Suffering for Others

Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is to your credit if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, where is the credit in that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
‘He committed no sin,
   and no deceit was found in his mouth.’
When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

I Peter 2 

The idea of suffering has always been a tough one for me to accept. I do not want to suffer. It is as simple as that. But what we are called to is even tougher than that (sadly, I am not sure that I ever really understood this before). We are CALLED to suffer unjustly FOR THE SAKE OF THE ONES WHO CAUSED THE SUFFERING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I have always focused on the command to endure suffering even if it's unjust, that we bless those who curse us, do good to those who harm us, etc. But it is more than that. We are called to suffered as Christ did ON BEHALF OF THE ONES WHO CAUSE THE SUFFERING. In this passage I think that we are identified by Peter as those who caused the unjust suffering of Christ (He bore OUR sins in his body on the cross), and yet we are the ones who have been healed. Because he did that for us, we have returned to the one who cares for, provides for, and looks after our souls (remember that souls refer to who we are). This isn't just some sort of spiritual legal transaction on God's books. Christ being willing to suffer unjustly, his torture coming as a result of our sins, touched us in a way that caused us to return to God.

We are called to imitate Christ in this way. Suffer on behalf of others, suffer unjustly at their hands, for their benefit. We live in the hope, not that they will "get theirs" but that they will return to God precisely because of our suffering unjustly at their hands. 

Will everyone be touched and respond to our unjust suffering? If people's reaction to Christ is any indication, the answer is no, of course not. But other people's response is not what determines who we are. We are people who love those who do not love us, and that is a hard hard thing for us to do or even understand. The important thing for us to remember is that we have been called to follow him in just this way: a willingness to take on unjust abuse precisely for the sake of those who abuse us.

I saw The Vow a few days ago

I saw The Vow a few days ago with Denise and Kendall. I teased them that I now know what water boarding must feel like - sheer torture. (Ok, I know that is a terrible comment on so many levels).

But I'll admit, I enjoyed the movie. While I do think the movie was at least 30 minutes too long, I really did like the definition of "hero" that you can find in Channing Tatum's character. He is keeping his vow; he loves even when he is being rejected by the one whom he loves. He is a hero. (By the way, the movie is based on a true story).

I think that we need to teach our kids to be heroes. I have been guilty of focusing on rules - "this is what God wants, this is God's will" - without helping my kids see the big picture. God wants heroes. He has designed us to be heroes. The world needs them, and we need to be them.

When you see the kind of movie that has a strong hero or heroine, usually they are someone whose love is brave and sacrificial. At a tremendous cost to themselves, they do the right thing; they love at a price; they don't care what others think of them; they only want to do what is best for the one(s) that they love. They are heroes. And we come away from the movie somehow feeling stronger and better.

Be a hero. Look at what is going on in your life today and decide that you will be the hero. You will love even when you are not appreciated. You will be brave and faithful when others think that you are stupid and out of touch. You will work tirelessly to help others whether or not anyone notices. You will not whine or indulge in self-pity, because heroes don't do this. Instead, you will pursue others' good even when you are rejected and misunderstood. You will do this, not because of any gain for yourself but because this is what love does when love loves. You will do all this, because you are a hero, being made that way by God, in the image of your older brother.

Live the big story: it's what you're made for.

Kids

 An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’  Jesus

To welcome a child means to accept a child in love. It means to see the child as a whole, not only what s/he appears to be now - childish behaviors, immature, "goofy," and learning adult games - but who s/he is as a person that will one day go to school, have a job, have children of their own,  talk politics, share Christ with you, and be revealed in glory. When you welcome a child, you welcome her/him as a person of equal dignity and respect.

Thinking about family traditions that we didn't have

You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it—the bread of affliction—because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt.
                                                                                            Deuteronomy 16: 3


For a long time I had not thought about the reason why the bread for the Passover feast was unleavened. But when I read this passage a couple of days ago, I was reminded that the bread was unleavened because they were in a hurry. They couldn't wait for the bread to rise. I think the lesson is: when God saves you, move! Get out of your oppression - now! Don't wait.

