Monthly Archives: August 2012
I love the will of my God?
Discussion point at the end of the day…
That friend of ours would finish his prayer in this way: “I love the Will of my God and that is why, abandoning myself completely into his hands, I pray that he may lead me however and wherever he likes.” Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 374-376). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
That is a hard statement to say – especially for me these days. I think of several of my friends, for who the journey of the moment is scary, it not only causes them great anxiety and fear, but it causes me to be anxious, to try and analyze and research and find ways to encourage them. I think of a friend who just started his “formal” formation to the pastorate today, knowing the challenges he will face, even as his families undergoes a number of other life transitions. Another friend who will walk beside him the next four years – and faces different challenges along the same road. A young seminarian I met, who I have a gut level instinct that he is something special, but his road will not be the norm as many other pastors.
How can each be encouraged to simply trust, to simply abandon their own desire and let a God who is here, but not always easily seen and felt, take them into His loving hands. How can we love the will…that we aren’t sure we like?
How can I, even as I look to the future as a pastor, and see where God would do the same thing – not just with me, but with a congregation of people I love. (Knowing that some may struggle with what God is planning for us, even as we abandon ourselves into His hands…
Luther would say this is a First Commandment issue – will we trust that He is our God, our Father, our Almighty, Everlasting, Wise Counselor, One who creates a kingdom of peace – in the midst of our messed up broken lives. That is a level of trust that is foreign to us today, hard, difficult, risky,….
necessary.
We can’t play God anymore. We can’t pretend to have strength that we don’t have. We need to find the rest that comes only when we get into the passenger seat, and let someone else pilot our lives. For there, in letting God reign, and rule, we find the rest and peace to hear His voice, to feel His presence, the stillness to have peace and know… to experience, to have revealed to us that He is our God.
Lord, this evening, help me to abandon myself to you… help my heart rejoice in being Your child, in letting You guide the way of my friends, to bless the path of Vicars Mark and Eduardo, to help the people I shepherd know Your love and hear your voice….and may we all pray the same prayer that start this blog…
I love the Will of my God and that is why, abandoning myself completely into his hands, I pray that he may lead me however and wherever he likes.”
AMEN
Defending the Faith? Do we have to?
Discussion thought of the day!
In the Princess Bride, there is a class line by the classic swordsman Montoya. His boss keeps on using this word, “inconcievable”. Finally, fed up with hearing it over and over, used about things proved very possible, he confronts the man saying, ” I do no think you know what this word means!” (or something to that effect- it’s been a long week!)
Perhaps part of it has to do with the rich history of the crusades, and our understanding of the church militant, and how many of our seminaries look like ancient castles and fortresses! But the church militant’s opposition isn’t those who challenge its beliefs – they are our objective, the people we need to liberate. Paul tells us so clearly that we are not at war with them, but with satanic forces, the powers and principalities that hold those people in hostage, and blind them to the grace of God.
That’s where the swordsman’s quote come’s into play. The word is apologetics – and most of the apologetics books and training I have seen recently treat the one hearing our faith as the opposition, or at least as the prosecuting attorney. They talk of defending our faith – as if the battle is too defend a treasure.
But apologia – the word used in 1 Peter 3:15 isn’t about defending the faith – it is about giving the logos – the reasoning, the logic which leaves us not defeated, not broken, not without hope, but with great hope. Hear is one of my favorite translations of the passage:
“3:15 Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. 1 Peter 3:15 (NLT)
It is that “be ready to explain it ( Our hope that we have in Christ) that is apologia. It brings us back to the cross, and the fact that we only have hope because He endured it (see Heb 12:2) and rose again, and is returning for us. That’s not defensive, its not competitive, it is simple revealing the truth as it was revealed to us.
We don’t need to defend our faith – we don’t need to go into a philosophical and doctrinal war. God is big enough to defend himself – and His word does that as it opens their heart – and calls them to life They really don’t need us to be at war with them – instead they need to know the hope and love that is found as GOd gifts us with them.. Invite them on the journey, explain why you have found healing and joy, even in the midst of the deep dark valleys that cause anxiety and fear. and shame…yet which we turn over to the Lord who already defeated them… and walks with us, keeping us safe – our hearts, and minds… for we live in Him, and He in us..
God’s peace!
The Need for Spiritual Discipline/Formation/Growth
May you realize that you live in God’s Kingdom, and desire greatly to see its beauty!
I am on the road this morning, with a friend as he begins his journey towards being ordained into the ministry. During the journey by planes, (although it seemed we walked nearly that far!) I came across this in my reading.
