Defining Hope

Where there is no hope for the future, there is no power in the present.

But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, Psalm 33:18

And where is our hope?  Is our power for the present proportional to our hope in the future?  I have hope for a lot of things, but all those hopes should be, or are sublimated by my hope in the Lord.  And since this hope is a certainty, it provides a confidence that gives power for the present.

For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD,
my confidence since my youth.  Psalm 71:5

I know my hope for the future needs to be more Christ centered  That kind of hope is more certainty than “pie in the sky.”  That kind of certainty gives more power for daily life.  Maybe my dream is an idol.  I don’t know.  Does it define me?  What if a bigger dream/hope defined me?  One that gave me confidence for daily living.   And it allows me to be in relationship without constantly wondering if a person is going to fulfill the dream that I have.

You Are Not a Recruit Any More.

“It has taken the lord many years to break me down to the point where i have even a little humility to hear the truth and maybe try to apply it painfully to my life.”

I wrote this sentence in response to a little praise I received this weekend.  It is great to know that I can be an encouragement to others, and that my writing may be a blessing to my readers.  It is very humbling.

I have written before about serving despite my feelings of unworthiness. Yes, I am a hairy stinker that stumbles and falls but my identity is in Christ.  I see another attack here that can keep one from serving.  Maybe it is the flip side of the same coin, but I feel like it applies differently.  If Satan is not able to cripple us by reminding us of what hairy stinkers we are, and we fight our way forward through the hail of arrows, then what is the next attack?

I think it comes at the time of transition when we realize, “Hey God is using me to do something good.”  We begin to receive a little recognition or praise.  At this point a little false humility creeps in, maybe not false, but humility based again in my past identity as a sinner rather than my current identity in Christ.   At some point a man must stop acting like a recruit and start acting like a soldier.  And at some point that soldier may become an officer.

The Undiscovered Country of the Princess

I had a conversation last night that I want to continue today.    Cat posted a little snippet of an IM conversation she had, and asked if it was true. The question was can men really be monogamous?  A friend of hers suggested not.  She has an impressive list of things she is willing to do for her man, but is not so sure the effort is worth it if he is not going to be faithful.  My answer goes back to my post in February about Miss Right. It is all about the mystery.  I tend to fall into Eldredge speak when thinking about these things.  Think about the masculine qualities of God,  man has those things in miniature except with more than a dash of sin to mess things up.  He is wild and dangerous, an explorer and conqueror.  If he feels that he has fully explored the woman he is with, he is going to look for the undiscovered country, or he will become complacent in his attitude towards her, or both.   Now here is where I can feel female readers starting to bristle… It is her job to keep him wondering, “what is she thinking?”  Think about the great women in history and legend.  Strong and capable, mysterious and desirable.  Cat referred to this as being a Diva.  I tend towards the knight and princess thing myself.

I think of it more in terms of understanding your position in God’s creation.   He is mysterious, we can spend a lifetime exploring the character of God.  It is to his glory for us to use our intelect to explore him.  There is a reason He does not just hand us a full revelation of Himself when we become a Christion.  Being mysterious and exploring the mystery are two sides of the same character. A lot of these questions come from a lack of security in who we are.  This goes for men and women.   If our marriage reflects the relationship between Christ and the church, maybe the question should not be “Will he stray?” but “What will I do when he strays?”

I add that last question because I recently read a post that questioned the expectation of monogamy.  Yes it is required by our vows but we throw away lifetimes over indescretion.  We get so focused on this one area of sin, does God do that?  Yes it has consequences, but what do you think?

Be Be Be Be Be Be Be maybe get to do.

I feel like I should just cut and post Romans 6-8 here and be done.  So many of the things I have written about in the last year are things I have struggled with throughout my life.  Many of the principles at work are things that I have always given mental assent to.  If not for Christ I would be a monster.  By grace, I am saved, regenerated, renewed.  I know I have written this before, but it is the only thing.

There is nothing else.  I am beginning to know it.  I will probably always be beginning to know it.  Most likely I will die knowing that I have just barely scratched the surface of the depths of God’s love for me.  Knowing grace is the key.  I need to let it flow through me.  If it is not flowing through me, do I really know it?

I fail often.  When I fail I apologize.  I ask forgiveness.  Some have said that my failures are a sign that I do not know it, do not mean it, am not really trying to live it.  The key is what I do with that failure.  I can internalize it, beat myself up for days, weeks or years, or I can give it to the Lord and move ahead.  Yes I fail, yes I will probably fail again tomorrow.  I have only truly failed if I am turned away from Christ by my failure.  I must keep pressing on.  Even if sometimes all I am doing is leaning into the wind that blows against me.

It is so simple it makes me want to pound the keyboard.

All for Faith

Jesus let Lazarus die.

The Power of Words

Here is an excellent video about the power of our words and how to deal with the hurt that other’s words have caused us.  Have You Been Hurt By Words?

I am one who has used words in the past to hurt others.  I struggle still to keep from swinging that sword.  I know that I will always have this struggle, but I am grateful for the way God has been turning my heart.

