Soul Surfing

Whatever it is you’re facing today, no matter how exhausted, discouraged or disadvantaged you might feel, those things are only limitations when you rely upon your own strength. Take it from Bethany Hamilton and Nick Vujicic, with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27)

So stop fixating on your limitations and look to the One who gives you strength. And then enjoy the ride.

 

LIVING UPSIDE DOWN

 

Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart. Contrary to what you may have heard, his greatest goal is not to give you your best life now. He doesn’t call us to comfort. He calls us to come and die: die to our selfishness, die to our self-sufficiency, die to ourselves so that we might find new life in him. 

There’s a reason why the way of Jesus seems like foolishness to those who haven’t yet decided to follow him. The life he calls us to seems so contrary to how the rest of society tells us to live. Jesus calls us to bless those who persecute us, pray for those who curse us, care for those who can do nothing for us in return. What’s more, according to Jesus, the greatest in His kingdom are the servants, and we need to be willing to lose our life if we hope to find it. In other words, if we truly hope to live, we must first be willing to die to the ways we’ve learned to live. 

Welcome to the upside down Kingdom of God. 

Though, on second thought, perhaps we’re looking at it the wrong way. After all, God’s the rightful King, we’re just the stewards that He entrusted with the care of His creation. So maybe His kingdom isn’t the one that’s inverted. Maybe we’re the ones living upside down, we’ve just grown so accustomed to it that we don’t notice it anymore. 

Consider for a moment the crooked ways of thinking we’ve normalized: we are taught to win at all costs, even if in winning we hurt our neighbors and neglect our families. We are taught to idolize the powerful, even if they use their power to benefit themselves rather than to help others. We are taught that in order to rise up, we need to push others down. We are taught to celebrate our freedom to do whatever we want, even if the vices we run to end up enslaving us. The prophet Isaiah had a stern warning for people who lived in this upside down sort of way:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent. Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah‬ ‭5‬:‭20-‭24‬)

Isaiah’s warning is worth considering. Those who live contrary to the way of God will not prosper, at least not for long. Though they might blaze brightly for a moment, they will be destroyed by the very things they are most proud of, their so-called freedoms will enslave them. As Solomon noted ‬, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs‬ ‭14‬:‭12)

It's ironic that the way of the world which seems so very comfortable and safe ultimately leads to death. Meanwhile, the way of Christ that calls us to take up our cross and die to ourselves leads to life that is truly life. We each have a choice: Which way will I go? To which Kingdom will I pledge my allegiance? Whose values will will shape my values? It's the most important decision you will ever make. 

Choose wisely.

ENJOY THE JOURNEY

 

The person who loves walking will go farther than one who is focused on the destination. When you are fixated on getting to the goal, the journey becomes an obstacle, something to get through as quickly as possible. But when you love the journey itself, both the milestones and the setbacks are a part of the adventure. 

When you’re focused on the destination, failure can be debilitating. But when you love the journey, you’ll recognize that failure is a natural part of the path each of us needs to pass through. So try something new, fail at it, learn from your mistakes, try again, get better at it and one day people will come to you for advice on how to do what you do. 

In a way, the journeys we embark on are a form of metamorphosis. In the end, the person who arrives at the destination will not be the same one who set out to reach it. So don’t begrudge the journey, because it’s not just leading you to a new destination. It’s producing growth in you that would have never happened had you simply stayed at home.

This morning, I woke to the sound of thunder and it brought me back to one of my very first childhood memories.

It was nighttime and I was laying on a futon in my parent’s guest bedroom, watching lightening light up the sky during a torrential downpour. I remember being awed by the raw power of the storm, the blinding flashes of lightening followed by the deafening rumble of thunder. In a world that often felt safe and sanitized, it was uncontrollable, uncontainable power.

My mom was watching the storm with me and at some point, our conversation turned to God. She pointed to the lightening and told me, “God’s like that. He’s more powerful than you could ever imagine. You can’t control Him. Can’t contain Him. But you don’t need to be afraid of Him, because He loves you more than you could ever imagine.”

As I lay there watching the rain fall, my small understanding of God began to expand. He was far more than some genie in a bottle that I could call upon to make my wishes come true. He was the author of Creation, the one who spoke the world into existence and who holds it together by the power of His will. You can’t control someone like that. You can’t dictate what He does. And yet, as powerful as God is, He not only knows me but He loves me. That night, in the middle of a thunderstorm, I made the decision to call the God of the universe the LORD of my life. And that decision has shaped every day since.

