I would like to begin this post with an apology for my lack of posting. It has not been my intention to neglect The Imperfect Disciples’ Blog, but as I explained to my co-contributor Todd recently, I have found myself in a bit of a writer’s funk. Please note that I said “writer’s funk” rather than “thinker’s funk.” I am still thinking about and contemplating the wonders of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and, if anything, I have been so overwhelmed recently by the magnificence of it all that I have found it difficult to reduce into mere words. I will continue to try however …

During our family Christmas celebration this past year I tried to form an analogy for our children between their anticipation of opening the presents and the anticipation we should all have concerning the return of Christ. After all, His gift is bigger than any gift we could ever receive! I explained to the kids that their anticipation of presents in this world was a mere shadow of the anticipation the whole world has for the second coming. In our day and age, it is as if nature itself is holding its breath.

I’m not sure what impact this analogy had on my children, but it has had a major one in my life. It has been playing in my mind since Christmas. In fact, I have been extending it to other things. For instance:

The love I have for my children is indescribable. Every day I pray for their safety, well-being and success. I take pride when they do well and cry when they fail. Every breath I take is taken with a thought of them. They have literally saved my life on many occasions … however; this is only a shadow of how God considers His children. The attitude and love I have for my children pales in comparison to the love He feels for each of us.

The passion I feel for my wife is hard to explain. I have tried to tell her how it is an emotion that I never felt before. She is a part of me and I of her. I am grateful for my relationship with Stefanie because the passion I feel for her is a glimpse of how I should feel towards Christ. I have been told before that I should be passionate for Christ and never quite knew what it meant to be passionate about anything. Because of my wife I get it now. When this passion expands and is extended towards Christ it is a wonderful thing and I am grateful for the lesson.

I often get angry when I see the injustice in this world. When I see the helpless abused and hurt it enrages me. This anger I feel is nothing compared the righteous anger of God. This world is His creation. How much His anger surpasses mine is immeasurable.

Finally, I am often stunned when I consider the blessings in my life. Just sitting in this chair and appreciating the peaceful room my wife has created sends shivers down my spine. I have been blessed with family, friends, a home … there is really too much to count yet they are nothing when compared to the blessing I received when Christ died on the cross. His sacrifice made it possible for me to enjoy the blessings I have now. It is because of Him that I look forward to the future.

This analogy can easily be extended towards any emotion you feel. I invite you to examine what you care about … what you’re passionate about … and give it God to see how it measures up to how He feels. I believe it impossible to measure His emotions, but He does give us a glimpse of them in the Bible. I look forwards to eternity with Christ but for now I will simply enjoy living in the shadows.

Thank you Christ.

Just over two millennia ago, a member of the trinity took on the robe of flesh, set aside his right to be God, and became fully mortal.  He entered the flow of events and our world in the way every being has entered it since Adam and Eve.  An obscure teenage virgin gave birth to God in the most humble of circumstances.  She gave birth to God amongst the livestock, because there was absolutely no room anywhere in the entire city for them.  The spirit that was there at the moment of creation that participated in the founding of the world was relegated to being born amongst the animals.  The God that participated in Genesis 1:1 was relegated to a place of poverty at his birth.

The first smells that entered God’s nostrils of flesh were most likely the stench of manure.  The prince of peace was subjected to a stink that we modern humans avoid at all costs.  He was wrapped in rags of cloth and laid in the place from which the livestock fed.  The co-owner of creation, at his birth, was left among the marginalized and the dispossessed.  It is important in viewing this scene not to view it with rose-colored glasses.  It is important not to see this in soft fuzzy lighting with an eye toward some nostalgic perspective.

God entered the world into squalor.  The scene at his birth was likely a chaotic one.  It is unlikely that Mary and Joseph were alone in the cave that functioned as a stable.  This place was likely filled with other poor travelers that couldn’t find lodging anywhere in Bethlehem. It is unlikely that this place had been cleared of animals.  And so it was that God came into the world among a crowded cave filled with the flotsam and jetsam that made up the bottom rungs of Jewish society at that time.   The stench of sweaty, unwashed people most likely mixed with the foul odor of the livestock and their decaying offal to create an overwhelming odor that I honestly cannot begin to imagine.

This moment at God’s birth was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah regarding, “A great light” and “Unto us a son is given”.  Our modern minds tend to focus on the great chorus of angels that heralded the birth of the Messiah and the Magi that came from the east.  We tend to try and avoid focusing on the stable in which the Christ was born.  And yet it is in this humble cave that an amazing event occurred.  A teenage virgin, engaged to a carpenter, gave birth to the prince of peace there.  And the miracle of this season took place.  The miracle that affirmed God’s will for his creation was brought to fruition there.

