My reason for my seasons

"I have become a fool; you forced it on me. I ought to have been recommended by you, since I am in no way inferior to the "super-apostles," even though I am nothing." (2Co 12:11 HCSB)

It just gave God’s word to the seasonal theme of this time; not just the unemployment or the move to a different city or even the loss of someone that I truly loved but also the events that have carried me from that moment in October 2004 until now……bits and pieces of the work that He began way back in February 2004 until today that I thought were seasonal changes of my journey. As I sit here and stir the campfire in the dark echoes of the night, listening to the nocturnal creatures of its inky blackness, I have realized that there has been only one season since the end of the cold winter that began that February day. It has been a long journey and there are some who would say that I am no closer to the ‘goal’ than I was that October day in Chicago. Others would say I’ve become a ‘burden’ to the cause. Some will say I’m about as ‘godly’ as a addict or as ‘saved’ as a person drowning. Others, that quiet majority, have said that God is amazing in what He has done in my life, to this point, and the direction they perceive Him to be taking me on.

It has not been easy; this journey in the deepest heat of the summer past. It would seem for the majority of the trip so far, it has been through swamp and murky bogs….attacked by mosquitoes and pursued by bears. Always on the defensive, always working on wounds and new hurts and old recurring nightmares, grasping at peace and running to try and capture joy. Pursuing what I perceived God to be only to find that He was nothing like what I had thought. Seeking that direction to achieve the purpose He has set within my bones, that desire that seems to ebb and flow with the beating of my heart only to feel mislead by the directions and opinions of those who have come into my life. I have proclaimed the purpose He has called me to and been laughed at…..told to stop being foolish and do the ‘responsible’ thing. In several ways, by several people, for several different reasons.

I have been defensive in some of this season; fighting the perception of those both right and wrong, those who are lovers and haters and those who truly want what God is doing in my life, around me and through each of us. I have been offensive; fighting for the development of the purpose, seeking the ‘in’ to the ‘inner sanctuary’ though all the doors seem locked. I have argued, cajoled and calmly interjected. I have written, I have preached and I have volunteered. I have experienced the fullness of many opportunities and shied away from others. It has been a long, tiring and unrealized journey through this season.

And it boils down to what a friend said to me that I believe these verses speak from God’s own mouth. “I should…be…act…think…” has to be replaced with “God is” and that is enough. No longer, from the moment of my salvation can I expect myself to achieve, but (and he said this was from a seminar he went to) I have to consistently put myself in situations where if God doesn’t show, He’ll look foolish. In the absence of our own abilities and skills, where there is no rhythm or reason to the success of the struggle, the goal or the dream….in that the only thought that can be given is that God has done the work. We are merely the putty in His hands, shaped and fired to meet the requirements of the vessel for the Holy Spirit to fill.

I presented myself to the Church as a candidate of calling; there are those who have seen it and those who have not. There are those who, checking off the list of ‘requirements’ have forgotten the one sole requirement God has given to them…to disciple and further God’s cause in the call. The rejection of the Church has been a damaging wound to my life, but I have realized there was never a ‘Church-requirement’ of approval in the things that God has purposed me to do. Only my obedience and movement towards Him.

There are those who say I’m foolish to still dream, to still question whether or not God has called me to go into fulltime ministry……. If I am foolish for the impossibilities of God, then so be it.

So, now as the unemployment runs out and still no job on the horizon…..as the last of the money is poured into my gas tank for fueling the car…..and I face the coming New Year without apparent prospects, I wonder and trust in the provision of God for me and my family. I am awed by the questioning of my heart to pursue His big, audacious and hairy dreams for me or to sulk into a job to ‘just get by’ if I can.

As a pastor challenged his readers in an blog he wrote about “Daring to pray this prayer,” I can only bow my head in supplication and raise my hands in adoration…….and pray this prayer for 2011. For this is what God has taught me in the theme of this season…..He will have me where He wants me to be.

"Two things I ask from you; do not refuse me before I die: Remove falsehood and lies far from me; do not give me poverty or riches, feed me with my allotted portion of bread, lest I become satisfied and act deceptively and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or lest I become poor and steal and demean the name of my God." Proverbs 30:7-9.

