Promises

What's Grace?

People sing about it...

I have a tattoo on my chest that celebrates my fall into it.

Michelle and I were beginning to start a church for people in recovery named "Gracefall."

That's all great... what's it mean?

An over simplistic definition of grace is: "getting better than you deserve." People ask me every day, "How ya doin'?" and I respond, "Better than I deserve...better than I deserve."

My life's journey blessed me to live in a rehab house for 35 days where even the drug addicts across the street looked down their noses at the fourteen of us. We were the real sicko's... You can talk about alcoholism and AA in a grocery store and people will look at you and give an encouraging word. Not so with my disease.

These days it is easy to forget, I'm one of the untouchables. Everyday I get more than I deserve. I don't deserve my life; all I've been given. I don't deserve any of it. Every single breath is a gift.

Every computer glitch is an opportunity to trust or get angry. Every idiotic driver is a blessing and gives me the chance to live in grace or under law. Every act of thoughtless act of selfishness by my children is an opportunity to give what I've been given rather than satisfy justice. Every disappointed sigh from my wife gives me the chance to move toward her rather than back away. Every time one of my bosses lies to me (a daily occurrence in the car business -- they don't call it lying) gives an opportunity to offer loving truth in return. Ever time a customer lets me down (if we treated customers the way they treat us, we'd be out of business in two weeks) I have an opportunity to spew hate or offer love. I choose love, because love chose me first.

Sometimes I live in grace. Sometimes I want justice. I flip flop doing both. I want to live in grace. Because I know I if I got what I deserved it wouldn't be a pretty picture. I know what's on the inside of me. I know what Jesus has to look at every day, and I know he loves me anyway. I want to give that grace away.

I've been loved much and so I want to love much. I receive so much grace everyday, why wouldn't I want to give it away? I don't do it well... This I know. If I did, I wouldn't need as much grace as I do...

 

Escaping Escapism

Last year I had a boss who was one of the most inspiring and simultaneously most demoralizing people I've ever known. I would hide from his disapproval by doing nothing instead of doing something wrong...

I've spent nearly my entire life escaping the disapproval of those I loved. That need to escape disapproval cost me my first marriage. My escape from disapproval bound me to choices that no one considers to be OK.

I refuse to go back to that world. I refuse to live in a world where I feel continually disapproved of. I will choose to disassociate myself from people who have that power over me and demonstrate a propensity to disapprove of me. My life and the lives of those I love are more important to me than that...

Besides, why would people that are continually disappointed with me want to hang around with me? I guess I need to keep growing up and make choices that help me make good choices rather than bad ones.

10th Tradition Follows On

AA 10^th Tradition Short form: Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

And here is the text from the AA Big Book, the long form of the traditions:

No A.A. group or member should ever, in such a way as to implicate A.A., express any opinion on outside controversial issues - particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous groups oppose no one. Concerning such matters they can express no views whatever.

Traditions 4, 6, and 10 fit together:  one purpose (tradition 4), do not lend our name to anyone or anything else, (tradition 6) hold no position on outside issues (tradition 10).

Many would say that in a democratic or republican society the church needs to take a position on such things as abortion, assisted suicide, gay rights (specifically gay marriage). Then they add gun rights, health care, immigration reform, etc… Somehow, all of these issues have made their way to the forefront of “Christian concerns”. We lost our

Sitting by the Dock at the Bay

“I always fought to stay afloat on the ocean. I didn’t realize it was OK to drown in it – indeed, that I was supposed to drown in it; that it is actually the ocean of God’s love. I’ve spent my whole life fighting drowning. I’ve even asked God to help me not drown, when all I really needed was to drown…”

So spoke my wife as we sat in the Dock at the Bay in Naples, Florida watching the 50 or so wild parrots that had perched next to our table.  In that one picture she summed up our lives. 

