Jesus

Everything You Have, Heart & Soul

 "The Way a Traveler Knows a Traveler," by Emily Leonard

 "The Way a Traveler Knows a Traveler," by Emily Leonard

Travelers grow weary, and we are all of us travelers. Our paths cross and intermingle and yet keep their unique direction. We can relate to one another. We should encourage one another.


Our culture likes to critique. Christians like to follow suit. But the words that drip from our lips should be wine to those whom need refreshed and honey for those whom need revived. We should stride with one another, barking courage into the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

“Be strong. Take courage," I say, "Don’t be intimidated. Don’t give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you.”[1]

God himself strides with you!

"I won’t give up on you; I won’t leave you," he says. "Strength! Courage! Give it everything you have, heart and soul. Don’t get off track, either left or right, so as to make sure you get to where you’re going. And don’t for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you’ll get where you’re going; then you’ll succeed. Haven’t I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid; don’t get discouraged. God, your God, is with you every step you take.”[2]

And so we travel on, through the lay-offs, through the disappointments, through the loss, through the betrayals, through the grit of it all. For we will not be overcome—Jesus himself is the Overcomer!

"I love the man that can smile in trouble," writes Thomas Paine, "that can gather strength from distress, and row brave by reflection. ’Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

Row brave today brothers and sisters. He is with you—and so, peace goes with you. Be brave. Be brave.

Today's Prayer: Stride with me, Lord Jesus. Help me to stride with others in your strength, being your agent of peace and blessing. 

[1] Deuteronomy 31:6 (The Message)

[2] Joshua 1:1-9 (The Message)

Check out the new FREE eBOOK my friend, Jason Locy, and I have just released. It's called The Sound of Silence: A Short Book on Rest. 

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And be sure to tell a friend if you find it to be a blessing. 

Cheers, 
Tim

Photo: Painting - "The Way a Traveler Knows a Traveler," by Emily Leonard. 

 

I Am Violent And Lost

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I found myself out upon the waters, the waves and breakers crashing. I left my fear back inside the boat and my trust unfolded in front of me—"a trust without borders."

A Holy presence circled around me, calling me further into the unknown.

But Jesus did not appear out the darkness. He didn't walk across the stormy waters.

Or did he and I couldn't see above the waves? Was I sinking? Drowning? Was my soul in peril, consumed by my doubt?

Doubt looks like my everyday—it's the familiar and the safe, it's the known and the controlled.

Water-walking sticks out in my reality. How about yours? It makes no sense; neither does faith. Faith finds us lost and violent, but yet, alive. It carries us toward our love, the object of eternal goodness. Woe to the one faith finds stuffed and vacant, not lost nor violent, but pure nothing.

It's only out here, in the violent mystery of the unknown that my faith finds resonance—echoing into the realm of the above. "Voices are in the wind's singing" or is it just a singular voice calling through my drowning.

He finds us flailing, calms our arms and sets us on the path to the above. The world ends for most in a trickling "whimper." But not for me, not today. I will flail and rise, because your hand seized mine. You pulled me up threw me up into the mysterious above, where your fiery messengers sing in rapt worship.

I know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. I hear it rustling through the trees, but I have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. 
That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God. (John 3:8)

Today's Prayer: Set my feet upon the deeps. Make water-walking my everyday. 

Check out the new FREE eBOOK my friend, Jason Locy, and I have just released. It's called The Sound of Silence: A Short Book on Rest. 

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Leadership That Flourishes

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"Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?" (Matthew 16:24-26)

The flourishing leader looks like a man or woman following Jesus with passion and intent. Henri Nouwen says the mature leader is willing "to be led where they would rather not go."

To follow Jesus to his cross demands a deep spiritual affection—you and I must love Jesus so much that we'd go anywhere with him and for him. Some think this kind of leadership weak. But that is not the case.

Jesus does not call us to roll over or be spineless. But he does call us to a place of powerlessness. "It is not a leadership of power and control," writes Nouwen about Christian leadership, "but a leadership of powerlessness and humility, in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest."

The humble leader understands and lives by the truth: truth of self, truth of others and the truth of their situation. The powerless leader abandons power "in favor of love," performs their work  with precision and grace so that those who rely on him or her feel cared for and valued.

This is the person whose leadership knows no bounds, it is the leader who is led by Christ. Do you know this kind of leader? Are you this kind of leader? In your home? In your friendships? In your school? In your business? In your church?

You can spot a leader who leads for their own gain; the one bent on self-help, power and control. They're the one vying for the limelight and the accolades.