It is my only resolution for 2011. What is yours?

Automatic Christianity

“Some people soon brought to him a crippled man lying on a mat. When Jesus saw how much faith they had, he said to the crippled man, "My friend, don't worry! Your sins are forgiven." Some teachers of the Law of Moses said to themselves, "Jesus must think he is God!" But Jesus knew what was in their minds, and he said, "Why are you thinking such evil things? Is it easier for me to tell this crippled man that his sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up and walk? But I will show you that the Son of Man has the right to forgive sins here on earth." So Jesus said to the man, "Get up! Pick up your mat and go on home." The man got up and went home. When the crowds saw this, they were afraid and praised God for giving such authority to people.” (Matthew 9:2-8 CEV)

I met with my campus pastor this Sunday past before the commencement of services for the congregation. It was the only time that he had, what with the upcoming move into the building and the host of other circumstances and responsibilities that befall a pastor of a growing congregation. With the work that God is doing within my life as He molds me to be an effective instrument in the call to His service and entices me to join Him in the abundant work of the harvest of which He has planted, nurtured and is preparing to harvest, I felt the need despite the other ‘negative’ responses from the church family to sit down with the pastor and speak what God had burden me to bring to his attention. Pastor Cliff is a dynamic and energetic man, with a passion that burdens his heart and has brought him into the position to which he serves the membership of the church. His brothers are also pastors, of the mega-church Northridge. His story would be interesting to hear, for the formation of the man lies within the story of himself. And I have come to know that there is no one upon the face of this earth that has not been wounded in a way or has been affected by the story of their past. It is either realized or not, redeemed or not, in the context of the larger story of God.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that I disagree with the apparent ‘building over people’ pursuit of the church in regards to the purchase and acquision of the property; Christ could’ve very well have demanded His disciples provide Him with shelter, food and other amenities that would make Him comfortable, yet He forewent such for the people…it was always about relationship with Christ, and still is today. And as Christ Himself said, ‘I can only do what I’ve seen My Father do.” So, if Christ was relational, then so must be His Father…and when a church limits itself to make the finances look good for capital building, when a body focuses more on the funds to furnish and remodel the ‘worship center’ of the new building, postponing a valuable outreach to pregnant teens in the local community…..well, I wonder if it is just another example of temple building and not a vision of God that has been suborned to man’s timing.

As I told my pastor, I am not in the leadership of the church and do not know all that is there in the process of this ‘vision’ and I am fully trusting in God that if, indeed, this is against His timing, plan or vision that He can redeem it and bring His full disagreement into undeniable focus. It is not for me to decide, though I will speak what I feel God leading me to do.

That said, I tried to give the pastor a bit of background to my story, for truly we cannot walk into a relationship with our brethren if we do not know their story and so it is vital, at least in my opinion, to know something at least of our brothers and sisters stories so that we can ask the questions that God would have us ask; What is He doing in this person’s life? How do I help this person grow closer with Him in this? I came to the pastor to speak a need and to see what he, as the leader of the church I attend, would say…what actions he would take….and simply to fulfill what I felt God leading me to do; speak out my need to the brethren and leadership of which I’ve submitted myself under. And, please don’t read into this, but the pastor offered more than what I thought he would and still gave me what I have come to expect within the body…..an automatic response.

If you have read any of my previous offerings to you, you know of the journey that I find myself on; one of rediscovering the beloved son that was murdered at the hands of his own earthly father so long ago so that I can become the father, the elder and the man that God has designed and purposed me to be. You will also remember the situation that brought me to the village of Holly and within the congregational body of the church I have taken membership with for the season that God has presented me with in this small ‘hamlet’ of Michigan. The hope and prayer was that God would provide the method and the position in Flint, so that I would be closer to my new home that He had provisioned for.

With the self-destruction and government intervention of GM and Chrysler, such hope is long beyond the hope of being resurrected, at least for the time being, and so I spend an hour driving to work and another hour and a half traveling home each day. With the loss of my friend’s above and beyond offer to help with the babysitting of my son, things have been hard. The children’s mother, with the loss of her father a few months past, has been pursuing work herself, so the typical summer stay with her has become problematical to say the least. The situation seems untenable, and so I went to the pastor with the need in hopes that he might know of a family or a couple that might be able to move into this need and provide some assistance.

