Lights in the Darkness

I went camping the other day at this great little wilderness camp ground just west of Harrisonburg in the George Washington National Forest. I have wanted to get out for quite some time and just be alone with God in the middle of the woods and I finally decided that I was just going to go and do it.  I got off of work at 6 and by the time I had all my stuff crammed into my pack and swung by Food Lion to pick up some stuff to eat on my adventure it was pushing dusk.  When I turned on to 33 west the sun was a big orange ball that was slowly sinking behind the distant mountains.  I knew that I would have to get there quickly or else I was going to have to set up camp in the dark and spend the night in a place that I had never seen in the light of day, a scary prospect for someone that still has a deep fear of the dark.  I managed to not get lost and Lucy (my truck) managed to get down the back country roads fast enough to let us pull into the camp ground (I use that term loosely) with just enough time to set up my tent before the last few rays of light gave way to the cool clear darkness of a Virginia night. 

With my tent set up and my sleeping gear stowed safely in it I set to the tasks of getting some dinner ready to quench my grumbling stomach and lighting a fire to clam my fear of the dark.  My MSR Pocket Rocket fired right up and soon I had a delicious dinner of spinach and broccoli noodles with chunk light tuna boiling away in the pot.  The next task was to start a fire.  Fortunately the last people that has stayed at the sight had left some nice fire wood and it didn’t take me long to have the pine logs crackling away in the stone ring.  Soon I was alone in the woods surrounded by tall pines that reached like fingers into the clear starry night sky, eating my stoup (soup + stew = stoup, a slightly thicker that soup slightly thinner than stew concoction that hits the spot when you are out for a wilderness adventure) and gazing contentedly into my little fire, lost in the crackling of the sap and the dancing of the yellow and orange flames.  

In the midst of the simple beauty of that moment I began to think about the lessons that were there in the woods just waiting to be understood.  I began to think about the darkness, not out of fear but out of wonder.  Darkness lends its self so well to spiritual parallels that something had to be waiting to be discovered.  I thought about the fire that I had started.  In order to find something small enough to catch fire from my little wad of paper I had to venture down a path into the woods to pick up some dry twigs.  Fear had gripped my heart as I got farther into the darkness away from the camp site.  Then I looked back at my stove, there it was a little blue flame glowing brightly in the darkness a point of refuge for my fearful heart. As I though of this I looked up through the trees and could see the stars above shining brightly in the cool night air.  Thinking on these lights brought my mind around to this season of life that God is leading me through. 

I have always found it easy to be a star, shining brightly among other stars.  From places like camp and church or the college ministry I had been involved in it was always so easy to “let my light so shine before men.”  I think that we would all agree to that, being a light for Christ is always so much easier when we have back up, we have others around us who are shining to.  If we confront darkness it is because darkness has come into our area of light not because we have gone out into the darkness.  Like when a person who does not know Christ comes to camp or church.  It is easy to shine before them because everyone around us is shining to.  So often we join together so much that we become like the Milky Way, not that being together with other believers is a bad thing we just tend to stay there. 

Christ however commanded that we go out into the darkness.  The children of Israel were supposed to be a light to the world, a nation that burned so brightly for God that other nations would see and believe.  But with the new covenant God has set forth a new plan to shine His light into this darkened world.  His command to us, His Church, was not to build a Christian nation but to go out into the darkness, like sheep among wolves, carrying the light of life.  We are to be like my stove, shining brightly in the darkness.  There wasn’t any other light around just that small blue flame but it was enough to draw me back to the campsite, enough to calm my fear, a wonderful comfort in the thick darkness of those woods. 

Now I am not saying that we should not spend time together or that the many ways that we meet together are a bad thing.  My stove needed the light of my lighter to get it going, and we need the fellowship of others to encourage us.  The Bible warns, and even commands us to not forsake the gathering of ourselves together.  But so often we gather so much that we forget to go, or when we do go we are in no small hurry to get back in amongst the other lights.  Darkness can truly be a scary thing to confront, especially when you are the only light around.  However the beautiful truth is that when you shine forth like a light in the darkness you stand as a beacon to draw others from out of that darkness.  Just as I was looking for a light to draw me back to my campsite so others that are lost are seeking and longing to find the light of truth, the light that we have in our hearts.  It is not easy, and this season of my life is teaching me that.  I have been removed from my comfort zones of the “ministry” and thrown out into the darkness but God is faithful and he is teaching me how to shine!

Colossians 3:5-14

I have been studying Colossians for a Bible study with some folks down here in Harrisonburg and I decided that I would try and paraphrase (I believe that is the correct term for it) some verses from chapter 3. I just thought I would share my paraphrase with you ...

Completely destroy everything that belongs to your old earthly nature, that sinful self that has died and was left behind when you rose into this new life that is completely saturated with Christ’s life. Among the things that you must destroy are any sexual acts that are contrary to God’s plan and purpose. Remember, Christ said that to look upon a woman with lust is to commit adultery with her in your heart. Also destroy any other act that would make you dirty as you stand before our Holy God, these are not consistent with our new source and life. Finally destroy every lustful and greedy thought these are filled with evil and put earthly things in our hearts before God. These very things are causing God to swell up with righteous wrath and soon it will burst forth upon those who would not repent and accept the free gift of total forgiveness and new life that He offered through the sacrifice of His son.

You know very well that you used to make due use of every opportunity to do these very same things in the life that you lived before your redeeming encounter with Jesus Christ. But now you must lay all of these aside and never touch them again. Even things like anger, and angry outbursts, mean spiritedness, viciousness, speaking lowly and falsely about each other and all sorts of foul language. You must never allow these a place in your hearts and minds again.

Don’t lie to each other. Be honest about your struggles and short comings; use the body of Christ to do these things in honesty. Don’t just build up a beautiful image of your self for others while inside and in private you are struggling with bitter sin and death, Christ calls us to be transparent. Honesty with great humility is one of the best ways to fully separate your self from all of these remnants of the old sin filled life. There is no need to lie because you have put on a new person, one that is always being renewed through the deeply intimate knowledge that you are gaining of your Creator and that is being transformed into His image more and more each day.

In this new kind of life (the kind of life that we were created to live but feel so utterly short of) there is no longer rich and poor, spiritually able and unable, middle class, lower class, and upper class, third world or first world, native tribesman or wealthy business man. There is only Christ and because of His dwelling within us, because His life has been so completely blended with ours, God sees only Christ when He looks at us. We truly have become sons of God.

Now because God has called you out of the life that you were living when you were dead in your sins, and has made you holy, that is set apart from this world, and has loved you with an unconditional boundless love that will reach past the far ends of eternity you need to cloth your new self with a new set of divine character traits. Just as those old sinful acts have been taken off and are never to be touched again these new divine attributes are to be put on right now and never taken off. You must have a heart that is filled with compassion for those around you. Your heart should be sensitive to the fallen state of the world at large and to the struggles of your fellow brothers and sisters. You need to show kindness to all being willing to help them in any way that God will allow. You must also have a proper view of your self in the light of the greatness of God and the wonder of His love and saving grace. Realize that with out Him you are nothing, all life is Christ and apart from Him we don’t have life. You must be willing to accommodate others weakness and to patiently trust in God to strengthen each one to do His work. Be patient also, Christ showed so much patience toward you while you walked in sin and so you need to show that same kind of patience with others.

