Certainty in Great Uncertainty

The icy blast of winter descended upon us this week with snow falling in places that hadn't seen snow in some 40 plus years. There were even reports of snow in Auckland which had never seen snow at all. The white stuff falling from the sky caused a wide range of responses from people. Some went out and played in it while others admired it from the warmth of a cozy room. Some bravely tried to travel in it, while others just decided not to and stayed home waiting for it to be safe to travel. It created havoc for our emergency services who had trouble getting enough staff to come in and then had trouble getting to people who were in need of their assistance. The news of snow in uncommon places and cities made its way around the world as news agencies, looking to get a scoop, deemed this unusual event newsworthy and spread the word. At the very least the snow and cold weather that we experienced can simply be added to a steady stream of many unusual events in New Zealand’s recent past. Altogether these events have served to keep reminding us all that we live in uncertain times. Uncertain weather patterns, uncertain earthquakes, uncertain tornadoes, uncertain economic times, uncertain job futures, uncertain family situations, uncertain health issues, uncertain churches, and uncertain personal times. What do we do when we face uncertain times, when our lives are full of uncertainties? Yes, we fret, we worry, and our stress levels go through the roof. Some crumble under this heavy load of uncertainty and seek a way of escape, and others stand tall in the face of it by putting a positive spin on the events hoping to make it through, while others just try to ignore it hoping it will simply go away. Thinking back to the tragic days of the Christchurch earthquakes and its many aftershocks one person stood out as a calming, inspiring individual during those dark and uncertain days. In spite of his own personal loses Mayor Bob Parker was able to guide that city (and even our country) through those deeply uncertain times with tremendous grace and skill. Bob Parker would be the first to admit his own failing and shortcomings but even with these he did a pretty good job. If Bob Parker who has faults of his own, has no power to change anything, and yet was able to bring a sense of certainty during seriously uncertain times, how much more, is our heavenly Father able to guide us, protect us, comfort us, strengthen us and bring a solid sense of certainty to our lives during uncertain times? In fact, one could argue that the only thing that remains certain at all times is our sovereign God. The scripture does not promise that our circumstances will change, it does promise that we can embrace them knowing that God is at work in them. I recently read that it is in those darkest moments, when it seems God is inactive, he is actually most active. He is always active, always at work, seeking his followers to keep an eye out for him and his activity and join in, especially during dark days. While all of life may be in upheaval and uncertain our heavenly Father is not, he is certain, he is Sovereign, and he has the whole world in his hands. We can take comfort from this and trust him in the midst of life’s uncertainties.

I Just Went for Pizza

The past few weeks I have had this internal debate going on with the Lord. It mostly centres on why I am still here in New Zealand and pastoring this particular church. For about 4.5 years now, we have poured our lives into this little fellowship, hosting evangelistic style meetings, using tools such as ALPHA and the UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIANITY series. We've worked on discipling and motivating people through small groups and had some delightful times of prayer in our Prayer Pinnacle Meetings. The group is a wonderful mix of South African, Indian, Chinese, Fijian, Solomon Island, Kiwi, Canadian, Filipino, and American, a lovely group, dedicated and passionate about their Lord Jesus and faith in him. But since we have come the church has gone from about 45-50 down to 20-25 and while personal spiritual growth is happening, numerical and financial growth is not happening at all, in fact it is shrinking! We came with a vision to see hundreds of people from all over the world raising their hands in worship together. We came to assist the International Christian Centre in the dream of gathering the nations for this purpose in this massively multicultural city. We have not seen this come to reality. I do not believe we have mistakenly come here, that somehow we missed what the Lord said to us or took a wrong turn as we followed the master. I do believe we are meant to be here, and minister here and bring the gospel to this dry and thirsty land. However, I have not seen as much fruit as I believe we should have seen by now.
Anyway, yesterday I went to get pizza. While i was sitting there waiting an Asian man came in and few minutes later a tiny African lady came in to wait for her pizza. Finally, my name was called and I went to the counter, the tiny lady moved to the counter quickly and shyly mumbled something that I thought sounded like "don't give up on your dream". I thought she was speaking to the guy behind the counter but then she turned to me and said what sounded like the same thing. I laughed and grabbed my pizza and headed home. While sitting in the car waiting for the light to turn green thinking about what I thought this lady had said to me, I decided to spin the car around and go back and ask her if that was what she had said, and if so, why she had said that. I went back and thankfully she was still there. I motioned to her to come outside and asked her if she had said what I thought she had said. She told me that she was a Christian and that while she was sitting there, God told her to tell me "Don't give up on your dream'" She continued, "He is right behind me, he is there, he knows what I am going through and that I should hang on to the dream." She said that she had done this kind of thing before and only gotten mocked and silenced by those who she said it to, so she stopped. But when she looked into my eyes, she saw kindness there and decided to go for it. When I told her I was a Christian as well and a Pastor she was sooo excited and filled with joy that she had obeyed what the Lord had told her to do. I thanked her for her bravery and that her message couldn't have been timelier for me. This kind of thing has happened to me before, about 4 or 5 other times, where God has used a complete stranger to send me a message. Her words it seems have attached themselves to my mind and heart. I went to bed thinking about them and woke up early with them on my mind. I will ponder them for the next few days and lay them out before the Lord to be sure they are from him. Mmmm, all I had done was go for pizza!

