My Good Friend...Dr. Vernon Grounds

I received word a few days ago that my dear friend; mentor; counselor; and confessor - Dr. Vernon Grounds - passed peacefully from this earth and awoke at the place of his heart's desire. My little offering is but a widow's mite in respect to the rich volume of sentiment that has been expressed around the world the past couple of weeks. But, add to it I will because of the wisdom, kindness and grace imparted to me by this beloved man.

Dr. Grounds served for over sixty years at Denver Seminary. He was a professor, a president and finally Chancellor Emeritus. That last title sounds really important and dignified. If anyone earned such adulation from mere man - he certainly did. I first met Dr. Grounds several years ago while taking a doctoral class at Talbot Seminary in La Mirada, California. At the beginning of the class, the director of the program asked if any of us students would be willing to transport Dr. Grounds to and from his hotel each day. My brother, who was also taking this class, looked at me, smiled, and we both said, "Yes!" at the same time. Dr. Grounds was already somewhat of a legend by then and we felt incredibly honored to be able to squeeze in a little extra time with him. Before the week was over, he was referring affectionately to my older brother, Chris, as "Big Brother" and me as "Little Brother." When he would call on me in class he would say, "Tell me, Little Brother, what do you think of that?" I loved it. Taking a class from Dr. Grounds was, in a word, breathtaking. Does that sound hyperbolic? Perhaps. But to take a class from a man who never used a note, who could recite philosophers, Shakespeare, the ancient texts of Scripture and other notable authors from memory was...well...breathtaking.

But it wasn't just the style points that enamored me - it was also the content of his character. He was a tiny man with a very big heart, coupled with the grace of humility so rarely witnessed by leaders in our day - church or otherwise. Many times throughout his life he had been tempted to take strong polemic stands in order to exhibit the "purity of his faith" to some of the firebrands who supported the seminary. He rarely, if ever, took the bait. His view of education was liberal in the old sense of the word - not that battered, anemic and so easily offended demonstration of it we see today. He would say, "If you want to be taught what to think, go to (unnamed seminary). If you want to be taught how to think, come to Denver Seminary." Even with such obvious pimping of his beloved school, he would say it with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. If the man ever actually despised anything - and that is up for debate - it would have been the sloppy moralizing and the intellectual laziness of Christians. He also cured me of the tired habit of speaking platitudes into the tragedies that I would shepherd as a minister. In other words - he taught me the grace of keeping my mouth shut and my hands busy in the company of grief.

I would be the negative recipient of that last grace a few years after my initial encounter with Dr. Grounds. For reasons I still do not understand; or, at best - can only offer opinion in regard to - "Big Brother" decided to end his life. I was mowed over by the well-meaning "platitudinous." It felt as though a host of well-meaning people were standing in line reading from a Hallmark card - really bad ones in some cases.

After the God-empowered adrenaline given me to share at my brother's funeral, I began to experience the crash. That's one of the things I have learned about grief...we each have to work through it. It is why counselors call it "grief work" because it is both of those things. One day, many weeks after the sad event, my phone rang. I said "Hello." I could hear on the other end a heavy sigh and these words, "Oh...Little Brother...ohhhh...." and then...quiet. I started weeping and the wonderful thing about Dr. Grounds was that he was totally comfortable being silent, not offering one ill-chosen, ill-timed word or platitude. It was beautiful then. It is a beautiful memory now. As I sit writing this I am weeping again at the minimalist and understated art that is true grace.

Dr. Grounds was known as somewhat of a mystic. He believed very strongly in practicing the classic disciplines of the Christian faith such as meditation and prayer. I have tried, very feebly, to follow his lead. It is difficult. Sometimes, it is quite boring and seemingly unproductive. To this feeling, common to all who attempt to develop the interior world of the spirit, Dr. Grounds preached a wonderful sermon where he gave a very helpful platitude (they are not all bad!). He said this: "The ruts of routine, over time, become the grooves of grace." One of the grooves of grace that Dr. Grounds imparted to me was the steady pursuit and impartation to others, of joy. Many Christians are angry. I chose a few years ago to leave them to ply their trade if they felt that was their calling. It struck me that they seemed to have enough anger, angst and judgment in them to cover my shift. My little contribution to repairing the image of Christ in this world is to carry the joy that so consumed Dr. Grounds. I have learned this: Joy is the present awareness of His presence - the moment, by moment, by moment, by moment sense of awe that He really is "Emmanuel", God with us. Such wonder, once embraced, can sustain us in our busyness and our anxieties at a deep and subconscious level. Embrace the thought, early in the morning that, "God is with me" and your spirit will rise, capture that truth, and keep it burning throughout the day like a pilot light. When the bitter wind of adversity, fear, self-doubt, or despair blow on you, know this - the pilot light will hold steady, ready to ignite the bigger flame of faith once more...at a moment's notice.

