"He Made Virture Accessible"

For the past few weeks I've been reading Les Miserables (a fantastic book, by the way. If you're not up for the entire 1,500 page tome at least see the Liam Neeson adaptation). One of the parts that's stuck in my mind is from the beginning of the novel where Victor Hugo is describing the Bishop of Digne. He's talking about the Bishop's relationship with his people, his generosity and how he inspires others around him to good works. Hugo writes that the Bishop made "virtue accessible" to those around him.

That's exactly what Christ wants to do for us. A while back I wrote about holiness and how mistaken views of holiness lead us to lean either towards legalism or moral relativism. I think that we're in danger of both of those tendencies when we miss what God is doing here. When we see holiness as something far away and inaccessible we'll either tend towards legalism, believing holiness is attainable only for those with an extreme sense of discipline, or towards relativism, beliving holiness is so far away that it would be impossible to ever acheive and a waste of time to try.

I believe this is one of the reasons Jesus didn't discriminate over who He spent time with. He hung out with the rich and the poor. He gave some of His most profound teaching to a socially lofty man in Nicodemus and He chose lowly fishermen to be among His closest friends. He made His virtue accessible to anyone and everyone who was willing to receive it and called all of them into a richer and deeper life than they had ever imagined.

Jesus was able to do this because He saw who these people truly are. Beneath all of their sin and pain and woundedness He saw their true selves, their hearts, the people God had in mind before the foundations of the world. He saw it and He called it out. Virtue to Jesus was not something distant and inaccessible. It was and is Him calling His people back to Eden. It's His forgiveness and grace for sin. It's His healing and restoration for our wounds. It's His life that He always meant for us to live.

When we strip away the idea of God being an annoyed father who cannot stand to look at us until we shape up (legalism) or an easy going, distracted father who doesn't care what we do one way or the other (relativism) it's amazing what He can begin to accomplish in our lives. What takes those mistaken views of God is loving, available, passionate Father who is intimately involved in our restoring our lives to what they were always meant to be. God has made virture accessible to us. Now He is waiting for us to make ourselves accessible to Him.

What's Your Glory?

A while back I posted about purpose and what it looks like to begin to find God's plan for our lives. It's a subject that's stuck with me through the last couple months and one that God has continued to speak to me about. As I've been thinking, I'm beginning to wonder if we're not asking the wrong question. Whenever we begin to look at this topic we usually ask questions like what does God want me to do? What work has He prepared for me? What am I supposed to be doing with my time here on Earth? Those are all valid and worthwhile questions that God does want us to find answers to. But in order to find those answers, I believe we need to ask another question. A question that's at the heart of all our other questions about purpose. We need to ask God what our glory is.

We tend to shy away from this side of purpose because it sounds a bit self centered. Most of us when we think of purpose rightfully believe that that purpose is going to be first and foremost about serving God and others. That's true. We are part of a whole, the body of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven. Christianity is not a giant ego trip, it's an invitation to step into something much larger than yourself. So yes, it's absolutely true that our purpose, the work God has for us, is going to be for the benefit of others and His kingdom.

But it's not the whole truth.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know by now that I passionately believe God cares about our hearts and that the heart is central to the Gospel. He cares who He made us to be and restoring us to that person. He cares about healing our hearts and bringing us life. God is passionate about us as individuals. With that conviction in mind, I also believe that God made us individually in such a way so that we will come alive, step into our glory, by doing the work He has for us. In other words, when we talk about the work God has for we're actually talking about the very things that make us come alive.

As I'm beginning to discover more about my glory and purpose one thing I have tried to do is pay attention to what my heart is doing in any given situation. What sort of situations, stories, conversations, etc. make my heart feel alive? Then I go deeper into those things and start to explore what specifically about that situation, story or conversation made my heart alive. What is God saying to me through my heart's reaction?

One example for me has been playing the piano. Ever since I started playing a year ago I've known that I love it and that it's a huge source of joy in my life. But lately I've been asking myself what about it makes me love it. As I've paid attention I've realized that there's something in my heart that loves to play something beautiful and complex and especially to share it with others. My heart had the same reaction when Annie told me she wanted me to put together my puzzle of Monet's Starry Night so I could hang it in the bedroom. I was being invited to create something complex, beautiful and then to share it with my wife. It's not my main purpose or glory but it's certainly a part of it that God is inviting me to live out.

What makes you come alive? How does God want you to live it out in the work He has for? Those two questions are the key to finding your glory and ultimately your purpose. Invite God to show you your glory, to make you come alive. He will and as He does you'll begin to find your purpose and your place in the larger story.

New On My Office Walls

It turns out that gluing and mounting a gigantic puzzle isn't nearly as tough as you'd think it would be. Up until a week ago I'd never glued any puzzle, gigantic or otherwise, so before I risked ruining my 8,000 piece School of Athens I decided to try gluing and mounting a smaller one.

I settled on a 1,500 piece map of Middle Earth that I'd done once before. I chose it because it's both a pretty cool picture that would look good on my wall if the gluing worked out and because I didn't care that much about ruining it. For some reason I don't really like doing puzzles of maps so while I wasn't going to be too broken up if the project went down in flames. It took a couple days to put together and then came the moment of truth. I opened up the first jar of puzzle glue and started to spread it on. It was so thick and white that I could barely see the picture after I was done. I was thinking, "This should dry clear, right?"

Thankfully it did. I did another coat, used craft glue to put it on foam board, trimmed the edges of the foam board, and the result was fantastic!


Next up was the big one. I had to order more glue since I'd only bought two bottles, the map took over one bottle, and the other puzzle is five times bigger. The glue I used this time I worked even better. It took only one coat for most of the puzzle and then a second around the edges. I mounted it on two 60x40 sheets of foam board, trimmed the edges and used a heck of a lot of 3M mounting tape to get it on the wall.

I don't think I really appreciated just how HUGE this thing was till I got it on the wall. It looks great in the office and I'm really happy I decided to glue it.




I did one more puzzle once all that was done. This one is 2,000 pieces. I'd done it once before and thought it would look good in my office. Unlike The School of Athens, it's by no means great artwork but it's still a fun picture.


My new sword also arrived in the mail this week. It's a replica of the William Wallace sword from Braveheart. It was being sold at Boot Camp and it has Wild at Heart inscribed on the blade. I mounted it using a magnetic sword mount which makes the sword look like it's floating on the wall. Very cool.


Next up I'm doing a 2,000 piece puzzle of Monet's Starry Night. Annie thought it would look good in our bedroom. Then, in a few months I'm hoping to start on this one. It's 14 feet by 5 feet and 24,000 pieces.

More Than Forgiveness

1 Then the angel showed me Jeshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. The Accuser, Satan, was there at the angel’s right hand, making accusations against Jeshua. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “I, the Lord, reject your accusations, Satan. Yes, the Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you. This man is like a burning stick that has been snatched from the fire.”

3 Jeshua’s clothing was filthy as he stood there before the angel. 4 So the angel said to the others standing there, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And turning to Jeshua he said, “See, I have taken away your sins, and now I am giving you these fine new clothes.”

5 Then I said, “They should also place a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean priestly turban on his head and dressed him in new clothes while the angel of the Lord stood by.

Zachariah 3:1-5

One of the things I try and pray on a daily basis is to renew my commitment in Christ to put off my old, sinful nature. I do this both because it's a much needed reminder of where Christ has brought me from and because not a day goes by where some part of me doesn't return to that sinful nature.

Lately as I've been thinking about this I've realized that while it is helpful and needed to pray this daily, and while I do genuinely believe it, I have a hard time living it. As I've been talking to God about why that is, He's been reminding me that while forgiveness, stepping out of our sin and having our slate wiped clean are all wonderful and beautiful promises God has made to us they're not the whole story.

I love the imagery in the passage above. It's exactly what's going on in our lives. The enemy has done his best to take us out and he's got a list a mile long of reasons why God should reject us but instead God rejects him. The picture of a stick snatched from the fire is a beautiful image of Christ's redemption. Just when everything seems hopeless, He comes and rescues from our sin.

But I also love that it doesn't end there. There's a promise in the last two verses that God isn't about just rescuing us and then leaving us to fend for ourselves. What He's up to is restoration, healing, growth and adoption.

There's a beautiful picture of this in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Early on in the story, Fantine, a single mother, is forced to leave her infant daughter, Cosette, in the care of the Thenardiers. She is to pay them a monthly rate and in return they will care for Cosette as one of their own. Eight years later the Thenardiers have long since broken their part of the bargain. Instead of treating her like a daughter, they've made Cosette a slave and are constantly demanding more money each month. Fantine is unable to go to Cosette herself but Jean Valjean promises Fantine that he is going to rescue her daughter.

When Jean Valjean arrives at the Thenardier's inn, Cosette is, in between beatings, being forced to knit new stockings for the Thenardier's daughters, even though she is denied any stockings for herself, new or old, and goes the whole winter in bare feet. Jean Valjean buys the unfinished stockings from the Thenardiers and in doing so he buys the time Cosette would have spent knitting them. He tells her that she is to use that time to stop working and play, something she's never been allowed to do.

It's wonderful. He comes into her life and gives her a freedom from her slavery she had never imagined possible. But there's one problem. Cosette has never been allowed a single doll her entire life. She has nothing to play with. She has her freedom but something's missing.

Jean Valjean goes out of the inn and comes back with the nicest, most expensive doll in the village. Cosette has seen it before but always believed that only a princess would be able to own such a doll. In a few moments, Jean Valjean's love has transformed her from a slave to royalty. He goes on to take her far from the cruelty of the Thenardier's and adopts her as his own.

That is exactly what God promises to do for us.

The reason I struggle (and I suspect I'm not alone) with putting off my sinful nature is because I forget that that's not the end of God is up to in my life on any given day. The freedom from sin He offers is wonderful but we must realize that we need more. We must not be content with just forgiveness when what God is really offering, what He truly desires and longs for, is to make us sons and daughters. Put off your sinful nature and do it daily. But remember too to step into your new nature and the life God is offering.

Two Questions

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10

As I've been going through the last few weeks of warfare and starting to live out everything God showed to me at boot camp, I've found myself returning again and again to John 10:10. If you were trying to sum up the entire story of the Bible in a single verse I don't think you could do much better than this one. Yes, there's much more to the Gospel and to the Christian life but when it comes right down to it, what is going behind all of that other stuff is Jesus trying to restore and the enemy trying to destroy us.

With that in mind, as I've been thinking about this verse I've found that God has been using it to ask me two questions: What is Christ doing to give me life to the full? How is the enemy trying to steal, kill and destroy it?

I've found this to be a fantastic way to reorient myself on Christ. It forces me to look at my thoughts, my actions, my desires and think about where they're coming from. It forces me to think about what the fruit of any thought or action is.

For example, I've been feeling worried about work the past couple days. In the past I would have brushed this off as normal human anxiety or maybe even God trying to force me to go find more work. Asking myself these two questions completely changed the way I looked at my situation. If I recognize that the enemy is constantly trying to steal, kill and destroy my life than attempting to paralyze me with fear seems like a pretty effective way to accomplish his goal. Add to that the fruit of my worry wasn't to help me find more work or do anything worthwhile but to make me feel miserable.

On the more positive side, when I am asking myself how God is trying to bring me a full life, it changes everything. It's so easy to simply blast through the day but when I recognize that one of God's goals for the day is to bring me life it changes how I approach everything. I slow down and take in what He has for me in the beauty of the day. I can trust Him more because I know that whatever He's up to, it includes bringing me a full life.

I've known the truth of John 10:10 for quite a while now but drawing these two questions out of it and asking myself them regularly has moved that knowledge into action. Give it a shot. You might be surprised how much God shows you through it.

8,000 Pieces Later...

After two months (and far more hours than I'd care to admit) spent working on my 8,000 piece jigsaw puzzle I'm finally done. Actually, I shouldn't use the word finally since my original prediction was that this would take me until the end of the year.

This was the largest puzzle I've ever done but it really wasn't that much tougher than the 4,000 and 6,000 piece puzzles I've done. It could be that I'm getting used to doing bigger puzzles but I also think it's because with this many pieces the minute detail actually worked in my favor. For example, if there's a guy in the picture wearing a blue cloak that blue cloak is going to stand out and when there are 8,000 pieces that makes for a lot of blue cloak pieces that can be easily found. This picture also lent itself to being able to group pieces easily. The orange and black arch pieces were easy to find and set apart. Then when I thought I had most of them set aside, I just put the arch together. The same thing for the corners, which were much darker than anything else in the puzzle and were easy to pick out.

I'm going to try and glue this one together but since I've never glued a puzzle before I think I'm going to practice on a couple of smaller puzzles first. If anyone has any ideas on mounting something this size (76X54) by all means let me know.

Unfortunately the pictures are not the greatest. Photographing an 8,000 pieces puzzle is easier said than done. Hopefully I'll be able to take some better ones once it's glued and mounted.

"I'm On Aslan's Side"

I spent a few days this week under a pretty heavy cloud of warfare. It was the sort of stuff that just seems to cut you off from God. You try and pray and you have to fight tooth and nail just to get a glimpse of His presence. You try and read your Bible and it just seems dry. Those of you who've experienced this sort of warfare know exactly what I'm talking about.

Going through a few days of fighting this spiritual blockade is a brilliant reminder of how we need to daily fight for our freedom. We need to guard our hearts with the utmost vigilance and constantly be centering ourselves on God. In the middle of these spiritual storms it is very possible to walk on water but only if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ.

As I was in the middle of this, I kept thinking about C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair. In that book Jill, Eustace and the eternally pessimistic marsh-wiggle Puddleglum are sent by Aslan to find the lost prince Rilian. Eventually, they do find him but he's held captive underground by a witch. As they try to escape with him, he puts a spell over them and begins to tell them that there is no such thing as Aslan, or the sun, or the trees, or any world besides her dark and miserable underground kingdom. Her magic is like a dark cloud cutting them off from the truth. And it almost works. Then Puddleglum, barely grasping to the last shred of truth he can find, gives this amazing speech:

Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.

How wonderful it is that our subjective experiences don't define reality. When I was battling earlier this week, there were a few times when everything I've learned from God recently felt untrue. It felt like make believe. But in my heart I knew that even if it was make believe, living as though it was true made for a better reality than the hell the enemy was trying to sell me on.

God will sometimes feel far away, or simply altogether not there. When that happens resolve yourself to be on Aslan's side even if Aslan doesn't exist. The rich and satisfying life Jesus promises in John 10:10 might seem like a naive dream and his kingdom like a fantasy. Live as a Narnian even if there isn't any Narnia. Fight for your freedom and remember the truth.

Remember.

The Constant Need

In my last post I talked about the challenge of living in the world even as Jesus calls us to be apart from it. There is a disconnect resulting from the rich joy Christ is filling me with and the deep desires He is awakening that feel so impossible to satisfy in this world. As I've been living with the disconnect, the paradox, over the last week I've discovered inside me a constant need for communion with God. It is something I cannot go without. I am entirely addicted and wholly dependent.

I've experienced something similar to this in my walk for a long time. For the past year I've made a point of beginning my mornings with prayer and for a long time before that I'd made an effort to read my Bible on a daily basis. Even then I noticed a difference in my life when I missed those daily times with God. Taking time each morning became an essential part of my day.

What I'm experiencing now is like that but about a hundred times more intense. It's not enough to offer up a brief prayer or two at the beginning of the day, I now need to prey with an intense passion to start my mornings. I need to read the Word because without it I feel lost. And it cannot be once a day anymore. It must be constantly throughout the day.

It takes all different forms. Sometimes it's earnest prayer that God will center me on Him again as I begin to feel the erosion of The Matrix. Sometimes it's a more specific request that God has laid it on my heart to fight for. Other times it's my heart crying out with whatever emotion is raging inside of it. Often I find myself just sitting outside and staring at the world God's created.

I suspect I'm beginning to understand what Paul meant when he talked about praying at all times in the spirit. I can only imagine how much more desperate the need must have been for someone like Paul. For him, no doubt, once a day, once an hour, even once a minute was not enough. For him the constant need was exactly that: constant. And when he said "all times" he meant it quite literally.

Praying for me is not a duty or a discipline, it is a breath of air. It is a need to unplug from The Matrix and remember that there is another reality. It is a desire to share my heart with The One who rescued it.

Not only is prayer not duty or discipline, it cannot be, it must not be. The constant need is only grown by Christ awakening our hearts and calling us further up and further in. No amount of striving or effort on our part will get us there. It is a path of grace and transformation. The only way to find that path is to begin to believe in just how good Jesus is, how much life He has for us right now and how much He desires to restore us to who we were meant to be.

My constant need, my deep desire for prayer and union with God, has been awakened by where God is leading me and where God is leading me I never could have found on my own. It's only by His grace and His love. It's always only by His grace and His love.

Back In The Matrix (but not of it)

It's been tough coming home. I suspect it always is in some ways after a "mountain top" experience but this is different. Boot Camp wasn't just an emotional and passionate high it was a time of real breakthrough and healing. It's hard to come home from that.

I don't mean that my home life is hard. Just the opposite in fact. I left camp fired up about my relationship with Annie and I can already see that what God did in my life last weekend is now taking our relationship to new heights and depths. It's wonderful. The same is true with my relationship with God. Boot Camp wasn't the high for my spiritual life, it was a starting point, a trailhead, letting my faith take off into new heights. What God did last weekend was wonderful. Watching Him continue it through this week is a deep answer to prayer.

But yet something in me is still struggling with being home. I feel a little bit like Neo in that scene in The Matrix when he's plugged back into the true Matrix for the first time driving to see the Oracle. He sits in the car staring out the window watching the scenes of his old life fly by. And there's a disconnect for him, not because his old life was terrible but because he's experienced something deeper, something truer, than that old reality ever was.

A few posts back I quoted C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory saying, "Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

I've found this week that this quote has become even more meaningful to me. God used Boot Camp to take me away from making mud pies and let me glimpse the holiday at the sea. This, I believe, is one of the true challenges of going further up and further in. It is hard to desire more. It is hard to no longer be satisfied by The Matrix.

I don't mean to make it sound like I'm depressed. In fact, I don't believe I've been less depressed my entire life. My heart is overwhelmed with joy at what God is doing in me and where He's taking me. I am learning to be content with where I'm at but at the same time I've never been less satisfied. Everything I said in my post on contentment and satisfaction has stopped being just words and theory. It has become a stark reality of every moment of my life. It's a strange disconnect but through it I think I'm beginning to understand how Jesus could be full of the joy of the Lord and still be called a man of sorrows.

The enemy is right there trying to use this disconnect, this dissatisfaction, to steal, kill and destroy what happened last weekend. He's whispering to me that Hobbes was right in Leviathan when he said life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But it's not. Life is abundant and joyful. Life is passionate and heroic. Life is victorious and beautiful. Most of all life is available. Jesus is better than we think He is and there is far more life prepared for us in this life than we are ready to believe.

God is so gracious in this. No one understood living in the world, The Matrix, but not being of it better than Jesus did. He understood the paradox of feeling abundant joy mingled with the ache of our fallen world. We have not been left as orphans. He understands and He is with us.

Jesus has promised that He will make all things new. The whole of creation will one day be restored to what it was meant to be. But we don't have to wait until the second coming and the end of the world. The process can begin today. There is a cost to desiring more. It's difficult to abandon our mud pies not because we miss them but because we've glimpsed the sea and we know we're not there yet. But God has prepared even for that. He has not made us wait until we reach the sea to begin receiving our abundant life. He is offering it now. And even now as I struggle to plug back into The Matrix I can tell you it's worth it. It is worth it.

Wild at Heart Boot Camp Review

I've been home for almost two days now and I find that I'm still struggling with how to write about what happened this last weekend. How do you describe something that can really only be experienced? How do you speak publicly about that which is deeply personal? I don't have good answers to those questions but I know that I want to, need to, tell you at least some about what happened in Colorado this last weekend.

First off, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who prayed. This weekend was deeply opposed at every level. Our prayers were needed and they were effective. Sadly, I can also say that not everyone had the same kind of prayer coverage I did. There were guys who clearly got taken out for all or part of the weekend. I didn't and for that I thank you so much.

During the weekend, John Eldredge said a couple times, "Jesus is better than you think He is." If I was summing up what God had me realize this weekend in one sentence, that would be it. Jesus showed up in ways that I wouldn't have imagined. Before I left, God told me this weekend was about both Him caring for my heart and drawing me further up and further in. I didn't realize at the time just how closely connected those two things were. The second would not have happened without the first. God fiercely loved me this weekend. He drew out my true self in a way that I'd never experienced before. And it was good. It was very good.

I don't think we fully appreciate just how much life is available to us in this life. Yes, we're a work in process that, as Paul reminds us, won't be completed until the day of Christ. Yes, there are wounds that will not be healed until we see Heaven. Yes, the battle will continue to rage and evil will often seem dominant on the Earth. But there is an abundance that God has for us here and now and it would be an absolute tragedy if we missed that. Just how much is available? More than we think. A lot more. I tasted it this weekend. It was amazing but it was still only a taste of the riches God has for us here and now.

It was also a weekend of initiation and adventure. During the Friday morning session, John was talking about how when men speak of the best times of their lives the stories will often be stories of adventure. As he was speaking I found myself thinking that I have a few of those sort of stories but not a ton and it would sure be nice if God would provide opportunities for more. That afternoon, a group of guys and I went horseback riding. We were less than two minutes out on the trail when it started to hail. At first it was just a little and then it unleashed. The horses went nuts, running around in circles and getting ready to buck. Meanwhile, the coral had been left open slightly and a bunch of horses got out and started charging down the trail at us. The ranch hands came running down the trail screaming at us to get off the horses. Having not ridden more than a time or two I had no idea how to dismount. But I managed to half jump, half fall off the horse and get to shelter where I watched it hail so much it looked like it had snowed. Once it cleared up the ride was beautiful but my favorite part was the beginning. It was wild, it was scary and it was an absolute blast.

Another highlight from the weekend was the fellowship. You'll remember from my prayer requests that I mentioned that I was most nervous about going alone to a camp of 400 guys I didn't know. It was a complete non issue. I had so many wonderful conversations and made a lot of good friends over the weekend. One example that stands out was when I was going hiking Saturday and as I started out on one of the trails I ran into a guy I hadn't talked to before and didn't talk to after. He said hi and we proceeded to talk for the next 45 minutes about what God was doing in our lives through the weekend. It was awesome and such a gift from God.

There is so much more I could say, so many stories, so many ways God showed up in my life but there's very little that I could truly give justice to with my words. Something like this needs to be experienced and for the men reading this, I hope you do. This is not just another men's retreat or a Christian event that fades into memory as soon as it's over. What goes on at these retreats is deep restoration and healing. I watched men in their sixties and seventies find healing for wounds they have lived with their entire lives. That kind of healing, and the life God promises, is available and a Wild at Heart Boot Camp is a great place to start finding it. For the women, Ransomed Heart also does Captivating retreats a couple times a year that offer the same healing and life to the femine heart.

Remember, Jesus is better than you think He is. It's true and He is desperately waiting to prove it to you.