Branches

Superman

2012-02-17T13:22:00.000-08:00

He came to earth as a baby, knowing that someday he would be the savior of the world. His “earthly” parents took him to a small little town where he was raised in obscurity, almost secretive, growing stronger everyday and waiting for the right time to reveal his strength and special power to the world. Finally, the day came when as a young man, having grown strong and having learned about who he was and where he came from, he was ready and the world was ready for him. He stepped out onto the stage, ripped open his shirt and exposed a large red “S” on his chest. His name is Superman. That is who you thought I was talking about isn’t it?

I wonder what it was like to be the young Superman? Knowing you are called to a mission but not sure of the power within you to pull it off. Waiting for the strength to show up and the muscle to mature. Sitting on the sidelines while the world wondered if you were worth the fuss.

In Acts 19 there is another group of guys that have waited. They were baptized by John the Baptist maybe 25 years earlier and now they wait. They have a message and a mission but no muscle. They know they were called for a purpose but they lack the power. So the Apostle Paul comes to them and asks, “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?” They are disciples (the NIV says so), they have bought into the story of Jesus, but there is nothing in their life to reflect the passionate, purposeful, powerful, ABUNDANT life that Jesus promised. Sound familiar?

For many of us we know Jesus as the forgiver of our sins and the saver of our souls. Thanks to Him we are going to heaven and not headed to the other place, (H E double hockey sticks). We have fire insurance and that’s about all. Where is the power? Where is the supernatural, out of this world, change the planet strength that we thought we’d have when we went to an altar at church camp or were baptized as young adults? Where is the ABUNDANT life? We have waited, wondering, weak and worrying. Is this as good as it gets?

Paul comes to the men at Ephesus and asks, “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?” That question brings up a problem for me. Aren’t Jesus and the Holy Spirit one in the same? Can you get Christ and not get the Spirit? I don’t think so. Maybe that’s why Paul writes to them years later and reminds them that there is “One Lord, one faith, one baptism; One God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:5-6) So, rather than get all theological about this let’s just say that if you have Jesus in your heart you’ve got the Holy Spirit in you as well. That must mean that there is a way of living that fails to recognize and exemplify the power of God in the life of the believer. Something about these guys made Paul ask the question. “What’s the deal? You’ve been hanging around 25 years and I don’t see much going on? Did you receive the Spirit?” The rest of the story is pretty cool. He tells them about the Holy Spirit, baptizes them in the name of Jesus, lays his hands on them and they have a praise Jesus meeting to beat the band.

Now here is what I make up about that. We get two things when we get Jesus. (Well, we get a lot of things; eternal life, peace that passes all understanding, joy unspeakable…) But two things really stand out. We get His Presence. All of the presence of God is ours. Not just a part, not just an itsy bitsy slice, all of God is in Jesus and He is in us. Colossians 1:19 says “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him.” And all of that fullness dwells in us. Listen young Superman, you are not in this thing alone. He is with you. Every trial you face, every struggle you have, every step of the way the Creator of the Universe is right there inside you and He promises to “Never leave you or forsake you.” I can handle that!

The second thing we get is His Power. We are not some mealy mouthed, mamby pamby, hope we can make it another day kind of followers. When you invited Christ into your life He came with great POWER. Go get in front of the mirror right now. Unbutton your shirt and look at that t-shirt. (Okay, check that. I remember what my skinny chest and sloppy belly looked like in the mirror this morning.) Maybe we should just imagine the blue tights and the bold, red S on our chests. We are supermen and superwomen, filled with the presence and power of God and able to do more than we think or can imagine. Even Jesus said to us “Anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have done. He will do greater things than these.” (John 14:12) Are you trying to reach your friends for Jesus? Are you wanting God to work in your marriage? Are you looking at a ministry and wishing you could tackle it? YOU HAVE GOT THE POWER IN YOU. All you have to do is start operating In the Name of Jesus.

Next week we’ll talk more about what that looks like. For today the lesson is this. You can do anything because Jesus Christ lives in you and gives you strength. (That would make a pretty good Bible verse.) Maybe you have been waiting around for a long time for God to come and make you strong. Maybe you have been on the sidelines hoping someday He would give you something special. He already did. It’s a done deal. The power of His presence is in you now. You are a world changer. You are a hero. You are Supersomebody and He is ready to do a mighty work in you. That fires me up!

One final note. Acts 19:7 says there were 12 men. After 25 years only 12 men. Waiting around, hoping for some power, not accomplishing much. A few years later Paul writes to the Ephesians “Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love for the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you.” (1:15-16) There are so many there that Paul doesn’t even know them. The church at Ephesus is a power-house for evangelizing the Gentiles. They have taken off. When the power comes stuff happens. So you, this week, slip into a phone booth somewhere, rip open your shirt and begin to serve God with POWER. You will be amazed at what He starts doing through you.

Mike

This is the 3rd of a six week series on the Holy Spirit.

Lessons Not About Whitney

2012-02-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

She was as pure a voice, and as lovely an entertainer as we have seen; at least in her early days. The unmistakable influence of her gospel mother and her soulful aunt combined into a jazz/rock vocalist that took all of the world by storm. We who were believers embraced her because of her wholesome appearance and the fact that she started her singing in the church choir. Doris and I still listen to “I Love the Lord,” from the Preacher’s Wife soundtrack. And this weekend she died.

There will be a hundred epitaphs and a thousand blogs, ten thousand, written about Whitney Houston. Some will confer sainthood on her immediately and deify her music and talent. Others will use this opportunity to vilify her life and life style in the hopes of evangelizing some wayward youth and rescuing them from a like demise. I guess both approaches are fair game when a life has been so public for so long.

But my thoughts this morning are not so much about Whitney Houston or Bobby Brown, or even that girl that had blue hair last night. My thoughts are about me. (Now there’s a surprise!) And about what I am offering a hungry world that is desperately seeking a hero. Granted my world is much, much smaller than Ms. Houston’s. And my impact will certainly not gain the same press, good or bad. But I do have a sphere of influence, a small community of travelers in the same lane, moving in the same direction as me for a while. And I have a window of opportunity to be a model of some sort to them.

Paul says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” To the Thessalonians in I Thessalonians 1:6 he said, “You became imitators of us and of the Lord.” Now there’s a sobering thought that there is a part of my world that is watching to see how I do it, making their decisions about how and if to live for Christ based on what they see in me. They watch how I start. They judge me in the middle. And they will be there to make observations at the end. Even if my “entourage” at the very end is no more than my wife and sons and grandsons it is a staggering responsibility to know that they will pass out my Grammy Award.

So, this morning I am not thinking about Whitney nearly as much as I am thinking about me…and them. What will I leave them? What am I telling them now? What lessons will they use of mine to shape their own destiny?

Here are three fast and simple ideas that I think I hope they get:

1. Life is short. It goes so fast that there is not a lot of room for waste. Now that is all the more reason to relax and enjoy it by the way. Time is too short to be fretting all the time about getting it perfect. But having said that, my father-in-laws adage is true, “Only one life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

2. Our battle is not for anything on this planet. Don’t get me wrong. I want fame and wealth and a new pick-up truck as well as the next guy. I sit around at night and look through the Bass Pro Shop catalogue and dream. I watch Charles Stanley on TV and wish that was me. (Being on TV, not looking old and wearing thick glasses like Charles Stanley.) I want to have more than I have and be more than I am. But I am always drawn back to the fact that that is not the battle. “Our battle is not against flesh and blood…..but against the spiritual forces of evil.” Ephesians 6:12 We are in a fight for our lives, literally, and the lives of those we care about and it won’t be won with glamour and glitz. We saw that this weekend.

3. All we have to do to win is finish. Can you believe that? We are in a race where the outcome has already been decided. Guess what? We win. Some of us will cross the finish line in a blaze of glory with cheering crowds and adoring fans. Some of us (read that ME) will probably crawl over in the dark of the night, just happy to have survived. It doesn’t matter. In my devotions this morning the Psalmist said, “I waited patiently for the Lord, He turned to me and heard me. He lifted me up out of the slimy pit…..He put a new song in my mouth.” Psalm 40

Listen I am no Whitney Houston or Bruno Mars or that guy that looks like Mickey Mouse. But I can SING! I know what is important. I know what I have to do to get there. And I know that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords both sings over me and sings through me every step of the way. Now that’s the lesson I want my peeps to get. Word. (I really just embarrassed myself. I don’t know what that means.)

Mike

The Majestic Life

2012-02-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

There is a feel good movie from about 10 year ago called The Majestic. Jim Carrey played an amnesiac screen writer who stumbles into a small, depressed, down beaten town in Northern California. There are two prominent features of this little town, the dilapidated old, out of service theatre that once dominated the main street and the absence of any kind of hope because the war, WWII, has taken its youth away. That hopelessness is focused on the loss of one young man in particular, Luke, the larger than life, hero type favorite son of the community and of the theatre owner. And in a plot that only Hollywood can come up with, apparently Jim Carrey is a dead-ringer look-a-like for Luke, the missing in action son of the town. The whole story of the movie is the transformation that takes place in the community, the theatre, and the people when they believe that Luke has come home.

In the upper room Jesus is fully aware that his imminent departure is going to devastate His little band of followers. Not just the disciples but the small community of believers, His entourage, they are probably gathered there as He teaches them one more time about the significance of the Passover meal, about Branches and Vines, and about Abundant Life. Remember He has just said,” I have come that you might have abundant life.” John 10:10. And now He says, “It is important for you that I go away.” John 16:7

Really Lord? Okay, I’m really confused now. Are you going to give us something that makes us happy wealthy and wise? Is it going to be all ice cream and roses from this point on with lots of singing and laughter, and generally feeling good? I mean are we going to have abundant life like you promised? Or? Are you leaving us in our darkest hour? Is it true that we are going to be misquoted, misunderstood, and mistreated? Are we really going to be kicked out of the church? Even killed in your name? Really? Which one is it? Abundant life or miserable death? Good times or bad times? To which Jesus replies…you guessed it, YES!

The reason I am leaving He says is so that the Holy Spirit can come. Now we can have a great fun discussion about the theological physics of the Trinity. Was there some time and space edict, like Back to the Future, where Marty Frye and his father couldn’t occupy the same space at the same time? Was it necessary for the physical body of Christ to be gone so that the universal body of Christ could be receptive to the Holy Spirit of God? Well, my deep theological answer to that is…I don’t know. But I do know that Jesus says, “I have to go away. But when He comes….Well, when He comes that is going to be a game changer. Life will hit this town again, the lights of the theatre will blaze once more. Like Luke in The Majestic, His coming (The Holy Spirit) will put pep back in the step of everyone who recognizes Him.” (Believe it or not, that’s not an exact quote.) The Abundant Life comes to us when we fully recognize, invite, and embrace the Holy Spirit in our world, our lives, and our hearts.

Here’s the deal. The Abundant Life is not a thing that we get. It is a Person that we engage. The Abundant Life is a life immersed in the Holy Spirit of God, given over to Him, and His leading, and His presence in a way that perhaps we have never dreamed possible. When we allow Him to live in us like that, the old theatre comes alive in a new way and the lights come. Our life becomes….. Majestic.

I am not sure everything that this means but, the Perfect Presence of God, the Divine Doer of all that is good, and right, and noble, the King of the World and the Creator of the Universe, somehow steps inside my skin and lives in me. Wow! That changes everything. Listen, remember our conversation last week? I don’t mope around in fear. I don’t keep my fingers on my spiritual pulse to see if I’m still breathing. Jesus says, “I will leave physically so that I can come spiritually and live in the form of the Holy Spirit inside each one of you.” Paul says it another way in Colossians 1, “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Do you get that? Christ, the Holy Spirit, actually living in you and in me. Well, that is downright Majestic.

That means at least three things to me. All three of them are about taking the pressure off of me and allowing me to just live the Abundant Life. First, He keeps me on track. “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: “ ( John 16:8) Jesus uses the word “righteousness.” Dikaiosune is the Greek word that we might translate as right-ed-ness, to be put in a right relationship with God. We are like a mirror trying to line up correctly so as to produce an accurate reflection of God to the world. It is the Holy Spirit that is saying, “Easy, easy, a little more to the left, now bring it in just a smidge. Perfect.” He is at work in us to help us point our compass to True North.

Second He continually teaches me. “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (John 16:13) I don’t know about you but I am in a perpetual state of remedial life. I constantly need refresher courses. And the Holy Spirit gently but firmly teaches me all day long, each step of the day. I don’t have to cram for some cosmic final exam. I am just enjoying lessons all along the way about grace, and patience, and trust. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John14:26)

The final thing the Holy Spirit does, He keeps me focused on what really matters, or better yet, who really matters. “All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (John 16:15) I can get distracted with the best of them. I fret about finances, fuss about family, fume over the future. But when I listen to Him in me, the Holy Spirit says, “Hey, you’re missing the big picture. You need to focus on me and see all of the marvelous things I am doing. (And going to do!) You see that bad doctor’s report? Watch how I step in there. Are you looking at that pile of bills on your desk? Let me show you something about providing. Do you have your eyes on that kid that’s breaking your heart? See what I can do with prodigals.

When my focus becomes Him rather than the stuff around me life gets Abundant. The dread and drudgery turns unto delight. It’s like magic. Instead of doom and gloom the lights come on and everything around me is joy and peace. The Holy Spirit, living in me, when I get out of the way turns the dark screen into a 3-D, multi-view, surround sound, Cineplex. And I can sit back and enjoy the show.

In the movie, The Majestic, Jim Carrey’s make believe father is telling him about re-opening the theatre. His voice is full of passion and his hands gesture toward the dusty old screen. “That's why we call it The Majestic. Any man, woman, child could buy their ticket, walk right in. Here they'd be, here we'd be. "Yes sir, yes ma'am. Enjoy the show." And in they'd come entering a palace, like in a dream, like in heaven. Maybe you had worries and problems out there, but once you came through those doors, they didn't matter anymore. And you know why? Chaplin, that's why. And Keaton and Lloyd. Garbo, Gable, and Lombard, and Jimmy Stewart and Jimmy Cagney. Fred and Ginger. They were gods. And they lived up there. That was Olympus. Would you remember if I told you how lucky we felt just to be here? To have the privilege of watching them. I mean, this television thing. Why would you want to stay at home and watch a little box? Because it's convenient? Because you don't have to get dressed up, because you could just sit there? I mean, how can you call that entertainment, alone in your living room? Where's the other people? Where's the audience? Where's the magic? I'll tell you, in a place like this, the magic is all around you. The trick is to see it.” The Holy Spirit is at work in you today. The trick is to see it.

Mike

(This is the second blog in a six part series on The Abundant Life. To read the whole series, or to find the complete manuscript of the lesson to our staff from which it came, go to www.mikecourtney.blogspot.com)

All In The Abundant Life

2012-02-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

I spent my high school years in Myrtle Beach. Back then it was a sleepy, empty town about 6 months of the year that exploded into a people polluted tourist trap from March to September. The first wave of tourists were the Canadians that began trickling in about late February and arrived in earnest by mid March. Now in early March the air temperature is usually in the 70’s during the day in Myrtle Beach. My friends and I used to love to sit on the white, sandy dunes of the Grand Strand and watch the unsuspecting Canadian guests hit the beach for the first time. They would pile out of their vans, peeling off parkas, and mittens, stripping down to their swimsuits on the dead run across that flat, pristine shore. They would be laughing and yelling to each other, so excited for their first dip in the mighty Atlantic. Sun on their faces, warm breeze in their hair, they would hit the edge of the water and dive. (Let me pause right here with our heroes in mid-air to remind you that in March the Gulf Stream has dipped all the way down to Miami, Florida allowing the waters of the Atlantic to come from..you guessed it…CANADA!)

They would hit the water that was about 50 degrees, do unbelievable finger walks across the tops of the waves and then stand shivering on the edge of the sand shouting French-Canadian obscenities to we locals rolling in laughter in the “cheap seats.” Too cold to go in, too hot to stay out, they would mill around in hoards waiting for something to change. Finally, one or two brave souls would get up the courage to dive all the way in. Before you knew it, the whole crazy lot was immersed in the blue-green water having a great time.

The Kingdom Life of the Holy Spirit is like that. It is miserable when we are standing on the edge. We tip-toe around, hearing about the anointing of God, seeing His marvelous blessings, but still being overwhelmed by defeat and discouragement, depression and disappointment, too cold to go in and too hot to stay out. We taste just enough of the Power of His Presence to make us hungry for more but never really sit down at the table and let Him fill us with the Bread of Life.

Over the next six weeks I am going to write and read and teach and learn about what it means to go all in. In fact I am calling it “learning out loud” because I am not sure I know much about being totally immersed in the Spirit of God. I started this week by teaching the counselors and staff at Branches. Each week I plan to write a (hopefully) short little blog highlighting the idea and linking you to the complete text of the Bible study that we do as a staff, if you’re interested.

This week, the place to begin seems to be with the great confession of Jesus in John 10:10, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” Abundant life, one translation says “Life in the fullest.” I don’t understand that completely but it sure sounds like letting go and diving all the way in to me.

He begins that chapter talking about the sheep and the sheep pen and the sheep rustler who tries to slip in over the fence. He says the sheep rustler doesn’t know the sheep intimately, like the shepherd does, and they don’t know him so he has to steal them. In fact, in the first half of verse 10 Jesus says the sheep rustler wants to “steal and kill” the sheep. What is that all about?

Well, the sheep rustler sure sounds like the devil to me. If that’s true (and it is) then the way he tries to steal us is by telling us we can be in control. Remember his words to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:5, “You won’t die (if you eat the apple). You will be like God.” Read that…IN CONTROL. Even his lie to Jesus in the wilderness was about being in control. “Turn the rocks into bread, jump off of the temple, claim your kingdom.” All of that is about taking control.

Now here’s the point for today, the abundant life, really immersed, all in, totally sold out life that Jesus promises us is about giving up control. It is about surrender, trust, faith, dependence, “letting go and letting God.” Stuff like, “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5. Or Matthew 6:25, “Do not worry about life, what you will eat. Or you body, what you will wear.” The real abundant life is one that is fully laid in the hands of God for Him to do with, and make of, what He chooses. Isn’t that ironic? A life full of the power of God is one that has given up its own power and relies on and relaxes in The Higher Power.

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at that more. For today let me remind you of one thing. When you start living that way it is going to look strange to some people who are setting on the sidelines. Like me and my mocking buddies in Myrtle Beach, there will be those that just wait for you to take the dive so they can laugh at you when you fall. Well, I’m ready to go all Canadian on them. No more messing around the edges for me. I am hungry for the Bread of Life, thirsty for the Living Water. I am all in for the Abundant Living that Jesus promises and I can’t wait to see what the water feels like. How about you? Are you with me? Take the dive and I promise you, you won’t be disappointed. “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not I but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who LOVES me and gave His life for me.” Galatians 2:20 …… Now, where are my swimming trunks? Mike

The full manuscript of the Thursday message will be posted on Saturday evening at www.mikecourtney.blogspot.com. While you’re there please sign up to follow the blog so we know how effective this medium is. Grace and Peace.

Abandonment

2012-01-27T03:58:00.000-08:00

“In the presence of Jehovah, God almighty, Prince of Peace.” I long for those all too rare, all too fleeting moments when I am genuinely in the Presence of the King. I hunger for those times of abandonment when only He and I reside together in time and space. I search for glimpses of His face and strain for whispers of His voice. And they come but so infrequently, so faintly, that often they wisp by before they are recognized.

Is that the fault of God? Does He tease me with offers of Himself? Tantalize me with hints that He might drop by only to disappoint me like a prankster who rings the doorbell and runs away? I think not. No, the issue of absence lies not in the heart of God but in me, my heart, my head, my hands.

Three words jump out at me. Three simple, deeply profound words, haunt me in their inability to be reached; presence, abandonment, and rest.

Paul says “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Maybe that is more than a spiritual, death and life kind of thing. Maybe there is a way of forgetting, if only for a little while, where I am and what I am worried about, and letting my mind be fixed on Him. The problem of presence for me is not so much a problem of where I am looking but where I being distracted. I come to Him in prayer seeking only Him, and when I find Him I immediately slip into my asking mode. Bless the boys, help my business, fix the car, take care of Aunt Sallie’s influenza, and oh, by the way, could you give the Buckeyes a running game this year? I struggle to be fully present with Him because I am by nature fully present with me, fixated on my own wants and wishes. I am trying to learn to slip away from “planet Earth” for a few minutes each day and just be present with Him.

And that takes abandonment. When I loose myself, forget who I “think” I am, and who might be watching, I am far more capable of being present with Him. Even when I pray alone in my secret place I form my words carefully so that He and I will both be impressed. When I write this now, I write more for some unimagined audience than as a confession of my own heart. This morning I prayed that I might be completely lost in Him and then whispered to myself, “so that others might admire me.”

True presence required total abandonment. David was abandoned when He danced naked before the Lord. Saul was abandoned when he laid blind on the road to Damascus. Peter was abandoned when watched the sheet come down from heaven. They were lost of themselves and their surroundings, unaware of anything except the eyes of God.

Now, I’m not talking about some out of body experience or metaphysical trance, though I wouldn’t rule it out. I simply believe that when the more I seek Him the less I seek me. A friend of mine last week told me about a chapel service at a Christian school where she teaches. During the music, one tiny little, pre-kindergarten boy, standing by his teacher at the front of the auditorium became so caught up in the rhythm and the beat that he began to spontaneously gyrate. He danced. Not some nice, clean, sophisticated dance, but a wild, herky-jerky, full of joy kind of dance. She said every eye in the room was on this little boy and he had no clue. He was abandoned to the moment.

Oh, God, teach me to dance like that, in total oblivion to myself and those around me. Caught up in the moment. Lost in Your presence. Aware of only You.

And when I do, there is rest, amazing, refreshing, rehabilitating, Sabbath rest. It means that I have to take the time. It means that I have to be willing to put other things on hold. It means that I set aside a place and a purpose. But it means rest. An hour everyday, a day every week, a weekend every quarter, I don’t know exactly what that looks like but I do know that to be lost in His presence I need to be intentional about my times of rest in Him. The activities of the day, the business of the calendar, the incessant pulse of life is not an excuse for my failure to come away with Him on a regular basis. “Lord, teach me to rest in You. Help me to stop today and find myself lost in your presence.”

I am leaving this morning with my friend Robert and a bunch of other men to an annual event called the Georgia Men’s Advance (because we don’t retreat.) It is a weekend of flagrant abandonment, Sabbath rest, and the opportunity to be fully present with God and the things of God. I have packed by little bag, a pair of jeans and a couple of shirts; prepared by “sleeping in a room full of men” kit, Kindle with reading light, giant bag of M&M’s, and ear plugs. But beyond that I am trying to empty myself, to leave everything else behind. My only goal is to find myself in the Presence of Jehovah. Not a bad ambition I think. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Life Happens

2012-01-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

I started this blog on New Year’s Eve. I had high hopes and great expectations of a new, fresh start. I would write a little every day, read through the Bible in a year (3 chapters a day and 5 on Sunday), cut my calorie intake to a reasonable amount, and not yell at the TV during football games. I even bought a new devotional book for Doris and I to do together. (The pages are falling out of Jesus Calling.)

Then life happened. Mom was put in the hospital, had emergency surgery, intensive care, and just yesterday admitted to a rehab center. My brother-in-law was also admitted to the hospital, underwent a battery of tests, and only last Monday released. On top of that there have been clients to see, year-end reports to begin, budget meetings to attend, and emails to answer. I have been sleeping in hospital chairs, updating FaceBook, previewing nursing homes, and wolfing down Big Macs from behind the steering wheel. I am 31 chapters behind on my Bible reading. The devotional book has not been opened (though we have gone back to Jesus Calling about every day), and I am just now picking up this blog again.

Stuff doesn’t always fall into place the way we anticipated it would. Schedules fall through, budgets get out of whack, goals get set aside, and we get lost in the morass of the mundane. We are swallowed up by life and it’s only January 12. Not only does that happen for the New Year but it happens for the new you. We decide to be different. Stop an old habit. Start a new one. Change a relationship or change ourselves in a relationship. The intentions are good but BAM, life smacks us in the face and before we know it we are right back to business as usual and living under the weight of regret. Sound familiar? It sure does for me. In fact, the older I get the more it seems that life is winning.

