theCanvas | a bloomington, indiana college ministry

An Advent Approach to People

Written by thecanvas on December 2, 2011 — Leave a Comment

There is a perpetual question that swirls around the inside of my soul that surfaced again this morning.

What does it mean to have a ‘Christ-centered’ approach to people?

If your day-to-day life is anything like mine, then you are consistently faced with the complexities of this question that don’t make for easy answers. People we care about deeply, and who we want to experience the freeing grace of Christ, challenge us to truly wrestle with what it looks like to practically engage people relationally in a way that actually keeps Jesus’ top priorities in the primary place.

From Jesus’ own mouth we know that primary place is given to ‘loving God, and loving others,’ but that doesn’t exactly clear things up. (Mark 12: 29-31, Matthew 22:36-40)

How do we determine what is ‘loving’ when it comes to our relationships with the people around us – especially those with whom we are decidedly ‘different’ both theologically and in lifestyle?

We must not fall into the trap of defining ‘love’ however we think Jesus should approach and interact with people – unless we are comfortable with placing our ability to dictate what true love looks like over and above the one who is Love himself.

This in no way means that we cannot discern clear and tangible things from scripture concerning the practical outworking of being citizens of the oncoming Kingdom. Then boldly live and proclaim these things to the world around us. It does mean that we need to seriously meditate on our approach to such announcements.

In the season of Advent we reflect and prepare for the arrival (literally ‘advent’) of Jesus. Jesus, who could have arrived any way that he wanted – literally! Jesus riding a rocket ship through the ancient near eastern sky would’ve made quite a different statement than the one we read about in scripture.

We see Jesus being born into humility, to humble parents, in a manner that simply didn’t make the statement we often try to when we ‘advent’ into other people’s lives.

The arrogant harshness of many claiming to follow Jesus is in direct opposition to the way we see Jesus arriving in the world.

At the same time, an over-reaction to other’s approach leads us to another place that Jesus never went – apathy towards sin. We see Jesus grow into a man who didn’t have a problem with calling people to live in ways that are in-tune with his Kingdom, but not without first, sincerely, engaging people relationally. (*think woman at the well – John 4: 1-45)

So what is a way forward?

Are we bound to fall into one of these ditches – never truly living with transformed eyes and actions? As someone who honestly, both intellectually and experientially, believes that the work of the risen Christ has opened the door to reconciliation with God – I am compelled to say NO.

There is a way forward, but only through the Holy Spirit of God teeming within us.

The Holy Spirit that inspires us to provoke, encourage, and excite people into inviting God’s holy and perfect voice to invade every aspect of their lives.

To lead people towards frankly asking the first question for themselves – what does it mean to have a Christ-centered approach to my own life and then actually act upon what God says. **

This approach to people takes a long-view of our assumptions about God’s work in people’s lives.

It doesn’t bust onto the scene of people’s lives attempting to ‘clean everything up’ in some attempt to make them acceptable to God. They already are – by the blood, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

It is more concerned with the posture of people’s hearts towards God than it is the current state of someone’s personal morality – trusting that the Spirit knows more about how he wants people to live than we do.

It faithfully points people to Jesus – the one who is making all things right.

May we live as if we believe what we say we believe – that God is graciously in control – even of the lives and holiness of the people of ‘difference’ that we hold so dear to our hearts.

May we point people to Jesus with our own pursuit of Christ-centered lives and then open our mouths to speak into other people’s lives.

May we see that these are simply not easy questions to respond to – much less unequivocally answer – and allow that truth to inspire us into a greater and deeper search for the voice of the Holy Spirit.

May we consider Jesus’ advent (arrival) into the world as a good way forward into the lives of others who we love enough to lay down our lives for. (John 15: 12-13)

**Scripture is the best place point people to start discovering responses to this question, but only if our approach to scripture are intellectually honest. Seeing that the authority of scripture is ultimately God’s own authority mediated through the Bible’s story. God’s written word will never contradict his spoken word (of course this means we take seriously scripture’s own proclamation that God speaks today).

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Posted in General | Tagged Advent, Fall 2011

Living the story / embracing the crock-pot

Written by thecanvas on July 7, 2011 — Leave a Comment

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.

Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.

Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils.

One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges

into a void of words and feelings,

and one who seeks solitude without fellowship

perishes in the abyss of vanity,

self-infatuation, and despair.”

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

We live in a world of nearly constant distraction. Everywhere we go, every turn of our heads, every move that we make offers of a nearly endless array of visual, auditory, and tactile inputs – all vying for our attention and engagement.

