easy solutions or techniques to make you a better leader. To become a better leader, one must better oneself. Leadership begins with who you are. If you are emotionally reactive, you can expect the system you lead to be emotionally reactive. As Will Mancini said, “You produce who you are.” A Failure of Nerve requires the reader to constantly look at self as they move through the content, and fight the urge to “fix” those they are leading.

Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times – Peter Steinke

I don’t think I have ever met a pastor who did not have a story about a congregation becoming anxious at some point. These stories are filled with other stories about frustrating, hurtful, obnoxious, and even sinful things people do in the midst of anxiety. Steinke actually says that according to his experience, four out of ten churches will face a moderate to serious conflict in any five year period. This book helps the reader understand anxiety and how it manifests itself within the system. This allows the leader to think systems as the move through and manage conflict. Steinke provides very practical suggestions in how to ones own anxiety as they seek to resolve conflict, as well as ways in which to minimize the negative effects of anxiety on the system.

My biggest take away from this book was two-fold: thinking systems when it comes to conflict management, and understanding that anxiety is not necessarily bad. Anxiety just is. Anxiety alone doesn’t hurt the system or organization. How the anxiety is managed, or not managed determines the effect of anxiety.

The Prophetic Imagination – Walter Brueggemann

For anyone who has imagined a world that is not broken, but is as it should be, this book will fan that imaginative spark. Brueggemann looks at Moses and the Old Testament prophets efforts at creating a counter-community to what they experience in the world around them. We speak often of this in church. A world where status and ledgers don’t determine worth, but rather worth is determined by the intrinsic value of being a image bearer that all people have. We dream of a world where materialism and oppression don’t numb us to the world around, but we dream of a world where the imagination for something holy other inspires us to new living. Brueggemann encourage us to ask not whether “it is realistic or practical or viable but whether it is imaginable.”

I found the following quote to be especially challenging.

“The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger.”

You Can Change – Tim Chester

I despise, and I am not sure it is for good reason or not, books and teaching that are systematic. If something “7 steps to…,” or “5 sure-fire practices…” or “11 things to do…” I will most likely never pick that book up. That is why Tim Chester’s You Can Change was so refreshing. This is not a “how-to” or a “Step-by-step” book. This is simply looking at the truths of the gospel and living into them in new ways to experience transformation in an area of our life that has yet to be obedient to Jesus. That’s it. Every chapter ends with thoughtful questions to help the reader engage an area of their life where they would like to see change. And these aren’t your typical study questions. These are real questions that, if taken seriously, will help people experience the gospel of Jesus to a deeper degree.

Those are my top five books of the year. What are yours?

The Identity Hoax

I remember Preacher Tom clearly.  During my time at college, he would come to campus wearing a blood red baseball hat with capitalized, bold letters stating, “Don’t Sin”.  He held a large sign that would be a good four feet above his head threatening people to “Repent!” Below the call to repent was listed every sin, in its most explicit form (i.e. fornication, masturbation, etc.), that one must repent of.

Often he would stand just outside of the food court hoping to get as much of an audience as possible.  I remember sitting outside watching him interact with students who passed by and feeling anger and, if I’m honest, an almost unhealthy rage begin to to turn within me.  He would shout out “Whore!” or “Slut!” to women whose dress he didn’t approve of as they passed by.  Men would be labeled as “masturbaters” and “drunks” as they unwittingly walked by.  As you can imagine, this went over well and led to many respectful interchanges with students willing to hear Preacher Tom out (where is my raised eyebrow emoticon?)…

What enraged me about this, and I don’t think I could labeled the emotion then but I can now, is that those labels are not the identity of those who walked by.  Sure, some of them may have done some of those things, but that doesn’t determine their identity.  The sum of what we have or have not done is not who we are.  Rather, who we are is determined by the one who created us.  And the one who created us, created us  by his divine choice to be image bearers of the all holy infinite God.  This is the identity of all people: image bearers.  And to identify anyone as something less, is to deny the imago dei imprinted on their life.

