"Father, forgive me the bread I've stolen from my brother." ~ St. Vincent de Paul

"Make me an instrument of Your peace." ~ Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi

"Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I had a hard night sleeping last night. I just did. It used to happen to me all the time in my early twenties. The pattern usually goes: I wake up at some ridiculously early hour, my mind becomes abuzz with all sorts of profound or absolutely unprofound things, then after laying there for over an hour I decide to get up and pray. How close to midnight I get up determines how long I pray. Since it happened at 3:20 am this morning, it means that I'll be praying until 7 am (when my alarm goes off)...unless by a miracle I get tired and am able to sleep again. Regardless, it looks like I'll be taking a nap this afternoon.

In moments like these I pray for the persecuted church: those Christians all over the world who are imprisoned, tortured, or even put to death for their faith in Christ. As I was praying this morning the Lord challenged my heart on community. We western Christians have a propensity to be so focused on ourselves by the nature of living in an individualistic society, that we continually make licenses for our self-centeredness. We are guilty of creating barriers to shield ourselves from actually encountering the poor, broken, outcast, or from being poor, broken or outcast. We are taught a pragmatic morality (Lenski, 1984) that is upside down from the right-side up ideal morality (1984) that Christ taught, personified, and invites us to.

Power in the church is ridiculous. I am continually amazed at how people often try to define themselves by how much power they can attain. Someone creates a ministry 'niche' for themselves and all of the sudden, that is their territory. It goes to their head. While I'm not pin-pointing an exact instance, church political power can go to the Christian's head regardless of how little the power is. Like Jim said to Dwight on "The Office," "this is so sad, this is the smallest amount of power I've ever seen go to someone's head." And they are often insistent that they must get their way. James speaks to our micro-power mentalities when he writes:

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "You sit here in a good place," while you say to the poor man, "You stand over there," or, "Sit down at my feet," have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture,"You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (Chapter 2:1-13 ESV)

The micro-power displays in the church may be subtle. It may be more subtle than the pragmatic act of treating the rich better than the poor, but just as hypocritical and devastating. Whether it be insisting on getting your way in church politics, slandering, being critical, and making no repentance for lack of humility, it all contains a filthy film of self-focused sin that James warned us against. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us" (1954, p. 25), and if truly the ground is level at the foot of the cross than who are we kidding?

"Lord, save us from ourselves, and purify Your Bride! Purge each one of us from self-centeredness. Bring us to the end of us so that we can begin to live in You. Teach us how to be one."

Reference:

Bonoeffer, D. (1954). Life Together. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated.

Lenski, Gerhard, E. (1984). Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

Let’s be honest. It has been the hardest year of our entire lives. I’m not even exaggerating. On top of the regular ups and downs of mission work, intervening in some lives of teens we work with, financially living by faith, we also lost our son Elijah, and the past months have not been without their trouble. Along the journey of asking “why” (a question that God’s been getting most of Earth’s history), I’ve found myself (numerous times) trying to remind God that we’re His friends. We don’t feel that God is the causation of our pain, but like anyone who goes through pain, the reality is that the Almighty, sovereign, Creator of the Universe allowed it, and could have stopped it. In our heads we know that there’s a big picture that we’re staring at with our noses up against, and being so close to (and in) the picture we lack the perspective of the painter who doesn’t seem to be panicked by our situation and is steadily working away with His brush. We commonly pray, “give us Your eyes”, but to really know what that prayer means, we have to know who He is, and to know who He is requires we abandon to the secret place of prayer (which feels dangerous in tragedy) and to cling to His Word (and truth). All intertwined, we realize that what God is doing is not only for a “bigger picture” but is actually for our good, though heartbreak is accompanied by a question mark. His silence in tragedy is often a mystery, and while we may not understand, we trust (though it takes all we have).

A song that the Lord brought back to my mind was sung by an artist named Ginny Owens called “If You want me to”. Ginny, who has been blind since childhood wrote the song after struggling to find a job after college. The lyrics say:

The pathway is broken
And The signs are unclear
And I don't know the reason why You brought me here
But just because You love me the way that You do
I'm gonna’ walk through the valley
If You want me to

Cause I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise You're not through with me yet
so if all of these trials bring me closer to you
Then I will walk through the fire
If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world that's not my home
But You never said it would be easy
You only said I'd never go alone

So When the whole world turns against me
And I'm all by myself
And I can't hear You answer my cries for help
I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the valley If You want me to

And when I cross over Jordan
I’m gonna’ sing, I’m gonna’ shout
I’m gonna’ look into Your eyes and see that
You never let me down
So take me on the pathway that leads me home to You
I will walk through the valley if You want me to

“If You want me to” (from the album: The Best of Ginny Owens)

So, as we end another year, a year that we’re tempted to forget, we leave it knowing that it has shaped us more than any other year of our lives. We proclaim victory because we’re still standing. While remembering this year, for the rest of our lives, will probably draw tears, the Lord got us through it and we really are stronger…not because we suffered and survived, but because we trusted and learned how to hope when the tangible, outward appearances hollered doubt and despair. I guess the technical word for what we got out of it is: faith. Our story isn’t over. A part of the remarkable hope of our circumstance is that it is a brush stroke in the story that the painter is painting. Our lives are a masterpiece of His goodness, a magnum opus of His mercy.

“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
~ Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:33)

Lately I’ve been thinking about my “Call”, not because I’m unsatisfied, but because (despite trials) I feel alive in where the Lord has called me. A book that I’ve been reading is actually entitled The Call by Os Guinness. The reading has been very timely for where God has me, and it got me thinking about the dynamics of what life looks like right now. For instance, the question that we often have to filter through our priorities is: “where am I putting my energy?” When we look at the prospect of adding something to our already busy schedule, the reality is that something’s got to give. Something must be set down if we’re going to pick something up. Otherwise we run the risk of our life focus becoming hazy.

