1.22.2012
Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst
1.16.2012
Blessed are Meek
Ironically, "meekness" was always taught as "weakness". And by 8th grade, I was over it.
So then I jumped ship to the fighting fundamentalist Jesus; He liked to protest things and blog about the end of the world! He was much more angry and it made for some exciting sermons...
But recently I stumbled into the real Jesus. The beautiful, intoxicating revolutionary who introduced the Kingdom Manifesto as a direct assault on the Roman Empire. This advancing Kingdom of God spreading like a wildfire by the least likely of characters.
"Blessed are the Meek", says Jesus, "For they shall inherit the earth".
The actual Greek translation of meekness [praus] speaks of strength under control. It is not a feminine hippy with no backbone [or, Kip Dynamite for example], nor is Meekness described by violence or brutal force. It's neither Mr. Rogers nor Malcolm X.
Meekness is strength, under control.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle described meekness as the beautiful character quality that found a voice for the appropriate rage within. Because, as it has been said, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
Honest hermeneutical exegesis will reveal the real fire behind Jesus, the homeless Rabbi from Nazareth. History records that from His infancy, Jesus was born into a collision of Kingdoms. Biblical writers paint a portrait of Jesus on the warpath, planting subversive seeds of sedition right beneath the nose of King Herod!
Several of Jesus' parables were contemporary commentaries on social justice, mocking the plastic impostor who claimed to rule over the Jews. Jesus and Herod were on a collision course, and Christ's followers were invited to help spread the wildfire of the good news: The Kingdom of God is at hand!
One time when Jesus was in the middle of a diatribe on the splendor of the Real Kingdom, some Pharisees came to him with a warning, "Run! King Herod has issued a subpoena for your arrest... He wants to kill you!" Jesus fired back with a holy outrage: "Go tell that fox, I will cast out demons, I will heal people, and on the third day, I will finish my course!"
What????
Strength under control does not wield an AK-47 and call for block battle. Strength under control recognized that at any moment, "I could call on my Father who would immediately dispatch 12 legion of angels on my behalf"... but chooses instead, a cross.
Jesus saw the face of evil, and did not ignore it. He climbed on a donkey and rode right into the mouth of the monster, only to eventually be ushered before the wicked King Herod. (Picture Jesus in handcuffs, with a swollen eye and bloody nose, being questioned by Herod). "And Jesus gave him no answer."
He didn't even honor his questions with an answer! He completely disrespected him, and ignored the hailstorm of bullets. Because He had seen the throne... and Herod was not on it!
Meekness is standing in the face of adversity, with the conviction of assumed authority as a child of the Real King. And to confront systemic evil with beautiful anger, because holy outrage leads to the healing and reconciliation of this broken world.
1.10.2012
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted..."
This progression of hope for the children of God, pledging allegiance to His reign, separates the various dimensions of grieving as both spiritual and physical. They have always been, and remain, interchangeable. Sin gives birth to death, and the heart of God breaks over both conditions.
Hope is that crucial ingredient that carries Christian mourners through seasons of deepest loss. Hope is the chain that peddles the bike that keeps you going. Hope is the seed that sprouts the roots and springs a tree.
And in what is our hope? In whom is our faith?
The resurrection of the crucified King! The manifestation of a literal rising from the ashes of decadence, have been for two thousand years, the motivation to mourn with conviction.
In John 11, the New Testament tells the story of Jesus receiving an oral telegram: "Come quick, your best friend, Lazerus, is sick unto death!"The text reads with cryptic subversion, "Now Jesus loved Lazerus, so he did not come."
He loved Lazerus, [therefore] he didn't answer his prayer.
And in this waiting room of suffering and ashes, the family mourns the loss of their brother. The anguish initiates a series of questions, revealing the frustration we have all felt at times. "Where were you, God?" Jesus absorbs their tears like a sponge, and receives their doubt with delicate authority. His posture bends in the dirt to feel the weight of this loss.... ["Jesus wept."]