As the Big Book of AA states, “Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.” It all comes through the hand of God as a gift. When I live as if I believe that, I am so much happier, so much more peaceful and so much less full of fear. I do swim in an ocean that sometimes seems to batter me. I need to remember that it is better to drown than fight. His love is deep.

Michelle and Abraham

I didn’t understand; there was no way I could understand. Shell had heard from God and He hadn’t told me what he told her. It didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense to her, but she did what she was told. The cost is immeasurable; the faith required, obscene.  And Shell is “Standing fast”.

Tomorrow we fly home to Portland without Sam. He is staying with his Dad, a non-recovering, self admitted bi-polar addict. It was Sam’s choice to move to his Dad’s Michelle merely made possible what he wanted. I’m not sure I have the faith to do what she is doing. It takes nearly all of mine to simply love her in the midst of the struggle in which she is engaged. Her current story reminds me of an old story I grew up hearing:

A long time ago, a man was given a promise. He was going to father a great nation. It seemed impossible to him because both he and his wife were too old to have kids… she’d gone through menopause. But God made the promise. He and his wife tried to make god’s promise into reality. His wife, in an act of love that is far beyond my understanding, told him to sleep with her servant so the servant could bear him a son. He did, and she did, but the child born wasn’t who God had in mind to be the promised seed. As a matter of fact, in the years since he and his wife took matters into their own hands the servant’s child and his offspring caused a great deal of problems for the son God did have in mind. God wanted this man’s post menopausal wife to bear him a son. He would be a truly miraculous baby.  And she did, and he was.

That was cool until one day, God told the aging man to take his son and offer him up to God as a human sacrifice. (Sometimes I don’t get God.) But God spoke and the old guy listened and took his son on a three mile back pack trip to the mountains so that he could offer his son as commanded. He bound his son, laid him on the altar, and had a knife ready to kill him when God stopped him and told him that there was another sacrifice waiting to be offered. His son went onto to have a couple of sons and then the younger of those sons had twelve sons. They too had lots of kids and the nation of Israel was born, born of obedience and faith.

My wife has that kind of faith. She heard God, she listened, and now, she is offering her son – not unto death – but to a life of challenges and roadblocks. Still she is trusting. I wonder what God has in mind for Shell and Sam.

Revisiting the Darkness

In August of 1991 my world fell apart. I broke up with my fiancé and life went dark. Looking back, it was if God through me into a pitch black room then pulled the walls away so I was totally alone. My prayers fell like led to the floor at my feet, and I sensed that I was totally alone. God might as well not have existed. He turned out the lights and I knew ichabod for the first time in my life. Driving from Oregon back to Michigan, a route I had taken countless times before, provided every opportunity and every temptation to drive my little Datsun  of a cliff to simply escape the darkness that surrounded me.

I never acted on the temptation, returned to Michigan for the start of a new school year and plunged myself into my work as a campus pastor and evangelist for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I decided that the only way I could deal with life was to lose myself in my work. The only time I took off was on Friday afternoons when I would go see two or three new theatrical releases. Other than that I was on campus at either Albion College or the U of M “doin ministry”.

The fellowship at Albion was a baby. We had started it two years previous and we were making some good headway. God was clearly up to some very positive things. Local pastors from across denominational lines began partnering together to help pastor these young students. The fellowship was growing. People were meeting Jesus and growing in Jesus.Then all of a sudden the Spirit of God decided to bring a “charismatic renewal” to our little fellowship. New converts through our ministry without teaching or permission began to speak in tongues. Some received gifts of faith and prophecy. Very cool things were going on. for whatever reason I stayed in the dark. Some of the older leaders in the fellowship came to me concerned because of the zeal of those being blessed by the Spirit was beginning to cause division. An attitude of “If you haven’t experienced the Spirit like us, you haven’t really experienced the Spirit…” was rearing its ugly head.

