I'm Not Gonna Die in Africa! (Hope for the New Year)

Let me share a story.

Not that long ago I was working at a home improvement store and I ended up having to help a coworker out in the lumber section for a couple of hours. As he and I moved heavy lumber boards and set sheets of drywall back into place we somehow started talking about travel and various places we'd been or would like to go.

He started to tell me about how he never wanted to go to Africa and that's where things got interesting.

He asked me if I'd ever seen the classic film Naked Prey. I said no and he proceeded to tell me, in great detail, all about this film where several white hunters in Africa offend some local tribesmen and end up being sadistically tortured and killed as a result. One man is roasted alive, another is buried in the ground and killed by fire ants... you get the idea.

Now, both my girlfriend and I have independently felt God share that we may end up in Africa for a time in the future. We don't know what we'll be doing or where we'll be, but that's what God has shared.

So as the gruesome images of sadistic torture and death by African tribesmen raced through my mind, I also started to think about all the horrible stories of warfare and genocide I had heard coming out of Africa from the past few years, and then I threw my future self in the mix. Now, in my mind I knew that Africa was huge and that most of it really was quite safe and wonderful, but the thing about fear is that it only deals in what-ifs and only likes to dwell on the absolute worst-case scenarios.

Part of the reason I was so fearful had to do with the fact that I had been through some really hard things recently, and I was projecting past trauma onto the future. This is something that I believe many of us do, especially if we've grown used to trauma or disappointment.

The product of all of this fearful thinking was a cocktail of absolute dread, and I honestly began to get angry with God for having to face the prospect of such a terrible, imagined fate. I felt God saying that it was all going to be just fine, and I repented of that anger, but deep down I still felt troubled.

Little did I know that God was about to have one of his famous "I told you so" moments.

Later that week I ended up going with my girlfriend to church. As we sat there on Sunday morning a couple dressed in traditional African clothing came and sat down near us. I thought this was interesting and after the service was over I went over to introduce myself to them. What happened next was absolutely hilarious.

In addition to being some of the nicest people I've ever met, I learned that they were both from West Africa and planned on returning once they finished school here in the states. To my surprise, the husband started to tell me that I might want to come Africa someday. He laughed as he told me how so many Americans are afraid to come to Africa because they think its way too dangerous. I slightly nodded my head, not letting on that I had recently been thinking like that myself.

He then told me how the vast majority of Africans love America, and that if I ended up going there people would love me everywhere I went and would make sure to look out for me. He then described how well I would be treated and how safe I would be. I just stood there with a bewildered smile on my face taking it all in.

It was as if God was standing there himself, shaking my face and telling me it's all gonna be just fine!

God used this incident to help me let go of old fear and dread and disappointment and actually get excited about the future with Him.

As the new year dawns I want to challenge you take your old hurt, old fears, and old disappointment and lay them at God's feet.

As you do this ask God to help you embrace Him as a God of hope.

Ask Him to help you see the future in a new way, through His lenses.

As you do this, you might just be surprised at what you see.

Your Mess Won't Stop God (Life of Jesus 2)

God often brings beautiful things out of ugly situations.

Most people never pick up a bible for the very reason that it contains sections like Matthew 1:1-17 (Read here). On the surface, it can seem highly boring and irrelevant. Its just a long list chronicling Jesus's ancestors that comes before the story of Jesus. "And this ancient dead person with a weird name was the father of that ancient dead person with another weird name. Blah, blah, blah...blah." Compelling stuff I know.

However, there are some really beautiful things going on behind this list of names.

You just have to dig a little.

I want to focus on one thing I've noticed.

A few of the ancestors of Jesus that are mentioned by Matthew actually have quite disturbing backgrounds. In fact, several of his ancestors only existed because of some twisted, horrible sexual encounter. For instance, in Matthew 1:3 we learn that Jesus had a great, great, great...(you get the picture) grandfather named Perez and that Perez's parents were named Judah and Tamar. The thing is Judah is also technically the grandfather of Perez and as well as his father. This is because Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah and when both her husbands died and it looked as if she wasn't going to have any children, she disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law in order to get pregnant. She did this partly out of desperation and partly out of bitterness towards her father-in-law. It ended up working and nine months later little Perez was born. (For the somewhat explicit details, see Genesis chapter 38)

But there's even more dysfunction.