It is puzzling that the creator of the universe chose such a lowly place to enter the world he created.  The God that parted the Red Sea, gave Daniel comfort in the lion’s den, provided the support for Meshack, Shadrack, and Abednigo; entered the world in a place, and a time that none would have expected.  God confounded the expectations of his people as he began fulfilling his promise of a messiah.  The birth of the Messiah was primarily witnessed by livestock, the unlucky, the dispossessed, and a small band of shepherds. Not exactly a proper court for the King of Kings, but it is what God selected.

The moment of the birth of the Messiah was an amazing moment in time.  It was a majestic event that happened in the midst of manure.  I cannot help but be awed by it.  I cannot help but be left speechless when I consider it.  The march to the cross began in a stable filled with the fragrant aroma of decaying fecal matter.  The nostrils of the Messiah were filled with the stench of this life from His very first breath.  The stench of our sin, and degradation was in his nose from the very beginning.  And God didn’t run from it, or select a different place to avoid it.  God chose to step into this life in the most humble of circumstances and be exposed from the very beginning to the stench of our existence.  He chose to seek out his creation at its most raw and basal level.  He didn’t shrink from the appointment with us.  He welcomed it, he invited it, and he took it squarely head on, beginning with the moment of his birth.

In a lowly cave in Bethlehem, God came near to us two millennia ago.  He has chosen to abide with his creation.  He has chosen through substitutional sacrifice to impute value into his own, to impute his value into his own.  He chose to draw near to those capable of hearing his voice.  And he has never left us since.

There is a wealth of perspectives of God in this information age of ours.  These perspectives run the gambit from the atheist’s dead God, to the cessationists, deaf mute God, to the activist God, and everywhere in between.  As someone who’s toyed with a number of these perspectives over the course of my life so far, I’ve settled on the activist God perspective as the one that works best, at least for me.

There are a number of definitions for this perspective.  The one I like best is: a perspective that affirms God to be not only still active in the affairs of men, but as a being with a stake and a vested interest in the outcome.  A key attribute of this perspective relates to God’s firm resolve to bring his will into being in every situation by any means necessary. 

Distilling this personal definition into a functional understanding means for me that God hasn’t wandered off to something more entertaining. God isn’t hanging ten in Maui right now because the waves are just bitchin’.  He isn’t playing the back nine at Augusta because, as God, he gets a killer tee time.  He isn’t off playing in another sandbox, because it’s better than the one he created.   No, he is actively seeking to manifest his will in the everyday and mundane events of his creation with the explicit goal of bringing it back into relationship with himself.

More simply put, God isn’t a disinterested third party.  He isn’t the Watcher from Marvel comics.  He isn’t a neutral observer that mediates disputes in his creation.  God is an interested entity with an agenda.  He has skin in the game as it were.  He is a being that is seeking his creation’s best interest as he defines it.

Some might look at this exposition and think that I’ve reduced God to a lobbyist seeking to cajole his creation into doing what he wants.  While there are some in the “Name it and claim it” crowd that teach something very close to this, in my view nothing could be farther from the truth.  A lobbyist seeks to influence others into implementing his agenda or that of his client, through all the tools in the persuasion arsenal.  And while God does use some of these tools on occasion, there is another dimension to this.  God has the power to enforce his will in order to bring it into being.

Can a lobbyist fling stars into orbit?  Can a lobbyist speak life into existence?  Can a lobbyist speak the fate of man with absolute certainty?  Can a lobbyist heal the lame, give sight to the blind, and restore hearing to the deaf?  Can a lobbyist create eyes for a blind man from spit and mud?  Obviously not….

Can a lobbyist insist that a reluctant prophet go to Nineveh?  Can a lobbyist arrange a great fish as a method of conveyance to enforce his will?  Can a lobbyist insist on an outcome and have the ability to make it so 100%  of the time?  Obviously not…  God has the ability to do all of those things and much more.

The Bible clearly states that God has an interest in the lives of men and women.  It unambiguously shows that God has a heart for his creation.  It displays vividly that God has a burning desire to restore his creation to relationship with himself.  It demonstrates in absolute terms that this is a primary ministry of and mission for God.  It has played out numerous times in the Bible.  From Noah to Moses to Abraham and beyond we are surrounded by what the writer of Hebrews calls a ‘cloud of witnesses’ to this ministry of God.