I have always been of the school that fancied the notion that God gives dearly departed loved ones a chance for one last peek. I have amassed too many stories where the lines between eternity and time get blurred during times of grief to believe otherwise. If that is so, let me say this: "Enjoy your reward Dr. Grounds. Give my Savior and "Big Brother" a kiss from me. See you on the other side...Love, Little Brother."

-CJ

Scraps

Let’s see…where were we? Doesn’t matter. I am still alive and am very much committed to blogging the arbitrary thoughts that flood my brain. I see that my last official blog was sometime back in February. How sad. It is not as though I have been sitting still. A lot has happened since then. But finding that right moment to slow the mind down and get all wise and erudite has escaped me. I needed a reason to slow down and write, and thus, came up with a really good one – my birthday.

Yes, August 3rd marks my 51st trip around the sun. My wife celebrated her 50th very quietly earlier this summer. While women complain a lot about how society allows a man to age gracefully, how the touch of gray around the temple is considered dignified and handsome – I can guarantee you that on my 50th I was not allowed “quiet.” And, I can also guarantee you that my wife didn’t receive 50th “non-dignified” birthday greetings adorned with Doctors with rubber gloves, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, etc. The way I see it, it all evens out. Women are allowed to celebrate (?) their milestones quietly. Men are savaged.

51 is not a milestone year. The milestone years, except for 18, end in a 0 or a 5. I have four humdrum birthdates coming up until the 55th. That will be a weird one. I remember the Jimmy Carter years when the President who taught us the word “malaise” mandated that the top speed across the country would be 55. That came at an unfortunate time in my life. I was just beginning my driving career and I lived in the Midwest. Our scenery consisted of…corn. How phenomenally boring to putt across the prairie in an 8 cylinder Ford Galaxy 500, with bench seats that would comfortably seat: 8 people, a senator, and a small herd of goats. The trunk was so large that it would create echoes if I sang into it. I was stuck going 55. I wonder if turning 55 will feel that way four years from now? I’ll keep you posted.

On July 17th we married off our last child, Riley, to a beautiful young lady, Kristy. She is Irish looking enough that I am quite pleased. So far, the empty nest thing is not a tortured affair of padding aimlessly about the house, mumbling, and looking at old pictures of the family. I am enjoying it. It is not that I do not love my children. They would each report that I am a doting father, but…hey, it is nice to see a clean kitchen and not worry about running out of toilet paper. The peace that these modest pleasures afford cannot be measured.

Our ancient and regal Chinese Pug, Moe, is quickly drifting off to his dotage. I affectionately refer to him as “Moe the Worship Dog” because he always seats himself prominently in front of the musicians when we lead worship at Simple Church. One of his great pleasures seems to be to watch the audience sing. I find that interesting because he is stone deaf. You can shout out his name from 12 inches away and he doesn’t budge. He is also blind in his right eye. If you toss him a scrap of food toward his right eye, it bounces off his face. He still catches well if you toss to his good side. He no longer hears but he can feel vibrations. If a car comes up the drive he still shows up to his station on the second step and dutifully woofs. Sometimes he will do a two-second staccato woof for 30 minutes or so – like a record that is stuck. The vibrations have long ceased but I am sure that the woofing makes him feel useful and stirs fond memories of his young dog days.

The good report is that, at 51, I feel great. I do not sit around mindlessly woofing and I still feel as though the best days lie ahead. I pray the same for you.

Be abundantly blessed…
-CJ

How Is Your Dream Life? Part Three

There will come a day for each of us when we will be spoken of in the past-tense. What we have made or not made of our lives will be declared. The quality or lack thereof of the person that we were will be known to all. If your life were to wind down this week, what do you suppose would be your legacy? How would you be described in the past-tense?

Would it go something like this: “She rented really great movies and always watched each one to the very end.” Or, “McDonald’s is really going to miss that guy – He was one faithful customer… Man, what he could do with a Big Mac!” Or how about: “Yep, that dude could fool around on his computer for hours. I think he had like 500 “friends” on Facebook.” “He was gifted when it came to taking a nap.” Or even, “If you ever wanted to know the scoop on someone, she was the person to go to. She was always so incredibly generous with her gossip.’

