Summer, Fudgesicles, and Jesus

It's officially summer. I know because I have found my frozen delight of the year. This year it is the fudgesicle. Fudgesicles are 80 calories of refreshing deliciousness. I am eating them like they are going out of style. Every summer it seems like I hit on something like this. There have been popsicles, icees, homemade slurpees. You name it, if it is frozen and sweet I have binged on it during the summer. I read somewhere recently that real appetites are different than artificial appetites. An appetite for something real doesn't seem like it is seasonal. I don't only thirst for water in the Spring (no pun intended). There is also something about a real appetite that allows for a feeling of contentment. I eat a fudgesicle and I begin walking over to the freezer before I have sucked the stick clean. Then after two more fudgesicles I am ready for something salty. It is a circus over here. Now you know why I exercise so much. Anyway, fudgesicles got me thinking about Jesus. My appetite for God is not seasonal and for that I am very thankful. After time with Jesus there is an experience of contentment. I don't bounce from sweet to salty. My appetite for the eternal runs deep within me and is satisfied only by a relationship with God Himself. The amazing thing is that God has made Himself available to me every day and every hour. My stash of fudgesicles is running low even as I write. But tomorrow morning God will be waiting for me in my quiet room and will give me as much of Himself as I can stand. So, I will fill up and walk out of that room content and knowing that the deepest hunger inside of me has been filled by that which is real. Fudgesicles are good but I was created for something a little more solid and so were you. This summer go ahead and treat yourself to some frozen delights but don't go a day without delighting yourself in the One who made you and offers to fill you up to the brim with what your soul really longs for....Himself.

Cycling, Church, and Hanging on a Wheel

My son Jeremy is home for a couple of weeks. One of my great joys is riding bikes with him. He is a marvelous athlete so when the two of us go out together to ride it is an amazingly great and difficult ride. I have blogged about biking before. There is a slip stream behind a cyclist that makes an enormous difference. Today Jeremy and I rode 37 miles at a demanding pace. We alternated being in front. After being in front for a mile I could hardly wait to slip in behind him and get some relief. Being in the slip stream means your front tire is about 6 inches from the rear tire of the one in front. If you drop farther than a couple of feet it is called "losing the wheel" and it means you are toast. If you and your partner were scooting along at say 25mph and you lost his wheel you would drop to about 20mph and still be working as hard as ever. To really rest would mean you would drop into the teens to catch your breath. You cannot lose the wheel of the rider in front of you. Today's ride made me think of the church. I think when people drop out of church it is like losing a wheel. They think it is not that bad at first but after a while it really takes a toll. There is no where in the Bible where it talks about a Christian being without a church. I think because it is so hard to try to do it alone. I guess what I am saying is church helps you stay close to people moving in the same direction. In fact if church is really working the way it should then you will have people around you who are stronger than you are and pulling you around and people counting on you that you are stronger than hugging your wheel. And so it is. Whatever you do, don't drop back, stay home or lose a wheel. You may never make it home.

On Parades, Jesus and Real Heroes

I am in Boston right now. Tom Randall, chaplain of the PGA Champions Tour, is riding a bicycle from Oregon to Minnesota and asked me to fill in for him at the players fellowship. There are around 100 golfers, wives, and caddies that gather for a Bible study and service since they are always playing golf on Sunday and can't go to a regular church. Last night I was in down town Boston and saw the remnants of the ticker tape parade in honor of the Celtics recent NBA championship. My daughter Becca left early this morning with 100 other 17 year olds to go to the Dominican Republic to minister to orphans. An entire city turned out and shouted and celebrated the accomplishment of a basketball team. They were able to put a round ball into a steel hoop more times than any other team this season. They got a parade. More than 100 teenagers are giving up their summer break to spend time loving and living with the poor and disenfranchised. They left at 4:30am this morning. As far as I know there was no parade nor will there be one when they come home. Not here, not now. I remember reading one time a theory of what Satan does best. The thing he does better than we realize is he switches price tags. We end up putting tremendous value on things that are pretty worthless and treat as worthless those things that are absolutely precious beyond compare. Someday God will show us the real value of all we have spent our time doing. My guess is that is when we will stand and cheer in a parade for the ones who did the really great things that went unnoticed. Today, look around. Keep your eyes peeled for the really valuable. My guess it is not going to be what you spent the most money on but on something Jesus would pay attention to. I am pretty sure Jesus was spending more time watching teenagers climb out of bed at 4:30am then the basketball players waving to the crowds as they cruised down Boylston Street yesterday.