On that day God cried, salty tears of internal rage. He looked into the eyes of his closest friends, after announcing that this will not be the last chapter; the Resurrection and the Life was enveloped in cynical despair. And Jesus felt their lack of faith in Him, bending to His knees in anguish.
----- The Resurrection and the Life ---- cried.
Where is your faith? Awake O sleeper, death will not have the last word. The cross couldn't finish His sentence, and the grave couldn't hold His power! Where our sins have been atoned for, the scars are not fatal and the grave is not final. When we mourn over those things that break the heart of God, comfort crashes into the casket!
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
1.07.2012
Blessed are the Spiritually Bankrupt
Shortly after we moved here, I had this brilliant idea to take a road trip to the Carolina coast; I had always wanted to surf the Charleston beaches, so I tucked my surfboard into the car and made it a solo adventure. I surfed with the dolphins and chatted with tourists. I lingered in the surf shops and eventually began the six hour trek home.
*There are parts of South Carolina that you just might want to avoid. Long highway stretches separate the progressive boom town of Charleston, from the backwoods mystery of lesser known places... and it was here, in the middle of the unknown, that my engine blew a head-gasket. Smoke poured from the hood of my Jetta, and there was no hope of a quick fix. I hitched a ride to the nearest gas station, that had promptly closed at five pm. It was beginning to get dark, and I could hear banjo music... No cell phone reception, no credit card, and the music was getting louder!
I finally waived down a motorist, and he gave me a lift to a phone booth up the road. I was able to call Jamie collect and I explained the situation. She scurried to put the girls in the mini-van and attempted to rescue me, but somewhere outside of town, the transmission blew on her van as well. So my wife and kids were simultaneously stranded six hours away!
[That awkward moment when you keep seeing reruns of Deliverance in your mind, as the darkness is setting in...]
Jamie finally got a hold of a friend-of-a-friend who immediately set out to retrieve me. This guy drove an F-350 with a flatbed trailer behind it, and five hours later, he found me on the side of the road (hiding behind some trees!). He loaded my car up and I climbed into the passenger seat. I was so ecstatic to have been found, rescued, and returned...
As we neared Columbia, we pulled off to get something from the drive-through at McDonald's. He ordered a bunch of food for both of us, and I insisted on calculating the totals, "Here, let me pay!", but he ignored my request. I kept a close eye on his gasoline, mileage, and time granted; I was going to make this all up, I had promised.
After my persistent requests to let me pay for this favor, he just looked at me and said, "You don't understand grace, do you?"
___________
Jesus inaugurated an inverted power system as he announced the Kingdom of Heaven and the New World Disorder. "Blessed are the Spiritually Bankrupt" [ptochos]; a word picture of absolutely nothing left in the bank... running on fumes and now the fumes have evaporated. Guilty. Surrender. Ptochos.
The good news of the gospel is that God has heard the cry of his children, and He has set forth on a rescue mission to retrieve the prodigals... And when you find yourself standing on the side of a barren highway, with no money and no hope and a blown head gasket and burned bridges and the scandalous resume as a liar/fraud/cheat, your only posture is to make a collect phone call to Heaven, and beg for Mercy.
Blessed are the Spiritually Bankrupt, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
12.29.2011
11.28.2011
11.07.2011
Restoring the Lost Years
A few weeks ago we were sitting together as a family, watching old home videos. In the video frame we were all playing together at Chuck E Cheese... the girls were laughing and dancing, and I was there... but not really.
Hope for Ashlyn
10.28.2011
remembering to forget
Where life and death collide
9.29.2011
Reflections from the California Coast
8.30.2011
8.25.2011
To the Mercy King
The rear-view mirror still taunts me. The images may appear closer than they actually are, yet the scars have stories of being put to open shame; death by exposure was a salacious headline, and the red badge of courage could never be applied to me.
