A Sleepless Dream

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As much as I hate to admit it, I could actually use some sleep right now, which is why I’m not writing about what I really would like to today. I look forward to Heaven and a glorified body. I know whatever that is really like it will be wonderful. I have to admit though that if I find out we still have to sleep I just might be a little disappointed. There’s a rational part of me saying that I shouldn’t have such thoughts. After all, God’s design is perfect. Sleep is a part of that design and has numerous benefits. I understand that sanity is one of them, though I claim no personal experience with it.

I guess that’s a part of me that never grew up. To this day I hate to go to bed. There’s always something better to do than sleep. I can’t help thinking about all the things I want to do that might get done if I had eight extra hours to use. Since I’ve been married I’ve been getting up really early because Linda does. Most nights I go to bed early for the same reason. I always treasure the mornings I wake up even earlier because that’s more precious time to be doing something. Whether staying up late or getting up early, just don’t make me sleep my life away. Now, I need a nap.

What Are We Doing and Why Are We Doing It?

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It’s my wife’s favorite pair of questions. They are good ones. They are on my mind this morning because I was in a meeting last night where we discussed how to help our church grow. My few readers may know that I’ve been reading books like Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church. While I am not completely convinced that some of Mr. Viola’s Biblical interpretations are correct, overall I find the message refreshing. I’ve recently read another book from a few years back, Organic Church by Neil Cole. It strengthens my conviction that our traditional church models are not likely to last. If our country keeps on the way it’s going, churches as we know them may be forced out of existence. We will be back to meeting in small home based churches whether we like it or not. I pray revival comes before we get to that point, but maybe that’s exactly what we need to draw us back to true devotion to Yahweh. In saying that I’m not implying that traditional church is the root of our problem. It may be considered a symptom.

What does all of this mean to us? Specifically, what is my response as a committed member of a body that despite some unique qualities is very much a traditional church? We talked about bringing in more people. We talked about ways to help the people we have to develop and mature. All of the time I am thinking, “what if what we need to do looks completely different than anything that has been done before?” Our pastor spoke of patience. That is certainly what we need, for if the radical transformation I anticipate is to happen, it will take time. It will take a willingness to work with people and circumstances as they are now, not as we wish they were. In fact I don’t know that we know what we wish they were? I think we probably have very different visions of what a successful ministry is going to look like.

I for one, though ready and willing to operate within the construct where God has placed us, have been dissatisfied with the same old thing for years. We do have an unusual mix of flavors in our church that appeals to me, but if we don’t keep adding to the mix it will quickly grow stale and unappetizing. If everything we did could be traced to a firm Biblical foundation, then I would say that we must proceed as we are out of obedience, but most of what we do is just a combination of tradition and personal preference. In that we are no different than any church I’ve ever been in, though each had its own strengths.

I hasten to add that I love our church and the people in it. I believe our mission is God given and will work in whatever capacity I am asked to see that mission accomplished. I’m only questioning the methods we will use in the future. I believe we will carry on. If the Lord doesn’t come back before then, I want to see the next generation take up the cause. My question is this: does the Bartimaeus Baptist Temple of 2020 look anything like the one we know and love today, or is it something we would even recognize? Is there a better way to reach people and families affected by disability than our traditional church models regardless of denominational affiliation are able to provide? I hope that by saying that I believe so I do not gravely offend those whom I hope to work with in building this future, but I feel it would be dishonest of me to say nothing of what’s going through my mind. It is my prayer that we grow in love and unity of purpose until God forges from this raw material something greater than any of us imagined.

Protest Is Not Enough

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A couple of months ago, it seemed as if we had made our voices heard. Massive opposition across the country seemed to have gotten the attention of Congress and the first health care monstrosity died. Not so fast! Instead of acknowledging the will of the people, our arrogant elected officials doubled the size of the first bill and passed it by a close margin on Saturday in the House of “Representatives.”

I hope we got the message. Protest is not enough. Sadly there may be little else we can do for the next few months, but let’s not miss the next opportunity to make our voices heard in a way that cannot be ignored, at least as long as we continue to show at least some respect for our nation’s constitution. The process of election has already been under attack, but it still stands and is our best hope of doing anything useful in the political arena.

The 2010 primaries are crucial. If you wait until November to cast your vote, the chances are your choices will be no better than they were the last time. The truly worthy candidates are usually weeded out in the primaries. I understand a reluctance to register affiliation with either of the major parties. I am a conservative who is embarrassed to be associated with the Republican Party. Knowing the official platform of the Democrats, I don’t think there’s anything that would make me vote for one, but I’m certainly not going to vote for someone just because he’s with the Republicans.

