re-FRESHED…

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With apologies to John Cusack & the re-PRESSED scene from “The Sure Thing…”

I’ve been pondering this for the last couple of days –

Proverbs 11:25b …those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

It’s counter-intuitive… it’s taking our eyes & focus off our our own needs in the desire to be a blessing & a help to others… & then while doing that, receiving the very thing that we’d been needing to receive in the first place.

My pondering has led me to try to think of ways to practically live out what it means to be a “refresher of others” – that thought process starts by 1st examining the ‘opposite’ of being a refresher – a life-sucker, a weight, a burden. What’s that look like?

To me, the opposite of ‘refresher’ means being selfish… Self-focused. Insisting on getting my own way. Getting my own needs met. Using others to do so. Complaining. Being contentious. Antagonizing. Nit-picking.

Refreshing means sharing. Paying attention to others & what they’re experiencing. Being willing to listen. Gentleness. Kindness. Self-control.

And in that, God takes it on Himself to be a refresher… and who does He refresh?

Isaiah 57:15b I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts.

The humble & repentant. The one who is in need of refreshing, & looks to God to do it.

Amen. & Right on.

Sometimes…

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Sometimes I forget.

And then I Do… worry ensues. Anxiety. Cares. Frustrations. Heaviness. Burdens. Hard to breathe. Fighting hopelessness. Despair. Like real foes – it’s almost tangible when they enter the room.

Sometimes I remember.

And then I Be… fully present where I am. With others. Engaged. Refreshing. Lightening. Glimmers of hope & peace that never totally go away emerge…

Thanks…

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…to CS Lewis, the guy in the picture, smoking his pipe. I love the way he communicates in his writings, without hesitating to move into the difficult areas of life. Pain. Failure. Temptation. Struggle. Hope. Joy.

He has been an inspiration to me … And every journey through Narnia. The Sci-Fi Trilogy. Mere Christianity. The Problem of Pain. Surprised by Joy… Brings a bit of joy to me.

Interesting Reading…

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Just got home from my Deutsch tutoring session & I’m watching the end of the KU/Memphis game. Trying to kill multiple birds with the same stone, using my time wisely, i decided to take care of some ‘home-work’ reading for my Day Job – the PROPOSED REVISED BYLAWS.

The title of this post is a just a bit of a stretch… ok, unless you read the fine print ‘NOTIFICATIONS’ section in the newspaper, you’d probably want to listen to Air Supply’s greatest hits over, and over, and over, and over… instead of having to read through.

I gotta admit, I doubt that there’s any of you that reads my blog that actually cares about the aforementioned bylaws… but, hey, this is where I process…

I’m left wondering why all of the additions to the bylaws bug me the way they do… not the kind of bugging that happens when something new is happening, requiring change. Rather it bugs me because it appears to be illustrative of a fundamental & foundational shift in the ‘larger church organization’ that I have been a part of for the last 24 years; a shift that I am having a very difficult time understanding or identifying with.

Hmmm…

It’s here…

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Baseball season – the first full weekend of games. I played the sport for years, & love the familiarity of baseball. This year, we get to suffer through a pitiably bad San Francisco Giants team.

Hooray. Just like the old days.

Go Giants!

Why Do Bad Things Happen? #2

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Warning: rambling, incoherent post ahead – I’m writing this while I have “the Funk.” Not the Bootsy Collins, Parliament Funkadelic Funk, but the “Why is it I exist again?” Funk.

Indirect consequences are hard to understand – bad things happen every minute of every hour of every day in every village, town, city, state, nation, region… sometimes they make ‘sense’ to us through whatever lens we use to interpret life’s happenings, good & bad. A lot of the time they don’t. When bad things happen for which we see no ‘direct’ cause, especially to people that don’t ‘deserve’ it (as though there are some that really, truly should be afflicted with cancer. Loss of loved ones. Freak accidents. Bad news. you get the picture.) we want to know the WHY. Why is this happening?

It becomes a focal point for us to work through what we believe about God – & often our ideas of who God is & what He should be doing… because we view God as the One who saves us from bad stuff. We obey Him, we serve Him, because its like a ‘get out of trouble’ card or an exemption from the suffering that plagues the rest of humanity. We see it as “we do our part, obey, & then He does His part: provide, protect, avenge, heal, restore, etcetera.” When life doesn’t happen like that, we wonder what we’re doing “wrong.” Or what others have done wrong. Or why God is seemingly sleeping on the job, allowing, or even worse, causing bad stuff to happen. Or at least not intervening when He could have.

This is where indirect consequences come in. And a misunderstanding about God & His nature. And the temporary, finite world that we live in. And what love is.