Every year Hebrew families would reenact this event giving parents an opportunity to tell their children about what God had done for them, why they were eating unleavened bread, and how they escaped Egypt with their lives. Jesus saw the meaning of his own death in this event. Looking forward to his resurrection and the time of new creation before he returned as King, he told his disciples to remember their salvation in the celebration of this event.

I know that as Christians we go to church and "take the Lord's Supper" on a weekly basis to remind us what Jesus did for us, the new covenant of forgiveness that we enjoy, and the fact that we are now family in the Body of Christ. It is the celebration of our salvation, our escape from sin, and, most of all, it is the celebration of the love of our Savior, Jesus the Christ. But as good as all that is in church,  I wish I had done something more "in family" - like the Hebrew people. I think that there must have been something particularly faith-strengthening in the family celebration of salvation that teaches children and reminds parents of the truths of their salvation.

What do you think? Do you think that we Americans who are not much for traditions - especially religious family traditions - can start traditions that teach and reinforce faith?

How to face failure, how to face the end

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.... And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. John 13


I love this passage - it mesmerizes me and I am so thankful for it. First, it tells me what I need to be doing until the end: loving the people that God has put into my life.

Second, it tells me how to do it: serve others like a slave, taking no concern for how I might look.

Third, it tells me the key to keeping focus when things get tough: remember that I have come from God, that I have been given "all things" and that I am going to God.

Isn't it amazing that Jesus was able to focus on the fact that he "had everything" when by all appearances, he had nothing? He was shamed and humiliated on the cross, stripped of every possession, and tortured. Looking at him, you would say that he was a complete, pathetic failure with no one beside him other than criminals.

And yet.

He knew that he had everything.

He knew where he had come from.

He knew where he was going.

So he just kept on loving.

And serving.

Dying,

He lived

And lives still.

This is our pattern and our hope.

Praise Him!

Thinking about church, community, our kids and all their families

Aunt Jan's funeral was yesterday. It was sad, moving, and glorious. Lots of crying and laughter, just like most funerals of the saints.

There was a lot of talk about the Rylie church that was the home church for Aunt Jan and Uncle Jack and mom and dad for about 60 years now. It is the church that they helped to found and where I and many of those at the funeral "grew up;" A lot of the talk was about all the good that came out of that small community, often in spite of our religious beliefs. We talked about how Rylie's saving grace was the love shown in the strength of the relationships: people stayed in the same place, were involved in each others lives, and "showed up" at each others' significant events - marriage, funerals, hospital stays, etc. I would also add that, for me, another saving grace was the emphasis at Rylie on God as our ultimate authority and the fact that the Bible was his Word, the revealing of his will. We were taught and believed that God was to be taken seriously - more seriously than anything else; therefore, pay attention to his word. This was a great thing for me, because ultimately, God used these tenets of faith to help deconstruct for me some awfully bad theology that we lived with.

Here's the thing. As great as the gift of Rylie was to us, and as great as it was to have for my entire childhood this small community of people as supports in our lives, it is God who works to produce what we need and he does that through a variety of different family, church and social situations.

I did not give my children the same church, home and school situation that I enjoyed. We did not have the same kind of lifelong friends that my parents had with Jack and Jan, going to church with them week after week, in the same place for 60 years or so. But I think that our kids did receive other spiritual advantages because of their childhood situations. They in turn will not be able to give their kids all the same advantages that they enjoyed, but they will bless their children with different blessings.

Here is the key I think for blessing our children. First, understand that it is through God that all blessings flow. He is the source of all blessings and throughout his long history with his people he has found ways to bless through all kinds of different cultural and social situations. Then, bathe everything that you do in love: love God with all your heart, always seeking to do his will, and love your neighbor as God has loved you. If you do this - and you will make mistakes and you will experience "sin interference"- still, God will bless your children's lives just as you were blessed, your parents before you, and their parents before them.

Praise be to Him!

Musings Along the Road

There's a story of Elisha in a city surrounded by enemy armies who have come looking for him. Elijah's servant is terrified. So Elisha asks God, "O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see." (2 Kings 6: 17). The servant’s eyes are opened, and he sees the hills surrounding the city filled with "horses and chariots of fire." The curtain has been drawn back, the veil between heaven and our dimension has been ripped apart, and for a brief moment an earthling sees Reality as it is.

