“The heart of man plans his way,
but the LORD establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (ESV)
I can do everything I know to plan and prepare,
but in the end, the result is not up to me.
I need to pray and seek wisdom and be a diligent steward of the gifts and talents God has blessed me with,
but in the end, GOD is all powerful and nothing happens to me that He doesn’t will or allow.
Sometimes He allows stuff I don’t particularly like.
Sometimes He works a miracle in the middle of an impossible situation.
Remember. God is Sovereign.
When you live grounded in that truth, the pressure to force circumstances is lifted. When you are confident that God is in control, you can experience peace in the middle of trial.
Ask God to help you practice His presence in your moments and your days. Ask Him to help you make wise decisions as you strive to be a good steward of your relationships, your time, your body, your money and your stuff. Love God and Love others.
Don’t stay still, waiting for Him to say GO.
Take the first step and stop if He says “no.”
But it was okay. I wasn’t surprised. Brother Lawrence failed too. In trying to practice the presence of God, his pattern was:
practice the presence of God.
forget God.
remember God.
repent
Repeat, Buzz Lightyear style (to infinity, and beyond).
I had read about Brother Lawrence’s failings before I even began, so failure wasn’t unexpected. I wasn’t discouraged. If he couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it. I’ve previously quoted what was said of him when he failed, but I’ll repeat it here for convenience:
[When Brother Lawrence] “had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault, saying to God,
‘I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself;
’tis You must hinder my falling,and mend what is amiss.’
That after this, he gave himself no further uneasiness about it.”
Since “just remembering” wasn’t working for me, I decided to try something a little unorthodox. I decided to pretend Jesus was physically present with me everywhere I went. He sat next to me at the kitchen table, at my desk, and on my loveseat with me when I read my Bible and wrote in my prayer journal. He leaned on the counter while I cooked dinner and loaded the dishwasher (which reminded me to thank him for providing for us). He sat in the passenger seat of my van (which reminded me to thank him for his mercy and protection) and he stood next to me when I tucked my kids into bed and said prayers with them (which reminded me to thank Him for so.many.things.).
And yes. He even hung out with me in the bathroom.
Imagining Jesus physically present with me began to make me aware that God was listening when I talked. I knew He was listening, don’t get me wrong, but most of the time, I wasn’t conscious of it. When I practiced God’s presence, I was more mindful of my thoughts, words and actions. I imagined His hand on my shoulder, pressing slightly when I began to say something unedifying. I imagined his hand at the small of my back, gently guiding me where He wanted me to go. I found myself speaking less. I found myself listening more. To other people and to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
In the beginning, this exercise was the equivalent of a spiritual string on my finger. Imagining Jesus physically next to me was a mechanism I used to remind me of God’s presence and movement in my life. I probably could have just as easily set reminder alarms on my phone to bring me back to an awareness of His presence at multiple time during the day.
But as the days passed, the spiritual string began to grow into a foundation of confidence in the promise of Joshua 1:9, that God was actually “with me wherever I go” As I became more and more aware of God’s presence, I found myself relying on Him more and on myself less. I started to see people and situations differently, through God’s greater perspective rather than through my own limited and skewed vantage point.
My chronic problem was the same one Brother Lawrence experienced. I continued to forget Jesus was with me.
[I assigned this exercise as homework to the participants of a weekly Bible study I lead on discipleship. If you’ve never practiced the presence of God in this way this before, I encourage you to give it a try for one week. Expect to forget God. often. And check back to see what I assigned as the next week’s homework assignment. Here’s a hint: It has something to do with my realization that I couldn’t do it by myself and needed help.]
In this dream, my daughter was being stalked. And NOTHING we did could stop the stalker.
If you’ve read my blog before or follow me on facebook, you already know my daughter LOVES people. Genuinely, empathetically, compassionately, passionately loves people. She gets a high from encouraging people that I think actually fuels her. When someone hurts, she hurts. And she prays. She prays for people she loves, she prays for people who are mean to her and she prays for people she doesn’t even know.
She prays because she’s already figured out that most of the time, while she can make things better by loving people, she can’t fix some things. Some things are too big, but she knows God can do ANYthing.
And that’s how the horrible dream started. She befriended someone in pain. And he latched onto her. It wasn’t long before he began telling her she was an inspiration to him. “You are my inspiration” soon led to “You are the only one who understands me.” He gave her gifts. She caught him staring at her often. He began saying things that made her worry that he might hurt himself and she began to feel responsible for his emotional state.
In real life, she shares everything with me, so of course, in my dream, she told me all this. In my dream, I coached her to still be herself and not to hold back from being kind to him, but to never be alone with him, to always be in a group and to always make sure she didn’t treat him differently than she treated anyone else.
Then everything changed. Instantly.
(remember, this is a dream)
In the dream the chronology was all over the place. Her age ranged from 13 to 18, but one thing was a constant. We were desperate. We tried everything we could think of. We started by changing her schedule so she didn’t have classes with him. We took her to a therapist to help her cope and to help her understand how he was trying to manipulate her. We resorted to changing schools, which broke her heart because she had to leave all her friends. We sent her to relatives. She and I moved. The entire family moved. Across town and out of state. Her dream of working as a Disney princess was impossible because he would stalk her at work. He broke into our house. He vandalized our house. Sabotaged her car. Followed her. Restraining orders did nothing. If he was arrested, he started up again as soon as he was released.
NOTHING we did made any difference at all.
And then (don’t forget – this is a dream)
I remembered. God can do anything. We had spent years trying to handle the situation on our own and nothing had worked. So I gave it all up to God. I prayed like a widow (persistently, like in Luke 18:8).
And suddenly, PinkGirl was 13 again. It was like I rewound the dream. None of the horrible, unpreventable things had happened yet.