I don’t know how other states work, but in Texas you must choose which primary you will vote in and cannot vote in the other. You are not committed thereby to vote the party line in the general election. If you want to have a real voice in the process, get out and vote next March. Protest can have value if they gain enough momentum, but these elitist socialists we have in office now think we’re fools who will have forgotten all about what they’ve done by next year. Sadly we’ve given them little cause to think differently. If you love your country, make sure that doesn’t happen. Go vote where you can still make a difference. Encourage your friends and relatives to do the same. We’ve got to have people involved in the process if we hope to change things. Be prepared to explain why it’s important.

I speak now directly to those who call themselves Christian. It is your duty to steward well the freedom and the power given you by the country you live in. Remember the parable of the talents. Pray for wisdom and discernment from Yahweh and go vote!

In Defense of Thomas

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As you might guess, I’m writing of Thomas the disciple of Jesus. We aren’t given much detail about him, though more than most of the others. He is best known for doubting the resurrection of Jesus until he could “…see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side…” (John 20:25.) Even people unfamiliar with the Bible know the meaning of the appellation “doubting Thomas.”

I’m glad that Thomas was included among Jesus’ closest followers. I identify with him. Despite all that Jesus did and said while He was with them including raising others from the dead, Thomas wanted the proof. Some days later Jesus obliged. What I find comforting in this story is that though Jesus’ words to Thomas may be considered a reproof, they were not a dismissal or a curse. Jesus met Thomas where he was. He challenged Thomas to grow in faith saying, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” (John 20:29)

I hear that challenge. For me, not seeing is quite literal, and it has been an obstruction to my faith. It is forcing me to reevaluate everything I thought I knew. In that process a faith that was once microscopic might even be visible to the naked eye now, though I think it’s still far short of the mustard seed. It grows as I see God’s gracious hand weaving a beautiful pattern out of the broken threads of my life. For all that I have been given, I ought to be a giant, but I am still week and foolish. I still want to see with my eyes and with my mind everything laid out before me. I want the details. I want the proof.

Thomas was reproved but not rejected. He continued on with the other disciples. Tradition has it that he was the first missionary to India and was there martyred for his faith. So I take heart. If Thomas had to be convinced after all the time he spent in the company of Jesus and yet was accepted, then my questions will not doom me. God is meeting me where I am. Of His sovereignty and His sacrifice I have no doubt at all. It is the details I get lost in.

Friendship

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13“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17This I command you, that you love one another.” (John 15:13-17 NASB)

This is the passage that came to my mind when I started thinking about friendship a few days ago. I started to write in my journal and then decided it was something I wanted to share publically. It seemed as if God was giving me something. As soon as I opened the document to begin writing I got distracted. The trouble I was having with the computer suddenly had to be fixed right then, so I pasted the above into the file and moved on to that. Now the inspiration is gone. So this is my excuse for whatever dearth of eloquence is forthcoming. I still want to talk about it, so here goes.

What does friendship really mean? I did not set out to contemplate this from a Biblical viewpoint, but it had to come to that. Any time I go looking for the meaning of things that matter I’m going to end up at the source of truth. If Jesus has something to say about friendship, I’m going to pay attention.

We throw the word friend around almost as loosely as we do the word love. We’ve reduced a concept of deep and precious meaning to a frivolous moniker for a social networking connection. I’ve got “friend” I don’t even know! Even so, we know the difference. Friend is a warm fuzzy word we like to use, but if we are asked I think most of us would not call very many people true friends. Though we use the word lightly, we know what it really should mean, and we all crave those relationships.

I would say that a friend is someone who loves you for who you are. Friendship may exist within the ties of blood, but is most often found outside of any condition that would presuppose some kind of love. It is born of affection unencumbered by expectation. We all want to be loved like that.

I think most of us go through life without seeing that. Maybe we just don’t meet the right people, or maybe we’re too shy, or maybe too shallow, or maybe fill in the blank. The problem may be a little closer to the heart. We don’t have friends like that because we don’t know how to be friends like that.

I go back to Jesus’ words. They are significant on several levels, and I hope I will not take them too far out of context as I draw some conclusions from them beyond the clear and ultimately significant connection between Jesus’ sacrifice and our response to it.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”

Is there anyone you would die for? I might say there is, but can I know until I am put into a situation where I must make that choice? Hopefully none of us will have to face that, but Jesus did. This is why I say that true friendship involves self sacrificing love. The next statement doesn’t seem too friendly.

“You are My friends if you do what I command you.”