I love the "walking along the road to Emmaus" story. Two are walking along the road on the Sunday after Jesus' death (husband and wife? two friends? family members?). Then Jesus "comes near" (a fast walker?). But they don't recognize him. They talk about Jesus' death and their own disappointments, grief and surprise at the talk that some had seen Jesus alive. He sets them straight - they haven't understood that all this was "necessary." They all stop and eat, and, Jesus, still the stranger, praying, then breaking the bread to begin their meal. Then, an electrifying moment of recognition - it's Jesus! But just as quickly, he's gone. The curtain has been drawn back, the veil between heaven and our dimension has been ripped apart, and for a brief moment new creation has been fully in view.

I was on the road to Commerce praying and thanking God for the wonders he has given us. I was imagining the creation as it is, raising its branches, shining in light, shouting its praises, bursting into song to the Lord of Glory. And I begin to wonder if the Amish were right after all. 

The Amish do not participate in "modern practices." They drive buggies instead of cars. They dress plainly and live according to rules that seem to rule out most if not all industrial products and practices. Probably because of my religious background, I had always thought they must be the ultimate restoration legalists, trying to live their lives according to first century rules, like the Rechabites of Jeremiah's time who seem to believe that the only true way to live was to live in tents like Abraham had done. 

But what if the Amish have stumbled on to a way of living that recognizes reality: the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it? That one day, the groaning creation will "will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God?" That right now it would be a good time to take care of the earth by living according to different kinds of goals and values? Maybe producing the most at all costs is not the ultimate value in life? Have they stumbled onto the fulfillment of the first command to take care of creation?

After a demented man entered one of their schoolhouses and massacred their children, the Amish community went to that man's family to grieve with them and offer their forgiveness and compassion. Even our mass media was "in shock and awe." But I am wondering - maybe a people who have not been blinded by compulsive consumerism and its justifications and rationalizations have learned to see more clearly the things that are important, eternal, and real.

What do you think about when you are hurt?

But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.”

                                                                              Luke 23: 28 - 29

Jesus has been up all night through five different trials, has been deserted by his closest friends, and subjected to horrific abuse and torture. And when he hears the women of Jerusalem, his heart is touched by their cries. He sees what is happening to him and what is going to happen to the people of Jerusalem through the lenses of the Old Testament prophesy and his compassion is for these women.

He is not thinking about his rights.
He is not concerned about the injustices that he is suffering.
He is not focused on the wickedness of his enemies.
His mind is filled with the plight of those who will be there in 70 A.D. when the Romans will completely destroy Jerusalem after one of the worst historical sieges that has ever occurred.

When I think of how incensed I can become when I am the victim of someone's wrongdoing or thoughtlessness and how the sense of injustice "against me" can completely fill my mind and then think of Jesus in this passage, I am humbled. He doesn't just teach us God's way, he shows us.

Who are you listening to?

But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. 
                                                                       Luke 23: 23

"The sqeaky wheel gets the grease."

Somehow it seems way too trivial to think of Jesus's death coming as the result of "the squeaky-wheel-gets-the grease" adage coming true. It trivializes something very profound and dangerous. Pilate listens to the crowd and makes the worst mistake of his life.

Talking with a friend the other day who brought up something that I saw happen a lot
in my work at Dallas Christian School. Bosses seemed to make their choices based
on who had caught their ear at the time. Instead of listening to everyone to see all the
different perspectives and then acting out of principle and consideration of what is
good and right for all, their decisions seemed to be determined by who had just caught
their ear. If a person(s) came to them with a lot of passion and a lot of clout, the boss
would make his decision accordingly. Just like Pilate.

So who do you listen to?

Find a time and a place in your life where you listen very carefully to the One who you should listen to.

The One who never will lead you wrong.
Who always advises in love.
Who is wise above all.
Who you want to be like,
No matter who is yelling at you and all around you,
Make your decisions based on His voice.
Turn off the other clamor.
It is just noise.

It is so important who you are listening to.

When everyone is against you

I am slowly reading through the book of Luke. This morning I read 23: 6 - 12. The last verse might seem a little strange, an afterthought - after saying that "even Herod and his soldiers treated Jesus with contempt," why did Luke bring up that "on this day Pilate and Herod became friends?"

