Cracked Pots.

Two years ago, today, Gene Cherrie--Laura's dad, passed into eternity.  I'm reposting this as a "shout-out" to an amazing man.

...As we prepared to say our final farewells in a memorial tribute to his life and legacy I ran across a pair of scissors that belonged to Gene.  My first response--I laughed out loud!  Then my heart was warmed as I realized they were metaphor for Gene's life--his legacy.

Gene's scissor project

They are an ordinary three-dollar pair, with customized handle--the one that your middle finger slips into.   It's been very skillfully fashioned from a one-inch piece of ply-wood.  It's clear that Gene had created a jig from the broken handle; carefully cut the wood using the jig, then shaped it with a grinder to fit precisely the targeted finger; sanded to be smooth and pose no splinter threat to the user.

The "stub" of plastic it has been attached to was skillfully reshaped to be the base for the new wood-extension.  The extension has been precisely measured so that the fabrication slips tightly over the stub with one end slightly longer than the other to provide the proper leverage as the scissors are opened and closed (Physics matter).  The extension has been glued to the "stub" and secured with three very intentionally placed wood screws, two on the long end, one on the short to complete the revision. The screw on the short end has been ground down just enough to allow the scissors to close precisely as they did when they were new just coming off the shelf at Staples.

I immediately asked Betsey, Laura's step-mom, if I could have them--she very graciously said "Of course, take them." As I've used these scissors, and yes--reflected on them--over the past several months, I realize they say as much about God, as they do about Gene.

This came clearly into focus for me just this week as I had breakfast with a dear brother-in-Christ and our conversation turned to the impact, the life-long impact, of sin on our lives.  There isn't a re-set button for the bad choices we make.  The grooves sin cuts into our lives are deep and stubborn, they don't simply disappear when we confess our sin and seek God's forgiveness.  The consequences of our willful choices and bad decisions are still part of our daily experience.  If it ended there it would be a difficult load to bear.  But, thanks be to God, it doesn't.

When we come to Christ through effective faith, God takes us as we are, then carefully, lovingly and skillfully refabricates our lives.  The scars are there, still visible--painful--but He restores us.  Like Gene's re-visioned pair of scissors, we become fully-functional again.   He never throws us away; He picks us up, dusts us off and empowers us to carry on.  The scars, the memories, they serve to instruct us each day about His gracious provision, His empowering desire and His loving redemption.

Paul writing to the Church in Corinth (4.1,2.. 7-10) instructs us...

"Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. 2 We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods...7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies."

Did you see that? We are cracked pots; pressed not crushed. Perplexed not confused. Pursued not abandoned. Pushed down not destroyed. Suffering, but fully alive in Christ!  The scars that remain serve as a map pointing others to Jesus. It is our weakness that serves as such a remarkable witness to the power of God--choosing the weakness of the human condition to transform our spheres of influence one person, one family, one neighborhood, one community, one nation at time. This humble path-to-power is, in fact, the real "road less traveled." 

I thank God every day for that pair of scissors.  They have an honored place in a simple container, with other tools we use on a daily basis, on one of the counters in our kitchen.  Each time my gaze falls on them, I remember Gene--and in that moment, the legacy of his life points me to God's grace, power and love.  He takes the "total-loss" that was our lives and transforms it to treasure..."all I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful out of my life."   He wants to do it for you too.

Say "yes" to Jesus, today, “...'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart' (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.'12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

Hallelujah, what a Savior!


Live it well...bN tGit

Vexed, not beaten.

Some years ago I was asked about a passing comment I'd made in reference to the Tower of Babel; the inquisitor wanted me to expand on the comment.

Over the years I've always attempted to find "dynamic equivalents" in the culture around me to help people understand a deeper principle from the Scriptures. The Tower of course was the penultimate expression of hubris on the part of humankind; our effort to shake a collective fist at God and say "See, you aren't so transcendent after all." Foolish pride led to an inflated opinion of who we were; God breathed, language changed and chaos ensued. We discovered we were no match for the transcendent God.

Fast forward to modern culture: God, in his grace, has allowed mankind to apply his intellect and ingenuity, these also graciously granted by God, to "discover" thousands of things that insulate us from the ill-effects of the fall: drugs, asphalt, steel, plastic, roads, air conditioning, engines, automation--the list is endless. We in turn, tainted by sin and swelled with pride, believeing ourselves to be wise "shake our fists" at God and say, "You see, the Scriptures are myth; there was a big-bang and then there was mankind and look at how we have evolved...we have the power to give and take life. We don't need myths to prop us up anymore. We are God." 

In reality, everything we touch we corrupt. Look at what we call our "system of Justice." We condition the air at the same time we poison it with hydro-carbons. We pollute the planet, poison our bodies, can't beat cancer or aids and when/if we do, something else always emerges. Regardless of how effective we are at blunting the effect of sin on life and the planet, sin always trumps our best efforts...and God allows it, to point us to our need for a Savior and His gracious provision for our redemption.

