Being Forgotten

I was reading Matthew 10 this morning and I found myself feeling bad for Thaddaeus. Almost all of the other disciples have a parenthetical comment after their names. Simon (also called Peter), Andrew (Peter’s brother), Matthew (the tax collector), even Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him) got a line. But Thaddaeus is just Thaddaeus. I am sure that I have read his name before, but he is one of the forgettable apostles. Obviously, Thaddaeus didn’t know that he would get no additional commentary when the gospels were written years later. He didn’t know that Peter would be looked upon as the “rock” of apostolic succession in Rome. I am pretty sure that it wouldn’t even bother him if he did know. So, why does it bother me?

I think it bothers me because I don’t want to be a forgotten part of the story. I want notes next to my name. I want people to know that I existed and that I was important. I know that this is sick and wrong and the story is about Jesus not Thaddaeus or me. But there is something in me that desperately desires to be known. Maybe it is because of my love for history. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know that I desire to be a part of the history books when I am gone. I want books written about me. I don’t want to be unmentioned and forgotten. At least Goliath got billing, but what about all the others who died in battle without their names ever being known or mentioned. What about their stories?

Why is it when I read the scriptures I see myself as Peter, or David, or Paul, but not as one of the unnamed characters? What if God doesn’t want anyone to know my name? I can pray with John the Baptist that He may increase and that I may decrease, but I want to do this from a place of status. I just read a book that talked about “self-addiction” and I realize that this is how my addiction to my self plays out. I want glory, fame and renown, not just for now, but for all times. I want history to record my life and passing as something significant. I want to be a main part of the story; not to go unmentioned, or to be a footnote. I want a chapter written about me! Why is it then that God calls me to labor in obscurity; for all the things that I have done and been a part of doing to be chalked up to someone else’s column? I don’t think I would mind so much if all the glory went to God, but when the glory goes to someone else, it galls me. I want to shout, “Hey! I was there too!! It was actually my idea!! He didn’t do it by himself! Can I get an honorable mention, just a parenthetical statement would be fine!?”

The truth is that my sadness for Thaddaeus reveals my own mixed and twisted motives. It’s true that I am serving the Lord and (by and large) obeying Him and doing the things He has asked me to do, but in my heart I want people to notice and to be impressed. It is base and wicked, but it is true. I want people to see me and to be impressed with me. I tell myself that I will give all the glory to God when He elevates me, but I am pretty sure that I would want to steal just a bit for myself and surreptitiously hide it away. I would cut out the press clipping and pull it out from time to time to reassure myself that I am important “because it says so right here”. I once read in Christianity Today about the 100 up and coming Christian leaders of my generation. I was actually personally acquainted with a few of them, but I secretly wanted my name to make the list. A part of me couldn’t believe that they didn’t call me for a comment of a picture.

I am so grateful that God loves me. He knows my twisted heart and He loves me anyway. He still chooses to use me, and to use others with similarly twisted motives. I guess He doesn’t have a lot to choose from as we are a pretty messed up group. I pray that He will have mercy on me and that He will change my heart. Lord Jesus have mercy on me a sinner! I know that I have no hope for the salvation of my soul apart from you and that my heart is still desperately wicked and beyond knowing. By you know me and you love me. That gives me hope.

God Redeems

In Exodus 6:9-13 we find an interesting vignette that provides a window into the way that God works with man in the process of redemption. God used the burning bush to get Moses’ attention and chose Moses to do this incredibly intimidating and dangerous thing. He told Him to go back to Egypt to set His people free. Moses raised a number of objections, but God countered them all. God even warned Moses ahead of time that Pharaoh would refuse and that things would get worse before they got better, but that in the end the Israelites would “pillage the Egyptians” when they were finally released to leave. So, Moses obeyed and headed back to Egypt. Aaron met him along the way, and together they showed the Israelites the powerful signs that God had shown them. Everything seemed to be going well. Then Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh for the first time only to be rebuffed by him, resulting in more work for their Hebrew brothers and sisters. The leaders of the Israelites immediately turn on Moses and Aaron and Moses cries out to God. The Lord responded by reminding Moses about what and why He was moving things forward in this way and commands Moses to explain these things to the Israelites.

