Saturday, February 26

God's calling......

“Coastlands, listen to me; distant peoples, pay attention. The LORD called me before I was born. He named me while I was in my mother's womb.” (Isaiah 49:1 HCSB)

I can remember last year at this time, tossing and turning in my bed as I pondered the question presented to me, “Why do you have to go to New York to work with the homeless?” I can remember finding the answer to that question behind the Red Bowery Doors in lower Manhattan, near Ground Zero and the Statue of Liberty, in the land of the ‘no-eye-contact’ people and cast systems that defy even the logic of their own thinking; Upper East Side, Bronx and so on. I can remember that special someone who helped me stay the course and travel to a place I’d never would've gone on my own. I remember and am humbled by her strength.

Shannon helped God awaken in me a realization of a future where the work wasn’t quite what I had thought and is definitely more extreme and more challenging and more terrifying. By encouraging me to go into that place, far from where I could effectively and quietly escape, she helped God present me with His purpose, His challenge and His mercy. And as much as I’ll miss sharing that teammate feeling with her and will miss the energy that consumed her and all those around her while we worked in the Mission last year, I look forward to the new teammates that are undertaking this adventure to be a part of the work God’s doing in the Manhattan bough of New York City.

I have a charter to do for the University today, a short three hour shift and then its off to collect a donation to support this trip from my Pastor of the church plant I attend on Sunday night . After that, its off to see my children for a few hours since they’ve been gone visiting their mother during their spring break and I’ll not be seeing them for another week as I go off on this mission’s trip and they get an extra week off work because babysitting didn’t come through as expected. Then I’m going to explore the relationship that I left hanging with Vineyard Church by participating in their “Rotating Shelter” for the homeless of Washtenaw. After I get home, I’ll pack the borrowed bag I’m getting and get a few hours sleep before I go to Trinity to ‘catch the bus’ over to WCC to get the rest of the team with Dino and Joseph, the other two drivers and teammates for this journey.

In a little more than twenty-four hours, the Mosaic A2 team will depart the environs of Ann Arbor Michigan for the distant, coastal lands of New York State. Some are old hands; Joseph, the team leader and Dawn, a few others. The majority are ‘newbies’ who bring talents and skills to this year’s team that make it as unique and God-designed as last year’s was.

Keep us in your prayers, both for the trip there and the arrival.

I think I hear the faint call of God beckoning me to those Red Doors.

Thursday, February 24

Team Mosaic Bowery bound

“Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and wondrous things you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3 HCSB)

It is three days and a wake up call before the Mosaic A2 group departs the Michigan boundaries for the great state of New York and the lower Manhattan bowers where the Bowery Mission is to serve for a week in the homeless program there. Last year, being the ‘naïve’ innocent I was, I wasn’t ready for the impact that God would deliver in that place…..where I was confronted with His love, grace and mercy in such ways that I was humbled and broken by the time I left. This year, knowing the power of God to transform lives and hearts makes me nervous and challenged.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” was nicely stickered on the back of a vehicle in front of me on the way from the VA. It’s a quote from Gandhi, that Indian Philosopher that is celebrated for his non-violence doctrine and is oft quoted in context to Christians about how he likes Christ but not Christians since they are so unlike Christ. I think most of the time we are more focused on the change that we don’t realize that we have to be an embodiment of that change before we can vocalize it to the world. I have spent most of my Christian life arguing against the establishment of the human church to be a voice in the work that God has called me to. There have been those who have heard my ‘cries’ and seen the anointing and there are those who look first for a piece of paper and then the ‘signs’. I have given up arguing, for there is plenty of work to be done even without that calling.

Lately, I’ve just been stepping out in confidence that whatever God wants me to do, He’ll provide the proper credentials to do it.