Power to Take Down My Tree and Remake my World

Ever since we moved into our house 9 years ago we have had an ancient apple tree in the center of our backyard. Every other year it would shower our yard with apples. The deer in our neighborhood loved it and would gather in the dusk for the sweet treats late summer and early Fall. Three nights ago we came home around 10pm. It had been a stormy evening and we looked outside to see that our apple tree had split into 3 sections and lay sprawled on the ground mortally wounded. The next morning I went out to inspect what had happened. There was no sign of a lightening strike. The giant sections lay in silence, tiny little apples thrown around the tree like popcorn. I was struck by the power and the strength of the tree. It looked bigger and broader on the ground then when it was standing. Whatever took it out was strong? If not lightening then what? Had I missed the marauding band of elephants? I looked into the middle of the tree and saw the culprit. The very core of the tree had been eaten out. The enemy stronger than my ancient apple tree was tiny but the enemy was many. I thought about all the lessons to be learned. I could talk about how sin can rot a life from the inside even while the outside looks fine and productive. But I decided to think on the might of the tiny and the amazing amount the many can do over time. I am thinking of the body of Christ. So many of us living and working in the belly of the beast. Oh, what impact we can make working together. The vision of the church spreading out thousands strong, changing the world one neighborhood at a time has invaded my consciousness and will not let go. So, I look at my tree broken beyond repair and I think of the Gospel and the world and the church and I think of all God can do with little people like us. Glory! Now, someone lend me a chainsaw because I also see a load of firewood.

Diet Coke, Sin, and the Food I Really Need

I heard something about Diet Coke and I would suppose it is true for all things diet. If you are a huge Diet Coke fan then you should probably stop reading this now. Just step away from the computer. The thing I heard is that when a sugar substitute hits your system then your body begins to react as if sugar has hit the system. That means insulin is released in order to deal with the sugar. The insulin comes out screaming that sugar is on it's way but no real sugar shows up. So, you have a bunch of insulin hanging out twiddling their thumbs and wondering what's up. Insulin sends a message up to the brain to see if there is any food coming since the insulin has prepared for it so well. The brain decides the insulin is right...the insulin is always right by the way according to the brain and so the brain sends your arms and legs in search of food. And before you know it you are munching away on some sugary of fat filled snack the Diet Coke was supposed to help you avoid. If you want to get really messed up you start eating sugar free snacks and your brain will get together with your insulin and start a riot. So, I was thinking about sugar substitutes and sin. I think that is the way sin works inside of me. It starts out like it should be good. "I know, I will just indulge in a little envy or a little gossip or a little lust. It's just a little pick me up to get me through the afternoon". And I end up bloated and sick and wondering what in the world hit me. My spirit is designed for real food. My spirit will take and process real food and it may take longer to feel the impact but it will be health and vitality. Sin on the other hand tastes so sweet so fast but ends up making me empty or sending me to devour that which makes me sicker than a dog. So, I will remind myself of Isaiah 55 where God Himself cries out to me..
"Hey, you who are thirsty, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost
Why do you spend your money on what does not satisfy and your wages on what is not bread? Listen carefully to me and delight yourself in the abundance of fare".
Eat well today and refresh yourself with the true bread.

Truth Deep Like an Ocean, Strong in a Thimble

Truth, real truth is as deep as the ocean but strong enough that a thimble full can change you through and through. Last year I decided to start working on a doctorate. I enrolled in a Th.D program and I am pursuing a degree with an emphasis on apologetics(meaning defense of the faith). I have completed four classes so far. Each class requires me to read about 1800 pages and then write a 17-20 page paper. Most of the reading is pretty intense. I read this earlier today..."...many faith passages without an expressed object are open-ended, and must not be loaded with propositional or doctrinal content. Thus "faith" becomes the nonintellectual, transcendent form that achieves concrete expression in various intellectual forms that are necessarily tied to specific cultures". Yeah,ok, I think you are just showing off. Much of what I read sounds like that and today it made me thankful for things like the church picnic. I walked around the picnic talking to people who have had their lives changed by an understanding of the Gospel of Jesus. They understand that their life is a mess because of sin but God loves them enough to send Jesus and that has made all the difference. I guess I really appreciate that the greatest minds can spend entire lifetimes digging into the truth of the Bible and never get to the bottom. The book I am reading right now is 640 pages long and the guy who wrote it has a dozen more just like it. But it is also great that no one has to be that smart to understand the love of God and be changed. God has made it simple and complex. Understandable and unfathomable. How cool is that? So, for those of you who think these musings on my blog are the deepest thing you will encounter today, the Gospel is for you and God can change you with the truth you know into the image of His son. For those of you who read this blog like a cartoon then the Gospel is for you and is deeper than the deepest ocean and the greatest minds the world has ever produced have not found the end of it yet. Oh, and God can take you and your over-sized brain and make you more like Jesus. Now, I am sounding bitter so I will take my little snack size cranium back to the book and slog through another 20 pages. Don't forget to wake me up for dinner.

