Boundary and Grace

I was exploring the less-traveled side of a nearby mountain town - a beautiful bedroom community that, like much of Colorado's front range, is turning all-too-quickly into a bustling city.  In the middle of the mountains, museums and monuments that make the town special - I found this street sign.

What significance might be found at the corner of Boundary and Grace?

As I stared at this lonely sign ignored by the locals and only useful to the rare tourist without a GPS, I remembered the way God has related to people throughout the Bible.

Boundaries.

Now there's a word that inspires!  For me, "boundaries" always meant lines and limitations and longings to linger where I was forbidden to do so.  But boundaries are so much a part of how God relates to us, and how he expects us to relate with others.

God relates to humanity through covenants.  Covenants are much like contracts, where God says "You do this, and I'll do that."  Covenants contain promises that God makes to us (great promises, in fact!) and rules that create boundaries for our thoughts and actions.

Rules - another way of saying boundaries - are an integral part of God's way of dealing with us.  And so, boundaries are really quite good for us in life and in relationship with God,

Think of the Adamic Covenant - the agreement that God made with Adam in Genesis.  In street terms, God basically said "Adam, you and your kin can eat from any tree in this garden.  And that's no small thing sir, because the produce from one of these trees in particular will keep you alive forever!".

That was the great promise of the Adamic Covenant.  Eat from that tree and have Eternal Life?  I'm sure that sounded really good to Adam, as it would have to me.

But the Adamic Covenant also contained one very important rule, or boundary, that ended up making all the difference in the world.  "Eat from any tree," said God, "except that one...".

And you know the rest of the story.  Adam and his wife stepped over the boundary.  Sin and it's ugly brother Death came into God's beautiful world and we've never been the same since.

Every other covenant God has made with human beings follows the same structure - promises and boundaries, boundaries and promises.  It's just the way it is with our God.

But boundaries aren't the only thing we see in the scriptures.  We see, almost like we're looking into the sun, the powerful Grace that God has always given to his children, and nowhere is this grace more evident than in the person and work of Jesus, and in his New Covenant.

Grace.

I've heard it defined as "unmerited favor".  And grace is well-understood in that way.  But here, I'd like to call out grace as "the ability to do something hard, and make it look easy".

Take, for example, a world-class figure skater, or sculptor or violinist.  These individuals have all mastered some complicated and difficult skills.  And when they're at the top of their game, they make it look easy.

When I watch a graceful ballet dancer, or downhill skier or high-level rock climber - a master in the middle of practicing their art, I'd swear that "I could do that!".

Well, not so much.

But the grace bestowed by our Father come to us in the person of his Spirit - who lives in us.  In Ezekiel 36:27, God promised that in the New Covenant he would put his "Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.".  By his Spirit, God gives us the grace to do what seems hard, and even make it look easy.  

Every once in awhile I find myself in the Jeep up in that town - brakes squeaking to a stop there at the junction of Boundary and Grace.  

Father, thank you for the deposit of your Spirit in me.  Please grant me the grace to follow your lead, maybe even to make something tough look easy.

Humility

Andrew Murray was a missionary pastor in South Africa during the 19th century, and he wrote a devotional book on the subject of humility that's been a part of my personal transformation process lately.

At first, his laser focus on humility as the secret sauce of all Christian living seemed to me a bit over-wrought.  

I mean - come on - every author and every speaker will tell you that the subject of the book they're promoting or the talk they're giving is the one thing you really need and of course the one thing you're truly missing.

But surely humility, among all the other virtues, isn't the most important, is it?

Well, after spending about 3 months of my team devotions (with men I so greatly respect) going through this book, I'm ready to agree with Mr. Murray.

On many pages I found the temptation to highlight almost every sentence.  My friends and I found multiple discussion points in every chapter - challenging us to think differently, to act differently and ultimately to seek to become a totally different kind of man.

With that said, there's no way to comprehensively review Humility without taking more of your time today than you bargained for - so I'll leave you with just one passage from chapter 12 that has set so clear a direction for my heart.

"In the faith of the grace that is already working in you;
in the assurance of the grace for the victory is yet to be;
stand persistently under the unchanging command:

humble yourself.

Accept with gratitude everything that God allows
from within or without,
from friend or enemy,
in nature or in grace,
to remind you of your need for humbling and to help you in it.

Reckon humility to be the mother-virtue,
your very first duty before God,
the one perpetual safeguard of the soul,
and set your heart upon it as the source of all blessing."

