Lonely

There are times in our lives when God's desire for us is to come to the wilderness or desert in order to get closer to Him. What that translates into is that sometimes we must leave the crowd, the familiar things, the ordinary daily routine and get away to find God. We are the body of Christ and we need one another to hold each other up, the strengthen one another. But their are times when we need to be strengthened in the Lord. King David did this when he spent time all alone on a hillside with only his sheep. Jesus did this may times during His ministry when he withdrew to solitary places. We grow together, with one another. Bill Johnson writes on this: God brings moments into our lives when we have to stand alone in difficulty and testing. God will even blind the eyes and deafen the ears of our closest friends in those moments so we can learn to minister to ourselves. He is talking about strengthening ourselves in the Lord. This means that there are those times in our lives when God wants us to come directly to Him. To spend time with Him and seek Him only. This is hard for many people. We need our friendships, we need our mentors, we need our families. But more than anything else we need God Himself. He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, the Holy Spirit is more wise than any man, and when we truly trust God, He is our Abba Father and we are His children. So when those moments come when you feel lonely; go to God. Seek Him. Spend time strengthening yourself in the Lord.

Christian Idol

One of the reasons that I think God seems distant sometimes is because He wants to topple our idols. Most of the time we want a God who more like a butler or slave then the God of the Universe. We think that it is God's job to make us happy. That He would never want to drive us out into the wilderness, but the Bible says that it was the Holy Spirit that drove Jesus out into the desert to be tempted. The god many people have created in their imagination would never demand repentance, but instead tells us to just focus on the positive things in our lives. God would never scold us but would only speak kindly. That He is more interested in making us nice, not holy. That He isn't as concerned with our character as He is in our feeling good about ourselves. That He is more interested in us living a full fulfilling life than helping us to know Christ's sufferings. But that is a false image of God that has been created in many Christians imaginations. We sometimes worship a created god that makes us feel better about ourselves and demands nothing from us than the true God of the universe. So sometimes God seems distant, which He never truly is, in order that this false image would be destroyed in our lives. God knows what we truly desire, He understands what we need, and knows how best to help us. But before we can meet the true God, the false God must be abandoned. If we will not abandon it, God will destroy it for us. And between the time of that destruction and the time when the true God re-enters our lives, it will feel like God has left us.

Good News

This is going to sound weird but nevertheless; it is true. What I am about to say goes against our desires and our hopes. The feeling that God is absent from our lives is good because it means that we have a relationship and that we are not following after an image or an idol. Anthony Bloom in his book Beginning to pray writes this: "If we could mechanically draw Him into an encounter, force him to meet us, simply because we have chosen this moment to meet Him, there would be no relationship and no encounter. We can do that with an image, with the imagination, or with the various idols we can put in front of us instead of God; we can do nothing of the sort with the living God, any more than we can do it with a living person. A relationship must begin and develop in mutual freedom." The reality is that God is never absent from our lives. Every part of his creation from the raindrop to the sunset is full of His glory, and there is nowhere in any part of the universe where He is not there. But God longs to be sought after. To be chased so to speak. God cannot be manipulated but sometimes he will play hide and seek with us. I don't know about you, but I enjoy the chase!

Where is God?

Have you ever had one of those days in which no matter how close you try to get to God, it just doesn't seem to be working? You spend time worshipping and just waiting for God to move in your life. You lay face down on the floor hoping, praying that God will speak just one word into your spirit. That He will change you life just slightly. That he will encourage and lift you up. But nothing seems to happen. Mother Teresa experienced the same feelings. She wrote this in her journal: Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me? I call, I cling, I want, and there is no answer! Most of the time it seems like this happens when we need God most. We may be going through a tough problem in our marriage or another relationship. We may have lost our job. Death's hollow knock comes rapping on our door. We sinned in such a way that we feel like we blew everything. We experience financial difficulties; our stocks and mutual funds lose their value. It's a never ending list of problems and concerns that shake our world so we go running or crawling to God but...................... nothing but silence. There is a verse in the Bible where the Son of God experiences the same kind of feelings, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?" Even Jesus experienced these same type of feelings. Theologically we have tried to explain this verse in so many ways, but why does it matter. In that moment Jesus felt like God had turned His back on Him. A feeling that we too share sometimes. God, My God, where are you?!

Reasonable God

One of the trendy saying's you hear in church circles is that we need to be relevant to the culture. But sometimes because of our desire to be relevant we strip down the gospels and deflate the power of God to a more reasonable level. A level that we can handle, a level that we can explain to others. One of the questions that I hear a lot is simply, "Why?" If there is one thing I have learned in following God is that God many times asks us to change something, or to do something, or even to say something to someone. But we don't want to obey until we know why He is asking us. Then if we suspect the reason He is asking us, we judge whether or not it is reasonable for us to listen to Him and obey. So what has happened is many churches have lost the power of God, the miraculous, because they cannot live with the "why" question unanswered and therefore cannot handle the mystery of God. Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard says this, "Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commandingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity! Woe to the person who makes miracles reasonable. Woe to the person who betrays and breaks the mystery of faith, distorts it into public wisdom, because he takes away the possibility of offense!..... Oh the time wasted in this enormous work of making Christianity so reasonable, and in trying to make it so relevant!" Christianity or God is not meant to be reasoned away and explainable, it is meant to be mysterious. And as far as I am concerned, miracles will always be relevant.

Dumbing Down of the Miraculous II

I have been studying a lot lately on the miraculous ways God moves. Recently I read in a book the following: We avoid the reality of Christ's power in a number ways... We're tempted to spiritualize Jesus' power..... The stilling of the storm is about psychological storms in our lives. The healing of the lame is about solving emotional problems that cripple us. Jesus bringing sight to the blind is about God's ability to help us see our lives clearly. And so on and so forth. If we do that enough we begin to think the Gospel stories are nothing but metaphors, and metaphors primarily about us. I am guilty of doing this very thing. The gospels lose their power when we dumb them down to our level. The reality is that Jesus DID calm a real, physical, natural storm. The reality is that Jesus did PHYSICALLY heal the lame mane who came on a bedroll through a roof to see him. When Jesus spit in the dirt made mud and put it on the mans eyes, PHYSICALLY his blind eyes were opened. I think it is ok that we us these as metaphors for purposes of helping people, but we must never, ever forget that these were real miracles, physical miracles done by a real, physical Son of God, Jesus.

Dumbing Down of the Miraculous

The Holy Spirit has really been moving and challenging me lately on some issues in my life. Last Sunday's guest speaker just confirmed these challenges in my heart. God's heart is people, but more than that His heart is to move in and on His creation. He wants to set captives free. He wants to heal the sick. He wants to raise the dead. He wants to much, much more than we think He does. We limit Him, in a way. No man can limit God, but God allows Himself to be limited because He chooses to work through His followers. If we aren't willing to move into the miracle zone, then miracles, for the most part will not happen. We must be willing to move in the Spirit! We must be willing to risk! We must be willing to reach out!