The Storms and the Peace

They come in all shapes and sizes.  It seems they come at the most inopportune moments of our life.  But we all agree the do come ... and how we perceive them an react to them makes all the difference.  Yes, storms are as much a part of life as breathing.

A few weeks back, my pastor Sam gave a message about storms.  He talked to us about that familiar story where Jesus was sleeping in the stern of the fishing boat during a pretty violent blow on the Sea of Galilee.  It's a tale we've heard ever since we first saw the old flannel-graph board.  But I learned something new as I listened.

Storms come at us primarily from four perspectives.  The Enemy certainly sends them as part of the work he seems to enjoy so much.  He intends to do us great harm, mainly because he knows he can't win us back.  His goal is disruption - plain and simple.  He's out to steal our joy and make us focus on the storm.

Storms also come from choices made.  Sometimes those were the choices of others and sometimes I made the choice.  Either way, I'm left to work through the reality of the storm and all it brings with it.  These kinds of storms are often very difficult to deal with because our pride gets in the way and the blame starts flying around.

Storms are also a part of this fallen world.  It's broken, folks ... and it won't be completely fixed just yet no matter how hard we try.  Those kinds of storms can leave us in doubt about God himself - and that's tough to deal with and work through.  But in all these storms, especially the ones coming because the world is a mess, I need to remember that I still have Jesus "in my boat".  And that's where today's message from Dan came shining through.

I had intended to write just about the storms a few weeks ago.  For whatever reason (I now see God's hand in it), I didn't do it before now.  And today, I get to incorporate not just the message on storms, but the thoughts of Peace.  The words Jesus spoke to his troupe asking, "Why  did you doubt?" come back into play again.  This time, Jesus is in the Upper Room giving what amounts to his own eulogy and last will and testament.  And among the gifts he gives, the greatest one is Peace.

The way he frames it is beyond what I usually think about.  John records for us (14:27, NLT) these words, "I am leaving you with a gift - peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid."  Other translations say it's "not like the world's peace" which I interpret to mean the Master is offering something far different than what they've ever experienced.  It's the kind of Peace he had when he was napping in that storm-tossed boat.

Life on the Crooked Path means storms.  That's a fact I can't turn away from or ignore.  But my Divine Brother has promised me two things that I can count on during those storms, no matter what their source.  He says he'll be with me through them.  He may not stop them all like he did in that Gospel story, but he's not going to leave the boat.  And he gives me Peace - not some temporary fix, mind you - a lasting, deep Peace that reaches to the depth of my soul.  I just need to bring my storm to his feet and lay it there.

Dance

I'm reading a lot of C.S. Lewis lately as the Sunday School class I teach is working through Mere Christianity.  This week's portion is the essay he titled "Good Infection" (Book 4, chapter 4) and he's continuing his efforts to try and convey the Three-Personal-God to us.  He's striking up images and analogies that make me think (and make my brain hurt at times), and he's exciting the senses with many of them.  Lewis talks about Eternal Love being the pre-existing basis for the Father begetting (not making, mind you) the Son and that Love being the perfect expression as well.  And it's all in some sort of perpetual motion that he likens to "a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama.  Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance."

No, I don't think that's irreverent at all.  I think it rather captures things in a unique way that perhaps we can see from our human perspective.  We see "the dance" in the way our solar system rotates and moves through time and the seasons.  We see it in the way our own Earth prepares in the coming weeks to "sleep" for a season so it can awaken to new life.  And we see it in children dancing perhaps demonstrating the purest reflection of all.

Now, here's the great part.  This "Triune Dance" Lewis eludes to has been going on since before there even was time.  It's the communion between Father, Son and Spirit that not only gives life and motion but is life and motion!  It is the heart of the Story where God the Author writes us a part and then enters the story himself to win us back.  And it all comes because he wants to show us who he is and to invite us to come back and join in the dance like we were designed to in the first place.  When we do that, we'll dance with the reckless abandon that only children know.  We'll return to that place of innocence that looked so foreign but now feels like home.

The Crooked Path provides many opportunities to see life and motion and dance.  If I stop to take them in, I can see the image of what is yet to come.  My steps should grow a little lighter when that happens ... and I might just do a little dance myself.

