Tag: Hope

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More Reading Suggestions During My Sabbatical

JOY  – A common question, “If I have a foundation in Christ, why is it that I have trouble finding joy?”

CREATING OUR NEW NORMAL – God sometimes takes things away so we can either appreciate what we had or give us clarity to see what He wants us to have.

LET ME GET HOME BEFORE DARK – Joy and fulfillment come from being who God made you to be. It does not come from things you own, titles you achieve, political causes you support, children you raise, friends you have, or any worldly desire.

1 John 4:16, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

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The Illusion of Prosperity

I have been thinking about this for some time. I’m trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. I have seen firsthand the plight of the 40% of the world’s population that lives on less than two dollars a day. I have looked into their eyes, I have seen how they live. My focus has been on these people called The Majority World (Africa, Asia, and Latin America). God has given me a skill set, knowledge, and experience that He wants me to use to help these people in any little way I can. Today I look in the opposite direction. I’m looking at one of the most prosperous nation in the world.

Lamentations 3:19-25, “Remember my suffering and my aimless wandering, the wormwood and poison. My soul continues to remember these things and is so discouraged. “The reason I can still find hope is that I keep this one thing in mind: the Lord’s mercy. We were not completely wiped out. His compassion is never limited. It is new every morning. His faithfulness is great. My soul can say, ‘The Lord is my lot in life. That is why I find hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to anyone who seeks help from him.”

The story I want to tell today is not about The Majority World, in a small way it is. I was raised in the Midwest in a small farm community. Even though I have spent most of my life away from my childhood home, I still identify it as my home. I have returned twice a year, almost every year for a half-century. I have a vision infused deep within my brain of idyllic small-town America. It fosters a feeling of fondness, wholesomeness, and community that comforts me. This year as I sat in the park, listening to a local rock band sponsored by the City for “Fun Days,” I suddenly realized I was wrong.

THE GROWTH OF A COMMUNITY

First, let me tell you a little history of my home town. My hometown was established in 1836. A gristmill was built because the nearby river had a 15-foot waterfall that provided hydropower. The Illinois and Michigan Canal was to be constructed nearby to provide transportation. Unfortunately, the depression of 1837 bankrupt the state government, and construction on the canal stopped until 1848. The railroad arrived about 1850, becoming the preferred mode of transportation. The great news for my hometown is that industry grew with the hydropower and advent of the railroad. By the 1880s, raceways were built to provide mechanical power to the growing industry sector. By 1911 the raceway helped provide electrical power to the City. My hometown was one of the first to have electric trollies. Growing up, I still remember the rail tracks embedded in the streets from the trolley. Unfortunately, the trolley system went out of service during the Great Depression.

By the early 1900s, an eight-story Carton Factory was built provided ample employment for the City. Today that brooding brick building still towers over Main Street. It became the lifeblood of the community. It operated until 1960. The Federal Government finished Interstate Highway 80 just ten miles north of town in 1967, forever changing the traffic pattern away from my hometown. The power plant that used to power the Carton Factory, and my hometown stopped producing in 1989.

I was fortunate that I grew up in the ’50s and ’60’s when my hometown was called the City of Churches. It was a small town but economically healthy. To this day franchise systems bypass my hometown. All the drug stores, grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, banks, hotels, news paper and even telephone company are local family-owned businesses. We were a community.

THE FALL OF MID AMERICA

I should have noticed it. I should have picked up on the clue when the city motto was changed to the City by the River. I should have seen it when the Carton Factory closed, then the power plant, then the High School, and finally two of the three grade schools. But I didn’t. It was still the small town I grew up in and loved.

I didn’t notice that 100% of the students were now on the free lunch program. I didn’t notice that the shops along Main Street were now bars and Slot Machine Outlets. I didn’t notice that the once vibrant three story hotel on Main Street was now a flophouse for the down and out. I didn’t live there, so I didn’t notice that unemployment was a way of life; Welfare, Unemployment, Food Stamps were lifelines. People didn’t have careers or professions; they had a series of disassociated jobs, mostly at minimum wage. They worked off the books because it wouldn’t reduce their benefits. Working at $5.00 an hour tax-free was better than minimum wage at a burger joint.

That night in the park, what I did notice was a lack of hope. A dark future permeated everyone in the park. Even those with steady jobs felt the pain of their friends and relatives. The City was surviving but on life support. Without government programs, the City would dry up and blow away. Instead, the residence now made life livable with alcohol and more potent stimulants.  I couldn’t help but think of the kids. What was their future? Would they slowly die from inside like the rest of the City?

