Restored Dreams

“In 2002 my family traveled to Europe and visited one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in the history of man: the Sistine Chapel. Many artists contributed to the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures within its walls, but the most magnificent feat is the ceiling painted by Michelangelo. From 1508 to 1512, Michelangelo lay on his back and painstakingly painted one gigantic spiritual, historical, and biblical account of man. But almost as soon as the paintings were completed, they began to fade. After years of fading, ill-conceived attempts to cover the paintings with varnish added to layers of smoke and dirt, and the original masterpiece was barely visible.

The Italian proprietors of the historical and spiritual international treasure decided to test a new process for cleaning the murals that lined the walls and ceilings. In 1981, a special cleaning solution called AB-57 was developed. When years of filth and grime were gingerly removed inch by painstaking inch, the proprietors were surprised by the vibrant colors that emerged. The process of cleaning the ceiling took eight years, twice as long as it had taken Michelangelo to paint it. Artisans were awed at the inspiring beauty, the ingenious craftsmanship, the intense colors, and the intricate details as the paintings were brought back to life. For the first time in nearly 500 years, spectators saw the masterpiece the way it was originally intended.

But not everyone was pleased with the restoration. Some local folks rebelled at the newly restored works of art. They had become so accustomed to the dulling filth and grime left by years of pollution. “We want our paintings back!” they cried.

It was difficult for me to fathom anyone not appreciating the vivid colors that the artists originally intended. Then God reminded me of His desire to restore our faded dreams with the vivid colors He intended. Yet some of His children are much more comfortable with the filth and grime that mar His original works of art. Yes, God has dreams for our lives, but many times years of disappointment diminish those dreams until they are no longer recognizable. God desires to restore our forgotten dreams to a beauty beyond our wildest wonderings. Can we bear the beauty?

… In Luke 9, after Jesus, Peter, James, and John returned from the Mount of Transfiguration, they were met by a desperate father whose dreams were being destroyed one seizure at a time. For years his only son had been gripped by demons and thrown into convulsions accompanied by foaming at the mouth and ear-piercing screams. ‘It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him,’ the father explained (Luke 9:39).

The nine disciples who had remained behind during Jesus’ absence were unable to cast out the demon. They had been empowered to do so, but with their positive influences absent (Jesus, Peter, James, and John), and their most negative influences present (the Pharisees and unbelievers), they lacked the faith. So Jesus asked the father to bring the boy to Him.

‘Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father” (verse 42, emphasis added). In one short verse, a father and son’s hopeless situation and God’s divine intervention were bridged by the powerful words ‘but Jesus.’

If you’re like, you may read the story of God’s intervention and restoration in Luke 9 and think, But could He do that for me? Could He intervene in my hopeless situation, lift the fog, give me clear direction, and restore the years I’ve lost through poor decisions?

… Beth Moore wrote:

Every little girl has dreams; and, if she trusts God with all her heart, nothing can disable God from surpassing a childhood reach with a divine reality. The suicide of her husband could not keep God from surpassing Kay Arthur’s dreams. Her sudden paralysis could not keep God from surpassing Joni Eareckson Tada’s dreams. Her horrifying stay in a Nazi concentration camp could not keep God from surpassing Corrie Ten Boom’s dreams. Her world of poverty and suffering could not keep God from surpassing Mother Teresa’s dreams. God surpasses our dreams when we reach past our personal plans and agendas to grab the hand of Christ and walk the path He chose for us. He is obligated to keep us dissatisfied until we come to Him and His plan for complete satisfaction.

Perhaps your life has not turned out the way you had planned. Perhaps you are at a place you did not expect to be. Remember this, even though we may have been thrown in a pit or tossed into a prison, God can use every bit of our pain to get us to the palace He planned all along.”

The 5 Dreams of Every Woman by Sharon Jayes

Lunatic or God?

“Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodded on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other man’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offenses. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is ‘humble and meek’ and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

It’s Inside, It’s In Between

 

“Times” by Tenth Avenue North

I hear You say,
“My love is over. It’s underneath.
It’s inside. It’s in between.
The times you doubt Me, when you can’t feel.
The times that you question, ‘Is this for real? ‘
The times you’re broken.
The times that you mend.
The times that you hate Me, and the times that you bend.
Well, My love is over, it’s underneath.
It’s inside, it’s in between.
These times you’re healing, and when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you’re falling from grace.
The times you’re hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry, and are tempted to steal.
The times of confusion, in chaos and pain.
I’m there in your sorrow, under the weight of your shame.
I’m there through your heartache.
I’m there in the storm.
My love I will keep you, by My pow’r alone.
I don’t care where you fall, where you have been.
I’ll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends.”

