Will....of · God

If you read my blog- or talk to me for very long- you'll know how much The Shack moved me. How refreshing I found its portrayal of God.

But what I haven't talked about in relation to this is what The Shack reminded me of (and yes, I know my participle is dangling here).

Several years ago, during the "pour me out", 'break me" phase of my life I discovered, quite accidentally (read 'providentially') a woman about my age who is a missionary to Mozambique. It was as the Holy Spirit was speaking the "Broken, Compassionate, Desperate" word into my heart and life that I heard this "little woman in the dirt" talking about being desperate for God.

It was as if God brought to me a messenger that was saying the same things that I was feeling and hearing and learning- except this person had already lived the message successfully. And I liked what she looked like- not physically- but spiritually. She was simple in her message of love love love. Sharing the love of Christ with the unlovely and the unloved.

Over the years I have listened to stories of miracles and ministry that break my heart. I have listened to her talk about sitting in the lap of Jesus- looking into His eyes- and having the "No" removed from her. Learning to say "Yes" to Jesus- just because she sees His love for her in His eyes.

What made me think about this woman (Heidi Baker) is that she, like the characters in The Shack, calls God "Papa".

Heidi's speaking touches me in such a profound way that I had to stop listening to her during The Very Dark Times, and even during The Dark Times. Her message brings me into the presence of God so profoundly, that when I was at odds with God, I could not bear to listen to her.

After reading The Shack, I began to wonder if her messages would still have the same effect on me- or if it was just a tool that God used at a particular time and place in my life. It turns out they still move me profoundly.

Heidi is a pentecostal, and her messages are sometimes interrupted by laughter or tongues, but if you'll bear with that (if it's an issue for you) you'll hear the heartbeat of God in her stories.

Here's a link to a collection of her sermons:

www.fathersglory.com/insp/Roland_&_Heidi_Baker.htm

I'd reccomend "The Simplicity of Love"- It's about the 5th message from the top.

If you're impatient- skip to 16 minutes into the message and listen to the story of the rape of her daughter. It's only about two and a half minutes long. It's worth your time.

Oh- if it touches your heart keep listening- the next story is great also.

A couple of years ago my pastor (at the time) was helping me through a really tough time. It was a time when I thought I knew God's will for my life- and I was certain I knew my will for my life.

She suggested I pray A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition.

Here's the prayer.( Will You Pray With Me. . . )

Here is my Amazon.com review of The Shack

Following the example of the teaching style of Christ- Young has found a way to describe God that delights and stirs the multitudes while at the same time frustrating and angering the religious leaders of the day.

As I read the book I heard the voice of God as He reached into my heart and changed me with his Love.

Theologians on the other hand seem to see their omnipotent God as too fragile to exist outside the well drawn and studied framework that they have painstakingly built for Him.

Can't you just hear Jesus saying- "The kingdom of God is like a man who went to a shack. . ."

I can. I do.

Like the religious leaders of Jesus' time, those who control people with their systematic theology, and place burdens on people that they're not willing to lift a finger to help carry- those who primarily study God (Theologians) are dismayed at the freedom of grace found by those of us who primarily experience God.

Read the book- It will thrill you and irritate a religious person. What more could you ask for?

I don't want to direct you as if you were lost
I want to walk with you as life's path unfolds


I don't want to hold you up as if you were weak
I want to stand with you because I see your strength


I don't want to squeeze you to restrict you
I want to hug you to refresh your heart


I don't want to add another task to your busy schedule
I want to share interests


I don't want to grasp you and control your movement
I want to embrace you and dance


I don't want to strangle you with expectation
I want to take your breath away with expectancy


I don't want to have you
I want to discover you


You're worth the wait
I'm worth the risk

Okay- here's some thoughts on The Shack

I LOVED it!

It is the most important book I've ever read in my life.

Okay- now a few comments to the religious jerks who hate the book and find it and everything else that Calvin or Luther or Spurgeon or {Insert Favorite Dead Guy Here} here didn't write to be heretical.

I get it- you hate it. It violates your well thought out safely filtered view of God.

I understand that by liking the book, in your opinion, I put my very eternity at risk.

I realize that I'll probably never 'look like you' in my relationship with Christ.

I'm okay with that.  I never wanted to look like you anyway.  Oh, and by the way God is bigger than your theology.

You can stop reading now- you know I like the book and the rest will just irritate you.

Now- to the people who will dare to let God be God in their lives. 
Who can find truth that resonates the nature of God in everyday occurrences. 
Who struggle with a God who doesn't respond the way we've been conditioned to believe he will. 
Who find wonder in the fact that the living God will communicate in a personal and meaningful way with you as an individual. 
Who have felt anger at God, or questioned God,
Who try to offer grace to others because you realize how much you need it yourself
Who's theology is big enough for seemingly conflicting, seemingly unresolved facets of God's nature
Who can laugh at themselves as they try to become more Christ-like- while remembering how important and serious a task it is.

To you, I say, READ THE BOOK!

It changed my heart.