Two things come to my mind this morning, first Jesus is not surprised by that. He anticipated it. Remember the conversation with Peter on the seashore after an early morning fish fry. I love Peter. He is the king of big plans and good intentions. “I’ll follow you anywhere Lord.” “Give me a sword, they won’t get by me.” “I’ll never deny you Jesus.” Even on this morning he is declaring, “Lord, after all this, I’m your guy. I love you. I’ll take care of your business for you.” And Jesus says,” Peter, when you were young you went where you wanted to go but the older you get, the more life dictates the direction of things for you.” (The gospel according to me.) He says. “You will reach a point where others will pick out the clothes you will wear and even make you go places you do not want to go.” (John 21) Things are only going to get more and more out of your control, He says. And brother, He was right.

My calendar seems to fill itself up. My schedule for the day begins screaming at me the night before and my To Do list shakes me awake at 3AM and says, “You’ve got no chance of getting this stuff finished.” I pile on top of that a healthy (actually unhealthy) dose of should haves, and oughts, and I am pretty much sunk before the boat ever leaves the dock. Frustrating to me maybe but not surprising to Jesus.
Which leads me to the second thing, also from Him, He has a plan for all of that. In Matthew 6 He is wrapping up the Sermon from the Mountain. It has been a good talk about blessings and staying focused on the right things. I am sure a lot of people are standing there saying, “Hey, I’m going to do this stuff. A whole new way of living for me. I’m putting a plan in place and this time next year you aren’t even going to recognize me. I’ll be a lean, mean Jesus machine.” Jesus gets that from them and He says this, “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (Matt. 6:34 MSG) Pretty good advice, huh?
Listen, plans, and dreams, and goals, and even New Year’s Resolutions, aren’t bad. They help us focus. They challenge us. They can be agents for change. But be prepared. Life is going to happen. It may come at you in ways you never expected. It may be doing that now. You only have one job. Look for what Jesus is doing around you and in you right this minute and plug into that. Tomorrow we’ll figure out the next thing to do but for today, just me and Jesus. The 12 Step crowd says “Living one day at a time. Accepting life on life’s terms.” I can do that. I’ll try to catch up on my Bible reading. I’ll get some of my running in, and Doris and I will get to the devotional book later. But for now, take a deep breath and see God at work. And revel in that….while you’re at it, have a BigMac. Mike

Jesus and Josey Wales

2012-01-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

Josey Wales, the Clint Eastwood outlaw from the movie by the same name, turns to his motley little band of renegades. They are getting ready to go to war against overwhelming odds. There is a widow and her daughter, an old Indian man and his girlfriend, and a couple of saloon drop outs, and Josey. It has been a bad time for them. They have lost a lot of battles lately and buried some friends along the way. Josey has tried to teach them to shoot, positioned them at windows in the one room hut they are defending, and spit tobacco on their shoes. (You have to see the movie.) Then he turns to them and in that unmistakable Clint Eastwood kind of whisper says, “When things look bad and it looks like your not gonna make it then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb mad dog mean. Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither win nor live. That’s just the way it is.” How’s that for a New Year’s message?

It may not be scripture but it feels like pretty good advice for right now. 2011 has been a rough year for many of us. We have faced economical challenges, political upheaval, social decay, and spiritual attacks like never before. We have seen people that we love pass away. We have fought back the fear of medical reports. We have watched relationships become fractured and disconnected. And we have endured broken hearts. The devil gets too much credit most of the time but it does seem he has had a heyday in 2011. But enough is enough.

In the words of that great prophet Josey Wales, “We gotta get mean, plumb mad dog mean.” And that’s what I intend to do as we enter 2012. Listen, we are not sissys. We are not mealy mouth victims who have no recourse but to whine, complain, and take whatever the devil dishes out. WE ARE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE KING. I am ready to get mad at the devil and all his minions and start taking back everything he has taken from us this year. Mean might not be the best word but it kind of gets the point across. As far as sin, sickness, and the devil is concerned this year I am determined to fight back, stand tall, and stay strong in the Name of Jesus.

My friend Robert is teaching me the power of doing what we do in the Name of Jesus. He claims parking places in the Name of Jesus. He gets new clients in the Name of Jesus. He casts out demons and he prays for healing in the Name of Jesus. I believe it is time for us to live in the Name of Jesus. Not just some good luck charm or motivational mantra. But really living in all of the confidence and authority of the Name of Jesus. The kind of confidence that says, “Our God is able to do exceeding, abundantly more than we can ask or imagine.” Or, “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.”

I’ve been thinking of some ways to live mean this year. Here are a few:

First, I am going to claim what is rightfully mine as a son of God. And I am going to do it out loud. You know I am not a “charismatic” person. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seinfeld) But I am ready to start speaking out the power and the promises of God. Listen, if God spoke the universe into existence surely He is interested in what comes out of my mouth. I am determined to speak out the truth, to talk the talk of faith, to use my words to express my trust in Him.
That leads me to the second thing, I am going to begin believing the Word of God. Oh, I have always believed the Bible, kind of, but now it is time to really live that out. “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Cor. 4:8 Hey, that is true and I am going to start living that way. WE WIN. This year I am going to get mean about living like a winner. I am going to believe the Word of God. (And to believe it I have to read it.)
Finally, I am going to get mean about recognizing and affirming the blessings of God. 10 years ago when Doris was in her darkest place (because of me) she began praying ever day, “God, Show me one thing today to let me know that you are at work in my life.” And then when He did (and He always does) she would testify to it. Out loud. We have been doing this for 10 years now and God never fails. Sometimes big things, a check in the mail just when we need it. Sometimes small things, a song plays on the radio with the perfect message for us. Big or small we say it out loud, tell others about it, and thank Him. And you know what? The more we thank Him the more we see His blessings.

Well, that stuff may not seem mean to Clint Eastwood but it does to me. And it will to the enemy of our souls. We are children of the King. We are warriors. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12) And we are on the victorious side. So, let’s load the guns. Let’s take our places. Let’s get ready for battle. And let’s get mean. “If we lose our heads we neither win nor live. That’s the way it is.” 2012 is going to be your best year. God is going to come through for you. I MEAN it. Take the devil by the horns and throw him out of your life. Square your shoulders, put on the whole armor of God. Spit tobacco juice on somebody’s shoes (Ok, I got carried away) and live this year in the Name of Jesus. You can do it. We all can. And we will.

Here’s a prayer I wrote and am praying today all day for my family and for yours. Pray it today over your family. And get mean when you do.

In the Name of Jesus we claim this year the year of jubilee. We take back from the enemy all he has stolen from us. We breakdown walls and enter strongholds to say “Our God reigns. The Lord is with us and greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.” We will overcome all that is against us. We will be a family and a people of victory. We will take our place as the sons and daughters of the King. Today is the end of our persecution and the beginning of our breakthrough.

January 1, 2012

Mike

Christmas in Romans 8

2011-12-25T19:45:00.000-08:00

(This finishes a one year journey for me in Romans 8. Thanks for walking it with me. To look back check out www.mikecourtney.blogspot.com.)

Here’s a Christmas verse you don’t hear everyday. “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait with eager anticipation for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:23) It doesn’t just jump out at you…Christmas! Hark the Herald! Joy to the World! But take my word for it, it is a Christmas verse.

For one thing it is right there in a conversation about the pangs of childbirth and groaning and certainly brings to mind the young Mary with sweat on her brow and nervous Joseph holding her hand too hard, not sure what to do. That part of the verse always paints a picture for me of blood on the straw and a crying newborn shivering in the cool early morning air of Bethlehem. I can easily see in the candlelight of my imagination the animals watching with some distress as their feed box is commandeered by this unseemly little family, this baby in a manger.

But the Romans passage doesn’t call me to Christmas because of the new birth reference nearly as much as it does with it words of anticipation, eagerness, hope, waiting. The next verse says, “In this hope we were saved.” What hope? The hope that the meaning of this new birth is far deeper, far more profound than meets the eye.

Right now Doris and I are eagerly waiting in our home for Jon-Mical and Jakson to come over on this Christmas morning. (Sorry, Josh, Jennifer, and Jacob…we are waiting for you too.) The presents are wrapped under the tree. The Christmas brunch is in the oven. The battery is charged on the camera and we are ready for their coming. And we wait with eager anticipation, not just because we will be the coolest grandparents in the world when they see their gifts, (Well, okay, that’s part of it.) but because the coming of these children means something deeper.

Our grandkids walk through the door and it means there is hope. We have a chance to love them and influence them and speak into another generation. Someday Jon-Mical will be waiting for his grandson to come over, long after I am gone, and hopefully he will be trying to teach some of the same things that he learned from his PoppyC, and from his dad. That God is good. That the only life worth living is one dedicated to the Creator and all of His creation. That no matter the economical or ecological situation, we know that all things work together for good. That the Baby in the Manger is the King on the Throne and He is large and in charge. That this is not all there is and even these feeble, fragile bodies of ours will be redeemed one day because of the coming of the Messiah.

Well that is a Christmas message with punch. Do they get all of that when they unwrap a Hot Wheels and a laughing Elmo? I doubt it. But there is a spark of that. There is the beginning of understanding about waiting, and eagerness, and hope. There is the message that hope (in PoppyC or in the King of Kings) does not disappoint us.

Now here’s the deal. Paul says that “we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit”have also this hope. God has planted deep down inside us somewhere, when we first started singing Away In A Manger or Silent Night, the growing anticipation of something bigger and better that a Nativity Scene once a year and a few carols for three Sundays in December. Even Jon-Mical and Jakson have, I believe, a God given sense that this thing is bigger than what they see. It is at least about love and joy and family. And that will grow to, well, to Peace On Earth and Good Will To Men. They are beginning to understand what I am beginning to understand, what all of creation is groaning for, the fulfillment of that hope that was born on that Christmas morning. My prayer for you and for us is that this Christmas season and in fact, this entire New Year, we will know the power of being the adopted sons and daughters of God and the joy of our redemption. We have that hope and that beats Hot Wheels any day.

(I was in the middle of writing this when I was called to the ER because Josh cut his hands putting together a toy for Jon-Mical. It's a little disjointed but I didn't want to wait until next Christmas to finish it. Merry Christmas and keep waiting for the redemption that is ours.)

Thad

2011-12-04T19:33:00.000-08:00

Let me give you some dates. September 19, 1964, November 11, 1965, July 3, 1976, August 16, 1977, May 15, 1978, October 29, 1984, May 18, 2007. Can you tell me the significance of all of those dates? Thad could. One of the most remarkable things about him was his ability to remember and catalog hundreds of dates. We became used to asking him when certain things happened and never questioning his response. When did Papa die? What year did we move to Sumter? What’s Moody’s birthday? What day did Danny Leviner graduate from high school? (Did Danny Leviner graduate from high school?) When were Jerry and Ann in Germany? How long has it been since Bobby Richardson played for the Yankees?

Thad was obviously challenged intellectually as most kids are not. But he knew stuff. He just knew stuff. Like how many movies Elvis made, how to make a gourmet meal out of tomato soup and hot dogs, which Speer family album “The King Is Coming” was on, and every birthday and anniversary of pretty much everyone we had ever known.

He knew other stuff too that was not so specific. He knew how to tell the truth about the most obvious things in a way that just made sense. When my parents lived in Georgetown, SC Aunt Ruth took him to visit a school there for children that were mentally handicapped. He came home and we asked him how he liked it and he said fine. But when we asked him if he wanted to go back he said, “Well, no, everyone of those kids are just like me.”

He knew how to turn a hair brush into a microphone and do the Elvis shimmy in front of 10,000 imaginary, adoring fans without even a blush. (video)

He knew how to be discrete when talking about people from the past where the conversation might be painful. Instead of saying their name he would spell it, TYE.

He knew how to work the crowd like a pro. At Aunt Ruth’s funeral we were in this very sanctuary. Thad was sitting right down front here between Mary Ruth and Jerry. Mary Ruth told me that at one point in the funeral she and Jerry both looked at Thad at the same time. He saw them looking and he put his face in his hands and his shoulders shook with apparent sobbing. Then he peeked back at both of them and grinned real big, before burying his face in his hands again.

Thad had an unbelievable sense of humor and he knew how to have a good time, even when it backfired on him. When Aunt Ruth lived in Smyrna Mary Ruth came to visit one time. They all went to a Dairy Queen and as they were walking out Thad decided to sneak around the corner and scare Mary “Roof.” What he didn’t know is that Mary Ruth held the door open for a lady behind her that had her hands filled with two milk shakes. The lady turned the corner and Thad jumped out and yelled at her. The lady screamed, Thad screamed, the milk shakes went up in the air. Randy said the woman’s husband was sitting in the car watching all of this unfold and he was doubled up in the front seat laughing. Thad kept saying, “I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”

For all of his challenges Thad knew a lot of stuff and we loved him for it. But what I really want to remember today are the things he did not know. For example, he did not know how to be unforgiving or hold a grudge. In that short frame God apparently saw fit to place a massive heart. Thad expected the best from everyone and he usually got it. He saw people not as we did but as God did, always seeing the good, overlooking the not so good, and when he was hurt, being willing to forgive.

Like any family we have had out share of black sheep, ex’s, and outlaws. There were those that had wounded us in ways real or imagined. But Thad never gave up on them. He would always ask about them, pray for them, and not let us stay down on them. Maybe that was in part because of his own willingness to ask forgiveness. Oh, Thad could get upset with you. I can’t tell you how many times when we were little I heard him yelling at Kimmy, the mean little kid that lived down the sand street in Sumter. He’d come in and tell me to go down and beat Kimmy up which I would dutifully do. (Mainly because Kimmy was smaller than me and I could.) But it wouldn’t be long before Thad was heading out to say “I’m sorry Kimmy,” to forgive him, and go back to playing. We heard 100’s of times “sorry Sis, sorry Mom, sorry Almeda.” Thad did not know how to keep anger in, to stay bitter, to be unforgiving. He was blessed with the innocence of a child and what a blessing that was. Jesus said in Matthew 18:3 “Except you become like a little child you won’t enter heaven.” I think probably this is what that means as much as anything else, you just can’t hold on to stuff. You have to be able to let it go. Thad taught us that. He did not know how to be unforgiving.

Another thing he didn’t know, he did not know how to doubt. Faith was not a problem for Thad. He lived with an absolute confidence in the things of God without the slightest hint of disbelief. For all the sorrow that Thad endured, physical shortcomings and pain, the death of two fathers and a mother, the loss of friends and heroes, I just don’t think Thad had the ability in him to doubt God. He was so sure that the promises of God were true that, well, it made me envious. He was sure about other things too. That bread was nasty. That every pretty girl loved him. And that sometimes you needed to take matters you’re your own hands.

Mary Ruth said I could tell this. Thad started to really get serious about losing weight a couple of years before Aunt Ruth died. She and he would go to the YMCA in Dickson and Thad would walk. He really cut back on what he was eating. And he lost a remarkable amount of weight. One time he was visiting Mary Ruth and she said, “Thad I am so proud of you for losing weight. I have tried and tried. Would you pray with me that I would be able to do what you have done?” And Thad pointed his short finger at her and said, “Mary Roof, you need to leave God out of this and get yourself on a diet.”

That was one of the few times Thad left God out of it. He was so sure of the ever present working of God in everything. He would talk of Uncle Harry and Pop being in heaven together with such clarity and confidence that you knew doubt was not possible for him. He was so positive my sisters were singing together in a heavenly choir that I could picture it myself. And one I struggled with a little, I confess, Thad saw Elvis walking with Jesus on streets of gold, no doubt about it.

I was thinking how in the Beatitudes Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” Maybe that’s not some future promise. Maybe that means that when your heart is pure enough, like Thad’s you really do see God, at work, in the present, here and now. And when you do there is no place for doubt. Thad certainly did not know how to not believe.

And that leads me to the last thing I want to remember, he did not know what it was like to not be loved. The amazing capacity of Thad was not his ability to love others, though that is mind boggling. The amazing capacity of Thad was his ability to bring love out of others, especially for him. Listen I will freely admit this now, every date I had on the SC campground was because I was Thad’s cousin. The pretty girls just swarmed all over him. And me and Johnny Webb and Johnny Wallace would just hang around for the leftovers. He had such an undeniable “lovingness” about him that I just don’t think he ever imagined not being loved. He was the poster child of Sumter First Church. He was the Teen of the Year on the SC district. He was the King of the Campus at Trevecca Nazarene College. He was the Pastor’s Assistant at this church. It is just nearly unfathomable how Thad was loved by everyone, everywhere he went. District superintendents, college presidents, missionaries, seminary professors, and general superintendents all counted Thad as their genuine friend. Churches, youth groups, whole towns, recognized and loved Thad. Isn’t that incredible?

But I tell you where that was most evident, in the love and care that his family gave him. I had the joy of growing up with Thad. He was in and out of my life for almost 58 years. But he was not always there. Aunt Ruth cared for Thad 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, everyday of his life until she passed away. I preached a message about her one time. The text was “whatever you have done for the least of these,” and I said I believe for all she accomplished, song evangelist, pastor’s wife, district missionary president, the most significant thing she ever did in God’s eyes was taking care of Thad everyday. And when you live with that kind of care, how could you possibly know the feeling of not being loved?

And it continued. After Aunt Ruth died Jerry and Ann, and Mary Ruth and Randy have been absolutely incredible in taking care of Thad. Doris and I would come out and visit and watch as Jerry cut up his food for him, lifted him up to take him to the bathroom, and tucked him in bed at night. Not every once in awhile but everyday, night after night. Jerry and Ann, Mary Ruth and Randy, you are my heroes. Because of you Thad did not know what it was like to not be loved. Thank you.

John wrote in I John 1:3, “Behold what manner of love the Father has for us that He allows us to be called His little children.” Thad knew that, without question he knew that and he did not know how to know otherwise.

There is so much we can learn from remembering all the things that Thad knew but on this day I am pretty sure that his greatest gifts to us were the things he did not know. God, help me to not know like that.

And oh, by the way, those dates were the dates that people Thad loved went to be with Jesus. Uncle Harry, Gene Kennington, Charlotta, Elvis, Cheralyn, Pop, and Aunt Ruth.

And let me give you one more date, December 2, 2011. On that day Thad and Elvis sang “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog” in front of Jesus and all those people I just listed. And I believe on that day Thad knew what it was like to get a standing ovation.

Mike

(For those of you who do not know, Thad was my cousin. Born with Down’s Syndrome and not expected to live past 20, Thad passed away on Friday, nearly 58 years old. He was absolutely adored by thousands of people across the country. This is the message I gave at his funeral today.)

Why Can't We Just Get Along?

2011-12-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

(This is the presentation I made today for the Mental Health Association of Middle Tennessee.)

HEALING A DIVERSE COMMUNITY

My grandson is almost 4. His name is Jon-Mical. He lives next door to his best friend Cameron who is 5. They play together all the time. They ride bikes in the driveway, toss the ball in the backyard, and sneak out off to the park next door to their house. They get along great, except when they don’t. The other day Jon-Mical came in and said, “Cameron is stupid. I am never playing with him again.” His mom and dad would have no part of that. They marched him over to Cameron’s house and sat down until they patched things up. His parents sought reconciliation for Jon-Mical because it is good, it is right and they believe it is healthy.

Most of us are old enough to remember the Rodney King incident and the Los Angeles police in March of l991. The videotaped beating of Rodney King by three policemen because an overnight world must-see. The subsequent trial and acquittal of those policemen sparked a maelstrom of demonstrations and riots that divided not only LA but the nation. Whatever side of that debate you were on, most of us resonated with Rodney King’s plaintive call in an interview that followed his arrest. “Why can’t we all just get along?” He pleaded.

With the unbelievable effect on our world of the internet and instant access to almost every event on the planet, we are clearly in the most polarized and divided global culture that has ever existed. We have always had differences but the accelerated awareness of those differences has driven us to an emotional frenzy as a society that is unprecedented. The more we learn from psychological endeavors and neuro-science, the more we understand that we as human beings are emotional not rational beings.

The problems of most of modern history we have tried to resolve with rational thinking. Descarte, the rationalist philosopher who opened the door to the Enlightenment period, led us to believe in the power of the rational, thinking mind. I think, therefore I am.

From his philosophy came the weight that we now give to Empiricism and scientific study. This has deeply influenced English and American law, foreign policy, and economic theory. Our whole approach to life is based on the assumption that we are rational people dealing with issues in a rational way. To be irrational is to be something less than human.

The truth is that we are coming to understand we are about 98% emotional and 2% rational. When I sit in my office with a husband and wife deeply divided I always want to say “Now let’s just think this through. What would be the rational thing to do right now?” I never say it because I have learned both clients would punch me in the nose.

My guess is that all of us in this room understand that the preponderance of feelings and emotions in almost every situation demands that we work to resolution from an emotional perspective rather than a rational one. If that is true on a micro scale in our offices, I believe it is true on a macro level in our society. And I believe it places even more onus on the mental health professionals to be agents of reconciliation in a divided society.

Reconciliation is an admittedly Judeo-Christian term; Latin, meaning literally “to bring together again.” In my mind it describes a state of willingness to co-exist and remain engaged in conversation with those that appear to be diametrically opposed to what I think, believe, or feel. Reconciliation is just sitting at the table with the hope that some point of agreement will present itself. It is not unity. It is not compromise. It is not even cooperation. Reconciliation in the context of this discussion would be Islamic leaders and Christian leaders saying, “Our survival dictates that we engage one another as a means of emotional healing.”

From this perspective, I suggest four objectives for the divided community.

1. An assessment of value.

Douglas Noll is a peacemaker and mediator for the University of Oregon. He writes this:

To understand how our brain deals with conflict, consider a simple emotional model. In this model, conflict starts with some problem. The problem is serious enough to cause anxiety, reflected in a feeling of insecurity. When anxiety or insecurity is first experienced, we have a choice between reactivity and reflection. If we do not make a choice, our default mode is to be reactive.

By being reactive, we might reject the problem, give up, or feel inadequate to deal with the problem. If the problem is persistent, we might struggle or exit. As the conflict develops, we perceive it as a threat, and we may blame, attack or withdraw. These behaviors constitute our fear reaction system. I like to call it our self-protective system. The brain systems associated with fear reaction are very, very old, dating back to the earliest vertebrae animals. Although highly adaptive in the uncertain and dangerous environment of 20,000 years ago, the system is largely maladaptive in our modern, complex culture.

If the choice for reflection is made, we have learned to reflect, relate, and relax. The insecurity arising from a conflict situation is recognized as pointing to a pathway of growth towards greater peace and self-realization. We are led by our curiosity to discover something new, find what is lost, or complete unfinished business. Success leads us to wholeness, authenticity, power and wisdom.

In other words, part of what we offer as Mental Health professionals is the idea that there is value in engaging and we as people will benefit more from coming together than pulling apart.

2. The second objective is establishing hope.

Because we are emotional and not rational, we respond to the anxiety and insecurity that Noll cited, particularly on a global scale, by retreating into overwhelm. We lose hope. Our dreams of a civil society, a utopian society have died and we say with Peggy Lee “Is that All There Is?” A revolutionary Punjabi poet, Avtar Singh Sandhu wrote.

“Being robbed of our wages is not the most dangerous.
Being beaten by police is not the most dangerous.
The most dangerous is to have our dreams die.”

I often tell my clients, “I will hold the hope for you.” As a society, perhaps in the counseling profession, we do just that.

3. The third objective is to provide coping skills.

While it is true that we are emotional creatures, we do have within us as individuals, and as a society the ability to make choices. One blogger wrote:

Training, habituation and commitment are an important part of our makeup. How did so many very ordinary black people during the 1950-60s Civil Rights movement in the South manage to practice nonviolence? All were threatened, some were beaten, some killed. No doubt they were mortally afraid--and sometimes very angry. But they practiced nonviolence--together. Genetically we're social beings and we draw strength from healthy relationships--for thousands of years these were the foundation of human survival. We CAN choose--and in our era choosing behavior that keeps us emotionally and physically alive together is a crucial element of our future.

To use a football analogy, I see myself as an offensive coordinator standing on the sideline calling out plays. Those whom I influence have the responsibility to access strengths, read defenses, judge their own fatigue and make the appropriate audible. But I still want to supply a list of possible plays that I believe can work.