So Moses told the people what the LORD had said, but they wouldn’t listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the increasing burden of their slavery.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go back to Pharaoh, and tell him to let the people of Israel leave Egypt.”
“But Lord!” Moses objected. “My own people won’t listen to me anymore. How can I expect Pharaoh to listen? I am no orator!”
But the LORD ordered Moses and Aaron to return to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to demand that he let the people of Israel leave Egypt. (NLT)

God had a plan and Moses had a message! God told Moses to deliver His message of good news to those enslaved by an evil king. A king who neither knew nor feared the LORD God. The response of the king is not shocking, but the response of the people is disappointing. The people wouldn’t listen to the message or the messenger. From Moses’ perspective the response of the people was deeply discouraging and was apparently a major barrier to accomplishing the will of God; so much so that Moses returned to one of his original objections to being a messenger of God. But their failure to respond to opposition and oppression with faith did not derail God’s intent and plan to redeem them. God instructed Moses to push ahead. He would draw His people Israel out of Egypt and He would do it through the one who was drawn out of the river of Egypt. They would be saved not through their own agency any more than the baby Moses was in control of his salvation from the river.

God ordered Moses and Aaron to continue with the process of redemption even when those they were working to save wanted nothing to do with them. The work of redemption is not ultimately about the people. It is about the character and nature of God. God reminds Moses in the first part of chapter 6 that He is saving them because of the promise that He gave to their forefathers. God keeps His promises. That does not lessen His compassion for the people, but rather puts it in the proper context. He is moved to save them and He will save them even if they are unwilling or unable to cooperate in the process.

Notice that God does not do this work of redemption independent of man. He raised up men, Moses and Aaron, to be his messengers. He used them to take His message to both the ones being saved and the ones holding them captive. He gave them wonder working power to demonstrate His power to save. He has called us to be His servants, His messengers. He will accept no excuses from His servants, but will be with us and WILL REDEEM His children!

A Crazy Story and a Choice

The gospel is such a ludicrous story! How can it be that the Lord of the Universe would send His only begotten Son to die for sinful men who were still in rebellion against Him? How can it be true that God would love the world so much that He would send His Son to save us from slavery to sin and death? What kind of God kills Himself for people who do not love Him? But the story doesn’t end there. It’s crazier than that. He died so that the traitorous rebels would become His very own children. He didn’t die just to save us from something, but to save us TO something.

It was His pleasure to crush His Son to bring many sons to glory. By destroying one Son He has paid the price for the rebels and has gone even farther by welcoming them into His own family. What kind of King welcomes those who have rebelled against Him, and violently so, into His own family and then invites them to share His glory, to reign with Him. For that is what He does! He invites us to reign with Him. The only thing that He requires is that we believe. Even the faith that we lack He will provide if we but ask Him. We must believe that He exists and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. We must cry out, “I believe. Help me with my unbelief.”

Why is it so easy to believe that I am a miserable sinner in need of grace and so hard to remember that I am royalty? I have been grafted into the tree of life, adopted into the household of God. I have been anointed as a royal priest. I have been invested with authority to reign with Him. He reigns over all the earth, and we are called to be a part of His divine administration of the Kingdom. He has given us everything that we need for life and godliness, but I rarely lay claim to the wisdom, power and authority that are mine for the asking. Instead I lay claim to my sinful identity and my inadequacy and live disempowered and discouraged.

What a paradox am I!? I am both sinful and holy, both traitorous and royal, both powerless and powerful. I must choose to believe God and to reckon on His faithfulness to finish the work that He has begun in me. He has exchanged my life, my works for His. Old things have passed away. Behold! New things have come. My believing the lie that I am incapable does not change the fact that I really can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. My continuing to believe the lie that keeps me down in the mud is so tragic when compared with the glorious truth of my redemption and my identity in Christ.

I have spent so much time and energy lamenting my sinful past and the ever present fleshly tendencies of my own heart. Today, I choose to believe the unbelievable truth that I am a prince in the household of God! I have been chosen to suffer with Him and to reign with Him. While no good thing dwells in my flesh, I have been chosen and exalted. I will reign forever with Him and am even now seated in heaven and kept by His power and promise.