These past-tense testimonials are horrifying to consider. Such undersized lives, where the person needed little more than a brain-stem to get by, is a very depressing thought. Go with that for a moment. Be depressed. Drink it deep. I am shooting for wholesale dissatisfaction from the get-go.

Have you ever mulled over the words disillusioned or disenchanted? We tend to think of both of these as negative terms. I actually see them as liberating words. Why? It all has to do with the prefix, “dis.” Generally speaking, the meaning of this prefix is: “lack of, the opposite of, or away.” Any one of them will do for the point I would like to make. To “lack” illusion is not a bad thing. To be a person who is, “the opposite of” enchanted seems pretty good as well. What seems untenable is to walk around in a perpetual state of illusion and enchantment. That sounds a whole lot like black magic.

When a person asks one or more of the following questions, he or she is taking a step toward liberation. The questions go as follows: “Is this all there is to life?” “Why I am I taking up space on this planet?” “Am I created for something more than movie night, Big Macs, naps, Facebook and gossip?” “What is my purpose?”

If you have a pulse, you have had one of those thoughts. Chances are, you didn’t linger too long on any one of them because they appear so dark and foreboding. In our culture, the nearest TV remote, computer, bottle of hooch, newspaper, romance novel, restaurant, or vacation can temporarily cure us of the blues associated with these searching questions. In other words, the drift back into enchantment and illusion are within easy reach. And reach we do…much as a drug-addict reaches for a fix.

It was not always so. Previous cultures, (and many cultures today, as we shall see in future blogs) lived without the anesthetizing temptations available to us. They were less trusting of and dependent on mundane pastimes and amusements to get them through. They in fact found purposeful lives because they stayed focused on the big questions of: “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?”

When we ask the question, “Why am I here?” there is a metaphysical component to it. The question belies an unspoken understanding that we are, in fact, created. Or, at the very least, we are pro-created. Either way, we recognize that somehow, in the words of Tony Campolo, we are that: “one sperm out of millions that made it.” We cannot escape the thought that we are special, that we are destined, and that we are unique. Our fingerprints bear witness of that unassailable fact. (Go ahead; take a moment right this second and just stare at your fingertips. Better yet – use a magnifying glass. I predict a holy shudder). And, when we linger on that thought for even a moment, we gain an enormous sense of stewardship, some inkling that the universe is anxiously waiting for us to take a step toward our created purpose.

If you believe, as I do, that we are each created by a Creator who intimately knows us, then these questions become less rhetorical. We find - if we can clear our head and hands of lesser pursuits - first a hint, then a whisper, then a sketch, and ultimately, a life that is full of wild possibility and creativity. The Creator has made us to be co-creators of His good purposes. It is a standing invitation with a shelf-life that lasts until we each draw our final breath.

What hinders us from pursuing our purpose? One of the most universally agreed upon culprits is fear. We like predictability. We are risk averse. We do not like someone rearranging the furniture of our lives and messing with our carefully constructed sanctuaries of banality. Now, I could go on for some time about fear, but I think it pales in comparison to the biggest villain of all. Pardon for a moment this theological scamper, but I believe, etymologically and philosophically that our biggest problem is sin.

SIN? Are you kidding me? Nope. The Greek word used to describe “sin” in the New Testament is: “hamartano”, an archery term that means: “to miss the mark and not share in the prize.” It gets better (or worse depending on your point of view). As so often happens with Greek words, they are built from an antecedent word which gives us even greater insight. Such is the case with this word. “Harmartano” goes back to the word, “meros” which means: “share, allotment, section of land, coast, unique craft, or portion.”

When I first mentioned sin as our principal problem, most of you probably thought I was referencing things that are considered “naughty.” Yes, sin is no doubt naughty. The list of things we should and shouldn’t do is daunting. We all have a sin problem. But, what I find really striking is that the word used to describe sin speaks mostly about a life that just flat misses out on the issue of purpose. According to the etymology of the words themselves, sin means that we have missed the target, our share, our allotment, our section of land, our unique craft, or our portion. The biggest sin of all turns out to be when we fail to see the answer to the big, metaphysical question raised earlier: “Why am I here?” And, the reason we often hesitate to linger on that question is because it exposes our sin problem.

If you have read this far, you are either nodding in agreement or you are kicking the dog. (I.e., I thought I was going to get a nice Norman Vincent Peale message and instead he went all Billy Graham on me). Either way, I will risk one more thought before closing.