4. Finally, we recognize worth.

The emotion of the battle, the passion of the cause, the fire of the fight too often produces myopia in us so that through a dark tunnel I only see worth in one point of view. As counselors, spiritual leaders, mentors, and clinicians our role is to recognize the worth in all human beings and diverse societal perspectives. Without that, we are reduced to stomping on an opposing player’s head or burning down a mosque. My objective, as a reconciliator, is to say there is some measure of intrinsic worth in every person that I come in contact with. Understanding that, I have no choice but to engage.

We face complicated, convoluted, critical issues in our villages and in our universe. Far better minds than mine have come to an empass time and again when seeking resolution.

I do not begin to imagine that I have the answers in me. In addition, the issues are burning with the bonfires of emotion, anger, fear, insecurity, and hurt. Frankly, I don’t know what to do. But I do believe that to do nothing is not an option, that I have a moral responsibility as a healer and a human to continue to work for reconciliation and engagement.

I know that this little ditty is far too simplistic on a geo-political level. But, it just seems to ring true for us today. It just feels right.

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand box at nursery school.

These are the things I learned. Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are food for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why. We are like that.

And then remember that book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK! Everything you need to know is there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology, and politics and the sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put thing back where we found them and clean up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Dr. Mike Courtney

References:

Douglas Noll

“Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

www.mediate.com

Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy

Gerald Corey

Brooks/Cole Publishing

“All I Ever Really Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten”

Robert Fulghum

Jon-Mical's Game Ball

2011-09-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

This is Jon-Mical's first trip around the bases.m

Fridays @ 8: Shhhhh!

2011-09-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

I am not a man of peace. I can get frantic with the best of them. Too much to do. Not enough going right. Details to oversee and outcomes to control. Life is about crisis management and I am an A-1 crisis kind of guy. (Most of the crises I manage are of my own creation.)

Sometimes, in all too rare moments of supernatural intervention, the Holy Spirit slips in and whispers “Peace.” What a breath! What a transformational fragrance! How quietly and gently amazing that the God of the universe stands up to the edge of heaven, puts His cosmic finger to His omnipotent lips and says, “Shhhhh! Peace.”

I remember the blind man on the edge of Jericho trying to shout down the crowd as Jesus was passing through. “Jesus, Son of David. Have mercy on me. Jesus, son of David, HAVE MERCY ON ME.” The gospel writer says the crowd told him to be quiet. “Jesus is busy. A lot of people need help. This really isn’t a good time.” But old blind Bartemaeus keeps yelling. “Hey Jesus, What about me?”

Now, it isn’t the best time. There’s a crowd. Jesus is actually on His way to Jerusalem and the cross. He has a lot on His mind and His own crisis to manage but the Bible says, “Jesus stood still.” Do you get that? The One who flung the stars into space and said to the waves, “You can go this far,” the Jesus that John said was the Word that God used to say, “Let there be…and there was,” that Jesus stops, gets still, raises His hand and like a scene from the Matrix, the noise ceases, the crowd freezes, the angels halt all activity, and He turns His face to Bart and asks, “What can I do for you?”

Today is the countdown to Simply Free. We have planned for a year, prayed for four. We have had meetings, formed committees, made assignments, sent out emails, and still we feel the pressure piling up. Stuff remains to do. Last minute decisions. Details to work out. One of the speakers is sick. The Sheriff needs to check out the facility (a number of ladies are allowed to come from the prison), the sound guy has never meet the video person….stuff.

And if that isn’t the half of it. There are the spiritual attacks. One of the video testimonies is so powerful and on the way home from filming she had a wreck. The airline reservations of one of the breakout leaders just got fouled up. My daughter-in-law is sick, my lawnmower won’t start, the family needs prayer….more and more stuff. All of this seems designed to make me hit the frantic button, pick up the pace, turn on more activity, take charge, get in control, move. If I remember I am shouting over the crowd, “Jesus, have mercy on me.”

You know what? He listens. He stops and listens. This morning in my quiet time the Holy Spirit said, “Shhhhh. Be still. I’m going to take care of everything.” Romans 8:27 says, “He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is. And He makes intercession for us according to the purposes of God.” In other word, the Spirit Himself will reconcile my frantic activity with the very purposes of God. He will line me up with what God is trying to do and let peace happen. And then, when that happens, Paul says, “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called to do His will.” (Romans 8:28)

I don’t know what Simply Free is supposed to be exactly, but God does. I am not sure of who is supposed to be there and what is supposed to happen to them, but God does. I don’t know how it is going to turn out (or should turn out) but God does. No amount of hustle and bustle or hurried activity is going to make God’s plan come to pass that come to pass. But He will. I am very sure right now that the God of the universe has stopped, quieted all of heaven, and said, “Let’s take charge of this thing.”

You know what that does for me? It brings me peace. It helps me to let go, to slow down, to get quiet, and to hear Him say, “Peace.” When I understand that He is listening to me then I can quit yelling so loud. I can stop running so fast. I can look at myself in the mirror and say, “Shhhhhh. Peace.” Man does that feel good!

Romans 8:26 and Simply Free

2011-08-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have been sick for a week. Not the call in the family and get your affairs in order kind of sick but certainly get a shot in the rear, crawl in bed, and feel like I have to get better to do the first part kind of sick. The doctor said it was strep. All I know is that from Tuesday afternoon until Sunday I did not leave the bedroom and barely left the bed. (I’ll spare you the gory details.)

I thought maybe I would use that time to write. Or maybe this would be a good week to catch up on bookkeeping. I even thought once or twice about cleaning out my closet or organizing my sock drawer. But every time I would raise my head from the pillow the room would spin, I’d break out in a sweat, and go back to sleep for another few hours. All I could do for the week was wait and rest and wait some more. I took my prescription, drank my
electrolytes, and ate my soup. Beyond that the healing was really out of my
hands. Wait.

This weekend is Simply Free. We have been planning and praying for this weekend for nearly a year. We have talked to speakers, lined up music, arranged breakout sessions, and ordered snacks. Now there is nothing to do but wait and rest and wait some more. In fact, that’s really what the weekend is about, just waiting on God to heal that sick place within us that we have been working on for so long.

And I’m not talking about you. I mean me. My prayer for me is that once the first song is sung and the first prayer is prayed that I will be able to quit trying and start waiting and resting and trusting. That’s not easy for me. Right now I’m worried that not enough people will come, that the program will be too long, that the speakers will be disappointed. Right now I am fretting about the videos and concerned about transportation and figuring out the cost. I might as well be arranging my sock drawer.

In Romans 8:26, Paul says that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us.” That sounds a lot like waiting and resting and waiting some more to me. And it sounds like Simply Free. No high, profound messages. No slick and polished performances. Simply ordinary people telling their stories of being set free. And me and you, not even knowing what we need but just eager to get well.

We are all a little sick. Maybe not the call in the family kind of sick but just not where we really want to be with God. This weekend I invite you to come and wait and rest and wait some more. And let God do whatever it is He chooses to do to heal us in His way and in His time. If you come, maybe I’ll share some soup with you.

(If you'd like to know more about Simply Free go to www.simplyfreeconference.com )

Fridays @ 8 Romans 8:25

2011-08-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

This is from a guy in our Tuesday morning group that is just coming alive in Christ. It is a blast to watch. He's out of town this week so he wrote this response. I love the simple direct wisdom:

In the prior passage Paul reminds us that we are waiting for something we are not able to see or touch, but as I said

last week, whatever it is, it is good. So we need to wait. But we have an added blessing, because we can wait in hope! Remember when as little children, we waited for Christmas morning? We waited "in hope" of a wonderful

Christmas, with love and family, and gifts. But we waited for something very special. Now think of a child who has no Christmas. They wait for the 25th day of December far differently. Not with the anticipation of the Christian

child. In the same way, we have a blessing in the hope that Christ will come and our groaning will be over. That is, I think, what Paul is trying to say here. We have a leg up on others, and something to share with all our brothers, those Christian and those not.

My bible says we are to wait with "endurance" another says "patience." I like Patience far better. There is a feeling of

contentment in the hope we have that allows me (us?) to feel the confidence in our belief that others do not have. I know a non-believer who shakes his head mornings as I am reading the bible. I wonder why. I may never

know, but it is one of two things. Either he thinks I am wasting my time, with simple foolishness, or he has a bit of envy that I have something he does not. I hope it is the latter, since it will be easier to get him over the hump, if it is. Either way, I believe I have a good deal more to look forward to than does he. Although he has a very nice home and a very nice life, he does not have the opportunity to wait in hope, that I have.

Fridays @ 8: Free to Be Me

2011-07-15T04:55:00.000-07:00

I meet with a group of men on Thursday morning. They are good guys, every one of them. Varied backgrounds, ages, and places in their Christ journey. They speak to me every week, teach me things, challenge me to do better, be better. They have become brothers. Some days we wax eloquent with deep, theological discussions. Other times we spend a lot of time talking about the Boston Red Sox and the difference in real hardwood floors and laminate. One thing is consistent though, I never go away from that group feeling judged or condemned or less than. Sometimes I am confronted. Sometimes some error in my thinking (or doing) comes to light. But it is without guilt or shame or blame. See some stuff. Point it out. Leave it in God’s hands and go on.

We all need a group like that. Don’t we? Aren’t we all a little hungry for a place where we have nothing to prove and nothing to hide? I think there is buried down in the DNA of all of us this little (or not so little) voice that is screaming out the truth about us.” I’m scared. I have doubts. I don’t get this right very often. I hate myself sometimes. I hate God sometimes. I just want to be accepted.” Have you ever heard those things? Maybe coming from inside of you? And our little voice screams them out, desperately wanting to be heard but scared to death that somebody might listen.

The fear of that becomes a shell, a mask that we hide behind. We bump into each other in the hallways, “How ya’ doin?” “Fine, Fine. I’m just fine.” We stop by the water cooler, “Everything okay in your life?” “Oh, yeah. Good. Good. It’s all good.” The muffled little voice behind our mask says, “No its not. It hurts in here.” And we clamp our hand over our inside mouth and smile, “Have a good one.” I have come to say, maybe too much, that the deep need of the human creature is to know and be known. Yet I also believe that the darkest fear of the human creature is the fear of knowing and being known. What if they really knew I struggle with this? What if they could see that I’m not what they think?

We’ll, I don’t know. What? You were expecting some profound wisdom? I don’t know what would happen if we really knew you. We might not like you. We might turn away in disgust, or gasp in disappointment. We might reject you completely and make you feel like the miserable failure you already are. Or…

Or, we might find the courage in your transparency to drop our own masks. We might say, “I am so grateful that you said that. I struggle with the very same thing.” We might throw our arms around you and say, “Welcome home. I have been there too and I thought I would never get out.” Who knows what would happen if we started telling the truth. We might connect on some level that only God has imagined for us. We might become a community of vulnerability, an open, safe, honest place where anyone could speak the truth, be real, stand naked (it’s a metaphor) before God and a group of people that love you and say, “This is who I really am and I am so glad to be able to say it.”

In Romans 8:19-21 (remember Fridays @ 8. You thought I forgot didn’t you? Oh, quit judging.) In Romans 8:19-21 Paul says that in some sense the whole world is hungry to see us do that. Now I know he is speaking eschatologically (impressed?) on some level but he is also addressing the here and now. Verse 19, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons (and daughters) of God to be revealed.” In verse 22 he talks about the hope that “all of creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” The whole earth groans and waits for you and me to finally start being, well, you and me. Not some pious, preacher voice, always have the answers, and a scripture verse for every occasion ambassador for the Happy Place. No, what they want, what we want, are people who are free, who walk in the full, abundant, joyful life that Christ gives us but in a genuine, real, honest to goodness way. True Christ followers who can say, “I don’t know about the future (and that is scary) but I know who holds the future in His hands. (and that is GOOD!)

I waiver between to faces neither one of them really me. The one mask, on my good days, is smiling from ear to ear and every time you pull my string says, “Well praise God, Thank-the-llujah. Everything is hunky dory.” The other face is frozen into a frown of despair. I wring my hands. I fret and fume and hopelessly cry, “What are we going to do?” (Ever seen me there?) Neither one of those is the real me. Paul says I am free. Jesus says I have abundant life. My running shirt says I may be slow but I’m ahead…. Oh, wrong shirt. My running shirt says I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Now that is freedom.

So, here’s the deal. What about deciding to be real? What about taking off the mask and living life in the glorious freedom of the children of God, sometimes confident, sometimes afraid, sometimes on top of the world, sometimes lower than a snakes belly, but ALWAYS sure that He loves you, that He is really good, and that He is large and in charge. Woohoo! I can be free in that. I don’t have to fake it till I make it. I don’t have to toe the line, or suck it up, or put my best foot forward. But I do have the unbelievable joy of knowing that ‘my redeemer lives,” that He “loves me with an everlasting love.” And that I am His child, saved by grace, full of hope, and able to be far more than I ever dreamed possible because “Christ in me is the hope of glory.”

Sound good? It takes practice. It might be frightening at first but you’ll get the hang of it. Take a deep breath pull off your mask and say “Hi, my name’s Mike…” I suggest starting with a group of guys on Thursday morning….you’ll fit right in.

The Foundation

2011-07-07T18:59:00.000-07:00

I have always dreamed of a little cabin in the woods. My friend Robert says, "Mike, you are so optimistic. You are the only person I know who calls a storage shed a cabin." Nevertheless, I managed to get a little building and put it on a small piece of land we have in the woods in middle Tennessee. For about a year it has been sitting in a field, waiting to be moved to the right spot and put on a good foundation. So last week Doris and I took a week off and went and stayed in my sister's nearby, nice cabin (do I sound bitter?) with the goal of building the foundation and getting the cabin moved.

While Doris enjoyed a good book, I went down the hill every day to our little spot and worked on the piers upon which my dream cabin would sit. I dug out the holes for the footers, smoothed the ground with sand and pebbles, and laid the blocks carefully to make sure they were straight and level. Eight piers, four in the middle and one on each corner, stood strong and solid waiting for the cabin. I had contracted with a wrecker company in town to move the building though I was a little nervous about the size of the cabin in comparison to the size of the truck. I took them pictures, gave them measurements, kept quizzing them, “Are you sure you can do this?” Every time the confident response was, “Of course we can. We do it all the time.”

The afternoon of the move was exciting. Doris drove down the hill to watch. I had the foundation ready. A young guy (not the confident man I had been talking to) drove up in the wrecker truck with his girlfriend beside him. He got out of the truck, spit on the dirt road, and said “Man, we’ve never done anything like this before.” Not what I wanted to hear. He hooked the cabin to a cable, tilted back the bed, and to my amazement, hauled the whole thing right up onto the back of the truck without a hitch. This is gonna’ be great. Then he started moving. With every little dip in the rough ground the heavy cabin would shift a little and the not as heavy truck would lift up, wheels almost leaving the ground. He hadn’t gone ten feet when his girlfriend came boiling out of the truck like hornets out of a nest yelling, “I’m not riding in there.” She and Doris went over to the van and smoked a cigarette and prayed. (I mean she smoked a cigarette and Doris prayed.)

Young Guy carefully backed across the rough field, somehow lifted the cabin out over the piers, and sat the thing right down on the foundation perfectly. I was dancing. He was dancing. Doris and Cigarette Girl were dancing. What a day! Then he tried to pull the truck out from under the cabin but the support brace in the back had dug into the dirt. Truck won’t move. Cabin won’t budge. Dancing is not so good. In order to get the truck loose he had to pick up the cabin again, twist it a little bit, and…when he did, down came the piers, down went the cabin, and down sank my heart. Dream cabin in the woods was sitting at about a 45 degree angle with concrete blocks all around it and a hole in the floor where the toilet once had been.

The boys and I, and several other friends, have been reading Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life for the last few weeks. It’s a good book, easy to read, about getting back to the basics of our Christian walk. You might say it is about having a solid foundation. I find that in the helter-skelter, hustle and bustle of life I often get away from the things that keep me straight and level and solid. Things like a deep, intentional prayer life, a consistent time ruminating on the Word of God, seeking His face in gentle acts of service to my family, my friends, and to people I don’t know, and, focused accountability with a few guys that keep me honest and know when I am not being transparent. Those things are not spectacular. They don’t have much pizazz or sizzle. They are just the solid piers upon which any life of faith must sit. I forget that. Well, to be honest, sometimes I don’t forget. I just don’t want to do it.

Usually when that happens I begin to tilt, get a little off center. I may look okay at first glance but if you look carefully you’ll see that I am out of balance and there are a few glaring holes on the inside. I’m short with the people I love. I am impatient about the path God has me on. I get worried and fearful about my circumstances. And I lose track of the purpose He has set before me. I’m a mess. But getting back to the basics, doing the elementary things, has a way of righting me, hauling me back up onto a more firm foundation. Jesus may have had my little cabin in mind when He said, “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and put them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid his foundation on the rock.” (Luke 6:47-48) There are all kinds of neat, special things I want to do for Christ. But the bottom line is the bottom line. What really matters is getting, and keeping my life on the rock.

The next day my friend Robert came out. He brought a little hydraulic jack. We started at one corner and jacked up the cabin and slipped one block under it. Then we went to the next corner and did the same thing. Then the next. Over and over again, one block at a time we lifted the little cabin and rebuilt a solid, firm foundation. It took a while but at the end of the day we had Mr. Tumbles (that’s what Robert named the cabin for obvious reasons) back on level footing and looking good. That’s what we have to do almost continually. One block at a time, one step at a time, discipline after discipline, we build and maintain the foundation of our lives, maintaining our houses on The Rock. And, I have come to believe, when we do that our ability to be used by Him and live for Him is, well, it’s a dream come true. I don’t know where you are in your faith journey today but if you are not solid like you want to be I suggest you look at the foundation. Get that right and the rest will take care of itself. And if you need a big wrecker truck, I’ve got a number for you.

Mike

Fridays @ 8: Cicadas and Courage

2011-05-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

It is that creepy time of the year, or should I say of the 14th year. Every 14 years or so a swarm of cicadas crawl out of their burrows and up onto trees, lamp posts, porch swings and slow moving children. They deposit their empty shells and emerge as red eyed, big headed, weed eater sounding winged creatures. Imagine horseflies on steroids. And for about 3 weeks they take over middle Tennessee. They are not that bad singly but they come in droves, hundreds on one trees, thousands in a yard, millions in the area. Literally so many that by the end of the season the gutters along the edge of the streets look like black snow has fallen because of the piled cicada carcasses.

Now I’m a manly man. I’m not afraid of bugs and snakes and crawly things. I don’t bat at eye at a bumble bee dive bombing me or a lizard tickling my toes. But there is just something about the sheer volume of the cicadas that get to you after a while. And by volume I don’t mean number. I mean noise, sound, constant humming, volume. They mass in the trees after they are fully hatched and begin calling. This incessant droning like a million tiny Suzuki motorcycles running all at once. It is a continual background noise even inside the house but outside it is so loud you can hardly carry on a conversation. This morning Jon-Mical and I went to the park and caught cicadas and threw them in the creek. He threw in the dead ones and I threw in live ones. It gave me some twisted satisfaction.

For me, the cicadas are a nuisance. For some people, (I won’t mention names but her initials are Doris Courtney,) it is 3 weeks of terror. She looks furtively out the window before she makes a dash across the driveway to the car. She jumps and jolts every time a leave blows inside the house. And she gets in bed at night and dreams that they have learned to turn the door knob in in the kitchen. She is a slave to her fear of cicadas.

Maybe you are not a slave to cicadas but for most of us there is some deep anxiety that keeps us from living free. Financial worries, health concerns, obsessing over our children, insecurity about our spiritual condition, these things can paralyze us or at the very least distract us from the joyful journey that God has placed before us. Fear is an awful thing. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Paul says in Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship (and daughtership.)” Knowing for sure that I am a child of God is the perfect antidote for fear. Remember when we were little kids and we would taunt, “My dad can beat up your dad.” There was some kind of confidence in believing that our daddies could whip the world. When I really embrace my sonship with my Abba Father I am set free from being afraid.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still human. The cicadas are still buzzing. I still sweat over the checkbook and worry about my kids. But I know, deep down inside, I know that my Daddy can beat up the cicadas. He created them for Pete’s sake. (I’m not sure why.) He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He has healing in His hands and protection in His arms. He “loves me with an everlasting love” and His “perfect love casts out fear.” That is enough to deliver me from the spirit of fear. Bring on the bugs!

Fridays @ 8: Remember To Live

2011-04-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have discovered one of the great benefits of getting old. I can hide my own Easter eggs. Jon-Mical and I were hiding plastic eggs in the house on Thursday, eighteen of them. By the time we finished hiding them I’d forgotten where most of them were. It was a real ego booster to hear a 3 year old say, “Poppy C, remember to look under the pillow on the couch.” He would lead me around to find the last half dozen or so. Then we’d do it all over again. (Or at least I think we did.)

Forgetfulness is not limited to the aging. All of us from time to time forget to return a phone call, forget to do our homework, forget where we put our car keys. We are human. We forget. Sometimes we forget on a spiritual plane as well. We forget to acknowledge the grace of God in our lives. We forget that we are redeemed and forgiven, free from condemnation. And we forget the price of all of that.

Easter is a time of remembering. Once a year we remind ourselves of the passion and suffering of Christ, not because we are some masochistic religion that likes to dwell on pain and agony but because we need to remember. This peace and forgiveness that we enjoy did not come without cost. The promise of life, abundant life, while free to me was incredibly expensive to the Jesus who pleaded in the Garden, “Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me.” When we sit together at a Seder Meal on Thursday, weep in the bleakness of a Good Friday service, it is to remember the ultimate sacrifice that was given so that we might live. On Easter Sunday we celebrate the Risen Lord to remember that He overcame sin, death, and the grave for each one of us. Since I am so forgetful I need to be reminded often. He paid a debt He did not owe so that I might have a life I did not deserve. Now that is some worth remembering.

In some ways, Romans 8 is all about that. From the very first verse Paul repeats over and over again. Old way…death, new way…life. Natural path…death, Spirit path…life. Life in the flesh…death, life in the Spirit…joy and peace. Come on. How many times do you have to tell me? Do you think I would forget something like that? Well, apparently so. Here in verse 13 he says it again, “If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die.” Got it. Wrote it on my hand. Tattooed it on my forehead. I won’t forget that one. Live the old sin way and I will die. Thanks for the reminder.

Then Paul gives us the second half of the equation, “But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Do you notice a slight turn here? “Put to death the misdeeds of the body.” In the verse before we almost overlooked the phrase, “We have an obligation.” For twelve verses and fifteen weeks we have been talking about grace, freedom from performance, not having to “do something” to earn the love of God, and every bit of that is true.

But now Paul introduces the idea that there is some kind of responsibility on my part, that I do act a certain way and follow some code of behavior. We have an “obligation.” We put to death the “misdeeds,” those things we have been doing wrong. After all of these reminders that His grace is free and we don’t live by the law, this verse and the one before seem to hint at a moral and ethical commitment to a different kind of lifestyle. As one who lives life in the Spirit, not in the flesh, I am called to live differently. Does that go against the “freedom from the law” thing? Not at all.

I believe that God calls me to live a holy and Godly life. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.” Ephesians 4:1 says, “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” And later in Romans Paul will say, “Present yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable before God.” Over and over again in Scripture we are confronted with the call to living and acting in a different way because we are Christ followers. But here’s the key, not in order to earn our way into His good graces but as a response to and a reminder of the Spirit life that He has so freely given us.

When I clean up my vocabulary, get rid of some nasty habits, spend time helping the poor and underserved in my world, when I change the way I live, it is not a return to the law. It is a reminder that Christ died for me willingly, saved me freely, and dwells in me gracefully so the least I can do is try to live for Him completely. I remember that every “good and perfect gift” in my life comes from Him and I live accordingly, out of gratitude, not duty.

Paul says, “But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will have life.” And you will also remember. It’s like living Easter every day, being continually engaged in remembering that His death changed the way we live forever. Too often we get caught between two extremes. On the one side is a legalistic, performance based faith that makes lists of rules, and checks them twice to see if we’ve been naughty or nice, (those are the words from a great old hymn of the church.) The other side is a reaction to that that says we are under no obligation (there’s that word again) and any suggestion of moral responsibility is a return to the “old ways,” life under the law.

