The moment when...PEACE

When we discovered we were pregnant again our world was jostled a great deal more than we imagined it would be. We knew one day we wanted another, but NOW?! That was not in our plan or expectation. We were very nervous, anxious, and fearful as to HOW that was ever going to work. Where would the finances come for this? Where would childcare come while we both have to work to support our family? Is this the best neighborhood for raising a family? Should we move to a better more expensive place? How could this work?

We came to worship together in that same way we all come to worship some days. Our minds and hearts clouded and distanced with all of life's impossibilities and troubles. It makes our worship feel faint and fake.

Once the opening chord of Forever Reign is begun, God met us in that place. We sang the words "You are peace. You are peace when my fear is crippling," and our worship became sincere and authentic in a moment's time.

God would be peace in our crippling fear. We slowly learned to trust those words in the following moments.

Months later (say about 9 or so), we were still without a name for our second daughter who would be born the next day. In a seemingly unrelated moment, we would name her Haddisen PEACE.

A couple months after she was given to us, my wife made the connection that was there all along. "How incredible that the moment we were so worried, we sang that song and now her name is PEACE!" God must have known.

Yesterday, on Father's Day, we had both of our girls dedicated. It is nothing magical or mystical. It is a symbol by which we set apart or dedicate our children to God. It is also when we are dedicated as parents. We are saying in this moment that we will raise our children to know Jesus. To say "These are Your children entrusted to us, and we will honor You in that."

We came into the worship center and stood to worship together as a family. I held Haddisen Peace in my arms and we heard God whisper his outrageous love for us in the opening chord of Forever Reign.

My daugther's security

"Whoever fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for their children it will be a refuge." Proverbs 14:26 My girls can know the safety and security of refuge if I fear God with my life enough to find MY confidence in God alone. My fear of God is a fountain of life for myself and my family (vs 27). 

Do my children know that I fear God? Do they feel secure by my confidence in God? Can I improve my confidence in God, and thus security for my family? What is my attitude toward God TODAY?

When less is your all

I began reading through Leviticus today in Bryleigh's Bible. All of the rules for sacrifice and offering are beginning to be laid out. There are always the typical things I remember about sacrifice and offering. It had to be without defect. It had to be offered by their own freewill. It had to be offered at the doorway since we are unworthy to enter; a reminder that we are sinners who want to be close to a perfect and pure God. That requires sacrifice and lifeblood of something without defect since we are so full of defect in our sin. 

I am thinking, though, of the progress through chapter 1. It begins with the offering of a bull, but it goes on to show if you could not afford a bull, you could continue to offer lesser and lesser animals for the same amount of atonement.

When we worship God, we must ALWAYS bring our very best. If our very best is lesser than other people, that is fine, but it must be our very best.

That being said, it is important to remember the more God does and blesses you with, the richer you are in Him. The demand for "your all" grows.

Medicine Man

A man's heart was terribly sick. He came to meet a traveling Healer who gave him a bottle of heart medicine. Not sold, but gave! The bottle is shiny and clean, but more importantly, it is rare. Without opening it, the man attaches the bottle to his jacket to wear as a medal, but it is only one. So he goes to find the Healer to ask for more bottles. Many trips later, his jacket is full of shiny bottles of heart medicine.

He thanks the Healer that he has been gifted all these bottles no one else has, especially that poor slop of a woman on the other side of town.

The woman? Oh she is another story who encountered the same Healer. She had also come to him with a sick heart, but her heart was sickened by her own poor choices and worse actions. She came in search of the Healer to work tirelessly serving Him and paying respects.

The Healer gave her the strongest bottle He had. She drank the entire bottle and found complete healing for her sick heart. Her love for the Healer was greater than anyone has ever known or heard of again.

Seeking God's will is a waste of time

There is no desire within me to seek God's will in my life. You will very rarely find me looking or asking, "What is God's will in this situation?" Even in the hardest decisions, I will rarely ever ask God for His will to be revealed to me. Seeking God's will is a waste of time!