Learn to forgive your bothers and sisters. Christ has forgiven us all of our sins and so we need to forgive anything that we might hold against a brother. Wrap all of these qualities around you and cover them all with love. This is a deep God kind of love that is totally unconditional, it is love that is a choice and not a feeling; it is a kind of love that will bind up broken hearts and that will hold the body of Christ together. Love is the key, Love is Christ, and we must learn to love as Christ and to love through Christ, to see the world and our brothers and sisters with His eyes of love. His is a love that will bind us together perfectly forever.

Fireflies

I love to watch fireflies. There are few things that are better than sitting relaxing in a back porch swing on a quiet night looking out across a field full of fireflies that melt into tall valley mountains and then reappear as reflections in the twinkling stars of the brilliant night sky. Better still to look out across a pond as the reflections are mirrored off of the calm surface of the water and seemingly cast up into those very same skies. I can remember as a child waiting earnestly for those warmer summer nights and finding so much excitement in seeing the first firefly shine its light out over the fields below our home. Soon those fields would be filled with the little lights, dancing around the tall grass down between the fencerow trees to the bubbling creek and into the cornfields beyond. I was so blessed to grow up in a place where I could sit on our front porch swing and just enjoy the beauty of it all.

Sitting still, however, did not last long. I was never a child that could sit and watch for long, I had to get out and see and taste and enjoy all that God had so graciously placed me in. As evening would come, the sun would set in all of its blazing majesty over the cornfields, letting the moon, stars and nighttime take hold of my world. As soon as it was dark enough to see the fireflies I would run off of the porch out into those fields to begin and evening of chasing down these curious little lights. It wasn't as easy as it seemed it should have been and it took much skill for my little self to catch up with one of these lights. They blink but it would always seem that just as you were closing in on them the light would go out and then reappear several feet from where you were and the chase would be on again. It was an amazing little dance for a child to take part in and one that I still feel a drawing toward though I am older and more able to just sit and be still and know that He is God.

This dance was rewarded often with my small hand gently wrapped around one of these strange little bugs. There was laughter as the little legs tickled my palm and there was always a bit of fear not knowing if harm would come from holding this little creature in my hand. The best part though was the light, that calm yellow glow would shine out from between my fingertips as the firefly continued to shine away within my clenched hand. Soon us kids would work together and gather as many fireflies as we could and fill up a peanut butter jar or bug barn that our mother had given us. It was like creating our own little lantern and we would work, until it was time to go in for evening prayers and bedtime, to fill our jar as full of the little lights as we could. We would also, as our grandmother had taught us, take the fireflies and squish them on our hands and faces creating little glowing lines that always seemed to take you into some mystical world. I must admit now that the thought of squishing one on my face or hand makes me cringe and my stomach curl; however as a little child it was something that I loved to do.

Lightning bugs are truly amazing little creatures. God placed special organs in their abdomens that combine a special chemical with oxygen to make that gentle yellow glow we are all so familiar with. Scientists still don’t know how the lightning bugs control this reaction to produce the complex series of flashes that they use to communicate with each other. It is especially amazing to note that each species of firefly has its own unique pattern of flashes. Some have a solid glow while others emit erratic flashes, and yet all of the fireflies are able to tell which flash belongs to their species. Only God could have designed such a unique creature that uses the darkness of night and the special ability that God has given it to communicate so perfectly with each other.

Now are we so different from the firefly. We live in a world of darkness; darkness created when people exchanged the truth of God for a lie and began to live for themselves. Throughout history God has been trying to give light back to us. The bible is filled with stories of people who turned from the lies of this world and its prince of darkness and became the lights of God. The children of Israel were to be a beacon that burned brightly for the entire world to see but that light was at best manifest as brief flashes that quickly died away as the people turned back to the lies. Then God sent His son into this world in order to once again make the light of God available to each and every person who he had created. Just as the firefly has to take in oxygen and combine it with the chemicals in its abdomen to make its light so we have to open our lives up to Christ and allow Him to fill us and allow His life to combine totally with ours so that we can shine as lights in this darkened world. Just as it is a mystery to scientist how exactly the lightning bug controls its light so it is a deep mystery how the life of Christ can come into our life and set us afire for God.

It seems like such a simple analogy; fireflies are lights in the darkness and so we are to be lights in the darkness, and it may be. However, only the analogy is simple, the truth that is represents is the greatest mystery known to men. How can God turn us into lights in the darkness? How could the death of His son open up to us the relationship that it takes to truly make us lights? What does it mean to truly be a light for Christ? What kind of life are we to live now? Most of all how in the world can the God of the universe live inside of me, allowing my life to become so mixed with His that I could also be called a son of His, and how could I, knowing that God dwells within me, hold that light inside and not let it shine out into the darkness all around me. Those questions provide plenty of food for thought and meditation as I sit and stare out across a beautiful valley filled with fireflies.

I will close with one of my favorite quotes, it was spoken by Jim Elliot, a man who truly learned in His short life how to carry God’s light into the world.

"He makes His ministers a flame of fire, "Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me, there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him."

Colossians 3:5-14

I have been studying Colossians for a Bible study with some folks down here in Harrisonburg and I decided that I would try and paraphrase (I believe that is the correct term for it) some verses from chapter 3. I just thought I would share my paraphrase with you ...

Completely destroy everything that belongs to your old earthly nature, that sinful self that has died and was left behind when you rose into this new life that is completely saturated with Christ’s life. Among the things that you must destroy are any sexual acts that are contrary to God’s plan and purpose. Remember, Christ said that to look upon a woman with lust is to commit adultery with her in your heart. Also destroy any other act that would make you dirty as you stand before our Holy God, these are not consistent with our new source and life. Finally destroy every lustful and greedy thought these are filled with evil and put earthly things in our hearts before God. These very things are causing God to swell up with righteous wrath and soon it will burst forth upon those who would not repent and accept the free gift of total forgiveness and new life that He offered through the sacrifice of His son.

You know very well that you used to make due use of every opportunity to do these very same things in the life that you lived before your redeeming encounter with Jesus Christ. But now you must lay all of these aside and never touch them again. Even things like anger, and angry outbursts, mean spiritedness, viciousness, speaking lowly and falsely about each other and all sorts of foul language. You must never allow these a place in your hearts and minds again.

Don’t lie to each other. Be honest about your struggles and short comings; use the body of Christ to do these things in honesty. Don’t just build up a beautiful image of your self for others while inside and in private you are struggling with bitter sin and death, Christ calls us to be transparent. Honesty with great humility is one of the best ways to fully separate your self from all of these remnants of the old sin filled life. There is no need to lie because you have put on a new person, one that is always being renewed through the deeply intimate knowledge that you are gaining of your Creator and that is being transformed into His image more and more each day.

In this new kind of life (the kind of life that we were created to live but feel so utterly short of) there is no longer rich and poor, spiritually able and unable, middle class, lower class, and upper class, third world or first world, native tribesman or wealthy business man. There is only Christ and because of His dwelling within us, because His life has been so completely blended with ours, God sees only Christ when He looks at us. We truly have become sons of God.

