But the Wilderness Is So Nice

I just looked at the Lent calendar and realized how close Easter is.

My first thought should have been getting excited about eating brownies made from scratch again.  But it wasn't -- that was the second.

My first thought was, "I don't want it to be over already."

Beginning before Lent, I began seeking God in a more open and direct way.  But during this Lent season, my daily devotionals, my meditating, praying, and scripture reading have increased to almost be where I'd like them to be.  Many mornings have skipped my viewing of "The Daily Show," and instead read or listened to teachings of faith. 

In addition, my relationship with Angela has reached a new sincerity that my own sin and selfishness and fear prevented.  It has certainly been tough.  Opening to Angela and remaining honest is not something I'm good at.  In fact, the only reason I used to be open to Angela or anyone else was to share "just enough" to appear open and honest.  Only through God's grace and mercy and Angela's, have we come to a point where joy is always near even in times of hurt.

I wonder how Jesus felt.

I'm not sure when God revealed to Jesus the path to death.  He probably knew it all along.  In the wilderness, though, he wasn't going to die.  Jesus was tempted in major ways, but he knew he wasn't going to die there.  In Matthew, after the temptations, it says, "Angels came and were ministering to him" (4:17 ESV).  That must have been a wonderful experience.

So wonderful that I would have been tempted to stay.  What if that was the last temptation Jesus faced in the wilderness:  Just stay and be fed spiritually and intellectually. 

That's where I am right now.  Sure I want desserts, but my connections with God is such that I don't ever need something sweet again (I know I never did -- I just always wanted it). 

More than dessert, I'm scared about what will happen with this connection that is so strong.  And even if it continues until we leave Thailand, how can we keep close contact with God when life in America tries to get in the way again?

I really like the part of Fireproof when she asks what day he's on, and he says, "43. . . . Who says I have to stop?"  That's the complete truth. 

There are 40 days of the Lenten season.  But once it's over, who says I have to stop?

Each day is a new day, and each day I continue to seek God.  Luke tells us that when he left the wilderness, "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit" (4:14 ESV).  Each day we are seeking to be filled with the Spirit.

One day at a time.

Rest along the way

"It's a long road ahead."

I've heard this statement a lot lately.  My initial response is "I know, I know." 

When I stop and think about it, though, I wonder, do I know? 

I'm notorious about having great ideas, getting them started, and then passing them off to someone who will continue it.  Either that, or the project dies due to my lack of follow-through.  This doesn't happen all the time.  Maybe not even the majority of the time.  But it happens.  What I want to know is why.

After thinking a lot about this for a few days straight, it comes back to my need for control and my sense of fear. 

I see things in the big picture.  The postive in that is that I try to look at things holistically, getting to the root.  A negative is that I can see how hard and how far one needs to go to accomplish the vision.  Having the vision is great; getting there is hard and sometimes overwhelming. 

This is where the fear comes in.  With such a long road ahead, the chances for failure are much greater.  So instead of pushing through, I checkout and give up.  I've done this with relationships, workout routines, news articles, fighting temptation, and just about everything else. 

I want the results.  But I want them now without the journey.

That's why I think it's so important to follow up the "long road ahead" comment with one that is just as important: 

"One day at a time."

Rest and reframing are so important each step of the way.  It's the same idea as "baby steps" in What About Bob?. 

Angela had a great run this morning.  She said she usually poops out early because it seems so far.  The key was to mark "halfway."  It's not a physical stop, but the mental marker gives her strength to regather her motivation and strength.  She can shout, "I made it this far.  No way I'm giving up now!" 

That's what we need on this long and bumpy ride:  rest stops. 

The opportunity to refresh our minds, get a little nutrition, clean out the "waste" that has been stored on the journey so far.  This is what I'm praying for now.  I want to keep running the race, but I have to do it each day.  I don't need to and can't run the next 50 years today.  I just have to run today.

How the heck did Jesus hang out in the wilderness for 40 days?  Despite the few paragraphs dedicated to this time in the bible, I'm almost certain it was just one day at a time.

Lent is long.  The wait is long.  Seeking reconciliation can be long.  Life is long.  You have to rest along the way.

It's a long road ahead.  But it happens one day at a time.

A prayer to God from a non-god

My prayer today as I navigate the wilderness of Lent.

Lord,

You are my Lord.  You are God.  I am not God. 

I have tried to be God in my life for a long time.  But I am not.

I'm human -- a pretty undisciplined one at that.

I am not in control.  I cannot stop depending on you for every breath.

Please, please, please do not allow me to forget:

You are God.  I am not.

Amen.

We Are All Addicts

As a man who struggles with sexual sins and addiction and has battled for many years, I have grown to see that, in one way or another, we are all addicts.  My Lenten thoughts today are about this.

The world teaches us to place ourselves above others--above God.  We're taught that beauty and sex are basically the same thing, and if you don't have them, you need to hurry up and get some.  Alcohol and drugs destroy countless lives, yet we're quick to deny their effects on us as individuals.

Even shopping and consumerism are addictions for many people.  We have become addicted to buying and then buying again as soon as the new [insert device or product] is released.  Some of us even wait in line for hours.

As good as we are at having addictions, we are horrible at fighting them.

That's why I love the approach of AA and Celebrate Recovery:  One day at a time.

Jesus was in the desert for forty days.  I have a feeling he wasn't marking the days like Robinson Crusoe.  He was fasting one day at a time.

I'm trying to do this for these next forty days:  One day at a time.

I've discovered a great series by Central Vineyard called "Taking Root."  I encourage you to check it out.

To close, I want to leave you with encouragement to seek help with your addiction--whatever it may be.  Celebrate Recovery is a fantastic 12-step program that will help point you toward God while helping you overcome.  A quick Google search will hopefully turn up one close to you.

Finally, I leave you with the powerful Serenity Prayer or Reinhold Neibuhr:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time; 

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life and

supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.

Amen.

When you come out of the wilderness

Something my dad told me today:

No matter how long you're in the desert, as long as you come out closer to the Lord, then it's worth it.  If you're not closer to God, well, you know where that's going.

Basically, he was saying that if you better learn from your mistakes, and you better learn to lean on God.

Here is Psalm 51 to reflect upon:

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
   blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity
   and cleanse me from my sin.
 ³ For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
   and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
   and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
   sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
   you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
 ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
   wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins
   and blot out all my iniquity.
 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
 ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   so that sinners will turn back to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
   you who are God my Savior,
   and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord,
   and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
   you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is^[b] a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart
   you, God, will not despise.
 ¹⁸ May it please you to prosper Zion,
   to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
¹⁹ Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
   in burnt offerings offered whole;
   then bulls will be offered on your altar.

He Was in the Wilderness

Angela and I read the beginning of Luke 4 when Jesus was in the Wilderness.  I don't know how many times I've read that and then dissected it. 

"What were the temptations he faced?"
"How did he fend off the devil?"
"The devil uses scripture; what should our response be?"
And more.

Very rarely do we stop to remember that Jesus was in the wilderness.

I feel like I've been in the wilderness for awhile.  I was trying to claw back to God as soon as possible, but I wasn't doing it in a way that was effective.  It was still about me.

It's so easy for us to give up something and make the struggle about us.  It's just another New Year's resolution.  I've been eating sweets like crazy lately, so I'm fasting from sweets for the next 40 days.  I didn't initially decide that because this is the problem that is getting between God and me.  I've stopped eating my wife's delicious brownies because I'm getting fat. 

But my inability to control eating sweets is symbolic of something greater:  my selfishness and lack of discipline in all areas of my life.

That is what has kept me in the wilderness for so long.  It's also much harder to fast from.  It's become who I am in so many ways.

So I'm going to try something in addition to giving up desserts while I'm in the desert.  I'm going to add things.  I want a Lent that explores my own selfishness and seeks to rid myself by serving others. 

It's hard to see others when you're too busy looking in the mirror.  It's even harder to love others.  But that's what I'm going to try to do.

I'm going to keep track of the selfish things I do.  This will be how I face temptation head on like Jesus did.  Instead of stopping there, I will give my list up to God each day.  In addition, I will seek opportunities to love others.

Jesus was in the wilderness, preparing and growing closer to God.  This is my time to be in the wilderness, too.

We'll see how this goes.  I wish you well in your wilderness these next 40 days.  Feel free to share what you've been thinking about as well.

Would You Boo Jesus?

There really is a strong disconnect between what Jesus said and what many of his followers practice, isn't there?  I guess that's why this spoken word piece below is getting so much buzz.

Then we get the following piece where Ron Paul is met by a booing crowd after he supported the Golden Rule in foreign policy:  "I would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in foreign policy. Don't do to other nations what we don't want to [be done] to us.  So we endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us?"  Of course that was met with boos. 

As one of my friends on Facebook noted, "What do you want to bet that not a single one of these booing psychopaths would disavow the New Testament if asked? And yet here they are, technically blaspheming it."  Ouch.  Not the "psychopaths" part, but rather the part about blasphemy. 

I can't say he's wrong. 

The debate took place on Martin Luther King Day, so, of course, plenty of people made reference to him.  Rep. Paul among them.  I have no doubt Dr. King would support Paul's statement.  But, then again, when King was alive he was called a Communist and un-American, so that doesn't surprise me.  In fact, I'm sure he'd still be called this and worse by most of the men sharing the stage with Paul.

My point is that I wonder what it will take for people to recognize that arguing for the current foreign policy and pre-"defensive" measures is booing Jesus.

Then again, I used to irritate my brother with everything I could.  Then, when he finally hit me, I'd cry and run tell my parents.  Two differences:  One, I was a child.  Two, our nation is in the practice of hitting other countries (with bombs and assassinations), then we cry foul when they speak out against us. 

I can't say I agree with everything Ron Paul says or believes, but he's right on about the Golden Rule.

It's time to not run with the status quo.  It's time to take a stance for love.

One last note from an individual in one of the most oppressed groups in our world out of Burma:  "Now I realize that we made a mistake in 1988 by not showing the Burma Army generals love. The students called for punishment and the generals reacted by cracking down until today.  The next time, we must show love and forgiveness to the generals. Then we will win."

We keep fighting, but we fight with love and nonviolence just like MLK.  Just like Jesus.

That's how you glorify God and cheer on Jesus.