RECEIVE GRACE! DO GRACE!
Jim Caviezel interviewed at Rock Church and talks about his own faith and what it was like for him to play Jesus in The Passion of Christ. I did not know - for instance - that he was struck by lightening during the crucifixion scene!
Enjoy.
This is actually part of something I've been thinking about for a little while - almost as long as I've been pondering the whole Grace Habit.
Two completely perfect people - totally impervious to spoiling
What do you think? Can God spoil you? Has He spoiled you? Do you know someone who God has spoiled? I'm willing to bet a delicious sammich - right here and now - that 95% of us answered "no, nope, and yes" to those three questions.
And I don't know about you - but it goes WITHOUT saying that my parents did NOT spoil me. And my confidence on that has almost nothing to do with none of my relatives reading this. And you seem pretty cool - so obviously you're not spoiled either. Awesome.
If you look up (and by look up I mean google) "how to spoil a child" - you'll get the above gem - with a link to the rest of the list - which you can see for yourself if you're interested by clicking here. But our question is not can kids be spoiled - because that seems rather obvious. Instead our question is can God spoil US?
Based on what we can read about God in Scripture - that He's perfect, holy, just, righteous and loving - God seems ill-equipped to spoil us - or better put - the perfect entity to un-spoil us. Actually I'm of the opinion that God's ability to un-spoil us is directly proportional to our willingness to authentically pursue a growing and real relationship with Him. Who could ever stay spoiled even just a little in the face of learning about and incorporating into one's life the teachings that Jesus spells out - for instance - in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)? At least for me - it seems like nearly everything out of Jesus' mouth is well-suited to illuminate any cozy entitlements, prejudices, cravings and expectations my ego is clinging to.
What about those people in Scripture who seem to have been recipients of some profound favor - people like Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah for instance. What about them? Were they spoiled? Were they God's "perfect little pets?" Did everyone around them just roll their eye-balls so hard you could practically hear it when any of those individuals names were called out when God wanted to give "someone" special recognition? If you read these stories ... you come across little bits of information about these individuals that hints that they invested their lives in God in some remarkable ways. I'm inclined to believe that we're all God's favorites and some of us really take that to the bank - such as Abraham did - in having the requisite faith to pick up and move his whole family away from the rest of the clan - and then giving God his long-awaited and promised son to boot. You read about Moses' putting all the entitlement of royalty at risk to relate to his countrymens' plights in Egypt. David had a life-long habit of putting his life on the line for others - and spent the majority of his life putting his life at stake for God. We know he wasn't perfect - but neither am I - and I don't put my life at stake. And on and on it goes.
Honestly - this whole idea of "can God spoil us?" is the basis of the book of Job. Satan was accusing God of spoiling Job.
It seems that the only way God can really spoil us - is with His love. Encountering God's love though tends to have the exact opposite effect of spoiling us though. In fact - it seems that those struggles that inflict the most damage on the body are precisely the ones that frequent and meaningful encounters with God's love counteract. Hypocrisy, judgement, self-righteousness, bitterness, dissension and strife - cannot survive long in the face of God's great love. It seems like the more we walk dependent on His Love and Grace - the more we become - strengthened against these spiritual diseases.
May we then all be so dependent on God's "spoiling" Love and Grace that we would be every earthly good to those around us - and a testament to Heaven's good will towards us all.
Augustine "Og" Mandino ~ December 12, 1923 - September 3, 1996
This very short book - which is available as a pdf here - is really more of a story which you could read in an hour or two. Purely speculative and hypothetical in nature - he uses the time of the Bible - a few events that are recorded in its pages - to create a format through which to communicate life-lessons. The story starts less than a century before the birth of Christ and continues until middle of the first century AD. The tale starts with an older man, Hafid, who's at the pinnacle of success by all accounts - dismantling his business empire to the astonishment of his trusted servant. Hafid narrates the course of his life - going back to the decision that first put him on the path to his ultimate fortune ... and leaves him now - waiting for the right person to assume responsibility for the "secrets" that made him so successful. I won't give you all the ups and downs, ins and outs of the story of Hafid's life that's interwoven with events we all recognize from the pages of the New Testament. Hafid goes back and recalls each of the scrolls given him - one "secret" per scroll to becoming the greatest salesman in the world - and after all the scrolls - the story leaps back to the end of Hafid's long life - where at least he meets his long awaited successor - who is surely someone nearly everyone would have to agree did indeed change the world and could in some regards be considered the actual and literal greatest salesman in the world. It is a good story to be sure. I confess - it is one of those stories whose ending makes my throat catch when I go to tell it.
this is what my first copy of this book looked like
Mandino wanted a career in writing - but the early death of his mother and the advent of WW2 sidelined his dream - so instead of pursuing a degree in journalism - he worked for a paper company, then joined the army - eventually becoming a bombardier and even flew one mission with Jimmy Stewart. After the war Mandino returned home with a little bit of money and quite a few military honors and decided to sit down and write the great American novel with a manual typewriter in a little cold-water flat in Times Square. By the time his money was out - he had more rejection slips than medals! He gave up on his dream - moved back home - found a job selling insurance married his sweetheart - bought a house - had a daughter - but dealt with his lost dreams by drowning them in wine. Within fifteen years he'd lost everything and found himself standing outside a pawnshop, depressed and contemplating suicide.
He worked menial jobs here and there across the country - and chose to spend his off-hours combing through the library shelves for answers. Libraries were free, clean and warm - and peaceful to boot. He began trying to answer the question "Why had I failed?" He was in his late thirties and afraid it was too late. He read the Bible, he read the works of other salesmen. He finally was hired by another insurance company to sell again - and re-married - and soon after took time off to write a sales manual based on all he'd learned during the lean years of wandering from library to library. He didn't even own his own typewriter anymore - but took a week off with a rented one and went to work. That manuscript became this story, The Greatest Salesman in the World - which eventually led him to new job opportunities - including becoming the executive editor of W. Clement Stone's magazine, "Success Unlimited". The book had absolutely no impact at first - but he mailed a copy to Stone - who he credited with inspiring him to write the story - Stone liked it so much that Stone purchased 10,000 copies to distribute to all of his employees, salespeople and shareholders.
Mandino went on to write about 8 more books - and started collecting awards for his talents at speaking including being inducted to the National Speakers Association's Speaker's Hall of Fame. Most of the books do combine his Christian faith with his belief about what makes for a successful salesperson or person in general. His writings were considered by many to be self-help writings and he was one of the early self-help authors to write about "creating your best life now".
Below are a few video clips of Og Mandino speaking about The Greatest Salesman in the World - which was a story he wrote into a book - that formed the basis of his own philosophy on how to interact with people and life-challenges.
If you'd like to listen to Og Mandino reading the 10 chapters where he discusses each scroll in the story - you can do so by going to this video on YouTube. (please note - this the the scrolls only - not the rest of the story)
Hello there my friends! Monday's can be rough ... so here's a little humor for ya'll. As always - there's more funnies on the JC's Village Pinterest board: Blessed are the Funny.
What was it that first drew you to Christ?
For many of us - it is the love of God that we first learn to sing about and it's that love that has left the most lasting mark on our souls. And this is right and good - since love is what compelled God to rescue us.
It was because God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
It was because of love that Jesus that He endured the cross.
It is the love of God that moved him to graft us wild olive shoots into the vine.
It is the love of Jesus our Good Shepherd - that He searches for us like a lost coin, a lost sheep - and even a lost son.
