Following

Lately, I've been on a sort of adventure in life. Since the summer, I've been slowly walking more and more in faith towards a calling. I can't share all the details of the calling in particular here, but everyday I have more and more revealed to me. But throughout this process, I think a lot of people near have started to think that there may be something wrong. They see that I have changed. My passions are different. My motivations more human now, and less personal.

Through this change I started by asking for God to give me His "heart". I found that within a few months, my heart had changed. I found myself caring deeply for others, more deeply than I had in my whole life. As I lived in this new reality, my joy increased, and the more I lived in my "old" life, the less enjoyment I found. I think that this new perspective has changed me.

Then as I began to walk in this new understanding, I took a leap of faith in a trip to South Africa. Before the trip, I prayed that God would give me His "eyes" that I may see what He sees on my trip. As I was there, we traveled to Mozambique and Swaziland. One night in Swaziland at a church meeting in a tent, I saw. I saw a young girl dancing her heart out on the stage. But there was something "different" about that girl, and I knew it wasn't worldly, but I couldn't put my finger on it either. The heart that God had given me reached out to her in spirit.

It wasn't until Pastor Dave, the one man on the trip, got up to speak. He is considered sort of a mini-prophet in that he gives words to people and reveals truths in their lives. He encourages them like a father. So there he was, mid-sermon on a stage in Swaziland when suddenly he knelt down, pointed at this girl, and gave her a word right there in front of everyone. I finally realized that what I've been "seeing" in people, is what God sees. I only lacked the interpretation. So I prayed that God would instruct me on what to do next.

I walked up to the girl afterwards and told her that I noticed her and encouraged her in the word given to her. She broke down in tears and asked "why me? why is this all happening to me?". I told her simply "God sees you". Do we need another reason? It turned out that she had come from the poorest of the poor, and God had been lifting her up to levels of glory in His kingdom. The latest Word of the Lord was that her voice would be heard throughout the world. Wow. Why? Because God saw her through me, and through Dave.

But it wasn't as if I had some super spiritual revelation hit me over the head. It was a slow and steady walk. It was, is, a walk of faith. That is not a magical transformation, it's a natural one. It is a rebirthing. It takes time.

So lately I realized that the heart and eyes of God are great, but without a way to understand what that means, or what to do with those sightings or feelings, it is useless. So lately I have prayed that God would grant me His wisdom.

Wisdom is an interesting thing to pray for. You must realize that if you pray for something, God will bring about the things in your life to challenge you. Once I prayed for compassion, and that same day, God presented me friends from church whose Uncle died and I was called to comfort them. So evidently when you pray for wisdom, God brings situations in front of you that you are a called to respond to. I say respond, because in most we are asked to "judge", but I found quickly that "judging" is not what we are called to do. In the past few weeks, I had many of these situations - situations that I could not possibly decipher on my own with my mortal logic.

So I am excited about this journey, but also scared. I'm scared because I keep praying and keep hearing and seeing the response. But I keep praying that I keep following, that I will not let Jesus out of my sight or try to do this on my own. I know how quickly that can happen and how powerless it really is. I don't know what is around the next bend, or what I will need next from God in prayer, but I just know that experiencing the provision of God, is an amazing experience, and pray that others can experience this as they too walk in faith, and not by sight.

Rules and Regulations

I've found myself bucking the system lately.  This system is one comprised of rules and laws and endless stream of tradition.  This system is the "church" as we know it.  This system isn't working.

Within the past few months, I've wanted a deeper walk with God. I've prayed that he give me His heart, and he gave it to me.  I can't walk into a situation and not feel it as God would. I often find myself trying to figure out these feelings, and searching my motives and testing my actions because of the power of this feeling of love.  He has granted my heart to increase in love for those hurting around me. How do I put that in a box?

Then, before I went to South Africa, I prayed that He would grant me His eyes, that I may see people as God see them, and he granted them to me.  I can pick out the lost and hungry and hurting in a room. I can look into their eyes and see their soul and watch their heart cry out. For those of you thinking, this is "BS", I can tell you that this is a terrible burden to bear.  It's like you walk around and see half the people with a sign over their head with what is keeping them from abundant life.  But the sign is very fuzzy and I can't read it without getting really close.

I've discovered that these two gifts of God can easily get me into trouble. So I have prayed for God's wisdom as well. It doesn't help to feel and see, if you don't know what to do!  This was a recent addition, but I believe I am in the transition period of receiving this gift through the journey He has been taking me on.

This past weekend has kicked of that journey in the full.  I won't go into any details, but I've been confronted by one in the ministry about my love and connection with those around me.  In particular, we had a disagreement over how close I should get to those who hurt.  As a backstory, I've been counseling people one-on-one over chat for a while now, and predominately women.  I have also been called to be a father to the fatherless of some of my youth, both girls and boys, but particular girls (most likely due to raw statistics in that area)

The issue that this fellow ministry friend brought up was that I should NEVER be alone with a woman. NEVER drive in the same car alone with them and NEVER talk to them without another person present. I respectfully disagreed with these rules.  The kids I counsel would NEVER trust anyone else with what I have been entrusted with, would NEVER see me as anything but a friend, father and counselor because I and God would not allow it and I would NEVER leave a youth alone if I felt they were endanger.  Quite frankly, I don't think this person has dealt with non-church kids on a level that is required in this day and age.