Did you ever have a childhood playmate say something like “I’ll be your friend if …?” Maybe you thought it was worth it and did what was asked of you. My guess is it didn’t end well. A friendship doesn’t do well when one dominates the other. So how does it work when Jesus says it? First of all, He’s God, so that changes things a bit. That He would call us friends at all is a measure of His love for us. Since He gave everything for us, it is not so unreasonable of Him to ask everything from us. Then he lets us in on His plan, illustrating another aspect of friendship. It is not slaves he wants, but friends who know what He is doing and want to do it with Him. Friends share their hopes and dreams with one another and help each other achieve them. Then look at what he commanded!

“This I command you, that you love one another.”

This is what He wants. This is what He did for us.

One other thing I want to point out from these few verses.

“You did not choose Me but I chose you…”

If we take Jesus as our example, the joy of making friends falls upon us. There is truth in the old cliché, “To have a friend you have to be a friend.” So this is my challenge to all those who don’t feel they have enough good friends. Go be one. It won’t be easy. I can’t say that I know how. I’m thankful to still have friends who are better at it than I am. A lasting friendship truly is a cooperative affair and not everyone you approach will cooperate, but it’s worth the effort. Practice love, and you just might find it coming back at you. One thing is for certain. Jesus is a friend who will never fail. Start by loving Him and He will show you what to do from there.

Obama is Not the Real Problem

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This is one of those articles it was hard to pick a quote from because there’s so much worth repeating.  The author approaches from another angle what I’ve said here before.  Our problems did not begin when Obama was elected, else we would not have elected him.  Our problems began in our own hearts when we turned as a nation from Yahweh and His principles.  Nothing short of repentance will redeem us now.

American Thinker: Do Not Blame Barack

Barack Obama is only one man. A bad man, yes, but he is a symptom more than a cause. Without millions of fawning Americans, he would just be a community agitator, vainly preaching Alinsky principles from a soapbox. Of course, he is a symptom that exacerbates the underlying problem, and symptomatic treatment — to ease immediate pain and hardship — is certainly in order. But it is only the worst of physicians who focuses only on symptoms while ignoring the cancer eating away at the patient’s midst.

The Meaning of Trust

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Several years ago I got what I took to be a revelation from God about trust. That is, that it must be given before it can be earned. Though we may by observation deem someone worthy of our trust before committing to them, we can only truly know whether that assessment was merited after we have done so. There is only one person who can be said to have earned our trust before we give it. That is Jesus, who has already given everything for us. Yet there may be no one we are less likely to trust because we can neither see Him nor fully know Him while we remain on the earth.

I’ve been thinking lately about the meaning of trust. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary contains fourteen entries for the word. The first two read in part:

1 a: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something b: one in which confidence is placed
2 a: dependence on something future or contingent :
hope

It goes on, explaining as dictionaries do the many ways in which the word is used, but I think we can simplify the definition as it pertains to human relations. To trust is to place something of value in the care of another. As a noun it represents the faith we have that the other will value what we have entrusted to them as we do. This thing of value may be tangible like money or intangible like our emotional well being.

What does it mean to trust God, whom most of us know primarily by the evidence He has provided rather than definite experience? The evidence is strong. The more I study the Bible the greater my small faith grows as I see the miraculous cohesion between its many parts written over thousands of years. I firmly believe it is the truth and the means by which we can begin to know and trust its ultimate author. Despite that certainty I can claim little personal experience with Him. I have learned not to trust myself, so those emotional highs I used to interpret as God’s affirmation no longer serve as proof of His interaction with me. Though I continue to reject the idea that all He will give us in this age is the Bible for guidance, meaning he speaks and acts overtly no more, I can claim no personal experience that supports my belief. I must rely on the experience of others whose integrity I do not doubt.

I am still left with the question, what does it mean for me to trust in God? I believe the Bible is the source of truth. I do not believe in my ability to understand everything it tells me. If there is any question, I find the answer that suits me best or else I hide behind the ambiguity. I believe in His love and have made my life’s quest to understand it, but all I can say that I have learned is how far I am from that understanding and that evidence in my own life.

But somehow I do trust Him. If not to the degree that I ought, certainly enough that I expect to see Him when I die. Not that I don’t doubt even that when I get too focused on my own failure, which I do a lot. Somehow in my darkest hours I long for Him and know that He is there. I may wonder at it because my mind cannot conceive of that much mercy, but I still know that I belong to Him.

He is faithful. Despite my intent to rejoice today, I quickly fell into the depression that has been especially heavy over the past few weeks. This blog entry began this morning from my struggle to understand the meaning of trust in all of my relationships, but especially with God. I can’t help thinking that if I had made full use of everything I’ve been given, I would be in a very different place today. I don’t know exactly what that place would be; I’m just sure it isn’t where I am.

