a continuing story of trust, grace and community
I have taken to sharing many parts of my life and interests on YouTube. Together Diane and I bring our experiences and tips with Disney. I share my love of painting and Starbucks. And even the occasional product review or life thoughts.
I hope you will take time to ‘like and subscribe’ to my channel and be part of this growing community.
Here are some of my more popular videos at the time of this post.
During this time of sheltering in place, I have had the joy to take a series of online painting workshops from Gary Tucker. This is an odd ‘benefit’ of the pandemic as prior to these times Gary only hosted live events in Boston or on special travel excursions. In his need to pivot and find an income source, he created these workshops on Zoom. I have been following his work for a while, so I was thrilled to be able to participate in this opportunity.
Every Saturday morning of the summer and into the fall, I have taken a class. The following works are results of some of the classes. The composition and source pics are not my own, although my interpretation has been added.
The gallery was not found!We keep hearing these are unprecedented times. But are they really? Certainly none of us have experienced such things, but in the span of history, the world has seen famines and plagues and pandemics time and time again. And we seem to still be here. I don’t say that to dismiss the real pain we are all experiencing, but to remind us, we will overcome and endure and come through this.
But while we are in this, many are experiencing fear, worry and anger, among other things. And rightly so. But for those of us who have yielded our lives to Jesus, our response is much different, or least can be. No guilt or shame cast on those not experiencing the peace of Christ. Just a reminder that you serve a God who is mighty and wasn’t surprised by this turn of events.
I’d like to share a few encouraging videos and messages I have done as part of the team at my church where I pastor. We are sharing morning encouraging videos as a staff and then I did a message a few months back which I think is particularly relevant. I hope you find or are reminded of the hope which Jesus offers to those who follow Him.
May you sense the ever-present care of our God during this time. If you desire to pray or seek guidance on how to yield your life to a loving God, please contact me.
Stay Safe. Stay Connected.
I’m sitting in Starbucks early this morning with a worship playlist in my headphones. But I am not worshiping…I am writing emails…I am checking out Facebook…I am updating my calendar.
And then…
A lyric breaks through the melodic noise to capture my attention.
Be my heart’s obsession
First and only in my life
In your love alone
My soul is satisfied
And a peace and a resignation and a redirection of my thoughts overtake me. It’s as if every tense muscle just melts.
Here are more of the lyrics
I will abide
Be still and know that you are God
For you are mine
And in your presence I’m alive
Here in this place
Within your shadow I am safe
Every mistake
Fading into the light of grace
I need you more
I need you more than ever
It’s so difficult to to live in that space and so easy to dwell in the humdrum of meaningless activity.
My prayer – Lord help me to ABIDE in you. Even when I am doing the everyday activities of life, may I ABIDE! I need YOU more than ever.
Song info: First and Only by Elevation Worship.
I like to think I’ve got skills. I’ve got this. I don’t like to think about how I fall short. Who does? We live our lives to be capable and independent and successful. And while I know we shouldn’t play the comparison game, I admit I do sometimes. I suspect you do too!
So when it comes to living life well, I often think I’m doing just fine. Ever feel that way?
But then I am hit by the reality that I don’t measure up. Sometimes (many times) to others, but definitely not to the powerful perfect standard of God. I am confronted with my brokenness or my insufficiency or insecurity or pride or or or.
And I realize I have nothing.
Nothing to bring to God that will make a difference in the decision of my eternal outcome. I realize that all my effort or goodness or skills aren’t enough. And you know what? That’s just fine with Him. He loves us and accepts us as we are, knowing we are in desperate need of Him. The great reality is that He is EVERYTHING and He has made a way for us.
We’ve been invited to a great feast! And it’s not a potluck. So BRING YOUR NOTHING and HE WILL BE YOUR EVERYTHING.
My all-time favorite hymn is not the more popular Amazing Grace, Great Is They Faithfulness, or It Is Well, although I do love all of those. It’s one that has an odd melody, but fantastic lyric and it asks the question, “How can it be that God should die for me?”
Why would He do that? Simply, because He loves us in our weakness and wants for us to be restored to Him.
My favorite Hymn and song I invite you to meditate on:
And Can It Be performed by The Enfiled Hymn Sessions
May you experience the ‘everythingness’ of our God,
Our church has been going through the 40 Days in the Word event created by Rick Warren of Saddleback Church. A powerful all-church experience which has allowed us to create many new LifeGroups and focus people on the power and beauty of God’s Word. I am personally excited about it as my role as Connections Pastor was to drive this from beginning to end and to expand the amount of people meeting in groups to learn and develop tools to better engage with the Bible. We went from 27 active groups to 36, all but two electing to continue beyond! So I am excited by that growth.
