Trust

I have been talking to clients about trust today. It hits me what a mysterious thing it is. When we talk about it, trying to define the subtle nuances of what it really means in the face of God, I find myself getting lost very easily.

Trust means something different to me than it used to. It once meant that God was good and I should believe that He would work everything out. Now it is a shaky movement forward, believing that He knows my path, journeys with me as I step, and has walked every footprint in front of me. Trust is taking an invisible hand and walking, even when it doesn't make sense - especially when it doesn't make sense. It is standing in a dark cave and making movement toward a light that may or may not be there. It is making that movement, not because of the light, but because He somehow indicates that as His desire for my life.

Trust is believing in His goodness when nothing looks good - separating God from good. Believing that He is still good even when His hand is seemingly not there. It is remaining in faith when God gives us nothing to keep us remaining.

Trust for me has moved from an action on my part to a belief in a quality of His character - a shift from being about me to being about a trustworthy Papa. Trust has become living in a fashion that says "I can't do this wrong because I don't do this alone". It is a leaning into the future because God is good, not because I am. And with that lean, knowing that He will never leave me or forsake me - ever. It is a step forward into seeming emptiness, believing that my Daddy is bigger than the apparent circumstances and situation. Like courage, trust can only be expressed when it is expressed in the face of fear and uncertainty.

Trust is believing. It is a choice. It is a dangerous action that challenges insecurity and calls for a way of being that doesn't come from ourselves, but the work of the Spirit in our feeble flesh. Being able to move forward in trust is to put our future in His hands, contradicting everything in us that screams for security and guarantees.

Trust rarely makes sense, but is always right.

Beer at 12000 feet

This past week I had a friend visiting from Illinois and we were able to take a backpack trip into the Weminuche wilderness, one of my favorite places to go. We headed out in the afternoon Tuesday and were out three nights, seeing some of the most spectacular scenery ever - a 200 foot waterfall, another 3 tiered waterfall, a pristine alpine lake, and a beautiful mountain meadow at 11000 feet. And out of the meadow rose a mountain that towered into the sky, looming at 12,620. As we sat by the meadow and snacked, I leaned toward John and said "What do you think about climbing that thing?" I nodded at the giant near us. John was silent for awhile, then, without answering, began to pick out the route we might take. The next thing I knew, we were half way up the thing and gasping for any air to be found.

We couldn't find a route that really made any sense, so we just climbed up the side of the dumb thing. 1500 feet of climb up the dumb thing. We got to the top several times - that is a sarcastic way of saying that there were at least three false summits on the climb up - times when you think you are just about to crest the top and find out that the top is several million steps yet. After 2 hours of slogging up the scree and loose gravel (notice the efficient use of more than one really cool backpacking term in that last sentence) I arrived at the summit. At the very top was a little pile of rocks stacked up to hold 3 things; a plastic bottle that held the names and dates of others who had made it to the top, and, believe it or not, 2 beers. Fat Tire Amber Ale to be precise. And one had my name on it. Okay, not really, but with winter coming I knew it was my duty to drink at least one of them before they froze and broke.

So I sucked down my beer at 12,620 feet in the air, forcing it down through the cold and fizz (I like beer warm and flat - sorry, I'm just weird that way). And as I looked out at hundreds of miles that I could see, with millions of acres of land in all directions, I thought only one thing; God is good. God is really, really good. And sometimes when you least expect it, He shows up in ways you could never imagine.

So thanks for the beer Papa. And thanks for sharing that awesome place with me.

Lousy at Love

I have been overwhelmed lately with the simple truth of the gospel - that God is love. If I stop right there, I come face to face with my complete inadequacy in my ability to love. In common terms, I suck at love.

If the gospel of Jesus - the whole reason for Him dieing for us, the very crux of this huge plan of God's hinges around love - then what does that say about us following Him? If it is all about love, then how do we continually miss the mark? And if missing the mark is called, in Christianeze "sin", then our sin is not loving. Is there any need to complicate it?