Our church brought in a guest speaker this weekend, Bob Sorge. I think he may have spoken at Hillcrest church when I was there, but if so I did not attend that day. I had only heard his story through my wife. She was excited to have him come. I was just this side of apathetic. I thought it might help the church out a little so I went along with the preparation. I thought just maybe he would inspire us and maybe even me. My wife will tell you I don’t impress easily. J

Mr. Sorge is a pastor who almost completely lost his voice due to a botched surgery. Out of that experience has come a message of hope for all who suffer. Yahweh used his message today to help me see my situation in a different light. Using Job, and John chapter nine among others, he illustrated God’s roll in suffering. I recently wrote in my private journal how it was time for me to give up forever the idea that I could do anything that obligated Him to do what I asked. I started this entry writing about the meaning of trust. It’s time for me to trust Yahweh with my eyes. If He answers my plea and heals them I will trust Him. If he tells me I must wait until I look upon Him with new eyes, I will trust Him. If he tells me nothing at all, I will trust him. Echoing what Pastor Sorge said today, you may say that I lack faith. I’ll tell you what he told us. You’re right. I can never have enough faith. I must constantly go to the One who is faithful and learn faith. It grows from reading His word and from spending time in His service. I cannot say that God must earn my trust. He has already paid for my whole life. I can say that I must learn to give him my trust so that He can prove his trustworthiness. I must give it before I can see it.

What does that mean on a practical level? I must turn over to Him all that is of value to me. He gave it to me in the first place. I must love like He loves, trusting Him with my heart. I must give like He gives, trusting Him with my physical well being. I must do what he says, trusting that any hardship is temporary and not to be compared with the glory to come. I have a long, long way to go, but I choose to trust Him to take me there one step at a time. I fall upon His mercy, and He sets me on the path again.

This is not the most coherent piece I’ve ever written, in part because there was a big gap between the beginning and the end. God used that interval to completely change my perspective. I thought about scrapping the entry entirely and reworking it from the top, but I think it’s sort of tied together. I’ll be posting the audio for today on the Bartimaeus Baptist Temple web site sometime this week. It’s not a good quality recording on any day because I do it with a digital recorder from the front row, but I think it’s going to come out ok and I think it will really bless you. Keep an eye on the site for it. We had a wonderful time with Pastor Sorge. He has a sweet spirit and a big heart. We loved him instantly. If you get the chance to meet or hear him speak, take it. I haven’t personally read his books because they aren’t in an easily accessible format for me, but he promised to help change that too. I look forward to reading them. Check out his site.

Ho Hum is Dumb

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I like to post interesting or currently relevant links I find while browsing.  I want people to be aware of what’s going on around us.  I almost skipped over this one because it wasn’t news.  Why would I say that?  I say that because it is exactly the kind of thing we should expect of a Democrat controlled government.  What made me go back was thinking about the TEA parties.

This has been in the back of my mind since they began.  Though there has always been a small vocal minority, the American people have not come out in force against the evil coming out of Washington.  It was not until we began to realize that we would be personally harmed economically that we rallied.  For all the rhetoric about controlling government and returning it to its constitutional boundaries the primary motivation for our sudden revolt appears to be protecting our wallets.  One might say “whatever it takes,” and we certainly need to be getting upset, but it should have started a long time ago.  It may well be too late now, and if our effort continues to be self-serving, it is doomed to fail.

If government were operating as it was designed by the framers of the Constitution, neither DOMA nor this sham “Respect for Marriage” act would be necessary because both would be considered outside the authority of the federal government.  There is a desperate need to change the direction we are going.  Stopping socialism and all that comes with it is a worthy goal, but there is a much more serious problem at the heart of these issues.

I wish we would show the same outrage over government sanctioned perversion as we do when it picks our pockets, but it’s all part of the same problem.  We’re selfish, and we tend to act primarily to protect our own interests.  When we come to see that socialized medicine and a skyrocketing national debt may affect us in our lifetime, suddenly government freebies don’t look so good.  We get riled up.  But where is the same passion when pre-born children are murdered?  Where is the passion when the God given family structure that makes for a strong and healthy society is under attack?  Where is the revulsion when evil is glorified and good is condemned?  It doesn’t affect us directly, or maybe it would even take something away from us that we want, so we do nothing.

So while conservatives and pragmatists rage against Obama’s economic agenda, evil marches forward unheeded.  Yes, we need to stop the socialist agenda, but we need to do something else much more urgently.  We need to repent.  we need to turn our hearts back toward the God who gave us this great nation so that true reform may be possible.  If we remain a selfish and apathetic people who can only be stirred when poked with a big stick, evil will triumph and the country we know will cease to exist.