But the point of this post is not to share what our church is doing or brag about my job results. I want to share how the very first week God’s word jabbed me a bit. You see, just cuz I’m a pastor and long-time follower of Christ, doesn’t mean I don’t need to be corrected by God through His word at times.
We were learning the first method of devotional study called, Pronounce It, where you emphasize one word at a time, taking moment to consider what each word might mean or imply. The verse that kind of caught me off-guard was from Philippians 1:27a (NIV), “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.”
On the surface, that seems clear enough – live like Jesus. But I, like most of us, have moments of stress, grumpiness, and…even…oh no…anger. That car that cuts me off, that bad customer service, that betrayal of a friend, the disrespect of a family member. These things can set all of us off. And we feel justified! We feel the right to be upset by it. And even the right to respond in anger, perhaps escalating the situation to a divisive and relationally destructive level.
But Paul writes here…’Whatever’. That’s inclusive of everything. No exceptions. Then he says, ‘happens’. Which is the word that gave me the correction. It’s the circumstances that are not planned for, the random and spontaneous moments that often catch us off-guard and evoke reactions. Reactions which are not always worthy of the gospel. I want my life to be lived with responses, not reactions. With grace even when I am blind-sided.
I don’t think I am a full-on jerk by any means. But I think God was showing me there are more times I need to apologize than I wish. More times I feel justified than I should. Can I get angry? Yes. But in my anger, sin not. Live in a manner worthy of the gospel.
The bible is said to be like a two-edged sword, meaning it can pierce the sin in our lives with precision. It can identify the wrong motives, can expose the wrong attitudes. Often that hurts and humbles and drives us to repentance. But in the pain of God making us aware of our sin, He also extends grace and forgiveness and freedom. It’s a pain quickly replaced with joy if we let go of our ‘rights’.
I think many of us shy from God’s word, from asking God to search our hearts and reveal things to us, because we really don’t want to have God correct us. Really, who likes to be corrected? But the result of living according to his word is far greater than staying stunted in our own muck. And because God’s the one handling the sword with precision skill, He can be trusted to bring us through the other side, despite the initial pain caused.
Prayer: God help us, help me, to be continually open to your word revealing areas of my life that need to be aligned with the gospel, your nature, the fullness you desire for me to experience. May we live so authentically we are quick to see and seek forgiveness for that areas of our lives that fall short of your design for us. Thank you God for your grace which sets me free from guilt and shame.
I am fine, but I am tired. I am on autopilot. That’s not entirely bad if the path is a good trajectory. But I am not taking as much joy in this part of the journey as I would like. I find frustration and grumpiness to be expressed too often. I am feeling more envy than I wish of those who travel and have leisure. I am confident in my call and choices, but it does have times when it tires one out. I am not going to crash and burn so don’t worry for me, but I welcome prayers.
Today marks the anniversary of my last marathon, the marathon that did me in. You can read about it in an earlier post. The result of this marathon has been a year of the most incredible pain and huge measure of discouragement. Not a day has gone by without some of the most intense pain. Pain in my feet mostly, but my legs as well. The doctors could not find any obvious problem with my feet. X-rays revealed nothing. But clearly there was some soft tissue damage in the foot bed, the arches, the heels, and more. Most days I could barely walk, let alone run. I would shuffle about, not having any ability to raise the heel and get into a fluid pace. Cycling was virtually impossible as well as the pressure on the pedal also caused pain. To this day the achilles pain has moments of intensity but the at least the feet seemed to have finally healed. That endured until about October.
But without exercise or movement and the heaviness of discouragement, my weight has increased. The added weight has now caused further pain, some sort of joint reaction in my elbows and arms. I can barely grip things and shaking hands gives me intense pain. I find myself caught in this vicious cycle that a lot of overweight people find themselves in. One is heavy and needs to exercise but is too heavy to do so. I know to many (most) this sounds like excuses, but it just isn’t.
When I was nearing my goal weight and doing the running, I felt a lightness and freedom in movement. It motivated me to get out and move more. But when one is heavy you feel anchored and every move is an exercise in frustration – not the type of exercise that motivates. Much of the battle is mental and emotional, particularly when pain is in the mix, but there is a physical component as well.