Reaching Out To God

“Prayer is often considered a weakness, a support system, which is used when we can no longer help ourselves. But this is only true when the God of our prayers is created in our own image and adapted to our own needs and concerns. When, however, prayer makes us reach out to God, not on our own but on his terms, then prayer pulls us away from self-preoccupations, encourages us to leave familiar ground, and challenges us to enter into a new world which cannot be contained within the narrow boundaries of our mind or heart. Prayer, therefore, is a great new adventure because the God with whom we enter into a new relationship is greater than we are and defies all calculations and predictions. The movement from illusion to prayer is hard to make since it leads us from false certainties to true uncertainties, from an easy support system to a risky surrender, and from the many ‘safe’ gods to the God whose love has no limits.” (Reaching Out by Henri J. M. Nouwen.)

With Or Without

I went on a mission trip to Slovakia recently for two weeks to teach English at a camp. It was an amazing experience for me and I know the Slovaks and my team grew in ways unforeseen. When people come together to do work and serve in Jesus’ name, incredible things happen!

But I had a thought the other day.

That trip could have been accomplished without God.

We could have saved up the money, bought the tickets, planned the trip, and spent two weeks in Europe with the Slovak youth all without God being a part of it.

The difference is that if we had accomplished that trip without God, the impact and the relationships formed would not be as great, as deep, or as fulfilling.

We need God when we’re serving this world, when we’re serving Him. To try to please God without taking Him into full consideration is pointless. It doesn’t make Him happy and it doesn’t do us good because we don’t reap the spiritual benefits in this life or the heavenly benefits in the next.

I don’t know about you, but I want Him to be there every step of the way. If we’re striving to be strong followers of Christ, we must continuously allow Him to lead us. How can you let Him lead you today?

The Easy Way Out

I like to take the easy way out as often as I can. This morning, for instance, I realized some of my shirts were wrinkled. Iron them? No, too much work. The easiest solution in my eyes would be to pop them back in the dryer and let the machine do the de-wrinkling for me.

This situation gave me a thought. How often do Christians try to take the easy way out in their faith?

How many Christians go to church every Sunday morning, but then don’t live out what they learn, don’t strive to grow throughout the rest of the week?

How many Christians tithe when it’s convenient, when they know they have a stable income and they can spare that 10 percent?

How many Christians pray before dinner with the family and think that constitutes as enough communication with our heavenly Father?

Or how many Christians hand a homeless guy a few bucks, but then don’t forgive their coworker because they think they fulfilled their “kindness quota” for the day?

To be honest, I think a lot of Christians are guilty of taking the easy way out. And some time or other, I’m sure you and I have both been guilty too.

A secret we deep down know, though, is that the easy way out, though convenient and often fast-paced, hurts us more than helps. When we skip out on the extra effort and extra time, we also skip out on the extra growth in our relationship with God.

In what areas of your life do you think you’ve been trying to take the easy way out? This week, resolve to go the extra mile in your communication with God, in your acts of integrity and character, and in your love towards others.

When we stop taking the easy route, we discover a whole set of new opportunities that will not only benefit us, but benefit others as we walk as believers in this world.

Desperate For The Spirit

An excerpt from Forgotten God by Francis Chan:

“A while back a former gang member came to our church. He was heavily tattooed and rough around the edges, but he was curious to see what church was like. He had a relationship with Jesus and seemed to get fairly involved with the church.

After a few months, I found out the guy was no longer coming to the church. When asked why he didn’t come anymore, he gave the following explanation: ‘I had the wrong idea of what church was going to be like. When I joined the church, I thought it was going to be like joining a gang. You see, in the gangs we weren’t just nice to each other once a week- we were family.’ That killed me because I knew that what he expected is what the church is intended to be. It saddened me to think that a gang could paint a better picture of commitment, loyalty, and family than the local church body.

The church is intended to be a beautiful place of community. A place where wealth is shared and when one suffers, everyone suffers. A place where when one rejoices, everyone rejoices. A place where everyone experiences real love and acceptance in the midst of great honesty about our brokenness. Yet most of the time this is not even close to how we would describe our churches.

