Psalm 95:1-3

Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods.

Psalm 95:1-3

Dear God, is this a psalm we would be willing to sing today as Christians (or Jews)? Can we look beyond the anger and hate happening around us–perhaps even through us–and come together as the church to worship you? Can we allow our eyes to drift beyond the “reality” that they can see and use your eyes to see the reality you know is there? Can we allow our hearts to worship and rejoice when our instincts are to be fearful and feel sorry for ourselves?

I guess I should change all of those questions to declarations.

Father, I will worship you and rejoice today. I will reject the anger and hate I feel and embrace the faith of a true disciple. I will try to put myself into community with your body of believers. I will strive to see more than my eyes can see. Please give me your eyes. I reject fear and self pity and embrace the peace that comes from turning loose of my own life and its outcomes and resting in whatever lot you have for me.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Ephesians 5:25-30

²⁵ For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her ²⁶ to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. ²⁷ He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. ²⁸ In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. ²⁹ No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. ³⁰ And we are members of his body.

Ephesians 5:25-30

Dear God, I was talking with a friend the other day who was telling me about some issues he is having with his wife. She is experiencing a lot of anxiety and anger over the current societal issues (politics, pandemic, and social unrest), and it is spilling out into how she responds to him. At the same time, he is incredibly stressed at work. He feels overloaded and burned out. Unfortunately, because I had to push our meeting about 30 minutes later than we originally scheduled it, we didn’t get as long as I would have liked to visit with him more about his situation. But I’ve thought about it a lot over the last two days.

One of the things I’ve considered is how my favorite marriage book, Sacred Marriage would address his issue. Starting with the premise of its subtitle, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy,” I found myself wondering how you might be working on my friend’s faith through this situation and through his wife. What are you teaching him in this that he apparently wouldn’t learn any other way? While I don’t know the answer for him, it would probably be a good question to ask him.

I picked these scriptures this morning because they are our command as husbands. Love your wives. Cherish them. Cleanse them. Present them as holy. Give yourselves up for them. It’s not about them taking care of us. It is about us taking care of them. If you inspire them to care for us then great, but we need to learn to go into our marriages as your servants. You came as our servant even when we didn’t deserve it and your love guides us into being whole. If his wife isn’t whole right now, your love, through him, can get her there.

Father, help me to know how to help my friends. And help me to be the husband and father you are calling me to be. Do it all for your glory and so that you might use my marriage to make me holy more than to make me happy.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Masculinity vs. Maturity

The Holy Post Podcast, “Episode 419” (1:03:20 mark)

Skye Jethani: I’m thinking back to years ago. I was being interviewed on a Christian radio program. It went to a commercial break and during the break the host said, “Hey, when we come back I’m just going to throw some questions at you. I’d love to hear your response to them.” And I’m like, “Okay, sure.” So we come back from break and he starts talking about how effeminate Christian men have become, and how ineffective they have become and how we’re sitting around all the time just on the sofa watching TV. And we’re not leading and we’re not guiding our churches…So I’m listening to this for awhile as he’s monologuing and I’m going, how on earth am I going to respond to this? And he was putting all of the blame on feminism. And so finally he turned to me and said, “Well, what do you think about all of that?” And I tried to not completely blast him, but my interpretation was he’s attributing those negative qualities to femininity, and I said, “I don’t think it’s that men are behaving like women. I think it’s that these men are behaving like boys. That this is about immaturity, not masculinity.” And that kind of blew his mind. He had never heard that before. Because in his mental framework, there’s masculinity and femininity and that’s the spectrum. And if men aren’t behaving the way men should behave it’s because it’s because they are behaving like women. And I was saying, “No, I think it’s that men aren’t behaving the way they are supposed to behave because they’re behaving like boys. They’re immature. That axis did not exist in his conceptual framework.

Dear God, I heard this yesterday and it really gave me something to think about. Maturity vs. masculinity. In another part of this conversation they were talking about how exhibiting the fruits of the spirit can possibly come across as not being very masculine. In fact, if you express love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, kindness, goodness, and self control all of the time then it can come across as feminine and parts of our Christian culture can tend to look down on men who always exhibit those virtues.

First, let me interrupt this prayer by pointing out to you something you already know–it must be so amusing to you to see us all struggle to wrap our human minds around life and existence. We learn. We grow. We mature. And we try so hard. How often we must just look so foolish to you.