I recommend you get a few copies of this little book and a spend some time with a few close friends looking deeply into it.  I think you'll be happy you did.

"Father, I think I'm ready at least to point my days toward living in humility before you.  Please guide me and my friends in more humble choices and moments - that we may know you and come ever closer to your heart alone." 

Lord, Remember Me

One of God's weekly smiles comes in the gathering of believers that meets in my home.  We've become like family to one another in many ways.  We eat together, we study the scriptures together and we recreate together.  Best of all we find that we're growing together in fits and starts to better bear God's image in the world.

Last night we talked a bit about grieving loss and pain.  Each of us have lost some things in our lives that were dear to us - perhaps some things we held too dear - but whatever, we've lost some things, some influence, some possessions, some relationships, some vocations or some dreams.  We've been hurt and we've hurt others.

We talked a bit about how to process grief, and how the ancient Jewish poets reckoned losses and hurts they were experiencing with God's great promises to them.  We call those songs "laments".  

A lament simply starts with expression of deep sorrow or grief.  No holds barred and nothing held back.  All the hurt, all the pain - get it out on the table for God and the world to see.  The great lament Psalms as well as many of the prophetic books are beautiful examples of how real people got real with God - no sugar coatings or trite happy sayings or giddy denials of reality.

But because of their great God, and his saving work in their lives in the past - they had faith.  Even still, given their pain and loss - those folks held on to some core beliefs in their all-powerful-always-good God and his great promises of a bright Kingdom future for them.

So their laments ended not in some nihilistic abyss, but with hopeful expressions of their faith.  And thus their souls were soothed.  They made sense of their lives and after the mourning and grieving - they got up.  They got up with the strength of heart and mind to build and rebuild and go back at life again in hope.

That's how laments worked for them, and I'm finding that's how they work for me.

Here's a beautiful lament song that I can't stop tearfully singing.  Andrew Peterson's Remember Me comes from the place of the thief on the cross hanging next to Jesus.

Check out how the song begins in grief.  

"There is none righteous, no not one,
We are prodigal daughters and wayward sons
We don't know the half of the hurt we've done
The countless we have killed"

But then, look how it ends...

"But before the breath there in the tomb,
before our joy sprang from the womb,
You saw a day that's coming soon.

When the Son will stand on the mount again,
with an army of angels at His command,
and the earth will split like the hull of a seed,
wherever Jesus plants his feet.

And up from the earth, the dead will rise,
like spring trees robed in petals of white,
singing the song of the radiant bride..."

Oh man - that's gonna be a good day indeed...

The Greatest Play Ever Written

"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life..."  - 1 John 1:1-2

Have you ever wondered why John listed seeing Jesus three times?

Is He Worthy?

I've spent much of my life subtly and sometimes not so subtly trying to avoid pain and loss.

I tend to narrow my focus to what I think are my problems, and I tend to compulsively lurch toward supposed solutions that let me believe and behave however I want or that require no loss on my part.

I tend to avoid judgment at all costs.

In the fifth chapter of Revelation we find John in deep distress as he's witnessing a vision of the great Day of the Lord - the final judgment God's prophets and poets had known for centuries would come.  

The Day when evildoers would be put to rights.  

The Day when the oppressed would be set free.  

The Day when ugly, despotic power structures would be unmade.    

The Day when Yahweh would set everything straight.  

But John's not agonizing like I might be - scared silly of what I might lose or of some pain I might face.  No, he's weeping because no one can be found worthy to break the seals of that great judgment scroll.  No one can be found worthy to read it's pronouncements and no one can be found worthy to render them.     

John saw what I'm coming to see.  That is, that God's judgment is nothing to be afraid of if we're following Jesus as Lord.  If we are following after Messiah, then the Day of the Lord is for us that great day when we and the whole wide world are ridden completely of the effects of evil.  

John was weeping because if no one could open the scroll, then nothing in this world of pain could ever be changed.  Nothing could ever be made truly and deeply and forever Good again.

If no one could open the scroll, then pain and sorrow and sadness and lack and loss would always be the cruel taskmasters of what God had made to be so beautiful in the beginning.

But of course, John then heard what he'd so been waiting to hear:

"Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals."

So rather than fear that Day - we can know deep in our hearts as did John - that's the Day we've all been waiting for...

On that Day, we'll finally be rid of the nasty bent to protect ourselves at any cost, to grab for ourselves whatever we can and to hurt others whenever we are hurt.

