028

I'll notice the void in the morning.

For the first time in years, my Sunday has no plans. Work has provided a firm distraction from the absence of a functional church body. This isn't the first time I've given up the "sure thing" for the unknown, but my recent track record in hearing God is stretching my faith to its limits. This house, this location, and the seeming fruitlessness of ministry -- can I trust that I'm living in His favor? I never knew I could know so little.

Of course I'm marketable. This is irrelevant. I'm not fearful about finding a job. I fear it would be too easy to find another to resist the discomfort He would ask of me. But my direction is nil, and the blind cannot lead the blind. What good is the act of discipleship if I have no clue where to lead? Christ called the Pharisees blind guides... that's how I feel.

Bonhoeffer's words about the body being a privilege have helped. If God were to remove such a privilege, what do I need to sustain me? Should I even be looking?

I can't simply run to the next thing, regardless of how God has blessed this in the past. My flesh needs a rhyme and reason, and I cannot tell you why. It's different this time. God expects me to be intentional. Despite an awareness of my passion and vision, I don't know where to start that would offer me a shred of assurance that it's the appropriate step. That's probably the point.

027

I think the primary reason that online relationships are misleading is because we desire to present the best version of ourselves. What if we spent less time describing who we are and rather expressed what we need? I can promote myself on a media profile with the best of them, but it doesn't prevent women from discovering my passions are dealbreakers once I've invested. Wouldn't I spare myself some heartache if I utilized the she-focused approach from 20th century personals? Such as:

33 y.o. SWM seeking 19-33 y.o. Christian woman with an active testimony of grace. Must love children, walks in the park, coffee, and classic movies. Willing to prioritize kingdom work ahead of geography, occupation, academics, or financial security. Committed to holy living and a life of humility and purity. Short stature preferred, but not required. Interested? Call 574.xxx.xxxx and let's meet. No texts or e-mails before the first face-to-face, please.

Maybe I'm fooling myself, but that should sum up the confusion

026

"Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand the loneliness, they are driven to seek the company of other people. There are Christians, too, who cannot endure being alone, who have had some bad experiences with themselves, who hope they will gain some help in association with others. They are generally disappointed. Then they blame the fellowship for what is really their own fault. The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium. The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual this diversion may appear. He is not really seeking community at all, but only a distraction which will allow him to forget his loneliness for a brief time, the very alienation that creates the deadly isolation of man. The disintegration of communication and all genuine experience, and finally resignation and spiritual death are the results of such attempts to find a cure...

"Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (pp. 76-77)

025

This has lingered in my mind:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed -- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence -- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life -- in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. (Phil. 2:1-18, emphasis added)

Another season has passed. I've decided to quit my job.

The part-time job on the horizon will pay half as much, and this mortgage isn't going away. But I have never in my life made a decision based on financial security, and now is not the time to start. I've exhibited wisdom and good stewardship with little in the past. I trust that if God would ask me to live on less, He's not about to abandon me now.

I'm understanding the struggle in my mini-bouts with despair. Whenever I begin to grasp the world for personal identity, God must ask it from me. He has not created me to occupy a place, work within a field, or perfect a particular skill. I will never be granted the luxury of finding hope in being a homeowner, a writer, a nice man, or a minister.

I was molded and formed to praise Him... to point to Him. I don't have the right to claim another identity. When I try, depression surely follows.

Consider the Man that gave up His own throne to fulfill the purpose of the Father. Consider the hate, the lashings, and the betrayal. Consider the washing of His disciples' feet. If the Son of God rejected rightful acclaim, who am I to chase an empty esteem?

It makes so much sense tonight. Everyone God has allowed me to "keep" have belonged to Him as well. I no more can harness a friend or lover from the vain pursuit of self-identity than I can force myself into that mold. My mother, brother, and sister are those that do His will. My future wife is one without worldly ambition or contentment. We are exalted and remembered for His sake alone, by his hand alone.

What are my selfish interests that compromise a pure and humble heart? Where have I yet to become less?

024

Clearly, nothing I accomplish as a work in the flesh draws me any closer to holiness. Here's the question through which I must pray: how do we (as individuals and as His bride) posture ourselves to receive His transformational work? I'm hoping to toss out my two cents in the coming week, but I would be blessed to hear your thoughts.