But back to my thoughts on this. When we first moved here there was a pastor at one of our town’s larger churches who was having difficulty with some of the parishioners. There was a faction within the church that I considered to be Unitarian that was trying to influence the theology taught, at a minimum, in their Sunday school class, and, at a maximum, within the entire church. As they positioned themselves against this pastor, who was trying to put an end their liberal, unChristian teaching, one of the criticisms made against him was that he wasn’t very masculine. And he was not a macho guy, but he was very masculine. He dressed nicely and wore suspenders. He didn’t care for sports. But if you decide to not care if he liked sports dressing in a more macho way, you saw a sensitive man who was compassionate and caring.

Ironically, the next pastor who replaced him was the opposite (by design). He was much more macho. Of course, the complaint about him was that he wasn’t empathetic or compassionate enough. He was insensitive. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?

Going back to this quote from Skye Jethani, what does a mature Christian man look like? What does it mean to grow up and no longer be a boy? Again, ironically, as I sit and think about it, to be a mature Christian man means to exhibit those fruits of the Spirit and put them into action. It means to wake up in the morning loving you with all of my heart, soul, and strength and then loving my neighbor as myself. It means being a good neighbor. It means working hard and being responsible and a good steward of the things you’ve given us. It means seeking out the place in the world that you have for us.

Father, help me to let go of the paradigms the world finds important and to embrace your truth. Help me to internalize that truth more and more each day so that I might find myself just living it naturally as I commune with you. Thank you for blessing the fruit of my work. Thank you for guiding me through various situations. And while I’m here, I am thinking of a couple of recent tragedies friends are experiencing. Please help them to find you through this. Make all of this pain count. There is some terrible emotional and physical pain going on. Please make it count and show me the role you have for me to play in their lives.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept.
John 11:35

Dear God, sometimes this is the only verse that makes any sense. A friend tragically lost his son this past Sunday and I found out about it last night. When I asked myself what kind of Bible verse would speak to his situation, this is what came to me. There are no words. There is no making sense of it on this side of heaven. Sometimes it’s just a tragic situation and Jesus, you, and the Holy Spirit just weep with us.

Then I thought of this poetic part of the musical Hamilton after they have lost their son. The song is “It’s Quiet Uptown.” Here is the first verse:

There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down

Poetry is amazing at communicating so much emotion and meaning in so few words. And now I’m trying to figure out how to be there for this friend. I don’t think he is a believer, but I’m not sure because it’s actually been well over 10 years since we talked. I don’t want to come in with stupid, empty spiritual jargon. I most especially don’t want to cause any harm. I just want to love and comfort and help him to keep from “just [swimming] down.”

Father, guide me moment to moment in this situation. Comfort my friend. And please make this pain count. Make it count for the murder and his family. Make it count for the victim and his family. Make it count for his classmates, his community, and even our world. Do not let this pain be in vain. Please make it count.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Matthew 23:27-33

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’ “But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?

Matthew 23:27-33

Dear God, when I read this passage this morning it reminded me of the “Disney Princess Theology.” Surely, Lord, not me. It is those bad ol’ Pharisees who were like that. Our churches today aren’t like that. My church isn’t like that. Surely, Lord, not us.

Well, maybe it is us. Who do I embrace and who do I condemn? Do I embrace the wealthy, powerful, influential person over the weak and awkward person? Do I make decisions to align myself with those who will help me maintain my status and power, or am I willing to sacrifice things that I perceive to be to my benefit so that your greater plan might flourish?

Yes, I can’t help but wonder what areas of my life you are pointing out to me in this passage? I certainly judge people whom I perceive to be making bad decisions with their lives. Why don’t I befriend them and reach out to them? Am I afraid of them, or do I simply not want to extend myself into an uncomfortable situation?

Father, help me to be sensitive to my Pharisee-like ways. Help me to not assume that the bad people in the Bible are not representative of me, but instead be open to examining my own heart and discovering the parts that need purged and healed by your Holy Spirit. Love through me. I will start that process by loving you and then loving others.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Joshua 1:1-9

1 After the death of Moses the Lord’s servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant. He said, ² “Moses my servant is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you to lead these people, the Israelites, across the Jordan River into the land I am giving them. ³ I promise you what I promised Moses: ‘Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you— ⁴ from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, including all the land of the Hittites.’ ⁵ No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.

⁶ “Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. ⁷ Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. ⁸ Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. ⁹ This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:1-9

Dear God, a dear friend posted a picture of her daughter getting ready for her first day of 4th grade today and said that the daughter was nervous. Apparently, however, the daughter has been memorizing Joshua 1:9: This is my command–be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

I decided I wanted to look at that verse and put it in context. Who is talking? Why are they saying it?