I choose not to live with my head down on my chest. I choose to no longer regard myself, or anyone else, from a worldly perspective. I am a new man in Christ and a chosen ambassador to carry this message to others. He is making His appeal to the nations, to my neighbors, to my family through me. Nothing is impossible with Christ. I choose to reign with Him today, to listen for and obey His commands, to tune my heart to His voice. I pledge my allegiance to Heaven. My Father, the King, has purchased me back from my slavery to sin and to death with the blood of His first born Son. He who did not spare His own Son will give me all that I need today. I choose to believe Him and to live in this reality today.

The Paradox of Community

The life of a Christian is full of paradox. Life through death. Joy through suffering. Solitude in community. The call to follow God is a call to join the community of God, the people of God, the household of God; and yet, it is also a call to an individual and personal relationship to Him. There is no solidity to the community. The local manifestations of the Body of Christ are constantly in flux. Christ alone is the unchanging Rock of our salvation. It is to Him that each of us must cling.

Those of us who grew up in the church have spent most of our years surrounded by the community of faith. I cannot remember a time when I was not a member of the faith community. Well before I embraced Christ with a mature understanding of the implications for such a decision I was immersed in a culture of belief. The community nurtured me, trained me, was patient with me, and when God and the community agreed that I was ready, they sent me out into the world to help to create new communities of faith, to be the midwife for the birth of the Body of Christ in new locations and in new cultural manifestations. I love the Church. I have been cherished in its bosom and have seen it grow and mature in areas where it had never been known.

But along this road I have been many times separated from the community; either by geography or by vocation. The Lord has seen fit to call me out from, or away from the Church several times. Because I love the Church and value the role of community in life and ministry this has always been hard for me. But as I look at the pages of scripture I see that there were times in the life of many of the great saints of old that they had to stand alone with God. Abraham was called to leave his family and head out for parts unknown; later he would alone prepare to slaughter the son of the promise on the mountain. Moses spent years alone in the desert after spending years in semi-isolation as a Hebrew in the palace of the Pharaoh. Ezekiel kept his bizarre vigil for 390 days alone. Isaiah walked about naked and alone for 3 years because of the command of God. While these things are not normative, neither are they completely isolated.

There is a profound loneliness on the journey with and towards God. We are ultimately responsible to the One who is our Master. Our obedience to His call may lead us out into the desert alone as it lead our Lord Jesus. There in the desert He met the enemy and was sorely tempted but emerged victorious. God’s concern and plan for the Church and for the nations is individually expressed through the lives of His servants and this often has meant periods of solitude or isolation for them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” I am a man who has known and loves community. In the last few years the Lord seems to be calling me to more solitude. Sometimes that call has taken the form of gentle urgings to retreat to spend time with Him alone. Because my obedience to these urgings is somewhat voluntary, they are not so scary. In a sense, I define the length and type of my isolation. But there are times when God has isolated me from the community. He has forced me to rely on Him alone, to seek Him in solitude. During those times I find myself anxious and clamoring for community. I find fear in my heart. What if God really isn’t enough? What if I make the wrong move out here in the desert and there is no one to help me get up when I fall? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I haven’t heard God’s voice at all?

God comes to me and assures me that He loves me. His Word confirms that He uses experience as the best teacher. I cannot learn what He wants to teach me in community. He has isolated me to force me to face my fears and to learn that He is trustworthy. Like Elijah who obeyed and went into the desert of the drought and famine stricken land only to be fed by ravens, I find that God supplies exactly what I need, just when I need it. I will bank everything on His faithfulness.

God Speaks in Mysterious Ways

I am amazed at the personal and individual way that God speaks to us, to me. When I spend time pursuing Him and I work to eliminate some of the extraneous noise I find that He will sneak up on me and touch me in the most unlikely ways. Just this morning I was listening to Audio Adrenaline and I suddenly found myself moved to tears by the simplicity and unspeakable blessing of the gospel. That God would love me and pour out every blessing on me. That He would secure my inheritance and allow me to taste some of it here. That I am an heir to the throne of heaven, a prince in the household of God. I know that rock music is not a means of grace for many people, but it is for me from time to time. I have had similar experiences with Sonicflood, P.O.D, U2, Lost Dogs, and Bob Dylan just to name a few recent divine musical encounters. It is not the music in and of itself. In fact, that’s not even what the songs were about this morning. It is that God plays a game of tag with me. Sometimes when I least expect it He suddenly touches my heart and moves me deeply. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When I have spent time pursuing Him, when I draw near to Him through practicing the spiritual disciplines He draws near to me. But not always when I expect it.

