Interactive and Conversational

I was up last night praying through some things going on in my world. Not worried prayers, not praying with anxiety (which I can do pretty well at times), but more conversational, more "Lord God, I can't wait to find out how this works out." He led me to some amazing things in Scripture, all concerned with our actually having an interactive, conversational relationship with Him, where He speaks to us personally, actively, clearly, and may at times confirm or encourage but at other times directs specifically and expects our response back to Him, like the way Samuel conversed with God in 1 Samuel 16. God told him to go to Jesse's house in Bethlehem to anoint a new king over Israel. Afraid of Saul, Samuel doesn't immediately go , but asks God how he's supposed to leave with Saul on his back. He's not doubting God or distrusting Him. It actually is an incredible act of faith to interact with the Lord God and effectively say, "Okay, I'll do this, but how am I to proceed? I believe that you'll do this and that you're out for the success of it, so I want to be on board with it, too." So, God gives Samuel him a scheme: to take a heifer and say that he's going to go sacrifice for the Lord. And so he does it. That's pretty specific, you know? And it's scheming, I mean God doesn't tell him to lie, exactly, but God's directive never initially included anything about sacrificing to the Lord. He's leading Samuel to be as wise as a serpent and then he tells him how to proceed step-by-step to follow God, almost as if God is in front of him walking through a wood, across a creek maybe, and He looks back at his son following and says, "Place your foot right there on that rock. It's a bit wobbly, so be careful. And then on that bit of log -- careful, it's slippery, and then that last rock and then you're home free". I dunno. That's pretty awesome to me.

After reading that I just sat in my chair. It was late but I was too excited to sleep. Earlier I had asked God to let me rest, to help me sleep but "keep my heart awake" (Songs 5:2), but I couldn't. I was "swooning," in the words of John Bunyan. He wrote in "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners" that after reading of the reality of his new righteous life with God (no longer sinful as default, but rather made right and whole and good), "I thought that the glory of these words was then so weighty on me, that I was both once and twice ready to swoon as I sat, yet not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace."

Yup, same here.

"We stand within a community of the spoken to," says Willard. Whoa. I just... my heart beats wildly with that thought, with the experience of that. I can't believe (I can, but you understand the expression) that God would be that intimate with us and caring and desirous of interaction, of wrestling even, with what He says. I love this. I love this reality.

Too Close for Comfort

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

-Psalm 8:1, 3-4

Can you imagine what the enormous black sky, peppered with a million bursts of light, must have looked like to David as he peered into it? No other lights to compete with its glory. No light pollution to drown out its splendor. The only noises those of midnight bugs and bats and prairie animals. He is overcome as he beholds its magnificence. His heart explodes with wonder as he ponders it all. Its vastness. Its beauty. That God had time and creativity and enormity enough to create it all – not just once upon a time, but this night, right then where David was. Unique. Never again would he behold it exactly as it was then. Everything would move. All would be different the next evening as God set out again to lavish his universe with His creative passion, expressing Himself to his children, pursuing their hearts. David got it. In this moment, he was captured by this God-of-Love. He recognized God’s pursuit and wooing, and collapsed into it.

“What is man that you are mindful of him?” he asks as his jaw drops and his breath stops in his throat. “How could you even have time for man?” his heart wonders. And yet… And yet… God not only had time for David, but he did it all for him, to have his heart.

But for our modern, sophisticated, educated minds it is too much to think that God would create such a lavish universe just for us. Sadly, we come up with anything we can to distance ourselves from His passion: scientific reasoning to explain away His creations, stuffy academic postulations to push back His passion; equations and formulations to eradicate His desire. Explain it away. Keep our distance. We are "enlightened" to learn that the earth is not the center of the universe at all and translate it to mean that we are not the center of God's heart or longing or the point of His creation. We become insignificant specks of particles on an insignificant planet held in place by the awesome force of gravitation (not the power of God Himself) in an insignificant corner of one of a limitless number of universes. To translate, it means that we have become not the center of a cosmic battle, an invasion, a rescue, a Redemption, but meaningless and pointless accidents in a sea of atoms and subatomic particles.

We come up with our scientific posits because the Reality is too much to bear, much like those in C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory who cannot bear to walk upon the grasses of heaven as they are because the blades are so substantive, and they only shadowy wraiths, that they puncture their feet and cause great pain. They are unwilling to grow in their soul-substance by standing in the blinding light of the unbearable glory. We rearrange the order of the Psalm to read not "what is man that God is mindful of him," but "what is God that man is mindful of him?"

I understand. I do the same thing. I often wake and rush off to my checklist of things to do rather than stand or kneel in the Presence of the Creator. I dabble in distraction rather than confide or be confided in by this Friend (see Psalm 25:14), to know His deep heart. I work to secure my place in the world and with the people around me rather than revere the Lord God (revere = adore, applaud, treasure, worship, wonder at, fall for, cherish, embrace, cleave to, enjoy, desire, grab a hold of, run after). I suspect we all do this. The disciples did. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John witnessed the astounding glory of Jesus revealed. Jesus took off his veil, so-to-speak, and Moses and Elijah were there, too, in their full glory. Peter and the other two were terrified and fell face down on the ground. Peter told Jesus that they could erect three shelters, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses (Matthew 17:4). Tents, in other words. Tabernacles. Something to hide their blinding glory from the three disciples. It was too much for them. God honored their fear and sent a cloud to veil the glory from them. He will, it seems, only give us as much of Himself as we can bear.