FIrm Faith

This week we bid our youngest, 18 year old Mackenzie, farewell and sent her on a big adventure. She has been planning this for months and my wife has meticulously helped her plan each aspect of the journey. So, this past Monday she packed up a few of her belongings and we all headed for the airport to give our hugs and kisses and watch her head off out of eyesight as she boarded her plane. She is off to Europe, Austria to be specific, and will spend the next 4 months working at a Bible School, traveling and making new friends followed by a trip back to Canada to renew friendships and spend some time with family.
As a family we are all at varying degrees of both excitement and nervousness for her as she does this. Excitement, because we know that adventure always brings with it an element of change, a pushing past what is comfortable in order to experience something bigger than we are, bigger than we know, bigger than just our tiny little circle of life. This comes with possibilities that seem to reach the sky and joy that soars bringing memories that can remain so vivid and full of life they are not easily forgotten. Nevertheless, we are also nervousness, because when something so precious as one your daughters follows a dream the worst part for me is that I know that such dreams can be crushed and bring pain and hurt because the world can be such a nasty place sometimes. Of course we all hope for the best and pray for a terrific experience for her. However, always somewhere in the back of the mind there is a little nagging sensation that something could go wrong and that this could turn out to be less than what we had hoped for. That sense of protection from the big bad world is strong within parents and it can push our hearts beyond simple nervousness to worry and even fear. This was brought into a tangible feeling when we awoke Tuesday morning to discover that her original flight out of Auckland was delayed by several hours, which meant her connecting flights were all going to be missed. This news for a moment created a sense of panic and a feeling of helplessness that was so raw and so real.
This is when our faith becomes so essential to how we handle this kind of scenario. We talk, we consider the options, and we pray. We trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, we seek his strength to face each day with all its ups and downs and spin-arounds. We know he loves us more than we could know and that he will watch over all of us, especially MacKenzie while she is so far away from us. This assurance calms our hearts, releases our fears and comforts us. It moves us outside of our tiny perspective and gives us an inkling of his viewpoint and thus creating a firm place, as the bible says a table-land, to stand reassured that he is actively involved in all our ways, all our comings and all our goings as a family... at least until the next bump in the road when the cycle is repeated again.

Please Stop Giving This NUT an Audience!

This man should be forced to wear a "toxic" or "Poisonous" warning on all of his clothes. What is our responsibility towards these people who simply cannot admit they are way off track? Is it not painfully obvious that they are full of a lying deceitful spirit and therefore cannot speak the truth for they have deceived themselves and the truth is not in them. Claiming to be wise they have become fools, exchanging the truth of God for lies; Claiming not to offer their own opinions they go on to offer their own opinions. Claiming to simply say what the Bible says (which by the way it CLEARLY states that no one knows the day or the hour... taken to mean "no one" not even Harold)they invent new ways of sinning. This man has shipwrecked his faith and is determined to take as many as possible with him. Stay away from him he is toxic and his brand of faith is toxic!

Managing Our Doomsday Inclinations

May 21^st came and May 21^st went and yet once again, as always, another doomsday prediction has not come true. For literally 1000’s of years there have been prophets of doom, setting dates and getting people all wound up over their predictions of a coming apocalyptic event. And, every single time since these predictions have been made, there are way too many people who buy into the doomsday forecasts. They sell their possessions, they put their beloved pets down, and they get themselves ready for rapture. In some ways I have some sympathy for these folks. Their wholehearted dedication to announcing and getting the word out of coming judgement is quite staggering. I saw on TV, a man from New York who spent most of his life’s savings advertising on billboards and putting signs on subway walls and buses. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to warn everyone of the coming judgement. When interviewed he seemed genuinely sad that so many people had not heeded the warnings and just went on with their day. He finished by saying it was still money well spent because it may not have happened on the 21^st but it will happen this year. Which is the sad part of all this. People have been so completely and totally deceived. The final shot of the news story of him sitting in his living room reading his well-worn Bible made me both sad and angry; sad because he was searching the scriptures daily and yet he was completely missing the message therein. The message is we bring heaven to earth. Our faith is not an escape out of this messy world. Angry because once again the good name of Jesus and his many faithful followers was dragged through the mud of lunacy and scam.

But doomsday predictions are not solely generated by religious kooks and fanatics. Science has joined in the march toward the end with predictions of the sun burning out, giant asteroids hitting the earth, a super-volcanic eruption that creates an ash cloud so thick it jokes out all of life, and who can forget all the climate change warnings that roll off the presses seemingly every day, blaming pretty much every single disaster in the world on climate change. The end is coming they warn and the future is bleak they shout.