It is the love of God that moved Him to adopt us and welcome us to Him when we cry out "Abba, Father!"
It is the love of God that moves us from meaningless love - to the real deal - of the sort we read about in 1 Corinthians 13.
It is the love of God that transforms us so we can "one-another" in all the ways the New Testament describes.
It is the love of God that will welcome us to our true home in our true country at the end of our sojourn here.
Can we possibly meditate too much on God's love? Can we possibly - express too much gratitude for God's love? In the last half of Ephesians 3:14-21 - Paul prays a tall order on our behalfs when it comes to our comprehension of God's love.
"and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God."
Paul prays for all of us to know with all those who are God's that we may comprehend the breadth, length, height and depth ... is that redundant? I don't think so - I believe another way to read this might be "density" in addition to the normal axes associated with our three dimensional world. What might be the density of God's love? I doubt it's air, or fluff ... I think God has a tendency to really give us a thing when He makes a gift. Maybe we can think of God's love coming to us at the density of a neutron star. Just one teaspoonful of the material that makes up a neutron star would weigh at least as much as a mountain. Whoa.
Interestingly - it's the interaction of neutron stars that is thought to have produced the gold that's so highly prized the world over ... how apt a metaphor for God's love - don't you think?
As if that weren't mind-blowing enough - Paul is praying that we also would be filled with all the fullness of God. He doesn't pray that we be filled to our fullness with God ... but that we be filled with the fullness of God ... or God's fullness.
Regardless of semantics - which though actually a powerful line by which to win arguments - we are encouraged not just in this prayer of Paul's - but all through out scripture to make it a life-long goal to perceive as far as we can - all the the way to the other side of God's love.
There is absolutely no limit to God though - so there can be no point at which we finish this fine goal. Wherever you are today - and wherever I am today - there is an infinity more to gain. There are people with lengthy bucket lists for vacations, for meals they want to try, for national parks they'd like to visit, and on and on. And yet there are some of us who haven't thought for a long, long time about Jesus and His love. There are some of us who haven't sung "Jesus loves me" since we were little children - and in the interim we've had much of our confidence in that love stolen away from us, or some of that assurance has become forgotten.
Scripture is sprinkled here and there with prayers for our understanding of God's love - for God's love to bring His work in us to completion, and even dozens of encouragements that we'd meditate on God, God's law, God's love - and I do believe that those last three are effectively synonymous. There are so many methods of prayer - and yet I've still not come across even a single one that directly incorporates engaging with God's love in our prayers. There are not so many methods of meditation - and frankly - I've never heard a single one mentioned but that analogy of how a cow digests - which is all fine and good for the cow - but actually explains little of how precisely to go about meditating.
So - wherever you may be - whatever your weekend hold - let's take a few moments to lay aside any of this week's burdens still trailing along behind us - and leave them outside that door we discussed last Friday - and step into that space that inspires you - and there pray with Paul that we might indeed comprehend God's vast Love for us a little more. If you like it there - then feel free to linger a bit and mull over this prayer and meditate.
May God's great Love warm, fill and heal all our souls.
"We are all worms, but I do believe I'm a glow-worm." he told his then fiance Clementine Hozier
Most people have heard of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (November 30th, 1874 - January 24th, 1965) - but for all of my having heard of him and having vague notions that he was "involved somehow" with World War II - I'd never really looked into who he was and what role he actually played. Between being born noble, and well-educated - not to mention having a first career in the military followed by the rest of his life's work in politics - there's far more to read about his life than is contained in this one book. But - since this book came recommended and was placed into my hands - I worked my way through all 1000 pages of it.
Despite a speech impediment and struggling in schools - sometimes quite a lot - Churchill did not let much of anything stop him. He addressed his speech impediment by studying speeches and practicing that now famous almost singing style of oration that leaves some of his speeches among the most famous in the English language. (you can listen to his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech here.) Though he sometimes had to take critical exams over, and over - he instead made a life-long commitment to learning and self-education and not only went on to write - but write so much and so well that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for his - depending on what you call a book and how to count the numerous books he wrote that ended up being multi-volume. According the video by Peter Harrington of London - who collects, buys, sells and trades first editions - this particular collection of Churchill's works includes 20 books and are reviewed in the video above - though other sources count 33 or even 43 books in a total of up to 72 or 73 volumes. I supposed - considering Churchill's own ability to write scores upon scores of words - a thorough look at his life would not be some quick read.
Landscape of Câmara dos Lobos, Madeira, Portugal, 1950. Oil on canvas.
Churchill was also an avid painter and in stressful periods would take a break and get away to some scenic spot - and throw himself into painting scene upon scene - sometimes up to one painting per day - painting for long hours at a time - and would within days of this stress-treatment of his vastly improve his outlook, sense of well-being, purpose - and even his health. He seems to have - in both his painting and his writing - experienced the beneficial nature of flow-states. He started painting in 1915 - during a trying season. He was at what was to be his home for the rest of his life, Chartwells, and sitting watching his sister-in-law, Lady Gwendoline, watercolor painting. Lady Gwendoline - noticing his interest and fascination in what she was doing - offered him a paint-set and encouraged him to try painting himself. So began Churchill's painting career - which included watercolors, oils and even tempura paintings. Over the course of the next four-plus decades Churchill completed over 500 paintings and became by all rights an accomplished artist. You can view some of his paintings at the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis - though there are other museums showing his work.
The Goldfish pool at Chartwell painting by Churchill was auctioned by Sotheby's for $1.76 million.
Of course what Churchill is really known for is his leadership as Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War 2 - and participation with other allied powers working together to stop Hitler and bring a successful end to the war. Churchill's leadership was essentially equally political and military and though he rarely wore a uniform during the war - he had a military education - a fascinating military career that included him returning home from the Boer War in 1900 at the ripe age of 25 already a national hero and moved into politics from his military work.
While all of my previous "cool person alert" posts have focused on individuals who notably contributed to Christianity through their faith - Churchill's life interested me because behind this enormous mark he left on the world which would undoubtedly be vastly different without him - stands a complex man who at crucial moments in history seems to have been able to see clearly what he believed was the right thing to do and pursued acting in accordance with that belief in order to see the right result come to fruition. This combined with his tendency to address stress and perceived inadequacy with creativity and self-teaching makes his an exemplary life that inspires me personally - and based on that I wanted to share just a bit of what moved me as I learned more about his life.
(If you haven't looked at last week's post - where this part of the Grace Habit conversation started - it might be helpful for you to check it out here. )
There are few things better than being able to relax in the knowledge that someone you love also loves you. Love is surely the glue that holds the most significant relationships of our lives together. And who wouldn't love to be able to relax in such knowledge every day? Lately it seems that despite this common awareness - the academics in the psychology departments and sociology departments of the world's institutions of higher learning keep churning out study after study demonstrating the power of love to keep us healthy physically and mentally - and that the impact of love - the more we're aware of it - seems to spread out over ever widening circles into more and more areas of our lives ... love makes us more resilient, more tenacious, more amicable, more successful ... and less susceptible to pain, illness, tragedy and loss. This isn't just regarding romantic love (though that's of course powerful) - love in general has this potent effect. I've linked to some top-notch studies below - but there are literally hundreds of studies that look at the benefits of love.
