Thanks-giving is an Act

In this particular day, for whatever reason (though I think it has to deal with feeling a little worn down), I'm finding it somewhat difficult to feel thankful. There have been many times in my life where that meant I simply didn't give thanks. I numbed out, or went about my day, or continued to feel bad about whatever circumstance I was in.

The reality is that I have a TON to BE thankful for, whether I feel thankful or not. And sometimes, just the writing it, the act of thinking it and acknowledging it, can help bring the emotions in line. Giving thanks is an act of the will at this particular moment, one which I hope will spring up from deep in my soul and incline my heart to God.

Sidebar on "to God": I saw a great quote today on Facebook from Cornelius Plantinga Jr.: "It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public institutions often see this odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone in the institution seems to be thankful "in general." It's very strange. It's a little like being married in general."

Anyways, here goes. Thank you, Heavenly Father:

For Your precious, amazing, beautiful Son, Jesus

For the Bible, your very words, whereby I may learn and be fed and be transformed.

For the incomprehensible mystery that I may share in the life of Christ

For Holy Spirit living in me and guiding me

For the rich content of the books I've been reading this year that are drawing me closer to You

For the loving, life-giving friendships of the people around me

For my wife, who is a living, breathing, loving means of Your grace to me

For my son Aidan, who is making me feel completely inadequate as a father, thereby making me seek you daily for sustenance and grace to fail.

For my son Brendan, who is simply so cute and loving and mischievous and playful, he is a living picture of what you meant when you said, "Unless you become like one of these, you cannot enter the kingdom of God."

For parents who simply did the best they could, and who continue to love me and be available

For the many family and friends who offer prayers on my behalf.

and For hearing their prayers.

For this season of rest and renewal, and the freedom to let it be that as much as it has been.

For cooler temps to enjoy being outdoors and enjoy You there.

For a roof over our head, gas in our cars, plentiful food in our fridge and pantry

For the variety of music that helps me turn in awareness to You as I go about my activities.

For a forum to write, and gracious readers (all 5 of them...)

For helping my heart come just a little closer to you in gratitude as I write.

It's a Dangerous Thing, Frodo...

"...Going out your doorstep. You step out onto the road, and there's no telling where you may get swept off to!"

Every time I read this line from Bilbo or get to it in the "Fellowship of the Ring" movie, tears well up. There is something about it; the sense of adventure, excitement, the unknown road ahead. Just now I began reading CS Lewis' The Horse and His Boy for at least the 10th time. It's another book about a long journey, you might say out of "Egypt," which is Calormen in Lewis' fantasy, to the homeland, the one Shasta was created for, Narnia--though he's never even heard of it until now. He and his new friend the horse embark: "Then, still at a walking pace, it went northward till the cottage, the one tree, the donkey's stable, and the creek--everything, in fact, that Shasta had ever known--had sunk out of sight in the grey summer-night darkness."

It's the same moment in the journey where Samwise Gamgee stops in his tracks, and Frodo looks at him, and he says, "This is it, the most amount of steps I've ever been from home." It's this moment that leads Frodo to quote Bilbo's line, above. It's the moment in Pilgrim's Progress when Christian dons his backpack and heads out of town, driven by a specific call and purpose, into a path that he's never been on.

It's the moment when Jesus sees Peter and John near the shore hauling in nets, and says, "Leave your nets, and come follow Me."

He calls each of us to such a journey as well, and he promises, "I will never leave you or forsake you." He invites you and I into the journey, an irresistible call, and promises we will have his companionship no matter what "weathertops", Mines of Moria, "Battles of Helm's Deep" lay ahead. He knows we feel completely ill-prepared for the journey. In fact, that's kind of how he wants it, because then we have to depend on him, and let Him teach us along the way. Will you step out onto the road? Have you already? What's he saying to you in this particular part of the path? Fix your heart and mind on Him, and keep walking.

