Honest Friends and New Cloths!

Isn’t honesty one of the most treasured qualities in a person’s character? I find myself gravitating to really honest people. They have this ability to speak the truth even when they know I won’t like what they say.

I like to be honest with my friends, family and workmates. Sometimes I ask those with whom I am involved with in a project, situation or effort if they want to hear what I have to say about a question or problem we are working on. They say, “Be honest" so I do and most often it turns out well, mostly.

The easy route is making a safe controlled answer akin perhaps to pretending a baby whose diaper needs to be changed really doesn’t smell. We all know something needs to be changed here and the question is who is going to do it? Pass that baby around!

      Doesn’t honesty makes us better people. Lack of honesty hurts people subtly and often severely.

My friend Aaron is one of those loving honest people. After a meeting one day where a lot of good ideas were exchanged with healthy, even heated, pushback Aaron challenged me with some constructive honesty:

He said, “You always apologize to the group after you talk and you say, ‘I’m not that smart.' I think you should stop doing that, just say what is on your mind, it matters.”

Hearing his loving correction was like a searchlight on the self-effacing mask I often wear in public. Ouch, he found me!  I was reflecting a lack of confidence. “I’m not that smart” is a disclaimer saying, “…if you don’t like my offering please disregard it and don’t dislike me.”

From that point on I exchanged the need for confidence and simply exercised my competence. As Canadian jockey Red Pollard said in the epic movie Seabiscuit, “I got better. He made me better. Hell, you made me better.”

                 Honesty makes us better people.  Honest friends are treasures from heaven.

Is there somebody in your life that will be honest with you? Do you have a desire for honest input? Do you remember the short tale by Hans Christian Anderson about the Emperors new cloths?

That little boy in the story spoke honestly when the appeasing crowd just played it safe, watching the naked Emperor stroll by au naturel! It made headlines in the  Kingdom Chronicles the next morning!

Loving honesty is rare and when I find a friend who has it and will offer it to me, I want to keep them as friends for life and value their gift of truth saying! Thanks Aaron for being THAT guy!

Crossing the Chicken Line!

We lost Don on the way in to Pappadeaux in Cincinnati. We were ready to enjoy a long overdue dinner, catch up on life and savor  some great Cajun food that night. I asked Mirna, "Where is Don?" She explained that he sometimes meets people and starts talking about Jesus to them. And she said, "I do it all the time too!"

I looked out the window and sure enough Don was talking to a huge motorcycle guy in the parking lot. It looked like David and Goliath from the bible story only friendly! In a few minutes they finished talking and Don came in to the table and started dipping in to the crispy fried shrimp, calamari and fish bites on the appetizer plate.

I asked him if he knew the guy he was talking to. He said "No, I just had to cross the chicken line and ask if he knew Jesus and wanted a bible?"

The "chicken line." He had me...  What is the chicken line? This is a seafood place for Pete's sake! I wondered if there was another restaurant close by. So I had to ask, "Don, what is the chicken line?"

With Mirna watching and smiling with love and delight Don shared how that when he needed  courage to do something (like start a conversation with a stranger about Jesus) he gets it by drawing an imaginary line, a "chicken line". Then he said, "You step over it and you aren't "chicken" any more!"

                                                       I got it! I want it! I neeeeed it!

How many times do I want 1 second of courage, just 1, to say or do something I really want to or need to do? Often!

The chicken line helps. I can draw the line, step over and boom; the conversation is stared, the deed set in motion or the problem begins to be resolved. Go figure, the chicken line can help! Silly? Perhaps. Useful? Yes.

So to those who are courageous spiritual giants and have all the hutzpah you need, I salute you! When I grow up I want to be like you. Someday...until then I got me a chicken line!

Isn't a comfort zone an easy place to live where all is familiar and all is safe. To enter the unknown, break the ice with a stranger, start anew in a pursuit, confront an injustice or just step one more step into the future, might take more courage that you feel you have.

                 You do have amazing courage. Welcome to the chicken line...draw it and GO!

