The Peace that Transcends All Circumstances

                                                                    (Flowers, in our front yard.)

A few years ago Linda and I vacationed in Cape May, New Jersey. It's a beautiful area, with a great beach on the ocean. We stayed in a very cool, old Victorian Bed & Breakfast. Cape May has wonderful restaurants and places to see and shop. All was well except... the weather. It was cold and rainy. The circumstances were not what we wanted, because what we really like is sitting under the sun on the beach, and reading and talkin,g and listening to the sound of the crashing waves.

Such is life. Circumstances often do not go one's way. In spite of the conditions, Linda and I enjoyed Cape May, and had inner peace.

The good news is that the "fruit of the Spirit" in Galatians 5:22-23 is not circumstance-dependent. Part of that fruit is "peace." There is an inner well-being available to all who live the Jesus-connected life. This inner well-being does not rise and fall with the external environment. It's more like a thermostat than a thermometer; it is non-reactive and consistent. 

When I abide in Christ, my inner thermostat is set to "peace," even though my outer thermometer is reading "cold."

Howard Thurman writes:

"Here we come upon the most interesting aspect of personal freedom - the living of one's life with confidence that transcends discouragement and despair. This means that one does not have to depend upon the favorable circumstances, the fortuitous "break," the applause, approval, and felicitation of friends, as important as these are...
"Seek ye first the rule of God," the Master says. And after that? The key that one needs for one's peace is in the heart. There can be no personal freedom where there is not an initial inner surrender."
- 40-Day Journey with Howard Thurman, 64

Surrender your entire being to the rule of Christ today, and discover the peace that transcends all circumstances.

5 American Myths of Successful Churches

'91 Ford Aerostar

I'm theologically in sync with Joseph Mattera's "Five American Myths of Successful Churches and Ministries." He writes: "Many of the ways American churches measures success are in fact direct violations of the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 23. In this passage Jesus speaks against people loving titles, celebrity status, and desiring prominent places in public events."

Much of this has to do with the metricization of the Church.

The 5 Myths are:


1. The size of the church shows success. The American church often measures itself numerically and monetarily. The early church did not. Paul's leading question to his churches (Ephesus, et. al.) was not: "How big is your church? 

Mattera writes: 

"Unfortunately many saints with low self-esteem or ego need to attend one of these “successful” churches because they feel it gives them status. This is a far cry from the early church that numbered in the thousands after the Day of Pentecost because of mass conversions and the contemporary persecuted church (for example, in Muslim nations) who often meet from house-to-house, break bread, and covenant with one another as brothers and sisters, and are willing to risk their lives for the gospel by being baptized! I am all for explosive church growth: the kind of church growth that involves mostly new converts rather than transfer growth."

Yes. If you see a new church that is "growing" rapidly, it's not real growth, but transfer growth (people shifting churches).

2. The amount of the budget shows success. The apostle Paul never asked his churches "What's the size of your budget?" As if budget size was some indicator of "success!" How could that be, since most of the first churches had no money, By American cultural standards they were failures.

3. The celebrity status of the leader shows success. In America we have a celebrity cult. In the early church people like the apostle Paul were cultural unknowns. So what? It did not seem to bother Paul that he was not posterized. Mattera writes: 

"In the past 30-plus years of full-time ministry I have seen many people who call themselves apostle, bishop, chaplain, or reverend who did not have the ministry, training, or the fruit to back it up." 

4. The title of the leader shows success. "Many believers equate success with the status that comes with a title." "Title" is the lowest level of leadership.

5. The affluent lifestyle of the leader shows success. For many years I drove a rusted out '91 Ford Aerostar. Did this mean I was failing as a pastor? And what about Jesus, who didn't even have a roof over his head?

Why People Try to Control Others

 

(Sterling State Park, on Lake Erie, in Monroe)

I still have control issues. This is not good.

I meet a lot of control freaks and controlees. Many marriages are the coming together of these anti-types. Every control freak needs a controlee, and vice versa. I call these "master/slave" marriages.

Most people, if not all, struggle with control issues. I have, and at times still do. The Control vs. Trust polarity is an ontological reality; i.e., it lies at the base of human personhood. 

"Control" is the antithesis of "trust." Trust is huge in the Jesus-life, and life in general, since we control so very, very little.