The decay of small towns is happening all across America. Of the 19,000 incorporated cities in the United States, over 16,000 have a population under 10,000 people.

MY LAMENT

I guess what makes this story hard is that I have no answers. There are four levels of poverty; spiritual, being, relational, and material. Politicians and governments concentrate on material poverty because it is easy to see and measure. They throw money and programs at the result of poverty, not the source. The foundation to recovering from material poverty is to overcome spiritual poverty. In Christ, there is both a hope for the future and a prescription for achieving that hope. With faith in God’s promise through Christ we start to better understand our true worth. We also start to understand the importance of not only lifting ourselves, but those around us. Finally, we create a material environment that sustains our purpose. With Christ-centered hope, anything can be accomplished; people fall back on old habits without it. Generational, systematic, cultural poverty was not created in a generation and will not be overcome in a generation.  Without schools, there will be no jobs, and without jobs, there is no need for schooling. Without hope, no-one cares.

It is a lament. I have no answers; I can only pray and serve. The results belong to God.

Isaiah 40:28-31, “Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? The eternal God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t grow tired or become weary. His understanding is beyond reach. He gives strength to those who grow tired and increases the strength of those who are weak. Even young people grow tired and become weary, and young men will stumble and fall. Yet, the strength of those who wait with hope in the Lord will be renewed. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and won’t become weary. They will walk and won’t grow tired.”

There is a great book discussing the complexity of poverty entitled “When Helping Hurts.” By Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.

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Peter Went Fishing

John 21:3, “Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but caught nothing that night.”

I was listening to Crawford Loritts’ sermon on Easter, and this verse stood out. I thought, how human of Peter. It is interesting what we do to clarify our thinking; we gravitate to our comfort zone.

After Christ’s Crucifixion, Christ appeared to the disciples where they received the holy spirit. Even though the disciples, Peter included, saw Jesus alive and touched the scars, it didn’t seem real. The disciples were heartbroken and disillusioned. They thought they had followed the savior of the world only to see Him crucified. How was this sacrificial lamb, resurrected or not, going to free them from Roman rule? They didn’t know what was next. They knew Christ was the beginning of something great, but they didn’t understand what that was.

John 6:15, “Then Jesus, realizing that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the hillside by himself.”

Peter did what we all do, gravitate back to what we know. We find busy work to occupy our time until we figure out what’s next.

HOW DOES GOD USE THESE MOMENTS

Interestingly, the following passages brought back two memories for Peter; one good and one not so good (John 21:6-9). First, the good; Peter first met Jesus when he was fishing. He had fished all night, not caught anything, and Jesus asked him to throw his net one more time (Luke 5). Jesus’ request is precisely what happened the second time when Peter went fishing after the Crucifixion. The second memory was when Jesus was cooking fish over a charcoal fire on the beach. Peter might have remembered the last time he smelled a charcoal fire; he denied Christ three times (John 18:18).

God from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived and does not waste energy; everything has a purpose. When Peter was at his lowest point, God brought back to him two essential images. The first was the joy of first meeting Jesus and his immediate dedication to Him. This image had to lift his spirits. The second was the image of his weakness. It was a backward glimpse of what the world would be like if Peter didn’t believe. It brought back all of the pain he felt when that rooster crowed.

I can’t speak for Peter, but for me, it would have reinforced why I have to hold on to the goodness of Christ’s promise and run from my weaknesses. It would be both a push and a pull; push away from doubt, pull closer to faith.

WHAT TO DO WHEN LIFE DOESN’T SEEM FAIR

James 1:3, “knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

We tend to go fishing. We want to break away from the uncertainty and draw close to something we know and understand. That is OK for a time, but just like Peter, it doesn’t produce results. It is nothing more than a temporary holding place to regroup.

Like Peter, we need to be reminded of the past. We need to remind ourselves of the great things God has done for us and through us. The glory of the past leads us toward the future. We also need to be reminded of what it is like to deny Christ. As dark as the world can seem at times, it is nothing compared to separation from Christ. To live without hope has to be the darkness within darkness.

Romans 8:35, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

HAPPY ENDINGS

On the way to doing something, you become something.