Hollywood producers have also joined in the collective rant about the end of the world with a steady stream of movies that try to capture through cinematography what the end will look like. The Terminator series, Armageddon, The Day after Tomorrow and one of my personal favorites, The Book of Eli, are some of the more popular movies that have nurtured and furthered the end-time fascination and speculation.

But why are human beings so interested in this topic? Could it be that we are simply longing for a better place, a paradise, nirvana, an end to all the trouble, turmoil and tribulations? Even when things are good they fail to completely satisfy our innermost desires and so we dream of a place that completely satisfies all of our deepest longings for meaning, purpose and total love. All of nature joins in with its groans for deliverance and all of humanity right along with it seeks a way out, an exodus to a land of milk and honey.

Well, the scripture teaches that God has placed eternity within the heart of all humankind. This means that we know intuitively that what is here is temporal and must come to an end to make way for a new and desirable future. The doomsday forecasters are partly right. There will be an end. There will be a new beginning. God has promised that much for sure. But the day and hour NO ONE KNOWS, and no one ever will. I guess the big thing is are we ready?

Thoughts about Clouds

When the kids were growing up we had a trampoline in the back yard. From time to time the girls and I would go outside and jump and play on it. When we stopped we would lay on it and star at the sky. We would always be fascinated by the clouds and the different forms they took. We made a game of identifying different shapes, like whales, dogs, people’s faces, and sheep, lots and lots of sheep! There was something mesmerising about the clouds.

Each morning before I head off for my daily walk to the gym I look up at the clouds. Depending on what I see there in the sky I choose my clothing for the walk. There are many kinds of clouds in the sky and even a few different colours. There was fog the other day that was thick, there are low clouds that seem like you could almost touch them, there are thunder clouds that produce a huge mountain of cloud, and there are wispy clouds and then there are the patchy fluffy clouds, the kind that kids always seem to draw on their pictures. At times they shine like gold as the rising sun reflects off of them, sometimes orange, gray, blackish, and at times such a bright white they are hard to look at. Of course there are those rare occasions when they are not even there.

Clouds are usually if not always mentioned in the weather reports. In fact a multi-billion dollar industry has arisen devoted to a large degree to the study of reading and interpreting cloud formation and tracking their movements. All this so that it can be reported several times a day to an interested and even demanding public. Recently we witnessed a rare cloud occurrence that left parts of the North Shore City in ruins. The tornado that ripped through Albany was many things. It was ferocious because one person was killed by it, it was fascinating as there were several video recordings of the clouds as they twisted into funnel shape and touched down, it was forceful as we witnessed several buildings damaged, cars overturned and written off and the rubbish and debris scattered everywhere, and it was frightening as it produced a mixture of wonder and fear depending mostly on how close one was to it. It brought thunder, lightning, rain and in some places flooding, it brought winds that gusted at times up to 200 kilometers per hour, strong enough to uproot massive trees like they were matchsticks. But at the end of the day it was the clouds that did all this.

We can all know one thing for sure. Clouds never stay the same. They are constantly changing, always shifting, moving, thickening and thinning, speeding up and slowing down, sometimes delightful other times dreadful. Life is often like the clouds. Uncertain, difficult to read, even the wisest among us can get it wrong. Life is always changing, shifting, shaking. Life is sometimes awesome and sometimes fearful. At one point Jesus mentioned that people are better at reading the clouds than they are at reading life. In this case the light of life was standing right in front of them and they missed it, misunderstood him and maligned him. They were better at reading the clouds than reading Jesus. At one point the clouds made him disappear while his disciples watched, gazing up into the clouds until it was announced to them that the same way they had seen him disappear was the same way he would reappear. Not long before this event Jesus had announced that at a certain time in history he will return and at that time people, “will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory”. Even the most significant event of human history will include the clouds.

