Musings from a Recovering Evangelical

Words

Words

Anything can be pushed to an extreme which renders it absurd. However, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The words we speak are powerful. God created the planet with words. Jesus calmed the storm and raised the dead with words. Kings lopped off heads with a word.

You get the idea. What do the words that spill out of you say about what you believe? They say more than you think. We really do leak out what we are full of. Are your words betraying you? If so, you may need to put a guard on your mouth. Speak words that build up and bring life. Find the good and the positive in your situation and bring it to light with your words.

Don't run to the other extreme either. Life happens. Things break. We live in a fallen world. These things need to be acknowledged, addressed and discussed. After a good rant, turn the tables and declare, "...but God!" Life is lived in the tension between the extremes. Speak life today!

God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. Rm 4:17

In the Hood

Jesus himself lived in the neighborhood for 30 years and no one noticed. Don't get discouraged if your impact, dream or influence has yet to be realized. If it took God 30 years to prepare Jesus for 3, perhaps a little patience with the process is in order for us. 

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. Jn 1:14

Follow the Call

The call to follow Christ may fly in the face of common sense, but the Good Shepherd knows where to find the greener pastures.  

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. 1 Cor 6:19-20

Jesus the Revolutionary

I tend to shy away from sharing long quotes, but every once in a while you find something that just resonates. So, here is my offering today from Kathleen Ward of Church in a Circle...

Jesus led a revolution without guns and without placards. It wasn’t the revolution the Jews hoped for, the one where the Messiah would come in glory and grandeur, and frighten away the occupying forces, restoring Israel to a position of power and prestige. It wasn’t even the non-violent political resistance we associate with activism today.

Jesus turned the world upside down with the way he treated people.

He empowered the disempowered.

He loved the unlovable.

He honoured the dishonourable.

Jesus gave a voice to the voiceless. He placed value on women, children, servants, foreigners – those without status or value in the social order of the day. He chose the sick, the marginalised, the ostracised, and made them his ambassadors. He raised the social standing of the outcast and rejected. - Kathleen Ward from Church in a Circle

Outlook

It's essential to your outlook that you drive a stake in the ground on the words that Jesus spoke to a desperate father. Jesus tilts the scale in our direction and now the responsibility to believe is on us. Instead of crushing us it actually frees us and creates a change in our thinking where all things are possible. My responsibility is 'by grace through faith' to trust Him with an unshakable unrelenting faith that He is true to His word. Anything is possible! 

"Anything is possible if a person believes." Mark 9:23 NLT

Bittersweet

I try to write something at least once a day in a effort to encourage, build up or help somebody. I don't have much, but what I have in the way of words I try to give away liberally. Today, I'm wrestling with my emotions. Why? Because it's Mother's Day. For many, it's a day filled with church, dining out, cards, chocolate, pedicures and flowers. For me it's a bittersweet day.

I try not to cry. That doesn't work. I try not to be sullen. Not working so far. I try not to remember the funeral. This day brings it all back. Mom passed away in January of 1986. She was 45 years old. It was not anticipated. I got a call one night from my brother Jerry, that mom had been rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. I found myself driving like Mario Andretti the 4 hours back to my hometown to be with her. The highway patrolman in central Texas was kind enough to let me continue with a word of encouragement and well wishes for my mom.

I was blessed to have a few days and nights with her. The coronary left her heart damaged beyond repair and she was not a candidate for a transplant. My faith was tested. Questions were directed heavenward. My theology was challenged and found lacking. I'm grateful for the hours mom and I had in the CCU at Lubbock Methodist. We talked about life, love, faith, dreams, forgiveness, fear of dying, and the what ifs. I will forever treasure our time in her room full of machines, beeping noises, tubes, monitors and cold sterile air.

We were puzzled when she was released to go home to recover as she did not appear to be strong enough. I drove back to central Texas to resume my university studies and life carried on. I remember talking to her on the phone a few days later. She sounded tired, but hopeful. I'm grateful that we got to talk, laugh and say good-bye with a sincere, "I love you." Granny called a couple of days later. Mom had collapsed at home and moments later was beholding the face of Jesus. I can only imagine what she saw when she awoke in His presence.

While I was grateful that she was with Jesus, I was left behind without a mother. It created a void in my life that is still there 27 years later. So please forgive me if I'm not in the best of moods today or if I seem to be distant and distracted. I will try to focus on the good times, the laughs, the smiles, and the happy moments. I will forever treasure those. So, to every mother who reads this little piece, God Bless You and Thank You for all you have done, noticed and unnoticed, to form, shape and craft the next generation. Hug your mom. Tell her you love her. Kiss her. Say, "Thank you." 

They Are Watching

The hyper-religious are more concerned with the rules, regulations and methods than they are the broken people under their nose. Open your eyes, God has placed the needy in front of you. Will you break the rules and bypass protocol to touch a life? Jesus did.

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. Mark 3:1-2

Jesus Wept

The shortest verse in the Bible gives us great insight into the heart of Jesus. I'm grateful this little verse is in the text as it lets me know the Jesus I follow, although fully divine, was also fully human. I'm sad for those who do not know the Jesus who wept but only the God who condemns. Rest in the fact that Jesus weeps for those he loves. #dropyourstones

Jesus wept. John 11:35

Overlooked, Exploited and Abused

Culture boasts, "Only the strong, the best and the brightest will make it in this world." God's upside-down-kingdom says otherwise. If you have been overlooked, exploited and abused you are the best material from which God can produce His greatest masterpiece. Blow a trumpet for God. 

Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God." 1 Cor 1:27-31 The Message

Adventurous

Adventures lie before you, only memories are in your wake. Value your heritage but keep moving forward as you cannot walk with confidence in your gait if you are constantly looking back. 

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Is 43:19