While none of this in inherently ‘bad’ it does create a world where we believe that everything in our lives should happen and develop in microwavable packages – including our relationships with God.

To live the story that God is telling the whole world through Jesus we need to embrace a slower version of transformation – like putting ourselves in a proverbial crock-pot.

Embracing a crock-pot version of Christ-centered spirituality insists that we approach with patience and forethought. It beckons us to slow down, soak in the living water, and allow all the ‘flavors’ of Christ to seep deep into our pours. It requires that we spend time in silent aloneness in order to fully become all that we are made to be.

As crazy as it sounds – to live the story fully we must explore the practices of silence and solitude.

First, let’s look at the practice of silence. This practice can be basically defined as: attending and listening to God in quiet without interruption or noise. We engage in the practice of silence to free ourselves from the addiction to and distraction of noise so we can be totally present to God.

Can you think of the last time you had true silence? A time when there wasn’t any sort of sound penetrating your ears? It’s a terrifying idea for most of us, but it is absolutely necessary for all of us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “We are so afraid of silence that we chase ourselves from one event to the next in order not to have to spend a moment with ourselves, in order not to have to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

The plain truth is that we need to set aside intentional time to be quiet – to enter into the type of silence that allows us to face, head-on, all the thoughts that haunt us but are normally drowned out by all the ‘noise’ of life. When we push through the awkwardness and discomfort of silence, we enter into a place where we can actually hear God speak through it. Like Elijah on the mountain, we hear God in the gentle whisper. (1 Kings 19:11)

The practice of solitude is similar but, at the same time, very different. Solitude can be loosely defined as: enough uninterrupted time in a place without distractions that you are isolated and alone with God. We engage in this practice to let the world, and it’s cares, fade away – allowing us to truly be alone with God.

When was the last time that you were truly alone? I mean, really alone – without any connection to the outside world?

Intentionally engaging in Christ-centered solitude creates empty space in the rhythms of our lives that can only be filled by God. It allows us to get away from all that seeks to envelope us with anxiety and frustration. As Abraham Heschel once said, “Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and false alarms of society’s hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.”

Exploring and practicing silence and solitude is not for the faint of heart. We often find the times when we are alone and quiet to actually be the ‘loudest’ time we spend – at first. It is only when we push past our inner noise that we will experience the inner peace of the Holy Spirit.

You may be thinking that you don’t have time for such seemingly self-centered practices. I would suggest that you don’t have time NOT to practice these things.

Self-care is an important part of service. As we learn to spend increasing amounts of time in silence and solitude, we will discover what it looks like to love God more fully. It is only through an increasing love of God that we can ever truly love others.

Let me to encourage you to ‘embrace the crock-pot’ by engaging in intentional times of silence and solitude. Throughout the canonical gospels we see Jesus living the story (that is ultimately all about him), and part of that life were these practices.

It’s part of ‘running the race to win,’ ‘being disciplined,’ and infusing ‘purpose into each step’ (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

Ideas for Engagement

-take your time in the shower to be ‘alone with God’

-turn of the radio in the car for a week

-take an hour sometime over the next week and ‘disappear’ (should probably let someone know where you are going)

-take a long walk in the woods alone

-get up early (or stay up late) – light some candles – and sit comfortably by yourself in silence as you invite the Holy Spirit to reveal himself

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Posted in General | Tagged living the story, silence, solitude, summersession 2011

Living the Story – practicing the presence of God

Written by thecanvas on June 21, 2011 — Leave a Comment

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness

through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises,

so that through them you may participate in the divine nature,

having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

2 Peter 1: 3-4

We, all of us, are in process. We are on a pilgrimage towards ‘the center’ who is Jesus. Jesus embodied, represented, and ‘put flesh on’ what life with God is about. His life, suffering, death, and resurrection reveal to us the very nature of God – which is more beautiful than our language has the ability to comprehensively convey.

A simple mental ascension to the ‘correctness’ of this is not all I believe God asks us for. It’s important for sure, but it isn’t the whole story. It is some sort of beginning, but certainly not the destination.

The unfolding of redemption through Christ is blooming in each of us (and the world) at every moment of everyday. It silently (which can sometimes be deafeningly loud) invites us into the story that God is telling the whole world. The story that invites us in as we join God in the renewing of all things pleads with us to participate.

Jesus himself invites us to live the story.

So the question becomes, how do we shape our lives around the massive story of grace that God is telling the world and inviting all who will come to join?

Fredrick Buechner words help: “There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak.”

For centuries people have found basic spiritual practices (or disciplines) extremely helpful in this sort of redemptive living. As we defined in the previous post, a spiritual practice is: an intentionally directed action that opens us to the transforming power of God.