8.22.2011
Fully Present in the Presence of the Amen
It was almost midnight when she noticed it. The lightning was painting the southern sky, with flashes of cinder and smoke. She called me to the window, and then to the door… we walked outside barefoot, breathless by the intoxication of the moment.
For what seemed like hours, Jamie and I sat in the grass looking out far, far away. The lightning was so distant that we could not even hear the assumed crashes of thunder. She wondered how far away the storm was, or if the cold front was going to collide with our warm air in the mountains.
We began to reflect on our journey, home. This season is serving its purpose: to bring healing to the wounds of our last exit. We talked about the southern drift, and the distance from our roots in West Michigan. We wondered about the toll such a transition would take on our daughters, who still cling to the memories of sand-castles and sleepovers, neighborhood friends, and a church family that disappeared overnight.
However violent the repressed memories are, we hold on to the joy that remains. We have proved them all wrong. We are stronger than their whispers. We are unfinished.
And tomorrow, is a mystery. That door is locked and bolted shut for now. All we can do is celebrate the moment of our resurrection, and watch the heavens declare the glory of God.
8.12.2011
Still, Unsettled.
7.31.2011
7.18.2011
7.12.2011
Grace Comes To Us With Blistered Feet
6.24.2011
like a garden, unkept
like a garden that was once
6.12.2011
Hope
6.02.2011
Responding to Max Lucado
God is a good God. We must begin here. Though we don’t understand his actions, we can trust his heart.
God does only what is good. But how can death be good? Some mourners don’t ask this question. When the quantity of years has outstripped the quality of years, we don’t ask how death can be good.
But the father of the dead teenager does. The widow of the young soldier does. The parents of a seven-year-old do. How could death be good?
Part of the answer may be found in Isaiah 57:1–2: “Good people are taken away, but no one understands. Those who do right are being taken away from evil and are given peace. Those who live as God wants find rest in death” (NCV).
Death is God’s way of taking people away from evil. From what kind of evil? An extended disease? An addiction? A dark season of rebellion? We don’t know. But we know that no person lives one day more or less than God intends. “All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old” (Ps. 139:16 NCV).
5.23.2011
Spread the Word
5.16.2011
First, Love.
5.02.2011
Thicker Than Water
For as long as I can remember, my sister Jennifer has been my best friend. Together, we navigated the treacherous hallways of new schools from the anonymity of previous home-schooling. We shared many of the same friends. I slapped around Troy Vuurens and punched Jim Foster, both of whom had made the mistake of disrespecting her in middle school. I played soccer and basketball, and she cheered with her blue and gold pom-poms.
4.18.2011
Rob Bell is my friend.
Body Broken/Blood Poured Out...
4.13.2011
4.06.2011
My Mission Field
3.22.2011
Falling Upward
3.16.2011
3.03.2011
Relentless Love
My heart is Yours...
I'll set You as a seal upon my heart
As a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death
Jealousy demanding as the grave
Many waters cannot quench this love
Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are one...
3.01.2011
Deeper Than Wide
1.18.2011
The Healing House
The Healing House
Fifteen minutes from the Carolina border
There’s a rainbow in her eyes…
Tears fall freely to her sunburned shoulder
Farewell is easier than goodbye
Dear [Mariah] Grace, now give me your hand
I promise I’ll receive you well
Cling to this promise of a broken man
You caught me when I fell
Dear [Ambria] Faith, you seemed to have disappeared
Suddenly and without warning
When I needed you most, you reappeared
Heaven’s mercies ever pouring
Dear [Ashlyn] Hope, consider me captive
Without your embrace I’m over-reactive
Doubting and turning and perpetually learning
And Father’s Day you heard me pray
Take me home to the healing house
Running barefoot across the yard
Counting the distant, falling stars
Swinging trees and sun-kissed breeze
A grateful daddy on his knees
1.12.2011
eXodus church (the liberation project)
I could tell you that, in many ways, I'm not the same person I was several years ago. For better (or for worse) I'm probably less likely to give you my opinion or even suggest a concrete answer to the questions that haunt us. I am not as thirsty for affirmation as I once was, and I'm less likely to care if I'm invited to your table.