“It is quite common to find, even among apparently responsible and devout Catholics, the error of thinking that they’re only obliged to carry out their familial and religious duties. They seldom want to hear any mention of civic duties. The problem is not selfishness; it’s simply a lack of formation.” de Prada, Andres Vazquez (2011-04-18). The Founder of Opus Dei: Volume III, The Divine Ways on Earth (The Life of Josemaria Escriva) (Kindle Locations 9415-9417). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
It started my mind wandering on this idea of formation. Surely there is a great benefit to the normal route of ordination, and in the “alternate” routes which are simply adaptations of the norm. There are a few differences as well between my friends over on the other side of the Tiber, and those of us who are Lutherans.
But Spiritual Formation is, in my opinion, critical, and in these days, critically overlooked. It’s been that way for a while. Hear the writer of Hebrews comment:
5:11 There is much we have to say about this matter, but it is hard to explain to you, because you are so slow to understand. 12 There has been enough time for you to be teachers—yet you still need someone to teach you the first lessons of God’s message. Instead of eating solid food, you still have to drink milk. 13 Anyone who has to drink milk is still a child, without any experience in the matter of right and wrong. 14 Solid food, on the other hand, is for adults, who through practice are able to distinguish between good and evil.
Hebrews 5:11-14 (TEV)
We see it there as well – as the author notes the inability of these people to get their butts of their spiritual couches and serve (by teaching) others. Instead the would rather take it easy, and simply re-digest the same simplistic lessons. They should be able to share the incredible blessings they have received, the basics of their faith. Yet… they can’t
I love the comment by Escriva’s position on this – it isn’t because they are weak, selfish, and self-centered! It is because they haven’t been formed. They haven’t been discipled. The very things that they need to learn, need to be shared, modeled. The depth of God’s love isn’t just “He saved me from my sins”, it is an incredible thing, long planned out – every step taken toward the cross, and away from the empty grave.
And the deeper you go, not into academia, but into living in that grace, rejoicing in it, seeing it revealed to you in the words of scripture, being comforted in prayer, even in things like making sacrifices, little ones for sure, in order that others may see God. As we live in Christ, as we are clothed in His righteousness, that overcomes what might appear to be selfish and infantile faith.
And we begin to share with others this glorious thing we’ve found. A last thought, describing maturity in Christ:
1Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now God’s salvation has come! Now God has shown his power as King! Now his Messiah has shown his authority! For the one who stood before our God and accused believers day and night has been thrown out of heaven. 11 They won the victory over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the truth which they proclaimed; and they were willing to give up their lives and die.
Revelation 12:10-11 (TEV)
That, my friends, is a description of us, the mature believers who trusted in the God who comes to them – not a bunch of selfish, infantile believers.
May Mark and Eddie and the rest of the seminarians that start this week be so formed… may our churches have the same attitude, may I as well.
Godspeed this day….
Familiarity Breeds ….. Awe!
As always – feel free to comment/discuss:
There is an old saying – which cam to mind while discussing yesterday’s devotion on the Trinity. A good friend of mine indicated that he feared reducing his faith to that of the country/gospel songs where Jesus is described as a friend/pal – almost as if he will raise a mug of Coors or Bud with us. ( blech) . I get that, there is a point where we can make God our ole bud and then take him for granted. (as we sometimes do with our best friends)
It’s what the old phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” so aptly describes. THe idea that the longer we spend with someone, or with something, the more we take it for granted.
We have to admit – most of us take God for granted, and treat Him contemptuously from time to time. 🙁
I wonder though, is our taking Him for granted just based in our being too close? That we only take Him for granted when we think of Him as friend as a familiar part of our lives? Or do we take Him for granted when we think we related to Him as the Creator, and we are just a speck of the Creation? I would suggest its both.
So let’s look again at a familiar passage..
15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. 13 The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them. 14 And you are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. 17 This, then, is what I command you: love one another.
John 15:11-17 (TEV)
It is in realizing that Jesus, Lord of Lords, King of Kings shares with us what the Father entrusted Him with, that we are no co-heirs of Christ, adopted children of God. That level of familiarity, that yes, does include the entire Trinity, that is amazing! A common sinner like me (and yes you as well) welcome into the presence of God, not as a servant/slave, as one indebted (yet we owed a great debt) but as family, is too me something I desire not to take for granted, not to treat contemptuously, and yes, it hurts and sickens me when I realize that I have. How it should crush us, for a moment, as we realize that we have forgotten the Holy Spirit, who abides with us, the incredible gift of our baptism.
We are His people,….I am His own. He has called us by name – His name….
He became common – that He could be with us… that we would share in His glory, as we abide in Him, and He abides in us…
May this familiarity continue to breed such awe..that my life responds in worship and praise!
The Triune God…revealed
Devotional thought of the Day:
A Catholic priest once wrote:
“God is my Father! If you meditate on it, you will never let go of this consoling consideration. Jesus is my intimate Friend (another rediscovery) who loves me with all the divine madness of his Heart. The Holy Spirit is my Consoler, who guides my every step along the road. Consider this often: you are God’s… and God is yours” Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 237-242). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
It is a beneficial thing to contemplate on the trinity. From an Academic standpoint, the creeds, those incredible statements summarizing the work of the Trinity – they are great! Pretty good for contemplation as well, as we focus in on why we have confidence, why we trust in God, Father Son and Spirit. A lot of weight in these statements that we have had handed down to us!
