At the Seams

A darkness has been revealing itself in the world for some time now, but especially in the last few years. We as communities of people and countries and government have seen the horror that men of twisted and perverse doctrine can bring. We have seen it in the murder of innocent children at Sandy Hooks Elementary. We have seen it at a movie theater shooting in Colorado. We have seen it in a bombing at a marathon in Boston. And we have found that this darkness is truly deep and black. We have found that it shows no mercy and seemingly no end except death. We have found that even the atheists and secular media will turn to religious explanation and spiritual direction in these times.

But we have also seen that as we tear the seams of humanities fabric good people do exist and light can shine and overcome the darkness. We have seen that at the core of our very nature there is a tendency to destroy, but also a tendency to heal and help. I have watched in wonderful astonishment how God weaves our broken world back together everytime we shred it, and I am so in love with how He loves us. I have seen that His principles of unity and benevolence can stand strong even in the face of bleeding wounds and blasted limbs.

It is a lovely thought to think that people will come together when what really matters- what we all agree matters, which is life, love, children, healing- is being made to seem fragile and falling apart. I love that people will turn to God in their need, even if they are turning to different gods. I love that hope will rise out of the chaos, and that politics though messy and entangled are fought over for the sake of the lost, wounded, and oppressed. I love that though we have a tendency to run from God and break His law, He has a tendency to chase us and even shine His light through us. He is the God of light. Of life. Of hope.

In conclusion, I am happy not because of the losses we have endured and the bombs we have triggered, but I am happy because of the hope I have seen and the unity I have watched come out of it. I am happy because God is still moving to rescue us, and we are in such need of rescue.

Hope

Faith. Faith is how we walk, and that through which we are saved.

Love. Love is the pressing on and the reason we press on. Love is the movement. Love is the sacrifice.

But hope? Well hope is born of the other two. See, without faith in a good God above it all- faith in His benevolence and intervention- there is no hope at all. Who else has the words of eternal life? who else is perfectly pure and omnipotent?

Without love we have a flawed God whom we cannot have faith in.

Without love there is no intimacy, no passion, no trust.

Love is what we all hope for most. The longing to be fully known and utterly cherished is bred into all of us.

But oh how we have fallen. How we have twisted and turned and broken all good things. We have turned sex into a bargain or a short term contract. We have turned money into the dependable- into a savior of sorts. We have prized our prizes over each other.

We have turned kindness into manipulation and humility into weakness.

Is there any hope at all? Is there hope for the rich sinner basking in his lusts? Is there hope for the addict who can only wish it's the last time but knows it isn't? Is there hope for the poor and powerless? For the widows and orphans?

My friends, our system has not worked. We have fought for high places, but some one must end up low. We have seeked pleasure over commitment. I too am guilty of this.

There is not a righteous man on earth who always does what is right and never sins. So where is hope? Is it in rulers & kings? In government and contract? Is it in good men? Is it in wealth that hungers and pierces? I would believe a resounding no.

But...there is hope. There is hope of a brighter day when Love will come and wipe all tears away.When Light will shine in even the darkest deepest places. When captives will be set free and the weary will have rest.

And even now Love is moving deeper still, making wrongs right and turning wounds into memories.

Love is in our words and compliments. Love is the story of an autistic child being caught from an air conditioner by a bus driver, and a seal nudging a desperate man to the shore, and red and blue buying shoes for a homeless man. Love is in the students donating thousands to save thousands.

Love is in the colors of the sunrise and the taste of sugar on our tongues.

Hope is here, and His name is Jesus.

Any Hope at All

Dear God,

If there is any hope at all, let it be found in you. Please don't let my eyes simply see it, but let my heart feel it.

If there is any hope at all, let it be beautiful and passionate as you are beautiful and passionate. Let the light shine so bright that we ache in our repentance.

If there is any hope at all, please use me as strength for the weak and food for the hungry. Please be my strength.

If there is any hope at all, speak that we may hear it, and love so that we may send it. Move so that life is here, and break us until life is found.

If there is any hope at all, may Your voice grow louder and all the others grow softer. May Your words be heard and all others forgotten. May You be the path we follow.

And dear Healer, if there is any hope at all, heal the broken hearts and mend the broken spirits.

And dear Redeemer, if there is any hope at all, save us from our own selves. Save us from our sinful and twisted ways.

And dear Father, who is our hope, let there be peace and comfort found in Your presence, and draw us into You.

And dear God, if there is any hope at all, hear my prayer and move in power. Your love is everlasting. Amen.

The Ground

            What if what we are is what we came from? Dirt. Earth. Ground. And perhaps we are naturally only that- filthy, dirty, and trampled on. Yet worse, we are dry dirt in the desert, fruitless and empty. What if we are plain? What if we are lifeless? What then will we do?