Keith Miller writes: "control is the major factor in destroying intimate relationships." (Compelled to Control: Recovering Intimacy in Broken Relationships., p. 7) Why do we do this? Why try to control others when we can't control our own selves, and are often out of control? Miller writes:

"The fear of being revealed as a failure, as not being "enough" somehow, is a primary feeling that leads to the compulsion to control other people. When we were children, the fear of being inadequate and shameful was tied to our terror of being deserted or rejected and we had little control over getting what we needed. To counteract that basic terror, we have evidently been trying all our lives in various ways to "get control" of life. This includes controlling other people." (14)

A controlling person is an un-free person. Insecurity is the emblem of control. I like the way Richard Foster once put this: God wants to free us from the terrible burden of always having to get our own way. "Walking in freedom" and "controlling other people" ("always getting our own way") are oppositional. 

The control freak crushes the spirit of the other person, who wears a sign saying, "Crush me." "I'm in control of you"/"Control me" - "I'm in control of you"/"Control me" -  this is the cycle that destroys marriages and relationships. The antidote is trust. Because where trust is, control is not. 

Begin breaking free by learning trust in God. Pray to be less controlling than you now are. Pray to be less controlled by others than you now are. Trust God even when you don't trust other people. Understand this: You will rarely have all your ducks in a row, especially when it comes to people.

Go basic, repeating and praying Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;

    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;

    he’s the one who will keep you on track.

Don’t assume that you know it all.

    Run to God! Run from evil! 

(The Message) 

To trust God when around distrustful people is an experiential act of freedom. God can use you to be the catalyst that heals others of their fear of not measuring up.

The Bible - Read Slowly, Go Deep

 

 

    (Levi and family in our backyard.)

I am a reader.

A slow reader. 

I read meditatively, even the newspaper.

I slow-read the Bible. In brief pieces.

I have always done it this way, over my fifty-three years as a follower of Jesus.

I have never been able to "read the Bible in one year." I would never keep up! I am the tortoise, not the hare. Which means I get there, slowly, and for me deeply, over time.

I have found that this slow, meditative reading of the Word builds something solid in my soul, over time. God-knowledge accrues. 

Dallas Willard writes, "If you read the Bible, desiring that God’s revealed will should be true for you, do not try to read a great deal at once." (Willard, Dallas. Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional, p. 242)

Speed Worship, and the Endless Desire Where There Is No Need

 

                                                             (One of my slow places.)

So many books, so little time to read them. 

I added Columbia University religion professor Mark Taylor's new book to my amazon wish list - Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We Have So Little Left. I was pointed to this book by Taylor's essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education - "Speed Kills: Fast Is Never Fast Enough." Taylor's essay is a nice complement to another book I'm currently reading - Slow Church: Cultivating Community In the Patient Way of Jesus. 

I like slow. Slow living increases productivity. Speed living kills the soul. I'm doing some "slow" today and experiencing life. All that's missing is some succulent Slow's BBQ, whose owners understand there are certain things in life that should not be microwaved. 

"Slow" syncs with my minimalist theology.

Our culture is obsessed with speed. The idea that speedy technology would give us more leisure time was an illusion. Many are trapped within the prisons of their quick-gadgets. Taylor writes: "Contrary to expectation, the technologies that were supposed to liberate us now enslave us, networks that were supposed to unite us now divide us, and technologies that were supposed to save time leave us no time for ourselves."

Social status used to be measured by how little a person works; now it is measured by how much a person works. "If you are not constantly connected, you are unimportant; if you willingly unplug to recuperate, play, or even do nothing, you become an expendable slacker."

The worship of fastness has created its own value system. "Good" is understood by words like individualism, utility, efficiency, productivity, competition, consumption, and speed. The Speed Regime has repressed values like sustainability, community, cooperation, generosity, patience, subtlety, deliberation, reflection, and slowness. Taylor argues that we must recover these repressed values to avoid a psychological, social, economic, and ecological meltdown.

"Speed," writes Taylor, "has limits. As acceleration accelerates, individuals, societies, economies, and even the environment approach meltdown. We have been conned into worshiping speed by an economic system that creates endless desire where there is no need."

There's a lot of helpful analysis in Taylor's essay. All who are concerned that the American Church has been seduced into the Babylonian Captivity of Speed should take note. By the rivers of this Babylon we've laid our instruments down, not because we have no songs to sing, but because we have no time to sing them.

What Would Happen If We Read the Bible Experientially?

 

                                                                            (Jerusalem)

Craig Keener asks this question in his wonderful book Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost.

    "What would happen if we read 1 Corinthians 14 sympathetically, 

as not merely a corrective for first-century Corinthian Christians 

but also as Paul’s counterappeal that depicted an ideal way of doing church 

(14:5–6, 13–19, 24–33, 39–40) to which we can also aspire? 

I believe that such an approach would challenge 

the practical cessationism of most of our churches 

regarding public exercise of most spiritual gifts (except that of pastor-teacher)."

P. 275

A Wedding Is a Welding

(I re-post this periodically.) 