Luke brings it up, I think, because it is a fulfillment of prophecy, Ps. 2:

The kings of the earth set themselves,
   and the rulers take counsel together,
   against the Lord and his anointed

As had been prophesied, all the relevant earthly authorities, Jew and Gentile, were united in their attack against Jesus, God's Messiah.

The Love of God: A fundamental orientation toward life

Jesus tells us that the most important command is to love God with everything that we have. This is a command that first came from Moses when he was relaying the words of God to the Hebrew people in the wilderness. 

Think about it: as a people, the Hebrews had been languishing in Egypt for 400 years. They had been rescued by their God but soon would be fighting for their lives in the wilderness and the "promised land." As a people, they would know famine, defeat, exile, and every kind of evil as well as harvest, victory, conquest and joy, and in the middle of it all, they are being told that the most important thing that they can do is to love God with everything that they are.

We are supposed to love our Creator. We look at the world and our own lives, and our fundamental position should be that we are in love with the One who made it all. This orientation of our lives to the love of the God who makes and control all that we can see and all that we don't see has profound consequences. It puts us in a position of constant wonder and gratitude.

I know that love is expressed in our obedience. The one who obeys God is the One who loves him. That is a fundamental truth that must not be ignored. However, I think that I can forget to love God "with all my heart, soul, mind and strength." To understand this, read the psalms with their passionate embrace of God, and then consider all the great men of God who loved their Creator passionately. They would consider who he is and what he has done and the way that he takes care of man and beast, countries and creation. The ones we love, we think about; we consider their good qualities, we wonder at their goodness and beauty. This is part of our love for God. The time we spend loving God in this way will reorient our lives.  Who knows? Our anxieties and struggles might begin to look differently in the light of love. In fact, they might - at least for a little while - seem to disappear altogether.

Learning to Rule

 ‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’ 
                                                                                                         Luke 22: 31 - 32

It helps me to have this example of Jesus' prayer. Here Jesus says that he has prayed for Peter's faith not to fail and that once he has "been sifted" by Satan, that he would "turn back" and strengthen his brothers. Peter has free will, but Jesus prays that God will strengthen his faith. This helps me to know that it is a good thing to pray for what is going on in the hearts of those we love. It reveals a spiritual truth: God interacts with us as we focus our attention on the good of others. At our request, he will find a way to strengthen another's faith.

I don't think that praying for another's spiritual condition means that the person whom we pray for does not have free will. I do think it means that our wills are not always adequate to fight against Satan's attacks. Peter, like me, is weak. He loves the Lord, but in many ways he is not strong. He needs God's strength to help his faith when he is at his weakest, as he will be when he realizes the extent of his failure. He agrees with God's purposes for him, but he needs God to strengthen his faith when he is afraid or after he has failed.

So we pray for others, knowing that God finds ways to interact with our hearts to sustain us in our best hopes and desires. Praying like this is one of the ways that we extend the kingdom, encouraging God's reign in others as well as in ourselves. We are learning what it means to take care of what has been entrusted to us within his kingdom. Praying for others' faith - it is one of the major ways available to us to learn God's ways and "to rule."

Haven't you prayed for people to come to the Lord, or to come back to the Lord or to have their faith strengthened during difficult times and seen it happen? This is a great blessing because not only are their hearts being strengthened, but you are being made stronger as well. When you are praying for them, you are wanting what God wants, learning to see what he sees, and participating in God's life and work.

Basing My Life on Reality: Or what am I doing here, really? Part 2

The lyrics from "Beautiful One" expresses exactly what I felt about 40 years ago in the summer of 1972 when I begin to understand more deeply who God is and how he felt about me:

You opened my eyes to your wonders of anew
You captured my heart with this love
‘Cause nothing on earth is as beautiful as You

This personal feeling informed my understanding for my life and work for years and still does. He loves the world and that world includes me. He captured my heart; I find him incredibly beautiful; he fills me with wonder. I feel passionate about sharing the good that I am finding in him. While this understanding of my purpose is good and biblical, I have been learning that it needs to be filled out with a larger understanding of God's purposes for us.

