A Good Thing to Remember

This past week has been a real rollercoaster of emotions and experiences for me. My wife and I are in the process of buying a business that will be our primary source of income and the realization of a long held dream to have a family business. We have already hired our oldest daughter to work for us and our other kids will be involved as well. While all this goodness was going on I was struck with a severe case of the flu, which pretty much took me out of everything we had planned for this weekend. In my usual manner, I was depressed and just plain surly about missing out. On the other hand, my wife got to learn a lot about the business by being there without me, which will inevitably turn out to  be a good thing in some way or another. Last night as I was watching the movie, Count of Monte Christo, I was able to see my own trials in a more open minded perspective. Although it sometimes seems that God is working against us and frustrating our deepest desires, it is not so. In the long term view, I have almost always seen that my short term disappointments were for my own good, and that God was working through them to teach me something important or to reveal something to me that I needed to see. Being trapped in time as all humans are, I want what I want when I want it, which is often not what is best for me. God knows this. It’s a good idea for me to remember it too.

Christians and the upcoming election

I’m alternately amused and troubled by the way the media treats Christians in an election year, as though we all vote together on everything. This is largely self-inflicted, I’m sure. Evangelicals have for years sought to be power brokers and king makers on the landscape of American politics, wielding their voting bloc as a club to prod (mostly) conservative politicians in the direction they want them to go, particularly on some hot button issues. I’m somewhat encouraged to see that this year may be different. John McCain seems fairly indifferent to the idea of being manipulated by evangelicals. With Huckabee relegated to the role of running mate (at best), it would appear that Christian power brokers are not going to be players in this election. I believe that’s a good thing, and here’s why. Christians were never instructed to gain political power and pass laws to advance the cause we are called to. In fact, those tactics seem to always have the opposite effect of what was desired. Could that not be because we are trying to grasp the world’s power while ignoring the infinitely more vast power that is already ours?

Look, regardless of who the next president may be, whether it’s McCain, Obama or Hillary, how does that affect the calling I already have to live a life that honors God? We Americans are so spoiled, we are always trying to stack the deck in our favor to make our lives as easy as possible. When you look at how the Gospel has spread in places like China, you have to acknowledge that political favor isn’t essential for Christians to live a joyful and power filled life, and the Gospel to spread like wildfire. Yes, they are persecuted. Didn’t Jesus warn us about that? Why should we always have it so easy? The fact is, we don’t seek political power to spread Jesus’ message, we seek it to make our own lives easier and to pass laws that enforce our values on everyone else. Where is the love in that? Didn’t Jesus actively shun political power and instead deal with each person individually, overwhelming them with love? That’s the way the early church turned the world upside down. Once we give up on Washington as the way to power, we can focus on the sick, the poor, and the downtrodden to overwhelm them with the same love of Jesus. When that happens, it won’t matter who the president is. The world will be transformed.

Letter to a young lady

    Recently a friend of mine asked me to write a letter of encouragement to her daughter, who is currently serving time in jail.  Naturally, I agreed. After writing it, I felt that possibly it would help others who are struggling with the same problems. In that spirit, I’m posting the letter here with the names changed.

Dear Anne,

First of all, I hope this letter finds you in good health and good spirits. You’re probably wondering who I am, so I will try to refresh your memory a bit. You came to house church with your Mom at our house one Wednesday a couple of months ago. While you were here, we gathered around you and prayed for you because you had some things going on in your life that were kind of frightening. I believe some people had said they were going to hurt you. I’m happy to know that God protected you and kept you safe.

I would guess that you think the circumstances of your life are pretty bleak right now, and maybe even frightening. I’ve never been in jail, but I have friends who have and I know it’s no place anyone ever wants to be. I want to encourage you, though, to be brave and be confident that you are in God’s hands. Now, I know that having your fate in God’s hands can be a frightening thing itself, especially if you don’t understand how much he loves you! I can assure you that he does love you much more than you can possibly realize, and that he has plans for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you, to give you hope and a future. Where you are now is actually part of the plan. God will often thwart our own plans and place us in circumstances we don’t choose just to get our attention away from ourselves and focused on him. He will also allow us to experience the consequences of our own actions to show us when we are on the  wrong path in life. When this happens, it’s very difficult to believe that God is allowing it because he loves us. I know that because I have been in that place many times. Anne, God has a plan for you and for your life that is much better than anything you can plan for yourself. It will take you letting go and giving him control for you to ever have that life. I won’t bore you with my life story, but I will tell you that at one time I was a wild and rebellious young man, filled with anger. Over a span of years, God killed every plan I made for myself until finally I had nothing. It was then that he began to work his plan in my life, even though I didn’t see it until years later, and it was so much better than anything I could have ever dreamed of!

Every life has seasons. Seasons of planting, seasons of reaping, seasons of sorrow and seasons of joy. During these seasons God will bring people into your life who will have great impact on you, sometimes for good and sometimes not. Then they will be gone. This is hard to take, I know, because you will want to hold onto them, but there is a reason for it. God knows what you need right now, and whether you realize it or not, he has placed people around you who are there to speak his words to you. Listen to them! There will also be people who deny God and want you to continue in a life of selfish rebellion. Why? Because that’s what they are doing and they need others around them doing the same things so they can feel justified. Misery loves company. Isn’t that the old saying? There is a lot of truth in it. When you turn from your sinful life, the people you ran with are going to do everything they can to drag you back into it, not for you but for themselves. They don’t want you to be free because that will put them in a place where they have to think more closely about what they are doing. Self-examination can be a very painful thing, especially when you know in your heart that what you are doing is wrong.