One thing you need to know about God and sin is this: He cares MORE about sin and LESS about sins than we do. One thing you need to know about you and me is this: We care MORE about sins and LESS about sin than God does. I am not being pedantic or clever. “Sins” plural are nearly intractable. They include: lying, cheating, slander, gossip, lust, blasphemy, apathy, greed, pride, envy, etc., etc., ad. infinitum, ad nauseam. All of these are just broad headings that do not yet broach the more subjective and personal narrative that includes “me” and how.” In other words, how have I been prideful, envious, lustful, apathetic, etc.? An honest answer creates even more new and copious lists with nearly endless subheadings. We are truly a mess.

It is right here that the difference between God and us becomes most apparent. We humans make great hay out of anyone who gets caught committing such sins. The entire media, print and broadcast industry would dry up were it not for this human craving to sensationalize other people’s sins. In an honest moment, we realize that such crowing over people’s failures is a dangerous game. Often what separates their public humiliation from ours is the simple fact that they got caught. The story of the woman discovered in adultery is telling as the raucous crowd of self-righteous prigs scream for Jesus to allow them to stone the poor woman to death. Jesus, kneeling in the dirt, simply says, “Whoever is without sin among you, go first – fling away.” It is not lost on the reader of this remarkable encounter that the first people to drop their rocks and shuffle off are the old guys. They have lived long enough to realize that no one gets through this life without a skeleton or two in his closet.

But God sees it differently. He realizes that sins, in the plural, are not our real problem. Our real problem is sin in the singular. We commit sins because our nature, our bent, our trajectory cannot do otherwise. We have a sin nature that…sins. In that sense God cares less about individual sins than He does about sin – that entrenched, rebellious DNA which we all share.

Listen carefully to how the Apostle Paul describes the cure:

“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature (my emphasis) was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the wrongs against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross…Since you have been raised to a new life (new nature) in Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand…For you died to this life and your real life (new nature) is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in his glory.” (Colossians 2:13,14 & 3:1,3,4)

The Christian message offers us a way out of a life that has been, up to this point, misspent and without purpose. We need not carry one moment longer the baggage of shame, regret, fear, self-recrimination or a life without purpose. Not only does God lay on the table the offer of forgiving our sins, He also offers us a new nature – Christ Himself as a replacement for the sin nature that makes us sin. As we learn to work with that new nature, we will find flowing within us a river of beauty and creativity. God himself, the Creator and forever the Creative One, will be working through us from the inside-out. We will no longer be missing the mark of why we have been placed on this earth. The future “past-tense” testimony of our life will be as unique and remarkable as our fingerprint…

-CJ
Note: Feel free to linger over this prayer and form it with your own lips to God. If you find the prayer helpful, please drop me a line at: patrickcrossing@gmail.com.

“Dear God, I am not sure I get all of this, but I do know that my life seems to be missing the mark. I feel like I am meant for so much more. I know that I have made mistakes – things you call sins. I would like to ask that you remove these from my life and, as those verses from the above-mentioned Scripture promise – nail them to the cross of Christ. I don’t want to feel guilty any longer over the past. I do not want to live with regret. Please take it all away. I don’t want to be that person any longer and I do not want to make those same choices. And, give me that new nature – the new nature that is Christ Jesus. I can’t be Jesus. I need Jesus to be Jesus. I need Him to somehow live inside of me, to take up residence and to help me make better decisions, to be a better person and to live as a forgiven and free person. I also need His guidance toward what my “big thing” in life is all about. Sort out these prayers and know that I make them with them with humility and hopefulness. Thanks…”

How Is Your Dream Life? Part Two

(Note: You might find it helpful to go back and read the blog from Oct. 13th, 2009. It forms the seminal thinking of this series on which we are about to journey).

Let’s get right to it shall we? Are you a creative person? Have you ever toyed with the idea of an invention or a business or a career change? When asked the mental candy questions: “If time and money were not an issue, what would you be doing with your life right now?” My answer to that question would go something like: 1) Professional waterfall photographer; or, 2) Professional puppy petter. Hey, I dig waterfalls and puppies. They still my soul.

Most of us shut down pretty fast when asked such a question. Why? - Because the responsibilities of life howl at us, not like a sweet puppy, but like a rabid dog. There are bills to pay, yards to mow, snow to shovel, food for which to shop, food to cook, houses to be cleaned, taxes to be prepared, taxes to be paid – and on and on it goes. The list is endless. To entreat our cluttered lives and minds with the “time and money” question seems a pointless exercise, or at best, a mental ride on a carousel that – though a momentary thrill – deposits us unceremoniously right back to where we started. We can almost hear our internal carnival carny shouting at us, “Okay, off you go – the ride’s over.”