Know Your Place

I live and operate near an area of town that is known as a “rich” area. The Starbucks I frequent (VERY often…) always has Escalades, Land Rovers, Audi’s, and BMW’s parked outside it. My wife works in a job that involves customer service and interaction in the same area. Frequently, we observe an attitude of entitlement present in those who have enjoyed worldly success. What one person sees as something that would be nice, another person sees as something that’s due them. Jesus warned that money and knowledge so often foster pride and arrogance in our hearts.

But oh how often I do this too! Most often this has to do with waiting—we get upset if there’s more than 1 person in front of us at the sub counter. I get annoyed at the person relating all the days events to the bank teller while I just want to deposit my check and get out of there. When I worked at a small office at Grace, I would get so uptight when all the spots next to the building were taken and I had to walk—God forbid!—another 100 feet to the front door, or park in the tightly laid out spots where there was risk my car door would be banged and scratched by someone else’s car door.

The attitude can be present and operating no matter how much money one has. When I was a meat cutter my fellow coworkers complained about those customers who “thought their you-know-what didn’t stink.” I myself had the thought today, “What is a rich man but a poor man with lots of money?” While this is true, by such thoughts, are we just trying to promote ourselves as better than the rich person? Are we just wishing the tables were turned, because then we would be happy?

My friend and pastor Mike Adkins used the term “appropriate smallness” a few weeks ago in a sermon. This is the opposite of entitlement. It is seeking re-orienting my heart to the recognition that the rest of the billions of people on the planet are created in the image of God as I am, and have dignity, worth, concerns, struggles, and things to do. It’s recognizing that God is the Creator, and I am the creature, and am no better than the next person, whether I’m redeemed by Jesus’ blood or not.

Jesus said it this way: “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Happy, fulfilled, and satisfied are those who recognize their place in the world and in the kingdom of God. Who find their hope and comfort and identity in the sovereign grace of Jesus, and live with gratitude. Who know that whether poor or rich (and I know that I am immensely rich by most of the world’s standards), we are blessed by God.

Behind the Music: Love Like Fire

This morning in worship at Grace Orlando we sang a song from Hillsong "Love Like Fire" (available here). As I was engaged in worship and singing, a stream of thoughts began flowing through my mind, which I wanted to share with you. These thoughts do not reflect the main message of the lyrics of the song, but they are where my mind and heart went this morning particularly.

As a side note, one of the things I find so helpful in my personal worship, that is beginning to seep more and more into my everyday experience and relationships, is my theological training. I guess $50,000 and 10 years is worth it for a rich experience of God that I can bring to my ministry.

We must begin with the reminder that our God is love. There are countless verses in Scripture that make it abundantly clear. In fact, not too many people would argue otherwise. So in my mind the jump I am making is to sing thinking of God the person (God is love, but love is not God, as Mark Driscoll recently pointed out [I don't know where]).

In the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, God begins to manifest himself visually to his people through different representations of fire, starting with the burning bush, then moving to where he leads the whole congregation into the Sinai plain with his presence being represented by a pillar of fire. One that burns for all to see.

When Israel saw it, it was to them a constant knowledge of the presence of God with them. When Israel wasn't hiking across the plain and had their tents set up, God's "portable church" was also set up in the center of the camp, and there the fire would rest, representing his presence with them.

Fast forward through 1300 years of redemptive history to Acts 2. When the Father sent the Holy Spirit, it says that visually what happened is tongues of fire came down--this represented the presence of God entering every person who surrendered their lives to God, who believed on Jesus for Salvation and asked God to reign in their lives. Every person who "loses their life" to find it again in Jesus is given the gift of the Holy Spirit. The overwhelming significance of this is that the God whose presence was represented by a huge pillar of flame in Exodus now resides not in temples made with human hands but in the HEARTS of every believer.