As I sit with my own last question there, I realize that there is a need to complicate it. If we knew that our only task, our only way of being was the way of love, we would have to lay down our lives and do it. It is much easier to argue doctrine or get lost in church machinery than it is to face the mirror with our own lack of love. So simple - only four letters, but if we don't have love we are a clanging gong, a clashing 'symbol' of our own self focused-ness.

I am humbled that I don't even love myself very well. Lord, help me to love the least of these, even if that least is me.

Sittin on the Front Porch

My brother is a kook. You'd have to know him to fully appreciate his humor. He is known for saying and doing really crazy things. He coins these really profound sayings - things like "Never eat more than you can lift" or "Every time you go some place, there you'll be" or my personal favorite "You can pick your nose and you can pick your friends, but you can't wipe your friends on the couch". To prove the shallowness of the body of Christ, he used to walk through the foyer of the church several times, bating people to say "How are you doing?" And when they did, he would answer "Terrible". 90% of the time they never noticed or didn't care enough to explore what might be making things terrible. It seemed pretty obvious that Christian brothers and sisters didn't REALLY want to know how he was doing. We just say the words - we don't really mean them.

Shouldn't we be the ones actually caring for each other? I mean, wouldn't that be the least we could do? I guess I should be talking about the MOST we could do, but it seems like we haven't gotten the LEAST done yet. We remain on the front porch of each other's lives and don't get into the stuff of life very well. I guess that is partly because we don't open up, and partly because the receivers don't really want to know.

I was at a Bible study the other day. We argued over Calvin Vs. Armenian doctrine. We argued over the Bible being infallible. We talked about the correctness of (XXX) denomination. I sat there and wondered if we might get a little farther in our walk if we threw the whole book out and just did one thing - love. It is pretty much agreed that the Bible is about love. It says it pretty clear several hundred places. But do we do it? I mean lets face it - we have a choice. Keep chasing our own tails about who is right and who is wrong, or argue about what end of the egg to baptise first, or whether the real meaning in Greek is this or that- or we can take what we do understand and just do it.

We don't really get to know each other. Instead of entering in with each other, we stay on the front porch of life, talking about the casual, remaining safe in the shallow talk. "How about the Cubs? Think this is their year?" (Can you tell I was Illinois born and raised?) Needless to say the Cubbies STILL haven't won, and neither do we tend to get past the superficial, to the stuff that really matters about being family - brothers and sisters in a common Papa.

Lost in the Authentic

I'm curious as to what most folks might define as 'authentic'. When it comes to living an authentic life, I hear lots of talk about it, but don't know if any of us talkers actually know what it means. I was talking with a friend this morning (thanks again John) about this whole topic. (John gets really nervous when I blog, being not quite sure what I might write). I found myself talking about Jesus as the best example of what it meant to live authentic. I thought about him not being swayed by others around him - the pharisees critiquing and the disciples favoring him. It seemed that he didn't really let himself get pulled by popularity or unpopularity. He was sorta unmanipulatable. When people wanted him to heal more, and he needed to be with his father, he vacated and left them hanging. When the religious people wanted to pin him down about what he meant in his teachings, he usually confounded them.

I guess when I look at Jesus, I see a guy who lived 100% himself all the time, whether it won him points or not. He just was himself, without deviation, every moment, in every situation, and with everybody. It's interesting to see that he treated people different, depending on who they were and their situation. The rich young ruler gets challenged to follow and walks away, where the Geresene demonic begged to go with him and was sent home. When the disciples argue about who was best, he challenged them to more. When a woman was caught sleeping with another man (not her husband) he simply tells her to sin no more. And then there is another woman at a well that has been in multiple relationships and who is shacking up with another, and he doesn't say 'boo' about it being wrong (Take that to the legalist bank and cash it!) He was different with every situation. Sometimes he healed with a word, sometimes with a touch, and sometimes from far off. Once it even took him two times to get the healing done.

All this to say that Jesus somehow had the ability to live authentically while always being different. He seemed to live true to his heart (His father's purpose for his life) while not getting bogged down in ritual or empty repetition. He wasn't always the same. Yet he was always the same (I didn't say I had this all figured out).