At the time Albion’s student Union was a relatively small coffee shop in the basement of the administration building. They painted one wall so that it looked like arched windows and scenes from a sunny day. The furniture resembled something you would find in an old basement Chinese restaurant: the high backed black vinyl booths could six to eight students. The cracks in the seats grew worse little by little. Other chairs could be strewn and moved around. The whole place could probably only hold eighty students.

My habit was to sit in one of the corner booths and meet with students individually for discipleship but also to have an open “drop in time” when anyone could come and we would simply hang out and shoot the breeze about anything and everything. On this particular day about twenty students were gathered around the table spilling out into the rest of the union. On days like this I always felt like Jesus. There was a press of students wanting to dialogue and talk to me. It was good (or bad depending on one’s perspective) for my ego. The buzz on this particular day was around the charismatic renewal going on.

After listening for awhile I finally spoke… “You know you guys have something really cool. There are a lot of us that have been looking for the gifts God has bestowed upon you. Enjoy these days when it is so easy to follow God.” They asked what I meant by “easy to follow God?”

I responded, “It is easy to follow God when he is pouring out His Spirit on your life, and you experience him everyday…You have all these great experiences of God right now but I think I know His heart better than you even though I don’t have the same experience.” They looked at me like I was from the planet Zootron in the Pluton Galaxy. “How can you say you know him better than us when he is revealing himself to us in these incredible ways?”

So I took them through the stories in Scripture. Story after story of people who had no reason to trust God cause he seemed to be absent but they trusted anyway. “There is something very near and dear to the heart of God when someone is shut out and they choose to trust anyway. It is easy to trust when you are sharing his room. The question doesn’t really arise until he is gone and asks you to trust Him anyway…”

        They knew my story with my fiancé. I had already told them to listen to everything I said about romantic relationships and to watch everything I did and to do exactly the opposite and they would be fine… They knew the pain I was in. they knew I was traveling through the dead of night with no sight and no landmarks to guide me. They knew these things. They were watching me trust. I concluded, “I have no experience of God right now. It is as if he threw me in this room and turned off the lights and pulled the walls away. It is as if my prayers are hitting the floor the millisecond they leave my lips, but I continue to trust, and God really digs that. I know Him better than you…”

        It wasn't too long after this that the pitch dark night began to turn to dawn. I began to hear God again. I began to know He was hearing me... But that long night of the soul was a gift -- a gift that brought faith...      

God's Way

It isn't often my way... I don't often get it... I'm learning slowly to cease wrestling with him cause he tends to cheat and throw my hip out of socket...and he normally always has a better way than I do...

If only I could remember that when I seem to be living in caves hunted by a King that wants to kill me... if only I could remember that when I am tending sheep in the dessert after running away from Pharaoh cause I killed one of his captains... if only I could remember that when I am rotting in jail cause I refused to sleep with my bosses wife... if only I could remember that... when my brother lays dead cause Jesus didn't show up like he could have... if only I could remember that when I am on a three day hike knowing that my son is going to have to die at the end of it...if only I could remember that when I do exactly what God asks of me and still end up exiled in Egypt cause the people don't like what I have to say... if only I could remember that when God tells me to go get my wife back who has repeatedly left me to be a prostitute...

God's in charge... right... I need to remember that...even when the judge plays a fool and acts outside the law and I realize it will take thousands of dollars to appeal. I need to remember that when jobs leave to go to china leaving financial hardships and broken dreams. I need to remember that when the police van takes my picture cause I'm speeding. I need to remember that when people are disappointed because I can't get everything done. I need to remember that when I let people down because I am not God and cannot meet their needs. I need to remember that when my love for my wife can't erase her pain or fix her world.

I guess I need to pray more.

Loving in the Midst of Fear

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect….

18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other* because he loved us first. 1 John 4:16-19

(Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.)