Christ built His church on the rock named Peter. If you are willing, He will raise you out of the malaise of your life. He will use all you have gone through to create an even brighter future than you could have imagined.

Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

God may not create a worldwide revival through you, but what He will build through you, the gates of Hades, will not overcome it.  The power you have at your disposal is incredible; we lose that sometimes. Always remember that you were created for a purpose. When things don’t go the way we think they should, we forget the redeeming power of Christ’s resurrection. When we become internally focused, we forget God’s purpose. We forget the why.

I’ve heard it said that if a person can understand the why, they can get to the how. When we understand why Christ died for our sin, we can create movement toward living out the vision. And in doing, we become the person of God created us to be. Whenever you feel the darkness closing in, remember Peter. You and Peter have a lot in common.

John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

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A God too Small to Love Me?

John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Have you ever said, “That’s unforgivable.”? Do you believe that there are certain behaviors you should not forgive? Do you have trouble letting go when someone has treated you poorly? We all tend to worship a God created in our image. For most of us, this is not intentional; we can’t imagine anything different or more significant than our experiences.

We try to squeeze God into a mold of our making. We try to define Him through our logic. We view Him as a better, more benevolent and kinder version of ourselves.

What if God was bigger than you can imagine? What if you could not describe God in human terms? What if that God was passionately in love with you?

This Easter, think about this verse, especially the last word; Friends. I am a friend of Christ. He did not die out of obligation or some misplaced sense of altruism; He died for me because I am His friend. We are not strangers in a world far away; we are brethren.

John 15:15, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

God chose us before the foundation of the world; that is incredible. We need to grasp the intentionality of God’s grace. To God, we are not just a member of a herd called the human race; we were chosen from the very beginning and are considered holy and blameless before Him.

Ephesians 1:4, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love.”

WHO IS GOD?

Adam Clark, British Methodist theologian and biblical scholar in the early 1800’s described God this way:

God: The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being: the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, and most spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made: illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can be fully apprehended only by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind.

In J.D. Greear’s book Not God Enough, he talks about God as the author of a universe comprised of three septillions (that’s right, septillion, three and twenty-four zeros) stars. His creation was not about cobbling together a few things; although that would be amazing in and of itself, He spoke them into existence. No flour, no eggs, and no yeast; just a word, and it was so.

Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the worlds (don’t overlook the plural) were set in order at God’s command, so that the visible has its origin in the invisible.”

In Exodus, God told Moses, “I AM.” God knew there was no human equivalent to His existence. There was nothing to compare God with other than Himself.  This is the God, who let His son die a horrible death, not just for generic humanity, but for me, and you, specifically.

“A God small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshiped” – Evelyn Underhill.

WHO AM I?

But can a God this immense care about a person so small? Can a God so powerful that He can speak the universe into existence have time for me? We are called His children, and as such, heirs with Christ. In looking at our insignificancy compared to God, we must also consider our significance because of Him.

John 1:12, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”

Romans 8:17, “And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…”

We are a chosen race, royal priesthood, and a holy nation. No matter what you have done with your life up to this point, you can start this very day to reap your heritage rewards.

1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

God, through His grace, had made us sufficient in ALL things at ALL times. All of the power He displayed through creation is available to you through His grace.

2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

He has provided you with the means of living in a fallen world if you chose to take advantage of what He offers.

1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

Who are you that a mighty God would care? He will rejoice over you with gladness and exult over you with loud singing. You are the object of His creation that you might glorify Him and thus be blessed through Him.

Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

AND YET

This Easter, remember why. God’s desire to fill your life with joy and peace is so strong that He would stop at nothing to assure it. The original sin separated us from the life God wants for us; don’t let your sin perpetuate that travesty. Our joy and peace can only be made complete through Christ. There is no joy or peace outside of God’s goodness.

Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Our God in His absolute dominion cannot fail us. He is infinitely benevolent, forgiving our sins if we follow Him. Our God is eternally self-sufficient in that He does not needs us, which makes His wanting us more magnificent. Do not worship your self-image; worship the one true God of infinite goodness, that can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind.

1 Corinthians 2:9, “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”

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The Redemption of Naomi

I went to Kenya as a member of the IMED team. We fund micro-businesses in impoverished third-world nations to raise them out of poverty; this assignment was the Riff Valley, about 90 km out of Nairobi. They were part of the Narok City community, where 85% of the homes have dirt floors and no water or electricity. It is the home of the Maasai. 

