Pray for Rain

At 6 pm last night, a friend of mine who lives in Central California texted with an urgent prayer request: “Please pray for rain.”

She lives and works at Mount Herman, a picturesque conference center nestled in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains. And right now those mountains are being consumed by a massive wildfire that is burning out of control and threatening countless homes and businesses, including Mount Herman.

When I read her text, my heart ached for for everyone in the path of the fire (one of over 350 wildfires that are currently burning throughout California). Fire crews are working tirelessly to try and contain the blaze, but the fire is so much bigger than they can control. So she, along with so many others, are displaced from their homes and all they can do is wait and pray.

The Bible is full of examples of people who cry out to God, and He responds in miraculous fashion. One man even prayed for rain, and it came (1 Kings 18:41-46). And yet, when I got her text, my first thought wasn’t to cry out to God expectantly. To be honest, the prayer I offered up was pretty anemic, something along the lines of, “God, if you’re willing, it would be awesome if you sent some rain.” But truth be told, I wasn’t expecting much. After all, the weather report for that area was nothing but dry heat for the foreseeable future.

So it came as a bit of a shock when she texted back 20 minutes later with a screen shot of the weather report showing that it was, in fact, raining in Mount Herman.

Now, in no way am I trying to take credit for this movement of God. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only person she sent the text to. In fact, there were a whole lot of people praying around 6 PM on Sunday evening that God would once again open the heavens and shower the earth miraculously, and many of them had far more faith than I that He would respond.

But it reminds me that there is power in prayer. Despite the fact that the circumstances of life can often grow too great for us to control, it reminds me that there is one who stands above our circumstances and is not overcome by them. And He invites us to call upon Him, to cast our burdens upon Him and look to Him for help. 

So don’t hesitate to bring your needs to God. He’s not too busy to hear your cry. And don’t underestimate the power of prayer. It changes things. Sometimes it even changes the weather.

 

 

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)

“We’re in this together.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this over the last several months, or how many times I’ve said it myself. And yet, like runners in a marathon, our exhaustion narrows our focus and makes us feel like we’re alone in our suffering.

We are all tired. We’re all grieving losses. We are all feeling the effects of forced isolation. Forget thriving, we’re just struggling to survive with our sanity intact.

And we all have some things we wish for right about now:

• I wish someone would call. I really need someone to talk to.

• I wish I could borrow someone’s hope. I could use some encouragement.

• I wish people would be kind to one another. Why does everything turn into a fight?

• I wish I had someone to process with. Someone that wouldn’t judge me for being in process.

But the phone’s not ringing and most of the places we’d go for human interaction are closed due to Covid. So we turn to social media for a hit of community, for a reminder that we’re not alone, even though it can be incredibly impersonal and often degenerates into arguments. But at least it’s better than feeling alone, right?

Loneliness and isolation are some of the most damaging side-effects of this shutdown, and they’re causing huge spikes in addiction, depression, domestic violence and suicide. Something has to change. Someone needs to address this epidemic. But rather than wait for some politician or doctor to come up with a solution, what if we are the solution?

What if we become the sort of people who give to others what we need ourselves? 

• Rather than sit back and wait for the phone to ring, what if we pick up the phone and begin to reach out to people we haven’t seen in a while?

• Rather than lament a society that seems to have lost its ability to listen without attacking, what if we become the sort of people who listen – truly listen – with the intent to understand, not simply to find the flaw in their thinking.

• Rather than adding to the cacophony of criticism and critique that is dominating our public discourse, what if we go out of our way to speak words of life, to build people up rather than tear them down?

• And if we can’t think of anything nice to say, what if we practiced what we’ve been preaching to our kids all these years and didn’t say anything at all? Or better yet, what if we took our frustration and used it as a prompt to pray for God’s blessing upon those who disagree with us? 

This approach may not change the world, but it would certainly change our posture towards it. It may not eradicate loneliness, depression, or division from society, but it would make a huge difference to our sphere of influence. Just think of the effect of a single candle in a dark room. A little light goes a long way.

Jesus said it best: “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). In other words, giving others what we’d like from them is the best way to reflect the heart of God into our hurting world.

So rather than focus on what’s wrong with society, rather than lament that people aren’t giving us what we need, let’s be part of the solution. Let’s give what we need.