I read The Shack this weekend.  Actually I read it from about 5:30 Saturday evening until about 7:30 Sunday morning.

I would have been done sooner but for the need to sleep, cry and dance.
( Read more... )

I have a thing I like to do with small groups. I draw a hexagon with an inner circle touching each of its sides. In the middle of the circle I draw a small dot.

'What is it', I ask the group.

( The Answer's Here. . .  )

I'm just looking through some old emails and notes from months/years past.

I came across this poem I wrote several months ago. Interestingly, I made note when I wrote it that it didn't reflect how I felt at that time- it was just a little rhyme that I sort of enjoyed writing.


( The Poem Is Found Here. . . )

Today at Lunch a question arose

"What is Nougat"

I'm always a little disappointed when I find yet another person who has never been taught the rich history of nougat- and how it shaped our young nation.

When Lords Baltimore and Calvert first landed on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, they carried with them a most prized cargo of young tender Gat seedlings.

Gat is believed to have gotten it's name from the Spanish word for 'cat' as the mature plant was thought to resemble a cat's tail (but not to be confused with what we now call a cat's tail)
( Crunchy Chewy History Ahead. . . )

I said that, only half jokingly to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago when I learned that another friend of mine is leaving.

I expected her to leave- only not until next Summer.

This friend knows more about me than just about anyone else on Earth except my former pastor. Since my conversations with my former pastor are protected by clergy privilege, this friend would be the only person I would have to have killed if I was being considered for say a position on the Supreme Court or Secretary of Defense. :)

Fortunately for her- I don't seem to have made any of the short lists for the new administration.

She was my 3:00 friend. During the VERY dark times she would take my calls, my texts, my snide remarks- and try to keep me focused on Christ.

She's the one who negotiated eight hours of life out of me one night when I had already talked my cell phone battery dead and was using a pay phone from a gas station. I wouldn't have given her 1000:1 odds on that one, that night.

On other dark nights (but not VERY dark nights) when I would text something like:

'I was born knowing how to cry and sleep- now I'm down to just one of those,' she would offer me hope that I would often reject.

She's going to work as an assistant to a pastor we both know. And nexr Fall she's going to Seminary to major in Pastoral Care.

She ought to get credit for the lab portion of the degree for what she's done for me in the last 2 years.

Best Wishes.

Follow Christ.

De Colores.

Oh- and stay in touch in case one of those political appointments comes through- :)

Have you ever been riding down a highway and seen a billboard that reads "Watch This Space".

Or perhaps you're walking through a mall and on the drywall that covers an unused store-front you see a painted message "Watch This Space".

There's a little excitement created by such a message. It speaks of future plans, of impending change, of yet another opportunity coming into your life- but it doesn't give you enough information to be able to make a decision if it's something you're interested in or not.

When I was a child, I acted as a child.... sorry that was Paul , not me. When I was a child, there was a Christian Bookstore not too far from my house. One day they had grab bags near the cash register. They were $1.00. In my mind- each of them contained some wildly extravagant treasure. And so, I searched for what was probably longer than I'd tolerate from my sons in a similar situation until I found a large heavy bag which contained what in my mind was a box.

That's not entirely true. In my mind it was a treasure chest- filled with doubloons or precious jewels. Or maybe some new space-age contraption (It was the late 60's and we were a very NASA-centric nation at the time). Perhaps a collectors case of great toys.
( I Reveal My Booty Here. . . )

(Because They Didn’t Know)

I put this list together (I've made a few changes) after my first year in church leadership.

Jesus NEVER appeased.
( I wanted to get that one in in case you don't click here. . . )

I came to my church the last Sunday in October 2006.

APB invited me. Actually she compelled me.

That invitation, combined with her pastoring of me, was a demonstration of grace that continues to exceed any other human extension of grace I have ever received.

Not that I haven’t received other, very significant graces in my life.

My church was a refuge; quite literally a sanctuary for me.

When I came that first Sunday, I didn’t expect to stay long. Heck, I didn’t expect to live long. But for me- a staunch non-traditionalist- to stay in an older downtown church- it just wasn’t likely.

( The Orbit Stuff Is Here. . . )

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:

If You read "(click here)" and you think 'I'm really positioning the cursor here- but I'm clicking all the way over at the mouse', you really should ( click here. )

Several years ago, God laid on my heart 3 words that changed my life

Broken
Compassionate
Desperate

It was a life-changing revelation in my life.
You Can Read About It Here

Basically it boils down to this.

I must remain broken before God
I must offer compassion to everyone
I must have a desperate need for God in my life

The ‘broken’ part of the story was so profound for me that I pause before I pray for brokenness now

The compassionate part of the story has left me so vulnerable that I shudder at how hard my heart was for all those years I called myself a follower of Christ. And I continue to shudder at how hard my heart will seem to me tomorrow as God continues to work compassion in me.

The desperate for God part. Well that’s been on-again off-again for me. I think that’s because when it’s ‘on’ it consumes me.

Recently three new phrases have entered my mind.