            This is me. This is how I am. My flesh is lifeless and deathful. It is full of the unhealthy, crusty and brittle pieces that give it no meaning at all. If anything would grow here, it certainly wouldn’t be called bountiful. The growth would be weeds, which perhaps take more life than they give. The growth would be incessant and wholly undesirable, except by the ground that is so innately desperate to give life to something.

            What if the best we can be is broken? Is that all we can be? I know that if I were a hoping land, I would want more. I would want water and life. I would want the roots of great trees to come out of me. I would want trees that bear much fruit. I would want the flutter of butterflies and the sound of rain drops to encompass the life that flows out of me. I would long for animals to step on me and feel safe and firm. I would want rivers to saturate my soil and hope to burst into growth all around me. I would want love.

            Perhaps this is all possible. Perhaps all we need is a man greater than our earthly fragments to come and nurture us. We need Him to rescue us from our dry and dreary position and bring water. We need Him to bring seeds. We need Him to bring even hope. But more than all these things, we need Him to have a desire for us. Now I’m not talking about a man is after self gain and temporary things. We need a man who will come and stay, and ensure we don’t return to our old fruitless selves. We need a man who would want to make us His.

            But who would want such a thing? Who would put in all of this work? Who would care to rescue us in our worthless state?

            There is but one Man, and He not only came to rescue but came to stay. His name is Jesus. He, in great goodness and kindness, loves us and desires to save us. He desires to heal us and give us all that we should need. The greatest news of all is that this Man hasn’t come just to reap a harvest, but He has come for our benefit, and He has promised that under His hand we will have all that we long for.

            I believe in this Man. I believe that He is faithful and true to all His words. He is worth inviting and loving because He is so inviting and loving. Our brokenness is healed by His blood. Our sins are forgiven by His love. Our uselessness is changed by His power. Our souls are loved by His heart.

The Heart's Longing

     The longing for greatness. The longing for glory. The longing for more. The longing for our longing to be fullfilled, and our hearts to rest. These are the longings I speak of today. These are the longings we're all aware of...and they're also the longings we see filled and removed oh so rarely.

     But this isn't a new thing. Don't be fooled. Since the very first fall of man, we have had these longings in greater abundance, and since the first seeds we have turned to all the wrong answers. Your struggle, my struggle, our struggle, it is not new. It is an old struggle with an old solution...and one I fear we've all but forgotten.

     We have this strange paradox in which we long to be great ourselves, and yet long to be part of something- or some one- greater than simply ourselves. That if I alone were great, I would be alone, and loneliness and contentedness never come together nor stay together. We long for unity. For unity in ourselves yes, but also for unity with others. Unity with some one who desires us, some one who accepts us, and some one who adds to us. Not some one who would steal our strength and fruit, but some one who would willingly add theirs to ours.

     How deeply we do long for change. We know that how we are operating is not working, yet we find no other solutions. I believe, however, that somewhere deep inside we all know the answer. Why then? Why do we not search it out? Well I propose that we are fearful. I am fearful. To search this Solution out is to go into the unknown. It's to admit there is somewhere and some one with whom I will gain much freedom and yet lose much freedom. It's to admit that I am in fact broken. It's to be courageous. This is rare yet powerful virtue.

     But I will tell you my friends that our Solution is desperate for us. He is altogether receiving and forgiving. He is clothed in glory and greatness and eager to place Himself into us. He is seeking the humble and courageous. He is seeking to share more of Himself with the world- not because He's egocentric or proud, but because He wants us to have the best...and He knows that He Himself is the best. He is love. He is abundance. He is rest. He is the fulfillment of our hopes. He is the Solution.

     I pray for your peace and rest, and that this hope that daily finds me will daily find you, and that as we seek in return, the glory of God will not simply be shown but be spread. I pray that broken hearts will be healed. I pray that chains will be broken. I pray that hope rises.

Why I Believe

There is a darkness that dwells in us, that constantly nurtures our fear and drives us to be twisted. This is the flesh. The carnal. The broken. Our darkness is so deep that even we do not want to admit it to ourselves, much less to each other. But it is real. It is here.

There is no hope in us alone. Many men have tried to place the darkness and produce light- all efforts including education, positive thinking, money, or willpower. Many have tried and many have failed. History will hold true to the fact that we are broken, and no carnal man has ever found a solution as to how we are fixed. This is why no perfect government has been made, nor can our imperfect government save us. This is why there is war, why there is hunger, and why there is death.