Now I've been struggling with this whole topic for a while, and honestly, this person's wisdom is good, don't get me wrong. I've actually am trying to get myself out of a place where others could see something happening that isn't that would compromise my ministry.  But here's the thing that I can ABSOLUTELY promise this person... I cannot stand back and watch people hurt.  I can't do it.  I now have the heart and eyes of God and the burden in that is that I see your hurt and their hurt and cannot help but to reach a hand out to heal.  In fact, I really don't care if it looks "good" or not, I don't consider the consequences... I value loving others above making myself look good.

1 Corinthians 10:24

Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

So my focus is to build you up, and to build them up, and more importantly to figure out how to heal you so that the cry of your heart can be comforted.  So yes, I will go out of my way for you, and bring you food and water when you need it.  I will hold the door and ask you how your day was and even offer you a back rub in a public place because "that's what Jesus would do".  Plain and simple.  But yet, my motives are constantly questioned, my relationship with that person constantly reminded. Can this world not see a glimmer of perfect love and think it's something it's not? I tire of that world. I hate that life.

Luke 14:26-17

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life — he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Instead, I get a litany of rules and regulation and standards and best practices written by men to control men. I get these recited, page after page, the levitical nature of a church trying to control and to put the power of God in a box. This has bothered me ever since I heard it, not because I disagree with the inherent wisdom (again I'm taking that into consideration) but by the fact that you, the church, are trying to protect others from this love that God has for them. How am I to touch the world when you make me to wear oven mitts just in case I might get burnt? Isn't our God more powerful and mighty than that? I think so.

And so I've been praying that God would answer this and reveal to me some kind of confirmation that I'm not crazy.  This person has recently told me that I need to seek help because evidently this thing welling up within me is not of God.  I am taking this person's advice and working on increasing the number of men of God with whom I communicate, but I still wanted more, I needed to know that my desire to reach out and touch the world one-on-one was not a deception. And of course, God answered.  He does that for me. (Thanks God!)

I was chatting with the husband of one of my friends from camp. He's a pastor out in Pittsburgh and he reassured me on a number of fronts, and provided some ideas on other fronts. But he mentioned a verse about how we shouldn't even produce the "appearance of sin". I wanted to look up that verse so I could read more (it's good advice) and I was doing a keyword search. I think God had a different verse in mind for me this morning:

Colossians 2:20-26

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Bingo. This is what I believe. I take the bible at it's word, and take God at His word.  I can give you other verses that say this in other ways, namely Romans Chapter 8.  We no longer operate under the law, we operate above the law (cue Knight Rider theme song)

The church has lived in fear.  Fear that something bad could happen if we dare to love the world as Jesus intended. We make rules and regulations and boundaries to "protect" ourselves from ourselves and then we worship those rules and judge others on how well the abide by them. I have news for you, church... that's not Christianity, that's something not of God.

In fact, if you really are ready to do the work of the Kingdom,

you better come to terms with an important axiom: 

Love is inherently dangerous

I'm not saying that wisdom is not good, but if it inhibits people from getting the love of God and the good news, then I will use my own wisdom that is granted to me by God.  Why? Because all their rules in the world are not going to stop someone with a sexual immorality problem from not having those thoughts, but the love of Jesus and the power of the Spirit can heal that man or woman COMPLETELY. Of this I am sure because that was the ONLY way that I was cured. And to say otherwise denies the power of God. If that is your religion, than I don't want it. It is powerless and useless and should be thrown away.  But what I seek is relationship with the Living God, the God who has filled me up with Living Water that wants to flow all over the place. So I apologize if you get a little wet from the Super Soaker. Blame God, I'll give you His number.

Learning To Love Perfectly

Lately I've been chatting with lots of people. Well, less chatting and more or less counseling, consoling, and generally giving advice. I tend to pray for these people a lot and carry them in my heart. Typically these are youth who I've come in contact from various venues, but now always youth. But as I communicate with them, I undoubtedly get a word to speak over their situation. Sometimes that word becomes somewhat of a theme that breaks through in lives. So I would like to share this little "epiphany" I had.

We all desire love.
I think this is a generally common principal for all people. I am involved in a lot of social media groups such as Twitter, Twinkle, Facebook, MySpace, and have found that there is a lot of "crying out" for love that occurs. Sometimes it's a single mom just trying to make ends meet and deal with her kids. Maybe its a college student wanting someone to be proud of her. Other times, it's the high school boy wanting to talk to "sexy girls". It's a shame nobody ever taught him how to be a decent guy, I feel kinda bad for those boys. Or it's a high school girl "wanting to chat". These are all calls for love, for affirmation, or for someone just to take an interest in their lives. Everyone one of them is desiring love, and nearly everyone one of them is looking for it in the wrong place.