I am going to make a strong case this year that an entrepreneurial spirit and the spirit of invention and creativity are God-things. The truths we will examine are going to be rooted deep in creation theology and in the covenantal promises given to the Hebrew people. By the way, those covenantal promises are still in effect today as we shall see in future blogs.

But, let’s go back for a moment to the issue of you and your own creative and entrepreneurial spirit. Do you have one? My guess is that yes, you do. And that is especially so for those who lay claim to a relationship with God – who sometimes goes by the moniker of: “The Creator. “ You may think I am wrong in my guess. My point throughout this year is to prove you wrong and myself right. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

The creative spirit begins with seeing things from a slightly different perspective and allowing that perspective to raise both questions and possibilities. This year we will meet a billionaire who made his fortune by putting women’s hosiery in an egg shaped container and marketing them as “L’eggs.” We will meet some drop-out of society rock-climbers and kayakers, each who founded multi-million dollar outdoor clothing and gear lines. In doing so, we will discover that some ideas are so obvious that we slap ourselves and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” The short answer will be: “Because you never gave it a thought!”

When we live our lives never “giving it a thought” we are not only living lives of resignation, we are shutting off pathways for God to eventually bless the world. Thus, a subtext to all of what we will be learning together is a greater understanding of the concept of generosity. It is a big deal to God. It is a big deal to eternity. It is a big deal to the poor and helpless and downtrodden of the world. It will all tie together.

Let me wrap up this end of the year blog with a few amusing stories of really smart people who, for a moment in time, resigned themselves to the present realities surrounding them and became blind to different possibilities…

(I quote at length from a Wall Street Journal article written by L. Gordon Crovitz entitled: “Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk.”)

“Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.” – Julius Sextus, Roman Engineer, 10 A.D.

“Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” - Charles Duell, U.S. Patent Office, 1899

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” - Sir William Preece, British Post Office, 1878

“Who wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927 (Personal note: I still think that one might be a very good question.)

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
– Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946

“The world potential for copying machines is 5,000 at most.” - IBM Executives to the future founders of Xerox, 1959

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“No one will need more than 637kb of memory for a personal computer.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981

And, my favorite…

“Next Christmas the i-Pod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.” – Sir Allen Sugar, British Entrepreneur, 2005

Each quote is an example of a person growing a nasty case of myopia. My prayers for this year is that all who share in this blog and in the Simple Church ministry of Patrick Crossing will be cured of this unnecessary ailment. May 2010 be the best year you have ever experienced…

-CJ
New Year’s Eve, 2009

Merry Christmas 2009

CJ & Jan - 30 years, December 29, 2009

Beloved C.J. Blog Readers,

I have been out of sync for the past few weeks recovering from a back injury - two marvelously herniated discs. I have completed a lot of floor time and have not had quite enough energy, enthusiasm or focus to really put together my normal Christmas letter. My apologies for that. (Although it might have been quite entertaining to see what I would have had to say with the admixture of Holy Spirit, Oydcodone & Valium. Sadly, we will never know). I do have a backload of blogs that I have been sketching out and will begin 2010 trying to coordinate them with what I will be teaching at our Simple Church gatherings. So...stay tuned.

I am doing much, much better. Through this ordeal, I have gained a new found compassion for people who are suffering from chronic pain. The Scriptures teach that faith operates through love and I believe that compassion and love are synonymous. Many times, as a set-up for Jesus healing a person of a particular affliction, the Scripture begins with this phrase: "And, moved with compassion, He..." You know the rest. He healed them. Hopefully my prayers for people in 2010 will be of a better quality as I am now stripped of the base alloy of feigned compassion. I get it now.

So...Merry Christmas! It is a big deal - this God stepping out of eternity into time and entering our atmosphere through the portal of a Palestinian shed. God became a man and dwelt among us - so says the gospel writer, John. It is mind-bending. How could God be here and still be "there?" That question - actually that reality - was demonstrated by physics in the famous "Bucky-ball" experiment in Germany. Scientists witnessed for the first time a single electron appearing in two dimensions at the same moment in time. It was, and is, freakish. But, Scripture pre-dated that experiment by 2,000 years. God became a man and dwelt among us. I can't quite get my mind around that and I can't quite get over it. A brief meditation on the wonder of that event still moves me at the deepest level...

...And even more so because we humans are so puny and so transient. In our galaxy, the largest star known to exist goes by the name of VY Canis Majoris (Big Dog). It is referred to as a Red Hyper-Giant. There is some debate about its size, but some estimates say that the circumference of this star is over 5 billion miles. It would take an object traveling at light speed, 8 hours + to navigate the circumference. For our own sun, the light speed trip would take only 14.8 seconds. 7 quadrillion of our earths would be necessary to fill up the Big Dog. And that is just one star in the 100 plus billion stars in our galaxy. And...there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe. I read somewhere that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth. Crazy - ridiculous - awesome - amazing and....humbling.