There are no security nets or entitlement programs; life is hard, to the very end.

MEET NAOMI

Naomi was one of our students and now the proud owner of her own business. She is a widow with six grown children; she is illiterate but brilliant. Naomi always wore a smile. At first, she seemed shy, not wanting to talk or make eye contact; most of our students, about half male and half female, interacted spontaneously. As time wore on, I got the sense that Naomi had an undefeatable steel core that would not be denied. There were moments when she made direct eye contact and, with a smile, seemed to say, “test me, I dare you.” She wanted to start a grain store, selling maze in the local market. We spent several weeks together getting to know the culture, the market, and the students. We taught them business principles, help them create business plans, and ultimately, if viable, funded their business.

THE TESTIMONY OF NAOMI 

During a lull in the activity, I asked Naomi how she came to know Christ. What she told me was a heartwarming story of redemption. Kenya, especially the Riff Valley, is a hard land. It has about 40% unemployment. Government support is almost non-existent. The average monthly expenditure for a family of six is twenty-five dollars. Naomi was married to a cattle driver; a cattle driver drives cattle to market in Nairobi by herding them on foot; it would be insanely difficult by American standards. For reasons that Naomi did not divulge, her husband started to exhibit signs of mental illness. Some of these signs were fits of violence and wild ranting. He has since passed.

Two weeks after giving birth to her sixth child, she reached a critical point of hopelessness in the midst of one of her husband’s fits. That crucial point is when we feel we must give up; life has hit us so hard that getting back up doesn’t make sense. scared, tired, and depressed; she had a newborn to take care of, children to feed, a husband unfit to provide, and no help in sight;

Two weeks after giving birth to her sixth child, she reached a critical point of hopelessness in the midst of one of her husband’s fits. That crucial point is when we feel we must give up; life has hit us so hard that getting back up doesn’t make sense. Naomi was scared, tired, and depressed; she had a newborn to take care of, children to feed, a husband unfit to provide, and no help in sight; she was overwhelmed

She went into the bedroom to cry, she laid on the dirt floor, entirely enveloped in despair. Then she recalled people in the marketplace speaking of this “Christ”; she prayed for the first time in her life. Her simple prayer was, “Christ, if you exist, save me from my situation.” What she said happened next is a fantastic description of God’s love.

REDEMPTION

Her testimony was, “And God painted a new picture of my life.”

The situation did not change, but her view of it did. She experienced hope. There was a calmness and clarity concerning the road ahead. It wasn’t about immediate answers as it was about knowing it would be alright. Christ would walk with her through this trial. Answers would come later. 

Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, believed that there is always one last vestige of freedom even under intolerable circumstances: it is the freedom to choose with how you view your circumstances. He said, “We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last human freedom – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances” Naomi chose wisely; she chose to hope in Christ. 

THE CHASE

When you start chasing your passion, you soon realize it has always been chasing you. You will meet the Naomi’s of the world, which will confirm that you are where God planned. As much as God wants us to change the world around us, He knows chasing our passion will inevitably change us too. 

Philippians 4:8-9, “Finally, brothers and sisters, 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. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

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Traveling Partners

When we think about the concept that God has known us before we came into existence and that he created us for a specific purpose, it should give us pause. There is nothing we will face that will catch Him off guard. There are surprises in our life for us, but not Him. We were created for His purpose, not ours. Living our lives within His purpose brings us greater joy then living for ourselves. It is why we were created.

Psalm 139:16, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

If we are to become the person God created us to be, we must understand who that is. It is not a difficult question at the macro level but surprisingly tricky at the micro-level. At the big picture, blue sky level, we understand that God created all things for His pleasure.

MACRO LEVEL

God made us wonderfully complex and beautiful people. He has gifted us with all kinds of aptitude, resources, skills, ambition, and opportunity. All of this is for a straightforward reason; He wants us to glorify Him in all that we do. We are to do this from generation to generation. That implies we need to pass the word along to others to help propagate His Kingdom.

Colossians 1:16, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

We know that we were explicitly created for good works.

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Those good works are to glorify God.

Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Easy peasy, not hard to understand; execution is a little tricky.

MICRO LEVEL

Executing God’s plan is where I, and many others, get wrapped around the axle. There are two specific ideas that I need to keep in focus: influence and opportunity. God has given me a sphere of influence that changes over time. When I was younger, it was my playmates and schoolmates; as I grew, it became my place of employment, my children, and my community. But in each case, I was given a particular sphere of influence. I have come to think that my mission field is where God has me today. Opportunity is what I do within my sphere of influence.