To seek God's will is a focus on the wrong thing. It is a preoccupation with the wrong element of the equation. It all comes back to the passage which tells us:

"Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart."

"So PC, are you saying you don't seek God's will and instead you just ask God for stuff and He gives it to you...whatever you desire?"

Kind of....but not at all...

This passage tells me this:

Don't seek God's will; seek God, and His will will happen.

This passage tells me that if I quit worrying about seeking God's will and start seeking GOD in personal intimate relationship, His will will happen. This passage tells me, first, to delight myself in the Lord. SO I need to be with God and enjoy my time with him. I have to spend time at the heart of God...relating to Him intimately.

Then this passage tells me if I fulfill the first part, He will give me the desires of my heart. God will give us desire. We do not create our own desire. Our desire will not be our own...IF...we maintain the first part of the passage. If we can say we have followed the first part of delighting ourselves in the heart of relating to God intimately, God will instill desire within us. This means if we maintain intimacy with the heart of God, whatever desire we have can be followed.

Ozzie Chambers writes, "To be so much in contact with God that you never need to ask Him to show you His will, is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of FAITH. When you are rightly related to God, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight...and all your common-sense decisions are His will for you..."

Hiding in the darkness

I would like to walk about life with the "burning in my heart" like the men on the road to Emmaus desired.  I want to walk with God and know that burning within my heart, but that very rarely feels the true case or state of my heart within me. A lot of the times I feel more like the people of Jerusalem described in Isaiah chapter 30.  Verses 19-21 tell the people of Jerusalem they will weep no more and when they do cry out to God, He will hear them.  Then he says, "Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction: yet the Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher."

There are many times we feel the darkness stronger than we do the joy and peace of God's presence.  But as Brennan Manning says, "The loss became the moment of grace."

When we face the moments of darkness when God feels absent and not burning within our hearts, those are the times faith is really established.  These are the places to look for God and learn to trust in His presence even when it does not feel like he is.  God will not feel present all the time.  This is a reality most of us are aware of, but most of us fear and worry in those times instead of trusting and realizing God's presence even then. Just because it is dark does not mean that God is not present.  Just because our heart does not burn within our chest with Blessed Assurance does not mean God is actually absent.  "Though the Lord may give us the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, the Teacher will not hide himself."  Just because it is dark does not mean he is hiding.

Even though it is dark, there is "a voice BEHIND you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'"  Faith happens in the dark, but it does not necessarily mean the light will be turned on.  Faith simply means while it is dark you still trust God even if he NEVER turns the light on.

My argument with Ozzie

I was hanging out with Ozzie (Oswald Chambers) yesterday, and he said to me, "No matter where God places us or what the inner desolations are, we can praise God that all is well.  That is faith being worked out in actualities."  Well, Ozzie and I debated for a little bit.  I came right back... "Ozzie, you have no idea what kind of things I've been through.  Moreover, you have no idea what sorts of things other people have gone through.  How could you say to just have faith in situations that you know nothing about?"

"PC, you're an idiot.  I wrote one of the most timeless devotionals ever written.  I have thought on these things for a long long time."

"You're side-stepping my question, Ozzie."

"Fine!  Are you prepared to let God do as He likes with [you]--prepared to be separated from conscious blessings?"

I began getting a bit frustrated with Ozzie.  I asked whether he actually wanted me to believe that God would give me times of desolation and darkness--on purpose.  He said, "Yes!" as though I were an idiot for asking.  He said, "PC, it is not that we choose it, but that God engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there.  Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings."

Of course I did not completely understand.  "What's wrong with feelings and blessings?"

"Pay attention, PC!  I just said 'bolstered up by' feelings and blessings.  Is your faith based only on blessings and feelings?  Do you still have faith when neither of those are present?  If not, then you don't have a very solid faith at all."

"Alright Ozzie!   Let me get this straight.  You're saying that God gives me times of desolation and difficult circumstances...my God of love does this to me, and I need to be PREPARED for these things so that I can still trust that all is well even when it doesn't FEEL like it is?  I have to have faith that is not DEPENDANT on good feelings and blessings, and in fact remains if I have neither one of them?"