Christmas humbles me because I believe that God created the whole thing. I really do. And, it seems that He did His creating with extravagant excess. Even on this earth, the variety of trees, fruits, plants, dogs, people, insects, climates, fish, etc. boggles the mind. Why? Why so much variety? Why such a big universe? When I measure it all against the advent of the Christ-child - this special intervention from heaven for this mere speck in the universe overloads my emotions. Why this planet? Why are we so special? One errant asteroid could remove this headache of a planet peopled with a maddened human race set on its own destruction. But no - God decided to insert Himself onto the scene as "one of us." He got to experience for the very first time what it was like to see, smell, hear, taste, sweat, be thirsty, be tempted and to suffer - just like all of us "blokes down under." This planet - this one grain of sand in the vast wilderness of the universe gained the affection of the Creator.

But more mind-bending than that is the fact that He didn’t live and then die for mankind, as such…He lived and died and rose again for individuals – for people with real names, real birthdates, and with unique finger-prints. He died for me. He died for you. The Creator of all this excessive majesty came to this earth to establish contact with one person at a time.

If there wasn’t something truthful and real surrounding this event 2,000 years ago – it would have long ago dissipated from the memory of man. But, somehow, this child has repeated this “Bethlehem” – this great invasion - time and time again throughout these many centuries - being born anew into the willing hearts of men, women and children. He who was born, who lived, who suffered on the cross for our sins, and who rose again – lives on in believers from the inside out. A couple of billion people today who claim this mysterious relationship will pause and remember this great truth, that: “God became a man and dwelt among us…” The story never grows old because the story continues to skip from heart to heart and from generation to generation in its marvelous, organic iridescence. Wherever there is a needy heart that humbly cries out for help; for deliverance; for salvation; a Bethlehem occurs.

Be well blessed,

CJ

Christmas Day, 2009 A.D.

How Is Your Dream Life? Part One

Please take 30 minutes to read this by yourself & with those in your family. It is really important stuff…really…for sure. -CJ

The Bible speaks very clearly about the issue of faith. Without it we are cooked - literally. With it, we please the heart of God in ways unimaginable. A simple way that I have come to understand how to live by faith is to merely try and expose and relate every experience I have throughout the day – even the mundane and routine ones – to God. Faith then becomes an invitation for the Father to fragrance, inform and empower every area of my life.

The reason that faith is so critical to our spiritual vitality is that it carries with it the life-flow of heaven. Without a vibrant, moment by moment faith exchange with the Father, we are left to see things and experience circumstances with the meager resources of our own flesh. And when we do that, we almost always fail. Faith is counterintuitive to much of life. The real evidence of our faith is not witnessed by what we can regurgitate to one another in the safe confines of church – it is measured rather by those unexpected “reactive” moments that we each encounter throughout the day. When Jesus said to turn the other cheek when struck, it was assumed that none of us woke up that day and placed on our to-do list: “Get struck on right cheek at 11:31 a.m….Be ready.” If we had a bit of advanced warning, we might just pull off the correct reaction. But that is not how life happens nor is it in the enemy’s playbook to play fair. Stuff happens in the blink of an eye and our reaction to the suddenness belies either a moment by moment attachment to God or “the best our flesh can offer.” What we do in the unexpected reveals our true north.

This moment by moment apprenticeship is not easy. We will each fail many times. Yet, even in the failure, our Lord stands ready to pick us up again and take the next step – bruised and bloody though we may be. And, it is right here that a lot of us make our next mistake. We often think the Lord abandons us when we fail. He does not. He cannot. He has signed a covenant – a marriage covenant of sorts that is with us even when our reaction to circumstances is unheavenly. Because of the guilt poured on from the enemy and from our own self-recriminating hearts, we assume that Jesus pouts and puffs and rejects people who fail “just like we would do.” That is a big, fat, audacious lie. He is not like us. He is perfect in His justice and in his mercy. He knows that we are fighting our way out of a flesh-suit controlled by our weaknesses and by a world system stacked against us. Just tell Him you’re sorry and get up and have another go at it. It is all he asks. To try to beat yourself up as an act of contrition is not necessary. He already bore our own sins in His body on the tree. He was already bruised for our transgressions. The price has been paid. Quit trying to pick up the check.