Who among us will lead the church and our families and our businesses into the future? It is the leader, as Nouwen says, who can be led.

"I AM the Way …" And so he is. May we follow him as we walk in him. 

Today's Prayer: Strengthen me to be strong enough to follow you, Lord Jesus, and humble enough to lead those whom I serve.

The leader that flourishes also needs to understand the value of rest. Check out the new FREE eBOOK my friend, Jason Locy, and I have just released. It's called The Sound of Silence: A Short Book on Rest. 

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A Shame That Glorifies

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"Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (John 4:29)

Where did shame go? We live in a society where authenticity means to share everything, all our dark secrets, and all things we wish someone knew about us. We applaud such authenticity and call each other brave when we share or blog about something that we've kept in the shadows.

I love authenticity. I love it because it champions the truth about a person. But sometimes I wonder if we've allowed ourselves to play into the zeitgeist, exchanging discernment for license. No shame, no holds barred, no distinction between sacred and profane.

The push for authenticity stems from our innate desire to be known. My friend Jason Locy and I discuss this in our book Veneer. We quote Brennan Manning who says, "God calls me by name, and I do not answer because I do not know my name."

Though we're hard wired to be social, to want to share, to want others to know us, we struggle, as Christians, to find peace in who we are in Christ.

Who Will Satisfy?

When the woman at the well ran into Jesus, he asks for something to drink. She struggles to understand why a Jew would ask a Samaritan woman for water. But Jesus turns the conversation around on her and says, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." (John 4:10, ESV)

She tells Jesus he has nothing with which to draw from the well, because it's deep. But Jesus tells her that if you drink from this well, you'll still thirst. But the water he offers comes from a well of eternal life—all satisfying. The woman presses Jesus for this living water.

Then Jesus tells her all she ever did. She was astonished he knew so much about her: about her past marriages and her current living arrangement (living with a man who wasn't her husband). We don't know too much of her past, other than she might have been living in shame—due to being dependent on someone not her husband, due to abandonment, we don't really know.

What we do know, however, is the woman realized she'd been seeking something or someone to satisfy her and found this very person in Jesus, the one person who shows he knows her inside and out. This story is not about immorality; it's about identity."[1] 

Shame Drives Us To Christ

And that's what we all of us desire. Jesus didn't condemn her for her past mistakes or unfortunate circumstances. Instead, he offered her himself. He offered her a safe place where she could be known. Her shame dissipated as she ran from the well and told everyone she'd met a man who knew everything about her. What acceptance! What peace!

Sometimes our desire to be known gets the best of us and we jettison shame and discernment so we can fling ourselves into the world hoping someone will identify. Ravi Zacharias says Secularism has created a culture where there's no distinction between what should be viewed and used as profane and what is viewed and used as sacred. He says, "Show me a culture without shame and I will show you a monstrosity in its making." (Watch this video to hear Ravi make this point.) 

I believe, as Christians, our collective lack of shame comes from our individual desire to be known. The irony being, Christ calls us each by name and he invites us into intimate relationship with him and yet we ourselves do not know our names.

What would happen if we reveled in our knownness in Christ and told others about the one who knows us through and through?

Today's Prayer: You search me, you know me, Oh Lord. When I sit and when I rise, you know my thoughts deep inside. I want to find rest and peace in my knownness with you.

[1] David Lose, Electronic source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/misogyny-moralism-and-the_b_836753.html

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The Violence of Bees

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I'm running too fast. So, I decide to make it fun and throw myself down the hill—a perfect head first grass-stain. I slide right by her. She keeps running and throws herself on me, “Yeah!” she shouts. The mountains sing.

When I catches my breath, I runs, just fast enough, into some old friends and they talk about life and babies and church and the mountains—how beautiful they sing. The wedding party is detained with photos, so I sip lemonade, nibble cupcakes and continue to run into my past and present relationships. Quick nuanced discussions, the kind that corner and reveal.

I pile the family into the truck and drive home through the mountains—in the graying the mountains sing. The river echoes the round.

Beautiful Collisions

Shuffle, shuffle. Plunge the press. Coffee-hot, the morning soars. Hymns on the Airport Express usher me and the girls on to “the gathering,” to church—it is a celebration. The pastor speaks of Thomas, “My Lord, and my God!”

After the Body and the Blood, the congregation is dismissed. I wipe my eyes, turn to leave and collides into radiating faces—brothers and sisters united. The soundman runs into me and grabs my baby girl. “I just want to hold her. She is beautiful.” We smile together, he gets his fill and more collisions ensue.