So what does it mean to live authentic? I have no clue. I guess it means something about living from what is true inside of you without giving a rip about what everybody else thinks. I think it also means something about being unique and creative in every situation.

I wonder how many of us live authentic? Do we stay true to our hearts, living honest all the time? Are we compromising? Do we spend our time on things that could really change lives, or are we a victim to the machinery that keeps our lives propped up?

It seems to me that being authentic must have something to do with living honest, living true, living from the heart, never letting falseness steal our commitment to being real. Or maybe living authentic is an act of the Spirit within us. Maybe it is much more about passionately pursuing Him than it is a choice to make.

Share your thoughts!

In the TV Game Show I'll Take Relationship for $200

I have been noticing that there is a totally different flavor to people who are religious - very different from the flavor of a person free to have relationship with Jesus. Whether people are in or out of the institutional church is irrelevant. Religion always stinks. It smells because is becomes a cheap imitation of relationship, and it binds up religious people. A spirit of fear replaces a spirit of grace and freedom, and they are so afraid that at every corner there is a way that they could mess up whatever thing they have going. Like the plate spinner on the old Ed Sullivan show that used to see how many plates he could get spinning on the top of these dumb poles. There was always a number at which he lost control. When one would start flopping like it was going to fall down, he would frantically try to get it going again. The problem would be that there were too many of them. Deeper yet was the problem of thinking he could ever 'master' the poles or the gravity that worked for and against them.

When religion replaces relationship, people end up so afraid that they will do something wrong or not do enough good things to keep the plates spinning. They end up fearful that around every corner there is another thing they will mess up. Worse yet is the rigid or strict adherence to the pattern of behavior that is all about them feeling like they have accomplished something grand, and very little about God. Ritual becomes the end, not loving relationship with an unpredictable God. There is no room to create or trust or explore or discover. After all, if they don't do it right, God will thump them. Evidently the God they worship isn't love, unless you define love (as many do) as someone caring enough about you to hit you along side of the head with a 2x4. I'm sorry, but I love my kids, and haven't had to use a piece of wood yet to communicate that to them.

When religion replaces relationship, people seem to be victimized by their own works system. The works they try so hard to be perfect at leave them never perfect, but always striving. The norms they can't attain become norms others should maintain - as if relationship with God was about keeping rules. Relationship/Rules - both begin with the same letter, but the letters after the "R" are very different. How do we get them mixed up?

It seems to me that it would be a lot harder to do a relationship. There is no one to tell you what to do, how to behave, or how to avoid blowing it. In relationship I would have to trust. In religion I just do what I am supposed to do and not do the things I am not supposed to. Oh yeah, and I am supposed to do it all with a joyful heart. Religion is much easier. I don't have to choose or think or be really responsible - my only responsibility is to do whatever I do perfectly. When I can master doing everything right, then I can become truly religious. When I can spin the plates perfectly, I will be "There". I wonder sometimes what the rest of that line of thinking would be. If I could arrive at the place where I did everything right, then I wouldn't need the blood of Christ, because I would have it all together. Something seems very wrong with that picture.

I'll take relationship for $200 on that game show.

I don't want to be told what to do and what not to do. I want to walk with Papa, regardless of where the road takes me. I want Him more than I want easy answers. I want to know the Spirit of God more than I want every step dictated to me. I want to wrestle with Him rather than do 10 legalistic steps that are supposed to make me right with God. I choose messy relationship, with its confusion and maddening uncertainty. I choose the unknown over the known. I want the mystery of the journey together before I want to know I am doing it right.

I know, I'm pretty scary sometimes.

Security and Adventure

I was talking to some friends the other day on a conference call, and one of the concepts that came up was the idea of adventure and security. As we talked, we thought that they were opposite - that security was the choice of the safe at heart who don't want things rattled in their world, and that adventure was the choice of the other half of humanity, the ones liking the unpredictable. I realized that I definitely fall into the second category.

One of the folks on the call said that she thought adventure came out of security. That really hit me. If we don't know that we are loved, or we don't know that God is out for our good, if we think He can't be trusted or doesn't care, it is almost impossible to step out into any adventure. There isn't anything safe feeling. How can we trust Him when we don't even know if He knows who we are?