023

Trying to communicate how I distinguish the church unity I found in St. Louis has been difficult. Because the human mind desires to wrap itself around human concepts, describing the nature of spiritual relationships with those that share my prior church experience is nearly impossible. Thankfully, Bonhoeffer stated eighty years ago what I struggle to put in words today:

One is a brother to another only through Jesus Christ. I am a brother to another person through what Jesus Christ did for me and to me; the other person has become a brother to me through what Jesus Christ did for him. This fact that we are brethren only through Jesus Christ is of immeasurable significance. Not only the other person who is earnest and devout, who comes to me seeking brotherhood, must I deal with in fellowship. My brother is rather that other person who has been redeemed by Christ, delivered from his sin, and called to faith and eternal life. Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community. What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else was added to our community; it remains so for all the future an to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. [Anthony says Amen!] We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.

That dismisses once and for all every clamorous desire for something more. One who wants more than what Christ has established does not want Christian brotherhood. He is looking for some extraordinary social experience which he has not found elsewhere; he is bringing muddled and impure desires into Christian brotherhood. Just at this point Christ brotherhood is threatened most often at the very start by the greatest danger of all, the danger of being poisoned at its root, the danger of confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship, of confounding the natural desire of the devout heart for community with the spiritual reality of Christian brotherhood. In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning, first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.

...By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

...Human love has little regard for truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person. Human love desires the other person, his company, his answering love, but it does not serve him. On the contrary, it continues to desire even when it seems to be serving. There are two marks, both of which are one and the same thing, that manifest the difference between spiritual and human love: Human love cannot tolerate the dissolution of a fellowship that has become false for the sake of genuine fellowship, and human love cannot love an enemy, that is, one who seriously and stubbornly resists it. Both spring from the same source: human love is by its very nature desire -- desire for human community. So long as it can satisfy this desire in some way, it will not give it up, even for the sake of truth, even for the sake of genuine love for others. But where it can not longer expect its desire to be fulfilled, there it stops short -- namely, in the face of an enemy. There it turns into hatred, contempt, and calumny.

-- From Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (pp.25-27,34 -- emphasis added)

Another portion of the first chapter recognizes the privilege we have in being given one another, even while independently having our dependence in Christ. In other words, though God has given us the wonderful grace of a physical representation of His Body, we are individually responsible for clinging to Him as our foundation. This is why a believer can be physically apart from the Body, yet remain in spiritual unity.

I find great comfort in knowing that while I feel scattered from my brothers and sisters, our bond has always been our dependency on Jesus -- a unity that does not diminish as we grow separately. It is not dependent on a meeting place, a worship experience, or an attachment to similar things, though these may be rightly desired. My heart and love is sustained in Christ, just as theirs must be from six hours away, should there be anything worthwhile in community. Food for thought, as I endure a physical struggle with loneliness.

022

Can't get away from it today. God must want to drive home the point. Many feel shamed and should know the grace He longs to give -- the arms that long to hold and protect. But among this current throng:

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." (Revelation 3:17-17)

The enemy would have us believe that the shamed are disqualified from the Lord's service and those with earthly riches have everything they need! Either way, growth is suppressed. Last week, I was processing through Luke 14; this parable is beginning to make sense:

Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can't come.’

“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

” ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’ ” (v. 16-24)

I can't get over the line "but there is still room." Jesus isn't grading on a curve. Even though the table has room, the Kingdom is not accepting those that would place their possessions over the feast.

I'm in a predicament. My employer considers me valuable enough to keep my job, even as His work burns on my heart. The prudent thing seems to be to hang on until God provides an out -- after all, if I quit now and the agency goes under later, I receive no compensation. But I have a nagging conviction that this shouldn't be my primary consideration. If Jesus were to say, "Follow me," and I told Him to wait until the nets were empty, would there still be a place at the table when my task is complete? Am I clinging to my earthly security and using "wisdom" as a crutch?

Crap. I think I've answered my own questions.

021

Merriam-Webster defines shame as:

1. a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety
2. a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute

Seems many around me are struggling with shame, but I'm uncertain how to speak into their lives.

020

Two weeks into my car music fast...my prayer life should be amazing, right?

Nope.

My listening skills are beginning to tune, but my willingness to ask has not improved. All in good time, my friends. In listening, my Jesus has hammered home this pearl:

"For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

"Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Luke 14:28-35)

I admit, I like that Jesus speaks in extremes. However, this passage perplexes me. Is Christ really asking us to go all in or not at all? If so, what does "salt" have to do with it?

It jogged my memory of a church I once attended. We were an intimate body of believers that didn't mind filling a converted gym with folding chairs every week. The youth group was growing too big for its space, and every room had multiple purposes. Because the church was not handicap accessible, county code required the church to construct an elevator if they desired to add on to the current building. As a result, the church leadership decided to begin construction on a new site.