Lunch is a lovely fiasco. Two families, six children, and a floor full of Teddy Grahams; the wait staff is patient as the girls scream and run. We adults raise our glasses and toast: “To the celebration!” Once home, we all nap long and hard. Somewhere in the distance, the mountains sing again.

The weekend emerged from the week and grabbed us by the throat. We loved and laughed, fought and cried, and passed through the other side shaped by it all—the run-ins, the discussions, the here, there, and everywhere. 

Eucharist Signature

When I am finally able to sit and reflect on it all, life doesn’t seem so grand—just full of tension.

But I think of the Eucharist, how it always seems to break me (and everyone) in half. How, on this past Sunday, it reminded me that grace and confession and love all coalesce in the person of Jesus—they are signatures of humanity made beautiful through the Divine. The immensity of Jesus’s sacrifice wells up and pours from my eyes. So much to take in.

From the Eucharist my thoughts land somewhere amid the Trinity. I thinks how God runs fast toward humankind, overwhelming everyone with his lavish love. God can’t help but love—I love that fact. And those loving fingerprints are everywhere—especially on my family and friends.

So Much Like Bees

We are social creatures. With our loved ones we dance through this life, though it most often looks like frantic running. And we lean into one another, pushing headfirst to see who will give. Then we fall in a heap mid tears and laughter and pain and joy. God created us this way and the mystery of the Eucharist completes the puzzle. We are only able to love because he first loved.

The bees in my back yard love the jasmine blossoms and blueberry buds. They hover, and then climb the popping plumage. They collide and swirl into each other high up into the maples. In a frenzied disappearing act, they abscond into the holly tree—a violent aerial display.

Are they fighting? Love making? Discussing? Laughing? Killing?

We are so much like bees, living the Gospel mystery of the Eucharist in the wild collisions of life. And we disappear into death and sex and work and play in a violent showing that rings out, like the mountain song. One another, one another, one another, “our fellowship of kindred minds … like to that above.”

 

*This post is an excerpt from my book Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society  that I co-authored with my friend @jasonlocy. You can pick up a copy here. 

 

Stop Fussing

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Sometimes Wormwood crawls into my brain and begins to whisper obscenities and lies. "Do more," he says. "It's not enough and you'll probably fail. You need more money. You need more accomplishments. You need … you must … go and get."  

How do I respond? In my weakness, I fuss and worry.

I like to think of myself as not much of a fusser. Truth is, in the quiet, my heart beats fast and I lay awake. Do you really have me, Lord?

Then Paul sneaks up beside me and says …

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.[1]

Then, Jesus climbs next to me, agreeing with Paul …

Well said Paul, he says. Tim, Don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.

Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.

Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can’t even do that, why fuss at all?

Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.[2]

Paul concludes …

Tim, this is how we should live if we follow Jesus. So, if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides.

Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.[3]

God I need these words. I need to settle down. I need to relax in the peace of Christ. 

 

[1] Philippians 4:6-7, The Message

[2] Luke 12: 22-32, The Message

[3] Colossians 3: 1-2, The Message

 

His Leaking Brilliance

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On Tuesday night I sat with several friends in a basement. Musicians and worship leaders all, we spent the evening in quiet prayer and song-giving-to-God. Spontaneous prayers emanated as several players picked and keyed. I sat with eyes closed and listened. 

I didn't want to leave. It was as if Jesus had walked among us, sat down and picked up a guitar just to be ​with us. I find my soul yearning for times like this more and more. I'd rather sit with friends in quiet worship than imbibe in entertainment. I'd rather walk in the woods with him, than busy myself with, well, busy-ness. 

And do not think I am describing an experience brought on by emotion. Yes emotion was part of it, God evokes our deepest emotions when we draw close to him. It is a by-product of standing in his presence. We fall down as dead like John standing before the Shining One. But what draws me to God, to the worship of God, is God himself. ​

Worship, Our Omnibus

Worship acts as a vehicle. We close our eyes and at once our imaginations transport us into the presence of God. If we're somehow able to cut through the noise of the morning, the noise of stress and the noise of our own thoughts we can, in our mind's eyes, stand before God.

If we define worship as giving worth to God, then worship can mirror the gospel in that we proclaim God's worth through music and song and we live it daily in acts of service and love. And God is the center of that worth giving.

Think about what you sing to God when you worship him in song. Think about what you do during your day to ascribe glory to him. Why these words and songs? Why these acts?