God's word insists that we human beings have "a high calling;" we are made for greatness. We are made in God's image, and from the beginning we were called to have dominion, to rule over, creation. We are the ones who reflect God in his creation, who do his work in taking care of all that we see. Obviously we have made a mess of it: we bear God's image, yet we kill each other and exploit creation for our own good instead of caring for it as treasure created by God.

But the good news is that God never gave up on us, sending his son Jesus as his own rescue project for us and for the world that he created. In one fell swoop, in Jesus, God forgave us our sin, our complete disregard of his purposes and our wickedness toward each other, and put Jesus on the throne as the earth's new ruler. Ascending to heaven, Jesus was raised to the right hand of God in order to rule.

As John says in Rev. 1:5, Jesus is now the ruler of all the kings of the earth (and consider the implication that John says this at a time when those kings were often torturing and killing disciples of Jesus all around the world). At the present time in Rev. 5 John says that this new reign of Jesus and our place in it is expressed in song before God's throne in these words:

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed people for God, saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on the earth (9 - 10).

This is the reality. In a world where so much seems out of whack with God's purposes, we live in the age in which Jesus presently reigns and everything is subject to him, although - as the Hebrew writer says in chapter 2 - we do not see everything in subjection to him - yet. But it will happen. Paul says in 1 Co. 15: 25 - 28 that the process is ongoing, that ultimately Jesus will put all enemies under his feet, the last enemy being Death.

All of this is according to God's purposes. God worked through Jesus to rescue man and creation. God had Jesus become King through suffering and dying on the cross. Then, God raised him from the dead. By God's plan, Jesus reigns now - even though we may question that rule because we see so much evil and so many things that don't make sense to us.

But just like God worked through Jesus to initiate his rescue of the world, Jesus now executes his reign through us. When Jesus ascended to God's throne to rule, he released his Spirit and gave it to us so that we could be empowered to carry out his rule.

So where does that put us? We are Jesus' agents, given his Spirit and made part of his Body, through whom Jesus does what he does to effect God's will on earth as it is done in heaven. We are Kings and Queens who are learning to do what Adam and Eve were designed to do, to take care of God's creation, to reflect God's rule throughout his kingdom on earth.

Normally, I have thought of God's reign in very personal terms, meaning I think of his reign in me and my need to have him help me overcome sin in my life. And that is an important concern and can't be neglected. But I want us to think about our call to reign, to extend Christ's kingdom here on earth.

God has given us a unique ministry for us to fulfill. As Dallas Willard points out in The Divine Conspiracy, each of us has a kingdom where we reign. It is the kingdom of our lives, composed of the things and situations that we directly influence. There are a lot of things that we may feel we have no control of and little impact on, but there are dominions that we rule or, at the least, impact with authority. And in the kingdom that God has given us to rule, we ask that God's will be done as it is done in heaven.

One of the realms that we have is in the workplace. For me, as a teacher, my realm includes my classes and students. God's call for me goes beyond "being a good example." Of course, I am called to be a good example. But I am called to more than that: I am called to look carefully at my students, what I am teaching, what my goals are and pray, "God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

This is an entirely different reality than what I tend to live by. The reality that I think that God wants me to see is that I have been called to reign; I have been given the authority to rule; and I am participating interactively with him as I learn from him how to take care of the dominion given to me. I am learning to see things with his eyes, to talk to him about what needs to be done, and to depend on his life-giving power to accomplish his work of healing, feeding, and liberating. As someone whom Christ has put in charge of this part of the world, I am being called to reign in a way that reflects God's image, that extends his will into the world. It is a matter for prayer. Everyday.

Here is a very important consideration for reigning. If we miss this, we will only affect a parody of God's rule and cause others to hold him in contempt. Our reign is not executed in the way that the Gentiles do where everything is done to bring us glory, power, and to fulfill our needs. Instead it is done God's way, which means that we do what we do - we reign, we take care of God's creation - for the sake of others' welfare and good. Doing things God's way now in this present age does not mean glory or prominence or praise. What it means is humility, service, suffering, and sacrifice. That's just God's way. It is the way that Jesus became king. It is the way that we exercise our royal ministry now.