Without the Spirit of God in our midst, working in us, guiding us, and loving through us, we will never be the kind of people who make up this kind of community. There is no such thing as a real believer who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit, or a real church without the Spirit. It’s just not possible. But what is possible is that we would individually and corporately quench and hinder the Spirit’s activity in and through our lives.

As for me, I am tired of talking about what we are going to do. I am sick of talking about helping people, of brainstorming and conferencing about ways we can be radical and make sacrifices. I don’t want to merely talk anymore. Life is too short. I don’t want to speak about Jesus; I want to know Jesus. I want to be Jesus to people. I don’t want to just write about the Holy Spirit; I want to experience His presence in my life in a profound way.

… No matter where you live and what your days look like, you have the choice each day to depend on yourself, to live safely, and to try to control your life. Or you can live as you were created to live- as a temple of the Holy Spirit of God, as a person dependent on Him, desperate for God the Spirit to show up and make a difference. When you begin living a life characterized by walking with the Spirit, that is when people will begin to look not to you but to our Father in heaven and give Him the praise.”

You Can’t Erase Truth

This is for the people who stare at suffering and evil, and ask why. This is for the people who believe in a loving God, but are afraid to believe in a loving God who would send some of His children to eternal damnation. This is for the people who deep down want to know God as He is and accept Him all the same. His ways are higher than ours.

The following excerpt I retyped for my readers (yes, I love you all that much!) is from Erasing Hell by Francis Chan, which astonished and astounded me to my core. I hope it shakes you just the same.

“I often hear people say, ‘I could never love a God who would…’

Who would what? Who would disagree with you? And do things that you would never do? Who would allow bad things to happen to people? Who would be more concerned with His own glory than your feelings? Who would- send people to hell?

But this makes about as much sense as the clay looking up at the Potter and saying, ‘I really think you messed up here, let me show you a better way to mold me.’ Picture the absurdity! Yet we do it all the time.

In fact, I do it all the time.

… I am just now seeing the ugliness of my actions. Like the nervous kid who tries to keep his friends from seeing his drunken father, I have tried to hide God at times. Who do I think I am? The truth is, God is perfect and right in all that He does. I am a fool for thinking otherwise. He does not need nor want me to ‘cover’ for Him. There’s nothing to be covered. Everything about Him and all He does is perfect.

… Early on in the Bible, we read that people have become so evil that God regrets making them. So what does He do? He decides to save some animals and eight of His people- and then He kills the rest. But He doesn’t just kill them. He drowns them all with a massive flood (Gen. 6-8).

A flood? He drowns everyone? If I were God, I wouldn’t have done that.

Later on, Moses is up on a mountain while the Israelites are down below worshipping a golden calf. When Moses comes down, God commands the Levites to whet their swords and run through the camp and slaughter their brothers and fathers and neighbors (Ex. 32:27). Three thousand people died that day, and the Levites were blessed for their obedience! They didn’t stop to figure out whether or not the Potter’s ways were just.

Years later, God commands the Israelites to slaughter all the inhabitants of Canaan (Deut. 20:16-18). Men, women, and children- every… single… one. Even though God is merciful, He tells them to take no prisoners. Slaughter them all.

If I were God, I wouldn’t have done that.

While the Israelites are conquering the land of Canaan, a man named Achan steals some treasures from the town of Jericho. He lies about it, but when confronted he confesses his sin and returns the items. Nevertheless, Achan and his family- including all of his possessions, tent and all- are all stoned to death as a result (Josh. 7).

If I were God, I wouldn’t have allowed that, let alone commanded it.

Many years later, God commands the prophet Ezekiel to do some pretty wild things. Ezekiel is told to lie on his right side for 390 days, to lie on his left side for 40 days, to cook food over human dung, to hold himself back from mourning over his wife’s death when God takes her, and to preach sermons laced with sexually explicit rhetoric that would be rated NC-17 were it put to film today.

I definitely wouldn’t have done all that if I were God.

The fact is, Scripture is filled with divine actions that don’t fit our human standards of logic or morality. But they don’t need to, because we are the clay and He is the Potter. We need to stop trying to domesticate God or confine Him to tidy categories and compartments that reflect our human sentiments rather than His inexplicable ways.