iLove Easter

I love the entire Easter season, from Ash Wednesday, Lenten, Good Friday, to Resurrection Sunday and Easter Monday. I love the idea of sacrificing something to keep me focused on the sacrifice of Christ. This year I tackled a big one... a fast from sugar. I was 70% successful at it and even lost a couple of kilos for my efforts. This year we (me, my family and our entire church family) were involved in an Easter production with our brothers and sisters from the Chinese Alliance Christian Church called iTouch Easter. This was so excellent. The church building was transformed into a kind of walk through the old Jerusalem format. We broke Easter down into an acronym, E= Entering the City, A= Accusing Jesus, S= Suffering, T= tomb, E= Eyewitness, R = Resurrection. Then we added a twist by associating each of the sections with one (or more) of the 5 Senses. E/A= hearing, S= bitter taste, T= smell of death, E= seeing, and R= touch. It was very well done and we had over 500 people walk through over four evenings. The weather was perfect and the effort was well worth it. We all had such a great time. It was good for our church to take on an ambitious task, it was good for our two churches to work together on a project and it was good personally to be immersed in the significance of the amazing story of love and sacrifice that Easter is. This year as usual I seek the Lord to help me find fresh meaning in this ancient and often told story. I landed on the verses from Matthew 27: 50-54. And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” This passage speaks of such amazing things that grab the imagination and fuel a sense of wonder and awe. Jesus gives up his own Spirit, at that moment, the temple curtain tears in two, there is an earthquake, rocks split and tombs open, then holy saints of old are resurrected and after Jesus resurrection they all go into the city of Jerusalem... Imagine the panic, the bewilderment, the absolute horror of seeing dead people up and eating breakfast, trying to enjoy being reunited with shocked family and friends, I mean, what do you talk about with resurrected Uncle Abraham? All of this took place to give us confidence that what we believe is no fairy tale or mythical story, it was real, bonafide, proven, historical and powerful enough that a wily, battle worn, tough as nails, centurion and his entire cohort of guards were not only terrified but also uttered the astounding words, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" Given the circumstances that he and his men found themselves in what other options did they have? It was pure crazy pandemonium and all of it from start to finish just happened to coincidentally coincide with Jesus shouting out his last words and giving up his Spirit. So cool! So if you are a believer be encouraged you are not putting your faith in some mystical fable. If you are not yet a believer what other options do you have given this overwhelming eye witnessed evidence? Hope you all had an incredible and enjoyable Easter Season this year.

Jack Be Nimble

Yesterday we enjoyed a great message from the current director of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of New Zealand, Rev. Andrew Marshall. He spoke from a well known passage about endurance, focus, and discipline found in the first two verses of Hebrews 12. It reads this way from the The Living Bible. "Since we have such a huge crowd of people of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us." Part way through his message he used a word that I had not heard anyone use for quite some time. Andrew spoke of a marathon runner being cheered on, stripped down to the bear essentials, running toward the finish line. Then he began to encouraged us to rid ourselves of anything that could hinder our marathon run of faith as we also head toward the finish line. He spoke of the Christians need of being nimble and the word lodged in my brain. To be nimble means to be quick and light in movement; moving with ease; agile, active; rapid. I began to think through my life wondering if the great crowd of people cheering me on would consider how I live my life, (i.e.how I run my race) and describe it as being nimble. As I reviewed the various activities, actions, attitudes and attributes of my life of faith it became painfully clear that there were things in my life that were keeping me from being a nimble runner. I confessed my need and began to formulate a plan for ridding myself of everything that weighs me down and keeps me from being the nimble runner that God desires me to be.
One of the greatest blessings in my life is the many wonderful and meaningful church services I have participated in where the word of God is preached well. Services where the whole atmosphere of the crowd of believers present is to meet with and eagerly worship our Great God. To hear the word, to let it sink, saturate, and stimulate my life and faith is such a privilege. Often after hearing the word I can recalibrate my life, move forward, run with less to weigh me down, becoming more and more nimble in the race that God has laid out before me. Thanks brother Andrew for being the Lord's servant yesterday morning as you faithful administered the Word of God to us.

Shaken not stirred....

Lots of people know this phrase from author Ian Flemings well known fictional series of novels and movies about a British Secret Service Agent named James Bond. ‘Shaken not stirred’, refers to the characters preference for how his martini should be made, the indication being that a shaken martini will be colder and more watered down so as not to interfere with the super sleuths senses or slow his reactions down while on assignment.
Shaken but not stirred deep enough is how I would describe many of the comments I have heard recently from both Christians and those who are not of the house hold of faith regarding recent world events. Shaken is abundantly clear. People everywhere are feeling the sense of insecurity and uncertainty as literally the earth beneath our feet is moving. Earthquakes are happening around the globe at an alarming rate and this has shaken confidence, it has shaken the already fragile economic world and it has shaken people out of their little individual worlds to lend a hand to a neighbour in need. However, one church that was sensing the near hypocrisy of the moment wrote on their bulletin board, “You don’t have to have experience an earthquake to be a good neighbour.” My read on this was that they are trying to get their readers to push a little deeper than just being ‘stirred” by the moment; to dig a little deeper than to suddenly be interested in something or someone other than themselves! Shaken, indeed, but stirred, not nearly deep enough as this billboard would indicate.
Listening to some Christians blather on about judgment and gays and lesbians and sin and this is how God deals with the world today is disheartening and frustrating and simply a sign of not being stirred deep enough as well. It is a fall-back position for those who have the luxury of saying such things because their hearts are hard, their love is shallow and their thin understanding of God is disgracefully projected on a poor, broken and needy world of hurting people. Agenda driven and shaken but not stirred deep enough is what is so troubling about these brothers and sisters.
On the other hand, Christianity is not the only group that has its share of doomsayers out there babbling on about ‘just desserts’ and other nonsensical things like ‘karma’, i.e. what goes around comes around. I read recently of the whale protectionist group who spoke this way of the Japanese, attributing their current multi-front disaster, quake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns to karma because of their whale hunting practices. This is so aggravating! It is a clear case of kicking someone when they are already down. Shaken but certainly not stirred deep enough!
In my estimation we need to see how deeply stirred Jesus was when he encountered the destructive power of death in the story of Lazarus. Jesus saw how it causes such turmoil and grief and his response was to be angry about death, to be angry about its destructive nature, to be angry because it is clearly the greatest of enemies to all of life. But he was not only moved to anger he was stirred to weep as well. The grief, suffering and pain that death had brought moved him to weep with those who wept, to be empathetic, compassionate and sorrowful for those affected by this great tragedy. Finally, his anger mixed with his grief stirred him to action. In this case it was to counter the work of death and bring life and hope back into the picture. Jesus efforts were meant to restore, to deliver, to turn around the effects of deaths devastation and bring back joy, laughter and life.
As believers we must imitate the master. We must follow his lead. Be angry at our common enemy death and the destruction it causes, weep with those who suffer and then begin the work of restoration, to counter the effects of death and restore life, joy and laughter wherever we can.