Now because God has called you out of the life that you were living when you were dead in your sins, and has made you holy, that is set apart from this world, and has loved you with an unconditional boundless love that will reach past the far ends of eternity you need to cloth your new self with a new set of divine character traits. Just as those old sinful acts have been taken off and are never to be touched again these new divine attributes are to be put on right now and never taken off. You must have a heart that is filled with compassion for those around you. Your heart should be sensitive to the fallen state of the world at large and to the struggles of your fellow brothers and sisters. You need to show kindness to all being willing to help them in any way that God will allow. You must also have a proper view of your self in the light of the greatness of God and the wonder of His love and saving grace. Realize that with out Him you are nothing, all life is Christ and apart from Him we don’t have life. You must be willing to accommodate others weakness and to patiently trust in God to strengthen each one to do His work. Be patient also, Christ showed so much patience toward you while you walked in sin and so you need to show that same kind of patience with others.

Learn to forgive your bothers and sisters. Christ has forgiven us all of our sins and so we need to forgive anything that we might hold against a brother. Wrap all of these qualities around you and cover them all with love. This is a deep God kind of love that is totally unconditional, it is love that is a choice and not a feeling; it is a kind of love that will bind up broken hearts and that will hold the body of Christ together. Love is the key, Love is Christ, and we must learn to love as Christ and to love through Christ, to see the world and our brothers and sisters with His eyes of love. His is a love that will bind us together perfectly forever.

Grace

I have been thinking a bit about grace lately. I was at my cousins’ graduation party a couple of weeks ago and as part of the afternoon we sat down together in their living room and sang some worship songs. It was a very special to have the chance to worship with family, friends, and some of their friends that I had never met before. One song in particular spoke to me. We were singing one of the new versions of Amazing Grace when one of the stanzas grabbed hold of my mind. It is a song that is all about grace but there are two lines in it that have now taken a very special place in my heart.

“Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.”

It struck me as odd that grace is spoken of as teaching our hearts to fear. I began to think about that. What did it mean? How has grace taught us to fear and how does that contribute to making grace so amazing? I thought back to a little book called the Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. There is a portion of that book in which Tozer describes the process of following hard after God. One important aspect of this is that God sought us and loved us first. Without his prevenient drawing we could never find Him. God is so big that He can go completely unnoticed. I heard a guy once explain it by telling the story of an ant. Ants can’t really comprehend us; we are too big we don’t fit into their world. Therefore if I wanted to stop an ant from doing something that would hurt it I could not just put my hand out and say stop, the ant would not get the message, it would just continue on by crawling over my hand or going around it. If I really wanted to stop the ant I would have to become something the ant could understand, an ant.

God like wise speaks to us in words and ways that we can understand. Even to the point of becoming just like us to show us the relationship that is available to us and the danger that lies ahead if we do not enter into that relationship for which we were created. God teaches us to fear Himself, we no longer view God as this old man in the sky or as a myth or fable, we see Him in all of His glory and power and that is a terrifying reality for someone on the outside looking in. There are still times in my life that though I have embraced that relationship with Him, I still find myself living in fear of Him. His plans and purposes and power are so big and beyond our understanding that is it quite easy to begin to fear what He may do. His eternal perspective is so great that He could look at Job, a man who had lost everything for no apparent reason, and say Job who are you to question me? “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?”

Now I have never had all of my possessions mysteriously taken away or had children killed though I had sacrificed diligently for my sins and theirs. I haven’t even tasted the bitter loss of a loved one, but I can look at my life and see times when I wonder why. Yet God still calls me to trust Him and move forward and that can be scary at times. But that fear is a sign that I know God, His grace has taught my heart to fear, it has shown me Him and drawn me into a relationship with Him.

Now the second part of that stanza is so beautiful. While we must learn to fear God, a fear that is made possible through His grace, His grace also relieves that fear. I don’t live in constant fear of God, and at those times when I do find my self afraid of what He might be doing I look at the rest of my relationship with Him. I see how He has always been faithful and my fears are quieted. Like a small child being held in the arms of a parent during a thunder storm my fears are soothed in the loving arms of my savior. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, at least that is the definition that you learn in Sunday school, and we definatlly don’t deserve to be comforted in the arms of a loving savior, but we are. His grace allows me to trust Him, to follow His leading, to take my fears and lay them at His nail pierced feat, and to step forward with confidence. Grace truly is Amazing.

Introvert?

Those of you that know me know that I am an introvert. I think that introvertedness is a gift from God that carries with it its own blessings and unique abilities as well as its own vulnerabilities to our adversary’s attacks. I have been thinking about my personality and struggles a bit and thought that I would write some of it down. I believe that both introvert and extrovert personalities are blessings from God and without both this body called the Church would never be able to function properly. However I think that what we call introvertedness and extrovertedness has come to mean something different from what God originally intended. We view introverts as people that are quiet, soft spoken, and generally don’t like to be around people, they usually aren’t blessed with outstanding social skills and are seemingly unfit for any kind of ministry besides writing and study, which I will admit I am quite fond of. We view extroverts as people that have an extreme desire to be with people and usually blessed with any number of social skills. They are people that would die if they had to go off for a long period of study or meditation by them selves they just could not be alone. I think that these views have formed as a result of thousands of years of enemy attack on the very people that bear these unique God given personalities, us! I am here sharing my thoughts on introvertedness but will on occasion put some thoughts forward on extrovertedness, though I am not one and can’t really speak to the deep heart of an extrovert, but I do imagine that many of the thoughts and struggles are the same just reversed.

The problem with our view of introvertedness is that we do not see it as a gift from God that gives us a unique ability to work with other people. But that is altogether untrue. While introverts are usually good at retreating into a room or out into the wilderness and spending much time in study and writing they are also good, or at least often have the desire to be, at working with people. God never intended for those of us that have introverted personalities to live our lives alone, to not enjoy interacting with others. He created all of us, introverts and extroverts alike, to be in relationship with Him and with each other. “It was not good for man to be alone.” This verse does not only speak of the desire to be in a husband/wife relationship, it speaks of our desire, our reflection of the Trinity, to be in relationship. Introverts have the ability to listen to others hearts, to listen in a way that is pure listening, we don’t sit and think of responses while the other is talking we just listen. This is not to say that extroverts can’t do this or that all introverts can do this naturally, it just comes easier to many introverts. Introverts have the unique ability to spend time alone, quietly, with out our hearts crying out for companionship other than God. We can think and study and write and gain many valuable insights that must be shared with the body. Introvertedness at its heart is simply the ability to remain still and quiet and listen; it is a quiet and reflective personality it is not a complete inability to be in relation with others. It carries its own unique abilities into those relationships; it does not flee from them. There are many more unique qualities that an introvert can bring to the body, and if you are an introvert perhaps you should take the time to think of those that you have to give and if you are an extrovert you should take the time to think of the introverts in your life and what they bring to your relationship that is special and unique to their type of personality.