Congress, Obama team up to kill marriage protections

Nearly 100 members of the U.S. House are working in lockstep with the Obama administration to try to eliminate protections for traditional marriage in the United States with the “Respect for Marriage Act” that has just been introduced in Congress.

What’s Really Important to You?

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I know I’ve been on this topic before, but I think it has been a while and it’s on my mind this morning. That’s because I had to make some decisions today and I didn’t make all the best ones. I woke up extra early again and immediately started thinking about things that should be a part of my daily life.

Exercise is one of those things, and I did go for my morning walk once my weak objections were inconveniently removed. What I didn’t do was immediately prepare to sit down and talk to the Lord afterwards, which I think is what He wanted me to do with the extra time. I was near the end of a good book and I didn’t want to stop listening so I turned on the coffee and spent most of the morning on the recliner.

The other thing that occupied my thoughts as sleep deserted me this morning was the amount of time I spend in prayer. Often that takes the form of writing for me. I write to God in my journal because it helps me think and focuses my mind on listening for His inspiration. I thought about the fact that I haven’t done much of that lately.

I live out of my Outlook inbox. I don’t really use the task list because even if it’s displayed at the side of the screen it might as well be in another room since I still have to make an effort to go to that part of the screen with my screen reader software and read what’s there. It works better for me to create little notes to myself as discussion posts that sit in my inbox and are organized by due date and priority. Between emails that serve as prompts and my little notes my life is organized at home and at work.

Because I like to write and find it hard to make time for it, I added a post to prompt me to make blog entries. When I manage to get one out I reset the follow-up date for the next day. This morning I realized that I had given more priority to blogging than to personal prayer time. So, add another little note to the inbox and make it high priority?

But Lord, if I do that then I’ll be thinking about things all the time. I’ll be faced with the wasted hours and less than edifying pursuits like that novel I just finished and I might have to give them up! The plain truth is I don’t want to. If I start really spending quality time with You every day I might have to live the way You want me to instead of the way I want to!

Well, I guess that settles it. I have to do it. I would hope that with time what I want and what He wants become closer to the same thing. It feels a little wrong to schedule God in between updating my bank records and checking on a prescription, but if that’s what it takes to keep my focus where it needs to be then not doing so would be the wrong thing.

We will do what is really important to us, even if it conflicts with what we might prefer to do. If it’s really important to us we will make time for it. That is why when I hear someone say to me “I didn’t have time,” I hear, “Something else was more important to me.” Time is a limited resource and the something else may have deserved the higher priority, but “I didn’t have time” is rarely a true statement. If I believe that time spent with the One who saved my life is important then I will do whatever is necessary to make that time, even if it means I have to schedule it.

Labor Day of Love

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I want to say how encouraged I am by something that happened with the members of our church this week. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. We have some wonderful folks who are always going out of their way to serve. Yet I was surprised because I didn’t think the event was general knowledge and so I didn’t expect many would come.

It was a birthday party for a lady we have taken up driving to church. Since this does go out to a generally accessible blog before hitting Facebook I am deliberately avoiding the use of too many names and places, yet it’s hard to make this story all it should be without using names, so I’ll make some up. I’ll call our birthday girl Jenny. Jenny doesn’t say much, so it’s hard to get to know her well, but we do know that though she lives alone she needs a little help managing her affairs. Another member of the church helps with that, and everyone else pitches in as needed.

Jenny is one of many who come to our church because it exists to serve the needs of people and families affected by disability. Most of our handicaps are physical rather than mental, but we all understand the challenges that come with needing a little extra help.

As Jenny’s birthday approached, another lady in the church decided to throw her a party. She reserved the clubhouse in her apartment complex for the event and offered to provide the main course. From the outset I wondered how well this was going to work. I knew that she really didn’t have the means to do it. Linda and I offered to bring the birthday girl and provide drinks, but we kept thinking maybe we should bring a lot more.

We did end up bringing more than we promised just in case, but we needn’t have worried. The five or six people we expected turned out to be most of the church and even a few folks we only see once in a while. Everyone brought more than enough and we all had a wonderful afternoon together.

It makes me happy to be where I am. This is the way the church is supposed to be. When there’s a need we make sure it is met even if it’s something as seemingly insignificant as pulling off a birthday party. I don’t know what Jenny thinks about all of this. I don’t know if she is able to see much past the moment. Most of those who jumped in may not even get any thanks for it, but it was done. It makes me glad to be a part of this body.