But what happens when we pause and really consider even the work of creation? Spend half an hour doing nothing at all except staring out into the starry night. Don’t try to discover the constellations or name the objects you see; just let yourself be pierced. What do we discover when we do? That God is glorious. Copernicus gave us the heliocentric model of the solar system, that is, that the sun is the center and we orbit around it. We took that to mean that we were not the center of anything at all. That is where we got it wrong. Deadly wrong.

We are the center of more than we think.

Why would the earth need to “tremble before Him” (Psalm 96:9)? Why would “the heavens rejoice” and the “fields be jubilant” and the “trees of the forest sing for joy” (v. 11 & 12, 1 Chronicles 16:33)? Because the Lord “comes to judge… the peoples in his truth.” Or, in the words of Eugene Peterson’s Message paraphrase, “He comes to set everything right on earth.” Because of His redemption and rescue of His people… because He has set His heart on bringing us home (see Isaiah 44:23). Everything that God does is to bring us back to Himself (see Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God has made us for Himself. Adam and Eve lived in glorious union with God. But God’s enemy and ours came and stole God’s love from Him. Adam and Even fell from grace – that is, they fell from God. And now, a cosmic battle has ensued in which God has come with fierce intention to free us back for Himself. We are the center of a great cosmic battle. All of the earth is to shout to God with joy, you see, because He is powerful enough to cause His enemies to “cringe before Him” (Psalm 66:3) and to win us back from them. He is not only a restless Lover in pursuit of the bride that His enemy took from Him (that’s us), but He is also a Warrior with enough courage and power and strength to win us back. He will find us. He will win us. He will have us. Jesus coming, dying, and rising again has proven that much.

What is man that God is mindful of Him? Man is in fact God’s whole desire. His whole heart is bent on us. On you and me. Intimacy and communion and the adventure of His love is the whole purpose of God for us. That is the purpose for which we have been called (Romans 8:28).

God will give us as much of Himself as we will allow. Jesus is the glory of God fully revealed to us (Colossians 1:15). Through Him we can approach even God's throne with confidence and boldness, without fear or hesitation or reserve (Hebrews 4:16). We can come back to our Lover. We can come back home. This is the invitation of God to us through Jesus. This is our place. This is the beginning of our life -- the adventure of walking with God.

Psalm 23, Refurbished

Psalm 23, paraphrased by Dena Dyer:



The Lord is my shepherd—
In the midst of the war on drugs,
the war on terrorism,
and the spiritual warfare in my soul.
I shall not want—
with him as my Savior and provider,
I'm perfectly content.
While others strive for and worry about
a bigger house, a newer car, designer clothes and jewels,
I will rest in my calling and purpose—
knowing God and making him known
in this hurting, harried world.

He leads me beside still waters—
Cool, clear streams of peace
in the midst of orange alerts, space shuttle disasters, stock market fluctuations,
and baggage inspections.
When emotional baggage threatens my sanity,
he renews my mind.
When grief and despair descend,
he heals my heart.
When doubts and fears assail my tranquility,
he restores my soul.

Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death—
filled with threats of biological and chemical warfare,
nuclear bombs and ghosts of past regrets—
I will fear no evil.
Not AIDS, or smallpox,
not child abductors or doomsayers.
Thou art with me—
even when I feel alone in a crowd.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me—
especially when I read the paper or watch the news.
(Why do I read or watch? I know the ending!)
Thou anointest my head with oil—
the oil of gladness and peace,
with a calling to be
light and joy in a dark, fear-filled world.
Help me to be a peace-full, grace-full person, Lord,
in the midst of a chaotic world.

Truly, my cup runneth over.
You have blessed me so much!
I have friends and family who love me,
a warm bed, freedom, grace, (more than) enough food,
and a fulfilling purpose.

Surely goodness and mercy—
your grace, love, forgiveness and compassion—
shall follow me all the days of my life.
Every second, every minute, you are before and
behind me, with your arms of love outstretched.

And one day—when all wars and pain,
terror and shame
will come to an end . . . (Come quickly, Lord Jesus!)
I will dwell in the house of the Lord,
your glorious kingdom,
where you've prepared an eternal home for me.

Fathered

A week ago a friend and I canoed a portion of the Buffalo in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. One of the few remaining rivers in the lower 48 without dams, it snakes its way through the wilderness, buffeted on its sides by massive vertical limestone bluffs. Riding atop its waters is like something out of an epic tale – The Mission, maybe, or Lord of the Rings, with its strong currents, its green-and-blue glass-water pools, its quick turns and deep forests flanking its beaches. It’s a compelling beauty.

Usually.

We chose to go on this particular day because the waters were up, and the trip promised to be more demanding of us. We would barter leisure for the adventure of stronger currents and swifter waters – an opportunity for us to roll up our sleeves and be challenged a bit against the claim the Buffalo has on this land. Sometimes we need to be overtaken by beauty, to let it reach us and fill us with wonder and awe. And there are other times when we need to struggle and subdue physically as a way, perhaps, to wrestle with and prevail over something within. Passivity. Comfort. Safety. Ennui. Indifference. Dispassion.

We had checked the weather before we left. It would not be a hot day, or a sunny one, but overcast. A front was moving in, but was still far enough away that we felt like we could beat the thunderstorm coming on its heels.

We were wrong.

Very wrong.

In fact, we were barely a mile into our 9-mile excursion when the rain came. It was at first almost nice, refreshing. But within the hour the heavens opened and we found ourselves in a monsoon, at times so thick we could barely see in front of us. The blast of thunder reverberated and replied against the bluffs and cliffs. Other canoers had beached and were waiting it out under canopies and cliffs, but we continued on. Paddling hard, strategizing our way on the rougher waters as well as we could in limited visibility, we finished the course in just over two hours, cold and soaked to the bone, battered by the wind and rain, racked with aching and tired muscles, and feeling very much alive. We couldn’t have been happier with our journey. Something in us felt… stronger. I think you could say we felt honored, even, to have had the chance to battle with the wilds of the river and weather. And to be defeated by it.