And I genuinely feel that the pastor heard my need and gave some consideration to the capability of the body to fulfill, at least in the short term, it. He offered to bring it to a few people to see if there was a ‘grandmother’ type of member that would and could be willing to step into this for the time. All I would need to do is provide for the funding that their care would require. As for the longer term, the bigger picture, he gave the statement, “Though I am not in the habit of recommending that someone move out of a church, it would seem with God not opening the door here in Holly (i.e. job) that you should move closer to your job and/or a situation where it can become tenable.”

In other words, I should move back down south near family, friends or into a situation where my work hours and school hours are closely matched. It was, in his mind, the only solution and indicated direction that God had given for the situation.

But, even in the study that I'm doing with Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King Experiencing God: Knowing And Doing The Will Of God, such statements seem like an automatic and impersonal response to the personal trials and struggles that I face. Indeed, it is not only the pastor who has said it, but some of the brothers I am in ministry with. But even then, it doesn't seem to sit with what God seems to be doing in and around my life in the little village of Holly in the state of Michigan. Far from it, to me and in relation to my story, the opposite seems to be desirable of God's focus: the body moving into relationship with me rather than me seeking relationship elsewhere among another body. As one friend said, it seems almost as if by recommending movement away from the church I call home, it would create the ability to ignore the missed opportunity rather than dealing with the messiness of being in a relationship with a human being on a personal, real level.

As I've quoted from Blackaby and King's book, George Mueller (who built four orphanages that cared for 2,000 children at a time and over 10,000 through them distributed over eight million dollars provided through prayer and died with a net worth of 800 dollars) said of his method of knowing God's will:


"I never remember…a period….that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost (Spirit), through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have been always directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes."

Unfortunately, we seem today to require that God provide a clear and concise 'door' for us to move into rather than sitting patiently upon His revelation of what we are to move into. And God doesn't promise that the situation, position or job that we are led to is going to be easy or unsupported by others….He calls us to trust in His provisions and move in spite of fear.

I find myself not looking at the 'requirement' that God has provided in His silence as a need to move away from the church or the community in which I live, but am burdened by the sense of wonderment that God isn't looking to provide an 'open door' because He has already done so…..the door remains obscured because the people or group or church that He has appointed the task to is largely silent and automatically looking in the opposite direction.

Not through some vain attempt to ignore what is painfully obvious but because they automatically are looking at what hasn't been provided instead of looking into the situation, circumstance and seeing what God has provisioned for already.

Whether such a honest and God-seeking look would provide another response, well I think it is obvious what I think, but until such is done, can we really say that God has closed the door in Holly for the reason so automatically given?

Honestly, I think we can't.

The body met in the temple and each other's houses, fellowshipping and eating together….selling what they owned to give according to each need…without question, without hesitation….it is only when the humanity of the early church was brought into the spirituality of the early church that the corruption that we see in too many of God's fellowships today started. Circumcision debates threatened the harmony that once flowed like honey…and it set Paul and Peter into conflict that was resolved by one man's refusal to move into the 'automatic' response by aligning himself with the 'elder' apostle in his sinful error.

As the verse above hit me in the devotional time I spent today before hauling my children down to their birth mother's house on my way to the job……Christ asks, "Is it easier to say….or do the act…." And it is by the authority to do the more visible (albeit from a human perspective, the more difficult) of the two that He proves His authority to do the less evident of the two, but the more important. He didn't do the 'automatic', though I am sure that there were those around this event that knew He had done it before…….He moved into the non-standard expectation before He fulfilled the obvious.

And this isn't the first time Christ does it and isn't the last. So why are we, as His people, so bent on automatic responses to the brokenness of the world? And how much more effective, healing and a living testimony would we be if we moved in non-traditional, more personal responses when it came to the lives of those brothers and sisters in our immediate church family and the lives of the broken to which we are called to minister?