While this is true, the world around us works to identify us as something other than imago dei.  Our culture would have us believe our main identity is to be a consumer (there are more malls than high schools!), or an upstanding citizen, or a fill-in-your-political-party-of-choice-here.  We stand in awe of those people who can be identified as their “own person” as the exemplify the rugged individualism we Americans love.  Identity is based around wealth, position, influence, education, neighborhood, or even our kids successes on the athletic field.  Internally, people battle against the negative identities of being a failure, a hindrance, inept, or a fraud.  There is no shortage of identities shouting loudly to be the one defining us instead of the imago dei.

Granted, the imago dei every person bears has been blurred by the sin nature we each possess.  But that is why Christ came!  He came that the sin nature that identifies us as sinners in rebellion to God might be replaced by a restored imago dei offered to us when we are united to Christ.

Just look at Jesus and how often he did this.  In John 8 the Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery before Jesus and asks what punishment she should receive.  Her identity in the eyes of the Pharisees was an adulterer.  A whore.  And according to the Mosaic Law, her punishment should be death.  But Jesus sees not a whore, but a image bearer of the Creator who needs to be restored. I think we often fail at moving people towards embracing their identity as image bearers.  In this story, many act as though we must validate her current identity to give the woman worth.  We may not do this explicitly, but it happens, almost unconsciously.  We stress her being a victim of being used by the ruling authority for their own purposes.  We point out that the man is missing from the equation and how unfair the culture was towards this poor woman.  Or maybe, more honorably, we see her as having the image of God imprinted on her soul and deserving of respect, but we don’t call her to leave behind a life that is blurring the imago dei she bears.  These are simply different identities less empowering than the her true identity, the latter being an incomplete or fractured version of the true identity.  Jesus removes the identity given to her by her accusers and calls her to live into her identity as a daughter of God by telling her to “Go and sin no more.”  The pursuit of individual holiness as image bearers of an holy God is a concept that seems to have been pushed to the fringes of Christianity in our pursuit to be relevant, accepting, and loving.

Let me be clear, I think too often in Christianity we aren’t accepting enough.  Far too many Christians focus on an identity other than image bearer for those who are outside the church.  We focus on an identity determined by the current actions and behaviors of a person rather than the identity they could and should be living into.  Accepting people may mean we allow them to continue being identified as something other than a restored imago dei.  Loving people means we won’t allow that.  The pattern of Jesus, which we should be seeking to imitate, is to dine with the misfits society has identified as unworthy, and identify them as worthy and love them by calling them to a greater identity than the one they currently bear.  He calls the thief to be a contributor.  The tax collector a giver.  The prostitute a worshiper.  The proud humble.  The weak strong.  The poor rich.

Let us also acknowledge that for some us, the identity we currently bear isn’t socially tabooed, but rather, is socially acceptable.  Being successful, intelligent, wealthy, moral, or an upright person are all socially acceptable identities.  And while they are good and right, they are not our identity. We see this in Jesus telling Nicodemus he must be reborn.  That his current identity must die in order for him to live into a new identity.  Again we see this when Jesus calls the rich young ruler to a life beyond his wealth.  While Jesus is calling him to give up so much in terms of material comforts, he is also calling him to leave behind an identity that, in all likelihood, served him well in the world.

Holding on to an identity, regardless if that identity is seen as positive or negative, other than the imago dei sells us short of the life we are to lead.  You are an image bearer.  You are an adopted son, an adopted daughter of the most high God.  You are an heir, sharing in the inheritance given to Jesus by the Father.  That’s your identity.  Go and live in that.  Let that define you.

The call to “repent” is not, then, a threat as it feels like when it comes from Preacher Tom.  It is an invitation to relationship and new identity if one would leave their old identity behind.