Now, believe it or not, all of what I have just said has everything to do with how you perceive and find radical success in regard to your purpose in life. So many Christians I have met and counseled with over the years have been in a self-imposed wasteland in regards to this singularly unbiblical question: “What is God’s purpose for my life?” The problem with that question is that it betrays a lack of understanding and a practice of the above-mentioned life. In other words – follow the logic here – how can one miss God’s plan for one’s life if that life is in constant contact with the One referred to as: “The author and finisher of our faith.” The Bible also uses the word picture that we are “yoked” to Him. How can we go where He is not? How can He go somewhere where we cannot go? I find that those who ask this question are often unskilled in releasing the mundane to Jesus on a moment by moment basis. And, because of the reactive nature of our flesh, many opportunities are stillborn, never to be recovered because heaven was not allowed to fragrance, inform and empower the mundane. (E.g. We actually have the audacity to think that we can drive to work without His help and companionship – knowing full well our ability and our sad, repetitive & predictable experience of cursing – rather than blessing – our fellow commuters).

Lives lived under this sort of on/off switch of intimacy with and dependency upon God drift towards lives lived out on the defense. In other words, we are always trying to preserve what little spiritual gains we have made rather than dreaming what I believe are God-sized dreams for more. The parable referred to as: “The Parable Of The Loaned Money” illustrates this principle very well. The short version goes like this: Jesus tells a parable about a rich man getting ready to go away on travels. Before he leaves, he lines up three servants and entrusts them sequentially with: five bags of silver, 2 bags of silver and one bag of silver. The first two servants put the money to work and when the master returns each of these servants have doubled their master’s investment. They played offense with what they had been given. Please note that. The last servant, the defensive specialist, says this: “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you did not plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.” The master’s response is quick and to the point: “You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have had some interest on it.” Jesus sums up the teaching of this parable with these words: “To those who use well what they have been given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.” (Matthew 25: selected)

Here’s the deal…God wants us to play offense. Guilt, fear, shame, regret and a host of other things nullify the grace of God and cause us to play defense. God has told us to storm the very gates of hell; to go to the entire world with the good news of the kingdom; and, to be the head and not the tail. Why are so many of us wagging?

Let’s pause for a good story…The following comes from the book entitled: “Wild Goose Chase.” The wild goose is the Celtic representative of the Holy Spirit. The Celts could think of no better representation of the Spirit than this particular bird – being, I suppose, a bit thin on they type of dove that landed on Jesus at his baptism. I like the word picture.

The author, Mark Batterson, tells a very moving story about a good friend of his by the name of Ted Leonsis:

Ted Leonsis is a prominent Washingtonian who made his fortune as an executive with AOL...It was a near death experience that put him on the offensive. In 1983, 25 year old Ted was on an Eastern Airlines flight that lost the ability to use its wing flaps and landing gear. As flight attendants prepared the cabin for a crash-landing, Ted began thinking about what he would do if he survived. “I promised myself that if I didn’t die,” he reported later, “I’d play offense for the rest of my life.” Leonsis survived the landing and made good on his promise. He compiled a list of 101 life goals. To date, Leonsis has checked seventy-four off his original list. And these are not your garden variety goals. They are big, hairy audacious goals. Here are some of the goals Ted Leonsis has already accomplished:

v Create the world’s largest media company.

v Own a jet.

v Give 1 million to Georgetown University.

v Start a family foundation.

v Own a sports franchise.

v Hold elective office.

v Have a net worth of 100 million after taxes.

C.S. Lewis once said it this way: “We sin not because our desires are too strong, but because they are too weak.” The Bible says it this way: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18. As Batterson points out: “The word ‘perish’ refers to fruit that is past its prime. It is no longer ripening; it is rotting. A God ordained vision is a supernatural preservative. It doesn’t just keep us young, it keeps us on the offensive…I think vision is the cure for sin.”

I agree. Most Christians get off-track not because they are lascivious, materialistic self-centered perverts – it is simply because they become bored. You see, everything in life needs a God-sized vision – our vocations, our avocations, our marriages, our parenting…our life. Too many times we live our lives knowing – really knowing down deep – that we were created for something big, something significant - but we settle instead for a downsized version of the middle-class American Dream. You know the dream I am talking about: go out to eat a few times a month, rent a few movies, sip a few lattes, take a vacation, drive a decent car, live in a decent house, have a little left over at the end of the month, and generally be left alone to pursue these humble pleasures. I’m not knocking it as such – but what I am asking is this: “Were we created for such modest lives?’ Can you imagine standing before God at the end of days and giving this accounting of your life: “So tell me, Bob, how did you manage the investment I placed in your life? What did you do with my coins?” And Bob answers, “Well, I became a collector of all of the old Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, 24, and Andy Griffith episodes. I regularly maintained my cars. I paid my bills on time. I made sure all my animals were spayed. I was nice to the people who served me my latte everyday. I pretty much went through life trying not to make trouble for anyone.” I will not venture here the temerity to respond as if I were God. But, I think the above-mentioned parable might offer a clue.