Escriva’s words, taken in conjunction with those creeds reminds us that there is more to the Trinity than academic and theological insight. There is an intimacy with God, what some of the guys I work with reluctantly once, now playfully refer to the “r” word – the relationship. And that’s what Escriva’s words help us to remember – all those incredible things – all the creation, all the word redeeming us, all the work in making us holy, making us saints – proof that God is with us. The challenge, when we are talking about the Trinity, is to realize that They keep us in their conversation, that They are One, yet call us into that dance, that call us to share in that love, that dance with joy as the people that are called by Their name… realize that very truth.
Rejoice my friends, the Triune GOd loves you!
Post 100! A Challenge..rejoice in trials
Devotional thought of the day:
Wow, it’s post 100, averaging some 20 hits, plus those 40 that are subscribed by email. Every continent has seen my blog – including countries that are amazing to me. Some blogs have gotten a ton of hits – the most about my death 20 years ago, some have have only received 3 or 4. I guess, as I look back – some were good (praise God for those) and some…well sucked. (Blame me.) What to talk about on #100? The following quote stuck out in some reading yesterday.
“To follow Christ—that is the secret. We must accompany him so closely that we come to live with him, like the first Twelve did; so closely that we become identified with him…. But do not forget that being with Jesus means we shall most certainly come upon his cross. When we abandon ourselves into God’s hands, he frequently permits us to taste sorrow, loneliness, opposition, slander, defamation, ridicule, coming both from within and from outside. This is because he wants to mold us into his own image and likeness. He even tolerates that we be called lunatics and be taken for fools.” de Prada, Andres Vazquez (2011-04-18). The Founder of Opus Dei: Volume III, The Divine Ways on Earth (The Life of Josemaria Escriva) (Kindle Locations 7632-7638). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
There are days I wish that our Lord wouldn’t permit so many trials in the lives of the people I pastor (whether they are part of my congregation or those…that would be..yet…) TO be honest, it can get very tiring to watch, to spend time in prayer for, to try and stand by their side, (when they let me know they are going through it.) While our confidence is in God, it is in such times that such confidence is shaky, not in God, but in us. Yet the closer we are to Him, the more dependent it seems the more burdens we have to endure, the more challenges we come across…..
As I serve and observe people going through such times, as my heart breaks for them, I have found something out. Theologically speaking, this becomes a “first commandment issue”. Can we let God be God? Can we give to our Father the recognition that He does reign over us, but to accept that in His reigning, it is His responsibility to make these things a blessing, something good for us, even as we do not see it? Can we say, not my will, but thine, realizing that it means we are not just ceding what we are going through, but as well – ceding complete control over how it works out?
That is what Jesus had to do at the cross – ultimately – in His humanity He had to entrust Himself to the Father, and know that it was the Father’s plan to do something wonderful.
In trusting the Father, in the midst of trials, in hearing the Holy Spirit’s comforting voice, in realizing we have been united with Christ’s death and resurrection, the outcome of the trial is one thing we don’t have to concern ourselves with.
And trusting in the Father, knowing His promises, we can dwell in His joy and in His peace…
Knowing that He has promised us life, we can cry, “Lord have mercy!”… and rest in the sure knowledge of His love.
God’s Commands, or God’s Commission?
Devotional Thought of the Day.
It’s amazing the difference a word makes, or just a few letters ending words starting with “comm”. TO be precise “and” versus “ission”.
As I prepared my studies for this weeks sermon, the difference glares out to me. The word in Greek has, very definitely, the nature of commission. Yet over and over we translate it command. With that translation, we create a load of issues that are not really there.
If you commission something, a piece of art, a building, a musical piece ( I think of Mozart’s Requiem) any project, you give the scope of the work, what your expectations are when it is completed. It draws the boundaries of the work and brings definition to it. It is a project something that takes on beauty over time. And if the work is fulfilled, the one who commissioned it has caused a masterpiece to be created. It is about the end product, and the formation of it – a masterpiece.
A command is something with even harder definitions – I always think of an execute order in computer program. Print X, the sum of 3+4. Or the directive that is specific and immediate. Don’t do this, do that, go here, and that which is commanded must do what is to be done. The command executed, the project finished, then what?
When it comes to God, and what He would have us do, He is commissioning something, He is describing the parameters and vision for a project that is underdevelopment all our lives. His goal is a masterpiece, without flaw, something that will endure, and br praiseworthy and glorious. It’s far more than a moment by moment execution in blind obedience, its being formed and shaped and there is a goal. The goal is simply defined by one word – a relationship. The relationship we recognize when we see that He is our God, and when we also recognize that by His work, we are His people.