And I knew that this is so much what God is up to in our lives. This is what He had planned for us that day, to be tested and called out of our safety and comfort into the wilds of His passion and life. To come alive as men.

Robert W. Service in his poem Law of the Yukon gave voice to the Canadian wilderness, to its demand of those who would brave its earth and rock.

This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane --
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat…
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat…

The same could be said of the Father’s intention for his sons and, dare I say it, for his daughters. When Job speaks of this in 23:10, he says “when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” In other words, God will prove him true. It was what God was about in Job’s life, and it is what He is doing in our own: giving us the dignity and honor of a place with Him. He knows who we are, and who we are to become, and He is ruthless in bringing that out in us. We will, indeed, come forth as gold.

It was over soda the evening of the trip that I asked another friend, “What would you do if men that you loved and respected showed up at your door one day and said, ‘Get your clothes packed and come with us. We have something planned for you,’ and then they just turned and waited for you. You had no idea where you were going, but you trusted these men. You went with them to find out that they had planned something very specific for your training and for your initiation. You didn’t pay for it; it wasn’t like going to a retreat where others were receiving the same thing. It was for you, personally. You knew for certain that their only motive was one of belief and anticipation and gut-level courage; believe in who you are and are to become, anticipation to see it fulfilled, and the guts to pursue your heart and speak into your life with theirs to make it happen. What would you do with that?”

Because, you see, that is a picture of fathering, of invitation into manhood, of a fellowship born not only out of “nurturing” friendships as brothers, but also look-you-in-the-eyes recognition of your truer name and identity by those in some way gifted with the wisdom and sacrificial love to help take you there, by fathers.

We live so much in a fatherless culture, and so this sounds foreign to our ears, strange even.* The mystery of initiation is something the systems of this world, in cooperation with and under the influence of the Evil One, has all but destroyed. But it is needed… at any age. 10. 14. 25. 36. 49. 62. 77. 88. We need to be fathered like this, and we need to know what this means. How, if we do not experience fathering, can we know who a father is to be, and if we do not know who a father is to be – our Father – then how are we to know who we are to be as sons and daughters? The entire rich tradition of father-son language and expression in the entire Bible becomes, then, cute, cuddly, nice, a happy illustration in a Sunday sermon. It remains only a metaphor, but never becomes reality.

Nothing that Jesus ever said was or is to remain a metaphor. “Heal the lame,” he preached – and then He did it. “I am the Son of God,” he proclaimed – and he was born of his Father’s life into a woman. “Seek me, and I will show you great and unsearchable things that you do not know.” And then He does. In Him, all things exist, as rock-hard reality (Romans 11:36).

I think the Father is up to this more than we may realize in our lives, this very intentional and pseudo-self-destroying, poser-shattering pursuit, this look-you-in-the-eye engagement in which He refuses to treat us as anything less than His sons and daughters – children that are less and less still suckling the breast and more and more tearing the meat off the bone; who less and less crawl and wriggle and more and more stand tall, walk upright, and run without growing weary; who less and less cry and demand and pout but more and more gather our growing strength to work alongside our Father and enjoy with Him the fruits of our labor. Men and women girt for combat and grit to the core. We are growing to inherit this Kingdom, where all is ordered by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and where life to the full – the lush greens of the field, our lungs bursting with free air and the fresh fruits bursting from the vine, and the laughter and joy of shared intimacy and the adventure of it all beyond our wildest imaginings – is ours not by right but by spoils, by victory, and the winning of this life by battle has made it all the more glorious because now we know beyond any and all shadow of doubt how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called sons and daughters of God (1 John 3:1).

And I think that as we grow up in Him we are to turn toward one another and offer the same invitation – not an invitation to simply repeat a prayer or to walk the aisle and confess your sin through shameful tears, but an invitation to become the men and women we have been destined to become, won for us through Jesus. Beyond repentance into genuine, steady growth by the disciplines of a loving Father (Proverbs 3:12) and by others maturing in their journeys to the point that they can offer to the less mature something of wisdom and counsel and, believing enough in the treasure that Jesus came to rescue and free, recognize the weight of love and desire and delight the Father has for His sons and daughters (Proverbs 6:20) and go after others’ hearts in this way – seek them out, pursue them, give themselves for others as Jesus does and lead them into.

I think the Father is raising us up into that – fathering us and teaching us to naturally father others. We are not alone, for certainly He is our teacher in it all. And He is also our example. This is what it means to love, because He loved us this way (1 John 4:19). And this is how we know what it is to be brothers as well as fathers, brothers who stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the journey and back-to-back in the battle (Hebrews 2:17).

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless,” says James, is “to look after orphans and widows” (1:27), those left after fathers and husbands have gone. Those remaining after fathers and husbands have been taken out through war and disease and the cancers of this world. My friends, that describes us all. We are all in need of real men who can lead us to become fathers and husbands again. If we are to practice the “pure religion” that God recognizes as right and if we are to grow to become men and women ourselves, friends of God for whom He can entrust the keys of the Kingdom, we need to be led there.

It is for hope of this that we remain authentic with and true before God (1 John 3:3).

In The Man Watching, Russian poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote,

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names…
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us…
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

That day on the river God was out to decisively defeat us, and we came away “proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand,” as Rilke goes on to say.

