I have never had any desire to be a nomad. Nomads have no fixed home, instead they move from place to place taking whatever they can carry with them as they travel. Most nomads are pastoralists, driving their herds to the places where they can be find food and water and shelter from whatever weather is threatening them. My family and I are nomads, but we're not the ones doing the driving or choosing the next location, or even the time to move. We are nomads being driven along by God.
During the exodus, the Israelites left their homes and the only life they had ever known to follow God out of slavery and into the Promised Land. But, before He took them to the promised land, He trained them to follow Him and to trust Him. He appeared to them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Whenever the pillar would move on, they would follow. Whenever the pillar would stop, they would stop. This has been something like my experience. Sometimes we have lived someplace for years, the longest has been 6 years, and sometimes for just days.
For the last 10 months we have been particularly nomadic. It is really wearing on us. Even after more than 10 years of a generally nomadic existence we still long for stability. We long for a little patch of earth with some kind of structure on it to be "our home". When we don't have this we feel unstable in our souls. I wasn't raised to be a nomad. It just doesn't feel right to me. I want a stable place that belongs to me; my own personal castle and private domain. Ah, there's the rub! God wants all of me, and He wants to be the Lord of every part of me, which leaves me know personal domain, no private fiefdom.
In the second book of C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, Paralandra, the one command that God gives to the perfect couple is that they live on the ever moving islands of paradise and never spend the night on the fixed land. As the protagonist struggles to understand the command he realizes that it is because God wants to remain their one fixed point. As long as they are on the moving islands they have to totally trust in Him. Their obedience demonstrates their trust in Him.
God is training me like the Israelites of old to trust in Him, to follow Him, o rely on Him. And like the Israelites of old I resist the training. I fail to trust, I fail to rely, but I can not fail to follow.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Losing Focus
Yesterday I was humbled by worship yet again. I was standing at a church service when God ambushed me again through the words of a song. He has a tendency to sneak past my defenses as I worship in song. This time it was the line "there is one great love" from David Crowder's version of "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing". All of a sudden, as I was singing those words, I was convicted and comforted all at the same time.
I was struck by my adulterous heart and how prone it is to wander from the God I love. (And even as I type I recognize that those last few words are from "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", the residual effects of a previous worship ambush). I lose focus SO easily. There in that moment, I was reminded that there is one great love, one consuming passion, that drives me, or at least should drive me. I was reminded of how I had spent the last 2 nights staying up WAY too late playing a video game. The video game was not the problem as there is nothing particular objectionable in the game I was playing, but rather as I was playing in the wee hours of the morning I was aware of the time and that I should really turn it off. There was a voice in my head saying something like, "Is this really that important? You'll be sorry tomorrow. You'll be tired and cranky. How will you love your kids well? How will you love your wife well? How will you be able to spend time with me?" I am not confident enough to say that it was the voice of God clearly speaking those words in my head, rather an impression in my soul that when verbalized takes on those words.
The interesting thing was my response in that moment. I simply blocked out the impression. I choose to ignore the wisdom of God. Sure enough, the next morning I was tired and cranky and sorry I had stayed up so late. But, here's the irony, I did the same thing again the next night. And again, the next night, I blocked out the voice, like a child putting his fingers in his ears and shouting, "LA LA LA LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" I decided to do what I wanted to do, what felt good at the moment, regardless of the consequences. I praise God that my addictions are relatively less damaging than the ones I used to indulge, but the problem of my heart is just the same. I lose focus much too easily and have a proclivity for willfulness. I say I want to pursue God and to learn to hear His voice and obey, and yet I am prone to wander.
So, during worship, when I was singing, God reminded me that there is "one great love: Jesus" and that He loves me, even when I am a willful knucklehead. He really is worth listening too. He really is worth pursuing. He really is my one great love. I just forget to remember.
I was struck by my adulterous heart and how prone it is to wander from the God I love. (And even as I type I recognize that those last few words are from "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", the residual effects of a previous worship ambush). I lose focus SO easily. There in that moment, I was reminded that there is one great love, one consuming passion, that drives me, or at least should drive me. I was reminded of how I had spent the last 2 nights staying up WAY too late playing a video game. The video game was not the problem as there is nothing particular objectionable in the game I was playing, but rather as I was playing in the wee hours of the morning I was aware of the time and that I should really turn it off. There was a voice in my head saying something like, "Is this really that important? You'll be sorry tomorrow. You'll be tired and cranky. How will you love your kids well? How will you love your wife well? How will you be able to spend time with me?" I am not confident enough to say that it was the voice of God clearly speaking those words in my head, rather an impression in my soul that when verbalized takes on those words.