Transparency, Transparency, Transparency

The gift of presence is a rare and beautiful gift To come unguarded, undistracted, and be fully present and fully engaged with the one whom we are with. Have you noticed in reading the Gospels that people enjoyed being around Jesus? They wanted to be near him – to share a meal, take a walk, have a lingering conversation. It was the gift of his presence. When you were with him, you felt he was offering you his heart. When we offer our unguarded presence, we live like Jesus. And we invite others to do the same.

This quote from Captivating by John Eldridge, is aimed at women, but I could not help but apply it to our lives together as men.  I am often so distracted by my own problems that I do not make myself present to listen to the man in front of me.  It is always rewarding when I manage to  “Stop, Look, and Listen” (good sermon title).  When I find myself with a brother who is truly seeing and hearing me, I need to be prepared to offer myself unguarded, not my self, but God in me.  In the end it all comes down to three words…Transparency, Transparency, Transparency.

Drive Time Ramblings

Driving in to work this morning I witnessed a great sunrise in a clear blue sky.  It refreshed my heart to breath the clear cool air and enjoy the lightening sky.  It is a simple pleasure, but as I write, I recognize the massive complexity that is involved in those moments of pleasure.  God sustains it all by his word and will.  He is actively involved in making it happen and more than that, he recognizes and responds to the pleasure that each person takes in his work.  How great is our God.

Relationship asking

I have been getting a lot of reading about prayer lately.  Reading Yancey’s book on prayer, and the last few days Oswald Chambers has been about prayer as well.  I was thinking about all the things we pray, for which we already know the answer.  Our children do the same thing.  They come and ask for a treat too close to dinner time, or a glass of water too close to bed time or to go play somewhere or with someone that they know is not the best.  Since we are human and somewhat inconsistent, our children have some hope that we might say yes this time.  We do the same thing to God.  We ask for things that we know are marginal hoping that God will say yes this time, but God is consistent, and does not get tired of saying “No” to us.

Then I started thinking about the requests that delight me as a father(or at least they should).  “Daddy can we play a game?”  “Will you read to me?”  “Can I go to the store with you?” “Will you help me with this problem?”  These are the questions that I think God delights in.  After all, He has given us his Spirit and the Word to tell us how to live, but the relationship with him can only be built with time.

I want to share this lesson with my children.  I already recognize that I will have to apologize for my own shortcomings in this area.  At the same time, I am able to say that in the last five months I have been working on saying yes to the relationship requests of each of my children.  It is great to have something confirmed in this way.

The Impostor

My writing is below

The Impostor 08/14/2008 From the place of our woundedness we construct a false self. We find a few gifts that work for us, and we try to live off them. Stuart found he was good at math and science. He shut down his heart and spent all his energies perfecting his “Spock” persona. There, in the academy, he was safe; he was also recognized and rewarded. “When I was eight,” confesses Brennan Manning, “the impostor, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The impostor within whispered, ‘Brennan, don’t ever be your real self anymore because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know.’” Notice the key phrase: “as a defense against pain,” as a way of saving himself. The impostor is our plan for salvation. So God must take it all away. He thwarts our plan for salvation; he shatters the false self. Our plan for redemption is hard to let go of; it clings to our hearts like an octopus. Why would God do something so terrible as to wound us in the place of our deepest wound? Jesus warned us that “whoever wants to save his life will lose it” (Luke 9:24). Christ is not using the word bios here; he’s not talking about our physical life. The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for “life” is the word psyche—the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart. He says that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life—those are the things that will actually destroy us. “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death,” says Proverbs 16:25. The false self, our plan for redemption, seems so right to us. It shields us from pain and secures us a little love and admiration. But the false self is a lie; the whole plan is built on pretense. It’s a deadly trap God loves us too much to leave us there. So he thwarts us, in many, many different ways. (Wild at Heart , 107–8) To subscribe to this email, create a profile at www.ransomedheart.com/myprofile See also the Ransomed Heart Podcast at www.ransomedheart.com/podcast

I get this daily reading from John Eldrege’s writings. I thought today was especially good. I have been an impostor for many years. Only in the last couple years has God begun speaking to me about this in a way that would get my attention. He first began softening me up as I attended the Discipleship group on Saturday morning. Then He hit me with a big bomb. Instead of turning to him, I resented the intrusion. Oh, I tried to rebuild, but it was clear that what had been ok before, would not work anymore. I was expected to build something completely new. It really angered me that my world had crumbled. I did not like the amount of work it would take to build a new thing. I did not understand that it would be Christ in me that would build anything lasting. Instead I chose to live in the rubble, focused on the destruction that had happened.

Being faithful, God is at it again. This time even the rubble is gone, there is no shelter for me. I can no longer sustain even a shadow of my former life. Sometimes I see bits my former comfort off in the distance, and I try to run towards it, but it vanishes before I can get there. The only thing that is constant is the Light. I walk forward into the glare, hoping to find the source.