And in my prayers, God reminded me of an article I read a while back written by an elementary school teacher. I don’t remember the specifics, but she was heartbroken about a school shooting or maybe the Boston Marathon bombing, I don’t remember. She wondered about the childhood of these people who kill. She was burdened. And in working through that burden, she recognized her influence. The power she had to impact young lives and maybe, hopefully, change the trajectory of those lives. She wrote about her teaching philosophy. In her classroom, every single day she was identifying the subtle way some kids were being excluded and isolated and she was not only lovingly, creatively and intentionally putting stop to it, but molding the character of the other students as she taught them to see people. Really SEE people. Compassionately. And in the process, that isolated kid, the one who felt invisible and unloved and unaccepted began to change his opinion of himself and of the people in his life.
So (remember, this is a dream) I went to the administrators of PinkGirl’s (private, Christian) school and told them what was happening with this boy and PinkGirl. I told them about the article. We made a plan. Every. single. middle school teacher began to intentionally speak into this boy’s life. To SEE him. To validate him, encourage him, mentor him. To constantly reinforce that God loves him unconditionally. That Christ loved him so much He died for him. To teach him that even though the people in his life might fail him, God never will. Everyone involved began praying that he would find and accept Christ and that these teachers who interacted with him 7 hours a day, 5 days a week would have a chance to disciple him before he moved on to high school.
As the teachers began to draw him into group activities and the other kids began to really see him too…
I woke up. (At the crack of dawn, way before I needed to, I might add.)
And I remembered these two facebook posts I wrote about my daughter back in February:
I LOVE my daughter’s school and the middle school teachers. She just called me in uncontrollable happy tears to tell me how much she loves me because she just came out of a class where her classmates (PinkGirl included) just “poured their hearts out about everything they were all going through and how we’re all so thankful and blessed that we have Christ in our lives to help us and…” Her next class was Bible and she asked to go to the office to call me and ask me to come up to school so she could hug me. I’m outta here. #ilovemydaughter
_______________
Just got back from going to PinkGirl’s school to give her a requested mid-day bear hug. One of the kids involved in that heart-wrenching discussion was sharing really, really hard things and everyone was telling him it would be okay. PinkGirl said: “I can’t promise you everything will be okay. At least not the way we see our life. But it will be okay the way God sees it. I think God is using the things in our lives to mold us into the people we’re going to be. It’s like a blacksmith. Sometimes, a blacksmith has to heat stuff up and hit it really hard with a hammer to mold it into something beautiful. The blacksmith knows what he’s making.”
#ilovemydaughter #seepeople #reachout
And I remembered how my daughter had told me that this boy had later told her she was an inspiration to him. And how he had given her a few small presents. She told me it made her uncomfortable. And I remember how I had coached her to continue being his friend, but to always stay with a group when she was around him. I had explained that she wasn’t equipped to help him, so she shouldn’t give him any advice, but she could be his friend and pray for him.
There was no going back to sleep.
So I went downstairs to curl up on my loveseat with a cup of coffee and my prayer journal.
And I wrote this:
“Lord I HATED that dream. Please help me use whatever I learned from it. I pray Lord, that if we are ever in that situation, that’s exactly how we would respond.”
and this:
“I pray for PinkGirl’s friend from school. Can’t remember his name Lord, but you know who he is. Please draw him close to you and let him know You love him.”
Driving PinkGirl to rehearsal later that morning, I asked her about the boy from school, and she reminded me that for some reason, he wouldn’t be returning to her school next year.
So. That’s that, right?
Except that when I went to pick her up, I found out that the boy had come to her theater company asking about auditions.
I had a flash of fear. The dream wasn’t even 12 hours old.
But then I realized. This theater PinkGirl goes to? SEEING kids is what they DO. It’s saturated in their culture. They don’t just help kids develop their talent, they also focus on helping kids develop strong character and confidence. They mentor kids from teeny to teenager. When a kid first comes to them, they start with the assumption that each one wants to please and to be validated. They search for aptitude and potential and try to help kids grow into their strengths and to gain confidence and become self-motivated by providing age and skill appropriate challenges and holding them accountable. Any sign of kids excluding kids isn’t allowed. The more outgoing kids are mentored and taught to be intentionally inclusive and specifically encouraging to the shy and quiet kids. Constructive criticism isn’t shied away from, but shaming criticism and demoralizing sarcasm isn’t tolerated for a fraction of a second. Like the teacher who wrote the article, these kids, if they stay with this company, begin to recognize the power of their words and actions and their ability to influence others through encouragement and inclusion.
This boy is a beginner, so if he does come to PinkGirl’s theater, it’s likely he won’t be in the same productions, at least for a while. But I’m confident that if this boy comes to this theater company, he will be seen. He will be included. By the time he interacts with PinkGirl in that environment, she will not be the only person who inspires him.
Or prays for him.
No matter who you are, there are people in your circle of influence. People you are in a continuing relationship with and people you will interact with today and may never see again. Start with prayer. Ask God to show you who those people are. Ask God to equip you. Because God can do anything.
You can spend years trying to handle a situation on your own or you can give it all up to God. And pray like a widow that He would bless you with wisdom and discernment and patience and stamina and…pray like a widow that He will guide you. Pray that you would have the courage and motivation to be obedient.
Sunday evening. Easter Sunday. I was sitting at the kitchen table, focused on my laptop. PinkGirl came over and turned my chair sideways so she could curl up on my lap and lay her head on my shoulder.
Me: “Well…for me…the way I find joy in God is to grow closer to Him. There are a few things you can do to grow closer to Him. You already know what’s first though, right?”
PinkGirl: “Pray?”
Me: “Yep. There’s lots of different ways to pray, but I think the way that brings me closest to God is practicing His presence. You remember what I told you about practicing the presence of God? How I first started doing it?”
PinkGirl: “No.”
