Waking Up

I love my children. Absolutley.

I also like to sleep and do what I want...which can conflict with my other above-mentioned love.

What do you do? Well, historically I have complained, grumbled, gotten upset, smiled and gotten up at Arwen's AM chirping and grunting.

Two days ago I had a little lesson. The staccato burst of our one year old's gfrowing voice broke the moring air. I lay there eyes open thinking...another cry. I know it's my job to get up. Marci does the night watch, I'm supposed to get up now. Come on, get up now. My body doesn't move. I lay there, eyes open thinking. Marci says something. Okay!

Like a flash it comes. Righteousness! That's what I need. I thought about Ecclesiastes and the message it has.

It is good for a man to find joy in his work. This is a gift from God. I'm thinking now. Yea, what am I wanting to sleep in for? This is my place for joy. Righteousness! Doing the right things from a right heart. Righteousness will bring peace and joy.

Will the covers over my head and a little grumble, grumble get me more rest? NO!

Will a check in my attitude and a littleHoly Spirit infused strength and prayer get me runnin'? YES!

Righteousness is what we need from waking up to going back to sleep. I'm telling you!

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea...

This is a strategic withdrawal, the kind that comes from having a plan and thinking through a problem. Jesus was showing his smarts right here. The Pharisees had just set him up. Jesus, like Daniel before him, was regular in some ways; he could be counted on to help someone in need. If someone needed healing Jesus would do it.

Now it was the Sabbath. The Pharisees had carefully crafted a set of restrictions to make sure the Sabbath was NEVER broken. The ship was not going down on their watch and they jealously guarded the law down to its letter. Though not imitated they were heros. Now Jesus had different ideas and different methods for engaging the law. The Pharisees thought it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath. If it was life threatening, "Sure," they said, but if not wait a day. Jesus claimed that he was way bigger than the Sabbath and that in fact the Pharisees and everything they were working toward was wrong. There was conflict.

The synagogue, a place of conflict. It was Sabbath at the synagogue. A man with a withered hand was there. Did the Pharisees plant him? They WANTED Jesus to heal him so they could catch him on a clear law violation and arrest him. They didn't appreciate his new ideas, unmatched authority and popularity.

Jesus made the show. He called the man up and stared the Pharisees down. It's beautiful how he put it. I paraphrase, "What do you think? Is it okay if I do something good on the Sabbath or do I have to do something bad?" He had the power to heal. Jesus was thinking that surely the Sabbath was given by God to promote life. Jesus could give this guy life. Surely it wasn't bad to heal this guy. On the other hand if he didn't heal this guy wouldn't that be bad? Wouldn't he be doing evil by withholding what good he could give? He stepped it up another notch, "I can save this guys life today or not (by keeping your tradition) and let him stay in death. What do you say?" The eyes locked and the tension was heavy.

They kept there mouths shut. Jesus had clearly laid the issue out and they wouldn't answer. He got angry. He looked around at them and was ANGRY. How could they protect there little party at the expense of God's clear desire. This guy's life was at stake and they were missing it. He was angry and sad at their hardness of heart. These men were unmoved by the presentation of raw human need when it came against their world.

Jesus healed the guy and the Pharisees went out right away to call a meeting with the politicians to figure out how to kill Jesus. They were through.

Then Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea. The sea. That's where the crowds were. Jesus was not afraid. He didn't skip the church service because of the big bad Pharisees. He was cramped there. He was always being "watched" and the space was small. He broke custom and went out by the ocean. Huge crowds came out from everywhere. He got a boat from his disciples to push out into the water a little bit because he was almost crushed.

Here was a little bit more freedom and a little bit more room. That's why he got out of the synagogue. It fit him better.

I was thinking about this the other day. What if the school system is like the synagogue of Jesus' day? There are many who need training in Kingdom service. Is the current seminary and Bible school set-up like the synagogue or is it like the sea. Can all those who need to come fit? Are the real leaders of the church able to come during school with jobs and families? What about expense? Are the real leaders of the church able to find a way? Are the seminaries and school systems supporting Jesus' ideas and people?