"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." 2 Corinthians 3:4-6

I have written a few posts about the Bowery and the verses that God is laying upon my heart, knowing with anticipation that these are the things that He wants me to broach at the chapel sessions and totally clueless yet on how He wants me to do it. All in due time, my God is a God of last minutes because in the last minutes is where I tend to give up the reins and let Him do His work with my hands. After all, I am fully aware of how man can screw up even God’s handiwork. If you don’t believe me, look at His bride, the church.

We are leaving this year without a few of the dynamic personalities that made last year such an impacting trip but we carry with us new faces that have accepted the challenge of God to go into this place and be His ambassadors. We have no chance of repeating the major impact that the team had last year at the Bowery on that Thursday night chapel service where the walls were shook and the foundation quaked. Nor would I expect our team to do so. No, I expect that God will make a bigger and more personal impact on the lives and direction of those whom we come into contact at the Bowery and the team mates who are serving with me there. I am eagerly anticipating how God will shake a city block and rock the foundations of all who reside there.

Saturday night, I will be serving at the rotating shelter that is at Vineyard Church this week. Then its home to pack up and get a few hours shuteye before I go to pick up the bus that Trinity is letting us take to travel to New York to meet the team at the WCC for a departure of 7am. We’d love to have those who are so inclined either begin to pray for us or come to WCC to pray us off as we depart on this grand adventure for the Kingdom.

Maybe this time I’ll even come back with all my clothes……..

Tuesday, February 22

A noble work

"This saying is trustworthy: "If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work." An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher, not addicted to wine, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy-- one who manages his own household competently, having his children under control with all dignity. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's church?) He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and fall into the condemnation of the Devil. Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the Devil's trap." (1st Timothy 3:1-7 HCSB)

These verses were given to me to ‘chew on’ and seek some answers to some questions prompted by my mentor. The thing that hits me first is that anyone aspiring to be an overseer (pastor, elder, leader in the Christian body) is seeking a noble thing, something that is of worthy note and trustworthy to say of those whom have this ‘affliction of the Spirit.’ And, that prompts me to ask the obvious question of who wouldn’t want to pursue ‘noble’ work in the community of Christ. It strikes me though, as I remember the reading I’m doing of Timothy Keller’s “The Prodigal God” that sometimes our intention in doing the ‘noble work’ is nothing more than a ‘what can I get’ elder brother entitlement.

Of course, immediately around this corner of praise for the desire to do ‘noble work’ comes the roadblock I’ve dealt with most of my life; the ‘above reproach’ or ‘blameless’ in other translations. I am far from being blameless in my eyes; I still struggle and commit sins (I will never be totally perfect). I am far from an ‘ideal’ overseer if this is the case, well beyond my ‘nobility of purpose.’ And it depresses me. The Free Dictionary defines blameless as an adjective meaning free of guilt and not subject to blame. The Thesaurus adds inculpable, irreproachable or unimpeachable to the words similar to blameless. Vincent’s Word Studies give what I think is the best definition….without reproach: one who cannot be laid hold of : who gives no ground for accusation.” Can I say that I have given no ground for accusation? There is a difference between being accused and giving a reason to be accused.

The husband of one wife is an easy one, even with the divorce in my life from my ex. I am grounded in biblical basis for the divorce and that is enough said. A friend has asked me if I saw a reuniting in the future, ever, and I had to disagree because of the differenting paths of belief that we’ve both taken since that time. But I believe that God can do all things and right now He has shown me in powerful ways the idol I have made of an intimate relationship with a woman that destroys His rightful place in my life. So, I can feel relatively ‘safe’ in meeting the requirement of being of ‘one woman.’ There isn’t any.

It is the continuing list that has me alternating between ‘respectful yes-s’ and ‘shameful no-s.’

Thinking about this verse, and the ones that are usually ‘thrown’ up with these in support (see Titus 1:6-9), just makes me wonder why I bother and why I even seem to not learn to stop beating my head against the wall of improbability and impossibility when it comes to the vision I have been given and the vision that many other see that doesn’t even come close. Why do I dream of lofty places when most people think I belong down in the valleys? Not saying that my mentor does, but that’s the context in which these verses have been presented to me in the past.