God is working around me…..am I the only one who is noticing? Or does my personal story affect my vision slightly to where I am missing the point of God's work? All I know is that as I grow closer to God, the more I realize He isn't an 'automatic' God…..but a living, breathing and involved God who calls His people to be non-standard in a world in chaos, to go into the darkness to save souls rather than run from it, and to be willing to die in order to live.

Sounds like a pretty none standard response to me………

Following the work God would do.........

I don't know if this is going to be a 'smooth' flowing blog post today.....God has me in such a disrupted state that I just let it go......The harvest, He keeps whispering, is ready and the workers few, will you join Me where I call?"

"Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls”" (Jeremiah 6:16, ESV)

Dare I hope that the day has come where I see the positive movement of God within the context of my story, no longer at the behest of the writer but through the hand of the Ghost writer that has been writing the whole breathe and width of the human story since its inception at the breath of God into the formed lump of clay?

If so, the vision is unlike the shape and color of that moment in October where I heard the LORD speak to me as Gene Apell stood upon the stage at the mega-church of Bill Hybels and spoke of his ministry; neighborhood communities. Being so newly minted into the new creature that God enables upon rebirth, I find it funny sometimes how convinced, convicted and even 'rejectful' of that moment in time, a scant eight months since the experience that would forever change my life's direction and would bring me into full view of the enemy's ill will, that I was.

It surely hasn't translated into assurance, edification and mentoring in the whole-wide body of Christ, even five years plus later....except in those 'pockets' of believers that have stepped into the messiness of life and seen the mark of God's annointing, that band of brothers, and sisters, who move into the messiness of life with more than just words of life but a positive movement that speaks louder than words could ever convey.

A faint glimpse that powerful October call seems to be now; the width and depth of the need within the body of Christ, not just worldwide but especially within the 'hallowed halls' of the westernized church that is slowly dying in the postmoderistic, universalist and agenda-ridden environment of the American experience has never seemed to be more in need of those faithfully called to ministry and yet so rejectful of those so called. "A prophet is not welcomed in his own town" has rang true throughout my experience here at home in the land of my birth.

The barely understood journey from the beloved boy that God created who was killed in his infancey to the godly man; still forming, still growing and still wounded as he faces that death and finds God's restorative, resurrecting power even in the midst of his past....testifies to the mighty works the Lord is doing within its confines and the broader scope of its use for the Kingdom.

It seems to be the mode operandi that God has used in my life; a simple question, a scriptural reference, or even a study that, once considered, becomes a moment of choice that becomes a journey of learning, seeking and realization that becomes a clear vision of God's working in and around me in my life...wherever it is and how ever it has been lived......that becomes a desire to declare its clarity in the lives around me and then another question, simply put, that brings me full-circle into the process.

Sometimes the process is seemingly effortless, those simple truths that cascade through the moments like a waterfall....one simply gives in to its powerful truth. More often though, the process is very difficult, exceedingly painful and in its entrity not all that much fun....but it is like a stream, still of the same element, but slower as it whittles the hardened rock to its eventual collaspe.

And, in the darkness of human despair, depression, loss, struggle and tribulation when the dark fluidity of the night seems to press upon me with the liquid heaviness of blood, I find the strength born of fear, faith and an undeniable hope that causes me to reach out to those things I fear the most for substainable substance in the midst of it all. Other men, relationship and community.

It is still a source of amazement to me at the power of God in the controlling and issuance of His word from the mouth of another brother or sister that, even in its actual context, speaks different words to each of those He has touched to be compelled by its utterance. Recently, my current home church completed the process of securing funding and the ownership (with mortgage) of a parcel of land where the Lead Pastor has envisioned a dream for God's work in the Holly Area. The pastor called upon the congregation to be a participator in God's work, not a spectator.