Love motivates - like nothing else. For the sake of love - King Edward VIII abdicated his throne. Mother's love of children is the stuff of countless movies, stories, fairy-tales - which of us can forget Bambi and his mother? It's the stuff of pop music chart toppers
Love embeds in our memories like few things - and in an age of multi-media when we can capture almost any moment in dozens of different ways - love still commands center stage. It's because of love that couples spend an average of $30k on their weddings - it's because of love that parents spend an average of $250k raising their child. And who hasn't watched at least one of their sibling, cousin or friend - completely morph from unfocused goof to unstoppable responsible adult - because they fell in love and started a family.
And let's not forget the powerful contribution loving friendships bring to our lives. From Mayo clinic to numerous academic institutions - again - we see study after study coming out with finding after finding about the power of love in this form as well to enrich our lives. This is so powerful - that the quality of your friendships can predict how long you'll live. Who doesn't remember these?
There are hundreds more.
If love is so meaningful to us. And if love is what motivated God to create humanity in the first place - and and moved Him save us over and over again until finally He gave His Son up to redeem us - and if love is what leads us to become more like Him and teaches us to abide in Him - how is it that we aren't off-the-charts dedicated to tapping into this incredible force in our walks with Him? Could anything else contribute more powerfully to our lives? I've been mulling this over for three years now and I have yet to come up with a single downside that could result from authentically encountering God's love - however often we might choose to do so. I'm inclined at this point to believe that whatever limit my fallibility and human frailty can impose on the saving power of God's love - for those very flaws God's love is the ideal healing agent. While wise leaders rightfully resist laying heavy burdens of expected perfection regarding lengthy and rigorous daily Bible Study and Prayer times - I can't imagine a down-side to basking as often as we can in the warm light of God's eternal Love for us. And how differently do we read, pray, serve, confess, meditate, sing and grow when we arrive at these from a place of receiving God's love than we do when we approach them from a place of should, must, debt etc. To be sure - we have no personal right to demand such incredible love - and yet God offers it to us - and then calls us children - His children - and tells us stories such as that of the prodigal - and restores sons to widowed grieving mothers - and in all these stories reveals a bit more of His heart towards us. We might start from a place of "pshaawww. love is so squishy." (well - I know I did anyway) - but the more we encounter this force - on good days and bad days - the more incredible and powerful we experience it. So much so that one of the most frequent Bible quotes is "God is love." (1 John 4:7, 8, and 16)
Man's Search for Meaning - written by Dr. Viktor E. Frankl shortly after World War 2 - is another one of those books that's never gone out of print. In fact - my copy says that there's 12 million copies printed world wide. It's printed in numerous languages and was written in German first - sadly - I have not yet read it in its original language.
This small book - barely 180 pages and many editions small enough to slip into a coat pocket - can be read in an afternoon - especially if you just want to read the 133 pages of the book itself - not the forward, or the post-script. But - I think after realizing how Dr. Frankl came to his life-changing thesis - you'll end up enjoyably reading all of it.
Dr. Viktor Frankl was born in Vienna, Austria in 1905 into a family of civil servants. Despite this bureaucratic atmosphere at the age of 3 Frankl decided that he wanted to become a doctor. when he grew up. By the time he was 12 he knew he wanted to become a psychologist and shortly thereafter launched into a pen-pal friendship with Dr. Sigmund Freud and even published research with Dr. Freud even before finishing high school. By this point he was determined to study medicine and become a psychiatrist with a particular interest in counseling. Between his early association with noteworthy professionals in the budding field of psychology which included not only Dr. Freud but Dr. Adler and others who were active in the hotbed of psychology that Vienna seemed to be in those days.
Dr. Frankl around 1936
He had a strong drive to help people find a purpose to live meaningfully and while still a medical student started one of the first suicide prevention groups in 1928 which was within a short time credited with saving tens of thousands of lives. 1937 Frankl had completed his residency and was beginning his research in earnest when in 1938, due to his Jewish heritage, was banned from treating "Aryans" - but despite this his early work combined with his research goals gained him potentially life-saving attention - so much so that he and his wife were offered a passport out of Austria. Uncomfortable with the position this would leave his parents in - he went to their home to discuss the opportunity with them and found them sitting with an engraved stone-tablet from their synagogue. Upon inquiry he found that the synagogue had been vandalized beyond recognition and congregants - including his father - had gone to survey the damage and reclaim what they could. His father brought home this particular tablet engraved with Hebrew characters. Frankl asked his father what it said and learned that it was the 6th commandment: "Honor thy father and mother." That settled it for Frankl - he did not take the visa out of Austria but stayed on to look after his parents.
In 1942 the family was relocated to a ghetto - where Frankl - in typical fashion - immediately put himself to work establishing a counseling office to help the members of the community there deal with the trauma they'd already encountered and adjust to life in the ghetto. His work again attracted attention and he was allowed to practice in an official capacity there. This only lasted for a little over a year and by 1944 he, his wife and his parents were all shipped off to various concentration camps. Frankl rode the trains with his research documents under his coats and they were the last possessions to be taken from him.
Once in the camps he began attempting to recreate his work on bits and scraps of paper he found here and there. Though well - known at this time - as a person of great skill - he refused to work an "easier" job in the concentration camp clinics where he would be forced to undertake barbaric actions against his fellow inmates and instead let himself be put to hard-labor - working to dig ditches, tunnels and other back-breaking work on a starvation diet.
It took him no time at all to put these horrific experiences to the only use he could find for them - namely refining his theories even more - and began using his skills to help himself and those who could or would listen to him survive.
By the last months of the war he had finally taken a somewhat easier position as physician at a smaller camp affiliated with Dachau. It was either accept this move or die of typhus or exposure. The camp was liberated in 1945 - but by then his parents and wife had succumbed to their treatment by the Nazis.
Frankl's life is as fascinating as his most famous book, Man's Search for Meaning - which disagrees fundamentally with his early mentors Freud, Adler and others ... man was not living to find sexual fulfillment, or to resolve his inferiority complex - but rather man's life was best lived when he lived it in pursuit of meaning. Remarkably - though Frankl had experienced personally the devastation of his family during one of the darkest periods of human history - and returned to his home and neighborhood in Vienna to a cold and indifferent shoulder from long-time family friends over the loss of the vast majority of his family members as well as their family home and goods - yet due to his commitment to refining his theory through absolute horror - came out with a clear understanding of the vitality of optimism - not in denial of anything - but "despite everything". His first version of "Man's Search for Meaning" which was originally published as "Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen" (translation: "Nevertheless, Saying Yes to Life" - which Frankl wrote in days once his health was restored enough to allow him to - and he was back at work - counseling patients, re-writing his research - but now with the hard-won insights from his experiences - and reuniting with his sister - the sole member of the family to survive the war years with him.
Dr. Viktor Frankl lived in Vienna until the end of his life and wrote 39 books in all - which were translated into 50 languages - Man's Search for Meaning being translated into the most languages - 44 in all. Some of his most quoted words are
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
But by far my favorite quote of his - which is rendered even more stunning in light of what he personally experienced - is this:
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.” ― Viktor E. Frankl,
Happy Emancipation Day - and here are some laughs to kick off your week!
That's all for now - as always - if you're looking for more humor - head on over to the JC's Village Pinterest humor boards - "Blessed Are The Funny"
Praying you all have a great week!
1. Jesus was offered anesthetic twice on the day of His death: once with Pilate at the beginning of the ordeal of His crucifixion, and again near the end - right before Jesus died. You can read both of these accounts in Mark 15:23, 36. The first wine was mixed with myrrh and had narcotic properties. The later drink was probably not as strong - but regardless - Jesus rejected both.