On that Day, we'll be rid forever of fear, doubt, selfishness, greed and all their ugly siblings.  We, and the whole wide world, will all be made totally and completely New.

Andrew Peterson has put this grandest of all scenes to gorgeous melody - to which I cannot stop listening.  It's truly beautiful.

In fact, his Resurrection Letters: Prologue and Resurrection Letters: Volume 1 are now on constant play in my ears and in my heart.  

The Global Advocacy Forum 2015

Like I've said so many times before, I'm humbled to be a tiny part of Compassion International - a ministry that's actually enabling God's people to change the world in real and significant ways.  1.5 million children are today being delivered (and I mean truly delivered) from extreme poverty because Compassion connects you, the sponsor, with the heart and circumstances of your sponsored children.  So it's my pleasure to serve our sponsors and all those children by bringing what I've learned about technology to the multitude of tasks involved in running this ministry.

This June, I traveled with Compassion's Global Advocacy team to Cape Town, South Africa to unveil some revolutionary technology - technology designed to help deliver children from poverty in Jesus' name.

What's Global Advocacy?  Well, in a nutshell it's Compassion's way of giving a part of itself to other ministries and other means of delivering children from poverty.  It's Compassion giving away whatever we can to other ministry partners so that together we might do what no single ministry could do alone.

So with the thought of sharing in mind, we've created a technology space to gather and share mounds of really relevant information critical to the care of children in the difficult environments in which they live.  And right inside that space we can collaborate with the multitudes of caregivers that so desperately need that information - all in real time.  In fact, we expect this technology and the humans that use it to enable more than 20,000 churches around the world (churches that are not tied in any way to Compassion) to care for multiplied millions of children.

I'll demonstrate all this here in the near future, but for now, I'd just like to express my gratitude to the Father for calling us into his service no matter what ministry we may work for, and my thankfulness to Compassion International for being such a bright light around the world.

"Thank you, Father, for the love you're sharing through the church to millions of children in poverty around the world.  We know that one day, Messiah will return and deliver us all from whatever poverty we may experience.  But between now and then, please give us the strength to push ever forward and ever more intelligently into this your Great Project.  In Jesus' name, amen!"

Overlap of the Ages

Time for contemplation has come rarely this year, and little contemplation time means little fodder for witty blog posts.  But this season affords for a few moments of contemplative reflection - so here we go...

When I was a younger man, I thought that perhaps there could be a concept that, if it were carefully engineered and if it were presented just right, would take the world by storm.  Perhaps the field of politics would produce.  Maybe education would enlighten.  Surely religion would rectify, right?

And of course, the reality is that all these and more contribute to our diverse and interesting planet. 

But the older I get, the less faith I have in any of these fields, and the more hope I have in the singular event that will change everything.  This event holds the potential to so radically change our politics, so thoroughly educate us and so radically satisfy our religious yearnings - we won't know what hit us when it happens.

Wouldn't it be awesome if today was the day?

"He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.'  Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus."  - Revelation 2:20

Resurrection, Again...

Resurrection is a frequent topic for discussion among those of us that try to see the bigger picture of the Judeo Christian worldview.  I mean, what could be a more appropriate and exciting thing to talk about - what with the Kingdom of God having already been inaugurated back there in the first century, and what with the promise from the Lord that he will return and one day bring that Kingdom to our planet fully.

But even with that great promise - the promise that makes the Judeo-Christian story the greatest story ever told - there are many times I've been left asking "What about today?".

So about today, I'm reminded of one of my favorite Psalms.  In it, David is dealing with the everyday dangers of being king of a fledgling nation.  He was, as he was often, concerned with the enemies of Israel.  He was concerned with his personal enemies.  And finally, he cried out to Yahweh to look at him and to lift him above his oppressors.

At the end, though, David expresses his faith in God in a most beautiful way.

I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. 

Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

So I think I'll follow David's example today.  I'm waiting to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living... 

2012: Looking Ever Forward

2011 was truly a challenging year in my little corner of the world.  I hate to invoke a metaphor I use too much - but it was quite a mountain to climb.

We made a few big decisions, some of which have proven to be good.  For some, of course, we still await the verdict.

And all the while, the age-old conundrums mock us - "Why is everything so hard?" or "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or "Why is there so much suffering in the world?".