The Father is raising us as sons. “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons... Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” -Hebrews 12:7, 12-13

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*In “Healing the Masculine Soul,” Gordon Dalbey tells the story of a common initiation rite for a boy living in Nigeria. To our mostly Western ears it sounds uncivilized, something our advanced culture has moved beyond. But notice the efforts of nearly every religious group to in some way offer what was missed through initiation (the process of growing up). Learning from a father what it means to be a father has been replaced by books full of parenting tips. How we “do” the spiritual life, too, has largely been cataloged and chronicled as a set of steps and procedures, mainly because we have so few who can lead us by experience, example, and wisdom. We have few fathers. Biblical stories will only make sense if we see them as one generation passing down something crucial to the next, an older to a younger, even (and especially) God to his friends, to those He wants to relate to face-to-face (gasp, heretical!).

Here is the account from Dalbey:

“In the rural village where the son lived, the father, who often has several wives, lives by himself in his own hut, while his wives each have their own hut nearby. A boy lives with his mother until he reaches the proper age, usually about eleven. Then, one evening the village elders and the boy’s father appear outside the mother’s hut, together with a drummer and a man wearing a large mask over his head. The word for ‘mask’ is the same as that for ‘spirit”; so as the masked man steps out first from among the men both to call the boy out and to usher him from the mother to the men, the spiritual dimension of manhood is understood from the outset as primary and essential.

At the signal of a sharp drumbeat, the mask/spirit approaches the mother’s door, dancing and shouting, “Come out! Come out! After several retreats and then thrusting forth to announce his presence and intention, the mask/spirit rushes the mother’s door and beats upon it loudly: Bam! Bam! Bam! “Come out! Son of our people, come out!”

Eventually – perhaps after two or three such “approaches” by the mask/spirit – the mother opens the door tentatively, shielding her son behind her. At this the elders and the father join in the chant: “Come out, son of our people, come out!” Significantly, the mask/spirit does not enter the mother’s hut to seize the boy, but rather waits for him to step out on his own from behind his mother. Louder the elders chant, sharper the drum beats sound, more feverishly the mask/spirit dances, and more firmly the mother protests – until finally, she steps aside. It is the moment of truth for every boy in the village.

Standing there before the threshold of his mothers’ house, he hesitates. Beside and behind him holds all that is tender and reassuring and known and secure. Before him, and within him, cries out all that is mysterious and sharp, and true. “Come out!” the men shout. Hesitantly, wanting but not daring to look at his mother, the boy steps forth from the dark womb of his mother’s hut into the outside – born again, this time the child of the father. At once the mask/spirit seizes his wrist and rushes him over to the father and the elders – lest in his fear he have second thoughts – where he is joined with the other boys called out for that year’s initiation. Behind him, a wail of mourning breaks forth from his mother; the men around him burst into a victory shout. The drummer picks up the sharp and decisive beat, and the group moves on to the next boy’s hut. Once gathered, the group of boys is led out of the village to a special place in the forest, where they are instructed for the next two weeks. Manly skills from thatch roof construction to hunting are taught first. Then the boy enters into a period of fasting for several days, thus turning the focus from physical satisfaction to spiritual discipline. During this time, the boy is circumcised and while he is healing, taught clan history. Upon returning from the wilderness ordeal, the boy is regarded as a young man; when he enters the village, his mother is not permitted to greet him. He proceeds directly to his own house, separate from his mother’s; that evening he receives from his father a gun, a piece of farmland, and a hoe – his stake with which to establish his manhood in the clan” (p 51-52)

Where They Lie

For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.
–Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 19:10)

I’m pierced by how personal the gospel is. I mean, how different it applies to each of us in such specific ways, and yet it is the only salvation for us all, this daring rescue by Jesus. I’ve come to believe that he was about more than just granting me some kind of asylum, just “letting me in” when I die. And frankly, I’ve always heard this bit of Scripture quoted from Luke 19:10 to mean that I was a lost bit of wretch, but now with Jesus appearing on the scene I can be a “found” bit of wretch, with “found” meaning still really messed up on the inside, but I get to spend all my messed-up days playing harps on clouds in heaven when I die.

Yea.

This, my friends, isn’t what Jesus was saying. The good Jews of Jesus’ day would have well recognized who Jesus was talking about when he referred to himself as the “Son of Man.” He was referencing the Old Testament accounts and prophecies that used the phrase and referred to the Messiah, such as Daniel 7:13-14. But He was communicating so much more than just a simple nod to the reality of his divinity.

Let’s catch up with Jesus there at Zacchaeus’s house where he made the statement.

All right. Jesus comes into the town of Jericho, and he is swarmed (as was usual) by this crowd that were a mix of people who wanted to see Jesus do something really cool (they were there because he was happenin’) and those who were genuinely desperate for Jesus to heal them, or touch them, or speak to them. This day, it was the man in the sycamore tree that caught Jesus’ eye.

We know a lot about Zacchaeus, even in the brief description we have of him. He was a tax collector, and he was wealthy. Which means that he was a conniving scoundrel who stole from anyone he could, a traitor to his people, and apparently pretty successful at it. Oh, and he was short. And he made good tree-climbing decisions – sycamores are easy trees to climb.

So Jesus walks right up to the tree. Can you imagine what Zacchaeus must have been thinking? He only wanted to get a better lay of the land here. He only wanted to see who this man that everyone was going on about really was. And having the great people-reading skills they taught him in dirty-trickster-traitor school, I’m sure he felt pretty confident he could size this fella up pretty easily.

Except that Jesus came right up to him. And worse than that, he singled him out in the crowd. But maybe worst of all, Jesus invited himself over for dinner.