We are all capable of love.
This is another generally accepted principal as well. Most people invest huge amounts of time into finding love in other people. I observe my youth group. They constantly worry about how they look or smell or act or say to attract the opposite sex. They worry constantly about finding their parent's acceptance or affirmation. It is such a confusing time for most of them. Once again, they try to find their source of love in other people, and those other people constantly let them down. It seems that to our hearts, their is love to be had in people, and yet it seems to be a bait and switch routine. So what is the problem with seeking love in others then?

There is an order to perfect love.
This is the discovery I think I found. We all know that God is love. We also know from Song of Solomon that God chases after us. In fact, the whole body is a love story of a God who is madly in love with His people (aka, the Bride). He transcends into the realm of the physical to be with us and to reconcile us to himself. Whoa. Mindtrip I know. But the most interesting thing while Christ is doing all this impossible stuff is what he says. He is very specific when he gives us the command above every other command.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no commandment greater than these. – Mark 12:30-31

We've all heard this command I'm sure. But what I find particularly interesting is that there is an inherent order of operations at play here. I don't think that it is an accident that certain things are given order as represented by the placement of words. I believe that there is truth inthe general concept yes, but also in the way we are to carry out this command. I believe this because the more I see love at play in the real world, the more I see a specific pattern emerging, and that pattern is written down as the spoken words of love Himself, Jesus. Let's take a look.

We have to love God first.
This is the most crucial step, and one that we often times completely forget. We try to fast forward to loving others, and just happen to forget to love God first! This is this first commandment. So before you read verse 31, let's get verse 30 right. What does it mean to love God? I think the vast majority of people think they love God, but I think it's all in their heads. In otherwords, it's an intellectual activity. It's like trying to will yourself to love someone. This doesn't make any sense. It's like being obligated to love someone and just looking for the logic as to why you continue. It's like constantly searching for the reason to love someone. But we find this is backwards.

The verse above is mentioned in three of the four gospels (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27). Each time, the way we are to love God is spelled out in detail. Most importantly we find that we must love God with all of ourselves. We must love God with our heart, soul and mind. We must love God with an order of operations.

With all our heart.
Think about love. Do you remember those days when you were madly in love with someone and it made absolutely no sense? Maybe you know a young person who is in love. The ability to overlook faults, distance and compatibility? The kind of love where you just want to seek after that person? You know what I mean, that person envelops your consciousness to the point that he or she is all you can think about. That person is "in your heart". They consume your heart. The pull on every emotion you have and you live for them. Well guess what... that's our first step in loving God. We need to just fall completely in love with the God who chases after us no matter how many times we screwup. We need to give Him all our heart.

I think it's important to note that we shouldn't try to first rationalize God before we love him. Think about this in the real world. If you are a man and a woman is thinking of loving you, what would you think if she asked how much you made before she married you? Or what if you are a woman and the man asked if you could cook or if the women in your family tend to get fat or ugly. That's not love! Yes, the person has every right to think of these things, but that is trying to invent love with the mind. It is not unconditional. It is love that is being withheld and reserved.

So our first step is something for us to do. It is something for us to risk. How many times have you seen someone in love just act like a fool? Loving God with all our heart is an outward pressing of our emotions towards the object of our desire.

With all our soul.
This is the next step in our process for loving God. What is a soul exactly? It is the part inside of us that communes with another being. We frequently hear about people finding their "soulmates", and that is typically that person with whom you have so much in common, you can nearly read each other's thoughts and finish their sentences. There is such a closeness in a relationship where souls are involved. Do you love God with your whole soul? Do you share His thoughts and desires?

I think for most of us, we never get to that pace of perfect soul bonding with our God. We keep him at a safe and convenient distance, or we take him with us inside of that convenient little box we place him into. Interestingly enough, God will stay far away, or be available in that box because He desires to be as close as we allow Him to be, even though He desires to touch the soul of our being. Our second step is to let God in to a place where we commune with Him on a soul level; where we share His thoughts, see what He sees, and generally can finish His sentences. That is what God desires.

Loving God with all our souls is an internal commune with God. It is a connection that is formed between us and the creator of the universe where we become one. It is something that we cannot explain with our human intellect.

With all our mind.
Most of us live a life where our mind gets in the way. I know I do. I have a saying that I keep for such an occasion. "The greatest chains that bind are within our own mind". But that is because we let the grey matter jiggling in our skulls control our lives by leading with reason and doubt.

When it comes to loving with the mind, it can be a tricky thing. In order to truly love, we need to engage with our mind. We need that intellectual connection with the object of our desire. We need to know for real and for certain that the love is there. But purposefully reserves this form of love until after we have learned to love God with our heart and soul. Why? Because true love is not rational, but once the mind is engaged into a transformed life, it can be a powerful thing.

