Letting Go and Holding On

This morning I had the awesome privilege of taking my kids to school. I do not get to do that often.

As I was dropping our youngest, Camryn 9, off she was visibly upset. You see, Camryn misses Mommy (my beautiful wife Nicki). Nicki used to work at Camryn's school until a few weeks ago. She was always there if Camryn needed her. Camryn has struggled with this.

She has begged and pleaded to just stay home or for us to come pick her up early, and while my heart wants to do those things I know that is not what she needs. We were sitting in the car pool line and she was pleading with me, I could see her red face in the mirror and I wanted to just be able to hold her and make everything ok. But I couldn't. She was in the very back of the van and I, of course was driving. We pulled up to the drop off point and Camryn unbuckled came up front and gave me a hug and a kiss and said "I love you, Daddy" and the bravely climbed out of the van. The whole while her face becoming redder, her eyes more teary. As she was sliding the door closed, she said again with almost the sound of hope, despair and one last effort, "I love you, Daddy".

She feels sad and alone at that school and every fiber in me wants to comfort and care for her and hold her and keep her from experiencing this pain, but I know that is not what she needs.

She reminded me on the way that "Mommy usually prays with us on the way to school". And so we prayed. We prayed for God forgive us of our sins, to be with us, to bless us and for us to have an awesome day. And I know that He will be with us. But it doesn't always feel that way.

When the hurt and pain and loneliness of bleak situations come, sometimes as Christians we forget that God is with us. I mean look at scripture and the countless times we are told that He is with us even unto the ends of the earth, and "lo I am with you always", and it's good that He should go away because He sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit to live inside us. And the many more examples. Wouldn't it be great if Jesus would just come hang out with us and be here physically to hold us and comfort us and make everything ok whenever we have trials and struggles? But that's not what we need. We do need to have our dependency in Christ. To draw our strength from Him through the situation, because while just fixing it would be easier, the easy way does not always produce in us what God wants to produce.

Remember His goal and His will for our lives is transformation,

and even though I hate to say it and I hate to seemingly belittle our circumstances down to this, but you don't get a diamond from coal or a butterfly from a caterpillar without some darkness and pressure.

So back to Camryn. So as the van door is shutting, seemingly crushing my heart in the process, and all I want to do is hold my little girl, God does and reveals a miraculous thing to me. And I know He is showing Camryn too. Camryn hasn't taken three steps when a teacher sees her and just grabs her and hugs her and as I was hurried through the carpool exit, through tears in my eyes I saw that teacher holding Camryn and comforting her until they were out of my rear view.

I don't know what that lady's relationship is with Christ. But I do know that God used her to show Camryn His love and strength and comfort. He also used her to show me that that is what Camryn needed. That is what we need. We need to be able to recognize Him in His movements. Jesus said that His sheep know His voice and I heard it loud and clear this morning through that image in my rear view mirror.

People, God is with us. He is all around us. He is always at his work creating beauty from ashes, order from disorder, making a way where there seems to be none. (check out Isaiah 40:26-31) Saving, loving, forgiving, comforting. He is there in the plea of a child, in the prayer of a parent, in an unexpected embrace, providing strength and love and grace for the moment.

Just what we need, if we will accept it.

It's strange, but sitting here typing this, I am overwhelmed with awareness of His presence and comfort and hope and grace. I recognize it. I accept it. I am thankful for the unexpected embrace that came from letting go and watching God holding on through the view in my rear view mirror.

Calling part 2

OK, so I've been thinking about this thing. I believe we have been called to many things. We've been called to the Cross of Christ, to come and die to ourselves. We've been called to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind". We have been called to "love one another" just as Christ has loved us. Jesus said later on in John 13, that is how "all men will know you are my disciples". Some of us have been called to be husbands, wives, fathers, mothers,. Some of us have been called to be single. I guess what I am trying to say is that our "big calling" is actually to become children of God through Christ Jesus and to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." and to "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39)

So now that we have that established, I want to look at some of the stuff in John 13. At the time I was reading this and God began speaking to me through this passage, I was having a rough time processing some thoughts about my own calling to Worship Ministry and where I am right now in relation to that calling; physically, emotionally, spiritually. It has been a wild past 4 years or so. Lots of joys, lots of pains, lots of questions. Lots of questions without answers.

John 13. So we open on a familiar scene from the Bible. If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you have probably heard this story. The story of Jesus washing the disciples feet. What an amazing example Christ has set for us through the washing of feet, but I think we may tend to gloss over the first part of this story (maybe not you, but at least I have in the past). The Bible says that "Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father." Man, what an important time! How would you feel if you knew that. All the things that would be going through my mind. All the things that I felt like were left undone or open-ended would probably send me into a frantic overdrive. But not Jesus. It goes on to say that "he now showed them the full extent of his love" (NIV). Other translations say that "He loved them until the end." Do we love like that? When its time to move on, when its time to go to the next phase of life or ministry or calling? Or do we take our focus off of the who, what, when, where, and why of now; where God has placed us now. But you may say "I am not even sure how I got here now. It just seems like one crazy screwed up time." I know the feeling, but do you think all of this, our situations or circumstances, is a surprise to God. Did this catch Him off guard like it did us? I think we both know the answer to that.