But, and here’s where something amazing happens that we have to infer from what we read here, Zacchaeus welcomed him gladly. And more than that, he made amends from his heart for what he had done in his identity as a traitor-thief. He gave it up – not the actions, but the identity and security of being wealthy and untouchable. Something really deep and very real was sought out, was reached, was touched, and was healed in Zacchaeus. Maybe it was that Jesus simply said his name – how did he know who he was? Had he always? Did Jesus know him whenever he had ripped that old widow off and stole everything she owned? And whenever he had sold his friend’s life off for a few pounds of silver? And whenever he had cursed God under his breath when he thought to himself, “I can never be touched – I am wealthy.” And yet Jesus came to him, yet he singled him out, yet he still wanted to be with this “sinner”?

Whatever happened, you have to admit it was pretty dramatic. And it happened pretty fast. That’s when we catch Jesus saying that he came “to seek and save what was lost.”

Now, notice the word he uses. He says what was lost. Not who. What. In other places, he means who. But not here. He means what.

What does he mean “what”? What “what”?

Back to how personal the gospel is. The “what” that Jesus sought out and saved in Zacchaeus was a place in him, a part in him, something shattered, broken, tossed aside, frozen, stolen. Something deep (look how transforming it was for him to have it back) and something crucial (he could not recognize God without it) and something personal (so much so, that we easily miss what just took place).

This is not an isolated incident in the gospels, by the way. Jesus did something similar with Peter in John 21 and the woman at the well in John 4 and Nicodemus in John 3. It’s all over the place, in fact. You just need eyes to see this really beautiful and really restorative and really personal aspect of the ministry of Jesus.

Okay, so a few minutes ago I was standing in my bathroom looking at myself in the mirror and this realization hits me that I am afraid. I cannot name the fear. I do not know what it is about or where it comes from, but I do know, at least, that I often suppress it or ignore it or just try to bury it. Tonight I let it rise from within me and I asked Jesus what was going on there. It is the result of some lies, hidden and subtle and undiscovered, that I have bitten into, that I have believed – about something really important – God’s heart, maybe, or my own, or my place with Him. I simply prayed, “Come, Jesus, show me where they lie.”

Nothing happened. Not yet. But I know it will. It has countless times before. This is what Jesus does to “seek and save” those lost places in us. To bring “the truth in the inmost parts” (Psalm 51:6). He will raise issues, bring up fears or hurts. He will take us back to where something in our souls was shattered like glass in order to find the pieces and bring them all back together, melted back into one whole piece by the fires of his Spirit. It’s the way Eugene Peterson phrases what Paul says in Ephesians 3, that we are to be made “whole and holy” by God’s love, or the Amplified’s translation of Ephesians 2:21: “In Him the whole structure is joined (bound, welded) together harmoniously, and it continues to rise (grow, increase) into a holy temple in the Lord.”

It is a glorious restoration. God is rebuilding the temple, and we are His glorious ruins. Stone by stone, piece by piece, He is bringing us back together within ourselves and within each other that we may be “for the display of His splendor” (Isaiah 61:3) – healing, rescuing, speaking our names, calling us, seeking out the broken pieces, showing us “where they lie” that we might know the truth that sets free – really free. That like Zacchaeus, salvation (life!) may come to us.

Into Battle

Oswald Chambers once said that if you want to learn how to pray, read the Psalms. I tend to agree. You’ll find there those who really are the passionate and violent at heart, a quality that Jesus said you would need if you were to grasp ahold of the Kingdom (Matthew 11:12).

This morning I was praying a request that’s become commonplace for me, but so crucial, that I would be given intercessors – men and women who would be drawn to pray for my wife and I. It’s so, so vital for us at this point in our lives. With that in mind, I thought I’d stir up a bit of what Christ is leading us into praying for our lives together and for his Kingdom come through us. This is how we often pray for our friends, because it is how we need to be prayed for by them.

That we would enter into full work of the Cross (Gal. 2:20; Col. 2:13-15), the Resurrection (Rom. 5:17; 6:5-11), and the Ascension (Matt. 28:18; Eph. 2:4-6, 1 Jn. 4:4) of Jesus.

That the Holy Spirit to be so near to us, our very present and wonderful Counselor, Comforter, Strength and Guide (John 14:16, Acts 9:31, Eph. 1:13, John 15:16, John 16:13).

That we would have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we would know God better (Eph. 1:17) and that we would keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). We want that we would walk in the fullness of the giftings given us (Eph. 4:8, Eph. 1:3) and that we would be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power (Eph. 6:10-18).

In the same authority as heirs, we summon angels on our behalf (these "Mighty One" as the Psalms portray them, Psalm 103:20) to serve as ministering ones of for us (Heb. 1:14). Remember that it only took two of these glorious creatures to destroy all of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19). Ask for them over us.

Don't buy into the lie that we're supposed to be bleary-eyed and listless, so we should just endure whatever comes to us with smiles. Some hardship is given us so that our hope and love may deepen and our reliance on Christ may grow, yes (Romans 5:3-5, 2 Cor 1:9). But, sadly, some we endure for no other reason than we haven't taken our place yet in Christ or that others haven't been raised to pray for us. Don't glory in that. Rather, pray. Without ceasing, pray.

I want life for my family and friends. More life, more and more life (John 10:10). I want all our brokenness redeemed and our hearts restored, all blindness healed, freedom proclaimed for the prisoners, and the Good News given to us each. (Acts 16:40, Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18-19). I want this. Want it with me, and beat the ground with your desire (John 1:38, 2 Kings 13:18-19).