Although I'm still on a journey toward inner healing, I have come a long way from the train wreck that I caused three years ago. I've gone through the detox of silence, prayers of surrender, confessions to trusted pastors, and repentance.
The past few years have been, as you can imagine, the most painfully humiliating experiences of my life. But I have found tremendous freedom on the other side of confession, and I have been set free to live by the power of the Spirit of Christ.
After several months of praying and fasting, my wife and I believe that God is once again calling us out of our comfort zones. We have been through intensively counseling, and have sought the spiritual authority of mature believers who have agreed to walk with us, forward from an empty grave.
Under this spiritual authority, mentoring and coaching, as well as in the confidence of two pastoral accountability partners, I am stepping out in faith... Consider this our declaration of hope; the tomb is empty and the literal implications of Jesus' resurrection have propelled us to a new beginning.
Exodus Church is a new community of hope, born in a furnace of doubt and surrender. Jamie and I joining the anthem of the redeemed, in unity with several other families in the Asheville, NC area. Our message is simple: God is in the liberation business, and He is calling us out of spiritual bondage, to walk in the freedom of Jesus Christ.
Our website will provide further information about our faith, mission, and values. There will also be a link to listen to each of the weekly messages, (so our friends back in Michigan can follow along!)
Please pray for us as we are acutely aware of the spiritual attacks on the horizon. Pray for our marriage, and for the spiritual nurturing of our three daughters, for whom we dedicate this cause.
Okay, here we go... click here to see us go live!
1.03.2011
Again (For the First Time)
This morning I walked outside, and I felt the warmth of the sun melting the snow. However deep the snow, the winter can not last forever... However dark the night, the light is breaking in through the cracks -splintering fragments of wonder and new beginnings.
However broken the heart, a pulse invokes hope.
It is not quite spring yet, but something deep in the core of my being insists that she is coming. And she is bringing resurrection with her.
12.15.2010
12.12.2010
In the presence of all that is, love.
For some reason, I continue to ache for his family... searching for answers and feeling so helpless. Suicide, after all, makes everyone feel guilty; I wish I would have could have should have...
The other day I was talking to his father on the phone, as he described my friend's final few weeks. Some of the missing pieces of the puzzle began to sink into place, as the mystery of his spiral downward came to light. Through sentence fragments and tears, I listened as his father shared about a certain hopelessness that tormented my friend. As it turned out, he had committed a serious crime and had been living with the guilt and shame of his decision.
In broken chapters, I listened to the tragic descriptions of his final days: he had stopped eating, and had become sickly thin. At night, my friend would walk to a nearby wooded park, and lay under the moonlight. He would lay his head in the cold grass and claw at the cancer of his own self-hatred. My friend would cry rivers of salty tears, begging God for the mercy of divine forgiveness.
And in his final hours, my friend took a pair of scissors and plunged them through his own heart.
What if...
this were the end of my blog entry.
What if...
the credits were rolling
and the tragedy was over
and this was the conclusion
ashes to ashes and dust to dust?
_______________________________________________________
Every night as I drive home, north on highway 26 - there in the distant western horizon is a white cross. It reaches higher than all of the surrounding trees, and stretches to the sky overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. Tonight as I was driving home, I began to think about the weight of shame. I brushed away tears as I imagined my friend collapsing in despair, and knocking on the doors of heaven for the ever-illusive mercy of spiritual::emotional::mental f r e e d o m from guilt and shame.
I remembered the heavy weight of my own depravity, the secret sins that only God knows. I considered the options of this world and found them to be shallow. I know what it's like to contemplate what my funeral would be like... or the intoxication of ending it all.