If not we may find him withdrawing quickly and strategically to find himself where he is not shut down and where the people can all come.

Look in China. Look in India. Look in Africa. Look in Latin America. There are millions of Christians springing up. Are they being led? Absolutely! Their leaders are not quitting church planting, business-running and family-having to go to a campus for some classes that run 9-5. They are pressing ahead by the sea because Jesus is there. Let's find ourselves among the disciples and go away with them.

thanks to RT France for his excellent commentary on Mark's gospel. It is clear, readable and enjoyable. You'll come away loving Jesus more.

Family Baskets

A family is like a wire-wicker basket.
First, it is holey. A wire-wicket basket, by design, is holey. This is what it means to be wire-wicker. Families are also holy by design. They belong to God and godly families are available to him for whatever he wants.
Second, it is full of things. Baskets are meant to hold things. Families also hold people. People can be loosely associated, but this is very different. Baskets often jumble things together that are not very similar. For example, we have a basket with a picture frame, a clothes-pin, a CD, adhesive envelope seals, letters, bills, and trash in it. These are all dissimilar yet held together by the wire-wicker basket. Families are often holding many things together that otherwise would not be together. Is this by design?
Third, wire-wicker baskets are available in different sizes and shapes. Families also come in different sizes and shapes. Some are large enough for motorcycles, although this kind of basket might more properly be called a "cage."
Fourth, a wire-wicker basket is strong and paintable. Families like-wise are very strong and have endured as an institution since they began. They recieve different looks from people to people and from age to age.
To conclude, wire-wicker baskets are similar to families so much so that apart from some key differences, they are the same. Thank you.



In case you're reading to closely....JUST KIDDING!
No, really. Families are an amazing, wonderful, life-sustaining kind of thing from God. WE should work to uphold our own and other people's.

Woo HOO!

I'm excited because Marci and I will be taking a trip down to Texas this Thanksgiving holiday.

This is no ordinary trip. We will be assembling a team of people and ministering the gospel while we're there. My parents are involved with Hope Community Church in Plano, TX. We asked if we could use their building to host a 12 hour prayer meeting. They said yes!

Well. What can you do for 12 hours? Friday noon to midnight will be packed full of opportunities to engage the Lord. There will be teaching, music, prayer promptings and ministry time. Our hope is that people will be able to meet the Lord in a deeper way.

I like an illustration that Dallas Willard gave in Spirit of the Disciplines. He noted that you may dump a cup of water on your head every day for your whole life, but never get clean. Over the course of time those cups add up to thousands of gallons, but the daily effect is minimal. You just don't get clean. It takes a certain volume and intensity to break through in certain things. We think it's like that for certain things in the Kingdom as well.

We want to provide an opportunity and some understanding for those who might not otherwise experience something like this to expose themselves to the Lord.

More to follow...

God in a Body

God is invisible. He doesn't have a body. He also is everywhere at once...until you read your Bible.

Re-read Genesis chapter 3.

Notice that Adam and Eve heard God coming. He was walking in the cool of the evening.

!!!!

What is this? God in a body? There are several surpirsing things in the first part of Genesis that show God invading time and space in a marked way. They are called theophanies and several of these appearances are in the form of a human body.

Read Genesis 18.

These things are NOT abnormal. Our strange Greek philosophical idea about God has led us to skim over some things that the Bible says about God. The Hebrews had no issue about these stories. The Hebrews were more concerned with WHO God is rather than WHAT God is. The Greeks saw it reversed.

The Hebrews want to know if God is angry, or close, or trustworthy.

The Greeks want to know if his being changes, or if he is omniscient.

These are overly simple, but the point is made. Different cultures ask different questions. If we want to read the words of the Bible, the Jewish Bible, it would help us to learn the questions the Hebrew had.

Who is God we begin to ask. What does he do? We find a God who early on was close to his people, communicating and even eating with them. This is wonderful.

The Lord's Prayer

I've been experimenting with actually praying the Lord's prayer. His guys saw him praying and then said to themselves, "He really seems to get answers..."