Philippians 2:1-3, “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”

Life is filled with opportunity. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the main difference between a successful person and a less successful person is not the idea but the execution. We lament that ideas are a dime-a-dozen, but a person with follow-through was as rare as hen’s teeth.  If your spirit is open, there is no shortage of opportunity within your sphere of influence. The key is both identifying these opportunities and then taking action.

Once I started praying that God would open my eyes to the opportunities around me, I was dumbfounded. It was like walking in a forest. It wasn’t like people were walking up to me asking to hear about Christ; it was people reaching out for compassion and understanding. As a high D, type A, personality, this was unsettling.  I didn’t want to engage people at a personal level. I didn’t want to get sucked down into their everyday issues. I wanted a fly-by. I wanted to drop goodwill packages from an airplane.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

I found that I should take one moment to listen; no platitudes, no suggestions. I found that I did care, sometimes helplessly, but still caring. People don’t expect solutions; they want someone to travel their journey with them. They don’t want to seem alone. Sometimes that traveling partner has to be someone outside of their sphere; it provides a security level.

As a boss, one of my biggest burdens was not having someone to talk to when things got dicey. You can’t go to your employees and say, “I’m really worried about the company.” Sometimes inside our sphere of influence, we have the same issue; we can’t say, “I’m not sure this is going to turn out the way we want.” Our role, many times, is to be the cheerleader. When the cheerleader has lost their cheer, you can be the person to whom they can go to let off steam. You can be the pressure value that allows them to decompress.

As my career advanced, it no longer seemed strange that one of my employees would come into my office, sit down in a chair and unburden themselves. Sometimes they were people I never had anything more significant than a superficial relationship; it was just work. In some cases, my only contribution to the conversation was that Christ gave me hope in my life, and that was enough. I often told them to come back any time, let me know how it was progressing, keep me in the loop. They needed a traveling partner. My job was to take one more fear off of their plate, the fear of facing this alone.

We have a traveling partner; He is always with us. He will never abandon us. Not everyone has this. For those that do not, we become the surrogate. We are the bridge between now and eternity. In time we can help them become the bridge for someone else.

2 Peter 1:19, “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

Folks, becoming the person God made you to be is, on the one hand, extremely simple and, on the other hand, so complex and fearful. Remember, God has equipped you for this. There is nothing you will encounter that He has not already seen and prepared you for. We are aliens in the world. We were made for greater things to come. Don’t get stuck in neutral.

Pray for an opportunity, then enjoy a walk in the woods.

A wise man will walk across a bridge but does not build his home on it.

Ephesians 5:8, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”

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Lessons in Love

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” – Robert Frost

I was thinking about the essence of love. If I expected that being loved is the salve that heals all wounds, my life has been disappointing. I know what it is to love, and I know what it is to not be loved. Here is what I have learned:

LOVE

Love is the grandest experience God gave humankind. It is a drug so powerful that it can drive us to ecstasy or total despair. Love can make your brain forget to breathe.  Poets and musicians have tried to capture that feeling in words and verse since we first learned to communicate.  Zelda Fitzgerald  said “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” There is a reason we fall in love; it is a sense of weightlessness, a sense of being out of control.  The most confident man can feel inadequate; the most accomplished woman feels insecure. 

You, or I, can’t make someone love us; they must choose to love us. We can make that easy, or we can make that hard; that is our choice. If we genuinely love them, their happiness comes before ours; we would sacrifice ours so that they might have theirs. That’s the paradox of true love; to truly love is to let go. I know that from experience. I’ve had to make that choice.

John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

CAMELIA TOLSON

Accepting that we can only control ourselves and not others present us with another choice: taking the risk to love again. As we mature, we go through many cycles of love and loss. Some of those cycles teach us tough lessons about choices; others teach us lessons about life. Each of those lessons leaves a scar on our hearts. I have a special scar; Camelia (Isky) Tolsen. The Isky nickname comes from Iskenderian Camshafts – Camshaft – Cam. Guy thing. She had a twin sister, Pam, who shared a made-up language that they talked to each other when the comments were private. It was fun to watch them do it, even when it was about me. Her parents had the audacity to pack up and moved to Texas around 1966. I remember the year because it was the year of my first heartbreak. It has been over a half-century, and my heart still remembers. Love leaves that type of indentation. It is one of those scratches you can’t buff out; it’s crazy the sadness that my heart can conjure up just thinking about it.