Not true says Paul. We are free from the law because of Christ. We live by the Spirit, not by the law. But, as a result of that we make every effort to live pure, holy, Godly lives. It is our loving response to Easter and it helps us remember. Remember what you ask? I’m so glad you did. Next week…we are sons (and daughters) of God.

Until then, have a blessed Easter. And don’t forget where you hid those eggs.

Chaos, Fridays, and Being Out Of Control

2011-04-15T05:11:00.001-07:00

Chaos, Fridays, and Being Out Of Control

It doesn’t seem like that hard a task. Write a short devotional thought about 1 verse in Romans 8 each week and post it on Friday morning. Writing comes pretty easily to me. Romans is certainly full of great material. And now I have both Jon-Mical and Jakson to tell stories about. Surely I can do this little thing. We are 15 Fridays into the year. I have posted 11 “Fridays @ 8” and half of them have been late.

Part of that is because of my perfectionistic tendencies when it comes to telling a story. I don’t get hung up on telling the story perfectly but I do want to tell the right story to convey the message of the gospel. Do you know how hard it is to get a 3 year old to do just the right thing each week to illustrate the deep theological truth of St. Paul’s most profound letter? Another thing may be that my MENtoring group on Thursday gets bogged down in the details of God working in their lives and fails to come through with some amazing insight each week to flesh out the devotional.

The primary reason that I have a hard time getting this done however, (okay, the only reason), is a lack of discipline on my part and my ability to let life get out of control. I have such great intentions on Monday but by the end of the week I am behind on paperwork, there are phone calls to make, and I am 10 miles overdue on my running schedule. Life just gets out of control, not occasionally but on a weekly (make that daily) basis.

We live in an unbelievably fast paced, information society. With texting, emails, and Facebook I am in constant contact with almost everybody. Some of that is good but it also means that there is very little down time. We are expected (either actually or an internal pressure we put on ourselves) to be always available and immediate in our response to others. It also means that when we get behind, we get behind fast. Those emails pile up relentlessly in my mailbox, the digital reports cram into my Outlook To Do file, and the cell phone voicemails line up on my Inbox like impatient voters at the polling booth. I can never catch up. I am always under the gun. And chaos seems to be the new normal. I’m not complaining. I’m describing your life too.

So how do we stay on top of the crowded confusion of our computer noise life? How do I make sense of the chaos and focus on the things that really matter? Romans 8:12 says, “Therefore brothers (and sisters), we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.” In The Message it says, “So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent.” Another way of saying it is “we are in this world but not of it,” a rough translation of John 17:16. Maybe chaos is the new normal. Maybe full speed ahead is the only gear our world has. But that does not mean that in me, deep in me where it really matters, I cannot be a person of peace, living in the quiet focus of His presence.

Tax forms are going to pile up, the laundry basket is going to overflow, the phone will never stop ringing, and deadlines are going to keep coming at us, but that is not the world that we are obligated to. Oh, we live in it, we have to deal with it, but we don’t owe it anything. Our true allegiance is to the One who stepped into our hectic world from a place before time and said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled. Do not be afraid.”

I am trying to learn to live life that is focused on the Father, centered in the Son, and scheduled by the Spirit rather that giving in to the pounding pulse of a never-be-satisfied world. I still have to pay bills, go to appointments, schedule meetings, and mow the grass but my sense of who I am is not dictated by my ability to multi-task. It comes from knowing that I am His and He holds me in the palm of His great big, steady, quiet hand.

Maybe it would be helpful to hear a few things I am trying to put in place to accomplish this. First, I am trying to remember to begin and end well. I have very little control over the middle of the day stuff. Life just happens and the only thing I can be absolutely sure of is that I will be interrupted with the unexpected. But before I leave the house in the morning and before I go to bed at night I am still in charge (well, as much as Doris lets me be). I am learning how crucial it is that I quiet my heart, hear Him in His Word, and allow the Spirit to set the agenda for the day.

Secondly, I am learning to escape often from the clamor and the chaos to that secret space that only He knows about and refocus my attention on what matters. It takes just a second or two, literally. A whispered prayer, a breathed praise, a single word of centering. “Help me Lord.” “Father, this is yours.” “Jesus, come.” In an instant I am back on track, remembering who’s I am and what I am really obligated to. The more I do that the better I get at it.

Finally, I am trying to learn to surround myself with serenity by passing it on to those around me. Taking the time to smile at the Starbucks girls. Turning my face and really listening to the incessant chatter of my grandson. Asking the guy in the cubicle beside me how he is and really paying attention to his response. These things all build a presence of peace in my world. They not only slow me down but they create an atmosphere of His joy in which I can reside for a moment.

Now having said all of that, my life is still out of control. I am still way behind on my writing and here it is Friday again. But you know what? That’s okay. Because while I live in this activity I am not obligated to it. My life is in the Spirit. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m just going to sit here a minute….peace.

Fridays @ 8: Jacob Doesn't Live Here

2011-04-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

Jacob doesn’t live here anymore. Today is his birthday and he turns 25. He is as fine a young man as I know. He has an incredible heart for God, a deep compassion for people (especially the hurting), and a fire for life. He knows and loves music and is giving himself to that passion. And he is bright, a profound thinker. But he doesn’t live in our house anymore.

Although he moved out 3 or 4 years ago I have to keep reminding myself of that. Partly because the walls still echo with his laughter, in quiet moments I can still hear him working out a chord progression on the piano or refining a bass lick in his bedroom, and partly because his junk is still all over the place. His bedroom (we still call it his bedroom) is piled high with extra guitars, Ohio State ski parkas, barely used college textbooks, and unopened offers for new credit cards. One side of the garage is dedicated to his baseball card collection, several dusty amps, and a chopped Harley Davidson that he only lets me drive in the neighborhood.

He doesn’t live here but we are a repository for the memorabilia of his past life and he frequents us often. He has an uncanny ability to drop by when his mother is just taking supper from the stove or a pie from the oven. Apparently he can hear our washing machine across town because he never fails to pop in and ask if he can throw a few things in since we are washing anyway. And he somehow can detect that short window of opportunity between when I put a prized take home box from my favorite restaurant in the fridge and when I get home at the end of a long day to finish off that morsel I have been thinking about all afternoon. (Do you know the pain of settling in front of the TV and opening an EMPTY styrofoam container?) He doesn’t live here but his past, the fun, the funny, the painful and purposeful, all of that is still here and he moves in and out of it, though less and less.

In Romans 8 verse 10 Paul says, “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” If Christ is in you…your body is dead. Really? Shouldn’t it say unless Christ is in you your body is dead? Or before Christ is in you your body is dead? I mean what about resurrection, and life eternal, and “he who believes will never die?” What about all of the good stuff He promises? Peace. Never thirst again. Love. And don’t forget the all important, “blessings from heaven, good measure, pressed down, overflowing.” When Christ is in me shouldn’t I be driving a Cadillac, never have an ache or pain, make all A’s on my report card, and have my house stay supernaturally dust free?

But Paul says, “If Christ is in you your body IS dead.” No maybes or ifs. Just, your body IS dead. What is that all about? My body is not dead. I’m very sure of that because my aching knees speak to me every morning, and my waistline is growing like crazy. My body might be getting old but it’s not dead.

It seems to me, like Jacob and our house, this body of mine is not where I live anymore. Oh, my junk is scattered all over. The fingerprints of my past, both good and bad, smudge every window and every wall. Most of my possessions are connected to this earthly body somehow and I move in and out of it quite a bit. But I don’t live here anymore. This body, in fact this whole material space and place that we call life is just a temporary passing through spot. I have to drop in to check the mail, adjust the thermostat, and weed the flower bed. I still have to pay bills, take care of the office, and DVR American Idol. But this is not my house.

The song writer said, “This world is not my home. I just a passin’ through. The Lord’s prepared a place somewhere beyond the blue.” When Christ lives in me, as I grow more familiar with His voice and His movement in me, I become more and more aware that all of the things that used to seem so important are dead to me now. Not in a morbid, melancholy, macabre way. I still enjoy the maintenance and the memory of this world. In fact, I am probably enjoying it now more than ever. But my focus, my heart, my very life is somewhere else. Does that make sense?

Jacob brings so much joy to us all of the time. He is full of stories about work, dreams concerning Michaela, and rantings and ravings about things that no one can fix. He has a place here, in some ways a responsibility to his mother and me. But he is building a life, his real life, somewhere else apart from this house. And as bad as I hate to admit it, the older he gets the more real that life becomes for him and the less important this one is.

In the same way, since Christ is in me I am busy living a righteous life there with Him and less concerned with the mundane stuff of this body. That Spirit life becomes more real every day. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I get all worked up about this temporary place. How am I going to make the car payment? When will that neighbor get his trash can out of my driveway? What am I going to do about that balding spot on the back of my head? (Okay, that one IS important.) But when I really stop and think about it I remember that Christ is in me and that other body is dead.

The life that is alive, the Spirit life, it is so much better than that old body life I used to live. Paul describes it this way in Galatians 5, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.” Sounds like a pretty good life to me. So I am still connected to the body and all that it is connected to, gravity, aging, rainy weather, worry, but that is not where I live. I live in the Spirit world and it is full of hope and possibility with no restraints or constraints. I live in Christ and He lives in me and there “I bear fruit.” (John 15) I keep my face fixed on Him and the life that He has for me and everything else, even Jacob eating my leftovers is just incidental. And the amazing thing is that Christ then gives life back to this old, dead body of mine. (But that verse 11.)

Well, life is good. I hang around in this body of mine but I live, really live, in the Spirit of Christ that makes all things blessed. And on top of all that, I have Jacob who drops in every now and then to remind me that I am not as smart as I think I am but I did begat one pretty terrific son. You know what, he’s right.

Sexual Nuclear Fallout

2011-03-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

At a quarter to 6:00 on March 11, 2011 an earthquake occurred in the pacific ocean, 45 miles from the Oshika peninsula in northern Japan. The earthquake reported 9.0 on the rector scale and sent shock waves that were felt as far away as the Pacific Coast of North America.

The Tohoku Earthquake triggered a 30 foot full tsunami wave that within minutes barreled into the northeastern coast of Japan. Cities like Ishinomaki, Miyagi and Onagawa were literally swept from the face of the earth.
The latest count in confirmed deaths is more than 11,000 and nearly 18,000 people are still unaccounted for.

The earthquake and tsunami did severe damage to several nuclear reactors including the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Explosions occurred, electrical power that ran crucial cooling pumps was knocked out. And within days a nuclear meltdown started to occur.

We have lived through some life changing events, Sept. 11, 2001, the economic crash of 2008. But it remains to be seen if this cataclysmic event will change our world in a way that not one of us can predict or anticipate.

I submit to you that this kind of sweeping 3-fold, iconic transformation is not without precedent. You, in many ways are living in the radiation aftermath of another unprecedented societal earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

In the late 1940’s a wave of soldiers returned home to America from WWII. They found wives that had of necessity left the comforts of home to enter the work force and did not want to return. Those repatriated husbands and emancipated wives began to have babies in record numbers. Baby boomers they were called and I am one of them, the largest single generation in the history of the world. Twenty years later, that wave of baby-boomers began to place their stamp of influence on the culture of America. They were put off by the work ethic of their depression era parents. They were moved to liberation by the same radical thinking that produced the civil rights movement and women’s lib. And they were delivered from the fear of unwanted pregnancy by the newly approved birth control pill.

Some time in the 1960’s an earthquake hit the world that we call “the sexual revolution”. The hippies of history that are almost a caricature today really did introduce free love, sex without consequences, and a morality of self-gratification. By 1962, 1.2 million women were using the pill. The number of young people that were having sex outside of marriage had skyrocketed and the epicenter of the Great Society (as Lyndon Johnson called it) became a conglomerate of social acceptance and sexual promiscuity - - the earth quake.

Not long after the sexual earth quake of the 60’s came the tsunami of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s; an openly sexual culture that not only condoned but propagated sexuality as separate from marriage or religious mores. Beginning as a gentle swell the tsunami ballooned through TV, advertising, and print media to literally overwhelm our culture and our world with images and expressions of sex and sexual connectedness. At the height of that wave was a confluence of pornographic material and the easy access of the internet.

This porn tsunami continues to drown our world in a morass of sexual debris. Today it looks something like this:
- In the US, we spend $3,075 dollars every second on pornographic material
- There is a porn video produced every 39 minutes in the U.S.
- World-wide $98 billion dollars in revenue is earned by the porn industry per year. (More than MLB, MBA, and NFL combined).
- In the US, more people view porn each evening than ABC, CBS and NBC combined.
- There are 4.2 million pornographic websites (12% of the internet).
- Last week 53% of American men viewed at least one pornographic website and 94 million women (that is a 17% increase since 2007).
- Last year Hollywood released about 200 first-run movies. In 2008, the US produced 13,588 pornographic films.

Tsunami is a mild word for the sweeping destruction that has overtaken our society as a result of the earthquake of the sexual revolution.
But that is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk to you about living in the nuclear radioactive fall-out of the meltdown that has occurred.

First, there is a loss of intimacy. Genesis 2:24 says “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they will become one flesh.” We are created for intimate relationships. God created male and female to be united sexually face to face, different from all other created beings. This one flesh intimacy is the design of God to bring completeness and wholeness to His most beloved creation.

Let’s talk about the brain. The limbic system or mammalian brain controls almost all bodily functions such as emotions, desires, drives and impulses. This includes falling in and out of love. When we experience sexual attraction the neurotransmitter dopamine fires up the brain and triggers feelings of pleasure, motivation, and reward. It neuro-chemically activates your reward circuitry, whether it’s sex, eating, taking risks, or drinking water. Dopamine is the craving or the “I’ve got to have it” neurotransmitter. The more dopamine you release and the more reward circuit is activated, the more reward you experience. It is called the cocaine of the brain. So whether it’s viewing pornography, or an intimate sexual relationship, the brain begins to crave the adrenal rush.

Three other things happen. There is a lower serotonin level. Serotonin is the flexibility chemical that enables me to change my mind, reconsider, back-up. So I become stuck or obsessed with this sexual thinking. Second, the pre-frontal cortex disengages. This is the judgment system or safety system of the brain so that my ability to make good choices is hampered. Finally, oxytocin is released in the brain. Oxytocin is the bonding chemical. One of the times when oxytocin is most present is during childbirth. At childbirth a mother’s oxytocin level is 500 times its normal level. So, it’s no wonder when that little baby is placed in the mother’s arms, she bonds immediately.

When these chemical interactions are repeatedly taking place without the subsequent object of affection upon which to attach they become watered down and weakened. The ability to connect is in danger and we loose our healthy facility for intimacy.

I saw a young father a few years ago. I’ll call him James. James was a good guy. He had a wife and a couple of kids. He was involved in his church. He also was a chronic, addicted pornography user. One day he just walked out on his family. He left his wife, left his kids, left his life. When I met with him he said, “I just don’t care anymore. I don’t feel like I have it in me to love any of them.” Repeated sexual connectedness to images on a computer screen took from him his ability to be intimate.

The second tragedy that comes as a result of this nuclear meltdown is a loss of identity. In Genesis 1:26 God says “Let us make man in our image. In the image of God He made them, male and female, created He them.”

Here I want to talk about the heart. Psychologists for sixty years have understood the importance and value of self-differentiation. I am born into a family and my identity, my personhood begins there. I have my father’s eyes. I talk like my mother. You and your brother act just alike. Athletically, intellectually, and socially, all my identity is given me by my family of origin.

At some point around 11 or 12 I begin to differentiate, to stand on my own and find my own identity. Then the characteristics of the other becomes, not my identity, but a reflection, an image. Like a mirror I reflect the other’s image in my own.
So God says, “Let us make man in our image”. We are not God but we reflect the image of God. It’s who we are.

Now, as we begin to connect sexually, we give a piece of ourselves, our identity to the other and we take their reflection into our own identity. I exchange a part of who I am with who my sexual partner is. We begin to reflect each other. Whether human sexual contact or pornography use, each time we connect we exchange some of our identity with the other. That’s why two old people who have been married for a long time begin to look alike or why a room full of addicts have a similar appearance.

The more I exchange myself with another, the more my own God-given image is diluted until I become a complex reflection of all the others but not of myself. I lose who I am.

I’ll call her Sally. She came to Branches about 3 years ago to seek spiritual guidance and to deal with depression. Over the next two years I met with her on a regular basis and began to understand the depth of her struggle. Sally had been viscously and repeatedly sexually abused from her earliest childhood until well into adulthood. After that her life was a series of dozens of sexual partners and encounters, sometimes several sex partners at once. As I began to hear her it became apparent that she had given away her identity. So much so that we discover at least 15 separate personalities living in her. We call that DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder. And in fact the real true self, Sally, was dead. The primary presenting identity only spoke for her and assumed her place in society but announced finally that Sally was dead. I know this is an extreme illustration but it speaks to the loss of identity that we face as a result of surrendering to the radioactive fallout of our sexual culture.

Finally, there is a loss of influence. This has to do with the soul. I Cor. 6:19 says “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?”
We are born, every one of us, with a spark of the Divine in us, the presence of God. When we invite Christ into our lives and become Christ followers, we receive not only forgiveness and His righteousness, we receive the full blown spirit of God living inside us. Galatians 2:20 says “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me.” The God of the universe, the Triune Godhead dwells fully in you.

In part He dwells in you for the sake of influence. We’re called to be world changers. We’re called and empowered to change the universe, maybe not the entire created universe, maybe not the 8 billion people on the planet, but the world in which we live, our part, our circle of influence. There are some people I believe that God has planned for you to reach and He dwells in you for that very purpose – influence.

Paul says that every time we give ourselves to this radioactive fallout of sexual permissiveness the God influence in us is diminished. I Cor. 6: 13-17 says “The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. By His power God raised the Lord from the dead and He will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said ‘the two will become one flesh’. But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit.”

The great fear of the radioactive contagion in Japan is its potential to spread geographically and genealogically. Lettuce and milk from the Miyagi prefect around the Fukushima plant is showing up in other regions of Japan. Wind above the nuclear reactor is drifting toward North America. And the children and grandchildren yet to be born from those affects will potentially bear the deformities of this destructive force.

The loss of intimacy and identity is tragic and painful for you. If I could somehow keep you from that pain, I would. But a far greater tragedy is the loss of influence when you leave this campus, when you leave this room. There are friends and families that are desperate for the spirit of God in you and the loss of influence over them and over your children, and over your children’s children is unimaginable.

One more story, I’ll call him Mike. Actually his name is Mike. He is me. I was privileged to be the pastor of two great churches. I would preach every Sunday to hundreds of people and influence them, their families, and their communities for good and for God. I was in a place and a position to change a pretty big part of the world. But radioactive sickness got the best of me.

I succumbed to the sexual fallout from the earthquake of the 60’s and the tsunami of the next 3 decades. I gave into sexual sin and I lost my influence. Now don’t get me wrong, God has healed me. He has restored my family, my walk with Him, and in many ways, my purity. I am so grateful for Branches and am amazed at the number of lives that are changed daily by that ministry. But the influence I had as a pastor and preacher is gone. I will never occupy the pulpit in the same way. I lost that influence because of my moral failure.

I do not want you to lose your intimacy. I am warning you about the loss of identity. But the most devastating thing of all is to lose your ability to influence your kids, your friends, your family, the people you work with. Don’t you dare lose that. Don’t you put that at risk. My kids, my grandkids need you and your influence. Don’t you let them down.

The earthquake has come and gone and we are beginning to rebuild in its aftermath. The tsunami has passed. We have buried the dead and cleared away the debris. But the nuclear fallout is with us in every breath we take. We have got to be aware of it, stand against it, and overcome it. And you can do that. You must do that.

Here are 5 steps to help you:
1. Make a moral commitment now to sexual purity.
2. Decide right now your sexual boundaries.
3. Establish accountability partners to support your purity.
4. Ask for and accept God’s offer of secondary virginity.
5. Keep the faces of those you may influence ever before you.

Paul says, “We are new creatures in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away. All things are made new.” I don’t know all there is to know about the tragedies and disasters in Japan. I do know that if history is a reference and if God gives us grace, the world will overcome these things and life will go on. The question will be whether or not we go on better or we revert to our old ways of living. In the same way, we can survive the sexual fallout in our world. We can be new creatures in Christ. The question for you is will you be better or simply live life like you always have. I encourage you to strive for better.

You However

2011-03-22T08:06:00.001-07:00

Fridays @ 8
(Yes, I know its Tuesday at 10)

Romans 8:9 “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”

You however…these have got to be two of my favorite words. Hope. Grace. Being the exception. All concepts that are wrapped up in these two words. You however. Like this, “Everybody has to stay after school today for talking. Courtney, you however can go home.” WhooHooo! Or, “Man, a tree just fell on the parking lot and smashed every car. Courtney, you however walked today. Lucky you.” You know what I’m talking about. Here’s one more, “We are going to have to put everyone in the office on a diet. Mike, you however, go get you a banana split.” I didn’t say I heard these words much, just that I liked them.

Paul is fast summing up the whole discussion from the first part of Romans 8. You should know it well by now. No condemnation. The law doesn’t work because of our sinful nature. Jesus came to make us righteous. We cannot please God if we have this sinful nature in us. And now this Divine Exception, “You, however, are controlled by God.” You are off the bad list. You have been moved over to the side of the winners. You get a pass (a Jon-Mical Pass). It just doesn’t get any better than that.

In a clear statement of declaration Paul says to me and to you, “All of this death and sinful nature stuff doesn’t apply to you because you are controlled by the Spirit of Christ.” Sin is out. Jesus is in. You’re off the hook. Free pass. Way to go!

So, I’m thinking of wrapping up this little blog and calling it a day. Except the question comes up just how does this work? It came to my mind that this is a great passage to read backwards. I know I’m beginning to be redundant but hey, we’ve got 40 weeks left to go on Romans 8 so we can go a little slow up front and make sure we get it. Try this on for size. From here back, if taken as foundational thoughts, the Apostle Paul has built such a strong case for God’s grace and our place in Him that we should never, ever be anxious again about His immense love for us.

Let’s go back up this ladder:
Point 1, if you don’t have the Spirit of Christ, you don’t belong to Christ. vs 9
Conversely, point 2, if you belong to Christ (If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Roms. 10:9) then you have the Spirit of Christ in you and controlling you.
Point 3, if you are controlled by the Spirit of Christ you automatically please God, (in the same way that if you are not, you can’t.) vs 8-5
Point 4, if you automatically please God, because you are controlled by the Spirit of Christ, because you have the Spirit of Christ in you, because you belong to Christ, then there is no condemnation or judgment on your life. And that’s the truth! vs 4-1

Well, it is much easier to just say, “You however…” There are people trying and trying to find some kind of peace and happiness. There are all kinds of religions and variations of religions. Even in the Christian faith there are tons of folks that are so concerned with the law and the letter of the law, hoping desperately that they can somehow sneak by a holy God and not get zapped, in eternity or just today. But YOU HOWEVER don’t need to sweat that stuff. He is in you. He is in charge of you. And He loves you…without exception. That’s cause for a party. (That last sentence was a shameless way to attach a picture of Jakson.) See you next week!

Mike

Fridays @ 8: The Jon-Mical Pass

2011-03-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

The Jon-Mical Pass

We went to an open-house at Jon-Mical’s pre-school not long ago. His room is right by the front door. Tiny little tables, just the height for 2 and 3 year olds. Little bitty chairs of red, yellow, and blue. And walls lined with art work. Finger painting. Leaves pasted on paper to look like turkeys. Cotton balls sculpted into the finest snowmen you’ll ever see. Hearts cut out of red construction paper with secret coded messages in the written language of toddlers. In the middle of all of that terrific art work it was very easy to see that my grandson was the most gifted of all the kids.
Now don’t get me wrong. The other kids had great pictures. Some of them stayed in the lines better than Jon-Mical. Some of them were better at turkeys with a clearer sense of space and dimension. Some of them even wrote their letters neater when they signed their names. But Jon-Mical was still by far the best. I mean, come on, anybody can see that. I call that the Jon-Mical Pass. Whatever he does, however he behaves, no matter the outcome, I love him so much that he gets the benefit of the doubt from me. He gets graded on the curve and he is at the top. He gets bonus points. He starts at A++ and every other kid has to catch up to that. The Jon-Mical Pass.