So now, when we say God’s love is like a fire burning for all to see, it does so in an of itself (God displays his character in many ways apart from man's input), but in part he does so through us, as we bring Him to the world. When we sing songs like this in public, it is one way of publicly declaring his name to those who he has yet to bring into his family. The more his love consumes us, it can't help but be seen and touch the lives of the people around us.

******************

P.S. When we sing we want to worship at his feet, what helps is to remember that God is ALWAYS present, and every moment is an opportunity to worship at his feet through prayer, through activity, through service of others, or a host of other ways of inviting him into our daily activity.

Happy First Birthday to Brendan David

A year ago today I was working with a friend from church all day building stage props for Grace Orlando (big signs that said "GOD"). Early in the day, Anne called to just let me know she was starting to feel some contractions, that I could finish up my day's work, but we'd probably be heading to the hospital later that day.

After wrapping things up that rainy afternoon, I stopped by 4 Rivers BBQ, knowing that for the next 3 days I'd eat hospital cafeteria food. Everything went as planned, things were SOOOO much less chaotic than they had been with Aidan. Anne was admitted, nurses did their thing and we went to surgery prep, (required a C-section) everything was done with a sense of peaceful expectation... so different from the chaos of labor with Aidan leading to emergency C-section. At 1:23 AM Brendan emerged.

That was a glorious day, and all this past year God has brought so much life into our home through Brendan. Brendan is full of joy, rambunctious, always getting into everything. He recently learned to walk, which makes him SUPREMELY cute as he waddles around the house, frequently trying to go as fast as he can and tripping over himself.

God has used Brendan to show me just how much He loves me. No matter what Brendan does, I am just crazy about him because he's my son, and I care for him, I'd do anything for him, and even when he messes up it doesn't make me love him any less.

Happy first birthday, Bubba... I love you so much my little man, and I'm VERY blessed, overwhelmed with joy, to be your dad. I thank God for the incredible gift that is you. I look forward to all the wonderful times ahead, I pray many things for you, especially that you would live in HIS love all the days of your life.

All Creatures

For Christmas Anne and I decided to invest in a PS3, which of course is made by Sony allowing them to build in their own blu-ray player. Along with it, Anne got me several blu-ray movies and collections, including Planet Earth. We've watched nearly all of the discs over the last couple weeks, and I just have to say it is so humbling and overwhelming at times.

The intricacy with which every square inch of this world was created is astounding. One of the interesting things is just how much in the series is being filmed in rather "uncharted" territory, places where man never ventured to until the last 10-20 years. Places in the great deep, places far underground. If you've seen the series, you know just how amazing some of the sites are that they have found there: great caverns with delicate crystal murals, blind creatures in the Mariana trench seen a pressures that our greatest submarines could barely take, and endless forests in the Arctic tundra built for providing the oxygen for billions of people.

I've also been looking at the APOD app on my iPad. It contains many pictures of far distant galaxies that were unknown to man before Hubble came along. How amazing and perfect these distant worlds are.

When you consider that for 1000's of years (or more...) these things have existed without our knowledge, one must conclude that the Creator made them simply for his own pleasure, simply because he is God and must make his creation equal to his splendor. He spoke, by the Word of his mouth, they came to be.

So the only fitting response to such overwhelming beauty is doxology. We join with the song in Revelation 4: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." Another translation is "For thy pleasure." Simply because they bring joy to Him. God also created you and me for his glory and pleasure. Yet, since the fall, the story has been tarnished. But Scripture promises his glory and pleasure are still the theme, they are still God's aim for all things.

A couple weeks ago we were singing "All Creatures of our God and King" in worship at Grace, and the song took on such new meaning and significance in my heart with all this background. The rest of creation worships and honors God so much better than I do sometimes. It simply does that for which it was made. The sun was made to shine, and so each morning it explodes on the scene in such astounding beauty (thanks @KellyAdkins).

My part is simply to join in, to encourage it, to worship Him as humbly as creation does: "Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness, Alleluia..."