Paul had his own intercessors, raising the shield of faith and sword of the Spirit on his behalf. He talks about his time in Asia and how some great oppression had him in despair and the grip of death. In his letter to the church in Corinth, he recalls this time, finishing with "On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers..." (found in 2 Cor. 1:8-11).

The Living God has raised up intercessors for us. We are they. One day we'll see that fully. One day we will strip our sleeves and bare our scars and say, "this I took in service of the King in that great battle..." The hits we take for others are for the glory of Jesus, and one day we will share in all of that. That's the invitation. In the meantime, we fight past what we can see, one in spirit, contending as one man for the faith (Phil. 1:27).

And we offer Christ our gratitude for your faith (and with it, vision), for your hope (and from it, courage) and for your love (and though it, passion) - 1 Corinthians 13:13.

Continuing the Conversation

These are the golden sessions, when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze, and our drinks at our elbows, when the whole world – and something beyond the world – opens itself to our minds as we talk, and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are free men and equals, as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time, an affection, mellowed by the years unfolds us. Life, natural life, has no better gift than friendship. Who could have deserved it?
-C.S. Lewis

In an effort to capture that sense of wonder in peering into that something beyond the world that Lewis refers to here, and in a desire to continue the conversation begun so long ago in the depths of eternity past and that we are invited to participate in now, I want to share a bit of where I find myself to be this day.

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths… -Psalm 25:4

I am living right now in one of the most painful and one of the most dangerous times of my life because I know what my calling is – that is to say, I have some familiarity with that great mystery of my heart's presence and place in the Great Drama that is unfolding even now… I know what I am made to do and how I am to walk with God and even where, in a sense, it will be or at least what it will look some time from now to be walking with God. But, I am not currently living in my calling, at least not fully. I mean, I am living in this mystery, but there is so much more to it, and for possibly the first time in my walk with God, I see some of the more that is out there.

This discrepancy between the life I am living and the life I am called to, or at least the life that is offered, is the source of much discontent. It raises some concerns and certainly some questions. Am I not walking there because I am not yet ready? Because I am not walking with God well? Have I made a bad decision or series of decisions that is keeping me from that? Have I gotten lost somehow?

You have made known to me the path of life… -Psalm 16:11

These questions, and of course the confusion from the Evil One and his slew of Lying Tongues as they pounce on that like some wild hyenas on a carcass to shred and tear with their own interpretations and deceit, most accurate describe where I find my heart this morning.

Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps. –Psalm 85:13

In a sense, I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge peering in through the glass on the outside of the dance hall looking into his life prompted by the ghost of Christmas past, with the crucial difference that I am not looking into my past, but into a sort of future, a kind of what-could-be if I walk with God well, a peering further along on this path of life, and it is really exciting, and that the prompting is not coming from a ghost of Christmas but from the Spirit himself that gave us Christmas, the Spirit of God.

God has intrigued me.

Drink Deep

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

Whenever I read the account in John of the woman at the well, I always read it too fast, like it would have taken just a few minutes. And, certainly, it wasn’t a long encounter (I suppose brushes with Life in our midst don’t have to be long, for they last a lifetime). But the more I thought about it, the more it’s like my own encounters with Jesus – with this wild God who is so good it hurts, who loves me so much it takes His life… and mine. Wow! I love this!

Picture what it must have been like for her. She came during the noon hour when the sun was scorching, because as hot as it was, it was not as searing or burning as was the scorn from the other village women. She was not respectable at all. In that time, to live with someone you were not married to was shamed, and to have been married as many times as she had was shunned. No doubt she was lonely, and you can almost see in her tired eyes the dreariness and weariness of trying to find solace from her hurt. The man she lived with she didn’t love; he just kept her company, even if it wasn’t all that good of company to keep. He no doubt didn’t return her love; he only kept the bed warm, even though with an unfamiliar heat. She can’t even remember if she’d met his parents, and –where was he from again?

All this she carries as she saunters and stumbles her way, alone, in disgrace, to the water hole. There’s not much for her to do anymore, and certainly her chances of finding anyone to love –heck, even not despise her—were slim, and shrinking fast. So, in the midday sun of her daily duty she came as she had always come.

Except today, someone else was there. Before she had arrived, he had been sitting there, waiting like the Father to a prodigal son who didn’t know he was even heading home. I can’t imagine her shock to find anyone there that afternoon, more less a man, and even more than that, a Jew in a Samaritan world. What was he doing here? Surely, if he knew who she was, he would mock her as they all do, scoff, and turn his back, walking away. Well, the water awaits and the sun is pounding, so she reaches for the water.

Watching her closely with deep eyes and an excited smile, the man asks (and you can almost hear his playfulness, his joy at what kind of discovery she would soon make) “Will you give me a drink?” Who was this man talking to her? Where was he from? Didn’t he know better than to talk to her? Did she have to explain the social and cultural implications of Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman… and if only he knew…

But he pressed on, piercing something in her with his next words, with his forced movement towards her even though he shouldn’t even be here. Her own thirst was evident from her cracked lips and scorched soul. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Of course that was the line. Now she knew he didn’t have a clue where he was. This was Jacob’s well, for heaven’s sake. Was he so arrogant to think he was greater than him? Even this woman, as shameful her life had been, had an inheritance here, for this well belonged to Jacob himself. How dare him.