I don’t really know you, but I believe that you are in that place of self-examination right now and God is using your time in jail to speak to you, whether you are hearing him yet or not. When I was young, I thought that the Bible was just a bunch of rules designed to keep me from having fun and doing what I wanted. It wasn’t until much later that I found out how much God loves us and wants us to be happy. The “rules” I hated were actually warnings about all the pitfalls that we can get ourselves into that rob us of the free and joyful life he has designed for us. It may be that you need to be thinking about that right now, I don’t know. I do know this – God has an abundant and joyful life planned for you that can never be attained any other way than through him. Please pray and ask God to show you just how much he loves you. Your life does matter!

In closing, I just want to tell you how much you are loved. You know your Mom loves you, I’m sure, but there are also many people like myself,  whom you hardly know, who love you very much and want you to have the very best things that God has planned for you. The greatest thing about knowing God’s love is being able to share it with the people he has brought into your life. Please let me know how you’re doing, if you want. If not, that’s o.k. too.

May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you
May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.
Numbers 6:24-26

With Much Love in Christ, our Lord and Savior,

Glenn

God Shows Up

This just happened yesterday and I want to write it down while it’s still fresh in my mind. Some background is in order. When I married my wife 17 years ago, she had a 1 year old daughter who had been born out of wedlock. I took to the little girl right away and before long she was calling me daddy. Eventually I adopted her. My wife and I also have 3 other children who were born to us. At the time of the adoption, we were told by a social worker not to talk about the adoption until the girl started to ask questions. Well, that didn’t happen for a long time. In the mean time, some of our friends were counseling us to just keep it a secret. We tried that for a while, but last summer we attended a conference where we heard some of our friends talk about how they had revealed some family secrets to their teenaged son and how that had really set him and them free spiritually. We both very clearly heard God tell us that we had to come clean with our daughter.

Almost immediately after the conference our relationship with her went south. Because of that, we decided it “wasn’t the right time” to have that talk with her. Over the course of the next few months we kept hearing God tell us to reveal the truth and we kept waiting for the “right time”. Let me tell you, from a human point of view there is almost never a right time to do something you are afraid of doing. Last October our daughter moved out of our home to live with a friend. From that point on we have had very little contact with her, although our conversations are mostly cordial. This past Monday we received a letter from her which upset us because we really don’t approve of some of the choices she is making in her life right now. We decided that this was the time to tell her the truth, for her own sake as well as ours.

The meeting was set for 5:00 Tuesday. All day long I prayed for God to give us courage, grace and wisdom to handle the conversation in the way he would have us do it. When we arrived at the restaurant, my wife was a nervous wreck. We stopped in the parking lot to pray together. When we finished, our daughter was standing just a few feet away, looking beautiful, as she always does. We went inside and spent a few nervous minutes making small talk. Finally, we opened up and told her the truth about the circumstances of her birth and the fact that I am not her biological father. The first thing she said was “I love you, daddy.” She told us that last summer she began to wonder about the very thing we were there to talk about. She had no idea why. I know. God was preparing her for the very thing he wanted us to tell her. What we had dreaded for years turned out to be a converation that drew us all closer together. Afterward, I could almost feel something like a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders.

For the past two weeks God had kept reminding me of Isaiah 41:10 – “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.” It was never more true than it was yesterday. When God calls us to do something, He prepares the way in advance. I have all the proof I will ever need.

Question

What are we living for? Did God put us here to live dull and tedious lives as though we were serving time? Did he put us here to accumulate as much material wealth as possible? Is that all there is? I don’t think so. I believe we were created for a life of adventure, lived on the edge with only God to put our trust in.

To live life fully, we have to have the faith to step outside our comfort zone. As long as we play it safe, we are neither living life to the fullest nor trusting God for the important things. Jesus spoke of a faith that moves mountains. I need a faith that moves ME. If I can’t trust God for that, what am I trusting him for? There has to be more to life than working 8 to 5 Monday through Friday and trying to squeeze as much as possible out of the weekends. It feels like a pointless and endless cycle. When my life is drawing to an end, what will I have to show for it? What will I have taught my children? I don’t want them to be caught in the same trap, but talk is cheap. If they don’t see me living what I preach, they certainly won’t be inclined to do it either. God help me! This is where the rubber meets the road. I want to make a difference in the world that goes beyone paying my bills on time and feeding the consumer machine. What’s the eternal significance of that? Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” What can I do today to advance God’s kingdom? How can I see His will being done through the decisions I make and the relationships I have been given?

This is more radical than we have been led to believe. God loves to do the impossible. As long as we live for what’s humanly possible, we leave God no room to operate. I have to be willing to let go of the controls so God can do the impossible, the miraculous, in my life. I want that. Lord, give me the courage to trust you more than I trust myself!