Christianity and the Continuous Improvement Mindset

So I'm working on a project to improve how we're going about the job of releasing millions of children from poverty in Jesus' name.  A part of what we're implementing could be termed a "continuous improvement mindset", and discussions on the subject reminded me of the following post I wrote a few years ago.

---

I worked in technology management for an uber-successful chemical company back in the late eighties and nineties. I owe so much to that organization because I've based a chunk of my approach to business, ministry and life on a few of the concepts I learned there.

Thanksgiving 2011

This year I've made a few additions to the list, but though every Thanksgiving I try - I can't seem to say it much better than this. 

---

You know, God does what he does in our lives through people - people that are gifted, kind and patient - people that have our best interests at their heart.

The Big Picture at Kanakuk's Link Year

It was my pleasure to spend the last three days at Kanakuk's Link Year program.  As I love to do - we started in Genesis and ended in Revelation.  We talked Covenant and Kingdom.  We envisioned the convergence of Heaven and Earth.

And most importantly, we found with our brains and felt with our hearts some invigorating ways to move our lives forward - ways in which those students will build (in bits and pieces) the Kingdom that Messiah will complete when he returns.

The students were both sharp and respectful.  The conversations were crisp and the re-connections with my old friends were just plain fun.

Many thanks to the students, to "the Adams" Martin and Donyes, and to the rest of the quality leadership team at the Kanakuk Link Year for their warm hospitality and for their kind reception of my take on the greatest meta-story ever told.

The Love of Beauty

In Tom Wright's magnificent little book Simply Christian, he reasons that our attachment to beauty is an echo of God's voice.  You could say that it's a pointer to Yahweh's original creation song.

This afternoon I had a few moments to gaze at Beauty herself, to hear the faint echoes of our Creator's voice reverberating in the high desert through which I ran.  

For me, the joy of running itself is a beautiful expression of the freedom that comes from truly believing in, hoping for and working toward the fullness of his coming Kingdom.

And then tonight I sat with my favorite coffee watching the sun settle over Colorado's most famous of mountain peaks - the longing in my soul slowly percolating to once again travel deep into the heart of those sometimes terrifying, always invigorating slabs of stone on yet one more adventure.

For me, it all points to a great Day yet to come, when perhaps, if it were possible, the air may be even a bit crisper - when perhaps, if it were possible, the colors may be even a bit brighter.  And when, for sure, the nagging fear that it must all come to an End - will be no more.

Father, thank you for beautiful moments like these - moments that echo your very own voice that fills and stills our souls.  

Thank you for Creation, for her pointers to New Creation and for the promise of the Resurrection where we will forever live with you.

Harold Camping, the Rapture and the Christian Hope

Well, it's Sunday, May 22.  The "Rapture" did not occur yesterday and Christians did not fly away to Heaven.  And so I'm still here - in my office - on planet Earth.

Thank God!

I'll spare you the details of exactly why Harold Camping is both a moron (in modern terminology) and a false prophet (in Biblical terminology).  A multitude of websites have already discussed his foolishness at length.

Rather, I think it's a good time to remember what the Judeo-Christian story ACTUALLY proposes for the future of the whole wide world.

The Old Testament prophets, writing after the great Davidic kingdom had waned into the depressing Exile, looked forward to Yahweh's return to Earth.  His power, they said, would again come to his planet in the person of a great ruler - the Messiah.

Violence Visits bin Laden: Is Might Ever Right?

I apologize in advance for the length of this post - but the recent American military action bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, and the ubiquitous interpretation of the event from Christians prompts me to write, and perhaps write too much.  :)

---

"The Bible says..."

If there's one thing I've learned from the brilliant Third Quest theologians, it's that we must guard against the all-to-common habit in Christendom of taking a bit of the Bible and arbitrarily turning it into a "timeless truth".

The main reason we must guard against this habit is that the Bible is not merely a book of "wise sayings", such as "Confucius says, 'Don't eat yellow snow!'".  

Osama bin Laden, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and N.T. Wright

I hear you.  How on earth can I justify putting those three names anywhere near each other?  Well, hang with me for a bit - I'm processing the interesting international events that have unfolded over the last few days and this is just how it goes with me!

As the news of Osama bin Laden's demise spread far and wide, I thought of Tom Wright's excellent book Simply Christian.  It's aimed at both everyday Christians trying to make sense of the world around them, and at non-Christians that may wonder why we make all the fuss about Jesus and the Judeo-Christian story.

