I love my sons with my all, and I could easily spend a serious chunk of time creating a list of the many things I love about them!  Recently my wife and I were talking about how awesome it is to learn from and with your children, and as an adult, I find myself re-experiencing media from my youth in a new and richer way.

This really started when our boys first found their love for Dr. Seuss.  (Don’t get me started on the Seuss and what I believe to be the great wisdom and challenge embedded in his work!)  However, we are now on a HUGE Star Wars kick at our house.  The Myers boys are all about it, and by that, I’m not just talking about the great fun and excitement that comes from watching the movies and playing with the figures.  No, they are deeply passionate about understanding everything they possibly can about the story.  They want to know everything there is to know about Star Wars!

“Try not.  Do or do not, there is no try.”  –  Yoda in Empire Strikes Back

In this ongoing reunion with the story of the Force and the Dark Side, I find myself experiencing the teachings of Yoda with new ears.  I am well equipped in the area of thinking and speaking, and often times these two things colloborate with the intention of leading to right, Godly action.  However, I frequently find myself frozen in this quest for “trying” instead of “doing.” 

The disciplines of meditation, prayer, and study are important in developing a complete inner life with God that can aid in His transformative works in our lives, no doubt.  With that, I also believe that throughout the Bible we see clearly God’s desire for us to live relationally within the context of healthy community.  However, some of us have gotten sidetracked with the busyness of thinking and talking “Christian” instead of being a follower of Christ with our whole life!  Talk is cheap at times with my sons because what they’re really interested in is follow-through.  They’re expecting action!

What is one thing you have been thinking and/or talking about doing in your pursuit of Jesus that needs to transition into doing?

For some, doing may not so much be the challenge but rather simply being and abiding in Christ daily is the seemingly insurmountable obstacle .

Either way, by the power of the Holy Spirit, may you breathe in the gift of life in Christ and be what you were created to be!

“Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived.”  –  Shane Claiborne in Irresistable Revolution

RADIATING CHRIST

“Dear Jesus, help us spread your fragrance everywhere we go.

Flood our souls with your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.

Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus!

Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus, will be all from you, none of it will be ours; it will be you, shining on others through us.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.

Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do.

The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.

Amen”  (taken from Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove)

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, may we be more intentional about being this life vs. just talking & thinking about it!

The following is a poem written by an unnamed homeless man that I heard read during a prayer tour led by Center for Student Missions in Chicago:

Eyes

“Look me in the eyes at least,

When you pass me by on the street,

Whether or not you answer my plea for money:

My eyes are the poorest of me—

Require only your two cents when we meet—

And are more in dire need of these than your feet.

My poor eyes!  How they have spent the rent

Trying to buy a pleasant remembrance

To throw up on my mind’s screen when I finally tire

Of going ungreeted, unseen.

I tell you what I want—what I feel

When you shuffle by behind your paper

Trying to be discreet, sweating slightly

Under your suit collar and looking down,

Always down, as if I were your sin. . .

Be absolved of the guilt trip!  Look at me!

Make me a mint!  Shower me with riches!

Give me a long look, and drown me in it!

Dignity outlasts dollars.”

We have the chance to partner with the Almighty God in restoring/reinstilling dignity and life to those in great need.  WOW! 

Are we so busy doing “important things” and/or living such fragmented lives that we are missing opportunities to be a part of such a beautiful and powerful experience?

Do you want to simply exist and attempt to survive, or do you want to truly live?

“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” — 1 Thessalonians 3:12

This past week I was afforded an opportunity to experience quite an adventure in the great city of Chicago.  A team of 46 from our church community here in Tulsa spent spring break serving through a partnership with the great folks at Center for Student Missions (CSM) in Chicago (http://www.csm.org/chicago.php.).

Part of CSM’s model for short-term missions is sending teams out on an “urban immersion” during their trip.  My group of students had the privilege of going into the Lakeview/North Halstead community with the following scenario: experience the area as if you were a runaway youth.  While doing this, we were also given the task of getting to know as many people there as possible through conversation and asking a variety of questions. (What is like to live in the neighborhood?  What do you like and dislike?  How does the city attempt to help people?  The Church?  Etc.)

One thing I have yet to mention about this community is that it is also know as “Boystown” and is recognized as the first official gay village in the United States.

Before we disembarked one of the famous “L” trains for Lakeview, we talked amongst ourselves about what it would be like to be a runaway youth in our community, South Tulsa.  Initially my students talked about how much easier it would likely be to find assistance in Tulsa versus Chicago, but once we began meeting some of the fine folks in the “Boystown” area, they quickly began to sing a different tune.  What we discovered was a community of people that take great pride in caring for their neighborhood.  They were incredibly kind and eager to help.  The streets, shops, restaurants, etc. were immaculate and quite inviting.  At one point, my students commented that they would rather struggle through the challenges of being a runaway youth in Lakeview Chicago as opposed to the church-saturated community of South Tulsa.  OUCH!

The sad truth is that many well-intended Christians see the homosexual community as a disease to be avoided at all costs or something to fear on the same level as an impoverished neighborhood consumed by violent street gangs.  I am not speaking here on what the Bible says about homosexuality.  What I am speaking on is what the Bible has to say about how we are to love and treat people, regardless of how they live their lives.  Something is horribly wrong with the Church when the world at times is doing a better job of loving people than the body of Christ!

So what is your Lakeview?

Maybe you already do a good job of loving homosexual people.  However, if you’re like me, there is someone or some group that is incredibly difficult for you to love.  The answer here does not lie solely in trying harder but rather being willing and open to opportunities when they arise and seeking God’s love and peace, not just to benefit ourselves but ultimately to give away to those in need!

