and so...this is how it ends

As 2010 draws to an end and 2011 looms on the horizon it seems there are significantly more questions than answers this year. I think it is a normal thing for us to look back. We are seemingly always prone to do that. Remember Lots wife? Yeah the looking back can have some bad consequences, right? I try not to look at the minutia of the day to day living of my life but I look at the overall direction and trends. Am I still moving in the direction that lines up with what God has chosen and NOT what I desire? It is really easy to blur the lines sometimes when we want something so bad. I find that I tend to over analyze situations particularly where I feel like I have fallen short of what God expects of me. I know that I am prone to disappoint people for a lot of reasons...mostly expectations. I have done a fair amount of disappointing this year. But more importantly, I really hate it when I feel like I disappoint God in the many opportunities He gives me. Weirdly enough, this is what aggravates and frustrates me the most in others. If others don't share my passions and aren't completely missional focused I get lost in their inabilities and let it affect mine. I have actually come to understand this a lot better throughout this year and discovered that sometimes...no, a LOT of times...I just need to get the heck out of the way and let God go to work. On a deeper level I have discovered this is a faith issue and I am slowly learning to take ownership of that. It is not that I don;t believe that God can't do...I just want to help Him. Aren't we all guilty of that ? Yeah, we are. This is the basis of how we all come up with our personal definition of who God is. “BUT WHO DO YOU SAY I AM ?” We put God in a box or on a leash and carefully craft His abilities to suit our needs. Yeah, we do that a lot...So, one of my overarching goals for this next year is just to be very small and let God be very BIG...everywhere I go and in everything I do this next year. It's completely humbling to know everything I've done...especially the seemingly impossible things...the small ordinary things...have been because God has empowered me in order to make Him famous. I have that as my one big goal for 2011...I am sure there will be a lot of unexpected twists and turns on this continued journey. I am sure that I will disappoint people and for that I apologize in advance. Thank you for your grace... I hope and pray that I will disappoint my God even less and just take my hands off the knobs and trust...and breathe. And most importantly, to simply understand what he requires of me...which is:

“With what shall I come before the LORD

 and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

 with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,

 with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

 the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

 And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

 and to walk humbly with your God.”

I encourage you in this upcoming year to go beyond your comfort zone and push your faith out to a risky edge...where it's scary and you want to hold on tight and desperately cling to the familiar things. God is calling you to a place where the previously thought impossible becomes your reality. God wants you to let go and abandon your preconceived notions of what He can do...We are the bearers of Gods grace and our challenge this coming year is to show that to people and to dispense it liberally...

Fathers day 2010...random thoughts

In a perfect world, today I would be hanging out with my dad and we would be enjoying each others company. I would be doing all the things we do to honor our dads on their special day. I rather suspect we would be having a cook out in the back yard. I would be cooking and he would be supervising and pointing out everything I was doing wrong. I would just shrug and try to take his semi-constructive criticism with a grain of salt. His grand kids would be running around doing what kids do when out in backyards on fathers day. “c'mon grandpa...throw me the ball...”. He would look amused and that familiar half smile would appear. “Maybe later...you kids go on...”. Yeah, I heard that a lot. It was ok though, I was just happy to have him there and hanging out. I mean...after all...isn't that what fathers day is really about ?? Having dad there hanging out...just being the dad...and doing the stuff that dads do. Like...working on the car...shaving and leaving his whiskers in the bathroom sink...mowing the yard...dropping us off at church...letting us practice driving the car...taking us fishing...reading the paper at breakfast...and yelling a lot. It's funny how much stuff we remember and how much we forget. The painful and difficult times always seem to stand out and overshadow everything else that was good. I have discovered that most holidays, whether major or minor, are actually remembrance days. Some, like Christmas and Thanksgiving are often emotionally charged and highly evocative and reflective of the complexity of living in dysfunctional families. I think fathers day has that effect on many of us whether sons or daughters. It does me...I was like so many others and didn't have the kind of dad... that idealized one that we so often saw on television, growing up in the sixties. The dad I had was the dad that God gave me and it took me a long time to realize this and to be thankful and to be able to honor him. That is a big part of growing up and becoming a dad yourself. The unfortunate thing is when we are struggling with our earthly father child relationship we struggle with out heavenly one as well. That understanding of our heavenly father is a foundational concept in understanding how God wants to bless us and it is the essence of our relationship with Him. Our inability to forge a lasting and sustainable relationship with our biological fathers has such huge implications and ramifications for our continued survival as a society. However, our reluctance to acknowledge and strive for a relationship with our heavenly father has an even bigger impact on ourselves and others. The facts are well known...documented...discussed...and disputed. Here are just a few for you to mull over:

 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes

 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes


 80% of rapist motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes


 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in fatherless homes


 71% of pregnant teenagers come from fatherless homes


 80% of all adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from fatherless homes

and finally how about this one to jar you out of your coma...the absence of a biological father increases by 900% a daughters vulnerability to rape and sexual abuse...often at the hands of a step father or boyfriend of the mother.