I am seeing that there is a process of growth here. If we can know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are profoundly loved, we are freed to move forward into the adventure of life with Jesus. But if we don't have that deep sense of lovedness, we freeze up, hole up, shut up, and never allow dreams to soar. I guess this really makes sense in the face of a gospel too often preached that says we are worm scum and valueless without God's redemptive work. I think the opposite of that - that because we are worth redeeming (maybe despite ourselves) Jesus died for us. It is because of our value that He came, to remove the sin, so we could draw close to Papa. Our inability to fix ourselves (and our tendency to try to run our own lives) leaves us in need of someone to do what we can't. Not because we are worthless, but because we are worth while. Our sin stinks, not us. We are God's kids in need of some cleansing, not worthless beings that God tries to stomach and can't look at without a good bath.

I notice that my sense (and hunger) for adventure have grown immensely since I finally took in that I am deeply loved. Knowing that I can't get right with God - only He can (and has) made me right - knowing that it isn't about me or my performance - has set me free to take in a love that isn't earned but given. It is all about His work, not mine. Therefore how could I do it wrong? It isn't about me. Jesus took my responsibility and paid it in full on the cross. And there, on that wooden piece of hell, He took it out of my hands. I am secure. I can know that. I can count on that. I can depend on that.

Dare to trust Him. He is still trustworthy, even if you don't 'feel' it. He is secure, even if you don't believe it yet. And He is love, even if you don't understand it yet. Dare to lean on Him. I think He is big enough to handle it.

Discovering my unimportance

I wonder sometimes what people like reading in my blogs. Some say they like the 'straight from the heart' style. Some say the thoughts I share are stimulating. Some say my mom pays them to read. I still wonder.

One guy who recently read said that there wasn't anything he hadn't heard before. I guess he is probably right. I wonder if there is anything new under the sun. I want to say profound things. I want to write in a way that is revolutionary and provocative. And I want people to read and get something unique out of what they read. I think maybe I had better hire a ghost writer.

The more I journey down this road, the more I am struck with my unimportance in the grand scheme of things. I used to think that meant to try harder - come up with something profoundly unique - be radically differenter than any other person (there - that has to be unique.) What it all boils down to is me being the mostest and bestest and all the other 'est' words one could think of. And when I step away from it all, I see a pretty sobering truth. It isn't about me.

The truth is that I could never be the bestest at anything, and if I did, it would draw lots of attention to me, and that's a problem. You see, I like attention, like most of us do. The problem is that God deserves the attention, not me. Every time I make something about me, I am taking the attention away from where it should be - on Papa. It is about Him - always, every time, in every way, totally, and without compromise. I WANT it to be all about Him.

So I guess I am learning to draw attention to Him, and be okay with not having the attention be on me. I really do want people to see this incredible God who is love - nothing less and nothing but. My deepest wish is that people will somehow see Him in a different light in what I write - even if mom has to pay them to.

Worship on a skid steer

When we moved into our house, we found out that Mo Ron Dumbunny had been the previous owner. Needless to say, I have spent the last several months fixing everything Mo Ron did. The past weekend it was renting a skid loader and removing the dirt that was encroaching on our house in the back. I have never used the word 'encroaching' before in a sentence - is was fun to use, and I think it means that the hill was creeping up on the house, which it was. Snow and ice and rain had brought more and more next to the house, and in some places it had pushed under the house. Bad dirt, Bad!

So I got to play with the Bobcat this weekend, which I have been lusting to do for a month. I thought it would be great fun moving dirt and changing the landscape of our home. After 12 hours on the thing, I find that it really was fun seeing all the changes, but I feel completely beat up after bouncing around in the thing for a day and a half. Every muscle in my body - both of them - is really sore today. Bad skid loader, Bad!

So what's my point? I suppose you are expecting some really deep analogy out of this aren't you. So my being sore from having dug dirt for the weekend isn't enough? Okay, okay. As I bounced around, I was actually having fun. I kinda hate to say it because I want everybody to think I was working, but I was inwardly, and ever so secretively enjoying most of it. And when I look at the results - our property looks really different - I see that I was actually good at running the thing. Sometimes that is enough - to enjoy and do something well.