Please don’t misunderstand me; engaging in such practices is not an attempt at religious manipulation. The truth is that we all ‘practice’ our spiritual lives in a variety of ways – whether we ‘name’ these practices or not. The purpose of specific spiritual practices is simply to help provide a framework and rhythm to our relationships with God.

Do you have a ‘quiet time’ at some point during the day? Do you pray before meals and/or before bed? Do you go to church on Sundays?

All of these are forms on spiritual practice that many of us engage in without realizing that they are creating the basic framework through which we hope and expect God to show up.

Yet often we find that the spaces created by the things we engage in spiritually aren’t producing what we thought or hoped they would.

So – maybe it’s time to shake things up and try some new things.

Consider this: If I don’t change my beliefs and practices, my life will be this way forever – is that good news?

Over the next few posts we are going to look at some of the basic spiritual practices that Christians have engaged in, and experienced God through, for literally hundreds of years.

The first is the idea of ‘practicing the presence of God.’

This practice is an invitation to see and experience the presence of God throughout our days, and we engage in it to develop a continual openness and awareness of Christ’s presence living in us.

Without going into a ton of the history behind this practice, it is founded (somewhat) by a guy named Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a monk whose duties included washing dishes everyday. Over time he developed a deep understanding of God’s reality and presence in even the most mundane of tasks. He became aware of God in everything – and so can we.

As Psalm 139: 7-10 reads, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,  even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

What would our lives look like if we actually lived as if this was true?

Brother Lawrence reminds us, “There is a no kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”

Below are a few practical ways to start engaging in this practice if you are interested – and I hope you are. Learning to live the story that God is telling in us and through us is the most important undertaking of our lives.

Ideas for Engagement

-Try setting an hourly reminder to help you remember that God is here (i.e. phone or watch alarm). Each hour pray that God would make his presence seen, felt, and experienced. Over time you may find it beneficial to shorten the amount of time between alarms.

-Try writing a few simple words on your hand (i.e. ‘you are here,’ ‘remember,’ etc…)

-Choose a normally mundane task during the day (laundry, dishes, showering, etc…) and use it to intentionally focus on the reality of God with you. Make it an act of worship.

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Posted in General | Tagged living the story, practicing the presence of God, summersession 2011

living the story _ finding our place

Written by thecanvas on June 13, 2011 — Leave a Comment

“Any religion will be judged by the story it tells about the world and our place in it.”

_Ken Wilson (Jesus Brand Spirituality)

In all of our personal and communal journeys towards a life with God, there are times when we question where our place in the grand meta-narrative of redemption actually is. At times these questions are catalyzed by an overwhelming sense of ‘rightness,’ but there are also times when the questions rise out the deep notion that ‘things are not as they could (or should) be.’

Whether the questions appearing on the maps of our hearts come from a compelling awareness of God’s presence or from a palatable lack thereof – they lead to same root wonderings…

Do I have a place in the story that God is telling the world?

If so, what is it?

And, how am I supposed to know?

I would suspect that we have all ruminated on questions like these – whether explicitly or implicitly. We want to know that our lives are valuable, that we aren’t just wasting away, and that we have a way to pursue the life that we hear people telling us we can have with God.

We want to know what our story looks like in light of God’s story and how to practically live-out the implications.

The truth is, being followers of Jesus doesn’t automatically mean we experience the answers to these questions. Simply, ‘signing up’ to be on ‘God’s team’ doesn’t mean we metaphorically float around on clouds, playing harps, in some sort of angelically existential euphoria – never again questioning how to practically live out the call of Christ.

Becoming a follower of Jesus is not the end of the story – it’s simply another crossroads on our pilgrimage towards God.

Our quest is not to decipher all the ‘correct’ answers to all the questions that prick our souls. Nor is it to diagnose our dis-ease by looking at symptoms laying at the surface of our lives. As one author says:

“Superficiality is the curse of our age.

The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people,

but for deep people.”

After we believe that the story God is telling about the world is in fact true,then we are sent and commissioned by Christ himself to live the story.

We learn to live the story by discovering what it means to ‘keep company with Jesus.’ Which is to say, we discover what it means to welcome Jesus into our everyday lives by intentionally making ourselves open to God. We ‘prepare a place’ in our hearts for Christ to freely dwell and transform us.

Throughout scripture and history faithful brothers and sisters in Christ have learned much concerning the practical out-workings of ‘keeping company with Jesus.’ They have discovered what it means to drink deeply from the well of God that springs up with the only water that genuinely quenches our thirst and have shared their findings.