Shallow

Not long ago Christian Smith in his book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, coined the term Moralistic Therapeutic Deism to describe the functional faith and beliefs of American adolescents.  Smith and his team of researches outlined the basic doctrinal beliefs in the following way:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

While this is a simplified, and perhaps overly reduced, outline of the functional beliefs of American youth, it is very telling.  The central goal in life is to be happy and feel good about oneself.  In this belief system God is a being that helps us achieve this goal.  God does not require sacrifice, there is no talk of repentance, and the idea of conforming our lives to God’s intent is foreign.  God is, to be frank, or a sort of cosmic waiter who wants to make sure we have the best experience while on earth.

The role of parents must be noted.  Smith and his colleagues found that “For better or worse, most parents in fact still do profoundly influence their adolescents – often more than their peers…This influence often also includes parental influence in adolescents’ religious and spiritual lives.”  If this is true, then it would be logical to assume that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is not just the faith of teens, but is the faith of adults as well.  Experience tells me this is accurate.  I can remember having a conversation with a parent who wanted their teen to come to youth group because it would help them make better decisions when it came to friends and moral issues.  While that comment seems inherently innocent, the underlying belief is that the goal of church and Christianity is to make people more moral.  Morality is not the goal of Christianity.  If morality is the goal, then why did Jesus ever need to go to the cross?  The cross becomes irrelevant because we can, through our best white-knuckled disciplined, clean up our act enough to be deemed good by God.  Isaiah 64:6 says that even our most righteous acts are considered like filthy rags before the all holy God of the universe.  That is to say, we can’t be good enough to be accepted by God outside of the cross of Christ.

Nor is the goal of Christianity about us feeling better about ourselves.  While it is true that understanding the unconditional love God has for us can make us feel better, it isn’t the goal.  Christ didn’t come so that we may have greater self-esteem going into a job interview, or a board meeting, or in our relationships.  Even the doctrine of adoption of us by God as outlined in Ephesians 1, which simply states that before the creation of the universe God chose us to be sons and daughters, is not given so we feel good about ourselves.

So what then is the goal of Christianity?  To what end are we following Jesus and seeking to be obedient to him?  Moralistic deism would have us believe the goal of following Jesus is being a good person, but isn’t there something more.  Or maybe the better question is, “Do we really need Jesus for that?”  Think for a moment of the crucifixion of Christ.  Imagine the pain, physical and emotional, he went through.  The betrayal of a close friend leading up to his arrest.  The anxiety in the garden as he pleaded with the Father to take the cup from him.  The loneliness of being abandoned by all of his friends in his greatest hour of need.  The brutal agony of having the flesh torn off his back as he is scourged.  The excruciating pain of having nails driven through his wrist.  The heartbreak of looking down and seeing his mother weeping over the torturous death of her son.  The isolation as he is separated from the Father.  The desperation as he strains to breath under the suffocating weight of his own body.  Imagine Jesus going through all this, and for what?  So you and I can be good people?  So we can feel better about ourselves?  The major beliefs of Moralistic Deism as laid out by Smith do not measure up to the price Jesus had to pay.  There has to more to it than that.

The disheartening reality is that, for many people who call themselves Christians, being a good person is the point of Christianity.  While a life of adventure and purpose is waiting for them in Christ, they reduce Christianity to playing by the rules.  You don’t need to follow Jesus to play by the rules.  You don’t have to follow Jesus to be nice.  Join the rotary club if that’s what you want.  The life that awaits us in Christ is one we could not imagine.  The life Jesus offers us is one in which we do “even greater things” by the power of the Holy Spirit.  But to share in this life, to taste it, to live it one must die to themselves.  One must be willing to sacrifice everything.  One must be willing to go where they don’t want to go, or where they don’t they can go.  One must be willing to deny themselves for the sake of another.

Which doesn’t sound much like simply being happy and being a good person.