Speaking of situations catching us off guard, have you ever had a friend that you hung out with and shared life with and served side by side, and even served them on occasion only to find out later that they had betrayed you in some way? Think of how that made you feel, and oh if we had only known we wouldn't have been so nice or serving or lenient. Or if we had known, armed with the power of knowledge, we probably would have put a stop to their betrayal or even disassociated ourselves from them. But lets look back at John 13. Verse 2 alludes to the fact that Jesus already knew that Judas was going to betray him, and later on in chapter 13, Jesus reveals that he does in fact know who it is.

So let's think about this here for a minute. Jesus knows his time to go back to the Father is at hand. He is about to leave this world. Now he also knows that Judas is about to betray him. Verse 3 tells us that "Jesus knew that the Father had put ALL THINGS under his power, and that he had come from God, and was going back to God." (emphasis mine)

Verse 4 "So......". So......, put yourself in Jesus shoes, er, sandals. What would you do at this point? What would I do at this point? It's easy to determine what we should do, but it is sometimes difficult to determine to do it. v4-5 "so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him."

He did what? Jesus knows its about time to go back to the Father. He knows someone in the group is betraying him. He knows that all things are under his power. And He does what? Check out the picture here. Jesus is in this intimate setting with his closest disciples, and one of them is about to betray him, and the Bible says he takes off his outer clothing. The way that appears to me is that it is almost like saying "until now, you have seen me in a certain way, but now let me expose a deeper level of love and knowledge to you". Most of us would never think of serving or exposing more of our true selves. Especially to our betrayer. What beauty there is in this. But like I've heard some one say before, "we are all Judas Iscariot". Romans 5:8 says this: "But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners," still enemies of God, still betraying Him, "Christ died for us."

So, what has God called you to do? Maybe you are in a spot like I mentioned earlier; some place that seems a little (or a lot) off track and you are not quite sure how or why you got there. Or, maybe you know exactly where you are and where God has called you to. In either case, look to the example Christ has set for us. It could just be that this your time to show some folks "the full extent of your love". It could be that its time to serve those around us, even if we are in a place that seems vulnerable and unsure, or even counter productive in light of the circumstances and your percieved destination. It could just be that in doing so, you are closer to God's calling on your life than you realize.

Calling

We'll start with a confession: I sometimes struggle to be consistant in my Bible reading. There, I said it.

Being drawn by the Spirit (and probably some feelings of guilt) to the scriptures one morning, I opened to John 10 to begin reading what would be covered at our next small group. I read chapter 10, but then kept reading. A few verses at the beginning of chapter 13 have captured my thought and have been speaking to me.

Let me ask, what has God called you to do? Some may answer "God has called me to be a pastor" or "God has called me to plant a church" or "God has called me to be a full time missionary" or maybe "God has called me to be an administrator" or "children's pastor" or "whatever it is that is your life's big calling". I say "big calling" but maybe I should say "main calling". For those of us that like some predictability and being able to put things in their nice neat box, I think when we talk main calling we may feel like if what we are doing right now is not our main calling that we are not doing what we are called to do. However, the more I see and experience, the more I believe that our "main calling" is more like a "main heading" on an outline that may have several bullet points underneath. I think sometimes we can be so focused on the main heading that we overlook or even try to avoid some of the bullet points simply because, in and of themselves, they are not the "main heading".

Another thing I have noticed, with myself especially, is that if we are trying to do what God has called us to do, trying to get to that" place", and the circumstances surrounding us are not favorable for that, we will sometimes get discouraged and stop or even give up on what God has called us to. (On a side note, was that a run on sentence? Neither grammar nor language arts were one of my strong suits. and I will try to stop using so many quotation marks.)

Let me encourage you today as I have been encouraged: God has gifted and called each of us for some type of work in His kingdom. Don't give up on that or on God. He loves us and has a plan for each of us. And God WILL fulfill His purposes.

So I will ask you again, what has God called you to do? How does the landscape of your life look right now in light of that calling? What things are here today and what can you see coming on the horizon?

Well, this is my first blog and did not intend to start out with a "series" (i really tried to resist the quotes, and the parentheses), but as things progressed it appeared that this was going to be too much for one blog post. So, over the next few posts I will be getting more specifically into some of John chapter 13 as it relates to what we have been talking about and what God has been speaking to me through the scripture.

Thanks for reading and I will see you next time.