As a result this has been a very discouraging year. Constant pain, extreme weight gain, and loss of fitness have led me to wrestle with a lot of frustration and perhaps even a bit of depression.
As today approached I have been asking myself, “Do I regret running that last marathon?”. Of course there is no practical reason to second guess – nothing can be done about that. OF COURSE I would prefer to not have all the pain and weight gain this past year. I think not having run the race would have made the year very different. But I also completed a major goal. I learned some incredible lessons during and from the run that have been valuable. I understand empathy and the value of truthfully acknowledging one’s pain so much more. So no, I do not “regret” doing the run. I can not live by the “If only…” trap. I have to stand by my choices, whatever comes. But the choice to run, even with all the lessons learned, did have consequences. As all choices do.
Ups and downs in my weight will always be my battle. Fitness will be harder for me than most. It is the genetic cards I was dealt. The emotional and mental, and even physical, battle will face me everyday. I hope I can find my way back. I hope I receive the empathy I have learned to offer. And as depressed and depressing as this last paragraph sounds, I do have hope. I really do.
I recently had the honor to take a team from my church to serve at Door of Faith Orphanage (dofo.org) in the town of La Mision, B.C. Mexico. It is located between Rosarito and Ensenada. It is a most surprisingly charming place. If a child has to be in an orphanage, this is the place to be! As the Director, DJ, gave us his welcome and shared the values of the orphanage that he has led for over 20 years, one of the three values were Healing through Service. He began to share that the children and staff of DOFO are encouraged to serve, and not just chores. But real ministry outreach service. The kids raise funds, go on trips and make real differences in the places they go. This leads to a healing in their own lives as most are social orphans, having been removed from broken or abusive homes. Teaching them to serve others brings a lasting and deep healing in their lives.
Javier is a man we met when we went to make and serve breakfast with the Baja Family Outreach located the Tijuana dump area. A church has been built in the heart of the community of thousands who live on reclaimed dump land. Most are uneducated and find their income by recycling garbage. Their homes are built with items found in the dump. We saw more than one roof made from the vinyl banners of highway billboards. As we made the breakfast a family of 8 came in, Javier being the dad. His children and wife sat down to eat the food we had prepared, but Javier stood at the entrance to greet people and watch over his family. I asked him why he wasn’t eating and he shared he normally volunteers. By our team being there, we had taken his job. Of course he was blessed by our presence and asked we pray for his family and to please return. But I saw something powerful in him. He had no money to care for his family as I am sure he would like, but by volunteering he felt he was part of providing. Serving was healing for him. Serving was empowerment for him. Serving made him feel like he was being a provider for his family.
No better example of healing through service came in the story of Martita, a lady we met serving at another organization, Life in the Canyon (lifeinthecanyon.vpweb.com). This group is led by Dave Hessler and he found basically the poorest community of Tijuana and began serving a number of years back and was an outgrowth of his time with the Baja Family Outreach. He landed in the former TJ dump that has created massive hills of garbage covered in soil and is now being reclaimed by squatters and the poor who have built pallet shacks and small homes. A little over two years ago Dave came across Martita as he walked through a cemetery. She was high on crystal meth and was digging through burn piles for scraps of metal to sell to support her habit. He offered, through his ministry to serve the community, some help. At first, if I understood her story, she didn’t accept, but time after time he continued to reach out to her and eventually she came to the community center. There she saw loving people serving their community and something drew her.
She asked if she could serve and they found a place for her. The desire to quit drugs grew and at a point she quietly decided to stop. After a week went by being clean, she came to Dave and shared her good news. He told her to go one day at a time and every day to come and give him a number; the number ‘1’ for one more day of sober. He wrote that number on a white board and eventually it grew from 7, to 25, to 50. As of our meeting her it has been over 2 years! Her love for God, her purpose found in serving her community, and the love shown her by Dave and others gave her hope and strength to go on. Today she is trusted with keys to everything, is one of Dave’s trusted assistants, and has a restored relationship with her daughter and grandchildren. She is no longer homeless but has a tiny micro-home built with money from a 16 year old boy who did a fund raiser in his church! She can’t read or write but has learned to post on Facebook in order to be connected. She gave us a tour of her community, the dump, and you could see the love she had for it’s residents. She found healing through serving!