God doesn't want us to blindly love Him either. My whole life I have been taught to love God. I know a lot of bible verses, and have studied the scripture. I have been to countless sermons and read books on theology. But no matter how much I cram the knowledge of who God is, or try to rationalize God, I was still left short of something. But then somehow I accidently began to experience God and love him with my heart and soul first. I fell madly in love with God for no good reason. But now, my mind is engaged in loving Him. Now, doing His will becomes the only thing in life that truly makes sense. It is an altering experience.

So we must remind ourselves that loving God with our mind is important, but it is third on the order of operations list. If we try to love God with our human intellect, we will never truly experience God. When we love Him first with our heart and soul, and then engage our minds, that's when the really cool stuff happens.

With all our strength.
Strength is mentioned in two of the three gospels, and I figured that it was an important element. Whenever I discuss this topic with some of my youth, I combine mind and strength into a general "body" concept. It seems to me that the body functions on it's own three part system comprised of the mind, mouth and actions. So it's not surprise that strength is mentioned in conjunction with the mind.

One of the verses places strength last, and the other one places it before the mind. I think the order of operations at this point is adaptable for different people. For me, I know it is difficult for me to engage my body in something if it does not first make sense. Others have no problem laboring towards something based on love. But strength is one of those things that finishes our concept of perfect live that is attainable only if we first love God.

To love God with all our strength means to make this love tangible. In other words, loving God is not a simple mental exercise, no! It means getting off our duffs and actually sweating and putting physical labor into that which Christ has called us to. If you are reading this blog post at this point, I have a secret for you. Christ already called you, but its a matter of you responding to His call.

Not only should we make our love for God tangible with sacrificing of our time, talent and bodies to God, but we should do it with perseverance. To use up "all our strength" means doing something until we are exhausted and hungry. Imagine the difference in this world if we could tangible love God.

Wait a second. How can we tangibly love something that is unseen? Good question! Luckily Jesus provides the answer to us, but also the second half od this verse leads neatly towards the "how" part of our love for God.

Love yourself.
Where a lot of Christians get mixed up with this verse is that they "fast forward" to the "love others" part and skip over the important details. We've already covered the fact that we should love God first and foremost. I believe that's because with out loving God, and consequently, receiving that love from Him, we will always be loving others on our own power. This kind of love will not last. We need an eternal and true love that only comes from God.

But the other part that we miss out on in that verse is the "me" aspect. We are to love others "as ourself". This means that the magnitude with which you are capable of loving others is directly correlated with how much we love ourselves! Too often, we Christians, believe that loving ourselves is selfish or prideful, but the bible makes clear that we need to first love ourselves before we can help others. We are only able to love ourselves because God has first loved us. We can only love ourselves once we have irrationally and rationally fallen head over heels for God. At that point, he gives us the ability to love ourselves.

Many of us live lives of unforgiveness, but that unforgiveness is to ourselves! How can we forgive others if we cannot forgive ourselves? How can we convince others of the power of God when we have not allowed that power to change us? This is a huge and important step in loving others. If we are not able to truly love ourselves, then we cannot show perfect love to others because we will constantly be looking to acquire that missing love from others.

So if you are not able to love yourself, you need to look at your love relationship with God. If you have fallen in love with God with your heart, soul, mind and strength - then maybe you need to fall on your knees and repent of everything in your life that keeps you from God. Then, you need to "receive" His love back.

Love others.
Love is an interesting because it increases as you release it. The bible calls on us to love others, in fact, this is the most important thing we can do as Christians. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, expresses that without love, we are nothing. But to get to the place where we can truly love others and obtain that perfect love, we most follow the steps. If we fast forward directly to loving others, we will constantly fail. Why? Simple. We will be looking for love in others and be incapable of loving them in a selfless, unconditional way.

Remember how we are suppose to love God with all our strength and how weird that seems? Well, loving God in a tangible form comes when we are able to love others on this earth with this true and perfect love from heaven.  In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus teaches us that loving the "least of these" is the way that we show love back to God. Fortunately for us in an unfortunate way, there is always a "least of these" category of people on earth.  Once you have fallen madly and deeply in love with God, and then yourself, find these people and pour into them that love until you don't have strength to do it any longer. At that point, God will fill you with His strength. In our weakness, He is made strong.

The love that Christ calls us to is agape. It is selfless. It is unconditional. It is the kind of love that God has for us and it is intense and powerful. There is power in this kind of love. Power to transform lives and to heal wounds.  The other lesser forms of love can come after it, but if we can love each other in this perfect way, we will have an abundance of love - we will have an abundance of life.

The Trouble with Transparency

I'm not sure about you, but this New Year has brought with it some exciting changes and challenges in my life.  For starters, I have realized exactly how divergent my two aspects of my life have become.  I realized that what I feel in my heart had become torn from what I think with my mind.  In fact, this separation has been, probably for a good part of my life, the reason why I am viewed as passive aggressive.  I can think quickly and give nice, pat answers to things, but as a decompress that moment, my heart and mind take more time to process.  Suddenly I am faced with the interesting dilemma that what I had said or agreed to do is no longer inline with how I truly feel.