They asked, "Could you teach us to pray?"

This is a beautiful thing to me because the disciples are REGULAR people like I am a regular people. They asked if it was possible for them to be taught to pray in some way that measured upto what they saw in Jesus.

Jesus answers, "Yes, say this..."

The rest of what he said is now called the Lord's Prayer. It actually works as a prayer. You can go to CCEL.org and pull up a massive 238 pages on the Lord's Prayer by Thomas Watson, a Puritan concerned to teach people the "basics".

I'm in love with the idea of actually learning to pray in such a way that Jesus' otherwise outrageous statements become true of my life.

"Ask anything in my name and it will be given to you."

I'm Back.

Well...

It's been a while,
but I'm back with some words
It's like 70's style
NOT like milky curds.

Thank You.
Basically what I'm saying is that the absence has not issued in a stinky chunk style milk that should be thrown away. What I do mean is that like seventies style clothing I've kinda come back around with a Post Gen X twist.

What do you think?

The Weight of Change

Do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

One man bore the weight of a national change in identity. The people had thought that because their bloodline was correct that they would be acceptable to God. John the Baptist showed them in a graphic and powerful way that this was false.

This man, clothed in camel burlap, eating grasshoppers in the desert, was no ordinary man. He was a true prophet of God tried and trained in the hard places. He lived in the desert...

His formation enabled him to bear the weight of change that came on an entire generation. More than just a national change. His ministry acted as a fulcrum for the whole world's salvation. Something happened when he showed up. It was the beginning of the gospel, the historic inbreaking of God in behalf of the planet.

Likewise, today, Elijah comes again.

The power and attitude of Elijah will rest on an entire generation of young people. They are being trained to stand against the onslaught of evil and unbelief. They will not compromise. They will speak the words of God in such a way as to bear the weight of change. They are being trained in the desert...the wasteland of media. The spiritual climate is dry for such a people that have to come. These will stand against culture and evil in such a way as to herald the return of Messiah.

They will be strong and they will be joyful and they will hear the voice of God crying, "He must increase, We must decrease."

Finally

Sometimes a race seems here just to be over.

Have you ever done something or gone somewhere just to get it over with?

I remember oh way back when in ma school days when I would show up to school just so I could get it done and go home. I went to leave. I'm thinking that this is not a very good life strategy for Jesus students.


He will never bless anything but my life. He will not and cannot bless my expectation of life. He deals with me where I am. That means I cannot sit around and wait to have everything different before the "action" picks up. I'll always have stuff I have to do, people I have to help, places I have to go, or something that just needs to go away. Well, if I don't just suck it up and learn how to live with Jesus and a fiery passion in the midst of day to day grind then there's no learning.

Locked In

If we go to heaven when we die and there meet the Lord and instantly become like him why the fuss and struggle to be transformed now? Isn't that what most people think that we'll get there and then *snap*, we've arrived?

Well what if it's not like that? What if when we die we are FOREVER fixed as the kind of person we were at death. What if it seals our character's possibilites for eternity?

Every Christian has the inner capacity to love the Lord and be loved by Himand to interact with him. In a way taht's what it means to be a Christian. However, the Bible also talks about and urges us to be changed into the image of Jesus while we're alive on the earth. This increases our ability to interact with God and his kingdom. There are some alive that know God and his company in a more rich and meaningful way. When they die won't they be able to "hold more" so to speak?

Everyone who believes will get there and be blissfully happy, but the appetite of some will be greater baseed on how they'v lived their life.

That's the incentive for going for it now, is that it all transfers. We will be rewarded for our work here. There's continuity from this age into the next. We will still be us and the world will still be the world. There won't be a 100 foot Jesus returning with a magic snappy finger to cast a spell. We're in this thing for the long haul.

What do you think? The only thing that pops into mind as I write that might be argued is the parable about the vineyard workers. One group started working early morning and workers were added all day and at the end of the day those who worked all day got the same pay as those who only worked an hour. Jesus said this to reveal offense at his generosity.

Come on, I know you're reading this, let me know what you think.