I think you get the point here...it's beyond bad and we all bear some responsibility. According to an ancient African proverb,“It takes a village to raise a child”and we are all part of that village. For all the kids living in fatherless homes today I pray we get this and someone steps up to the plate...there are a lot of us...waiting.

in the potters hands...

There is a part of me that says “YES, I can” and there is also a part that says “Uh...no...you can't” and they are always in conflict and at odds with each other. I really do believe that friction and conflict are vital elements and what makes for good stories and writing good stories with our lives, as my friend Don says. I have actually never given much thought of how this story that is me is constructed. I have never carefully analyzed the individual parts that conspire together that make the whole. But after hearing...a lot...about how good stories are seemingly simply generated from the most basic of ideas I see the absolute need for this conflict to exist. It seems all my life I have fought hard against this conflict within me and I didn't like how it made me feel most of the time. I always had a sense that I was out of balance, shall we say. Unfortunately my response to this wasn't a good one. I always gave up to the louder can't do it part of me. I was a quitter. Right now, I even hate looking at those words as they appear on the screen as I type. It is so NOT who I am anymore. But it was a long process to tone down that incessant chatter in my head defeating me at anything I tried. The bad part of that is at some point you just give up trying as you figure...what's the use? I grew to always expect the same outcome which was failure. I think there are so many places we allow doubt and lack of faith to creep in to our daily lives and determine outcomes of things we attempt. We get robbed of our potential and our dreams by a false logic that sets up in us sometimes very early in life. Once that happens ever decision we make is touched by it. We set up, in our lives, a self fulfilling prophecy that we work hard to make come true. We put a lot of effort into something that is totally based on the fallacy that we are flawed and can't measure up to someones expectations. It is a vicious cycle that engulfs us and we begin to live our lives as victims. I was a victim. I was a victim of my own making. I was determined to do things my way and that way was the hardest way I could find to do anything. The end result of all this was I became unlovable and was bent on destruction. I wasted a lot of years living that way. But, here's the good news...In my darkest hour and in my utter brokenness, God gently reminded me that He has never left me and I was the one running away. He called me to come back home. He told me he loved me no matter what I had done...of course...He knew. I never had that from my earthly father so it was a little difficult to embrace this news. But I did and I surrendered...I was tired. I literally fell into His arms and found everything I had been longing for so long. I found grace,redemption and healing. I found the me that got lost so long ago. I discovered that when empowered by Christ that my weakness was an asset and not a liability. I discovered that I was lovable and that one simple fact changed my life. So many of us wandering around today feeling so rejected and unlovable believe that lie. Slowly but surely the plan emerged and things once out of my reach became obtainable. Those are called blessings. I didn't feel the urge to quit anymore and destroy every relationship I had built. This is the true transformed life that Jesus is calling us to. All we have to do is just give up, surrender, abandon self reliance, remove ourselves away from our lives, live out of the box, and embrace a very risky faith...and I'm really doing that.

your blood pressure is...WHAT ?

So, being a nurse, one of the most basic things we are taught to check to assess how someone is doing is taking their vital signs. This usually consists of their temperature, pulse, respirations and blood pressure. This is the standard and usually applicable in almost every situation. I am sure that I have taken literally thousands of vital signs in the last almost 40 years. I can also assure you that I have seen every value from the lowest low to the highest high. I can remember many times of being scared of a particular numerical reading and really focusing my efforts on fixing the number...irrespective of what the patient looked like. It took me lots of years to relax and learn to focus on the overall picture and not one isolated element. I was thinking abut this a lot lately and pondering how when we focus too closely and intently on one thing or aspect of something we impair our vision for the big picture that God wants to see. Unfortunately, even with the best of our state of the art medical technology we have yet to devise a thermometer or other device to measure our spiritual vital signs. I have discovered this is often times the most critical and overlooked vital sign and has significant impact on all the others. It is a well know fact that the wellness of our spirituality has a direct impact on our physical health. This is where the whole concept of holistic health originated. Any one aspect of our health cannot be ignored or it will be at the expense of total wellness. The challenge is how do we not only measure but intervene to repair and improve our spiritual health. The hard part with most people is just to talk about it. It still is an area that is mostly off limits in discussions and talking about health history. We readily discuss the most intimate and personal heath issues with almost complete strangers readily. However when it comes to the issues of our spiritual health it is a very different story. We stiffen up, become defensive and feel personally challenged when questioned even in the most benign manner. I can readily imagine a conversation between you and your doctor going something like this, "well...your blood pressure is better and your cholesterol has really improved...". And you say, "yeah...I have been exercising a little more...you know, trying to watch what I'm eating...". Your doctor then says, " You still going to church ? Making time to read the Bible ? you still praying every day ? what about your small group ?...". Would that be awkward ? You bet...Would you be shocked and possibly irritable ? Highly probable...It is almost like it is the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle laying there before us but we don't want to touch it and finish the picture. We do our best to keep it private and to try and ignore the importance of our relationship with God as a barometer of our state of wellness. How do we fix "sickness" in others spiritual health. First and foremost we need to make sure ours is healthy. It is hard to be sick or wounded and try to give good advice to someone else to improve theirs if ours is broken. Secondly, our approach has to be relational and not condemning and judgemental. We have to take people right where they are at...not where we want them to be, and go from there. We need to love people back into healthiness and not shame them into going somewhere they are not ready to go. It's like losing weight when you aren't mentally ready and haven't dealt with underlying emotional issues...it just comes back on. Our spiritual health is the foundation and bedrock on which everything else rests. We certainly know happens without a strong foundation to build on...everything eventually collapses. So, the next time you see me and I am asking about your blood pressure, blood sugar and other "numbers" don't get mad or tense up when I ask you, " how are you and Jesus getting along these days ?...did you two finally work out your differences ?...No ? ...you need to or it's gonna kill you..."