The Weirdness of Prayer

Prayer is a very weird thing. I bow my head and talk to God and I listen. I think most people don't think too much about exactly how prayer works which is probably a good thing. It is a little bit of a mind bender. The Bible is clear about God wanting us to pray and even inviting us to bring our requests to him. It seems wildly presumptuous for me to offer my suggestion to an all-knowing, all-powerful, supreme Being who spoke the world into existence.
Dear God, My head hurts. I hate headaches. I think life would be better if my head had no pain. What say ye?
I realize most of our requests are not quite like that one but they do seem to be close sometimes. As presumptuous as it seems I have to remember God asks me to talk to him and even to make requests. I count on Him to sift out the really silly ones. I spend time in prayer every day. Sometimes it seems like I am saying the same thing a lot. I spend time listening. How does God speak? I ask Him to speak to me as I read the Bible and often he does. I am a little more reticent when it comes to God speaking to me in prayer. I have seen way too much abuse of the "God told me to do this" so I am always careful when trying to discern God speaking. But if I were God I think I would want to do at least some of the talking with someone like me. And so when I pray I also try to listen...just in case. The other day I was riding my bike. I wasn't intending to pray but out of the blue I kept thinking of a friend of mine I hadn't talked to in a while. I started to get the distinct impression that it was God who was bringing this friend to my mind and that God wanted me to call him. So, when I got home I called him. As it turned out he had been going through one of the most difficult times in his life. He asked me why I had called. I told him that I thought God wanted me to. "Weird", he said. "Indeed", I said. I liked the idea that God had said something and I hadn't missed it. My friend and I had a good talk and then met and talked some more. I think it was encouraging for him not just that I called and we talked but that God cared enough about him to get a message through my thick head to call him. Prayer is still a mystery to me but I think I might be right that God may want to talk more during my prayer time. Maybe he had tried earlier that morning during my official time with Him but it was during my bike ride when He finally go through. So, keep praying, keep listening, keep bringing your requests to God. I learned a long time ago that I don't have to know how something works in order to benefit from it. If you feel like God is speaking to you I think it is healthy to always consider that your receptor could be way off and it might not be God at all but just in case give your friend a call because in the mystery of prayer God still speaks.

Golf, Burma, and Joy to be Had

I love it when God surprises me. I have a friend who was a very successful businessman. He took early retirement. He loves golf so he ended up spending quite a bit of time on the golf course. I worried about him. I worried because I longed for him to get really involved with his faith and experience what he really had never experienced while he was working so much. I didn't really know how to go about it and I guess I felt guilty I had not been successful in helping him make a transition to really serving God. I saw him at the bank the other day. I asked how golf was going. He said,"Great". But then he talked for about 15 minutes about the refugee kids from Burma he was involved with in inner city Akron. My friend had hooked up with one of our ministry partners, Urban Vision, and had been volunteering for quite some time. His face lit up. Golf was great but the Burmese kids really lit him up. I walked away thanking God. My friend had found the deep joy of the kingdom. It made me smile, in fact, it made my day. It is interesting. We could have talked about golf and it would have been fine. I would have completely forgotten about it by now. But we talked about Burmese kids. We shared something deeper than the last round. I have since prayed for the kids from Burma that are living in down town Akron. I have prayed for my friend. And I have smiled and been reminded that the currency of the kingdom of God is joy. So, from Burma to Akron, from Akron to Hudson, from Hudson to my friend, from my friend to my heart, God speaks and changes the world. Let God change the world just a little through you today and experience the joy He has been holding just for you since the foundation of the world.