The farther evolved civilization becomes the further it devolves into moral and spiritual chaos--abortion, failed economies, addiction, violence, corrupt governments, greed, broken relationships, idolotry, shaminism, social injustice. Think about it, in 1965 LBJ gave us the Great Society. These unfunded mandates have done nothing to enlighten culture and end poverty--but they have driven us to edge of bankruptcy and destroyed families while perpetrating genocide on the poorest of the poor. The smarter we get, the dumber we are. We can run from God, but we can't hide.

So then, civilization as we have fashioned it, has become mankind's' most recent "Tower of Babel;" the work of "our hands" which demonstrates our independence, our ability to "get it done without God." We set out to be like God, and in a final irony, we create the very modality that could be the end of life as we know it. We can destroy it, but we can't fix it..."and all the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't put humpty-dumpty back together again." 

The lie that deceived Eve, continues to vex us; but we aren't beaten. This Truth has set us free..."When we were utterly helpless...God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5.6a,8

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Live it well...bN tGit

Silence is Gold.

The word "listen" contains the same 

letters as the word "silent." 

Silence conducts the still, small, voice of God; 

it is a discipline that pays big dividends... 

"Be still

and know

that I am God."

                Psalm 46.10

Certitude is found in silence.

Live it well...bN tGit

Hold Fast.

Peace withers.             
Order explodes.
Culture devolves. 
Hold fast.

Justice fails.
Virtue punished.
Truth hidden.
Hold fast.

Love lusts.
Innocence lost.
Hope vanished.
Hold fast.

God our stronghold.

He is exalted.

Cease striving.
Hold fast.

Help is on the way.

No purpose, no plan

will be left undone.

Hold fast.

bN tGit

Facts Are Stubborn.

Facts are stubborn.

It's easy to simply dismiss them, but then we won't--can't--make progress as a nation.

It's time Americans do what we have done so well for so long; put the best of both political visions, evaluating and applying the facts, to work and create a synergy that empowers our "We the people" political will.

The best kind of politics is not a "winner take all" proposition. That becomes a recipe for tyranny, regardless of whose in charge. 

The degraded ethics of the human condition make too much of any ideology, too much. The Framers understood this on a very practical level when they fashioned our Constitutional "checks and balances." It makes governance almost always too slow, and often very clunky--but even with this, it leads to better outcomes.

Step back, breath deeply, think critically and refuse the Kool-Aid people on BOTH sides of the asile have prepared for this election cycle. 

So much hangs in the balance of this election. The impact of what we do will almost certainly outlive all of us. It's important that we get it right--right being a leader that will govern to the highest possible standard.

Seem like an impossible dream? I trust in the Sovereignty of God. God has the ability to change hearts and minds, empower for service and give gifts for leadership that are "exceedingly, abundantly beyond anything we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3.20)."

I am voting, I am trusting God. Why not pray for guidance?  I am asking God to anoint this new leadership for 2017 and beyond with an ability to lead America to a commitment where we seek to "Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God."  Micah 6.8

With God all things improbable, even impossible are always on the table.

Live it well...bN tGit

Yes! Black Lives Matter.

These are difficult days.

As we march toward the election of our next President of the United States, I am reminded of Lincoln's words, from his 2nd Inaugural Address, spoken to a nation torn apart, divided and at war with itself.  

Those were difficult days.

Distress continues to divide us. As we wage an un-civil war of words--and worse--over civil rights, let us never forget that because this Nation lacked the moral courage, the humanity, to end slavery--we paid with the blood of 620,000 lives lost, an economy that took two generations to rebuild and a Nation torn apart and adrift.  Make no mistake: Black lives matter.

On that day as the Civil War raged POUTS Lincoln said...

"... Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

With malice toward none; with charity for all...let us strive to finish the work...A lasting peace, among ourselves, among ourselves--AMONG OURSELVES and with all Nations.  

May God's mercy rest upon us, may we turn toward one another; may we turn back to God.  


Live it well...bN tGit

Unplugged.

The Church in America is unplugged, it's powerless.  By power I mean spiritual gravitas which is the result of a clear anointing from God.  Most of the country perceives the confessing church to be the most conservative wing of the Republican Party.  I grew up hearing my mom say, "if the shoe fits wear it!"  Unfortunately, we've been tagged with this perception the old fashioned way, we've earned it.  We've chosen to contend for the soul of America using the political process--a grave error.  The shoe fits. 

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power."  2 Tim 3.1-4 

We routinely come to cultural "waypointes--places on a journey where the traveler can stop and change course."  It's past time for the confessing church to change our trajectory and become THE church. The fact is we've settled for sloppy seconds; too many of us worship in places that are driven by forms rather than power.  We've allowed popular culture to shape our vision of what Christ's church should be, what it should look like; we have embraced the wrong set of outcomes.

Today we measure the quality and effectiveness of our ministries based on the Big 3: People, Buildings, Revenue.  In fact, it's not difficult to erect buildings and fill them with people that generate million-dollar budgets.  False religions, cults and sects do it all around the world.  Jim Jones did in San Francisco and finally in Guyana.  Jimmy Swaggart did it, then did it AGAIN in Louisiana.  

