God is Love

This past summer I had a brief momentary opening. It was during the painful stress of being back home to care for my mother as she underwent cancer surgery. My eldest, and closest, sister and I had both returned home to be with my parents in this terrible time. During one brief respite my sister and I talked about “religion”. She knows that I have come back to the faith after many years of wandering. She has not. My sister has led a life of struggle and trial. She is remarkably successful and I am extremely proud of her and the things she has strived for and achieved. She is truly an inspiration to me. There is nothing I would want to share with her more than the faith that has blossomed in me the last ten years. I have prayed for the opportunity to do so many times in the past few years. In this brief conversation she asked me what I believed the Catholic (read Christian) faith was really about.

I knew this was a pivotal moment. The wrong words could further justify her distance, a judgmental perspective would shut her down to this topic. My sister sees the church as a man made invention to suppress women. I think in many ways religion is just that so again my words had to be chosen with care. I cried out the briefest of prayer and trusted in the spirit to put the rights words in my mouth. Love. The Christian faith is first and foremost about love. I explained what I meant and left it at that. I have wondered since that day whether the seed the Holy Spirit planted had taken root or not.

Well I believe it may have. Not in an obvious way, rather in one of those delicious ironies that God so masterfully wields to talk to us. Today I finished reading a profound book The Shack. Have you heard of it? William Young has written a book for the ages. Shades of C.S. Lewis come through for me in the richness of the pictures Mr. Young paints. This book is a heart wrenching story of love that must be read, it demands to be read. It does not matter if you believe or not it is hard not to be entranced by the elegant simplicity of this wonderful story. As the tears flowed, the lump in my throat grew there was only two thoughts invading my mind; God is love, give this book to your sister to read.

God is love indeed.

I hope my sister will love this book as much as I did

If you want to learn more about The Shack go to www.theshackbook.com

God bless.

Are you Free?

There is a verse in Second Peter that says;



a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day

2 Peter 3:8



Have you ever stopped to consider what this might mean?


Recently I have been reflecting on a deliverance the Lord has granted me. For years I have fought a battle in this area for years I have failed. This was for me the thorn in my flesh the wound that would not be healed. Before I came back to the faith I really did not even consider the behavior to be wrong. Sure I had a vague sense that it was, that old catholic guilt thing. I was able to quickly rationalize my behavior and continue on oblivious to the consequences I was piling up. In the last ten years as my faith in Christ has grown I have become increasingly aware of how wrong headed I was and how much death I was sowing.


So I began in earnest to stop the behavior. I would fail each time and then the guilt of failure would convict me sending me deeper into despair and self loathing. I would cry out to God seek forgiveness and healing for my sin and start anew. Yet I would stumble and fail again and again.


I looked deeper what were the triggers to the behavior, if only I could stop them, I would be delivered! I sought these out. One by one I eliminated the triggers, only to find more or worse yet new triggers as my flesh desperately clinged to old ways. The stumble comes leading to failure.


I tried studying Christian books on the subject. How to break free from old patterns. I followed their models for years with only minuscule success. The stumble comes and failure follows and the cycle goes over again.


I tried talking to Christian friends and family. I shared my heart I asked for their support. This worked for a while accountability is a great thing especially in Christ. However in time even this broke down and again the stumble comes and the cycle repeats.


I tried crying out to God in desperation. I yelled at him, screamed, lashed out in anger, cried tears of desperation, humbled myself before him in a last ditch attempt to find freedom from my bondage. I gained some relief but in time I would stumble and again the cycle repeats.


Then something happened


There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus

Romans 8:1


I discovered what this verse means and for the first time believed it.


It is finished

John 19:30


I discovered what this verse means and for the first time believed it


Love the lord your God with all your heart your soul your strength and your mind

Luke 10:27


I finally began to understand what this verse meant and began to live it.


As you sew so shall you reap

Galatians 6:7



I began to finally understand my struggle from a spiritual dimension


This winter my pastor did an extended sermon series on Galatians and it changed my life.


I am Free


I finally understand that my past behavior was reaping present consequence. Until I accepted that I am a new creation in Christ and that ALL my sins have already been forgiven, I could not be free. Today I am free from the lie of condemnation, I am free from the selfishness of self (on this battle front anyway). I have learned to surrender my will to God. I have been delivered. I am free to choose, free to live for him, free to serve his people, free to heal the broken hearted, I am free


The Lord revealed to me that my failure was predictable. Until I surrendered to him completely, until I trusted him completely, until I truly loved him, until I stopped trying to change in my own strength, until I waited upon him and his timing I could not be free.


I am free


Praise you Lord Jesus


My brothers and sisters you too can be free


Confess your sins to Jesus and repent


Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior


He will set you free


Your brother in Christ


Ron

Have you ever talked with God?

Have you ever talked with God?

I would love to say that I have and indeed in some unusual ways I have. I hear all the time about people who share stories of conversations and words spoken. Me I am lucky if a word or idea is dropped into my head. Usually it has little to do with what is going on at the time. Although there was that one time at the retreat last November when he spoke to me.

Okay yes I have the odd conversation with God. They seem to be infrequent and not a typical friend to friend conversation but rather what you might expect from a Creator of the universe to single lowly human being conversation. Yeah I have some of those.

I pray often, not continually as the Bible encourages, but definitely often. It is through prayer that I most often encounter God. Last night before falling asleep I was praying and an image came into my mind of what it might mean to have the eyes of my heart open. Don’t ask me to explain I can’t. The image was more like an emotion. It stirred my heart and gave me the clear sense of what this phrase meant.

