Love and Fear

Lord, grant us, not to be delivered from our fears, but to embrace love. For when we embrace love in actuality, we grow more like You. True love relegates all fear to insignificance, not because it avoids all mishap, disaster, and undeserved evil, but because love that continually grows as we are poured out allows us to connect with the Divine, and ushers us into the presence beyond the veil. Fear surrounded the Holy of Holies, Love tore the veil.

Activate

Here you stand. These crossroads again. This bitter place of never-quite-realized dreams. The edge of who you were meant to be. Here you stand, and you are paralyzed by the potential. All the “maybes” and the possibilities of pain and failure hold you in place like chains of the soul. What you can't see has called your bluff. So lets talk about what you can't see.

What you can't see is that He is right there, and He's going to meet you as soon as you take that step of faith and leave your comfort zone. What you can't see is that you will never grow unless you take risks, and you will never become who you were meant to be unless you lay it all down. You can never fulfill the destiny that God placed inside of you unless you are consumed and driven to pursue Him.

You can't see the price He paid to redeem you, or the great desire He has to bring wholeness into your life. You can't see the spiritual forces battling on your behalf. You can't see the victory that is already won for you. All you can see is the fear of the possibilities. You're here with only your faith and His promises, and the Enemy is willing to go to any lengths to keep you from living in them. What ARE you waiting for? Go!

Asleep

It's 3:45 AM. I drive along the surprisingly deserted interstate, finishing a long night of work, thinking about many things, and watching the city go by. At this hour, most people are still asleep. Only the lonely, the late nighters, and the sleepless are up at this hour. The world is a very different place when humanity is, for the most part, sleeping. It can be a very lonely place.

Right now, however, there is no loneliness. As I watch the world sweep by, I sense the presence of someone I know well. His hands formed each person who dreams, His love pursues them all: the weak and the least, the broken and the bitter. The alone and the lonely, the self satisfied and proud. He never ceases, He never relents. He is always calling, always pouring out the affections of His grace, the attentions of His scandalous kindness, the whispers of the maker, calling His creation to intimacy with Him. He never, ever, even for a second stops pursuing, wooing, and drawing us to Him...

In the days of uncertainty and desperation, in the age of doubt and despair, this I find true. I am loved by Him. I find that in this crazy relationship with this incomprehensible God who inexplicably loves me I find the only peace I will ever have, and the only thing worth having. I find in my Jesus all that I ever have or ever will need. It leaves me completely at a loss. To say that He is all would not even begin to adequately express how He is enough. He is extravangantly, lavishly, above-and-beyond enough.

Wherever you may find yourself at this moment, whatever this journey that we call life has brought you through. I can tell you this. He has never, ever, not for one smallest fraction of a millisecond, left you. Right now if you will listen, if you will open your heart, you will hear that whisper. The whisper of the One who formed you. The One who has held every moment of your life. The One who longs to be found in relationship with you, to bring you the only thing that matters in life. Peace...

"For he himself is our peace..." (Ephesians 2:14a)

May you be at peace.

Life Words

In most instances where I sign my name, I also include two scripture references. The first of which is Philippians 1:20-21. I often write them carelessly, almost haphazardly, jotting them down as a casual addendum to the mark of my identity. This week, however, I find these verses will not leave me. They are constantly in the back of my mind, inviting me to step beyond the temporal and engage life as it was meant to be lived.

Philippians 1:21
"For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

This maybe the most powerful statement of personal faith that I could make. It's a simple equation: "Life=Christ, Death=gain". What would it look like, however, if that truly became our ethos, the core of our approach to life. What if we realized that Christianity is not a religious belief system, not church service attendance, but rather a revolutionary way of living - be that as a pastor of a church or a warehouse worker, a full time youth worker or a stay at home Mom. Are we brave enought to make that statement in our current situation? Do we have the chutzpah to take a side in the cosmic battle between darkness and light? Are we willing to fight that battle in our own hearts, homes, and in the familiar grounds of our oh-so-safe and familiar spaces?

The greek literally puts it this way "Living (the act) Christ death (act of) gain (advantage)"
"Living Christ dying advantage." Are you willing to put those for words at the core of your being? To step into a life that declares the totality of existence is for the purpose of knowing and emulating Christ, and that the length and security of our earthly life is insignificant compared to the advantage that we gain by being with Him?

This is what Jesus calls us to when he calls us to be His disciples. This is the answer to the unequivocal "Follow Me" of the gospels. This is truly who we were meant to be. In this verse lies the answer to all our questions about purpose, and the fulfillment of the longings we can never quite stifle.

Life. Christ. Death. Gain.

May it be true in me, may it be true in you.

The suburban vagabond

Phil. 1:20-21, 3:7-10