Trust me, that wasn’t the worst; it was just the first. The nasty ones came later in life when I should have known better. I spent most of my life thinking that love was a transaction; you give, you get. It was a commodity you traded on the open market. As I matured, it started to look more like an investment with an expected return. My heart became scared and disfigured, each blemish with its own story.

Proverbs 10:12, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.”

THE LESSON

Leo Buscaglia stated it this way “Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love. “

Here’s what I know today; the way I have lived my life has left scars on God’s heart. All the times I have been unfaithful, chasing other idols, thinking there was someone or something better, left scars.  I now understand that I have caused God great pain. But I still receive unconditional love in return. God does not live in the past; that is forgiven, He looks to the future. He loved me even when I didn’t want to love Him. He loves me because He understands why I shy away at times. My goal is to love as God loves; that’s a tall order.

When we live our lives trying to avoid pain by not fully committing to love, we rob God of one of His most precious gifts, not to mention what we do to ourselves. We have a choice to look at our scars and remember the pain we went through to get them, or we can remember the relationships that made them possible; they‘re the ribbons and medals of past skirmishes that show we have lived a life worth living.

1 John 4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Choose to love; choose not to look for or expect a return. Revel in the euphoria of love.  Choose not to avoid the joy of loving to avoid the pain of loss. Accept that the greater the passion, the greater the pain. When your heart retches in despair over a lost love, it remembers the great joy that proceeded that pain. Don’t look at it as a transaction or a commodity, but a gift you give yourself.

Erich Fromm said it this way, “Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.

1 Peter 4:8, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”

God leaps with joy when we connect the dots. He beams with pride to know we figured out that love is not about getting but giving. And in that giving, we get a gift far beyond our expectations; we get a glimpse of heaven.

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A Christmas for Eternity

Mark 4:18-19, “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.”

Is your view of eternity a day at a time? Do the struggles you face today form your worldview? Are your prayers reflective of your needs and pain in the moment? I bring this up because of the year we have just gone through. Many of us have had to put our hopes and dreams on hold. Many of the issues in the news, and life, seem ever evolving. Social Media has made us “in-the-moment” people. Some of us get so caught up in the news of the moment that they lose sight of why they are here. We are here to glorify God from generation to generation.

Exodus 3:15, “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.”

THE SHORT VIEW

How we fight COVID-19 today is different from what was reported just a few months ago. The news about injustice changes as new information becomes available. Sometimes our worldview is cemented before we get the whole story. We worry about the economy as closures and unemployment rise. Our worldly leaders seem more intent on persuading us toward their agenda than actually solving a problem.

All of this drives us to a short term view of our lives and the world around us. We start to think that whatever happens in the next moment, the next week, the next year, or the next decade will alter our existence forever. We have to react before it is too late.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Fear is the great enemy of faith. Living in fear is looking at circumstances as if God didn’t exist or doesn’t care. Fear is trying to control the uncontrollable. Fear is looking for solutions that are human-made, not faith-based. Fear shrinks our world and makes us ineffective.

Luke 12:20, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

Who will benefit from all your worry?

THE ENEMY

Who is your real enemy? It is COVID, injustice, political leadership, or even poverty? Is it your boss or your neighbor or cultural bias? Or, might it be something that uses all of these to keep you from seeing the real enemy? Do not get me wrong, these are real issues that we should not ignore, but they are not the real danger. If non-believers bring about world peace and do away with poverty, hunger, and disease, are you better off? Short-term, yes, you are more comfortable; long-term, not so much.

We get so tied up in every day that we forget we are creations meant for eternity. Our entire life span is but a moment. A single day almost unnoticeable. It is real at the moment but not worthy of concern when thinking of eternity.

A Short term view of our existence is a tool of the enemy to convince us that God does not love us. It is one of the best ways that the enemy whispers in our ear that if God did love us, he would do what we want, God should address our fear with immediate solutions.

1 John 4:18, “We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might do to us and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us.”

THE LONG VIEW

Romans 8:18, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone” ― Pablo Picasso

Christ came for the long view. He didn’t come so that the Pharisees would be put in their place or the Romans would be run out of town. He even told His disciples that poverty would always exist in the world. He wasn’t looking to correct the by-products of sin, but to destroy the impact of sin itself.