People, buildings and money aren't wrong, they simply aren't the unique signature of Christ's Church. These, alone, won't produce transformational-redemptive power, nor are they the indicators of the anointing of God.  Powerless religion, form-driven religion has a micro focus: it sees "the church" as the end.  Forms--the way we "do church," the things we do or don't do that identify us as "christians," are paramount.  This is the kind of context Jesus came into in Judea; the context the Religious power brokers endorsed and protected.

Form-driven religion becomes a template that blinds us to the brokenness which surrounds us.  Form-driven religion makes us think in "wrong-headed ways" about what the world deserves v. what God desires--Us v. Them.  Form-driven religion becomes a tyranny which chokes our vibrancy and shrivels our generosity.

Power-driven godliness sees loving, reaching and changing the world as the end.  Power-driven godliness acts without conditions.  Power-driven godliness seeks to make hard lives easier.  Power-driven godliness understands that wealth, leadership, talent and spiritual gifts are resources graciously given by God for His redemptive endeavor.  Power-driven godliness doesn't seek relavance; it is relevant.

Outcomes are critical.  Matthew 9..."35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.  36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.  37 Then He said to His disciples, 'the harvest in plentiful, but workers are few.'" 

We've come to a waypointe.

Live it well...bN tGit

Less is More

Control the "Controllables"

Time.
Activity.
Stress.
Distress.

Why don't we say "no?"  Our fear of loosing an edge is ravaging relationships, creating monster expectations, ruining our health and creating distance between us and God.

The fact is we really do live in a "less is more" world.  "White space" is what makes good Art so fetching, great landscape design so dramatic and relationships work.  It gives us permission to breath, to be creative, to recharge and recreate.  

Who "moved the cheese" and convinced Americans that the contemplative life is empty and worth-less?  
We did.  

Stop.
Breath.
Listen.
Smile.


Live it well...bN tGit

We will Rise.

Several years ago I received a note from a good friend..."my dad's cancer is progressing. His time here is probably down to days..."  When I read those words I was transported back to the last time I was with his dad.  I was saddened by this news, concerned for the grief this final act of life would introduce to my friend and his family...and not.

My friend's father did lose his life; but not once was he in danger of losing his hope: the certain promise that he, as a believer in Jesus Christ, would finally be transported into the presence of His Lord and Savior, there to enjoy life as HE designed it to be.

Life is hard, then we die.   We will all lose our lives, but we need not lose our hope.

Praise God for the hope we have in Christ, and the healing death brings for those who have embraced Christ through effective saving faith.  For these death is not something to be feared; it is a gracious provision that carries us back into a "face to face" real-time relationship with God. Without death, we become eternal beings, like Lucifer and the legion of angels which were cast out of heaven because of their rebellion; we would be chained to a relationship of enmity with God, no reverse, no repair--NO hope.

Death became the modality that God uses to foil Satan's attempt to co-opt God's crowning creative act, the human race. So then, death is the definitive "check-mate" and demonstrates God's mastery; always steps ahead of evil and the chaos of sin. Genesis 3 describes the event that initiated the rebellion of Adam and Eve to sin and it's necessary result, death; it's also here that we learn that death is part of God's bigger plan for hope and the redemption of human-kind.

The rest, is history, 1 John 4.9,10...

"God showed how much he loved us by 

sending his one and only Son into the world 

so that we might have eternal life through him. 

This is real love—not that we loved God, 

but that he loved us and sent his Son

 as a sacrifice to take away our sins."

We know that love is a four letter word, spelled H-O-P-E; more importantly, we know that death simply marks the first day of the rest of our lives; Paul give us very specific instruction in his second letter to the church at Corinth...

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet 

inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary 

troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 

18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, 

since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."   2 Corinthians 4.16-18

We will rise, thanks be to God!  It's a GRACE day.

Live it well...bN tGit

He's NOT finished yet.

"When I Grow Up (to be a man)"  Link to song

This is of course one of the "sounds of summer" delivered to us by, who else, The Beach Boys. It's a favorite. When the DJ's at KRLA or KHJ in Southern California spun this selection I'd turn the radio up (even louder) in my 1960 Ford Falcon--and be transported into thoughts of...the future, "how will my life play out?"

Today, when I select this tune on my iPod, or hear it on my Pandora "Beach Boys Radio" selection, I'm transported into thoughts of...the past, we all grew up.  I settled down early, married my High School sweetheart 43 years ago and WILL "love her for the rest of my life."

Now that I'm growing older, I think about legacy.  What will I leave behind that will distinguish my place in the passage of time?  What will my grandkids carry through their lives that has my fingerprints on it?  Have the lives of people been enriched because they spent a season in close proximity with me?  Have I been an agent of positive change?

I'm grateful I'm not done. 

       I'm grateful I'm not alone. 

            I'm grateful He's not finished:

"Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling and 

will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.²⁵

All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and 

in the present, and beyond all time! Amen."  Jude 24, 25

Live it well...bN tGit