Everything You Have, Heart & Soul

 "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)

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Cheers, 
Tim

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

When All You Do Is Not Enough

Photo by John McNamara

"To obey is better than sacrifice." (1 Samuel 15:22)

What else can I do? I've put in the time. I've done my duty. I've fulfilled my obligations. And still, still it's not enough. Why do you tease me with dreams, when they dissolve with ease and without care to my heart?

Even though I doubt, I still persevered. And for what? For character? What will that get me?

I return to my first love, over and over—it's resonance shaking me within and without. But though I love, I do not overcome.

The straight is so narrow, I lose my balance. But the path seems to end—weeds and thistles reach into the path and cut. Where does this path lead anyway?

How can Habakkuk speak those words? "Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines … yet I will rejoice in the Lord."

My heart is no God target; he does not pull his bow to unleash his hot arrows upon me. I do not lift up idols. I am not running from my task. Why then, the travail?

And yet, my heart knows nothing else but the fierceness of his love. I walk. I run. I bound up the mountain set before me. I fall back to the place where I began. Broken bones, broken spirit, I sit in a heap.

The wind blows my name, and pushes me back to the mountains side. "Climb," it says. "Climb, my son."

The dead-end path of narrow thistles landed me here, in front of this mountain. And a spirit wind speaks to me.

"We are not responsible for success," writes theologian Klaus Bockmuehl, "but we remain responsible for obedience."

And so, I climb.

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Three Pathways To Mystery

If you've lost your sense of mystery, then do what you must to retrieve it. Mystery emerges in the most simple of places. Most often it manifests itself in reaction to the beauty and goodness encountered in our everyday life—through feelings of awe and wonder, events that elicit thanksgiving. 

The late German theologian and writer Hans Urs Von Balthasar wrote: ​

All things can be considered in two ways: as fact and as mystery. Simple people, farmers for instance, can often integrate both ways in a lovely harmony. In children it would for the most part be easy to develop a sense of mystery; but teachers and parents can seldom generate enough humility to speak of it.

Keeping and cultivating a sense of mystery protects against pride and keeps us as children before the Lord. As I think through how to keep mystery in my life, three pathways emerge. ​

Pace of Life - ​Evaluate your everyday—your context. Mystery reveals itself to the simple because their pace of life allows them to encounter more. The to and fro of busy-ness can too often blind us with a false sense of efficiency and success. 

Slow down. and see  ​life. If you do, mystery will blindside you daily and in the most uncommon ways. 

Offering of Praise - ​Celebrate the simple things. Celebrate the beautiful things. "Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him (Psalm 33:1)." 

As God's children it makes sense to celebrate hm for all that he's done and will do. "By praising something," writes C.S. Lewis, "you complete it's enjoyment." ​

A Thankful Heart - ​Thankfulness marks the contented heart. Not so the prideful heart. Pride desires more, and even more—it bears the insatiable marke of avarice. When we say "Thank you" to God, we live in the contentment of his grace-blessing. 

This week I found several dahlia blossoms collected in the crook of one of our little Sweet Gum ​trees in the back yard. My girls leave little faerie offerings like that all over the landscape; I love finding them while I'm pruning and weeding.

Their pagan delight reminds me of the importance of spiritual mystery in my life. It slows me down so I can feel the cool spring air yet lingering on the late May breeze. It reopens my eyes to behold his glory I so often miss because of a godless frantic pace.

And in that time of glory and easeful stride I am able to catch my breath and whisper, "Thank you, Jesus." 

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His Leaking Brilliance

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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Ridiculous Lunatics

​This picture was taken when me and two of my best friends quit our jobs to play music all over the country circa 1998. For me, it is a reminder of the beauty of our ridiculous faith. And yes, that is a 1963 Leprechaun. 

To be a Christian means to believe in the ridiculous. Of course one who is a Christian does not see belief like this. They view the ridiculous as normalcy and, in turn, the world views them with contempt for their sheer lunacy.

Abraham, that champion of faith, was chief of the ridiculous lunatics.

"… he stood there, the old man with his only hope! But he did not doubt, he did not look in anguish to the left or right, he did not challenge heaven with his prayers. He knew it was God the Almighty that tried him, he knew it was the hardest sacrifice that could be demanded of him; but he also knew that no sacrifice was too hard when God demanded it—and he drew his knife."

We stand daily in the light of certain ridiculousness—a paradoxical combination of certitude and unknowing. The writer of Hebrews spells it out for us.

"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see." (Hebrews 11:1, The Message)

As one on the inside of ridiculousness, I view belief and faith in the same light. The world, however, views belief as separate from faith. Faith to the world is radical adherence to religious dogma and belief is that aspect of faith, which moves a person from onlooker to participant. The world views the holding of beliefs as helpful, but not as true.

How do you view belief? Faith? Is your Christian perspective founded upon what Kierkegaard refers to as a "remote possibility?"

Or do you live daily like Abraham, drawing your knife?

Our daily vision for work and life will either soar or flail depending on the veracity of your belief. Do you live like it is true, or merely helpful—a crutch to get you through the muck of life?

Once you and I pass over into the land of belief, action predicated on doubt is no longer an option. "Abraham had faith and did not doubt. He believed the ridiculous."

*Exerpts and ideas from this piece were drawn from Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and C.S. Lewis's essay "Man or Rabbit," which you can find in the collection God In The Dock. I'd also like to thank the mystery writer of Hebrews for writing one of my favorites books of Holy Scripture.