We most often call these ‘findings’ spiritual practices, but they can’t really be fully described within the bounds of one label.

For our purposes, a spiritual practice will be defined as: intentionally directed actions that open us to the transforming power of God. We engage in spiritual practices not out of obligation but holy invitation, not out of pharisaical religiosity but wide-eyed curiosity, not in an attempt to ‘work’ for God’s grace but to experience it at ever deepening intensities.

It is through such spiritual practices that we learn what it looks like to play a part in God’s great story of all that is good, beautiful, and true. We learn what it means to live lives that are reoriented towards the Kingdom of God as we open ourselves to God’s transforming power that retrains our thoughts, attitudes, habits and behaviors.

Before anyone thinks that I am advocating some sort of ‘works based gospel’ let me assure you that the purpose of engagement in spiritual practices is not an attempt to appease God by earning his favor. To be sure, our place in the story of God’s great love is securely rooted and solely defined in the cross and resurrection of Christ and grows forth from there.

BUT – there is a huge difference between ‘work’ and effort. God does not ask that we simply sit back and wait for ‘Jesus to come back’ as we bask in the security of our eternal homes. NO! God invites us to start living eternal kinds of lives now, and that requires effort because we are hell-bent our orienting our lives in ways that make us the center of the story – not Christ. We must be willing to explore and practice things that intentionally open us to the transforming power of God.

If this were not the case then the apostle Paul wouldn’t have written, “Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step…” (1 Corinthians 9: 24-27a).

Life with God takes practice to ‘run’ well. Our deepening conscious experience of grace is not automatic – but it is ever-present and available.

Over the next several posts we will be looking at a small sampling of different spiritual practices that help us discover our place in God’s story. My hope is that this discovery grows forth from the root of Christ and produces fruit that will not fade or pass away.

May it be so.

Questions to Meditate on:

Have you ever questioned your place in God’s story?

Is there ‘baggage’ that you need to let God deal with concerning the idea of ‘spiritual practices’?

Are you willing to accept the holy invitation of Christ to learn how to ‘drink deeply’ from the well of God?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged living the story, summersession 2011

everyday God _ confront

Written by thecanvas on June 9, 2011 — 1 Comment

Having discussed a couple of the ways that Jesus wants to interact and encounter us in our everyday lives – let us look at one more – the type of interaction that we don’t often like Jesus to have with us.

Picture this:

***

You are preparing for a date that you have been looking forward to for weeks. The anticipation of this event has you flustered, nervous, and doing everything within your power to ‘look your best.’

You choose clothes that will best highlight the subtle color of your eyes and will accentuate the parts of you that you want to be seen – while at the same time hiding what you perceive as your less than desirable assets.

You look good, but deep down you know that the ‘goodness you look’ is only an attempt at a veneer to keep your date interested.

Because, of course, putting forth anything less than your ‘best’ would surely ruin everything… right?

You believe that if you can look ‘good’ – at least as ‘good’ as your date (if not better), then there is a better chance at future interactions and dates.

So you do everything you can to hide your flaws, cover up your imperfections, rehearse your introduction, and impress your long anticipated encounter.

***

Isn’t this how we often approach our relationship with God? Always attempting to make ourselves up in the ways that we assume Jesus would be okay with being around? Trying to look like people that Jesus would be interested in?

Just because we do this doesn’t make it right and it isn’t the picture of Jesus’ interactions with people that we see in scripture. The Jesus we see in scripture hangs out with Pharisees, tax collectors and prostitutes (among many other people groups). He engages relationally with the outcasts in the culture of his day. He does this intentionally.

Jesus went to people, encountering them in their everyday lives, at the places that they were most broken, hopeless, and lost – the places where people where most unlike Himself.

One example is found in the gospel of John in chapter 4. Jesus is tired for a long day of walking and sits down next to a well. A woman, a Samaritan woman, comes to the well to get water and Jesus strikes up a conversation.

I doubt the woman knew at the onset of this conversation that her life would be changed forever by this one, overwhelming odd and out of place, encounter.

As they talk, Jesus eventually ‘reads her proverbial mail,’ telling her things about her life that there is no way he could’ve known – things that didn’t make her look honorable or worthy of Jesus’ company.

At this the woman is astonished and declares that she believes Jesus is a prophet. After another short discourse, Jesus reveals to her that he is the messiah that she has been waiting for.

Jesus confronts this woman concerning the areas of her life that are not virtuous, healthy, or honorable, but he does so graciously and lovingly in the context of an engaging conversation.

He confronts her in a place and way that his culture said was inappropriate, yet he confronts her there anyway.