The interesting thing was my response in that moment. I simply blocked out the impression. I choose to ignore the wisdom of God. Sure enough, the next morning I was tired and cranky and sorry I had stayed up so late. But, here's the irony, I did the same thing again the next night. And again, the next night, I blocked out the voice, like a child putting his fingers in his ears and shouting, "LA LA LA LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" I decided to do what I wanted to do, what felt good at the moment, regardless of the consequences. I praise God that my addictions are relatively less damaging than the ones I used to indulge, but the problem of my heart is just the same. I lose focus much too easily and have a proclivity for willfulness. I say I want to pursue God and to learn to hear His voice and obey, and yet I am prone to wander.
So, during worship, when I was singing, God reminded me that there is "one great love: Jesus" and that He loves me, even when I am a willful knucklehead. He really is worth listening too. He really is worth pursuing. He really is my one great love. I just forget to remember.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Easter Reflections
I watched a man in a wheel chair take communion on Good Friday. As this man with severe disabilities (I assume he had cerebral palsy) passed me with his care givers on his way toward the communion elements I thought, "Man! He is going to enjoy heaven! There are no wheel chairs in heaven!"
Then as I sat there reflecting on what Christ endured on the cross and on the state of our world today it was like a penny dropping and a pattern emerged from the random thoughts and experiences of the last few weeks. The disparate and seemingly unrelated events and ideas were suddenly revealed to be an intricate pattern of information that can only be understood as communication. Like one of those dot pictures that you stare out waiting for the moment when it "pops" and you can see the 3D picture within. The dots don't change, the picture doesn't change, it was there the whole time. It's just that one minute it's a mass of confusion and the next minute it's a carefully crafted work of art.
Our world was created perfect. Man was created perfect in body and soul. We had perfect capacity for understanding and communicating with each other, the world around us, and God. Then, the world was marred. We ruined it. Now the world, and all of us are twisted. The vestiges of residual glory are still all around us, but we are not what we were or what we will be. Like the man in the wheel chair. He was clearly a man with hands and feet, face and hair, but nothing was working quite right. He is a glorious ruin, a shadow of what we were meant to be. But he will not always be that way. One day He will be free. One day he will be perfect.
Jesus was perfect. He was perfect in body and soul. The world He lived in was the same twisted one that we inhabit, but He was not twisted. Then, in the passion on Good Friday, He was twisted and marred. His perfect body was torn, rent by the various instruments of cruel torture. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. The perfect sinless One was made imperfect and sin-full for us. On the cross Jesus was made sin. He was forsaken by God. He experienced the hellishness of separation from God that the rest of us experience our whole lives.
We no longer recognize the horror of it, because we have known nothing else. We can not imagine what it must have been like for Him. We are a world full of blind men. He could see, but was suddenly struck blind. Because we are all blind, we can hardly imagine what it would be to have sight. Then, the Seeing One came, and He explained the things we could not see. He offered to heal us so that we could see as well. But, we loved the darkness and so we sought to kill Him, to eliminate the One who exposed our blindness. That was good Friday.
But the beautiful surprise is that the story didn't stop on Good Friday. It continues and finds it's fruition on Resurrection Sunday. The Seeing One did not stay dead or blind. He conquered death and even now gives sight to the blind. His marring is our healing. By His stripes we are healed. He has conquered sin and death and has opened to us the way of the eternal kind of life. Man! We are all going to enjoy heaven!
Then as I sat there reflecting on what Christ endured on the cross and on the state of our world today it was like a penny dropping and a pattern emerged from the random thoughts and experiences of the last few weeks. The disparate and seemingly unrelated events and ideas were suddenly revealed to be an intricate pattern of information that can only be understood as communication. Like one of those dot pictures that you stare out waiting for the moment when it "pops" and you can see the 3D picture within. The dots don't change, the picture doesn't change, it was there the whole time. It's just that one minute it's a mass of confusion and the next minute it's a carefully crafted work of art.
Our world was created perfect. Man was created perfect in body and soul. We had perfect capacity for understanding and communicating with each other, the world around us, and God. Then, the world was marred. We ruined it. Now the world, and all of us are twisted. The vestiges of residual glory are still all around us, but we are not what we were or what we will be. Like the man in the wheel chair. He was clearly a man with hands and feet, face and hair, but nothing was working quite right. He is a glorious ruin, a shadow of what we were meant to be. But he will not always be that way. One day He will be free. One day he will be perfect.