Thanks Don for mentoring me that day with the little ol' Chicken Line! Hey, we are crossing it today, together my friend!

Adventure, ad-venture, aDVENTURE

Adventure

No matter how it is spelled it might be misunderstood. As I sit here in the corner of my local Starbucks writing there is little of true adventure observable. There is a gal killing a bee with her homework, smashing it vehemently on the window. 

Adventure 1. An undertaking involving danger and unknown risk, 2. An exciting or remarkable experience, 3. An enterprise involving financial risk. 

Merriam Webster usually gets it right. This isn't a coffee shop encounter mostly. It's tame here. Shackleton would not be challenged here. There are only conversations and coffee tools banging, cheerful greetings and a man telling his friend why his wife doesn't understand him loud enough for everyone to hear; and dead bees. No adventure, not according to Merriam Webster. 

Real adventure seems to thrive on surprise and shock or sudden peril and loss of security. It vaults us into doing what we believe we could never do and find ourselves falling headlong into it and doing it! Liking it with wonder...thankfully.

 A good friend of mine has a tagline something like this, "those who say it can't be done should not interrupt those who are doing it!" If I am doing the previously thought of as impossible thing let me finish before you tell me it can't be done! Fair enough?

Adventure lives in dreams too doesn't it? It is like an elusive prima ballerina that dances in your subconscious and teases your spirit. She is there and waiting to dance with you. "You can dance can't you?" She smiles. Well I think I can! Adventure calls and won't be satisfied until you dance with her too. We dance with boredom to much?

Risky, uncertain, costly, thrilling, robust, rewarding and necessary...for living...and essential to say we are really alive. 

Remember the old movie (1998) called Simon Birch. Young Simon was smaller than other 12 year olds and the subject of sympathy and ridicule in life. He had a razor wit and simple candor that confronted the religious and endeared the pure in heart.  

All of Simons life he understood that he had a purpose bigger than his current sad sorriness. As a marginalized and misunderstood young man no adventures were anticipated for Simon...until, one day on a field trip his bus slipped from an icy country road into the numbing blue waters of the French River in Ontario. Simon becomes the unlikely hero who is pressed into service and saves the life of another in his epic adventure of sacrificial rescue. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uryfQ9ZD1Wg

Adventure can find us or we can look for it or we can hope it never happens. You may be in the beginning of an adventure right now. The door is open and the wilderness of uncertainty beckons with a cloaked future filed with promise and peril, purpose and pleasure. You don't know and I don't know how it will all turn out. To borrow the phrase from Gene Edwards, "only God knows and he isn't telling..."

To turn away from adventure means never knowing...really knowing what could have been. That could be worse than any risk adventure might present, perhaps worse than death itself. 

What  would life be with out the thrill of an adventure into the unknown? What awaits the hearty soul of woman or man who will step out and brave the unknown to discover, behold and revel in what few or none have experienced before. 

Is there is an adventure in your soul? Is there a bigger destiny than you could ever imagine growing closer to you? What will it take for that adventure to begin? Are you ready to dance with the uncertain? Some questions can only be answered by action...isn't this the nature of true adventure?

On Site With Insight

Prayer walking is said to be, "going on site with insight!"  Can you imagine the apostle Paul who admitted he prayed more than anyone he had every known walking and praying over a new village before he entered to share the gospel? And we have this honor too friends.

Prayer and walking are historical activities to the Christian faith it seems. We can pray in cars, planes, trains, on horseback or a roller-coaster too! Its actively petitioning God, a cry to heaven so to speak (more to come on this in future days) for His fullness to come to the lives of our neighbors, our city's and towns. Prayer walking has power to transform the spiritual landscape of your community.

Hosea had some words about prayer walking (calling on God for others) that were  life giving then and now.  He said this to Israel:

...'Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.'

"Plow up the hard ground" by seeking the Lord Hosea encouraged. The hearts of people are like parched sun-dried earth  hardened from pain, confusion, anger, un-forgiveness, religion and so many other things. The burden of sin weighs on the mind and conscious relentlessly. 