Reflections on Philippians 3:10

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

There are four things that Paul desires in this passage that I find extremely challenging:

1. To know Christ
2. To know the power of the resurrection
3. To know the fellowship of sharing in his suffering
4. To become like him

I am struck that none of these things can be known simply by cognitive assent.  To truly know these things one must know them by way of experience.  Fellowship is not known apart from fellowship.  The power of the resurrection is not known by studying books.  Even more so, Christ is not known with out experiencing him in relationship with him.

I wonder how many of our churches are filled with people who are simply nodding their heads to what’s being sung or said without experiencing the truth of what is being said?  I wonder how many people are vicariously living the faith through others who are really living their faith?

I wonder how often I sacrifice knowledge about Jesus for knowing Jesus?

I really do desire to have the single minded focus of Paul to know Christ.  I don’t want to settle for knowing a lot of about him.  I want to know him!  I want to see the power of the resurrection.  Now,I’ll be honest, the fellowship of sharing in his suffering is not something I readily am asking for.  But, if it is the process God ordains that I might become like Jesus, then bring it on!  To live larger than life so that death cannot contain or extinguish life, yes, I will take some of that.

Leading the weak: It’s not about leadership

Edwin Friedman, in his book A Failure of Nerve, makes this observation regarding a pervasive problem in contemporary American institutional leadership.

There is a regressive, counter-evolutionary trend in which the most dependent members of any organization set the agenda and where adaptation is constantly toward weakness rather than strength, thus leveraging power to the recalcitrant, the passive-aggressive, and the most anxious members of an institution rather than toward the energetic, the visionary, the imaginative, and the motivated.

When I first read this quote by Friedman I wasn’t sure I agreed with it. It makes great sense if you are leading a company or organization, but I lead a church. To me, it didn’t seem like this idea had any place within congregational leadership. After all, Jesus described what he came to do by telling the story of the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to go after the one. Or there is Paul’s teaching in Romans 14 that we should be mindful of the weaker brother or sister and not do anything that would cause them to stumble. With this in mind, I assumed it unloving (and therefore poor leadership) to do something that would leave a brother or sister behind.

For example, I have been pushing our congregation to become more involved in discipleship and mission. Becoming involved with these things requires a lot of change, commitment and sacrifice. At one point a member of the congregation came up to me and said, “What you say, and what you are asking of us, makes me uncomfortable. I don’t believe God wants me to be uncomfortable.” Everything in me disagrees with their idea that God doesn’t want us to be uncomfortable, at least in how they were defining comfort. If God didn’t want us to be uncomfortable he wouldn’t have had Moses go stand before Pharaoh, or the Israelite’s wander in the desert for forty years, or make the disciples take the lunch of a small boy to feed five thousand people. I think God is less interested in our comfort and more interested in our continued growth into the image of his son, Jesus Christ.

But I didn’t say this to the person standing in front of me.

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but what I said was in effort to make them feel better and to calm their fears about the church moving in a direction that would make them uncomfortable. Why did do this? Because, in my mind, this was a more loving thing to do.

Friedman states I am not alone here. The trend he noticed in American leadership is leaders won’t move or make decisions unless the most anxious, the most unwilling to move, are willing to go with them. In an institution that values consensus, like a church, this sounds like good leadership. The problem in catering to the demands and fears of the least motivated is that the most motivated individuals are demotivated. In the long wrong, the institution suffers, movement/change is minimal, and the potential impact of the leader is sabotaged.

So what do we do with the idea that Jesus goes out of his way for the one, and instructs us to look out for the weak?

First, I think having concern for the weaker brother or sister in light of Romans 14 as a basis for institutional leadership is bad exegesis. But I won’t get into that here.

Second, and more importantly, God doesn’t want the weak to stay weak. Together Psalm 139 and Ephesians 2:10 tell us God uniquely wired us and gifted us according to his plan, to do good works which he prepared for us to do in advance. That doesn’t sound like a God who wants the weak to stay weak.