Romans12:13    Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.


3 John 1:5-8  Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are,  who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God.  For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.


So, with these two verses in mind, it is clear that we, the church, are to provide and contribute to the needs of saints as they journey on misson sharing the gospel with a lost world. Author and theologian, Ana Maria Pineda says,
"To welcome the stranger is to acknowledge him as a human being made in God's image; it is to treat her as one of equal worth with ourselves - indeed, as one who may teach us something out of the richness of experiences different from our own."
The longstanding Christian tradition of hospitality is the practice of providing a welcoming place to take in a stranger. It also includes the willingness to welcome strangers and those in need as well as friends and family to our tables, to feed and be fed by their presence there. It is abundantly clear, in the Bible, offering hospitality is a moral imperative. God's people need to remember the fact they were once strangers and wandering homeless refugees who were taken in by a benevolent and loving God. Shouldn't this memory of reliance on hospitality make someone feel inclined to host a stranger or a refugee? I think it would. I have no problem with that concept so I find it very difficult that anyone else would, especially a church or someone speaking for a church. I am going on a fund raising mission trip this summer involving 1800 miles of bicycling from Mobile Alabama to Buffalo New York. I will average about 75 miles a day which equates to roughly 6 hours a day on a bike seat about as wide as my hand. An important part of these mission focused bicycling trips is to interact with the local communities we will ride through on the route. And an important part of those communities are the local churches. It is faith building for both the cyclists and those we meet to share what God is doing on this trip and has done in our lives. This sharing our stories and sharing the gospel message of Jesus to serve others is as important as anything we do on this ride. However, if for any various number of reasons you individually or your church decides not to participate and demonstrate the hospitality that is decribed in the above referenced scripture, then we both lose. I have had the opportunity to be in contact with a number of churches in an attempt to find a willing host for the team after a long day of riding and have been both surprised and disappointed. I have been left with the feeling that I am selling some unknown product door to door and had that door closed in my face. That makes me feel like the "church" still just doesn't get it. I feel like I am an imposition on someone when in reality I am a blessing and an encourager sent to build your faith. I hear so much talk about being "missional" and "the GREAT comission" but the reality is we, meaning the church, are still hopelessly trapped inside the four walls of our buildings. We can't think, see or step outside the boxes or, God forbid, cross denominational lines. I won't lie...it hurts me when I am rejected and not even given the opportunity to share what I am doing to take the gospel to a lost and hurting world. It is unbelievable how poorly churches respond to email and telephone messages left on voicemails. I call it basic everyday common courtesy and it is sorely lacking in all areas of our culture. However, as an organization that is primarily in the business of responding to peoples needs, I seriously question how that is being done in a timely and effective manner. Maybe that's the problem....maybe the church has turned into an organization run by a CEO and is bloated with layers of administrative protocol that precludes even the simplest request by a group of cyclist passing though at the end of the day, tired and hungry. Seriously, church...is it really the best that you can do to send them away to a campground on the other side of town ? Is that really your understanding of the above scriptures ? If it is, we are really in big trouble. The fact is for many churches they "get it" and they are excited and eager to provide for our needs and sometimes it is hard to decide who gets blessed more in those times. I am thankful and hopeful that by their example others will follow. Then maybe the next time someone asks them to step out with a risky faith they will say..."yes...we would love to help you out...what can we do to help"