Prayer opens the door for the moving of Gods Spirit and claims the ground that darkness longs to clutch. You will see the power of God released in your community through  prayer walking. 

                                   You are praying on site with insight!

Interestingly and reciprocally I am noticing that I am transformed through this process too. God is touching people by prayer walking  and he is transforming me to through the process too. 

Our prayers are prophetic proclamations combined with imagination and faith for what will come in the future. What do you want to see in your neighborhood and streets? Do you like what you see now? What does God want to do there? 

In the next blog I will give some helpers to more effective prayer walking. May God bless you and give you some comfortable shoes for prayer walking your neighborhood and friends to do it with!

Church Planters Invade the Impossible!

It's so very important to take time to develop your prayer team. If your church is a new plant or a historic ministry in your community it needs the power of prayer to carry Gods work forward.

Prayer is as one of Pastor Jack Hayford books called it is for  Invading the Impossible! Church planting guru Tom Nebel says spiritual warfare is the most underestimated and neglected part of starting a new church.

So start (or restart) right away gathering and discipling your prayer team. You want them to be hammering the beachhead with heavy artillery prayer long before your landing team arrives!

Recently Judy and I prayer walked our neighborhood. We could really sense that God was moving as we asked God to reach into the hearts of people in the homes and free them from sin. We asked for open doors to share Gods love and truth.

We posted this on FB and in about an hour our neighbor next door said, "We love the prayers over here!" I had no idea she was following our FB!  I hope she reads this today because she made our day by encouraging us!

And guess what? Yesterday as we were out in the neighborhood we were invited into a new home to make friends. Prayer matters. Prayer changes things. Prayer is invading the impossible.

Someone reading this today needs to know not to give up on their church but to persevere in prayer and then get BUSY sharing Gods love!

Husbanding!

It all happened so fast and unexpectedly! Judy and I were seated in our favorite, "secret first class" spots on a Southwest Airlines flight. Before take off, a spry, smiling silver haired stewardess walked past us, turned and came back to our seats and stopped. She said to me, "Are you married to this woman?" gesturing toward Judy, with a fingers closed, low open wave of respect. I said, "Yes, why?" She then said, "Repeat after me!"

(BTW-If you don't fly Southwest Airlines it may be hard to understand that SW employees ENJOY their jobs, and have fun making flying more relaxed and pleasant for travelers)

So I braced myself and smiled and said, "Ok, bring it on" expecting a tongue twister or knock knock joke. Then she said "And, look into your wife's eyes!" Now I was really nervous! She said, "Repeat after me...what ever pleases you dear, makes me happy!" I repeated it and we all laughed, as well as the passengers around us preparing for four hours next to their new found flight-mates. She said, "That is all you need to know" and walked back toward the front of the plane.

I didn't give it much more though until later that day when I played the movie of my mind. You know, the rewind and replay of the days events, complete with reflections, should have saids, groans of sorrow, wishes for do-overs and proud feelings of, got that right, thank the Lord! Do you play the movie of your mind?

What the stewardess had given me was a lesson in marriage harmony (for man or wife) in seven or eight little words. What pleases you dear makes me happy; or ,your needs are first; or I am going to value you highly by sacrificing  for you; you get it. She made a difference that is still with me and a few others in earshot that day.

Some men might say that is just not manly. I beg to differ, my manliness is intact. I swim in shark filled waters, shoot, butcher and BBQ animals of all sizes, build buildings with tools using my hands and recently chased a mugger who stole a lady's purse! So I am feeling ok with manhood!

But here is the thing, I am learning to love the thrill of sacrifice for my wife. I'm not as good as I want to be. If I can say to her, while looking her in the eye, what pleases you dear makes me happy, and know I mean this with every fiber of my being (I just teared up) I think I am exercising a type of manhood that is worthwhile; and life-giving for Judy. I have MANY monuments to marriage stupidity, BTW. You?