Matthew 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you”

He died that we might spend eternity with Him. There will be no political parties or disease or hunger or injustice. These are of the world and therefore under His dominion to be eliminated upon His return.

Ephesians 1:22, “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.”

I would challenge each of you to divorce yourself from all news and social media for 30 days. I challenge you to only engage in gospel-based learning and information. I think you will find that nothing happened that would not have happened with or without your knowledge. I think you will find your world view has pivoted away from the temporal to the eternal. I think you will find yourself filled with more confidence and hope; concern and fear will decrease. The Bible will guide you in the due diligence required to deal with this world.

 1 John 5:14-15, “And we are sure of this, that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. And if we really know he is listening when we talk to him and make our requests, then we can be sure that he will answer us.”

COVID can’t stop Him. Whoever is in the White House cannot prevent His will. Nothing in your environment will stand in the way of God’s love for you. Stop fixating on things you cannot control and start fixating on the things you should control. Fixate on God’s providence over all things. God will protect your soul. God will prepare you for eternity with Him.

The greatest thing about you is what God has done for you. Live your life with the joy and peace of knowing that God has dominion over all things. You are safe within His hands.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

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Your Christmas Story

Ever wonder what the essence of a great story includes? There must be three or four critical components. There has to be a protagonist and an antagonist; you know, the good guy and the bad guy. Then there has to be a great adventure, an adventure that draws you in and captivates you. There has to be a dark moment; when the hero seems to be on the brink of destruction. Then there is the ending, a wonderful, thrilling, defying-all-odds moment that takes your breath away.

We were listening to a Robert Ludlum audiobook on the long drive to and from Missouri over the Thanksgiving holiday. Dr. John Smith was the protagonist, surviving death over and over again. Time and again, Ludlum had him in impossible situations, just to be saved in the nick of time. It got me thinking of my life and the most incredible story of all time; The Christmas story.

You can read the beginning here: Luke 2:1-20

The Beginning

Jesus was there in the beginning. He knew our fall, He knew our struggles, and most of all, He knew we needed a hero, not just an ordinary run-of-the-mill hero, but the Savior of all Saviors. The story of our lives is an epic battle between good and evil. We get to choose the part we play, just like when we were kids playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians. This time the playing is real, and the consequences of our decisions last for eternity.

John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God….”

John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

In the story of my life, I am not the protagonist; I’m not the good guy or the hero; I’m the one needing rescue. The antagonist isn’t life or the decisions I’ve made; it is the dark force that hides the consequences of my choices. Unlike John Smith trying to save the world from diabolic biological weapons, my story is God trying to save me from myself.

The God of the universe looks down on weak humans being buffeted by the plans and schemes of evil. For the average person, evil does not present itself in situations that reek of sulfur. Evil presents itself in everyday decisions that seem right in the moment. Many times sin will even give us a Bible verse to comfort us in our weak moments. Evil knows the story and knows the ending but pushes on anyway.

The Rescue

The story of Christmas is the defying-all-odds over-the-top ending to our impossible predicament. You see, we cannot save ourselves from destruction; we haven’t the power. I would go as far as to say some of us still don’t know we need saving. Without God’s intervention through Christ on the cross, we fail. We cannot be good enough to overcome the impact evil has on our lives. Christ is the only one who can reach down and pull us up from the abyss.

Romans 5:8, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This Christmas, we celebrate the birth of our Savior. Our happy ending starts in a room no one wanted and ends on the cross. It is not the ending we think of in a novel. It is not the hero living with honor and residing on an earthly throne. It’s bigger than that. Our protagonist not only saves us from ourselves, but He also conquers death itself. Through Him, evil is defeated, and we are saved for eternity.

Hebrews 12:2, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Epilogue

This Christmas spend time with friends, listen to the music of the season, exchange gifts, and eat great food, but take some time to play out your story. Take time to understand that you are not the hero of your story. I am one of the most fortunate men on this earth. I was born in a country of opportunity. God gave me everything a person could want. I have had position, power, and wealth, but I could not save myself. For all that I was, I was helpless. Christ saw me, loved me, and saved me.

Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

Christmas is a time of great joy, do not let that pass you by, but take the time to replay your story; you get to choose your ending, make it a good one.

1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”

Share your story of great joy and peace with all you encounter throughout the year, for we are truly blessed.

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