Some read the bargaining God allowed by Abram regarding Sodom’s fate, as a hint of malleability in the will of God.  This is a valid conclusion to draw from this particular instance, but I think a flawed one.  God knew the outcome was not going to be affected by Abram’s bargaining.  The end result was ultimately the same; Sodom and Gomorrah were still the same smoldering holes in the ground they were going to be at the outset. God being the timeless being that he is understood that only in allowing Abram to bargain in some fashion could the life of Lot and his family be spared. And this was an important part of God’s agenda in this instance.  

We also see the activist God at work in the life and ministry of a reluctant and otherwise obscure prophet by the name of Jonah.  God calls him to go to Nineveh and Jonah balks.  From the text it doesn’t appear Jonah had any trouble with serving God or accepting the calling to the role of prophet.  He only has trouble with the specific ministry he’s been called to in terms of audience and geography.  Jonah’s response is to bail on the whole mission and ministry.

The possible reasons for Jonah’s balk are many.  Some have posited that he just didn’t want to go there for racial or cultural reasons.  While others have posited that Jonah knew God was planning to use the Ninevites as a tool to bring the Jewish people back into right relationship with him, by captivity if necessary.  Both possibilities, while valid interpretations of Jonah’s potential motives are largely arguments from silence.  There is no proof in the text for either position.

The only thing the text gives us for certain is that Jonah was convinced it would succeed.  It’s possible that his belief was based upon arrogance or vanity.  It’s also possible he was convinced that with God’s assistance anything was possible.  The text really doesn’t give us good window into Jonah’s thinking on this apart from that.

What is certain is that he was so unwilling to participate in the implementation that he fled for Tarsus aboard a boat.  And as a result he found an immutable truth about God in the process.  God gets what God wants.  If God wants a prophet in Nineveh, God doesn’t allow that individual to flee the calling at the appointed time.  When the time is right, there is nothing that can keep anyone from their appointment with God’s plan for their lives.  So our reluctant prophet ends up in Nineveh right on time to fulfill God’s plan for his life.  That by its very definition is activism on God’s part.

The story of Jonah is but one example of God’s activism.  There are many more.  From the angel in Balaam’s path to the story of Esther and beyond, they all prove the same point.  They all bear witness to a God that is either unable or unwilling to sit on the sidelines as the events of history unfold.  They speak to us even today that God’s will is unchangeable and immutable.  They inform us as to the character of the divine creature that spoke the world into existence.

And they should give us pause in our moments of rebellion against this God.  We should remember that the God of Genesis 1:1 who commanded the sun into existence by simply saying that it would be ‘good’ if it did, is the one with which  we’re toying.  We should remember the story of Jonah as we ponder our answers to God’s call on our lives.  It should force us to ask, does God have a great fish in waiting for me to deal with my stiff necked and stubborn nature?  And is God ready to consume me whole when I foolishly tell him to go get bent?

The consistent witness of this activist God should alter how we relate to him.  It should impose a certain amount of fear mixed with reverence and a dash of awe when we consider God.  If God wanted to he could give us an ‘offer we can’t refuse’ or cause us to awake with a horse’s head in our bed to get the point across.  God is however so much more resolved and determined when it comes to his will than a mafia lord.  Also if we give criminal thugs deference to avoid drawing their interest in us; how much more deference should we give Almighty God?   

 We should remember that the God that flooded the world in Noah’s time still exists.  We should be mindful that the God that destroyed Sodom for its manifest lack still resides at the center of our world.  It should give us pause that the God that thwarted the plans of the builders of the tower of Babel still remains committed to doing that very thing even today.  His nature is immutable and without a glint or glimmer of change in it.  If God wants something to happen or change, you can take it to the bank that it will.  God’s word doesn’t return void.  God always gets what God wants! 

This simple truth should change the very core of who we are.  It should force us to our knees in repentance.  It should fundamentally alter who we are and how we relate to the divine in our lives.  We shouldn’t tarry or dither when it comes to the essential nature of God’s call on our lives.  It should us force us to action.  It should put our feet in motion.  So let us begin.

My life has seen what many would view as an upheaval of late.  Security in financial terms has taken a serious blow.  My overall life has been filled with much more instability than I would like or prefer.  In view of this, it would be easy to take a dim view of these events, and become bitter and pessimistic.  And I must admit that the temptation to do just that has been there.  This temptation is a seductive mistress as it allows my head and my heart to go exactly where they earnestly want to go.  It would allow me to surrender to the anxiety that could easily rule me.

 I have somehow managed to avoid yielding to this temptation.  This has been a struggle to be sure, as I am not by nature an optimist.  It has been to date a combination of white knuckled determination and faith.  I have managed to cling to the hope that this patch of instability will pass someday, (soon hopefully).  I have done this by remembering what the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes said, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens”.  This verse reminds me that all things have their appointed time in which to partake of them, and that all things that begin will eventually end.