Outcomes...

Who can really control any outcome from any decision or even non-decision made? I was thinking of the tragedy that is almost 24/7 in our faces from newsprint to TV down in Christchurch. Outcomes… two stories come to mind. One man saved from under the rubble and the action was caught by TV cameras. They pulled him out very much alive and rushed him to an ambulance and off to a hospital. He never made it as his internal injuries were just too severe, a casualty of this terrible earthquake. Another man, pinned down with his legs caught under concrete slabs was on the phone with his wife giving her his exact location. Some doctors in town for a convention heard his cries for help, found him, assessed the situation, and decided to amputate both of his legs to free him. All they had was a hacksaw and a pocket knife to do the job. They successfully removed him from his situation however; he had lost a lot of blood. They put him in an ambulance and he was zipped off to a hospital and he is currently recovering from his ordeal and very thankful for the quick minded efforts of the visiting Australian Surgeons who saved his life. Outcomes. In both scenarios the rescuers were brave, quick, efficient, in both cases they had desires for the patient to “make” it, in both the rescuers did everything they could humanly do and in both cases the outcome was completely out of their hands.
On a less traumatic front, my wife is currently searching for a job as a school teacher. She does everything she can do to get a job; dropping off CV’s, volunteering in classrooms, sending emails, and taking upgrade classes and training seminars. She can do all this and do so diligently but the outcome is completely out of her control. She prays, she believes this is God’s leading in her life, she has made many “signs” that this is the right direction but in the end the outcome is completely out of her hands.
As a pastor I moved my entire family here to NZ to work in a church that wanted to grow. We’ve done everything humanly possible to inspire and encourage this fellowship to grow. We’ve hosted music concerts, we’ve held ALPHA classes, we’ve done community volunteering, we’ve hosted evangelistic meetings, we’ve had discipleship training in our home groups, we’ve prayed in big groups, medium groups and small groups. We’ve done strategic planning weekends, we’ve had people come to faith in Christ and we’ve have been working, almost tirelessly, to grow people into maturity in Christ. But in the end the outcomes are not ours to control.
Working towards a desired outcome is not bad, but without understanding that a key ingredient in working towards a desired outcome is trust in the Lord can prove disastrous to our faith. Faith that God will do what is best for his plan, best for us and best for those who we love and care about is a matter of trust. We cannot control the outcomes. Learning to let this sense of control go is difficult, but the result is total freedom to enjoy the journey we are on today. Worrying, stressing, forcing, anxiety, and striving are all symptoms of those who believe they can control outcomes. Joy, peace, patience, calmness and trust are the results of those who labour but entrust the outcomes to God.
Jesus had a conversation with Peter in John 21:18-19 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!" What really matters is that we simply follow the master, leaving the outcomes safely in his hands.

Riptides and Christians

Living in New Zealand, a place surrounded by two large bodies of ocean water, has been a real education for me.

My first experience with swimming in the ocean came while I was an intern in Salem Oregon. I remember all too well the frantic feeling of being smashed by a wave that took me by surprise as I was mesmerised by a sea lion not too far from me. The wave tossed me around like a rag-doll and then plunged me head first into the ocean floor. I heard all the bones in my neck crack as I collided with the bottom. I finally got my legs under me and stood up only to be greeted by water that was rushing down the slopped beach back into the ocean. I stumbled, fell, got turned around, and became so dizzy that I was having trouble knowing which way to head back to shore. Needless to say, my respect for the ocean and the mighty power it wields has never left me. One must keep their wits about them whilst playing in ocean waters.