One of the things that I found most exciting with DOFO is that they don’t have teams come just to stay focused on them as an orphanage. DJ said many times to me, almost to the point of sounding a humorously insulting, “We don’t want you to stay here. Our kids have seen every drama and are pretty saturated with Americans!” But as he clarified you knew exactly what he was saying. Come and use DOFO as a hub to serve the broader area of Baja. Go to the dumps, build a house for a resident, serve at the rehab homes, do an outreach to drunk Americans at the beaches and bars, give out groceries and pray with residents of the dump. I believe DOFO is as blessed and beautiful as it is because it too has become whole by serving others and not manipulating donors and guests to selfishly stay committed to them. They have a mature faith, a generous faith.
Over the years I’ve heard from many who don’t understand why so many in the Church appear to have a “woe is me” mindset. I can see their confusion, because if anybody should be joyful, it should be the Christ follower! And yet there is a paradox that exists in our faith.
In fact there are many! We’re already saved yet are working out our salvation. We are at the same time both in eternity and yet also bound by time. We are righteous but know full well we are being sanctified. This last one leads to the what I think is the most beautiful paradox of all. It’s the place where mourning and joy exist in their fullest at once. It is in that state where grace is realized in such beauty!
The Sermon on the Mount is a powerful and core teaching by Jesus that can be found in Matthew 5-7. The first section has become known as the beatitudes and has challenged and transformed me as I have wrestled with what seems like an impossible way to live. We know Jesus came to set us free from the “law” and yet at first glance this sermon calls us to a life even more severe. And so one is compelled to look deeper to reconcile the apparent contradiction.
The first section of the beatitudes is where the tone is set.
““Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:3-6 NIV
I used to think of each of the Blesseds like individual traits to attain. “I like the peace maker, but mourning, not so much.” Sort of like a buffet. But I’ve come to realize it’s more like a 6 course meal. It’s not a buffet, not individual attributes that we pick and choose from, but a layering, a building to become the person Jesus calls us to. And the first is necessary to move on to the next.
When you are poor in spirit having come to the end of yourself, acknowledging you have nothing to bring to God, it’s then you mourn deeply for the reality of sin and it’s destruction in your life. It’s then that the power of meekness, the control of yourself is able to set in. The choosing of God’s control rather than sin’s. And at that point one is spiritually bankrupt, desperately hungering, desperately thirsting for God’s righteousness! The promise? We are filled. God imputes, or puts in us HIS righteousness! Then and only the does the rest of the sermon makes sense. Then and only then can any of us begin to live the sermon out!
For example, take the passages on murder and adultery (Mt 5:21-30). It’s easy in our righteousness to live a life of fidelity and never murdering someone. Most succeed in that! But by age three we’ve all called someone a name in anger and by 12 we’ve all lusted. And so in my abilities I am a failure. And if we haven’t come to the end of ourselves and realized we have nothing, we are nothing apart from Christ, then we will never live the life God has made available to us through Jesus.
Do I have a purpose and potential? Of course! Do I have gifts I bring to the table? Absolutely! Are they of any value? For this life and the common good? Sure. But for eternity, no! My righteousness is nothing and His is everything! And in His hands those gifts and potential will become something wholly different, better.
So the beautiful paradox, the sweet spot…is being both mournful and filled with joy at the same time. Not dwelling in ashes, but acknowledging my capacity and propensity to sin. Not “woe is me” but most definitely full on mourning. “Woe is me” is a self-focused declaration. The mourning Jesus calls us to is recognition of our sinful condition.
And the joy? It can and should be full-on crazy celebration! As I mentioned earlier, the sermon can seem like an even more severe life than the law. And here is what most fail to see and even when we see it, we find hard to experience. Jesus knows we can’t. We can’t live free of anger and lust and judgement and unforgiveness! That’s why He offers us His righteousness. That’s why mercy is given. That. Is. Grace!
And until I come to the end of me and bring my nothing to God, there is no room for grace to be experienced. And so the dance of the paradox begins. Living in spiritual poverty and the riches of Christ together is the challenge.
If you’re like me, and you are, you begin to take credit for spiritual maturity at times. You take for granted the all-encompassing nature grace must have in our lives. The longer I live in Christ the more I realize how much I need Him. The dos and don’ts are easy, grace is not. It requires dying and mourning and spiritual bankruptcy. But then and only then do we experience freedom and joy.
By the way, this why we desperately need each other! But that’s another post.
It’s a journey and one in which I hope you find joyful mourning.
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