 This season is not one that I would have chosen for myself.  It is not something that I would have volunteered to undergo by any means.  If I had known what this season would entail, I certainly would have taken measures to avoid it.  It has however been a season that to date has been very instructive and revelatory for me.  This moment in time has taught me many things in the short time I have endured it.  I thought it productive to share some of them with you here.

 Less is More

 This statement tends to confound the materialistic perspective that drives most of our lives, and certainly drove mine.  The heart of this post-modern age seems to still be, “Get all you can, Can all you get, and Sit on the can”.  This is somewhat at odds with what I am going through right now.  This season has guaranteed that I cannot indulge my every materialistic wish and whim.  A certain measure of discipline has come into my life by force.  As I am not a disciplined person by nature this turn of events has not been welcome by any means.

I have been reminded me that happiness is not found in the abundance of things.  I have found that happiness isn’t in getting everything you want, but in wanting what you get.  And also in appreciating what you have.  My inability to buy the next shiny gadget that beeps and buzzes isn’t the measure of my life.  In fact, if anything, this inability has reminded me how much I already have. 

This season has forced a certain limitations upon me due to financial necessity.  It has created a lack of funds for a broad swath of discretionary things I enjoyed.  It has created an inability to purchase a bagel sandwich and Danish most days.  I was surprised to find that this doesn’t make me unhappy.  It has reminded me that I am capable of cooking for myself things that taste nearly as good for a fraction of the cost. This time in my life has created an inability to go and buy a stack of books a couple of times a month and I have found much to my chagrin that this doesn’t make me unhappy.  It has forced me to inventory what I already have and start reading the wealth of unread tomes that make up my library.  I am now not able to go out and buy a new laptop but like the other examples this hasn’t made me unhappy.  It has made me appreciate the large amount of computer equipment and power that I already possess.

True happiness as it turns out, has less to do with volume than it does with the amplitude with which the existing state is enjoyed.  And so in my case, less stuff has actually equaled more happiness.  I have found that it is all about the perspective with which the current state is approached.  I have found that I can get along just fine without the current latest and greatest things.  I have found that joy isn’t found there. 

 Slow Down

The simple truth of my life prior to the onset of this season could be encapsulated in two simple words: Hustle and Hurry.  My life was quite fast paced, and in everything I found myself feeling rushed.  I was always behind the targets I had set for myself.  I was late to set my feet on what I thought would be my life long career path.  I was late to the both the institutions of marriage and fatherhood.  I was late to coming to the place of realizing all of my goals for my life.

 And so in typical American fashion, I felt the pressure to pick up the pace in order to catch up with where I perceived I needed to be.  This forced me to rush through things, that I should have taken more time with or at least taken a more deliberative approach to handling.  It forced me into a place where I was in a hurry with everything and wasn’t able to enjoy anything.  Prior to the onset of this season, I knew I wasn’t happy.  And I knew that my unhappiness was intrinsically tied to my inability to take the time to focus on any given thing. 

This knowledge didn’t force me to slow down by any means.  It forced me to hustle all the more through what I saw as unimportant drivel to get to the important things in my life.  The problem was simple though.  The more I plowed through the unimportant stuff, the more unimportant stuff there was to plow through.  I was never really able to break through the mundane and dispense with the banal things of my life.  I was constantly trying to shred the crap to get to what I thought was important.

 The harder I tried this approach the less happy I was with it.  It was only in accepting this season, and coming to terms with its entrance into my life, that things have changed for me.  This season has forced me to slow down.  It has forced me to linger over the events of my life.  It has only been in accepting that my life before was what the book of Ecclesiastes calls, “A chasing after the wind”, that I have been able to find peace and joy in the slowness and stillness of this new period of my life.  It has been in finding joy in the mundane, and peace in the banal things of life, that I have become a much happier person.

 It has been in slowing down enough to enjoy raking the leaves, cleaning the gutters, and doing light housework, that I have found peace and joy.  It has only been in realizing the importance of the mundane that I have felt privileged to participate in it.  It has been in slowing down enough to appreciate the sunset that the purpose of life has become all too clear to me.

 Dwell in the Now

This time in my life has slowed me down and stripped me of my desires for inconsequential things.  It has forced me to live my life as God intended it, moment by moment.  God intended for man to dwell in the now.  He desired for his creation to live a lifetime in a single breath.  And to realize that each moment was a gift from God.  As children we lived this principle fully.  Children are amazing in that they are able to revel in the glory of a simple moment in time.  They are able to dwell for a time playing more with the packaging a new thing came in than with the new thing itself.