So what makes an introvert shy so much from bringing their gifts and abilities into the body? They certainly are there and must be shared, but there is something that keeps introverts from doing so. I believe as I mentioned above that it is deeply connected to years of enemy attack. The devil is one of the few beings that has seen what we were created to be. He saw Adam and Eve in their sinless God reflecting state and he hated it. The devil wanted to be God, and that God would place the very image that the devil so badly wanted into such seemingly weak and unglorious creatures infuriated him. The devil went on the attack, he attacked God first and when he was cast out of heaven he attacked these creatures that God so deeply loved. That attack still goes on today and it has shaped us more than we know. It doesn’t take long to think of ways that we have been attacked; wounds that the devil’s well placed arrows have left in our hearts. The worst part is that once one of his fiery darts hits home he will continue to hit us there until we break and crumble and become something that we were never intended to be. Think of the words that you hear whispered into your mind. Those deadly lies that the devil constantly speaks to us in a voice that grows ever louder the more the arrows hit home. It is this attack and these lies that have done so much to take us from the glorious image bearers that God intended us to be to the broken creatures that we are now.

I have found that these lies are what keep my self and other introverts from sharing what we so badly long to bring to the body. That quiet reflective nature allows the devil to take the smallest of wounds received from another person and begin to whisper lies into our minds and hearts. Introverts begin to feel like they have nothing to bring or that if they try they will be misunderstood and made fun of. The devil has had thousands of years to perfect his aim and his lies can sound very loud in our ears. I can imagine that his lies in the ears of an extrovert may sound like worries of not being heard, lies that people aren’t listening and don’t care, lies that make an extrovert go crazy trying to make someone listen. I don’t know but it seems to me like that may be the case. I do know that there have been many times where I have felt as though God wanted me to say something but the lie in my head, that no one wanted to hear what I was saying or that they wouldn’t get it if I did say what was on my mind, kept me from revealing what was on my heart. Now I realize this wound and have many people around me that have helped me to begin to learn to open up and share my heart. I struggle and stumble sometimes but I know that God is with me and there is always an encouraging ear that I can turn to when I am feeling the heat of the devil’s attack.

I was thinking about that this morning, thinking about those voices. The voice of the devil so loud and so demeaning, just like the Casting Crown’s song, “reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed.” But then I thought of the other voices so quiet and yet so genuine that they can, if I am listening, quickly drown out the lies. I was reminded of Hebrews 12 where is says that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. That verse directly follows my favorite chapter in the Bible, Hebrews 11, the hall of faith. Those people listed there and many others both on this earth and in heaven are there cheering us on. Cheering introverts and extroverts alike to become what God made us to be; to embrace our personalities and search them to find out how God designed them to work within the body of Christ, the church. We are called to dig down through the years of attacks and lies and find who we truly are. The blessing is to know that not only are there so many cheering us on but God is right there digging with us searching out the wounds and binding them up. That is where I am at right now and hopefully will be for the rest of my life. God is leading me down through my heart showing me wounds, digging them up, (this is some times a hard and teary thing to do) and then binding that part of my hart back together. It is like an art restorer digging through the pieces of a broken and beautiful piece of pottery and lovingly putting them back together. Loving restoration, becoming the creatures that God created us to be. Introverts and extroverts alike, made whole and being set free to live vibrantly in God kingdom.

Scenario:
Listen to people long enough and the lies that the devil whispers to both introverts and extroverts will become apparent. Have you ever seen a conversation where one person or more goes on and on trying to get everything in their mind out speaking faster and more rapidly with an ever growing fear that they are not being heard or are being misunderstood? They explain themselves over and over again hardly leaving room for others to speak because of some deep fear, some whispered lie that spurs them on. Then in the same conversation you may see a person that says nothing at all, they seem like they have something on their mind but they are scared to say it and then become frustrated with them self for being afraid to say it and frustrated with the “talker” because it seems as though even if they did have the courage to speak their heart they couldn’t do so any way. The lie whispered to them is don’t speak they don’t care or will just misunderstand and use the things you say against you. The lie reminds them of times past when things they have spoken have been ripped apart.

I mention this scenario not to condemn but to bring to light the fact that we all are being continually attacked. Introverts and extroverts are being fired upon by the enemy all the time. I can see it in my life and I can feel the woundedness in my heart, perhaps you can to. Praise God that there is healing, and we need to constantly lift each other up before our healing God, allowing His mercy and grace to bind our hearts back together, making us who we originally were intended to be.

A Spring Walk and Some Thoughts on Fear

I went for a walk today, not a walk in the park or around the block; a walk through the woods of my child hood. They have changed a lot since I was a boy romping through them pretending that I was on some grand pioneering or hunting adventure. Trees have been cut down and new ones are growing, trails have been cut through places where I could never have walked just a few years ago. The woods aren’t the only thing that have changed, I have. I no longer see the woods through the eyes of an adventurous child, I don’t pretend to hunt or envision my self as some pioneer from long ago, learning to live off the land and avoiding attacks from the natives. No, these days I walk through the woods to clear my head, to refocus my self and to find inspiration. In these woods, with the calming sounds of nature’s less relentless pace surrounding me, I seem to be able to focus my self back to my creator, the one who created the beauty of this place in which I love to find my self. It is not that He hides Him self there and that I must go there to find Him, it is that when I wander through those woods my mind is set free to more easily recognize His quiet voice and loving hand all around me. And so this afternoon I went for a walk in the woods.

It was a beautiful spring day. Not wanting to spend such a beautiful day inside I put some water in my back pack and laced up my boots and headed out into the woods. The sun was high in the sky. It is getting warmer now and you can tell that summer is coming quickly. However, though it is warm, the air still contains that sweetness that is so easily tasted when the winter cold melts away and the spring flowers begin to bloom. I started to make my way though fields of alfalfa, fields filled with newly blossomed dandelions and lots of birds hopping around catching an afternoon snack. It didn’t take me long to reach the edge of the long patch of woods that separates the field that I was walking through from the one beside it. This smaller patch of woods grows ever wider as it makes its way up through the fields to the mountain.

I love this place. There is the beauty of the green that is bursting forth, a green made even more beautiful by the long grey winter we have just had. There is the sound of the little stream as it makes its way down through this little peninsula of woods. There are flowers and birds and all sorts of memories that I get lost in as soon as I step foot into the first shadow of a twisted old maple tree.

In this part of the woods there are no trails, and so there really isn’t anything to guide me as I wander through the ever widening expanse of forest. I could stick right along the wooded edge and follow it up the hill to the mountain or I could walk along the little stream but both have been done before and so I have developed a new way of guiding my wanderings. I simply follow beauty. I know that God is speaking to my heart and is always looking to show me something unique when I take the time to wander through the beauty that He has made, and so I try and look for His guidance when I am out. That is not to say that we have conversations in which he tells me where to go. God doesn’t tell me to head up to the big oak and then make a right and follow the stream for a bit, that would be more like following a compass course than going for a walk with God. No, I simply look for something beautiful to catch my eye and then see where the Lord leads me and what things the He lays upon my heart as I am going along.

