The Empty Hands Of Faith

I watched parts of the Gospel Music Awards last night, in between the Pistons basketball game and the Monday Night Football Game. There were parts of the GMA that I liked and at other times some of me sat with my arms crossed in a bit of a critical huff. All the money and effort that gets poured out makes my cynical side wonder who is pulling the strings in all of this, but that is a whole other discussion. I watched some of the bands perform songs and such. (Mercy Me won Artists of the year, which was fine with me, I can only imagine that I’d like them, if I knew them [pun intended])
One act that grabbed my imagination was Jars Of Clay. They have a great line in one of their song that goes something like “the only thing I bring is the empty hands of faith.”
That stirred in my soul.
We just have seen another Christmas whirl past in a cosmic rush. Like my grandfather used to say every year after all the gifts were opened, with the wrapping paper still cast about all over the floor, “Well another one come and gone!”
So much of our attention during December is spent on getting people the right gift at the right price. Sometimes this is because we are exchanging gifts, other times it is just to be nice or share in some common “Christmas spirit.” It’s alright to get others gifts because we know that in our natural selves it is primming the pump to get something nice in return. A gift exchange.
So many want a gift exchange with God. I give God something and that will cause a response from him toward me. So we climb toward the Almighty with our gifts wrapped in the prettiest of bows and the finest of paper and lay them at his feet, batting our eyes with an anticipated return gift just waiting for our consumption.
Cold hard reality check: We have nothing that God needs. That is a brutal reality. We are empty handed, leverage-less beggars, pleading in desperation with nothing to offer Him. There is no gift exchange. There is the empty hands of faith reaching with desperation toward the only hope or there is nothing. Throw down your barter and clear your hands of the chains of employment. It is only with the empty hands of faith can you receive the gifts the Father has for you; Childhood. Adoption. Love. Mercy. Hope. Life. Forgiveness.
That is far from an empty promise or lousy gift. Peace!

Simpy Amazed

I am amazed at the goodness of God. So much lurks in my past that easily disqualifies me from any kind of favor from a Diety. My shadow life, my compulsion to self, my mindless actions. Any God worth His salt could examine these things in my life and direct some sort of flaming wrath into the fabric of my life. Judgement and calamities of all kinds could befall me. Yet they don’t.
What I deserve - I don’t receive.

I watched the new movie called “Luther” last night and dear old Martin struggled mightly with his sin and the ingrained idea of a wrathful God bent on vengence. Until Martin understood that the wrath of God was directed at God’s own Son Jesus, in our place and that we have forgiveness based soley on the merits of Jesus Christ alone, that is when the light went on for Luther. He became a joyfilled person who wasn’t continually cowering before an angry God.

This past week I was able to celebrate my daughters’ graduation from a university. She worked hard and was rewarded with a degree as a teacher for special education children. I am so proud of her, she graduated Magna Cum Laude (a 3.87 GPA). She earned her degree, now Jenni and her husband have to pay for it.

This was one of those “Goodness of God” moments for me. I don’t deserve children, let alone the three great kids that I have.
What I don’t deserve - I receive.
That is truly amazing.

The Hand That Still Moves

My mom is the talker of the family. My dad is the quiet guy who doesn’t speak much but when he does it is usually loaded with insight and wisdom. Most of the time I tend toward my dad’s quiet nature (not the wisdom stuff just the reserved). I know this can make me seem aloof and not connected but I just digest internally I guess, where others have to talk things out. Neither reality is right, it’s just you. My dad and I have sat for long periods of time not saying too much, not because we don’t like each other, but I guess because we don’t feel the need to fill the air with words…. we leave that to mom. (I’m laughing now, wondering what she will think when she reads this)

One thing that just makes me warm is seeing the moment that God works in someone’s life after waiting. The prayer is answered, the Bible makes sense, the tears flow, the child laughs.
Most of the time it’s unexpected and you just know that it had to have been God’s hand. Sometimes you get an insite into a friends life that when spoken it takes them back and challenges them to the core. Like speaking to a crowd of people, like wearing the Pastor role, like being a lead worshipper. The blessing for me is the fulfilled insight the hand of God moving in real people’s lives! We don’t have control over much do we? Not much at all. So when the one who does intervines it truly is amazing.

Ripples Of Connection

As I went on my “not as regular as I would like” prayer walk today. It was your typical overcast December day in Michigan, except warmer. Yesterday the skies opened up and dumped like an inch and a half of rain on us so my walk was a bit muddy. I don’t like wet socks much and my right foot was dripping from the hole in my boot.