Indeed a masterpiece!
Yet how many times would we get in the way of that – would we decide to ignore that which He commissioned – to draw outside the lines, the parameters that a common to the commissioning. (SOme refer to this as disobedience – but its more – the is is that it is an attempt to destroy the masterpiece God commissioned – to ignore or mar His plan with what we want. It is like spraying grafitti over the artwork in the St Peter’s Basilica, it is like having someone “sit in” and overdub “Dust in the Wind” with a Kazoo.
Using commission brings a whole different understanding to why God draws the parameters for our lives the way He does. It reflects on that great verse of Paul in Eph 2:10. “2:10 We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.” Ephesians 2:10 (NJB)
So to does commission create a more vivid picture of sin, as we destroy a masterpiece in the making, as we ignore the beauty that God would see in us…so that we create the havoc we think is …
Luckily we aren’t the one who holds the commission – that responsibility is belong’s to the Artist – to the One Isaiah calls the Potter, the One in Whom we are created. And in Christ, somehow, miraculously, that artwork we once thought was destroyed, is restored, brought back to life and beauty, healed and made whole. That was His commission – and the giftedness it took, literally was an investment of His life.
Thank God for that mercy, shown to us.
His people, His work.
May as we cry out Lord have mercy, respond with our lives, lived within that which He has commissioned.
AMEN
My Most Unpopular Post…EVER
Devotional Thought of the Day:
It’s amazing how much a five year old reflects the behavior of a society, and even more amazing, the people who make up God’s church in America. ( I don’t know about other countries – yet…)
I happen to have a brilliant five year old. He reads well, he can do 2 and 3 digit addition, but he has a major issue with patience, and sometimes a complete lack of awareness of that which is going on around him. A chip off the old block in many ways (okay – he get’s the brilliance from his mom) Most repeated lesson these days, get what you need to done, without the whining. I tell you – there are times I wish he was a teenager – and had matured past the whining part. (please don’t disillusion me!)
I see in myself, and in churches and among church leaders, the same impatience. We want everything fixed right away, we want to see our people go from just baptized to having the faith of Moses and David and John right away. (we have to remember that John was once a “son of thunder” and I don’t think his transformation was immediate either.)
We whine about the fact that others don’t mature, and that we can’t “go on” or we decide to “go on” without them. If this is in the church – we devalue each other, saying that our personal growth and maturity is more important than the growth of the entire community in their faith. Tough call, very tough call here, but we see the evidence of it in the incredibly high “church shopping” movement. People don’t see their needs being met – even in the mega-churches – and they mvoe to the next one, to the next place that is hopping – and then try to drag their friends there as well.
We see it in the movement today – in those that look at the 25 year studies of churches and note that the “common” thing is for decline ( while we over look the stat in the same study that says this is easily addressed by re-committing to the vision of the church, or adapting it) and that “true” growth occurs fastest in “church plants”. IMHO – that attitude will prove to result in more danger as good – about 20 years from now – as those people see that they created a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it is also there in the movement that has little patience with those who are so excited to discover the grace of God, that they want the world to know! More whining, more complaining, more impatience.
Please hear me – I as much as anyone – want to see people grow in their trust in God, and mature in how that is expressed. And I struggle with the plodding that sometimes is evident, as people don’t see a need to grow – and our content where they are at – stagnant it seems.
But spiritual maturity is a process of endurance, not sprints – it needs to last generations, not just years and perhaps a decade. It has to show the characteristic that we see in God,
3:9 The Lord is not being slow in carrying out his promises, as some people think he is; rather is he being patient with you, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9 (NJB)
I used to think the patience in this passage, was talking about those that hadn’t rbeen brought to repentance yet – but Peter is addressing the people that are believers already. Could it be that God’s patience is with His kids? The ones who whine and complain about others, the ones who are to be about planting seeds, the workers in the harvest, the church that has been gifted and given the vocation of being the light in the darkness? I think that we have to be careful and to discern the difference between tolerating stagnation, and knowing when to be patient with the slow and steady growth that must occur in the church – the patience that knows that endurance in the ministry means being able to guide people from where they are at, to a greater and greater dependence on God.
It means realizing and ministering to people in their brokenness – and making sure they grasp the wonder of God’s presence in their life, and the need of that presence in the lives of those around them. It means slowing some down to savor God’s presence and rest – while still bringing hope and healing to those around them. It means sticking to the place where God has gathered you – and encouraging each other continually to look to Christ, to reflect His glory.
It’s not easy, its not always popular, but the discipline is that which reflects God’s love to you…. as you work with people, enduring, patient – longsuffering, and as they work with you.
Know this – where you are at – there God’s presence is… learn that it is enough – and that is the maturity that really matters.