Romans 8:8 says “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” I don’t care how hard I try, how many good deeds I stack on top of each other, how big my tithe or how elegant my prayers, when my heart is controlled by anything other than Him it is not good enough. Never will be. Never can be.
We’ve spent a few weeks looking at the grace of God in the first few verses of Romans 8. There is no condemnation. We are free from the law. All the requirements of the law have been met for us. Good stuff. Lots of grace.
But the last 3 verses of this section make it clear that this grace is not a luxury or a nice add on. It is essential. Without it we are just sunk. (That’s a highly sophisticated, theological term, sunk!) Verse 6 says, “The mind of the sinful man is death.” Verse 7, “The sinful man is hostile to God.” And verse 8 says, “We cannot please God.” It is impossible to win His favor when we are living lives controlled by our sinful nature.
Now here’s the thing, controlled by our sinful nature means trying to do it on our own, make it by ourselves, work our way to the top of the God heap without totally depending on Him. Whenever I do that I am all the way back in Genesis 3 listening to the serpent say, “You can be like God.” When I decide that I can earn my place with God and please Him based on my own merits, not only will I fail, but I am doing just the opposite, I am offensive to Him and trying to take His place. So when Paul writes, “The mind not surrendered to God cannot please Him,” he doesn’t just mean we are not capable of pleasing God. He also means God absolutely is turned off by our attempts. Malachi called them “blemished sacrifices” and God said, “They defile me.”

Let me come at it from another angle. God says, “In order to please me you have to keep the law PERFECTLY.” Now He knows we can’t so He says, “I will personally pay the price for you. I will send my Son and His sacrifice will take care of the law requirements that you can’t keep. I will not condemn you. I see you as perfect because of Jesus.”
But we say, “No thanks. I believe I can do it on my own. I’ll work a little harder and make you happy.” Not only is that crazy but it is an affront to God after what He did for us. It is impossible to please God that way. It is like Jon-Mical saying, “I don’t care if you love me or not PoppyC. The only thing that matters to me is having the best cotton ball snowman in the class.” He might not have the best in the class (okay, this is not a good example because he really does) but he would really hurt my feelings by telling me that my love is not important to him.

Good news. God has given us all a Jon-Mical Pass. He sees our feeble attempts. He walks by and inspects our big messes. He looks down at our miserable failures and stupid mistakes and He says, “Great job! Best in the class. Gold star. Not because we are good but because He is gracious. And thank God for that. But the Jon-Mical pass is not an option. To refuse that is to fly in the face of God and make ourselves greater than He is. We are not capable of living the God-life on our own and any attempt to do that wounds the heart of God. His grace is not only sufficient, it is necessary.
So, get out your finger paint, pull out a few cotton balls, and start enjoying the amazing artwork that your life is to God. He comes to your open house and sees your handiwork and says A++. Listen to Him brag on you. But don’t forget your Jon-Mical Pass.

Mike

A Real Change Of Mind: Fridays @ 8

2011-02-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about moving on to Romans 8:6 today but I changed my mind. We can do that you know. We always hear that it’s a woman’s right to change her mind but we all really have that option. I believe I’ll get up early and exercise today. Nope. Changed my mind. I think I’ll pass on that second piece of pie. Nope. Changed my mind. I think I’ll send everyone who reads this blog $20. Nope, REALLY changed my mind,

Doris is a world class, A-1, blue ribbon mind changer. I have never bought her a birthday gift that she kept. We go out shopping a few days before her birthday. She tries on a ton of clothes. She finally settles on the perfect sweater. Fits her like a glove. Exact shade of blue to bring out the sparkle in her eyes. It looks like a million bucks on her. She wanders off through the store and I sneak back and buy the sweater. I have it gift wrapped but I’m careful to leave the tags in place. On her birthday she opens it up and looks so surprised. “I love it,” she says. “It is exactly what I wanted.” Then the next day she takes it back to the store and exchanges it for something else. What happened? She changed her mind.

Last week I wrote on Romans 8:5. “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live according to the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires.” If you have been following closely, (and I’m SURE you have) then you remember that I talked about focusing on the goal of an intimate relationship with Christ and not on the circumstances that surround us. (www.mikecourtney.blogspot.com, shameless plug!) I said that we quit trying to compare us to others and just let Him set us free from our own desires.

Well, I’ve changed my mind about that. No, not really. But I have thought I need to say a little more about how that happens. I didn’t mean to imply that we just wake up one morning and say, “Hey, no more thinking about my troubles. I am only going to think about Jesus today.” I admit it’s not quite that easy. I try. I want to “set my desires” on the things of the Spirit but I’m not very good at it. The past due notice on my cell phone comes in the mail. My arthritis kicks in every morning. The guy at work with me never does his share. And Doris keeps taking my birthday presents back. That stuff clamors for my attention. So how do I get my mind to focus on something (or someone) else?

One of the guys in our Thursday morning group said a great thing yesterday. He said, “I used to think of this as kind of a gradient along a continuous line. On one end is this terrible, wicked, evil mind that is set on the very worst of life. On the other end is this wonderful, perfect, heavenly mind that only thinks about Jesus and puppy dogs and angels playing harps.” (Okay, I’m paraphrasing a little.) “But,” he went on to say, “I am thinking that it is not a long line and we just keep moving closer to the Jesus end. I’m thinking it is a whole new point of view, a different mindset. In fact, a different mind.” Now that is good!

Let me go all the way back to verse 3. “What the law was powerless to do,” namely keep my mind focused on God, “in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, GOD DID…” What? Wait a minute. Do you mean that God is the one who helps me focus on Him? Absolutely. God doesn’t change His own mind but He changes mine. You see the big question is verse 5 is who does the setting? “Those who have their mind set on the sinful nature” and “those who have their mind set on the Spirit” are not simply at two different places along this gradual heaven-looking slope. We have our mind set on the Spirit because WE LET THE SPIRIT SET OUR MIND. (Wow, that blows my mind!)

The point is, this incredible, amazing God that loves you so much says to you, “Hey, there is no guilt and shame in falling and failing. I am taking that away and all you have to do is focus on me. And, as a bonus, I’ll give you a new mind that is focused on me.” He changes my mind. I am learning that He, when I let Him, He does a brain transplant kind of thing and turns my mind and my thoughts to Him. I don’t do that. I’m not capable of it. He is and He does. I think it is what David had in mind in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” It doesn’t mean He will hand me everything I want. It means He will change my wants so that they conform to His great will and plan.

I have a part. I have a role to play in this. But for now, I just need to know that He not only tells me to set my mind on Him, He will do the setting. This is getting way too long and I have to stop. So here’s a story…

When he was little Jacob would climb up in my lap and put his hands on each side of my face. He would turn my cheeks around so that I was looking right into his eyes, making sure he had my full attention. One day, after I had had a particularly trying day at work, I was downstairs in my chair and I heard Jacob and his mother whispering upstairs. In a minute he came down the stairs, crawled up in my lap, turned my face right into his and said, “Daddy, I love you.” I said, “Jacob that is the nicest things that anyone has said to me all day.” To which he replied, “Daddy, mom made me do it.”

All I am saying is relax. Sit down in your chair and feel the Father take your face in His hands. He turns you around until you can only see Him and with your nose almost touching His, He says, “I love you.” And that changes my mind!

Mike

Frdays at 8 Spirit Sledding

2011-02-11T05:02:00.000-08:00

Romans 8:5 “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires.”

Baby, it’s cold outside. The Artic Jet Stream has lost its way and has been flowing through Middle Tennessee for about a week now. Last night it was single digits and that’s just what we did to the weather man. (I know I shouldn’t have said that but it is funny.) Anyway, it is bone chilling, breath-taking, toe numbing cold. I walk outside and I shiver.

I was driving home yesterday evening and I saw a bunch of kids sledding on a hill beside the road. It was obvious from the beaten down snow and broken make-shift sleds that they had been there for some time. How do they do that? How do kids ignore the cold and stay out so long oblivious to what seems obvious to me…..cold!

I guess they have their minds fixed on the goal, having fun, enjoying the experience, laughing with their friends, making memories. Me, I have my mind fixed on the circumstances, freezing weather, creaking bones, aching lungs. Isn’t getting old fun?

In Romans 8:5 Paul takes a little bit of a turn. The first 4 verses have been about God’s response to us. No condemnation. Freedom. Grace. Righteousness. Amazing, amazing stuff that He does for us through Christ. Now all the way through verse 17 he turns to address our response to the thing that God has done for us. We’ll read words like control, submit, obligation, and share. Things that we do, or at least participate in when it comes to this “life in the Spirit.”

In verse 5 Paul says that those who live according to the sinful nature, that is still trying to be right by the law, still thinking that they can somehow do good enough, be good enough, act good enough; those people set their minds on what the nature desires. But those that live in accordance with the Spirit, that is, they have released themselves and their “trying,” to the Spirit of Life that Christ gave us when He paid all of the price of the law for us (remember the last few weeks); those folks have their mind set on the things that the Spirit desires.

It’s kind of like those kids in the snow I think, when I am trying to live the old way, fulfilling every jot and tittle of the law, and just terrible at it, then all I can see is the stuff around me. I get frustrated by all of the temptations and trials of this world. I’m trying to live for Jesus, why are so many bad things happening to me? Or I get caught up in comparing me to the other guy. I’m doing better in this law thing than he is. Why is he driving a new Lexus and I’ve still got this Nissan with hail damage in the hood? I am so caught up in the circumstances that they are all I see. And we’ll see in verse 6 that there is only death in that kind of thinking.

But, when I decide to turn my thinking full time to the goal, a life of grace and peace, lost in an intimate relationship with the very One who set me free from all of this stuff in the first place; when I do that it’s not cold anymore, the circumstances don’t capture my attention anymore. I can stay at this thing with Jesus all day long. (Or at least until my mom calls me in for soup but that’s another metaphor.)

The Greek word for set is phronounsin. I have no idea what that means. I just wanted to impress you. I’m kidding. It means to turn or direct or focus. In other words, it’s something that I can do. He has set me free from the “law of sin and death.” He has said He will condemn me no more for my fumbling and failure at trying to keep the law. Now what I get to do is direct my attention, my thoughts, my focus to Him and to the wonderful life in the Spirit that He has for me. And when I do, well, I see His grace and His peace all over me. There is joy. There is hope. There is relationship. There is, well… “love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) And that life is a blast.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful Face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

So quit shivering and complaining about the chill. Get your eyes off of the circumstances. Grab a sled, focus on the fun, and hang on for the ride of your life. Mike

Love Phases

2011-02-08T23:40:00.000-08:00

Well what would a February newsletter be without a little love advice. Here's the advice about love, Do it! Okay, just kidding. There is more to it than that. Jimmy Evans wrote a great little book a few years ago on marriage called "Our Secret Paradise." In it he describes the ways to rekindle and retain true passion in your love life. In it he writes, "Many people think that 'chemistry' is the reason we fall in love with each other. It's true that chemistry may have been the reason we were initially attracted to each other, physically or emotionally. That kind of attraction is often how we match up with someone. But it is not the reason we fall in love."
That discussion of chemistry prompted me to think about the stages of love that I often see in any relationship. First there is the "I love you because" phase. Our eyes meet. She's hot. He's a hunk. He has a nice car. She has a nice boat. Whatever the reason, there is a "reason" for our love.
The next phase is "I love you if." This is the phase that is based on mutual benefit. There are some promises we made at the beginning; great sex, breakfast in bed, frequent oil changes, take out the trash. (And that was just Doris's part.) As long as those basic needs are met I love you.
Sometimes that stuff doesn't work out. Then comes the "I love you in spite of" phase. You've blown it. You aren't the Mister Perfect that I thought you would be. You've gained 20 pounds and snore like a freight train. But I love you anyway. we feel really good about ourselves when we reach this stage. It's kind of all about me in that sense. I love you in spite of the fact that you are bad and I am good. So, I feel even more good!
Finally comes the "I love you" stage. No conditions, reasons, or history. Just I love you. There is a total surrender to the other, a giving of myself completely. A real and genuine love. There is no comparison and no describing this kind of love. And sadly, far too few of us ever reach this point. But when we do... there is chemistry. So go love somebody today and better yet, remember that God loves you just this way. Mike

Fridays at 8 Righteous

2011-01-28T06:58:00.001-08:00

I liked HuggyBear. Remember him. He was the cool, hip, pimp-like informant friend of Starsky and Hutch. You know, Starsky and Hutch. Don’t tell me that is all before your time. They were the TV detective duo of the 70’s. Cool hair, red and white Torino. You don’t remember Torinos. This is getting us nowhere.

Back to HuggyBear. He had a word that he used when something was so good, so cool, so right on. He would say, “Righteous.” Starsky walks in with a new pair of sunglasses and Huggy says, “Righteous.” Hutch shoots a bad guy and recovers a gazillion dollars from a bank heist. When he opens the case Huggy says, “Righteous.” What a great word!

Imagine my surprise to find out that HuggyBear was not the inventor of the word. Paul says in Romans 8:4, “And so He condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” A lot of that sounds familiar over the last three weeks, sinful nature, law of the Spirit, but righteous, that’s a new word.

Remember where we are, from verse 1. God does not condemn us even though we are unable to keep His law perfectly because Jesus came and set us free but the slavery of having to keep the law. He justified us (just as if I’d never sinned) by His death and now sees us as though we are pure and perfect.

Here in verse 4 He brings that whole thought to completion by reminding us that the law wasn’t ignored. It was fulfilled by Christ. It’s like this. I get a speeding ticket for driving 70 in a 55. Wait, let’s make this more realistic. Doris gets a speeding ticket for driving 70 in a 55. She goes to court and the judge says, “That will be $130.” Then he says, “I can’t ignore what you did and the fine has to be paid, but I tell you what I’m going to do. I will pay the fine for you and you are free to go.” That’s what God did for us and we are set free from the law of sin and death. Righteous!

Which brings us back to that word. What is the “righteous requirement of the law?” What does it mean to be righteous? What is righteousness? It goes all the way back to the Old Testament covenant that God made with Abraham and with us. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” I am righteous by being in a right relationship with God. When I accept Him for who He is, My Creator, My Redeemer, My Lord, and I realize that He accepts me for who I am, His child that He loves, not because of what I do to please Him but because of what He has done for me then I am in right relationship with Him and I am righteous.

In Romans 4:3 Paul writes, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” He was righteous not because of what he did but because of who he believed. And the same is true for me and you. God gave us the law to prove to us that we can never be good enough. Then He paid the price of the law to prove to us that He loves us. And finally, He takes away any guilt or shame of that, no condemnation, and all He asks of us is that we trust Him. Not just to take care of our sick kids or to help us pay the light bill. No He asks us to believe that He loves us so much that He sees us as His own, wonderful, dearly loved kids, even when we mess things up. John writes in I John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that He calls us His little children. And that is what we are!” Righteous.

Over the next few weeks in Romans 8 we’ll start seeing what that looks like and how we respond to it. But for now just believe it. Quit trying to get everything just right. You don’t have to be perfect. Your Abba Daddy loves you so much and you are better than perfect. You are righteous.

Snow Day Grace

2011-01-21T06:41:00.001-08:00

Snow Day Grace

Snow Days have to be the world’s best example of modern day grace. Holidays, Spring Break, summer vacation; they are all on the calendar and we have them coming to us. In some way we earn the right to be out of school or off work on those days. But snow days, that’s an entirely different story. Snow days seem like free passes. They weren’t planned for. We did nothing to merit them. Kids sit eagerly in front of the TV set the night before and wait to see their county scroll across the bottom of the screen. (My daughter-in-law does that too.) When our county shows up, HOORAY, a free day off.

The first 4 verses of Romans are about grace, free passes, stuff we get that we don’t deserve. Romans 8:3 tells exactly how that grace came to be. Paul writes, “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[a] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[b] And so he condemned sin in the flesh.” Now that does bring some questions to mind. Just what was the law powerless to do? What does it mean that sin was condemned? But the big picture is that we get a huge snow day, a pass, a free walk.

To find out what the law was powerless to do we have to see what God did. The last phrase in the verse says He CONDEMNED sin in the flesh. I asked my guys on Thursday what condemned means. Terry said, “It means it no longer usable, like a house condemned.” Bob said, “It is terminal, final, like being condemned to death.” I think they are both right.

Here’s the deal. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden and said “You’ve got one rule. Don’t eat the apple.” We couldn’t even keep that rule. So He said, “Let me break it down for you a little more. Keep these 10 Laws. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Honor the Sabbbath.” And we blew that big time. The Jews tried to make it simpler but turning these 10 Laws into 700 rules and regulations. You see where this is going. The laws just kept getting more and more detailed, more complicated, and we kept breaking them. In fact, we came to understand that it was impossible for us to keep them.

And God knew that all along. He had this whole thing planned. So He says, “This law thing is no longer usable. I’m going to put an end to that way of living.” Now the law is still in place. God still needed “righteousness” from His children. (More on that later.) But God, through Jesus satisfies all of the legal requirements of the law and gives us credit for it. He sends Jesus in the flesh, just like me and you, and then uses Him and His sacrifice to pay the price required by the law.

It’s like a snow day. School is still out there. I still have to go to class and take my tests and do PE. But today, I get a pass. Don’t have to go in. HOORAY again. All I have to do is accept that. Now I could still get up. Put on my clothes. Go sit in the empty classroom and do my duty. But really all I need to do is say, “Snow Day. I’m off the hook.” That is grace.

Oh, there is one big difference. I have to go back to school or back to work tomorrow. But what Jesus did, well, Hebrews 9:28 says it was “once and for all.” Lifetime snow days. Sounds good to me.

We’ll talk about this more next Friday but for today, enjoy yourself. Quit trying to keep every single little law and rule and regulation in order to please God. Haven’t you watched your name scroll across the bottom of the screen? He has condemned that stuff and you get to stay in your PJ’s and watch Matlock re-runs. Grace……

Friday at 8 (posted Monday at 5)

2011-01-17T03:31:00.000-08:00

Romans 8:2 “because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”

Last week I had a great idea. Every Friday I’m going to blog about a verse from Romans 8. It was a fun idea, easy to do, full of life. So I started my blog and sent it out 1 week in a row! This past Friday life set in. I am teaching a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a church in Nashville. I had to prepare for that. Friday and Saturday was New Life University and I taught the Christian Psychology course for which I needed to do some writing. As soon as it was over Doris and I hopped in the car for Western Kentucky to visit some great friends and to speak for their church. Got back Sunday night to move furniture at Branches and get set up for the Intensive that begins today.

I’m not complaining, (well, maybe a little bit) but I am saying that the whole time the need to send this blog was eating away at me and making me anxious. Call it writer’s block or call it the “law of sin and death” all of a sudden, what started out as a joy turned into a drudgery. In fact I’m pretty ticked writing right now. (I’m kidding!)

On Thursday I met with two men that I believe in and respect, Robert and Bob. We talked about, can you believe it, Romans 8. I asked them, “What is the law of the Spirit of life?” We came up with some amazing answers, a few vaguely resembled what might be true. But we had a great conversation that moved us all to a deeper level of thinking, I think. Like, what is spiritual life and what is spiritual death? Or, how significant is it that Paul says “through Christ” rather than “by Christ?”

Our conversation went two interesting places that I think are somehow connected. We began to talk about the law as Jesus saw it. Bob reminded me that Jesus summed all of the other laws up into two, love God, and love your neighbor. The other place our talk turned was to those people that are really trying to please God by keeping the law, whatever law they choose to keep. Do they have a chance? Is there a way to make it based on the law?

It seems to me that no matter what else you believe about these two laws, you have to admit that loving God and loving people feels joy based while “all the law and the prophets”, ie, the 10 commandments, the Talmud, the Manual, the Church Discipline, look both ways before you cross the street, ALL THE OTHER LAWS WE TRY TO LIVE LIFE BY, can become a drudgery. They freeze us up, take away our creativity, and sap our joy. So that serving God and making it to heaven becomes this very oppressive duty rather than, well, life.

Can you make it to God by a law based, performance center, duty filled, disciplined, structured life that dots every “i” and crosses every “t”? I guess so but it ain’t easy and you better get EVERYTHING right. To paraphrase Wesley, can you serve God without the Spirit of life? Maybe so. You can also get from England to America without a ship (or a plane) but it’s an awful long swim.
Don’t misunderstand. Paul is not removing any sense of holy living or any requirement of the Gospel, In verse 12 we’ll talk about the “obligation” we have to the Spirit of life. Rather Paul is saying that what Jesus did in reconciling us to God was to take away the drudgery (and death) of trying to fulfill all of the law and replace it with the delight of being immersed in love both for and from God, and showing that love in the way we treat those around us. The God life changes from a duty to a desire. It ceases to be a have to and starts to become a want to. Jesus, by paying the ultimate price to fulfill all of the commandments, made it possible for me and you to do our part to live holy and Godly lives as our natural, loving response to Him and His gift. Because of what He did I don’t have to do anything except love Him and love His children. That’s life.

Now there are some interesting ideas about what that looks like in the rest of Romans 8. We’ll talk about that on the Fridays ahead. Oh My Goodness! Did I just say that? I’m sick already…..

Fridays At 8

2011-01-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

Golden Voice

If you’ve been anywhere on the planet the last few days you have seen a story unfold that began with a viral video out of Columbus, Ohio. A television reporter filmed Ted Williams, a man that the headlines labeled “The Homeless Man with the Golden Voice.” As the story caught fire Ted was whisked in just a few days from the streets of Columbus to the TV screens and then the hearts of the nation.
(If you have by chance been away from the planet you can see the story here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6kI_u3ho_c)

We have been delighted to watch the story of Ted unfold with a paying gig at Kraft Foods, a job offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers, national television appearances and a tearful reunion with this 92 year old mother. It seems like a perfect story of redemption as Ted Williams gets a second chance at life. After years of alcohol and drug addiction, a number of criminal offenses, and hitting the bottom, Ted seems to be on his way up. That’s a great story.

It also is a little sad to think about this amazing voice being unused all of these years. This gift from God tucked away and wasted in a broken, bound, body, ashamed to be heard, ashamed to be used. Actually, that’s a pretty familiar story. Most of us, at one time or another, have silenced the voice that God has put in us because of our shame and guilt. We felt like our story did not deserve to be told, like we had blown our chance of being heard, like we did not deserve to speak. Silenced by our shame we stayed too quiet, too long.

I have been reading Romans 8:1 this week. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” I have spent the whole week mediating on this thought that we are truly set free from guilt and shame because of His work in us. And if that doesn’t make you want to use your voice, I don’t know what will.

The “therefore” in 8:1 doesn’t point back to chapter 7 as is often the case with Paul. To see what the “therefore” is there for you have to go all the way back to Romans 5. Verse 1 says, “We have been justified through faith and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:18 says, “The result of one act of righteousness (the sacrificial death of Jesus) was justification that brings life for all men.” The reason that there is no condemnation is not because we are innately good people or that we have finally chalked up enough good deeds. The reason that we are free from condemnation is that we have been JUSTIFIED by the loving death of Christ for each one of us.

When I was a little kid in Sunday School my teacher would explain being justified by saying God changed me so that it is “just as if I’d” never sinned, justified. In other words, I am free from guilt and shame not because God said, “Oh, you’re okay. I’ll just ignore the sin in your life.” No, He completely took the sin away, healed all of the scars, wiped out the spots, and burned the bandages. There is no hint that I was ever wounded. It is just as if…well, you get the picture. So that there is not even a shadow of condemning, finger pointing, or chastising.

Now, if that is true (and it is) then how in the world can I keep silent about that? How can I let the devil (the Bible calls him the accuser,) how can I let him shame me into keeping my mouth shut? I don’t care where you have been or what you have done you have a story and a voice to tell it with and God delights in hearing you praise Him for His great grace.

I have decided that every Friday this year I’m going to use my voice about one verse in Romans 8. I am spending the whole week meditating on one verse and then on Friday speaking out what God has said to me that week. Not because my voice is golden and not because you need to hear it (you don’t even have to listen) but because what He has done for me (and for you) deserves to be spoken. Scripture says if we don’t use our voices even the rocks will cry out. I’m going to call it “Fridays At 8” (get it, Romans 8) and if you want you can follow along. For now though come in out of your guilt and shame and start using that voice that God has given you. He has taken away your sin and you have NOTHING to be condemned about.