Me: “I imagined Jesus physically with me everywhere I went – in the passenger seat of my van…”
PinkGirl: “oh yeah.”
Me: “Jesus is right here with us now.”
I pointed to the chair next to us.
“If you imagine Him sitting right here with us – not just sitting here, eavesdropping on our conversation, but actually participating in it, it changes everything. And sometimes not in a way you might expect. It won’t be all rainbows. You won’t be thanking Him and praising Him all the time. If you really do imagine Jesus with you wherever you go, you may find yourself crying and yelling at Him sometimes. Telling Him all the things you don’t think are fair, begging him to help you and heal you and protect you and getting frustrated or mad or even heartbroken when He doesn’t do what you want or expect or if He’s slower than you think He should be. But you have to be honest with God.”
PinkGirl: “He already knows anyway.”
Me: “Yeah, He does.”
We sat there for a while, talking about all the different ways to pray. We talked about honest, wide open prayer, without holding anything back. We talked about how authentic prayer helps us to grow closer to God and how growing closer to God helps us find joy in Him, no matter whether we’re happy or sad about what’s happening in our life. We talked about how happiness is temporal and based on our circumstances, but joy in God is eternal and based on who He is and our relationship with Jesus.
Me: “Prayer is when we tell God everything. But we also need to listen to Him. What’s the best way to hear from God?”
PinkGirl: “Be alone with Him?”
Me: “That’s one way. I call that abiding in Him. But that’s next. Something else comes first. The best way to hear God speak to us is to read His Word.”
PinkGirl: “I try, but I don’t understand a lot of it.”
Me: I get that. There’s a lot I don’t understand either. But here’s the thing. There’s a lot you do understand – way before you even get to the stuff you don’t understand. You understand what you learn in Bible [class], right?
PinkGirl: “yeah.”
Me: “So, see? You understand more than you think. Outside of Bible [class], what’s the last thing you read on your own?”
PinkGirl: “I don’t remember.”
Me: “You understand the scriptures in your devotion book, right?”
PinkGirl: “yeah.”
Me: “What was your last devotion about?”
(thinking)
PinkGirl: “I don’t remember.”
Me: “When do you do your devotion, in the morning or at bedtime?”
PinkGirl: “In the morning.”
Me: “After your devotion time is over, how often do you think about the scripture you read later in your day?”
PinkGirl: “none.”
Me: “Just reading the Bible isn’t enough. You won’t grow in your relationship with Christ if you don’t remember what you read. You have to engage in God’s Word. That takes effort. How can you remember the scripture from your morning devotion throughout your day ? And for days after that?”
We talked about how on our own, reading the Bible isn’t something we want to do all the time and that God knows that. We talked about forgetting to read the Bible or not making time for it. We talked about how we make time for the other things we love. We talked about the first and constant thing we should do: pray and ask God to give us a desire to read His Word. We talked about the fact that we can’t just “do better” on our own. We talked about asking God to give us – to bless us – with a hunger for His Word – with a hunger for Him. We talked about setting reminders on her iPod, bands on her wrist, special jewelry, even writing notes to herself on her hand.
Me: “After reading the Bible, another good way to hear from God is to abide in Him. You called it being alone with Him. When are you ever truly alone. Quiet and still?”
PinkGirl: “When I’m in my room.”
Me: “I mean really alone and quiet. No itouch, no iPad, no tv, no internet, no youtube, no text, no instagram, no facetime…”
PinkGirl: “oh.”
Me: “Sleeping doesn’t count.”
Me: “If you want to be closer to God, if you want to find joy in Him, you have to spend time with Him. Think of it this way. When you and PeterPanFan (her BFF) hang out together, you grow closer, don’t you think? You talk to each other, you have inside jokes, you start to think alike, finish each other’s sandwiches…even when you two are at your own houses, when you interact over the internet through text or instagram, you’re still spending time with each other even though you are miles apart. But if you were at your house and she was at her house and you weren’t interacting over the internet, you wouldn’t be able to hear her. What would happen to your friendship if you didn’t spend time together?”
(thinking)
Me: “How connected can you be to God if you don’t spend time alone with Him?”
(quiet. thinking)
Me: So. Prayer. Reading God’s Word and Abiding in Him. There’s something else you can do to find joy in God.”
PinkGirl: “what?”
Me: “Gratitude.”
PinkGirl: “Thanking Him?”
Me: “Actually there’s two kinds. Giving thanks for His blessings and praising Him for who He is. When you thank Him for blessings, you begin to recognize those blessings in your life more and more. And when you praise Him for who He is, no matter what your circumstances are, it helps you remember that God is sovereign and nothing happens to you that He doesn’t will or allow.”
We talked about disappointments, God’s providence and the peace that comes from trusting that all circumstances – which lead to both happiness and sadness – are God’s providence. We talked about tapestries. And praising Him, no matter what.
We talked about a lot of things. The things I’ve shared here are the things she gave me permission to share.
Afterwards, I realized.
Prayer. Reading God’s Word. Abiding in Him. Gratitude. P.R.A.G. The first four chapters of the book I was writing about how to experience a more intimate relationship with Christ. Seems so easy, just looking at them here. Not so easy. To do or to write about. If they were easy to do, every Christian would do them. If they were easy to write about…I haven’t been able to write for months. But in these precious moments with my daughter, I was able to articulate a summary in kid language.
He has been preparing me. Not only for that question at that moment.
providence: capitalized : God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny
coincidence: the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection
I can’t ever remember believing in coincidences. My husband on the other hand, is a big believer in them. He believes some things – LOTS of things – just…happen. I believe some things happen randomly too. But I also believe that God takes each and every one of those random events and circumstances and, in His sovereign will, wrapped in undeserved and unearned grace and mercy, purposefully works them for His good.
Every. single. one of them. Because He is that good. He’s all powerful, all knowing and ever present.
When we find ourselves smack in the middle a seemingly random happening, both my husband and I agree that God has given us the freedom to choose. We are to be guided by wisdom (Bible, learned knowledge, prayer, experience, wise counsel, reason, etc.), but we get to choose how we respond. We both find loads of scriptural support for this belief.
The big difference between Hubs and I on this is that I tend to assume God’s hand in nearly everything – big or teeny, obvious or not, whether I ever get to know how or not. I’m not saying I believe God MAKES everything happen in this fallen world, although I believe He could. Again – He is that good. I’m saying I don’t find scriptural support for the extreme, exclusive idea that He makes EVERYthing happen. Sure, some things He makes happen. But some things He allows to happen. His sovereign will is unknown to us. In all cases, I believe the promise of Romans 8:28.
Who am I to determine what is meaningful or insignificant? The Bible tells me nothing is insignificant to God. The Bible tells me the hairs on my head are actually numbered.
Even being “in the dark,” as it were, I intuitively look for deeper meaning. What is God doing? Why did He allow something to happen? I immediately start thinking and praying about how to respond, whether it be taking action or figuring out what God wants me to learn or take away from the situation.
Last week, I had a friend remark to me “You see God in EVERYTHING.”
Not sure I ever consciously thought about it before, but she’s right. I do. I can’t imagine living any other way. To me, it’s completely normal. The fact that I see God in everything is probably one of the reasons I don’t believe in coincidences.
This might be a chicken or the egg kind of thing.
Either way, over the last few months, I’ve seen more of my own fingerprints than God’s. My life was one of the smudgiest sliding glass doors you’ve ever seen. And all the fingerprints were down low. Where I could reach.
To drastically summarize 16 “hard look in the mirror” blog posts: God has been silent in my life for a few months. I don’t like it. At. All. I feel like God the Father has taken His hand off the bicycle seat of my life to teach me…what? To be confident He is there even when I don’t feel the security of His hand? I researched the theology of “the dark night” and came out of all the reading grounded in one of the metaphors. I was going to stop swimming and float. Not drift – with no intention. FLOAT – in the current of God’s will. I wasn’t going to fight the current. I was going to stop swimming in the direction I thought God wanted me to go. I was going to FLOAT.
In the silence.
Seemed like a reasonable plan.
Until the silence became unbearable. I wrote last week, that I came to a breaking point. If you didn’t read that, “CLICK HERE” to check it out.
ya back?
okay. so that Monday night, I went to sleep having intentionally chosen this season of silence and whatever God is teaching me over tried and true past remedies for finding Joy in God. I called it my darkest night.
Tuesday morning, I woke up to an email in my inbox. The local school where I’ve recorded for more than 3 years had two cancellations for that upcoming weekend. Could I cover two vocal labs (recording sessions)? (If you didn’t do it a minute ago, you’re gonna have to read “two steps forward. one step back.” to get the full impact of that “coincidence.”)
and remember. I see God’s hand in EVERYthing.
So, in the spirit of floating, I said yes.
I spent the entire morning looking for two songs to sing. Given that I had less than four days to prepare a lead and at least two harmonies for each song, I focused specifically on songs I already knew. Song after song – one obstacle after another. No track. Background vocals already on the track. Wrong key. just…wrong after wrong after wrong.
I left the house for the afternoon and when I came back, someone had posted on my facebook wall:
“Hey, so you know the song ‘He is with You” by Mandisa? I think you should sing it at church. Take a look….'”
I immediately thought: “Mandisa? I can’t sing Mandisa.” But again, in the spirit of floating, I responded:
“I’m gonna call that a God thing. LocalRecordingSchool called me today asking me to fill in two cancellations this weekend. I struggled to select tracks all day. One down. one to go. Thanks, friend. If the rough cut is any good, I’ll give you a copy.”
And then another facebook friend commented:
“‘There is a God’ by Lee Ann Womack?”
That’s two.
Monday night I had broken down, wimped out and asked God to let me/help me sing again, then almost immediately took back my request, choosing the lesson of the dark night over the temporal blessing that would have come with the singing.
Then all that happened on Tuesday. The fingerprints on my sliding glass door were MUCH bigger than my own.
If you’re new to the party, HERE are the previous posts in this series. If you want to skip the history and prefer the twitter version, I’m having an ongoing conversation with a born-again atheist. When I say “born-again atheist” I mean he was a born again Christian, but is now an atheist.
Below is AtypicalAtheist’s response to my second question: (CLICK HERE to read my first question and his two-part answer.)
JSM: Why do you view faith in God as unreasonable, illogical and irrational?
AtypicalAtheist: Regarding question #2, I’ll try to answer in a form less than a book this time… 😀
The super-short answer is this – I don’t accept the existence of God, gods, or any documents, books, letters, or anything ‘on faith’ because I reject faith as a valid means to acquire knowledge. The specific object of faith, whether UFOs or gods is irrelevant. Reason is one’s only guide to knowledge. From this position, if doctrines of theism must be accepted on faith, theism is necessarily excluded from the realm of reason.
Further, the entire book is replete with contempt for man’s ability to reason our desire for knowledge. You need go no further than Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve. Beyond this though, is verse after verse of hostility to wisdom and knowledge.
Add to that the biblical means of tying faith and morality together which ends up equating doubt and disbelief with immorality. Rather, one must believe uncritically, or be condemned as immoral.
Finally, consider the coercive nature of faith: * The bribery side – if you have faith, you go to heaven ( John 3:!6 ) * The blackmail side – you face God’s wrath if you do not have faith ( John 3:36 ).
Essentially, the bible says that you must believe in Jesus, regardless of the evidence on the matter, or be subjected to eternal torture (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).
Threatening punishment for disbelief is strong-arm coercion and intimidation. On these grounds alone, it must be rejected as irrational and unreasonable.