Well, it’s you talking. And you have a message for the newly appointed leader of Israel post Moses’s death, Joshua. You are telling him:

1. It’s time to get going into the Promised Land.
2. You are going to give them great success and help them inhabit the land completely.
3. Be strong and courageous (verse 6) because I’ve chosen you to lead Israel through this time.
4. Be strong and courageous (verse 7) and make sure you obey me (this will become important later).
5. Study the Book of Instruction (are these the things Moses got from you in Exodus when he and Joshua went up to the mountain and Moses disappeared into the fire?).
6. Finally, be strong and courageous (verse 9). Do not be afraid or discouraged because I’m with you.

For this little girl, it’s time to go to school. It’s go-time. You will be with her so she should be strong and courageous. And I know her parents will encourage her to study our version of the “Book of Instruction” (the Bible) and to obey your commands. They are wonderful people.

As for me, I know you want me to be strong and courageous, but what exactly do you want me to do? There are seemingly so many possibilities at work. I could lead our nonprofit in any number of directions. What are you calling us to do? What is our Promised Land? I think that sometimes we can get ourselves into trouble trying to create a Promised Land and not waiting on your timing. It’s a fine line. In Joshua’s case, because of Israel’s rebellion, you had to wait until Moses and his generation were gone. He was ready to be strong and courageous back when he and Caleb were spies with the other 10, but only they were ready to take the land. He was strong and courageous, but he also wasn’t the person at the top. It’s easier to be strong and courageous when there is someone above you who has the ultimate responsibility. It might have been a little harder for him to gather that strength and courage since he was not in charg.

Father, keep me from being foolish, but also keep me from being lethargic. Help me to be strong and courageous at work and in my personal life. Lead through me. Guide through me. Love through me. Bring your kingdom to earth and your will to earth through my life and the life of your church. Make me just one of billions who will represent you to our neighbors.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Revelation 21:22-23

I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.
Revelation 21:22-23

Dear God, I can only imagine. “Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?”

I saw that the New Testament reading for the Catholic Church today was in Revelation. I don’t normally read Revelation. In fact, I find myself avoiding it because I just don’t know how to get my head around it. It’s a little like physics or even a circuit board for electronics. It’s like trying to understand how “time” works. I know those things are out there. I know I need them and they are important. But it’s hard to see the value in understanding everything about them. It’s enough to know it’s there. It’s enough to know you have this figured out. My job is to love you and love others. The rest will take care of itself.

Father, I might have the wrong attitude about this. Perhaps I should care more about the content and imagery in Revelation. If I should, please put it on my heart, and then give me a pathway into understanding the messages you want me to take from it.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Exodus 2:1-10

¹Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman.²The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. ³When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. ⁴His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

⁵The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. ⁶When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. ⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. ¹⁰When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Exodus 2:1-10

Dear God, I don’t have the time to do it right now, but I really want to spend some time with Andy Stanley’s “Not In It To Win It” sermon. Maybe I’ll do it later when I’ve finished some other work. But I just keep coming across this concept lately–losing to win. The Israelites lost for hundreds of years for this very moment. All of the centuries of slavery led to the birth of Moses. Joseph (Jacob’s son) lost to win. Even Hagar. Job. David. Jesus. It’s there over and over again.

So it makes me wonder why we try to so hard to win. Why do we struggle for dominance and power? Why do we struggle for security? Why do we struggle to be right and prove others wrong? We have placed much too large of an importance on our own lives. I doubt people in third-world countries think as much of themselves and the impact their voice should have on the world as we do. I think that’s one thing that social media has given us–a false impression of the breadth of our influence. Ninety-nine percent of us only have influence on our immediate sphere, but somehow social media makes us think we have a platform. In reality, the only people listening to our opinions on social media are those who already agree with us. Everyone else stopped following us a long time ago.

Father, My life needs a complete paradigm shift. You’re getting me there. I can feel it. I’m sorry for my confusion from day to day. I’m sorry for feeling overwhelmed and not just looking to you for wisdom and direction. I”m sorry for my sin and selfishness. Thank you for the people who suffered to give me what I have. Help me to not squander what I have and to be willing to take a step back, to lose a battle, so that you might ultimately win the war, whether it happens in my lifetime or not. I guess that’s why I will not be afraid. Take the November election for example. I really don’t know which candidate will bring about your plan. I certainly know my preference, but I will not fear if my preference does not win because I know that your plan is much more thoughtful than mine could ever be.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

What would Jesus say to this?