And by the way, if the Cleveland Cavaliers call, give them my number…..

(If you want to see this each week when it is posted you can join the blog at www.mikecourtney.blogspot.com. Or you can send that link to your friends. Does that sound self-serving enough? The pictures of Jon-Mical are totally unrelated and you will not be charged extra.)

Regifting

2010-12-20T06:26:00.001-08:00

We have a new word that a few years ago did not exist, regifting. It is the act of taking a gift given you and giving it to someone else as if you chose it especially for them. A number of years ago Doris was in a panic on her way out the door to a wedding shower for our friend Kim and her husband-to-be Eric. She had no gift. Another good friend, Sharon, wife to our friend Pete (you know where I’m going with this) reached in the top of her closet and brought down a still wrapped gift from her own wedding shower a few years earlier. “Give them this,” she said. “Pete and I have never even opened it.”
What a great idea! Until Kim opened the gift and found a card on the INSIDE, “Congratulations Sharon and Pete. You are a wonderful couple.”

Regifting is especially pronounced at Christmas time. We get busy. There is yet another party to go to. The budget is stretched so we grab a present from under the tree, rewrap it, CHECK FOR OLD CARDS, and off we go. My mother has more than once actually given the gift back to the person who gave it to her in the first place. Hey, we’re all trying to live green and recycle. This takes it to a whole new level. Maybe we should just establish a finite number of gifts and keep reshuffling them across the world every year. No, that wouldn’t work because when I got Donald Trump’s Rolex, or Warren Buffet’s Mercedes, I stop the regifting cycle.

There is one gift that we get over and over at this time of the year that is very appropriate though, the Gift of the Christ Child. Every year the nativity scenes come out, the Baby Jesus ornaments get hung, and we sing Away In A Manger. We receive again the gift we got last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

This gift, however, is one that was designed in the heart of God to be regifted. Somehow in His wisdom God knew that it would take us about a year to get cynical, distracted, or afraid. Somehow, at the beginning of time God knew that we would need an annual reminder of His endless devotion to us. And so He gave the gift that keeps on giving. (another shameless Christmas cliché that comes attached to the jelly of the month card.)

In this case though, the regifting of the Christ Child not only keeps on giving, its the whole point of the thing. When I am sure that life is meaningless, that there is no hope, and that all of my efforts are futile, I carefully unwrap this precious bundle and remember that this Baby changed the world. I remember that this Baby changed me. I remember that every good and perfect gift was and is compressed into this tiny, wriggling little infant and God really is with us. I open this gift again and again and know that My Savior is not some ethereal, mystical being but He lived and breathed, and walked among us. And I can go on for another year.

We don’t put our nativity set in the front yard or on the mantle to memorialize some event that happened 2000 year ago. We celebrate the Baby in the Manger to accept one more time the gift of joy, and hope, and peace on earth. So…in the middle of your hustle and bustle this last week before Christmas don’t forget to do some regifting. Give the Baby away again. Remind one another that Christ not only did come, He is here, now, with us, in us. And those socks I gave you last year….keep them.

Sacrifice?

2010-11-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

This Friday Doris and I will celebrate our 33 wedding anniversary. Most of you who knew us at number 25 probably doubted we would make it this far, What am I talking about, most who knew us at number 3 had those same doubts. To all of who doubters I say these spiritual words, “Nananananaaana!”
Well, actually if you knew us then, you know that God is awesome. He has performed a miracle in our lives and the last 8 years have been so different, so full of Him that we rejoice every day over His grace and mercy to us. I love my wife in a way I never imagined because I have finally realized that God loves ME in a way that I never imagined, and out of that….well, this is getting mushy. You get the picture.
So, every year for the last 8 years we have celebrated our anniversary in a big way. We take 4 days and find a new, exciting place. We go to a place we cannot afford and spend money we do not have to remind ourselves what God has done. We have stayed at a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania, at the old downtown Sheraton in Chattanooga. We’ve gone back to our roots in Ohio and stayed in a beautiful house in Orlando. And we stayed at the Biltmore, a mansion in Asheville, NC for what may have been the best one of all. This year, not so much. This year we are staying home and babysitting our grandson. No trip. No room service. No late night, candlelit dinners. Just toys in the living room, spaghetti-o’s on the couch, and 30 episodes of Thomas the train. AND WE ARE SO EXCITED WE CAN’T WAIT!!!
Somebody might say, “What a sacrifice. That’s too bad what you are giving up.” But we say, “Are you kidding? Where’s the sacrifice? We love him so much that it is a delight. We don’t even consider it giving something up to get to spend a whole weekend with Jon-Mical.” Now in case you think there is no point to my little story, let me make one quick. Your walk with God is not all anniversary cake and strolls on the beach. In fact, the call of God on our lives is to live holy and Godly. To repent. To pick up a cross and follow Him. Brennan Manning says, “The tone of the Christ of God is not always sweet and consoling. The gospel is the Good News of gratuitous salvation, but it does not promise a picnic on a green lawn….It is a summons to personal holiness, on going conversion, and new creation through union with Christ Jesus.” (The Importance of Being Foolish)
We have, most of us, watered the Christian life down to sugary slogans about the love of Jesus and tender, tiny, talks about joy. We sing Kumbayah as our fight song and drop a $20 in the offering plate in response to a challenging message. And any conversation that brings up discipline, piety, and holiness, we dismiss as being legalistic and ignoring grace. And we have missed the point. The point is that our love for Christ, our overwhelming devotion and adoration for Him, based on our recognition of what He has done for us, should compel us to sacrifice and servanthood without so much as a blink of the eye. Paul says, “I consider all these things loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ my Lord. I consider them dung (look it up) that I might gain Christ.” (Phil. 3:8)
Now I’m not being hardnosed or suggesting that everyone should burn their TV’s and where their hair in a bun. We lived through those days and that wasn’t holiness. I have no idea what holy living looks like for you. I’m still trying to figure out what it look like for me. But I think it means that every decision, every desire, every habit, attitude, and pleasure is filtered through my intense love for My Savior who loved me and gave His life for me. And when I do that, there is no sacrifice, there is no giving stuff up. It is all joy because I get to be closer to the one that I love. How good is that? And you know what? Speaking of anniversaries, the longer I live a life fully surrendered to Him and His Kingdom, the better it gets. This “peace that passes all understanding,” and this “joy unspeakable stuff,” it really is there and there is no loss when I gain that.
So don’t feel sorry for Doris and I this weekend. We are spending time with someone who delights us. We are rolling in the floor with the light of our life and the joy of our hearts. Come to think of it, we should be doing that every day with Jesus. If giving stuff up is that easy for us where Jon-Mical is concerned, how much more for the One who makes Jon-Mical and every anniversary possible? And when you run into someone who doesn't understand, say to them with all the love you can muster, “Nananananaaana!”

Codependency

2010-11-06T10:06:00.001-07:00

I hurt for you in your private pain
And I often sit and wonder how I could take it away;
Though I do not imagine that you think I do,
And I do not imagine that I can.

You and I are all that’s left.
Your pain is your pain and not mine.
My pain is my pain and not yours.
And the taking of mine or yours by the other is more painful.

My pain is a part of my self;
To allow it to be taken from me is to lose a part of myself.
To take yours without permission
Is the worst kind of invasiveness and a diminishing of you.

We are one in some sense, maybe in our common pain,
But we are not the same.
If I forget that, I tear a piece of you away
And I create more hurt.

Your pain like yourself cannot be taken,
Only given.
So I wait, and pray, and hope to be allowed,
And that is painful.

The Fina Art of Arguing

2010-10-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

The Fine Art of Arguing

My sister tells a story (probably not true) about my parents getting into a tiff when we were all much younger. My mother was on the way to church in the middle of their argument and she came to my father, turned her back to him and asked him to zip up her dress. He grabbed the zipper in his ire and yanked it up and down a few times saying snottily, “Zip, Zip, Zip!”
A couple of hours later my mother came home and saw our clunker of a car jacked up in the driveway as usual with a pair of legs sticking out from under it. Remembering her encounter with my father earlier she decided to get even. She reached down and grabbed the zipper on his pants and yanked it up and down, “Zip, Zip, Zip!” Then she stormed into the house where to her chagrin she saw my father sitting on the couch watching TV.
She told her story to my father and they ran out together to see our neighbor who had come over to help my dad work on the car, climbing out from under our vehicle with a huge knot on his forehead and a totally bewildered look on his face.

I really don’t think that happened. But I do know that we used to know how to have arguments and disagreements on a number of different levels that allowed us to express our opinions, vent our emotions, find some kind of clarity and understanding, and come away from the fray better off for having had it. No so today. We have forgotten how to argue. Whether it is in the public political arena or the closed boardroom of the church, civility and conscience has gone out the window and been replaced with name calling, vilifying, and mean-spirited bitterness.
Our politicians run “attack ads,” (we even have a name for them) that cleverly disguise truth, distort facts, and usually make no mention of issues. They also seldom offer solutions. Our religious disagreements resort to caricatures of entire populations, emotional characterizations of the other side, and blatant misrepresentations of position and purpose, often in the name of whatever theology we aspire to.
For the sake of proving our point (though I am usually not sure what the point is) we castrate and crucify people that we do not know, have never tried to understand, and certainly failed to listen too. The result is deeper divides, more intense polarity, and battles being fought over “principles” that are merely excuses for hatred on both sides of the equation.

Here’s an example. I am a Christian. There is a battle raging in my community over a proposed mosque. We have chosen sides, thrown down our gauntlets, and run into the war screaming and cursing our enemies. We have decided on our principles, staked out our moral high ground, and let fly the arrows of our discontent. And friends, we are wrong. I don’t have an answer to the issue of the mosque but I am pretty sure of this, not every Muslim is a radical, suicide bombing, jihadists. Nor is every Christian who has concerns about this project a bigoted, fear mongering, hypocrite. I am embarrassed when I hear some of my friends say horrible things about Islam without knowing or seeking to understand. (The Scripture that I love has some stories that I hope I have the opportunity to explain to non-believers before they call my Holy God a baby killer, and a male chauvinist pig.) And I have been just as mortified when people that I care about have condoned witch-hunts, and intimidation, and even participated themselves in attacks upon Godly leaders and wonderful congregations in our community that are the other side of the debate from them.

One thing I know about arguing, these tactics only separate us further and never lead to resolution and reconciliation. If the downward spiral of our own political system has shown us anything it is that “attack ads” in the media or on our Facebook blogs drive us into paralysis and hate. They do not move us toward understanding or peace.
Perhaps it’s not fair of me to walk a middle road and not take a specific side so, okay, here’s my position. I am not an expert on the Koran but I do not believe that the intention of the Muslim community in Rutherford County is to build a terrorist training camp in middle Tennessee. Listen, we have lived with and worked with and even prayed with some of the very people that now we are accusing of outlandish things. To you guys that I love who stand against the mosque, you are wrong in using the name of Christ to justify unfounded characterizations and accusations. You have every right to be against the mosque. Fight against it vigorously on the grounds that they circumvented our building codes, that they are proposing a facility that is far beyond the reasonable expectation of need in our city, or even that we are a Christian community and we stand against any non-Christian enterprise. Fight them there but listen to their hearts while you do battle.
And to my friends who are just as viciously slandering and maligning your Christian brothers because they disagree with you, you are wrong. Let me be blunt, Allen Jackson is a good man, a gifted leader that loves our community, our country and our God. WOC is a lighthouse on our horizon that gives tirelessly and sacrificially back to our county. And until the conflict started many of you who now attack Pastor Jackson and WOC were supporters and admires of these people. If you are against their position in this matter (or your perception of their position) fight them. Take them to task for their misunderstanding of Scripture. Debate them over the theological nuances of love your enemy and turn the other cheek. But when you post invitations to dig up dirt or take quotes out of context you are certainly no better than the cartoon creatures of stupidity that you have created on the other side of the discussion.

This is a crucial and future-changing argument we are having. It has ramifications that reach far beyond the boundaries of this community or even our generation. As a Christ follower I approach it with both fear over the potential harm a wrong decision might do and with confidence that ultimately the battle is the Lord’s. And I am determined that an argument of such magnitude deserves, really demands, to be handled with civility, rationality, and compassion. It is the only possibility we have of successfully navigating this conflict. In the name of Jesus I implore us all to rethink the way we argue and if not, to Zip, Zip, Zip it up.

Two Races

2010-09-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

I finished two races last Saturday. We’ll, I actually finished one and watched the other being finished. My nephew Craig and I ran in the RunChikinRun 10K race in Murfreesboro. For you non-runners, 10K is about 6 and ½ miles. And for you people who think the race is named after my legs, it is sponsored by Chik-fil-let. There, we got that straight.
It was a gorgeous day. About 1000 runners ran across the Greenway and through the Stones River Civil War Battlefield. I finished in the top ten in my age group (out of 12) and all in all we did pretty well, finishing just over 6 miles in about an hour. It was fun to run with Craig and we saw a lot of friends along the way. At the end Chera, my niece, and Josh, Jennifer and Jon-Mical were waiting for us, cheering us on. Really cool.
The other race took a little longer. Vernette Cantrell died on Wednesday and was buried on Saturday. She was nearly 96. She started her race a long time before I ever thought about running. My guess is she passed through a lot of battlefields on her run and saw a lot of friends come and go along the way. She had been married to my father-in-law for 10 years, after both his wife and her husband had already finished their races.
Vernette was an amazing woman. She gave her life to the church and counted doctors, college professors, and pastors in her family. Not to mention the fact that for 10 years she loved my father-in-law and our family and allowed us to love her. She and Pa, Doris’s dad, supported me and accepted me during my most stupid years, and cheered for my recovery over the last 8.
Speaking of cheering, at her funeral on Saturday the church was full of people she had impacted, ministers she had helped, and the two families she had loved. We sang her favorite songs, told stories about her and laughed, wept together over scripture, took her to the cemetery then went into the fellowship hall and ate fried chicken and potato salad in her honor. It was quite a finish to a race well run.
I haven’t finished that one yet but I am running it. And so are you. Someday, when we’ve crossed the last finish line some people will gather around what is left of us on this planet and sing our favorite songs, tell stories about us, weep over scripture, take us to a cemetery and throw dirt in our face. Then they will go back to the church and eat fried chicken and potato salad. And all that will matter at that point is how well we ran the race. Did we love God? Were we good to the people He gave to us? Did we open ourselves up to love and be loved? Were we honest about our faults and realistic about our failures? Most of the stuff we are worrying about today will not even be on the radar screen. As Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith. Now there is waiting for me my reward, a crown of righteousness.” On Saturday Vernette crossed the finish line and I am very sure was handed a huge crown of righteousness by our Amazing Savior. Pretty good deal, huh?
Craig and I got a T-shirt. Keep running. Mike

God Loves You for the Email Tell Us So

2010-07-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote an email this morning to a friend. I asked her permission to share it with you. I hope you'll take the time to read it. As usual, the names and details are changed to protect confidentiality but the story is true. God does love you. I write these for the Branches newsletter (www.branchesrecoverycenter.com) but not everyone on the internet gets the newsletter. Go figure...

Dear Friend,

It's 2 o'clock in the morning and both of us should be asleep. I know I'm not and I'm guessing you may not be either. Instead I'm sitting on the couch watching the lightning flash and thinking about how much God loves us. Not us as in "He's got the whole world in His hands" but us as in me and you, specifically, by name, in person you there and me here, He loves us.
I had a typical day today. I saw a woman who is so depressed she can hardly get her head off the pillow. The I saw a young professional man whose sexual sin has become so hideous that he has lost his family and pretty much everything he holds dear. I saw a guy that is wracked with the guilt and shame. Next I saw Doris for lunch. (She's not crazy I just saw her for lunch and it was great). I finished the afternoon by sitting with a couple that is watching their love for each other disintegrate over a struggle to understand intimacy. And then a beautiful, Godly, really neat woman who has spent her whole life trying to perform just right to please a God that she thinks is unpleasable and sees her as a miserable failure.
You know what? I only have one message for each one of them. God loves them. Not as a group, or in a general sense. I mean He knows each one of them by name and He knows their story and He loves them with this incredible, undying, everlasting love. He really loves them. and if somehow I could just help them see that everyone of their situations would be a thousand times better. Oh, they would still have stuff. They might still need medicine, and have more bills than paycheck. They might even still get divorces and struggle with sin. But they would know that God loves them for who they are, that He's crazy about them and He wants more than anything to help them get things on the right track and to find a peace that, well, that is beyond understanding.
If I could only help them see that but heck, half the time I forget it myself. It is such a simple concept. And most of us know it in our heads. A lot of us even believe it in our hearts...for everybody else. But not for ourselves. "For God so loved the world" is really not about the world at all. It's about me. And its about you. Its about a huge, magnificent, incredible God, calling my name and saying, "Hey, you with the too big nose and thinning hair, I am absolutely crazy about you. I think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I really do love you."
No wonder Paul said, "I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in God's love, might have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for you. and to know this love that surpasses knowledge." Even Paul knew that you and me would have a hard time really getting it. God loves us.
When I was in my darkest days I had a cd that I used to play a thousand times a day. Actually just one song, over and over and over again. It was my sister singing, "God loves you,and He wants you to know, He is with you. You are not alone. He will see you through. God loves you." I love to hear my sister sing. I still listen to it a couple of times a week. That is the lesson if we all could get, well, we'd be okay. And tonight, at 2 o'clock in the morning it is the lesson just for you. He loves you. Not because He's God and He's supposed to but because you are you and He wants to. Now go to bed and get some sleep. You're hard to love when you're cranky. Mike

Boundaries, Zombies, and Freedom

2010-07-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

I had an idea the other day. I was talking to a young friend who is having a difficult time establishing and making boundaries in his life. He gets into trouble because he hasn’t decided where his life begins and other peoples ends. Paul says in Ephesians 4:14 that when we are like that we are like a ship adrift on a sea, “tossed about by every wave of new ideas.” We are easily persuaded to do this thing that we might not otherwise do or go to this place that we might otherwise not go.

So I suggested to my young friend that he write out a short list of a few rules to live by, things that he would operate by when the pressure came from other places to make a bad decision. He jumped all over that. He was so excited. “Dude,” he exclaimed. (I love to be included in the dude crowd.) “Dude, that’s just like the movie Zombieland. This guy had a bunch of rules that helped him to not get eaten by the zombies.” Well, what do you know? I had no idea that I was so artistically in tune with the creator of such a cinematic classic. I am so blessed to know that Mike Courtney, Cecil B. DeMille and the director of Zombieland have similar genius.

Cecil B. DeMille, in case you miss my witty reference directed The Ten Commandments. Remember Charlton Heston and the Red Sea and God writing His rules on a tablet of stone. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so witty after all. But the problem is that many of us think rules, ours or God’s, take away our freedom and make us zombies. We just stumble around with our arms straight out and our eyes have closed doing what we are told to do and not allowed to have any fun or be our own person.

Obviously you’ve missed the finer nuances of that work of art. In Zombieland it was the rules that kept the guy from getting eaten. The people without rules got caught and turned into zombies. In other words boundaries and commandments and living according to God’s plan for us, rather that impeding our freedom actually keeps us free. When I make Jon-Mical, my grandson, hold my hand while we walk across the parking lot, I know that I am keeping him free by not letting him get hurt by a life without rules. Paul again talks about that in Romans 5 and 6 when he says that without the law we wouldn’t know what sin is. And without sin we wouldn’t know what grace is. Dudes, let me put that in words you can understand. If it weren’t for rules you wouldn’t know the zombies from the, well from the dudes and dudettes. And if you didn’t recognize the zombies you wouldn’t know how good it is to not be a zombie. Get it?

Well, let me try one more time. Knowing and living by the boundaries that God has placed in my life does not take my freedom away. In fact, it keeps me from the many pitfalls in life that would destroy both me and my freedom. So the rules in fact keep me free and that is a wonderful gift from God. No wonder the Psalmist says, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.” Psalm 16:6
On this weekend when we celebrate our freedom and remind ourselves of how great it is to not be a zombie perhaps I should also thank God for the rules that are in place that make my freedom in Him and in life possible. I am so grateful for the boundaries. Now pass me the popcorn, dude, the movies about to start.

Mike

Nothing to Prove and Nothing to Hide

2010-07-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

I went to South Carolina this weekend, to a reunion of a youth choir I was a part of 40 years ago. I have never been very good at reunions. There is usually too much trying to impress, trying to look good, trying to put on a show. And that’s all from me. But this was different. It was great to see old friends, some I hadn’t seen for more than 3 decades. Kids I hung out with, leaders I looked up to, and men and women that spoke God into my life in a way that I will never forget.
They asked me to sing a song that I sang way back then. When it was over, TW, one of those great men said, “I remember when you sang that song 40 years ago. It was better then.” He was right but it was really fun anyway. We sang. We laughed. We told old stories. And we remembered.
There is a saying in the 12 Steps meeting that I go to a lot. The way to real peace is to have nothing to prove and nothing to hide. Can I brag for just a minute? I think the reason this visit was so good was that I am finally learning to live that way. And it feels good.
To live life in the moment, not focusing on the past or the future but trusting God for the here and now is joyful and the source of peace. It takes away the insane need to be something I am not for people I don’t even know, or for those I do. Some days I do that well. Other days, not so much. But I keep trying. I think it’s what Paul had in mind when he says, “Forgetting those things which are behind…I press on.”
Now don’t get me wrong. There are deep regrets from my past. When I am with old friends I can’t help but think about those people that I hurt, that I let down in my many failures. But putting my trust in God keeps me from dwelling on those things or taking on the shame of the past. When I know that I am lost in His love and covered by His blood, well, that’s enough in any group.
So I am suggesting for you that you quit worrying so much about what others think and start reminding yourself of how He feels about you. He loves you “with an everlasting love.” “He will never leave you or forsake you.” “He delights in you and rejoices over you with singing.” Keep all of that in mind and go visit some old friends. Be yourself and let them love you.
As for me, I plan to keep on living one day at a time. I’m not going to spend my energy trying to impress other people. Except I need to lose a little weight, maybe get my hair colored just a little, I wonder if I could get a tuck under my chin. Be blessed. Mike

Floods and What Matters

2010-05-03T13:55:00.001-07:00

This weekend in middle Tennessee we experienced unprecedented rain and the resulting history making floods. Most of us (who were dry) sat glued to the television as unforgettable pictures of raging rivers, lakes, and streams turned quiet, familiar neighborhoods into unrecognizable, muddy oceans. We watched spellbound as cars and small buildings floated down what was once an inter-state highway. We were gripped by scene after scene of elderly and very young people being hoisted from upstairs windows into flat bottom boats to be hauled, unceremoniously across a torrid of chocolate, brown water to stay in some high school gymnasium or church fellowship hall. Our hearts were broken as the number of those swept away to their death began to rise.
Eventually, the discussion, even on the television, turned to insurance. Were they covered? Did they have specific flood insurance? Would there be any recompense for what was lost? Even Doris and I began to discuss if we were covered by flood insurance. What would we do in the event of such a catastrophe?
To be honest, I don't know for sure what we would do. I don't think our house is in much danger of a flood but what about a tornado, or earthquake? Or what if a sinkhole opens up underneath our kitchen? How would we begin to replace our "junk?" Frankly, with all of the loopholes in insurance policies today and all of the potential disasters (car bombs in Times Square) I'm not sure we could ever be protected enough. Man, I'm worried.
But then I got to thinking, all of the stuff we are trying to protect is doomed anyway. It is, every last bit of it, fleeting at best. Cars will die and rust away. Pictures will fade and be forgotten. Even gold and silver will lose its value. Much as I hate to think about it, my precious wife and kids are going to die one day, or I will first. The only thing that we have that is really "protectable" is our absolute confidence in Christ and His ability to give us hope and peace. No wonder Paul says, "We fix our eyes, not on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal." II Cor. 4:18. Now I'm not diminishing the devastating loss of our neighbors and friends this week. They are crushed and rightly so. But when the waters recede and our pain abates, and it will, it might be good to reflect on the fact that nothing of lasting value was taken away from us. Even the loved ones we lost have the potential of being reunited with us in eternity.
So it seems there is a way of ordering our thinking that causes us to remember what needs to be remembered. This world is just a pass through place and we are citizens of another Kingdom. We need to keep our focus on that place. Hey, when we do that there are no floods high enough to get to us. Now, where are my waders?
Mike

Of Running, Raining, and Doing Your Best

2010-04-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

Jennifer (my daughter-in-law and one of my best friends) and I decided to run the Country Music Marathon while sitting around the supper table last October. I’m 56 and haven’t run anywhere except to the bathroom in 10 years. Jennifer is 30, beautiful and fit, but long distance running is a whole new game. SO, we started training. The first day we ran together we did 3 miles. I thought I was going to die. She talked and laughed the whole way and I concentrated very hard on sucking as much oxygen out of the air as possible and not throwing up.