A few verses later, in Matthew 1:6, we learn that another of Jesus's ancestors was Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheba. The story of David and Bathsheba is one of the most infamous in history, but its worth recounting. David was the King of Israel, and a man after God's own heart but one day he saw from his rooftop a beautiful woman bathing. This was Bathsheba. He was so enamored with her that he had her brought to him in his palace and thus began one of history's most well known affairs. Tragically, Bathsheba had a husband who fought in the army. When Bathsheba became pregnant through David, he had her husband sent to the front lines where he was quickly killed in order to cover up the affair. As a result, God allowed David and Bathsheba's first child to die shortly after it was born, which broke David's heart. (see 2 Samuel 11-12)

Come on, who says the Bible is boring?

Seriously though, these are truly hard stories. There's a lot of dysfunction, a lot of pain, a lot of trauma in them.

But that's life isn't it?

Life can be quite ugly.

It can be very painful.

It can be horribly dysfunctional.

Yet, what these stories show is that God can bring wonderful things out of the mess of life.

That's who God is.

Although God did not cause Tamar to sleep with her father-in-law or cause David to have an affair with Bathsheba and have her husband killed, He still used the results of these horrible situations, the children that resulted from them, to help form the link that would produce Jesus himself.

God was still going to do something wonderful despite people's horrible choices and He worked with the pain and ugliness in their lives and used it to bring about an amazing outcome.

I've been thinking about this all lately as I've reflected on many of the painful and dysfunctional situations I've been through in my own life. It's been hard at times. I've experienced trauma and loss. I've been at some very low points because of other's people's horrible choices and my own.

But God is still good and my life is moving forward despite all of that.

He's not only given me healing where I needed it but He's taken the ugliness in my life and used it to give me a voice and a message.

Despite mistakenly entering into and staying in a relationship that wasn't the best, He's still given me the woman of my dreams.

The pain I've been through and the horrible choices I've made haven't stopped beautiful things from coming.

Nothing can stop God from bringing about something really wonderful in your life and oftentimes He'll use your mistakes in order to do it.

What I have learned is that you just need to keep saying yes to Him. No matter what you've gone through. No matter what place you may be in at the moment, just say yes to Him and just keep walking with Him.

If you do this, you'll be amazed at what He does.

Did God Just Use the F Word?

God is surprising.

In fact, He is very surprising.

He is also very big.

Let me share a story.

This past summer I worked at a large store and I spent a lot of time out in the parking lot bringing in carts. As a result I spent many hours working alone with only my thoughts and God's voice to listen to and I spent quite a lot of time just being with God. Even though the work wasn't the best I was able to enjoy many profound moments and conversations with God in that parking lot.

One day, as I was pushing carts, I was feeling extremely stressed about something. I don't even remember what it was exactly but mentally and emotionally I was just not in a good place and I was experiencing a tremendous amount of negativity. After about ten minutes or so of being in this place I was walking back out to the parking lot to get more carts and I lightly felt God saying to look behind me. As I heard Him say this I felt a strong pull out of the corner of my left eye to turn around.

So I did.

The only thing I could see was a row of cars directly behind me, and as I scanned them I couldn't tell what I was looking for... but then after a minute I knew exactly what God wanted me to see. Right behind me was a little red car with a nice yellow bumper sticker that displayed a very simple message: "Mellow the F**k Out." (I've censored it a bit)

I just stood there for a moment taking in the ridiculousness of what I had read and then I started to laugh.

As I laughed I felt God joining in and laughing with me.

All the stress and negativity just evaporated.

Now, I would never put something like that on my car and I'm not a big fan of profanity but the utter ridiculousness of that bumper sticker was just too funny to me and God knew it would be. He knew I wouldn't interpret that phrase as Him telling me, in a mean or cruel way, to settle down. God is not mean like that. He's actually the kindest person you'll ever get to know. He allowed me to see it because He knew it would settle me down and help me to lighten up.

More importantly, God was not using the F word himself or necessarily condoning it. In fact, I believe that if the word was being used in any way related to sex He never would have shown me it. God isn't crude and not everything flies with Him. He's also very sensitive to people and if I were someone who really wasn't okay with that word then He would probably never use anything with profanity in order to communicate with me.

But God is very big.

God is very big and the F word exists, and in certain contexts He's not afraid to put it to work.

God can't really be contained in many of the religious boxes Christians and non-Christians often try to fit Him into. He will go a lot of places we don't think He'll go and He'll use a lot of different means, no matter how "unreligous" they might seem, in order to communicate with us. I have consistently been surprised at the variety of movies, music, books, etc. that He has used to communicate something to me.

Now all this doesn't mean that God will use simply anything and everything to communicate with us, but still... He is very surprising.

So let go of religious boxes and embrace God for the really big God that He is and stay attentive, because you never know the surprising ways He might decide to speak to you.