"YES!  That's exactly what I am saying!"

"ALRIGHT!  You don't have to yell at me."

Ozzie's always yelling at me.

God, you are my God. You are my Peace, my Desire, and my Drive. You created the entire world and universe and space with your voice, and yet you are capable of relating intimately with my heart. You are able to relate to my heart so tenderly and intimately while simultaneously relating just as intimately with every other human being on this planet. Should there be life on other planets, which we cannot even conceptualize, you are capable of relating intimately and tenderly to them as well. Do you know the numbers of hairs on each animal? Do you know how many hairs are on these strange characters from other planets (should they exist!)? Do they have hair at all? God you expansive existence is one I will never fully know; I could never contain it. Every human on this earth could have a phenomenal revelation of you, and together, we would never be fully capable of praising you for what you are worth. I have no idea why you love me, why you bring me up to you in intimacy and love. How, oh God, could you love such a spec as I am? I could never praise you enough or give you enough (though you have everything), and yet you give me so abundantly much. I will never fully understand it.

My best friend Augustine

Augustine and I have been hanging out together so much lately that I may need to create a nickname for him as well.  All my good friends have nicknames (or I refer to them by their first name at least...the real friends right?)...Brennan....Ozzie....and Augy?...The Saint?...Stine?...I'll work on it. Today, Augustine said something that actually made me smile right here in the coffee shop.  He is talking about the wonders of being a baby and asking questions of God regarding where was before the womb...what was he before the womb?  After asking many great questions, he writes,

"Do my questions provoke you to smile at me and bid me simply to acknowledge you and praise you for what I do know?"

What a great image and challenge in and of itself!  I love the image of God smiling at all my crazy questions.  I find myself smiling when a child asks, "Does God have feet?" "Whatcha doin?"

I have to think God sits up there and smiles when his children ask him questions.  I'm sure he just smiles at Augustine's questions because they're brilliant, and if he smiles at Augustine, he roars with laughter over my questions.

I can imagine myself telling my daughters, "You know what; just enjoy what you do know and go play."  I can certainly see God telling me, you know a lot of other things about me.  Do not overlook those.  Praise me for those things.

Invited but Unwelcome

The room is full of those people. You know the ones! THOSE people. They are the ones we have learned to hate. They are the ones who look nothing like us physically, morally, spiritually. We do not want to SAY we are better, but... The room is full of them, and there is Jesus just hanging out with them as if He did not see what we all see in them. Why are they all there anyway?

Only a few hours ago, Jesus invited one of them to follow Him. The man did leave all the things that make him one of them to follow Jesus. We will give him that, but then Jesus went to hang out at his house. Now Jesus is with the one who is unwelcome. He invited the man to follow Him, and then went to the man's home.

For the first time ever, here is a holy teacher willing to take one of them under his teaching and care. Here is The Epitome of one of us taking on one of them.

Now the house is full of them.

Of course it is! All these people are crammed into the man's house to follow and hear Jesus. Though the call and invitation was to one, it seems to have drawn all the others.

Which 'sinners' do you like to avoid? Who of them need finally to be invited into your life, your love, and your care? Who of them would be able to tell all the others about you being different from the rest of us who avoided them?

That one invite into your life just may draw many others to Jesus.

the time I prayed for strength

I found myselfbroken on the floor in tears. I did not know what to do or where to go who I had become.

So I asked for strength for wisdom.

Rarely do I ask for much I am more content to pursue intimacy than to ask for things

brokenness makes you ask for things

I started asking and I waited...

........

........

I listened until I was frustrated with the silence Just before I fell asleep, I lay there with dried up eyes and I heard:

"I am not a genie. I am your God, and I love you. If you want strength, I am not just going to GIVE you strength. It will start to get really difficult now. Will you be strong in those times or not. I am not a genie; I am your God who loves you."