 As adults we lose touch with this, and become focused not on the moment, but on planning for what’s next.  We live our entire lives without actually being present in the moment that is happening right now in front of us.  I was as guilty of this as anyone.  Life was unfolding in front me, and I was unable to dwell in it as God had intended for me.  I was consumed with anything but the moment in front of me.  This was not a good way to live my life.

 As this season came to fully dwell in my life, it has brought into sharp contrast that all I have is this moment in particular.  All I have is this time to revel in the glory of the life that God has granted me.  All I have is right now.  That is all I am guaranteed.  Anything that comes next is pure bonus.  It has drawn me closer to the things that dwell in my life on a daily basis.  It has reminded me of the rich blessing of being the full contact daddy right now.  It has reminded me that I get to do more to help out around the house right now than at any time before in my marriage.  It has reminded me that any day spent breathing and upright is a blessing and should be treated as such.

 I don’t have any illusions that this time is some Norman Rockwellesque utopia.  I know that there are serious issues to confront right now.  I know that my life is uncertain right now.  I do however feel like I have woken up from a long sleep and am beginning to enjoy life in the way I was intended to by my creator.  I am convinced that the God who closed the door on my previous life wouldn’t do so without having a plan for what comes next.  The old hymn I sang as a child comes to mind right now, “I am convinced that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” 

 This season with its instability and uncertainty will pass in due course in the fullness of time.  It will be replaced with whatever God has planned for next.  My task is to not worry about what comes next, but rather to slow down, accept that less is more, and dwell in the only thing guaranteed me by my creator: which is now.

The author of the book of James says something odd to open the book.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. “  James 1:1  NIV

The author calls us to joy in the midst of the times that try our souls.  The verse leaves me personally in a difficult place with difficult questions to answer.  If joy isn’t an emotion, then what is it?  How is it possible to have joy in the midst of difficulty?  When the roaring lion is circling me with the intention of consuming me, how is it possible to feel joy in any measure, much less enough to engage in any act of praise?

These questions point to the fundamental disconnect between the life God intends for us, and the life we typically lead.  It points to the notion that our ways aren’t God’s and his ways aren’t ours.  This exposes another facet of the logical difference between what God sees as how we should live thrive and respond to adversity and how we actually live.

The key to resolving this fundamental disconnect is found in understanding joy.  Joy isn’t an emotion, it isn’t a feeling, it isn’t happiness by another name.  The book of Galatians tells us that it is a fruit of the spirit.  In other words, it is an attribute that grows out of a life spent in humble communion with our redeemer, our savior, our creator, and our God.  It can’t be forced, faked, or cajoled into being.  It simply is not  unlike air, or gravity, or the wind.

So the response to this disconnect is found in qualitatively measuring  joy.  If we don’t feel joy in the midst of difficulty, it should tell us that something is not right with our relationship to God.  That isn’t meant to say that we shouldn’t feel anger, grief, or loss in times of difficulty.  We do, we should, and we will.  Rather, joy should be somewhere in that mix.  The degree to which we experience joy should function as a mirror to show us the state of our walk with Christ.

If our walk is functioning as it should our joy is derrived from our delighting in our God.  The degree to which we experience joy is directly proportional to the amount of delight we derrive from our relationship with God.  As a result, all of this boils down to the nature of our relationship with God.  When its good, right, and properly rooted in the mind of Christ, we should be experiencing Joy in some measure.

This reveals, at least to me, that joy is not a situational thing.  It is not something that comes and goes like a spring rain shower.  Rather it is a foundational thing that comes and abides in us like a well.  Joy should function to sustain us in trying times.  It should remind us that God is the creator and sustainer of our lives.  It should tell us that it doesn’t matter how hard the wind blows or how loud the the lion growls, God will act as our protector and redeemer kinsman.

It means that in spite of circumstances God’s love abides.  It means that in spite of the temporal trials we face, God’s committment to his children is eternally enduring.  It means that as long as we reside in the resting place that is our savior, the situations of life are devoid of power over us.  It means that God resides in relationship with those that are called by him, and live in community with him.  God protects his own, and seeks their best interest, even that best interest isn’t obvious to anyone involved.
It doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to us.  It doesn’t mean that we won’t face trials or difficult situations in life.  It doesn’t mean that our hearts won’t be broken in this life with the pain of loss and the accompanying grief.  It means that the joy of our foundational relationship with God sustains us in those times.  It means that when the flood of negativity invades our very soul, God is there with a hedge of protection and a flood wall to save us.