“Love is not just a word.  It is a measurable expression of one’s unconditional behaviors towards another.” – Andrew Marin (http://www.themarinfoundation.org/index001.htm)

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” – Matthew 22:36-40

Isn’t it interesting how we ourselves at times are our greatest obstacles to living the life God created us to live?  This can get particularly tricky when we talk about the Almighty’s desire for us to be instruments of his mercy and justice.  The last thing some of us need is a greater focus on ourselves as some already possess honorary doctorate degrees in self-centeredness.  However, there is a need for asking the Lord to help us in tending to our own junk in order to allow Him some solid space to work in and through our lives.

One of the great manifestations of this obstacle of self is that of self-pity.  I am fascinated by Jesus again and again, and his way of wording these important laws in Matthew 22 is no exception.  He did not say that we are to love our neighbors more or less than ourselves but rather love them AS ourselves.  Some folks struggle time and time again to love and serve others in a healthy way because they are so incredibly consumed by self-pity and with that, at times, self-punishment.

“The great and spirited novelist D. H. Lawrence once said, ‘I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.  A small bird will drop dead frozen from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.’  That’s because wild things live lives of pure action.  Today, the more I live like a ‘wild thing,’ taking action instead of meditating on my sad condition, the faster self-pity drops away.  Chronic sadness seems to become more a thing of the past. . . It took me years of looking back to see that self-pity had become an addiction of the worst kind in my life, a very nasty habit.  It acts on the system much like heroin.  It hooks you into feeling numb to life.  It makes creative action impossible.” – Steve Chandler in ReInventing Yourself

Self-pity can indeed become a bizarre and powerful addiction, and from that, one heck of a block to us doing our part in ushering in God’s kingdom here on Earth.  I of all people know how easy it is to get stuck in one’s head and over-think things in the name of meditation, education, and/or rational analysis.  (To top that off, I’m a licensed professional counselor, ha!)

So how about you?  What in your life is keeping you from living the life of intentional action that our Lord desires for you?  Is self-pity your drug of choice or is something else?

What would it look like for you to be freed from the pressure of others’ expectations and/or your own fears?

Be free and live wild!

“One year into my position as president of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), I am more convinced than ever of this biblical principle: doing big things for a big God is merely the accumulation of little things done for people.  I have seen firsthand the big things we are doing in partnership with the Hindustani Covenant Church among sex-trade workers in India. But it comes down to people who are willing to babysit the children of prostitutes while their mothers work in new alternate employment. . .  I have seen firsthand the great relief it is to families to know their adult handicapped children or siblings are in a caring, professional setting in our network of group homes known as Covenant Enabling Residences. But know it comes down in certain cases to staff members who change adult diapers for those who cannot care for themselves.” – Gary Walter, President of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC)

I don’t know about you, but I certainly have the great ability to overcomplicate things at times and, as a result, miss the point in certain areas of life.  Following Christ and living as His body through the Church is no exception.  Words such as compassion, mercy, justice, and missions have a sweet ring to them, but is it possible that we are thinking and talking about them more than actually living in them daily?

Before I go any further, I need to give a brief disclaimer: I am not a church pimp for the ECC!  It is also not my desire to make an attempt to get as many folks as possible to jump on over to the Covenant.  However, I am grateful to be a part of what God is doing through this body of believers.

Having said that, I invite you to read the words of Gary Walter cited above once more and then really pray and meditate on them.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe that God calls His people at times to do some pretty wild stuff on some pretty large scales.  However, is it possible that we have made the call to live missionally more romantic and grandiose than it really is at times?

Maybe God will call you to something HUGE in the future, but in the mean time, what are some “little things” that could be done today for people in your world in the name of Jesus Christ?  Once again, isn’t it funny how the paradox of God’s kingdom works in that often times the things we deem as small and insignificant are the very things that Christ uses to do big work in people’s lives?

“In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.  If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”  –  C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

When I was working full-time as a psychotherapist, I spent a good chunk of my work days helping clients that were struggling with chemical dependency.  The topic of pain was very relevant to the people I interacted with in counseling, both as folks still active in addiction and also as new travelers on the road to recovery.  Pain in this life is unavoidable, and I would frequently challenge people to see pain as one of the most underutilized resources on the planet.  Sound a bit odd?

I am currently on staff at an Evangelical Covenant Church (www.covchurch.org) and recently attended our annual Midwinter Conference (www.covchurch.org/midwinter) and Connection (www.covchurch.org/connection) in Denver, CO.  The theme of the Connection this year was “The Beautiful Struggle,” and there were a variety of great speakers and teachers that spoke in different ways on this notion of pursuing Jesus with our lives as being a beautiful struggle.  Sunil Sardar was one of the general session speakers that I was privileged enough to hear.

“Pain is a privilege.  Pain is a gift from God.”

These are the words of Sardar, an incredible man of God that founded TruthSeekers International (www.truthseekersinternational.org) as a vehicle to share the life-changing power of Jesus with seven hundred million lower caste people in India, a people that are set up from birth by the caste system more to exist rather than truly live.  He has been physically and verbally assaulted because of the work he is doing, and yet, he experiences pain of all types as an honor.  He also made a point to say that we do not have to seek pain for it will find us.  However, Sardar did mention the concept of “borrowing pain” from others.  Does this sound like someone else?

We are called to join in joy as our brothers and sisters celebrate a victory, and on the other end of the scale, there is this equally important call to join with those that are experiencing deep struggle and pain.

What does that look like for you?  It may be incredibly personal today, as in the pain may be inside you or someone that is very close and dear to you.

Look back in your story.  Is it possible today for you to see a struggle as something that is connected to real beauty?

We often claim to be people that desire growth, but if we are honest, we seldom are willing to do what it takes to go in that direction.  Just like farmers utilize manure to assist in the growth of fresh produce, we are invited to utilize pain, the “crap” of our lives, to assist in spiritual growth.