I'm not sure if I'm alone in this department or not.  One thing I know, is that I prayed from my spirit that my heart would be "true".  I've discovered now that this means an alignment of what I feel and how I act.  The trouble is that this is harder to do than it seems!  Sometimes we feel incredibly upset at someone and want to lash out at them.  Do we repress those feelings? Do we simply communicate with our lips what is overflowing in our heart?  What if we hurt people? How do we handle them?

The answer is simple.  To become transparent and live a life of integrity and authenticity.  And while the answer is simple to say or write in a blog post, the living of this simple truth is less than simple.  I want to look at transparency and how it applies to our lives in modernity.

Transparency is a term that our society will fast need to come to grips with.  As the information era progresses, and social networking venues increase, our awareness of each other is multiplied.  Each day, I get updates from good friends form my entire life, as well as cries for help from complete strangers.  I see embarrassing pictures posted and inner secrets shared through song and poetry and blog posts.  I can chat with them in real time from across the global.  I feel like I know these people better than I ever could have in real life.  Sounds like a good thing right?  Well, yes and no...

Last weekend some fellow high school classmates had a mini reunion.  I desperately wanted to go, but had already made other plans.  As I was looking through the pictures of people, I saw a few people tagged in the photos without Facebook accounts.  I friended the girl who posted the pictures and asked her if they had Facebook accounts.  I wanted to contact the one girl since we sang together in chorus and Madrigals.  But my new acquaintance informed me that she does not have a Facebook account because she is a teacher and it is frowned upon in education.

Then I take a look at so many in the younger generations that have no problem living their lives and exposing their deepest most hearts on the web in places like MySpace and Facebook.  Then parents join these social networks and freak out by the content and level of expression their children express.  Even my own wife has had this issue.  She may have a bad day, or have a deep and dark thought which she expresses through Twitter.  Inevitably, her mom (also on Twitter) will call her immediately to see if everything is alright.  The more I witness this interaction, I realize that sharing these things isn't wrong, it's just that our parents are experiencing incredible culture shock.  They have never been witness to this level of transparency.  They have never lived in a society constructed of so many glass walls.

But transparency is the key to living an authentic life of integrity.  So often, the Christian church has been seen as utter hypocrites.  Why?  Because they portray a level of perfection and polish that is most of the time a facade.  We all mess up and are all tempted.  But if we go out and have a little too much to drink and cover that up and look like the perfect church goer on Sunday, are we not a hypocrite?  Our message can only last so long when our heart and actions are not in synch with our beliefs.  Our hearts are not "true".

There are two options to resolve this conflict.  The first would be to stop drinking and live a life of perfection.  Of course we all know that this is just about impossible, if not for drinking but the countless other vices that we all work against like soaring gravity or holding back the hands of time. In fact, the bible pretty much sets us up for this failure. Well, not intentionally, but more or less clarifies the point that we will fail. The law shows us how unworthy and unrighteous we are.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- we are all professional screw-ups.

So what is the alternative?  Simple, it is to live an honest life.  That we try to do what we ought, but not hide that which we naught.  I'm not going to be ashamed of what I've done.  I laugh about it.  I don't condone certain activities.  I tell people where I have messed up and encourage them against traveling the same roads.  We are all in this life together, why can't we simply learn from each other instead of pretending that we have everything together?  I think this is the truth that the younger generation has brought to the wise.

Moving forward, I plan to speak what is in my heart and do what I say.  I have been writing poetry as an attempt to release those inner feelings at the risk of hurting or concerning others. But this is me, and if you are my friend, or if you love me, you need to love all of me.  The polished and perfected parts as well as the rough and tarnished spots.  In all, in shapes who I am as a living, breathing, organic human being and not a plastic doll of a man.  Be prepared to discover all of me, and I hope that you do the same.  Together we can share in our humanity, and learn to become better people in Christ.

Pearls

It's been a while since I've written on this blog.  This is due partially to the holidays and writing on my other blog - The Deep Forest.  So, apologies to those who have been wondering where all the wonderful content has gone.  Luckily for me, there are about four of you.  So without further ado I bring you a new insight.

For a while now, my friend Fran has been contemplating some deep and philosophical stuff.  Yesterday, all of the questions that float in his head began to coalesce into a substantial outpouring of ideas.  I have to give credit where credit is due, because this blog post originates from contemplating the questions he revealed.  Take a look at the original post, although it is not required reading.

One thing Fran brought up was the notion of the consciousness, soul, identity and the meaning of life.  Yes, these are topics that have befuddled humankind for centuries.  But my friend has this amazing desire to solve these riddles and a pretty good noggin' to make it happen.  As he poured out what was rampaging in his head, he unraveled some truths that I'd like to highlight.

Life is Knowing God

This is an interesting point that he brings up about what life is exactly.  Outside of breathing, eating, and generally consuming resources, what is the measure of a man or woman? How can one say they have truly lived if they take their bodies, memories, belongs and experiences to the grave?  Through works of our hand or our offspring we live on in memory, but very rarely are we remembered as who we truly were.  Fran noted that Jesus defines eternal life as "knowing God".  There are other portions of the scripture such as 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul writes of knowing God face-to-face.