In early December we ran our first race, the 5 mile Frosty Fun Run. It was 19 degrees when we started and warmed up to a balmy 22 by the time we finished. Doris, Josh, and Jon-Mical came out to cheer us on and Jennifer coached, and begged, and intimidated me all around the course. We finished, thanks to her, and I still wear my blue Frosty Fun Run tee-shirt with great pride.

For the next 4 months we worked really hard. We ran together 2 or 3 times a week. “Short” runs of 4, 5, and 6 miles in the middle of the week and long runs on Saturday. The day we did 14 I thought my legs would fall off. I did 18 alone because Jennifer was battling a knee injury. I finished it but when it was over I told Doris, “I cannot run one step farther than that.” We just kept at it.
About 3 weeks ago we ran 20. It was a turning point day. We ran it pretty fast (for us) and fairly easy. When we were through we both felt good and were brimming with confidence. “We can do this.” We prepared, paid the price, and believed. WE ARE READY!

Thursday afternoon we went to the Nashville Convention Center to pick up our racing numbers and our pre-race packets. INCREDIBLE! 36,000 runners from all over the world were coming together for this race. We saw body sizes of every possible ilk. There were rail thin Kenyan’s with 2% body fat and there were, well others. I couldn’t help but do a mental inventory. “I can beat that guy. I can beat that guy. She is going to kill me.” Jennifer and I were so excited, the big day was almost here. Try to rest Thursday night because we knew on Friday night we’d be too nervous to sleep.
Friday was an absolutely gorgeous day in Middle Tennessee. Cool in the morning. Bright sun, High about 80. I ran a few errands. Did a little yard work. Got my stuff together. Got a pre-race haircut. Then about 1:30 I checked my email and the worst possible news came. Severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes were predicted for late Saturday morning. The race organizers had decided to cut the race to 4 hours and 30 minutes. (They ended up cutting it to 4 hours). If you did not make it to the place where the half marathoners split off (11.2 miles) in under 2 hours you would be diverted to the half and not be allowed to run the full.

Now two things, Jennifer and I have been training for 5 months to run 12 minute miles and finish the 26.2 mile marathon in a very respectable 5:20. We had secretly hoped to break 5 hours but we never considered the fact that we would have to run our first ever marathon in 4:30, nearly an hour faster than we’d trained for. The other thing is that our “bucket list” goal is to run a marathon, not a half, a marathon. And now the National Weather Service is trying to do us in. All of our training, planning, and mental preparation had to go out the window.

On Saturday morning I picked Jennifer up at 4:30AM. We drove the 45 minutes to LP Field, the home of the Tennessee Titans, and joined our 36,000 fellow crazies. There were two huge lines, one to get on the shuttles that would take us to Centennial Park where the race began, and the other to get in one of the 40 or so port-a-johns. One quick lesson we learned, by 5:30, pre-race port-a-potties are NASSSSTY!
15 minute bus ride to Centennial, 10 minute walk across the park to drop off our gear pack, and its time to get in place. We are in corral 14. That means there are 13,000 people ahead of us before we start and about 13,000 people behind us. The vast majority have on yellow race bibs signifying that they are running the 13.1 mile half marathon. Our bibs are blue. One by one the air horn blows and each corral is sent off. Because of the impending storms we are all going off a little early. For us, corral 14 about 5 minutes after 7 there is a blast, a roar, and the marathon is underway.

I’m not going to bore you with the blow by blow but many have asked so here are the highlights. Jennifer and I felt like we needed to really speed through the first half in order to have a chance to finish. We spent the first hour passing a lot of people as we ran down Broad Street in Nashville. We crossed the 11.2 mile mark in just under 2 hours. That’s about 20 minutes faster than we thought we’d have to run, but they let us through and did not divert us to the half marathon route. We crossed the half way point, 13.1 miles in 2:24:44. Way below our projected time and fully on track to break 5 hours, but too slow if we were going to finish in 4:30. We just kept pushing. The Country Music Marathon is known for its hills. We became well acquainted with them. From the start to mile 14 was beautiful. At mile 14 the weather began to cloud up and by mile 15 it was raining. Mile 15 to 19 is pretty much all uphill. It’s a long run up out of the Metro Center. All of that was into a howling wind and driving rain. By mile 16 I had to take my glasses off because of the rain which was a good thing. I couldn’t see the lightning flashes as well. From mile 17 on there were police at every intersection telling us through bullhorns to seek cover because of the storm coming.

We hoped that by making it through the half split we would be able to finish. But at mile 20 we could see the police lights flashing ahead of us. We were being diverted. Instead of making the final loop into Shelby Park and back we were forced to turn towards the river and LP Field. When it was over we had run 21.5 miles in 4:01:20. We were on track to finish in about 4:50, 30 minutes below our goal and well inside 5 hours. But mother-nature and the Metro police department said no.

We crossed the finish line to the cheers of thousands of soaking wet spectators, race officials and other runners. We stood for a minute and cheered the thousands of runners that were still coming in and then went to find our family.
It has been an incredible adventure. I have fallen in love with my daughter-in-law all over again. We worked really hard and did our best. We have the certificate and the medal that says we finished the Country Music Marathon but we are a little disappointed in the fact that it was abbreviated. Last night I sat on the couch, my knees packed in ice, and searched the internet for a marathon in May or June. Who knows, I might see you in South Bend, Indiana, in a few weeks. Thanks for praying for us, listening to us, and asking about us. I marked the marathon off my bucket list but put a star beside it. There’s always next year and my nephew is interested in running…

The Fine Art of Falling

2009-10-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

I am thinking about writing a book. Failure And How I Achieved It: AGAIN. I just have a talent for not getting it right. It amazes me how many times I can fall down, even on the lessons I’ve spent a lifetime learning. I have 3 weeks of great devotions, then for a week, nothing. Doris and I have 20 wonderful days together then I will get crabby, cranky, and contrary. I do so good at staying truthful then out of the blue I will exaggerate to the point of lying. (Like I just did when I said I have 3 weeks of great devotions before I miss.)
A couple of days ago we took Jon-Mical to the local tennis courts and let him run and chase tennis balls over this huge expanse of green concrete. He’d run great. (We’ll as great as a 2 foot tall, 21 month old kid can run.) Then all of a sudden he would just fall. No hole to step in. No object to trip over. For no reason he would just sprawl out on the pavement, little hands outstretched, face down. Just like my walk with God.
Then he’d do an amazing thing. He would hop back up and start running again. He never looked back. He didn’t stop to analyze the fine points of kinetic energy, optimum balance, and gravity. He just started running again. Full of life and joy, enjoying the next steps.
I guess there is a lesson to be learned there. (You knew there would be, didn’t you?) We are all going to fall. You might stay on your feet longer than I do. You might not make quite as spectacular a splash when you go down, but I promise you this, you will fall. Remember the verse of scripture, “Where two or three are gathered together, one of them will take a nose dive.” (Mike 4:15) It’s just the way we live in a fallen world, fallen.
The good news is we don’t have to stay down. We do not have to remain on the pavement. If there is one thing I have learned it is that falling is not final and failing is not fatal. Listen, fallen brother or sister, God loves you as much when you are nose down on the sidewalk as he does when you are flying down the track. He does not give up on you. Let me say that again, He does not give up on you so don’t you give up on yourself. Here is a real verse, I John 2:1 says, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin (fall). But if anyone does sin we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ the Righteous One.”
So, try not to fall. Keep fighting the good fight. Keep running the race. But when you fail (and you will), hop up. God is not finished with you. He has so much more growing for you to do. Hey, maybe you could write a book about it?

Thanks for your prayers,
Mike

EXHAUSTION

2009-09-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

There is a peace that comes in appropriate exhaustion. Not the exhaustion of trying so hard on my own, giving everything I have to fix everybody I know. That kind of exhaustion contains an element of frustration and anxiety. Inherent in it is the understanding that tomorrow I will simply have to do it all over again. That kind of exhaustion eventually breaks the spirit and wears out the body and forces me to what recovery language calls “my bottom.” From there I am certainly capable of making horrendous decisions to mask the pain and hide the hurt of yet another failure to live up to expectations, real or imagined.
Days melt into days and weeks fly by in a flurry of activity and tasks. There is so much to do and the urgent usually supersedes the really important. At the end of the day I am not satisfied by what has been accomplished but rather frightened at how much farther behind I have fallen. That exhaustion is fitful, frightening, and frustrating. And I know it too well.
But there is a peace that comes from appropriate exhaustion. This exhaustion is centered in the will of the Father. It is a satisfying ache, a gratifying soreness that can be either or both, mental or physical. At the end of the day, or the week, or the journey, it is an exhaustion that whispers to ourselves, “I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. I have finished the race….” That exhaustion comes with confident trust in the faithfulness of God to pick up the slack, make up the difference, fill in the gaps. It comes when we are lost in Him.
I have known that exhaustion a few times in my life as well, not enough, but a few. And the difference in that exhaustion versus my own, self created fatigue is astounding. The exhaustion that comes from doing His work, His way is temporary. It is resolved by the Sabbath rest. It is limited. It does not reach out of me to the circumstances around me but stays connected to the task at hand. And it is shared. There is a clear sense of being a “partner in the Gospel” as opposed to the panic of carrying this weight on my own.
So here’s what I think about exhaustion. It is from there that I am able to look back and see what path I am really on. When I am so tired I cannot move then I am finally able to stand still long enough to reflect back over my steps, to check my bearing, and to confirm that I am listening to the heart of God say, “This is the way. Walk in it.” Being exhausted is not such a bad thing when it turns my face toward Him.
Oh, there is much to do today. I am sure at the end of the day I will be, well, you know, exhausted. But I am equally sure that if He is my focus and my guide, if my steps are ordered by Him, and if all that I do I do in His name and for His glory (whether standing on the assembly line or in front of the classroom), then there will be great peace in my exhaustion. And with peace comes rest. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference. Just for today.” Mike

The Green Hammer

2009-07-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

One of the most significant moves that Doris and I made was the move from Augusta, Georgia to Mt. Vernon, Ohio. We had been married just a few years and I was called from being a youth pastor at a small church in the south to become the associate pastor at a very large, university centered church in the Midwest. (Translate that NORTH. Yankees.) It was one of those churches that didn’t even have a full name. You just said “First Church” and everyone knew what you meant.
I was out of my league from the first day. I was replacing a high quality, experienced staff member that was incredibly well organized and had it all together. Not only did I not have it all together, I couldn’t even remember where I put it. I was intimidated and anxious. The staff was gifted. The congregation was massive. And the job was overwhelming. I was thrust from the relative obscurity of a small, southern church to the limelight of the entire denomination. Scary!
The second day on the job I was in my office, the largest office I had ever had or have had since. I was doing all that I knew to do. I was hanging pictures. And even that wasn’t going too well. I was using the back of a Hebrew Dictionary to try to drive nails in places that didn’t want to be nailed. The pictures were pretty crooked, not very secure, and kind of wobbly. Other staff members were hurrying by outside my office doing far more important things. Parishioners were scurrying in and out on missions that I knew nothing of. No one was stopping in. No one made conversation. And I just kept thudding away with the Hebrew book.
In the middle of the morning, a nice, old guy named Delmar poked his head in. He said, “Reverend Courtney,” (I was a kid still wet behind the ears and he was at least 120 but he always called me Reverend Courtney. Still does.) “Reverend Courtney, I saw you in here this morning. I went home and got you a present. I thought you could use this.” There in Delmar’s gnarled old hand was a green hammer. If he was 120 the hammer was ancient. It had a fiber glass handle with flaking paint, straight claws that were chipped from pulling years of nails, and it looked to me like the best tool in the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. Delmar grinned a kind of sloppy grin and asked, “You mind if I help?”
He pulled out a tape measure and a level and for the next two hours we hung pictures and diplomas while he told me stories about the church, his family, and how good God was. He was meticulous in his work, every picture was exactly the same height and perfectly straight, and profuse in his conversation. He told me all about Stella, his wife. About Jan and Denny, and Trish and Ton-ton. He laughed at my nervous jokes and admired the pictures of Doris. And when the picture hanging was done he smiled, handed me back the green hammer, and said, “You’ll do fine here.”
A few months later Josh was born. Delmar and Stella became Papaw and Mamaw to Josh. They “adopted” him from the first and were our go-to babysitters and our surrogate grandparents. Every holiday, when the “Yankees” huddled up alone in their northern houses, we were invited out to Mamaw and Papaw’s to boil corn or play Rook. Whenever there was a hard decision to make or a question about being a father, a husband, or a minister, I would find myself talking to Delmar, usually not about the problem but about family, wood burning stoves, and how to plant a great garden. But every conversation would end with, “Reverend Courtney, you’ll do fine.”
My “career path” changed dramatically with that move to Mt. Vernon. God used that position to open doors of ministry for Doris and me that I never dreamed possible; national boards, great churches, international travel, college trustees. And when the job seemed overwhelming and I started to really doubt, I’d pull out my green hammer and remember my talks with Delmar.
It seems to me that life is full of situations for which we feel ill-prepared and under qualified. Nobody told me that parenting would be so hard, or that married life took so much work. I’m not trained in growing old or saying goodbye to dreams. The economy has me baffled and my ministry is not going where I thought it would. My family is a mess. I’m looking at divorce. My health is getting bad. I am battling depression. My addiction has the best of me. I feel all alone and scared to death.
Listen to me, in those moments, if we will just get still, God almost always pulls out some kind of tool, lays it in our hands and says, “You’ll do fine here.” Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.” He has the tools. He has the stories. And he has the time to sit with you and put your heart at ease. You may not figure it all out at once. You might not know what happens way down the road. But I promise you He will show you the next step and give you the grace you need for today. For all of your struggles, He has a hammer.
There have been a lot of moves since then. I’ve made more than a few decisions, some of them not so good, as you know. The green hammer goes with me every time, and the grace and kindness of an old guy that believed in me. In fact the hammer is in my desk drawer at the counseling center that I direct. When a new counselor or staff member comes looking a little wide-eyed and overwhelmed I take it out and we go in their office and hang pictures. We talk about Doris, my sons, and my grandson. I laugh at their nervous jokes and I assure them that God is still in control.
Delmar is still in Mt. Vernon. He’s pretty sick right now and I imagine facing some things that seem overwhelming. He is looking at a battle that even my green hammer can’t fix. For those of us that love him, and maybe even for him, it’s scary. You know what I believe. I believe that in the middle of this terrible time God is even now pulling out His own version of the green hammer, the tool that Papaw, (and us) needs to get through this. I believe He is laying it in Papaw’s hand and the God of the universe is taking the time to bring grace and kindness to all of us. And He is saying, “Delmar, Trust me. Whatever you face in the days ahead, you’ll do fine here.”
Mike

Real Men

2009-06-08T04:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I spoke for another retreat. This one was for men. Just men. All shapes and sizes. All kinds of backgrounds. I’ve done this is Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, California, and a dozen other states. I have spoken to fathers and sons, promisekeepers, men with a mission, biker’s for Christ, and sissies for the Savior. (Okay, I’m just kidding about that last one.) I have talked to men in recovery, men in ministry, and just men.
There are some things I have noticed about men’s retreats. For one thing there is just as much hugging as their female counterparts but it is a lot louder. Hug. Three loud, manly smacks on the back. Let go. That’s the accepted formula for men. On the other hand, men’s retreats are usually quieter. Not a reflective, meditative kind of quiet. Just a, “I don’t want to talk about it” quiet. I think we probably have as many hurts, habits, and hang-ups as any women’s group but with a much smaller vocabulary to express that.
“How’s it goin’?” “Good”
“How’s the fam?” “Fine”
“Work?” “Good”
“ Gonna’ be a good year for the Titans.” “Yup”
“Any thing I can do?” “Nope.”
“Well, good talkin’ to ya.” “Me too.”
So here’s the deal. After speaking to all of those men’s retreats, and after being one for all of these years, I’m still not sure what makes a man a real man. What really does separate the men from the boys? Or from the girls for that matter? I mean apart from the obvious biological differences (which we DEFINETLY don’t talk about) what does a man do that makes him a man?
I know what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t cry. Real men don’t eat quiche. Real men can’t jump. Well, actually only white, real men can’t jump. They never let you see them sweat. They never say never. They never quit until the fat lady sings. It just goes on and on, the things that we know that men are not supposed to do. But what do men do that makes them, well, men.
I don’t know, but there are three things that come to my mind. First, they work. Now I know that some jobs are different from other jobs. Some men where suits and some men suit up. Some men get their hands dirty and some men get their nails done. I know great stay at home men. I know retired early men. I know men that were wounded in battle and unable to work since. But, when it gets right down to it, all men have buried in the double helix of their DNA the unquenchable thirst to be productive, to matter, to work.
Now, don’t get your panties in a wad, I know women work too. They work hard. They work more than one job. They never stop. But for men it’s different. For women, work is what they do. For men, work is who they are. “Hey, my names Mike. So whadda’ you do for a livin’?”
There is something in men that calls us to work. And when work is going well, life is good. When it’s not, we’re not. I have this conversation with men almost every week. “So Bob, what brings you to see a counselor?”
“I don’t know. My wife thinks there’s something wrong with our marriage. She’s just not happy.”
“Do you agree?”
“Well, we don’t spend much time together. She seems to cry a lot. I’m not really sure.”
“So, tell me Bob, how about you? Are you happy?”
“Me? Sure. I’m great. Work’s good. Got a promotion last week. I’m good”
We are men. We work. And that work defines us whether we like it or not.
The second thing that men do is play. More than women, men focus on, get involved in, subscribe to, obsess over play. Maybe God made us this way because we need the relief from the work gene, but whatever the reason, men are good players. I know men that would miss the birth of their third child for opening day at the stadium. I have a friend that has season tickets to every team in town and can balance his schedule like an accountant so that he doesn’t miss a game. He may not remember his wife’s birthday but he knows what time they drop the puck on the next home stand.
We know batting averages and fantasy draft stats. We fish and hike and run and lift. We might not be able to quote John 3:16 but we know what number John Riggins wore for the Washington Redskins, (44, so did Reggie Jackson, Chuck Foreman, and my college roommate). Women do stuff to be with other women. Men do stuff to do stuff. We play.
And finally, one of the things that men do, we die. Okay, I know that women do to but men do it sooner, more often, and more spectacularly. We were born to die. James Dean, Billy the Kid, John Kennedy, John Lennon, and those guys that are lifting up the flag on Iwo Jima. Men just die. Have you ever been on a cruise when they take you out at the beginning of the trip and give you the lifeboat speech. “Here’s how you put on your life jacket. You are to go quickly and safely down this corridor to boat number 12A. Don’t take time to pack your belongings. And, oh yes, women and children first.” To which every man on the ship puffs out his chest and looks at his buddy proudly, “Yes, we die.”
As clearly as we feel the need to work and the urge to play, men have the capacity to die. Not just to die but to die with purpose. In John 13 it is not coincidental I think that Jesus says, “Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friend.” Jesus knew that women live sacrificially. They do that far better than men. But men are hardwired to fall on the grenade, to take the bullet, to give their lives for their friends, their family, and their country. We may not do much else right but, when the time comes, we die.
So if that is true, if that’s what real men do, then how do we live? In a world where it takes two incomes to survive, where leisure has become a business, and playing is an industry, and where frankly, there are nearly as many opportunities to die like a hero as there once was, how are men to be real men.
Well, this may be the longest blog I’ve ever written so let me just give you three examples. There are three men that come to my mind that I would call real men. Three men, fairly obscure that frankly I would be proud to pattern my life after. They are Sammy, Jerry, and Pa.
Sammy is my step-father. He is a good man. A simple man with simple tastes. And he works. As long as I have known Sammy he has worked hard. Getting up early every morning, rain or shine, being on the job long before other men punched in, and staying to clean everything up long after others were gone. Nashville Wire, Krogers, Sammy has worked hard and always taken great pride in his work. I can’t tell you how many times he has been named employee of the month or the year. The wall above his tool bench in the garage is covered with plaques. He is a hard worker.
In fact, Sammy works too hard to be doing it for some company. I think he works too hard to even be doing it for the money. Somewhere, deep inside Sammy there seems to be this conviction that the way he works is a reflection of his character as a man, as a Christian man. He may not be eloquent. He doesn’t get up and sing in church. But everyday Sammy testifies to the integrity of God by the way he gives his very best effort to his work. He is a living expression of, “Do all that you do as unto the Lord.”
Jerry is my cousin. And Jerry plays. He is one of the funniest people I know and I come from a family full of funny people. (And some of us that just think we are.) Jerry’s funny is soft, understated, self-effacing, just enjoying the situation kind of funny. He brings a smile and a chuckle into every circumstance. He brightens a room by walking in it. And he laughs so that he can help you laugh.
Jerry has seen his share of hard knocks. His job hasn’t always gone great. His dad died when he was way too young. He has dealt with disappointment and disability. But he has always played. Dancing on a desk when Ann (his wonderful wife) was worried about finances, putting a dead bird in the salad when his mother was taking things to seriously, and giving me a coke tab instead of a wedding ring during my wedding, (he was my best man), Jerry has taught me to play my whole life.
But Jerry doesn’t play because he doesn’t care. He cares deeply. No, I think he plays because he trusts. I think he is so sure that God is able, that God is in control, that he is willing to relax and leave the outcome to the One Man who can make a difference. “And our God is able to do exceeding, abundantly more than we can think or imagine.” If that is true then we should feel free to play.
Finally, Pa is an example of a real man to me. Pa dies. Now Pa by the way is 124 (at least it seems he’s been around that long. Actually, Pa is 87 and his name is not Pa. His name is Charles Cantrell and he is my father-in-law. He is a good, deeply devoted, Godly old man. And he dies, daily. As long as I have know him, well over three decades, he has given his life to God and to others without reservation. He is a walking example of, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live.”
Every time I hear Pa pray he says, “Only one life, will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” And he lives that way every day. He has given his last dollar to strangers. He has gone out in the middle of the night to pray with broken men. He has shared his faith and his heart with more people than we could ever count. He has literally given his life away for the sake of the Gospel. Not for recognition or reward but because He just loves Jesus. He dies like a man in all that he does.
Well, in these three men, and in dozens of others that have spoken into my life I am beginning to see what makes a man a man. And I hope I am beginning to find a model to try to embrace in my own life. I want to work well, play hard, and die for the Kingdom. If I do then perhaps my sons can look at me and say, “He is a man.”