Marriage is different, in essence, from co-habiting. Marriage requires more than just living together.

What is marriage?

In Matthew 19:1-9 we see large crowds of people coming to Jesus, and Jesus healing them. After this happens “some Pharisees came to test him. They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’”

This was one of the most controversial questions of that time. It refers to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, where we read that a husband can divorce his wife if he finds “something indecent about her.” The debate was – what does “something indecent” mean?

There were two schools of thought about that. The school of the rabbi Shammai said, “something indecent” means "adultery." The school of the rabbi Hillel taught that “something indecent” means anything, even something so trivial as burning your husband’s bagel. “So, what do you think about this,” the Pharisees asked Jesus? Jesus’ response is brilliant. Instead of dealing with Deuteronomy 24 he takes them back to Genesis 1 & 2.

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." A very cool response by Jesus. Why?

Because Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is about troubleshooting. Genesis 1 & 2 is the heart of the owner’s manual. Yes, there is a time for troubleshooting. But Jesus asks, don’t you remember what "marriage" really is? It’s male and female, united in marriage, becoming one flesh, whom God has “joined together.”

It’s this “joined together” thing that’s especially important. The word means, literally, “welded together.” New Testament scholar R.T. France says, “It would be hard to imagine a more powerful metaphor of permanent attachment.” A wedding is a welding, done by God the Master Welder.

I asked a friend who welds to give me a definition of welding. Welding, he said, is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. “Coalescence” is the process by which two or more droplets of metal form a single droplet and become one continuous solid. No wonder they call it “wedlock!”

Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, “Don’t you remember what God said about a husband and wife? God has weld-locked them together. Don’t let any person try to separate them!"

Instead of saying he’s for or against divorce, Jesus lifts up marriage. The Pharisees seem to have thought that the very legislation about divorce, within the law of Moses, meant that Moses was quite happy for it to take place. Since there's a law to tell you how to do it, that must mean it's OK to do. That would be like seeing a sign that says “In case there’s a fire, take this emergency exit,” and then concluding “It must be OK to start a fire in this building.”

Jesus shows the flaw in their thinking by pointing back to God's original intention. Marriage was meant to be a partnership of one man and one woman... for life. Marriage was not meant to be something that could be split up and reassembled whenever one person wanted to end it.

This summer it was 50 years ago that Linda and I got welded, wed-locked, together. The result is that a lot of her has gotten into me and a lot of me has gotten into her. I am deeply influenced by her, and her by me. God fused us together into “one flesh.” What a great idea! You can’t get that by cohabiting.

I remember the bond.

I remember when God welded us together.

My Favorite Marriage Song

 https://youtu.be/0bJvZmFBxTA?si=jP9y8LhbrGqJ9j8X

Be Quick to Listen, Be Slow to Text

 

                                                                    (Lake Michigan)

I don't use social media or texting to share negative things, or work out interpersonal conflict. For such things Face-to-Face is best.

When face-to-face, first listen. Understand before opening your mouth. Be a slow cooker, not a microwave.

Henri Nouwen writes:

"When you write a very angry letter to a friend who has hurt you deeply, don't send it! Let the letter sit on your table for a few days and read it over a number of times. Then ask yourself: "Will this letter bring life to me and my friend? Will it bring healing, will it bring a blessing?" You don't have to ignore the fact that you are deeply hurt. You don't have to hide from your friend that you feel offended. But you can respond in a way that makes healing and forgiveness possible and opens the door for new life. Rewrite the letter if you think it does not bring life, and send it with a prayer for your friend." (Bread for the Journey)

Be quick to listen, slow to text. 

***

MY BOOKS ARE...

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship

Encounters with the Holy Spirit

31 Letters to the Church on Praying 

The Great Invasion: Thirty-one Days of Christmas

Praying Is an Environment

 

                                             (Hagia Sofia, in Istanbul)

My ‘99 Ford van had 170,000 miles on it. It was rusting out, required constant attention and care, had doors that no longer worked, and needed a brake job. Being unsafe to drive, Linda and I wondered how much more money we should pour into this thing. 

We talked together with God about this. 

We prayed. 

It seemed clear we were to get rid of the old van and purchase a reliable car that would last a long time.

 God told us that. God directed us in what to do. 

Praying means thinking and living in the presence of God. 

Praying is a God-soaked environment, a divine culture. 

Praying is a vast space inhabited by God’s presence. 

Praying is a dwelling-with. 

In the praying environment, much is given to me in the much-ness of God with me. 

Thinking and living in a praying-environment brings discernment. Answers to questions like “What should I do?” are found in God’s presence. 

His presence is the place where I am to think and live.

- From my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.