After all, we’re in this together.

There’s been a lot of talk about the Governor’s decision to ban singing and chanting in church gatherings in his efforts to stem the spread of Covid-19. Many understandably view this as an attack on our First Amendment right to worship. That said, if we view a ban on singing in a sanctuary as a ban on worship, then we have a pretty anemic view of worship.

Worship is so much more than songs. It’s the way we live, the way we speak, the way we interact with people who don’t share the same worldview as us. The Apostle Paul got this. In his letter to believers living in Rome, he defined worship in this way: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).

Similarly, when James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, wrote to believers living among an unbelieving world, this is how he defined the purest form of religious expression: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

While we think of worship as singing songs of praise, the giants of faith in the early church recognized that true worship was lived out throughout the week. It was choosing to let our lives become a reflection of our Creator’s heart. Since God showed grace to imperfect people like us, worship is extending grace to other imperfect people. Since He loves us despite our rebellious nature, worship is choosing to love others even when they tick us off. Since He constantly provides for us, worship is taking from the abundance of blessing He’s given us and using it to care for the needs of others. And that sort of worship is best done beyond the walls of the church.

So while I miss singing songs of praise alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ and look forward to the day when we can gather together again, I rejoice in the myriad ways I’m seeing the Church (God’s people) worshiping God through the ways they love their neighbors. Because true worship is so much more than the songs we sing on Sunday morning. True worship is the life we live the rest of the week. And that’s something that cannot be banned. Nor is it something that can be contained in a weekend service - it has to spill over into every other part of our lives.

So let’s let our lives sing.

Becoming a Light in Your Neighborhood

Lighthouse Family,

We started this year with a fresh understanding of what it meant to be a Light in our community. Rather than focus on the church being the Lighthouse, we realized that each of us is a light-bearer to our own unique Sphere of Influence.

At the time, we could have never anticipated what this year would hold in store for us. The Covid-19 virus has completely altered our rhythms and the way we "do life" together. But it hasn't been all bad.

I recently learned that the Chinese word for Crisis is the combination of two words: Danger and Opportunity. That is a fitting description of this current crisis for the Church in Costa Mesa. For all the hardship and danger this season has brought, I've also seen so much fruit, so many opportunities to learn a new way to love our neighbors.

I want to share with you one new way we can be a light in our communities. For the last six months, I have been a part of Bless Every Home, an outreach app that gives me tools to pray for my neighbors by name (along with a whole lot of other resources that I'm only now learning to appreciate). It is such a powerful tool that I, along with several other pastors in our city, have decided to make it a central component of our outreach efforts.

Rather than attempt to explain what Bless Every Home can do, I'd rather show you. So please click the link below, which will take you to a 2-minute introduction video that will explain what this powerful tool can do for you. Then, if you choose to, you can sign up to be a "light."

Thanks again for being a partner with me in radiating the light of Christ into our community. I'm grateful to know that we're in this together. Here's the link to sign up now.

May God bless you as you bless your neighbors, 

Eric Wayman 

Lighthouse Community Church

Better Late than Never

Today is June 19. For most of us, that doesn’t mean much. But to our African American brothers and sisters, this day rivals July 4. On July 4, we celebrate our independence as a nation, but even after we declared our freedom from England in 1776, not everyone in America was free. It would take another 87 years and a civil war before black men and women were also granted their freedom in America. On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation officially declared the end of slavery in America. On that day, everyone in America was technically free. The only problem is, not everybody knew it.

Bad news travels fast, but good news tends to take a more scenic route. That’s why over two years later, there were still slaves living in rural parts of America who still hadn’t heard that they were free. Every day, they got up and went out to labor in the fields as slaves. It didn’t matter that Abraham Lincoln had declared them to be free – until they’d heard the good news, they were in every way still enslaved.

That’s why June 19, or Juneteenth, is such a big deal in the African American community. It wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that word finally reached the last pocket of slaves living in Texas. On that day, they learned that the great civil war was over, and so was their bondage. They were free.

Admittedly, there’s a big difference between being free and living in freedom. And as the current racial unrest so powerfully reminds us, we still have a long way to go as a country. But as a pastor, I can’t help but think of some other people who are still living in slavery waiting to hear the good news that the means of their freedom has been secured.