He confronts the hidden things in her life – not to bring shame but healing and salvation.

With all the ways that Jesus interacts with us and encounters us in our everyday lives, we must not forget (and embrace) that Jesus confronts us too. Not to bring shame and guilt, but to bring healing, freedom, and salvation.

Jesus confronts us in our un-like-Him-ness – our un-Christ-likeness.

This means that he doesn’t require our ‘Sunday best’ to be embraced by him. He doesn’t ask that we ‘put on our faces’ before he shows up at the door of our hearts. He doesn’t desire that we to hide our flaws, cover up our imperfections, rehearse our introductions, and try to impress him with how much we look like him.

He wants to date us anyway – in fact – he wants to marry us. He desires that our hearts and lives become united with him in a wholly integrated way.

This requires confrontation – the type that brings transformation.

We need not be afraid of these times of confronting and instead embrace them part of God’s great graciousness.

When Jesus confronts us in our everyday lives, it is for the sake of our ongoing transformation into Christ-like-ness.

And the Lord

—who is the Spirit—

makes us more and more like him

as we are changed into his glorious image.

_2 Corinthians 3: 18b_

Questions to Meditate on:

Have you ever experienced Christ in places that don’t seem ‘right’ or ‘correct’?

If you were at the well, what would Jesus bring up with you?

How willing are you to embrace the confrontation of Jesus right now – and be transformed?

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Posted in General | Tagged everyday God, summersession 2011

everyday God _ call

Written by thecanvas on June 7, 2011 — Leave a Comment

Jesus is active in our lives (period). He is moving in ways that we often don’t see or understand, but He is moving nonetheless. For all the times that we don’t see or understand, there are other times when Jesus is clear with us.

We see Jesus interacting with some of his first disciples clearly in the fourth chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee when he sees a couple fishermen, Peter and Andrew, about to cast their nets. Jesus calls to them to come and follow him with the promise of making them a different type of fishermen, and they immediately drop their nets and follow him.

What would make two seemingly ordinary fishermen immediately follow Jesus?

The long explanation of this would be too laborious here. Simply put, Jesus was a Rabbi and was announcing to Peter and Andrew that, if they would follow Him, they He would teach them how to be and live like He did. It makes perfect sense that these brothers would drop everything, literally, and follow Jesus with such a promise. The fact that they were already working as fishermen means that they didn’t make the cut in Hebrew school, they weren’t the best of the best, and no other Rabbis wanted to teach them the ways of God. Jesus’ request was an affirmation of the greatness that they had teeming within them. Jesus saw them as the sacred sons of God that they were and called them to live into all that means.

Jesus is still calling disciples today – for the same reasons. He is calling you and I to ‘drop everything’ and follow Him. In other words, Jesus calls us to wholly shape and live our lives around Him.

Jesus is standing at the proverbial seas of our lives calling us out of any inadequacy that we feel, any insecurity that cripples us, and all the preconceived ideas we have about what it means to live life with and for God.

It doesn’t stop there however, because Jesus also calls us out of the security we live in when we think we have everything figured out. He calls us to leave behind our lives that are manageable, safe, and comfortable. He calls us out of thinking we have everything ‘together,’ or even that we are supposed to.

For all of His calling out, Jesus also calls us into all whole different kind of life. He doesn’t just call us out to leave us standing (or living) still. Jesus has a mission and He invites us to follow Him, as partners, in this mission on earth.

Jesus calls us into a relationship with Him that promises to turn our worlds upside down. He calls us into an engagement with the divine, the unseen world, which will transform our hearts and give us new eyes – new eyes to see His kingdom coming on earth. Jesus calls us into nothing less than life in the kingdom of God.

Jesus is acting in our everyday lives by calling us away from and towards a host of things. You can be sure of few things in this life, but you can be sure that Jesus is calling you to come and ‘follow Him’ with the promise of a wholly different kind of life.

Questions to Meditate on:

What is your emotional response to Jesus’ call as He stands on the proverbial Sea of Galilee in your life?

What is Jesus calling you out of and away from right now?

What is Jesus calling you into and towards?

Are you willing to answer the call by ‘dropping everything’ and following Him?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged everyday God, summersession 2011

Everyday God _ comfort

Written by thecanvas on June 3, 2011 — 2 Comments

Our faith should never be something that is disconnected from life. The seemingly mundane things that we do everyday are packed with the same redemptive potential as any of our ‘spiritual experiences.’ However, believing this doesn’t make those things feel any less mundane.

The truth is that Jesus is alive and active in every aspect of our day-to-day lives, but we aren’t always aware of it. This creates a place where it becomes important to look at the ways in which Jesus interacted with people when he walked the earth – with the hope of discovering how Jesus wants to interact with us today.

In the gospel of John we read a story about Jesus that illuminates, I believe, one of the ways that Jesus (God) wants to interact with us today. John 11: 17-35 recounts a time when Jesus’ friend Lazarus had died. If you aren’t familiar with the story, then let me encourage you to pray through it sometime.

As the story unfolds we see two sisters, Mary and Martha, mourning over the death of their brother, Lazarus. A woman named Martha meets Jesus on the road as he is coming towards the town to talk with him, beg for his intervention, and search for answers. At this point we see Jesus proclaiming, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying” (John 11: 25). Martha then goes and gets her sister, Mary, to speak with Jesus as well. When Mary meets Jesus on the road, she falls at his feet and weeps. Then – Jesus being ‘deeply troubled’ begins to weep as well. Actually in verse 35 we find the shortest verse in the Bible – “Jesus wept.”

Jesus was moved with such great compassion that he literally cried with his friends who were crying at the loss of their brother – even though he knew that the story wasn’t over. Later in John 11, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and calls him out of the grave. Surely Jesus knew that this was on the horizon. So – why would he weep when he knew that rejoicing would be so soon to follow?

Jesus wept because Jesus is the great comforter.

He wept because he felt the pain that Mary and Martha were feeling and it caused a commotion in his soul.

He wept because he deeply cares about the things that we deeply care about.

He wept because, while he was God, he was also man and had real human emotions.

He wept because Lazarus was really dead and he loved his friend.

Jesus wept for a number of other reasons that all center on the truth that he is the great comforter.

God wants to comfort you – meaning he wants to console you in suffering, admonish you to take heart, and encourage you to press on towards the Light.

We see Jesus interacting with Mary and Martha in the same way that he wants to interact with us.

So why don’t we always feel comforted?

Let’s look back into the passage and see if there are any clues. First century Jewish culture handled mourning in a much different way than we do 2000 years later. In that time, mourning was often a community event. People would gather with those who mourned and mourn with them. There was no thought that ‘giving people their space’ was a good thing. There was the belief that even the presence of the community, even if in silence, was better than isolation.

So, in verse 28, when Martha comes and tells Mary that Jesus wants to talk to her, she walks into a full room. The room was full of friends and probably other family all mourning the loss of Lazarus together.

Now, Martha didn’t bust through the door and loudly announce Jesus’ request to Mary. The scene is still one of suffering, pain, and mourning. We know this because, when Mary gets up and runs out of the house, everyone else assumes that she is running to mourn at the tomb of her brother.

But she doesn’t run to Lazarus’ tomb.

Mary runs to Jesus, falls at his feet, and weeps in his presence.

Mary believed that Jesus was the one who could offer the comfort and help that she was looking for. She knew that she wouldn’t find the life she was looking for at a tomb.

How often do we seek comfort from dead places?

In what ways do we seek consolation, admonition, and encouragement from places that cannot give them?

Mary runs to Jesus, who is the ‘resurrection and life,’ and pours out her grief to him because he is the one who can truly comfort.

Our everyday God (Jesus) is always calling us to come and talk, to pour out our grief – so that he can weep with us and comfort us in the way that only he can.

In the midst of suffering, pain, and desolation, may we learn to go to Jesus to find true comfort. May we run to him instead of all the ‘tombs’ that can’t offer what they don’t have – Life. And may we be comforted by our everyday God – Jesus Christ.

Questions To Meditate On:

What ‘tombs’ are you tempted to seek comfort in?

In what ways do you hear Jesus inviting you to come and find comfort in him?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged everyday God, summersession 2010

Beginning Again.

Written by thecanvas on June 2, 2011 — Leave a Comment

Throughout the summer months I’m going to be talking through each week of discussion over the past semester at theCanvas. I apologize for dropping the ball on my weekly writing, but think my failure has created a unique opportunity. We get to explore the themes, ideas, and scriptures that we spent time with for an entire semester, but without the distractions of classes. My hope is that these reflections can serve to remind and re-invigorate all of us towards a knowledge and experience of God that continues to truly transform us into the image of Christ.

We all find ourselves in unique places, with unique perspectives, and discovering unique things about life with God. Whether or not we acknowledge His voice and movement in our lives has no bearing on the truth of it. God is alive and active. He is ‘drawing all to Himself’ and declaring ‘Behold, I make all things new,’ even when we can’t wrap our minds around how He is doing it.

Sometimes, however, we don’t feel as if we are being made new, do we?