His Being, Our Center

Because God is true. Truth, as J.I. Packer puts it, “… is the quality of a person[s]”[1] before it is something that can be proved or disproved. Packer, of course, is speaking of God’s qualities. We inherit truth from God because he is truth. Augustine says, “And ‘your law is truth’ (Ps. 118:142) and truth is you (John 14:6).”[2] We receive God's moral stamp of truth when we enter the world and live as ambassadors of his truth, which is rooted in his very being. It's that shard of moral purity stuck in our souls that frustrates us so much. It wars inside of us our whole lives.

Because God is good. When we say God is good we describe his being; "in him we live and move and have our being. The early church apologist Athenagoras says, "Goodness is so much a part of God that, without it, he could not exist."[3] His goodness creates for us a moral origin—it is this perfect morality that pain and suffering shatter against. For no matter how much they rise to conquer us God overwhelms them, causing good to come from even the blackest of circumstances. This is who we worship, our good God.

Because God is beautiful. The concept of beauty vexes even the greatest minds among us. From Aristotle to Aquinas to Lewis, we all of us fall at the feet of the beautiful. Some say beauty demands form first—that we must behold something in order to know beauty exists at all. Others, like C.S. Lewis, remind us that the forms of beauty we behold point to something else, the thing behind the thing. It's not really the thing we desire at all. We see beauty, and we long for God.[4]

His Leaking Brilliance

When we close our eyes and find ourselves transported during our church gatherings to the throne room of God, this is the God we worship. He is altogether true. He is altogether good. He is altogether beautiful.

When we step from the church building and into our everyday, when we begin our day in quiet, then move to serve our friends, our spouse or our co-workers, when we sit down for coffee with one of our friends in order to work through a problem that demands forgiveness, these are our spiritual acts of worship.

This is the God we worship. He is altogether true. He is altogether good. He is altogether beautiful.

And it is this "all of him" that we encounter in the everyday, that constitutes his brilliance (glory). When we center our lives around him, his glory follows. It shapes us and with it, we shape the world. 

It's a kind of magic, this worship of ours. Give worth to him today and watch his brilliance grow and compel you toward heaven itself. ​


[1] J.I. Packer, Knowing God. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 113.

[2] Saint Augustine, The Confessions. (Publisher: City, year), p. 61

[3] “APOLOGISTS,” New Dictionary of Theology, 38.

[4] For more on the perplexing concept of beauty see: The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis, Rainbows For a Fallen World, Cal Seerveld, The Glory of the Lord, Hans Urs von Balthasar

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The Prayer Series // Cutting Your Own Path

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I bumped around the corners of the kitchen, wheeling my bike through the back door and onto the deck. With my peanut butter and honey sandwich, my mini Moleskine and my riding gloves I set out on my rise-ride.

I arrived at the trailhead just before dawn. The woods, empty. Normally I'd ride in the quiet of the morning. But all week I had been listening to The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis. I continued listening to the audio book. After I plugged in my headphones, I tore off into the trees.

John, the main character in Lewis's allegory, is on a journey. He hopes to find an island far to the west. But the journey winds it's way through allegorical valleys and side-trails and rough roads and cities—all representing varying philosophical influences of the times.

I descended Hare Trail with a "Woohoo!" and some whoopdeedoos. When I started climbing again, after the creek crossing, my mind wondered.

Like John we all of us journey onward. I suppose for most of us we too seek the shining island of heaven—experiencing it now already a bit, perhaps, and still not yet. And, like John we each must confront the Spirit of the Age. We must contemplate Wisdom and make decisions: Which path will lead me to the island?

But I wonder how many of us create our own pathways—also called bushwhacking. Are bushwhacking our way through this life? What about our jobs? Do we seek to leverage our way to the top? Beat the system by manipulating it for our own success?

John's problem was he was unconvinced in his own mind. His journey was a path to belief. But as brothers and sisters in Christ, belief is behind us really, and always before us. Our actions, the paths we take, the ones we create stretch out ever before us.

I flew down Fly Squirrel and looped back to White Tail Loop. I crossed the big stream and stood by the waterfall for a few moments. I Am the Way. The verse jumps out at me often. Yes, Christ is the way to salvation, to the island, but what does that imply regarding my business ethics? My family ethics? My political ethics?

As I loaded my bike on my Subaru my thoughts fluttered to prayer …

Jesus, help me on the trail. Strengthen me over the logs and obstacles and through the rivers and all the hard junk. Keep me on your path and forgive my bushwhacking ways.

Onward!