Now, almost four decades later, I know a lot more than I did that night. I know about the natural dynamics that cause thunderstorms, and yet I’m still very much awed by the raw power on display. Similarly, I’ve learned a lot about the one who created me. And yet, the more I learn the more I’m awed that the one who spoke the world into existence would call me by name. And that no matter how much I misunderstand and misrepresent Him, He still loves me.

He feels the same way about you. You may never fully understand God and you certainly can’t dictate what He does. But He loves you more than you could ever comprehend.

 

Dying to Live

Transition can be pretty painful. The weekly cadence of your life no longer fits and you’re left struggling to learn a new rhythm. In the solitude, your mind can wander down some dreary paths.    

Human beings are naturally resistant to change because it’s so uncomfortable. It requires us to step out of a place that is comfortably familiar and willingly walk into the unknown, a place which is often lonely and confusing. It also requires the death of one way of living so that we might learn to live another way. And while this process is both natural and necessary, it’s also incredibly scary. That place can feel awfully dark. 

And yet, if God has led you to this place, then you can be certain that there’s a reason. He isn’t in the habit of abandoning his flock. And He has this remarkable ability to work all things together for good. So if you find yourself in a dark and lonely place, don’t despair. Though this place may feel like the grave, it’s really the place of your rebirth. You haven’t been buried. You’ve been planted. 

“Listen carefully:  Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” - JESUS
(John‬ ‭12‬:‭24‬-‭25‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

Finding Rest

 

Lately, my shepherd has been asking me to lie down and rest so that He can do some deep soul restoration. And yet, I’ve struggled to do this. I find myself resisting slowing down, resisting letting a day pass where I don’t do something productive. I like to chalk this up to my personality, but I suspect it’s something deeper.

No matter how green the pasture, a sheep won’t feel comfortable resting if it feels insecure or unsafe. Even if the sheep is laying down, fear and anxiety can keep it from experiencing true rest. It may have a full belly, but if the sheep is worried about where it’s next meal will come from, it won’t be able to relax. And the shepherd may say it’s safe, but if the sheep doesn’t trust the shepherd to protect it, it will still be fearful of what lurks in the shadows.

True rest requires deep trust in our shepherd. As long as we think we are the ones who protect and provide for ourselves, we will never be able to truly rest. We will always have to sleep with one eye open. But when we recognize that we’re under the care of a really good shepherd who loves us deeply and is perfectly capable of caring for our needs, we can finally go off duty and rest.

The fact is we have the best of Shepherds. We may not know where our next meal will come from, but He does. We may not know what lurks in the shadows, but He’s fully capable of protecting us. And we may not know where He’s leading us, but He does. He knows what lies ahead and what we need far better than we know it ourselves.

So I pray that you would exchange your fear for faith in the one who calls you His own. I pray your anxious worrying would give way to a restorative rest as you learn to trust your Shepherd and follow His lead, even when He tells you to lie down. And I pray the same for myself.

A Christmas Curveball

I wrote these words a year ago, but they seem as timely today as they did then. 

I never cease to be amazed at how God’s word, penned thousands of years ago, can speak directly into our current circumstances. Take the Christmas story for instance. It’s a story we’ve heard countless times before, especially Luke’s version that Linus recounted in Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special. It starts like this:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. (James 2:1-5)

This is just the set up for the story. What follows are the parts we typically focus on: a baby born in a stable, angelic choirs and visits from startled shepherds and Eastern astrologers. But this morning, the opening lines of the Christmas story are what captured my attention. Because the Christmas story starts with a political edict that threw a wrench in Joseph and Mary’s plans.

Can you imagine what an inconvenience that edict from Caesar Augustus must have been? “Wait, you mean we have to travel 90 miles to Bethlehem at the tail end of Mary’s pregnancy all because of a census?!” I suspect that both Joseph and Mary had some not so holy words for the guy who made that decision.

And yet, despite how unexpected and inconvenient Caesar’s call for a census might have been for Joseph and Mary, it didn’t take God by surprise or thwart His plans. In fact, hundreds of years prior, God had prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). So Caesar’s call for a census wasn’t an inconvenience to God. It was integral to His plans. He used the decision of an unbelieving ruler to fulfill His redemptive purposes.