Here’s my take on the WHY or origin of Bad Things:

  • God created everything – then He formed Adam & Eve.
  • God gave to Adam & Eve the dominion (the power or right of governing & controlling; being in charge of) over the Earth.
  • When He did this handoff, there were no disasters. No death. Destruction. Suffering.
  • At a most crucial & inopportune time for humanity, Adam & Eve handed off the God-given dominion of the Earth through their sin & disobedience, to the enemy, the adversary, the devil – referred to in multiple places in the Bible as the “prince of this world” the “ruler of this world” & the “prince of the power of the air.”
  • The result of sin? Death. Every time. Millennia have gone by, with the sin & the consequences of sin, sin done to self, done to others, piling up like the world’s biggest garbage dump – spewing its filth & spreading its tentacles, permeating every layer of humanity.
  • The Earth is cursed because of sin – & what God created & called “good” & “very good” now is filled with earthquakes, floods, tornados, hurricanes, pestilence,(all of which are referred to, interestingly, as “ACTS OF GOD;”) famine, all kinds of sickness & disease…
  • The enemy, the one who was a murderer from the beginning, who has come to steal, kill, & destroy, continues to do that… in the dominion he was handed by humanity.
  • Bad things happen because of sin. Consequences received directly & indirectly. Because of the enemy. Because of millennia of the crud of sin piled up.

    And in the middle of it, God did not & has not abandoned us – from the beginning, He has been the solution to our sin – & He purposefully intersected humanity with the Cross of Christ – which changes everything, not just in the temporary finite world we live in, but for eternity.

    He never leaves or abandons us – He stays with us even when we’re in the middle of what seems to be the pit of despair – He is our Comfort, our Shelter, our Rock, our Fortress, our Hope, our Inheritance. He has placed Himself squarely in the middle of life’s bad things – God WITH us. Immanu’El.

    • peace to you

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    had a friend in town for the last few days, Morris Chapman; his visit had been on the books for a while. I invited him to come & spend time with our church family in extended worship. God knew what would be happening the week prior to his visit – I was physically, emotionally, & every other -ally you can think of – spent. Done. Finito. You get the idea.

    When Morris started playing, “I Will Restore” (it’s on his mySpace page at the link aboveI felt my insides melting – not a pleasant feeling – I knew that I had to lay down on the floor. The weight of my soul felt like it was pulling me to the ground. I told the Bean that I was going to lay down – don’t know if she understood what I meant,… or where I meant. I just remember hitting the floor & weeping from the bottom of my soles. I thought I had cried my tears already this week; I’d run out a couple of times & had the “dry cry” not to be confused with the “dry heave.” Hurts about the same though.

    I sobbed.

    After an indefinite period of time, I felt peace. And the raw, exposed nerve of my soul was no longer raw, exposed, & angry to the touch. I was still tired. Bone-weary. But the soul despair, the pain faded & I had peace. The circumstances of the week hadn’t changed, but I had peace. We are still grieving, but I have peace. I could sleep the clock, but I have peace.

    Thank you Jesus – to any/all that may be reading this: Peace to you. The peace of Christ to you.

    Why Do Bad Things Happen…? #1

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    For the last couple of months, I have been planning on teaching on the topic above at our Sunday, 3/30 – 9:15 Learning Community. I had no idea that we’d be experiencing tragedy, crushing loss, & this kind of pain so up close & personal within our church family.

    “Why do bad things happen?” is a tough question – one that usually gets answered with one of the trite statements or religious cliches that are so infuriating to the people that they get bequeathed to. Things like:

  • Well, the Lord moves in mysterious ways…
  • God took (fill in the blank with a loved ones name) because He must have needed (loved one’s name) more than we did..
  • God is trying to teach us to depend on Him in hard times…

    My personal favorite, which was passed on to me by several well meaning people after my 17 year-old brother had died from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a cancer that starts out in the lymph system.

  • God must have known that your brother was going to fall into some terrible sin in the future, so He decided to take him now…

    Huh? What the fat? Are you serious?

    These & other statements have caused me to spend a lot of time pondering – to me, here’s what some of the above statements are saying:

  • Mysterious ways? What does this mean? That God is unpredictable & just might SNAP when we least expect it, killing loved ones in the process. “Sorry. My bad.”
  • God kills our loved ones because He “needed” them more than we do? Hmm. I read in the Bible that 2 people were ‘translated’ into heaven by God: Enoch & Elijah – He wanted them with Him, & He didn’t kill them to get them.
  • God is trying to teach us something by killing our loved ones? The lesson today will be “you need me.” I’m going to illustrate this by killing your brother.
  • God killed my brother in a preemptive strike to prevent his future falling into sin? Hmm. I had always thought that God dealt with our sin through the cross…

    God is good – & is predictably good – everything that we need to know about the person & nature of God is wrapped up in Christ Jesus – not just the “good” stuff. All of it. (Check out Colossians 1:19,20 & Colossians 2:9,10 He thinks good thoughts towards us, likes us (not only loves us,) & is dependably the same yesterday, today, & forever. We can rest assured that He is & will be our ever-present help in time of trouble, & is not the one capriciously causing our pain to drive us to Him.

    Next time – we’ll examine the cause of all things bad…

    • Pain

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    Friends:

    A tragedy has hit our dear friends – a day meant to be one of great rejoicing & celebration of the newness of life is instead crushing. Numbing.

    I feel powerless. Broken into small pieces. Wishing there was something that I could DO to make the pain go away, to make their situation better. To ease the loss. The most well-used cliches & religious pontifications come off as insensitive, thoughtless, & antagonistic. This pain is beyond words, beyond being able to be fixed by something that we can do or say.

    I know of nothing – except being. Standing with. Standing by. Loving.

    Celebrate with those that are celebrating.
    Rejoice with those that rejoice.
    Weep with those that weep.
    Mourn with those that mourn.

    I pray for peace. And grace for our friends.