 

If I don't take action because I am fearful of how you may respond, or that I might take the wrong action to love you well, I haven't loved you at all. Indeed, I love merely myself. Such inaction is born not of love at all but self centeredness. I cannot care what you think of me if I am to love you well. Rather, I need to be concerned about what God thinks of you. I need to communicate His love to you. I need to love you the way that he loves you. I cannot try to merely love you as you wish to be loved, for you may not know how you should be loved either. You only know how you want to be loved, and that, in all likelihood, is in and of itself, self centered. For that is our nature. Loving you that way would only add to your self centeredness and would not love you at all.

Some will argue that if I don't care what someone thinks about me I am not capable of loving them. I disagree. I don't think God gives a damn what we think about Him. He simply loves. I can almost see the hackles raising on evangelicals necks. That is only because they have not thoroughly thought through the ramifications of the cross. Any worries God had about what we thought of Him were poured out on His Beloved at the cross, so he only thinks groovy thoughts about us now. That is the wonder of the cross and the forgiveness that it brings.

So how do I love this way – only with help. I am powerless to love the way God loves unless God Himself empowers me to do so. He gave me Jesus as the example, in whose steps I am to follow. He gave me the Spirit to enable me to do that which I am incapable of doing without help.

To summarize: I am to love the way God loves; illustrated by Jesus, empowered by the Spirit. The biggest hindrance to this is fear which is born out of my own self centeredness and inability to forgive. That is what Jesus meant when he said, "take up your cross daily and follow me."

 

I Wish I Knew How to Love Michelle Better

    It is getting better, and easier, but it is hard to love sometimes. It isn't hard because the object of love isn't lovely (although that is sometimes the case). No. It is hard because fear gets in the way.
    How do I love Michelle well when she is hurting. I don't want to screw it up. I don't want to risk her wrath which may come if I stick my foot in my mouth (which may also happen). i don't want to add to her misery by saying the wrong thing, yet I know I need to love. I need to move toward her. I need to call her on her shit when her shit is hurting someone else, including me. I don't want to pander to her. I want to love her.
    I need to let her know shelter from the storm but don't quite know how to be the jetty she needs to protect her. I wish I could love her better.

What a great Night

Today Shell and I had no kids, a bunch of errands, and a bunch of housework to accomplish. We did good. Though we didn't get as far as we wanted we are happy with what we did accomplish.

This evening we had tickets to see the musical, Wicked.  To get there we had to get cleaned up, get a meal and get downtown in 1 hr and 5 minutes. Than Thao is one of our favourite restaurants and lays between us and the Keller Auditorium. I called Khan, the owner, and asked if he could have a plate of pad thai and house chow mein without mushrooms ready for us if we arrived in twenty minutes. He said it was easy to do and told us to come on over. We arrived and our food had just hit the table and we were immediately seated to eat. It is fantastic to have such a great relationship with one of the best restaurants in town.

If you have never been to Than Thao than you are missing out. They have food for everyone -- it even became a favourite of our vegan kids. It is not simply that the food is delicious, though it is that, nor that the prices are some of the best in Portland, though they are, it is that the restaurant is casually excellent. Servers are friendly and helpful, facilities are kept clean. Service is fast. Drinks are good (they offer a full bar). And they are more than willing to take special requests and make them happen. I know no other restaurant anywhere that I can as wholeheartedly recomend like I recomend Than Thao. So stop in sometime and check it out. Anyway, while not feeling rushed, we were out of the restaurant and on our way in under thrirty minutes.

We made the show and it blew my gaskets. "Wow," is about the best descriptor I can give it. I knew nothing of the story going in. All I knew was it told the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from her point of view. Though it isn't quite accurate, I understand why it was given. I laughed hard and often, I was wowed by the voices, and the staging was great. Sometimes the sound mixing should have been better but that is a minor complaint.

This is the second show we saw in the Broadway Across America series. We saw The Color Purple earlier this year and it also was a wonderful night, but this night was one for the ages. Nights like this happen once every decade or so. I think I'll add it to my gratitude list for the day.