In pondering this paradigm, I came up with an answer to the good 'ol "meaning of life" question.  Are you ready for this? Here it goes...

Life is Learning to Know God

Bear with me here.  We often times wonder why life "has it out" for us.  We have this notion that things should be easier.  We blame God for bad things that happen to us and spend most of our time frustrated with politics or people problems.  But, what if life - defined from the time you are born until the time we die - is simply an incubation period in which we learn to know our Maker deeper.  As we walk through this physical reality, perhaps these forces shape and grow a soul inside of us just as our environment and upbringing shape our body and mind.  This is all for the endgame of doing what we are intended to do... commune with God.

My friend also began to split a human life into various parts.  To simplify, I believe we are comprised of four basic aspects... body, mind, soul and identity.  Fran splits things a little more granular than I do, adding consciousness and memories.  For simplicity's sake, I lump both of them under "mind".  As I evaluated each of these aspects, I realized another truth.

The Soul is the End Product

Our bodies are physical entities made of meat.  I mean, we are 70% water and a few dollars worth of chemicals.  It is a shell that allows us to exist in space and time.  With our body we are able to move around and transcend distances.  We can roam the world in three dimensions.  Thanks to the fourth dimension of time, we have a finite period of time on earth.  Without time, we would have no movement.  Our bodies exist only because of these dimensional limitations.  We would be hopelessly trapped in a bad Star Trek episode.

Our minds also dwell in this time/space matrix.  I can remember what happened yesterday and use that information to "predict" what will happen tomorrow.  I recall people's attitudes and change my actions accordingly, often times with prejudice.  I can share memories of my childhood or recall lessons learned.  In all actuality, or minds act as a way to steady our bodies in an ever changing world.  Sort of like a buffer against the harsh whirlwind of time.  If we did not have memories, consciousness or experiences... our lives would fall apart.  With our minds we remember the past and perceive the future and rarely consider the present, but they allow us to exist in time and space and not be ripped to shreds by it.

Our identity is merely a reflection of how people perceive us at any given time.  Buddahism has the notion that "you can't step in the same river twice".  In otherwords, the river is in a constant state of change.  The only reason it looks the same is because it doesn't move from it's physical boundaries.  We too are in a constant and dynamic state of change.  All of us are flying around the sun at incredible speeds.  We experience new things every day that shapes us.   Our cells are constantly dying and regenerating.  It is only a miracle of God that we retain any semblance of "sameness".  Our identity is just the lingering memory of ourselves as perceived through the eyes of others.

Souls are Precious Pearls

So what is a soul then?  A soul is the end product of the process of living.  As we traverse this physical reality on a temporal plane, relating with God and others, everything around us is changing.  We experience pleasure and pain, sun and rain, hard times and good.  Life is a chaotic, unpredictable state of messiness.  But yet, there is a part of us that stays the same.  There is a part of that we keep and that cannot be altered or taken away.  It grows inside of us but it can't be viewed on an x-ray because it is not physical or temporal.  Our soul is something special.  Our soul is a gem.

Someone asked me if I knew why pearls are different from any other precious stone in the world.  I was at a loss for a response.  They told me that pearls are different because it is the only precious stone that is birthed out of pain from a living thing which must die to give it up.  Ouch.  Think about that for a little.  Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a pearl of great price.  Why did he make such a comparison?  Why did he use a pearl in His metaphor?

I think that the soul of a man or woman is absolutely beautiful.  It is birthed from the pain and the trials in our lives.  It grows in us on top of our weaknesses with the utter desire to know God.  I've seen the beauty of this pearl in the eyes of special people in my life.  I love looking into their eyes.  I can see the hurt and I can see the painful trials, but what I see is beautiful because I know that inside, a soul is forming.  It glows in a swirling opacity of deep crying out to deep.  It is in us desperately striving to commune with other souls, and with ultimately, with God.

Death is Only the Beginning

Lastly, I understood that the soul is the end product of life.  When life ceases, the soul moves on to be with God forever.  This brings new meaning to death because it is the point when the pain ceases, and the jewel is plucked from it's containment shell and set free to be drawn to it's sole desire.

The question I have for you is... what is the desire of your soul?  Are you living your life in a way to grow that soul into a beautiful work of art that has been bought at a great price?  What will the pearl diver see when he or she peers inside?  Will you let your pearl glow to others around you?  Will it's joy dance before the Lord like the smooth finish of a perfect orb?  Will it's desire be to adorn the crown of the King of Glory?

Resolution

It's that time of year when we look back on our lives and evaluate where we are and how far we have come.  I think my life has taken a rather interesting journey over the past year, and especially over the past month.  Some of you close to me my know what I'm talking about, and for the rest of you, well I may enlighten you someday.  But let's just say that I have taken a little hike through the valley, so to speak.  That has given me some much needed perspective.