I’m talking about spiritual freedom from sin and death. Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed and sin came crashing into God’s good creation, humanity has lived in bondage to sin, separated from the one who created us in His image. And no amount of sin-management or rule keeping could ever break those chains. But then, two-thousand years ago, Jesus took up his cross and signed an Emancipation Proclamation in his own blood, declaring emphatically that sin no longer needs to be our task-master, shame no longer needs to shackle our hearts. We prodigals can come home.

This is good news of great joy for all humanity. And many of us have embraced this truth and begun to live out of it. But despite the effort of countless generations before us to carry this message across oceans and continents, there are still people living on this planet who don’t realize they can be free. And they’re not just in remote villages. There are people living in our own neighborhoods who have yet to hear the good news.

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul wrote the following words: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:13-15)

The Emancipation Proclamation was life changing for the men and women enslaved all across America, but the message of freedom that Jesus entrusts to us to proclaim is so much greater than that. It has eternal ramifications. And He’s entrusted it to those of us who have tasted and seen that life in Christ is true freedom.

This is the best news ever. Let’s not keep it to ourselves.

A few years back, I was introduced to Fantasy football. Suddenly, I found myself with a vested interest in every game, not just the one in which my team was playing. But it came at a cost. Fantasy sports completely altered the way I watch a game. Instead of rooting for my team to succeed, I ended up rooting for individual players on my roster irrespective of what team they’re on.

This has led to a whole slew of conflicting moments, like when I find myself cheering for certain players on a team to succeed while rooting for others to fail. I’ve even caught myself celebrating when a player on another person’s roster is sidelined because of an injury, completely forgetting that this is a real person and that injury has real life consequences.

Lately, it feels as if we’re approaching life as if it’s all a big game of Fantasy Football. We have divided the world into categories – have’s/have not’s, Democrat/Republican, black/white, citizen/non-citizen. And then we pick sides. This causes us to construct our own roster of players and causes that we root for and others that we root against.

Unfortunately, this leads to all sorts of self-defeating desires: we may find ourselves cheering when a politician stumbles, even though their misstep hurts others and has real life consequences. We may decry certain injustices, but overlook others because to acknowledge them could undermine our side’s grip on the moral high ground or, worse yet, cost us an election. Sometimes we even start to look at people who hold different perspectives than us as the enemy.

The problem with approaching life in this way is that it blinds us to an important truth: there’s only one team. We’re all in this together. 

This is especially true for those who claim to follow Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul said as much to believers living in an equally fractured First Century context: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) His point is not to deny our differences or pretend they don't exist. Rather, he reminds us that despite our different cultural, political and socioeconomic backgrounds, our relationship with Jesus supersedes those natural dividing lines. While the world says we are on different teams with conflicting goals, if we're following Jesus then we're on the same team and we've been entrusted with the same goal - to reflect His heart into our fractured world. This means doing what he did: binding up the broken, moving towards the marginalized, praying for those who persecute us and serving others rather than seeking to be served.

I know that it may sound naïve to speak this way. You might be thinking, "That’s not the way the world works! We have competing perspectives that conflict with one another, so the only way to ensure that our values are championed is to do whatever it takes to get our representatives into positions of power, and to speak forcefully enough that our perspective is heard, right?!"

But that’s like a team’s defense publicly criticizing the offense, or the quarterback complaining about the receiving core. It doesn’t help the team succeed against the challenges that they face; instead, it tears a team apart from the inside and weakens their ability to rise to each challenge they face.

That’s certainly what is happening in our country right now. We’ve been blindsided not once but twice, first by COVID-19 and then by a series of racially charged deaths. We’re hurting. And rather than uniting to face these challenges head on, we’ve pointed fingers and blamed one another. We’ve been yelling our heads off, but few of us are willing to stop and listen to another perspective – so the volume and the frustration just continue to grow.

What are the solutions to the myriad problems we face as a society? I don’t know. But I know that we won’t find them when we’re trying to shout over one another to be heard. And if we keep blaming one another instead of working together every time we get blindsided, then before too long we won’t have the strength or the resolve to get back to our feet.

Worse yet, if we keep rooting for one another to fail, eventually we’ll wake up and realize that we’ve all lost. Because we’re on the same team.

"Therefore, let us make every effort to do what leads to
peace and to mutual edification." Romans 14:19