Still pressing, still gazing intently at this adulterer, this outsider, this ragamuffin, the man reveals even more, something even crazier than his last statement, something wilder than his eyes burning through the coats and hats this woman had learned to put on and take off against the world’s weather. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirst again,” he spoke. “But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” Finally, she took her eyes off her bucket and directed them into his. “The water I give him,” he continued, “will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

There was an awkward silence, a silence that inevitably happens when someone encounters this man and his words that tear through flesh into cut into the heart. But this woman would not be touched. She had learned her defenses. Cynicism was her bedfellow. In a mocking tone that surprised her by the similarity it had to her own accusers’ torments, she blurted, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

With a smile now fading slightly, with creases on his brow as he considered other identities this woman had taken on, the hurts and lies she had accepted as truth, he leaned forward ever-so-slightly, and in almost a whisper, said, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

She had been here before. Many times. Without missing a beat, and with an aire of defiance to protect her from the coming gasps that would surely come as they always did when she admitted where she was, she said, “I have no husband.”

He knew. But he needed to let her know that he did, and it didn’t phase him. He knew it all, down to the very last hair on her head. And it didn’t phase him. Because greater than her sin, was her identity as the Created, created for Himself. In the next coming years, and in the lives of His disciples to come, He would show by His life and death, and then by the Spirit, that He did not come to condemn, but to give life, and to give it in abundance. He came to offer Himself as the Living Water to souls made only for that.

Just like we so often do when the Truth fillets us open, she points in the distance and aims the conversation at religion in order to take it off herself and her desperate need for Someone to love her. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” But, oh, she didn’t know the meaning of the word worship. Not yet. As the old wedding vows go, “with my body, I thee worship,” God stood there, heart pounding in love toward his bride, anticipating the moment when she would know what real worship was about. “A time is coming,” he said, and the next words he emphasized with his hand almost pounding at his heart, “and has now come,” (and the angels in heaven rejoice with that statement, Jesus’s joy pouring forth), “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

And now, with the bucket long sat aside, with a face drawn in an expression of anticipation born from a heart just learning to desire and dream again, she wondered –but what was she thinking? –but still she wondered… But would he come? Would he really come like they had said he would? The Messiah was supposed to come, but –and what was this man? Who was he, standing here, offering something she had never tasted of before and rarely, especially now, allowed herself to long for? There was something so strange, and yet so… so… so right and true and living in what he was saying. “I know,” she said, embarrassed by even thinking that – what IF it was true at this instant – this could be Him, “I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” With that last statement, she half-wondered if maybe his explanations would sound something like what she had just heard. Not answers, but a deep calling; a drawing; an offering; a living encounter….

I just can’t get over what happens to people when they encounter the Living God, the earth-shaking, doctrine-shattering, reason-exploding, fiercely redeeming, Life-giving God of the Bible. The woman totally forgot why she had come in the first place to the well. She left her jar, left her shame, and ran to tell all her accusers what she had encountered. Could it be? Could it really be the Christ? In a matter of twenty minutes, this woman changed from a loose, desperate village woman to a passionate missionary who cared nothing of her own skin. She had been met by Someone, and this Someone offered her a taste of the Living Water that would leave her thirsting only for more of that Life.

That’s the God I want to encounter. No – bigger than this. Bigger than what I can conceive. I tremble at the thought that God would demand what He did of Abraham, after giving him everything he had wanted, promising him the stars. It scares me to think of what God allowed to happen to Job, and what he wanted from the heart of Jonah. It makes me weep to think that, in the words of my wife, the same God who carved out the Grand Canyon knit me together in my mother’s womb and hems me in, before and behind me. I want to encounter a God that would pour His life into me, and then call me to follow him to a cross. I want to experience the Life that blows away death, the community of fellowship and suffering that brings purpose clearer than the sky on a scorching day. I want to know the Truth that sets free, really free, not that false freedom I try to convince myself is what I really want. I want the Life, the real, abundant Life for which Jesus, with the joy set before Him, endured the cross and scorned its shame.

I want to drink deeply of the Living Water.

For more, read Oswald Chamber's thoughts on the "Impoverished Ministry of Jesus."

Made Alive

It is good to revisit the cross of Jesus and His work there – what it means, what it has done. The writer of Hebrews calls this the "elementary truths" of God's word (5:12) and refers to it as spiritual milk, as for babies. He says that we should grow up into eating the solid food of the teaching of the righteousness of Jesus, and holiness (1 Corinthians 1:30). (The teaching on the righteousness from Christ is the truth that the church in the West has all but missed. God is restoring that to her, though.) But he does not say we should never revisit the work of redemption and rediscover its stunning and rescuing effect on our lives – in fact, the beginning place for the rest that comes through the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ for us. Our new life begins there. We still benefit from milk; we just shouldn't live on it alone.

I was scanning through some Scriptures this morning and came across this one in Colossians: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins…" I remember what it was like to be dead, as Paul puts it. Of course, I didn't know then that I was dead, but I very much was. A walking corpse, stinking and decaying from the inside out. And unlike Tim Burton's notion, a very alive groom cannot be wed to a very dead bride.

And so He came for me. He absolutely ransomed me out of that death-life. I don't know how; I can only say that being "circumcised unto God" now was not an easy or painless process. It's a lot like being ripped and torn from one world into another, and barely surviving to tell the story. But the wounds I took in that rescue were wounds of love, and God is the one to bare the scares.

Imagine Lazarus. Now here is a man who died – a friend of Jesus, I might add. He was laid in a rock tomb and the a stone was closed behind him, sealing him in, entombing his body. There he lay, rotting. Four days later – four days! – Jesus walks up and says that he will live again. There was a lot of broken hearts standing around, not the least of which was God's own heart. He wept over Lazarus's death, as he wept for those mourning the loss of their brother, their friend, their son, their uncle. He wept for the death that had come to so many of his friends. And I think Jesus was also broken over what it would take to resurrect this friend of his. Here would be a dramatic rescue, and for it he was adding to the weight of his own hell-entering death.