Today I found that beauty in the first flowers of spring. I love flowers and am not ashamed to say that I am captivated by their beauty. So to see the first little dots of color on the forest floor set me on my journey. The first flowers that I saw were some little white flowers growing along the stream. Early spring flowers are generally small and low to the ground and these were no different. I pushed aside some branches and walked over to the flowers. I bent down and touched them, smelled them, did my best to soak up their beauty. I looked around to see if there were more and I could see that they followed the stream up through the center of this little patch of woods. So I followed them. Stopping to see the birds and listen to the stream, at points crossing over the stream as its cool clear water ran over my boot. I followed these little white flowers until I saw something else that caught my eye. Up ahead a short distance from the stream where some little pink flowers.

They were beautiful. They had little pink petals that faded to white at the tips. I began to follow these new flowers up and away from the stream. Through the woods I went, twisting around the occasional thorn bush and ducking low under the overhanging branches of the larger trees. I followed this trail of flowers until I came to an area that took my breath away. There before me was a place where the forest thinned and the trail of flowers that I had been following burst into a field of flowers; the kind of field that beckons you to lie down and breathe deeply; taking time to fully appreciate the delicate, aroma of thousands of little blooms. I stood there lost in the moment thinking of how beautiful this sight was and of how beautiful the creator of these little flowers is. It is in moments like these when I feel as though I am finally beginning to understand and appreciate the beauty of God. It was as though God had lead me beside a stream of color and I had finally burst into a beautiful sea of flowers; a journey that he was using to show me a special glimpse of His beauty.

My walk took me to other places in the woods also. I saw a couple of lovely springs as I followed the streams to where they start as a small trickle coming out of the mountain side. I saw and heard more birds than I could ever begin to name. I saw more flowers: violets, wild geraniums, some little blue ones, and lots of the pink ones that had made up the sea of flowers that had taken my breath away. It was an amazing time of slowing down, quieting my mind, and listening for the voice of God speaking softly to my heart.

So what did He say? To have my breath taken away by the beauty of the woods would have been enough but I have found that God often takes our breath away in those subtle moments in order to teach us something about Him self. Throughout my walk I began to think about a conversation that I had recently.

I was out to lunch with a guy that had just interviewed me for a youth ministry position at a church down south. He offered to take me out to lunch so that we could talk some more. As we were talking we found common ground in our early experiences of God. I had told my story of faith in the interview and he was sharing some similarities with me from his own story. We are both people that had come to faith out of fear. Most people are presented with the gospel as a way of salvation from sins and an eternity in hell. There is little said about relationship with God; it is usually where do you want to go when you die and do you know that you are going to heaven. We talked about how that often leads to a life of faith in a God who we are first and foremost fearful of.

As I walked I thought about it. I thought of my struggles and of times when I had failed God. The sad fact is that I wasn’t trying to overcome these struggles out of love for God and that when I do fail I don’t feel remorse out of love for God, I feel fear. So many times in life I approach God out of an attitude of fear rather than one of love. I asked my self, “why is it that when I fail that I feel more scared of punishment than saddened by the fact that I have just broken God’s heart?” That question is still resonating in my mind, turning over and over again, kind of like the ringing in your ears after a siren has gone off beside your head. Why? Why is it that I have more fear for God than love?

Sure I love God but at our lowest points the deepest feelings of our hearts pour out. I am at my lowest when I fall into struggles with sin, struggles that take me down through the depths of my heart, down to a place in my heart where I fear God. I love ministry but I must admit that when I fall I feel so unworthy. I fear that I may have pulled the last straw and that God is finally going to pull everything good out of my life. Shouldn’t I feel unworthy of the work that God has called me to all the time? After all it is His power and His wisdom and His grace that get me through, that give me the ability to do anything that I do for Him. There is nothing that I can do to make my self worthy of His calling and yet He continues to call me to it, to this beautiful work. Calling me to love people the way that He did and placing within my heart a special love for kids and students. I am wholly unworthy but sadly, many of the times that I feel this out of fear and not so often out of love.

It started to click in my heart the more I pondered this thought. Love needs to be the deepest thing to my heart. The God that made that stream of flowers that I followed through the woods was a God of love and beauty. That beauty called me to appreciate and love God. Not a love out of fear but a love that wells up from the deepest realms of my heart, a love that is a response for what He has already done for me. I started to feel, not a fear of impending judgment for past and present struggles but, a broken heartedness over the fact that He has done so much for me and yet I can so easily fail him.

Now I am not saying that God is not a God of judgment, and that He will not punish us when we willfully disobey Him. He has called us to live a certain kind of life and he has high expectations for us because he knows what we can be, He created us that way. This deep knowledge of who we can be is what causes Him to discipline us. He is showing us who he made us to be. I have heard it said that when parents discipline their children that it hurts them more than their kids. God is love and even in His discipline He deeply loves us and it hurts Him to have to discipline us, it breaks His heart just as it breaks a parent’s heart to have to discipline their child.

That thought rolled through my head and dove deep into my heart. My fear of impending judgment started to melt away and a better understanding of His love for me poured into my heart. God has given me so many blessings in my life and He has called me to a life in which His plans are what I seek in my life. I love the plans that He has for me. I love the “work” that He has called me to. That thought inspires love in my heart for God, not fear. I need a relationship that is built on love not one built on fear.

Being with God is a relationship and what that relationship is built on is the key. Fear is a great way to get people to say the prayer. Who in their right mind would want to go to hell who would want to, as was my case, be left behind? But fear does not lend to a deep and vibrant relationship with God. Fear holds us back and causes us to cower before Him, whereas the writer of Hebrews tells us clearly, in chapter 4, to approach God’s throne of grace with confidence. Confidence that God is going to, even if it is in punishment, do what is best for us, out of His deep and endless love for us.

A life devoted to God but lived out of fear of Him is a life lived selfishly. We through our fear are essentially saying God I don’t want you to take away what you have given me even if I do fail you. “I” don’t want you to take away what you have given “me”. I and me, both selfish words. We should be broken hearted when we fall, not because we might loose something and not out of fear that God is going to punish us but because God loves us and is broken hearted when we fall. We are journeying into the heart of a deeply personal God, and He is seeking to be allowed deeper into us as well. I used to be afraid to let Him in to deep for fear of what He might find and how he might react. I realize though that He knows my heart and that His love has the ability to flood deep into my heart and strengthen me to do his work and to resist temptation and struggle, not out of fear but because I am filled with His love and His Spirit.

I don’t have this all figured out yet. These are just the things that captured my heart as God led me on a journey through the beautiful spring woods one day. I am sure that this issue of fear and being drawn to God out of fear will continue to come to my mind for constant meditation and I will probably write more, the more God teaches me about it. I do know this, I love God deeply, and He loves me more than I can ever comprehend, so much that He sent His Son to take the penalty for those same sins and struggles that I was so afraid of Him finding out about. I know that He wants a deeply personal relationship with us, a relationship rooted and grounded in love but that also a relationship which has complete respect for his justice.

I love the little journeys that He can lead me on during a lovely spring day and I love the journey that he leads me on as I walk through life. I will continue to seek that relationship and continue to dive as deep as He will let me go into the mysteries that are faith and love and God. As I learn I write and as you read I hope that you contemplate the journeys that God is leading you on and the ways that He is speaking to your heart.