New Zealand has hundreds of beautiful beaches, many of which are decent for swimming, surfing and body boarding. However, the best places for these activities usually include a serious riptide. A riptide is an underwater current, also called an undertow. It seems that over the 4 years I have lived here every couple of months we hear the sad news of someone being swept away by these dangerous riptides. The problem as I understand it is that just forgetting for a split second that you are swimming and playing above a riptide can be fatal. Suddenly the tide has you in its grasp and starts pulling you out to the open seas. The first mistake is that is often made is that people swim where they are not supposed to swim, outside the watchful eye of the life guards. The second mistake that many make is they try to swim against the tide. Doing this very quickly exhausts them and they succumb to the drag of the tide and are swept out to sea. The only way to survive is first of all not to panic and second is to swim across the tide in slow and steady strokes, stopping every so often to wave your arms and cry for help.

I was thinking of this and how it relates to Christians and the power of the culture we live in. The culture is much like a riptide. Forgetting it is there, even just a few seconds, and it starts to drag you off under its tremendous power. Swimming against it is also not wise, for soon you will become exhausted, and with no more power to fight it it begins to consume you or at very least sidelines you. Swimming across the tide is the only way to survive until rescue comes.

This swimming across the tide is called being wise or discerning about how much we allow culture to influence our day to day lives. How often do we passively approach the culture we live in? How often have you seen someone go off taking on the evils of society head on only to run out of gas, get into a rut, and fizzle out against the relentless pressure of culture. Jesus instructed us as his disciples to be crafty as serpents yet innocent as doves in regard to these matters. To swim across the current, to be smart about what we call good, and to remember where we are living and who we are living for is the only way to survive until rescue comes. He commanded us to be in the world just not of it.

Star Gazers Beware!

Hi fellow blog-watchers.... it has been many moons since my last blog. It seems life has been passing me by and I have not been keeping a record of it either here or in my personal journal for about the past 6 months... any who...
This past Christmas season saw us attend an observatory & planetarium event which advertised that we could come and learn how the "Star of Christmas", that the wise men from the east followed to the birthplace of Jesus, came to be. It was well presented and even quite credible especially the theory about the two planets lining up and thereby producing a star-like brilliance in the sky that would have lasted for a significant amount of time (long enough to fit with the Biblical story any way). Afterward, in the car on the way home, one of my daughters said boldly, "No matter what they say, I think God just did a miracle, and that's why the star was there." Somehow the mixing of science, in this case astronomy, and faith is always a fragile mix and often hard to decipher. In my opinion the two often work hand and glove and, in the end, who is to say what God actually did? Perhaps he simply timed the event to coincide up with the planetary alignments, or, he could have just as easily created a special star just for this wondrous occasion. I guess only God could really answer that one.
Recently I read of the serious difficulty that many folks are facing over the announcement that the astrological signs have been misinterpreted over the past 2500 years. Those who read their horoscopes and plan their lives accordingly have been dealt a death blow to their "faith". The zodiac signs they put so much of their trust in have been proven to be wrong! Astronomist Robert Roy Britt is quoted as saying, "The shift in the alignment of the stars, which has come about because the Earth has been wobbling on its axis for millennia, means most people go back a sign." This means that if you thought you were an others-focused and kindly Taurus...guess again... you are actually a self-centered and aggressive Aries! Talk about confusion reigning!
I guess all this simply supports what Christians have been saying all along. We need to put our faith in the maker of the stars no in the stars themselves. We must put our trust in the Creator not in his creation. At least then we can be confident in whom we have believed in rather than completely confused, uncertain and left with nothing but to 'wish upon a falling star'!

40

I heard a preacher say once, “In our western culture it is a form of treason to be unhappy." In fact one of the few places left in society where you can be free to express openly your pain, suffering and misery is in a therapy session after which we are encouraged to medicate until those nasty bad feelings go away... for good!
If there was ever a time and place where we need a season of Lent it is most certainly now. So I have eagerly set out on my journey of Lent this year and I have not been disappointed! (or maybe I should say I have found disappointment?)
I've believe that this season of lent has become for me a dark place. The church calendar calls the 40 days prior to resurrection, "Lenten" which comes from the Latin word meaning "40". Despite its "creative" name it is not meant to be a happy season. It is meant to commemorate the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness. At the end of which Jesus goes head to head with his (and our) mortal enemy Satan and defeats him with the Word of God. Lent, is meant to take us into the dark places of our lives; it is both a sober and somber time where we are encouraged to explore the parts of ourselves that we tend to hide from, ignore and even despise. The idea is that it should therefore set out a counterpoint or better a contrast to the heightened sense of joy, celebration and power that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ known as Easter.
Something powerful has surfaced during these darkened days. I have discovered it is OK to be sad about the things of my life that are displeasing to me. The things which I believe affect the joy of God's wonderful gift of salvation to me; the things which decrease my sense of the presence of God in my life. It is OK, not because some morbid sense of wallowing in my disparity or self pity, but rather it is a place where I find God there! He is already there. He is waiting for me to come and shine his light on these dark places, to experience his light push away darkness, to dislodge it from my soul and banish it from there.
I know it has only been a few days, well a week to be exact, since I have started my journey but it is already having this wonderfully unsettling affect upon areas of my life that normally I am complacent about.
I'm sure there will be more to come about this later as I journey along in my season of Lent. I am already anticipating with greater expectancy the glory and wonder and majesty of Jesus Christ bursting forth from darkness, from the tomb, to absolute and indescribable joy and light