Perhaps one thing that my little journey has taught me, is the power of prayer.  The weekend before Thanksgiving I attended a school of worship.  It was an amazing time of worship and teaching, but the part that resounded with me the most were the moments "between the cracks", the times that were not planned or found on the schedule.  One of these moments happened during worship the last night.  I literally fell uncontrollably to my knees and repented before God in tears.  I remember exactly what I cried out.

"Search my heart O God, make it ever true"

These were the words of an ancient praise song my old church used to sing.  I found that these lyrics are taken and adapted from Psalm 139:23 which I think is a little truer rendition of what my heart was crying out for:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts" - New American Standard

but just for fun, here's a version that really speaks to my experience even more...

"O God, let the secrets of my heart be uncovered, and let my wandering thoughts be tested" - Bible in Basic English

Now, what I didn't realize at the time I prayed this was the process that God uses to accomplish this relatively simple prayer.  In fact, based on the powerful and immediate response I received, I am now, more than ever, a firm believer in the power of prayer from a heart crying out to God.  That's because God systematically revealed all the evil things and gunk I had in my heart.  He uncovered all the secret things that even I had fooled myself into believing were under control.  He also put my thoughts and philosophies to the test and proved to me that I'm not as smart as I think I am.  At the end of this process, I was left completely humbled before my God and others, asking for forgiveness.  The amazing thing is that this all happened in about two short weeks.  So praise be to God who is alive and hears our prayers!

But one thing I'm left with now, is an overwhelming acknowledgement of a little condition I have.  I think I'm aware of this because I asked God to make my heart "true".  Because of that little suffix I added on to that prayer, He revealed to me something about myself that I had ignored, and that causes my life to be out of alignment.  That revelation is that there is an internal conflict in my heart and soul that needs resolution.

I don't think I'm the only one with this condition.  Simply put, I have two natures.  The first nature I call my "logical" or "practical" nature.  In that nature, I know who I am and how I should act.  I know just what to say to impress, or to calm.  I am really agreeable with everyone I meet.  I'm outgoing and do the right things.  In a nutshell, I strive to be the perfect person, husband, employee, youth leader, musician, pretty much anything I have to be.  I think when this part of me is working well, I'm good at it.

The other side of me is part hides in those darker recesses of my heart that are hidden away from view.  There is a subconscious part of me that is based on feelings and emotions.  This part dwells introverted in the background and mulls over things for long periods of time.  It's the part that writes poetry and music.  It's the part that takes deep interest in people and solving problems.  It's the part that talks in my sleep.  It's also the part that speaks to the body and prevents it from doing what the logical knows it should do.  It is the irrational and spontaneous part of myself that I let outside to play every now and then.

My little dilemma is that these two parts are nearly always in disarray and non-alignment.  For instance, I may agree with something to your face with my mouth and with my mind completely understand that it is the right move.  Then, just minutes later when the subconscious comes back from vacation, it will start to feel differently and process the situation with more input.  It will start looking at all the "what if" scenarios, history, personality, and such.  It processes emotion and cries out to higher powers.  In the end, I end up being highly "passive aggressive".  I agree to let people do something a certain way, and then seemingly despise it or downright trash it later.  In the past this has hurt a lot of people and I assume it still does to this day.  But the truth is that I don't intend to hurt people, it's just the way my brain works.

But stranger still is that I trust that deep, subconscious part of me more than the shallow, logical one.  It is the part that guides me and has an uncanny ability to predict the right path to take in most cases, at least when tamed by some logic.

So my whole life has really been a struggle to resolve the conflict between these two parts.  It would be easy to say that the feelings part of me is my "fleshly nature" and I should ignore it.  Romans 7 has a lot to say about this.  But what I find is that both parts are susceptible to sin.  In fact, I think that most of the time they hold each other in check.  The emotional is just as much a part of me as the logical.  My hope is that now that I am aware of this, I can start taking some kind of action.  After all, all things are possible though Christ who strengthens me.

So what I'm looking forward to as we roll into the new year is resolution.  I want my heart to be true.  I want to speak with my mouth what my heart feels.  I want my heart to feel what my mind thinks.  I want my mind to think with the compassion in my heart.  I want my whole spirit to be in check and in alignment so that I might have a "true" heart.  That I might have peace and that I might have resolution.  That is my prayer for myself this holiday season.

Worthy of the Chase

I've been pondering romance lately, due in part to reading a novel a friend is writing. It wasn't a romance novel per se, but it brought up questions, big questions, in my life that were begging to be answered. Much to her chagrin, I proposed that the ending was a cop out, that maybe something else could happen. I felt this way because all of these questions I had were added to and multiplied by, and much to my chagrin, never answered by my author friend. I wanted answers.

The reason I wanted answers was because recently, I've seen many marriages, including mine, stagnate. I've also seen the "enemy" rush into these cracks and begin tearing unity apart, especially in the lives of those in the ministry. I know that love is more than a feeling, but I couldn't help but think there had to be something more out there. In all honesty, there was something that I was lacking, a romance I so desperately needed. I was searching.