Even our current situation is gleaming with the statements of our perversion. Philosophers, theologists, psychologists, authors, and atheists alike all agree on one thing. That we are broken. That there is something each of us knows we ought to be, that we ought to measure up to, and yet none of us do. And we see the brokeness. We see it in distant and conflicted families. We see it in government that divides and people that divide with it. We see it in school shootings. We see it even in religion- when the world looks from outside in and sees that we make claims we have not lived up to, and shames us and is ashamed of us.

And what have we done? We have written about it. Self help books, philosophy books, therapy manuals. Everywhere from the internet to newspapers and magazines. Everyone is trying to the solution to our depravity. Pondering as people must, we suggest more beauty, more money, more fame, more power, more government, less government, more family time, more self-control, and higher education.

But here's the problem with these approaches. None of them have worked. Certainly if they were working, we would see new ideals being realized and old ideals being reborn. I'm not going to make any morality judgements- that we should support or bash homosexuality, that abortion is pro-life or pro-choice. The solution isn't found in measuring up to a moral code that no one consciously seems to be able to agree on. But I propose that we look at the things we are united on...that abusing and murdering young children is wrong. That beating our wives is dark and inhumane. That crime without punishment is injustice. That we humans have a heart that is bent against good things.

So what's the solution? Here's what I believe, and why I believe it. I believe in a God of light, in a savior of the world. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe that He is and has always been the solution, and the reason we deny that is because we have never fully tried Him. Why? Because we, in our feeble attempt to understand His entire nature, believe it costs too much. But I believe that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

I believe in a God whose heart breaks at the sight of sin. I believe in a God who has planted some of Himself in each of us in such a way as to make us yearn for Him. I believe in a Jesus who came and lived a perfect life we could not so that His nature could be combined with ours, that while we may still sin, we could love and be kind and show compassion. I believe in hope.

Why Jesus? Why not any other religion? Firstly, because He identifies the solution as Himself. He doesn't tell us that we can fix ourselves. He doesn't convince us that the answer is to just try harder. He tells us that He is God and we are not. I can no longer believe that the answer to mankind's problem is found within mankind.

Secondly, because I have found no progress in any other pursuit. No other desire has ever given me rest except for Jesus. No other place I have gone has had still waters to restore my soul. No other place has had a Father who loves me in every perfect way. I've yet to find the answer in politics or authority. But with Him, I have improved. I have gained in strength and maturity. I have grown in faith. I have seen fruit.

I have seen others improved. And above that, I have loved and seen others love, and love is after all our most prized possession and pursuit. We desire unconditional acceptance above all other things, and my Jesus is the only place I have found unconditional and everlasting love, and I have found this same love in others who found their love in Him as well. He is the source.

And this is what I believe and why I believe, and I pray that my belief finds you and rescues.

Divine Romance

At the essence of who I am, there is a desire we all share. This is the desire to be loved, and along with that, liked. To know there is some one not only out there, but right here. Some one who will love me unconditionally, that regardless of how I write or how often I write, my letters are cherished. Yes, even the paper is cherished.

But more than that, I don't simply want a love that overwhelms but a desire that overwhelms. To feel so secure and captivating, that even one word from my lips would cause some one's heart to beat faster, some one's step to pep up, some one's eyes to grow wet with passion.

I want some one that enjoys me, but not because they only see what's good in me. I want some one who sees even the darkest parts of me and likes me anyways. Some one who's eyes are endowed with the ability to look past this flesh I dwell in, and see my vibrant and ravishing heart.

I want life.

I want breath.

I believe it is in the very nature of love to be incomprehendable. I believe it is in the power of love to be so gripping that even pagans and prisoners can be won. I believe that every parent who loves their child will tell you that they can not find enough ways to express their love, that their care and warmth goes beyond what any words could say or actions could do, because even the years of nurture may not seem to be enough.

I believe in a God who is like this.

A God who dances over us in violent and elegant ways. Who sings with a booming voice that makes me wonder how we so rarely hear it. Who with gentle hands touches places no one else can touch, and with eyes of fire sees places that no one else can see. Who's heart is the only one big enough to love all mankind and creation as fiercely as he does.

Every once in a while we see a glimpse of His love shine through us. Whether it's the saddened woman who forgave the man who murdered her daughter, and pleaded for his sentence to be halved. Or it's the teenage girl who just wasn't popular enough, and despite her peer's hurtful ways got meaning and hope from a community who cared enough to do something. Whatever it is and however it comes, we know it when we see it.

And this is love, that a man who had no need of us nor anything to be gained from us came to earth and lived the life we could not, died a death we deserved, and rose again so that we might also be resurrected. This is truth. This is the gospel. I hope it finds you in a place that is receptive and redemptive, and gives you hope for a brighter day.