Mad Men Shooting Dinosaurs

So the crazy guy goes outside shooting his bow and arrow at all the dinosaurs.

How else will they be captured and put down?

Beatitudes

Are the Beatitudes something you do?

Is it a goal for Christians to become like what the Beatitudes say? Do I aspire to become a spiritual nobody and overcome with remorse. Should I walk around weak and sad, all the while being beaten up?

This is the traditional idea that I have heard, but perhaps Jesus means something different.

Maybe he is pronouncing blessing in a way that shocks hearers out of commonly held assumptions. Ist century Jews like 21st century Americans have ideas about who is really well off...and who is not. Jesus in his characteristic style made statements that challenged those assumptions and asserted something else was the case.

He was not replacing the list of the "God-favored" with another list. He was saying even those who are nobodies, dropouts and burnout can be blessed becasue of the Kingdom of God.

What do you think?

Marci's Blog

Here's Marci's blog for all you interested parties. She has two excellent new posts.

http://marcilewellen.blogspot.com

My Wife and My Sister

I've recieved a electronic 2x4 across the head. My wife and my sister have both started the blog. I have not posted in quite some time, but this dear friends is a re-entry, a renaissance if you will. From the ashes Phoneix arises. Lazarus is coming out. Can you feel the drama? Friends, I live it.

GRE and Gandalf the Grey

I took a 2.5 hour test today.

Yes, it was voluntary. I am one day in the not so distant future going to be a graduate student. I hope that UMKC will let me study history with them so I can understand the world.

I want to be like Gandalf. If you haven't see Lord of the Rings or read the books please do so before continuing to read this post.

Well...did you?

He was a counselor and friend to both the high and low, the educated and not. He kept his finger on the pulse of the worlds and knew how to help people get to where they needed to go to fulfill destiny.

I see him as a prophetic counselor. He aided people by the Spirit of God. i wonder what kind of context this might have today. A biblical character that does similar things is Daniel. He was hihgly educated and a devoted man of God. He had understanding and counseled people. Pretty sweet.

How do people make money and serve others by having understanding?

What do my son, animals, and wind have in common?

They all put trash on my lawn.

Man I'm happy!

Jesus is alive and well. He breathes in and leads his church.

I'm on my way to Christ likeness on account of his dedication to me. Thank you, Lord.
You know we'd all be happy more if we thought about stuff like that more.

It is critical to guard what enters our minds. What we think about shapes the depths of our beings. Imagine what Jesus was like on his insides. What did he walk around thinking about? What kinds of thoughts filled his moments? They were good things. From the inside out he was good. That's what made him the man that we see walk the gospel pages. He was from his very core pure and good. His thoughts were like that.

It doesn't make sense for us to load up our heads with garbage, bad tv, books, music, movies, conversations, whatever and expect to have a flow of peace, joy and righteousness welling up from our inside.

Let's decide to fill our thoughts with little 3-5 second prayers of thankfulness to God. Our lives could change.

Some good books about this are Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a 17th century French monk, and Letters from a Modern Mystic by Frank Laubach, a 20th century missionary to the Philippenes. Gene Edwards and Seed Sower publishers have put together a compilation of these two books and maybe one more in a wonderfully easy read called Practicing His Presence.

Check it out.

Thoughts and Langauge

Is it possible for understanding and knowledge to go from one person to another without langauge?

Are there experiences that can communicate information but that don't use langauge?

For example, can I know something about God without the use of language or is all thought only in langauge?

Or grilled cheese?

Perforations

I think it's weird that toilet paper has perforations when no one ever uses just one sheet. At minimim it's a full twist around the hand - minimum. In perforatory counting, that's three sheets.

Why not do as the chep-o brands (the kinds at gas-stations, school, etc.) and not have perforations at all? We are all strong enough and purposeful enough to tear (man that's violence) the sheet where we need it.

Maybe perforations are actually a peace agenda meant to undermine human violence at some of it's most...tender times.

Possibly a very cool school

College of Humanities and Science

It's distance and it's based on Mortimer J. Adler's Great Book stuff.

It could be a match.