Sometimes life feels like a rollercoaster full of ups and downs with no end of the ride in sight. It’s like we are despairingly doomed to simply hold on – trying not to puke as life just increases in speed. I don’t think this sounds like the life Jesus talked about when announcing the Kingdom of God.

Other times life feels like we are chasing our proverbial tails and not getting anywhere at all. We circle the same ‘block’ over and over again in an attempt to find the life we feel we were promised. It’s as if life is and endless circle that doesn’t really take us anywhere new or more beautiful, but we suck it up anyway. Again, I don’t think this sounds like the life Jesus talked about when announcing the Kingdom of God.

To view life in one of these ways (and I’m sure others) is simply put – not helpful. To be more blatant – NOT TRUE.

Life is not a series of ups and downs that we hold on tight for – nor is it and endless circle that we quietly submit to. Life has rhythm, movement, and cycles to it and it is in those rhythms, movements, and cycles that God is revealing Himself to us.

If we learn to look at life from this perspective the sum of our experiences suddenly have sacred value and holy meaning. The joy and the sorrow, the ugly and the beautiful, the pleasure and the pain, the suffering and the security – all creating the space through which God will speak, move, and transform us into the image of Christ.

It doesn’t mean that things don’t (or shouldn’t) hurt and wound us deeply. It does mean that in those seasons, and there will be those seasons, that God has not abandoned us – nor has He ceased to act on our behalf.

The plain truth is that, no matter what we are feeling or facing, God is already moving and speaking to bring us greater healing and wholeness.

Before we ask – God responds.

Before we even know what needs saving – God knows and has made provision for our ongoing salvation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

As we begin these summer months, let me encourage you to take stock of ‘where you are’ with God. Take an hour or two (you have the time) to get alone with God and ask Him to reveal Himself to you.

Questions to Meditate on:

What perspective are you looking at life through?

In what ways can you see God moving in your life? Even through the tough stuff?

Where do you feel God inviting you deeper into grace?

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Posted in General | Tagged Semester Start - Spring 11, Spring 2011

Tragedy of Tragedies: Osama Bin Laden and the Christian Response

Written by thecanvas on May 3, 2011 — Leave a Comment

This is something that my friend and brother, Jordan Warner, wrote today:

There is no doubt that Osama Bin Laden’s life was marked by heinous action and unspeakable terror. It is a tragedy that so many innocent lives were lost by the hate in that man’s heart. And it is a tragedy as well that any man had to live his life engulfed in that same hate.

But today I awoke to a new tragedy. As I read the celebratory response to Bin Laden’s death by Christians whom I love and respect, I grew sick to my stomach. Then dismayed. Then angry.

After all, we Christians are the ones who spend our lives purveying the good news that we are graciously spared from being treated as our sins deserve. I find it ironic at best, that we – as recipients of such undeserved grace – are the very ones parading in the streets that this “bastard finally got what he deserved.” If you’re offended by the language, be more offended by the hypocrisy.

If America has suffered any persecution at all in recent memory, we suffered it at the hands of Osama Bin Laden. He hated us for our wealth, our infidelity, and our religious freedom. And today it’s been told without doubt that the proper American response is to hate him in return. “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven (Matt. 5:43-46).” Do we really find the Bible infallible when it calls us to actions like that?

The terrifying-to-face truth of Scripture is that the very root of sin that drove Osama Bin Laden to kill thousands of people is vying for my heart too. If we lose touch with that – if we somehow think of ourselves as less debased in the height of our own sin – than we’ve lost touch with the Christian story and the very need for a Savior in the first place.

Perhaps even more shocking is the image of our Abba Father lovingly knitting together Osama Bin Laden in his mother’s womb. It is an affront to consider Bin Laden to be made in the imago dei. But then again, the Bible is an affront. To be clear, I am not at all saying Bin Laden’s actions were godly or anything other than evil. I am not saying God approves his terror or hate, or even that Bin Laden shouldn’t have been forcibly stopped from doing what he was doing. But that does not change the fact that a tragic end to a tragic life ought to give us a more reason to repent and mourn than hoot and holler.

Today it was us Christians who led the festive parade through the streets of culture. Yet God calls his people to respond to social wickedness with recognition of our own guilt, and our own need for humility and repentance. Today we acted even more convinced, cocksure and smug, that God is somehow inherently on America’s side. Yet God used Assyria to judge Israel, then turned around and judged Assyria too (*see bottom). Saddest of all, today we took more joy in the presumptuous thought of a man’s eternal separation from God than the hope that our Redeemer God might have somehow redeemed even this situation.