Whew – that one was much shorter than the other one. 😀
This is the 15th post of a series. I started out telling a chronological story, but got derailed before I could get past August of 2012. I’ve addressed the derailing tangent to death. I’m tired of talking about something I wasn’t even talking about. I’m skipping WAY ahead in my story. Maybe I’ll get back to explaining how God brought me to where I am today, maybe not. Today, I’m cutting to the chase. And I can see another tangent coming at me already, so I’m hoping an acknowledgement will help me nip that in the bud. (If you need to catch up or review, CLICK HERE to view a page listing all the posts in the series.)
I’m going to say hard things. I’ve spent a week writing this particular post and I’ve prayed about it for hours. and hours. and hours. and HOURS. Hard. Things. I promise you I’m saying them in a spirit of edification.
After a 14 post lead-in…
HERE’S MY POINT:
THERE. IS. MORE.
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
Christ came that we may have life, and have it abundantly, in all its fullness.
Not abundant blessings or stuff.
Abundant LIFE.
Abundant life isn’t a state of existence to be pursued or attained. It isn’t a level of success or a degree of spirituality. It is an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ and it leads to a dependance on Him that can’t be met through or in or by ANYthing else.
Without Christ, I can accomplish NOTHING of eternal significance. Without Christ, I have NOTHING. Without Christ, I am NOTHING.
And before I say another word, I need to acknowledge something:
I know there are people in my church who understand what I’m saying.
I need to say that LOUDER:
I know there are people in my church who understand what I’m saying.
But there are so. many. people in my church who have no idea what I’m talking about.
There are people in my church who don’t want what I’m talking about.
There are people in my church who don’t give a flyin flip what I’m talking about.
And to beat a dead horse – I am not only referring to people who haven’t yet accepted Christ. This is NOT about evangelism.
I am primarily referring to people who have accepted Christ.
I accepted Christ 28 years ago and up until 2007, I wouldn’t have known what I was talking about if I explained it to me. (good luck following that.)
There are born-again Christians in my church who have never experienced abundant life in Christ through an intimate, no holds barred relationship with him, who have no idea what I mean by that, who flat out don’t want it and/or don’t think there’s any need for it.
And if the Christians aren’t witnesses to what Christ has done and is doing in our lives and in our church, how will the non-Christians – both the people seeking God and the people who think they are Christian but have never accepted Christ – ever see evidence that a life transformed by faith in Christ is any different from their own?
There are so. many. people. – Christians and non-Christians – at my church who don’t see any need for an intimate relationship with Christ. They don’t even know that what they are missing even exists.
And that realization causes me to grieve for my church. and to pray. persistently.
Because as much as God desires an intimate relationship with us, He won’t force us into it.
My church is not a Christ-centered church. The gospel is not the foundation of all we say and do.
My church has gone off on our own to accomplish good and reasonable things in the world.
My church is so focused on working for God it doesn’t even occur to us to come to the banquet and spend time with God.
My church isn’t refusing to open the door, we just can’t hear Him knocking over all the activity in the house.
There’s nothing I can do or say to bring revival to my church. There’s nothing anyone can do or say to bring revival to my church. Not even the pastor. A Christ-centered sermon here or there won’t do it. A compelling sermon won’t “convince” us to desire revival. Because revival doesn’t come from an intellectual decision to initiate it.
Yes, the Holy Spirit can anoint a pastor and use a 20 minute sermon to draw people to Christ. But if God were to move and stir revival in my church, He wouldn’t limit Himself to that 20 minutes. He would saturate the culture of the church in a foundational dependence on Christ that results in a consuming passion to worship Him, an underlying peace that comes from an unwavering trust in Him and JOY that trumps any unhappiness or trial we might face.
“We depend on God to help us.”
no. we don’t.
“Yes we do.”
no. we really don’t.
For all the things we do at my church, all the programs and classes and service and ministries and sermons and worship sets, we don’t – as a unified body of believers – acknowledge that without Christ at the center of all we say and do, we can’t accomplish ANYTHING of eternal significance.
At my church, we link arms and stand strong together;
we would kick butt in a game of Red Rover. At my church, we know how to follow instructions;
we would be champions at a Simon Says tournament. At my church, we are more loyal to each other
than the Robertson Family. At my church, if we had a box of dominoes, we would
line them up in nice, neat, reasonable, sensible rows
(I know a few who would prefer a game of Mexican train).
but.
We – as a unified body of believers – do NOT openly and consistently acknowledge that we are completely incapable of accomplishing anything on our own.
And there goes the first domino.
The second?Because we – as a unified body of believers – don’t acknowledge that the Holy Spirit – given to us freely through our faith in Christ – is the source of our strength and abilities, because we don’t approach EVERYthing we do – programs, classes, service, ministry and every aspect of our weekly services – with a openly shared understanding that we desperately need the Holy Spirit to equip us for these pursuits, we don’t make prayer our first step – our first priority – and humbly ask Him to do the equipping.
We don’t even ask Him if the things we are trying to do are within His will.
when the dominoes come tumbling down?
We set ’em up again.
We brainstorm and research and study and benchmark and make decisions based on good ideas and bad. We think and reason and rationalize and plan and execute – all without STOPPING. And spending “unreasonable” amounts of time in prayer asking God if these “things” we are planning are things He even wants us to do in the first place. As a unified body of believers, we don’t beg God to reveal to us our motivations and guide us to fruitfulness.
We are afraid to sincerely offer ourselves up and ask God to prune us. Why? Because we know He will?
Pruning HURTS.
But we need it. Because we are dragging the ground, covered in mud. Weak. Unfruitful.
We as a congregation need a clear understanding of what our church believes, what our values are, what our mission is, because without a clear understanding what we believe and why we believe it, we have nothing upon which to measure when it comes to evaluating whether or not all this stuff we’re doing supports those values.
