Category Archives: Worship

Dwell in the Now

By Todd French | December 2, 2009

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.

TwitterWordPressFacebookMySpaceStumbleUponEmailGoogle GmailShare

Rejoice

By Todd French | October 20, 2009

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.

TwitterWordPressFacebookMySpaceStumbleUponEmailGoogle GmailShare

Light of the World

By Todd French | October 5, 2009

Matthew 5:13-16

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

           This passage is easily one of the most heavily mined passages in all of the Christian faith.  I say that, because I have heard countless sermons, lessons, and homilies from this passage.  And it ranks personally very near the top of my list of favorites Bible passages.  The text here is so compact and so filled with meaning.  The metaphors are so vibrant, relevant, and colorful.  And yet it is one of the passages that I least like to hear people teach, preach, or speak from.

            The reason for that is simple.  This passage is more often than not misapplied, and warped into a thing that bears little resemblance to the actual text.  The misapplication relates to a fundamental failure to appropriately read the text.  It is turned into a lesson about the doing, or behavior of the Christian life.  Verse thirteen is misread to apply it to behavior, which is where the door of misapplication opens.  This allows the passage to be perverted into a hammer to beat believers for either what they aren’t doing that they should be doing, or a millstone to weigh them down with guilt for what they are doing that they shouldn’t be. 

            The truth of the passage is that it has nothing to do with behavior.  This passage is about the essential nature of the thing.  It is about what salt, candles, and prominent cities on hills really are at their core.  It has nothing to do with how they behave or don’t behave.  It has nothing to do with whether or not they read their Bible, pray, witness to their friends, or the like.  The text here does not cast this in an active tense at all.  It casts this in the passive tense.  And so, this isn’t about doing in any way, shape, manner, or form.  It is solely about the being part of our lives and it is about how that being connects with God, and how that connection impacts the world around us.  As such, it is not and can never be about whether or not we do the stuff, (reading, praying, or proselytizing).  It is about the being part of our relationship with God.  It has to do with what we are, and how what we are impacts where we are placed.  The difference may seem subtle, but it isn’t.

            I do not believe that Jesus is interested in hammering believers for their behavior in this case.  Jesus was rarely interested in the doing, or the behaviors of a life of faith.  He was interested in what was going on or not going on at the essential core of a life of faith.  This is because the Bible tells us that our best behavior is like filthy rags to a Holy God, and so this passage can’t be about behavior.  Why would Jesus spend time speaking to encourage better behavior, when He knew that our best behavior was a cheap, filthy, and tawdry thing before the Holy Father?

          People tend focus on the last portion of this section as proof that this is about doing.  The section uses the word ‘deeds’, so in their mind, it isn’t a stretch to saying that this is about ‘doing’.  The problem is that the rest of the text doesn’t support that notion.  The rest of the text is passive in nature.  The rest of the text leads to a different place.  Rather than resolve the passive nature of the rest of the text, they misapply it in whole, and make the text about something that it isn’t.  The deeds portion of this is the only time an active word is used in the context.  In all honesty, the use of the word ‘deeds’ can mean many things here.  The best exposition of ‘deeds’ that I think the whole of the text supports is in line with the passive perspective of the rest of the text.

          ‘Deeds’ here I think speaks to the object of the metaphor being what its essential core nature really is.  By that I mean, what is the ‘deed’ of salt?  What is the ‘deed’ of a candle?  What is the ‘deed’ of a city on a hill?  The ‘deed’ in this context, means that the thing in question fulfilled its nature, by being what it was created to be.  The deed of salt is to be salty.  The deed of a candle is to provide light.  The deed of a city on a hill is to accept that it cannot be hidden.  The deed of the believer is to live out their commitment to God by being who God created them to be.  This isn’t active, but rather an acceptance of the fundamental core of the believer.  God is meant to be praised by this, because it was his act to make good on the potential he placed in our very being.  And so it is in being that God gets the credit for his doing.

            This passage is saying that a life of faith is a preserving agent, a light in the darkness, and something that cannot be hidden.  It is saying that a life of faith is about the essential nature of our being, not our doing.  It is saying that this life to which we’ve been called isn’t just about ourselves.  The act of obeying our savior in the innermost parts of our being causes things to happen within us that cannot be hidden, that provide guidance to others, and act as a preservative in our lives and the lives of those around us.

            In the course of being who we are called to be, others cannot help but see this.  They cannot help, but be touched by God dwelling in our lives.  They cannot help but be drawn out of their darkness and into God’s light.  The passage is saying that God uses the most essential part of our core, the most fundamental parts of our nature for his glorification, and benefit, and for the benefit of others.  This passage is not about guilt, or shame in any way.  It is not meant to beat believers into doing things.  It is meant to show us what a life of faith looks like when it is right at the core.  It is meant to show us that what God is doing in us cannot be hidden, and that God is the workman that carries out all of the doing.  Accordingly we are meant to simply focus on relationship with God and abide in that place of being.  The rest of equation is His to do or not do.