2. Golgotha, the place of Jesus' crucifixion, which we translate as "The Place of the Skull" people often assume that the place itself resembled a skull in some way. But the name doesn't come from the appearance of the site - rather from the Jewish tradition that Noah's son, Shem, brought with them the skull of Adam to Melchizidek and that together they burried it on this site in Jerusalem. This is why many older crucifixion scenes show a skull at the base of the cross. The symbolism is profound - the blood of the innocent and crucified Second Adam running down over the bones of the first and fallen Adam.
3. The darkness that fell wasn't localized - but was actually recorded by some historians (Phlegon, Thaddus, & Julius Africanus) as global. Also - the language of the New Testament itself using the prefix "ges" to indicate that the darkness was over the earth.
4. As Jesus' trial was taking place - Caiphas the High Priest was choosing the sacrificial lamb to atone for the sins of the nation that Passover. Jesus' crucifixion began as the lamb Caiphas chose was also being slain. Lastly - as Caiphas was entering the Holy of Holies to present that sacrificial lamb's blood - Jesus breathed His last and the veil separating the Holy Holies from the rest of the temple tore from top to bottom.
5. The veil - unlike the thin fabric we imagine a bride might wear - to the Jews a veil was a screen - more like a fabric wall. It was 60' tall, 30' wide, and at least 4" thick. It would've been terrifying to be anywhere near it as it tore from top to bottom.
6. The earthquakes that took place on the day that Jesus died were also described in the New Testament with the prefix "ges" (see Matthew 27:51) - indicating that they, like the darkness, were global.
7. Not only were all these things taking place - but even more startlingly - Matthew 27:52-53 says:
52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the [aa]saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew 27:52-53 NASB
You think reading Paul's sermons on the meaning of Salvation are difficult to comprehend? The chaos of all that unfolded before, during and upon Christ's death with Swiss-watch precision are difficult to fathom. Small wonder we resort to commemorating Easter with little egg-shaped jellied-sugar balls and clucking rabbits laying chocolate-peanut-butter eggs. Bizarre as these symbols are they are infinitely less troubling and show-stopping than global darkness, global earthquakes, and the bodily resurrection of many dead.
What I want to leave us all with on this point however, is not these dusty factoids, but rather a lengthy meditation and prayer-time worthy thought that if this was the power of Jesus' DEATH - imagine the enormity of the power He has at the ready for us in His resurrected sovereignty! Hang on - I think I gotta stop a second, jump up on my desk and yawp out an "AMEN!!"
BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!!!
8. The first person to declare that the just-died Christ - still on the cross is surely God's son was a man - who moments before was complicit in His crucifixion!
"54 Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was [ab]the Son of God!” Matthew 27:54 NASB
I don't know about you - but my observation of human nature is that there's few worse things you can call someone than "wrong" - and yet here's a man - in all likelihood a trusted member of the Roman army there to protect the Roman Governor, Pilate; probably a career military professional - calling himself wrong - not just wrong - but simultaneously declaring someone other than Caesar as God!
All seems to die down after Friday - until Sunday morning - and look at what's happening now!
9. Two of the women who followed Jesus came to the brand-new, as of yet unused, tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60) - and found the Roman soldiers assigned to guard Jesus' tomb totally gone and missing (possibly up to 50 guards in all). This was a serious dereliction of duty that under every other circumstance would have led to a capitol sentence on each of the guards - each of the guards should have died for this - but no such punishments are recorded.
10. Not only were the guards gone - but the approximately 4,000 pound stone that had been rolled over the tomb's entrance was rolled away. It seems highly unlikely that the soldiers would've broken their superior's seal and re-opened the tomb.
11. Not only were the guards gone, the enormous stone rolled away from the tomb, but the women who came with spices to as respectfully as they could prepare Jesus body for burial - entered the tomb and came upon this scene:
"and she *saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying." John 20: 12 (NASB)
Which for all the world sounds like a funerial version of this description:
"He made a [d]mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits [e]long and one and a half cubits [f]wide. 7 He made two cherubim of gold; he made them of hammered work [g]at the two ends of the mercy seat;8 one cherub [h]at the one end and one cherub [i]at the other end; he made the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat [j]at the two ends.9 The cherubim had their wings spread upward, covering the [k]mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward each other; the faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat." Exodus 37: 6-9 (NASB)
If you continue to read this passage - this Mercy Seat was God's throne on earth - the place where He would sit on the Day of Atonement. Incredible. The enormously huge and weighty temple veil - which per some accounts required hundreds of priests to hang up whenever it was replaced - was torn from top to bottom - and now a divine, live-action Mercy Seat is being enacted - in plain site of women. It is a new day indeed!
12. Jesus' burial garments remained in the tomb - laid as they had been wrapped around His body - but His body was no longer within them.
"he two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; 5 and stooping and looking in, he *saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6 And so Simon Peter also *came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he *saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself." John 20: 4-7 (NASB)
There is a multiplicity of layers of divine workings laid one over the next when it comes to the entire Crucifixion and Resurrection that provides a life-time of consideration.
13. Jesus' resurrection is the for the early church - the core message. And why not - it was also the core proof Jesus offered His disciples by which to examine the truth of His claims. The gospel for Jesus' closest followers was "Jesus said "if I rise again - I'm the Messiah" and He did!" This incredible series of events - which they were so unable to grasp before it all unfolded that they scolded Him at one point for talking about it - was so trans-formative to them that this was the gospel - this was the message that fueled them all around the Roman Empire.
14. This message didn't just set their travel/vacation plans though - it radically altered their lives. Peter who caved to fear - despite the big, boisterous personality we see him living out over and over again - first to speak up - and first to put his foot in his mouth it seemed - Peter's reaction to Jesus arrest and crucifixion was that he was crushed. Smitten. Peter - threw in the towel and gave up on not just Jesus - but everything. It's as if when Jesus stopped Peter from attacking in the garden (John 18:10) - Peter's whole defense against this awful impossible he couldn't believe he was seeing crumbled. Peter fell to pieces. We can pity him for this - but then look what happens shortly after Jesus' resurrection: Peter - whose given name was actually Simon, stands up and preaches the sermon that proves he really is "The Rock" for Jesus - and we all read this incredible sermon - the sermon against which all others invariably get measured every single Sunday everywhere in the world - and we all go "ooooooh. yeah. that makes sense now."
Upon the resurrection - something inexplicable happened - inexplicable even in light of all the inexplicables that had just unfolded before everyone's eyes - the fearful, unsure, unclear disciples - GOT IT! Oh BOY did they get it! And they were never able to un-get what they now understood. They had no way to unsee what they'd finally seen. They were radically changed - so radically changed - that the natural fall-out from their transformation - was the transformation of the entire planet.
15. And what's the symbol of this new faith? Nothing other than the very thing on which their founder was killed - at the foot of which they wept - and in the face of which their greatest preachers and teachers were destroyed to the core of their souls. Mind-blowing.
Honestly - if you read the resurrection account - it reads like the most twisted plot twist in the history of plot twists ... a homeless man with a radical teaching about God and barely twelve dedicated followers to that idea. Surely - any church planting or missions board would've killed Jesus' ministry and written it off as a failure! And yet - this homeless man - who runs afoul of the greatest government the world had ever seen at that time - gets himself killed in the most brutal way imaginable - all of which is so terrifying to his most ardent, allbeit uneducated and rough followers to see that even they ditch Him and run for the lives - only to be lured back when women testify that Jesus isn't actually dead - and then transform - right before everyone in Jerusalem into the heads of the most world-changing movement the world has ever known - who speak with such power and conviction about their experiences that the academic elites of their day are dumbstruck and confounded.