"One day Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on the other side." But he did not tell his father. Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah in the pomegranate cave at Migron. The people who were with him were about six hundred men, including Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the LORD in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone. Within the passes, by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a rocky crag on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side. The name of the one was Bozez, and the name of the other Seneh. The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba. Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few." And his armor-bearer said to him, "Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul." Then Jonathan said, "Behold, we will cross over to the men, and we will show ourselves to them. If they say to us, 'Wait until we come to you,' then we will stand still in our place, and we will not go up to them. But if they say, 'Come up to us,' then we will go up, for the LORD has given them into our hand. And this shall be the sign to us." So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, "Look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden themselves." And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, "Come up to us, and we will show you a thing." And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, "Come up after me, for the LORD has given them into the hand of Israel." Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, and his armor-bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer killed them after him. And that first strike, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, killed about twenty men within as it were half a furrow's length in an acre of land." (1 Samuel 14:1-14 ESV)

An exercise of the heart, like Jonathan's boldness in the face of an larger foe, doesn't start with worldly and human motives, but speaks of a boldness of the faith within; we know the brokenness of the world, the depravity of it and its soothing way of destruction, yet we live in a state of peace...worship...and blessing because our Lord is real. We mourn for the world, speak into the darkness because of this awareness and proclaim through the worship of our lives the Good News of the Lord. We don't ignore the enemy at our gates, nor do we wait underneath the relative comfort of our church walls and offer burnt sacrifices to cover our inaction.

As we were taught to pray, the desire of the children of God should be nothing more than to do the will of the Father on earth, by whatever means necessary without the compromising of the tenents and commandments that already exist. It is that desire that is so dominant in the bedrock of our foundations that we don't think twice about what He speaks, but have brought it into the light of His purpose and are given a peace about its truthfulness. A Participator, as my pastor would say, rather than a spectator.

"Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10


This desire doesn't seem to make sense to others, yet many have left the comfort of support, security and familiarity at great personal cost to follow the Lord's will in their story. When we fail at the duties because of our own foolishness, disbelief or fearfulness, we hurt.....not because of our fear the Father but because we love Him so much. We rush headlong into the world where our Father is working around us, as John Eldridge points out, "out of desire" as Jesus did, "for the joy set before Him." The depth of His desire to be where His Father was, serving alongside His Father and bringing His Father that joy that comes from His child, indeed all of His children, was evident as He was scourged, beaten and crucified. The fierciness of His passion, His sorrow and His love touch our lives and draw us into the world He left us in to "perform things greater than these."

The life of a follower of Christ, a believer, is nothing more than a 'holy longing' that is never fulfilled but that grows stronger and stronger as we walk towards that final hilltop and view our Father's house arrayed before us....for that is where the saints who have gone before and those who will gaze into the skies and see the mighty Savior's return all are going.....the familiar treaded, harden pathways are permanently etched into the fabric of this world and yet it is only those who have learned to 'groan inwardly as' they 'wait eagerly' under increasing desire. A question, spoken by a dear friend of years, was a simple one; laughed off as 'yeah, right'.....for its sheer laughidity and utter improbability. Then another, when it was laughingly repeated, looked intent as words were spoken, "Maybe you will be...." Again, a shake of the head by the sheer folly of the very idea.......and the issue drops into the back drawer, forgotten for a time.

"O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me." (Psalm 139:1)

There is no denying God those things we wish to hide from the consuming fire of the passion He ignites in our faith, properly directed, in His purpose for us. A 'purpose' that isn't some block on the big board of God's construction projects where He grumbles, conjoles and entices us to finish our specific 'contracted' part of the building but something that was uniquely designed by Him for us to use to show our thankfulness and love for Him....like a father making known what he would like for Father's day and then helping his children make it. God has searched us, literally penetrated deep into our being and knows us intimately...our tendencies under the old nature, our fears and our ability to do the job at hand. He can even see the formation of words before they gain shape enough for our utterances....we are totally transparent to Him and only the blood of Christ saves us from that condemnation that is the result of sin. There is no hiding.


God loves us in spite of what we have become, and where we will fail and yet, He lives in the knowledge, the understanding, of what we can be through the gift of eternal life, the transformation that takes place and the journey that continues until we come to a place before the throne and find ourselves what He's always known we will be.

And if that is all true, then who are we when in the fire of the consuming passion to judge when we are 'sent forth' rather than 'dropping what [we] are doing and following Him?' We should follow the examples set forth by the saints of old….from the apostles through the early church fathers to the saints that have been fading from the American landscape as the church grows more distant from the origins of its birth…..and the Head Priest that gave her to us to care for….