Rainbows

It has been rather dreary around here for the past couple of weeks. It is towards the end of May and day time temperatures are not climbing into the 60’s. We have actually had some periods of early morning snow. Over the past two weeks there have maybe been 2 or three days where it didn’t rain. The sun has been a rarity and a cold wind has been blowing almost constantly. The days have been: gray, cold, wet, sunless, altogether a pretty miserable month of May. Perhaps it is the dreariness of the past couple of weeks that made something I saw a couple of days ago so unique and special.

My mother and I were on our way home from town and just as we got off of the interstate we saw something amazing. There stretched across the sky was the biggest rainbow that I have ever seen. Not only was it a big rainbow but it was a double rainbow. Now I have had some cool experiences with rainbows. I spend a lot of time outside and love to go out after a rain storm and look for rainbows. They are so awe-inspiring, right up there with the northern lights. This rainbow was so wide that you could clearly see every color in the spectrum. Not only that but above this rainbow was its mirror image, though it was faint, you could clearly see another rainbow inverted in color but tracing an identical path through the sky.

What made this rainbow so special was the fact that it stretched the whole way across the sky. I don’t think I have ever seen a rainbow that touched the ground in two places, this rainbow did just that. It rose high into the sky on our right, seeming to grow out of a mountain side and it stretched across the sky to our left where it dove downward again into a sunlit valley. At the top of the arch the colors got very faint as the rainbow made its way through the clouds, but it was a full rainbow wrapping my home town in its beautiful colors. I wish that I could have captured this beauty in a picture but my camera is broken so I can only hope that you can gather a picture in your mind of what this awesome sight looked like.

Seeing this rainbow got me to thinking about that first rainbow.
12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Gen 9:12-16

I can only imagine the fear that must have gone through Noah and his family when it rained after the flood. They must have remembered the fear of that first rain, the terrifying sound of flood waters lifting the ark off of the desert ground, the sound of dying people pounding on the sides of the ark begging for salvation, Noah and his family unable to save them because God had sealed the door. Talk about post traumatic stress disorder, the sight of rain must have brought back a flood (pardon my pun) of horrifying memories. Think of how they must have felt when the rain would stop and a rainbow would arc its way through the sky. They would be reminded of God’s faithfulness to care for them during the flood and of His promise to never again destroy the earth with water. To them a rainbow wasn’t just a beautiful sight it was a reminder of a promise a promise that from now on the rain would stop, that God would forever be faithful.
Now I don’t have any worries about God’s flooding the earth.

When I see rain I marvel at the beauty of the storm I don’t shudder at the thought of a catastrophic flood. When I see a rainbow I am not flooded with a sense of relief that a world wide flood will not happen again. That being said a rainbow is still a reminder of God’s faithfulness. I think of times when I doubt God when I doubt the goodness of His plans. Some times I find it so hard to lay my heart and my plans and my life in His arms. I want to take charge I want to be in control, what if God’s plans are different than my own? There is that constant question of why bad things happen to good people or worse yet why bad things happen to innocent people that can’t defend them selves? Is God really faithful? Can I trust Him? There have been so many times in my life where I have been left with these exact same questions. My faith is challenged and I felt so far from God.

It is such a blessing that in the midst of these crisis of faith that God is always there to remind me of His faithfulness. I don’t always get the answers to all of my questions. I still wonder why God would let bad things happen to good and innocent people. God though, always shows Himself faithful in my life. Just as He showed His faithfulness to Noah after every rain storm, with a rainbow, He shows His faithfulness to me with simple comforting thoughts and the blessing of support from fellow disciples. God always comes in at just the right moment and rescues me from my own doubt. He is always faithful. That is why a rainbow is so special. When I see a rainbow I am reminded of God’s promise to Noah, I am also reminded of God’s promise to me and of the rainbows of His faithfulness that He has left in my life.

Guiding Light

People of old they looked to the stars
Searching for a guiding light
I stand here Lord
Looking at those Stars
But searching for guidance in the creator of light

Chorus:
Lord You are my guiding Light
Lord You never lead me wrong
Help me Lord to follow Your Word
Help me to follow Thy Guiding Light

Lord though I walk
Through the valley of
The Lonely Shadow of death
I trust Your Guidance
And I'm pressing on
Because I know You'll lead me to Your glorious light

Chorus:

Now with assurance
I'm walking in faith
Walking as You light my path
Though I cant see far
I keep pressing on
Because You are the one who is guiding my steps

Chorus:

Broken Glass

This is a poem that I wrote about 4 years ago... I just found it today as I began to clear out everything I have amassed over the past 4.5 years of college. I worte this at a very difficult tme in my life, a time when I felt very fractured. It was also a time when the Lord took hold of me and showed me how He is able to bind up our broken hearts and lives.

I sit and stare at broken glass
Where a mirror used to be
And in each piece of broken glass
A fractured face I see
Each face is very different
But one thing is in all the same
They all are missing pieces
That will make them whole again
As I stare the reddest of blood
Flows through all the cracks
And from this flow the picture becomes
United, unshattered, complete
I traced the path of this crimson flow
To the foot of an awful tree
And to the nail pierced savior
Who was dying there for me
The beauty and the horror
I will not soonforget
This crimson flow took a broken man
And made him whole again

Who Am I?

Who are You?
Who am I?
You are holy God Almighty…
I am small and broken…
You are Father Spirit Jesus, clothed in brilliant majesty…
I am clothed in rags…
That is who You are and who I am,
But that is not what You made me to be.
What is deeper to me than these rags?
Who am I really?
I am your glorious image bearer,
Created in Your likeness, created to be in deep fellowship with You.
Placed in a world totally filled with you and totally at war
A war that could soon claim as a casualty, my heart.
Who am I?
I am a prince/princess under a spell…
Rarely do I know my true self,
And when I do catch a glimpse of that glory…
The evil enchanter is there to cast me back into his spell.
Who am I?
I am free,
Blood bought,
Price paid,
Tetelestai… “it is finished.”
Free to reclaim that glory that is deeper to my nature.
Free to see the battle around me
Free to put on my armor and take up sword and shield and fight
Fight for that glory that I was created to bear
Lord God,
Savior,
Commander,
King
Breathe on me Your breath of life
Blow away the vile haze that has kept my mind enchanted for so long
Give life to my eyes
Touch them as You touched the eyes of the blind man
Allowing him to see who You truly are
And to enter once again into that deep fellowship with You
Let me see the battle and the enemy for who they truly are
And see myself for who I truly am
.Who are You?
You are Lord God, a boundless mystery
A deep fellowship for which I was created
And into which I am continually drawn
Who am I?
I am a valiant knight/heroic princess
Cast into a battle against Your most powerful enemy
I am a glorious image bearer
Created for fellowship with You
A deep fellowship that will last longer than time
And is deeper to my nature than any idea that the enemy may have spoken to me
While I was lost to his dark enchantment
You,
You are God.
I am your image bearer
Give me strength
Help me to see the enemy in all the ways he assails me
Help me to fight.

Lessons From a Fall Hike

I have often said that is it not all about the destination but about the journey. Granted a destination is important without one there is no journey just aimless wandering; however to reach a destination with no regard to the journey is to loose so much of the experience. This weekend I hiked 16 miles of the laurel highlands trail. This principle of respect and anticipation for the journey was clearly evident. Our destination each day was a small campsite and eventually the car and home again. The journey was 16 miles of hiking through some of the most beautiful Pennsylvania wilderness.