Wherever you might be in your walk today - let us remember, It may be Friday - but Sunday's coming!
Happy Good Friday everyone!
And a very blessed Resurrection Sunday celebration to you all.
Some of you have heard of Hannah Whitehall Smith. Some of you are about to.
For reference - here's who we're talking about today:
obviously ... she's hipster
Smith - born nearly two hundred years ago - in Philedelphia was a Quaker. Quakers were generally terrific pragmatists and Smith was no exception. Because her entire personal theology grew out of the soil of her classic saying (above) "God is enough." she saw her primary role to living out that "enough" was through - not just submission - but surrender. She used that personal surrender as a means - not to life long torture, denial, misery or any other such - but as a means to illuminating the path of truth to God's purpose for all. If she didn't completely understand a promise in scripture - she would ask herself - for instance - if she was understanding that passage through the "I must" of obligatory duty or if she was understanding it through the "I get to" of love (though her way of writing that was "may I")
This simple distinction shouldn't be rushed over or glossed over. Too quickly we are satisfied - in this age of one minute Bibles, and one-minute sermons and one-minute prayer ... we can be tricked by our appreciation for speed into underappreciating the tenacity of this woman who meditated, pondered, ruminated, and in all other ways teased apart and reconstructed scripture over and over until she understood it in a way that was like receiving a shot of God's love straight from His own heart. All other interpretations - however convenient - were inferior to the one that reminded her of God's incredible love for her. This unrelenting pursuit of a deeper comprehension of God's love through filtering all of God's word through that lens led to a curious result in Smith's life.
Smith was happy.
No I mean really happy. Ridiculously, enviably, and notably happy - in the midst of hard labor, a daunting schedule, farming by hand, travel by horses, no internet, petticoats and shoes - SHOES I tell ya! - with more buttons than the space station! (well ... practically) - her happiness began to attract attention. A lot.
So much so - she was encouraged on all sides to explain herself. So she did. Her explanation led to more demands that she explain herself - and so it went until finally she sat down and wrote it all out in a book - which has failed to go out of print. Her book - called The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life"
Before sharing her message of understanding obedience totally through God's love and our loving God - she describes life this way:
"You do love your work in the abstract, but in the doing of it you find so many cares and responsibilities connected with it, and feel so many misgivings and doubts at to your own capacity or fitness, that it becomes a very heavy burden, and you go to it bowed down and weary before the labor has even begun. Then also you are continually distressing yourself about the results of your work, and greatly troubled if they are not just what you would like; and this of itself is a constant burden."
Now I know that while words like "Brexit" and "Sharenting" were all the rage in 2016 and "Uberization" looks like it's poised to leave a mark on 2017 - "Happiness" has been a big-whoopity-doo for a LOOOOONNNGG time. And why not? "Misery" has no pull to compare. And I am all for being happy - especially when the alternative is a demeanor that compares to "sucking on lemons and guzzling vinegar" I mean - I confess - I watched "The Pursuit of Happiness", read "Happiness Project" - and even the sequel. I'm ALL FOR improvement, growth and that British baking show if that makes you smile.
But - happiness as an end in and of it self - I believe - will fall short. Every. Single. Time. And - while a lot can be said for a pursuit of happiness in the midst of struggle as a way of making the best of things - I still feel compelled to point out that this word doesn't mean exactly now what it did then. To many Quakers then - to be happy - was to feel blessed.
The gift of this book is Smith's down-to-earth descriptions of conversations with numerous people she encountered - struggling through the difficulties of life in the mid-1800's. Her book actually came out in 1875 - this was just a decade after the civil war ended and just two years after the financial panic of 1873 ... people were despairing.
Also - contrary to many modern versions of the teaching that to obey God is to be blessed - some of which are just disastrous - Smith's definition of having received the "happiness of God" was that you wanted to be faithful. In other words - to Smith - the ultimate reward for understanding God's word through the lens of love was more of God Himself. Smith says it best herself:
"God's way of working therefore, is to get possession of the inside of us, to take the control and management of our will, and to work in it for us. Then obedience is easy and a delight, and service becomes perfect freedom, until the Christian is forced to explain, "This happy service! Who could dream earth had such liberty?"
This quite a different message than some present today. Her entire book is an argument for the trustworthiness of God. She makes these arguments by presenting a passage - highlighting the promise therein - and then giving multiple examples of people who struggled with that very passage - but surrendered themselves to God's love and sovereignty and discovered not just love through obedience - but freedom.
While updated versions exist with modern language - I do encourage you to try first the original - the language is different - but her voice comes through beautifully and her message will be less diluted.
Lastly - this posts - as well as all my previous posts ... if this is as helpful to you as it was to me; thanks for stopping by. If not; thanks for stopping by. I am committed to pushing on regardless.
Carl Medearis is a minister, missionary, ministry founder, and international speaker/consultant on Christian-Muslim relations. He lived in Lebanon for over a decade and has spent years going back and forth between the US and the Middle East. He has multiple books, podcasts, a youtube channel and on-going conferences - you can look into all of these for yourself via his website.
He begins his engaging, sub 200 page read, Speaking of Jesus - the art of not-evangelism with an analogy of all the world-religions in something of a world-cup kind of match - and of course - the goal is "to win". All of a sudden in the middle of the Muslim-Christian match - right at the top of the 2nd half with the score tied - this guy saunters out onto the field and makes direct eye-contact with you - the goalie and says "follow me" - and your're like "but it's THE game!" ... this strikes me as an apt analogy.
On page 22 poses this question:
"What if our concept of salvation is based on a gospel that is the sum of its explainable parts? What if we consider ourselves "saved" because we have a dynamite explanation of salvation? We can correctly label and identify all the components. Sinners fallen away from God. God's mercy. Sacrifice for man's sins. The atonement. Justification by faith. Eternal life.
Let's try a litmus test: Try to describe your salvation using only the four Gospels, without using any of the above terms. You have one minute: Go."
Not that long ago Medearis did this actual experiment in a classroom full of seminary students in Texas and fills a chalkboard with their answers - and confirms that this is everything that describes salvation according to the above criteria - and then poses this second question:
"How come non of us mentioned Jesus?"
It'd be easy to mock the students - but let's not mock. Let's own the part of that whole conversation that's utterly relatable. Medearis goes on to talk about how when he started out in ministry - this was the paradigm he found himself in daily - and it led to him giving himself an interesting nick-name: "Carl the ministry killer" as he repeatedly took small groups of 4-8 and reduced them to zero.
He talks about the heavy burden we often take on as Christians of attempting to own all that that word Christian means - even though it means ten different things to ten different people. And frees us from that burden by reminding us that defending the reputation of all of Christendom is not the "game" that Jesus has called us to play. He's called us to lift Him up - not our agendas, our egos, our favorite church or worship song - just Him. If you want to really go for broke - you can talk about what it meant for you to encounter Jesus. Medearis doesn't report such an exercise in his book - but I do wonder how a the chalkboard experiment above would compare to a chalkboard full of responses to the question: "Describe what it was like for you to experience Jesus' salvation?"