Which brings me to this Christmas. Because, let’s be honest, there are some governmental edicts that threaten to upset our best laid Christmas plans. And this could stir up a lot of consternation for us.

“What do you mean I can’t gather with my extended family?”
“What do you mean we have to wear facemasks if we gather indoors?!”
“What right do our governing officials have to try and limit our celebrations?!”

May I simply remind you that God isn’t spun out by this Christmas curveball. He isn’t limited by the limitations that we’ve been forced to endure due to Covid. And as the Christmas story reminds us, He even works through the decisions of unbelieving governmental officials.

So don’t grow weary or lose heart this Christmas. God is at work despite the disruption to our lives. And even though it might be inconvenient to us, this curveball may be the very thing He uses to further His redemptive plan in our lives, just as He did in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

Joy Comes in the Mourning

Yesterday, we laid my friend Josh to rest. Our family has known him for almost 2-decades and the news of his passing from a heart attack last month came as a complete shock. After all, he was in the prime of his life and left behind a wife and two young sons.

There were plenty of tears shed at his memorial service, but I was surprised that the sorrow of his untimely death was overshadowed by very different emotions: hope and joy. This is because just three months before his heart gave out, Josh had entrusted it to Jesus. After years of relying on his own strength to fight his battles, Josh had come to the end of himself and recognized how desperately he needed a savior. And these are the words he wrote in his journal on that day:

Today I decided to stop playing God.

It didn’t work.

I decided that here after in this drama of life,

God was going to be my director.

He is my principal. I am his agent.

He is my Father and I am his child.

10/03/2020

It might seem cruel of God to take someone so shortly after they’d placed their faith in Him. But I see God’s grace in the timing. Because Josh had been relying on his own strength for a long, long time, and God allowed him just enough time to get to the end of his rope and recognize that he really did need a savior. And Josh’s faith in Jesus didn’t just change his life for those three short months. It radically altered his eternal life. In comparison to that, the lives we lead now are a drop of water next to the ocean of eternity.

So we grieve Josh’s unexpected death, but we don’t grieve as those who have no hope. Josh’s trust in Jesus tempers our grief, because we know that this isn’t goodbye. At most this is a temporary separation. And I look forward to seeing my friend again.

That said, if you’re reading this and you are still trying to navigate life in this broken world by your own strength, then know that I am praying for you as well. And while the content of my prayer might seem odd, know that it’s motivated by love:

I pray that you would reach the end of your rope quickly. I pray that you would recognize, as Josh did, that you are not equipped to be self-sufficient. The truth is, you were never intended to do life on your own. Our heavenly Father made you to do life with Him, and you will remain restless until you allow yourself to rest in Him. You will remain unfulfilled until you find your fulfillment in Him. So I pray that you would stop running, stop striving, stop trying to hold your world together and entrust all that you hold most dearly into the hands of the One who formed you and who holds the world together. Because He loves you and He’s not far off. You can always find Him at the end of your rope.

 “I wish I hadn’t broken it.”

My son’s small voice was heavy with grief last night as he looked upon the shattered pieces of a Lego set he’d been constructing for several weeks. Earlier in the day, in a fit of anger, he’d thrown it to the ground, breaking it and scattering the formerly interlocking pieces everywhere. It had taken us quite a while to gather up the pieces and even now I need to walk with care so as not to step on a Lego landmine.

“I know, son. You worked so hard on it. But I can help you put it back together if you let me.”

After I tucked him in, I couldn’t help but liken the grief my boy felt over his Lego set to the sorrow many of us feel about the state of our nation. It, too, took a beating yesterday, fueled by anger and unmet expectations. While the details are still fuzzy and I will refrain from casting blame, yesterday’s events further exposed the deep rifts of animosity and mistrust that have formed in our society. We call ourselves the United States, but I can’t think of a time in my life when we’ve been more fractured. We all want America to prosper, but our disagreements about how to do that have fueled a pursuit of power at all costs. Add to that our unwillingness to listen to people who disagree with us, and our knee-jerk tendency to blame others rather than taking a good hard look in the mirror, and it’s no wonder why we are experiencing such deep division. It’s messy and painful and at times it seems hopeless.

But we have one thing going for us.
We don’t have to put the pieces back together by ourselves.