The day before yesterday I had a spiritual retreat. I went away and spent 8 hours in solitude and silence. I was reading, praying, contemplating, journaling, and consciously seeking the face of God. I came away at peace and encouraged, but without any sort of “lightening bolt” experience. I came home and told my wife that I had a good time, but nothing earth shattering. I have often experienced breakthroughs and insights during my spiritual retreats so I came home a bit disappointed. I know that was a bit childish and I talked about even that with the Lord. Since then I have continued to seek Him and have experienced peace and joy in my heart and in my interactions with others. I recognized that I needed to pursue Him and to wait on Him in obedience and truth regardless of whatever experience I did or did not have.

In the last few weeks I have sought God often and while I have heard from Him on occasion, I had not experienced the intimate touch that I so longed for. I have been diligent and obedient, although far from perfect in my pursuit of Him or avoidance of sin. I have experienced Him as real and present by somehow distant or silent. But this morning I experienced the sweet intimacy with the Lord that I had sought.

I find my relationship with my wife and kids like this as well. Sometimes I want a really deep and meaningful interaction with them, but these things can’t be manufactured. There is a providential serendipity about them. But when I spend time with them, loving and serving them as I should then I create an environment where the blessed event that I seek can take place. Intimacy isn’t created in a moment, but through the patient, selfless, serving pursuit of another soul, human or divine. When I seek to please my Lord, my wife, my children, and to bless them then eventually the fruit of that will be sweet intimacy. When I seek to claim that intimacy like a “right” or to force intimacy on another it is a base form of selfishness akin to rape. We can never force another soul to open itself to us and to share the deepest parts of them with us. That is like forcing a plant to grow or a flower to open. Instead we must patiently and lovingly cultivate the soil, plant the seed, pull the weeds, and continue to water and nurture it until quite suddenly we find that it has blossomed into the beauty that we knew it was capable of. In our mechanistic age of efficiency and production this kind of patient cultivation of a process that is beyond our control can be frustrating, but in the end it is the only way, the God ordained way, to develop our human and divine relationships.

God cannot be raped. He will not submit Himself to us because we expect or demand it. He is all powerful and all wise. He will come to us in the way we most need it and in the time we most need it. Only He knows what is best for us and He will never fail to deliver exactly what we need. Learning to trust and love Him when He seems to be silent is part of the process of cultivation.

Can I please be Peter

I want to be Peter…not James. I want to be the one who is rescued and lives to glorify you in life rather than the one whose lot is to die.

I was reading in Acts 17 today, and I found that I quickly passed over the abbreviated version of events surrounding James’ martyrdom by the sword and was enthralled and encouraged by the story of Peter’s rescue by the angel. I have heard the story of Peter’s rescue many, many times, but somehow I missed the context. He was rescued just days after James was not rescued. James trusted God. James walked with God and was close to Christ. He too was one of the inner 3, Jesus’ closest companions during His earthly sojourn. But James was put to death. God did not rescue him. He let him die at the hands of evil men. Evil men rejoiced at his death and this emboldened the king to arrest Peter with every intention of killing him as well.

I could be wrong, but I do not think that I have ever heard anyone link the two deaths with a focus on James’ lot. It seems like he is often just window dressing to make Peter’s rescue more enthralling and amazing. (Indeed, it appears that is exactly what Luke intended by structuring the passage has he did.) But today, I am intrigued by James, and by the comparison of the fates of both men.

I tend to think that if I trust God he will deliver me. There is a triumphalism to my faith that seems badly out of tune with the scriptures. Did God fail James? Did James fail God? Did James lack faith? My perspective is SO man-centered. The story is about God and the accomplishment of His will. Somehow I don’t see James as being upset when he went to meet his Lord. I don’t think he was peeved about not being rescued. But why do we emphasize the miraculous intervention of God to rescue Peter.

