Synthesis

I apologize for not posting last week. My current seminar class’ workload is higher than usual, but something I read yesterday struck me and I thought I’d share it with you.

There’s a church joke that says, “Don’t make me go Old Testament on you!” The implication is that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath. In contrast to this we read in the New Testament that God is a God of love.

In fact, I believe we can replace the word “of” in my above description with the word “is” – God is wrath; God is love. Does that statement cause tension for you?

Here’s how William Yount describes this truth – “God is love and God is wrath. How can He be both? The answer is found in synthesis. The fire that warms is also the fire that burns. The difference is in our relationship to it. Those who are rightly related to God are warmed by His love. Those who refuse His love, who reject His offer of grace, are left to be burned by His wrath. He is not love or wrath. He is love-wrath, which exists like a two-sided coin.”

If this messes with your head a little, it should – synthesis is level 5 thinking (there are 6 levels, but those details aren’t really my point). My point is that there are many things about God that I struggle to understand, but that does not make them untrue.

This morning, I just learned about the death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s five year old daughter. Anytime something like this happens it creates a tension in my soul. I know God is Sovereign, but I cannot help but struggle with the “why questions.” God why would you allow this to happen?

Here’s where I land with this right now (and I’d love to hear your thoughts), God wants to have a relationship with us, He does truly love us, AND there are things (and circumstances) I simply cannot fully understand. Am I talking about blind faith? No, blind faith would require no basis whatsoever. I’m talking about faith that is able to understand enough to accept it all.

What about you – what do you struggle to understand and how do you choose to deal with your confusion?

/D

If Only...

I was watching an incredible talk by Louie Giglio. Click here if you want to watch it, too.

Louie is one of my favorite speakers and the message he gives is powerful and moving. I can be a bit emotional and I found my eyes watering as I listened to him. (Okay, I’ll admit it, I was outright crying by the end). But, as I listened, another thought struck me…

…if only I could communicate like he does…

As I captured this thought I was reminded that God has gifted him in this way. More importantly, God has gifted you and I in incredible ways, as well. In fact, I believe that if we are able to discover just how incredibly gifted we are, the things we could do using those gifts would be just as powerful and as moving as a message by Louie. If we have surrendered our hearts and lives to Christ to follow Him, we have the same power within us. The key is finding this incredible gift (or gifts) God has given you and using it how He desires for you to use it.

The obvious next question is – How, how do I do this?

If you have a relationship with God through Christ the power to discover your gift is already within you. You simply need to ask God to reveal it to you. Here’s what I think. I think many of us already know what God has given us and even how He wants us to use it, but we’re too scared to trust Him and go for it! So, we keep walking around like we’re clueless. Maybe I’m wrong, you can write a comment and tell me what you think, but I know for me there are things I believe God has gifted me to do and I know what He wants me to do – but it’s scary. It requires me to lean into my faith in Him full tilt.

How about you?

By the way, if you haven’t listened to Louie’s clip yet, go back to the top and click the link – you’ll be glad you did.

/D

Questions Jesus Asked – Fear (6)

Our next question is found in verse 26 of Mathew chapter eight. Jesus asks, “Why are you afraid?” I believe this question gets to the heart of a true relationship with God. If we truly trust God, we really shouldn’t fear anything.

The disciples were afraid they were going to die, and if I’m honest, there are lots of things about death that still scare me

- The death of another one of my children or my wife
- The wellbeing of my family if I were to die
- I’m somewhat prepared for losing my parents some day (that’s the order of life), but I still don’t want that to ever happen

I’m afraid of all of these things happening - and many more. What about you?

So, is it fair for Jesus to ask us why were afraid? Do I hear a resounding “Duh”?

I think there are many things we could be scared about, but Jesus’ point is not that there are scary things that can happen to us, but that there is an antidote to this poison called fear. We learn in Jesus' next words that the antidote is faith.

Faith is a funny thing – it’s intangible, yet very real. It’s hard to describe, but incredible to experience. The writer of Hebrews tells us faith “is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” How cool is that!?

Where does this confident assurance come from? It comes from a relationship that is based on trusting God. And we learned from the last set of questions that God will provide everything we truly need [read Questions Jesus Asked – Prayer (5)].

So, what are you afraid of? Will you learn to trust God with that fear? It probably won’t happen over night – no real relationships are formed that way. But let me encourage you to take another step closer to trusting God each time you feel scared – that’s what I’m doing and it gets a little easier with every step I take. [Great, now I hear a Police song playing in my head].