We do good and reasonable things.
We do things because we’ve always done them.
We do things because they are efficient.
We do things because they make sense.
We do things to make people comfortable.
We do things so people won’t leave.
We don’t even consider the possibility that God might have something completely different in mind.
Something radical.
Something better than we ever thought or imagined.
Something we can’t accomplish without Him.
Something that would give Him all the glory.
Instead, we are…reasonable. and appropriate.
We don’t ask people to tell us how they came to faith in Christ.
Instead, we ask them how they came to our church.
Baptisms are for new babies, new members and new confirmands.
Professions of faith? new members and confirmands.
If someone comes to faith in Christ outside the schedule of a new member or confirmation class, what do they do?
Who do they tell?
How do we celebrate?
Is genuine worship something we as a body of Christ are confident we experience every week?
Or are there (too many?) times when “congregational singing” would be a better description?
How many of us wake up and go to church because that’s just what we do on Sunday morning?
How many of us wake up and go to church because we look forward to spending time with friends and family?
How many of us wake up and look forward to church because we know we will encounter the manifest presence of God?
Every week.
This is what I pray for my church:
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
Matthew 16:15-18
“The gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
That’s not a church we can build on our own power. It’s a church only Christ can build.
But we have to realize we need the Father. And come home to Him empty handed.
We have to come to the banquet and spend time with Him.
We have to open the door and let Him in.
How do we get to that place? The place where we want to go home, want to spend time with him and want to open the door?
WE PRAY.
I’m praying desperately and persistently, that my church – as the body of CHRIST – would be profoundly dissatisfied with being nice people who do good things in pursuit of a “good Christian life.”
I’m praying desperately and persistently, that – as the body of CHRIST – we would dedicate ourselves to prayer and relentlessly ask Christ to draw us into an intimate relationship with Him that leads us to experience abundant life in Him.
because
THERE. IS. MORE.
“All the hearts who are content, And all who feel unworthy.
And all who hurt with nothing left, Will know that You are holy
And all will sing out, Hallelujah. And we will cry out, Hallelujah
Shout it, Go on scream it from the mountains
Go on and tell it to the masses, That He is God”
“We committed ourselves to unapologetic preaching, unashamed worship, unceasing prayer, and unafraid witness. And God began to reveal His glory slowly at first but increasingly over time.” Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs for. What Every Church Can Be by James MacDonald
CLICK HERE to read the next post in this series, entitled: Vertical Church: a clarification. and a survey.
This is the 15th post of a series. If you need to catch up or review, CLICK HERE to view a page listing all the posts in the series.
If you’re new to the party, HERE are the previous posts in this series. If you want to skip the history and prefer the twitter version, I’m having an ongoing conversation with a born-again atheist. When I say “born-again atheist” I mean he was a born again Christian, but is now an atheist.
Below is part 2 of AtypicalAtheist’s response to my question:
How did you – a self-professed born again Christian – become an atheist?
AtypicalAtheist: Fast forward to my senior year and I’ve proposed to high school sweetheart. When we begin discussing our wedding plans, we needed to agree upon what church we’re going to be married in. Hmmm…. well, by this point, I wasn’t affiliated with any specific religion anymore and really was a bit hostile to the idea. She wasn’t regularly visiting church either, but was of very strong faith. But I was rather firm that I didn’t want a standard service. Instead, I wanted something like a “New Life” kinda service (I may have that name wrong, but the idea is about right). Basically something more non-denominational. She assented to this I think without us really getting into my hostility toward the bible and toward what is now commonly referred to as “organized religion” – I didn’t have that moniker for it, but that’s what it’s now kinda lumped into. Anyway, we were married by a pastor in the Lompoc Mission – definitely not a traditional service.
Our first seven years of marriage were perfect really. We mostly didn’t attend church services, although occasionally, I was asked to attend an Easter service or my wife would just go to a service without me. Then she got pregnant after much trying in our seventh year. Here is where things began to change a bit for me, and where our perspectives on religion had a much more consequential impact. I was certain that I didn’t want my children “brainwashed with religion” (you can check with my wife – I’m certain I used that phrase a time or two) and she was aghast at my contempt for it. But it wasn’t based on deep research at this point, only based on my prior readings of the bible really. I remember two very distinct clashes between us in these early days that forever changed our personal rules of engagement on the religion issue:
1- We were in the outlet mall near I-Drive and there was a Christian store that my wife and kids wanted to go into. My wife started showing my eldest a bible and I nearly had an aneurysm (you see, my wife has never actually read the bible), and I made quite a pitiful scene in this store. I raised my voice saying things like “Do you really want your daughter to read how it’s ok to sell your daughters into slavery since it’s permitted in ‘your’ bible?” and “The amount of killing, rape and plundering makes this book rated X in my opinion. There’s no way I want my daughter to be reading this trash”. Suffice it to say that it was an embarrassment for all.
2- One year, my eldest was about 2 maybe, and my wife wanted us to go to a church service. During the service, I was openly hostile to the pastor who was just doing his thing… I was loudly sighing in disagreement and basically making an ass out of myself. I was in his place of worship trying to appease my wife by going to a service, and yet I was acting like I was in my own house being put off by his message. Again, a childish response to my ever-growing disagreement with religion and the bible, but my wife swore to never ever ask me back into a church service. It was for the best really.
As years passed, I (on more than one occasion) would make sure that any reference to God or Jesus based on some story, song, movie or whatever was at least accompanied by a quick (although probably painful from my wife’s point of view) mention that history is replete with people using gods to explain phenomena they couldn’t explain any other way. For example Thor… (blah blah) or Buddha (blah blah). You get the picture. I didn’t want only Christianity to be mentioned – I wanted all kids to know for sure that there are opposing views to religion and that just because mom (or dad) believes X doesn’t mean there aren’t other areas to investigate. I mentioned comparative religion many times in those years. And, to my wife’s credit, she was completely onboard with the idea that we shouldn’t just mention God/Jesus either. On this level, she completely agreed.