How incredibly revealing that we take more joy in imagining our enemy rotting in hell than encountering redemption?

How hypocritical that we then claim to have a heart to see the lost come to Christ?

How near-sighted to forget that our beloved Apostle Paul was once the mass-murdering terrorist Paul?

And how blind to not recognize that our riotous celebration over lost life through execution isn’t all that different than Bin Laden’s actions on 9/11?

It’s been said that our love will be the one undeniable thing to help this world know that the Christian story is true. If this is the case, then I wonder what the world knows today?

I know 9/11 hurt a lot of people. And I know Jesus weeps too. But if our reaction to world events is more immersed in our identity as Americans than as citizens of another Kingdom then we’ve lost the plot of the Christian story and the radical call of Jesus’ teaching. We can celebrate a man’s death and potential separation from God all we like. It is, after all, a free country. You can even call it patriotism. But please don’t call it Christianity.

Today I thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a great theologian and pastor. Bonhoeffer found himself in a similar situation as us, face to face with an evil man who had killed thousands (Adolf Hitler). Bonhoeffer’s response is instructive to us – he personally took action against the evil and on multiple occasions Bonhoeffer plotted to assassinate Hitler. Yet Bonhoeffer knew that just because he was called to take necessary action against evil did not mean he had to succumb to hating his enemy’s soul or rejoicing in their separation from God. His strikingly relevant words below teach us that we can actively confront our enemies without rejoicing in their destruction.

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. ‘The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared.’”

*This particular idea admittedly and blatantly stolen from a great blog post by Glenn Packiam at glennpackiam.com.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Osama bin Laden, Tragedy

Death and our everyday God

Written by thecanvas on February 6, 2011 — Leave a Comment

We see Jesus interacting with people in a myriad of ways throughout the canonical gospels. These, now, written accounts of his life give us an account, a portal, through which to learn, study, and ultimately experience the life of this man who actually walked this earth in a body made of flesh and blood.

These same texts reveal the reality that this Jesus was God incarnate. That he was literally the manifestation of God on earth… God with us…

Why then do we so often find it difficult to interact and engage with God?

Why do we find ourselves grasping for answers to how this interaction is supposed to happen?

Why do we think we are going to find life when we find these answers?

The truth is that the ways Jesus interacted with people then are very much the same ways that he wants to interact with us now. He wants to comfort us just like he comforted his friends when their brother died. He is calling us just like he called his first disciples. He confronts us in our all of our ‘un-like-him-ness’ just like he did the woman at the well. Jesus interacted with people in their ‘everydays’. Jesus comes to interact with us in these ways and countless others for the sake of our transformation. He comes to us in our ‘everydays’ because he is an everyday God.

While it is true that God is beyond our total comprehension and understanding… it is also true that he is far closer than we can imagine. God is mysteriously, and simultaneously, transcendent and intimate…

We try and explain God with words that cannot contain God. To examine God with tools which were created by God. Our attempts at fully capturing this mystery always end in the admission that we are not God…

This admission, however, does not point towards futility in knowing God. For we can know God in growing degrees of fullness, or as one author put it, “God is infinitely knowable.” The admission does, however, illuminate the necessity that we must allow God to be God on God’s terms with us.

The difficulty of surrendering to this reality is the great battleground that our lives are lived upon. In the moments that we do relinquish our grip on God we are surrendering ourselves to certain death. Death that leads to true life…

In the moments that we refuse to surrender we bind ourselves to an endeavor that tries to manipulate God into acting on our terms and this reveals itself within the contexts of our relationships with others.

Much of the cynicism concerning the Church today is really just a manifestation of our attempts to have God on our terms. When people put their ‘great hope’ in a church instead of seeing the Church as the people who point towards the Great Hope then they will always find themselves wanting.

If we ever want to live in the sure hope Jesus offers today and the hope he has secured for tomorrow, then we must surrender ourselves to God on God’s terms. We must seek to engage with God in our everyday… not our every Sunday morning… worse yet… our ‘only when we decide we’re ready’…

Jesus comes to us always. He desires to meet us in our unChristlikeness in order to transform, restore, and renew us into the original images of God that were already given to us before the foundations of the earth. Though this image often feels far off, seems hidden and is distorted… this is the promise of the cross. That we can actually experience the essence of God, his love, and be changed more and more into his glory.

Maybe our questions need to change?

Maybe we should be asking how we can surrender more entirely to God on God’s terms?

Maybe we should be asking God to enlighten us to the ways that he is already trying to interact with us in our ‘everydays’?

Maybe we should be asking… how can I die more so that I may truly live?

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Posted in General | Tagged everyday God