Jesus was perfect. He was perfect in body and soul. The world He lived in was the same twisted one that we inhabit, but He was not twisted. Then, in the passion on Good Friday, He was twisted and marred. His perfect body was torn, rent by the various instruments of cruel torture. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. The perfect sinless One was made imperfect and sin-full for us. On the cross Jesus was made sin. He was forsaken by God. He experienced the hellishness of separation from God that the rest of us experience our whole lives.
We no longer recognize the horror of it, because we have known nothing else. We can not imagine what it must have been like for Him. We are a world full of blind men. He could see, but was suddenly struck blind. Because we are all blind, we can hardly imagine what it would be to have sight. Then, the Seeing One came, and He explained the things we could not see. He offered to heal us so that we could see as well. But, we loved the darkness and so we sought to kill Him, to eliminate the One who exposed our blindness. That was good Friday.
But the beautiful surprise is that the story didn't stop on Good Friday. It continues and finds it's fruition on Resurrection Sunday. The Seeing One did not stay dead or blind. He conquered death and even now gives sight to the blind. His marring is our healing. By His stripes we are healed. He has conquered sin and death and has opened to us the way of the eternal kind of life. Man! We are all going to enjoy heaven!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Spiritual Retreat
I just got back from a 48 hour spiritual retreat. I have been trying to schedule these personal, generally silent, retreats for several years now. I find it really hard to carve out the time to do them, but I'm never sorry when I do. This retreat was no exception.
For this retreat, my wife and I went together, but decided not to talk with each other for the first 24 hours and then limited our conversation to what we were hearing and learning. Soon after I arrived I found myself simply enjoying the silence and the beauty of the rose garden. Then I noticed a rabbit sitting among the roses staring back at me. I don't know how long he had been sitting there, or how long I had been staring at him before I noticed him. I was immediately struck by the immediacy of God and the fact that every moment of every day is pregnant with the possibility of meeting with God. My problem is that I rarely slow down enough to be attentive. This was to be the theme for the retreat, as again and again, God popped up as I sat in silence, walked the grounds, read scripture, read good books, and spent time in prayer and contemplation.
I spent most of the weekend camped in Mark 10. I was drawn to it a few weeks prior when the phrase "What do you want me to do for you?" jumped of the page and became a very personal question. Jesus asks the question twice in the passage, once to James and John (who selfishly ask for glory) and once of blind Bartimaeus (who asks to see). I was struck by the parallels of the question and the divergence of response. Then, I had to answer the question. What is it that I want God to do for me? Not theoretically, but actually. The Lord of the Universe is actually present, standing before me always asking this question and waiting to give me everything that is really good for me.
This is the problem. God is not a vending machine, He is a good Father. He is not manipulated or controlled by us. He is wild and free...and good. He doesn't appear to me when I demand, but He is never distant. He denies James and John's request to sit at His right and His left, but He grants sight to the blind man. He is constantly available and is longing for the dialogue. The dialogue is the purist expression of faith. Even when He says "no" the beauty is that we can hear His voice. We can learn to speak His language and to hear His voice more readily if we will but take the time to be attentive and to believe that He wants to communicate with us.
For this retreat, my wife and I went together, but decided not to talk with each other for the first 24 hours and then limited our conversation to what we were hearing and learning. Soon after I arrived I found myself simply enjoying the silence and the beauty of the rose garden. Then I noticed a rabbit sitting among the roses staring back at me. I don't know how long he had been sitting there, or how long I had been staring at him before I noticed him. I was immediately struck by the immediacy of God and the fact that every moment of every day is pregnant with the possibility of meeting with God. My problem is that I rarely slow down enough to be attentive. This was to be the theme for the retreat, as again and again, God popped up as I sat in silence, walked the grounds, read scripture, read good books, and spent time in prayer and contemplation.
I spent most of the weekend camped in Mark 10. I was drawn to it a few weeks prior when the phrase "What do you want me to do for you?" jumped of the page and became a very personal question. Jesus asks the question twice in the passage, once to James and John (who selfishly ask for glory) and once of blind Bartimaeus (who asks to see). I was struck by the parallels of the question and the divergence of response. Then, I had to answer the question. What is it that I want God to do for me? Not theoretically, but actually. The Lord of the Universe is actually present, standing before me always asking this question and waiting to give me everything that is really good for me.
This is the problem. God is not a vending machine, He is a good Father. He is not manipulated or controlled by us. He is wild and free...and good. He doesn't appear to me when I demand, but He is never distant. He denies James and John's request to sit at His right and His left, but He grants sight to the blind man. He is constantly available and is longing for the dialogue. The dialogue is the purist expression of faith. Even when He says "no" the beauty is that we can hear His voice. We can learn to speak His language and to hear His voice more readily if we will but take the time to be attentive and to believe that He wants to communicate with us.
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