Dear God, I was having a texting conversation with a friend last night. He is someone I met on a vacation over three years ago, and we have kept in touch through Facebook.

Anyway, we were talking last night and he wanted to know what Jesus would have to say about a lot of the wrongs happening in the world. In this particular case, the thing on his mind was corruption he witnessed firsthand at a food distribution for the the poor. He saw volunteers taking food before the needy were able to go through the line, and it disgusted him. He finally walked away.

So what would Jesus have to say about all of this? My reply to him was to listen to Andy Stanley’s sermon from last Sunday called, “Not it it to win it.” This man isn’t a Christian so I know it was a tall ask. He’s very likely not going to listen to Andy’s sermon, but I’ve listened to it three times this week, and I plan to sit with it and pray through it over the weekend.

The big thing I think Jesus would do right now is rebuke the church. Andy told the story from Luke 9:51-56. Jesus was wanting to stay in Samaria, but the Samaritans didn’t want him and his entourage there. James and John then asked if Jesus wanted them to call down fire from heaven to destroy the Samaritans. Jesus’s response was to rebuke them and press on towards his crucifixion in Jerusalem.

Why do I think Jesus would rebuke the church right now? Because Andy is right. The church has fallen into the worldly trap of wanting to win. We want to win the battle for influence and power. We want the world the yield to our way of thinking. We want to exercise political power and defend it when it starts to slip away. We want our morality to be legislated throughout the earth, and to do that we need more power. To get that power, we need politicians who will do our bidding, whether we believe they are Christians or not. If they say they will support our morality then that’s all we need to know. In chess terminology, if they will give us their queen, they can have most of our chess pieces. Then the world will be the place we want it to me…Oh, I mean you want it to be (sarcasm implied).

What would be included in Jesus’s rebuke? Frankly, I shudder to think of what he might have to say to his church. What he would have to say to me. But I’m pretty sure he would start with something close to the parables he taught about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is something that starts from the bottom and grows from a grassroots level through love, the receiving of your grace, and then the sharing of your grace with others. There are moral standards in there to be sure. There is a need for asking for forgiveness of you. But these are what we need to do to be free. The kingdom of heaven is also like people who don’t care about their own rights and delight in the progress of others (see the parable of the workers hired at different times of day, but all were paid the same amount). And the kingdom of heaven is like the man who found it and sold everything he had to attain it because it was worth more than all he held on to.

Father, I’m about to go and do a prayer walk around one of our school district’s campuses that includes the high school, the primary school, and the district’s administrative building. Put my head into the right place as I do this. And better prepare me to answer the question, “What would Jesus have to say to this?” I want to always be about pointing others to you. Oh, and forgive me. Forgive us as the church. Help us to turn loose of our quest for power and influence so that our morality might be forced upon people. Help us to turn loose of that idol. Help us to turn loose of the idol of the Supreme Court, the President, the Congress, and any other person we think will do our work for us. Help us to do the work you put in front of us for your glory’s sake and not our own.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

Philippians 1:20-24

For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live.

Philippians 1:20-24

Dear God, the church just simply doesn’t feel this way right now. It feels like it’s all about living and having influence and power. We want to have influence over our society. We want to force our agenda from the top down. But that is not what the New Testament seems to model for us. For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven was always about grassroots movement. For Paul, it’s all about living a life that will ultimately be sacrificed for your glory.

I wish I knew more about church history over the last 2,000 years, but it seems to me that when the church has been most powerful is when the church was the most corrupt. See the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. See the televangelists who work so hard to have power and influence. On the other hand, some of the most genuine times have been when movements started from the ground up. The Maranatha movement of the 1970s. Promise Keepers in the 90s. And even Promise Keepers, when it started to gain power decided to try to influence society instead of influencing one person at a time.

I spoke with a Christian friend last night about whether we vote for the person for president or for the political platform. Do we depend upon government to be our influencer through ideology, or do can we allow ourselves to vote for the person who seems to be more our kind of person regardless of their ideology. I told him that I though there was a case to be made for the church not looking to the government to do its work, but to take the work upon itself.

Father, when it comes to this election, or even the work I have to do today, I don’t know if my philosophy is correct or not. What is the right thing to do? I don’t know. I’m just going to do the best I know to do in my life today and then let you take care of the results. I do know that you have given me a specific role to play in the world around me, and I don’t want to let you down. So if that role means suffering. If that role even means dying, I will consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may reach the goal and finish the task you have given to me. The task of testifying to the gospel of your grace.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen