Becoming a Usable Vessel

You can tell hell is at work when people choose to believe a bad report about longtime friends and then reject their influence from within a circle of fellowship. Those who believed the bad report may put on a happy face, but underneath the smiles, the dismissal has already done its damage. These negative reports are like rotted balls hurled back and forth, destroying what was once a beautiful thing. What is left behind after a bad report has been allowed to sow its death is the sorrow of betrayal. These experiences are not a complete loss if we can keep our hearts unoffended in the trial. God can use an unoffended heart for His glory in ways not thought possible when we were first tossed aside and dismissed. Passing the test of betrayal and remaining unoffendable will make us a usable vessel in the hand of the Master.

Differing Perspectives

The body of Christ is not designed to walk and talk in lockstep over every issue in society and all aspects of theology. Our oneness is in the person of Jesus Christ, not our limited interpretation of Him or the events of culture. Paul said we are all unique and have a different place within His body, each with a different function, purpose, and location. We need to give each other a bit more room in our social discourse, especially when we see the same event or process the same information but interpret that input from a different perspective.  A growing number of people are becoming fatigued by the political spirit they see at work in our government. We owe them an image of Jesus Christ and His Church that does not empower its message by that same spirit.

 

Chasing After God

There has been only one principle that Jan and I followed when needing to discover our next step in life. That principle has been to follow the Lord at all costs. We had a few times when we stumbled, but when we finally stepped out in faith, that single principle has led us without fail in the last 47 years of marriage and 40 years of service in God’s Kingdom.

At times chasing after God made no sense financially or logically. It created challenging times with good friends who did not understand. It changed how people viewed us, and in some cases, radically altered the trajectory of our lives.

As someone on the last lap or two of life, I can look back over the previous four decades of life and say, following the leading of the Lord has been the single most important decision we have ever made. It has been our key to fulfillment in all areas of our life. Today, Jan and I have no needs, but if tomorrow should a need arise, we know that in Christ, we lack no good thing. 

If you want to know your next step in life - chase after the Lord. His is the calling of your life, not what you do to express that calling. Follow Him wherever He leads no matter the cost or the jeopardy that choice creates. The place where God is leading you and how you will execute that calling will be the by-products of obeying His voice. That choice will challenge your faith when your doubts and the counsel of others tell you to take a safe and predictable course. 

Each day, Jan and I wake up and thank God for our life together, knowing we did not get here on our own or by our wisdom. We were brought to this place by a faithful Lord who invited us to follow Him. He is waiting to take your hand and show you how to move forward to something you could not imagine. Take Him up on His invitation, and you will never live with regret.

The Demise of a Packaged Faith

Over the last 40 years, I have seen faith come in a variety of packaged forms. These packages of faith are created geographically, socially, and by the requirements for employment. This packaging takes place in local churches, denominations, and groups with shared affiliations. If you want to be in the group, you signed on the dotted line of a statement of faith and its corresponding worldview.  

Something has been taking place in the last few years. People are questioning the need for such things. This is not to devalue good theology. We need it now more than ever. What I am seeing, especially since the cultural lockdown, are people questioning the value of some of what they believed with unquestioning loyalty before this time of isolation. This is not a challenge to the truth itself. It is the unwrapping of our package of faith to see if its contents actually represent God's Kingdom with clarity and function in a rapidly changing world.

Jude wrote about the faith once delivered to the saints. When he wrote those words, he did not have in mind our current interpretation of faith in all its unique representations. He was describing a faith so simple it cannot easily be packaged and bowtied with our personal preferences.  The current unraveling of a packaged version of faith is actually bringing us back to something simple and agile – the faith once delivered to the saints. It is a good thing.

If you are a leader who offered a packaged form of faith and required strict allegiance to that package, you will face some challenges when people return from this time of quarantine. Before you demand people adhere once again to the previous package you or your organization offered, give people time to share what they are sensing. It might actually be the Lord speaking.  The way forward for you and the group you represent could be discovered in that exchange. 

The Power and Beauty of Belonging

On July 4^th, Jan and I had the honor of officiating our daughter’s wedding. Toward the end of the ceremony, I had Anna and Jared exchange rings. I explained to them wearing my wedding ring for the last 47 years was a daily reminder that I belonged to someone – to Jan. I remember the day Jan and I drove to the Eastridge Mall in San Jose, California, to buy our rings. I still carry the joy of that day. After all these years, the pattern on our rings has long worn off, but their meaning has grown more significant and meaningful with each passing day.

A sense of belonging is critical for a person to be healthy, both emotionally and spiritually. Belonging is not created by wearing jewelry or owning shared property. It is a look in a person’s eyes when you embrace them that speaks of shared love and commitment. It is a feeling you carry when apart wanting to be in their presence once again. It is a sacred trust and something you protect at all costs.

Perhaps one of the greatest things we can do for someone is to let them know they belong. For a friend, it is offering a reminder of the value of your friendship. For a stranger, it is affirming them as a fellow human being who is worthy of our love and respect. 

When people no longer feel like they belong, a separation occurs, and in that place of separation, mean-spirited and harsh things take up residence. The only thing that can disempower those things is a kind word or a gesture of affirmation that tells them they belong.  We all belong to each other and to God. No one should ever feel like they are alone. Knowing we belong is the first step in healing the painful wounds of separation. It is our responsibility to initiate that first step with each person we meet.

Of One Heart

Being of one heart has a greater impact than being of one mind. In a close environment where people work together toward a common goal, hearts that follow after God in love, create a healthy and cohesive work environment. 

The apostle Paul encouraged us in the second chapter of Philippians to be of one mind. That one-mindedness was the by-product of living together in an environment of love. Love is always a matter of the heart.  Many times, we miss what creates a by-product by focusing on the by-product and not what produced the by-product.

If a leader requires all team members to be of one mind, typically, that translates as being in lockstep obedience with the worldview and preferences of the team leader. That requirement actually creates a weakness in the team. It is a false unity and restricts Spirit-led creativity that only comes through a diversity of opinion. It also limits the breadth of expression and insight required to engage greater Kingdom exploits. 

For example, if you are a team leader who releases edicts of how your team should respond to the issues of culture in an attempt to maintain team discipline and portray unity to those outside the team, you are creating followers, not leaders. Work first and foremost at building a team unity around the fruits of the Spirit, not your opinions. If the hearts of your team members are right and expressing love and honor toward each other, even if they say or do something that differs from your opinion, it will all work out in the end because their hearts were right. This is the kind of working environment that creates trust and honor in a team because people know they are loved in their diversity, not only in their conformity.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom

I've already wished Jan a happy Mother's Day in a public and personal way. I wanted to take a moment to honor my mother, who has been with the Lord for ten years this month. She came from a life of poverty in the deep South. My mom had only one pair of shoes she wore to church and school. She traveled from Louisiana in the late 1930s to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. The attached photo was her publicity photo when she tried to break into 20th Century Fox Studios. Becoming a starlet did not work out, so she opened a restaurant not far from Angelus Temple, where she heard Aimee Semple McPherson preach. A few years later, along with her mother, she moved north from Los Angeles to San Francisco, where she would meet and marry a young carpenter named Charlie Elkins. Together they would birth a firstborn son who would later serve in the Foursquare Church many years into the future. In San Francisco, my mom would become an actress and dancing presence in San Francisco stage productions, most noticeably at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Such a rich and diverse history she had. Happy Mother's Day, mom. I love you.

Be Careful

Our culture is coming to a collective emotional head in this time of isolation, especially in communities of faith. The number one issue we are all facing is fear - fear of losing control. It could be our fear that the “normal” we once knew might go away and never return. Sometimes this fear is manifested when an opinion is expressed that breaks rank with a narrow interpretation of a critical issue causing someone to be pushed out of the orbit of a familiar relationship they once knew.

When an early Church leader wrote the poignant words, “In the essentials unity, in the non-essentials liberty, in all things love” he gave us a key to help us navigate through this challenging season, primarily through the area called the non-essentials. Non-essential does not mean unimportant. It is referring to something not worth destroying years of relationship over.

What lies between the bookends of essential truth and expressing love is where we can encounter relational jeopardy. When an opinion, which is the realm of a non-essential, is allowed to become essential or a reason not to love, we are in trouble. A single idea expressed outside what was considered acceptable is sometimes all that an individual or group needs as a reason to say goodbye to a relationship, and punish the opposing viewpoint with separation and silence.

We have all been guilty of this offense at one time or another. Our fear, if not disciplined, will weaken our most cherished theology or, worse, destroy the bond of love in our relationships. That is always such a sad and disheartening experience. 

^“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Colossians 3”12-14).

When Critics Arise

Critics in the Church come and go like the cycles of ocean tides. They run up on the beach of the Church to make their claim and then recede, leaving behind the hissing foam of their declaration of judgment. Over the years, I have noticed several areas where critics are especially drawn.

Scripture – Critics typically have a narrow field of acceptable Bible translations. They find a few sections of a particular translation they view as objectionable and discount the entirety of that translation. They begin to lump entire groups of people into their judgment and dismiss longtime friends and relationships on a quest for biblical purity – a purity not available in any translation.  

Worship – Critics in the area of worship resemble someone kicking down the bedroom door of a married couple, catching them in an intimate moment, and criticizing their lovemaking. These critics have a preferred form of worship. They believe one size of worship fits all and anything outside that understanding is heresy and worthy of their judgment and condemnation.  

Sin – Critics like to focus on the sins of other people, not their own. Unrepented sin does need to be addressed, but only within the parameters laid out in a biblical process. That process is filled with mercy and offers of restoration over time. Sin critics like to use public forums to shout out the sins of other people to gain a following of fellow sin-critics. Social media has made this dark ministry viral, like a virus that infects all who come in contact with its sickness. 

Be careful taking on the assignment to be a critic of anything in the Lord’s Church. Use discernment in all things. Be wise and compassionate in how you apply that discernment. Only the Spirit can convict someone of their sin in any meaningful way. Above all, everything we do must be done in love, or it will produce the fruit of another kingdom, a fruit that is bitter and filled with sorrow.

Catch a Memory

Take a moment and recapture a fond memory. It is a healing exercise. I just did, and a strange and beautiful peace entered my mind pushing aside some of the concerns I have picked up of late. 

As a young boy, I remember going fishing with my dad and riding in his little aluminum boat on Lake Berryessa in California. Dad had an old 2-cycle outboard motor that coughed and chugged us across the glassy surface of the lake at the break of dawn, leaving in our wake a tendril of blue exhaust smoke. Our fishing poles stuck out from the boat’s bow like a ship's masthead with red and white bobbers bouncing up and down. My brother and I sat in the front seat, shivering in the cool early morning air that passed by our pink cheeks. As the boat motored toward our favorite cove, we were anticipating the first tug of a fish taking the bait and submerging our bobber. Dad was at the stern, running the outboard with a Camel cigarette hanging from his mouth. My brother and I exchanged glances with each other and then back at dad. He was smiling. He loved to be with “his boys.”  Those were simpler times with a lot less life clutter to process.

Today, reach back in time and grab a simple memory. Linger in its remembrance for a few moments. Like the power of a testimony, a simple memory can cross time and bring the same joy into the current moment that was experienced when the event first took place. These are gifts from God. Unpack them with joy.

God is Reframing Our Future

Many times, I will see something just before I begin to write. This morning, I saw frames like the kind of frames that surround a photo or work of art. The frames were approaching a date shortly when we will emerge from this time of isolation. Each frame has a life it will encompass and a date when the reframing will take place.

Most of us have written something in the margin of a book or a Bible. As we read along, we jot down thoughts and observations in the margins of the text. There is actually a term for this: “marginalia.” 

Marginalia originally described the intentional designs in the margins of Medieval illuminated manuscripts. The margins of these manuscripts were filled with beautiful patterns and images in gold and silver that helped “illuminate” the text. 

God will be reframing many of our lives in the coming days. He has written on these new frames – the marginalia - His desire for the next season of our life. The new frame will make our lives come alive with fresh clarity revealing the original intent of the Artist. 

This season has not been a wasted or lost time. Each painful loss and disappointment will be captured by God and transformed into a hope-filled marginalia text that will reveal the creativity of His redeeming power. When you emerge from this time, and your new frame is placed over the image of your life, you will become a masterpiece of God fit for a place of honor in the most prestigious gallery.

A Barren Message

A message of contempt will always create barrenness in the life of those who are swayed by its content. No matter how strong an opinion or well-researched a position might be, a message of contempt does not contain the seed of life. 

A barren epitaph was pronounced over David’s wife after she mocked with contempt how David worshipped the Lord when the Ark was returned to Jerusalem. “So, Michal, the daughter of Saul, remained childless throughout her entire life” (II Samuel 6:23). Each time I read that verse, I cringe in sadness for Michal and gain a new measure of respect for the subtle power of unrestrained contempt.

A dictionary definition of contempt reads, “The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless.” Contempt is manifested in anger, disgust, or scorn. Samuel Johnson, the English essayist and social commentator of the 18^th century, said this of contempt, “Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which if it seizes one part of a character, it corrupts all the rest by degrees.” Our culture is infected with contempt. The Church is not immune to this infection. 

God desires to plant seeds of life in our lives. We must offer him a healthy womb for those seeds to create life, not division, disgust, or death. Do not open your life up to the seductive spirit of contempt. What at first appears to be a welcomed union of shared emotion will, in the end, become a barren and sad place of stolen potential. 

The Imperfect Lens of Our Discernment

We view people who are different from us through filters. We have gender, ethnicity, life experience, and personal preference filters. There is nothing wrong with these filters unless they become a rigid lens through which we see and judge someone. This corrupted lens transmits a jaded and prejudiced view of people and life itself.

When Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth he said, “As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point” (I Corinthians 4:3). Our judgment about people is not trustworthy. It is always clouded by the lens we use to see and interpret their lives. What we are unable to see is what is happening in someone's heart. That is a realm of insight only seen by God. 

“So, don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time—before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives” (I Corinthians 4:5). 

Closures

As we get older, something visits us with increasing regularity. That visitor is closure. Seasons of life come to an end. Places we once lived change over time and close behind the door of our history. The lives of friends and loved ones end transitioning from this life to the next in life's final closure, but the memories remain. A great treasure of growing older is being able to collect a lifetime of memories. I have noticed a sweet sorrow associated with those memories. Their sorrow tells us we have lived well and long and wanted life in all its forms to remain forever even though we knew better. The sweetness comes because we are thankful for the honor to have lived through a lifetime of openings and closures.  At this later time of life, we begin to reflect on the privilege we had to carry our memories to the end - to the moment of our own closure, always thankful for the journey, beginning to end. 

Seeking the Highest Good

A wise mentor once described love in a way that changed my understanding of love. It changed how I view other people, especially those I might not like or agree with. He said, “Love is seeking the highest good for another person.” I wish I could say I have always loved this way, but sadly, I have failed more times than I want to admit.

What would it look like if we sought the highest good for another person? To answer that question, we would need to understand the difference between God’s highest good for someone and our demand that people live as we do, choose our particular flavor of politics, hold our worldview, or agree with our religious beliefs.

Today, you may have an opportunity to view the face of someone you have been programmed to view with disgust. How would you seek the highest good for that person? Some of you might go to work returning to an environment created by an emotionally unhealthy supervisor where division and malice fill the air. How would you seek the highest good for that person?

Seeking the highest good for another person is easy when we agree with each other. To seek the highest good for a relationship or situation outside our sphere of comfort and approval is where the real test of the quality of our love is discovered. This is the place where Jesus does His most exceptional work. It is a painful Cross-like experience where we allow ourselves to be nailed by love to relationships where we continue to seek the highest good of another person no matter what the response.

Following Your Passion

I recently saw a creative artistic expression posted by a friend of mine on his Facebook wall. I did not know that particular form of creativity was part of his life. As soon as I saw what he created, I imagined a book he could write. My friend is well-educated and known in his field of expertise as an expert and scholar, not an artist. I shared with him what I saw as a creative collaboration of what appeared to be a spur of the moment expression of an unknown talent (unknown to me) and his years of study and teaching. I made some suggestions to spark his interest in the project. If he ever creates the book, I'll be first in line to buy a copy.

My daughter, Anna, just released a book titled “Living Large on Little.” The book idea was not only a surprise to Anna, but she was surprised how easy it was to create once her life-experience and creative talents came together. Anna experienced the merging of a lifetime of wisdom and creativity that released its expression in the form of a book. That is what I hope to see in my friend as well.

God did not give us our passions to become static emotions without expression. Passion releases creativity. A friend of mine, John L. Moore, is a best-selling author who crafts his books around his passion for horses and ranch life interwoven with his unique life experiences. When you read books from people like my daughter and John L. Moore, you catch something not offered in books written without passion. 

This passion-empowered creativity is not limited to books. Another friend, Cheryl D. Garcia, sculpts beautiful steel art forms from raw metal that grace the small town where I live and beyond. I have another friend who is a winemaker who does the same with grapes, and the list goes on. Don’t allow your passion to be defined as a static emotion without release. Explore your passion and follow its leading into something tangible. This tangible quality may not be a book, a sculpture or wine. You might have a passion to serve and your tangible expression will be to show love to others through acts of service. 

Today, ask the Lord how He wants to use your passion to express His heart to others.  Following that passion might create a season in your life you did not know was possible had you not followed your passion into a place of tangible creativity. 

God is Writing the Story of Your Life

When I write a book or an article, it is rarely done in a linear fashion. I am not a traditional author who works from an outline. Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz, once said of his writing style, “If you want to see where my next book will come from, read my blog.” I am not a novelist who develops character profiles and plotlines. I write like a prophet who is creating a dish of revelation from a variety of ingredients with a dash of apostolic insight tossed in here and there to provide structure to my writing.

The way I write can resemble how we live our lives. Not much of life is lived in a straight line forming a predictable route of travel. Our journey is filled with detours, collisions, and misdirection.  Our lives are a collection of what can appear to be isolated events. These events feel separate and disconnected until God steps in and threads His needle with the scarlet thread of His loving interaction in our life and pulls together each isolated event to create the timeline of our unique story. 