Like my son, we have a Father who is willing to enter into the messiness of our reality, a messiness that we had a part in creating, and He will help us heal our broken society. Now, I’m not naïve enough to believe that everyone in our country will all of a sudden yearn for Jesus to take the wheel. But for those of us who call Him Lord, if we will keep our eyes fixed on him and allow his values to shape our values, then we can begin piecing our fractured society back together again starting with our own little spheres of influence. If we, who call Jesus our Lord, will stop pointing the fingers at others and start asking ourselves, “how would Jesus have me respond?” then we can break the cycles that breed division and dysfunction in our society. Let the healing start with us.  

So let me be the first to say it: “God, we’ve made a mess and we need your help.”

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14   

On a Wing and a Prayer

This morning, I went for a run in the Back Bay. I figured it's time to start working off the extra 20 I picked up in 2020. Along my route, I noticed some hawks floating on the breeze. Grateful for the excuse to catch my breath, I stopped and watched them for a few minutes.

I was struck by how effortlessly they glided, often going minutes without flapping their wings. Although they couldn’t see the breeze, they harnessed its power rather than expending their own. They didn’t even need to labor when they were flying into the wind. Instead, they used the headwind to rise up. 

As I watch them, I considered the headwinds that we all endured in 2020. I can't speak for you, but when the winds buffeted me, I tended to strain hard to overcome them, often leaving myself exhausted because of my efforts. If there is a lesson we can learn from the birds, it’s that the trials of life are not necessarily a curse. In fact, they can be the very things that help us rise higher and higher, if we will just rely upon the power of the one who raises us up, rather than upon our own strength. Perhaps that's what it means to live on a wing and a prayer.

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭40:28-31‬

 

 

I'm taking my family on a road trip next week, and I’m already preparing myself for the inevitable question: “Are we there yet?”

It doesn’t seem to matter how important the journey or how beautiful the scenery, there’s just something inside of us that longs to get to the destination. Or, if where we’re going feels too distant, to wistfully look over our shoulder to where we started and wish we could go back.

The Israelites fell into this trap, even after they’d watched God lead them out of slavery through a series of plagues; even after He’d parted the waters and destroyed the most powerful army on the planet; even as He led them in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night and as they ate bread that miraculously appeared on the ground each morning and drank water that gushed from a rock in the middle of the wilderness, still they grew tired of the journey. They grew weary of being dependent on God both for their direction and their sustenance.

And in the midst of the discomfort, they began to reminisce about how “comfortable it was back in Egypt,” forgetting that it was literal slavery. They began to grow impatient to get through the journey and arrive at their destination. They began to grumble against God. It didn’t matter that He was guiding them, or that He was providing for them – their attitudes turned this adventure into an ordeal. And because of their resistance to trust God and follow His lead, God literally extended the time they spent in the wilderness. Because what He was teaching them about trust and dependence was just as important, if not more so, than where He was bringing them.

As I examine my own heart in this current season, I discover thorny shoots of anxiousness and impatience sprouting from the soil of my weariness and discomfort. I find myself wanting to rush through this time, to just get to wherever we’re headed. At times, I catch myself wistfully looking back to how things were before the whole world shut down and wishing we could go back. Can you relate?

What’s ironic is that as uncomfortable as the journey became for the Israelites, as much as they wished to rush through it or turn back, that time of walking with God in the wilderness was one of the most formative seasons in their history, one which caused their faith in God to grow exponentially. In the soil of their discomfort, they learned dependence and trust. And they saw just how much God loved them. It was a lesson that shaped them as a people for generations.

I am weary of the journey. I’d love to just fast-forward to 2021, skipping past the whole Covid-shutdown, the racial unrest and the election. But as much as those things feel overwhelming and the road seems endless, I’m reminded that we don’t journey through this wilderness alone. God is right here with us, leading the way if we will only look to Him. He’s providing what we need in the midst of a season of scarcity. And I suspect that when we look back on this time, years from now, we will be grateful for it, grateful both for where He’s bringing us and for what He’s doing in us along the way.

Because sometimes the most important part of a journey isn’t the destination; it’s about being present with the ones who are with us along the way.
 

So do not fear, for I am with you; 

do not be dismayed, for I am your God. 

I will strengthen you and help you; 

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

(Isaiah 41:10)