Friday, February 22, 2008

Reigning Mercy


2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (NLT) All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. You can be sure that the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. So when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your benefit and salvation! For when God comforts us, it is so that we, in turn, can be an encouragement to you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in suffering, you will also share God's comfort.

Paul wrote this in a letter to the church in Corinth shortly after he had a little trouble in Asia. He says "We were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die."

Man good thing stuff like that doesn't happen around here these days.

So it is Friday morning actually 5am and I can't manage to sit still any longer. My mind has been singing two Chris Tomlin songs all night long. Last night, my wife and our two girls went out for a ride. I had lost my Chris Tomlin CD for a long time and it was found last weekend during a wild cleaning moment. It is a great CD it is called See the Morning. Every song on there is great and sometimes Emma, my four year old likes to hear it. This is very important because if Emma deems a certain CD as appropriate for listening in our car even though it is not on the Disney approved listening list, we are very blessed. Emma likes this CD. I asked if we could listen to it and she said OK. She said she wanted to hear the United States song. Great, I get her to say she will listen to the CD and she thinks we are listening to something else, but then I thought a minute. Strangely enough, Emma calls "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)," the United States song. I know she saw a part of the movie, Amazing Grace, that recently came out and this song is on the soundtrack to that movie and the Chris Tomlin video is played at the end of the movie. But I don't know why she calls it the United States song. Perhaps I will learn and tell you another day.

So, we are in the car listening to this song, which I know the Lord wanted us to hear. I know the Lord was just waiting for me to hear the words:

My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine
You are forever mine

Because God wanted me to reflect on something miraculous that happened on that day, Thursday, February 21, 2008. My Good Friend had a special moment yesterday. Sometime around lunchtime, I am guessing, his nurse pulled out the IV giving him his final dose of chemo. And then a few "short" hours later, he was released from the hospital. That's right, the chains of lymphoma are gone. Sure he has a long struggle to regain his strength, but the hours upon hours of sitting in the hospital are gone (barring any small setback as he gets through the next few weeks). I think back to what Paul said, "We were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it." I don't know if that is what my friend was thinking, but I know I would have been.
But what Paul said in verses 3-7 are true. My friend would say several times, "Strangely enough I feel kind of peaceful." Dude your hair is gone. Many times he would say, "Enough about me, how's your job search going?" Dude your eyebrows are gone and I think you might be wearing white lipstick. "So how are things going, is there anything that I can pray for you about? Do you want to pray right now?" He can't go to work, which he loves to do, he can't get out and work hard on his farm, which he loves to do, he can't roll around and tickle his boys, which he loves to do. He had to go and have this treatment every three or four weeks that made him stay in the hospital for 2-4 nights and then spend the next few weeks dodging every molecule of bacteria, fungus, or gunk that he could to stay healthy. Sure he got down at times, but he always seemed to remain peaceful. At least to me.

But here is what also happened. People reached out to him because they wanted to check on him and God allowed him to comfort others with the same comfort God had given him.

Another great song on the CD, Let Your Mercy Rain, has been pounding in my head all night long. I am not kidding. I had dreams with the music playing. Finally, I had to get up. I thought I was getting up because of a coughing fit that was keeping my wife awake, but once I sat down on the couch it started to come to me. I just needed to type a little note and thank God for giving me my Good Friend. I am glad you are home buddy.

God, You have done great things
God, You give grace to the weak
And bless the brokenhearted
With a song of praise to sing

You reached down and lifted us up
You came running, looking for us
And now there's nothing
And no one beyond Your love

You're the overflow
You're the fountain of my heart
Let Your mercy rain
Let Your mercy rain on us

You're the faithful one
When the world's falling apart
Let Your mercy rain
Let Your mercy rain on us

How deep, how wide, how long, how high is Your love ... is Your love
How deep, how wide, how long, how high is Your love ... is Your love

Oh, God
Let it rain

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Tom Hanks, John Ortberg and a Jehovah's Witness walk into a blog...


I would imagine most have seen the movie, Castaway. It is the movie with Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt and Tom works for FedEx and his plane crashes in the middle of the ocean and he ends up on an island, makes a friend with a volleyball and eventually believes that he can leave the island to return to Helen. He leaves the island, drifts for 500 miles in the ocean, gets picked up by a freight ship, comes back home and finds that Helen is now married and his sole reason for keeping himself alive all this time is no longer there for him.

