I’ve gotten awfully comfortable with God over the past year. As I learned how integrated He is with everything I do, I have experienced a great deal of peace as I stopped running, stopped pushing for more accomplishments.
However I find myself now facing some new things in life that could mean some radical changes to the structure I’ve gotten used to. (more…)
I used to be obsessed with being right. Being right about the bible, being right about the existence of God, and most of all, being right about proving all the godless unbelievers wrong who dared question my beliefs. A funny thing happened though…. I started to experience the love of the God I had tried so hard to defend. And I stopped caring about being right. (more…)
Over the past 12 years, I’ve developed some interesting skills. I developed the strang ability to mimic the guitar style of Stevie Ray Vaughan, arguably the best blues guitarist of all time. I also taught myself how to build websites in my spare time. Another computer related skill set I’ve also learned is the art of studio recording and video editing. To top it off, I was surprised to learn that I make a pretty good teacher on subjects I care about.
So here were 4 fairly disjoint skills that I picked up, and for the longest time I felt like I had a bunch of square pegs and my life was made of round holes. How in the world could all these things fit together? (more…)
Christians in high-profile positions of ministry have suffered some embarrassing scandals and marriage failures. I’m sure the reasons for this are very complex, but I’m going to take a look at an attitude that I think has contributed to it’s fair share of scandals and divorces. (more…)
"Can I have another shot of those eye drops?" I asked the nurse. I had barely slept the night before because my eyes were hurting so bad. It felt like a grain of sand under my eyelid, and nothing I did could get rid of it. I went to the emergency room the next morning where they put some drops in my eye that numbed the pain.
I would have done anything to get rid of that pain. I knew the drops were not good for my eyes in the long run, but I just didn’t care. Once I experienced even a little bit of relief, I just wanted to keep the pain away. Thank God the doctors weren’t allowed to give me what I wanted that day.
Sin is medication – Most things that we consider "bad" are really just pain medication. Most people feel a dull ache in their soul and will do anything to find some satisfaction. That ache comes from a lifetime of missing the one thing that can fulfill us completely.
The ache inside - Most of us crave attention. We long for someone to tell us we’re valuable. There’s a reason for that. We were all born incomplete. There is a need for validation, affection, completion, and affirmation that every single person needs. Parents, peers, children, and friends cannot completely fill this need.
So some people turn to Jesus. They’re promptly taught that the answer to that ache is to serve Jesus. To do good works. But they never really learn to experience God rather than serve him. They continue doing God’s work, thinking that in that work come fulfillment. But the hunger deep inside for approval and validation continues to hurt.
Is it any wonder that so many people turn to alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, sex, fame, or any number of other things? What do you do when nothing anyone says takes away the ache in your soul? If you can’t fix it, than you might as well numb the pain.
Addicted to numbness – There is a physical side to addiction, but I believe there’s also an emotional side to it as well. How many people get completely wasted because for a couple of hours they feel free from the cares of the world, and they temporarily stop feeling that something is just wrong without being able to fix it. To feel that temporary freedom becomes an addition. And pretty soon the physical catches up with the emotional and now our bodies are as addicted as our souls are.
Living Water – God is the only thing that can take away the ache in our soul. The feeling of emptiness. But it doesn’t happen by studying the Bible if we still view him as a far-in-the-distance God. Until we come to grips with the fact that he wants to be integrated into our lives like breathing will we experience the fulfillment that only he can bring.
Many things in our lives take hard work. Most of those things give us callused hands. If our walk with God is like that work, eventually we’ll get a callused heart. Unable to feel compassion, contentment, comfort, or conviction, we’ll settle for guilt, condemnation, judgement and anger.
It’s a good thing to stop every once in a while and ask ourselves this question.
A while back Lori and I travelled to Las Vegas. While staying at the Luxor Hotel, we went to a day spa. I had never been to any such thing before, so I didn’t know what to expect. One of my favorite things about it was the sauna, with eucalyptus steam. Sitting in there in the intense heat, breathing in the sinus clearing eucalyptus steam was a refreshing and restful experience.
As I left the sauna, I was sweating, so I went to the huge jacuzzi, where I soaked for as long as I could stand the water. Then I grabbed some juice, a newspaper, and just sat on a lounge chair by the pool for a good while.
I abided in that spa for just a couple of hours and it refreshed me more than anything else on that trip. Imagine if I could pack up that day spa in a box and take it with me anywhere. The next time I need a break from whatever is frustrating me, I take a few minutes to soak in the dense, refreshing eucalyptus steam.
How much more kind, patient, compassionate, and loving would I be if I could experience that anytime, anywhere? I’m getting to a place where I’m realizing that experience the presence of God is every bit as refreshing as that spa. It refreshes my spirit, my mind, and my soul.
Jesus instructed us to abide in him as He abides in us ( John 15:4 ). Should that be something that take a lot of work. Does it take a lot of work to abide in your house? When you sit down on your sofa, is that a lot of work? Do you have to earn the right to be in your house? Maybe your house needs some work done, so it does take some work. But Jesus ain’t no fixer-upper. He don’t need any work. Abiding in him is a place of resting, not a place of labor.
If we perceive our walk with God to be one that involves strain, friction, tension, labor, etc… we begin to develop calluses on our heart that prevent us from experiencing the fruits of the Spirit. We think that praying must be done a certain way, at a certain time of day, in a certain place. So getting to that place is sometimes difficult, but we strain to make it there faithfully because that’s what a good Christian does.
We work so hard making sure that no one else experiences any kind of inconvenience or hardship, maybe partly because we think God expects that of us. So our relationship with him becomes callused.
There are certainly things in this life that will require us to work hard. We will develop calluses to many things. We’ll grow callused to the shock of waking up early in the morning. We’ll grow callused to the cold wind on our face. We may even grow callused to the back breaking labor required to do some of our jobs.
But God is not our work. Our work is not a prerequisite for being in relationship with him. It’s important not to confuse the two. God is IN our work, but he is not our work. Our work may give us calluses, but God will not.
Some people have been building callused hands and hearts by working for a God they barely know for so long that they wouldn’t hear God’s voice if he spoke to them verbally. The good news is that there’s a place of rest for even those tired laborers. No heart is too callused that he can’t soften it. No spirit is so callused that he can’t break through.
Give your religious job your two weeks notice. You just got a new place to live and it’s already paid for.
I think that the way that we do church today makes it harder for us to understand how integrated God wants to be with every part of our lives.
Lately I’ve been thinking about what relationship with God really means. How are we to interact with him? When are we to talk to him and how are we to do it? How does my life here on earth interface with a supernatural being that I can’t see?