Nor is it loving to let the weak stay weak. What parent doesn’t want their child to grow in independence and confidence and ability and courage? Is it not loving for a parent to give their children opportunities to grow? Is it not loving for a parent to call those traits out of their children? Of course it is. So why don’t we do this for children of our heavenly Father?

This isn’t just about leadership in the church. This is about discipleship. Leadership in the church is simply disciples making disciples. In the church, leadership isn’t about learning a new technique to cast vision. It isn’t about learning how to gain consensus for a new program. It isn’t about learning new language for conflict resolution. It is about discipleship. And discipleship is about teaching people to live like Jesus. Discipleship isn’t about teaching people more information about Jesus (although that’s part of it). It isn’t about teaching people new behaviors (although that’s part of it). Discipleship is about calling people to live bigger than they currently are. Think of it, who were Jesus disciples? Fisherman. Fisherman who changed the world. That sounds like a bigger life than most would have guessed out of fisherman.

Leadership in the church isn’t about letting the weak stay weak, it is about giving grace to the weak so that, through discipleship, they can be strong.

Which means they aren’t catered to, but they are called.

And often uncomfortable.

Rediscovering the leaf pile

I love fall. I love the cooler weather, the changing the leaves, the smell, and most of all, the fact my allergies are over. I have fond memories of fall as well. Growing up we had a big backyard out in the woods which meant we had some spectacular leaf piles. Our yard would get so many leaves on it that we would use a leaf blower to make these piles. And when I say leaf blower, I’m not talking about that little thing your neighbor plugs in to blow the leaves out of his bushes, I am talking about an industrial blower on wheels.

Yeah, it was fun.

But I haven’t played in a leaf pile in about 18 years.

There is something about having a young child that helps you rediscover those simple joys.

The other day there were enough leaves in our backyard that Luke, my 18 month old son, and I got a rake and made a leaf pile. And yes, he helped!

So we raked up the leaves into a pile and then put his little plastic slide in front of the leaves and sent him down the slide into the pile. Luke’s thought in a word: epic. He loved it. And for the next 45 minutes this is all we did. This face made it all worth it.

I am finding that one of the joys of being a parent is rediscovering how beautiful and fascinating this world is. Under every stone, behind every bush, in every leaf pile there is something to discover.

And as Luke discovers, I rediscover.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that eternity has been placed in the hearts of men and women. Deep within each one of us there is longing for something more in life. We feel it when we are sitting around the table with good food and good drink and people we love. There is rich conversation that is deep and meaningful as we share our lives together. We tuck our children in at night and without prompting they reach up, hug us, and whisper “I love you” without prompting. All of us have felt something like this at some point in our lives, and deep down, we hope it could go on forever.

So we pursue.

We chase.

We begin to think if I could just get that one thing, money, house, success, recognition, family, or kids then that ache in our souls would be satisfied. But it doesn’t. So we come up with a new pursuit and lay chase hoping we discover our souls longing.

As I have followed Jesus, I have found my soul discovers, or more accurately rediscovers, the thing it has been longing for. Our souls will not be satisfied by something new, rather, our soul remembers eternity as Ecclesiastes says and so will only be satisfied in rediscovering.

At one time we were known. Intimately. By the one who breathed life into us. We were known by others without shame, guilt, or feeling the need to hide. And we knew. We knew God. We knew others. We knew life without pain, wounding, oppression, and injustice.

We long for that.

One of the most attractive thing Jesus offers is an opportunity to rediscover what our soul longs for. Jesus offers exactly what our soul hopes for, pursues and chases after. The invitation of Jesus is to begin to experience that now. As Paul says, “we shall know, as we are fully known.”

A response to Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson is quickly becoming even more irrelevant than ever.  His most recent statements should be, and are rightly being, condemned.  This week Robertson said a man would be morally justified to divorce his wife if she were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s because the disease was a “kind of death.”  According to Robertson the person is “not there” anymore.  It is baffling to me how he can arrive at this conclusion considering he argued against the removal of Terri Schiavo from life-support  just six years ago.  The cognitive disconnect is astounding if not disturbing.