So - what do you suppose would happen if God were to partner with your vision? Seriously…what would happen if the Creator of the universe sat down with you with a yellow legal pad and wrote out with you a “101 Things I Want To Accomplish Before I Die” sort of “bucket list?” Could we safely assume that it would have an air of the “big, hairy and audacious” about it? That, my friend is a safe bet – a sure thing. And, down deep, I am just guessing that that excites you just a little.

So, stay with me. I am going to be expressing some things in the next few posts that deal with some of the hindrances to vision and how to create the stamina for dreaming God-sized visions for your life. Our sad, hurting world needs visionaries who set sail with the winds of heaven at their backs. The world needs you…dreaming.

Humor Me - Part 10, The Ironic Grumbler

Here we go again. I haven’t had time lately to be profound – hopefully profundity is just around the corner. So, once more, we will have to survive on the thinner gruel of humor. The subject at hand is a word or two about my imminent arrival at the big “five-oh.”

I was born August 3^rd, 1959. I was a large baby – right at 9 pounds. My mom likes to remind me that I nearly killed her when I came screaming, gasping and grasping into this world...........She remembers seeing Jesus.

Even then I preferred to be left to myself in confined spaces – a trait that would prove useful to the future student, teacher & scholar I would become. I create private library annexes wherever I go – a living room, a closet, the bathroom…someone else’s bathroom – and I still do not like to be disturbed. When the “bother” of labor came knocking, mom tells me that I tried to grab a kidney on the way out. She had to undergo emergency surgery to reattach that which I had dislodged. I no longer go for kidneys, but I do grumble when someone knocks on the bathroom door.

And grumbling is something you just find yourself doing the older you get – a sort of: “You kids- get off my lawn!” mentality. I loved the movie “Gran Torino” not so much for its stellar acting, but for the grumbling. Clint Eastwood may be one dimensional in his acting, but the man can grumble. He has made an entire career of it – all the way back to “Dirty Harry.” I am just getting the hang of it. My wife would like everyone to know that I am making good progress.

I have practiced my grumbling recently over the following e-mails: “Would you like to meet hot, single, senior women in your area?’ “The AARP wants you!” And, “Make an appointment now to plan your funeral.”

I believe that there are two kinds of grumblers. One type of grumbler is humorless, mean-spirited and toxic. The other is what I would call an “ironic” grumbler. An ironic grumbler has lived long enough to see the short shelf life of trends, tastes, fads, fashions, political stars, “big ideas” and such. With wry grin, twinkle of eye and subtly lifted eyebrow he chuckles at the human condition – and at himself. I am firmly in the camp of the latter. “Vanity, vanity – all is vanity” observed Solomon from his kingly perch. The ironic grumbler says: “Hear, hear…harrumph, harrumph…guffaw, chuckle.”

One of the great mistakes we make is to relate chronological age with either wisdom or maturity. I have met wise and mature people who were in their teens. I have met people in their 60’s & 70’s who were terribly immature and unwise. But, one of the other great mistakes we make is to assume that those who laugh easily are immature - that somehow, a grave countenance signals maturity. Hogwash! (Grumble)… According to Scripture, Solomon was one of the wisest persons ever to walk the planet. He said this: “A merry heart makes a happy face…” Proverbs 15:13a; and this, “…for the merry heart, life is a continual feast.” Proverbs 15:15b; and also this: “A merry heart is good medicine…” Proverbs 17:22a. I like to think that Solomon wrote this after riding around in his chariot and saying to one of his buddies, “Hey, get a load of that…”

And this is really encouraging to me -a neophyte, ironic grumbler. For those who study comedy – irony is considered the highest form of humor because of its observational and subtle quality. (On the same comedy scale, the pun is considered the lowest form of humor, but I think that was before anyone saw a Carrot –Top routine).

And finally this - there is just the “guy thing” as it relates to humor. I have not broached this subject yet in any of these writings because of some fear of being considered crass or immature. But you know, now that I am approaching 50 – I just don’t care. A fart is just as funny to me now as it was at the age of five. A man who cannot appreciate a good blast, to him I say: “Good day sir! I said, ‘GOOD DAY.’ We have nothing in common.”

Grumble, grumble…