But it's there that I see a cross. An instrument of death has become a scandal of hope! An execution stake leads to resurrected life. I am graciously reminded of the God who wrapped Himself in flesh, and walked a mile in our shoes. Jesus knew what it was like to sweat drops of blood beneath the moonlight, with His face buried in the grass; He knew the weight of separation, there as His Spirit was being pressed like the olives in Gethsemane.
I love Jesus. The more I learn, the less I understand. The mystery of the cross remains the center of my surrender. Following (even at a guilty distance) is a spiritual journey, not a guilt trip! I love Jesus because He meets us in that moment of despair, with a nail-scarred hand of forgiveness. When we think all is lost, He shows up in the morning and invites us to breakfast. When we have been disqualified, He reinstates, recreates, mediates, and stands as our defense.
I believe that I will see my friend again. And it's not some cliche happy Christian sub-plot to a Sunday school lesson. I believe that one day we will be reunited in the Kingdom of Freedom, a place that transcends time and space. I believe that we will live in delicate harmony with all of creation's song: in the presence of all that is, love.
12.06.2010
The End of My Silence
11.22.2010
The God of Infinite Mercy
This was the dominant question, heavy on Peter's heart, as he approached Jesus for an answer. "But what about..." and "yeah, but what about in this situation?" Should we be a door mat for people to walk all over us and not fight for our rights?
Jesus' answer: 70 x 7
This numerical equation is the Jewish equivalent of, eternity. It is the same kind of language He used in answering the expert in the laws' questions about Olam Haba - "life to the vanishing point", or the foreverandeveramen.
What if He actually meant those words? Can you imagine if people actually took Him seriously in this command? That would really wreck your church constitution on disciplinary actions! It might actually mean that fallen people are still welcome at the Table, and sinners are embraced with amnesia, and grudges are expunged, and earthly judges are commissioned to sentence sinners to a life in communal confinement.
For all the times I have stumbled into the Heavenly Kingdom via Spiritual Bankruptcy, I am indebted to a Judge who does not keep a record of profits and losses. How can I say thank You? How can I possible say thank You enough?
Thank You for being my friend, when the bullets of criticism were fired. Thank You for standing as my defense, when professional religious people packed that side of the court room hurling rocks in the form of letters to a carnal impostor. Thank You for covering me with Your own blood, and washing me clean. Thank You for never giving up on me when everyone else turned away. Thank You for being the God of all-comfort. Thank You for being the Lion and the Lamb and the Tension between conquer and submission and fight and flight. Thank You for meeting me in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the Belly of the Whale, in the midnight hour; You whispered in my ear: "love still wins."
Thank You for Jamie and strength under control, and three little girls who could care less about organized religion and yet have a deeper understanding of unconditional love than most of the pastors in Muskegon. Thank You for my dad who, despite his unorthodox ways, has modeled for me what it means to be a safe place for people who are all screwed up. Thank You for my mother who still grieves my eXodus from home, and aches for her bloodline to be close. Thank You for Jennifer (Eric) who will war on my behalf if she so much as hears a whisper of criticism. Thank You for Janelle (Brian) who will give an earful to the management at the local YMCA if they hesitate to let me join their membership. Thank You to Jon (Sara) who continue to teach me how to love well, how to labor over the Word in worship, and how to model selflessness to our children.
This Thanksgiving I rest in this mercy, with uncontrollable trembling in response. That I have been forgiven (70 x 7) for my infinite sins, and I am being healed by the scars of a slaughtered Lamb who is returning as a Lion. I am, in every way, crucified and resurrected with Him!
Post Script :: I love You.