God - Raised to the Third Power

"God created human beings;
he created them godlike,

Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female"

Genesis 1:27, The Message

I learned some new perspective on things these past couple of weeks.  First, I learned that God provides in his timing and it is what we need.  Think of the concepts of daily bread or manna and you'll get the picture.  I have some work again after a bit of a drought.  I have no idea if it will be permanent or if I want it to be.  But I know it is provision from a loving Father and that's what's important.  But bigger than that, I've learned something new by the way of my C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity study.  And it isn't so much the concept that is new as it is the perspective I've been given.

We've had it drilled into our heads that God is a Trinity since we first saw our names on a Sunday School role.  I was in parochial school since the 4th grade and had it hammered home more than many.  But the concept seemed a bit "out there" and this past week, I believe I understand why.  It's because it is "out there" and that's the way it will stay.  And a simple geometry lesson brought home the concept for me in a fresh way.

If life is a one-dimensional world, then all we see are simple lines.  There is no shape defined and that's what the world is.  But add a second dimension and we get shapes - shapes made up of lines.  It is possible then, to draw a square and see it as it's own thing.  But we overlook that it actually is four perfectly equal lines arranged in a certain way.  Move to the next level of complexity, and you can take four squares and assemble a cube.  That three-dimensional world takes on all kinds of possibilities that were never conceivable in the one-dimensional existence, yet even the cube retains the traces - the image if you will - of the simple lines that make it up.

God, all three persons or personalities of him, exists in a far more complex dimension than we do.  Yet, when he created us, he said among himself (yes, you read that right), "Let's put the image of us in what we create.  Let's put traces of our divine dimension and existence inside this man so he will have the opportunity, at some point, to see he is a reflection of us."  And so we have what we read in Genesis 1 about God breathing his life into a lower, less complex dimension and it forever having the shadow of God inside it.

Now, to make it even more bizarre - and I say that in a good way - God doesn't stop at that.  Knowing full well this creatures choice will be his undoing, God's second person reduces himself to the dimension of the created world, proves who is king once and for all, and provides a redemption.  He invites us to live out our current existence in his grace so that we can one day transcend this feeble dimensional existence and go on to live forever in his dimension, seeing him face-to-face.  And that, is one of the "mere" points of Christianity.

My Crooked Path is so far beneath where God dwells.  And yet he chooses to enter my world and invite me into relationship.  He offers me the gift of a different life now and the promise of something beyond my imagination to come.  It's as if a cube could somehow tell a line, "I know you can't see it at the moment, but you will escape your limited dimension and know exactly who and what I am.  Just trust me on that."  OK, God, I think I can handle that much.

Father

(Matthew 6:9-13, NLT) Pray like this:

"Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

May your Kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins,

as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don’t let us yield to temptation,

but rescue us from the evil one."

It's quite a thought on any day, let alone the day that marks what would have been my Dad's 85th birthday.  Jesus has just brought a whole new dimension to the way his rag-tag band of disciples are to think ... and pray.  They are to approach the Almighty, Sovereign God of the Universe as they would their own fathers.  I'm quite sure they are dumbstruck at the mere thought, let alone carrying out simple but elegant prayer.

And we're not talking some distant, hard-hearted patriarch here.  We're talking an intimate, present, active person ... the one they could call "Abba" or "Daddy".  He isn't angry or judging (like a friend of mine who is struggling with a pastor that seems to represent that point of view).  He's welcoming and accepting.  Sure he is holy, but he makes that holiness accessible to us in a wonderfully simple way.  And he calls us his children, allowing us to address him in this very personal way ... "Our Father ..."

I've lived more of my life without my Dad than I did with him.  It has softened a bit over the nearly 27 years, but it still embodies a rather deep ache - a longing for something lost.  If I let the concept Jesus is offering sink in - really take over my soul - I will find some level of relief for that ache.  I will look ahead on my Crooked Path and know that my Father is very real, very accessible, and very interested in me.  He loves to hear me pray a simple prayer like this one.  I can trust him as I would my own Dad because that's who he is.

A Life Lesson from an Impressive Nineteen-Year-Old

"So Christ has truly set us free.

Now make sure that you stay free

 and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law."

(Galatians 5:1, NLT)

The Galatians had a pretty significant problem.  If you have access to an audio version of the book, it only takes about 20 minutes to listen to the whole thing and, if you do, I think you'll see the same thing I do.  There problem was a focus on external stuff rather than on their own hearts and the redemptive freedom offered in Christ.  They were so hung up on "lists" that Paul has to lay down to opposing lists, one of which we commonly call the Fruit of the Spirit.  They were missing the best and biggest thing - complete freedom from who they were.