So what the heck am I trying to say here? What’s all this talk about talking to God anyway?

Well he spoke to me this morning as clear as I am writing this post and I want to share it with you.

Flash back to Sunday morning for some context:

I was talking to a brother in Christ and co-laborer in our men’s ministry leadership team about the meaning of Proverbs 27:17. (There will be a post on this just as soon as I finish writing it!) I was explaining to my brother that this verse has a deeper meaning to me than the obvious because I am a metallurgical engineer. Whooooo fancy name, hard to spell. Yes I get it, but we all have a past this is mine. I studied metallurgy in college and this knowledge is firmly implanted in me. So I know about steel and iron and how they are worked into useful stuff, it’s what I do for a day job.

I explained to my brother the beautiful metaphor that this verse in proverbs represents to me, the depth of meaning is unmistakable. I walked him through my interpretation of the meaning of the verse and he was taken aback, he had no idea of my background and had not looked at the verse in the way that I do. We ended the conversation by discussing the possibility of doing a teaching on the metallurgical meaning of the verse at an upcoming men’s bible study.

Back to the Present

This morning we were together (my brother and I) in our churches men’s bible study. After songs of worship (where I was focused on closed eyes and open heart from last nights prayer) our pastor walked us through Galatians chapter 6. Out of left field another brother asked a question. This may seem normal but it is not. In the twenty weeks of study there must have been a total of 6 questions all together. You simply cannot manage a group of 200 guys and take questions in a window of 45 minutes. Today our pastor did.

The question was on the meaning of Galatians 6:6. After explaining the meaning of the verse (it was in relation to giving) he continued to explain the context of the verse backing up into verse 5. To my astonishment he asked the questioner what is that called when someone studies metals? “Metallurgy“, was the reply. He talked briefly about testing metal. As he did I looked at my brother and smiled what are the odds?!

Our pastor then got back on the giving theme and expounded on the importance for us men to give of ourselves in love of the king within his kingdom (not to earn to love!). He mentioned the old story of time, talents and resources, we are called to give.

About this time I started to laugh, this was no random event, this was God talking to me. The metallurgist called to lead and give of himself for the men’s ministry he is so passionate about. I leaned over and shared the story with my friend and he too laughed at the irony.

Later that day I related the story to another friend. He added a piece that cinched the deal. The guy who asked the question that started this seemingly random connection volunteers his time with the blind. He helps the blind overcome their challenge; he helps the blind to see.

Open the eyes of my heart father I want to see you

In the mean time I will abide in you

I wait for you to speak into my life

Your will be done Father

Amen

"High Capacity" Christian?

I just finished a post on my leadership development blog in which I discussed in detail the challenge for me in this winter season. You can read it by clicking “A Purpose Filled Winter”. The post was a way of expressing my own angst at being at my capacity for several weeks straight as well as a way of recuperating. This weekend is the first in three weeks where I have more than a two hour break during the day. (Hence why there are so few blog posts here...)

I talked about turning down a dear friend who asked me to help lead a massive outreach event for our church. This was not an easy decision. As you may know I love to lead, I love to live my faith and I have been learning to love outreach events and serving others. The reason I said no was obvious I was at my capacity and see no reasonable break in the pace for several weeks. I had a choice; dump all other responsibilities and do the event or say not to helping lead the event. Given the nature of my responsibilities at work, at my church, within my family at school there was no way I could walk away from these responsibilities. All this event could so was strain relationships to a breaking point.

Yet I know that if God had told me in prayer that I needed to find a way I would have done so. I have prayed more than once the dangerous prayer, “use me”. Yet on this decision God remained silent. Of course I could continue to seek him and gain his wisdom on the question. I think though in this case had he wanted me to lead the event he would have been clear on it.

It is funny though that in the past several weeks I have been seeing another “perfect storm” come to life in my consciousness. As an engineer the concept of a perfect storm is an apt metaphor. When multiple waves meet in water and they have the same phase (that is they are aligned crest to crest) the result is a wave of twice the amplitude (a fancy word for size). The alternative is that if they are opposite phase a trough is aligned with a crest they cancel each other out. So the perfect storm wave has multiple waves of the same phase meeting together all at once forming a very large wave. All right enough techno weenie engineer speak.

My point is this, for the last several weeks I have been exposed to teaching on, have been reading about and have been distracted from the central core of the Christian life; intimacy with God. The Christian life is not about works, it is about loving God and loving others as yourself. This has been the core theme of our pastor’s messages for the past six weeks. It is the theme of two books I have been reading on prayer and Christian living. It is exactly what the enemy is distracting me from as I engage the world at my capacity day after day.

If not for the time I set aside to be with my heavenly father I would be lost. My time in the word each morning, my prayer and worship bike rides, Tuesday bible study and Friday / Saturday small groups all help me stay connected and provide the opportunity to slow down for just awhile and seek his voice.

So I soldier on jealously guarding these times with the Lord and seeking more opportunities to love him and his people more.

Father I praise you

I thank you for the realization of Love

I thank you for revealing to me the need to love you

For teaching me how to love you

For teaching me how to love your people

I praise you for beginning to open the eyes of my heart

So that I might see your heaven on earth

See your wonders and glories

Father I will forever be a child amazed with the wonder of you

Thank you for my salvation and my freedom in Christ

Amen