The nature of love and romance was revealed to me over the past week, and that revelation is something that just so happens to spread to many aspects of our lives. The following are lessons that I have learned through this discovery, and I share them with you here.

Love is a Choice
When we choose to marry someone, it isn't because we love them, it's because we "choose" to love them. Love is a verb, and requires action. I thought that meant taking out the trash, doing the dishes and remembering to say "I love you", right before that daily step of locking the front door. I had exchanged love for a habit, and my wife for a roommate in the process. Because of this, the deep longing for romance was still there, and the enemy uses that to pull us where we don't want to go.

Don't exchange true love for a feeling, or a whim. It's easy for us to give up on this choice we've made, these vows to another. There is a temptation to chase after another, but if we do that we are doomed to repeat a pattern that is never fulfilling. A living Hell. Remember that love, true love, never fails.

Romance is a Choice
For young lovers and newly weds, romance isn't (or shouldn't be) a problem. There is a freshness to your relationship. There is vigor and energy that, if it were possible to be bottled, would be a powerful aphrodisiac I'm sure. For the rest of us, we must "choose" to romance our spouse. We must choose to break out of the comfortable routine and do things that have us peeking out the window wondering when they'll be home. We must choose to pour some champagne and slice some fruit and go completely out of our way for another. Too often in churches, we ignore this whole topic and dismiss it as taboo, but I believe that this is critically important aspect of church life, because if romance is not present, fear, doubt and needs bubble over, and gives Satan a juicy foothold in our lives.

I once was at a "Men's Conference" at Word of Life in upstate New York. The speaker was an older gentleman who reminded me of a cast member of the Red Green Show. The guy was hilarious, but I couldn't doubt the love this man had for his wife, even after 50+ years. He used the phrase "God smiles at you when you are in the bedroom with your wife". I thought it was awkward and funny then, but now I realize that he was speaking of that romance, that spark, that candle that still glows after many years, that light that we should put on a pedestal and shine for everyone to see. And every time you choose to romance your chosen one, God smiles.

Worthy of the Chase
The secret to romance is the thrill of the hunt, the exhilaration of the pursuit. I once heard said that you can pick out married couples in a restaurant because they are the ones that don't talk to each other. What a tragedy that is! We must constantly be chasing our spouses and not get comfortable about the convenience. We wonder where the romance has gone in our lives, and yet we are not willing to go out of the way to chase her, or him - constantly. So if you are reading this I urge you, tonight, to chase after the one you have chosen to love. Read Song of Solomon and see the beautiful poetry of this chase for some inspiration. The romance in your marriage is not dead, the relationship is not in repose, you only need to make the decision to awaken it. And my wife, Jaime is worthy of my chasing.

Jumping off the Cliff
A few months ago I went "cliff-diving" with my friend Ric. This activity is exhilarating to say the least and involves climbing a 60-foot tall cliff and jumping into very tiny jagged, rock-lined pools of freezing mountain water, usually beneath a waterfall, far from any level 2 trauma unit. One time, both Jaime and I were standing together at the top of one of these cliffs, paralyzed to jump off. We were both scared to death. What if we misstepped? What if we jumped to far and missed the narrow window of survival depths? What if we were too close to the waterfall and got sucked under or did a bellyflop?

The fact of the matter is that there may be things standing in the way of reigniting that passion in your marriage. It may be secrets you keep, or relationships you've had, or grudges you've held. There's only one way to deal with these issues, and that's to jump off the cliff. It's to hold your breath and confess your sin to the other, and then take the exhilarating free-fall into the cleansing pools of grace. There may be tears, but there will be cleansing. If you ever feel that you cannot pray together as husband and wife, I suspect that you may need to do a little cliff-diving together. And remember, the first time is always the hardest, but after that, it's addicting.

Worship is Romancing God
Perhaps the more enlightening thing I found in all of this was a parallel drawn between our human interactions, and those we have with our Maker. After all, the Bible is really a love story filled with letters, songs, poems and testimony of God's enduring faithfulness and love for us. In light of this, you must remember that you are worthy of the chase. I know this because God continues to chase after you and I no matter how far we run. He chooses to romance us, but we need to choose to romance Him in return.

Just like love, we must "choose" to worship God. Sometimes we don't feel like doing it, just as sometimes we don't feel like loving someone. But that's not the nature of love, and it's not the nature of worship. The Bible uses a lot of words to describe this – seek, call on the name of, knock, run... but I like the visual of a pursuit, I love the illustration of the chase, I love the realization that our relationship with God is a romantic one filled with wonder, energy, passion and blessing.

Conclusion
This Sunday, I challenge you to press into God even if you don't feel like it. Romance Him. Speak to Him in poems that flow from your heart. Sing to Him with songs of love. Snuggle up to Him so close that you can smell Him. Whisper sweet nothings in His ear. Stay in that relationship and the true power of God will descend upon you and your ministry. And then, go home and do that with your beloved, your chosen one, in a way that is surprising, a way that finds wonder in her eyes, giggles on her hips, and magic in the mundane.