Haiti and Siloam's Tower

Wow the devastation is the worst I’ve seen in my life. They are now reporting that hundreds of thousands could perish from this devastating earthquake. I saw one video of the ground bouncing like a trampoline. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhLUMNdO8ic How horrifying and devastating to these poor people.
TV Evangelist Pat Robertson seems to think it is because of some ancestral curse, others think it is a judgment of God. Why has this happened? Or better yet, if you believe in God why would he let this happen?
Jesus taught one day about a tower that had collapsed on a bunch of people, maybe it was an earthquake that caused it, but none the less the death toll was significant. Jesus never asked why. In fact his response on the surface seems cold and callus. Do you think they were any worse than anyone else he asked? I tell you no, but all of you will likewise perish unless you repent. The presence of evil was not shocking to Jesus but what was shocking is that people somehow thought the people who died in the tower deserved it or had done something really bad for that to have happened to them. In other words there had to be some legitimate reason for it. But Jesus never concerned himself with the reason, since sin and the presence of it in this world was and is still reason enough. What Jesus concerned himself with was the necessity for repentance or death will be victorious over anyone who doesn’t repent. Then he told an interesting parable about a tree that had born no fruit for 3 years. The farmer had had enough and said cut it down but his partner said no leave it one more year, I will fertilize it and dig around it and give it special attention and see if it bears fruit. If still doesn’t produce fruit then we will cut it down. In other words God is patient with all of humanity, He desires all to repent, when these things happen it should bring us to our knees first, for as Jesus instructed, there will come an end to God's great patience with unrepentant humans.
In some ways worrying about why is like getting upset about spilt milk. We could spend an enormous amount of time figuring out how it got spilt but perhaps the better use of our time would be spent cleaning it up and consoling the one that spilt it. Haiti has experienced a terrible tragedy. Instead of worrying about the why, let’s allow it teach us to realize that life is full of evil because of sins effects on all of creation. We should let it lead us to repentance, and then let it lead us to pray, give or go and help with the clean up. Compassion is the evidence of good in the midst of such horrific evil.

holding tightly?

I've been thinking.... i know i know it is a rare commodity in this day and age and especially coming from me... but I have been thinking. It seems that at the end of something, like the end of a year or end of a decade, I find myself contemplative. I was thinking about who holds who in our christian walks? Do I hold on to the masters hand as my girls did when they were little as we walked through a crowd? Or does the master hold my hand with a promise that he will never let it go, like I did to my little girls hand determined not to lose her in the crowd. Who was holding who? I have noticed that a good number of newer christian worship songs seem to place a large amount of emphasis to what I do to maintain my relationship with my God but very little on what God has promised to do to keep me close to himself. It seems as though we live out our lives as though the relationship we have with Jesus was mostly up to us. I am as you can tell, not convinced this is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It would seem to me that I cannot trust myself to hold on. I cannot say with certainty that I will keep my faith, or i will never let God down, or i will never stop loving him, or only want to do what's right.... it seems that all of those things are true of God but certainty not of me. Yet I sing them to God anyway! Is it just me or is that just a whole-lot-a-proud covered up by lovely music and good intentions.
He is my strong tower, he is my rock, he is my fortress, he is my faithfulness, he is my joy, he is my love, he is my life, he is my comfort, he is my confidence, he is the one who holds me when I'm hurting, he is the one who holds me when I fall, he is the one who holds me when I stumble, he is the one who holds me when I cant find the strength to go on.... he is the one!
I've been thinking....
Happy New Year everyone!