Russell Moore on his blog states very succinctly what I am feeling.

 This is more than an embarrassment. This is more than cruelty. This is a repudiation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This couldn’t be more correct.  Husband and wives are called to love each other as Christ loves the church.  Which is not simply a nice way of calling spouses to a higher standard when it comes to their marital vows, it is a mysterious, Holy Spirit breathed sign of Christ’s love for the church.  A love that pursued, chased after, picked up, cried for, fought for and died for a bride who had left her first love.  It can be argued that the bride (the church) did not even know Christ during the moment of his greatest sacrifice.  If this is the picture marriage is to represent, how on earth can Robertson make the claim he is?

There is no doubt the anger I am feeling is coming from the personal experience I have with this issue.  My grandmother and my grandmother-in-law both suffer from this debilitating disease.  And yet, as I watch my family, especially my grandfather and in-laws, care for my grandmothers I am amazed at the grace of Jesus that flows through them.  There are few more beautiful and moving shadows of the love of Jesus towards us as sinners, outside of parenting a child, than the shadow of watching the gentle, quiet, sacrificial love of someone caring for a person who cannot return the act.  Not only is it a beautiful picture of sacrificial love, but it is a transforming experience for the caretaker.  They cannot be left unchanged by the experience.  And for the Christian, the hope is through the giving of care for the weak, we are made into the image of Christ.

Robertson McQuilkin relates this experience in caring for his wife.

I don’t have to care for her, I get to. One blessing is the way she is teaching me so much—about love, for example, God’s love. She picks flowers outside—anyone’s—and fills the house with them.

Lately she has begun to pick them inside, too. Someone had given us a beautiful Easter lily, two stems with four or five lilies on each, and more to come. One day I came into the kitchen and there on the window sill over the sink was a vase with a stem of lilies in it. I’ve learned to “go with the flow” and not correct irrational behavior. She means no harm and does not understand what should be done, nor would she remember a rebuke. Nevertheless, I did the irrational—I told her how disappointed I was, how the lilies would soon die, the buds would never bloom, and please do not break off the other stem.

The next day our youngest son, soon to leave for India came from Houston for his next-to-last visit. I told Kent of my rebuke of his mother and how bad I felt about it. As we sat on the porch swing, savoring each moment together, his mother came to the door with a gift of love for me: she carefully laid the other stem of lilies on the table with a gentle smile and turned back into the house. I said simply, “Thank you.” Kent said, “You’re doing better, Dad!”

The full article can be found here

Too often we are concerned about what we get out of our relationships with people.  We apply economic cost-benefit analysis to our relationships to determine whether they are worthwhile for us to maintain.  Has the market influenced us that deeply?  Have we reduced human interaction, even love, to such that its worth is dependent on what it offers?  Has the idea of sacrifice completely been lost?  How many of us, like McQuilkin can say, “I don’t have to care for her, I get to”?  I see this attitude in my grandfather.  I see it in my in-laws.  And it is inspiring.  That doesn’t mean it is without difficulty.  Quite the contrary.  But what is so inspiring is that in the midst of the difficulty they continue on.  When most would give up, they press on.  When there is nothing coming back to them, the give some more.  How that doesn’t give greater testimony to the love of Jesus and the faithful presence of Christians in the world I will never know.

Moore’s conclusion is absolutely beautiful and spot on.  So I will simply end by quoting it:

Jesus tells us he is present in the weak, the vulnerable, the useless. He is there in the least of these (Matt. 25:31-46). Somewhere out there right now, a man is wiping the drool from an 85 year-old woman who flinches because she think he’s a stranger. No television cameras are around. No politicians are seeking a meeting with them.

But the gospel is there. Jesus is there.

Would you follow you?

