Produce & Bless

The prevailing attitude going around these days has stolen something from us. It seems we have been inundated with the idea of what we can get or what we want until it seems natural and normal. This attitude makes life something less and something weaker than it was meant to be.
What we must do (and were meant to do) is to produce something with our lives. We have strengths and abilities and loves and gifts and when we live them out, we become more of who we are. Imagine what our world could be like if we were all producing all we could. What if we were always creating value? We may feel like we have lost much of what we had or at least have less capacity to live because of an economic downturn. But the real wealth of this world, endowed by God, is the capacity of the people he has made. There are innumerable ways that we can create value: producing products that we need to live, transporting it, serving, encouraging, teaching, mentoring, serving, creating something, growing food - in fact, if you don't feel like you produce much in what you do, grow a garden and give some food away. For that is what the production is always for in God's economy: we produce in order to bless somebody with it. We don't produce to have more or be better than someone else. We produce to improve life and so show the love of God and open a heart or two to the news that God has a good plan for everyone.
"Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as unto the Lord."
"Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

a life to be lived

I wonder how many people would be interested in following Jesus if they realized it was a life to be lived with him. We say that's what Christianity is in christian circles. We talk about it being all about a relationship with God in Christ and relationships with each other. But then we program our churches so that it seems like if we attend a weekly meeting, sign on to certain statements of faith, and prohibit the activities in ourselves and others that are thought to be especially taboo right now, then we are as Christian as anyone. And we are, if Christian culture is all we're shooting for. But what about all that relationship language?
I want to suggest that it is Jesus we are seeking and everything else is subordinate to that focus. They can help us, but can't become the point. This is a life to be lived with Jesus. That's what he's offered us. We have the possibility of living in the awareness that there is One who delights in us. We can delight in him and discover a kind of enjoyment of all of life and freedom and security and joy that somehow we know ought to be a part of life. Life as we know it isn't life as it going to be if we would learn something about living life with Jesus.
Somehow I'm compelled to seek it, to learn what life ought to be and live it. I hope I can discover it more and more and be able to pass it on to others before I'm unable to do it anymore. Join me in the hunt and the resultant life.

Through the Veil

It is difficult to grasp what is real. Oh, this world is real enough. It captures our attention & we will never learn all there is to know about it. It takes our breath away & also frustrates the life out of us. What's puzzling is how that God who made it all, sustains it and grants life to it (and us) must surely be more real than that which he creates. He can go unseen by us, even though He often feels like He is just beyond the veil. It seems that way because He sometimes seems so present and touchable and captivating ours. Those experiences stay with us in a way that makes us realize that He doesn't change or go away, we just focus our attention somewhere else. That's when we realize that we could speak to Him through the veil and discover how near He is. I long for the day when I learn how to turn to Him more readily. I want to be able to delight in hanging out with Him when that old familiar, I don't really want to do anything attitude appears and makes it seem like I don't even want to hang out with God. It's always a lie, by the way. He is everything, our Abba, Jesus, Yahweh, Savior, Lord. In Him we have life & peace & love & joy. But only when we're with Him. Remember, no matter how life seems right now, we can always speak to Him through the veil.

Grace & Peace

I have recently started closing my emails with "Grace & Peace". They are a couple of the most important words of our faith. It is what we live by. It is what I wish for all of you.
Life with God is so much more than what we deserve or don't, so much more than what we get or can pull off. Life with God is what we have available to open ourselves to simply because of who God is and what He can do and how much He loves us. We serve a God who desires good for us. "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you"(Psalm 16:2). He planned for it and paid for it in Jesus. He looks at us through the eyes of grace. Grace is what our lives are made of and held together by. … Grace.
Most of us walk with a limp even though we have begun to walk with God. There are things about us we don't like. We wish we could do what we can't and be who we aren't. Life occasionally beats us up. The wholeness and put-togetherness we long for seems like a very distant dream. The Hebrew people wished each other Shalom, the wholeness of God which our idea of peace is only a small part. The New Testament teaches us that Jesus rules us by peace. Life can only seem good when I know I'm alright. I know I'm alright when I yield myself so to God that I know His peace, I sense His rule and it is all … peace.
Grace and peace. It will be my salutation until the Lord leads me to another.
Grace & peace to you now and always, my friends.

Rain

We tend to be fickle when it comes to enjoying life. Which is it, "Rain, rain, go away," or "I love a rainy night"? We have been deluged with rain now for some time. Water is standing in the yard and it's raining again and is forecasted for the next couple of days. It is so easy to complain about the mulch that washed across two of my neighbors' lawns. But of course if it wasn't raining I'd be complaining about watering the lawn. But there is something else in me too, if I pay attention and find it. I look out at the deep green and think of how God grants life. I recall the feeling of getting a rest from farming in the heat when there is an Oklahoma rain. If only our spirits could learn to rest in the goodness of our God. The life-giving grace of God is what we need. Rain brings so much life and growth and makes my cucumbers taste so good. Let it rain. The prayer for a life that is good is slightly different: "Reign on me, Jesus rule my life." "He who believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within." Let's pray it, and live it, and enjoy it, what do you say?

The Invitation

Some days, or minutes, are full of God and so they are full of goodness and joy and hope and the incredible excitement of seeing lives change for the better. And some days, and minutes, are full of something else. It is such an incredible thought to me right now that God offers us the former and wants it for us more than we want it for ourselves. I feel like I'm in on the full of God deal right now. Conversation with God as in a circle of friends is what we get to experience. Conversations that go where they should and we sense God at work. A sense of well being that makes life seem good and dreams seem like they will really happen. And all these things we wrap into an idea that sounds so simple, even though it's not: we call it prayer. And yet isn't prayer what opens our view to what is and could be? Isn't prayer what opens people's hearts to God and us more than anything we think and say and do, even for them? Isn't prayer the strength and love and fellowship and belonging and journey and adventure? All that we long for and all that we experience is so much more than the thing itself - it is God in the interaction, the conversation, the shared life. Glory to God for His indescribable gift.

Not a Solitary Life

People we care about pull us into things beyond us. With Rachel training and raising money and starting a new ministry in Colombia and Abby off to intern with Denny in Tampa for the summer and her passion for India, just home from a choir tour in Mexico how is a dad supposed to even know what to think about? And then there's Dena finishing her school year of teaching and planning for another year. I am aware of so many ministries and needs and movings of God that I wonder who I am and where I am in all of it. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. Or maybe it is all about the world and what God really has in mind. Maybe this is all kingdom come. I love and care about people in Medellín, Colombia and Silguri, India because I care about my girls enough to care about what they care about. The world seems so big when we think of the problems. But it seems smaller when we think of the people we love. I pray that the world would become smaller and smaller by the inclusion of people into love and prayer and friendship and the family of God.