Medearis seems to have developed a knack for sticking to talking about Jesus and Jesus impact on his life - rather than falling into the trap of what I like to call "binary conversations" ... you know - all those things that even if you can't define "Christianity the same way as nine other people define it - everyone just "knows" Christianity is. If you're a Christian you vote like this, care about these issues but not those, believe in this kind of science but not that kind ... and so on. Medearis pleasantly and refreshingly reframes conversation after conversation away from divisive hot-buttons to points of meaningful connection. Take for example this conversation he had with a Muslim friend after another of his friends - a Christian - was arguing with him.
I won't plot spoil how the rest of this conversation went - or the countless others he had with members of many faiths as well as those of no particular faith. Medearis has even met with members of Hezbollah and even Yasser Arafat.
This approach is a breath of fresh air regardless of who you share your space with. If you're looking for an engaging read, or a different perspective on how to talk about faith - I recommend Speaking of Jesus. I've reserved a copy of Tea of Hezbollah which is one of his newest books and which I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing as soon as it's available.
Small tangent: Okay - you may not realize this - but I really love it when I remember to get a pic that's just right for the post right at the top ... If I forget to add the pic right away at the beginning of the post - it's a tiny bit trickier to get it just right ... so today's post is about sustainability - which predictably led to a google search with lots and lots of green pictures ... green maps of the world, green globes, green city skylines and such ... no problem ... I like sustainability and green skylines - but that's not really what this post is about.
so then I searched "pure endurance" - and that turns out to be some powder you add to your ... everything to make some store at the mall rich ... sooooo anyhoooo ... long story short ... here is the best picture I can come up with for what I mean by sustainability ...
Like that? Great art. The artist wishes to remain anonymous. ahem.
How do you suppose Jesus taught the disciples to be with Him while He was with Him? "What a silly question!" you say. And you're right. That's pretty much obvious - right? How did He teach them to be with Him after He was gone? That's less silly, isn't it? But I bet when you read that - you didn't think of Jesus' trappings - but rather Him, Himself. It's interesting to me that Jesus - who could've made it so - that when we read His words we would essentially only read of Him telling us how to be with Him - instead of recording all that other stuff - like Him saying "catch a fish and pay my taxes". And I'm on board if you say "well, really, all of it IS Him teaching us how to be with Him" ... but I'll still circle back to the thing He did say "this is Me teaching you how to be with Me - is a little prayer called the Lord's prayer and we teach it to children and even people who aren't in church every time the doors are open know at least a lot of "Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name ... "
Jesus' teaching His disciples how to pray - while He was with Him - was a whopping sub-70 word message on prayer.
Yet how many of us have this ideal way to spend time with Jesus that's just ... well, it's just ... not sub-70 words ... it's kinda ... if truth be told ... grueling.
To be Christian - sometimes - feels like "to want to love Jesus, just a little bit more than I do now."
What if the best way to love Jesus more - is to just love Him now. That's it. Just love Him in this moment. Simply. Directly.
Call me crazy - but I think that Jesus didn't slip "give us now our daily bread" to leave us groaning - exhausted with tortured looks on our faces "daily?"
Here's another radical idea ... maybe the goal isn't to have this ueber-time with Jesus every day - including the perfect prayer, the perfect scripture study, the perfect intercession, the perfect worship ...
Maybe perfect isn't all these little bits we add
Maybe perfect is just us being with Him - and a few dozen words.
Don't get me wrong - I'm really into spending time with Him - praying, studying scripture ... big time. I confess. Think I'm kidding ... my current journal is #79 ... I have over 7,000 filled journal pages ... and that's after I edited a bunch and set a whole banana box full of old journals on fire.
I don't say that maybe less truly is more because I don't want more - but because I do want more. And I want more for the students I talk to and work with. But I've also seen them looking at my journals and saying things like "I should journal". Gag.
So for the record ... You cannot get into heaven by journaling - daily or otherwise. Nor can you secure your salvation by engaging in the most technical Bible study. Memorization?: Ditto! Name a spiritual discipline - and the answer will be the same.
But over and over again I hear and see people talking about spending time with God that sounds just so grueling. In fact - one of the first sermons I remember hearing was called "No Bible, No Breakfast!" I was about 12 - and I'm afraid I remember it for all the wrong reasons ... the preacher lost his mind up there preaching that sermon. He went ape. He lost his temper - his cool - his composure - and he lost a 12 year old girl sitting in the back row in the middle of the youth group.
But what if the key to anything "daily" with Jesus were as simple as "you be with Him - and He'll be with you - and maybe you say a few words"?
Hmmm.
Okay - let's think about this another way: what kinds of "equipment" did most of the people who Jesus ever preached to have? Um ... their clothes. Apparently some showed up for revival meetings without even a picnic basket full of goodies for the "well-duh! there's going to be a pot-luck afterwards!" ... and had to settle for fish-sandwiches. It's hard to imagine any context in which they were all functionally literate - never mind toting around a rig like this ...
um ... that's my rig
As a person of faith - I think Jesus came when the world was ready ... and that includes their daily rig. Nobody had anything like this going on back then. Even the Essenes sitting at Qumran didn't carry around a rig like this.
Also - I believe Jesus modeled for us a way to be with him that was accessible to all. You know what else - I think sometimes I have covered my imagined insecurities with purchases ... with stuff. That's just me though.
So - based on what was sustainable at the actual time Jesus was teaching people how to be with Him - I keep coming back to "If it was really that important for our spiritual growth and development - He would've said it, taught it, modeled it. Jesus said "pray" and He modeled praying. Jesus said "pray to the Father - and He prayed - both with the disciples and sometimes He went off by Himself for "extended periods" of time ... but when He taught His disciples to pray He didn't say "thou shalt go off and pray all night every night." ... I have sure added to the Lord's prayer myself plenty of times ... "Give us this day our daily ... verses to live by, deep thoughts to impress others with, meaningful interpretations to get the attention of the leadership, leatherbound Bible looking respectfully tattered PLUS a journal bursting with notes ... "
Another way to look at this whole conversation is the "daily bread" part ... Jesus referred to Himself as the Bread of Life - and that surely was an homage to how God sustained His people in the desert on manna. Also back then - bread - a hand milled, stone-ground stuff naturally leavened in the air (think: sour-dough) and baked in an earthen oven or over an open hearth fire - was actually and rightfully on the daily menu. This was a whole-grain food - because there was just not such a wild abundance of food that anyone was nuts enough to farm by hand to grow a crop and then throw over half of the edible portion out just to make "softer bread" ... people had flat middles and hard bread - and they were eating to avoid starvation. Bread was essential.
Bread was essential. Jesus is essential. He's comparing Himself to what's essential.
If the way you're spending time with Jesus isn't essential - enjoyable ... you crave it ... change it. Please.
I don't want to tell anyone how to do this - but for the sake of example - I use what I do. Sure would love to hear what you've found is sustainable day over day.
I love being out-of-doors. I love camping, hiking and backpacking, kayaking and all that ... but don't worry - if that's not your thing - then please substitute what is your thing ... But this is literally my essential, daily Jesus - and I find that the more I do engage in this practice - the more I want to engage in this practice.
The practice is this ... in my mind - I go to my favorite camp-ground ever ... and I go down and sit on the beach. (As luck would have it - I have a picture of the view across from this place - see above) I recall that scene after Jesus resurrection when He sat on the beach grilling fish with His disciples ... and I just sit there with Him. I imagine the cracking fire. The sounds. The feel. The smells. Often it is in fact wordless. Often it isn't. It is always pleasant. Utterly sustainable. I finish this one day and immediately want to go back and do it again. I have never once had to cajole, berate, guilt, or bribe or engage in any other such technique to force myself to comply. I have found - that being with Jesus is alluring, calming, encouraging, uplifting, engaging, fulfilling, restful, peaceful, inspiring ... it feels exactly like being loved in a place I love. Feel free to try it for a minute or two. Stay longer if you want. Don't if you can't.
