Joining God in Beauty

When God created the world he created it with care. He created it in stages. He created it with words.

As he pieced the world together from nothing, he regularly took a moment to look at what he created. When his eyes crossed the world that began in his imagination, there was only one phrase that flowed from his heart: "It is good."
I like to imagine God nearly giggling with excitement as he creates. Every once in a while he stops, looks back over the world, and mutters "yeah, yeah that's good. Haha! That's good!" Then he keeps going.

God created a world full of wonder and beauty. He created expansive plains where life could grow. He invented mountains so mighty that they inflict the significance and vastness of the world on every beholder. He created seas deep to the point that few can understand what is held beneath them.

He finished his work by creating us. Humans. We were the only ones who got an extra adjective. When God created humanity he looked, once again, over creation, and said "now that is very good." There are many reasons why God would think the addition of humanity really puts the world over the top, but I have to believe that one of those reasons is that we can enjoy his creation.

The infinite being who formed the earth created something that could experience his work, share his joy, and benefit from his creativity.

Beauty is close to the heart of God. He is a wonderful artist.

As participants in God's redemption of the earth, beauty is one of the ways that we join his work. Whether it is picking up trash on trail outside of town, expressing ourselves through art or music, helping a hurting person see the beauty in himself, or simply appreciating a sunset over lake Michigan's shore, when we participate in beauty we participate with God.

Let us, as followers of Jesus, make the world a more beautiful place in whatever way we can reach it.

Relationship- 5 Ways spiritual disciplines are like dating

One of the continual struggles for many believers, or at least for me (and I choose to believe I'm not the weird one), is spiritual disciplines.

If most of us are honest, praying for hours is boring, fasting makes us hungry, and reading God's word can be a bit like high school homework. We suffer through it a few times a week. We read a chapter or two, and we occasionally attend a prayer service and praydream (daydream+pray= praydream) our way into feeling better. We even give up soda or candy for lent.

But it still feels like homework.

Which, let's be honest, sucks.

We need a significant re-orientation when it comes to spiritual disciplines. Even the word "disciplines" sounds like being sent to the corner as a child, so we need to see these acts in a whole new light.

The building block for every part of Christianity is relationship. It's the overwhelming theme in scripture. God made. God walked with. God sent away. But then made a covenant with and became friends. God dwelt among. God became flesh. God indwells. God comes back. It's all about people being in a relationship with God. It's about people knowing him, and introducing him to others because that is what we were made for. God looked at us and said "that's real good" because he made us in his image to know him intimately.

All of this means that when we really understand following Jesus we should see that we are not being "disciplined" we are being pursued.  We are being related to. It's much like a dating relationship.

1. We sacrifice time and things to spend undivided time with the other person in the relationship. Being in a relationship means saying "no" to some things that I want in order to say "yes" to being with that person. Ask any married person. They'll agree. It's fasting.
2. We actually talk to people we are in a relationship. We don't just talk about superficial things like the weather and how we could use fifty bucks. When you get to know someone and let them know you it means opening up about all areas of life. It means letting them know what hurts, what helps, what is hard, what is easy, what is fun, what is beautiful, and what you've never said out loud before. It also means really listening. It's praying.
3. We use what we've been given to know each other. We hang out with each others friends. We listen to people tell stories about each other, and we seek to be taught how to know each other better. We tolerate each others music, and serve each other to build the relationship deeply. It's like church.
4. We submit to one another  because we put each other first.
5. We confess to one another and seek forgiveness.

When we begin to see the "disciplines" in terms of relationship it's much harder to find ourselves uninterested. We see that God is not concerned with proving our dedication to him, instead he is concerned with us knowing him deeply.

This doesn't mean that we'll never get bored and zone out in church ever again. It doesn't mean we'll always spend 2 hours praying or read the book of Job every month. It does mean that we'll see the real purpose for all of it, and, even though it's hard, do it because we love a person who truly loves us.

Don't Miss the Cross

Easter has come and passed but the cross never loses it's significance. No matter what time of year may we never let the cross of Christ get too far from our minds.
http://vimeo.com/92291575

2 Reasons Why You Should Go See Noah

1. Because we cannot give an informed answer to anyone's questions unless we have actually seen the movie.
2. Because it's a good movie, not a Sunday School lesson.

Debbie Downer: 3 Ways to not be One

There is always negative in life.

Always.

Bad things should not be ignored completely (healing cannot come without acknowledging the problem) but when they happen the easiest response is usually to spend a few good hours/days/weeks/years enjoying the attention it gets us. It's easy and comfortable to let the negative overwhelm us because it allows us to be a victim and receive pity. It's also deadly because the longer we dwell in the negative the harder it is to see the positive.

Here are 3 ways to avoid being a Debbie Downer.