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  Matthew 28:19-20

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”  1 Corinthians 11:1

“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you.”  Philippians 4:9

It is evident from the scriptures that, as Christians, we are to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.  For most Christians this is a given.  What is not a given is how we are to fulfill that command.  It has been startling for me to read passages like 1 Corinthians 11:1 and Philippians 4:9 where Paul calls others to simply do what he does.  Paul is literally saying, “Do you want to follow Jesus?  Do you want to know him more?  To you want to experience more grace in your life?  Then do what I am doing.  Live like me.”

Which isn’t all that revolutionary.  It is exactly what Jesus told us to do in The Great Commission.  “Go and make disciples, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  In John 14:12 Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.”  For three years Jesus showed the disciples how to live and what it means to be human, and then he commissions them to go and teach others how to live.

Discipleship modeled for us by Jesus and Paul is simply calling others to follow what we are doing in our pursuit of Christ.

The question that looms is, “Would I follow me?”

I answer the question very tentatively at first.  The answer I give says a lot about how I view myself.  Answer “yes” and I look a little arrogant and probably disqualify myself from being someone worth following due to an under developed sense of humility.  Answer “no” and, outside of the obvious “you aren’t worth following because you don’t think your worthy to be followed, you might not be worth following because a lack of confidence and/or  false humility.  It is a tricky question.

So let me as honestly as I can answer the question.  Would I follow me?

No….

….but that’s a qualified ‘no’.

Here’s why I say it is qualified.  I don’t say ‘no’ because I think I lack character, or vision, or that I would be ashamed to have people see how I live.  The reason I would say ‘no’ is altogether different.  Looking at the lives of those who I wanted to follow and who have discipled me, I see a characteristic in them that is absent in me.  Those to whom I have sought to model my life after have been people who push me.  They ask me to do things I didn’t know I could do.  They ask me to examine myself and stretch myself.  At times in ways I don’t want to stretch.  And it is always hard to say ‘no’ to these people because I see them doing the same things of themselves.  They push.  The desire.  They ask for more.

The reason I say, “No, I would not follow me” isn’t because I don’t think I’m not a person worth following.  I say ‘no’ because I have not been a person who asks something of others.  And this isn’t just limited to asking things of those who have followed me, but asking in general.  I typically don’t ask for help.  A few months ago I wanted to ask someone to be a mentor to me, and it scared me to the core.  I had to be forced to ask for what I want.

As I reflect back on those relationships in which I was discipling someone, I have to regrettably admit that I didn’t ask well.  I didn’t ask them to push themselves.  I didn’t ask them to do more than they thought they could.  I didn’t ask them to make bigger steps in obedience to Christ.  I didn’t ask them to consider more of the Kingdom of God.  I didn’t ask them to follow me.  Consequently, their growth as followers of Jesus wasn’t what it could be.

Neither was mine.

There are a lot of reasons for this.  Okay, there is one reason expressed a lot of different ways:  fear.  I feared I would be seen as demanding asking people to push themselves.  I feared I would be seen as seen as arrogant because I “knew” what someone needed to do to step into the kingdom.  I feared the accountability that kind of relationship fosters.  I feared if I explicitly asked them to follow me, they would say no…

…so I didn’t ask.

One of the more paradigm shifting ideas I am learning is that it is okay to ask.  In fact, as a leader it is necessary to ask.  Learning how to ask someone to be better than they believe they can be is the essence of what being a good leader is all about.  It is the essence of making disciples.  Jesus asked fisherman to follow him so they could be more than they, or anyone else, imagined they could be.  Who thought a bunch of fisherman from a small village could change the world?  But he asked.  He asked Nicodemus to stop trying to wrap his mind around the idea of being born again and step out in faith.  He asked the rich young ruler to sell everything.  He asked Zacchaeus to lunch.  He asked a young boy for his lunch in order to feed five thousand people.  He asked John to care for his mother in his absence.  He asked the disciples to lose their life.  He asked.

If this is what Jesus has done, then this should be what I am doing.  So I am learning how to ask.

So for my first ask…

Would you follow you?