11.17.2010
11.08.2010
if i had more time...
and the aching is fading
to a delicate rhythm
of yes and maybe and
one day you will understand
the silence from a distance does not mean
that i have no opinion on things like
surrender and submission and you
and the all-consuming anger is a reminder
that if i don't learn to forgive
i will die from this poisonous rage
love wins
remember?
but sometimes it doesn't feel that way, does it?
sometimes it seems like judgment and betrayal has the last word
(or at least an encore performance)
just when i thought i had forgiven and forgotten
i'm reminded of your violent ungrace
and it meets me when i least expect it
like when i'm driving down the road
and i see a truck that looks like yours
if i had more time i would tell you that it doesn't matter
what's done is done and there is no undoing
and that's all there is to say about that
10.26.2010
Embracing the Absent Presence (Pt. 2)
With the loss of my job, we lost an entire community of support. We lost our health insurance, and our house. We lost our friends, and our ekklesiastical family. I guess they were busy dancing beneath the "One in Christ" banner at the local Christian music festival.
And in this loss, so too died my faith that God answered prayer. On bended knees, I had pleaded for His merciful presence. I claimed the happy verses; the passages that declared me redeemed and forgiven and restored in Christ. But my experience left me meeting a different reality.
So where is God when it hurts? The age-old problem of evil and human suffering and the debate of His Sovereignty, etc. is not something that this blog entry is going to conquer. Rather, I write to instill a few alternative options in viewing His presence:
1. God shows up in the most unlikely ways. He shows up spitting in mud and healing the blind man. He shows up speaking through donkeys and in the nakedness of an infant baby. He appears in the thunder and lightening and in the calm before the storm. He screams in a whisper, and whispers through the prophets. He triumphs by shutting the mouths of the lions, and appears as the fourth man in the fiery furnace.
God is present with a suffering humanity by His own journey to an execution stake. He knows the pain of betrayal. He knows the sting of divorce. He has felt the cheers of the crowd one minute, and the letters written from professional religious people to the judge - the next.
2. God shows up through the most unlikely of people. The King of Glory appears in the face of "Happy" the homeless man I met here on the streets of Asheville. Jesus said, "whenever you give a cold cup of water in my Name, you've given it to me..." - Consequently, Jesus can be found among the often overlooked, least of these. He shows up in a wheel chair, playing the harmonica and spreading joy to any soul within earshot.
God meets us in the pain, when you least expect it. Just when you thought He had forgotten you, He calls your name in the October wind. He taps you on the shoulder and offers a hug of comfort from a stranger on the street.
He shows up in the mail box with food stamps to feed your children.
10.23.2010
Embracing the Absent Presence (Part 1)
Which is translated from the Hebrew tradition: "God is with us."
Have you ever, in the midst of a ferocious storm, searched for the calming touch of the One who can quiet the winds and silence the waves? And in your calling out, found no answer?
Well, I have. And it has messed with my theology.
I worship the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I celebrate His promise that He will never leave me forsaken or alone. I have encouraged my friends to trust the nearness of the Abba Father in the struggle of loneliness. After all, the Scriptures insist that He is close to the brokenhearted.
But if I were to be really honest, I have screamed out for his help; the waves have overcome me, and in my sinking, I am reaching. reaching. reaching.
And there have been times when there was no answer. Heaven was silent. Immanuel seemed to have been a nice flannel-graph Christmas story, about as real as reindeer and rooftops.
In my agony, my faith wilted. In heaven's coldness, my hope grew weary. In transcendent distance, God seemed to be an amnesiac, bi-polar mystery, with multiple personalities. Even His own autobiographical confessions articulate His paradox. Which is it, is He near or far, immanent or distant? Has He predetermined all things, or has He left certain elements of human freedom open for our choosing? Is He the Abba "Daddy" Father, or is He the Holy Terror?
When I read about the cruel suffering of the innocent, cosmic earthquakes, tsunamis that wipe out thousands of small children, and 4 million women and children forced into human sexual trafficking, I can't help but to wonder: Where is Immanuel? Where is this Divine Presence who has promised to be with us in the struggle?
I am learning to embrace the absent presence of the Resurrected Christ. I am learning how to pray differently; to ask for the Kingdom of Mercy to invade this hurting world. I am attempting to be content in the mystery of His paradox.