It strikes me that running the skid loader was worship for me - that's why I did it on Sunday morning. I enjoyed it, and I did the work well. Isn't that what God really wants - that we do, whatever it is, for His glory? That we enjoy it and do it well. Sounds pretty simple. Maybe we need to have a power point program and a good looking, talented guy up front with 6 others who lead us in worship. I don't know. Maybe I am way off here. But when I stopped defining worship as 30 minutes of songs on Sunday morning, something grew in me. I began to see that it wasn't so important what I did. What was important was that I did whatever I did with my mind toward glorifying Him - doing it well and enjoying it to His glory.

Imagine how different the world would be if we just did everything well, and enjoyed it. Wouldn't that simple shift make a huge difference? If we decided to live lives of worship rather than making it an event for a specific day and time, how much different would we live?

Early Seasons

Living at 7200 feet has gotten pretty comfortable now that we have lived in Colorado almost 6 months. It also has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on how you look at it. The temperatures really vary here. This morning it frosted for the first time. There has been an ominous sense in the air that says 'better get your outside chores wrapped up before the snow flies'. So I have been busy putting in windows and insulating, trying to beat winter. This will obviously be our first winter here, so we are preparing well, not sure what to expect.

The season changing always makes me excited. It focuses me on the future and the hopes that wait there. I find myself dreaming and scheming and planning this time of year. It is a season of 'futures' that I look forward to. It reminds me that Papa is about the future. For so many years I struggled with all the junk in the past. I found myself bogged down with stupid mistakes I had made and reaping the consequences of past choices. But I see that God is always focused on who we are and who we are becoming. He is about change for the future. He is about hope and new life. He is about second and third and fourth chances. He is always a God of fresh starts.

I find that when I think about it, the future is why God interacts with us. He heals us so we can live - in the future. He forgives our sin so we can love - as we walk down the road into the future. He is about tomorrow being better than today, even if that tomorrow is being with Him in real life (heaven). His promises are for His participation in our lives, from now forward. Every day is a fresh start to do it different, to live closer to Him, to walk away from the past.

What will we do with it? All those tomorrows piled up for us to spend as we like. How will we live more alive, more in tune, more in love, or more aware of Him? We have a choice you know. That is why He died on a cross for us - to give us a choice about the future. So how shall we live? Because all we have is from now - this minute- forward. It is ours. It is His gift to us, because He wants to walk every step with us.

So take His hand and run with perseverance the race marked out for you. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the writer and finisher of all you are.

No Labor Day

No Labor Day - I thought that was pretty clever (I usually am one of the few people that actually thinks I'm funny). Labor day is supposed to be a holiday (read 'don't work') where we take a day off and not do any labor. So shouldn't it be called No Labor day?

Being the rebel that I am, I worked today. I put a wood ceiling up in my office, forcing my bride to hold the other end of the boards. We got it almost all done before I ran out of lumber. Now it is afternoon and I am not quite sure what to do with myself since this is supposed to be No Labor Day. Relaxing has always been hard for me. I feel like I am wasting time when I am not accomplishing something. I seem to have two speeds - either gas peddle down to the floor, or napping. Up until the last few months, those were the only options. But God seems to be calling me to try and occupy space I have never occupied before. Maybe it is some new way of expanding my horizons, I don't know. All I know is that He has been leading me to move a little slower, to breath a little deeper, and to listen a little more often.

Don't get me wrong - I suck at all those things. I really haven't had much practice in my life time - too busy trying to win the rat race I guess. I am finding that it is really uncomfortable slowing down. Feelings of worthlessness and valuelessness come up far too frequently. I feel like I am in first grade again. But it is where Papa wants me, and it is where the path has led, so I follow.

After all, where did we ever get the idea that His path had to make sense? If we know He is leading, we must follow - what else could we do? Tell the God of the universe "No"?

So bring on No Labor Day! I'll see if I can do absolutely nothing with it.