God’s Will

God’s Timing

God’s Heart

It seems to me that these three phrases- if applied to every circumstance in my life- will direct me to being Christ-like in any situation.

There are only three problems with the seamless integration of these goals;

Will’s Will

Will’s Timing

Will’s Heart

We're (God and me) working on those three.
( There's More Here, And It's Worth Reading. . . )

This is a short sermon I preached in October 2005 at my then-home church. I had no idea how may life would be thrown into turmoil almost exactly one year later. I recommend praying for Brokenness- but I also recommend counting the cost first.

This was one of the defining teachings of the Holy Spirit in my heart. The beginning, really, of the person I am today, and the person I hope to become in the future.

Recently I read a book entitled Radical Compassion. It is a collection on stories of a Jesuit priest working with the mentally ill and often homeless of Portland Oregon. He and I have differing views on some things; but the one thing I found myself doing was making copious notes in the margins. Some of the notes were scripture references; some were where I felt he contradicted himself from a previous statement; but the main thing I started doing as read these stories was group them in two categories.

The two groups were stories of people who still had hope; and the stories of people who were hopeless.

( You Don't Want To Miss This. . . )

This is a sermon I preached a month or so ago at my current church.

In the motion picture The Mission; Robert DeNiro plays an 18th century mercenary- who in a rage of jealousy over a woman- kills his brother in a duel.

Overcome with grief- he repents to a priest and ultimately follows the priest to the Americas where the plot of the movie expands.

But from the time of his repentance he ties all the accouterments of his mercenary past into a large bundle and drags them behind him wherever he goes.

In one scene on the boat over, a friend asks the priest how long must he carry the weight As long as he thinks he must, is the answer.

Upon arriving in the new world, there is a treacherous overland journey culminated by a climb up a sheer rock face complete with a waterfall. DeNiro's character nearly falls to his death when the burden of his past slips from his hand jerking him suddenly as the rope plays out. Eventually he struggles to the top of the cliff- pulls the bundle up behind him and collapses in exhaustion. The indigenous people have a hurried conversation after which one of the men runs over, severs the cord that holds the bundle and kicks the physical remnants of a past life of guilt and shame and sin and regret over the cliff where they are not recoverable.

My guess is that the only difference between the DeNiro character and many people in this room today is that we don't carry the physical reminders of our past failings around- we carry the emotional ones.

Have you ever let yourself down so badly that you just couldn't forgive yourself?

Have you ever failed so spectacularly that the thought of receiving forgiveness from God seemed a cheap trick to avoid the consequences you so richly deserved?

Have you ever failed God, humanity and yourself so immeasurably that though you received the spiritual forgiveness you needed from God, you relentlessly carried the burden of your past to punish yourself and to warn others away.

God may have forgiven me, but never will I forgive myself.
( Cut Pounds Off Your Psyche By Clicking Here. . . )

I've compiled a few phrases that I aspire to.

Hope Eternally
Forgive Graciously
Desire Fervently
Remain Faithfully
Grow Constantly
Expand Courageously
Support Wholeheartedly
Enjoy Enthusiastically
Protect Ferociously
Risk Vulnerably
Provide Generously
See Tenderly
Speak Lovingly
Listen Intently
Wait Patiently
Love Recklessly

In the movie Police Academy, Steve Guttenberg played an aimless young man- drifting through life without direction.  His uncle (I think it was his uncle and I'm not re-watching the movie just to make this post accurate on that point) gets him to enroll in the police academy- the one caveat being he cannot quit- he can get kicked out but he cannot quit.

Unbeknownst (how many blogs entries have the word 'unbeknownst' in them?) to him- the uncle has struck a similar deal with the Commandant of the Academy- he can accept his nephew's resignation- but he cannot kick him out.

And so the conflict of two people trying to get the other to do what they cannot do themselves builds until they finally talk and realize that their individual respect for the uncle has caused each of them to commit to an agreement that seemed to have an escape clause- but really didn't.

There's a reason why this blog is subtitled "The Don Quioxte Papers".  If you continue reading you'll begin to understand.
( Caution- Tilting At Windmills Ahead )

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

You can read the story here. . .

There are a couple of things that strike me about this story- and about every 'raised from death' story in the Bible.  But let's look at this one specifically.  It always strikes me that Jesus wept.  Why would Jesus weep when he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead?

The answer, I think, lies in a phrase we see so often before Jesus performs a miracle- that phrase is 'being moved with compassion, Jesus...'  And Jesus was moved with compassion.  We see it several times in this story.

Another thing that amazes me is that the family members of those raised from the dead always seem to accept the resurrected person without any sort of reservation.  Here are people who are consumed with grief- and when the person comes back to life we never read about how they didn't love them as much any more because they couldn't get over the pain of their death.

I mean- if someone hurt you that badly- it's only natural that you would make sure you didn't make the same mistake again- that you didn't leave yourself vulnerable to the pain of them dying yet another time.  Isn't it?
( To Find Out What I'm Talking About, Click Here. . . )