The Beginning (Life of Jesus 2)

For the first of my blogs on the life of Jesus I want to start in a very simple place: Mark 1:1:

"This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King, the Son of God." 

(The Voice)

Jesus is always good news. His story is always good news. This is because of who Jesus is and what He does. So, I want to focus on one of the three titles given above to Him, and that is Liberating King. Many translations of this verse simply say "Jesus the Messiah." The thing is, "messiah" is a rich term with a lot to unpack. One of the things I love about The Voice translation (the translation I'm going to be using for this blog series) is that it often draws out and makes more clear the meaning of a word or phrase. So it adds the title "Liberating King," and rightly so. Part of Jesus's purpose as the messiah was to be a king, not a king who oppresses, but rather a king who liberates. Part of what makes the good news "good" is the liberation that Jesus brings.

Liberation from death.

Liberation from sickness.

Liberation from trauma.

Liberation from hurt.

Liberation from fear.

Liberation from sin, shame and guilt.

Liberation from a meaningless life without purpose or hope.

Liberation from dead religion.

Liberation from a life without knowing the Living God.

Jesus brings liberation from all this and more. Oftentimes He'll bring liberation from things we didn't even know we needed to be liberated from. He can bring all this because He is the Son. He is God entering into the human drama in a very intimate way in order to bring newness and restoration. That's part of who God is. God is perfectly good and He is perfectly free and it is His desire to share those qualities with His creation. In fact, God is not necessarily happy with people simply knowing Him and staying the same. No, He wants to give us better. He wants to give us more healing, more freedom, more wholeness, more hope, more peace, more purpose (dare I say, more fun) and more joy as we walk through life with Him. If we really want it, He'll give it.

As I continue to blog through the life of Jesus I'm going to unpack this more, sharing how I have found all of this to be true. In the meantime, I would encourage anyone reading this to risk a little insanity and ask Jesus to actually show up in their lives in a very real way. I can attest to this.

So keep it simple.

Just ask Him to show up. Do it everyday, and sooner or later He will come. And when Jesus actually shows up He'll always bring liberation and freedom where you need it the most.

Three Deer

Years before I started to sit cross-legged with God and actually talk with him, I had a handful of significant encounters and experiences that shaped my life and confirmed God's reality for me. Probably the most important of them happened shortly after my father's suicide. When my dad took his own life it was one of the hardest and most traumatic circumstances I've had to walk through, but it was also a time when God showed up in a big way for me. 

When trauma hits there is an initial shock that sets in pretty quickly. It allows you to go into survival mode and not be overtaken by your circumstances. This happened to me and it allowed me to focus on making sure my family was okay and that the right people came to help us. But as the shock gradually began to wear off the reality of what had happened started to sink in. It was the reality that I didn't have a dad anymore, that he had left my family in some dire circumstances and that my life was forever changed. As this all sank in it brought with it a whole range of emotions, the strongest of which was a deep sadness. And so, a couple of days after my dad's death, I found myself, late at night, in my basement crying, allowing myself to feel the sadness and the despair. It was one of those moments where mere belief was no longer enough. I had believed in God for a while. I believed in Jesus and His resurrection and I believed in Heaven, in eternal life with God. Most importantly, I believed in God’s goodness. But that wasn’t going to cut it now. I needed that reality to come into my life, because the circumstances I was facing threatened to delete all those beliefs and convince me that life was simply tragic and not worth living. So as I as I laid on the cold cement of my basement floor I told God, actually more cried out, that I needed Him to put his money where His mouth was and show me He was real. I told Him that I needed Him to show me that Heaven was real and that my dad was now with Him. And I needed Him to show me that everything was going to be alright. And so, as I laid on the ground in despair, I began to see an image in my mind of three deer standing over my dad’s grave and at that time it filled me with a deep sense of peace. This was because deer had always been symbols of God’s hope and peace in my family. And as the peace started to settle in I felt, almost heard, that I just needed to wait. I didn’t know what for, but I knew something was coming.