I started really researching atheism somewhere in my 30s. My wife started regularly attending church alone, and to counter this, I believe I went on a research “binge”. My spare time was consumed with reading books on various topics covering religion, evolution, and atheism. I purchased books, used the internet to research critiques for and against religion in general, not just against the revealed religion of Christianity. Ultimately, after much research, I concluded that I am, after all, an atheist. I am without belief in a god or gods.
There was one other blow-up regarding religion in my family I’ll share – largely because it shows my inability to convince anyone to “convert” to atheism, and why I’ve adopted a live-and-let live policy on this topic. My eldest daughter was dating a creep (yeah, he really was a creep), but the creep wanted her to go to church to be with him on Sundays. My wife was more than happy to take her. At one point, there was a large blow-up in front of my eldest daughter regarding my concern that church would somehow brainwash her. This, it seemed, was happening in spite of my attempts to educate my kids that religion isn’t necessarily true and that it was the construct of a superstitious people long ago. Anyway, my wife and I walked for hours around the neighborhood park one evening as I carefully and thoughtfully laid out my “acquired” evidences for the absurdity of belief in gods. And here’s the thing … it didn’t matter. To my wife, her faith is more important than facts. Her faith is more important than reality. It’s what gets her through her day, and to take it away by brute force would be evil. She needs her faith – who the hell am I to try to wrest that from her grasp. What a jerk I was in that moment. It was momentously important to me that she see the “truth”, but it wasn’t important to her.
What did turn out to be important though was this – by introducing the notion of multiple competing religions to my children, and multiple competing versions of “the truth”, I believe we’ve equipped our children to make a decision regarding their assent or rejection of religion. Instead of just being an atheist because daddy is, my kids know that many people believe a variety of things, and it’s up to them to make a decision based on research, not based on passed-down edict. I think we did that well my wife and I – and it took great concession / compromise on both our parts. If my wife had it her way, her children would be in church every Sunday. If I had it my way, my children would be in a free thought meeting every Saturday. We do neither, and instead have encouraged our kids to research and make up their own mind.
In the end, I’ve asked myself this… How would I feel if my middle child wanted to go join the Latter Day Saints? Well, I guess I’d be disappointed – unless of course, she researched the various religions, visited them one by one, and decided for herself that it was the one that represented the truth to her. In that case, I’d feel like we succeeded.
AtypicalAtheist
Click HERE to see all “conversations with a born-again atheist” posts.
NOTE: All comments will be held for approval. This blog is a no-hate zone.
Disclosure: Amazon links are affiliate links. I don’t use them because I make any money on the 4 cents per dollar, but because they track click throughs. And I am that addicted to stats.
If you’re new to the party, HERE are the previous posts in this series. If you want to skip the history and prefer the twitter version, I’m having an ongoing conversation with a born-again atheist. When I say “born-again atheist” I mean he was a born again Christian, but is now an atheist.
Below is PART ONE of AtypicalAtheist’s response to one of two questions I posed to him in my previous email.” (CLICK HERE to read part 2)
JSM: How did you – a self-professed born again Christian – become an atheist?
AtypicalAtheist: Hey Julie,
Here’s a book of info written over a couple of hours. I’ll answer the second question tomorrow.
You’re absolutely right – I was not coerced into accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior as a kid, nor was I coerced into immersion Baptism. Those were my choices, although in retrospect, they were kinda expected in my family. My upbringing, much like others I suspect, was that religion was handed down to me with the expectation of being assimilated. That is, whilst growing up, I wasn’t presented with a buffet of religious beliefs to choose from – I was presented with only one … on Sunday morning, we go see ReverendT at the chapel on base where we get a little sermon, I sing in the kids choir, once a month we take communion (the sweetest nastiest red wine and a wafer that stuck to the roof of my mouth), and then had donuts waiting for mom and dad in Sunday school because I was too young to participate.
I recall many services, but the two that stick out most for me was:
* Burying a time capsule in 1976 to commemorate the bicentennial after church on Sunday, July 4th, 1976 right there in the yard of the church.
* Playing Jesus in a musical … I remember soloing in a song called “3 Silver Coins”.
While we were on base, we went to church every Sunday, even when my dad was PCS or TDY. [that’s “permanent change of station” and “temporary duty travel” for us non-military folk] When my dad retired from the Air Force, we ended up with a Baptist church literally behind our house. I believe my dad went to that church, and rejected it for some reason (that I found out later). We ended up going regularly to a Nazarene church. We really were part of this congregation for over a year – and my dad used to write Christian songs to perform in the church. It should be noted that my best friends in 4-7th grade were Saul (Jewish) and Jacky (although her last name Goldstein makes one think she was Jewish, she followed something completely different that I still am unaware of even today). Anyway, at one point, my dad wrote the words to a song (By Bread Alone), but didn’t have a melody in mind. He gave me the words, and it actually started my songwriting – I wrote the music for the song, and performed it in the Nazarene church. I recall my dad being really proud that I had the guts to get up there and play the piano and sing to the song. At the same time, I noticed that, unlike the chapel on base, they didn’t clap at anything in the Nazarene church. There was a profound silence and many an “amen”, but no clapping. I recall not caring for that much. 😀
At some point (I don’t recall the point I’m afraid) my mom somewhat changed, and my dad didn’t do much about it really. We maintained Sunday as a family day, but it wasn’t really a church day anymore. My dad was still pursuing songwriting, but instead of Christian music, he pursued country music. I did however jump over the back wall to occasionally fill in on organ, and more regularly play the Krumar string machine for church services at the Baptist church. In fact, I was baptized in that church – I was in Middle School, but I don’t remember if it was 7th or 8th grade honestly. But one of those. The church was convenient because the parking lot was literally over the back wall from my house.