It is so tempting when going out for a hike to push so hard for the destination that you loose sight of the beauty that surrounds you. This weekend was particularly beautiful. While the trees hadn’t changed as much as I though they would have there was still the subtle hint of color in the tops and the ever changing color of the forest floor as it was covered by the kaleidoscope of leaves that were blown from their high homes to their resting place beneath our feet.

These colors always seem to amaze me. I can see so clearly the hand of God in all His creative wonder as I gaze at the beauty of the ever changing canopy and forest floor. I was struck with awe at the fact that someone could see the vast spectrum of colors that so overwhelmed my senses and believe that it just happened. It would be like looking through the greatest of our art galleries and believing that the artist never existed, instead paint just randomly fell onto the canvases and created the beautiful colors and scenes that we attribute to these world famous artist. To suggest the absence of these great artists one would be considered foolish but to say that the colors of fall just happen one is considered wise. Forget all the scientific arguments of beginning and cause and look at the heart of fall, look at the colors and see the creative heart of God brilliantly calling to our hearts romancing us with the wonder of this season.

There were brilliant red maple leaves some still speckled with bright greens, and yellows so bright that you would think they fell from the sun its self.

As the sun rose one morning I sat at the base of a tree and just soaked it in. I was rendered speechless as I watched the first shimmering orange rays of the morning sun come through the tops of the trees adding a brilliance to the colors that no painter could ever hope to capture with his brush and pigments. Then there was the smell of fall carried to my nose by the cool fall air. As the dampness of the rain from the day before began to clear off the cool fall breeze brought the familiar and still rejuvenating smell of fall to my nose once again. It is hard to explain and easy to miss especially in a day when we manufacture so many smells. However if you spend some time out in the fall woods and allow the cool fall air to carry its smell to you, you will soon know what I am talking about and will never be able to forget it. I don’t know if it is the smell of the dry beautiful fall leaves or the clean coolness of the air its self, perhaps it is a mixture of both but it is a smell that I wait for all summer long and cherish once it arrives when the first leaves of fall begin to change.

Then there was the wild life. Birds and other animals that seemed to blend into the summer landscape seemed to jump out as the leaves began to turn. One gentleman brought a red spotted newt to us and I once again found my self speechless as I looked at its beautiful colors in comparison with the fall leaves and the green bed of moss that it was crawling across.

Finally there was the reliving of memories that comes from crossing paths that have been part of past journeys. This to is an important part of the journey. I have some amazing memories from the trial that I was hiking and it was so uplifting to my heart to allow God to remind me of the story that He has told in the past and to encourage me about the story He will continue to tell and new stories that He is working into this grand epic journey that He is telling.

All of these aspects of the journey would have been lost had I been too focused on the destination. But in regards to the destination it was wonderful to. We got to camp in the cool fall weather and enjoy time around the campfire listening and telling stories while eating good food that is made even better by the journey we had taken that day. Journey and destination both are integral parts to a bigger picture that when seen in its fullness has the ability to completely absorb you.

All of that gave me a greater appreciation for the story that God is telling, the epic journey that He has set us on and the grand destination that awaits us. He has set our hearts free to once again become what they were before the fall. We have been released into the Kingdom of God and all the power of God has been made available to us as we take on this journey into the heart of God, as we become disciples/apprentices of Jesus. So many Christians today take on the same philosophy about life as many of my fellow hikers took about our journey. The hikers pushed hard to reach the destination and forgot completely about the journey that was to be had. They missed the colors and the smells and the memories and in doing so missed so much of the experience.

Christians today look forward to heaven so much that they forget that there is life and life abundant offered to us now. Jesus doesn’t say that when we get to heaven we become sons and daughters of the King, he says that we have become joint heirs in the “Kingdom of the heavens” now. We are called to embrace our journey and our roles as disciples/apprentices of Jesus in the way of restoration; restoration of life and or souls. We live lives not captive to sin, although that does happen, but captive to a wrong focus. We have been given roles to play now, roles that will call us to be heroes and heroines in this great battle that is unfolding between the “Kingdom of the heavens” and the kingdom of this world.

This is our journey our destiny, to fight, to learn, to live, to lead, and to follow, we can’t forget it. Here again destination is important. The hope of a battle ended and hearts completely restored in their relationship to their creator and to each other is something that strengthens our hearts for the journey. Without this destination we would be wandering through life lost and looking for anything to hope for. With this destination we become focused and strengthened to fight what ever the Evil One throws at us. However when we look only to the destination we become useless. We don t see that God is continually working to restore to us our former glory and creating within us a new heart from which we can live life in the present. We have been set free to live our eternal lives now, that eternal life that Christ offers to us, life to the fullest.

Eternal life does not start at the gates of heaven as we pass through death into eternal life it starts with the freeing of our hearts from captivity and the restoration of our souls to an eternal journey with our Creator. We have an eternal journey and a heavenly destination and when we realize who we are and who God is in light of this journey and destination we are freed to live in the bigger story that He is telling, to be captivated by the story, immersed so fully in it that we loose our selves and in that loosing we find who we were truly created to be, we find it along the journey.

Spring Flowers

A friend and I were out fishing several days ago along the North Branch of the Potomac River and as we walked to the spot where we would enter the river and begin to fish we saw the first flowers of spring growing along the trail. I always love to see these small flowers that grow up so early that they are bound to experience a snow. I wonder why they don’t wait 2 more weeks until it is almost certain that there will be no more snow and then come up. That day was close to 80 degrees and the sun was hot on our backs as we fished along the river, and the flowers loved it. No less than three days later it was snowing and the flowers were struggling to hold on to the colors that had shown so brightly just a couple of days before.

Soon the sun will be out again and the flowers will shine all the brighter, but as I sit here I wonder why they come up so early. Why go through the life threatening cold that often comes during the first 2 weeks of April? Why not wait until the sun shines brightly and these is no danger of being frozen after only a few short days of life? The answer is of course that God made them that way. They are the true harbingers of spring. The cool thing is that they will survive the cold. It really doesn’t last that long, and I know that when I next wet my line in the waters of the North Branch those flowers will be bursting forth with their radiant beauty once again.

As I thought of those flowers I began to think of my life. How often I have waited to bloom, not wanting to be made truly vulnerable to the cold winters of life. Often we as Christians think of Heaven and we can’t wait to get there, for there we will blossom and show forth our true unadulterated, God given, glory. This world just seems to be the kind of place that takes the heavenly kind of beauty and tramples it into the mud, and so we bide our time, flowing all the rules that we as good Christians are supposed to follow until we enter into the glorious sunlight of heaven. Winter we think shall not last too much longer, and yet it seems to last for far too long. Jesus however, calls us to bloom now. He calls us to lay down our lives, to be buried with Him; much like a seed is buried in the ground before it can become a flower. Once we lay our lives down, give them to Him, trust in His power to forgive sins, we are called to rise. Not rise when we get to heaven, no we are called to rise now, to show the world who we truly are. To, like those flowers, stand firm against the cold winds of the world and tell the truth that there is something better coming.