The next four or five days after that night went by in a blur as I helped my family and prepared for the funeral. At some point in the seeming chaos, I forgot about the vision God had given me. Finally, the day of the funeral arrived, and after a very beautiful service my family and I climbed into the limo that had been rented to take us from the church to the cemetery where my dad was to be buried. I was so exhausted by that point that as I sat down in my seat right across from the widow I pretty quickly fell into a half-sleep. About twenty minutes later our limo turned right down the wooded road that led into the cemetery and that’s when it happened. I was dozing off when all of the sudden I was jolted quickly awake by my brother exclaiming, “Look! Three deer!” As soon as I opened my eyes I was greeted by the sight of three does running together in a single-file line. It was so surreal because they looked as if they were running right along next to our limo, almost as if to usher us into the cemetery. For about ten seconds I just watched them and God brought back to my mind the image He had given me. I knew then that God was indeed real, that my dad was with him in Heaven and that I would indeed see my dad again. I knew then that everything was going to be okay, that life wasn't just tragic but there was actually purpose to it. As I reflect on that moment, it's hard to fully capture the immense mixture of peace, relief and hope that came upon me then, but it was powerful. And even in the midst of a horribly sad situation, as I then helped carry my dad's coffin to the grave site and said goodbye to him one final time, I felt an incredible sense of happiness and joy. It was that powerful.

That moment was definitive for me. When I needed to actually know God's reality the most He showed up, and in the midst of the most tragic situation I've ever faced, I was able to even smile. I was able to smile because I now had an eternal hope that was real. It wasn't a delusional dream. It was real. And that reality laid the foundation for the rest of my life with Him.

Hope

In September of last year I found myself devastated after a painful break up. I wrote about it in my very first post, but the break up was not the end of the story. Rather, it was merely the beginning. I was so disappointed with the course of events that had taken place thus far in my life that it was hard to imagine things actually getting better. But here's the funny thing about God: He likes to give back. In fact, He likes to give better. And as you learn to walk closely with Him and hear Him well He'll give you promises and things to hope for. That's just who He is. And what He really loves is to get you to hope for better. So, as I healed and grieved with Him, one of the promises He gave me was that I would meet someone else, someone who would blow me away. I had no idea who it would be, where and when, but God was very clear that it would happen and that I would be absolutely head over heels in love with her. Even more was that she would be better for me, a perfect fit for who I am.

As grateful and encouraged as I was by that promise, at times I found it really hard to hope. The thing is, when life has been really difficult, when you've had trauma or when you've had consistent disappointment, hoping for better can be a hard thing to do. In fact, it can be really hard, because the experience(s) you had before seems to contradict the reality God is telling you to hope for. And I believe that's how God wants it to be sometimes, because then the act of hoping really is an act of faith. It's not necessarily based on previous experience, but rather, God's words and what we know of His character. Now, after a while it does get easier to have hope in God's promises because you will have developed more of a history with Him and can look back at all the ways He's helped you and come through for you. But initially it can be really tough.

It makes God really happy though when you say yes to that hope, even if it's difficult. In fact, as I've processed with him, one of the things He's shared with me is that to hope for better, after going through great trial, is one of the most precious things. To say, "Okay God. I'm going to hope for better with You, even though its been so hard," is, at its core, a deep affirmation of His goodness and act of worship. And so I said yes to Him and clung to that hope of meeting this amazing woman He said He had for me. And of course, God being God, He did not disappoint. Mere months later, after a series of very interesting circumstances and His guiding hand, I found myself walking through the doors of a restaurant and laying eyes on the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and after sitting down and having lunch with her I knew this was the woman I needed to pursue. I had no idea of the beauty that was to follow as I began my relationship with her, and all the ways I would be surprised at just how perfect she was for me.

God of Serious Business, God of Serious Fun

The other night I found myself on my way to pick up my brother from work. It was late and there were almost no other cars on the road, and as I drove there was just a wonderful laid-back feeling in the air. I was even able to roll down the windows and enjoy the fresh spring breeze that was rolling in. I was feeling pretty good and decided to turn on the radio and almost immediately "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates comes on. Its a song you just don't pass up. So as I drove on I unashamedly allowed myself to just tap the steering wheel and jam out to the song. And as I did so I strongly felt God enjoying the moment with me. It was one of those pure, wonderful moments of fun with God. It also caused me to reflect on the seemingly incomprehensible nature of God and the unique opportunity for relationship we have with Him. After all, He is the Living God of the cosmos. In so many ways He is beyond our ability to understand. Mysterious, awe-inspiring, and holy. When He does interact with us, especially in the biblical narrative, it is usually about serious business, because He is deeply about serious things, such as the healing of our hearts, the redemption of all mankind and the world, and the eradication of sin and evil, etc. He is a serious God, but He is also the God of fun. He did invent it after all. Yes, God loves fun and  it is a deep part of His heart. And we, well we get to share in that. The vast God of the universe, of the Bible, wants to have fun with you. Treasure that. And ask Him to reveal more of that part of His heart to you. Let him into those moments of joy and fun and ask to experience more of His heart in them. Trust me, you'll love it.