I think that I emphasize it because I am too attached to this life. I believe that if I pray hard enough, and if I do the right things and avoid the wrong things, that God will be on my side. It’s not that God is for or against me…it’s that God IS. He is working all things together for my good. He promises that He has my best interests at heart and that everything will work out for the best for me personally as well as for His glory. This is all well and good, but what if my kids are the ones that die? What if me and my family are not Peter, but James?

There are no guarantees that by following God my life will turn out any better or easier than the next guys life. At least not by the standards that we normally use to measure such things. My father died of cancer. My wife was miraculously healed from a chronic illness. Is God only glorified in the healing. The paradox of our Message is life through death, and faith through it all. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. I do not know what will come, but I know that everything that does come is from my God and that He has good purposes in mind, and the power to make His good purposes come to pass.

So the question is, “what if my lot is to be James rather than Peter?” Is it worth it? Is it a mistake to follow God and to trust Him, or will I leave like the others. Where else can I go? Who else has the words of eternal life? I couldn’t escape Him even if I wanted to. I don’t want to anyway. I have seen the truth of the prophets and the saints of old. I know that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. I know that He is trustworthy and that He glorify Himself in me as He sees fit and I trust Him to work it for my benefit.

Faithfulness and Infidelity

If God is the center of my life, then why is it that I spend almost all day every day doing things that are only tangentially, at best, related to Him? Why do I live every day like a practical atheist? For all practical purposes I do what I want to do when I want to do it. This is very far from the model that I see in Christ and in others in scripture. Jesus is quite clear that both His words and his actions are from the Father. He even goes so far as to say that the Son can do nothing by Himself, but only that which He sees the Father doing.

I am SO far from this! I find that most of my life I live without any awareness of the spiritual world. I go through me day, eating and drinking, working and sleeping, like a man caught in the Matrix, as if everything around me is the “real” world and is very important. My interactions with others only serve to confirm me in my wrong-headedness . We all scurry around with our self-important tasks, when something massive, important, and REAL lurks just beneath the surface.

I know that God’s Holy Spirit is living in me, and I am more and more convinced that I grieve him many times every day. It is as if I am married and I have declared my love to my beloved, but everyday, hundreds of times a day my beloved reaches out to me, only to be repeatedly rebuffed and rejected as I quickly move past on my way from something to somewhere. I communicate time after time each day that my beloved is not important to me. I do not consult my beloved when I make my plans. I do not invite my beloved to come along and to participate in my activities. My spouse is so faithful and loves me so much and wounds me so little. My beloved is always there but rarely acknowledged, constantly serving but rarely thanked, repeatedly spurned but remains loyal and true.

My beloved has been cuckolded innumerable times by her chosen one in the history of the world, and in the daily history of my life. I have even asked my beloved to introduce me to the adulterous woman and to arrange for a meeting with her. I have begged my beloved to give me more resources to spend on my affairs. I have used the riches that my beloved has brought to me to spend them on fulfilling my own selfish desires. Daily I declare my love and remorse, but daily I return to my sin like a dog returns to his vomit. And then I wonder why I experience almost nothing of the sweet fellowship with my beloved that the scriptures and the great saints that have gone before me speak about.

Who can save me from this cycle of sin and death? Thanks be to Christ my Lord and Savior! He has purchased me back from sin and death. As many times as I disobey and offer myself back into slavery to sin, He redeems me and restores me. He pardons me and then tells me to go and sin no more. More than that, he give me the power to choose the good things that will strengthen my soul so that when the temptation comes again I will not be found weak and unaware. He charges me to remain alert and to seek Him first. He warns me that there is an enemy out there who is searching for someone to devour. He promises to never leave me or forsake me, but to be with me always. He gives me everything that I need for life and godliness. There is no good gift that He will withhold from me, but rather he delights to give all good gifts to His spouse. He is making me pure and blameless to present me to the Father. He is my lover, my brother, my father, my friend, my compatriot, my co-sufferer, my commander, my advocate, my redeemer. He is all that I need. I need only to listen to His voice and to learn to obey Him. I must hearken to his voice everyday and attune my ears to pick out his voice among the clamor of the day. Then… I must trust and obey.