If you are feeling a bit fragmented, I want to encourage you that each stand-alone and seemingly disconnected experience of your life will someday be brought together to reveal a script you could not have imagined nor written. God is the only one capable of writing an accurate account of your life.

Perhaps I am sharing all of this with you because it was just this morning that a writing project finally began to fall into place as God tugged on the scarlet thread, and all the pieces seemed to come together. If we give God the time and space required to knit together the narrative of our story, we will live without the frustration and angst that comes when we try to write our story without the help of His merciful editorial wisdom. Only God can bring together the fragmented seasons of our life and create a bestseller.

A Copy and Paste Vision

God will ask some of you to cut and paste a portion of an old vision into the new thing God is doing in your life. You will need to bring some things forward in order to move forward. Other things that had a purpose in a single season of your life will remain in the past.

I’ve completed the research for two new books. It’s one of those moments in my life when I am asking God which one I should move forward with, or should I actually shelve both ideas all together and call it good. I’m not interested in writing another book, only if directed to do so by God.

I am working within a formatting template graciously supplied to me by my editor-daughter, Anna. At this stage in these projects, I am cutting and pasting unedited content into the template to get a feel for how each book would look and flow as I structure the primary substance and format.

Your life and the unfolding vision God is revealing to you is like the process of writing a new book. As you consider moving forward into the new thing God is revealing, it is not wise to prematurely hit the delete button on your past before you inquire of the Lord about your future. 

Some of the items in your history were not given to you to carry for only a single season. They are part of your spiritual and visionary core. They should migrate with you into the future. Vision is accumulated and crafted over a lifetime. It's not a static one-time event created in an afternoon workshop on life-planning. With each new season, you will need to discern what is to remain with you as you move forward and what you should leave behind. The Lord will be faithful to show you which critical core issues you will need to cut and paste into the developing template of your future. 

The Gritty Side of Life

When I am in the mood for the gritty side of life – the side of life that is unvarnished, real and gutsy, I set my Pandora app to the music of Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson, Kathy Mattea, and others who sing from the soul. These artists create songs about people living in the margins of life where pain and loss are real and in your face. This margin place is where Jesus did some of His best work with those rejected and marginalized by the religious establishment. 

Those trapped in a religious spirit cannot go there because they think they will be stained by something their religious detergent can’t scrub off. To sing or express how we really feel about a life-struggle is evidence for them that our faith is somehow in jeopardy. It doesn’t take much Bible reading to discover this sound expressed in David’s psalms or the life of Job and others.

Our spirituality is the healthiest when it looks freshly sanded and rough, not smooth, varnished, and all together. Somewhere in this gritty side of life, hope must be present, or our song will become just another hopeless dirge. Hope is expressed in its clearest form when heard in the deep and painful trough of life’s margins. It is there where our best music is played because our songs of hope have become the most distinct and beautiful when sung in a place of despair.

The Strength of a Woman

Last week, Jan and I were taking communion and praying together like we do each day. After we received the bread and wine, we prayed over our children, our marriage and some of you who are reading these words. It was still early in the day, and the morning sunlight was filtering through our living room window, casting a delicate shadow of Jan in prayer. I quietly raised my phone, and discreetly captured her image. 

I have a wife who still turns my head and makes my heart leap each time I see her. We are not short on romance. In many ways, we started dating 50 years ago and haven’t stopped. What I love most about Jan is not her beauty, the sound of her voice or how she walks, though those things do grab my attention. It is the strength she carries in the Spirit I admire most. She is a spiritual mother to hundreds of men and women around the globe. She has a quiet confidence that comes from a woman who does not have to prove herself. She walks in intimacy with God. In all our conversations about people, she never violates their trust. She carries honor, not sharing with me, or anyone the most intimate details about another person's life. I feel like I am living with a spiritual giant that daily slays hell with the weapons of truth, love, honor, and mercy.

If you are a woman your most significant strengths will be discovered in the Spirit, not in the shallow offerings of a broken image of womanhood that continually lives in fear of the beautiful process of aging, or self-doubt, or allowing someone other than God to form you into their image. The most appealing things to a man who is worthy to share life with you will not be found inside the garish pages of a glossy women's magazine but within the truth of Scripture. 

If you are a man and happen to be reading these words, your desire to be the protector and lover of your wife will be seen most clearly when you are strong enough to partner with her as your spiritual equal stepping forward together arm-and-arm in prayer and worship and a shared life in the Spirit. When a man and a woman live like this, their life will become a living advertisement of the power of oneness. That is the measure of true strength for both a man and a woman.