In Simply Christian, Tom identifies a few universal human traits that he calls "echoes of a voice" - echoes, in fact, of the voice of God.  I thought today of one of those echoes that has many times reverberated off the walls of my heart during the last troubling decade.  That is, the longing for justice.

Tom reasons that our longing for justice - the universal desire we have to see wrongs righted, to see criminals thwarted, to see the innocent protected - is a steadfast pointer to the voice and will of God himself.  These impulses are remnants, he says, of Adam's original vocational call - to steward the Earth and all its inhabitants with wisdom and justice for all.

To me, that's not only brilliant but emotionally satisfying as well.
 
But I'm also drawn to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's provocative situation and viewpoint as I ponder how the world will respond to bin Laden's death.  For me, Bonhoeffer's Ethics, on which I've written a few times around here, is the gold standard on justice and dealing with evil.  

I have great respect for Bonhoeffer, as do so many Christians, because of the unique perspective (smack in the face of Hitler's Evil) from which he reasoned.  Theorists and practitioners alike pay homage to him because of this.

FYI, World War II began with Bonhoeffer as a pacifist, and ended a few weeks after his execution for helping to plot Hitler's assassination.  

Easter: Resurrection and New Creation

I know, I know - Easter's a pagan fertility cult holiday that's been hijacked by the Church.  Well never fear - I'm no pagan, I don't have ties to a fertility cult and there's not a bunny in the house!  :)

I wrote this little bit last year, and the last 12 months have, if nothing else, served to heighten these hopes and deepen these dreams in my soul.

---

When I was 5, Easter meant shiny dress shoes muddied on strange little egg hunts. Sure, I vaguely understood that something cool happened thousands of years ago in a tomb in Israel - but loads of candy ultimately took my attention away from any pondering on that subject.

When I was 25, of course Easter meant more. It meant the sins I'd committed were really forgiven. That empty tomb was a great source of relief.  After all, the weight of my transgressions was no longer mine to bear.

But now, Easter means everything to me. It fills my thoughts for today and my hopes for the future. And not just for me and for my sins and for my agendas - but for the whole wide world. Easter validates all those dreams of the prophets and all those hopes of the common folk.

Because Easter says that this world and all of us that live in it are not throwaways, that we're not destined for the trash pile. Because Easter says that death and all its related horrors will one day be removed from our list of concerns. Because Easter says that everything will one day be made new.

And that means a tidal wave of possibilities has flooded into this world and replaced that nagging, incessant fear of loss that plagues everyone from beggars to board members, from prostitutes to presidents.

New Creation - some now and some not yet - for all who have eyes to see it. Yeah baby!

Father, we join in that great song of thanks to you sung by millions today across the planet. 

Thank you for your resurrection power that even now through your people plants the seeds of what is to come. 

Thank you for the day when Messiah will return to make everything new, when those with eyes to see will experience the fullness of New Creation.

Tom Wright on Apologetics

Those of you who've been in one of my classes should find this useful.  If that's not you, then you have my permission to skip this post.  :)

Last November, just before Dr. N.T. Wright arrived in Atlanta for a fascinating series of meetings I've chronicled elsewhere, Tom spoke at Trinity Western University on the subjects of apologetics, his book Simply Christian and, though he didn't explicitly say so, the application of a critical realist epistemology to the Christian faith (say THAT 3 times quickly!). 

Adventures in Space and Time

Some of the most exciting adventures I've experienced have been adventures in Space.  What I mean is that these experiences have been particularly adventuresome because of the location in which they took place.

Long backpacking trips in the big mountains, fishing in the deep blue sea, exploring the remains of ancient civilizations in the desert, packing loads of photography gear into glorious parts of Creation where it's impossible to take a bad picture - these are the adventures most of us remember for a lifetime.  

Seeing Nature

My sister sent me this video adaptation of Brian Doerksen's Creation Calls.  It makes me think about what people see, whether they live around the globe or down the hall, when they look at nature's beauty.

Some see the mighty hand of Allah.
Some see beautiful illusions that cloak the ultimate truth of Brahman or Nirvana.
Some see the glorious creations of Yahweh.
Some see the results of random chance.
And some just shrug their shoulders and see nothing at all.

I understand the many reasons why humans see nature differently, and I respect them all. Fact is, neither Muslims nor Hindus nor Buddhists nor Jews nor Christians nor Atheists nor Agnostics can prove that their beliefs are right, and all the others are not.

But as for me - well, I'm with Doerksen...