1.  Be Thankful First: When we actually do the math in our lives we most often realize that our blessings far out way our complaints. In Philippians 4 Paul says to rejoice in the Lord always. Then he says it again... rejoice. This is an interesting statement when you consider that Paul wrote this letter while in prison. Even then Paul found more reasons to rejoice than to complain. He also mentions in the letter that complaining and grumbling are to be avoided in order to be blameless. When we start with being thankful it's hard to end with being angry because it frames our problems in God's goodness.
2. Look For Yourself in People: If we're honest the most common catalyst for negativity is people. We get disappointed, betrayed, stood up, etc and we throw a pity party. The easy thing to do then is to see the other person as an enemy, as different and dysfunctional. It's much harder to hate on someone when you begin with seeing the things you have in common. It very well could be that this person is acting like that because they feel the same stress to succeed that you do and they are doing their best to bring it about. It could be that this person is no later than I was two days ago.
3. Relax: It's darn near impossible to be happy if you never take care of yourself. Even Jesus stopped for a meal, got alone to pray, and hung out with his best friends a lot. If you're tempted to be negative go get a massage, spend time alone in prayer, spend time with your spouse, play a video game, watch espn, go to a concert, read a book, go snowboarding, or take a nap. When we are at ease everything seems easier.

Being negative, like cocaine, feels good at the time, but eventually traps us in an addictive cycle.

Don't be a Debbie Downer.

Stereotypes and Grace

You never know how much you stereotype people until you try to buy a house and move your new wife to a new neighborhood. It's easy to think that I'm perfectly accepting until I have to leave my wife alone in that house for the two weeks I'm gone to youth camp, then it get's a little harder. All of a sudden everyone becomes a potential intruder, but especially people that fit certain stereotypes that I have fought my whole life to defeat.

It's very convicting.

It's very humbling.

It's very uncomfortable.

It makes me wonder how accepting I actually am.

It makes me wonder how accepting our churches really are.

Carl Lentz said that if you feel comfortable leaving your wallet unattended you're going to the wrong church. 

In my heart I agree. In my head I'm uncomfortable. 

I don't think I'm the only one who struggles through this. I don't think it does us any good to pretend like it's not there either.

It's not that any of us think that grace is only for certain people groups that we're comfortable with. It's just that many of us wish someone else would be called to extend grace to them.

We say amen when people quote Paul.

"I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. " - 1 Corinthians 9:22b

But we still reach for our wallets and hit the lock button a few extra times when we see certain people. 

I am convinced of one thing- God doesn't call us to be comfortable, he calls us to suck it up. 

The story of the good samaritan is the perfect example. The samaritan was in the wrong place, about to get jumped, and walked up to somebody who doesn't really want his help, but he stopped anyway. There is no way he didn't feel uncomfortable, but grace goes beyond comfort. 

Grace says "We're really different, lets be friends." Grace says "I'm nervous in this neighborhood, let's have a prayer walk." "Grace says they don't look like they belong here. I'll help them belong." 

Grace doesn't always say "I'll walk alone after dark in a sketchy part of town." Dumb says that. 

Grace says "I have been affected by the stereotypes, but I'm fighting my judgmental nature. I love people anyway." 

We don't need to be comfortable in every single place with every single person. We need to love them anyway. 

Fall Off the Log: 4 steps to dealing with controversy

This is not another post about Phil Robertson or A&E.

To be quite frank my opinion is irrelevant. I don't know all of the details, and my blog, twitter and Facebook will do nothing but boost my ego or loose me a friend if I write something controversial about this topic. Same goes for all of us.

What this entire situation does do is force us each to do a bit of self evaluation. This is a situation in which many of us will, as one of my favorite college professors would say, "fall off the log." We'll pick a side and then argue, debate, and likely complain for a good long time.

The issue is less about which side we take and

 more about how we take that side. 

I've said before, human beings are reactionary. We're emotional, and while emotion is wonderful, it get's us into trouble. We get offended and react instead of listening, pondering, accepting criticism, and then acting. We should remember those four things.

1. Listen: A friend in college once said "you only have the right to an opinion if it's educated." This statement has nothing to do with your degree of schooling, it has everything to do with your willingness to listen. Until we know both sides of the issue we shouldn't address it. Truth is not necessarily found in the facts of the situation, sometimes it is found in the perceptions, emotions, attitudes, and preconceived notions. 

2. Ponder: My biggest weakness, we should each think before we speak. A brand new idea is usually a bad one. -not because the idea is necessarily bad, but because the first words out of our mouths are not usually the ones we'll wind up going with. 

3. Accept Criticism: Before we start a campaign we should find a few trusted friends on each side of the issue and run it by them. Accept their criticism and grow from it. Allow them to help us learn how to disagree in a loving manner. 

4. Then Act: *And only if, after all that consideration, the action is still worth taking.* We need to be people who take thought out, calculated, prayed out, action. Emotionally reacting to something is like slamming the door on your mom when you're arguing. Whether you had a good point or not you're not going to win now. Because it was disrespectful. 

**While we're on the topic of disrespect, being disrespected does not give us the right to disrespect others. Yelling matches never solve anything. 

What has made this entire scandal so outrageous is not what Phil Robertson said and not what A&E did, it is how people have reacted. This situation would be much easier, and un-clutter my news feed, if we would listen in love instead of yell. (or thoroughly read and type in all caps since most of this has taken place on the internet.) 

We're going to fall off the log on lots of issues. Let's do it well.