It is such a strange experience to watch this movie. I just watched the last hour of it. I have seen it several times. Once I turn it on, I can't stop watching it. And I know what it is. Once the plane crashes there is very little talking that goes on for quite some time. All you hear is the sounds of the ocean with Tom occasionally talking to himself. It really makes me stop and think.

A few years ago, the idea of solitude was first introduced to me. At the time, I could barely grasp the concept. I immediately thought of this movie. I even made the picture for this blog back when I was beginning to learn about solitude. That was about as far as I got in creating my own interpretation of what solitude meant to me.

As I have mentioned before, I have had an experience that has inspired me to shift my priorities in life. I am now trying to put God first in my life. A couple things in the past couple months have assisted me in formulating a better idea of what solitude means to me. My sunday school class recently previewed a few chapters of a John Ortberg book called "The Life You've Always Wanted." One of the chapters talked about God being a fatherly figure in our lives. John Ortberg talked about watching his wife or his kids while they sleep and thinking wonderful thoughts about them and desiring the best for them in their lives. John pointed out that this is what God does while each one of us is sleeping. This thought had never entered my brain before. I guess I never thought about God looking over me as I slept and my first thoughts were that he would be saying, "Maybe tomorrow you can do better. Maybe you have learned your lesson from being such an idiot today. Maybe you'll remember to talk to me before you come up with one of your "brilliant" plans that your wife can sniff out in a second. Thank goodnes you have finally gone to sleep." Did I think God would say those things to me????Maybe. Maybe in a mentoring kind of way. But the book and the Bible tell me that God is my Heavenly Father. No loving father thinks bad things about their kids while they watch them sleep. It really caused me to think differently about my relationship with God. The more I put myself into his Word, the more I begin to see just how much He loves me.

So I now am understanding better the love of God. I am also learning to talk with God more. We are now in the mystical season of Lent. Why do I say that? People give up things for Lent, watching too much TV, drinking coffee, cursing, chocolate, alcohol, you name it. I like to think of it as our second chance at your New Year's resolution, but this time there is a catch. I you slip up you go to hell. Just kidding. But that is the mystique. I have been doing these things in excess my whole life, they are probably shortening my life by ten years, but I just keep doing them. But for the next 40 days I will stop doing them because I am afraid of what God will do to me if I slip up. Besides I only have to wait until Easter and then I can get back to the things I love. Quite honestly before this year I have to say I was one of those people. But now I am perfect. OK not really. Now I have finally learned what the challenge truly is during Lent. I gave up a few things and vowed to do a few things. But this time it is different. I obviously don't want to fail, but I actually gave up a few things that put me out of my comfort zone. Who am I trying to kid? They have to do with food. But when I think about that I have to miss out on something, I need to remember to pray to God and thank him for the blessings in my life. Pray for the strength to uphold my Lenten vows. I also have to pray each morning to remind myself of my sacrifices because if I don't Satan is ready waiting to slip one by me.

Is there a point to this? Have you just wasted a good five minutes of your time because I am not going anywhere with this blog? Yes there is.

I am learning to talk to God in the quiet times, during the drive to work, in the mornings before I eat breakfast, in the late hours of the night, when I am tempted, when I am sad, when I am confused, when I am concerned. I am learning to develop my relationship with the Lord. At the same time I am learning what it means to put God first in my life. I am not always doing a good job of it, but I am ever more conscious of what it means.

And I am able to defend my beliefs. When I was a kid, a couple came to our door and wanted to talk with me about life. They wanted to give me a couple little magazines to read and maybe they could come back later and find out if I had any questions. I knew that Jehovah's Witness people came door to door and new the name "The Watchtower," but I really didn't know what to say to them. I thought I would humor them and take their magazine and listen to what they had to say, but I also knew I would never buy in to what they were trying to do. Later in life, I would just not answer the door or would tell them I was not interested. If I was feeling really bold I might tell them I go to church and I believe in God and Jesus and all that stuff. But honestly I didn't know what to say to them and I certainly didn't need to get myself into any conversations like that. I do plenty of that on my own.
But Friday something different happened. I had to stay home from work because my wife was sick and I needed to watch our girls, which never happens. (Kwinky-dink or divine appointment (as my preacher would say). You decide, I know the answer). So I am sitting in the living room with the girls and someone knocks at the door. A Friday mid-morning and someone is knocking at our door? I knew exactly who it was (well that and a new JW church was just built near our house). The girls and I opened the door and there was a woman with two small children. The little kids asked if I had little kids and wanted to know if I wanted to have a couple little magazines that would tell them how to keep safe. I looked over and saw a kid's magazine and a Watch Tower magazine. I said, Yes I do have little kids, but we go to a church where they learn to love the Lord Jesus and learn that God sent him to this world to die for our sins and that if they believe on Him they will have everlasting life. Then the woman said, This is not about church. Don't you want to protect your children from child molesters? I looked her in the eye and said, I will protect my little girls by raising them in the right way, teaching them wrong from right and praying to God every day that he protects them. She looked like she didn't know what to say. She turned the little kids around and said have a nice day. I closed the door and did a dance that I am certain my wife and daughters would prefer I not do in public. I felt great. I finally was able to say to someone. Hey you got it all wrong and I will not be deceived. I firmly believe that is a direct result of me learning to have solitude with the Lord.


Then my wife, fever and all, got out of her bath robe, got completely dressed in two seconds and walked half a block down the street to invite the woman to her Bible study. OK. I am going to have to work on that one.


Lord, I love what you are doing in my life. I love finding out how much you love me and I love learning more and more about you. I pray that you will take this knowledge and turn it into wisdom for me to live my life. Lord please give me the strength and focus to uphold my Lenten vows to you. And Lord, please protect my daughters from evil.


2 Peter 1:3-11 (NLT) As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.

So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.

So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Count the Lord's Blessings


There I was sitting in my car reading a book about preparing for a job interview. This little yellow sticky folded in half and laminated falls out of the book. It turn it over and it says in really nice cursive writing, "Count the Lord's Blessings." I suppose I should have known right then what the outcome of my interview would be, but I tried to read into it and come up with some interview strategy in which my answers would be focused on the blessings from the Lord that I have received in my life. One of the problems with being a hopeless optimist is that you often are blindsided by reality. Sometimes it really hurts.


Those of you that know me most likely know that I had an interview last week. Today I received the "Dear John" letter, because my name is John. No it wasn't a letter from my sweetheart back in the states telling me that she met a nice boy who works at the grocery store. It was a letter telling me that while my resume was very impressive I was not what they needed for the job. I'm not bitter at the people who sent the letter, just blindsided.


I have to say that despite the really bad feeling that I have inside right now, the situation could be much worse. My life has taken a Mighty change for the better over the past few months. I have through the Holy Spirit been awoken (not really sure if that is the correct way to put it, but you know what I mean). My priorities have become clear. Put God first in my life, then comes my promise to my wife to be by her side until the end, be a Christian father to my beautiful little girls and love everyone in my path. By filling my mornings with studying God's word, my thoughts throughout the day are more likely to be Godly than worldly. I am learning to express myself better and have confidence in myself that I didn't have before. I have continued to have a feeling in my heart that no matter what happens things will work out.


When I sat down here tonight, I was going to write about rejection and how it must have felt to be Jesus and to be rejected by your own hometown. But I was quickly reminded of the little yellow sticky. I can sit here and type all of my blessings, but it might seem as though I was bragging. I am so blessed in my life. That little note was probably some of the best interview advice I have ever received. No offense to my good buddy and my wife (she's my good buddy too) who gave me some great advice about interviewing and being prepared. But for now, I am going to sit quietly and thank God for his grace he has poured upon me in my life. My eternal vacation plans should be enough to fill me, but he has provided me with so much more.


I will get started again soon trying to find that next perfect opportunity. For now I have a good job and it will have to do until it is time for me to move on to something else.


Romans 5:1-5 (NLT) - Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us - they help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. And this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.


Goodness, Ash Wednesday is quickly approaching thus the beginning of Lent. Will you and I really test our endurance? Better yet will we be mindful of our gift of eternal life and allow some of our worldly needs to become dead to us.


Lord, I thank you for the many ways that you continue to bless my life. I hope I did not disappoint you by being really excited about the possibility of getting a new job. Please allow me to find a way to bring you to my current job and to remember the new priorities in my life.