We serve a God whose ways are incomprehensible, whose thoughts are not like our thoughts. Ultimately, thoughts of God should lead to joy, because those same thoughts designed the cross- the place where righteousness and wrath kiss.

Would you have thought to rescue sinful people from their sins by sending your Son to take on human flesh? Would you have thought to enter creation through the womb of a young Jewish woman and be born in a feeding trough? Would you have thought to allow your created beings to torture your Son, lacerate His flesh with whips, and then drive nails through His hands and feet? Parents, imagine it.

I’m almost sure I would not have done that if I were God.

Aren’t you glad I’m not God?

It’s incredibly arrogant to pick and choose which incomprehensible truths we embrace. No one wants to ditch God’s plan of redemption, even though it doesn’t make sense to us. Neither should we erase God’s revealed plan of punishment because it doesn’t sit well with us. As soon as we do this, we are putting God’s actions in submission to our reasoning, which is a ridiculous thing for clay to do.

Yet God doesn’t call us  to be stoic about our painful experiences. He expects us to wrestle, and He knows that we will experience pain in this life. Life does deal us some heavy blows, and it’s natural- human- for us to weep, struggle, and cry out in desperation. God calls us to ‘weep with those who weep’ (Rom. 12:15). Even Jesus did this (John 11:35).

Take Job for example. Job was literally the most righteous person in the entire world (the Bible actually says that), and yet he suffered intensely. In a single moment, God took all of his property, his possessions, and even his whole family. And as if this wasn’t enough, God allowed Job to suffer from a physical disease- possibly elephantiasis- that produced unbearable pain… Naturally, Job demanded some answers. He deserved to know what God was doing. He had every cause to sit God down and have Him explain a few things.

Or did he? Again, think potter and clay.

Job did get his chance to enter the courtroom and plead his case, but when he did, Job quickly discovered that he didn’t get to put God on the stand and bombard Him with questions. Instead, Job found himself in the hot seat, and God rebuked him for thinking that he knew better than his Maker: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?’ (Job 38:4); ‘Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this’ (38:18); ‘I will question you, and you make known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?’ (40:7-8); ‘Shall the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?’ (40:2).

…What if God, whose wisdom and justice are beyond our understanding, decided to rain down severe suffering upon Job without feeling the need to tell him why? Do you want to love a God who would do this? Could you love a God like this?

Job did. In fact, after stepping down from the interrogation stand, Job clung to God even more, despite the fact that he never received answers to his questions. Job’s response is remarkable: ‘I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you’ (Job 42:5). In other words, Job used to know God from a distance (‘by the hearing of the ear’), but now, after having been through the grind and clinging to God when nothing else made sense, Job knew God in a much more intimate way (‘now my eye sees you’). And with that, Job arrived at the most important point: It’s not about figuring out all of the mysteries of God, but embracing Him and cherishing Him- even when he doesn’t make perfect sense to us.

Jeremiah had a similar experience and came to the same conclusion. After the Babylonians ripped through Israel, slaughtering and torturing men, women, and children, Jeremiah threw up his arms and cried out, ‘You have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity’ (Lam. 2:21). That’s not a typo. You read it correctly. This is exactly what Jeremiah said. He believed that the actions of the Babylonians were ultimately acts of God. As Jeremiah looked around and saw a bunch of bodies lying in the street, he said, ‘God did that.’

… Jeremiah goes on in his lament to speak of the appalling images of the Babylonian invasion. Starving women eat their own children. Leaders hang by their hands. Children lay dead on the streets because of starvation… But through it all- through tears, pain, confusion, anger, and doubt- Jeremiah clung to the faithfulness and goodness of God, even though he didn’t feel that God was very good at the moment:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam. 3:21-23)

In the midst of his pain and confusion, Jeremiah clung to the fact that God was God and Jeremiah was not. He let the Potter be the Potter and understood that he was clay.

Throughout Scripture and throughout history, godly women and men have embraced the God of Job and Jeremiah. They held on to a God whom they didn’t always understand; a God who is immeasurably good, even though circumstances in life seem to suggest otherwise.

… As I have said all along, I don’t feel like believing in hell. And yet I do. Maybe someday I will stand in complete agreement with Him, but for now I attribute the discrepancy to an underdeveloped sense of justice on my part. God is perfect. And I joyfully submit to a God whose ways are much, much higher than mine.”

The Skinny On Fasting

The Skinny On Tithing