I am not overseer material, apparently.

I do not dream of buildings with my name upon the entrances, plaques strewn about the hallways of commerce or avenues of merit. I don’t think of books with my names on them that become the literary staple of college courses. I don’t dream of millions upon millions that lift my name up as the one major factor in realizing the hope of their future, the joy of their life and the meaning behind the mysteries that float in the skies of their dreams at night. I do not envision a multi-sited, mega-sized and incorporated entity bearing my character in its motions and meetings.

I dream of nobility.

When I think of a noble work, I think of a soup kitchen line of hungry people clad in clothes that are too threadbare and worn to be considered for sale at the Salvation Army and the greatest honor of being able to ladle food on a plate with a smile and a kind word. I think of clasping a new friend on the back of the shoulder, the prelude to a hug (for brothers don’t shake hands, they hug). I think of faces breaking into cracks as smiles light up their faces because they have the inescapable feeling that they are loved, that they are cherished and that they have been seen.

I have been there, where the people of the Bowery Mission are and what they have faced. I have seen addictions like they have, I have experienced sorrow so deep it transforms a life once so full of joy as they have and I have been homeless as some of them still will be. I have been at the wits end of my life, trying suicide to stop the pain and watched the world gang up on me to consume me and I have swallowed the bitter pill of realizing that I cannot even do that. I have been where they are living and what they have going through.

I dream of them experiencing the hope I have found and seeing the transformation of the world as I have through the eyes of a Savior. I dream of seeing the hope renewed daily in their eyes as they feel the big, hairy and massive arms of a Father wrapped around them as His robe is thrown over their shoulders and a fatted calf is sacrificed for a big party.

I dream of standing outside the Pearly gates of Heaven and smiling as they pass by to feast at their Father’s banquet, not for some recognition in their faces or a kind word in passing but to see them once again coming home to their Mansions and no more wants. I dream of rattling off their names; Raymond, Cuba, Johnny, Peter, Marvin, Chris, Jose, Joshua, Irvin, Bobby, Ernie, Carl, Sory, Allen, Ezequiel, Cyde and Johnathan and seeing that hope dawning forever in their faces as they are greeted by Jesus and surrounded by those who love and cherish them.

Titles and positions can be thrown into the dirt over the chance to do such noble work. The rest is relative.

A canvas

“But you are our letter, and you are in our hearts for everyone to read and understand. You are like a letter written by Christ and delivered by us. But you are not written with pen and ink or on tablets made of stone. You are written in our hearts by the Spirit of the living God.” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3 CEV)

The time grows closer when I’ll be returning to New York’s lower Manhattan to be part of the continuing work led by Tom and the people of the Bowery Mission to reach out to the homeless community in the New York area. I grow alternately excited and nervous, joyful and fearful, as it approaches. There will be friends made from last year still in the program there and there will be new faces flushed with the acknowledgement of God’s hand upon them. Some of the community that is served at the Bowery will be the same, a year older and worn by their experiences on the streets and some will not be returning…..their time on this world having passed. That is why I experience such range of emotions and feelings.

When I am praying at my desk, pondering over the words that God has given me today or the thoughts of a mentor, a friend or the words of my children; I stare at the red apron displayed on the wall above it. Listed are the names of the workers and the men in the program and some of those in the community who were served during our time at the Bowery last year. Joshua, Martin, Marvin, Jose, Cuba and so many others. The apron, which only had “The Bowery Mission: Rebuilding Lives since 1879” on it, is covered now in black marker with very little space left to display only red cloth. It reminds me of the sins redeemed by the blood of Christ, it reminds me of the men and women of the Bowery community who have begun a journey towards home and it reminds me of one other thing……a canvas, a blank sheet of paper and a empty picture frame.