A King is Not a King Unless he Rules

A King that does not rule is no king at all. Now granted in our day and age, being King is more of a governmental status than anything else. More for pomp and circumstance than a real live ruling kind of king. However, back in Jesus day, a King that did not rule was not a king at all.
The wise men arrived in Jerusalem asking questions about one who was born king of the Jews. Upon hearing this news King Herod became very suspicious and it disturbed him very much. Those wise men had some stones going to a king asking for directions to another king born to the Jews! Herod had a terrible history of violence and insecurity and so it followed that the whole city of Jerusalem was very nervous and disturbed not knowing how this insanely jealous King Herod would react.
Herod called two strategic meetings. One a public one were he gathered all the religious leaders together to discern the foretold birthplace of the King born to the Jews. Once finding out the information he called a private meeting with the wise men; telling them of the prophecy that Bethlehem would be the birth place of such a king. Finding out when the star had first appeared he sent them on their way only asking that when they find the child they return and tell him so he could also go and “worship” him too.
After the wise men had found the little king and worshipped him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod but to go home another way. Which they did post haste.
When Herod found out he had been outwitted he went from disturbed to furious. In his uncontrollable rage he issued an order to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and surrounding area under the age of two. He did this based on the intelligence gathered from the wise men regarding when they had first seen the star.
This part of the Christmas story is not often told. We hear of peace on earth and good will toward all people in songs and carols and Christmas readings. But, try and tell that to all the moms and dads of Bethlehem. Try and explain to them that Christmas is the happiest season of all or the most wonderful time of the year.
You see the existence of another king is serious business. A king demands allegiance. A king demands loyalty. A king demands your life. Or more simply a king demands…full stop!
If Jesus really is a King then his demands must be met or the consequences could be very dire! We are not accustom to being told how to live. We humans like to think we are the masters of our own destiny. We all think we are like royalty. Nobody has the right to tell us anything, especially how to live!
But King Jesus is very clear about this. If we try to save our own lives, if we try to rule them and be the masters of our own destiny then we will lose our lives. However, if we lose our lives, if we submit to him, if we give him rulership of our lives, then we will find our lives full and rich and rewarding forever.
This Christmas try and think through how the birth of Jesus was responded to by King Herod. Think of how those families in Bethlehem, for the rest of their lives, were minus one little boy. The pain never went away completely like a not so wonderful Christmas gift that keeps on delivering grief.
Jesus is a king. He makes demands. The question is will we react like Herod trying desperately to hang on to the rulership of our own lives or will we respond differently, handing over our lives to King Jesus and in doing so find true life.
The darker side of Christmas is not often spoken of. But now you know the rest of the story.

The Real Unsung Hero of Christmas

Jesus Birth: Through the eyes of Joseph Matt 1:16-24
Have you ever just wondered about Joseph? Who was he? Where did he come from? Talk about a quick entrance and a mostly unnoticed exit in story of the nativity. But what would the Christmas story be like without old Joe? The expressions "second fiddle" and "unsung hero" definitely come to mind when we examine this remarkable man. His short but rich documentary is found mostly in the first chapter of Matthew in the New Testament.
We are introduced to him at the end of a long genealogy where he is uncharacteristically and certainly in ancient Middle Eastern culture, unceremoniously noted as the "husband of Mary". I'm not sure we can fully appreciate this description in our day and age but back then, in a deeply entrenched patriarchal society, was there a more profound insult than to be known as somebody’s husband? This is where he appears on the pages of scripture and then a few verses later he disappears never to be seen or heard from again. Mostly unsung, certainly un-thanked, largely unrecognized, and almost completely unknown in life. I guess in some ways you could say like most of us! And yet, what we do know of Joe is anything but unimportant. He is profoundly faithful, seriously devoted to Mary, meticulously righteous, and wonderfully gracious. Pretty much what every man wants to be like and pretty much what every women wants her man to be like. Good ol' Joe!
But how did the birth of Jesus affect him? A pledge to be married was only broken through death or divorce. A year long waiting period as the couple prepared for married life after the dowry was paid and the transaction was complete. Yet, his bride to be is suddenly found to be pregnant and not just pregnant but apparently loosing her mind becuase she was blaming the pregnancy on God! And just like real life, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, all his dreams are shattered! The little white tent, 3.4 goats, 20 or so sheep, a wood shop to ply his trade and somewhere between 10 and 15 children running around. All of it gone with the wind. Crushed, destroyed, and broken, all his future dreams vanished. He knows he not the father. He believes his beloved Mary has been unfaithful to him. Why else would she run off to her relative Elizabeth's place for 3 months without a word to him. Now he must make the most painful decision of his life. He must divorce her to protect his righteous reputation. To salvage at least his clean name. Yet, his profound commitment to her pushes his broken heart to quietly get this done and save as much face for Mary as could be saved in such a nasty situation.
Exhausted and worn out from his most horrible bad day, his head hits the pillow and the tears begin to flow and he falls into a restless sleep. Thinking he has only two options before him, to stone his bride to death or to simply divorce her.
But God.... those two famous words appear on the page. When those two words appear we can with certainly know that God can make a way when there seems to be no way forward. When all is lost and our dreams are crushed, God steps in, and brings about things that we could never have imagined. And God's way, well, his way is truely astonishing. The child is from God. Mary is not deluted. She will be his again, he will be given the most sacred responsibility of any human father... to raise a son that was not his own, and to bring him up in the fear and admiration of the Lord.
The new dream is so delightful that Joseph wakes, gets dressed and does exactly as the Lord told him without hesitation. Who cares what everybody thinks. I'm going to raise the son of the living God. Who cares about my old dreams... this dream supersedes them all by far!
So, he doesn't mind being known as Mary's husband because Mary was the mother of Jesus. He can handle the scandal this little fella would make because he, Joseph son of Jacob, son of the great King David, is a significant part of a grand play written by the God of the universe.

Joe, a man for all men to model their lives after. Joe. A man that every woman would be proud to marry. What a treasure his man's life is for us to ponder this Christmas. The real unsung hero of Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone