Haiku for the Common Person

Sometimes the soul is satisfied by poetry.  Perhaps you’ve felt that way; if so, try these on for size. 

Moves

Sand moves on the beach,

          the tides and winds shifting now.

                   Change is in the air.

On Thinking

          Boundaries breaking;

Consciousness being stretched wide.

                             Restless with my life.

Tuesday

Sitting at my desk,

Not my final destiny.

My mind wanders far.

Catch the theme; whether this has a real name or not, I call it thematic Haiku or therapeutic thinking. 

Mexico Mission 2011 Unplugged

Wednesday afternoon about 3:45 PM we rolled into the New Harvest Church parking lot.  Our convoy of three dusty and only slightly damaged vans and one pick-up truck pulled into our final destination—home.  Well, sort of, we all still had to unpack, clean out the vehicles, and then travel to our individual homes; but the adventure was officially over as each vehicle came to a halt. 

We had 37 people ranging in age from 15 to 49 (yep, I was the senior citizen on this trip).  Once in Mexico, we split into two crews, one building a house for a family and the crew I was on built a church.  Granted, the structures we built are bare bones, nothing hugely elaborate, but considering we had four days to accomplish even bare bones construction is a strong testament to God working through those He’s called to serve in this manner.  

The pastor of the church we built is Pastor Juan, a Mexican church planter.  He’s planted churches in Tijuana and our church was his first in Rosarito, at least as near as I could figure out. While he speaks no English, he did have a bilingual friend, Carlos, on the job site to aid in translation.  Carlos had his two young, home-schooled children with him most of the time; on our last day, however, they had caught a plane bound for LA so they could visit their Mom who lives and works there.

The work itself was hard labor in a dusty environment under a very hot, unrelenting sun. We were continually encouraged by Nurse Mike (a genuine RN who wields a hammer as well as he does a first aid kit) to drink lots of water to stay hydrated.  Those who did not follow his advice, paid for it with headaches and nausea; those of us who did heed his advice were rewarded with good health and frequent bathroom breaks.

When it was all finished, Pastor Juan invited us to the first service at the new church just hours after we finished building it.  He taught from Mark 4:35-41 and Psalm 20 about persevering through any “problema” that comes our way rather than using our problems as excuses to give up or blame others.   

While Carlos adeptly translated his message, the passion of the message was unmistakable. Pastor Juan clearly communicated a genuine zeal for the Lord that any person of any culture could easily grasp.  Here’s a man sleeping on a floor, no mat or pillow from what we could see, preaching about persevering in God’s strength and goodness. A man who has planted six other churches and is enduring his own personal struggles while still bringing a message to rival any message I’ve ever heard whether in person, or via DVD or podcast.  At this little bare bones church atop a dusty Rosarito hill was a powerful demonstration of two cultures and two languages, but one God, one Scripture; the same God worshipped world-wide, the same God who has been worshipped for thousands of years. The same God Who breathed His Word for us to read, study, believe, and live. This same Word has been read for centuries and is the same Word that both Pastor Juan and I read in our morning devotionals even though we are 1,500 miles apart.

Maybe I’m making too big a deal out of this, but the further I get from that experience, the more profound it becomes.  God is real.  God is big. And, yes, God is everywhere present!  The same God is in Keizer, Oregon that is in Rosarito, Mexico. So we all endured long drives and late nights, hard work and hot weather; sleeping on floors and thin mats in smelly tents; but our minor and momentary discomfort cannot even compare to the power and grace God showed by allowing us to sit at the feet of Pastor Juan to witness God’s hand at work in an authentic multicultural way.  

But now that I’ve been home for a few days, I start asking myself a series of questions (if you have any input on these questions, please leave a comment):

·         One day in the van coming back from the work site we played the song The Stand. There’s a lyric in this song that speaks to being totally surrendered.  Am I totally surrendered?  Are you?  What does being totally surrendered look like in today’s American suburbia? Do I even know anyone who’s genuinely totally surrendered?  Can a person be totally surrendered 24/7?

·         Our Pastor Chad taught on the difference between a missional experience vs. missional living.  Do I really grasp the difference?  Am I really committed to grasping the difference?  Are you?

·         Where does my life land on the continuum of selfish living to selfless living? 

·         When is godly help rolling up my sleeves and sharing a burden and when is it allowing a person to work through their situation on their own (with God’s help, of course)?

·         What questions do you have?  How sold out are we for Jesus?  Really, how sold out are we?  I’m nowhere near where I want to be, are you?

These are just a few of the questions that have popped up in my journal over the last few days; I’m sure there’ll be more.

Mexico Mission or Bust

Tomorrow at 3:30 in the morning the New Harvest Church Youth Ministry embarks on a Short-Term Mission trip to Rosarito, Mexico. This will be the second consecutive trip for both my oldest son and I. 

Preparing for the trip this year brought some very challenging attacks, primarily against my children.  Ephesians Chapter Six speaks very clearly about spiritual warfare.  While it may be a bit spooky to speak of spiritual warfare, the evidence of such warfare throughout the world is undeniable. Yet, here a handful of vans filled with mostly young people will be demonstrating not only love, but courage; courage to stand up to the attacks to pursue the call God has placed on their hearts to go and serve. 

What a privilege to be working shoulder to shoulder with such servants.  May God bless them and the community of Rosarito.

The Great Theft

I haven’t blogged for a while because our recent trials were darkening my vision; but God is patient with me and He is lightening my soul; and showing His hand of mercy at work in the tough stuff of life.

Two things I really enjoy doing are praying and running.  I’m blessed the two can be combined.  In fact, some runs are even meditative or cathartic.  In my last three runs I was able to pray and be mentally quiet at the same time as I just focused on the path in front of me listening to my footfalls.  It was really cool, because I wasn’t looking too far down the road or listening to the cacophony of civilization around me; I was just watching for my next step and enjoying the muffled thump of each foot hitting the ground.  When each run was finished, I felt physically tired but spiritually and mentally rejuvenated and revived with a deeper sense of God’s peace and joy pulsing in my soul.  But then I got into my car to drive back to the office and that’s when it happened, that’s when the Great Theft occurred.

You see, there’s construction going on plus I was bumping up against the clock. So as traffic came to a dead stop while the clock kept ticking, my impatience came roaring through all that peace and joy to again take center stage.  By the time I got back to the office I was uptight and grumpy with nary a wisp of the hard-won peace and joy remaining in my soul.

So what happened?  Why was that peace and joy so easily stolen away from me?  Several reasons, I’m sure; but the one for the moment is gross impatience.  Nothing gets my impatience bubbling like sitting still in traffic that should be moving.  Can you relate? 

Anyway, what I’m learning, besides refining my time management skills, is to preemptively prepare my soul with even more prayer as I enter into situations where I can reasonably expect to wait.  So after such a great run, as I finish my shower, I must acknowledge that I need the help of the Holy Spirit filling those darkened areas of my soul where impatience is hiding.  I don’t know where those dark areas are, but it is painfully obvious they’re there; thus, the Holy Spirit, the Great Heart-Searcher, can seek and destroy those darkened strongholds. 

Perhaps as I discipline myself to refining this prayer practice, my runs will have even more lasting benefit than just lowering blood pressure and momentarily giving my mind a rest.  Besides, who’s likely to draw people to Christ, the impatient, grumpy ball of tension; or the calm, peace-filled ball of joy?  (This is a rhetorical question that should end with “duh!”) And what’s the sense of getting all uptight over a situation I have absolutely no control of other than the way I react to it?  It is much healthier to react to an uncontrollable situation with prayerful acceptance rather than hot-headed, gasket-blowing impatience. 

So, pray on; run on! 

Faith Simplified

A.W. Tozer stated that faith “is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God.”  He also did a comparison of ‘looking’ in the Old Testament and ‘believing’ in the New Testament.  In this comparison he stated that eventually a plain man would come to understand that “‘looking’ on the Old Testament serpent [on the staff of Moses to get healing from snake bites] is identical with ‘believing’ on the New Testament Christ. That is, the looking and believing are the same thing.  And he would understand that while Israel looked with their external eyes, believing is done with the heart.  I think he would conclude that faith is the gaze of the soul upon a saving God” (The Pursuit of God, pp. 89-90). 