And it turns out that the thing that in the way of this much longed for sort of experience all my life was all trappings I brought to it. Now - participated in at it's essential level - it really is this:
Happy Monday ya'll ... here's a little humor to kick your week off. As always - there's more on the JC's Village Pinterest board, "Blessed Are The Funny"
if stepping into the Grace Habit is like opening a door and stepping through - what are we stepping through - into?
Prayer is far, far more than a list. It's an opportunity to center.
A while back I worked at a civil engineering firm. While there I spent a fair amount of time calibrating equipment. Uncalibrated equipment was the bane of my existence. I had spreadsheets just to organize the spreadsheets on which the various equipment calibrations were recorded. Dozens of field technicians in our department left each day with their trucks loaded with equipment - some of them literally driving around with hundreds of thousands of dollars in gear. Calibrated equipment produced trustworthy results. This was important to because everyone involved in on a project - say like an airport runway - wanted to know for certain that the work would be up to the demands put on it once completed. So - when a new shipment of equipment would arrive - I would come to work at 5am and calibrate and calibrate and calibrate - and get what was needed into the technician's hands so our customers could be at ease.
While I do believe that there's a place for the lists in prayer ... lists of concerns, lists of people we love and want to pray a hedge around, lists of ministries we want God to bless, loved one's whose families and homes we want God to grant His favor to - it seems that at least part of what can happen in prayer - is something like "calibration"
We step into God's presence when we pray - and by the sheer act of pursuing Him - we say no to pursuits that are contrary to Him. We may not even always notice or recognize when we do this - and then again there are times when we are very conscious of this calibrating or centering effect. "To pursue knowing a Righteous God is a righteous act" I remember hearing an old campus minister say once - a guy who'd worked as a cowboy - an honest to goodness cowboy - before he found himself being called to campus ministry. When he spoke it was invariably to the point.
I can still tell you how to calibrate some equipment - if you're somehow so bored that you want to hear it. I can't really explain how prayer calibrates us - well - not sufficiently well to get an entry into the ASTM books on calibration. What I can say is that if you - for instance - take some time to pray - not through a list - but to totally unfettered allow yourself to wander around prayer - the way you might wander about an intriguing park - you might find yourself quite enchanted by prayer.
There's an old saying that goes back quite a ways into the history of those following Christ and giving their lives to Him - "Prayer is the breath of the Christian". There are surely as many ways to pray as there are people who want to encounter God in prayer - but if you feel stuck, or would like a place to start - then please allow me to suggest - that just before going through that door in your mind - that you consciously allow yourself to lay all of today (or yesterday if it's early) down outside that door before going in ... just sacrificially lay it down. Whatever it was or is - it is past. We have only this moment. There is no need to bring anything through the door with us. So often - doors and door frames get beat up because over size-loads get bungled through them. So let's just lay it down. Make something of an offering - a gift - of it. It is all already out of our hands. Lay it in God's hands - He'll take excellent care of all your cares - and step through unburdened and rest.
That loud thump you heard this morning - yeah - that thump was me.
So early this morning I was clicking around in the blog tools and stumbled across analytics - and I was completely shocked to see that there are about 1000% more subscribers to this blog than I've ever had to all my previous blogs (both of them) combined!
Thank you so much - to all of you who've stopped by, read a post or two, shared, favorited/retweeted, subscribed and contacted me to let me know that you liked what you read. Writing out the grace-habit posts and all the rest has been a pure joy - and hearing from awesome people has been an extra joy.
And - to show my thanks - this whole post is dedicated to saying thanks in the best ways I have to do so. I know that this looks worse than a video uploaded in 1997 ... but - it is my absolute first youtube upload and blog embed. I promise - I will improve. Thank you again!
I drove my schmancy "sport-utility-vehicle" out to the local nature area
set up my mind-blowingly high-tech nature photography rig
Northern Shovelers having a fine time in Myrick Park.
When you're happy about all the new subscribers ...
Write here...
In his letter to the Philippians Paul wrote a little sentence in a part of that book that we now refer to as chapter four, verse 3, that goes like this:
"Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life"
And you might read that and say "Yeah? So what?" - and I'd say - what's cool about this verse is that this guy Paul mentions by name, Clement, wrote a book and more or less went on be a righteous dude drenched in awesome sauce.
Lemme explain ... no lemme sum up.
We really don't know a lot about Clement - like if you look him up - it will say that he was born in the Roman Empire in the first century ... born in the Roman Empire at that time almost means "born on earth." He is sometimes listed as Pope Clement - sometimes pope number 2 sometimes number three, and sometimes number 4. He's called a saint too by a larger number of ancient churches found around the Mediterranian than I realized even existed before I was bit by the curiosity bug that sent me looking all this stuff up in the first place.
Here's why I think Clement deserves to be thought about, read about, and talked about. Here was a guy - born at a time - maybe not a few of a us have wished we might have been alive to be a part of events unfolding. We weren't born then though - were we? No we were not. But this guy was. He seems to have not only traveled about with Paul - but to have spent a bit of time with Peter. I kind of doubt that he called himself a Pope - but whether he did or not - we might be envious of his opportunity to be in such close proximity to both Peter and Paul.
What would you do if you'd been stomping about the Roman Empire at that time and had met Peter and Paul? Clement seems to have wasted no time devoting himself to the early church and its leaders. Regardless of what titles he did or did not hold - he became himself a leader of the early church in Rome itself. His devotion seemed to inspire quite a lot of speculation and interest in him - so much so that he was a popular figure for people at that time to insert into their stories of daring-do (leading to Martyrdom) and even appeared as the star of more than one early version of a romance novel! If you google a picture of Clement of Rome - you're likely to find an anchor with him in many of them - because later on it was claimed that he'd been martyred by having an anchor tied around his neck and pitched into the sea. Gotta love those early Christian's fondness for creepy bluntness. I imagine if I were living back then my wake-pic would show me dying tripping over my murderous cat while walking to get my first cup of coffee in the morning (though I'm pretty sure this wouldn't count as martyrdom)
Instagram used to have some really strange filters
While we know Clement through things written about him by Eusebius, Jerome and Tertullian - but we also know about him through his own writing - namely First Clement. While there are many interesting bits for historians and theologians to chew on in Clement - what captures my attention is that this is one of the very earliest Christian writings that's remained to this day - that was written during the first century. It reads partly like Paul's writings to the Corinthians - and is actually written to the church there in Corinth - and it reads like Peter's writings - which of course makes sense - because other than this guy having been born on earth during the 1st century - we know he happened to spend some amount of time - probably in Rome - with both of those figures. It is even possible that Clement was among the people who were with them right up until the end of their lives. Imagine meeting Peter and Paul and being tasked with writing something still worth reading 19 centuries later. I'm pretty sure I'd resort to jokes.
Every year - according to google - up to 1,000,000 books are published (about half self-published with an average of just 250 copies) - so - the longevity of these literary endeavors is well ... uncertain. The earliest years of Christianity have always loomed in my earliest imagination as a mix between exploration and Sunday-school. There came a day not all that long ago when I started looking up the earliest years/centuries of the faith and trying to learn how we came to be where we are. Clement's writings may not be the first ever - but they are the oldest surviving and it seems more undisputed than you might imagine that First Clement really was written by Clement. Who knows - maybe the twenty century's interest in blogging about faith finds it's origins 19 centuries ago in a guy who was inspired by Peter and Paul and put pen to paper. If you'd like to check out First Clement for yourself - click here.