The cold wind, rain, and snow, of early spring soon melts into the warm life giving late spring and summer, April showers truly do bring May flowers. The hardships of this world the pain and suffering, the fear and uncertainty, will soon fade away into the glorious Life of Heaven. We are called just as those small flowers are the harbingers of spring, to be the harbingers of the Kingdom of Heaven.

1 Peter 3:15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the Hope that you have within you.

What is this hope that is within us? It is the hope that one day we will be set free to be who God created us to be. We will know who we are and He will make available to us every resource that we need to fulfill that role, and there will be no opposition to this transformation. Why do people ask us about the hope? I think that not too many people ask Christians about that hope anymore. Why? Because we have not begun to bloom, we hold the hope within us, waiting till we get “there” to blossom. But Christ calls us to bloom now, sure it will be hard snow will come, there is opposition. The Devil hates who we want to become, He hates us because he hates God. It is not easy to live with hope in this world, not easy to let go of “things” knowing that they will pass away and that some day we will be with God. It is hard to live life with an eternal perspective, but Christ calls us to do it. He calls us to live an eternal kind of life right now.

Will you surrender to Christ and seek to become the person He has made you to be even though the world will hate you for it?

A Spring Lesson for those "In-between" Times in Life

Every spring with the arrival of the birds, the blooms, and the butterflies, my mother finds her self in the midst of a battle for our front porch. Every year there is a pair of robins that think that the boxing on our front porch would make a great place to build a nest and raise their young. Could you blame them, there is plenty of shelter and when the April rains come what mother would want to sit out on a nest protecting her young from the driving rain if there was a place available where both mother and young could ride out the storm in perfect safety.
Now don’t get me wrong, we love robins. They are so neat to watch as they flirt with each other in mid air tumbles. The kids love to see them pulling mile long earth worms out of the front lawn. It is a wonder to watch as the mother robin grows fat with her eggs just before she lays them in their nest which is constructed out of grass and straw and lined with a strong floor of mud. Robins provide a great opportunity for the kids to witness the wonder of new life, a wonder that is not in short supply in the south central Pennsylvania spring.
There is a down side to this story though and it is this that causes a never ending battle to be fought between my mother and this mother robin. She loves the birds and loves seeing the little ones learning to fly and look for worms in our front yard, what she doesn’t like is the mess. It is inevitable; all babies from little birds to little boys and girls make messes. This mess gets all over our front porch is what causes my mother to constantly tear out the robin’s nest as they persist in building it over and over again on our front porch.
I decided that I wanted to see if I could do something to end this constant spring strife. There must be a way to help the robins build a sheltered nest but have that nest not be on our front porch. Robins are not bird house birds. The are to big to fit through holes and God didn’t make them with that desire any way so building a standard bird house would not do any good. I thought maybe I could build a house that offered everything that the boxing on our front porch offered just in a smaller package. I got an idea of what I wanted it to look like. It needed a box of some sort, open on the top but shallow enough that the nest would be held securely and the mother would still be able to look out and watch for dangers. The box also needed a roof, a roof that could keep the wind and the rain that got on the nest to a minimum. Lastly the box needed lost of open room between the next box and the roof to allow the robin to enter and exit the nest from every direction. I took these considerations and began to build the robin box below.
It looked great. I figured that this would be the prefect solution. We would get to experience the robins and all of the wonder that they bring to the front yard and my mothers porch would not be messed up by the babies. There was only one more thing to consider, location. Where should I place this new house? I knew that the robins like our yard and I knew that we wanted to be able to see the miracle of new life unfold. This meant that house needed to be close, also the robins needed to be in our yard which was prime worm real-estate.
I found a tree that is close to our front porch and placed the house at about the same height as our boxing. I then took the latest attempt at a nest from the corner of our porch and placed it the new house. I waited several days and began to think that my plan had not worked. I decided to climb up the tree and see what was up. Much to my surprise I found that there was a wonderful little nest securely built in the safety of my little house. A few days later there were four little blue eggs in that nest. Soon there will be four little robins crying for worms and learning to fly right there in our front yard.
It is so neat to look out from the porch and see that mother robin sitting there on her eggs, keeping them warm until they hatch. It is so cool to be a part of the front yard miracle. Now it got me to thinking. An experience like this can not be with out spiritual parallels. Somewhere in this story had to be a lesson for me about who God is and how He works in our lives. Something as cool this always comes with deeper lessons for us.
I thought how often are we like the robin? We think we have it figured out, we know exactly what we want and even though something keeps us from pursuing or plans we continue to bang our head against the wall because we can’t imagine anything better. Those robins wanted a nest in our front porch, it was the perfect spot, but no matter how often they built their nest it was always torn down. I thought of how often in my life I have tried and tried to attain something and God just wouldn’t let me get it. He held me back and I couldn’t understand why. He continually tore down my nest.
That is the nature of God, His plans are not our plans and his purposes are not ours. He doesn’t leave us hanging though. The whole time we are building our nest and fighting with him He in his wisdom is preparing a place for us. Just as I made a house for the robin, one that was completely good and worked for all of us, so God never stops working at preparing a place and a work for us to do.
We have to keep our eyes open. Those robins could have continued to build their nest on our porch and my mother would have kept tearing it down, but they saw what I had done, they realized that this new house would be perfect for them. We have to do that very same thing, we don’t just stop building and wait to hear but we do need to keep our eyes open and learn to recognize when God has perfectly prepared a place for us.
I guess that it is a lesson that I am continually learning in this phase of my life. I am seeking God’s plans for me, looking and pursuing but also waiting to see where He in His infinite goodness and wisdom has prepared a place for me. Sometimes it is hard, I think I might have finally figured it out and then I see my nest torn down. In these robins though I have found a tid-bit of heavenly wisdom, God is working and preparing and when He has my place ready, as long as I am still looking, He will show it to me and it will be perfect.

My Favorite Camp Memory

I have a lot of great memories from camp, in five years there I have taken part in a lot of fun activities and adventures, made a lot of great friends, and learned a lot about Jesus and this eternal kind of life that He is calling us to. One memory, however, stands out above the rest, the memory of the first time I was able to play a part in seeing a camper come to Christ.
His name was Michael and I had taken him out to the front steps one evening before devotions for our one on one. I asked him the usual questions and found out that he didn’t think that Jesus was in his heart. In that beautiful child like way he told me that he wanted so badly to have Jesus come into his heart and save him from a life that up until that point had been full of a lot of working for grace. I will never forget the look in his eyes after we finished praying and for the first time his little heart was set free from the sin and darkness of this world. He wore a smile from ear to ear, the most genuine smile I have ever seen, a smile that told you that his heart was free.
That would be enough to make it a great memory but there is more. I then took his friend out for a one on one and the first thing that he said was Michael knows Jesus now doesn’t he? My heart began to burst, being filled with glory and a sense of awe at what had just happened. I asked him how he could tell. He looked at me and said I could see it in his smile.
It is that smile that drives me back into ministry. Whenever things have gotten hard and my heart has been discouraged, which can happen a lot in ministry, remembering that smile and the way that Michael's friend was able to know without even a word being said that his heart had been set free; that memory drives me back into this wonderful ministry with a new and revitalized sense of purpose.

That smile is New Life to me.