I Know

2009-05-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

On Monday I wrote in the Branches Newsletter http://www.branchesrecoverycenter.com/ about the need to know and be known. I call that intimacy and I believe it drives the heart of men and women in the choices they make, the goals they set, and the desires they follow. That's why we Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. To be known is why we join groups, buy BMW's, and do Jenny Craig. For kids, the need to be known leads to piercings, sexting, and drooping pants.
But as hard as we fight to be known, we may strive even more to know. The quest to know, to really be sure, is the constant in the human struggle. We live as post-postmoderns. The postmodern said, "We cannot know." Now we say, "I want to." Skepticism, doubt, and the agnostic are no longer in vogue. We have become again searchers, seekers of the truth, people who want desperately to know.
So how do we know that we know? Well, I don't know. There are sometimes I am so sure about things. I am convinced I have this all figured out. I really, really have the answer (or answers.) But other times, usually at 2 o'clock in the morning. My eyes open wide and a tiny, terrified voice in me says, "I don't know."
Take just one piece of this knowing stuff for instance, the Jesus story. I mean, come on, a baby in a manger, walking on water, alive-dead-alive again. How can we know something like that? It seems a little far-fetched really.
Well, here's one thing I know, knowing is a choice. I have chosen to know what I know. And I choose to know Jesus. Everybody has to start somewhere. I choose to start by believing there is a God, He is good, and His Word is true. From there it’s just a matter of knowing what He says about who He is. In John 17 Jesus says, "Father, though the world does not know you, I know you." He goes on to say, "I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known." Jesus was just so sure!
So, on those days when I just don't know, and believe me there are plenty of them, I return to what I do know, to what I have chosen to know, "I know in whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that day that He returns." everything else seems to fall in to place when I remember what I know.
The things on my prayer list, I don't know about them. A little kid with cancer. A good man who is losing his job. A fit young man who is stricken. A pastor couple that tried hard and now it's all coming apart. A mother dying. A father leaving. I don't know...But, I know that Jesus loves me, that God is able, that this world is not all there is. That's all I know for right now, and that seems to be enough.
Listen, whatever you are going through, you can make it. God loves you with an everlasting love. I know that. Mike

Intimacy: Know and be known

2009-05-22T05:46:00.001-07:00

There is written into the DNA of every man the need to know and be known. From the very beginning God created man in community. He said, "Let us make man in our image." He gave man a name, Adam, and of all His creatures only called Adam by name. In fact God assigned to Adam the responsibility of naming the other creatures. Then God said, "It is not good for man to be alone." And He made woman. God knew that men needed to know and be known. Another word for that is intimacy.
Emerson Eggerichs in his book Love and Respect reminded us that only human beings are intimate face to face. Of all other creatures, God made us to "know" each other looking into one anothers eyes. This need for intimacy, to know and be known drives us when we are dating, moves us to the altar in marriage, creates a constant, subsurface yearning in us that can, when not fulfilled lead us to the most unhealthy of choices.
This sexual illustration of intimacy points us to another issue, men confuse intimacy with sexuality. We even use that language. "My wife and I were intimate last night." "Have you been intimate with her?" Men are intimate in order to be sexual. (Women are sexual in order
to be intimate.) But intimacy is not the same thing as sex or sexuality. The truth is that the need for intimacy is incapable of being satisfied by sex or any other human/physical means. The hunger is far too deep.
C.S. Lewis speaks of this hunger when he says, "We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives, chose our friends, or chose our work, and which we shall still desire when we are on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friends or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."
There is an insatiable need written into the DNA of every man to know and be known. And that need can only be met in a face-to-face, deep and dedicated relationship with the One who created us. Intimacy is a part of my relationship with my wife. It fuels my love for my children (and for Jon-Mical.) It moves me to desire strong male friendships. But true intimacy can only finally be found in my walk with the One who really knows me. Paul says, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of sharing in His suffering, becoming like Him as He is, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection of the dead." That is intimacy.

Good Friday Tornado

2009-04-14T04:37:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Good Friday, Doris and I were sitting in our family room visiting with some of our very best friends from Ohio. The TV was on providing background noise to the animated conversation of catch-up and the loud laughter that marks such moments. The weather the day before had been gorgeous with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the 70’s. On Friday it was a little cooler and the sunshine was broken from time to time by a dark, heavy cloud.
As we talked the television became more insistent and after awhile we were focused on the red swirling circles tracking their way from Spring Hill, Franklin, and Almaville directly toward Murfreesboro. The weather map was vivid with storm warnings and watches and a big TORNADO WARNING that flashed repeatedly on the bottom of the screen. We watched and the talk turned to basements, or the lack thereof, roof structures, and the Wizard of Oz.
Just a little after 1, as the sky was getting really black, our electricity went out. I don’t know if you know this but cable TV, satellite internet, and home phone service are all pretty dependant on electricity. Even our cell phones quit working as we found out later, the nearest tower was downed. It is hard to imagine that in our society, in the midst of the information age, that we could so quickly become so absolutely isolated. We were cut off from the goings on of the storm, the weather channel, and all that was happening around us.
We watched intently the black sky out the windows and the trees bending to the ground. There were no funnel clouds. We did not see cows flying through the sky. We didn’t hear a train. All we saw was ugly, angry sky, torrential rain, and a black TV screen. Our cell phones worked, not to call out, but to receive calls, we found out when family and friends began to call and text, asking if we were alright.
While we sat in the dark and made nervous jokes about squeezing into the bathtub with couch cushions (Doris’s 1st plan of escape) an F3 class tornado was hitting within a half mile on three sides of us. The national news later reported there were 92 homes destroyed, over 50 people injured and, both tragically and miraculously, only two deaths. We were without power for 30 hours. It took us several hours to get our friends back out to the highway. (I don’t think they stopped until they were all the way back in Ohio.) The road was blocked on both ends from our house and within easy strolling distance office buildings, churches, and whole neighborhoods were leveled. Even as we were going to the airport on Monday, traffic was being diverted to side roads and back streets around the rubble and clean-up efforts.
We have been amazed and humbled by the hundreds of emails, text messages, and phone calls from people that we love and that love us, checking on us and asking about our safety. God was merciful to us. Neither our home nor Branches was damaged in any major way. All of our family, Chonda and David, mom, Josh and Jennifer and Jon-Mical were unharmed. Jacob, it scares me to even think about it, was driving to our house from the campus of MTSU during the height of the storm and drove right across the path of the tornado literally moments after it passed. He said he knew he was still in Tennessee when he saw a guy in pajama bottoms and a camouflaged flannel shirt, walk out of a building with no roof, holding a can of beer, scratching his belly and looking up into the sky. Jacob was safe. Thank God.
Well, because I’m writing a blog and not a book I need to wrap this up. Here’s the message of the morning, the moral of the story. We just never know. We think we are so well informed. We feel like we have a purpose and a plan. We have it all together and all figured out but the very moment that we are “crying peace, peace sudden destruction is upon us.”
Now I figure we can do two things with that. We can spend our lives like Chicken Little saying, “The sky is falling.” Preaching gloom and doom and living in a spirit of fear and anxiety. Or, we can be busy about the Father’s business. I live in a world full of broken people, watching black TV screens and listening to cell phones that will not work. The message is all around them but they don’t hear it.
I’m not going for melodramatic here but I am reminded that, as my father-in-law always says, “There’s only one life. It soon will pass. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” At Branches, and in my own life, I am determined to get the Word out. Oh, I’m still going to laugh, and tell funny stories, and show pictures of Jon-Mical. But always in the background there needs to be an undercurrent of urgency. The storms are still coming and only Jesus has the safety we desire. Whether its demolished houses or shattered marriages, damaged roofs or hurting hearts, Jesus is still the answer.
The people I love, heck, the people I don’t even know, deserve my best effort, in the words that I say and the way that I live, at showing the love of God to them and for them. “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight oh Lord.” Or as St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach Christ and where necessary, use words.”
Now, that’s enough for today. I’ve got to go get Doris out of the bathtub and put the cushions back on the couch. By the way, we love you all.

Mike

Touchdown

2009-03-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

Jon-Mical is our 14 month old grandson and he is so smart. Yesterday Doris and I taught him a new trick in 5 seconds. We were listening to a worship CD and I noticed his little arms up over his head so I threw both of my arms up and said, "Praise Jesus!" You are not going to believe this but he caught it right away. He raised both hands up in jubilee and then clapped. HE IS SMART! The rest of the day every time I was around him I'd say "Praise Jesus" and both arms would go straight up in the air.
I couldn't wait for Josh to pick him up so we could show off this new trick. When Josh came in I said, "We taught Jon-Mical a new thing today." Before I had a chance to show of my toddler training skills Josh said, "Oh yeah? I forgot to show you what he's been doing for a week." He turned to Jon-Mical and said "TOUCHDOWN." Jon-Mical's arms shot straight up in the air and then he clapped and clapped. great.
I wonder how many times we are faced with new and challenging circumstances. Everything looks different and we are frightened. We turn to God in desperation hoping He has some new trick up his sleeve to teach us. Maybe there's some special plan that He has kept hidden for 2000 years until just this minute, just for us.
And I wonder if God is not saying, "I taught you what to do a long time ago. Now just do it. The same old stuff works today like it did then. Consistent prayer. Confident faith. Unwavering trust.
Doris and I read every morning out of a little book we love titled, "Jesus Calling." The verse for yesterday was old stuff. No new, fresh, revolutionary idea. Just the things we learned as kids in Sunday School. Say it with me. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path."
We are facing a new day. There are things in the world, in the economy, in our lives that we have never seen before. I have a new suggestion. Let's get back to the old ways, prayer, faith, trust. It works.

Mike

PS The story above may have been embellished by an overly proud grandfather. Hey, what else is new?

Hold On

2009-03-23T07:38:00.001-07:00

My blog today is actually an email response to a friend in ministry that is feeling the effects of the economy. He is frightened and discouraged over the inability to spin enough plates to takes care of his family and also build a fledgling ministry he feels God has called him to. Maybe his plight strikes a chord with you. If so, read on…

“Don't worry about sounding glum. I appreciate knowing where you are and knowing how I can pray for you. I know these are very difficult days and it sounds like the stress is hitting you doubly hard. We men are wired to be the providers and when that role is threatened nothing is more debilitating. You are in my prayers.

I wish I had a fail proof, "do this and everything will be okay" answer but we both know there isn't one. I can tell you some things God is teaching me in all of this.

First, I am learning to focus. When I begin to panic I start frantically running in every direction. When God has called me to do something I need to maintain that focus and work toward that goal. I can't give every effort to my ministry because I have to work hard to feed my family. My days are short and I am stretched thin. But, that is all the more reason to not give my energy to too many things. I work to provide a living and all my other focus goes toward building what God has called me to build. At times like these the thing I have said to my sons for years is especially true, “You can do anything you want to do. You just can’t do everything you want to do.” Paul said it best in Philippians 4, “This one thing I do.” Examine your activity. Look closely at where your energy is going. Regain your focus.

Second, don't discount what God is doing while you are on the backside of the wilderness, both in you and with you. At one period in my life when Doris and I were just entering “recovery,” I had to go to work for Tractor Supply. I can’t tell you how I felt putting on my little pink striped shirt each day and going to sell lawnmowers to young, yuppy, housewives, half my age and ten times my net worth. It was in those days of sheer drudgery and discipline that God did some of his best work in me. I proved to myself, my family, and everyone watching that I could be counted on. I learned the value of putting the one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing. Both Moses and David had to tend sheep before God could use them fully. That's the "in you" part.
The “with you’ part is that He, in those circumstances is still using your testimony and your talents. Come on, your email said you led someone to Christ. Most believers go their whole lives and never do that. If you starve to death tomorrow (which you won't) you have laid up treasures in heaven. You are a mighty man of God and that is true whether you are sitting on the platform of a mega church or fixing lawnmowers at TSC. God WILL come through in your behalf.

Last thing, I didn't mean to preach but I care about you guys, God will honor the prayers of His people. You know that better than I. I will put you on our prayer list. This Tuesday 279 people around the country will pray for you. You have a network of prayer warriors. God is going to provide. You have the privilege of being a great example of faithful living. Some people God can't trust so He keeps them hedged about and protected. You He loves enough and trusts enough to know you will stand strong in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition so He lets you be at the forefront of the battle because He knows He can use you for His glory. Somewhere He is whispering to another struggling soul today, "Look at my man over there. He doesn't quit." And that soul is encouraged through you. You are Hebrews 11 material. This season in your life is You are Hebrews 11 material. This season in your life is Hall of Faith kind of stuff. If God is who He says He is, (and He is) and you are who He says you are, (and you are) then we know that “all things work together for good.” Don’t even think about giving up. We who are watching you need you to hold on because it gives us strength.

Enough rambling. We will get through this. We will look back someday (face to face) and laugh at how wonderfully God came through. Doris and I will pray for you all today and each day in our devotions. Thank you for your friendship.”

And for the rest of you, “Take your stand…and after you have done all, stand.” You are an inspiration to someone, (someone like me.)

Mike

Geriatric Jesus

2009-03-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

“I wish Jesus had lived to be 60.” Isn’t that a strange thing to say? But a former pastor of mine, a man I worked with for several years used to say that all of the time. He was a little eccentric so I just chalked it up to terminal weirdness. Now, at 55, I’m beginning to see the wisdom in such a musing.

There are some things I would like to have seen in the Son of God. Every chapter of life brings new challenges. Every curve in the road opens new vistas. Wouldn’t it be nice to see how He would have walked some of the paths that we face?

For example, how would Jesus have handled the reality of a diminishing voice? Every time I turn on the television and see what’s in vogue, what is being talked about, where the interests of the populous lies, I am reminded that the older I get the less likely I am to be heard. Now I’m not complaining mind you. There is something nice about not having to solve the problems of global warming or economic meltdown in every conversation. I am at the place in my life where I enjoy talking about my grandson and that’s about all that is expected of me anyway. But let’s face it a younger world is listening to a younger voice. From Wall St. to Hollywood Blvd. it is a youth driven culture. Music, money, and mission are all dictated by the leaning of the young. In the most recent presidential election the political pundits touted what the “youth vote” was doing. Like I want the fate of the nation decided by someone who has barely survived puberty. (Ok, maybe I am complaining a little bit.)

The point is, would we listen to a geriatric Jesus? Would we have followed a Savior who shuffled along with an old man’s gait? Now I know we are all quick to say, “Well of course, it’s Jesus.” But I don’t know. We have been pretty fast to turn to the latest fad or give credence to the newest gimmick. Even in the church. Maybe especially in the church. All I’m trying to say is it would be neat to be able to get on Facebook and read the blog of a gray haired Messiah. Did I catch my pastor’s weirdness?

Well, here’s an idea. Maybe Jesus does live at 45 and 60 and 83. Maybe as He breathes in me and you, maybe as He gives us a voice, He is teaching a younger generation how to live with and in grace. Maybe my job as a rapidly maturing old codger is to speak for Jesus to all those young whipper-snappers and say, “He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.” The same Jesus that called me to arms at 20 calls me into his arms at 70. The Christ that drove me with fire in my eyes to win the world is the Master that teaches me with a whisper to love it. Maybe His voice is not diminishing, nor is mine. Maybe the work He has for me is as vital and as vibrant as ever. It has just changed its focus.

Well enough rambling for now. I’m going to go Twitter.

Mike

Coco

2009-03-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

Twelve years ago Josh and Jacob decided to get me the Christmas gift of my dreams. I have always wanted a chocolate Lab, a beautiful dog, as noble in its stature as it is gentle in its demeanor. Just before Christmas in 1997 the boys came walking in with a brown bundle of fur, complete with red bow on its head, and my heart was captured. We named her Coco. (Okay, so we’re not the most creative people in the world.)
If you know anything of my story you know that Coco has been an integral part of it. It didn’t take long for us to recognize that this cute little puppy, a refuge from the local dog pound is about as much Lab as I am British rock star. Her face lacks the strong, bull-like stockiness of a Lab. Her chest doesn’t have the broad, confidence. She is brown and she is big. Beyond that she looks a lot like an 80 pound Chihuahua. But she is mine and I have loved her for 12 years, as much for where she came from as who she was. She was a loving, thoughtful gift from my sons.
Now I confess it has been kind of a love/hate relationship much of the time. Coco has been the topic of many sermons and a number of fits of rage. She has eaten at least a dozen shoes, three tennis rackets, a gas grill, and the engine of a riding lawnmower. She has managed to escape from the most detailed (and expensive) backyard security systems you could imagine. And she is a master of the “I look like I’m coming when you call, no, I’ll runaway” maneuver. She can take me from patting her head and rubbing her belly to screaming obscenities that would make my mother cringe faster that any living creature I know. (She’s kind of like golf in that sense.)
Those of you (all 14) that have read my book, Failure and How I Achieved It, know that Coco was the topic of an entire chapter and has become for me a metaphor for grace and second chances. She was hit by a car 10 years ago, left to die, and I nursed her back to health. From that moment on our relationship changed. She lies on the deck on lazy summer afternoons with her head in my lap and we talk (well, I talk) for hours about things that need to be talked about but never heard. On really cold nights, when we can shame Doris into it, we let her sleep on the kitchen floor and I sleep on the couch in the family room so that she can see I’m close. (And so she won’t pee on the carpet.)
It’s been 12 years, one car wreck, and a lot of miles. Last summer it became obvious that I had to pick her up to put her in the truck to go for walks or out to the cabin. She has been getting slower and slower to move. And last week we took her to the vet. Severe arthritis. Bulging disks. Creeping paralysis. And that was just me. You can’t believe what he said about Coco. I’m not going to go all “Marley and Me” on you but the time has come to say goodbye to Coco.
A couple of nights ago I found her in the corner of our yard, unable to get up to come to the house. This morning I had to pick her up and hold her while she got her wobbly legs under her. She stumbles more than walks now and is starting to vocalize the pain when she moves too quick. Jacob is out of town. We’ll let him get back and on Monday we’ll take her back to the vet for the last time.

Now I can think of a thousand lessons in Coco’s story. I want to write about changing your ways, being accepted even when you don’t look like what others think you should, or learning to trust the heart of the one who takes care of you. Heck, I’ve preached on most of those and used her as an example. I could talk about grace, loyalty, and perseverance. She is a treasure of illustrations and object lessons.
I think what I need to say though instead is just thank you. Thank you Josh and Jacob for tapping into your allowance and your hearts to give me a gift that has lasted 12 years and will live with me forever. Thank you Doris for gritting your teeth and forcing a smile when Coco tracked mud on your carpet and wallowed dog hair on the sofa. Thank you neighbors for being kind and understanding when you called for the hundredth time to let me know she was out. (Except for that one jerk that lives at….oh, I got sidetracked.) Thank you Coco for unashamed enthusiasm and unabashed love, licking my face when I shed unseen tears, for listening to my stories when I was afraid to tell the truth, and for laying at my feet when it felt like I was alone in the world.

And by the way, thank you Master for loving me in the very same way, no, in a far, far greater way than I loved Coco. You have overlooked my messes, indulged my escapes into fantasy, and always, always brought me back home. You have picked me up and held me when I couldn’t get my wobbly feet under me. You have carried me from the pit of my paralysis to the warmth of your chest. You have lifted me up and taken me places that I could never have imagined existed without you. “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” Psalm 8:4

So Monday we’ll do the deed. I hope Josh and Jacob don’t get any ideas about where to take me a few years from now when my joints ache and I fall face down in my food bowl. But, when that time comes, as it will, whatever it looks like, I imagine they will tell funny stories and remember some of the frustrating times that I put them through. Maybe they will try to decide what object lessons to draw from my life and what illustrations to gain from my journey. There will be a lot of things they can say I’m sure. I hope they’ll remember the change, the grace, the transformation. I hope that they feel compelled to just say, “Thank you,” to God and everyone around them. That will be enough.

2009-02-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

I have an idea. It came to me about 3am this morning which is when most of my ideas come. The problem is that by the time the sun comes up and its bright enough to write them down I can’t remember my own name much less the idea. But this idea is different.
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. It was the beginning of the Lenten Season and for many Christ-followers a sacred and holy day. The tradition of Ash Wednesday goes as far back as the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah who covered themselves with ashes to signify their mourning for the nation Israel. In the New Testament ashes were again a symbol of the recognition of our mortality and death. And in the early church Ash Wednesday came to be a day of “celebrating” the beginning of the 40 days of mourning that begin today and climax with Good Friday, the day of the Crucifixion of Jesus, and then Easter Sunday.
Now in my tradition these holy events were less prominent and less celebrated. Perhaps we would think a little about Good Friday. We seldom considered making a life change for Lent and we never even discussed Ash Wednesday. Easter and Christmas were the two holy days and all we knew of celebration involved Easter lilies and poinsettias.
But yesterday Josh and I sat beside each other in a very solemn and sacred service that culminated with the priest rubbing ashes hard on my forehead in the sign of the cross. For the rest of the day I sat in counseling sessions aware that my clients were not looking at my eyes but focusing clearly on my forehead. Last night at Soup & Group my mother actually tried to spit on a napkin and rub the ash off of my face. That’s something I want to give up for Lent.
Well, back to my idea. What if, rather than a mark on my head, I put a couple of things in place for the next six weeks to remind me of just who I am in the great scheme of things? What if I tried to live just a little bit different for 40 days or so to remember that I am just dust, but such good dust that the Son of God gave His life for me?
So at 3 o’clock in the morning I had this idea, to invite you to join me in a very simple celebration of discipline. Here’s what I propose:

We read 1 chapter of the Bible each day from now until Easter. (That’s a little more than 40 days but who’s counting.) I suggest the writings of John. Start with the Gospel (21 chapters) Read the Epistles (7 chapters) And then the Revelation (22 chapters) Yeah, I know that’s 50. So sue me. Read a couple of extra once in awhile and by April 12 we will have read a huge chunk of the New Testament together. Everything written by John.
Second, we pray together 1 full day. Now you can do this one of two ways. Sometime during the next 40 days you could set aside 24 hours and just pray non-stop without eating or sleeping. I vote for number two. We can pray 36 minutes a day for 40 days. (12 minutes each morning, 12 minutes each evening, 12 minutes at night) Come on. You can do that. Think what a difference we can make by praying together for 36 minutes a day. If you skip Sunday’s by Easter we will have prayed 24 hours, I full day.
Third challenge, read a book. I suggest one of these three, Adam’s Return by Richard Rohr, Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, or Believing God by Beth Moore. (Doris made me put that one in) No really, for the next 40 days give up a little TV and read one really good, life changing book.
Finally, do one selfless, anonymous act of service each week for the next six weeks. There are about 1000 of us that read this email. That is 6000 God moments in the lives of people over the next 6 weeks. That’s world changing.

What do you think? Is this a good idea or what? All I’m saying is that rather than just give something up for lent or wear ashes on your head, that you make an intentional effort to celebrate God in your life for 40 days. We may not turn the universe upside down but we will make a difference in ourselves and in our little corner of the world. I’m going to do this. Think about joining me. Oh, and we start today…right after I take a nap!

Mike

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, the all-holy one, who gives us life and all things. As we go about our lives, the press of our duties and activities often leads us to forget your presence and your love. We fall into sin and fail to live out the responsibilities that you have entrusted to those who were baptized into your Son.
In this holy season, help us to turn our minds and hearts back to you. Lead us into sincere repentance and renew our lives with your grace. Help us to remember that we are sinners, but even more, help us to remember your loving mercy.
As we live through this Ash Wednesday, may the crosses of ashes that mark our foreheads be a reminder to us and to those we meet that we belong to your Son. May our worship and prayer and penitence this day be sustained throughout these 40 days of Lent. Bring us refreshed and renewed to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter.
We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

Focus and the Inner-Life

2009-02-17T01:44:00.000-08:00

Focus. Laser-beam, deeply centered, all encompassing focus is an incredible feat. I live in a world that screams for attention, smacks of distraction, salivates for confusion. It seems the call of the gods of the air is to come away and not be focused. And yet,

In every area of my life I am hungry for and in need of focus. To be present with my wife and sons, to be attentive to my work, to even be focused on my fun would be such a change. I am doing the one and thinking of the other continually. While I am going through the motions of the first thing I am busy planning the steps of the second, third, or fourth thing. So unfocused.

Especially I am learning, and desiring to learn to be focused on the Center of the Universe, the One who created me for Him, the only true object of focus. I am trying to take time, quietly, to sit in His presence, to hear Him speak, to sense His will, to be focused on His desires. And I am terrible at it. When I am quiet my mind races with my own thoughts. When I am active for him, reading, verbal prayer, my mind drifts to the daily to do list, the unfinished tasks from yesterday, even the score of the last tennis match. It seems the harder I try to be focused the worse I am at it.

So, where do I go? How do I focus? What steps must I put in place?
Here are some:
1. Study a life of focus. I am reading David Benner, Brennan Manning, Richard Foster, men who seem to know how to be focused on Him. Surely they can teach me more about focused, centered living.
2. Just do it. I am trying the Nike approach to being centered. I am at least making space for it in my life, waiting, meditating, thinking. I am going to just give myself a chance to be focused.
3. Relax. The harder I try…. Perhaps I can learn to just relax in Him and allow Him to bring focus to my very unfocused world. I am after all, deeply in love with Christ, I believe that to be true. He is certainly focused on me if I am not on Him. He knows the desires of my heart and in Him I can find the focus that I need.
In the meantime, where was I? Oh yes, I am going to focus the few, fleeting moments my mind gives me on living, being, and thinking as a God-focused creature, giving my self to his thoughts. “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Phil. 4:8