TwitterWordPressFacebookMySpaceStumbleUponEmailGoogle GmailShare

Questions of Faith Part 2: How to Love and Not Hate… Addendum

By Todd French | August 6, 2009

In reviewing the comments that have been made regarding this post, I came to the conclusion that an addendum to my post was in order.  Ultimately I realized that I needed to explain a few of my comments in a bit more detail and to clarify my overall intentions with the piece.

It was not my intention to directly reference the will of God concept in the piece.  I felt it necessary to point out the over-arching disconnect and to explain that God has called us to something much better.  The piece ended up unintentionally opening the door for a discussion on that topic.  I wasn’t aware when I started writing the piece of how closely connected or more accurately put, how interconnected these two concepts really are.  In my life, I’ve always seen these as independent constructs, but my thinking has changed recently.  I promise to pick this portion of the topic up soon in a later post.

My description of the surrender and submission concepts that I referenced in the post was not as complete as it should have been.  Please allow to me clarify, many people believe in a mindless form of these ideas, or feel less than if they have questions or concerns about what is being asked of them by God.  Let me be clear, mindless blind submission isn’t what God is calling us to, and it isn’t something I subscribe to at all.  It is normal to have questions and concerns.  It is incumbent upon the believer to test what is being asked of him or her to determine source and to thoughtfully and prayerfully count the cost prior to submission.  Blind obedience without taking into consideration the nature of it or its cost is in my view idiotic and not Biblical whatsoever.

Many followers of God in the Bible had questions prior to submission.  Moses spends quite a bit of Biblical real estate with his questions prior to accepting God’s will and divine appointment.  Abraham spends a chapter questioning God about the fate of Sodom and attempts to bargain an equation whereby Sodom could be spared.  In the midst of a pummeling, Job is permitted to question God.  If these men can question God, it stands to reason, that God allows us to question him, allows us to probe his plans, and allows us to kick the tires before submitting to it.

The slogan, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”, is a misguided over-simplification of obedience.  It is ripe for abuse by unscrupulous leaders, that the Bible calls “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.  It seeks to short-circuit the brain God gave us and render our will impotent.  If God wanted that kind of submission why grant us a cognitive organ?  Why grant the human casement sentience at all?

The kind of surrender and submission God is after is a thoughtful, deliberative, calculated kind.  God invites us to taste and see that the fruit of his vineyard is good.  God challenges us to probe his plans for us in detail prior to their implementation in our lives.  At the risk of repetition, he asks us to count the cost, before acceptance.  Anything less, denies the gifting of intellect, and free-will granted to all by God.

Submission and surrender must be in context as well.  The must flow out of a context that is defined by an intimate relationship with him.  It is only in this one on one relationship that we can test and approve his will for our lives.  Out of context obedience is foolish and leads to a lip service, fire insurance type of faith.  It leads to a place that obeys the words, but fails to grasp their meaning, import, or impact.  It fails to be a true form of obedience.

The context of this relationship is influenced by man factors.  For some, it is very rigid and liturgical.  For others, it is a casual free-wheeling sort of situation.  There is nothing wrong with either expression, provided the relationship at its core is genuine and authentic.  If the expression reveres God and is characterized by the fruits of the spirit being made manifest in the life of the believer, then there is nothing wrong with it at all.  The style and form of it will vary from individual to individual.  No two instances of the same relationship will be identical, nor should we expect them to be.

That was the crux of the problem with my attempt to answer the question in the first place.  As each person’s relationship with God is different, as each person’s understanding of God is different, there wasn’t a uniform mechanism / formula to exposit as a recipe to answer the question broadly.  I could tell someone how to handle this, but if their instance of the relationship is different from mine, if their relational flavor isn’t like mine, it won’t help them.  I could have articulated principles, scriptures, and core concepts, but that would miss the point and lead people into an unthinking obedience, which isn’t at all what I wanted for them or for anyone.

The only option to answer the question is to call the individual to heed the requirements of their relationship with God, as they understand it.  It is only in the context of that relationship that obedience is truly possible.  It is only when God is given freedom by the individual believer through the ebb and flow of their contact with the divine that the radical transmogrification can occur.  As such what seems like the weakest possible response rhetorically speaking is the only one that will work for them.

TwitterWordPressFacebookMySpaceStumbleUponEmailGoogle GmailShare

Letting God Out of the Box

By Clark Goble | August 5, 2009

In his book, What is Reformed Theology? Understanding the Basics, R.C. Sproul explains the difference between Religion and Theology. He explains that religion is the study of particular types of human behavior, while theology is the study of God. In other words, religion is man-centered while theology is God-centered. It has occurred to me slowly over the last few months that much of what we do as Christians has little to do with God. We seem intent on practicing a religion that is man-centered.