It was right around this time that I began studying the bible. Not at the behest of anyone in particular, but because people in the Baptist church seemed to have very different ideas about the bible than the folks at the Nazarene church and different also than in the on-base chapel. I’m trying to remember exactly what prompted my first reading of the bible, but it was around this time, and I remember very different experiences at each place. Now, having the benefit of the internet, I can see that the two churches have very different views regarding the trinity – perhaps this was the trigger. I’d be disingenuous if I stated my exact impetus – it was so long ago that I cannot recall. I just know that my first reading was after visiting all three places of worship. I know I read the bible to try to make sense of differences. I didn’t have the benefit of the internet to look things up – all I had was my bible. Funny enough, it’s one I still have today. It’s still in its bible cover replete with pen and pencil holders, and dedicated to me on my 11th birthday (1978). In fact, my dad and I painstakingly added bible book page turn stickers to the entire book. The bible is … “The Living Bible, Paraphrased, Study Reference Edition with Concordance – Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, Illinois” – Copyright 1971.
I read the thing cover to cover – I can’t honestly say exactly how long it took, but I have my little John 3:16 bookmark and made a little progress each day. There were things I didn’t understand – like Numbers 21:8 (I still have it underlined in my bible). I also have sections with blue and yellow highlighters that I recall using for various conditions. I have yellowed James 2:13, and blued James 2:22 and Psalms 34:15. I (funny enough) circled Sin as well as Repentance in the concordance. I also found a few places where my mom wrote in cursive in the bible – perhaps she borrowed it from time to time – I don’t recall. Anyway, my recollection of my first reading was one of a bit of titillation at some of the parts, and also it seemed that God was pretty mean. Lots of people being smoted and killed. This seemed to be weird to me because of how church people were saying how loving God is, but I was finding passage after passage to negate that sentiment. I see various other underlinings such as Numbers 15:30-31, and 35 which indicate I found some significance in them. Of course, it could have been find-the-passage from VBS – who knows. But I do recall this – I was a bit put off at the number of slayings. I really don’t believe I understood much of Revelations at the time either, and I found all the letters from Paul to be rather tedious. But I read. Oddly enough, after I finished the bible, I didn’t find I had much of a taste for it anymore. We moved to the other side of town and I was entering high school – so religion really fell off for me. I didn’t re-enter a place of worship until I was in 10th grade, and I was playing the piano for someone at another church.
It started innocently of course – Mrs. P. couldn’t accompany someone because she was sick – “Could you please just play this one thing for me at church? It’s only two services …. please???” In the end, I played regularly for 4 young ladies (I don’t recall playing for any guys now that I think about it). But in one case, Lisa (the Amy Grant fanatic) had me playing at churches everywhere. And they didn’t seem to be affiliated churches – like all Baptist or all Presbyterian or whatever. It was like she had an agent and was being booked all over… I’m sure it wasn’t that, but in retrospect, that’s what it seemed like. I played in Catholic churches (lots of stand, kneel, stand, kneel, and lots of Latin. But they never cracked the bible), I played a Christadelphian church where someone did something in tongues and I saw a snake participate in the service, I was in a relatively quiet church I believe was either “New Life” or something similar that I don’t have anything specific to note just that it wasn’t really specific about anything, and I also played in Pentecostal and Lutheran churches. I know the Christadelphian church wasn’t for Lisa, and neither was the Catholic. One common theme resonating throughout was “give me money” and “we’re the only right ones”. It seemed to me everyone can’t be right, and why are they always passing the plate around??? In one service I played, they passed the plate twice – once for regular tithing, and once for the new annex they were building. Gaaack!
It was around this time that I was thinking … jeeze – there are sure a lot of versions of “the truth”. I could go with this one, and be wrong, or that one and be just as wrong. So who’s right? So I read the bible again, multiple times. I think I largely skimmed some of the more boring parts my first-re-read, but I did look over each page again. Other re-reads focused on the New Testament and did laser-focus on Hell, or trying to count up the Old Testament murders. Other times, I tried to find differences in stories. I guess in retrospect, I’ve really only read it cover to cover twice, not the six times I stated earlier. The two times were complete readings. The other four times (at least, maybe more) were to focus on things that differed from church to church or were trying to find inconsistencies. In talking with Lisa one day, I mentioned a bit about some of my findings, and she said something to the effect of “Well, that’s the Old Testament God. We don’t really read much of that anymore, we’re much more concerned about the New Testament and God’s love”. That’s when it kinda hit me that she would get out of it whatever she wanted and didn’t worry about the other stuff. I recall speaking at a high-level on this to my mom, but I really don’t recall the outcome other than “take what you want and leave the rest”. Hmmm
I guess that left me with a bit of apathy then toward the bible. Several “experts” with the same book in hand, all demanding we believe different things with respect to the same document, and all claiming they’re right. Add to that my Jewish friends which believe that they’re right, and everyone believing that a god could command the killing of children and be somehow loving and just. That pretty much did it for me I think.
Click HERE to see all “conversations with a born-again atheist” posts.
NOTE: All comments will be held for approval. This blog is a no-hate zone.
Disclosure: Amazon links are affiliate links. I don’t use them because I make any money on the 4 cents per dollar, but because they track click throughs. And I am that addicted to stats.
#memoryverse
Me: “Yep. There’s lots of different ways to pray, but I think the way that brings me closest to God is practicing His presence. You remember what I told you about practicing the presence of God? How I first started doing it?”
Me: “Just reading the Bible isn’t enough. You won’t grow in your relationship with Christ if you don’t remember what you read. You have to engage in God’s Word. That takes effort. How can you remember the scripture from your morning devotion throughout your day ? And for days after that?”