Like George Mueller, quoted in "Experiencing God",

"I never remember…..a period…..that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have been always directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes."

Only by sincerely seeking God's direction, waiting on Him to supply the Word to go forth with and looking to the Spirit to teach through the written Words of God, we are only running after our own agenda, our own wishes of glory and greatness that haunt the flesh of this corrupt body……forgoing forthrightness, uprightness and patience to follow the counsel of men who are themselves broken and corrupted.

So, as this question blooms into a choice to join God in the work He is doing, I seek to bring myself into a place where my will is absent, leaving this choice to follow not subject to feeling or whim and seek the Will, Word and Motivation of the Spirit of God, the Holy Counselor, through prayer, study and reflection.

And the possibilities are enormous, frightening to the flesh and peaceful to the spirit.

The blame is......

“Let us make search and put our ways to the test, turning again to the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:40 BBE)

Pastor Jim Combs, the Lead Pastor of the River Church, spoke about Job this Sunday. About faith being tested and refined in the harsh winter of trials and tribulations, a subject of which I am too well-versed as of late. In my relationships, in my roles as father/ex-husband/friend/man and in my economic/social status, I have been found wanting (in the standards of society and by the stewardship of the Biblical instruction) and yet God continues to call me forth…into the wealth of His purpose and the work of the Kingdom.

Such as I am is where God’s glory becomes undeniable and most highly evident.

I have begun reading the fable by C.S. Lewis entitled “Till We Have Faces”, which is his rendering of the Cupid and Psyche tale of mythology which embodies his love of ancient cultures and his artistic style. Yet this is the one book in the offerings from this great apologetic that was never really well received by the reading public…….

I also continue to read about George Mueller, and I am in a constant state of shaking my head in amazement and awe of the powerful testimony this man has given to the cause of the Kingdom. The power of prayer, of true heart to heart with God is another lesson that I have been learning lately. I’m far from a giant of Mueller’s stature, but I can hear the echoes of what he learned so earlier in his own journey towards home.

Everyone is offering their ideas of why we’ve gotten into the economic and social mess that wraps us up into the cloak of worldliness; Christian and sinner alike.

The wealthy blame the poor, the poor the wealthy.

The financially irresponsible are blamed by the financially stewards of well-renown, while they deny any culpability in the current state of their own affairs.

The older generation blames the younger, the younger points to the outrageousness of the older.

The Christians who voted for Obama are quick to call those who didn’t racist, while those who voted for Obama are confound those who didn’t.

And the Church sits in the back pews of this fight, afraid to raise its voice because it has been complacent for far too long in the worldly things, seeking to ‘make the Gospel culturally acceptable’ rather than standing upon the morality and ethics of the Gospel message, creating disillusioned religious-ites than disciples.

In the midst of the entire finger pointing, God must be sitting patiently…sadly shaking His head at the foolishness of the ones who call Him Father, at least in name, and the ones He desperately wishes would (who tend to be at least more truthful in their foolishness than the other). Foolish children, who have become engaged in pursuits of self-serving ends and who ignore the very signposts and waypoints that were so plainly laid out upon the narrow path…….

T.S. Matthews, a past managing editor and editor of TIME, wrote in the preface to C.S. Lewis’ book “Till We Have Faces”, in the 1966 reprinting, what would seem a prophetic word about the American concept of happiness that has begotten the liberal and universalistic concept of ‘self-fulfillment’ and personal choice.

“The pursuit of happiness, which has always been good American doctrine, has largely degenerated into the sentimental heresy of the ownership of happiness, the notion that happiness can actually be shared; that the sum total of material prosperity and vague humanitarian inclination that make-up the American way of life can be or should be happiness itself.”

There is a song, I don’t recall off-hand by whom, whose lyrics pop into my head as I write this, “Sometimes it rains night after night, but our hope remains….”

Does it really?

We question God’s love for us;

Especially when we are struggling ‘well’ (as one of my mentors is oft to say) in the effort to bring our earthly and sinful flesh into the bondage of our spiritual life.

A child goes away to an event, healthy and strong, and now lies in the morgue of the local hospital awaiting burial by his parents who have loved them with a godly passion and taught them with spiritual wisdom.