The desire of any Christian should be to focus his life on Christ. We should all be more interested in how God would want our faith to play out in our lives. Too often, we take our cues from our pastors, denominations, authors, small groups, and other areas of influence when we should be taking our cues from Christ.

Sometimes, I think we have created a faith that has little to do with the real living God.

I am beginning to lose interest in the faith we have created. In the faith we have created, we expect God to manifest Himself in a variety of ways. How many times have you heard someone say after a church or worship service, “Wow, I could really feel God’s presence in there,” or, “The spirit was really moving during that sermon.” Have you ever heard someone say that during a moment when you didn’t feel God at all? I know I have. It is in those moments that I feel like the worst Christian in the Kingdom. There’s been moments when I wondered why everyone else seemed to sense God’s presence when I couldn’t. I wondered what I was doing wrong. Then it ocurred to me … those people are lying.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you can never feel God’s presence during church or feel the Spirit moving during a worship session; however, I am saying that we have created a church environment where you fall short as a Christian if you don’t feel God’s presence at the right moments. So much of what we do as a church and as Christians involves creating moments for God to reveal Himself. We create emotional sermons, passionate worship songs, tear-jerking service opportunities, and intimate small group discussions with the expectation that God will participate when and where we say so. There are even some denominations that expect the Holy Spirit to make you jump around, dance, and speak in tongues; and if it doesn’t happen, there is something wrong with you.

It is as if someone says, “Let God out of His box now so we can all feel better about ourselves … just be sure to put Him away when we’re done!”

I am nearly forty years old and I have been a Christian for going on ten years. While there have been several times in my life when I have felt God’s presence and even times when I felt as if Jesus were speaking right to me, I must admit that none of these moments occurred on demand. Rather, God has spoken to me in moments of His choosing. Do we really think that we can demand the Creator of the universe to speak to us because it is Sunday morning and expect to get a response?

When you study the life of Christ it is apparent that He never acted and responded to the people around Him in the way they expected. He changed all of the rules and all the expectations they had for their savior. He was a rebel that refused to be typecast. Shouldn’t we expect Him to be the same now. I fear that far too often, we attempt to turn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into our own personal puppet.

In his book, Real Church, Larry Crab attributes all of this to an addiction to ourselves. I couldn’t agree more. We create these moments for God to participate in our religion because we selfishly want to feel His presence on our schedules. We play worship music not because we feel He is worthy of our praise, but rather because it gets our adrenaline pumping and makes us feel better about ourselves. We create service opportunites not out of a desire to serve our fellow man, but rather because it makes us feel better about ourselves. We pick and choose our churches like we pick and choose our movies … we’re not interested in attending the church where God wants us because we are too busy trying to find the one that entertains us the most.

Our religion has become all about us when it is supposed to be all about God.

Study the life of any saint worth remembering and you will find they lived a life that was God-centered rather than man-centered. Mother Teresa’s life would have been impossible if she had been afflicted with this addiction to self. Rather than wasting her time creating opportunities for God to reveal Himself, Teresa went about the business of serving her fellow humans and waited patiently for God. By her own account, she went decades without feeling the presence of God … but yet continued to wait for Him.

God is not fast food. We can not have Him our way. We can only experience Him in His way and on His schedule. Larry Crabb teaches that this anticipation is more valuable at times than any experience we can have of God in this life. Jesus taught that this life is all about anticipation. Heaven is so close we can taste it. We should look forward to it like a little child does Christmas morning. There is no experience we can have in this life that will come close to the experience of being with Christ in Heaven … we should embrace this anticipation and quit trying to put the cart before the horse.

Church, sermons, worship songs, service, small groups …. these are all good things if they serve to increase our anticipation for God. He will reveal Himself to us on His schedule. The Spirit will move among us … not like a pay per view movie, but rather like the living, breathing God that He is. We should embrace those moments when we can’t feel God’s presence in this world because He has  promised we will live entirely in His presence someday.

Manipulating God into doing our bidding … creating moments that feel religious … these are the things that false religions are made of. These are the things I no longer have an interest in.

Father, my prayer is for you to speak to me and fill me with the Spirit as you see fit. I ask that you help me stop and take notice of You in the moments You are trying to speak to me. In the moments that I can’t feel Your presence, I ask that You fill me with anticipation. Father, I want to desire your presence like a child desires his Christmas present. Lord, lead me to worship, praise, study, and serve with the right motives. Help me to conquer my addiction to self and become more addicted to anticipating You.

Amen.

Further Reading:

Real Church by Larry Crabb
What is Reformed Theology by R.C. Sproul
Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit by Charles Stanley

TwitterWordPressFacebookMySpaceStumbleUponEmailGoogle GmailShare