Tozer’s insight is tremendously helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of what faith really is.  For so many years I’ve heard people state that things didn’t work out the way I had hoped or prayed because I didn’t have enough faith.  But just what is enough faith?  Even Jesus blessed a man who admitted that he had both faith and unbelief (see Luke 9:24-25).   Jesus definitely encouraged the man and many others to grow in faith, but He never said that He would only work in the heart with zero doubt and 100% faith. 

Returning to Tozer’s work puts faith in an entirely different light.  Faith is not a commodity to gain more quantities of like the accumulation of useless stuff in our garage.  Faith is instead a state of continual affection; because that which we are most in love with is what we will think the most about and look to the most often.  We also need to remember another truism of the human soul in that we will turn to what we are most attracted to when times get rough.  Some turn to booze or drugs, some turn to their spouse, but others will turn in genuine faith and prayer to the Lord.  Of all these options, only the Lord will truly satisfy. 

Now I’m finally coming to realize, especially as I get older, that I’ve made faith entirely too complicated; an inner gaze upon the heart of Jesus is much simpler than all that striving and teeth-gritting.  It is amazing to think that an act of faith is as simple as pondering Jesus in silent contemplation.  I don’t always have to be doing something to “have faith,” I can just simply direct my thoughts up to the throne of God.  Taking each thought captive to Christ is an act of faith.  Praying about my concerns is also an act of faith.  From the Book of Psalms we find that crying out to God, whether in fear or anger, is also an act of faith. 

Having a simpler understanding of faith makes my heart even more grateful to our loving Heavenly Father.  Man has made faith a complex morass of works and proving grounds, while our Lord simply says, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).      

God, Lord, and Father

I was praying during one of my lunchtime runs a few weeks ago.  I often state two key words in my prayers.  Those two words are “God” and “Lord”.  As I curved up the concrete path leading to the former train trestle turned running/walking bridge over the Willamette River a different word popped into my mind, the word “Father”.  The impressiveness of the thought caused me to pay closer attention because I sensed it was a quiet whisper from God in regard to my prayer.  In fact, the thought was phrased more as a question rather than as a statement.

“Why don’t you ever refer to Me as Father?” 

While this may sound like a simple question, the answer is really quite complex.  There are many reasons why I’ve resisted referring to God as Father.  The reasons hover in areas such as my relationship with my earthly father, lack of trust in the God of the universe, and tainted experiences from my cult days (hence my book From Cult to Christ).  Maybe someday I’ll write a more detailed blog on these reasons, but right now I want to address this particular prayer on this particular run. 

Jesus referred to God as Father many times (too many times to list here, but you’ll find a complete list on pages 347-8 in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible).  When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He started with the words, “Our Father” (see Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11:2).  When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, His prayers were so intense with psychological stress, that He sweat drops of blood (a condition known as hematidrosis, see p. 260 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel). But even in all this intensity, Jesus referred to God as Father (see Matthew 26:39, Mark 14:36, and Luke 22:42). 

So without waxing all-theological, what is the significance of this question I sensed in my prayer?  Biblically speaking, what is a father?  A father is someone who cares, someone who rescues, someone who’s a hero.  A father is compassionate and yet can appropriately discipline when necessary.  A father is there when you need him and even when you don’t.  A father loves and respects you.  A father also accepts you for who you are but won’t necessarily let you always stay the same, for a father is also a guide into maturity and adventure.  And, of course, a father has children. 

All of these attributes are true of God.  These are the attributes He was trying to get me to realize in my prayer.  Yes He is God, and yes He is Lord, but I can still come to this God of the universe as a Father, for He does love me and cares for me and my family.  He doesn’t sit idly by but is an active participant in my life; at least He is if I let Him. 

So now when I pray, I approach Him as my loving Father Who is extending His arms to embrace me in a big ol’ bear hug rather than approaching Him as a distant God on a distant throne with minimal care for my life.  He is God and Lord, but He is also Father, which means I can follow Jesus’ example and pray, “My Father,” and I can know that He hears me.      

Resurrection Sunday

Bright light, empty tomb,

                Conquering death He rises;

                                      Savior, Lord of all!

"if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved"  (Romans 10:9, ESV).