What if prayer were way, way, WAY more than praying for everyone and everything you can think of from 7:00 until 7:05 and feeling bad about the interrupting and distracting thoughts of to-do-list items and projects, wants and needs?
I remember one day's prayer time in when I was a sophomore at Michigan State University - when I was DETERMINED to pray for five minutes without interrupting myself/distracting myself even once. I was going to sit there, and not let my mind wander even once ... if I did - then I was going to start over. Oh halp!!! You KNOW how that turned out. At one point in that process I started making a little hash mark for every time I distracted myself ... About 40 minutes later I was so frustrated and felt so ... broke. *sigh*
There are people in the history of faith who reveled in LONG prayer times - ever wonder how they did that? I grew up in the church - my dad was a country preacher - but as a freshman in college - I seriously thought this was impossible or if it were impossible - it would feel exhaustingly torturous. I was pretty sure that people who swore up and down that they loved praying like this were praying at "420" if you're picking up what I'm laying down. Hmmm.
What's going on here though?! I mean - Martin Luther is sort-of famous for saying "I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer." Mother Teresa is purported to have spend copious amounts of time in prayer. I remember a white-haired old man named at my church as I was growing up named Claude Small who was said to have been a "real prayer-er" ... but I was only 10 when I met him and didn't think to ask him how until he'd passed away. I've met some people who will hand you something that looks like it came out of a calculus book on how to pray - but I'll tell you a secret ... that gives me the willies.
Then there's the "prayer can be mowing your lawn types" - which on so many levels I absolutely agree with - and if you read the post last week on Frank Laubach you already know this. But sometimes those efforts fall hard into lawn-maintenance and not so much into the heavenlies. I'm just speaking for myself. I haven't found lawnmowers to be particularly helpful - or long walks, or prayer shawls or any of that. I mean I'm not saying you can't pray long or meaningfully with lawn mowers, long walks or prayer shawls - I'm just saying that those things - in and of themselves - just speaking for myself - haven't contributed to the sort of rich and meaningful prayer life that Laubach or anyone else who doesn't give me the willies refers to. Those things also didn't lead me straight to the sort of prayer life where on my busiest days my go-to solution for a non-frenzied peace of mind was not - so sadly - to pray longer.
But there MUST be a way to enjoy that sort of prayer time.
You and I might google search, or amazon search for prayer methods - and find a lot of sites that say "here's a one-minute method." - and there's a place for that - but that's not this conversation.
There may be a blog post in which we delve into one-minute prayers - but not this day!
Honestly - I do truly hope that there are MANY ways to step into such lengthy, sweet, and transformative prayer times. I do not, however, believe that the doors to such a prayer life are unlocked by lists. I know! I know. I too, am personally a big fan of lists ... but lists, as good as they are at getting all the taco ingredients from the store in one trip, and as glad as I am that people like pilots and surgeons and such use them as much as they do ... wouldn't it be weird if you were hanging out with your bestie, your squeeze, or your mentor - and they busted out a list? Mood. Killer.
So - no more talk of what isn't "the door".
There might be many such doors - and I am open to finding them all. The door that I have found that keeps luring me back in, over and over again for longer and longer stays - is the door labeled "Curiosity About God's Love and Grace".
I wish I could say that I found this door through some sort of brilliance. Nope. I found it first while in a place that felt beyond lists ... a place and time in my life when I felt that not even the most brilliant list could put the humpty-dumpty parts of my life back together again. I found that door by saying one day - truly - on accident - to God - "please prove to me your love is greater than all this mess." It was not a sunny vista. This was a low down, empty, broken place. I entered feeling this ...
... and I believe, again - just speaking for myself - that when we're addicted to fixing, and addicted to presenting a tidied-up, fixed-up, perfect life to everyone as a justification for freedom from judgement or as an immunization from feeling too humble or small - that this is possibly how we see the world. This might even be - how it is - if we reduce God to a list.
But having no fix-its left in my hands, having no more answers that involved my own strength - and coming to a place where there was nothing but God's Love towards me - Goodness towards my life - and Grace to warm me - I found that prayer that focuses on God's infinite good will towards us - that stretched back to before the dawn of time - that put a to-do list into action on a date so far back in God's day-planner that I can't comprehend the date. I found stepping into a space of prolonged awe and wonder that the Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent King of the Universe who spends every moment of His infinity in every particle of the universe at every moment of every particles existence drew on a motive like Love to plan my redemption is a thought that reduces my inadequacies to a blip on a cosmic radar of infinite "I Got This's" from God. I think that door that I fell through on accident one day - because the two or three I'd been trying over and over again were just ... tired - has become my new go-to door - and time spent in reflective and meditative prayer there - telegraphs God's hopeful calm - and somehow - reduces my to-do lists, my fixit-addiction to a simple walk. I do not have words for the gratitude I have for God as I've come to experience Him through this "door."
limited analogy of the space through "the door" and the view there - and the seat from which we can enjoy it
I can't believe I first bought this book 19 years ago - and you wouldn't believe how many times I've read it.
Dallas Willard's book "Divine Conspiracy" came into my hands at just the right moment - and I still remember when my eyes landed on it where it was displayed on a lower shelf of the Barnes & Noble on the complete opposite side of town from where I lived in Albany, NY. It didn't take a second look for me to trot it up to the cash register and start reading it over an americano in the cafe.
Willard's writing style appealed to me because somehow it reminded me so much of some of my favorite professors back at Michigan State - and what do you know - Willard was a professor - of both Philosophy at University of Southern California - as well as occasionally teaching courses at Dallas Theological Seminary.
The idea behind Divine Conspiracy was to move the conversations Christ's followers tend to have about forgiveness, redemption, transformation, discipleship and grace beyond the common traps of conservative vs. liberal theology - and to a place that offers a deeper look at a more fundamental truth about what Christ's work on the cross means for every believer. Dallas challenges the smallness of viewing the Gospel as merely "sin management" or "Lordship Salvation" and challenges the smallness of viewing the Gospel as merely about social ethics. He takes both of these apart to peer into how so many Christians have come to accept the Gospel as something that doesn't really change Christians - despite that being the very promise that Christ makes to all of us yearning for an easier yoke, lighter burden and an abundant life. He leads us to this conclusion by opening up the Beatitudes in a light that at least I'd never seen them through before and returns the "Good News!" factor to the Gospel.
Once leading us on this whirlwind tour of the crux of the New Testament reimagined and revealing a new hope for our walk with Christ - Willard tackles the two most likely trip points left: the deceptive allures of reputation and wealth. Just reexamining Willard's words on these above points for this post left me eager to take my four-legged hiking buddy, Phoebe, and head outside for a little walking and reflecting - because this is a message that sometimes it seems life can threaten to devour on the daily - so - to that end - please pardon the lateness of the post. In truth - a single post cannot do this book justice - and I'm personally very happy to have had the chance while Dr. Willard was still alive to meet him face to face, sit under his teaching for a wonderful weekend of intensive note taking and be able to tell him how much his work has impacted my own understanding of grace.
If you haven't read this book yet - or haven't re-read it recently - I whole-heartedly recommend it. It's not just food for thought - but a feast for thought!
Praying ya'll have a faboo week and offering a few funnies from the JC's Village Pinterest funny board.