Today, in the space of about 15 minutes, this lesson was hammered home to me (and others at church with me) by a 19-year-old college girl.  She spoke of things happening on her campus (a state school, mind you) and then she played a video she made about her past.  I won't go into the details, but the phrase that stuck out was this:

"What am I trying NOT to feel?"

I'm still chewing on this.  When I run toward some empty "stuff" instead of engage, why don't I ask myself this same question?  If this young lady can learn in the space of a few years that Jesus offers freedom from who we were and invites us to abandon ourselves to him, why do any of us keep stuffing hollow garbage into our souls?  By searching for "something else" we are looking to capture a feeling and it won't happen.  It is all anti-feeling.

The Crooked Path promises one thing.  God walks with me in the person of my Divine Older Brother and stands ahead of me calling as my Father.  Embracing that and giving up all my externals is the only way to find freedom in its fullest.  I think I finally saw that clearly today ... and it took a wise 19-year-old to point it out.  I guess an old dog can learn after all.

Knowing for Certain

Since we believe human testimony, surely we can believe the greater testimony that comes from God. And God has testified about his Son.  All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don’t believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don’t believe what God has testified about his Son.  And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.  I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.  (1 John 5:9-13, NLT)

It was a thought that really never crossed my mind.  But as it was laid before me, I saw it for what it is.  The simple, passionate message brought by one of my pastors (Dan) cut through all the "theory" about eternal life and made it real - perhaps for the first time.  I realized this isn't some vague, theological concept that we will experience at some future point.  No, John is telling people that they have eternal life now.  Peterson even amplifies this further by rendering part of the passage this way:  "[That you] will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion."  What a concept!

This set my mind thinking about the exchange between Jesus and Martha in John 11 (perhaps John was thinking about it as well when he wrote the passage above).  In the middle of what seems to be death and certainly is human despair, we see Life speaking life into Death and Death melts away so far that Lazarus walks out of the grave.  Martha thought "eternal life" was something that comes later.  Jesus told her, and then demonstrated, that was far from true.  Life, the real and eternal life that endures, was right there all the time.

So it is with me as I travel my Crooked Path.  Eternal life isn't some future concept.  It isn't an illusion at all.  It is very, very real and present right now.  Certainly this mortal shell will pass away.  I was reminded of that this week when the mother of a friend lost her temporal battle with cancer.  But she didn't gain eternal life when she died.  She just moved on to the next stage of experiencing it.  And that happens because we have eternal life right here and now.  I know it's true because Jesus said it - which was kind of John's point in the first place.

Radically Offsensive

“When he was still a long way off, his father saw him.

His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.”

(Luke 15:20, The Message)

If you understand the historical context, you begin to realize that the story was intended to be radically offensive to the listeners.  A well-to-do Middle Eastern man of that era would NEVER hike up his robes and run, much less to go out and meet a son who had asked him, quite literally, to act like he was dead and give said son his ⅓ of the estate.  It just wasn’t done.  Besides, if that son had any sense of pride at all, he either would have died in that far-off country or at least never come back to his home town and risk disgracing anyone involved.  No, it was definitely offensive - and that’s what Jesus had in mind when he told it.

But there is another concept that comes into play, and it’s one that isn’t in the text.  I hadn’t considered it until I picked up Tim Keller’s “The Prodigal God” and read it.  Keller introduces a chapter about the true elder brother.  And that’s where the story really shows the heart of God our Father.

The elder brother in the parable was disdainful, both of his brother’s actions and his father’s grief.  He wanted little more than to forget it all and move on.  He was now lord of the manor - all that was belonged to him legally.  And we all know what Jesus had to say about that attitude.

But consider the concept of the true elder brother.  Consider one who, upon seeing the grief of his father, took it upon himself to seek out the younger brother and bring him back home.  Acting at his own expense, he sets off to that far country and risks everything to show the father’s love (and his own) in attempting to win his estranged brother back.  

And, as Keller points out, that’s exactly what Christ did for us.  At his own great expense, he carried out the plan to rescue us.  He does it because the Father’s heart is broken.  The True Elder Brother of us all, comes to us in our darkest hour and offers redemption.  What a beautiful story - and what a radically offensive picture of a love we can barely comprehend.

As I travel the Crooked Path, I do so as a redeemed younger brother of Jesus.  The price he paid to give me the opportunity to reconnect with the Father was beyond measure.  Yet he did it willingly … and that’s quite a radical thought for my journey.