An artist friend of mine in Australia doesn’t see a blank, white canvas before her when she begins to transform it into a work of artistic expression (I hesitate to say “work of art” because she tends to disagree, but they are). The ‘emptiness’ that stares back at her isn’t something that needs to be filled with nonsense, it beckons her to bring its unique expression out for those of us ‘blind’ to the wonder of its art to see. It is the artist’s talent and passion that brings it out with clarity for us to appreciate. In much the same way, the photographer doesn’t look at the picture and select any old frame to put it in but rather looks for the unique and most complimentary frame to surround the picture to which it has been selected to hold. Not so that our eyes are drawn to the frame to express the appreciation of its borders but to draw our eyes inward to the picture and the story that it tells.

To a writer, the blank page (lined or unlined) is not simply something in which to write randomness on, to draw simplistic renderings of the world around them but to write a story…a letter to those whom they know of a beautiful story of events, people and places to take the reader upon a journey into that story so they may enjoy the beauty and splendor of it as well.

The beauty of the canvas, the blank sheet of paper and the empty picture frame is that once they are filled with the essence of what they were meant to convey, they can be viewed by anyone and the expression of the joyful story explained by the artist is open for everyone to enjoy.

I don’t go to the Bowery to write my own story of what is going on there in the boughs of Manhattan….I go to read the story of God’s redeeming love and grace as expressed on the canvases of the community there.

To be transformed, to be humbled and to be challenged by the writing hand of the Father.

Sunday, February 20

A Letter Home

Dear God,

It was great to get to spend time with You last night, just You and me one on one. It is always a delight and a growing experience to me to sit at Your feet and listen, to be totally immersed into what Your visions cast and Your words bring to life. It is always with a heavy heart that I have to get up and watch You go on Your way. I know it is unusual for me to write a letter to you, what with the instant communication that we share nowadays, but I wanted to express in writing like I used to my appreciation for our relationship. A permanent record of what I feel for You and what You are doing in my life, through my life and with my life. Much like Your record of love letters You've written to me that I call the Bible.

Remember all the times You told me that I had to be ‘like a child’ in my pursuit of You? That such simplicity would be the only way I’d enter the Heavenly gates? I’ve never really understood that until tonight, as You spoke to me through the “Letters to God” movie. Tyler was both physically and spiritually a child in his relationship with You. A child dying of cancer who had lived more than I have as an adult. Although there was no indication of Your answering him, in the end lying in front of him on that stage were the results of the work You had set his hands to and it was beautiful. It is there that I realized what You meant by ‘as a child.’ The simplicity of faith in a world that denies it unless it is instantly proven.

You have brought me far on this journey home and there is not a moment of true depreciation that I’ve ever experienced, though sometimes in the darkness after the campfire burns low and the night falls silent I may have quailed before the enormous size of the task at hand. You have shaped me and molded me into a warrior with a cause, a special operations member of a team designed to fight in the darkness for those lost. Help me, my Friend and Mentor, to have that simplistic faith of a child in the tasks You are preparing for me.

You know those momentary distractions that keep me from a focus totally on Your work; the financials, the family and the daily minuet that carries my attention away from the true dance of the redeemed. You know that I trust in You to provide what my family and I need so that we can use what we’ve been given to reach out to those who don’t know you. That line from the Cars movie echoes in my head, “I elicit feelings in others that they themselves don’t understand.” I would trust that those feelings that my life and my words elicit reflect You and brings those people to Your gentle knocking on their doors for a relationship such as the one we share.

There are many things we talked about last night, my dearest Friend, and many grand adventures You and I have left to take upon this earth if what You said was true (and I have learned You never not tell the Truth). There are many titles that people will give me; Chaplain, Pastor, Friend, Father, Brother, Fool, Idiot and Disillusioned Man. Some will believe and see Your Spirit anointing me anew into the purpose to which You have set me to. Some won’t. But, just as they did with You, calling You many names (Savior, Messiah, Fool, Fake), I trust that You will carry me into the Will and Purpose of Your design as our Father in Heaven carried You.