What resulted was a nightmare. The members had not personally committed to the financial burden of the project, and construction was regularly delayed. Furthermore, the building was not constructed according to the scale of the original blueprints, making it grossly larger and more expensive. When we finally moved into the new sanctuary, it felt cold, impersonal, and unfinished. The church would be in debt for years.

We can see through a physical example how dangerous it is to ignore the cost. That isn't to say that God doesn't ask us to move by faith, but the people were not committed enough to the project to consider this a faith move. At the first sign of trouble, members were ready to dismiss it as a loss.

Jesus would guard us from that and pull no punches. From the start, he informs us that carrying his cross will cost everything: relationships, possessions, time, and heart. He warns us not to enter the war if we haven't considered the cost.

As the American church, we've made it easy. There's nothing costly about raising our hands among other believers or filling out a commitment card after a great service. We are greatly encouraged by the crowd to fully commit to Christ, without regard to what this means. We enter the war without an objective, as if entering the war was the objective.

The tragedy is that many are never informed that they've entered a war. Imagine the President of the United States recruiting you to join a club. He sells it to you:

"Join the club! We meet a couple times a week and the club is growing like mad! It would be un-American not to join the club!"

You're excited. You attend all the meetings, and your heart is stirred by the leadership. You've made excellent friends.

Suddenly, you receive a phone call from your local club leader. He's sending you to Iraq. He's sending your best friend to Afghanistan. Front lines. High risk of death. You're handed a gun you've never loaded and asked to defend yourself. Good frickin' luck.

Christ never intended to blindside us. This cross is heavy stuff. It costs everything. Not only are you guaranteed to stare your enemy in the face, you're powerless to defend yourself unless you're willing to die.

Now...who's signing the yellow commitment card?
Back to "salt" -- why is it so important to count the cost? Jesus tells us that salt that loses its saltiness is useless. My wonderful Greek instructor always reminded us that context is key.

The guy building the tower was ridiculed by his peers because the abandoned work is a reflection of the builder's folly. He didn't consider what it would cost. When he began, I imagine he was proud of his work. He told the guys at the barber shop and the people at the bar. The community grew tired of hearing about the tower. It was only natural that the prominent eyesore would be a source of mockery.

Christ tells us in Matthew 5:13 that we are the salt of the earth. As ministers of the gospel of truth, we will be noticed -- we should be noticed. Our hearts will pour out in abundance the work He has done. Counting the cost is purely for His glory: what use is a fizzling faith to the world? What use is a soldier without regard for the war? How can we communicate the gospel with conviction while fearing (or ignoring) the trials of battle?

Physically speaking, young men once took pride in being in the United States Armed Forces, because it symbolized a willingness to represent something larger. Soldiers willingly disregarded their personal interests for the hope of something to come. What was once a source of American pride has become an avenue for ridicule, as our country paid college students to enlist for other benefits.

I don't care about physical matters, but the same principle applies to our faith. When we commit to carrying His cross with anything other than His glory in mind, we cheapen the call. The coffee, fellowship, and music are nice, but are we ready for the war? If we had received the gospel with knowledge of the battle (and we should have), would we still have followed Christ?

But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:9-12, emphasis added)

019

It's late. I'm awake. What is a boy to do?

Groucho Marx (no relation) famously stated, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

That's the ten year story, folks. From April 2002 until today, I have been a subject of unmatched feelings: resisting the affection of a few to fail at receiving the favor of fewer. Silliness, right?

Today served as an appropriate microcosm for the decade. The wrong girl called.

I apologize. It's unfair to attribute this phenomenon to my first love. High school serves as a fairer origin.

My second weekend at Bethel, I met a classmate that divulged her life story. When she revealed that she had a man back home, I honorably made no advance. I went to work the following Saturday and returned to seven voicemails of mounting anxiety. Had I been a wiser man, I would have left it alone. I returned her call(s) and endured the roaring laughter of my roommate.

Minutes later, I darted across the parking lot upon spotting the beautiful girl beyond my reach. The conversation was short lived -- my stalker interrupted as if my present company was absent. The girl disengaged for the sake of the aggressive claimer.

Before and since Heather, the trend has repeated. Only for that blip have I experienced mutual admiration, and the one-sided sort leaves me beyond humble...into the realm of the uncomfortable. Of this, I have both violated and been violated.

I'm falling asleep at the keyboard; this will be tabled...