After commanding the stone be removed, Jesus speaks the words of life, words that, because they extend from the reign of life that is in Christ and that is Christ (Romans 5:17), bring a dead man back to life. Literally. Think about that. He was dead, decaying, rotting. His flesh was pale and cold. Worms had begun finding their way into his organs. He was really, really dead. And then these words of Jesus reach his ears. The eardrum vibrates. The tiny bones begin doing their small vibration-dance to the words and something sparks. Life again enters Lazarus body. His eyes open. His lungs suck in a deep breath of stale entombed air. He blinks. He looks around, trying to adjust to the darkness. "Am I dead?" he asks himself, and then frowns at the thought. Pain suddenly shoots into his back and down his legs from having laid on cold stone for several days. His muscles are sore. "Sore," he groans aloud, and then laughs because he knows he must not be dead if he is in pain. He rolls himself off the ledge where he was laying, and is suddenly blinded by the light that sprays into his face. More pain. His feet are tender, the skin new like an infant's, and the rocks and pebbles nearly pierce them. His skin is tight, crusted with blood long dried over his numerous wounds now healed but scarred. He stumbles out into the daylight, compelled by the sound of a familiar voice and startled by the gasping sounds of others.

Minutes of stunned silence went by while Lazarus slowly straightened his stiff back and adjusted his eyes to the brightness of the day. He looks around to see his family, his friends, all with their jaws dropping and dried tears covered over with new ones. And what a sight he was. The soiled grave clothes still clung to his face, his hands, his feet. He looked very much like a mummy. He was able to stand and walk, but not much else. The cloth bound him. Even breathing was difficult, although the stinging and burning pain of inhaling was almost too much to bear, and he hardly minded not being able to take the deep breaths his body now required of him.

And then he heard again that familiar voice. He heard laughter, a serious and at the same time excited laughter. Now his eyes caught those of his dear friend. Jesus' eyes were filled with that fire of love and passion that Lazarus had come to revere (before dying, that is), and Jesus never flinched when he added words not directed at Lazarus, but rather for him: "Unbind him." The disciples around Jesus and the others present – Mary and Martha, for sure – walked straight up to this dead man walking and began to pull off the stuck pieces of blood- and pus-soaked cloth from his body. Some fresh skin ripped in the process, and Lazarus pulled back in reaction. He could hear the still-stunned Mary chide him to be still and let them finish. He needed a bath, but that didn't seem to bother anyone at the time. All of them became almost giddy with excitement and began talking at once. Through the noise, Lazarus heard the unmistakable voice of love finish with, "…And let him go free." Jesus punctuated this last word by closing his eyes and saying it slowly, as if savoring the very meaning of it.

And now he was free. The resurrection life had come to Lazarus. For him, being set free was the same as being set loose – set loose on the world to dance with this Lord, to fly with Him, to share with all the adventures ahead in the great Story with this Lover so true. Coming back to life was not the end for this man; it was the beginning.

So that is Lazarus's story, or an element in it. There's much more that He's living in now, more than can be told (John 21:25). And that's the point, I think, of having our hearts circumcised to God, of being made alive with Christ… that we might live and go free. It's staggeringly beautiful, this redemption. Christ came for me and brought me out of darkness into his Kingdom (Col 1:13), and there I am to live with Him, to know Him, to enjoy Him, and to rule with Him.

We do have a role to play in our own redemption. Christ calls us; it is His work that brings us back to life, but we must awaken. We must rouse our own spirits to follow His voice, to come out of the tomb into the light of the new day. As Thoreau once said, "We must reawaken and learn to remain awake, not by mechanical aid, but by the infinite expectation of the dawn." That is our role in working out our salvation (notice Paul did not say working for our salvation, Phil 2:12). No wonder Paul adds, "with fear and trembling." Coming alive and walking out of the tomb of our small lives into the Great Life with our Creator is an incredibly dangerous and painful thing. And it is the only thing that will bring life.

Extravagant Promises

I was praying over these, thinking maybe someone needed to read them as much as I did. At any rate, I remember that 'all the promises of God are 'yes' in Jesus' and that He will never break His promise ('He has written it upon the sky!')...

Proverbs 16:3
Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and your plans will succeed.


Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Isaiah 40:28, 31
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom…
…but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Jeremiah 33:3
'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."

Psalm 32:7, 8
You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go
I will counsel you and watch over you.

Who I am in Christ

Christ has...

drive out the prince of this world. John 12:31

disarmed the powers and authorities. Col 2:15

been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Matt 28:18

made himself your life. Col 3:4

given you new life. Rom 6:4

made himself God's abundant provision of grace. Rom 5:17

made himself your strength, through whom you can do all things. Phil 4:13

out of his great love remembered you, not the sins of your youth. Psalm 25:7

You have...

fullness in Christ, the head over every power and authority. Col 2:10

Christ as your life. Col 3:4

been given authority to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. Luke 10:19

the Counselor with you forever. John 14:16

the Holy Spirit as your encourager. Acts 9:31

not chosen Christ, but he chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit... the Father will give you whatever you ask in his name. John 15:16

the Spirit of truth, to guide you into all truth. John 16:13

every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Eph 1:3

the angels as ministering spirits sent to serve you. Heb 1:14

You are...

the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5:21

the apple of God's eye. Psalm 17:8

not put to shame, because your hope is in the Lord. Psalm 25:3

rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of the Son. Col 1:13

counted as dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Rom 6:11

alive with Christ. Eph 2:5

from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 Jn 4:4

included with Christ, marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. Eph 1:13

living with the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit. Gal 5:25

strong in the Lord and in the might of his power. Eph 6:10

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. 2 Cor 1:8-11