/D

New House

So, we moved into a new house a couple of months ago. It’s weird how I’m always assuming the worst whenever I hear a strange sound. I want this place to be so awesome, but if I hear something, I immediately begin to fear that a pipe is leaking, or the siding is coming loose, or whatever. It’s like I cannot fully enjoy the place because I keep thinking something really bad is going to happen.

Do you ever feel this way about things?

I think we often approach our spiritual lives this way, too - especially when it’s all new to us. We keep thinking, “I want this to be really great,” but we also keep thinking we’re going to do something (or something is just going to happen) and mess the whole deal up. You know, it can’t really be this good – can it?

Unfortunately, when something does happen, we quickly revert back to the I-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true attitude. I want you to know that it’s actually the times when we blow it that can help strengthen our faith the most. Face it, if we were perfect we wouldn’t need God. It’s because we’re not perfect that makes what God offers sooo perfect. Our relationship with God is based on His unfailing love for us – not on how well we perform. In fact, the Bible clearly teaches that we cannot work our way into heaven (Ephesians 2:8-10) and we cannot work our way into a better relationship with God (Galatians 3:3). It’s already pegged the “awesome!” meter – and when we mess up – God’s love for us doesn’t change a bit.

I hope you’ll allow the tough times (whether you created them or not) to mature your relationship with God. Don’t worry, He’s not gonna pull a fast one on you and leave you hangin’.

/D

Poll Results - Who do you trust most?

Who do you trust most?

70% said - A Friend
30% said - A Parent
0% said - A Grown Child
0% said - A Church Leader

I did receive some scolding for not having "Spouse" as an option. [Get ready for the brownie points...here they come...] Since my spouse is my best friend, my answer was Friend. :-)

I'm not sure I can make an accurate inference from what people did not say, but I'm surprised "Church Leader" got 0%. What (if anyting) does that reveal?


/D

True Friends?

I was reading Proverbs and verse 18 in chapter 18 caught my attention; it reads “It’s harder to make amends with an offended friend than to capture a fortified city.”

The first thing that popped into my mind was some strained relationships I have in my life and I thought, “Yeah, that’s true.” I think the reason it’s hard is because with friends we develop a bond, a closeness – trust. And when things fall apart, well, we have that much farther to fall and feel the hurt that much deeper.

But then I had another thought; “Wait a minute; if we’re friends shouldn’t we be able to work through the difficult times? Shouldn’t the closeness and the trust be an asset to resolving our differences?”

As I think about the times I have failed others I now must wonder; were we really friends or were we just going through the motions?

If you’ve been hurt by a friend (and maybe that friend was me) may I encourage you to NOT be a “fortified city”. Relationships are so fragile; and they take so much effort to form to begin with; let’s not just throw them away like yesterdays trash. After all – aren’t we supposed to be loving God and loving people?

/D

You can trust God

No TRUST-passing

My two girls love to draw, doodle and journal. Our house is filled with little notebooks and binders. Today there was one sitting on the floor in the family room. I was doing a little straightening (I was tempted to call it cleaning up, but I actually only picked up four things).

As I picked up the notebook, I opened it to the front to see who the proper owner was. Here’s what I read:

This Diary belongs to the one and only [my daughter’s name in all caps]
Do not open uness permetted
No TRUST-passing

It’s really cute. And as I thought about what she wrote it hit me. When Jesus taught us to pray He mentioned us asking God to forgive our trespasses and to help us forgive those who trespass against us. I think my daughter is on to something here – when we trespass the real issue is we have TRUST-passed. We’ve done or said something that breaks the other person’s ability to Trust us. When we go against God, we’ve broken Trust. When others trespass against us – they’ve broken our Trust.

So, how do we get back on track? We must rebuild Trust. This can be a lot more difficult then we may first realize. When I break a trust with a friend, it’s natural that when something else even seems a little off – well, they will wonder, “Can I really trust him?” This is why it’s so important to maintain trust in our relationships – because it’s so easy to lose, and when we lose it we seem to lose it all.

Yet, God’s way of dealing with things is a bit different. He tells us if we admit we’ve blown it He’s faithful to totally forgive us. Wow! But then He reminds us that this is how He wants us to treat others – to forgive them. One thing I have learned is that when I forgive someone I begin to let them rebuild the trust. Trust doesn’t come back all at once, but until we are willing to forgive, it can’t come back at all.

So, be careful with others – work hard at not TRUST-pass against them. And when others TRUST-pass against you, learn to forgive and begin rebuilding the trust. And, thank God that He is willing to fully forgive us every time we ask Him to!

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