And yet, another who is full knowledgable of God and refuses Him grows healthily until the pain becomes so isolating that they walk into school one day and kill their schoolmates in a shout of anger.

Loved ones, cherished and honored, disappear into the seemingly never-ending jaws of war and we quail at the cost of our nation in the pursuit of national security to the point we are willing to cultivate the worldly wisdom of atheistic and immoral nations that we once stood at a distance from.

Everywhere, we seek to throw the blame upon a group, a culture, a community or a nation….everywhere but upon the doorstep of our own foolishness and pride. For us, after all, are a God-fearing, God-seeking people set upon by a nation that seems intend on destroying itself from within, like so many empires and cultures of the historical past.

We quail at the price yet to be paid, in full, by a nation for its rejection of what it once acknowledged as ‘good and true’ because of a desire to be ‘accepted and loved’ by all people.

We don’t look to our own doorstep and the guilt of our own relaxing of absolutes, or moral authority, of a God who doesn’t fit into our desired opinion of what a God who truly loves us would be like. Painful events, foolish suffering and the trials of a morality that was born in the purest of desires surely wouldn’t happen if such a God existed.

Surely a God who can do no evil would not utilize its birth through the actions of man to chastise, discipline and correct such foolishness as a momentary lax of sexual purity or prideful anger. Surely not.

We discuss, theorize and form an opinion on scriptural context, ethical biblical considerations and moral issues that often seem to conflict, just like our view of a good, loving God who allowed a nation to wander the desert for forty years, until a sinful generation was gone, before the Promised Land was opened to them. A peaceful God who wreaked havoc upon the enemies of that nation because of His wrath, delivering them into His chosen's hands.

We don't rely upon God anymore. We talk, we argue and then leave such discussions empty and without fulfillment. Because we have an agenda that is far beyond what Christ gave us when He commissioned the Church.

Humanity has made Christianity complicated and alien.

We no longer mourn a godless direction our nation takes, but pat ourselves upon our own disillusionment and call ourselves enlightened and religious. We have gotten to the point where the wait for the return of the Messiah has become a tedious journey into the unknown and we've gotten weary with the constant watch.

Jesus says we have to have faith like children.

Most children, myself included, waiting with anxious gazes upon the living room the weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday; not questioning the fact that something would be placed underneath that evergreen tree that would bear their names. With wholesome and wild gee, they would race downstairs at the second the clock showed the appointed hour and rummage through the stacked presents to select that very first one to open……

The longer we wait for God to release His Son to return to the earth in victory, the less we act like those children. We dig deeper into the mysteries of the faith and make up our own decisions upon the text that is written there. What we can't explain, we justify with 'well, that was a different time' or 'culturally-speaking its not revelent.'

We relax our standards to the degree where sin becomes commonplace and immorality the norm.

And we blame the others. Society, Culture and the base sinner for our woes.
We don't want to examine our own ways and bring them into compliance with God's word. We don't want to say, "This is the absolute and we will follow it" because we are fearful of being 'unloving' and 'uncaring'. We excuse ourselves in any way possible and call it 'faithful execution in trying times.'

And become the very people that the LORD said he would "spit from His mouth."
Faith doesn't guarantee us prosperity of equal measure, equal physical shaping or of monetary/health wealth. Some were made to do with less, some with more and it is the usage of that measure that brings the testimony of the grace received within the bounds of salvation and enriched by tribulations.

God's love doesn't mean we can walk away from the punishment of our transgressions, rather that the full measure of the price has been paid in full by another, who walked within the Law and overcame with Love the fullness of God's righteousness. We suffer, of our own making, by being less than firm on the commandments we know.
We twist the example of the One until it fits within the square hole of our making, thereby justifying lukewarm love, hollow accountability and plastic faith.

George Mueller was one who refused to listen to the 'easy road' of faith.

C.S. Lewis refused to allow such pettiness as another's ignorance or pride interfere with the message he was compelled (and gifted) to write.

In the context of Lewis' Till We Have Faces, we find the answer in its simplistic form about why God allows what God allows:

"Are the gods not just?"

"Oh no, child. Would become of us if they were?"