There is an art to husbanding. Isn't it a mastery that will take a lifetime? Isn't it worth trying again and again to get this right? To go from bad to better, better to good and good to really a rippin' fun marriage? So here is a little  challenge from one poor boy (or girl)  to another. next time you are with your spouse...repeat after me...

God Works…

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls (and on bumper stickers) and whispered in the sound of silence….” so sang Simon and Garfunkle.

“You don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows…” says Bob Dillon.

Leaving our hotel a few months ago, a sticker caught my eye on a new SUV in the parking lot. A bumper sticker that a few might have missed, if it were placed down low on the bumper, this one was not. It was placed at eye level, on the rear window, broadcasting these words in black and white like a personal vendetta:

"God works in mysterious, inefficient and breathtakingly cruel ways!" 

I took a picture. These things interest me. I ponder them. They haunt my thoughts. I pray. I ponder the owners motivation, no their angst. Yes, I want to help…

I didn't believe the words... I do however, feel the bitterness or anger and in your face feeling, of them. I understand something went very wrong. We all live the reality of its inference. In short, why is there so much suffering, cruelty and injustice that appears to go unaddressed in our daily existence? Why? Huh? It is said, very sincerely, "If there is an all loving God why does he let the crappy stuff happen, unless he is the designer of it and perhaps inflicts it." If you haven’t heard this, or something like it, you need to get out more… Subtly this thought sits like a small sharp stone in an irremovable shoe of human perception; poking, burning and reminding of a pain that questions who God is, and why is there such malady doled out to mankind, wholesale and unexplained.

If I were to stand up in a gathering of Christ believing people, spread my arms and shout loudly, "God is good?” At least some would say, with enthusiastic, practiced sincerity, "All the time!" It is a mantra of the forgiven and thankful. They pretty much experience and understand life and death as encounters with a loving Christ, who bled and died, once for all. They have a theology of suffering that works for them; hopefully.

Were I to make the same proclamation in a group of people who have never tasted of the forgiveness of God, the response would be quite different at least from a few. They would not say, “all the time” or even know the language! Some will have endured bitter cruelty and much pain in life. My friend Al Judovitz is a Holocaust survivor and my tennis partner at 80 some years old. 2500 people went into the concentration camp where he was imprisoned in Romania. 250 came out alive. He was a lucky one. I asked him, "How did you survive?” He said, “We prayed” very dryly; and then he smiled and chuckled a little. And looked me in the eyes deeply like a man who had seen enough, enough.

I knew a rape victim that suffered at the hands of the rapist and then at the hands of the police that were supposed to help her. They mocked her and said, “You were asking for it weren’t you?” She wasn’t.  She is still asking, "Why is God so hard on me, Christians say He loves me, where is that love?" I once sat on the curb, ambulance lights whirling, with a young sobbing mother whose baby had died from SIDS. She had laid him in his crib in the evening with a tender kiss goodnight and found him still and silent hours later. She asked between shallow breaths, "Where is God pastor, and why did He take my baby?"

There are millions of questions embedded deep in the hearts of dear questioning people. They wait for someone to speak to this paradox of opposing claims. God is good all the time vs. why is he is so cruel and indifferent. 

 How come? What if? 

How come so much of what is taught in churches and circulated as food for the soul leans to the “…good all the time…” and so little offers insight into “…so cruel and indifferent?”

One young author, Soong-Chan Rah says, “America has no lamentation in its common language, only joy and rejoicing.” That is weird isn’t it? One sided? The ancients didn’t live life like this exclusively, rather they sang, “…by the rivers of Babylon where we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion…” something went wrong for them and they really felt it, for 70 years.

I wonder how Hagar felt after banishment with her son Ishmael…watching him die slowly?  Did the family of St. Stephen grieve with hot tears because their loved one was stoned for doing right? Who spoke to the victims of the Tower of Siloam that came down violently, on the unsuspecting crowd? Even Jesus said they did nothing wrong, and died, unexpectedly, cruelly.