You told me that You have enabled me to do greater things that You Yourself did while You were here on this earth and my mind cannot grasp at the sheer audacity of such vision. You said that You were molding me for that purpose set before I took my first breath upon this world and I still wonder if I am worthy of such grand dreams. You mentioned that there is still work to be done, still souls to be saved and that time is growing short.

I humbly submit all that I have, am and will be to You to use as You see fit.

I look forward to our next time where I once again can sit at Your feet and just hear You speak the Truth into my life to the point of overflowing so that I can in turn be a source of its utterance into a world gone mad with its own reality.

I am, and always will be, in Your service.

Love,

Jim

Wednesday, February 9

The Prodigal Father with two sons.....

“The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.' So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living……….But [the older son] replied to his father, 'Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when [the younger son] of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.' (Luke 15:12-13, 29-30 HCSB)

I knew this parable, now correctly identified theologically as “The Story of Two Sons”, as the Prodigal Son and have written on my blog about it. The worst thing in the world I ever heard was, “You are just like your father.” The first comment caused me, when I left home at the age of sixteen and turned my back on ‘The Church” to hate looking in the mirror because I was reminded of whom I looked like. Granted, my father was no saint and did a lot of things that were wrong but I understand him more and the wounds that he himself carried in the darkness of this world. Indeed, we were very much alike.

I left home at sixteen, boldly telling both my fathers (earthly as well as the heavenly) that I was done with them and would be a shining example of the problematic son that would only bring grief in the telling of who’s I was. A majority of my testimony I’ll probably never tell in one sitting because of the places I went and the darkness I wrapped myself up into. Much like the younger son, whom squandered the inheritance, I was for the majority of my life. I even squandered the financial inheritance my father sent me a few months after I left home. I was, in my opinion, everything my earthly father hated in one of his offspring. What I didn't know is that everyday my heavenly Father looked longingly down the road for my profile to crest the hill.

The greatest thing I ever heard on this earth was, “I was never, for one minute, ashamed of you.” I can remember sitting down in the living room of my earthly father’s trailer on the farm in Gladwin and telling him I had traveled up there to ‘bury the hatchet’ for my own sake, if not for him. I was tired of running away from myself because of who I reminded myself of and I was sorry that I had been a son of whom he was ashamed. The shock on his face, along with the words he spoke, was not what I had practiced for or expected. We didn't suddenly become close, hugging and weeping in each other’s arms and when he passed away a few months later, the intensity of the sorrow was partly for that lack of intimate love a father and son should have had…..but, that step was part of the journey I began to take to understand the man I knew as my father. To this day, I look in the mirror and thank God for the memory that presents itself to me of the man known as Ronald Lawrence Hutson.

I thought my connection to this parable ended there, but my heavenly Father taught me something in the last year that had me realize that this was not true.

Against my heavenly Father, I have been an older son too, especially in regards to the pursuit of His purpose for me. It has been a struggle, fighting the wounds of the past and dealing with the circumstances of my sinful life. I am very much older, physically, than my chronological age because of the abuses I once visited upon a body I didn't care for and the emotional scarring that was allowed in the darkness to tighten and limit my mental health. Much of the last year has been a ‘quieting’ of the ‘What about me?” syndrome that has haunted the lessons and discipling that the Lord has put me through, at my request, because I have surrendered all I am to His shaping. It has been hard, this redemption of my mind and soul, because I've struggled with the concept of love and mercy and grace…..and why, if I was ‘doing so well’ I still faced the struggles I did. Much like the older son, I wanted the bigger portion because I had done the ‘bigger’ growing.

The greatest thing I've ever heard from the Heavens is “"'Son,' he said to him, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.””

As always, I have learned, it is a choice that you have to make; both initially and continuously, whether you will remain outside the party in anger at the celebration of sibling or go inside to raise your heart in praise at what the Father has done.

And that is a prodigal move either way.