I live surrounded by woods, which I love. Maple, white birch and oaks rise to the grey skies. Through these woods, before you get any romantic ideas, runs a dual set of railroad tracks about 150 yards south from my bedroom window, that connect Canada to Chicago. Yes, that would make them busy, about 15-20 trains a day. You get used to it, I suppose. If that weren’t enough distraction, at the north end of my “three tenths of a mile road” is a main interstate that flows into Canada with many trucks banging away at the pavement and the few ears that live around me. I am not complaining in the least, there are many, many worse places to occupy.

There are seven homes on my road. Homes with real people, neighbors, families, that, during my walk, I try to remember to pray for. One lady is fighting cancer, another is a widow, a single mom, some are close friends with two teenage kids, others I just barely know their names.

Today, as I walk through this life, (most of the time life runs by me and I’m just trying to catch up) my eyes gather tears - thanking my Savior, friend, King of the Universe companion for a few moments of connection with Him and them. Looking out over a 30 acre lake, as the wind gently ripples the surface of the waters, I also am moved. Thanks.

The Dripping, Maggot Infested Bags And Other Pleasantries

Think about the thing you least like to do, o.k just one of the things you least like to do. In earlier years I hated taking out the trash. Absolutely HATED it. Then my wife convinced me otherwise. I have come to think of it as more of a necessary evil, because I get to take a walk while lugging the 50lb dripping, maggot infested bags, to the dumpster located some two football fields away, in the middle of July, or I just tell my son that it's his turn.

Even worse for me than the garbage fiasco has always been something that requires a more daily attention, and that is doing the dishes. When I was 7 or 8 my mom said that I had to start helping out in this way and I loathed it. It started out kinda cool but after about the third plate it totally lost all coolness. Who got all these dishes dirty anyway? It wasn't me! It got to a point that twice a week I would try everything to get out of loading the dishwasher. Extra long bathroom visits and stomach aches timed to perfection, a towel fight with my rotten brother or slipping and falling down the back stairs. Yea I know what your thinking; young, spoiled, suburban white kid that had everything handed to him. In some ways you are right, I am white. And suburban and a little spoiled too.

Why does my growth never seem to come through anything but a lot of pain and crying and fighting against it? Issue after issue after issue, I struggle and struggle and fail and struggle some more. I can't just wake up healed from my financial inaptitude. There isn't a discipline tree that I can pick the discipline fruit off of. If change were easy woundn't more people be into it? It could catch on as a fad, God, come on get with the times will ya!
Some of the things that I still don't like:
Using money like I was only the manager, not the owner.
Confrontation, people should just get their stuff in order - well everyone but me!
Headaches behind the eyes.
Throwing up. I fight it to the death, Lamaze breathing methods work pretty well.
Going to bed too early, I might miss something important!

There are many more where those came from.

I guess it all shows me that I need other people really desperately in my life, and I need something bigger to motivate me through the pain of change and the smell of rotten garbage.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

While I was reading this morning in Psalm 20 a random thought passed through the confines of my brain. The verse reads “Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” 20:7
And reading the text note I saw that this was a confession of an army not to trust in there finest weapon of the day with the realization that the power for victory is in the name of the LORD our God.
Which took me back to the movie, The Raiders Of The Lost Ark because of the desire of the Nazi’s to possess the relic, the actual Ark of the Covenant that contained the set of stone tablets that God had written for Moses on Mount Sinai. They wanted the Ark to be taken into battle with their army to empower it to be unstoppable, undefeatable. They were dead set to use the things of God to justify their conquests. Where they erred in judgement was they wanted the power of without the presence of God. They wanted the things of God with out wanting God himself!
We do the same stupid things! We want the results of knowing God with out knowing him. We want peace, prosperity, hope, health and so we put an icthus on our cars so we can have great parking opportunities. Let us run away from the apperarance of Godliness with out Savior at the center of it all and let us run the desperate race to the cross yearning for Him above everything.

Lurking About

Well this is interesting. Posting your soul for the world to read, at any time, all around the globe.

Peering into the deep hole that I call my brain can be scary and sometimes rather hollow. Hoping to prime the pump of my thought, prayer, spiritual, practical life I desire to use these moments to share what's going on both inside and outside of my little world.

Bear with me, I'm new at this and sometimes it takes a lot to get any life from this well.