Recently there was a tragic shooting on a military base. I called (and prayed with) the military chaplain who was preparing with his team to care for the victim’s families. He said, “We start now, helping people to pick up the pieces of their lives…to understand that God is…with them in the suffering they are experiencing.” To speak to the suffering is heroic isn’t it? The shooting was amazingly cruel and it happened with God watching.

What if the title of my (or your) next sermon series was called:

“Why does God work in such mysterious, ineffective and breathtakingly cruel ways” Or better yet, what if I turned this bumper sticker into a billboard that could be seen by thousands with an invitation to be a guest at our church or Christian gathering? It might be epic.A church would be standing room only wouldn't it?  This is our stuff! This is my God. I’m supposed to get this and be able to give an answer for the hope I have in God’s love for people.

In spite of the inconsistencies that trouble people’s souls there can be answers or at least sincere willingness to wrestle with the question, why?

Isn’t this window sticker a plea for help from an honestly hungry, perplexed or angry heart? What is their story and what compelled them to paste a caustic indictment against God on an expensive car, for all to see? Isn’t it a challenge in a way? Isn’t it a ‘tell me why…please?’ Is there courage to speak to this and even to say, “I don’t know but I want to discover, weep, pray, pound my fist on the table and scream to heaven with you until there is more of an answer?” And find reason for hope in the loving presence of another who will feel together what is unknown and presently unexplained.

Here is a thing interesting: the owner of the car with the window sticker has faith. God works…

They have my attention…and God’s for sure.

Embrace

There is a book called “Exclusion and Embrace” by Miroslav Volf. It opens thought buckets that are deep, refreshing and unusually challenging. Volf’s treatment of the story of the prodigal son is a defining work and worthy study as a stand alone topic.

Volf teaches about what an embrace is, when seen as a series of  movements that are meaningful motions. More than a hugs; an embrace is the  act of  joining another human in love, compassion, unity, comfort, acceptance on an occasion of emotional, celebratory or meaningful attraction. I may have made a statement with my words to another, but an embrace is a statement with my body; my movable, malleable soul.

An embrace is a pure and true action of human affection isn’t it? We, for a moment or a minute or an hour, surrender ourselves into the arms of another; vulnerably.  Volf offers four stages; (he calls them a drama) of embrace that are elements of the action and create a poetic, beautiful expression of love. They are simple steps, yet profound and can be deeply spiritual. Lets for a moment slow down and move through the stages of an embrace. If you are a sports fan, think of it as a slo-mo replay of a score! If you are a very manly man, add a hearty back slap.

First, there is opening of the arms. Christ on the cross postures identically, bidding all men to “come to” him? I open my arms in sacrificial invitation. Try this, if you like, where you are.  Yes, open your arms and hold them open, in invitation. What is it like? What adjectives describe your senses? Do you feel the feeling of open humble summons? The next part of embrace is waiting for you.

Now we must wait for the one we have opened our arms to. They have a choice; they can leave us waiting or join in the embrace as a partner. It is a choice of their will. If I embrace another against their acceptance, it is an act of violence against them and a sin. A forced embrace becomes a body prison. Joining in the embrace together, willingly, says, yes, I am human and intertwined in life’s unfolding drama of adventure with you.

Next it takes four arms to embrace and hold another. The two become one sharing an emotional and bodily presence that heals and confirms that we  trust each other. Two are answering Jesus prayer that they may be “…one even as we are one” creating divine mini-community on earth. How powerful an expression is an embrace, to man to woman; to God? Has seeing an embrace ever brought tears to your eyes or joy to your heart? Do you remember the time? Was it your embrace?

Last is the release of the one we have embraced. Isn’t the release so often accompanied by a smile; or by kind words? Isn’t there a feeling of enrichment and peace after an embrace? The completion of the act signals that something is different about us. Aren’t we better, more alive, more free and closer to God and the form of life or living we were designed for?  The miracle of embrace bonds friendship as I become part of another through the act of meaningful embrace! 

Volf's teaching lets me slow down this movement of embrace and appreciate every part of it and see that it is far richer a movement than I ever understood before.