God has given us responsibilities and gifts, just the right ones for just the right time. We have all the resources that we need. Pray. Let him use you. And stand back and watch what he does.

Basing my life on Reality: Or, what am I doing here, really?

After celebrating Christmas, Gabe, age 7, and Hallie, age 4, made a video to thank their grandparents for their gifts. In his speech Gabe rattled off the gifts that he had received and all of his "thank-yous," then ended his talk with "amen." Realizing that he had mixed genres, he first smiled, then scowled and covered his face, then finally went into his full "Charlie Brown" head-and-shoulder-slump. Watching the video, we howled: he was unbelievable cute. His mix of prayer and "thank you speech" was funny; his reaction to his mistake, even funnier. We never felt that he was stupid, had humiliated himself or the family, or had offended anyone. We could not love him more. We didn't mull over the far-reaching consequences of his mistake other than to consider the fame that he could have if the video were posted to YouTube:) But Gabe felt completely shamed.

We have a reality that we live by and then there is the Real Reality - the way things truly are. As Christians, we think that God tells us the way things really are. But we are much like Gabe - we get so caught up in our own perceptions and concerns that we let our emotions and reactions be guided by our own realities rather than what God says is true.

There are two central realities, both rooted in scripture, that have had a lot of meaning for me in my life and the work that I have been called to do. The first reality is that I have been given riches to share.

During my teens I don't think that I ever considered that I had riches to share - especially "spiritual" riches. As a Christian teen, I had little if any appreciation for the grace of God, for his goodness, beauty and love. When I reflect back on my life, I think that maybe I did not appreciate these treasures because I had not heard a message of grace, love, and the beauty and goodness of God. I was raised by Christian parents, went to a Christian school, and attended church "every time the doors were open," but somehow I did not understand or experience God as treasure. What I understood more than anything from my religious training was the call to be morally pure, to be constantly on guard against sin, and to believe and conform to laws regarding worship and ecclesiology. I was continually hearing "repent," and my motivation was to fear God who, in the end, would judge me and would throw me into hell for any infractions. Not a lot here to feel warm and fuzzy about.

Of course, repentance is a good, necessary, and very biblical concept - and I needed to hear it - but in my immaturity it was difficult to be thankful for that message. Without a doubt, I needed to change my agenda: I needed to change from the pursuit of my agenda that was getting me nothing but disappointment and was leaving a trail of hurt along the way. But during my teens I was hearing the message of repentance as part of an oppressive scheme that I feared and hated. Later, after "hitting bottom," I was "hit" by the love of God - I "heard ... and understood God's grace in all its truth" (Col. 1: 6). I began to realize the treasure that I had in God. Instead of being petty, vindictive and mean spirited, God was good, beautiful, loving, and full of grace. He loved the world, and the world included me. As I read his Word and attempted to follow his instructions for life, I began experiencing his presence. Instead of feeling fear and dread, I felt wonder and joy fill me.

Immediately, this understanding and experience of God created purpose for me. I needed to share this good news of who God is and what he has done and is doing. I related strongly to the lepers of 2 Kings 7 who had been starving along with the rest of their people during a siege of their capital city, Samaria. When they find food and riches in the deserted camp of their enemies, they know that "this is a day of good news" and they could not keep it to themselves. They had treasure to share.

In my work and life at Dallas Christian and everywhere else, this idea has formed a basic understanding for what I am supposed to be doing. I have good things to share; I need to be pointing people to the treasure, telling them the good news. We have a loving God who has forgiven us all of our sin and given us life, who has done and continues to do everything to heal, support, and empower us, showering us with beauty, goodness and love.

While this understanding of my calling continues to resonate with me, I don't believe that it captures the fullness of God's intention for us. While it is true that we are called to be witnesses to what God has done in Christ and what he continues to do, so much of our lives and our work does not fit the paradigm of sharing treasure - especially when we think of this sharing as a verbal witness to God's grace and love. When we are able to tell others about this great and beautiful God who has saved us and given us life, the ones with whom we share often do not hear our message as "good news" or find it to be treasure. Instead, they may hear our good news as fairy tale or as an offer for self-imprisonment. In my next post I will write about what I think is a more comprehensive understanding of our calling as Jesus' disciples that is helping me in my life and work.