So many people go their whole life without finding their “Calling”. And when I say “Calling” I don’t mean the Protestant distortion (as Guinness puts it) that limits it to a secular lifetime vocation, and I also don’t mean it in the Catholic distortion (Guinness again) that limits it to a purely spiritually segregated existence saved for the spiritually elite monks, nuns, pastors, or full-time ministry people. Rather, I mean it in the strong conviction of how I have felt the Lord “mark” me in fulfilling a purpose in my lifetime. Guinness wrote:

“Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by Him, to Him, and for Him. First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia.

Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for Him.” (Guinness, 2003, p. 31)

The number one priority for us (Marissa and me) is to know the Caller (Jesus); then our secondary calling is what He has called us to do (minister on the Apache reservation). If we put the cart before the horse, then things become unmanageable and unbalanced. With the proper focus we can endure the trials that come with our unique Call.

As Marissa and I have been having a sabbatical/vacation in Atlanta, GA, over the past couple weeks, it has been a time of healing, reflection, spending time in the prayer room, spending time with friends, and even getting some rest :-) The message of being consumed by the Caller of our calling has been paramount for me. True, we’ve given ourselves over to the mission of encouraging, challenging, being available for, and loving the Apache teens. Any part-time work we do is to finance our Calling. My “spare” time is also spent working on a sociology degree. (A task I’ve been very passionate about, out of my hunger to articulate our Call to Native America) I am finding that the more passionate I am about my Caller, the more driven I am to stand in what He has called me to do. In September we took a group of our teens to the One Thing conference that came to Phoenix, and a great point that one of the speakers made was: “Lovers will always out work, out labor, and out serve workers.” This rings especially true for us in this season, where we are passionate about our Caller, our Calling, and this adventure that our Lord has invited us into.

Reference:

Guinness, Os.(2003). The Call: Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

A project that I've been scheming will be released on the 29th of this month. The name of the project is "Dust", and it is the first of a 3 volume set. The set, entitled "the nomad chronicles", is a meditation on being human and a lover of God. This first installation (Dust) is a meditation on the fleetingness of life.

Psalm 103:15-16
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.

Why October 29? The 29th is the 14 year anniversary of a car accident that I was in that was a landmark in my spiritual walk. I thought that it would be fitting to have that be the release date. The songs on the album will span about 8 years (all previously unrecorded). Everywhere from a lullaby written with a friend for his son, songs written from the place of prayer, songs written in my days of touring, to the memorial song written for my son's funeral, this project will focus in on the truth of the fragility and urgency of life.


The project is at the mastering studio right now and will only be available online for download (at least until all 3 volumes are completed). Stay tuned!

I know that in grieving, anger is OK. Even anger at God. God can handle our anger. But through this process of losing our boy I haven't been angry at God. I've been angry at the circumstance,I've been angry at death, and I've been angry at fallen humanity. When it comes to God I am: in awe at His goodness, captivated by His mystery, thankful for His incarnation (He sympathizes with my weakness), and I am at peace in His sovereignty. I think with our humanistic mindsets in the western culture, we are quick to think that we are entitled to a lot of things. To think that God is sovereign messes with us, because humanistic ideals want to maintain sovereignty for oneself. As Mark Driscoll stated once, "We have free will...but God's will is free-er than ours". Call me crazy, but I've been a pathetically-human-sinful-opinionated-hypocritical-self absorbed-messed up-redeemed Christian long enough to know that I don't want to be the sovereign one in my relationship with God. I am a broken frequency in the white-noise symphony of fallen humanity. But I am loved. I am delighted in. In a humanity where 1+1=2, it doesn't make sense that I am so depraved yet so cherished by my Maker. But in a place called Grace (the Grace of God), where 2+2=five thousand, I am the son of a King. A sinner, but a saint none-the-less. And the mercy of God echoes out in the tears, and the sobs, and the cries of not being able to see an infinite scope of a plight that is mixed with so many emotions. And in that mercy, a sweet, still, small voice whispers in love (a love that has conquered sin), "Go ahead, let it out".

...and I smile a smile of hopeless hope. Almost a tear...but more like a laugh.

My Father knows my frame. He knows when I fall or rise. He knows that I am but dust...and He loves me. He knows what it is like to lose an only son.

Hallelujah

Sometimes there are tragedies that completely shake your life. Such has been the case with losing our boy. I’m finding that if the shaking is hard enough it will shatter your heart into a million pieces. Life then becomes a process of picking up those pieces and putting your heart back together. I am convinced that how you view God completely determines what kind of heart you will have once it is all over. Your perception of God is absolutely defining in those times. Who is God? An angry Grinch? A good Father or an unapproachable one? Knowing God’s attributes is crucial to putting your heart back together. The problem then, is that in trial our Enemy’s primary strategy is to get us to take our eyes off God. If he succeeds in that, then he’s well on his way to winning the battle. With that said, the grieving process is necessary. All the steps in the process, I believe, can bring us closer to God.

The steps in the grieving process are:
Shock
Emotional release
Preoccupation with the deceased
Symptoms of some physical and emotional distress
Hostile reactions
Guilt
Depression
Withdrawal
Resolution and readjustment

In this time it’s so crucial to be submersed in Scripture. In the sociological community words are looked at as meaningless until defined, and are defined by indicators. The problem is that in times of tragedy we can so easily take cues from the indicators in the situation to define who God is when God clearly lays out the clear indicators of who He is in His Word. God is 100% of all of His attributes 100% of the time.